A Voice in the Dark: The Burglar Who Knew the Girls' Room
Three young women in Port Townsend wake to a prowler fumbling at the bureau, hand over ten cents and two trinkets, and wait trembling for daylight.
Port Townsend, April 17.—Special.—Three young ladies, the Misses Gooshu and Miss Heath, had an unpleasant experience Monday night with a burglar. The mother of two of the young women lives in Seattle and they invited their friend, Miss Heath, to spend the night with them. The three girls were asleep in one room when, shortly after midnight, they were aroused by the presence of someone fumbling about the bureau. One asked who was there, and the reply came, "Shut your mouth and lay quiet." That nearly frightened the young women to death. Then the midnight prowler asked if they had any money or valuables, and they told him that all they had was 10 cents and he was welcome to that. After asking a few more questions and taking two small pieces of jewelry, the unwelcome visitor went downstairs after cautioning the girls not to leave the room. They hurriedly dressed in the deepest silence and tremblingly waited for daylight to report the matter to the authorities. One of the ladies said that the voice of the intruder sounded strangely familiar, though she could not identify its owner. She believes the burglar to have been a youth of about 18 years. The same premises last Sunday were entered and a purse taken from under the pillow on the same bed where the ladies were sleeping.
“"Shut your mouth and lay quiet."”
The item is a small-town crime story, but it captures how isolated households handled intruders before telephones and patrol cars. The detail that the burglar's voice sounded familiar—and that the same room had already been entered—turns a routine break-in into a claustrophobic local mystery.
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