Mamie Walsh Part One
Work of a Fiend
1892 was a boom year for Portland. Portland consolidated with East Portland and Albina (North Portland) in 1891 tripling the city’s acreage and increasing its population by half to over 70,000. In 1892 Portland was the largest city in the northwest and business was booming. The depression that would hit the city in the spring of 1893 was still over the horizon.
On June 22, 1892, school was out and Mamie Walsh, 14, the daughter of a prominent Milwaukie farmer, was staying with family friends, the Luellings, near the Willamette River just south of Sellwood. That day she went out to pick berries by the river at about 4:00pm. She didn’t come back that night.
Alfred Luelling enlisted neighbors to search for the missing girl. Shortly after dawn Mamie’s body was found. She had been raped and strangled. Her underwear, hat and bucket were missing. The search party turned into a posse, determined to find and lynch the killer.
It wasn’t just Clackamas County that went wild looking for the killer. Friday morning, the day after the body was found, Ernest Richards, a German immigrant, was arrested in Portland on suspicion of being the killer.
The Clackamas County posse was pursuing a vagrant who had been seen in the Milwaukie area for the last couple of months. He disappeared the night of the murder. The posse traced him to Oregon City and then to Clackamas Heights, where they lost his trail about 5:00am on Friday.
That afternoon the Clackamas County sheriff offered a reward of $375 for the suspect and published this description: Height 5’11”; complexion dark; light mustache, high cheek bones, slightly stooped shoulders, upper front teeth uneven; eyes gray and restless; weight about 170 pounds; large prominent nose.
Shortly after the reward was offered a telegram arrived from Hillsboro. Marshall Lohman said he had Mamie Walsh’s killer in custody. Further dispatches claimed that the suspect had confessed both the rape and murder.
The man arrested in Hillsboro was Tim Sullivan and he was dead drunk. He was found walking the streets of Hillsboro with blood in his beard. He roughly matched the description of the suspect wanted in Clackamas County.
Sullivan had two wounds on his temple. One was just a scratch; the other was deep and had bled profusely. Sullivan’s clothes were stained with blood. In his pocket’s Sullivan had a Southern Pacific Rail ticket from Cornelius to Portland dated June 23. Election cards in his pocket indicated that he had been in Portland on Monday.
Sullivan claimed that he had been in Milwaukie on Wednesday and said he had “done up that Luelling family.” Under interrogation he confessed to raping and killing Mamie Walsh. He said that after killing the girl he had crossed the river and walked a half-mile on Farmington Rd, where he discarded Mamie’s bucket and hat. He didn’t know what had become of her underwear.
The next day Sullivan, now sober, proved that he was a homeless man who had spent most of the last year in the Multnomah County jail. He could prove his whereabouts for the last week and he had not been in Milwaukie on Wednesday. It was clear that Sullivan was not the killer.
As the best suspect he was held in the Clackamas County jail, which was surrounded by a large crowd of citizens ready to take justice into their own hands.
Coming Soon: Mamie Walsh part two: Lynching in Sight
Mamie Walsh Part Three: The Fiend Captured
Mamie Walsh Part Four: He Has Confessed
1892 was a boom year for Portland. Portland consolidated with East Portland and Albina (North Portland) in 1891 tripling the city’s acreage and increasing its population by half to over 70,000. In 1892 Portland was the largest city in the northwest and business was booming. The depression that would hit the city in the spring of 1893 was still over the horizon.
On June 22, 1892, school was out and Mamie Walsh, 14, the daughter of a prominent Milwaukie farmer, was staying with family friends, the Luellings, near the Willamette River just south of Sellwood. That day she went out to pick berries by the river at about 4:00pm. She didn’t come back that night.
Alfred Luelling enlisted neighbors to search for the missing girl. Shortly after dawn Mamie’s body was found. She had been raped and strangled. Her underwear, hat and bucket were missing. The search party turned into a posse, determined to find and lynch the killer.
It wasn’t just Clackamas County that went wild looking for the killer. Friday morning, the day after the body was found, Ernest Richards, a German immigrant, was arrested in Portland on suspicion of being the killer.
The Clackamas County posse was pursuing a vagrant who had been seen in the Milwaukie area for the last couple of months. He disappeared the night of the murder. The posse traced him to Oregon City and then to Clackamas Heights, where they lost his trail about 5:00am on Friday.
That afternoon the Clackamas County sheriff offered a reward of $375 for the suspect and published this description: Height 5’11”; complexion dark; light mustache, high cheek bones, slightly stooped shoulders, upper front teeth uneven; eyes gray and restless; weight about 170 pounds; large prominent nose.
Shortly after the reward was offered a telegram arrived from Hillsboro. Marshall Lohman said he had Mamie Walsh’s killer in custody. Further dispatches claimed that the suspect had confessed both the rape and murder.
The man arrested in Hillsboro was Tim Sullivan and he was dead drunk. He was found walking the streets of Hillsboro with blood in his beard. He roughly matched the description of the suspect wanted in Clackamas County.
Sullivan had two wounds on his temple. One was just a scratch; the other was deep and had bled profusely. Sullivan’s clothes were stained with blood. In his pocket’s Sullivan had a Southern Pacific Rail ticket from Cornelius to Portland dated June 23. Election cards in his pocket indicated that he had been in Portland on Monday.
Sullivan claimed that he had been in Milwaukie on Wednesday and said he had “done up that Luelling family.” Under interrogation he confessed to raping and killing Mamie Walsh. He said that after killing the girl he had crossed the river and walked a half-mile on Farmington Rd, where he discarded Mamie’s bucket and hat. He didn’t know what had become of her underwear.
The next day Sullivan, now sober, proved that he was a homeless man who had spent most of the last year in the Multnomah County jail. He could prove his whereabouts for the last week and he had not been in Milwaukie on Wednesday. It was clear that Sullivan was not the killer.
As the best suspect he was held in the Clackamas County jail, which was surrounded by a large crowd of citizens ready to take justice into their own hands.
Coming Soon: Mamie Walsh part two: Lynching in Sight
Mamie Walsh Part Three: The Fiend Captured
Mamie Walsh Part Four: He Has Confessed
posted by jd chandler at 8:51 PM
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