100 years ago in Spokane: Husband and wife take credit for shooting cobbler in drunken fracas.

From our archives, 100 years ago

Police were certain of one thing – someone shot J.L. Watson, a shoemaker, during a lodging house fracas – but they weren’t certain if the shooter was William Quinn or his wife.

Each claimed credit for the shooting. Police didn’t know which Quinn to believe. Both were drunk at the time, and were unable “to tell a connected story.”

Watson wasn’t sure either. All he knew was that he was going down the stairs when someone shot him from above. The wound was serious but not life-threatening.

The Quinines had been having a “three-cornered drinking party” in their room and “were making a terrible racket,” said Watson. He knocked on their door and told them to keep quiet. Quinn called him a name, and as Watson was going downstairs to complain to the landlord, someone shot him.

A Spokane policeman was nearby when the shooting took place. When he rushed to the scene, he found Mrs. Quinn in possession of “a revolver with one chamber empty and a black eye.”

Both Quinns were arrested and charged with assault with a deadly weapon.

From the escape beat: Charles Turpin, 15, was captured at Eastport, Idaho, attempting to cross the Canadian border. Turpin had escaped from the Spokane’s juvenile detention ward the day before, after lowering himself from the roof with a rope made of blankets.

Turpin, a bugler with the 211th Canadian Expedition Cavalry, was “apparently attempting to rejoin his regiment after his spectacular escape.”

The other escapee, Orphel Jones, 13, was still at large.