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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