MELVIN CHARLES HORST Melvin resided with his family near Vine Street and Paradise Street in Orrville, Ohio in 1928. He went to play with four neighborhood friends during the late afternoon hours of December 27, 1928. He was carrying a small red toy truck or wagon at the time of his disappearance; he had received the toy as a recent Christmas gift. His friends said they played in a vacant lot off of Chestnut Street near the railroad tracks. The boys told authorities that, sometime during the evening hours, Melvin announced it was late and said he had to walk home. He was approximately one block from his family's house at the time. Melvin never arrived and has not been heard from again, but the toy he had been playing with was found in his front yard. Melvin's disappearance made nationwide headlines and the media followed his story closely at the time. He vanished during the Prohibition Era and Roy was a particularly zealous enforcer of liquor laws, which incited considerable enmity against him in Orrville and the surrounding area. It was theorized that bootleggers kidnapped Melvin to get revenge on Roy, who had lived with Melvin's family until shortly before the child disappeared and was very fond of his nephew. A bootlegger, Elias Arnold, his children, William Arnold, Arthur Arnold, and Dorothy McHenry, and his son-in-law, Dorothy's husband Bascom McHenry, were arrested and charged with Melvin's abduction on January 2, 1929. Elias had spent much of 1928 in jail as a result of liquor arrests, as had several members of his family, and he reputedly bore a grudge against Roy Horst. The family lived around the corner from Melvin's family at the time. Charles "Junior" Hannah, the eight-year-old son of Elias's brother-in-law, told investigators that he saw Melvin being lured into the Arnold home on the day he disappeared. The story was corroborated by a nine-year-old neighbor. The Arnolds maintained their innocence in Melvin's disappearance and they had alibis for the time the child vanished, but Elias and Arthur were convicted and spent three months in jail before authorities learned that Junior could not have seen what he claimed he had seen from where he said he had been standing at the time of the abduction. The men were found innocent of involvement in Melvin's case during a second trial shortly thereafter. Junior subsequently accused his own father, Charles Hannah, and a neighbor, Earl Conold, in 1930. He stated that they had killed Melvin and then asked him to make up the story accusing the Arnold family. Some people believed that Melvin had been abducted and/or murdered, or that he was hit by a car and the driver panicked and concealed the evidence. Others thought that one of Roy Horst's enemies attempted to scare the marshal by instigating his nephew's disappearance. Authorities have stated that they never officially closed Melvin's case, but they doubted any new information would lead them to his whereabouts.
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