Locals,
Larry Chabot
Wes Freeman and the busy summer of '52
Wes Freeman was a fairly new Michigan State trooper when he walked
into a tavern, went behind the bar and saw a dead man on the floor
"full of holes."
Freeman looked around the crowded barroom in amazement. "The
place was packed with people, and there was a real party going on,"
he said. He looked again at the dead man. Freeman knew him: Mike Chenoweth,
owner of the Lumberjack Tavern in Big Bay.
Chenoweth's death was the original Anatomy of a Murder murder, and
it happened fifty years ago this summer.
It was a busy time for Freeman as he ran a gamut of adventures in
a four-month stretch in 1952, including his engagement and marriage.
It began on May 7, 1952 at the US-45/M-28 intersection in Bruce Crossing
in southern Ontonagon County. Some of the locals laughed at him as
he waited, but Freeman was all business. A prison escapee was on the
run after beating a woman to death near Courtney Lake, and Freeman
had been sent from Marquette to set a roadblock.
A car approached from the north, moving suspiciously. Spotting the
trooper, the driver sped up to run the roadblock. Freeman deliberately
put his hand over his holster, ready to draw. The car slowed, then
stopped, and Freeman had his man.
Seaman Freeman
The man called "Seaman Freeman" was born in Montreal (Wisconsin)
in 1927, but showed his restless spirit early. In the summer of 1944,
after his junior year in high school, he worked at a defense plant
in Milwaukee, returned to high school until he had enough credits
to graduate, then enlisted in the Navy in January 1945 at age seventeen.
While his classmates finished high school, Freeman was 9,000 miles
from home in the South Pacific.
His ship, the LST 124, delivered troops, tanks and supplies to various
islands in the South Pacific from a base in New Caledonia.
"One of our jobs was returning native people to their home islands
after they had worked for the U.S. in other spots," he said.
"One trip was to Tarawa where the big battle took place in 1943;
there was a single cross over the graves of an entire company of Marines."
Freeman was a yeoman striker, taking care of ship personnel work,
but he also manned guns during general quarters and stood helm duty,
steering the ship. After the war ended in August 1945, the LST 124
returned to Pearl Harbor for decommissioning. Freeman transferred
to the USS AOG-54 Natchaug which delivered oil and gasoline.
"At Pearl Harbor we saw dozens of ships being readied for the
atomic bomb tests on Bikini Island," he said. Freeman was asked
if he wanted to volunteer for the A-bomb tests, and he emphatically
declined, despite being offered a promotion if he did.
Freeman was discharged on July 3, 1946. While he was gone, his family
moved to Negaunee where his parents, Emil William Freeman (an ex-iron
miner) and Helen ran Freeman's Luncheonette. Freeman worked at a steel
plant and then Cleveland Cliffs Iron before joining the state police
in April 1949.
Murder In Big Bay
Freeman and the late Ray Rudman were taking a dinner break in the
Coffee Cup diner across from the Marquette post office (it's now a
parking lot). It was 1 a.m. on July 31 when the phone rang.
"We were told that Mike Chenoweth had been shot at the Lumberjack
Tavern," Freeman said. "I knew Mike because he was a former
state trooper. We took off in the patrol car, driving so fast the
trunk flew open. Mike was lying dead behind the bar. The place was
packed with people, having a real party. That's the way things were
back then. Mike was dead and a party was going on! We radioed the
post that he was dead and then protected the scene and interviewed
witnesses until others arrived."
Other officers arrived to find and arrest the suspect, Army Lt. Coleman
Peterson, at a nearby trailer court. Peterson admitted to the shooting
after Chenoweth allegedly raped Peterson's wife.
"They put the Petersons in the back of our patrol car for a couple
of hours," Freeman said. "We talked about everything like
it was no big deal. I remember him saying about the shooting was that
he had brought a gun with him because he needed an ‘equalizer.'"
The German Luger pistol and a German army knife are displayed at the
NMU public safety office along with a note from Peterson's attorney,
John Voelker, stating he got the items from Peterson in lieu of his
fee.
"We knew Mike kept guns at the bar and was an excellent shot,"
Freeman said. "He kept guns in pigeon holes, and displayed his
shooting trophies and ribbons. After a while, the Petersons were taken
to jail, and my partner and I went back on patrol. We were still on
call, and calls were still coming in."
Peterson's trial was held in the Twenty-fifth Judicial Circuit Court
in Marquette in September 1952.
On September 22, the jury found Lt. Peterson not guilty by reason
of insanity. In his court testimony, Freeman recalled his actions
on the night of the shooting.
"Trooper Rudman and I ... proceeded to the scene and waited there
until we were met by our commanding officer ... I was instructed to
take the names of witnesses at the scene ... After [they] picked up
the defendant I was instructed to watch the defendant in the patrol
car with Trooper Rudman."
Voelker asked Freeman if that was all he knew about the case. Freeman
said "Yes." Voelker pressed him: "Do you mean, Trooper,
that the boys [at the Post] never discussed this case in your presence?"
Freeman responded that "the investigation was handled by other
officers and I had no contact with them."
Voelker demanded to know how Freeman couldn't have heard his fellow
officers talking about the case. The prosecutor objected; the judge
agreed, saying he didn't think the jury was "interested in any
gossip heard around the Post. If the officer knows anything to do
with the investigation I want him to tell it," but not stories
heard from the street or post.
Freeman says today that "I was little more than a rookie then
and didn't want to say anything except what I had to. Voelker was
trying to get me to say what I'd heard and read in the newspapers,
but the judge wouldn't allow the question."
Freeman was left out of the popular 1959 movie Anatomy of a Murder,
Voelker's fictionalized account of the case. The film, starring Jimmy
Stewart, showed Detective Sgt. Anthony Spratto—called Julian
Durgo in the movie and played by actor Ken Lynch—as first on
the scene.
"I wasn't around for the making of movie because I was reassigned
to Detroit," Freeman said. "We lived near Seven Mile and
Grand River, not far from the post. Believe it or not, we lived on
Negaunee Street. When the movie came out I was taking a class at Wayne
State University in Detroit. The instructor learned that I was involved
in the original murder case, so he interrogated me right there in
the classroom."
There was more to come in the summer of '52. On August 31, Freeman
and trooper Patrick Lyons rushed to Rumely in Alger County where a
mentally disturbed man was threatening his relatives with a shotgun.
The suspect fired at the troopers.
"You should have seen us tall troopers trying to squeeze onto
the floor of that little Ford," he said years later. Backup finally
arrived, more shots were fired, and the suspect was wounded several
times before being arrested.
After twenty-six years with the state police, the last ten as Fire
Marshal, Freeman retired in 1975 as a Detective Sergeant.
He then worked for Marquette General Hospital on state building and
safety code assurance during the hospital's expansion and renovation
project, and retired for good in 1980.
Now a Marquette resident, Freeman reflects often on his police service.
"Back then, only single men could join the force," he said.
"Single troopers had to live in the barracks. During our six-month
probation we did the janitorial work and washed patrol cars. We were
allowed one overnight pass a week and could stay out until midnight
one other night. Get this: you had to have two years service before
you could get married! And we had to write to the state police commissioner
for permission to get married! Or to borrow money! I still have the
authorization letters.
"Things were different then."
—Larry Chabot
