The Desperate Flight of Charles E. Myers
Accused of a fatal arson in Asotin, a man is moved from jail to jail across the state to escape an angry lynch mob.
Leo Molin, deputy sheriff of Asotin county, has just arrived in Dayton with Charles E. Myers, accused of setting fire to the Asotin hotel, in which Frank Sherry lost his life last Thursday. Myers had a preliminary hearing at Asotin and was bound over in the sum of $5,000. A short while after going to jail it was learned that a mob was after him. He was then taken to Lewiston, Idaho, and thence to Uniontown and Colfax, the mob still pursuing. He was then brought to Dayton for safe keeping. The prisoner desires to be taken to Walla Walla, but he will have to take his chances here. Myers lives on a farm fifteen miles from Asotin, and his wife, from whom he has been parted for some time, ran the hotel that he is accused of burning. The mob is composed of neighbors of Sherry, who was cremated.
“A short while after going to jail it was learned that a mob was after him.”
This account of a 19th-century manhunt reflects the era's volatile frontier justice, where legal due process was frequently challenged by vigilante violence. Today, the story stands as a dark reminder of the fragility of the rule of law when local passions are inflamed.
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