The Deputy Who Outdrew Tom Blanck

John Shepich, the special deputy sheriff who was shot by Tom Blanck and who returned the compliment by riddling Blanck with bullets, was in Seattle yesterday from his home in Kent, and claims the sole credit of killing the desperado. He is now convalescent from the wounds inflicted by Blanck's bullets, although he will carry one bullet in his body for life. The ball first passed through his wrist, broke his collar bone, and now lies buried close to the neck. The wound in the wrist is nearly healed, but the shoulder wound is still open, with a draining tube in it. He carries his left arm in a sling.

He was able to visit the county jail yesterday and inspect the steel tank and the place where Blanck played the last desperate trump card of his life. The revolver taken from Blanck is in Jailer Burkman's possession, and Shepich examined it with reverence, as the ball now lodged in his neck came from that weapon.

'I believe I am entitled to that gun,' he said, 'and I shall certainly get possession of it, even if it costs me to.'

Speaking to a Post-Intelligencer reporter, Shepich said the true story of the shooting had never been published. 'All the published accounts are more or less erroneous, especially as to who really did kill Blanck. Without any attempt to force myself to the front, or to seek additional notoriety, still as a matter of record I want it understood that I alone killed Blanck, notwithstanding the statements of "the young hero" Crow to the contrary.'

Shepich said he was at Kent when a dispatcher received word that Blanck was coming through the brush near Orillia and making for Kent. He picked up his Winchester and ran down the track, with Bob Crow following. After running about a mile and a quarter toward Orillia, he saw a man coming toward him on the track. When within forty feet he shouted, 'Throw up your hands.' Blanck kept advancing. Three times Shepich called; on the second call Blanck threw up his left hand but kept his right in his pants pocket. On the third call Blanck jerked out his pistol and fired, hitting Shepich in the wrist; the ball glanced, broke his collar bone and lodged in his neck. The two men were about eighteen feet apart.

'I then fired at him,' Shepich said. 'I hit him in the muscle of the right arm. The bullet, which was an explosive one, passed through the arm, entered the fore part of the right breast and exploded there. He then left the track and, passing me, fired another shot, which missed me. I kept on firing, pumping away as fast as I could pull the trigger. The wound in his arm prevented him from raising his pistol arm again. This wound may be said to have saved our lives.'

Blanck fired a fourth shot almost straight up, then ran down the grade and hid behind a brush pile. Shepich kept firing until Blanck called out that he was shot and gave up. 'He threw away the gun, rose on his feet, threw up his hands, made two or three steps westward and fell on his right side dead.'

Shepich added that Crow did not fire a shot during the fight, and that after Blanck was down Crow fired three or four excited shots at the body until Shepich told him to stop. 'Not one of Crow's shots took effect on Blanck,' he said. 'I only had one explosive bullet in my gun, and that one wounded and disabled Blanck at the first shot.' Shepich said the killing was due to that first true shot; otherwise he believed Blanck would have killed both him and Crow.