Laura Jane Harvey Murder: Part Eight

After the anonymous newspaper article about the hanging of Mayberry and implicating Lant McComb as being party to that murder, there was again a couple months of silence and then a recap of the murder appeared in December of 1860. There is more silence until June of 1861 until one G.W. Black files a motion with the Board of Supervisors to be reimbursed for his time as a witness and for mileage of attending the inquest of Laura Harvey. It was accepted and Black was paid $3.60. 

Then there was silence for the next three years.

On 2 March 1864 in Davenport, Iowa, a young soldier from nearby Fort McClellan, never named, was walking along the street and saw a familiar face. The young soldier recognized the man as someone who used to work for his father for three years near the town of Rockford. The soldier also knew that the man, Lant McComb, was wanted for murder of a girl four years ago. So the soldier immediately went back to the base and informed Captain Ward of what he had witnessed. 

Captain Ward immediately dispatched a messenger and the young soldier to report to Captain Egbert who took the matter to Marshal Means. Egbert, Means, the ever present young solider and two more officers, Clark and Severance set out to track down McComb and found him at the Arcade Saloon opposite of the post office and arrested him without resistance. McComb had just concluded a trade with another man for a horse in which McComb had paid $180. When the Marshal told McComb why he was being arrested, McComb only asked that he have a fair and impartial trial. 

There was no real attempt to establish what Lant McComb had been doing the last four years since the murder. One newspaper article stated that he had been enlisting many times into the army to collect state government volunteer bounties and premiums being paid to soldiers enlisting to fight in the "War of the Rebellion", and once paid, deserting and moving on to the next opportunity. It was also theorized that he was an expert counterfeiter and a daring burglar.

After his arrest, McComb was escorted before Justice Wheeler who ordered him committed for examination. The man who sold McComb horse agreed to take back his horse and return $170 of the money Lant had just given him. 

Two days later on March 4, officers Means and Severance escorted McComb back to Ottumwa via train where he was quietly transferred from the Depot to the jail without issue. It helped greatly that at the time, Ottumwa only published a weekly newspaper and the next issue wouldn't be out for another six days! McComb was put in a cell and irons attached to him. He was reported as being cheerful and conversed freely with visitors, admitting he was Lansing B. McComb, that he lived near Rockford, had been to Ottumwa before and knows George Lawrence. He denied all knowledge of the Harvey family or being part of the murder of Laura Jane. 

An indictment for Benjamin A. McComb was reached and a trial date was set for 2 June 1864 in the District Court at Ottumwa.