Gundale Martindale First Female Sheriff in Iowa

Gunda Martindale

Gunda Martindale became the hero of the Bergen School murder mostly because reporters needed one to sell their papers. She didn’t ask for it, or do anything to earn it. She just had the bad luck to be the only woman sheriff in Iowa. Reporters love that kind of stuff. The headlines write themselves.

They said she led men through the wilderness, hunting a killer across the Iowa-Minnesota line, then outsmarted a lynch mob, all without pulling a gun. None of it happened, of course, but no one ever sold a newspaper by telling the truth.

When they brought Earl Throst in, the town turned mean. A crowd gathered outside the Waukon jail. They wanted blood, or something close to it. Somebody said “string him up,” and nobody argued.

The papers said Martindale “walked in the front door of the jail while her deputies, I. E. Woodmansee and Charles Hall, slipped Throst through the back and locked him up.” Maybe that’s true. Maybe it’s half true. Doesn’t matter. It sounded good. A paper out east had her saying —“I have to spring the trap on Throst, and I’ll do my duty.” Nice line, not a word of truth to it.

When it was over, Martindale tried to correct the story. She hadn’t chased anyone, had never faced a mob.She manned her desk, directing the chase from her phone. Nobody wanted to hear that version, so the lie stuck. 

People liked that story. It gave them hope.