News

County crimes which change the state’s history

By Scott Wagar

12/16/2014

Editorial Note: This year marks the 100th year of one of the worse murder crimes to ever take place in Bottineau County, which happened just outside of Lansford. J.K. Karst and Albert Sisel were brutally beaten to death by Joe Milo and John Miller; and, after they were found guilty and sentenced, these murder cases assisted the state in abandoning capitol punishment in North Dakota, which took place in 1915. Here is the story which would change the history of North Dakota.

On the morning of Oct. 9, 1914, G.E. Cooper, a local farmer from the Lansford community, was traveling southeast of Lansford when his eye caught something unfamiliar near the Great Northern railroad track just outside of town. As Cooper stopped to check out what his eye had caught off the road he no doubt probably wished he had never came across what he stood and looked at, that of two men who were brutally beaten and left for dead.

Both men’s heads had been smashed in, making them unrecognizable. To make matters worse, the two men’s clothing had been ripped off their bodies, which included their shoes and socks, along with their personal belongings. 

However, items were left behind, which included a $47 draft note from the State Bank of Maxbass and a watch which had been broken in the assault with its hands stopped at 10:05, the time which authorities believed the incident occurred the night before.   
The one man was dead at the scene, while the other man lay near death and was rushed to a local hospital. The doctor’s diagnose of the man was that he would not live due to his severe head injury.

The injured man was placed in a hospital bed and made comfortable where he died two days later. He never gained consciousness from the scene of crime. 

The man left alive was J.K. Karst, and his name was on the draft note. A local resident of Lansford was able to identify Karst. The resident not only assisted in identifying him, but also told authorities that Karst’s gold watch was missing. 

Karst was from Breckenridge, Minn. He had been divorced for two and half years and was traveling the country side working on threshing crews to make a living. 

The man found dead at the scene, Albert Sisel, whose father was from Calgary, was working and traveling with Karst. 

Bottineau County Sheriff L.P. Sandstrom came quickly to the scene. Karst and Sisel were found side by side and covered in blood. There were bloody stones next to the men and they were believed to be the weapons used to kill the two men.

As Sandstrom continued his investigation he soon had a good idea who committed the crimes when he learned that two other men were with Karst and Sisel the day before when all four men came into Lansford looking for a threshing crew which was hiring. 

The men were identified as Joe Milo and John Miller and it didn’t take long for Sandstorm to get on the trail of the two suspects. On Oct. 12, Milo and Miller were captured and arrested in Fargo. 
There is some uncertainty as to who actually captured the men.

The Bottineau Courant gave credit to Sandstrom, while the Lansford Journal gave the credit to Emery Johnson, who was deputized by Sandstrom and given great praise in the Journal on how he made the arrests of the two men. 

Milo and Miller were returned by train back to Bottineau County and were placed in the county jail at Bottineau. 

While in jail, the two men were quiet while they were questioned about Karst and Sisel, but on Oct. 30 during a discussion with Sandstrom one of the suspects, Milo broke his silence and made a full confession of the murders. 

It is uncertain as to why Milo made a confession, but considering that North Dakota in 1914 was a state of capital punishment it is believed Milo spoke out in hopes of reducing his sentence to life in prison. 

State’s Attorney W.H. Adams was called in and Milo gave a full statement on how the murder took place. Milo told Adams that Karst, Sisel, Miller and himself worked on a thrashing rig together near Hurd and that after being paid they cashed their paychecks at the First State Bank of Hurd. From there they took the Soo freight line west to Lansford where they spent an afternoon and evening looking for harvest work.

They left Lansford that evening for Forfar after learning there was a threshing crew looking for men to assist them. Just south of Lansford, Milo and Miller quietly picked up stones and attacked Karst and Sisel who were walking in front them. 

Karst and Sisel were knocked to the ground by the first blow to their heads. Sisel died immediately, but Milo had a struggle with Karst who was a tall and strong individual but eventually subdued Karst, think he was dead.

Once Karst’s was unresponsive, Milo stole $50 and some cents from him and stole his gold watch. From there, the two men walked down the track and spent the evening sleeping in a haystack between Glenburn and Deering. 

In the morning, Milo and Miller walked to Deering and had breakfast and then walked to Granville. About one mile north of Granville they stopped at the Beck farm where Beck and his hired man were offered Karst’s watch for $2 by Milo and Miller. 

Beck turned the men down, but his hired man purchased the watch for the $2 offer. The two men continued into Granville where they took the No. 5 train into Minot where they stayed until Saturday morning when they boarded the #108 of the Soo Line for Valley City.

In Valley City, Milo and Miller went into town and had breakfast, and then made their way to the High Bridge on the Northern Pacific line outside of Valley City where they took the train to Fargo. Once in Fargo they were arrested. 

Miller was called in and told of Milo’s confession, but Miller denied killing Sisel and stated that Milo had killed both men. Miller added that Milo gave him $20 and threaten him by saying that if Miller told anyone about the murders he would kill him, too. 

In November of 1914, the two men went to trial but at separate times. Each trial only lasted a couple of days and both men were found guilty of murder. Milo’s jury recommended death by hanging, while Miller’s jury recommended life in prison.

On Dec. 5, District Judge A.G. Burr, sentenced Milo to death by hanging in the State Penitentiary on Friday, Aug. 13, 1915, while Miller was sentence to life in prison at the penitentiary. 

Miller took his sentence hard, and broke down in tears, but Milo showed little emotion over his sentence. The Bottineau Courant stated that within a half hour of Milo’s sentencing he was fast asleep in his jail cell. 

However, an odd incident took place in the county jail concerning Milo. It turned out Milo feared that after his death, the state would give his body to the University of North Dakota as a cadaver. An article in the Lansford Journal stated that because of Milo’s concern he sent a donation box around the jail requesting money so he could be buried, which he was able to raise. 

On New Years Day 1915, Milo and Miller were transported to the State Penitentiary. 

Milo was immediately taken to solitary confinement in a part of the state prison that was an empty tier or wing. He was placed in a cell with a veil placed in front of it to keep him from seeing and hearing what was taking place in the penitentiary. Milo was watched by guards 24 hours a day and he spent his time reading magazines, censored newspapers and being let out of his cell twice a day for a half-hour of exercise. 

The Bottineau Courant stated that Milo was well liked by the prison staff and had a friendly charm to him. The Bottineau Courant went as far to say that Milo was an “attractive person” had the “best set of teeth” of all the prisoners in the penitentiary.

During his time under suicide watch, Milo enjoyed conversations with the guards, ate well and showed no concerned about going to the gallows. When asked about being worried concerning his hanging Milo stated “What’s the use?”    

When it came to Miller, he became a model prisoner and worked hard in the prison’s twine factor. Little is known about Miller, but he did state that he had a wife and two children that were still back in “the old country.”

As the new year started so did the state legislation with one goal in mind, that of eliminating capitol punishment from the state.

Rep. L.N. Torson of Rugby introduced House Bill 33 in January of 1915 to abolish the state’s death penalty. 

A fight went back and forth between the Senate and House over the Torson’s bill, and included a number of amendments, one of which was an emergency clause to make the bill retroactive instead of waiting for the bill to become law on July 1 after the completion of a legislative assembly.

Through the political debate, Milo’s name made the headlines of newspapers in the state as to whether or not a criminal like Milo should die or be given a life sentence. 

In the final vote of the Torson’s bill the legislators voted to end capitol punishment and with the clause in the bill Milo’s death sentence was reduced to life in prison.

In the vote to eliminate capital punishment, two representatives and 12 senators voted against eliminating the state’s death sentence. One of the 12 senators who voted against the bill was Sandstrom, who resigned as the sheriff of Bottineau County after he won a state senate seat in the 1914 general election.

Writers Note: Information for this article came from the Bottineau Courant, Lansford Journal, the Maxbass Monitor and the ndcourts.gov.