Murder & Mayhem in Spokane by Deborah Cuyle

Author:Deborah Cuyle
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing Inc.
Published: 2022-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

ON JANUARY 14, 1944, everyone was having a good time at a local tavern in Spokane. Some records indicate it was the Sprague Street Tavern; others state it was the Rainbow Tavern. Either way, this is where the party started that would soon end in a drunken tragedy with three people dead.

The soon-to-be killer was a devilishly handsome twenty-seven-year-old man named Woodrow Wilson “Whitey” Clark (1916–1946). Clark was drinking alone when he met the Dillon couple, Jane Staples (1918–1944) and Frank Winnett (1912–1983), and a group of others at the bar. They were all friendly and having a good time together. When closing time came, the Dillons purchased more beer and moved the party to their house, next door. They were all clearly intoxicated already, but that didn’t stop any of them from partying on.

The details of the evening were told to the police by Clark himself, after he was apprehended.

Clark’s chilling confession went something like this (from court records):

On the evening of January 14, 1944, I went to a beer joint in Spokane, where I joined T.P. Dillon, Mrs. Dillon, Mrs. Jane Staples, Ed Johnson and Frank Winnett. After drinking beer at the place mentioned, we went to the Rainbow Tavern, which was next door to the Dillons’ shop and residence. Jesse Hayford and Robert Hart then joined the party. At midnight the group, after purchasing several quarts of beer and a dozen eggs, went to the living quarters of the Dillons. After some more drinking, Dillon became angry with me because I was coming on to his wife. It was my intention that if Dillon left the house, I was going to go to bed with Mrs. Dillon.

About 2:00 a.m., Robert Hart went and got bacon from his apartment. I began building a fire, and we had a dinner (or early breakfast) of bacon and eggs. Most of us continued to drink beer. Hart fell asleep in his chair, awakening at 4:00 a.m., and then he, Johnson and Hayford left. Myself, Dillon, Mrs. Dillon, Frank Winnett and Mrs. Staples remained at the Dillon apartment. The parties went to bed. Mrs. Dillon was lying on the bed next to the wall, next to Mrs. Dillon was her husband, next to him was Mrs. Staples, and I was lying alongside her. During the early morning hours, I tried again to seduce and have sex with one of the two women. Everyone else was asleep. I do not know which one of the women I was trying to have sex with at that time. My efforts aroused Dillon, who attempted to arise from the bed, but I killed him with a hatchet. In a rage, I then killed the two women. When I started to leave the bedroom, Winnett started for me, and I hit him, and I left after that. I remember chopping wood for the stove and cooking a lot of bacon and eggs. After that, I was pretty drunk, and some of the guys got angry with me for making passes at their women.

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