The Woman With the Little Girl and the Worthless Checks
A forger calling herself Myra F. Parker worked Ellensburg shopkeepers with small purchases and big checks, then vanished into a Northwest-wide manhunt.
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 police of Walla Walla have been notified that T. W. Parker is not the only one of that name wanted for passing bad paper. This time it is a woman who called herself Myra F. Parker. She is charged with swindling merchants of Ellensburg, Wash., to the tune of several hundred dollars, and the police of all the Northwest cities are looking for the largest addition to the list of stage-money crooks.
Accompanied by a pretty little girl of about 8 years, Mrs. Parker, as she called herself, passed a number of checks bearing the name of the Washington State Bank of Ellensburg. Her method was to enter a store, make a number of small purchases and then present a large check upon the home bank. The paper looked all right. So did the woman, and so did the little girl. But the paper at least was worthless.
Sheriff L. R. Thomas, of Kittitas County, Wash., has sent out the following description of the alleged woman forger: In appearance a German or Swede; 5 feet 2 inches in height; wearing light coat, white shawl, gray skirt, small dark hat; thin, pale face; blue eyes; glasses.
“The paper looked all right. So did the woman, and so did the little girl. But the paper at least was worthless.”
In 1903 a forged check could travel between small-town counters before banks could compare notes, so the case was chased by telegraph and sheriff's circular. Today check fraud has largely moved online, but the pattern—small purchases, a plausible story, a large fake payment—still works. The detail of a child used to soften suspicion is a reminder that fraud often exploits trust more than technology.
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