But as they neared the car, from inside a female voice cried, “Take that, you *#*#* !” A single shot rang out, then the car sped away. Mike was too stunned to do more than flinch. Paul crumpled to the pavement and died almost immediately. Police arrested Florence Kitoff just hours later. She had a once-fired revolver in her handbag.
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| Florence Kitoff. Seattle Times photo. |
Mike told police that she’d probably meant to shoot him and simply missed. No, Florence declared, Paul had indeed been her target. He had prevented a reconciliation between her and Mike. How shooting the brother was supposed to help was unclear, although it’s possible she hadn’t meant to actually kill him. And it’s likely her muddled thoughts had deep roots.
Florence (Vadnais) Kitoff was born July 21, 1897 in Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada. Both her parents, Richard and Eleanor, had violent tempers and quarreled a lot. Her father was also a particularly “bad drunk,” and had made enemies. Thus, in late January, 1909, an unknown assassin gunned him down, shooting through a kitchen window. Florence was off attending school at a convent in Lethbridge, so she did not have to witness the murder like her brother did.
Besides the home ranch about forty miles southwest of Lethbridge, the family had property near Butte, Montana. Thus, after the murder, Eleanor moved the family to Butte. Florence would later claim that she had been “married off” as a child bride against her will. In reality, early on the morning of August 17, 1916, she and a young miner, Earl Miller, drove to an adjacent county where the county clerk married them.
Florence could be very charming, and the newspaper society pages gave the impression that she had many local friends. Yet she had also “inherited” a volatile temper from her parents. Later, she averred that she had even more trouble controlling herself after she suffered a severe head injury in a motorcycle crash. Thus, at various times, she blew up and physically assaulted her mother’s Butte husband (Eleanor had remarried), her own husband, and even her brother.
That behavior and later events suggest that Florence had some form of “bipolar disorder” (BD). Modern scholarship thinks that BD has a strong hereditary component, and cases can be triggered by head trauma. Sadly, she never received any professional treatment. Thus, we cannot know if she exhibited the classic BD cycle, or possibly some other “dissociative” problem.
Finally, in December 1922, her husband filed for divorce. During her angry outbursts, Earl noted, she “picks up any article or weapon and throws it at him.” He had literally begun to fear for his life. The divorce was granted, although the exact date is unknown. After that, Florence’s whereabouts cannot be reliably traced until she appeared in the 1927 Seattle City Directory as “Mrs. Florence Kitoff.”
Little is known about Mike Kitoff, somewhat more about Paul. The family – whose actual surname was “Kaitukoff” – was originally from the Caucasus region of Russia, between the Caspian and Black seas. They must have immigrated to Canada before 1911. Paul moved to Seattle that year, when he was about 18 years old. Mike followed three years later, when he turned 18. Paul worked in San Francisco long enough to get married and have a son there, while Mike seems to have stayed in or around Seattle.
The next we hear of Mike was in December 1926, when his liquor “joint” was raided by federal Prohibition Agents. Of course, such operators considered the resulting fines simply part of the cost of doing business. Meanwhile, about this time, Mike and Florence must have met and gotten married. We don’t know how or where.
But the marriage was not a happy one. In 1929 and 1930, Florence filed petitions for divorce on the grounds of cruelty, but those actions went nowhere. She said that was because Mike had promised to mend his ways, but it’s also possible she could offer no proof of an abusive relationship. Another request filed in February 1931 was apparently still in limbo three months later.
On May 23, Florence told a police clerk she spent a lot of time home alone and needed a weapon to feel safe. With permit in hand, she then went to a pawn shop and bought a revolver. At various times afterwards, she would say she didn’t know why she’d taken the gun to her meeting with Mike, or simple didn’t remember anything at all about the incident.
Two “alienists” (psychiatrists) examined her in jail just before her scheduled trial on a first degree murder charge. They concluded that she suffered from “fear hysteria” that might not subside until her fate was decided, but was otherwise normal and lucid. About then, however, Florence changed her “not guilty” plea to “not guilty by reason of insanity.” Her trial date was pushed back into the fall.
In his opening statement, the main defense attorney made a surprise announcement. Florence Kitoff had an adopted daughter, 8 or 9 years old, whom she had spirited way to California to protect her from an abusive household. She refused to reveal, even to her lawyers, where the girl was. After that, the attorney painted a picture of a woman who had been mentally as well as physically damaged by a tumultuous, unhappy life.
Still, much of the trial was routine. Eye-witnesses to the shooting offered the usual mix of observations, some conflicting, about the incident. Criminologist Luke S. May identified Florence’s revolver as the death weapon. Several witnesses said Florence had told them that Mike beat her, but none could swear to having seen any signs of actual physical abuse. The defense next offered testimony that Mrs. Kitoff was “irrational” at times in her ordinary dealings with people. A former landlord said that she seemed charming and friendly most of the time, but could also be “a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde – two entirely different persons.”
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| King County Courthouse. Library of Congress. |
Florence finally took the stand in her own defense. She blamed everything on her husband, who had physically and mentally abused her. That only added to the trials she had undergone back in Montana. Her mind was blank about the shooting itself and she had no idea how killing Paul might have helped her situation.
She now described her (alleged) child as an adoptive niece who was still a baby, deprived of any joy for Christmas by an absent, hard-drinking father and no money for holiday food or presents. Later in her testimony, Florence said she had sent the girl away so she wouldn’t have to bear the stigma of a mother accused of murder. Significantly, no other witness – defense or prosecution – had seen a child living in the household. In fact, extensive research failed to uncover any hints that such a person existed.
Prosecutors never called Mike Kitoff to the stand. Letting the defense cross-examine a convicted “jointist” of uncertain temper, speaking in a thick foreign accent, probably seemed like a potential disaster. Certainly not worth the risk for what little he might add to the state’s case.
After a week of argument and rebuttal, the case went to the jury. They soundly rejected the first degree murder charge, but declared her guilty of manslaughter. Despite a plea for leniency by the defense, the judge imposed the maximum sentence for manslaughter: five to twenty years in prison. However, Florence initially spent only two years in prison before she was paroled.
She received a divorce from Mike at the end 1934. The following June, in Seattle, she married one A. B. Coleman (the name he signed on the marriage certificate). They moved to Lewiston, Idaho, where Florence operated a barber shop. That fall, Florence was jailed for stabbing and slashing her husband in a fit of anger. Those charges were dropped when the husband admitted he’d been drunk and had perhaps provoked the fight. However, while she was in jail, it came to light that her parole had been revoked. Thus, so far as we can tell, Florence spent the next two or three years back in the Washington penitentiary.
Finally, on January 30, 1939, she married for a fourth time. Her new husband was Arthur A. West, an auto mechanic. By the time of the 1940 U.S. Census, the couple had relocated to Juneau, Alaska, where Florence again operated a barber shop. She died there from cervical cancer in October 1947.
By an odd coincidence, Mike Kitoff also died in Alaska. He had moved to Fairbanks in 1937 to engage in mining exploration and investments. He passed away there from “a chronic ailment” in November 1955.
| References: Charles J. Long and Leslie K. Ross (editors), Handbook of Head Trauma: Acute Care to Recovery, Plenum Publishing Corporation, New York (1992). |
| “[Kitoff Case Background],” Butte Miner, Montana; Seattle Times, Washington; Lethbridge Herald, Alberta, Canada (February 1909 – February 1931). |
| [Kitoff Murder and Afterwards],” Seattle Times, Washington; Anaconda Standard, Great Falls Tribune, Montana; Lewiston Tribune, Idaho; Fairbanks News-Miner, Alaska (May 1931 – November 1955). |
| Luke S. May, Luke S. May Papers, Special Collections, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington (1969). |
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