Wednesday, October 15, 6 – 7:30 p.m.\u00a0 Held at the E.B. and Bertha C. Ball Center\u00a0 \u00a0 No Charge\u2014Reservations Required
\nPlease register online at: https:\/\/commerce.cashnet.com\/BALL_EMS057 (under “History”)<\/p>\n
In early 1900s Indiana, John Terrell was the wealthiest man in Wells County, thanks to oil discovered on his farm. But when his youngest daughter, Lucy, became pregnant and was forced into marriage with the abusive Melvin Wolfe, Terrell\u2019s life and fortune began to unravel in a tumultuous spiral of murder, a dramatic trial, and madness.<\/p>\n
On a summer Sunday afternoon in 1903, Terrell ambushed Wolfe along a roadside. He then followed the wounded man to a doctor\u2019s office, broke into the operating room, placed a shotgun to Wolfe\u2019s head, and pulled the trigger. The next day, the murder made headlines in hundreds of newspapers across the country, including the front page of The New York Times.<\/p>\n
But the murder was only the beginning. Over the next decade, the case divided a community and drew in five judges, two Indiana governors, a prominent priest, and the Indiana Supreme Court.<\/p>\n
Presenter: Stephen Terrell is a retired Indianapolis lawyer and Muncie native who now lives and writes in his hometown. A graduate of Muncie Central and Ball State University, he is the author of The Madness of John Terrell: Revenge and Insanity on Trial in the Heartland (Kent State University Press, 2024), as well as three novels, including two legal thrillers and Last Train to Stratton, an excerpt of which will appear in the 2025 edition of So It Goes, the Kurt Vonnegut Library\u2019s literary journal.<\/p>\n
Stephen\u2019s short stories appear regularly in Speed City Sisters in Crime anthologies. His work has earned honors including a place on the Best Mystery Stories of the Year Honor Roll, the Manny Award for short fiction, and induction into the Indiana State Bar\u2019s General Practice Hall of Fame. He also writes the column On Second Thought for the ABA\u2019s Experience Magazine.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Wednesday, October 15, 6 – 7:30 p.m.\u00a0 Held at the E.B. and Bertha C. Ball Center\u00a0 \u00a0 No Charge\u2014Reservations Required Please register online at: https:\/\/commerce.cashnet.com\/BALL_EMS057 (under “History”) In early 1900s Indiana, John Terrell was the wealthiest man in Wells County, thanks to oil discovered on his farm. But when his…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":73755,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_tribe_events_status":"","_tribe_events_status_reason":"","_tribe_events_is_hybrid":"","_tribe_events_is_virtual":"","_tribe_events_virtual_video_source":"","_tribe_events_virtual_embed_video":"","_tribe_events_virtual_linked_button_text":"","_tribe_events_virtual_linked_button":"","_tribe_events_virtual_show_embed_at":"","_tribe_events_virtual_show_embed_to":[],"_tribe_events_virtual_show_on_event":"","_tribe_events_virtual_show_on_views":"","_tribe_events_virtual_url":"","footnotes":""},"tags":[],"tribe_events_cat":[132,128,148,123],"class_list":["post-73754","tribe_events","type-tribe_events","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tribe_events_cat-educational","tribe_events_cat-free-event","tribe_events_cat-literature","tribe_events_cat-special-events","cat_educational","cat_free-event","cat_literature","cat_special-events"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/destinationmuncie.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tribe_events\/73754","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/destinationmuncie.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tribe_events"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/destinationmuncie.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/tribe_events"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/destinationmuncie.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/destinationmuncie.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tribe_events\/73754\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":73766,"href":"https:\/\/destinationmuncie.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tribe_events\/73754\/revisions\/73766"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/destinationmuncie.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/73755"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/destinationmuncie.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=73754"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/destinationmuncie.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=73754"},{"taxonomy":"tribe_events_cat","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/destinationmuncie.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tribe_events_cat?post=73754"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}