 |
| Early Cle Elum. Central Washington University |
A strong season would also be good news for Abram Perry and his “second hand” store – something like a pawn shop, but generally without the loan service. At the time, ski shops as we know them were confined almost entirely to New England and eastern Canada. Customers would surely find their way to his place on First Street to try out this new thing, or to upgrade their skis, sleds, and toboggans.
Born around 1866 in New Brunswick, Canada, Abraham G. Perry moved to this country around 1885 and became a naturalized citizen three years later. Soon after, he took a job as a coal miner near Cle Elum. A first marriage in late 1890 lasted less than a year because Abram, as he began to call himself, proved to be an abusive husband. He married again in 1896, to Alena “Lena” LeCole. By then, coal had been discovered right in Cle Elum, and the town boomed. It incorporated in February 1902, and Abram opened his first store some time the following year.
Perry prospered along with the town, even more so after 1915, when Cle Elum became a popular stop on the new main highway across central Washington. However, some time during that period, the Perrys chose to separate (they had no children). Abram retained the store, while Lena owned a farm property near Cle Elum. There’s no record that they ever divorced, although Abram gave that status for the 1920 census. Lena simply told the census taker that they “lived apart.”
As time passed, locals came to believe that Perry was “one of the wealthiest men in Upper Kittitas County.” He did not, however, trust banks – which tended to “go bust” with alarming frequency during that era. (That really began to look like a smart move, as the Great Depression ruined even more financial institutions.) Still, rightly or wrongly, it became “common knowledge” that Perry had caches of money hidden all around the store and his attached living quarters. The consequences were tragic.
On the afternoon of January 25, 1933, the Cle Elum mail carrier found the door to Perry’s store locked. Peering inside, he saw the storekeeper sprawled on the floor, not moving. Concerned, he forced the door and found that Abram was dead from a gunshot in his back. A flashlight lay near the body, but no weapon. Abram was known to keep at least one revolver under his pillow, so the killer had most likely taken it away with him. News reports never said how he got into the store.
Also, there’s no way of knowing why the intruder gunned down the old man, rather than simply disarming him. Perhaps he feared that Perry would recognize him. He supposedly got away with $2,000 in cash. He did not take time to pry open the “old fashioned” combination-lock cash drawer, which contained another $800. A coat of fresh snow with drifting due to strong winds during the night covered any traces of how the killer had come and gone.
The coroner retrieved a .30-caliber slug from Perry’s back, and estimated that he had been killed on the evening of the 24th. Officials must have immediately consulted with private criminologist Luke S. May. News reports the day after the body was found identified the death weapon as a German Luger automatic pistol … in the lighter .30-caliber (technically, 7.65 mm) model.
With that information, police in Ellensburg arrested two armed suspects that same day. A deputy then delivered their weapons – one a 7.65 mm Luger – to May in Seattle. May could ignore one gun, since it was the wrong make and model. The Luger automatic was not, however, the death weapon. With so little to go on, the investigation soon stalled and then basically went cold.
Not just anyone can run a “second hand store” successfully. (It takes a particular mix of personality, knowledge, and bargaining skills.) Thus, we don’t know what happened to Abram’s business after he was murdered. Most likely, Lena operated it for some time while she sought a buyer. Meanwhile, a year passed with no results on finding her husband’s killer. We don’t know exactly when she wrote a letter to the governor pleading for action. But as a result, in May 1934, the governor had the State Patrol assign two detectives to the case. Of course, they had no more to go on than the original investigators, and made no progress either.
However, we may infer that they kept the case active with periodic bulletins and requests for information. That finally paid off in December. A rancher who raised fruit in an area just north of Yakima provided the breakthrough. News reports are vague on some key points about why he came forward. However, circumstances suggest that he spoke up after Yakima police arrested one Lee Harrison on an unrelated burglary charge.
Edgar Lee Harrison was born February 7, 1894 in a rural area about fifty miles east of Springfield, Missouri. In late 1917, he moved to the Yakima Valley in Washington. He married a Yakima waitress in January 1920, and soon began using “Lee” instead of Edgar for most business and personal matters. The marriage lasted only until about 1924. They had no children. During that period, Lee learned how to operate a steam locomotive.
He remarried in November 1928, to Minnie E. Cargo. However, he was laid off from the railroad in 1931 and had to make do with odd jobs. Also, police apparently began to view Harrison as a possible suspect in a number of local burglaries. They might even have picked him up for questioning on some cases. In any event, solid evidence was lacking until he was actually arrested in December 1934.
Harrison had worked for the fruit rancher during the summer of 1933. The rancher overheard him talking about the Perry murder and asked him about it. Harrison claimed that he and an accomplice had pulled off the job. He later gave at least a dozen slightly different versions of the story. Thus, the rancher apparently decided it was all just a big brag to make himself look like a “tough cookie,” and never reported it. But now, Harrison was revealed to be a bone fide burglary suspect. Perhaps there was something to the talk after all.
Confronted about the Perry story, Harrison admitted that he had burglarized the store and shot the old man. Besides identifying the murder weapon as a German Luger, he also provided details that could have been known only to the perpetrator. But he also claimed that he wasn’t entirely to blame. The intrusion had been provoked by a man named Jack Slagle, of Bellingham. In the fall of 1932, he had started talking up all the money Perry supposedly had hidden around his place. He had finally badgered Harrison into joining the venture. The police should go after him too.
John B. “Jack” Slagle was born September 27, 1887 at a place 80-90 miles east of Wichita, Kansas. He moved to Washington before 1910, settling a few miles from the Canadian border, midway across the state. He married there in November 1913. The bride’s maiden name was Vera Sophia Ethel, but after two or three years she began using the name “Veva.” The couple had three children by 1920 – two sons and a daughter. Starting about that time, Jack’s name began to appear in the news for violations of gambling and liquor laws. He perhaps wore out his welcome in that area, because the family moved to Bellingham in 1926.
There, Jack could not seem to find steady work, and spent time in jail in 1928 on liquor law violations. He was back in trouble for illegal gambling in the spring of 1931. The strain on his marriage became too great by 1932. After that, Veva and the three kids lived together and Jack was on his own. She filed for divorce a couple months after he was arrested on a burglary charge in Yakima in May 1933. Police had caught Jack and three “companions” with safe-cracking tools, dynamite, and some weapons. However, nothing linked them to any specific crime, so prosecutors had to release them.
Coincidentally, Slagle was already a suspect in a Yakima safe-cracking case when Harrison named him in his confession. However, Jack had left Bellingham four days before Yakima authorities issued a warrant for his arrest. Unaware of the warrant, he showed up in Yakima and was locked up immediately. He vehemently denied any involvement in the Perry burglary-murder. Even so, authorities transferred him to the Kittitas County jail in Ellensburg (the county seat) on January 5, 1935. However, except for the Harrison statement, officials had no actual evidence against Slagle. They released him a few days before Harrison’s trial, which began April 8, 1935.
 |
| Kittitas County Courthouse. Central Washington University. |
At this point, Harrison’s detailed accusations against Slagle appeared in the public trial record and were all over the news. Thus, prosecutors felt they had to proceed against him. He was re-arrested and went on trial in June. Besides the Harrison statement, prosecutors had a witness who heard Slagle mention the old man’s money, and others who placed him in Cle Elum some time before the murder.
The jury did spend eight or nine hours considering the relevance and credibility of the testimony, but finally issued a “not guilty” verdict. After the trial, Slagle settled in Yakima and married a widow in November 1939. She passed away a little over two years later. Jack lived in Yakima until at least 1950, but died in rural King County in the spring of 1953.
We don’t know how long Lee Harrison spent in prison, but he was still there when Minnie divorced him in September 1943. However, by 1951, he was living in Oregon. At some point, he married again … to “Mabel.” He passed away in southern Oregon in September 1964.
Lena (LeCole) Perry married again in January 1939, to a farmer with a place just south of Cle Elum. She died on December 31, 1943.
| References: Jim Kershner, “Cle Elum – Thumbnail History,” Online Encyclopedia of Washington State History, HistoryLink.org, Seattle, Washington (October 11, 2013). | |
| John W. Lundin and Stephen J. Lundin, “Cle Elum Ski Club,” Online Encyclopedia of Washington State History, HistoryLink.org, Seattle, Washington (August 27, 2012). | |
| Luke S. May, Luke S. May Papers, Special Collections, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington (1969). | |
| “[Perry Case News & Background],” Post-Intelligencer, Seattle; Spokesman-Review, Spokane; Daily Olympian, Olympia; Oroville Gazette, Bellingham Herald, Seattle Times, Washington (June 1891 – June 1935). | |
