Logger Leon Richards Found Slain on Mercer Island
A logger missing for a month is found dead in Lake Washington, revealing a brutal struggle and a connection to a local counterfeiting ring.
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.
The mutilated body of Leon Richards, a logger on Mercer Island, who disappeared about May 1, was found near his cabin on the Lake Washington shore by W. D. Clegg, a Mercer Island farmer, yesterday morning. Richards is suspected to have been murdered by an Italian named Antone Palazio, who had been employed by him. When Richards vanished, Palazio also disappeared. Local farmers had long regarded Palazio and his countrymen as dishonest characters, frequently whispering that they were counterfeiters. When Clegg found the body floating among logs, he notified the coroner. The remains bore numerous knife wounds, a crushed head from an axe, and a rope with a loop around the neck. Inside the cabin, signs of a fierce struggle were evident, including a stove kicked to pieces and bloody trousers. In Richards' pocket, investigators found a counterfeit dollar, lending credence to the theory that he discovered Palazio's criminal activity, leading to his murder.
“The body, well advanced in decay, was found floating among some logs near the shore.”
Mercer Island was once a remote frontier outpost where life—and death—were handled far from the reach of the nascent Seattle police force. Today, the island is among the most expensive zip codes in the country, but this 1892 discovery serves as a reminder of the violent, lawless disputes that defined the region's early settlement.
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