According to the book, on Saturday, 17 March, 1868, a man by the name of George Stottler went to the home of the Isanogle family. He was drunk and for some reason decided he wanted the use of one of the family's horses. William, 20 years of age, and Isaac, only 16 years old, refused to give Stottler a horse. They began to fight and during the ensuing quarrel, Stottler pulled out a knife he had purchased only that day and both men were stabbed "to the heart". Early Sunday morning, as word spread about the murder, people from the surrounding area became enraged and a "posse", 500 persons strong and armed with various weapons, set out to find the accused. Much of the crowd was ready to hang Stottler without a trial and when he was discovered at 11 o'clock that morning, hiding in a field only 1/2 mile west of the murder scene, it took some very determined lawmen to keep Stottler alive long enough to face legal judgement. He was given a change of venue and he apparently had some of the best legal representation at the time because his life was spared and he ended up with "life imprisonment" at the Michigan City Prison. During his first few years of incarceration, Stottler was "reckless and malicious" according to the written account, and he actually cut off two of his own fingers to avoid working in the prison cooper shop. However, after a few years, there were many people who decided that he had paid his debt to society and they began working to get the murderer paroled.
The Isanogel family and their friends fought hard to keep Stottler imprisoned and they were successful until January, 1897. For some reason that I cannot personally understand, Governor Claude Mathews pardoned George Stottler and as of the writing of the history book, he was living in Illinois.
I guess my next mystery to solve is what happened to George Stottler after his release from prison.