100 years ago in Spokane: Wildly contradictory testimony emerges at murder trial of former fire captain

Wildly contradictory stories emerged in the trial of former Spokane fire captain J. F. Grant for the murder of Walter Layman.

Two of those stories came from the same source: the mouth of Layman before he died. In a statement the day after the shooting, he told prosecutors and police that he had met Mrs. Grant for the first time that night at a cafe and had agreed to simply escort her to a friend’s house. Suddenly, a man appeared on the dark street with a gun in his hand.

“That is my wife,” the man said to him.

“What have I got to do about that?” Layman asked.

Mrs. Grant then grabbed her husband and started wresting with him. Layman turned to leave and Grant shot him in the back.

However, another witness said Layman changed his story in the hospital two weeks later, right before he died of his wounds. He admitted that his relations with Mrs. Grant had “been improper” and that he had made up the earlier story to “shield his past record.” Layman said that “he did not wish his folks to know how bad he really was.”

Grant’s attorneys said they would prove that Layman was an escaped convict, a counterfeiter, a suspect in a bomb plot, and a member of a criminal gang.

A third story came from a youth who had accompanied Grant the night of the shooting. The youth said Grant was, in fact, tailing his wife and Layman to gather evidence for a divorce case. Their plan was to call the police “and batter down the door of Layman’s shack after he arrived with Mrs. Grant.”

It all went wrong when Grant confronted Layman, who then “acted as if he was about to draw a pistol.” Then Grant opened fire. In the aftermath, Mrs. Grant assaulted Grant with a hat pin and told him he would hang for shooting an innocent man.