Miscellaneous newspaper articles about Kitsap County Washington
November 19, 1931
Appleton Post Crescent, Appleton Wisconsin
Jimmy Bryan, Bremerton, Wash., a great guard in both football and basketball at the University of Washington a few years ago has been elected prosecutor of Kitsap county.
November 4, 1949
Coshocton Tribune, Coshocton Ohio
YOUNG WIFE CONFESSES PLOT TO MURDER HUSBAND, WHO LOVES HER
NONETHELESS
Port Orchard, Wash.-A mystified husband whose pert young wife
admitted hiring two men to murder him because "he wanted to make love every
night" today sought desperately to raise $7,500 bail to get her back home.
But tiny, blue-eyed Mrs. Margaret Susan Piatt, 31, was of a
different frame of mind than her husband, Wilford, 34.
"I feel swell here. I just spent the most restful night I've
had in 15 years," she said from her Kitsap county jail cell.
The mother of two children was charged with attempted murder
after confessing her plot to Kitsap County Prosecuting Attorney James Munro. In
a signed statement she said her accomplices "welcomed" on her after she gave
them more than $1,500.
The "killers," Hollis D. Scott, 23, and Wallace Mottern, 22,
both of Bremerton, Wash, were charged with grand larceny by embezzlement. Scott
a former private detective, and Mottern, a navy veteran, were held under $3,500
bond each. Both insisted they had no intentions of carrying out the murder plot.
Mrs. Piatt, dressed in a snug, grey slack suit, said
resignedly, "I guess it wasn't such a very good idea-it didn't work- but I
decided it was the only way to get rid of him."
She said their wedded life was blissful until a few years ago
when their happiness began to wear. She said he refused to grant her a divorce.
"Every night since we were married 15 years ago he had wanted
to make love," she said. "I couldn't stand it. I tried to run away a year ago to
my folks in Stockton, Cal., but he forced me to return."
Piatt, meanwhile, declared undying love for his wife and
hired an attorney, Ray R. Greenwood, to defend her. Frantically, he begged
deputies to let him swap places with his wife in jail.
Completely baffled by the plot to murder him, he said:
"I don't know why she would want to get rid of me. I have as
much to offer as any man.
"I know Margaret didn't plan such an awful thing herself.
She's not guilty. She's just a sweet little woman."
Scott however, told Munro that Piatt admitted to him she had
tried to kill her husband twice before-once with a poisoned drink and again by
bludgeoning him while he was asleep.
"He passed the drink by and woke up just before she could hit
him" Scott said. "She told me that when he awoke she just couldn't hit him.
"I love her regardless." Piatt said.
©Shauna Williams