Millionaire's Son Ruled Insane After Fatal Gambling-Raid Shooting
Wallace A. Bussell, son of a wealthy Seattle tide-land owner, is declared insane after killing a bartender during a raid on a King-street gambling resort.
SEATTLE.—The lunacy commission appointed by Judge A. W. Frater to examine Wallace A. Bussell, the son of C. B. Bussell, millionaire tide land owner, accused of murder in the first degree for killing Joseph Bonner, a bartender, while making a raid on a gambling resort in the King-street district, May 12, returned a report that the youth is insane.
“The lunacy commission... returned a report that the youth is insane.”
Wealth and a lunacy finding spared a tide-land heir a murder trial in 1910 Seattle. The case reads as a study in how money and the era's crude insanity proceedings could redirect the course of justice — questions about competency and privilege that courts still wrestle with today.
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