Laura Jane Harvey Murder: Part Five

With the people of Ottumwa offering a $500 reward for the capture of the men who murdered Laura Harvey, the Governor of Iowa offering another $500 and later on the Wapello County Board of Supervisors offering up a $500 reward, it is not surprising that false sightings and innocent people got swept up in the fervor to find the killers.

The first person swept up happened in Omaha, Nebraska where a man was arrested and charges with larceny for stealing a purse containing $160. The larceny was said to have occurred just across the river in Council Bluffs, Iowa and the lawmen who had tracked him across the river to Omaha, soon thought the captured man bore an uncanny resemblance to Lant McComb. A Nebraska judge headed the case but wouldn't release the man into Iowa custody until a formal requisition was made by Iowa Governor Kirkwood. 

The man who was only identified by the last name of Tubbs, of course protested that he was from Kentucky and feared that is he were taken back to Ottumwa, he would summarily be lynched before a positive identification could be completed. Members of the law enforcement community were obviously worried about this too as the Sheriff of Rockford, who knew the McComb family well, immediately set out for Omaha to verify the identify of the captured man. 

But before he could arrive, some the Sheriff of Douglas County, Nebraska and the Omaha City, Nebraska Marshal with an eye on the $1000 reward, snuck Tubbs from the jail, put him in a carriage and after crossing the river, started to make a beeline for Ottumwa. Unfortunately for them, the swarthy complexion of their prisoner raised suspicions of Iowa locals who thought the Nebraska law officials might be trying to sneak a slave back into Missouri which allowed slavery. They surrounded the two law officials and held them until the Sheriff of Pottawattamie County, Iowa, in which Council Bluffs is located, intercepted the group and after proving the prisoner was white, confiscated him. Tubbs was taken to Council Bluffs where he went before another judge for larceny and bail was set for $1000 until his trial could take place two months later in August. 

A few weeks later, another unidentified man was arrested in the southeast Iowa town of Montrose in Lee County supposedly answering to the last name of Lawrence. He evidently had made the mistake of lurking around that town for a couple weeks and when word came that Lant McComb had been arrested in Omaha, the man set to make a quick exit. His lurking had aroused the suspicions of locals and so before he could exit town, he was arrested and put into jail. Not only did his description match Lawrence, but he was said to possess a valis with the name of Miss Harvey written on it and containing some of her personal letters. Plans were made to haul him to Ottumwa to stand trial.

Unfortunately, newspapers of the time didn't follow up on either of these men other than to publish a small article in June, more than a month after their arrests, stating that neither men were McComb or Lawrence and were actually different men. There was no apology other than to state that the horrid crime is still shrouded in as much mystery as if first was.