Galesburg Reporter

hereInnocent fishing trip turned deadly serious

In the Stephen King novella The Body, a group of young boys goes on a quest to find a corpse, rumored to be lost in a remote area. The story inspired the 1986 coming-of-age film Stand by Me.

A similar scenario unfolded near Monmouth in the summer of 1946, with one key difference — the boys who discovered a corpse in a remote area came upon it quite by accident.

One of the discoverers, who was 13 at the time, recently related the story to me. Chuck Hart, who today lives in King George, Virginia, contacted me about researching an unsolved murder case into which he and his friends were unwittingly drawn. Specifically, he hoped to track down a photo taken of him and his fishing buddy, Tommy Smith, by a Rock Island Argus photographer after they had stumbled upon the body of the victim.

To set the scene, the city of Monmouth’s current waste transfer station on South 11th Street is located just east of a former factory which turned out sewer tile and paving bricks that provided the infrastructure for many Midwest cities. The Monmouth Mining and Manufacturing Co. (known locally as the 3M plant), had burned 25 years earlier and all that remained was a pond (a former clay pit), weeds and trees.

Along with the city dump and a police firing range known as “Bullet Hill,” the 3M site was a favorite hangout for kids in that neighborhood, including Hart, who lived at 525 South 11th St., and Smith, who lived at 1126 East 7th Ave. The property stood just beyond the city limits and the pond, which had by this time been divided into two ponds by a road leading to the city dump, was attractive for fishing and rafting.

On the morning of Wednesday, June 5, Smith, Hart and several friends had gone to the south 3M pond, intent on spending the day fishing. At about 2 p.m., Smith and Hart decided to try their luck at the north pond. After their lines became tangled, Smith went up to the road and headed east to find his own spot along the south bank, which was topped by a barbed wire fence. According to Hart, “the bank was narrow and rough and you had to pick you way along it. Tommy’s first report was, ‘There’s a man over there.’ His second on his second trip was, ‘He is sleeping.’”

Hart, who was three years older than Smith, took a look and immediately said they needed to go tell the other boys.

One of the boys at the south pond, 10-year-old Frank Galusha, remembers that day. “At first we didn’t believe them, but we went over and saw the guy, who we thought was asleep,” he said. “When he didn’t move, we threw rocks at him.”

A 15-year-old companion, Jerry Robinson of Viola, was visiting his uncle, Truman Van Tine, who ran a grocery out of his home on South 11th. According to Hart, “Jerry ran real fast back to the Van Tine place,” where his uncle called Sheriff Louie Peterson at 2:45 p.m.

After Peterson and his deputy confirmed that the victim was dead, they called Dr. Firth, the coroner. They were joined at the scene by police chief Ray Nevius and state’s attorney Henry Lewis. It was soon learned that the victim was Eldon J. Belt, 60, a widower who lived in a trailer behind the G & M filling station at 1106 West Broadway. It was also immediately apparent that Belt was the victim of murder, as a rope with a slip knot was tied tight around his neck.

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