Shades of the Old Wild West

The weather was chilly in remote Okanogan County, Washington on November 17, 1936, with nighttime temperatures below freezing in the high country. Trouble that had been brewing for quite some time came to a head in the afternoon. Stockman Bob Neil had discovered a number of his steers mingled with those of his son-in-law, Robert Minton. Bad blood had developed between Neil and the Mintons soon after Robert had married Bob’s daughter Margaret. Much of that seemed to have been fomented by Robert’s father, Charles Robert, often referred to as “C.R.”

No one could tell if Bob’s stock had been “encouraged” to wander, but now he asked a neighbor to help him “cut the critters out of the herd.” The neighbor did not have a horse right then, but said he’d come along on foot to drift animals back towards Bob’s range.

Not long after Bob rode on ahead, the neighbor heard a flurry of gunshots. Moments later, the cattleman came back. He stated that C.R. had apparently been waiting for him, and ordered Bob off “his” land. Bob complied, but either didn’t move fast enough or perhaps took the wrong route. Thus, C.R. cut him off along the trail and started at him, brandishing a large butcher knife. Bob produced a revolver and, when C.R. refused to back down, shot him four times. The wounded man died shortly after medical help arrived.

Robert H. Neil was born March 26, 1873, somewhere in Texas. He thus grew to manhood during the period when the so-called “Wild West” era flourished and then faded. (Historians consider 1895 as roughly the end of that era.) Thus, this affray on the range quite likely evoked a sense of tragic déjà vu. 

Tunk Creek Scenery. Real Estate photo.

Bob Neil first appeared in public records in 1909, when he filed on a homestead in Okanogan County, near Tunk Creek. Tiny Riverside was about five miles to the southwest, but the nearest city of any size, Spokane, was over 110 miles away. The holding included Bob Neal Lake as a water source and proved suitable for stock raising. (Over the years, different reports would alternative between the two spellings of the last name.)

Neil married and began raising a family in 1916, when he was over forty years old. Daughter Margaret married Robert Minton in April 1935; she was 18 years old, he was 21.

Robert (actually “Charles Robert,” like his father) was born near Los Angeles. His father had been born in Salem, Oregon, in 1894. He studied briefly at Willamette University, but married Ada Leggett in 1913. They moved to Los Angeles within a few years. There, C.R. tried his hand as a blacksmith, salesman, waiter, restaurant operator, and wholesale flower raiser. By 1930, C.R. and Ada had four sons, including Robert, Jr.

The Minton family moved to Washington after 1930, but it’s unclear exactly when. Nor do we know how Margaret and Robert met. Soon after Margaret and Robert got married, Bob Neil had turned over a small herd of cattle to the couple. Details of the accompanying contract are unknown, but they were to share costs and profits from the venture. The deal became a bone of contention almost immediately. Reports note that C.R. and Robert filed “numerous” lawsuits against Bob, and even started proceedings to have him declared insane.

All of that failed, but Margaret told her father that they still had plans “to drive him off his Tunk Creek homestead.” In fact, in January 1936, after less than nine months of marriage, Margaret filed for divorce. However, the couple somehow patched things up and she did not follow through at that time.

The harassment continued, C.R. taking the lead. In fact, the elder Minton proved himself to be a contentious fellow all around. That fall, a few weeks before the situation exploded, a neighbor gave C.R. a ride, headed into Riverside. Then, for reasons known only to himself, C.R. began to bad-mouth the driver’s son-in-law. The diatribe escalated to the point that the driver finally told C.R. to get out and walk.

Now, of course, his argumentative nature had gotten him shot and killed. A hearing quickly freed Bob on his plea of self-defense. However, a second hearing was called when C.R.’s widow made the claim that the cattleman had planted the knife at the scene. That assertion could not be verified, so authorities again dropped the murder charge. However, evidence did show that C.R. had been shot with a revolver, not a rifle, as Bob had initially stated. This information was surely provided by criminologist Luke S. May, who logged this case as a firearms investigation.

Bob admitted that he had indeed used a handgun. Oddly enough, although Bob served at times as a deputy sheriff, he did not have a weapons permit for the revolver. In fact, testimony would confirm that it was only a coincidence that Bob had the gun with him. Earlier on the day of the shooting, he had basically confiscated the revolver from his oldest son, who worked for a nearby cattleman. The son didn’t have a permit either, but liked to carry the gun out on the range, apparently just for the glamor of the thing. Bob spent five months in jail on the weapons charge. And that seemed to be the end of it.

However, a year after the shooting, newspapers reported that the Washington state attorney general had opened his own investigation. That action was quickly identified as a test of a statute recently passed by the state legislature. The new law allowed the state office to proceed when they thought local authorities had made an error. Reporters soon learned that officials in Olympia had received several anonymous letters, purporting to offer “new evidence” about the case.

Finally, in late March 1938, the AG demanded that local officials file a first degree murder charge against Robert H. Neil. The county prosecutor said, basically, “Sure … after you show us this new evidence.” Taking full advantage of the new law, the state filed the charge themselves. So far as one can tell now, state officials never did share the information that led to their preemptive action. In fact, there seems have been no effort made to identify the source(s) of the letters.

At the subsequent trial, witnesses split on whether or not Bob Neil had actually threatened to “get” C.R. Minton. One or two said he did. More said he expressed anger and frustration about Minton’s harassment, but made no threats of bodily harm. Of course, Bob had already admitted to shooting the victim. It does not appear that the defense raised the issue of how Neil could get a fair trial, given the huge publicity generated by the state’s actions.

In any case, the jury issued a guilty verdict – perhaps deciding that four gunshots were just too many for a case of simple self-defense. Neil was sentenced to life in prison. A week later, Bob said he would not have his lawyers contest the verdict, although he was sure they’d win an appeal. He told a reporter, “I am an old man, and I’m tired.” He was, of course, 65 years old at that point. Moreover, three years of almost nonstop litigation, first against the Mintons and then in criminal court, had left him flat broke. He died five years later.

The result devastated the Neil family. Less than two weeks after Bob’s no-appeal declaration, Margaret was granted a divorce from her husband. Where she went after that can not be determined. At the 1940 census, Bob’s wife was listed as an “inmate” at the Okanogan County Poor House. The oldest son, working as a poorly-paid cowboy and farm hand, could do nothing to help her. She died in 1947. The youngest son simple disappeared from available public records.

The Minton family gained nothing from the dispute either. All but the youngest son returned to Los Angeles to eke out meager livings during and after the war. The youngest apparently went to live with relatives in Oregon or southwestern Washington.
                                                                                

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

“[Neil-Minton Shooting News],” Seattle Times, Bellingham Herald, Spokesman-Review, Spokane, Washington (January 1936 – July 1938).

David Wilma, “Okanogan County — Thumbnail History,” Online Encyclopedia of Washington State History, HistoryLink.org, Seattle, Washington (January 21, 2006).

Jump to Cases List

Puzzling Countryside Murders

Double-killer Paul Staren was a deadly enigma. He was apparently born around 1885, in a part of Poland then controlled by Russia. If his later statements can be believed, he came to the U.S. in 1914. That was perhaps to avoid being mobilized to fight for Russia in World War I. However, immigration records for that general period do not list any matches to “Paul Staren,” “Paul Staroń,” or any reasonable variant. (“Staroń,” is a known Polish surname, while “Staren” is not.) Thus, one may infer that Staren might not have been his real name.

Staren’s first five years in the U.S. are another mystery. In fact, nothing about his life before the summer of 1919 can be verified. We do know he was a fervent Anarchist with Bolshevik leanings. He also became a strong supporter of the International Workers of the World union, the “Wobblies,” an organization with deep Anarchist roots. And, at some point, he made his way to the Pacific Northwest. There, his only known employment was as a transient laborer. He blamed a skewed foot on an injury incurred preparing grade for a new stretch of railroad.

Paul Staren. Seattle Star News Photo.

Staren also did farm work near places like Othello, Washington. In 1920, Othello existed mainly because the railroad needed a watering stop. The nearest town of any size was Yakima, about 66 miles to the west-southwest. The Harry Gregg ranch, east of Othello, was even more remote. Yet on the evening of September 29, a masked stranger appeared at their door. He brandished an automatic pistol, tied Harry to a chair, and ordered Mrs. Gregg about in what sounded like a Germanic accent.

When Harry squirmed to loosen his bonds, the intruder shot him three times, then stabbed him. Mrs. Gregg tried to protect her husband, so the assailant shot her too. Still, she managed to attack him with a chair. Then, when he turned to flee, she marked the back of the head with a chunk of concrete. Despite her wounds, Mrs. Gregg got the word out and, by the next morning, bands of armed men were combing the hills for the shooter. Despite all that, the fugitive vanished.

Born in Missouri, in 1880, Harry Gregg moved to Washington some time after 1900. He was appointed postmaster of the Othello post office in 1906, the same year he married Essie May Chavis. It’s not clear how long he remained postmaster, but in 1910 he was buyer for a grain company. By 1920, the couple owned the ranch outside of Othello and had two sons and two daughters. Sadly, the children lost their father on October 2, 1920. Luckily, Essie Gregg recovered from her wounds. A total of $3,000 in rewards was offered for leads, but nothing came of that.

A strange event in late October offered short-lived hope. Authorities discovered the body of a man who had shot himself floating in the Columbia River just 20 miles from Othello. His clothing, general appearance, and age matched the killer “in every detail.” However, he had shot himself with a cheap .38-caliber revolver. By now, criminologist Luke S. May had identified the Gregg death weapon as a .25-20 automatic pistol. A couple weeks after the body was found, the suicide victim was proved to not be the shooter. The case went cold at that point.

The breakthrough began two years later, at the Joseph Bongiorni ranch near Wilson Creek. About 40 miles due north of the Gregg tragedy, the Wilson Creek place was even further from any large town. Spokane, the closest, was about 80 miles away.

Originally from Italy, the Bongiorni family immigrated to the U.S. in 1900-1903, settling first in Connecticut. August Bongiorni, fourth child of Antonio and Teresa, was born there in April 1905. Five years later, the couple – with a brood that had grown to seven – were living on a farm about 14 miles northeast of Everett, Washington. The household included Antonio’s brothers, Joseph and John.

Joseph, Antonio, Teresa, and the children moved to Wilson Creek within a year or so. But Antonio died in early 1915. Joseph must have married his brother’s widow soon after that, because they had two children in the three years following. By 1920, they would have had quite a large family at home.

Paul Staren worked for Joe Bongiorni during the haying season of 1919, and may have done so again in 1921. For 1922, we know that he had a job in August and early September at a ranch about 25 miles southwest Spokane. The rancher’s teenage daughter told a reporter that she had talked to him a number of times. She found him rather scary: “The mere mention of government or religion would send him into a fury.”

In any case, on the evening of September 19, a man wearing a rudimentary mask strode into the yard of the Bongiorni ranch. He never explained why he shot and instantly killed seventeen-year-old August. Perhaps he was simply keyed up. When Joseph rushed out to see what was going on, the intruder shot him three times. He emptied his automatic into the ranch house door, then tried to drag a daughter outside. But, as in the Gregg instance, the mother drove him off with an impromptu club. The ranch had no phone, so one of the sons rode for help.

Again, armed men went out in force to track the shooter. Finally, a railroad conductor spotted him near a train stop about ten miles east of the ranch. Taken into custody, Paul Staren freely admitted that he had shot August Bongiorni. He said he actually meant to kill Joe, although he expressed no particular regret that he’d got the wrong victim. Under state law, a confessed murderer had to undergo a trial, allowing a jury to assess the evidence and decide between a prison sentence or death.

The only real surprise came when widow Essie Gregg appeared to finger Staren as the man who killed her husband two years before. She apparently saw press photos and recognized him from the exposed upper part of his face. One clincher was a scar on the back his head, which she had inflicted with the thrown chunk of concrete. Also, although authorities apparently did not have Luke May do a microscopic bullet comparison, the make and model of the .25-20 death weapon matched that of the Gregg shooting. Staren conceded nothing, but did not deny the shooting either.

The jury chose the death penalty, but Staren cheated the public hangman. A few weeks before his scheduled execution, he hanged himself with a strip from his bed sheet.

His death left two mysteries unsolved. He did seem to have a set modus operandi (MO). Both locations were far from large towns, where there might be professional law enforcement. The target ranches were isolated and neither had telephone service. Yet both were within two or three miles of a rail line. That was how Staren tried to get away after the Bongiorni hit, and almost certainly how he escaped after the Gregg murder.

In any case, the most obvious puzzle was his motive. Why did he kill? He said nothing about the Gregg murder, of course. He claimed Joe Bongiorni had shorted him on his pay back in 1919 … all of $5-6 out of a few hundred dollars. Who would commit murder over that? Besides that, Joe’s wife remembered Staren, but could not recall any dispute over wages.

Perhaps Staren saw Harry and Joe as personifications of hated religion and oppressive authority. Joe was the patriarch of a large family, and committed to the Roman Catholic church. The Gregg family was smaller, but still included a wife and four minor children. And the Greggs were apparently strong adherents of the Churches of Christ. In 1906, they had traveled over 60 miles to be married by an Elder in Ritzville … no small matter since Othello had no railroad service at that time.

Such a “psychological” motive is only speculation. But at least it offers a reason, however warped, for murders that otherwise make no sense.

The second mystery has to do with Staren’s financial situation. He carried bank books that showed at least two fairly recent deposits of over a thousand dollars each. After his death, authorities were able to locate and verify an estate of around $1,116. In terms of today’s pay scales, that’s equivalent to over $65,000 … roughly four times what a minimum-wage employee now earns annually. Even after Staren became known to authorities, he was never implicated in any major hold-ups or burglaries. How could a man typically earning just $2-4 a day at short-duration jobs accumulate so much money?

A year after the Bongiorni murder, an arsonist set fire to five huge stacks of alfalfa at the ranch. The entire season’s production went up in smoke, leaving the family practically destitute. The close timing – “almost to the hour” when August was shot the year before – made people wonder if the two events were somehow connected. Staren might have been part of some dark conspiracy, which paid him for sabotage or murder. Was this their revenge?

In the end, we have no answers to any of these questions.
                                                                                

References: Census and immigration records, city directory listings, and other genealogical sources were consulted extensively. Online sources included Ancestry.com and others.

“[Bongiorni Murder News],” Seattle Star, Seattle Times, Spokane Chronicle, Spokesman-Review, Spokane, Washington; The Oregonian, Portland, Oregon (September 1922 – September 1923).

“[Gregg Murder News],” Seattle Star, Tacoma Ledger, Spokane Chronicle, Washington (October 4 – November 8, 1920).

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

Jump to Cases List

Murder On A Train

Friday, September 19, 1930. The evening weather was chilly in Shelby, Montana, located almost 75 miles north and slightly west of Great Falls. Nighttime temperatures would drop to a few degrees above freezing. A couple dozen transient workers and casual drifters huddled around a bonfire near the Great Northern Railway yard. Among them were three men whose future would soon be tragically intertwined.

Shelby was a junction town, and “travelers” could snag a freight car going north, south, east, or west. Rail companies around the country differed in how they approached such freeloaders. On some, railroad “bulls” – company policemen – enforced strict “no ride” policies. But here, on the sparsely populated high plains, it was in the company’s interest to allow these men to ride. Most were following the harvest, which required a major influx of seasonal workers. No harvest meant no business for the railroad … hauling products out and bringing supplies in.

John Joseph Wright sought a ride south. His sister later said he might go to Canada, but perhaps he had missed the harvest peak there. A transplanted Englishman, Wright had served with the Royal Engineers in France during the Great War, attaining the rank of sergeant. He earned the Military Medal for gallantry, as well as two other lesser awards. After the war, he lived in a distant suburb of Manchester. (A full biography of Sergeant Wright can be found here.) Wright moved to the U.S. in 1921 and found work as a mechanic with a Packard automobile dealership in Chicago.

However, two years later, he was felled by an illness that rendered him unconscious for 54 days. Although doctors in Chicago did not identify the malady, his symptoms point to a case of Encephalitis lethargica. A substantial epidemic occurred during and after World War I, and Manchester, England was one of the harder hit areas. Estimates suggest that up to a third of all known cases ended in death.

While some made a full recovery, many ended up like Wright, with symptoms much like Parkinson’s Disease. He could no longer work as a mechanic, probably due to tremors, halting mobility, unusual fatigue, and memory problems. He also had speech difficulties and impaired hearing, and was very sensitive to artificial light. A sad come-down for a man of such valor and promise.

The men who preyed on him were at the opposite end of the spectrum. Thomas H. Groves, a native of Maryland, lied about his age and joined the U.S. Marines in early 1912, when he was seventeen years old. There, he had discipline problems and left the service after two years. Then he used a false name to join the Texas National Guard, but lasted only about five months in that organization. He later claimed that his crippled left hand was caused by an injury during the Great War, but there is no evidence to support that assertion.

His activities after about 1917 cannot be reliably traced. However, when he was captured in Montana, he at first gave authorities a fake name. An exhaustive newspaper search, using various aliases, suggests that Groves compiled quite a record in the interim: Petty theft in North Dakota; liquor and morals charges in Anaconda, Montana; and dealing drugs in Washington. He may have spent time in federal prison on a narcotics charges. All that was probably just the proverbial “tip of the iceberg.”

Harry E. Miller. Montana Prison Records.

 Groves’ accomplice, Harry E. Miller, was born in Illinois, in 1909. His divorced or widowed mother apparently couldn’t, or wouldn’t, handle him. Thus, he spent time in an Illinois orphanage and then an Iowa reform school before he was fifteen years old. By the time he was twenty, he had made his way to Seattle, where he was jailed on a disorderly conduct charge. He had a California license as a truck driver when he was captured in Montana. However, the most recent employment he could recall was as a waiter, for nine days, in Los Angeles.

The two said they had met around 1927, but they apparently did not team up until later. In 1930, they got together in North Dakota and began to make their way west. Thus, they too boarded the freight headed to Great Falls. Soon after the train left Shelby, Groves and Miller moved ahead over the cars and and began robbing other riders. One man hesitated when told to jump off, so Groves fired a shot from an automatic pistol to hurry him along.

The crooks continued forward and found Wright in another car. With his disabilities, the Englishman was probably slow to respond. Thus, the impatient Groves fired three shots, at least two of which hit their victim, killing him almost instantly. Wright had no money on him whatsoever.

The killers left the train at the first stop. Wright’s body was discovered shortly after that and an alert was transmitted to authorities from the next stop. His medals were found among his personal effects, so the front page headline in the Great Falls Tribune read, “Train Bandits Slay English Hero.”

The two crooks headed for Fort Benton on foot, getting car rides when they could. They were captured about twenty miles from their goal. As noted earlier, Groves first gave officials an alias. However, he soon admitted to his real name. Most importantly, he still had the automatic pistol in his possession, and said he had owned it for at least two years.

The Great Falls posts of the American Legion and the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) conducted the funeral service for Wright. He was buried in the soldiers’ plot in the local Highland Cemetery. His medals were returned to his mother back in England.

The murder trials of Groves and Miller were held in December. Victims of the robberies identified the two from their clothing, build, and glimpses of their features. But the firearms work of private criminologist Luke S. May provided the crucial link. The Luke May Papers did not contain a lot about this case, but his findings can be recreated from newspaper and court reports.

By this time, May had handled more than 140 death cases, over ninety of which involved firearms. He could use so-called “class characteristics” – visible marks left by rifling and other design features – to identify the make and model of every commonly used firearm in the world. The death weapon was a 7.65 mm pistol of Spanish or French make. Groves loaded it with .32-caliber ammunition made in the U.S., a close-enough fit.

“Individual characteristics” – microscopic scratches and impressions unique to a given firearm – verified that Groves’ pistol had fired the fatal shots. May then presented greatly enlarged photographic images to explain the matches to the jury.

May was also an expert in bullet trajectory and wound analysis. Evidence showed that Wright had his arms upright, or at least out, when he was shot – as expected for someone being robbed. By law, all perpetrators of a felony when a death occurs are equally culpable. Thus, both Groves, the shooter, and Miller, the accomplice, were convicted of first degree murder and sentenced to life in prison.
                                                                                

References: Dr. Ava Easton, Encephalitis Lethargica, Encephalitis Society, North Yorkshire, United Kingdom (April 2014).

Paul Bernard Foley, “Encephalitis lethargica … epidemiology and symptoms,” Journal of Neural Transmission, Vol. 116, No. 10, Springer Science, Switzerland (October 2009) p. 1295-1308.

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

Richard Nelson, Killed By Bandits: The Story of John Joseph Wright M. M., blog, gm1914.wordpress.com (January 26, 2017).

“[Possible Arrests of Groves Under Aliases],” Grand Forks Herald, North Dakota; Spokane Chronicle, Washington; Anaconda Standard, Montana Standard, Butte, Independent-Record, Helena, Montana (August 1920 – December 1928).

State v. Miller, 9 P.2d 474 Montana (March 21, 1932).

“[Wright Murder Case],” Independent-Record, Helena, Billings Gazette, Great Falls Tribune, Montana; Standard-Examiner, Ogden, Utah (September 1930 – March 1932).

Jump to Cases List

The Rosebud County Sniper

In the outside world of April 1, 1949, the Cold War was heating up. Yet all of that might have seemed rather remote to Russ Bean in his small farm home, located about fourteen miles west of Forsyth, Montana. The time was approaching 8 o’clock in the evening, and he sat with his family at the supper table. An outside window was behind him, but the only natural light came from a sliver of crescent moon. Thus, the room lights were shining brightly – making him, as it happened, a perfect target.

Then that peaceful scene exploded.

A bullet punched through the window and chair-back, pierced Russell’s chest from behind, grazed the head of a child sitting across from him, and clanged against an iron stove at the end. No words can adequately express the shock and devastation the family must have felt as Russ slumped forward, almost instantly dead.

They surely took some time to recover. Still, the county coroner was at the crime scene within about an hour and an undersheriff not long after. Sheriff Floyd “Whitey” Dowlin was there by 10 o’clock. The undersheriff had already talked with the two nearest neighbors. One of those was Mrs. Helen (Bean) Storm, Russell’s sister. The Bean family later spent the night at her place. Although they had to contend with some “sightseers,” officials did an adequate job of securing the Bean premises.

After matters were mostly settled at the crime scene, Sheriff Dowlin interviewed the other nearby neighbor, John Loy Storm. John was the ex-husband of Helen, and therefore ex-brother-in-law of Russell Bean. He and his thirty-year old son lived in a trailer home to the west of Helen’s house. In fact, Storm, his ex-wife, and the Bean family all lived within a half mile of each other. When the sheriff talked to Storm, he would have surely known about the family relationships.

Russell Owens Bean was born on a ranch near Forsyth in 1887. He graduated from the Billings Polytechnic Institute (a precursor to today’s Rocky Mountain College) in 1914. The following year he was a witness in Billings for his sister’s marriage to John Loy Storm. Born in Illinois, Storm had homesteaded west of Forsyth a year or two before the marriage, when he was about twenty years old. He would stay with the farm near Forsyth until 1949.

Russell O. "Russ" Bean, ca 1918.
Posted at FindAGrave by “Sharon.”

Russell Bean served in France with an artillery unit during World War I. He married his first wife in 1920 and worked for many years as an electrician. However, around 1934, Bean became a sewing machine salesman. He continued in that line of work for over a decade, even owning a store in Miles City for a time. During this period, he also divorced and remarried.

Then, right after World War II, he moved to the place west of Forsyth. Several of Bean’s relatives had homesteaded in the area when they moved to Montana from Texas in the early 1880s. Available records do not say if he owned or inherited family land, or simply purchased some at this time. Not long after his return to the area, he and John Storm (then still his brother-in-law) partnered in a joint venture to raise wheat. In 1948, Bean purchased a laundry business in Forsyth.

When Sheriff Dowlin went to quiz Storm, he probably knew that Bean’s sister had divorced John a bit over six months earlier. That could possibly have caused some tension in the partnership. The sheriff might have also heard that Russell and John were involved in some sort of business dispute. So perhaps Dowlin was not totally surprised at Storm’s reply when he was told about the shooting: “Good, I’m glad, the son of a bitch was no good anyhow.”

After the interview, Dowlin went home. He returned to the Bean place shortly after sunup and began recording key observations about the crime scene. That included the position of the bullet hole in the window. Then he and two other men searched the yard where the shot had originated. About fifty feet from the window, they found what was judged to be the impression of someone’s knee.

From that point, they sorted through footprints (some of the sightseers had wandered in the yard) to establish a trail of widely-separated tracks. This ultimately led them to within fifty yards or so of Storm’s trailer home. Some marks were distinct enough so that plaster casts could be made. However, others – including the knee “print” – would have required specialized photographic equipment, and skills, that this remote rural county did not have. All they could do was write down a general description of each.

Around 9 o’clock in the morning, the sheriff asked “an experienced civil engineer” to come out and help. They first used stout fishing line to backtrack the bullet path from where it hit the stove, through the hole in the window, and then out into the yard. Tellingly, the path ran directly over the knee impression, at a height consistent with someone kneeling to aim a weapon. The engineer also helped the sheriff map the location of every foot impression found earlier.

Some time during the morning, Sheriff Dowlin contacted the Lost Persons Foundation, an outfit that specialized in finding hikers and hunters lost in Montana’s wild back-country. A handler arrived at the crime scene with two bloodhounds at about 3 o’clock in the afternoon. Put on the scent at the knee impression, the hounds followed the general path defined by the faint tracks found by the sheriff. They stopped, satisfied, outside the trailer home until John Storm came out. They then immediately jumped on him in a friendly manner and licked his hands, just as they were trained to do when they found a scent-trailed missing person. The handler said simply, “There’s your man.”

By this time, several people had told Dowlin about vehement death threats Storm had made against Bean, including some on the day of the shooting. At this point, the sheriff jailed John, stating that a murder charge would soon follow. He also secured as evidence a .270 Winchester rifle found in the trailer home.

The case went to trial the following December. Storm’s death threats arose over a tractor he and Bean owned as part of their joint venture. Storm had tried, unsuccessfully, to arrange a deal where one or the other had full ownership of the tractor. Storm’s ex-wife and son both testified that he was enraged by the failure to reach an agreement. That was reinforced by Storm’s remark upon hearing of Bean’s death. How could such a seemingly mundane disagreement escalate so much?

One cannot escape the notion that the Storm divorce played a role. After over thirty years of marriage, Ethel had been the one to file, on the grounds of “habitual intemperance.” A quaint way to say he drank to excess, such behavior might well have gone along with spousal abuse. In any case, Russell Bean would have almost certainly taken his sister’s side, putting a strain on the business relationship. Ethel being awarded the family home would have exacerbated the problem. No such theory was presented at the trial, however.

Still, the business dispute would have established motive. For the means, criminologist Luke S. May appeared on the stand to confirm that the bullet that killed Bean was fired from a .270 Winchester rifle. Because the slug had fragmented, he could not tie the bullet to Storm’s specific weapon … but there were no markings to eliminate it either.

To establish opportunity, the court spent a lot of time on the tracks found by the sheriff … and especially the actions of the bloodhounds. The prosecution took the handler through the dogs’ pedigree, training, and past performance in great depth. Naturally, the defense quizzed him relentlessly, but the handler’s testimony held up.

To “seal the deal,” the prosecution put Herbert Hay, a former jail-mate of Storm’s, on the stand. Hay himself had a small-time criminal record. But he was judged reasonably credible since his testimony in this case gained him little … four days off of a 30-day sentence for passing a bad check. Hay stated that, in an unguarded moment, Storm had said, “I did kill the son of a bitch.” In the end, the jury found John Loy Storm guilty of second-degree murder and he was sentenced to twenty years in prison. Records show that he was admitted to prison on December 21, 1949.

However, in late 1951, the Montana Supreme Court, by a 3-2 margin, overturned that verdict, rejecting the use of what they chose to called “bloodhound testimony.” (Of course, it’s the handler who testifies, not the dogs.) The majority opinion seemed heavily prejudiced against the very idea. The text was loaded with phrases like “dogs and other dumb animals do not qualify as witnesses” and “evidence of the actions of the dogs themselves should find no place in a Court of law.” They ruled that the judge should not have allowed the jury to hear the evidence and decide on its credibility for themselves.

The dissenting opinion retorted, “The overwhelming weight of authority, however, holds that such evidence is admissible if there has been a proper foundation laid.” In the Storm case, that final proviso was satisfied by the intensive cross-examination about the training and capabilities of the dogs and their handler. At that time, 21 states had tested the issue legally and the vast majority allowed the use of dog tracking evidence. Today, 39 states and the District of Columbia approve and only 4 states disagree. (The issue has apparently not been tested in the other 7 states.)

Be that as it may, Storm was retried in 1952, without any of the bloodhound tracking testimony. A new jury again found him guilty, and he was again sentenced to twenty years in prison. Then, fifteen months later, the Supreme Court used legal hair-splitting to again over-rule the jury … and Storm was a free man. Despite being twice convicted for the death of Russell Bean, he served just four years in prison.
                                                                                

References: “[Bean Murder, Storm Legalities],” Independent-Record, Helena; Montana Standard, Butte; Great Falls Tribune, Billings Gazette, Montana (April 1949 – May 1954).

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

SC-6 – Summaries of Case Law, K9Sensus, Lucas, Iowa (2005).

State v. Storm 238 P.2d 1161 (December 15, 1951).

Jump to Cases List

Crooks Follow The Money Too

Thursday April 1, 1926. A fine morning in downtown Seattle, with bright sun and a slight nip in the air. Moderate foot traffic flowed along the stretch of 4th Avenue between the Cobb Building on one side and White-Henry-Stuart Building on the other. Who among those pedestrians could have expected the bizarre violence that was about to explode?

The Roaring Twenties were now in full swing. Even “respectable” society winked at violations of Prohibition, while the more daring pursued unrestrained novelty and excitement. But that also spurred lawlessness from the fringes of society.

And the crooks saw plenty of opportunity. Consumers spent freely on the wide array of goods that innovative production and a booming economy put on the market. That new lavishness included cigars and cigarettes. By now, machines had made better cigars available to the middle class. Thus, in 1926, a bundle of three “pretty good” cigars could be had for 20¢. Top quality cigars might cost 50¢ for a three-pack.

In Seattle, James R. Brewster became a rich man by opening over twenty cigar stores to feed the demand. (Of course, they sold all kinds of tobacco products, but cigars were still the prestige item.) But on the downside, those shops had to process a continuous stream of small retail transactions. To keep up, the company sent couriers out regularly to deliver change all over the city. Reports suggest that they kept two money teams busy much of the time.

White-Henry-Stuart Building, ca 1923.

One outlet occupied a prime spot right next to the central entrance of the White-Henry-Stuart Building. The Brewster money car, driven by Robert G. Brautigan, parked in front of the cigar store around 10:30. Brautigan alighted and went back to unlock the trunk. The courier met him from the other side and Brautigan handed him the money bag, which contained about $5,000. The store manager could fill his needs and then the car would move on to its next stop.

Seemingly out of nowhere, four armed men appeared. One waved a revolver in Brautigan’s face and shoved him against the car. This must have felt all too familiar for the driver; he’d been robbed at the same time and place a bit over a year earlier. Another bandit accosted the courier and grabbed the money sack.

Bystanders took notice at this point, and there was a lot of stir and shouting … thus, witness accounts varied. But apparently the other two robbers were stationed to discourage anyone from interfering with their plan. They may have even fired warning shots, but witnesses disagreed on that point too.

A bandit tossed the money satchel into a car that had stopped in front of the Brewster vehicle. Then matters got even crazier. As the thieves tried to pile into the getaway car, it began to move. One crook fired into the auto. Did he suspect a double-cross, with the driver trying to run off with the loot? Or was it meant to warn the driver – or the gathering crowd – and just went astray? Whatever the motive, the driver was killed almost instantly. The car glanced off another vehicle passing along the street and then slammed to a stop against a parked laundry truck.

With their escape plan aborted, the robbers scattered, leaving the money bag behind. The shooter was seen to drop a revolver, which a bystander quickly recovered. The fugitive ran around the corner and into an alley, now waving another revolver to discourage pursuit. However, a seventeen-year-old messenger boy – the hero of the moment – tackled him and grabbed his weapon. Then he and some men held the crook until police arrived.

Their captive, William McMahon (aka McMann), was well known to Seattle police. Just the previous January, he had completed a term for an assault conviction. Before that, his criminal record had made him “unwelcome” in his home state of California. He was about 29 years old.

Officers began rounding up McMahon’s known criminal associates, guided by eyewitness descriptions. Authorities ended up with three men in custody: McMahon, Edward J. Devlin, and Theodore H. Hopkins. Devlin was also from California, and even had an open robbery charge pending there. He was about a year older than McMahon, and may have already spent some time in the Washington State Penitentiary. All three were held on murder and robbery charges, but Hopkins was eventually released for lack of evidence.

The driver and murder victim was another small-time crook, Harry Raymond “Ray” Richards. Originally from Missouri, Ray and his widowed mother had moved to Seattle around 1909, when he was about 17 year old. Ray got in trouble early for burglarizing a store. We don’t know if he served reformatory time or received a suspended sentence due to his youth. After that he worked at various odd jobs.

His name does not appear in news reports after that, but he was apparently fairly well known to police. Reports suggested that he might be a drug addict or dealer (or perhaps both). Ray’s wife, who was suing for divorce at the time of his death, stated that Ray, McMahon, and Devlin had been palling around for several months.

Prosecutors hired criminologist Luke S. May to verify the death weapon, help link it to the shooter, and assess the overall crime scenario. News reports of the trial only mention the eyewitness testimony that tied the gun to McMahon. May probably found fingerprints to bolster that evidence, although some would have surely been smudged.

He would have also tracked the bullet trajectory. The missile hit low enough to pass through the right arm (not the shoulder), pierce the victim’s heart, and end up just inside the skin on the left side. Witness testimony could not agree whether the shooter was inside the car, riding the running board, or out on the sidewalk. The consensus – not necessarily correct – put him on the running board. In any case, the trajectory largely eliminated the notion of a warning shot gone wild.

McMahon was convicted on the two counts. He received a twenty to fifty year sentence for robbery, and life on the murder charge. In a separate trial, Devlin was also convicted and received the same sentences. As usual, both convictions were appealed. McMahon’s try was denied. The court specifically noted that the defense suggestion that a bystander shot Richards, was “pure conjecture, with no circumstantial or factual support.”

However, the Supreme Court found a problem in the Devlin conviction. A witness had been shown a photo lineup to identify the bandit. Speaking from the stand in court, he referred to the set as a “rogue’s gallery.” The Supreme Court viewed that as an improper attack on the defendant’s character. They reversed the entire proceedings on that one point, and ruled that the case had to be retried. Prosecutors chose to release Devlin, rather than incur more expense. (They may have “encouraged” him to leave town as a condition, but we can never know about that.)
                                                                                

References: “[Cigar Store Robbery/Murder],” Seattle Times, Washington (April 1925 – November 1927).

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

“Missouri To Front In Criminal Court,” Seattle Times, Washington (January 23, 1910).

State v. McMahon 145 Wn. 672, 675 (November 30, 1927).

Photo source: Buildings and Building Management, Porter-Langtry Company, New York (January 1923).

Jump to Cases List

Obsession Leads to Murder

The “eternal (love) triangle” goes back in myth and legend at least to Helen of Troy and the Trojan War, and probably even before that. Whether in literature or real life, the story almost invariably ends badly for one or more members of the triad. Such was the case for Bernard, Lena, and Betty in the summer of 1938.

Bernard R. Leuch was born in 1898 near Council Bluffs, Iowa. The family moved into that city around 1905 and, for over a decade after 1910, Bernard’s father was a deputy sheriff and then constable there. During World War I, Bernard served overseas in the aviation corps as a private (meaning he was not taught how to fly).

After the war, he took a job as a farm hand in central South Dakota. Oddly enough, his parents moved nearby and would later be buried in a small town there, about 45 miles southwest of Pierre. (His mother died in 1922, his father in 1932.)

Around 1921, Bernard married Lena Esther Tobey. About a year younger than Bernard, Lena was born in Custer County, Nebraska, east and north of North Platte. However, by 1920, the Tobey family had moved to a farm located about 65 miles northwest of St. Cloud, Minnesota. We don’t know how Bernard and Lena met, and it’s uncertain where they were married. However, the 1930 census shows the couple in St. Cloud with four daughters and a son. Over the next five years, they had two more children, including an infant Bernard, Jr.

Despite the privations of the Depression, the year 1935 was a bright one for Bernard. In May, he finally landed a job with the St. Cloud police force. Bernard had been a guard at the state reformatory near the city for a while, and he had always wanted to be a part of regular law enforcement. Bernard performed well as a police officer at first, and “was known as the best pistol shot in the organization.”

His home situation, however, appears to have grown a bit rocky. He and Lena still lived together, but evidence strongly suggests that they no longer slept together. Having had seven children in fourteen years of marriage, they perhaps wanted to avoid having any more.

Then, Bernard attracted the attention of a pretty young woman. She worked as a ticket clerk and usher at a local theater. Both would later claim that she was “a friend of the family.” She even boarded with the Leuchs for about four months, in 1935 or 1936.

We actually know almost nothing about “Miss Betty Irwin” (as she was almost invariably identified in news report). She lived in St. Cloud in 1935 or 1936, and Olympia (Washington) in 1938. Beyond that, she was supposedly 26 years old in 1938, and claimed to have a brother living in Bonners Ferry, Idaho. An exhaustive search of genealogical records was performed using that information. Since “Betty” is often a nickname for someone named “Elizabeth,” the search included that also. The system turned up zero credible hits anywhere in the upper Midwest.

But suppose Betty lied about her age, and was only 17 or 18 years old when she first met Bernard? With that assumption, a search suddenly produced five hits just in Minnesota, with more in the adjoining states. Of course, there’s still no reliable way to identify which “Betty Irwin” might have been involved in this case. But the results provide strong circumstantial evidence that Bernard’s new girlfriend did not want to admit how young she really was.

Sadly, Bernard’s infatuation with Betty grew and grew. The affair reached the point where it severely impacted his job performance. Thus, after a civil service review, Leuch was dismissed from the police force in March 1937. Their stories about the next few months conflict and the differences cannot be easily reconciled. However, the final result was clear: By the fall, Bernard was working at a pulp mill near Shelton, Washington. Betty Irwin had also settled in a boarding house there and they resumed their liaison. (Shelton, the county seat of Mason County, is located about 15 miles northwest of Olympia.)

Betty later maintained that, through all this, she did not know Bernard was married. But then Lena and the children joined him in Shelton, “shortly before Christmas” of 1937. Finally, the real situation could not be ignored. Betty moved to Olympia and took a job as a theater usher. At some point, she also told Bernard that she’d have nothing more to do with him unless he divorced his wife. Nevertheless, it’s clear that their romance continued. He eventually agreed to get a divorce and, on May 20, Betty gave him money to help with the down payment on a home for them in Shelton.

Late on the afternoon of June 1, 1938, Bernard rushed to ask a neighbor to call the police. He had been on a trip downtime and returned to find Lena sprawled on a bed, dead. She had, he said, committed suicide by shooting herself in the chest. The death weapon was Bernard’s .38-caliber Colt automatic pistol. He had retrieved it from a pawn shop to strengthen his application for the job of Shelton police chief.

Mason County Courthouse. Mason County Historical Society.

The very next day, the Mason County prosecutor asked criminologist Luke S. May to investigate. The lack of powder burns or tattooing suggested right away that the pistol had not been fired close to the woman’s chest. The bullet had entered above the heart, followed a downward trajectory through her torso, and ended up lodged in the wall. May would need to make more tests, but suicide seemed unlikely. Bernard was immediately arrested on a murder charge.

Police interviews with the children and neighbors soon highlighted “a number of inconsistencies” in Bernard’s account. At some point, authorities learned of the love affair between Bernard and Betty Irwin. Thus, at the end of June, prosecutors stated that “a young Olympia woman” would “be an important witness at the trial.” They were not then willing to reveal her identity to the public.

The trial began on Monday, July 11, 1938, but five days passed before prosecutors put Betty on the stand. Naturally, her testimony about the long-standing affair caused a sensation, especially when she revealed that Bernard was “the father of her unborn child.” Bernard admitted that his wife had learned about the affair (it’s not entirely clear when, however). Moreover, they had quarreled about it earlier on the day of the shooting. But it was all Betty’s fault, he asserted. He had tried to break off the affair. She, however, had insisted and he could not resist her charms.

From start to finish, Bernard maintained that his wife had shot herself, either on purpose or accidentally. But by the time of the trial, Luke May and the police had been able to complete a full array of tests. The lack of powder residue on Lena clothes meant that the pistol had been discharged well away from her body. That and the bullet trajectory made suicide highly unlikely and an accident virtually impossible.

The jury convicted Bernard Leuch of first degree murder, with no recommendation for mercy. That made the subsequent death sentence mandatory. Leuch escaped from the Mason County jail to delay matters, but was recaptured in just a few days. After a failed appeal, Bernard was hanged at the Walla Walla penitentiary on August 4, 1939.
                                                                                

References: Census records, city directory listings, and other genealogical sources were consulted extensively. Online sources included Ancestry.com and others.

“[Leuch Murder News],” Daily Olympian, Olympia, Seattle Times, Washington; The Oregonian, Portland; St. Cloud Times, Minnesota (June 2, 1938 – August 4, 1939)..

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

Jump to Cases List

Ambush in Algona

February 19, 1924 had been cloudy and cold, but not bad for the season. Harvey Smart had been late getting away from the store because a leaky refrigerator needed to be fixed. Still, the eight-block walk from his Algona Meat Market would have kept him nice and warm. And the lights as he approached home were surely a welcome glow in the gathering gloom.

Smart’s only warning was the crack of a pistol, then a bullet drilled into his body from behind. Then another. He tried to bring his revolver out and around before a third slug ripped into him and he collapsed to the ground.

Harvey C. Smart was 62 years old when someone ambushed and killed him. Born in Missouri, Smart moved to the area 10-15 miles east of Tacoma around 1896. He became a prosperous farmer, and then opened a meat market in Algona.

The gunshots quickly brought Smart’s wife, Mary, and two others to the scene. King County Sheriff Matt Starwich soon arrived to take charge. No one had seen anyone close by at the time, but deputies did find a set of fresh footprints pacing across a nearby field. Starwich put bloodhounds on the trail, but that led nowhere useful.

A key finding was that the meat shop receipts – a bundle of checks and over $200 cash – were still on Smart’s body. At the time, $200 would buy a well-equipped, recent-model used car, so that was no small sum to leave behind. The sheriff concluded that the incident was a “revenge” killing, rather than an attempted robbery. Based on that theory, Starwich and his deputies sought suspects who might want Smart dead for personal reasons.

One was a husband who supposedly thought Smart had been a bit too friendly with his wife when she called at the shop. That turned out to be an exaggeration, and the man apparently had an alibi anyway. Next up was a petty thief Smart had caught stealing potatoes from his warehouse some four or five years back. Smart had fired a warning shot that hit the intruder in the foot. Although the man was still in the area, that too turned out to be a dead end. Most ominously, they learned that Smart had recently bought beef from an unusual source. When Harvey began to suspect that the cattle had been rustled, one of the sellers warned him to keep his mouth shut.

Some time during this furor, the county hired criminologist Luke May to examine the death bullets. Authorities did not have a suspected weapon, but May could tell them what make and model they should look for. (The file for this old case is thin and incomplete, so we do not have the full report of his results.) Meanwhile, investigators canvassed the neighborhood for leads, but found nothing. A week or so after the murder, Mary Smart posted a $1,000 reward for information about the killing. All to no avail, and the case went cold.

Sheriff Starwich was competent and well-respected, but term limits prohibited him from running for office again at the end of 1926. Claude G. Bannick succeeded him. News reports did not explain why Sheriff Bannick decided to reopen the Smart murder case. But within days of taking office in January 1927, he assigned a special agent to it. He and the agent still mostly accepted the personal enemy theory. However, the agent seemed willing to broaden the notion of an “enemy.”

Over the next six weeks or so, the agent interviewed, and re-interviewed, an ever-widening circle of potential informants. Finally, in mid-March – over three years after the shooting – the sheriff jailed one Harry H. Longfield as a “material witness.” Longfield lived not too far from the Smarts and had been seen in the area on the night when Harvey had been shot. He had no apparent motive … but it was a lead. Longfield perhaps had some connection with rustlers in the area.

The King County grand jury met toward the end of March and testimony began to fill in the blanks. Investigators had interviewed Longfield’s wife Anna at the time of the murder. She said that she’d heard the shots, but had no idea of their significance. Others who heard them were also mostly unconcerned. Maybe someone was trying to scare off a wild animal.

The Longfields were a bit of an odd couple. Anna had been married to well-to-do dairy rancher Charles Paxson. He was from Ohio, she from Wisconsin. They had moved to the Algona area before 1910. The property became Anna’s when her husband died in late 1922. She was supposedly about 54 years old, but might have been older.

Harry Longfield, a former truck driver, was handsome and personable, and known to have “an eye for the ladies.” He worked at the Paxson ranch for a year or two before Anna’s husband passed away. Like Anna, he was originally from Wisconsin and had moved to Washington before 1910. Although he was at least 14 years younger that Anna, he persuaded her to marry him, “promising to give up other women.”

After several days of grand jury hearings, headlines noted that as many as four people might be implicated in the murder. But then the inquiry began to unravel. On April 7, after ten days of testimony from more than sixty witnesses, prosecutors admitted that they had nothing, and “the expected indictments might not be forthcoming.”

Anna Longfield. Harry Longfield after his release from jail.
(Seattle Times news images.)

However, behind the scenes, officials had been badgering one particular witness. They apparently still believed that Harry Longfield had something to do with Smart’s death and that Anna was trying to shield him. Readers all over the region were surely surprised by headlines on April 8th: Anna Longfield finally admitted that she had shot Smart, mistaking him for her husband.

Harry had proved to be an abusive spouse, especially when he’d been drinking. In fact, just weeks before the murder, Anna had told a neighbor that she had a gun and might just go out and shoot whoever was supplying his booze. But, worse than that, she had strong suspicions that he was still romancing at least one of his “former” lady friends.

Finally fed up, on the night of February 19, she had dressed in a man’s clothing and stationed herself where she expected Harry to come by. (It was never reported how she picked the spot.) Sadly, in the dim light of the evening, she had mistaken Harvey Smart for her husband. Only after he fell did she realize what she had done.

In the years since, the memory that she’d shot the wrong man tormented her, although not enough to give herself up. On a trip to St. Paul, Minnesota, she had pitched the death weapon into the Mississippi River. Initially charged with first degree murder, she eventually pled guilty to manslaughter and was given a five to ten year prison sentence. An appeal to the governor for clemency was denied. However, she was among a large block of prisoners granted executive paroles in October 1929.
                                                                                

References: Phil Dougherty, “Starwich, Matthew (1879-1941),” Online Encyclopedia of Washington State History, HistoryLink.org, Seattle, Washington (November 23, 2016).

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

“[Smart-Longfield News],” News-Tribune, Tacoma, Olympian, Olympia, Seattle Times, Washington (October 1922 – October 1929).

Jump to Cases List