[3] ... he has voted invariably with the extreme leftists and has sponsored measures designed to socialize our economy and convert us into a Welfare State ...
But the voters ... are at last finding out that John Goldmark is not their representative; that he is a tool of a monstrous conspiracy to remake America into a totalitarian state which would throttle freedom and crush individual initiative.
In the "Catching Up With John" editorial in the Tonasket Tribune by editor Ashley Holden, John Goldmark was accused of being complicit in “a monstrous conspiracy to remake America into a totalitarian state which would throttle freedom and crush individual initiative.”[4][5] On another occasion, Holden described Goldmark as "the idol of the Pinkos and ultra-liberals who infest every session of the legislature."
Holden and other confederates used as arguments in their campaign the fact that Charles Goldmark went to the liberal Reed College and that Sally, during the Great Depression, joined the Communist Party of the United States (CPUSA).
"[3] On August 23, 1962, a "non-political" rally was held at an Okanogan American Legion hall, presided over by Loris Gillespie, a local orchardist and former county Republican chairman.
Gillespie accused the American Civil Liberties Union, of whose state committee John Goldmark was a member, of being a Communist front.
Ashley Holden published the article "Commie Front Exposed by Al Canwell in Legion Talk" about this incident in the same Tonasket Tribune issue along with his editorial "Catching Up With John."
[1][6] The Goldmarks then hired attorney William Lee Dwyer and sued Holden and his allies for libel, winning $40,000 (U.S.) in damages.
At age four, Rice ran into a sliding glass door which shattered, cutting his right eyebrow and leaving him partially blind in that eye.
Anne Davis introduced Rice to the Duck Club, an anti-Semitic, anti-Communist, right-wing and ultra-nationalist study group led by retired U.S. Army Colonel Gordon “Jack” Mohr, self-proclaimed “national military commander” of the Christian Patriots Defense League, and whose Seattle chapter was led by former Boeing employee Homer Brand.
Rice started to believe in a "Communist conspiracy aided by the international bankers and the Federal Reserve Board", as his defense counsel later said[1][11] Among the subjects discussed during Duck Club meetings were the alleged Communist ties of the Goldmark family, leading Rice to research the subject.
These items and other tools and weapons appeared in a list entitled "Basic Armament for One Man Mission" in a notebook, written by Rice, found by police in a search of Anne Davis' apartment two days after the crime.
One week later, Rice visited Goldmark's office building but failed at see Charles and in December he went back to their house and was not able to see if they lived there.
[2][12] On Christmas Eve 1985, Rice, posing as a taxi cab driver who had a package to deliver, gained entry to the Seattle home of Charles Goldmark.
He then chloroformed them after robbing them of their valuables (including a bank card Charles gave him a false access number for, and the keys for their car) and learning guests were coming for 7:30.
Fearing he could not have enough time to extract information about the Communist conspiracy from Charles, and that the Goldmark family could identify him, he searched for a weapon, settled for a steam iron and a kitchen knife and bludgeoned and stabbed them to death before leaving.
[1][18][19] On the same evening, Christmas Eve 1985, shortly after his murderous assault on the Goldmark family, Rice made an attempt to retrieve items bearing his fingerprints at the crime scene, but gave up on that idea after seeing the heavy police presence there.
Husayn Omar Sayfuddiya, a Duck Club acquaintance with whom Rice lived since the murders, to tell them he believed his guest had been involved in the murders of the Goldmark family, basing this on a confession Rice wrote in his guestbook consisting of the sentence "To whom it may concern, I am the person you are looking for in the Goldmark case."
[2] At the police station, after receiving a Miranda warning, Rice was shown his guestbook and he confirmed his possession of the book and his authorship of several messages, including the confession.
I went to the government offices to see what I could do to alleviate my employment situation, and they recommended that I go to school & learn engineering.At this point Rice asked for an attorney and Seattle lawyer William Lanning came to speak to him for an hour and a half, concluding with Lanning telling the policemen his client agreed to speak to them even though he knew his declarations could be used against him.
Rice confessed the crime to two detectives in a tape-recorded testimony, explaining his motivations, his preparations for the attacks, and manner of the murders.
[27][28] In the circles in which the defendant moved, there had been under discussion of John Goldmark's activities without any great attention being given to the accuracy of the false allegations.
The Goldmark Murders remain one of the most notorious anti-Semitic hate crimes as well as politically motivated killings in recent memory in the United States, even though the victims were not actually Jewish and Communist as the killer mistakenly believed.
[1][11] It also remains a cause célèbre of capital punishment proponents, since Rice avoided death based only on the ineptitude of his attorney's work at trial.
This plaque read: "This Overlook is Named in Memory of Charles, Annie, Derek and Colin Goldmark, Who Loved Seattle and Its Open Spaces.
The Goldmark Foundation donated $15,000 for the $83,000 overlook, a part of the plan by the local Parks and Recreation Department to beautify the lakefront.