A Robbery, a Room at the Hotel, and a Prisoner Who Walked Away
With no jail to hold her, a woman accused of robbing a rancher in the Riverside cribs was lodged at the Newport Hotel — and vanished before breakfast. Old Town suspects a conspiracy, and a Sandpoint grand jury is listening.
A down-river rancher claimed to have been robbed of over $100, a watch and a pair of gold spectacles in the Riverside cribs on Sunday morning. He secured a warrant from Justice Warriner charging Jennie Doe with the crime. The warrant was given to Special Constable Cleland to serve. The constable arrested the woman shortly after the warrant was issued and also recovered the spectacles, but could not find any trace of the money or watch.
The constable took the woman to the Newport Hotel, as he was without a jail in which to confine his prisoner. About 8:30 in the evening he went to obtain something to eat, and put a party on to guard the woman. The guard allowed her to escape. There is no question but that there was a conspiracy on tap to get the woman out of the state, as a livery rig was ordered from one of the New Town stables, and the constable saw it parading up and down in front of the hotel early in the evening. The constable could not obtain anything to eat at the hotel, the proprietor of the restaurant not being allowed to furnish him food. There is no blame attached to the officer.
The rancher went to Sandpoint on Monday, and it is understood that he has appeared before the grand jury regarding the affair. Mr. Cleland also went to Sandpoint on Tuesday and will tell the grand jury what he knows about the conspiracy. The case before Warriner was dismissed and a new complaint was filed before Probate Judge Bandelin on Tuesday.
Ten subpoenas for residents of the Idaho side were served last week. The bunch and one resident of Old Town went up Friday night. It took all day for one of the witnesses to tell what he knew, so the balance of the crowd had to return home. They went back to Sandpoint on Wednesday.
The town reminds one of a deserted village in a mining section. Nearly all of the female residents have left town for other ports. The dance halls are closed and the main topic of conversation is about the doings of the grand jury at the county seat.
“The constable took the woman to the Newport Hotel, as he was without a jail in which to confine his prisoner.”
Newport's oldest neighborhood grew up around the river crossing and the vice economy that followed the railroad crews and lumber camps — a district the county periodically swept, then struggled to prosecute because there was nowhere to hold anyone. The detail that a constable had to rent a hotel room as a cell, and then lost his prisoner to a waiting livery rig, is a border-town story that still rhymes: cross-jurisdiction cases between Washington and Idaho, and a jail that is always the bottleneck. The grand jury sat at Sandpoint because that was the county seat of the jurisdiction doing the investigating.
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