100 years ago in Spokane: A doctor’s allegation that a couple tried to blackmail him backfired when his own misdeeds were exposed in court

A high-profile extortion case involving an Opportunity doctor ended in acquittal.

Mr and Mrs Gwynn Triplett have been found not guilty of attempting to get money from Dr. to blackmail CW Driesbach. The triplets claimed the doctor attacked Mrs. Triplett, and the doctor claimed they later tried to get him to pay for her silence.

The case against the triplets was softened when the prosecutor conceded that the doctor had admitted he was “wrong” but that it was just a “little flirtation”.

The case was further softened when Mrs Triplett testified that the doctor forced her to sit on his lap and “accept kisses”. The doctor claimed this was “mutual”.

“The prosecutor speaks of a mere flirtation,” said the lawyer for the Triplets. “… Can you say that a reputable doctor would do that? Who was to blame, this doctor or this young woman? Are you blaming the affair on this mere girl?”

The jury deliberated only a short time before finding the triplets not guilty. Apparently there was little evidence of an attempted extortion.

From the hobo beat: Daniel B. Briggs, 25, of Spokane, returned home after years of seeing the world – first as a soldier in the British Army and then as a traveling vagrant around the USA

Briggs said railroads proved lenient by allowing him and his tramps to take trains for free.

“The best experience with that was in Minnesota,” he said. “I climbed onto the roof of a passenger train and there must have been 60 men up there. I counted 18 when I advertised. At the first station the conductor came and looked at us. “Man,” he said. ‘There are more passengers up here than in the wagons.’”

The worst experience was in a boxcar going home in winter, via Minnesota, North Dakota and Montana.

“The only way a man in a boxcar can save his life in the cold is to keep moving,” he said. “I walked hour after hour, swinging my arms and stamping my feet as the train slowly passed.”