A Detective's Bizarre Extortion Claim
A Tacoma private investigator is accused of kidnapping a woman who claims he harassed her after a dispute over a $1,000 demand.
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.
Mrs. Dr. Hugh Rose threw up a window in McNaughten’s detective service office this evening and screamed, 'Help,' 'Police,' 'I’m being detained.' McNaughten then insisted on calling the police; he charged her with creating a disturbance in his office, and she charged him with detaining her. McNaughten was immediately released on bail. He says: 'Last November, while I was at San Francisco on business, some woman who turned out to be Mrs. Rose sent letters to my wife charging me with easy morals. Since my return I have been trying to learn who instigated this. Recently I received a letter from a woman, which was sent to San Francisco to be mailed. In it was stated that Mrs. Rose had nothing to do with the letter sent me. This letter demanded $1,000 of me. When this woman appeared today she said she had a letter which only a vile person like me would write. She wanted to exhibit it in the presence of my wife. I cautioned her not to try and carry her bluff too far and said she would have to show me the letter else without my wife’s presence. She ran to the window and screamed.'
“She ran to the window and screamed.”
This incident highlights the often shady, high-stakes nature of private investigative work in the late 19th century. The murky intersection of 'morals' charges, extortion, and physical confrontation remains a chaotic sub-genre of local crime reporting.
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