Wicked Muncie

Explore the notorious and unusual side of Muncie's history.

Muncie is the classic small American city. But for much of the past two centuries, the city fell victim to murder, corruption and the bizarre. Mayor Rollin Bunch went to prison for mail fraud, while his police commissioner faced a murder rap. Viola Babe Swartz ran a brothel out of a truck stop that was raided by police at least a dozen times but ran for sheriff in the 1974 primary election. June Holland, of the locally famous Holland triplets, killed her neighbor for refusing to sell her house.

Keith Roysdon is a lifelong writer and journalist. He is the government watchdog reporter at the Star Press in Muncie, Indiana, and has won more than two dozen first-place awards in newspaper contests. In addition to many awards for their work together, he and Douglas Walker won the Kent Cooper Award for story of the year in Indiana for their 2010 Cold Case story on Muncie's most notorious unsolved murders. Roysdon is active on social media, with accounts on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.  Journalist Douglas Walker has covered the criminal justice system in east central Indiana for most of the past three decades. For more than a quarter-century, he has served in reporting and editing roles for the Star Press and its predecessor, the Muncie Evening Press. Walker has received dozens of awards for writing, investigative reporting and public service from journalism organizations. The Ball State University graduate is an eighth-generation resident of the Muncie area.