100 years ago in Spokane: Tragic murder mystery claimed another victim

From our archives, 100 years ago

One of Spokane’s tragic murder mysteries was turning even more tragic.

Mrs. Charlotte Farquhar had lost her reason ever since her son Clarence was shot by an unknown person while riding to Sunday school. Now she had been committed for the second time to the state asylum at Medical Lake.

She was diagnosed as “violently insane,” mainly because she “fought attendants while alluding to the death of her son.” Mrs. Farquhar had gone into a spiral after her son died, and earlier had been committed to the asylum. She was released after 30 days after she showed some improvement. Yet relatives said she never fully regained her reason and they turned her over to the sheriff for another insanity hearing. It was then that she fought with attendants. She spent the night in jail while awaiting her commitment hearing.

It had been two years since her son rode his horse to Sunday school in the Foothills area near Spokane. A shot rang out and Farquhar was found dead. Police pursued numerous leads, but were never able to find out where the shot came from.

From the film star beat: Spokane silent film star Seena Owen – real name, Signe Auen – married film star George Walsh in a secret ceremony in San Diego.

The two had met on the set of D.W. Griffith’s “Intolerance.”

The marriage occurred several months previously, but they kept it a secret. Owen said that they had been engaged for a several months before that, but she “couldn’t make up my mind to make the leap.” Then one day Walsh “arrived unexpectedly on the scene in his big car” and asked her to go for a ride. While out in the country he told her he had a marriage license in his pocket and “it’s now or never.” Owen said the “cave man stuff” won her over.

At least for a while. They would divorce in 1924.