Even the most sensational and scandalous crimes can disappear into history, the spine-chilling tales forgotten by subsequent generations. Murders that Made Headlines reveals some of these extraordinary but forgotten true events that captured the public's attention in the course of the last 200 years. Jane Simon Ammeson recounts the astonishing and sometimes bizarre stories of arsenic murders, Ponzi schemes, prison escapes, perjury, and other shocking crimes that took place in the Hoosier state. When we think of bygone eras, we often imagine gentile women, respectable men, simpler times, mannerly interactions, and intimate acquaintances, but Murders that Made Headlines reveals the notorious true crimes lurking in our history. Jane Simon Ammeson is a freelance writer and photographer who specializes in travel, food, and personalities. She writes frequently for the Times of Northwest Indiana, Chicago Life Magazine, Edible Michiana, AAA Home & Away, Experience Curacao, Experience Rivera May, Nashville Tennessean and Cincinnati Enquirer . She is the author of Hauntings of the Underground Railroad: Ghosts of the Midwest , A Jazz Age Murder in Northwest Indiana and East Chicago . Hauntings of the Underground Railroad Ghosts of the Midwest By Jane Simon Ammeson Indiana University Press Copyright © 2017 Jane Simon Ammeson All rights reserved. ISBN: 978-0-253-02983-6 Contents Preface, vii, 1 Phantom of the Cellar, 1, 2 Spirits of the Waters, 19, 3 Sold down the River: The Reverse Underground Railroad, 41, 4 Lincoln Walks at Midnight, 50, 5 Outwitting the Devil, 63, 6 Ghostly Overload, 81, 7 A Room with a Ghoul, 101, 8 John Hunt Morgan, 108, 9 The Last Trip Home, 123, 10 Michigan's Haunted Underground Railroad, 147, 11 The Conductor and the Slave: The Story of Levi Coffin and William Bush, 162, 12 Restless Spirits, 171, 13 There Should Be Ghosts!, 176, Selected Bibliography, 185, CHAPTER 1 Phantom of the Cellar SLIPPERY NOODLE INN INDIANAPOLIS, INDIANA A type of ghostly meet-and-greet place, the Slippery Noodle Inn on South Meridian Street in Indianapolis has attracted an assortment of spirit residents for more than 170 years. It's a former stop on the Underground Railroad, and at least one of those haunting the place is a runaway slave. "We've got a lot of ghosts," says owner Hal Yeagy. "That's because a lot has happened here since the place opened." Indeed, this is the oldest bar in the state, and there seems to be no end to the phantom-producing incidents, which Yeagy is more than happy to list. "In 1912, one of the customers got into a fight with another customer over a girl and stabbed him, leaving the bloody knife on the bar," says Yeagy, whose parents bought the business in 1963 when he was about six. "Of course, when the police came, no one had seen a thing." Add to that the suicide in the basement of a former owner, the death of a three-year-old who was playing with matches and caught on fire, and a customer who, after shooting another man, said in wonderment, "I don't know why I did that." During Prohibition, both the Brady and the Dillinger gangs used what had been a livery in the back of the saloon for target practice. Pigs and cattle were slaughtered in the basement (you can still see the meat hooks used to hang the carcasses), and liquor was distilled and beer brewed down there as well. And while we're not saying he's haunting the place, back in the day, James Whitcomb Riley tipped more than a few drinks in the bar — not an atypical occurrence for the famed Hoosier poet. "There was a pumpkin patch between here and the train station just up the street and supposedly Riley, after drinking too much at the bar, fell asleep on his way home right in front of the pumpkins," says general manager Marty Bacon, who has worked at the Slippery Noodle for a quarter of a century. "When he awoke amongst the pumpkins, he felt inspired and wrote his famous poem 'When the Frost Is on the Punkin.'" Ah ... poetic inspiration comes from many sources. Yeagy isn't sure how old the building is — Indianapolis title records from 1920 and before were mostly destroyed when the city flooded, he says — but he's been able to trace it back to 1850 when it was the Tremont House. "They were trying to be fancy with the name," he says, noting that it was a railroad hotel offering guests food, drink, and a place to stay. Over the years, its name changed more than once. In the 1860s it became the Concordia House, named after the Concord, the first German Lutheran immigrant ship to land in the United States. The next name — the Germania House — continued to reflect the heritage both of the owners and of the patrons in this predominantly German section of Indianapolis. But when World War I started and being German wasn't necessarily cool, the owner, whose last name was Beck, dropped Germania and changed the name to Beck's Saloon. Before Prohibition, Walter Moore bought the business. "I