Photo: Paul R. Burley, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
John Donaldson Voelker was born in Ishpeming in 1903. He studied law at the University of Michigan and returned home to practice.
He served as Marquette County prosecutor for 14 years.
Anatomy of a Murder
In 1952 Voelker defended an Army lieutenant accused of killing a tavern owner in Big Bay. He used a temporary insanity defense and won an acquittal.
He turned the case into a novel, “Anatomy of a Murder,” published in 1958 under the pen name Robert Traver. It became a best seller.
Director Otto Preminger filmed the movie version in Marquette County in 1959, with James Stewart, Lee Remick and Ben Gazzara. Scenes were shot in the Marquette County Courthouse, in Big Bay and in Ishpeming. The film was nominated for seven Academy Awards.
The bench and the stream
Voelker was appointed to the Michigan Supreme Court in 1957 and was elected to a term. He left in 1960 to write and fish.
His books on fly fishing, including “Trout Madness” and “Anatomy of a Fisherman,” are still loved by anglers. He died in 1991. His favorite fishing spot, Frenchman’s Pond, became part of his legend.
