Three North Seattle Highwaymen Convicted in a Week
John and Martin Murphy and Tom Davis were found guilty of robbing John Smith near the Seattle waterfront. Their alibi witness, a man known as “Cutthroat” O’Brien, did not save them.
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.
Three more highwaymen are booked for Walla Walla. The trio of thugs who held up John Smith in North Seattle, near the water front, last month were all found guilty by Judge Ballinger’s jury yesterday. The sealed verdict in the case of John Murphy, who was tried Tuesday, was brought in, the jury having agreed upon a verdict of guilty within five minutes of the time they left the court room.
Then the other two, Martin Murphy and Tom Davis, were put on the rack of justice. The evidence against them was the same as that against John Murphy, and was practically overwhelming. The pair was identified by the victim without the slightest hesitation, and several men and one woman, who live near by, saw all three of them loitering around the place where Smith was robbed of his gold ring and money a little later in the evening.
Martin Murphy was the only one who testified in his own defense. He could not tell a straight story apparently, and to support his flimsy alibi a hard-looking character, known to the police as “Cutthroat” O’Brien, was placed on the stand. He testified that when the robbery was going on in North Seattle the alleged highwaymen were loafing around the Columbus saloon. O’Brien, despite his blood-curdling nickname, is not dangerous, but gets it from a terrible scar on his neck. After O’Brien and one or two saloon men had testified the jury retired and brought in a verdict of guilty two minutes later.
The conviction of six highwaymen in one week is exceedingly gratifying to the police, who say that there have been no robberies since these men were arrested.
“The conviction of six highwaymen in one week is exceedingly gratifying to the police, who say that there have been no robberies since these men were arrested.”
The North Seattle waterfront was a rough edge of the young city, and the police boasted of clearing a robbery gang. The case also shows how nicknames, saloon alibis and quick jury verdicts shaped justice in the 1890s—and how a local robbery could become a small public spectacle.
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