The Confessed Killer Who Wept on the Stand
At a Montesano murder trial, John Klingenberg calmly described shooting Charles Hadberg at Indian Creek — then broke down as he swore William Gohl ordered him to do it under threat of death.
MONTESANO — Link by link the state is forging its chain of evidence around William Gohl for the murder of Charles Hadberg, whom John Klingenberg killed on the morning of December 22 at Indian Creek, at the command of William Gohl, under fear of death unless he carried out the order. Taking the witness stand, Klingenberg, star witness for the state and confessed murderer and accomplice of Gohl, related step by step the actions of him and Gohl during the fatal night and morning when John Hoffman and Charles Hadberg are alleged to have been slain.
He told of the arrival at Hadberg's cabin on Indian Creek and the incidents immediately preceding the shooting. When he came to his shooting of Hadberg at the alleged command of Gohl, his voice broke for the first time and tears, unquestionably genuine, welled up in his eyes. His testimony made a decided impression. He did not seek once to shield himself, yet there was no bravado apparent. He painted himself in dark colors, yet his story had the sound of truth.
Though the attorneys for the defense plied Klingenberg searchingly with questions during the examination, he answered all without hesitation and not once could he be tripped.
One of the strongest pieces of evidence yet introduced by the state, and which caused the greatest amount of surprise since the opening of the trial, was the identification of the 38-caliber automatic revolver found in the tide flat mud close to the body of Hadberg. The number of the weapon had been sent to the factory and from there traced by duplicate invoice to where it was found to have been sent to William Griggs, then owning a hardware store. Griggs also produced the invoice showing that the number of the automatic on the invoice corresponded to the gun found in the mud. Griggs further testified that he had sold the gun to Gohl.
“He painted himself in dark colors, yet his story had the sound of truth.”
A century before forensic ballistics databases, prosecutors here traced a murder weapon the hard way — a serial number mailed to the factory and matched to a duplicate invoice in a small-town hardware store. The scene is a reminder that the rural timber country around Grays Harbor had its own violent underworld long before the cities did.
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