100 years ago in Spokane: McNutt’s wife drops bombshell in missing-person case

Mrs. W.H. McNutt dropped a bombshell in a Los Angeles police court when she explained why she was so certain her missing husband had been murdered: She found a large bloodstain on the floor of Miss Marie McDonald’s room at the Wolverine Hotel in Spokane.

Her husband was last seen in June heading to the Wolverine Hotel to confront Miss McDonald and other members of her family in a business dispute. Miss McDonald, who apparently also went by the name of Fay Wilkerson, was operating the hotel for McNutt, a real estate man.

Mrs. McNutt also testified that, when she examined the room after her husband disappeared, she found another spot on the rug under the floor, “like something reddish had been washed away,” the Spokane Daily Chronicle reported.

McDonald and her brother, Ted, had recently been arrested in Los Angeles for being in possession of McNutt’s new auto. However, the McDonalds had not been charged in connection with McNutt’s disappearance, because, in the absence of a body, there was little clear evidence of foul play.

Mrs. McNutt denied, while on the stand, that she and her husband had quarreled or that she had threatened him with a revolver.

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(From the Associated Press)

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