A U.S. Immigration officer mysteriously disappeared in Everett on Dec. 28, 1939. He was 62 years old.
Inspector Roy Maxwelton Porter (1877-1939) went missing around 6 a.m. while on a routine assignment at the Weyerhaeuser Timber Company’s dock to clear the Greek vessel SS Chloe to sail for Vancouver, British Columbia. A night watchman for Weyerhaeuser was the last to see him.
Fearing foul play, law enforcement launched a coastwide search for the officer, but police found no clues as to his whereabouts. A Border Patrol agent suspects Porter drove his car off the Weyerhaeuser shipping pier. After three days of searching around the pier, divers find an automobile with the body of the missing man inside. The Snohomish County Coroner’s Office determined Porter’s death was an accidental drowning.
Porter had served with the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service in Seattle for 23 years. At the time of his death, he was in charge of the Seattle District’s Chinese Division.
The following is a play-by-play of Porter’s disappearance and discovery.
Day 01
December 28, 1939
At 3:30 a.m. on Dec. 28, 1939, Porter left Seattle in the rain to the Weyerhaeuser dock. He was driving a 1937 Ford station wagon with license plate No. 332. He was out for a routine night’s work to clear the Chloe scheduled to sail to Canada at 6 a.m. His inspection was to ensure the crew listed on the freighter’s manifest was accurate.
His disappearance wasn’t discovered until four hours later. Around 8 a.m. another inspector picked up a Greek sailor, whom the captain of the Chloe had agreed to take on board, from the detention facility at the USINS’s Seattle station. When he arrived at the docks, the captain told the inspector that Porter never returned to the ship to inspect the crew.
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What sparked the foul play fear with the officer’s disappearance?
The Weyerhaeuser night watchman had seen Porter come back to the pier around 6 a.m. but didn’t see him leave again. The USINS immediately launched an investigation into Porter’s disappearance.
In 1933, a Customs Patrol officer had been kidnapped from Snohomish County and found beaten and shackled to a tree in Oregon. The USINS feared it was a repeat abduction, so the Seattle station issued a bulletin to all law enforcement along the West Coast to be on the lookout for Porter’s Ford Fordor.
An extensive search of the Everett business district didn’t turn up the missing inspector or his government vehicle. Meanwhile, search teams kept looking for a sign of him in the harbor, as there was speculation that he had accidentally driven off the Weyerhaeuser shipping pier in the dark and rain.
Day 03
December 30, 1939
On Dec. 30, 1939, a Border Patrol agent discovered tire tracks on the bridge pier nearby. The markings ran between two tall stacks of lumber, showing where an automobile had plunged off the dock. He also found the lens from a Ford taillight, in testament to the theory that Porter had driven his car off the pier. At 11:15 a.m., they located Porter’s Ford Fordor about 20 feet from the pier. The vehicle was upside down and under 11 feet of water.
The Snohomish County deputy coroner had Porter’s body taken to the morgue to determine if he had been a victim of foul play. That afternoon, the Coroner’s Office reported that Porter had accidentally drowned. He was trapped in the Ford when it plunged off the dock. The driver’s side window was broken, indicating he may have smashed it in an effort to escape. When he returned to the Weyerhaeuser Timber Company at 6 a.m., Porter had missed by 300 feet the turn to the pier where the Chloe was moored.
Porter was the second USINS officer to be killed in the line of duty in Washington. The first was Charles M. Flachs, who was shot by Canadian gangster Edward McMullen at the border checkpoint in Blaine.
