This day in history: Gonzaga law professor quite following dean’s resignation; confessed South Hill dog poisoner jailed

From 1975: Gonzaga Law professor Gary Randall resigned a day after the resignation of the law school’s dean, the Rev. Francis J. Conklin.

It was unclear if this was a protest against Conklin’s resignation. The law school’s faculty, however, passed a resolution declaring the resignation of Conklin to be “unacceptable.”

A student group also issued a statement denouncing Conklin’s removal as “a forced resignation.” Yet the student group said they had decided against an earlier pledge to bring a lawsuit seeking to reinstate Conklin.

Also from 1975: More inches of snow fell in Spokane, bringing the total snowpack in the city to 25 inches. Students in 13 districts around the region had another snow day. More than a dozen garbage trucks were stuck in the city’s alleys.

From 1925: A Spokane woman was arrested and jailed after two detectives determined she was the person responsible for poisoning 25 dogs over several months on the South Hill.

“In the last few weeks dog after dog has crawled to his home to die in agony,” The Spokesman-Review reported.

Police used a dog that had recovered from a poisoning in the neighborhood and caught Margaret Hermesch in the act. Detectives witnessed Hermesch give the Llewellin setter a treat right after it ran to her yard to “gambol” with her dogs. Soon after the detectives returned the setter to its owners, the dog began having spasms. Detectives used “milk and lard” to treat the dog, which survived.

Detectives went back to Hermesch’s home, and she confessed to using rat poison on bacon rinds. But she told detectives that her motive was to kill cats after one of her turkeys was killed the previous spring.

“Detectives cannot reconcile this part of her story with what they claim to have seen,” the newspaper said.

Also from 1925: The Bernard Newman manslaughter trial was in the hands of the jury following emotional closing arguments from the defense.

Newman’s attorney told the jury that Newman’s mother was seriously ill, and her last words to his lawyer were, “Bring my boy back to me.” The attorney also implied that another man in the car, not Newman, may have been responsible for the crash.

The prosecutor said that liquor, consumed by Newman, was ultimately responsible for the crash that killed pedestrian Joseph Kennedy.

In other news, the collapse of the Moses Lake dam turned Crab Creek into a “raging river.” Yet indications were that little property damage ensued. Plans were underway to rebuild the dam.