The Adventures of Ralph White's Corpse

 

In Luzerne County, nestled halfway between Rickett's Glen and Harvey's Lake, lies the peaceful farming community of Sweet Valley. It's the kind of place where neighbors look after one another, where newcomers are welcomed with a fresh-baked pie, where children pass a sultry summer morning fishing for sunnies in a farm pond. At least, that's how it was back in 1900. Of course, there's always a bad apple in the barrel, and the bad apple of Sweet Valley was an ornery recluse named Ralph Josiah White.

At first glance, Ralph looked just like any other farmer in the community. He was 48 years old, five foot four, with a reddish mustache and brown hair. His clothes were always tattered and shabby, but Ralph had no one to impress-- his wife had run out on him years earlier, and he had no children. Not that he would be able to impress anyone, anyway, as Ralph was known for his poor manners and nasty disposition.  Because of this, Ralph lived the life of a hermit, but was surrounded by members of his extended family. These included his three nephews, Joseph, James and Everett White, who shared a farm a short distance down the road.

There were always ill feelings between Ralph White and his nephews, which only intensified after Ralph was deserted by his wife, but the trouble began one Saturday in October of 1900, when Ralph found himself on the losing end of a lawsuit pertaining to some trivial matter which his nephews had brought before Justice of the Peace McKeown. 

On the morning of Monday, October 29, the three nephews went to Ralph's farm to return a piece of equipment which belonged to him. Ralph met them at the door and, still bitter over over the outcome of his court case, told his nephews that they should take it back, but the young men refused. They insisted upon putting it in the shed, which Ralph did not appreciate. He disappeared for a moment and returned holding a revolver in his hands. Before the three nephews could collect their thoughts, their uncle fired. Joseph White dropped to the ground with a large portion of his head shot off. 

Ralph fired again. This time his target was James White, who fell clutching his chest, blood pouring through his fingers. The remaining nephew, Everett White, had already taken off running, and Ralph's third shot went wide of its mark. Ralph, now seized with fear over what he had just done, threw down his gun and ran off to the mountains. Before long, Justice of the Peace George Wesley of Sweet Valley organized a posse of farmers and woodsmen and they set out in search of the killer. But afternoon stretched into evening and the posse returned home empty-handed.

That evening, Ralph emerged from his hiding place and walked to the home of his brother-in-law in Shickshinny, a river town a few miles south of Sweet Valley. In the morning he surrendered himself to Squire Adkins. Knowing that a mob of angry farmers was hot on his trail, Ralph begged Adkins to take him to jail as soon as possible, insisting that he had shot his nephews in self-defense. 

"I'll tell it all at my trial," he said. "I must get me a lawyer. I'm better off in jail than out on bail. The farmers are looking for me with guns and they might shoot me or string me up. Yessir, I am safer in jail than out." Ralph refused to make any further statement, but Squire Adkins later recalled that Ralph White gave the appearance of one who was mentally deranged. 

Constable Swisher locked Ralph in a cell, and before long he began to divulge more information about the killing of one nephew and the serious wounding of another. He claimed that Joseph grabbed him by the neck and shoved him against a table. "I thought they were going to do me harm, so I drew my revolved and shot them in self-defense," said Ralph. "That's all I have to for now."

Coroner McKee directed Dr. Charles Long to make a post-mortem examination and instructed Squire Wesley of Sweet Valley to hold an inquest. The coroner's jury rendered a verdict that Joseph White had come to his death at the hands of his uncle. The victim was laid to rest at Sweet Valley on Thursday, November 1. 

The Trial of Ralph White

Ralph Josiah White went on trial before Judge Lynch in January of 1901. James White, who had recovered from his injuries, was expected to be a key witness for the prosecution, but when he was served with a summons he became violent and had to be restrained. By the time the trial opened on January 28, the prosecution's star witness was strapped to a bed in a mental hospital, with doctors claiming that it could be months before James was well enough to be allowed to leave. Although it was presumed the trial would be postponed, it went ahead as scheduled.

The commonwealth's case was based on a motive for revenge. It was revealed that the shack in which Ralph White lived was on property owned by the three nephews, and the nephews wanted Ralph to vacate the premises, which they had already rented out to another tenant. Ralph refused. This, argued the prosecution, was what had driven Ralph to murder.

Testimony seemed to bear out Ralph's self-defense claim, however; Thomas Sprague, who had seen Ralph shortly after the shooting, said that Ralph had scratches on his face, throat and wrist. Farmer Dana Hontz, who was outside working less than an hour after the shooting, corroborated this claim. "Ralph White was all blood from the breast to the knee on the right side," he stated. "I saw a scratch a half-inch long on the left side of his neck. His throat looked red. There was also a bruise over his eye." A neighbor, Frank Morris, testified that he found eleven gouges in Ralph's front door after the murder, as if made by a hatchet. These marks were also observed by Sprague and Hontz, who added that there also appeared to be heel marks on the door, as if someone had tried to kick it in. 

A handful of other witnesses testified to Ralph's reputation. Though he was an ornery fellow with a nasty disposition, he had never run afoul of the law. He kept to himself and wasn't a bother to anyone. After the case was handed to the jury, Ralph's attorneys told reporters that they were confident in an acquittal or, at worst, a manslaughter conviction with a maximum sentence of twelve years in prison.
The jury deliberated for nearly twenty-four hours, eventually rendering a verdict finding Ralph Josiah White guilty of murder in the second degree. Though he begged for leniency, Judge Lynch sentenced him to fifteen years of hard labor at the Eastern Penitentiary. He was taken back to the Luzerne County Jail to await transfer to Philadelphia.

The Death of Ralph White

Ralph White had no intention of serving out his sentence. On the night of February 12, he committed suicide in his Cell Number 18 at the county jail by hanging himself with a bedsheet from the cell door. The discovery was made by night watchman Frank Meehan, who was making his rounds. Ralph had carried out his act by putting tying the sheet around his neck and putting his feet on the bunk, placing all his weight on the neck. His head was just eight inches off the floor. Based on this body position, he could've changed his mind, if he wanted to.  

The Wandering Corpse

Immediately after Ralph's suicide, it became evident that cemetery officials in Sweet Valley did not want to have a convicted murderer buried in their graveyard-- especially one who took his own life. After a funeral service at Undertaker Pealer's funeral parlor in Shickshinny on February 19, the casket was taken to Pleasant Hill Cemetery in Ross Township but the party was turned away at the gates by the sexton, who had been given orders by Justice of the Peace Wesley to deny burial. The body was taken back to Shickshinny.

Friends of Ralph White consulted an attorney, John Garman, who advised them to take the body back to Sweet Valley and demand burial, as Ralph had already purchased a lot in the private graveyard. A second attempt was made on February 22. This time, friends of the killer had brought their own shovels. They began to dig a grave against the sexton's orders. The sexton called the constable, who arrived with a party of men wielding shovels of their own. As one group dug up the ground, the other group filled it back in. A scuffle then ensued-- threats were made, punches were thrown and one of the gravediggers, Asa Smith, received a black eye courtesy of Justice of the Peace Wesley, who was arrested and charged with assault and battery.  

 Defeated, the friends of Ralph White took the body to the home of his twin sister, Mary Kitchen, to await further developments. Mrs. Kitchen filed a petition for an injunction restraining cemetery officials from interfering with the burial of Ralph's body. A temporary injunction was granted by Judge Halsey, and the body was buried at Sweet Valley Cemetery, a public burial ground, on February 26 amid the protests of local farmers and cemetery trustees.

As one might expect, this is not the end of the story. The temporary injunction sought by Mrs. Kitchen was made permanent, leaving cemetery officials and friends of Ralph's nephews with an axe to grind. On May 15, 1901, it was discovered that someone had dug up the grave at Sweet Valley Cemetery and had stolen the corpse, along with the coffin. This development astonished newspaper editors, most of whom publicly admonished the graverobbers. The Wilkes-Barre Record wrote:

Ralph White was both a murder and a suicide, but there is good reason for believing he was mentally unbalanced when he killed his nephew and committed suicide in the county jail. But whether mentally responsible or not, his remains found a resting place in the cemetery at Sweet Valley by order of the court, and those who surreptitiously removed the body a few nights ago committed an offense for which they deserve to be severely punished.

An extensive search was made by authorities, and soon their attention turned to the many ponds dotting the rolling farmlands of Ross Township. After grappling in a pond a mile and a half from Sweet Valley on May 21, searchers pulled the coffin from the muddy bottom, the body of Ralph White still inside. The coffin had been wrapped with chains and weights to prevent it from surfacing, and though the perpetrators were never caught, the body was reburied and covered with a stone weighing over a ton. Guards were placed at the cemetery and they managed to keep vandals and would-be graverobbers at bay until they were sent home the following year. And then the ghouls struck again.

On the night of July 17, 1902, a group of unknown locals used dynamite to blow up the grave of Ralph White. The explosion tore away part of cement burial vault but left the coffin and its moldering inhabitant intact. The vandals, seeing that their plan to steal the corpse had failed, ran away into the night and were never apprehended.

The controversy over Ralph's burial divided the peaceful community of Sweet Valley into two factions, and for years court battles were fought by both sides, until the Superior Court ruled in favor of Mary Kitchen and decreed that Ralph White's corpse was to remain at Sweet Valley Cemetery, where it remains to this day.

 




Sources:

Scranton Tribune. Oct. 31, 1900.
Scranton Tribune. Jan. 29, 1901.
Wilkes-Barre Times. Jan. 29, 1901.
Wilkes-Barre Times-Leader. Jan. 31, 1901.
Wilkes-Barre Semi-Weekly Record. Feb. 1, 1901.
Wilkes-Barre Times-Leader. Feb. 18, 1901.
Wilkes-Barre Times-Leader. Feb. 20, 1901.
Wilkes-Barre Times. Feb. 26, 1901.
Wilkes-Barre Semi-Weekly Record. May 24, 1901.
Mount Carmel Daily News. July 24, 1902.