On This Date in Minnesota History: March 4

March 4, 1914 – This evening police arrested Louis T. Johnson on a farm 17 miles from Russell, Lyon County, Minn., on a charge of attacking Mrs. Clarence E. MacRae and Leslie Almquist in a grocery store in northeast Minneapolis last Saturday afternoon. Mrs. MacRae was stabbed six times and a poker shoved down her throat. The Almquist boy was beaten and the poker also shoved down his throat.

Russell, Lyon County, Minn.¹

Johnson, after stoutly maintaining that he knew nothing about the case, had broken down and admitted that he had attacked the woman and the boy and that his sole purpose was to rob the cash drawer for cash to meet the immediate needs of himself and his bride whom he had married the night before he made the attack.

It was on two meager clues, a newspaper from which a marriage license had been cut out and a remark that Johnson is said to have made to Mrs. MacRae to the effect that his name was Johnson and that he had been married the night before, which Minneapolis detectives Irving and Ohmann built up a network around the suspect.

The man who brutally attacked Mrs. MacRae as she was getting a few cents of apples for him, had been loitering in the store for nearly an hour. Mrs. MacRae thought he was there to seek shelter from the cold and windstorm of last Saturday. While he was apparently “killing time,” he made remarks, once saying that his name was Johnson and that he had been married on Friday night. These facts came back to Mrs. MacRae after she had recovered from the effects of the attack sufficiently to her story to the police.

The stranger had been reading a newspaper and just before he leaped upon Mrs. MacRae had cut a two-line notice of the issuance of a marriage license to Louis T. Johnson, 22, and Bertha Stumo, 23, from the paper. Detectives Irving and Ohmann recovered this paper after Mrs. MacRae told her story, and the first real clue was obtained.

Marriage Licenses²

Methodically, the detectives, aided by Peter S. Neilson, clerk of the court, checked over the Johnsons to whom marriage licenses had been granted within the week previous to the day of the assault. The deduction eliminated all but Louis T. Johnson. But the detectives were “stumped” because the address given was Billings, Mont., and there was no record of where he was staying in Minneapolis.

Back to Mrs. MacRae went the detectives. They talked over the clue as far as they had gone. Mrs. MacRae began to recall other things. She remembered that the stranger had asked her if a family named Strand lived in the vicinity. Mrs. MacRae mentioned such a family but the man said that was not the one.

He mentioned one family that formerly lived in South Minneapolis. Mrs. MacRae told him where they lived. This bit of information opened a new line of deduction for the detectives. A little more plodding and the family in question was located. From them Irving and Oh gleaned the fact that a Johnson had been married Friday night. They also got the address of the girl.

An interview with the girl elicited the fact that she had not seen her husband since Saturday. According to the police, the girl said she met Johnson in Billings, Mont., where he was a railroad fireman. She came east to her home here and later, Johnson, who was offered the management of C. Willard’s farm, 17 miles from Russell, proposed to her. He was accepted and came here to marry her; then the couple planned to settle at the Willard farm.

Mr. and Mrs. Louis T. Johnson³

The police believed that Johnson had gone to the farm. Early this morning the chief’s automobile was pressed into service and the detectives were able to reach Willmar, when they gave up the chase in the auto and took the train to Russell. They reached the farm late this evening.

When they arrested Johnson he proclaimed his innocence. Cross examination broke him down, however, and according to the police, he admitted that he attacked Mrs. MacRae.

Johnson’s lack of money is the motive ascribed by the police. They say that the young man told them he was without funds to care for his bride and that in desperation he came up with the idea of robbing the MacRae’s grocery store.

The Minneapolis Morning Tribune; “Slender Clues Lead to Assault Suspect. Newspaper Clipping Helps Find Alleged Assailant of Mrs. MacRae. Louis T. Johnson, Arrested in Lyon County, Minn., Said to Have Confessed. Stabbed Woman, Beat Boy, and Robbed Till, He Says, for Sake of Bride.”; March 5, 1914; pp. 1 & 2.

¹https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell,_Minnesota#/media/File:Lyon_County_Minnesota_Incorporated_and_Unincorporated_areas_Russell_Highlighted.svg

²The Minneapolis Morning Tribune; February 28, 1914; p. 19.

³The Minneapolis Morning Tribune; March 6, 1914; p. 1.


NE Minneapolis Grocery Store Owner and Boy Customer Stabbed and Stove Poker Thrust Down Their Throats; Both Survive; see Feb. 28, 2018 blog.