The Judge's Portrait Facing the Wall: She Said He Pushed Me

The Judge's Portrait Facing the Wall: She Said He Pushed Me

Fear and small-town secrecy hang thicker than dust in the Fenwick courthouse: a judge’s portrait has faced the wall since 1971, a brass nameplate still readable, and forty private letters reveal one woman’s claim that she was pushed off a bridge in 1922. Who quietly ordered a respected judge’s face hidden - and why did the town reaffirm that choice fifty years later?

In this episode, we follow the documents, dates, and personal letters that tie a courthouse decision to a single patient intake form and a series of Tuesday-night notes. The episode traces Cheryl Evans’s account of October 1922, the procedural dismissal that followed, and the physical evidence that the portrait’s reversal was intentional - but who made that choice?

Person: Cheryl Evans
Case: Evans versus Farris
Date: October 3, 1922
Location: Cass River, Fenwick
Event: Portrait restoration tag dated March 1971

- The portrait of Clement Farris has hung face to the wall in the east corridor since 1971.
- Cheryl Evans wrote approximately forty letters to her sister every Tuesday from 1923 through at least 1938.
- The county physician’s intake form for October 3, 1922 records her injuries and notes "Found by W. Colp."
- The case Evans filed was dismissed on October 29, 1922 by Judge Clement Farris.
- A paper tag from Arno's Hardware dated March 1971 reads "Portrait restoration - hold for courthouse, do not return."

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