The first week of December in 1928 was unusually cold in Walla Walla, Washington, with temperatures barely rising above freezing during the day. Luckily, the cold snap broke on Sunday, December 9th. Attorney John W. Brooks, a widower, was playing cards and chatting with a new housekeeper he had selected the day before, Mrs. Gertrude Bershaw. About 5:30 p.m., they heard a knock at the front door.
Brooks rose and called out for the knocker to “Come in.” They were shocked when a man marched in with a revolver and pointed it at Brooks. A red bandana with eye holes completely masked his head. The housekeeper, understandably shaken, later gave confused accounts to the police. She did consistently state that Brooks said, “You can have anything I have,” assuming it was a robbery. The intruder may or may not have said something, but then shot Brooks twice in the chest, before leaving without a word.
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| Walla Walla, ca 1928. City of Walla Walla. |
John Watson Brooks was born September 9, 1870 in Asheville, North Carolina. He earned a law degree from the University of North Carolina in 1892 and reportedly moved to Walla Walla the following year. He married Esther Belle Singleton, daughter of Walla Walla Valley pioneers, five years later. The couple had a daughter in 1899, but she died at the age of six.
By 1903, Brooks’ practice had grown enough for him to take on a partner. He was active in Republican party politics and served two terms as city attorney for Walla Walla. Besides all that, John invested in real estate, both lots in the city and ranch properties in the region. Sadly, Esther Belle died in October of 1922. Brooks did not remarry, but paid a succession of ladies to tend house for him. As noted above, he had decided to hire Gertrude Bershaw just before he was killed.
Gertrude Konen was born March 21, 1885 in Green Bay, Wisconsin. It’s not clear when she moved west, but she married Frank Bershaw in November 1910 in Nez Perce County, Idaho. In 1920, they were living in Clarkston, Washington, just across the river from Lewiston, Idaho. At that time, they had a son and and a pair of fraternal twins, a boy and a girl. Sadly, her husband suffered a severe fall in September 1924 and died from his injuries. To make ends meet, Gertrude sought work as a housekeeper. After Brooks was murdered, she returned to Lewiston, where her teenaged children were still living.
About a month after the murder, authorities offered a $500 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the shooter. (That’s equivalent to nearly $16 thousand in consumer spending power in today’s economy.) The award paid off just under a month later when an informant told police that one Robert Lee Wilkins had made vehement threats against the attorney.
When police investigated, Wilkins was evasive, but his sixteen-year-old son, Alfred, eventually blurted out that, yes, his father had shot and killed Brooks. Officers also found a revolver of the right caliber in the father’s belongings. They sent it to private criminologist Luke S. May for examination. A few days later, they received May’s preliminary report that the revolver was, “in all likelihood,” the death weapon. Thus, police felt they could proceed with confidence against Wilkins and his son.
Robert Lee Wilkins was born February 8, 1886, probably on a farm south of Fort Worth, Texas. Soon after, the family moved to Idaho … the father died in Grangeville in May 1887. When Robert went out on his own, he took up farming in northern Oregon. In October 1910, he married Emma Robinson in Portland. Two years later, they were living in Walla Walla, where Alfred was born. Before the spring of 1918, they moved back to Idaho. There, Wilkins operated a farm until about 1924. They then returned to Walla Walla, where Robert worked as a laborer and general handyman.
Under added pressure, Alfred told police that he had driven his father to the Brooks place. All the boy knew was that his father wanted him to see the man who had “broken up my home.” Only after he heard shots did he realize what had happened. Robert expected to be arrested right away (it’s unclear why, since he was well masked). Thus, he had written an account that exonerated the boy of any part in the crime. When nothing happened after several days, Robert decided he was free and clear, and burned that account.
After he was arrested, he was uncooperative at first. Then he more or less acknowledged that he had shot Brooks. But his guarded remarks led officials to suspect he’d plead some variant of an “unwritten law.” That is, he felt obligated to punish Brooks for breaking up his happily married life.
That changed after Robert retained a defense attorney. To start, he now admitted that he had shot Brooks. As an aside, that saved the county the cost to bring in Luke May to testify about the death weapon. The defense agreed to stipulate that fact. (May probably didn’t mind since he had seven or eight case files open, including three other murders.) Wilkins did not, however, plead guilty to murder. It seemed clear that he would claim mental irresponsibility, even insanity, brought on by the breakup.
Alfred recalled an interesting item from the burned notes. Wilkins had stated that while he was in the hospital with a broken leg, Emma had visited Brooks several times. It’s unclear when this was supposed to have happened. We do know that Emma later supported herself by working as a domestic cook and housekeeper. We might speculate that, with her husband laid up and unable to work, Emma had sought a temporary job with Brooks. We don’t know one way or the other. Still, a jealous husband, upset by his inability to be the bread-winner, might read anything into these circumstances.
Robert and Emma separated in the spring of 1928. It’s not known where Alfred lived after that, but it was evidently not with either of his parents. Robert claimed that Brooks had corrupted his wife with booze and parties. He insisted that the town was laced with scandalous talk about it. If only some people would come forward “and tell all they know about Brooks,” officials would understand. Investigators, however, found not even a hint to support these claims.
When the trial began in mid-March, Alfred proved to be an uncooperative witness against his father. He limited his answers to a mumbled “yes” or “no” as the prosecutor basically read his earlier statements into the trial record. Thus, if he knew any more about the trouble between his parents, he mentioned none of it during the trial.
Wilkins’ defense team failed to put even one witness on the stand to support his allegations against Brooks. All they could find were people who knew the Wilkins as a happy couple before the breakup. And Robert maintained throughout that he wanted to resume his life with Emma. Even so, the defense did not have her testify. Nor would they agree – required under Washington law – to let the State put her on the stand. Thus, we never do hear her side of the story.
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| Robert L. Wilkins. Spokane Chronicle (August 15, 1930). |
In any case, prosecutors countered with devastating effect. They found a number of witnesses who testified that Robert was the one fooling around. He and another man even went off on a jaunt to Oregon with two women … neither of whom were Emma. One witness was a thirty-year-old hotel cook and former “confidant” of Wilkins. She asserted that Robert had said, “She [Emma] was getting old and wasn’t even pretty any more.” Less than 38 years old when they separated, Emma was, in fact, more than four years younger than her husband.
The jury took only a few hours to return a “guilty” verdict, and to recommend the death penalty. After the usual appeals, Robert Lee Wilkins was hanged in the early hours of August 15, 1930.
Alfred does not appear in available public records until a decade after his father’s execution. He does show up in the spring of 1935, when newspapers reported that he had been sentenced to the Washington state reform school for stealing some tires. He was out by 1940, when he and a wife were recorded in the census for Yakima. At that time, he was working at an auto wrecking yard. Alfred died of a sudden heart attack on a visit to Walla Walla in the summer of 1946.
As noted above, Emma became a domestic servant after her separation from Robert. In 1930, she had found a spot in Umatilla, Oregon. She gave her status as “widow” to the census taker, although her husband was still alive at that point. (Robert gave his marital status as divorced.) A month after Robert was executed, Emma married sawmill worker George Darlin. They lived in central Oregon for many years before returning to the Umatilla area around 1941, then retired to a place near La Grande around 1955. Her husband died there in 1963 and she passed away in 1988.
| References: ““[Brooks Murder News],” Evening Statesman, Walla Walla, Spokesman-Review, Spokane, Bellingham Herald, Tacoma Daily Ledger, Seattle Times, Washington; The Oregonian, Portland, Oregon (October 1902 – July 1946). |
| Luke S. May, Luke S. May Papers, Special Collections, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington (1969). |
| Michael J. Paulus Jr., “Walla Walla – Thumbnail History,” Online Encyclopedia of Washington State History, HistoryLink.org, Seattle, Washington (February 26, 2008). |
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