100 years ago in Spokane: New testimony emerged in Frank Brinton murder trial, including threatening line suspect allegedly used

An increasingly unsavory portrait of Maurice P. Codd’s belligerent behavior emerged on the second day of his trial for allegedly murdering Fort Wright soldier Frank Brinton.

Codd sneered, “You will make a lot of trouble for me, you little 135-pounder,” just before Codd allegedly threw Brinton over a railing at the Granite Block.

Brinton had emerged from his room in the building after hearing Codd get into a loud argument with the landlady and landlord. Witnesses said that Brinton, who did not know Codd, had been trying to defuse the situation.

Brinton told Codd, “Pal, you better go down (out of the building) before you get into trouble.”

He warned Codd that the police were on the way. Codd said he did not give a damn about the police or anyone else, the Spokane Daily Chronicle reported.

Attorneys for Codd tried to show that Brinton had been drinking, but this was refuted by several witnesses. They also tried to imply that the landlady had been drinking and that the Granite had an unsavory reputation. The judge did not allow those lines of questioning.

From the school beat: Superior Court Judge R.M. Webster proposed a special grand jury to investigate alleged immorality and juvenile delinquency in Spokane’s high schools.

His fellow judges did not approve. Three of the four other Superior Court judges said they were not in favor of such a probe. The fourth judge was ill and had not yet weighed in on the proposal.

Webster had stirred up a great deal of controversy recently by claiming that the high schools had become hotbeds of immorality.