This day in history: A gunman killed four members of his family, including two children

From 1976: Four people – including two children – were found dead in a home 5 miles south of Spokane, and a 27-year-old man was arrested for the shooting.

Lawrence E. Thompson was accused of shooting his mother, his sister and two nephews, 4 and 5.

The suspect’s father said he arrived home at 5 p.m. and met his son in the driveway.

The father had a “brief discussion outside” with his son, and then the son sped off in a pickup truck. The father went inside, found the bodies and called the sheriff’s office.

After a three-hour manhunt, Thompson was stopped in his pickup truck at Mullan and Broadway and arrested.

Thompson had been arrested in December at the Spokane Coliseum after he allegedly pointed a pistol at “a performing singer in the rock group Aerosmith.” He had done three tours of duty in Vietnam and had been under psychiatric care.

From 1926: The plan to build a new civic auditorium in Spokane had new life after the Washington Legislature overrode the governor’s veto – and now the plans were becoming even more grand.

“If we are to have a municipal auditorium, let’s have a big one!” one local booster said.

He said he was adamantly opposed anything under 10,000 capacity.

“An auditorium of less than 10,000 seating capacity would offer little attraction to the larger national conventions, which Spokane is anxious to entertain,” said the president of the Spokane Florist Co. “The larger conventions will play dividends on an investment in an auditorium large enough to house them. Another point is this: A large auditorium is an advertisement for Spokane. A small auditorium is not.”

For perspective, the Spokane Coliseum, which opened in 1954, had a seating capacity of 5,400. Today’s Numerica Veterans Arena seats 9,916 for hockey and up to 11,661 for concerts.