The Tragedy in the Smokalem Shanty
A witness to a brutal murder on the Puyallup Reservation recounts the final moments of a woman killed by her husband, a man known to his own community as 'cultus.'
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.
The lifeless body of an Indian woman, her face pounded into a pulp, her chest crushed, and her body almost nude, was found on the floor of a filthy shanty on the Puyallup Indian reservation yesterday. Jackey Smokalem, a Puyallup Indian, had murdered his wife on Saturday afternoon and remained in the room with the body for twenty-four hours before his arrest. The discovery was made by deputy sheriffs after the couple's 12-year-old daughter, Mary, fled to a neighbor to report the crime. Mary, a pupil at the Indian school, was the sole eye-witness to the murder, having watched her father beat her mother before striking the fatal blow with an axe. Smokalem, described as a man with a 'savage glare,' had a history of domestic violence and was known among the tribe as 'cultus,' or wicked. Post-mortem examinations confirmed death was caused by congestion of the brain resulting from a blow over the left eye. Smokalem is currently held in the county jail, where he reportedly threatened his 15-year-old son, Harris, to prevent him from testifying.
“The lifeless body of an Indian woman... with a stolid Indian, her murderer, seated near her, was the horrible sight that met the gaze of two deputy sheriffs.”
This horrific domestic violence case, occurring in the winter of 1903, highlights the isolation and vulnerability experienced on the reservation during that era. While legal systems for protecting victims have evolved, the struggle to address intimate partner violence remains a persistent challenge in Tacoma and across Washington state.
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