From the Files of the Kosciusko County Historical Society

Editor’s note: This is a retrospective article that runs a few times a month on InkFreeNews.

Information for this retrospective series is courtesy of the Kosciusko County Historical Society. For more history of Kosciusko County in the news visit yesteryear.clunette.com

July 24, 1978 – John Dillinger was gunned down by two East Chicago policemen hired to kill him, not by FBI agents, according to the man who was sheriff of Kosciusko County, where the famed outlaw frequently hid.

Former Kosciusko Sheriff Harley Person, now 79 and living in Etna Green, says the shooting was done by two men whom he knew only as O’Neil and Zarkovich, who were on leave from the East Chicago Police Department. They were hired as gunmen by outraged citizens of Lake County after the Dillinger gang shot and killed a school crossing guard during a bank robbery getaway, according to Person’s account.

The two gunmen came to see Person at his office in Warsaw several times, sometimes hiding on the third floor of the county jail, while hunting Dillinger.

July 20, 1977 – Students won’t be setting their values in a Warsaw Community High School English class anymore, and the book some students once used has been banned by Warsaw School Board.

“Values Clarification,” an assigned text for an elective English course, was ordered destroyed and removed from school property Tuesday night after school board members read passages from it.

The book contains various exercises in which students are supposed to learn the nature of the values they hold, how they choose them and what action they would take to uphold them.

In one example, two or three students who don’t know each other well are asked to discuss topics for five minutes. Among the topics are: “Share the high point of last Thanksgiving or the low point of last Christmas,” “Share your opinion on the illegal use of drugs or on premarital sex,” “Tell where you stand on the topic of masturbation,” “Name three ways in which your present love relationship would be better if only the other person would …,” and “Tell something about a frightening sexual experience.”

July 24, 1967 – Who attempted to take the lives of 37-year-old Linda (Mrs. John) Noble and her handsome, 8-year-old son, Brett, Saturday by wiring 14 sticks (7 pounds) of dynamite to the ignition of her automobile?

State police today were running down several leads, they say, in efforts to unravel the mystery.

The statuesque and attractive brunette, a popular Pierceton figure, is a receptionist for the Whitley Products plant three, where she has been employed for 13 years.

– Compiled by InkFreeNews reporter Lasca Randels