‘The Case of Frank Novak’

The jurors conclusions have been swift, unanimous, and at that second set the stage for an Iowa court docket drama of appeals, retrials, convictions, acquittals and govt pardons that may attain nicely into the twentieth century.

The case regulation created over the following 35-years is cited to today as precedent in trials counting on circumstantial proof, one of many first such convictions within the nation.

After calling 45 witnesses, some direct however many extra as “specialists”, and escorting the three inquest jurors to 16 bodily websites the place proof was gathered, Tobin was capable of current a woven tapestry resulting in the identification of the physique, and the next indictment of the assassin.

Among the many specialists referred to as was Dr. V.O. Hasek DDS from close by Cedar Rapids who had been the dentist for Frank Novak for over a decade. Hasek had made the dental bridge discovered underneath the physique and had substantiated that it belonged to Frank Novak.

Nevertheless, it was the extra testimony offered by Hasek that blew the inquest large open. Hasek additionally testified that the dental prosthesis didn’t match up with the physique and that dental and facial options of the corpse had been fractured by a number of blunt pressure trauma made most certainly with and axe or a hatchet.

As Walford, and the remainder of the world for that matter turned spectators to the circus ambiance created by the excessive strangeness and drama awaiting the inquest findings, curiosity, hypothesis and gossip have been injected into the query: “Whatever the true identification of the corpse, then the place is the opposite man?”

The announcement turned a public spectacle. The household of Edward Murray, together with his bereaved father and sister, and the whole clan of Frank Novak; spouse, Mary Shunka Novak; younger sons Leo and Milo Novak; brother, Joseph; sisters Blanche and Anna, in-laws, nephews and nieces and cousins galore processed into the Benton County courthouse garbed within the all black regalia required of Victorian-era households in mourning.

Superficially, a minimum of, the Murrays and the Novaks have been households each ready for loss of life.

Simply as at the moment, reason behind loss of life as reported by a coroner’s inquest in 1897 gives a restricted menu of prospects: pure; accident; suicide; murder; and undetermined.

Of these conclusions, if a reason behind loss of life is dominated to have come by the hands of one other, both deliberately or by negligence, a grand jury cost and a county lawyer indictment will be prosecuted.

The duty of publicly saying the findings of the coroner’s inquest fell to Tobin, supported by clarifications of Chenowith and Sheriff Metcalf. The courtroom was silent because the findings have been learn:

“We the coroner’s jury of Benton County Iowa on this eighth day of February 1897 do hereby discover that the human stays found within the basement of the burned out ruins of the Novak and Jilek Basic Retailer in Walford Iowa on the third day of February 1897 are these of Edward Murray. We additional discover that Edward Murray’s loss of life was by murder.”

With these two sentences the courtroom exploded in a mix of sorrow, mourning, anger, disbelief and disagreement. But there was not any signal of elation inside the Novak contingent when knowledgeable that the physique was not that of their beloved one, Frank Novak. Much more unnerving was the rapid whispers from the general public gallery sharing the unofficial court docket of public opinion and indictment of Novak and rendering their gossip fueled verdict of responsible of within the least, arson for revenue, and fairly probably the primary diploma homicide of Edward Murray, in absentia.

Tobin was one-step forward of everybody else for the reason that day of the fireplace. By evaluating the circumstantial proof and the various testimony of the specialists and the nice individuals of Walford, coupled with cataloging gossip, rumors and innuendo the course of the indictments have been pointing just one means.

Nevertheless, it was the skilled testimony of Hasek that sealed the destiny of assassin Frank Novak. The manhunt started, however the place was Novak, and together with him, the entire cash of the trusting individuals of Walford that ought to be within the vault of the Walford State Financial institution?