The Brightside Road Killing: The Death of Asbury S. Fowler

A feud between two Tuscarawas County neighbors ended violently on a Goshen Township road in 1924.

Asbury S. Fowler (1870-1924) was born in Warwick Township, Tuscarawas County, Ohio, the son of George W. Fowler and Susan B. Burroway. He grew up in the Uhrichsville area alongside several siblings and half-siblings. Fowler married Eva Stempfly in January 1892, and together the couple had five children. Fowler lived much of his life in Tuscarawas County, working and raising his family in communities such as Barnhill and Goshen. By the summer of 1924, the Fowler family lived in the Goshen Township community of Brightside.

One of their neighbors at that time was Emmet Augustus Frantz (1887-1964) who was born in Goshen Township, Tuscarawas County, Ohio, to Joseph J. Frantz and Mary Elizabeth Shane. He grew up in a large family that included several siblings and spent his early years in Tuscarawas County. Frantz, in his youth, worked for a railroad. During those years Frantz lived in several Ohio communities including Guernsey County, Lorain, and Dover. He married married Minnie Lillian Shipley in Londonderry, Guernsey County, Ohio in July 1913 and the couple raised three daughters.

The Fowler and Frantz families were feuding for months, for reasons never given in later newspaper accounts, when in August 1924 that feud culminated in violence. Frantz, engaged in dragging the road that passed by Fowler’s property, claimed that Fowler emerged from his home wielding a heavy club and threatened to kill him if he passed again. When Frantz returned with his team and grader, Fowler allegedly advanced toward him, and Frantz fired two shots in the air as a warning but Fowler kept coming. A third shot from Frantz’s .38-caliber revolver struck Fowler in the arm and shoulder, severing an artery and puncturing a lung. He died almost instantly, collapsing in front of his wife and son, who witnessed the shooting.

Following his arrest, Frantz was arraigned on a charge of first-degree murder but entered a plea of not guilty. During questioning, he maintained that he acted in self-defense, insisting Fowler had repeatedly threatened both him and his family. Authorities searched for the club that Frantz claimed Fowler carried, but none was found, leading some to question the veracity of his account. The coroner’s inquest, attended by Fowler’s widow, who witnessed the shooting from about fifteen feet away, and their son, confirmed that the fatal bullet had entered from the front, just below the shoulder.

Despite the gravity of the charge, Frantz appeared calm and deliberate when interviewed in jail, he expressed neither remorse nor fear. He told reporters that he believed his actions were justified to protect himself and his family, and that his wife supported him, having also allegedly been threatened by the Fowlers. Frantz was able to post bond as he waited for his impending trial, a trial that an October grand jury decided would be on the charge of manslaughter rather than first degree murder. The trial of Emmet Frantz took place in December 1924 in front of a jury of twelve men.

The trial lasted for two days and the defense presented twenty-one witnesses to speak on behalf of Frantz. The most damning testimony from the prosecution came from Fowler’s wife and son, who both claimed that Fowler was not holding the club presented as evidence by the defense. When the case closed, the jury took only two hours to reach a verdict of not guilty. The vindicated Emmet Frantz eventually moved to Canton, Ohio where he lived until his death in 1964. Asbury S. Fowler, meanwhile, was buried in the East Avenue Cemetery in New Philadelphia.

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© Noel B. Poirier, 2025.