Margaret Andrianoff, known at home as Mary, was an infant born to a Japanese mother, when fisherman Constantine (Costia) Andrianoff and his wife Annie, an Alaska Native, adopted her, according to U.S. Census records of 1900. Margaret’s father’s identity was not known, the same records said.
Margaret may have learned to read and write from her father apparently, for later Census records said she never attended school as her brothers did. Her adoptive mother could neither read nor write.
Margaret and her mother both worked in a cannery. The father in 1912 had built a comfortable home near the cannery for the family.
Trouble walked into Glacier Sea Food Company on Douglas Island in 1924. A Japanese immigrant calling himself M. Suzuki found himself a job there and soon lost his head and good sense over Margaret.
At some point in July of 1924, his attempts to woo her accelerated into stalking.
Suzuki tried to win her over with a gift of five dollars. She pushed it away and refused him. He wrote her a note. She destroyed it.
She told her mother and father about Suzuki’s harassment.
On Jan. 21, Annie Andrianoff told him he’d find himself in trouble if he continued the unwanted advances. Costia also approached him, but Suzuki ran away from him.
Early in the morning shift of July 24, just before 9 a.m., Suzuki either had the day off or failed to show up for work.
He entered the big room where mother and daughter picked through their first tray of shrimps. He wore a raincoat and street clothes.
When they went into another room to fill a second tray, he pulled out a .45 automatic Colt pistol and pumped two bullets into Margaret.
Her mother saw Margaret grab her arm with the first shot and then the girl collapsed after the second fatal shot. He then shot the mother again, and she fell to the floor. He tried to finish her off with three or four more shots, then bolted away.
By this time, two cannery workers pursued Suzuki. The murderer ran down a path where cannery proprietor H. H. Ohmer was coming at him while on his way to work. The pursuers shouted at Ohmer to stop him.
Sandwiched between Ohmer and the posse, Suzuki tried to commit suicide with one last bullet, but only tore out a chunk of flesh and brain. He went on trial after recovering in a hospital.
He was represented by Judge Wickersham and his assistant Harry R. Morton. U.S. Attorney L. O. Gore and his counterpart A. G. Shoup represented the government as prosecutors.
Wickersham argued that the case merited an all-male jury to understand a man’s passion-gone-wrong, but the court denied the request.
Doctors had also treated Suzuki for advanced syphilis during recovery.
Wickerham tried for an insanity defense, citing a mental breakdown due to the disease, but government witnesses argued Suzuki had been in a rage but sane. The defense scorned the insanity plea. The jury voted to convict.
Judge Reed, upon sentencing, told the murderer through a Japanese interpreter that his crime was among the most “revolting” acts that he considered in his court.
“You killed an innocent, young girl and shot her mother,” Reed said. “For this killing you have been found guilty by a jury of first-degree murder without capital punishment, as it was authorized by law to do. Thus, you cannot suffer capital imprisoned for life.”
Reed reminded Suzuki that similar crimes brought murderers to the gallows. A Juneau Empire reporter noted that the prisoner was more “cheerful” and “brighter” than he had been during the trial, perhaps because he’d learned that he would not be hung.
“You will be taken hence and imprisoned for the remainder of your natural life at hard labor in the United States penitentiary at McNeil’s Island (Washington).”
M. Suzuki was still serving his sentence in 1940, according to census records that year. Instead of hard labor, however, he toiled as a watchmaker.
Hank Nuwer is a writer and adjunct professor of journalism at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks.