Marin County Deaths

Transcribed by Betty Wilson

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C.P. SEVERANCE
            (NOTE:  Page 256, including start of article, is missing).
Him during this last year of his service.  It is plain that his plan was well 
matured�it was not the result of a sudden impulse.  He had, no doubt, waited 
long for a favorable time, and at last it came.  It was collection day; Mr. 
Severance would come in about night, his pocket heavy with what would make the 
cook a rich man in China.  Not a guest was at the ranch.  Even Mrs. Severance 
and the children were absent.  Mr. Throckmorton and three friends had an 
appointment to be there that night, but it was abandoned on account of the 
storm.  If they had gone, they would have joined Charley at Victor�s, and the 
horrid crime would have been defeated or postponed,  In the leisure hours of 
that day a grave had been dug within a few feet of the house, and in nothing 
more than in the manner of that job is shown the consummate skill of this 
fiendish murderer.  Each stratum of earth taken out of the grave was carefully 
laid by itself, to be as carefully replaced, and so skillfully was this carried 
out that if the villain could have kept his tongue as well as he dug and 
refilled the grave, only the sound of the resurrection trumpet would have 
revealed it.  Not long after Severance reached home that night�it was probably 
after dark�he went out, and no doubt was milking, when the Chinaman stealthily 
approached him from behind, and dealt him a powerful blow with an ax in the back 
of the head.  The contents of a pistol were paidly shot into him, one ball 
passing through his heart.  The blow with the ax was fatal, the pistol wounds 
not bleeding shows that the blood was congealed.  His watch was pulled off, but 
owing to the Chinese dread of touching a dead body, his pockets were not 
searched, and over a hundred dollars were buried with him.  The cunning which 
had guided the fellow in digging the grave did not forsake him in refilling it.  
The remains of the victim were dragged with a rope around the neck, and 
carefully disposed of in the grave.  Articles of clothing were laid over the 
body, and it was so solidly covered, the earth being moistened and tramped down 
as each layer was replaced, that a mere suspicion would never have led to its 
being re-opened.  After it was filled and leveled off, the surface was scratched 
over, as by a hen, and a hen�s nest, which had been lifted off to begin with, 
was carefully replaced.  Nearly every trace of the foul deed was carefully 
obliterated�the bloody ax being the only evidence the cool fiend overlooked.  
Wong then secured his treasure, and began to plan his escape.  But the vision of 
a life of luxury in his native land, when he should reach it with his 
blood-stained wealth, was not his only company that night.  He was not the 
stolid brute which many of his countrymen are.  The qualities which had made him 
both an efficient and a trusted servant, now made him alive to his base 
ingratitude, and fearful lest his crime should overtake him.  His nerves 
quivered with fear, and his blood burned with fever.  He spent a wakeful and 
remorseful night, but it was nothing to the ghoul-haunted terrors soon to come 
upon him.  The next morning, wearied  and worried, he left the scene of his 
horrid deed, with his ill-gotten gold, and started, as he hoped, for China.  But 
suspicion followed him.  He had barely time to secret his effects under a 
washhouse floor in Saucelito, before the hand of the law was on him.  He could 
not talk as he had wrought.  With determined and desperate villainy he tried to 
fasten the crime on another, Antone Petar, a neighbor.  In two days the public 
excitement had become intense, and the region was full of busy men, intent on 
finding out what was only known to Wong.  He and the Portuguese whom he had 
falsely accused were lodged in jail, and the officers of the law and citizens 
worked night and day to find the missing man.  Detectives Lees, Coffee and Avan, 
from the city, conferred with Sheriff Mason, and then took hold of the case with 
him.  They had a perfect understanding to begin with, and after that worked in 
perfect harmony together.  Mr. Lees obtained Sheriff Mason�s consent that he 
should interview Wong, all by himself, whenever he wished, the only condition 
being that the prisoner should not be abused or roughly handled.  Mr. Lees� 
methods with Wong are not known, beyond the strategy of putting another Chinese 
prisoner with him, to draw out the facts.  Although it is further understood 
that Wong thought Lees was his friend, perhaps a lawyer employed by his 
countrymen to secure his release.  His visits to that cell are frequent.  He 
stays an hour, a half hour, longer, he comes and goes.  The special efforts of 
the officers go on, the miscellaneous, but persistent and determined search of 
friends and neighbors are made in every ravine, gulch, and secluded place in the 
region.  On the twelfth day after the crime the little knot of officers are 
digging under a shed near the house.  The earth is solid.  There is not a sign 
that dirt or pebble in that spot had been disturbed since the American 
occupation.  But the digging goes on, down one, two, three, four feet, and then 
the arm of a man is seen.  A little more dirt is carefully removed, and enough 
is disclosed to identify the body of Severance.  It was not wholly uncovered 
that day, and next morning Coroner Eden was there with casket and ice, and the 
remains of the murdered man were brought to San Rafael.  The autopsy confirmed 
one part of Wong�s statement, viz, the five shots had been fired.  Communication 
between the detective and the Chinaman was kept up, and last Saturday morning, 
following another revelation wormed from him, the officers went to the washhouse 
in Saucelito, where they found the money, to obtain which Severance was killed, 
and with a pistol and jacket belonging to Wong Chi Long.  This completed the 
work.  The mystery was solved.  The whole dark story of the crime was told.  The 
money and other articles were taken to the Chinaman by the officers.  The father 
and widow of Severance were present.  Lees then threw off his previous strategy, 
and now became Wong�s accuser.  He was stunned and dazed, but still stuck to his 
denial, and clung to the thin lie, �The Portuguese,� �The Portuguese.�  He 
denied owning the jacket, though Mrs. Severance testified she made it for him; 
he denied owning the pistol, which was identified as his; and he pretended he 
had never before seen the watch and chain, which Severance had always worn.  The 
funeral of Severance took place from the Presbyterian church in San Rafael, 
Sunday, 18th, Rev. James S. McDonald officiating.  It was the largest funeral 
ever seen in the county, and very many strong men was moved to tears by the 
unutterable sadness of the occasion.  The funeral was conducted by the Ancient 
Order of United Workmen, of which deceased was an honored member, the Saucelito 
and San Rafael Lodges uniting.  The remains were buried in Mount Tamalpais 
Cemetery, beside a little son of the deceased, who was buried there a few months 
ago.  At the grave the liturgy of the Order was read by the officers of the 
Saucelito Lodge.  The character of Charles W. Severance was good and noble.  Mr. 
Throckmorton, who knew him best, pays the highest tribute to his ability and 
personal worth.  He was a young many of much more than ordinary promise.  But 
for his untimely taking off, he would have come into prominence as a leader, in 
any sphere he might have chosen.  But for his extreme modesty and retiring 
disposition, he would have been much more prominent than he was.  He leaves a 
father and mother, a widow and two children, a brother and sister, and a legion 
of friends.  As soon as the web of evidence began to close about the suspected 
Chinaman, he was locked up each night in an iron cell.  The first night in there 
he was very uneasy, and pleaded hard to be allowed outside, but his petition was 
unheeded.  All that night and the next he cried and moaned most piteously, and 
Friday night, at lock-up, he fell upon his knees before Sheriff and begged in 
agony that he might stay in the large cell.  But in he went.  He was still the 
first part of that night, but later the Chinaman in another cell heard a most 
unearthly cry, followed by yells and screams of mortal terror.  He asked him 
what was the matter, and Wong answered that the Mexican man�s devil had come to 
him.  He imitated the noise made by his approach, and described his appearance, 
and appeared to be in a perfect agony of terror.  He said he would rather die 
than pass another night there.  Sheriff Mason had taken every precaution to 
prevent his doing himself bodily harm.  His cue was unbraided and taken away, 
his sash was taken off, and his bedstead was removed from the cell.  His 
condition was not extraordinary Sunday morning, and the Sheriff�s attention was 
directed more to the mutterings of lynch law, and the danger from the outside, 
than to the fear of the prisoner�s self-destruction.  As soon as Severance�s 
funeral was over, Sheriff Mason hurried to the jail, to make sure that no 
attempt at violence should be made, when he found the dead body of Wong, 
suspended by the neck.  The Chinaman had torn up one of his under garments, and 
tied and twisted the strips into a rope.  On the upper part of the tank were 
half-inch holes, six inches apart, for ventilation.  He had managed to pass the 
end of his rope through one of these holes and bring it back through another, 
and this was repeated, so that the rope was tied through four holes.  He then 
made a loop through which he put his head, perhaps doubling his mattress to 
stand on, and then threw his weight on his neck.  He was strangled to death.  
His body lay in the Coroner�s back room while the inquest upon his victim was 
proceeding in the front room.  It remained there, lying in the zinc box, until 
Wednesday morning.  The earth refused to receive and hide it.  No cemetery would 
give it room, and his own countrymen said �No sabbee.�  At last the Corner was 
obliged to go to the city and get a permit to bury it in the Chinese cemetery, 
where he took it yesterday.

History of Marin County, California; Including Its Geography, Geology, 
Topography and Climatology; by J. P. Munro-Fraser, Historian; Alley, 
Bowen & Co., Publishers, San Francisco, California, 1880