The Locked Room Mystery – Seattle Style

The mysterious death of Patrolman Charles O. Legate in March 1922 almost certainly arose from the graft and corruption that was pervasive in the Seattle Police Department at the time.

Sadly, Seattle has a long history of government corruption, police and otherwise. (Recent headlines suggest that the “legacy” may still be with them, despite periodic reform efforts.) Founded in 1851, the city soon became known “for the quality, quantity, and variety of its vice.” For many years, the city was wide open and simply collected license fees from brothels and gambling joints. Thus, since it was all legal, we perhaps shouldn’t call that political “corruption.” One history states that in the 1880s, collections from vice and saloons provided as much as 87% of the city government’s revenue.

Seattle, ca 1922. Museum of History and Industry, Seattle.

Eventually, however, many citizens came to resent the city’s wide open reputation. They demanded “reforms” so they could at least appear clean. They got their way (at times), but those efforts in no way reduced prostitution or gambling … and the lawful fees became under-the-table payoffs. Often, the beat cops were the collectors, passing a portion of their take up the chain of command. Sometimes, all the way up. Thus, when voters elected a reform mayor in 1892, a group of senior police officers showed up in his office to ask him how much he expected to get. He “indignantly” rejected the offer, but resigned in less than a year.

For decades, the situation went back and forth between wide open and (ostensibly) closed. Charles Legate joined the department full-time in the spring of 1907. The son of a Civil War soldier, Legate was born in 1872, in Illinois about thirty miles north of St. Louis, Missouri. The family farmed in southern Nebraska before Charles moved to Seattle in 1904. He was then a widower, his wife having died five years earlier. Legate worked as a trolley car operator before joining the police force. He remarried in 1909.

Thus, he was there when one mayor tried to straddle the fence. Taking office in 1910, he created “vice districts” to regulate the business – with suitable fees – and hopefully keep it restricted to certain parts of the city. But even some of the tolerant citizens were shocked at the results, so that experiment did not last long. Payoffs went back under the table. In 1916, the state of Washington passed its “early” prohibition of alcohol. The operation hardly missed a beat, simply adding a cash stream from bootleggers and speakeasies to the mix … financing a new round of payoffs.

Legate became a member of the “Dry Squad,” a unit of the Seattle police specifically tasked with enforcing prohibition. Nationwide Prohibition went into effect in 1920, with generally tougher provisions than the state law. In a perverse irony, making liquor harder to get simply made it more desirable, and led to widespread corruption in the U.S. Prohibition Service, and among local Dry Squads. According to one Seattle chief’s “tell all” story, one man offered him $60,000 (about $900,000 in today’s money) to be appointed head of the Dry Squad.

Despite his long experience on the force, Legate was, at heart, a midwestern farm lad and does not seem to have been a part of that seamy side. But he knew about it, and that probably cost him his life. We can infer the events and motivations that led to his death from scraps that leaked out. Later, it would be stated that “Legate had talked too much to Chief of Police Searing regarding conditions in the district.” The first overt sign of trouble came in late 1921, when officials kicked Legate off the Dry Squad and sent him back to walking a beat.

The area they assigned him was near the north edge of a notorious (former) vice district. Then, in February 1922, Legate was placed on unpaid leave because he had failed to clear the district of prostitution. Yet it was a known fact that informers regularly tipped the “houses” off when a raid was on its way. One can’t help but suspect that someone, or several someones, wanted Legate off the force. Offering him a bleak future might do that.

But the officer persisted and, on March 17, 1922, a  Seattle Times headline read, “Slayer of Policeman Fails in Suicide Ruse.” Patrolman Charles O. Legate had died from two gunshots to the head. The body had been found slumped on the back seat and floor of a large car inside a locked garage. (Searchers had to force their way in.) One shot had hit him directly in the forehead, another entered through the right cheek. Investigators also found a deep gash in his head that looked like it had been inflicted by a gun butt. In an apparent attempt to make the death look like a suicide, his service revolver, with two empty shells in it, had been placed beside the body.

Searchers eventually recovered three bullets, including one from Legate’s head and another that had passed through the back window of the car and out the garage wall. The third was found inside the garage, but reports don’t say where, or how it was otherwise linked to the case. All were distorted to some extent, but seemed to be of the same caliber. Investigators found no empty shell casings. They did not, at this point, consult with criminologist Luke S. May to learn more about that evidence.

Despite much activity, the case stalled after a couple weeks. The official position leaned more and more toward the notion that Legate had committed suicide after all. Legate’s widow, and others, began to complain about a possible cover-up. Finally, over two months after Legate’s death, a grand jury was convened to consider the case. But organizers carefully controlled the evidence and witness list. Perhaps it should come as no surprise that the coroner’s jury ruled that Legate had shot himself.

The attempt to sweep matters under the rug failed. In mid-June, a special grand jury re-opened the issue. This time, Luke May was among the witnesses called and, the Seattle Star noted, “recalled many times by the jury.” May had not yet had time for a full assessment, but he declared right away that only the bullet in the forehead had come from Legate’s weapon. The others, although they were of the same caliber, had not. This jury concluded that Legate had been murdered. But the powers-that-be still resisted, mainly by denying Legate’s widow, Anna, a police pension. (Charles also left behind a stepson and two daughters.)

Officer Legate.
Seattle Times (March 17, 1922).

That sent the case back to the courts, this time with criminologist May on board. His assessment, however, was hampered because the original crime scene investigation had been perfunctory and inept. The available data allowed for only a rough determination of the bullet trajectories. Over his career, Luke May used bullet trajectories and blood spatter patterns to recreate death scenes with uncanny accuracy. That was not possible in this case because all traces of blood had been cleaned up and there were apparently no blood spatter photos or diagrams.

As noted above, May found that the bullet in Legate’s head was from the officer’s own revolver, a .38-caliber Smith & Wesson. The other bullet found inside the garage was from the same make and model, but not the same weapon. The third bullet that pierced the back window of the car was from a .38-caliber Colt. With two wounds from different firearms, the suicide alternative was simply not credible. Finally, nine months after her husband was murdered, the city pensions board granted Anna Legate a monthly allowance.

While all that was going on, a new mayor appointed a new police chief, William B. Severyns. Business as usual prevailed for a time. Then a reform mayoral candidate became the favorite to take office in the summer of 1926. To improve his job prospects, Severyns wrote, or commissioned, a series of newspaper articles touting all the things he had done to clean up the department. That included a new look at the Legate case. Underworld contacts declared that two men – a fellow police officer, and a notorious bootlegger and drug dealer – had killed Legate. Of course, no one would talk for the record and no evidence was offered. (The new lady mayor fired the chief anyway.) The case went cold and has never been re-opened.

Anna Legate remarried in early 1929, a few months before her daughters also got married. She lived out her life in Anacortes, a small town about 64 miles north of Seattle.
                                                                                

References: Christopher T. Bayley, Seattle Justice: The Rise and Fall of the Police Payoff System in Seattle, Sasquatch Books, Seattle, Washington (2015).

Charles O. Legate, Behind the Badge Foundation, Issaquah, Washington (2012). behindthebadgefoundation.org

“[Legate News Items],” Daily Olympian, Olympia, Spokesman-Review, Spokane, Seattle Star, Seattle Times, Spokane Chronicle, Washington; The Oregonian, Portland (January 1917 – November 1926).

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

David Wilma, “Officer Charles O. Legate is found murdered on March 17, 1922,” Online Encyclopedia of Washington State History, HistoryLink.org, Seattle, Washington (May 17, 2002).

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A Wasted, Misspent Life … Ending In Tragedy

Sadly, we don’t know a lot about Arthur Erickson, a Good Samaritan who was murdered in Puyallup, Washington in 1935. And we know only the name of the service station operator he tried to help. But, for reasons that will become perfectly clear, we know all too much about the career criminal who shot them.

Erickson was born around 1878 in Minnesota. It’s unclear when the family moved, but they were in Tacoma, Washington by the spring of 1892. Arthur found work at a sawmill and then as a teamster. He got married in 1903, but the couple had no children and were divorced by about 1917. Besides working on his father’s farm near Puyallup, Arthur also operated a moving van. After his father died in 1923, he ran the family farm and took care of his mother, who was then about 64 years old. When the Great Depression struck, he apparently spent more time driving a delivery truck to make ends meet.

Saturday March 23, 1935 was not a pleasant day in Puyallup (about 10 miles southeast of Tacoma). They’d had misty rain for most of the week and the temperature was dropping into the low forties. That evening, Erickson pulled into the service station operated by Elmer Harris. As he did, he saw Harris struggling with a young man.

Service Station, ca 1935.
Library of Congress.

By the time Arthur got inside, the operator had wrested a gun away from the would-be robber. Arthur grabbed the prisoner while Harris picked up the phone to call the sheriff. Desperate, the youth yanked out another pistol and sprayed the two men with bullets. He then stole a car at gunpoint from two lady school teachers, and fled. The next day, searchers found the car in a railroad yard in Auburn, about 10 miles north of Puyallup. Erickson died at the scene, while Harris eventually recovered from two wounds in his back.

Officials showed various witnesses a photo lineup based on verbal descriptions of the shooter. They picked out John McGuire, a youth who seemed about the right age and general build. He also had a criminal record, having spent two years in the state reformatory.

John Thomas McGuire was born John Fox in Tacoma, Washington on August 31, 1908, but his parents divorced less than two years later. Then, in early 1915, his mother married John Patrick McGuire. John eventually chose to take his stepfather’s last name. The family lived in Calgary, Alberta for a time but were in Seattle by 1922.

The beginning of the Great Depression threw John’s father out of work. Like many, all he could find were odd jobs. Thus, in the fall of 1930, John Thomas robbed a taxi driver for some ready cash. Caught and convicted, he was sentenced to five to seven years in the Washington state reformatory. He was paroled in October 1932. After he got out, he made it a practice to travel to Alaska for the commercial fishing season. That difficult and dangerous job paid him the equivalent of over $28,000 in today’s money for a summer of work. The rest of the year, John mostly worked as a cook. He got married in the spring of 1934, but that didn’t last.

The accusation became a nightmare for McGuire. Criminologist Luke S. May logged this as a firearms case. That involved an examination of the shell casings found at the crime scene and the bullets taken from the victims. From that he could tell officials what kind of pistol they should look for. Apparently, there were no fingerprints on the weapon the perpetrator left behind and it could not be traced. As it happened, McGuire did not have a weapon when he was arrested. Nor had he ever been known to own one.

The trial began in mid-June. John’s family insisted that he’d been in Seattle on the day and evening of the murder. Friends testified that he’d celebrated the weekend enough to get more than a bit tipsy. He then headed for his apartment, an alcove on the front of the family home. But first, his younger siblings persuaded him to play cards before he finally got to bed.

Prosecutors discounted all of that, although the McGuires were known as devout Roman Catholics. His mother said she could understand that authorities might think that a mother would lie to protect her child. But she was appalled that “they believed that I would put my Theresa and Mary on the witness stand – my babies – and tell them to break the Eighth Commandment that I’d taught them to obey since they were old enough to understand.”

The prosecution countered with five witnesses who asserted, under oath, that McGuire was the man who fired the shots that killed Arthur Erickson. The case went to the jury on June 18. They finally called it quits after around 45 hours of wrestling with the issues. The official excuse was that a juror simply cracked and “his mind went blank.” In reality, one juror, a housewife from Tacoma, believed the family alibi. She stuck with her “not guilty” vote, despite angry bullying by the foreman and other members of the jury. Finally, an “elderly juror from Puyallup” couldn’t stand the strain and basically collapsed.

Officials scheduled a new trial for September. Perhaps a new jury would do “better.”

Then, on September 2nd, a dramatic report completely changed the course of events. Two men, father Joseph A. Reed and his son Wallace, told prosecutors they had the wrong man. Both originally from California, Wallace had worked in Oregon for a time before moving to the area south of Renton, Washington in 1934 or early 1935. At that time, he worked as an upholsterer for a furniture company. Joseph lost his wife in the late 1920s and began living with or near Wallace around 1934, when he was over 70 years old.

Their account began before the murder, when a man named Mike Mooney was a lodger at the Reed place in Auburn. Mooney had been out on the evening of the shooting in Puyallup, returning shortly after 10:00 o’clock. The Reeds had heard about the event on the radio. When they mentioned it to Mooney, he basically admitted his involvement but also said, “You keep this under your hat and don’t mention it to nobody!”

About a week of tension followed, during which, apparently, more than hints confirmed that Mooney had done the shooting. Moreover, Wallace Reed saw Mike toss an automatic pistol into a nearby lake. They finally got up the courage to tell Mooney to get out. But they were still too frightened to report him, judging that he really was a dangerous man.

And they were not wrong in that surmise. Born October 7, 1910 in Portland, Oregon, Michael Lawrence Mooney began a life of crime with the theft of a bicycle when he was sixteen years old. He was jailed for burglary in late 1928 and served his sentence, but was back in the county jail at the time of the 1930 census. After he was released, he stole a car, was caught, and received a fifteen-month prison sentence. He was free again by the fall of 1931, but then went to jail for four months on a vagrancy charge.

Mike then kept his name out of newspapers until March 1933, when he married a young lady in Portland. But, three months later, he held up a Safeway store. Caught and sentenced to two years in the state penitentiary, he was out by early 1935. Unable or unwilling to find work, he supported himself and his wife by robbing streetcars. Then, on March 23, he tried to hold up the Harris service station … and botched the job. It’s telling that he carried two handguns on what should have been a “simple” armed robbery.

Two months later, Mooney robbed a bank in Woodland, Washington (located about twenty miles north of Vancouver), but was soon tracked down. He confessed to the crime so his accomplices (including his wife and a brother) would be set free. A judge imposed a 10 to 20 year prison sentence.

News reports never said why the Reeds finally decided to come forward. Perhaps they didn’t know until then that Mooney had been put out of circulation. Still, despite their gesture of good citizenship, police were highly skeptical. After all, they had all these people testifying against McGuire. Still, they did begin dragging the lake to find the weapon and digging into Mooney’s activities at the time of the murder. (The investigation probably brought Luke May’s agents back into the case, especially if they did find the pistol.)

All that effort clearly paid off, although we do not know exactly what they found. A week after the Reeds spoke up, Mike Mooney pled guilty to a charge of second degree murder. He surely wanted to avoid a trial for first degree murder, which might well send him to the gallows. A judge then imposed a life sentence.

Later, a court overturned that sentence as excessive for a second-degree murder conviction. (One rather doubts that a life sentence was a part of Mooney’s plea deal … but judges don’t always go along with prosecutors on those.) He was paroled in November of 1948, but was back in an Oregon prison three months later on an assault-and-robbery conviction. He was paroled in September of 1958. Six months later, he tried to hold up a liquor store near Seattle and was shot and killed in the resulting gun battle. By my reckoning,  Mooney spent over 27 years of his relatively short life – he was 48 when he died – behind bars.

John McGuire, Mike Mooney.
Seattle Times (September 10, 1935).

After the revelation about Mooney, the prosecutors and so-called eyewitnesses still asserted that he and John Thomas McGuire looked a lot alike. Some witnesses even said that the resemblance “was striking.” However, the Seattle Times published side-by-side photos of the two, which showed that those claims were merely sops to their guilty consciences.

John served  three years in the Army during World War II (probably as a cook) then returned to Anchorage, Alaska in 1946. He most likely worked in the fishing industry as long as he was able, spending the rest of his time in construction. He returned to Seattle in 1967, where he died two years later.

The elder Reed died in 1946 and was buried in Renton. Wallace Reed became a stockroom manager for Boeing Aircraft. He retired and moved to Reno, Nevada in 1969. He died there three years later, and his ashes were buried in Renton.
                                                                               

References: “Area Death: Wallace A. Reed,” Gazette-Journal, Reno, Nevada (October 14, 1972).

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

“[Mooney-McGuire Background],” Seattle Times, Washington; Oregonian, Portland, Albany Democrat-Herald, Oregon (August 1926 – August 1967).

“[Murder in Puyallup],” Spokane Chronicle, Seattle Times, Spokesman-Review, Spokane, Daily Olympian, Olympia, Washington (March 1935 – March 1947).

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Another Casualty of Prohibition

Prohibition came early to the Northwest, with three states – Idaho, Oregon, and Washington – passing “dry laws” that went into effect at the start of 1916. Montana and Wyoming would follow, also before national Prohibition arrived with ratification of the 18th Amendment. For true believers, Prohibition was not just an attempt to improve America’s health and productivity. No, it was an impassioned campaign to exorcize “Demon Rum.” This at a time when many, perhaps even most, people felt sure that demons and other malign spirits were real.

Thus, some officers sent to enforce the dry laws embraced their job as a sacred crusade, with few limits on their behavior. In the fall of 1919, a police officer in Pocatello shot and killed a moonshiner during a raid on his still shed. He claimed self-defense, although the unarmed victim was just trying to escape. Then, in the spring of 1921, another Pocatello officer tried to arrest a man who was a bit tipsy and perhaps had a liquor bottle on him. He too tried to run away and was shot in the back, dying a few days later. The officer claimed it was an accident. Juries did not convict either shooter of anything.

Moonshiners and bootleggers surely took note of these (and other) events, but there was simply too much money to be made. Around Idaho Falls, Idaho, it was widely believed that Bill Wilson was one of those bootleggers. He was said to be quite familiar with the preferred routes to the Canadian border. And his large touring car – used as an “auto taxi” – would be able to haul a considerable load.

William C. Wilson was born June 16, 1875 in Weber County, Utah, near Ogden. At some point, he moved to Montana and, in 1903, got married in Billings. By 1910, he was serving as an apprentice plasterer in Idaho Falls. Then he and his father invested in the theater business. That did not last long, however, and by 1918 Wilson mostly drove a taxi. During lulls, he worked as a farm laborer. He had, indeed, been arrested and fined for minor “possession” offenses, but had never been caught transporting a load of liquor.

Nevertheless, in late May of 1924, authorities issued a warrant for his arrest on a bootlegging charge. (News reports never did explain the basis for the accusation.) At that time, Wilson was in Salt Lake City. When he returned, an informant told Deputy Sheriff Neil Simpkins. On June 2, 1924, the deputy retrieved the warrant and drove to Wilson’s house to serve it. Unfortunately, Simpkins and Wilson had butted heads before.

Neil Simpkins. Family Archives.

Cornelius “Neil” Simpkins was born February 1, 1873 in a village located about 18 miles southeast of Glasgow, Scotland. The family immigrated to the U.S. in 1888 and settled in Rock Springs, Wyoming. It’s unknown when Neil moved out on his own, but in 1899, he got married in Idaho Falls. At that time, he drove a delivery wagon and sometimes acted as an express messenger. Like Wilson, he was a member of the Mormon church, but neither seems to have been active in that organization.

Around 1911, Simpkins also began to serve as an Idaho Falls constable. Over the next decade, he apparently spent less and less time in the delivery business and more in law enforcement. Neil became a deputy sheriff around 1921. Newspaper accounts suggest that he had a particular interest in enforcing Prohibition.

In 1922, he had appeared at Wilson’s door and demanded the right to search the premises, although he had no warrant. Wilson, unworried, let him in. A thorough search turned up one bottle of prescribed “medicinal” alcohol. Yet Simpkins took Wilson to the police station, where he had to post bail to avoid spending a night in jail. Prescription booze was perfectly legal under the Volstead Act, so that charge was almost certainly dismissed. However, Simpkins also searched Wilson’s car and either (illegally) confiscated a pistol, or allowed a third party to steal it.

Exactly what happened when Simpkins arrived at the Wilson place on June 2nd cannot be assessed with certainty. Mrs. Dora Wilson met him, by herself, in the yard. Some neighborhood witnesses, who could not have seen very well, claimed that she “scuffled” with the deputy and that he may have struck her with his pistol. There was general agreement that the wife at least argued with the officer, perhaps on the order of, “Would you leave my husband alone?”

Then Wilson backed his car out of the garage. (There’s a good deal of evidence to indicate that Bill didn’t even know the officer was around.) Deputy Simpkins immediately fired into the back of the vehicle. Wilson found himself staring down the barrel of a gun and fully expected another bullet, so he threw up his own automatic and shot back. Later, he couldn’t recall how many times he fired, but three empty shell casings were retrieved from inside the car.

Witnesses gave confused testimony as to how many shots they heard, with some claiming as many as six from Wilson. That was not impossible, given that Wilson might have extended the weapon outside his window. In any case, he quickly fled the scene in his car. Examination showed that Simpkins had indeed tried to fire again, but his gun jammed. Hit twice, the deputy stumbled against a tree and fell. He died on the way to the hospital.

Wilson soon discovered that Simpkins’ shot had punctured the gas tank, and he tried to plug the hole with a willow stick. But he finally parked the car at a friend’s house about ten miles north of Idaho Falls. He caught a ride and then fled on foot into rough country about ten miles further north.

Officers and volunteers began scouring the countryside, and Wilson surrendered three days after the shooting. Searchers discovered he had discarded his pistol before walking across a field to give himself up. He was charged with first degree murder. Mrs. Wilson was charged as an accessory, but that was eventually dropped. No liquor was found in the Wilson house or in the car.

Criminologist Luke S. May logged this case as a firearms investigation, but the county apparently chose not to pay his fees to appear on the witness stand. Wilson had admitted shooting the deputy, but claimed it was self defense. May could have perhaps elaborated on how the deputy’s gun jammed, but that might have only weakened the prosecution’s case.

Besides the self-defense claim, Wilson’s attorneys also asserted that Simpkins could not, legally, act as a deputy. They noted that he was not a U.S. citizen. Born in Scotland, he had never applied for naturalization. Moreover, he had resigned from his (illegal) position a couple months before the shooting after a dispute with the sheriff. The sheriff agreed that they’d had a “slight difference” of opinion, but denied that Simpkins had actually resigned. And the prosecution cited precedents that waived Simpkins’ lack of formal citizenship.

Still, the sheriff’s admission did bolster the defense’s contention that Neil Simpkins was a man of uncertain, sometimes testy, temperament. That added to other testimony along those lines, including the account of the arrest for legal alcohol and the missing pistol. Still, the jury rejected the self-defense plea. They found Wilson guilty of second-degree murder, and a judge imposed a ten to twenty year prison sentence. After failed appeals, Wilson was transferred from the Bonneville County jail to the Idaho Penitentiary in February of 1926.

Deputy Simpkins left a widow, Della, and eleven children. Della did not remarry, but held the family together as the children grew up and got married. She moved the core to Boise around 1933. Her second-oldest son, Cornelius, remained with her until her death in August 1940. Cornelius returned to Idaho Fall, where his mother was buried.

William C. Wilson was pardoned and released after less than six years in the state Penitentiary. He maintained a home in Pocatello for six or seven years, then the family moved to California. By 1940, they were living in Fresno, where Wilson died in 1953.
                                                                                

References: Sean Beienburg, Prohibition, the Constitution, and States' Rights, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, Illinois (2019).

“Killings Resulting from Prohibition Enforcement,” Congressional Record – Senate, January 18, 1930, Volume LXXII, Part 2, United States Printing Office, Washington, D.C. (1930).

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

“[Simpkins-Wilson News],” Post-Register, Idaho Falls, Daily Post, Idaho Falls, Times-Register, Idaho Falls, Idaho Republican, Blackfoot, Bingham County News, Blackfoot, Idaho Statesman, Boise, Idaho; Salt Lake Tribune, Standard-Examiner, Ogden, The Telegram, Salt Lake City, Deseret News, Salt Lake City, Utah; Fresno Bee, California (November 1919 – October 1953).

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An Abundance of Evidence

Despite much testimony, newspapers never did report what occasion prompted the beer party on the afternoon of Thursday, September 20, 1934. Clarence Arnold, a seed company employee, hosted the get-together at a cabin near Bozeman, Montana. We also don’t know how many men were there, although probably at least six to eight. Most likely they had gathered to chew the fat about hunting. Seasons were open for a wide variety of game, although some were restricted to specific days.

With so much beer flowing, an altercation seems almost inevitable: James Deskin, a farm hand and part-time auto mechanic, called visitor William Kelly a “vile name.” When the epithet was repeated, Kelly slapped Deskin in the face, twice. Kelly, although somewhat disabled and over 47 years old, was a big man, easily dominating Deskin, who was about 36. Then Clarence stepped in as a peace-maker and the two seemed to put aside the dispute. They even shook hands.

Shortly before 4:30 p.m., Deskin suggested that he, Clarence, and Kelly hunt grouse at a place he knew just south of town. The day was chilly – in the high forties – but fair and sunny. The light snow that had fallen the previous evening had melted and the soft ground should show any fresh tracks.

Ruffed Grouse.
U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service.

About a mile and a half south of downtown Bozeman, Deskin pulled to a stop on a secluded track – known locally as a “lovers’ lane.” Clarence stayed in the back seat while Kelly got out to take a look. Deskin circled behind the car, stepped up behind the big man, and fired his shotgun into his victim’s head and neck. Kelly was killed instantly, and Deskin growled, “No [blankety-blank] can slap me and get away with it.”

William J. Kelly was born in 1887 in Lakeville, Minnesota, about 22 miles south of Minneapolis. He was working at a flour mill when he enlisted in the Army in 1918. His unit, the 330th Machine Gun Battalion, fought in the Meuse-Argonne offensive that helped capture the vital railway hub at Sedan just before the Armistice. He was shot in the face, but recovered enough to stay in the Army for some time after his return. Kelly also had a disabled foot, but it’s not clear whether that was battle-related or happened in his later service.

His whereabouts for over a decade are difficult to reliably trace. He next appears in September 1931, when he was cited for a liquor law violation in Butte, Montana. He later had a couple of liquor violations in Helena. Then, on April 18, 1934, the Fort Harrison veterans’ hospital in Helena, Montana admitted him as a patient. There, he met Clarence Arnold.

Clarence Sylvester Arnold was born in 1891 in southwestern Missouri. He moved to Montana some time after 1910 and got married in Bozeman in late 1916. Clarence served briefly in the U.S. Navy during the World War but apparently did not see action. After that, he had various jobs in and around Bozeman. He suffered from Raynaud’s Syndrome, a rare circulatory disease that may have adversely impacted his heart. Clarence and his family were in Bozeman for the 1930 census, but he apparently traveled to the veterans’ hospital for periodic checkups and treatment.

James Deskin also lived in or near Bozeman, although we don’t know how he and Clarence were connected. He too was born in Missouri, in 1898, but not anywhere near where Clarence grew up. Born James Lloyd Dennis, he adopted his stepfather’s last name after his mother remarried some time before 1910. The family moved to Bozeman between 1910 and 1914. He enlisted in the Army but, like Clarence, served only briefly during the war and did not see action (or even leave the U.S.). Deskin married in 1926 and the couple had a daughter the following year. In 1929, he was arrested for car theft in Livingston, but spent only four months in jail. He and his family were back in Bozeman for the 1930 census.

As noted above, Clarence invited Deskin and Kelly, along with several others, to his beer party. Medical personnel stated that Kelly was “on furlough” from the hospital at the time. After his body was found, officials at first thought he had been a robbery victim. For reasons that never made the news, Clarence did not immediately report the shooting. He told his story only after he, Deskin, and two or three other men from the beer party were arrested.

By this time, criminologist Luke S. May had processed over two hundred death cases, including nearly twenty in Montana. Five years earlier, he had presided over the “most successful” annual meeting of the Northwest Association of Sheriffs and Police … which was held in Missoula. Somehow his teachings found their way to the officer in charge, Sheriff Lovitt I. Westlake.

Westlake was a typical sheriff for his time and place. Born in Iowa in 1896, he was farming near Bozeman when he signed up for the draft in 1917. He served with a veterinary unit in France during the War, then returned in April 1919. He continued in farming until voters elected him Gallatin County sheriff, his term starting in 1933. (He held that job for fourteen years, then served two terms in the state legislature.)

Early on, Sheriff Westlake had the presence of mind to call for May’s help. He and his deputies ended up with valuable physical evidence to support what Clarence said happened. Prosecutors charged James Deskin with first degree murder just four days after the shooting.

The trial began in Bozeman on November 21. As usual, the prosecution began with a review of the events on the day of the murder, suggesting means, motive, and opportunity. The shotgun wound was the obvious means, and the slapping incident provided the motive. Opportunity came with the notion, proposed by Deskin, to do a little hunting. Testimony from the coroner and from party guests – significantly, not including Clarence Arnold – confirmed these facts about the incident.

Next, in an interesting “tactical” move, the prosecution began presenting their “circumstantial” – that is, physical – evidence. Splatters were detected on Deskin’s car and on his shoes, and analysis proved them to be human blood. A footprint cast was very similar to one of Deskin’s shoes, and tire prints at the death scene matched his car. Last but not least, Luke May took the stand to testify that an empty shell found at the scene had been fired by Deskin’s shotgun.

Finally, Clarence gave his eye-witness testimony about the shooting. Oddly enough, news reports say nothing about the cross-examination by the defense. Presumably they did cross-examine him, but that apparently produced no fireworks. When their turn came, the defense countered with a witness who claimed to have seen the victim in downtown Bozeman an hour after the time of the shooting. That sighting could not be corroborated, however.

They next called Mrs. Grace Deskin as a witness. Under oath, she testified that after the party her husband had been with her either at home or “uptown,” all evening. The defense didn’t seem to bother with the matching footprints at the death scene. Nor did they address the spots of human blood on Deskin’s shoes. They perhaps hoped that the jury would consider all this new-fangled stuff too strange, and just ignore it.

James Deskin.
Montana Prison Records.

Oddly enough, the wife did attempt an explanation for the blood spots and tire prints that placed their car at the scene: Arnold and another party guest had borrowed the vehicle after they had all driven to the Deskins’ home. The empty shotgun shell? Well, any number of people could have borrowed the weapon from their home, or the “real” perpetrator could have planted the shell at the scene.

The jury didn’t buy any of the defense claims and took perhaps four hours to reach a “guilty” verdict. They did not, however, recommend the death penalty requested by the prosecution. Deskin was sentenced to life in prison. The wealth of evidence in this case led Luke May to do an “as told to” article for True Detective Mysteries magazine in its issue for February 1936.

Not quite three years after the trial ended, Clarence Arnold passed away at the Fort Harrison veterans’ hospital. Cause of death was listed as a heart attack, with Raynaud’s Disease as a contributory factor.

Some time before the summer of 1936, James and Grace Deskin divorced, although available records do not show exactly when. But in July 1942, Deskin’s life sentence was commuted to 20 years. He was almost immediately released from prison, having served less than eight years on the first-degree murder conviction. Grace and James remarried little over a month later, and soon moved to Wenatchee, Washington. Grace died in the summer of 1965 and James married again two years later. He passed away in 1979.

Although the veterans’ hospital had basic “next of kin” information for William Kelly, there’s no evidence that authorities in Bozeman made any attempt to contact the family. He was buried in the Sunset Hills Cemetery in Bozeman.
                                                                                

References: Brief History of Divisions, U.S. Army, 1917-1918, Combined Arms Research Library, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas (1921).

“[Kelly-Deskin News],” The Missoulian, Missoula, Montana Standard, Butte, Independent-Record, Helena, Great Falls Tribune, Billings Gazette, Montana (September 1931 – November 1949).

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

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A Death In The Family

A large extended family felt the pain when Benjamin Franklin “Frank” Blankenship was shot to death on September 9, 1933. His mother had died ten months earlier, but that left his father, a wife and daughter, and eight siblings. Beyond that, there were a host of Blankenship relatives living in southwest Washington, especially in Lewis County, where the shooting took place.

Family memories trace the roots of the Blankenship exodus to the state back to the Civil War. At that time, Blankenship relatives lived all over Virginia, including the part that would become West Virginia. Thus, Blankenships served on both sides. After the war, a family friend who had fought on the Confederate side fled Reconstruction and ended up in Washington. Over the years, he wrote back to extoll the wonders of his new home.

Although coal mining had brought prosperity to several counties in southern West Virginia, the financial “Panic of '93” brought job losses and reduced wages. Thus, that summer, sixty hopeful “pioneers” – including several Blankenship families and in-laws – boarded a train for Centralia.

Over a span of weeks, families scattered around the region, buying property or claiming homesteads. Several settled near the town of Riffe, about 40 miles southeast of Chehalis. (The town site is now covered by Lake Riffe.) They would have had some sense of home because the area was similar to mountainous Appalachia where they had started.

Near Welch, West Virginia.                                                                     Near Riffe, Washington.
Library of Congress.

The 1893 expedition did not include Frank Blankenship’s immediate family. He was born in West Virginia in 1903, a year or so before they moved to Washington. (His grandfather died in August 1908 and was buried near Mossyrock, a few miles west of Riffe.) Frank apparently alternated between work as a logger or farm laborer. But life was hard, and the family went back to West Virginia at least twice. Still, in March 1926, Frank was in Lewis County, where he married 19-year-old Garnet Lenore Perkins.

She was the older sister of Cad Byron Perkins. As it happens, the Perkins family also had West Virginia connections, even though Cad and Lenore had been born in northwest Virginia. In 1910, the family lived across the state line from McDowell County, West Virginia, where the Blankenship family had roots. They moved to Lewis County around 1912 and settled near Riffe. By the time of his sister’s wedding, Cad had found work as a logger and lumber mill worker.

However, the Crash of 1929 and resulting Great Depression made it hard to find steady work. Perkins managed to hang on, but Frank, Lenore, and their young daughter were living with his family back east at the time of the 1930 U.S. Census. Frank finally managed to scrounge work on a public road crew, so he and Lenore were in Washington in the summer of 1933. (It appears that their daughter Wanda was still living with relatives in the East.)

However, times were still tough and, in desperation, Blankenship may have resorted to cattle rustling. In fact, Cad later claimed that Frank had tried to lure him into helping steal range stock. (That assertion could not be corroborated, however.) Testimony also showed that Frank envied the relative prosperity of his still unmarried brother-in-law. Cad did have an “understanding” with a local divorcee, but it’s not clear if the two were formally engaged.

Matters came to a head when a calf disappeared from a herd in the area. The rancher began to ask around, and Blankenship said (paraphrasing varied testimony), “That had to be my wife’s no-good brother, Cad.” He repeated that story around the area. To reinforce the general idea, he also accused Cad’s 18-year-old sister of “playing around with everyone.”

Naturally, Cad was outraged when rumors began to float around that he was a stock thief, and that his sister was a tramp. But Frank was believed to carry a ready knife, and had even boasted about his ability to take care of himself with it. Thus, before confronting his brother-in-law, Cad borrowed a pistol, a Luger automatic. Then he also borrowed a car and drove out to the road site where Frank was working.

He drew Frank off for a private talk, and demanded that he stop spreading lies about him and his sister. Frank’s response: He was sure Cad was a rustler; he “had too much money for a common man.” Then Frank took it to another level, asserting that the sister had even fooled around with him.

Frank Blankenship. Family Archives.

“You’re a *#!*#*! liar,” Cad retorted. At that point, Cad testified, Frank seemed about to pull out his knife or at least try to punch him, so he fired the Luger. He’d meant it more or less as a warning, but thought the bullet had hit Frank in the chest. Realizing how much trouble he was in, Cad drove into Chehalis to surrender to the sheriff. As it happened, a telephone call had already summoned Sheriff John A. Blankenship. They passed on the road, but Blankenship didn’t know the car Cad was driving. The Chehalis police chief took Perkins into custody.

Sheriff Blankenship was related – a third cousin – to the victim. He was born in 1881 in Webster County, West Virginia. He was twenty years old when his family moved to Lewis County. The Blankenships ran to large broods … John would eventually have eight brothers and sisters. In 1907, John returned to West Virginia long enough to marry a school teacher and bring her out to Washington. Their family was not quite as large, “only” six children after seventeen years of marriage. John ran a farm until about 1927, when he was appointed as a deputy sheriff. Then he was elected sheriff starting in 1931.

Perhaps a week or so after the shooting, the Lewis County prosecutor hired criminologist Luke May to help with the case. May logged it as a “firearms” case, but that evidence was minimal. Frank had not been hit in the chest. Instead, the fatal bullet had hit him in the side of the neck and exited on the far side of this throat. The slug was never recovered. Still, in the prosecutor’s view, the wound pattern negated Cad’s self-defense claim. He tried Perkins on a charge of first degree murder and demanded the death penalty.

So far as we know, May did not appear on the stand at the trial. However, he and his agents found sixteen prosecution witnesses who testified about the bad blood between the brothers-in-laws. One heard Cad say, “My day is coming, and I’ll get Frank yet.” The self-defense plea was further undermined by the fact that the sheriff found no knife on or near Frank’s body.

The defense countered with twenty-six witnesses of their own. They agreed that Cad was angry with Frank. But he had good reason, since Blankenship had indeed been spreading nasty stories about Cad and his “little sister.” Testimony apparently also offered strong circumstantial evidence that Frank himself had stolen the calf that brought the issue to a head. But no butcher in the region admitted to buying the animal, so Frank had perhaps kept the meat for his own use.

After deliberating for an evening and part of the next morning, the jury found Perkins guilty of the much lesser charge of manslaughter. He received a sentence of 10 to 15 years in prison.

Lenora (Perkins) Blankenship remarried in May 1937. She and her new husband, but not daughter Wanda, were living in Centralia at the time of the 1940 census. Cad Perkins spent less than five years in prison. He married divorcee Mabel (Bradley) Crouse in December 1938. He was employed as a logger west of Olympia at the time of the census.
                                                                                

References: “[Blankenship – Perkins News],” Daily Olympian, Olympia, Seattle Times, Chehalis Bee-Nugget, Bellingham Herald, Washington; The Oregonian, Portland, Oregon (May 1927 – December 1937).

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

Alma Nix, John Nix (Eds.), The History of Lewis County, Washington, Lewis County Historical Society, Chehalis, Washington (1985).

Buddy Rose, ‪Stories from Riffe, Wash., ‬Gorham Printing, Centralia, Washington (2013‬).

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Moonshine – A Death Penalty?

People in the High Plains country east of Bend, Oregon knew that Vayle Taylor loved to play practical jokes. They apparently accepted them in the intended spirit of fun. Still, some neighbors blamed his violent death on February 18, 1926 on that same mischievous sense of humor.

Vayle (often spelled “Vale” in news reports) Taylor was born around 1901 in Missoula, Montana. His father tried his hand at farming near there, but moved to Tacoma, Washington before 1909 and began selling real estate. After ten years or so, Vayle’s father went back to farming, this time in the Alfalfa District, 15 miles east of Bend. Sadly, in the fall of 1920, Vayle’s mother died of spinal meningitis.

Vayle’s father returned to the real estate business in Tacoma, although it’s unclear when. But the young man enjoyed the high country and stayed on there. Very good with his hands, he apparently had no trouble finding work. By 1926, “common knowledge” also linked Vayle with the moonshine liquor trade, although he’d never been charged with anything major. In fact, his still operation would prove to be “one of the best equipped ever located by Central Oregon officials.”

Moonshine Distillation Setup. Personal Collection.

Fern Lowell was another key player in this tragedy. Fern Edward Lowell was born in 1901, in Warren, Idaho. The family lived in Walla Walla, Washington in 1920, and Fern had a job as a grocery delivery boy. Later in that year, he joined the U.S. Marines and saw duty in the Far East. Honorably discharged, he moved to Bend around 1924, along with a brother.

He and his brother may have been partners in a grocery business, with Fern driving a delivery truck. (They would later have such an operation in Klamath Falls.) In any case, Fern somehow learned the location of Vayle’s moonshine rig. Rather vague reports placed the spot roughly 45 miles southeast of Bend. His setup was in the rugged terrain to the north of the villages along the highway from Bend.

Whether voluntarily or through “persuasion,” Lowell led two Prohibition Agents to the site. (One can imagine a number of plausible scenarios leading to this point, but they would all be guesswork.) The agents were C. C. McBride and A. F. Mariott. (McBride’s first name was Clarendon, Mariott’s was Alvie.) McBride, born in Oregon in 1897, served with the U.S. Army in France during World War I. After that, he worked on his father’s farm until joining the Prohibition unit around 1924.

Mariott was older, being born in Missouri in 1888. He also served in World War I, with the U.S. Marines at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. After that, he moved to Baker, Oregon, and he got married there in 1922. He claimed a nearby homestead less than a year later. He too landed a job with the Prohibition unit around 1924. Neither he nor McBride received any law enforcement training.

Several points were clear enough about the incident. Vayle Taylor was killed by one fatal bullet, and McBride fired the shot. The victim was not armed, nor were any weapons found at the moonshine “plant.” Still, the young man was indeed producing, or about to produce, illegal liquor. Beyond that, the “official” account of what happened left many questions unanswered.

The simplest unofficial story, favored by the locals, was that Taylor saw the agents coming and tried to flee. Then McBride fired a warning or wounding shot that proved to be fatal. In that version, Vayle was already at the moonshine setup, preparing mash for a run of the still. Early accounts supported that scenario.

Later, however, the agents claimed that they had arrived at the site the afternoon before the shooting. Finding the place empty, they decided to wait for the moonshiner to return. But where did they hide? In assorted versions, the moonshine facility was said to be a dugout, a two-room shack, or a shack plus a nearby shed. The actual stills (two, or maybe three) might have been in one or more of these shelters. In one variant, the “dugout” was said to be large enough to hold two stills, ten barrels of mash, and a supply of firewood.

The agents’ favored story was that they waited in the dugout. In yet another variation, they supposedly removed a pane of glass from the door to get in. That seems odd, since accounts don’t mention any locks. The agents had no provisions for a long stay, and never explained when they expected Taylor to show up. They would have spent a brutal night, with temperatures dropping well below freezing on the high plains.

Vayle supposedly appeared on horseback around 9:30 on the morning of February 18, leading a pack horse. According to the agents, he immediately spotted their tracks and braced a two-by-four against the door to pin them in. Hearing that story, locals conceded that Vayle would have considered that a good joke on whoever was inside. Of course, he would not have known who he had caught, since the officers admitted that they had not yet identified themselves.

In one other version, Vayle then circled the “dugout and the adjoining shed” before returning to look inside the dugout. How the agents knew this was a puzzle, since they could only see out the front door of the dugout. Next, they said, Vayle reached in through the opening where the agents had removed a pane. (Why?!) McBride then purportedly grabbed him and told him he was under arrest.

The agents did not seem to have pushed that unlikely scenario very hard. Their crucial action, supposedly, was an attempt to batter their way out. According to McBride, he had his automatic pistol out, with the safety off, as he slammed his shoulder against the door. “Somehow” it went off and the bullet just happened to hit Taylor in the throat, killing him instantly. McBride and Lowell stayed at the scene, while Mariott rushed to the nearest village to call county officers.

By the time those officials arrived, a group of locals had also gathered. They were clearly skeptical of the stories they heard, and made no attempt to hide their growing anger. Because of that, an inquest was held the very next day in Prineville. (Prineville, about 30 miles northeast of Bend, is the county seat of Crook County, where the shooting occurred).

One piece of testimony cast doubt on most of the preferred claims made by the agents. The medical officer stated that he had “found the dead man lying across the doorway of a two-room shack.” No mention at all of a dugout. And how could the body end up “across the doorway” where the agents had supposedly battered their way out? No matter. The coroner’s jury took just three minutes to declare the death an accident and close the case.

As could be expected, Vayle’s friends and neighbors were outraged. A week after the young man’s death, they raised money to pay for an independent investigation, managed by a law firm in Bend. A day or so later, criminologist Luke S. May logged the “Vale [sic] Taylor death inquiry.”

Sadly, there was not much for May to investigate. He had virtually no hope of finding the fatal bullet, which might have allowed him to trace the trajectory. Worse yet, after Vayle’s body was carried off on horseback, the agents had broken up the moonshine plant, piled everything together, and set fire to it. That obliterated any possible bullet holes, bloodstains, or other physical evidence. May’s report would have been short, to the point, and negative. His Papers contain almost no information on this case.

Early on the morning of March 8, an explosion blew out the back of the Congress Apartments in Bend. Only poor placement of the dynamite saved Alvie Mariott and his wife from severe injury, or worse. At the time, McBride was taking his meals at his partner’s home and outsiders must have assumed he was also living there. Local sources left little doubt that the bomb was in retaliation for the death of Vayle Taylor. That case was never solved.

Bombed Damage, Congress Apartments. Deschutes County Historical Society.

Three months later, C. C. McBride again appeared in the regional news. On a raid at a bootleggers’ base about 15 miles north of Salem, he had shot and killed another unarmed man. This time, at least, the victim had two partners who apparently were armed and did fire at the Prohibition officers. In 1929, McBride’s father died, so he resigned from the Prohibition service to operate the family ranch. He remained active in livestock raising until his death in the Portland veterans’ hospital in 1963.

Mariott stayed with the service until Prohibition was repealed in 1933. He then served as an investigator for the Treasury Department. He retired in 1954 and passed away in 1979.
                                                                                

References: “Congress Apartments,” Registration Form, National Register of Historic Places, National Park Service, Washington D.C. (September 1, 2000).

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

“[Vayle Taylor Death News],” Albany Democrat, Bend Bulletin, Klamath News, Oregonian, Portland; Capital Journal, Salem, News-Review, Roseburg, Herald & News, Klamath Falls, Statesman-Journal, Salem, Oregon (October 18, 1920) – (May 27, 1979).

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Fixation On Youth Brings Death

Lonely Acres, known as People’s Park until about 1933, was located west of Renton, about ten miles southeast of downtown Seattle, Washington. From as early as 1916, groups held many congenial gatherings and celebrations there. But the venue was also the site of a 1937 tragedy that became a notorious part of local history. By then, facilities included a tavern with attached living area, and a pavilion suitable for band concerts and dances. The surrounding park had enough room for a baseball field (or a Bocce layout).

The first use of the “People’s Park” designation appeared in the summer of 1920. Users of the park comprised an eclectic mix. One week might see a trade union gathering, the next a picnic for business owners. Various African-American groups had outings in the park, but so did the Ku Klux Klan. Perhaps the most frequent users were associations of different ethnic groups: Swedes, Irish, Swiss, a Slavic consortium, and more. One on the most common of these, especially after about 1928, were the Italians.

Fred Anrooney.

The Lonely Acres tavern was acquired by Italian-born Fred Anrooney in 1934 or 1935. Born around 1882, Anrooney came to the United States when he was about ten years old. That family name cannot be traced to any common Italian surname, so it could be some sort of Americanization. By 1905, he was married and had found work as a musician, playing the cornet.

In 1914, he relocated the family – the couple had two children – to Santa Barbara, California. Fred became known as a fine band leader, playing at a wide variety of events. Around 1919, they moved to Washington state. There, Anrooney opened a music store, first in Seattle and later in Renton. He continued to operate a store until about the time he bought the tavern. This was also most likely when he began to lose his hearing. In February of 1937, Fred hired a new waitress, Marlene Collier, née Wilda Rae Townsend.

Wilda Townsend was born in 1914 in Seattle. Her father owned and operated a grocery store. In 1930, when she was just 16 years old, she married a young man – he was 21 – who drove a grocery delivery truck. But the couple divorced in March 1932. Wilda went back to her maiden name and found work as an elevator operator. She also began favoring the name “Marlene,” quite likely in homage to superstar Marlene Dietrich, who exploded onto American movie screens in 1930-1932.

Wilda Marlene married again in April 1933. Her new husband, 23 years old, drove a delivery truck for a heating oil company. But the marriage only lasted a year or so, and Wilma went back to her job as an elevator operator. She married for a third time in January 1936, to seaman David J. Collier. However, the couple separated after a year. Then, as noted above, she went to work as a waitress at Anrooney’s place. Although not yet divorced, in March she also began dating Russell Ringer, a 23-year-old truck driver.

In July of 1937, Anrooney began to receive threatening phone calls from an unknown man. Thus, around the middle of the month, he purchased a sawed-off  36-gauge shotgun (a European size similar to the U.S. 410 gauge). However, he was not sure he would be able to hear someone breaking in. Thus, he had Marlene keep the weapon at night

On August 1, 1937, Marlene and Fred closed the tavern about 1:30 a.m. Because the business kept such late hours, Marlene had her own room in the back part of the building. She later testified that she locked her door that night, although she did not explain why. But earlier in her employment, Anrooney had made suggestive comments to her, forcing her to “put him in his place.” Marlene went to bed and fell asleep right away. Fred also went to bed, but at some point he got up and apparently had a few drinks.

After an hour or so of sleep, the noise of Anrooney forcing her door awoke Marlene. He flipped on the lights and started toward her, despite her demand that he get out of her room. So she grabbed the shotgun and fired past him into a piano. Muttering about “damn women,” Anrooney left, but she thought she heard him pouring another drink.

Some minutes later, he re-entered her room, displaying “a wild look in his eyes.” When he started toward her again, Marlene fired another shot. She aimed closer this time, but still meant it only as a warning. It’s at least plausible that she didn’t realize how wide pellets from a sawed-off shotgun would spread. Hit in the upper chest near his right shoulder, Fred staggered out and down the hall, crying, “Help! Help!”

Marlene heard nothing for a few minutes, and finally went to see if her boss was okay. She found him seated behind the bar, but when she touched him, he toppled over, dead. She called the police and then her parents to tell them the terrible news.

News reports did not explain why officials thought that Marlene’s latest boyfriend might have had something to do with the shooting. Still, the prosecutor’s office contracted with private criminologist Luke S. May to investigate further. May’s log entry specifically mentioned that the case would require the use of the polygraph (lie detector). May tested Russ Ringer about a week after the shooting. The young man denied any involvement and passed easily.

Marlene (Townsend) Collier.

Marlene said she was also willing to take the test. However, the prosecutor said “no,” because he had already issued a second-degree murder indictment against her. She plead self-defense, based on her fear that Anrooney had been unhinged by passion and liquor. Her bail was set fairly low, which was fortunate since a series of delays pushed the trial out to May 1938.

Assessment of the pellet patterns showed that both shots had been fired from a low angle. That agreed with Marlene’s statement that she had been seated on her bed. But prosecutors made their case on the fact that Anrooney had not been hit directly in the chest. That, they asserted, should have been the case if the victim had been advancing on Marlene. The defense countered that he probably tried to dodge at the last second when Marlene lifted the shotgun to fire.

But the heart of the defense turned on Anrooney’s behavior. In 1925, at age 43, he had clung to youth by marrying a woman 22 years his junior (his first wife had died five years earlier). A decade later, hearing loss was a cruel reminder that he was no longer a young man. He responded by again seeking youth around him. The operator of a Seattle employment agency testified that he specifically sought “young, pretty, and inexperienced girls” to work at the tavern.

Then Anrooney tended to take, in the somewhat quaint words of the day, “unwarranted liberties” with them. One young woman got so uncomfortable during the interview, she refused to take the job. Several others quit after just two or three days. The agent’s account was bolstered by testimony from several former waitresses. Still, Anrooney managed to hide his behavior from family and friends, who testified on his behalf. In the end, the jury took less than an hour and a half to return a “not guilty” verdict.

A few month later, Marlene divorced her husband and again took back her maiden name, now expressed as Wilda Marlene Townsend. After that, she moved to Portland, Oregon, to work in a hotel there. Some time later, she married yet again, to U.S. Navy sailor Louis G. Sauer.  They were living in San Diego when she had a daughter in September 1948. She passed away in 1986 in Bremerton, Washington.
                                                                                

References: “[Anrooney-Collier/Townsend News],” Spokesman-Review, Spokane, Seattle Times, Seattle Star, Washington; Santa Barbara Daily News, California (July 1916 – June 1942).

“Anyone Remember People’s Park?” Quarterly of the Renton Historical Society & Museum, Renton, Washington (June 2018).

Steven Bach, Marlene Dietrich: Life and Legend, University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis (2011).

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).

Photo credits: Fred Anrooney, Marlene Collier. Both from Seattle Times, Washington (August 2, 1937).

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