Rufus Littlejohn, Not Quite a Horse Thief

One of the reasons I was so excited to find a document placing my 2x Great-Grandfather Rufus Littlejohn in Cleveland, Ohio in 1923 is because I'd recently found an interesting newspaper article about a man of the same name in the same place:

This snippet was carried in the 16 December 1922 edition of the Richmond Palladium and Sun-Telegram (Richmond, Indiana). Other stories from Ohio were also carried on the same page.

Given that there were no other Rufus Littlejohns in Cleveland at this time, this has to be my 2x Great-Grandfather. And, as I'll share in later posts, Rufus had a "colorful" stretch of years, so I had my suspicions as soon as I saw this article. I have so many questions about this incident! Was he actually trying to steal the horse? Is there a court or police record related to this? If so, what do they say? Who did the horse belong to? Where did Rufus take the horse? What did the horse's owner do when he or she discovered it missing?

I want the story so bad, y'all!