The Bridesville Robbery Trial
An accused train and store robber is sent to jail while the Canadian government works to extradite him across the border.
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.
At a hearing held Saturday of last week before the United States commissioner, William Newman was held to await the action of the secretary of state in the matter of extradition to Canada to answer to the charge of complicity in the Bridesville holdup last December. British officials have been working on the case for several weeks. Last week Ben Hart, William Newman, and Cleve Newman were arrested on trivial charges under the state law. While in custody, Hart made what he alleged to be a true statement of the Bridesville affair to the British officials and expressed a willingness to go across the line and answer to the charge. In this statement, he implicated the Newman brothers. Deputy U.S. Marshal Charles Pray arrived to find only William Newman, as Cleve Newman had departed for parts unknown. At the hearing, Chester Carleton, proprietor of the store at Bridesville, testified that three masked men robbed his store and the post office, securing about $70. Newman denied ever being in Bridesville, but Mrs. A. Ravenscraft, with whom the men stayed near Kipling, reportedly stated that the three men masked themselves and went across the line on the day of the robbery. Newman was committed to the jail at Spokane to await the decision of the secretary of state.
“A great deal of sharp detective work was necessary in bringing the case to a successful termination.”
This cross-border crime drama highlights the porous nature of the Washington-British Columbia boundary in the early 20th century. While extradition is now a highly codified bureaucratic process, this story captures a time when personal testimony and 'sharp detective work' by local constabulary were the primary tools of trans-border justice.
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