 | Twenty-four-year-old Belle Sheridan Shenkenberger was in excellent health in late July 1898, when she and her 2-year-old son moved into her in-laws’ home in Frankfort, while her husband, Ed, fulfilled his obligation to the U.S. Navy. One month later, Belle was dead of arsenic poisoning, and Ed’s mother, Sarah, was arrested and charged with murder. Belle was a lovely, highly intelligent young woman, who loved books and learning. She was one of Frankfort’s first librarians and had set up the library’s Dewey Decimal System. Her health started to deteriorate after she suffered a miscarriage on August 1. It caused her to lose a considerable amount of blood, and a week later, she was burning with fever and was too weak to leave her bed. |
Over the next two weeks, her condition worsened. She was nauseated, her stomach hurt, she developed an unquenchable thirst, her hands and feet were numb and cold, her body itched, and her face swelled. The doctor suspected Belle had overdosed on morphine, but she insisted she had not taken the drug. That was when the doctor considered a more concerning possibility: poison.
Belle Sheridan Shenkenberger
Throughout Belle’s deteriorating, debilitating illness, Sarah had made a show of selflessly tending to her daughter-in-law. But when the doctor analyzed water taken from the glass at Belle’s bedside, he found arsenic and, consequently, implored the Sheridan family to move Belle to her sister’s house in another part of town. The family acted quickly and moved Belle, but she died anyway within hours. The date was August 27.
Sarah Shenkenberger’s court proceedings were dubbed Clinton County’s “Trial of the Century.” It ended the third day of December with a guilty verdict for first-degree murder and a life sentence at the Indiana Women’s Prison in Indianapolis. But on December 23, 1913, fifteen years to the day that Sarah had entered the penitentiary, Indiana Governor Samuel Ralston signed her parole.
Although I was unable to locate Sarah’s grave, I found Belle’s in the Sheridan family plot in the woodsy Cheney Cemetery in northern Clinton County when I visited it in April of 2017. I think Belle would be pleased with her peaceful resting place, surrounded by family.
During Belle’s brief 24 years, she accomplished much, and her life was full of promise. It’s heartbreaking, even now, more than 120 years following her senseless death, that her ability to discover the depth of that promise was so cruelly cut short. •
Sarah Shenkenberger’s court proceedings were dubbed Clinton County’s “Trial of the Century.” It ended the third day of December with a guilty verdict for first-degree murder and a life sentence at the Indiana Women’s Prison in Indianapolis. But on December 23, 1913, fifteen years to the day that Sarah had entered the penitentiary, Indiana Governor Samuel Ralston signed her parole.
Although I was unable to locate Sarah’s grave, I found Belle’s in the Sheridan family plot in the woodsy Cheney Cemetery in northern Clinton County when I visited it in April of 2017. I think Belle would be pleased with her peaceful resting place, surrounded by family.
During Belle’s brief 24 years, she accomplished much, and her life was full of promise. It’s heartbreaking, even now, more than 120 years following her senseless death, that her ability to discover the depth of that promise was so cruelly cut short. •
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Pictured is Sarah Shenkenberger's first degree verdict,
signed by George Weaver, jury foreman.
signed by George Weaver, jury foreman.
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