P. L. Gaus’s Ohio Amish Journal

The civil war monument on courthouse square in Millersburg, Ohio, is mentioned often in my Amish-Country Mysteries, not because it has ever played an important role in one of the stories, but because it stands outside the north office window of Sheriff Bruce Robertson.  Many times, my characters have gazed upon it while contemplating one case or another.  As you can see, it is very much like other such monuments sprinkled in small towns throughout the country, and if you’ve driven much over the so-called blue highways of America, passing through small, rural towns, you know you’ve reached the center of town because one of these monuments is often there, especially in county seats, marking a place of memory and honor, of valor, sacrifice, and devotion to duty.  This one in Millersburg anchors the northwest corner of courthouse square, in front of the courthouse itself, and Robertson’s red brick jail is out of the picture, off to the right.  So, I thought you’d like to see it.  I’ll probably mention it again, when Professor Branden or Pastor Troyer stand looking out of Robertson’s north window, arguing as friends will, about their next case.

For the aggravated murder of Barbara Weaver, Barbara Raber of Millersburg, Ohio, has been sentenced by Judge Robert J. Brown to twenty-three years to life in prison.  This happened several days ago in Wayne County (Ohio) court, and I’ve taken the time since then to think about this.

At the time the verdict was announced on September 22, 2009, Raber said time and again that she didn’t do it.  Her attorney presented the plausible alternative scenario that Weaver’s husband Eli actually killed his wife in the early morning hours of June 2, 2009, before leaving on a fishing trip with friends.  The coroner’s best estimate of the range for time of death does fit this theory, but the jury still convicted Raber, and the judge at sentencing said, “You were involved in the death of Barbara Weaver.  There is no evidence to contradict that.”  The judge also expressed the opinion that Raber’s sentence ought to have some “parity” with that of Eli Weaver (fifteen years to life), who earlier pleaded guilty to the charge of complicity to commit murder, before testifying for the prosecution.

Is that then a clean verdict and a reasonable sentence?  Maybe so, but also maybe not.  Holmes County residents have expressed the opinion to me that this case is more complicated than it appears.  That certainly is what the defense presented in court.  But Judge Brown said at the time of sentencing, “You and Mr. Weaver had a strong role in the death of his wife.  Without your cooperation, she would still be alive today.”

I think he was right. I think we have justice.  But is it flawless?  Probably not.

Barbara Raber has been found guilty of the aggravated murder of Barbara Weaver, of Maysville, Ohio, and Eli D. Weaver has been sentenced to 15 years to life in prison for conspiring with Raber to do it.  Barbara Raber will be sentenced on September 30, 2009.   The jury took five hours to deliberate before delivering their verdict.  Text messages between Raber and Weaver were very incriminating, as was the testimony of Eli Weaver, himself, but Raber’s defense attorney claimed that Eli Weaver manipulated Raber, and he also presented the alternative scenario that Eli Weaver murdered his wife, himself,  early on the morning of June 2, before leaving for a fishing trip with friends.

Thus we are coming to the end of the first Amish murder trial I can remember.  There was the tragic kidnapping case many years ago, what is locally known as the case of Little Boy Blue, and a man suffering from depression killed his son and wife, and then himself, last spring near here.  But as far as first degeree murder with a gun specification, Raber and Weaver are the first convictions among the Amish.

I will be happy not to have any of this to write about in the future.  I’d rather show you Holmes County scenes of school children playing softball or Martin houses against blue sky.  I would rather write about culture, theology, and lifestyle, like I do in my Ohio Amish Mysteries.  Amish people have their own troubles and their own human foibles, like all the rest of us, but conspiracies to commit murder are not at all typical.  As for one, I pray we never see this sort of thing again.

I have posted several times about the Amish murder we suffered here in Wayne County, Ohio, and now the trial of Barbara Raber for the murder of Barbara Weaver has run for three days, Thursday and Friday last week, and Monday this week, plus a fourth day of trial to come today.  This should be the day for final arguments.

Last Thursday the jury was seated, and opening arguments were heard.  On Friday the principal prosecution witness was Eli D. Weaver, husband of the murdered Barbara Weaver of Maysville, Ohio.  Eli has already pleaded guilty to the charge of complicity to commit murder.

Yesterday the arresting officers and detectives testified about Barbara Raber and about text messages sent between Eli and her before and after the murder.  Raber testified that she went to the Weaver house just to scare Barbara, but the gun went off accidentally.  She also testified that she went along with Eli’s schemes to murder his wife just to see how far he was willing to go with the conspiracy.

So Amish history in Holmes County is now just as commonplace as the typical human condition.  I shouldn’t be surprised.  Amish people aren’t saints; they are, after all, only people.  They hold to a higher religious standard than most of us, but perhaps it is just a different religious standard, not necessarily a better one.  They believe God intends us all to live as peasant farmers, and they put their beliefs into practice.  So there is no hypocrisy here to charge on the question of lifestyle.

But now there is a very real Amish murder charge, and that is a game changer for us who live among them, especially for writers like me.  I write the Ohio Amish Mysteries, and the game changer is that now there can very believably be an Amish murder.   There can also very believably be an Amish person on trial for murder.  We have such a thing, right here in Wayne County, Ohio.

Facing the charge of aggravated murder with a gun specification, Eli Weaver has pleaded instead to complicity to commit murder, and the gun specification has been removed from the charge.  In this infamous case, Weaver’s wife was murdered in her sleep, allegedly by Weaver’s accomplice, Barbara Raber, who now faces trial for aggravated murder.  Eli is expected to testify for the prosecution.

I have written recently about this tragic case in Holmes County, Ohio, where Raber lived, and Wayne County to the north, where Eli and Barbara Weaver lived.  It is the type of murder I never thought I would see, when I first began to design and write the Ohio Amish Mysteries.

Eli Weaver’s picture was in Wooster’s Daily Record this morning, and he looks like any typical Amish fellow one might see in this part of Ohio.  But he had been shunned by the time of his wife’s murder, because he was involved in sexual affairs with a number of women, and because he had allegedly discussed his wife’s murder several times with other people.

Thus half of the puzzle of Barbara Weaver’s murder is finished.  Now we wait for the trial of Barbara Raber.

And I have to shake my head.  That murder took place in Maysville, Ohio, which is a barely definable town on Harrison Road in southern Wayne County, where some of the events in my Ohio Amish Mystery Separate From the World were set.  And when I think of Maysville, I remember the places there, where I like to visit.  There is the one-room school house on the corner of Harrison and Mt. Hope roads.  I like the Schlabaugh furniture store just east of there.  The Raber furniture shop just south of that intersection is one of the best places for roll-top desks.  And the little market right next door (closed on Thursdays) is so quintessentially Amish that I surely ought to have used it already in one of my mysteries.  Then just at the border with Holmes County, there is a new parochial school being built for the Amish kids of the area.  They had the softball diamond and backstop finished before the school was done, but it will all be ready for school in a couple of weeks.

I think time will help to erase the thoughts I have of murder there, but for a while at least, Maysville will not be the same to me.  Sadly, it used to be a favorite spot of mine.  The photos in my blog A Sure Sign of Spring were taken less than half a mile from Maysville.  Maybe I’ll go back next spring and find those same sugar buckets hanging from the maple trees.  Or find those same kids playing softball at the nearby school.  Or maybe I’ll just go back today, and try to reclaim some of the peacefulness I remember there, hoping and praying that any further murders involving Holmes County Amish folk happen only in my mystery novels.

I have been writing the Ohio Amish Mysteries for ten years now, and at talks I have given about my novels, I have always admitted to my audience that I make a rather obvious bargain with my readers – it will never be an Amish person who commits a murder in one of my stories. It just wouldn’t happen, and I wouldn’t want to write about it if it did. In the kind of story I write, I always figured that the fiction ought to imitate Amish lifestyle and culture faithfully, and since there had never been an Amish-involved murder in Holmes County, I considered myself safe in my assumptions.

But that all changed this spring, and now sadly life has imitated fiction in a way that has set me back as a writer, at least for a while. I haven’t been able to make progress recently on the seventh Ohio Amish Mystery (tentatively titled “Harmless as Doves”) because now four Amish people in Holmes County Ohio have been murdered in two separate incidents, apparently by other Amish people. The tragedy of this so completely dislodged me from my creative state that I have not written a word for three months.

In the first incident, a father apparently killed his son, his wife, and himself. In the second incident, a man’s girlfriend apparently killed his wife so that they could leave the Amish life and enjoy modern conveniences. So the world was turned upside down for me, and it took a couple of trips out of state to put my mind back in the creative condition I need to finish my seventh novel.

We first went south to the islands and “got out there” as they say, into the warm weather, the tropical waters, and the gentler mindsets of the Caribbean. There I am in the first picture, soaking in one of the pools on Royal Caribbean’s Freedom of the Seas. They say it is currently the biggest cruise ship in the world, and I believe it. We were on the boat for seven days, and I saw only 40 percent of the thing.

Then we came home, packed the camper, and headed to Michigan’s “Up North” regions, where we needed jackets every night and warm clothes most of the days. In the second picture, I’ve found a peaceful chair at a campfire early in our first week out. We spent nearly three weeks up near Michigan’s “Tip of the Mitt” as they call it, and between the two excursions, I seem to have purged the mental sluggishness that was caused by the cruel reality of four non-fictional Amish-involved murders.

Now I’ll get back to the earnest business of finishing Harmless as Doves, which I started in January. I think I can now live with the irony that this is a story about a murder committed by an Amish lad, over a dispute about a girlfriend. Knowing that plot line, perhaps you can see why the new homicidal realities in Holmes County rocked me so hard.