Bio: Krueger, Ennis (15 June 1933)

Contact: Crystal Wendt

Surnames: Krueger, Jensen

----Sources: Neillsville Press (Neillsville, Clark County, Wis.) 15 June 1933

From son, whom Authorities Reported Killed

The Milwaukee Journal of June 7 carried a story to the effect that Mrs. Krueger, mother of Ennis Krueger, who was supposed to have been shot and killed in a man hurt in September, 1918, claims that her son, Ennis is still living and that she has from time to time in recent years received letters from him.

The three sons, Frank, Leslie and Ennis, and their mother were besieged in their farm home south of Withee Sept. 18, 1918, by a posse summoned by a U. S. marshal following an attempt to a arrest Frank and Leslie Krueger for evading the draft.

In the battle, Henry Jensen of Withee, one of the posses, was shot and killed and other wounded.

Frank was wounded by a gunshot through his legs and he, Leslie and the mother surrendered. Ennis, a younger brother, under draft age, escaped from the house and fled into the woods. A few days later while parties of deputies were scouring the timbered region to the northwest, nearly Polley, Wis., a young man was found sleeping in a hay mow in a log barn on an isolated clearing and was shot, the claim being made that he roused up and attempted to pull a gun on the men who found him.

The dead man was reported to have been Ennis Krueger, and ever since then it has been assumed that his identity had been duly established. It is now claimed that neither Mrs. Krueger nor the two brothers saw the body.

Frank and Leslie were convicted of murder in the first degree in Neillsville and were sentenced to life imprisonment.

Several petitions for their pardon were denied by previous governors, until finally Gov. Phil. La Foette toward the end of his term, granted them both pardons.

It appears, however that both of them had become unsettled mentally and now are confined in the hospital for the criminal insane.

According to Mrs. Krueger, Ennis has never returned nor revealed his identity for fear of arrest and sharing in the fate of his brothers.

 

 


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