Mysteries at Lake Thomas

Stevens County, Washington contains a number of picturesque mountain lakes east of the county seat in Colville. They have been popular vacation spots since the early Twentieth Century. (Most were on private homesteads until the late Thirties, when they were purchased under a New Deal federal program and absorbed into the Colville National Forest.)

Early Lake Thomas. U.S. Forest Service.

Near mid-May, 1932, sisters Blanche Richardson and Leona Stevens drove the 25 miles or so out from Colville to ready the family-run resort on Lake Thomas for the summer season. The property most likely still belonged to their father, who was now spending more time back in upstate New York. The resort included a number of rental cabins, and a structure that housed a store, post office, and living quarters with bedrooms on the second floor. Only one cabin was occupied, the renter being Arthur E. Carssow, a Colville druggist on a fishing excursion.

On the evening of May 16, a car parked in front of the store and Harry Chitwood, Blanche’s former husband, got out. The year before, she had filed for divorce, which was granted … with a provision that allowed her to re-assume her previous married name. The tragedy that followed left many unanswered questions, which started with the murder itself.

In early news reports, sister Leona said that Chitwood “entered the store and started shooting without warning.” And Stevens County Sheriff Dick Bone opined that “the slaying probably was the result of jealousy.” Of course, the sheriff arrived at the scene after Blanche died and while Chitwood was on the run. He did not identify a subject of Chitwood’s jealousy.

Within hours, that story changed. Leona now claimed that Chitwood came into the store and demanded that Blanche give their marriage another chance. He then dragged her to the car so they could return to town. She, of course, said that it was all over between them.

In this new version, Leona said the two were inside the car when Harry pulled out “a heavy revolver” and shot Blanche three times. However, reports do not mention blood, bullets, or bullet holes in the car. In any case, Leona screamed when he shot Blanche, so Chitwood supposedly fired a warning shot in her general direction. Then he ran into the forest. We have no notion of why he didn’t just drive off in the car.

Leona helped her sister upstairs so she could rest on a bed, then called the sheriff. Blanche soon died, and Leona apparently fainted. Still, she was downstairs when a wounded Arthur Carssow stumbled into the store. He claimed that he had rushed from his cabin to investigate the gunfire and encountered Chitwood on the trail. Harry had supposedly yelled something about his wife committing suicide, and then shot Arthur twice. Leona again helped the victim to a bed. Later, he was transported to a hospital in Colville, where he was “not expected to live.”

Mount Carmel Hospital, Colville. Hospital history

Chitwood turned himself in to authorities the next morning, and freely admitted that he had killed his wife. If he said why he shot Carssow, that explanation never made it into the newspapers. Authorities filed first degree murder charges against Chitwood three days after the shooting. Meanwhile, Carssow’s resilience had surprised the physicians who removed the bullets from his stomach. News reports said, “They were hopeful of his recovery.” Also, arrangements were being made to send Blanche’s body back to New York.

Blanche Mildred Hills was born in March 1893, in Chautauqua County, New York, where her family had been early pioneers. She first married when she was just fifteen years old. The couple had had no children when her husband died by drowning, the victim of an accident or possibly a robbery and murder.

A year later, Blanche married Neil Richardson. He was 23 years old, she now 21. They had a daughter, Jennie, in late 1915. Sadly, Blanche’s marriage to Richardson fell apart some time around World War I. We don’t know why they split, but records show that Neil entered the Army in early 1918 and spent over a year in France.

Where Blanche and her daughter spent the next three or four years is unknown. However, her father had relatives in Washington state, and possibly Oregon. For years, he and Blanche’s mother had made trips to the West in search of possible investments. By late 1918, they had moved to Stevens County. A newspaper item shows they owned the property on Lake Thomas in the spring of 1920. Blanche certainly followed them west because, in Portland around 1922, she married Harry M. Chitwood.

Born in Oregon, Chitwood married there first in 1906, when he was about twenty-four years old. That marriage ended within two or three years, but we don’t know how or why. In 1915, he married again, in Vancouver, Washington (just across the Columbia River from Portland). That ended by divorce, in early 1919, on the grounds of infidelity.

Blanche and Harry spent five or six years in Portland after their marriage, with Harry working as a chauffeur and bus driver. They then moved to Stevens County. In 1930, Harry gave his occupation as “resort proprietor,” but – as noted above – Blanche divorced him a year later. The grounds were “non-support and cruelty.” She continued with the family business while Harry drove for an outfit that transported freight and passengers between Colville and Spokane.

A few days after the shooting, Sheriff Bone sent evidence for the case to criminologist Luke S. May in Seattle. May was not hired to come view the crime scene directly. Exhibits included a Smith & Wesson .32-20 revolver surrendered by Chitwood, and a Colt .38 Special revolver. May also received four bullets. One had been removed from Blanche’s head and was the only one of the four where tests detected traces of blood. (The other two fatal slugs were apparently lost.)

The second bullet May received had been found on the ground near the resort headquarters. However, it was too badly “mashed up,” as May put, to have any use as evidence. The final two bullets came with no provenance. (We’ll return to those in a moment.)

S&W .32-20 Revolver

May dated his report on Friday, May 27. The Smith & Wesson left rather faint marks on test bullets. As could be expected, the fatal slug was slightly distorted. Worse yet, the medical examiner had done a crude job of extracting it with forceps. Still, with his trained eye, May managed to verify that the Smith & Wesson had fired the fatal bullet.

However, he also warned county officials that, in his expert opinion, enlarged photographs of the comparison would be essentially useless as court exhibits. Jurors would only “see” the conspicuous scratches left on the death bullet by the forceps. Prosecutors would be hard pressed to get them to ignore that and correctly judge the faint, slightly-distorted barrel marks. He advised them to send him a bullet “from the man who was wounded.”

May found that the Colt 38 Special had “one very distinctive mark on one of the lands,” allowing him to prove that the other two bullets were from that gun. However, he also discovered a splotch inside the barrel that had become corroded since those slugs were fired from the weapon. He wondered how that had happened.

In his reply letter, the sheriff informed May that the .38-caliber revolver belonged to Arthur Carssow. The slight corrosion was easily explained: Leona Stevens had spilled booze on the gun when she handed the wounded man a drink. This was the first mention anywhere that the druggist had a weapon, and that it had been fired. That information never appeared in the newspapers, ever.

The rest of the sheriff’s reply is rather puzzling, given the sequence of events. He said that it would be “some time” before they could “supply you with any more bullets.” As noted above, Carssow had proven amazingly resilient after his operation. By the end of the month, his physicians were sure he would recover, barring a sudden setback.

Yet here, on June 1, the sheriff was saying Carssow had “two bullets in his stomach,” and was in no condition to have them removed. Also, he said “let this case rest until you hear from our office again.” May replied two days later. He would “await further orders” and reiterated that a bullet from Carssow “will undoubtedly be of much more value to us than the bullet taken from the head.” A couple days after that, local newspapers reported that Carssow would be back at work the next day.

Another month passed. Then, on July 7, Sheriff Bone wrote to say, “Please be advised that we do not choose to go any further in the Chitwood shooting case as we have gathered evidence now that will put him away for some time.”

However, no jury ever heard any facts about the case. That fall, Chitwood pled guilty to second degree murder and received a ten to fifteen year prison sentence. He would spend less than seven years in prison for murdering Blanche and almost killing Arthur Carssow. In fact, he wasn’t even charged for the attack on the druggist. Why not? We don’t know.

A brief item in a Spokane newspaper on February 23, 1933 raised more questions. Carssow was suing Sheriff Dick Bone for the loss of his car in a garage fire “several months” earlier: “The car had been struck by bullets and was being held by Sheriff Bone in a local garage as evidence.”

That was the only hint to the public that another gun and more shooting had been involved in the Chitwood-Carssow case. The number of gaps in the open records, even with May’s papers, invites several interpretations of what actually happened. A few could be quite sinister. However, we might blame some of the problems on the fact that Sheriff Bone was “in over his head.”

Originally from Tennessee, Kelly K. “Dick” Bone moved to Washington after 1900 and married there in 1910. He claimed a homestead, but in 1914 purchased a country restaurant on the main road about fourteen miles south of Colville. That venture apparently did not do well. When he registered for the draft in 1918, he was working as a night watchman. After some time as a village constable, he became a Stevens County deputy sheriff in 1923. He was appointed sheriff four years later.

Bone had zero training as an investigator or law enforcement officer. He served as deputy under two sheriffs who were equally untaught, being former farmers and stockmen. The county Prosecuting Attorney would have been no help either. A former merchant, he hadn’t been to college or law school. After “reading” law to qualify around 1916, he had handled mostly commercial cases before being elected Prosecutor in 1930.

They hired criminologist May, but provided no useful context beyond the fact that one bullet came from the victim’s head. The S&W .32-20 revolver is a powerful weapon. Where did the other Chitwood bullets go? Surely there were blood stains? Moreover, without testing, they had no physical evidence to prove he shot Carssow. For that matter, where did Bone find the two slugs fired from the Carssow weapon?

This list of unanswered question goes on and on. However, barring a revelation in a newly-discovered diary or memoir, we shall never know what really happened out by the lake on that deadly day.
                                                                                

References: “[Background: Chitwood-Richardson Murder],” Buffalo Evening News, Springville Journal, New York; Oregon Daily Journal, Portland, The Oregonian, Portland, Oregon; Spokesman-Review, Spokane, Colville Examiner, Spokane Chronicle, Washington (April 1899 – (July 1930).

“[Chitwood-Richardson Murder Sequence],” News-Tribune, Tacoma, Spokesman-Review, Spokane, Bellingham Herald, Seattle Times, Spokane Chronicle, Washington (May 1932 – February 1933).

Craig E. Holstine, Forgotten Corner: A History of the Colville National Forest, Colville Statesman-Examiner, Incorporated, Washington (1987).

Luke S. May, Luke S. May Papers, Special Collections, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington (1969).

David Wilma, “Stevens County – Thumbnail History,” Online Encyclopedia of Washington State History, HistoryLink.org, Seattle, Washington  (November 5, 2006).

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Jealousy – Even Justified – Is A Deadly Sin

Weather in Port Townsend, Washington for the weekend before Christmas of 1930 was “normal.” That is, they had temperatures in the forties, with occasional blustery wind and rain showers from the somber overcast. Lulu Hilsinger decided to lighten the mood. Husband George was off at nearby Fort Worden, doing whatever an Army warrant officer did on a Sunday afternoon when he had to work. She most likely persuaded her two children, aged sixteen and eight, to go visit friends.

Fort Worden, Washington

Then she and her friend Shirley invited their boyfriends over. We have no photos of Lulu, but she was clearly an attractive woman. Despite her age (she was 42 years old) and the children, she had gained the fond attentions of Homer Cameron, a local carpenter who was just 24 years old. Shirley, ten years younger than Lulu, was also married, but separated from her husband. She too had attracted a youthful admirer, a soldier who was a year younger than Cameron.

The couples danced and, at times, Shirley played current romantic tunes on a piano while everyone sang along. It’s unclear how long this had been going on when George walked in unexpectedly. He became livid with anger and ordered Cameron out of the house.

Cameron may have hesitated too long, so the soldier went after him with his fists. But George, almost fifty years old and in shaky health, lost. In fact, he received a black eye for his troubles. With humiliation added to anger, George began shouting curses and threats at Lulu. The two young men tried to hold him back, but he broke free and started at her. She later claimed that she called out a warning, but the others could not recall one way or another. Then Lulu shot, hitting him in the forehead with a .32-caliber bullet. He died almost instantly.

Military officials opened a brief inquiry having to do with family benefits, but civil authorities  carried on after that. Lulu was charged with first degree murder, and prosecutors scheduled her trial to begin in mid-March, 1931.

Lulu Traylor was born in July 1888, in Louisiana. She married Chester H. Peters in McLennan County, Texas (near Waco), in October 1911. Peters was white, so that entailed some risk and/or subterfuge. At that time, most southern and some northern states strictly enforced laws against interracial marriages. And for both the 1900 and 1910 censuses, Lulu and her family were identified as persons of color – “mulatto” in the 1910 census. But Lulu could successfully “pass” for white (she would be listed as white in later censuses).

Chester and Lulu had their first child, a boy, in 1913. Chester worked for the railroad and moved around, so their daughter was born in San Antonio, in January 1921. But some time after that, the couple divorced, with Lulu retaining custody of the two kids.

We don’t know when or where she met George Hilsinger, a long-time veteran of the U.S. Army. Born around 1882 in New Hampshire, George enlisted in August 1905. Available records don’t say where he spent World War I, but he was at a base in Wisconsin in 1920. He was then married, but must have divorced not long after that.

Records show that Hilsinger did have duty stations in Texas, so that is presumably where he met and married Lulu. The family lived in the Philippines from late 1922 until the summer of 1924. On the return trip, Lulu told the boarding agent that she was 29 years old, trimming about six years off her age.

But all was not well in the Hilsinger household, and the couple divorced some time in the next year or so. Still, the two worked things out and they remarried in April 1928. At that time, George was stationed at Fort Worden, a coastal defense and training station. Lulu remained consistent for the 1930 census taker, giving her age as 35 (she was actually over 41).

Despite the apparent reconciliation, acquaintances reported that the couple quarreled a lot. There also seemed to be evidence of physical as well as verbal abuse. Later, Lulu would assert that she was again considering divorce.

The death weapon naturally became a matter of interest. “Some weeks” before the shooting, Cameron had tried to give Lulu an automatic pistol. One may presume he wanted her to have some protection against George’s abuse. But Lulu apparently refused to keep the gun around. On the day of the shooting, Cameron had the pistol in his coat pocket. He naturally set his coat aside at the start of the party. When the fistfight began, Lulu retrieved the weapon, fearing what might happen … rightly, as it turned out.

When the case came to trial, Lulu’s attorneys pled temporary insanity, and self-defense. Oddly enough, criminologist Luke May logged this case as a handwriting assessment, not a firearms investigation. (Prosecutors must have already had all they needed for the weapon.) May was hired to examine recent letters to Lulu that had supposedly been written by George when he was away on an extended trip. Luke verified that they were indeed from husband to wife.

Lulu basically claimed that she panicked because her husband had previously been cruel to her, inflicting physical as well as mental harm. And she had proof of that, including at least one broken leg or ankle. The prosecution countered with George’s letters, which were apparently warm and affectionate.

Beyond that, prosecutors pointed out the odd circumstances involving the death weapon. And Lulu certainly was “fooling around” on her husband, although it was unclear if she and Cameron had a sexual relationship. In the end, the jury found her guilty of second-degree murder.

Then the case went to the state Supreme Court on appeal. That court found several questionable factors in how the prosecution handled the case. But the critical problem came in the instructions from the judge to the jury. As required by law, the judge outlined the legal criteria necessary to find a defendant guilty of first-degree murder, versus second-degree murder. The key difference was “premeditation,” or lack thereof.

However, early in his instructions, the judge said, “The killing of a human being is murder in the second degree when committed … without premeditation.” In doing so, he left out some crucial wording from the statute: “unless it is excusable or justifiable.” The judge did mention the notion of “justifiable” in his later summing up. However, the Supreme Court decided his approach only served to confuse the jury. The court reversed the verdict and sent the case back for retrial.

Because of all the publicity for the first trial, a change of venue was granted. The new jury heard the same evidence, including the indications of Lulu’s unfaithfulness. From that, they could sympathize with George’s anger. But his past abuse, plus his seeming to “fly off the handle” also gave them reason to believe that his wife had good cause to fear bodily harm. Weighing all the factors, the jury found her “not guilty” of murder, acknowledging her right to “stand her ground” in the face of an imminent physical attack.

During the protracted legal battle, Lulu had sent her children back to Texas to live with relatives. After the ordeal, she returned there and found a job as a waitress. She also reverted to her first married name of “Peters.”
                                                                                

References: “[Hilsinger Shooting],” Daily Olympian, Olympia, Seattle Times, Bellingham Herald, Washington; The Oregonian, Portland, Oregon  (December 1930 – October 1932).

Luke S. May, Luke S. May Papers, Special Collections, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington (1969).

Charles Frank Robinson II, Dangerous Liaisons: Sex and Love in the Segregated South, The University of Arkansas Press, Fayetteville (2009).

State v. Hilsinger, 167 Wash. 427, 9 P.2d 357 (March 29, 1932).

Photo credit: Fort Worden Site & Facilities Plan, Washington State Parks and Recreation Commission, Olympia, Washington (August 2008).

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Sad End of a Long March

November 26, 1921, the Saturday after Thanksgiving, was overcast and chilly in Wenatchee, Washington. Temperatures were in the high forties, but the showers of the previous few days had blown on through. Jacob Weber’s hearing wasn’t so good any more and he walked with a cane, but he was pretty spry for a man approaching 78 years of age. He decided to go for a late afternoon walk. Jacob had tramped successfully through years of what most consider the deadliest war in U.S. history. This march – walk – would not end so well.

Sadly, a tragically wrong rumor, perhaps no more than a casual remark, fueled what happened. For some time, a youth gang had been meeting at a local pool hall to plan thefts – burglaries and outright robberies. Money was the obvious motivation, but some seemed to be in it mostly for the thrills. On this afternoon, two of the group (there might have been a third) decided to check out the notion that the old guy visiting from Nebraska was carrying a lot of cash.

Picking an empty bit of street near where Jacob was staying, they confronted him and demanded his money. Jacob could tell from the voices and builds that the would-be robbers were mere boys (they wore only rudimentary masks). Not intimidated, he immediately whacked the nearest one with his cane. Stunned at the unexpected resistance, the bandits backed off and started to run away. Then, surely out of spite at the humiliation, one turned and fired three shots, hitting Jacob once in the midriff.

Jacob reached the local hospital alive, but there was little hope for his survival. He did manage to give passable descriptions – clothing, build, hair, etc. – of at least two of his assailants. In a sad, bitter scrap of irony, the juvenile criminals were about the same age as Jacob had been when he joined the crusade to save the Union and end slavery.

Jacob Weber was born on January 15, 1844 in Ripley County, Indiana, an area of scattered settlements in the southeast corner of the state. After his father died in 1856, the boy was apprenticed as a cigar maker, which would set the main course of his life.

Jacob Weber, ca 1862. Family Archives

Before that life could begin, however, Jacob enlisted in the Seventh Indiana Infantry for duty in the Civil War. Just seventeen years old, he marched off to war with youthful hope and optimism. The Seventh Indiana fought in all the great battles in the east, including Antietam, Gettysburg, and the Siege of Petersburg. By the end, even after consolidation with other remnants, only a company-sized contingent remained on active duty. Jacob was among the fortunate few who were still there to witness the surrender of General Lee’s Confederate army at Appomattox Courthouse.

It’s unknown what Jacob did for the early years after the war. However, on November 9, 1871 he married Eva Egelhoff. Two or three years later, they moved to Pawnee City, Nebraska, about 58 miles southeast of Lincoln. Jacob started a cigar-making business, and he and Eva would live there until early 1921.

Jacob and Eva had three children who survived to adulthood. Their son, William, married in 1893, but the couple had no children and the wife died in the fall of 1919. In 1920, he was back in Pawnee City. Daughters Lula and May Carrie married and between them gave Jacob and Eva a grandson and three granddaughters. In 1920, Lula’s family lived in Dodge City, Kansas, while May Carrie’s family was in Wenatchee, Washington.

In February of 1921, William married again. The ceremony was performed in Wenatchee, and it seems almost certain that Jacob and Eva attended the wedding. Eva’s health had deteriorated and they hoped “a more agreeable climate” might help. Apparently it did, because she was able to attend a “Nebraskans in Washington” reunion in April.

The family also began planning a Golden Anniversary celebration for Jacob and Eva in Wenatchee. Daughter Lula even came from Dodge City to help with the arrangements. Sadly, Eva’s health took a turn for the worse and the great day came and went. She was still bed-ridden when Jacob went for his fateful walk.

Right after the shooting, police rounded up seven members of the youth gang, which they had been keeping an eye on anyway. Shocked at the sudden change, several of those held began blurting out confessions to robberies around the area. Two names eventually emerged which, for reasons that will become clear, we will call Tom and Dick.

The older of the two, Dick, had been born in Chelan county. He was about 17 years old and his family had always lived in, or within a day’s travel of, Wenatchee. Tom, the slightly younger youth, had been born in Oregon, but the family had moved to Wenatchee by 1907. Those local connections would become an important factor in subsequent events.

Jacob Weber died three days after he was shot. Shortly after that, his wife awoke in her sickbed, and asked desperately to see him. Family members managed to calm her, but she surely sensed the worst … and soon passed away herself. A double funeral was held in Wenatchee on December 2. Then the bodies were transported to Pawnee City and buried side by side in the cemetery there.

Tom and Dick were charged with murder and went on trial in April, 1922. Prosecutors probably sensed they had an uphill battle. Newspapers repeatedly emphasized that the suspects were “just boys.” Few wanted to believe that two “kids” from well-known local families could do such a terrible thing.

Jacob’s dying words, and witnesses who had seen the two near the murder site, pointed to Tom as the shooter. Criminologist Luke S. May appeared on the stand to identify the kind of gun used. However, the death weapon was never found, and officials failed to find any witness willing to say that Tom owned a weapon.

One of May’s agents provided testimony that should have been the clincher. He had gone to jail posing as a safe cracker and mingled with the prisoners. Tom not only admitted shooting the old man, he showed off the mark where the veteran had smacked him with his cane.

The defense made little effort to counter any of that. They went straight to an alibi. Their witnesses claimed to have seen the two downtown, well away from the robbery site, at the time of the shooting. None could offer any hard evidence – a purchase receipt, perhaps – to support their contentions, but they were “sure” when they had seen the boys. Still, under cross-examination, one such witness admitted that Tom’s grandmother had pressured her into changing her time recollection to more closely fit the preferred story. That should have seriously shaken the defense, but was apparently shrugged off.

In fact, according to post-trial accounts, the jury never even considered the first degree murder indictment. They finally split on a lesser charge, so a new trial began in June. The opening defense statement set their confident tone. Despite the obvious instance of witness tampering, they would again rely on the time alibi. Also, the defense would show “that neither boy admitted any knowledge of the shooting to reputable citizens of the city.”

May’s agent had posed as a criminal to obtain key information. That entailed considerable risk to himself, since police informers sometimes end up dead. But … he was an outsider and even ordinary folks seemed to consider the practice somehow disreputable. The second jury brought in a “not guilty” verdict.

Tom, the admitted shooter, managed to stay out of the news for a time. However, later reports suggest he may have engaged in petty theft throughout the following years. He did get married in the spring of 1925, and fathered two daughters over the next few years. The girls did not see a lot of their father, however, because he spent the time in and out of jail. That included at least one grand larceny charge, to which he pled guilty. At the time of the 1930 census, he was confined at the state reformatory.

Tom made the news in a big way in 1931. Events included a jailbreak (he was soon captured), at least two forgery counts, and, finally, a trip to the state penitentiary. We don’t know how long he spent in prison, but his wife divorced him some time before 1937. The last reliable public record for him was in Missoula, Montana in 1943, when a second wife obtained an annulment.

In one small sense, Jacob’s sad death was perhaps not totally in vain. After the trial, Dick also stayed out of the news. But unlike Tom’s probable rap sheet, records show that Dick settled down to work on his father’s farm northwest of Wenatchee. In 1931, he married and began raising a family. After the repeal of Prohibition, he opened a tavern and game room in the area. He registered for the draft in 1942 and may have served some time in the Marines.
                                                                                

References: Frederick H. Dyer, A Compendium of the War of the Rebellion, Part 4, The Dyer Publishing Company, Des Moines, Iowa (1908).

Luke S. May, Luke S. May Papers, Special Collections, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington (1969).

“[News Relevant to Weber Murder],” Lincoln Journal, Lincoln Star, Nebraska; The Olympian, Olympia, Spokesman-Review, Spokane, Leavenworth Echo, Spokane Chronicle, Bellingham Herald, Chehalis Bee-Nugget, Washington; The Oregonian, Portland (April 1921 – July 1931).

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