A Jazz Age Murder in Northwest Indiana: The Tragic Betrayal of Nettie Diamond

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Nettie Herskovitz was wealthy and widowed. Her suitor, Harry Diamond, was a dashing young bootlegger a decade and a half her junior. At first she resisted his advances, but soon the two were married with an infant daughter. Disinterested in a domestic life, Diamond shot Nettie on Valentine’s Day 1923 while riding in their Hudson sedan. He tried to pin the crime on the fleeing chauffeur, but Diamond made a mistake. Though mortally wounded, Nettie lived long enough to identify her attacker to police and change her will. The sensational Diamond murder became tabloid fodder–a Roaring Twenties story of roadhouse floozies, illegal booze, orphaned children, trust funds and legal acrobatics.