A hiker's discovery of two bodies in 1868 was the beginning of one of the strangest murder cases in post-Civil War Indianapolis.

The victims, Jacob Young and his wife, found in a clump of willows on the west bank of White River, near the area Riverside Park now occupies.

Both had been shot to death, and a gun was found near their bodies.

After the bodies were found on September 13, police wove a web of circumstantial evidence around three persons. They were Nancy E. Clem, her brother, Silas W. Hartman and William J. Abrams.

The gun found near the bodies had been purchased by Abrams, police learned.

Detectivies soon focused on Nancy Clem. All evidence put the burden of guilt on her.

For some time, investigators found, she had been involved in a strange "loan" system under which she borrowed from one creditor to pay another, building huge debts and at times threatening creditors by warning that she would claim they were involved in illegal schemes if they pressured her for their money.

Police believed the Youngs were in cahoots with her, and were murdered for a large sum of money they had.

From his jail cell Hartman wrote an elaborate confession intended to exonerate his sister, and actually establishing his own guilt.

He was found dead in his cell -- his throat slashed -- the night the confession was to be printed in newspapers. Abrams, his cellmate, came under suspicion but was not charged.

Nancy Clem was convicted twice in the Young murders but each time regained freedom through legal manuevers. The public was outraged.

Abrams, sentenced to life imprisonment, was pardoned in 1878.

Nancy Clem was convicted finally of perjury. Her prison term: four years.