The Indiana Klan's influence was diminished in 1925 after Stephenson kidnapped and raped local educator Madge Oberholtzer, who died soon afterwards in large part due to a staph infection she obtained as a result of the injuries Stephenson inflicted on her during this ordeal. Though it was acknowledged that Oberholtzer's decision to attempt suicide by swallowing mercuric chloride tablets contributed to her kidney failure, it was determined through an autopsy that the injuries Stephenson inflicted on her were also sufficient enough to kill her because the staph infection which resulted from them had reached both her lungs and kidneys. The autopsy also determined that Oberholtzer also might have been saved if Stephenson had not refused to take her to a hospital while he took her hostage; in her dying declaration, Oberholtzer claimed that she recanted her decision to allow herself to die and asked Stephenson to take her to a hospital, but he refused to do so because she would not agree to marry him. In November 1925, Stephenson was convicted of second degree murder and was given a life sentence. In addition to the rape and murder, evidence released during his trial gravely weakened the Indiana Klan's propaganda when it was revealed that Stephenson, who had often defended Protestant womanhood and Prohibition in public, was in private a womanizer and an alcoholic. With the Stephenson affair damaging the Klan's image as upholders of law and morality, their influence on American society was severely crippled by 1926.