A Tragedy Waiting To Happen

A true story that peaks with violent death focuses, of necessity, on events that seem most relevant to the main theme. This often lends an aura of inevitability to those incidents. For career criminals, it seems like each transgression spirals the individual further into “the dark side.” Phillip Basselli was a criminal only in that he kept getting into personal trouble; he made his living as a coal miner. Yet the end of his short life displayed a slide into tragedy that seemingly nothing could stop.

Phillip was born June 2, 1915 in Pierce County, Washington, into a solid immigrant family. His parents were Frank and Concetta Basselli, both natives of Italy. Frank (Francesco) came to this country around 1906, when he was about 19 years old. He found work in the coal mines located 20-30 miles southeast of  Tacoma. At that time, demand for coal had fueled a minor boom in the area. Concetta Yozzolino (records show several variations of her name) arrived in February of 1911, when she was about 15 years old. Perhaps by pre-arrangement, she and Frank were soon married. They had a son, Anthony, in August 1912. Daughter Mary came two years later, then Phillip.

With a growing family, Frank moved into a house in Carbonado, located in the middle of the coal region. This was a typical “company town,” in the sense that the coal company owned most of it. Still, state law prohibited the worst “wage slave” practices and the employer did provide schools, a hospital, and (slowly) upgraded housing. Of course, the company much preferred a work force of “contented” family men since they were considered less likely to go on strike.

Phillip’s father was an exceptional man. By the time he registered for the draft in 1918, he had advanced to a position as motorman. That is, he operated a small train that carried supplies into the mines and hauled coal out. His typical earnings were better than those of an ordinary miner, plus the job was safer (relatively speaking) and less physically demanding. Some time in the Twenties, Frank actually purchased the family home, a step that was almost unheard of in such company towns. 

Motorman and Train.
Pacific Coast Bulletin (October 28, 1927).

Phillip reached his teen years with no foretaste of later trouble. In fact, he seems to have done well in school. Thus, in 1932, the family enrolled him at Bellarmine, a Roman Catholic prep school in Tacoma. He perhaps stayed some of the time there with his sister Mary, who had married a Tacoma barber the year before. (Brother Tony also married in January of 1932.) Phillip proved to be a talented athlete: he was a starter at halfback in football and a solid scorer on the basketball team.

Unfortunately, he was no longer on the roster for either team the following year. We don’t know if he dropped out on his own, or if the family could no longer afford to send him there. Either way, Phillip joined throngs of low-skilled workers scrambling for jobs during some of the worst years of the Great Depression. Perhaps because of that, he began to exhibit a surly, belligerent disposition. He also drank to excess, which only fueled his angry, aggressive behavior. One incident occurred at a lunch counter located about nine miles north of Carbonado. The young man entered late one night and demanded a beer, although he was already a bit tipsy. Because it was after hours, the operator refused, so Phillip punched the man in the mouth and knocked him out.

The summer of 1935 brought another foretaste of events to come. He barged into “Don’s Tavern” in Wilkeson, a hamlet a couple miles north of Carbonado. Then he got into a heated argument with Don Pettit, the owner. By this time, people knew that Basselli’s hot temper could get out of hand. Thus, Pettit retrieved a pistol from behind the counter and ordered him to get out. Only when Pettit threatened to actually shoot did the angry young man leave.

Donald Lyman Pettit was the other actor in this tragedy. Don was born near Walla Walla, Washington on February 10, 1895. For a time between about 1915 and 1918 he covered the west as a traveling salesman. Then he settled in Seattle, where, in January 1919, he married for the first time. That didn’t last long, with Pettit being granted a divorce in the summer of 1921. Some time after that, he made Spokane a base for selling mining company stock. In April 1922, he married again – in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho.

In 1923, he and his new wife returned to Seattle, where Don worked as a salesman for a golf equipment company. The following year, the couple had a daughter, Katherine. He was still working as a salesman in 1933, but he and his wife had separated by then. A year or so later, Pettit opened the tavern in Wilkeson. (National Prohibition had been repealed at the end of 1933.) The clash there in the summer of 1935 sowed the seeds for what was to come.

Before that happened, Phillip added to his disrepute. He landed a job in Mullan, Idaho, a major silver mining site. However, in September, Basselli tried to beat up a company cook and ended up in jail on a drunk and disorderly charge. It’s unknown how much time he served, if any. In any case, Phillip was back in the Carbonado area by the following March. He tangled with Pettit again at a lodge meeting in Wilkeson, after gleefully noting that the tavern owner carried neither a gun nor a sap: “I’ve got you man to man.”  

Historic Carbonado. City of Carbonado.

Pettit, over 40 years old, stood no chance against the young, athletic miner. He suffered two or three broken, or at least cracked ribs and a kick to the groin. Fights were hardly rare in this working-class environment, so Basselli was not charged with assault. Perhaps it would have been better if he had.

About the same time, Basselli blew up in the bar and grill across the street from Pettit’s tavern. He then smashed some windows by throwing beer bottles at them. He paid $27 in damages for that incident. In May, Phillip was fined $10 on another drunk and disorderly charge. His sentence included six months in jail, but that was suspended when Phillip promised that he would “refrain from getting intoxicated.” Again, matters might have been better if he had actually served that term.

Given Phillip’s recent past, it’s unlikely that his promise lasted very long. Events came to a head on the evening of Saturday June 13, 1936. When the drinking began is unclear, but it went on until closing time (1:00 o’clock) on Sunday morning at the Wilkeson bar and grill. Basselli was “in a quarrelsome mood,” and still resentful about the $27 his previous tantrum had cost him. He muttered about whacking the owner with a poker and threatened to punch out a waitress. Unable to obtain more booze, a half dozen customers, including Phillip, decided to try their luck across the street at Don’s Tavern.

Basselli and one companion entered the bar, where Don had just served a last call to two final customers and was in the process of closing up. Phillip demanded a beer, which Pettit naturally refused. The young man plopped into a booth for a moment, then rose to argue with Don. Then there was a distraction. Two members of the group outside got into a fistfight. (All would later claim, under oath, that no one was drunk … but the evidence is against them).

Still, despite the confusion, witnesses inside agreed that Basselli aggressively accosted the bar man and threatened him. Pettit thought the youth was going to jump the bar, and was in no mood to get beat up again by the young, muscular miner. He grabbed his pistol and fired two warning shots into the ceiling. Observers now had their attention divided by the fight outside. Thus, none could say exactly what happened next. They all remembered that three shots were fired, but could not verify (or deny either) Pettit’s claim that he aimed the third shot at the advancing miner’s shoulder. But Phillip apparently realized that Pettit really was going to shoot and twisted aside at the last second. That, however, only made matters worse. Instead of hitting the shoulder straight on, the third bullet entered the back side at an angle that traversed the lungs and tore the top of his heart. Basselli staggered away a bit, then slumped to the floor and died.

Charged with murder, Pettit claimed self-defense, and seemed to have a good case. During the subsequent trial, the defense featured a parade of witnesses who attested to Phillip’s belligerence and propensity for physical violence (outlined above). The prosecution made no attempt to counter with witnesses who might have spoken of Basselli’s better qualities. They based their case on the assertion that Pettit had been waiting for his chance at revenge, and this was it.

Criminologist Luke S. May verified the death weapon, of course, and probably gave an assessment of the bullet trajectory. Investigators did not, or could not, retrieve the two bullets fired into the ceiling. May also noted that the death pistol, a .32-caliber automatic, would not show powder burns beyond about 15 inches. No such burns were observed, but the defense then asserted that officials had tampered with the evidence. That was unlikely, and the claim was necessary only if the defense wanted to prove that Phillip was almost on top of the shooter when he was hit. However, as suggested above, even if Basselli had been at or near the bar, his turn at the last moment would have probably moved him out of close range.

Given the overwhelming testimony about Phillip’s violent nature, Pettit’s self-defense plea might have worked. Three factors counted against him, starting with the victim’s youth and the fact that he was a “local boy.” Also, Pettit showed no particular remorse, conveying the notion that the young ruffian had brought it upon himself.

Worse yet, he backed that attitude with action. The exact sequence of events is unclear, but it included Pettit dragging Basselli’s body outside onto the sidewalk. He also mopped up any blood – there were almost surely some stains – and finished his closing procedures. He had Phillip’s companions inform the sheriff in Carbonado, and told a local undertaker about the body. Then he went home to bed.

His attitude and actions evidently did not play well with the jury of five man and seven women. They convicted Pettit of first degree murder. At least they did not recommend a death penalty. The judge then imposed a “mandatory” life sentence.

Sadly, death visited the Basselli family again in early 1940, when Frank died at the relatively young age of 53. Within a year, Concetta moved into Tacoma to be near married daughter Mary and two grandsons. She was blessed with a third grandson around 1945. She passed away there in 1986.

Around 1937, not long after Don Pettit went off to prison, his wife moved to Portland, Oregon, There, she found work as a department store saleslady. Their daughter Katherine went to live with relatives in Spokane, where she attended high school. After graduation, she also moved to Portland. Don’s sentence was commuted in early 1943 and he was soon a free man. He too ended up in Portland, although it’s unclear exactly when.

In the spring of 1946, daughter Katherine married in Portland. Several years later, the couple moved to California. Pettit’s wife obtained a divorce in August 1947 and remarried a bit over a year later. Donald also married again. In 1950, he and his third wife were operating a trailer court in Portland. He died there two years later from an aggressive brain tumor.
                                                                                

References:  “[Basselli-Pettit News],” Seattle Times, Bellingham Herald, Daily Ledger, Tacoma, News-Tribune, Tacoma, Spokesman-Review, Spokane, Union-Record, Seattle, Washington; The Oregonian, Portland, Oregon (June 1921 – August 1952).

Edward Echtle, “Carbonado — Thumbnail History,” Online Encyclopedia of Washington State History, HistoryLink.org, Seattle, Washington  (January 24, 2018).

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

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