John A. Crow of Mark Township, Murdered! Or Was He? - Part 3

March 9, 1886, the last day of the trial.

J. W. Winn of Defiance County, O., spoke for the prosecution, after objections from defense.
D. F. Glidden, defense attorney pointed out the previous good character of John Vanimann and that the money that he had shown in Mark Center was actually his own  He had done several days work and had been paid and he took John Crow's revolver in part pay for work.  Vanimann said he traded watches with Crow and gave him $5 to boot on the day they started north.  A big point for the defense was that the body could not have decomposed to a skeleton is twenty-eight days, hence it could not even be Crow's body.  Finally, the case went to the jury.

Defiance Democrat - March 11, 1886

"GUILTY OF MURDER IN THE FIRST DEGREE
A private telegram received by Sheriff Wonderly this morning from Eli Fredericks, the Sheriff of Mecosta County, Mich., states that the jury rendered a verdict of murder in the first degree.  The punishment for this crime in the State of Michigan is imprisonment in penitentiary for life for Vanimann.

➜THAT, I THOUGHT WAS THE END OF THE STORY...until I came across this article in The Springfield Leader (Springfield, Missouri), May 24, 1894.

"Muncie, Ind., May 23 - A man named Crow, about 38 years old, was here last night enroute to Michigan, where he said he had just ascertained his brother-in-law, John VanNiman, was serving out a sentence for life for having murdered him (Crow) ten years ago near Big Rapids, Michigan.

'The account I have just read,' said Crow, 'stated that a skeleton of a man had been found near Big Rapids, Mich., along the Chicago and west Michigan railroad, the same I left on from Big Rapids.  It was learned that I was mysteriously missing and the authorities supposed it was my skeleton.  My brother-in-law was known to have been with me when I was last seen and he was arrested, tried and declared guilty of my murder and was sentenced to life imprisonment.  He has already served about five years."

John VanNiman, a prisoner at the Jackson penitentiary in Michigan, was excited about the prospect of freedom, proclaiming his innocence again, now 8 years after the crime.  The Logansport Journal (Indiana) reported on May 24, 1894:

DON'T STOP READING NOW!

 

   Just a few weeks later, the truth was exposed - from The Goshen Democrat, June 6, 1894: