100 years ago in Spokane: Police suspect one of ‘Bluebeard’ Huirst’s many wives is dead

Police now suspected that a second of “Bluebeard” Huirst’s many wives, Elizabeth Pryor, 28, of Spokane, was missing and feared she was dead.

Authorities believed that the body found near Olympia might be hers. At first, they suspected it was the body of Bertha Goodnich of Spokane, another of “Bluebeard’s” wives. But dental records proved that it was not Goodnich. Now, police were seeking to find Pryor’s dental records.

Pryor worked in the Davenport Hotel dining room and lived at the Allen Apartments in Spokane. Her landlady, Mrs. James Allen, said that Pryor told her about a man she knew as Milton Lewis, who wanted to marry her.

They were married in Coeur d’Alene, and he immediately asked her to turn over her money to him. The landlady advised her against it, but Pryor went ahead and did it. Then “Lewis” disappeared for two months.

He returned and she left with him for Portland. The landlady received a letter from her describing trips they had enjoyed around Portland and saying that she was soon going to California, where her husband had a “immense prune ranch.”

The letter, including the signature, was typewritten. The landlady said she was “almost positive” that “misfortune had befallen her.”

“Oh, I hope it may be untrue,” said the landlady.

Huirst was in custody in Los Angeles, recovering from self-inflicted wounds after he tried to kill himself shortly after his arrest.

The Spokesman-Review called the case “the most sensational of its kind in the history of the country.”