Type of Officer: Deputy Sheriff
Jurisdiction: Leavenworth County
County: Leavenworth
Death Date: 8/26/1944
Added to Memorial: 1987
Circumstances of Death: Gunshot
On January 22, 1944, Arthur Lathrop, just paroled from the state penitentiary in Lansing, stole a car in Leavenworth, wrecked it, and was picked up by passing motorist Ernest Elston. Lathrop forced Elston to drive him to Tonganoxie, where he boarded a bus Elston saw Deputy Freeman and informed him of the incident. Freeman ordered Lathrop from the bus, and as Lathrop exited, he shot Freeman. Paralyzed from the waist down, Deputy Freeman took his own life in August of that year, after being told he could not survive the wound.
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