A Sloop Killing on the Waterfront
After a violent altercation on a boat docked between Pike and Union streets, a coroner's jury investigates the stabbing death of Benedict Sare.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
An inquest was held yesterday afternoon by Coroner Smart over the body of Benedict Sare, who was killed Tuesday night by Nick Suttina. Earlier in the forenoon, Dr. E. L. Smith conducted an autopsy over the remains in the undertaking parlors of Bonney & Stewart, where the body lay. The examination revealed that the blade of the knife had entered the left ventricle of the heart, producing a necessarily fatal wound. At 2 o'clock a coroner's jury was summoned. M. O. Morse, who saw Suttina jump overboard from the sloop, and Eugene Biban, the only witness to the crime, testified. The jury retired to consider the case and after fifteen minutes returned a verdict: that the said Benedict met his death on the 17th day of September, 1888, at between 8 and 9 o'clock p.m., on board a sloop lying at the railroad track between Pike and Union streets, by a sharp-pointed knife or instrument, being driven into his heart by one Nicolo Suttina. The funeral of the deceased took place immediately after the close of the inquest. Followed by a dozen fellow-countrymen, the remains were borne to Masonic cemetery and quietly interred.
“The examination revealed that the blade of the knife had entered the left ventricle of the heart, producing a necessarily fatal wound.”
The waterfront near Pike and Union streets remains one of the most bustling corridors in Seattle. Today, the site where this violent 1888 incident occurred is near the historic Pike Place Market, a stark reminder of how the city's relationship with its shoreline has evolved from an industrial, sometimes lawless labor site into a global tourism hub.
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