100 years ago in Spokane: Authorities believe kidnapper hiding victim west of Lake Coeur d’Alene
![Authorities believed that Cleopus Viens, alias Lewis Parkes, was hiding out with abducted Catherine Pluym, 11, in the hills west of Lake Coeur d’Alene and near Mica Peak, the Spokane Daily Chronicle reported on Aug. 29, 1918. (Spokesman-Review archives)](https://thumb.spokesman.com/uO6q6eDqVn9RLDznlEJuDvMVKgE=/600x0/media.spokesman.com/graphics/2018/07/sr-loader.png)
Authorities believed that Cleopus Viens, alias Lewis Parkes, was hiding out with abducted Catherine Pluym, 11, in the hills west of Lake Coeur d’Alene and near Mica Peak.
The sheriff believed that Viens had been “forced to resort to wild game for sustenance” for fear of being caught at country stores.
The sheriff had received several tips, including one from a farmer who said he saw the man hunting in the Mica Peak vicinity. Another report had him near Rockford.
Deputies had fanned out in the area, but so far in vain.
From the vandalism beat: A clothes brush salesman became angry when Murgittroyd’s Drug Store refused to purchase brushes from him.
A little later, a neighboring merchant noticed the salesman “edging along one of the windows” of the drug store “with his back to the glass.”
Police arrived and found the man had been surreptitiously scratching the windows with the diamond in his ring. The damage was estimated at $600.
He was arrested for malicious mischief.