100 years ago today in Spokane: Witness describes how murder suspect threw victim over hotel ng

The landlady of the Granite Building gave a great deal of damaging testimony in the murder trial of Maurice P. Codd.

“Oh! You have killed that boy!” she recalled saying after Codd tossed Ft. Wright soldier Frank T. Brinton over a railing to his death.

She said Codd replied, “I don’t give a damn if I did.”

The landlady testified that Codd had entered the Granite Building and went to the office to inquire about someone in Room 328. Codd became angry and belligerent for reasons that were unclear. Her husband intervened and told him to leave or be thrown out. Codd and the landlady’s husband tussled briefly.

The landlady told her husband to call the police instead, which he did. Codd left for several minutes.

But then he came storming back in.

Brinton, who was staying in a room on the same floor, heard the commotion and tried to calm Codd down.

“Pal, why don’t you leave? We don’t want you up here,” Brinton said to Codd.

But Codd was still angry and called the landlady “vile and obscene names.” She was asked to repeat the words in court, which she did reluctantly. The Spokane Daily Chronicle called the words “too obscene for publication.”

However, one of his printable remarks was, “Who is that potbellied old fish?” When told it was the landlady, Codd allegedly said, he would “strew her guts all over the place.”

When Brinton tried to intervene, Codd said, “If you don’t lay off that duke stuff, I’ll throw you over the railing.”

Brinton replied, “Oh, I don’t know about –”

Before Brinton could finish his reply, Codd grabbed him and flung him over the railing.