This day in history: Balazs commissioned to do large murals at Seattle’s Kingdome. Suspect plans to enter insanity please in connection with downtown shooting

From 1976: Spokane artist Harold Balazs was commissioned to do “the first of a series of large murals” at the Kingdome, which voters had recently approved in Seattle.

Balazs said he planned to “incorporate rhododendrons, azaleas and dogwoods into a jewel-like floral design” using vitreous enamel on steel panels.

In other news, detectives concluded that suicide was the cause of death of three elderly people found dead of carbon monoxide poisoning in a parked car on a Mead dirt road.

“We got information yesterday from close friends of the three deceased people that they had received mailed notes from them indicating that they had been planning suicide for some time,” said a Spokane County detective.

From 1926: Phineus “Pete” Saffron planned to enter an insanity plea on charges he shot R. Lewis Rutter on a downtown street.

Saffron freely admitted he shot Rutter because Rutter foreclosed on the mortgage of his pawn shop. His lawyer, Samuel Edelstein, was already setting the stage for an insanity plea. He told reporters that Saffron “had been insane for a week.”

Rutter, a prominent banker and philanthropist, was “holding his own” in the hospital, but he “has a hard fight ahead of him.”

Also on this day

(From onthisday.com)

1934: The great dust storm sweeps millions of tons of topsoil across American and Canadian prairies, traveling as far as East Coast cities like New York.

2000: India’s population reaches 1 billion with the birth of Aastha Arora, the “billionth baby.”