This day in history: Hitchhiker accused of murder arrested near Liberty Lake. Spokanites had lots of ideas where to build a civic auditorium

Tue., April 28, 2026

By Jim Kershner The Spokesman-Review

From 1976: Judith Kirsten, 18, a waitress at the Country Kitchen on Apple Way, noticed a man in the restaurant acting suspiciously.

She was aware that police had been searching the Liberty Lake area the day before for a hitchhiker who allegedly killed a woman from Alberta, Canada. So she called Crime Check.

Within minutes, two deputies arrested David Anthony Johnson and charged him with first-degree murder,

The incident began the day before when two women from Lethbridge, Alberta, picked up a hitchhiker near Lincoln, Montana.

Around Missoula, the man pulled a gun and told them to keep driving. When he ordered them to pull off at Liberty Lake, the driver slammed on the brakes and the two women jumped out of the car. The hitchhiker fired shots at them, striking and killing Donna Peard, 19. The other woman in the car, Carol Sterenberg, was able to flee into a field.

She later identified Johnson in a police lineup.

From 1926: Spokane city officials, enthusiastic about the prospect of a new civic auditorium, asked the public to submit suggestions about where to locate such an immense building.

Members of the public suggested 30 locations for a new civic auditorium, the Spokane Daily Chronicle reported on April 28, 1926. The newspaper also reported that Noah D. Showalter had submitted his resignation as president of Cheney Normal School – what is today Eastern Washington University. Showalter had been president of the teaching college since 1910 and told the newspaper that his decision to quit was “in a secondary way” related to “educational strife” between the governor and Legislature. Showalter is the namesake of EWU’s Showalter Hall, which was built in 1915 but named after Showalter in 1940, according to the Cheney Historical Museum. (Spokesman-Review archvies)

The public came through with 30 different suggestions. One person even suggested building the auditorium “over the river, somewhere between Monroe and Washington streets.”

More reasonable suggestions included a site on Division Street between Riverside and Main avenues and another on Division between Riverside and Sprague.

These two locations carried the endorsement of many civic groups.

No auditorium would be built for decades on any of those 30 sites. It wasn’t until 1954 that Spokane would open a large auditorium, the Spokane Coliseum.

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