Wicked Muncie by Keith Roysdon

Author:Keith Roysdon
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing Inc.
Published: 2016-10-19T04:00:00+00:00

Local authorities seemed to quickly lose interest in solving the September 1910 slaying of Muncie businessman Norman Black. Courtesy of the Muncie Morning Star.

With the case seemingly going nowhere, a Delaware County grand jury launched an investigation that December—apparently to the surprise of Prosecutor Harry Long.

One week later, the grand jurors said they had not uncovered evidence that would justify an indictment but publicly urged the commissioners to offer a “suitable reward.”

Witnesses before the grand jury had included at least three local women—all married—and the victim’s son, Edgar Claire Black. He was asked, perhaps, about reports that some of his father’s personal papers had been destroyed before they could be reviewed by police.

The grand jury’s suggestion aside, neither city nor county officials took any steps toward offering a reward without explaining why that was the case. The mystery fairly quickly faded from local headlines.

In March 1911, the Indianapolis News sent a reporter to Muncie to investigate Black’s murder.

He concluded that “big business and politics have interfered to make the assassin’s safety secure.”

Black was “a man of many gallantries, and his escapades, if made public, would expose men identified with business and politics,” he wrote.

“After a brief flurry, the investigation stopped. Every effort was made to hush the matter up. …No one here believes that the man who took Norman E. Black’s life will ever be brought to justice.”

The next month, the Hartford City News weighed in.

“Muncie has time and time again proved that it is a very peculiar community,” it reported.

Where else outside of some Chinese or Russian province could a murderer run at large without fear of punishment?

[Black’s killer] is rich and influential, with powerful connections. And Muncie claims to be a highly civilized community.

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