Let’s remember when Washington executed its first inmate, on this day in 1904 (May 6)
Washington state has executed 78 people. That number will likely remain the same for some time, as the state’s Supreme Court invalidated the death penalty in 2018.
Still, it had to begin somewhere, and that somewhere is with a Zenon Champoux, who became the unlucky answer to a trivia question.
Per HistoryLink:
On May 6, 1904, the State of Washington carries out its first execution. Zenon “James” Champoux is hanged at the Washington State Penitentiary at Walla Walla for the murder of Lottie Brace in Seattle on November 5, 1902. Executions prior to this were held in public in the counties where the defendant was convicted. Champoux is the first of 78 prisoners who will be executed at the state penitentiary between 1904 and 2010, when Cal Brown becomes the last person executed in Washington before the state supreme court invalidates the death penalty in 2018.
His crime sounds like it came straight out of 2019:
Zenon Champoux was a 26-year-old French Canadian prospecting in Alaska when he met entertainer Lottie Brace, age 18. Brace promised to marry Champoux, then she left for Spokane and Seattle. She found employment “working as a dance hall girl below the line [south of Yesler Way].” Champoux found Brace at the Arcade variety theater with her sister Ella. When Brace rejected his advances, he stabbed her in the temple with his knife in front of witnesses. She died later that day.
The Seattle Star reportedly called him a “French degenerate,” which is 1904-speak for “Christ, what an asshole.”
