Convicted of Murder
Publicly a Prohibitionist and a defender of "Protestant womanhood," Stephenson was tried in 1925 for the rape and murder of Madge Oberholtzer, a young state employee. The scandal of the charges and trial, in which he was convicted, led to the rapid decline in the "Second Wave" of Klan activity. Stephenson was convicted of the abduction, forced intoxication, and rape of Oberholtzer. (She ran a state program to combat adult illiteracy.) His abuse led to her suicide attempt and eventual death, so he was also charged with murder. Stephenson had bitten her so many times in his attack that the attending doctor described her condition as having been “chewed by a cannibal.” The jury convicted Stephenson of second-degree murder on 14 November 1925, on its first ballot. Stephenson was sentenced to life in prison on 16 November 1925.
After his conviction, Governor Jackson refused to grant clemency or commute his sentence. On 9 September 1927, Stephenson released lists of public officials who were or had been on the Klan payroll and was interviewed by the Indianapolis Times, which proceeded with an extended investigation of the Klan's political ties. (The Times won a Pulitzer Prize for its investigative reporting.) This publicity and the state's crackdown on Klan activity sped up the decline of the organization by the end of the 1920s. The KKK suffered a dramatic national loss in reputation and its membership rapidly fell from 5 million in 1925; soon few members were counted in the previous stronghold of the Midwest.
The state filed indictments against Governor Jackson; George V. "Cap" Coffin, chairman of the Marion County Republican Party; and attorney Robert I. Marsh, charging them with conspiring to bribe former Governor Warren McCray. The mayor of Indianapolis, John Duvall, was convicted and sentenced to jail for 30 days (and barred from political service for four years). Some Republican commissioners of Marion County resigned from their posts after being charged with accepting bribes from the Klan and Stephenson.
Read more about this topic: D. C. Stephenson
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