A Year-Old Mystery Ends in a Shallow Grave Near Kirkland
A skeleton found buried outside Kirkland is identified as Alfred Earl Plummer, missing from Seattle since the same date last year—and a revolver beneath the body suggests he died defending himself.
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.
SEATTLE, Sept. 16.—The skeleton of a man found buried in a shallow grave two miles from Kirkland has been identified as that of Alfred Earl Plummer, who disappeared from Seattle just one year ago today. His relatives have found positive marks of identification and are sure that the remains are those of the young man. Tom Fisher, a local immigration officer and a step-brother of Earl Plummer, as he was usually known, looked at the remains yesterday afternoon and he now feels certain that the body was that of his brother. He says he knew the revolver to be his, and this gives rise to the belief that Plummer was shot while defending his life, as his revolver was found under him in the shallow grave.
“He says he knew the revolver to be his, and this gives rise to the belief that Plummer was shot while defending his life, as his revolver was found under him in the shallow grave.”
A family's year of uncertainty ends with a grave, a revolver and a theory of self-defense—the kind of cold-case identification that modern forensic DNA can now resolve with far more certainty. It also reminds us that missing-person cases then, as now, often turned on the persistence of relatives rather than official machinery.
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