Failed Burglar Resorts To Murder

“Hindsight is 20/20,” goes the saying. And, with that advantage, it can instill an aura of inevitability to events. That seems like the case for the short, unhappy life of Henry John Zorn, aka Henry John Miller, aka Henry Doyle, aka Henry J. Bertrand, aka Henry J. Brown. He was born in Regina on March 11, 1909, shortly after his parents, Frank and Josephine (Schwanke) Zorn, arrived in Canada from Moldova (then part of Russia, just east of Romania).

At some point, for unknown reasons, his father began using the name John (or Frank) Miller. Perhaps that was when he smuggled the family across the border into the United States in 1912-1914. They settled in Malta, a village in east-central Montana about 45 miles south of the Canadian border. But Miller abandoned the family in late 1915, leaving Josephine to support seven children, ranging in age from four months to nine years. With no husband, no particular skills, and probably labored English, she naturally struggled. As Head of Household for the 1920 census, she listed her occupation as laundress. She gave the last name as “Miller,” and Henry went by that name after that … when he wasn’t using an alias.

Miles City, ca 1935. Vintage Postcard.

Josephine eventually had to give up all the children, and at least four boys ended up in Miles City at the Montana State Industrial School (MSIS). The MSIS had been founded in 1893 as a “Reform School” for wayward boys and girls. Later it changed to the Industrial School terminology to emphasize its mantra of rehabilitation and skills training. (After 1920, girls were sent to their own facility in Helena.) In April 1914, state officials selected Arthur C. Dorr as the new superintendent. Dorr had nearly twenty years of relevant experience in Minnesota, including a stint running the state Reformatory. Dorr dramatically expanded the size and variety of facilities at the Montana institution.

Henry [Zorn] Miller first appeared at the school in December 1920, when he was eleven years old. There was a burglary charge involved, but his record gives “Incorrigibility” as his reason for being there. That strongly suggests that Josephine had thrown up her hands at trying to control him. Still, in keeping with the rehabilitation goal, the boys were kept on a fairly loose leash as they went about their daily assignments. Thus, in 1926, Henry “escaped” – most likely meaning he simply walked away.

His five-plus years at the Industrial School had given him a full “common school” education plus a range of vocational skills. But that provided little grounds for “white collar” work, while most manual jobs required a robust physique. At just over 5-feet, 1-inch in height, with a slender build, Henry was unlikely to impress potential employers. It seems inevitable (there’s that word) that he would turn to crime … specifically, burglary.

However, he was apparently not especially skilled at that endeavor. He was caught in Minnesota, under the name Henry Doyle, and convicted for a half dozen burglaries. With a cumulative twenty year sentence, Henry was registered at the Minnesota State Reformatory on October 10, 1926. There, he was identified as Miller. Then Arthur Dorr’s Minnesota connections gave Henry a break. Dorr was convinced that Miller could be rehabilitated. He got Henry released back to Montana in the summer of 1929 and found him a ranch job.

Henry [Zorn] Miller.
Montana State Prison.

Henry paid him back by burglarizing his safe at the school.  Soon caught, he was sentenced to five years at the Montana State Prison, being admitted as Henry Miller on October 26, 1929. After two or three years, he was released and deported back to Canada. But he returned and was spotted in Miles City. That violated Federal law, and this time he was sentenced to Federal prison. By now, his proper name had been discovered and Henry John Zorn was registered at McNeil Island, the Federal prison near Tacoma, on April 16, 1933. Again deported upon his release, he was caught illegally crossing the border in late June of 1934. However, he quickly escaped detention and vanished.

Had Alice (Dorr) Jones been a heavy sleeper, tragedy might have been avoided. Daughter of Superintendent Dorr, she had married Lester Thomas Jones in March of 1927. Lester was born November 21, 1905 in Miles City. After graduating from Custer County High School there, he received a scholarship to continue his education at the University of Montana. Besides his classes, he played on the school’s football team (he had played football in high school). He was also accepted into the Phi Sigma Kappa fraternity.

Lester joined the Industrial School faculty in late 1926 or early 1927. After he and Alice married, they moved into a two-room unit in the school’s Administration Building, across the hall from offices for Lester and the Superintendent.

August 12th was a typically hot summer day in eastern Montana, and Alice had trouble getting to sleep. The intruder couldn’t avoid some noise as he crept into the Administration Building not long after midnight. At first, Alice may have thought she was hearing ordinary creaks and groans. But then the burglar had to force the door of the superintendent’s office.

Alice prodded Lester awake, and he quickly donned a robe and went across to confront the prowler. She could make out only scraps of dialog … and then heard three quick gunshots. Seconds later, the shooter slammed out of the office, dashed to the main entrance, and bolted out. All she could register was that the intruder was short, dark, and slender. Hit twice, once directly in the heart, Lester Jones didn’t live long enough to have any last words.

The school’s Parole Officer supplemented Alice’s scant description of the killer. Alerted by the gunfire, he caught a glimpse from a second floor window. The fugitive’s footsteps were relatively light and very rapid; he had to be small and have a short stride. The killer left many clues inside: slugs from his weapon, a flashlight, an easily-remembered cap (“a gaudy checkered thing”), shards of light brown glass, a railroad spike, and marks on the door jamb. Outside, a searcher found another railroad spike alongside a pair of goggles with one lens broken out. The goggles – perhaps worn as a rudimentary disguise – were the source of the brown shards.

Superintendent Dorr immediately speculated that the burglar was a former School inmate; he seemed to know the layout well. Suspicion soon fell on Henry Miller. He had, after all, robbed the same safe before. And he fit the killer’s description, although Alice – who remembered him well from earlier – thought the intruder was darker. The resulting dragnet focused on the rail lines since the escapee had not run to an automobile. Many potential suspects were rounded up, but were soon released.

Henry became a more promising suspect when a “good enough” match to his fingerprint was found on the inside of the flashlight lens. That didn’t prove it had been he who left the light behind, but he would surely have some explaining to do. But where was he? Most people in and around Miles City only remembered him going off to McNeil Island in the spring of 1933. (The June 1934 detention and escape at the border apparently came out later.)

Then a tipster told police that Henry had been seen recently near a residential hotel in Billings, Montana. Diligent police work soon dredged up an ex-convict who had befriended Henry in prison. After some foot-dragging, he admitted that Henry had visited him on August 10th. He also stated that he had three messages from Henry, sent from eastern North Dakota. He had used the aliases “Henry J. Bertrand” and “Henry J. Brown.” Henry had left a suitcase in the ex-con’s room, and asked him to send it to Minneapolis, addressed to “Brown.” Montana officials hurriedly informed authorities there. Thus, on August 18, the fugitive was grabbed when he asked at the express office for any package in “his” name. He still carried what turned out to be the murder weapon.

It’s not entirely clear when Montana authorities brought private criminologist Luke S. May into the case. They may have consulted with him even before the arrest. They certainly did after Zorn’s attorney entered a “Not Guilty” plea. (Of course, officials now had his proper name.) In fact, the prosecutor personally carried several key pieces of evidence to Seattle, including Zorn’s revolver.

H&R .22-caliber Revolver.
Gun Sales Site.

The death weapon was an H&R (Harrington and Richardson) .22-caliber “Young America” model. May easily matched slugs retrieved from Jones’ body with test bullets fired from the gun Zorn had when he was arrested. Zorn liked fake names, but made no attempt to disguise his handwriting. Thus, May also proved, “beyond a reasonable doubt” that Zorn, Miller, Bertrand, and Brown were the same person. He also found hairs inside the cap that were “consistent with” strands from Zorn’s head.

The ex-convict from Billings was one of the first witnesses called when the trial began on October 2, 1934. Henry had told him on August 10 that he planned to rob the safe at the Industrial School. It would be “a cinch” since he knew the layout thoroughly. Still, just in case, he might go armed this time. The ex-con said he shrugged off the burglary plan, but adamantly refused to help him get a gun. Later that day, the ex-con observed that Henry had found himself a weapon. He didn't see him again until the young man was arrested.

We never do learn how Henry obtained the revolver. Several witnesses followed, including the coroner and Luke May. The trajectory of the fatal bullet to the heart, along with powder grains on Jones’ robe, showed that the shot was aimed at close range.

The defense called just one witness: Josephine (Schwanke, Zorn, Miller) Adams. She had married yet again  in 1925, and lived in Butte with her latest husband and son. She testified about the terrible life that Henry John had lived. A father with secrets (Why did he change his name?), who dragged them illegally into this country, and then abandoned them when Henry was a mere child. Was it any wonder he grew up angry and frustrated? But she still loved him, and pleaded for a life sentence rather than the death penalty.

The jury took little time on a “Guilty” verdict, but finally gave up on a sentence when one holdout refused to vote for the death penalty. After eight hours of futile argument, they left that up to the judge. The judge spent two or three days reviewing everything about the case. In the end, he found no mitigating circumstances: Zorn had deliberately planned a crime against those who had tried to help him. He had then gone out of his way to procure a deadly weapon, and fired a shoot intended to kill. The judge concluded: “I feel that under my oath, I have a duty I cannot shirk.”

Henry’s mother collected several thousand signatures on a petition asking the governor to commute the death sentence. He examined the court documents and refused. Henry John Zorn was executed by hanging early on the morning of April 24, 1935. His mother had him buried in Butte. She married yet again in 1937 and lived out her life in Butte, passing away in 1956.
 
After Lester’s murder, Alice continued as a matron at the school until she remarried in October 1940. Her new husband served as teacher and principal in Laurel (about 15 miles southwest of Billings) for eight or nine years. After 1951, he became an agent and then manager in Montana for an insurance company. At times, Alice taught kindergarten classes. Along the way, they raised a daughter and a son. They retired to Arizona in 1971, and Alice died March 3, 1981 in Casa Grande. She was buried in the Custer County Cemetery near Lester Thomas Jones (same Section, Lot, and Block).
                                                                               

References: Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica Ultimate Reference Suite, Encyclopædia Britannica, Chicago, Illinois (2012).
Luke S. May, “Dark Killer – Montana’s Midnight Marauder,” True Detective Mysteries Magazine, New York, New York (February 1936).
Luke S. May, Luke S. May Papers, Special Collections, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington (1969).
Tom Stout (ed.), Montana: Its Story and Biography, The American Historical Society, Chicago and New York (1921).
“[Zorn – Jones News],” The Missoulian, Missoula, Independent Record, Helena, Montana Standard, Butte,  Billings Gazette, Great Fall Tribune, Montana; Seattle Times, Washington (April 1914 – March 1981).

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“Eternal Triangle” Claims Another Victim

Jealousy and envy have always been powerful motivators in human relationships. But what pushes one person to react with violence, when another might just walk away? We can never really know. The spring of 1930 brought such an event to central Washington.

The victim was Walter Cornelius Hornby, and he took a round-about path to reach the fatal venue. He was born around 1904 near a tiny North Dakota town midway between Fargo and Bismarck. His father, Benjamin, had emigrated to this country from England around 1887 and married Idella Fuller in July of 1890. He became a successful sheep rancher before renting out the property in 1905 and taking a job as postal clerk in nearby Jamestown. Walter was one of eight siblings – all boys – who survived past infancy.

Jamestown, ND. Vintage Postcard.

 In 1916, all but two of the family moved to Canada. They settled on a stock ranch about fifty miles southeast of Edmonton, Alberta. (The other two brothers also moved to Canada within a year so.) Naturally, Walter worked on the family ranch. He continued to work for his father when they moved to a new place about twenty miles west of Edmonton. Here, Ben diversified the operation to include growing potatoes and grain. He also sought more land for stock raising.

During this period, brother John Hornby joined the Canadian army. After transferring to the U.S. forces, he spent a year in France. Badly injured in an accident, he ended up with a silver plate in his skull and spent seventeen months in various hospitals. He may have received a disability pension after his discharge in late 1919, but available records are unclear on that point.

Despite their father’s success, six of the brothers returned to the United States over the period from 1920 to 1923. Walter and two younger brothers followed John to Spokane. (Hornby relatives lived in northern Idaho and in Spokane at the time.) Walter apparently made a living with part time farm work and odd jobs in and around Spokane. He was thus there when the youngest brother Frank, age 16, suffered an attack of “acute pneumonia.” Frank died within about 24 hours, in January 1928. Burial was somewhat delayed while Ben and Idella made their way from Canada.

Some time after his brother’s sudden death, Walter found a job in Cashmere, a small town located 10-12 miles northwest of Wenatchee. The Cashmere area was, and is, renowned for its orchards, mainly apples, but also pears, apricots, and more. Besides the fruit itself, a company in the town shipped packages of fruit-based confections all over the country. In Cashmere, Walter – “Red” to his friends – met Delbert Brown, a fellow farm and ranch hand. They became best buddies, working and playing together. They probably shared a work hut at times, and may have gone on camping trips together.

Adelbert J. Brown was born September 27, 1902 in Anacortes, a harbor town in northwest Washington, about thirty miles from the Canadian border. In 1910, he had three siblings: two brothers and a sister. His parents separated some time after that, with the mother retaining custody of the children. Then, in the summer of 1917, his mother married a blacksmith who lived in Cashmere.

Delbert had suffered from epileptic fits since childhood, but his symptoms were apparently mild. Thus, in June 1918, he and his mother fudged enough about his age so he could join the U.S. Army. He was assigned to the Coastal Artillery Corps and served in San Juan, Puerto Rico, and the Panama Canal Zone. He was mustered out in the spring of 1923.

By that time, his father had also moved to the Cashmere area. Oddly enough, Delbert’s father got on well with his stepfather: They had been jailed and/or fined together for repeated violations of Prohibition. In fact, officials later asserted that the family had “caused more trouble around Cashmere for the last half dozen years than the rest of the town combined.” One brother was fined and jailed for assault in 1925. The other also had run-ins with the law, although the details are unknown.

Still, Delbert seems to have kept a low profile. He and his buddy Red Hornby worked hard and stayed out of trouble. That happy situation began to change in early 1930, after Mrs. Lela (Stitch) Morris delivered her baby girl, Flora.

Lela Valentine Stitch was born February 13, 1913 in Post Falls, Idaho. In November, 1926, the family was living in Porthill, Idaho, a hamlet on the Canadian border about 22 miles north of Bonners Ferry. There, Lela’s mother had a heart attack and died at the young age of 33. Two years later, Lela married John Francis Morris. She was a couple months past her fifteenth birthday, he was 20 years old. Originally from Minnesota, Morris was then working at a car dealership in Kellogg, Idaho.

Not long after, John and Lela took up residence in Creston, British Columbia, about seven miles north of Porthill. Then, in late August, 1929, Lela crossed back into the States. Just sixteen years old, she came alone … and pregnant. Her destination was Cashmere, where her mother’s sister, Hattie (Stitch) Romanoff, lived.

Lela was not yet seventeen when she gave birth to Flora on December 28. Aunt Hattie already had three children of her own, so arrangements were made to secure a place for the new mother and her infant. Lela also began the process to divorce her husband. Her grounds for the request are unknown.

As it happened, Aunt Hattie knew both Delbert and Red. (Cashmere had a population of less than 1,500 at the time.) They might have simply met Lela at the Romanoff home, or Hattie may have made a point of introducing them.

In any case, newspapers would report that both began “courting” her when she opened the divorce proceedings. Delbert certainly had hopes. Hornby, however, seems to have had no such plans. Afterwards, Lela said there was nothing romantic between her and Red; he was just a helpful friend. She also claimed that Delbert knew that to be the case.

Then, on Saturday March 29, 1930, Lela told Delbert that she didn’t want him coming around any more. She never explained why. Perhaps she was tired of being romantically pursued by a man more that ten years her senior. Or possibly she had new hope of reconciling with her husband. Distraught, Delbert went off and bought a .38-caliber revolver. He then visited Hattie and told her he planned to kill himself with it because Lela had “thrown him down.”

She persuaded him to go home and get some sleep, and he promised to do so. But a half hour later, she got a frantic call to her niece’s place. There she found Lela hysterical, with the body of Red Hornby on the floor. Hornby had been helping her with some spring cleaning. Despite her rejection, Delbert had stopped by once again. When he saw Hornby there, he instantly opened fire, hitting his former friend four times in the back. He also threatened Lela, but she managed to escape.

Minutes later, officers rushed to Delbert’s home, where they found him lying on the bed with a self-inflicted wound to the chest. He was transported to a hospital in Wenatchee, not expected to live. Even so, he almost immediately tried to commit suicide by jumping out a hospital window. Restrained from that, he asked to see his father and mother … and Lela. She went and stayed for some time, feeling she was somehow to blame for the awful events.

Three weeks later, Delbert was well enough to sit up, and the feeling was that he would live after all. Prosecutors therefore filed a first-degree murder charge against him. He had already admitted to killing Walter and even wished that “he could do it again.” Still, a capital offense had to be tried in court, and that brought Luke May into the case to verify the death weapon.

Meanwhile, John Hornby had the sad task of retrieving his brother’s body. They again had to delay the service while the parents traveled from Canada. Eventually, four of the Hornby brothers, as well as Ben and Idella, would be interred in a cemetery on a beautiful stretch of the Spokane River just west of the city.

Brown’s trial was set for October. While Lela waited to testify, she re-united with her husband in Wenatchee. Tragically, on August 14, little Flora died suddenly from “acute intestinal intoxication,” then a poorly-understood malady that killed almost half of the infants who suffered it.

Under the circumstances, Delbert’s only viable plea was “not guilty by reason of insanity.” The defense had some basis for this, although it’s not clear how much was presented to the jury. At the time of the trial, Delbert’s youngest brother was confined at the state psychiatric hospital in Spokane County. His other brother was in the state reformatory. He had shown signs of instability for quite some time, and would be moved to the same psychiatric unit within a few years. And the stigma of Delbert’s epilepsy strengthened the notion that he might be unbalanced.

In the end, the trial boiled down to “dueling experts,” several for the defense versus two with impressive credentials for the prosecution. The jury found him guilty but did not recommend a death penalty. Delbert was sentenced to a life term in prison, but he cannot be found in penitentiary records for either the 1940 or 1950 censuses. Thus, it seems likely he was confined for many years in a psychiatric facility, perhaps for most of his life. The next mention of him in available records was his death in Cashmere on December 12, 1971.

John and Lela Morris clearly had to grow up in a hurry with the death of infant Flora. Still, shared grief surely strengthened the bond between them. They returned to Porthill some time after the trial. There, Lela bore a son in early 1932. Two daughters followed in 1933 and 1935. They spent three years after 1936 in Canada, where another daughter was born. They then returned to Porthill, where they became the core of a thriving family, including another daughter born in 1945.

John and Lela Morris. Family Archives.

At least three of their children graduated from the University of Idaho, and two of the girls met their husbands there. After serving with the U.S. Army in Korea, the son spent his life in North Idaho, mainly on property he owned near Porthill. As could be expected, the daughters scattered with their respective husbands: Modesto, California; and three in Washington – Bellevue, Bellingham, and near Vancouver. All the children raised families of their own.

A snapshot from John and Lela’s fiftieth wedding anniversary (1978) shows at least three and perhaps four generations. Lela (Stitch) Morris passed away April 19, 1981. John Morris moved into a nursing home in Bonners Ferry around 1990. He died there in late 1993, survived by all but their youngest daughter. He was described as having 17 grandchildren and 32 great-grandchildren.
                                                                                

References: Laura Arksey, “Cashmere — Thumbnail History,” Online Encyclopedia of Washington State History, HistoryLink.org, Seattle, Washington (August 30, 2008).).

Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica Ultimate Reference Suite, Encyclopædia Britannica, Chicago, Illinois (2012).

David R. Nalin, “The History of Intravenous and Oral Rehydration and Maintenance Therapy …,” Tropical Medicine and Infectious Disease, 7, (3): 50, Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute [MDPI], Basel, Switzerland (March 12, 2022).

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

“[Murder and Trial]," Bellingham Herald, Tacoma Ledger, Spokane Chronicle, Spokesman-Review, Spokane, Washington; The Oregonian, Portland, Oregon (March 1930 – October 1930).

“[Family Histories],” Jamestown Alert, North Dakota; Bonners Ferry Herald, Idaho; Bellingham Herald, Spokane Chronicle, Spokesman-Review, Spokane, Washington; Edmonton Journal, Alberta, Canada; (July 1888 – December 1993).

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Death In Little Italy

Tacoma, Washington, early 1929: Vincenzo “James” Cappa brutally murdered Francesco “Frank” Cusato. The details of Why? were never fully explained. But the aftermath included the later death of Cappa himself. Cappa was born January 14, 1866 in Calabria, an area that forms the “toe” of the Italian boot. Cusato was born nine months later, on October 29, 1866, also in that region. Little is known about their early lives, except that Cusato’s father died in 1879 or early 1880, and his mother soon remarried.

How the two came to be in Tacoma tells a fascinating story of how the broad sweep of history plays out in the lives of individuals. The occupation of Rome by the Italian army in September 1870 completed the unification of the peninsula and solidified the creation of the Kingdom of Italy. The unifiers, almost all from the north, then settled down to try to govern their new country. Integration was severely hampered by the lack of a true national language. At the time, few people (less that 3%, according to one scholar) could properly use “Standard Italian” – a “prestige” variant adapted from a Tuscan dialect.

In fact, different parts of Italy had, and still have, their own vernaculars that linguists consider “sister languages,” not dialects of any common form. Some variants were different enough that speakers might switch to Standard Italian to avoid misunderstandings. Ordinary conversation, especially among the poor and least educated, continued in their “native tongue.”

For reasons that are beyond the scope of this blog, the new government’s policies imposed disproportionate hardships in the already-impoverished south. (Even now, specialists in Italian history argue about the root causes.) But the resulting mass exodus is clear in the numbers: Records show that as many as 300,000 Italian immigrants came to this country during the decade after 1880. Seventeen-year-old Vincenzo Cappa was among them, arriving at New York City in the spring of 1883. Here, he most often went by “James,” which was probably his Roman Catholic confirmation name.

James was illiterate, with only a limited command of English. Still, a hard-working manual laborer could find jobs if he was willing to go anywhere and do anything. A decade later, we find him in Tacoma, probably as a railroad section hand. He gravitated to the local “Little Italy,” in the Hilltop neighborhood west of downtown where many immigrants from Calabria had settled. While small in comparison to most such districts – an estimated 400-600 members in 1893 – the community offered ties to a familiar language and culture. Before the decade was out, James married fellow Italian immigrant Rosina “Rose” Vercillo at Saint Leo Catholic church in Tacoma.  

St. Leo Catholic Church. Vintage Postcard.

Meanwhile, the exodus from their homeland continued … almost 600,000 coming to the U.S. in the decade after 1890. Francesco Cusato somehow endured those years. He had also acquired a half-brother, Michele “Mike” Sita, a few years after his mother remarried. Mike would play a key role in Frank’s future.

Matters in Italy came to a head near the end of the decade. A major failure in the wheat crop caused a spike in prices, followed by widespread “bread riots.” A savage over-reaction by the military resulted in many civilian deaths, and only fueled further strife. Frank’s stepfather moved to this country a few months before Italy’s king was assassinated in the summer of 1900. He too ended up in Tacoma’s Little Italy.

The murder of the king did spark changes, some good, some bad. On the plus side, officials created a Commission on Emigration to guide those who wanted to leave. Frank’s brother Nicola “Nick” Cusato and half-brother Mike also immigrated and settled in Tacoma. Frank finally joined them there in June 1906. He was forty years old, could not read or write, and had poor English. Like Cappa, he found manual labor jobs wherever he could: on the docks, in construction, mining, and more. He never married, but Nick and Mike did, and Frank would eventually have eight nieces and nephews.

James and Rose Cappa had six children by 1910: two daughters and four sons. Being still unable to read or write, James had to make do with odd jobs to support the family. Luckily, Rose could read, which helped open a few more doors. James finally found better-paying work at a lumber mill … still physically demanding, but it offered some hope of advancement.

As Frank Cusato grew older, he escaped the treadmill of hard physical labor through a family connection. Half-brother Mike Sita had started the same way Frank did, but then found a different route. Around 1911, he went to work at a shoeshine parlor. His flare for the job, and winning personality, made him an immediate success. In fact, Mike proved to have a knack for the business, with his own shop by around 1915. Within a couple years, he opened a larger shoeshine parlor at a better location.

That made room for Frank, who worked as a bootblack in Mike’s shop until at least 1923. (That same year, Frank’s stepfather, Mike’s father, was killed in a railroad yard accident.) Available records for Frank are rather spotty after that. However, there are indications that he worked at least part time at the parlor for several more years.

We also don’t know how long James Cappa stayed with the sawmill job. However, at some point he acquired a small partly-developed property about a half mile west of the family home. He kept a few cows on the land and sold the milk. Although one son had died – in 1918, probably from the so-called “Spanish” flu – his family had grown to nine living children (six daughters and three sons) by 1925.

Over the years, James Cappa and Frank Cusato had become friends. They obviously had a lot in common: near the same age, Roman Catholic, and from the same region of Italy. And both had spent most of their lives doing hard physical labor. After about 1928, when they had semi-retired, Frank lived in a shack less than two hundred yards from James Cappa’s little dairy. Most evenings, they got together at Cappa’s place to play cards.

As noted above, no one knows exactly what happened on Saturday morning, January 19, 1929. The weather was miserable, with temperatures below freezing, strong northerly winds, and occasional snow flurries. Cusato showed up about 7:30 a.m., while Cappa was washing milk bottles. James claimed that Frank immediately began saying “bad words” about “a woman of the neighborhood.” It appears – although never proven for sure – that the two had a long-standing difference of opinion about this woman. She was never identified, which suggests that there was some family connection. The community might have known, but would not have revealed that fact to outsiders.

Nor do we know the nature of the “bad words.” Newspapers used the word “taunt” in their articles. However, we don’t really know if that captured the proper nuances of the exchange in Calabrian vernacular. Given the violence of Cappa’s reaction, one may infer that the woman was related somehow, and that the purported transgression was of a sexual nature. But that’s only speculation.

Cappa demanded that Cusato leave and, when he didn’t, smacked him with a milk bottle. Cusato still wouldn’t go and the two struggled a bit. Now thoroughly enraged, Cappa broke free and rushed into his bedroom where he kept a revolver. In some versions, Cappa claimed that Cusato had picked up a club, or perhaps a hatchet, by the time he returned. In any case, Cappa shot two or three times and Cusato fell. Still in a blind rage, Cappa said, he picked up a rifle (where that came from was never explained either), and bashed his victim several times. The blows fractured Cusato’s skull before the weapon broke.

One report said he reloaded the revolver and dropped it in a pocket. In any case, he then went to a neighbor and had them call police. Officers found Cappa inside, “covered with blood” but not injured. Cusato’s body was on the porch, not in the kitchen. Cappa must have moved it, although he never mentioned doing so. In fact, Cappa probably never offered any one clear account of what happened. Police even enlisted a prominent member of the Italian community who had previously spent ten years as a city detective. He helped piece together a somewhat plausible sequence from multiple versions.

As it happened, Tacoma Captain of Detectives John Strickland was familiar with the scientific detection skills of private criminologist Luke S. May. Thus, Tacoma authorities quickly hired him to help with the case. May’s verification of the death weapon would have been a routine matter by 1929. However, he also logged the case as involving “bloodstains,” surely meaning blood spatter analysis. The pattern of stains would have told its own story. 

Tacoma, ca 1929. Tacoma Public Library.

However, we don’t know what May’s report said because the case never went to trial. Cappa was initially charged with second degree murder, to which he (his lawyer) pleaded “not guilty.” Family and friends raised his $10,000 bail, so he did not spend a long time in jail awaiting arraignment and trial. Even so, the strain soon ruined his health. Rather than go to trial in mid-March, James pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of manslaughter. Rose and his attorney had to steady him so he could stand for the reading of the sentence: one to ten years in the state penitentiary.

James remained an invalid for the rest of his life, and does not appear to have spent any time in prison. He was at home with his family for the census in the spring of 1930. It’s a tribute to his basic toughness that he lasted until December of 1932.

James left a large family. Oddly enough (given the norm for that era), of the nine children who survived to adulthood, five never married. That included two of the three sons, and the one son didn’t marry until long after his mother died. Still, the children did well by “the American Dream.” The three sons all went into far better paying fields than their father could have ever hoped for: One owned a custom upholstery business and another was a pharmacist.

The three daughters who married had husbands with skill-based positions: professional gardener, bottler, and studio photographer. Daughter Eva trained in photography and assisted in her husband’s studio. Of the three unmarried daughters, one became a social worker for the state of Washington, another had a long career at Sears, and the third was a nurse.

The three married daughters, despite their Roman Catholic heritage, did not raise large families. One, in fact, had no children. Thus, when Rose (Vercillo) Cappa died April 9, 1952, she’d had time to enjoy just three grandchildren … all males.
                                                                                

References: “[Cappa-Cusato News],” News Tribune, Tacoma, Seattle Times, Tacoma Ledger, Washington (January 1929 – December 1932).

Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica Ultimate Reference Suite, Encyclopædia Britannica, Chicago, Illinois (2012).

Rita Cipalla, “Little Italy Communities Helped Early Immigrants Adjust To New Lives,” L’Italo-Americano newspaper, New York, New York (November 1, 2020).

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

David Wilma, Walt Crowley, “Tacoma – Thumbnail History,” Online Encyclopedia of Washington State History, HistoryLink.org, Seattle, Washington (January 17, 2003).

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Death On A Snowy Night

Heavy snow began piling up in the Cascade Mountains of Washington shortly after New Years Day of 1933. The winter was promising to be one of the snowiest on record. On the weekend of January 21, a storm added ten inches more at Snoqualmie Pass. All that was good news for Cle Elum, a small town located about thirty miles southeast of the pass. They had “one of the first organized ski areas west of Colorado,” which drew thousands of seasonal visitors. 

Early Cle Elum. Central Washington University

A strong season would also be good news for Abram Perry and his “second hand” store – something like a pawn shop, but generally without the loan service. At the time, ski shops as we know them were confined almost entirely to New England and eastern Canada. Customers would surely find their way to his place on First Street to try out this new thing, or to upgrade their skis, sleds, and toboggans.

Born around 1866 in New Brunswick, Canada, Abraham G. Perry moved to this country around 1885 and became a naturalized citizen three years later. Soon after, he took a job as a coal miner near Cle Elum. A first marriage in late 1890 lasted less than a year because Abram, as he began to call himself, proved to be an abusive husband. He married again in 1896, to Alena “Lena” LeCole. By then, coal had been discovered right in Cle Elum, and the town boomed. It incorporated in February 1902, and Abram opened his first store some time the following year.

Perry prospered along with the town, even more so after 1915, when Cle Elum became a popular stop on the new main highway across central Washington. However, some time during that period, the Perrys chose to separate (they had no children). Abram retained the store, while Lena owned a farm property near Cle Elum. There’s no record that they ever divorced, although Abram gave that status for the 1920 census. Lena simply told the census taker that they “lived apart.”

As time passed, locals came to believe that Perry was “one of the wealthiest men in Upper Kittitas County.” He did not, however, trust banks – which tended to “go bust” with alarming frequency during that era. (That really began to look like a smart move, as the Great Depression ruined even more financial institutions.) Still, rightly or wrongly, it became “common knowledge” that Perry had caches of money hidden all around the store and his attached living quarters. The consequences were tragic.

On the afternoon of January 25, 1933, the Cle Elum mail carrier found the door to Perry’s store locked. Peering inside, he saw the storekeeper sprawled on the floor, not moving. Concerned, he forced the door and found that Abram was dead from a gunshot in his back. A flashlight lay near the body, but no weapon. Abram was known to keep at least one revolver under his pillow, so the killer had most likely taken it away with him. News reports never said how he got into the store.

Also, there’s no way of knowing why the intruder gunned down the old man, rather than simply disarming him. Perhaps he feared that Perry would recognize him. He supposedly got away with $2,000 in cash. He did not take time to pry open the “old fashioned” combination-lock cash drawer, which contained another $800. A coat of fresh snow with drifting due to strong winds during the night covered any traces of how the killer had come and gone.

The coroner retrieved a .30-caliber slug from Perry’s back, and estimated that he had been killed on the evening of the 24th. Officials must have immediately consulted with private criminologist Luke S. May. News reports the day after the body was found identified the death weapon as a German Luger automatic pistol … in the lighter .30-caliber (technically, 7.65 mm) model.

With that information, police in Ellensburg arrested two armed suspects that same day. A deputy then delivered their weapons – one a 7.65 mm Luger – to May in Seattle. May could ignore one gun, since it was the wrong make and model. The Luger automatic was not, however, the death weapon. With so little to go on, the investigation soon stalled and then basically went cold.

Not just anyone can run a “second hand store” successfully. (It takes a particular mix of personality, knowledge, and bargaining skills.) Thus, we don’t know what happened to Abram’s business after he was murdered. Most likely, Lena operated it for some time while she sought a buyer. Meanwhile, a year passed with no results on finding her husband’s killer. We don’t know exactly when she wrote a letter to the governor pleading for action. But as a result, in May 1934, the governor had the State Patrol assign two detectives to the case. Of course, they had no more to go on than the original investigators, and made no progress either.

However, we may infer that they kept the case active with periodic bulletins and requests for information. That finally paid off in December. A rancher who raised fruit in an area just north of Yakima provided the breakthrough. News reports are vague on some key points about why he came forward. However, circumstances suggest that he spoke up after Yakima police arrested one Lee Harrison on an unrelated burglary charge.

Edgar Lee Harrison was born February 7, 1894 in a rural area about fifty miles east of Springfield, Missouri. In late 1917, he moved to the Yakima Valley in Washington. He married a Yakima waitress in January 1920, and soon began using “Lee” instead of Edgar for most business and personal matters. The marriage lasted only until about 1924. They had no children. During that period, Lee learned how to operate a steam locomotive.

He remarried in November 1928, to Minnie E. Cargo. However, he was laid off from the railroad in 1931 and had to make do with odd jobs. Also, police apparently began to view Harrison as a possible suspect in a number of local burglaries. They might even have picked him up for questioning on some cases. In any event, solid evidence was lacking until he was actually arrested in December 1934.

Harrison had worked for the fruit rancher during the summer of 1933. The rancher overheard him talking about the Perry murder and asked him about it. Harrison claimed that he and an accomplice had pulled off the job. He later gave at least a dozen slightly different versions of the story. Thus, the rancher apparently decided it was all just a big brag to make himself look like a “tough cookie,” and never reported it. But now, Harrison was revealed to be a bone fide burglary suspect. Perhaps there was something to the talk after all.

Confronted about the Perry story, Harrison admitted that he had burglarized the store and shot the old man. Besides identifying the murder weapon as a German Luger, he also provided details that could have been known only to the perpetrator. But he also claimed that he wasn’t entirely to blame. The intrusion had been provoked by a man named Jack Slagle, of Bellingham. In the fall of 1932, he had started talking up all the money Perry supposedly had hidden around his place. He had finally badgered Harrison into joining the venture. The police should go after him too.

John B. “Jack” Slagle was born September 27, 1887 at a place 80-90 miles east of Wichita, Kansas. He moved to Washington before 1910, settling a few miles from the Canadian border, midway across the state. He married there in November 1913. The bride’s maiden name was Vera Sophia Ethel, but after two or three years she began using the name “Veva.” The couple had three children by 1920 – two sons and a daughter. Starting about that time, Jack’s name began to appear in the news for violations of gambling and liquor laws. He perhaps wore out his welcome in that area, because the family moved to Bellingham in 1926.

There, Jack could not seem to find steady work, and spent time in jail in 1928 on liquor law violations. He was back in trouble for illegal gambling in the spring of 1931. The strain on his marriage became too great by 1932. After that, Veva and the three kids lived together and Jack was on his own. She filed for divorce a couple months after he was arrested on a burglary charge in Yakima in May 1933. Police had caught Jack and three “companions” with safe-cracking tools, dynamite, and some weapons. However, nothing linked them to any specific crime, so prosecutors had to release them.

Coincidentally, Slagle was already a suspect in a Yakima safe-cracking case when Harrison named him in his confession. However, Jack had left Bellingham four days before Yakima authorities issued a warrant for his arrest. Unaware of the warrant, he showed up in Yakima and was locked up immediately. He vehemently denied any involvement in the Perry burglary-murder. Even so, authorities transferred him to the Kittitas County jail in Ellensburg (the county seat) on January 5, 1935. However, except for the Harrison statement, officials had no actual evidence against Slagle. They released him a few days before Harrison’s trial, which began April 8, 1935. 

Kittitas County Courthouse.
Central Washington University.

On the stand, Harrison claimed that he played no part in the Perry murder. His stories about it were based on what Slagle had told him. He further asserted that police had used extreme “force and duress” to get him to confess to something he hadn’t done. He and wife Minnie even offered an alibi. After buying some moonshine the day before, they had then partied all through the day that Abram Perry was murdered. Thus, neither was in any shape to go out that night. They had evidence for the booze purchase, but had no one who could verify the binge party.  The jury took a little over two hours to reach a “guilty” verdict. He received a life sentence.

At this point, Harrison’s detailed accusations against Slagle appeared in the public trial record and were all over the news. Thus, prosecutors felt they had to proceed against him. He was re-arrested and went on trial in June. Besides the Harrison statement, prosecutors had a witness who heard Slagle mention the old man’s money, and others who placed him in Cle Elum some time before the murder.

The jury did spend eight or nine hours considering the relevance and credibility of the testimony, but finally issued a “not guilty” verdict. After the trial, Slagle settled in Yakima and married a widow in November 1939. She passed away a little over two years later. Jack lived in Yakima until at least 1950, but died in rural King County in the spring of 1953.

We don’t know how long Lee Harrison spent in prison, but he was still there when Minnie divorced him in September 1943. However, by 1951, he was living in Oregon. At some point, he married again … to “Mabel.” He passed away in southern Oregon in September 1964.

Lena (LeCole) Perry married again in January 1939, to a farmer with a place just south of Cle Elum. She died on December 31, 1943.
                                                                               

References: Jim Kershner, “Cle Elum – Thumbnail History,” Online Encyclopedia of Washington State History, HistoryLink.org, Seattle, Washington  (October 11, 2013).
John W. Lundin and Stephen J. Lundin, “Cle Elum Ski Club,” Online Encyclopedia of Washington State History, HistoryLink.org, Seattle, Washington  (August 27, 2012).
Luke S. May, Luke S. May Papers, Special Collections, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington (1969).
“[Perry Case News & Background],” Post-Intelligencer, Seattle; Spokesman-Review, Spokane; Daily Olympian, Olympia; Oroville Gazette, Bellingham Herald, Seattle Times, Washington (June 1891 – June 1935).

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The Chicken Coop Deaths

The evening of November 5, 1929, a Tuesday, was a miserable time to be outdoors near Puget Sound. Occasional showers and gathering fog made for a clammy night, with temperatures in the low forties. But Royal Wentworth was determined to confront anyone who tried to steal chickens from his coop. The previous Saturday, a thief had made off with about a hundred of them. 

Royal J. Wentworth.
Family Archives.

 That cost him perhaps $80-90, depending upon the wholesale market. Not a huge loss. Still, Seattle newspapers were then advertising new, high-quality multi-piece bedroom suites for about that price. Thus, not a trivial amount either. For context, one must recall that this was long before the advent of giant “factory” farms. Some chickens might be produced on ranches with perhaps several thousand birds, but most were raised in small flocks. Result: Advertised prices for chicken meat were sometimes as much or more than “fancy sirloin steak.” Families reserved chicken for Sunday dinner or special occasions.

News reports didn’t give the size of Wentworth’s ranch. It was located in Richmond Highlands, 10-12 miles north of downtown Seattle. Now a forested residential enclave, the area was much more rural back then. At the time, many people raised chickens there. Although Royal had another source of income, he probably needed the return from his chickens to make the ranch a paying operation.

Royal Joshua Wentworth was born May 13, 1873 near Minneapolis, Minnesota. He married Susette Wheeler in 1894, the ceremony being performed in Wisconsin. The couple had three sons and two daughters by 1910. Royal farmed for many years near Minneapolis, and their three oldest children (a daughter and two sons) had married and gone out on their own by 1922.

About a year later, Royal, Susette and their two youngest children moved to Seattle, where a number of Wentworth relatives lived. There, Royal worked primarily as a carpenter and building contractor. Some time in the late twenties, he acquired the ranch property in the Highlands. That might have been after the youngest son and daughter married (in 1926 and 1928, respectively). Royal probably continued to work as a contractor for some time, in case the ranch did not pan out. Sadly, Royal’s wife died in July 1929, leaving him alone.

One unconfirmed report said that Royal began sleeping outdoors after the Saturday raid. That seems a bit unlikely, given the weather conditions and the fact that he could not know when the thief or thieves might return. He may have simply picked a place inside where he could hear better. Whatever the case, he was outside, carrying “a large caliber shotgun,” on Tuesday evening. He was found the next morning, with a bullet in his brain from a close range shot. Royal was alive but unresponsive, so we can not know when he was gunned down. The gloomy night would have surely helped the shooter ambush him. Nearby, officials discovered a sack filled with about fifty “squawking” chickens. The thief must have fled right away, fearing that someone might come to investigate the gunshot. Royal Wentworth never regained consciousness and died five days after he was shot.

Law officers took chicken theft very seriously back then because so many people (rural and urban voters) had flocks and suffered from such depredations. With murder now involved, the pressure rose even higher. Thus, the King County sheriff told reporters that he had “two crews working night and day on the case.” He also said they had “many clues,” which included an unknown fingerprint on a window of the coop. All of that was to no avail.

A month after the shooting, they contracted with private criminologist Luke S. May to examine the fatal bullet. From that, and probably an empty shell casing, May determined that the death weapon was a .32-caliber automatic pistol. He would have also known the make and model, but that’s not given in available accounts. At least officials knew what to look for. Over the following months, they quizzed every suspected chicken thief about the murder.

About a week after May was hired, Seattle officers rushed to Olympia to interview members of a small chicken theft gang (aged 28, 22, and 19). The trio had already confessed to “wholesale” chicken robberies all over a wide area, including around Seattle. Questioning, however, revealed that they had solid alibis for the time of the murder. Another possibility appeared in mid-October 1930. Two men got into an argument over a woman on a Seattle street. During the cursing and yelling, they revealed that they were actually partners in a long-time chicken stealing campaign in and around the city. They too were questioned about the murder, but also had verifiable alibis.

The hunt ended in a bizarre fashion about a month later … at a chicken ranch south of Seattle owned by Henry Pillkahn.

Otto Ernst Heinrich Pillkahn was born July 11, 1868 in Hanover, Germany. He came to this country in 1885, crowded into steerage aboard a steamship that docked in Baltimore, Maryland. He eventually made his way to the gold mines of Esmeralda County, Nevada. Now going by the name “Henry” or sometimes “Henry Otto,” he found work as a hard-rock miner. In 1905, he married Clara (Mourning) Burns there. Five years later, he and Clara had moved to a farm near Sunnydale, a hamlet about ten miles due south of downtown Seattle.

We don’t know how or when the Pillkahns got into the poultry business. Back then, farmers usually started with egg layers. Broilers, specifically raised for meat, didn’t become important until the 1920s. Henry and Clara most likely went through that transition. By 1930, they had a considerable operation. So much so that Henry had an electrical security system installed for his chicken shed. 

Old Style Chicken Shed. Library of Congress.

 
That alarm roused Henry at about 4:30 a.m. on the morning of November 19, 1930. The weather was gloomy and damp, just as it had been over a year earlier for Royal Wentworth. The rancher grabbed a shotgun and hurried to the coop. Hearing someone moving around inside, he flung open the door and ordered the intruder to show himself. The thief answered with a shot which, fortunately for Henry, went wide. Almost instinctively, Henry fired back at the flash in the darkness. When a second pistol shot followed, Henry squeezed off another round. Fearful that another bullet might hit him, he quickly retreated into the yard.

Within minutes, Pillkahn’s neighbors – all armed – joined him. They surrounded the shed as best they could and called for the intruder to give himself up. There was no answer, so the group waited until a deputy sheriff arrived. After a cautious approach, the deputy found the shooter inside … quite dead from a shotgun blast in the chest. Beside his body, they recovered five large sacks, one with several chickens in it. They also found a .32-caliber automatic pistol.

The coroner first judged the man to be about 50 years old, but that estimate was soon revised to about 57. The corpse was bald and all his upper teeth were gone. He was roughly dressed and carried no identification. No one recognized him or knew where he lived. The area had suffered a rash of chicken thefts, and many wondered if he might have been the culprit. Then, late in the day, a check of his fingerprints turned up a name: C. R Blair. He had been jailed in 1925 for petty larceny.

Blair was known to have used at least two aliases, one being Richard McBride. Records suggest that he was living in Seattle in early 1898, when he would have been about 21 years old. At that time, he apparently worked in the timber industry. Later, “C. R.” stayed in low-rent hotels not far from the Seattle docks and worked as a laborer. In 1916, a Richard McBride of about the right age was arrested on suspicion of attempted bank robbery, but later released. Overall, despite the aliases, Blair did not seem to have an extensive criminal record.

The day after the thief was identified, Luke May reported his assessment of the weapon found. The same automatic pistol had been used to murder Royal Wentworth. May was careful to avoid any conclusion that Blair had been the shooter in the earlier case.

With a name, and probably a photo, officers now sought further information about the dead thief. A few days later, the Seattle Times printed the headline, “Killing Of Thief To Provide Feasts.” At a ranch that Blair was “known to have occupied,” deputies had discovered three dozen abandoned chickens. Since there was no way to determine the original owners, the sheriff directed that they be distributed to needy families who could have an unexpected banquet for Thanksgiving.

The very next day, a required coroner’s jury convened to assess Blair’s death. A reporter for the Seattle Times painted a poignant picture of the hearing. Henry Pillkahn, gray-hair and surely stooped with age – he was 62 – and regret, was called to the witness stand. He began, but then, overcome by the reality of having killed another human being, broke down. His wife “like a woman pioneer out of American history books,” rushed to stand by his side. “He nearly went plumb crazy when he found out he’d killed that man,” she said. “But the man was a thief. He was stealing our chickens – our bread and butter.”

Henry gathered himself and then did his duty. Luke May added his findings about the pistol, again being careful to say only that the same gun had killed Royal Wentworth. The jury took little time to absolve Pillkahn of any blame. Officials presumably did their due diligence to make sure some other chicken thief hadn’t used the .32-caliber to murder Wentworth. The case, a sad affair all around, was then closed.
                                                                               

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

Brian Peterka, A History of Locally Produced Food in Shoreline, digginshoreline.org, Shoreline, Washington (2013).

“Poultry,” Encyclopædia Britannica Ultimate Reference Suite, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., Chicago, Illinois (2012).

“[Wentworth Related News],” Spokesman-Review, Spokane, Seattle Times, Tacoma Daily Ledger, Washington (April 1916 – November 1930).

E. P. Winter, Marketing Margins and Costs for Poultry and Eggs, Technical Bulletin No. 969, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Washington, D.C. (November 1948).

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Love Triangle: Real or Imagined?

The first week of December in 1928 was unusually cold in Walla Walla, Washington, with temperatures barely rising above freezing during the day. Luckily, the cold snap broke on Sunday, December 9th. Attorney John W. Brooks, a widower, was playing cards and chatting with a new housekeeper he had selected the day before, Mrs. Gertrude Bershaw. About 5:30 p.m., they heard a knock at the front door.

Brooks rose and called out for the knocker to “Come in.” They were shocked when a man marched in with a revolver and pointed it at Brooks. A red bandana with eye holes completely masked his head. The housekeeper, understandably shaken, later gave confused accounts to the police. She did consistently state that Brooks said, “You can have anything I have,” assuming it was a robbery. The intruder may or may not have said something, but then shot Brooks twice in the chest, before leaving without a word. 

Walla Walla, ca 1928. City of Walla Walla.

 The murder completely baffled officials, for they could find no credible motive. Brooks had defended a number of clients against charges of violating Prohibition. Thus, police briefly entertained the notion that a convicted offender might have had a grudge against the attorney for not getting him off. But that went absolutely nowhere. Brooks didn’t seem to have any enemies who might resort to murder.

John Watson Brooks was born September 9, 1870 in Asheville, North Carolina. He earned a law degree from the University of North Carolina in 1892 and reportedly moved to Walla Walla the following year. He married Esther Belle Singleton, daughter of Walla Walla Valley pioneers, five years later. The couple had a daughter in 1899, but she died at the age of six.

By 1903, Brooks’ practice had grown enough for him to take on a partner. He was active in Republican party politics and served two terms as city attorney for Walla Walla. Besides all that, John invested in real estate, both lots in the city and ranch properties in the region. Sadly, Esther Belle died in October of 1922. Brooks did not remarry, but paid a succession of ladies to tend house for him. As noted above, he had decided to hire Gertrude Bershaw just before he was killed.

Gertrude Konen was born March 21, 1885 in Green Bay, Wisconsin. It’s not clear when she moved west, but she married Frank Bershaw in November 1910 in Nez Perce County, Idaho. In 1920, they were living in Clarkston, Washington, just across the river from Lewiston, Idaho. At that time, they had a son and and a pair of fraternal twins, a boy and a girl. Sadly, her husband suffered a severe fall in September 1924 and died from his injuries. To make ends meet, Gertrude sought work as a housekeeper. After Brooks was murdered, she returned to Lewiston, where her teenaged children were still living.

About a month after the murder, authorities offered a $500 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the shooter. (That’s equivalent to nearly $16 thousand in consumer spending power in today’s economy.) The award paid off just under a month later when an informant told police that one Robert Lee Wilkins had made vehement threats against the attorney.

When police investigated, Wilkins was evasive, but his sixteen-year-old son, Alfred, eventually blurted out that, yes, his father had shot and killed Brooks. Officers also found a revolver of the right caliber in the father’s belongings. They sent it to private criminologist Luke S. May for examination. A few days later, they received May’s preliminary report that the revolver was, “in all likelihood,” the death weapon. Thus, police felt they could proceed with confidence against Wilkins and his son.

Robert Lee Wilkins was born February 8, 1886, probably on a farm south of Fort Worth, Texas. Soon after, the family moved to Idaho … the father died in Grangeville in May 1887. When Robert went out on his own, he took up farming in northern Oregon. In October 1910, he married Emma Robinson in Portland. Two years later, they were living in Walla Walla, where Alfred was born. Before the spring of 1918, they moved back to Idaho. There, Wilkins operated a farm until about 1924. They then returned to Walla Walla, where Robert worked as a laborer and general handyman.

Under added pressure, Alfred told police that he had driven his father to the Brooks place. All the boy knew was that his father wanted him to see the man who had “broken up my home.” Only after he heard shots did he realize what had happened. Robert expected to be arrested right away (it’s unclear why, since he was well masked). Thus, he had written an account that exonerated the boy of any part in the crime. When nothing happened after several days, Robert decided he was free and clear, and burned that account.

After he was arrested, he was uncooperative at first. Then he more or less acknowledged that he had shot Brooks. But his guarded remarks led officials to suspect he’d plead some variant of an “unwritten law.” That is, he felt obligated to punish Brooks for breaking up his happily married life.

That changed after Robert retained a defense attorney. To start, he now admitted that he had shot Brooks. As an aside, that saved the county the cost to bring in Luke May to testify about the death weapon. The defense agreed to stipulate that fact. (May probably didn’t mind since he had seven or eight case files open, including three other murders.) Wilkins did not, however, plead guilty to murder. It seemed clear that he would claim mental irresponsibility, even insanity, brought on by the breakup.

Alfred recalled an interesting item from the burned notes. Wilkins had stated that while he was in the hospital with a broken leg, Emma had visited Brooks several times. It’s unclear when this was supposed to have happened. We do know that Emma later supported herself by working as a domestic cook and housekeeper. We might speculate that, with her husband laid up and unable to work, Emma had sought a temporary job with Brooks. We don’t know one way or the other. Still, a jealous husband, upset by his inability to be the bread-winner, might read anything into these circumstances.

Robert and Emma separated in the spring of 1928. It’s not known where Alfred lived after that, but it was evidently not with either of his parents. Robert claimed that Brooks had corrupted his wife with booze and parties. He insisted that the town was laced with scandalous talk about it. If only some people would come forward “and tell all they know about Brooks,” officials would understand. Investigators, however, found not even a hint to support these claims.

When the trial began in mid-March, Alfred proved to be an uncooperative witness against his father. He limited his answers to a mumbled “yes” or “no” as the prosecutor basically read his earlier statements into the trial record. Thus, if he knew any more about the trouble between his parents, he mentioned none of it during the trial.

Wilkins’ defense team failed to put even one witness on the stand to support his allegations against Brooks. All they could find were people who knew the Wilkins as a happy couple before the breakup. And Robert maintained throughout that he wanted to resume his life with Emma. Even so, the defense did not have her testify. Nor would they agree – required under Washington law – to let the State put her on the stand. Thus, we never do hear her side of the story. 

Robert L. Wilkins.
Spokane Chronicle (August 15, 1930).

In any case, prosecutors countered with devastating effect. They found a number of witnesses who testified that Robert was the one fooling around. He and another man even went off on a jaunt to Oregon with two women … neither of whom were Emma. One witness was a thirty-year-old hotel cook and former “confidant” of Wilkins. She asserted that Robert had said, “She [Emma] was getting old and wasn’t even pretty any more.” Less than 38 years old when they separated, Emma was, in fact, more than four years younger than her husband.

The jury took only a few hours to return a “guilty” verdict, and to recommend the death penalty. After the usual appeals, Robert Lee Wilkins was hanged in the early hours of August 15, 1930.

Alfred does not appear in available public records until a decade after his father’s execution. He does show up in the spring of 1935, when newspapers reported that he had been sentenced to the Washington state reform school for stealing some tires. He was out by 1940, when he and a wife were recorded in the census for Yakima. At that time, he was working at an auto wrecking yard. Alfred died of a sudden heart attack on a visit to Walla Walla in the summer of 1946.

As noted above, Emma became a domestic servant after her separation from Robert. In 1930, she had found a spot in Umatilla, Oregon. She gave her status as “widow” to the census taker, although her husband was still alive at that point. (Robert gave his marital status as divorced.) A month after Robert was executed, Emma married sawmill worker George Darlin. They lived in central Oregon for many years before returning to the Umatilla area around 1941, then retired to a place near La Grande around 1955. Her husband died there in 1963 and she passed away in 1988.

                                                                               

References: ““[Brooks Murder News],” Evening Statesman, Walla Walla, Spokesman-Review, Spokane, Bellingham Herald, Tacoma Daily Ledger, Seattle Times, Washington; The Oregonian, Portland, Oregon (October 1902 – July 1946).

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

Michael J. Paulus Jr., “Walla Walla – Thumbnail History,” Online Encyclopedia of Washington State History, HistoryLink.org, Seattle, Washington (February 26, 2008).

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