100 years ago in Spokane: Fay McDonald began the trek to prison in Walla Walla, closing one chapter of a notorious crime saga

Fay McDonald was escorted to Walla Walla to begin her three-year sentence on a forgery charge, which arose from the murder of W.H. McNutt two years earlier.

On the way to prison, she wore “a smile that appeared to be genuine,” and carried a Christian Science book that an onlooker had pressed upon her.

This marked the closure of one part of the infamous McDonald siblings saga. Fay would go on to serve out her sentence and move to St. Louis. Fay was never implicated in any other crimes.

The fates of Marie McDonald and Will McDonald, however, remain a mystery to this day. Both were fugitives from justice and never found.

From the election beat: The Spokane Daily Chronicle ran a front page editorial urging voters to take character into account in the upcoming general election.

“Measure them not by their promises, but by their deeds,” the editors wrote.

This editorial was primarily in support of U.S. Senator Miles Poindexter, a Spokane Republican.

The editors also urged voters to reject Frank H. Kinsell, the Republican candidate for county prosecutor, and vote for his Democratic opponent. Kinsell had been endorsed by the Ku Klux Klan, which the editors said made him unfit for office.

“The confessed influence of the Ku Klux Klan in the primaries prompts the belief that this secret order would be the dominant power in the conduct of this office should Mr. Kinsell be elected,” the editors wrote. “No man who is under the domination of a secret organization is fit to be trusted with any office – certainly not with an office of great responsibility.”