More Murder in the Fourth Corner
Many communities have skeletons prefer locked away in their closets. Secrets never discussed. Whatcom and Skagit Counties are no different, having had their fair share of crimes, heinous acts and atrocious scandals. We must ask ourselves, for how long can our closet doors restrain the weight of our past? It is our history, like it or not! I want to reveal a portion of it.
“Addie Roper must have passed out from the gag and assault…as no defensive wounds were discovered when the hatchet split her skull. The first swing glanced off the side of her head severing an ear. It was followed by more accurate strikes. The intruder looked upon his handy work, throwing the bedding over her corpse. Finding a can of kerosene close by it was doused over the bedroom floor. Igniting a blaze the intruder slipped out of the house into the snowy winter’s night.”
Blaine, Washington, 1907
MORE MURDER in the FOURTH CORNER: True Stories of Whatcom & Skagit Counties’ Earliest Homicides is the second book in a series of true crime occurring in Whatcom and Skagit Counties between the middle nineteenth and early twentieth-centuries. You may discover that you live near, or within, a murder house.
This volume includes eleven stories dating from 1858 to 1937. Seven violent murders are related occurring within the city limits of Bellingham and Whatcom County, and three from Skagit County.
Read about the murder of Addie Roper who was robbed, beaten, raped, bludgeoned by axe and her body burned in her own home. Chinese national Lee Wing Wah severs his wife’s head in a detention center at the Sumas border crossing. Charlie Wilson kills his wife fighting over her barking dog. Otis McGuire goes insane killing his entire family.
N.S. Barr sets a Washington State landmark decision over protecting one’s home from invaders. A double murder is discovered on Lummi Island. Was it for gold? And, Hermit Smith, a recluse is found with a bullet in his skull outside his cabin in the mountains. But, who is he really?