A Northport Man Poisoned His Wife. A Colville Jury Took 67 Minutes to Say So.
George Pepoon heard the verdict 'guilty of murder in the first degree' with the same calm he had shown through his whole trial for poisoning his wife at Northport the previous August.
COLVILLE — 'Guilty of murder in the first degree' was the verdict returned by the jury in the case of George Pepoon, on trial for poisoning his wife at Northport, Wash., August 29, 1909. The prisoner heard the announcement with the same calm demeanor he has manifested throughout the trial. The jury retired and 67 minutes later, after taking but one ballot, brought in the verdict. Attorneys for the defense will move for a new trial.
“The prisoner heard the announcement with the same calm demeanor he has manifested throughout the trial.”
A Stevens County jury needing a single ballot to convict a man of poisoning his wife is the kind of grim, efficient frontier justice that still defines small-town courtrooms. Northport, a tiny Columbia River town near the Canadian line, was the sort of place where a domestic poisoning became the trial of the year.
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