A Dastard's Deed
First they Quarreled and Then Kenneth Blake Kills William Rowley
The Murderer Boasts of His Work and Quietly Leaves the Community
Article taken from The Portsmouth Times, September 23, 1893
Kenneth Blake is a murderer and a fugitive from justice. He was a blacksmith and lived with his family at Harrisonville, this county. William Rowley, a farmer of the same neighborhood, was his victim and according to the evidence already at hand the killing was one of the most audacious ever committed in the county. Our special correspondent at Scioto P. O. sends us the following brief account of the affair:
"A cowardly crime was committed Saturday evening about four o' clock, on the public highway, near George Clark's about sciotoville. Kenneth A. Blake, while coming from town, met William Rowley, insulted, challenged him to fight, then shot and killed him instantly. Rowley, we judge, was about thirty-five years old and was considered in most respects a fine man. He leaves a wife two children with many friends. The funeral was preached by M. H. Brown, at the old Presbyterian church, of Pleasant Valley, Sunday about three o' clock. The house would not begin to hold the congregation present.
Blake the man who did the shooting, while he has not done any crime before, was considered by many as a hard character. At last reports he was at large, having came home after doing the deed, and then taking to the woods and has not been seen since. Wesley Boyer and one of his boys was with him when he struck down his victim. He leaves three boys by his first wife, from whom he was divorced, and one child by his last. The boys will probably carry on the business, that of wagon-making and blacksmithing."
It seems that at the bottom of the crime was an envious feeling between the two men. When they met a quarrel arose about the workmanship of Blake on a wagon he had made for a customer. The lie was passed and the two men alighted from their vehicles and started toward each other. Blake drew his revolver and shot Rowley who died immediately.
The strangest and most unaccountable feature of the murder is the fact that Blake boasted to several person that he had killed Rowley and yet the perpetrator of the deed walked out of the community and is still at large. Those who witnessed the murder and those to whom Blake confessed his deed were dazed by the audacity of the man, and not one thought of trying to prevent his escape.
Saturday night Dr.'s Lottridge and Bing, of this city, held a post mortem examination on the body of the murdered man. Sunday Coronor Davidson held an inquest and took the testimony of several important witnesses, among them John Rigrish, Henry Lantz, Chas Purdy, Jesse Lee, George Clark and William Irwin, to all of whom Blake told his story; and Wesley Boyer, with whom Blake was riding, and who witnessed the murder.