The body of Mrs. Agnes Truesman McCombs Covington, 17, was identified after being found strangled and stuffed in a trunk on the beach at South Alki. Her husband, Frank Covington, went missing and was suspected by police in connection with the murder.
While bodies in trunks were a common find during this time period, what strikes me as unbelievable is that amount of information about the crime given to the newspapers and released to the public.
Young Woman’s Body Found in a Trunk
Seattle, Washington. September 24, 1907. — The police have positively identified the body of the dead woman found stuffed in a trunk cast upon the beach at South Alki, as that of Mrs. Agnes Truesman McCombs Covington, 17 years old. The woman had been strangled to death.
She was the wife of Frank Covington, for several months employed as salesman by the Dilsheimer Liquor Company. Covington is missing and the police are looking for him. Acquaintances say they have not seen him for a week. The body in the trunk had been dead at least a week.
Mrs. Covington was the daughter of Trusman McCombs, who lives near Vernon, B.C. Her grandmother, Mrs. Elizabeth Robinson, her aunt Miss Jennie Robinson, all live in Seattle, where the dead woman’s grandmother runs a lodging house. He is said to have come to Seattle two years ago from Louisville, Kentucky.
A letter from St. Paul under date of April 11, 1907, apparently written by Covington’s sister, Edith Covington, was found in the trunk with the body. The letter was addressed to Frank Covington, and the publication of excerpts from the letter in the morning papers led to the woman’s positive identification by her uncle, George Robinson.
Miss Jennie Robinson, an aunt, was not so certain of the identification. The police are working on the theory that Covington is the murderer.
The only plausible motive so far advanced for the crime is that the murder followed a violent quarrel. Mrs. M. Pulmer, who conducts a lodging house, said today that Covington and his wife lived there several months. During that time they fought and quarreled almost every day.
Their disturbances become so annoying that Mrs. Palmer a month ago was compelled by other roomers to order them out. At this point they went to a rooming house at Ninth Avenue and Pearl Street. They left there also about ten days ago, and the police have lost track of them.
Information, however, that appears to come as reliable is that after leaving the house at Ninth and Pearl, the Covingtons went to South Alki and lived in a tent. The police are now trying to determine if that is true. If it is found that they did not live at South Alki, the police are confident that the murder was committed in the tent there, and in order to attempt to cover up the crime the body was stuffed in the trunk and deposited in the bay.
The trunk is an old-fashioned round top receptacle. The Covingtons had that particular kind of trunk when they lived at Fifth and Madison Streets.
Source: The Marion daily mirror. (Marion, Ohio), 24 Sept. 1907.
