A new true crime / regional history book by Tacoma Daily Index editor Todd Matthews explores a dark chapter in Washington State history.
One night in 1983, three young men walked into the Wah Mee Club, the oldest gambling club in Seattle’s Chinatown, to carry out a bold heist. When they walked away, they left behind 13 dead, one eyewitness, and an indelible mark on Pacific Northwest history. To date, the event remains the worst mass murder in the history of Washington State. Through historic photographs, newspaper reports, court documents, original reporting and interviews with many people close to the case, Matthews has thoroughly researched and vividly recounted this story in his e-book Wah Mee.
The book is available online through Amazon.com and Lulu.com.
Matthews is a journalist who has worked for a variety of newspapers and magazines. For the past seven-plus years, he has been editor, reporter, and photographer at the Index.
As a writer for Seattle magazine, he received third-place honors (2007) from the Society of Professional Journalists for his feature article about the University of Washington’s Innocence Project and its work in helping to exonerate a Yakima man through DNA testing after he spent 10 years in prison, and first-place honors (2007) for his feature article about Seattle’s bike messengers. As a writer at Washington Law & Politics magazine, he received third-place honors (2001) from the Society of Professional Journalists for his prison interview with Prison Legal News founder Paul Wright, and second-place honors (2003) for hisarticle about whistle-blowers in Washington State. In 2007, he received the award for Outstanding Achievement in Media from the Washington State Department of Archaeology and Historic Preservation for his work covering historic preservation in Tacoma for the Index.
His work has also appeared in All About Jazz, City Arts Tacoma, Earshot Jazz, Homeland Security Today,Jazz Steps, Journal of the San Juans, Lynnwood-Mountlake Terrace Enterprise, Prison Legal News, Rain Taxi, Real Change, Seattle Business Monthly, Tablet, Washington CEO, and Washington Free Press.
He is a graduate of the University of Washington and holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Communications.
For more information, visit wahmee.com.
