A Cold Case from the Underground Cellar
Twenty years after a brutal murder in California, a man suspected of being an accomplice is arrested in Spokane, bringing a buried crime back to the surface.
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.
Old Californians who read yesterday's Spokesman Review will be mildly surprised at the capture of H. E. Burnett, alias Thomas Lawton, in the city of Spokane last Sunday. The facts, according to the signed confessions of Dye and Anderson just before they were hung, are to the effect that Dye, who was public administrator of Sacramento County, hired Lawton and Anderson to kill Tullis so he could administer the large estate which Tullis possessed. They made a rude boat in an underground cellar, went down the river to a point near Tullis's place, hid in the tules and deliberately shot him. On a piece of the boat found later, figures were identified as coming from lumber yards selling to Troy Dye. Dye and Anderson were hung in 1878, and Lawton was supposed to have died in a tule swamp. If the man arrested is Tom Lawton of 20 years ago, he will have a small chance of escaping the gallows.
“They made a rude boat in an underground cellar... and deliberately shot him.”
Historical 'cold cases' often gripped the public imagination through newspaper reports, serving as a reminder of how the frontier era's crimes followed people long after they fled the state.
From readers
No comments yet. If you know something about this story — a correction, a family memory, a source — it belongs here.