This day in history: Bank robber on trial testified he was fleeing his girlfriend’s pimp

From our archives,

100 years ago

Louis Birklund, 25, on trial for robbing the Citizen’s Savings and Loan Bank in Spokane, had an unusual defense.

He claimed that he fled to Medical Lake and Seattle shortly after the robbery only because he and his girlfriend were being pursued from town to town by her Montana pimp.

Birklund admitted that he was in the vicinity of the bank when it was robbed, but said he didn’t rob it.

Instead, he and Madeline Errington were trying to escape from Frank Rice, a Montana ex-convict and “white-slaver.”

Birklund said he met Errington in Butte “after she had left a theatrical troupe to become a dancing teacher.” She subsequently sent Rice to prison by testifying against him in a white slavery case.

However, Rice got out of jail and tracked down Errington and made her promise at gunpoint to come back to him. She did, but then fled to Spokane to be with Birklund.

On the day of the robbery, they found out that Rice was drunk and looking for them, so they made a getaway and ended up in Seattle.

However, the bank clerk took the stand and identified Birklund as the man who had robbed the bank at gunpoint.

A jury convicted him the next day.