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The widowed daughter of a once socially-prominent pioneer Warsaw family was found murdered in her modest Winona Lake home at 1102 E. College Ave. on Feb. 6, 1963, according reports in local media. The brutally stabbed and bludgeoned body of Mrs. Louise White Bolinger, 56, an employee of the bindery department of the nearby Free Methodist Publishing House since 1956, was discovered in the single-car garage by a fellow employee, Albert Wilson. She was clad in pajamas and housecoat.
According to John Benson, superintendent of the Free Methodist Publishing House, Bolinger had worked for his firm for seven years and was known to be a pleasant woman, active in the Warsaw Presbyterian Church. Authorities said she had been stabbed three times in the back and that there were cuts on her head. State police said they had “no indication of the identity of the slayer or a motive.” There were no signs of struggle in the house, and a survey by neighbors indicated that nothing was missing except her purse. Bolinger, who was estranged from her husband, had been living alone since the death of her mother five years previously.
Law enforcement immediately began searching for clues. The entire student body of Grace College and Seminary, which was located several blocks from the murder scene, was interrogated during the investigation to see whether anyone had information that could lead to an arrest.
Seventeen days later, on Feb. 22, it was announced that officers had cracked the case with the confession of Mark Alvin Wilson, 18, of 383 N. Detroit St., Warsaw. The youth, whose father had discovered the victim’s body, broke down and admitted to the brutal slaying during questioning at the county jail. He said robbery was his motive.
According to newspaper accounts, the slightly built youth sobbed out to officers how he went to the Bolinger home on the night of Feb. 5 with the express purpose of robbing the widow so that he and his 16-year-old girlfriend could elope. Wilson was indicted by a grand jury on a first-degree murder charge a few weeks later, but the jury did not return an indictment against Wilson’s 16-year-old sweetheart, Juell Daisy, of Warsaw. Daisy had admitted being with Wilson when he hid the weapon used to beat Mrs. Bolinger.
Kosciusko County Sheriff Howard “Sam” Holbrook was named "Indiana Sheriff of the Year" by colleagues attending the annual state Sheriff's Association convention at Terre Haute in October 1963. The high honor was earned, in part, for “helping bring about a speedy conclusion to the Louise White Bolinger murder case last February, one of the most brutal in the county's long history.”
Wilson pleaded guilty to a second-degree murder charge on April 20, 1963, and threw himself on the mercy of the court. He was sentenced to life imprisonment by Judge B. Lee in circuit court on April 24, and was immediately sent to the Indiana State Prison at Michigan City. He could be eligible for parole in 15 to 20 years. The newspaper noted that “he is one of the few from this county ever sentenced to a life term.”
News reports on Sept. 2, 1970, announced that Mark Alvin Wilson, 26, who was serving a life sentence for the Feb. 5, 1963, bludgeon murder of a Winona Lake widow had escaped from the Indiana State Prison at Michigan City. Two days later he was returned to the prison after having surrendered to officers at Calumet City, Ill.
Wilson served his sentence, was paroled, and returned to Warsaw. The Warsaw Times-Union reported that on Monday, July 28, 2014, Mark Wilson, 70, of Warsaw, passed away in his home. His obituary said, “He graduated from Warsaw Community High School in 1962 and was a lifetime resident of Warsaw.”
