100 years ago in Spokane: There was even more fallout from the Maurice Codd acquittal, this time when a private detective was suspected of witness tampering

Private detective J.L. Cook surrendered to the county sheriff after being indicted for possible witness tampering in the Maurice P. Codd murder trial.

Authorities had been looking for Cook for days. He was charged with having assisted Beatrice Sant with evading authorities who were trying to serve her with a grand jury subpoena. Sant was a key defense witness in the murder trial that saw Codd acquitted.

Cook said he was not trying to evade arrest. He had been serving as a witness in a federal court trial in Coeur d’Alene and claimed that he didn’t know a warrant had been issued for his arrest until he read it in the newspapers. In fact, he said he had been “in company with peace officers” the entire time of the trial.

He made no comment on the charge that he helped Sant hide from authorities.

Cook was the third person to be arrested for witness tampering and other irregularities in the trial.

From the accident beat: A meeting of the Spokane School Board was postponed after the chairman of the board, Enoch E. Engdahl, died in an auto accident near Colfax.

Engdahl was driving north from Pullman when the car veered out of control and overturned. A passenger, Oscar Lundgren, was also seriously injured.

The board was not planning to meet until after the funeral.

Also on this date

(From the Associated Press)

1942: Doris “Dorie” Miller, a cook aboard the USS West Virginia, became the first African American to receive the Navy Cross for displaying “extraordinary courage and disregard for his own personal safety” during Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor.