“He brought it all on himself,” they said. “He’s an asshole.” More commonly known as “Tattoo” for the ubiquitous blue ink covering his face, convicted felon Michael C. Knuth had served his time for “Agg Battery/Great Bodily Harm” and “Felon Poss/Use Weapon/Firearm” and was back on the streets of Lincoln drinking, drugging and causing trouble. By the end of the day, July 20, 2009, Knuth was hospitalized and under arrest; this time for the first-degree attempted murder of Lincoln Police Chief Stuart Erlenbush, former first-responding Logan County sheriff’s deputy on the 1976 Schneider triple homicide, who later became an Illinois State Police Lieutenant, retired, and was appointed LPD Chief in 2007. The professional opinion of John Marshall Law Professor F. Willis Caruso was that the resulting September 2010 jury trial was a “circus,” and it was doubtful Knuth had even fired a shot.
(By Bonnie J. Thompson, Copyright 2015, 2016)
