Murder of a Journalist: The True Story of the Death of by Thomas Crowl

deepest detectives, crooked law enforcement officials, gangsters, and bootleggers -- The July 1926 homicide of the editor of the Canton, Ohio, day-by-day information, Don R. Mellett, used to be the most publicized crimes within the Nineteen Twenties. for only a 12 months, Mellett was once the editor of the day-by-day information, owned by way of former Ohio governor and Democrat presidential candidate James Cox. Having promised Cox he may flip the unprofitable information right into a luck, Mellett mixed own conviction with advertising savvy and in 1925 launched into an antivice, anticorruption editorial crusade. the next yr, the day-by-day information and Mellett, posthumously, got the Pulitzer Prize for his columns. His editorials have been usually geared toward the Canton police leader, S. A. Lengel, making the inside track legislations and order campaign own. An unholy alliance of bootleggers and corrupt police, angered at Mellett’s interference with enterprise as ordinary, employed an ex-con from Pennsylvania, Patrick McDermott, to assault and scare the editor. whilst the meant attack spiraled uncontrolled and Mellett was once murdered, the nationwide press grew to become outraged and observed this case as an assault at the First modification, challenging justice in editorials showing at the entrance pages of newspapers during the nation. writer Thomas Crowl, utilizing newspaper and journal debts, interviews, and different fundamental resource fabric (some formerly unavailable), follows the research into the Mellett homicide via a personal detective who was once employed through the Stark County prosecutor. The arrest of the major suspect and the sensational trial of the cocky hitman obtained national media assurance. The homicide research additionally netted the 2 neighborhood hoodlums who employed McDermott. also, a former police detective used to be arrested and convicted because the originator of the plot, and he in flip implicated police leader Lengel within the homicide conspiracy. approximately a yr and a part later, notwithstanding, Lengel used to be eventually acquitted of the costs. This compelling and exciting tale is the 1st in-depth research of the Mellett homicide. Historians and precise crime buffs will welcome this as a worthwhile addition to the sector of real crime history.