A Killing Confessed: The Rancher, the Wrecked Home, and the Man Who Waited by the Barn
Arthur C. Ash admits he waylaid James Boone near Sprague — and says he meant to kill a second man too.
SPOKANE. — A murder conspiracy involving four people was laid bare by the confession of Arthur C. Ash, who said he killed James Boone, a rancher, near Sprague, April 29. The confession of Ash, who was arrested June 8, was brought about through the arrest of an accessory, Frank Newton, who admitted furnishing Ash with the gun with which he killed Boone and of having knowledge of his plans.
Ash said he killed Boone because he had wrecked his home. At the time of the shooting of Boone, Ash said he made an attempt to kill Fred Roland, whom he claims was likewise implicated in his domestic troubles, but in the confusion that followed the first shot, Roland escaped. Boone was waylaid near his barn.
“Ash said he killed Boone because he had wrecked his home.”
A century on, the case reads less like a whodunit than a window into how private grief and public violence tangled on the eastern Washington range. Ash's confession — and the accessory who armed him — shows how quickly a domestic grievance could become a conspiracy with a body count. The Lincoln County of 1910 had no counseling, no restraining orders, and no press restraint; it had a barn, a gun, and a story that sold papers.
From readers
No comments yet. If you know something about this story — a correction, a family memory, a source — it belongs here.