01/23/2018
THE DISAPPEARANCE OF LORY PRICE
On January 19, 1927, an Illinois State Police Officer named Lory Price, along with this wife, Ethel, mysteriously vanished from their home in Marion, Illinois. Some say that Price’s disappearance could be blamed on the company that he kept – or at least what he knew – because he was a long-time friend of Southern Illinois gangster, Charlie Birger, who believed that Price had information about the destruction of his hideout near Harrisburg, a barbeque stand called Shady Rest. But whatever the reason for Lory and Ethel’s vanishings, it signed a death sentence for Charlie Birger and left a lingering haunting behind.
Lory Price was a frequent visitor at Shady Rest, there was no denying that. Rumors claimed that he worked with Birger in a stolen car racket. Birger’s men would steal a car, hold it until a reward was posted, then park it in some remote spot and tip off Price as to its whereabouts. Price would then “find” the car and split the reward with Birger. Whether this rumor was true, it is certain that Price was on close terms with Birger and his gunmen. He was also one of the last people to see Shady Rest before it was destroyed by a bomb, presumably placed by members of the Shelton gang, enemies of Birger.
At the inquest into the deaths of four people killed when the building exploded, Price admitted that he had been at Shady Rest on January 8. He stopped in after attending a movie in Marion. Steve George, the resort’s caretaker, greeted him at the door and asked him to come in and meet his wife. While there, Price noticed a man he had never seen before sitting, apparently half-intoxicated, near the fireplace. He also saw a young man, whom George called “Clarence,” passed out drunk on a cot in an adjoining room. George told Price that when the stranger left, he was going to bed. Price testified that he stayed just a few minutes and then returned to Marion. He was having breakfast early the next morning when he heard that two explosions had leveled Shady Rest.
One week after the inquest, Price’s stepfather, who lived nearby on the edge of Marion, became concerned over the fact that he had not seen Price, or his wife, Ethel, for two days. He knocked repeatedly, but after getting no response, he called the police. Deputies forced the door open. Price’s highway patrolman uniform was folded over a chair and his pistol and gun belt were lying on the dining room table. Although the bed was rumpled, no one had slept in it. Ethel’s nightgown, neatly folded, lay on the coverlet. Her hat and coat were missing and the telephone wires to the house had been cut. Price and his wife had both vanished. Had they been kidnapped – or worse?
On February 5, 1927, Lory Price’s body was discovered in a field near Dubois, about 25 miles north of Herrin. A local farmer found the partially-clothed co**se and called the police. Price had been shot several times and was covered with blood. The body had apparently been in the field for several days since animals had chewed on his hands and other extremities. County officers identified the dead man as the missing state patrolman.
Reporters immediately broadcast the sensational news. One reporter, at the trial of the Sherlton brothers, where Charlie Birger had recently testified against them, asked Carl Shelton if he had any idea about who might have killed Lory Price. He replied: “Well, this is my theory. You know he used to hang around Charlie Birger’s place, and the papers said that he was there before it burned down, and Birger, you know, is always suspicious of spies. I always figured he did away with Price on the theory that Price was going to inform those who destroyed it of a good time to do it. I never had any trouble with Price, and I don’t know his wife.”
Charlie Birger could not be reached for comment.
Investigators for the Illinois State Police continued to work the puzzling case, but would not get a break until May 1927. Initially, they believed that Price had been killed by the Sheltons, but an informant within the Birger gang (hiding out in Ohio) told them that Price had been killed by Birger simply because he knew too much. No one knew what had happened to Ethel Price – until Art Newman began to talk.
Newman was a trusted Birger gang member, who had gone on the run to California when things became too hot in Illinois. He was picked up in Long Beach and extradited back to Illinois. Franklin County Sheriff Jim Pritchard went to California to bring Newman back and he took along a reporter for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch named John T. Rogers. Somehow, during the long ride back to Illinois, Rogers got Newman to tell his story. The confession was given to the state’s attorney when they returned and he indicted Newman, Charlie Birger, Ernest Blue, Connie Ritter, Leslie Simpson, and Riley Simmons for the murder of Lory Price.
The story that Newman told was a chilling one. He claimed that on the day that the Prices disappeared, Birger had called him to Harrisburg and informed him that the gang intended to question Price about his “snitching” to Williamson County authorities. The Prices had visitors until after midnight, when Birger and the others entered the house. Even though Price stated that he had not been informing on Birger, and had nothing to with the explosion at Shady Rest, Birger ordered him into Newman’s car. Price asked Charlie if he planned to hurt him, but Birger said that he just wanted to talked to him. He shoved Price into the backseat of the car and climbed in next to him. Wooten slid into the passenger seat next to Newman and as the car started, Birger called out to the men who were heading for the second automobile. He yelled, “Take that woman and do away with her!”
Price pleaded with Birger not to hurt his wife, but Charlie told him to shut up. He ordered Newman to keep driving and then he began to question the patrolman about everything he suspected about him. Price was an informant, Birger declared, and there was nothing worse than a disloyal friend. He ordered Newman to drive them to the ruins of Shady Rest. They arrived around 2:00 a.m. and Birger dragged Price out of the car. Price denied again that he had betrayed the gang, but Birger shot him three times. Just then, the second car of gangsters pulled onto the road next to the ruins. Wooten panicked, certain that Ethel Price had seen the murder of her husband. One of the newcomers climbed out of the car, heard the conversation and told them not to worry about the woman – they had killed her. When asked what they had done with her, the man replied, “We shot her and threw her into a mine shaft near Carterville.”
Birger proposed putting Price’s body in the same shaft, but gang members told him that they had dumped metal and timbers down over her to hide the body. Birger thought for a minute and then suggested another mine near Du Quoin, but when he suggested putting the bloody and still-breathing Price back into the car, Newman claimed that he balked. Birger flew into a rage and said that he would kill any man who didn’t go along with him.
Price was tossed into the backseat of Newman’s car and Birger climbed in after him, weapon still in hand, and sat down on top of his body. Near Carbondale, he ordered Newman to stop the car. He hurried to the side of the road and began to vomit. He gasped out words when he was able to speak again, “That’s too much for me. I can kill a man, but I can’t sit on him. I don’t know what in the hell’s the matter with me. It isn’t my nerves. Every time I kill a man, it makes me sick afterward. I guess it’s my stomach.”
Birger switched places in the car with Connie Ritter and a few miles down the road, Price regained consciousness and pleaded with Ritter, swearing that he was an innocent man. Ritter told him to shut up, or he would turn the machine gun on him. A few miles later, Price spoke again, his voice almost a whisper, “Connie, you’ll live to regret this.”
Birger ordered Newman to drive to a nearby mine, but finding a watchman on duty, scrapped the plan. Eventually, they dumped Price in the field where he was later found. Birger shot him several more times to make sure that he was dead.
On the way back to Harrisburg, one of the men who had kidnapped Ethel Price allegedly told Newman that he and the others had taken her to the abandoned mine, shot her, and then had thrown her body to the bottom of the shaft. Then they had covered it with timbers, stones, and debris. No one, he claimed, would ever find her. But, of course, that turned out to be wrong.
As soon as the gruesome story of Ethel Price’s fate was made public, workers began removing the debris that Newman said the men had used to clog the shaft of the old Carterville District Mine. A crowd of onlookers began to gather as the opening deepened and miners with picks and shovels worked relentlessly to clear the way. Lines formed and buckets filled with dirt, rocks, and other debris began to be passed upward from hand to hand, dumped, and then passed back down again. County officials and Sheriff Oren Coleman labored alongside the outraged citizens who came to volunteer their help.
As darkness fell, lights were strung up over the pit, illuminating the ghastly scene. Work continued throughout the night and into the next morning, only stopping briefly during a rainstorm that came during the early hours. By Sunday afternoon, June 12, the men had achieved a depth of nearly 30 feet. Planks were nailed on telephone poles that had been laid across the opening earlier in the day. From this platform, it was easy to lower buckets down into the shaft in order to haul the debris up even faster.
Early Monday morning, Ethel Price’s body was finally found. She was taken to the Ozment Funeral Home in Marion and the surrounding streets had to be cordoned off to keep back the curiosity-seekers. Her funeral was held two days later.
For many years after the discovery of Ethel Price’s body, the area around the abandoned shaft of the old Carterville District Mine was largely avoided by people in the vicinity. Even teenagers, looking for a thrill on a late Saturday night, were afraid to go there. According to a friend of mine who grew up nearby, many were convinced that the ghost of Ethel Price haunted the place. Stories circulated of a woman in a white dress who was sometimes seen around the site of the old, forgotten shaft. She reportedly wept in despair and those who dared drive too close to her sometimes claimed that she threw herself at the windows of the car, begging to be let inside. The stories continued for many years and are sometimes recounted even today. Thankfully, though, current reports of a lingering spirit here have been few. We can only hope that Ethel Price is finally resting in peace.
As it turned out, the discovery of Ethel Price’s body was the downfall of Charlie Birger. Public opinion, which often painted him as sort of a folk hero, turned most people against him. After Ethel’s body was found, Birger was moved from the jail in Benton, Illinois, to the Sangamon County Jail in Springfield. His attorneys had already appeared before a judge and requested a change of venue but the charged atmosphere surrounding the search for Ethel Price made it clear to Sheriff Pritchard that a lynching might occur if Birger remained in Benton.
Birger arrived in Springfield on the very day that Ethel’s body was removed from the bottom of the Carterville mineshaft. Reporters were waiting for him when he stepped out of the automobile that had been used to transport him. He shook his head at them as they shouted out questions. He had only one statement to make, “I’m done.”
Birger was eventually prosecuted for murder – not for Lory and Ethel Price, but for that of Joe Adams, the mayor of West City, Illinois. He went to the gallows in April 1928.
This story is a very small excerpt from Troy Taylor’s book, BLOODY ILLINOIS. See the full book at https://squareup.com/store/american-hauntings-ink/item/bloody-illinois
