The man responsible for one of the most brutal local murders ever reported, died in his Warsaw home last week.

Mark Wilson was 18 years old when, on Feb. 5, 1963, he forced his way into a Winona Lake home and stabbed and bludgeoned widow Louise (White) Bolinger to death. Grace College graduate and current faculty member and author Terry White recounted the murder in his book, Winona at 100 Third Wave Rising, chronicling the first 100 years of the community.

“Local media reported on February 6, 1963, that a widowed daughter of a once socially-prominent pioneer Warsaw family was found murdered in her modest Winona Lake home at 1102 E. College Ave.,” writes White. “The brutally stabbed and bludgeoned body of Mrs. Louise (White) Bolinger, 56 … was discovered in the single-car garage by a fellow employee, Albert Wilson.

“Law enforcement officers immediately began searching for clues. The entire student body of Grace College and Seminary, which was located only several blocks from the murder scene, was interrogated during the investigation to see whether anyone had information that could lead to an arrest.”

It took 17 days for authorities to announce they had the killer when Mark Alvin Wilson, 18, of 383 N. Detroit St., Warsaw, gave a tearful confession. Wilson told police his intent was to rob the woman of money so he and his 16-year-old girlfriend, Juell Daisy, also of Warsaw, could elope.

After pleading guilty to a second-degree charge of murder in April, Wilson was sentenced to life, with the possibility of parole, and sent to the Indiana State Prison at Michigan City. Seven years after his sentencing, Wilson, then 26, escaped from the prison, but surrendered to police in Calumet City, Ill., after two days. 

News accounts after Wilson was returned to prison seemingly ceased. A call to the Indiana Department of Corrections for additional information was not returned.