A Bullet Meant for a Lover Killed the Wife
In Pataha City, a butcher who blamed a neighbor for breaking up his home took a shotgun to the man—and shot his wife instead. The town's sympathy lay with the shooter.
Spokane, April 18.—At Pataha City last evening Crumpacker, a butcher, shot his wife and a man named Johnston. Mrs. Crumpacker and Johnston were standing near the door, and Crumpacker intended to kill Johnston, who had been the despoiler of his home. Crumpacker had warned Johnston to keep away from his house, and last evening he saw him there. He procured a shotgun and, as he took aim, the woman moved a little. The shot struck her in the right breast, passed through and came out at the neck. Johnston received one shot through the hand. Crumpacker fired the other barrel, but in the darkness Johnston escaped. Mrs. Crumpacker died today. No attempt has been made to arrest Crumpacker, who has the sympathy of the community.
“No attempt has been made to arrest Crumpacker, who has the sympathy of the community.”
Domestic violence was often treated as a private tragedy in 1898, and the paper's note that the community sympathized with the shooter shows how long 'crime of passion' framing has shaped responses to intimate-partner violence. Pataha is now a small unincorporated community in Garfield County, but the story's mix of jealousy, guns and community silence still reads as painfully contemporary.
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