A Brutal Robbery in Whatcom
After pleading guilty to a violent assault and robbery, a 26-year-old drifter is sentenced to two decades of hard labor.
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.
Twenty years in the penitentiary at Walla Walla at hard labor was the sentence meted out to John Leonard, alias William Hogue, when he appeared before Judge Denny of Whatcom. Saturday morning and pleaded guilty to the charge of having robbed and beaten Henry Veth, who is still in the hospital in that city. When the information had been read to Leonard and he was asked by the court whether or not he had anything to offer as to why sentence should not be passed upon him, he said there was nothing to offer. Prosecuting Attorney Cooley made an explanatory statement: when Veth was knocked senseless and pounded, he regained consciousness and attempted to rise, whereupon Leonard said, 'Are you not dead yet?' and again set upon him with a rock until he was insensible. Leonard then stole over $70 from the victim. Leonard, who served in the U.S. Navy and was raised in Denver, bears the appearance of a hobo and is 26 years of age.
“Are you not dead yet?”
While legal standards for sentencing and the treatment of the unhoused have shifted, this story highlights the persistent local anxiety regarding 'strangers' and transient populations—an enduring theme in Walla Walla's civic discourse.
From readers
No comments yet. If you know something about this story — a correction, a family memory, a source — it belongs here.