Was a Prisoner Murdered in Custody?
A Walla Walla coroner suspects a jail prisoner died not from his wounds, but from an intentional, unnecessary surgical procedure designed to silence him.
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.
Coroner Hoye suspects that William C. Thomas, the accomplice of Policeman Albert C. Schaneman, was himself murdered to prevent him from betraying his companions in the crime. As a result of these suspicions, the coroner will hold an inquest today at which the surgeons who performed the operation on Thomas, and other witnesses, will be called to testify. 'I believe that Thomas was murdered,' said Coroner Hoye. 'I think the murder was incited by the friends of Thomas' companions. It was committed to prevent the wounded prisoner from telling what he knew of the crime. No operation was necessary in Thomas' case. The wound in his back was practically healed. It was giving him no trouble; his temperature was normal. While Dr. Buckley had charge of the case and Dr. Wiltsie and myself were with him, Frank Wiestling sent another doctor to take charge of the man. This was not allowed at that time, as the police had given orders that none save ourselves were to be allowed near him. Thomas went to the county jail when he was fairly on the way to recovery. When this doctor took the case, he was nearly a well man. Then came the news that an operation was necessary. The surgeons opened the man up, saying inflammation in the intestines and gall bladder from the bullet wound might have caused such conditions. I am told by Dr. Wiltsie that there was no such inflammation. The man died; he had to. He was killed. I shall investigate at the inquest who incited this.'
“The wound in his back was practically healed. It was giving him no trouble. His temperature was normal. He was feeling well. Thomas died; he had to. He was killed.”
Coroner Hoye’s accusation highlights the deep-seated mistrust of legal and medical institutions in the early 1900s, a period when local power dynamics often trumped due process. Today, while we have more rigorous oversight of medical care in jails, the question of whether institutional systems work to suppress whistleblowers or inconvenient witnesses remains a central, unresolved tension in the American carceral state.
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