Research the archive
Narrow 25,688 newspaper stories by words, years, place, newspaper and subject. See when and where they ran, then download what you find.
Put a phrase in quotes ("rent strike") or leave a word out with a minus (strike -baseball). Old scans misspell names, so when little is found, near-spellings are offered.
Refine1 on
Show the numbers
| Year | Stories |
|---|---|
| 1888 | 25 |
| 1889 | 52 |
| 1891 | 21 |
| 1892 | 194 |
| 1893 | 169 |
| 1894 | 163 |
| 1895 | 164 |
788 stories matching kill
- A Father's Vengeance: The Killing of the Muckleshoot Medicine Man
When three of Jerry Domnick's children died under Jim Bouchitt's care, the grieving father took a rifle into the woods — and the healer was found buried under a log near Soos Creek.
- The Outlaw Who Begged His Mother Never to Know
Thomas Planck confessed to five murders, broke jail and was shot after a last meal at a Kent farm. Then thousands of Seattleites filed past his body.
- The Murder Foretold: Three Japanese Laborers Held Without Bail
A witness testifies that one suspect predicted the killing hours in advance, and a bloody butcher knife is found in a kitchen wall. Three Japanese men are ordered held without bail for the murder of a Japanese boss near Christopher.
- The Drunken Tragedy of the Minsch Brothers
A local jury delivers a second-degree murder verdict for a deputy U.S. marshal who killed his brother in a drunken rage.
- A Breath of Fire-Damp Killed Twenty-Three Blue Canyon Miners
A coal-mine explosion near Lake Whatcom wiped out nearly an entire shift just before it was due to change, leaving only two survivors to tell what happened underground.
- Mercer Island Killing Suspect Caught on Fraser River
An Italian fisherman confesses to the killing of a logging partner, detailing a gruesome fight and a body dumped in Lake Washington.
- Thirty-Seven Miners Died 150 Feet From Safety
An 1894 coroner's jury in Franklin, Washington, heard how a small fire in the Oregon Improvement Company's coal mine became a wall of smoke — and why the men who could have escaped stayed to fight it.
- The Night Seattle Held the Line at the Stockade
A 39th-anniversary account of the January 1856 siege: two blockhouses, a howitzer from the USS Decatur, and two settlers killed in the Puget Sound War.
- The Jesuit Who Shot an Archbishop: A Murderer’s Cold Confession on the Way to Prison
Frank Fuller, convicted of killing Catholic Archbishop Seghers in the Alaskan wilderness, speaks to reporters as he is transported by steamship from Port Townsend to McNeil Island.
- The Wooden Revolver That Freed Ten Prisoners
Thomas Blanck held a jailer hostage with a carved fake gun, emptied the King County jail, and vanished into Seattle's streets.
- The Judge, the Revolver, and the Impeachment Petition
A former judge tells Olympia that Judge W. W. Langhorne drinks on the bench, bullies lawyers, and has threatened to shoot him — and asks the House to remove him.
- She Followed Him West, and Then She Followed Him With a Revolver
Nine years after a New Hampshire lumberman's wife ran off with the hired nurse, the truth of a killing in Centralia came out — along with a note saying there was nothing left but to kill the man who ruined her life, and then herself.
- The Woodchopper Who Rigged a Gun—and the Murder Trial That Followed
Newell S. Barr's cabin trap killed a would-be intruder in Whatcom; his lawyer vowed to take the property-defense question to the Supreme Court.
- The Deputy Who Outdrew Tom Blanck
Wounded in the wrist and neck, John Shepich recounts the railroad-track shootout near Kent—and insists that the fatal bullet was his alone.
- The Outlaw's Only Friend Comes Home to Seattle
Tom Blanck's sole confidant returns from Victoria and tells a reporter what the notorious Northwest criminal was really like — a killer who never touched liquor or tobacco, and who swore he'd never be taken alive.
- Camp Kelpie: A Seattle Hunting Party in the Last Great Bear Country
In 1895, Seattle sportsmen pitched camp on Hood Canal between the Duckabush and Hamma Hamma rivers and found a wilderness thick with black bear, salmon, and one very unlucky tenderfoot.
- The Dynamite Fiend of Oilman: A Lynch Mob’s Tragic Mistake
When a violent feud in King County’s coal fields ended in a massacre, the community turned to vigilante justice. But when they hanged the wrong man, the real killer walked free.
- The Tragedy of the Chico Gulch
A minor dispute over a killed pet dog escalates into a brutal, fatal shooting in the quiet community of Chico, revealing the violent tensions lurking behind rural neighborly relations.
- A Medicine Man's Death, and a Debt Demanded in Blood
A Nisqually medicine man was killed after failing to cure children. Now his cousin says forty tribesmen will march on the Muckleshoot reservation for customary indemnity — or the killer and his kin may be killed.
- Washington's Fourth Legislature Adjourns After a Marathon Final Day
Lawmakers pass 53 bills, defeat a school-book trust, kill a Seattle-Tacoma bridewell, and bury woman suffrage for at least two years.
- Homestead Dispute Ends in Fatal Gunfight
A prominent Black Republican politician kills a friend and neighbor after a tense standoff over a land claim in Stevens County.
- A Convict Killed a Fellow Prisoner. Could He Be Tried While Already Serving Twenty Years?
The killing of Reif by convict Hoyt at Walla Walla set off a legal puzzle: whether a prisoner already serving a murder term could face another trial — and whether the governor could suspend his sentence to allow it.
- Hop Picker Kills Intruder in Midnight Stand-off
A teenage hop picker at a South Prairie ranch shoots and kills an unidentified man during a confrontation at a barn.
- A Murderer’s Risky Gamble for Freedom
After being convicted of a brutal killing, a man wins a new trial, only to face the possibility of a harsher sentence.
- Seven Hundred Miles on Horseback: Two Seattle Men Ride the Raw Edge of Eastern Washington
C. W. Loomis and E. D. Manning return from a month in the saddle — snow-choked passes, waterless deserts, blasting on the Great Northern grade, a mining camp on edge after a killing, and a Colville reservation not yet legally open to whites.
Also about this, in other words
- A Bullet Meant for a Lover Killed the Wife
In Pataha City, a butcher who blamed a neighbor for breaking up his home took a shotgun to the man—and shot his wife instead. The town's sympathy lay with the shooter.
- The Deadly Logic of the Cabin Trap
A man sets a shotgun trigger to protect his home, with fatal consequences for a stranger.
- A Christmas Eve Killing in the Woods
A railroad foreman is murdered in a Pe-Ell camp, sparking a failed attempt by a lynch mob to claim the shooter.
- The Trial of the Deadly Gun Trap
A Whatcom man faces trial for setting a lethal snare that killed a man, marking a rare legal precedent for the state.
- The Double Standard of Seattle Justice
An editorial challenges the public sympathy afforded to a female slayer, arguing that the law must remain blind to gender in cases of homicide.