A $56 Check Sends a Housekeeper to Prison for Up to 14 Years
Mrs. Maybelle Coitrell, desperate for work, forged a Spokane millionaire's name—and drew a sentence that outweighed the theft many times over.
Spokane — Mrs. Maybelle Coitrell, of Boise, Idaho, was given an indeterminate sentence of 1 to 14 years in the penitentiary for forging the name of Colonel D. P. Jenkins, of Spokane, pioneer and millionaire, to a check for $56. The prisoner is the wife of a mining man at Butte, Mont., and on account of straightened financial conditions, she was obliged to seek employment. She was hired as housekeeper in Colonel Jenkins' home for about six weeks.
“On account of straightened financial conditions, she was obliged to seek employment.”
The case captures how quickly financial precarity could become a felony in 1909: a $56 forgery carried a potential 14-year term. It also shows the era's papers cataloguing a woman's fall through the lens of sensational crime—and the harsh consequences that followed.
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