About PoCo Stories

PoCo Stories is a PoCo Muse podcast that explores the people, places, and moments that have shaped Porter County. Drawing on newspapers, photographs, public records, firsthand accounts, and other historical sources, each episode goes beyond the familiar version of a story to uncover the people and circumstances behind it—and to connect Porter County’s past with the places and communities we know today.

Whether you listen at home, on the road, or while exploring Porter County, PoCo Stories invites you to discover the history all around us.

The Murder of John Pelton and the Execution of Francis Staves

In 1838, Francis Staves was convicted on circumstantial evidence of murdering John Pelton and became the only person legally executed in Porter County. This episode examines the crime, trial, and public hanging—and how later retellings obscured Staves’s insistence that he was innocent to the end.