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Michael O'Neil, One-Leg ged Crossing Watchman Under Arrest. MIRED PISTOL FOUND Louis Novak, Victim, On Way To Friend’s Home Near Justus. Michael O'Neil, 58, the only invited guest at a birthday party given” Wednesday night for Louis Novak, 48, was in county jail Thursday after Novak's body had been found beside the Wilmot- Justus rd with a bullet through his neck. Novak was last seen alive when he hitched his horse to a buggy and started to take O'Neil to his home in a shanty near McWhinney cross ing, west of Justus, where O Neil was employed as a crossing watch man. O'Neil was “very drunk when he arrived to help his friend celebrate his birthday, members of the Novak family said. He became boisterous and produced a pistol, firing one shot under the front porch of the Novak home. Novak, who had known him for years, quieted him and started to take him home. Passing motorists found the body lying by the roadside, 1,000 feet west of McWhinney crossing where the Baltimore Ohio and Wheeling Lake Erie tracks cross. They were afraid to stop, but notified George Lampton, conductor of a freight train standing nearby, and he called officials. Deputy Sheriffs George Thorn, C. M. Vieterick and Webb Wolfe and Detectives Young and Elliott of the W. L. EF. forces went to the scene and later Coroner T. C. McQuate was called. They found O'Neil in his shack, a frame building the size of a box car, mounted on wheels. He made his home there alone. On a table in front of him, they found a quart bottle half full of corn whis key and a .25 caliber pistol of Span ish manufacture. O'Neill has not talked. Officers said he was too drunk to talk with them Wednesday night and Thurs day he still showed evidence of in toxication and was sick. He was being held on a charge of possessing liquor during the investigation. Novak was a farmer, blind in one eye, and so said to have been a friend of O’Nell, who was a frequent visitor to his home. Novak lived near Welty schoolhouse, two miles west of Justus. It is believed that he was shot near the point where his body was found and was thrown from the buggy. He was lying at the side of the road and his horse was tied to a pole in front of the McWhinney home a short distance away. His hat was 10 feet from the body. It is the belief of the officers that Novak was shot by someone riding in the buggy with him and was then pushed out of the vehicle. His slaver then tied the horse and walked away, they believe. There was blood on the buggy wheels and bloody tracks were said to have been found on the road some distance west of the spot where the body was lying When the officers learned that Novak was an intimate of O'Neil, they went to the latter’s home, a one room shack the size of a railroad box car and found O'Neil sitting be side a table on which was a pistol and a bottle of whisky. The bottle, of the tall narrow shape used in shipping foreign wines, was nearly half full of col ored liquor which the officers said was corn whiskey. Novak lived near Welty school house and was the father of six children. O'Neil has no relatives so
Newspaper Details
Canton Daily News
Canton, Ohio, US
Thu, Jun 10, 1926
Page 1
Full Page
Clipped by
Larry H.
USA 26 Jun 2026
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