Sheriff Milo Lewis was shot and killed by a prisoner during an escape from the Pulaski County Jail.

   The 29-year-old male was being held on a charge of robbery of a tavern in South Bend. His trial had been transferred on a change of venue to Starke County but their jail was considered less secure.

   The prisoner's girlfriend had hidden a gun inside a book which was given to the man during a visitation. When he asked to leave his cell to make a phone call and Sheriff Lewis complied, he pulled the gun.

   Sheriff Lewis attempted to disarm him with the jail keys but the prisoner shot several times, fatally striking the sheriff twice. He was taken to Pulaski County Memorial Hospital where he later died.

   The prisoner locked the sheriff and a deputy in a cell and fled in the deputy's vehicle, which was found abandoned at U.S. 30 and 421 in Wanatah. He was arrested in South Bend two days later, convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison.

   In November 1968, he and another inmate escaped from the Indiana State Prison in Michigan City by hiding in a garbage truck. He was captured two months later in Los Angeles in connection with an attempted rape and robbery committed there.

   Sheriff Lewis, a Republican from Winamac, was in the first year of his four-year term in office and was survived by his wife and three daughters.

Read more on our research at Honoring Our Fallen Sheriffs.