The Horror in Happy Valley
A husband confesses to murdering his wife and burying her remains under the roots of a stump, only to be discovered months later after tending to the site.
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.
James K. Thomas has confessed that he murdered his wife in her lonely cabin in Happy Valley. He claims, however, that they had been drinking together in the evening and got to quarreling over another man and woman, and that Mrs. Thomas pulled a gun from under her pillow or clothes and shot at him. He then pulled his gun, which he always carried, and shot at her two or three times. One of the shots took effect. Two days later, he buried the body in a cave dug out by the woman at the roots of a stump in the back yard of her own place. In the two months that intervened between her burial and the discovery of her gruesome corpse by the detectives of Bellingham, he had taken care of the place, dug the potatoes right around the improvised grave, and picked and canned the fruit on the place. They have a daughter at the State Reform school. Thomas blames whiskey for the terrible deed.
“In the two months that intervened between her burial and the discovery of her gruesome corpse... he had taken care of the place, dug the potatoes right around the improvised grave, and picked and canned the fruit.”
This 1908 account of intimate partner violence in rural Whatcom County reflects the era's tendency to pathologize such crimes through 'drink' or domestic 'quarrels.' Today, we recognize these incidents as part of a persistent epidemic of gender-based violence that remains a critical focus for community safety and support services.
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