Jim Kershner’s this day in history

From our archives, 100 years ago

George M. Martin pleaded guilty to robbing Spokane State Bank and locking the teller in the vault. But he blamed it all on a “split personality” he had suffered ever since a piece of a gun cartridge penetrated his eye and affected his brain.

Ever since, he sometimes “felt strange” and did things that he didn’t mean to.

In this case, he surprised even himself when he told his friend, who was driving him to Hillyard, that he felt like he was on a “desperate errand.”

“Well, you are not going to rob a bank, are you?” asked his friend.

“This is just what I plan to do, so you just wait here till I pull off the job,” Martin replied.

His friend told him he was crazy and drove away. Then Martin made straight for the bank and held it up, escaping with $1,500 in cash.

He was arrested with only $24 in cash and said he had no idea what happened to the rest, except he spent a large sum on drink and “might have been robbed of the rest.”

The judge sent him to the penitentiary at Walla Walla for five to 10 years.

Also on this date

(From the Associated Press)

1973: Vice President Spiro T. Agnew, accused of accepting bribes, pleaded no contest to one count of federal income tax evasion and resigned his office.