Daniel Carver

Carver, 50, dies unexpectedly of heart attack

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October 3, 2001 - Harrison County Sheriff William E. (Bill) Carver, 50, Elizabeth, will be laid to rest today.
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Carver, a Republican, was in the third year of a four-year term.He was expected to seek a second term.

At the funeral home, "McGruff, the Crime Dog," wearing his long tan trenchcoat, stood to the left of Carver's casket, seemingly watching over his old partner.Carver donned the McGruff suit often during his career as a police officer and traveled to schools and public events to talk, especially to children, about the evils of crime.

"That's how everybody knew my dad," said his daughter, 22-year-old Fairy Belle Carver-Blankenship of Corydon."I'm really proud of him."

Carver was also a strong advocate of the Emergency 911 communication system and fingerprinting children.He hired the sheriff's office first female police officer, Carmen Gibson.

Carver's untimely death "caught everyone off guard," Pirtle said, because the sheriff had not seemed ill. "He was his usual, cheerful self Friday," Pirtle said."Everybody is kind of in a daze.Nobody saw this coming."

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Neither did his wife, the former Cloris Wiseman, who had served as receptionist in the sheriff's administrative office since Carver took office in January 1999.
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Carver complained of severe chest pains on the way, so he and his wife stopped by his doctor's office because he suspected pneumonia.
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Carver was born April 10, 1951 in Corydon, son of Ernest Eugene Wright of Colorado Springs, Colo., and the late Betty Lou Carver Carter.
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Besides his wife, daughter and father, Carver is survived by two sons, Daniel Carver of Elizabeth and James D. Thomas of the Netherlands; five brothers: Terry Carter of Corydon, Michael Carter of Elizabeth, Bobby and Jerry Ems and Billy Wright, all of Colorado Springs, Colo.; four sisters: Delores Carter of Hardinsburg, Ky., and Judy Cole, Bonnie Peterson and Tammy Gelfinger, all of Colorado Springs, and a grandson (Bradly Blankenship, his daughter's 4-year-old stepson).
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Carver is only the fourth Harrison County sheriff to die in office since Harrison County was organized as the fourth county in Indiana in 1808.

Yandell Babcock died suddenly in December 1928.

Two others were killed in the line of duty: Spier Spencer, Harrison County's first sheriff, was killed at the Battle of Tippecanoe in November 1811, and Sheriff Col.
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Tributes to the life and police career of William E. (Bill) Carver of Elizabeth, who died Saturday of a massive heart attack at age 50, have been plentiful.
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"He was a good officer, the kind of officer you never get a complaint on," said former Harrison County Sheriff William (Bill) Heishman, who hired Carver, a Corydon marshal at the time.
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"Bill was a good person," said Harrison County Republican Committee Chair Larry Shickles, who worked with Carver as a police reservist, jailer and dispatcher from 1985 through 1987.
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I always have," said former Commissioner Ed Emily, a Democrat who served as a volunteer reserve officer under Carver.