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.

Dec. 12, 1979 — Final testimony is set in South Bend today in a lawsuit filed by former Warsaw Community High School teacher JoAnn DuPont against the local school corporation, but the jury won’t have to worry about any decisions.

U.S. District Court Judge Allen Sharp dismissed the panel of four men and four women Tuesday afternoon after attorneys for the school system and DuPont settled their differences out of the public courtroom on the issue of damages. The school agreed to pay an estimated $9,000, as opposed to the $50,000 sought in a Feb. 23 federal complaint.

DuPont, formerly a high school business instructor in Warsaw, alleged school administrators and the Board of Trustees had violated her First Amendment rights when she was fired from her position in March 1978. She maintains the board took the action because she publicly spoke out against the banning of textbooks and changing of curriculum. She also claims her involvement with the Warsaw Community Educators Association helped lead to her firing.

Dec. 14, 1971 — Mrs. Hazel J. Murphy has filed a $13.5 million suit for damages, charging that her hospital, Murphy Medical Center, has been placed in jeopardy due to the interference of others. Defendants are Kosciusko Community Hospital Inc., the Hospital Authority of Kosciusko County, eight physicians and 12 members and former members of KCH.

Filed in Superior Court, it is believed to be the largest damage suit ever filed in Kosciusko County.

Murphy has another legal case pending in Wabash Circuit Court at Wabash against the Indiana State Board of Health and KCH over the awarding of federal Hill-Burton funds to KCH.

Dec. 16, 1969 — A man identified by the FBI as Jeffery Wayne McComsey, 22, is being held by police in Starke, Fla., and is being questioned by local authorities in connection with the slaying of a young Dewart Lake divorcee Nov. 5.

The body of Lillie Mae Ritchie, 29, was found in a small cottage on CR 1000N at the north edge of Dewart Lake Nov. 10, 1969.

Investigators said the young woman was lying on her bed with a rolled bedspread tied tightly around her neck with a double knot.

On. Jan.  21, 1970, a six-man Kosciusko County grand jury returned an indictment charging McComsey, of Lancaster, Pa., with first degree murder in the death of Ritchie.

– Compiled by InkFreeNews reporter Lasca Randels