4A COTTAGE GROVE SENTINEL OCTOBER 25, 2017
O PINION
Offbeat Oregon History: 1886 Lafayette axe murder
On November 11,
1887, a 28-year-old
convicted murderer
named Richard Mar-
ple stood on the scaffold in the town of Lafayette
and shouted his defi ance at the crowd below.
“Murder!” he yelled, as the black hood was fi t-
ted over his head. “May God judge you all!”
Marple had maintained his innocence until the
bitter end. But his alibi story had changed sever-
al times, and he’d further damaged his credibility
severely by claiming that the real killer of store-
keeper David Corker twelve months before was
the Yamhill County Sheriff, Thomas J. Harris,
leading a conspiratorial cabal of prominent mem-
bers of the local Masons Lodge.
Corker had been found in his bed, brutally
chopped about the head and shoulders with an ax.
In the days before the murder, Marple had been
overheard joking about how easy it would be to
rob Corker, because he was deaf; and Marple was
widely suspected of being a thief and a robber.
He had moved with his family from Corvallis a
year before, and already the family was regarded
with considerable suspicion in Lafayette. Mar-
ple’s mother, Anna, a hard-eyed woman who was
believed to be a “gypsy,” lived with him and his
wife, Julia, and their several children.
The evidence against Richard Marple was cir-
cumstantial, and there really wasn’t a whole lot
of it, although what there was was serious. The
sheriff had noticed blood on his coat the day after
the murder. Richard explained it as having come
from a butchered hog; his wife, Julia, claimed it
had come from a child’s injury. Richard also was
in possession of burglar’s tools, which was im-
portant because a rear window had been forced to
get in and kill Corker. There were his witnessed
remarks about how easy it would be to rob him.
By Finn JD John
For The Sentinel
The real problem for Richard Marple, though,
was his mouth. Had he been able to keep quiet
and be nice, he likely would have been acquitted
for lack of hard evidence; but he seemed utterly
unable to keep his mouth shut. When he’d fi rst
been arrested, he’d fi rst denied involvement and
then, with a nasty smile, issued a series of uncom-
plimentary remarks about the deceased murder
victim. During jury selection he made no attempt
to conceal his contempt for everyone in the room,
and took obvious pleasure in any display of hos-
tility or enmity from townspeople.
So it shouldn’t have been much of a surprise
when the jury found him guilty.
The judge accidentally scheduled his hanging
for a Sunday, so additional hearings had to be
convened to make new arrangements, and anoth-
er court had to study the question of whether the
error was grave enough to require a new trial. (It
decided that it was not.) Consequently it wasn’t
until a full year after the crime was committed
that Marple went through the fl oor of the scaffold
to pay for it.
It wasn’t a clean execution. Even by 1880s stan-
dards, it was a barbaric and sickening spectacle.
The knot slipped up under the condemned man’s
chin and it took him 18 minutes to slowly strangle
to death. Meanwhile, from outside the courtyard,
the baleful screams of Marple’s “gypsy” mother
arose, calling down curses and maledictions upon
the town, screeching that she would see it burn.
By the time the grim spectacle was all over,
several members of the crowd might have been
feeling a little uneasy about it, wondering if all the
trouble was a sign — if maybe he was innocent
after all.
They wouldn’t wonder for long.
The very next day, one of Marple’s cell mates,
William Henry Hess, came forward with a re-
markable story. The day before his execution,
Marple had pulled him aside and told him he’d
give him the truth if he’d swear to keep it secret
until after his death.
Here’s the story Marple told Hess:
Needing money badly, and knowing Corker
had plenty, he had collaborated with his wife and
his mother to rob him. The plan was that Anna,
who was carrying on a secret affair with Corker,
would, after suitably vamping the deaf merchant,
fi x him a drink with knockout drops in it. Then
she’d unlock the door and let Richard in to rob
the place.
At the appointed time, Richard found that
Anna had forgotten to unlock the door for him,
so he had to break in through a window. He found
Anna there with the drugged and sleeping Corker,
and after a few minutes they had found his wad:
$203.75 (worth about $5,600 in 2017 dollars).
Only then had they realized that Anna — whose
affair with Corker was of course widely suspect-
ed — would be the very fi rst suspect hauled in
for questioning when the robbery was discovered.
Especially if the entire family left town 48 hours
later, as they planned to do.
Richard Marple had an idea, though. They’d
kill Corker and then set the building on fi re.
Anna then grabbed an ax and aimed a very dif-
fi dent and girlish blow at her unconscious lover.
She missed, but the pole clipped his head and
woke him up.
Now galvanized to action, Richard grabbed the
ax and messily fi nished the job. But the screams
and cries for help had spooked both Marples (and
had been heard by passers-by), so instead of light-
ing the place on fi re, they hastily arranged the
corpse in a ritualistic-looking way, hoping to de-
fl ect attention onto the Masons, and then legged
it.
Dr. Fuhrman: Fighting breast cancer with diet
The old adage “An ounce of prevention is
worth a pound of cure” best describes what our
focus should be regarding breast cancer, which
is the most common form of cancer that affects
women, and is the second leading cause of death
for women after heart disease. While a great deal
of money and attention is focused on breast can-
cer awareness, it would make more sense to con-
centrate on preventing the disease from occurring
in the fi rst place.
There are nutritional strategies that are safe,
easily implemented and have been proven effec-
tive in reducing the risk of breast cancer. Among
the most powerful anti-cancer foods are fl ax and
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
A word on Measure 20-280
The Chamber Cottage Grove Area Chamber of
Commerce supports Measure 20-278 which will
renew the South Lane Fire District’s Local Option
Levy at its current level. The Chamber’s Legisla-
tive Committee has reviewed the measure and the
Board of Directors voted unanimously to take a
position of support to renew the levy. This is not
a new tax and a “yes” vote allows the district to
maintain their current level of staffi ng and oper-
ations. Our fi re district enjoys the second lowest
permanent tax rate among Lane County’s 24 fi re
districts yet we recently received one of the best
ISO (Insurance Services Offi ce) ratings in the en-
tire state, which can signifi cantly reduce insurance
costs for home and property owners. Without this
funding, the district could potentially have to cut
up to 9 positions which would negatively impact
emergency response time, their ability to provide
ambulance service and our newly acquired ISO
rating. In other words, it could cost our citizens
and businesses more to let the levy expire than it
will cost to maintain it at it’s current level. On be-
half of the Cottage Grove Area Chamber of Com-
merce, we urge you to VOTE YES ON 20-278!
Travis Palmer, chamber executive director
Chloe Becks chamber president
chia seeds, which are a rich source of lignans.
Lignans have anti-estrogenic effects that inhibit
cell growth in breast tumors.
Let’s take an in-depth look at lignans and why
they are so effective in combating breast cancer.
Plant lignans are one of the four classes of
phytoestrogens (isofl avones, lignans, stilben-
es, coumestans). Phytoestrogens are a group of
chemicals found in plants that can act like the hor-
mone estrogen. In particular, lignans are struc-
turally similar to the main mammalian estrogen,
estradiol. Plant lignans are modifi ed by bacteria in
the human digestive tract into enteroligans.
Enterolignans are structurally similar to estro-
gen and can bind to estrogen receptors. This capa-
bility allows lignans to either have weak estrogen-
ic activity or block the actions of estrogen in the
body. For this reason, plant lignans are classifi ed
as phytoestrogens, and there has been much in-
terest in the potential contribution of lignan-rich
foods to reduced risk of hormone-related cancers.
It is important to recognize the role of healthy
bacteria in this process, because antibiotics can
destroy benefi cial bacteria in the gut, resulting in
long-term reduction in enteroligans. Eating com-
They still might have gotten away — but Julia,
Richard’s wife, got sick, delaying their planned
exit long enough for the sheriff to develop suspi-
cions and arrest mother and son on burglary and
murder charges.
Hess said Richard Marple also told him that
he’d killed before, and with an ax too. In 1879,
he said, he and three other men had murdered
an old lady, a Mrs. Hagar, in Oregon City; they
had heard she’d come into considerable money.
Mrs. Hagar had turned out to be a savage fi ghter,
though, and nearly turned the tables on them; but
eventually Marple had gotten her with the ax. He
showed Hess a ring that he said he’d taken from
her.
He also told Hess that he and three other men
had killed a French woman in Portland, and that
they had gotten quite a bit of money from her.
This may have been Emma Merlotin, a French-
born courtesan whose brutal ax murder in 1885 in
her luxurious “crib” had shocked the city and led
to a crackdown on brothels there.
So: was it all true? Jailhouse confessions are
notoriously unreliable; it might have been a play
by Hess to get out early, or possibly the notorious-
ly cold-blooded Marple just wanted to put a little
posthumous scare into the people of Lafayette.
In any case, the people of the town believed it,
and likely felt less confl icted about his bungled
execution after hearing it.
After the execution, Julia Marple, Richard’s
wife, moved back to the Corvallis area; less than
nine months after the execution, she was remar-
ried and moving on with her life. Anna, his “gyp-
sy” mother, moved to Jackson County and eked
out a living on her late husband’s military pen-
sion; she died at the age of 94.
mercial meats expose us to antibiotics, as does the
overuse and inappropriate prescribing of these
drugs by physicians.
The best sources of plant lignans:
Flaxseeds are the richest source of plant lig-
nans, having about three times the lignan content
of chia seeds, and eight times the lignan content
of sesame seeds.
Women ate either a control muffi n with no fl ax
seeds imbedded, or a 25g fl ax-containing muffi n,
starting at time of diagnosis of breast cancer for
just 32-39 days until surgery. Tumor tissue ana-
lyzed at diagnosis and then at the time of surgery
demonstrated surprising benefi ts even in this short
time frame. There was a signifi cant apoptosis (tu-
mor cell death) and reduced cell proliferation in
the fl axseed group in just the one month.
Likewise, women eating more fl axseeds with
a documented higher serum enterolactone were
found to have a 42% reduced risk of death from
postmenopausal breast cancer and a dramatic
40% reduction in all causes of death.
Bottom line: don’t forget to take your ground
fl ax seeds (or chia seeds) every day.
C ottage G rove
S entinel
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