This day in history: Shooting, kidnapping spree that started in Liberty Lake ends in Stevens County. ‘Booze runner’ nabbed near Sandpoint

From 1975: A wild shooting and kidnapping spree, stretching from Liberty Lake to Stevens County, resulted in one arrest, one injury and one missing person presumed dead.

The story began when three partners in a blasting company had a falling-out on a road construction site above Liberty Lake. John C. Brannon (sometimes spelled Brannan) allegedly pulled a gun on his two partners, injuring Joseph Hedger and shooting Alfred Deviny in the elbow.

Deviny ran down the hill for help. Deviny and some other construction workers returned to the shooting scene and saw Brannon climb into his truck and drive off. Hedger was nowhere to be found.

Authorities launched an air and ground search for Brannon’s truck. Hours later, a Stevens County man reported that a green pickup truck had just overturned in his pasture, just over the Spokane County line. A neighbor found Brannon in the truck and brought him to his home “to calm him down.”

Deputies arrested Brannon and searched the overturned truck for Hedger. They did not find him but were convinced Hedger had been in there because “there was blood all over the back of the truck.”

A search for Hedger – or his body – was underway.

From 1925: A “booze runner” attempted to careen around a police roadblock on the Pack River bridge near Sandpoint, but his car smashed into the railing of the bridge, spun around, knocked down federal Prohibition agent Sam Webb, and rolled down the embankment.

The booze runner crawled out of the wreckage and tried to flee, “but a bullet from an officer’s gun” coaxed him to surrender.

The booze runner was jailed, and Webb was hospitalized with badly bruised hips and legs.