Jim Kershner’s This day in history » On the Web: spokesman.com/topics/local-history

From our archives, 100 years ago

The headline on the Spokesman-Review’s editorial page blared “Too Many Men Holding Down Chairs in the Spokane Police Department,” reflecting frustration over a conspicuous lack of arrests in a series of murders.

In a front-page story, police said they knew who murdered A.H. Simmons in a burglary gone wrong. The burglar had locked an 18-year-old girl in a closet when Simmons, her uncle, walked in.

Police were convinced the murderer was a local “cocaine fiend” and petty criminal.

The problem was: Police couldn’t find him.

“We just want to lay our hands on that man,” announced the captain of the detectives.

The Anna Weber case: The other frustrating case involved the murder of Anna Weber, 22, a domestic servant found stabbed to death below Summit Avenue.

Police discovered that the victim had suddenly come across “a mysterious money supply” in the two weeks before her death.

One of her sisters asked her where she got so much money, and Anna replied, “Oh, I’ve got money, all right.”

The family alleged that someone had been hired to kill her because she “knew too much.”

Yet police hadn’t identified a suspect or made an arrest.