West Liberty Tourist Camp Murder

Harland Gabe Simons

The West Liberty tourist camp murder hit the front pages in July 1924 like a thunderclap.

Orton and Diana Ferguson had been on the road for almost a year, wandering up and down the West Coast, drifting from camp to camp, letting the dirt roads decide their path. July 12 was Diana’s thirty-fourth birthday. They were heading home to Atlanta, Michigan, tired but happy, planning to catch a concert in town and sleep under the stars afterward.

 

They pulled into the West Liberty camp just before dusk. A man stepped out of the trees and waved them down. He called himself the park ranger.

 

He told them someone had spilled crankcase oil on the grass up front. He’d show them a better spot. Something quiet. Something private.

 

He guided them deep into the grounds, well away from the other travelers. He helped them settle in, then said he had other campers to look after, and vanished between the tents.

 

His name was Harland “Gabe” Simons.

 

Later that afternoon, he reappeared, casual as a neighbor dropping by to borrow sugar. He chatted, joked, and offered to watch their tent while they went into town. He seemed kind. Polite. Harmless.

Diana Orton

When the Fergusons returned from the concert, Simons was still there, guarding the tent as promised. They sat together for a while, joined by two other campers—Fred Budke and Charles Marsh. They talked like travelers do: miles, weather, roads ahead. Diana called it a night around ten. Budke and Marsh drifted off to their own tent a little before eleven.

 

Orton stayed up a while longer.

 

Then the world split open at one in the morning.

 

Diana woke to a gasp. Or maybe it was a scream. She wasn’t sure. She sat up, heart punching in her throat. The tent flap rustled. She called for Orton. Called again.

 

Then she saw the eyes.

 

“Awful eyes,” she said later. “Leering at me.”

 

She knew what had happened. Simons had killed her husband. Now he wanted her.

 

“I got to my feet,” she said. “I watched him come at me. I guess I whimpered. Then I screamed and ran.”

 

He chased her through the dark, hissing, “Keep still! Your husband’s all right!”

 

She sprinted to Budke and Marsh’s tent, shrieking their names. The two men burst out, half-dressed, blinking into the night. Simons stood behind her. Then he slipped into the trees.

 

The papers said Orton never had a chance. The killer hit him with such force that any of the blows could have knocked him cold. Four blows. Two from the front. Two from the back. A three-inch gash across his forehead. A broken nose.

 

Budke and Marsh described Simons as five foot ten and a half, maybe 140 pounds, black hair, squeaky voice with a nasal twang. He hesitated when he talked. Gold inlays flashed in his two front teeth.

 

By morning, the camp was crawling with deputies. Bloodhounds from Waterloo arrived. But the scent was too strong—Ferguson’s blood overwhelmed everything else.

 

Jason Ridson from the State Investigation Bureau took charge. He brought men from Cedar Rapids and Des Moines. They searched the camp, the fairgrounds, the treeline. Nothing. The Muscatine Journal said the timber was too thick, the country too wild. A man could disappear in it forever.

 

Maybe he would have—if not for Rose Stoeckel.

 

Rose was Simons’ girlfriend. He’d visited her on Credit Island the day after the murder, and told her he’d “popped a man” over a craps game. Later, he wrote her a letter and put his return address on the envelope. Rose handed it to the detectives, hoping for the $500 reward.

 

Officer Clark Lamont

The address led them to Tiffin, Ohio.

 

Newspapers first said Officer Clark Lamont arrested Simons in a hospital with a broken jaw. The next day, the story changed. Lamont had actually found him working under the name Fred J. Smith on the Mary Smith farm, four miles north of town.

 

When Lamont walked up the driveway, Simons didn’t run. “No use reading the warrant,” he said. He already knew what it said. Besides, he claimed he was innocent. He had an “air-tight” alibi.

 

Then he confessed.

 

He arrived in West Liberty around three o’clock on July 12 with two strangers selling hair tonic and hooch. They drifted down to the tourist camp. Simons needed money, so he posed as a ranger and see what he could get.

 

The Fergusons showed up around six. After them came a Ford with a family of four. Then Budke and Marsh. Then two painters. Simons placed the campers around the grounds like pieces on a chessboard.

 

While the Fergusons went into town, he kept watch. When they returned, they all talked for a while. Then, Diana went to bed.

 

“I told Ferguson I had a bottle of hooch behind the barn,” Simons said. “If he came with me, I’d give him a drink.”

 

They walked out into the dark. Ferguson ahead. Simons behind.

 

“I saw a short pipe. I picked it up and struck him on the back of the head.”

 

Ferguson cried out. Asked what he was doing. Tried to stand. Simons hit him again—harder.

 

“After I hit him that time, he never moved.”

 

He shoved his sweater over Ferguson’s head. Swapped clothes with him. Then walked back toward the tents. Diana called out, asking where her husband was. He told her Orton had gone to get more hooch.

 

She turned away. He bolted into the trees.

 

He hid near the railroad until one in the morning. Then hopped a train to Davenport. The only money he found on Ferguson was $1.50. Later, officers learned the dead man had close to $160 in his shirt pockets. Simons had missed it.

 

At trial, the defense had nothing solid. Simons took back his confession. Claimed two mysterious men in a touring car had killed Ferguson, then ordered him to take Ferguson’s jeans and disappear.

 

Diana had seen a car that night. Other campers had, too. But they disagreed on who was in it, where it stopped, or what it was doing.

 

No one bought Simons’ story.

 

After four and a half hours, the jury found Harland “Gabe” Simons guilty of first-degree murder. The judge sentenced him to hang on November 16, 1925.

 

“I got a rotten deal,” Simons told the guards on the morning of his execution. A moment later, he shrugged. “I’d rather die than spend the rest of my life in prison.”

 

When the trapdoor opened, Simons stepped toward it with a spring in his step.

 

Almost eager to have it over with.