Arrests Made for the Murder of Enos Rath

THREE MEN ARRESTED

On the Charge of Murdering Enos Rath of Hicksville.

THEY ARE ANTWERP TOUGHS.

Sheriff Eiser Went After Them and Brought Them to Defiance and Jailed Them.

Three men charged with the crime of killing Enos Rath, Hicksville's night watchman, are under arrest and in jail at this place.  They were arrested at Antwerp Saturday night by Sheriff John P. Eiser, who is confident he has the guilty parties.

The facts leading up the arrest were as follows:

Saturday afternoon about 2 o'clock the blood hounds of S. S. Shissler, of Oakwood, arrived at Hicksville and were placed on the trail of the man who committed the murder.  The dogs trailed off across High street to the westward, then veered south to the vicinity of the school house where they stopped, apparently at the end of the trail.

Inquiry of a woman residing near where the dogs stopped developed that a rig had been tied there during the night and was driven away about 1 o'clock or thereabouts, going south towards Antwerp.  It was then brought to mind that Ed. Johnson and Frank Zuber, of Antwerp, had been in Hicksville just a week previous and had made themselves obnoxious and troublesome by carousing around publicly with a couple of lewd women.  At that time, Enos Rath had pursued them and had them cornered for the purpose of arresting them, but finally decided to allow them to leave town which they promptly did, but before going, threatened to come back and 'do' the officer to get even.

Sheriff Eiser telephoned to Antwerp and learned that Zuber and Johnson, accompanied by Floyd Rumbow of that place, had been out Friday night with a livery rig.

Whereupon Eiser, accompanied by Prosecuting Attorney Ansberry, Marshal James Sensenbach, of Hicksville,and S. S. Shissler, the Oakwood blood hound owner, drove to Antwerp.  There, upon some investigation, the Sheriff arrested the three men.  As the officers did not leave Hicksville until about 8 p.m., it was bed time when they reached Antwerp and got ready to make the arrests.  They found Johnson and Rumbow at their homes in bed and Zuber sleeping in the hay mow of his grandfather's barn.  Zuber made his home with his grandfather."

The men were questioned intensely, but couldn't keep their stories straight. First, they claimed to be at a house of 'unsavory character' four miles east of Antwerp, then they changed their location to Payne.  But investigators found neither to be true, so they were brought back to the scene of the crime in Hicksville where a neighbor lady identified Zuber by his ulster - a man's heavy double-breasted overcoat with a belt or half-belt at the back.  She wasn't sure of the other two.

Unfortunately, the men didn't keep their mouths shut about the crime and they had bragged to some people that they did someone in on Friday night.

"Sheriff Eiser brought his prisoners down from Hicksville to Defiance on a freight train, arriving here Sunday morning about 8 o'clock.  He was 'laid out' at Delaware Bend two or three hours by the engine of the train giving out some way. On his arrival here, he placed Runbow in the city prison and the other two were placed in the county jail...

All three of the men under arrest are single.  Ed. Johnson is aged 25, Frank Zuber, 24, and Floyd Rumbow, 23.  Johnson has served a term in the Ohio penitentiary for the crime of rape.  He was sentenced by Judge Snook in Paulding a few years ago.  Zuber bears a bad reputation as being a reckless, worthless character.  Rumbow is the best of the three, not having been mixed up in much deviltry, though not much has been said in favor of him."

  

The coroner found the cause of death was the crushing blows to the skull which broke it in several places.  His left wrist and bones in his left hand were broken as he had drawn his gun, but dropped it and the thugs answered by beating on his wrist.  It was thought that if justice were left to the citizens of Hicksville, a lynching might have occurred. 

   

(Defiance Democrat - November 30, 1899)