John E. Moore, a 42-year-old White/Caucasian man, was serving as the chief of police in Stanley, Wisconsin, when an attempt to carry out a warrant ended in his death on March 9, 1901. Moore had joined a Clark County deputy who was attempting to serve a warrant on a suspect wanted in connection with a domestic-violence matter. The officers traveled into the Town of Thorp, where the encounter became deadly. Moore was struck by gunfire seven times in the chest and was killed.
Historical accounts sometimes refer to him as Stanley’s city marshal, while law-enforcement memorial records identify him as Chief of Police John E. Moore of the Stanley Police Department.
Historical newspaper material preserved from the Thorp area identifies Wojech Sowa as the person who killed Moore. Although the surviving online accounts provide few details about the moments immediately preceding the shooting, they connect Sowa directly to Moore’s death in the Town of Thorp. The available records do not provide a detailed description of Sowa’s apprehension, including exactly when or where he was arrested, nor do the surviving summaries specify the precise criminal charge filed against him. What is clear is that the case moved rapidly into the courts following Moore’s killing.
By May 1901, Sowa had been prosecuted and sentenced by Judge O’Neil to 14 years of imprisonment. A historical transcription of the Thorp Courier also records that a request for a new trial was denied. The brief surviving account does not preserve the testimony presented in court, the precise verdict language, or whether there were additional charges associated with the confrontation, but the prison sentence establishes that Sowa was held criminally accountable through the court system for the events surrounding Moore’s death.
The case continued to surface in local newspapers years after the conviction. In 1906, the Thorp Courier reported that an application seeking a pardon for Sowa was to be filed with Wisconsin Governor James O. Davidson. In describing the reason Sowa was imprisoned, the newspaper explicitly identified him as the person who had killed Stanley city marshal Moore in 1901 in the Town of Thorp. The surviving online account does not establish whether the governor ultimately granted or rejected that pardon request.
Moore’s killing began as what would ordinarily have been the service of a warrant and instead became a fatal confrontation involving a local police chief assisting another county officer. The gunfire ended Moore’s career and resulted in Sowa receiving a lengthy prison sentence only weeks later. More than a century afterward, Moore is remembered in law-enforcement memorial records as a Stanley police chief killed by gunfire in the line of duty, while the surviving local newspaper archives preserve the name of the person responsible and the sentence that followed.
