The Con Artist Who Played Barber on Marion Street
A fake detective who swindled his way through Seattle with a short-lived barber shop is now wanted for attempted murder in New York.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
Under date of January 1, the New York Sun publishes an account of the attempted murder in that city on New Year's Eve of a lawyer named John Roesch by Charles A. Doerner, a special policeman attached to the Bedford Avenue squad. The lawyer was not hurt. Doerner will be remembered by many Seattle people as the 'private detective' who arrived in the city four months ago and engaged in several swindling transactions, after which he disappeared. When Doerner came to Seattle, he was accompanied by a German named Hottie. Their business card read: 'C. A. Doerner, private detective, Brooklyn, E. D.' The two men rented a room at 270 Marion Street and started a barber shop. The shop was conducted for a month until Hottie went before Justice Von Tobel and had Doerner arrested for swindling. Hottie claimed he had been deceived by Doerner, who had taken his $3,000 cash investment and placed it in the bank to his own credit. The case was compromised, the shop was closed, and Doerner eventually returned to New York, where his erratic and violent behavior continued.
“Rumors were rife that he had got his start crookedly, and some ugly stories were told about him.”
This story serves as a reminder that Seattle has long been a destination for grifters looking for a fresh start, a trend that continues to echo in the city's modern struggles with opportunistic fraud. The 200 block of Marion Street, once home to a swindler's barber shop, now sits in the heart of a rapidly evolving downtown core near the Seattle Municipal Tower.
From readers
No comments yet. If you know something about this story — a correction, a family memory, a source — it belongs here.