Fairhaven Herald

FATAL FIGHT IN SEATTLE
Charles H. Defiel is Shot and Killed
By John H. Fay

SUNDAY AND THE FAIR
Judge Woods is of the Opinion That Injunction Must Issue and the Fair Closes

SEATTLE, June 8—A drunken row, induced by jealousy, a desire to rob, or a simple wish to fight, resulted between 5 and 6 this morning in the sudden death of Charles L. Defiel and such serious injury to John H. Fay that he had to be taken to Providence hospital, beaten in a condition to render him unable to tell a word of the cause of the trouble and its brutal results. It was about 5:30 o'clock that Mrs. J. Rogers, who lives on Charles street, between Eighth and Ninth streets, had occasion to pass her shanty window and saw two men in a serious difficulty on the Grant street bridge nearly in front of the electric light works. The fight, for such it was, had apparently been in progress some minutes when Mrs. Rogers first saw the men. At that time the man, who afterward proved to be John H. Fay, was lying flat on his back and striving to rise.

Fay, who could not talk this morning, was able to make himself understood this afternoon when a reporter of the Press-Times called. He acknowledged knowing of the shooting and says that while lying on the ground, beaten almost insensible, he drew the revolver out of his hip pocket while Defiel was still beating and kicking him, and he pressed the revolver upward and fired. He did not know what direction the bullet took nor what became of the revolver, as he became entirely unconscious after he had fired and was surprised to learn that the revolver was found in Defiel's hand when the trouble was ended,

The inquest on the remains was to have been held this afternoon at Bonney & Stewart's undertaking rooms, but owing to Fay's critical condition Coroner Horton decided to postpone it until 2 o'clock tomorrow afternoon.