Jim Kershner’s This day in history

From our archives, 100 years ago

A sad scene unfolded in a Spokane courtroom.

A 6-year-old girl approached her father, reached up her arms and said, “Kiss me, papa.”

Her papa, Herman Roestel, was on trial for the murder of the little girl’s mother, his wife.

Roestel himself took the stand and told his version of the shooting. He said that for weeks he had been upset about seeing his wife walking arm-in-arm with another man – Roestel’s own brother.

Late one night, his brother showed up at the house and threatened to shoot Roestel. Then, shockingly, Mrs. Roestel drew a revolver from the folds of her nightdress and said, “ I’ll show you something.”

Then, said Roestel, “The flareup came. Shots were fired.”

Yet Roestel said he has no memory of what happened “until the next day, when I came to myself in the timber east of Minnehaha.” Three experts testified as to his mental condition.

Roestel had one surprising ally in the courtroom. His mother-in-law said that she warned her daughter to “change her ways” with regard to the brother, but she would not listen and “brought on her terrible end herself.”

Also on this date

(From the Associated Press)

1858: The final debate between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas took place in Alton, Ill.