Augusta, MI Private Plane Crash, Nov 1953

FORMER MICHIGAN GOVERNOR KILLED IN AIRPLANE CRASH.

Battle Creek, Mich. (AP) -- KIM SIGLER, who rocketed to the Michigan governor's chair seven years ago after a sensational grand jury expose, plummeted to his death late yesterday in a fiery plane crash. Three companions died with him.
SIGLER'S own four-place plane, threading its way through a dense fog, snagged onto a guy wire supporting a 540-foot television tower. The impact sheared off one wing and sent the fuselage hurtling into a woods three quarters of a mile away, where it chrashed and burned.
The 59-year-old Republican ex-governor presumably was at the controls.
The other victims were SIGLER'S secretary, MRS. RUTH PRENTICE, 41; her sister, MRS. VIRGINIA SCHUYLER, 28; and MRS. SCHUYLER'S husband HAROLD, 37, of Lansing.
The crash scene was near Augusta, in northeast Kalamazoo County.
SIGLER and his party were returning from a combination business-pleasure trip to Louisiana.
It was believed that because of the fog SIGLER might have been coming in for a landing at Kellogg Field, only three miles from the tower.
In the mid-1940's SIGLER, as special prosecutor for a one-man state graft grand jury, was responsible for indictments against more than 100 legislatures and lobbyists. Many of them went to prison. Bribe taking to influence votes was exposed.
After a bitter feud over continuance of the grand jury, SIGLER took a fling at politics in 1945.
By a thumping majority of 340,000 votes, he defeated Democratic Incumbent MURRAY D. VAN WAGONER.
But after one two-year term, SIGLER, was unseated by present Democratic Gov. C. MENNEN WILLIAMS by 164,000 votes in a surprising political nosedive. He returned to his law practice in western Michigan.

Jefferson City Post-Tribune Missouri 1953-12-01
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Researched and Transcribed by Stu Beitler. Thank you, Stu!