Rinkard the Stinkard

Note: The following account is from the excellent, rare book Play the Yellow Tape: A Chronology of Murder in Fort Wayne, Indiana, and Surrounding Areas, from 1854-1932. By Bobbie Lee (Self-published, 2007).

"S'blood, thou stinkard!" is a line from "The Rats in the Walls" by legendary Roaring Twenties, H.P. Lovecraft. The story concerns a man who undergoes a sort of gradual transformation. Possessed by the weird spirits of his ancestors, he slowly, by the end of the story, begins to speak in a tongue more and more archaic.

"Stinkard" is a notably medieval term for "drunkard", or "wastrel." Sort of along the same lines as "ne'er-do-well." In a more general sense, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, a "smelly or despicable person."

Stinkard rhymes with Rinkard, which is the name of the man I'm writing about.

In the godforsaken pissant burg of Marion, Indiana, which is about two or three steps above literal Hell, a man named John Rinkard, who, we take it, was of a rather temperamental disposition, stood out on the lawn of his house sometime in 1900 or thereabouts, and proceeded to beat the holy hell out of his wife. To facilitate said beating, he employed the use of a "black snake." Not quite sure what that is or was, but I'm supposing it was a whip. The woman fell to her knees, begged for her life, and cried out to the neighbors that he was going to "murder her." This was done in full view of their son.

Understandably, Mrs. Rinkard went to live with her brother. His name is never given.

John, never one to let sleeping dogs lie, became increasingly agitated at his portion or payout from an insurance policy taken out on a dead daughter (it's a happy story all the way around). Feeling yet again he must enact some retribution on the luckless Missus Rinkard, John snuck up to his brother's house one fine day in 1901, and, seeing the little lady busying herself at an ironing board, shot her through the window.

The poor woman then dragged herself to another room, collapsing across a bed. John Rinkard, his bloodlust not yet satisfied, stormed inside, and, standing over the bleeding figure of his wife, shot her THREE MORE TIMES, before turning the gun on himself.

Rinkard, being the Stinkard that he was, managed to blow a hole through one eye, the bullet exiting cleanly out the other. What, I ask you, are the odds?

It was in the ambulance that someone found the dead murderer was still very much alive. "Sumbitch has a pulse!" was what the man might have exclaimed. Or, perhaps not.

The enraged citizenry of humble Marion (who decades later, would go on to become famous for having one of the last lynchings of the era, a photograph of which has been made famous by Alistair Cooke's book America) was so outraged by Stinkard and his brazen crime, that it was decided his trial should be held in nearby Wabash. (Which would go on to become the birthplace and hometown of confessed serial killer Larry Duwayne Hall.)

Rinkard tried to plead insanity, and his lawyer argued that anyone that would attempt to kill himself must, by the very definition of the word, be insane. But that didn't quite wash. He noted Rinkard's habits of speaking to himself and blurting out profanities, even when alone.

He was sentenced to hang.

Most of the last year of his life was spent complaining about his wounded eye and communicating with his preacher, who was the ONLY individual that had not completely deserted him.

He hung in January 1902, in Wabash. His execution was a bit of a fiasco; somebody forgot the black hood, the trap wouldn't work properly, Rinkard stood for five minutes begging for his life.

But, they finally got the job done.

Much as they did for the lynching decades later, the sober, level-headed, God-fearing citizenry of noble Marion turned out, about twenty-five hundred of them, to peer into Rinkard's open casket. Everybody wanted to turn out to get a glimpse of the lynching; likewise, they wanted to get a first-hand glimpse of the body of the infamous, dastardly "Wife Killer."

Rinkard was buried at the craggy, virtually abandoned I.O.O.F Cemetery. Only his preacher was in attendance.

Last time I was out there, by the way, the potholes in the roads rendered them almost unpassable. The place is not being taken care of any longer. Which is a shame. Because I'd like to get out there and find the grave of Rinkard the Stinkard.