Timeline From The Past: Short Hair Policy, 1966 Tippecanoe Lake Murder
Editor’s note: This is a retrospective article that runs a few times a month on InkFreeNews and is based on files from Kosciusko County Historical Society.
July 29, 1972 – Carrying signs saying, “It’s a shame some people can’t see past our hair” and crying, “We want a new public rink,” about 40 local youths protested a short hair policy at the Wheel Skating Rink on Winona Lake Friday night.
Among the demonstrators carrying picket signs and an American flag and marching in a circle at the entrance to the rink were members of a roller-skating club who are unhappy at recent decisions of Wheel operator Paul Chappell.
July 26, 1966 – Police combed the countryside for an armed man today after finding his nude young bride and her 17-year-old sister massacred at their quaint Tippecanoe Lake cottage Monday.
They were the only children of a prominent Dunkirk family.
Autopsy reports given by county coroner Dr. Joe Mishler at noon Tuesday indicated that both women were strangled before being stabbed and beaten. Official cause of death will be listed as asphyxiation by strangulation. The elder girl was stabbed repeatedly after death and the younger was beaten about the head after strangulation.
Wanted for investigation of homicide is Stephen Bruce Wolf, 30, who came to the Tippecanoe Lake area, nine miles northeast of Warsaw, one and a half years ago from his Marion birthplace.
July 28, 1966 – A shot in each temple as officers closed in near West Palm Beach, Fla., ended the nationwide search this morning for 30-year-old Stephen Bruce Wolf.
The 300-pound newlywed husband was the prime suspect in the murder of his wife, Marilee, 22, and his sister-in-law, Gayle Lynn, 17, at 3 a.m. last Monday morning in a Lake Tippecanoe cottage.
July 23, 1842 — The early settlers of the Eel River community organized the Eel River Christian Church July 23, 1842; it was the first Christian church in Kosciusko County.
Services were held in the Samuel Abbott home and the Cantrel and Dodgertown schools for a number of years. In 1889, the present building was erected.
There were 26 charter members.
– Compiled by InkFreeNews reporter Lasca Randels