100 years ago in Spokane: Police believed the man who slashed his elderly landlady in the face with a razor had ‘gone suddenly insane’

A “thug” believed to be “crazed with cocaine” slashed his 73-year-old landlady in the face with a razor, threatened to cut off her head, bound and gagged another elderly landlady, and stole all of their money.

They were saved when one of the women called out the window for help and a passerby rushed up to the room. The assailant ran out the door and vanished into the downtown streets.

The passerby found Mrs. Ellen Hughes, bound hand and foot with torn sheets, lying in a pool of blood. The other woman, Mrs. Anna Welch, was similarly bound, gagged and beaten, but not slashed. She had been visiting Mrs. Hughes at the time.

Mrs. Hughes was recovering from razor wounds to her head and face. She told police that the man came to her room in her small boarding house on North Monroe Street and handed her a $20 bill to pay the rent. When she started to make change, he pulled out the razor and said, “Give me all your money or I’ll kill you.”

She gave him some money but he demanded more.

“They’ll never arrest me for this,” he said. “I’m going to tie you up, cut your head off, throw your body in the river and jump in after you.”

The “entire police force” searched Spokane the rest of the day, in vain. However, police found evidence in his room that identified him as a Fairfield man and issued a warrant for his arrest. They believed he had “gone suddenly insane.”