California, G-H, 1907-1963, Undated

ANOTHER LINK OF EVIDENCE

In photo above, Inspector Tom Duffy (left) confronts
Rodney Greig with Leona Vlught’s purse, which Greig
had thrown in a trash can. At right above is Inspector
Lou Jewell, who paired with Duffy in solving the case.

the U turn began, “the imprints of a man’s shoes there. He
was walking up and down.” “

“Right,” Duffy said, circling the marks. “Here’s a bunch
of cigarette butts. Half a dozen of them.”

“Any of them got lipstick ?”

“No.”

Jewell pursed his lips. “Then the girl probably was already
‘dead when this fellow started pacing back and forth.”

The tracks of the man’s shoes led from that spot across

- the road, and the depth of the heel marks indicated that he

was walking backwards. But there was a second trail, two
parallel lines cut deeply into the ground, and its meaning
suddenly became quite clear.

“Have you got this figured the way I have 2?” Jewell asked.

“Sure,” Duffy said. “The killer brought the body up
here in a car. Or maybe the girl was still alive when they
got here. Anyway, he got out and walked around. He was
nervous and smoked a lot of cigarettes. Finally he pulls her
out of the machine,’ drags her across the road and leaves
her in the gully. Then he gets back in the car, makes a
sharp turn and goes shooting down the hill.”

Jewell agreed. ‘Perfect, Tom,” he said. “In fact, it’s so
logical there must be a hitch somewhere.”

“I know. For instance, how do we know we've got the
right tire marks?”
“We don’t. But the chances are that this was the last

-machine on the hill last night. It doesn’t seem likely that
a man would commit a murder and carry a body across the
road if there was anyone else around. In any case, we'll
take casts of the tire marks. I’ll have Armstrong rope off
this part of the road.” ;

Returning to the body, Jewell and Duffy confirmed part

of their theory when they found that the heels of the girl’s ,

dainty black shoes were badly scuffed on the back and spotted
with mud. They were still crawling through the weedy
grass, looking for the murder weapon or other evidence,
when the county ambulance lumbered up to the crest, and
carried away that tragic symbol of crushed beauty and
youth. :

EFORE noon on December 7 the newspapers shrieked

the story of the “vampire slaying” in Lovers’ Lane. The
viciousness.of the crime stunned the peaceful citizens of east»
Oakland, and there was sudden apprehension among parents

10

\

who knew their daughters occasionally sought romance under’:

the highland moon. | ;
Imagination takes wild flight when murder is. done in a!
lonely spot, and the shocked community buzzed with fearful
tales of Dracula reborn, and roaming the hills on dark nights ;
to drink human blood. And there was justification for alarm. |
A monster was at large, and even those officials familiar with |
criminal quirks had no explanation for the triangle or tooth- 4
like wounds in the victim’s neck. {
Inspectors Jewell and Duffy, meanwhile, counted on the
autopsy to*help identify the girl.
The post-mortem was performed that same day by Dr..
O. D. Hamlin, Alameda County! medical officer and his as-
sistant, Dr. J. M. Reeves. It revealed the surprising informa-
tion, among other things, that this exquisitely beautiful girl
was an Amazon of proportion, She weighed 160 pounds and
was nearly six feet tall, but the medical. men agreed that |
her figure was one of the most symmetrical and perfect they
had ever seen. And since there were no bruises or scratches”
on her body, the investigators assumed that the murderer
must have been a large and powerful man. Only one with’
great strength, they reasoned, could’have. mastered that amaz-
ing body, and driven the knife to its murderous depth. ;
There was no doubt, Dr. Hamlin reported, that death had

- been instantaneous.

The incredible single stab virtually sliced the® girl’s heart}
in two, and the physicians estimated that she had been dead,

some seven hou
three curious’ wounu:
deep, and were causc
equally keen instrum:
that the killer had vi
after death. What c

Jewell and Duffy, «
themselves on a dead-

They learnéd from
on the road were m
used on Plymouth, Dx
They had interviewec
homes were scattered
and only one, Mrs. |
unusual the night bet

“I was half asleep
“when I heard a fier:
the direction of Lov:
short cry, then silence
mobile roaring down
came around the cor
all I know.”

The detectives had
Persons Bureau. Thx
of lost and forgotten
the murdered girl. TI
quota of frantic tele
finding of unidentific:

Jewell and Duffy c:
with a full descriptio:
that she was wearin:
dress, silk stockings }
belt, a pink brassiere
a pink slip and black


ful and shocking sight}
-re at their feet;-a body of
2 been warm and living .thef>.
1 left Lovers’ Lane and thef»
She was bent gracefully on})
id legs stretched out slight]
ung wide. Meee | 4
| hair, and they threw back}:
- newly-minted copper’ coins.}-
| up to the sky. She was}:
ress, but some ruthless hand]*
and revealed the beauty of

ne the manner of her death.
jloodless gash between. the
of an eye. It must. have
‘rful thrust of a large dagger
eep enough to show the ra
skin, But there was some
id unreal, and the horror, o
iltaneously.
es, just at the base of the
little holes, and they formed
They were marks of unholy
brought to mind a vampire’
iman blood. }
cthing of the old Slavic tale:
ascribed many a horrid deed
‘ich rose from: the bodies o
and suck their blood. “Such
meri¢an screen in the pictur

THOUGHT BODY WAS DUMMY --
Police Captain Thorwald Brown (left) questions
Stanley Jones, who discovered the body and -
first thought it a clothing store dummy.

gazed at the curious wounds. “But just offhand -I’d ‘make
a guess that they were made with the same instrument that
killed her.” .
“But why? Looks like the knife, or whatever it was, was
turned around in the wound. The holes aren’t very deep.”
Jewell pushed his hat back and wiped his brow. °
“Maybe she was tortured. Maybe those. marks are the
sign of some sex cult. Maybe—oh; I don’t know. But it’s
. a bad business. Plenty bad.” — ;
“Yeah. The girl doesn’t look a day over eighteen.”
Jewell stood up, brushing the dust from his knees. “Well,
let’s get busy and see what we can'find. There ought to be
* a purse or a hat around somewhere.”
They spent the next fifteen minutes carefully going over
the rough ground, inch by inch, looking for the seemingly
insignificant links that make all such puzzles take clearer

t medieval superstition which.
t here, in Twentieth-century:
Jakland, was the body~of
che three marks. .*. .

ewell, and there were. round

.
8
|.
S,

“*- face, . 1” yf shape. But they found nothing, and Jewell, gingerly examin-
?” he said. ‘ He * ing the body again, suddenly realized that someone had taken
puzzled. “I don’t know) s deliberate steps to conceal the victim's identity.

ce it before. If I didn’t kno 3 “Look here, Tom,” he said. “This girl is used to wearing
like some animal had grabbe@S 4 wrist watch—you can see where it’s left a mark around
ped down to his knees: an

; Leona Viught went on her
_ seen at right clustered Ground the body— ©

the middle finger of the girl’s left hand. “Whoever did this
stripped off every piece of jewelry she wore, and took along
her hat and purse too.”

Duffy, who had been pacing off the distance between the
gully and the road, and searching the grass, nodded and
said:

“I guess the answer to that is that she:was carried down

‘into the ditch from some other place, probably the road.

The ground was pretty damp last night; it was still soft
when Jones got here this morning. Those high heels of
hers would have made a trail of little holes if she had walked
down with someone.”

“How about the road?” Jewell asked.
there?”

“Yes—and no,” Duffy said. “C’mon up and take a look.”

The two men went back to the winding path over which
countless couples had walked since the meadow first became
a lovers. rendezvous. In the center of the road, almost
on a direct line with the spot where the body lay, was a
set of very clear tire marks. They showed that an automobile
had come up the hill, parked on the muddy shoulder, then
made a sharp U turn.

On the left side of the road, toward the bay, the detectives
found footprints which told a significant story.

“Look, ‘fom,” Jewell said eagerly. ‘Maybe these prints
are the answer. You can see,” he pointed to a spot where

9

“Anything up

OT a ET  -Te


some seven hours before Jones found the body. The other
three curious wounds,’ Dr. Hamlin said, were barely skin-
deep, and were’ caused either by the death blade, or some
equally keen instrument. There was no medical evidence
that the killer had violated the girl’s body either before or
after death. What could have been the motive?

themselves on a dead-end street.

They learnéd from the police laboratories that the treads
on the road were made by Goodrich tires, such as those
used on Plymouth, Dodge and several other light automobiles.
They had interviewed half a dozen men and women whose
homes were scattered across the hills above 106th Avenue
‘and only one, Mrs. Betty Steves, reported hearing anything
unusual the night before. ae

“I was half asleep about 3:30 in the. morning,” she said,
“when I heard a fierce and frightened scream coming from
the direction of Lovers’ Lane. There was only that one
_ short cry, then silence. Some minutes later I heard an auto-
mobile roaring down the hill, and its tires squeaked as it
came around-the. corner. But I didn’t see it—and that’s
all I know.” ‘

The detectives had made a. futile check of the Missing
‘Persons Bureau. There was no one among that small army
metrical and perfect they §* of lost and forgotten humans who fitted the description of
‘re no bruises or scratches } F the murdered girl. The bureau had not even received its usual
sumed that the murderer #7 quota of frantic telephone calls that invariably follow the
cful man. Only one with J% finding. of unidentified dead. , ; :
have mastered that amaz- #" Jewell and Duffy could do no more than supply newspapers

urderous depth. -#* with a full description of the girl, ‘including the information

ported, that death had that she was wearing a soft black fur jacket, black crepe

ata dress, silk stockings held up by a fragile embroidered garter

+ belt, a pink brassiere which had been severed by the knife,
tf a pink slip and black shoes open at the toes.

uly sought romance under! #7

hen murder is done in a |
unity buzzed with fearful |
ig the hills on dark nights 7
vas justification for alarm. 4
hose officials familiar with ~
for the triangle or tooth- ©

ett IO. AEA SP BE ALOE CL, AAI GR CE AE 6

canwhile, counted on the !
ie “ef

d that same day by Dre

aedical officer and his as-

led the surprising informa- 4
exquisitely beautiful ‘girl ”

» weighed 160 pounds and ~ ;
medical. men agreed that J?

53 9

ally sliced the girl’s heart |
ed that she had been’ dead

~ y
3, eo 4
. ar sf
Be
va

‘

Jewell and Duffy, comparing notes at headquarters, found

sixteen, was on the scholastic honor roll.

Late that. afternoon, with Jewell and Duffy anxiously
watching the clock, realizing that every passing minute gave
the murderer more time for flight, a young man walked
hesitantly into the county morgue.

“Excuse me,” he said in a shaking voice to the attendant,
“but I’d like to look at the body of that girl who... the
one they found up in the hills.”

The attendant glanced at him narrowly.
name? Why do you want to see her?”

The man’s voice was barely audible as he replied. ‘“My
name is Forsberg,” he said. “Henry Forsberg. I think...
I’m afraid I know who she is”

“All right. Wait just a minute, please.” :

The attendant telephoned Inspector Jewell, who hurried
to the morgue, and a moment later Forsberg looked at the
sombre blue light brushing the dead girl’s face on its bier of
cold stone. He shuddered and turned to Jewell.

“That’s Leona,” he said huskily. “Leona Viught. I’ve
known her family for years. Her father, Leonard Viught,
has a little bakery shop out on Foothill Boulevard. She’s
one of the finest girls I ever knew. I don’t understand
how...”

His voice broke, and Jewell said softly, “I know just how
you feel, and I’m sorry you had to see her like this. But
I’m glad to find out who she is.”

An hour later Leona Vlught’s fine, brave mother walked
into that same chilling vault of the dead, and looked down
sobbing upon the still beauty of her oldest child, trying to

“What’s your

‘fathom the destiny that snuffed out sucha young and friendly

life. Then, back to sharp reality in the homicide squad
offices, she gave what meager information she could.

T WAS not an unfamiliar pattern, the history of Leona

Vlught’s short span of life.

She had graduated from Oakland’s Fremont High School
three years before, a popular and talented student who, at
She went to the
University of California for one semester and then, because
necessity demanded a remunerative education, left there to
enter the Lee Ann Beauty School in downtown Oakland.
She was so proficient that she obtained a position as an
instructor following her completion of the course, and she
was working there when death caught up.

In recent months her beauty (Continued on page 62)

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INSIDE DETECTIVE

to her only grandchild for the returns from
a life insurance policy.”

There was only one more question the
county attorney wanted straightened out.
He went to Dr. Phelps.

“Doctor,” he said, “when did Mrs. Sulli-
van tell you she could get the money to
pay off that note?”

“She said she*had some bonds in a bank
back in Louisiana which her son was turn-
ing into cash. She said she’d pay off the
note in three. months.”

“Well, Doc,” Roberson declared, “Grand-
ma Sullivan is broke. Her house is mort-
gaged and she has no bonds or cash. She
intended to pay the debt with murder: and
still clear a profit.” .

PRE COUNTY attorney, Babcock and
Judge Thompson went to visit Mrs.
Sullivan in her jail cell and confront her
with the evidence of her heartless crime.

“Grandma,” Roberson began, “you_ lied
to us. You took out a policy on Clara
Jean’s life and made it payable to yourself.
Why?”

Mrs. Sullivan started. Her cherubic
face was no longer kindly and cheer-
ful. “I took out _ that policy,” she
said, “so that. Clara Jean would have the
assurance of an education when she was
ready to go to college.”

“She couldn’t go to college if she was
dead!” Roberson snapped.

“No,” she coolly admitted. “But I don’t
know anything about that.”

Roberson leveled an accusing finger at
her, “But you do!” he said.: “You were
clever, Mrs. Sullivan. You didn’t think
anyone would suspect a grandmother of
fiendishly murdering her own grandchild.
But you made too many mistakes.”

Roberson’s voice rose. “You took the
life of your own daughter’s child—the only
child she. ever will have! You stole from
Mr. and Mrs. Richard Hay the only bit of
happiness they found on this earth——”

“But I didn’t do it, I tell you!” Mrs.
Sullivan’s face was an ashen mask, and
she was breathing heavily.

Roberson -went inexorably on. “You
wanted people to think the child was in
poor health, so. that when she died no one
would be surprised. .So you gave her poi-
son, a little at a time. You watched that

little child go through agony while you *

waited to strike the death blow. Mrs.
Sullivan, the devil himself would hardly
be as merciless as that!” ;

But if Roberson expected the woman to
show remorse, he was mistaken. She lis-

tened to him quietly, her face flaming with
rage. :

“Why were you so interested in that
nursing book?” he demanded suddenly.

“T told you once, stupid!” she snapped.
“So I could get a job.”

“Unless I’m sadly mistaken,” Roberson
a ironically, “you have pulled your last
job.” : ;

On November 21, 1938, Mrs, Romie
Sullivan was tried for the murder of lit-
tle Clara Jean Hay. Both Mr. and Mrs.
Hay took the witness stand, looked Mrs.
Sullivan squarely in the eyes and accused
her of the crime in writing. And: despite

the woman’s denials, a district court jury .

found her guilty of first degree murder on
November 22, and sentenced her to life
imprisonment. , Lae

“T didn’t think they’d do such a thing
to me,” Mrs. Sullivan said philosophically
as she was taken to her cell. “But there
are some mighty cruel things that happen
in this world.” :

Had Mrs. Sullivan plotted to poison her °

own daughter as well? That question will
never be answered, for no concrete evidence
was found on this point. The same is

true of Mrs. Sullivan's late husband. Had ~

the woman not been convicted of the mur-

der of Clara Jean, Louisiana authorities

were ready to exhume “the body of
Sullivan. ;
But justice, has taken its course, and

‘cheerful, kindly Grandma Sullivan—the

most heartless murderess in Oklahoma
history—will never be free to poison again.

Eprror’s Note: The identity of the per-
son who made the mysterious telephone call
has since been learned, but is shielded at
the request of authorities.

Mark of the’ 3
Vampire _ .

(Continued from page 11)

had attracted a dozen men. She had gone
out with them in rotation, and ‘had shown |

no preference. And Mrs. Viught insisted

that Leona had never, until ' the preceding
gre night, failed to return home before

A. M.

“And you know of .no one who had
threatened her, or quarreled with her?”
Jewell asked hopefully. :

“No one,” Mrs. Viught replied. “We
knew the young men Leona had been going
out with. I’m sure none of them could ©
have done a thing like this.” j

“Stranger things have happened, Mrs. --

Vlught,” the detective said sagely. “In any
case, we would appreciate a list of their
names, Even if none of them are involve
we may get. some valuable information.”
On the evening of December 7, not twelve
hours after the discovery of the body, the
investigation had reached a stage where
Jewell and Duffy could no longer carry the
burden of detail alone. There was feverish
work to do, there were at least two -dozen
men and women: to find and question, and’
Police Chief Bodie Wallman assigned six
additional inspectors to the case. :
Jewell and Duffy began their night’s.
work by preparing a list. of the personal
effects missing from the mutilated girl’s
body and clothes. They learned from Mrs.
Viugt that Leona had been wearing a small
gold ring and a wrist watch she had re-
ceived as a high school graduation present.
And she had carried a black handbag

which, among other things, contained a>.

valuable, gold heart-shaped locket. | The
detectives turned the list over’to the pawn-
shop detail and then began calling on some
of the girls who had been Leona’s pupils

at the beauty school. . ,
The first three interviews drew blanks. -

*

a 8

The girls concerned claimed only slight. :

acquaintance with their beautiful instruc-
tor. They had never seen her with any
men, nor could they recall any remarks she -
had made about her “dates.” But at their
fourth stop, the home of Marion Denton, ©

the detectives were given an enlightening ~

glance behind the veil that seemed to mask
Leona Vlught’s life after dark. ‘
“J don’t know whether I ought to tell
about this,” Miss Denton said, “but I -knew
that Leona had a date last night.”
Jewell frowned. _ “Anything that hap-

pens in a murder case is important,” he /—

said a little brusquely. “Who was the.
man?” :

“T don’t know his name,” the ‘girl said, .
hesitating, “but—well, Leona was sort of
excited about it. She had been out with
this man before. She—she said he made
advances the first time. She said she
was going to take another chance on him,
but that she had her fingers crossed.” ;

“And you don’t know who he is?” Jewell ~
was persistent. te

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“It may break the whole case,” said
Sheller. “Jealousy, revenge—boy, that
nude sure can talk to us now.”

“We've got to find the model,” said
Connelly. “They paint them things
from models, don’t they?”

“If they don’t,” said Sheller, “we’re
going to be wasting a lot of time.”

In every large city there are several
modeling bureaus where professional
models register and are assigned to
different jobs. Most of these are for
photographers. In addition, there are
regularly listed painters’ models. And
in many cases art students and artists
pose for one another.

Sheller and Connelly began their
search immediately. Every modeling
bureau in Philadelphia was checked
but none of them had any record of
Artist Frank Whiteside hiring one of
their girls. Connelly wired New York
and enlisted the help of the Man-
hattan police in the belief that the
model might have come from that
city. Still no.

Then, patiently, the detectives
traced every artist and art student who
had been connected with Whiteside
recently. They began with members
of the Sketch Club, then with other
students of the artist. This work took
several days, but when they were
finished they had not found the girl
who modeled for Whiteside’s nude.

“There’s only one thing to do,” said
Connelly. “Go back and get a good
look at that painting. Get a picture of
it if you can. We’ll take that picture
around to every friend of Whiteside’s
and maybe somebody will identify it.”

Sheller and a police photographer
made the trip back to the Whiteside,
house. The elderly housekeeper clucked!
reprovingly when the Lieutenant tol
her what he wanted to see, and le
the way, wordlessly, to the attic of th
building.

The room was musty, dark, crowd
with unfamiliar objects. Many of the
Sheller could see, were paintings, evi-
dently more discarded canvases done
by the same hand that had brought to
life the mysterious nude, the hand that
now had been stilled forever.

The housekeeper led them to a large
frame covered with cloth. Behind that,
Sheller knew, was the picture he was
seeking, perhaps the key clew to the
case. What would he discover when
that cloth was removed? What story
would the nude have to tell? Perhaps
—the fantastic thought struck him—
perhaps this painting had not been
done by Whiteside at all. No one in his
family had seen it before he died.
Could it have been planted in his
room by the same unseen hand that
struck the artist down, as part of a
bizarre, weird pattern of murder?

Bard unceremoniously, the woman
drew back the cloth.

Sheller gasped involuntarily. Per-
spiration broke out on his forehead and
his knees wobbled. He grabbed the
arm of the photographer. .

He was staring at the deep blue
eyes, the white skin and high cheek-
bones of Leona Fischbach!

In his office Inspector Connelly was
reading disgruntledly a newspaper
clipping of the Fischbach-Peters case
and cursing the general undepend-
ability of juries. That very morning—
while Sheller was at the Whiteside
home—a jury had refused to send
William Peters to the electric chair, in
spite of the conclusive and definite
evidence Connelly had amassed so
painstakingly. The verdict had been
guilty, all right, but guilty of murder
in the second degree. Even _ then
Peters was on his way to Eastern Peni-
tentiary to begin his life sentence.

Lieutenant Sheller burst into the
office, waving a photograph excitedly
in the air.

“It’s her!” he cried. “It’s her!”

“What’s her?” asked Connelly.

“It’s Leona Fischbach, that’s who it
is!” said Sheller. “The nude—”

Connelly leaped to his feet, sending
his chair crashing to the floor. He
grabbed the photograph from Sheller
and studied it for a moment.

“By the old Harry,” he said, ‘“you’re
right, Pete. It’s her all right.”

He stared at the picture again. Then

OD—6a ry

he righted his chair and sat down,
calmly, disgustedly.

“What of it?” he asked in a weak
voice.

“What of it?” asked Sheller.

“Yes, what of it? Here we look all
over Hell for the model of that picture
because we figure she can tell us a lot
about the murder. And when we iden-
tify her, she’s dead. She can’t tell us a
thing.”

Sheller, too, sank into a chair.

“That’s right,” he said.. Then, “How
about this fellow Peters?”

“I was thinking about him,” said
Connelly. “But I can’t see it. Remem-
ber, Leona was in New York for two
years and when she came back she
didn’t talk to Peters at all except to

Yes, she knew Mr. Whiteside, as a stu-
- dent knows an instructor only, though.
She had mentioned him often.

Leona’s name was on the records of
both the Club and the Academy, the
officers found, but -she had resigned
from. them two years before and in
this way had escaped the feverish
original search for the model of the
nude.

Apparently she had_ contacted
Whiteside again after her return from
New York. She must have posed for
him then. Or was Shuler right? Had
Whiteside painted his picture from
some obscure memory of the girl? If
he had, then the entire theory of the
officers was incorrect.

There the case rested. No matter

Timely

|___--DETECTIVE STORIES, as "Snatch

\

California. Grieg must die in

October, 1938.

disposition of these cases.

HE one-time Adonis of New York City’s police department,

Arthur W. Chalmers, has discovered that there is no es-

cape from the twenty-years-to-life sentence he was given
for the murder of Irma Louise Pradier on July 20, 1937. The
Appellate Division of New York courts denied a reversal of
Chalmers’ conviction. This case was carried in the Septem-
ber 15, 1937, OrrictaL DETECTIVE STorIEs, under the title, "New
York's Affair of the Policeman's Mistress.”

Robert Kenyon, sallow-faced farm youth from. the Ozark
country, was executed in Missouri's lethal gas chamber for the
kidnap-murder of Doctor J. C. B. Davis of Willow Springs, Mis-
souri. This case was described in the April 15, 1937, OFFICIAL

First-degree murder was the verdict returned against Rod-
ney Grieg for the killing of pretty. Leona Vlught in Oakland,

Quentin. This case was described in the February, 1939, issue,
“Who Left Leona in Lovers’ Lane?” _
"after giving him the best of medical care to heal a wound
in his shoulder, the State of Indiana executed Orelle Easton,
convicted murderer, on the night of June 2, 1939. Easton was
wounded in a pitched battle with police officers near Kankakee,
Illinois, after he and his brother, Clarence, had killed.an Indiana
State Trooper near La Porte and kidnaped two deputy sheriffs.
This story, “The Four-State Pact Gets Its Man," was carried in

In order to give its readers the full inside story behind
investigations into current crimes, before they can get them
elsewhere, OrFIciAL DETECTIVE SToRIES often does not wait for
the trial of the accused persons. This department is presented
on this page from time to time to inform readers of the final

Events.

of Missouri’s Doctor Davis.”

the lethal gas chamber at San

tell him to leave her alone. How could
he find out that she’d posed for the
picture?” .

“Well, there’s a connection some-~-
where,” said Sheller. He rose and
picked up the photograph. “I’m going
to find it.” A

“Okay,” said Connelly. “I’m with

ou.”

i Back to the Whiteside home went
Sheller and Connelly. ;

“No,” said Mrs. Whiteside, “Mr.
Whiteside never used models. He
never painted life-studies except for
that one, and I’m sure he did not use
a model. No, I never heard of Leona
Fischbach.”

The next stop for the two officers
was at the office of Clyde Shuler, son-
in-law of the dead man.

“Mr, Whiteside never’ has used
models since his student days,” Mr.
Shuler declared emphatically. “His en-
tire work was confined to instruction
and landscape painting.”

Sheller asked him about the nude.

“T am certain no one posed for that
picture,” Shuler said. “He painted it
only to cover a bare spot on the library
wall. I imagine he did it from memory
or from a photograph, rather than a
live model.”

Adolph Fischbach, the bereaved
father of Leona, however, was much
more helpful. Leona had been a mem-
ber of the Sketch Club before she left
for New York, he said, and had been a
student at the Pennsylvania Academy.

how the officers checked, they could
find no connection between Leona and
Whiteside beyond their casual ac-
quaintance as student and teacher two
years before.

There was only one logical suspect
—William Peters. He had been so
madly in love with Leona that he
killed her rather than give her up.
But so far there was nothing to show
that Peters had been acquainted with
Whiteside—nothing to show that he
even knew of Leona’s contact with the
artist. In addition two different guns
had been used in the two cases. The
gun that had killed Leona Fischbach
was a .32 caliber; the Whiteside death
weapon was a .38.

Sheller and Connelly discussed this
phase of the case through and through.

“Remember,” said Connelly, ‘““White-
side painted this picture within two
weeks before he was killed. If Leona
posed for it, then it is almost certain
that Peters did not know about it, be-
cause Leona was not on speaking
terms with him then.”

However, there was one way to
check this positively. Two persons had
reported seeing mysterious men around
the neighborhood. One was the woman
who had seen a short, fat man loiter-
ing near the Whiteside residence. The
other was the Whiteside milkman, who
had. noticed the artist arguing in the
Reading Terminal with a mysterious
stranger.

Could these two identify Peters? It

was doubtful in the extreme. Yet if
they could, then Connelly would be
justified in investigating the crazed
baker further. And if they were posi-
tive that Peters was not the man they
had seen, then the detectives could
eliminate him as a suspect immedi-
ately.

In the back of his mind Connelly
searched for some scheme whereby he
could make the identification, or lack
of identification, effective enough to
stand up in court. It would not be
sufficient to put the suspect in a line-
up—then the witnesses would be look-
ing for someone. No, he would have to
make it much more casual. But how?

Ta night Detective Lieutenant Ir-
win Mack uncovered a lead to the
Robby family. He located a man who
once had owned a store in the neigh-
borhood where the Robbys lived. This
man remembered them well, and re-
membered, too, that they had men-
tioned relatives living in Lafayette,
Indiana.

Connelly, aroused from his sleep,
wired the Chief of Police in the In-
diana town, asking him if he could
locate William Robby through his
relatives in Lafayette. He received an
answer promptly:

WM. ROBBY LIVING WITH PARENTS
HERE, SHOULD I ARREST?

Connelly knew well that he did not
have sufficient evidence to warrant an
oe etaladade arrest. Instead, he wired

ack:

CAN YOU ASCERTAIN DEFINITELY
WHEREABOUTS OF WM. ROBBY NITE
OF SEPTEMBER 19. HE IS SUSPECT
IN MURDER CASE HERE.

The answer came through the fol-
lowing morning: It was:

ATTENDANCE RECORDS AT PURDUE
UNIVERSITY ESTABLISH BEYOND
DOUBT ROBBY IN CLASS ENTIRE
AFTERNOON OF SEPTEMBER 19, EN-
TIRE MORNING OF SEPTEMBER 20.
IMPOSSIBLE FOR HIM TO REACH
PHILA AND RETURN DURING INTER-
VAL BETWEEN CLASSES.

And another clew had gone up in
flame. Or had it? It was possible that
the William Robby in Lafayette was
not the William Robby Philadelphia
police were seeking. They could be
cousins, or otherwise related, with the
same name. Connelly wrote to the
Lafayette Chief, enclosing Robby’s
finger-print classification and asking if
there was any way in which the
Lafayette Robby’s prints could be
checked without arresting him.

Then he turned his efforts to his
plan to have the two witnesses identify
Peters. He called Kohane imto his
office and talked the case over with
him casually, not mentioning either
Leona Fischbach or Peters. Then he
brought up the subject of prisons.
Kohane was highly interested, where-
upon the Inspector made arrange-
ments to have him included in the
next party of visitors to be taken on
a tour through Eastern Penitentiary.

The woman who had reported the
short, fat man failed to respond to
Connelly’s bait. She definitely was not
interested in prisons; even when the
Inspector bluntly offered to include
her in the tour she turned him down.

The following week Connelly was on
hand for the tour of inspection, but he
remained well in the background.
Peters was working in the bakery, one
of the places visited.

The tour went through the cell-
blocks, the recreation grounds, the
machine-shop, print-shop, the kitchen,
then the bakery. Kohane was absorbed
in the work being done. He glanced at
the men only casually, not particularly
interested in any of them.

When they came to the bakery Con-
nelly stepped behind a door, where he
kept his eyes fixed on Kohane.
Would the man see Peters and recog-
nize him? Would he notice the convict
among the other bakery workers? Or
would he stare at him vacantly and
fail to make the identificaticn?

37


fees
ee

oD—12

safe, you going out with some guy
who's already acted that way with

“Aw, it’s all right,” Leona said, and
laughed. “What you kids afraid of
anyway? I kind of like him, because
he’s big and tall—over six feet—and
you know how hard it is for a six-
footer like me to find guys tall enough
so’s I don’t look ridiculous with them.”

‘Don’t go, Leona,” Miss Denton
begged.

“IT won’t break a date now it’s
made,” Leona declared flatly. “But I’ll
promise you this—if he gets fresh with
me this time, it’ll be the last date I
ever make with him.” Prophetic
words! “I’m going—but I’ve got my
fingers crossed.”

So was the earlier part of that fatal
evening accounted for. Where next?

HE answer came from three of Le-

ona’s girl friends, Rena Thompson,
Artie May Ford, and Lillian Vierra.

“She was at a dancing place with
us until around midnight,” the girls
told Inspectors Jewell and Duffy. “We
left with our boy friends, who were
taking us home. Leona said she wasn’t
going home yet; that she had a two
a.m. date with a fellow.”

“You get his name?” Jewell asked
eagerly.

“All she called him was ‘Rod,’” the
girls declared. They thought that was
a shortening of his first name; maybe

Leonard and Mrs. Vlught, parents
of the victim, shown leaving an
early hearing on the tragic slaying.
Their grief could not be consoled

it was Roderic, or something like that;
they didn't know,

“Well, we're not getting very far,”
Duffy declared impatiently. “All we’ve
got is a description—tall, dark, good-
looking; the size part we'd already
figured up at the murder scene—and
a part of what is probably his first
name. We've got plenty of work yet—
and no time to lose. The killer may be
hundreds of miles away by now!”

By this time newspapers were
screaming of the killing in huge head-
lines. On the streets citizens by the
thousands were eagerly snatching “ex-
tras” as additional, developments were
announced in the sensational case.

And, when the two Inspectors got

All the rest of the day, and on into
the evening, the officers, I included,
stuck doggedly to the job, until at last
we came to J. H. Coupin, traffic man-
ager for the Western Pacific Railroad,
whose Oakland offices are In the
downtown Easton Building.

“We're looking for a young fellow,
first name Rodney, who works for
some railroad,” Jewell began. “The
man we want is tall, dark, good-
looking——”

“Sounds a bit like one of the boys
here, name of Rodney Greig,” Coupin
interrupted. “Anything wrong?”

“Just want to ask him a few ques-
tions, that’s all. He there now?’

“No, Inspector. Left for the day, I

Rodney Greig: “She was a swell kid. |

never so much as put

a to Headquarters, I had news for
em.

“Friend of mine just phoned,” I said.
“Says he saw the girl getting into a car

‘ in front of the Roosevelt Theater at

two-fifteen this morning. He recog-
nized her from the picture in the pa-
pers. She was with a young fellow
whom he kne ightly. Rodney some-

body-or-oth jidn’t know the last
name, but ' ‘iow works for a rail-
road comps» ‘© town here.”

So now the hunt focused on a dark,

good-looking young fellow named
Rodney, who was employed by a rail-
road. An immediate check was com-
menced with all railway offices; no
easy task, for Oakland is western
terminus for several transcontinental
lines, and in the freight, passenger, and
other services of these roads, thou-
sands of men are employed.

my arms around her”

can give you his home address, though
Here it is——” :

I was jubilant. “Let’s go, boys!”

Berkeley, where Greig lived at No.
2718 Garber Street, is one of a string
of cities adjoining the city of Oakland
on its north side. It’s only a matter
of driving some ten or fifteen minutes
from Oakland’s City Hall. A pleasant
tree-shaded city which houses the
University of California, Garber Stree’
is one of the better-class residentia
streets, quiet, restful.

I left for Headquarters to cover :
few angles there.

Two cars stood in front of the Grei;
home when Duffy and Jewell pullec
up in the block; two sedans, in one 0
which were piled a number of usec
tires. Duffy threw his flashlight on th
tires of the other machine.

(Continued on Page 41)


a.

—

did this—it was just one of the pecu-
liar things that killers do.

Smith already had robbed the drug
store in Tucson, had rented a cabin
there, and before morning he was

ne eScapeu ic Udi) PCllaity, 240 asim
Williams were convicted on both
counts. Superior Court Judge John
Wilson Ross sentenced them to life on
the murder charge and from 20 years

officer, I told them I was a railroad
man and, as soon as my appointment
expired, I went back into that work.
It’s a lot less trouble.

Who Left Leona in Lovers' Lane? (Continued from Page 7)

“That’s the car, Lou,” he declared.
“Tire treads same as~the ones we took
at the edge of the road, near the body.”

Separating, Duffy went to the back
door of the house while Jewell rang
the front doorbell.

A young fellow of about seventeen,
wearing a bathrobe and pajamas, an-
swered the ring.

“You Rodney Greig?” Jewell asked.

“No, I’m his brother,” the lad said.
“Rod’s in bed. Anything I can do for
you?” |

“Fraid not, son. My name’s Jewell.
Oakland Police Inspector.”

The youth’s face paled. “He’s not—
Rod’s not in trouble?” he whispered
anxiously.

“Want to see him about his car,”
Jewell answered evasively.

N THE stairs appeared the figure
of a woman in negligee.

“I’m Rodney’s mother,” she faltered.
“I hope there’s nothing the matter.”

Again Jewell was evasive. “Just
something about his car,” he told the
worried woman.

“He’s asleep,” she said. “He went to
bed early. He was out rather late last
night, and said he was tired.”

“How late?”

“I’m not sure, but it was well past
midnight. Must I wake him?”

“Afraid so.” Jewell nodded. With-
out further word she turned back up-

stairs. A:few minutes later Jewell fol-

lowed her to her son’s room. On the
side of the bed, sleepily dressing, sat
a tall, dark young man, yawning.

“You're Rodney Greig?” Jewell
asked. 7

The young man nodded in assent.

“Bring the keys to your car and
come downstairs with me.”

“O. K., Chief,” said Greig, amiably
enough. /

“Could this be a_ killer?” Sewell
asked himself.

‘Jewell took careful stock of the
young fellow as he dressed. He saw

an exceptionally good-looking young-

ster of about 21; tall, slender, straight-
ly erect, square-shouldered. His wavy
black hair was worn in pompadour
style, running down below his ears to
well-trimmed sideburns.

The young man’s eyes were green-
ish, rather sullen; the nose finely
chiseled;. the mouth full-lipped, deli-
cate, yet sensuous; the chin with just
a suggestion of a dimple in it. A good-
looking fellow if ever there was one,
Jewell thought; the kind the girls
would readily fall for.

One other thing the Inspector noticed
—unmistakable signs of dissipation on
the pale, handsome face; sagging
pouches of dark skin under the eyes;
flaccid; drooping cheek muscles; lines
on the forehead and at the corners of
the mouth. Late hours, too many par-
ties, too many drinks, too much “run-
ning around”—all these were written
clearly and plainly.

They descended the stairs together;

Inspector Duffy joined them outside
the house. In silence Jewell took the

. ear keys. from the youth’s hand and

opened the door.

“You know what we're after, Greig,”
Jewell said quietly. “Want to tell us
what happened?”

oD—13

“T don’t get you.” The young man
looked the Inspector full in the eyes.

“Oh yes you do... Leona.”

“Leona? Oh, sure! I know her.
Leona Vlught, you mean?”

Duffy’s flashlight picked out a news-~.

paper lying on the car’s front seat.

“BLONDE

below, in smaller type: “Police Seek

Knife Killer of Leona Vlught, Beauty
Parlor Girl.’ Greig regarded the find

unwinkingly.
Duffy’s search continued while Jew-

ell stood with his hand on the youth’s

arm.
Presently Duffy’s hand shot out, gin-

BEAUTY IDENTIFIED,”
it said, in letters four inches tall; and Roosevelt Theater,

to her girl friends: She expected by
2 a.m. to have dated up the “tall, dark
and handsome” man, but wasn’t sure
earlier, This, of course, if Greig was
telling the truth.

“We danced until one-thirty or so,
and then Leona asked me if I'd drive
her home. My car was parked by the
and we walked
over to it and drove away.

“Well, Leona said she felt hungry
a little. So did I. So we drove out to
a Chinese joint in El Cerrito and ate
some noodles and such-like. No, we
didn’t have any more drinks then. We
drove around for a while after that,
and finally landed on the top of One

gerly grasped some object that winked Hundred and Sixth Avenue. It would

and glimmered in the flashlight’s beam,
from under one of the rear cushions.
It was a knife—a long-bladed, six-

inch hunting-knife thrust part way

into a leather sheath. Sinister brown
stains clung to the shining steel blade.

Jewell took the deadly weapon into
his hand and faced the youth, the un-
spoken, question in his eyes.

Greig ran his tongue over his dry
lips: “All right, fellows. Guess you’ve
got the right man.”

They were aghast at the readiness
of his admission, of the calm way he
spoke.

“Why did you kill her?”

Greig shrugged.
one of those things.”

“You quarreled?”

“Well, if you could call it that. A

silly sort of argument, that’s all. Any-
way, what does it matter? I did_it.
But I don’t know now why I killed
her. She was a swell kid. I liked her
a lot.’ He thrust his hand into his
pocket. ‘‘Here’s some of her jewelry.
I wanted to keep it,” and he handed
the Inspector a tiny watch, a gold
locket, and some rings.

“Where’s her purse? Her hat and
gloves?”

“Oh, we can easily get them on the
way downtown. I suppose you're tak-

ing me with you?” Jewell nodded. “TL
tell you where to stop. I shoved ’em
in a trash can at Nineteenth and Alice
Streets on my way home from work
this afternoon.” And, good as his word,
this amazing slashing Romeo led the
officers to the trash can where, sure
enough, they found the slain girl’s

effects.

At Police Headquarters, in the pres-
ence of Lieutenant Inspector Leon
Carroll, Inspector Jewell, Duffy, and
other officers, myself included, Greig
gave his story calmly, almost noncha-
lantly, puffing as he spoke on cigarette

after cigarette.
“T met Leona

months ago,

twice together.

I dropped into Louis’ cocktail lounge
at Twelfth and Broadway
eight-thirty Tuesday night and had a
few drinks. About half past ten Leona
drifted in, and we had some more
drinks.

“Joe and I went out then, and when
we got back, there was Leona again.”

This waiting of Leona explained the

lateness of her date as she had told it nally to a murder charge,

“Don’t know. Just

Vlught about two
and we went out just
I met her around
various times, at night spots and places
—just chance meetings, same as last
night’s. Joe Moore, a pal of mine, and

around

be around half past three when we
got there. .

“Parking the car, I drove over a
little bump in the road, and Leona
said it hurt her appendix. We talked
for a while—about nothing in particu-
lar.

“Then Leona began to talk of her
family. ‘Guess they’d not miss me
much if I kicked off,’ she said. ‘Maybe
T’ll take poison.’ She seemed to be
pretty low about something or other.

“The front door of the car was
open ort her side. I was standing lean-
ing against it while we talked. ‘Maybe
I’d be better off if I did it,’ she said,

“At this I reached my hand back to
where I kept the knife in a sheath by
my shoulder, and touched her neck
with the point of the steel. ‘You have-
n’t got the nerve to do it,’ I told her.
I wanted her to feel the touch of the
steel. I thought it’d sort of brace her
up.

“Then I opened the door on the
other side of the car and got in beside
her. And suddenly, for no reason at
all, I stabbed her—right between the
breasts, hard. The knife went right in-
to her heart, I think. She screamed
once, and then was still.

“T stood around for quarter of an
hour, smoking cigarettes, then I
dragged her out of the car and over
the grass to the ditch. I guessed she
was dead all right, but I cut her three
times on the throat, to make sure. I
knew if she didn’t bleed, she was dead.

“No, I didn’t make any advances.
Never even put my arm around her.
I don’t know why I did it. There
really wasn’t any reason at all.”

* WAS three a.m. when they put
him in a cell for what remained of
the night. Later, with some variations,
he repeated his story to Assistant Dis-
trict Attorney J. Frank Coakley, going
over it in minute detail as a stenog-
rapher took down his statements.
Following Greig’s arrest, we sought
his prior record. We had no difficulty
in obtaining it—for Rodney Greig had
been in and out of trouble with the
law, from the age of fifteen on, cul-

minating in a thirteen-months’ term at

eston Reform School, Ione, Califores
eee eT his Sait Francisco employers, | #

a wholesale grocery firm, had charged
him with theft of $232.50 of the firm’s
money on June 23, 1936.

All the way from such minor mis-
demeanors as ringing. in false fire-
alarms, through petty thefts, and fi-
runs the

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gamut of Greig’s offenses—offenses de-

clared by George McNulty, adult pro-
bation officer, San Francisco County, as
due in large part to “an inflated ego
which is the cause of his falling from
grace.”

Two years ago, McNulty warned that
Greig might commit more serious of-
fenses than those already listed against
him, unless he was given corrective
treatment, and it was on the basis of
this report that he was denied proba-
tion for the 1936 offense.

Significant, too, is the report made
on him at that time by his employers:
“It is the duty of the Superior Court
to protect Greig against himself, and
to protect Society against our indiffer-
ence (to the need for treatment of
such cases). He is a man in stature
only. Judging from the standpoint of
mentality he is a weakling with a
type of ego which, if not curbed, will
develop a bad criminal and a real
menace.

“Work to him is only a means to an
end—pleasure or dissipation. His in-
come becomes less and less as his ap-
petite for pleasure increases, until
there is nothing left for him but to
steal.”

And, with the news of Greig’s arrest
on the murder charge, two other wo-
men found themselves viewing their
own former association with Greig
with mixed feelings of regret and re-
lief—regret that Leona had to die at
his hand; relief that, but for various
reasons, one or the other of them
might have been his victim instead.

One was pretty, nineteen-year-old
Mildred Kelly of No. 1158 58th Avenue,
Oakland, who, by a strange trick of
fate, was a former classmate of the
slain girl at Fremont High School.

Miss Kelly’s daily diary, under date
of November 12, carries thé entry:
“Went to the show with Rodney. He
asked me to marry him. I won’,

"Find the Girls

belonged to the Follies legion. He rec-
ognized her the moment Slam-Bang

though.”? She described Greig as good
company—a fellow who always be-
haved toward her with perfect pro-
priety.

“TI was shocked to learn of his mur-

Lieutenant Robert Tracy, co-

author, had to check on em-
ployes of all railroads in Oakland

der confession. I could hardly believe
it. I guess I’m lucky I wasn’t the vic-
tim,” she added. “Why, just the night
before the murder I got a letter from

from French Hilt" (Continued from Page 31) ogrici

He saw Sam Alessi going down the
barroom stairs and followed | slowly

seamlean

him, saying he was sorry he grew
angry: when I refused his proposal of

“marriage.”

The second woman is Greig’s former
wife, married to him for a few brief
but eventful days in 1936 when she
was Miss Dora Isabel Bjorn. He and
Miss Bjorn eloped to Reno in May,
1936, and were married there. Four
days later they separated forever, and
in June of that year Greig was sent
to the Reform School. The marriage
was annulled, and on February 5,
1937, Miss Bjorn married again.

In his cell at the Oakland City Jail,
Greig readily answered questions, but
for the most part his answers were of
the negative type. No, he insisted, he
didn’t know why he had killed Leona.
No, he hadn’t asked her to marry him,
though he was fond of her. No, there
was no provocation on her part; he just
did it, that’s all.

But to one of the guards at the jail
he bared something of his mental and
physical state.

“Man,” he said, “I’m all played out.
I’m over-sexed mentally, but you can’t
keep up the pace like I’ve been doing,
night after night, and last forever.
I’ve been to doctors, and they told me
what it was. I didn’t have any disease,
you know; just played out, that’s all.
They even sent me away from the
office for two or three days, to rest up
after I’d sort of broken down there
one day.” .

“I do not think Greig insane,” As-
sistant District Attorney Coakley said,
after his long session with the accused
youth, “but I believe he is concealing
something from us.”

That opinion, Police Lieutenant Leon
Carroll declares, is strengthened by a
serious discrepancy he discovered in
Greig’s explanation of why and when
he bought the razor-keen hunting-
knife which he says he thrust deep
into Leona Vlught’s heart.

Alessi’s teeth flashed a thick-lipped
smile, but his eyes shot sparks of wild
“THe inet mv office—”

Frryerr

“T got the knife several months ago,
to protect me when I went to those
dance halls. There’s some pretty tough
guys go.to those places, you know,”
Greig said, when questioned.

But Carroll found otherwise. Check-
ing various pawnshops, Carroll dis-
covered that Greig had purchased the
knife during his lunch hour on the
very day of the girl’s death.

Why did he lie? Is he concealing
from us a deeper motive for his con-
fessed crime?

On the day following Greig’s arrest,
Vlught closed the little bakery shop
and hung a sign on the door: “Closed
because of the death of Miss Leona
Vlught.” Above the sign, the girl’s
mother pinned a spray of fragrant red
carnations. Leona had always loved
carnations so much, she said. Then,
tearfully, the bereaved couple went
downtown, to the court of Police Judge
Chris B. Fox, before whom Greig was
to be arraigned.

Judge Fox read the complaint, and j
instructed the accused youth as to his .
rights. Greig made no comment, nor
did his attorneys, Carlisle C. Crosby
and A. J. Woolsey. The court set the
preliminary hearing for December 20.

In later talks with officers, Greig
intimated that his first thought after
killing the girl had been that of sui-
cide. ;

“J stopped at a service station at 4
First Avenue and East Twelfth %
Street,” he told them, “and intended
to kill myself in the washroom. I 4
looked at myself in the mirror, and =
then I guess I just lost my nerve. I ¥
couldn’t do it.” “yl

But as the days passed, the iron %
nerve of the young slayer appeared %
to be breaking under the strain of.
confinement. For most of one day he 4
paced his cell, red-eyed and haggard. @
“T can’t sleep nights,” he cried. “Her .
eyes are haunting me. It’s awful!”

Read It First in
AL DETECTIVE STORIES .

He started muscling his way to the yg
stairs, his hands on his own servic€ >
pistol he had kept in the same poc et?


rely to the tree. Com-
the end.

ly beaten woman could
The door of the house
rything was silent. Eva
the restraining bonds.
d footsteps in the yard
again. .

et wished he would end
1e heard him leave. A
ler eyes and in the hazy
olling out of the yard,
it had been.

2t lay back against the
too exhausted to move.
chere were other people
to break free. She had
who had assaulted her
gth. she had left she
bindings.

from the minds of Mrs.

licates picnic table
the berserk slayer
ped Mrs. Eva Paget.

Constance Hoover and Mrs. Margaret Smith of San
Francisco as they sat beside their picnic lunch in the
woods off Triniti Road. For a few moments they thought
the crashing in the brush was a deer or even a stray
dog. But alarm spread over the women’s faces as the
thought occurred to them that a bull might be approach-
ing. They stepped back a pace or two as the sound
drew nearer and gasped with horror as the half nude
form of Mrs. Eva Paget stumbled from the brush and
collapsed at their feet.

“Get me out of here,’ she murmured. “Please get
me out of here. He’ll kill me like he did them.”

The horrified women helped Mrs. Paget to their car
and drove at top speed to highway twelve. There,
gesticulating and honking their horn wildly they man-
aged to flag down highway patrolman John Cooney who
raced to the hospital with the injured woman. Inside
he listened incredulously to the story of the picnickers,
then turned to question Mrs. Paget. But the woman. had
lost consciousness.

After leaving the women. Cooney contacted Deputy

Sheriffs John O’Brien and Harry Maysonnave and told
them the story. As the three headed toward Triniti
Road to investigate they speculated on the nature of
the crime.

“It could be an aggravated case of wife beating,”
Cooney suggested. :

Maysonnave shook his head. “That’s hardly likely,
unless she was a picnicker. The only house near where
she came out on Triniti Road is Peter Jensen’s. He’s
fifty-five and a confirmed bachelor.”

“Do you think we ought to start where the woman
was found or see Jensen first?” O’Brien asked.

“It won’t hurt to go see Jensen,” Maysonnave re-
plied. ‘He may have seen something. -You can’t
tell.”

The trio followed the route Mrs. Paget had taken
earlier that morning over the twisting dirt road to the
squat U shaped cottage at the end of Triniti canyon.
Jensen’s car was parked where it had been that morn-
ing. As they walked forward O’Brien’s eye caught the
picnic table.

Murder weapon which snuffed out the Lives of
Peter Flint and Peter Jensen. Stone is an old
Indian pestle used for the grinding of corn.

w

ie eae hE


GULBRANDSEN, Henry, white, asphyx CA (Sonoma) 10/6/1950

At left, man aecused in
vicious double murder
and attack; right. Eva
Paget, assault victim.

REAL DETECTIVE, November, 1949


Could they ©
ecateh him

before there
were more

murders?

mm aecused in

right. Eva

By HERBERT WARDWELL

OONLIGHT pierced the windows of the rustic
hillside retreat, washing the walls with pale,
subdued light, yet revealing in detail the ex-
pensive interior. Priceless oriental tapestries

draped the walls. A collection of delicate porcelain and
gleaming pewter dishes crowded a sideboard. The pipe
rack held a variety of rich woods in weird designs. It
was obviously a man’s cabin .. . one with a feeling for
beauty combined with a taste for the bizarre.

Deep, regular breathing marked the ‘place where
Peter J. Flint lay asleep on the couch in the back bed-
room. And, snoring in sublime comfort, owner Peter J.
Jensen lay at rest in the front room on a bed which
consisted of three innerspring mattresses piled on top of
a box spring . . . a fit couch for an oriental potentate.
The scene was one of peace and contentment.

But there was one flaw.

Outside the house a slim, silent figure glided through
the garden and moved stealthily up the stone steps
leading to the front door. His right hand, hanging
straight at his side, carried a heavy, club-shaped stone.
His features, normally handsome,: were twisted with
hate. His eyes were pale, wild slits. His breath was short
and his mouth hung open a little, exposing his even
teeth.

: He opened the cabin door and stepped inside with the

silent grace of a stalking beast. Standing on the threshold
he paused briefly, listening to the regular breathing of
the sleeping men. A second or so later he glided toward

the rear bedroom where Peter Flint lay asleep. For a

moment he stood at the bedside, watching the peaceful

features of the sleeping man. Then slowly his right arm
rose...

A soft, sickening plunk sounded dully as the heavy
stone fell. Peter Flint coughed, his lungs rattled, then he
lay still. The heavy club fell again and again.

The death throes of Peter Flint disturbed Peter Jen-
sen, but did not waken him. He stirred and rolled
restlessly.in his sleep as the killer moved quietly through

‘the house. He mumbled, on the verge of wakefulness, as
the door opened. The murderer took no chances. He
rushed forward and brought his weapon, still warm
and wet with the blood of Peter Flint, crashing down on
Jensen’s helpless head. The brutal scene in the back
bedroom was re-enacted step by step. i

As Jensen’s breath stopped and his body lay, inert
and silent, on its strange couch, the killer straightened.
His body relaxed a little. The wild look left his eyes.
He glanced at. the corpse dispassionately, then turned
and walked from the room, still carrying the bloody
weapon as he retraced his steps through the front door
into the fresh, clean air of the Valley of the Moon.

Squatting on the living room table, a mahogany
Buddha, benign and smiling, watched with sublime in-
difference as the door closed behind the killer.

| JULY 4, 1949, the firecrackers roared and crackled

in the morning air. Convinced that any attempt at
early morning sleep was futile, Eva Paget, the young
and lovely mother of two children, sat outside her Lon-
donside cabin, basking in the summer sun. She sighed a
little when the sleek black sedan pulled up at the gate.
It was not a morning for visitors. : :

The car was familiar, but the young man who emerged
was not. He walked through the gate and stood beside
her smiling, but With a hint of worry in his eyes.

“Peter Flint fell this morning and broke his arm,” he
informed her. “He asked me to see if you would come
up and help him with his packing.”

Mrs. Paget looked at the 1941 Buick parked in front
_of the gate. It was Peter Flint’s car all right, and she
knew he was staying with Peter Jensen over the week-
end. She and Flint had been friends from childhood and
it was natural enough for him to ask her to help.

10

Fo neem mecca te oe

MADMAN
im the Valley of the Moon

(continued)

“T’ll come just as soon as I can change my clothes,”
she said. “Will you wait?” - 7 :

The newcomer nodded and Mrs. Paget stepped inside
the cabin. The young man sat in a garden chair, smoking
placidly and reading the comic pages from Sunday’s
paper while he waited. Like most women, Eva Paget
took quite a while getting dressed.

When she finally emerged the pair entered Flint’s car
and sped along California State Highway 12, through
Glen Ellen where Jack London had built his home in
his beloved Valley of the Moon and on‘to Triniti Road.

Tie car swung right:there and traveled two miles into
the rolling hills, then twisted suddenly to the right to
the dead end dirt road that led to Peter Jensen’s cabin.

A cloud of dust rose behind them, but the air ahead
was.clear and bright and the branches of giant live oaks
plucked at the canvas cartop as it rode over the bumps.
A few moments later they came in sight of Peter Jen-
sen’s luxurious cabin, perched among the oak trees.

Jensen’s new Chrysler was parked in the drive and
for a moment a twinge of foreboding swept over Mrs.
Paget. Why did Flint need help with both Jensen and
this fellow around? The beautiful young ‘woman
shrugged the thought off. Men were helpless creatures.
It was natural for them to call on a woman.

The car stopped and she started toward the cabin, the
driver following. The house was strangely silent. It was
hard to explain the feeling of fear and revulsion that
slowed her pace as she started up the stone steps.

Then pain descended, bringing with it darkness and
flashes of varicolored light. The blow was quick and
brutal. Only a headache and the warm stickiness of
blood running along the back of her scalp reminded Mrs.
Paget that she had been struck from behind. Lying on
the stone steps she wondered why she was not uncon-
scious. The steps were warm in the morning sun. Behind
her she could see the motionless legs of her attacker
and the wave of horror that had filled her grew to tidal
proportions.

The trousers were bloodsoaked, almost to the knees.
She wondered weakly why she had not noticed before.
Perhaps it was her dark glasses. Eva Paget rolled over
and stared at the man who had struck her down.

He was not a man any longer. The werewolf of the
night before was back in sight. The heavy stone club,
stained now with three people’s blood, rose slowly.
Screaming wildly, the woman lifted her hands to ward
off the blow. It‘smashed against her fingers to her head.

“Don’t, please don’t kill me. I have two children.
Please don’t murder me.”

The club rose and fell rhythmically, crashing through
the outstretched arms and fingers, striking Eva Paget’s
head with glancing blows. The killer made no sound as
the woman pleaded for mercy. She tried to crawl away
and a blow from the stone club sent her face smashing
into the flagstones. Then, as suddenly as he started, the
killer stopped.

Crouching helplessly against the earth Eva Paget
waited fearfully for his next move. She felt rough,
strong hands drag her across the earth, forcing her to
the top of a wooden picnic table. The club was gone.
The stricken woman wondered vaguely what he would
do next. Then she knew. She struggled frantically,
pitifully.

A few moments later, still begging for mercy, re-
minding the savage who held her captive of her chil-
dren, she felt herself being dragged once«more across
the earth, this time to the “base of a small tree. The
killer worked rapidly, using makeshift ropes. A pair of
tan khaki trousers, a stout cord, a web belt of Army
type, other clothing, and an ordinary bath towel’ were

all used to tie Mrs. Paget securely to the tree. Com-
pletely helpless she waited for the end.

It did not come. The horribly beaten woman could
hear footsteps moving away. The door of the house
opened. For a few moments everything was silent. Eva
Paget struggled feebly against the restraining bonds.
Then the creaking of hinges and footsteps in the yard
told her the killer was near her again. .

With her eyes closed, Eva Paget wished he would end

_it if he was going to. Then she heard him leave. A

car door slammed. She opened her eyes and in the hazy
distance saw the black Buick rolling out of the yard,
and then a cloud of dust where it had been.

For several minutes Eva Paget lay back against the
tree, dazed, half conscious, and too exhausted to move.
Somewhere-in the dim distance there were other people
and safety. She realized she had to break free. She had
to escape before the madman who had assaulted her
returned. Rousing what strength. she had left she
twisted and turned, fighting her bindings.

Murder was the farthest thing from the minds of Mrs.

Arrow indicates pienie table
‘Sto which the berserk slayer
of 2 dragged Mrs. Eva Paget.

Constance Hoover
Francisco as they :
woods off Triniti Ro
the crashing in the
dog. But alarm sp
thought occurred to
ing. They stepped
drew nearer and ¢
form of Mrs. Eva
collapsed at their
“Get me out of
me out of here. H
The horrified w«
and drove at top
gesticulating and }
aged to flag down !
raced to the hosp!
he listened incredt
then turned to que
lost consciousness.
After leaving t!


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AMAZING DETECTIVE


f

GULBRANDSEN, Henry, white, asphyxiated California (Sonoma) 10-6-1950,. | |

Fourth of July fireworks

spark double murder and

sex assault in a lonely
mountain cabin bizarrely
furnished like a harem

THE BOUND NUDE,
~ AND TWO DEAD MEN

by Barney M. Cleary

SHE STRUGGLED, hysterical, nude,
to free herself from the ropes cutting

her naked flesh against the sharp
roughness of the tree trunk. The
remembered horror of her recent

ravaging, of the bloody carnage of
the two dead men in the nearby cabin,
spurred her on in her frantic struggles
to get loose.

Far below in the valley, a green con-
vertible Buick merged with the traffic
streaming out from the cities, seeking
the coolness and quiet of the country.

All of our land was a day of celeb-
ration—the Fourth of July.

Both the characters and setting of the
macabre drama that took place that
placid holiday morning were strangely,
almost inexplicably, exotic.

There was the remote cabin itself,
perched on a California mountain top
overlooking the legendary Valley of
the Moon, the hide-away paradise that
had been the final monument to the
genius of the magic story-teller, Jack
London.

From the outside, the cabin appeared
no more than a simple rustic dwelling.
Inside, however, were rich Oriental
hangings and furnishings and heavy
scent of incense.

There was the same air of mystery
about the elderly owner of the strange
cabin, Peter J. Jensen. In his mid-50’s
Jensen was head gardener at Sonoma
State home—a mental institution near
the Valley of the Moon. But that did
not quite explain his exotically furnish-
ed, lovely cabin home—or his friend-
60

THE RAPE-KILLER,

ship with young officers from the Mari-
time Academy at Alameda. *

It didn’t explain the motives fer. mur-
der... i. BN.

Lovely Ursula Tourne, vacationing
in nearby Londonside with her two
small children, had no idea of the hor-
ror impending when the young man
called Hank stopped by for her that
holiday morning. She had met him the
previous Saturday night, when Peter
Flint, an old friend of hers from
Berkeley, had introduced them, explain-
ing that Hank had been his roommate
at the Maritime Academy.

They had gone drinking and dancing
that night, a pleasantly innocent holi-
day interlude.

Now, early in the morning, Hank was
calling for her, telling her she was
needed at the cabin. :

“It’s Pete,” he explained. “He had a
little fall and hurt his arm. Looks like
it’s broken.”

Ursula gave a

quick gasp of sym-
pathy. :

“We'd better drive him down the ©

valley to a doctor,” she said imme-
diately. “Why didn’t you put him in a
car and bring him down here with you?”

Hank hesitated and gave a little
shrug before he answered. “I—he didn’t
feel like coming,” he’murmured at last.
“He’s right there in the cabin.” _

By that time, Ursula Tourne was
striding up the narrow mountain lane
that led to the mountain top. She hadn’t
paused to dress; she was wearing just
the thin light housedress in which she
had answered the door. As she moved
ahead of Hank, the sheer, clinging ma-
terial moulded itself about her legs and
hips, revealing the full, unrestrained

A ugust,

Anxious, without quite knowing why, S
_not to be, alone any longer than need —4—
be with the man called Hank. Pie

vf

curves of her figure.

Once she turned to Hank and de-
manded, “What about Mr. Jensen?
Isn’t he there to help?”

Hank raised his eyes from her legs.
She noticed then the strange opaque 4
darkness of his glance, and despite the ~~
increasing warmth of the morning, she
felt a little shiver of apprehension rip-
ple down her spine. fe

Don't be silly! she told herself impa- a
tiently. Men are always looking at a .
woman’s legs. It doesn’t mean anything.

Nevertheless, she involuntarily hur- ~
ried her pace, anxious to reach the —
mountain peak and Jensen’s cabin. ~

i)
Vow

Fi
fa

And then they were in a clearing, and
the four-room cabin so mysteriously —
and luxuriously furnished with rich =
Oriental objects was before them. Ur-
sula paused for a moment to catch her ~
breath, and then turned to Hank. “Hae

“But where is everyone?” she de- ~~
manded. “Where’s Mr. Jensen?” mack

Hank had stopped by the doorway,
where a heavy brass dinner gong, heavi-.
ly engraved with Chinese designs, hung. ~
From beneath the gong he picked up a
stone pestle, relic of the days when the
Aztecs had once camped, centuries be- |
fore, in the surrounding mountains and ~
valleys. tee

He weighed the pestle throughtfully —
in his hand, then faced Ursula with -
expressionless eyes. eee

“They're both in the cabin,” he said —
slowly. He let a moment pass before sae
adding, in the same slow, emotionless :
voice, the final, terrible word. “Dead.

1963 : cae ea

“Dead?” she repeated dully, and then
gave a shaky laugh. “You're joking,
Hank! Where are they really?”

For answer he made a brusque ges-
ture with his head towards the interior
of the cabin. Nervously Ursula entered,
passed through the tapestry hung living

room, paused at the open door of the.

bedroom.

Paused for a terror-frozen moment,
then screamed... .

For the elderly cabin owner, Peter
Jensen, was there. So, too, was her
friend young Peter Flint. Both men
were stretched out on cots at opposite
__Sides of the room. Both men were nude.

And both were dead.

Blood caking the skulls and fea-
tures indicated how death had come.
And as Ursula Tourne screamed again
and swirled about, it was to find Hank
blocking her way, the same queer ex-
pression in his dark eyes, his hand
menacingly fingering the stone pestle.

“Don't!” she cried as she saw his
arm swing upwards. “Don’t, Hank!”

She dodged instinctively as the mur-~

derous arm descended, The pestle graz-
ed her temple and thudded heavily
against her shoulder.

62

Again she screamed, “Don’t! You
can’t kill me for no reason at all. I’ve
got my babies—”

Hank stopped suddenly as he was
about to strike again. His eyes became
strangely intent, studying her, sweeping
over her trembling body.

Then wordlessly he reached out, took
her by the arm, led her out of the door
and around to the rear of the cabin.

Fear choked the girl’s voice as she
cried over and over again, “Don’t hurt
me, Hank! Let me go! Please—”

In the mountain silence behind the

secluded cabin he made no answer. In-.

stead with the methodical deliberateness
of a man moving in a trance, he began
to tear her clothes off. :

There were only three garments, but
he ripped them away slowly, as though
trying to prolong the final moment be-
fore the girl cowered before him, trying
to cloak her nude body with futile
hands.

And then there was another terror-
taut moment in which he stood motion-
less, only his eyes moving, before at last
he dropped the stone pestle and stepped
forward.

Once again Ursula cried out despair-

ingly, the shrill sound of her scream
rising thinly and losing itself in the
mountain solitude. .... ere
The two iron bands that were his
arms closed. about her then, and _his*
harsh lips silenced her. 1G
That was at ten-thirty in the morn-
ing, as nearly as Ursula Tourne could
figure it later. When she regained con-
sciousness, the sun was directly over-
head. ee
She tried to move her weary, pain-  ~
wracked body, and that was when she —
discovered that she was bound to a
tree trunk. It took additional fear-
ridden moments before she could iden-
tify her bindings—a man’s belt and what
looked like a torn pair of pants, and —
bits of heavy twine. NS ta
It was the twine that cut into the
flesh of her arms when she tried to free

her hands, but finally she discovered Bee

that by lowering her head she could —
get the knots between her teeth. Agee
Terror and pain made her clumsy, -
though . . ..and always there was the —
fear that the man would return at any —
moment. And at remembrance of what_
he had done, a shudder convulsed her
body and her legs quivered weakly. —
AMAZING DETECTIVE


TIVE

» x. Se , Ky “ty
pee ere

s
Pe
3
ae

Ges

wae

Four-pound stone pestle, antique with which Indians used to grind corn,
made a handy weapon for battering in skulls of two murder victims.

This can’t be true! She thought hys-
terically. This can’t have happened to
me! There can’t be two murdered men
in the cabin. It’s all a horrible night-
mare!

Only it wasn’t any nightmare. Her
body remembered too well the brutal
ravishment that it had suffered.

And when, at long last, she had freed
herself of her bonds and_ stumbled
towards the cabin, it took only one
horrified glance to assure herself that
Jensen and Flint were both dead.

Both murdered.

She turned then and half ran, half
stumbled down the mountain side, un-
mindful of her nakedness, seeking only
aid and safety.

Two startled picnickers from San
Francisco were the first to give aid to
the hysterical girl.

She stumbled upon them half way
down the mountain side, and breath-
lessly sobbed out the story before she
collapsed. The picnickers immediately
bundled her into their car, covering her
with a jacket and started at once for
the main highway and the nearest con-
tact with the local police.

Within fifteen minutes, the Sonoma
County authorities had taken over.
While deputy sheriffs headed for the
mountain cabin others accompanied
Ursula Tourne to the nearest hospital,
questioning: her as to the identity of
the man she called Hank.

“That’s all the name I know,” she
sobbed wearily. “I heard his last name,
buf it’s a strange one and I forgot it.
He was with Pete Flint at the Maritime
Academy at Alameda—”

It was little enough to go on, but
once the truth of the brutal murders
in the mountain cabin had been es-
tablished, it was vitally important.

Immediate contact was made with
the Merchant Marine Academy at Ala-
meda. There the records disclosed that
Peter Flint for the past two weeks had
roomed with a man by the name of
Henry Brun Guldbrandsen.

Guldbrandsen’s nickname was Hank.

And the records revealed even more
important information. The same Guld-
brandsen had been paroled only three

~weeks before from the state prison at

Chino, California, after serving a two-
year term for assault with a deadly
weapon. That offense had been the out-
come of a quarrel with another man
over a woman, which had ended with
Guldbrandsen stabbing the man. thir-
teen times with an ice pick.

At the same time, the Sonoma Coun-
ty officials obtained a description of

' the car owned by the murdered Peter

Flint, in which Guldbrandsen had
driven from the scene of his grue-
some crimes. It was a 1941 Buick con-
vertible, with a dark green body and

AMAZING DETECTIVE

a white top, bearing 1949 California
license plates.

At once state highway police, sheriff's
officers, and the police of San Francisco
were alerted to be on the look-out, and
an all-points bulletin was flashed out
over the police teletype and radio
stations.

By that time, it was three o’clock in
the afternoon. Highway police were
hampered in their work of setting up
tentative roadblocks on the main high-
ways leading north and south from the
Valley of the Moon by the holiday
motorists thronging the thoroughfares.

Added to this was the fact that the
crimes had taken place in the late morn-
ing. Ursula Tourne had been uncon-
scious for an hour or more before she
had managed to escape and spread the
alarm.

By now Guldbrandsen could -well
have abandoned the easily identified
Buick and lost himself in the holiday
crowds.

Nevertheless,. within the hour, reports
began to come in to the sheriff's of-
fice. Pin-pointing the conflicting loca-
tions on a road-map spread out. on his
desk, Deputy Sheriff Robert~- Qollar
sighed wearily. The green Buicksand
the man answering Guldbrandsen’s
description were being seen too. many
places, too widely separated, at the
same time.

Chasing down each clue would take
up valuable time. Yet to let any one
go unchecked might mean the killer-
rapist would make good his escape.

So throughout the long night, the
clues were taken down and checked—
and in the end, found to lead nowhere.

EANWHILE, far to the north in
the city of Eureka, the green
Buick convertible was parked in a
secluded alley in the downtown section.
The man called Hank had arrived
there, tired and dusty and weary, at
seven in the evening. He had checked in
at an inn, bathed and shaved, and then
Started out. ;

He ate dinner alone, in one of the
leading restaurants, then moved on to
the more sociable and friendly atmo-
sphere of bars arid night clubs.

Throughout the evening he found
companions with whom to drink and
dance, and there were none to speak
of what had happened earlier that day
on a mountain peak overlooking the
Valley of the Moon.

The young marine officer drank and
danced and sang with his newly found
friends until long after midnight. The
idea occurred to him that maybe it
would be pleasanter if he didn’t spend
the rest of the night alone, and he made
tentative suggestions to
blonde who was cuddled by his side.

the young |!

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‘of a formal portrait which Detective Burris had “sneaked”
from Fenton and Cossack’s apartment during their absence,

rapher.

I handed the three pictures to Collins, lit a match and asked:
“Know any of those fellows?”’

Collins scrutinized the photographs closely. ‘“Nevét saw
’em before,”’ he announced. ‘Who are they?”

“Two of them are the bandits we’ve been talking about,”
Isaid. ‘The other is Cossack. And now that that’s settled,
suppose we quit stalling around, and you tell us a few things.
Just how deep are you in with this mob?”

The inference that Collins himself might be criminally
involved accomplished the desired result.

“You win,” he said. “Sure, I know ’em all. What d’you
want to know?”

“We want to know where we can locate Pete Carlson. We
can pick up Cossack and Fenton any time, but since Carlson
seems to be the head man, we want him at the same time
| we get the other two. Where does he hang out?”
| “Damned if I know. He never showed around Cossack’s
| office much. They’re on the outs now, and I don’t know
where he is. Tell you how you might reach him. He’s in
touch all the time with some big shot in; Sacramento—a
guy with lots of political drag. You see, Pete had a partner
named George Hall. Hall’s in Folsom now, waiting to be
hanged. Killed a couple guys up North. Pete sends all the
money he can get hold of to this fellow in Sacramento. That’s
the ‘big caper’ Pete’s always talking about. He wants to
get a commutation for Hall.” ;

T= information just received will have more significance

to the reader than it did to me at that time. It was not
until the next day, when United States Customs Agent Dave
MacFarlane of the Los Angeles District informed me of the
kidnapping of his fellow-officer, Customs Border Patrolman
E. L. Ballinger, and the subsequent murder of State Highway
Patrolman Stephen S. Kent and his friend Lester Quigley
in March, 1933, at Seattle, Washington, that I was enabled
to connect Pete Carlson with the northern crimes.

Agent MacFarlane identified the picture of Carlson

as none other than “Joe Clark,’’ wanted for aiding
Hall in the kidnapping of Ballinger, and who
had made his escape from a suburban jail

| by the ruse described in the first install-

| ment of this story.

|i But to resume my conversation

| with Sam Collins. . . .

} “T want you to tell me

the truth now, Sam,” I

said. “Just how did

and replaced as soon as it had been reproduced by a photog- .

38 True Detective Mystertes

you become involved with this mob, and what do you know
about the robberies they’ve committed?”’

For the last time he hesitated . . . “Okay,” he said finally, ©

“T’'ll shoot the works.”’

He began by informing us that he himself had introduced
Pete Carlson to Attorney Loeb Cossack. According to his
story, in October, 1933, while he was operating a small
garage in North Hollywood, he became acquainted with
Carlson. That individual had amazed him by the announce-
ment that he had just come to Los Angeles from San Francisco
with the intention of committing a few bank robberies—a
line of endeavor in which ‘he said he’d had much successful
experience—and was looking for a partner. He intimated
that Collins had been “recommended’”’ to him.

“YF SAID I couldn’t help him,’ Collins stated. ‘Then he

told me there would be seven hundred and fifty dollars
for me if I could make a ‘connection’ for him. I said I didn’t
know anybody that would be suitable. Then Carlson asked
if I knew of a good criminal lawyer in Los Angeles, because
in his business it was important to have a smart mouthpiece
ready at a minute’s notice. I told him I didn’t know
of anybody at that time, but I’d get in touch with
him later if anything turned up.’’

Collins ‘allegedly dismissed the whole

matter from his mind after that interview,
until a few weeks later when he
chanced to meet a distant cousin
from New York, traveling
through the West. This man
in turn took Collins on
a friendly call to the

(Left) The wily lawyer who de-
clared: “No copper will ever
make me talk.”” (Above) George
Hall, condemned to die in
,Folsom Prison for a double
murder

(Below) F
ishing ‘‘Je/
who swore
the noose.
moll of t!

I

Sacr
“Did he
“He did
asked me
Pete’s girl
came to t
in?’ That
Carlson up
tive client.
I inforn
it went, bi
robberies }

ee ELL
Coss

I believe
Arrow cou
He didn’t +
he asked n
he told me
up, and th
I couldn’t s
gave me a
up at a ce!
the auto re
“Did you
“No; but
the bank h


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at is

party
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reasing
Attor-
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search-
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Wayne

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idicate

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her?”
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what

truth
avail.
ically
tired

ssible,
bed-
slept.

November, 1936

True Detective Mysteries

The Riddle of the Disappearing Scar

(Continued from page 39)

fifteen grand on a Saturday or Monday
morning ... From San Francisco we go
almost straight down to San Diego. We’ve
got information on a bank there that’s
in a leased building. That means it’s not
wired underneath. There’s a vacant store
next door ... This will be a tunnel job,
good for a hundred and sixty thousand.
After that, we’ll beat it up to Crestline,
to Izzy’s ranch.”

Finally, Collins engineered the conver-
sation around to the subject of Carlson.
“I’ve got to get in touch with him,” Col-
lins said. “Wonder where he is?”

“There’s one way to find out,” Cossack
replied. He picked up a telephone, dialed
the long distance operator and ordered
her to connect him with a man in Sac-
ramento, whom we shall designate as “Jim
Todd.” A moment later the operator re-
ported that Mr. Todd was not in his office.
“Well,” said Cossack, “leave word for
him to call me . no, wait a minute.
Have him call Sam Collins at his home
tonight.” He gave Collins’ telephone
number.

OLLINS took his departure then, and
rejoined Mr. Rule, Jake Edwards and
me,

I was now faced with another problem.
I wanted detectives to accompany Collins
to his home so they would be on hand
to overhear Todd’s message, when and if
it came, and also to apprehend Pete Carl-
son in the event he called there. But how
to accomplish this without arousing Col-
lins’ suspicions that I, too, was a detec-
tive?

“Sam,” T said, “if Carlson shows at your
place, there’s likely to be some shooting.
I believe the only thing we can do is
to have a couple of dicks at your place.”

“No, I don’t want any—”

“Now, listen, do you want to get your
own head blown off? I tell you we've got
to have some one with you who knows
how to handle mugs like Carlson. I’ve got
no one at the bank to send, and Mr. Rule’s
men don’t work that way. They’re in-
vestigators, not policemen. For your own
protection we’ve got to have detectives
there. You don’t need to worry about
them giving you away .. .”

“All right, all right, have it your own
way. But I swore I’d never play with the
cops, and I don’t like the idea a bit.”

“You'll be glad they’re there if Carl-
son starts anything. I'll get a couple of
boys from the Robbery Squad and every-
thing will be okay.”

Later that night, after Detectives Bee-
son and Chambers had been duly installed
in Collins’ apartment, the telephone rang.

Collins took down the receiver.

“Long distance calling Mr. Collins,”
said the operator.

“Collins speaking,” said Sam. “Hello
—hello, Mr. Todd? This is Sam Collins
—a friend of Pete Carlson. I’m trying
to locate Pete. Know where I can reach
him, Mr. Todd?”

Beeson and Chambers, standing on
either side of Collins, heard Mr. Todd’s
reply distinctly. “I don’t know where he
Is Just now... . Tell you what I’ll do—
as soon as I see him or hear from him,
I'll tell him to get in touch with you.
How’'ll that be?”

“Fine, Mr. Todd. Thanks very much.”
Collins hung up before the man in Sac-
ramento could question him further.

“Good work,” Beeson said. “We'll make
a detective out of you yet.”

A thin film of perspiration had appeared
on Collins’ forehead. “You'll make a
corpse out of me if Pete ever finds out

about this,” he said grimly.

“Don’t worry. We'll take care of Pete
when he shows up.”

“Yes, maybe. I wish I’d never let that
fellow Christiansen talk me into having
you bulls out here.”

It was obvious that Collins had been
completely deceived into believing that
I was a bona fide bank employee. How-
ever, he had a disconcerting habit of ask-
ing unexpected questions.

Once he had demanded to know’ how
he could reach me by telephone if the
necessity arose. There was left to me no
alternative other than to give him the
number of the private, line’ in my office
at Detective Headquarters. Immediately
afterward, I rushed to my office and told
every detective there that if any one
called on that particular line and asked
for “Mr. Christiansen,” I was to be sum-
moned at once. Under no circumstances
was the telephone caller to be informed
that he was connected with police head-
quarters. Of the fifty busy men of my
command, not one ever had an inadver-
tent lapse of memory in this respect.

Detectives Chambers and Beeson re-
mained at Collins’ house for three days
and nights, hoping against hope that Carl-
son would contact Collins by telephone
or in person. But the wily bank robber,
for reasons best known to himself, made
no effort to communicate with Collins.

I went to Chief of Detectives Joe Tay-
lor for advice as to the best course to
follow at this time.

“Apparently it got too hot for Carl-
son here,” the Chief said. “Very likely
he went to Sacramento and he may still
be there. Suppose we send some of the
boys up there and let them have a look
around,”

AGREED that this would be a good

plan. So on September 19th Detectives
Beeson, Chambers and Woolman left for
Sacramento.

In the northern city, they learned that
Jim Todd was rated as one of the lead-
ing business men in that section of the
State. His offices were in the city’s most
pretentious building. These offices and
his home were watched for several days,
but Pete Carlson did not put in an ap-
pearance, ;

In the meanwhile, during the first’ two
weeks after their installation in the office
and apattment of Attorney Loeb Cos-
sack, the dictographs carried to the ears
of listening officers much to indicate the
criminal proclivities of Cossack and Fen-
ton, and the shady character of some
of their associates,

As early as September Ist Fenton, in
the office, was heard in an argument
over the telephone with some person re-
garding overdue payments on an automo-
bile Fenton had contracted to buy.

“If they try to get that car,” Fenton said
later, to Cossack, “I’ll kill some one. [
need that car in my business, T’ll put
1t some place and hide it out.”

The automobile in question was in con-
stant use by Fenton and Cossack, who
kept it in a parking station located con-
veniently near Cossack’s office. Several
times, detectives assigned to keep track
of the pair’s movements had seen one
or the other drive the,,car out of the
parking lot.

_At about the same date Officers Bur-
ms and Gerhardt, listening in at the sus-
pects’ apartment, overheard Cossack say
to Fenton: ;

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I think we're being watched. You know

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‘ou know
id finally,

itroduced
ng to his
: a small
ted with
innounce-
Francisco
»beries—a
successful
intimated

(Below) Pete Carlson, the van-
ishing ‘‘Jeff’’ of the bandit gang,
who swore to save his pal from
the noose. (Right) Betty Lang,
moll of the desperate Carlson

“Then he
ty dollars
d I didn’t
son asked
3, because
uthpiece
now

h

office of Attorney Loeb
L. Cossack.

“Cossack was very cordial,”
our informant went on, “and

invited me to come up again. Then

I happened to think about Carlson,
and I told Cossack I believed I could get

him a client. I spent six bucks of my own
money on telephone calls to this friend of his in

Sacramento, trying to get a line on Carlson.”

“Did he put you in touch with him?”

“He did. A couple of days later Carlson contacted me’and
asked me to the hotel in Hollywood where he was staying.
Pete’s girl—I heard ’em speak of her afterward as ‘Helen’—
came to the door. I just said ‘How do you do? Is Pete
in?’ That’s the only time I ever saw her. Later, I took
Carlson up to Cossack’s office and introduced him as a prospec-
tive client.”

I informed Collins that his story was all right as far as
it went, but that I wanted some concrete information as to
robberies perpetrated by the pair known as “Mutt and Jeff.”

"WELL, I knew they were up to something, of course.
Cossack had introduced me to Izzy Fenton. Then—
[I believe it was in January—Fenton borrowed my Pierce
Arrow coupé. He brought it back next day filled with gas.
He didn’t say then what he used it for. Sometime in March
he asked me to rent a car for him. When I acted suspicious,

wyer who de- he told me my car had already been used on one bank stick-
er will ever up, and that there was a thousand dollars on my head, and
bove) George I couldn’t squawk. So I rented a car with ten dollars Fenton

to die in

- & dcoble gave me and turned it over to him. He told me to pick it

up at a certain time and place. I did, and took it back to
the auto rental agency.”
“Did you know the car was to be used in a bank robbery?”
“No; but I guessed it. And a few hours later I read about
the bank hold-up in the papers.”

“What part did Pete’s
girl, Helen, take in these

hold-ups?”’ Rule asked.
“T know from what the boys told
me that she drove the get-away car
on several of their jobs. She must have
picked Pete up, because he doesn’t drive.
And from all I heard she’s plenty hard “and
dangerous. She keeps her mouth shut and carries
a rod. I believe she’s a sister-in-law or something of

this George Hall up at Folsom.”

“Sam,” I said, “you spoke of Carlson offering you quite
a sum for a ‘connection.’ Did you consider it a ‘connection’
when you introduced him to Loeb Cossack?”

“Yes, I did. I introduced a lawyer to a prospective client.
But I never got any money from Carlson or any of the rest
of them.”

I asked Collins if he’d help us to find Pete Carlson.

“Sure,” he replied. “But it’s too late to do anything
tonight. I’ll meet ‘you in your office at ten o’clock tomorrow
morning. What’s the address?”’

PN Collins reads this story, he will never know how
his innocent query startled me. What address could I
give? I couldn’t permit him to go to Christiansen’s office
in the bank for fear my masquerade would be discovered. I
pretended to be seized with a coughing spell while my mind
raced ahead in search of a logical reply. Finally I said as
calmly as possible: ‘I don’t think you’d better come to the
bank. We wouldn’t have any privacy. Suppose we all
meet in Mr. Rule’s office in the Arcade Building at ten.”

To my intense relief Collins offered no objection to this
plan. I found him, Jake and Mr. Rule awaiting me when I
arrived at the latter’s office on the following morning at the
appointed hour.

After some discussion, it was decided that Collins would
call at Attorney Cossack’s office and “‘put out a few feelers,”’
as he expressed it, regarding Pete Carlson’s whereabouts.

Meanwhile, I would instruct Detectives Tash and Johnston,
who were listening over the dictographs, to pay careful atten-
tion to the conversation held between Collins and Cossack.

Cossack was overheard to declare that he had three more
good ‘jobs’? lined up, and then he was ‘‘through with the
racket.”’

The first was the hold-up of a wealthy market owner in
San Bernardino, as he would be en route to the-bank with
deposits. Cossack tried to induce Collins to participate
in this contemplated robbery.

The second enterprise was the hold-up of a bank in San
Francisco.

“You see,’ the voice came over the wire, “we've got all
the inside dope from an ex-cashier of this bank. We know
who carries the keys; what time they get there in the morning;

the combination of the safe. ... We know where the burglary
alarm is. This bank is good for (Continued on page 101)
39


102

that apartment next to us is supposed to
be vacant, but some one’s been in there
the last two or three nights, and they
never turn the lights on. There’s a wide
crack in that door, so be careful.”

Burris and Gerhardt, fearful that their
presence was about to be discovered, lost
no time in moving from the room they
occupied to one located several doors
down the hallway. Dictograph wires were
hastily adjusted and the officers resumed
their tiresome eavesdropping.

Occasionally, the monotony was broken
by the sound of wild parties held in the
apartment occupied by Cossack and Fen-
ton. Others, staged elsewhere, were dis-
cussed by the two suspects in unprintable
terms. It appeared that Fenton’s cabin
at Crestline, in the San Bernardino moun-
tains, was the scene of many drunken
orgies.

These expensive “parties” undoubtedly
accounted for the fact that Cossack was
heard to complain that he had no funds
a which to pay his rent and telephone
sills.

At one time our set-up in Cossack’s
office was seriously endangered. The wir-
ing on the microphone in the main office
“shorted.” About eleven-thirty that night
Officers Johnston and Tash slipped into
the deserted suite and changed the wir-
ing. Officer Tash then expressed himself
as dissatisfied with the wiring in Cossack’s
private office, and insisted upon inspect-
ing it at length.

ERVES admittedly jumpy, Officer

Johnston repeatedly urged his part-
ner to leave. Let's get out of here and
get out now!” His final exasperated
whisper and a few determined steps
toward the door got results. Tash re-
luctantly desisted from his efforts. The
officers reached the one elevator then in
service Just as it was about to descend in
response to a peremptory buzz from
below.

As Johnston and Tash stepped out of
the elevator on the ground floor they
nearly collided with Attorney Loeb Cos-
sack, about to step into it. They were
unknown to him and he went on his un-
suspecting way. Had the officers deferred
their departure from his office a minute
longer, they would have been compelled
to carry out a pre-arranged plan: if sur-
prised by the unexpected arrival of Cos-
sack, they were to knock him cold, give
his desk an appearance of having been
ransacked, and let the attorney report an
“assault and attempted robbery” at police
headquarters—a report that would have
been quietly shelved.

Two weeks of tedious listening-in left
us without the vital information we
sought—a clue to the whereabouts of Pete
Carlson, or the specific time and_ place
of an overt act that would make it pos-
sible to pounce upon our quarry red-
handed.

Nothing was said to indicate that the
mob was leaving for San Francisco or
San Diego to perpetrate the robberies Cos-
sack had outlined with such enthusiasm
to our informant, Sam Collins. Appar-
ently funds to carry out these plans, far
more ambitious than anything they had
attempted in Los Angeles, were lacking
for the time being.

On the evening of September 12th came
the first intimation that pressing need for
money made another bank raid immi-
nent.

As Cossack and Fenton entered their
apartment together, the latter was over-
heard to remark: “We'll be out of here by
the thirtieth if that big caper comes off
...’ To which his chief answered: “It
should be a cinch. Pete’s cased it and
everything’s fine. I looked it over my-
self and the set-up is perfect .. .”

True Detective Mysteries

After an interval Fenton, presumably
referring to his Crestline mountain resort,
said: “. .. I found out it would cost a
hundred and twenty-nine dollars to paint
the cabin.” Cossack replied: “Well, you
won’t be able to do that till we get this
other money. I think Friday is the best
time for it.” wer

However, the following Friday passed
without any attempt to pull off the so-
called big caper. Our bank stake-outs and
preparations to round up the raiders if
they escaped from the scene of the rob-
bery, went for nothing.

A few nights later Cossack was heard
to say to his aide:

“Boy, that big caper had better come
off pretty soon. I’m damned low on
money. I hope we get as much as we
expect.”

“Yes,” Fenton emphatically agreed,
“I’ve got to quit some of these parties
till I get some more dough.” °

Finally, on Wednesday, September
19th, the pair talked over a “deal” which
was supposed to be consummated during
the following week. Fenton declared:
“T’ll check everything ... I'll kill him
or he’ll kill me. It looks good... a
machine gun is better, but I can get
plenty of tear gas. A job every Wednes-
day—”

Here Cossack interrupted. “Wednes-
day? I thought we were all set for Fri-
day—”

“Nothing doing. I had that out with
Pete. Told him I wouldn’t pull any hold-
up on a Friday, so it’ll be one on each
Wednesday, three in a row. If anything
happens, you don’t know me and I don’t
know you.”

“Oh, man!” Cossack was heard to ex-
claim. “And can I use five thousand dol-
lars!”

On Wednesday, September 26th, cer-
tain that the “Mutt and Jeff” pair would
make their long-deferred raid, I sat in
my office with Department of Justice
Agent Jack Kneen and Mr. Rule, while
officers of the Bank Detail and others
were held in the assembly room, all of
us alert for a call from the complaint
board,

We could not possibly guess which one
of the city’s nearly two hundred branch
banks would be the bandits’ objective, but
if a robbery were perpetrated, we planned
to arrest Cossack and Fenton at their
first. subsequent meeting—possibly in pos-
session of part of the loot, and if neces-
sary, leave the capture of Pete Carlson
for the future. :

et this end, I had instructed Johnston
and Tash to call my office as soon as
Cossack and Fenton were there together.

A day of suspense dragged into late
afternoon without a hold-up alarm.

At four-thirty in the afternoon Officer
Johnston called. “Cap,” he said, “Cos-
sack and Fenton are both upstairs in the
office now. Just came in.”

“Okay. We'll be right up.”

I replaced the receiver and turned to
the group around my desk.

“Let’s go,” I said.

Pausing only long enough to instruct
all officers then in the squad rooms to
stand by for orders, Agent Kneen, Mr.
Rule, Detective Chambers and I headed
for the building that housed Cossack’s
offices.

We left our car a block from that lo-
cation and were walking south on Spring
Street when we saw Officer Johnston strid-
ing rapidly toward us.

“Cap,” he announced disgustedly, “they
both left the office after I called you.”

“Let’s try the lot where Fenton parks
his car,” I said quickly. “We may be
in time—”

A moment later we had one of those

sudden breaks of luck’ that are a curious
phase of the game of criminal investiga-
tion.

We had hardly retraced our steps fifty
feet when I saw Attorney Loeb Cossack
walking toward us. I had only a few
seconds in which to make my decision—
either to arrest Cossack now and take a
chance on rounding up his confederates
later, or risk the possibility of losing them
all for the time being.

As we approached the attorney, I
slackened my pace and abruptly barred his
way.

“Just a minute, Cossack! Where are
you going?”

“To my office,” was the curt reply, as
he attempted to pass me.

“Good. We'll go with you.”

His face betrayed neither suspicion nor
alarm as we fell into step with him, The
short walk, the elevator ascent to the
eleventh floor, were made in silence.

Leaving Officers Chambers and John-
ston—joined a few moments later by Tash
—in the reception room with the startled
stenographer, Kneen, Rule, and I went
with the attorney into his main office.

There he faced us with the same cocky
arrogance that had so antagonized me at
the time of our first encounter months

ago.
“What's this all about, anyway?”

|S tra I could reply, Agent Kneen
strode to the desk where Cossack
allegedly kept a .45 automatic and started
to open the center drawer. Cossack fairly
leaped upon him and tried to drag his
away from the desk. I, in turn, seized
the attorney by the coat collar and jerked
him backward.

“Just what’s the idea, Seager?” Cos-
sack raged. “You can’t pull this stuff
on me!”

“No? Well, Cossack, the jig’s up.
You’re under arrest.”

“For what?”

“For bank robbery.”

The laugh with which he tried to greet
this announcement was plainly forced.

“You might put that over on some
dumb yegg, Seager, but not on me. Why,
you—”

“Johnston!” I called that officer from
the outer room. “Show Cossack the dic-
tographs.”

With a dramatic gesture Johnston pulled
back a drape and revealed one of the
all-hearing instruments to the amazed at-
torney.

“My God!” he muttered. Then, recov-
ering a measure of assurance he said in
a voice that shook slightly: “Well, I—I’ve
got to hand it to you for that!”

“Now, Cossack, everything that’s been
said in your offices for the last two months
has been overheard—and recorded.” I
paused to let this sink in. As the events
of a lifetime are said to flash through
the mind of a drowning person in the
moment of death, we could see Loeb Cos-
sack trying to recall all the damning ut-
terances we presumably had on record
against him.

“Your friend Izzy Fenton,” I resumed,
“will be arrested as soon as he steps into
this office—or your apartment, where dic-
tographs are also installed. But there’s
one member of your gang still out. We
want Pete Carlson. You can help us get
him. But it’s up to you to decide whether
you want to take this the easy way or
the hard way. It makes no difference to
us.

A few seconds passed, during which
the shrewd expression of the trader ready
to bargain came into his eyes, then the
man who had profanely boasted that no
“copper” alive could make him talk, was
ready to talk business.

“If I tell you where to find Carlson,

what do
“Tem “tek.
in a positic
ther, you'r
that any }
be worth
anything y
before the |
He can dr
show you .
fit.”
Cossack
silence.
“Well,” I
time to m
Carlson?”
“TT thir
for God's s
I gave you
dent that h
ble vengea
Thirty-eight
lives around
“Don't k
can’t send x
neighborhoo
and he’s re:

“ ELL.
not =
He then off
trict, showi
six-unit bun:
I did not ‘1
this I agre:
penciled dia:
I handed
who studied
made a roug
In the n
and ordered
Johnston at
Streets.
Mindful o
ants had gi
Carlson an
armed and \
that sho
added to
in the eve
self insiae
“smoked” ou
I then de
and Caldwe!
stay with J

puny, in faci
hundred pow
tioned, howe
erectly that
than he actu
complexion o}
He was spruc
ing dandified.
military must
could fail to
tracted atten!
a light blue,
but cold, har

Armstrong °
who was ino:
tary title. H
cer’s uniform
life. He wo;
riding breeche
and he used
had a magnifi
coat in pref:
coat.

In the priv
he had not «
that he liked :
Armstrong, in
husband.

Mrs. Armst:

eachery, personal affairs or her relationship to Carl-
re with son, 3
For a few days we had kept our prisoners
goss separate and incommunicado, During this
3 his al~ time we purposely ignored Carlson. This REST WT; A TOUGH= ’
he four policy brought results on the afternoon of canteens hevion cau at i HELEN | THINK YOURE Go yo
October Ist, four days after his arrest. He OEMARE, ASPIRING YOUNG WRITER, HEARS BAD CROOKED. 1M woe Can
drive to sent a message to the effect that he would |. NEWS FROM HER “LITERARY AGENT" «00 @ GOING TO j Tne] PROVE vou
i several like to talk to me and to a “bank man.” POLICE; EVER GAVE
: holdup, When I entered his cell with Rule and you MEAN ALL MY S: Now, NOW, SISTER, > ¥ ME A CENT
or some Agent Findlay, the prisoner was in an al- MONEY IS GONE, “\_ ILL LEND You :
his use. most jovial mood. “Well,” he began, “I sup- MR, ROWE, AND YOURE FARE
ter leav- pose the rest of ’em have made statements, NOT PUBLISHING MY
ip some~ so I’ve about decided to give you mine.” ;
“Helen, “We'll be glad to hear anything you want
to tell us,” I assured him, “although as you
was sug- know, you’re under no compulsion to say
said bit- anything. Anyway, before you make any
» money, statement, it’s only fair that you should
know what Cossack and Fenton have said.”
had held We proceeded to inform him of the con-
so-called tents of the statements made by the two “g . ‘aeons
iven the men. He listened attentively, laughing 7 DID You EVERY WORD. NOW ROWE, YOUR NEXT STOP 1S
To the heartily from time to time. However, when GET. IT ALL? J LETS GET To THE le FELONY COURT > + -THEN
. did not we had finished, he hung his head for afew | | DA'S OFFICE. MY THE GRAND JURY «
minutes, apparently deep in thought. As it PARTNER'S PICKING oe,
make-up became more and more clear that Cossack : 1 ROWE UP OUTSIDE
retrieved and Fenton had loaded the major burden :
stated he of guilt on his shoulders, his mood changed,
simulate “Get a stenographer and send for an at-
dups, but torney,” he said. His face began to flush
‘3 of his darkly as his anger mounted. “I’m going
. over his to show those guys up for what they are.”
n on his M@ WILLIAM FLEET PALMER, Assistant
paid $50 United States Attorney, was summoned. <A a | a L.
bec repre His position in the case was made clear to Cael " ) WAS REALLY A M/0GET ph her ape ie
mce, you Carlson, who was reminded again that he Ac 4 | CA SCUENCES NEWEST WONDERS
fe denied could stand on his constitutional rights and
pe ye refuse to talk. WHAT A QUICK,
“That’s okay,” the prisoner said. “I just SMOOTH SHAVE. / GILLETTE |
‘im want everything legal. You've GOTA <4 AND I've &
9 Then, in the presence of Palmer, Agent ** AND CATCH DISGUISE AND N MIGHTY KEEN USED IT
for Kneen, Rule, a stenographer and myself, SS THE NEXT a CLEAN UP
1 Cossack he began his story. a ‘ss
‘Ison, you He said that for five years prior to 1933
y mix-up he had been legitimately engaged in the
furniture manufacturing business on the
West Coast. While in Seattle in March of
that year he had chanced to meet George
ack made Hall, whom he had known in Canada.
ing virtu- A detailed account of the kidnapping of
dmissions U. S, Customs Border Patrolman Ballinger
arrest, in by him and George Hall followed,
1, and his He then referred to the killing of State
aes Fog Highway Patrolman Kent and his friend
ver, imrhis Dah Oiieia wine Coen . YOU GET GOOD-LOOKING, REFRESHING SHAVES,
to repre- tempting 16 evade arrest for the Ballinger THE GRAND JURY Se \ eee AND "QUICK «0. WITH THIN GILLETTES, THATS
victim of kidnapping. A HEARING NEXT ae =) BECAUSE THEYRE THE SHARPEST, LONGEST-LASTING
had got “After Hall had been sentenced to hang,” ome ( BLADES IN THE LOW-PRICED FIELD, ALSO THEY
Carlson said, “I felt it was up to me to try fh = peeve? d H FIT YOUR GILLETTE RAZOR PRECISELY... PROTECT
agreed to to save him from the rope, and I’d have to NE { YOUR FACE FROM THE IRRITATING EFFECTS OF
ve an ac- raise money—plenty of money—to do ‘it. a MISFIT BLADES, ASK FOR THIN GILLETTES
; criminal “Soon after coming to Los Angeles, I was ee
, picked up by the Federals and held for this
: office in kidnapping job. I told ’em my name wae
ck at once Joe Clark, As you know, they didn’t hold Pe A
y worded me long. I got out of jail the next morning y / SHAVE DOES
her that by switching booking slips with a drunk J\ THINGS FOR
e penalty they’d put in the same cell with me.” Carl-
iry admis- son’s hard features relaxed into a grim
Played in smile. “That was so easy it was funny. Like
asmuch as taking candy from a baby.
confessed “Right after that I sent for Helen to come | +
down here. Helen’s sister is married to] -
Poon George Hall, and she was as anxious as I . a
z was to save him. She’s a smart girl— uo H ;
ney. Ire- smarter than the rest of us. Knows enoygh The Book They re Talking About
lawyer— to keep her mouth shut. 2 Contains over 350 illustrations, charts and notes zs
me one of : “Well, I got acquainted with Sam Coi- “
my police q lins, and he passed me along to Cossack. wie
rag,” Was Cossack said it was fortunate that I’d come es
’ to him; that he was the pay-off man for the
ipt at Cos- boys and knew all the ins and outs of the OF THE HUMAN FIGURE
racket. Wanted to know how I’d like to a eblonat ONLY
. she com- work for him on a percentage basis. I told to "pnd senleieas ivien detailed $ oO
wnothing 4 him I'd do anything to raise money to de- study of every part of the body, O
committed =m fend Hall. He said then that the logical MALE AND FEMALE, POSED AND IN ACTION
eee ee : place to get cash money was from banks, (Sent in plain wrapper.) Canada send $1.25,
eg “A few days later he introduced me to MAJOR BOOK CO., Dept. 20-B 241 East Broadway, New York 2, N. Y.
o her Izzy Fenton, telling me he was an old-timer,


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: and also working on percentage, with Cos-
~ sack furnishing full protection. "We made a

deal. Thirty per cent of all:money up to

$10,000 was to go to Cossack. After that, he
was to get twenty per cent. Fenton and I
would split. the balance on all jobs we
pulled.”

At this point Mr. Palmer was relieved by
Department of Justice Agent Findlay, after
which Carlson resumed his statement.

He described in detail one safe burglary
he had committed in San Bernardino—Cos-
sack’s former place of residence—and five
robberies he had perpetuated with Fenton.
These included the four bank holdups al-

ready. mentioned and one drugstore rob-—

bery.

He endéavored to make it unmistakably
clear that he was “working for Cossack” in
all instances; that the attorney, whom he
referred to as ‘“‘the boss,” had assigned Fen-
ton and him to the various jobs after they
had been personally “‘cased” by Cossack.

“After the last job,” he-went on, “Cossack
and I had a falling out over the way the
money .was being split. He wanted to in-
. crease his share to an even third, I told
him a few things and said I was through
with him. I quit him and Fenton then, and
went.out on my own.

. “I didn’t talk to them again till just a few
days agd. Fenton said then that Cossack
had lined up a bank near Eleventh and San

’ Pedro; that after taking that bank, we’d

‘

go to San Francisco'and rob one that would .

be good for twenty grand’That was just two
days before we were all arrested. But we
didn’t take the bank on San Pedro, because
there was a man there painting the outside
~of the building.”
“We've been told,” I remarked, “that you

often bragged about having committed sev-:

enteen or eighteen bank robberies. Is that
true?”

“No; I told that to Cossack because I
wanted him to take me into his organiza-
tion.”

“A bank was held up in Berkeley on July
27th of this year. Do you know anything

‘ about that?” Rule asked.

“I admit taking part in that holdup. At
that time I received the bullet wound that
is now on my head.”

“We've heard from many sources,” I said,
“that you always held out a certain sum of
money for what you termed the ‘big caper.’
What did you mean by that?”

For a few moments Carlson was silent.
“That.was Cossack’s idea,” he said finally,
showing an almost gleeful satisfaction at
this unexpected chance to take another
hae at the man who had double-crossed

im,
friend of his for $200,000, which was to be
split three ways. Fenton and I were to kid-
nap this person and Cossack was to be the
pay-off man to collect the money.”.

“Who was that person?” .

-“A man named Arakelian, owner of a

_ winery in Fresno. Cossack and one of his
.girl friends went up there last April to get

. inside dope on his friend. He arranged
for Fenton and me to meet him there.”

“Do you know where he stayed in Fresno,
and under what name?”

“At the Sequoia Hotel, under his own
name. I took my girl on that trip. Helen
and Fenton and I drove up to Fresno. When
we got there Cossack said that he didn’t
think it wise to kidnap Arakelian at this
time. So the biggest caper of all blew up.”

We investigated this new allegation made
by Carlson, and ascertained from Fresno
authorities that Cossack and a woman pos-
ing as his wife had stopped at the Sequoia
Hotel on certain dates in April.

K. Arakelian, the intended kidnap victim,
chanced to be in Los Angeles at the time of
our investigation, and was interviewed by
my officers, He said that Cossack had called
on him in Fresno during the month men-

‘tioned, and under pretense of wishing to
promote a winery, had several long talks
-tending to bring out inside facts regarding
Arakelian’s financial status.

“In the meanwhile it had been necessary .-

to disclose my identity as a police officer
to Sam Collins, inasmuch as the Depart-

FACTS ABOUT

Fingerprints are divided into ten
groups for classification—there are
cases of all ten groups appearing on
the hands of one person. ... Finger-
print impressions are deeper when
the subject is excited; lighter when
the subject is calm... They are not
hereditary or even ‘similar in the
case of twins. The Dionne quintup-

_lets, for instance, who are amaz-.
ingly alike in other characteristics,
differ widely in their fingerprints.

. Their first known use was in
China, where a thumbprint was
used as a mark of authenticity on
legal documents... . The first prac-
tical use was made by an English
official in India. Natives, who had
been refuting their own testimony
in legal cases, were afraid to do so
when forced to mark ‘such testi-
mony with a fingerprint, looking
upon the impression as some sort
of occult spell... . . Fingerprints
exist even after’ death for amaz-
ingly long periods. In a recent
case the FBI was able to confirm
the death of a missing sailor by
identifying the fingerprints on a

FINGERPRINTS

hand found in a shark’s stomach a
year later. ... They never change.
A mother, seeking .a son who had
disappeared as a child, found him
after he enlisted in the Navy :
through the use of fingerprints
made when he was three years
old. . They cannot be destroyed.
The most celebrated attempt made

to erase these identifying marks
was made by John Dillinger, who
had his fingers seared with acid.
Even so, over three hundred points

of identity were found in the “new”.
fingerprints while the scars were
still new. After a lapse of time,
the ridges would resume their
natural formation. . The im-
pressions are extremely difficult to
destroy. Although prints on paper

do disappear rather quickly, glass,
wood and metal will retain them
for weeks, as demonstrated in the
case of a thief who was captured
through identification of a finger-
print on a piece of glass which had
Jain in a full barrel of rain water
for a week.

/

——J. G. BARRETT.

Es Ee EG a ohare stone ate a, Lene FRY pre
cacy Roar AU aaa Desa ies Aa td signs ea 2

“He said we could kidnap a personal -

iN Seal ea ne nasal 2 t ‘ CMS, heli.

ment of Justice desired to use both Collins
and our other informant, Jake Edwards, as

from e:

prosecution witnesses. ripces
Collins, after a moment of bewilder- ha Pad
ment, accepted the revelation calmly.: “I'd cohen
just decided I’d better do a little check- : fos th c
ing on this guy Christiansen,” he said, grin- sik ve
ning sheepishly. “I’d have made you for a: had pot
copper before long.”: ie ord oth
On October 10th the facts were laid be- ‘not lea
fore the Federal Grand Jury, Indictments dozed h
were sought for Loeb Cossack, Pete Carlson, out allo
Irvin Fenton and Betty Lang. A
Cossack, who later admitted that he ex- heaton
pected to be indicted only for conspiracy, fuse .
testified before the Grand Jury. Fenton, ret
declaring his intention later to plead guilty, pletely
also took the stand and made complete ad- outrigh:
missions regarding his criminal activities, bids fo:
involving all co-defendants. Jud ,
The next day the Grand Jury returned each -
indictments charging robbery against Cos- final ar
sack, Carlson,-Fenton and the Lang woman. Show
Bail was set in the sum of $50,000 each for underg<
Cossack, Carlson and Fenton, and $25,000 sack on
for Betty Lang. to deci:
On December 10th, “Izzy” Fenton pleaded habitué
guilty. It was understood that he ‘would and dra
turn State’s evidence against his co-de- 7
fendants, thus insuring himself a lighter @ PROS
sentence than his companions would re- seizéc
ceive if found guilty. one, anc
On December 11th, in the United States persecut
District Court, Judge Harry A. Hollzer pre- on elogt
siding, Cossack, Carlson and Betty Lang ap- Judge
peared for trial in what was to prove one to the j
of the most dramatic sessions in the city’s edly on
court annals. trial
At the beginning of the trial Cossack An hc
rose and addressed Judge Hollzer: verdict-
“Your Honor, my life has been threatened Lang gi
in this case, Certain people have said I'll When
never leave this courtroom alive.” into the
Carlson immediately sprang to his feet. o’clock
“Your Honor,” he shouted, “he’s lying! 1934, it
I’m not going to make any trouble here.” pessimis
The result was that Carlson sat between ‘ of the w
two Deputy United States Marshals on one them
side of the room, while Cossack sat at the The C.
counsel table on the other. ward. /
All three defendants pleaded not guilty. good luc
Cossack announced his intention to con- beries +
duct his own defense. David G. Taylor, a ployees .
veteran attorney, was appointed. by the Carlson
Court to defend Carlson and Betty Lang. He th
Much to my satisfaction, Deputy United imprisor
States District Attorneys M. G. Gallaher ishments
and J. J. Irwin—both able and experienced Betty
prosecutors—were assigned to represent The Ji
the Government. sion in I
Witnesses from the two Federal Reserve an effor
banks held up on May 29th and June 18th, might be
first identified Carlson and Fenton as the evasions
men who had committed the robberies. In true nan
succession, Jake Edwards, Sam Collins and cerning }
Fenton testified against Cossack, Carlson her life
and Betty Lang. of his cr
They were followed to the stand by the that the
various ‘officers, including myself, who had Somev
figured in the investigation and arrests, said, “So
Cossack, acting as his own attorney, cross- tunately
examined all witnesses. Carlson and Fen- helped.”
ton had given our officers to understand Betty 1
that they would never have “squealed” on years in
Cossack, had he not been the first to Cossac
“squawk” on them. As it was, imbued with anything
a not unnatural desire for vengeance, they - Made an
balked his craftiest effort to entangle them, that wou
and turned on him without mercy. ‘for hims:
On the afternoon of December 18th, when fession ar
the trial had been prolonged several days The Cc
by Cossack’s defensive tactics, he took the of the F
stand in his own defense. He attempted to ruthless }
convince the jury that he had taken no part and to t
whatsoever in the bank robberies commit- under, wl
ted by Carlson and Fenton; that the money victed, as
he had accepted from the latter was for. the end. He
most part in payment of an old. debt, and as ments by
advance attorney’s fees for his services if that mer
the bandit pair got into legal difficulties, aided or
He swore that only mortal fear of death at the oper:
the hands of Carlson had prevented him hencefort


desk. He readily admitted that they be-
longed to him. When I drew his attention to
the sawed-off shotgun with ‘front grip
welded to the barrel, similar to a machine-
gun, he said with manifest pride, “That’s my
patent.”

“Now, Pete, as to your operations, mean-
ing bank robberies, you don’t have to talk.
The bank employees’ identifications will
convict you. And the reason we arrested

_ you and your gang tonight is because we

knew you and Izzy Fenton were going to
hold up the California Bank on San Pedro
Street tomorrow. I wouldn’t let that job be
pulled, because someone might have been
killed.”

Carlson shrugged his shoulders. “I’m
sorry you didn’t let it go through. I wouldn’t
have cared if I had been killed. I’m old and
I’ve got nothing to live for now.”

“How was it you never happened to take
any bank where we had officers staked for,
you?” Agent Kneen asked.

M@ THE BANK robber smiled. “When I

meant to go on a job, I’d be near the place
at six o’clock in the morning. I’d watch
everyone going into the bank. I could spot
any policeman or detective, and if anything
looked wrong, I wouldn’t touch it.”

After that he made it clear that he had
nothing further to say regarding his “op-
erations,” and I had his woman companion
brought in.

“Helen”.was small and frail-looking, even
in a heavy brown coat with a bulky collar
of cheap fur. She had a smooth but sallow
skin, devoid of make-up, cold dark eyes—
and a tight-lipped mouth. A few strands of
straight dark hair showed beneath a plain,
close-fitting hat.

After. darting a quick look of warning at
Carlson, now huddled in a chair, she swept
our faces with a glance of polite—I should
say mockingly polite—inquiry.

“What is your true name?” I asked.

“Betty Lang.”

“Betty Lang? Are you married to this
man Carlson?”

“I prefer not to discuss that,” was the
cold reply.

“You know why you're under arrest?”

“I do not.”

“You know that Pete Carlson, with whom
you’ve been living, and a man named Fen-
ton have been committing bank robberies
in this city?”

“I know nothing about it,” she replied
haughtily. © _

“Miss Lang, your friends have all made
full confessions. You might as well tell
the truth.”

She raised her eyebrows. “I am telling
you the truth.”

“You are not. The truth is that you’ve
helped case these jobs, and you’ve driven
the getaway cars after they were pulled.”

“T have never cased any jobs,” she an-
swered composedly, “and I: never drove a
car to or from any bank robbery.”

We referred to George Hall, in Folsom.
She admitted that the condemned man was
the husband of her sister, who appeared
on the Folsom correspondence records as
“Mrs. G. Manning.”

“Where is your sister now?”

“IT will not tell you that.”

The hour was late and the futility of
any further quizzing at that time was evi-
dent. That day’s activities ended with the
booking of Loeb Cossack, Irvin “Izzy” Fen-
ton, Pete Carlson and Betty Lang on sus-
picion of robbery.

Part of the following day, September 27th,
was given to taking verbal statements from
Cossack and Fenton, our investigating force
having ,been augmented by the addition of
Department of Justice Agent James Find-
lay.

We checked on Cossack’s statement that
Carlson had told of participating in a bank

holdup in Berkeley, Reference to our files

disclosed a teletype message from the
Berkeley Police Department regarding this
robbery on July 27th—during the period
Carlson’s landlord said “Mr. and Mrs, Lang”
had traveled north.

It appeared that Berkeley police had
found the getaway car abandoned shortly
after the robbery. The vehicle was regis-
tered to “Eve Billings,” 6231 Afton Place,
Hollywood, and our Department had been
requested to check this address. My officers
had done so and ascertained that “Mr. and
Mrs.: Billings” had left for parts unknown
some weeks before. The car had been pur-
chased for cash at a Hollywood agency.
The Motor Vehicle Department files con-
tained an application for a driver’s license
signed. by “Eve Billings.” After the arrest
of Betty Lang our handwriting expert pro-
nounced her handwriting to be identidal
with that of “Eve Billings.”

Check of the license number of this auto:

mobile by Rule’s operatives disclosed that ‘

in April, 1934, a speed ticket had been issued
against its driver, E. I. Fenton, while travel-
ing south from Fresno with a woman pas=
senger.

On that same afternoon—September 27th
—Detective Johnston impounded Fenton’s
Ford coupé. On the ledge behind the seat
was found a brown suit, and in the pockets
of this garment were a set of upper and
lower false teeth, a bottle of liquid court-
plaster, a small brush, a pair of rubber

-gloves and a pair of dark glasses.

From the apartment previously occupied
by Fenton and Cossack, Detectives Burris
and Gerhardt brought in additional evi-
dence in the form of grease paint, mascara
and other theatrical make-up. Under the
cover of the ironing-board they found false
sideburns and hair pieces that could be
used as beard or mustache.

That night a special show-up of our pris-
oners was held for victims and witnesses of
the four bank holdups committed by the
“Mutt and Jeff” bandits,

Carlson and Fenton were promptly iden-
tified on all four robberies. They grinned
derisively as Mrs. Leona Staff, pretty girl
employee of one of the banks in question,
pointed a slim finger in their direction to
indicate that they were the two robbers who
had so badly frightened her.

Cossack was identified as the man who
had appeared in the Wilshire and Hauser
branch of the Citizens’ National Bank and
requested change for a ten-dollar bill a day
or so before the place was held up by Fen-
ton and Carlson.

For three days following his arrest Fen-
ton refused to make any statement. On
October 1st Detective Woolman apprised
him for the first time of Cossack’s offer to
Detective Bob Chambers to have Fenton
and Carlson “put on the spot” for the $1,000
standing reward offered by the Bank of
America. He was also told of a subsequent
interview when Chambers, authorized by
me to try to get further incriminating evi-
dence against the attorney, asked him if
the offer I had previously turned down still
held good—and was told that the situation
had changed: Cossack refused to turn the
deal now for less than $2,500.

Fenton refused to credit Woolman’s state-
ments.

“You don’t expect me to believe that!” he
exclaimed. “Why, Loeb and I are friends.
We've been friends for six years. He
wouldn’t do that to me.”

Woolman offered to have his words cor-
roborated by Christiansen, Special Investi-
gator for the Bank of America. As he
opened the door of the private office, that
official happened to be passing down the
corridor. Called inside by the detective,
Christiansen told Fenton that Cossack’s
$2,500 demand had been mentioned to him
ona certain date, and that bank officials had
refused to consider it under any conditions.

From that moment Fenton, finally con-

vinced of his erstwhile’ friend’s treachery,
was determined to even the score with
Cossack.

That afternoon he made a signed state-
ment, giving full details regarding his al-
ready proved participation in the four
bank holdups.

A rented car would be used to drive to
the bank. This would be abandoned several
blocks away from the scene of the holdup,
at a location near which his own or some
other car would be waiting for his use.

Carlson would disappear on foot after leav- .

ing the getaway car, to be picked up some-
where in the vicinity by his girl “Helen,”
otherwise known as Betty Lang.

“And every one of those jobs was sug-
gested by Loeb Cossack,” Fenton said bit-
terly. “He took his share of the money,
even if he didn’t take the chances.”

He declared further that Carlson had held

out the major part of all loot for a so-called .

“big caper.” He, Fenton, had given the
attorney sums from time to time. To the
best of his recollection, the total: did not
exceed $1,000.

He admitted ownership of the make-up
articles, false hair and false teeth, retrieved
from his car and apartment. He stated he
had used liquid court-plaster to simulate
a facial scar while on the bank holdups, but
denied having altered the aspects of his
features by wearing the false teeth over his
own,

Questioned about a special horn on his
car, he naively declared he had paid $50
for this special equipment solely because
“you could hear it a long distance; you
could clear the road with it.’ He denied
buying it to use as a signal on bank rob-
beries, but said Carlson “understood that it
was to be used for signals.”

In conclusion, Agent Findlay asked him,
“Is it not a fact that, if it had not been for
your association with Cossack, and Cossack
having connections with Pete Carlson, you
would not be in this bank robbery mix-up
today?”

“Yes; that is so.”

™@ SHORTLY AFTERWARD Cossack made

a lengthy written statement, being virtu-
ally compelled to make more admissions
than he had on the night of his arrest, in
view of the facts given by Fenton, and his
identification by a witness on the casing of
the bank at Wilshire and Hauser Boule-
vards, as before explained. However, ir his
closing remarks he again sought to repre-
sent himself as the helpless victim of
unfortunate circumstances that had got
beyond his control.

His own recital concluded, he agreed to

- try to persuade Betty Lang to give an ac-

count of her part in the gang’s criminal
operations,

The girl was brought into the office in
custody of a policewoman. Cossack at once
launched forth into a beautifully worded
appeal, endeavoring to convince her that
the game was lost and that the penalty
might be made lighter by voluntary admis-
sion of any part she might have played in
this involved drama of crime—inasmuch as
the other culprits had already confessed
their guilt.

His eloquent plea fell upon deaf ears.
Betty Lang declined to answer any ques-
tions except by advice of an attorney. Lre-
minded her that Cossack was a lawyer—
and a clever one who had given me one of
the hardest court battles of my police
career. .

“I’m sorry, but he’s not my attorney,” was
her reply, with a look-of contempt at Cos-
sack.

As on the night of her arrest, she com-
posedly maintained that she knew nothing
whatever about any robberies committed
by Carlson and Fenton. She refused with
all the outraged hauteur of a “great lady,”
to answer any questions pertaining to her

is a nat 2S

oF
a
%


from ending the association months before.
Cossack further stated under oath that I
and my officers had treated him with high-
handed disregard of his constitutional
rights on the night of his arrest. As to his
lengthy written statement, he swore it con-
tained much that he never said, and that I
had ordered my secretary not to put on rec-
ord other statements he had made. Last, but

dozed him into signing the document with-
out allowing him to read it.

A grueling cross-examination by Prose-
cuting Attorney Gallaher, including pro-
fuse quotations from the defendant’s own
testimony before the Grand Jury, com-
pletely shattered a defense composed of
outright falsehoods, distortions of fact and
bids for the sympathy of the jury. :

Judge Hollzer allowed ninety minutes
each to the defense and prosecution for
final argument. t

Showing no trace of the terrific strain
undergone for the past several hours, Cos-
sack addressed the twelve men who were
to decide his fate, with what old court
habitués declared to be the most moving
and dramatic appeal they had ever heard.

H PROSECUTOR GALLAHER immediately

seized upon Cossack’s arguments one by
one, and once more destroyed the illusion of
persecuted innocence that the attorney had
so eloquently attempted to create.

Judge Hollzer then issued his instructions
to the jury, commenting briefly but point-
rere on the facts brought out during the
trial,

An hour later the jurors returned their
verdict—finding Cossack, Carlson and Betty
Lang guilty as charged.

When the three defendants were escorted
into the courtroom for sentence at eleven
o’clock on the morning of December 22nd,
1934, it is certain that not even the most
pessimistic of them had any preconception
of the weight of the blow about to fall upon
them.

The Court requested Carlson to come for-
ward. After sternly declaring that “it is the
good luck of the victims of the bank rob-
beries you committed that all the em-
ployees are still alive today,” he denounced
Carlson as a habitual criminal.

He then sentenced him to fifty years’
imprisonment—one of the most severe pun-
ishments ever meted out for robbery.

Betty Lang was next summoned.

The Judge, with kindliness and compas-
sion in his tones, questioned the woman in
an effort to elicit any information that
might be extenuating, only to be met with
evasions or polite refusals to reveal her
true name or any definite information con-
cerning her family. To questions regarding
her life with Carlson and her knowledge
of his criminal activities, she gave replies
that the Court knew to be untrue.

Somewhat sorrowfully, Judge Hollizer
said, “Some people can be helped. Unfor-
tunately there are a few who refuse to be
helped.” :

Betty Lang heard herself doomed to fifty
years in prison. . ’

Cossack, first asked if he wished to say
anything, before sentence was pronounced};
made an eloquent appeal for probation—
that would give him another chance to win
for himself an honorable name in his pro-
fession and in society. His plea was denied.

The Court referred to the determination
of the Federal Government to pursue a
ruthless policy in the suppression of crime,
and to the passage of the Dillinger Act,
under, which the defendants had been con-
victed, as one of the first steps toward that
end. He also quoted from recent state-
ments by the Attorney General to the effect
that members of the Bar who in any way
aided or abetted, or illegally profited from
the operations of known criminals, would
henceforth be subject to drastic penalties.

‘not least, my officers had allegedly bull- |

Cossack received the same sentence as
his co-defendants. The Court recommended
that Carlson—who stated just before being
sentenced that his true name was Joe West
—be confined in the United States Peniten-
tiary at Alcatraz.

One: of the “Mutt and Jeff” bandits
escaped with a lighter sentence.. He was
Izzy Fenton. Taking into consideration the
fact that he pleaded guilty, thus saving the
Government the expense of a trial, and that
his testimony aided greatly in convicting
his co-defendants, Judge Hollzer ordered
that Fenton be confined at McNeil Island
for nine years, with five years’ probation to
follow.

That should have ended the case, but
there is a dramatic sequel to the story.

George Hall, ruthless killer of State High-
way Patrolman Kent and Lester Quigley,
had’ waged a stubborn fight to escape the
hangman’s noose. For three years he had
remained in Folsom Prison’s condemned
row while his attorneys took advantage of
every technicality known to the legal pro-:
fession in an effort to cheat the gallows.

During this time Hall’s young wife came
to the prison every other Sunday to visit

. her husband. So regular were these visits

that she attracted no particular attention
on Sunday morning, March 8th, 1936, when
she called and asked permission to speak
with the condemned man.

Hall was brought from his cell. Separated
by a heavy wire screen, the two conversed
in low tones for approximately thirty min-
utes. Finally Mrs. Hall rose to leave.

Accompanied by a guard, she walked into
Warden Smith’s office, where Barnett Huse,
the Warden’s secretary, was for the moment
alone. The young woman reached into her
purse, extracted a five-dollar bill and
handed it to Huse.

“Will you please place this to my hus-
band’s credit?”

Huse’s hand remained extended in midair
as from the hallway came the sound of run-
ning feet.

Hall burst into the Warden’s office and
made a beeline for his wife. “Give me
that gun!” he shouted.

@ BEFORE SHE could comply, Barnett Huse

threw himself upon the killer, dragged
him beyond reach of the woman who stood
ready to assist her husband.

Albert H. Mundt, clerk of the State Board
of Prison Directors, with offices just across
the hall, heard the commotion in the War-
den’s office. He seized a gas-billy and
rushed to Huse’s assistance. Twice he
brought the weapon down on Hall’s head,
momentarily stunning him. The dazed man
was then handcuffed and returned to his
cell. His two guards explained that as one
of them turned to unlock the steel door
leading to the cell block, Hall jerked loose
from the other’s grasp and ran the full
length of the ninety-foot hallway to the
Warden’s office where his wife waited.

Two fully loaded automatics and an extra
supply of ammunition were found in Mrs.
Hall’s purse. That the attempted “break”

‘had been well-planned was evidenced when

it was learned that an automobile, parked a
short distance from the prison gates, con-
tained a complete change of clothing for
the: convict.

Mrs. Hall was told by Warden Smith that
there wasn’t a chance that the desperate
escape plot conceived by herself and her

.husband could have been executed success-

fully.

“There was a chance!” she retorted. “Any-
way, we could have died together.”

But they were not destined to die to-
gether. On March 27th, George Hall, alone,
walked up the thirteen steps to the gallows.

His wife was found guilty of smuggling
firearms into a penal institution and sen-
tenced to the Women’s Institution at Teha-
chapi, California, for from one to five years.

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nde
like

spector Jewell .remarked. Then, turning
to his partner, he exclaimed, “Say Tom,
this is Lovers’ Hill!”

“So it is,” agreed Duffy. “It may have |

an important bearing on the case.”

At a shout from Inspector McDonnell,
who was surveying the ground a few yards
away, the others hastened to join him. °

“Took here!” he exclaimed. “There are
tire marks within twenty feet of the dead
girl, and heel marks leading from the
tracks to where she lies. She must have
been brought up the hill in a machine,
then carried to the gully.”

“Well, let’s look for the weapon,” Jewell | |

suggested. a

They were still searching when Deputy
Coroner C. A. Burriston arrived. He
stooped down for a cursory examination
of the body... ace

“She was ‘stabbed with a dagger or a |

stiletto,” he said.

“How long has she been dead?” Inspec-,

tor Wurthman inquired.
“About seven hours, I’d say,” Burris-
ton replied. .
The latter: examined the girl’s clothing

carefully for identifying marks. There |

were none. Observing that the black silk

dress was stylish and of good quality, as |,
were the black fur jacket and black
leather sandals, he commented, “Her en-.
tire appearance is that of a young woman —
of refinement. She’s undoubtedly from a

good: home.” .
“There’s not a. piece of jewelry on her,”

LEON M. CARROLL
Oakland, California
As told to Eugene, B. Block

avaust, 1939

“What a beautiful girl she was,” In- |

Jewell remarked. “Her
purse is gone and so’s her
hat. Probably.robbery was
the,motive that led to this

crime.”

Burriston started back
to the city with the body.
Two of the Inspectors,
McDonnell and Wurth-
man, also: returned and
hurried to my office to in-
forri me of the latest de-
velopments. ~*

“T’ll send the photog-
rapher out immediately
for pictures of the tire
marks,” I announced at
the conclusion of théir
meager report. “Duffy and
Jewell will pick: up .any-
thing on the ground.” -

At my instructions, a
detailed description of the
girl was broadcast over
our station KQW and
over the teletype. In every
police station throughout
Oakland and the Mast Bay
district, details were re-
layed to patrolmen on
their beats.

“Try to ascertain the
identity of the victim,”
the orders read, “At the
sume time, keep a sharp

lookout for suspicious characters, sus-

picious cars—any thing that might pertain -

to the case.” ;

The Missing Persons Bureau began. a

check of their records. Inspectors Mc-
Donnell and Wurthman started on a tour
of garages.. - viet : ove

Meanwhile, at the-scene of the crime,
Inspectors Jewell and Duffy put Patrol-
man John Paddock, the department pro-
tographer, to work taking pictures of the
heel marks and tire tracks. The latter,
they discovered, ‘led for fully a quarter
of a mile over the dirt road to the high-
way. The treads of the tires were evi-
dently worn, for no pattern was dis-
cernible in the soft earth, but the width
of the prints convinced the officers that
the tires were those of a medium priced
machine. ;

Jewell and Duffy then visited homes
near the death scene. At two of them,
they uncovered information that tended
to fix the time of the murder.

“My cold kept me awake most of last
night,” said Mrs. Betty Steves of 2941
Barrett Street. “Everything was very
quiet. Then suddenly, T heard a car speed-
ing down the hill, and, as it reached the
bottom, there was a terrible sereeching
of brakes.”

“What time was that?” one of the offi-
cers inquired.

“Tt was 3:30 a.m. I remember look-
ing at my clock.”

71

Soe 3

—-

oe

“That checks with the Coroner’s opin-
ion,” remarked Jewell, glancing at his
watch. “He said she’d been dead about
seven hours. It was near ten when he
saw her,”

Mrs. E. W. Cooks of 2787 107th Avenue
supplied the Inspectors with additional
information.

“At about three a. m. or a little after,”
she recalled, “T heard a scream from the
direction of the place where you say you
found the body. It was just one long
scream.”

Shortly before noon Jewell and Duffy
Teported at my office. We carefully re-
viewed the case, and indulged in a little
theorizing.

“Tsn’t it strange,” I remarked, “that
the girl, who is obviously from a respect-
able family, hasn’t been reported miss-
ing?”

“Her family might live miles away, or
she might have been on a trip,” suggested
Jewell.

The telephone interrupted our discus-
sion. Inspector Duffy picked up the re-

“Who’s this—the Coroner’s office ? The
girl has been identified ?”

and the address, 5253 Foothill Boulevard.
“Tell them we’ll be right over,” I in-
structed Duffy. “Tell them to hold any

morning, he had seen Mr. and Mrs,
Leonard Vlught, Proprietors of a small

“They remarked that Leona had not
been home last night,” Forsberg told us,
“Still, they were not really worried. Their
daughter, they said, often stayed with
girl-friends after particularly late parties,
Then, an hour ago, I turned on my radio.
As I listened to a police description of a
murdered girl, I thought of Leona. The
description fitted her, but I couldn’t bring
myself to believe it was she. N evertheless,
I decided to come over here and find out.”

E had just concluded his story when
the door opened and a sad faced
woman entered. “The mother,” Forsberg
announced in a whisper, ’
Mrs. Cleo Vlught was ‘led to her
daughter’s body, and a sadder scene I
have never witnessed. As soon as she had
regained her composure, the grief-strick-

Two years ‘before, ‘Leona ‘had’ been

graduated) with honors from Fremont-

High School. Gratefully she had accepted
her parents’ offer of a higher education,

_ and had: entered the University of Cali-
fornia. As a co-ed, she was popular on the’

campus, but nevertheless devoted herself
faithfully to her studies, She completed
the first semester with high marks and

was ea,
would » resumed,
Then, ‘one Morning, she arrived ata

decision that was to turn her footsteps

away from the University, ©:

,. “T should be helping you and Dad,” she

72

erly awaiting the day when classes -

The grief stricken parents
(above). “Oh, why did she have
to die so young?” the mother
sobbed when she saw the body

had told her mother, “I should be helping

to support my little sisters and brother.”
7 “

e€ want to give you every advantage,

dear,” her mother had replied.

“When I see how hard you and Dad
work in the bakery, day after day,” the

‘girl had said sadly, “it makes me want
- todo my part, I’m going to!”
en woman told us as much as she knew. -

So she left college and entered a school
of beauty culture. She did so well that,

: on-finishing. the course, she was made an
‘instructor. She liked her work, and her
- earnings helped to support the family,

“She was a kind-hearted girl, strong,

‘and so good,” her mother said, choking

back the tears, “ es, she had boy-friends

_ like other girls, but she was careful o:

the company she kept. She didn’t deserve

such an end as this,” :
Try as she might, Mrs, Vlught could

Not give us a single lead. She did not know

. the names of her daughter’s boy-friends,

She knew of no love “spats” the girl

might have had.

“TI can’ see that this case is going to
take some good, old-fashioned plodding,”
I remarked to Jewell and Duffy upon our
return, to Headquarters,

“You're right,” Jewell agreed. “We
haven’t a tangible clue to work o except
Perhaps the tire marks.” :

“Nothing but patient, laborious effort
will crack this case,” I continued. “You'd
better round up the girl’s friends, Find
everybody who ever knew her; trace her
movements; find out what her habits
were,” | | ‘

down to do some quiet thinking, but was

immediately interrupted by a telephone
call. from’ the Coroner’s office. The au-

After the two Inspectors left, I settled ~~ -

TRUE DETECTIVE MYSTERIES _

Vester
Vlugl

Sev
He w
where
mont}

An

noon-

EW
trav
tragic
had ts
sandw
withou
else: ha
an hou
At}
in ada
way. J
men ai
aeadem
to kno
cers feu
they re:
with th
panions
the one ;
The I
intervie.
and Ren
“We ;
night,” o
fused. §
new boy-
“Do Vv
inquired.
“We k
Thompso;
A. M,, talk

AUGUST, 1939


‘but one by one'they were eliminated from
the case. ~~:

From .some source, the Inspectors
learned that George Tegner had been her
friend. He was rushed to my office, but I
was convinced at once that he had no
connection with the crime. He left offer-
ing to help us.

.“Find John Ferrario,” some one sug--

gested. “He kept. company with the
Viught girl” |

Several Inspectors set out on his trail.
He was finally located in the county jail,
where he had been for the past. two
months. p

And so it went throughout the after-
noon—one blind lead after another.

EWELL and Duffy then commenced

tracing Leona’s movements on the
tragic night. They found a woman who
had talked with the girl at nine p.m. in a
sandwich shop. The latter had left alone
without discussing her plans. Some one
else-had met her on a street corner, half
an hour later.

At ten o’clock, they learned, she was
ina dancing academy at 19th and Broad-
way. They. located most of the young
men and women who had been at the
academy at that time, but no one seemed
to know Leona. Then, just when the offi-
cers feared that the trail had grown cold,
they received word that the girl had left
with three young women. Leona’s com-
panions worked in a beauty parlor near
the one at which she was an instructor. .

The Inspectors drove to the shop’ and
interviewed Anna Ford, Lillian Vierra
and Rena Thompson.

“We asked her to eat with us last
night,” one of them related, “but she re-
fused. She said she had a date with a
new boy-friend.”

“Do you suppose she kept it?” Jewell
inquired.

“We know she did,’ replied Miss

Thompson. “We saw her at about two

4. M., talking to him on a corner.”

“Do you have any idea who he is?”
Duffy asked.

“Why, yes,” one of the girls answered.

wots, 1939

“She always spoke of -him as ‘Rod.’ He’s
a good-looking boy, and he drives a Dodge
car,”

Jewell and Duffy exchanged glances.
The tires of a Dodge, they knew, would
leave the same width prints as the tracks
found at the scene of the murder.

“Do you know where we can find him?”
Duffy asked.

The girls shrugged. “Not at this hour,”
they chorused, “but at night, he can
usually be found in one of those cafés
down the street.”

‘Satisfied that they were on a hot trail
at, last, the officers immediately set out
for the restaurants indicated by the girls.
They inquired at one establishment and
then at another, but no one had heard of
a boy named Rod. Far from discouraged,
they hurried into the Half Barrel Tavern.
As they described the man they wanted,
the bartender’s face brightened.

“Oh you mean that Rodney fellow,”
he said. “I don’t know his last name,
but he works for some railroad company.
I believe he told me once that he’s an
office clerk.”

It was night-time by now, but Duffy
and Jewell were in no mood to wait for
Rod to appear for his evening cocktail.
They returned to my office just as I was
releasing one of a dozen suspects that
had been rounded up in as many parts
of Oakland.

“Shall we broadcast an order for the
arrest of this Rodney person?” Duffy
asked. “We have a good description of
him.”

I promptly vetoed the idea. “That fel-
low, wherever he may be, is probably lis-
tening in on the radio for just such a
move on our part,” I said. “Let’s take no
chances of tipping him off that we’re on
his ‘trail.” .

“Then, Duffy and I will start at once
to canvass the railroads,” Jewell an-

nounced. “It’ll be tough at this hour,
but we’ll take a crack at it.”

To save time, they separated, agreeing
to meet in an hour. Jewell, arriving first
at,the appointed place, could tell as his
partner approached that the latter’s

We oot

search had been quite successful.
“Let’s get going,” Duffy said. “At last,
we've got something to work on.”
“What do you mean?” Jewell inquired.
“T’ve found Rod’s name on a payroll,”
his companion answered. “His full name
is Rodney Greig and he drives a Dodge.
If he isn’t the man we want, then he’s a
twin of the chap the girls described.
Come on!” be
A moment later, the two were speeding
out Telegraph Avenue to Berkeley, going
by the shortest route to the home of

.Rodney Greig. The 2700 block of Garber

Street, they found, was lined with com-
fortable, moderately priced homes, some
of them lighted and some in darkness. It
was a little after ten Pp. M.

“What’s the number?” Jewell asked.

“Tt’s 2718,” replied Duffy.

They proceeded slowly and, with the
aid of their flashlights, made out the num-
bers. Jewell suddenly pointed to one of
the houses. The officers drew up to the
curb and leaped from their machine.

As they started for the front steps,
Duffy laid a hand on his partner’s arm
and whispered something in his ear. He
had spied a garage in the rear, its open
doors revealing a car.

The two tiptoed along the driveway.
In the garage, Jewell focussed his flash-
light on the car. It was a Dodge. He
opened the machine door and saw a hunt-
ing knife on the back-seat. The Inspector
picked it up and examined it by the light
of his electric torch. .There were blood-
stains on the blade.

His eyes traveled back to the interior
of the car, and he noticed something shiny
lying on the cushion. It was a ‘heart-
shaped locket. Leona Vlught, he knew,
had worn a similar piece of jewelry when
she left her home, but it had been miss-
ing when her body was found.

The officers‘returned to the front of the
house and quietly climbed the stairs.
Jewell rang the bell. When, after several
minutes, no one had appeared at the door,
he rang again.

As the two men waited, various

(Continued on page 92)

(Left) The young man who kept a two

A.M. date with the victim. (Above) > wWhiws*»
An officer carefully examines the tire ©
tracks found at the scene of the murder

a hrs RENE eg.


The Wax Doll: Body on Lovers’ Hill

thoughts raced through their minds, Had
the suspect disappeared? Were they
storming an empty house? Or was this
silence some sort of ruse? .

Then, they heard footsteps within, and
the door opened, A woman dressed in a
bathrobe regarded them inquiringly.

“We wish to see Rodney Greig,” ‘stated
Jewell. “Are you his mother?”

The woman nodded. “Rodney’s asleep,”
she said. “Is it’ very important? I don’t
like to disturb him.”

“Tt’s very important,” replicd Duffy. “We
must see him right away.” :

Mrs. Greig politely invited the visitors
to enter the house, “T’l] send Rodney
down immediately,” she told them,

A few minutes later, a tall, dark youth
in pajamas approached the Inspectors.
There was a faint smile on his lips. Jewell
saw it and wondered whether they had
made a mistake,

“ ”

RIS from the Inspectors’ Bureau,
he announced,
Rodney Greig stared at them for a sees
ond, then said, “I was just wondering how
long it would be before you came for me.”

Jewell glanced at Duffy, “Can. you beat
that?” he asked.

“T’ve been expecting you,” continued the
young man.

“Then you admit that you killed Leona
Vilught?” Jewell demanded.

Greig nodded. There was no look of
shame or embarrassment on his face. “I
don’t know why I did it—something just
drove me to it, I guess.”

With a hysterical cry, Mrs. Greig ran
into the room, “T can’t believe it! It
can’t be true!” she moaned,

“But it is, Mother,” the boy said calmly,
“T killed her—but really I don’t know
why.”

At that moment, James Greig, the lad’s
father, entered. An exclamation of horror
burst from his lips as he heard his son’s
admission of guilt,

“Why, we discussed this whole thing at
dinner,” the elder Greig remarked broken-
ly. “All the while we had the—I mean,
Rodney was here with us, and we didn’t

now.” ’

“Now tell us all about it,” Jewell urged,
addressing the boy, “Start at the begin-
ning.” ,

The 21-year-old youth then related his
own rather fantastic version of the tragic
night. Only the unfortunate victim would
ave known whether he had misrepresented
the facts in an effort to clear himself,

“Tt was this way,” he began, “I’d known
zeona for about six months. I met her
Wednesday night in front of a cafeteria
at 12th and Broadway,” he related. “I
had arranged to pick her up at about two
o’clock in the morning, She was standing

.. “As we were Tiving over the road in the
hills—it’s just « dirt road and pretty rough
—the car struck a bump:and we bounced.
Leona held her side, saying that j

er. These were her words:
the pate gets so bad I feel like committing

- suicide,

“Well, we parked then ‘and talked: for

: quite a while.’ There was nothing wrong
‘’in our relations,’ I excused myself, after

'& while, and walked away from the car,
« When I came back, I didn’t get into the
ar, but walked around to the: right: side
' where Leona was sitting. I leaned on the
‘door, and we talked of suicide.

“Tn a sort of joking way, I took out my

Pee, ‘
_ ‘

‘ stenographer,

(Continued from mage 73)
’ /

hunting knife and pricked her neck with
the blade. I asked her how she would like
me to plunge the knife into her throat.
She said that would be all right with her,
But I told her I wouldn’t do it. Then sud-
denly, I don’t know why, I just’ shoved
the knife into her body. That’s all. I still
don’t know why I did it. It was just a
blind urge that I can’t explain, :

“While she was dying, I walked around
the hill and smoked a lot of cigarettes.
When IT returned to the car, she seemed. to
be dead, so I pulled her out and dragged
her over to a little gully.

“I took off her Jewelry, gathered up her
purse and other belongings, and got back
In the car. Then I drove home to Berke-

Rodney Greig, after his arrest

ley and went to bed. That was at about
four o’clock in the morning.”

While young Greig was dressing, one of
the Inspectors informed me by telephone
of the latest developments, I had gone
home for the night, but upon hearing of
the boy’s confession, I hurried back to
Headquarters.

As Inspectors Duffy and Jewell entered
with the handcuffed youth, I looked at my
watch. It was a few minutes after 10:30
o’clock. Just twelve hours after the crime
had been discovered, we had arrested the
murderer and secured a confession,

We questioned Greig for hours, trying to
discover his motive. But our efforts were
of no avail. He persisted in saying that
he did not know what had prompted him
to stab his lovely companion.

“Why did you keep her locket in your
car?” T asked,

“I loved Leona,” he replied, “I only
wanted it to remember her by.”

The next day, we called on his em-
ployer. “It’s simply one of those things
you can’t understand,” the latter said.
“For instance, Rodney had been & Careless
Yesterday, however, his
work suddenly improved—for no apparent
reason. He was unusually good. It seemed
as though there was suddenly something
off his mind. We were amazed at the
sudden change.” .

‘Then, we started: delvin into the boy’s
past. He had, we learne , & long record
of petty crimes—a record that had begun
at the age of eleven when he turned in
false fire alarms. He seemed to have an
utter disregard for the Law.

At 19, after five minor misdemeanors,
he was arrested for embezzling $231 from
his employer, a grocer, The money had
been squandered in “stepping out” with
the girls. He wanted fun and didn’t hesi-
tate to steal in order to have it.

At that time, a study of the youth was
made by Probation Officer George Me-

Nulty,
“Tf he is not subjected to correctixe
treatment,” the latter reported to the

Court, “and if he is not made to realize
the gravity of his faults, he will commit
more serious offenses as he grows older,”

Greig’s parents heard the report. and
pleaded for the corrective treatment, that
had been recommended,

Rodney was thereupon sent to Preston
Reformatory, in the hope that institutional
discipline would curb his disregard for
order and teach him his responsibilities,

When he reached the age of 21, he was
released," His parents watched him care-
fully, and became convinced that he had
mended his ways, But Rodney Greig had
not changed.

Although we now knew a great deal
about the prisoner, we still didn’t. know
what his motive had been for killing the
girl whom he professed to love. We did
discover that he had purchased his hunting
knife at a Pawnshop, two days before the
crime, and that he had explained to the
clerk that he needed it to protect himself
from the rowdies whom he met at dance
halls. We were convinced that the murder
Was premeditated.

A police judge, after the preliminary
hearing, held Greig for trial in Superior
Court. There, before Superior Judge Ed-
ward J. Tyrrell, he pleaded not guilty by
os of insanity, as allowed by California
aw.

HE entire trial was dramatic, but. the

climax was reached when Mrs, Greig
took the stand in a frantic effort to save
her son from the lethal gas chamber. She
claimed that insanity ran in, her family,
and insisted that Rodney had inherited
an epileptic taint that caused him to act
Strangely, Her father, she stated, had been
committed to a state hospital for the in-
sane the year, Rodney was born, and had
died there eighteen years later, According
to her testimony, her mother suffered
mental disorders; two other relatives had
been sent to insane asylums.

Defense alienists testified that Rodney
was suffering from an “epileptic seizure”
when he killed the girl he loved, and that
he did not know he was doing wrong,

Specialists appointed by the Court
scoffed at the defense and insisted that
the youth was sane at the time.

The findings of these men convinced
Judge Tyrrell. “After due deliberation and
examination of the testimony,” he an-
nounced from the bench, “I find no ex-
tenuating evidence for your crime, but
rather a ‘deliberate intent to kill—to kill

deliberately and without provocation,
Therefore I find you guilty of first degree
murder,”

Sang days later, Greig stood before the

“It is the judgment of the Court,” Judge

trell said softly, “that for the offense
of murder, the punishment of death be in-
flicted by the administration of lethal gas
in the State’s prison at San Quentin.”

Greig’s attorneys at once filed notice of
appeal, |

The next day the youti was transferred
to the State’s prison, There he will re-
main while the State Supreme Court re-
views his. case,

TRUE DETECTIVE MYSTERIES

and -n:
How
this k;
result
Last §;
to lect
storeke:
115,000
feit mc
droppe:

KN
ru
plains s
ney, wi
district.
ing ear!
grounds
by dire:
ters and
in Was
tppearay
can be
them to

Work:
Trylon
Service

through |
the can.
tight, wa
cache of
As the
the cow
Agents, u
slinger ot
to pick u
there was
nowhere
would inc
of supply.
Meanw!
the upgr:
establishe:
in China,
tire outpu
it through
this point
was forme:
Chusan. |
all sorts o}
play cases
the only |
ceiving of
San Franci
Isaac, t!
twin, was
fornia, Ost
ness, he wa
fellow, and
folk who \
underworld «
So well k
when two
for a visit t
Isaac, who h
zen, was. ask:
preter and, ¢
It was too
and he jump
protective ca
There was :
away, some
business, It
solution.
“T’ll come :
“Wong can
end and you .
So Judah b
his Russian gi
the United St;

AUGUST, 1939


THE PICNIC TABLE—
The ruthless killer flung the pleading and helpless
woman on this table after he struck her with pestle.

EVIDENCE IN DOUBLE SLAYING—
Above photo shows how woman was bound to scrub
oak with a pair of pants and an old shirt by killer.

22

escaped during recent weeks. Jensen’s neighbors said
that, to their knowledge, the only guest he had had over
the past week end had been the U. S. Maritime officer
who several times in the past had come up for week
ends from his home in Boyes Springs, California.

As far as the investigators could determine, the only
motives behind the triple crime lay in the slayer’s insane
lust for the woman he chose as his last victim, and the
theft of Flint’s automobile. The coroner’s physician
estimated that both Flint and Jensen were murdered as
they slept in their beds, probably within an hour after
sunrise on the morning of the Fourth.

There was nothing missing from the house except the
pair of trousers belonging to Jensen, which the mad
slayer took to replace his own after he had used those
to bind Mrs. Paget to the tree. Those trousers and the
T-shirt found in the kitchen by the woman after she
staggered naked into the house were of a type frequently
worn by Navy and merchant marine men, but neither
would have fitted the husky lieutenant. Sheriff Patterson
examined them for laundry marks or other identifica-
tion, but could find nothing.

There were bloody fingerprints on the stone pestle,
but these were so badly smeared it was impossible to
identify them. Several empty whiskey glasses testified
to the possibility that the slayer had arrived at the lodge
on the night before the Fourth, and been entertained
by the other men. On two of these glasses were prints
of Flint and Jensen, but the others had apparently been
wiped clean of identifying marks.

That the slayer may have been a welcome guest at
the lodge was further emphasized by the fact that there
was no evidence of the place having been broken into.
It was known that Jensen usually locked up before
retiring for the night. If the killer had arrived during
the early morning hours, he’d have either had to force
an entrance or awaken one of the two men sleeping
inside. That both had died in their sleep from multiple
fractures of the skull clearly indicated the man must
have been in the house before they retired.

A minute search throughout the attractively furnished
six-room cottage failed to reveal any other evidence of
the presence of a third man. Valuable Oriental tapes-
tries and a collection of antique China pitchers had not
been disturbed, and in the clothing which Flint and
Jensen had hung neatly at their bedsides before retiring
were found their wallets containing identification cards
and money. '

ELATIVES of Flint later informed Sheriff Patterson
that the lieutenant always carried a gasoline credit
card while traveling, but this could not be located, ”

Before the night was out the sheriff turned his atten-
tion to the immediate past of the murdered maritime
officer in the belief that the slayer may have been some
acquaintance—someone he’d invited to spend the holi-
day week end with himself and his old friend Peter
Jensen.

It was soon learned that the handsome 27-year-old war
veteran had been graduated somc months before from
the Merchant Marine Academy at Alameda, California.
Since that time he had sailed half around the world, and
members of his family reported he had frequently
brought seamen friends home with him when in his
home port. Most of these friends were men of his own
age who lived in other parts of the country and found
themselves friendless and lonesome when their ship
called at California harbors.

While efforts were being made to get in touch with
‘members of the last crew with which Flint had sailed,

PTY PR

Pape nar

in an attem;
answered to
scription of t
authorities |:
had been se
Valley of the
morning.

By this tir
license plate !
after its rece
used-car deal:
that the car }
further north

It was not
identification
came from th:
nearly 200 m
Sheriff’s Dete
at the county
of a Laytonvi

“Fellow drc
minutes ago,”
handed me a
on it. I thoug
and staring, a:
a whisper. It
true identity
on the radio :
him being bri

While the s:
centrated in t}
back in Sono:
at sea informir
description ha
weeks before
had disembar}
additional trai

The man w:
34-year-old px
ated from th
Academy. His
New York, but
from a Califor:
by shipmates }
vealed to seve!
a Western pen

URING the
tinued in
learned that a:
on parole fror
Chino early in
assault with a
brandsen was
pale-blue eyes
sent up from
Checking wit
was informed ;
February 14th,
times with an
woman. Althou;
it was known h
alley pin-setter
Further info:
after Sheriff F
at the Alamde:

CONFESSED Ss)
(Photograph ai
crime in Sonom


64

came along, arrested all three on
charges of drunkenness, and threw
them into the local jail. The next
morning, their city editor bailed them
out.

LARKE STALLWORTH, reporter

for the Scripps-Howard news-
papers, can also testify to the un-
friendly attitude assumed by the Klan
toward gentlemen of the press. In
June of 1949, while seeking facts con-
cerning outbreaks of violence in the
Birmingham area of Alabama, he
was assaulted near Sumiton, and told
to forget his inquisitive propensities.
And Clarence Hanson, Jr., publisher
of the Birmingham News, has also
been the recipient of Klan attention.
On June 23, 1949, he was paid the
delicate compliment of a_ burning
cross on the lawn of his home. Need-
less to say, this was in recognition of
the outspoken anti-Klan position the
News has taken.

There are propitious signs on the
horizon, however. Many local offi-
cials will not tolerate the intimida-
tion of citizens by lawless and anony-
mous mobs. Jim Peterson, mayor of
a small Georgia town, accosted three
Klansmen on the street, ripped off
their hoods, and clapped them in the
local jail on charges of disturbing the
peace. In Birmingham, the sheriff has
recommended that citizens arm them-
selves and shoot to protect their
homes, in the temporary absence of
adequate police assistance to enforce
the law.

On the State levels, with the ex-
ception of Georgia, whose legislature
recently defeated an anti-Klan bill,
the reaction of officials has been
prompt and scathing. The gover-
nor of Florida put it this way after
a 43-car Klan parade had passed

through Tallahassee and five other
towns: “The hooded hoodlums and
sheeted jerks ... made a disgusting
and alarming spectacle. These covered
cowards who call themselves Klans-
men quite obviously have set out to
terrorize minority groups...”

The governor asked for immediate
legislation to outlaw the order.

And in Georgia, too, there is rea-
son to bélieve that the action of the
legislature does not necessarily re-
flect the sentiments of many citizens.
As this is written, Jackie Robinson is
leading the National: League in bat-
ting with an average of .366, and is
generally conceded to be a credit to
baseball everywhere. But when the
Dodgers were heading north after
spring training this year, Grand
Dragon Green gave as his entirely un-
solicited opinion that it would be un-
lawful for Robinson and Roy Camp-
anella, Dodger Negro catcher, to ap-
pear in an exhibition game with the
Atlanta Crackers.

Just as promptly, and to the hur-
rahs of sportsmen everywhere, Earl
Mann, president of the Atlanta Club,
announced that his team would play
any team the Dodgers care to put on
the field, regardless of the pigmenta-
tion of any particular player. This
sentiment was given eloquent punctu-
ation by 45 members of the Atlanta
Methodist Ministers’ Association, who
denounced the Klan as “a cowardly
anti-Christian mob,” and continued:
“We are scandalized at the Klan’s de-
secration of the Cross of Christ.”
Green’s reply to this was that “there
must be some purging of our Protes-
tant churches. .. .”

In Alabama, too, official action
against the Klan has been swift. The
governor of the state, James E. Fol-
som, has proposed immediate legisla-

tion to outlaw the Klan, accompany-
ing his legislative message with these
words: “Certain hooded organiza-
tions, by whatever name known, have
committed unlawful acts of violence
and intimidation against citizens of
this State... . I ask the Attorney Gen-
eral to begin legal action to revoke
their charters immediately.”

Alabama veteran organizations have
plunged into the fight, and have
wholeheartedly supported the gover-
nor’s legislative program and urged
more adequate police protection for
the State’s citizens.

On the national scale, the Federal
Bureau of Investigation has taken
note of Klan activity, and are asking
questions to determine if the con-
stitutional rights of citizens have been
impaired. And the House of Rep-
resentatives, through its Judiciary
Committee, has displayed a sensitive
attitude to the depredations of the
masked terrorists. :

The issue is a simple one:

Will the people of the country have
law or disorder?

Judge E. A. Gamble, addressing a
Grand Jury of Grenshaw County,
Georgia, on November 11, 1927, stated
the question admirably. “People in
this country,’ the judge declared,
“have been taken from their homes
and beaten, without a trial and with-
out an opportunity to defend them-
selves. Most of this lawlessness has
been perpetrated under cover of
night. ... There can be but one gov-
erning authority. One system is the
courts of our States, the other is a
body of masked men, exercising their
own power, crushing the weak with-
out excuse. The two systems are in
conflict, and if the courts are to gov-
cern, the other system must go, or else
anarchy will prevail.”

DETECTIVE

HORROR AT LODGE

Continued from page 23

newspaper reports on the case he
called the sheriff’s office, but when
Detective Cavagnaro and Deputy Ev-
erett Maudlin reached the Inn they
found their quarry gone.

“Miller” had paid for his room in
advance, as he carried no bags, but
he had not slept in his bed, and no
personal possessions of his were left
behind. Still later a call came into
the sheriff’s office from a nearby tav-
ern where Gulbrandsen had stopped
for several drinks before arousing the
suspicion of the bartender by his wild
manner and loose talk.

While every available peace officer
in the region was continuing the
search, Ed Neumeier, a reporter on
the Humboldt Standard, the local aft-
ernoon newspaper, sat at his desk
typing out a story about the latest ef-
forts of the police to run the killer to
earth,

Neumeier finished his story and

started toward the city desk as the

switchboard-operator put through a
call from someone who asked to speak
with “the guy who’s covering the So-
noma County murders.” Two minutes
later he was listening to a husky
voice that told him:

“Meet me at the Log Cabin (a local
tavern some half-mile from the news-
paper office in the business district of
town), and I'll give you a news story
that should interest a great many of
your readers.”

The speaker identified himself only
as: “Johnny,” and made Neumeier
promise he would come to the Log
Cabin alone. Otherwise, he said, he
would not be there when the other
arrived.

Fifteen minutes later the veteran
police reporter entered the tavern. At
the bar was a lone drinker, who
turned, studied him closely, then
walked to a rear booth.

After Neumeier was seated across
from the man and had ordered up two
straight whiskeys, his ruddy-faced
companion commenced speaking in a
dull, listless voice that little betrayed
the emotional turmoil which must
have been going on in his twisted
mind.

“TI suppose you've guessed it,” Henry
Guldbrandsen said slowly as_ he
tossed his first victim’s gasoline-
credit card to the table before the
other man. “I’m the guy who killed
those people down in Sonoma County.

Now I’m ready to give up. I haven't
been trying to hide, for I’ve known all
along they’d get me. It’s just that I’ve
been afraid to walk into the hands of
the cops. They figure I’m desperate,
and would probably start shooting.”

The reporter interrupted: “You
needn’t worry about that, now. But
it'd be safer for you if you’d come
back to the Office with me. I’ll call the
D. A. and you can make your state-
ment before him.”

ULDBRANDSEN agreed and an

hour later he was sitting at the
reporter’s own desk, dictating his con-
fession of two of the most brutal and
unprovoked murders ever to be writ-
ten up by Ed Neumeier.

Already Sonoma County officers
were on their way to return him to
answer for his crime. When they ar-
rived, they read that statement and
announced that in their opinion Guld-
brandsen was completely sane, and
that he had murdered his victims sole-
ly in order to clear the coast for his
subsequent attack on Eva Paget and
to get the high-powered car with
which to make his getaway.

In confessing, Guldbrandsen said:

“Peter Flir
week end.
Jensen. We
Alameda Ma
rived at the
at clubs in °
way. Everyt
til Monday n
8 and 10 a.m
tion and rap

“T went ou
I think was
into the cab
feeling no cx
now feel the

tive work ha
tion of the

police ackni
know the ki
thing that m

Farrell an
speaking of
well known :
who’d been
for questioni
Tresca slayin
their convers
the detective
Imperiale ea:

“They say
around with
since Tony «x
outs,” Farrel]
by way of e
with the late

“Tony Lisi
tano Lisi, the
mixed up w
games over i

Farrell wa
was one of tf
compiled of s
games that v
bandits just r

“Yeah, that
Presenzano
here. Left at
only recentl:
took ’em tha
action after t
dropped whe
one of their f
years back.”

It wasn’t
Presenzano,
rell’s list, we
erations that
What arouse
other’s state:
turned. For,
had not kn¢
operated on
Side.

“Thought
close to Que:
to keep the
voice.

“Naw, that
some of the:
here, though
with the loc:

Farrell dic
He knew tha:
ing with hin
to go back a
world associ:
hint of what


lan, accompany-
ssage with these
ded organiza-
me known, have
acts of violence
iinst citizens of
e Attorney Gen-
iction to revoke
iately.”

ganizations have
ight, and have
orted the gover-
‘ram and urged
e protection for

ale, the Federal
tion has taken
. and are asking
ine if the con-
tizens have been
House of Rep-
1 its Judiciary
ayed a sensitive
edations of the

e one:
-he country have

le, addressing a
enshaw County,
r 11, 1927, stated
nly. “People in
judge declared,
om their homes
trial and with-
o defend them-
lawlessness has
nder cover of
be but one gov-
ie system is the
the other is a
exercising their
the weak with-
systems are in
irts are to gov-
must go, or else

e up. I haven’t
r ’ve known all
It’s just that I’ve
ito the hands of
e I’m desperate,
tart shooting.”

-rrupted: “You
that, now. But
\ if you’d come
me. I’ll call the
1ake your state-

agreed and an
is sitting at the
ictating his con-
most brutal and
ver to be writ-

County officers
) return him to
When they ar-
statement and
r opinion Guld-
tely sane, and
his victims sole-
he coast for his
Eva Paget and
fered car with

away.
{brandsen said:

“Peter Flint invited me up over the
week end. He was a guest of Peter
Jensen. We left Friday night from the
Alameda Maritime Academy and ar-
rived at the cabin at 9 p.m., stopping
at clubs in the neighborhood on the
way. Everything went along fine un-
til Monday morning. I awoke between
8 and 10 a.m. feeling a violent pulsa-
tion and rapid heart-beating.

“T went outside, took a stone which
I think was an Indian pestle, came
into the cabin, hit Flint, hit Jensen,
feeling no compassion at the time. I
now feel the greatest revulsion, but

can still speak objectively about it.

“T left the cabin and went to Mrs.
Paget’s house and told her’‘a story of
Flint breaking his arm on the pre-'
text of getting her to come to the
cabin. I hit her with the bludgeon
with the intention of knocking her out.
She fell down and spoke of her chil-
dren and asked me to get her some
water. I felt sorry for her and.went
to get it. Originally, I had no reason
for bringing her up there...

“TI really can’t say why I killed my
friend and the other one. After it was
over, and I was on my way north I

felt better, though. I stopped to eat

and drink, and danced and sang at
several bars. There was community
singing at one place, and I really en-
joyed that. They were nice people.”
As Guldbrandsen was being led
from the -newspaper office to the
county jail, his thin lips parted and
the notes of the old favorite, “I’ll See
You In My Dreams,” came in a clear,
shrill whistle. '
Detective Cavagnaro, remembering
the two bludgeoned men who lay
dead and the kindly woman who had
been attacked, ordered him to shut up.

tive work had gone into an investiga-
tion of the murder, but to date the
police acknowledged they did not
know the killer, the motive or any-
thing that might lead to a solution.
Farrell and his companion were
speaking of one Carmine Galente—
well known man-about-the-East-Side
who’d been picked up several times

for questioning in connection with the |

Tresca slaying—when a name entered
their conversation that instantly took
the detective’s thoughts back to the
Imperiale ease. .

“They say Galente’s been seen
around with Tony Lisi and the mob
since Tony come back to his old hang-
outs,” Farrell’s informant mentioned,
by way of acquainting the detective
with the latest gossip of the region.

“Tony Lisi? You don’t mean Gae-
tano Lisi, the ex-con who used to be
mixed up with those floating crap
games over in Brooklyn?”

Farrell was remembering that Lisi
was one of the men on the list he had
compiled of suspected operators of the
games that were raided by maverick
bandits just prior to Imperiale’s death.

“Yeah, that’s the guy. Him and Moe
Presenzano used to operate down
here. Left about three years ago and
only recently come back. Guess it
took ’em that long to get back into
action after the seventeen grand they
dropped when some punk stuck up
one of their floating crap games a few
years back.”

It wasn’t the fact that Lisi .and
Presenzano; another “name” on Far-
rell’s list, were about to resume op-
erations that interested the detective.
What aroused his interest was the
other’s statement that they had re-
turned. For, until that moment, he
had not known that the pair ever
operated on Manhattan’s lower East
Side.

“Thought those boys stuck pretty
close to Queens,” Farrell said, trying
to keep the sudden interest from his
voice.

“Naw, that was jus’ where they held
some of their games. Lived around
here, though, and used to hang out
with the local mobs.”

Farrell didn’t pursue the subject.
He knew that the man who was talk-
ing with him now wouldn’t hesitate
to go back and talk with his under-
world associates if he received any
hint of what was in the detective’s

BUMPED IN BROOKLYN

Continued from page 56

mind. It was like a game, the cop
meeting the crook and each trying
to find out what the other knew—
each asking or telling just enough to
maintain an aura of friendliness and
confidence. Mees

But when he left the coffee shop
Farrell lost no time in making other
inquiries about the neighborhood. It
wasn’t long before he learned that
Gaetano Lisi, a 37-year-old police
character who had been in trouble
with the law on many occasions, had
actually lived:in the same house with
Imperiale at the time of the latter’s
murder!

But that didn’t prove anything.
Things were beginning to fit together,
though, it seemed. A man who op-
erated a game which lost $17,000 to
a lone bandit shortly before an ex-con
suspected of sticking up floating crap
games died of lead poisoning, was
now fourid to have lived in the same
house as the victim. And disappeared
from the neighborhood, along with his
alleged partner, right after the slay-
ing.

It was enough to convince the de-
tective that at long last he was on
the right track. Proving a case against
the suspects was another matter. Far-
rell and his superior, Captain -Ma-
honey, were convinced of that after
conferring.once more with the assist-
ant district attorney, Pagnucco.

“There’s only one way you'll ever
be able to hang this thing on ’em,”
Pagnucco said on the day that Farrell
learned his suspect Lisi was still liv-
ing in the house at 218 Cherry Street
where the Babe had formerly resided.
“That’s to get someone in the know
to start really talking. Guys like Lisi
and Presenzano are sure to have en-
emies, personal and business. Find
out who hates their guts, and you may
get something.”

During the next three days Farrell
questioned other residents of the
house on Cherry Street. He learned
that most of those living there held
both Lisi and his pal Presenzano, who
lived at 96 Henry Street, in mortal
fear.

“Don’t ask about those two,” Farrell
was told repeatedly. ‘Why, even Im-
periale’s relatives don’t dare tell what
they suspect. Lisi and Presenzano are
too big, mixed up in too many things.
If they were to be picked up they’d
know someone talked, and sooner or

later other members of the gang
would get revenge.”

It was the first hint Farrell had
received that the relatives of the
slain ex-mobster had ‘any suspicion as
to the identity of his murderer. Al-
ready he’d talked with the Imperiale
family time and again, only to be
told they hadn’t the slightest idea as
to who killed the Babe.

Now, however, Farrell resolved to
question once more the one person
who might be persuaded to violate
the “code of the East Side,” if ap-
proached in the right manner. He
a out a very attractive dark-eyed
girl.

The girl’s name was not revealed,
for even the police admit they can’t
guarantee her safety if the story she
told Detective Farrell and Captain
Mahoney on the night of June ist
ever got back to the gang charged
with rubbing out the Babe. And just
how the detectives finally persuaded
her to talk has not been made public.

But it is known that the girl, for
years, had been going about in con-
stant fear that Tony Lisi and Moe
Presenzano might someday learn that
she and two girl companions had, on
the spring night of May 18, 1946, been
sitting in a car not far from 145 East
Broadway in Brooklyn.

The car belonged to the girl’s friend,
Anthony Imperiale, who’d taken the
girls to a dance in the adjacent bor-
ough, and on their way home men-
tioned that he had to stop off to “get
some stuff.”

“We sat out there waiting and saw
three men enter the house after Tony
went in,” the girl said. There were
three shots and then the men came
running back outside. Tony never
came, and we knew what must have
happened. But we knew also .that
we'd never live to tell it if they saw
us sitting there in Tony’s car. So we
ducked to the floor and waited till
they were away.”

This story was later confirmed by
the other girls. All three, according
to Detective Farrell, positively iden-
tified Tony and Moe as two of the
trio who had run from the darkened
hallway. The third man they recog-
nized, they said, as Michael Consolo,
a 41-year-old tailor who lived at that
time at 36-52 29th Street in Astoria,
Queens.

On the night of June 2, 1949, Farrell

65


’s neighbors said
t he had had over
. Maritime officer
yme up for week
, California.
‘termine, the only
the slayer’s insane
st victim, and the
vroner’s physician
were murdered as
thin an hour after
1.
2 house except the
1, which the mad
he had used those
2 trousers and the
woman after she
fa type frequently
» men, but neither
t. Sheriff Patterson
or other identifica-

1 the stone pestle,
was impossible to
ey glasses testified
arrived at the lodge
i been entertained
glasses were prints
ad apparently been

welcome guest at
the fact that there
s been broken into.
locked up before
had arrived during
either had to. force
two men sleeping
sleep from multiple
ited the man must
’ retired.
tractively furnished
y other evidence of
ible Oriental tapes-
ina pitchers had not
ig which Flint and
sides before retiring
identification cards

ed Sheriff Patterson
ied a gasoline credit
| not be located. ”

‘iff turned his atten-
murdered maritime
may have been some
d to spend the holi-
his old friend Peter

ome 27-year-old war
months before from
Alameda, California.
round the world, and
he had frequently
h him when in his
vere men of his own
e country and found
ne when their ship

to get in touch with

5

ich Flint had sailed,

in an attempt‘to learn whether any of his shipmates
answered to the name of “Hank” and Eva Paget’s de-
scription of the lust-crazed slayer, the Sonoma County
authorities learned that the missing green convertible
had been seen in Healdsburg, 45 miles north of the
Valley of the Moon in Sonoma County, at 6 o’clock that
morning.

By this time it was known the green Buick had a

license plate bearing the number 9-P-3869 attached to it
after its recent purchase by Flint from a Los Angeles.

used-car dealer. Three hours later a report came through
that the car had been spotted in Willits, some 60 miles
further north on State Highway 101.

It was not until late the same night that positive
identification of the missing car and its wild-eyed driver
came from the town of Laytonville in Humboldt County,
nearly 200 miles north of its starting point. This time
Sheriff’s Detective Charles Cavagnaro received a call
at the county seat in Eureka from Bud Holden, operator
of a Laytonville filling station.

“Fellow drove in here in a- big green convertible a few
minutes ago,” Holden reported. ‘Filled up with gas and
handed me a credit card with the name Peter J. Flint
on it. I thought the guy was drunk; his eyes were red
and staring, and he spoke in a husky voice hardly above
a whisper. It wasn’t till after he left that I learned his
true identity. Went into my station then, and turned
on the radio news. And heard a report of the search for
him being broadcast.”

While the search for the fleeing killer was being con-
centrated in the northern coast county, Sheriff Patterson
back in Sonoma received a radio-telegram from a ship
at sea informing him that a man answering to the killer’s
description had left the ship with Flint less than three
weeks before. Both Flint and this man, it was reported,
had disembarked at Alameda for the purpose of taking
additional training at the Maritime Academy there.

The man was listed as Henry Brun Guldbrandsen, a
34-year-old petty officer who in 1944 had been gradu-
ated from the New London, Connecticut, Maritime
Academy. His home address was given as Brooklyn,
New York, but ship’s records showed he had shipped out
from a California port on his last cruise. He was known
by shipmates by the nickname of “Hank” and had re-
vealed to several of them that he’d once served time in
a Western penitentiary.

URING the next few hours, while the search con-

tinued in northern California, Sheriff Patterson
learned that a man of that same name had been released
on parole from the California State Prison Farm at
Chino early in 1949, after serving a two-year term for
assault with a deadly weapon. The ex-convict Guld-
brandsen was described as a short, stocky man with
pale-blue eyes and a ruddy complexion. He had been
sent up from San Mateo County.

Checking with police in San Mateo, Sheriff Patterson
was informed that the suspect was arrested there on
February 14th, 1947, after stabbing one Kurt Masson 13
times with an ice-pick during a quarrel over a local
woman. Although he had given his profession as seaman,
it was known he had worked as a pantryman, bowling-
alley pin-setter and common laborer.

Further information on Guldbrandsen’s past came
after Sheriff Patterson learned from other students
at the Alamdea Maritime Academy that ‘‘Hank” and

CONFESSED SLAYER—

(Photograph at right.) He committed his revolting
crime in Sonoma County, gave himself up in Eureka.

Peter Flint had roomed together there. Patterson also
learned the suspect had informed other studerits that
he had had “marital troubles” during his earlier years
and as a consequence was “soured on all women.”
Early on the next day Eureka police received reports
that a wild-eyed man answering to the suspect’s de-
scription had registered at the Eureka Inn under the
name of Henry B. Miller, late the previous evening.
After the desk clerk read (Continued on page 64)


:

2.9 iM in

ee tee te:

Near exhaustion and almost delirious
with suffering, she staggered into the cabin
and went to the bedroom her assailant
had prevented her from entering. There
beneath the covers of the double bed lay
what appeared to be a human form.

She lifted the covers, then stood trans-

xed at sight of the barely recognizable
-vatures of Peter Jensen, who had been
bludgeoned to death.

Reeling with horror, she made her way
to the other bedroom in search of Flint. She
found him when she raised the covers of
the double bed in that room. He had been
bludgeoned in the same frightful way as
the older man.

Sanity left Eva Paget when she beheld
the disfigured, bloodsmeared corpse of
the young lieutenant who had been among
her dearest friends, and she fled screaming
from that cottage of horrors without paus-
ing to put on her clothes.

Some minutes later, Miss Margaret Smith
and Miss Constance Hoover, both of San
Francisco, were petrified to see a blood-
covered, sobbing woman, nude save for
a man’s shirt, struggling through a thicket
toward them as they were picknicking

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off Triniti Road several hundred yards
from Candlelight Lodge.

Miss Smith, a registered nurse, rushed
to the side of the exhausted, hysterical
woman and caught her as she started to
fall.

Aided by her companion, she placed
her on a blanket, gave her water and at-
tempted to revive her.

Babbling incoherently, Eva Paget tried
to tell them about the bodies in the cabin,
and the horrified women finally understood
that someone called Hank had assaulted
and tried to murder her after killing
someone else.

They placed her in their automobile and
hurriedly drove toward Sonoma. On the

' way they met Highway Patrolman John

» Cooney, who radioed the sheriff's oMce in

=

Peo ae

Santa Rosa and then rushed the injured
woman to the Sonoma Valley Community

Hospital.
The physicians who examined her
found that she was in a serious condi-

} tion, with at least one skull fracture and

probably a brain injury. Her features were
cut and bruised and her right hand pain-
fully swollen. She had lost considerable
blood and was weak from shock and
hysteria.

While she was receiving emergency

atment, Deputy Sheriffs John O’Brien

| Ted Reis arrived from the sheriff’s
sup-Station in Sonoma, having received a

‘radio message from Santa Rosa instruct-

|

_the barely conscious woman,

j
i

jing them to obtain information concern-
/ing the crime and report back.

The officers were permitted to question
but only

briefly. They learned that her assailant

was a man she had previously met but
knew only as Hank, and they also gathered
from her incoherent answers that two
men lay dead in Candlelight Lodge.

O’Brien radioed this information to
Chief Criminal Deputy William E. Cook,
who ordered him and Reis to remain at
the hospital and question the victim fur-
ther as soon as the doctors would permit it.

Cook and Sheriff Harry B. Patteson then
set out for the murder scene, accompanied
by Deputies Frank J. Lawrence and An-
drew Johanson in another car. They were
soon followed by District Attorney Charles
McGoldrick, Coroner Vernon Silvershield,
and an official photographer, C. B. Mag-
getti, Jr.

It was obvious to the investigators that
Flint and Jensen had been bludgeoned
to death as they lay sleeping in the beds
where their bodies were found. It seemed
equally clear that the murder weapon
was the bloodstained pestle they found in
the flower pot beside the front door.

| Festal were able to surmise much of what
had happened to Mrs. Paget when they
discovered her clothing in the kitchen and
a man’s suntan trousers and other gar-
ments still hanging loosely about the tree
trunk to which she had been tied.

Flint’s car was missing and so were his
clothes and wallet. He was identified a
few minutes later, when O’Brien reported
by radio that in conscious moments Mrs.
Paget had given him and Reis additional
information.

Learning that Flint had been enrolled
at the Maritime Training School and that
he had introduced Hank as his roommate,
Sheriff Patteson instructed O’Brien and
Reis to drive to Oakland and seek the help
of the police there in identifying the
killer.

Arriving in Oakland, the two deputies
obtained the assistance of homicide de-
tectives, who located Mrs. Paget’s mother,
Mrs. Eva Blanchard, at 3048 College Ave-
nue in Berkeley. She had never met the
man known as Hank, but she furnished
Flint’s Richmond address. After sending a
telegram to Frank Paget, she went to
Sonoma to be near her daughter and care
for her grandchildren.

At the Alameda training school, the
officers tentatively identified the slayer as
Henry B. Guldbrandsen, a 35-year-old
member of the Merchant Marine. He was
a third mate who was studying to obtain
a second mate’s license. He hailed from
Brooklyn, New York, and had returned to
the school the previous June 17th after
having been enrolled there on a former
occasion.

A photograph of Guldbrandsen was
shown to Flint’s landlady in Richmond,
and she identified him as the man with
whom Flint had left on vacation the pre-
ceding Friday. He had told her they were
going to spend the holidays near Sonoma,

Learning that Flint had recently pur-
chased his car, a 1941 Buick, from a dealer
in Los Angeles, the police sent a wire to
the authorities in that city, who quickly
contacted the dealer and obtained the
license number.

A teletype bulletin was immediately sent
out giving the fugitive’s name and de-
scription, the description and license num-
ber of the victim’s automobile, and such
other information as had been uncovered.
The police of several Western states were
soon conducting a determined search for
the murderer.

Back in Sonoma, an X-ray examination
had revealed that Mrs. Paget’s skull was
fractured in three places. The injuries
were so serious as to require immediate
surgery.

Before she underwent the operation,
District Attorney McGoldrick obtained a
more detailed statement from her. She

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+ ee nes


Horror at Candlelight Lodge

Continued from page 31) up to the front
‘trance, over which was an arch bearing
ae name “Candlelight Lodge.”

As Hank parked the convertible, Mrs.
Paget noticed Jensen’s car standing there.
They got out and started up the steps. Hank
assisted her until they were almost at the
top, when he released her arm and let
her walk on ahead of him.

An instant later something seemed to
explode on her head and she found herself
lying, on the flagstones near the doorway,
too badly stunned to understand what had
happened. Moaning, she looked up and
saw Hank standing over her. He was hold-
ing Jensen’s Indian pestle, and her be-
wilderment turned to alarm when she saw
the look of sinister intent in his blue eyes
as he stared down at her.

She hastily tried to get up, whereupon
he struck her again. It was a glancing
blow, hurriedly delivered, but it brought
blood trickling down the side of her face.

MAZED and terrified, she cowered back
as he raised the heavy bludgeon to

strike again. She cried out and threw up
her hand. She succeeded in lessening the
impact, but the stone pestle smashed her
fingers and crashed against her skull with
stupefying force.

She could see the next blow coming. He
was making sure of his aim now, and she
knew she was doomed. In that: moment,
which she believed to be her last, the
thought that leaped into her benumbed
mind was not for herself but for her chil-
dren, who were now to be left motherless.

She heard herself cry out: ‘“No—think
of them—think of my children! Remem-
ber I’m their mother!”

It was that involuntarily uttered plea
that saved her life. With the pestle poised
to strike, Hank paused. Slowly he lowered
it. Then he tossed it into a flower pot
beside the door, knelt down beside her
and began to wipe the blood from her
face with his handkerchief.

As her mind cleared, Eva Paget realized
that she had been lured there on a ruse
and was still in the direst peril. Having as
yet no inkling of his motive, she believed
she had fallen into the clutches of a mad-
man. She tried desperately to think of
some way to escape from him.

Then she remembered that he had left
the key in the ignition switch when they
got out of Flint’s car. If she could reach
that car and get it started before he over-
took her...

“Water,”
water.”

He examined her scalp, which was
steadily bleeding. Then he arose and
went around the side of the house, ap-
parently with the intention of getting
some water. The instant he was out of
sight, she got to her feet and dizzily made
her way down the steps to the automobile.
Just as she got the motor started, she saw
him come racing down the steps after her.

With the motor roaring, she swung the
car around to drive away. But Jensen’s
car blocked her and she had to stop and
back up in order to get past it.

She almost made it. But Hank was too
swift, and just when freedom was within
her grasp, he reached the side of the car,
wrenched the door open and dragged her
out.

Fighting for her life, the desperate
woman clawed at his face and momentarily
succeeded in breaking away. She immedi-
ately turned and fled down the road.
Terror gave wings to her feet, but right
behind her she heard his pounding foot-
steps. A moment later he overtook her

she said. “Please get some

a - a ahaa reintiteamaemeenndidiied m RNIN 1 ER RRO

and began punching her in the face.

Knocked to her hands and knees, she
jumped up and started running again. He
followed, punching and cuffing her with
every step. She finally collapsed at his
feet.

Dazed and almost insane with the pain
from her head injuries, she whimpered
and sobbed but offered no resistance as he
half carried her back up the steep steps.

Whatever his purpose was, the man’s
silence was ominous. During all that had
happened he had not spoken a word. His
tight-lipped silence continued as he led
her around the side of the cabin to the

CIRCUMSTANCES ALTER
CASES

When Inspector Melville Tibbits, of
the Miami, Fla., police, was a rookie,
age twenty-two, his very first assign-
ment caused his knees to tremble more
than slightly and he now admits it.
Ordered to bring in an enraged and
drunken husband and father of a baby,
he went to the man’s house and ob-
served a large crowd standing at a
respectful distance.

Several bystanders informed Tibbits
that the man inside had threatened to
kill any man, especially any cop, who
came near his home.

“His wife ran down the road scream-
ing a little while ago,” said a neigh-
bor, “but there is a baby in there. He
might kill the baby!”

Tibbits, hoping his chances in the
Hereafter were not too bad, knew it
was his duty to walk into that house,
quell the irate man and rescue the
baby. Drawing his gun, he walked
toward the house, trying to count his
heart beat and expecting to be bullet-
riddled any moment. However, he
reached the front door without being

._ molested in any manner. Inside, he
searched the house and found a four-
months-old baby crying in the back
room. He took the baby outside and
asked a woman to care for it.

Feeling a bit braver by now, but
by no means heroic, Tibbits went to

‘the back yard to continue his search.
Suddenly, from the bushes, came a
trembling voice, “Officer, are you look
—looking for me?”

A great weight fell off Tibbits’ mind
and he called out in a commanding
voice, ‘Come out of there, you cow-
ardly rat, or I'll break your neck!"

—Thomas Knight

kitchen, then stepped back to let her
wash her face at the kitchen sink.

Unable to stop the flow of blood from the
gashes in her scalp, she pleaded for some-
thing she could use as a bandage. He
looked around but couldn’t find anything.
She joined in the search and started to
enter the next room, a bedroom. He
lunged after her and seized her arm.

“Don’t go in there,” he warned.

She stared at him. “I—I thought I might
find some cloth there,” she said falter-
ingly.

“You stay right here,” he commanded.
Then he found a towel and gave it to
her. ‘Use this,” he said. .

Her hands trembled as she took it and
began to wrap it around her head. ‘Where
—where are Mr. Flint and Mr. Jensen?”
she asked.

“They went off with some fellow to visit
his family,” he replied. “‘They’ll be gone
all day.”

Wut she was bandaging her head, he
disappeared into the living-room, then
returned with a length of polished wood
that ended in two prongs. He held it up
for her to see.

“Now,” he said savagely, “if you don’t
give me what I want you're going to get
this.”

As he advanced toward her brandishing
the stick, she fearfully backed away from
him.

“Either you’re going to give in,” he told
her, “or I’m going to kill you, and be-
fore you die you'll wish you’d treated me
different.”

She sensed in his contorted features a
return of the murder lust that had almost
cost her, her life, and sick with terror, she

. spoke quickly, striving to placate him.

“Anything!” she cried. “I’ll do anything
you say!”

He stopped and stood staring at her
suspiciously.

“Why—why didn’t you tell me what you
wanted?” she rushed on, trying not to look
at the pronged stick. “Why did you hit
me, try to kill me, without even telling
me why you brought me here?”

He said harshly, “You brought it on
yourself. I’ve had my eye on you ever
since I came up here, but you wouldn't
even look at me.”

His voice quivered with resentment, but
he had lowered the threatening piece of
wood.

Stalling for time, she began to reason
with him, but he curtly cut her off.

“Take off your clothes,” he commanded,

Knowing it would be death to refuse, she
began to fumble with the fastenings of her
garments. He dropped the stick and ripped
off her brassiere. When she was com-
pletely disrobed, he forced her to ac-
company him out to the patio. The horror
that followed need not be described here.

When at last he released her, she hys-
terically begged to be taken to her chil-
dren. He curtly refused her request.

“T've got to have time to get away,”
he said. “You’re lucky I’ve decided not to
kill you. Come here.”

He led her to a tree and made her stand

with her back to it, then prepared to tie »
She asked to be allowed to |

her there.
put on her clothes, but he would not let
her get them. Using some cord, his Army
web belt, trousers and other garments, he
securely bound her to the tree with her
arms behind her.

When he was satisfied that she would
not be able to get Joose, he entered the
cabin. Some minutes later she heard him
go out the front way. Then an automobile
started up and drove away.

As the sound of the motor faded in the
distance, the horror-stricken woman began
to scream for help. There was no answer
but the sound of her own voice, which
echoed faintly back from the walls of the
narrow canyon.

Striving desperately to free herself, she
tugged at her bonds, but the cord around
her wrists cut into her flesh without
loosening. Her head throbbed with inces-
sant, excruciating pain. Time after time,
as she struggled to get loose, the unen-
durable pain overwhelmed her and she
lost consciousness.

Each time she revived, however, she re-
newed her attack upon her bonds, and at

last, after she had been tied there over |

four hours, she succeeded in freeing her- | brief:

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“I have a big story for you, one with front page news value,” man at right told
,Humbolt Times editor, who sent cub reporter Edward Neumeier ( l.) to interview him

related how Flint’s supposed friend had
lured her to the cabin, attempted to mur-
der her, and later, under the threat of
death, forced her to submit to him.

Inured though he had become to the
viciousness of criminals, McGoldrick was
deeply shocked when he heard firsthand
from the courageous woman through pain-
racked lips, the details of the brutal as-
sault to which she had been subjected
in the patio. He resolved then and there
that if the fiendish killer were caught and
brought to trial, he would see to it that
he did not get off with less than the maxi-
mum penalty for his crimes. There was a
possibility that the man was insane, but
from what Mrs. Paget said, as well as
what the Maritime School authorities knew
about him, the D. A. suspected that he had
deliberately planned the crimes with full
knowledge of what he was doing.

No trace of the killer was uncovered
that night or the following day. Then,
early in the evening of July 5th, a man
telephoned the Humboldt Times in Eureka,
some 200 miles up the coast from Sonoma,
and asked the editor, Elmer Hodgkinson,
to send a reporter to the Log Cabin bar.

“I have a story for you,” he said. “A big
story, one with front-page news value.”

“What’s your name?” Hodgkinson asked.
He suspected that the caller was a crank.

“Tell your reporter to ask the bartender
for Johnny,” was the reply.

Hodgkinson tried to obtain some hint
as to the nature of his story, but the caller
refused to talk about it over the tele-
phone.

“All right,” the editor decided, “I'll send
somebody over to interview you right
away.”

He called in young Edward J. Neumeier,
a newcomer who had recently left college
and was breaking in as a cub reporter.
Neumeier had never covered a real story,
and Hodgkinson told him frankly that he
was sending him because he thought the
caller was some pest who only imagined he
had a story for the newspaper.

“Go over there and find out what’s on
his mind, anyway,” Hodgkinson instructed.
“Tf he’s not some kind of nut, call me back
and tell me what it’s all about.”

Neumeier went to the tavern and sat
down at the bar. A man followed him in
and sat down beside him.

“You the reporter?” he asked. Neumeier
nodded, and the other led him to a table,
where they ordered beer. After they had
been served, the man looked around and
then announced in a low voice: “I’m the
guy they’re looking for in Sonoma.”

Neumeier started; then, remembering
his editor’s prediction that the caller would
turn out to be a crackpot, he repressed a
dubious smile.

“You mean,” he asked, ‘‘you’re the one
who killed those people down there?”

The man nodded, then produced Mer-
chant Marine credentials indicating that
he was Henry Guldbrandsen. Neumeier
had not yet seen the latest wire-service
reports, and this name meant nothing to
him. But he was convinced a moment
later, when Guldbrandsen showed him
Peter Flint’s wallet and driver’s license.

E TOOK Guldbrandsen to the newspaper
office, where the confessed slayer told

his story to him and Hodgkinson. At Guld-
brandsen’s request, Neumeier typed out
his statement, which the murderer thought
would make it unnecessary to relate it
again when he surrendered to the author-
ities.

Giving no motive, Guldbrandsen told
how he had got out of bed at eight-thirty
the previous morning while Flint was still
asleep.

He said that his heart was beating
rapidly as he went out and got the stone
pestle, then came back and_ bludgeoned
the young lieutenant to death. Tiptoeing
into the other bedroom, he found Jensen
asleep and beat his skull in with several
blows. He washed and dressed, then drove
to Londonside and got Mrs. Paget to ac-
company him on the pretense that Flint
had broken his arm.

Guldbrandsen admitted striking the
woman on the head with the pestle. He
related that after the crime, on arriving
in Eureka he had registered at a hotel
under an assumed name, and had then
gone to a nightclub, where he had several
drinks and danced with some girls he
met there.

Asked why he had decided to surrender,
he said, “I’ve been reading the newspapers,
and the consensus seems to be that ’m a
dangerous character, so I began to think
of giving myself up. I didn’t want to go

to the police, though, and decided the best.
way was through your paper.”

Hodgkinson and Neumeier took the mur-
derer out to dinner. They sat talking over
their coffee and elzarettes, then Todgkin-
son went to a telephone and called Charles
Cavagnaro, a veteran detective attached
to the district attorney’s office.

Cavagnaro notified the sheriff's office,
then went to the bar and took Guldbrand-
sen into custody. Under questioning by
the local district attorney, he enlarged
upon the statemerit he had given the news-
paper, but denied that he had criminally
assaulted Eva Paget.

The officers who heard his confession
were not surprised at his unwillingness to
admit the sex attack while freely con-
fessing the murders, for experience had
taught them that such behavior is typical
of sex criminals.

A psychiatrist who examined Guldbrand-
sen later pointed out that a sex criminal is
apt to feel that murder is a crime that can
be confessed with something akin to pride,
as a manly accomplishment, whereas such
a person will lie about his sex offenses
because he is ashamed to have his sexual
abnormality revealed.

Concerning his motive for the double
murder and attempted murder, Guld-
brandsen would only say, “I'm guilty as
hell, but why did I do it?”

T DEVELOPED that he was an ex-convict
who had recently been paroled from
the Men’s Prison at Chino in order to re-

Training School, where he had been en-
rolled when he pleaded guilty, two years
previously, to a charge of assault.

{
sume his studies at the Maritime Service |
|
1
i
4
|

“T tried to kill a man who was a friend !
of mine,” he declared, in reference to this |
crime. “I never knew why I did it, and I |
think they should have sent me to a mental

hospital instead of keeping me in prison
and then turning me loose.”

While Guldbrandsen was being returned
to Santa Rosa by Sheriff Patteson and
Deputy Sheriff Robert Dollar, news re-
porters looked up the record of his con-
viction and imprisonment.

On February 14th, 1947, while drinking
with a man named Curt Massen in Mas-
sen’s apartment in San Mateo, Guldbrand-
sen had seized an ice pick and stabbed
Massen fourteen times. The attack had
occurred as the victim was bending over
his companion, Mrs. Bette Kvarme, twenty-
seven. The sudden murderous attack had
caused Mrs. Kvarme to faint.

After disposing of Massen, Guldbrand-
sen had torn off the woman’s skirt, but she
had escaped his clutches and locking her-
self in the bathroom, had screamed for
help. Neighbors heard her cries and sum-
moned the police. Arriving, the officers
found it necessary to subdue Guldbrandsen
before taking him off to jail.

The reporters discovered that as a result
of the attack Massen for a long time had
no memory. He lay in a hospital for nine
months near death and with his eyesight '
destroyed forever.

Traced to the Millbrae Serra Sanitarium,
the unfortunate man expressed no bitter-
ness toward the criminal who had rendered
him blind and a semi-invalid, but he said
he felt Guldbrandsen should be made to
pay for his terrible crimes.

These revelations prompted an official
of the State Prison Board to issue a state-
ment in defense of the Board’s action in,
paroling a man who was clearly a danger-,
ous sex offender. The official pointed out
that Guldbrandsen had not been charged
with any sex crime and had been allowed
to plead guilty to a charge of assault with
a deadly weapon.

In prison, he declared, Guldbrandsen had
been extremely well behaved and had
given no hint of any abnormal sex drive.

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As for Guldbrandsen’s intimation that he
might be insane, mental tests had piven
him an 1.Q. of 122, or a “superior intelli-
rence” rating, He had never exhibited any
signs of a mental illness and had never
asked to be sent to a hospital.

On the basis 6f the record submitted to
the prison authorities, his crime had been
viewed as “an isolated drunken episode,”
and since he was considered an excellent
parole risk, he had been paroled on June
17th, 1949, after serving two years and
two months of a term that had been fixed
at four years and ten months.

T THE Maritime school, which he had

entered the same day he was paroled,
the officials revealed that they had had no
knowledge of the man’s prison record. As
a former student there, he had been ac-
cepted to resume his studies without any
check being made as to where he had
spent the intervening time.

Thus, Lieutenant Flint had been given
no warning that his new roommate was
an ex-convict and potential killer. Seven-
teen days after being released from prison,
Guldbrandsen repeated the pattern of his
previous crime, with the result that Flint
and Jensen were dead and Eva Paget was
critically ill with injuries received in the
fiendish attack.

As soon as he received his mother-in-
law's telegram, Frank Paget flew to Cali-
fornia to be at his wife’s side.

A week after undergoing surgery on her
skull, Eva Paget was still unable to focus
her eyes properly, and although her life
was no longer in danger, it was feared
that her vision might be permanently im-
paired. She remained in the hospital for
several weeks, and was then taken to her
mother’s home in Berkeley, where she re-
mained under a doctor’s care.

After being examined by prominent
psychiatrists and found to be sane, Guld-
brandsen was charged with two counts of
murder, one count of attempted murder,
and one of rape. He entered pleas of not
guilty and not guilty by reason of in-
sanity.

At the trial, which began on September
12th, District Attorney McGoldrick out-
lined the case as related here and told

the jury of five men and seven women that
he would prove by Mrs. Paget's testimony
what he declared to be the defendant's true
motive for the double murder. He had
killed the men, McGoldrick asserted, in
order to possess the woman.

The murder evidence that McColdrick
presented was overwhelming, but the
prosecution’s case received a severe set-
back when at the last moment it was found
that Mrs. Paget was unable to testify.

Dr. Gordon Roberts, her physician, took
the witness stand and told the court that
she was subject to hysteria and was still
physically incapacitated by a skull frac-
ture.

Mrs. Eva Blanchard, her mother, testi-
fied that she was morose and despondent
and frequently wept for hours at a time.

The defense immediately asked that the
charge of rape be dismissed, but Superior
Judge Hilliard Comstock denied the mo-
tion. As for the slaying of Peter Jensen
and Lieutenant Peter Flint, Guldbrandsen’s
only defense was made in his counsel’s as-
sertion that the defendant was “uncon-
scious” when he committed the murders.

On September 22nd, after deliberating
for three hours, the jury returned a verdict
finding Guldbrandsen guilty on all counts.
The jurors made no recommendation of
leniency, thus automatically imposing the
death penalty.

At Guldbrandsen’s request, his insanity
plea was withdrawn, and the jury was
dismissed.

On September 27th, Judge Comstock
sentenced the killer to be put to death in
the lethal gas chamber. As he heard the
sentence pronounced, Guldbrandsen’s com-
posure deserted him and he had to brace
himself against the counsel table.

Two days later, he entered San Quen-
tin Prison, where he is now awaiting the
outcome of his automatic appeal to the
State Supreme Court.

EpitTor’s NOTE:

Photograph of Henry Guldbrandsen
(right) dictating his confession to Re-
porter Edward J. Neumeier appears on
page 80.

The Con Man and the Girl Decoy

(Continued from page 51) Ecuadorean
bank. When he took his seat in the air-
plane, his wallet was crammed with green-
backs.

The air trip across the Caribbean passed
pleasantly. The blue of the sky and water
was broken only by the drift of fleecy
white clouds and their dappled shadow on
the sea. In each of the reclining seats
there was a flight packet which told the
passenger what luxuries he could expect
with his ticket. “Feeling hungry? Com-
plete meals, hot or cold, are served on
flights that are in the air at mealtime at
no extra cost to you—Your Majesty!” And
“Pillow, please. Are you tired and work-
worn these days? On edge? Push the but-
ton on the arm of your lounge chair and
lean back. Now call the Stewardess and
say, ‘Pillow and blanket’, and she will
cover you up, tuck you in—and wake you
up on schedule.”

Lopez, winging his way toward the
United States, was both hungry and sleepy
after his hectic departure from Quito. He
ate well and then dozed off to the hum of
the motors. The fact that he had already
committed a half-dozen federal crimes—
forgery and illegal use of a transporta-
tion request, impersonating a government

official, forgery of a government document,
and forgery and perjury in connection
with a United States entry visa, disturbed
him not in the least. For, as the Clipper
nosed downward toward the sparkling
waters of Miami’s Biscayne Bay, he con-
templated still another violation—illegal
entry into the United States. There was
still the hazard of immigration inspectors.
If his true identity was unmasked all
his scheming would come to naught.

Although the gauntlet of official inspec-
tion was formidable, his smooth manner,
plus the convincing array of papers,
breezed him through without serious chal-
lenge.

Not until months later, when the air-
ways bill for the trip to Miami was pre-
sented for payment, did anyone realize
what he had been up to. By then of course
his trail had gone cold and to Director J.
Edgar Hoover’s G-Men fell the task of
locating his hiding place.

The Bureau Agents checked his previous
dossier. The results were disappointing.
Neither of his divorced wives had heard
anything from him, nor was he circulating
in any of the Ecuadorean colonies in the
large seaports. And, of course he was
avoiding his old business acquaintances,

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74

mine, and tipped me off. He said Cos-
sack was out to get me and that I’d
better leave town. So I didn’t lose any
time moving to a place outside the
city, where he can’t find me.”

“Do you mind telling us who this
friend is?”

“Well, I’d rather not mention his
name. Might get him in a jam. Sup-
pose we call him Sam Collins. Is that
okay?”

“It’s all right with me, if he can do
us any good.”

“He can do you plenty of good, if he
will. Only thing is, he won’t talk to a
policeman. He’s got no use for coppers.”

“We can get around that,” I said after
a moment’s thought. “There’s no reason
why he should know I’m an officer.”

I then asked Edwards if he knew
where we could find Pete Carlson.

“No. He’s cagey about where he lives.
In fact, I only saw him once. One day
Cossack told me he wanted me to meet
Pete Carlson. Izzy Fenton drove me
out to Seventeenth and Main Streets,
where Pete dashed out, got in with us
and rode around for awhile. Pete
quizzed me, trying to find out if I had
the guts to hold up a bank. When he
left, Izzy and I thought we'd trail him
to where he lived, but he was too smart
for us. All we found out was that a
woman picked him up in a Ford sedan.”

True Detective Mysteries

“Then you never saw Pete Carlson,
Fenton and Cossack together?”

“No, sir. Sometimes I was in the
office when Cossack talked to Pete on
the telephone. I used to hear Cossack
say, ‘I’ll meet you at Izzy Fenton’s room.’
At that time Izzy lived in a hotel near
Eleventh and Broadway.”

After telling Edwards we would com-
municate with him in a day or two to
arrange a meeting with Sam Collins, Mr.
Rule and I left.

Early the following day I contacted
“Chris,” as I am privileged to call my
good friend C. M. Christiansen, Special
Investigator for the Bank of America,
who has worked with me on many im-
portant cases. We agreed that I should
assume his name and _ professional
identity in my contemplated dealings
with Sam Collins.

HEN, with Mr. Rule, I held a confer-

ence with officers of my Bank Rob-
bery Detail, to map out a plan of pro-
cedure with a view to rounding up all
members of this bandit gang. This
might not be too easy, if the informa-
tion given by Jake Edwards to the effect
that Carlson did not even trust his as-
sociates in crime to the extent of letting
them know where he lived, was correct.

The immediate arrest of Izzy Fen-
ton, otherwise known as “Mutt,” would

frighten Carlson into flight. Moreover,

there was no necessity for such a step.
Fenton would feel safe from all suspicion
in his role of “investigator” for a sup-
posedly reputable attorney, and could
be arrested at any time.

The case of Loeb Cossack presented
the most serious difficulties. From our
brief contact I knew him to be clever,
resourceful and utterly unscrupulous.
As an attorney, he was well-informed
regarding all the legal loopholes through
which men of his ilk so often wriggle
out of paying the penalty for their
nefarious acts. I wanted to catch him
“red handed,” for it is not always pos-
sible to prove in a court of law such
charges as Conspiracy to Commit Rob-
bery, Receiving Stolen Property or
Harboring a Known Criminal.

It was therefore decided to rent an
office in the same building where Cos-
sack’s was located, so that my officers
might install dictographs in the suite
he occupied. With the co-operation of
agents of the U. S. Department of
Justice, this was immediately done.

The last two raids of the “Mutt and
Jeff” pair occurred subsequent to the
passage of the Dillinger Act early in
May, 1934, which made the hold-up of
a Federal Reserve or National Bank
a Federal offense, punishable by a max-
imum penalty of twenty-five years’ im-

today.

°

TWO GREAT DETECTIVE MAGAZINES
Combined in ONE!

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DETECTIVE CASES will be added to TRUE DETECTIVE MYSTERIES, making

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Absorbing crime histories; sensational exposés; stories of ace detective work,

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from actual police records.

Reserve a copy of this enlarged November number of TRUE DETECTIVE

Don't forget the date—October 2nd—when this combination November
number of TRUE DETECTIVE goes on the news stands.

4

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serving fourteen months in that institution, he was
granted a new trial and released on bond. This
automatically voided his original conviction, and
he was permitted to resume the practice of law
pending final decision on his appeal. At our re-
quest a picture of Cossack was forwarded from
McNeil Island.

Officer A. M. Woolman, through our own iden-
tification records, ascertained that Peter Carlson
had played a criminal réle in our city before. He
was arrested in 1924-under the name ‘‘Joe West,”
convicted of bank robbery and sentenced to San
Quentin. From the files of that institution we
were furnished with a gallery picture of the
suspect.

In the renastwtatia, Jake Edwards, former in-
vestigator for Cossack, enlarged materially upon
his original statement in regard to his relations
with the attorney under suspicion.

“Soon after I met Cossack and Fenton,’ he said,
“it was decided that Cossack and I were to go out
and case some jobs. We drove to a bank at Avenue
Twenty-four and North Broadway. Cossack said
for me to go in and count the different tellers’
windows and the number of people in there. At
the same time he’d be changing a ten-dollar bill. I went
in with him and did as he told me. From there we went to
another branch bank and did the same thing. When we got
back to the office I found out they’d planned a bank robbery
for the following Monday morning, I had no intention of
going on the job, so I purposely showed up late. Pretended
I’d been busy on an investigation. Cossack was plenty
burned up because I wasn’t there when the job was all set.’

“"Fo*, much longer did you work for Cossack after that?’’

“Not long. It was right after that that Cossack got
leery of me and asked Sam Collins to bump me off. But
before that, he said Pete Carlson was double-crossing him
and keeping all the gravy for some big caper he had in mind.
Cossack said if some one didn’t get Pete out of the way, he
himself would be killed.’

It was soon after this second conversation with Jake that I,
together with Jake and Mr. Rule, had my first interview with
Sam Collins.

Having been informed by Jake of Collins’ aversion to
policemen in general, I was fully prepared to assume the
name and identity of C. M. Christiansen, Special Investigator
for the Bank of America, having had an agreement with that
genial official to that effect.

Collins at first proved to be a most reluctant informant.
His unwillingness to reveal what he knew concerning the
“Mutt and Jeff” bandits and their so-called legal adviser was
inspired, I was sure, not by any sense of loyalty to the gunmen,

*
atari!

but fear of the consequences to himself.
“If I told what I know about that bunch,”’ Collins said,
“my life wouldn’t be worth two bits.’’

For more than two hours we sat in a parked automobile,
trying by every argument at our command to convince Collins
that it was his duty to give the information we sought.

“T hate a squealer,’’ Collins declared. ‘Besides, it might
put me on the spot. Those fellows are hard as nails, all of
them. And I wouldn’t lift a hand to put a copper on any-
body’s trail. I got no use for the police. They’re running
around in circles now, trying to round up that gang. Let
’em run.’

“You don’t have to tip the police to this gang,” I replied.
“T represent the bank, and when you give us the dope we want,
you'll be out of it. Nobody’s going to accuse you of hollering
‘copper.’ ”’

‘T KNOW, but you guys would go straight to the bulls
with whatever I told you. If you don’t know anything,
you can’t tell anything. So what’s the answer. I’m keepin’
my trap shut.”

xkdecided then that the time had come to let Collins know
that we did have a line on the ‘Mutt and Jeff’’ bandits. In
my pocket were pictures of Loeb Cossack, Pete Carlson and

‘Izzy Fenton. Those of Cossack and Carlson were peni-

tentiary ‘‘mugs”’ as before explained. But the likeness of
Fenton,.who had no prior criminal record, insofar as we could
ascertain, had not been so easily secured. It was a copy

37

= rey oy eae ae b Tey “v7 ae ) A
George, white, hanged CASP (Siskiyou) March e7, £936

TLA dod +]
’ ann ak ili
4 |
The Riddle
|
|
|
! : i ‘ a RAR Fates of Cpe eee te ish
| . Bs esas is LP
%
between Cossack and police officers in the Capasso
case, a detective was approached by a Los Angeles
business man with the proposition that he would
furnish authentic information on the “Mutt and
Jeff bandits,” provided his name was withheld,
and the robbers killed on sight by the police.
H When that offer was run to its source, Loeb Cossack
proved to be the man who had made it, and further
information furnished by C. T. Rule of the William
J. Burns International Detective Agency showed
him a prominent member of the “Mutt and Jeff”
gang. Two others were Pete Carlson alias “Joe
Clark,” who had sworn to get Hall’s sentence
commuted, and Irvin I. (“Izzy”) Fenton. With
that information, officers quietly entered Cossack’s
offices after hours, on August 29th, and installed
dictographs, preparatory to listening in on con-
versations between Cossack and his henchmen.
Investigators soon learned that the shyster lawyer
} The elusive ‘“‘Mutt” of the bandit team, and henchman of the felt himself capable of outsmarting the police.
unscrupulous Cossack. Can you detect what trick he used to “T’d like to see the cop who could make me talk,”
change his appearance in the picture shown cn the opposite he boasted.
page? If you can’t, read TRUE DETECTIVE for December
. The Story Continues:
The Story Thus Far:
SERIES of daring bank hold-ups by two outlaws, —Part Two—
who became known in Los Angeles police circles as
the ‘““Mutt and Jeff bank bandits,” were giving. au- ILE Detectives B. M. Johnston, Harry W. Tash,
thorities in the film capital a great deal of trouble in and Guy W. Beeson were spending weary hours
the early months of 1933. When officers investigated, they with ears glued to receivers of the dictographs
found that the trail of the elusive bandits led back to the planted in Attorney Cossack’s office, and Detective
kidnapping of E. L. Ballinger, Customs Border Patrolman, H. P. Gerhardt and W. C. Burris performed a similar duty
/ in Seattle, Washington, on March 8th, and the murder of with an instrument installed in the apartment Cossack shared
State Highway Patrolman Stephen 8. Kent, and Lester with Izzy Fenton, his chief lieutenant, C. T. Rule, Criminal
Quigley, of Yreka, California, on March 10th. George Department Manager of the William J. Burns International
} Hall, ex-convict, was caught and speedily sentenced to hang Detective Agency, and I continued to gather all possible
at Folsom Prison for the murders; but the other man, who information concerning Cossack and the men with whom
gave the name of ‘‘Joe Clark,” escaped from jail by a ruse, he associated.
determined to get Hall’s sentence commuted to one of life In view of the sudden turn this investigation had taken,
imprisonment. To accomplish this, money in huge sums I asked Detective Bob Chambers pointblank if Attorney
was needed to carry Hall’s appeal to the United States Supreme Cossack was the “business man” who had offered to .reveal
Court, if necessary. Hence, the epidemic of bank robberies, the identity of the ‘Mutt and Jeff’’ bandits, on condition
® ‘f carefully planned and perpetrated in Los Angeles. A council that they be killed during a hold-up—Cossack to receive the
: of war, headed by Chief of Detectives Joseph F. Taylor, was reward offered by the Bank of America for their capture,

held at Headquarters. In no uncertain terms, the Chief
made it plain that the “Mutt and Jeff bandits” were to be
‘ brought in—dead or alive. *On April 10th, one Louis Capasso
i was arrested. At his arraignment in Superior Court, he was
| represented by Loeb L. Cossack, an unscrupulous lawyer

woe

dead or alive.

Chambers admitted then that Cossack was the man, and
gave further details regarding his interview with the attorney.
Perhaps most interesting was Cossack’s statement that he had
served fourteen months in a Federal penitentiary.

who stopped at nothing to free his client. Capasso was Official inquiry disclosed that three years previously Cossack
released on bond, and when brought to trial on September had been convicted in San Bernardino County of violating
i! 17th, he received an indeterminate sentence of a “seven- the Federal bankruptcy laws, and sentenced to the United
years-to-life’’ term in Folsom. Just prior to the bitter clash States Penitentiary at McNeil Island, Washington. After
| 36

|

—

S
S
SRY
4~

serving
granted
automa
he was
pending
quest :
McNeil
Office
tificatio
had pla
was alr
convicts
Quentir
were f)
suspect.
In tl
vestigat
his orig
with the
‘‘Soor
“it was
and cas¢
Twenty-
for me
window:
the san
in with
another
back to
for the
going o1
I’d_ bee:
burned

“Ho

leery of
before t
and kee]
Cossack
himself
It was
together
Sam Col
Havin
policeme
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for the ]
genial of
Collins
His unw
“Mutt a:
inspired,


prisonment. The Department of Justice
accordingly acted in conjunction with
local police authorities in all investiga-
tions of such crimes.

I assigned to Detectives B. M. John-
ston, Guy W. Beeson and Harry W.
Tash the delicate task of installing dic-
tographs in Cossack’s quarters. They
consisted of three rooms—reception-
room, main office and ‘a smaller room
used as a private sanctum.

At midnight on August 29th, when
the officers had made certain that Cos-
sack’s rooms were deserted, they entered
by means of a pass-key. The instru-
ments were installed in the main and
private offices.

Wires of a color to match the wood-
work were adjusted so skilfully as to
defy detection by any person unaware

True Detective Mysteries

that they were there. These wires led to
receiving sets located in an office on the
floor below, where my officers prepared
to take turns at the tedious task of
listening to all conversations held be-
tween Loeb Cossack and his associates.

One of the first bits of conversation
to come distinctly over the wire more
than hinted at Cossack’s high opinion
of his own ability to outsmart the
police.

The trial and conviction of two of
Cossack’s clients was under discussion.
To some person whose identity was
as yet unknown to the listening officers,
the attorney fumed:

“If those d—— fools had kept their
mouths shut, I could have got them off.
T’'d like to see the —— of a cop who could
make me talk!”

Counterfeit Money Made in

the very evident one that the girl was
too shrewd to have left the cab anywhere
near her place of abode. .

To offset the second possibility I held
the theory that the girl was an Innocent
pawn of the counterfeiter. The idea was
not so far fetched as it sounds. The night
was one of revelry. Eleven taxi-cab trips
to and from restaurants, theaters, caba-
rets, would not be too far out of the or-
dinary to excite anything but the mildest
suspicion from a gullible girl. And if
she were innocent, as I hoped rather than
believed, she would show no caution in
selecting a cab for the final trip to her
own home.

Te ten-dollar notes which I was con-
vinced came from the same plant had
first been encountered in Seattle on Octo-
ber 25th. They were Federal Reserve
Bank of New York imitations. My chief,
W. H. Moran of Washington, D. C., had
already been informed of the first notes
passed. We knew them to be of the kind
that are first photographed from a true
sample and then re-printed on specially
prepared paper from regular etching
plates. Some of the notes which came in
during the night of December 31-January
1st evidently had been “aged.” That is,
subjected to some treatment or process
to make them appear worn and having
had considerable use.

In the two months that elapsed after the
first bill was passed, we had followed that
infinitely painstaking trail of tracing the
quality of paper and the type of etching
used in making the bills. The paper was
not distinctive enough to offer much pos-
sibility of tracing its origin and purchase.
It was the actual printing on the bills that
informed us we were dealing with a
hitherto unknown gang of counterfeiters.
The taxi-cab spree in San Francisco in-
dicated that the gang was now ready to
spread its wings in earnest. When we be-
gan the task of locating and trailing the
pretty brunette, I knew that action was
becoming necessary if the counterfeiters
were to be stopped before they had suc-
ceeded in victimizing thousands of persons
with their spurious but excellently made
money.

The girl was my only hope for quick
action, as I saw it. When I received the
shadow’s report on the morning of Jan-
uary 2nd and knew that the brunette of
the cab rides had been located and iden-
tified by at least two of the cabbies, I
decided on a course usually not attempted
by men of the Secret Service without more
evidence than I had on hand.

The police inspectors informed me that

(Continued from page 49)

they had contrived to have two cab drivers
see the girl as my own agent shadowed
her. Both drivers were convinced that she
was the companion of the counterfeiter.
I knew that I was straining my belief in
her innocence a long way when the shad-
ow himself reported and I instructed him
to bring the girl in for questioning.

“An attractive brunette,” she had been
called in the first reports we received from
the cab companies. But even observant
cab drivers had not done her justice.
The girl who took her seat in my office
on the afternoon of January 2nd and
nervously fingered a chic little handbag,
was a beauty.

It was a bold move, bringing her there.
Unless she would put us on the trail of
her companion of the taxi-cab with all
speed, she would be missed; suspicion
would be created; our counterfeiters would
quickly be aware that we were on their
trail—unless she were an innocent pawn.

Her large brown eyes were round with
wondering inquiry as she waited for me
to speak. The agent who accompanied her
seated himself quietly and discreetly out
of the girl’s direct line of vision.

I wasted no preliminaries after she had
told me without the slightest hesitation
that her name was Louise Fernway. She
surprised me, and at the same time
strengthened my belief in her innocence,
when she replied to my question con-
cerning her companion of the cab rides:
“Why, he has gone back to Sacramento.
He lives there. Is something wrong?”

Her eyes were more round, more won-
dering, when I told her of the ten-dollar
bills. The name of her companion she
said frankly enough was “Dan Wilson”;
she had known him but a short while;
knew very little about him.

The agent quietly left the room. From
an adjoining office I knew he would quick-
ly telephone to Inspector Mitchell and ask
for a police identification bureau check on
the name “Dan Wilson.” When the door
closed behind him, I resumed my ques-
tioning of the girl with an open dicto-
graph on the desk and a stenographer at
the other end taking notes.

It had been a night of partying, she said.
The numerous taxi-cab rides were not at
all unusual. They went from place to
place; he was anxious to see the brighter
spots in San Francisco, and was practically
a stranger to the city. She had met_him
quite casually in a hotel lobby. Color
mounted to her cheeks when I demanded
to know how she had met this casual, good
looking stranger with a yen for taxi-cab
rides and bright lights on New Year's Eve.
A pulse beat against the smooth skin of

75

The time to make good his boast was
nearer than he dreamed.
(To Be Continued)

Read how the “cops” do make the
swaggering, racketeering, shyster law-
yer talk and how they break the great-
est bandit bank ring that Los Angeles
has ever known. See the next instal-
ment of this thrilling-revelation of un-
derworld crime—in the November
issue of TRUE DETECTIVE MYS-
TERIES on all news stands the 2nd of
October.

FAMOUS DETECTIVE CASES Maga-
zine will be added to TRUE DETECTIVE
MYSTERIES beginning next month.
Don’t fail to buy TRUE DETECTIVE
MYSTERIES November smash _ issue!

Prison

her throat as the questioning proceeded.
Of doubtful morals Louise .Fernway may
have been, but she was telling the truth
in a quiet, refined voice, as she sat in my
office that day.

No chance of a tip-off to the gang, of
course, if her tale was straight. I breathed
with relief and by the time the agent had
returned and placed a memorandum slip
before me, the girl was promising to ac-
company a member of the Secret Service
staff to Sacramento and do her best to
locate Dan Wilson.

I glanced at the memo slip and read:
“Dan R. Wilson, 36. Released from San
Quentin May 26, 1935. Served from March
9, 1930, on twelve years term, second de-
gree robbery. Sending picture over.”

““7OUR friend,” I told the girl quietly,

“may be Dan R. Wilson, who is an
ex-convict. In a few minutes I shall ask
you to look at his picture.”

When the rogues gallery photograph ar-
rived, one glance at it was enough for
Louise Fernway. She nodded affirmative-
ly when I glanced at her. “It’s the Wilson
I was with,” she said.

We were in Sacramento that night—two
agents, myself and the good-looking bru-
nette. Three days later we were still cling-
ing tenaciously to the hope that through
the location of Wilson we could smash
this newest counterfeiting gang. The man
was not in Sacramento when we began
the search for him. We ferreted out his
friends and acquaintances, with the girl
informant our staunchest ally in offering
reasons for trying to find the man. On the
third day he returned to his old haunts.
The girl identified him and the Secret
Service had made its first decided move
towards rounding up the gang.

But a passer of spurious money is a
truly valuable arrest in the eyes of the
Secret Service only when through him may
be traced the counterfeiters. As in all such
cases, it was the heads of the gang we
wanted. Our task was not begun until we
had started the actual tracing of the very
Sg used in making the false ten-dollar

ills.

And Wilson, as we regarded him when
we returned to San Francisco, was a hum-
ble passer for the higher ups. He was a
“shover of the queer.” The men we want-
ed were the manufacturers.

When we examined Wilson’s suit-cases
and effects from his rooming-house in
Sacramento, we found fourteen bogus ten-
dollar bills in a box which was marked in
red lettering, “Films. Do not open in day-
light.” The box was an ordinary East-
man company package, and it bore little


7 aE ee EEN Sa
AYE p< ee

5

eee

as Se ee re eee

Se SS ena ee,

he onE

Three male suspects and a woman were brought to the police line-up where they were detained for further questioning and
to: await identification. From left to right are Attorney Loeb Cossack, “Izzy"’ Fenton, Pete Carlson and Betty Lang

bile to proceed on its way. However,
within three minutes he had relayed his
important. discovery to State Highway
Patrol officers and to the Sheriff’s office
at Yreka—the next town of any size
through which the car could be expected

. to pass.

At the moment the message reached
him, State Highway Patrolman Stephen
S. Kent was in a Yreka garage, having his
car repaired by his friend, Lester Quig-
ley. Kent had pulled on a pair of blue
dungaree trousers to protect his uniform
from grease. Both men had been working
on his car at the time the message was
received. :

“Come on, Les,’”’ Kent said, “let’s take
your car and drive around for a while.
We might pick up the boys who pulled
this job.”

Quigley accepted the invitation with
alacrity. With luck, they might run into
‘some excitement.

Meanwhile, Sheriff A. S. Calkins, of
Yreka, and his son, a deputy, were wait-
ing for the suspect to put in an appear-
ance. They had men planted at strategic
points along the highway leading into
Yreka, with orders to stop every Ford
sedan that came into view.

After cruising about. for a short time,
Officer Kent and his friend spied a sedan
parked at the end of a blind road that led
from the highway. It was occupied by

‘two men. ,

“Let’s look them over,” Kent sug-

~ gested.
Quigley stopped his car. just behind _

the parked sedan. The officer, followed
by Quigley, got out.

Pipe in hand, Kent approached the
Ford. ‘Have: to ask you boys to get out,”
he said. “We’ve got orders to search every
Ford sedan that shows up.”

One man jumped from the sedan, as
ordered, but the driver did not move. “‘To
hell with you,” he retorted. “Be on your
way.”

The officer came closer. “Do you get
out of that car, or do I haul yeu out?”

Swiftly the driver jerked open the
door. “Oh, yes?’ Well, you asked for it!”
There was a blinding flash—a deafening
explosion. *

Kent swayed on his feet, hand fum-
bling blindly for the gun carried: in his
uniform trousers under the overalls.

Another flash—another explosion—
and Lester Quigley fell dead, a bullet
through his throat. —

Sheriff Calkins and his son drove up at
that instant. The older man ran to sup-
port Kent and was dragged down with
him as the latter fell to the ground, mor-
tally wounded. “I—I just asked him—
to get out—of the car——” were Kent’s
last words.

Young Calkins saw a man dashing
across a field.

“Halt!” he shouted.
shoot!”

The fugitive whirled and fired ‘five
times at his pursuer. The deputy lifted
his shotgun, took quick aim and fired. He
heard a groan, but the suspect continued
torun. Young Calkins fired again. This
time the fleeing murderer staggered and
fell.

The deputy ran to where he lay and
bent over him. ‘‘What’s your name?”

For answer, the wounded man struck
him over the forehead with the butt of
his empty gun. The deputy reeled back-
ward, momentarily stunned. .

Meanwhile, the elder Calkins had seen
that both Kent and Quigley were beyond

aid. He himself had a badly wrenched
knee, the result of his fall to the ground

“Stop, or Tl

ate int, ci Mains

eed nu Cactani Ae Sind:

es

when the dying Kent had. collapsed !
against him. He managed to limp to the
spot where the desperado had fallen, and :
in his turn demanded the name of the |
man he believed might be fatally wound- '
ed. Again the killer used his gun as a
club, clipping a section of flesh from the |
Sheriff’s upper lip.
Young Calkins, still groggy, brought
the stock of his shotgun down heavily on’
the murderer’s head, effectually subdu-
ing him at last.
The youth who had alighted from. the
Ford sedan at the first command had
made no effort to escape during the
shooting affray. As a matter of fact, he, \
admitted later that he was “‘too, scared to'
run.” He proved to be merely a hitch- h
hiker the other man had picked up along
the highway a short time previously. “I bers
never saw that guy before in my life,” he’ killin
declared through chattering teeth. “I) side.
didn’t even know he hada gun.” ters c
Informed of the double murder, Cus-) halls
toms Agents Fraser, Vader and “Spud”, with
Atherton, of the Seattle office, hurried to! jail a:
Yreka to investigate the tragic aftermath tie pa
of the kidnapping of their brother officer, On
Ballinger. Calki
The suspect, suffering from superficial’ barel:
birdshot wounds in the hips, said his plead
name was George Manning. However, he! mob :
was subsequently identified through fin- expla
gerprints as George Hall, ex-convict who the ic
had served a term in San Quentin Prison,; him ir
Agent Vader, after spending almost a therm
week with Hall in the latter’s jail cell at)hangi:
Yreka, was instrumental in obtaining a)ment.
confession from him in which he ad-'ments
mitted being one of the men who had/conve:
kidnapped Ballinger. } Mee
During that week the slayer lived in ductio
constant fear of mob vengeance. BothLos A
Kent and Quigley had been popular mem-'from


bers of the American Legion, and their
killing had infuriated the entire country-
side. Hard-fisted miners and wood-cut-
ters of that region congregated in pool
halls and on street corners, discussing
with relish the prospect of storming the
jail and escorting the prisoner to a “neck-
tie party.”

On three separate occasions Sheriff
Calkins and. Agents Vader and Fraser
barely managed to avert a lynching by
Pleading with enraged members of the
mob and urging them to disperse. They
explained that Hall was about to reveal
the identity of the man who had aided
him in the kidnapping of Ballinger; fur-
thermore, it was Pointed out, a legal
hanging constituted more severe punish-
ment than lynching. Finally, their argu-
ments prevailed, and talk of ropes and
convenient trees died down,

Meanwhile, Hall’s partner in the ab-
duction of Ballinger was believed to be in
Los Angeles. -From information received
from the north, United States Customs

When Mrs. Leona Staff (above), an employee of one of the banks, gave
her assistance in identifying the gangsters, they "grinned derisively"

Agents Dave MacFarlane and Art Han-

sen, of the Los Angeles district, got a line
on the man they sought.

The Suspect, who gave his name as
{Joe Clark,” was captured on March 16th,
1933, as he emerged from a Main Street
poo] hall. MacFarlane and Hansen found
in his possession certain evidence that
definitely connected him with the kid-
napping. For safer keeping, and so that
his associates would not learn of his
arrest, Clark was lodged in a suburban
jail, booked with suspicion of kidnapping
—a Federal offense.

Sometime during the first night of
his incarceration a streetcar conductor
charged with intoxication was placed in

‘the same cell with Clark. In a manner

still unknown to the authorities, Clark
gained possession of the drunken man’s
booking slip, which he exchanged for his
own.

When members of the day shift re-
placed the night jailers, next morning,
Clark loudly demanded that a bondsman

to trap suspects when they passed by

be sent to him, “If 1 don’t get out of here,
Pll lose my job,” he insisted,

A bail bondsman was summoned. He
deposited the sum of twenty-five dollars
to insure the defendant’s appearance in
court, and left the jail with the supposed
streetcar conductor,

“Drive me over to my sister’s place,”
Clark said, naming an address in a resi-
dential section, “I’1] get some money from

7

her and pay you back the twenty-five

. dollars,’

The bondsman drove to an apartment
house, where Clark entered the front
door and disappeared from view. The
bondsman waited a half-hour, then made
inquiries of the manager. Needless to say,
the “streetcar conductor” was not known

at that address. He had made good his |

escape by the simple expedient of enter-
ing the building by the front door and
leaving by the rear.

,lt was not until Agents MacFarlane
and Hansen called for their prisoner at
noon that day that they made the dis-
concerting discovery that Clark had
gained his freedom by employing one of

the most ancient of criminal ruses. More- -

over, the suspect had not as yet been
fingerprinted or mugged. The Customs
Agents would have to rely on their re-
membered description of Clark, and their
contacts with his So-called friends, if
their determination to recapture the
fugitive materialized,

A few weeks after Clark’s escape from
the suburban jail, his partner George
Hall was sentenced to hang at Folsom
Prison ‘for the murder of State Highway
Patrolman Kent and the 8arageman, Les-
ter Quigley. :

This double murder, with its dramatic

sequel, would have no bearing on subse- -
quent events that occurred in Los Ange-

ea

Sheriff Calkins posted men in highway .

ssid

Akt Stat tiie

So RR Aa ne

ma

Seats ant S

oe eee

Sho

RS SS See Re

OE sca ds ai aS

sisiiet ee

a einen iamsaedttanen


Meek and subdued, Pete Carlson is
shown in the custody of Detective
Bob Chambers (left), and Captain
H. S. Seager (right), co-author of
this story of crime and action

Jes, had not Joe Clark taken an oath to

‘obtain—if humanly possible, by fair

means or foul—a commutation of Hall’s
death sentence to one of life imprison-
ment. :

To accomplish this; money in huge
sums would be needed—to carry Hall’s
appeal to the United States Supreme
Court, if necessary.

To this end the man who called him-
self “Joe Clark” dedicated his very life

. and it was the irony of fate that his

efforts to save his partner in crime from

the gallows were to bring about. his own

undoing. : te
For the moment, in this bizarre case of

many angles, we will turn from kidnap-—

ping and murder to bank robbery, next in
importance in the category of major
crimes, and of far more frequent occur-
rence.

For years past the percentage of bank
holdups cleared by' the Los Angeles Po-
lice Department had been notably high.
Few indeed had been the bank robbers
who were not eventually identified, bulle-
tined and hunted down, even though
weeks, months, sometimes years elapsed
before the criminals were finally captured.

It was my secret ambition not only to
maintain the Department’s enviable rec-
ord in this respect, but to surpass it if
possible. Therefore; when four branch
bank robberies were committed by the
same pair of stickup men within the first
six months after I took command of the
Central Robbery and Narcotics details,
without the slightest clue to the identities
of the marauders, it could be said that
these crimes were sharp thorns indeed
in my official side.

I felt that the Department’s reputation
for efficiency was at stake, and that un-
less drastic measures were taken to halt
the reign of banditry, unfavorable pub-
licity would accrue as a result.

. This particular series of uncleared rob-
beries annoyed me the more acutely in
view ‘of the fact that at intervals, for
several days at a time, I had special de-
tails of officers staked in a dozen of the
banks, which I considered most likely to
be raided—only to have the raiders strike
at that very time at an unprotected bank,
I was later to learn that this was not, as
I then supposed, the sheer good luck that

. often attends the first activities of a crim-

inal. :

The newspapers, from the general de-
scriptions furnished by ‘various victims,
styled the elusive bank robbers the “Mutt
and Jeff” bandits.

“Mutt,” the taller of the two, was de-

_Scribed as thirty to thirty-five years of

age, six feet in height, of powerful build,

with a scar on the left side of his face.
This scar, according to all victims, was
distinctly noticeable.

“Jeff,” forty years old, five feet, four
inches tall, weighing about 150 pounds,
with dark-complexion, and “pop-eyed,”
was—according to some of his victims—
pockmarked. Others maintained that his
skin was clear. All agreed, however, that
he was “a talkative little cuss,” as one
bank teller phrased it.

Furthermore, Jeff exhibited a surpris-
ing familiarity with his victims’ personal
and domestic affairs. During the robbery
of the Bank of America at 4500 Sunset
Boulevard on January 11th, 1934, he had
admonished J. Earl Mair, the manager, to
get back into the bank. “Be careful,
Earl,” said the gunman, “you’ve got a
wife and two children, you know.”

The amazed bank manager hastily
complied with the suggestion. He and
several other employees and a depositor
were herded to the rear of the bank
while Jeff calmly scooped up $2,500 in
currency. Mutt, in the meanwhile, with a
.45-caliber automatic in each hand, stood
guard near the front door.

Jeff placed his loot in a black patent
leather bag. “Give us just one minut
before you come out,” he called. “That!
all we want.” The marauders then ra
from the bank and leaped into a maroon
colored Chevrolet coupé. -4

A service-station attendant across th
street had witnessed the holdup. It wa
he who furnished us with the licens
number—2X2889—of the getaway cal
However, by the time my officers arrive

on the scene, the Chevrolet and its o¢ -

cupants had vanished.

Check of the license number disclose
that the plates, 1933 issued, were regis
tered to a reputable citizen. When inte
viewed, he said that he bought new plate
on January 2nd, 1934, and discarded th
old plates at Twenty-first and Gran
Avenue, throwing them in a storm drait

On March 20th the same bandit tea
swooped down on the California Banki
3705 Sunset Boulevard. The modus opi
randi was identical with that used in th
previous raid. The “take,” in this cag
amounted to approximately $1,500. j
new Ford coupé was the vehicle in whit
the pair fled from the scene, $

4
4
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as cashes tanh ate Sas ee

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k patent-
ie minute
d. “That’s
then ran
. maroon-

across the
ip. It was
ie license
iway car
rs arrived
nd its oc

disclosed
ere regis
hen inter
1ew plate
sarded the
ad Grand
orm drai
indit team
ia Bank a
lodus ope
ised in thé
this case

Another branch of the California Bank,
Jocated at 4527 South Western Avenue,
yielded $4,000 to the same desperadoes
on.March 28th.

On June 18th the Citizens’ National.

Bank at 5660 Wilshire Boulevard be-
came a fourth victim of their depreda-
tions, being poorer by $1,500 when the
bandit pair departed. :

Immediately afterward, a council of
war was held between Chief of Detec-
tives Joseph F. Taylor, myself and
several of my officers detailed to investi-
gate bank robberies. In no uncertain
terms the Chief made it plain that the
“Mutt and Jeff’ bandits were to be
brought in, dead or alive.

I was in hearty accord with Chief Tay-
lor’s instructions, but for the time being
we were stumped. Victims and witnesses
had scrutinized numerous pictures of
known holdup men, but had not been able
to make an identification. My officers had
quizzed dozens of suspects, with negative
results. They had haunted all underworld
resorts frequented by stickup men and
hoodlums, and had kept undercover
operatives in these places in the hope of
a clue that would put us on the trail of
our quarry. Attempts to check the li-
cense numbers of cars used on these
crimes had led to nothing, for good rea-
sons that were to come to light later.

Sandwiched in between two of the rob-
beries committed by “Mutt and Jeff” was
the holdup, on April 10th, 1934, of a
branch of the Citizens’ National Bank at
4400 South Vermont A'venue by three
men.

The car used by the bandits in their
getaway was traced by its license num-
ber to Margaret Baxter. At her home,
within an hour after the robbery, Detec-
tives Robert J. Chambers, of Central
Robbery Squad, and R. M. J acks, of Uni-
versity Division, arrested Louis Capasso.

On April 13th Capasso made a volun-
tary statement, admitting his part in this
robbery and naming his two confederates
—Roy Serpa and Frank Bonomo. 4

At the time of his preliminary hearing

he was represented by an attorney named .

Hamilton. We were given to understand

that he intended to enter a plea of guilty °

in Superior Court. Bail was set at $10,-
000.

In the meanwhile we put forth every
Possible effort to apprehend Capasso’s
confederates, and it was while Detectives
W. C. Burris and H. P. Gerhardt ‘were
listening over a dictograph planted in the
apartment of a known associate of Serpa,
endeavoring to obtain information re-
garding the latter and Bonomo, that those
officers stumbled on the solution of the

Loeb Cossack (right) could vi
free his clients the first ““
time, until police got wise

pL RR NIP Ror aOR fo ferry Se SMEG CL In PS ss GOR

& Betty Lang (left), the girl
"= friend of Pete Carlson, gave
¥ little information to police

William F. Gettle kidnapping case.

Furthermore, though I had no inkling
of it then, this same investigation of the
case of Capasso, Serpa and Bonomo was

fated to lead by unexpected and devious *-

ways to uncovering the activities of one
of the most amazing criminal bands ever
to operate in Los Angeles,

In view of the expressed intention of
Capasso to enter a formal plea of guilty
to the crime he had admittedly commit-
ted, the bursting of a bombshell in my
office would have occasioned no greater
consternation than the news I received
on June 6th. ;

It was then I learned that, without any
of my officers having been notified,
Capasso had had his arraignment in
Superior Court before Judge Fletcher
Bowron, and had pleaded not guilty.

On that occasion it developed that the
defendant had changed counsel, being
now represented by Loeb L. Cossack.
This attorney first asked that the charge
against his client be dismissed on the
ground that he had not been “properly
represented” at his first arraignment. He

added the ridiculous accusation that -

brutal third-degree methods—including
the application of ‘a blow-torch to Ca-
passo’s bare feet—had been used by me
and my officers to extort from the pris-
oner a confession to a crime he had not
committed. The attorney had produced
an affidavit to that effect, signed by Ca-
Passo. :

Judge Bowron had refused to dismiss
the charge, whereupon Cossack demand-
ed reduction of bail from $10,000 to $5,-
000. The Judge had not yet rendered his
decision on the bail matter.

Thoroughly incensed, I promptly pre-
pared to use every legal means at my
command to prevent the release of Ca-
Passo on reduced bail.

Among my grounds for protest was the
fact that he had admitted committing
the offense with which he stood charged;
that he had a long police record and was
a:‘known drug addict; that he had been
committed to San Quentin Penitentiary
on January 13th, 1932, from Los Angeles
County for burglary, and had only lately

-been released.

‘I was convinced that this bank robber,
if released on bail, would not only forfeit
bond and fail to appear for trial, but
would connect with his former associates
and engage jin further holdups. .
Therefore, accompanied by Detective
Robert Chambers, who was thoroughly
familiar with all angles of this case, I
proceeded to the chambers of Judge
Bowron, prepared to fight to the last
ditch against a procedure, that I was

_ certain would result in defeating the ends

of justice. . :

While I was explaining to the jurist
my reasons for opposing the contem-
plated bail reduction, a clerk announced
that Attorney Cossack wished to speak
with the Judge.

“Have him sent in,” I urged. “I’d like
nothing better than a showdown with
Mr. Cossack right here and now.”

The attorney entered. He was about
thirty years of age, immaculately attired.
However, his air of thinly ‘veiled inso-
lence in addition to the offhand nod with
which he acknowledged the presence of
Detective Chambers and myself, antago-
nized me from the beginning. :

T listened with growing irritation while
he pleaded that his petition for lower bail
be granted to Louis Capasso. He had
hardly finished before we were engaged
in a heated verbal tilt. :

I flatly accused him of having coached
and advised his client to sign a wholly
untruthful affidavit to the effect that he
had been subjected to third-degree
methods by me and other officers in order

to force a confession of guilt from his

lips.

“I did not even suggest that he make
such an affidavit,” Cossack countered
suavely... “However, I’m satisfied in my
own mind that the allegations contained
in the affidavit are true. I know how you
Police get most of your confessions.”

With difficulty I resisted an undigni-
fied impulse to take a punch at my adver-
sary’s face, inasmuch as Capasso himself.
had told a cellmate, who in turn had in-
formed one of my Officers, that Cossack
had coached him to make this lying affi-
davit.

As it was, I told the attorney in the
most forcible words at my command that
it was lawyers of his type who disgraced
their profession; that although he—a
sworn officer of the court—was fully
aware of his client’s guilt, he attempted
to becloud the issue by malicious and un-
founded attacks against the police, plac-
ing the police officer on trial in the minds
of the jury, rather than the criminal.

“In my opinion,” I said, “‘you’re a very
good example of the shyster lawyer. The
man you're defending is a confirmed
criminal, and a narcotics addict as well,
Yet you try. by lies and trickery to set
him free so he can commit more crimes.
You should be disbarred.”

He listened with a slightly mocking ,

smile, but made no reply to my long
tirade. ; f
I remembered then to ask J udge Bow-
ron’s pardon for entering into an alterca-
tion in his presence. The jurist smiled,
as though he had rather enjoyed the
scene, and announced that his. decision
in regard to Attorney Cossack’s request
would be made at a later date. , ‘
Detective Chambers and I then left. I
had had my first encounter with Attorney ©
Cossack—but it was destined not to be
my last. ‘ :
Several days later I learned that Ca-
passo had been released on $5,000 bail.
Just a’ few days, before my verbal
‘clash with Cossack, Detective Chambers
had told me that a certain Los Angeles
businessman, whose name he had prom-

ised to withhold (Continued on page 64).

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aiden


General view of the death scene showing

the body of Leon

In a few minutes wailing police
sirens announced the approach of the
men of the Homicide Squad—Inspec-
tors L. M. Jewell, Thomas Duffy,
George Worthman, and James Mc-
Donnell; with Captain Thorvald Brown
from Eastern Station.

The dead girl lay as Jones had found
her, open eyes staring sightlessly at
the blue sky, her curved lips slightly
open, showing even, milk-white teeth.
In life she must have been a great
beauty. Even in death she had lost
little of her blond loveliness.

“Where does this dirt road go?”
Jewell asked.

“Mount Eden’ Riding Academy,
about quarter of a mile further on,”
Jones told him.

“We'll check there. Keep the road
clear,” Jewell directed. “Those tire-
tracks must be photographed before
we lose them.”

Swiftly the officers examined the
slain girl. She was well dressed, in
neat clothing of good quality and
latest fashion, with smart shoes and
silk tse. Her dress was torn open
at the neck, and her clothing disar-
ranged. The stab wound which ap-
parently had caused her death was
clean and deep. It had been made
through the clothing. In the neck,
about at the throat line, were three
smaller, more superficial wounds that
formed a perfect equilateral triangle.

Inspector Duffy straightened up.
“Stabbed to death with a sharp in-
strument—knife or a dagger—possibly
while defending herself from assault.
Wonder what that triangle of wounds
means...”

Jewell examined the girl’s carefully
manicured fingernails. ‘Not much of
a struggle, by the looks of it. Probably
killed before she really got started
to fight.” He indicated the girl’s nails.
“No torn flesh, dirt, or anything un-
der them,” he pointed out.

Together the officers examined the
grass from the dirt road to where the
body lay. Clearly seen on the road
were tire-marks, from __ their size
probably “those of a small, light car.
In the dust of the road were several
footprints, but as these were im-
printed one over the other in a small
space, no one print was sufficiently
well defined to be of much value. .The

tire-marks paralleled the road, and

did not run over onto the grass.

4

investigators on the hunt for clews. At right,
a Viught as police found it

Duffy looked intently at the soies of
They were stained
with the same type of dust as that of

the girl’s shoes.

the road.

“Attacked in the car, by the looks

of it. Then the killer
out in the road, stood

on its feet, and dragged or carried

tracks of

lifted the body
it momentarily

the body across the grass to the ditch,” body.

he said. however,
tracks.

11@O WE have to look for a pretty “Well,

husky killer,” McDonnell added.
“That girl’s no lightweight.”
Further examination of the dirt

Inspector L.
way to deat

road revealed
ently had trave
Avenue recently,

None of the cars had
point where the girl’s body had been
found, however, and only one car had
direct line with the
photographs
taken of all three sets of

been parked in a
Careful

Jewell declared.
or any jewelry s'
“Pine if she had a purse or any

let’s find who she is next,”
“Her purse, maybe,
he is wearing——”

M. Jewell measured the distance from road-

h spot so that no minute d

etail would be lost

that three cars appar-
Jed to the top of 106th
for there were clear
three separate sets of tires.
gone beyond the

jewelry—but there’s not : ‘
thing,” Inspector Worth:
on his knees by the girl’s

It was true. Here wa
dressed, who normally v
rying a purse, probabl
wrist-watch, maybe a
rings, or other trinkets-
was to be seen.

“Add robbery,” Jev
“Whoever did it gave thi
works, by the looks of i
be they’ll find laundry
underclothing when t
autopsy.”

Before leaving
the officers made
vicinity, but fou
were no bloodmark:
the grass; no evidence:
lent struggle; nothing.

Since the auto tracks
yond where the girl’s b«
unlikely that anybody
stables beyond knew ab:
There are no houses in
vicinity, but Mrs, Betty
at No. 2941 Barrett Si
Avenue, told the office:
scouring the neighborho:
heard a car coming do
about 3:30 a.m. that mo
lieved she had heard t:
woman some minutes
departed.

s :

toy OTS of young peo
the hills at nights,”
they’re often. screamir
ing, so I don’t pay P
But this one was so le
pened to be awake.
thought was a woman
car came down the di:
speed, and then sped «
At the morgue, Doct
lin, Alameda County ;
iner; Doctor J. M. Ree
ner’s office, and Deput;
Burriston, made a pre
ination. They reportec
wounds only, and no
violence. The girl had
inally assaulted, they d
“An unusually sharp
used to stab the vic
told Jewell. “The wei
the heart and comple’
breast-bone. The thre
which are patterned _
angle, are superficial. °

after the girl’s death. Considerable
internal bleeding accounts for the ab-
sence of blood at the scene of the

‘ime. There was little or no struggle.
The girl was attacked so quickly that
she had no time to defend herself.”

We puzzled over the fact that three
stab wounds had been made after the
girl had been killed. Why?

“What about laundry marks on her
clothing?” Jewell asked.

“Not a thing.” Burriston shook his
head. “But it shouldn’t take long to
get an identification. This girl came
from a good home. She was well
dressed, in excellent physical condi-
tion, and evidently gave considerable
attention to her person. Hair, skin,
nails, teeth, hands, all.show evidence
of care.”

“How. long has she been dead?”

e

“About seven hours before she was
found by Jones.”

This, we believed, would indicate
that it was probably the death car that
Mrs. Steves heard at 3:30 a.m.

And, as Burriston had _ predicted,
identification of the slain girl was not
long in coming. Almost as soon as
the first newspapers telling of the
tragedy were on the streets, a man
named Henry Forsberg, of No. 570
Walla Vista Avenue, Oakland, asked
to see me.

“I’m a friend of Leonard Vlught,
bakery owner,” Forsberg told me. “He
and Mrs. Vlught are terribly worried
because their daughter didn’t come
home last night. You haven’t——”

“What’s she look like?” I inter-

rupted.
“Tall, blond, good-looking. Age

nineteen. Kind of red-gold hair; blue-
gray eyes ,

“Come on, we’ve got her,” I said.
“She’s at the morgue.”

On arrival there the horrified Fors-
berg took one look at the murdered
girl. “That’s Leona,” he said huskily.
“I don’t know what her folks’ll say-——
I don’t know——”

, Officers hurried out to the bakery,
which Forsberg said was at No, 5253
Foothill Boulevard. It was a building
that combined within itself a home
for Mr. and Mrs. Vlught and their four
children, and the bakery which gave
the family its living. Vlught was out
somewhere, so to his wife fell the
heart-breaking task of identifying the
dead girl as her own daughter. The
shock brought her near to collapse.

At the bakery, meanwhile, some of

If a boy bought this hunting-knife and sheath for protection, the police
wanted to know what protection he needed against a fun-loving, vivacious girl

op—18

These tire-tracks, photographed
immediately after the body was
found, gave police a vital clew

Leona Vliught: “She
was happy as a bird”

our men waited for Vlught to retur
... “I can’t believe it,” he wept, whe
they broke the news to him. “She wa
such a fine girl in every way. Sure
she went out with boy friends <
nights, but she never stayed out lat:
like last night. I felt then that some
thing was wrong.”

The telephone rang. He stared at
for a moment, then took down th
receiver... “All right, dear. I'll b
down at once.”

At the morgue, when the bereave
parents had recovered somewhat fro)
their first shock, Jewell and Duf
questioned them closely.

“No, I’m positive it wasn’t suicide
Vlught declared. “Our girl was hap;
and contented. She had everything
live for.” His tears flowed afres
“Why, she was happy as a bird ye:
terday morning when she left for wor
She grabbed me and tried to rous
me up. ‘Good-by, Butch,’ she laughe
She always called me ‘Butch.’”


“Who were some of her boy friends?"
Duffy asked.

Mra. Viught answered, striving dea-
perately to control her sobs, “She's
been going around pretty steadily with
one boy for the past six months,” she
said. “George ‘Tegner, his name ls.
He’s a refrigeration engineer.”

“Where's he live?”

“On Thirty-Kighth Avenue. But I'm
sure he didn’t do it. You see, Leona
and George quarreled over a week ago,
and she didn’t go out with him after
that.” ;

Jewell and Duffy looked at each
other. Quarreled, hey? They'd see this
man Tegner at once. They lcst no
time getting to the address Mrs. Vlught
supplied. And they found Tegner in.

“Leona killed, you say?” Tegner’s
voice trembled with emotion, “Why, it
can’t be possible. Sure, she and I’d
been going out regularly together,

practically every night for the past six.

months. Then we quit. I haven’t seen
her for over a week.”

“Why did you quarrel?” Jewell
asked.

Tegner hesitated. “Well,” he said
uneasily, uncomfortably, “it wasn’t
anything much. I thought she drank
more than was good for a girl of nine-
teen, that’s all. Leona was a pretty
swell youngster, though.”

They considered this a moment.

“We'd like to look over your car,”
Duffy told him then.

Without demur Tegner led the way
to his garage. A comparison of the
tire-track photographs showed that
tires on this machine were quite dif-
ferent in tread from either of the three
cars that had been on the dirt road.
Furthermore, Tegner cleared away any
possible suspicion by offering a com-
plete and satisfactory explanation of
his whereabouts the previous evening.

The officers left to continue their
investigations elsewhere.

Meantime, other Inspectors dug into
the slain girl’s past life. They found
little to help them. She had been an
honor student at Fremont High School;
quiet, popular, and declared one of the
school’s most beautiful graduates when
she completed her studies in 1935.

Rena Thompson, holding handker-
chief (with a friend): “I begged
her not to keep that date”

fh the Wall of that year, after one
semester at the University of Cali-
fornia, she enrolled as a student at the
Lee Ann Beauty Academy in Oakland,
where she did so well that she was
toade an bastruetress, a ponition whieh
she held at the time of her death.

Mr. and Mrs. Vlught denied that
Leona drank too much. “She did take
a drink or two,” the mother explained
through her sobs, “but she never drank
{to excess, and she was always home
by midnight. Last night she tele-
phoned that she might be late, because
she was going out with some of her
girl friends.”

“Who were they?” Jewell asked.

“She had a number of girl friends,
mostly at the beauty school. Leona
was very popular with other girls. She
made friends easily.”

Armed with the names of several of
these girls, the Inspectors commenced
their rounds. With whom did Leona
spend her time after her duties at the
beauty school had ended for the day?
Where did she go? What did she do?
Who saw her last, where, and at what
time? These were questions demand-
ing immediate answers. And some-
where among those answers, we fig-
ured, would be revealed the secret of
the preceding night’s tragedy. Not a
moment could be lost.

ROM Mrs. Henry Forsberg, wife of

the man who had first identified

the girl, came the initial record of her
movements on the previous evening:

“I saw her at nine o’clock,” Mrs.
Forsberg said. “She was in the Cave
restaurant near Twelfth Street and
Broadway. She was alone then, and
had been drinking, I asked her if she
was going home.”

“ ‘No,’ she said, ‘I’m not going home
yet. I’m feeling pretty low. This is
the beginning of the second week since
George (Tegner) and I split. But ’m
going out tonight. I’ve got a date. Not
till two o’clock, though.’

“‘Quit your kidding, Leona,’ I told
her. ‘You’re not staying up for any
two a.m. date. Besides, who’d make a
date with a girl at such an hour, any-
way?’

The hat, purse, veil,
watch, gloves and other
possessions of the dead
girl after the police
had retrieved them

It was the tragic duty of a loving mother to iden-
tify the body of her beloved daughter, cut down |
in the full bloom of her happy young womanhood \

“‘l’m not kidding,’ she assured me,
‘And he’s a swell guy. One of the “tall,
dark and handsome” type, you %
like Mae West’s boy friend in th
ture. Can I stay at your place w
get back?’

“‘Sure you can, Leona,’ I said. ‘But
please be careful. It’s not very safe;
going out with some fellow you've only |
just met, so late at night.’

“She drew herself up and laughed
at me. ‘Say!’ she cried, ‘I can take
care of myself, never fear.’ We left
her about quarter past nine on a
downtown street corner, Dolores Ge-
manes and I. Dolores works at the
restaurant where I met Ieona.”

“And she didn’t come back to your
home later in the evening?” Duffy
asked.

RS. FORSBERG shook her head

sadly. “No, she never came back,”
she said, tears starting to her eyes,
“She never came back.”

Why should her date with. the un-
known “tall, dark and handsome” ian
be so late, we wondered.

From the lips of Dolores Gemanes
and her fellow worker at the restau-
rant, Marian Denton, came another
story. Leona had sat in the restaurant
drinking coffee.

“I’m taking chances,’”’ Leona told the
girls. “I’ve got a two a.m. date with a
fellow that’s made passes at me be-
fore. I said I’d not go out with him
again, but he made every sort of
promise he’d really behave, so I agreed
to go.”

Miss Gemanes remonstrated with
her. “Listen,” she urged, “you’ve had
quite a few drinks already, and it’s not

OD—13

en ene tS am t= =

ve GnkbIG, Rodney,

Te8n in
Lovers

ene

petting parties up here last

night!”
Stanley Jones, an operator for
United Air Lines, made the remark to
keep himself company as he strode
toward the eucalyptus-grown hills at
the top of 106th Avenue, in Oakland,
California. Dawn was just breaking
on the morning of Wednesday, De-
cember 7, 1938.

Jones looked up from the multiple
tire-marks that had caused him to re-
call the hills as a petters’ paradise.

“Guess these lovers’ lane kids don’t
mind the cold, though, long as they
can see the city lights down below
there, and watch the moon shining
oe San Francisco Bay. Like enough
they——.

“Ffello! What’s that?”

Fifty yards or so beyond the road’s
edge, something dark lay tumbled and
huddled in a shallow depression in
the field. Jones, curious, started out
across the grass for a closer view.

“Somebody’s coat, maybe, dropped
out of one of those cars last night,”
he told himself. “Might be—— Gosh,
it’s a woman! Looks like she’s asleep.
Funny place to choose, though.”

Striding swiftly now, he reached the
ditch and looked closely at the wo-
man who lay there. He could not see
her face, because she was on her side,
turned away from him. She was hat-
less, and masses of red-gold, damp
hair curled about her head. Young, he
judged in a swift glance of appraisal
—probably not much over 20; tall and
well-formed, too.

Gently he spoke to her. “Hey, miss!

NA reine been pretty cold for

_Anything the matter?”

The woman made no response; just
lay there, inert, silent. He knelt then,
and touched her shoulder. The limp
body rolled a little, and the startled
Jones saw a pair of blue-gray eyes,
half-staring, in a face of pale beauty
cold in death.

on—12

“In life she must have been a great beauty. Even in death she had lost little of her blond loveliness”

Quarrel, Booze or What— Caused the
Death of This Beauty on December 7, 1938?

Through the girl’s disarranged dress,
her white bosom gleamed austere as
carved marble. And between the
breasts, a stab wound trickled with
still moist blood.

“Look!” he cried, coming to his feet.
“She’s been stabbed to death!”

Desperately he looked about for aid,
but no other figure moved on that sun-
lit slope where the dead girl lay. He

TZ Dh, Ltt 7 Cf

must find somebody—find them quick-
ly!——._ The police!

With no further glance at the tragic
figure in the ditch, he raced down the
road, his frantically hurrying feet
throwing spurts of dust as he ran.

He was fortunate in finding Patrol-
man George Armstrong when he came
down from the hills and into the more
thickly populated part of the district,

where 106th Avenue runs into Foot-
hill Boulevard.

“Officer, a woman—dead! “up, at the
top of the Avenue,” he panted. “Look:
like murder.”

Armstrong lost no time. He hastenec
to the nearest patrol-box, put in a hur-
ried call to Headquarters, and wit!
Jones as guide, drove his car at toy
speed to the scene of the tragedy.

to


~25

LONDE, blue-eyed Eva Paget brushed a wisp of
hair from her smooth brow and turned from the
airy room where she had tucked her children in for
their afternoon nap. It was early on the afternoon

of the Fourth of July, 1949, but no reverberations from
exploding fireworks came to disturb the peace and quiet
of Jack London’s idyllic Valley of the Moon where the
27-year-old mother and her children were spending the
summer.

The crunch of automobile tires on the gravel outside
the Paget cottage drew Eva’s attention to the window
overlooking the wide vista of quiet countryside north
of San Pablo Bay on California’s hilly coast. She recog-
nized the sleek new convertible that belonged to her
acquaintance, Peter Flint, who was visiting down the

THE LODGE—
Attractive living room of home
where two were brutally slain,

GULDBRANDSEN, Henry, wh, gassed CA (Sonoma) Octeber 6, 1950

road at Candlelight Lodge with middle-aged Peter J.
Jensen, their closest neighbor.

But the man behind the driver’s wheel was not Flint,
the 27-year-old lieutenant in the U. S. Maritime Service
who was a house guest at Jensen’s place over the week-
end. This man was of about the same age as the good-
looking lieutenant, but he was short and stocky, with a
ruddy complexion and strange, troubled eyes that lent
an expression of anxiety and discontent to his deeply
lined face.

Eva Paget turned for a final glance toward her chil-
dren. The four-year-old was already asleep and the
little boy, seven, was at least pretending. Their pretty
mother softly closed the door to their room, then walked
slowly through the house and to the veranda overlook-
ing the driveway. The short man had left the new Buick
and was approaching her.

“There’s been an accident, Mrs. Paget,” he said. “Over
at Mr. Jensen’s. Lieutenant Flint asked me to come for
you. He’s got a broken arm and wants you to come over
and help till I can get a doctor.”

A tiny line of worry creased the woman's forehead as
she stood hesitating. She had never before left the chil-
dren alone during the long hot afternoons. But now a
neighbor and friend needed help. The Jensen place was
only a short half-mile away; surely she could run over
for a few moments and do what was possible to ease
the man’s pain until a physician could get there.

There was no fire in the cottage and in that quiet,
out-of-the-way valley there was little likelihood of any

CRIME DETECTIVE, Bovember,

1949


stranger passing by during her absence. With a shrug of
her shoulders the woman stepped into the car and the
man got back in behind the driver’s wheel.

“You’re stopping over at Candlelight Lodge, Mr.....
ah... ?”

She hesitated, and glanced more sharply at the man
beside her. ;

“Just call me ‘Hank.’ I’m a friend of Flint’s.”

The thin, straight lips in the man’s lined face hardly
moved as he spoke. It occurred to Mrs. Paget ‘that she
had last seen Flint and his 53-year-old host only the
Friday before. And neither had mentioned at that time
that they were expecting a guest. But she said no more
during the few minutes it took them to reach the lodge.
As the car turned into the gate and pulled to a stop, the
woman glanced toward the closed front door of the
spacious bungalow. Strange, she thought, that on this
hot July afternoon the door—even the wide front win-
dows looking out over’the valley—should be shut.

Eva Paget alighted and started toward the bungalow.
Behind her she heard the quick short steps of the man
who identified himself as “Hank.” Certainly his manner
was strange, but of course that could be accounted for
by the nature of his errand. Probably he was upset at
the accident which had resulted in the other’s injury.

It was only when she reached the veranda of the silent
house that she wondered why he hadn’t continued on
for the doctor. There was no telephone at the lodge, and
unless Jensen himself had driven off for a doctor, she
was at a loss to account for this other man following
her up to the house.

She half-turned, a question on her full red lips. The
man was standing less than two feet from her, his eyes
staring in a strange manner straight before him. Mrs.
Paget took a startled backward step. Then she saw the
heavy stone pestle in his raised right hand. A relic of
the days when Indians lived in the valley and ground
their grain in hollowed ‘stone vessels, the pestle was
used by its present tenant to sound the dinner gong at
Candelight Lodge.

“Why... what... ?” °

In a lightning-like movement the man’s sinewy right
arm went up over his head and brought the heavy pestle
down across the woman’s upraised face in a glancing
blow that momentarily stunned her but did not bring
loss of consciousness. Not a sound came from his parted
lips as he dropped the makeshift weapon, reached for-
ward and encircled her lithe body as she staggered
backward.

URING those next few seconds a recollection of

current tales of horror in that quiet Sonoma County
valley came back to the woman as she stood vainly
struggling with her antagonist. She remembered that
only a few months before, one of the inmates had
escaped from the State mental institution where her
neighbor Peter Jensen served as head landscape gar-
dener. Before his subsequent capture, the crazed fugi-
tive had committed a brutal, unprovoked murder.

Could this man be some patient whom Jensen had
brought out to work about his place? She felt certain
the man was mad, and that in some way he had managed
to get possession of the car that belonged to Jensen’s
guest, lure the others from the lodge on some pretext,
and was now about to violate her, perhaps even take
her life.

Eva Paget did the only thing possible under the cir-
cumstances. She whimpered to him of her helpless
children, appealed to whatever human instincts he might
still retain.

But the man seemed not to hear her words. His face
was a mask of viciousness and lust. Mrs. Paget struggled
bravely as she fell back under the weight of the man’s
body.

The last thing the woman was to remember was her
assailant reaching behind him for the heavy stone pestle
he had dropped after his first assault upon her. When
she came to sometime later he still stood above her,
straightening his own blood-covered and disarranged
clothing.

She saw the fear and horror in his almost colorless
eyes, and a sense of impending doom forced words from
her torn and crimsoned lips. ““Have mercy!” she pleaded.
“Think of my children!”

Then again consciousness was slowly slipping away.
The words “Water! Water!’ came to the man as he ap-
proached her and knelt where she lay on the lawn at
the side of the still house. His face seemed to relax for
a moment then, and he left, to return with a glass of
water. Almost gently he held this to the woman’s lips
as he supported her pain-racked body with his other
arm.

A few minutes later the man lifted her and half-
staggered across to a stout oak at the edge of the
grounds. He removed his belt, and with this and a pair
of trousers he had brought from the house, managed to
secure her to the tree.

“Y’m going to have to tie you so I can get away before
you can call for help,” he said in his soft, husky voice.
“Don’t shout out or try to get away till I’m gone.”

Without another word he turned and went back to
the green convertible where it still stood at the side of
the veranda. When he drove back down to the road he

PETER J. FLINT—

Young officer of U. S. Maritime Service was one of
the ingrate’s victims in sensational double murder.

ee

stopped
lodge. |
The h
she lay, :
Once m« |
came to |
behind t}
After a
aged to |
and pus}
kitchen «
over her
calling o1
No ans
master be
been sile:
body nak
Jensen
The wi
and saw *
Lieutenar
blood-soa
A mom
conscious
were unc
to the roa
little vill
and drean
of the Mo:
Two

ENTRANC
Spatter o/
of the sce

ar her words. His face
st. Mrs. Paget struggled
1e weight of the man’s

to remember was her
the heavy stone pestle
ssault upon her. When
still stood above her,
vered and disarranged

in his almost colorless
oom forced words from
re mercy!”’ she pleaded.

slowly slipping away.
e to the man as he ap-
he lay on the lawn at
ice seemed to relax for
return with a glass of
iis to the woman’s lips
d body with his other

1 lifted her and half-
k at the edge of the
id with this and a pair
the house, managed to

) I can get away before
1 his soft, husky voice.
vay till ’m gone.”

ned and went back to
till stood at the side of
k down to the road he

ne Service was one of
tional double murder.

stopped long enough to lock the gates leading from the
lodge. : ‘

The hot sun was beating down on the woman where
she lay, naked except for her slippers, beneath the tree.
Once more consciousness left her, and when she finally
came to again the sun had already begun to slip down
behind the foothills in the west.

After a struggle of several minutes the woman man-
aged to loosen her bonds. She staggered up to the lodge
and pushed in the unlocked back door. On a chair in the
kitchen was a white T-shirt, and she hastily pulled this
over her head, then went on into the front of the house,
calling out softly.

No answer came to her cries. When she entered the
master bedroom, Eva Paget realized why the house had
been silent. There on the double bed, his bludgeoned
body naked and half-covered by a sheet, lay Peter
Jensen.

The woman staggered to the adjoining bed-chamber
and saw the stripped, beaten body of her acquaintance,
Lieutenant Flint, where it, too, lay half covered on a
blood-soaked bed.

A moment later she was running, hysterical and un-
conscious of the fact that the lower parts of her body
were uncovered, from the lodge. She continued down
to the roadway that passed a mile and a half from the
little village of Glen Ellen, where Jack London lived
and dreamed out his romantic adventures of his Valley
of the Moon ranch during the early years of the century.

Two picnickers, Constance Hoover and Margaret

ENTRANCE TO THE LODGE—
Spatter of blood shown in Photo below was warning
of the scene of tragedy to be found inside the cabin.

‘Smith from San Francisco, across the bay from Mrs.
. Paget’s own home in Berkeley, found her staggering

half-conscious a mile away, some half an hour later. The
first words Mrs. Paget uttered as she fell into their arms

were: “Call the police .. . go up to the lodge . . . look
for the bodies!”

BY the time Sheriff Harry L. Patterson and his deputy,

Robert Dollar, arrived -from the county seat at Santa
Rosa, Eva Paget had been taken by neighbors to the
hospital in nearby Sonoma. She was suffering from
severe shock and concussion from the blows that had
felled-her, but physicians allowed her to make a brief
statement that set peace officers throughout California
on a search for a madman fleeing in the slain merchant
marine officer’s 1949 Buick convertible.

At Candlelight Lodge the authorities found both Flint
and Jensen dead of fractured skulls. The blood-covered
stone pestle with which they had been slain was dis-
covered where the killer dropped it after felling his third
victim.

What little Eva Paget could tell of the horror she had
undergone at Candlelight Lodge that afternoon was not
much help to the authorities in their early investigation
of the appalling crimes. She said she had never seen her
assailant before and remembered only that he was about
30 years old, of medium build, and with a ruddy com-
plexion and lusterless pale-blue eyes. He had been
dressed in a pair of dark frousers and a white shirt
opened at the throat.

An immediate check at the mental institution where
the elder of his two victims had been employed for years
as head landscape gardener revealed that no inmates had


middle-aged Peter J.

wheel was not Flint,
J. S. Maritime Service
place over the week-
ame age as the good-
rt and stocky, with a
oubled eyes that lent
content to his deeply

ance toward her chil-
‘eady asleep and the
tending. Their pretty
eir room, then walked
he veranda overlook-
.ad left the new Buick

Paget,” he said. “Over
asked me to come for
ants you to come over

» woman’s forehead as
+r before left the chil-
.fternoons. But now a
The Jensen place was
‘ly she could run over
was possible to ease
could get there.
.ge and in that quiet,
little likelihood of any

MRS. EVA PAGET—
Courageous young mother ran into
terror on an errand of mercy. Her
story touched off a manhunt which
led to capture of a paroled ex-con.

19

a

Meantime, he once again called in the
previous victims of assault and robbery.
Without hesitation, four of them at once
identified the man in the pictures as the
same one who had beaten, assaulted and
robbed them.

But each one knew him by a different
name—and not one of those names could
be found in the records on file in the
Secret Service bureau.

It was frustrating, but at least the
police now had not only a description, but
actual photographs to work with. Yet,
Mexico City in October is crowded with
tourists; daily, new thousands come and
go. A dozen times police thought they had
pin-pointed the man they were after, only
to discover that a bad mistake had been
made. They were faced with a double
problem—that of tracking down their
man and that of not embarrassing inno-
cent tourists who were all too quick to
take offense.

One day led into the next—with the ex-
ception that because it was known that
their quarry was an habitue of the
night spots and clubs, each day was a
full twenty-four hours in concentrated
work.

A dozen times in the next weeks
promising leads came in—and each time
the lead proved worthless.

Then, October 29, nearly, five weeks
from the fateful day on which Harriet Ann

Hicks had taken her last sightseeing trip,
the break came.

That was when the hotel detective at
the Prado Hotel, in the heart of Mexico
City, took a long, second look at a tall man
crossing the lobby in the direction of the
cocktail lounge. He maneuvered around
to look again, to make sure he was not
mistaken, and then headed for the tele-
phone in his office.

He put through a call for the Chief of
Secret Service and a moment later Men-
doza Dominguez was on the wire, listening
to the cryptic message, “I think your man
is here now, in the cocktail lounge.”

Ten minutes later agents, headed by
Chief Mendoza Dominguez himself, were
at the de luxe Prado. The man they
wanted was still in the cocktail lounge,
drinking alone, studying the women in
the room, doubtlessly looking for a likely
prospect.

Quietly he was surrounded, eased with-
out disturbance out of the lounge and out
of the hotel.

He was still protesting his bewildered
annoyance when he was taken into Men-
doza Dominguez’s private office for ques-
tioning. From the start he denied every-
thing, until faced with evidence to the
contrary.

He denied knowing any Harriet Ann
Hicks—until shown the pictures of him-
self taken with her.

He denied knowing any of the previous
victims of his brutal assaults—until faced
by them and identified.

Finally, and most damning of all, the
traveler’s checks stolen from Harriet Ann
Hicks were found in the man’s pockets
when he was searched.

Not until then did he give his name and
background. He was Richard J. Thomp-
son, a Canadian metal assayer, who had
lived for many years in Mexico. According
to further information, he was married to
a Yaqui Indian. Later, when additional
checks were made, it was discovered that
he was also wanted in the United States
and in Guatemala for sundry crimes.

The following day, as the information
against him piled up, Thompson stopped
protesting his innocence and confessed.
As this is written, he is being held for the
eventual trial that will determine his
exact degree of innocence or guilt in this
brutal crime that shocked not only
Mexico but also Coral Gables, where the
victim was so well known and so highly
respected.

The maximum penalty for murder in
the Federal District, where the deed took
place, is from 20 to 30 years.

Years that were stolen from a woman
in the prime of life.

(To avoid needless embarrassment to one

innocently connected with this case, the names
of Robert Larenz and aliases are fictitious.)

Torture Captive

[Continued from page 33]

The back door was closed but un-
locked and she pushed into the kitchen.
There was no sign of any painting having
been started. On a chair near the stove
was a white T-shirt and Elaine painfully
pulled this over her head. She threw a
towel about her waist and started through
the house, calling Jensen by name. There
was no answer.

Proceeding slowly to the front of the
lodge, she passed through the empty liv-
ing room and went on to a front bed-
room. There, on a large double bed, lay
the blood-spattered, completely nude
body of her neighbor Peter Jensen. The
man was on his back, one arm raised pro-
tectively over his head. His face, unrecog-
nizable, was a bloody pulp.

Elaine staggered on to an adjoining
guest room. There she found the second
body. Lieutenant Flint, also stripped of
his clothing and with his face bludgeoned,
lay beneath a thin sheet on one of the twin
beds. Blankets on the other bed were dis-
arranged and there was a dent in the
pillow, as though someone had slept there
recently.

Moments later the horrified young
matron was running hysterically toward
the little-travelled roadway that stretches
from the village of Glen Ellen to the
Valley of the Moon where novelist Jack
London lived and dreamed out his ro-
mantic adventures during the early part
of the century.

She was within 100 yards of her own
home when two picnickers, Constance
Hoover and Margaret Smith, came upon
her as she painfully made her way along
the road. Her first words, as she fell into
the arms of Miss Smith, were: “The po-
lice! Get the police! Tell them to go to
the lodge and they'll find the bodies!”

Miss Smith, who with her companion
lived across San Francisco Bay from Mrs.
Gresham's winter home in Berkeley, ran

54 Sd

to the nearest house and put through a
telephone call to the office of Santa Rosa
County Sheriff Harry L. Patterson. It took
Patterson and his deputy, Robert Dollar,
exactly eight minutes to speed from the
county seat to the Gresham cottage eight
miles to the south.

. After listening to a brief account of the
injured girl’s terrible experience, the
sheriff arranged to have an ambulance

take her to the hospital in Sonoma. Neigh-

bors meantime had taken charge of the
two children.

The sheriff then communicated with his

office by two-way radio, ordering a state-
wide alarm for the rapist-killer who had
fled in the 1949 green Buick convertible
belonging to Flint. Then Patterson and
Dollar continued on to Candlelight Lodge.

The bloodstained pestle described by
Elaine as the weapon used to beat her into
submission was discovered by the sheriff
just outside the locked front door. Inside,
Patterson looked at the victims’ bodies
and estimated that death had occurred
at least 12 hours earlier. Both men, he
believed, had died almost instantaneously
from crushing blows to the head. Hair
from their heads was found adhering to
the blood on the pestle with which Elaine
Gresham was later attacked.

There was no indication of robbery.
Money was found in a wallet taken from
the trousers that Jensen had hung neatly
over the back of a chair near his bed.
The elderly victim’s gold watch lay on
his dresser and nothing in the room ap-
peared to have been disturbed.

In the guest room occupied by Flint it
was the same, except for the fact that
there were no trousers with the clothing
on the chair by the bed. Deputy Dollar,
returning to the house with the belt and
a pair of bloodstained trousers found tied
about the tree to which Elaine had been
bound, pointed to the 32-inch waist-line
and suggested they must have belonged
to the killer. Flint, a tall, well-muscled
man weighing close to 200 pounds, would
have required at least a size 38.

Examination of the abandoned trousers

revealed neither a store label nor cleaning
marks, The flaring, cuffless bottoms were
similar to bell-bottomed sailor pants, and
this led the officers to believe that the
slayer, like his younger victim, was a
seaman.

Photographs and identification experts
arrived at the house and after going over
the place reported the discovery of finger-
prints on the stone pestle and on inside
door handles. But these were so badly
smeared with blood that police held little
hope of being able to classify them for

-purposes of comparison. Three empty

whisky glasses in the living room, along
with a half-filled bottle of Scotch, pointed
to the probability that the killer had
drunk with his male victims on the eve of

* their deaths.

Clear fingerprints on two of the whisky
glasses readily checked with those of the
two dead men. But the third glass had
been wiped clean. In the sheriff’s opinion
this indigated that the slayer had planned
his crim® even as he sat drinking with
his intended victims the night before.

The absence of any sign that the house
had been broken into strengthened Pat-
terson’s belief that the slayer had been a
welcome guest. It was known that Jensen
usually retired early and always locked
up the place for the night. If the occupant
of the third bed had arrived late Sunday
night, he would have had to force an
entrance or wake one of the two men
sleeping inside. But both men, in the
sheriff’s opinion, had been murdered in
their sleep without warning. So the mad
killer must have been admitted to the
lodge by Jensen during the day or early
evening.

Further search of the lodge failed to
turn up anything pointing to the torture
bludgeoner’s identity, let alone evidence
of how long he had remained in the house
or what had taken place there before
the fatal attacks. Valuable oriental tapes-
tries and a collection of antique china
pitchers had not been touched. Except for
Flint’s trousers and the wallet they pre-
sumably contained, there was nothing
missing.

Late on that
1949, the shen
the Sonoma H
detailed descri
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officer had bs
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missing wallet

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earlier.

Bud Holden


who turned as he entered, studied: him
closely and then rose and went to a back
booth. The reporter did not bother to ask
the bartender for “Johnny,” but followed
the haggard-appearing man directly to
the booth. On his way he called for the
bartender to bring along a couple of dou-
ble Scotches. He remembered that the
night before the double murder the killer
had presumably sat drinking Scotch with
his intended victims.

The moment the whisky was before him,
the stocky, ruddy-faced man across from
the reporter commenced speaking. His
voice was listless and there was no ex-
pression in the red-veined eyes that stared
down at the table in front of him.

“Well, I suppose you’ve guessed it,” he
said dully. “I’m the guy who killed those
people down in Sonoma County. And now
they’re out to kill me. That’s why I’ve
called you. I never raped the girl like they
say on the radio, though.”

Gulbrandsen said he had not attempted
to hide from his pursuers. He knew they
would get him sooner or later. But until
the furor cooled down, he dared not give
himself up to any of the hundreds of
armed men on the lookout for him. He had
heard those shoot-to-kill orders over the
radio and feared some trigger-happy
posseman would open up on him on sight.

Neimeier assured the man he no longer
had any reason to be afraid. He asked the

other to return to his office, promising that
he would call the district attorney from
there and arrange for safe conduct to the
nearest lockup. Gulbrandsen agreed, and
half an hour later he was sitting at the re-
porter’s desk dictating his confession of
the most brutal murders ever to be cov-
ered in a first-hand interview by the
Eureka newspaperman. :

Meanwhile Sheriff Patterson, in-
formed of the Hog cl by Humboldt
County authorities, left by plane to return
his prisoner. When he arrived early on
Thursday he was handed a copy of the
statement dictated and signed by the ex-
convict.

That statement, in which Gulbrandsen
admitted everything except the rape that
police claim motivated the slayings, said:

“Peter Flint invited me up over the
weekend. He was a guest of Peter Jensen.
We left Friday night from the Alameda
Maritime Academy and arrived at the
cabin at 9 p.m., stopping at clubs on the
way. Everything went along fine until
Monday morning. I awoke between 8 and
10 am., feeling a violent pulsation and
rapid heart beating.

“T went outside, took a stone which I
think was an Indian pestle, came into the
cabin, hit Flint and hit Jensen. I felt no
compassion at the time, but I now feel the
greatest revulsion. I left the cabin and

went to Mrs. Gresham’s house and told
her a story of Flint breaking his arm to
get her to come to the lodge. When we
happened to see her on the road the day
before, Flint told me about her having
been a nurse.”

Gulbrandsen was unable to explain why
he had killed his friend and their host.
After it was over, though, he said he
“felt much better.” Later, following the
attacks on Elaine Gresham, he had
stopped at several taverns to drink and
dance with girls.

When the slayer finally went on trial for
murder and rape in September of 1949,
court-appointed attorneys based their
hope of saving his life on a plea that he
was insane at the time of his crimes. But
the state countered with evidence to show
that the murders had been planned and
executed for the sole purpose of clearing
the hy | for his attack upon the pretty
blonde he had seen walking along a coun-
try road shortly before. The jury found
him guilty as charged.

At dawn on the morning of October 6,
1950, the murderer was executed at San
Quentin Prison, less than 30 miles from
the peaceful valley to which he had
oe violence and death two years be-
ore.

(The name Elaine Gresham is fictitious to
protect the identity of the slayer’s unfortunate
girl victim.—The Editor)

Murder Hailed a Cab

{Continued from page 46]

motorists regarding any tall, 30-year-old
hitchhikers seen in the vicinity of Stan-
dish. Meanwhile, Sheriff Jones and County
Attorney Arthur Chapman, Jr., were
checking other angles of the case.

By morning, Philip W. Wheeler, special
investigator for the attorney general’s
office, was making a thorough recheck of
the scene, together with State Police De-
tective Camille Carrier and State Trooper
Stephen K. Regina, who had been assigned
to the case.

In Portland, investigators had begun
another intensive hunt, starting from the
corner where Chandler had picked up his
so-far unidentified fare. Working from
the description given by the Lows, city
detectives found a waitress in a beer
parlor who remembered serving a cus-
tomer who looked like the missing cab
passenger, but there, the trail went cold.

Oddly, the corner from which Chandler
had started his last trip was only a few
blocks from a store where he worked
during the day as head of the shipping
department. He had taken the night job
as a taxi driver to augment the salary on
which he supported a wife and four
children.

The time and place of Chandler’s last
pickup, plus the destination he had ra-
dioed to the dispatcher, rang a bell in the
mind of another Yellow cab driver, when
he heard about it.

“Along about half past seven,” the
cabby stated, “a fellow flagged me at
that corner and asked me what the fare
was to Gorham. He sounds like a dead
ringer for the man you are trying to find.”

Asked why he hadn’t taken the pas-
senger to Gorham, the cabby had a prompt
reply.

“T told him the fare,” he said, “and he
went into the St. Regis Hotel. I figured he
thought the fare was too much, so I didn’t
wait.” .

50¢2Ci« D>

a)

A checkup with the desk clerk at the
hotel provided the next link. He remem~
bered a guest answering the same gen-
eral description who had checked in on
Monday and had left the hotel at about
7:30 pm. Tuesday. The guest had reg-
istered under the name of Richard A.
Brine and was from Fryeburg, Me., a
resort town near the New Hampshire
border, some 50 miles from Portland.

Contacting Fryeburg authorities,
County Attorney Chapman rapidly as-
sembled data indicating that Brine was
“missing” in the full sense of the term. A
former Marine, who had seen service in
Korea, Brine, now 27 years old, had later
enlisted in the Army.

On October 3, he had been placed under
quarters arrest at Fort Myer, Va. on an
AWOL charge. A few days later, he had
broken loose and was again AWOL, but
had not been seen in Fryeburg, where his
mother lived, although it was supposed
that he had returned to Maine.

Brine had other relatives in Denmark,
a town a dozen miles from Fryeburg and
he had worked at a camp there, during
two summers. Brine was an accomplished
woodsman. So far, he had not been re-
ported in the Denmark area, but his
ability to make his way there was un-
questioned. :

More important was the question
whether Brine was the passenger who had
vanished from Chandler’s cab. Photo-
graphs of Brine were obtained from Frye-
burg and shown to Mrs. Low, as well as
to persons in Portland who thought that
they had seen him there. All identified
him from his pictures; Mrs. Low as the
man who had inquired where a Sullivan
family lived.

That helped spur the hunt in Standish,
where all during Tuesday night, searchers
had been hampered by the darkness and
the thick brush.

At noon, Deputy Sheriff Prentiss Libby
and other searchers backtracked to their
starting point and discovered a GI jacket
tightly folded and thrust into an opening
in the stone wall about 100 yards from the
spot where Chandler's cab had been

found. Bundled inside the jacket was a
thick copy of a 1958 gun catalog, known
as the “Shooter’s Bible.”

The searchers also found a cellophane-
wrapped cigar and a GI compass. Brine’s
hobby was known to be guns. The man
who had spoken to Mrs. Low had been
smoking a cigar. But why anyone should
have left his GI jacket, with the weather
dropping to the freezing mark, along with
a compass that he might need to find his
way into the woods, were points that
raised new speculation.

So were stains which Deputy Sheriff
Prentiss observed on the jacket and
classed as bloodstains. Immediately, the
hunt took on a new turn. A request was
sent to the Vermont State Police, who
supplied the Maine authorities with a
bloodhound named Major. The dog was
brought to Standish by Vermont State
Trooper Stanley Rydjeski, who arrived
late Wednesday afternoon.

Give the scent from the jacket,
Major promptly picked up the trail and
led the posse on a roundabout course
through the woods, covering a matter of
two miles in an hour and a half. The trail
ended back at its starting point. Darkness
had settled when the bloodhound was
given the scent again and the dog moved
into the woods followed by a smaller
posse. Once more, the trail faded out.

Chandler’s cab had been taken to the
home of Deputy Libby in Richville, near
Sebago Lake. In a second inspection of
the cab, investigators found a spent .38
caliber slug on the floor. Autopsy reports
indicated that the cab driver had been
shot five times, in the face, neck and chest.

Regardless of what his final status might
prove to be, Brine was so far being sought
only for questioning to determine whether
he was the last passenger to ride in
Chandler’s taxi. No motive had been de-
termined, as robbery seemed the only

‘ likely reason, yet nothing had been stolen

from the dead cab driver.

Searchers were still combing the Stand-
ish woods, following dirt roads that lead
past tar-paper shacks and old tote paths

through the rolliz
under surveillan

Fryeburg, wher:

for the missing m
two routes that }

low to reach eit!

One is Highw:
old Pequawket I:
The other is along

tain Division of

road, now used

On Thursday
young woodcho;
rived early on h
lake shore deve
up, he saw a ma
parked tractor «
woods.

On the chance
Brine, Miles put
state police and
sped to the lake
out in another f1
near East Sebag
miles from the s
nal hunt in Sta:

Whether Bri:
doubled on his
fooled the blo
scene, could on!
ing the area in
those woods, St
Hancock and ot}
the remains of «
among the ashes

Among them, |
a mortgage pape
ing the name
too charred to
burned bill of s
number of a c:
corresponded wi
car that Brine
later had been r
tax fo and t
peared to be ar:
papers were als

That day the
shores of Sebag
body of fresh «
There were lit
cottages offerin
but with search:
that skirted th
shore line by s
risky for a fug

The lake :
wide at the pla
bling Brine hac
it almost imposs
the lake in a r
covered as boat
lights were pa
and by night.

Wednesday a!
tained a warrar
with the mu:
Meanwhile, wo:
gun catalog ar
ons represente
tigators had ma
gun sales in Bri

According to
man, Brine hac
pistol at a stor
miles from Der
made prior to t
that had ended

All Thursday
continued, onl,
hefore. Sheriffs
running down
sembling Brine

All day Frida
reports that m
again searching
tives had join
Standish area, |
him to. surrer


y the slayer in
-usting woman.

2

s as the reply

wo during the
n lodge. Now,

the stranger

she saw with
pestle from a
; when Indians
1 hollow stone
nd the dinner

like movement
bullet-shaped
hed down in a
ulder. It had
raised her arm

awn mouth of
i let his heavy
rned to flee he
1e body in his

nd tore at his
orce her to the
1an 140 pounds,
strength.
al struggle, the
before flashed
-en thrown into
ery of a brutal
i escaped from
\l its gruesome
Peter Jensen,

DAO PS Care age OT

who was employed at the time as head gardener at the
asylum.

Could this lust-crazed maniac who was now tearing at
her clothing be another escapee from that same institution,
she wondered. She was convinced by now that he was raving
mad. She redoubled her struggles, aware that her very life
was at stake.

But the match was too uneven, Finally going limp, she was
forced to the ground. The last thing Elaine remembered
before sinking into a state of semiconsciousness was the
man’s right arm once more reaching out for the heavy
stone pestle he had dropped to the ground.

When she regained her senses some time later her as-
sailant, wearing clean trousers and shirt, stood above her,
holding his blood-spattered trousers and the soiled white
shirt whose buttons had been ripped off in the struggle. She
saw the look of mingled fear and resolve in the other’s
smouldering dark eyes, and the realization of impending
doom forced an agonized plea from her battered lips. “My
God, have mercy! Think of my children!”

Mrs. Gresham knew the futility of attempting to reason
with a mad man. But she remembered having heard that
insane persons sometimes have a strong sympathy for small
children. She continued to plead with her attacker, remind-
ing him that she must return to care for the little girl and
boy she had left alone. ;

The bruised, battered and now nude girl felt consciousness
ebbing again as her voice went on and on. Standing above his
victim, the man’s face seemed to relax as he listened to her
final plea.

Finally he lifted her éasily.and carried her to a tree at
the edge of the grounds. There he removed the broad belt
from his trousers. With this, and the trousers and shirt he
was carrying, he bound her naked body to the tree.

In this exotically decorated room, three men spent one evening having social drinks. The next day two
were found battered to death in adjoining rooms and an all-out search was launched for third one of trio.

“Mr. Jensen will be coming back soon and he'll set you
free,” the husky voice told her. “But don’t call out or try
to get loose till he comes. Remember that, if you want your
kids to see you alive again!”

After a long last look at his victim, the man returned to
the car he had left in the driveway. He got in and drove it
around the drive, past the entrance to the lodge and out to
the roadway. Elaine Gresham estimated the time to be
about 2 p.m. when she saw the green convertible disappear
in a northerly direction on Route 12.

Sometime during the next half hour the nude, badly
beaten, tortured woman lost consciousness again. When she
came to, the sun that had been high in the sky was sinking
behind the coastal range to the west. She realized she must
have lain there unconscious for hours. Then, in a sudden
wave of remembrance and horror, she knew that Peter
Jensen was not. going to return to his lodge and that there
had been no accident inside the cottage and no trip to get a
doctor.

It was apparent that no one had come to the lodge during
the hours she had lain unconscious, for anyone driving in
would have been sure to have seen her, naked and bound
to the tree. And Jensen’s young guest, Peter Flint, would
certainly have heard her screams and come out to investi-
gate, were he actually there. A broken arm would not have
prevented him coming to her rescue.

For the better part of an hour Elaine struggled with the
bonds that tied her to the tree. She knew the futility of crying
out, for the closest house was beyond hearing distance and
few cars used the road passing the lodge. Her thoughts re-
turned to the children who must have awakened hours ago
and would be crying for their mother. Finally her efforts
prevailed and she was freed of her bonds. She struggled to
her feet and staggered to the lodge. [Continued on page 54]

a PPT EL ey Ne Ee ee MMR ee eek ee

Pe 3K ik

33

previous
til faced

ill, the
iet Ann
pockets

ame and
Thomp-
who had
ccording
irried to
iditional
ered that
ed States
rimes.
ormation
, stopped
onfessed.
i for the
mine his
ilt in this
not only
vhere the
so highly

nurder in
jeed took

a woman

ent to one
the names
fictitious.)

or cleaning
ttoms were
pants, and
e that the
tim, was a

ion experts
going over
y of finger-
d on inside
re so badly
e held little
fy them for
nree empty
room, along
tch, pointed
killer had
yn the eve of

f the whisky
those of the
i glass had
riff’s opinion
had planned
‘inking with
ht before.
at the house
sthened Pat-
r had been a
, that Jensen
iways locked
the occupant
j late Sunday
to force an
the two men
men, in the
murdered in
zg. So the mad
mitted to the
e day or early

odge failed to
to the torture
lone evidence
-d in the house

there before
yriental tapes-
antique china
hed. Except for
allet they pre-

was nothing

Late on that Monday night of July 4,
1949, the sheriff visited Mrs. Gresham in
the Sonoma Hospital and obtained a more
detailed description of the fugitive. Dur-
ing their conversation Elaine recalled that
her assailant had twice referred to a phy-
sician as a “medic.” She recalled, also, that
the man had known she was a former
nurse, although that fact was not generally
known in the neighborhood.

To Sheriff Patterson that added up to
two things: The killer was a member of
one of the services in which the term
“medic” is customarily used for a phy-
sician and he had obtained considerable
information about the woman he had
selected as his victim.

When Mrs. Gresham added that Jensen
was probably the only resident of the
neighborhood to whom she had confided
her former occupation, Patterson figured
that either he, or his guest, Flint, had
been on friendly enough terms with the
fugitive to impart that information to him.

By morning a complete check of pa-
tients at the nearby mental institution
showed that all were accounted for dur-
ing the hours of the reign of violence
in the Valley of the Moon. Meanwhile
relatives of Flint were located in Alafgeda.
They revealed that the young maritime
officer had been carrying identification
papers and a gasoline credit card in his
missing wallet.

It was also learned for the first time
that Flint’s stolen car bore license tags
9-P-3869. A second alert went out to
all peace officers in California and border-
ing states to watch for the car. Already
police at a score of roadblocks surround-
ing the area were stopping and question-
ing occupants of all automobiles on the
theory the killer might have abandoned
the green Buick. But little hope was held
that he would be found near the scene of
his triple crime, for hours had passed be-
fore the first alarms went out.

On the theory that the slayer had fol-
lowed Flint to the home of his middle-
aged friend, possibly at the lieutenant’s
invitation, Patterson started checking the
younger man’s background. He soon
learned that the handsome maritime offi-
cer had been graduated some months be-
fore from the Merchant Marine Academy
at Alameda, Cal. Since then he had sailed
half around the world. Members of his
family told the sheriff he frequently
brought seaman friends home with him
while on leave in his home port. Most
of these were men of about his own age
from other parts of the country who found
themselves friendless and lonesome when
their ships called at California ports.

Alameda police were asked to question
members of the crew with which Flint
had last sailed to determine whether any
answered to the nickname “Hank” or
fitted Elaine Gresham’s description of
her assailant. While awaiting a reply, the
sheriff received word that a green Buick
convertible bearing license tags 9-P-3869

had been spotted just beyond a roadblock’

at Healdsburg, 45 miles north of Glen
Ellen.

Three hours later, with scores of police
converging on Healdsburg, a report came
through that the fleeing killer had been
seen in his victim’s car near the town
se —— 60 miles farther north on Route

Early on Wednesday Patterson received
a call from Eureka County Detective
Charles Cavagnaro that the wild-eyed
fugitive had been identified as the man
who drove into a service station in Hum-
boldt County, more than 200 miles north
of Glen Ellen, less than half an hour
earlier. i

Bud Holden, operator of the station, had

reported that the man pulled into his
place and asked to have the gas tank
filled and the oil checked. When that was
done he had handed Holden a credit card
made out in ‘the name of Peter J. Flint
and had signed that name on the card.
Holden, aware that the fugitive was prob-
ably armed and dangerous, had waited

only a moment after the other left, driv-
ing north toward Eureka, before calling
the sheriff's office. .

During mid-morning, with the manhunt
still centered around Eureka, the Santa
Rosa County authorities received infor-
mation from a ship at sea that added

impetus to the search. The skipper of the
vessel, which had dropped Lieutenant
Flint in his home port threé weeks be-
fore, reported by radio-telegram that a
crew member had jumped ship at that
same time. '

This man was known to have been
friendly with Flint during their last cruise
together. His name was Henry Brun
Gulbrandsen. He was a 34-year-old petty
officer who in 1944 had been graduated
from the New London, Conn., Maritime
Academy. He had listed his home as
Brooklyn, N. Y¥., but the ship’s records
showed he had shipped from a California

port on his last cruise. The missing sea-
man was known to shipmates as “Hank!”
To several of them he had confided that
he once served time in a western peniten-
tiary.

It did not take Patterson long to learn
that Gulbrandsen had been released on
parole from the California State Prison
Farm at Chino early in 1949 after serving
a two-year term for assault with a deadly
weapon. The sentence had followed his
conviction in San Mateo County February
14, 1947, on a charge of stabbing Kurt
Masson, a fellow seaman, 13 times with
an ice-pick during a quarrel over a local
woman. At the time of his arrest, he had
listed his occupation as common laborer.

More background information was re-
ceived by Patterson as the search for the
slayer was intensified in the area 200 miles
north of the scene of the crime. From the
fugitive’s former shipmates it was learned
that he had frequently spoken about a
marriage that had ended in divorce and
had declared himself “soured on all
women.”

Meanwhile, in Humboldt County, De-
tective Cavagnaro learned that a wild-
eyed man answering to Gulbrandsen’s de-
scription had registered at the Eureka Inn
the night before under the name “Henry
B. Miller.” The desk clerk did not learn
about the search for a murderer until an
hour after the man checked out early on
Wednesday, however.

Then he told Deputy Everett Maudlin,
a friend, that “Miller” had paid for his
room in advance as he had carried no
bag. But his bed had not been slept in,
and he had appeared sleepless and hag-
gard when he left about six hours after
checking in.

With the fugitive believed to be in the
immediate area and roadblocks set up on
every route within a radius of 50 miles,
Humboldt authorities issued an order to
“shoot to kill” if the quarry put up re-
sistance. Armed men patrolled a dozen
roads and the local sheriff's office pre-
dicted it was simply a matter of time be-
fore they closed in.

There was little doubt that Gulbrand-
sen had abandoned his stolen car. For
Holden, the gas station attendant, remem-
bered that the man had been listening to
a news broadcast on the car radio when
he stopped for gas the day before. He was
sure to know that the car would be spotted
the minute it hit any thoroughfare in the
region.

While the net slowly closed in, a young
reporter on the Humboldt Standard sat
at his desk in the newspaper office typing
out a story about the latest efforts to run
the killer to earth. As Edward Neimeier
finished his story at 3 p.m., typed “30” at
its conclusion and started toward the city
desk, the telephone at his elbow rang.
He turned, lifted the receiver and heard
a husky voice say, “Is this the guy who
is covering the Sonoma County murders?”

“We've already covered the murders.
We're working on the manhunt story
now,” replied the reporter. “Got some-
thing of interest?”

There was a moment’s hesitation, then
the voice continued: “Meet me at the Log
Cabin and I'll give you a story that you'll
never forget!”

Neimeier knew that the Log Cabin was
a tavern located half a mile from the cen-
ter of town on the highway where the
green convertible had been seen the night
before. He asked the identity of the
speaker, and was told, “Just come down
and ask for Johnny. The bartender will
point me out. But come alone; otherwise
I won't be here when you arrive.”

Fifteen minutes later Neimeier arrived
at the tavern. At the bar sat a lone drinker

55

glanced down at my shirt. The
od on it had dried with the dust in
back of the car, making it a dirty-
wn.
felt my face. There was a cut un-
my left eye. I tried to brush some
the caked blood from my skin.
‘he two men examined my head.
xy told me it looked “bad.” It felt
d,” too.
Why’d you try to pull me in?”
»~Eye wanted to know.
Who squealed?” Scar-Face asked.
told them that I did not know.
r-Face seemed to be nervous and
ipy. He kept waving the .45 around.
Listen,” he snapped, “you’re in a
gh spot. We may have to bump
i. You only got one chance.” He
led an enormous roll of bills out of
pocket. I could see it was all in
iadian currency. “There’s over two
nd in that roll. Suppose I gave it to
t and let you go. Can you forget
igs easy?”
just stood for a few seconds, look-
at the money and thinking. I de-
od the best thing was to be frank
h them.
Let’s not kid each other,” I told
1. “I can take your money and
ybe you'll let me go. But you know
| I know that won’t be the end of
Iam a government man. We don’t
y that way.”
You’re a damn fool!” Scar-Face
.d. He hit me in the face, knocking
down. Pop-Eye picked me up.
You got a family?” Pop-Eye asked.
told them I had a wife and a little
‘ two months old.
You better take the dough and have
‘apse of memory,” Pop-Eye sug-
ted. “You won’t be any good to
m dead.”

VAS looking at the car. It was a
931, four-cylinder Ford coupe. It
3 painted dark blue. The license
nber was Washington 143-217. I
eated the number mentally several
es and knew I would never forget
Scar-Face must have noticed me.
That settles it!” he said with final-
“This bird even knows the license
nber of the car. He knows too
ch. I’m going to take him back in
woods and bump him.”
Ie grabbed the back of my coat col-
I tried to pull back, but I felt the
‘had come. I thought of my family
{ the money he had offered—and
n I thought of the oath I had taken
en I accepted the badge of the
ited States Customs Service...

Charles Calk-
ins, the Sher-
iff’s son, who
went out to
meet a shoot-
ing outlaw
gone mad

Sheriff Andrew
Calkins, who
saw his duty
and did it as
only a fearless
law officer can

“Wait a minute!” Pop-Eye stopped
him. “This guy’s a G-man. You bump
one of them and their buddies’ll get
you surer’n hell.”

“What’re we going to do with him?
It’s our neck or his, and I’d a damn
sight rather it would be his.”

Scar-Face was all for getting rid of
me with a slug. Pop-Eye was my one
chance.

They went away from me a little
distance and whispered. I could see
Scar-Face motioning to the woods. I
hoped against hope that Pop-Eye was
talking him out of the idea, but even
I could not figure out what they were
to do with me if they planned on get-
ting away.

They came back to where I was
standing beside the car.

“You got a break for awhile if you
behave yourself,” Scar-Face informed
me. “One false move though and you’re
a corpse.”
ve told him I believed him. And I

id!
They helped me back into the rear
compartment. We drove back to the
pavement. From the whine of the tires
4 oe tell we were going hard and
‘ast.

But where to? What had they de-
cided in their little conference back in
the woods? Had Pop-Eye talked him
out.of it there because he knew of a
better place to bump me? What would
my wife think when I didn’t come
home?

As we rode I tried to scratch a note
on the paint on the inside of the com-
partment, but it was so dark I couldn’t
be sure whether it was legible or not.

“Tam kidnaped by two men in this
car—Ballinger,” I wrote.

It probably would never do any
good, but I didn’t know what else to do.
I tried again to pick the handcuffs but
it was useless. :

The exhaust fumes were getting bad
again. I dozed off to sleep...

“Hey you! Can you hear!” The
voices came faintly from the front

seat. I must have been asleep for
some time as I could not see the
patches of light through the cracks—
which meant it was dark outside.

“Yes. I can hear you,” I hollered
back.

“We are going to stop and get gas,”
the voice in front came back. It
sounded like Scar-Face. “I got this
gun right against the seat. One peep

“out of you and you get it.”

The car slowed down and rolled to a
stop.’ Should I take a chance on cry-

ing for help? They would probably
shoot the gas attendant and then take
me on and bump me someplace else.
It didn’t seem fair to jeopardize the
gas-station fellow just because I was
in a tough spot. I kept quiet.

“Here’s a five!”—I could hear the at-
tendant walking across the gravel for
change. Scar-Face and Pop-Eye did
not wait for change. A roar of the
racing engine and we were off again.

I heard some traffic whistles. We
must have passed through a city. I
listened for street cars but did not
hear them, so figured it must be a
small town.

TGs cae later the car stopped again.
One of the men got out. He was
gone for about ten minutes. I rea-
soned he was probably telephoning the
rest of the gang, asking instructions.

He came back and the car rolled
on again. I went off to sleep once
more... ;

The car was bumping over rough
roads. My tender head struck against
the iron bottom of the rear compart-
ment and I woke up. The car stopped.
I heard another car pull up alongside
of us.

What was up now?

I listened, tense. Was it help, or
was it more of the mob?

I could hear a woman’s voice. Cer-
tainly the gangster wouldn’t send a
woman out to be the “trigger-man”!
There seemed to be a lot of talking
going on.

The lid over me lifted. It was dark.
Scar-Face and Pop-Eye lifted me out.
My legs were cramped and I fell to the
ground, unable to stand. They let me
sit there awhile.

They helped me up and walked me
over to the second car. It was a new
Ford roadster. The rumble seat had
been removed from the back. They
pushed me into the space and shut the
lid. It was even more cramped than
the first car. I heard the lock snap.

Someone climbed into the driver’s

their own Canadian money.

seat. A voice called: “Don’t do it un-
less you have to.”

The voice sounded like Pop-Eye’s.

The car started. I was certain only
one person was up front. That meant
I was alone with Scar-Face. He had
been the one who wanted to bump me
off in the woods before Pop-Eye had
talked him out of it.

What would happen the next time
Scar-Face and I stopped? Then I
would not have Pop-Eye’s help. It
looked like curtains. es

To keep my mind off the dreadful
possibilities, I wondered about the
woman who had driven up in this
ear, and had gone away with Pop-
Eye. She must be a gangster moll. And
what about that big roll of money that
Scar-Face was carrying? It was in
Canadian bills. Where did he get it?

If our tip-off was right, they were
running dope from Canada to the
United States from the China boats.
In that event they would be paid off
for their loads in United States cur-
rency.—Then I had an idea. Maybe
I had nabbed Pop-Eye as he was start-
ing to Canada for another load. They
would want to pay off up there in

Perhaps, if I could ever get away, I
would be able to trace them from
where they exchanged the money.
They must have gotten it at some
bank. There was, also, the car license
that I kept running through my mind
to make certain I would remember it.
The numbers were 143-217. 143-217,
143-217. I repeated them over and
over again.

Maybe I wouldn’t get away alive,
but if I did, I knew I would be able
to give Scar-Face and Pop-Eye a run
for their freedom with what I knew
about them.

One thing I couldn’t figure out.
Where had Scar-Face come from when
he slugged me after I had caught Pop-
Eye? The only way I could place it
was that Pop-Eye must have stopped
in the woods to pick up the guns, and
Scar-Face had been hiding at the pre-
arranged spot.

I tried to shift around in the back
of the car. It was so crowded I
couldn’t move my legs. Scar-Face was
a rotten driver. He jerked the car,
raced the motor and must have for-
gotten to close the choke, for the en-
gine sputtered and missed when he


tically, “you’re so smart, figure out
the answers yourself.”

“Get up and keep your hands above
your head,” I ordered him. I went
around behind him and reached into
his pockets.

Only a single sheet of paper in his
pockets. It was a receipt from the
William O. McKay Ford dealers in
Seattle. No name was on it. It merely
stated that six dollars had been paid
for auto repairs.

‘“What’s your name?” I demanded.

“Do you have to keep asking foolish
questions?” he said in a mock pained
voice. ao

I knew it was useless to-try-and
talk to him. I told him to- get. back,
into the car. I planned to take him
to Custom’s Headquarters in the Fed="
eral Building in Seattle. <1 pushed my
car out of the way and” locked it. 1°
i going to drive his car into the
city. bs 5 Sa :

I went around to the driver’s side of .
his car. He had parked close to a--
thicket. I pushed by the brush and

reached for the door. :

An arm reached out from the brush.

#

By circling me it.pinned my arms to ;

my sides. I looked into the car. The
pop-eyed man was still there. . .°."
Someone had been hiding in the bushes ©
all this time! # £53 Ree br OS

I tried to reach for ‘my‘gun in the”

ment of a car, and the lid was down.
I tried to shove. against it. It was
locked.

My shirt seemed stiff. I felt it. It
was hard with caked blood that had
poured from my head. I tried to feel
my scalp, but it was too sore to stand
the touch.

The car kept bounding along. A ter-
rible smell of gas came up from the
exhaust. It made me faint and sick.
I closed my eyes, went back to sleep.

When I woke up I was still in the
car and we were traveling fast. My
head was clearing, although the smell
ot:the-exhaust was nauseating. I felt

\ for my‘watch. It was still on my wrist.

I: putt. under a tiny crack of light
_which-seeped into my cramped prison.
The. dial said it was 3:30.

A aie my
‘“" T had’ started chasing’the car at ex-
actly noon. I did not.-know how soon
-after the pair knocked me out that they
had loaded me into the back of the car.
but I felt certain they would not have
kept me out in the open long. We must

“have been traveling for at least two

hours. }
Where were they taking me, and
why? ;/ 4k

I did not like to think of the an-
swer. I had read too often of one-way

‘ gangster-rides, and I had no doubt
, since seeing the guns that,I was in the

shoulder holster. Something hit me hands of first-class mobsters.

on the head. More blows, like: bolts

of lightning, seemed tobe splitting my,-*:felt-around in the bottom of the car.

skull open. I felt ‘inyself~slipping to™

the ground. . . “4%.
ty,
Sometime later I heard@: faint voices.

With my hands locked together, I
«Had they left any of the guns in the

«sback?: *Not a chance!

The cuffs were swelling my hands.
Maybe I could get them off. I found a

My eyes slowly opened. Pop-Eyé:was_ safety: pin in my pocket. With this I
holding me up on one side and a mandug at the lock. The pin was too soft,
with a big scar}-across:his cheek held “it only-bent. Every bounte of the car

me on the othe side. ¢-My>own_hand=
cuffs were aroundimy. wrists.: ¢-:. 2”
could see four ‘persons; man 4
three women, on _ horseback “onthe
gravel road.

The scar-faced man beside me was
calling to them:

“We're with the Federal Prohi’s. The
bird here put up a battle and we had
to tap him. He’ll be all right, though.
We're taking him in now.”

Scar-Face and Pop-Eye were posing
as officers and making me out to be
the crook! I opened my mouth to try
and shout to the persons on horseback.
Scar-Face gave my wrist a sharp twist
—and everything went black as I
slumped down again before a sound
could come out of me... .

I woke up later. It was pitch black
and I was all cramped up. The hand-
cuffs were so tight my hands were
numb. I kept bouncing around. I shook
my head to try and collect my thoughts,

I found I was in the rear compart-

“a

I. stuck “the-pin-into my ‘hands. They

IF“ were so’numb;F¥ ould scaréely feel it.
d*-TWwas thrown‘oven,to*the right side

of the*¢ar.” That meant we had turned
to the left. We had been on pavement
but now we had turned onto a gravel
road. I could hear the rocks sing under
the tires, against the mudguards. An-
other left turn. We were on a road
filled with ruts. I tried to brace my-
self in the tiny prison to keep from
being banged against the sides and top.

The car came to a stop.

I could hear two men climb out of
the front seat. A moment later the
rear compartment lid over me raised
cautiously. A .45 jammed into my face.

“Don’t get tough and you'll be all
right,” a voice barked.

“Don’t worry,” I said. “I only feel
tough, that’s all.” The fresh air smelled
good.

The men helped me out.

“Hell! You look tough!” Pop-Eye
exclaimed.

“As | stepped Into the car,
my freedom ended”...
These pictures were posed
especially for OFFICIAL
DETECTIVE STORIES by
Customs Agent. Ballinger

~

"He Knows the License Number. That
Settles It! I'm Going to Take Him
Back in the Woods and Bump Him!"


¥
}

opened the throttle. The open choke
made. the exhaust fumes thick and
sickening.

After an hour or so of driving he
stopped the car. He shouted down to
me that he was going back and ‘get
some gasoline. He said he wasn’t tak-
ing any chances of going into a garage,
and was walking back to a service
station with a five-gallon can.

He stopped five or six times during
the night, but we must have covered
a lot of territory, for except for the
‘times when we stopped for a few min-
utes we were going fast all the while.
He came back and talked to me once.

gr

Facsimile of the original telegram
a desperado hoped would save a life

| TD LOSANGELES CALIF 10 140AM
“POST INTELLIGENCER ae
SEATTLE

THE KIDNAPPED MAN HANDCUFFED TO TREE ON HILL ONE QUARTER MILE
‘NORTHEAST OF YREKA FRUIT INSPECTIONSHIP HURRY =

Pop-Eye Hall, who thou

ght he had the brains and the trigger finger

of a Big Shot. At left, looking down on Agent Ballinger
who is showing how he was squeezed into a rumble seat

“I’m going to let you out near a hos-
pital when I get rid of you,” he told
nae] “That head of yours is pretty

a ”

I thanked him, but secretly believed
he was lying about letting me out near
a hospital. If he let me go at all, I
knew it would be some place where
he would-be able to get a long way
off before I could get to help.

“Do you know where you are?”

I told him I did not know, but
guessed it was quite a ways from
where we had started.

“We’re in Oregon,” he said, and got
back into the car.

I tried picking at the handcuffs with
the pin to keep from thinking about
what was going to happen. But the
further we got away from Seattle, the
less hope I had. I thought I could
guess what they had in mind:

An unidentified body dumped out in
some lonely place in southern Oregon
or California would not be immedi-
ately connected with the disappearance

of a custom guard from Seattle.
would give them plenty of tim
clear out of the West before an;
would discover what had happene
me.

The car kept speeding on. At ti
I dropped off to sleep, half-unconsc
from the wounds on my head and {
the sickening odor of the escaping
haust fumes. I lost all track of t
It was too dark to see my wrist-w:
. What seemed to be hours after S
Face had talked to me the last tin
was awakened by the car bum;
over rough roads. The car seeme
tilt in front, and I could tell we \
going up a steep hill. We stop
about three hundred yards up
incline.

I could hear Scar-Face get out
the car. He unlocked the rear co
and I could see out. It seemed to
lighter. It must be toward morn

“I’m going to leave you here,” Sc
Face said. He had my gun in his hi

“Alive?” I asked.

He nodded.

“Then, go easy with that gun |
cause it’s got a hair-trigger.”

“You go easy then,” he came ba
Mr ae I’m jittery and it might

He helped me out of the car. I stc
up for a minute and then fell flat
my face. My itegs were cramped «
“asleep.” He waited while I rubt
circulation into them.

I tried to look at the license num!
of this second car, but I couldn’t ma
it out in the half-light.

Scar-Face told me to walk ahead
him up into the woods on the sid
hill.

“I ought to bunip you off but
would only raise a stink,” he sa:
“You government guys hang togeth:
It’s lucky for you you’re not an ord
nary copper or you’d be done for. Y:
sure got us—and yourself, too—in
hell of a mess by snooping around

Was he just talking this way to ke
me quiet until we got far enough in
the woods where he could knock n
off? What chance would I have |
rush him?

I decided to wait awhile and gra
the first opportunity.

Then I noticed a bottle of milk i
his left hand. Perhaps he really wa

(Continued on Page 38)


« »

Company ocated at Main and
Halstead | East Orange. Here
disappoint iwaited the officers.

The driver on the Harrison Street
apartment call had not reported’ in on
the assignment.

fronts the club-house entrance. Inside
the amusement palace the two officers
headed for the bar and loitered there.

Hilliard scanned the throng in the
ballroom. The sleuth spotted De Aoun
and the blonde seated at, a nearby

of flame spurted from the police gun.

De Aoun half turned on his heels.
Then he crumpled to the floor, dead.
Wiley’s bullets found their mark, the
— chest being punctured near the
heart.

ts New Jersey’s most vicious

ar. But thereafter fathers and
uusvands could rest without the har-
rowing fear that their womenfolk
might be next in his gallery of victims
ruined for life.

Are you. taking advantage of Ellis Parker’s advice to would-be detectives?
Reader Evidence forum? Do you follow the latest crime news,
interviews with the country’s leading wardens of penal

tion in’ its fileld—OrFiciaL DETECTIVE STORIES.

Have you sent your comments in to the
In the Spotlight? And are you following the series of
institutions? Tell your friends about the fastest-selling publica-

My Twenty-Four Hours of Hell (Continued from Page 7)

going to leave me here in the woods.
I did not think that he would tote
the bottle along for a blind. I’d better
wait and see what was coming.

There was a little snow on the
ground, and it was cold. We plodded
into the woods about a block or two.

“Stay right where you are!” Scar-
Face suddenly barked.

We were in a small clearing. Was
this the end? My back stiffened and
my muscles were taut as I waited for
a lead slug to knock me over. Would I
hear the explosion first or would I
feel the bullet first?

“I’m going to handcuff you to that
tree ahead,” Scar-Face went on after
a second or two.

I nearly fainted from relief.

I could see a little live oak about six
inches in diameter, ahead.

“I’m taking a chance on undoing your
handcuffs,” Scar-Face said. ‘“You’ve
been pretty square up to now. I’m
going to ask you not to get funny,
otherwise I’m going to plug you. It’s
either me or you .and if there is any
doubt it’s going to be you who goes
by-by. Get it? Okay! Now put your
hands away out in front of you and
watch your step.”

I pushed my hands out. I figured it
would be much better being hand-
cuffed to a growing tree than to be
inside of a box made of a pine one.

Scar-Face came around in front and
unlocked one of the cuffs. He had the
gun in his right hand, pointed straight
into my stomach. I moved up to the
tree and he snapped the cuff over my
hand again so that my arms were
around it.

“Somebody’ll come along and let you
loose after a bit,” Scar-Face said as he
walked away.

“Hey! How about the keys?” I
cried. “Suppose somebody does find
me, how’re they going to get me loose?”

Scar-Face picked up a piece of bark
from the ground.

“See this?”

I nodded. .

“Tll put the key under it down at
the road. You tell whoever finds you
to look on the road for it.”

I heard the car start up, and then it

38

was gone. I shivered and moved my
feet about in the snow. It was getting
lighter. I moved around the tree,
looking out into the woods. I thought
I saw a cabin across a gulch a few
hundred yards away.

It was a cabin!

I shouted. My voice echoed in the
trees. As it grew lighter, I could see
there was no smoke coming from the
chimney. It was probably deserted. I
stopped shouting.

By this time I was chilled through.
How long would I be here? Would I
freeze to death or starve before some-
one found me? I looked for the milk
that Scar-Face had left, but it was out
of reach.

It must have been an hour later
when I heard voices down by the road.

I shouted at the top of my voice:
“Come and get me loose!”

“Come on down out of there!” a
voice came back.

“T can’t. I’m handcuffed to a tree!”

The voices on the road laughed.
“Stop your fooling and get down out
of there! A bogey man’ll get you.”

I shouted! Pleaded! Begged!—But
the voices on the road only laughed.
Soon I heard a car start, and the voices
were gone.

was dumbfounded. Then mad.
Savagely I kicked the tree that held
me prisoner. Why hadn’t they come
up and tried to free me? They had
heard me—but only laughed!

I tried to climb up the tree, break-
ing off the branches as I proceeded, in
an attempt to break the top and gain
my freedom. It was useless.

I felt sick again and slipped down
on the snow to rest. After fifteen min-
utes I could feel I was beginning to
freeze. The only thing to do was to
walk around the tree to keep warm.

I looked over toward the deserted
cabin. I looked again.

There was smoke coming from the
chimney!

I shouted! I screamed!

A window opened. A woman stuck
her head out. I told her I was hand-
cuffed to a tree.

“Wait’ll my old man gets up and
he’ll come over and tend to you!” she

shouted back.

Another fifteen minutes, and I saw a
man making his way from the cabin
toward me. He was carrying a .25-.35
deer rifle. He wouldn’t come near me.

“There’s been a lot of liquor hi-
jacking going on around here, and we
don’t want no mess with you fellows,”
he said.

“Listen,” I told him. “I’m a govern-
ment man. I’ve been kidnaped! If you
don’t want to let me loose, go call the
police or somebody.”

I finally talked him into going down
to the road and look for the hand-
cuff keys. He came back without them.
He couldn’t find them.

He went back to the cabin, though,
and got an ax. He cut down the tree

and I slipped my hands over the trunk. |

Together we went back to the cabin.

“Why wouldn’t the people I heard
on the road come up and see what was
wrong?” I asked him.

The fellow explained that there was
a half-wit boy living down the road
about a mile, and the people on the
road must have thought I was he just
having a prank.

When I got to the cabin, the woman
wanted me to go straight to bed. I re-
fused. She got me a basin of water
and a mirror and then put on some
coffee.

Until I looked into the glass I hadn’t
realized what a formidable spectacle I
had presented. My hair was matted
with blood and dirt. Streaks of dirt
and dry blood were all over my face,
and my clothes were a mess.

“Where am I?” was one of my first
questions.

The man explained we were about
a mile from the Oregon-California
boundary. I was staggered! We had
come clear across the State! There was
a fruit quarantine station at the line,
he said, and a little city called Hilt was
about a mile to the south of us. Yreka,
California, a larger city, was twenty-
three miles to the south.

I wanted to get to a telephone as
quickly as possible. Scar-Face only
had a few hours’ start, and I might be
able to catch up with him.

The man in the cabin had an old

car, and as soon as I’d washed and had
a cup of coffee we went to Hilt. I
called Chief Cozza.

“Hello, Chief. This is Ballinger.
Yeah, I located the place. I’m in Cali-
fornia, now. California! They kid-
naped me.”

When Chief Cozza was able to un-
derstand that I had really been taken
for a ride, I gave him all the dope I
knew about the gang. I gave him de-
scriptions of Scar-Face and Pop-Eye,
and told him about the woman. I
gave him the license number of the
first car, and told about the receipt I
had seen from the McKay automobile
company, also about the Canadian
money.

Chief Cozza told me to go to Med-
ford, Oregon, and catch the plane to
Seattle. The Oregon state police were
notified, and they sent a state trooper,
Milo Baucom, in a car to get me.
While we were waiting for Baucom, a
doctor took me to a little hospital in
Hilt and wiped some of the dirt out
of the cuts and bandaged them. I had
five cuts on my scalp, a cut on my
moe and my right eye was swollen
shu

I caught the plane out of Medford
and was back in Seattle by four o’clock
in the afternoon. But it wasn’t until
near noon that I began to thaw out,
till the cramp from my hellish ride
subsided.

Chief Collector of Customs George
Hubbard, Chief Cozza, Agent A. S.
Atherton, former postal inspector, and
Agent Phil Frazer were waiting for

me at the Boeing air field in Seattle.

I had no sooner stepped out of the
plane than Phil Frazer spoke up:

“You must have gotten the license
number wrong. I’ve located the license
you gave us and it belongs to an auto
company. It’s in their garage now.”

“Was the license number 143-217?”

“That’s it. It’s a Ford coupe and
it’s in the McKay Ford company place
right now.”

“Then that’s the car!” I said. “Let’s
go see it.” .

We drove across town to the McKay
company while I told the boys about
my “back-seat” trip.

By

WaHblCG LO etd iteidh OLY Olic Question.
“Did a scar-faced bird buy the car?”
“No, although I do remember a fel-

low with a scar down the side of his

face was with him. I think he called
the fellow with the scar George. The
only thing I can remember much about
the fellow who bought the car was that
he had sort of funny eyes. They kind

of

“Popped out!” I joined him in the
last words.

We left the garage to go to the Fed-
eral Building and look at the identifi-
cation file. We felt confident we would
know in a short time who my kid-
napers were.

I could understand their action of
changing cars now. They had forced
me into the car that had been bor-
rowed from the garage. They were
afraid that Someone, maybe the per-
sons who had been on horseback and
saw me when I was beaten, might
become suspicious and report the car.
At one of the stops along the high-
way when I had been riding in the
rear compartment, they had phoned
the woman: She had brought them the
second car, and then had returned with
Pop-Eye Hall to get delivery on the
new car.

By the time we returned to the Fed-
eral Building, a flock of newspaper
men were waiting for us, but a Post
Intelligencer reporter was first in. His
newspaper had received a telegram
from Los Angeles, California:

POSTAL TELEGRAPH

FB6 TD LOSANGELES CALIF 10 140 AM
1933 MAR
POST INTELLIGENCER SEATTLE
THE KIDNAPED MAN HANDCUFFED To
TREE ON HILL ONE QUARTER MILE
NORTHEAST OF YREKA FRUIT INSPEC-
TIONSHIP HURRY

NO SIG...

So, Scar-Face had not intended to

starve me or freeze me to death!
_. We studied the telegram, and from
it we could pretty nearly figure out
the action of the men. Scar-Face was
in Los Angeles, for that was where
the wire had been sent. He undoubt-
edly was waiting there for Pop-Eye
Hall, who was driving down in the
new car.

Then Pop-Eye Hall was someplace
on the way to California!

There was no time to lose. We tele-
graphed every law-enforcement agency
from Seattle to Los Angeles. We sent
in detail the description of Pop-Eye
Hall and the car he was driving.

Unless he changed the car he was
driving—and we felt certain he would
not, as he would have no inkling that
we knew anything about the new car
—he was bound to be spotted and
captured.

While we were waiting to hear word
of Pop-Eye Hall’s arrest, we looked
him up in the identification records.
We found he had been living in a
downtown Seattle hotel. His compan-

ions, we learned, were a woman named
Belle Gorman and another ex-convict,

George Manning.

The

King

him im
auto sal
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car for
We w
€x-conv!
It wa
morning
the frui
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had see:
man con
car. The
were ur
stop the:
Word
fornia.
Sherifi
warning
for his ci
once wit
and Leg
Kent, a ;
was in
Quigley
Quigley,
patrolma
car and
The pl:
to wait jr
saw Pop-
and his
two bloc

conscious.
>and half
‘e another
orced him
ond auto-

er he pos-
‘etain his :
a losing
and with
nveloping
capable of
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pé—south
igton and
nally, ata
uth of the
¢ bumped
short dis-
linger was

eo” to
4

Articles of

disguj
Own teeth, 1 Ws

iquid Court

a small tree 200 yards off the highway,
then climbed back into the coupé.

“T’ll let someone know where you are,”
he called. “And you got a break, feller.
Don’t forget that.” He put the car in re-
verse gear and backed swiftly over the
road by which he had come. ..

As Ballinger’s head cleared, he strug-
gled frantically to free himself. He
strained, pushed and pulled until his
wrists were rubbed raw from the steel:,
bracelets that encircled them.

It was not yet daylight, and the few
motorists who sped: down the highway at
that hour either did not hear his shouts
for help or preferred to ignore them. It
was not until a farmer, trudging along a
dirt road some time later, chanced upon
him that his plight was discovered. It was
then necessary to chop down the tree to
which he was manacled in order to effect
his release. ,

As soon as Ballinger could get to a tele-
phone, word of his kidnapping was
broadcast by radio and teletype through-
out three states—Washington, Oregon
and California. Descriptions of his abduc-

The false +
eeth
-plaster (bottle) were placed Over the bandit's

obliterated fingerprint Markings

tors and the license number of the first

car they had used were flashed to every
peace officer within a radius of many
hundreds of miles, with the terse warn-
ing, “Take no chances; these men are
heavily armed,” included in each mes-
Sage.

United States Customs Agents Phil
Fraser and Rae Vader, of the Seattle,
office, were two of the officers assigned
to investigate the facts concerning the

4 kidnapping. They located the Ford coupé
‘ Ballinger had described, but missed their
quarry by a few minutes. The man who
had rented the car had returned it and
left for parts unknown.
‘Their next information was to the
effect that a stranger—one whose actions
had aroused suspicion—had ordered a
new Ford sedan from a local dealer. But
when Fraser and Vader rushed to the
Ford agency to await the man they ex-
pected would call for the new automo-
bile, they learned to their chagrin that
it had already been delivered to a woman
who gave her name as “Belle Gorman.”
She had paid cash for'‘the car.

License number plates had not been
issued to the new Ford as yet. However,
the dealer had kept a record of the num-

ber that appeared on the ignition switch

key. This number was promptly added
to the broadcasts that were repeated at
intervals of every few hours, inasmuch
as the man who had placed the order for
the car greatly resembled Ballinger’s de-
scription of one of the kidnappers,
The next night, March 10th, when a
new Ford sedan stopped at a fruit inspec-
tion station in northern California for ex-
amination, an alert inspector looked it
over carefully. He, too, had learned of
the kidnapping and had been furnished
with a description of the wanted man and .
automobile. While making his customary
search for contraband fruits and vege-
tables being transported from one state to
another, he managed to throw the beam
of his flashlight on the Ford’s ignition
switch key. The number was identical,
with that which had ‘appeared in the
message requesting the suspect’s arrest.
The inspector, unarmed, had no alter-
native other than to permit the automo-

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76

for Mr. Cossack” in all instances; . that
the attorney, whom he referred to as
“the boss,” had assigned Fenton and
himself to the various jobs after they
had been personally “cased” by Cossack.

“After the last job on June 18th,” Carl-
son went on, “Mr. Cossack and I had a
falling out over the way the money was
being split. Cossack wanted to increase
his share to an even third. I told him a
few things and said I was through with
him. -I quit him and Fenton then, and
went out on my own.

“T didn’t talk to them again till just a
few days ago. Fenton said then that
Cossack had lined up a bank near Elev-
enth and San Pedro; that after takeing
that bank, we’d go to San Francisco an

rob one that would be good for twenty:

grand, That was just two days before
we were all arrested. But we didn’t take
the bank on San Pedro Street, because
there was’a man there painting the out-
side of the building.” ai

“We've; been told,” I remarked, “that
you often bragged about having . com-
mitted seventeen or eighteen bank rob-
beries. ._Is that true?”

“No; I told that to Mr. Cossack be-
cause { ‘wanted him to take me into his
organization.” ~ ‘

“A bank was held up in Berkeley on
July 27th of this year. Do you know
anything about that?” Mr. Rule asked.

“T admit taking part in that hold-up.
At that time I received the bullet woun

that is now on my head.” :

“We've heard from many sources,” I
said, “that you -always held out a cer-
tain sum of money for what you termed
the ‘big caper,’’ What did you mean by
that?” SHES ie

For a few moments Carlson was silent.
-“That was. Mr. Cossack’s idea,” he said
finally, showing an almost gleeful satis-
faction at; this unexpected chance to take
another : “at the’ man who had
double-crossed him. ‘He said-we could
kidnap a personal friend of his for $200,-
000, which was to be split three: ways.

Fenton and I were to kidnap this person -

and Cossack was to be the pay-off man
to collect the money.” | '

“Who was: that: person?”

“ A. MAN named Arakelian, owner of a
: winery in Fresno. Cossack and one’
of his girl friends: went up there last:
April to get inside dope on his friend. He
arranged for Fenton and me to meet him
there.” . ae

“Do you know wheré*Cossack stopped
in Fresno, and under what name?”

“At the Sequoia Hotel, under his own
name—Cossack. I took my girl on: that
trip. Helen and Fenton and I drove up
to Fresno. When we got there Cossac
said that he did not think it wise to kid-
nap Arakelian at this time. So the big-
gest caper of all blew up.”

We investigated this new allegation
made by Carlson, and ascertained from
Fresno authorities that Cossack and a:
woman posing as his wife had stopped at
the Sequoia Hotel on certain dates in
April.

Mr. K. Arakelian, the intended kidnap
victim, chanced to be.in Los Angeles at
the time of our investigation, and was. in-
‘terviewed by my officers. He stated ‘that
Cossack had called on him in Fresno dur-.

‘ing the month. mentioned, and under pre-_

tense of wishing: to. promote a winery,

had several long talks: tending to bring:
out inside}:facts ‘regarding Arakelian’s '

financial status.) - gor
Cis Das *'* «*

In the meanwhile: it -had ‘been neces-

sary to disclose my identity as-a police :

True Detective Mysteries

‘officer to Sam Collins, inasmuch as the
Department of Justice desired to use
both Collins and our other informant,
Jake Edwards, as prosecution witnesses.

Collins, after a moment of bewilder-
ment, accepted the revelation calmly.
“T’d just decided I’d better do a little
checking on this guy Christiansen,” he
said, grinning sheepi#fly. “I’d have made
you for a.copper before long.”

On October 10th the facts were laid be-
fore the Federal Grand Jury, Indictments
were sought for Loeb Cossack, Pete Carl-
son, Irvin Fenton and Betty Lang.

Cossack, who later admitted that he
‘expected to be indicted only for con-
spiracy, testified before the Grand Jury.
Fenton, declaring his intention later to
plead guilty, also took the stand and
made complete admissions regarding his
criminal activities, involving all co-de-
fendants.

The next day the Grand Jury returned
indictments charging robbery against
Cossack, Carlson, Fenton and the Lang
_ woman,

Bail was set in the sum of $50,000 each
for Cossack, Carlson and’ Fenton, and
$25,000 for Betty Lang. .

‘ On December 10th “Izzy” Fenton
panned guilty. It was understood that

e would turn State’s evidence against his
co-defendants, thus insuring himself a
lighter sentence than his companions
would receive if found guilty,

N December 11th, in the United States
District Court, Judge Harry A. Hollzer
residing, Cossack, Carlson and Betty
Lang appeared for trial in what was to
prove one of the most dramatic sessions
in the city’s court annals,

At the beginning of the trial Cossack
rose and addressed Judge Hollzer:

’ “Your Honor, my life has been threat-
ened in this case. Certain people have
said I'll. never leave this court-room
alive!” -

Pete Carlson immediately sprang to
his feet, : :

“Your Honor,” he shouted, “he’s lying!
I’m not going to make any trouble here.”

The result was that Carlson sat be-
tween two heavily armed deputy U. 8S.
marshals on one side of the room, while
Ecemnch sat, at the counsel table on the
other.

All three defendants pleaded not
guilty, =, :

Loeb Cossack announced his intention
to conduct his own defense.. David G.
Taylor, a. veteran pene was ap-
pointed by the court to defend Carlson
and Betty Lang.

Much. to my satisfaction, = aa
United States District Attorneys M. G.
Gallaher and J. J. Irwin—both able and
experienced prosecutors—were assigned to
represent the Government. I felt. that
our case was safe in their hands.

Witnesses from the two Federal Re-
serve banks. held up on May 29th and
June 18th, first identified Carlson and
Fenton as the men who had committed
the overt acts of robbery. In succession,
Jake Edwards, Sam Collins and Fenton
testified against Cossack, Carlson and
the latter’s woman companion.

They were followed to the stand by the
various officers, including myself, who
had figured in the investigation and ar-
rests.

Loeb: Cossack, acting as: his own at-
.torney, cross-examined all witnesses, Carl-
‘son and:.Fenton had given our officers

. to understand that they would never have

“squealed” on Cossack, had he not been
' the first to “squawk” on them. As it was,
‘imbued with a not unnatural desire for
vengeance, they balked his craftiest ef-

fort to entangle them, and turned on him
without mercy. Their replies to his ques-
tions only served to make the evidence
against him more damning.

On the afternoon of December 18th,
when the trial had been prolonged sev-
eral days by Cossack’s, defensive tactics,
he took the stand in his own defense.
He attempted to convince the jury that
he had taken no part whatsoever in the
bank robberies committed by Carlson
and Fenton; that the money he had ac-
cepted from the latter was for the most
part in payment of an old debt, and as
advance attorney’s fees for his services
if the bandit pair got into legal difficul-
ties. He swore that. only mortal fear of
death at the hands of Pete Carlson had
preventing him from ending the associa-
tion months ago.

Ottery pe further stated under oath
~ that I and my officers had treated him
with high-handed disregard of his consti-
tutional rights. on the night of his arrest.
As to his lengthy written statement, he
swore it contained much that he had
never said, and that I had ordered my
secretary not to put on record other
statements he had made. Last but not
least, my Officers had allegedly bulldozed
him into signing the document without
allowing him to read it.

A grueling cross-examination by Prose-
cuting Attorney ‘Gallaher, including pro-
fuse quotations from the defendant’s own
testimony before the Grand Jury, com-
pletely shattered a defense composed of
outright falsehoods, distortions of fact
and bids for the sympathy of the jury.

Judge Hollzer allowed ninety minutes
each to the defense and prosecution for
final argument.

Showing no trace of the terrific strain
undergone for the past several hours,
Loeb Cossack addressed the twelve men
who were to decide his fate, with what
old court habitués declared to be the
most moving and dramatic appeal ‘they
had ever heard. Its close—an impas-
sioned plea that he be permitted to spend
Christmas Day at. home ‘with his aged
father and mother—left most of the spec-
tators in tears; the eyes of one juror, a
business man of stern and skeptical as-
pect, were moist. I, too, was left with:
a feeling of pity that a young man in
many ways so gifted, should have doomed
himself to waste his talents’ behind
prison walls, a

For Prosecutor Gallaher immediately
seized upon Cossack’s arguments one by
one, and once more destroyed the illu-
sion of persecuted innocence that. the
attorney had so eloquently attempted to
create, :
_Judge Hollzer then issued his instruc-
tions to the jury, commenting briefly but
very pointedly on the facts eouak out
during the trial and their connection
with each of the three defendants.

-An hour later the jurors returned their
verdict—finding Cossack, Carlson and
Betty Lang guilty as charged.

Pete : Carlson’s expression did no
change. The face of Betty Lang be-'
trayed no emotion ... only a close ob-
server saw that her cold dark eyes glit-
tered for a fleeting moment. with. tears
that were never shed. As for Loeb Cos-
sack, his reaction can best be described
in the words of one of my officers: “He
looked like a dead man; yeah, if he'd
been ‘laid’ out*in a casket he’d have
looked just right.”

Escorted from the court-room by their ‘
guards, Cossack and Betty Lang were de- -
scending in the same elevator. The
woman broke: the silence to address the -
attorney in a voice low-pitched but quiv-

December, 19:

ering with col
isfied now, C
your soul rote
When the
corted into th
eleven o’clock
ber 22nd, 19%
even the mos
any preconce}
blow about to
The Court
come. forward
that “it is th:
of the bank rc

‘all of the en

day,” he deno
criminal, enc
“These officer
agencies, are
efforts shall n

He then |
years’ impris
severe punish
the crime of

Betty Lang

The Judge,
sion in his tc
in an effort
that might |
met with ev:
reveal her tn
formation cc
questions reg:
and her know
ities, she ga
knew to be w

OMEWH+
zer said:
Unfortunately
to be. helped.
Betty Lang
eyelash, hea:
years in pris¢
Loeb Cossa
to say anyt
ronounced,
or probatio
another chan
honorable na
society. His
The ‘Court
tion of the ]
sue a ruthless
crime, and to
Act, under w!
convicted, as_
that end. E
statements b
the effect th:
in any way ¢
profited fron
criminals, wo
drastic penalt
Cossack re:
his co-defenc
mended _ that
before being
name was Jc
United State
dreaded pris
island in the
cisco Bay.
houses such
Capone, “Mz

- ers regarded

discipline is

Cossack
tence at 4
while Betty
a rod and w:
mouth shut”
men’s Unitec
W. Va.

One of th
escaped with
Izzy Fenton.
the fact th:
saving the |


ed on him
» his ques-
» evidence

iber 18th,
nged sev-
ve tactics,
1 defense.
jury that
ver in the

Carlson
e had ac-
the most
ot, and as
8 services
il difficul-
al fear of
itlson had
e associa-

ider oath
‘eated him
iis consti-
his arrest.
oment, he
t he had
dered my
ord other
t but not
bulldozed
t without

by Prose-
ding pro-
ant’s own
iry, com-
aposed of
of fact
he jury.
’ minutes
‘ution for

ifie strain
al hours,
elve men
vith what
> be the
peal they
n impas-
to spend
his aged
the spec-
» Juror, a
ptical as-
left with
' man in
e doomed

3 behind

mediately
s one by
the illu-
that the
mpted to

3_instruc-
riefly but

ught out’

onnection
ints.

ned their
‘son and

did not
Lang be-
close ob-
eyes glit-
‘ith. tears
s0eb Cos-
described
‘ers: “He
, if he’d
e’d have

by their
were de-
tor. The

dress the -

but quiv-

December, 1936

ering with cold fury: “I' hope you're sat-
isfied now, Cossack, you rat! I hope
your soul rots in hell.”

When the three defendants were es-
corted into the court-room for sentence at
eleven o'clock on the morning of Decem-
ber 22nd, 1934, it is certain that not
even the most pessimistic of them had
any preconception of the weight of the
blow about to fall upon them.

The Court requested Pete Carlson to
come forward. .After sternly declaring
that “it is the good luck of the victims
of the bank robberies you committed that

‘all of the employees. are still alive to-

day,” he denounced Carlson as an habitual
criminal, ending with the comment:
“These officers, and all law enforcement
agencies, are entitled to know that their
efforts shall not be in vain.”

He then sentenced Carlson to fifty
years’ imprisonment—one of the most
severe punishments ever meted out for
the crime of robbery.

Betty Lang was next summoned.

The Judge, with kindliness and compas-
sion in his tones, questioned the woman
in an effort to elicit any. information
that might be extenuating, only to be
met with evasions or polite refusals to

‘reveal her true name or any definite in-

formation concerning her family. To
questions regarding her life wth Carlson
and her knowledge of his criminal activ-
ities, she gave replies that the. Court
knew to be untrue.

OMEWHAT sorrowfully, Judge Holl-

zer said: “Some people can be helped.
Unfortunately, there are a few who refuse
to be. helped.”

Betty Lang, without the tremor of an
eyelash, heard herself doomed to fift
years in prison. ;

Loeb Cossack, first asked if he wished
to say anything before sentence was

ronounced, made an eloquent ap eal
or probation—that would give him
another chance to win for himself an
honorable name in his profession and in
society. His plea was denied.

The ‘Court referred to the determina-
tion of the Federal Government to pur-
sue a ruthless policy in the suppression of
crime, and to the passage of the Dillinger
Act, under which the defendants had been
convicted, as one of the first steps toward
that end. He also quoted from recent

statements by the Attorney General to

the effect that members of the Bar who
in any way aided or abetted, or illegally
profited from the operations of known
criminals, would henceforth be subject to

Ne

drastic penalties.

Cossack received the same sentence as
his co-defendants. The Court recom-
mended that Carlson—who stated just

‘before being sentenced that his true

name was Joe West—be confined in the
United States gh atoning A at Alcatraz,
dreaded. prison fortress located on. an
island in the. swirling waters of San Fran-
cisco Bay. In that institution, which
houses such notorious criminals as Al
Capone, “Machine Gun” Kelly and oth-

- ers regarded as beyond redemption, iron
. discipline is maintained.

Cossack probably will serve his sen-

tence at MeNeil Island, Washington

while Betty Lang—the girl who “packed

a rod and was smart enough to keep her

mouth shut’—will grow old in the Wo-

ag United States Prison at Alderson,
a.

One of the “Mutt and Jeff” bandits
escaped with a lighter sentence. He was
Izzy Fenton. Taking into consideration
the fact that he pleaded guilty, thus
saving the Government the expense of

True Detective Mysteries

a trial, and ‘that his testimony ‘aided
rently in convicting his co-defendants,
ngs Hollzer ordered that Fenton be
confined at McNeil Island for nine years,
with five years’ probation to follow.
That should have ended the case, but
there is a dramatic sequel to the story.
George Hall, ruthless killer of State
Highway Patrolman Stephen S. Kent ‘and
Garageman Lester Quigley, had waged a
stubborn fight to escape the hangman’s
noose, For three years he had remained

in Folsom Prison’s condemned row while,

his attorneys took advantage of every
technicality known to the legal profession
in an effort to cheat the gallows of its
rightful gh
During this time ‘Hall’s young wife
came to the a every other Sunday to
visit her husband. So regular were these
visits that she attracted no particular at-
tention on Sunday morning, March 8th,
1936, when she called and asked permis-
sion to speak with the condemned man.
Hall was brought from his cell. Sep-
arated by a heavy wire screen, the two
conversed in low tones for approximately
thirty minutes. Finally Mrs. Hall rose
to leave.
_ Accompanied by a guard, she walked
into Warden Court Smith’s office, where
Barnett Huse; the Warden’s secretary,
was for the moment alone. The youn
woman reached into her purse, extracte
a five-dollar bill and handed it to Huse.
“Will you please place this to my hus-
band’s credit?” i y
_Huse’s hand remained extended in mid-
air as from the hallway came the sound
of running feet... .

Convict Hall burst into the Warden's
office, made a bee-line for his wife. “Give
me that gun!” he shouted.

Before Mrs. Hall could com ly, Bar-
nett Huse threw himself upon the killer,
dragged him beyond reach of the wo-
man who stood ready to assist in what
would undoubtedly have been a cold-
blooded massacre.

Albert H. Mundt, clerk of the State
Board of Prison Directors, with offices
just. across the hall, heard the commo-
tion in the Warden’s office. He seized a
gos billy, rushed to Huse’s assistance.

wice he brought the weapon down on
Hall’s head, momentarily stunning him.
The dazed man was then handcuffed and
returned to his cell. His two guards ex-
plained that as one of them turned to
unlock the steel door leading to the cell-
block, Hall jerked loose from the other’s
grasp and ran the full length of the
ninety-foot hallway to the Warden’s office
where his wife waited,

dl pak fully loaded automatics and an
_4 extra supply of ammunition were found
in Mrs. Hall’s purse. That the attempted
“break” had been well-planned was evi-
denced when it was learned that an au-
tomobile, parked a short distance from
the prison gates, contained a complete
change of clothing for Hall,

Mrs. Hall was told by Warden Smith
that there wasn’t a “Chinaman’s chance”
that the desperate escape-plot conceived
by herself and her husband could have
been successfully exécuted.

“There was .a chance!” she retorted.
“Anyway, we could hiwe died together.”
But they were not destined to die to-
ether. On Friday, March 27th, George
all, alone, walked up the thirteen steps
to the gallows,

His loyal wife, defiant and unrepentant,
was found guilty of smuggling firearms
into a penal institution and sentenced to
the Women’s Institution at Tehachapi,
California, for a term of one-to-five years.

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v

HALL, George,

Cb Ra ce caer

i

,

By Captain H. S. SEAGER

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA, POLICE DEPARTMENT

with WESTWOOD HARRIS

"If it's money you want, then banks are the best

FORD coupé rolled along the high-

way north of Seattle, Washington,

on the afternoon of March 8th, 1933.

There was nothing sinister appearing

about this particular automobile, travel-

” ing in broad daylight at a moderate rate

of speed and occupied by two men—

nothing, that is, to indicate that a third

man, unconscious and bleeding from

wounds on the head, lay on the floor of

the rumble seat. Handcuffs trussed his

wrists together. At every bounce of the

car, a large iron bolt dug into his scalp.

- Gasoline filled the stuffy compartment,

preventing any possible chance of the
victim’s regaining consciousness.

The man in the rumble seat was Cus-
toms Border Patrolman E. L. Ballinger,
of Seattle. A half-hour earlier he had
come across the Ford coupé, parked near
the highway north of the city. The
driver didn’t look “right” to him. As he
stepped onto the running-board of the
car, he caught sight of two guns lying on
the rack back of the seat. In a flash he
had whipped out his own gun.

“Get out,” he ordered. “You'll have
to go back to Seattle.” With his left hand
he jerked forth a pair of handcuffs.

The driver alighted and held out his
hands. At that instant something de-
scended with paralyzing force on Bal-
linger’s head. Stunned into insensibility,
he slumped to the ground. He had neither
seen nor heard the man who:crept up
‘from behind and dealt the vicious blow. ;

“Quick! Get him in the rumble seat 4

ae asanmteed raed paren Tall, handsome Irvin "Izzy"’ Fenton (above left) did much to add
eee meettly: shoved into Se ee to confusion in the case. "Mutt" (above right), of the Mutt and

see ee et aawn, aud the oe Jeff bandit team, was difficult to describe by those who saw him
?

got under way.

SESS

a

place to get it." So went the slogan
Then de-
tectives wrote their own “punch” line

{

ie
“ie
+
PME:
it
ne
Hh
is
in

behind the stickup campaign.

c=

2%

oe i, se
%

_—
ae tee
x

ae

ee BX et

at asain i ae an ia eat tat tats

dan er a

i
i

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In the seat ahead, murder was being
discussed.

“It’s the only way to shut his mouth,”
said the driver.

“Nuts. He can’t squawk,” replied the
other man. “You hit him before he even
got a good look at us. He’ll still be
groggy when we dump him out.”

“A]] the same, I don’t believe in taking
any chances. What have I got this rod
for? First good spot we come to, I’ll let
him have it. I want to get it over with.”

“Yes, I guess you do—and swing for
it, maybe. I got a better plan than that.
You drop me off in Seattle. I'll get my
car and catch up with you south of town.
Then we’ll switch this bird from your
hack to mine. I’ll take care of him, all
right, and you can go back to Seattle and
take delivery of the new car. I'll ditch
this guy somewhere along the way, and
meet you in Los Angeles later on—soon
as you can get there.”

“What if you get picked up? What if

somebody looks in the rumble seat?” -
“Well, I’m taking the risk—not you. |

You'll be driving a new Car. Won’t even
have a license number.”

After some further discussion, the less

bloodthirsty of the two had his way and

they agreed on a course of action.

The coupé stopped on a quiet street in
Seattle, and one man alighted. “Drive
slow and I’ll be with you in no time.”

Less than an hour later Ballinger
partly regained consciousness as the
cover of the rumble seat was lifted anda
rush of fresh air greeted his nostrils. He
opened his eyes and saw two evil faces

bending over him; heard an argument as |

to whether he should be “finished off”
then and there. But of all this he gave
no sign. With his life hanging in the bal-
ance, he figured his best bet was to lie
low. Fortunately, he had jotted down
the license number of the Ford coupé be-
fore he received the paralyzing blow

that had rendered him aeenacioal

He was dragged from the car and h
carried across the road to where anothet
coupé waited. Clumsy hands forced him
into the rumble seat of this second auto-
mobile.

With every atom of will-power he pos;
sessed, Ballinger fought to retain his
senses. But the struggle was a losing
one. Weak from loss of blood, and with
the poisonous gasoline fumes enveloping
him, he was soon mercifully incapable o!
feeling either the pain of -his wounds 0
that induced by his cramped position.

On and on went the coupé—sou
through the states of Washington an
Oregon and into California. Finally, at
point near Hornbrook—just south of th
Oregon state border—the car bumpe
along over rough terrain for a short dis:
tance, then came to a stop. Ballinger w
lifted to the ground.

His captor handcuffed his limp body

aes

od ©

wmrert rads

“poo


GREIG, Redney, wh, asphyx. CA (Alameda) 8/23/1940

(STARTLING DETECT

Wid

puree

oy epsinearee see
PTS RS ES

er
ushroom Pi

Police carry the sheet-covered ‘corpse from as

- Oakland, Calif., after it was discovered by am

A GRIPPING

SHORT FEATURE

HE heavy-lidded eyes of the man sitting in the car

suddenly widened with a fiendish luster. He

gripped the hunting knife and a moment later
viciously plunged it into the young girl sitting next to
him.

She slumped as he withdrew the blade from her breast.
For a moment he watched her. Then he stabbed her in the
throat three times with the point of the weapon.

Swiftly he planned to dispose of the body. The night-
shrouded Oakland hills in California hid his stealthy move-
ments but the dawn light disclosed the hiding place of the
body.

A mushroom picker discovered it.

“T thought it was a wax model,” he told the police.

But the body later was identified as that of Leona Vlught,
a beauty parlor employee and former University of Cali-
fornia student.

Police instituted an investigation which moved swiftly.
They learned Miss Vlught had gone out with a party of young
men and women, and two girl operators from the beauty shop
where she was employed gave police descriptions of the vic-
tim’s companions.

Ore of the operators said Miss Vlught told her she was
going to the party and Leona asked her fellow worker if she
might spend the night with her.

But almost simultaneously with the identification of the
body, Rodney Greig, a young railway clerk, confessed that
“for no reason at all” he had slain her.

“JT don’t know why,” he told police, “but I let her
have it.”

According to police, Rodney Greig, left, said
he had no motive for slaying Leona Vilught.

: Police Captain Thorwald Brown, of East Oak-
res land station, is shown with man who found body.

STARTLING DETECTIVE

ig ae Sabo We, a ae

ee ane
te eaten


WiblG, moaney, wh, asp. Ca (Ala! aA) august <3,

|MARK OF THE

\VAMPIRE

“Many report that vampires do infest these regions. These

“awesome creatures are said to arise from the bodies of the

dead at night, travel great spaces, then fasten themselves on

< the bodies of the living as they sleep. Their foul purpose - +

4 Sis. to suck lifeblood, of which they are unholy fond. Woe |

t to |him sucked: by.a vampire, for he will be dead, and on his *
* neck will be. threered marks as the three points of a triangle.

These be the marks of the vampire’s teeth. . . .’—From An
ee CITY. has its “lovers’ lane.” In Oakland, small

, Old. arnetnelemnec. 7
sister to San Francisco in that friendly family whose
hearth is the great curving.rim of the bay by the Golden

Gate, lovers take to the hills. There is a favorite place in

¥ the uplands that run north and south behind the city; a

“Yerendezvous spot at the head of 106th Avenue where the

‘eucalyptus trees rustle’ qn windy nights, where there are

4 no neighbors to pry, and the lonely road has nowhere to go.

2 There’s rarely a night when the meadow is not throbbing

with the parade of cars. They creep up the hill like a pro-

‘cession of ants, lights feeling the rutted roads, lights snapping

off when they’ve found a place. On clear nights when the

| imoon hangs high, you can‘ see a million lights blinking on

“4 the dark carpet of land and water below, where Berkeley,

#4 Oakland, San Francisco and a dozen other elbowing com-

“munities cling to the sea-washed shore. There’s a gentle

“hush in the song of the air, and there’s warmth in the smell

of raw ‘brown -earth, They call it Lovers’ Lane. ie s

4 came Stanley Jones of Oakland, with’ his mother-inlaw, Mrs.
4 Sarah Jaynes.

' They had plodded up the steep slopes not long after dawn,
‘4 when the wild grass was still shining with dew, to pick the
4 mushrooms that polka-dot the shaded banks. The sun was
‘on a higher roost now and Jones, sitting down to rest at

FOUND AT LOVERS' RENDEZVOUS

“4 At right is tragic Leona-Vlught, beautiful victim
fy California’s most bizarre death mystery. Found
din the heights above Oakland, her throat bore
4@ the sinister knife marks shown in photo below.

By CARLTON RUSSELL

iS

ens oe symbol ona alain

oy WHismigs
o'sTieenes
°. 90 PROOF.

8

FONT See


the edge of the road, shaded his eyes
and let them rove across the panorama
below. .

Suddenly he leaned forward and
something came into perspective that
narrowed his eyes. It was a white
blur, down in a gully fifty yards dis-
tant—a round spot that looked strange-
ly like a human face. Jones stood up
and nudged Mrs. Jaynes. ,

“Do you see that thing down there,
mother ?” he asked. ~

Mrs. Jaynes followed the line of his
pointing finger. “Why, yes. Yes, I
do. JI wonder what it is?”

“Ym going down and look.” Jones
picked up his mushroom basket and
started down through the thick, dry
grass, with Mrs. Jaynes at his heels.
He could see the object a little better
now and finally, after he had covered
half the distance, Jones turned: back
to his mother-in-law with an under-
standing grin.

“No wonder it looked like a face,”
he said. - “It’s one of those department
store dummies that they hang dresses
on,”

“What on earth is it doing up here?”
she said. :

Jones laughed. “Probably some of the students over at
the University of California brought it up here for a gag.”
He went on down the grade, chuckling to himself. OTE it
isn’t too heavy, maybe we can take it home and have some
fun with it.”

He lengthened his stride, stepping carefully to avoid loose
stones, and soon reached the head of the crevice cut into the
hard soil by the wash of winter rains. There he stopped
short, with the muscles of his legs momentarily frozen, and
he looked back at Mrs. Jaynes in nameless fear. ,

“Don’t come any closer, mother,” he said tensely,

“Why not?” he

“Because,” he was deliberate, “something awful has hap-
pened here...
isn’t what we thought... .

He looked at the ground again. This was no wax dummy
—this was a grotesque thing of flesh and blood, a girlish
body whose open blue eyes stared into his own, whose mouth
almost seemed to speak. He shuddered and turned away,
for he knew that death had long since drained those cheeks
and stilled the quivering lips.

“God!” he breathed. ,

Then he clambered up the crumbling side of the gully and
‘ran across the slanting earth to the road. Minutes later he
clumped into the offices of the Mt. Eden Riding Academy,
a quarter-mile distant from the scene, found a telephong and
blurted the news into the startled ears of a desk’ sergeant
at Oakland police headquarters.

- The modern police radio system is a marvel of speeding
sound, and a district car was whizzing up the slope almost
before Jones left the phone. By the time he came back to
where he had left Mrs. Jaynes, the police automobile was
just rolling to’a stop nearby. Jones walked up to the. officer,

Patrolman George Armstrong, and introduced himself.

“You're the man who phoned the police?” Armstrong asked.

“Yes, The body’s right down there, in that gully.”

Armstrong nodded, and walked briskly across the rough
field. He was staring down into the crevice, shaking his

”

head in disbelief, when a second police car shot up the hill-

and brought Inspectors Lou Jewell and Tom Duffy of the
Oakland police homicide squad to the scene. The two detec-
tives, veterans of many a grim riddle in the East Bay me-
tropolis, joined Jones and Officer Armstrong, and together

8

eee preere ra

“Stars fell into the distant sea. She was bent gracefully ¢

something for the police to handle. It—it |

their minds photographed that pitiful and - shocking sigh

It was the body of a girl, there at their feet;-a body
youth and beauty that must have been warm and living .th -
preceding night, ‘before the moon left Lovers’ Lane and th

her back, with her lovely silk-clad legs stretched out slightl
apart, and her half-bare arms flung wide. i
She had rich coils of red-gold hair, and they threw cba
the light of the morning sun like newly-minted copper’ ‘coi
Her deep blue eyes were turned up to the sky. She
wearing a clinging black crepe dress, but some ruthless h
had slit it open below her neck and revealed the beauty
her full young breasts.
It needed no expert to determine the manner of her death
There was a neat, almost bloodless gash between th
breasts, like the hollow socket of an eye. It must. hav
been made with one vicious, powerful thrust of a large dagge
-or knife, for it was broad and deep enough to show the raj
layers of muscle far under the skin. But there was some
thing else, something sinister. and-unreal, and the horror (
it struck the two detectives simultaneously. — }
There were three round holes, just at the base of th
girl’s proud white neck—three little holes, and they forme
the points of a perfect triangle. They were marks of unhol
legend and fearful truth. They brought to mind a vampiré
teeth—the vampire’s thirst for human blood. 5
The detectives had heard something of the old Slavic tale
of vampires. Balkan legend had ascribed many a horrid dee
to these unearthly creatures which rose from. the’ bodies 4
the dead to prey on the living, and suck their blood. Suc
a story even appeared on, the American screen in the pictur
“Dracula.” Loe ; “noes
That was all right as a quaint medieval superstition whid
modern science scoffed at. But here, in Twentieth-centut
America, on the hills above Oakland, was the body-~of |
beautiful girl whose neck bore the three marks. .. . 3
Inspector Duffy looked at Jewell, and there were. roun
beads.of cold sweat forming on his face. . at
“What do you make of that, Lou?” he said. i.
Jewell’s lean face was tense and puzzled. “I don’t knoy
Tom. I'never saw anything like it before. If I didn’t kno
better I’d say those marks look like some animal had grabbe
her by the throat.” He slipped down, to his —

i

i a ak eta oe Se
paisa IES RR ARAA IE acai: Pale

THOUGHT |!
Police Captain Th
Stanley Jones, wt
first thought it

gazed at the curi
a guess that they
killed her.”
“But why? Lo
turned around in
Jewell pushed h:
“Maybe she wa
sign of some sex
a bad business. |
“Yeah. The gir
Jewell stood up,
let’s get busy and
a purse or a hat a
They spent the
the rough ground
insignificant links
shape. But they
ing the body agai:
deliberate steps to
’ “Look here, To:
a wrist watch—y:

her skin. And s/

the car

He
t later
jext to

breast.
r in the

» night-
y move-
> of the

ice.
Vlught,
of Cali-

swiftly.
of young
uty shop
the vic-

she was
cer if she

ADVENTURES

The titian-haired beauty, Leona Vlught,
had.a “date” after spending an evening
with some girl friends, but the appoint-
ment was with violent death.

reson ces

%.

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~ A gy tay tn
os

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ee ie
ng ty Oey See
MM ei ta,

SO dy,
ee ey iis


Rod
s left
and
lade.
) say.
e to,”
tired.

we

In-

: when
dance.
it. mid-
in the
yur a.m.
ited for

epee aR dienes 8

an explanation, but he drove on home in
stony silence. Another time, returning
from San Francisco, they paused at the
ferry building to buy a paper before
boarding the Oakland boat. When Rod-
ney failed to return in an hour and a half,
Mrs. Greig went on alone, dreading a
phone call that would mean new grief
and public disgrace. To her shocked sur-
prise, she found Rodney was already
home, nonchalantly eating in the kitchen
of their home.

“Tt was then I went to see our family
doctor,” she said. “He advised me to take
Rod to a psychiatrist before he killed
himself or someone else.”

But Rodney Greig was left undis-
turbed, and in his mental engine room
the boiler was ready to blow. Still only
twenty, he consorted shamelessly with
one woman after another, with an in-
satiable appetite for anything they had to
offer. The knife was always keen and
shining under his coat, and he carried
pictures of nudes. In time, as any psychia-
trist could have anticipated, he became
impotent. He lost the surging physical
force, grew irritable and sometimes cried.
Nobody worried and nobody did any-
thing except the boy himself. ‘Man, I was
played out,” he said. “I went to see a
doctor and he said I could go out...
only a couple of nights a month. °

He wrote a letter about his condition
to a girl he had been seeing often.
“Thank God I'll be done with the doctor
in a couple of more months.” he scrib-
bled. “It’s pretty hard to take, especially
in my case...”

And that was when he met Leona
Viught.

Who knows what thoughts bubbled in
that murky mind when he encountered
this magnificent young female, a woman
to conquer, and yet one who could have
cracked his delicate neck if she had chosen
to use her strength. Rodney was intensely
attracted to her but not ina strictly sexual
sense at first, as he said later. He had

taken her out once, though there are no,

details available for that occasion beyond
Marion Denton's brief report, and he
wanted to see her again. It could be ar-
ranged, and it was. On the night of
December seventh he saw Leona in a
dance hall, waited until her girl com-
panion had gone home, then went after
his car to take her for a drive. They
stopped in El Cerrito for Chinese food,
then headed the car up into the hills.

They talked a little while of incon-
sequentials—the thrust and parry of the
duel of the sexes. He looked at her lovely
neck, and his free hand stroked the
handle of the knife. She complained a
little about a pain in her side, Appen-
dicitis, she said.

“I've been feeling low,” she whispered.
“Nobody would miss me if I committed
suicide.”

He had the knife in his hand now, and
he placed the cold tip of it against the
small hollow in her neck.

“Suicide?” he echoed. “Bet you haven't
got the nerve to do it.”

She laughed a little, and quickly took
the knife from his fingers. She played
with the bright steel for a moment, and
pretended to stab him. Rodney stepped

out of the car, dropped the cigarette he
was smoking, arid carefully ground it out.

Then she handed him the knife and he
balanced it, as a trapeze artist balances a
life high above the crowd. “How'd you
like me to do it for you?” he asked.
“Plunge this into you, I mean.” She
smiled softly, and he slid back into the
car beside her and held the knife between
her breasts. He could feel her heart beat-
ing. His fingers curled around the handle.
And then he pushed and there was no
sound but the falt-cry in her throat. The
handle heaved and was still.

Rodney sat alone in the darkness.
smoking one cigarette after another.
Then he backed out of the car, striding
toward the long streaks of light on the
horizon, then back to the car. He walked
and smoked and gazed solemnly at the
knife handle, still embedded. At last he
reached for it, pulled on it. It came out
with a tiny sucking sound. He opened the
car door, dragged her out and dropped
her on the ground. The knife gleamed in
the night, and slashed the thin dress and
cut three little holes in her neck. The
wounds didn’t bleed and the skin closed
over them, like holes in quicksand. He
bumped her across the field to a gully,
let go, and came back to the car. He
started the engine, made a fast U-turn,
and rolled on down the hill. He drove
slowly searching for restaurant lights. He
was hungry.

There was no problem for Lou Jewell
and Tom Duffy when they reached the
Greig home and found their man. The

Dodge car was there, and down behind
the seat they came upon the knife, with
its dried brown blotches of blood un-
wiped. Leona’s locket and watch were
there, too, stuffed into the glove com-
partment. Rodney Greig glanced disdain-
fully at this evidence and shrugged.
“Well,” he said casually, “I guess you've
got me.”

Yes, they had him all right—this ex-
traordinary killer with the high I Q and
the fine, tragic family, and the distorted
erotic drive. There has rarely been a
murderer quite so detached, so laden
with the unconscious wish for self-punish-
ment. If he was callous and indifferent to
what he had done, that can be under-
stood in the realization that thus he had
finally relieved himself of unbearable
tensions and was protecting himself
against shattering remorse. He had killed
himself as thorough as though he had, by
conscious design, placed the deadly blade
against his own heart.

It is no wonder that the psy chiatrists
who examined Rodney Greig after he
pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity
could reach no accord. One said he was
an obvious victim of epilepsy and thus
‘nsane. Another could find no epilepsy at
all, and gave Rodney the dubious quality
of being legally sane. As a matter of fact.
since few courts are capable of interpret:
ing the psychoanalytical shadings of ac:
tion and motive, few killers are found
insane unless they are clearly raving
maniacs. There is no doubt in my mind.

TRUE POLICE CASES

“He wanted a suit like his daddy's.”

109


Be

4
a
]
|
|
|
i
4

at least, that Rodney Greig was a glarin
abnormal, a sick, diseased mind slower
at large when he should have been treated
long years before.

The complexities in his fondness for
cold steel and pictures of nudes were
never discussed during his sanity trial,
but they were clues as real as any blood
stains or plaster casts of auto tires. Inci-
dentally, he had such a picture in his
pocket when he was arrested. It must be
that society, baffled and frightened by
these seemingly inexplicable flaws, sees
no hope for such unfortunates, and
hastens to snuff them out. If juries want
to rationalize, they can always reason that
death sentences are a sort of mercy
killing.

Because Rodney Greig was such a
warped mechanism, death had no fears
for him.

He was the most composed man in the
county jail while he waited for the death
sentence; he played dominoes skilfully
with other prisoners, and he slyly scolded
District Attorney R. E. Hoyt because the
latter had cracked in court: “Spare the

LEAS oh SRY Pere

ae
{ ‘
i

TEES SM RS EM rae,

mE St ;

tartly: “That was an abominable pun,
and I think it was exceedingly bad taste
at a murder trial,”

Rodney staked his. whole case on the
insanity issue, choosing to be tried by
Superior Judge Edward Tyrrell, without
a jury.

The outcome was a foregone conclu-
sion, he was found sane in the law, and
was sent to San Quentin to await execu-
tion in the lethal gas chamber. While in
“condemned row” he read assiduously,
and spent his small cash allowance for
books, including one on medical short-
hand reporting. He was already an ac-
complished stenographer, and in a note
to Warden Clinton Duffy he said: “Is it
strange that a man in my position desires
to increase Kis knowledge in such a man-
ner as to benefit not only himself but the
institution should the death sentence be
commuted? I submit that it is not.”

On August 23, 1940, Rodney Greig
made a little pile of his personal posses-
sions that he wished sent home to his

Rodney and spoi the child.” Greig said

father, There were 9 books, 3 pipes, a
fountain pen, 7 kodak pictures, some
letters and a pair of broken reading
glasses.

“I am not afraid to die,” he said.

He spoke the truth, or what was his
conception of the truth. His ego would
not allow him to be afraid, and indeed
it gave him a kind of grim triumph over
the lethal inventions of man. They tied
a bandage around his eyes, a curious
courtesy to those who might crack up,
and bound a stethoscope across his heart
so they would know when he had paid up.

He sat stiffly in the high-backed chair,
waiting.

The cyanide eggs splashed into the acid
bucket, and he wrenched loose from the
stethoscope, and no man would hear
him die. He twisted, and arched his belly,
and got his beautiful head down to that
straining finger, and he made it. The
bandage fluttered to the iron floor, and
now he could see the smoky vine creep-
ing.

Le snapped at it with his mouth open.

He was laughing when it hit.

BEAT OVER MANHATTAN

[Continued from page 66]

summonses were obtained against two
daring low-flying aviators.

One traffic worry the bureau doesn’t
have is speeding. There are no speed
limits in the sky. As long as you stay
high enough, you can fly as fast as she'll
go.
They do, however, investigate all ac-
cidents, crashes and forced landings, and
reports are made to CAA officials and
other policing bureaus. | Investigations
and reports are also made whenever
complaints are received of unauthorized
“stunting” over the city area. :

“We never did much with military »
planes because they were out of our juris-
diction,” Crawford said, “But we investi-
gate and make our reports on accidents,
no matter what planes are involved.
When the B-25 crashed into the Empiré
State Building we had to make our re-
port on that.” Mobs

sailboats and other small vessels. _
On one occasion the seaplane flew

- out of its jurisdiction to assist in the res-
cue of sailors in the open sea after a —
liner went down off the coast of New ™

Jersey. Another time, when a ship burned

at a dock in Brooklyn, the plane was —
_able to “spot” men who had abandoned .
ship. and. were drifting in the water? .. spot

110

Canadian Thriller

Inspector Tupper of the
Mounties had a really tough
one on his hands.’ Two mis-
sionaries had disappeared in —
the frozen wastes of the
Canadian north and reports
had filtered through that
they had been’ murdered.
“Find the men or their
bodies,"" Tupper was in-
structed. by his superior.
Mystery of the Land That.
God Forgot is a’ thriller by
Philip H. Godsell, F.R.GS.,

in the next: issue of TRUE
Poice Cases oh) 08 vera

{Sg

Rt

wa tc
come out of the’sky.” —
_ Search for. childr i ;

or wooded are

or

¥

them quickly gives you a better chance of
getting to them before they come to any
harm.’

Routine jobs include reporting of fires,
accidents, harbor mishaps and any trou-
ble which might be visible from the air.
The planes are also utilized for making
police photographs. Durigg the Nor-
mandie fire police pilots made a complete
set of pictures for the department rec-
ords, in addition to maintaining patrols
over the ship and keeping any would-be
“sight-seeing” planes out of range.

Frequently the planes are used by de-
tectives to bring back suspects from out-

_ lying cities or towns or to carry detectives
- to distant points for investigations. They

also are helpful in effecting speedy “spot
varrests.” A suspect, for instance, is seen
at a nearby airport. There are no police

in the immediate vicinity. The bureau

*is called, a plane zooms over, lands at
the airport and the suspect is seized.

_ The job of the Flying Police is still in

early stages of development. But already

_—in'New York's Aviation Bureau—it has
_ proven its worth on many fronts of police
and detective activity. y

How this new “third dimension” of
law enforcement is to be used in the
, future will be limited only by the develop-
ments of science and modern criminol-
ogy. Flyers in the bureau talk about the
possibility of twin-engine ships for long-

range inyestigation and patrol work and

helicopters’ for “close in” jobs over the
EB Tee wioiacrape diye Tide BOR rater aay fame RC atic BENG ode
city buildings. —

Tt gives us an entire new method of
' detective work,” one flyer told me. “I

wouldn't like to be a crook trying to es-
_ cape over a roof—especially if I knew

there was a cop in a helicopter dogging

; ‘my footsteps—firing down at me from up ~
ope fields) » there.” aa ’ ;

kirts is © © That isn’t any wild dream. In the
postwar world air-minded officials know

that police aviation can become as vital
to criminal investigation and law enforce-
ment as fighter and bomber planes have
become to our military forces in the joh
of. defending our nation from its foes

con

Sb

a pape sal a

7
Sin aad
ADVENTUE
MENT
SUARO
(WAVY ANC
EX-PET TY
THE COAS7
YOU A L/&;
TRAVEL +.
TO LEAR,
SERVE ::
WIT S:

ve

IN AA

W/7) AUTOA
SEAMAN
OF x


ORR adyitasts

Here is the story of a lovers’ lane murder
that never should have happened.

Every young woman should read it

Tne boy sat stiffly in the high-backed chair. His face was
the color of dusty wax, his fingers curled like spider legs
over the arm rests. He was waiting for it to hit him.

The little round room had windows of thick, sound-
proof glass. But it was dark inside, like the deepest levels
of the sea, and his face seemed to shimmer and swim in
the blue space. But they knew he couldn't get out, and
they were waiting for it to hit him.

I only wanted her to feel the point of it on her flesh.
She just laughed.

4

GREIG, Rodney, white, gassed CAS (Alameda) August 22, 1940

A nice-looking couple?
Definitely. But the
pretty girl, Leona
Viught, knew the young
~-man too slightly ever to
.. have accepted a lonely

(Tide with him—for Rod-
=< mey Greig, you see, de-
‘spite his handsomeness
and soft voice, was not at
all a normal young man.

+
vn
of

The gray suit bagged around him like a suit on a kid
playing grownup. It wasn’t his suit. They put it on him
just for today. The pockets were empty. There weren't any
pictures of nude girls in them as there used to be. He
couldn't even get his fingers into these pockets because his
wrists were strapped down, tight.

Why don’t they do something. I’ve gotta look. Get this
thing off my eyes.

He strained hard against the leather and the vein in his
neck jumped and filled out like a firehose. He got his curly

head dow
finger. Th
caught uj
the chair
Now he
Now he
It hit
Murder
nation.
The ors
are somé
like the la
wasn't any
cerned. Bi
morning
High at
overlook
adays thes
houses, bu
the earth,
a place at
ground wa
trees and \
The rox
night, far
it was calle
at night, 1:
up the hi
places, be!

Ont
when Star
He and
prospect
were read
to find h
beautiful
half-open «

“Now is
Stanley J

Other |
land, in \
but there
esthetic va
was perha
such symm
other wom
hair of a
metallic,
the same
She was
determi:
pounds.
for this
shoddiness

She had
black cr«
garter
shoes.

It was t
its fashion
ordinary |
open by s
slit runni:
until the
And betw
clean anc
prosaical]\
death. |
sequently
full four
were also
holes forn
the neck!
that disti

947


ng couple?

But the
‘l, Leona
vy the young
htly ever to
ed a lonely
m—for Rod-
you see, de-
indsomeness
e, was not at
young man.

suit on a kid
it it on him
> weren't any
d to be. He
s because his

0k. Get this

1e vein in his
got his curly

head down, inch by inch until it touched one 8q

oi i Ay

one | ‘for they were never really explained. They looked curiously
finger. The finger plucked at his face, like a fish hook,’ like the small teeth marks of a bat, and because they were
caught. up the bandage over his eyes, He snapped back in
the chair with a pleased and terrible grin. - «+ of the vampire legend. By a strange twist of coincidence,

Now he could look. A "the local movie houses were just then featuring a revival

Now he could see it coming. Es OF “Dracula,” and it took little imagination to connect

It hit him... . Bela Lugosi’s cinematic blood sucking with the real life
Murder must always have a starting point, and a desti- crime on the hill.
nation. : ( ~ 2. <The homicide squad took a more practical view.

The origin of the crime in this case is clouded, for there | The two men assigned to the case were Lou Jewell, a
are some who believe it was growing unseen in the killer, | sharp, dapper and slim yous detective who had worked
like the layers of a sea shell, long before it burst. And there ~ on many a mystery, and Tom Duffy, shrewd, husky and
wasn’t any real destination, except death for those con- tough. They observed at once that the murderer had made
cerned. But for everyone else it began on a cool, foggy | extraordinary efforts to hide the [Continued on page 107]
morning in December, nine short years ago. | pote a

High above the city of Oakland, there is a range of hills
overlooking the gray ripple of San Francisco Bay. Now-
adays these rolling slopes are embossed with small white —
houses, but there was a time, before the bulldozers slashed «
the earth, when. the hills were lonely and wild. ‘There was
a place at the unpaved end of 106th Avenue where the —
ground was mattressed with the pungent bark of eucalyptus
trees and wild grass weaved with the snaking currents of air. ©

The road ended there in a wide flat place, unlighted at |
night, far distant from the path of police prowler cars, so —
it was called Lovers’ Lane. There was plenty of. loving there -_
at night, in the biological sense, and the cars that crawled. -
up the hill snapped off their lights, in the code of such —
places, before they slid into their dark stalls.:

On this December morning the hill was quite deserted
when Stanley Jones came along.

He and his mother-in-law, Mrs. Sarah Jaynes, had been:
prospecting for wild mushrooms in the. wet grass, and they
were ready to start down the hill. That’s how they happened
to find her. She was sprawled in a shallow gully, quite .
beautiful, very pale, an inquiry in her ‘
half-open eyes.

“Now isn’t that .a hell of a thing,” said
Stanley Jones.

Other bodies have turned up in Oak-
land, in varied places and circumstances,
but there was never a corpse with more
esthetic values and setting than this. She
was perhaps 19 or 20 years old, a girl of
such symmetry and opalescence as to make
other women frowzy and common. She had
hair of a curious copper hue, not dully
metallic, but shining, and her. teeth had
the same remarkable milkiness of her skin.
She was about six feet tall and, as was
determined later, weighed about 160
pounds. But these were unjust: statistics
for this was a rare beauty, even in the
shoddiness of death.

She had on silk stockings and a
black crepe dress, an embroidered
garter belt, and black open-toed
shoes.

It was the dress which spoke, in
its fashion, and said that this was no
ordinary killing. It had been cut
open by some exploratory blade, the
slit running down from the neckline
until the full breasts were exposed.

And between them was the almost
clean and bloodless fission later
prosaically labeled the cause of
death. The knife, as the autopsy sub-
sequently showed, had penetrated a
full four inches to the heart. There
were also three more cuts, shallow
holes forming a triangle, just below
the neckline; it was these wounds
that disturbed the garish thinkers

_ (The murder scene, below,
was in the hills overlooking
Oakland, California. The
tires of Rodney Greig’s cat,
left, in which Leona rode to
this lonely spot were one of
the important clues in the
case. Above, Jimmy Good-
night, police inspector,
‘Homicide Squad, who helped
_ solve the Leona Vlught crime.

_ just over the jugular vein some people immediately thought |


ns 20 et tg - : . Ht seaiaiaads

‘e. He could be sick.”
wed their companion
bedroom. They stood
it, staring at the figure
crushed, his face the
in_a thick pool of his
> O’Brien.

and radio the sheriff.

sheriff Harold L. Pat-
2 murders. With him
‘Goldrick and Coroner
seen the bloodsoaked
and Flint were lying,
cder weapon. Outside
on the table and the
2 to which Mrs. Paget
had rested her head
if clothes, then moved

ll right,” he observed.
dn the ground. “Her
lon is how did she

*gains consciousness,”
think we had better
sheriff, watching the
was nothing new to

mber anything more
of Flint and Jensen.

Soe

.

a’s famed “Valley
Jensen was slain;
d costly pitchers.

Silvershield, an old-time newspaper photographer,
could not remember the equal. It occurred. to him ‘as
it had to the others that this could only be the work of
a madman. They stood silent as though afraid to
say it.

For just a few miles away lay the forbidding bulk
of the Sonoma state hospital for the insane. Peter Jen-
sen was head gardener of that institution. The inmates
knew him. During the past few weeks there had been
a wave of escapes from the home and with them a
strange series of events. Within the-month Paul Zim-
merman, a Sonoma County rancher, had been slain by
an escapee from the hospital. There had been other
assaults, though no murders. A committee of Sonoma
County housewives had protested to Governor Earl
Warren against the overcrowding of the hospital which
had burdened the guards with too many patients to
watch.

Meanwhile every paper in northern California was
carrying stories of the wild man of the Redwoods who
had been roaming through the hill country for weeks.
The so-called wild man had first been heard of in Mono
Lake, across the Sierras. He was known to be living
off the carcasses of deer and other animals when he

.could kill them, and domestic fowl when he was unable

to get anything else. Peace officers had followed his
trail north over the Trinity Mountains into the Eel
River country and into Mendocino County. So far he

-had been reported harmless.

' Finally Patteson spoke. “Nobody here can tell us

anything,” he remarked. “I am going to Londonside to
talk to Mrs. Estabrook, the girl’s mother. She might be
able to throw some light on the case. Meanwhile I'll

am

Tree to which Mrs. Eva Paget was bound by killer.

send a couple of men over fo check on escapees from
the hospital. We may have our answer there. Heaven
help us if one of those patients has gone berserk.”

A half hour later the sheriff was at the Londonside
cabin talking to Mrs. Paget’s mother, who had come
from Berkeley the preceding day and was now taking
care of the injured woman’s children. She told of the
arrival of Flint’s car and her daughter’s subsequent de-

‘parture. The sheriff listened thoughtfully, then drove

back to his office in Santa Rosa.

“We've got a number on the killer’s car,” a deputy
informed him. “It belongs to Peter J. Flint of Alameda.”

“He wasn’t driving it,” Patteson responded dryly.
“He’s one of the victims.” A few moments later he sum-
moned Deputies William Lawrence and Andrew Johan-
sen to his office and outlined the case briefly.

“There are two possibilities,” he said, fingering the
list of escaped patients from the state hospital that had
been laid on his desk in his absence. “One is that a
maniac from the state hospital has gone on a murder
rampage. If that’s true heaven knows where he’ll strike
next, and we’d better catch him in a hurry. The other
is that a sane, or supposedly sane, man, who knew Flint
and Jensen, went haywire last night, either as the result
of an argument or simply because he blew his top
altogether. It may be wishful thinking, but I am in-
clined to lean toward the last theory.

“In the first place this killer knew Flint’s name. He
was familiar with the cabin and he was able to find what
he needed to tie Mrs. Paget up. Also’- we found some
bloodstained trousers in the cabin. We might trace their
owner by the laundry mark, but that would take quite

-a while and we want this man (Continued on page 84)

hy

a |

Ss.

Authorities of Sonoma County, in California, load

She managed to escape and, though cruelly beaten,

bodies of two murder victims into ambulance. The
hiked through redwood forests until she found help.

police took swift action to apprehend guilty man.


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tles of “h
Dolce’s. ;

Confronted with all this evidence,
Dolce allegedly said, “Sure I shot
that woman, and tried to set fire to
the house and burn ’em all up. And
I’'d do the same thing if I had it to
do over again.”

“Why did you want to kill the
‘Maucione family?” Garcia asked.

“Personal reasons,” Dolce snapped.
“None of your business.”

Garcia thought he already knew
the reason, so he didn’t press the
matter further. He did, however, re-

oly water” also matched

lease Jesus Gonzales and tell him ‘to
go home and lay off the wine bottle.
“Don’t you worr ,’ Gonzales
grinned, “I’ll never tonal it again.”
District Attorney Mabry immedi-
ately filed first degree murder charges
against Dolce, after Dolce made a

written confession to the murder of:

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tole, Written he is awaiting an early
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Eprror’s Nore: The names Jesus
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DETECTIVE

quick. But it does prove he knew
where to find clothes in the cabin.
Therefore I think it is more likely
that a friend killed Flint and Jensen
rather than an escaped maniac.”

“He could have found Flint’s name
in the car or in his pocketbook,” Jo-
hansen observed. “And those clothes
would have been easy enough to find.
Flint and Jensen were both average
size men.”

“That’s true,” the sheriff said. “But
there’s one more thing. The man who
killed Flint and Jensen knew enough

‘about them to know that Mrs. Paget

was an old friend of Flint’s who knew~
him well enough to want to help him
when he was in trouble.” .

“That’s right,” Lawrence agreed.
“It makes the evidence against the
maniac theory pretty strong. I guess
we had better go over a list of Flint’s
friends,”

“Tl check on him around London-
side,” the sheriff said. “I want you
fellows to go to the Maritime Academy
in Alameda. According to his papers
Flint was in school there a month ago.

Look for a man about thirty-five years -

old, five feet seven inches, with dark
hair, a ruddy complexion, and between
a hundred and sixty and a hundred
and seventy pounds. That’s the de-
scription we got from Mrs. Estabrook.”

Lawrence nodded and the two men
left. A few moments later Patteson
was rolling along highway twelve to-
ward Sonoma. A few miles out of
town he began stopping at restaurants
and hotels requesting information on
Flint and Jensen. At the Tropics, a
small café near Londonside, he struck
pay dirt.

“Sure I knew Flint,” the bartender
told him. “He used to come in here
with Jensen fairly often. They were
here Sunday evening and Saturday
too.”

“Just the two of them?” Patteson
asked.

“No, there was a third man with
them.”

A gleam of interest showed in Pat-
teson’s eyes. “What did he look like?”
_.“There wasn’t much to distinguish
him. Medium build, dark hair, sort
of a ruddy face. He was wearing
khaki pants and a tan shirt.”

“They weren’t merchant marine
clothes?” Patteson inquired.

The bartender shrugged. “How
would I know? Khaki pants are just
like other pants to me.”

“I. guess that’s right,” Patteson

agreed. “You wouldn’t notice any-

R &, AL | Valley of the a

(Continued trom page 13)

thing. Now one more thing, and it’s
important. I take it you know Mrs.
Paget?”

The bartender nodded. °

“You would remember if she was
here over the weekend?”

The bartender grinned broadly. “Of
course I would. There aren’t many
women in the world as good looking
as Mrs. Paget.”

“Was she here Saturday or Sunday
night?”

“Yes, she was,” the bartender re-
plied. “She came in with a party of
friends each time.”

“Was she with Flint’s party?” Pat-
teson inquired.

“No, she came with some other
people. Flint and Jensen and the
other fellow came in later.”

“Did she talk to Flint or have any-
thing to do with him?”

“Of course she did,” the bartender
answered. “She and Flint are good.
friends. They grew up together.’

“Was she with them long, and did
she meet this other fellow?” the
sheriff wanted to know. ;

“Not very long. They were with
different parties. As for the second
question, I couldn’t tell you. I don’t
pay that much attention to my cus-
tomers’ business. - Not unless they are
out of line anyway.”

HE SHERIFF shrugged and smiled.
“I guess I can’t blame you for that.
What you tell me may have helped
quite a bit. At least we know there

‘was a third man in that cabin. You

didn’t catch his name, did you?”
The bartender shook his head. “Not
me. You know how it is on holidays.
These places are jammed. I didn’t
have time to meet anyone.”
“T can see that,” Patteson said. “One

more thing. Flint was a lieutenant in |

the Merchant Marine. Was he in
uniform?”

Once more the bartender shook his
head. “No. They never wear their
uniforms.” .

Before he left Sheriff Patteson

called his office to check possible new .

developments.

“Lawrence and Johansen say there
must be fifty men answering the
killer’s description at the Maritime
Academy,” a deputy ‘informed him.
“Any one of them could have done it.”

“Tell them to get a list and detailed
description of the men who had week-
end passes,” Patteson instructed.
“Have them bring them back here.
Also have them check on recent grad-.

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MADMAN
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(continued)

“Take a look at that,” he said, pointing to a splotch
of blood at one end of the wooden table.

The officers glanced at the house and then back at the
blood. The cabin was strangely silent. :

““Something’s happened here,” Cooney observed. “It’s
odd Jensen doesn’t come out. His car is here.”

“Maybe he can’t,” O’Brien suggested.

“We'd better go in,” Cooney said. The three men
stopped again at the stone steps leading to the door. A
trail of blood, marking the path over which Eva Paget
had crawled, caught their eyes. Beyond it a large red
splatter where she had first fought off the killer’s attack
attracted their attention.

“Look!” Cooney exclaimed. ‘“There’s your weapon.”

Beside the path lay a nine inch long chunk of stone,
heavy and rounded, with blood and matted hair cling-
ing to one end. It was a stone pestle of the type used by
early California Indians to grind corn, and one of many
that decorated Peter Jensen’s front yard. The door to
the cabin was ajar and the officers entered silently. In-
side the Buddha stared at them placidly. A heavy odor
of death hung like a black curtain over the cabin, seep-
ing through the tapestries.

“Jensen!” Maysonnave called. He was not even an-
swered by an echo.

“T’ve been here before,” O’Brien said. “Jensen’s room

ka x

CA

is in front. Let’s see if he’s there. He could be sick.”

Cooney and Maysonnave followed their companion
into the expensively decorated bedroom. They stood
silent in the doorway for a moment, staring at the figure
of the man on the bed, his skull crushed, his face the
pale putty color of death, lying in a thick pool of his
own blood. Maysonnave turned to O’Brien.

“We'd better get out to the car and radio the sheriff.
This looks mighty bad.”

AN hour later Sonoma County Sheriff Harold L. Pat-
teson visited the scene of the murders. With him
were District Attorney Charles McGoldrick and Coroner
Vernon Silvershield. They had seen the bloodsoaked
beds where the bodies of Jensen and Flint were lying,
and been shown the primitive murder weapon. Outside
they examined the blood stains on the table and the
steps. A spot on the scrub oak tree to which Mrs. Paget
had been tied’ revealed where she had rested her head
briefly. Patteson studied the pile of clothes, then moved
back toward the picnic table.

“This is where she was beaten all right,’ he observed.

_He pointed to a pile of clothing on the ground. “Her

clothes, undoubtedly. The question is how did she
escape.”

. “We won’t know that until she regains consciousness,”
Silvershield replied.

Patteson nodded. “Yes. And I think we had better
find this killer before then.”

The two officials looked at the sheriff, watching the
troubled look in his eyes. Murder was nothing new to
any of them, but none could remember anything more
savagely brutal than the slaying of Flint and Jensen.

.

Peter Jensen’s bedroom in his elaborately farnished mountain home located in California’s famed ‘Valley

of the Moon.” Note the high bed composed of a box
the heavy drapes for windows and shelves; and the

/

spring and three mattresses where Jensen was slain;
extensive collection of unusual and eostly pitchers.

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uates who might have been friends of
Flint. That particular point is im-
portant. There are a lot of people at
that Academy. They can’t all have
been friends of Flint. Have you
heard anything about the car?”

“No. The all-points radio and tele-
type went out as you instructed. We
are broadcasting a description of the
car and killer every fifteen minutes,
but nothing has shown up yet.”

“Keep a special eye on the northern
and eastern part of the state,” Patte-
son told him. “He isn’t likely to try
and cross any of the bridges over.the
bay or the Sacramento River for that
matter. In the north there are fewer
people and fewer cars, but also fewer
peace officers. It strikes me he might
believe he has a better chance of get-
ting through on one of the back roads
up there.”

Before returning to Santa Rosa,
Sheriff Patteson visited the Sonoma
Community Hospital where Mrs. Paget
was being cared for. The doctor
shook his head sadly when Patteson
inquired about the patient’s condition.

“I am afraid she may have a frac-
tured skull,” he said. “We haven't
been able to take an X-ray yet. We'll
know for sure when we do. However,
I think she’ll live.”

“Is she still unconscious?” Patteson
inquired. Yaar

“No, but she’s sleeping deeply. I
wouldn’t want to try and waken her
until this evening.”

“It’s pretty important that I ques-
tion her,” Patteson tnsisted. ;

“Her life is important too,” the doc-
tor replied. “I think in perhaps three
hours she might be able to stand ques-
tioning.”

The sheriff sighed, nodded, and
turned back to his car. An hour later
he was studying a list of Flint’s friends
at the Maritime Academy in Alameda.

“In time -we can check on the
weekend activities of all of these fel-
lows,” Patteson said. “But that’s go-
ing to take too long. I think there’s a
good chance that Mrs. Paget can give
us areal clue. After all, it seems like-
ly that Flint would introduce her to
whoever he was with Saturday and
Sunday night, and beyond any doubt
that man is the one we want.”

“It’s a cinch it’s not the wild man
of the Redwoods,” Lawrence’ said,
grinning. “They just captured him
near Willets.”

“I never really thought it was,” Pat-
teson remarked. “He has no record
of violence. ‘Those Sonoma fugitives
were what scared me, although this is
no better. A man who has murdered
two people and assaulted a woman
like Mrs. Paget might do anything.
We've got to get him, fast.”

The shrill ringing of Patteson’s tele-
phone interrupted the conversation.
The sheriff picked up the instrument.

“Mrs. Paget is awake now,” the
Sonoma Hospital doctor’s voice in-
formed him. ‘You can‘talk to her any
time. She says she wants to.”

“We'll be over in a half hour,” Pat-
teson replied.

ere THAN thirty minutes later the
sheriff. in company with Districts,
Attorney McGoldrick and the two
deputies stood beside Mrs. Paget’s bed.
The woman, swathed in bandages, an-
swered their questions weakly but
eagerly. She told them of the early
morning visit and the nightmare that
followed, including how, after
wrenching free from the bindings, she

had entered Jensen’s house and found

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| City. eee cece eee eee ee ee ee eeens State. .... |
CHECK HERE {f you are enclosing $1.98, thus
| Oo Saving the mailing costs. .
Canadian & Foreign orders, $2.50 in auvance. j

<

And then, even as she smiled at him
in unspoken agreement, he thought of
the girl on the mountain top, and what
had happened to her, and changed his
mind.

For some reason, he didn’t want that
~to happen again.

It was two o’clock in the morning
when at last he went back to the inn

64

Shirt, pants used to bind woman —
to tree during attack’ on. her.

alone, and to bed. Only, for some rea-
son, he couldn’t sleep.

There was too much to think about.
Too much to wonder about. Most of
all, why?

Why?

He found no answer during the

' Sleepless night, nor during the following

morning as he wandered aimlessly

about the town. He stopped once and
bought a morning paper and read the
headlined story of the murder and rape.

It didn’t happen quite that way, he

thought irritably. Why do they always

get everything wrong?
He tried to rid his mind of the lurid

Pictures that formed, one after the

other. But it wasn’t any use. He couldn’t
AMAZING DETECTIVE


- Yoalanced: budgets)! The:

ther: station

. agnoun tx, mostly do
jtaxes*

“cent above

is Gate, 1.77

most is Rit ahead of Jast
tinch

id Peceths Of the ere

Frills In South’

2 # ns Tam was heavier, sues

h with Bakersfield re;

Re ; ns

received in thet |

anuary;.

enone. is chabeoderiah have :
8
ithat-wei must. be'on: x pay | as: You
go basic. ‘ wii Me \aa

My: gteat best is. thatwen ‘cant:
rboth without i: Sper rtaaes

«The governor: ‘indicated! strong:
ly he. will ‘recommend ‘a salary
increase for the 50,000 state’ em-
ployes, depending on the’ findings
of the: state personrek boprd.

tren ae ea ways an felt pon

pS ot an inch. To the!

Bp ed Bip s¥
#7 we 2S ;
- ‘in

= . sh feseovespesssd Ai
q epee have SA!

=
ly

* acertghig tte se
ES SES . €s ears
} "ant eal cyte one

reverse -a, lower. court: |
at; Hi 2 teryTighe
Wands did ; (not: have. to«s
pre idecontrol or.

ASW

+ ey tried® petato as
picorne His

Told there was talk*ot) initiat:
jing a tall highway’ Program ‘War-

| SWASHINGTON! Dée. 1--AP—“Inothin

ete ees

jappes ‘court: tol =r! oh
: decision ;

in
accordance with ' dopticatse tocall
2 eedy regione nye g ae ae

For: aline :
ren had} fried iF rench
“and: iSpantahtatyie
breakfast, ai few
&/ hours. be \theexecution, con:
sisted ‘of ham} and’ eggs: with a
side’ order’ of: bacon}; hash: tte
potatoes to ’ Poca ‘and’ coff
He’ recei
a Catholic.
AM:»

Gutlerre?’ ac ak te
Montez. Gutlerrez,:
prison’) today a:

¢ district ; James 3

See he ‘took ‘the phild: from: the !auto-
: “imobile of ‘her# parents, Mr. and
> |Mrs, Joseph Yanez in-front ofa

muse, she he

era nicresioel
fawn Te
oz sald

assist

.g° tthe office to.a:
- and *

guménts Tuesday: in: the perjury
trial> of: ‘Stanley AW. Addams,

rf ehatged! with lyifig to a rand,
nis|jury about hip’ w e

whereabouts ; on

the trial ‘yesterday: after]
denybrg\. a motion * to dismiss’
ch against the narcotics sus.
pect... Davidian was slain shortly
before he was to have appesred
as‘a governmentiwitness against
Adams and 15 other. defendants

m in a narcotics ¢ase; *,

- Actres§ Barbara Payton, actor
Don Cougar, Jr., and other; wit-
nesses yesterday suppérted
Adams’ ‘contention he was. in
‘Hollywood. ‘visiting Miss Payton

e'and getting a haircut February

28th when Davidian was killed.

* As shé- entered the: court’ yes-}"
terday Miss: Payton. was ‘served /:
with a mits se, ordering her to
“appear y in acourt action
by: Jean: Wallace, former wife of

-jactor Franchot: Tone, to remove

their two sons from his custody:
ty Attorney S. S. Hahn said Tone
plans to marry Miss Payton and
that: Miss: WaHace ‘does not re-
ecopt Miss Laitive ‘asa Sit and

Elect Picks Aides

‘SAN |) ‘FRAN
UP—Attorney’ nerali Elect Ed
mund G. Brown announced today

the jhe: will appoint Bert \W, Levit as

the apt pre deputy attorney

and. president of

the’ ci ‘board ‘of education. will

‘a reorganization of the

neem ea of justice.
He: he

: + Jannounced
oe .
‘

bape Ake mur-?
ithe n vh,

a ‘Attomey General’

Dec. L—/p

ts “to restore|

. ‘

WAS.
culture -BY
congressidl
area
floods.
White ©
agricultuy
ministrat
States
house B
Monday t
from fa
and dary
“The
Farmer
Fresno °
ceived of
disaster
Paul. J
the off
‘Office
they ha
disaster }

The G
Pulls iS
~ reilic
day, ¥
story, ES


Brietee and rollttary” oficial
‘ b Mere At

a *Dougig# MacAfthtr said ;
! this lack} of authority, tojtotal of/ army. 4
trike at the Chi Reds across/300,000 men) ai
i The first ‘cal
men: in ‘Septem
lowed by ac
number in Octo
: Tobe aif m U iE bé ne pall of n tend ae w
“fy ations: forces is serious or ove
Bs | Simtere With: tawratars: and ‘critical’ but not hopeless—|dropped_ to’ 40,
|, Before sending his, i""tinless: one completely discounts/and 40,000 for J
the: Capitol,’ Truman: had ithe combined urces of the! One reason
ocratic and ders atthe congrex pee oationia aged in the Ko-icalls. it was ex
: jthe Korean W
S'were: made inj|so much of off
fisterdian, to bejthere was a sh
ished “in the? magazine: US/to train’ men.
A News: And: wend tRepart next.
dentiweek.:i\;

K rea{:.: MacArthur id tt! would eH
Previous is Fheeting tere] ,,and mat : here rene this time” for OUuSE
> Proposed | an. se ; ‘tlea eee mept on the possible!
Siete seah wou +) th s M scot e@ ato jbomb’ in eke Ko. Pro its
] ‘gcalejrean 3;

id he ea to at iMea

WASHI
By £ i is wo "| The ho
agree! o are! In ines
ih ‘Paul ‘Monte i Gutlerrer.'26 year| ti ; cate un
eA ‘old. West. S , farm. worker; ito!
te ‘day ‘paid with: his life:ir the: gast ig es wh
~; | {chamber yan eeapticenraioieel ida. Representat!

i} tary. fori the ‘sex slaying of: ¥C : : can, lilinols, deé
*<dmonth* old Meeps are E ~ Imiting: bs ure at the con
aA sine INavets do: nahin oa in W ngt -& ge Lupder-ias ‘a “pig*jn

{ ah bowesh? to: ‘Increase, that orn aan PLA IbA em eis litical. come ia
h strength ie Protect Sitied Learnt abe

the ne icrunes of willbe “unl Fe
ad tonal | : Y coiera 2b 5 etican hy uncontro]
er (shel said tear-|. a ay Heceerg

; tim
ite ona balanced budget, ful suriniey Guiberrer Tak jw Muygy: f we facAythur fpaidiee is did not| "Several cha:
ce basis next year.’ : The po. ip Bwere| wie me od eae haves} yatrehath be of Chinese'the bill beforfee
cy Pe) tye Phe ; Ee : whi gy Jaunching |means commit
; i to the house.
} The’ bill, ori
companies ele

7 per cent br

ells # 8 per’. cent
Cecil F. White of to all.

© White: ‘ald the gp Aecertinesic of omer 6 per |
% -lagricuiture’s farmers: home ad-

of ministration sien iy, the United LA) Vit
4 States, Post Office ‘and Court-/administratio

maa Bi will be ready ling defense
londay'to take loan applications biti ir

| Poy farmers) who suffered loes treasury ~ ¢
Jand damage It is nese

in the floods, ;
“at the reltie £5, the con ittes §
ATO Iie lce Rot


and
i the

way?

‘urid

the
ldn’t
CTIVE

stop thinking, couldn’t stop remember-
ing.

I'll never be able to stop, he thought
dully. And the only thing I’ve ever
really loved, the sea, isn’t for me any
more. The world’s too small now. They
have fingerprints and records and stuff
that follows you forever. Follows you
like your own memory ... and they
never, never give up. If it takes twenty
years, they never give up.

He went into a bar and had one
drink and then another. Then, just to
kill time, he went into a barber shop
and had a haircut.

The barber wanted to talk about the
killings and the rape.

“What’s a guy want to kill folks for
just to get some dame?” the barber
asked disgustedly. “Hell, the woods is
full of babes that can be had for the
asking. A man don’t need to go to no
trouble to get them.”

“That’s right,” Guldbrandsen said in
a carefully emotionless voice. “A man’s
a fool to go to any trouble—”

He left the barber shop and went
into the nearest bar. He had one slow
drink, and then a quick one, while
he made up his. mind.

He saw the telephone booth in the
ack, near the juke box. He went to
the phone, and asked for information,
and then for the number.

“I’m at the Beer Den,” he told the

voice that finally answered. “If you'll
send a reporter over here, I’ll give him
a good story. An exclusive story .. .
about a murder!”

Five minutes later, a reporter was in
the bar, listening to the story that Henry
Brun Guldbrandsen was placidly telling
him in a calm, matter-of-fact voice. And
fifteen minutes later, Guldbrandsen was
accompanying the reporter back to the
city room, to sign his confession and to
await the arrival of men from the sher-
iff’s office.

Only one question remained now to
be answered.

Why?

Guldbrandsen couldn’t answer that.
Nor could Ursula Tourne, still suffering
from shock and lacerations in the hospi-
tal in Sonoma. :

Nor could Peter Jensen, elderly own-
er of the mysterious cabin in the moun-
tain peaks, and his young friend, Peter
Flint.

It was just part of the macabre holi-
day of death, Fourth of July, 1949, a
holiday which for Henry Guldbrandsen
ended on October 6th, 1950, in San
Quentin’s gas chamber.

Editor’s note: The name Ursula Teurne
is fictitious in this true account to spare
further pain and embarrassment to an
innocent victim of the bloody Valley of
the Moon tragedy.

Merchant marine officer was intimate friend of owner of cabin.

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o - 65


HE BIG COUPE ROLLED along the pavement south of the
Canadian border town of Blaine, Washington. It was a
drizzly day in March, 1933, and Custom Agent E. L.

Ballinger dropped behind the car and tailed it.

Ballinger had a hunch this was a car he had long wanted
to spot; he suspected it was loaded with narcotics and that
it was headed for a certain house hidden among the second-
growth firs not far from Seattle. He hoped this time his
hunch was correct, and that he would be able to round up
and smash the gang preparing to deliver the dope to depots
in the Coast cities,

And sure enough, just as the tall, sinewy agent had sur-
mised, the coupe turned into the lane of trees of which he
had so long been suspicious. Speeding up, Ballinger swung
into the side road; but almost before he could get straight-
ened up on the gravel surface the other car came roaring
back toward the Pacific Highway.

The agent turned quickly and gave chase, for he now
knew he had been spotted as an, officer.

Within fifteen minutes Ballinger’s car had overtaken the
fleeing one and had forced it to the side of the road.

Gun in hand he leaped from his car and covered the driver

lt

a oe en

2y CA

“Get going!” snarled “Scar-Face’,
pointing up the mountain-
side, and the Customs Agent, still
manacled, started along a mud-
dy, narrow road toward a clump
of alders, a pistol prodding his
ribs—A Washington Thriller .

AF ere a ee

LOM

Willi

Custom Agent £
tive readers how
he was kidnaped.
in the rumble sea:
in an isolated se
shackled to @ tree
identified the pop
The telegram give

r-Face ,
yntain-
ent, still
a mud-
a clump
Jing his
iller...

ty,

by
William 8. Lane

Custom Agent E. L. Ballinger shows REAL Detec-
tive readers how he approached the car in which
he was kidnaped. After a long, tortuous ride locked
in the rumble seat, the plucky agent was "dumped"
in an isolated section of Siskiyou Mountains, and
shackled to a tree. Miraculously he lived and later
identified the pop-eyed, scar-faced bandit, in circle.
The telegram gives location of the abducted officer,

a

~

what do I get out of it?” he asked coolly.

“T’m making no promises, Cossack. Pm
in a position where I don’t have to. Fur-
ther, you’re an attorney, and you know
that any promises I might make would
be worth nothing. The facts regarding
anything you do to help us will be laid
before the United States District Attorney.
He can draw his own conclusions and
show you any consideration he may see
fit.”

Cossack considered this ultimatum in
silence.

“Well,” I asked, after giving him a brief
time to make a decision, “where’s Pete
Carlson?”

“TJ think I know where he lives. But
for God’s sake, don’t let any_ one know
I gave you the information.” It was evi-
dent that his fear of the gunman’s possi-
ble vengeance was genuine. “Go to
Thirty-eighth and Budlong Avenue. He
lives around that neighborhood.”

“Don’t kid us, Cossack,” I said. “I
can't send a squad to scout over a whole
neighborhood. Carlson knows he’s hot
and he’s ready to lam.”

“ ELL. he lives in a court, but Pm

not sure which house he occupies.”
He then offered to draw a map of the dis-
trict, showing the exact location of the
<ix-unit bungalow court, on condition that
I did not “use the map against him.” To
this I agreed and he quickly made a
penciled diagram.

I handed the map to Officer Johnston,
who studied it and then at my request
made a rough copy of .his own.

In the meanwhile, I called my office
and ordered a squad of detectives to meet
Johnston at once at Second and Spring
Streets.

Mindful of the warning all my inform-
ants had given, to the effect that Pete
Carlson and his moll traveled heavily
armed and would shoot to kill, I ordered
that shotguns and tear-gas bombs be
added to my officers’ equipment, so that
vn the event Carlson should barricade him-
self inside his house, he could be
“smoked” out.

IT then detailed
and Caldwell
stay with Detective

Detectives Stromwall
of the Narcotic Squad to
Tash in Cossack’s

True Detective Mysteries

reception room, ready to arrest Izzy Fen-
ton as soon as he might appear.

During the next hour three calls were
answered by Cossack’s stenographer and
plainly overheard by_ officers standing at
her side—calls from Pete Carlson, asking
urgently for Fenton. He finally requested
the stenographer to tell Fenton to meet
him that night “at the hotel.” To her
query as to what hotel was meant, the
caller’s laconic reply was: “He knows
which one.”

It was five-thirty in the afternoon when
Johnston met Officers Harry R. Maxwell,
B. G. Anderson, Guy W. Beeson, J. C.
Kleinfield, C. M. Payne, Compton Dixon,
A. M. Woolman, and E. W. Mansfield,
and set out to effect the arrest of Pete
Carlson and his girl companion.

At the same time Agent Kneen, Mr.
Rule and I waited anxiously in the office
of the now somewhat crestfallen Loeb
Cossack, for word as to the outcome of
the dangerous mission my men had un-
dertaken.

Conversation languished while Cossack
sat staring at the floor, apparently trying
to digest the fact that for once in his
life he was up against a rap that would
be hard to beat.

Finally he looked at me appraisingly.
“You think youre a tough copper, don’t
you, Seager?” he said.

“No,” I replied, “I don’t think I’m a
tough copper. But Vl tell you what I
think of rats like you, who go into a bank
where men and women are unprepared
and unarmed, stick a gun on them and
pull a robbery: If I had my way, I’d line
all of you up against a wall and turn a
machine gun loose on you.”

“You would, eh? Well, I’ll remember
that.”

Can the wily Cossack wriggle out of
the tight corner in which the charges
of Captain Seager have placed him?
Have Carlson and Fenton been tipped
off to his arrest? Don’t miss the con-
cluding installment on “The Riddle of
the Disappearing Scar.” Get it in the
December issue of TRUE DETECTIVE.
On all news stands November 5th. Re-
member the date, and order your copy
early.

Poisoned Chocolates

(Continued from page 29)

in fact—who weighed less than a
He was so well-propor-
and carried himself so
erectly that he looked _ less diminutive
than he actually was. He had the fresh
complexion of a man fond of outdoor life.
He was spruce almost to the extent of be-
ing dandified, and he had a heavy, gray,
military mustache. No one who met him
could fail to notice his eyes. They at-
tracted attention immediately. They were
a light blue, the color of forget-me-nots,
but cold, hard and brilliant.

Armstrong was rather a vain little man,
who was inordinately proud of his mili-
tary title. He was loath to shed his offi-
cer’s uniform when he returned to civil
life. He wore his Army top boots and
riding breeches on every possible occasion,
and he used his “British Warm,” which
had a magnificent fur collar, or his trench
coat in preference to a civilian over-
coat.

In the privacy of his home, however,
he had not cut the same martial figure
that he liked to show to the outside world.
Armstrong, in fact, had been a henpecked
husband.

Mrs. Armstrong was a woman of strong

puny,
hundred pounds.
tioned, however,

and peculiar character. She was exceed-
ing religious and eccentric. She had an
over-developed sense of duty and was
a stickler for the most rigorous social con-
ventions.

She had ruled Armstrong with a rod
of iron, and made him live a home life
as austere as her own. No alcohol was
permitted at “Mayfield,” and the master
of the house had to go into the garden
if he wanted to smoke.

LL their friends knew only too well

that it was Mrs. Armstrong who
“wore the trousers.” If wine was offered
to the Major at the home of a friend,
Mrs. Armstrong would answer on his be-
half with an emphatic negati¥é: Just oc-
casionally she permitted him the special
indulgence of a glass of port. She had
been known, on summoning him publicly
to start for home, to remind him that it
was his “bath night.”

Armstrong accepted his wife’s domina-
tion meekly. He had never been known
to say an unkind word to her or of her.

After her death, Armstrong had been
anxious to establish closer social relations
with his fellow solicitor, Martin, than had

103

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=

James E. Davis (above), Chief of Police of Los Angeles, directed the
action-filled manhunt for the bank bandits. The hitch-hiker (left)
unknowingly rode with a killer and narrowly escaped being shot by
the exchange of bullets between the thug and officers. Deputy
Sheriff Charles R. Calkins (right) was wounded in the Yreka battle.

of the suspected machine, a pop-eyed, scar-faced man on
whose forehead showed the crimson welt of an old wound.

“Put up your hands!” commanded Ballinger. ‘This is
the law !”

“Scar-Face” raised his hands slowly skyward, licking his
lips as his shifty eyes turned right and left seemingly ap-
praising his chances to escape, but in reality for a far more
sinister purpose, as the agent was soon to know.

Ballinger had been warned that the man before him was
a desperate character, and before making any other move
he searched him carefully, removing a revolver from his coat
pocket, and snapping handcuffs on his wrists.

Ni ais THE AGENT advanced to the driver’s side of the car
and gazed inside; he saw the snouts of “Tommy-guns”
and knew that he had at least apprehended a gangster of
one type or another. A black bag, in the driver’s seat, at-
tracted the officer’s attention; that, he surmised, might be
dope, kept handy for a discard should it prove necessary.

“What branch of the law?” asked the handcuffed man,
and Ballinger sensed he was stalling for time.

“Customs,” replied the agent, intent upon recovery of the
bag. As he reached far into the car he had touched the
handle of the luggage when he heard a faint sound behind
him, and straightened up again.

Then suddenly, all the stars in the Heavens seemed to
dance before the agent’s eyes as he went down beneath a
cruel blow from the rear.

A few minutes later he éame to, only to find that he was
trussed up with his own handcuffs, and that there were two
men beside the road instead of one.

16

POOR ABORT oy [8 SHRINE Ae

The warning received from the border had said there was
but one man in the car, but evidently ‘“Scar-Face” had picked
up a confederate along the route who had slipped unnoticed
from the opposite side of the car as it stopped, then sneaked
around the machine to deliver a telling blow on Ballinger’s
skull while he was occupied with the one man he had seen.

The second man, a tall, blond individual, had a mean leer
on his hard face; as Ballinger regained his senses, he struck
the agent in the mouth with his fist.

“How do you like that, copper?” he asked, as he continued
to rain blows on the helpless officer’s eyes and nose until the
blood bleared his vision.

5 iia IT OUT, MANNING,” commanded “Scar-Face,” speak-
ing the name before he had time to consider what it
might mean; he seemed to be the boss. “That is a Govern-
ment man; it’s too hard a rap to try to beat, to bump one of

them off—we don’t want all the Feds in the country after us.”

“Well, what do we do with him then?” queried Manning,
“now that you have mentioned my name? We can’t leave
him here to squawk on us—he knows too much, or he
wouldn’t have been waiting.”

“Scar-Face” drew Manning aside and then followed a
whispered conversation between the two bandits, after which
Ballinger was offered $1,000 to forget what he had seen and
heard, for which he was to be allowed to go free.

“All we want is two hours’ start,” said the leader. “If you
will take this dough we'll tie you up and leave you here, and
with those eyes, anyone will believe any story you tell.”

“It wouldn’t work, boys,” answered Ballinger. “You bet-
ter turn me loose and beat it; you’ve got me beat this time,
but you will get plenty for this if we catch up with you.
You can’t square a dope rap with Uncle Sam. you know
that, and if you bump me off you won't live very long your-
self.” :

Sheriff Ana
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of the squad, addressed his brother officers
in whispers.

“If they don’t show before dark, some of
you boys find spots outside where you can
watch——” He broke off abruptly, drew his
gun and silently motioned for the others to
do the same.

Footsteps—muffied voices outside the
door—the click of a key in the lock—a
man’s thick-set form outlined in the door-
way, the slight figure of a woman close

_ behind him.

“Put ’em up, Carlson!”

Simultaneously four guns were thrust
against the outlaw’s body. The woman
whirled around and darted out into the
night.

_ Lights flashed on and disclosed that Carl-
son had not troubled to obey the brusque
command to.“put ’em up.”

“It’s all right, boys,” he said quietly, “I
have no gun on me.”

In the meanwhile the woman’s headlong
flight had been abruptly halted. Pursued
by Detective Anderson, she almost ran into
the arms of Dixon, who had left by the
rear door as the “Langs” entered the front.

“Hands up—or we’ll shoot!”

B WITHOUT A word, but with a glare of

deadly hate at her captors, the woman
obeyed. A handbag carried under her right
arm fell to the sidewalk. The impact jarred
the receptacle open, and a blue steel auto-.
matic slithered out of its depths. The officers
retrieved the: firearm and firmly escorted
the woman back into the house.

Carlson had been frisked and found to be
unarmed. While two officers stood guard
over the prisoners, others searched the
premises.

It was necessary to break open the door
of one closet, held by a special Yale lock.
Inside was revealed a modest arsenal com-
prising five automatics and one 12-gauge
shotgun. The stock of this weapon had been
sawed off and on the front was a special
grip, resembling a machine-gun.

In this closet was also cached a complete
set of burglars’ tools. Carlson calmly ad-
mitted ownership of all these items. The
girl as calmly denied all knowledge of
either weapons or tools, while condescend-
ing to acknowledge that a dress, dangling
from a hook in the same closet, was her
property.

She admitted that Pete had given her the
gun that had fallen out of her handbag, but
disdained to give any answer to a query as
to why she was carrying it. However,
Carlson declared that he had been carrying
the automatic and had slipped it to her
just as she opened her purse to take out
the house key. ba

Search of the premises finished, the offi-
cers prepared to transport the prisoners to
the Detective Bureau in separate cars. Carl-
son asked as a favor if he might kiss the
girl. Beeson told him that any demonstra-
tions of affection would have to be deferred
for a future time. The girl’s lips curled in
asneer. Carlson coolly extended his wrists
for the handcuffs,

‘During this time Agent Kneen, Rule and
I were matching wits with Cossack in’ the
latter’s office. The attorney first tried, with
all the craftiness of a trapped fox sniffing
for some loophole to escape, to find out
just how much we had on him.

I summoned Tash from the reception
room. At my request he produced a bulg-
ing brief case containing transcripts of con-
versations overheard since August 29th—
the date on which we installed the dicto-
graphs, -

“Let’s see, Cossack,” I began, “on Septem-
ber 6th at 12:45 p.m. you and Fenton were
in your office. You called in your secretary
and asked, ‘What time will Carlson call?’
She answered, ‘At four-thirty.’ However, at
12:47 you answered the telephone and said,

‘Carlson, listen, Get jn touch with Izzy,

Don't be a'poor fish.

be her dream man!

« > . ‘
(Zez2 Ug He combs his hair with water.

After water dries, his hair sticks out and hangs

down like tentacles. Krem] Hair Tonic keeps hair
neatly in place from morn ’til night.

A Often called a “‘heel”’ by the ladies. He

plasters his hair down with grease. Looks just like
a gigolo. Kreml keeps hair handsomely groomed
yet never leaves it looking oily or greasy.

Stitched luc Specks look beauti-

ful on a trout but not dandruff specks on your
shoulders. Kreml is famous to remove dandruff

flakes. Leaves scalp feeling and looking so clean.

He uses Kreml and his hair is
always so neat and attractive.
Never pasted down, sticky or
greasy looking. Just hear the girls
sigh mm-m-m-m at the man with
Kreml-groomed hair!

e Ask for Kreml Hair Tonic at your
barber shop. Buy a bottle at any
drug counter. Use it daily foracleaner
scalp—for better-groomed hair.

KREML HAIR TONIC

Keeps Hair Better-Groomed Without Looking Greasy—

Relieves Itching of Dry Scalp—Removes Dandruff Flakes 4 trodact of

'R. B. Semler, Ine.

a

aeeetaneeee ee

—


i nme ad i
Deas er J
od .

mission that he had cased any bank rob-

beries himself. We in turn held back all

our trumps in this respect. At length the

attorney, perhaps emboldened by our seem~-

ing ready acceptance of his statements,
“said:

“Almost from the first I wanted to quit
this racket. But I didn’t dare make an
immediate withdrawal for fear of death at
the hands of Carlson. Months ago he
threatened me when I objected to the un-
fair way he was handling the money—hold-
ing out most of it for what he called ‘the
big caper’ and even demanding back $500
out of a split he had given Fenton, to pay

be cash for a new car. And I was afraid Fen-
ton would mistrust me. if I tried to back
out too suddenly.” ;

“I can see that you were in a bad spot,” I
conceded with pretended sympathy.

“In fact, I told Fenton not long ago that I

r 3. was going to close this office, quit the apart-
) ment and go back to the home of my par-
ql ents in North Hollywood. I planned to open
- offices out in that district. and specialize on
club and fraternity work,” Cossack con-
tinued. ;

H THIS PIOUS declaration did not tally

it with the ambitious plans for $100,000
; holdups that he had been overheard to dis-
cuss with Sam Collins. However, we did not

it bring that up at the moment.
id At that juncture Izzy Fenton walked into : Se
1e 4 the reception room, to be greeted by Det- After three years of careful planning, SPORT, <a
al tectives Stromwall and Caldwell with the the new magazine for America’s millions of sports
- i announcement that he was under arrest. spectators, is ready to give you many hours
A moment later I was called on the tele- of reading enjoyment
@ phone. Detective Woolman informed me g enjoy .
. or eng agers tne Datuetivs The first issue of SPORT—now on sale—is crammed 4
an Bureau. ; full of exciting stories about your favorite sports :
te We at orice left for Headquarters with and sports personalities. . . stories that are packed. z
i ng pe a oon GER Oe _ with action . . . stories that take you behind =
or en I arrived at the Robbery Squa fi
ed offices, I was given a brief account of Carl- the scenes of sports. a
ng son’s arrest by Johnston and Woolman. In . : anny t udiealin sis
ds. addition, it developed that the prisoner had | Here ee gate line 4 * ne mY oe e
red made certain statements to the officers dur- stories that appear in the ‘Septem er 5 ce
ave ing the drive to Headquarters. : ee:
ce, “Anything I’ve done,” he had said, “wasn’t 3% THE STORY OF BIG AND LITTLE JOE DI MAGGIO ioe
ion for myself. I’ve been out of the United —by Tom Meany ke
ink States since you’ve been looking for me. I . "
28S didn’t have to come back. But I’ve got a 9 7 ; x
me buddy up in Folsom. To save him I’ve sent * SPORT’S CRYSTAL BALL ALL AMERICES T
His q $11,000 to an attorney in Sacramento. I —hby George revor
you haven't kept any money. I’ve got only this ; wes
oné suit of clothes and we haven’t been * WHO CHALLENGES THE CHAMP? “ :
\ he eating any too well——" —by Jack Dempsey as told to John Durant
his Agent Kneen, Mr. Rule and I decided to : ;
pe es Oe alone in my private|  REG’LAR FELLERS—The story of Bob Feller and his
ised ‘A moment later, the bank robber who Dad —by Grantland Rice
s. I had been so luridly word-painted as a ; i ‘
st in desperado, always heavily armed and ready * TOP TENNIS F AMILY —hby Allison Danzig :
to shoot to kill, stood before my desk—a : : ‘ . {
Mr. shabbily dressed, tired and old-looking man, There are many, many other colorful sports stories
ome with the air bag’ a — knew eee eae you won’t want to miss. In addition, the Septem-
way Sr aes uae plainly ote iatgg o— . f ber SPORT contains a score of cartoons, featurettes,
Sep- } He interrupted our first attempt to ques; pictures... a challenging sports quiz, fashions
i me tion him about his activities. iy . . for the sports fan, and other articles of interest to
_ and “Tm not talking,” he said quietly. “I’m , all—young and old... written by America’s
thing old. It doesn’t matter about me. But some- leading sports authorities
there one else might be young, with years to go. & sp :
as tad Seer poet eg of ria yg pend i You'll like everything you read in SPORT. So give - :
scalp pledge to someone and now I won't be able | .' yourself a treat... enjoy the magazine that is ies ahs
when @ to keep it.” especially designed for you and every other sports eo.
: He “What was that pledge?” Rule asked. lover in America ... ask your newsdealer today for “—
; he’d - “To get a commutation of sentence for ¥
ithout : my partner up in Folsom. I was told that Se
$5,000 more would turn the trick.” 3

4 I questioned him about the guns found in
no ad- 4 his home, which were then lying on my ek

y, one q “And all the money you’ve taken in bank : ‘ §
other holdups has gone for that purpose?” ‘ a
—JiTes “I haven’t kept any money from my op- A ; Free
’ @ erations. I haven’t even bought clothes. Og
° i These shoes talk for themselves.” He ex- mo
emeve Fe hibited his shabby footwear with holes in . , ye
ied La the soles. M A G A Z l N E ,
; ns

¢ INT Oy


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Bo. ame agi,

Se
Sie ORT ae
Seer
Soman aes
¥

SP PREM Ba a main ee EY ARIE AR us eras
; q 1 : ees Aisi IER f

said, “...I found out it would cost $129 to
Paint the cabin.” ;

Cossack replied, “Well, you won't be able
to do that. till we get this other money, I
think Friday is the best time for it,”

However, the following Friday passed
without any attempt to pull off the so-called
big caper. Our bank stake-outs dnd prepa-
rations to round up the raiders if they
escaped from the scene of the robbery, went
for nothing,

A few nights later Cossack was heard to
say to his aide::

“Boy, that big caper had better come off
pretty soon. I’m damned low on money. I
hope we get as much as we expect.”

“Yes,” Fenton emphatically agreed, “I’ve
got to quit some of these Parties till I get
Some more dough.”

Finally, on Wednesday, September 19th,
the pair talked over a “deal” which was
Supposed to be consummated during the
following week. Fenton said, “I’l] check
everything ... I’ll kill him or he’ll kill me.
It looks good... a machine gun is better,
but I can get plenty of tear gas. A job every
Wednesday——” :

@ HERE COSSACK interrupted. “Wednes-
day? I thought we were all set for Fri-
day——” ‘
“Nothing doing, I had that out with Pete,
Told him I wouldn’t pull any holdup on a
Friday, so it’ be one on éach Wednesday,
ee in a row. If anything happens, you
don’t know me and I don’t know you.”
“Oh, man!” Cossack was heard to ex-
claim. “And can I use $5,000!”

Bank Detail and others were held in the
assembly room, all of us alert for a call
from the complaint board, ; ar

We could not Possibly guess which one of
the city’s nearly 200 branch banks would be
the bandits’ objective, but if a robbery were
perpetrated we planned to arrest Cossack
and Fenton at their first subsequent meet-
ing—possibly in Possession of part of the
lost—and if necessary, leave the capture
of Pete Carlson for the future.

To this end, I had instructed Johnston
and Tash to call my office as soon as the at-
torney and Fenton were there together,

A day of suspense dragged into late after-

‘noon without a holdup alarm.

At four-thirty in the afternoon Johnston
called. “Cap,” he said, “Cossack and Fen-
ton are both upstairs in the office now. Just
came in,”

“Okay. We'll be right up.”

I replaced the receiver and turned to the
group around my desk,

“Let’s go,” I said.

’ Pausing only long enough to instruct all
officers then in the squad rooms to stand by
for orders, Agent Kneen, Rule, Detective
Chambers and. I headed for the building
that housed Cossack’s offices,

We left our car a block from that location
and were walking south on Spring Street
when we saw Johnston striding rapidly
toward us. _ :

“Cap,” he announced disgustedly, “they
both left the office after I called you,”.

“Let’s try the lot where Fenton parks his
car,” I suggested’ quickly, “We may be in
time.”

A moment later we had one of those sud-

den breaks of luck that sometimes occur in

the game of criminal investigation,
We had hardly retraced our steps fifty

. feet when I saw Attorney Cossack walking

toward us. I had only a few seconds in
which to make my decision—either to ar-
rest him now and take a chance on round-
ing up his confederates later, or risk the
Possibility of losing them all for the time
being.

As we approached him,.I slackened my
Pace and abruptly barred his way.

“Just a minute, Cossack! Where are you
going?”

“To my office,” was the curt reply, as he
attempted to pass me.

“Good. We'll go with you.”

His face betrayed neither suspicion nor

alarm as we fell into step with him, The,*

short walk and the elevator ascent to the
eleventh floor were made in silence,
Leaving Detectives Chambers and John-
ston—joined a few moments later by Tash
—in the reception room with the startled

stenographer, Kneen, Rule, and I went with .

the attorney into his private office,

There he faced us with the same cocky ar-
Togance that had so antagonized me at the
time-of our first encounter months before.

“What’s this all about, anyway?”

Before I could reply Agent Kneen strode
to the desk where the attorney allegedly
kept a .45 automatic and started to open the
center drawer. Cossack fairly leaped upon
him and tried to drag him away from the
desk, I, in turn, seized the lawyer by the
Coat collar and jerked him backward.

“Just what’s the idea, Seager?” he raged.
“You can’t pull this stuff on me!”

“No? Well, Cossack, the jig’s up. You’re
under arrest,”

“For what?”

“For bank robbery.”

The laugh with which he tried to greet
this announcement was plainly forced.

“You might put that over on some dumb
yegg, Seager, but not on me. Why, you-——”

“Johnston!” I called that officer from the
outerroom. “Show Cossack the dictographs.”

With a dramatic gesture, the detective

“Good Lord!” he muttered. Then, recov-
ering a measure of assurance, he said in a
voice that shook Slightly, “Well, I—I’ve got
to hand it to you for that!”

“Now,
said in your offices for the last month has
been overheard—and recorded.”

a drowning person in the moment of death,
we could see Cossack trying to recall all
the damning utterances we presumably had

graphs are also installed. But there’s one
member of your gang still out. We want
Pete Carlson. You can help us get him. But
it’s up to you to decide whether you want
to take this the easy way or the hard way.
It makes no difference to us,”

A few seconds Passed, during which the
shrewd expression of the trader ready to
bargain came into his eyes, then the man
who had boasted that no “copper” alive
could make him talk, was ready to talk
business,

“If I tell you where to find Carlson, what
do I get out of it?” he asked coolly,

“I’m making no promises, Cossack. I’m in
& position where I don’t have to. Further,
you’re an attorney, and you know that any
promises I might make would be worth
nothing. The facts regarding anything you
do to help us will be laid before the United
States District Attorney. He can draw his
Own conclusions and show you any consid-
eration he may see fit.”

Cossack considered this ultimatum in
silence,

“Well,” I asked, after giving him a brief
time to make -a decision, “where’s Pete
Carlson?”

‘“I—I think I know where he lives. But
don’t let anyone know I gave you the in-
formation.” It was evident that his fear
of the gunman’s Possible vengeance was

. §enuine. “Go to Thirty-eighth and Budlong

Avenue. He lives around that neighbor-

hood. I don’t know just where.”

“Don’t kid me,” I said. “I can’t send a
squad to scout over a whole neighborhood.
Carlson .knows he’s hot and he’s ready to
lam.”

“Well, he lives in a court, but I’m not
sure which house he occupies,”
offered to draw a map of the district, show-
ing the exact location of the six-unit bunga-
low court, on condition that I did not “use

*the map against him.” To this I agreed
and he quickly made a penciled diagram.

I handed the map to Detective Johnston,
who studied it and then at my request made
a rough copy of his Own.

Ih the meanwhile, I called my office and
ordered a squad of detectives to meet John-

I then detailed Detectives Stromwall and
Caldwell of the Narcotics Squad to Stay
with Detective Tash in the lawyer’s recep-
tion room, ready to arrest Izzy Fenton as
soon as he might appear,

During the next hour three calls were
answered by Cossack’s stenographer and

the stenographer to tell Fenton to meet him :

that night “at the hotel.” To her query as
to what hotel was meant, the caller’s laconic
reply was, “He knows which one.”

It was five-thirty in the afternoon when

Johnston met Detectives Harry R. Maxwell,

Woolman, and E. W. Mansfield, and set out
to effect the arrest of Pete Carlson and his

| CONVERSATION LANGUISHED while

the lawyer sat staring at the floor, ap-
parently trying to digest the fact that for
once in his life he was up against a rap that
would be hard to beat.

Finally he looked at me appraisingly,
“You think you're a tough copper, don't
you, Seager?”

“No,” I replied, “I don’t think I’m a tough
copper. But I’ll tell you what I think of
rats like you, who go into a bank where
men and women are unprepared and un-
armed, stick a gun on them and pull a rob-
bery. If I had my way, I’d line all of you
up against a wall and turn a machine-gun
loose on you.”

“You would, eh? I’lI remember that,”

* * *

Inside a small bungalow on Budlong Ave-
nue, the nine detectives waited tensely for
the sound of a key turning in the lock of
the front door,

One by one they made their way as in-

‘conspicuously as Possible to the house occu-
pied by Carlson. :

From the bungalow-court manager they
had learned that the Suspects were known
there as “Mr. and Mrs. Lang,” and that they
were a quiet couple who had lived there
for some time, with the exception of about
ten days during the latter Part of July. At
that time the Langs had said they were
going to “make a trip up North,” but had
Paid rent in advance for the bungalow,
Stating they wished to retain possession
of it.

A half-hour Passed, Twilight shadows
were darkening the interior of the little
house as Detective Johnston, in command

A alt imines tas emmenmen Lae

He then.

of the
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You do that—he’ll tell you.’”
I flipped a few more pages. To impress
him from a different angle I proceeded to

.quote a lengthy telephone speech which he

had made at a certain hour on September
8th, regarding a purely legal and highly
technical matter.

“You recall that business matter, don’t
you, Cossack?” :

He nodded glumly. “Well, we’ve plenty
of time. Shall I go back further—to the
very beginning?”

My grand bluff was not called.

“You’ve got me, Seager—to some extent,”
he added guardedly. “I’ve already helped
you by telling you where to find Pete. Now,
why can’t we have an understanding about
this? I’m willing to turn State’s evidence
against Fenton and Carlson, if: you’ll agree
to charge me only with‘harboring a crimi-
nal. I’ll plead guilty to that.”

Again I reminded him that I had no power
to make a promise that would be binding.
We could only lay the facts before the
court.

Needless to say, I would not have made
any agreement with Cossack, even had I
had authority to do so, without having all
the evidence in the case in my hands. If
the statements made by our informants—
Edwards and Collins—were : corroborated
from other sources, the man before us was
fully as guilty as the pair he was offering
to help send to a Federal prison—after hav-
ing previously volunteered to put them on
the spot to be killed in a holdup, so that his
own complicity in their crimes would never
come to light.

After a few moments’ silence the attorney
said, “This is a bitter pill to swallow. If I
tell you about this, I’ll lose my professional
standing.” ’

“My boy,” Agent Kneen remarked geni-
ally, “that’s your problem. It’s up to you.”
Cossack’s opening statements disproved

the theory, in his own case at least, that
there is “honor among thieves.” His care-
fully worded replies to questions pro-
pounded by Mr. Rule, Agent Kneen and-by
me showed calculated effort to place all
blame for the crimes in which he had been
“unintentionally” involved, squarely upon
the shoulders of Carlson and Fenton—the
latter admittedly a friend of several years’
standing.

He had accepted Carlson as a “client” only
because he was desperately in need of
money.

“Last December,” he said, “a fellow
name Collins brought up a man whom he
introduced as Pete Carlson. He said the
man. was looking for a good criminal law-

' yer. Carlson explained that he was down

from San Francisco, intending to go on sev-
eral jobs; that he wanted an attorney ready
to represent him any time he got in trouble,
and was willing to pay me well.

“He then remarked that he was looking
for a partner and .asked if I knew of any-
one. I said I didn’t know anyone I could
suggest, but that I’d known a*man named

. Fenton for some time. If he wanted to talk

to Fenton about anything, it was up to him.
I called Fenton in and introduced them.
Then I stepped out of the office.”

- I barely repressed a smile. I recalled that
our informant, Collins, had also “stepped
out of the office” immediately after in-
troducing Carlson to Cossack—before the
subject of bank robberies came under dis-
cussion,

It was not until some time later, Cossack
averred regretfully, that he became aware
that Fenton, his office associate, had been
engaged with Carlson in the business of
robbing banks. The first holdups had been
“a complete surprise” to him, until he be-
gan to connect newspaper accounts of these
exploits with the fact that Fenton would be
“flush with money” for days thereafter.

(Continued from page 62) Smoak was the
most surprised person in the courtroom.
His note had never reached the intended
destination and Mrs. Harker had talked.
We had kept the note a secret after the
trusty had turned it over to me. True to
expectations, it proved a bombshell to the
defense.

The poisoner took the stand in his own
behalf. Other than some character wit-
nesses he was the only witness for the
defense. For five hours he sat in the wit-
ness chair and, in an incredibly cool and
deliberate manner, swore again and again
that he had nothing to do with the deaths
in his family. :

Throughout the lengthy direct examina-
tion Solicitor Burney sat in complete si-
lence. Never once did he raise an objec-
tion to a defense question. He wanted the
prisoner to have every opportunity to
prove his innocence, if humanly possible.

But when the defendant was turned over
to him for cross-examination, the dynamic
Prosecutor picked his story to piedes. As
the poisoner gradually wilted and became
confused, Burney drew from him many
admissions of a damaging nature.

Smoak admitted that he prepared a spe-
cial breakfast for his daughter the morn-
ing she died; that he had falsified state-
ments to insurance agents and to doctors
following the deaths; fhat no doctor had
been present at any of the deaths; that he
had lied about where he had bought the
medicine given Mrs. Stuart; that he had
written the note introduced in court to
Mrs. Harker; that he was in dire financial
' straits at the time of each death.

In one of the most powerful and con-

CASE OF THE BITTER CAPSULE

vincing speeches ever delivered in a North
Carolina courtroom, Solicitor Burney
closed the murder trial. Graphically, he
painted the picture of the frozen-faced
prisoner—a philandering husband and a
cruel father, the trusted head of a home
who, fondled his family with one hand and
fed them poison with the other.

It was nine-fifteen on Friday night, Feb-
ruary 26th, when the jury filed into the
crowded and tense courtroom with a ver-
dict. Ordered to stand, Smoak, staring
straight ahead without a flicker of emotion
on his face, heard himself declared “guilty
of murder in the first degree as charged in
the indictment.” For fully six minutes he
stood with upraised right hand, as steady
as a figure of marble, while the clerk
polled each member of the jury who,
answering to his name, repeated the
damning word that spelled doom for the
convicted prisoner.

Judge Clement immediately sentenced
him to die in North Carolina’s lethal gas
chamber on Friday, April 23rd, 1937. The
prisoner was promptly whisked away to
the State Prison in Raleigh. There were
no threats of violence, for the vast throng
was satisfied with the verdict—the first
white man to be condemned to death in
New Hanover County in twenty years.

Speaking of the verdict, an editorial in
the Wilmington Morning Star stated that,
“If ever a man deserved the supreme’
penalty that man is Edgar L. Smoak.”

An appeal automatically stayed the exe-
cution of the Wilmington carpenter pend-
ing a decision by the Supreme Court. The
death sentence was affirmed by that body,
and Smoak was executed. ‘

Cossack denied that he had ever receivea
any money from Carlson, and declared that
the only financidl reward reaped from his
association with the bandit pair had been
in the form of small amounts of cash doled
out by Fenton from time to time, with
which to pay rent or provide the necessities
of life. . :

“Where is the .45 automatic you usually

keep in the drawer of your desk?” Agent
Kneen asked.
« “I haven’t kept it here for some time.
Fenton asked me for it. I gave it to him,
asking no payment, because of other money
he had given me.”

“Did you ever buy a gun from a man—
an investigator for the City Attorney’s
office?,” Rule inquired.

“I did. About the first of the year I pur-
chased & .45 automatic, paying ten dollars
for it. That’s the gun I gave to Fenton.”

“Now, Cossack,” I intervened, “we know
positively that Carlson and Fenton were to
pull a bank robbery today. What can you
tell us about that?” 2

He hesitated, perhaps debating .the ad-
visability of denying any knowledge of a
crime that, after all, had not been com-
mitted.

As I reached for the dictograph transcript
he quickly made his decision.

“Well, I don’t like to answer that ques-
tion, but suppose I’ll have to. I think it
was about September 15th that Fenton and
I drove out to where Pete lived. He came
out to the car and said he had a beautiful
job all cased—the California Bank on San
Pedro Street between Eleventh and
Twelfth. Carlson and Fenton drove out
there to pull the job this morning. When
Fenton came in this afternoon he said they
didn’t go through with it, because a man
was painting the front of the bank. He
said they’d take it tomorrow.”

Cossack was asked by Rule whether or
not he knew that Fenton and Carlson used
“make-up” to disguise their features during
the so-called “Mutt and Jeff” bandit raids.

“T’ve never seen either of them engaged
in a robbery,” he replied, “but I believe
they did use make-up on some jobs. Once,
Fenton said he’d give me a demonstration
of how he looked when he went into a bank
with two guns. He went into a small dress-
ing room. When he came out he had some
fluid on his face that looked like a scar. His
mouth was protruding. He said, ‘Do you
think you could identify me now?’

“T said he didn’t look natural. Then he
took a set of artificial teeth out of his
mouth—he wore it over his own teeth. I
asked him what he used to prevent finger-
prints being left. He said he and Pete used
liquid court-plaster on their finger tips. I
saw a bottle of it in the medicine chest in
the apartment.”

“Hmm. All very interesting,” was Mr.
Rule’s comment. “It checks up with some
other information we've got. By the way,
when did you last see Carlson?”

“I believe it was about the first of Sep-
tember when he telephoned and asked me
to meet him at Washington Boulevard and
Vermont Avenue; said he had something
important to tell me. I drove out there
and found Pete waiting. As he got into the
car I noticed a bandage on his head. He ex-
plained that a bullet had grazed his scalp
during a shooting affray in Berkeley, when
he and some other men robbed a bank. Hé
boasted that he was quite lucky, as he’d
been on seventeen or eighteen jobs without
getting a scratch,

“But this time, according to his story, one
of his partners was killed and the other
captured. The police shot the rear tires
off his car, which his girl Helen was driving,
but they managed to turn a corner on two
wheels and dodge the officers. I believe

the man who was captured was named La ;

Crosse.”
In his recital Cossack had made no ad-

mission
beries }
our tru
attorney;
ing rea
said:
“Alm
this rac
immedi:
the ha
threater
fair wa)
ing out
big cap:
out of <
cash for
ton wo
out too
“T can
concede
“In fa
was, goir
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- offices o

club ar
tinued,

@ THIS
with
holdups
cuss wit!
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At the
the rece
tectives
announc
A mo!
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that Pe
panion
Bureau.
We at
Cossack
When
offices, I
son’s ar)
addition
made ce:
ing the
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for mys
States si
didn’t h:
buddy u
$11,000
haven’t }
one suit
eating ai
Agent
talk firs:
office.
‘A mor
had bee
desperad
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shabbily
with the
-was resi;
his head
He int
tion him
“T’m n
old. It dc
one else
For that
I’m sorry
pledge tc
to keep i
“What
“To ge
my partr
$5,000 mc
“And a
holdups }
“T have
erations.
These sh
hibited h
the soles.
I questi
his home

10rities
dy of

ve, and
in—the
lahoma
: again.

he per-
me call
‘Ided at

iad gone
d shown
insisted |
receding
e before

vho had
th her?”

d. “We
2en going
am could

Mrs. -
\ any
.. their
involved,
aation.”
1ot twelve
body, the
ge where
carry the
s feverish
wo dozen
stion, and
signed six

ir night’s
: personal
ted girl’s
‘rom Mrs.
i a small
e had re- -
n present.
handbag
tained a
ket. The
the pawn-
g on some
aa’s pupils

w blanks.
only slight
ul instruc-
with any
marks she
sut at their
on Denton,
nlightening |
ed to mask

ight to tell
‘but I knew

"that hap-
ortant,” he
‘10 was the

e girl said,
vas sort of
-n out with

e made

ed
- is?” Jewell

““]’m. sorry,

I don’t. But Leona pointed

him out to me once, and I’d know him -
again if I saw him. He was very &
looking, one of the most handsome men

I’ve ever seen

”

“Well,” Duffy said. philosophically, “per-

haps we're ge

tting somewhere.

“Maybe some of the other girls know the

man,” Miss
don’t you ask
Jewell had

The detecti

Denton . suggested. “Why
them?”
to smile at that. ‘Don’t

. worry. We will. -Goodnight.”

ves continued their rounds,

with their perspective on Leona Vlught’s
slaying considerably changed. Apparently
the golden-haired girl had gone out the
night before on what the younger genera-
tion sometimes calls a “thrill date.” Per-

haps she was

not averse to “teasing” even

while admitting she felt some apprehension

about the man.’ Therefore it was reasonable

‘to assume that the man had repeatéd his

intimate advances, been repulsed—and then,

had murdered

her in a fury of frustration.

The passing hours soon built a more
sglid foundation under this analysis.

For Jewell and Duffy discovered that the
quiet, scholarly girl who was so demure
by day, was transformed after the sun went
down into a worshiper of the bright lights
and the gaudy places, where glasses clink
and swing bands blare. ‘She was well
known in the downtown dance halls, and
her shapely figure had decorated a stool

in more than

one bar in the city’s tavern

belt. Sometimes, they learned, Leona was
accompanied by sleek young men; on other

occasions she
or with other

strolled into the places alone,
girls. ‘

Finally, running down this astonishing
trail, the investigators came across some-
thing tangible—a clue that would ultimately
strip the mask from a black-hearted fiend.
With the help of ‘Mrs. Hazel Don, owner
of the beauty school, Jewell and - Duffy
rounded up three of Leona’s closest. friends
—Anna May Ford, Lillian Vierra and
Rena Thompson.

And. from

them came evidence that

Leona had been seen by at least fifty people,
t

on the corner

of Twelfth Street and Broad-

way, less than two hours before her death.

Furthermore,

she was waiting at that busy

intersection probably for the very man who
would soon plunge a knife into her breast.

-The three gir
to a dance ha
midnight. At

1s said that Leona came alone
{lin that block shortly before
1 a.M., starting for a nearby

sandwich shop, they asked Leona to “come
along and have a bite with us.”

“Did she go?” Jewell asked.

“No,” Anna Ford answered, “She said
she had another date at two o’clock, She

said she was

going out with a new boy

friend who was going to pick her up in

his car.”
“And. did
snapped. .

you see that man?” Jewell

“Yes, we all saw him. ‘He came along
Broadway, stopped for a minute, and then
Leona got in his car and drove: off with

° ’

im.
“What kind of a car?” Jewell snapped.
The girl hesitated an instant in the face
of the detective’s anxiety. Finally she said,
“T think it was a Dodge, but I’m not posi-

tive.” :
Jewell had
“His name,”

one more bursting question.
he said deliberately. “Do you

know the man’s name?”

“Only this
him .Rod.”

much”— Anna Ford sensed

* the grim import of her. words —she called

“Nothing else?” :
“No—but she.did mention that he worked
for a railroad.”

Jewell glanced at his partner and caught.

-a glimpse of

the impatience that stirred his

own determined mind. He stood up, jammed

on his hat.
helped out a

“Thanks, Miss Ford. You've
lot. Let’s go, Tom.”

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INSIDE DETECTIVE

JEWELL and Duffy were too familiar
with the flimsy threads that tangle every
murder case not to realize that they could
be quickly torn. They knew they were only
guessing, that the whole theory built around
Leona’s mysterious after-midnight boy
friend was a long-shot bet. It was quite
possible that the unidentified “Rod” was
only one more name_on the roster of the
beauty’s friends, They were also familiar
with an angle that had only been whispered

in public—a_ series of cruel attacks on’

women in the same neighborhood where
Leona died. '
There had been at least half a..dozen
complaints--women molested walking -home
alone at night, others lured into ‘the hills,

and attacked, still others who escaped un-, |

welcome attentions only because they

screamed for help. And though police pa-

trol cars prowled the district night aftef
night, no one was ever caught.

Perhaps Leona Vlught had run across "

that monstrcus phantom and aroused him
to the highest crime.

_ Another night slipped down over the
western sky, and the two detectives went
back to their jig-saw puzzle the next day
with honest doubts. For actually they- had
only two tangible links—‘‘Rod” and a
Dodge automobile—and searching for them
among the thousands of employes in half
a dozen vast railroad companies was a
tremendous task.

But it had to be done. :

They spent hour after hour poring over
the personnel records of railroad firms;
scanning page after page of names, hun-
dreds, thousands, eyes alert for those three
letters R O D. There were Rodneys, Rod-
ericks, Rodriques, Rodmans, Rodolphs—
scores of first names that might fit, but
none of those checked owned Dodge auto-
mobiles. Finally, along toward’ dusk, they
came across a name on the roster of the
small Western Pacific office staff—one

Rodney Greig of Berkeley. A quick check- -
/up with J..H. Coopin, general manager of

the office, confirmed the fact that Greig
drove a Dodge—and was “unusually hand-
some.” :

Jewell and Duffy hurried back to head-
quarters and there, in one of those fictional
coincidences that rarely occur, they dis-
covered that Detective Leiutenant Robert
Tracy had just written that same name—
“Rodney Greig” on a pad below his tele-

phone. ;

“Well, I’ll be damned,” Jewell exploded,
“Where'd you get that?”

“A friend of mine just called in,” Tracy
said. “He heard we were looking for some-
one with the name ‘Rod’ who worked in a
railroad office. - He said he knew a fellow
who might be our man, and this is, the
name he gave me. Small world, huh?”

Jewell and Duffy stared at one .another.
“You said it!” Duffy- said wryly. “We
work all day running, down this ‘angle, and
you get it on the telephone in two minutes.
I just hope it isn’t a bum steer.” ‘

“That won't take long to find out,” Jewell
said crisply. “C’mon. We've got business
on hand—at 2718 Garber: Street in Berk-
eley. _

They jumped into a squad car, rolled out

through the quiet, tree-studded avenues of -

Oakland and its neighbor, Berkeley, until
they reached Garber Street. It was a peace-
ful districta place of clipped green lawns,
cemented driveways and expensive homes
set back from the streets in clusters of fine,
old trees, The stately, columned halls of
the University of California were only a
block distant, and the whole community
breathed dignity. It was a curious, unreal
place to-look: for a_ killer.

But Duffy, slowing’ down in front of -

No. 2718 and focusing his spotlight on the
garage drive, knew immediately that they
were reaching the end of the trail. For

os Sains
oti seiamioay

there was a Dodge sedan parked there and
Duffy, jumping out with a flashlight, called
out to Jewell. .- ‘ :

“Look at these tires, Lou. Goodrich!
V’ll bet a year’s pay they'll match those
casts we have.” ye

He.- tried the door to the driver's seat,
but it was locked. ‘“Let’s go in,” he said.
“PI] stick at the back’ doot, Lou. You can

let me in after you're inside.”

Jewell stepped across the lawn and rang.

the front doorbell. It was opened in a
moment by a youth dressed in pajamas and
bathrobe, and he-looked at the detective
curiously. .

“Are you Rodney?” Jewell ,said.
‘ “No—my brother’s upstairs asleep. Come
in. is ‘

- Jewell crossed the threshold into the hall,
and: he saw at once that this was a home

of culture and refinement. He found it hard .

to believe that he was there on a grim and
terrible errahd, that perhaps some member
of this gentle household was masking a
murderer’s soul. At that ‘moment an at-
tractive, middle-aged woman came slowly
down the spiraled stairs. She was wearing
a negligee, and there were shadows of con-

cern under her questioriing eyes.

“IT am Mrs. Greig,” she said, “Rodney’s
mother. Is—is there some trouble?”

“Not at all,” Jewell replied with tact and
understanding. “I just wanted to ask what
time the boy got home Tuesday night. Just
a little matter in connection with his car.”

“Why, it was quite late,” she said
promptly. “After midnight.”

And thus she sealed the fate of her son.
Jewell went upstairs where, in a back bed-
room sound asleep, he found saturnine Rod-
ney Greig, twenty-one years “old. Jewell
waited while the protesting youth slipped
into his clothes, and then took him down
to the street where Duffy was now waiting.

“Listen, son,” Jewell spoke in a hush, .

“why don’t you tell us what happened ?”

The youth moved his handsome face up
to the level of the detective’s quizzical eyes
and said calmly: “I don’t know what you
mean,” ;

“Oh, yes you do, You know Leona?”

“Oh |. . Leona.” The muscles of his
cheeks rippled, and the dimple in his chin
seemed deeper in the dim light thrown
from the windows of the house.’ “Yes, I
know her.”

“Why did you kill her?” Jewell barely
raised his voice.

“T didn’t. ....”

Duffy swung the rear’ door of the car
wide, and burrowed mechanically into the
deep cushions. He stood up again, and his
hand looked yellow and weird under the
stabbing beam of the flash. He was holding
something long and shining and spotted
with brown.

“Here’s the knife, Lou,” he said. “He
didn’t even wipe. off the blood.”

Jewell’s right hand circled Rodney

Greig’s arm, and the youth sagged and .
turned despairing eyes on, that gleaming °.

steel needle with which a young girl’s heart
had been gashed.

“Well...” from a quivering mouth, “I
guess you've got me.”

MINUTES later, after opening a pocket

under the dashboard and handing over
Leona Vlught’s locket, watch and ring,
Rodney Greig was on his way to police

headquarters. He had not even said good- -

bye to his perplexed parents, and they did
not know until some hours afterward that
he had confessed an appalling crime. ‘The
slain girl’s hat and purse were recovered
from a trash can at Nineteenth and ° Alice

.Streets, where Greig had thrown them

after leaving Lovers’ Lane. «

The cold-blooded, obviously sensual —

youth told the story of his. crime to half

a dozen police officials in. the homicide ,

Ne en ere

wv + piathad Lemna ea sR


BY FI

HE laugh:
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voice of Stan]
a nearly full
to the other.
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was 16 again.
Leisurely t)
they went, tl
search for the
Suddenly J:
With one pud
made by soil
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dummy... <
But what a fu
Mrs. Jayne.
too saw the
damp hillside.
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toward the al
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LOVELY.
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squad offices that same night. Jewell asked
him, “For heaven’s sake, why did you
do it?” *
Greig shrugged, and the corners of his .
curved, feminine mouth went out of line.
“I don’t know,” he muttered. “I. don’t

‘know. It was just an impulse.”

“Go on,”

“Well ... I met Leona downtown where
I said I would. I’d been out with her two
or three times, and liked her. We drove
out to El Cerrito and had some chop suey.
Then we went out to San Leandro and
came back along Foothill Boulevard, and
I turned off at 106th Avenue and drove up
into the hills. We ran over a bump in the
road, parking, and Leona said it hurt her
appendix. ,

“She was feeling kind of low and said
she ought to have her appendix taken out.
She started talking about suicide, and so
I pulled out my hunting knife and touched
her neck with the point.

“You haven’t got the nerve to do it,’
I said to her. She took the knife and made
a few passes at me playfully, and then I
took it away. I got out of the car, walked
around and got in beside her. And sud-
denly, for no reason at all, I let her have:
it. I don’t know why, but I let her have it. ,
I stabbed her once between the breasts.
She screamed just once and folded up.

“T left the knife sticking in her and stood
around smoking cigarettes for about fifteen
minutes. ‘Then I opened the door, dragged
her out of the car and across tothe ditch.
I wanted to see if she was dead, so I took
the knife out and stuck her in the neck
three times, to see if she would bleed.

“But there wasn’t any blood, and I knew
she. was dead. I didn’t touch her other-
wise—I never touched her. But honest, I
don’t know ‘why I did it.”

Thus Rodney Greig finished his shocking
recital, and they took him away to a cell.

The next day, when Jewell and Duffy
went through the files in which repose the
dark deeds of all California’s villains, large

‘and small, they found that Rodney Greig

had fulfilled ominous predictions made
about him years before,

He had a record of petty offenses dating
back to the time when he was only eleven
years old—turning in false fire alarms,
stealing an automobile, breaking into a
house,‘ stealing magazines containing pic-
tures of nude women, burglary, breaking
into a cash register. And for all these
transgressions he. had been punished only
once, with a term in the Preston Reforma-
tory. The court said, at the time: “He is
a weakling, with a type of ego which, if
not curbed, will develop a bad criminal
and a real menace.”

The “ego” was not curbed—and it cost
Leona Vlught her life.

There was one other thing brought to
light, and it may provide the real answer
to the cause of his monstrous lust to kill.

The youth told detectives that he had been

66

receiving treatments from a_ physician—

‘treatments ordinarily. confined to\men long

past virile youth. \ ’

“Man,” he said to Jewell, “I’m played
out. I’m oversexed mentally, but you can’t
keep up the pace night after night and
not break down.”

Rodney Greig was a jaded Faust—at
twenty-one.

And according to Krafft-Ebing, Have-
lock Ellis and other authorities. on sex

crimes, his life of sexual excess may have -

induced the sadistic outburst ‘which re-
sulted in a brutal and motiveless murder.
The records of sadism and lust killing are
studded with parallel cases of men who
used deadly knives to achieve “complete
subjugation of women when they are
otherwise unable to stir their senses,” And
when Rodney Greig says, “I don’t know
why I did it, it was just an impulse,”: he
may be closer to truth than courts of law
care to admit. ‘

Meanwhile, detectives were digging up
more information ‘about this amazing
youth. They found that he worked as a
stenographer; and that he went to work

of Tah RAM tote» Bre bons, Sr

mnNSivoe

Was Rodney Greig’s act of cutting a
triangular mark in Leona Vlught’s neck
the impulse of an insane. xxga? . Dr
O. D. Hamlin is shown at left examining .
the accused youth, nN

the day after the murder apparently un-
touched by remorse, for his transcription
was flawless. j ‘
Moreover, Mrs. Dora Bjorn Barrett,
who shad married Greig in 1936 and
separated from him a few days later, told
police that she had lived in fear of. him
for two years. He had threatened her re-
peatedly, she said, and always the threats
had carried the, hint of stabbing and cut-
ting. . Was he V:
Knives, it appears, were an obsession. in
‘Rodney Greig’s strange brain. The three
triangle-formed marks in Leona Vlught’s
neck are proof enough of that. ny
What grim impulse caused him to blazon
that vampire’s symbol on the dead beauty’s
body? His own explanation—that he. did
it “to see if: she was dead”—is obviously
an evasion.’ He could have listened for
a heartbeat. -He could have felt for a
pulse, or looked for signs of breathing.
But no... The Killer of Leona Vlught
took his knife, bent over his victim, and
with painstaking care’ made his mark in
flesh that. was still warm. ;
The answer, if it ever is found, will be
found in the man’s brain. Greig, now await-
ing trial, has been examined for sanity by
Dr.-Hamlin, and three other alienists have
been appointed to examine him; but at this
‘writing they have not announced their find-
ings. The prisoner has pleaded not guilty,
and not guilty by reason of insanity.
And up in the moon-bathed heights above

Oakland, where the eucalyptus leaves rus- .

tle, romantic couples still come to Lovers’
Lane. Even, murder can be forgotten when
the nights.are warm and the lights. wink
down below. .... ‘ eee,

ee ~ S t

Minit 2 or Re ¥
fal aE SETI OS TS sanieanth

4


* THE OFFICERS bent over the
woman sprawled on her back in the
ditch. Police Inspector Lucien Jewell
pointed to three small nicks forming
an almost even triangle at the base
of the lovely white column of her
throat. “Looks to me like a cult
murder,” Jewell said. :

“Could be,” said Inspector Duffy,
squatting down alongside his colleague.
“But if it is, the symbol left behind
is a new one on me. The good Lord
knows this climate seems to spawn new
sects every other day and we can’t keep
up with their hocus-pocus.” .

He shook his head as he studied the

¥

d

HE WAS TALL, DARK AND DANGEROUS... HE HAD JUST BOUGHT A KNIFE!

corpse. “It’s hard to buy this one as

belonging to one of those odd ball -

groups. She sure doesn’t look like a
freak or a misfit to me.”

This was true. It was difficult to
imagine the girl in the ditch belonging
to any fanatic sect. Everything about
her spoke of normality, of a young
woman well adjusted to her environ-
ment, an environment probably a cut
above the average.

The first thing that impressed the
Oakland, California, homicide squad
officers when they arrived on the scene
of the murder was the striking beauty
of the chic and immaculately clad vic-
tim. Above the creamy skin of her
round, symmetrically featured face rose
soft waves of burnished blonde hair un-
touched by hours in the winter open.

Her long, slender legs were delicately .
turned and told of a woman taller than
most. The lines of her expensive black .

suit failed to diminish the high swell of”
“her bosom. i ?

“A nordic goddess — Brunnehilde,”
Inspector Jewell, not normally a poetic
man, said when he looked down on the
remains of the lovely girl, -  _

The body was fully clothed in sheer
charcoal nylon stockings, black strap
pumps, tailored suit and white silk shirt-
waist, all unrumpled’ and trimly in
place. :

At first glance, the corpse might be
a young woman. asleep—except that her
half-open eyes peered eerily between
their long lashes. A closer examination
revealed why the girl lay sprawled in
the ditch, A wicked, wide wound vio-

TEEN VIRGIN’S

2 A.M. DEATH DATE

lated the deep hollow between her
rounded breasts,

A half-hour before the homicide in-
spectors arrived on the heights where
106th Avenue ends in the Lake Chabot
district, an urgent call reached head-
quarters switchboard of the Oakland
police reporting that the body of a
woman had been found in a ditch in
the hills bordering San Francisco Bay
on the southeast. The call was relayed
by radio to Patrolman George Arm-
strong, cruising in the vicinity, At Foot-
hill Boulevard and 106th Avenue he
was waved down by Pete Westerly, the
young man who had telephoned the
police,

The agitated youth led Armstrong
to the corpse of the young woman lying
in a ditch which bisected a field sloping
down from an unimproved lane, A
quick examination showed the patrol-
man that the girl was dead and he
sprinted to a nearby call box and alerted
Eastern police station.

INUTES later, at 10:15 that morn-
ing, Captain Thorvald Brown and
four uniformed officers from Eastern

DRFICE RN An re

SEPTEMBER, 1963.

station were at the scene. Shortly after
they were joined by Inspectors Lucien
M. Jewell, James McDonnell, George
Worthman and Thomas Duffy of city
hall’s homicide squad.

The inspector’s preliminary survey
revealed a swath of crushed grass and
weeds leading up from the ditch to a
narrow dirt road branching off the end
of 106th Avenue. Ruts formed by sev-
eral different automobiles showed plain-
ly on the shoulder of the road. Captain
Brown had his men rope off the area
and the homicide detectives returned to
the girl’s body.

Earlier Inspector Jewell had learned
that Patrolman Armstrong had been the
first offcer on the scene. Now he sent
for him, “Who found the body?” he
asked.

“Young fellow by the name of Pete
Westerly,” Armstrong said. “He's over
there.” He pointed to a young man in
fishing cap and windbreaker talking to
two uniformed policemen,

“Hey, Westerly,” Jewell called, and
the youth came trotting over. “You find
the body?” the homicide man asked.
Westerly nodded. “Okay,” the inspector

Picture of arrogance, he felt no remorse.

said, “give us a rundown.”

Westerly, after explaining that he was
an apprentice printer, said it was his
day off and he had felt like a hike in
the hills, At 8:30 he had gone up into
the woods above Mountain, MacArthur
and Foothill avenues. As he was walk-
ing along the unimproved road running
up off 106th Avenue, his eyes caught
sight of a black and white object lying
in the ditch. It looked like an aban-
doned coat and he went down to investi-
gate. When he saw it was a woman’s
body he sprinted to the nearest house
and called the police.

“Kind of a nasty day for hiking, isn’t
it?” Jewell asked, The day was windy
and raw, even for the bay area.

“Oh, I didn’t mind,” Westerly said.
“I’m dressed for it. Anyhow, I like the
view from up here in all kinds of
weather. I come up often.”

“Do you know the dead girl?” the
Inspector asked,

“Gosh, no. Never saw her before. The
poor kid was awfully pretty, wasn’t
she?”

“What did you do last night?” Jewell
continued,

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‘Knives and Nudes

[Continued from page 5]

girl's identity. All girls carry purses, for
instance. There was none. She had worn
a wrist watch; the pale circle on her arm
showed where it had been removed.
There was a similar bleached band on one
finger where there had been a ring.

Jewell knelt beside the body and ex-
amined the girl's black open-toed shoes
with their delicate high heels.

“The earth around here is still soft,” he
said, “but there aren’t any high heel
marks at all. There’s some mud and a
couple of scuff marks on the back of the
shoes, but it’s a cinch she didn’t walk to
this spot.”

Duffy, moving along an imaginary line
away from the girl's feet, stopped and
pushed back his hat. “No, she didn’t walk.
She was dragged. You can see the trail
right here.”

They followed it back toward the road
to the parking area, and there the picture
began to take definite shape. There was
a set of clear tire marks on thé earth
where a small car had parked, made a
sudden U-turn and gone on down the hill.
They found half a dozen cigarette butts
and a place where a man had paced back
and forth.

“This guy was plenty nervous,” said
Jewell. “The cigarettes are only half
smoked and he dug his heels while he
walked up and down. No blood around
here, though.”

“No, she didn’t bleed much. That
knife must have had a hell of an edge
on it.”

They roped off the area, sent for a
technician to make a cast of the tire
marks, and then went back to headquar-
ters for the dull routine that makes good
detectives. The Missing Persons Bureau,
last port for lost souls, had no record on
this beautiful Amazon. No crotchety hus-
band had called about a vanished wife,
no mother wept over the phone for a way-
ward child. Even the alabaster body was
unblemished, and thus without clues.
There were no scratches, no bruises, and
only small comfort for the esthetic in the
disclosure that, just prior to death at any
rate, there had been no sexual contact. In
the sense that there are formula murders,
there might have been some lustful vio-
lence involved in this expert carving. But
the significance of its absence was to be
made apparent later, and it turned out
to be a major point.

In the grim custom of such cases, the
girl's body was laid out in the city morgue,
descriptions were given to radio stations
and- newspapers. Presently one Henry
Forsberg, a young man with damp nerv-
ous hands and apprehensive eyes, wan-
dered in and took a quick, nodding look
at the corpse.

“Yep—that’s her. I know her, all right.”

The night before, he said, he had been
calling on some Scandinavian friends,
Leonard and Cleo Vlught. They were
worried about their daughter, Leona, be-
cause they had not heard from her all
day. “That’s Leona there,” he said sadly.
“I guess she never got home at all.”

Foothill Boulevard, a stolid blond man
who could handle trouble when he saw
it. “Your daughter Leona,” said one re-
porter. “I’m afraid she’s dead.”

Vlught slipped on a,white coat, walked
silently to a long table and began ear
cake frosting. “Has she committe
suicide?”

“No. It looks like she was murdererd.”

The husky baker stirred the frosting,
reached to a handy shelf for a newly
baked cake. He spread the thick sugar,
gave it a few deft touches, reached for
another-take. He worked silently for ten
minutes, and on the last cake he spelled
out the words: “Happy Birthday.” He

wiped his big hands on an apron, turned
and faced the staring eyes of the report-

ers. “You may think it’s funny that I
work. I must work. I cannot think. She

was a fine girl, Leona. Only last week I .

bought her a new bedroom set.”

The newspapermen went away, and
Leonard Vlught stood stiffly at his work
table. Finally he took off the white coat,
slipped into another. He put on his hat
and walked into the street, seeing
nothing.

But whatever Leonard Vlught did or
thought, he made at least one cryptic re-
mark which in retrospect seems to have a
powerful significance, and one which has
never been satisfactorily explained. Why

did he ask that first question—did she |

commit suicide? Wouldn't it have been
more natural,to ask: “What happened?”
Had he been afraid of a suicide, had
Leona made some such threat? It was a
vital point, as you will see. ge

Meanwhile one small shadow had been
dissolved—at least the victim had a name.
But there was conflict even here, for
Leona Vlught was like the cereus, quietly
folded. during the day, blooming in the
night.

The detectives gathered her history in
bits and pieces, from those who would
talk and, by indirection, from those who
would not. She had attended Fremont
High School in Oakland, where her
beauty and extraordinary figure were re-
membered to an unusual degree. Leona
had been active in school athletics, she
had remarkable grace on the dance floor,
and her scholastic talents were so pro-
nounced that she made the honor roll
and was graduated at the age of sixteen.
She entered the University of California
where, for some obscure reason, she spent
an indifferent and virtually anonymous
year, then suddenly dropped her studies.

The following autumn she was one of
half a dozen girls who enrolled in the
Lee Ann Beauty Academy in Oakland.
Here again she showed remarkable apti-
tude, mastering the art so quickly that
she was engaged as an instructor.

So far the record was a mirror of cir-
cumspection. But Jewell and Duffy,
searching for at least one man who had
been granted parking privileges with her
in Lovers’ Lane, encountered disquieting
facets in Leona Vlught’s private life. She
was well known, for example, in those
bars and eating houses which lie half-way
between the police blotter and the Sun-

_ day School class. She fluttered around the
bright be and they knew her in the

dance halls. Sometimes she was alone, but

more often with a man. She was neither

good nor bad, but would have been
forced into a choice sooner or later.

The detectives encountered one friend,
Marion Denton, who recalled having
seen Leona during her last night on earth.
Leona, she remembered, was lined up for
a date. “She’d been out with this same
man before,” said Marion, “and I guess
it wasn’t so good. But she was willing to
take another chance. She said she had her
fingers crossed.”

And the man’s name? Alas, she didn’t
know.

Men were busy in the other detective
bureaus now, too. The pawn shop detail
had a list of Leona’s missing property—a
black handbag, a small heart-shaped
locket, two rings of doubtful value, a
wrist watch that was a graduation gift.
The laboratory crew had made their casts
and determined that the tire was a Good-

rich, of a size used on light passenger cars. .

Nothing important turned up in the
analysis of the cigarette butts, but the
autopsy men were fairly sure the deadly
knife was a hunting weapon, honed to
scalpel sharpness, and with a blade at
least six inches long.

Was it possible that a garrulous, ex-
troverted girl like Leona -Vlught had
told no one else about her date that un-
happy night? The homicide crew, wise
and cynical from long experience,
doubted it.

Jewell and Duffy had already had a
confidential talk with the parents, and
had obtained a list of Leona’s known
companions. Most of those who had
called at the Vlught home were emi-
nently respectable young men, and their
whereabouts would be easy to check. One
or two were of doubtful quality and could
stand further investigation. Next they
called on -Hazel Don, director of the
beauty college, and there the law of
averages began to pay off. She rounded
up three of her students, Anna May Ford,
Rena Thompson and Lillian Vierra.

The night of the murder, they said,
Leona had come alone to a dance hall at
Twelfth and Broadway in downtown
Oakland. About an hour later, about one
a.m., they asked her to join them at a
nearby restaurant for a snack. But she
seemed as skittish as a cat in the moon-
light and turned down the invitation.
“As a matter of fact,” she told them, “I’ve
got a date and J have to wait right here
for him to pick me up.”

When the three girls emerged from
the restaurant, Leona was still standing
there. At that moment a Dodge coupe
pulled up to the curb and Leona, waving
to them, climbed in. The driver was a
handsome, swarthy, curly-haired youth.
They knew nothing more about him, ex-
cept that Leona called him “Rod,” an¢e
that she mentioned he was working for
a streetcar company, or a railroad “or
something.”

This was not exactly a sizzling clue, but
it could have been worse. Jewell and
Duffy promptly gathered up personnel
lists from every railroad, airline, bus and
streetcar company in the San Francisco

107

oncasp

' store in San Anselmo and stole an arm* nt

_ _ ful of magazines which had many pictures

~ of nude women, Society stepped in, and
e

Bay region and began looking for a man
whose first name was “Rod” and who
owned a Dodge coupe with Goodrich
tires. This was no spine-tingling adven-
ture as the story-book detectives en-
counter, but hours and hours of drudgery
that might yield nothing at all.

There were almost too many “Rods” '
in the world. The lists yielded men
named Rodman, Rodolph, Roderick,
Rodbert, Rodrigues and Rodney. But at
last they came across one that sounded
promising after a hasty checkup. The
name was Rodney Greig, age 21, clerk in
the Western Pacific Railroad offices in
Oakland, darkly handsome, and owner
of a small car—a Dodge coupe.

“Let’s go see this guy, Tom,”
said Jewell to Duffy. “Maybe
he'll tell us what he’s been doing
nights.”

Rodney Greig was born in
Alameda, just south of Oak-
land, on July 10, 1917, His
father was an esteemed depart-
ment store official, his mother a
tiny, soft-spoken and ~ exceed-
ingly gentle woman. They had
a normal home, a normal life,
and there were three other boys,
all wholesome and likeable kids,

The first hint that Rodney
was different from his brothers
came when he was about 9 years
old. At that time he suffered
what the family called a ‘“‘con-
vulsion” which, in light of sub-
sequent events, may have been
merely an attention-getting ~
mechanism. A year later, when
he was ten, Rodney turned in
several false fire alarms, but no
one worried. ;

At eleven he began looting
automobiles parked on the
beach at San Francisco, spent at

RY Ch me

Rodney was nineteen when he went to
work as a clerk for:a firm of wholesalé
grocers, ‘ ‘

One night, after hours, he broke into
the firm's cash box and stole $57. With a
photo of.a nude girl in his pocket, he
headed for the nearest bar, gulped down
a drink, then moved to another bar. Dur-
ing the evening’s alcoholic wanderings,
his unsteady orbit crossed that of an
attractive older girl named Dora Isabel
Bjorn. Overwhelmed by this fast-talking,
good-looking’ youth, Miss- Bjorn was
coaxed into a trip to Reno, and there
they were married.

Rodney’s petty burglary was never dis-

least one night sleeping on the © Salita MENS
sand dunes and came home with Deputy District At ; | Quinn
money he could not recall steal- ihe murder of | Vil O)

ing. What is it the psychiatrists | ‘€ ‘ys

say—a man can kill long before,

he actually commits a murder? Rodney, ,
Greig was building his sordid, tragic
house, and building it fast. When he was
twelve he stole an. automobile and

Not much later he ran away from home.

‘and was found in San Diego, with no —

clear memory of the trip. Within a year
he broke into a stranger's house and stole
a picture—a framed portrait of a nude
woman. Childish curiosity? Probably not.

Alfred Binet concluded long ago that. ,
_ when fetishism exists it can be traced to —
some event in a person’s life, usually in
connection with the ‘awakening ‘of the

sexual life, and as a rule that event’ is:

forgotten, leaving ‘only the result. In his rd
_case it was no temporary compulsion,

when he was sixteen he burglarized a

*

the unpunished boy was ma

to a resort camp on the Russian River in”
orthern California, but he was soon re
turned home because of his “dizzy spel S. 4

“covered but th

a3)

$ a ward of »
_ the Juvenile Court. His mother sent him

re

y

her everlasting g
that her immatu
aah

pares ad
Fk as
eit

{

ingly he was given “a little treatment,”
consisting of a year in the Preston State
Reformatory.

To the amazement of all concerned, he
was a model inmate, studied diligently
and was allowed to go home after eleven
months in custody. But the fatted calf
was soon a tasteless dish, for the prodigal
son had not reformed. He went out night
after night and came home drunk. He
ee pea ae were shooting at him, and he
tried to drink a bottle of chloroform but
his wary father interfered.

One day, in a sullen mood, he appeared
in-a restaurant operated: by his paula
wife and her new husband, Edward Bar-

‘ rett. Dora was so frightened she
had to have medical attention
and Barrett bluntly told Rodney
to beat it.

“If you ever come back here
I'll throw you out myself,” said
Barrett.

“T'll fix you,” Rodney snapped.
“TV cut you both up.”

Some weeks later Rodney
again encountered the _ terri-
fied Dora on Powell street in
San Francisco, and threatened
to use a knife on her. This time
.her harassed husband. rushed
Dora to a country hideout for
safety, and made up his mind to
kill Rodney if the scowling
youth bothered them again. “I
_ just figured it was only a ques-

tion of time before he'd kill
somebody,” said Barrett. “But it
wasn’t going to be my wife!”

In the Greig home there was
despair and fright. :

The onerous youth, now at-
tending a business college, was
disintegrating under his psychic
conflict, ‘and would often clap
his hands over his ears, scream-
ing: “Something inside me is
driving me crazy. I'm blowing
my top.” Lora Greig must have
watched him for many an ago-

Greig never saw it. “Rodney told us of

had no love for me or his father because
we were strangers to him.” —

~The boy had now become a dance hall
sheik, and he was whirling the girls seven

nights a week. Be

_ Mrs. Greig often went along, a little
‘wraith of a bodyguard, wanting to be
near if trouble touched her boy. But Rod-
/ney was never afraid, for under his left
rm pit there was a leather holster, and

) in‘ it was a knife with a six-inch blade.
body will bother me,” he used to say,

I always went when he wanted me to,”
other said, “even if I was dead tired.

e
c i
4

ne night Mrs. Greig went along when
ney took a girl home from a dance.

He saw her stricken eyes as she waited for

wt

an . nizing hour, filled with horror.
at the misery she had spawned, and yet
_she was still a mother, with the compas-
_ sion and. pity of all mothers. But Rodney

his many loves,” she said, “and he said he.

boy went inside the house at mid-
ght, leaving his mother. alone in the
,and did not come out until four am.

an explan:
stony siler
from San
ferry bui
boarding
ney failed
Mrs. Gre
phone ca
and pub!
prise,
home, n
of their
“Tt wa
doctor,” s!
Rod to a
himself o:
But Re
turbed, ar
the boile:
twenty, hi
one wom:
satiable ap
offer. The
shining u
pictures o|
trist could
impotent
force, grew
Nobody
thing exce)
played out
doctor anc
only a cot
He wrot
to a girl
“Thank Gi
in a coup]
bled. “It's
in my case
And th:
Vlught.

Who k:

that murky,
this magni!
to conquer
cracked his
to use her s
attracted t«
sense at fir
taken her «
details avai
Marion De
wanted to ;
ranged, an
December
dance hall,
panion had
his car to
stopped in
then heade
They tal
sequentials-
duel of the
neck, and
handle of
little about
dicitis, she s
“I’ve beer
“Nobody w:
suicide.”
He had t!
he placed J
small holloy
“Suicide?’
got the ner\
She laugh
the knife f)
with the bri

- pretended ¢


“I worked the midnight to eight shift
at the shop and then came up here,”
the youth said. :

After taking his home and business
address, the inspector thanked the pleas-
ant youth for his cooperation and dis-
missed him,

When Westerly left, Jewell instructed
a uniformed patrolman to radio the
youth’s name, home and business ad-
dress to headquarters, requesting that a
check be made.

By this time Deputy Coroner C. A.
Burriston had arrived and was making
a cursory examination of the body prior
to moving it to the city morgue for a
post mortem,

The technical wagon from _head-
quarters had also appeared and its crew,
under the direction of Inspector Duffy,
was busily recording evidence with tape
measures and cameras.

NCE the laboratory team was well
launched into its work, Inspectors
Jewell, Duffy, McDonnell and Worth-
man went into a huddle and began play-
ing the detectives’ inevitable game of
“who, why, when, where and how.”

“If it wasn’t a cult killing,” Jewell
said, “is it a sex murder? If so, it doesn’t
‘look like any sex killing I’ve ever seen.
Usually a degenerate mutilates the body,
or at least leaves it stripped.”

“Not all sex psychos operate that
way,” Worthman said. “I’ve never
bumped into one, but there have been
cases where perverts get their kicks
purely out of killing the object of their
fancy, No sexual contact, no weird
practices, just the brutal act of murder
itself. Maybe the guy, or gal, who did
this one was a character like that.”

“It could be robbery,” Duffy offered.
“We haven’t turned up a handbag. And
whoever heard of a woman dressed to

He was “hotshot” around dancehalls.

the nines like this one who didn’t carry
a handbag? Furthermore, on the well
dressed angle, a girl wearing an outfit
as smart as this one would also be
wearing some sort of jewelry — wrist
watch, string of pearls, costume bracelet,
or something like that. And three, she’d
also be wearing gloves—white gloves,

Evidence indicated she was killed in car, thrown into ditch alongside road.

probably. Just where are these hypo-
thetical gloves, trinkets, handbag? Did
a robber-killer carry them off?”
“Could have been,” Duffy said, “that
a sex killer took them to delay identi-
fication of his victim.” He added, “Well,
anyway our first job is to find out who
she is, And that shouldn’t be so rough.

POLICE DRAGNET

A good-looking expensively dressed
woman like that doesn’t turn up miss-
ing without somebody making a loud
Squawk.”

The inspectors all agreed and walked
together up to the dirt road. There they
watched the technicians photograph and
take plaster of paris casts of the tire
treads in the ruts on the shoulder. .

“The recent rain makes this easy
going,” one of the technicians told
Jewell. “There are footprints around,
too, but they’re too loused up to copy.
Here, I'll show you something.”

He took the inspector to the spot
where the grass swath curved down to
the body in the ditch began. He indi-
cated two French heel prints in the
dirt at the edge of the road. “The per-
son who killed the girl held her body
upright here for a moment before he
dragged it by the armpits down to the
ditch,” the technicians explained.

“That means she was killed in the
car and was dead before she was tossed
into the ditch,” Jewell said. “I had that
hunch right off because there wasn’t
much blood in the field or the ditch.”

Deputy Coroner Burriston, who had
completed his on-the-spot examination
and dispatched the body to the morgue,
stood nearby listening.

“There never was much bleeding in
the first place, Inspector,” he interject-
ed. “I can assure you without waiting
for the autopsy that the girl was killed
by one thrust of a sharp knife and that
thrust penetrated the heart. Which
means the bleeding was largely internal.
She was stabbed, incidentally, through
her suit jacket.”

“What about those perforations form-
ing a perfect triangle?” Jewell asked,

“They puzzle me, too,” the deputy
coroner said. “They're superficial and
were made after death, that’s all I can
say. The fact they didn’t bleed proves
that. They're mere pricks, and why
they were made baffles me.” He smiled.
“But, of course, that’s your problem,
not mine.”

“They weren't made by someone
holding a knife to her throat in an effort
to intimidate her into doing something
she refused to do?” Jewell asked.

“No, that’s not likely,” the deputy
coroner said. “They were made after
death.”

“Then maybe they’re a cult symbol
after all,” Jewell said,

Burriston shrugged, shook hands and
left, promising the inspector a speedy
report on the post mortem.

“Now for the leg work,” Jewell said,
calling over Captain Brown, whose men
had been combing the fields, brush and
roads for several hundred yards in all
directions searching for material leads.

“Nothing’s been turned up yet, not
to mention that knife we all want to
find,” Brown said. “That killer must be
a mighty tidy character.” :

EWELL asked the captain if he’d call
in his patrolmen and have them
start on a house-to-house canvass of the
homes in the district to see if the house-
holders had heard or seen anything

POLICE DRAGNET

Inspectors Lucien Jewell (.) and T. H. Duffy study site where body found.

amiss the night before.

Duffy and O'Donnell told Jewell that
up the dirt road about a half-mile there
was a riding academy and suggested
they take a run up there on the chance
someone had something of significance
to report. The inspector said it was a
good idea and told the two detectives
to report to headquarters at city hall

when they were through. He explained
that Captain Brown was staying on the
scene to receive, and forward, the re-
ports of his bell-ringers. Worthman and
he would go back to the homicide
offices and try to get the wheels mesh-

ing at that end.
At headquarters, Jewell and Worth-
(Continued on page 52)

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the two bodies, then plunged headlong
into the brush with the vague idea of
hiding and finding help at the same
time.

“Had you seen this man before?”
the sheriff asked:

“I didn’t think so at first,” Mrs.

He was with Flint and Jensen at the
Tropics over the weekend.”

“Do you know his name?” McGold-
rick inquired eagerly.

+ “Hank, only Hank. But he’s a mer-
‘chant seaman. He was at school with
Peter.”

After a few more questions the of-
ficers left. “That does it,” Patteson
said jubilantly. “Hank. That’s short
for Henry. Let’s get down to the po-
lice station here and call that
Academy.”

At the Sonoma police department
Sheriff Patteson, McGoldrick, Johan-
sen, and Lawrence studied the list the
deputies had gathered.

“Only two Henrys,” Patteson re-
marked. “That should be easy.” He
picked up the telephone and called the
Alameda number.

“T’d like to talk to or contact Henry
Lord,” he said. “Can you tell me
where I can find him?”

“Sure,” the voice replied. “He’s in
Los Angeles. Just sent a telegram
that he was stuck there and couldn’t
get back for a couple of days.”

“Forget it,’ the sheriff went on.
“How about Henry Guldbrandsen?”

“I can’t help you there,” he was told.
“Guldbrandsen and his roommate
went away for the weekend.”

“Who is his roommate?”

“Flint. Lieutenant Peter Flint.”

“That’s all- I need to know,” the
sheriff replied. “Thank you.”

Patteson held down the contact but-
ton en the telephone, then lifted it.
“Add the name Henry Brun Guld-
brandsen to that all-points bulletin,”
he instructed. “Wanted for murder
and attempted rape. In the mean-
time contact the State Bureau of
Criminal Investigation and see if there
is a record on him.”

Back at his headquarters a short
time later Patteson found detective
Charles Cavagnaro awaiting him with
a report on Guldbrandsen. It re-
vealed that the wanted man had been
released from the Chino State Peni-

having been convicted of stabbing a
friend in San Mateo, California. The
state adult authorities in commenting
on his parole had stated that he pos-
sessed “superior intelligence,” and
was “an excellent risk.”

“That excellent risk didn’t turn out
so_hot,”. Patteson remarked dryly.
“We'd better get our hands on him be-
fore there is another murder.”

FRHOTOGRAPHS of the wanted
man were obtained and distributed

to every newspaper in Northern Cali-

| fornia, accompanied by Guldbrand-
| Sen’s description. A tight net was

drawn across Northern California by
state, county, and city police forces.
Patteson waited tensely in his office.
At seven a.m. the morning of July 5
the report came that Flint’s Buick
convertible had been found deserted
above Ukia, California, on the Red-
wood Highway. The police net tight-
ened, centering on Eureka and roads
leading from highway 101. News-
papers announced that the manhunt,
one of the largest in Northern Cali-
a maa recent history, was near an
end.

GEM FOTOS, P.O. BOX 375-T, DAYTON, OHIO

Paget replied. “But now I remember. °

tentiary a short time before, after.

At the office of the Eureka Times
Ed Newmeier, cub reporter, pursued
the dreary task of writing the day’s
obituaries. Soon he would be through
and could start on his daily column of
personal notes. He reflected bitterly

that a reporter’s life was not what it

was cracked up to be, and paused to
wish he was with the Times’ ace re-

’ porter in the search for Henry Guld-

brandsen.

NeWspapering was a good life for
some people, but not for a cub re-
porter,

“Newmeier!” The harsh voice that
called him belonged to the city editor.

.The young man approached the city
desk. “Yes, sir.’”’. \

“Some crackpot just called. He’s
in a tavern outside of town. Go up
and talk to him. You never can tell
about these things, and besides, it
might be good experience for you.”

As Newmeier drove beyond the out-
skirts of town he noted the tight po-
lice guard that closed the roadway.
Nearby he saw a photographer loung-
ing against the fender of his car. He
sighed and wished he was with him.
There was no hope, he thought, of the
killer’s escaping and it seemed likely
from police reports that he would be
located near Eureka. Spotting the
camera man at the roadblock was a
good idea. He knew that such blocks
existed every few miles.

The tavern was dim and dreary. In
the center of the bar a man dressed in
khaki trousers and a tan shirt played
nervously with his drink. Newmeier
slid on to a stool beside him.

“Did you call the Times?” he in-
quired.

The man nodded. His eyes bore the
wild look of a hunted animal. ‘“That’s
right. Somebody might as well bene-
fit. They’ve got me. Did you see the
roadblock outside Eureka? There’s
one behind too. I could get into the
hills, but what’s the use. I haven’t
got a chance. They’d get me there.”

“Don’t kid me,” Newmeier replied.
“We've had calls from a dozen screw-
balls today, but you beat them all.”

“I. am Henry Guldbrandsen,” the
man insisted.

Newmeier blinked. ‘“Baloney.”

“Well, what do you think of this?”
The man pulled out a stack of papers
and showed them to the reporter.

.They contained Merchant Marine cre-

dentials, a photograph, and driver’s
license in the name of Henry Guld-
brandsen. Newmeier stared at the
papers incredulously, then regained
his composure.

“Don’t say anything else here,” he
said. ‘My car is outside. You come
with me.”

A few minutes later he led Guld-
brandsen into the city room of the
Times. “This is the guy they’re look-
ing for,” he told the city editor.

“You’re crazy too,” the city editor
replied.

Once more the credentials were pro-
duced and the city editor was con-
vinced as Newmeier had been. He
turned to the young reporter. “Well,
don’t just stand there like a dope. Sit
down and write the story.” :

Newmeier retired to his desk and
started to write while the city editor
summoned.a photographer, The copy
was on its way to the.composing room
before the city editor called the police
department. Newmeier smiled. He
had had one of those breaks that
couldn’t happen. It was like a dream.
Then he looked at the dark-haired
man sitting dejectedly by the city

desk. No,
happened.
in a despe
graduated {
porter.

At eight f
tive Charles
son, and De
lar took a di
killer. He al
ders freely,
give any rec
attacked Mr
gists explair

neighbor sai
that he kille
off on the w
that. Mike j

AGE ret
nue bu:
among res}
yielded little
and none abx
who knew h
was a big g
wouldn’t ha
Then, shor
bar more th:
the one at
declared he
Davis, the sh
tion which c
further.

The propr
insisted tha
knew well, |
place. “He
o’clock.”

A puzzled
iff’s face. “Ar

The propri
ly. He was ;
couple other
women. Th:
same time.
counter and
tles of cockt
that.”

Cameron c
both bars at
sure the man
Gage persistec
taken?”

“Absolutely
said emphatic
for a long tir

“Do you kn

“Sure—ever

“Was he in

“No.”

“Do you k:
of the membe

The propri:
wall. “Does
anything to y

“Why?”

The man st}
of the wome
Harry called }
table and H
asked her wh.
He called he:

“Anything |

The proprie
a very attrac
admiringly.
pretty stuck «
I blame him.

Gage nodde


ureka Times
ter, pursued
ng the day’s
d be through
ly column of
ected bitterly
not what it
id paused to
mes’ ace re-
denry Guld-

food life for
ra cub re-

sh voice that
e city editor.
ched the city

‘alled. He’s
wn. Go up
2ver can tell
besides, it
> for you.”
‘ond the out-
he tight po-
he roadway.
ipher loung-
his car. He
is with him.
ought, of the
»emed likely
he would be
spotting the
block was a
such blocks

d dreary. In
n dressed in
shirt played

Newmeier

m.
es?” he in-

yes bore the
ial. “That’s
3 well bene-
you see the
a? There’s
get into the
I haven’t
me there.”
ier replied.
ozen screw-
hem all.”
ndsen,” the

iloney.”’

ik of this?”
k of papers
.e reporter.
Marine cre-
nd driver’s
enry Guld-
red at the
nm regained

e here,” he
You come

» led Guld-
som of the
rey’re look-
jitor.

city editor

is were pro-
r was con-

been. He
ter. “Well.
a dope. Sit

s desk and
city editor

The copy
20sing room
d the police
smiled. He
oreaks that
ke a dream.
dark-haired
yy the city

*

‘

desk... No, it wasn’t. It had really
happened. Ed Newmeier had brought
in a desperate murderer. He had
graduated from the rank of cub re-
porter.

At eight forty-five that night Detec-
tive Charles Cavagnaro, Sheriff Patte-
son, and Deputy Sheriff Robert Dol-
lar took a detailed statement from the
killer. He allegedly admitted the mur-
ders freely, although he refused to
give any reason; but he denied having
attacked Mrs. Paget. Later psycholo-
gists explained that such a denial was

comm in criminals of a particular
ype. ;

Guldbrandsen was arraigned on two
charges of murder and one of ape in
the court of Justice of the Peace L. A.
Fulwider in Santa Rosa on July 8.
He will answer to the charges in the
Sonoma County Superior Court there
soon,

Ep1toR’s Note: To spare possible
embarrassment to.an entirely inno-
cent man, the name Henry Lord in the
foregoing true crime story is fictitious.

DETECTIVE

‘neighbor said, “but if you’re figuring
that he killed a man, Sheriff, you’re
off on the wrong foot. I can tell you
that. Mike just ain’t the type.”

AGE returned to the Euclid Ave-

nue business section. Inquiries
among residents and merchants
yielded little additional information,
and none about Mike Davis. The few
who knew him said only that Davis
was a big good-natured fellow who
wouldn’t harm anyone.

Then, shortly after four p.m., in a
bar more than a mile removed from
the one at which the truck driver
declared he had seen Cameron and
Davis, the sheriff came upon informa-
tion which complicated the case even
further.

The proprietor of the second bar
insisted that Cameron, whom he
knew well, had been drinking at his
place. “He left here around three
o’clock.”

A puzzled frown crossed the sher-
iff’s face. “Are you sure of that time?”

The proprietor nodded. “Absolute-
ly. He was sitting at a table with a
couple other men and a couple of
women. They all left around the
same time. Harry came up to the
counter and bought a couple of bot-
tles of cocktail mixer. I remember
that.”

Cameron could not have een at
both bars at the same time. “You’re
sure the man was Harry Cameron?”
Gage persisted. “You couldn’t be mis-
taken?”

“Absolutely not,” the barkeeper
said emphatically. “I’ve known Harry
for a long time. That was him.”

“Do you know a Mike Davis?”

“Sure—everybody knows Mike.”

faa he in Cameron’s party?”

ae a”

“Do you know the names of any
of the members of Cameron’s party?”

The proprietor stared at the far
wall. “Does the name Sally mean
anything to you?”

“Why?” ai

The man shrugged. “She was one
of the women—I think that’s what
Harry called her. I was serving their
table and Harry leaned. over and
asked her what she wanted to order.
He called her Sally.”

“Anything else about her?”

The proprietor nodded. “She was

a_very attractive woman,” he said.

admiringly. “I think Harry was
pretty stuck on her and I can’t say
I blame him. She was plenty cute!”

Gage nodded. “And the others?”

The Killer

(Continued trom page 17 7)

The proprietor shrugged helplessly.
“Afraid I can’t give you much more
than first names. There was Bob. He’s
a. dark, nice-looking guy. He sat on
one side of Sally and Harry on the
other.”

“Just a second,” Gage. interrupted.
“This Bob—he was with Sally, too?”

WY ELL, he was with Harry and
" Sally. She didn’t pay him
much attention, except when they

.first came in. She seemed to take

a shine to Harry.” The bar man
smiled. “I guess most any girl would
have done the same. .This kid Bob
was pretty high and began makin
quite a bit of noise. I think we woul
have kicked him out if it hadn’t been
for the fact that he was with Harry’s
party. The rest of them were pretty
well behaved.”

“All right. Who else?”

“Well, there was a fellow named
Lou—also a very nice looking guy,
clean cut fellow. He was with an-
other very pretty girl they called
Mary.”

Gage frowned. “Not very unusual
names, are they? And you don’t have

‘any idea of what their full names

were?”

The barkeeper shook his head—
then suddenly checked himself: “I'll
tell you what you could do, but it
would take a lot of work.”

Gage smiled. ‘“We’re used to work
in our business.” —

“Well, the crowd seemed to be
pretty friendly last night. There was
a lot of moving about from one table
to another.”

Gage nodded. “All right. Give me
the names of all the customers you
can remember. If I can get any last
names out of them, it will be worth
as much work as we put into it.”

Half an hour later, the sheriff re-
turned to the Wickliffe police station

.with a list of more than twenty names

and addresses. Acting Chief Marsh
immediately assigned men to start
making the calls.

Then he turned over to Gage a full
report from Cleveland technicians.*,
Fingerprints, none of which could be
found jin criminal files, had been
taken from the cocktail glasses. One
set definitely belonged to Harry Cam-
eron. Two glasses, those tipped with
lipstick, bore the prints of women.
The remaining two sets, unidentified,
were made by male hands.

From the office of David Cowles,
Cleveland’s nationally famous ballis-

tics expert, came the report that the

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SC RENE AOS Se ee ae

GULDBRANDSEN, Henry,

ee ee

DETECTIVE WO

t

RLD, December,

RI:


Alleged double slayer and rapist: he phoned a local
newspaper and told them ‘to send a reporter, that he

had a story that s

hould interest a great many readers.

By
Jay Hilton

RE were three nudes in the cabin
on the mountain top that holiday
morning. Two were dead.

The third was a young woman, her
youthful beauty marred by tears and re-
membered horror as she struggled hys-
terically to free herself from the bindings
that cut into her naked flesh and tied her
fast to the tree trunk.

Far below in the valley. a green con-
vertible Buick merged with the traffic
streaming out from the cities, seeking
the ccolness and quiet of the country.

All of our land was a day of celebration
—the Fourth of July of 1949,

Both the characters and setting of the
macabre drama that took place that placid
holiday morning were strangely, almost
inexplicably, exotic.

There was the remcte cabin itself,
perched on a mountain top overlooking the
legendary Valley of the Moon, the hide-
away paradise that had been the final
monument to the genius of the magic
stcry-teller Jack London.

From the outside, the cabin appeared
no more than a simple rustic dwelling.
Inside, however, were rich Oriental hang-
ings and fyrnishings and the heavy scent
of incense.

There was the same aif of mystery
about the elderly owner of the strange
cabin, Peter J. Jensen. In his mid-fifties,
Jensen was head gardner at Scnoma state
home—a mental institution near the Val-
ley cf the Moon. But that did not quite
explain his exotically furnished, lonely
cabin home—or his friendship with young
officers from the Maritime Academy at
Alameda.

It didn’t explain the motives for mur-
der.

OVELY Ursula Tourne, vacationing

in nearby Londonside with her two
small children, had no idea of the horror
impending when the young man called
Hank stopped by for her that holiday
morning. She had met him the previous
Saturday night, when Peter Flint, an old
friend of hers from Berkeley, had intro-
duced them, explaining that Hank had
been his roommate at the Martime
Academy.

They had gone drinking and dancing
that night, a pleasantly innocent holiday
interlude.

Now, early in the morning, Hank was
calling for her, telling her she was needed
at the cabin.

“It's Pete,’ he explained. ‘‘He had a

17


tity. He ad-
death weapon
red the bullet
sut he claimed
the dark-eyed
‘action for him
» the city, al-
\egree murder

<plain how his
‘moved or why
vere turned in-
lis arrest both
cted for first-
y by a Harris
this is written
{ trial early in

nd the accused
id held “court”
headlights. The
ig still held in
cools down at
riff Clark.
eetings of citi-
re. And when
y arraigned in
to take elabor-
moh violence.:
police and

ich Stroble.
take care
warned District

ol more than
doctors, police
ity councilmen,
others tell what
sex criminals.
sychiatrist, said, |
lost individuals
to society and
The sex psycho-
‘-d for life.”

ons were among
ily cried, “Kill

Angeles were
nysteria and de-
shments for sex
aul Gutierrez, a
r near Fresno,
and smoking a
‘ing in the same
osephine Yanez,
sleep in the car

m the car when
the bar. The
ud, of an irriga-
nd Paul Gutier-
me. He had to
ning mobs.
ired public hys-
ific Coast area.
ns were joined
here in holding
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desto, California, Assemblyman
Brown, chairman of the Assembly's in-
terim committee on judicial procedure,
called a hurried meeting of his committee.
It drew up proposals including one making
sex crimes a capital crime and another
asking the United States Congress to con-
sider-sex crimes in the same class as kid-
naping and to enact laws of the Lind-
bergh type.

Public officials rushed to obtain stricter
enforcement of present laws. State At-
torney General Fred Howser sent out bul-
letins to all law enforcement agencies call-
ing for the enforcement of laws on sex
crimes. Chief of Police W. A. Worton of
Los Angeles ordered his department to
make sex crimes “top business.” As a re-
sult of this activity, four and five suspects
per day were being arrested, booked and
held.

CTUALLY, the Problem of the sex
criminal isn’t new, although some au-
thorities point out that it's

larger all the time. This is in part due to

the fact that our population is growing all
the time.

Unfortunately, we've accomplished little

toward the solution of the problem. We've |
| heaped much punishment on the

sex
offender in the past: but thus far punish-
ment has done nothing to change the sit-
uation. Citizens who are demanding that
sex crimes be
to forget that

field and Paul Gutierrez each face the

death penalty. The fear of a death penal-

ty didn’t deter them.

Under our legal concepts a sex crime |

is considered the same as a crime against
Property. We assume that a man steals

by his own choice and therefore is fully ,

responsible for his act. And legally we
also assume that a man’s sex behavior is
fully his own choice, and he therefore is
responsible for it.

Not too many years ago we made this
same assumption about the mentally de-
ficient, and we punished an insane person
for his acts the same as the sane. We
have now to some degree-taken the ins:ne
person out of the general classification and
have established special institutions ty
confine and treat him. We don’t confine
him for 30 days or 30 years. We institu-
tionalize him until he
normal.

Certainly, not all types of insanity are

tecognized by law. The legal definition |

of insanity—“know the difference between
right and wrong”—doesn't coincide very
closely with the medical definition. The
sex criminal isn't legally insane, nor is
he usually medically insane. However, he
is suffering from a perverted compulsion
over which he has little or no control.

Municipal Judge Harold W. Schweitzer
of Los Angeles, amid the hue and cry for
more laws and death penalties, made this
sobering statement. “It is generally con-
ceded by medical authorities, and I be-
lieve our judges concur, that sex criminals
are mentally ill and that psychiatric treat-
ment in most cases is needed.

“Jail terms don't help. If anything, such
confinement increases the number of
crimes because the defendants are seg-
regated with other sex criminals, thus ag-
gravating their condition and making the
defendants more of a menace than ever
upon release.

“Sex criminals should be confined to
State hospitals, under proper -medical
supervision. They shouldn't be released
until medical authorities certify that they
are cured.”

There are some sex criminals we can't
cure because we don't as yet know enough
about abnormal sex behaviors, But the

.

Ralph

getting ,

punishable by death seem |
Fred Stroble, Niel Butter- |

is judged to be

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three months after Arne Enholm went
ashore to look for adventure with cards,
Seber’s theory was sustained, That night
Patrolmen C. M. Gilbert and F, E. Lang-
horn, dressed in plain clothes, were as-
signed to watch the movements of Joseph-
ine Martinez.

At 8:30 they saw the girl leave her
grandmother’s home on Earl Street. They
followed her to the center of the city,
where she took a taxi to the 1400 block
on Hardy Street. She walked to a shaded
part of the tree-lined thoroughfare.

The girl waited alone for ten minutes.
Finally, another cab pulled up and a
heavy-set man got out. The man was
Frank C. Valadez, the one-time caddie.

Valadez was taken into custody without
trouble. At the police station an hour

later he udmitted his identity. He ad-
mitted having borrowed the death weapon
from Mireles and having fired the bullet
that killed Arne Enholm. But he claimed
it was all in defense of the dark-eyed
beauty who held such an attraction for him
that he risked, returning to the city, al-
though he knew a first-degree murder
charge awaited him.

Valadez was unable to explain how his
victim's shoe's came to be removed or why
Enholm’s trousers pockets were turned in-
side out. The week after his arrest both
he and the girl were indicted for first-
degree murder and robbery by a Harris
County Grand Jury. As this is written
they are scheduled to stand trial early in
1950.

THe END

SEX CRIMES: A NATIONAL THREAT

(Continued from page 4)

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his men, who were at the moment ques-
tioning the “hottest suspect” they had had
in the February, 1946, sex-murder of
Rochelle Gluskoter, also six, quit to join
in the hunt for a new killer in a new
child murder.

The police were certain from the be-
ginning that Fred Stroble was the killer.
Police records showed that in 1941 he had
been arrested and questioned in Honolulu
for molesting a nine-year-old girl. In
April, 1949, just six months before, he
had been arrested in the Highland Park
district of Los Angeles for molesting
children. He had jumped his $500 bail
and tled to Mexico. He was still wanted
on that charge.

Stroble was spotted two days later as
he walked across Pershing Square, a park
in the heart of downtown Los Angeles.
Martin Miller, a towel delivery man, saw
him and followed him into a bar. Miller
called a police officer. Stroble made no
effort to resist or to deny his identity.

The prisoner was safely lodged in jail
before any public announcement was
made. Officials feared that angry citi-
zens, their emotions whipped to a near-
hysteria by publicity, might mob and
lynch the frightened old man.

District Attorney William E. Simpson
refused to permit officers to take Stroble
to the scene for re-enactment of the crime.

“Keep this man away from people,” he
‘instructed. “There might be mob vio-
lence.”

T the same time Sheriff Jesse Carlton
A of Twin Falls, Idaho, and Sheriff Saul

H. Clark of Burley were fearing mob
violence. Neil Butterfield, a 16-year-old
high school athlete and “hot-rodder” had
just been captured and had confessed to
the slaying of Glenda Joyce Brisbois,
seven years old. Both sheriffs were afraid
to take young Butterfield from Twin
Falls, where he was arrested, to Burley,
where the crime had occurred, for formal
arraignment.

Judge Henry W. Tucker was also afraid.

He met the two sheriffs and the accused
in an open field at night and held “court”
by the light of automobile headlights. The
high school suspect is being still held in
Twin Falls “until feeling cools down at
Burley,” according to Sheriff Clark.

in Los Angeles mass meetings of citi-
zens sprang up everywhere. And when
Fred Stroble was formally arraigned in
court Sheriff Biscailuz had to take elabor-
ate precautions against mob violence.:
Telephone calls came in to police and
other officials threatening to lynch Stroble.
“We're coming down there to take care
of that guy,” one voice warned District
Attorney Simpson.

At. Fairfax High School more than
2,000 citizens met to hear doctors, police
officials, state senators, city councilmen,

- PTA officers and many others tell what

they wanted done with sex criminals.

Doctor J. M. Nielson, a psychiatrist, said, .

“Sexual psychopaths are lost individuals
as far as their usefulnesS to society and
recovery are concerned. The sex psycho-
path should be incarcerated for life.”

Nielson’s recommendations were among
the mildest. Many openly cried, “Kill
‘em!”

While citizens in Los Angeles were
riding the wave of rising hysteria and de-
manding all sorts of punishments for sex
criminals of all classes, Paul Gutierrez, a
25-year-old cotton picker near Fresno,
California, was drinking and smoking a
marijuana cigarette. Drinking in the same
bar were the parents of Josephine Yanez,
17 months old, who was asleep in the car
outside.

The baby was gone from the car when
the parents came out of the bar. The
body was found in the mud, of an irriga-
tion ditch the next day, and Paul Gutier-
rez later confessed the crime. He had to
be protected from threatening mobs.

The three sex-slayings fired public hys-
teria throughout the Pacific Coast area.
Parent Teacher Associations were joined
by Women’s Clubs everywhere in holding
meetings and drafting demands. In Mo-

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farm employment: {ror
Sito. Novem

“and sérvice!: ctivitios
usually?! eras : ati! fat

Air: Official: Diets hits
i SANTA: MONICA ‘Dec: oy ee be
‘AP=John Douglass! (MacGregor,
74;; for. many. ‘years. wvicé. presi-
dent: of | Pan): \AmericanGrace

th a
xi eles rain’ itoruestone night:

ou be eee

defense: “Pro:

4But the. Ibureati also: ‘Feported :
sinon: farm employment:

“fl

7 .
bers was’ phot
a largely. to: ‘women taking jobs" in}
- trade’:

ar ; “which:
: ume of the yeary

Alrways, ieee yesterdays % wetHa

| donttdued: From]
ripe ‘at. Big>iCreek, and, a

down ‘the: coursesof Biz Creek. =
; Reports: from* the. Pacific” Gas
and .Flectric ’ Company \

Kerckhoff: Powerhouses).53? Kern
Canyon: \,20,./and). : Tule: (Head-|*

works J
aerate (Be. kaatsorial
hat OF, raini is. provided« in|:
two: developments; Metestoleg ist
A. Axi Lothman: saids One isya
new: storm #>)..2.10 the. northwest
anda dest: apInE storm: center
‘westvof San Dit go, eit
The: new: trontt ethroancre
ported: seems to: be déveloping
off.the’ Oregon-Washington coast
‘from: cold- air which swept south-
a ward: over’ thé ‘ocean last night./?
» tIt' isi expected: to:bring’ the ‘show-
ers: to :this: area; tonight and ‘to
causelower ;t tures ir the
"San: Joaquin” Valley” and <snow
farther; dowir; the;;slopes* of: the

Sierras, 6° 3% inl iy
, The: new-storm center) ote ae

yr

a.short distance yesterday, Loth-;

=| progress: toward the coast and ito
se the: possibility: of -addi-

day. 4
thman forecast
peratures) today of: 56° and 62
"Fresno = about.\60,2 °°)
.{Fresno’s -1:30 PM ‘temperature
midity. was Dele

-Not:- much ‘change’ ‘in: tempers.
tures is,ahead for tomorrow,\;

‘The: maximum: ‘tomperature In
Freand “yesterday was-58 degrees,
three. below. the normal; of
put. the minimumsthis« Meron
pa 44-was- — abote:the 35: de?

a aA

a ed te

SF's Gee

EP s+ ‘Saree \

Sikes pet aire est’. chinese com:
tunity outside the:Onient, ‘fears!

the: interventidn\.of£: the ‘Chinese

Commiunists-in: No:

lia eurplenaanihy Maccehir re tre

“Thfluential Chin leaders. ‘are
ticenti about discussing, the sub-

Some: shopkeeperx and;Tes-
urant owners: cautiously) admit!”
ey/had-noted:signs of ‘‘resent-|nev,
ent’ on'the part:of Caucasians.
} Albert’ Chow; unofficial: smayor
of: Chinatown, said‘ the pow fu!
ix! "Companies; which’ govern\af-

ayigiaes a Rope fo! avoid. ‘thelt
Mikod and* iil! ‘feeling)'which* Jed
to: ‘relocation, of*. Japaneses: and
Japanesd-Ammericaris) a Be Pearl

same amounts: for, other: atationd

include; ”
Bass... Lake =":7330 Wishon?: and:

Diego’ moved’ northeastwatdionly :

4man said; but it will continue: to!

84 r0

a! may. bring ber.

irs iof{ the: community met; tl 5}
* jweek. to discuss how, CHinese‘h

aly In San: Quentin.

z Continuéd From Page: LA

finteess the ‘spot. where the. child's:

body.) was.folmad) furnished <dt-.o
ficers: with the tloes which Jed to, ~°
the arrest/of the slayer.” a

The® ribbedimpression of* a
sleeve of the jatket was) found ‘at
the murder.seenc, It matched the
sleeve ofia Jacket whieh Officers
found sin > the? aor oe "where
Gutierrez: lived,'.

“Deputy Sherif Hubert Nevins 4
and District ‘Attorney. E.o Clarkes"
Savory) then’ assistant district’ at-
torney, arrested ! Gutierrez inal
cotton: field neat Huron: noe penn
ie The: huntifor’ Gutierrez was
started after: the nude body of
his:}37. month! old victim?! “was

Huron dance! hall?”
|) Her parents told ‘officers they
parked: in’ front of! the: hall. and
took turns tending: Josephine and
her 2. ¥ear'od: sister, Gloria. |

and‘ went ‘into’ the’ dancehall to:
@SK her Sister, Susie ‘Montoya, if
she: was ready to leave.

turn, Yanez! heft \ the! -vounger ’
child in (the ‘cat and went into
the tdance* hall ‘to ‘seek his wife,
!He:-said®heiwis ‘absent: forionly

OF a few minutes: When.thé*parents /
jreturnest the 17 month Ont, a

mash 62yenune was gone,

|

8 56. “The Percentages ot. hu-}

An immediate:  peatch: was.
Jaunched), During: the hunt’ the> .
child's’ mother passed within ja 4
few fect of the spot where the
| body: eventually’ was found, but
jshe tatled to see. it in the Beck: ie
inesse
It was Rlacowered tate the: tole:
lowing afternoon in a muddy ee
row. in the'fieltt. *

Pleads: Nof Guilty}

SGutlerres: WAS arraigned: De.

hea bet! 5th before Superior Judge

‘

*
&

ss} Arthur’ C. Shepard. llelentered a: s

plea of not Guilty and not: guilty
hil reason of insagity and went:
jon trial before’ a erawded court:
Lirvom) December “2pth3;

 Gulterréz hdd “waived a’ jury

‘42° [thateand (Judge Shepard -found

him guilty of first degree? mur-,
dat 10. minttes*after: the defense
ted its-case the next day, Thée

sentenced. to: die” ity-the can ‘cham: *
‘The conleed slay: er’ $ spent, to: oe.

jected * August!) 11th | and® Judge ">",
‘Shepard set: today’ as phe date of:
Gutierre?/kexecution.:’ ae
{ Gutierréez)* ‘through. his* attor.
+Ermeést *!Spagnoli *'of) San -
Francisco, moved» to’! set “aside | +
the *rdeath’ penalty judgment but?”
it’ ‘was, denied. ‘An‘appeal to Gov-
ernor’ Eart?Warren’ to: have the
sentences commuted: likewise’: was
pened rt Sta Yin
‘ Gutierrez? last: “attempt. to: save
his” iitfe = failed. yestérday. ‘when,

4
4 2
t ROT. *

Ju ges Shepard did not-commt
a jadicial error when’ he' delayed

the) |\slayer’s, sentencing until
} afafter hristmas Day last year.

found in a field‘in. the rear: , thei”

Mrs.’ Yanez took’ thei older: girl)

When ‘Mrs.-Yanez failed’to res.

“year: Old* cotton picker was,”

the state: supreme court was: re: |<.

» states supreme?’court ruled

‘ ra | ry
TN he a te ede Ned dd g the Ake Ldebe ald g

By NORMAN NEWMAN

N MONDAY afternoon, Ndvem-
ber 14, 1949, pretty, six-year-old
Linda Joyce Glucoft was playing
in the quiet neighborhood of the
1900 block of South Crescent Heights
Boulevard in Los Angeles. At 5:30,
when it started to get dark, her mother
called her.
When Linda didn’t answer immedi-
ately, Mrs. Glucoft went across the
street to the Hausman residence, where

¢ A NATIONAL
THREAT

HELD ON SEX CHARGE—
Paul Gutierrez behind bars in California.

Linda often played with Rochelle, six,
and Freddie, twelve. But the children
hadn’t seen Linda. In fact, no one had
seen Linda. The child had vanished.
Linda’s body, half-wrapped in a
bright-colored Mexican serape, was
found next day in the backyard of the
Hausman home. There was a necktie
knotted around her neck, and she had
been unbelieveably mutilated with an
axe, a butcher knife and an ice pick.

Some of her clothing was found stuffed
in a nearby incinerator.

Missing from the Hausman household
was 67-year-old Fred Stroble, Mrs.
Hausman’s father, who lived with them
off and on.

Almost immediately one of the most
intense manhunts in the history of Cali-
fornia was launched for the pleasant
old man known as “Grandpop” along
the block. Deputy Chief of Police Thad
Brown recessed a Police Trial Board
on which he was sitting to personally
direct the search. Sheriff Eugene W.
Biscailuz and (Continued on page 86)

.

DON'T BE
SKIN

AVE
admir:
lovely, soft, »
Almost eve
itself beauty.
stars must g
looks at your
because a lov
pleasure is w:
to be healthy
Medical sc
specks of du
in ‘the air ¢
pore to beco
ceptible to d:
open pores |
which becom
the misery «
blemishes.
skin by not
care it requ
wide open fc
When you |
smooth, . whi
more confide:
your person:
prove your er
skin is pric
only a few
normal, nat
Many wome:
suspect that
a glamorous
nary one m
blackheads ar

The prope:

ble Viderm
difference bc
fidence a fir


senses to find that the car was speeding on and on; he real-
i that they must have passed through several smaller
=. and hours after the ride had st
noises, he surmised that he was passing through Portland,
Oregon, 250 miles from where he had been captured.

He pushed his back against the turtle top of the rumble
seat. but soon discovered that this was a

was securely locked.

On and on, through the night, the car sped, stopping oc-

casionally for gas: somewhere south
oi Portland the car halted; Ballinger
\vas lifted from the rumble seat of the
old coupe and transferred to the rum-
ble compartment of another car; then
the flight continued.

Ir was almost daybreak when the
rumble was opened again and Bal-
linger was shaken into consciousness
by “Scar-Face.”

“Get out of there, copper!” com-
manded the bandit, and Ballinger,
noting that he was somewhere in the
mountain country, believed he had
reached the end of the ride at last.

The tall, blond Manning had dropped
irom the car somewhere during the
night: Ballinger and “Scar-Face” were
now alone—there was to be no witness
to whatever was about to happen.

E Oh coinc!” snarled “Scar-Face,”
pointing up the mountain-side,
and Ballinger, still manacled, started
along a muddy, narrow road toward a
clump of alders, a pistol prodding his
ribs.

\Vhen they reached the alder grove
the bandit threw the handcuff keys to
the agent and bade him unlock one
wrist and back up to a designated
sapling.

Ballinger thought he was being
forced to assist at his own execution.

Then “Scar-Face” spoke, not un-
kindly.

“If you do as I say Pll maybe give
you a break,” he said. “T promised
\{anning to bump you off, but I wanted
to do it in my own way, and I didn’t
want anybody to see it. That was just
my idea to get you away from him—I
don’t go in for the heavy stuff. You
are sure you won't take that grand and
forget it all?”

Ballinger made no reply, but picking the keys from the
eround, he unlocked one cuff, then backed up to the tree.
In spite of what “Scar-Face” had said the agent was still
doubtful that his life was to be spared, but he had become
resigned, for he was far too weak to offer any sort of re-

sistance.

Faced with sudden death from the bandit gun, he knew
also that he might starve to death in this secluded spot if
he was not soon found; that, however, was a chance he

elected to take. if not shot down!

But “Scar-Face” evidently meant all that he had said,
for after the handcuffs had been fastene

arted, from the city

vain attempt, as it

over he repeated the numbers until he was certain he had
them fixed in his mind; he hoped to see that car again some
day, under different circumstances.

It was almost noon before Harry Oller, a mountain
rancher, heard Ballinger’s cries for help, his voice rapidly
decreasing and becoming so hoarse that in another hour he
would not have been able to utter a sound.

“Where am 1?” asked Ballinger as the rancher and his

The Slug Nickel
Killers

"Calling car eleven . . . Station
KGPA Seattle Police . . . call-
ing car number eleven . - . bur-
glars in the Elk Tavern at 9014
Roosevelt Way... proceed
with caution as burglars are
still in the building .. . car num-
ber eleven... here are the di-
rections again . . . proceed to
_..!! Those commanding words
were like a funeral dirge for the
tense listeners in that prowl
car. But they were willing and
anxious to do their duty—even
unto death. "Maybe it's the
gang we've been after for the
last couple of months," ven-
tured Patrolman Sickles. His
partner nodded grimly as he
nosed the car toward their ren-
dezvous with—death! The of-
ficers heard a shotgun roar.
Patrolman Stevens slid to the
floor, his convulsing fingers im-
otently pressing the trigger of
fis own shotgun, but it was too
late. Another blast and Sickles
“whee face forward across the
ody of his dying partner.
Where did these murderous
shots come from? Who were
the yellow, cowardly killers?
The exciting answers will be
found exclusively in March

REAL DETECTIVE

d behind Ballinger’s

discovered they h

wife approached the tree.

“You are in the Siskiyou Mountains
of Northern California,” answered
Oller. “About seven miles from the
line, and just a short distance from the
city of Hornbrook—I'll get an axe and
chop down that alder.”

Soon Oller returned and cut down
the little tree, after which he took the
worn-out agent to his ranch home and
gave him break fast. Mrs. Oller, in the
meantime, skilfully opened the hand-
cuffs with a hairpin.

Hot coffee and food soon restored
Ballinger’s strength, and within an
hour after his release he was engaged
in a telephone conversation with In-
spector Samuel W. Lewis, of the Cus-
tom Service, in Seattle, telling him the
almost unbelievable story of the kid-
naping and narrow escape from death.

“Talk to no one.” ordered Lewis.
“Be sure to keep this away from the
papers and come right on home!”

Ae B. E. Bowling,
of the Federal Bureau of Inves-
tigation, in Seattle, was immediately
notified by Lewis of the strange oc-
currence; a kidnaping meant action
for the “G-Men,” as well as the
“T-Men” (Treasury Department
Sleuths).

Word was immediately flashed along
the Coast for all officers to be on the
lookout for a blue roadster bearing the
California license number which Bal-
linger had so diligently memorized.

The license numbers of the original
kidnap car were also known, since
these had been spotted when the car
crossed the line at Elaine, some hours
before Ballinger had so disastrously
encountered it.

Tracing these plates the “T-Men”

ad originally been issued to a road-house
musician who had later sold the car to a bootlegger named
“Blackie” Johns.

But “Blackie,” it was found, had turned the coupe in on
a new one, and it was not until Ballinger had arrived in
Seattle by plane from California, that the Feds began to get

some trace of the driver of the kidnap car in connection

with this old coupe.

The officers learned that a tall, blond young man, who
{ Manning, had been very anxious to get
f the new Ford V-8s, just then coming on

gave the name o
one of the first o
the market. While awaiting delivery of the new model, the

back and around the tree, he removed the gag and gave the
agent a big drink of milk; then he got into his car and
drove away. :

Ballinger carefully noted the license numbers on the Cali-
fornia car before it disappeared in the distance; over and

1s

automobile firm had supplied Manning with an old coupe on
which they put the plates taken from “Blackie’s” car.

And, curiously, on the very day that the intense hunt for
the kidnapers began, March 9, 1933, a young woman had
turned the kidnap car back to the dealers; there it was, stored
in the Seattle garage.

Ma
and ¢
to ha
it pos

An
“mug
of In

HScai
cuffed
"Se
other
welt <
that h
The
was |
By
Firs
came
receiv:

“TH
ON
OF

No
ing tl
that tl
only
that J

It S¢
his es
murde

again

ling,
lnves-
ediately

ve .OC-

action
s thag
riment

“TT Men”

vad-house

cl. the

soupe on

In exchange, the voung woman had Here's an unholy triumvirate whose nefarious
taken delivery of the new Ford, pay- activities will no more prey on Society. George

ing cash tor the difference in Canadian ie! AER aol 3
bills. :

(right), bank bandit and

Descriptions of the new car, as well
as that of the California car, with
license numbers of both, were immediately broadcast over
the Pacific Coast. The manhunt was on!

B° WHICH WAY HAD the smuggler-kidnapers fled? It

seemed reasonable to believe that they had definitely
separated, and that Manning had doubled back to Seattle to
get the new car after Ballinger had been transferred to the
California car below Portland.

Manning, through the use of that name by “Scar-Face,”
and the connection with the automobile purchase, was likely
to have used that name while residing in Seattle; that made
it possible to try and pick up his back trail.

And, within an hour after he had started through the
“mug” book of Narcotic Aét violators in the Federal Bureau
of Investigation in Seattle, Agent Ballinger had picked out
“Sear-Face” and identified him as the man who had hand-
cuffed him to the tree in the Siskiyous,

“Scar-Face” was, in reality, Joseph E. Clark, and among
other things the description on his card mentioned a livid
welt about the size of a cigarette butt on his forehead, and
that he had gray, protruding eves.

There was no mistaking the identification; “Scar-Face”
was Joe Clark. and he was an old offender.

By teletype and radio this information was now spread.

First word of the possible whereabouts of the kidnapers
came from the Post-Intelligencer, a Seattle morning daily,
received the following terse telegram from Los Angeles:

“THE KIDNAPED MAN HANDCUFFED TO TREE
ON HILL ONE QUARTER MILE NORTHEAST
OF YREKA FRUIT INSPECTIONSHIP HURRY.”

No signature was attached to the telegram and, consider-
ing the fact that it had been sent from Los Angeles, and
that the new Ford had been delivered to the woman in Seattle
only on the previous afternoon, it seemed almost certain
that Joe Clark and Manning had separated.

It seemed also that though Joe Clark desired time to make
his escape, he wanted to be equally sure that the crime of

murdering a Government Agent was not to be charged
against him.

The burning question of what had

Setk sibber: Ucah eoe, become of the new Ford gave promise

lawyer, and Izzy Fenton of an answer shortly before nightfall

a thoroughly bad actor, Of March tenth, when the Oregon

State Patrol reported to Sheriff An-

drew Calkins, of Yreka, California.

that a car answering the description of the one sought, with-

out license plates, had just crossed the State line. refusing
to halt for inspection.

“That might be the kidnapers’ car,” said Patrolman
Stephen S. Kent, of the California State Police, as he stood
in Lester Quigley’s garage in Yreka, and heard Sheriff
Calkins’ message over the telephone.

Minor repairs had just been completed by Quigley on
Kent’s car, and in a few moments both men were speeding
along the highway toward the upper reaches of the Siski-
yous; two miles north of the city they met Sheriff Calkins
and his son Charles, a deputy sheriff.

Driving on to a point where they would be able to wave
down an approaching car, the four men pulled up beside the
road and waited for the unlicensed Ford to appear. They
smoked and chatted as they waited, and Sheriff Calkins
handed his son a revolver when he learned that the shotgun
which the young man carried, was loaded only with No. 10
birdshot.

“You'll need something heavier than that, son, to stop this
fellow, if it is the man we think it is,” said the sheriff. “Or
I miss my guess.”

HERIFF CALKINS HAD hardly finished his advice to his son
S when, out of the oncoming night like a demon in flight,
a car roared by the foursome beside the road.

Sheriff Calkins’ call to “Halt!” was useless and, if the
driver of the car heard it, he certainly had no intention to
heed it.

Jumping into their cars the officers gave chase, Kent and
Quigley leading, the sheriff and his son following close be-
hind.

Down the grade and through the outskirts of the city with
sirens screaming, the police cars followed the careening Ford
without license plates. Down Main Street the three cars
hurtled and, finally, in the hope that he might shake off his
pursuers, the driver of the Ford turned into a side strect,
only to draw squarely up against a dead-end from which
there was no escape.

Brakes screeched and leather (Continued on page 70)

}o

e

pec

d there was

had picked
1 unnoticed
en sneaked

Ballinger’s

ad seen.

mean leer

ses, he struck

he continued

se until the

“ace,” speak-

ider what it
s a Govern-

bump one ot

untry after us.”

jueried Manning,

We can’t leave
» much, or he

then tollowed a

atter which
{ seen and

ider. “Tf you

vou here, and
ry you tell.”
“You bet-
e beat this time,

up with you.
you know
ry long your-

Ballinger felt he was talking for his very life.

“We better bump him,” said Manning, drawing his gun,
but “Sear-Face” laid a restraining hand on his companion’s
arm,

Te THREE MEN WERE but a few feet off the highway with

only the two cars to screen their movements from the
almost constant stream of passing automobiles, and “Sear-
Face” advanced this as an argument against murder; he
said they were sure to be recognized, and soon apprehended
if they killed the handcuffed officer,

Then they sat down on the runningboard of the Ballinger
¢ar to talk things over.

“I’ve got an idea,” said “Scar-Face,” finally. But before
he could explain it to his partner a car came to a stop beside
the road; standing behind the car the bandits tightened grips
on their guns,

“Looking this property over,” said the pudgy gentleman
who alighted from the shiny car and started toward the
desperadoes. “I’m the agent—it’s nice property—” then he
stopped abruptly in the middle of a sentence as he noticed
the handcuffed Ballinger,

“What's—what’s the matter?” the
dealer gasped.

“We're Government men,” answered “Scar-Face,” ab-
ruptly. “We just picked up this rum-runner and have been
trying to locate his cache. We can take care of him. Move
on—we don’t want a lot of curious people stopping here.”

All this time, behind the car out of sight of the real estate

amazed real estate

Te esac

on“
x

Sheriff Anarew Calkins (above) finally
cowed the gunman in a battle that took
the lives of Stephen S. Kent (right), pa-
trolman, and Lester Quigley. The killer
was a snarling, ferocious rat when taken in
tow, but as he neared the gallows he
showed his true colors—yellow, cowardly
begging for mercy; the mercy he never
felt for the men whose lives he cut short.

Custom Agent Ballinger was tied to a tree on the knoll beside the

road, indicated by cross. Weak from his ordeal and the beating he
received from a tough bandit, the agent was rescued from almost
certain death by a couple who heard his low cries for help,

agent, the barrel of an automatic was pressing hard against
Ballinger’s ribs. He dared not cry out, and the agent was
far too frightened to catch any minor appeal, or sign that
might have been intended for his interpretation.

The man got into his car and drove away, but that inter-
ruption at least served to convince both desperadoes that
murder along the highway was impossible of successful ac-
complishment.

Opening the rumble seat of the
coupe, the desperadoes now put into
execution the first step of
Face's” plan, when they stuffed Bal-
linger into the small compartment,
after gagging him so that he could
make no outcry.

3 tervenee THE AGENT'S mind as
the car now sped away at a ter-
rific speed there ran but one thought:
He was being taken for a one way
ride! The murder had merely been
postponed; he had not the slightest
doubt that the men in the front of the
car meant to stop in some secluded
spot and put a bullet through his
heart or brain, but weakened by the
brutal beating and the loss of blood,
Ballinger finally lapsed into a merci-
ful coma as the car bumped and
bounced around the curves or struck
rough spots in the highway,

From time to time he regained his

“Scar-

17


Ph

Shea hurried to the hospital and secured
permission to see the man. Instantly, the
Scituate realtor recognized Cullen. He re-
vealed his sensational discovery to the
Miami police and also telephoned the news
as a “scoop” to Fred H. Thompson, the
co-author of this inside story, who was
then a reporter for the Boston Post and
had been handling the case for that news-
paper. ?

L. ‘O. Scarboro, chief of detectives of
the Miami police, advised of the situation,
made a quick investigation that confirmed
the identification and sent a telegram which
corroborated the news already confided to
me by the Boston Post reporter, in advance
of publication. :

Armed with requisition papers signed by
the Governor of Massachusetts, and ac-
companied by Detective-Lieutenant Brouil-
lard of the State police, I was soon on the
way to Florida. For a few days, reports
from the Miami hospital made it seem
doubtful that we would ever return with
our suspect. But Cullen regained con-
sciousness and the doctors declared he
would recover.

Ae soon AS CULLEN was found, the
question arose—did he really kill his
bride, before whom he had posed as a
devoted husband, or was he a man falsely
trapped by circumstantial evidence? The
latter was altogether possible; any police
officer of long experience can recall cases
in which he has had “the goods” on a sus-
pect, only to have him proved completely
innocent.

Well, in this case the matter was set-
tled even before I arrived at Miami. Cul-
len confessed!

He admitted to the Miami detectives that
he had shot and killed his bride and fled
south on a steamer, just as I guessed.

But by the time Lieutenant Brouillard
and I got around to questioning him, he
had changed his tune. Stronger than when
he was first questioned, he refused to re-
peat his confession. Naturally, we were

ORDEAL OF THE SHACKLED CUSTOMS AGENT

scorched. Quigley, at the wheel of the
State Patrol car, planted the machine di-
rectly across the street intersection, and
with their car, Sheriff Calkins blocked
most of the balance of the roadway.

Sheriff Calkins leaped from his car just
as Patrolman Kent advanced on the Ford.
Quigley was just behind Kent.

Kent had just opened his mouth to speak
to the man on the driver’s side of the Ford
when suddenly, the tall, young driver,
holding a .45-Colt in. his hand, leaped to
the street.

In the darkness of the early evening the
gun spat fire, and Kent fell without even
getting his own gun out of the holster at
his belt.

ORRIFIED AS KENT CRUMPLED to the

pavement, Sheriff Calkins, rushing to
the rescue, saw the killer turn toward
Lester Quigley, who was unarmed, and
who had raised his hands in the air as a
token of submission. But again the wicked
45 roared, and Quigley, too, went down
with a mortal wound.

By this time Sheriff Calkins had gotten
into action, but stunned by the rapidity
with which the shooting had started, his
first shots went wild.

Then the sheriff realized that the blond
killer was actually drawing a Dead on him
as best he could the light of the street
lamps which had just flashed on. The
sheriff could see the muzzle of the .45 as
it swung toward him, but before he felt

70

disappointed ;- but we felt certain that he
would go to trial and be the object of
speedy justice.

More than two weeks passed before Cul-
len was in condition to leave the hospital
and return to Hingham. While we were
waiting with him for the train at the
Miami railroad station, a dignified man
came up and accosted me. He was Judge
Warren L. Newcome of the Dade County
Circuit Court, an old schoolmate of mine
in Medford, Massachusetts, whom I had
not seen for years.

We recalled old days, then the judge
told me he himself had questioned Cullen
and heard him make his confession while
he was still weak as the result of his seri-
ous and somewhat. mysterious injuries.

Turning on the handcuffed prisoner, Judge
Newcome demanded, “What have you got
to say for yourself now?”

“T didn’t do anything,” replied the pris-
oner, : sullenly.

“Don’t you remember telling me and the
detectives that you killed your wife?”

“No yr

On the journey back north the prisoner
seemed to become more dazed and peculiar
with every mile we traveled. I suspected
that his actions were a clever sham, in-
tended to deceive us into believing. that he
was insane. It is a common trick of the
murderer, and I believed he was in his
right mind, even though he had sustained
bad injuries about the head.

| EXPECTED TO SEE Cullen go to trial, be
convicted, and receive his just punish-
ment. Certainly, if any man deserves the
death sentence or a life term in prison, it
is one who callously slays a woman he has
just wed! /

But this was not to be. Alienists exam-
ined him for the Massachusetts Superior
Court and decided’ that his mental condi-
tion was such that he was “not legally re-
sponsible” for his acts.

The murder indictment was ordered
filed, and Cullen was sent to the State Hos-

the sting of hot lead, or heard again the
roar of the bandit gun, the blast. of two
shotgun charges smote the night air.

Charles Calkins had circled the car and
had found the man on the other side of
the seat unarmed and holding his hands in
‘the air.

“I’m just a hitch-hiker,” said the fright-
ened passenger, and seeing this man was
not dangerous, the son had turned his at-
tention toward the blond killer.

Both loads of shot caught the man with
the 45 in the thigh, but the small-sized
shot failed to break a bone, and now the
killer who had slain so wantonly, started
to flee. . ‘

Dragging his wounded leg, he ran with
a shambling gait toward the street inter-
section, and there more trouble awaited
him in the person of Deputy Sheriff Mar-
tin Lange, who, attracted by the firing, had
hurried to the scene.

In the semi-darkness the two men
bumped with such force that hoth were
knocked off their feet.

HE BANDIT STAGGERED UP first and fired
4 two shots pointblank at Lange. But
luckily, both missed their mark,

And by this time young Calkins had al-
most caught up with the gunman. Seeing
another enemy advancing the killer pulled
the trigger again and again, but the gun
spoke only: once; the second time it
snapped on empty chambers; the ammuni-
tion was exhausted, ~

"eb for the Insane at Bridgewater. There
e must remain until he dies, or until such

time that the doctors decide he has recov-

ered his sanity and can go to trial.

So this was the end of the trail for us
law-enforcement officers who had devoted
so much time and energy to solving the
baffling murder of Mrs. Cora Cullen—the
murder in which a kewpie doll was a prin-
cipal clue!

Friends of Cullen have sought to ex-
tenuate his brutal crime by stating that in
former years he had been a heavy drinker
and sometimes was afflicted by hallucina-
tions induced by acute alcoholism.

At the wake the night before the mur-
der, it is suggested, he indulged in a few
drinks for the first time in months, and
this resulted in a hallucination the next
morning that his bride was unfaithful to
him, inspiring the deliberate murder.

Expert study of Cullen since he has been
confined with Massachusetts’ criminal in-
sane casts doubt on this explanation of his
horrible deed. The thugs who slugged and
robbed him in Florida probably saved him
from the electric chair. His irresponsible
mental condition reported by alienists might
well have been the result of the heavy
blows which fractured his skull.

Further careful research indicates plainly
that Cullen knew what he was doing when
he planned his gruesome deed. Apparently
his motive was a dual one, He intended to
get hold of his bride’s money and start a
garage. Infuriated by her refusal to give
him the money, he was further aroused by
information about his bride confided to
him after his marriage.

Then, as so many murderers do, he be-
came panic-stricken the instant he had ac-
complished his awful purpose. Instead of
destroying or hiding the body, he left it
in a lonely field and fled. He dared not
delay to gain possession of her bank de-
posits on forged orders. His only thought
was to escape the consequences of his
dreadful act. Yet Nemesis overtook him
in distant Florida.

From page 19

Although he had been hit by the last shot
fired, Calkins realized that the killer’s gun
was now empty, and with a flying leap he
closed in, grasping the bloody gunman in
an attempt to throw him to the pavement.

There was still much fight in the killer,
and clubbing his gun, he struck again and
again at the young deputy’s skull, but could
not knock him loose.

Swearing, grunting, the men rolled on
the pavement with the desperado still strik-
ing with the clubbed gun until, finally, he
got in a good lick and the arms of the
young man loosened.

The killer staggered to his feet.

Sopping with blood, a veritable madman
now, the killer grappled with Sheriff Cal-
kins who had come to the aid of his son.
The two men went down, but Sheriff
Calkins is a strong man, and he was more
than a match for his assailant.

A couple of sharp, hard blows in the
proper place on the skull, and Sheriff
Calkins arose a victor.

The battle of Yreka was over and the
blond kidnap-killer lay unconscious beside
the still form of Charles. Calkins.

Leaving Martin Lange to handcuff the
killer and take him to jail, Sheriff Calkins
knelt over his.son, fearful that he was
dying, for blood was gushing from a hole
in his neck where the final shot from the
killer’s gun had taken eflect.

“Get. him dad?” queried the son as he
wiped the blood from his eyes and saw the

. anxious face of his father bending over

him.
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(343 PACIFIC - 2nd- S77). per

HAMILTON, Phillip Henry and JONES, Jimmie Lee, blacks, asphyxiated at San Quentin Prison
(San Francisco) on January 8, 1960,

"Two San Francisco robbererapists died in San Quentin's gas chamber yesterday in a setting
fit for grand opera. The skies sluiced a sudden downpour as Jimmie Lee Jones and Phillip
Henry “amilton heard their last sound on earth, the sizzling plunk of the cyanide pellets
into the hydrochloric acid vats, and convulsively leaned forward to meet death,
"Outside the streaming prison walls, 19 Quakers who had camped there through the stormy
night, bowed their heads in silent prayer for all of fallible mankind, Through the death-
chamber portholes, 11 divinity students joined 21 other official spectators in witnessing
death as educational background for their future calling.
"The. pellets fell at 10:03 a.m,, and Jones was dead at 10:15 and Hamilton followed a half
minute later, The shower subsided, A guard went to the east gate to tell the orderly
Quaker delegation that it was all over, And they left. = to come back again the next time
California demands justice in the gas chamber,
"Jones, 20, and Hamilton, 23, were car washers when they worked at all, Their specialty
was trapping women in housing-project elevators, robbing them and raping them, In April
of 1958, a 66-year-old apartment house manager they left gagged at 1866 Geary St., Mrse
Ruth Swanson Rivers, suffocated, By the time they were caught, there were li? rape and
robbery counts for them to answer, They took the gamble of pleading guilty to the murder
charge instead, And for that they died.
"Hamilton's attorney, Maurice Hardeman of San Josey was among the execution witmesses, To
the last minute, he had fought for a stay - with the support of some officials, He cone
tended that Mrs, Rivers' death was an accident and her killers were mentally retarded,
Since midnight, a group of 1 men and 5 women from American Friends Service Committees
here and in Berkeley had patrolled outside the east wall - not, it was stressed, in any
specific protest against death for these two but to express their feeling that ‘there
is that of God in every man and that as his children we ought not put to death that which
has within it the seed of the divine. The vigil is to be a regular one, Ross Flanagan,
25, assistant peace secretary of the Service Committee here, said they had planned their
first ofderly demonstration for the most recent of Caryl Chessman's oft-postponed death
dates. Next the convened for the Nov, 6 execution date of Charles Turville, a Los Angeles
murderer given a last-minute commutation to a life sentence, This time, they sat out the
10 hours, wrapped in blankets and tarpaulins, sipping from thermos jugs, sheltering the
light of gusty candles- and praying. San Quentin offered them its waiting room to dodge
the worst of the downpours, and they accepted, 'We will be here again,’ said Flanagan,
who lives at 707 Parker St., Berkeley. ‘And I hope people wake up and abolish this awful
practice,' |
"Motives of the divinity students who saw the actual executions were more mixed, Five of
them believe in capital punishment, two oppose it, and three are undecided. Six of them
came down from the Napa Valley with their professor, Elder Herbert E, Douglas, of the
Seventh Day Adventists' Pacific Union College in Angwin, The others were from tje san
Francisco Theological Seminary, a Presbyterian institution in San Anselmo, It was the
first double execution in San Quentin since April, 1958, when Eugene Burwell and James
A, Rogers paid for the killing of two guards in a 1952 prison break, There are twenty-
two lives left in Death Row." EXAMINER, San Francisco, Calif., January 9, 1960 (1/5&6).
Photograph of Quakers waiting in rain on Photo pages Secs II, page 8.

"A Fillmore district apartment house manager was found dead in her ransacked apartment
yesterday morning and police said she apparently had been murdered several days ago, She
was Ruth Swanson Rivers, 63, a divorcee who had managed thk apartment house at 1866 Geary
Street for some 3 years. Mrs. Rivers' body was discovered by a friend, Israel Jackson,

a maintenance man of 609 Grove Street, who last saw her alive Tuesday, Jackson said he
arrived at the second-story apartment at 7 a.m, yesterday, admitted himself with a key
Mrs, Rivers had given him, and found her body sprawled, semi-clothed, on her bed, A
coroner's autopsy showed she had been strangled at least l days before her body was found.
Mrs, Rivers' left wrist had been bound with a nylon stocking and a white cloth had been
tied around her neck, Another cloth, apparently used as a gag, had fallen to the floor

by the side of her bed, Police found no eviden f forci
All the windows were locked. Water was running in the bethesom sahke Arse” Rap aE SP Biase

was found opened and empty by the side of her bed and a ab dea | box in the 3-room apartment
had been forced opens" CHRONICLE San Francisco, Calif., -7-1958 (3)


"The mystery murder of a 63-year-old divorcee in the Fillmore district was solved yesterday
with the capture of a pair of ‘elevator rapists,' police reported, The divorcee, Ruth Swan-
son Rivers, had managed an apartment house at, 1866 Geary St. for 3 years. She was found
strangled in her apartment last Sunday. Early yesterday police trafed and arrested 2
jobless car €leaners as the Mutt and Jeff pair sought in a dozen or more rape-robberies

in the last 3 months. The two are Phillip Hamilton, 23, who is five feet five iiches

tall, and Jimmy Lee Jones, 20, who is 6 feet, Both lived at 206 Bush St., where officers
had found a radio taken in one of the rape-robberies, They were arrested by Inspectors
George Murphy, da Arthur Christiansen and Franc Gibeau, Homicide Inspector Al Nelder said
Jones confessed the rape-murder of Mrs, Rivers, implicating Hamilton, and that Hamilton
then confessed, Both: were being charged with murder, Nelder said, in addition to 7 rape
charges on which the pair had already been booked, They were known as elevator rapists,
officers said, because the 7 attacks of which they are accused began in elevators in the
ll-story buildings of a housing project in the 1100 block of Scott street," CHRONICLE,

San Francisco, CA, l-1b-1958 (5-).)


110

hunt, too, to be a dud in the end?

After a late gulped dinner, Inspec-
tors Jewell and Duffy returned hastily
by a Inspector’s Bureau at the City

all.

Lieutenant Robert Tracy greeted
them as they walked glumly in.
“What luck, boys?” he asked.

“Not a_ line, Lieutenant,” Jewell
scowled. Briefly he outlined the lat-
est failure. ‘“Nary a sign, so far.
We've got just one more company to
check, the Western Pacific,” Jewell
concluded.

Tracy nodded. “It’s a tough one,
all right.”

Jewell and Duffy left for the West-
ern Pacific office. Suddenly to Lieu-
tenant Tracy came recollection of a
friend well acquainted in transporta-
tion circles of Metropolitan Oakland.
Quickly he dialed a phone number
and soon was talking to the friend.

“T want the name of a man working
for a railroad whose name is Rod,”
he explained. “A young fellow who
gets around quite a bit. Dark haired
and handsome, drives a light sedan.
Do you know him?”

SHORT while later the friend

phoned back. “You might try
Rodney Greig. He lives at 2718 Gar-
ber Street, Berkeley. And works as
traffic clerk for the Western Pacific
in the Easton Building.”

Meanwhile only a block away at
the Western Pacific office, Duffy and
Jewell had also received data on the
same murder suspect. Could this
youth be the sadist slasher?

The inspectors hurried back to
headquarters. As they stepped in to
the Bureau, Lieutenant Tracy began
barking orders.

“Here's your suspect. Bring him

n.

Hastily Duffy and Jewell read the
scrawled name and address.

“By George, Lieutenant,” Jewell ex-
claimed. ‘“We’ve got the same: sus-
pect.” He pulled his notebook from a
pocket with a wry smile.

Duffy and Jewell raced northward
out Telegraph Avenue. The police car
soon was parked several doors away
from 2718 Garber Street, a good resi-
dential section of the quiet little Uni-
versity of California city.

Quietly they walked back to the
suspect’s address. Two cars, both
sedans, were parked in front of the
two-story house. In one was piled a
number of old tires.

Duffy stooped and examined the
tires of the other car, a Dodge sedan.
His flashlight winked for an instant.
The tires were Goodyear All-Weather
treads—identical with those whose
tracks were left at the murder scene.
Duffy straightened up.

“This is the car,” he spoke tersely.
Jewell nodded.

The inspectors separated. Duffy
covered the rear. There must: be no
slip now.

“There’ll be no backdoor escape if
I can help it,” Duffy thought, as his
hand felt the heft of his heavy .38
special bulging beneath his coat.

Jewell rang the front door bell. A
clean looking youth, partly dressed,
opened the door. “Are you Rodney?”
Jewell asked.

“Nope. My bother’s in bed,” came
the reply.

Jewell pulled back his coat, flashing
his police star. “I’d like to see him
about his car,” he said, remaining
calm with an effort: A grisly vision
of the slashed form of the beautiful
blonde raced through Jewell’s mind.

i

CRIME DETECTIVE

At that instant Mrs. Laura Greig,
mother of the boys, descended the
stairs in negligee. The younger son
opened a rear door for Inspector
Duffy. ;

Jewell, one eye on the upper stair-
way, politely told Mrs. Greig that he
wanted to talk to Rodney about his
auto.

“What time did Rodney get in last
night?” he asked. F

“It was quite late. After midnight,”
she replied... j

Jewell’s eye caught Duffy’s at this
answer. The net seemed to weave
tighter around the sadist slasher.

His mouth, a thin line, was taut
and cruel, Jewell noted.

An exclamation from Duffy came
from the car interior. His flash had
outlined a long-bladed hunting knife
hidden beneath the rear cushion.
Bloodstains were still visible when it
was drawn from its sheath.

“Here’s the shiv, Lou,” Duffy spoke.
His voice was brittle. The detective’s
fists clenched in the semi-darkness as
he fought for self-control. In _ his
mind, too, was a vision of the slashed
blonde beauty’s mutilated body.

Greig sagged at sight of the six-
inch blade. His face whitened

GIRLS HELD IN SHOOTING

Mona Whitworth, 15, and Mary Primavera, 14, both of Brooklyn, N. Y.,
pictured after arrest as a result of shooting affray in which usual by-

stander was wounded. Girls were treated for intoxication.

Jewell swiftly followed Mrs. Greig
upstairs, waiting in Rodney Greig’s
room while he dressed.

“Have you the keys to your car?”
Jewell asked as the LO finished
dressing. Greig nodded.

Between the two heavy-set detec-
tives, Rodney Greig descended the
stairs. “We’re just going outside to
look at the car. We'll be back,” the
Inspectors told the startled parents.

Duffy took the keys from Greig,
opened the car doors and began to
inspect the interior. Jewell kept his
eyes alertly on the youth.

“Why don’t you tell us what hap-
pened?” he asked. Almost as an
afterthought, he added, “We can’t
promise you anything.”

Greig looked down at the ground.
“T don’t get you.”

“You know—Leona!” Jewell barked,
for the first time mentioning the name
of the murdered girl.

“Yeah, I’ve known her a couple of
months,” Greig replied.

visibly even in the dim light of a
nearby street. lamp.

“You’ve got me,” he whimpered.

“Why did you do it?” Duffy spoke.

“I don’t know. It, was just one of
those things,” the boy cringed. “I’ll
tell everything now to help you out.”

“How about the jewelry?” Jewell
cut in,

Silently Greig pointed to a coat
pocket. From the pocket detectives
drew a woman’s wrist watch, rings
and a heartshaped gold locket. The
missing jewelry.

Young Greig insisted that the mur-
der of Leona Vlught was “just one of
those things.”

“What’ll we tell your folks?” Jewell
asked.

“I don’t want them to know till I’m
gone,” the confessed murderer cried.

Duffy suggested, in order to spare
the family as much as possible, that
they were going to question the youth
about the car at headquarters.

En route back to the Oakland City

Hall, Greig ‘
thrown the
gloves into

Alice Street ,
5:30. The dete
additional evide
teen minutes la
the Inspector’s FE,
tailed confessio
murder of the p1

“Why did you
Duffy asked.

As he had a ¢
to the City Ha ~
“Pal. I don’t ki
slipped.”

BL(
DANC

Gorgeous Virgin
$250,000 from bg
ker. whom she
marry her. Bar!
ing divorce frog

He described
statuesque blond:
then having dri
cluded lover’s lai

“She wanted
Greig asserted, “
tall. Then she
she wished she \

He told of getti
side of the car :
door beside her.

“She still want:
In exasperation I
ing knife and
That hurt her an
you don’t want t
answered ‘Sure.’

“T grabbed the }
gesture to bring
Pal, it just sli
That’s all.”

In amazement

’


s

was taut

uffy came
flash had
iting knife

cushion.
le when it

uffy spoke.
detective’s
arkness as
il. In his
he slashed
body.
f the six-
whitened

ight of a

mpered.

fy spoke.
ist one of
ged. “T’ll
you out.”
2?” Jewell

to a coat
detectives
‘teh, rings
ket. The

. the mur-
ust one of

¢
s?” Jewell

ll I’m
cried.
. - spare
sible, that
the youth
ers.
iland City

Hall, Greig revealed that he had
thrown the murdered girl’s purse and
gloves into a trash can at 19th and
Alice Streets that afternoon about
5:30. The detectives recovered the
additional evidence there. And fif-
teen minutes later Rodney Greig at
the Inspector’s Bureau began his de-
tailed confession of the shocking
murder of the pretty blonde.

“Why did you kill Leona Vlught?”
Duffy asked.

As he had a dozen times en route
to the City Hall, Greig reiterated,
“Pal. I don’t know. The knife just
slipped.”

BLONDE
DANCER SUES

Gorgeous Virginia Parente seeks
$250,000 from broker Clarence Bar-
ker. whom she says_ promised to

marry her. Barker has been seek-
ing divorce from his fourth wife.

He described having taken the
statuesque blonde out for a sandwich,
then having driven her to the se-
cluded lover’s lane and parking.

“She wanted to commit suicide,”

Greig asserted, “because she was too ~

tall. Then she repeated again that
she wished she was dead.”

He told of getting out of the driver’s
side of the car and opening the car
door beside her.

“She still wanted to commit suicide.
In exasperation I pulled out my hunt-
ing knife and pricked her throat.
That hurt her and I asked her, ‘Now
you don’t want to die, do you?’ She
answered ‘Sure.’

“T grabbed the knife up in a stabbing
gesture to bring her to her senses.
Pal, it just slipped. Just slipped.
That’s all.”

In amazement-hardened detectives

CRIME DETECTIVE

listened to the cool narration of the
wanton murder. Heard Greig describe
the young girl’s death scream as the
knife plunged into her breast.

Greig then told how he watched
her death struggles in the car, the
long-bladed hunting knife still quiv-
ering in her writhing breast.

“I smoked six cigarettes before she
died,” he concluded. “I stuck her
three times in the neck to be sure she
was dead and dragged her out and
put her in the ditch. I got in the car
and drove home. That’s all.”

But as police questioned and re-
questioned the confessed murderer in
days that followed and investigated
in an attempt to get at the real mo-
tive for the torture murder, they were
amazed to discover the more peculiar
phases of Greig’s life.

Strangely prophetic had been the
words of San Francisco Probation
Officer George McNulty, written two
years earlier after Greig had been
convicted of grand theft of $232 from
a wholesale firm for which he worked.
That arrest had followed a long string
of law violations over a period of
seven years. The report stated of
Greig:

“If he is not subjected to corrective
treatment, and realizes the serious-
ness of his faults, more serious of-
fenses will be committed as he
grows older. The boy has an inflated
ego which is the cause of his falling
from grace.”

The court had followed the Proba-
tion Officer’s recommendation and
committed Greig, then 19, to Preston
Reform School for thirteen months.

But despite relentless hour after
hour of questioning, no true motive
had yet come to light for the murder.
Greig still stuck to the lame state-
ment that the keen-bladed hunting
knife Fas slipped.” However, police
learned that he had bought the knife
the day of the murder.

AS sadism the answer to the

riddle of why Greig plunged the
dirk into the girl’s unprotected
breast? Had plunged it three times
more into her throat in that macabre
triangle design? Was sadism the ex-
planation of why the blade had been
twisted so mercilessly?

Dr. O. D. Hamlin, Alameda County
psychiatrist, examined Greig with
care. The examination failed to dis-
close signs of insanity.

However, investigators found that
Greig, less than a week before his
confessed murder of Leona Vlught,
had proposed marriage to another
young Oakland girl at the exact ee
in the lover’s lane he had killed
Leona.

Pretty Mildred Kelly, a former
classmate of the slain girl, had had
a number of dates with Greig. But
always he had acted a perfect gen-
tleman with her, she declared. She
had rejected his proposal. .

Further back in Greig’s checkered
past detectives discovered he _had
married Dora Isabel Bjorn in a Reno
elopement. A few days later in 1936,
after he was sentenced to Preston,
she secured an annulment.

Later, Miss Bjorn had ‘married Ed-
ward Holmes Barrett, proprietor of a
San Francisco tavern. Barrett told
police the day Greig was released
from Preston he had come to their
home and begun annoying his wife.

“He terrified her so much she near-
ly had a_nervous breakdown. I
ordered Greig to stay away.

“Then,” Barrett declared, “he re-

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Une ev cabs ea ea eee rs a ee es ae gente


112 CRIME DETECTIVE

plied, ‘T’ll fix you, you - Often
he threatened our lives. And always
it was a threat to cut or stab us.”

He told of Greig’s having acci-
dentally met Mrs. Barrett on the street
only two weeks before, and of forc-
ing her to listen to him. She had
come home so trembling and fright-
ened, Barrett had been forced to send
her into the country to rest up and
to prevent a nervous breakdown
again.

SURRENDERS AFTER SLAYING

Howard Romig (right) outside Easton, Pa.,
police headquarters. He gave himself up
on advice of parents, and is held in con-
nection with slaying of woman and baby.

DETECTIVE jn

And then Gilbert heard his brother
mutter, “I’ve got a gun—I’m going to
get it!”

Dazedly the younger one looked

about for something to defend him-
self with. His eyes fell on a pair of
scissors lying on the table. And as
Carleton lunged toward him again,
he picked up his scissors—and struck
out.
Carleton fell with a wound through
the chest wall that punctured his
right lung and cut the main artery
leading from the heart. His brother,
still in a murderous rage, attacked
him again, burying the sharp scissors
in his back.

As he lay still, not moving, not
defending himself, Gilbert suddenly
came to. He touched his bruised and
battered face, bewildered, and he
looked down at the bloody figure of
his brother.

Or thought was in his mind. He
had wounded his brother—and
he must flee. Flee—but where? And
how? He put his hand in his pocket,
and neg it out—empty. No money.
Quickly the solution presented itself.
Leaning down, he took $80 from
Carleton’s wallet.

He was on his way out of the house
just as Dr. F. G. Klotz, whom Mrs.

arlow had summoned for help,
entered.

Gilbert returned to the kitchen with
him, explaining that his brother was
hurt, and needed a doctor’s care.

Dr. Klotz eyed him sadly. “He’s

hurt, all right. But he doesn’t need a
doctor. He’s dead!”
_ Less than four hours later, Detec-
tive Arthur V. Yohe had not only
captured Gilbert, but had a signed
confession from him.

Formal charges of murder, volun-
tary manslaughter, involuntary man-
slaughter, aggravated assault and bat-
tery, assault and battery and robbery
were preferred against him. And in
June he went on trial in a Lehigh
County court for the Cain and Abel
killing.

It was unquestionably his mother
who eventually saved his life. Her
courage and her character and her
belief in her son swayed the jury till
there was not a dry eye in the court-
room.

He was sentenced to serve from
six to twelve years on the voluntary

. ',, : ,

Paul Traficanti (see CRIME CALENDAR) has been arrested by
police and charged with the murder of his brother, Michael,
whom he is said to have slain as result of family brawl.

manslaughter charge and one and a
half to three years on the larceny
charge.

And although he has threatened a
dozen times to commit suicide, he is
serving his time today in the Eastern
Penitentiary—while his mother brave-
ly counts the hours till his return.

discharged _ police:

¥

guilty of accepting”

sentence... flash—
—Pearlie Housto:

hanged for murder \

neighbor . . . in
outside execution e
Evans and seven c
flash—REDWOOD
wife, mother-in-la’
ranging from sever
months, heard Ka
tenced to one to fo.
Quentin for passir
Keller, who was re
wanted in Los An
San Francisco on
. . « flash—CHI¢
Anderson, 39, for
snowbank, both wu
glass ... he did it
threatened to hav:
chasing them. . .
N. Y.—Fred Willia:
who gets very col
ing to be provided
cell in the pen for
he walked out of c}
in three coats, th
pair of pants...
Goodsell F. Henk
Adolph Bydalek,
will each sit in th:
months for forging
.teen grand to.By
BONFIELD, IL
known as “sinle
there are no danc:
movies, beer or
making rummy un
is result of ro
“rummy wic
gathered in
played for a
BINGHAMTON,
Charkoski ran am
at 14-year old Ire
battle ensued that
five minutes... Tl
John Andrew Gr
stander, Patrolman
duty at the time, a

self . . . Charkos!
time on appeal fc
sault .. . flash—

Harold .H. McDo
stabbed William [
draws one to ten
quarrel was over
debt... flash—CTI
minutes after W
freed by U. S. C
K. Walker on f
charge, he was a
State Police for
bank robbery in
January 28, 1937
cated by Harold

for the robbery .
Botwinski and T
65 years each. .
expected to solve
the fourth man
MALONE, N. Y-
Charlson, 38, sho
home .. . neigh
heard woman scré
another chance.

you,” immediatels
hours later body
band Ralph Char)

«

a

. Crowds gather (right) to view
-. the spot where the body of the
former University of California
co-ed (above) was discovered.
Officers at far right inspect the
gully in which the girl lay

TANLEY JONES, an airline em-

ployee, stood at the window of his .

ome at 2994 Barrett Street, Oak-

land, California. It was his day

off, Wednesday, December 7th, 1938, and
he was trying to decide how to spend it.

Suddenly, as he surveyed his garden—

_ damp from-recent rains, but bathed now

in sunshine—he was struck with an idea.
Rain followed by the sun brought out
mushrooms, Why not go up into the hills
to look for some?

Turning from the window to his
mother-in-law, Mrs. Sarah Jaynes, he
suggested that she accompany him. Half.
an hour later, they left their car at the
end of 106th-Street, in the sparsely set-'
tled Oak Knoll ‘district, and walked
briskly over the wide dirt road, stopping
whenever they spied anything that re-
sembled a mushroom. arty

Then, as Jones, slightly ahead of his
companion, came upon a little gully cut
into the hillside by spring freshets, -he
saw something white lying on the ground,
Lue, he stepped closer for a better
ook. : ,

“What’s this—a wax doll?” he asked,
half aloud. :

Then, he saw that what he had at

‘figst mistaken for a dummy, was actually

70 5:

GREIG,, Rodney, white, asphyx, Calif, (Alameda County) 8/23/1940

the body of a beautiful young woman.

“Stay where you are!” he called eX-
eitedly to Mrs. Jaynes. “Vhere’s a dead
girl up here. Wait, while I get the police.”

With that, he raced up the road, stum-
bling over rocks and stones in his haste
to reach the telephone at the Putnam
Riding Academy. Before long, he was
talking to Captain Thorwald Brown,
who was in command of the Eastern Po-
lice Station.

* * *

T was at my desk on the second floor
of the Oakland City Hall when Captain
Brown, over the phone, informed me of
Jones’ discovery,

“The body of a girl has been found
about a quarter of a mile from the end of
106th Street,” he announced. “It’s prob-
ably+a case of murder—the girl appears
to have died from knife wounds in her
neck and chest.”

“T’'ll send some of my men to investi-
gate,” I told him, and, a few minutes
later, Inspectors Thomas J. Duffy and
Lew Jewell were speeding to the scene in
their radio car. In another machine fol-
lowed Inspectors George Wurthman and
J. P. McDonnell.
| Jones was waiting for the officers and
led them to the gully. There, lying in the
narrow ditch, they saw the ‘body of a
lovely young woman. She was tall—al-
most six feet—and well proportioned,
Her hair was a lovely, reddish-blonde
shade and her pure white skin looked like
Ivory in the sunlight. _- ¥

"By LIEUTENANT

Acting Captain of Inspectors,

‘Police Department

TRUE DETECTIVE MYSTERIES

TRUE DETECTI VE

MYSTERI ES » August

WW
spect«
to his
this ix

“Sq
an im

Ata
who w
away, °

“Lox
tire m:
girl, a
tracks
been !

then «
ON
| SUES
| The
Coron:
stoops
of the
“Sh
stilett
“Ht
tor \W
“Abc
ton rey
The
careful!
were nc
dress w
were t
leather
tire ap]
of refin
good hx
“The

LEO
Oak
As i

AUGUST,


To SPORT Aw

ieee a message arrived

from Coroner Poole. He reported
that grease spots had been found on the

murdered girl’s bloody nightdress.

Later a communication arrived from
Los Angeles Captain of Police Rasmus-
sen saying Folkes had been picked up.
He had no pocket knife on his person
at the time, but friends had said that

tenant Howard. Robert Folkes had con-

fessed to the murder in. Lower 13!

He told Los Angeles detectives that

he had helped Martha James aboard
the Limited at Seattle and had been
attracted by her good looks. He noted
her car and berth number and after all
the passengers in Car D had retired he
had slipped through four times wearing

normally he was never without one. A his overcoat. Each trip he had unbut-

black overcoat had been found at his

toned one of the buttons fastening her

home, and in one of its pockets had berth curtains. The fifth time he slipped

been a pointed, exceedingly sharp “bon-
ing” knife of the type used in profes-
The knife had been
turned over to the police laboratory for

sional kitchens.

analysis.

_ Two hours later another telegram ar-
rived for Prosecutor Weinrick and Lieu-

the final button and crawled into her
berth. He held his knife at her throat
and threatened to kill her if she cried
out. She began to struggle. Then when
she screamed he slit her throat and
ran back to his galley, hidden his over-
coat and: pretended to be busy with

eggs and bacon which he had partially
prepared as part of his plan of attack.

“I didn’t mean to kill her,” Folkes
told the police, “but she yelled and I
got scared,”
_ A jury of elght women and four men
in Circuit court in Albany, Oregon,
found Robert Folkes guilty of first de-
gree murder. Five days later, on April
26th, 1943, Judge L. G. Lewelling sen-
tenced him to death.

The sleeping car killer went to his
doom screaming in the gas chamber
or Oregon, on January 25th,

Editor’s Note: The names, J. O. Wiley,
Pen Pedersen and L. E. Davis are ficti-
tious.

VIRGIN’S DEATH DATE
(Continued from page 17)

man briefed Lieutenant Robert Tracy,
the bureau chief, on their findings. While
the three were discussing the next move,
Dr. O. D. Malin, Alameda County med-
ical officer, telephoned to say that finger-
prints of the victim had been checked
against the local files without success.

Dr. Malin said he and Dr. J. M.
Reeves, the coroner’s autopsy surgeon,
were at work on the post mortem and
should have a primary report ready in

another hour. The victim, he said, was
six feet tall, weight 156 pounds and was
a perfect physical specimen. She was
probably 20 or 21 years old.

Following Dr. Malin’s call, Lieutenant
Tracy talked to the missing persons
bureau on the intercom. The bureau,
alerted shortly after the body had been
found, said in the last six months there
had been no report on a missing girl
remotely resembling the description of
the statuesque beauty found in the ditch.

When the afternoon papers from Oak-
land and San Francisco were brought
in the homicide officers were pleased
to see the murder had been given ban-
ner treatment on page one. They knew
that, unless the girl was a total stranger
in the bay area, such publicity was
bound to send them a lead as to her
identity.

Meanwhile, Captain Brown telephon-
ed to report on information gathered
by his bell-ringers in the murder vici-
nity. With one exception, nothing perti-
nent had been picked up.

A_ housewife living several blocks
from where the body was discovered,
said she had left her bed to prepare
her baby’s formula at 3:30 that morn-
ing and had heard a high, piercing
scream which had stopped abruptly. Its
note of distress had frightened her and
she had gone to the kitchen window
and looked out but could see nothing
in the darkness. When the scream was
not repeated, she had fed the baby and
returned to bed.

52

The report satisfied the detectives
that the murder had been committed
around 3:30 a.m.

By this time, Duffy and O’Donnell,
empty handed, had returned from their
visit to the riding academy. The care-
taker there, like most caretakers a sound
sleeper, had spent Tuesday night in
oblivion, and consequently, had been
able to offer nothing.

When Dr. Malin’s report on the
autopsy was delivered to Lieutenant
Tracy around 3 o'clock, he called in
the four homicide detectives who had
been with the case from scratch.

Death had been caused, the surgeons’
statement read, by a knife thrust to the
heart. The blow had cut through the
breastbone and must have been delivered
by a powerful individual armed with a
razor-sharp knife. Death had occurred
between three and five a.m. that morn-
ing. Chop suey, virtually undigested, had
been found in the victim’s stomach.

_The fatal wound and the triangular
nicks, the latter inflicted by the point
of a sharp knife after death, were the
only marks of violence on the body.
There was no evidence of sexual viola-
tion, natural or unnatural. The victim
had been a virgin. From the expertly
groomed condition of her nails, hair
and skin, she had been either a fre-
quent patron of beauty salons or herself
a professional cosmetician,

“So it wasn’t rape after all,” Jewell
commented.

“Well, not physical rape, anyway,”
Worthman said. “But remember what I

said about some sex deviates committing
meria rape through the act of mur-
er.”

“That damn mark of the triangle...”
Jewell mused.

“I have a hunch it doesn’t mean a
thing,” Worthman said.

AS the five homicide sleuths exchang-
ed ideas regarding the next best
Step, the intercom buzzed and Tracy
was told there was a gentleman to see
him. “He says it’s about the body found
off 106th Avenue,” the receptionist ex-
plained.

A neatly dressed man in his forties
was ushered into the homicide chief’s
office. He introduced himself as James
Young and drew the afternoon edition
of the Oakland Tribune out of his pocket

“I read about the body of a girl
being found up in the hills,” he said,
“and thought I might know who she is.
I pray I’m wrong, but I felt it my
duty to contact the police.”

Tracy nodded, saying nothing.

“My wife and I were dinner guests of
Leona Vlught’s parents yesterday
evening,” the visitor went on, “and we
stayed until midnight listening to the
radio. They live over a bakery he has
on Foothill Boulevard. When we left
the Vlughts were worrying about Le-
ona who is only nineteen years old. She
had phoned before dinner saying she
was out with some girl friends and
would be home early. By the time we
left she hadn’t returned. Leona never
stayed out after eleven before. Her
parents were particularly concerned be-
cause her appendix has been bothering
her and they thought she might have
had an attack. .

“This morning I happened to call him
and he said Leona still hadn’t returned.
He didn’t know what to do. He said he
was reluctant to notify the police be-
cause it might turn out to be a false
alarm as she had no classes today and
might be staying with a girl friend.”

“Classes?” Tracy asked. “Is she a
student?”

“No, an instructor. She teaches at a
beauty college.”

“Would you go with us to the morgue
and look at the young woman?” Tracy
asked.

“I suppose I have to,” Young said

resignedly, “but I hate it.”
_ The cooperative friend took one fleet-
ing glance at the body on the slab and
buried his face in his hands. “My God,”
he moaned, “it’s Leona. Poor, poor kid.
What will her parents do?”

The detectives led the shaken man
outside and sent him home in a police
car, first assuring him they would break
the tragic news to the Vlughts.

This task was delegated to Jewell and

POLICE DRAGNET

Duffy. At the Vlught bakery” they

learned that the proprietor was out,
but they found his wife, a pretty, Tred-
dish-haired woman who didn’t look a
day over thirty, in the spotless apart-
ment upstairs. She said she hadn’t read
the afternoon newspaper or listened to
the radio. When Jewell, as delicately
as possible, asked her if she would be
kind enough to accompany them to the
city morgue and help them identify
someone they had been told she might
know, she turned sheet-white. Trem-
bling, she put on her hat.

At the morgue, she fainted at her
first look at Leona’s body. Leaving her
in the hands of the medical examiner,
Jewell and Duffy returned to the bakery
to wait for the murdered girl’s father.

A few minutes after their arrival he
appeared. A straight, strapping six-foot
three, with curly blond hair and even
features, he was the sort of father who
would sire a girl like the dead Leona.
When the detectives informed him of
the purpose of their visit, he stood trans-
fixed and silent for a full three minutes
battling his emotions. Then he sat
down and indicated he was ready to
answer the officers’ questions.

i 1935, he said, Leona had been
graduated with honors from Fremont
High School, where she had been voted
beauty queen. After one term at the
University of California at Berkeley,
she had transferred to beauty college.
There her aptitude in that field had
elevated her to an instructor in ten
months and she had continued teaching
at the place:

She had been dating since she was 17
and seemed to be extremely popular
with the young men. As Leona had
good common sense and was a big
girl, and strong, he had trusted her and
allowed her to follow her own head.
Being financially independent and much
more mature than most girls her age,
he felt that was her right. She had re-
marked often, half ruefully, half joking-
ly, that her unusual height made it
difficult to find a beau who didn’t make
her look ridiculous. ;

“Did she have a steady boy friend?”
Duffy asked. :

Viught nodded. “Up until a week
or so ago. Rolf Bjork, an air condition-
ing engineer. But they broke up. She
never explained why.”

When picked up and taken to head-
quarters, Rolf Bjork proved to be a
clean-cut, straight-talking man in his
late twenties. He said he had heard
the shocking news of Leona’s death over
the radio and was expecting a call from
the police. He agreed that in view of
their break-up it was logical that he
should come under ‘suspicion. Under
questioning, he said he hadn’t seen or
heard from his ex-girl friend for a week.

“What came between you and
Leona?” Lieutenant Tracy asked, eying
the young man sharply. :

“Nothing specific,” Bjork replied. “It
came to us gradually that we had dif-
ferent tastes, different outlooks on life,
that we didn’t click, and we agreed to
POLICE DRAGNET

call it a day while there was still time.
She was the best looking, best natured

girl I've ever known, but we were just
not compatible.” ;
Bjork said he had never discussed

posely. had made no effort to learn de-
tails of the life she lived outside his
ken. He said he was completely in the
dark as‘to who might be her murderer.

While Bjork was being interrogated,
his room was searched and his car
shaken down. Neither yielded a hint of
a clue. His alibi for the night before
proved inviolate and he was released
with the admonition to keep himself
available.

Detectives in pairs had been sent to
check the beauty college where Leona
taught, and public establishments in
that neighborhood.

A waitress was found in a restaurant
near the school who admitted she knew
Leona intimately enough to exchange
confidences. She had seen her at 9
o’clock the night before and talked with
her for several minutes.

Noticing that Leona was dressed for
a date, she had asked what was on the
fire. Leona had replied that she was
to meet a man at two o’clock in the
morning and was just passing the time
until then. ;

The waitress, well acquainted with
the tall beauty’s moderate habits, was
surprised at the hour of the date and
had asked who the fellow was. Leona
had gaily replied with the phrase then
in vogue, “Oh, somebody tall, dark and
handsome.” .

When asked what Leona was wearing,
the waitress described the ensemble in
which the girl had been found dead—
plus a “trim black hat with half-veil,
white gloves and a large, black patent
leather handbag.”

Another strike was scored at the
beauty college. The fellow instructors
had seen Leona at a downtown dance
hall between eleven and twelve the
same night. She had danced with a
number of men she knew and told her
colleagues she was just killing time

until she met a tall, dark and handsome
guy with whom she had a date.

“Did she mention the fellow’s name?”
they were asked.
» “Seems to me,” one of the teachers
volunteered, “she said something about
a Rob, Ron, Rod, Reg, or something
like that.”

The teachers said they had left Leona
at 12th and Broadway about a half-
hour after midnight. ;

Back at city hall, Tracy and his
assistants were digesting the informa-
tion that was coming in.

“Tall, dark and handsome, eh?”
Tracy speculated. “Was she really de-
scribing her date, or was she just us-
ing the fad phrase girls these days ap-
ply to boy friends whether they're five-
by-five or red-headed and ugly? And
Rob, Ron, Rod or Reg . . .” He snort-
ed. That could as well be Tom, Dick or
Harry.”

As they sat there thinking, Duffy
said, “Say, I forgot about that kid who

other boy friends with Leona and pur- | O0 (}

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stumbled over the corpse. What about

427 W. Randolph St. Chicago 6, iil.

53


him? Nobody’s told me.”

“He checked out exactly as he told
it,” Tracy replied.

The phone jangled and the homicide
chief picked it up. “Yeah, this is Tracy.
Hello, Tim, what gives?” As he listened
he pulled a pad toward himself and
jotted down.a word from time to time.

The conversation over, he explained
to his assistants that the call came from
one of his “helpful shady friends” down-
town. This friend had just seen Leona
Vlught’s picture in the morning edi-
tion of a San Francisco paper and spot-
ted her as the “real sharp chick” he had
Seen getting into a beaten-up, green
Chevrolet sedan in front of the Roose-
velt Theater at about 2:15 this morning.

“Now listen,” Tracy said, “my some-
what tarnished friend claims to know
the guy she was with. A tall, dark, curly
headed sport he has bumped into
around the spots. A sort of two-bit Lo-
thario of the dance halls. Says his first
name is Rodney. Doesn’t know the
rest. Catch? Tall... dark . . . hand-
some. Rodney . . . Rob, Ron, Rod, Reg.
Check? Says this night flower is an
office worker for some railroad, can’t
remember which one.”

Worthman drew blood when he spoke
to the office manager of the Western
Pacific. The executive immediately link-
ed the name Rodney and the descrip-
tion given. He said that could only be
Rodney Greig, a 21-year-old clerk who
lived on Garber Street in nearby Ber-
keley.

The office chief said Greig had re-
ported for work that morning at 8:30
as usual.

“He seemed to be full of vinegar,”
the office manager said, “and I asked
him if a rich uncle had died. He re-
plied that he just felt in good spirits,
that’s all.” :

“Let’s see if we’ve got anything on
Mr. Greig right here at home,” Tracy
said.

Headquarters records yielded a thick
file on the youth in question. Rodney
Greig, it revealed, had long been on
intimate terms with the police, the

. courts and the penal institutions.

The dossier showed Greig had turned
in false fire alarms at the age of ten,
stolen and wrecked a car at 13, burglar-
ized a house at 14, lugging away a life-
sized portrait of a nude woman. In each
of these instances, however, the solid
reputation of his parents had intervened
and kept him from punishment.

At 16, he had entered a drug store in
San Anselmo and was nabbed leaving
with a bag full of girly-girly magazines.
For this offense he was made a ward
of the courts. At 18, he was caught tap-
ping the till of a wholesale grocery
where he worked. He was released when
his boss had not only refused to prose-
cute but had kept him on the job. How-

ever, when he tried his luck at the same
thing a few months later he was packed
off to Preston Reformatory.

A psychiatrist’s report on the young
thief said he had an exaggerated
ego, was an incorrigible show-off. He
seemed to be under a compulsion to
54

Coakley, who had been invited to sit
in. Then he sent for a police stenog-
rapher.

“All right, Rod,” Tracy said. “Start
from the beginning.”

In a mumbling, halting voice, young

play the big shot regardless of the cost.

“Get out to the Greig house,” Tracy
said, slapping the file shut, “and bring
us in tall, dark and handsome.”

As they parked in front of the Greig
residence, Jewell nudged Duffy and
pointed to an ancient green Chevrolet
standing in the driveway.

Yanked out of bed, young Greig,
without resistance, was taken to police
headquarters. Jewell followed driving
the prisoner’s battered sedan, a prize
for the crime laboratory. They passed
Duffy headed for the Greig home armed
with a Berkeley search warrant.

As the sneering suspect sat under
the powerful single spot in the inter-
rogation room, the homicide detectives
studied him closely. They saw an in-

dividual who, to innocent eyes, might be
regarded as handsome. But as veteran
students of human nature, they pene-
trated the veneer and spotted unwhole-
some weaknesses in the slack lines of

' his petulant cheeks, cleft chin and fur-
tive, olive-hued eyes. Here, they sensed
was an off-beat mental character cap-
able of any deviation. j

For five minutes Tracy let the prison-

er sweat in the glare of the spot. When
he began to fidget, Tracy said in a low
voice, “All right, Rod, tell us about it.”

Greig’s head snapped up. “Tell you

what? What are you talking about?”

“Leona Vlught.”
“Who’s she?”
The homicide chief dropped his

questioning to let the suspect sit on
the anxious seat for another five min-
utes,

The door of the room opened and a

figure in white beckoned to Tracy. In
the corridor, the lab technician handed
him a tray holding several articles.
“Found these in the car, also traces of
— off blood on the front seat,” he
said.

“And the tire treads on Greig’s car

exactly match a set found near the
body.”

Returning to the interrogation room,

Tracy shoved a table in front of the
prisoner and placed the tray on it. He
said:

“These were found in your car,

Greig. The front page of a newspaper
telling about the murder, a blonde
hairpin, and this...”

He held up a leather sheath and from

it drew an eight-inch shinning knife,
sharp as a razor. On it streaks of blood
were visible.

Greig took one look at the wicked

weapon and averted his head.

“Why did you do it?” Tracy snapped.
“I don’t . . . I don’t know,” the

prisoner, completely losing his com-
posure, whimpered. “I guess I just got
a thrill out of it... like being with a
girl, or. something . . . I don’t know.”

racy went over and whispered to
Assistant District Attorney J. Frank

Greig said he had met Leona Vlught at
a dance hall a month earlier. He had
taken her out one evening and when
he made advances to her in his car
she repulsed him. He persisted. She
pushed him away and made him drive
her home. He swore he'd. get even.

At 8 o'clock the night of the murder
he met her by chance when she walked
into a tavern on Broadway. She had
two beers and left. Shortly after mid-
night she returned and asked him to
take her to El Cerrito for some Chinese
food. They ate and cruised around for
a while talking. He made no passes.
When he asked her if she wanted to
go home she declined, saying she had
the blues and wanted to talk them out.

They ended up parked on the dirt

road running off 106th Avenue. She
told him her appendix had been bother-
ing her and that her doctor was insist-
ing on an operation. This depressed her.
She said she was frightened sick of an
Operation and would rather die than
submit to one.
_ The word “die” started pictures flash-
ing in his mind. He got out of the car
and walked around to her window, pull-
ing a knife he carried for protection
out of its sheath. He’ put the point of
the knife to her throat and asked if
she wanted him to kill her. She laughed
at him. This heightened his desire and
he returned to his séat behind the wheel,
lashed out and stabbed her in the breast.
She screamed, but it died in her throat.
He then propped her up against the
car with his shoulder, got his arms
under her and dragged her down to the
ditch. This was around 3:30. He then
drove home and went to bed.

“Is that all?” Tracy asked when the
killer stopped talking:

Greig nodded.

.Tracy thought the confession and its
several discrepancies through. “What did
you do with her bag, hat, gloves and
jewelry?” he asked.

“I kept her wrist watch, ring and
locket to remember her by. They’re in
a shoe box in the garage at home. I
threw the hat, bag and gloves in a trash
can at Alice and 19th.”

“How long have you owned the
knife?”

“I bought it six months ago. I don’t
remember where.”

Jewell went over and
Tracy’s ear,

“Do you belong to some cult, sect
or secret society? Why did you prick
a triangle on Leona’s neck,” Tracy
asked. ‘

“Oh, I’ve read a little medicine, I’m
not exactly stupid, you know,” said
the prisoner, a half-leer on his lips.
“At the ditch I nicked her three times

whispered in

with the knife and when the cuts didn’t
bleed I knew she was dead. If I formed
a triangle it was an accident. No, I
don’t belong to any cult.”

“Leona told several friends she had

a date with you at 2 o’clock Wednesday
morning. Yet you say you bumped into
her at a tavern. Didn’t you have a pre-
arranged date?”

“No, sir. Maybe by saying she had

a date with me she was just doing a

POLICE DRAGNET

little wishful bragging.” :
After Greig was charged with mur-

_ der, Inspectors Duffy and Jewell found

a shop where he had purchased the mur-
der knife. He had bought it, not six
months before, but the day of the
tder!

ee Purther investigation revealed that
Greig had been married. The woman,
six years his senior, had left him a few
days later and had obtained an annul-
ment. Several times after that Greig
had accosted her and threatened to turn
her into “fish bait.” :

At Greig’s preliminary hearing on
December 20th, 1938, a crowd of sev-
eral hundred men gathered in front of
the courtroom of Municipal Judge Chris
Fox muttering “string him up!” The
police quickly dispersed the gathering.

Psychiatrists judged Greig sane. He
was tried and found guilty of first de-
gree murder and sentenced to die in the
gas chamber. After several stays, he
was executed in San Quentin’s little
green room on August 23rd, 1940.

Grandstander to the end, when he
heard the fatal pellet plop into the
acid bucket under his chair, the sexual-
ly deranged youth leaned his head
down to his strapped hands and manag-
ed to pull the bandage from his eyes.
Straightening up, he winked and smiled
at the witnesses, took one deep gulp
of the cyanide gas and slumped over
dead.

Editor's Note: The names Pete West-
erly, James Young and Rolf Bjork are
fictitious.

2 HEADLESS SWEETHEARTS
(Continued from page 27)

115 or 120 pounds, She had small
hands, a vaccination scar on her right
arm and a hammer thumb on her left
hand. ;

This information brought no im-
mediate response from the Sacramento
public, But on January Sth, the police
of suburban Albany, on the coast near
Oakland, reported that the description
was almost identical to that of a miss-
ing Albany girl. ;

y Norse bier Arthur Smith told
Undersheriff Knoll over the telephone
that he had become interested when he
learned that the torso murder victim
had a left hammer thumb. So had the
Albany girl, he said. She also had a
vaccination mark on her right arm.

The missing girl was Sally Ellis, an
extremely pretty brunette of 19, She
had gone out on a date with an Oak-
land man on the evening of October
3rd, and her foster-parents had not seen
her since, They were inclined to suspect
that she had eloped with her escort,
and they waited. several days for her
to get in touch with them, Then, when
there was no word from her, they

ified the police. :
7S mith and te other officers working
on the case were handicapped by the
fact that Sally had not told her foster-
parents her boy friend’s name. They
only knew that he was considerably
older than she, and that he worked
as a car painter in Oakland. ;

It was several weeks before Smith
located the man, Rex Brennan, He ad-
mitted that he had taken Sally out on

October 3rd, but said he had brought

her home at two-thirty the next morn-

ing and left her in front of the family
apartment. He denied that he had seen
her after that or that he had any idea
she was. .
wecaea had a good reputation, but

Smith was not satisfied with his story

that he had left on his vacation the

same morning he escorted the girl

POLICE DRAGNET

Utah, where he spent the next two

home. He claimed to have gone to

weeks in Ogden and Salt Lake City.

ve investigation soon disclosed that
Brennan actually had gone to Ogden,
however, and he was tentatively cleared

of suspicion.

WO months passed, and then the
T missing girl’s foster-mother began
to receive long-distance telephone calls
from a woman who asked for Sally
and then hung up without giving her
name. Each of the ae made from

ake City, in Utah. :
San, ga before Christmas,
Brennan again went to Salt Lake City
on vacation. When he returned, early

so ovER (BEA.
in January, Smith brought him in for soo : NT
questioning. : AMERICAN FINGERPRI
Brennan broke down and admitted| "Eureaus © EXPERT
that he had been seeing Sally in Salt OF tate
Lake City, When he went there the | jpENTIFICATION

first time, he said, she “followed” him
and by some coincidence obtained a
room in the same hotel where he was
ing.
ee made him promise not to tell
anyone where she was, he declared, and
that was why he had been concealing
the truth, When he last saw her, he said,
in December, she was working in a
nursing home near Ogden.
Smith asked the C- a Salt i

ity police to try to find some trace
of Tbe girl, but ‘thus far they had no
success. ue
After further. communication —be-
tween the Albany police and the Sacra-
mento officers, arrangements were made
for Inspector Smith to bring Brennan
to Sacramento to view the remains of
the murder victim.

headless, legless body was exhumed. | §

The result was inconclusive. Bren-| §
nan gazed at the body with seeming g
earnestness before shaking his head in| §
the negative. aes |

“It may be Sally,” he said. “I just] J
can’t say whether it is or not.” r]

Aided by Sergeant Robert Turley, 1
Smith searched the missing girl’s home
for latent prints on objects, she was

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by GEORGE LAVORATO

the gray ripple of San Francisco Bay. Now these rolling slopes are embossed with

+] igh above the City of Oakland, California, there is a range of hills overlooking

houses, but there was a time, before the bulldozers slashed the earth, when the
hills were lonely and wild. There was a place at the unpaved end of 106th Avenue where
the ground was mattressed with the pungent bark of eucalyptus trees, and wild grass
wove with the snaking currents of air. The road ended there in a wide flat place, unlighted
at night, far distant from the path of police prowl cars, so it was called Lover’s Lane.

There was plenty of living there at
night, in the biological sense, and the

¥

ae 4G = Wy

cars that crawled up the hill snapped
off their headlights, in the code of such
places, before they slid into their dark
stalls.

fora Si

Dh ie ‘

Statuesque figure of Leona Viught lay all night

spilling blood on secluded Lover's Lane. Sleuths 9

later were puzzled by absence of any heel marks it
in the soft earth.

.

Pee ted f he a af #

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On this December morning the Hill
was quite deserted when Conrad
Letting came along. He and his
mother-in-law, Constance Hobert, had
been prospecting for wild mushrooms
in the wet grass, and they were ready

BETECTIVE FILES, JULY, 1985.

to start down the hill. That’s how they
happened to find the murdered girl.

The once-lovely titian-haired girl
was sprawled in a shallow gully; she
was very pale, an inquiry in her half-
open eyes.

‘‘Now isn’t that a hell of a pity!’’
exclaimed Conrad Letting.

Other bodies have turned up in
Oakland, in varied places and cir-
cumstances, but there was never a
corpse with more beauty than this one.
The victim was perhaps 19 or 20 years
old, a girl of such symmetry and
comeliness as to make other women
appear frowsy and common. She had
hair of a curious copper hue, not dully
metallic but shining, and her teeth had
the same remarkable milkiness as her
skin. That she was Junoesque, six feet
tall, was determined later.

The corpse was clad in sheer
stockings and a black crepe dress, an
embroidered garter belt and black,
open-toed shoes.

It was the dress which spoke, in a
fashion, and said that this was no
ordinary killing. The garment had been
cut open by some exploratory blade,
the slit running down from the
neckline until the full breasts were
exposed. And between the firm
mounds of flesh was the almost clean
and bloodless fission later prosaically
labeled the cause of death. The killer’s
knife, as the autopsy subsequently
showed, had penetrated a full four
inches to the heart. There were also
three more cuts — shallow holes
forming a triangle — just below the
neckline; it was these wounds that
disturbed the garish thinkers, for the
incisions were never really explained.
They looked curiously like the small
toothmarks of a bat, and because they
were just over the jugular vein, some
people immediately thought of a
vampire. By a strange twist of coinci-
dence, the local movie houses were

Exhibits in killer’s trial lie on
district attorney’s desk, among
them the sharp-honed hunter's
knife that entered victim’s heart.

A knife had penetrated four inches to the
girl’s heart, but that’s not what bothered
medical men. What they couldn’t explain
were three marks on the side of her neck,

nr
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just then featuring a revival of
“Dracula,’’ and it took little imagi-
nation to connect Bela Lugosi’s
cinematic bloodsucking with the real-
life crime on the hill.

However, the Oakland Homicide
Squad took a more practical view. The
two officers assigned to the case were
Lou Jewell, a clever young detective
who hac probed many a murder
mystery, and Tom Duffy, shrewd,
husky and relentless.

The two sleuths observed at once
that the murderer had made extraor-
dinary efforts to hide the girl’s
identity. As a rule, all females carry

purses. In this case, there was no sign
of a handbag at the crime scene. The
victim had worn a wristwatch; the pale
circle on her arm showed where it had
been removed. There was a similar
bleached band on one finger where
there had been a ring.

Checking for clues, Detective Jewell
examined the victim’s open-toed shoes
with their delicate high heels. ‘‘The
earth around the body is soft,’’ he said
to his colleague, ‘‘but there are no
signs of high-heel impressions any-
where in the area. However, there’s

(continued on next page)

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some mud and a couple of scuff marks
on the back of the girl’s shoes. Yet

_ it’s a cinch she didn’t walk to this

spot.’’

Detective Duffy, moving along an
imaginary line away from the slain
redhead’s feet, stopped and pushed
back his hat. ‘‘No, she didn’t walk.
She was dragged! You can see the trail
right here.”’

The two lawmen followed the
telltale marking back toward the road
to the parking area, and there the
picture of the crime began to take
definite shape. There was present a set
of tire marks on the earth where a
small car had parked, made a sudden
U-turn and gone on down the hill.
Next, the officers found half a dozen
cigaret butts and a place where a man
had paced back and forth.

“The killer was plenty nervous,’’
commented Detective Jewell. ‘‘The
cigarets are only half smoked and he
dug his heels while he walked up and
down. No blood around this spot,
which is where the girl might have been
killed before being dragged to the
place she was found.’’

Detective Duffy nodded. ‘‘No, she
didn’t bleed much. That knife must
have had a hell of an edge on it.’’

The sleuths roped off the area, sent

_ for a technician to make a cast of the

tire marks, and then went back to
headquarters for the dull routine that
makes good detectives.

The Missing Persons Bureau, last
port for lost souls, had no record on
the murdered beautiful Amazon. No
crotchety husbands had called about
a vanished wife, no mother wept over
the phone for a wayward daughter.
Even the alabaster body was unble-
mished, and thus without clues.
Outside of the wounds inflicted by the
slayer, there were no scratches, no
bruises, and only small comfort for the
esthetic in the disclosure that there had
been no sexual contact. In the sense
that there are formula murders, there
might have been some lustful violence
involved in this expert carving. But the
significance of its absence was to be
made apparent later, and it turned out
to be a major point in the case against
the killer...

In the grim custom of handling slain

‘ persons, the girl’s body was laid out

in the city morgue, descriptions were
given to radio stations and newspa-
pers. Presently Luther Chanin, a
young man with damp nervous hands
and apprehensive eyes, wandered in
and took a quick, nodding look at the

corpse.
**Yep — that’s her. I know her, all
28

right.’? The night before, he said, he
had been calling on some Scandina-
vian friends. Leonard and Cleo
Vlught. They were worried about
their daughter, Leona, because they
had not heard from her all day.
‘‘That’s Leona there,” he said sadly.
“*I guess she never got home at all.”’

The police called the Vlught dwell-
ing and simultaneously newspapermen
rushed out to talk with the family.
They found Leonard Vlught in his little
bakery on Foothill Boulevard, a stolid
blond man who could handle trouble
when he saw it. ‘‘Your daughter
Leona,’’ said one reporter, ‘‘I’m
afraid she’s dead.”’

The newspapermen went away, and
Leonard Vlught stood stiffly at his
work table. Finally he put on his hat
and walked into the street, seeing
nothing.

Meanwhile one small shadow had
been dissolved — at least the victim
had a name. But there was conflict
even here, for Leona Vlught was like
a cereus, quietly folded during the day,
blooming in the night.

The detectives gathered her history
in bits and pieces, from those who
would talk and, by indirection, from
those who would not. The ill-fated
young woman had attended Fremont
High School in Oakland, where her
beauty and extraordinary figure were
remembered to an unusual degree.
Leona had been active in school
athletics, she had remarkable grace on
the dance floor, and her scholastic
talents were so pronounced that she
made the honor roll and was graduated
at the age of 16. She entered the
University of California where, for
some obscure reason, she spent an
indifferent and virtually anonymous
year, then suddenly dropped her
studies.

The following autumn Leona was
one of half a dozen girls who enrolled
in the Lee Ann Beauty Academy in
Oakland. Here again she showed
remarkable aptitude, mastering the art
so quickly that she was engaged as an
instructor.

So far the record was a mirror of
circumspection. But Detectives Jewell
and Duffy, searching for at least one
man who had been granted parking
privileges with her in Lovers’ Lane,
ericountered disquieting facets in Leona
Vlught’s private life. She had been well
known, for example, in those bars and
eating houses which lie halfway
between the police blotter and the
Sunday School class. She’d fluttered
around the bright lights, and the
members of the ‘‘in’’ crowd knew her.

Sometimes she had been alone, but
moré often with a man. She was
neither good nor bad, but would have
been forced into a choice sooner or
later.

The detectives encountered one
friend, Marion Denton, who recalled
having seen Leona during her last night
on earth. Leona, the witness remem-
bered, was lined up for a date. ‘‘She’d
been out with this same man before,”’
said Marion, ‘‘and I guess it wasn’t so
good. But she was willing to take
another chance. Leona said she had
her fingers crossed.”’

And the man’s name? Alas, Marion
didn’t know.

Investigators were busy, too, in the
other detective bureaus now. The
pawn shop detail had a list of Leona’s
missing property — a black handbag,
a small heart-shaped locket, two rings
of doubtful value, a wrist watch that
was a graduation gift. The laboratory
crew had made their casts at the crime
scene in Lovers’ Lane and determined
that the tire of the automobile which
undoubtedly had belonged to the
slayer was a Goodrich, of a size used
on light passenger cars. Nothing
important turned up in the analysis of
the cigaret butts dropped by the
nervous slayer, but the autopsy
surgeons were fairly sure the deadly
knife was a hunting weapon, honed
to scalpel sharpness and with a blade
at least six inches long.

Was it possible that a garrulous,
extroverted girl like Leona Vlught had
told no one else about her date that
unhappy night? The homicide crew,
wise and cynical from long experience,
doubted it.

Detectives Jewell and Duffy had
already had a confidential talk with
the victim’s parents, and had obtained
a list of Leona’s known companions.
Most of those who had called at the
Vlught residence to court the girl were
eminently respectable young men, and
their whereabouts would be easy to
check. One' or two were of doubtful
quality and could stand further
investigation.

Next, the lawmen called on Hazel
Don, director of the beauty college,
and there the law of averages began
to pay off. The helpful businesswoman
rounded up three of her students,
Anna May Ford, Rena Thompson and
Lillian Vierra. On the night of the
murder, the trio said, Leona had come
alone to a dance hall at Twelfth and
Broadway in downtown Oakland.
About an hour later, about | a.m., the
three classmates asked Leona to join
them at a nearby restaurant for a

Brooding stare of Rodney Greig

hypnotized beautiful women

into submission. He laughed
when he entered gas chamber.

snack. But Leona seemed as skittish
as a cat in the moonlight and turned
down the invitation. ‘‘As a matter of
fact,’’ she told them, ‘‘I’ve got a date
and I have to wait right here for him
to pick me up.”’

When the three girls emerged from
the restaurant, Leona was still standing
there. At that moment a Dodge sedan
pulled up to the curb and Leona,
waving to them, climbed in. The driver
was a handsome, swarthy, curly-haired
youth. They knew nothing more about
him, except that Leona called him
**Rod,’’ and had mentioned he was
working for a streetcar company or a
railroad ‘‘or something.”’

This was not exactly a sizzling clue,
but it could have been worse. Detecti-
ves Jewell and Duffy promptly
gathered up personnel lists from every
railroad, airline, bus and streetcar
company in the San Francisco Bay
region and began looking for a man
whose first name was ‘‘Rod’’ and who
owned a Dodge sedan with Goodrich
tires. This was no spinetingling
adventure such as the story book

detectives encounter, but hours and.

hours of drudgery that might yield
S \

a aa ion

nothing at all.
There were almost tod many ‘Rods’’
in the world. The lists yielded men
named Rodman, Rodolph, Roderick,
Rodbert, Rodrigues and Rodney. But
at last the investigators came across
one that sounded promising after a
hasty check-up. The name was Rodney
Greig, age 21, clerk in the Western
Pacific Railroad offices in Oakland,
darkly handsome, and owner of a

(continued on next page)

Scandinavian beauty Leona Vlught, athlete
and school campus queen, was forced into

life-or-death decision.

29

the bullet-riddled
vily proportioned

McDowell told
ind right through
the coroner, death
taneous—and he
th at 8:30 P.M.
3ohannon's shoot-

ne time is right.”
figure and studied
"hed, the youth—
Anderson judged
h the build of a

med inside out,
npty. The labels
from his gar-

lot of trouble to
erson said.

ampled into the
a leather wallet.
y, except for an
‘ected by its albi-
the words: ‘“‘Wil-
«ford and Grand

”

@: beginning

econstructed the
‘nnon, prominent
some, had had a
2 a woman, and
ce he was a law-
al. He had pick-
Evansville early
had driven out

‘ory that it was
itment had been
a woman afraid.
nsult him about

her husband to i

«| lawyer, or even
And suppose her
after all, knew
nd had followed
‘der in his heart.
‘oad, he had ac-
they had shot it

lously wounded;
Ned. Which left

stomer. She had
any identifying
s of the victim.
nnon back into
the wheel. She
1 made good her

‘d. “He doesn’t
ie story he told

‘s formed under

ed om page 84)

woman, which had ended with Guld-
brandsen stabbing the man thirteen times
with an ice pick.

At the same time, the Sonoma County

" officials obtained a description of the car

owned by the murdered Peter Flint, in
which Guldbrandsen had driven from, the
scene of his gruesome crimes. It was a
1941 Buick convertible, with a dark green
body and a white top, bearing the 1949
California license plate 9-P-3869.

At once state highway, sheriff’s officers
and the police of San Francisco were
alerted to be on the look-out, and an
all-points bulletin was flashed out over
the police teletype and radio stations.

By that time, it was three o’clock in
the afternoon. Highway police were
hampered in their work of setting up
tentative roadblocks on the main high-
ways leading north and south from the
Valley of the Moon by the holiday motor-
ists thronging the thoroughfares.

Added to this was the fact that the
crimes had taken place in the late morn-
ing. Ursula Tourne had been unconscious
for an hour or more before she had man-
aged to escape and spread the alarm.

By now Guldbrandsen could well have
abandoned the easily identified Buick and
lost himself in the holiday crowds.

Nevertheless, within ‘the hour, reports -

began to come in to the sheriff’s office.
Pin-pointing the conflicting locations on
a road-map spread out on his desk, Dep-
uty Sheriff Robert Dollar sighed wearily.
The green Buick and the man answering
Guldbrandsen’s description were being
seen too many places, too widely separ-
ated, at the same time.

Chasing down each clue would take up
valuable time. Yet to let any one go un-
checked might mean the killer-rapist
would make good his escape.

So throughout the long night, the clues
were taken down and checked—and in
the end, found to lead nowhere.

EANWHILE, far to the north in the

city of Eureka, the green Buick» ,

convertible was parked in a secluded alley
in the downtown section.

The man called Hank had arrived there,

tired and dusty and weary, at seven in
the evening, He had checked in at: the
Eureka Inn, bathed and shaved, and then
started out. ;
* He ate dinner alone, in one of the
leading’ restaurants, then moved on to the
more sociable and friendly atmosphere of
bars and night clubs.

Throughout-the evening, he found com-

panions with whom to drink and dance,
and there were none to speak of what
had happened earlier that day on a moun-
tain peak overlooking the Valley of the
Moon.

The young marine officer drank and
danced and sang with his newly found
friends unti) long after midnight. The
idea occurred to him that maybe it would
be pleasanter if he didn’t spend the rest
of the night alone, and he made tentative
Suggestions to the young blonde who was
cuddled by his side.

And then, even as she smiled at him
in unspoken agreement, he thought of
the girl on the mountain top, and what
had happened to her, and changed his
mind.

For some reason, he didn’t want that
to happen again. :

It was two o’clock in the morning when
at last he went back to the inn alone,
and to bed. Only, for some Teason, he
couldn’t sleep.

There was too much to think about. Too
much to wonder about. Most of all, wiry?

Why?

He found no answer during the sleep-
less night, nor during the following morn-
ing as he wandered aimlessly about the
town. He stopped once and bought a
morning paper and read the headlined
story of the murder and -rape.

It didn’t happen quite that way, he
thought irritably. Why do they always
Set everything wrong?

He tried to rid his mind of the Jurid
pictures that formed, one after the other.
But it wasn’t any use. He couldn’t stop
thinking, couldn’t stop remembering.

I'll never be able to stop, he thought
dully. And the only thing I’ve ever really
loved, the sea, isn’t for me anymore. The

(Continued from page 19)

world’s too small now. They have fin-
gerprints and records and stuff that fol-
lows you forever. Follows you like your
own memory .. . and they never never
give up. If it takes twenty years, they
never give up.

He went into a bar and had one drink
and then another. Then, just to kill time.
he went into a barber shop and had a
haircut.

The barber wanted to talk about the
killings and the rape.

“What’s a guy want to kill folks for
just to get some dame?” the barber asked
disgustedly. “Hell, the woods is full of
babes that can be had for the asking. A
man don’t need to go to no trouble to
get them.”

“That’s right,” Guldbrandsen said in
a carefully emotionless voice. “A man’s
a fool to go to any trouble—”

He left the barber shop and went into
the nearest bar. He had cne slow drink.
and then a quick one, while he made up
his mind.

He saw the telephone bocth in the back,
pear the juke box. He went to the phone,
and asked for information, and then for
the number the girl gave him.

“I’m at the Log Cabin,” he told the
voice that finally answered, “If you'll send
a reporter over here, I’ll give him a good
story. An exclusive story . . . about a
murder!”

Five minutes Itaer, a Eureka Timies
reporter, Ed Neumeier, was in the bar.
listening to the story that Henry Brun
Guldbrandsen was placidly telling him in
a calm, matter cf fact voice. And fif-
teen minutes later, Guldbrandsen was ac-
companying the reporter back to the city
room, to sign his confession and to await
the arrival of men from the sheriff’s of-
fice.

Only one question remained now to be
answered.

Why?

Guldbrandsen couldn’t answer that. Nor
could Ursula Tourne, stil] suffering from
shock and lacerations in the hospital in
Sonoma.

Nor could Peter Jensen, elderly owner
of the mysterious cabin in the mountain
peaks, and his -young friend Peter Flint.

It was just part of the macabre holiday
of death.

Fourth of July, 1949... .

Editor’s note: The mame Ursula Tourne is
fictitious in this true account to Spare
further foin and embarrassment to an
immocent victim of the bloody Valley of,
the Moon tragedy.

65


She was beaten
and then tied to a tree

little fall and hurt his arm. Looks. like
it’s broken.”

Ursula gave a quick gasp of sympathy

“We'd better drive him down the val-
ley to a doctor,” she said immediately,
“Why didn’t you put him in a car and
bring him down here with you?”

Hank hesitated and gave a little shrug
before he answered. ‘“I—he didn’t feel
like coming,” he murmured at last. “He’s
right there in the cabin.”

By that time, Ursula Tourne was strid-
ing up the narrow mountain lane that led
to the mountain top. She hadn’t paused
to dress, she was wearing just the thin
light housedress in which she had answer-
ed the door. As she moved ahead of
Hank, the sheer, clinging material mould-
ed itself about her legs and hips, reveal-
ing the full, unrestrained curves of her
figure.

Once she turned to Hank and demand-
ed, “What about Mr. Jensen? Isn’t he
there to help?”

Hank raised his eyes from cher legs.
She noticed then the strange opaque dark-
ness of his glance, and despite the in-
creasing warmth of the morning, she felt
a little shiver of apprehension ripple down
her spine.

Don’t be silly! she told herself impa-
tiently. Men are always looking at a
woman’s legs. It doesn’t mean anything.

Nevertheless, she involuntarily hurried
her pace, anxious to reach the mountain
peak and Jensen’s cabin.

Anxious, without quite knowing why,
not to be alone any longer than need be
with the man called Hank.

And then they were iri a clearing, and
the four-rcom cabin so mysteriously and
luxuriously furnished with rich Oriental
objects was before them. Ursula paused
for a moment to catch her breath, and
then turned to Hank.

“But where is everyone?” .she demand-
ed. “Where’s Mr. Jensen?”

Hank had stopped by the doorway,
where a heavy brass dinner gong, heavily
engraved with Chinese designs, hung.
From beneath the gong he picked up a
stone pestle, relic of the days when the
Aztecs had once camped, centuries be-
fore, in the surrounding mountains and
valleys.

He weighed the pestle thoughtfully in

“his hand, then faced Ursula with expres-

sionless eyes.
“They're both in the cabin,” he said

18

- My ahF ‘

a |

Photo above shows how the girl was bound to
a scrub oak tree with a pe” of khaki pants

and an old shirt worn by ¢

slowly. He let a moment pass before add-
ing, in the same slow, unemotionless voice,
the final, terrible word. “Dead.”

Ursula Tourne stared at him.

“Dead?” she repeated dully, and then
gave-a shaky laugh. “You're joking Hank!
Where are they really?”

For answer he made a brusque gesture
with his head towards the interior of the
cabin. Nervously Ursula entered, passed
thrcugh the tapestry hung living room,
paused at the open door of the bedroom.

Paused for a terror-frozen moment,
then screamed... .

For the elderly cabin owner, Peter Jen-
sen, was there. So, too, was her friend,
ycung Peter Flint. Both men were stretch-
ed out on cots at opposite sides of the
room, Both men were nude.

And both were dead.

e alleged attacker.

LOOD caking the skulls and features

indicated how death had come., And
as Ursula Tourne screamed again and
swirled about, it was to find Hank block-
ing her way, the same queer expression
in his dark eyes, his hand menacingly.
fingering the stone pestle.

“Don't!” she cried as she saw his arm
swing upwards. “Don’t, Hank!”

She dodged instinctively as the mur-
derous arm descended. The pestle grazed
her temple and heavily against her. shoul-
der.

Again she screamed, “Don’t! You can’t
kill me for no reason at all. I’ve got my
babies—”

Hank stopped suddenly as he was about
to strike again. His nigrescent eyes be-
came strangely intent, studying her,
sweeping over her trembling body.

*

|

Th
her b
and a

Fez
over
Hank

In
cludec
with
man }
her c)

The
he rij
trying
the g
cloak

Anc
mome
only
drcpp
ward.

On


TU dou DDS IN 14D

Mrs. Eva Paget, 27-year-old Berkeley
California mother, went on a picnic
July 6, 1949 near her home. Late
in the afternoon two other people
who were lunching nearby saw her
stumbling toward them, her hair
down and her eyes filled with
terror. She was only able to mumble
a story of a criminal assault and
double murder before she fainted.
When she was revived, she told how
a man had tied her to a tree and
then with an Indian stone pestle,
such as Indians once used, killed
Peter J. Flint and Peter J. Jenson.
After that he returned to her and
assaulted her while she was tied
with a pair of trousers, a coat, and
a scarf, After the attacker left, she
managed to work herself free and
stagger off for help. Her story
brought the police and they found
the bodies of Flint and Jenson,
their heads crushed and the Indian
stone lying nearby, covered with
blood and human hairs, The stone
was examined for fingerprints but
the murder weapon had been care-
fully cleaned so as to obliterate
any such identifying marks.


bound to
aki pants
attacker.

the skulls and features
vy death had come. And
e screamed again and
vas to find Hank block-
same queer expression
, his hand menacingly.
e pestle.

tied as she saw his arm
Don’t, Hank!”
stinctively as the mur-

nded. The pestle grazed

eavily against her. shoul-

med, “Don’t! You can’t
ason at all. I’ve got my

suddenly as he was about
His nigrescent eyes be-

intent, studying her,
r trembling body.

Peter J. Flint, 27, of Richmond, California,
one of the victims in the double-murder and
rape. Flint was a Merchant Marine lieutenant.

Then wordlessly he reached out, took
her by the arm, led her out of the door
and around to the rear of the cabin.

Fear choked the girl’s voice as she cried
over and over again, “Don't hurt me,
Hank! Let me go! Please—”

In the mountain silence behind the se-
cluded cabin he made no answer. Instead,
with the methodical deliberateness of a
man moving in a trance he began to tear
her clothes off. s

There were only three garments, but
he ripped them away slowly, as though
trying to prolong the final moment before
the girl cowered before him, trying to
cloak -her nude body with futile hands.

And then there was another terror-taut
moment in which he stocd motionless,
only his eyes moving, before at last he
drcpped the stone pestle and stepped for-
ward,

Once again Ursula cried out despair-

ingly, the ‘shrill sound of her s¢ream ris-
ing thinly and loosing itself in the moun-
tain solitude... .

The two iron hands that were his arms
closed about her then, and his harsh lips
silenced her. i

That was at ten-thirty in the morning,
as nearly as Ursula Tourne could'figure it
later. When she regained consciousness,
the sun was directly overhead.

She tried to move her weary, pain-
wracked body, and that was when she dis-
covered that she was bound to a tree
trunk. It took additional fear-ridden mo-
ments before she could identify her ‘bind-
ings—a man’s belt, and what looked like
a torn pair of pants, and bits of heavy
twine.

It was the twine that cut into the flesh
of her arms when she tried to free her
hands, but finally she discovered that by

lowering her head she could get the knots
between her teeth.

Terror and pain made her clumsy,
thcugh ... and always there was the fear
that the man would return at any mo-
ment. And at remembrance of what he
had done a shudder convulsed her body,
and her legs quivered weakly.

This can’t be .true! she thought hys-
terically. This can’t have happened to me!
There can’t be two murdered men in the
cabin, It’s all a horrible nightmare!

Only it wasn’t any nightmare. Her body
remembered too well the brutal ravish-
ment that it had suffered.

And when, at long last, she had freed
herself cf her bonds and stumbled towards
the cabin, it tock only one horrified glance
to assure herself that Jensen and Flint
were both dead.

Both murdered.

She turned then and half ran, half
stumbled down the mountain side, un-
mindful of her nakedness, seeking only
aid and safety.

‘WO startled picnickers, Constance

Hocver and Margaret Smith, of San
Francisco, were the first to give aid to
the hysterical girl.

She tumbled upon them half way down’
the mountain side, and. breathlessly sob-
bed out the story before she collapsed.
The picnickers immediately bundled her
into their car, covering her with a jacket,
and started at once for the main highway
and the nearest contact with the local
police.

Within fifteen minutes, the Sonoma
County authorities had taken over. While
deputy sheriffs headed for the mountain
cabin others accompanied Ursula Tourne
to the nearest hospital, questioning her
as to the identity of the man she called
Hank.

“That's all the name I know,” she sob-
bed wearily. “I heard his last name, but
it’s a strange one and I forgot it. He
was with Pete Flint at the Maritime
Academy at Alameda—”

It was little enough to go on, but once
the truth of the brutal murders in the
micuntain cabin had been established, it
was sufficient.

For immediate contact was made with
the Merchant Marine Academy at Ala-
meda. There the records disclosed that
Peter Flint for the t two weeks had
roomed with a man by the name of Henry
Brun Guldbrandsen.

Guldbrandsen’s nickname was Hank.

And the records revealed even more
important information. The same Guld-
brandsen had been paroled only three
weeks before from the state prison at
Chino, California, after serving a two-
year term for assault with a deadly wea-
pon. That offense had been the outcome
cf a quarrel with another man over a

- (Continued on page 65)

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THE END

“CLUE OF THE BLACK NEGLIGEE
(Continued from page 25)

these moves eventually proved fruitless.
By the end of January it began to look
as if Hawkins had simply vanished from
the face of the earth. And even Wiley
Ward was unable to help.

It wasn’t until mid-February that Win-
gate stumbled over some information that
related to the disappearance. From a
man who operated a_ filling station just
outside of Galax, the sheriff learned that
Hawkins, on several occasions when he
drove to Roanoke, had given a ride to a
local youth named Randolph Coffey.

“As | understand it, Coffey had a girl
in Roanoke, and Hawkins usually came
by on Saturday evenings,” his informant
told Wingate. “He usually came by around
four o’clock, and Rannie would catch a
ride with him. But I’ve noticed that ever
since Hawkins disappeared, Rannie hasn’t
come around much.”

Wingate’s interest was further aroused
when he learned that Coffey, a plasterer
by trade, had once been arrested by the
Bristol police and questioned in the rob-
bery of an elderly man the previous July.
He had been subsequently released for
lack of evidence, and the crime had re-
mained unsolved.

The Bristol authorities informed the
sheriff that Coffey had been picked up
at two o'clock in the morning, shortly
after the crime, but had insisted he was
making his way back’ to the bus station
after visiting a friend at a local hotel.
They had found nothing to refute his
story. .

“That, of course, proves nothing,” Win-
gate pointed out to Wheatley. “But what
keeps hitting me between the eyes is this:
Coffey was accustomed to riding to Roan-
oke with Hawkins on Saturday evening,
and it was on a Saturday evening “that
our man disappeared.

“Let's have a talk with this fellow.”

Coffey was soon found and brought to
the sheriff's office. A tall man, around 23
years ‘old, he groaned as Wingate began
questioning him about his jaunts to Roan-
oke with the missing man.

“Good gosh, Sheriff, it looks as if I’m
always getting into trouble without even
trying,” he lamented. “Sure, Mr. Hawkins
usually gave me a ride to Roanoke on
Saturday evenings. He was pretty nice
about that. But I don’t know where he
is. 1 haven't seen him for weeks.”

“Neither have we,” Wingate said. “Why
did you stop coming to the filling station
right after Christmas?”

“Because 1 bought a car. It’s just a
jalopy, but it gets me to Roanoke and
back.”

“Even. a junk heap takes a fair sum
of money to buy and run. Where did you
get it?” ,

Coffey asserted that the down payment
had been modest. He was making the
‘payments out of his salary.

“But don’t you at least need water to
drive to Roanoke and back. You don’t
even stop at the filling station near your
house for gas. Seems to me that would
be the first place you'd buy it.”

“} can't afford to spend too much on

car upkeep,” Coffey replied. “I buy a
cheaper gas elsewhere.”

At the end of an hour’s interview,
Wingate was still undecided as to whether
Coffey was involved in the strange dis-
appearance of his former benefactor. At
times the youth appeared deliberately
evasive in his replies; at other times he
seemed to be talking with complete can-
dor and honesty. Wingate finally decided
to release him and to check his statement
thoroughly.

Working on the theory that the pros-
perous lumberman had excited a hidden
streak of greed in the youth and in con-
sequence had met death somewhere on
the lonely highway that winds through the
mountains from Galax to Roanoke, Win-
gate first interviewed members of the
missing man’s family. However, none could
offer any information as to whether, he
carried large sums of money on his out-
of-town trips. Nor could any satisactory
information on this angle be obtained
from employees at his lumberyard. "

A check of Coffey’s friends and ac-

quaintances revealed that he hadn't. in-
dulged in any undue spending sprees re-
cently.
All in all, it began to look as if Coffey
had spoken the truth and that he was
being embroiled in suspicion and misad-
venture through no fault of his own.

Once more the days began to slide by.
There wasn’t a single response to the
fliers and teletyped descriptions sent out
by Wingate. Hawkins’ relatives, several of
whom had expressed the hope that he had
taken off on a whimsical vacation trip,
failed to receive even a card in the mail.

Wingate . failed to find out for whom

the Christmas gift had been intended. He ~

was certain by now that the restaurant
cashier wasn’t involved. But to whom had
he directed the endearing phrase on the
gift card? Who was it that he “loved
more and more?”

firvwm pee
ILEY WARD strolled into Wingate’s
office one day early in April.
“Thought I'd forgotten call about

” that little promise I made?” he asked the

sheriff.

-Wingate- said. “I wouldn’t blame you
a bit if you did. Nobody’s been able to
pea up what happened to Hobart Haw-

ins.” :

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“I checked through the Elk Creek section,
where Hawkins used to farm. At first I
didn’t get a nibble. But the more I talked
to those people up there, the more I felt
that someone was hiding something. It
seemed as if they were afraid of some-
thing.

“[ finally got a surprising bit of infor-
mation from a woman who lived near
Hawkins’ old ‘place. She said that Bill
Hale, right after Mrs. Hawkins’ divorced
her husband, became a boarder in the
house.”

“Bill Hale? Why would he want to go
out and board somewhere? He’s got his

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30 PACIFIC (2nd) 23 & 9963 5h SupCt 869; 56 ~SupCt 381
HALL, George, 29-year-old white man, hanged at Folsom (Siskiyou) on Mar. 27, 1936.

"George Hall, 29, who died on the gallows of Foksom prison Friday morning for a 3-
fear-old slaying, was a former resident of Merced, it was believed today, Louis B,
McNamara, chief clerk in a railroad freight depot here, declared a man by that name
worked as a clerk for the railway in 1923 for a short time, Then he went to Bakerse
field and returned here in 1926 to take over the agency of an insurance company,
McNamara said, McNamara said he believed Hall to be older than 29, Hall killed
Highway Patrolman Steven Kent and Lester Quiggle, a Yreka garageman, more than 3
years ago, One legal delay after another postponed his execution, McNamara is posi-
tive of Hall's identification, he said. At one time he saw Hall while he was held
at the Siskiyou county jail,
"Sacramento, Mar, 28 (UP)=-Just 2) hours after her husband was hanged at Folsom pri-
son for the murder of two Yreka men, Mrs. Ann Hall today pleaded guilty to a charge
| of smuggling firearms into prison, It was part of an escape plot, She was sentenced
| to one to five years in the women's institution at Tehachapi. Yesterday, George
Hall was sent to his death on the sallow se..Today Mrs, Hall, pale but composed,
stood before Judge Dal Lemmon and murmured a quiet guilty to the charge she smug-
) gled two automatic pistols into Folsom prison in an admitted attempt to aid her hus-
| band make a desperate attempt to escape the gallows," SUN-STAR, Merced, CA, Mar.
28, 19 36 (1:56)

"WIFE CAUGHT IN JAIL PLOT. - GUARDS FRUSTRATE ATTEMPT OF WOMAN TO FREE CON FMNED
HUSBAND. Folsom Prison, Calif., March 8. - (AP) = Guards frustrated at attempt to-
day of Mrs. George Hall to rescue her husband from Folsom Prison where he is under
sentence tohangs April 1h for the murder of a traffic policeman. The woman came
here from Sacramento, 23 miles away, in a taxicab to visit Hall, Two guards looked
on while they cnversed through a screen. As Hall was being returned to his death
well Mrs, Hall went to the office of Bannett Hughes, the warden's secretary, and
engaged him in conversation, Hall broke from his escort, dashed to Hughes! office
. and thew his arms about his wife. Hughes said this was apparently a prearranged
attempt to pass to Hall two loaded pistols found later in the woman's pumnse,"
CLARION=-LEDGER, Jackson, Mississippi, March 9, 1936 (1:3.) |


G
©
eo

. a 1
r we tea’ B
NF le ( SP A Se J IMA GZ

Ad * « { 5

fol. Il.

ene a See

“1 located the house from the map Chief Cozza had given me.
looking, set well back from the road. No smoke was coming out of the chimney”

By E. L. Ballinger

It was innocent enough

ead

Washington State Customs Patrol Agent

E’VE got a hot inside tip-off
WY te there’s an opium smug-

gling hideout near Hall’s Lake
just outside of Seattle,” Anthony
Sozza, Chief Patrol Inspector for the
J. S. Customs at Bellingham, Washing-
‘on, told me, after calling me into his
office on the morning of March 8th,
1933. “I want you to hop down there
ind look over the lay of things.”

Chief Cozza had drawn a rough
sketch of the location, which showed
the lake to be about ten mi'es outside
of Seattle with the hideout on the right
side of the lake. The informant who
vad turned in the “squeak,” had said
hat the opium runner’s headquarters
vas a small white house, and that the
‘tuff was brought in by two brand-new
»ilue Ford coupes.

“I want you to be careful,” the

As Told to
Jack Heise

Chief warned. “I got it that this is
a tough outfit. All you are to do is to
nose around the district as if you were
interested in buying a lot to build a
summer home. Make some casual in-
quiries about the neighbors, especially
those in the white house.”

I drove from Bellingham to the Lake
in a couple of hours, first having
changed from my uniform to mufti.
I located the white house from the map
Cozza had given me. It was a small
frame building, innocent enough look-
ing except that all the blinds were
drawn. No smoke was coming from
the chimney, there appearing to be no
one at home.

A hundred yards or so down the
road, two men were clearing a piece
of ground. I pulled my car to the side

of the road to talk to them. They
proved to be two Seattle firemen who
planned to build a Summer home.

The Lake was a delightful spot,
with tall Evergreen trees keeping back
the forenoon sun and casting a cool
shadow. Bright patches of the warm
sun, however, fell on :he cleared spots
and on the winding strip of narrow
gravel road which ran through the
forest.

I stood around for a half hour
watching the two men working, ask-
ing about the price of the land and
the desirability of the location. Both
of the men were enthusiastic about the
Lake.

One of the fellows asked for the
time. I glanced at my wrist-watch,
told him it was twelve noon, exactly.

Customs Agent
Ballinger as he
looked after his
first encounter
with a band
of smugglers

°

A BLUE SHIELD STORY
The Best Detective Story of the Month
Is Stamped with OFFICIAL DETECTIVE
STORIES’ Blue Shield. (See Page 5). Watch
Future Issues for these Blue Shield Features.

As I looked up from the dial, I saw
a movement at the white house!

A man walked out of the door and
went into the garage alongside the
house. I stood stock still watching.
...A moment later a new, blue Ford
coupe backed out to the driveway.

Chief Cozza’s information, so far,
was right.

As the coupe reached the road, I ran
to my car. I had n» time to make any
plausible excuse to the firemen, and
they probably thought I had “blown
my topper.” The blue car was out of
sight, around a bend, before I could
reach mine.

In those few seconds I made a snap
decision such as we are called upon to
make often—come what may. I deter-
mined to follow. Perhaps it would lead
to another of the smugglers’ hideouts.

3


"You Better Take This’ Dough and
Have a Lapse of Memory. You Won't -
Be Any: Good to Your Family Dead*’

.

The gravel flew as I let in the clutch,
jerking the wheels into motion.

For the first mile I drove cautiously.
I did not want to overtake the other
car while going too fast, or I would
have to slow down within his sight
and so make myself conspicuous,

I did not get a glimpse of the car
ahead in the first milé. I stepped on it
harder. Five miles down the gravel
road I knew that the Seattle-Everett
Highway crossed. It would be a tough
job finding a car on that busy thor-
oughfare, even if I guessed right as to
er direction the car ahead would
urn,

Two miles flew by. I was pounding
the throttle harder. The blue car must
have been traveling. . . . Three miles
and I could make out traces of set-
tling dust from the whirling wheels of
the auto ahead.

Four’ miles . .
close.

Suddenly, directly ahead around a
bend, I saw the car. It was pulled
into a side road a short distance from
the gravel highway. The driver was
out of the car and standing at the back
with, the rear compartment open.

What to do?

Chief Cozza had said cover the house
only. He hadn’t said anything about
making arrests. Would I spoil the
lay-out if I stopped?

. I must be getting

It was all happening in split sec-
onds, but it seemed like hours while I
considered everything. Then I noticed
the man. My car was bearing down
fast. I hadn’t eased up on the throttle
The man had a package in his

I could see there were more
packages in the back of the car.

The package was about a foot square,
just the size of a one-pound package
of morphine.

That decided it!

I jammed on the brakes. The gravel
gave under the tires and I skidded
sideways toward the other car. I was
almost'on top of him.

I could see that the road on which
he had pulled off, was blind ahead. I

jerked the wheel and the car headed

straight for the back of the parked
machine. I was attempting to hem in
the parked car.

My car swerved around, skidding
with momentum, until it was heading
back toward where I had just come in.
But it was directly in back of the
parked car, and there was no way for
the other car to get out without smash-
ing into my auto.

The man with the packages which
looked as if they might contain mor-
phine, had stood still watching for the
seconds while I had been fighting my

°

“| figured § would be better
handcuffed to a tree than in a
permanent pine box”... Below,
the blue car Ballinger followed

car as it slithered around in the road.

I jumped out. My hand slid to the
.45 colt under my arm.

“What’n hell are you trying to do
and what d’ you want?” the man with
the package snarled.

“U. S. Customs,” I told him, “What’s
in those packages?”

“Why ask me,” he sneered. “You'll
look for yourself anyway.”

“Exactly right,” I told him. I sized
the man up. He was a big fellow,
plenty tough. I stood back from him.
Chief Cozza had said they would be
a tough outfit. I didn’t want to take
a chance of him springing at me.

“Keep your hands up and get in the
car,” I ordered him. . He followed the
instructions. “Now stick your mitts
through the open window, away out.”
When the arms were stretched out, I
snapped my cuffs over his wrists.

I had him get back out of the car
and sit on the running-board where
I could watch him. “And don’t try
making a break for it or I’ll shoot you.
I’m going to open these packages,” I
told him.

I picked up the square container,
confidently. My face must have
changed expression badly when I had
it in my hands, for the package was
heavy. It felt as if it were loaded with
bricks. And morphine is light! A
package the size I was holding would
not weigh over a pound.

Had I made a terrible bungle? Had
they seen me nosing around the place
and sent these packages out as a ruse
to find out what I was doing? What
would Chief Cozza say to this?

I looked at the fellow on the run-
ning-board. The sneer was still on his
face. He knew I had played “sucker.”

There was only one thing to do—go
through with it. I ripped the string

and paper off. There was a box inside. .

I opened it.

What was this? Two new .45’s and
a .38 special, automatics all of them,
were in the box.

I reached for another box in the
back—two more .45’s and another .38
special.

There were two larger packages in
the rear compartment. I brought them
out. Each wrapper surrounded a
Thompson sub-machine gun. An ar-
senal! Real tools for gangster-smug-
glers!

“Where’d you get tnese? What are
you doing with them?” I snapped.

The fellow on the running-board
just looked at me. The sneer was
still on his face. He had one pop-eye
that seemed to travel all over while
the other bored straight at me.

“Listen, Buddy,” he drawled sarcas-

eee

Leone HOTT tye

’


There
such
ecOv- |

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prin-

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page 19 ;

last shot
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leap he
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avement.
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on as he
1 saw the
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iis

him.

“Got him son,” answered the sheriff.
“Are you all right.”

“Okay, I think,” answered the young
man as he arose from the pavement. “
don’t think I’m badly hurt.. Tough egg,
wasn’t he? That last shot was a close
one,”

[eee ON A SPRAINED ANKLE received
in the fall when he was battling the
killer, Sheriff Calkins, his arm around the
shoulders of his fighting son, made his
way to a near-by drugstore where first aid
was administered.

About the bodies of Kent and Quigley,

both dead, a crowd was gathering, and
Sheriff Calkins realized that this might
portend trouble. California citizens had
been taking the law into their own hands
quite often in recent months.
- Hastening to the jail Sheriff Calkins
placed extra guards on all the .entrances.
He felt that the situation was dangerous.
And, as darkness descended, and little
groups of men discussed the murders of
Kent and Quigley, it became evident that
mob action was likely. Finally, the crowd
gathered in front of the jail.

“We want that killer!” said an angry
voice.

Sheriff Calkins, gun in hand, walked out
to face his infuriated townsmen; he raised
his hand for silence.

“Men,” he said. “I took this killer and
I intend to keep him. The law will take
care of him; he hasn’t a chance to escape
the noose. I risked my life to get him and
so did my son; but my sworn duty is to
protect him now. You had better go home
and leave this to me.”

Charles Calkins, bloody bandages about
his throat and head, stepped out beside his
father. And, gradually, the mutterings
died down and finally the crowd began to
slowly disperse. In an hour all was quiet
in Yreka; the danger of mob violence had
passed.

Paul Newcomb, the other occupant of
the car, was easily able to establish the
fact that he was only a hitch-hiker picked
up by the blond killer and he was released
with instructions to keep in touch with the
Yreka authorities, so that he could be sum-
moned as a witness.

WO DAYS LATER the white cars of the’

California State Patrol, assembled
from all over the State, followed the body
of their comrade, Stephen Kent, and his
friend, Lester Quigley, who had died with
him, to a resting place in the local ceme-
tery. And on that same day Agent Bal-
linger arrived in Yreka to take a look at
the man who had killed them.

Ballinger promptly identified the man as
the “Manning,” of the kidnaping—the one
who had wanted to kill him.

Fingerprints identified him as George
Hall, a burglar and stickup artist on pa-
role from San Quentin Penitentiary, Cali-
fornia, where he had served five years.

Among other interesting discoveries
about the killer was a newly-healed bullet
wound in his shoulder. And on his per-
son was discovered a thick roll of Cana-
dian bills of a denomination taken in the
robbery of a branch bank of the Canadian
Bank of Commerce, in Vancouver,. about
a month before Ballinger was kidnaped.

This explained the manner in which the
money had been obtained to pay for the
Ford car in Seattle. There was now no
doubt that George Hall, burglar, kidnaper,
killer, was also the bank bandit whom. the
Canadian police had long sought for the
daring Vancouver job.

But where was scar-faced, pop-eyed, Joe
Clark, who had saved Ballinger’s life?
What had become of him? Where would

pe be likely to hole up until the heat was
off 7 “ .

Hall stubbornly refused to answer any
questions on this subject.

However, in Hall’s effects, Sheriff
Calkins found a’ receipt from a Seattle
physician who had. dressed the: gunshot
wound. From this doctor, Captain Ernie
Yoris of the Seattle. Homicide Squad,
learned the location of the apartment of
the wounded man at the time he had been
treated.

OM THE PROPRIETOR of the apartment
thouse it was learned that Joe Clark got
much mail from Los Angeles while in Se-
attle, and Special Agents of the Depart-
ment of Justice, Post Office inspectors and
Customs officers, all began an intense hunt
for the missing Clark, in the Southern city.
The finding of a note in the mail box at
the Seattle apartment, reading: “Joe. Box
13, Los Angeles,” led to the belief that it
had been left by Manning, so that Joe
could connect with him there later.

But in that the conclusions were wrong,
for it was Manning’s woman who had lefe
the note there. Thinking Clark might have
some knowledge of this box number the
Post Office was constantly watched, as
was also the woman who had taken de-
livery of the Ford car in Seattle. She was
identified as the wife of George Hall, first
known as “Manning.”

Finally, through these various leads, Joe
Clark was arrested by Customs officers
and placed in the Glendale, California jail.
The case seemed about cleared up; only
trial and sentence remained.

But, before morning the scar-faced kid-
naper was again free!

Cleverly pilfering the property card of
a drunken cellmate, Joe Clark asked for
a chance to get bail for intoxication, iden-
tifying himself as another person by means
of the stolen card. He was allowed to
leave the jail with a lawyer and, natural-
ly, he never returned. '

Hours later, when the real drunk was
arraigned, the mistake was discovered, but
Joe Clark was then well on his way.

Clark escaped from the Glendale jail on
March 16, 1934, and on March: twenty-
ninth, a bandit pair, destined to become
notorious as “Mutt and Jeff,” because of
their respective statures, began a series of
bank raids in Los Angeles.

“Jeff” was described as being about forty
years old; five feet, four inches tall,
weighing about 180 pounds; dark-com-
plexioned and pop-eyed. That fitted the
description of Joe Clark,

N MARCH TWENTY-FOURTH the ill-as-

sorted pair held up a bank on Sunset
Boulevard, taking $1,500 and escaping in
a Ford coupe. On March twenty-ninth
they struck again at 4527 Southwestern
Boulevard, escaping with $4,000. Both
banks were branches of: the California
State Bank.

And then, on April tenth, when three
men held up the Citizens National, 4400
South Vermont, the police got a break.
The men made off with $8,000, but the li-
cense numbers of the car were spotted and
traced to a woman.

Within an hour after this robbery a
police character named Louis Capasso was
arrested, and later he confessed, naming
bandits Roy Serpa and Frank Bonomo as
his companions.

The vigorous defense of these three
robbers brought into the limelight Attor-
ney Leob L. Cossack, a dapper, shrewd
lawyer who tried to confuse the jury on
a plea that his clients had been severely
third-degreed, and had confessed to crimes
‘of which they were not guilty. He claimed
the real perpetrators of the robbery were

“Mutt and Jeff.”

During the course of his negotiations,
Cossack managed to get Capasso released
on bail. Some few days later the attorney
approached «Detective Bob Chambers and
tried to make a deal. He said that if Chief
Taylor would bring about the release of
his clients he would put “Mutt and Jeff”
on the spot; he would reveal the full de-
tails of a bank robbery that was about to
be staged by the pair, and they could set
a trap for them.

He made it a condition also, that “Mutt
and Jeff” must be killed in the trap!

Of course the chief of detectives could
not agree to any such plan, but he won-
dered why Cossack was so anxious to
have “Mutt and Jeff” slain.

“Cossack’s relations with his clients seems
more that of a member of their mob than
of attorney,” said Taylor. “We better
keep a close watch on his movements.”

APASSO WAS TRIED and sentenced to San
Quentin, and this somehow aroused
the anger of an underworld character
against Cossack. Chief Taylor has never
revealed the name of this man who came
to him with the information that “Mutt”
was a notorious robber named Izzy Fenton,
and that “Jeff” was a man named Pete
Carlson, who was looting banks with a
definite aim,

“It’s going to take a lot of dough to keep
my pal from swinging,” Pete Carlson
often said, according to the informer. “I'll
op to have a lot of money—but I’ll get
i

It was then that Chief Taylor definitely
decided that “Jeff” was Joe Clark. The
informant also told the chief of detectives
that Leob Cossack, the man who had of-
fered to put the pair on the spot, was their
attorney, and was in on every move they
made.

By late Fall the take of “Mutt and Jeff”
had grown to considerable proportions ;
George Hall was never in want for money
with which to prosecute his appeals; he
hired the best lawyers that money could
buy, and in every way tried to stir up pub-
lic sympathy in his favor. ,

The depredations against the banks con-
tinued, and Chief Taylor, unable to get
on the inside in any other way, finally de-
cided to concentrate on Leob Cossack.

A dictograph was planted in the rooms
of the lawyer and someone listened con-
stantly until finally, Fenton, Clark and
Cossack met and discussed the details of
a robbery. The officers broke open the
doors and arrested them. All pleaded
guilty and received sentences of twenty-
five years in Alcatraz, on the Rock!

“THESE ARRESTS AND SENTENCES at last

brought an end to the depredations of
one of the best organized. bank-robber
gangs that ever operated in the California
city. It was a great day for Chief of De-
tectives Joe Taylor when they started
serving their sentences.

Cossack openly bragged that he had so
much influence that he would be out in a
year; as this is written he is still there.

In the meantime however, George Hall
continued his fight to escape the noose on
the ground that he did not know he was

fighting with officers when he fired the

shots which killed Kent and Quigley.
Hall contended that he was unable to
see the police uniform, and that he believed
he was being held up by bandits. He said
that no one of the officers informed him
that he was being placed under arrest.
For two years Hall managed. to stave
off the supreme penalty, and the steps
which led to the hangman’s rope in Fol-
som’s prison. yard, but by the end of
March, 1936, it became apparent that there

Tk


were no more legal loopholes through
which he might hope to escape.

He had fought the case through all the
courts of the State and even to the United
States Supreme Court, but had been un-
able to obtain a new trial.

The date of the execution was set for
March 27, 1936. On Sunday, March sev-
enth, a feminine friend of the killer, visited
with him in his cell in death row. Her
purpose for that visit was a sinister one,
for she went to inform him that she had
managed to have secreted in the prison
yard two guns, which, if he could reach,
he could use to blast his way to freedom.

Because of the nature of the conversa-
tion the vigilant guard on duty in the cell-

block became suspicious of the use of the
word “splinters,” by the woman. She used
it very carefully. in her conversation, and
the guard finally decided it referred to
something hidden in the. kindling in the
machine shop. :

A search brought to light two guns and
an admission by the woman that she had
hidden them where they had been found.
She was detained and was later charged
with attempting to aid the killer to escape,
a penalty voided by his own death.

For Hall’s last chance faded with the
abortive escape plot, and at 10:02 a..,
on the morning of March 27, 1936, he was
led from his cell in Folsom, a broken man,
pleading for his life.

NEW YORK'S CREMATING KIDNAPERS

of the few major unsolved cases in the
hands of the G-Men now, but as this is
written “a break” is imminent, according
to those in the know. More details of this
will appear in these pages when Hoover
and his men land these brutal killers.

8 Damages the search for the Levine
boy, the investigators kept a wary eye
open for the snatchers of Fried. At first
it was thought the same mob might have
been responsible for both, but eventually
this idea was discarded because of dis-
similarities in the methods of the kid-
napers.

Another two months elapsed, however,
and still it seemed as though the G-Men
were destined to meet with another of their
few failures to solve a major crime. Then
early in July, 1938, an excited man tele-
phoned the New York Field Office of the
Federal Bureau of Investigation.

In tense tones he gasped: (although it
was obvious he was trying to disguise his
voice).

“Are you interested in another kidnap-
ing?”

“Why—er—certainly,” the G-Man who
answered the telephone replied. “Of course
we're interested; that is—if it’s a real, bon-
afied kidnaping.”

“This is a real one,” the voice answered.
“They paid ransom and everything!”

And, after considerable haggling, during
which the Federal agent had signaled to
another agent to try and trace the caller’s
number, he finally obtained the name and
address of the supposed victim.

Within half an hour, several agents, led
by Reed Vetterli, one of the FBI heroes
of the celebrated Kansas City “Union Sta-
tion Massacre” several years ago, intro-
duced themselves at the home of Benjamin
Farber, thirty-three, who lived with his
wife and two children in a comfortably-
furnished home at 3100 Brighton-Second
Street, Brighton Beach, Brooklyn.

Mrs. Farber answered the bell.

“No,” she declared. “My husband isn’t
here. Neither is his brother, Irving. They
went away for a few days—fishing up in
the Catskills.”

ES awe THE agents asked her if her hus-
band had been the victim of kidnapers.
Mrs. Farber shook her head, then an-
nounced they would have to talk to her
husband. The agents knew they were on
the trail of something hot. Finally, after
getting the name of the resort at which
her husband was visiting, they left.
That same afternoon two of the agents
arrived in the Catskill hotel where Farber
was registered. After the manager singled
him out, they accosted him, identified

themselves, and started to question him.

Farber related a most interesting story
72

to the agents; one which was destined to
furnish the actual solution to the kidnap-
cremation of Fried..° But he was unaware
he had been the victim of the same group.

In the presence of his brother, Irving,
who corroborated much of his narrative,
Farber graphically described his experience
thus:

“About eight a. M. on April eighteenth,
I was at home. The telephone bell rang
and I answered it. A man on the other
end said, ‘Is Benny Farber in?’ I said
‘Yes. This is Benny. Who is this?’

“But the man on the other end was
disconnected ‘without answering me.
waited at the telephone a few minutes and
when he didn’t call back, I thought noth-
ing more about it. I ate my breakfast,
read the paper a few minutes and then left
for my coal company office at Junius
Street and Blake Avenue, in the East New
York section of Brooklyn.

“On the way, about an hour later, I
went to the National City Bank branch at
Brighton Beach Avenue and Sixth Street.
I parked my car in front, went inside and
drew out $100 in bills of small denomina-

tion.

“With the money in my pocket I got
back into my car, and then I heard a
voice, right alongside of me, say, ‘Hey,
Benny.’ I looked around and saw a man
with a gun getting into the car with me.
He had the weapon leveled right at my
head, and he was a tough-looking fellow.
I asked him what he wanted, but he just
waved his-gun. Then he said:

“‘Go ahead and drive—and don’t ask
questions!’

“T_JE STILL MENACED me with the gun, so

there was nothing else for me to do
except to keep on driving, like he told
me to. So I drove on about ten minutes
until we reached Coney Island Avenue and
Brightwater Court.

“There he ordered me to stop, and a
second man got into the car. The first
man then got behind the wheel, with me
in the middle, on the front seat, and the
second man, who also had a gun, on the
outside. I was ‘pinned in ‘so I couldn't
move. if

“The second man then reached into his
pocket and pulled outa pair of smoked
glasses. He ordered me to put them on,
and I did so. ‘Then, as we started up
again, he told me to keep my head down
so people couldn’t see my face.

“I said, ‘If this is a stick-up, all right.
I have about $100 in my pocket. You
can take it and welcome.’

“‘Tt’s “no ‘stickup,’ said the first man.
You'll find out what it is later on,’

“They drove for’ about an hour, Then
they took’me into’a house which was cold
and ‘damp-feeling. They took off “my

By the time the scaffold was reached he
had completely caved in, and was able to
show none of the ruthless courage which
he had displayed on that day when he cut
down Kent and Quigley.

He had no cocaine to help him in that
“last mile.”

The noose was adjusted and the warden
waved his hand. The trap opened and
Hall’s neck snapped. Like Stephen Kent
he died instantly, a felon instead of a hero.

24 issues of REAL DETECTIVE cost you
$5.00 unless you use coupon on page 89.
Save $2.00 by ordering today.

From page 57

glasses and stuck tape over my eyes so
I couldn’t see anything at all.

“One of the men then said:

“‘This is a kidnaping. You are held
for ransom,’

“Then the other said:

“You have ten friends, haven’t you?’

“What you mean?’ I asked them.

“Well, he replied. ‘Give us their names
and we'll pick out two to act as go-
betweens.’

“WH I THEN started to call off a list
of my friends. I never knew it was
so hard to name ten people who you could
call your friends, as I did then. Finally,
I made up the list, however, and one of
the men went out.

“T tried to talk to the one who remained
behind to guard me, but he gruffly told me
to shut up and mind my own business.

“Anyhow, I afterwards learned that one
of the kidnapers called my brother Irving,
who was at our coal office. He told Irving
that I was held for ransom. Then he read

him the ten names I had given, and asked .

Irving to pick out the two who he’d like
to act as intermediary in negotiations for
my ransom,

“Finally, Irving named two.

“The man on the telephone said that ‘he
wanted $25,000, and that he would contact
the two go-betweens later.”

Then, according to Farber, the kidnap-
ers started leaving notes in saloon wash-
rooms in various sections of Williamsburg,
a congested Brooklyn tenement district.
Upon some of these occasions, one of the
gang would call his brother on the tele-
phone and tell him where to go to pick it up.

On other occasions one of the go-be-
tweens would be called and given similar
instructions,

“Irving,” Farber went on, “pleaded pov-
erty, and finally’ the kidnapers reduced
their demands to $2,000. Eventually, they
called and told Irving to go to a cigar store
at Broadway and Roebling Street, Brook-
lyn, where he would find a note between
pages 500 and 501 of the Brooklyn Tele-
phone Directory.”

Irving Farber followed instructions. He
found the note which told him to take
$1,900—it mentioned that already the gang
had taken the $100 his brother had with-
drawn from the bank—and to drive to New
York City, and then to turn around and
drive back to Brooklyn over the Williams-
burg Bridge.

ARBER DID SO, carrying the money
wrapped in a bundle of newspapers,
and then, as directed in the note, hurled
the bundle over the bridge rail at a point

-near the Brooklyn approach, which is al-

most 100 feet above a near-deserted street.

He
pack

took
office. A
We play:
going to
marked i)
“ ‘No,’
out of ov
I haven't
Benny
harrowin
“T had
ty-four h
tape over
I figurec
told me t
“They
drove fo:
Then the
in a hall
tape fror
minutes,

KILL

On the
gruesom
and the 1
end Will

Every]
home oi
that dis’
other be

Fest ;
and {
turned t
All th
the Rev
pretty w
the littl
At o1
Fain an
Mrs.
a gener

ing
the

I
preac

was rel
man set
was bor
found h
the peo}
He w
Althc
was to
in am
humor!
The
tendenc
grew <
tures.
smile a
But
steady-:
devotio:
family
him.
Ther
Fain hc |
Some |
lived !

Pay FI
to
poor pi
the init
new hc
the he!
of the
As 1
nities,
needle
and be:
decora’
the pla


t

J

Ls «|

HALL, George, white, hanged CAS (Siskiyou) March 27, 1936.

Naor

v CHIEF of DETECTIVES

rat
g

THE RIDDLE

i

The Story Thus lar

ERRORIZING Los Angeles by a_ series 0!

daring, carefully planned bank hold-ups, two

gunmen known to police as the “Mutt and

Jeff” bandits, ran wild in the California city
early in 1983. Investigators picked up a trail which
ied back to the kidnapping of Customs Border Patrol-
man ki. L. Ballinger, in Seattle on March 10th and the
murder of State Highway Patrolman Stephen 8. Ivent
and Lester Quigley of Yreka, Calif., on March 12th
‘wo men were captured. ‘One of them, George
Hall, was convicted and sentenced to hang. The
other, known as Joe Clark, escaped from jail. The
epidemic of bank robberies followed, supposedly
engineered by Clark to get funds for Hall’s defense.
Police, approached with an offer to provide informa-
tion on the “Mutt and Jeff’? bandits, learn that the

TRUE DETECTIVE, December, 1936

RG


(Inset above) Mrs. Leona Staff,

pretty bank employee, identified

members of the ‘‘Mutt and

Jeff” bandit gang at a special
show-up

Flanked by officers, the bandits
faced their accusers in the glar-
ing lights of the show-up room
(large photo). Left to right:
Officer C. Dixon, Loeb Cossack,
“Izzy’’ (Mutt) Fenton, Pete
(Jeff) Carlson, Betty Lang and
- Detective Bob Chambers

se si ’ Ve te Me SE

SA Bae eramenate $ voapmaes baat ee

would-be informant is Loeb L. Cossack, unscrupulous at-

The Story Continues:
torney. With the aid of a William J. Burns detective, au-

series of thorities determine that Cossack is associated with the “Mutt —Part THREE—

Ips, two and Jeff” bandits whore believed to be Irvin “Izzy” Fenton

itt and and Pete Carlson. A tortuous trail of double-crossing is NSIDE a small bungalow on Budlong Avenue in Los
Tia city uncovered through a former employee of the racketeering Angeles nine men—detectives, all of them—waited tensely
iil which attorney who tells Captain Seager that, when he failed to for the sound of a key turning in the lock of the front
r Patrol- participate in jobs planned by the mob, Cossack offered a door.

and the gunman two hundred dollars to “bump me off because I It was six o’clock on the afternoon of September 26th,
~. Went knew too much.”” The gunman, friendly to the informant, 1934. One by one the officers had made their way as in-
hh 12th tipped him off instead of shooting him. conspicuously as possible to the house occupied by Pete
Cieorge Entering Cossack’s office after hours, police install di¢t*- Carlson—short man of the ‘Mutt and Jeff” bandit team—
x. The graphs and record incriminating conversations. Posing as and the young woman who posed as his wife.

The a special bank investigator, Chief Seager, then a captain, From the bungalow-court manager they had learned that
vosedly obtains information which places the finger still more definitely the suspects were known there as ‘Mr. and Mrs. Lang’;
lefense on Cossack. Police, learning of a plan to hold up a branch — that they were a quiet couple who had lived there for some
forma- bank, take Cossack into custody and set out to arrest Carlson time, with the exception of about ten days during the latter

at the

and Ienton.

part of July. At that time the Langs said they were going
39


n the lover’s
ted.

excited man
e was blurt-

”

came the
take it easy.

vas unable to
ve directions
1eadquarters.
{ instructions
) the head of
body found
i from head-
. Jewell and
1g police car
i streets.

up abruptly
Imost before

»”* Armstrong
2s’ nod Arm-
“Get in,” he

+ «, 2
ag the rolling
my mother-in-
ly he described
unting mush-
> corpse of the
ove across the
id the end of
t at first it was
window dum-

car about 200

=

SERENE IN DEATH---—
Body of victim, in circle,
shows wounds.

COPPER LOOKS-—-———
at corpse left by mad
slayer.

feet away from the site of the mutilated body.

“T'll just stop here rather than take the chance of
gumming up any tracks,” the officer thought as he cut
the ignition of the car.

Quick strides took the two toward the sprawled body.

“Be careful not to step on any tracks,’ Armstrong
warned as they climbed.

“God—she sure is a beauty!” Armstrong exclaimed
in surprise as he drew near to the corpse of the blonde
girl. “What a shame she had to die like this. Young,
too. Can't be more than 18 or 20, I'd say.”

In a moment the officer stepped back
into his role of impartial investigator.
With practiced eye he examined the body.
His sun reddened face was grave as he
noted the three vicious stab wounds in
the neck, the brutal sl-sh exactly between
the exposed breasts.

A SECOND police squad car pulled up
near Armstrong’s parked machine.
Inspectors Duffy and Jewell hastily
climbed out and approached. After brief
greetings, Armstrong quickly outlined
the discovery of the body by Jones and
Mrs. Jaynes in their morning mushroom hunt.

Duffy and Jewell at once examined the wounds in the
neck and breast.

“Say, that’s odd,” Jewell commented, almost as soon
as he had glanced at the girl’s form. “Notice that, Tom?”

he exclaimed.
“There’s practically no blood around those three stab

-wounds in her neck. An’ by George, there’s not much

by the bigger wound between the breasts, either .
what do you make of that?” :
In astonishment, the veteran detectives carefully

27

4
a

ERR
+3

pay iny

BY FRED DIEFENDORF

HE laughing voices of a man and a woman floated

pleasantly up the sunny slopes of the rolling

eucalyptus fringed Oakland hills. Off to the west

the white flecked waves of the Pacific lashed the
East Bay shoreline with rhythmic regularity.

Faint wisps of steam already were visible from the
recently rain-drenched slopes as the sun shone down
hotly the mid morning of December 7, 1938.

“Gee! What grand mushroom weather, Ma,” came the
voice of Stanley Jones, airlines employee, as he shifted
a nearly full wicker mushroom basket from one arm
to the other. ‘“We’ll have a swell feed today.”

“Sure will, Stan,” Mrs. Sarah Jaynes, his mother-in-
law declared. “This kind of weather I feel just like I
was 16 again.”

Leisurely the couple climbed, picking mushrooms as
they went, their eyes on the browned earth in their
search for the table delicacies.

Suddenly Jones stopped, his cyes on a strange object.
With one pudgy finger he pointed along a shallow ditch
made by soil erosion.

“What's that, Ma?” he asked. “Looks like a wax
dummy ... one of these here department store kind.
But what a funny place to throw a wax model of a girl!”

Mrs. Jaynes’ eyes followed the pointing finger. She
too saw the object lying nearly 125 feet away up the
damp hillside. .

“Probably some University of California fraternity
boys have been up to more horse play .. . initiations or
somethin’,” he commented as they veered curiously
toward the alabaster white form.

The object was lying crosswise over the erosion gulley
beside a small clump of dried weeds.

LOVELY:
Leona Vlught, killed by
a fiend.

“My. It is a pretty model, isn’t it?” Mrs. Jaynes ex-
claimed as they neared. ‘What nice reddish gold hair
they put on ’em these days. Looks just like real hair.”

Jones nodded. But his brow puckered in a puzzled
manner as they neared, his curious gaze on the form
lying face up so white and still.

Jones’ glance swept swiftly over the dainty leather
strapped shoes, perfectly modeled legs in sheer silk
stockings, to the neat lace trimmed black dress outlining
trim thighs and part of the upper form. 's:.

He was even more puzzled as he noticed for the first
time the exposed breasts and chest of the-auburn haired
form. Hastily he stepped closer.

With a sudden shock, Jones noted a brutal slash
exactly between the two full marble white breasts. The
mark of a vicious knife. But no blood was visible from
where he stood.

HIS was no wax dummy!

It was the body of a real girl—of an almost

Madonna like beauty. A brutal murder victim. Para-

doxically, a look of peace and calm was on that upturned
white young face, Jones realized with awe.

As the ghastly incongruity smashed home to Jones’
stunned mind, he opened his mouth to scream. But the
shock of the gruesome discovery left him withoyt words.

He walked around the body in a daze, eyes riveted
in horror to that unforgettable form. Suddenly
the shocked’ man stopped. A bizarre touch
was added to the incongruous scene by
his sudden realization that three
vampire like stab wounds

25


26 CRIME DETECTIVE

were in the white base of the neck... forming a perfect
triangle in the alabaster throat.

What ghastly events could have preceded this horror
killing? Had the poor girl been tortured before her
agonizing death? Why had such a beautiful and
obviously young girl had to die at all?

Hastily the shocked mushroom hunters glanced
around. Not a moving object could they see on the
warm sun-drenched slopes. The nearest house was
nearly a quarter of a mile away from the isolated spot
which commanded a rare view of three Northern Cali-
fornia counties.

“Police!” Jones blurted. Thoughts of leaving his rela-
tive fled from his mind as he turned and ran as fast as
he could toward the nearest house.

Moments later Stanley Jones raced breathlessly up to
the front porch of his neighbor, Mrs. Betty Steves, at
2941 Barrett Street, Oakland.

His tattoo of knocks was quickly answered by the
startled housewife.

“Why, Stanley! What in the world is... 2” The
obvious shock of her neighbor halted the half spoken
question.

THESE ARTICLES——
were used in evidence. District Attorney
Quinn examines them, below. Right: Homi-

cide Inspector Duffy questions Greig.

“Your phone... can I use it? Up there in the lover’s
lane ... something awful,” Jones gesticulated.

Soon the phone operator connected the excited man
with the Oakland Police Department and he was blurt-
ing his startling: discovery.

“T think it must be murder,” he cried.

“Calm yourself. Calm yourself, Mister,” came the
hushed voice from the receiver. ‘Now just take it easy.
Exactly where is this body?”

In his excitement, Jones for the instant was unable to
supply the exact location. Mrs. Steves gave directions
which he relayed to the desk sergeant at headquarters.

An instant later the police radio crackled instructions
to a cruising radio car to proceed at once to the head of
106th Avenue to investigate the reported body found
in the hills above Foothill Boulevard. And from head-
quarters ace Homicide Inspectors Lou M. Jewell and
Tom Duffy raced, the siren of the speeding police car
clearing a swift path through the crowded streets.

Police officer George Armstrong pulled up abruptly
beside the breathless airlines employee almost before
Jones had started back.

“You the fellow who reported a murder?” Armstrong
asked as he stopped beside Jones. At Jones’ nod Arm-
strong opened the side door of his car. “Get in,’’ he
ordered. ‘Where is the body?”

Jones pointed up along the rolling
hillside ahead. “Up past my mother-in-
law,” he exclaimed. Briefly he described
how they had been hunting mush-
rooms and discovered the corpse of the
girl while Armstrong drove across the
damp rolling turf beyond the end of
106th Avenue. “I thought at first it was
one of these here store window dum-
mies,” Jones explained.

Armstrong parked the car about 200

i
Pe
4
2
3
i
{
t

feet away from
“TL just stop
gumming up any
the ignition of th.
Quick strides to
“Be careful no:
warned as they cli
““God—she sure
in surprise as he «
girl. ‘What a sh:
too. Can't be mor


28 CRIME DETECTIVE

studied the wounds. Slowly Lou Jewell spoke again.

“Only explanation I can see is that the knife that
caused the death wound was left in her body until after
death. There’s no way now of telling how long that was.

“If this wound hit the heart it might have been a
very short time. Then again, it might have been as long
as—say even ten or fifteen minutes. The autopsy will
tell us that. And a lot of other things.”

Had the beautiful girl been criminally attacked?
What could the motive have been? Had she been mur-
dered elsewhere, the blood mostly cleaned from the
body .before it was brought here to be disposed of?

The slashed body was dressed in a black crepe dress
of good material. The white lacetop front seemingly
had been slashed by the knife that made the deep fatal
wound. The powerful thrust of the blade had apparently
also severed the silk strap holding the front of the girl’s
brassiere together. The cut ends were visible against
the pink background of a silk slip.

“Say, Lou,” Duffy commented as he straightened up.
“Have you noticed the size of her?”

“No. Not especially,” Jewell replied as he too stood
up and measured the body speculatively with his eyes.

He whistled in surprise at the unusual height of the
athletic girl victim.

“By George,” he exclaimed. “She must be all of six
feet tall at that ...Id say around 160 pounds. Built
like a regular Amazon, too.”

A moment later Jewell spoke again, eyes still on the
perfectly formed body of the murder victim whose silky

GIRL FRIENDS——.
Mrs. Harel Don and Rena Thompson, who
were questioned about Leona Vlught.

golden red hair was hardly disarranged. “Hmmm. You'd
think she could have taken care of herself if she’d had ¥
half a chance, wouldn’t you?”

Swiftly the crack detectives went to work.. Jewell J
took charge. .

“Tom,” he requested, “if you’ll look around for any
possible clues I’ll examine the body a little more closely,
Armstrong, will you get complete statements from the
two that found the body?” He gestured toward the
couple who still stood horror stricken off to one side of
the little group on the hillside.

Ten minutes later a fairly thorough survey of the Bm
hillside had been made. and a careful examination of
the body, without actually. moving it. te
' “What luck, Tom?” Jewell asked as Duffy returned aa
from a fast walk down the hillside, apparently following
a trail. : .

Without waiting for a reply Jewell went on: “There is
are several peculiar angles. From the slant of this big
wound, probably the fatal one, it looks as though she
might have been seated when she was stabbed.

“The three throat wounds look almost rounded. As §
though a knife had been twisted in each one. Might
be torture.”

Duffy gasped. “Twisted? Torture? You don’t say!”

His companion nodded, then continued:

“Death was hours ago. The body’s stiff. There's no
blood nor dirt under the fingernails, so probably the
wound was unexpected... no fight, probably. Might
have been done by somebody she knew.

HEARTBROKEN
The parents of Leona leave after identifying
body of daughter in the morgue.

“Marks o1
rings and a
sign of a hat
What .did yor

Duffy poir
shoes towary
was dragged
shoe tracks “
cigarette but
‘em have re
brand, eithe:

“The park
All-Weather
back out, th
Finally back«
I don’t find a

Carefully t
in order not
they went tc
Jaynes.

Armstrong
lane, Mr. Jon

“Yeah,” Jo
Often times o
away we he:
like of that.
can't blame '
here.”’

The detect
peaceful pan
west of the I
Alcatraz Isla:
Bridge were «
Pacific miles
County.

ere shatter éd.
i ee vie

‘ ndianapelis
hu he ee ‘Lafay

ai falted. to
curred.

we ne wea ther

ed a. wigoks

oe form “of |

an

] eile 4

: offieers

2 Ms Lowell; |.
acgngy Vice, |,

: Riad ;
Laura

| course: ‘of y

immensely
dépend ‘apon

Which Assistunt
aurpby, HY vsgek: Lindsee

On) actress, S204
prnold, $30, oun.

flee lk o'clock-when the tee fa
tng and

¥ after yhore than .two honrs. of ques -

és}to rettim-to his home where his wife
igs seriously it

a iis ys * Tnspector
HoT Know Awe ean
Shhim « cae we st shee it better to let

AK “from the

‘4 Sento >:
“Others. Ato: %

}pohice, the threatening letters” were
-preceived, bys Mrs. Thomas, F.aV¥alsh;

5 Colorado: “Madam” Christian * “Hauge,

| peop le. esas help.

a BY ASSOC EVPED. Phthss > hf 2

jd: tutave traced the letters to

ecufiarity int the handwrit-

ve water mark used in war
riment: ‘Statione ry; :

Lhhe enuidles bit: ‘aleged. #onfedsions

tioning.at. police headquarters. by In-

sprctor Grant but then was permitted

bong is 40 years old
ab has:three childrens) 44

No charge was preferred. dgainst
Grant | aids’ SWe
et hint when’ wei want.

‘Besides Mr, White, hone to the

widow of the late:*Cepper’ King,” of

widow. of the. forme Norwegian: thit-
ister, and Mrss Mary Seatt Tow fisexd.
According: to the ‘police; Long sérv-

gédias valet to.Major General Clarence
LEdwards®

hen fe was thief. ofthe in-
eau and -traveléd ‘awnusd: the

ep AtOrs

Rep abl jean, Connecticut, ‘aftous i
faaiite with President. Har
a substitute -both for the-con
sugested yesterday hy
Lodge, the committee chai
for the -reseryation previou
seiited by Senator Brandege
Was said to -have been found 1
able-to ‘the White House.

raft would be satisfactory
Harding» and predicted that
be given approval ~ at. to
mee ting.

The only opposition to .t

Reput blicanside of

initteé is said to have cofrie f
Johnson of » Califor
Borah, ‘Idaho,-svho contende:
did not -auf ficiently disels
moral or Jegal oblis gation to
the rights-of the other treat
tories, .and did not give fo
the right to pass..on all ad
reached vunder “the. treaty pr
Both. of these restri etions 1
forth especially in’ thé-ori
defee proposal.

On -the « Demoeratic
bPomerene of Ohio. wassse nod
led. the fight against .the-res

ith hisentployér> In. his *eon-
éssion : Inspector: Grant. enh BS | tab
fds:

: is
neeoat children of the tity pro-
id. foréand. FE taal a the aieh
cath KS
the imépector
ao She: never: went {to © the

and «would © jnot’ shave

GRIEVED FOR HER 7 ee
BABE; TOOK LIFE

' SLOSt ni A NGELES, + Febs 242M TS.)
‘George Brereton of; ‘Huntington © “Park

spent two weeks grieving for her-dead
babe, sand then today “docked herself
in. her bedi#tgoni, and a single shot was
heard. Neighbors: called deputy sher-
riffs \who' Tound-the woman’ 3 body ly=
ing on. ter: “hed, -with “some” hie mentos
Of her. dead ; i¢hald near. oe

moving to. eliniinate thé wa

the ground *

vas to deny

f ‘the-treaty
i Hl was pending.
PCOMTETE
ar i oovete on the ty:
andvall proposéd reservation:
Meantime at* the White #
was said that President Hardly
Saw not the ‘slightest occa
any reservation. on. thesfo-—

directed) the money to} treaty. There is ane Very st

jection to a reservation, ;
It ‘is that if this govery ee
ine

‘{do things designated: ty;

derstandings and bring, athe
accord without having.’ suf!
‘vetoed by congress or thes
pwill be in awery poor -pea)ti
cel push: anything in the 3

THRE E BURNE 3 TO DI

CLEBURNE? Tex., “Feb. 24
persons .Were burned: to’ de:
ithiec. others" probably fatally
in @ fire which destroyed the
rooming house here early, toc
plosion “ofan. Oil. stave ca
t bli Ze, 4

o> ii

, nae

foines today. way

S82 i Reny ony),

y- Variables;
_| the) mayement of. ‘the moon, thi
the vonfi

BY Syasocias

Los CANGELES”” Fob:
‘Mabel Normand, film de
whose « allness :

ea the Naé ‘

who. has

anxiety was iy exe
pressed last night by her physician,
was reported by him tonight. to: ve:

hMerritt,:

Spey rete a yest ay. at the age
i He was: born nm Halifax i.
ne, 182

a frend of Jacob Asta
Vanderbilt, & ‘and. wa

nd Cornelius |”
emembet fof’ a
partment. with }
aiderbilt in thes early: days, “Mr.

Dayis as aible

«HA UP POUND DEAD.)

PASA Pee, tks om Babb
t es ys ¥

pie Peep Sl HR dead me ee bed-

“Prom ete sues Pe

to’ aay ete %

Press —

“oF. SureRSRURG, Pk a . E eb
34 > AS strike “of negro” pallbeay:
ers, farnished-here -b aiidertak-
‘erg t@ serve-at*funerals for prem
‘bers’of their race, was threate ned
* Oday A committ 6e, whieh asked

«. the chief of police if ‘they -could
«legally organize 4 ‘palibearers’
‘union, declared they’ wanted pay.
» for their-serviee®! and they) pro-
eae a Strike if they didtnot get.
ty é ‘polices head “told “them

: _ they might 6 ahead ame s¢ oran--
ize. Pe

ae *

: OTTAWA, Ont., Feb, 54° city an-
Mada’s population in *91921°> was
98,772,631; “an “increase / of | more
than 20 per cent over the a
-for 1911, it was announced today.
Population: m-191b savas 9,296,647;

+ Ontario ‘continued the incint popa--

deus oprovinee swith ® 2971264;

Québec owas ‘second with: 2,449,.

OLY, er i Yas , :

= the

ok ‘
Prey

eae een ora

PP. DPD pert y

LOS NGELES, °° F eb.
What was “paid to be Mrs.
_dynine Cx Obenchain’s\-own!
of her relations with J.
Kennedy, for whose -raerd
“is now on trial here todas:

first ‘time. Hecate ae nia
court ‘record when
a deputy, sheriff... tes
ceriiny a’ $tater
she made #6}
the” shooting oa!
gist. 5. :

WAS HINGT ON,
Harbel; a> th: réughbred K
sorrel gat iw,
manent littan “to
House -establi
Oorite mount
ing. Hart bel

the
shment as t}
of President
Was forme
of Harr vy §,
mand first found? Tavo;
iden t’ eyes A ad
Spent Tt t
tor a
at

fee menibers understood that im

sadfouried vith ay iae

hus become ie

86 PACIFIC 613; 91 PACIFIC 515. ° i
GRILL, Al-J., hanged at. San Quentin (Sonoma) on, November. 7, 1907.
2 rT? f d ea “et "

"Al Grill was executed:at San Quentin prison, on Thursday morning at eleven o'clock for. the
murder of W, S, Pearce. in Alexander.,Valley in this, county. He walked to the gallows
unsupported.and died game,. His parting words to the world before he ascended the .
fateful platform were addressed to the captain ofthe guard.» 'The warden has been
awful good ;to.me,'. he saidy ‘and I am going to.die game for his sake. You will have
no trouble with.me.! True to his declaration, Grill walked with firm step to his .
doom. If he had any fear of the inevitable he showed.no. outward signs of it. He ~

was attended on the scaffold. by two priests who led the little procession to the

death chamber, An officer of the Salvation Army was.also present. In addition to ._
the. officers,of the prison and they physicians there. were some twenty-five other): _ —
spectators, five of whom were from this county. Up to midnight on Wednesday night
Grill played:cards with the death watch, and apparently was in.good sprtits. Short-.

ly after MXAKX twelve he retired. He arose early Thursday morning and.partook of

a hearty breakfast. later he received the ministrations. of the priests and in ten
seconds after he had stepped on the gallows the trap was sprung and he was launched
into eternity. Fourteen minutes later the nerves of the body had ceased to twitch

and the physicians pronounced him dead. Once in a while Grill talked of his crime
with his attendants. While admitting that he killed old man Pearce, he claimed that
the gun went offaccidentally. In a previous version of the killing related to a
prison guard he had claimed that Dabner and the other young gas pipe thugs of San
Francisco had been in Alexander Valley at the time of the murder and that they were
guilty of the crime,

"Al Grill was the first murderer from Sonoma County bo pay the death penalty at San
Quentin. Before the law was changed so that all executions of the death sentence

were carried out at the penitentiary there was just one legal execution of a Sonoma
County murderer, That was the hanging of Michael Ryan, not pat Ryan, as another

paper had it = in 186. Ryan was a brute and shamefully abused his wife and children for a
llong time before he killed the woman by driving a pick through her skull, He was
hanged early in 1865, The murder was in 186), and M&X#AX was committed in their home in
Santa Rosa, After the hanging of Ryan, the Sheriff put away the rope that had been
taken from the dead murderer's neck and stowed it in a cavity that had been cut in

the jail wall to place an end of the gallows timber, Then he covered it with bricks
and it remained there until the jail was torn down in 188). A man named Henley was
taken from jail in Santa Rosa and hanged by a mob some time in the late ‘70's, Hen=
ley was to be tried for the murder of a man, The mob took the jailer's keys away at the
pistol's point, opened the prison, took Henley a short distance south of town, and
hanged him to a tree on Sebastapol Ave. The body of the man Henkey had iurdered
musxenk was eaten by hogs. Henley shot his victim in a corral where there were many
hogs, and left the body where it fé1ll, There have been several other convictions

for murder inthe first degree in this county. Intwo cases the sentences were not
carried out, for the murd@rers escaped, One of these was Geiger, who killed Mrs.
Strong about 1877, and who broke jail and was never fourid, Another was Bruggy,

under sentence of life imprisonment, who escaped from jail here in the 90's. He

was never caught," PRESS DEMOCRAT, Santa Rosa, California, Nov. 8, 1907 (2/1.

"...His last chance of life went last night when Gov, Gillett to whom a petition had
been presented asking the exercise of his executive clemency, declined to interfere,
Last night Attorney Ross Campbell, who had done what he could to get the death pen-
alty commuted, received a telegram from the Governor stating that after a review

of the records, he did not feel that he could grant the relief asked, and that he had so
notified the warden at San Quentin, The crime for whtch Al Grill will die today was

the murder of We Se Pearce. Grill shot the old man to death as he lay in bed

asleep in his little home in Alexander Valley in this county, At the time Grill

was very much infatuated with 16-year-old Mae Pearce, the daughter of his victim, It was
claimed that the motive for the slaying was robbery, and that Grill wanted some money
that Pearce had in order that he might bie some finery for Mae, It was also said

that Pearce had resented his attentions to the girl, Be that as it may Grill

claimed that the gun went off accidentally. Strong and conclusive edidence was


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introduced at the trial to show that Grill committed a cold-blooded murder, :I/also ~
came out at the trial that-Mae Pearce was in the house at the time of the shooting, .~
and that when she asked her lover what he had shot, Grill replied: 'Oh, I killed a
skunk." Hé and Miss Pearce got into a buggy and’ drove to Lytton Springs where the
girl apes the night with a woman-friend, Later that evéning Grill returned-to-

a ranch in the hills where he was working and next morning was arrested and charged ©
with the killing, Grill was'given two trials. In the first he was convicted of -

murder in the first degree and the jury fixed the punishment at Life imprisonment.‘

A new trial was asked of the Supreme Court and it was granted, At the second trial
Grill was again found guilty of murder in the first degree and the jury' s verdict
carried with it the death Penalty. Grill again appealed to the Supreme Court, but

it affirmed the decision of the lower court. “Grill gambled with thé Sipreme Court
-with his‘ life as stake and lost. Several Santa Rosans, including | newspaper men, have been
jnvited to go to San Quentin today to withess the hanging at ll o'clock, The — .

last heard of Mae Pearce was that she was in Oregon. At the first emae of he

she was a witness, and a damaging one, against him,"

PRESS DEMOCRAT, Santa Rosa, California, Nove 7, 1907 (8/1)

28

BULBRANDSEN, Henry, white, asphyxiated San Quentin, Calif. (Sonoma County) my

on 10/6/1950.

The wounded girl told of the two persons murdered at Candlelight Lodge. Something had

happened earlier, while beautiful Mrs. Paget had

7

cuessed iis

By GEORGE CLARK

Hanae AND EVA PAGET were a happily married couple with
two children, a boy of seven and a girl of three, both of whom
had inherited their parents’ good looks. Frank was thirty-seven,
tall and distinguished-looking; Eva was several years younger
‘and strikingly beautiful.

The spring of 1949 found Frank Paget living apart from his
family. He would have preferred to remain in California, but
he had received an attractive business offer and, after talking
it over with his wife, had gone to Virginia to manage a chain of
woolen mills.

Eva Paget had meanwhile undergone major surgery and was
convalescing at her mother’s home in Berkeley. She expected to
join her husband as soon as he was settled in his new position
and could make arrangements to bring her and the children East.

While not yet fully recovered from her operation, she decided
to take a two-weeks’ vacation in Sonoma County, where she was
reared; and on Sunday, June 26th, she went to a resort called
Londonside, some fifty miles north of San Francisco. She was
accompanied by her children and a baby-sitter named Audrey
McDonald, a pretty blonde of seventeen who was the daughter
of friends.

Londonside was located at Glen Ellen, in the Valley of the

Moon, not far from the ranch of Jack London, the late author,
whose writings brought fame to that pleasant region of vineyards
and orchards and wooded hills.
. The first few days of their vacation were delightful. Eva Paget
relaxed in the healing sunshine and renewed her acquaintance
with old friends; little George and Eva had the time of their
lives frolicking with other children in a small stream near by;
and Audrey, already thrilled to be vacationing at that fashionable
resort, quickly made friends with the other young people, and
spent many happy hours swimming and playing games.

On Friday, July 1st, when she had been there almost a week,
Mrs. Paget received a pleasant surprise. A friend of her girl-
hood days learned that she was at the resort and dropped in at
her cottage to say hello. He was Lieutenant Peter J. Flint of the
Merchant Marine, a husky, dark-eyed man of twenty-seven
who had been reared at near-by Boyes Springs, where his grand-
parents had been pioneer settlers and where one of his brothers
now resided with his family.

Flint had served ten years in the Merchant Marine, and during
the war he had twice been torpedoed while on duty in the Pacific.
At the present time he was taking a refresher course at the
Maritime Service Training School in Alameda, near Oakland.

He was accompanied by a man whom he introduced as “Hank,
my roommate,” a quiet, softspoken individual of perhaps thirty-
five who had dark blond hair and appeared to be of Scandinavian
descent. Like Flint, he was wearing civilian clothes, He listened
with a polite smile while Flint, almost forgetting that he was
present, talked over old times and discussed mutual friends with
Mrs. Paget.

Flint was pleased at Frank Paget’s advancement but expressed
his regret that Frank’s new job meant that he and Eva would
be living on the East Coast. Between sea voyages Flint stayed at a
private home in Richmond, near Berkeley, and had often
visited the Paget family. He was quite fond of the children and
remarked how he was going to miss them. He and other mem-
bers of his family had been close friends of the Pagets for years.

Flint revealed that he had invited Hank to spend the Inde-
pendence Day weekend with him at the vacation cabin of an
old friend, Peter J. Jensen, with whom Mrs. Paget was also
acquainted. Jensen, who was fifty-three, was the head landscape
gardener at the Sonoma State Home, a few miles from Boyes
Springs. He had an apartment there but liked to spend his
weekends in the four-room cabin he had built in Triniti Canyon.

TRUE DETECTIVE, February, 1950

been out with Lt. Flint, which, had they

sigmifieanee, might have served as a warning of the terror that was to follow

Lodge

{

Candlelight?

Eva Paget (r.) could not but know
that she was alluring to men; that
her beauty carried certain perils

4 "
Ae
h He
j é

SEG la
Savi,

“Don’t go in there,” the girl was harshly warned as
she was about to enter the exotically furnished room 9
(above). Later she discovered its dread secret

aAnow
that

perils

ed as Standing over the helpless girl, her assailant suddenly
room jf tossed the pestle into flower pot (above, as police found
ecret - it). Her involuntarily uttered plea had saved her life

At double murder and assault scene, Sher-
iff Patteson, Coroner Silvershield and
D.A. McGoldrick (1. to r.) discuss case

te ity
PAC
WEA

Frank Paget (r.) comforts seriously in-
jured wife, who had been lured to near
death by a_ two-time murderer’s ruse

For more than four hours the frenzied girl remained tied
to the tree (arrow), to which the murderer had bound her,
using his belt, trousers and other garments (see above)


“Where are Mr.‘ Flint and
Mr. Jensen?” the desperate
woman had asked. From the
marauder’s reply she knew
she was trapped. (Lt. Flint,
top; Peter Jensen, left)

This cabin of Jensen’s was an exotically-furnished place
called Candlelight Lodge. Although less than five miles
from Londonside, it was isolated in the hills and was not
equipped with electricity. When Jensen entertained friends
there, they usually dined by candlelight, which was in
keeping with the atmosphere created by the Orienfal
rugs and tapestries that covered the floors, walls and
ceilings of the rooms.

Jensen was a bachelor whose hobby was collecting
bric-a-brac of various kinds. He specialized in Chinese

pitchers, several rows of which adorned the wall of one .

of the two bedrooms, Other curios were scattered about
the place.

The genial gardener was proud of the flagstone- paved
court or patio he had constructed between the bedrooms
at the rear of the U-shaped cottage. In the center was
a barbecue pit, where on special occasions Jensen pre-
pared excellent meals, which he served there under the
trees.

Another feature of the place was a dinner gong which
he sounded by striking it with an ancient stone pestle.
The pestle, one of his curios, was cylindrical save for
rounded ends and it weighed about four pounds. The
primitive Indians had used such stone instruments to
pulverize acorns into a kind of flour.

Such was Candlelight Lodge, where Flint was always
‘welcome and was privileged to bring any of his friends.
He had invited his roommate without consulting Jensen,

not yet contacted. ‘

In one of the bedrooms of the secluded hillside cabin,
Candlelight Lodge, with its wall adorned with Chinese.
pitchers, the hysterieal girl made a_ startling discove:

well knowing that Hank, as his friend, would be cor-
dially received.

Flint remarked that he and Hank would have to hun
up Jensen to obtain the key to his cabin, and invited
Mrs. Paget to accompany them to Sonoma for the ride:
She declined, explaining that Audrey had gone out some~
where and she would have to remain at her cottage with
the children.

“Well, then,” Flint suggested, “how about having din-
ner with me this evening, Eva? That will give us az
chance to talk some more.”

“I’m _ sorry, Peter,’ she said, “but some friends are
expecting me to dine with them.” et

“Tomorrow evening, then?’

“I'd be delighted.”

Flint grinned. “Then it’s a date,” he said.

A moment later he and his companion drove away
Flint’s flashy gray-green Buick convertible.

Still accompanied by Hank, the young lieutenant res
turned that evening and invited Mrs. Paget to join them
in a game of shuffleboard. She accompanied them to a
local tavern, where they sipped beer and talked, then
played a few games of shuffleboard, after which Flin
drove her back to her cottage. The two men then le
to get the key to the cabin from Jensen, whom they had

On the following day, Flint took Eva Paget to dinner,
leaving Hank at Candlelight Lodge with Jensen, who had
joined them there that morning and was going to spend
the week end with them.

The next day was Sunday. In the afternoon, Flint
and his roommate stopped at Londonside on their way
Boyes Springs to go swimming. Flint thought Mrs. Paget
might want to go with them, but she said she had a date
to take her children swimming. She accepted an invita.
tion to have dinner with Flint, however.

That evening while she was out with Flint, something
happened which, had they guéssed its significance, might
have served as a warning of what was to follow. Wher
Flint brought her back to her cottage, Hank was there
He had entered without invitation while Audrey was ou
with some of her young friends.

Although Flint was surprised to find him there, he§
readily accepted Hank’s casual explanation that he had
been looking for Flint and decided to wait for him there,

ere,

*
%

a "

8

YE oa WR re

No hint of the horror within its adjoining rooms
was found in the living room (above) of the lodge

Peter Jensen built and furnished in Triniti Canyon

Mrs. Paget, like any woman of unusual beauty,
could hardly help knowing that she was attractive

to men. Nor was she ignorant of the fact that:

feminine loveliness carries with it certain perils
for its possessor; .who must be on her guard at
times when a less attractive woman might feel
entirely safe. She was not, naive, and she in-

stinctively regarded any strange man with a cer-"

tain amount of caution. ; _

In Hank’s case, she had been vaguely aware
that his eyes were continually taking in her face
and figure whenever he thought she wasn’t look-
ing at him. Yet he was not bold and offensive
about it, and since he was Flint’s friend she had
felt no annoyance. In fact, she had hardly noticed
Hank at all, and they had spoken so little that
she hadn’t even inquired his last name.

It was natural for her to take her cue from
Flint, for if he had confidence in him, so could
she, and it did not ever occur to her that Hank
might have come there expecting to find her
alone in the cottage. What she did not know was
that Flint had been acquainted with his room-
mate only a short time and knew practically
nothing about. his character.

The incident was immediately forgotten when
Flint suggested that they go to the Rustic Inn,
near the resort, for a glass of beer. Since it was
still early, Mrs. Paget consented, and the three
of them went to the tavern. It was a popular
meeting place for the guests at the resort, and she
found a number of her friends there. She soon
departed with a group of them, leaving Flinf
and his friend there.

Around nine-thirty the following morning, July
4th, while Mrs. Paget was still in bed, Audrey
answered a knock on the cottage door and found
Hank standing there. She admitted him when
he said he had a message for Mrs. Paget.

“Tell her that Flint broke his arm and needs
her help,” he said. . :

Audrey went to Mrs. Paget’s bedroom. and de-
livered the message. Alarmed,. Mrs. Paget imme-
diately arose, put on a dressing gown and went
to the front room where Hank was waiting.

When the prosecutor heard firsthand from the courageous woman
the details .of the brutal assault upon her on patio (above), he.
resolved that’the killer would get the maximum penalty for his
crimes. Arrow at right indicates tree to which girl was tied

“You say Mr. Flint broke his arm?” she asked. “How did it,
happen?”
“He slipped and fell down those steep stone steps in front of
Jensen’s cabin,” Hank replied. “Jensen went to telephone a

doctor, but it may be several hours before he gets there.”

He said Flint was in considerable pain and had insisted that

‘he drive over and get her, if she was willing to. go.

“Yes, I'll get ready at once,” sHe said.

She returned to the bedroom and dressed. Then she gave
the children their breakfast and told Audrey what to do while
she was gone. Approximately an hour passed before she was
ready to accompany Hank, who spent the time quietly reading
the Sunday newspaper and a book of poems,

As Hank drove her in Flint’s car toward Triniti Canyon,
they discussed the accident, which he led her to believe might
be more serious than he had at first indicated. He mentioned
the possibility of internal injuries and explained that he and
Jensen had not dared to move Flint to a hospital until a doctor
could arrive to examine him.

Peter Flint was a loyal friend who would unhesitatingly
have come to the aid of any member of her family who might
have been in a similar plight, and Mrs. Paget, never doubting
that he had sent for her, was eager to be of whatever assistance
she could.

Four miles northeast of Glen Ellen, they turned off Triniti-
Road and followed a private road which led them, a quarter
of a mile.farther on, to a parking area below Jensen’s cabin. -

A long flight of stone steps led (Continued on page %8) ©


ction.
ie man
”

1 con-
and a
es and
t as to
But of
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1e had
ore he

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fumes
eeling
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border line—the car bumped along over rough terrain for a
short distance, then came to a stop. Ballinger was lifted to
the ground.

His captor handcuffed his limp body to a small tree two
hundred yards off the highway, then climbed back into the
coupe.

“T’'ll let someone know where you are,” he called. “And
you got a break, feller. Don’t forget that.” He put the car
in reverse gear and backed swiftly over the road by which he
had come.

As Ballinger’s head cleared, he struggled frantically to free
himself. He strained, pushed and pulled until his wrists
were rubbed raw from the steel bracelets that encircled them.

It was not yet daylight, and the few motorists who sped

(Above) C. T. Rule of the
William J. Burns International
Detective Agency in Los
Angeles, representing the
American Bankers Associa-
tion, who furnished informa-
tion that led to the identifica-
tion and capture of the “Mutt
and Jeff’’ bank bandits

(Left, left to right) Sheriff
A. S. Calkins of Yreka, Cali-
fornia, the young hitch-hiker
who unwittingly thumbed a
ride in the murdering desper-
ado’s car, and Deputy Sheriff
Charles R. Calkins, photo-
graphed just after the officers
made their thrilling capture
of the widely sought killer

down the highway at that hour either did not hear his shouts
for help or preferred to ignore them. It was not until a farmer,
trudging along a dirt road some time later, chanced upon him
that his plight was discovered. It was then necessary to
chop down the tree to which he was manacled in order to
effect his release.

As soon as Ballinger could get to a telephone, word of his
kidnaping was broadcast by radio and teletype throughout
three states—Washington, Oregon and California. Descrip-
tions of his abductors and the license number of the first car
they had used were flashed to every peace officer within a
radius of many hundreds of miles, with the terse warning,
‘Take no chances; these men are heavily armed!”’ included
in each message. (Continued on page 71)

By Captain H. S. SEAGER
CHIEF of DETECTIVES
Los Angeles, Calif., Police Department

As told to WESTWOOD HARRIS

61


72

gained his freedom by employing one of
the most ancient of criminal ruses. More-
over, the suspect had not as yet been
finger-printed or “mugged.” The Cus-
toms Agents would have to rely upon
their remembered description of Clark,
and their contacts with his so-called
friends, if their sworn determination to
recapture the fugitive materialized.

A few weeks after Clark’s escape from
the suburban jail, his partner George Hall
was sentenced to hang at Folsom Prison
for the murder of State Highway Patrol-
man Stephen S. Kent and the garageman,
Lester Quigley.

This double murder, with its dramatic
sequel, would have no bearing on sub-
sequent. events that occurred in Los An-
geles, had not Joe Clark taken an oath to
obtain—if humanly possible, by fair
means or foul—a commutation of Hall’s
death sentence to one of life imprison-
ment. To accomplish this, money in
huge sums would be needed—to carry
Hall’s appeal to the United States Su-
preme Court, if necessary.

To this end the man who called him-
self “Joe Clark” dedicated his very life—
and it was the irony of Fate that his
efforts to save his partner in crime from
the gallows were to bring about his own
undoing.

For the moment, in this bizarre case of
many angles, we will turn from kidnaping
and murder to bank robbery, next in im-
portance in the category of major crimes,
and of far more frequent occurrence.

Fy years past the percentage of bank
hold-ups cleared by the Los An-
geles Police Department has been notably
high. Few indeed have been the bank rob-
bers who were not eventually identified,
bulletined and quietly but unremittingly
hunted down, even though weeks, months,
sometimes years elapsed before the crim-
inals were finally snared in the net of the
law.

It was my secret ambition not only
to maintain the Department’s enviable
record in this respect, but to surpass it
if possible. Therefore, when four branch
bank robberies were committed by the
same pair of stick-up men within the first
six months after I took command of the
Central Robbery and Narcotic Details,
without the slightest clue to the identi-
ties of the marauders, it could be said that
these crimes were sharp thorns indeed in
my Official side.

I felt that the Department’s reputation
for efficiency was at stake, and that un-
less drastic measures were taken to halt
the reign of banditry, unfavorable pub-
licity would accrue as a result thereof.

This particular series of uncleared
robberies annoyed me the more acutely
in view of the fact that at intervals, for
several days at a time, I had special de-
tails of officers staked: in a dozen of the
banks that I considered most likely to
be raided—-only to have the raiders strike
at that very time at an unprotected bank.
I was later to learn that this was not, as
I then supposed, the sheer good luck that
often attends the first activities of a
criminal—the luck that so often deceives
and leads him to overplay his hand.

The newspapers, from the general de-
scriptions furnished by various victims,
styled the elusive bank robbers the “Mutt
and Jeff bandits.”

“Mutt,” the taller of the two, was de-
scribed as thirty to thirty-five years of
age, six feet in height, of powerful build,
with a scar on the left side of his face.
This scar, according to all victims, was
distinctly noticeable.

“Jeff,” forty years old, five feet four
inches tall, one hundred eighty pounds,
dark-complexioned and “pop-eyed,” was

True Detective Mysteries

—according to some of his victims—pock-
marked. Others maintained that his skin
was clear. All agreed, however, that he
was “a talkative little cuss,” as one bank
teller phrased it.

Furthermore, Jeff exhibited a’ surpris-
ing familiarity with his victims’ personal
and domestic affairs. During the robbery
of the Bank of America at 4500 Sunset
Boulevard on Janary 11th, 1934, he had
admonished J. Earl Mair, manager, to get
back into the bank. “Be careful, Earl,”
said the gunman, “you’ve got a wife and
two children, you know.”

The amazed bank manager hastily com-
plied with the suggestion. He and sev-
eral other employees and a depositor were
herded to the rear of the bank while Jeff
calmly scooped up $2500.00 in currency.
Mutt, in the meanwhile, with a .45 caliber
automatic in either hand, stood guard near
the front door.

Jeff placed his loot in a black patent-
leather bag. “Give us just one minute
before you come out,” he called. “That’s
all we want.” The marauders then ran
from the bank and leaped into a maroon-
colored Chevrolet coupé.

A service station attendant across the
street had witnessed the hold-up. It was
he who furnished us with the license
number—2X2889—of the get-away car.
However, by the time my officers arrived
on the scene, the Chevrolet and its occu-
pants had vanished.

Check of the license number disclosed
that the plates, 1933 issue, were regis-
tered to a reputable citizen. When in-
terviewed, he stated that he bought new
plates on January 2nd, 1934, and discarded
the old plates at Twenty-first and Grand
Avenue, throwing them in a storm drain.

On March 29th the same bandit team
swooped down on the California Bank
at 3705 Sunset Boulevard. The modus
operandi was identical with that used in
the previous raid. The “take,” in this
case, amounted to approximately $1500.00.
A new Ford coupé was the vehicle in
which the pair fled from the scene.

Another branch of the California Bank,
located at 4527 South Western Avenue,
yielded $4000.00 to the same desperadoes
on March 28th.

O*% June 18th the Citizens National at
5650 Wilshire Boulevard became a
fourth victim of their depredations, being
poorer by $1500.00 when the bandit pair
departed.

Immediately afterward, a council of
war was held between Chief of Detec-
tives Joseph F, Taylor, myself and sev-
eral of my officers detailed to investigate
bank robberies. At that time I was in
command of the Robbery and Narcotic
Details of the Los Angeles Police De-
partment. In no uncertain terms the
Chief made it plain that the “Mutt and
Jeff” bandits were to be brought in, dead
or alive.

I was in hearty accord with Chief Tay-
lor’s instructions but for the time being
Wwe were up against;a blank wall. Vic-
tims and witnesses had scrutinized numer-
ous pictures of known hold-up men, but
had not_been able to make an identifi-
cation. My officers had quizzed dozens of
suspects, with negative. results. They had
haunted all underworld resorts’ fre-
quented by stick-up men and hoodlums,
and had kept under-cover operatives in
these pinees in the so-far-vain hope of a
clue that would put us on the trail of
our quarry. Attempts to check the license
numbers of cars used on these “Jobs”
had led to nothing, for good reasons that
were to come to light later.

Sandwiched in between two of the rob-
beries committed by “Mutt and Jeff” was
the hold-up on April 10th, 1934, of a

branch of the Citizens National Bank at
4400 South Vermont Avenue by three men,

The car used by the bandits in their
get-away was traced by its license num-
ber to one Margaret Baxter. At her
home, within an hour after the robbery,
Detectives Robert J. Chambers of Cen-
tral Robbery Squad, and R. M. Jacks
of University Division, arrested one Louis
Capasso.

On April 13th Capasso made a volun-
tary statement, admitting his part in this
robbery and naming his two confeder-
ates—Roy Serpa and Frank Bonomo.

At the time of his preliminary hearing
he was represented by an attorney named
Hamilton. We were given to understand
that he intended to enter a plea of guilty
in Superior Court. Bail was set at
$10,000.

In the meanwhile we put forth every
possible effort to apprehend Capasso’s
confederates, and it was while Detectives
W. C. Burris and H. P. Gerhardt were
listening over a dictograph planted in the
apartment of a known associate of Serpa,
endeavoring to obtain information re-
garding the latter and Bonomo, that those
officers stumbled upon the solution of the
William F. Gettle kidnaping case—a com-
plete account of which appeared in the
October, 1934, issue of TruE DETECTIVE
Mysrerigs.

Furthermore though I had no inkling of
it then, this same investigation of the
case of Capasso, Serpa and Bonomo was
fated to lead by unexpected and devious
ways to uncovering the activities of one
of the most amazing criminal bands ever
to operate in Los Angeles.

IV view of the expressed intention of
Louis Capasso to enter a formal plea of
guilty to the crime he had admittedly
committed, the bursting of a bombshell
in my office would have occasioned no
greater consternation than the news I
received on the sixth of June.

It was then I learned that, without any
of my officers having been notified, Ca-
passo had had his arraignment in Super-
lor Court before Judge Fletcher Bowron,
and had pleaded Not Guilty!

On that occasion it developed that the
defendant had changed counsel, being now
represented by one Loeb L. Cossack. That
attorney first had the effrontery to ask
that the charge against his client be dis-
missed on the ground that he had not
been “properly represented” at his first
arraignment; that brutal third degree
methods—including the application of a
blow-torch to Capasso’s bare feet—had
been used by me and my officers to ex-
tort from him a confession to a crime he
had not committed. The attorney had
produced an affidavit to that effect, signed
by Capasso.

Judge Bowron had refused to dismiss
the charge, whereupon Cossack demanded
reduction of bail from $10,000 to $5,000.
The Judge had not yet rendered his deci-
sion on the bail matter.

Thoroughly incensed, I promptly pre-
pared to use every Jegal means at my
command to prevent the probable release
of Capasso on reduced bail.

Among my grounds for protest was
the fact that he had admitted commit-
ting the offense with which he stood
charged; that he had a long police record
and was a known drug addict; that he
had been committed to San Quentin
Penitentiary on January 13th, 1932, from
Los Angeles County for burglary, and
had only lately been released.

I was convinced that this bank robber,
if released on bail, would not only for-
feit bond and fail to appear for trial, but
would connect with his former associates
and engage in further hold-ups.

4

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Therefore, accompanied by Detective
Robert J. Chambers, who was thoroughly
familiar with all angles of this case, I
proceeded to the chambers of the Honor-
able Judge Bowron, prepared to fight to
the last ditch against a procedure which
I was certain would result in defeating the
ends of justice.

While I was explaining to the jurist my
reasons for opposing the contemplated
bail reduction, a clerk announced that
Attorney Loeb Cossack wished to speak
with the Judge.

“Have him sent in,” I urged. “I’d like
nothing better than a show-down with
Mr. Cossack right here and now.”

The attorney entered—a man some
thirty years of age, immaculately attired.
However, his air of thinly veiled inso-
lence, in addition to the off-hand nod
with which he acknowledged the presence
of Detective Chambers and myself, an-
tagonized me from the beginning.

I listened with growing irritation while
he pleaded that his petition for lower
bail be granted to Louis Capasso. He
had hardly finished before we were en-
gaged in a heated verbal tilt.

I flatly accused him of having coached
and advised his client to sign a wholly un-
truthful affidavit to the effect that he had
been subjected to third degree methods
by myself and other officers in order to
force a confession of guilt from his lips.

“T did not even suggest that he make
such an affidavit,” Cossack countered
suavely. “However, I’m satisfied in my
own mind that the allegations contained
in the affidavit are true. I know how you
police get most of your confessions.”

Wii difficulty I resisted an undigni-
fied impulse to take a punch at my
adversary’s face, inasmuch as Capasso
himself had told a cellmate, who in turn
had informed one of my officers, that Cos-
sack had coached him to make this lying
affidavit.

As it was, I told Cossack in the most
forcible words at my command that it
was lawyers of his type who disgraced
their profession; that although he—a
sworn officer of the court—was fully
aware of his client’s guilt, he attempted
to becloud the issue by malicious and un-
founded attacks against the police, plac-
ing the police officer on trial in the minds
of the jury, rather than the criminal.

“In my opinion,” I said, “you’re a very
good example of the shyster-crook lawyer.
The man you're defending is a confirmed
criminal, and a narcotic addict as well.
Yet you try by lies and trickery to set
him free so he can commit more crimes.
You should be disbarred.”

Cossack listened with a slightly mock-
ing smile, but made no reply to my long
tirade.

I remembered then to ask Judge Bow-
ron’s pardon for entering into an alter-
cation in his presence. The jurist smiled,
as though he had rather enjoyed the scene,
and announced that his decision in re-
gard to Attorney Cossack’s request would
be made at a later date.

Officer Chalmers and I then left. I
had had my first encounter with Attorney
Loeb Cossack—but it was destined not
to be my last.

Some days later I learned that Capasso
had been released on $5,000.00 bail.

Just a few days before my verbal clash
with Cossack, Detective Bob Chambers
had told me that a certain Los Angeles
business-man, whose name he had prom-
ised to withhold for the time being, had
informed him that he could furnish infor-
mation concerning the “Mutt’ and Jeff”
bandits. The man professed to know
their true names and where they were.

True Detective Mysteries

However, several conditional “strings”
were attached to his offer to put Cham-
bers on the trail of the badly wanted
criminals. First, the informant insisted
that Chambers ascertain from the victim-
ized banks the exact amount of the re-
wards outstanding for the arrest of the
culprits. Second, he demanded an abso-
lute guarantee that both “Mutt” and
“Jeff” would be killed as soon as sighted
by the police.

“I know where they’re planning to
stick up a bank,” the man stated to
Chambers. “I'll give you the address
proranne you can assure me_ they’ll

oth be killed—killed outright, not just
wounded. All of this depends, of course,
on how much the banks are, willing to
pay for the right dope. Let me know
what you find out.”

Chambers repeated to me the conver-
sation he had had with the un-named
business-man. “I know you won’t go
for anything like that, Cap,” he said in
conclusion, “but I thought Td tell you
about it, anyway.”

“No, I certainly won’t ‘go’ for that,”
I said emphatically. Familiar as I was
by long years of experience with the
workings of the criminal mind, I was
jolted by this cold-blooded, mercenary
proposal. “No, much as I’d like to get
that pair in, that sort of thing is out.
It would be murder. Besides, some in-
nocent person might get shot. Who
is this business-man?”

But Chambers had given his word
not to reveal the name of his informant
at that time. He asked that I permit
him to investigate further before dis-
closing the information I sought.

I now recalled this conversation with
Chambers most vividly.

Was it possible that Cossack, appar-
ently ready to stop at nothing to attain
his own ends, was in some way definitely
connected with the “Mutt and Jeff”
bandits? I was unable to determine
whether my “hunch” in respect to Cos-
sack was prompted by personal dislike
of the man, or whether the fact that he
had so vigorously defended Capasso had
led me to believe that he might be an
associate of bank robbers in general.
Nevertheless, I entertained the idea, fan-
tastic though it seemed at the time.

O* July 26th, while Louis Capasso was
still out on bond, I, with Detectives
B. M. Johnston, J. D. McMullen and H.
P. Gerhardt of the Robbery Detail, act-
ing upon an underworld tip, arrested
the long-sought Roy Serpa.

Serpa readily admitted his part in the
robbery of the Citizens National Bank
on April 10th. In a signed statement
he said he had driven the bandit-car—
the property of Margaret Baxter, whom
Capasso had married while at liberty
on bail. Capasso had stood guard at
the door while Frank: Bonomo, wielding
the gun, had collected the loot.

Serpa agreed to turn State’s evidence
against Capasso and his wife. Our case
thus re-inforced, we obtained a Grand
Jury indictment for Louis and Margaret
Capasso. They were arrested on August
3rd. Bail was set—and remained set—
at $10,000.00 for each defendant.

The three accused were brought to
trial before Superior Court Judge William
C. Doran in September, 1934°”

The overly melodramatic gallery play
by Attorney Cossack, who charged my
officers and me with having brutally
beaten his client Capasso, burned his
bare feet and cruelly lacerated his arms
by the device of the “iron claw,” failed
to make the desired impression. At
times Cossack’s description of the med-

is

ieval tortures inflicted upon Capasso was
received with openly skeptical smiles by
the jury. a :

On September 17th Capasso was found
guilty of first degree robbery. As a sec-
ond offender he was sentenced to Folsom
Prison for an indeterminate “seven years
to life” term.

Roy Serpa, having pleaded guilty to
second degree robbery, was committed
to San Quentin on a “one year to life”
sentence. Margaret Baxter Capasso,
charged only with having guilty knowl-
edge‘ of the fact that her automobile
was used in a hold-up, was acquitted.

*x* * *

While still pondering the worth of
my “hunch” that Cossack’ might be the
business-man Chambers had interviewed,
I received a call from Mr. C. T. Rule,
manager of the Criminal Department,
Los Angeles branch of the William J.
Burns International Detective Agency.
Mr. Rule, who specialized in bank pro-
tection, and in many past instances had
liven most effective co-operation to the

olice Department, was again ready with
valuable assistance. i

He said he could put me in touch
with a man who he believed possessed
important information concerning the
“Mutt and Jeff” bandits. Needless to
say, I jumped at this offer. I agreed
to meet Mr. Rule that night and ac-
company him to a down-town hotel
where his informant—whom we shall call
Jake Edwards—would be awaiting us.

No details had been given by Mr.
Rule, and it came as a distinct surprise
when Jake Edwards’ opening remarks
referred to none other than Attorney
Loeb Cossack!

AKE told us that he had been em-

ployed by Cossack for several months
as an investigator, and while in that
attorney’s office he had seen and heard
many things indicating that his em-
ployer was vitally interested in the ac-
tivities of the two bank robbers known
as “Mutt and Jeff.” .

“Mutt,” our informant declared, “1s
a guy named Izzy Fenton, who also
works for Cossack as an_ investigator.
Jeff, the little fellow, is Pete Carlson.
Jeff’s the brains of the team. He brags
about having held up eighteen or twenty
banks. On all the jobs they’re sup-
oc to split the money three ways

etween Fenton, Carlson and Cossack.
Sometimes Carlson holds out on the
others, and for that reason they’ve been
fighting among themselves. It seems
that Carlson’s trying to get a lot of
dough together for something he always
refers to as the ‘big caper.’ ”

It was with difficulty that I managed
to control my excitement as I listened
to these disclosures. I felt a grim satis-
faction at having my worst suspicions
of Cossack seemingly confirmed.

“How does it happen that you know
so much about this gang?” I inquired.
“Did they let you in on their secrets?”

“Well, it’s like this. They began by
making a proposition to me to go on some
of their jobs. I pretended to be willing,
but always backed away when it came
time to pull the stick-up. I’d make
some excuse or other because, while I
sure need money, I’m not taking a
chance on San Quentin in order to get
it.

“T see. And are you still working
for Cossack?” .

“No! Cossack finally got suspicious
and told me to get out. He offered an-
other fellow two hundred dollars to
bump me off, because I knew too much.
This man happened to: be a friend of


True Detective Mysteries

71

The Riddle of the Disappearing Scar

United States Customs Agents Phil
Fraser and Rae Vader of the Seattle office
were two of the officers assigned to in-
vestigate the facts concerning Ballinger’s
kidnaping. They located the Ford coupé
Ballinger had described but missed their
quarry by a few minutes. The man who
had rented the car had returned it and
left for parts unknown.

Their next information was to the effect
that a stranger—one whose actions had
aroused suspicion—had ordered a new
Ford sedan from a local dealer. But
when Fraser and Vader rushed to the
Ford agency to await the man who they
expected would call for the new auto-
mobile, they learned to their chagrin that
it had already been delivered to a woman
who gave her name as “Belle Gorman.”
She had paid cash for the car.

License number plates had not been
issued to the new Ford as yet. However,
the dealer had kept a record of the num-
ber that appeared on the ignition switch
key. This number was promptly added
to the broadcasts which were repeated at
intervals of every few hours, inasmuch as
the man who had placed the order for
the car greatly resembled Ballinger’s
description of one of the kidnapers.

f Benin next night—March 10th—when a
new Ford sedan stopped at a fruit in-
spection station in Northern California
for examination, an alert inspector looked
it over carefully. He, too, had learned of
the kidnaping and had been furnished
with a description of the wanted man and
automobile. While making his customary
search for contraband fruits and vege-
tables being transported from one state
to another, he managed to throw the
beams of his flash-light upon the Ford’s
ignition switch key. The number was
identical with that which had appeared
in the message requesting the suspect’s
arrest!

The inspector, unarmed, had no alter-
native other than to permit the automo-
bile to proceed on its way. However,
within three minutes he had relayed his
important discovery to State Highway
Patrol officers and to the Sheriff’s Office
at Yreka—the next town of any size
through which the car could be expected
to pass,

At the moment the message reached
him, State Highway Patrolman Stephen
S. Kent was in a Yreka garage, having his
car repaired by his friend, Lester Quig-
ley. Kent had pulled on a pair of blue
dungaree trousers to protect his uniform
from grease. Both men had been work-
ing on Kent’s car at the time the mes-
sage was received.

“Come on, Les,” Officer Kent said, “let’s
take your car and drive around for
awhile. We might pick up the boys that
pulled this job.”

Quigley accepted the invitation with
alacrity. With luck, they might run into
some excitement.

Meanwhile, Sheriff A. S. Calkins, of
Yreka, and his son, a deputy sheriff,
were waiting for the suspect to put in an
appearance. They had men planted at
strategic points along the highway lead-
ing into Yreka, with orders to stop every
Ford sedan that came into view,

After cruising about for a short time,
Officer Kent and his friend Quigley espied
a sedan parked at the end of a “blind”
road that led from the highway. It was
occupied by two men.

“Let’s look them over,” Kent suggested.

Quigley steered his car along the street

(Continued from page 61)

indicated, stopped just behind the parked
sedan. Kent, followed by Quigley, got
out.

Pipe in hand, the officer approached the
Ford. “Have to ask you boys to get out,”
he said. “We've got orders to search
every Ford sedan that shows up.”

One man jumped from the sedan, as
ordered, but the driver did not move.
“To h— with you,” he snarled. “Be on
your way.”

Officer Kent came closer, “Do you get
out of that car, or do I haul you out?”

Swiftly the driver jerked open the door.

“Oh, yes? ... Well, you asked for it!”
A blinding flash... a deafening explo-
sion.... ‘

Officer Kent swayed on his feet, hand
fumbling blindly for the gun carried in
his uniform trousers under the overalls.

Another flash . . . another explosion ...
and Lester Quigley fell dead, a bullet
through his throat. 2

Sheriff Calkins and his son drove up
at that instant. The elder man ran to
support Kent and was dragged down with
him as the latter fell to the ground, shot
through the heart. “I... [| just asked
him ... to get out... of the car—” were
Kent’s last words.

Young Calkins saw a man dashing across
a field.

“Halt!” he cried. “Stop, or I’ll shoot!”

The fugitive whirled and fired five
times at his pursuer. Calkins junior lifted
his shotgun, took quick aim and fired. He
heard a groan, but the suspect continued
to run. Calkins fired again. This time
the fleeing murderer Staggered and fell,
The deputy ran to where he lay and bent
over him. “What’s your name?”

Fes answer, the wounded man struck
Calkins over the forehead with the butt
of his empty gun. The deputy reeled
backward, momentarily stunned.

Meanwhile the elder Calkins had seen
that both Kent and Quigley were beyond
mortal aid. He himself had a badly
wrenched knee, the result of his fall to
the ground when the dying Kent had col-
lapsed against him. He managed to limp
to the spot where the desperado had
fallen, and in his tum demanded the
name of the man he believed might be
mortally wounded. Again the killer used
his gun as a club, clipping a section of
flesh from the Sheriff’s upper lip.

Young Calkins, still groggy, brought the
stock of his shotgun down heavily upon
the murderer’s head, effectually subduing
him at last.

The youth who had alighted from the
Ford sedan at the first command had
made no effort to escape during the shoot-
ing affray. As a matter of fact, he ad-
mitted later that he was “too scared to
run.” He proved to be merely a hitch-
hiker whom the other man had picked up
along the highway a short time before.
“T never saw that guy before in my life,”
he declared through chattering teeth. “I
didn’t even know he had a gun.”

Informed of the double murder, U. S.
Customs Agents Phil Fraser, Rae Vader
and “Spud” Atherton of the Seattle office
hurried to Yreka to investigate the tragic
aftermath of the kidnaping of their
brother officer, E. L. Ballinger.

The suspect, suffering from superficial
birdshot wounds in the thips, said his
name was George Manning. However, he
was subsequently identified through
finger-prints as George Hall, ex-convict
ne had served a term in San Quentin

rison.

Agent Vader, after spending almost a
week with, Hall in the latter’s jail cell at
Yreka, was instrumental in obtaining a
confession from Hall in which he ad-
mitted being one of the men who had
kidnaped Ballinger.

During that week the slayer lived in
constant fear of mob vengeance. Both
Kent and Quigley had been popular mem-
bers of the American Legion, and their
wanton killing had infuriated the entire
countryside. Hard-fisted miners and
“wood-cutters of that region congregated
in pool-halls and on street corners, dis-
cussing with relish the prospect of storm-
ing the jail and escorting the prisoner to
a “necktie party.”

On three separate occasions Sheriff
Calkins and Agents Vader and Fraser
barely managed to avert a lynching by
pleading with enraged.members of the
mob and urging them to disperse. They
explained that Hall was about to reveal
the identity of the man who had aided
him in the kidnaping of Ballinger; fur-
thermore, it was pointed out, a legal hang-
ing constituted more severe punishment
than lynching. Finally; their arguments
prevailed, and talk of ropes and conve-
nient trees died down.

Meanwhile, Hall’s partner in the kid-
naping of Ballinger was believed to be
in Los Angeles. From information. re-
ceived from the north, United States Cus-
toms Agents Dave MacFarlane and Art
Hansen of the Los Angeles district, got
a line on the man they sought.

The suspect, who gave his name as
“Joe Clark,” was captured on March 16th,
1934, as he emerged from a Main Street
pool-hall. MacFarlane and Hansen found
In his possession certain evidence that
definitely connected him with the kid-
naping. For safer keeping, and so that
his associates would not learn of his arrest,
Clark was lodged in jail in a suburban
city, booked with suspicion of kidnap-
ing—a Federal offense.

Se ET IME during the first night of
his incarceration, a street-car conduc-
tor charged with intoxication was placed in
the same cell with Clark. In a manner
still unknown to the authorities, Clark
gained possession of the drunken man’s
booking-slip, which he exchanged for his
own.

When members of the day shift replaced
the night jailers, next morning, Clark
loudly demanded that a bondsman be
sent to him. “If I don’t get out of here,
I'll lose my job!” he insisted.

A bail bondsman was summoned. He
deposited the sum of $25.00 to insure
the defendant’s appearance in court, and
left the jail with the supposed street-car
conductor.

“Drive me over to my sister’s place,”
Clark ordered, naming an address in a
residential section. “I'll get some money
from her and pay you back the twenty-
five dollars.”

The bondsman drove to an apartment
house, where Clark entered the front door
and disappeared from view. The bonds-
man waited a half hour, then made in-
quiries of the manager. Needless to say,
the “street-car conductor” was unknown
at that address. He had made good his
escape by the simple expedient of enter-
ing the building by the front door and
leaving by the rear.

It was not until Agents MacFarlane
and Hansen called for their prisoner at
noon that day that they made the dis-
concerting discovery that Clark had


®
'

(Continued from page 64) W. Tash the deli-
cate task of installing dictographs in Cos-
sack’s quarters. They consisted of three
Tooms—reception-room, main office and a
smaller room used' as a private sanctum.

At midnight on August 29th, when the
officers had made certain that Cossack’s
rooms were deserted, they entered by
means of a pass key. The instruments were
installed in the main and private offices.

Wires of a color to match the woodwork
were adjusted so skilfully as to defy detec-
tion by any person unaware that they were
there. These wires led to receiving sets lo-
cated in an office on the floor below, where
my officers prepared to take turns at the
tedious task of listening to all conversa-
tions held between Cossack and his asso-
ciates, '

One of the first bits of conversation to
come distinctly over the wire more than
hinted at Cossack’s high opinion of his own
ability to outsmart the police,

The trial and conviction of the two of his
clients was under discussion. To some per-
son whose identity was as yet unknown to
the listening Officers, the attorney fumed:

“If those damn fools had kept their
mouths shut I could have got them off. I’d
like to see the -—— cop who could make
me talk!” 4

The time to make good his boast was
nearer than he dreamed,

@ DICTOGRAPHS HAD also been installed

in the apartment shared by Cossack and
Fenton. Ina near-by room, Detectives Bur-
ris and Gerhardt took turns listening in on
their conversations.

Meanwhile, I continued to gather all pos-
sible information concerning the attorney
and the men with whom he associated.

In view of the sudden. turn this investi-
gation had taken, I asked Detective Cham-
bers point-blank if the attorney was the
“businessman” who had offered to reveal
the identity of the “Mutt and Jeff” bandits.

The detective admitted then that Cossack
was the man, and gave further details re-
garding his interview with the lawyer. Per-
haps most interesting was the lJatter’s state-
ment that he had served fourteen months
in a- Federal penitentiary.

Official inquiry disclosed that three years
previously Cossack had been convicted in
San Bernardino County of violating the
Federal bankruptcy laws, and sentenced
to the United States Penitentiary at McNeil
Island, Washington. After serving fourteen
months in that institution, he was granted a
new trial and released on bond. This auto-
matically voided his original conviction,
and he was permitted to resume the prac-
tice of law pending final decision on his
appeal. At our request, a picture of him
was forwarded from McNeil Island.

Detective A. M. Woolman, through our
own identification records, ascertained that
Peter Carlson had played a criminal role in
our city before. He was arrested in 1924
under: the name “Joe West,” convicted of
bank robbery and sentenced to San Quentin.
From the files of that institution we were
furnished with a gallery picture of the sus-
pect. , :

In the meanwhile, Jake Edwards, former
investigator for Cossack, enlarged materi-
ally upon his original statement in regard
to his relations with the attorney under
Suspicion. ;

“Soon after I met Cossack and Fenton,”
he said, “it was decided that Cossack and I
were to go out and case some jobs. We
drove to a bank at Avenue Twenty-four
and North Broadway. Cossack said, for me
to go in and count the different tellers’ win-
dows and the number of people in there. At
the same time he’d be changing a ten-dollar
bill, I went in with him and did as he told
me. From there we went to another branch
bank and did the same thing. When we got

back to the office I found out they’d planned

a bank robbery for the following Monday
morning. I had no intention of going on
the job, so I purposely showed up late. Pre-
tended I’d been: busy on an investigation.
Cossack was plenty burned up because I
wasn’t there when the job was all set.”

“How much longer did you work for Cos-
sack after that?” ;

“Not long. It was right after this that
he got leery of me and asked Sam Collins to
bump me off, . But before that, he said Pete
Carlson was double-crossing him and keep-
ing all the gravy for some big caper he had
in mind. Cossack said if someone didn’t get
Pete out of the way, he himself would be
killed.”

It was soon after this second conversa-
tion with Jake that I, together with Jake
and Rule, had my first interview with Col-
lins.

Having been informed by Edwards of
Collins’ aversion to policemen in general,
I was fully prepared to assume the name
and identity of C. M, Christiansen, as I had
arranged with that genial bank official,

Collins at first proved to be a most re--
luctant informant. His unwillingness to -

reveal what he knew concerning the “Mutt
and Jeff” bandits and their so-called legal
adviser was inspired, I was sure, not by any
sense of loyalty to the gunmen, but fear of
the consequences to himself, :

“If I told what I know about that bunch,”
he said, “my life wouldn’t be worth two
bits.”

For more than two hours we sat in a
parked automobile, trying by every argu-
ment at our command to convince Collins
that it was his duty to give the information
we sought.

“TI hate a squealer,” he declared. “Besides,

it might put me on the spot. Those fellows.

are hard as nails, all of them. And I
wouldn’t lift.a hand to put a copper on any-
body’s trail. I got no use for the police.

They’re running around in circles now, try- |

ing to round up that gang. Let ’em run.”

“You don’t have to tip the police to this
gang,” I replied. “I represent. the bank,
and when you give us the dope we want,
you'll be out of it, Nobody’s going to ac-
cuse you of hollering ‘copper,’” }

“I know, but you guys would go straight
to the bulls with whatever I told you. If
you don’t know anything, you can’t tell any-
thing. So what’s the answer? I’m keepin’
my trap shut,” -

I decided then that the time had come to
let Collins know that we did have a line on
the “Mutt and Jeff” bandits. In my pocket
were pictures of Cossack, Carlson and Fen-
ton. Those of Cossack and Carlson were
penitentiary mugs, as before explained. But
the likeness of Fenton, who had no prior
criminal record, insofar as we could ascer-
tain, had not been so easily obtained. It
was a copy of a formal portrait which De-
tective Burris had taken from Fenton and
Cossack’s apartment during their absence,
and replaced as soon as it had been repro-
duced by a photographer. Ne

I handed the three pictures to Collins,
lighted a match and asked, “Know any of

those, fellows?”

He. scrutinized the photographs closely,

‘“Never saw ’em before,” he announced.

“Who are they?”

“Two of them are the bandits we've been
talking about,” I said. “The other is Cos-
sack. Now that that’s settled, suppose we

‘quit stalling around, and you tell us a few

things.: Just how deep are you in with this
mob?”

The inference that he himself might be
criminally involved accomplished the de-
sired result.

“You win,” he said. “Sure I know ’em

all. What d’you want to know?”

“We want to know where we can locate
Pete Carlson. We can pick up Cossack and
Fenton any time, but since Carlson seems
to be the head man, we want him at the

same time we get the other two, Where

does he hang out?”
“Damned if I know. He never showed

around Cossack’s office much, They’re on.

the outs now, and I don’t know where he
is. Tell you how you might reach him, He’s

in touch all the time with some big-shot .

in Sacramento—a guy with lots of political
drag. You see, Pete had @ partner named
George Hall. Hall’s in Folsom now, waiting
to be hanged. Killed a couple of guys up
North, Pete sends all the money he can get
hold of to this fellow in Sacramento. That’s
the ‘big caper’ he’s always talking: about.
He wants to get a commutation for Hall.”

The information just received will have
more significance to the reader than it did
to me at that time. It was not until the next
day, when Customs Agent MacFarlane, of
the Los Angeles District, informed me of
the kidnapping of his fellow officer, Patrol-
man Ballinger, and the subsequent murder
of State Highway Patrolman Kent and his
friend Lester Quigley in March, 1933, at
Seattle, Washington, that I was enabled to
connect Carlson with the northern crimes.

Agent MacFarlane identified the picture
of Carlson as none other than “Joe Clark,”
wanted for aiding Hall in the kidnapping
of Ballinger, who had made his escape from

a suburban jail by the ruse described earlier ‘

in this story. .
fe But to resume my conversation with Col-
ns:

“I want you.to tell me the truth now,
Sam,” I said. “Just how did you become
involved with this mob, and what do you
know about the robberies they’ve com-
mitted?” 2

He hesitated, “Okay,” he said finally,
‘T'll shoot the works.” 5

He began by informing us that he himself
had introduced Carlson to Attorney Cos-
sack. According to his story, in October,
1933, while he was operating a small garage
in North Hollywood, he became acquainted
with Carlson. That individual had amazed
him by the announcement that he had just
come to Los Angeles from San Francisco
with the intention of committing a few bank
robberies—a line of endeavor in which he
said he’d had much successful experience
—and was looking for a partner. He in-
timated that Collins had been “recom-
mended” to him, ‘

_M@ “I SAID I couldn't help him,” Collins

continued. “Then he told me there would
be $750 for me if I could make a ‘connec-
tion’ for him. I said I didn’t know anybody

‘that would be suitable. Then Carlson asked

if I knew of a good criminal lawyer in Los
Angeles, because in his business it was im-
Portant to have a smart mouthpiece ready
at a minute’s notice. I told him I didn’t
know of anybody at that time, but I’d get
in touch with him later if anything turned
up.” be

Collins allegedly dismissed the whole
matter from his mind after that interview,

-until a few weeks later when he chanced to

meet a distant cousin from New York, trav-

. eling through the West. This man in turn

took him on a friendly call to the office of
Attorney Cossack,

“Cossack was very cordial,” our inform-
ant went on, “and invited me to come up
again. Then I happened to think about
Carlson, and I told the lawyer I believed I
could get him a client. I spent six bucks of
my own money on telephone calls to this
friend of his. in Sacramento, trying to geta
line on Carlson.” .

“Did he put you in touch with him?”

“He did. A couple of days later Carlson
contacted me and asked me to the hotel in
Hollywood where he was staying. Pete’s
girl—I heard ’em speak of her afterward
as ‘Helen’—came to the door. I just said
‘How do you do? Is Pete in?’ That’s the
only time I ever saw her, . Later, I took
Carlson up to Cossack’s office and intro-


enema

epee:

inertia sah ine aime ed
ee DID. SNR at

duced him as:a prospective client.”

I informed Collins that his story was all
right as far as it went, but that I wanted
some concrete information as to robberies
perpetrated by the pair known as “Mutt and
Jeff.” :

“Well, I knew they were up to something,

of course, Cossack had introduced me to

Izzy Fenton. Then—I believe it was in
January—Fenton borrowed my Pierce-
Arrow coupé. He brought it back next
day filled with gas. He didn’t say then

‘what he used it for. Sometime in March

he asked me to rent a car for him. When I
acted suspicious, he told me my car had
already been used on one bank stickup,

-and that there was $1,000 on my head, and

I couldn’t squawk. So I rented a car with
ten dollars Fenton gave me and turned it
over to him. He told me to pick it up ata
certain time and place. I did, and took it

. back to the auto rental agency.”

“Did you know the car was to be used
in a bank robbery?”

“No; but I guessed it. A few hours later
I read about the bank holdup in the papers.”

“What part did Pete’s girl, Helen, take
in these holdups?” Rule asked.

“I know from what the boys told me that
she drove the getaway car on several of
their jobs. She must have picked Pete up,
because he doesn’t drive. And from<all I
heard she’s plenty hard and dangerous. She
keeps her mouth shut and carries a rod. I
believe she’s a sister-in-law or something
of this George Hall up at Folsom.”

“Sam,” I said, “you spoke of Carlson
offering you quite a sum for a ‘connection.’
Did you consider it a ‘connection’ when you
introduced him to Cossack?”

“Yes, I did. I introduced a lawyer to a
prospective client. But I never got any
money from Carlson or any of the rest of
them.”

I asked Collins if he’d help us to find Pete
Carlson. .

“Sure,” he replied. _ “But it’s too late to
do anything tonight. I’ll meet you in your
office at ten o’clock tomorrow morning.
What’s the address?”

Unless he reads this story, he will never
know how his innocent query startled me.
What address could I give? I couldn’t per-
mit him to go to Christiansen’s office in the
bank for fear my masquerade would be
discovered. I pretended to be seized with

a coughing spell while my mind raced

ahead in search of a logical reply. Finally
I said as calmly as possible, “I don’t think
you'd better come to the bank. We wouldn’t
have any privacy. Suppose we all meet in
Mr. Rule’s office in the Arcade Building at
ten.”

To my intense relief, he offered no objec-
tion to this plan. I found him, Jake and
Rule awaiting me when I arrived at the
Burns Agency office the following morning
at the appointed hour. ;

After some discussion, it was decided that
Collins would call at Cossack’s office and
“put out a few feelers,” as he expressed it,
regarding Carlson’s whereabouts.

Meanwhile, I would instruct Detectives
Tash and Johnston, who would be listening
over the dictograph, to pay careful attention
to the conversation held between Collins
and Cossack.

. The attorney was overheard to say that
he had three more good “jobs” lined up,
and then he was “through with the racket.”

The first was to be the holdup of a
wealthy market owner in San Bernardino
when he was en route to the bank with de-
posits. Cossack tried to induce Collins to
participate in this contemplated robbery.

The second enterprise was the holdup of a
bank in San Francisco,

“You see,”, the voice came over the wire,
“we've got all the inside dope from an ex-
cashier of this bank; We know who carries
the keys; what time they get there in the

morning; the combination of the safe. We

vane

know where the burglar alaym is. This
bank is good for fifteen grana on a Satur-
day or Monday morning. ... From San
Francisco we go almost straight down to

.San.Diego. We've got information on a

bank there that’s in a leased building. That
means it’s not wired underneath. There’s
a vacant store next door. This will be a
tunnel job, good for $160,000. After that,
we'll beat it up to Crestline, to Izzy’s ranch.”

Finally, Collins engineered the conversa-

tion around to the subject of Carlson. “I’ve -
got to get in touch with him,” he said,’

“Wonder where he is?”

“There’s one way to find out,” the attor-
ney replied. He picked up a telephone,
dialed the long-distance operator and or-
dered her to connect him with a man in
Sacramento, whom we shall designate as

“Jim Todd.” A moment later the operator '

reported that Todd was not in his office.
“Well,” said Cossack, “leave word for him
to call me—no, wait a minute. Have him
call Sam Collins at his home tonight.” He
gave the latter’s telephone number.
_. Collins took his departure then, and re-
joined Rule, Jake Edwards and me.

I was now faced with another problem.
I wanted detectives to accompany Collins

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to his home so they would be on hand to
overhear Todd’s message, when and if it
came, and also to apprehend Carlson in the
event he.called there. But how to accom-
plish this without arousing Collins’ sus-
picions that I, too, was a detective?
“Sam,” I said, “if Carlson shows at your
place, there’s likely to be some shooting. I

_ believe the only thing we can do is to have

a couple of dicks at your apartment.”
‘ “No, I don’t want any——”

“Now, listen, do you want to get your
own head blown off? I tell you we’ve got
to have someone with you who knows how
to handle mugs like Carlson. I’ve got no
one at the bank to send, and Mr. Rule’s men
don’t work that way. They’re investigators,
not policemen. For you own protection
we’ve got to have detectives there. You
don’t need to worry about them giving you
away.”

“All right, all right, have it your own
way. But I swore I’d never play with the
cops, and I don’t like the idea a bit.”

“You'll be glad they’re there if Carlson
starts anything. I’ll get a couple of boys
from the Robbery Squad and everything
will be okay.”

Later that night, after Detectives Beeson
and Chambers had been duly installed in
his apartment, the telephone rang. Collins
took down the receiver.

“Long distance calling Mr. Collins,” said
the operator, /

“Collins speaking,” replied Sam. “Hello
—hello, Mr. Todd? This is Sam Collins—a
friend of Pete Carlson. I’m trying to locate
Pete. Know where I can reach him?”

Beeson and Chambers, standing on each
side of Collins, heard Todd’s reply distinctly.
“IT don’t know where he is just now. Tell
you what I’ll do—as soon as I see him or
hear from him, I’ll tell him to get in touch
with you. How’ll that be?”

“Fine, Mr. Todd. Thanks very much.”
Collins hung up before the man in Sacra-
‘mento could question him further.

“Good work,” Beeson commended. “We'll
make a detective out of you yet.”

A thin film of perspiration had appeared
ov Collins’ forehead. “You’ll make a corpse
out of me if Pete ever finds out about this,”
he said grimly.

“Don’t worry. We'll take care of Pete
‘when he shows up.”

“Yes, maybe. I wish I’d never let that

_fellew Christiansen talk me into having

you bulls out here.”

It was obvious that Collins had been com-
pletely deceived into believing that I was
a bona fide bank employee, However, he
had a disconcerting habit of asking unex-
pected questions.

Once he had demanded to know how he
could reach me by telephone if the neces-
sity arose. There was left to me no alter-
native other than to give him the number of
the private line in my office at Detective
Headquarters. Immediately afterward I
rushed to my office and told every detective
there that if anyone called on that particu-
lar line and asked for “Mr. Christiansen,” I
was to be summoned at once. Under no cir-
cumstances was the telephone caller to be

. informed that he was connected with Police

Headquarters. Of the fifty busy men of
my command,.not one had an inadvertent
lapse of memory in this respect.

Detectives Chambers and Beeson re-
mained at Collins’ house for three days
and nights, hoping against hope that Carlson
would contact him by telephone or in per-
son. But the wily bank robber, for reasons
best known to himself, made no effort to
communicate with Collins.

I went to Chief of Detectives Taylor for
advice as to the best course to follow at
this time. :

“Apparently it got too hot for Carlson
here,” the Chief said. “Very likely he went
to Sacramento and he may still be there.
Suppose we send some of the boys up there
and let them have a look around.”

I agreed that this would be a good plan,
so Detectives Beeson, Chambers and Wool-
man left for Sacramento,

In the northern city, they learned that
Jim Todd was rated as one of the leading
businessmen in that section of the state.
His offices were in the city’s most preten-
tious building. These offices and his
home were watched for several days, but
Carlson did not put in an appearance.

In the meanwhile, during the first two
weeks after their installation in the office
and apartment of Cossack, the dictographs
carried to the ears of listening officers much
to indicate the criminal proclivities of the
attorney and Fenton, and the shady char-
acter of some of their associates,

As early as September Ist, Fenton, in the
office, was heard in an argument over the
telephone with some person regarding
overdue. payments on an automobile he
had contracted to buy.

“If they try to get that car,” Fenton said
later, to Cossack, “I’ll kill someone. I need
that car in my business. I'll put it some
place and hide it out.” ’

The automobile in question was in con-
stant use by him and Cossack, who kept
it in a parking station located conveniently
near the lawyer’s office. Several times,
detectives assigned to keep track of their

movem
the ca)

At ak
and Gx
apartm

“Tha
think v
apartm
vacant,
two or
the lig)
door, s

Burr
presen:
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cupied
the hal
adjuste
tireson

Occa
by the
apartm
Others
by the
It appe
was th:

M@ THE
edly
ney we
funds \
phone
Ato
was se
the mic
About

- Johnst«

suite a
expres:
wiring
sisted 1

Nerv
peated:
get out
exaspe
steps 1

- relucta

officers
service
respon:
As tl
elevatc
collide:
They v
on his
ferred
utes lc
pelled
surpris
sack, t)
his de
ransac)
“assaul
Headqi
been q
Days
out the
to the
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would
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Noth
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THE WHISPERING WIRE ©

from page 17) for the time be-
ormed him that he could furnish
rmation concerning the “Mutt and Jeff”
dits. The man professed to know their
true names and where the

However, several conditional “
were attached to his offer to put C
on the trail of the badly wanted c
First, the informant insisted that t
tive ascertain from the victimized
exact amount of
for the arrest of th
manded an absol
“Mutt” and “Jeff”
as sighted by the police,

“I know where they’re planning to stick
up a bank,” the man told Chambers. “I’ll
give you the address, provided you can as-
ll both be killed—killed out-
wounded. All of this depends,
uch the banks are will-
ght dope. Let me know

aie ae

Sees

jane:

ASAE aie She ts

the rewards outstanding
e culprits. Second, he de-
te’ guarantee that both
would be killed as soon

sure me they
right, not just

ing to pay for the ri
what you find out.”

Chambers repeated to me the conversa-
ion he had had with the businessman.
go for anything like that,
but I thought

know you won
Cap,” he said in
I'd tell you about it, anyway.”

conclusion, “

M@ “NO, I certainly’ won't go for that,” I

said emphatically. Familiar as I was with
the criminal mind, I was
ed, mercenary pro-
like to get that pair

e workings of
jolted by this col
posal. “No, much as I’d
in, that sort of thing is
murder. Besides, some
might get shot. Who is t
But the detective had
to reveal the name of hi
time. He asked that I pe
gate further before dis
tion I sought.
I now recall
Chambers most
Was it possible tha
ready to sto
ends, was in
“Mutt and Jeff” b
determine whethe
Cossack was pro:

innocent person
his businessman?”
given his word not
s informant at that
rmit him to investi-
closing the informa-

ed this conversation with

t Cossack, apparently
p at nothing to attain his own
way connected with the
andits? I was unable to
r my hunch in respect to
mpted by personal dislike
or whether the fact that he had
y defended Capasso had led me
hat he might be an associate of
ers in general, N
entertained the idea, fan
seemed at the time,

On July 26th, while Louis Capasso was
, I, with Detectives B. M.
McMullen and H, P. Ger-
y Detail, acting upon
arrested the long-sought

evertheless, I
tastic though it

still out on bond
Johnston, J. D.
hardt, of the R
an underworld tip,

Serpa readily admitted
robbery of the Citiz
April 10th. In a si
he had driven the
of Margaret Baxter
married while at libe
had stood guard at t

his part in the
ens’ National Bank on
gned statement he said
ndit car—the property
whom Capasso had
rty on bail. Capasso
he door while Frank
wielding the gun, had collected the

urn State’s evidence
e. Our case thus
Grand Jury in-
argaret Capasso,
gust 3rd. Bail was
t $10,000 for each

Serpa agreed to t
against Capasso and
reinforced, we obtained a
dictment for Louis and M
They were arrested on Au
set—and remained set—a

The three accused
before Superior
Doran in Septem

The melodramatic gallery play by Attor-
ney Cossack, who char
me with havin
Capasso, burne
lacerated his

were brought to trial
Court Judge William Cc.

ged my officers and
& brutally beaten his client
d his bare feet and
arms by the device
failed to make the desired im-

pression. At times the attorney’s description
of the medieval tortures inflicted upon Ca-
Passo was received with openly skeptical
smiles by the jury.

On September 17th Capasso was found
guilty of first-degree robbery. As a second
offender he was sentenced to Folsom Prison
for an indeterminate “seven years to. life’
term, ‘

Serpa, having pleaded guilty to second-
degree robbery, was committed to San
Quentin on a “one year to life” sentence,
Margaret Capasso, charged only with hav-
ing guilty knowledge of the fact that her
automobile was used in a holdup, wa’
acquitted. ;

While still
hunch that Cossack might be the business-
man Chambers had interviewed, I received
a call from C. T, Rule, manager of the

Criminal Department, Los Angeles branch *

of the William J. Burns International Detec-
tive Agency. Mr. Rule, who specialized in
bank protection, and in many past instances
had given most effective cooperation to the
Police Department, was again ready with
valuable assistance,

He said he could put me in touch with a
man who, he believed, Possessed important
information concerning the “Mutt and Jeff”
bandits. Needless to say, I jumped at this
offer. I agreed to meet Rule that night and
accompany him to a downtown hotel where
his informant—whom we shall call Jake
Edwards—would be awaiting us.

No details had been given by Rule, and it
came as a distinct surprise when Jake Ed-
wards’ opening ‘remarks referred to none
other than Attorney Cossack.

Jake told us that he had been employed
by Cossack for several months as an in-
vestigator, and while in that attorney’s
office he had seen and heard many things
indicating that his employer was vitally
interested in the activities of the two bank
robbers known as “Mutt and Jeff.”

“Mutt,” our informant declared, “is a
guy named Izzy Fenton, who also works
for Cossack as an investigator, Jeff, the
little fellow, is Pete Carlson. Jeff’s the
brains of the team. He brags about having
held up eighteen or twenty banks, On all
the jobs they’re supposed to split the money
three ways between Fenton, Carlson and
Cossack. Sometimes Carlson holds out on
the others, and for that reason they’ve been
fighting among themselves. It seems that
Carlson’s trying to get a lot of dough to-
gether for something he always refers to
as the ‘big caper.’”

It was with difficulty that I managed to
control my excitement as I listened to these
disclosures, I felt a grim satisfaction at
having my worst suspicions of Cossack
seemingly confirmed. ;

“How does it happen that you know so
much about this gang?” I inquired. “Did
they let you in on their secrets?”

“Well, it’s like this, They began by mak-
ing a proposition to me to go on some of
their jobs. I pretended to be willing, but
always backed away when it came time to
pull the stickup. I’d make some excuse or
other because, while I sure need money,
I’m not taking a chance on San Quentin in
order to get it.”

“I see. Are you still working for Cos-
sack?”
“No. Cossack finally got suspicious and

told me to get out. He offered another fel-
low $200 to bump me off, because I knew
too much. This man happened to be a
friend of mine, and tipped me off. He said
Cossack was out to get me and that I’d
better leave town. So I didn’t lose any
time moving to a Place outside the city,
where he can’t find me.”

“Do you mind telling us who this man is?”

pondering the worth of my ‘

“Well, I’d rather not mention his name.
Might get him in a jam. Suppose we call
him Sam Collins. Is that okay?” .

“It’s all right with me, if he can do us any |
good.” ,

“He can do you plenty of good, if he will,
Only thing is, he won't talk to a policeman.
He’s got no use for coppers.”

“We can get around that,” I said after a
moment’s thought. “There’s no reason why |
he should know I’m an officer.”

I then asked Edwards if he knew where
we could find Pete Carlson.

“No. He’s cagey about where he lives,
Tn fact, I only saw him once. One day Cos-
sack told me he wanted me to meet Carlson,
Izzy Fenton drove me out to Seventeenth
and Main Streets, where Pete dashed out,
got in with us and rode around for a while.
Pete quizzed me, trying to find out if I had

.the guts to hold up a bank. When he lett,
‘Izzy and I thought we’d trail him to where

he lived, but he was too smart for us. All
we found out was that a woman picked
him up in a Ford sedan.”

“Then you never saw Carlson, Fenton and
Cossack together?”

“No, sir. Sometimes I was in the office
when Cossack talked to Pete on the tele-
Phone. I used to hear him say, ‘I’ll meet
you at Izzy Fenton’s room,’ At that time
Izzy lived in a hotel near Eleventh and
Broadway.”

After telling Edwards we would com-
municate with him in a day or two to
arrange a meeting with Sam Collins, Rule
and I left.

Early the following day I contacted my
good friend C. M. Christiansen, Special In-
vestigator for the Bank of America, who
had worked with me on many important
cases. We agreed that I should assume his
name and professional identity in my con-
templated dealing with Sam Collins,

M@ THEN, WITH Mr. Rule, I held a confer-
ence with officers of my Bank Robbery
Detail, to map out a plan of procedure with
a view to rounding up all members of this
bandit gang. This might not be too easy, if
the information given by Edwards to the
effect that Carlson did not even trust his
associates in crime to the extent of letting
them know where he lived, was correct,

The immediate arrest of Izzy Fenton,
otherwise known as “Mutt,” would frighten
Carlson into flight. Moreover, there was
no necessity for such a step. Fenton would
feel safe from all suspicion in his role of
“investigator” for a supposedly reputable
attorney, and could be arrested at any time.

The case of Loeb Cossack presented the |
most serious difficulties, From our brief
contact I knew him to be clever, resource-
ful and utterly unscrupulous. As an attor-
ney, he was well-informed regarding all
the legal loopholes through which men of
his ilk so often wriggle out of Paying the
penalty for their nefarious acts. I wanted
to catch him “red-handed,” for it is not
always possible to prove in a court of law
such charges as Conspiracy to Commit
Robbery, Receiving Stolen Property or
Harboring a Known Criminal.

It was therefore decided to rent an office
in the same building where Cossack’s was
located, so that my officers might install
dictographs in the suite he occupied. With
the cooperation of Agents of the U. S. De-
partment of Justice, this was immediately
done,

The last two raids of the “Mutt and Jeff”

pair occurred subsequent to the Passage of |.

the Dillinger Act, which made the holdup |
of a Federal Reserve or National Bank a |

Federal offense, punishable by a maximum |:

penalty of twenty-five years’ imprisonment.
The Department of Justice accordingly |
acted in conjunction with local police au-
thorities in all investigations of such crimes,

I assigned to Detectives Johnston, Guy W.
Beeson and Harry (Continued on page 69) |


movements had seen one or the other drive
the car out of the parking lot.

At about the same date, Detectives Burris
and Gerhardt,. listening in-at the suspects’
apartment, overheard Cossack say to Fenton:

“That bank proposition is played out. I
think we’re being watched. You know that
apartment next to us is supposed to be
‘Wy Vacant, but someone’s been in there the last
,) two or three nights, and they never turn

the lights on. There’s a wide crack in that
door, so be careful.”

Burris and Gerhardt, fearful that their
presence was about to be discovered, lost
no time in moving from the room they oc-
cupied to one located several doors down

* the hallway. Dictograph wires were hastily
adjusted and the officers resumed their
tiresome eavesdropping. ,

Occasionally, the monotony was broken
by the sound of wild.parties held in the
apartment occupied by Cossack and Fenton.
Others, staged elsewhere, were discussed
by the two suspects in unprintable terms.
It appeared that Fenton’s cabin at Crestline
was the scene of many drunken orgies.

— THESE EXPENSIVE “parties” undoubt-

edly accounted for the fact that the attor-
ney was heard to complain that he had no
funds with which to pay his rent and tele-
phone bills.

At one time our set-up in Cossack’s office
was seriously endangered, The wiring on
the microphone in the main office “shorted.”
About eleven-thirty that night Detectives

Johnston and Tash slipped into the deserted

suite and changed the wiring. Tash then
expressed himself as dissatisfied with the
wiring in Cossack’s private office, and in-
sisted upon inspecting it at length.

Nerves admittedly jumpy, Johnston re-
peatedly urged his partner to leave. “Let’s
get out of here and get out now!” His final
exasperated whisper and a few determined
steps toward the door got results. Tash

‘reluctantly desisted from his efforts. The
officers reached the one elevator then in
service just as it was about to descend in
Tesponse to a peremptory buzz from below.

As the two detectives stepped out of the
elevator on the ground floor they nearly
collided with Cossack, about to step into it.
They were not known to him and he went
on his unsuspecting way. Had they de-
ferred their departure from his office min-
utes longer, they would have been ‘com-
pelled to carry out a prearranged plan: If
surprised by the unexpected arrival of Cos-
sack, they were to knock him cold, and give
his desk an appearance of having been
ransacked, and let the attorney report an
“assault and attempted robbery” to Police
Headquarters—a report that would have
been quietly shelved.

Days of tedious listening-in left us with-
out the vital information we sought—a clue
to the whereabouts of Carlson, or the
specific:time and place of an overt act that
would make it possible to pounce upon our
quarry red-handed.

Nothing was said to indicate that the mob
was leaving for San Francisco or San Diego
to perpetrate the robberies Cossack had
outlined with such enthusiasm to our in-
formant, Sam Collins. Apparently funds
to carry out these plans, far more ambitious
than anything they had attempted in Los
Angeles, were lacking for the time being.

On the evening of September 12th came
the first intimation that pressing need for
money made another bank raid imminent,

As Cossack and Fenton entered their
apartment together, the latter was over-
heard to remark, “We’ll be out of here by
the thirtieth if that big caper comes off.”

To which his chief answered; “It should
be a cinch, Pete’s cased it and everything’s

fine. I looked it over myself and the set-
up is perfect. .

After an interval Fenton, presumably re-
Being to his Crestline mountain resort,

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eductivn Dass

J


b

atic speed

ione voice
at murder
might be

me, Henry
. Avenue,
1 a down-

the Cor-
sberg did
a. “That’s
ied. “She
vard. Her
hakery.”

‘riend, had
1e =Vilught
ng before.
‘lught had
eona had
t be home
with three

well asked

rsberg de-
n't either.
y were so

the Vlught
rd, only a
» the body
ssible they
s. Vlught.
the identi-
ye of the

-* for the
1e saw

n the

_.e had
osure, the
‘e as much

drl,”’ Mrs.

she has
and care-
night was
r been out

arned that
ike a drink
everal men
is any nor-
iduating as
e Oakland
35, she had
California

Lee Ann
i Washing-
ere she had
een an in-
rs old, had
»st trouble,

She had

e she had
veral rings,
and a small
in change
in a black

jre investi-
Duffy and
jozen other

ion all the

usiness ac-
made with

“d Forsberg.

+

eliminating
itic case.

amlin, Ala-
yminer, and
e Coroner’s
autopsy on

n, they
ted no
y weeide the
ds, and no

other marks of visible violence.

But the three wounds forming the
vampire-like triangle in the base of
the neck were.jaggedly rounded. As
though a cruel blade had been twisted
mercilessly in the quivering flesh. It
was a ghastly thought.

Death, they estimated, probably had
occurred between 2 and 4 a.m. that
day. The blonde beauty had not been
criminally attacked.

What then had been the motive for
this bizarre murder? Surely not mur-
der for a few pieces of missing
jewelry? It was unthinkable that this
comely girl had been slain merely to
provide some fiend a sadistic thrill!
But if that were the case, no woman
in the entire East Bay area would be
safe. If this horror murder went un-
solved others surely would follow.
Detectives were becoming increasing-
ly worried.

They recalled the outrageous series
of criminal attacks on girls and
women in the Oakland foothill area
during the past few months. Several
had been forced into cars and driven
to lonely outlying districts where
they had been outraged under threat
of death. Had the slain girl refused
to accede to some indescribable de-
mand? Had the blonde Amazon chosen
death instead?

Jewell still questioned this because
of the strong, athletic build and un-
usual size of the healthy young girl.
And because no skin tissue nor dirt
was under the manicured fingernails
of the body as it should have been
had she battled for her life with an
unknown. assailant.

“It looks as though she probably
knew, and more or less trusted, the
murderer,” Jewell declared to Detec-
tive Lieutenant Tracy. The police

‘veteran agreed.

- The widespread hunt for former
friends and acquaintances of the girl
became more intensified. One by one
these suspects were located, ques-
tioned and more or less eliminated
through alibi or plausible expla-
nation.

Among those questioned was George
Tegner, a refrigeration engineer, who
lived on 38th Avenue. He seemed
greatly shocked at news of Leona’s
death.

“Say, I don’t know a thing about
it,” he declared. “Leona and I split
up only a week ago. I heard she had
a new boy friend. But I don’t know
a thing about him save that somebody
said he worked for some railroad.”

EGNER completely satisfied de-

tectives that he knew _ nothing
about the case. His ironclad alibi
completely exonorated him of any
suspicion.

A clue added to the earlier ones

now included the fact that one friend

of the slain beauty worked for a
railroad.

“Who can this new boy friend be?”
Duffy thought aloud as he and Jewell
left Tegner’s office. “Find him and
maybe we’ll be getting somewhere.”

They parked near the Lee Ann
Beauty School. A moment later, in a
private office they were questioning
the proprietor, Mrs. Hazel Don.

The shocked woman reported that
Leona Vlught had been an excep-
tional girl. ‘Leona progressed so
rapidly that I made her an instruc-
tor. She did fine work. She was a
girl of ability—honest, reliable and
morally fine,” Mrs. Don declared.

Among Leona’s friends and fellow
workers questioned at the beauty

CRIME DETECTIVE

school were three girls, Lillian Vierra,
Rena Thompson and Anna May Ford.

Tearfully they described having
spent the evening before at a dance
at 12th and Broadway. They had left
shortly before 1 A.M.

“Leona refused to have a bite to eat
with us then,” one of the girls ex-
plained. “She said she had a date
with a new boy friend at 2 a.m. Once
she called him Rod, I think.”

The other frightened girls nodded
assent. They related how they had
eaten at a restaurant a block away.
They had been curiously interested
in the man named Rod. Leona had
mentioned to them that he “made a
pass” at her once and they had wanted
to see what he looked like. Leona
had made the late date only on his
promise to “be good,” one declared.

Had the murdered girl’s last date
been a “thrill” date?

As a result of their curiosity, the
three girls had managed to get a
fairly good look, by the street lights,
at the man as he and Leona got into
a parked car and_drove away at
2 a.m. Could this Rod be the mur-
derer?

He was the last person known to
have been with the girl. The trio
placed that time within nearly an
hour of the estimated murder time.

Could this Rod also work for a
railroad company? The girls did not
know.

Swiftly the word was flashed to
police headquarters. Find the follow-
ing described man: “Tall, young, dark
haired, athletic and a handsome Lo-
thario type. With piercing dark eyes
and heavy dark eyebrows. Driving
a light sedan, probably either a Dodge
or Plymouth. Answers the nickname
of Rod.”

The nickname could be for either
a first or last name. It could stand
for Roger, Rodney or a score more.
This was the hottest suspect yet to
be sought by homicide inspectors.

Next in order in the fast schedule
of hard-driving police work came a
check of all railroad firms for lists ,of
East Bay employees. For workers
whose nickname might be Rod; one
who answered the general descrip-
tion of the ‘handsome dark-haired
Lothario seen by the three girls, and
who drove a light sedan. Word was
flashed to police of a dozen Bay Area
cities.

The Southern Pacific and Key Sys-
tems were thoroughly checked. These
firms, operating ferryboats across San
Francisco Bay, each employed hun-
dreds of workers in the East Bay.
Nothing resulted.

Other railroads were hastily
checked. Among them Santa Fe,
Northwestern Pacific and the Union
Pacific. And as each list was gone
over without result, detectives’ faces
grew longer, and grimmer. Was this

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.ed to mount
the end of

is never de-
managed to
package of
s character-
out putting

pe, nerving
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trauss, near

2re.”
ked Strauss,

nor. “I’ve

trauss, “I’]]
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1 O'Connor,
ary.”
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ng. If you
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of keys in
irer to the
3. standing
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ested level
level with

_ the cell,
bars
him.
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bars; the

<eys.
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1 and was

n leveled

e snarled
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7 moves.”
the steel-
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with the
her cells,
them and
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to the
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Jeffer-

e alarm,
he same
bullpen
mers,
y down
he main
‘necount-
tant to
*. Kor-
owered,

surrounded by a nine-foot brick wall.
O’Connor, first to scale it, leaped from
the top to the alley below, landed on
all fours unhurt, then got to his feet
and ran through the alley, holding his
gun at his side.

He was followed over the wall by
the other three, but Sponagel frac-
tured both ankles when he hit the
ground and was left behind, groaning
with pain and trying in vain to rise.

O’Connor rushed to the street and
paused at the mouth of the alley and
looked feverishly about him. His eyes
were blazing from the drug he had
taken. His nervous fingers were quiv-
ering on the revolver.

He saw an automobile pull up at
the curb, and he ran across the side-
walk and jumped on the running-
board. He pointed his gun at the
man behind the wheel, who happened
to be Attorney Harry J. Busch.

“Get out!” ordered O’Connor, and
rammed his gun against the lawyer’s
chest. “Get out before I kill you!”

The lawyer got out. O’Connor got

DETECTIVE

left Officer Armstrong in charge with
instructions not to allow anyoné near
the body, footprints or auto tire marks
until police photographers and other
experts could be called.

Jewell had noted that Jones wore
much smaller shoes than those that
had made the footprints around the
car.

He and Duffy began a fast, sys-
tematic seareh of the neighborhood
in an attempt to find some possible
witness or some other added clue to
the identity of the m stery girl and
her killer or killers. erhaps even a
witness to the ghastly murder.

The homicide men separated. ‘“T’]l
Phone in from. this place, Tom,”
Jewell said, pointing to one house.

“Oke,” Duffy replied. “I’ll take this
other house.” j

Soon Jewell was questioning Mrs.
Charles nrg ay whose husband was
at work at the Durant Park Zoo, just
over a hill from the -murder scene.

“We never heard any cries,” Mrs.
Shilling declared. “But the dogs over
at the zoo made a terrible commotion
last night. About 9 o’clock they start-
ed howling . . . the weirdest howls
-. . they kept it up till well past 11
o’clock.”

She and her husband had not inves-
tigated. Nor had she much else of
value to give the detective.

Meanwhile ig paceed Duffy was

teves.

“I had a cold and couldn’t sleep last
night,” she explained. “A little after
3 a.m. I heard a woman scream once.
It sounded far away.”

to- the home of Mrs. E. .
nearby at 2787 107th Avenue. In-
spector Duffy stated that an uniden-
tified girl had been found dead on
the nearby hillside,

‘SADISTIC_ SLAYER)

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 29

CRIME DETECTIVE

in. The car disappeared. Later it
was found abandoned in a West Side
— but of O’Connor there was no
race.

H* two companions who had es-
caped uninjured—Darrow and
LaPorte—were soon captured and
taken back to jail; and ponagel, of
course, was likewise locked up again.
But they couldn’t find O’Connor.

His spectacular escape from the
death cell on the eve of his execution
—the only one of its kind in the his-
tory of Chicago and one of the few
in the history of the world—created
a sensation that boomed and thun-
dered throughout the land. Ben
Hecht and Charles MacArthur used
it as the basis for their riotous play
“The Front Page,” and millions o
people have talked about it and won-
dered how and when O’Connor will
be brought back again and executed :
for his crimes.

But Tommy O’Connor has never
been caught.

oy

Beli hats rare

tw f oe no RRS

“Oh! I knew it! I knew something
dreadful must be happening,” Mrs.
Cooks cried. “I heard the most ter-
rible cry. It was a piercing scream.
Just one long blood curdling scream
from somewhere. Then there was
absolute silence. Finally I convinced
myself that I must have been having
an awful nightmare. _But I couldn’t
sleep any more all night.”

Cooks himself reported he had seen
a light colored coupe parked in the
cage scenic spot two nights be-
ore. He had seen a girl jump out
of the coupe crying and run away,
he said. +t few minutes later that
car drove off, he declared.

Robert Taylor, nightwatchman at
the Durant Park Zoo, described order-
ing a couple in a parked car away
the previous night. The murder vic-
tim_was not that girl, he stated.

Meanwhile police cameramen had
taken photographs of the scene. The

body of the unidentified girl was

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. “Hmmm, You'd
‘self if she’d had

to work.. Jewell

around for any
ttle more closely.
ements from the
ured toward the
off to one side of

h survey of the
| examination of

s Duffy returned “%
arently following ~

went on: “There *
slant of this big |
xs as though she
stabbed.

ost rounded. As
each one. Might

You don’t say!”
ed:

stiff. There’s no
so probably the
probably. Might

dentifying
gue.

THE MURDER CAR——
Tires of which matched the prints found at
the scene of the crime.

“Marks on the hands and her wrists show where
tings and a wrist watch had been removed. There’s no
sign of a hat or pocketbook or anything like that here.
What did you find?”

Duffy pointed to a trail from the heels of the girl’s
shoes toward a spot nearly 25 feet away. “The body
was dragged, apparently from a car parked there. Man’s
shoe tracks look to be about size eleven. Half a dozen
cigarette butts pretty well smoked down, but none of
‘em have red lipstick marks on ’em. Can't tell the
brand, either.

“The parked car would be light. Had Goodyear
All-Weather treads all around. The driver tried to
back out, then drive over the hill. Ground’s too wet.
Finally backed down and left by that other road there.
I don't find a sign of a murder weapon either.”

Carefully the detectives stepped over the soft ground
in order not to disturb any possible tracks or clues as
they went toward Officer Armstrong, Jones and Mrs.
Jaynes.

Armstrong glanced up. “This spot’s a sort of lover’s
lane, Mr. Jones tells me. Lots of parking late at night.”

“Yeah,” Jones repeated. “It’s a kinda funny place.
Often times of a quiet night from our house four blocks
away we hear queer things. Girls screaming and the
like of that. Course, with a view like this you kinda
can't blame ’em much, either, for wanting to park up
here.”

The detectives nodded. Swift glances swept the
peaceful panorama of three counties off to the south-
west of the lonesome hillside. Westward, beyond gray

Alcatraz Island, the gaunt towers of the Golden Gate
Bridge were etched majestically against the blue of the
Pacific miles out beyond the Golden Gate and Marin
County.

bay, the famous
Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge were plainly visible.
the south, like a miniature relief map, were the tiny
squares of city blocks in the cities of Oakland, San
Leandro and Hayward. ‘

The World’s Fair buildings on Treasure Island in the
San Francisco skyline, the huge San
To

Jewell’s grim face somewhat relaxed. “Pretty fine
view at that,” he commented. Unspoken in his mind
was the thought that somewhere among the 2,000,000
persons living almost within sight of them in the San
Francisco Bay area was the murderer of the pretty
blonde. It would be a plenty tough job to locate him.

Nor could the ace detective foresee the strange de-
nouement in one of the most bizarre cases ever to con-
front California police.

‘Had the beautiful blonde Amazon been “taken for a
ride?” Had she been murdered by torture because she
knew too much about some underworld racket? Had
she been slain because of some lover’s quarrel? Had
robbery or criminal attack at the hands of some slashing
sadist been the motive?

Detectives wondered as they (Continued on page 107)

23


108

CRIME DETECTIVE

SNAPPED’’

James Verdi was unable to account for tho murder of his wife and
merely explained that “Something in my mind seemed to snap.” Wile
was an expectant mother.

placed in the Alameda County Cor-
oner’s ambulance and started for the
county. morgue.

There was not as yet a hint to the
identity of the auburn haired beauty.
Without identification it was almost
impossible to find motive for the
peculiar murder. And without motive
how find the murderer? Or attempt
with any accuracy to reconstruct
events leading up to the slaying?

Lieutenant of Inspectors Robert
Tracy and Police Chief Bodie A. Wall-
man conferred quickly with homicide
men. And Chief Wallman at once
directed a score of detectives in vari-
ous attempts to identify the girl.

The only clues so far in the bizarre
case were the automobile tire treads,
cigarette stubs and size eleven foot-
prints at the murder scene, and the
stories of neighbors which didn’t en-
tirely jibe. The weird howling of the

dogs and the woman’s scream were
hours apart in time.

While Duffy and Jewell checked the
description of the Amazonlike young
victim with missing women in the
files of the Missing Persons Bureau,
other detectives were checking files
of commercial photographers, news-
paper morgues, fingerprinting the
body and questioning residents in
the vicinity of the hillside.

Even as the homicide men were re-
turning to their own office they heard
the hoarse voices of newsboys above
the din of downtown traffic on the
streets below the Oakland City Hall
shouting “Extra! Extra! Beautiful
mystery girl murdered!”

The phone in the Inspector’s Bureau
rang. Inspector Jewell answered it.

ND from here on events in this
strange drama of sudden death

were to move with dramatic speed
and_ suddenness.

“Say, Inspector,” the phone voice
said, “I just read about that murder
in the Tribune. I think I might be
able to identify her.”

Jewell took the man’s name, Henry
Forsberg, 570 Walla Vista Avenue,
and agreed to meet him on a down-
town street corner at once.

A few minutes later at the Cor-
oner’s office, youn Forsberg did
identify the blonde Amazon. “That’s
Leona Vlught,” he exclaimed. “She
lives at 5253 Foothill Boulevard. Her
father, Leonard, owns a_ hakery.”

Forsberg, an old family friend, had
by coincidence visited the Vlught
family until late the evening before.
He declared Mrs. Cleo Vlught had
been worried because Leona had
phoned that she would not be home
until late; that she was out with three
girl friends.

“Who are the girls?” Jewell asked
eagerly.

“Say, I don’t know,” Forsberg de-
clared. “The family didn’t either.
That was one reason they were so
worried.”

Inspectors raced out to the Vlught
home on Foothill Boulevard, only a
short distance from where the body
was found. As gently as possible they
broke the news to Mrs. Viught.
It was necessary to have the identi-
fication made official by one of the
family.

Mrs. Vlught steeled herself for the
ordeal. But she collapsed as she saw
the body of her daughter on the
white morgue slab. After she had
partly regained her composure, the
sobbing mother aided police as much
as possible.

“Leona was a good girl,” Mrs.
Vlught sobbed. “Always she _ has
been regular in her habits and care-
ful of her friends. Last night was
the first time she had ever been out
much after midnight.”

From her detectives learned that
the girl was permitted to take a drink
occasionally, that she had several men
acquaintances and friends as any nor-
mal girl would. After graduating as
an honor student from the Oakland
Fremont High School in 1935, she had
attended the University of California
at_ nearby Berkeley.

Later she attended the Lee Ann
Beauty College at 14th and Washing-
ton Streets in Oakland, where she had
graduated and since had been an in-
structor. She was 19 years old, had
never been in the slightest trouble,
had always been popular. She had
no known enemy.

When Leona left home she had
worn a gold wrist watch, several rings,
a heartshaped gold locket and a small
dark hat. A few dollars in change
and her keys had been in a black
purse.

Next step in the rapid fire investi-
gation being made by Duffy and
Jewell with the aid of a dozen other
detectives, was to question all the
dead girl’s friends and business ac-
quaintances. A list was made with
the aid of the family and Forsberg.
Each minute counted in eliminating
the suspects in the enigmatic case.

Meanwhile Dr. O. D. Hamlin, Ala-
meda County Medical Examiner, and
Dr. J. M. Reeves of the Coroner’s
office, held an immediate autopsy on
the body of the murdered girl.

The preliminary examination, they
reported to detectives, indicated no
other wounds on the body beside the
four strange stab wounds, and no

other marks

But the thre.
vampire-like ¢:
the neck v
though a c)
mercilessly __
was a ghastly 1

Death, they e:
occurred betwe
day. The blond ,
criminally attac

What then ha
this bizarre mu:
der for a fev
jewelry? It was
comely girl had ~
provide some f
But if that wer
in the entire Ea
safe. If this ho:
solved others
Detectives were
ly worried.

They recalled
of criminal at
women in the |
during the past
had been forced
to lonely out):
they had been c
of death. Had :
to accede to so)
mand? Had the t
death, instead?

Jewell still qu
of the strong, at
usual size of the
And because no
was under the 1
of the body as
had she battled
unknown assaila

“It looks as
knew, and morc
murderer,” Jewe
tive Lieutenant
veteran agreed.

The widespre:
friends and acqu
became more int
these suspects
tioned and
through al
nation.

Among those q:
Tegner, a refrige
lived on 38th .
greatly shocked
death.

“Say, I don’t
it,” he declared.
up only a week :
a new boy frien
a thing about hin
said he worked tf

EGNER com;

tectives that
about the case.
completely exon
suspicion.

A clue added
now included the
of the slain be:
railroad.

“Who can this :
Duffy thought alo
left Tegner’s offi
maybe we’ll be ;

They parked :
Beauty School. A
private office the
the proprietor, M:

The shocked w.
Leona Vlught ha
tional girl. “Le
rapidly that I m:z
tor. She did fine
girl of ability—h
morally fine,” Mr:

Among Leona’s
workers question:

Satie cab aad? ER aay

imlilad

small car — a Dodge sedan.

‘*Let’s go see this fellow,’’ said
Detective Jewell to his partner.
‘Maybe he’ll tell us what he’s been
doing nights.”’

Rodney Greig was born in Alameda,
California, just south of Oakland. His
father was an esteemed department
store official, his mother a tiny, soft-
spoken and exceedingly gentle woman.
They had a normal life.

The first hint that Rodney was

different from other youngsters came
when he was about nine years old. At
that time he suffered what the family
called a ‘‘convulsion’’ which, in light

' of subsequent events, might have been

merely an attention-getting mecha-
nism. A year later, when he was ten,
Rodney. turned in several false fire
alarms, but no one worried.

At 11 he began looting automobiles
parked on the beach at San Francisco,
spent at least one night sleeping on the
sand dunes and came home with
money he could not recall having
stolen. What is it the psychiatrists say
— aman can kill long before he
actually commits a murder? Rodney
Greig was building iis sordid, tragic
house, and building it fast. When he
was 12 he stole an automobile and
crashed it into another car. The
authorities scolded him for that, but
nobody worried.

Not much later he ran away from
home and was found in San Diego,
with no clear memory of the trip.
Within a year he broke into a stran-
ger’s house and stole a picture — a
framed portrait of a nude woman.
Childish curiosity? Probably not. A
prominent psychiatrist concluded long
ago that when fetishism exists it can
be traced to some event in a person’s
life, usually in connection with the
awakening of the sexual life, and as a
tule that event is forgotten, leaving
only the result. In the case of Rodney
Greig, it was no temporary compul-
sion, for when he was 16 he burglari-
zed a store in San Anselmo and stole
an armful of magazines which had
many pictures of nude women. Society
stepped in, and the unpunished boy
was made a ward of the Juvenile
Court. The authorities sent him to a
resort camp on the Russian River in
northern California, but he was soon
returned home because of his ‘‘dizzy
spells.’’

Rodney Greig was 19 when he went
to work as a clerk for a firm of
wholesale grocers.

One night, after hours, he broke
into the firm’s cash box and stole $57.
With a photo of a nude girl in his

pocket, he headed for the nearest bar,
gulped down a drink, then moved to
another bar. During the evening’s
alcoholic wanderings, his unsteady or-
bit crossed that of an attractive older
girl. Overwhelmed by this fast-talking,
good-looking youth, the blonde was
coaxed into a trip to Reno, and there
they were married.

Rodney’s petty burglary was never
discovered, but the bride, to her
everlasting good fortune, perceived
that her immature husband had
unpleasant characteristics. Three days
later she left him and obtained an
annulment.

Two months after that, Rodney
again dipped into the store till, this
time heisting $232.50, every nickel he
could find. After Rodney blew this
haul on the first available females, he
was arrested and brought into court.
He was seemingly contrite, and asked
for probation, but his employers
objected, saying: ‘‘Greig is, after all,
only a man in stature. Judged from
the standpoint of mentality, he is a
weakling with a type of ego which, if
not curbed, will develop a bad criminal
and a real menace.’

Probation Officer McNulty con-
templated this warning and added:
“‘The defendant has an inflated ego
which is possibly the cause of his fall
from grace. A little treatment on the

PARDON,

PLEASE

Authorities in Baton Rouge,
Louisiana, knew that Garrett Ri-
chardson was a good forger — they
just didn’t know how good.

Using the Baton Rouge Parish
Prison typewriter and copying machi-
ne which he had access to as a member
of the prison grievance committee,
Richardson sent a letter to prison
officials stating that ‘Richardson was
to be released on $7,000 bond that
had been posted at a Louisiana Board
of Pardons hearing.”’ It arrived on an
official letterhead.

it wasn’t until after Richardson was
released that the prison officials
learned that he had used a letter from
the Board of Pardons denying his
freedom. Blocking out the copy part
of his letter, he used the letterhead
and signature over and under it to type
in his release!

Richardson had been in custody on
two counts of forgery, felony theft,
possession of a stolen automobile and
six additional counts of forgery when

he took off.

part of the state many change his
course of living.’’ Accordingly he was
given a “‘little treatment,’’ consisting
of a year in the Preston State Refor-
matory.

To the amazement of all concerned,
Rodney was a model inmate, studied
diligently and was allowed to go home
after 11 months in custody.

Once he was back in society, the
incorrigible youth made it clear that
he had not reformed. He went out
night after night and got drunk. Under
his left armpit there was a leather
holster, and in it was a knife with a
six-inch blade. ‘‘Nobody will ever
bother me,’’ he would brag as he
honed the lethal weapon.

At the age of 20, Rodney Greig
consorted shamelessly with one
woman after another, with an insatia-
ble appetite for anything they had to
offer. The knife was always keen and
shining under his coat, and he carried
pictures of nudes.

In time, as any psychiatrist could
have anticipated, Rodney Greig
became impotent. He lost the surging
physical force, grew irritable and

‘sometimes cried. ‘‘Man, I was played

out,’’ he said. ‘‘I went to see a doctor
and he said I could go out... only a
couple of nights a month...’’ ;

He wrote a letter about his impo-
tency to a girl he had been seeing
often. ‘‘Thank God I’ll be done with
the doctor in a couple:of more
months,’’ he scribbled. ‘‘It’s pretty
hard to take, especially in my case...’’

And that was when he met Leona
Viught.

Who knows what thoughts bubbled
in that murky mind when the sexually
incapable youth encountered this
magnificent young female, a woman
to conquer, and yet one who could
have cracked his delicate neck if she
had chosen to use her strength.
Rodney was intensely attracted to her
but not in a strictly sexual sense at first,
as he said later. He had taken her out
once before, though there are no
details available for that occasion.

On the night of December 7, 1939,
Rodney Greig saw Leona at a dance,
waited until her girl companions had
gone home, then went after his car to
take her for a drive. They stopped in
El Cerrito for Chinese food, then
headed the car up into the hills.

They talked a little while of incon-
sequentials — the thrust and parry of
the duel of the sexes. He looked at
her lovely neck, and his free hand
stroked the handle of the knife. She

(continued on next page)

complained a little about a pain in her
side. Appendicitis, she said.

**I’ve been feeling low,’’ she
whispered. ‘‘Nobody would miss me
if I committed suicide.”’

He had the knife in his hand now,
and he placed the cold tip of it against
the small hollow in her neck.

‘*Suicide?’’ he echoed. ‘‘But you
haven’t got the nerve to do it.”’

She laughed a little, and quickly
took the knife from his fingers. She
played with the bright steel for a
moment, and pretended to stab him.
Rodney stepped out of the car,
dropped the cigaret he was smoking,
and carefully ground it out.

Then Leona handed him the knife
and he balanced it, as a trapeze artist
balances a life high above the crowd.
**How’d you like me to do it for
you?’’ he asked. ‘‘Plunge this into
you, I mean.”’

Leona Vlught smiled softly, and
Rodney Greig slid back into the car
beside her and held the knife between
her breasts. He could feel her heart
beating. His fingers curled around the
handle. And then he pushed and there
was no sound but the half-cry in her
throat. The handle heaved and was
still...

Rodney Greig sat alone in the
darkness, smoking one cigaret after
another. Finally he backed out of the
car, striding toward the long streaks
of light on the horizon, then back to
the car. He walked and smoked and
gazed solemnly at the knife handle,
still embedded. At last he reached for
it, pulled on it. It came out with a tiny
sucking sound. He opened the car
door, dragged out his victim and
dropped the lifeless body on the
ground. The knife gleamed in the
night, and slashed the thin dress and
cut three little holes in the dead girl’s
neck. The wounds didn’t bleed and the
skin closed over them, like holes in
quicksand. Rodney Greig bumped her
across the field to a gully, let go, and
came back to the car. He started the
engine, made a fast U-turn, and rolled
on down the hill. He drove slowly,
searching for restaurant lights. He was
hungry.

There was no problem for Detecti-
ves Lou Jewell and Tom Duffy when
they reached the home of Rodney
Greig and found their man. The Dodge
sedan was there, and down behind the
seat they came upon the knife, with
its dried brown blotches of blood
unwiped. Leona’s locket and watch
were there, too, stuffed into the glove
compartment.

Rodney Greig glanced disdainfully

at this evidence and shrugged. ‘‘Well,”’
he said casually, ‘‘I guess you’ve got
me.”’

Yes, they had him all right — this
extraordinary killer with the high IQ

‘and the fine, tragic family, and the
distorted erotic drive. There has rarely
been a murderer quite so detached, so
laden with the unconscious wish for
self-punishment.

The complexities in his fondness for
cold steel and pictures of nudes were
never discussed during his sanity trial,
but they were clues as real as any
bloodstains or plaster casts of auto
tires. Incidentally, he had a picture of
a nude woman in his pocket when he
was arresied. It must be that society,
baffled and frightened by these
seemingly inexplicable flaws, sees no
hope for such unfortunates, and
hastens to snuff them out. If juries
want to rationalize, they can always
reason that death sentences are a sort
of mercy killing.

Because Rodney Greig was a warped
mechanism, death held no fears for
him.

He was the most composed man in
the county jail while he waited for the
death sentence; he played dominoes
skillfully with other prisoners.
Rodney Greig staked his whole case
on the insanity issue, choosing to be
tried by Superior Judge Edward Tyrell,
without a jury.

The outcome was a foregone
conclusion. The accused youth was
found sane in the law, and was sent to
San Quentin to await execution in the
lethal gas chamber. While in ‘‘con-
demned row”’ he read assiduously, and

spent his small cash allowance for
books, including one on medical
shorthand reporting. He was already
an accomplished stenographer, and in
a note to Warden Clinton Duffy he
said: ‘‘Is it strange that a man in my
position desires to increase his
knowledge in such a manner as to
benefit not only himself but the
institution should the death sentence
be commuted? I submit that it is not.’’

On August 28, 1940, Rodney Greig
made a little pile of his personal
possessions that he wished sent home
to his father. There were nine books,
three pipes, a fountain pen, seven
kodak pictures, some letters and a pair
of broken reading glasses.

“I am not afraid to die,”’ he said.

He spoke the truth, or what was his
conception of the truth. His ego would
not allow him to be afraid, and indeed
it gave him a kind of grim triumph
over the lethal inventions of man.
They tied a bandage around his eyes,
a curious courtesy to those who might
crack up, and bound a stethoscope
across his heart so they would know
when he had paid up.

He sat stiffly in the high-backed
chair, waiting.

The cyanide eggs splashed into the
acid bucket, and he wrenched loose
from the stethoscope, and no man
would hear him die. He twisted, and
arched his belly, and got his head down
to that straining finger, and he made
it. The bandage fluttered to the iron
floor, and now he could see the smoky
vine creeping.

He was laughing when death
hit. *

‘Anything You Kill, | Can Kill Better’

(continued from page 25)

duo, but he didn’t have a car and
couldn’ meet them as agreed.

Rooster began to punch Mrs.
Mottinger when she began to scream.
The second man then entered the post
office and rifled the safe. They placed
the unconscious woman on the front
seat between them and later put her
into the trunk of a brown Ford LTD.

Mrs. Mottinger was taken alive toa
house where a third suspect, a white
male, was waiting. At this point Spirko
maintained that he only saw her after
she had been killed and had not
assaulted nor stabbed her.

The ‘‘Dope Man”’ had put the word
on the streets that the drugs had been
stolen, and Spirko was hired to recover
them. He and a friend drove from
Toledo to the murder scene in a brown

Ford and saw ‘‘blood all over the
house.’’ The murderers had bound the
body in a piece of canvas and had to
untie it to find a cigarette lighter
accidentally left with the body. He
described the body as ‘‘stabbed and
gutted’’ and added that he helped
scrub the blood off the floors.
Spirko and three others took the
body in the trunk of the car and threw
it in a nearby soybean field. He
returned to Toledo to deliver the
narcotics to ‘‘The Dope Man’’, who
said that he wanted Rooster killed
because he ‘‘talked too much.” They
drove to an unknown location, where
one of the men in the backseat put a 9
mm. round of ammunition into the

(continued on page 33)
31


GRIFFIN, THe Wiaok,- 19, eS Quentin 8 Angeles). beSm19356
oo

NDAY MORNING, JULY 2 21, : 1935 SP ee eee SECTION ONE.

ALTH TO CHILDREN __[CALFORNIAENACTS
1 contain the latest ‘equipment for the proper treatment and comfort of | its ait dt MEASURE 10 PREVENT.

Pople passing the rising structure at Eaft Eighteenth avenue and Downing street
4pany spaces provided for windows. The windows, filtering the sunlight, will add MISTAKE EXECUTIONS
ers of the sun's rays to. those ‘of the three. special ‘pools within. The pydrothers ||.
] be the. nett ones: of the kind-in this: part of the United States. | 28 Tt

ig esaoe Calif, July 20a)
—Out of thy hanging by mistake las
winter:of Rush Griffin, Los Angeles
-|murdérer, came final enactment Sat
-turday of legislation to” prevent: FEpes
{tition of a similar error. © = (Con
|) Gov. Frank F. Merriam signed’ 4tratore ye
remedial bill, which resulted from a: the numb
-Hegisiative inquiry. into the execution ployahie’ r
of. Griffin, who was panged: altho an :
appeal ‘was pending. «=
»: Under the revised law: ‘an appea
takea susomatice lly iwhen’ . defend

~ Herman. ‘DeKoevénd “has been ap- em pion x
4 | pointed resident caretaker at Lake asd oni
| Cheesman, chief storage reservoir for: : Wor
o ithe: ‘Denver water. system. ‘He will ‘
‘take the place of Frank B. Young,

Denver. office.” -DeKoevend has been
acting: ‘caretaker. at ‘Lak Cheesman
“a number of months. 2; :
Twenty-one employes -
‘partment, : ‘including: office and out-
side. workers: were -Rranted: pay. ine =


GRIFFIN, Rush, 19-year-old black man, hanged at San Quentin (Los Angeles) on April 5, 1935.

"Los Angeles, Nov, 12, 193l-Police Captain A. S. Bradley announced late teday that Rush Gri-

ffin, 19-year-old negro, confessed he shot and killed Lawrence Leonard Lyons, 30, son of
New York missionaries, claiming he did so in self-defense, The body of Lyons was feund ear-
ly today in Little Harlem, negro section of Los Angeles, Captain Bradley related that Grif-
fin, alias George Johnson,told him hewas walking home from a beer parlor armed with two
pistols when he met Lyons and an argument started, Griffin recounted how Lyons wrested one
of the guns from him and shot at him, the officer said,

"The negro youth assertedly described drawing his remaining pistol and shooting Lyons in the
forehead, Griffin admitted, however, fleeing from the sceneand exchanging shots with Offi-

cers C BE Drew and J, A. Schiller, Capt. Bradley recounted, Griffin was arrested with Willit

Smith, 2, negro, who was said to have owned one of the pistols. Griffin, police reported,
said he took the gun from Smith earlier in the evening, Lyons, a graduate of Yale and Colum-
bia, was the son of Dr, and Mrs, D, Willard Lyons, of New York, who recently made a survey of
missions in the Far East for the Rockefeller Founmiation, He had been studying at the medical
school of the University of California, Police Officers B. Je St. Charles and George C,
Lindstrom said they found Lyons' wallet in the room which Griffin and Smith assertedly occu-
pied, o

"Close to the scene of Lyons! death was found his automobile, In it, police said, was a pint

of whisky of a type purchased earlier in the evening by Griffin and Smith when the two took
occasion to brandish guns at a small liquor establishment, Police reported Lyons had been
playing bridge earlier in the evening and apparently was held up as hewas driving alone in
his car and was forced by the 2 negroes to drive to the Little Harlem district, Here, in-
stead of surrendering his wallet, he attempted to fight his captors, and the fatal shooting
followed,

"Lyons died in a receiving hospital without regaining consciousness, a bullet wund in his
head. In addition hehad been beaten on the face with a gun butt. University roommates of
Lyons said he was studying to being a naval physician, similar to his brother, Captain David
Lyons, who is stationed at San Diego," TIMES*PICAYUNE, New Orleans, La,y ll-13=193) (12=5)/.

"KILLER OF U. S. C. STUDENT HANGS: YOUTH WRITES LETTERS WHICH ABSOLVE
COMPANION OF BLAME FOR HOLDUP DEATH. San Quentin April 6, 1935='I'm
ready to die,' said Rush Griffin, 19-year-old Los Angeles Nesro, to

his guards as he walked to the gallows this morningto be hanged for the
murder last September of Lawrence Lyons, 30, former U. S, ©, medical
student, in Los Angeles! ‘Little Harlem.' Griffin left his death cell
after writing two letters, one to Governor Merriam, and th other to the
State Prison Board, absolvine his companion, Willis Smith, 2h, Negro, of
any complicity in Lyons' death. Smith, sentenced to life imprisonment
after his trial in connection with Lyons! murder during an attempted
robbery, is working in the prison hospital here. 'I wrote those letters
to ease my conscience,! Griffin told his 'death watch! guards as they
signed the letters in his cell as witnesses. ‘I'm feeling all right
now,' The guards who signed the letters are Lonnie Allen and E, L.
Payne. Griffin, escorted to the gallows by the Hev. G. J. McGruder,
Negro minister, was hanged at 10:02 a.m. and pronounced dead at 10:1)
asm. by Doctors Daniel schmidt and T. Cc. Harper." TRIBUNE, Oakland,

California, April 6, 1935» Page one, column three.

; GRIFFIN, Rush, black, hanged Calif, (Los Angeles) 4-5-1935,

— MAN'WAS HANGED
DESPITE LETTER
IN PRISON FILE

See

Notice Of Appeal Was Sent To
San Quentin While Alco
Acted For Holohan

SAN QUENTIN PRISON,
April 15.—(UP)—It appeared
to-day as Inveatigution of the
“mistake hanging” continued
that a fateful reply to a lettor’
which would have reprieved
Rush Griffin, 19-year-old Los
Angoles Nogro, from death on
Ban Quentin's gallows was
written by Cilnton Duffy, seo-
retary to Warden James B,
‘Holohan, ‘

The reply was written by
Duffy, but bore only the first
Initial of his last name—a D—
as the signature,

Duffy sald;

I pose that Y elgned it. X
es Gent Semamnar the incident,

but Uf the letter bears the Inl-’
tlal 1¢ wae not referred to Mr,
Aloo, - °

\ oateatenietemameee tenet
Disclosures in the Los Angoles
County Grand Jury's investigation
of the execution a week ago Fri-
day of Rush Griffin show that
when the 10-year-old Negro was .
‘|hanged there was a Jetter In the
flow In the warden's office at the
Ban Quentin Prison stating the
Ey case was on appeal.
An appeal automatloally acts as
a@ stay of execution,
Aloo In Charge,
The letier wag recelved at the >
time that Jullan Hf, Aloo was aot, ‘as

ing warden of the Pponltentlary
and while Warden Jame. Nolohan ‘
was In the hospital recovering from,
the serious Injuries he suffored in
the attempted prison break in Jan-

Letter Is Acknowled ged.

/

The Jetter from C, K, Boardman, tv Vv V
chief uf the Los Angeles County
clerk's criminal department, was
acknowledged by another lettor ’ /
bearing Alco's slynature, Under the KY
alynature, however, was Penned the
lelter “D.” s |

Discussing the matter, Warden /
Holohan sald: : : '

“I knew nothing about the appea)
and I do not believe Griffin did
elther. The morning of the execu-
thon, I talked with the prisoner,

Murder Is Confeased,

‘ “He did not mention the appeal
to me, He sald that he committed
Pe the murder of which he was cone

victed. . :
“T also called the wovernor’g of-
’ fice the morning of the exeoutlon
; to make certain th" had been no|-

(Continued om Pa: & Colunim 4)

uary, ; t
Warden Holohan sald to-day that

he knew nothing of the lolter, and

declared that he knew at no Ume

that Griffin's case had been ap

pealed to. the state supreme court. / 4 \


The bodies of Peter Jensen, above, and Lt. Peter Flint, This heavy Indian stone pestle was used by the slayer in
below, were found by the horror-stricken mother who had __ his attack on two unsuspecting men and a trusting woman.
run to the house for help. Both bodies lay in beds, nude
and with their faces bludgeoned nearly beyond recognition,

a barely perceptible movement of the thin lips as the reply
came in a husky whisper.

No further words had passed between the two during the
few minutes it took them to reach the Jensen lodge. Now,
as Elaine Gresham raised inquiring eyes to the stranger
whose rapid footsteps brought him to her side, she saw with
alarm that he had picked up a heavy stone pestle from a
bench along the pathway. A relic of the days when Indians
lived in the valley and ground their grain in hollow stone
vessels, the pestle was used by Jensen to sound the dinner
gong at Candlelight Lodge.

“Why, what are you... ?”

That was as far as she’got. With a lightning-like movement
the man’s sinewy right arm went up over his bullet-shaped
head. The next instant the heavy pestle crashed down in a
glancing blow across the woman’s right shoulder. It had
missed her head by a fraction of an inch. She raised her arm
to protect herself from a second blow.

No word came from the thin, tightly drawn mouth of
the man as he hesitated a moment and then let his heavy
weapon fall to the ground. But as the girl turned to flee he
reached suddenly forward, encircling her lithe body in his
arms,

The assailant’s claw-like hands ripped and tore at his
victim’s sheer summer frock as he tried to force her to the
ground. The man was slight, weighing less than 140 pounds,
but his iron-muscled arms were of abnormal strength.

During the next few seconds of the unequal struggle, the
recollection of a tale of horror heard months before flashed
through Elaine’s mind. The entire area had been thrown into
a state of fear and shock following the discovery of a brutal
murder at the hands of a madman who had escaped from
a nearby mental institution. The story, in all its gruesome
details, had been told her by her neighbor Peter Jensen,

who
asylur
Cou
her cl
she w
mad. ¢

was a!
But
forced
befor«
man
Stone
Whe
Sailant
holdin;
shirt
saw
smoul
doom
God,
Mrs
with a
insane
childre
ing hir
boy she
The t
ebbing
victim
final pl
Final
the edg
from h

Was Ca!


i)

Peter J. Flint, 27, one of the victims in the double murder, was a Lieutenant in the Merchant Marine. The police suspected a ship's officer
known to have been in the vicinity just before the double murder and assault. An alarm was sent out for his capture. However, clues found
at the scene of the crime caused police to also send out an order for the arrest of HENRY BRUN GULDBRANDSEN, who was known to have
been around the picnic grounds. He was found in Eureka, arrested, and brought back to Sonoma County for questioning. "I didin’t rape her!"
he kept shouting. However, Guldbrandsen broke down after awhile and the police say he confessed to the double murder but stubbornly continued
to deny that he hod criminally attacked Mrs. Paget. He admitted tying her to the tree. He gave no motive for the murder of Flint or Jonsen
and police were convinced that they were killed so he could attack Mrs. Paget, although he continued to deny this. He Is being held for trial.

(19)


le moment the sleek, new convertible pulled up before
the silent and shuttered lodge, Elaine Gresham knew she
had made a mistake in coming. With the mercury touching
90 and not a breath of air stirring on that humid Fourth of
July afternoon, she realized that the windows and doors
would be opened wide—if the story that had brought her
there was true. Her middle-aged neighbor, Peter, J. Jensen,
certainly would not have been painting his kitchen with
no ventilation to carry off the fumes.

The car motor died and Elaine glanced apprehensively
toward the stocky, hard-faced man at her side. At that
moment he was opening the car door, about to slide from
behind the wheel. The thought flashed through her mind
that she must find some excuse for remaining in the car
while he started toward the house. It would take but a
second or two for her to slip over to the driver’s seat, 'switch
on the ignition, throw the transmission into gear and take off.

ouble slaying

But that hope died as she saw the man thrust the car
keys into the pocket of his wrinkled slacks. At the same
moment he turned and levelled his sullen dark eyes upon
her suspiciously.

The 27-year-old blonde housewife got slowly from the
car and started toward the front door of the lodge. The man
stepped back to allow her to precede him along the tree-
lined pathway.

As she neared the closed front door she hesitated as the
quick short steps of the man sounded behind her. “Hadn’t
one of us better go on for a doctor?” she suggested with
sudden inspiration.

Her hopes fell again as the other answered gruffly: “Mr.
Jensen has already gone. He left right after the lieutenant
fell off the ladder. But this is a holiday and it may take
him some time to find a medic, That’s why he told me to
take the lieutenant’s car and go over for you. You were a
nurse before you got married, weren’t you?”

Instead of replying, Elaine Gresham reached for the door.
It did not open when she turned the handle and pushed.
She turned, expecting to see the man step forward with a
key, although it seemed strange that he would have taken
the trouble to lock the house with the injured man still
inside.

Elaine also thought it strange that her neighbor, the 53-
year-old owner of Candlelight Lodge, had made no mention
of a second house guest when she had talked with him
two days earlier. Nor had his friend, handsome, 26-year-old
Lt. Peter J. Flint, who had been staying with Jensen at the
lodge for a week.

The shapely young matron had been tucking her two
small children in for their afternoon nap when, a quarter
of an hour before, she had heard the crunch of automobile
tires on the driveway outside her own cottage just down
the road from Jensen’s place. Going to the window over-
looking Jack London’s idyllic Valley of the Moon north
of San Pablo Bay on California’s hilly west coast, she had
instantly recognized Flint’s dark green Buick. But the man
behind the wheel was not the athletic young. maritime offi-
cer with the straight-forward manner whom her neighbor
had introduced as his guest two days earlier.

This man was about the same age, but he was short and
stocky, with a ruddy complexion and strange, troubled

BY HAROLD DUSEN

omveninrine meme ont

eyes that lent an expression of anxiety and discontent to
his deeply lined face. As he alighted from the car and
started toward her door, Elaine turned for a final glance
at her children. The 4-year-old girl was already asleep and
the boy, 7, was at least pretending to be. Softly, their pretty
mother closed the door to their room, then walked slowly
through the house to the veranda facing the driveway.

“There has been an accident at the Jensen place,” the man
commenced. “Lieutenant Flint was helping paint the kitchen
when he fell and broke his arm. Mr. Jensen wants to know
if you'll come over and help until the medic comes.”

For a moment Mrs. Gresham had stood there hesitating.
She had never before left her children alone during the long
hot afternoons. But now a neighbor and friend was in
trouble and in need of help. The Jensen place was less than
half a mile up the road. She was the nearest neighbor, and
her early nurse’s training had taught her to act in an
emergency. Surely, she could run over for a few minutes,
and do what had to be done to ease the man’s pain until a
physician arrived.

Aware that few strangers approached her out-of-the-way
cottage in that peaceful valley and that there could be no
danger of fire, Mrs. Gresham shrugged her shoulders and
stepped into the car as the man got back behind the driver’s
wheel. “You’re stopping at the lodge, too, Mr... ?” she
commenced, and hesitated as she realized the man had not
introduced himself.

“Just call me Hank. I’m a friend of Mr. Flint’s.” There was

Sheriff Patterson, at right, questions the man who twice
sought help; once just before and once after the crime.

TTT ER ee ee


Ys)
:
Vv
o
ban
wee
a

The “naked, -pain-wracked young
mother was pound to this tree after
losing a fight.-with a, wild killer.

Bound to a tree, the third victim lay
powerless for hours outside the house of death

30 > \

2 AERP RY

c fe 2 rte

- we
iene

i he mome:

the silent a:
had made a:
90 and not 2
July afterno<
would be ope
there was tr
certainly wo
no ventilatio:
The car m
toward the
moment he
behind the
that she mu:
while he sta
second or tw:
on the ignitio

But that }
keys into tr
moment he
her suspiciot

The 27-y:
car and start
stepped bac!
lined pathw:

4 she ne:
quick short
one of us bi
sudden insp:

Her hopes
Jensen has ;
fell off the
him some ti
take the lie:
nurse befor:

Instead o!
It did not
She turned.
key, althoug
the trouble
inside.

Elaine als:
year-old ow:
of a second
two days ear
Lt. Peter J.
lodge for a >

The shap:
small childr:
of an hour }
tires on the
the road fro
looking Jac:
of San Pab!
instantly re:
behind the \
cer with the
had introduc

This man
stocky, wit}


,

wieemmomitlidene

THE RIDDLE O

wr

NOTE: Since this story was written,
Joseph F,. Taylor has been. promoted from
Chief of Detectives to Assistant Chief of
Police and Captain Seager appointed Chief of
Detectives, both promotions resulting from the
outstanding work of these two men in the
Los Angeles Police Department.—Ed.

FORD coupe rolled along the high-
A way north of Seattle, Washington,

on the afternoon of March 8th, .

1933.

There was nothing sinister appearing in
this particular automobile, traveling in
broad daylight at a moderate rate of speed
and occupied by two men... nothing, that
is, to indicate that a third man, unconscious
and bleeding from wounds on the head, .
lay on the floor of the rumble seat. Hand-
cuffs trussed his wrists together. At every —
bounce of the car, a large iron bolt dug into’:
his scalp. Gasoline fumes filled the stuffy
compartment, preventing any possible
chance of the victim’s regaining conscious-
ness.

The man in the rumble seat was Customs
Border Patrolman E. L. Ballinger of
Seattle, Washington. A half-hour earlier
he had come across-the Ford coupe, parked
near the highway north of the city. The
driver didn’t look “right”? to him. As he
stepped on to the running-board of the
car, he caught sight of two guns lying on the
rack back of the seat. In a flash he had
whipped out his own gun.

“Get out,” he ordered. ‘‘You’ll have to
go back to Seattle.”” With his left hand he
jerked forth a pair of handcuffs.

The driver alighted, held out his hands
... and at that instant something descended
with paralyzing force on Ballinger’s head. ,
Stunned intg ingensibility, he slumped to the’
ground. He had neither seen nor heard the *
man who crept up from behind and dealt
the vicious blow.

“Quick! Get him in the rumble seat
before somebody comes along.”

Ballinger was hastily shoved into the réar compartment of
the automobile. The cover was slammed down, and the car
got under way.

In the seat ahead, murder was being discussed.

“It’s the only: way to shut his mouth,” said the driver.

“Nuts. He can’t squawk,’’ replied the other man. “You
hit him before he even got a good look at us. He’ll still be
groggy as h— when we dump him out.’ How’s he going to
identify us?” ©

“All the same, I don’t believe in taking any chances. What
have I got this rod for? First good spot we come to, I’ll let
him have it. I want to get it over with.”

“Yes, I guess you do . . . and swing for it, maybe. I got a
better plan than that. You drop me off in Seattle. I’ll get
my car and catch up with you south of town. Then we'll
switch this bird from your hack to mine. I’ll take care of him,
all right, and you can go back to Seattle and take delivery of
the new car. I’ll ditch this guy somewhere along the way,
oe meet you in Los Angeles later on—soon as you can get
there.”’ ;

Oe if you get picked up? What if they look in the rumble
seat?”’

“Well, I’m taking the risk—not you. You’ll be driving
a new car. Won’t even have a license number.”

After some further discussion, the less bloodthirsty of the

60

: Velote. IT 6

two had his way and they agreed on a course of action.
The coupe stopped on a “eat street in Seattle, and one man
alighted. “Drive slow, and I’ll be with you in no time.”

* *. *

Less than an hour later Ballinger partly regained con-
sciousness as the cover of the rumble seat was lifted and a
rush of fresh air greeted his nostrils. He opened his eyes and
saw two evil faces bending over him; heard an argument as to
whether he should be “finished off”? then and there. But of
all this he gave no sign. With his life hanging in the balance,
he figured his best bet was to “lay low.” Fortunately, he had
jotted down the license number of the Ford coupe before he
received the blow that had rendered him unconscious.

He was dragged from the car and half carried across the
road to where another coupe waited. Clumsy hands forced
him into the rumble seat of this second automobile.

With every atom of will-power he possessed, Ballinger
fought to retain his senses. But the struggle was a losing one.
Weak from loss of blood, and with the poisonous gasoline fumes
enveloping him, he was soon mercifully incapable of feeling
either the pain of his wounds or that induced by his horribly
cramped position.

On and on went the coupe—792 miles south through the
states of Washington and Oregon and into California. Finally,
at a point near Hornbrook—just south of the Oregon state

Soa


: '.The-car that Frazer had located was
in the basement. It was the right car.
I opened the back compartment—
there were still some of the spots of
blood that had dripped from my head.

We called the manager. “Who owns
this car?” we asked.

“The company owns it,” he informed
us,

“Who’s been driving it?”

He looked up the record on the car.
“It came in last night,” he said. “A
fellow bought a new V8 and we
couldn’t give immediate delivery, so
he’s been driving this. A woman came
in last night after we got a call from
him and took delivery on the new car.”

“Who were they?” we all chorused.

Again the manager went to the
records.

“A fellow by the name of George
Hall bought the car and paid all but
$102 in cash. We weren’t able to de-
liver it so he let the balance ride.
When the woman came in to get the
car, she paid the balance due.”

T asked to see the salesman who had
sold the car. When he was found, I
wanted to ask him only one question.

“Did a scar-faced bird buy the car?”

“No, although I do remember a fel-
low with a scar down the side of his
face was with him. I think he called
the fellow with the scar George. The
only thing I can remember much about
the fellow who bought the car was that
. had sort of funny eyes, They kind
fe) a)

“Popped out!” I joined him in the
last words.

We left the garage to go to the Fed-
eral Building and look at the identifi-
cation file. We felt confident we would
know in a short time who my kid-
napers were.

I could understand their action of
changing cars now. They had forced
me into the car that had been bor-
rowed from the garage. They were
afraid that someone, maybe the per-
sons who had been on horseback and
saw me when I was beaten, might
become suspicious and report the car.
At one of the stops along the high-
way when I had been riding in the
rear compartment, they had phoned
the woman. She had brought them the
second car, and then had returned with
Pop-Eye Hall to get delivery on the
new car.

By the time we returned to the Fed-
eral Building, a flock of newspaper
men were waiting for us, but a Post
Intelligencer reporter was first in. His
newspaper had received a telegram
from Los Angeles, California:

POSTAL TELEGRAPH

FB6 TD LOSANGELES CALIF 10 140 AM
1933 MAR
POST INTELLIGENCER SEATTLE
THE KIDNAPED MAN HANDCUFFED TO
TREE ON HILL ONE QUARTER MILE
NORTHEAST OF YREKA FRUIT INSPEC-
TIONSHIP HURRY

NO SIG...

So, Scar-Face had not intended to
starve°me or freeze me to death!

We studied the telegram, and from
it we could pretty nearly figure out
the action of the men. Scar-Face was
in Los Angeles, for that was where
the wire had been sent. He undoubt-
edly was waiting there for Pop-Eye
Hall, who was driving down in the
new car.

Then Pop-Eye Hall was someplace
on the way to California!

There was no time to lose. We tele-
graphed every law-enforcement agency
from Seattle to Los’ Angeles. We sent
in detail the description of Pop-Eye
Hall and the car he was driving.

Unless he changed the car he was
driving—and we felt certain he would
not, as he would have no inkling that
we knew anything about the new car
—he was bound to be spotted and
captured.

While we were waiting to hear word
of Pop-Eye Hall’s arrest, we looked
him up in the identification records.
We found he had been living in a
lowntown Seattle hotel. His compan-
ons, we learned, were a woman named
3elle Gorman and another ex-convict,
seorge Manning.

We were able to find the complete
record of Pop-Eye Hall and his com-
panions quickly, because of the strict
parole system in the State of Washing-
ton. Both Hall and Manning were out
on parole after serving time for bank
robberies. They were required to re-
port regularly to the parole board. As
soon as we checked with Tom Harnett,
parole board head in Seattle, he gave
us the address where the pair had been
living.

We checked the hotel and found that
Hall, Manning and a woman, whom we
suspected of being Belle Gorman, had
been living there for several months.
But what was significant:

The trio had checked out the day I
had been kidnaped!

We found George Manning’s mug
in the record books, and I identified

his gun, signalling that Pop-Eye had
passed, the Sheriff would pull into the
road, bottling Hall between them.

Young Calkins did not have his gun
and there was no time to get him one,
so his father gave him his pistol and
the old Sheriff used a shotgun loaded
with birdshot. The two cars headed
for the northern city limits.

Before they had time to get ready,
a roar of a car could be heard coming
down the highway.

It was Pop-Eye Hall in the new
Ford.

The two officers’ cars swung out to
block the road. Pop-Eye wheeled his
car hard to one side and managed to
get by them. The two cars set out in
pursuit.

Sheriff Calkins brought his car
alongside of the speeding Pop-Eye’s

Los Angeles. His Methods,

She Was a High School Student,

The Expert in Sex Crimes,
Crime that Came After a

Featured in Next Month’s Issue:
$72,000—or Else!

This Extortionist Had a Daring Scheme—to Bilk Thirty-Six Bankers of
and What the Police Did to Capture Him—
Make a Smashing Story Seldom Equaled

Secret of the West Basin

Two Oldsters Were Murdered, Their Bodies Driven Overboard in a Closed
Sedan. And the Killer Wiped Them Out Because He Couldn't Bear to Have
Them Suffer Humiliation Through His Disgrace over a Petty Theft!

The Student and the Sheik

He a Prowler with a Maniac’s Lust.
Forced upon Her an Orgy that Terminated in Murder in a Church Rectory.

Sterilization—The Killer from Hell

Ex-Operative 48, Tells Another Grisly Tale of
Known Weakling Was Allowed to Go Free

Rise and Fall of Racketeer Barons

King Solomon of Boston—the Man Who Made a Business of Trading in
Night Clubs and Their

Oticial

Detective Stories

The Best 10c Buy on the News Stands.
July Issue Will Be Out About May 25

He

Habitues

him immediately as Scar-Face. The
auto salesman recognized Belle Gor-
man as the woman who got the new
car for Hall.

We wired Los Angeles to look for
ex-convict Scar-Face George Manning.

It was ten o’clock the following
morning when we received word from
the fruit inspection station on the
Oregon-California boundary that they
had seen Pop-Eye Hall and a young
man companion driving the new Ford
car. The men at the inspection station
were unarmed and were unable to
stop them.

Word was flashed to Yreka, Cali-
fornia.

Sheriff Andrew Calkins got the
warning that Pop-Eye Hall was headed
for his city. The Sheriff started out at
once with his son Charles, a deputy
and Legionnaire called Stephen S.
Kent, a state highway patrolman who
was in a garage owned by Lester
Quigley having his auto repaired.
Quigley, who was working on the
patrolman’s car, offered to lend his
car and join the chase for Hall.

The plan was for Kent and Quigley
to wait just outside the city until they
saw Pop-Eye drive by. The Sheriff
and his son would wait in their car
two blocks below. When Kent fired

machine as they neared the center of
the city. Hall skidded his car and took
a sharp turn down a side street. The
Sheriff tried to follow him’ but was
unable to make it. He ran his car over
the sidewalk and then had to stop it
and turn around.

Highway Patrolman Kent slithered
his car on two wheels but was able
to follow Pop-Eye Hall’s trail.

Sheriff Calkins turned his car around.
He knew that Hall was captured, for
Hall had turned down a blind street!

Hall’s car was forced to a stop where
a big cement bulkhead formed a dead-
end. Kent jammed on the brakes of
his car and stopped a few feet behind
the car of Pop-Eye. Kent and Quigley
leaped out.

“Put ’em up and climb out of that
car,” Kent shouted.

Hall’s companion, a boy, came out
with his arms raised. Kent and Quig-
ley walked closer.

Pop-Eye Hall climbed out of the
driver’s side. He turned to his two
captors.

Sheriff Calkins and his son were
drawing -up in their car behind Kent
and Quigley, when—

Bang! Bang! Bang!

A deadly automatic in Hall’s hand
spat lead slugs at the two men who

had caught him.

One of the slugs plowed into th:
heart of Highway Patrolman Kent
- . . Two of the slugs dealt sudde:
death to Quigley ...

Sheriff Calkins leaped from his ca:
Hall fired at him and then turned t:
run. The shot missed. Sheriff Calkin:
let blast a load of birdshot. The tiny
pellets found their marks but ‘the;
weren’t large enough to stop Hall.

Hall ran around the corner.

Young Calkins with his Pistol pour-
ing lead, was after him.

Deputy Sheriff Martin Lange whu
was in a pool hall a block away, heard
the shots and ran to the street. He
collided with a figure outside the door.

They fell to the ground in a tangled

eap.

The man he had bumped into was
Pop-Eye Hall.

Hall was first up. He fired point-
blank at Deputy Lange.

The powder burned his cheek but
the slug missed his head by a fraction
of an inch.

Young Calkins had nearly overtaken
Hall. He was unable to shoot, however,
as Lange was in the line of fire.

Hall turned down another street.
This, too, was a dead-end street, and
not even a sidewalk led out of it.
Young Calkins was right behind him.

The killer turned. Young Calkins
ran on.

The killer raised his gun. His finger
pulled back the trigger. Calkins raised
his gun and squeezed the trigger.

There were two empty clicks.

Both guns were shot-out.

Young Calkins leaped at Hall. They
went down in a death struggle.

Clawing, punching, ounding, the
young Deputy and the ‘killer battled
on the ground.

For a moment Hall was on top. He
smashed the butt of his gun against the
side of the young Deputy’s head.

The killer was free again. But be-
fore he could get up, the Sheriff was
upon him. The barrel of the shotgun
pressed into the side of Hall’s head.

Hall stood still.

Deputy Lange ran up.

“Your gun loaded?” Sheriff Calkins
barked.

Lange nodded.

“Then hold it on this rat,” Calkins
spat. “Mine was empty or I’d have

-blown his stinking head clean off his

yellow spine.”

Hall was lead off to jail.

—But two men lay dead in the
street.

Young Calkins had a nasty gash in
the side of his head, but it was not
serious.

The boy companion of Hall’s proved
to be a young hitch-hiker who knew
nothing of the kidnaping and had
taken no part in the gun battle. He
was released.

Hall was held in Yreka for the mur-
ders of Kent and Quigley. As soon as
the word reached us, I flew south and
identified him as the Pop-Eye who had
kidnaped me. .

Hall was vituperous when I saw him.

“You damned meddling fool!” he
cried. “Now see what you got me into
by your snooping around! If you
hadn’t got out there nosing around
into those gats, this wouldn’t have
happened.”

Although his logic was all wrong, I
too fervently wished there had been
some way to save the lives of the
valiant highway patrolman and the
garage mechanic.

While I was in Yreka, word came
from Los Angeles that Scar-Face Man-
ning had been captured.

But before I could get a plane south
to identify him, word came he was
out again.

He had been placed in the Glendale
jail overnight, and had changed clothes
and identifications with a drunk in the
same cell with him; he then had called
a bondsman and was released under
the name of the drunken man.

A new search was started for him.

In the interim, while we hunted him,
we learned that the money he had of-
fered me on the kidnap ride was the
proceeds from robbery of a bank in
Nanimo, British Columbia, a job that

39

with a total take well over $150,000.
On September 24th, a raid Swept the
bank robbers into the hands of the

Alcatraz. Belle Gorman received a
single term of twenty-five years,

But finally he has lost his last
hance,
The legal battle for Pop-Eye Hall

Luttrell pro- c
On January 6th, 1936, his last appeal

nounced a death sentence for Pop-

Eye Hall. However, Hall was not im- law. Scar-Face was among them. So continued. It was rumored that the was denied. He is now awaiting execu-
mediately to be sentenced. A big legal was Belle Gorman, the woman who money from the holdups was used to tion at the Folsom death house.
battle was waged. had gotten the car for Hall. further his fight for life.

e delays in Hall’s execution were

last August as one of the rea-
“Sons why a mob took Clyde Johnson,
alleged slayer of the Chief of Police
of Dunsmuir, Siskiyou County, (F. R.
Daw) from the county jail at Yreka
and hanged him.

year we sought The gang pleaded guilty before Fed-
Scar-Face. We learned that his real eral District Judge Holtzer on Septem-
— Py nga Clark, es : ber 26

uring the summer o: a series
‘of bank robberies occurred in Los
Angeles. Fifteen holdups were made

He set a new record in California
for delaying his execution by legal

icaliti king his case before
the State Supreme Court and finally
United States Supreme
sent to Court.

Sterilization — The Killer from Hell. He was shell-shocked in the war, not responsible for all his actions. But no one
dreamed he would kill two women. T. he expert in sex crimes, Ex-O perative 48, tells the story in his inimitable style, with -

his unparalleled ability to get all the facts, with all of his daring fearlessness. It’s in OrFiciaL DeTEctTivE SToRIEs, issue

t

of July.

“come out all right.” ;
job in the dock Office of a fishing con-
cern,

But the truth of the matter was that
Vannie had become interested in girls,
and had found that his rough ways
did not go so well with them. This
also explains why his shoes always
were polished, and his trousers always
in press.

It was during this period, too, just
as he entered high school, that
Vannie and his crony, Bill Bailey,
Pooled a few dollars and bought an
old canoe which they fitted out with
a sail. Incidentally, many respect-
able Brooklyn housewives and moth-
ers will blushingly admit today that
they went sailing with Vannie Higgins
and Bill Bailey, back before the War.
And they will add that Vannie and
Bill were two of the “nicest boys in
the neighborhood” at that time.

This cycle didn’t last long, however.
Vannie found more fun in fighting and
carousing than in being nice, even if
it meant that some of the nicer girls
would have nothing to do with him.
After a few months in high school, he
had battled his way into a sort of low-
brow leadership of the tougher ele-
ment. He held this leadership through-
out his three years at Erasmus Hall.

As the head of his gang, he now
began leading his cohorts into a higher
form of petty thievery; in Stealing
Packages from delivery trucks. This

early contacts with Pawnshops where
they could dispose of small merchan-
dise, with no questions asked. Vannie
was no exception. He began to get
acquainted in the Brooklyn under-
world.

And now again Vannie was the des-
Pair of his parents. For the first time

ing. He long since had quit working,
but he kept amply supplied with pock-
et money from the profits of his petty
larceny, which he sometimes ran up
into sizable sums in crap games,
Vannie was becoming known to the
Police now. There were many com-
plaints that Packages were stolen from
delivery trucks in the section where he

his reputation been more Sawory.
Again Vannie was taken into -court,

Mr. and Mrs. Higgins were delighted.
They felt that the navy discipline
would straighten out their boy’s char-
acter. they had reason to be-
lieve he had turned over a new leaf
for, like a dutiful son, Vannie assigned
4 portion of his navy pay to his mother,

His navy training did a lot for Van-
nie, but not exactly along the lines
his parents had hoped.

leave days abroad, and drank, ca-
roused and fought to his heart’s con-

Vannie remained there for several
days, and during this spree he reached
and passed the turning point of his
life. Until now Fate had been shap-
ing him for a career as a racketeer
He was wild and

Peg Leg Lonergan and Wild Bill Lov-
ett, two tough Irishmen who held the
longshoremen racket in their horny

. They took a liking to the drink-
ing and fighting young Irishman, and

The tough young man from Sheeps-
head Bay began by running errands
for the mighty Peg Leg and Wild Bill.
But after the first week he was given
assignments which required the use of

is fists, and he quickly proved that
he could hold his own even in the big
league Competition of fighting long-
shoremen. Peg Leg and Wild Bill,
who have Special niches of their own
in the annals of New York racketeers
and big niches, too—became genu-
inely fond of Vannie. The tough Peg

red Was quoted as saying some years

er:

“I never see’d a kid always fixin’-

for a fight the way Vannie Higgins

Huh! Machine guns!
take care of me.”

It is a matter of record that Peg Leg
Lonergan closed many of his argu-
ments with a knife or a revolver, but
until the day he died—from

he never would allow any of his hench-

men to use the quick-shooting wea-
Pons of wholesale death. :

and Lonergan.
Wild Bill on §00d terms and. with the

raided one of Yale’s whiskey trucks
on a deserted Brooklyn street one
early morning, cowed the driver and
his helper, and drove off with approx-
imately 500 gallons of whiskey. Van-
nie peddled the hijacked whiskey in

© Same markets where he had been
selling alcohol, and collected what
looked like a small fortune to him.

three-man gang could not successfully
fight the far-flung Yale empire, he re-
alized, so he gave up hijacking for the
time being.


HALL, George, white, hanged CASP (Siskiyou Co.) March 27, 1936

NCE known as Pittsburgh’s .reign-

ing vice queen, Mae Scheible was said

to have made a million dollars in her
vhastly traffic before she decided to extend
her operations to New York City.

That move was a mistake. For when the
plumpish Mrs. Scheible
began to transport. girls
across the state line to fill
her Manhattan bagnio, the
law stepped in and pres-
ently she found herself in
federal court, facing trial
on fifteen counts of con-
spiracy and Mann Act vio-
lation,

Two hours after the jury
took the case the female
boss of the bordellos was
pronounced guilty on
eleven of the fifteen counts. The verdict
carried a maximum sentence of 52 years in
prison, plus a possible fine as well.

Perhaps Mrs. Scheible’s brush with the
law will not deter others from capitalizing
on the “oldest profession in the world.” But
it marks a signal victory in the drive against
commercialized vice—one of the most loath-
some phases of criminal activity.

Mae Scheible

DEGENERATE CRIMINALS

Demands for the de-sexing of degenerate
criminals continue to mount. One of the
most recent champions of the cause is Dis-
trict Judge Henley A. Calvert of Denver,
Colo., who urges mandatory sterilization of

>hronic criminals.”

During the course of his instructions to a
jury sitting on the case of a man charged
with an offense against boys Judge Calvert
said, “In cases of this kind the law should
pernut a court to order sterilization.” The
judge later announced that he would spon-
sor a mandatory sterilization law for such
crimes in the next regular Colorado legis-
ature.

\Ve hope that Judge Calvert means what

e and that other jurists and legislators
interested in crime suppression will follow
his example. The degenerate criminal is a
erous growth upon the body of society
hich must be removed.

Readers are invited to address their letters to this
department at 22 West Putnam, Greenwich, Conn.

EXPENSIVE "FUN"

Brains inflamed by alcohol, two Los
Angeles youths, John Starnes and David
Searcy, set out last December to have some
fun. They wound up in the liquor store of
B. P. Weber, 76, from whose cash regis-
ter they obtained $6.

Angered at the small amount, they forced
Weber to drink a pint of brandy, stripped
him of his clothes and left him in a car where
he later died of exposure and acute alcohol-
ism.

Picked up recently, both youths confessed
and were charged with murder, robbery and
kidnaping. Murder in California is punished
either by life imprisonment or a trip to the
gallows—a terrible price for an evening’s
“fun!”

JUVENILE CRIME

An Oregon mother discusses the juvenile
crime situation and scores parental laxity
in the following interesting letter :

I am the mother of sixteen living chil-
dren—eight boys and eight girls—and Dar-
ING Detective has its own dignified place in
our home. We often discuss crime and our
children know their possessions and what be-
longs to others.

But some time ago I visited what our
neighborhood termed an innocent “kids’ club-
house.” I asked one of the boys what they
did evenings. “Oh, we think up ways to make
money,” he said. “This summer we're going
on a ten-day trip.”

Not long afterward this youth brought a
bicycle to our home and asked my boys to
repaint it. They had taken the wheels off
on the following morning when a man walked
into their shop and showed them his star.
He was a Beaverton sheriff. The other
boy had stolen the bicycle and had wanted
it repainted in order that he might sell it to
finance his summer trip.

Yet mothers of those “club” members
never bothered to leave their hridge parties
to see whether those boys were up to mis-
chief or not.--Mrs. L. A. R., Milwaukie,
Ore.

Undoubtedly Mrs. L. A. R. has hit upon
a vital point in the important problem of
juvenile delinquency. After all, the respon-
sibility for keeping boys and girls in the
straight and narrow rests primarily with
parents.

"CRIMINAL" LAWYERS

Only an appeal to the United States su-
preme court can save Ben Laska, Denver at-
torney convicted for conspiracy in the
Urschel kidnaping case, from serving a ten-
year term in federal prison,

Laska represented kidnaper Albert L.
Bates and was accused of accepting part of
the Urschel ransom from Bates. The at-
torney contended that it was a legal fee; but
the circuit court of appeals thought other-
wise and upheld the original conviction.

We hope this is only the beginning. There
are hundreds of “criminal” lawyers who are
daily getting away with things far more rep-
rehensible than anything Laska may have
done. They belong behind the bars of jus-
-tice-—not before them!

THE GALLOWS WINS

Back in March, 1933, George Hall cli-
maxed a career of robbery with the murder
of two police officers at
Yreka, Calif. Captured
and sentenced to hang, he
remained tough and de-
fiant. He cherished the
deluded notion common to
sO many criminals that
somehow, some way, he
would beat the death rap.

His wife, Ann, shared
that opinion. On March8
of this year—almost three
years to the day since the
double slaving—she pro-
ceeded to do something about it by attempt-
ing to smuggle guns into Folsom prison in an
effort to liberate her husband.

But Ann was caught. Hal! was hanged
and 24 hours after her husband's death the
23-year-old -escape plotter was sentenced to
from one to five years in the women’s prison
at Tehachapi. Crime does not pay!

George Hall

lation and supervision tending
curb parole and pardon evils.

place to be.

plays and publications.

2. CODDLING—Tighten prison regu-
lation to reduce coddling of in-
mates and make jail an unpleasant

3. PUBLICITY—Strip crime and crim-
inals of false glamour in all books.

4. GUNS—Make purchase intreasingly

DARING DETECTIVE’S ANTI-CRIME PLATFORM

i. PAROLES—Adopt stringent legis-

difficult, investigate all sales and
register both gun and owner.

5. COOPERATION—Unify country’s
manhunters with centralized nation-
al office.

6. POLITICS—Take politics out of
the police force. making political ob-
struction of justice a federal offense.

7. REWARDS — Reward officer-heroes
and provide for dependents of men
shot in action.

8. LAWYERS — Adopt rigorous cam-
paign to drive lawyer-criminals
from the courts.

9. CODES — Establish uniform codes
of state legal procedure to cut red
tape and speed up justice.

10. TRAINING—Inaugurate a_ federal
“crime school’? for all prospective
Peace officers.

Jy

DARING

Dit

to “make a trip up North,”’ but had paid rent in
advance for the bungalow, stating they wished
to retain possession of it.

A half-hour passed. Twilight shadows were
darkening the interior of the little house as De-
tective Johnston, in command of the squad, ad-
dressed his brother officers in whispers:

“If they don’t show before dark, some of you
boys find spots outside where you can watch . . .”’
He broke off abruptly, drew his gun and silently
motioned for the others to do the same.

OOTSTEPS . . . muffled voices outside the
door. The click of a key in'the lock ...a
man’s thick-set form outlined in the doorway,

the slight figure of a woman close behind him... -

“Put ’em up, Carlson!”

Simultaneously four guns were thrust against
the outlaw’s body. The woman whirled around
and darted out into the night.

Lights ‘flashed on and disclosed that Carlson
had not troubled to obey the brusque command
to “put ’em up.”

“Tt’s all right, boys,’’ he said quietly. “I have
no gun on me.”

In the meanwhile the woman’s headlong flight
had been abruptly: halted. Pursued by Officer
Anderson, she almost ran into the arms of Officer
Dixon who had left by the rear door as the ‘‘Langs”’
entered the front. .

“Hands up—or we'll shoot!”

Without a word, but with a glare of deadly
hate at her captors, the woman obeyed. A hand-
bag carried under her right arm fell to the side-

walk. The impact jarred the receptacle open—and a blue
steel automatic slithered out of its depths. The officers
retrieved the firearm and firmly escorted the woman back
into the house.

Pete Carlson had been frisked and found unarmed. While
two officers stood guard over the prisoners, others searched
the premises.

It was necessary to break open the door of one closet, held
by a special Yale lock. Inside was revealed a modest arsenal
comprising five automatics and one 12-gauge shotgun. The
stock of this weapon had been sawed off and on the front end
was a special grip, resembling a machine-gun.

In this closet was also cached a complete set of burglars’
tools. Pete Carlson calmly admitted ownership of all these
items. The woman as calmly denied all knowledge of either
weapons or tools, while condescending to acknowledge that a
dress, dangling from a hook in the same closet, was her property.

She admitted that Pete had given her the gun that had
fallen out of her handbag, but disdained to give any answer
to a query as to why she was carrying it. However, Carlson
declared that he had been carrying the automatic and had
slipped it to the girl just as she opened her purse to take out
the house-key.

Search of the premises finished, the officers prepared to
transport the prisoners to the Detective Bureau in separate
cars.’ Carlson asked as a favor if he might kiss the girl.
Officer Beeson told him that any demonstrations of affection
would have to be deferred for a future time. The girl’s
lips curled in a sneer, Carlson coolly extended his wrists for
the handcuffs.

During this time Mr. Kneen, Mr. Rule and I were matching
wits with Loeb Cossack in the latter’s office. The attorney
first tried, with all the craftiness of a trapped fox sniffing for
some loophole to escape, to find out just how much we had
“on’’ him,

I summoned Officer Tash from the reception-room. At my
request he produced a bulging brief-case containing transcripts
of conversations overheard since August 29th—the date on
which we installed the dictographs.

“Let’s see, Cossack,’”’ I began, ‘‘on September 6th at 12:45
P.M. you and Fenton were in your office. You called in your

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The Riddle of the Disappearing Scar 41

secretary and’ asked: ‘What time will Carlson call?’ She
answered, ‘At 4:30.’ However, at 12:47 you answered the
telephone and said: ‘Carlson, listen. Get in touch with Izzy.
You do that . . he’ll tell you.’ ”’

I flipped a few more pages. To impress him from a dif-
ferent angle I proceeded to quote a lengthy telephone speech
which he had made at a certain hour on September 8th, re-
garding a purely legal and highly technical matter.

“You recall that business matter, don’t you, Cossack?”

He nodded glumly. “Well, we’ve plenty of time. Shall
I go back a couple of months—to the very beginning?”

My grand bluff was not called.

“You’ve got me, Seager—to some extent,’’ he added guard-
edly. ‘I’ve already helped you by telling you where to find
Pete Carlson. Now, why can’t we have an understanding
about this? I’m willing to turn State’s evidence against
Fenton and Carlson, if you’ll agree to charge me only with
harboring a criminal. I'll plead guilty to that.’’

Again I reminded him that I had no power to make a promise
that would be binding. We could only lay the facts before
the court.

Needless to say, I would not have made any agreement
with Cossack, even had I had authority to do so, without
having all the evidence in the case in my hands. If the
statements made by our informants—Fdwards and Collins—
were corroborated from other sources, the man before us was
fully as guilty as the pair he was offering to help send to a
Federal Prison—after having previously volunteered to put
them on the spot to be killed in a hold-up, so that his own
complicity in their crimes would never come to light.

After a few moments’ silence the attorney said: “This is
a bitter pill to swallow. If I tell you about this, I’ll lose my
professional standing.’’

“Well, my boy,’ Agent Kneen remarked genially, “that’s
your problem. It’s up to you.”

Cossack’s opening statements disproved the theory, in his
own case at least, that there is “honor among thieves.”? His
carefully worded replies to questions propounded by Mr.
Rule, Agent Kneen and myself showed calculated effort to
place all blame for the crimes in which he had been “un-
intentionally’? involved, squarely upon the shoulders of

(Upper left, left to
right) Detective Cham-
bers, Pete Carlson and
Chief of Detectives H.
S. Seager, co-author of
this gripping story of
banditry and _ brilliant
crime detection

(Left) Part of the dis-
guise equipment used by
the bandits in their
bank robberies included
rubber gloves and liquid
court-plaster to prevent
leaving finger-prints, ar-
tificial teeth which Fen-
ton wore over his own
teeth to change his
appearance, and dark
glasses with heavy rims

Carlson and Fenton!—the latter admittedly a friend of several
years’ standing.

He had accepted Carlson as a “‘client’’ only because he was
desperately in need of money.

“Last December,’ Cossack said, “a fellow named Collins
brought up a man whom he introduced as Pete (‘arlson.
He said Carlson was looking for a good criminal lawyer.
Carlson explained that he was down from San Francisco,
intending to go on several jobs; that he wanted an attorney
ready to represent him any time he got in trouble, and was
willing to pay me well.

“He then remarked that he was looking for a partner and
asked if I knew of anyone. I said I didn’t know anyone I
could suggest, but that I’d known a man named Fenton for
some time. If he wanted to talk to Fenton about anything,
it was up to him. I called Fenton in and introduced them.
Then I stepped out of the office.”’

I BARELY repressed a smile. I recalled that our informant,
Collins, had also “stepped out of the office” immediately
after introducing Carlson to Cossack—before the subject
of bank robberies came under discussion.

It was not until some time later, Cossack averred regret-
fully, that he became aware that Fenton, his office associate,
had been engaged with Carlson in the business of robbing
banks. The first hold-ups had been “a complete surprise’’
to him, until he began to connect .newspaper accounts of
these exploits with the fact that Fenton would be “flush
with money”’ for several days thereafter.

Cossack denied that he had ever received any money from
Pete Carlson, and declared that the only financial reward
reaped from his association with the bandit pair had been
in the form of small amounts of cash doled out by Fenton
from time to time, with which to pay rent or provide the
necessities of life.

“Where is the forty-five automatic you usually keep in the
drawer of your desk?’ Agent Kneen asked.

“T haven’t kept it here for some time. Fenton asked me
for it. I gave it to him, asking no payment, because of
other money he had given me.”

“Did you ever buy a gun from a man—an investigator for
the City Attorney’s office?” Mr. Rule demanded.

“T did. About the first of the year I purchased a forty-
five automatic, paying ten dollars for it. That’s the gun
I gave to Fenton.”

“Now, Cossack,” I intervened, “we know positively that
Carlson and Fenton were to pull a bank robbery today.
What can you tell us about that?”

He hesitated, perhaps debating the advisability of denying
any knowledge of a crime that, after all, had not been com-
mitted. As I reached for the dictograph transcript he quickly
made his decision.

‘Well, I don’t like to answer that question, but suppose
I’ll have to. I think it was about September 15th that
Ienton and I drove out to where Pete lived. He came out
to the car and said he had a beautiful job all cased—the
California Bank on San Pedro Street between Eleventh and
Twelfth. Carlson and Fenton drove out there to pull that
job this morning. When Fenton came in this afternoon he
said they didn’t go through with it, because a man was painting
the front of the bank. He said they’d take it tomorrow.”

Cossack was asked by Mr. Rule whether or not he knew
that Fenton and Carlson used “make-up” to disguise their
features during the so-called “Mutt and Jeff’? bandit raids.

“T’ve never seen either of them engaged in a robbery,”
Cossack replied, “but I believe they did use make-up on some
jobs. Once, while I was living with Fenton, he said he’d
give me a demonstration of how he looked when he went

- intéa bank‘with two guns. He went into a small dressing-

room. When he came out he had some fluid on his face that
looked like a sear. His mouth was protruding. He said,
‘Do you think you could identify me now?’

“T gaid he didn’t look natural. Then he took a set of
artificial. teeth out of his mouth—he wore it over his own
teeth. I asked him what he used to prevent finger-prints
being left. He said he and Pete used liquid court-plaster
on their finger-tips. I saw a bottle of it in the medicine chest
in the apartment.’’

“H’m. All very interesting,’ was Mr. Rule’s comment.
“Tt checks up with some other information we've got. By
the way, when did you last see Carlson?”

“T believe it was about the first of (Continued on page 74)

”


ol cli lll

74

True Detective Mysteries

The Riddle of the Disappearing Scar

September when he telephoned and_asked
me to meet him at Washington Boule-
vard and Vermont Avenue; said he had
something important to tell me. I drove
out there and found Pete waiting. As he
got into the car I noticed a bandage on
his head. He explained that a bullet had
grazed his scalp during a shooting affray
in Berkeley, when he and some other men
robbed a bank. He boasted that he was
quite lucky, as he'd been on seventeen
cr eighteen jobs without getting a scratch.

“But this time. according to his story,
cne of his partners was killed and the
cther captured. The police shot the rear
tires off his car, which his girl Helen
was driving, but they managed to turn
a corner on two wheels and dodge the
officers. I believe the man who was cap-
tured was named La Crosse.”

N his recital Cossack had made no ad-

mission regarding having cased any bank
robberies himself. We in turn held back
all our trumps in this respect. At length
the attorney, perhaps emboldened by our
seeming ready acceptance of his state-
ments, said:

“Almost from the first I wanted to quit
this racket. But I didn’t dare make an
immediate withdrawal for fear of death
at the hands of Carlson. Months ago he
threatened me when I objected to the
unfair way he was handling the money—
holding out most of it for what he called
‘the big caper’ and even demanding back
five hundred dollars out of a split he had
eiven Fenton, to pay cash for a new car.
And I was afraid Fenton would mistrust
me if Ll tried to back out too suddenly.”

“I can see that you were in a bad spot,”
1 conceded with pretended sympathy.

“In fact, I told Fenton not long ago
that I was going to close this office, quit
the apartment and go back to the home
of my parents in North Hollywood. I
planned to open offices out in that dis-
trict and specialize on club and fraternity
work,” Cossack continued.

This pious declaration did not tally with
the ambitious plans for $100,000 hold-ups
that he had been overheard to discuss
with Sam Collins. However, we did not
bring that up at the moment.

At that juncture Izzy Fenton walked
into the reception-room, to be greeted by
Officers Stromwall and Caldwell with the
announcement that he was under arrest.

A moment later I was called on the
telephone. Officer Woolman informed me
that Pete Carlson and his woman com-
panion were in custody at the Detective
Bureau.

We at once left for Headquarters with
(ossack and Fenton.

When I armived at the Robbery Squad
ottices, I was given a brief account of
Carlson’s arrest by Officers Johnston and
Woolman. In addition, it developed that
Carlson had made certain statements to
the officers during the drive to Headquar-
ters.

“Anything I’ve done,” he had said,

“wasn't for myself. I’ve been out of the
United States since you’ve been looking
for me. I didn’t have to come back. But
T’ve got a buddy up in Folsom.
To save him I’ve sent eleven thousand
dollars to an attorney in Sacramento. I
haven't kept any money ... I’ve got only
this one suit of clothes and we haven't
been eating any too well—”

Agent Kneen, Mr. Rule and I decided
to talk first to Carlson alone in my pri-
vate office.

(Continued from page 41)

A moment later, é#we bank-robber who
had been so luridly word-painted as a
desperado, always heavily armed and
ready to shoot to kill, stood before my
desk—a shabbily dressed, tired and_ old-
looking man, with the air of one who
knew his fate and was resigned to it. A
scar on the side of his head was plainly
visible.

He interrupted our first attempt to
question him about his activities.

“Tm not talking,” he said quietly. “I’m
old. It doesn’t matter about me. But
someone else might be young, with years
to go. For that reason I’m not talking.
I'll only say I’m sorry my past is in-
complete. I made a pledge to someone
and now I won’t be able to keep it.”

“What was that pledge?” Mr. Rule
asked. :

“To get a commutation of sentence for
my partner up in Folsom. I was told
that five thousand dollars more would
turn the trick.”

“And all the money you've taken in
bank hold-ups has gone for that purpose?”

“T haven’t kept any money from my
operations. I haven’t even bought clothes.
These shoes talk for themselves.” He
exhibited his shabby footwear with holes
in the soles.

I questioned him about the guns found
in his home and which were then lying on
my desk. He readily admitted that they.
belonged to him. When I drew his atten-
tion to the sawed-off shotgun with front
grip welded to the barrel, similar to a ma-
chine-gun, he said with manifest pride:
“That’s my patent.”

“Now, Pete, as to your operations,
meaning bank robberies, you don’t have to
talk. The bank employees’ identifications
will convict you. And the reason we ar-
rested you and your gang tonight is be-
cause we knew you and Izzy Fenton were
going to hold up the California Bank on
San Pedro Street tomorrow. I wouldn’t
let that job be pulled, because someone
might have been killed.”

ARLSON shrugged his shoulders. “I’m

sorry you didn’t let it go through. I
wouldn’t have cared if I had been killed.
I’m old and I’ve got nothing to live for
now.”

“How was it you never happened to
take any bank where we had_ officers
staked for you?” Agent Kneen asked.

The bank robber smiled. “When I
meant to go on a job, I’d be near the
place at six o’clock in the morning. I'd
watch everyone going into the bank. I
could spot any policeman or detective,
and if anything looked wrong, I wouldn't
touch it.”

After that he made it clear that he had
nothing further to say regarding his
“operations,” and I had his woman com-
panion brought in.

“Helen” was small and frail-looking,
even in a heavy brown coat with a bulky
collar of cheap fur. She had a smooth but
sallow skin, devoid of make-up, cold dark
eyes—and a tight-lipped mouth. A few
strands of straight dark hair showed be-
neath a plain, close-fitting hat.

After darting a quick look of warning
at Carlson, now huddled in a chair, she
swept our faces with a glance of polite—
I should say mockingly polite—inquiry.

“What is your true name?” I asked.

“Betty Lang.”

“Betty Lang ... Are you married to
this man Carlson?”

“I prefer not to discuss that,” was the
cold reply.

“You know why you're under arrest?”

“T do not.”

“You know that Pete Carlson, with
whom vou've been living, and a man
named Fenton have been committing
bank robberies in this city?”

“I know nothing about it.”

“Miss Lang, your friends have all made
full confessions. You might as well tell
the truth.”

She raised her eyebrows. “I am telling
you the truth.”

“You are not. The truth is that vou’ve
helped case these jobs, and you've driven
the get-away cars after they were pulled.”

“T have never cased any jobs,” she
answered composedly, “and I never drove
acar to or from any bank robbery.”

We referred to George Hall, true name
Manning, in Folsom. She admitted that
the condemned man was the husband of
her sister, who appeared on the Folsom
correspondence records as “Mrs. G. Man-
ning.”

“Where is your sister now?”

“T will not tell you that.”

HE hour was late and the futility of

any further quizzing at that time was
evident. That day’s activities ended with
the booking of Loeb Cossack, Irvin “Izzy”
Fenton, Pete Carlson and Betty Lang on
suspicion of robbery.

Part of the following day, September
27th, was given to taking verbal state-
ments from Cossack and Fenton, our
investigating force having been augmented
by the addition of Department of Justice
Agent James Findlay.

We checked on Cossack’s statement
that Carlson had told of participating in
a bank hold-up in Berkeley. Reference
to our files disclosed a teletype message
from the Berkeley Police Department re-
garding this robbery on July 27th—dur-
ing the period Carlson’s landlord said “Mr.
and Mrs. Lang” had traveled north.

It appeared that Berkeley police had
found the get-away car abandoned shortly
after the robbery. The vehicle was regis-
tered to “Eve Billings,” 6231 Afton Place,
Hollywood, and our Department had been
requested to check this address. My of-
ficers had done so and ascertained that
“Mr. and Mrs. Billings” had left for parts
unknown some weeks before. The car
had been purchased for cash at a Holly-
wood agency. The Motor Vehicle De-
partment files contained an application
for a driver’s license signed by “Eve Bil-
lings.” After the arrest of Betty Lang
our handwriting expert pronounced her
handwriting to be identical with that of
“Eve Billings.”

Check of the license number of this
automobile by Mr. Rule’s operatives dis-
closed that in April, 1934, a speed ticket
had been issued against its driver, E. I.
Fenton, while traveling south from Fresno
with a woman passenger.

On that same afternoon—September
27th—Officer Johnston impounded Fen-
ton’s Ford coupe. On the ledge behind
the seat was found a brown suit, and in the
pockets of this garment were a set of
upper and lower false teeth, a bottle of
liquid court-plaster, a small brush, a pair
of rubber gloves and a pair of dark
glasses,

From the apartment previously occu-
pied by Fenton and Cossack, Detectives
Burris and Gerhardt brought in additional
evidence in the form of grease-paint, mas-
cara and other theatrical make-up. Under
the cover of the ironing-board they found
false sideburns and hair pieces that could

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That night 2 special show-up of our
prisoners was held for victims and wit-
nesses of the four bank hold-ups com-
mitted by the “Mutt and Jeff” bandits.

Pete Carlson and Izzy Fenton were
promptly identified on all four robberies,
They grinned derisively as Mrs. Leona
Staff, pretty girl employee: of one of the
banks in question, pointed a slim finger
in their direction to indicate that they
were the two robbers who had so badly
frightened her,

Loeb Cossack was identified as the man
who had appeared in the Wilshire and
Hauser branch of the Citizens National
Bank and requested change for a ten-
dollar bill a day or so before the place
was held up by Fenton and Carlson on
June 18th.

For three days following his arrest Fen-
ton refused to make any statement. On
October Ist Detective Woolman apprised
him for the first time of Cossack's offer
to Detective Boh Chambers to have Fen-
ton and Carlson “put on the spot” for the
$1,000 standing reward offered by the
Bank of America, He Was also told of a
subsequent — interview when Chambers,
authorized by me to try to get further
incriminating evidence against the attor-
ney, asked him if the offer I had pre-
viously turned down still held good—and
Was told that the situation had changed:
Cossack refused to turn the deal now for
less than $2,500.

PrENTON refused to credit Woolman’s
statements,

“You don’t expect me to believe that!”
he exclaimed, “Why, Loeb and I are
friends. We've been friends for six years.
He wouldn’t do that to me!”

Officer Woolman offered to have his
words corroborated by Mr. Christiansen,
Special Agent of the Bank of America, As
he opened the door of the private office,
that official happened to be passing down
the corridor. Called inside by Officer
Woolman, Mr. Christiansen told Fenton
that Cossack's $2,500 demand had been
mentioned to him on a certain date, and
that bank officials had refused to con-
sider it under any conditions,

From that moment Fenton, finally con-
Vinced of his erstwhile friend's treachery,
Was determined to even. the score with
Cossack.

That afternoon he made a signed state-
ment, giving full details regarding his
already proved participation in the four
bank hold-ups.

A rented car would be used to drive to
the bank. = This would be abandoned
several blocks away from the scene of
the hold-up, at 2 location near which his
own or some other car would be waiting
for Fenton’s use, Carlson would dis.
appear on foot after leaving the get-
uway car, to be picked up somewhere
in the Vicinity by his girl “Helen,” other-
wise known as Betty Lang.

“And every one of those jobs was sug-
gested by Loeb Cossack,” Fenton said
bitterly. “ “He took his share of the
money, even if he didn’t take the
chances,”

Fenton declared further that Carlson
had held out the major part of all loot for
a so-called “big caper.” He, Fenton, had
given Cossack sums from time to time.
To the best of his recollection, the total
did not exceed $1,000.

He admitted ownership of the make-up
articles, false haip and false teeth, re-
trieved from his car and apartment. He
stated he had used hquid court-plaster to
simulate a facial scar while on the bank
holdups, but denied having altered the
aspect. of his features by wearing the
false teeth over his own.

True Detective M ysteries

Questioned about a special horn on his
car, he naively declared he had paid $50
for this special equipment solely because
“you could hear it a long distance; you
could clear the road with it.” He denied
buying it to use as a signal on bank rob-
beries, but said Carlson “understood that
it was to be used for signals,”

In conclusion, Agent Findlay asked
Ienton: “Is it not a fact that, if it had
hot been for your association with Cos-
sack, and Cossack having connections
with Pete Carlson, you would not be in
this bank robbery mix-up today?”

“Yes; that is so.” ‘

Shortly afterward Loeb Cossack made
a lengthy written statement, being vir-
tually compelled to make more admis-
sions than he had on the night of his ar-
rest, in view of the facts stated by Fen-
ton, and his identification by a witness on
the “casing” of the bank at Wilshire and
Hauser Boulevards on June 16th, as before
explained, However, in his closing re-
marks he again sought to represent him-
self as the helpless victim of unfortunate
circumstances that had gotten beyond his
control,

His own recital concluded, Cossack
agreed to try to persuade Betty Lang to
give an account of her part in the gang’s
criminal operations,

The girl was brought into the office in
custody of a policewoman. Cossack at
once launched forth into a beautifully
worded appeal, endeavoring to convince
her that the sume was lost and that the
penalty might be made lighter by yolun-
tary admission of any part she might have
played in this involved drama of crime—
Masmuch as the other culprits had already
confessed their guilt,

His eloquent plea fell upon deaf ears,
Betty Lang declined to answer any
questions except by advice of an attorney,
I reminded her that Cossack was an at-
torney—and a clever one who had given
me one of the hardest court battles of my
police career,

“TM sorry, but he’s not my attorney,”
Was her reply, with a look of contempt
at Cossack,

As on the night of her arrest, she com-
posedly maintained that she knew nothing
Whatever about any robberies committed
by Carlson and Fenton. She refused, with
al the outraged hauteur of a “great lady,”
fo answer any questions pertaining to her
personal affairs or her relationship to
Carlson,

For a few days we had kept our prison-
ers separate and incommuni ‘ado. During
this time we purposely ignored Pete Carl-
son. This policy brought results on the
afternoon of October Ist, four days after
his arrest. He sent i message to the effect
that he wonld like to talk to me and to
a “bank man,”

When I entered Carlson’s cell with Mr,
Rule and Agent Findlay, the prisoner was
in an almost jovial mood, “Well;” he be-
gan, “I suppose the rest of ’em have
made statements, so I’ve Just about de-
cided to give you mine.”

“We'll be glad to hear anything you
Want to tell us,” assured him, “al-
though, as you know, you're under no
compulsion to Say anything. Anyway,
before you make any statement, it’s only
fair that you should know what Cossack
and Fenton have said.”

We proceeded to j tm him of the
contents of the statements made by those
individuals, Carlson listened attentively,
laughing heartily from time to time. How-
ever, when we had finished, he hung his
head for a few minutes, apparently deep
in thought. As it became more and more
clear that Cossack and Fenton had loaded
the major burden of guilt on his shoul-

75

ders, his mood changed,

“Get a stenographer and send for an
attorney,” he ordered. His face began to
flush darkly ag his anger mounted. “I’m
going to show those —s up for what
they are.”

William Fleet Palmer, Assistant United
States Attorney, was | summoned. His
position in the case was made clear to
Carlson, who was reminded again that he
could stand on his constitutional rights
and refuse to talk.

“That's okay,” Carlson said. “J Just
want cverything legal,”

Then, in the presence of Mr. Palmer,
Agent Kneen, Mr, Rule, a stenographer
and. myself, Carlson began his story.

He declared that for fixe Years prior
to 1933 he had been legitimately enguged
in the furniture Manufacturing business
on the West Coast. Vhile in Seattle in
March of that year he had chanced to
meet George Hall, whom he had known
in Canada,

A_ detailed account of the kidnapping
of U.S. Customs Border Patrolman Bal-
linger by himself and George Hall fol-
lowed,

He then referred to the killing of State
Highway Patrolman Stephen S. Kent and
his friend Lester Quigley by Hall the
next day at Yreka, Calif., while the lat-
ter was attempting to evade arrest for
the Ballinger kidnapping,

“After Hall had been sentenced to
hang,” Carlson said, “I felt it was up to
me to try to save him from the rope,
and Td have to raise money—plenty of
money—-to do it,

“Soon after coming to Los Angeles, I
Was picked up by the Federals and held
for this kidnapping job, I told ‘em my
name was Joe Clark. As you know, they
didn’t hold me long. I got out of jaal
the next morning by switching booking-
slips with a drunk they’d put in the same
cell with me,” Carlson’s hard features
relaxed into a grim smile. “That Was so
easy it was funny. Like taking candy
from a baby.

“Right after that T sent for Helen to
come down here, Helen's sister Is married
to George Hall, and she Was as anxious
as I was to save him. She's a smart gir]
—smarter than the rest of us. Knows
enough to keep her mouth shut,

“Well, I got acquainted with Sam Col-
lins, and he passed me along to Mr,
Cossack. Cossack suid it was fortunate
that I'd come to him; that he was the
pay-off man for the boys and knew all
the ins and outs of the racket. Wanted
to know how I'd like to work for him
on a percentage basis, I told him I'd do
anything to raise monex to defend Hall.
Cossack said then that the logics] place
to get cash money was from banks,

. FEW days later he introduced me to

Izzy Fenton, telling me Fenton was
an old-timer, and also working on per-
centage, with Cossack ‘furnishing full pro-
tection. We made a deal. Thirty per
cent of all money up to ten thousand
dollars was to g0 to Mr. Cossack, After
that, he was to get twenty per cent. Fen-
ton and I would spht the balance on all
jobs we pulled.”

At this point Mr, Palmer was relieved
by Department of Justice Agent James
C. Findlay, after which Carlson resumed
his_ statement,

He described in detail one safe burg-
lary he had committed in San Bernardino
—Cossack’s former Place of residence—
and five robberies he had perpetrated with
Fenton. These included the four bank
hold-ups already mentioned and one drug
store robbery,

Carlson endeavored to make it un-
mistukably clear that he was “working

ae Be et LEO,

“Sy