100 years ago today: Notorious murder case goes through Spokane

On the platform of the Spokane train depot, reporters came across Dr. RM Brumfield, a Roseburg, Oregon dentist who was handcuffed to an Oregon deputy sheriff.

Dr. Brumfield was accused of murdering Dennis Russell, a farm laborer in Roseburg. He was arrested in Calgary and extradited back to Oregon by train. The case had become a sensation nationwide. When Spokane reporters asked him about the allegations, he denied them – but in a less convincing way.

“I was sick for two weeks before the thing you are talking about happened,” he told reporters. “I didn’t eat much. I remember going out for dinner with Dennis Russell. I don’t remember anything of what happened after that until I was in Portland. I stayed there for a few days, then went to Vancouver, Washington. I don’t know how I got there. … My head seems to be clearing up now, and I’m just starting to remember all of these things. It seems like everything is a dream that I’m only just remembering. “

The sheriff said Brumfield initially insisted he was Dennis Russell. Then he admitted that he was Dr. Brumfield was, but that he “got into his head that he was Russell”. When the customs officer asked his name a few hours earlier at the Canadian border, he replied: “Dennis Russell”, but then corrected himself.

“Something inside of me seems to say I am and yet I know I am not,” said Brumfield.

“It showed very well the condition of a man who has gone into a trance and is just waking up,” said the sheriff. “Of course I’m not a judge of madness. He may or may not simulate this apparent state. “