Henryville MURDER case Part 2 The aftermath
As we saw, the actual murder of the Park family wasn't truly solved. Three unindicted men were lynched by a Clark County mob of apparent Ku Kluxers. But, if you sort through it, a reasonable person will wonder if this wasn't merely a scapegoating of these men to deflect suspicion from the real villain(s).
The more I got into the story, the more my amateur detective impulse was aroused and I began theorizing on what 'really' happened. More on that later.
The other thing that happened was as I dug into this internet rabbit hole I discovered more and more interesting things about this ...odd bits and pieces that had survived and had resonated. First of these was the story of 'my colleague at the bar' Matthew Clegg. As you saw from the last post...Clegg got himself into hot water by stealing from the estate of a client. The Mob and Murder article talks at some length about various legal (and extra legal) feuds Clegg found himself in. I also discovered by looking at the census records that Clegg was rich. Well....rich in relation to his neighbors. His property was valued at $10,750 (this puts him leaps and bounds beyond his neighbors) He was pretty clearly 'professional' class and perhaps that meant more in 1871 than it might today. But it seems his life was involved in estates, wills, land disputes and other matters touching on death. In Indiana historical records I discovered this photo from Henryville later in the century. Apparently the professional class status rubbed of on his son or nephew or grandson and he became and undertaker for Henryville.
Check this impressive photo out. The original source states this is "Charles E. Clegg" the undertaker from Henryville. Around 1900. So about 30 years after the Park Murders. That hearse is pretty fancy.
Meanwhile, I posted the photograph of Mary Park ...the sole survivor of the scene of the murder. (Her older brother Marion survived but he was away that night in Scottsburg as we are told. You have to wonder how trauma impacted Mary. But suffice it to say she winds up marrying a fellow named Reuben Reynolds. Reynolds was, we are told, a railroad man. One account says he was a conductor. His first wife, Nancy Reynolds and he lived on Maple Street in Jeffersonville. Apparently she had daughters. One night when Mr. Reynolds is away on his job... one account states a 'well dressed' intruder came into her home through a window. Supposedly, she got up to get a pistol that was kept on a mantle to 'defend her daughters' and the intruder shot and killed her. The case was never solved...so...another cold case.
Reynolds later marries again but, sadly, wife number two passes away shortly after they marry.
Reuben Reynolds marries Mary Park, who now goes by her middle name, "Eveline" in about 1890 or 1888. Reuben's first wife was murdered in 1885. . She and Reuben have a child, Herbert Andrew in 1893. In between that either 3 or 5 year span....Reuben had courted and married and been widowed with another gal. I don't know...but that seems like some fast living to me.
But, Reuben and Mary "Eveline" stick. They start living on Broadway in Jeffersonville and have a son. They must have been broken hearted when he died at age 21. Mary had a tough...tough tough life. Then Reuben died a few years later and she lived on until 1943. Wow. Not so long ago to reach back in memory to the massacre of her family in the little town of Henryville.
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So, speculation. First, on the Park murders.
The first thing about this case is the shocking horror of the way the whole family is killed. I doubt the official motive claimed of 'robbery' ...to get the money in the house. This was a bloodbath....with an ax. That suggests real hatred and anger. Of course the most shocking thing is the killing of children. You are looking at what we would call a psychopath. We also know, sadly, that most killings like this you look first at intimate family members. Son Marion is the likely suspect here...but according to accounts which we have no way to confirm or verify today...he was in Scottsburg..newly married. The only chink in that armor is an account, a few years later that he was in Memphis Indiana (5 miles south of Henryville) but an account that suggests a discrepancy in the story. But that's as far as you can go.
The facts on the ground ...as they say...is that the killer(s) came and used an ax Park had. The two sets of footprints suggests , of course, two culprits...bolstered by the story that two white, scraggly looking men threatened Park's neighbor Kirk the following night. According to "Mob and Murder" there was a search of the lynched mens' homes shortly after the killing ...nothing was found. After the men were seized based on the coerced confession of Johnson, the homes were searched again and an overcoat said to be Mr. Park's and a pocket book with two ferry tickets (as predicted by son Marion Park) were found. We are not told in whose homes (among the three) these were found.
So, you can either take the point of view these were missed in the first search...or accept the idea these were 'planted' by some guilty party. That's a little bizarre. That seems beyond the 'wit' of two bloodthirsty madmen killers who axed a family to death out of savagery.
Our man, Matthew Clegg claimed that Park was 'fingered' and fixed due to his repudiation of the local vigilance committee. Kirk claimed that he and Park received threats BEFORE the killings telling them to leave the community ..presumably from the vigilance committee.
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Verdict: So, it wasn't the three black men who killed the Park family. The Vigilance committee...a kind of Ku Klux Klan offshoot had within it a psychopath pair...one the leader and one the follower. They killed the Park family, threatened the Kirk family and simoultaneously got involved in framing the black men as scapegoats.
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Murder of Nancy Reynolds
This murder happened in Jeffersonville. It's quite a tale. Supposedly, a 'well dressed' intruder crawls through a window and shoots and kills Mrs. Reynolds. We are told Mr. Reynolds is away as a conductor on the Jeffersonville Madison and Indianapolis railroad. Ok. I have to say we have way too few facts to call this. But...it does seem weird that a person would break in a window and kill Mrs. Reynolds. As always, you look for some sort of motive. None is here. But at this remote time and with mere scraps of information. No conclusions can be drawn.
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Murder of Johnson, Taylor and Davis
So, I found that Johnson and Taylor lived in proximity to the Park family. I did not find anything on Davis. Squire Taylor was an older man...60ish. People that age, you will not find examples of committing ax murder. He had a family and a grandson who apparently got spooked into making some kind of statement against his grandfather. Later, recanted at the grand jury. Johnson was claimed to be an 'idiot'. The only morsel of interest is that in this story we learn there was a 'black' brothel in the vicinity of Henryville. That's quite a tidbit. Squire Taylor is said to be a preacher. I can only conclude that due to his weakness...Johnson was tagged...and Squire Taylor...as more a leader type (pastor) was tagged. I have no idea why Davis was drug in. Maybe it was just someone didn't like him.
The November 23, 1871 Brownsville Banner said: Taylor and Johnson were hung on the same tree, Davis on another tree, some hundred feet distant. The mob was made up of citizens from the vicinity of Henryville, Otisco, and from Charlestown. A Coroner’s inquest held today rendered a verdict that the deceased came to their death by violence, being hung by parties unknown.
The negroes had not been indicted by the Grand Jury, and the citizens were afraid they would escape punishment. No one attempted to interfere with the mob who broke into the cells with sledge-hammers and chisels, but the Sheriff unlocked the third, seeing that he could not keep them out."
in the Charlestown Indiana cemetery
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