This day in history: Spokane PTAs pleaded for curfew whistle to direct kids inside at 9 p.m. An accused murderer fled Walla Walla in a stolen Greyhound bus

From 1975: A man charged with murdering a Walla Walla woman and her son was in custody in Seattle after he led police on a wild chase in an unlikely vehicle: a stolen Greyhound bus.

The bus was spotted in Bellevue and the chase continued into downtown Seattle, where the bus struck a utility pole. When police ordered the driver out, he opened fire. Police returned fire, shot the man in the forearm and took him into custody.

The man entered an innocent plea on charges of assaulting an officer, but many questions remained, including:

• What was his true name?

• Was he responsible for the deaths in Walla Walla?

Police knew that the bus was stolen from the Walla Walla bus terminal, and that it was seen that night in the vicinity of killings. The man claimed he was Joseph Eads, but police suspected he was actually Erling Stanley McDonald, the brother-in-law of the slain women. She and a son were shot as they slept, and two other children were shot and injured.

Authorities planned to transfer him to Walla Walla to stand trial for murder after his Seattle trial on assault charges.

From 1925: The city’s parent-teacher associations asked city commissioners to establish “curfew whistles” in Spokane, which would blow every night at 9 . The reason? To prevent juvenile delinquency.

“The law requiring children under 15 years to be in their homes by 9 o’clock is on the statute books, but it lacks enforcement,” a PTA representative said. “We are prepared now to go before the city council and ask that whistles be blown at 9 o’clock to warn all that the curfew hour has come, and then to ask strict enforcement of this law.”