{"id":31020,"date":"2020-11-14T07:30:03","date_gmt":"2020-11-14T12:30:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.westbendnews.net\/autonews\/?p=31020"},"modified":"2020-11-10T11:45:07","modified_gmt":"2020-11-10T16:45:07","slug":"heavens-tears-shed-in-1894-the-murder-of-ashby-and-elsie-good","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.westbendnews.net\/autonews\/heavens-tears-shed-in-1894-the-murder-of-ashby-and-elsie-good\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Heaven\u2019s Tears\u2019 Shed in 1894: The Murder of Ashby and Elsie Good"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"
This headstone in Live Oak Cemetery reads, \u201cIn memory of Ashby and Elsie Good murdered by Charles Hart Nov. 4, 1894.\u201d On the side is inscribed, \u201cCharles Hart executed 4-12-1895.\u201d Photo courtesy Paulding County Bicentennial Committee.<\/strong>
<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

By: Jane Nice, Paulding County Bicentennial Committee Part 1 of 2<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

PAULDING \u2013On Sunday morning, November 4, 1894, siblings Wilson \u201cAshby\u201d Good, age 8, and his sister Elsie, age 5, went outside to play near their house three and one half miles northwest of the village of Paulding.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Their mother, who was homebound with a 17-day-old baby, grew alarmed when the children had not returned by late morning. She sent her 11-year-old daughter Clara out to look for them. Clara came home around noon and reported no sighting of her brother or sister.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unable to shake the feeling of dread, Mrs. Good asked her husband to look for Ashby and Elsie, but Mr. Good felt less concerned and waited until after lunch to go out with Clara and continue the search. The pair spent the afternoon canvassing the area and asking their neighbors if they had seen the children. None had.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By evening, when he returned to his house and learned that Ashby and Elsie still had not found their way home, Mr. Good shared his wife\u2019s fears. At 8 p.m. he fired the shot to signal to his neighbors to join him for a search of the woods. About 20 men set out on horseback and foot with lanterns, but shortly after midnight, with their lamps out of oil, the effort was suspended until morning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Good family endured a long night of worry. What could have happened to the children? Were they lost in the great woods near their home? Had an animal harmed them?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rain was falling when the search resumed at 9 a.m. on Monday. The men divided themselves up into groups to fan out and scour a 600-acre tract of woods first before heading into a smaller, 160-acre wood near the Good family\u2019s home. If Ashby and Elsie were not found in either of those two places, the search would continue in the nearby 2,000 acres of heavy timber that the locals referred to as the \u201cNorthwood.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Before heading out to look, the men agreed to fire a shot when the children were found. About an hour into the search, a shotgun blast rang out. Charles \u201cCharley\u201d Hart was the signaler.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hart and two other men, who would later implicate Charley as a suspect in the children\u2019s murders, had seen small footprints in the soft earth leading to a brush pile. Charley stayed back as the two men approached the charred heap. There, they discovered the mutilated and burned bodies of the children, with Ashby piled upon Elsie.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Those two searchers later testified to a grand jury that they had found Charley\u2019s behavior suspicious. They said that Charley made no reply to their exclamations when they located the bodies, nor did he come near enough to see the children. Instead, Charley turned and slowly walked toward his own home, a mere 400 feet from the crime scene. There, he fired his father\u2019s gun to signal to the entire search party that the Good children had been found.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then Charley mounted a mule, rode over the Cincinnati, Jackson & Mackinaw Railroad track, and spoke to the men searching there. Charley seemed to have knowledge of the state of the children\u2019s remains, which cast a shadow of guilt over him after the first two men claimed that he had not gone near enough to see the bodies. How could he know?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The horrific state of the children\u2019s bodies was reported by The Paulding County Republican later that week: Elsie \u201cwas lying face downward upon the ground. Her shoes had been removed, and all save the upper portion of her trunk was nude. The fire had burned her flesh in many places, and her head had been all but severed from her body. On one side of her face was the mark of a bludgeon, the blow from which had probably caused her death. Her feet were tied at the ankles with a piece of tar red twine, such as farmers use in binding corn fodder, and the murderer, who had first satisfied his unholy passions, had completely disembowled (sic) her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cLying across the body of little Elsie was the charred corpse of her 9-year-old brother. The boy\u2019s hands were tied behind his back, and his trunk and lower limbs had been literally cooked by the fire ignited to destroy the evidence of the crime, but which had failed to accomplish its purpose because of the rain \u2013 Heaven\u2019s tears shed because of the cruel fate of two of its bright gifts to mankind. Little Wilson\u2019s temple bore the mark of the bludgeon, and his throat was cut to the bone. His body bore evidence of the same devilish buchery (sic) as that of his sister, and when found was nude save for a little clothing about his shoulders.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

News of the crime spread quickly. Sheriff Ed Staley and the coroner were called to the scene, and soon around 500 people from Cecil and Paulding gathered. By the time the sheriff arrived, several men had congregated around the home of Charley Hart. Sheriff Staley sized up the vengeful tone of the crowd, and after questioning Charley, promptly arrested him and took him to the Paulding County Jail.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Later that day, Sheriff Staley also arrested Charley\u2019s brother-in-law, Clarence Brindle, and another man, Levi Cain, who was reportedly hanging out with Charley the day before when the children had gone missing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The children\u2019s bodies were examined by the coroner and taken to Thompson Undertakers where hundreds came to view them. \u201cIt was a sight that made strong men grow weak and women to weep,\u201d reported the Paulding Democrat on November 8, 1894, under the headlines, \u201cChild Murder Most Foul,\u201d \u201cAt Our Very Doors the Most Appalling Crime in the History of Ohio is Committed,\u201d \u201c\u2019Jack-the-Ripper\u2019 Outdone is Fiendish Deviltry,\u201d and \u201cThe Baby Girl was Outraged.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Paulding County Republican ran with \u201cHorrible! Paulding County\u2019s Fair Name Disgraced by One of the Foulest Crimes Ever Committed\u201d and \u201cTwo Children Literally Butchered by Fiends in Human Form.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The story made national news, and was followed to its conclusion by reporters from prominent newspapers throughout the state of Ohio.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Next time: Charley Hart\u2019s confessions, trial and execution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

More information on the bicentennial can be found on Facebook at www.facebook.com\/PauldingCounty200.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By: Jane Nice, Paulding County Bicentennial Committee Part 1 of 2 PAULDING \u2013On Sunday morning, November 4, 1894, siblings Wilson<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":31022,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","nf_dc_page":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,1464],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31020","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-community","category-history-community"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.westbendnews.net\/autonews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/Bicentennial-Good-headstone.jpeg?fit=318%2C781&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2YQd9-84k","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-24 23:53:27","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.westbendnews.net\/autonews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31020","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.westbendnews.net\/autonews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.westbendnews.net\/autonews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.westbendnews.net\/autonews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.westbendnews.net\/autonews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31020"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.westbendnews.net\/autonews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31020\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.westbendnews.net\/autonews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31022"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.westbendnews.net\/autonews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31020"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.westbendnews.net\/autonews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31020"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.westbendnews.net\/autonews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31020"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}