While Ford opposed the Church, he also claimed to oppose the anti-Church faction that eventually drove them from the state. In the aftermath of the assassinations, Ford ordered the arrest and trial of Thomas C. Sharp, a newspaper editor in Warsaw, Illinois who had often printed disparaging and derogatory remarks against Smith and the Latter-day Saints. Sharp, who had printed calls for violence leading up to Smith's murder and celebratory remarks shortly after the killing, had briefly fled to Missouri to avoid trial. Upon his return to Illinois on Ford's orders, he was later acquitted of all charges.