Deputy Sheriff Charles Mortimer Kurtz

Charles Mortimer Kurtz

Deputy Kurtz was accidentally shot and killed with his own weapon while transporting a prisoner from New Smyrna Beach to Daytona Beach. He was transporting the prisoner for fear that a lynch mob was going to kill the man. When he and the prisoner reached Spruce Creek in Port Orange they discovered that the bridge had been damaged. As Deputy Kurtz bent down to replace a missing plank his gun discharged, fatally wounding him.

Deputy Kurtz had a brother and a nephew who were also killed in the line of duty while serving the Volusia County Sheriff's Department. His brother, Sheriff Jefferson Kurtz, was shot and killed on August 24, 1895, and his nephew, Deputy William Kremer, was shot and killed on December 10, 1898.