100 years ago today in Spokane: Jury convicts McDonald sibling of forgery

Tue., April 7, 2020

By Jim Kershner jimkershner@comcast.net

Fay McDonald broke “into a storm of weeping” when a Spokane jury convicted her of first degree forgery.

Her sister, Marie McDonald – another of the notorious McDonald siblings – tried to comfort her, but Fay walked up to the prosecutor, and “with anger choking her words,” she began talking to the prosecutor before she was stopped by her uncle.

She was liable to a sentence of at least five years in the penitentiary.

Fay and her two siblings had earlier been acquitted of the murder of W.H. McNutt, after they blamed the murder on a fourth sibling, still at large. In this trial, Fay had been accused of taking a check from the body of McNutt and forging a false name and attempting to cash it.

Fay denied writing a false name on the check and said she was in Walla Walla on the day that a woman tried to cash the check in a Spokane store.

The jury came to their verdict late in the evening on its first day of deliberations. The judge was in the audience at the Pantages Theater when he was summoned from his seat and told the jury had reached a decision.

“The decision apparently came as a complete surprise to the defendant and her attorneys,” said The Spokesman-Review.

Marie McDonald and Ted McDonald were now facing their own upcoming trials on lesser charges related to the McNutt murder.

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