The Hungry Teenager Who Could Not Resist
After a kind Kennewick woman fed a hungry 17-year-old drifter, he stole her silver mesh bag and watch, later telling police he felt a strange compulsion to commit the crime.
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.
Something told me I ought to pass that house up. There was a sort of feeling down here inside of me that whispered that if I went inside I would steal something before I came out. This was the way 17-year-old Donald Phillips explained to Chief of Police Copeland why he stole a silver mesh bag, a gold watch and two silver dollars in the home of Mrs. Rose Carr, after he had been given a square meal Tuesday evening. Phillips asked at the back door for something to eat. His youthful appearance touched Mrs. Carr and she invited him into the house and gave him a meal. She did even more. She prepared two sandwiches for the youth’s breakfast and it was while she was in an adjoining room wrapping them up, that Phillips pocketed the bag and its contents. Upon missing the bag, Mrs. Carr telephoned to Chief Copeland who picked Phillips up at the bowling alley about an hour later. He still had the watch and 80 cents of the money on him. The bag, which was recovered later, he had thrown under the shipping platform at the Fruitgrowers’ warehouse. Wednesday morning Justice Staser recognized the youth to the superior court on a charge of grand larceny. The same day he was taken before Judge Holcomb in Prosser. The judge gave him a severe reprimand, some good fatherly advice and turned him loose.
“That lady was mighty kind to me and I know it was a mean trick, but when I saw that bag lying there on the table I just had to take it.”
This story highlights the perennial tension between personal charity and the systemic issue of vagrancy, a debate that remains deeply polarized in the Tri-Cities today. The 'back door caller' narrative captures a time when police handled homelessness through jail stays and 'fatherly' warnings rather than modern social service infrastructure.
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