100 years ago in Spokane: A cook’s moonshine bender turned violent, but his victim was expected to live

Bert Hughes, a 35-year-old cook, went “crazy from drinking moonshine” and went on a bloody rampage, said victim Margaret Cannon from her hospital bed.

She told reporters that Hughes had been drinking heavily for three days and came to the apartment where she was visiting. He asked to come in.

“What is it you want, Bert?” she asked as she stepped into the hall.

The next thing she knew, Hughes slashed at her throat with a razor, badly cutting her.

“I screamed and ran back into the room,” she said.

Meanwhile, he turned the razor on his own throat and cut himself deeply.

When police arrived, blood was gushing from the throat of Hughes, while Cannon was “lying calmly on the floor with a handkerchief stuffed in her throat wound.”

Both were taken to the hospital. The life of Hughes remained in the balance, but Cannon was expected to recover because the cut did not reach her jugular vein.

When told by police that Hughes claimed she did the cutting, Cannon remarked, “Well, that is rather amusing.”

Several witnesses confirmed that Hughes was the attacker. Two days earlier, he had cut his wrists in a suicide attempt. Jealousy and drunken rage were behind the attack.

Also on this day

(From onthisday.com)

1789: First electoral college chooses George Washington as president and John Adams as vice president.

1974: Patty Hearst is kidnapped by the Symbionese Liberation Army.