100 years ago today in Spokane: Next McDonald sibling on trial

Fay McDonald had already been convicted of first-degree forgery, and now her sister Marie McDonald was facing the same charge in a Spokane courtroom.

The judge ruled that most testimony relating to the murder of W.H. McNutt would not be allowed in this trial. Both of the McDonald sisters, along with brother Ted, had previously been acquitted of the murder, largely because they blamed it on a fourth sibling, Will McDonald, who was still at-large.

Otherwise, most of the testimony in this trial was similar to what was presented in Fay’s trial. The prosecution contended that the McDonald sisters took a check from McNutt’s body, forged a false name on it and attempted to cash it at a local department store, before losing their nerve and fleeing without the money or the check.

From the history beat: Charles Moore, the president of the National Historical Society in Washington D.C., came to town and spoke informally to the Spokane Historical Society. He proceeded to make some questionable, to say the least, assertions about our region.

“The Columbia Valley, especially, was the cradle of the American-Indian race,” he said. “The race came over from India, and first settled there, to disperse later over the entire western continent.”