The High School Garroter
A fifteen-year-old high school student is in custody after confessing to a series of violent street robberies in Tacoma.
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.
Admitting to three of the most heinous crimes ever perpetrated in Tacoma, Oliver Hopper, a 15-year-old high school boy, is locked in a cell at the city jail and faces a protracted term in prison. The boy was arrested late Saturday afternoon and has confessed to having pounced upon three unguarded women on prominent streets of the city on the nights of October 25, November 16, and January 12. In two of the cases, he took purses from the women and left his victims lying on the sidewalk in a dazed and frightened condition. One of the women screamed so piercingly that Hopper allowed her to escape. Oliver was taken into custody with the aid of streetcar conductors E. B. Donoway and J. D. Nelson of the T. R. P. Company. On the night of the final assault, Hopper boarded Donoway’s car on the Point Defiance line and handed the conductor a revolver, saying that he had just garroted a woman and was afraid to have the gun on him. He says that he will plead guilty.
“He handed the conductor a revolver, saying that he had just garroted a woman and was afraid to have the gun on him.”
While juvenile crime reporting has changed significantly in style and ethics since 1909, the fear of violence in public transit hubs like the Point Defiance line remains a perennial civic concern in Tacoma. The story highlights the reliance on streetcar staff—the transit workers of the early 20th century—as front-line observers of city safety.
From readers
No comments yet. If you know something about this story — a correction, a family memory, a source — it belongs here.