Rest Easy -- He's Not a Relative

"You could call John Leonard Wood a cold-blood killer. You'd be right: he murdered Patrolman Dennis Griffin in cold blood, burned his uniform and buried his corpse under a tree. You could call him an oversexed pervert: aside from an unknown number of "wives," the middle-aged Lothario also captivated -- and impregnated a 14-year-old grammar-school girl, and made her his companion in a five-state flight from a nation-wide manhunt."

The Cleveland News

Okay, I've got your attention now.  And you're probably wondering why if John Leonard Wood isn't a relative I am writing about him in my genealogy blog.  He was captured at my favorite Detroit business -- Ternes Coal & Lumber Co. (I've posted about this family before here and here.)

So there's the tie in my ancestors!

"The long-awaited break in the case came in late June. Edward A. Haerl, a foreman at the Ternes Coal & Lumber Company at 6132 Michgan Avenue in Detroit, confided to his employer, A. P. Ternes, that he suspected their new barn boss, a well-liked and valuable employee named  "Sam De Carlo" was actually John Leonard Whitfield. Ternes anxious for the reward, wrote a letter to Cleveland Chief of Police Jacob Graul."

He was captured with quite the threat: "Put up your hands. Any move and you will be riddled. Put handcuffs on him."

The highly entertaining book, "They Died Crawling and Other Tales of Cleveland Woe: True Stories of the Foulest Crimes and Worst Disasters in Cleveland," by John Stark Bellamy II can be found on Google Books. Look for Chapater 6: God, the Devil, Man or Beast the Incredible 1923 Saga of John Leonard Wood.