Since retiring many years ago from my "day job," I have completed and published four books:
Boise River Gold Country
Before the Spud: Indians, Buckaroos, and Sheepherders in Pioneer Idaho
Idaho: Year One – The Territory's First Year
American Sherlock: Remembering a Pioneer in Scientific Crime Detection.
You can find more details, and ordering information, for each book by clicking the shorthand title at the top. Or click here to go directly to specific ordering information. To learn more about us and how these books happened, click here.
I continue to post items of (mostly) Idaho history on the South Fork Companion. Here, I am posting items related to forensic science, “true crime,” and American Sherlock, the biography of pioneer criminologist Luke S. May. May handled over two thousand cases during his long career. That included over 270 death cases, involving more than 300 victims. (An amazing number, really, considered that he was a private detective and consulting criminologist.) Thus, I had to leave out far more cases than I could include in the book.
Of course, American Sherlock is about May. Thus, the book focuses on his role in a particular event. Here, I can provide more details on other aspects of a case. I have now posted quite a number of true crime stories. And there will be more … both Luke May cases plus some related to my new interest in Prohibition-enforcement shootings. Thus, a break-out into topic categories might help new readers decide where to start. You can scroll down, or click here, to go directly to the list.
The latest case, not yet on the list, is Turf War Casualty.
A Note About Sources. I try to provide full references for the articles posted on this blog, with a couple of exceptions.
First, I usually summarize the newspapers used. That is, I give a “generic” title, list the identities of the specific publications, and show the overall time span involved. My articles often take “tidbits” from many individual news items – often as many as a dozen or more – so this greatly streamlines the presentation. Any reader curious about a specific point is free to contact me for more information.
Second, I generally do not show the genealogical sources (census records, city directories, etc.) that I always use to supplement and/or verify statements made in newspapers or the Luke May Papers. Most of that information is retrieved from the fee-based online repositories at Ancestry.com, with some other additions. I will include a reminder of those sources when I feel they played a greater-than-normal role in completing the article.
Wednesday, May 15, 2024
True Crime Cases Lists
Most of the cases so far fall into fairly distinct categories. Still,
I did need a “Miscellaneous” listing for accidents, mistaken identity,
unknown motives, and so on
Robberies
Murder on the Olympic Peninsula (Logging camp.)
Snoqualmie Valley Shootout (Bank robbery.)
Murder On A Train (Workers on the move.)
Crooks Follow The Money Too (Cigar store money car.)
Sad End of a Long March (Street robbery.)
Murder of Grocer Edmund Hines (Salt Lake City.)
The Christmas Presents Murder (Gifts for his girl.)
Death in the Line of Duty (Drug store robbery.)
A Wasted, Misspent Life … Ending In Tragedy (Service station.)
Murder For A Pittance (Automobile garage.)
The Fog of War? No, Politics (Street robbery.)
Death On A Sunday Afternoon (Daylight burglary.)
Murder in Obscurity (Early-morning robbery.)
Victim of the Great Depression (Store and post office robbery.)
A Fatal Blunder (Loan office robbery.)
Murder At The Haven (Tourist Camp robbery.)
A Car Was The Key (Drug store robbery.)
Trail's End In Montana (Burglary stakeout.)
Justice Delayed (Bank robbery.)
The Chicken Coop Deaths (Chicken thievery ... two dead.)
Death On A Snowy Night (Nighttime store burglary.)
Failed Burglar Resorts to Murder (Nighttime burglary attempt.)
Love-Hate Triangle
Yakima Love (?) Triangle (Two dead.)
Almost a Triple Murder (Three dead, in the end.)
Obsession Leads To Murder (Two dead, in the end.)
Jealousy – Even Justified – Is A Deadly Sin (Self defense?)
Love Triangle: Real or Imagined (The shooter's imagination?)
"Eternal Triangle" Claims Another Victim (The shooter's imagination, again?)
A Jury Of His Peers (Eliminate a rival.)
Eliminate an Enemy/Threat
Mercer Island Murder (A possible squealer must go.)
Shooting Death in Pasco (End of an argument.)
Lawless Men, Violent Deeds (Blame the booze.)
The Rosebud County Sniper (Irrational? anger.)
Shades of the Old West (Self defense?)
Life Through A Jagged Pane (Family conflict.)
Fixation on Youth Brings Death (Self defense.)
A Death In The Family (End of an argument.)
An Abundance of Evidence (End of an argument.)
An Immigrant Tragedy (Unwelcome attention ended.)
Tragedy on the 4th of July (Shot in the line of duty.)
One Binge Too Many (Abusive husband must go.)
Death in Little Italy (End of an argument.)
Farmhand Murder Mystery (End of a Confrontation.)
A tragedy Waiting to Happen (End of a Confrontation.)
What Dark Depths (Self-Defense Claimed.)
Miscellaneous
Puzzling Countryside Murders (Motive unknown.)
Ambush in Algona (Mistaken identity.)
Mysteries at Lake Thomas (Motive unclear. Love triangle?)
Sudden Death Ends Long Friendship (Accident ... defective weapon.)
The Mobility Murder (Taxi driver murdered ... motive unclear.)
Prohibition Enforcement
Death On A Weekend Outing (Unarmed and not a bootlegger.)
Friendly Fire, Delayed Death (Shot the wrong man, accidentally.)
Moonshine – A Death Penalty? (Unarmed moonshiner, accident claimed.)
Another Casualty of Prohibition (Self defense claimed.)
The Locked Room Mystery – Seattle Style (Possible "squealer" eliminated.)
Turf War Casualty
William Hobart Usitalo was, by all indications, a “regular guy.” He never owned a business, got arrested, appeared on the society pages, or did anything else to make his name known … until the end. He is found only in sparse public records and the occasional City Directory list. Like millions of his contemporaries, he worked hard to provide a decent life for his family, and maybe put something by for his later years. Unfortunately, he became part of a deadly historical conflict and died – was killed – without achieving those goals.
William was born to Finnish immigrants in Calumet, Michigan on November 10, 1899. The family moved to the Seattle area in 1912-1914, and he was working at a shipyard when he registered for the draft in late 1918. He served with the merchant marine for several years, then married in May 1923. He soon began a long stint as a truck driver, and probably joined the Teamsters union. But the onset of the Great Depression made it hard to find steady work. That gained more urgency when he and his wife had a son, Donald, in the spring of 1931. William drove a moving van for some time in 1933, and then a beer delivery truck. And that began his slide into danger.
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| William and Mary Usitalo. Family Archives. |
Another player in this sad history was Peter Marinoff (Marjanovic). Marinoff did own a business (several, in fact), got arrested, appeared in the society pages, and was otherwise well known to the newspapers. He was born March 11, 1895 in Dalmatia, a coastal region along the Adriatic Sea. He came to this country at the end of 1910 and eventually made his way to Tacoma, Washington. He married in 1916 and they had two children: a son who died as an infant in 1918, and a daughter born in 1922.
Pete began as an auto mechanic and chauffeur, then switched to a sales job. However, he started making some real money as a smuggler after Washington state and then the country went “dry” with Prohibition. He spent 60 days in jail in 1923 for a liquor law violation, but began investing in legal breweries (malt syrup and “near beer”) around 1925. Six years later, he and some other investors incorporated the Northwest Brewing Company in Tacoma. The business did well, with plants in Tacoma and Walla Walla, and two more planned, in Seattle and Portland, Oregon. In the spring of 1933, when Prohibition was clearly on its way out, Pete told reporters that they would have regular beer ready to ship within a month after it again became legal.
Then Marinoff found himself in trouble not of his own making. He had no problem with unionized labor … as an immigrant, he had started at that level himself. All of the company’s employees were represented by the Brewery Workers Union (technically, the union of “Brewery, Flour, Cereal and Soft Drink Workers”). An “industrial” union, they represented all the company’s organized employees: ordinary laborers, boiler-room operators, chemical technicians, deliverymen, and so on. That sometimes put them at odds with “craft” unions, which represent employees in specific crafts/skills, like plumbers, electricians … and truck drivers (Teamsters).
Conflict between the Brewery Workers and Teamsters unions had been festering, off and on, for around thirty years. (The well-documented history of that violent turf war is beyond the scope of this blog.) Everyone expected a huge resurgence in the brewing industry after the repeal of Prohibition, so the Teamsters launched a concerted effort to raid the Brewery Workers membership.
In Washington and Oregon, that made drivers at Marinoff’s Northwest Brewing Company a target. Soon, pickets appeared around the brewery in Tacoma. (Some reports called them “strikers,” but that was a misnomer, since none worked at the facility.) The pickets were not just passive observers. In September, 1934, they invaded the company storage area and smashed cases of beer.
Beside pickets, the Teamsters also recruited teams to trail brewery workers whenever they left the plant. The day after the storage invasion, some of these men assaulted four company drivers, beating them with “lead pipes and bricks.” They also attacked businesses that the brewery supplied, with plate glass windows shattered and other vandalism. The conflict involved the whole state, and both proprietors and patrons were roughed up during some of these raids. A report that specifically mentioned the Northwest Brewing Company came on May 2, 1935, from Portland. Brewery union workers making deliveries there were beaten up, and two police officers who tried to help them were knocked unconscious.
The Brewery union definitely felt the pressure. Whatever security Marinoff had at the Tacoma brewery, the Union decided it wasn’t enough. In mid-May, they hired Harold Hiatt to recruit more guards. Born 20-30 miles west of Portland in 1897, Hiatt had served in the Army, although the war ended before he went overseas. He worked at a shipyard for many years, then sold coal and firewood for a fuel company. He married in 1918, and they had two daughters, one of whom died in 1925. The couple divorced in 1928, with the wife getting custody of the surviving daughter. Like Usitalo, Hiatt scrambled to find work when the Depression hit. The company may have shared the cost of the enlarged guard force, but that was never clearly verified. Hiatt later asserted that he took his orders from the Union’s lead attorney.
One of the guards hired was known as Theodore “Tex” Ferguson. Ferguson was about 27 years old, supposedly unmarried, and originally from Texas. He said he’d arrived in Seattle in the fall of 1934, then came to Tacoma. However, other than what he told police, we know nothing about him. He cannot be reliably traced in any public records. He claimed to be a waiter, but there are indications that he made his living as “muscle” in various labor-management disputes.
Despite the publicity before and after William Usitalo’s death, we know few details about his involvement with the Teamster’s intimidation force. We know that, in late February, 1935, the Seattle brewery he was driving for had some difficulties, including a major lawsuit against them. That may have been when he was laid off. We do not know when he began working for the union, or whether he was a volunteer or received a stipend.
Obviously, he was there on the afternoon and evening of May 24, 1935, when events got out of hand. The catalyst didn’t even involve a beer delivery … the truck was simply sent to have a tire changed. Still, just in case, Hiatt followed along in a car. As garagemen worked on the tire, Teamsters accosted Hiatt, trying to get him to quit. While he was thus distracted, a confederate poured sugar into the car’s gas tank.
Soon after the car and truck returned to the plant, an unidentified caller warned them about the sabotage. Sure the sugar would ruin his engine, Hiatt, along with two other guards, including Tex Ferguson, hurried to another garage to have it cleaned out. This time, a car carrying four Teamsters fell in behind them. Most reports indicate that all of the men had been imported from out of town. Usitalo was driving, but accounts don’t say if the vehicle was his, the union’s, or a rental. They watched from across the street while the guards were in the garage.
It was fairly dark when Hiatt finally came out and drove off. The Teamsters trailed along. At one point, Hiatt stopped, walked back to Usitalo’s car, and told them they were asking for trouble. After that, he engaged in some wild driving, sometimes with his lights off, and managed to lose the pursuers. They picked up a third man and went to help another guard who was supposedly isolated and in trouble. That turned out to be a false alarm. When they headed back toward the brewery, the Usitalo car again found them and followed.
As they turned onto the street leading to the plant, pickets bombarded them with rocks. The side windows were broken and one guard was cut by flying glass. After a moment, Hiatt stopped, and Usitalo pulled up about fifty feet behind them. Here witnesses disagreed as to what happened next. Some said Hiatt got out and shot directly at the rock throwers, but other testimony cast doubt on that. There was no evidence (near misses, bullet scars, etc.) to confirm that Hiatt aimed at the pickets. He perhaps fired warning shots into the air. Whatever the case, some pickets did run away.
Meanwhile, Tex pointed a revolver out the back window and fired several shots at the Teamster vehicle. Hiatt then made a U-turn and sped by the other car. It was now about 11 o’clock and too dark to see clearly. One of Tex’s bullets had struck William Usitalo in the forehead, and he died about three hours later in a local hospital.
The guards were arrested the next morning in Seattle, and were soon charged with murder. Police had found several weapons in the car, including one revolver they identified as the likely death weapon. Tex soon admitted that he had fired the revolver. The suspects all pled self-defense, citing the violent harassment that preceded the assault with rocks. Within a few days, authorities chose to also charge Peter Marinoff as an “accessory before the fact” of murder. He had hired the guards, or at least helped hire them, and supposedly furnished them with guns.
Criminologist Luke S. May was contracted to test Tex’s revolver as the death weapon, and to trace its ownership. It was a .38-caliber Colt, a “Police Special” model. May’s agent found that it had been shipped to a Tacoma hardware store in November 1929, but then it disappeared. The agent reported, “Although they keep records of their stock sold, it does not appear in any of them.”
A technician completed the first comparison between the death bullet and a test slug. He found that all the class characteristics (groove width, twist rate, etc.) matched perfectly, but felt the fine marks were too faint to verify the individual characteristics. The more experienced May then took over … he testified at the trial that the revolver was indeed the death weapon.
Other than the autopsy report, that was about the only hard evidence presented in the trial. The rest featured conflicting testimony about who did what, and who said what. In the end, the jury found the four guilty of manslaughter. Under the law at the time, that called for a sentence of one year in jail up to twenty years in prison. The judge gave the least-involved guard a one-year suspended jail term and just one year to Tex Ferguson, the actual shooter. With credit for time already spent in jail, Tex was free in just three or four months. He cannot be traced after that.
In what seems an odd twist, given that leniency, the judge then slapped Harold Hiatt and Peter Marinoff with twenty-year prison sentences. However, it took little time for the Washington Supreme Court to rule favorably on their appeals. The justices conceded that there were grounds for a new trial for Hiatt, since he was on the scene and had (probably) fired shots that instigated Ferguson’s reaction. Marinoff, on the other hand, was not even in Tacoma at the time. More to the point, the decision stated, “It does not appear to be either unreasonable or unlawful for the managing officer of the brewery to engage and arm guards to protect the property which was in his charge.” Pete was cleared unconditionally, and prosecutors chose to not retry Hiatt.
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| Peter Marinoff. News Photo. |
Hiatt found a job as a guard in Seattle, and was badly injured in another altercation with union pickets. After his recovery, he remained in the area, probably because of Mrs. Usitalo’s suit. He then moved to Wenatchee, where he married again in late 1937. He died young there … in April 1939.
Seeking opportunities away from union strife in Washington, Marinoff opened a brewery in Red Bluff, California during he summer of 1937. Pete had a knack for brewing good beer and selling it at a good price. His company successfully marketed “Marinoff Beer” all over the West. But labor troubles again cropped up – again between unionized brewery workers and the Teamsters. Pete finally gave it up in 1949, thereafter operating an insurance agency.
However, he could not escape his past. The trouble began in 1978 with the publication of a biography of Dave Beck, a leader of northwest Teamsters from about 1920 to 1940. (He later became president of the national Teamsters.) The book contained statements attributed to Beck’s long-time personal secretary. She recalled that Usitalo had been shot to death in 1935, and said, “I don’t know who killed him. Dave says it was Pete Marinoff.”
The author apparently saw this as minor point and didn’t dig quite deep enough. Marinoff, of course, saw dollar signs, and a chance to get back at the man who had caused him so much grief. Not just in 1935, but also in 1948, when Beck’s predatory recruiting tactics ruined his Red Bluff venture. Pete won his defamation suit, but received only a token payment of $10 thousand, not the $300-500 thousand he sought.
Peter Marinoff passed away in April 1983.
| References: Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica Ultimate Reference Suite, Encyclopædia Britannica, Chicago, Illinois (2012). |
| Luke S. May, Luke S. May Papers, Special Collections, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington (1969). |
| Daniel Okrent, Last Call: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition, Scribner, New York (2010). |
| Alan J. Stein, “Violence erupts over beer truck drivers in Seattle during September 1934,” Online Encyclopedia of Washington State History, HistoryLink.org, Seattle, Washington (May 26, 2005). |
| The State of Washington, Respondent, versus H.H. HIATT et al., Appellants, State of Washington, Olympia (Aug 10, 1936). |
| “[Usitalo Case News and Background],” Bellingham Herald, Seattle Star, Seattle Times, Tacoma Ledger, News-Tribune, Tacoma, Union-Record, Seattle, Spokesman-Review, Spokane, The Olympian, Olympia, Washington; The Oregonian, Portland, Oregon; Sacramento Bee, Tahama County News, Red Bluff, California (September 1923 – December 2006) . |
Tuesday, January 9, 2024
What Dark Depths … ?
When prominent individuals pass on, someone often writes a long obituary about them. There may even be a full biography. From these, we learn about the events that shaped the person, and perhaps something about their beliefs and motivations. But for “ordinary folks” it is sometimes difficult to find basic information, and even harder to discover what made them tick, what dark depths they might have harbored. That was true for the victim in a Luke May case that took place over ninety years ago at Lake Forest Park, a rustic area about 10-12 miles north of downtown Seattle.
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| Lake Forest Park Entrance. Shoreline Historical Museum. |
Caroline M. “Carrie” McMichael was born around 1884 in Mississippi, shortly before her father took a government job in Washington D.C. Carrie’s father died in the spring of 1896, and by 1900 she was working as a stenographer. In 1903, she married William W. White and, about two years later, they had a son, Aubrey H. White. Shortly after that, they moved to Seattle, Washington. However, for unknown reasons, the couple split up around 1907. Carrie retained custody of Aubrey.
On January 14, 1910, she married Frank Parker, a Seattle real estate dealer. She identified herself as a widow on the marriage certificate … in an era when divorce was frowned upon. They had no children and Frank died in the spring of 1914. He was just 38 years old. Carrie supported herself and young Aubrey working as a secretary and bookkeeper for the next two years. Then she married again.
Her new husband was Oliver Evans Bakken. Oliver was born in 1878, about six months after his parents and a brood of siblings arrived from Norway and settled in central Iowa. Until the 1890s, family members all lived in the general vicinity of Fort Dodge, a small town not quite seventy miles north and a bit west of Des Moines.
Then, in 1896-1898, brother Ole Bakken moved to an ethnic enclave in northwest Seattle. Located on the shore of Puget Sound, the heavily Scandinavian workforce engaged in logging and salmon fishing. In 1904, another brother moved to Spokane. After that, Oliver moved back and forth between Fort Dodge and Seattle, finding work where he could. At some point, he met Carrie (McMichael, White) Parker, although we don’t know how. Thus, Washington records show that O. Evans Bakken of Fort Dodge, Iowa, married Carrie M. Parker, Seattle resident, on January 13, 1916 in Seattle.
Oliver soon took up permanent residence in Seattle. He and Carrie had a daughter, Helen, in 1917. The advent of World War I opened up more job opportunities and Oliver was able to find work in the Puget Sound shipyards. In fact, between his job and Carrie’s (and what she might have brought from her second marriage), they purchased a modest home in the Queen Anne Neighborhood, about three mile northwest of downtown Seattle. Then, before 1920, they traded up to a larger middle-class home in the same neighborhood.
Although Oliver listed no occupation for the 1920 Census, there is evidence that he had begun dealing in real estate. Thus, some time in the next couple of years, they acquired property in the Lake Forest Park development. The Park was a planned community located at the northwest end of Lake Washington. Rules prohibited commercial and multi-family development within the Park, and homes had to be reasonably substantial. Thus, structures built there “ranged from quaint bungalows to large Colonial or Tudor Revival style homes.” The Bakkens eventually owned about five acres, enough to support the family in a modest way. Also, Carrie’s income as a bookkeeper plus rental of the Queen Anne property provided a steady cash flow.
However, later accounts indicate that trouble began to loom at about this time: Carrie began to exhibit flashes of irrational anger. One neighbor told of a trip with the two from Seattle out to the Park in 1922. Oliver was driving, the neighbor was in the front passenger seat, and Carrie was in the back. Suddenly, for no apparent reason, she drew a gun from her purse and threatened to “fix” both of them. Oliver was able to wrestle the weapon away from her … no easy matter since she weighed 220-225 pounds.
That probably led to the first public sign of trouble. In May 1922, a Seattle newspaper published a brief item that said, “Suit for divorce was filed in superior court by O. E. Bakken against Carrie M. Bakken, cruelty … ” The couple must have reconciled because that process was not completed. It’s at least plausible that they patched it up because there were two children in the household. Oliver’s stepson, Aubrey White, was still in high school, while daughter Helen was about to start grade school. Aubrey graduated from high school in 1926. He was valedictorian of his class and received a scholarship to attend Washington State College (now University).
Neighbors also told of several episodes where Carrie threatened Oliver with a big double-bladed ax. In one instance, she marched all the way into a field with it to yell at him. A couple who boarded with them moved out after four months in fear of her temper bouts. In 1927, she underwent some sort of operation. The physician who later testified about it did not say exactly why. Still, it’s possible that the treatment was meant to address her tantrums. Whatever it was, the doctor asserted that the result may have made her problems worse.
Despite all that, Carrie was very successful at her job: The Seattle City Directory for 1929 and 1930 identified her a as a “Vice President” of the small manufacturing company she worked for. Unfortunately, her hours and income were reduced with the onset of the Great Depression. (The 1931 Directory listed her as simply “bookkeeper.”)
Thus, the already-existing tensions in the household grew worse. That was further exacerbated when Oliver allowed his nephew Tunis to live with them. Born near Spokane, Tunis was about sixteen years old in 1921, when his father died. As an adult, he seemed to have trouble finding steady work, trying his hand at laborer, logger, taxi driver, grocery store clerk, and other low-paying jobs. He moved in with Oliver and Carrie a few months before the shooting.
Sadly, Carrie’s malady seem to get progressively worse. Just a few days before the final confrontation, a neighbor lady who had hitched a ride into Seattle with Oliver saw Carrie dash out and threatened him with her favorite ax. After he wrestled it away from her and stuck it in the car, she went after a small hatchet. Luckily, nothing came of that.
On the day before the tragedy, the couple had another huge argument. Oliver later testified that she threatened to get a gun and shoot him. By this time, Helen and Tunis had learned to leave the house during there clashes, so neither could confirm any such threat. When the dispute resumed the next morning, the two took the Sunday newspaper and again went outside, away from the house.
According to Oliver, his wife’s rant climaxed when she grabbed a length of firewood for the kitchen stove and hit him on the hand and shoulder. He finally yanked that away from her and swung it back at her. She backed off but was still totally wrought up. She briefly turned toward a dresser where he thought she might have a gun. Oliver was exhausted from the struggle and thought he might collapse. Thoroughly scared, he drew a pistol, intending to frighten her away. He claimed he had no intention to shoot, but his hands were shaking so much “the gun went off.”
Then it “went off” twice more. Daughter Helen later testified that there was a noticeable pause between the three pops (which they did not recognize as gunshots at the time). One can make a plausible case – the defense surely did – that the first two shots hadn’t discouraged her and she was still coming at him. She was a hefty woman, the pistol was light (.25-caliber), and the ammunition was old. After somewhat gathering himself, Oliver went to report the incident and turn himself in. He gave a muddled story that was aggressively scrutinized during the trial.
Part of the confusion involved the identity of the death weapon. At one point, accounts suggested up to three possibilities: a revolver that Carrie might have bought on Saturday before the killing, a weapon Oliver perhaps bought for protection on Saturday, or a pistol Oliver said he had kept for “seventeen years.” This puzzle was finally unraveled by private criminologist Luke S. May. The death weapon was apparently the .25-caliber automatic that Oliver and his passenger had wrestled away from Carrie in 1922. It had been stored away, fully loaded, for all that time. Oliver said he retrieved it when Carrie threatened to get a gun and shoot him.
Bakken was charged with first degree murder, but he claimed self-defense. At the trial, the prosecution emphasized three points. First, they had only Oliver’s word that his wife had threatened him physically in any way. Second, the spaced out shots showed that he was taking time to aim carefully. And, finally, the fact that he had dug out a gun that had been hidden for (actually) nineteen years, indicated premeditation.
The defense featured a long parade of Bakken’s friends and neighbors. They attested to his wife’s erratic, hot-tempered behavior and the many times she had flashed weapons far more dangerous than a stick of firewood.
The jury deliberated for over twenty hours. Early on, they rejected the first-degree murder verdict urged by the prosecution. They then spent the rest of the time arguing over a second-degree murder conviction. That eventually foundered because two jurors refused to agree to even that lesser punishment. The jury finally compromised on a conviction for manslaughter.
In considering a sentence, the judge was impressed by a large stack of letters from Bakken’s friends and neighbors. They urged him to give Oliver a suspended sentence, or impose only token jail time. The judge called them a “tribute to the life he has led.” But he also made reference to the Ten Commandment and said he could not let a killing go unpunished. In the end, the judge imposed a sentence of three and a half to fifteen years in prison.
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| Oliver E. Bakken. Washington Penitentiary Records. |
Oliver’s attorneys did not appeal the verdict or sentence. Before he went off to prison, Bakken liquidated the family’s real estate and, after reserving $400 for his personal expenses, set up a fund of about $8,000 for daughter Helen. (That was a substantial sum for that time.) By then, she was living with her mother’s married sister in southwest Seattle. Stepson Aubrey White had already graduated from college and taken a job out of state as an agricultural agent. He was impossible to reliably track after that.
Oliver Bakken was paroled in the spring of 1935. Terms of his release apparently allowed him to take a job in Idaho, so he may have lived in Spokane, or perhaps Clarkston, across the river from Lewiston, Idaho. There’s no evidence that he ever returned to Seattle. Helen married in the summer of 1938 and continued to live in Seattle.
In March 1940, the state ended restrictions on Oliver’s movement, so he returned to Iowa. He stayed briefly with a brother, then settled back in Fort Dodge. Indirect evidence suggests that he passed away there in 1945 or 1946.
| References: Genealogical records at Ancestry.com |
| “[Bakken Background and Shooting],” Fort Dodge Messenger, Iowa; Evening Star, Washington, DC; Spokesman-Review, Spokane, Bellingham Herald, Tacoma Ledger, Seattle Times, Washington (June 1903 – October 1931). 2018). |
| Luke S. May, Luke S. May Papers, Special Collections, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington (1969). |
| Alan J. Stein, “Lake Forest Park – Thumbnail History,” Online Encyclopedia of Washington State History, HistoryLink.org, Seattle, Washington (December 5, 1998). |
Saturday, July 1, 2023
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.
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.
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.
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| 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.”
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| 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). |
Tuesday, May 9, 2023
A Jury Of His Peers
By the end of 1930, pioneer criminologist Luke S. May had logged over 140 death cases. For the decade, he had averaged about one death case every month. Of course, the Pacific Northwest suffered far more mysterious deaths than that. However, we must keep in mind that Luke was a private investigator. He was hired only when regular law enforcement couldn’t handle the job, for whatever reason. The cases were not “routine” because of the stakes involved – eight out of ten included murder charges. Anyway, over one hundred of those events involved guns. By this time, Luke had honed his firearms techniques to where they needed little further adjustment. However, a death case he logged in early 1931 proved a bit different, because of two unusual circumstances.
The death took place in the small hours of November 12, 1930, during the night after Armistice Day. May logged the case and received key evidence in January 1931. The victim was LeRoy “Roy” Blank, who was born around 1903 in rural Minnesota. In 1916-1917, the family moved to a farm in central North Dakota. Sadly, Roy became the “man of the family,” when his father died in the summer of 1918. Unable to hang on, they were all back in Minnesota in 1925. During the next two or three years, Roy went off on his own while his mother and four siblings made their way to Minneapolis.
Accounts do not say how Roy ended up as a farm laborer near Connell, Washington, a small town located about thirty miles north of Pasco. Nor do we know how long he had been seeing Helen (Beck) Fishan, a live-in housekeeper and nanny in Kahlotus, an even smaller hamlet about fifteen miles east of Connell.
Helen M. Beck was born August 10, 1900 in a farming area of Missouri about 45 miles northwest of St. Louis. Around 1909, the family moved to the Idaho Panhandle, being in Post Falls in 1910. By 1918, Helen was teaching school in and around Spokane, Washington. In February of 1922, she married Howard J. “Jack” Fishan in Spokane. They had a daughter in November. However, for unknown reasons, the couple separated around 1926. Not long after that, Helen took the job in Kahlotus.
Her employer was Samuel J. “Sam” Watson, a long-time resident of Kahlotus. Watson was born around 1885 in New York City. Before 1900, the family moved to eastern New Jersey. It’s uncertain when Sam went out on his own, but in 1909-1910, he settled in Kahlotus. There, he operated the steam engine for a processing plant, probably a flour mill. In January 1912, he married Bertha Cook, a local girl who clerked at the general store. They had a son after about a year. Before 1918, Sam also began delivering milk around the area, perhaps from a small herd of his own. At some point, he also opened a pool hall in the town.
Sam and Bertha added two daughters to the family, in 1916 and 1922. Sadly, Bertha passed away in the fall of 1924. Although we don’t know for sure, Sam may have had other housekeepers before he hired Helen Fishan in 1926-1927. Early on, Sam thought they had an “arrangement” that he considered an engagement. However, at some point he discovered that Fishan had not yet obtained a divorce from her husband. Even so, Sam and Helen soon began “living together as husband and wife,” raising his three kids as well as Helen’s daughter Maxine.
Although she was willing to sleep with Sam, Helen never saw the situation as an engagement. Thus, she was receptive when Roy Blank began paying attention to her. After all, Blank was close to her age, whereas Sam was practically old enough to be her father (17 years her senior). Naturally, Sam objected, and insisted that she stay away from Roy.
Matters reached a crisis point on Armistice Day. Although it was not yet a federal holiday, towns large and small celebrated the Day with parades, speeches, and other activities. Later testimony confirmed that all three principals in this love triangle had been drinking off and on, all day and late into the evening. (Prohibition was still in force, but hardly anyone paid any attention to that.) Were they together, paired off some way, or what? We don’t know.
Some time after midnight, Sam began driving around looking for Fishan. He found her with Blank in his car on the outskirts of Kahlotus. The subsequent shouting match caught the attention of neighbors, who then heard three quick gunshots. Witnesses who rushed over found two victims on the ground near Blank’s car. Blank was already dead, while Fishan was badly wounded. Watson had left the scene; he was on his way to Pasco to turn himself in. He would later claim that he didn’t know he’d hit the woman until the sheriff told him.
Helen Fishan was rushed to another nearby small town, where the attending physician decided she needed specialist help and transferred her to a hospital in Spokane. The surgeon who operated said he was doubtful she would survive. The bullet had passed through her abdomen, piercing her bladder and bowels. Amazingly, she was considered out of danger about ten days later. At that point, the county attorney lodged a felony assault charge against Sam, to go with the murder charge for the death of Roy Blank. By this time, Blank’s body had been transported to Minneapolis for burial.
Sam Watson asserted that Roy had advanced in a threatening manner, with something in his hand. He therefore claimed self-defense. Oddly enough, he had suffered a wound himself … a finger on his left hand had been badly injured and eventually had to be amputated. His defense attorney would later imply that other shots had been fired and one of those had hit Watson. However, listeners heard no other shots and examination of the death scene found no weapons of any kind, not even something that might be mistaken for a club.
Luke May received evidence for the case just under two weeks before Watson’s trial was to begin in February. That included the death weapon (a Colt double-action revolver chambered for 44 WCF ammunition), three 38 WCF shell casings, and two unfired 38 WCF cartridges. Luke soon confirmed that the powder explosion had expanded the brass shells to closely fit the larger chamber. It’s worth noting that the difference between the 38 and 44 WCF ammunition is not as great as the stated numbers suggest. Those are for “marketing” purposes (more or less). The actual bullet diameter is less than 0.03 inch different, and some other dimensions are even closer. Luke also found that the revolver was old and poorly maintained, with noticeable rust and erosion in the barrel. These factors complicated the death bullet comparison, but not seriously.
Luke strongly urged county authorities to search for the bullet that had wounded Fishan, which “should be found in the immediate vicinity of where she was shot.” Since the slug had passed through soft tissue, a comparison should easily verify that it came from Watson’s weapon. Luke doesn’t mention another point: He could have assessed the bullet trajectory to further affirm that Watson had fired the wounding shot. Officials did not, however, heed his recommendation.
Luke also received Watson’s amputated finger, preserved in alcohol. The prosecutor assumed that Sam had shot himself and wondered what powder burns might appear. (The two doctors who treated Watson’s finger disagreed on whether or not they saw visible powder burns.) Thus, May spent considerable effort to test the weapon and ammunition for that feature.
Several key points stood out. The revolver’s mechanism was rather loose, allowing gas and unburned powder to blow back. Luke also noted that the cartridges were “loaded with the fastest burning powder that there is on the market.” Coupled with the long barrel of the revolver, relatively little unburned powder would be expelled. Finally, the slightly smaller bullet size allowed some gas to escape and reduced the pressure to throw unburned grains very far. May’s testimony therefore noted that a major powder burn could not be expected, even at fairly close range. Nonetheless, his careful microscopic scrutiny detected several particles of unburned powder embedded in the damaged finger.
Watson’s defense never disputed that there had been a shouting match. Nor did they deny that he had tried to break up the relationship between his “housekeeper” and Blank. Sam had simply felt threatened by the younger man and sprayed him and Mrs. Fishan with bullets. And, in the end, that defense was enough. The jury – eleven men and one woman – took just one ballot to acquit him on both counts. There was no indication that they even considered some lesser charge for his “accidental” near-death wounding of Helen Fishan.
Helen and her husband reconciled after the trial, although it’s unclear exactly when. They had two more daughters, one in the spring of 1934 and another in 1935. They settled near Spokane as a base. Helen found work – probably as a domestic servant or part-time teacher – in and around that city. However, in the depths of the Great Depression, Jack had to make do with short-lived jobs around the region, including in Idaho. Sam Watson’s younger daughter was about the same age as Maxine Fishan. Thus, after Jack and Helen settled around Spokane, she chose to live in that area too.
Records kept by the U.S. Veterans Bureau (now Administration) show that Howard Jack Fishan died March 12, 1945 in Spokane. During World War I, he served in France with a machine gun company of the 361st Infantry Regiment, originally formed at Camp Lewis, Washington. Helen (Beck) Fishan passed away May 10, 1976 in Spokane. The obituary listed as survivors her two brothers and three married daughters as well as the younger Watson daughter (married, and living in Spokane at that time). Helen also had eleven grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren.
Sam Watson stayed in Kahlotus at least until 1940, when he and his older daughter, Lucille, were enumerated in the census. As noted above, the younger daughter lived near Spokane at that time. Sam’s son scrambled to find work in the region around Kahlotus, until he joined the Army in 1941-1942. He married in 1943 and lived in Seattle after the war.
Lucille married about the time her brother entered the Army. However, she gave her status as “Widow” in the 1950 Census for Compton, California. At that time, Samuel J. Watson was living with her and her twin sons. Sam moved back to Seattle, Washington at some point, perhaps when his grandson (Lucille’s son) married in 1963. He passed away there in September 1964.
The death took place in the small hours of November 12, 1930, during the night after Armistice Day. May logged the case and received key evidence in January 1931. The victim was LeRoy “Roy” Blank, who was born around 1903 in rural Minnesota. In 1916-1917, the family moved to a farm in central North Dakota. Sadly, Roy became the “man of the family,” when his father died in the summer of 1918. Unable to hang on, they were all back in Minnesota in 1925. During the next two or three years, Roy went off on his own while his mother and four siblings made their way to Minneapolis.
Accounts do not say how Roy ended up as a farm laborer near Connell, Washington, a small town located about thirty miles north of Pasco. Nor do we know how long he had been seeing Helen (Beck) Fishan, a live-in housekeeper and nanny in Kahlotus, an even smaller hamlet about fifteen miles east of Connell.
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| Connell, Washington, ca 1928. Washington Rural Heritage. |
Helen M. Beck was born August 10, 1900 in a farming area of Missouri about 45 miles northwest of St. Louis. Around 1909, the family moved to the Idaho Panhandle, being in Post Falls in 1910. By 1918, Helen was teaching school in and around Spokane, Washington. In February of 1922, she married Howard J. “Jack” Fishan in Spokane. They had a daughter in November. However, for unknown reasons, the couple separated around 1926. Not long after that, Helen took the job in Kahlotus.
Her employer was Samuel J. “Sam” Watson, a long-time resident of Kahlotus. Watson was born around 1885 in New York City. Before 1900, the family moved to eastern New Jersey. It’s uncertain when Sam went out on his own, but in 1909-1910, he settled in Kahlotus. There, he operated the steam engine for a processing plant, probably a flour mill. In January 1912, he married Bertha Cook, a local girl who clerked at the general store. They had a son after about a year. Before 1918, Sam also began delivering milk around the area, perhaps from a small herd of his own. At some point, he also opened a pool hall in the town.
Sam and Bertha added two daughters to the family, in 1916 and 1922. Sadly, Bertha passed away in the fall of 1924. Although we don’t know for sure, Sam may have had other housekeepers before he hired Helen Fishan in 1926-1927. Early on, Sam thought they had an “arrangement” that he considered an engagement. However, at some point he discovered that Fishan had not yet obtained a divorce from her husband. Even so, Sam and Helen soon began “living together as husband and wife,” raising his three kids as well as Helen’s daughter Maxine.
Although she was willing to sleep with Sam, Helen never saw the situation as an engagement. Thus, she was receptive when Roy Blank began paying attention to her. After all, Blank was close to her age, whereas Sam was practically old enough to be her father (17 years her senior). Naturally, Sam objected, and insisted that she stay away from Roy.
Matters reached a crisis point on Armistice Day. Although it was not yet a federal holiday, towns large and small celebrated the Day with parades, speeches, and other activities. Later testimony confirmed that all three principals in this love triangle had been drinking off and on, all day and late into the evening. (Prohibition was still in force, but hardly anyone paid any attention to that.) Were they together, paired off some way, or what? We don’t know.
Some time after midnight, Sam began driving around looking for Fishan. He found her with Blank in his car on the outskirts of Kahlotus. The subsequent shouting match caught the attention of neighbors, who then heard three quick gunshots. Witnesses who rushed over found two victims on the ground near Blank’s car. Blank was already dead, while Fishan was badly wounded. Watson had left the scene; he was on his way to Pasco to turn himself in. He would later claim that he didn’t know he’d hit the woman until the sheriff told him.
Helen Fishan was rushed to another nearby small town, where the attending physician decided she needed specialist help and transferred her to a hospital in Spokane. The surgeon who operated said he was doubtful she would survive. The bullet had passed through her abdomen, piercing her bladder and bowels. Amazingly, she was considered out of danger about ten days later. At that point, the county attorney lodged a felony assault charge against Sam, to go with the murder charge for the death of Roy Blank. By this time, Blank’s body had been transported to Minneapolis for burial.
Sam Watson asserted that Roy had advanced in a threatening manner, with something in his hand. He therefore claimed self-defense. Oddly enough, he had suffered a wound himself … a finger on his left hand had been badly injured and eventually had to be amputated. His defense attorney would later imply that other shots had been fired and one of those had hit Watson. However, listeners heard no other shots and examination of the death scene found no weapons of any kind, not even something that might be mistaken for a club.
Luke May received evidence for the case just under two weeks before Watson’s trial was to begin in February. That included the death weapon (a Colt double-action revolver chambered for 44 WCF ammunition), three 38 WCF shell casings, and two unfired 38 WCF cartridges. Luke soon confirmed that the powder explosion had expanded the brass shells to closely fit the larger chamber. It’s worth noting that the difference between the 38 and 44 WCF ammunition is not as great as the stated numbers suggest. Those are for “marketing” purposes (more or less). The actual bullet diameter is less than 0.03 inch different, and some other dimensions are even closer. Luke also found that the revolver was old and poorly maintained, with noticeable rust and erosion in the barrel. These factors complicated the death bullet comparison, but not seriously.
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| Colt double-action revolver, 44-40. Antique guns site. |
Luke strongly urged county authorities to search for the bullet that had wounded Fishan, which “should be found in the immediate vicinity of where she was shot.” Since the slug had passed through soft tissue, a comparison should easily verify that it came from Watson’s weapon. Luke doesn’t mention another point: He could have assessed the bullet trajectory to further affirm that Watson had fired the wounding shot. Officials did not, however, heed his recommendation.
Luke also received Watson’s amputated finger, preserved in alcohol. The prosecutor assumed that Sam had shot himself and wondered what powder burns might appear. (The two doctors who treated Watson’s finger disagreed on whether or not they saw visible powder burns.) Thus, May spent considerable effort to test the weapon and ammunition for that feature.
Several key points stood out. The revolver’s mechanism was rather loose, allowing gas and unburned powder to blow back. Luke also noted that the cartridges were “loaded with the fastest burning powder that there is on the market.” Coupled with the long barrel of the revolver, relatively little unburned powder would be expelled. Finally, the slightly smaller bullet size allowed some gas to escape and reduced the pressure to throw unburned grains very far. May’s testimony therefore noted that a major powder burn could not be expected, even at fairly close range. Nonetheless, his careful microscopic scrutiny detected several particles of unburned powder embedded in the damaged finger.
Watson’s defense never disputed that there had been a shouting match. Nor did they deny that he had tried to break up the relationship between his “housekeeper” and Blank. Sam had simply felt threatened by the younger man and sprayed him and Mrs. Fishan with bullets. And, in the end, that defense was enough. The jury – eleven men and one woman – took just one ballot to acquit him on both counts. There was no indication that they even considered some lesser charge for his “accidental” near-death wounding of Helen Fishan.
Helen and her husband reconciled after the trial, although it’s unclear exactly when. They had two more daughters, one in the spring of 1934 and another in 1935. They settled near Spokane as a base. Helen found work – probably as a domestic servant or part-time teacher – in and around that city. However, in the depths of the Great Depression, Jack had to make do with short-lived jobs around the region, including in Idaho. Sam Watson’s younger daughter was about the same age as Maxine Fishan. Thus, after Jack and Helen settled around Spokane, she chose to live in that area too.
Records kept by the U.S. Veterans Bureau (now Administration) show that Howard Jack Fishan died March 12, 1945 in Spokane. During World War I, he served in France with a machine gun company of the 361st Infantry Regiment, originally formed at Camp Lewis, Washington. Helen (Beck) Fishan passed away May 10, 1976 in Spokane. The obituary listed as survivors her two brothers and three married daughters as well as the younger Watson daughter (married, and living in Spokane at that time). Helen also had eleven grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren.
Sam Watson stayed in Kahlotus at least until 1940, when he and his older daughter, Lucille, were enumerated in the census. As noted above, the younger daughter lived near Spokane at that time. Sam’s son scrambled to find work in the region around Kahlotus, until he joined the Army in 1941-1942. He married in 1943 and lived in Seattle after the war.
Lucille married about the time her brother entered the Army. However, she gave her status as “Widow” in the 1950 Census for Compton, California. At that time, Samuel J. Watson was living with her and her twin sons. Sam moved back to Seattle, Washington at some point, perhaps when his grandson (Lucille’s son) married in 1963. He passed away there in September 1964.
| References: Linda Holden Givens, “Connell – Thumbnail History,” Online Encyclopedia of Washington State History, HistoryLink.org, Seattle, Washington (June 24, 2021). |
| Luke S. May, Luke S. May Papers, Special Collections, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington (1969). |
| “[Participant Backgrounds],” Spokane Chronicle, Washington, Bellingham Herald, Washington, Spokesman-Review, Spokane, Washington; Minneapolis Star, Minnesota (January 1918 – May 1976). |
| “[Killing and Trial],” Bellingham Herald, Washington, Spokane Press, Washington, Spokesman-Review, Spokane, Washington; The Oregonian, Portland, Oregon (November 1930 – February 1931). . |
Thursday, March 2, 2023
The Farmhand Murder Mystery
February 1933. Daniel L. Blankenship had a problem. As sheriff of Kitsap County, Washington, he received tips regularly – from known sources, or anonymous. Many were baseless, but all had to be investigated. And, like many sheriffs of that era, he had virtually no training in law enforcement. He had to rely on common sense and local knowledge.
Daniel was born in West Virginia in the spring of 1887. In 1906, the family moved to Williston, North Dakota, a small town in the northwest part of the state. In September of the following year, Daniel married Marilla Young there. Later, the couple moved to a tiny town in northeastern Montana about forty miles from the Canadian border. At that time, he dealt in real estate. However, some time in 1921-1925, they separated, with Marilla awarded custody of their three children. Soon after that, Daniel moved to near Bremerton, Washington. In December 1925 he married again. Then, before 1929, he opened a car dealership in Bremerton.
In January of 1931, Daniel was sworn in as sheriff of Kitsap County. Aside from Bremerton, with its U.S. Navy shipyard, the county was quite rural. Thus, Blankenship’s duties were comparatively light: Serving legal notices, an occasional missing persons report, escorting prisoners to and from various locations, and so on.
This anonymous tip was far more serious. It claimed that one John E. Martin had shot and killed two itinerant workers, known only as “Milo” and “Pete,” and buried them on his farm. Martin was a newcomer to the area, having recently acquired land on the coast of Puget Sound about twenty miles north of Bremerton. He had twice come to the attention of authorities. The regional Prohibition Officer had searched his property for a rumored moonshine operation, but had found nothing. (Prohibition was on its way out, but the laws were still being enforced.)
More relevant was a report from the previous October. Neighbors had found Martin almost incapacitated from severe cuts and bruises, and rushed him to medical help. He said that two temporary farm hands had beat him up and tried to rob him. They had been there about a week, clearing brush, when he fired them for drinking too much. Martin had no money to speak of on the property, and he said the two fled after venting their anger on him. Sheriff Blankenship and the Seattle police – it was assumed they would run to the big city – had mounted a search for them, with no results whatsoever. This tip cast a whole new light on that episode.
First of all, who was this fellow John E. Martin? To begin with, his full name was William John Elias Martin. He was born November 21, 1872 in Kent County, Michigan, near Grand Rapids. He married Lumina “Mina” Manassa in 1894 and they began raising a family on a farm west of Saginaw Bay (part of Lake Huron). Life was not easy, but they hung on until 1907. The last of their six children – three sons and three daughters – was born that year. Between then and 1910, the family moved to Walla Walla, Washington, where William found work as a carpenter.
The relationship between William and Mina was a rocky one. They divorced in 1916, remarried, and then divorced again in 1920. Thus, for the 1920 census, Martin was living in Seattle under the name “John E.” He was perhaps trying to avoid confusion with several other William Martins in the City Directory. By then, the two oldest sons and a daughter had married. One son and his wife were living with him. Meanwhile, Mina was still in Walla Walla with the three youngest children.
Those children had married and gone off on their own by 1927, the year that William and Mina married yet again. Thus, the couple was living together in Seattle for the 1930 census, with “John E.” identifying himself as a building contractor. But, again, the togetherness didn’t last and Mina was alone in Seattle by 1933. Meanwhile, William John had acquired the farm property north of Bremerton.
Available accounts do not say how specific the tip was about the burial location. Officers seemed to have had little trouble finding and exhuming the bodies. One news report asserted that Martin tried to commit suicide while they were digging, but that was never confirmed. Then the coroner provided an added shock. The men had not died from the gunshot wounds; they had suffocated after being buried alive. There was no evidence, however, that they had revived and tried to claw their way out.
Private criminologist Luke S. May logged this case as primarily a firearms study. He easily verified that Martin’s pistol was the death weapon. It happens that this was May’s two-hundredth death case (that we know of), the vast majority of which involved firearms. Thus, he might have also had an expert opinion on the less-than-fatal bullet wounds.
Martin was charged with murder and his trial began in mid-June. He freely admitted he had killed the two, but insisted that it was purely self-defense. He stuck to the main elements of his October story: After he had fired them for their drinking, they beat him up and and tried to rob him. News reports do not say, but it seems possible that he finally lied about where he had money hidden. Then, when they went to look for it, he retrieved his pistol and shot them as they returned from the wild goose chase.
The incident left Martin dazed and confused. All he could think of to do was bury the men and say nothing. He only told his partial story when neighbors asked what had happened to him. And that might well have been enough. Despite all the publicity of the trial, we never do learn who “Milo” and “Pete” actually were. William John E. Martin was convicted of second-degree murder.
Between then and the sentencing, a small controversy arose about the source of the tip that sparked the investigation. Some witnesses contended that Martin’s estranged wife, Mina, provided it. However, Sheriff Blankenship declared that he had no way of knowing who sent the letter he received. So far as we know, Mina disclaimed any knowledge of such a letter. The judged imposed a 15 to 20 year prison sentence for the conviction.
Then even more drama arose. Rumors persisted that at least two other part-time workers had been sent to the ranch by an employment agency … and had disappeared. One was eventually found working elsewhere, and Martin denied any knowledge of the other. Although Blankenship and his deputies searched the property further, nothing ever came of the rumors.
In a small way, the Milo-Pete investigation became a kind of dress rehearsal for a horrific case the sheriff faced a few months after Martin was moved to prison from the county jail. (His appeals had failed.) On the evening of March 31, 1934, Blankenship made a call to Criminologist May in Seattle. After describing the crime scene and pleading for help, he cried, “It’s terrible, Luke, terrible!” May later said that, while he had often heard “terrible” applied to many of his death cases, Blankenship’s was the most emphatic and heart-felt.
Daniel was born in West Virginia in the spring of 1887. In 1906, the family moved to Williston, North Dakota, a small town in the northwest part of the state. In September of the following year, Daniel married Marilla Young there. Later, the couple moved to a tiny town in northeastern Montana about forty miles from the Canadian border. At that time, he dealt in real estate. However, some time in 1921-1925, they separated, with Marilla awarded custody of their three children. Soon after that, Daniel moved to near Bremerton, Washington. In December 1925 he married again. Then, before 1929, he opened a car dealership in Bremerton.
 |
| Downtown Bremerton, bef 1929. Kitsap History Museum. |
In January of 1931, Daniel was sworn in as sheriff of Kitsap County. Aside from Bremerton, with its U.S. Navy shipyard, the county was quite rural. Thus, Blankenship’s duties were comparatively light: Serving legal notices, an occasional missing persons report, escorting prisoners to and from various locations, and so on.
This anonymous tip was far more serious. It claimed that one John E. Martin had shot and killed two itinerant workers, known only as “Milo” and “Pete,” and buried them on his farm. Martin was a newcomer to the area, having recently acquired land on the coast of Puget Sound about twenty miles north of Bremerton. He had twice come to the attention of authorities. The regional Prohibition Officer had searched his property for a rumored moonshine operation, but had found nothing. (Prohibition was on its way out, but the laws were still being enforced.)
More relevant was a report from the previous October. Neighbors had found Martin almost incapacitated from severe cuts and bruises, and rushed him to medical help. He said that two temporary farm hands had beat him up and tried to rob him. They had been there about a week, clearing brush, when he fired them for drinking too much. Martin had no money to speak of on the property, and he said the two fled after venting their anger on him. Sheriff Blankenship and the Seattle police – it was assumed they would run to the big city – had mounted a search for them, with no results whatsoever. This tip cast a whole new light on that episode.
First of all, who was this fellow John E. Martin? To begin with, his full name was William John Elias Martin. He was born November 21, 1872 in Kent County, Michigan, near Grand Rapids. He married Lumina “Mina” Manassa in 1894 and they began raising a family on a farm west of Saginaw Bay (part of Lake Huron). Life was not easy, but they hung on until 1907. The last of their six children – three sons and three daughters – was born that year. Between then and 1910, the family moved to Walla Walla, Washington, where William found work as a carpenter.
The relationship between William and Mina was a rocky one. They divorced in 1916, remarried, and then divorced again in 1920. Thus, for the 1920 census, Martin was living in Seattle under the name “John E.” He was perhaps trying to avoid confusion with several other William Martins in the City Directory. By then, the two oldest sons and a daughter had married. One son and his wife were living with him. Meanwhile, Mina was still in Walla Walla with the three youngest children.
Those children had married and gone off on their own by 1927, the year that William and Mina married yet again. Thus, the couple was living together in Seattle for the 1930 census, with “John E.” identifying himself as a building contractor. But, again, the togetherness didn’t last and Mina was alone in Seattle by 1933. Meanwhile, William John had acquired the farm property north of Bremerton.
Available accounts do not say how specific the tip was about the burial location. Officers seemed to have had little trouble finding and exhuming the bodies. One news report asserted that Martin tried to commit suicide while they were digging, but that was never confirmed. Then the coroner provided an added shock. The men had not died from the gunshot wounds; they had suffocated after being buried alive. There was no evidence, however, that they had revived and tried to claw their way out.
Private criminologist Luke S. May logged this case as primarily a firearms study. He easily verified that Martin’s pistol was the death weapon. It happens that this was May’s two-hundredth death case (that we know of), the vast majority of which involved firearms. Thus, he might have also had an expert opinion on the less-than-fatal bullet wounds.
Martin was charged with murder and his trial began in mid-June. He freely admitted he had killed the two, but insisted that it was purely self-defense. He stuck to the main elements of his October story: After he had fired them for their drinking, they beat him up and and tried to rob him. News reports do not say, but it seems possible that he finally lied about where he had money hidden. Then, when they went to look for it, he retrieved his pistol and shot them as they returned from the wild goose chase.
The incident left Martin dazed and confused. All he could think of to do was bury the men and say nothing. He only told his partial story when neighbors asked what had happened to him. And that might well have been enough. Despite all the publicity of the trial, we never do learn who “Milo” and “Pete” actually were. William John E. Martin was convicted of second-degree murder.
Between then and the sentencing, a small controversy arose about the source of the tip that sparked the investigation. Some witnesses contended that Martin’s estranged wife, Mina, provided it. However, Sheriff Blankenship declared that he had no way of knowing who sent the letter he received. So far as we know, Mina disclaimed any knowledge of such a letter. The judged imposed a 15 to 20 year prison sentence for the conviction.
Then even more drama arose. Rumors persisted that at least two other part-time workers had been sent to the ranch by an employment agency … and had disappeared. One was eventually found working elsewhere, and Martin denied any knowledge of the other. Although Blankenship and his deputies searched the property further, nothing ever came of the rumors.
In a small way, the Milo-Pete investigation became a kind of dress rehearsal for a horrific case the sheriff faced a few months after Martin was moved to prison from the county jail. (His appeals had failed.) On the evening of March 31, 1934, Blankenship made a call to Criminologist May in Seattle. After describing the crime scene and pleading for help, he cried, “It’s terrible, Luke, terrible!” May later said that, while he had often heard “terrible” applied to many of his death cases, Blankenship’s was the most emphatic and heart-felt.
 |
| Bremerton Evidence: Sheriff Blankenship (left), Luke May, County Prosecutor. |
And well it should have been. A home invasion a few miles north of Bremerton had turned into the mass murder of six victims. Two had been shot, while the rest had been beaten to death with a hammer or stabbed. (The story of the “Bremerton Massacre” is told in my Luke May biography, American Sherlock.) Sadly, Blankenship did not live to see the case closed. That fall, he was rushing his brother to medical help when his car blew a tire. They hit a tree and Daniel L. Blankenship was killed, on November 4, 1934. Luckily, his brother and another passenger survived.
Mina Martin obtained a final divorce a year of so after her husband went off to the penitentiary. She apparently supported herself by taking in laundry. She had a heart attack and died at the end of 1943. At that time, all six of the couple’s children were still living, and accounted for 17 grandchildren.
The oldest son, William Bernard Martin, first married 1915, to a divorcee who lived in Oregon not far south of Walla Walla. They eventually had five children, but the marriage didn’t last. He married again in 1938. Bernard tried his hand at farming, automobile servicing, furniture sales, and finally general construction. He passed away in September 1970.
The oldest daughter, Agnes, married Jake McKinney in May 1916 in Walla Willa. They moved to Seattle around 1923, where Jake worked as a carpenter, and the couple raised four children. Agnes also pursued a career as a top-level cook for a chain of restaurants in the Pacific Northwest. She even appeared in a TV documentary about the business. Her husband passed away in 1968. Agnes (Martin) McKinney died in October 1981.
Francis “Frank” Martin, the next oldest son, joined the U.S. Navy for World War I. He married before 1920 and lived for a time with his father in Seattle. He had some success as an electrician and then at a bakery. The Great Depression ended that … and his marriage. Around 1934-1935, he moved to Indiana, where he worked as a clerk at a military supply depot. He also married again, and they had two sons. He retired around 1964 and passed away in 1971.
Son Ernest was one of the children who lived with Mina in Walla Walla after his parents split in 1920. Then, around 1925 or 1926, he moved to Seattle and worked his way up from salesman to owning a furniture store. He married three times, in 1927, 1943, and 1957. He and his first wife had three children. He stayed active in the furniture business until around 1953. He then operated a small-loans firm until he retired around 1967. An enthusiast for senior golf after retirement, he passed away in 1981, two weeks after suffering a heart attack during a Labor Day tournament.
Daughter Anne Marie also lived with Mina in Walla Walla, but moved to Seattle some time after 1920. She married in 1925, 1928, and 1934. She and her first husband had a daughter in 1926. Her third husband became disabled around 1937, so she had to support the family as a drapery seamstress. Her last husband died in 1960, and she passed away in February 1982.
The youngest daughter, Fredrica “Rica,” moved from Walla Walla to Seattle in time to graduate from high school there in 1925. She married a year later, but divorced and remarried in 1940-1941. Between the two, she had four children. Oddly enough, she married again in 1975, two weeks after she divorced her second husband. However, she died less than ten months later, on January 2, 1976.
William John E. Martin was almost certainly still in prison when Mina died at the end of 1943. However, he seems to have been out by 1945. Family memories state that he married a woman known as Martha in 1945, or perhaps 1948. They may have lived in Louisiana for a time, and also moved around some. Thus, it proved impossible to find a credible reference to him (them) in the 1950 U.S. Census. They eventually returned to Seattle, and Martin was staying with daughter Rica when he died on May 5, 1957. He was entombed in the same cemetery and mausoleum as Mina.
| References: Census records, city directory listings, and other genealogical sources were consulted extensively. Online sources included Ancestry.com and others. |
| “[Blankenship-Martin Family Backgrounds],” News-Tribune, Tacoma, Union-Bulletin, Walla Walla, Post-Intelligencer, Seattle, Seattle Times, Bellingham Herald, Seattle Star, Washington; Statesman-Journal, Salem, Oregon; Baltimore Sun, Maryland; Glasgow Courier, Montana; Courier-Journal, Louisville, Kentucky (September 1906 – February 1982). |
| Luke S. May, Luke S. May Papers, Special Collections, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington (1969). |
| “[Milo-Pete Murders and Trial],” The Olympian, Olympia, News-Tribune, Tacoma, Seattle Times, Bellingham Herald, Seattle Star, Washington (October 28, 1932 – October 13, 1933). |
| David Wilma, “Kitsap County – Thumbnail History,” Online Encyclopedia of Washington State History, HistoryLink.org, Seattle, Washington (July 29, 2006). |
| "Evidence" photo source: True Detective Mysteries magazine, September 1936. |
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