Jane Simon Ammeson

A Jazz Age Murder in Northwest Indiana Jane Simon Ammeson

Nettie Herskovitz was wealthy and widowed. Her suitor, Harry Diamond, was a dashing young bootlegger a decade and a half her junior. At first she resisted his advances, but soon the two were married with an infant daughter. Disinterested in a domestic life, Diamond shot Nettie on Valentine s Day 1923 while riding in their Hudson sedan. He tried to pin the crime on the fleeing chauffeur, but Diamond made a mistake. Though mortally wounded, Nettie lived long enough to identify her attacker to police and change her will. The sensational Diamond murder became tabloid fodder a Roaring Twenties story of roadhouse floozies, illegal booze, orphaned children, trust funds and legal acrobatics."