A sizable crowd turned out on Tuesday night to hear from local radio host, Sean Kernan, and longtime reporter and Kewanee Back When co-host, Dave Clark talk about Kewanee’s very own true crime cases. Murder We Wrote was the subtitle to a series that was done on the WKEI Morning Show series, Kewanee Back When. From February to April, Dave Clarke wrote and presented stories on 5 of the most well known true crimes in Kewanee history. The first show, covering the still unsolved murder of Sandra Brown in 1978, inspired Sean to take a closer look at the case. During Tuesday’s events, some of the information that has been uncovered was discussed in front of the curious and excited crowd.
Murder We Wrote was Dave Clarke’s conception, all credit to Dave for his hard work and research. Dave took center stage Tuesday to talk about the murder of Laurie Gwinn, the double homicide of Diana Turley and Rane Baldwin at Phylly’s Bar in kewanee, the same year Gwinn was murdered, in 1995, and the racially motivated murder of Logan Harvey in 1975. Then, in an example of Dave’s incredible research, Dave walked the crowd back to 1895 and the brutal murder of Kewanee farmer’s wife, Maggie Copeland. That story was inspired from the fact that it was only one of two times a man had been hanged in the gallows that sat disassembled in room at the Henry County Courthouse for nearly a century.
If you’d like to revisit our Kewanee Back When Murder We Wrote episodes, they are linked below. Thank you to the wonderful crowd who came out on Tuesday night and a huge thank you to the Kewanee Public Library for giving Sean and Dave the chance to talk about these stories.
