In hindsight, the last night of Edwin Hutton's life was littered with bad omens. A 54-year-old cook at a bar on Capitol Hill, Hutton was set to clock out at midnight when he accidentally locked his keys in the back room. Then he discovered a flat on his '56 Plymouth Sedan.
Photo courtesy of Riggins family
Dawud Malik, then, when he was still known as David Riggins, or "Too Sweet" to his friends.
Photo courtesy of Riggins family
Dawud Malik, now.
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After replacing the tire and picking up a spare key from a co-worker, Hutton bellied up to a dive across the street from his own bar that was called, as fate would have it, the Lucky Inn. It was just past 1:30 on Saturday morning, December 4, 1965.
Hutton asked the bartender, his friend Ken Klepeck, to cash his $30 paycheck and mix him a screwdriver. He gulped it down, then ordered another.
About five minutes after 2 a.m., Klepeck cleared out the bar and began counting the cash in his till. From where he stood, he could see out the window to the intersection of 14th Avenue and East Madison Street, where he watched as Hutton walked unsteadily to his car, followed closely by two men who had been loitering on the corner.
Klepeck would later tell police that the men were "two Negroes:" one tall and thin, the other short, stocky, and wearing a sport coat. He said he had noticed them earlier in the evening because he feared they were casing his place for a robbery. So when he saw the men climb into the front seat of his friend's Plymouth, Klepeck stuck his head out the front door and shouted to Hutton, asking if everything was all right. Hutton rolled down his window, hollered "Hell yes! They're a couple friends of mine," then drove off.
In truth, Hutton had never met the two strangers now in his car. Near Garfield High School, they directed him to turn onto a side street. At the intersection of 22nd Avenue and East Terrace Street, they told him to stop. The shorter of the two men pulled out a .32 caliber pistol and pointed it at Hutton's head. His partner got out, walked around to the driver's-side door, and demanded Hutton's wallet.
A little tipsy and carrying almost a full paycheck's worth of cash, Hutton lashed out at the man with the gun, hitting him in the face and shouting, "Nobody's going to take my money!"
The pistol went off twice during the ensuing scuffle. The first shot was fired from such close range that when the gun recoiled, the barrel sights left a mark on the bottom of Hutton's chin. That bullet hit him in the throat, grazing his jugular vein before lodging behind a vertebra in the back of his neck. The second slug came to rest underneath the skin near his left shoulder blade.
By the time police arrived, Hutton was lying face down in the wet gutter next to his car, barely alive. Pressed for details about his assailants, he could only offer the limited description provided by his buddy Klepeck: They were "a couple Negroes," he said. Later, in the hospital, Hutton gave detectives a few more clues. He said one of the men was taller and wore a dark dress hat. The other was husky and about 5 feet 9 inches tall, with a small scar on his forehead. He didn't catch either of their names.
Conflicting accounts from the few eyewitnesses at the crime scene weren't much help either. One said they'd seen two men run away into the night; another swore a car parked next to Hutton's sped off just after the shooting. The person who got the best look, a 17-year-old car thief named William Estill, said he had been standing in a nearby alley when the shots were fired. He told police he'd seen two men running, but, like the others, couldn't get a good look at them.
Soaking wet and bleeding heavily, Hutton rambled to police as he waited for an ambulance. A detective would later testify that the cook went from quiet and afraid to cursing his attackers and vowing revenge. Yet Hutton would never get his shot at payback: He died the following afternoon.
When they came to get him, Dawud Malik was dozing under a tree on a sunny spring Seattle afternoon. It was May 27, 1966, nearly six months after Edwin Hutton had been shot, and Malik, 19, was then going by his given name, David Washington Riggins.
Malik was stretched out on the front lawn of the Riggins family's Central District home, taking advantage of the good weather along with his girlfriend and brother James. The only thing on his mind before he closed his eyes was what to do first before a Friday night out on the town: pick up his dry cleaning or take a bath?
"It was a gorgeous day," says Malik from behind a glass barrier at the Stafford Creek Correctional Facility in Aberdeen. "I didn't have a care in the world."
But his peaceful slumber was soon interrupted by four Seattle police officers. They searched his house—without a warrant, he says—and took particular interest in his new watch and cigarette lighter. Malik knew the goods were stolen, but he wasn't concerned. In and out of juvenile lockup since he was 15, he had grown accustomed to police questioning.
