I Wish I’d Been There

When Sheriff Maude Collins Made The Arrest

BY JANE ANN TURZILLO

It started with a vintage photograph of a beautiful young woman. She wore an Annie Oakleystyle straw hat and frock coat with a ruffled shirtwaist. I was intrigued by her expression. Her eyes showed intelligence, and the tilt of her chin revealed confidence, if not a touch of haughtiness.

Research uncovered that she was Maude Collins, a direct descendant of “Ole Ran’l” McCoy of the Hatfields and McCoys, and the first female sheriff in Ohio. I knew right then that I wanted to follow her story.

In October 1925, Maude’s husband, Vinton County Sheriff Fletcher Collins, was gunned down while serving a warrant on a couple of lawbreakers. The coroner, who lawfully would have succeeded Fletcher, refused the post. Instead, he and the county commissioners offered the badge to Maude. It was common back then for a widow to inherit her husband’s office at his death. Maude was left with five young children to house, feed and clothe, so I imagine that figured into her decision to accept their offer.

SHE DIDN'T SUFFER FOOLS

I wanted to know more about “Sheriff Maude,” as she was called. Her granddaughter, Valerie Collins, filled me in. Maude had blue eyes and was 5'6." Her pretty face masked grit and bravery. She didn’t suffer fools, her granddaughter told me.

Maude’s story led me down a dusty, single-lane road to two dwellings on Axtel Ridge, where she investigated two separate but related murders.

In the spring of 1926, Sarah Stout, second wife of wealthy landowner Bill Stout and stepmother of his three grown sons, had been bludgeoned to death and then doused with kerosene and torched. The flames burned Sarah’s clothing but died out for lack of oxygen. It was obvious to Maude that the fire was meant to burn the house and destroy evidence.

I would like to have been there when she began asking questions. Bill was up first. He was inconsolable. He claimed he was working in the field and had not seen anyone near the house. His son Arthur, who lived in a cabin on the property, did not come to the scene, but later supported his father’s alibi. Maude tentatively marked Bill off her suspect list but was suspicious of Arthur.

More Than A Housekeeper

In questioning the neighbors, Maude learned that Arthur and a young unmarried Inez Palmer lived together in the cabin. Arthur claimed Inez was his housekeeper and caregiver for his two sons, but neighbors said the young woman was more than a housekeeper. Because Sarah was a religious woman who felt she should protect the family’s reputation, she had Arthur arrested for living with Inez without the benefit of marriage. Bill bailed him out.

An angry Arthur claimed he hadn’t seen or talked to Sarah in months. Maude wasn’t so sure and called in the tracking dogs from Pomeroy. Maude was right. The dogs sniffed a path from Arthur’s cabin right up to Sarah’s door.

After Arthur’s arrest, Bill Stout would have been a key witness against his son at trial, except he came up missing. Maude and Deputy Ray Cox drove out to the cabin where he had been staying with Inez and the boys after Sarah’s murder. According to Inez, Bill left to mend fences in the field the day before and had not come back.

Footprints In The Mud

I wish I could have peeked over Maude’s shoulder when she and Ray went searching for Bill in the field. His wagon stood along the fence line. His lunch bucket was under a tree. Inside was a handwritten will leaving everything to Arthur. But Bill was nowhere to be found.

Maude considered the footprints in the mud and decided to get a pair of Bill’s boots for a comparison. She slipped his boots on and walked around. The prints matched. They were equal in depth to those she’d created, leading her to believe someone much lighter in weight than Bill had made the impressions.

She and Ray took the purported will to Bill’s banker in McArthur to check the handwriting against his account documents and learned it was forged. On the way back out to Axtel Ridge to question Inez, they found Arthur’s boys along the road carrying buckets of water. “Why are you carrying water?" Maude asked them. A well stood outside the cabin. Inez had told them their well wasn’t any good. Maude knew then where to look for Bill. Inez had killed him with a blow to the head and stuffed his body down the well.

I wish I’d been there, too, when she arrested Inez.

Jane Ann Turzillo is the Agatha-nominated author of Unsolved Murders & Disappearances in Northeast Ohio and the National Federation of Press Women’s award winner for Ohio Train Disasters. Her most recent book is Wicked Cleveland, which explores the darker side of the city. She is a graduate of the University of Akron and a member of Sisters in Crime, Mystery Writers of America and the National Federation of Press Women.

LEARN MORE

LEARN MORE

See a timeline of significant women in law enforcement at the Department of Justice’s COPS website at ohiohistory. org/Maude

Sergeant Betsy Brantner Smith wrote a feature story for the Police1 website about the evolution of women in American law enforcement. Read it at ohiohistory.org/Maude2

In Breaking & Entering: Women

Cops Talk about Life in the Ultimate Men’s Club, Connie Fletcher interviews female police officers throughout the country about “being a woman in a dangerous job, including life-threatening situations on the street and discrimination, hostility, and sexual harassment in the station house.”

Top: A contemporary photograph of the well into which Inez Palmer dumped the body of Bill Stout.

Bottom: Author Jane Turzillo thought she saw “a touch of haughtiness” in this portrait of Sheriff Maude Collins.