A Wedding Suit, Three Bullets, and a Fire on Fort Wright
A Polish cabinetmaker from Chicago is found arranged on a Spokane reservation knoll, shot in the head and partly burned—authorities believe someone tried to erase his identity.
Spokane—Dressed as if for a wedding, the body of A. Lewandoski, a Polish cabinetmaker of Chicago, was found on the Fort Wright military reservation Sunday afternoon, with three bullet wounds in the head and the clothing partly burned from the body. There was every indication that the man had been murdered and the body carried to the spot where it was found, laid out in an orderly manner and set on fire to destroy marks of identification. Only those garments on the upper part of the body burned and the edge of the name tag on the inside of the vest was charred. Sergeant Ladhoff, U.S.A., discovered the body on top of a knoll about a mile northwest of the fort, probably three miles from Spokane.
“There was every indication that the man had been murdered and the body carried to the spot where it was found, laid out in an orderly manner and set on fire to destroy marks of identification.”
A century later, Spokane's old Fort Wright is a campus and historic district, but this case still reads like a warning about how much identification—and justice—can depend on a scrap of cloth. The body was arranged with terrible care, yet the killer still left a burned name tag behind.
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