100 years ago in Spokane: Another wife of suspected serial killer ‘Bluebeard’ Huirt speaks out

Another Spokane woman, Mrs. James Craemer, came forward and claimed she was one of several dozen brides of James “Bluebeard” Huirt.

She said she married him in 1917 in Coeur d’Alene. She refused, unlike many of his other wives, to sign her property over to him or to make out a new will. However, he still managed to make off with several thousand dollars before he disappeared.

When she saw the photo of “Bluebeard” Huirt, she knew that he was the man she had married under the name of James Craemer.

“I don’t regret the loss of my money, for I am glad that I am alive,” she said.

At least one of Bluebeard’s other wives was not. The remains of Elizabeth “Betty” Prior had been identified in Olympia. Huirt was being held in Los Angeles on suspicion of murder and bigamy.

“He surely knew how to win women, and in his actions was the kindest of my five husbands,” said Mrs. Craemer, who owned a Spokane apartment house. “He never was harsh and was gentlemanly in every respect. Why, half the women in the St. Helens Apartments, that I conducted at the time, were stuck on him.”

Another Spokane wife, Elizabeth Williamson was in Los Angeles assisting police and prosecutors. She wrote a letter home saying that she was “holding up under the strain better than I thought I could.”

“This is surely the worst blow I’ve ever had in my life and, coming at at time when I was so perfectly happy, it makes it all the harder to bear.”