Clifton - (Rev) Benj - guilty!
Source: Jasper County Democrat 25 Dec 1915 p 1
Crawfordsville. Ind., Dec. 23. As the children of the public schools were singing Christinas carols around the municipal tree in front of the court house here this evening at 5 o'clock, a verdict in the case of the Rev. Benjamin F. Clifton was returned, finding the former Kingman and Salem Methodist minister guilty of the theft of an automobile belonging to Thomas Harwood. The machine was stolen from a revival tabernacle here last spring. Clifton will be sentenced to one to fourteen years in the Indiana Reformatory. The trial lasted eleven days. Throughout the trial Miss Olcie Hosier, fiancee of the preacher, remained in the court room. She is the daughter of a well-to-do Fountain county farmer. Clifton was first arrested last June for the theft of automobile light tanks and was tried for petit larceny at Covington last month. The case was dismissed because of a technical error in the affidavit. Clifton, whose home is in Carroll county, has attended DePauw university and Wabash college. The preacher’s defense was temporary insanity.