Page 30 - Pierce County Lawyer - May June 2024

You are respectfully invited to attend,
and this card will admit you to the execution of
Salvador Picani
to occur on Friday July 1, 1892
in the Pierce County Jail Yard, Tacoma, Wash.
J.H. Price
J.H. Price Sheriff
Invitation
to a
Hanging
By John Weaver
The invitation you see above was
sent to the 34 county sheriffs in Washington, plus two ministers, two
doctors and the press. But the event never took place.
Salvatore Picani was not hanged. In fact, he lived on until 1936, and died in Seattle of natural causes at age 76. He was able
to avoid his hanging because of the activities of Father Peter Hylebos, Marshall K. Snell, and Orra L.C. Hughes—of whom more later.
Salvatore Picani (sometimes called Salvatore Pagano)1, Salvatore Conchilla (sometimes called George), and Guiseppe Moresi (sometimes spelled Moreci) were Italian immigrants to Tacoma. They peddled fruit for a living and lived in the area of what is now the UW-Tacoma Campus.
In the evening of April 4, 1892, Salvatore persuaded Officer O’Malley of the Tacoma Police Department to check on Conchilla, whom he said he hadn’t seen all day. They went to Concilla’s home and found him dead. He had been stabbed multiple times2 and beaten with a hatchet.
According to the Tacoma Daily Ledger, more than 700 people came to Slayden’s Funeral Parlor to view Conchilla’s remains. The investigation proceeded with great speed and by April 15 both Salvatore and Moresi were arraigned. According to the paper Salvatore was represented by John V. Evans and Moresi by Marshall Snell.3 Interestingly, the prosecutor in the case was also named Snell—William Snell. He later became a judge in Pierce County.
There were stories on the murder almost every day and the level of reporting was about what one might have expected from
the yellow journalism of the era.4 A little flavor of this can be seen in the reporting of Salvatore’s reply to the question of how blood got on him:
I donta know, if I gota blooda when I lifta blanketa offa man’s face, I goa wid policeman.5
1 We will refer to him as Picani since that was the name under which he was to be hanged. Sometimes we will call him Salvatore. No disrespect is intended.
2 He had been stabbed 36 times and the weapon was often referred to as a stiletto although it was never produced.
3 There was apparently some confusion about who was representing each party
but at the end Marshall Snell represented Picani before the Supreme Court. More on Marshall Snell later. John V. Evans was apparently an attorney from Iowa; he died in Tacoma in November of 1893.
4 ‘Yellow Journalism’ was the term used for the outrageous reporting, scared headlines, and sometimes made-up stories that characterized the papers published
by, among others, William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer. It may have had to do with a cartoon called ‘The Yellow Kid.’
5 The stories were carried in the Tacoma Daily Ledger. Some of us recall when the
The coroner who was called to the scene at first ascribed the murder to a member of the Mafia.6
After an arraignment on April 15, the trial began on April
28 (that’s one speedy trial). Salvatore was tried first and was defended by John V. Evans. The case against him was largely circumstantial, as the Supreme Court pointed out when his appeal was ultimately heard. Evans put up what seems to have been an able defense; but it failed. He was convicted on May 9, 1892 and sentenced to hang, leading to the invitation at the start of this article. Moresi left Tacoma immediately after the verdict. Apparently, the charges against him were dismissed. The paper said he went back to ‘Sunny Italy.’
BUT WAIT—THERE—S MORE TO THIS STORY.
First, we need to properly introduce three people who played roles in Pecani’s ultimate freedom:
Father Peter Hylebos was a Belgian Catholic Priest born in 1848 and ordained there in 1870. He came to Quebec that same year and then to San Francisco. He served in Portland, Kelso and Olympia and arrived in Tacoma in 1880 and took over the St. Leo’s Parish then at Sixth and Division. Hylebos Creek is named for him. In 1888 the church was at its present location. Salvatore was a parishioner of the church and Father Hylebos counseled him, raised funds for his appeal and organized on his behalf.
Marshall K. Snell is mostly remembered now as the husband of Bertha Snell, the first woman admitted to practice law in Washington7. He was born in Iowa, orphaned at 4, adopted by a family in Wisconsin and came to Tacoma in 1888 where he gained a reputation as a successful trial attorney. He initially represented Moresi but switched to working on Picani’s successful appeal.
Orra8 L.C. Hughes was an African-American lawyer who was born in Pennsylvania and began life as a farm laborer. He worked for the Freedman Bureau after the Civil War. At
News Tribune (once the Morning News Tribune) was the ‘News Tribune and Sunday Ledger.’
6 ‘Mafia’ was not widely used in this country at that time. Violent crimes ascribed to Italians were more likely to be blamed on the ‘Black Hand’ like Don Fanucci in the Godfather Part II, but the good doctor was apparently a early adopter of the term.
7 The were married in 1893 so it is likely they were courting during this time.
8 Ora or Orra is now primarily a female name. It may come from the Scottish for odd or unusual or may be related to auric meaning golden.
30 PIERCE COUNTY LAWYER | May/June 2024