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.
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| 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.
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| 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). |
