The Dream That Found Two Bodies in Lake Washington

The death of G. H. Miller, aged 70 years, of paralysis, last Tuesday on his farm near Newcastle, recalls the Colman-Patten murder on Lake Washington in February, 1886—one of the celebrated tragedies in the history of the state—in which Miller played an important part, having been accused of the murder and going through the unprecedented ordeal of four trials charged with the commission of the double crime.

Whether Miller was really innocent or guilty will now, perhaps, never be known, but the fact remains that after his four trials the tragic element seems to have entered largely into the life of this man, and followed him even into his family relations, for one daughter subsequently committed suicide, while a son went insane and became the terror of his neighbors, and is now at Steilacoom.

On the morning of February 8, 1886—the day that Seattle was thrown into confusion by the Chinese riots—J. Manning Colman, who lived on the east shore of Lake Washington, opposite Mercer Island, accompanied by a young man named Wilbur Patten, started across the lake for Seattle to give evidence in a land case in which a neighbor, G. H. Miller, was interested. Mrs. Colman saw the boat pass around the southern end of Mercer Island, and that was the last time its occupants were seen alive.

On March 5, nearly a month later, the bodies of the unfortunate men were found by Frank Dusharm, Thomas Morphy, Charles Strauss and P. Graham in the water near an old tree that projected from the bank of Mercer Island.

The strangest part of the affair, however, came to light when it was known that the discovery was made by following the dictates of a dream Mrs. Frank Dusharm had on the night of the murder. In that dream she had a full outline of the tragedy, but knew nothing as to the names of those implicated or the location otherwise than that it was on the shore of a lake.

The bodies were brought to the city and taken to G. C. Shorey's undertaking rooms, where the wounds were examined. It was found that Colman had two bullet wounds in his head, one through the left temple and the other on the top of the head. Patten was shot through the leg and again through the body, his spine being severed.

It was learned that Miller, who had been arrested a short time after Colman and Patten disappeared and subsequently discharged for lack of evidence, had been watching Mercer Island with a glass the morning of the murder. He was rearrested, tried in Seattle for murder, but the jury disagreed. Then he was tried at Port Townsend, and the jury disagreed again. The next time he was tried by a Kitsap jury and convicted. The case was appealed to the supreme court, and the order came from that authority that if at the next trial the state could not produce more evidence than had been brought out, the case would have to be dismissed. The case was tried the last time at Port Madison, and as the state did not produce more evidence Miller was turned loose.

His daughter Josephine, who some thought had a hand in the killing, committed suicide in this city two or three years ago while working as a domestic for T. H. Hardin. One of Miller's sons has been in the insane asylum several times, and has been the cause of much fear and trouble to the people of the eastern shore of the lake by his wild work when at large.