In Lee County, Illinois, the Banditti were most active in 1843-1850, after the lynching in Ogle. During that period, crime and gang operations were rampant throughout the Mississippi Valley, but Lee County, like its neighboring northern Illinois counties, had consistent activity. Near the Lee County village of Franklin Grove, a brutal double murder was committed in 1848. On May 20, 1848, area resident Joshua Wingert, while searching through the grove 2 mi (3 km) west of town for his cattle, came upon a small log hut. Inside, he discovered the bodies of two men, killed with their own axe. One of the men was nearly decapitated, and the other had a large gash across his forehead. The assumed motive was robbery, as the hut was ransacked and bloody fingerprints were all about the small building. The Banditti perpetrator or perpetrators were never apprehended.