Date
Wednesday, October 15, 6-7:30 p.m.
- No Charge
- Held at the E.B. and Bertha C. Ball Center
- Offered in partnership with the Delaware County Historical Society
- Reservations Required (under History)
Description
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 by Melvin Wolfe, an abusive cad, the result was a forced marriage that quickly failed amid incest, abortion demands and attempted suicide. It became too much for John Terrell.
On a summer Sunday afternoon in 1903, John Terrell ambushed Wolfe along a roadside, then followed the wounded man to a doctor, where he broke into the operating room, put a shotgun to the injured man’s head, and fired. The next day, the murder made headlines in hundreds of newspapers across the nation, including on the front page of the New York Times.
But the murder was only the beginning. Terrell’s life and fortune quickly unraveled in a tumultuous spiral of murder, a sensational trial and a descent into madness. For more than a decade, the controversy divided a community and ensnared five judges, two Indiana governors, a noted priest and the Indiana Supreme Court.
Presenter:
Stephen Terrell is a retired Indianapolis lawyer with a passion for writing. A Muncie native, graduating from both Muncie Central and Ball State University, he now lives in Muncie.
Stephen’s latest project is The Madness of John Terrell: Revenge and Insanity on Trial in the Heartland (2024), published by Kent State University Press. It is a historical true crime book about his great uncle’s murder of his son-in-law in 1903, which made headlines across the nation.
He has written three novels, including two legal thrillers (Stars Fall and The First Rule) and Last Train to Stratton, which follows an emotionally detached Chicago crime beat reporter who seeks to lose himself in the dullness of small-town America after his life is shattered. An excerpt from that novel, “When Will You Know?”, has been selected for inclusion in the 2025 edition of “So It Goes,” the Literary Journal of the Kurt Vonnegut Library & Museum in Indianapolis.
Stephen’s short stories regularly appear in Speed City Sisters in Crime anthologies. His short story, “In Deepest Darkness,” about the aftermath of a school shooting, was one of ten stories selected for the Honor Roll in Best Mystery Stories of the Year – 2021. Another short story, “Visiting Hours,” won the Manny Award for short fiction at the Midwest Writers Workshop.
Stephen writes the eclectic column, On Second Thought, for the American Bar Association’s Experience Magazine. He was selected to the Indiana State Bar Association’s General Practice Hall of Fame and received the Indiana Lawyers’ Barrister Award, the first solo practitioner to receive that honor. He also received the Muncie Central High School Alumni Association’s Distinguished Alumni Award in 2014.