Utah Digital Newspapers (run 2 recheck, via Chrome) - 2026-10-03
Site: https://newspapers.lib.utah.edu/ (searched from the page in Chrome: /search?q=...&rows=100&sort=date_tdt+asc; OCR from /details?id=N).
Result: partial (new detail; the target story not found). Recheck: yes.
Queries tried (run 2)
Moray assassinate; "Moray" Germans; Moray shot 1940; "Henry Moray" 1940; "Moray Manufacturing" (0); Moray Tugman (3: SL Tribune 1936-10-18, Deseret News 1937-11-12, SL Tribune 1940-10-13; not opened); "Moray" Shinkle (0); "Moray" Magdiel (0); "Henry Moray" died; "T. Henry Moray" 1974 (0); Moray Hagmann (2); "Moray" "Smith" cement radiant; "Moray" Voorhis; "Moray" Carmody; "Ashton-Jenkins" Moray; "Home Owners" Moray; "Roy Ware" Moray (0); Moray bullet; Moray inventor attacked; "radiant energy" shot; Moray "radiant energy" German; "Moray" inventor 1940; "Moray" spies; Moray assassination; "radiant energy" inventor Salt Lake 1940.
Findings [web]
- Salt Lake Telegram, 18 Dec 1930, p.19, "Suits Filed": "Ashton-Jenkins Company vs Thomas H. Moray et al, $2500 on mortgage" (https://newspapers.lib.utah.edu/details?id=15700761). Matches Third District case 46754 (see the Utah State Archives note).
- Salt Lake Tribune, 17 Dec 1944, p.15 (week's news summary): repeats that Senate agricultural committee testimony "revealed that Thomas Henry Moray ... has been experimenting with a scheme to draw electrical energy out of the atmosphere" and that REA paid him $25 a day (id 28911690).
- Tooele Transcript Bulletin, 26 Mar 1940, p.1: T. Henry Moray was a speaker at a Tooele funeral (Harry Harris). Shows Moray active in public about three weeks after the date the family gives for the shooting (2 March 1940); no mention of an attack (id 25020738).
- Not found: any 1940 story that "the Germans had tried to assassinate him" (Slattery, 1943 interview, says it "got into the Salt Lake papers"). The 1940 hits for
Moray+shot/German/spies/assassinat*were listed by date; two were opened (Deseret News 21 Feb 1940 p.1: war news about the Firth of Moray; Tooele 26 Mar 1940: above). Five more 1940 pages were then opened: SL Tribune 24 Feb 1940 p.26 (sports, OCR noise), 27 Mar 1940 p.22 (no 'Moray' in OCR), 11 Apr 1940 p.8 (rail advert / war news); Box Elder News Journal 11 Apr 1940 p.1 (Moray Firth air battle); Ogden S-E 28 Apr 1940 p.18 (a 'Walt Moray' in a social list). None concerns T. H. Moray. Later-1940 hits (Aug-Dec) were not opened. OCR is poor; the story may be under a headline without his name in legible OCR, or in a paper not in UDN.
Bearing on claims
Claim 6 / Silence D (1940 shooting): the search for the press story Slattery mentions is negative so far. The silence is not contradiction (OCR gaps; Slattery's own word "mysterious story").