A Bullet and a Bet: The “William Tell” Killing of Dale Zeigler

A night of drinking, a reckless wager, and a single gunshot in the fall of 1947 turned a quiet Tuscarawas County farmhouse into the scene of a tragic death.

Dale Zeigler (1923-1947) came from a large family that farmed in the Ruslin Hills area of Dover Township, a few miles north east of Dover itself. Dale’s father, J. Jacob Zeigler (1880-1942), was the son of German immigrants and his mother, Helen Flaim (1891-1983) was an immigrant herself. Dale received at least a seventh grade education before he started to work in the nearby coal mining industry. By the time he registered for the World War Two draft, he worked on the drag line for the Beaver Fork Coal Company.

Dale met a New Philadelphia girl named Ella Deloris Stocksdale (1923-2012) and the couple married in Greenup, Kentucky in September 1943. The couple had two sons and, in the fall of 1947, Dale still worked in the local coal mines in the Ruslin Hills area. There he worked with two neighbors, Charles Pfeiffer (1889-1966) and Delbert Gibbs (1916-1951). Pfeiffer lived in a small one-room house in the Ruslin Hills on his parents’ old property and Delbert lived with his father, also in the same area of Dover Township.

Charles Pfieffer was briefly married to a divorcee in the early 1920s who left him with a young son to care for and Delbert Gibbs never married. The three men gathered together at Charles Pfeiffer’s one room home on the evening of Monday, November 10, 1947 around 5:00 pm. Once there the men proceeded to drink considerable amounts of beer and cider as they snacked on freshly baked loaves of bread. As the evening dragged on, and the men became more intoxicated, they also became more belligerent towards one another. Charles had a practice of shooting a .38 caliber pistol at flies on the wall, and missing, leaving his walls riddled with bullet holes.

Perhaps the men teased Pfeiffer about his ability to hit the flies, but at some point tempers flared. Delbert allegedly talked to Dale Zeigler about leaving, but both men stayed until a wager was made. Who initiated the wager was unclear but early in the morning of November 11th Dale Zeigler placed a half-full glass of water on his head for Pfeiffer to shoot at. Pfeiffer, a la William Tell, raised the .38 caliber revolver and fired a single shot. The bullet hit the 24 year old Zeigler in the head and lodged into his brain. Zeigler fell over onto the floor and, as blood pooled around him, Delbert Gibbs ran from the home.

While Gibbs ran to a far off neighbor’s home to report what happened, Charles Pfeiffer spent the next three hours hidden from law enforcement and deciding his next step. He eventually ended up at another neighbor’s house who convinced him to turn himself in. As the pair drove through Dover, Pfeiffer was identified by police and arrested. Meanwhile, Dale Zeigler underwent an unsuccessful surgery to save his life at Union Hospital and died on November 13, 1947. Charles Pfeiffer was indicted by a grand jury on the charge of first degree manslaughter five days later.

After Charles Pfeiffer pleaded guilty to first degree manslaughter, he was sentenced to one to twenty years in the Ohio State Penitentiary. Pfeiffer claimed during the investigation, and his attorney did so at his sentencing, that the killing was an accident. The prosecutors, along with Dale Zeigler’s widow, claimed that there was malice between Pfeiffer and Zeigler and that the killing was intentionally done. Regardless, Pfeiffer was paroled in November 1948 having served less than a year for the killing. Dale Zeigler is buried at the Dover Burial Park in Dover, Ohio.

Enjoy my stories?

© Noel B. Poirier, 2024.