Sadly, a tragically wrong rumor, perhaps no more than a casual remark, fueled what happened. For some time, a youth gang had been meeting at a local pool hall to plan thefts – burglaries and outright robberies. Money was the obvious motivation, but some seemed to be in it mostly for the thrills. On this afternoon, two of the group (there might have been a third) decided to check out the notion that the old guy visiting from Nebraska was carrying a lot of cash.
Picking an empty bit of street near where Jacob was staying, they confronted him and demanded his money. Jacob could tell from the voices and builds that the would-be robbers were mere boys (they wore only rudimentary masks). Not intimidated, he immediately whacked the nearest one with his cane. Stunned at the unexpected resistance, the bandits backed off and started to run away. Then, surely out of spite at the humiliation, one turned and fired three shots, hitting Jacob once in the midriff.
Jacob reached the local hospital alive, but there was little hope for his survival. He did manage to give passable descriptions – clothing, build, hair, etc. – of at least two of his assailants. In a sad, bitter scrap of irony, the juvenile criminals were about the same age as Jacob had been when he joined the crusade to save the Union and end slavery.
Jacob Weber was born on January 15, 1844 in Ripley County, Indiana, an area of scattered settlements in the southeast corner of the state. After his father died in 1856, the boy was apprenticed as a cigar maker, which would set the main course of his life.
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| Jacob Weber, ca 1862. Family Archives |
Before that life could begin, however, Jacob enlisted in the Seventh Indiana Infantry for duty in the Civil War. Just seventeen years old, he marched off to war with youthful hope and optimism. The Seventh Indiana fought in all the great battles in the east, including Antietam, Gettysburg, and the Siege of Petersburg. By the end, even after consolidation with other remnants, only a company-sized contingent remained on active duty. Jacob was among the fortunate few who were still there to witness the surrender of General Lee’s Confederate army at Appomattox Courthouse.
It’s unknown what Jacob did for the early years after the war. However, on November 9, 1871 he married Eva Egelhoff. Two or three years later, they moved to Pawnee City, Nebraska, about 58 miles southeast of Lincoln. Jacob started a cigar-making business, and he and Eva would live there until early 1921.
Jacob and Eva had three children who survived to adulthood. Their son, William, married in 1893, but the couple had no children and the wife died in the fall of 1919. In 1920, he was back in Pawnee City. Daughters Lula and May Carrie married and between them gave Jacob and Eva a grandson and three granddaughters. In 1920, Lula’s family lived in Dodge City, Kansas, while May Carrie’s family was in Wenatchee, Washington.
In February of 1921, William married again. The ceremony was performed in Wenatchee, and it seems almost certain that Jacob and Eva attended the wedding. Eva’s health had deteriorated and they hoped “a more agreeable climate” might help. Apparently it did, because she was able to attend a “Nebraskans in Washington” reunion in April.
The family also began planning a Golden Anniversary celebration for Jacob and Eva in Wenatchee. Daughter Lula even came from Dodge City to help with the arrangements. Sadly, Eva’s health took a turn for the worse and the great day came and went. She was still bed-ridden when Jacob went for his fateful walk.
Right after the shooting, police rounded up seven members of the youth gang, which they had been keeping an eye on anyway. Shocked at the sudden change, several of those held began blurting out confessions to robberies around the area. Two names eventually emerged which, for reasons that will become clear, we will call Tom and Dick.
The older of the two, Dick, had been born in Chelan county. He was about 17 years old and his family had always lived in, or within a day’s travel of, Wenatchee. Tom, the slightly younger youth, had been born in Oregon, but the family had moved to Wenatchee by 1907. Those local connections would become an important factor in subsequent events.
Jacob Weber died three days after he was shot. Shortly after that, his wife awoke in her sickbed, and asked desperately to see him. Family members managed to calm her, but she surely sensed the worst … and soon passed away herself. A double funeral was held in Wenatchee on December 2. Then the bodies were transported to Pawnee City and buried side by side in the cemetery there.
Tom and Dick were charged with murder and went on trial in April, 1922. Prosecutors probably sensed they had an uphill battle. Newspapers repeatedly emphasized that the suspects were “just boys.” Few wanted to believe that two “kids” from well-known local families could do such a terrible thing.
Jacob’s dying words, and witnesses who had seen the two near the murder site, pointed to Tom as the shooter. Criminologist Luke S. May appeared on the stand to identify the kind of gun used. However, the death weapon was never found, and officials failed to find any witness willing to say that Tom owned a weapon.
One of May’s agents provided testimony that should have been the clincher. He had gone to jail posing as a safe cracker and mingled with the prisoners. Tom not only admitted shooting the old man, he showed off the mark where the veteran had smacked him with his cane.
The defense made little effort to counter any of that. They went straight to an alibi. Their witnesses claimed to have seen the two downtown, well away from the robbery site, at the time of the shooting. None could offer any hard evidence – a purchase receipt, perhaps – to support their contentions, but they were “sure” when they had seen the boys. Still, under cross-examination, one such witness admitted that Tom’s grandmother had pressured her into changing her time recollection to more closely fit the preferred story. That should have seriously shaken the defense, but was apparently shrugged off.
In fact, according to post-trial accounts, the jury never even considered the first degree murder indictment. They finally split on a lesser charge, so a new trial began in June. The opening defense statement set their confident tone. Despite the obvious instance of witness tampering, they would again rely on the time alibi. Also, the defense would show “that neither boy admitted any knowledge of the shooting to reputable citizens of the city.”
May’s agent had posed as a criminal to obtain key information. That entailed considerable risk to himself, since police informers sometimes end up dead. But … he was an outsider and even ordinary folks seemed to consider the practice somehow disreputable. The second jury brought in a “not guilty” verdict.
Tom, the admitted shooter, managed to stay out of the news for a time. However, later reports suggest he may have engaged in petty theft throughout the following years. He did get married in the spring of 1925, and fathered two daughters over the next few years. The girls did not see a lot of their father, however, because he spent the time in and out of jail. That included at least one grand larceny charge, to which he pled guilty. At the time of the 1930 census, he was confined at the state reformatory.
Tom made the news in a big way in 1931. Events included a jailbreak (he was soon captured), at least two forgery counts, and, finally, a trip to the state penitentiary. We don’t know how long he spent in prison, but his wife divorced him some time before 1937. The last reliable public record for him was in Missoula, Montana in 1943, when a second wife obtained an annulment.
In one small sense, Jacob’s sad death was perhaps not totally in vain. After the trial, Dick also stayed out of the news. But unlike Tom’s probable rap sheet, records show that Dick settled down to work on his father’s farm northwest of Wenatchee. In 1931, he married and began raising a family. After the repeal of Prohibition, he opened a tavern and game room in the area. He registered for the draft in 1942 and may have served some time in the Marines.
| References: Frederick H. Dyer, A Compendium of the War of the Rebellion, Part 4, The Dyer Publishing Company, Des Moines, Iowa (1908). |
| Luke S. May, Luke S. May Papers, Special Collections, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington (1969). |
| “[News Relevant to Weber Murder],” Lincoln Journal, Lincoln Star, Nebraska; The Olympian, Olympia, Spokesman-Review, Spokane, Leavenworth Echo, Spokane Chronicle, Bellingham Herald, Chehalis Bee-Nugget, Washington; The Oregonian, Portland (April 1921 – July 1931). |
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