A Deadly Dispute on the Pataha
A Christmas Day argument over a tool leaves a young man dead and the legal system in disarray due to missing paperwork.
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.
A young man named William Glenn was killed on the Pataha on Christmas day by a man named Wilkins. One story suggests both parties were intoxicated and that Glenn assaulted Wilkins with an ax, but in striking at him, fell down, allowing Wilkins to stab him in the back with a knife. Another story contradicts the claim that Glenn assaulted him or even held an ax. Wilkins had a preliminary examination before Esq. Sunderlin, who sent him to Walla Walla in the charge of Constable Turner to be held in the county jail. However, because the justice failed to send a commitment or any legal papers, the Sheriff could not legally detain the prisoner and returned him to the Constable, who took him back to the Pataha. Since then, the paperwork has been received, and it appears Wilkins was held to bail in the sum of $2,000 to await trial at the next term of the district court.
“One story says that the parties were both drunk and that Glenn made an assault upon Wilkins with an ax, and in striking at him fell down, when Wilkins stabbed him in the back with a knife.”
This incident highlights the raw, frontier nature of 1860s Washington, where legal procedures were often hampered by distances and bureaucratic lapses. Such cases of immediate, violent justice—or lack thereof—remain a stark contrast to modern judicial oversight.
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