POPE COUNTY, Minn. — In May 1915, a visit to the farm of the three Mitmoen brothers near Ben Wade Township led to a gruesome discovery. The two oldest brothers, Sven and Johannes (John), were found murdered in the house, while the youngest brother, Amund, was discovered dead in the barn. All three had been brutally bludgeoned with a stone, and Amund may have also been shot. The bodies appeared to have gone undiscovered for several days.
The motive behind the brutal murders was believed to be robbery, as the brothers were reported to be well-to-do and known to have a substantial amount of money in their possession. However, the exact amount taken by the robbers was unknown, although a significant sum of currency and gold, totaling $2,700, was found untouched in a bureau drawer.
Amid the absence of real suspects in the case, a reward of $1,250 was offered by the brothers’ estate, the county, and the state. However, by the time of the trial, nobody else had been charged with the murders.
In October, two men named John Jacobson and George Nelson, both from Lignite, North Dakota, were charged with the crimes and detained in the county jail. They were identified by a livery owner, George E. Wentworth, as having engaged in a “auto livery” just days before the crimes were thought to have occurred. Nevertheless, the two men were later acquitted by the jury and subsequently released.
The trial presented conflicting evidence, with some testimonies placing the accused in North Dakota at the time of the murders and others linking them to the scene of the crime. Despite the acquittal, the case remained unsolved, and no one else was ever charged with the murders.
The Mitmoen case remains a tragic and unresolved chapter in the history of Pope County, Minnesota.