The Mystery of the Gilman Shooting
A murder trial in superior court struggles to identify the gunman who killed Nicholas Straussner during a drunken brawl.
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.
Another murder trial began in the superior court yesterday. John C. Brackle is charged with murder in the second degree for killing Nicholas Straussner at Gilman. The case has been a remarkably quick one; a jury was chosen and witnesses examined without great delay. The shooting occurred during a scuffle, and it remains unknown who fired the fatal shot. Witnesses testified that an argument broke out between Straussner, two Italians, and a man named John Dobson. Dobson cried 'Help' and 'Murder,' and Brackle, who was nearby, went to his rescue. When the city marshal arrived, he found Brackle holding a discharged revolver, while Straussner lay on the ground, shot through the back. Despite testimony from multiple witnesses, neither the state nor the defense could definitively identify who fired the pistol in the darkness.
“No witness for the state and so far no witnesses for the defendant have testified who it was that fired the shot.”
This trial highlights the chaotic, often lawless atmosphere of late 19th-century boomtowns like Gilman (now part of Issaquah), where violent disputes over public conduct were common. The uncertainty of eyewitness accounts in the dark of a coal-mining town remains a classic, albeit tragic, staple of Pacific Northwest legal history.
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