The Great Escape and Capture of the 'Crazy Desperado' of Mercer Slough
A man escapes from the Steilacoom asylum, survives a seventy-mile trek through the wilderness on a shattered ankle, and is eventually captured in a Bothell cabin.
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.
William Miller, the man known as the 'crazy desperado of Mercer Slough,' who escaped from the asylum at Steilacoom two weeks ago, was captured yesterday afternoon near Bothell by Deputy Sheriff Jack McDonald. In escaping from Steilacoom, Miller painfully wrenched his right ankle, and in this condition, he walked the entire distance—about seventy miles. At 1:30 o'clock yesterday afternoon, F. Smith, a telegraph operator at Bothell, dispatched word that Miller had been seen in the woods. Deputy McDonald traveled by cable line, steamer, and on foot to reach the cabin of Matt Barquest, where Miller had been staying. Miller was found sitting at a table with Barquest, who appeared terrified. When the deputy entered, Miller attempted to grab a butcher knife, but the deputy secured the weapon first and handcuffed the man. Miller remarked, 'Jack, this is hard luck.' He told reporters that he escaped by tearing his blankets into a rope and rappelling from the third story, only to fall and injure his ankle. He claimed to have lived off the kindness of farmers and even told a fanciful story to one couple about a wildcat that had stolen his clothes. He remains convinced that he is not insane and that the people of the asylum 'will have to pay' when he is free. He will likely be returned to Steilacoom today.
“I'm engaged now. She's awful pretty and smart. When I'm a free man I'm going back to see her again.”
Miller's desperate flight through the dense woods of the Snohomish and King County border touches on the long, fraught history of mental health care and containment in Washington State. His story, told in the sensationalized, criminalizing language of the 1890s press, reflects a period when the 'asylum escapee' was a common fixture of the news cycle, mirroring modern anxieties about the state's capacity to care for those in crisis.
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