Since retiring many years ago from my "day job," I have completed and published four books:
Boise River Gold Country
Before the Spud: Indians, Buckaroos, and Sheepherders in Pioneer Idaho
Idaho: Year One – The Territory's First Year
American Sherlock: Remembering a Pioneer in Scientific Crime Detection.
You can find more details, and ordering information, for each book by clicking the shorthand title at the top. Or click here to go directly to specific ordering information. To learn more about us and how these books happened, click here.
I continue to post items of (mostly) Idaho history on the South Fork Companion. Here, I am posting items related to forensic science, “true crime,” and American Sherlock, the biography of pioneer criminologist Luke S. May. May handled over two thousand cases during his long career. That included over 270 death cases, involving more than 300 victims. (An amazing number, really, considered that he was a private detective and consulting criminologist.) Thus, I had to leave out far more cases than I could include in the book.
Of course, American Sherlock is about May. Thus, the book focuses on his role in a particular event. Here, I can provide more details on other aspects of a case. I have now posted quite a number of true crime stories. And there will be more … both Luke May cases plus some related to my new interest in Prohibition-enforcement shootings. Thus, a break-out into topic categories might help new readers decide where to start. You can scroll down, or click here, to go directly to the list.
The latest case, not yet on the list, is Turf War Casualty.
A Note About Sources. I try to provide full references for the articles posted on this blog, with a couple of exceptions.
First, I usually summarize the newspapers used. That is, I give a “generic” title, list the identities of the specific publications, and show the overall time span involved. My articles often take “tidbits” from many individual news items – often as many as a dozen or more – so this greatly streamlines the presentation. Any reader curious about a specific point is free to contact me for more information.
Second, I generally do not show the genealogical sources (census records, city directories, etc.) that I always use to supplement and/or verify statements made in newspapers or the Luke May Papers. Most of that information is retrieved from the fee-based online repositories at Ancestry.com, with some other additions. I will include a reminder of those sources when I feel they played a greater-than-normal role in completing the article.
Wednesday, May 15, 2024
True Crime Cases Lists
Most of the cases so far fall into fairly distinct categories. Still,
I did need a “Miscellaneous” listing for accidents, mistaken identity,
unknown motives, and so on
Robberies
Murder on the Olympic Peninsula (Logging camp.)
Snoqualmie Valley Shootout (Bank robbery.)
Murder On A Train (Workers on the move.)
Crooks Follow The Money Too (Cigar store money car.)
Sad End of a Long March (Street robbery.)
Murder of Grocer Edmund Hines (Salt Lake City.)
The Christmas Presents Murder (Gifts for his girl.)
Death in the Line of Duty (Drug store robbery.)
A Wasted, Misspent Life … Ending In Tragedy (Service station.)
Murder For A Pittance (Automobile garage.)
The Fog of War? No, Politics (Street robbery.)
Death On A Sunday Afternoon (Daylight burglary.)
Murder in Obscurity (Early-morning robbery.)
Victim of the Great Depression (Store and post office robbery.)
A Fatal Blunder (Loan office robbery.)
Murder At The Haven (Tourist Camp robbery.)
A Car Was The Key (Drug store robbery.)
Trail's End In Montana (Burglary stakeout.)
Justice Delayed (Bank robbery.)
The Chicken Coop Deaths (Chicken thievery ... two dead.)
Death On A Snowy Night (Nighttime store burglary.)
Failed Burglar Resorts to Murder (Nighttime burglary attempt.)
Love-Hate Triangle
Yakima Love (?) Triangle (Two dead.)
Almost a Triple Murder (Three dead, in the end.)
Obsession Leads To Murder (Two dead, in the end.)
Jealousy – Even Justified – Is A Deadly Sin (Self defense?)
Love Triangle: Real or Imagined (The shooter's imagination?)
"Eternal Triangle" Claims Another Victim (The shooter's imagination, again?)
A Jury Of His Peers (Eliminate a rival.)
Eliminate an Enemy/Threat
Mercer Island Murder (A possible squealer must go.)
Shooting Death in Pasco (End of an argument.)
Lawless Men, Violent Deeds (Blame the booze.)
The Rosebud County Sniper (Irrational? anger.)
Shades of the Old West (Self defense?)
Life Through A Jagged Pane (Family conflict.)
Fixation on Youth Brings Death (Self defense.)
A Death In The Family (End of an argument.)
An Abundance of Evidence (End of an argument.)
An Immigrant Tragedy (Unwelcome attention ended.)
Tragedy on the 4th of July (Shot in the line of duty.)
One Binge Too Many (Abusive husband must go.)
Death in Little Italy (End of an argument.)
Farmhand Murder Mystery (End of a Confrontation.)
A tragedy Waiting to Happen (End of a Confrontation.)
What Dark Depths (Self-Defense Claimed.)
Miscellaneous
Puzzling Countryside Murders (Motive unknown.)
Ambush in Algona (Mistaken identity.)
Mysteries at Lake Thomas (Motive unclear. Love triangle?)
Sudden Death Ends Long Friendship (Accident ... defective weapon.)
The Mobility Murder (Taxi driver murdered ... motive unclear.)
Prohibition Enforcement
Death On A Weekend Outing (Unarmed and not a bootlegger.)
Friendly Fire, Delayed Death (Shot the wrong man, accidentally.)
Moonshine – A Death Penalty? (Unarmed moonshiner, accident claimed.)
Another Casualty of Prohibition (Self defense claimed.)
The Locked Room Mystery – Seattle Style (Possible "squealer" eliminated.)
Turf War Casualty
William Hobart Usitalo was, by all indications, a “regular guy.” He never owned a business, got arrested, appeared on the society pages, or did anything else to make his name known … until the end. He is found only in sparse public records and the occasional City Directory list. Like millions of his contemporaries, he worked hard to provide a decent life for his family, and maybe put something by for his later years. Unfortunately, he became part of a deadly historical conflict and died – was killed – without achieving those goals.
William was born to Finnish immigrants in Calumet, Michigan on November 10, 1899. The family moved to the Seattle area in 1912-1914, and he was working at a shipyard when he registered for the draft in late 1918. He served with the merchant marine for several years, then married in May 1923. He soon began a long stint as a truck driver, and probably joined the Teamsters union. But the onset of the Great Depression made it hard to find steady work. That gained more urgency when he and his wife had a son, Donald, in the spring of 1931. William drove a moving van for some time in 1933, and then a beer delivery truck. And that began his slide into danger.
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| William and Mary Usitalo. Family Archives. |
Another player in this sad history was Peter Marinoff (Marjanovic). Marinoff did own a business (several, in fact), got arrested, appeared in the society pages, and was otherwise well known to the newspapers. He was born March 11, 1895 in Dalmatia, a coastal region along the Adriatic Sea. He came to this country at the end of 1910 and eventually made his way to Tacoma, Washington. He married in 1916 and they had two children: a son who died as an infant in 1918, and a daughter born in 1922.
Pete began as an auto mechanic and chauffeur, then switched to a sales job. However, he started making some real money as a smuggler after Washington state and then the country went “dry” with Prohibition. He spent 60 days in jail in 1923 for a liquor law violation, but began investing in legal breweries (malt syrup and “near beer”) around 1925. Six years later, he and some other investors incorporated the Northwest Brewing Company in Tacoma. The business did well, with plants in Tacoma and Walla Walla, and two more planned, in Seattle and Portland, Oregon. In the spring of 1933, when Prohibition was clearly on its way out, Pete told reporters that they would have regular beer ready to ship within a month after it again became legal.
Then Marinoff found himself in trouble not of his own making. He had no problem with unionized labor … as an immigrant, he had started at that level himself. All of the company’s employees were represented by the Brewery Workers Union (technically, the union of “Brewery, Flour, Cereal and Soft Drink Workers”). An “industrial” union, they represented all the company’s organized employees: ordinary laborers, boiler-room operators, chemical technicians, deliverymen, and so on. That sometimes put them at odds with “craft” unions, which represent employees in specific crafts/skills, like plumbers, electricians … and truck drivers (Teamsters).
Conflict between the Brewery Workers and Teamsters unions had been festering, off and on, for around thirty years. (The well-documented history of that violent turf war is beyond the scope of this blog.) Everyone expected a huge resurgence in the brewing industry after the repeal of Prohibition, so the Teamsters launched a concerted effort to raid the Brewery Workers membership.
In Washington and Oregon, that made drivers at Marinoff’s Northwest Brewing Company a target. Soon, pickets appeared around the brewery in Tacoma. (Some reports called them “strikers,” but that was a misnomer, since none worked at the facility.) The pickets were not just passive observers. In September, 1934, they invaded the company storage area and smashed cases of beer.
Beside pickets, the Teamsters also recruited teams to trail brewery workers whenever they left the plant. The day after the storage invasion, some of these men assaulted four company drivers, beating them with “lead pipes and bricks.” They also attacked businesses that the brewery supplied, with plate glass windows shattered and other vandalism. The conflict involved the whole state, and both proprietors and patrons were roughed up during some of these raids. A report that specifically mentioned the Northwest Brewing Company came on May 2, 1935, from Portland. Brewery union workers making deliveries there were beaten up, and two police officers who tried to help them were knocked unconscious.
The Brewery union definitely felt the pressure. Whatever security Marinoff had at the Tacoma brewery, the Union decided it wasn’t enough. In mid-May, they hired Harold Hiatt to recruit more guards. Born 20-30 miles west of Portland in 1897, Hiatt had served in the Army, although the war ended before he went overseas. He worked at a shipyard for many years, then sold coal and firewood for a fuel company. He married in 1918, and they had two daughters, one of whom died in 1925. The couple divorced in 1928, with the wife getting custody of the surviving daughter. Like Usitalo, Hiatt scrambled to find work when the Depression hit. The company may have shared the cost of the enlarged guard force, but that was never clearly verified. Hiatt later asserted that he took his orders from the Union’s lead attorney.
One of the guards hired was known as Theodore “Tex” Ferguson. Ferguson was about 27 years old, supposedly unmarried, and originally from Texas. He said he’d arrived in Seattle in the fall of 1934, then came to Tacoma. However, other than what he told police, we know nothing about him. He cannot be reliably traced in any public records. He claimed to be a waiter, but there are indications that he made his living as “muscle” in various labor-management disputes.
Despite the publicity before and after William Usitalo’s death, we know few details about his involvement with the Teamster’s intimidation force. We know that, in late February, 1935, the Seattle brewery he was driving for had some difficulties, including a major lawsuit against them. That may have been when he was laid off. We do not know when he began working for the union, or whether he was a volunteer or received a stipend.
Obviously, he was there on the afternoon and evening of May 24, 1935, when events got out of hand. The catalyst didn’t even involve a beer delivery … the truck was simply sent to have a tire changed. Still, just in case, Hiatt followed along in a car. As garagemen worked on the tire, Teamsters accosted Hiatt, trying to get him to quit. While he was thus distracted, a confederate poured sugar into the car’s gas tank.
Soon after the car and truck returned to the plant, an unidentified caller warned them about the sabotage. Sure the sugar would ruin his engine, Hiatt, along with two other guards, including Tex Ferguson, hurried to another garage to have it cleaned out. This time, a car carrying four Teamsters fell in behind them. Most reports indicate that all of the men had been imported from out of town. Usitalo was driving, but accounts don’t say if the vehicle was his, the union’s, or a rental. They watched from across the street while the guards were in the garage.
It was fairly dark when Hiatt finally came out and drove off. The Teamsters trailed along. At one point, Hiatt stopped, walked back to Usitalo’s car, and told them they were asking for trouble. After that, he engaged in some wild driving, sometimes with his lights off, and managed to lose the pursuers. They picked up a third man and went to help another guard who was supposedly isolated and in trouble. That turned out to be a false alarm. When they headed back toward the brewery, the Usitalo car again found them and followed.
As they turned onto the street leading to the plant, pickets bombarded them with rocks. The side windows were broken and one guard was cut by flying glass. After a moment, Hiatt stopped, and Usitalo pulled up about fifty feet behind them. Here witnesses disagreed as to what happened next. Some said Hiatt got out and shot directly at the rock throwers, but other testimony cast doubt on that. There was no evidence (near misses, bullet scars, etc.) to confirm that Hiatt aimed at the pickets. He perhaps fired warning shots into the air. Whatever the case, some pickets did run away.
Meanwhile, Tex pointed a revolver out the back window and fired several shots at the Teamster vehicle. Hiatt then made a U-turn and sped by the other car. It was now about 11 o’clock and too dark to see clearly. One of Tex’s bullets had struck William Usitalo in the forehead, and he died about three hours later in a local hospital.
The guards were arrested the next morning in Seattle, and were soon charged with murder. Police had found several weapons in the car, including one revolver they identified as the likely death weapon. Tex soon admitted that he had fired the revolver. The suspects all pled self-defense, citing the violent harassment that preceded the assault with rocks. Within a few days, authorities chose to also charge Peter Marinoff as an “accessory before the fact” of murder. He had hired the guards, or at least helped hire them, and supposedly furnished them with guns.
Criminologist Luke S. May was contracted to test Tex’s revolver as the death weapon, and to trace its ownership. It was a .38-caliber Colt, a “Police Special” model. May’s agent found that it had been shipped to a Tacoma hardware store in November 1929, but then it disappeared. The agent reported, “Although they keep records of their stock sold, it does not appear in any of them.”
A technician completed the first comparison between the death bullet and a test slug. He found that all the class characteristics (groove width, twist rate, etc.) matched perfectly, but felt the fine marks were too faint to verify the individual characteristics. The more experienced May then took over … he testified at the trial that the revolver was indeed the death weapon.
Other than the autopsy report, that was about the only hard evidence presented in the trial. The rest featured conflicting testimony about who did what, and who said what. In the end, the jury found the four guilty of manslaughter. Under the law at the time, that called for a sentence of one year in jail up to twenty years in prison. The judge gave the least-involved guard a one-year suspended jail term and just one year to Tex Ferguson, the actual shooter. With credit for time already spent in jail, Tex was free in just three or four months. He cannot be traced after that.
In what seems an odd twist, given that leniency, the judge then slapped Harold Hiatt and Peter Marinoff with twenty-year prison sentences. However, it took little time for the Washington Supreme Court to rule favorably on their appeals. The justices conceded that there were grounds for a new trial for Hiatt, since he was on the scene and had (probably) fired shots that instigated Ferguson’s reaction. Marinoff, on the other hand, was not even in Tacoma at the time. More to the point, the decision stated, “It does not appear to be either unreasonable or unlawful for the managing officer of the brewery to engage and arm guards to protect the property which was in his charge.” Pete was cleared unconditionally, and prosecutors chose to not retry Hiatt.
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| Peter Marinoff. News Photo. |
Hiatt found a job as a guard in Seattle, and was badly injured in another altercation with union pickets. After his recovery, he remained in the area, probably because of Mrs. Usitalo’s suit. He then moved to Wenatchee, where he married again in late 1937. He died young there … in April 1939.
Seeking opportunities away from union strife in Washington, Marinoff opened a brewery in Red Bluff, California during he summer of 1937. Pete had a knack for brewing good beer and selling it at a good price. His company successfully marketed “Marinoff Beer” all over the West. But labor troubles again cropped up – again between unionized brewery workers and the Teamsters. Pete finally gave it up in 1949, thereafter operating an insurance agency.
However, he could not escape his past. The trouble began in 1978 with the publication of a biography of Dave Beck, a leader of northwest Teamsters from about 1920 to 1940. (He later became president of the national Teamsters.) The book contained statements attributed to Beck’s long-time personal secretary. She recalled that Usitalo had been shot to death in 1935, and said, “I don’t know who killed him. Dave says it was Pete Marinoff.”
The author apparently saw this as minor point and didn’t dig quite deep enough. Marinoff, of course, saw dollar signs, and a chance to get back at the man who had caused him so much grief. Not just in 1935, but also in 1948, when Beck’s predatory recruiting tactics ruined his Red Bluff venture. Pete won his defamation suit, but received only a token payment of $10 thousand, not the $300-500 thousand he sought.
Peter Marinoff passed away in April 1983.
| References: Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica Ultimate Reference Suite, Encyclopædia Britannica, Chicago, Illinois (2012). |
| Luke S. May, Luke S. May Papers, Special Collections, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington (1969). |
| Daniel Okrent, Last Call: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition, Scribner, New York (2010). |
| Alan J. Stein, “Violence erupts over beer truck drivers in Seattle during September 1934,” Online Encyclopedia of Washington State History, HistoryLink.org, Seattle, Washington (May 26, 2005). |
| The State of Washington, Respondent, versus H.H. HIATT et al., Appellants, State of Washington, Olympia (Aug 10, 1936). |
| “[Usitalo Case News and Background],” Bellingham Herald, Seattle Star, Seattle Times, Tacoma Ledger, News-Tribune, Tacoma, Union-Record, Seattle, Spokesman-Review, Spokane, The Olympian, Olympia, Washington; The Oregonian, Portland, Oregon; Sacramento Bee, Tahama County News, Red Bluff, California (September 1923 – December 2006) . |
Tuesday, January 9, 2024
What Dark Depths … ?
When prominent individuals pass on, someone often writes a long obituary about them. There may even be a full biography. From these, we learn about the events that shaped the person, and perhaps something about their beliefs and motivations. But for “ordinary folks” it is sometimes difficult to find basic information, and even harder to discover what made them tick, what dark depths they might have harbored. That was true for the victim in a Luke May case that took place over ninety years ago at Lake Forest Park, a rustic area about 10-12 miles north of downtown Seattle.
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| Lake Forest Park Entrance. Shoreline Historical Museum. |
Caroline M. “Carrie” McMichael was born around 1884 in Mississippi, shortly before her father took a government job in Washington D.C. Carrie’s father died in the spring of 1896, and by 1900 she was working as a stenographer. In 1903, she married William W. White and, about two years later, they had a son, Aubrey H. White. Shortly after that, they moved to Seattle, Washington. However, for unknown reasons, the couple split up around 1907. Carrie retained custody of Aubrey.
On January 14, 1910, she married Frank Parker, a Seattle real estate dealer. She identified herself as a widow on the marriage certificate … in an era when divorce was frowned upon. They had no children and Frank died in the spring of 1914. He was just 38 years old. Carrie supported herself and young Aubrey working as a secretary and bookkeeper for the next two years. Then she married again.
Her new husband was Oliver Evans Bakken. Oliver was born in 1878, about six months after his parents and a brood of siblings arrived from Norway and settled in central Iowa. Until the 1890s, family members all lived in the general vicinity of Fort Dodge, a small town not quite seventy miles north and a bit west of Des Moines.
Then, in 1896-1898, brother Ole Bakken moved to an ethnic enclave in northwest Seattle. Located on the shore of Puget Sound, the heavily Scandinavian workforce engaged in logging and salmon fishing. In 1904, another brother moved to Spokane. After that, Oliver moved back and forth between Fort Dodge and Seattle, finding work where he could. At some point, he met Carrie (McMichael, White) Parker, although we don’t know how. Thus, Washington records show that O. Evans Bakken of Fort Dodge, Iowa, married Carrie M. Parker, Seattle resident, on January 13, 1916 in Seattle.
Oliver soon took up permanent residence in Seattle. He and Carrie had a daughter, Helen, in 1917. The advent of World War I opened up more job opportunities and Oliver was able to find work in the Puget Sound shipyards. In fact, between his job and Carrie’s (and what she might have brought from her second marriage), they purchased a modest home in the Queen Anne Neighborhood, about three mile northwest of downtown Seattle. Then, before 1920, they traded up to a larger middle-class home in the same neighborhood.
Although Oliver listed no occupation for the 1920 Census, there is evidence that he had begun dealing in real estate. Thus, some time in the next couple of years, they acquired property in the Lake Forest Park development. The Park was a planned community located at the northwest end of Lake Washington. Rules prohibited commercial and multi-family development within the Park, and homes had to be reasonably substantial. Thus, structures built there “ranged from quaint bungalows to large Colonial or Tudor Revival style homes.” The Bakkens eventually owned about five acres, enough to support the family in a modest way. Also, Carrie’s income as a bookkeeper plus rental of the Queen Anne property provided a steady cash flow.
However, later accounts indicate that trouble began to loom at about this time: Carrie began to exhibit flashes of irrational anger. One neighbor told of a trip with the two from Seattle out to the Park in 1922. Oliver was driving, the neighbor was in the front passenger seat, and Carrie was in the back. Suddenly, for no apparent reason, she drew a gun from her purse and threatened to “fix” both of them. Oliver was able to wrestle the weapon away from her … no easy matter since she weighed 220-225 pounds.
That probably led to the first public sign of trouble. In May 1922, a Seattle newspaper published a brief item that said, “Suit for divorce was filed in superior court by O. E. Bakken against Carrie M. Bakken, cruelty … ” The couple must have reconciled because that process was not completed. It’s at least plausible that they patched it up because there were two children in the household. Oliver’s stepson, Aubrey White, was still in high school, while daughter Helen was about to start grade school. Aubrey graduated from high school in 1926. He was valedictorian of his class and received a scholarship to attend Washington State College (now University).
Neighbors also told of several episodes where Carrie threatened Oliver with a big double-bladed ax. In one instance, she marched all the way into a field with it to yell at him. A couple who boarded with them moved out after four months in fear of her temper bouts. In 1927, she underwent some sort of operation. The physician who later testified about it did not say exactly why. Still, it’s possible that the treatment was meant to address her tantrums. Whatever it was, the doctor asserted that the result may have made her problems worse.
Despite all that, Carrie was very successful at her job: The Seattle City Directory for 1929 and 1930 identified her a as a “Vice President” of the small manufacturing company she worked for. Unfortunately, her hours and income were reduced with the onset of the Great Depression. (The 1931 Directory listed her as simply “bookkeeper.”)
Thus, the already-existing tensions in the household grew worse. That was further exacerbated when Oliver allowed his nephew Tunis to live with them. Born near Spokane, Tunis was about sixteen years old in 1921, when his father died. As an adult, he seemed to have trouble finding steady work, trying his hand at laborer, logger, taxi driver, grocery store clerk, and other low-paying jobs. He moved in with Oliver and Carrie a few months before the shooting.
Sadly, Carrie’s malady seem to get progressively worse. Just a few days before the final confrontation, a neighbor lady who had hitched a ride into Seattle with Oliver saw Carrie dash out and threatened him with her favorite ax. After he wrestled it away from her and stuck it in the car, she went after a small hatchet. Luckily, nothing came of that.
On the day before the tragedy, the couple had another huge argument. Oliver later testified that she threatened to get a gun and shoot him. By this time, Helen and Tunis had learned to leave the house during there clashes, so neither could confirm any such threat. When the dispute resumed the next morning, the two took the Sunday newspaper and again went outside, away from the house.
According to Oliver, his wife’s rant climaxed when she grabbed a length of firewood for the kitchen stove and hit him on the hand and shoulder. He finally yanked that away from her and swung it back at her. She backed off but was still totally wrought up. She briefly turned toward a dresser where he thought she might have a gun. Oliver was exhausted from the struggle and thought he might collapse. Thoroughly scared, he drew a pistol, intending to frighten her away. He claimed he had no intention to shoot, but his hands were shaking so much “the gun went off.”
Then it “went off” twice more. Daughter Helen later testified that there was a noticeable pause between the three pops (which they did not recognize as gunshots at the time). One can make a plausible case – the defense surely did – that the first two shots hadn’t discouraged her and she was still coming at him. She was a hefty woman, the pistol was light (.25-caliber), and the ammunition was old. After somewhat gathering himself, Oliver went to report the incident and turn himself in. He gave a muddled story that was aggressively scrutinized during the trial.
Part of the confusion involved the identity of the death weapon. At one point, accounts suggested up to three possibilities: a revolver that Carrie might have bought on Saturday before the killing, a weapon Oliver perhaps bought for protection on Saturday, or a pistol Oliver said he had kept for “seventeen years.” This puzzle was finally unraveled by private criminologist Luke S. May. The death weapon was apparently the .25-caliber automatic that Oliver and his passenger had wrestled away from Carrie in 1922. It had been stored away, fully loaded, for all that time. Oliver said he retrieved it when Carrie threatened to get a gun and shoot him.
Bakken was charged with first degree murder, but he claimed self-defense. At the trial, the prosecution emphasized three points. First, they had only Oliver’s word that his wife had threatened him physically in any way. Second, the spaced out shots showed that he was taking time to aim carefully. And, finally, the fact that he had dug out a gun that had been hidden for (actually) nineteen years, indicated premeditation.
The defense featured a long parade of Bakken’s friends and neighbors. They attested to his wife’s erratic, hot-tempered behavior and the many times she had flashed weapons far more dangerous than a stick of firewood.
The jury deliberated for over twenty hours. Early on, they rejected the first-degree murder verdict urged by the prosecution. They then spent the rest of the time arguing over a second-degree murder conviction. That eventually foundered because two jurors refused to agree to even that lesser punishment. The jury finally compromised on a conviction for manslaughter.
In considering a sentence, the judge was impressed by a large stack of letters from Bakken’s friends and neighbors. They urged him to give Oliver a suspended sentence, or impose only token jail time. The judge called them a “tribute to the life he has led.” But he also made reference to the Ten Commandment and said he could not let a killing go unpunished. In the end, the judge imposed a sentence of three and a half to fifteen years in prison.
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| Oliver E. Bakken. Washington Penitentiary Records. |
Oliver’s attorneys did not appeal the verdict or sentence. Before he went off to prison, Bakken liquidated the family’s real estate and, after reserving $400 for his personal expenses, set up a fund of about $8,000 for daughter Helen. (That was a substantial sum for that time.) By then, she was living with her mother’s married sister in southwest Seattle. Stepson Aubrey White had already graduated from college and taken a job out of state as an agricultural agent. He was impossible to reliably track after that.
Oliver Bakken was paroled in the spring of 1935. Terms of his release apparently allowed him to take a job in Idaho, so he may have lived in Spokane, or perhaps Clarkston, across the river from Lewiston, Idaho. There’s no evidence that he ever returned to Seattle. Helen married in the summer of 1938 and continued to live in Seattle.
In March 1940, the state ended restrictions on Oliver’s movement, so he returned to Iowa. He stayed briefly with a brother, then settled back in Fort Dodge. Indirect evidence suggests that he passed away there in 1945 or 1946.
| References: Genealogical records at Ancestry.com |
| “[Bakken Background and Shooting],” Fort Dodge Messenger, Iowa; Evening Star, Washington, DC; Spokesman-Review, Spokane, Bellingham Herald, Tacoma Ledger, Seattle Times, Washington (June 1903 – October 1931). 2018). |
| Luke S. May, Luke S. May Papers, Special Collections, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington (1969). |
| Alan J. Stein, “Lake Forest Park – Thumbnail History,” Online Encyclopedia of Washington State History, HistoryLink.org, Seattle, Washington (December 5, 1998). |
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