Law order & IN THURSTON COUNTY: Crime and punishment have evolved along with community, researcher says

The Olympian
Olympia, Washington

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Thurston County Sesquicentennial

Photos courtesy of the Thurston County Sheriff's Office
Officials stand in front of a 500-gallon whiskey still that was seized in the Bald Hills of Yelm. Three men were arrested tending the operation. The man at far left is unidentified. Officials are, second from left, Chief Frank Cushman, Deputy George Erickson, Deputy Erwin Carr, Sheriff Claud Havens, Prosecutor W.J. Milroy and Deputy Elmer Tew.

These bloodhounds were among the first used statewide to find people and moonshine. From left to right are Sheriff Claud Havens with Sad Sam, volunteer Frank Cushman Jr. with Hunter, and Frank Cushman Sr., chief deputy and later Olympia Police Department chief, with Rudy. Photo was taken about 1930.

Law order & in Thurston County

Crime and punishment have evolved along with community, researcher says

LORRINE THOMPSON, THE OLYMPIAN

Originally published Saturday, January 27, 2002

THURSTON COUNTY -- It was one of the earliest notorious murders in Thurston County and still stands as the only death of a county deputy in the line of duty.

On the last day of his life, March 1, 1903, 55-year-old deputy David Morrell walked into the jail cell of prisoner Crist Benson, likely to deliver a meal.

Benson had dismantled a pipe system in the old jail -- a privately run prison in Bucoda -- and used the pipe to bash Morrell's head. He then grabbed the deputy's gun and killed him.

Benson would not be free for long.

He reportedly fled to a west-side Olympia mill to hide out, but law enforcement officers and county residents swarmed across the community searching for him.

A Daily Olympian newspaper headline of the day reported, "Crime Stirs Entire City: The dastardly murder of Jailor Dave Morrell incites hundreds to join posse in search of murderer."

Benson was reportedly so fearful of the mob that he ran down into the city to surrender himself.

"But that's uncorroborated," says Capt. Mark Curtis of the Thurston County Sheriff's Department.

The murder and the surrender happened, but Curtis has not found documentation other than the newspaper account that a community mob scared Benson into giving up.

Curtis, a 30-veteran of the county sheriff's department, has been exploring and documenting the department's history for most of his time in law enforcement.

While Curtis feels he has much more research to do, he has found a county where crime and punishment have evolved along with the community -- where deputies and law resources were scarce while population and crime were sparse, and resources have grown with population and crime.

With a few bloody exceptions, "There was almost nothing happening in Thurston County as far as major crime that frightened people, until the 1970s," Curtis said.

Until the 1970s, often only one deputy patrolled the entire county. Curtis was that deputy during many shifts.

"A lot of deputies kept small chain saws in their cars so they could get trees out of the roads," he said.

Before the population explosion of the 1970s, deputies performed many community tasks that fell outside the realm of law enforcement.

The first documented duty of a county deputy, in December of 1852, had A. Benton Moses approaching county commissioners to announce that resident John Egan asked that a road be built from Yelm prairie to McAllister Creek.

Until 1939, deputies wore only three-piece suits and hats, with their badges pinned inside their lapels, to be flipped out if needed.

"They didn't need uniforms," Curtis said. "Everyone knew who they were."

They also got little, if any, training. "They were given a badge and a gun and told to go out and be careful."

Some tidbits about county sheriffs over the years:

- The county lost Sheriff William Billings in the late 1850s, when he resigned to join the gold rush. Billings returned to serve a long term as sheriff years later.

- Billings' son, Sheriff Charles Billings (1896-1900), is the only sheriff to be shot on duty, though with his own gun. Bringing a prisoner in by wagon, Billings stopped near Offut Lake.

Jumping down from the wagon, he tripped and his gun went off to shoot him near his heart. His prisoner stopped the bleeding, got him into the wagon and brought him to town. The man saved the sheriff's life, but Billings had to give up law enforcement.

- Sheriff Jesse Mills, who served from 1900 to 1903, upset community members with a practical joke one night. At a lodge meeting, his friend Bill Schaffer jumped up and shouted at Mills, calling him a liar. Both men drew revolvers and advanced on each other, firing shots as they went. Panicked people fled the room, only later realizing it had been an act. "Many did not appreciate the joke," reads one report of the night.

- Roy Hoag (1920-22) landed in a high-speed gunfire chase one day while driving with his son in his Studebaker. Hoag spotted a moonshiner driving another car and gave chase. The moonshiner threw bottles out of his car to get rid of evidence, while Hoag fired shots into the man's car. The suspect finally stopped in front of the old Evergreen Ballroom on Yelm Highway and gave up. No one was hurt in the chase, whose top speed reached 35 miles per hour.

- Sheriff Claud Havens (1925-34) brought the county's first canine unit in after a friend sent him three bloodhounds from Missouri.

"Those dogs could smell moonshine at over 1,000 yards," Curtis said. Sad Sam, Little Jo and Hunter were only the second canine unit used in the state, and they located hundreds of moonshine stills in their time.

- One duty of Sheriff Lourence Huntamer (1934-42) was to dispatch wild packs of dogs with his rifle. He never carried a gun or revolver.

- Until the 1940s, the county sheriff investigated all felony crimes in the county, whether they happened within city boundaries or not. Not until the late 1940s or early 1950s did cities begin their own felony investigations.

- The last bust of a large moonshine still by deputies came in the 1950s, by deputy Don Redmond, who later became sheriff.

- Stories are still piling up about current Sheriff Gary Edwards, says Curtis.

One includes the capture of a pair of murderers, who killed an older man at Clearwood Store and fled into a wooded area. Deputies had to call off the search as night fell, but Edwards woke in the middle of the night with an idea where the men would emerge.

"He grew up there and knew the lay of the land," Curtis said. Edwards waited at the spot and arrested the men as they stumbled out where deputies stood waiting.

On another day, Edwards stopped a man wanted on a property crime, but the sheriff was late for a meeting. He knew the man, so Edwards wrote out a note and told him to report to the county jail. It astounded deputies when the man reported to the jail to be arrested, as ordered, Curtis said.

"It's a different type of policing when you know the community," Curtis said.

Memorable crimes

In addition to the murder of deputy Morrell, the county had a number of crimes earlier in the 1900s that attracted attention outside of its borders.

They included:

- A kidnap-torture case which helped establish statewide that kidnapping could be charged whether or not ransom or money were involved.

In the case, an Olympia surgeon, Dr. K.W. Berry, convinced three friends to help him take revenge on a man that Berry suspected of raping or sleeping with his wife. Police later determined Berry had beaten a false accusation of rape from his wife.

The four men falsified law enforcement credentials and took the man, Irving Baker, from his home, with his wife and children watching.

They drove him deep into some woods, bound him and repeatedly beat him for an hour using a belt, flashlights and other tools. He was beaten in the groin repeatedly with pliers. When Berry attempted to take a surgeon's scalpel to Baker's genitals, one of the men stopped him. Baker was left bound and bleeding in the forest to die of exposure. He escaped and made his way to town.

In the trial, lawyers for the accused argued that kidnapping, which carried a life sentence, could not be charged because no ransom had been involved. However, the appeals court found that taking and holding someone for other reasons of gain -- such as to gain revenge -- were also motives for kidnapping.

- The murder of a woman dubbed "Snow White" by the community, in September of 1948. The case later was written about in a national detective magazine.

The woman, 30-year-old Frieda Becker, had a simple nature, lived at home with her parents, and liked to walk in the woods and tell stories about animals (earning her the "Snow White" nickname).

She disappeared during a walk one day, and her body was discovered in woods some miles away, her head bashed in with a rock. Her clothes had been torn.

After following a flurry of clues, deputies believed a Seattle man had killed Becker, but didn't have enough evidence to bring him in. The man's nervous nature gave Chief Deputy J.E. Stearns an idea. Stearns spent a year driving regularly to the man's Seattle home and place of work, sometimes stopping to talk, other times just making sure he was seen.

The nervous man finally wrote a letter to the FBI asking for help, saying he had evidence in the case but he wanted to be protected from the Thurston County Sheriff's Office. Thurston deputies immediately brought him in for questioning based on the letter. After claiming that he had picked up a hitchhiker who had killed Becker, the man finally confessed that he had convinced Becker to take a ride with him, made sexual advances to her, and when she struggled and threatened to report him, he killed her.

- A man who solved his own murder, in the late 1940s or early 1950s.

Deputies were called to location where a man's body had been dumped. The man, James Hildebrandt, had been shot. After searching the body, deputies found a note in the man's sock that read "Charley killed me."

At first deputies thought it was a joke. Then they started researching the bars where Hildebrandt was known to hang out in Tacoma, and learned he was associated with a robber named "Charley the Tuna," who turned out to be Charles Wilkes.

Hildebrandt mouthed off one day about a planned robbery, and Wilkes put a gun to his head for several seconds, before pulling it away. Wilkes later said it was a joke, but Hildebrandt wasn't completely convinced. He wrote the note and stuffed it into his sock, apparently in case his suspicions were right. After the murder, Wilkes fled to California, but was caught and brought back to Washington.

"It was just bizarre," Curtis said of the case.

Many changes since 1970s

Crime got busier as the population exploded in the 1970s, Curtis said.

From 1970 to 2000, the sheriff's department investigated 78 murders, with 12 remaining unsolved. Some of those include bodies apparently dumped in the county, such as a homeless man's body dumped from a train, Curtis said.

Although the first woman commissioned to serve in the sheriff's department was Maude O'Brien in 1939 -- she handled paperwork and female prisoners -- the first woman commissioned to serve as an officer on the street in Thurston County was Florine Johnson in 1979.

Johnson still works as a records specialist in the department, and says being the first was not an easy task.

Many deputies supported her, but Johnson felt Sheriff Dan Montgomery thought she was forced upon him, and did not support her. On the other hand, Johnson managed to surprise suspects when she arrived on a call.

"Two guys would be fighting, and they would just stop and stare at me," she says, laughing.

Not all crimes that deputies responded to were of the notorious kind.

Curtis remembers a late 1970s incident, when a man having a bad day refused to be taken in on a traffic warrant. He fled to his home and refused to come out.

Deputies brought out tear gas and a grenade launcher, but the grenades were military surplus and had lost some of their pop. When deputies tried to fire, a grenade went into the back of a sheriff's vehicle, shattering a window. A second grenade launched went through the same window, filling the car with more tear gas.

"There were deputies rolling on the ground, laughing. They couldn't do their work," Curtis says.

Finally another officer arrived, took the launcher, walked up to the man's window, and shot the tear gas directly into his house. "It was minor damage, major fun," Curtis says.

Since the 1950s, new programs have altered the department, such as the use of reserve (volunteer) deputies, Neighborhood Watch, the volunteer Jeep Patrol, Explorer Scouts, dive and SWAT teams.

Technology has ballooned, such as use of tasers, bean bag guns, the Internet, computers in police cars, patrol boats with depth finders, and a helicopter with rappelling gear.

"When you look at all of that, it's a whole new ballgame," Curtis said.

The technology is needed, as deputies deal with quick population growth and criminals who have the same technologies at their disposal.

Curtis said he will continue to collect photos of deputies doing their job, placing some on the walls of the department. A recent photo shows deputies who jumped chest-deep into muddy tide flats to chase a suspect down.

"I was so proud of those guys," Curtis says. "These pictures are to let deputies know where they're coming from, and where they're going to."

For himself, Curtis said when he retires soon, he'll remember what has been an amazing job.

"I've laughed most days. I've cried some," he says. "You meet all kinds of people. Good people. Terrible people. People do the darndest things."

Lorrine Thompson write for The Olympian. She can be reached at 360-754-5431.

Thurston County sheriffs, then and now

- 1850-54: Andrew Jackson Simmons.

- 1854: Franklin Kennedy.

- 1854-56: A.B. Rabbeson.

- 1856-58: Isaac Hays.

- 1858-59: George Blankenship.

- 1859-61: William Billings.

- 1862-64: Robert Moxlie.