The Evidence in the Wilcox Murder Case
A sensational preliminary hearing concludes with William A. Wilcox bound for superior court on charges of murdering Mrs. Felting in Seattle.
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 A. Wilcox will be tried in the superior court for the murder of Mrs. Felting in this city on September 6. That was the decision of Justice William Caldwell last evening, after the defense had declined to introduce testimony and asked that the defendant be discharged. In many respects, the proceedings yesterday were as sensational as the opening day. The state, through the vigilance of Detectives Cudibee and Smith, had gathered links in a chain of facts tending strongly to establish the criminality of the defendant. Assuming that Wilcox killed Mrs. Felting, the state proceeded to prove that he gave his blood-stained garments into the hands of a tailor to be cleaned, and later pawned them for a small sum. Tacoma tailor Salinger testified he cleaned a coat and vest with dried blood spots on them in September, and identified the clothes in court. H.A. Andrews, a Tacoma pawnbroker, confirmed the items had been pawned by a man matching Wilcox's description. The defense requested that Wilcox be discharged, arguing that no witness could definitively place the defendant in Seattle on the day of the murder or link him to the chloroform used in the crime. The motion was denied and Wilcox was held to the superior court without bonds.
“No man has offered to testify to anything that shows the defendant was in Seattle on the day of the murder.”
Public fascination with forensic evidence—like the 'bloody clothes' highlighted in this 1891 case—is a through-line in Seattle's history of crime reporting. Even in the late 19th century, the court was a stage for the public to scrutinize material evidence long before the era of modern DNA analysis.
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