A memorial for Kelly Eckart at the intersection of Earlywood Drive and Graham Road in Franklin is pictured in 2005.
Daily Journal Archives
News from around Johnson County as reported on Aug. 8 in the pages of the Daily Journal and the Franklin Evening Star from the last 112 years.
On this day in 2005, the main story on the front page of the Daily Journal was about roadside monuments were serving as both signs of remembrance and caution.
“White crosses, flowers, wooden plaques, lights and stuffed animals honoring the dead adorn several roadsides in Johnson County,” the story began.
“The cross and angels provide a place of comfort for some families. For others, they serve as a painful remind. And for some passers-by, they serve as a warning to drive carefully.”
The Daily Journal looked at four monuments across Johnson County.
The first was for 18-year-old Kelly Eckart, where a single white cross with a name at Earlywood Drive and Graham Road in Franklin marked the spot where she was kidnapped from her car. The Franklin College freshman was abducted in late September of 1997 by Michael Dean Overstreet and later killed.
Connie and Dale Sutton, Eckart’s mother an father, viewed the cross her college friends erected with mixed emotions.
“I think it’s good. It reminds people,” Connie Sutton said.
A cross at mile marker 95 on Interstate 65 marked the spot where Johnson County Reserve Deputy Tracy Miles was struck by a car on May 28, 1999, as he stopped to help a motorists near the Whiteland exit. Every spring, Tina Miles, his wife, took flowers and her two sons to the mile marker to remember her husband.
A metal cross painted blue with white clouds marked the coroner where Eric Biddle died on May 23, 1999. About 10 minutes after he left his parents’ Trafalgar home to visit his cousin, the 15-year-old was killed after the vehicle he was riding in was struck by a car at the intersection of State Road 252 and Nineveh Road.
Peggy Biddle added a stuffed toy lamb to the cross to remember her grandson Eric, whom she called her little lamb.
Molly Gibson’s friends painted a 12-foot butterfly on the pavement where Molly died on Feb. 22, 1998, at the intersection of State Road 44 and Centerline Road. But Pam Gibson didn’t know if the butterfly or cross still existed.
Instead, she preferred going to her daughter’s grave in Franklin, she said.
