The headlines shook Portland, Oregon. The brutal Ardenwald axe murders. The retribution killings by Chinatown tongs. The fiendish acts of the Dark Strangler. In this compelling account, author JD Chandler chronicles the coverups, the false confessions, the miscarriages of justice and the investigative twists and turns of Portland's infamous crimes while providing valuable historical perspective. From the untimely end of the Black Mackintosh Bandit to the convoluted hunt for the Milwaukie Monster, join Chandler as he unveils the shadowy heart of the city, acknowledges the officers who sought justice and remembers the individuals whose lives were claimed by violence. JD Chandler is a public historian and former political/labor activist. Chandler writes both fiction and nonfiction, but for the past sixteen years, his primary focus has been studying Portland's criminal history and compiling the Slabtown Chronology at www.portlandcrime.blogspot.com. His newest history blog is www.weirdportland.blogspot.com. Murder & Mayhem in Portland Oregon By JD Chandler The History Press Copyright © 2013 JD Chandler All rights reserved. ISBN: 978-1-60949-925-9 Contents Acknowledgements, Introduction: I've Been Thinking About Murder Lately, Pioneer Murder, 1858, Mayhem on Morrison Street, 1878, The Court of Death, 1881, The Girl in the Strawberry Patch, 1892, Beneath the Mountain of Gold, 1893, The Legend of Bunko Kelley, 1894, The Black Mackintosh Bandit and the Great Escape,, 1899–1902, The Unwritten Law, 1907, An Enduring Mystery, 1911, The Dark Strangler, 1926, Taken for a Ride, 1933, The Other Side, 1945, Bibliography, About the Author, CHAPTER 1 Pioneer Murder, 1858 Just six months after Oregon became a state, Multnomah County executed its first murderer. Danforth Balch's crime, a public shooting in broad daylight, was long remembered as Portland's first murder, but it really wasn't. That dubious honor goes to a man named Cook, who was shot to death at a saloon on Front Street, now Naito Parkway, on April 1, 1851, about six weeks after the city was incorporated. Cook, who was twenty at the time of his death, was killed by William Keene (or Kean) from Missouri. The two men argued in the bar and then shot it out in Wild West fashion. Portland was in Washington County in those days, so Keene was tried in Hillsboro, convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to six months. The murder of Mortimer Stump by Danforth Balch, while not the first murder in Portland, is the first well-documented case of homicide. It took place on the Stephen's ferry at the Westside Stark Street landing on November 18, 1858. Stump was a former employee of Balch, who owned a land grant northwest of Captain Couch's grant, in the west hills of Portland. Stump, whose family lived in East Portland, a separate city in those days, worked on Balch's farm and lived in the Balch home for a few years. In the process, he fell in love with Balch's oldest daughter, Anna. When she was sixteen, Stump went to her father and asked for permission to marry the girl. Danforth Balch, born in Massachusetts in 1811, came west from Iowa in 1848 and settled on a land grant near Guilds Lake in a neighborhood that became known as Willamette Heights. Balch Creek, which runs through Macleay Park and the Pittock Bird Sanctuary and was once a major logging stream feeding the mills on Portland's waterfront, is on land that once belonged to Danforth Balch. Balch had little education, "two or three seasons" according to his statement published after his execution, but by 1858, he had a prosperous farm about a mile and a half from Portland and a large family. The thought of his oldest daughter marrying at sixteen seems to have caused him to become unhinged. He fired Stump, threatened to kill him if he came around his daughter and chased him off his land. Stump's love for the young woman was not unrequited; she eloped with him a few weeks later. The lovers went to Vancouver, where they were married, and they spent a few more weeks on honeymoon somewhere nearby. According to Danforth Balch's final statement, he hardly ate or slept after his daughter left, and he didn't remember much of what he did during that time. The rumor was that it was alcohol that made Balch forget. Whatever it was, Balch was in a bad mood on November 18 when he saw the Stumps near the corner of Stark and Front Streets. Mortimer Stump and his bride, accompanied by his parents, had just finished buying furniture for their new house in East Portland. They loaded their furniture on a wagon and boarded the Stark Street ferry to cross to their new home. Danforth Balch was standing in front of Starr's tin shop on the corner when the wagon went by. Harsh words were exchanged between Balch and the elder Stump. According to Balch's statement, Stump's father said, "You're making a big deal about an ordinary little bitch." Enraged by the comment, Balch followed the party and caugh