Jim Kershner’s This day in history

From our archives, 100 years ago

Spokane police made little progress in solving three separate murders that had thrown Spokane into a state of near-panic:

The Chauncey Simmons murder – Police were certain they knew the identity of the burglar who had locked an 18-year-old girl in a closet and then murdered her uncle. So police were elated when they tracked down suspect Mortimer Roach in Pasco. Yet Roach turned out to have an iron-clad alibi.

Police released Roach and could only speculate that the murderer was a member of some transient “gang.”

The Frank Pasquale murder – Two men were being held for questioning after Italian immigrant Frank Pasquale was gunned down outside of his home. Some informants claimed the murder “involved a woman.”

The Anna Weber murder – In yet another bizarre turn, police were now pursuing a theory that the 22-year-old domestic servant had been hit by a car on Summit Avenue and thrown down the steep slope.

This theory did not fit with the coroner’s earlier finding that Weber had been killed by knife thrust to the temple. Those advancing the auto theory speculated that this wound “could have been caused by certain projections on some taxicabs.”