In the summer of 1915 a man from the south end of Arbon Valley was held for a time in the Oneida County jail at Malad. He had been arrested on a charge of forging checks, and he was held there on suspicion of being a man who had committed a murder in West Virginia and escaped eleven years before. The American Falls Press told the story in two short items in its South Arbon column.
That column carried the news of the Summit and Highland neighborhoods at the south end of the valley. When Power County was formed in 1913, Summit and Buist stayed in Oneida County, whose county seat and jail were at Malad City, south of the valley. That may be why Oneida County officers, not Power County ones, made the arrest. The paper did not say exactly where he lived or where he was arrested.
The arrest
His name was printed most often as L. E. Howell. The column had probably mentioned him once already, in mid-June, when it reported that L. K. Howell had just come back from Pocatello, where he had bought a Ford car. Then the item of July 8, 1915, began: "Last Wednesday the sheriff and deputy sheriff of Oneida county arrested L. E. Howell". The charge, it went on, was forging checks, and the officers put him in jail at Malad. A few words of the sentence cannot be made out in the scanned text. The item gives no names for the officers, no amount, and no word of whose checks they were. The column seems to have been written at the end of June, so "last Wednesday" was probably June 23 or June 30.
A murder in West Virginia
A week later the column had more. This time the scanned text gives his initials as L. K.:
L. K. Howell, who has been held in jail in Malad, on suspicion of being a man who committed a murder and escaped from West Virginia eleven years ago, has been proven innocent and is back in the valley. A sheriff and deputy from West Virginia who were well acquainted with the man who committed the murder came to identify him but said he did not resemble him in the least.
That is all the Press said. It did not name the wanted man, the person killed or the West Virginia county the officers came from, and it did not say what had led anyone to think that a man at the south end of Arbon Valley might be a fugitive from a crime of about 1904.
The words "proven innocent" speak of the murder only. The paper never returned to the forgery charge in any issue found, and whether that charge was dropped, settled or tried is not known. The Malad newspaper of the time, which might have reported the case in the Oneida County court, was not available for this account.
Back in the valley
For the rest of 1915 the South Arbon column mentioned Howell as it mentioned any neighbor. On August 12 the column reported that a few days before, he and two other men had upset Lem Robinson's new car on the way home from Ogden, breaking the windshield; none of them was hurt. At the end of August he made a business trip to Buist with W. A. and James Nunnelley. In October the car he was driving ran off a bridge on the way to Pocatello and upset in about two and a half feet of water, and again no one was injured. On November 11 the column reported that he had left "for Oklahoma to see his mother who is not expected to live." He does not appear in the Press pages searched after that.
Who he was, the papers do not say. They give only his initials, which read as L. E. in some issues and L. K. in others, and in October the column also mentions a "Lon Howell," probably the same man. Nothing in the papers connects him with the two schoolteachers of the same surname in the valley's news that year, Perry Howell and Leslie Howell.
The article as printed
American Falls Press, July 15, 1915, page 1, an item in the South Arbon column. Transcribed from the page scan.
L. E. Howell, who has been held in jail in Malad, on suspicion of being a man who committeed a murder and escaped from West Virginia eleven years ago, has been proven innocent and is back in the valley. A sheriff and deputy from West Virginia who were well acquainted with the man who committed the murder came to identify him but said he did not resemble him in the least.
On this site: the Summit area history tells of the south end of the valley and the Jenson Pass road that led over to Malad.
Sources
- American Falls Press, June 17, 1915, page 1
- American Falls Press, July 8, 1915, page 2
- American Falls Press, July 15, 1915, page 1
- American Falls Press, August 12, 1915, page 4
- American Falls Press, September 2, 1915, page 8
- American Falls Press, October 21, 1915, page 7
- American Falls Press, November 11, 1915, page 5
- American Falls Press, December 23, 1915, page 6