Providing news to Okfuskee County since 1921.
02/27/2025
98 Years Ago
Claude E. “Shorty” Ryan – Night Officer
Okemah Police Department February 26, 1927
About 9:30 p.m. on Saturday February 26, 1927, while making his rounds, Night Officer Claude Ryan apparently interrupted the burglary of a warehouse and was shot once through the heart. Although the shot was heard at the time Officer Claude Ryan’s body was not discovered in an alley until shortly after midnight. It was discovered that one-thousand-five-hundred dollars’ worth of ci******es had been stolen from the burglarized warehouse.
Officer Claude Ryan was survived by his wife Mildred and is buried in Morse Cemetery, Okemah, Okfuskee County, Oklahoma.
A month later five men were arrested in connection with the murder of Night Officer Claude Ryan. Chester Alton Purdey, 29, Kansas prison escapee Wesley Harrison, Ralph Bainum aka “Ralph “Bob” King”, and Asa O. Pendleton were all found guilty of the murder of Officer Claude Ryan and sentenced to life in prison. Wesley Harrison was the one who shot Officer Claude Ryan. George Burch, 76, a bootlegger turned States’ Witness along with his son Bill, against the other four men who actually committed the warehouse burglary during which Night Officer Claude Ryan was shot and killed.
OLEM – 3S-3-10 NLEOM – 19W24
