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

Fri., Oct. 14, 2011

By Jim Kershner jimkershner@comcast.net

From our archives, 50 years ago

The FBI stormed the apartment of Hugh B. Morse, a suspected “sexual psychopath” believed to have been responsible for three murders in Spokane and the brutal beating of a fourth woman.

He was arrested in his St. Paul, Minn., apartment without resisting.

The Spokane crimes had occurred a year earlier, in 1960. Spokane police and the FBI spent “hundreds of hours” investigating these murders – one of which was of a 9-year-old Camp Fire girl. The FBI soon put Morse on its Ten Most Wanted list. The FBI pursued him to St. Paul, where he was suspected of raping and killing another woman.

The Spokesman-Review reported that Morse, after his arrest, had confessed to three of the Spokane crimes. However, police said there had been a number of false confessions in these cases, and they were still trying to make sure this wasn’t another.

He later pleaded guilty to three of the Spokane crimes. He was also believed to have been responsible for a sickening spree of murders and crimes in Georgia, Alabama and Ohio.

As it turned out, Morse was convicted of the St. Paul murder and was sentenced to double life terms. He died in prison in 2003.

Also on this date

(From the Associated Press)

1977: Singer Bing Crosby died outside Madrid, Spain, at age 74.

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