California, A, 1879-1995

’

‘In At Th

e Finish

Top attorneys fought frantically to contact California Governor Goodwin J. Knight by phone but answer wasn a minute late.

Convicted kidnap-slayer Burton W. Ab-
bott (The Finding Of Stephanie Bryan,
October 1nsipe, 1955, and A Miracle Will
Save Me, May FRONT PAGE, 1956) died in
San Quentin Prison’s gas chamber while
Governor Goodwin J. Knight was attempt-
ing to delay the execution. A telephone call
to the death chamber came too late.
Knight, who was aboard the aircraft car-
rier Hancock, off the California coast,
sought to stay the execution so Abbott’s at-
torneys would have time for a final court
action, ‘The governor already had delayed
the execution once the same day after a
dramatic last minute telephone plea was
made to him by Attorney George T. Davis
over a.nationwide television network. Ab-
bott, a 28-year-old University of California
accounting student, died calmly, insisting
to the end that he was not guilty of the
kidnaping-murder of Stephanie Bryan, 14-
year-old Berkeley, Cal., schoolgirl, in 1955,
The father of a five-year-old boy, Abbott
was condemned to death in January, 1956,
after being convicted in a 78-day trial in
which the prosecution labelled him a “con-
scienceless sexual psychopath” and a “path-
ological liar who believes his own lies.”
Above, Abbott is shown as hope faded at his
trial in late 1955 and early 1956. Also pic-
tured is dramatic scene of “too late” phone
calls which were moments shy of staying
the execution: Phoning Governor Knight
are, from left, Leo A. Sullivan, Abbott's at-
torney; William I. Sullivan, state supreme

. court clerk, and Attorney Davis. The call

was just one minute too late to prevent
Abbott from dying in the gas chamber.

A pardon to Herman Rex McCullough
(The Borrowed Life of H. R. McCullough,
March INsIpE, 1957, and Jn At The Finish,
April rnsipr, 1957) was granted by Gov-
ernor James Blair of Missouri. McCullough,
a 47-year-old convict, had escaped from a
Missouri prison farm in 1936, His pardon
came after five months of legal battles to
fight extradition from Colorado, where his
identity was discovered last October after

10 4n auto accident. More than 300 Denver

residents signed petitions to the Colorado
governor asking that he refuse to allow Mc-
Cullough’s extradition to Missouri to serve
his sentence. He has been living in Denver
under the name of Chester Allan French
since 1947. Fingerprints taken after the
traffic accident disclosed his true identity.
McCullough received a life sentence after
pleading guilty to charges of assault with
intent to kill in 1934. He was also sen-
tenced to five years for burglary.

Harold Nepper, confessed slayer of 14-
year-old Rosemary Mertes (Please Let It
Be A Stranger, April 1Nswe, 1957), has
been sent to a-private institution outside
the state of North Dakota for rehabilita-
tion. The husky high school senior, 17, was
taken from the county jail after pleading
guilty to second-degree murder at 4 closed
hearing. Sentence was deferred for five
years. Should Nepper, on probation for
five years, violate his probation, he can be
sentenced immediately to the state peniten-
tiary, Second-degree murder carries a penal-
ty of 10 to 30 years in prison. Depending
on the youth’s behavior, the court also
can terminate his probation and release him
at any time during the five years. He had
earlier signed a confession admitting he
strangled his black-haired Mantador, N.D.,
neighbor when she resisted his efforts to
kiss her while they parked on a lonely road.

Charles Edward Turner, a 34-year-old
escaped prisoner who kidnaped a 17-year-
old Montana girl and fought a gunbattle
with police only to be persuaded by an 82-
year-old spinster to give himself up, was
sentenced to eight to ten years in state
prison. Turner (/’m Going To Immobilize
You, Honey, May 1nsive, 1957) was cap-
tured in Kingman, Ariz., after kidnaping
Joyce Hitchcock in Helena, Mont., and
shot it out with a Kingman police officer.
He was persuaded to surrender by Miss
Louise Freeland after seeking refuge in the
Episcopal parsonage where she lived. Tur-
ner waived all rights and pleaded guilty to
assault with intent to commit murder. He

did not want an attorney and was ready to
enter a plea on his own. Officers said an-
other complaint charges Turner with grand
larceny, and was being sent from Helena,
where Turner allegedly stole a car at the
time he kidnaped the Hitchcock girl.

Bobby Joé Brimhall, an 18-year-old na-
val recruit who spent his last hours of
civilian life on a robbery tour that ended
in the fatal shooting of an off-duty police-
man (When Pigs Speak Latin, March 1N-
sive, 1957), was sentenced to life in prison
in Chicago’s criminal court on his plea of
guilty to manslaughter. Bobby was arrested
in the San Diego, Cal., naval training school
last November, four days after the slaying
of Policeman Robert R. Golden, 35, in a
tavern. Edward R. Pack, 20, who entered
the tavern with Brimhall, was sentenced to
40 years in the penitentiary, and his half-
brother, Robert L. Lord, 18, who stayed
outside in an automobile, to 14 years. The
half-brothers also pleaded guilty to murder.
William Marcisk, 44, the tavern owner,
testified that Golden, who had stopped for
a soft drink on his way home, was shot
when he drew his service revolver and
cried, “I’m a police officer—drop your
guns,” after Brimhall and Peck, wearing
masks, had entered with shotguns and
robbed Marcisk of $80.

David Fred Hagler has left a federal
prison and headed homeward, a free man.
The 39-year-old former Texas asphalt com-
pany executive. who was found innocent of
murder in a sensational Oklahoma torch
killing (Who /zzit And Who Dunit? Febru-
ary INSIDE, 1955, and /n At The Finish,
July rinse, 1956), has completed a six-
month sentence in a federal prison after
admitting he lied to get FHA loans. Hagler,
described as a model prisoner, was said to
be planning to go to New York to seek
financial backing for a “baby Western
Hills” hotel he wants to build. While held
in the Federal Correctional Institution at
Seagoville, Tex., near Dallas, he prepared
sketches of the hotel. “It'd be a nice combi-

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ewe sic gs ee ete oS
For’ Almost Three ‘Months, More.

Than a ‘Thousand Men. Somrchaae
or One Clue Jo he Miers

“Byte Tom Walters :
Special Investigator for ee ba ag ie
ACTUAL DETECTIVE. STORIES”

ee OU’D have to know Stephanie pian: "she Thea failed to come » home. bony
to understand how worried we after school. vigil
are,”’the tense, harassed fa- ..- Doctor Bryan was a radiologist at
ther explained in the Berkeley, Cali- the Peralta Hospital in Oakland and
fornia, Police Station. lived on Alvarado Street in the fash-
-‘How old did you say she is, Doctor” ‘ionable, well-to-do hill district above.
Bryan?” Sergeant Arthur Lyman the college town. |»
asked. - “You have a photograph of her?”
“She’s fourteen.” -“Yes. I brought one along.”

Sergeant Lyman bs at his. As he made out his report, Lyman: :

y

wrist watch. It was seven o’clock onthe noted that the girl ‘was pretty, with
Thursday evening of April 28, 1955. dark-brown hairy cut to ear-length..°: 1"
“She's only a couple of hours late,” the “What clothes was she wearing?” ~:
officer said easily. “You know. how ™ Doctor Bryan looked at a slip of pa-
teen-age kids are. Sometimes Shey just per. “Her mother gave me this. She °
forget about time.” - says she had_ on. a -turquoise-blue’

“But not Stephanie;” Doctor Bryan’ ‘pleated skirt with a black velvet sash;
said firmly. “She’s never late for sup-'? white orlon, short-sleeved sweater with
per.- If she had been detained, she “round neck; a blue, square-hanging
would have telephoned.” : “box’ cardigan sweater; banded around He :

“I wouldn’t worry too much if I were. the neck and front opening with blues °- 4
you,” Lyman assured him.  “She’ll. pin dots on a white band; white bobby=<- Seite
probably turn up shortly. But in the; socks and tan-and-white ‘saddle shoes.” 4
meantime,I’'ll take down the facts and Lyman smiled. “Takes a mother ‘to
we'll start an investigation.” ~ know those things, huh?”

Stephanie Bryan was. a. student at “Yes, I guess so,” Doctor Bryan said,
the Willard Junior High School in still tense. “Do you suppose she could
Berkeley. The oldest of the four child-- have been kidnaped?” - ;
ren of Doctor and Mrs. Charles S. wy do you ask that?” Lyman 4 ques- «>

Happy, carefree Stephanie Bryan, and atthe left, her |
anxious ~parents who never lost their faith in, hers


CONFESSED-KILLER,
Arthur Ross Brown shows
no emotion minutes after
a Kansas City, Mo., jury
found him guilty of mur-
dering Mrs. Wilma Allen,
beautiful wife of a wealthy
auto dealer. Brown, sought
for months, glumly -con-
fessed to kidnaping, rap-
ing and then killing the
woman last August. He
received extreme penalty:
Death in the electric chair.

AFTER SEVEN DAYS of
deliberation, an Oakland,
Cal., jury “sentenced Bur-
ton W. Abbott, 27-year-
old accounting student, to
-die in the gas chamber.
He was convicted of mur-
dering Stephanie Bryan,
14. The girl disappeared
in April, 1955, on her
way home from school.
Her body was found in a
grave near the mountain
cabin which Abbott used.

matter, but he would shoot Mickey
Strange to shreds with fiendish delight.
As he saw it, Mickey had spat at deity
when he spat at Owney Madden.
Mickey and I went right to work that
morning to get the whisky back to
Madden. ‘Toddo Martine and_ three
other Harlem hoods had ‘brought the
stuff to the drop, a garage on 129th
Street off Amsterdam Avenue. They
were supposed to change the license-
plates on the trucks. But they decided
that people like Madden didn’t “yell
copper,” so there would be no law
around frisking the garages. Toddo de-
tailed one man to hang around and see
that the trucks were not broken into or
hijacked. Mickey and I picked up a-
couple of pistols and went to Toddo’s
apartment on West 124th Street.

Hit with the story cold turkey, Toddo
bristled with suspicion. “What are you
guys trying to pull, a double-bank?” he
demanded.

I told him that he could go with me
to The Cotton Club, sit with me during
my talk with Madden and decide for
himself if everything was on the level.
He couldn’t believe that Madden's
men could have discovered us at work
and allowed us to complete the hijack-
ing operation merely to avoid trouble
at the plant. “You know,” he said, “if
I was working for you and something
like that happened, no one would have
got out of the joint alive.”

I nodded my head in agreement and
said, “Yeah, Toddo, that’s why you've
got nothing and Madden heads up a
combination like that.”

A sour note

We left on a sour note. Mickey was
sure that none of Toddo’s boys. would
go along with his kick-back idea. They
were home sleeping now, Toddo said,
and he’d see them that evening and give
me a call at the speak’ where I was
taking my calls at the time. I decided
that something drastic would have to
be done before these clowns got to-
gether. Mickey and I were marked men
now, and we wouldn't be safe anywhere
if that whisky got out of our control.
I didn’t know where to reach Madden
in the daytime, but I had Jerry Sul-
livan’s home address in Brooklyn.
Checking the phone book, I found that
his number was unlisted. Mickey
wanted to grab some sleep, but I made
him stick with me, reminding him that
this was his’ hide as well as mine. He
shrugged his shoulders.

I got Sullivan out of bed and told him
that Toddo and his boys probably didn’t
intend to give up the stuff. He blew his
stack and made two or three calls with-
out comment. Dressing swiftly, he
came out to the car with us and had us
drive him to the warehouse. Picking up
four of. the Madden boys there, he
equipped them with a couple of high
powered rifles, a sawed-off shotgun and
-a tommygun. I got a box of slugs for
the .38 revolvers Mickey and I carried.
We had to sit around a few minutes
waiting for Jerry to get in touch with
Madden. He told Madden that Mickey
and I were sure we could do nothing
with. Toddo and his. boys to get

the stuff back.
to pull the truc]
out of the drop
would cover us
Even this wa
He insisted th
men into the
we weren't aml
He figured that
to pull a fast
sible, there w
Owney ordered
promised, that
visited by And
of mobsters to <
better hold sti
matter,

Between two

Jerry and h
Packard. Mic
car and we |
speeds which
come attentior
this deal, but
two fires. W
one presentir
thought we co
selyes, but w:
Madden wou!)

Traffic was
noon we pull
and swung int
directly into
frantic wavin
right over to
trucks were p

Tommy \
boys, was sl
truck. We p
lieved him o
in a holster.
the wheel wi
alongside.

I wanted
other truck,
Mickey take
him to asst
Madden’s m

jumped in \

member of h
. ple feared to
employees ra
began yellin;
going on.

It looked
to be uneve
cop and a se!
cry and took
Sullivan, hi:
I had revol
loaded shotg

Nicky, t!
celerator do
leaped into
car making
pull us over
zag race thr
avenues, Wi
fire in an e

I wanted
But Jerry n
that we cc
squared wi!
long as no ¢

Nicky c¢
ought to be
a corner, ¢
through th:
missed Nic.


Georgia Abbott rummaged through the
search of a costume for a theatrical per

tioned. “You haven't received any tele-
phone calls or messages, have you?”
“No,”
“There wasn’t any difficulty at
home? Words with her mother or—”
“No. Definitely not.”
“Friends? Maybe a boy friend. It
has been a lovely Spring day.”

oe N O. STEPHANIE hasn’t become-in-

terested in boys yet. She only
recently has started wearing lipstick.
Outside of her family, her interests are
in ballet dancing and piano. She’s an
honor student at school.”

Lyman stood up from his chair and
came around the desk to put a hand on
the father’s shoulder. “I know it is
futile to tell you not to become con-
cerned. In similar circumstances, we’d
all be the same. But I-can tell you we
get a great number of reports like this.
bili de they’re canceled out by morn-
ing. :

“Right now, I'll put this description

on the radio and the teletype. You'll -

have every police officer in the Bay area
looking for her. I think before—”

The telephone cut off his words. He
picked up the receiver and then handed
it to Doctor Bryan. “It is your wife. I
hope she has good news.” :

After a few moments’ conversation,
Doctor Bryan put his hand over the

~ mouthpiece and told Lyman: “My wife

has located the girl who walked part
way home with Stephanie. The girl
says she left Stephanie near the Tennis
Club around half-past four. Stephanie
was on her way home at the time.”

Lyman visualized the location of the
Berkeley Tennis Club, near the famed
Claremont Hotel, in relationship to the
Bryan home. The girl must have taken
the serpentine path up the hillside that
at the very most couldn’t have con-
sumed more than fifteen minutes.

“Get the girl’s name and address,”
Lyman directed Doctor Bryan. “We'll
want to talk to her.” 3

The father jotted down the name of
Mary Ann Stewart and her address.
He looked up to Lyman.

“Tell your wife to reach us through
this office if she hears anything.”

18,

.

- anie.

‘year-old classmate of Stephanie, told

basement of her Alameda home, above left, in
formance and found a clue police had hunted

As soon as Lyman had started the.
wheels of the missing-persons machin-;
ery in motion, he and the father drove |
out to visit the school friend of Steph- |

4

On the drive, Doctor Bryan said:
“So much is printed in the papers
about these deviates—maybe I’m un-,
duly ‘concerned, but I can’t help it.” |

“Most of that stuff is at night,’4
Lyman said. He tried to keep his voice;
light and his words confident, but as:
time passed, the more he heard about
Stephanie the more he too was becom-
ing worried. é

Mary Ann Stewart, the thirteer

Lyman and Doctor Bryan that she and:
Stephanie had left school, after a gym
class, at about 3:45 and then went to the;
Claremont Branch of the Berkeley Pub-
lic Library. Stephanie had checked out
two books: 4 %

Lyman asked for the names of them:
and Mary Ann recalled they were:
“Two’s Company” and “Sue Barton".;
Stephanie was also carrying a French’
textbook home for study and several
notebooks. :

“after we left there, we went to the
pet shop,” Mary Ann said. “Stephanie
paid twenty-five cents for a book on ne
care of parakeets.”

Doctor Bryan said: “We bought a
parakeet and Stephanie wanted to.
train it to talk and do tricks.” :

“Now, just where did you leave her?"
Lyman asked. : ‘

_ Mary Ann repeated they had parted
company near the Tennis Club. Steph-
anie had planned to walk through the
parking lot of the Claremont Hotel and
then take the path up the hill to her:

home. F
“She planned on going straight

home?” ‘ i

“Yes. I’m sure of it.” :

“She didn't give any indication that

iz


“Did you see anyone following her?”

“No. The last I saw, she was going
oward the hotel. We waved and said
ve’d see each other in school tomor-
ow.”
After the interview with Mary Ann,
4yman suggested to Doctor Bryan that
1e should go home.

“Isn’t there anything we can do?”
Joctor Bryan asked. “My wife is there
‘nd I'd like to help.”

“I think you would be better with
‘our wife,” Lyman said. “I’m going to

et some men and we'll start to follow’

he trail of your daughter. You call
{eadquarters if you hear anything at
dl.”

jACK at Headquarters, Lyman called

Chief John D. Holstrom at his home.
ie gave him the facts on the missing
irl and said: “I don’t like the looks of
t. I have a feeling that this isn’t just
, case of a girl staying away from
1ome.” ‘ :

“I'll come’ down,” Holstrom said.
You get ahold of Laird and Fording.
“hen, take some men and cover the
rail the girl would have taken home.”

Captains L. H. Laird and A. H. Ford-
ag were of the Detective Bureau. When
\otified, they left their homes to go to
feadquarters.

Lyman, with Sergeants Ralph
‘ischop and Victor Viera, walked the
‘inding trail the girl would have taken
1ome, using flashlights to peer into
he underbrush and trees along the
ourse.

Laird with several men began ques-
ioning the 200 employes and guests of
he Claremont Hotel to see if ‘anyone
ould recall seeing the gir].

Fording, with several cruiser-car offi-
ers, started a canvass of all the homes
long the girl’s route. ‘

By midnight, not a single trace of
itephanie could be found. No one had
een located who could recall seeing
he girl after she parted from her
lassmate, Mary Ann.

Lyman and Laird called at the
sryan home where the nearly frantic
poh. were anxiously waiting some
vord.. =»,

a 19

Lay st
on ee

ee cahdads SeaeeoneAT

“Burton Abbott glances at the cedar blocks police removed from his patio.
Above, right, the posse spreads out at spot where Stephie's book was found

Mrs. Bryan answered the officers’
questions with an icy restraint to mask
her fears. She declared that while her
daughter was not an introvert, she was
shy and quiet. “She wouldn’t volun-
tarily have entered a car with any
stranger,” the mother said. “And I am
positive if she was able, she would call
home to let us know the trouble.”

Laird said: “I know most families do
not like publicity. However, in a case

‘of this kind, I would suggest giving the

story and a picture to the newspapers.”

As the parents hesitated, Laird
urged: “You now have all the eyes of
the police in the Bay area looking for
your daughter. But: a story in the
newspapers will have everyone alerted.
We may find someone who will recall
seeing her.”

“Whatever you think is best, Cap-
tain,” Doctor Bryan said. “All we want
is to find Stephanie. We will do every-
thing possible to cooperate.”

Stephie's purse from the box
and books from the basement

See
-


This shovel, found at Dead Man's

Cabin, left marks at grave, police say

As soon as it was daylight, a second
ntensified search was made by a score
f officers of the route the junior-high-
chool girl would have taken to reach
er home after leaving the Tennis Club.

School officials and friends of Steph-
nie were questioned. The detectives
btained the same story concerning the
hy, quiet, studious girl as they had re-
‘eived from her parents.

School friends told them Stephanie
iad no boy friends and was not inter-
‘sted in young men. She was a keen
tudent and had received a gold “W”
—_ pin for scholarship and citizen-

Pp. j

Y LATE afternoon, Chief Holstrom
called a meeting of the detectives
vorking on the case. “What can be
lone that we haven’t done?” he asked.
Laird suggested: “There’s a lot of
erritory on the hill between the hotel

ind where the girl lives. .There are a -

ot of paths that go off into the woods.
: think the sooner we get a posse and
‘over it, the better.” y

“You’re convinced something has
lappened to her, aren’t you?”

Laird hesitated a moment. “Yes, I
vm,” he said flatly. “The girl was
lappy at home. She had no boy friends.
Chere’s no reason why she would leave
‘oluntarily.”

Chief Holstrom looked at the other
letectives. Each agreed with Laird. ‘

“That means we'll have to attack
his with full-scale measyres,” Chief
Iolstrom said. “Laird, you will be in
charge of the day investigation. Ford-
ng, you take the night shift. We'll call
ip the reserves and ask for volunteers
o get a search of the hill started‘ as
oon as possible.”

“I doubt if we can accomplish much
oday,” Laird said. ee

0 ;

“No,” Holstrom agreed. “And there’s
no use doing it by halves. Lay out a
plan tonight for a thorough search, so
we can cover every -bit of it. And we'll
want a house-to-house canvass made.
We'll try to get started the first thing
in the morning.” ‘

At eight o’clock in the evening, Doc-
tor Bryan called Lyman. His voice was
choked with emotion. “I just received
a,telephone call. A man says he knows
where Stephanie is. He told me to
meet him in Oakland with five thousand

dollars.”

“How.soon?”

“I told him it would take me an hour
to get the money. I’m to meet him at
Eighth and Brush Streets in Oakland
at ten o’clock. He told me to bring my

_ wife with me.” -

Lyman’s mind roared into action to
formulate a plan. “Have you got the
money?”

“Not yet. But I think—”
~ “Don’t worry about it. Stay right
where you are. Where is your car?”

, “In the garage.”

“Leave it there. I'll be right out.”

“But the kidnaper may see you.”

“We'll have to take that chance. If
the house is being watched, the kid-
naper will also have to take the chance
that we are friends of yours bringing
the money. Just sit tight and I'll be
there shortly.” ,

Lyman called Captain Fording. “Get
squads ready for the contact point,” he
directed. “I’m taking a walkie-talkie
and Policewoman Marian Clark out to
the house with me. She'll take the place
of Doctor Bryan’s wife and be armed

if we run into a jam.

‘T’ll hide in the back of the car and
keep you posted over the walkie-

: talkie.” $ : ot

Fording © quickly organized three

Bud Jackson, ihe: with his two dogs, Shorty and Spot,
found one body and went off in search of another

squads of men and put them into
unmarked police cars with private li-
cense plates. They would cruise the
contact point and be in touch with Ly-
man over the walkie-talkie and police
radio, :

Fording called Chief of Police
Wyman Vernon in Oakland and gave
him the details. :

+6 E’LL-assist with our flying shot-.

gun squads,” Vernon offered.
“We won’t be able to pick up your
walkie-talkie but you can re-broadcast
it and we'll pick it up on the radio.”

The “flying shotgun squads” in Oak-“
land were an innovation by Chief
Vernon to combat a wave of holdups.
The detectives were in unmarked cars
and specially trained to move in quick-
ly on a crime scene. ‘ :

At the Bryan home, Lyman and Po-
licewoman Marian Clark made no at-
tempt to conceal their movements as
they entered the house. It was Lyman’s
thought to make it appear as if they
were friends calling on the family. 5

Inside, Lyman told Doctor Bryan:
“The only risk we'll be taking is when
I go from here out to the garage. I
think our best bet will be to create a
diversion movement. Z

“When I am ready, you go out on
the front porch and turn on the light.
Take Mrs. Bryan with you and pretend
to be talking and concerned about
something. If anyone is- watching,
their eyes will be on you. While this is
going on, I’ll sneak across the yard to
the garage.

“After I’m inside, you come out with
Miss Clark. You can bring the walkie-
talkie. It, will look like a bag with the
ransom. I'll keep hidden on the floor
in back of the car and you drive to the
contact point.” %

“What happens after we get there?”
Doctor Bryan questioned. ‘

“We'll have to be governed by what
develops.” .

“Might it not be better just to pay the;
ransom? Five thousand dollars for
Stephanie is no—” i

“We won't do anything to endanger
your daughter’s life,” Lyman promised.
“But I think you can appreciate once
the ransom is paid, you have no
guarantee for the safe return of your
daughter. On the other hand, if we

-tion about my daughter.”

- out from under'the handbag. She kept

can grab the kidnaper, we'll have a —
strong bargaining point even if more
than one person is involved.”

“You're right,” Doctor Bryan said.

’“Whenever you are ready.”

Lyman. looked at his watch and
figured out. the driving time from
Berkeley to Oakland. The city limits of -
the two towns are adjoining. “In about -
ten minutes,” he said. ~ ‘

As they neared the contact point,
Lyman talked with Fording over the. ”
walkie-talkie. Fording said: “We're ~
keeping all the cars well back from the
area until you get. there. We don’t .
want to create any suspicion by having
too much traffic in the area.” 4

“Have you spotted the contact yet?”
Lyman asked. i ; }

“We've put two cars through. Both
report seeing a young fellow loitering
in the area. It might be him. Notify |
us the moment you stop and we'll start
sending the cars in.” :

Doctor Bryan pulled up to the curb
on Brush Street and parked. Sitting
beside him with the car window rolled
down was Policewoman Clark. On her
lap was a handbag and a police pistol —
was in her hand under the purse.

Lyman was tensed on the floor in »
back with his gun in readiness.

A youth came up to the car. “Doctor
Bryan?” % : :
“Yes,” Doctor Bryan said. “You
called and said you had some informa-

“How about the money?”
Policewoman Clark slipped the gun *

it low enough so that it couldn’t be seen 4
from outside but was visible to the youth *
leaning in the car window.

&¢rFy ON’T move or Ill blow a hole in .
you,” she said evenly. ;
Lyman’s voice came from in back. *
“I’ve got you covered, too. Don’t move
a muscle, or you're dead.” F
The youth stood frozen. : 3
“Is anyone with you?” Lyman asked. q
“No.” :
“You're sure? If you make a mistake, j
it will go hard with you. You're in this ©
alone?” 4
“Yes.” The youth for a moment-_
—— as if he might try to dash away |

;

a

panic,
“Don’t you, try it,” Lyman warned.


Because of a similarity of movements made by this

mg Ti

ey

man and Stephie, he willingly submitted to lie tests

Those are all police cars passing out
here. They’ve got sawed-off shot-
uns, They’ll cut you in two before you
ould take ten steps.” :

The youth wilted against the side of
he car door.

“I’m giving~you one more chance,”
a said. “Is anyone out there with
ou?”

“No,”

5 pers Keep your hands in front
of you and lay them on the
ender of the car.

“And remember, if you make a false
nove, I’m shooting to kill.”

The youth complied.

He was whisked to Headquarters in
Serkeley where he gave Chief Holstrom
iis name as Arthur Lines, his age as
ighteen and his home address in Oak-
and. *

He told a seemingly fantastic story.
fe had been in a bar when a man came
n and gave him the telephone number
0 call and told him what to say. He

x

claimed he had never met the man be-
fore.
“Where were you going to meet him

’ after you got the money?”

“He said he would find me.”

No amount of questioning could
shake Lines’ story. He knew nothing
about Stephanie and hadn’t even read
in the newspapers that she was missing.

Officers went to the bar where Lines
claimed he had met the man but found
no one who could recall seeing a man
who answered the description that
Lines. gave them.

, An all-night session with Lines con-

‘vinced the officers that the youth did

not have any idea of the whereabouts
of Stephanie.

But a lie-detector test gave proof
that he was telling the truth about the
stranger who had approached him with
the proposition to make the telephone
call and collect the ransom money.

Who was the stranger? Did he have
Stephanie?

Or, as in so many kidnaping and dis-

The officers climbed up the steep hillside, from the
tiny cabin, circle, until they found Stephie, arrow

e

appearance cases, was this another
heartless trickster trying to cash in on
the grief of the parents who were will-
ing to pay any price for information?

“It must have been somebody who
knew Lines would go for a deal like
that,” Fording reasoned.

“Somebody who knew him, but he did
not know,’ Chief Holstrom said. “I
think without a doubt the boy is telling
the truth that he doesn’t know who it
was.” :

“That’s possible,” Fording admitted.
“But the big question is, does this
second man really have Stephanie? Is

, he the kidnaper or a hoaxer?”

“T’m inclined to think he’s a hoaxer,
for two reasons,’’ Holstrom said. ‘First,
five thousand isn’t enough money if the
guy planned and executed the snatch.
Second, I think he’d have worked out a
better contact than Lines if he planned

the job. It seems to me like a spur-of-
the-moment deal, possibly after he had
read the account in the newspaper.”

“But we've got to get him to be sure.”

“And we will,” Holstrom said deter-
minedly. “In my book, he’s as low, if not
lower, than the snatcher. It’s going to
be tough catching up with him, but
Chief Vernon is giving us what men we
need in Oakland. They’ll follow every
step Lines has taken_for the last half
year if necessary.” t

“What about here?” Laird asked.

“We'll carry on. You've got the
ee organized for tomorrow morn-

ng?”

“It’s all ready to go. I’ve called in all
the reserves and notified every man who
will be off duty. I’m stripping the
morning shift to a skeleton to use all
the men and cars we can spare.”

Laird laid out a map showing in de-

k eee |


ther of “tipping the police”.

Had he been the kidnaper?

Had it been Stephanie's fingers the
rvice-station operator saw protrud-
z from the trunk of the car in Keyes?
What. was the answer?

After two months of investigation,
e Berkeley police announced that
ore ‘than 1500 persons had been
estioned concerning clues and leads
the case. :
An additional 800 persons had been
vestigated for actual involvement in
e case

With ‘the aid of other authorities,
ore than 600 gray Chevrolets and
ntiacs of the years 1950 and 1951
re examined and their owners ques-
ned and the tracing of cars was still
atinuing.

Bulletins on the case had been sent.
over 3500 law-enforcement agen-
‘Ss.

ND in addition to the volunteer time
‘ donated by thousands of persons,
2 small staff of the Berkeley police
d piled up over 3000 hours in over-
ae work.

But aside from finding Stephanie’s
ench book, which revealed no clues

der the microscope, and the uncon- ||

med reports that Stephanié had been
mm struggling in a car with a man,
e police had no clue to how she had
‘appeared, what had happened to her
where she might be.

The Oakland Tribune remained true
its pledge and in every issue printed
copy of the circular containing the
scription and the photograph of
aphanie.

Public interest in the case began to

ne. .
Only an occasional crackpot letter
s received. On July 5, a postcard
s sent from South San Francisco
th the demand:
ild back send me $2000. I'll send you
etter when to send and where.” But
follow-up was sent.

On July 16, the Berkeley police re-
ved a postcard also sent from South
n Francisco. It. stated simply:
— I settle my a-count to-
Every effort was made to trace the
xssage to see if it could be in some
y connected with the case.

- “y the Stéphanie Bryan case be
v ;
Or would time erase every clue?
The wind and the rain and the sun

ld pack solid the covering of a>

1ely grave in some mountain canyon.
‘ass would grow again on the dis-
cbed earth and leave no trace to show
at it had been opened to conceal a
sly secret.

And the kidnaper of the schoolgirl
ist have been a stranger. Three
mths of questioning everyone who
d ever known her made the police
sitive of this fact.

Memories would grow dim, significant
sts be forgotten. Only in the aching
id of the hearts of her parents and
c brothers and sisters would a
smory of the pleasant little school-
1 remain.

‘How much of this stuff on the

»phanie case shall I keep?” O'Meara |

ced Chief Holstrom. “I’ve got a
ole locker filled with reports.”

‘Every scrap of it,” Holstrom said.
‘But some of it is just reports from
ts | ,and screwballs. If we keep it

There’ 's no ‘if’,”” Holstrom said firm-
“We're going to keep going over and
or that stuff. We may be passing up
‘shout knowing something that could
»duce a real lead.”

‘You’re still confident we’re going to
ne up with an answer, aren’t you?”
Meara asked.

‘I wouldn't say that. All I know is
‘re never going. to stop trying. One
these days, somehow, there’s going
be a break. When it comes, we're
ng to be ready.”

tarly in the investigation, when he
d broadcast an appeal for help from
yone who had any inkling of knowl-

But no one could have foreseen the
fantastic development that occurred on
Friday evening of July 15, 1955.

Burton W. “Bud” Abbott, a 27-year-
old war veteran and an accounting stu-
dent at the University of California, was
at his rented home at No. 1408 San Jose
Avenue in Alameda with his wife
Georgia and their four-year-old son.
Living with them was Abbott’s mother,
Mrs. Elsie Abbott.

Bud had cooked the dinner, for his
wife worked in a beauty salon in

“I know,” Dezman said. “I’m going to
go down and hear you, Georgia, What
are you going to do?”

“I’ve worked up a number of the good
old flapper days back in ’twenty-nine. I
think I have some old cloche hats in the
basement and if I shorten one of my
skirts and let down the waist line—
where is that box of old clothes, Bud?”

“Over in the far side where the
shelves are. Want me to get it for you?”

“No. I’ll find it. You boys just relax
and take it easy.”

Alameda. They had a guest, Otto

A short time later, Mrs. Abbott came

~ chusetts One Six Nine. .

“If you want your

Up to the Minute

FOR seven years the electric chair in Wethersfield State Prison,
Wethersfield, Connecticut, was quiet and unused while no one in
the little New England state was executed. . :

During the Summer, however, the chair's idleness came to an
abrupt end. Within a period of four days, three men were put to
death, all of them for murder.

First to go was. William J. Lorain, one of two found guilty of
the 1952 hitch-hike’‘slaying of George Zgierski of Hartford. His
partner in crime, John Petetabella, is serving a life sentence. The
story of the discovery of Zgierski’s body and the detective work
done to identify and capture the killers appeared in the December,
1952, issue of OFFICIAL DETECTIVE STORIES Magazine, under
the title, “This Wrist Watch for Ten Gallons and Freedom”.

John B. Donahue, 22, was next, electrocuted for killing Con-
necticut State Trooper Ernest Morse February 13, 1953, when
Morse stopped him in.a stolen car on the Merritt Parkway. “ ‘Massa-
.", the detective story behind this case,
was published in the May, 1953, OFFICIAL DETECTIVE STORIES. .

Last of Connecticut's ill-fated three was Robert Malm, sex

.killer of eleven-year-old Irene Fiederowicz on December 9, 1953.

“ ‘He Never Did Kill Before’ ”, in the March, 1954, issue of OFFICIAL
DETECTIVE STORIES Magazine, told of the intensive detective
work that brought about Malm’s arrest.

In California and Florida, meanwhile, other murders brought
life sentences rather than death. -Julio Grasso and his stepmother,
Mary, were given life imprisonment for their part in the instal-
ment-plan killing of Julio's father and Mary’s husband, Joseph
Grasso, in the Grasso tavern near. Redwood City, January 12, 1955.
Patricia Perry, waitress in the tavern, received a shorter sentence

‘for second-degree murder for complicity in the killing.

This case, “But Joe’s Mirror Didn't Tell—”, was published in
the May, 1955, OFFICIAL DETECTIVE STORIES. :
Thomas McDonald, who killed Bert Bishop in Bishop’s Miami
Beach, Florida, apartment January 5, 1955, also received the benefit
of a recommendation of mercy by a jury and went to prison for life.
The April, 1955, OFFICIAL DETECTIVE STORIES Magazine

‘published the detective story here entitled ‘“‘Who’s the Killer in ™

on one

122”

Another Californian, Daniel Nahmens, who killed the woman
he planned to marry, Melvina Chisman, during a quarrel, was
sentenced to one year for manslaughter.
Evidence Enough?’”, in the July, 1955, OFFICIAL DETECTIVE
STORIES, gave the detective work behind this case.

Since the detective work done on all these cases actually. was
completed long before final sentences were meted out, the stories
were published while they were still current, pending final word on
such sentences. To keep readers up to date when this occurs, this
department is published regularly on these pages.—The Editor. —

“*Are Three Inches of

“@

po a 44-year-old retired Navy
ef.

Dezman’s wife owned the beauty shop
where Mrs. Abbott worked. Mrs.
Dezman was at a cosmetologists’ con-
vention in Louisville, Kentucky.

“I'm cooking steaks out on the patio
I’ve just built,” Abbott invited his friend
of five years. Abbott had built the patio
out of rejected cedar blocks from a
pencil manufacturer as an anniversary

present for his wife. “(Come over and —

see how I make out as a chef.”

Dezman accepted. All agreed the
dinner had been excellent. Later in the
evening, about eight o'clock, Mrs.
Abbott excused herself from the group
conversation saying: “I’m going to
rummage around in the basement and
find something to make a costume. The

‘cosmetologists are putting on a show

here next week. : I’m doing an act.”

Lae te: up the stairs calling: “Bud, Bud,
ud—”

“What is it?” Abbott asked in alarm,
noting that his wife’s face had drained
white and she was highly nervous.

“Bud, what is the name of that girl
they have been looking for? The one
that is in the newspapers all the time?”

“Gee, I don’t know. Why?”

“Wasn't it Stephanie Bryan?”

EZMAN said: “That's it. I've been
reading about the case.”
“Look at this!”

Mrs. Abbott held out a oie red.
purse. Inside was a smaller red wallet-
type purse that held a number of
identification cards all bearing the
name of Stephanie Bryan.

“Where did you find - it?” Abbott

asked.
“In that old box of clothes.”

How jong has she been missing?”

Dezman said: “About three months,
I believe. Look, you shouldn't touch any
of that stuff. If it does belong to the
girl, the police will want to examine it.”

“The police?” Mrs. Abbott cried. “Do
you think we should call them?”

. “Of course we should,” Abbott said.
“T’ll look up the number.”

Mrs. Abbott notified the Berkeley
police.

The officers raced out to the house.

The identification cards and the
small purse definitely belonged to
Stephanie Bryan. But there had never
been any mention of the larger red
purse.

As soon as O’Meara arrived on the
scene, he telephoned the Bryan home.
It was then he learned that the large,
red purse belonged to Mrs. Bryan.
Stephanie must have taken it with her
to school and Mrs. Bryan had not
known that it was missing.

How did the purse get in the base-.

ment of the Abbott home?.

“We've lived here for more than a
year,” Abbott told the officers. “I
haven’t any idea how the girl’s purse
could get into our basement. We don't
know the girl nor her family. And to
my knowledge, we don’t know anyone
who knows them.”

While the officers questioned the
Abbotts and Dezman, Holstrom called
in Doctor Paul Kirk, noted criminolo-
gist at-the University of California, to
examine the purse and help conduct a
further search of the basement.

Doctor Kirk has conducted more
than 500 criminal investigations and
recently was employed on the notorious
oa Sheppard case in Cleveland,

0.

The basement of the house was
connected to a garage. Half of the
basement was cemented and the other
half left unfinished with a dirt floor.

“How could the girl’s purse ever get
into the box of old clothes?” the officers
asked repeatedly of the Abbotts.

“I don’t know,” Abbott repeated. “The
garage door is never locked. Someone
might have come in from the outside.”

“How about the election?” Mrs.
Abbott asked.

She explained that the garage had
been used as a polling place at the May
24 city election. More than 500 persons
had voted there.

OULD one of them have discarded

the purse?

But why put it in a place where it
would surely be found sooner or later?

“Canvass the neighborhood,” Hol-
strom ordered his detectives. “And we’ll
get a list of all the people who voted
here. We'll investigate all of them, too.
And we'll get a list. of every friend of
the Abbotts who ever visited their
house.” :

Abbott was questioned about his car.
Did he own a 1950 or 1951 gray Chevro-
let or Pontiac?

“No, but I did own a ’forty-nine gray
Chevrolet,” Abbott replied.

“How long ago?”

’ “T sold. it about a month ago.” He
gave the officers the name of a city fire-
man to whom he had sold the vehicle.

“Locate it and have it impounded,”
Holstrom told his men. “We'll give it a
complete laboratory check.”

As the questioning went on, the frail, .

scholarly-looking Abbott told the offi-
cers: “I know this looks bad for me,
finding the girl’s purse in the basement
of my house. But all I can tell you is I
don’t know how it got there and I’ve got
nothing to hide. I'll do everything
possible to help.”

“Would you take a lie-detector test?”
O”Meara challenged. -

“Willingly,” Abbott answered. “I have
nothing on my conscience.”

“How about tomorrow afternoon?”

“Any time you say.”

“Can we search your house?”

,“As much as you like.”

“What about digging into the base-
ment where it isn’t cemented?”

“I think you had getter get permis- °
_ Sion from the owner if you're going to

45

«

a’

hapalinceavermasmisee

jisturb anything. But as far as I'm
soncerned, you have my permission to
4o anything you like.”

In making an announcement that
the missing girl’s purse had been found;
Chief Holstrom declared that he hoped
the long-awaited break finally had
arrived for the police that might lead
to a solution to the mystery.

“J also want to say that Mr. and Mrs.
Abbott are cooperating completely with
the authorities,” Chief Holstrom said.
“although the girl’s purse was located
in their basement, nothing indicates
that they are in any way connected with
the disappearance of Stephanie.”

SATURDAY. Abbott voluntarily pre-
sented himself at the Berkeley
Police Headquarters for a lie-detector
test by the noted polygraph expert, In-
spector A. E. Riedel.

He submitted to a three-hour session.

At the conclusion, Riedel announced: :

“we have nothing conclusive from the
tests. Mr. Abbott’s physical condition
makes it very difficult to come to any
conclusions because his respiratory and
heart action is irregular.” i

Abbott had undergone surgery for
tuberculosis five years previously in
which his left lung was collapsed and
seven of his ribs removed.

Chief Holstrom announced: “Abbott
is under no compulsion to take the tests
and it is his privilege to walk out at
any time or refuse further tests. How-
ever, he has stated that he willingly
will submit to further tests if we should
want them.”

Abbott made a statement concerning
his activities on the day Stephanie
disappeared. He claimed he had gone to
a Summer: cabin, owned by his wife’s
brother, near the Trinity Alps in the
northern part of the state.

As close as he could remember, he
gave times, names and places for the
police to investigate.

His statement placed him on the road
near Pinole where Stephanie’s French
textbook had been found. °

Commenting on- this, O’Meara said:
“The man has given us answers for
everything we have asked him. He
hasn’t tried to conceal anything. His
actions do not seem to be those of any-
one trying to conceal a crime.”

Finding Stephanie’s purse brought
the investigation to a new feverish pitch
with the FBI, Contra Costa County
authorities and the Alameda police
joining with the Berkeley force.

One of the hottest leads was provided

by Abbott when he told the investiga-.

tors that a young man by the name of
Fred DeWarte, whom he had known in
the service, had visited them for a short
time around the period Stephanie had
disappeared. :

DeWarte would have had access to
the basement.

Abbott did not know where DeWarte
could be located but the last heard from
him, he was in Los Angeles. The south-
ern city police were alerted to look for
DeWarte.

Doctor Kirk examined the car that
had been owned by Abbott. He declared
that he was unable to find any trace of
bloodstains in the car or any other

evidence that might connect it with the _

disappearance of Stephanie. ‘
Sunday night a new, and by far the

hottest, development came in the case.

Detectives searching the basement of

- gether again?”

the Abbott home sifted through the dirt
floor of the uncemented side and located
the remaining books Stephanie had

been carrying when she disappeared.
They also found a nylon undergarment
and a pair of glasses.

The articles were buried under eight
inches of dirt. The books were posi-
tively identified at the library as the
ones the girl had checked out. The
book on parakeets was the one she had

_ pought only minutes before she dropped

from sight.

The glasses were identified by an op-
tometrist as those belonging to
Stephanie. And Mrs. Bryan was able
to identify the undergarment through
a sales slip from the store where she had
purchased it for her daughter.

Once more, Abbott was questioned.

“I know this looks bad for me,” the
emaciated student declared. “All I can
say is I am as confused as anyone else
how those things could have gotten into
the basement. I never saw the girl and
I swear I never harmed her.” -

“will you take another lie-detector
test?” :

“yes. I know I don’t have to, put I
want to do everything possible to get
this thing cleared up. If that will help,
Y’ll willingly take it.” .

The new test was scheduled for Mon-

day.

‘And while Riedel prepared to submit
a new series of questions to Abbott, the
police obtained permission from the
owner of the house to dig into the patio
that Abbott had built for his wife.

Block by block, the cedar squares
were removed. Then with shovels, sift-
ing every bit of dirt, the officers began
to dig in the yard.

In the street, hundreds of curious
people gathered to stare at the Abbott
home, with the bolder daring to peer
over the fence where the officers were at
the task of digging. Grim-faced, they
waited, wondering when a grisly find
possibly would be made.

At the conclusion of the new test,
Inspector Riedel could tell the officers
only that there had been a slight re-
action from Abbott at the mention of
the Tank Farm, which was near the
spot where Stephanie’s French book had
been found beside the road.

“Can you get your searching crew to-
Holstrom asked Laird.

“7}] start calling them right away.”

The search was made all day Tues-
day, July 19. Hundreds of men tramped
miles in the vicinity, investigating every
suspicious-looking clump that might be
the concealed grave of the missing girl.

‘Wednesday, Abbott voluntarily sub-
mitted to his third lie-detector test. He
went over in detail every movement he

‘had made on the day Stephanie disap-

peared.
“Last April twenty-eighth was Spring

_ vacation at the University so I decided

to go up to our family cabin in Trinity
County. I left my home in Alameda
driving my old Chevrolet sedan at about
eleven in the morning.

“J drove across the Carquinez Bridge
and up Highway Forty to Sacramento,
thinking to stop at the ‘State Land
Office there to find out something about
our cabin property for my brother,
Mark. ;

“It was about two in the afternoon
and I could not find the office so I drove
back té the Davis junction and turned
north on Highway Ninety-Nine West.

“I stopped near Dunnigan to
lunch at Bill and Cathie’s Place, a road-
side restaurant next toa service station.
I was there about half an hour and
then drove to Corning, where I stopped.
for gas at a Shell station and went to
the rest room. Pr

ic * HEN I drove on and stopped at
about a quarter to six at a place
south of Red Bluff and ate dinner at a
roadside restaurant.

“Later I continued to drive and near
the Beegum junction I turned into the
dirt road leading to the cabin. A sign
there said the bridge was out but
indicated that it would be-in use after
working hours, so Jb continued on,
crossed the bridge on planks. A flagman
was there watching it.

“7 went through Beegum and Platina
and stopped at a tavern in Wildwood. I
stayed there twenty minutes talking to
a man at the bar named Cox. Then, I
went on to our cabin which is situated
on the right of the road. I stayed
overnight. ,

“The next day I went in to Wildwood
where I called my brother Mark and he
said he was coming up to the cabin. He
and his wife came up that evening. The
next day, we drove back to town.”

It was a simple, well authenticated
story that could be verified. .

“Investigate it,” Holstrom told his
men. “Especially the time. If he was up
there, at the time he says he was up
there, he couldn’t have been within a
hundred miles of Berkeley at the time
Stephanie disappeared.”

The Los Angeles police reported that
they had picked up the trail of DeWarte
but had not yet located him.

Trinity County Undersheriff Leonard
Adams was called in on the case.

“T know the cabin well,” Adams said.
“Up here, it’s known as the Dead Man’s
Cabin. We had a killing in it back in
"forty-eight. Took us five weeks to find
the body. A cattle rancher up here,
Deputy Harold—Bud—Jackson, had
hounds that located it for us.”

“Do you think you can get the fellow
with the dogs to look around there
again?” Holstrom asked.

“T]] see what I can do,” Adams
promised. “But I can tell you this. These
Trinity Alps are rugged country. You
could get half the people in California
searching in these hills and. not find
what you’re looking for. I know, we’ve
tried searching parties before.”

Meanwhile, Abbott gave a statement
to the press saying that he had cooper-
ated completely with the police in
every possible way and had planned
to return to school the following day so
that he could catch up in his class work.

“But I’m going to take the day off and
rest,” Abbott said. “I’m going to a movie
and see if Ican’t relax. This has all been
a terrible strain.”

Abbott and his brother Mark went to
the same theater where Doctor Bryan
had waited for the contact mentioned
in the extortion letter he received.
Newspaper reporters who followed

them reported that Abbott. seemed.

completely relaxed as he laughed at the
jokes in the movie.

And while Abbott was at the theater,
Deputy Jackson appeared at the cabin
at 5:30 with Shorty and Spot, his two
dogs. He had just finished work driving
4 = on the Wildwood-Hayfork

oad. ‘

to have ©

“Let’s go, Shorty,” Jackson told the
seven-year-old hound he ‘had trained |
for bear and mountain-lion hunting.

The dogs showed little interest
around the cabin. Suddenly, they
sniffed the air and bounded off toward
the Hayfork Creek Canyon. Jackson
went racing after them.

The dogs bounded up a steep incline
covered with manzanita brush. Jack-
son clawed his way up the bank after
them.

“Hey, you guys!”
came booming down.
Shorty found it!” f

Red earth covered the grave beneath
a clump of bushes near & 100-foot
yellow pine tree. A portion of the right

Jackson’s voice
“Here it is!

foot: of the victim and a bit of a tur-
‘‘quoise-blue skirt were exposed from

the shallow grave.

When unearthed by the officers, the’
clothing left no doubt that they had
found the body of Stephanie Bryan. A
dentist made a positive identification
through dental work on her teeth.

A few hours later, Abbott was placed
under arrest at his home, charged with
suspicion of murder.

Booked first at the Alameda Police
Station and then transferred to the
Bérkeley ‘Headquarters, Abbott de-
clared: “I haven’t the slightest idea how
the girl got there. I didn’t do it—I
didn’t do it.” ;

With Abbott in custody, the authori-
ties continued the investigation of the
case, claiming they had located a
doughnut shop near the Claremont
Hotel where Abbott had been a regular
customer while attending classes at the
University. They said it was possible
he might have seen Stephanie when
she passed there. They were of the
opinion the motive was obvious. ‘

Abbott, however, continued to claim
his innocence and to deny ever seeing
Stephanie or knowing how it was pos-
sible that her belongings came to be in
the basement of his home and her body
near the cabin he admitted visiting on
the day she disappeared.

On Friday, July 22, Alameda County
District Attorney J. Frank Coakley
filed a formal charge of first-degree
murder against Abbott and a brief pre-
liminary hearing. was held before
Municipal Judge Louis J. Hardie.

In a statement to the press, Coakley
announced: “We have ample evidence
that Abbott killed Stephanie Bryan.
I know she was killed by a blow to the
back of her head by a heavy instrument,
and I’m satisfied Abbott is the man
who killed her.”

Police have announced the indict-
ment of a man on a charge of extortion
in connection with the many notes re-
ceived by Doctor Bryan and are con-
tinuing to search for any others.

On July 30, 1955, Abbott was indicted
for both murder and kidnaping in-
volving bodily harm, which in Cali-
fornia is punishable with death.

. The original charge against him was
dropped on August 5 and the new
charges resulting from the grand jury
indictments were substituted in a tech-

nical move.

For the final disposition of the
charges against Abbott, read “Up to
the Minute” in future issues of OFFI-

CIAL DETECTIVE STORIES

The names of Arthur Lines and Fred
DeWarte gre fictitious.

7

"Hey, Rube—lIt's Murder’: (Continued from Page 29) OFFICIA, CETECTIVE. STORIES |

By late Sunday afternoon, word that which he had snatched while he sat in Prince George. ‘South, it travels 65 pulled out it took with it all of our

Donna was missing had spread and his chair. miles with only an occasional cattle chances of learning what happened to
-yolunteers came in to help with the “anything on the girl yet?” Wood ranch before Williams Lake, and then _ the girl.”
search. Pooler sent them out in a asked. another 200 miles to Kamloops. “You seem pretty certain somebody

“She isn’t the kind of a kid to run
away from home,” Pooler said. “She’s
only twelve and kind of shy. And she

widening circle from the circus grounds,
The search lasted until dark, without
a sign of the girl.

“Not a thing.”
“What do you think?”
“She's dead.”

connected with the circus is responsi-
ble for the girl being missing.”
“Not missing—dead,” Pooler declared

Monday, Wood and Miller arrived “Could she have run away?” didn’t have a boy friend.” flatly. ‘
from Kamloops. \ “To where?” “what carr we do?” “We have to prove that- by~ finding”
Wearily, Constable Pooler greeted Only one highway runs through this Pooler frowned. “I think it was a the body.”

“you know this country,” Pooler in-
terrupted. “What chance do you think
we have of finding a body?”

them at his office. Since Friday evening
he had not taken off his clothes. His
only sleep had been a few hours

46

part of northern British Columbia.
Heading north, it stretches 78 miles
through completely isolated country to

mistake letting the circus leave.”
“But you couldn’t hold it legally.”
“J know that. Just the same, when it


‘
tail how he intended to conduct the
bush-to-bush and house-to-house
search of the Berkeley hills.. The men
would start at Domingo Street and
Ashby. Avenue and spread out fan-
shaped up the sparsely inhabited can-
yons toward Panoramic Way at the top
of the hill. : .

At daybreak they were underway.
Laird gave the men special instructions
to look for the missing girl’s books. “She
was carrying a French school book, two
library books and a book on parakeets,”
he said. “She also had a small red
purse. If she got into a struggle with
anyone, she most probably would hav
dropped them.”

At about noon, Chief Holstrom re-
ceived a telephone call from Allan E,
Hill, a student at the University of
California. He reported that he and
his wife, Jacquelyn, had been driving
toward Orinda, south. of Oakland, the
previous afternoon and saw. a man

struggling with a girl in a car on the.

Tunnel Road, a short distance before
the tunnel went through the mountain
to connect with the Walnut Creek
Highway.

“The car was pulled off the shoulder
of the road,” Hill said. “I saw the door
on the passenger's side start to open
and a girl try to get out. The driver
pulled her back into the car.

“At the time, my wife and I thought
it was probably some kind of a family
squabble, so we didn’t stop to get
involved. However, when I read the
paper this morning about the girl—I
* thought I'd better call.”

“Could you recognize the girl you
saw as the one whose picture was in the
paper?”

“No. I didn’t get a good look at her.
I don’t know if there is even any con-
nection, but I thought I should call.”

“You did exactly right,” Holstrom ‘

told him. “How about the car?”

“It was either a Chevrolet or Pontiac,
about a ‘fifty or ‘fifty-one model with
a torpedo back. It was light gray in
color. I didn’t notice the license.”

“What time was this?”

#¢ A CLOSE as I can figure, it must
have been about a quarter to
five.”

If Stephanie had been kidnaped at
four-thirty, it was possible the driver
could have reached the Tunnel Road in
fifteen minutes.

Holstrom called in Fording, who
despite the fact he was going to take
the. night shift, was working straight
through.

“Better get out there and investigate
it," Holstrom told him.

But before Fording had left, another
call came in. This one was from the
Contra Costa County sheriff’s sub-
station at Walnut Creek.

“We've got your missing-persons
bulletin on that girl,” the officer
reported. “We may have something
here that ties in with it.”

The sheriff's officer said that a Mrs.
Emma Lee Van Meter of Livorna Road
in Walnut Creek had called in shortly
after five o’clock the previous evening
to report that she had seen a girl
struggling with a man in a car on the
Tunnel Road at exactly the same spot
reported by Hill. .

“This woman says she heard the girl
Screaming and she drove into a service
station in Orinda to look for a police-

man but couldn’t find one. She went on .

home and then called us. We sent out a
deputy but he wasn’t able to locate
anything. It may have no connection.”

“We had a similar report from
another party,” Holstrom said. “I’m
sending out Captain Fording to look
into it. Maybe you can have a deputy
there to help him.” ‘

“We'll dispatch a car right away.”

Fording, with Inspector William
Robinson and several deputies, searched
the shoulder of the Tunnel Road for
several miles on either side of where
the reports mentioned seeing the girl in
the car, without finding anything of
value.

A number of other reports of persons
who thought they had seen Stephanie
came in during the day and officers
were sent out to follow-through on
them, but all led to dead ends.

22.

The dawn-to-dusk searching party
conducted by Laird finished a grueling
day without tangible results.

“But we've only started to cover the
area,” Laird: reported to Holstrom. “We
could use ten times as many men.”

“Can you get them?" ° :

“I'm going to try. I’ll get things lined
up for a big search on Sunday
morning.”

.[T WAS an all-night job for Laird but

when he finished he had lined up one

‘of the biggest posses ever assembled in

northern California.

The Berkeley reserve police and
regulars totaled 90 men. The Oakland
Mounted Posse sent 30 riders and. 50

‘foot reserves. The Alameda Naval Air

Station added another 50-man unit.

The Richmond Ramblers Motorcycle
Club turned out their full membership
on bikes. The Alameda County sheriff's
office sent in 20 men on horseback and
100 men on foot,

The National Guard supplied an
additional 200 men. The Explorer
Scouts.of Berkeley, Oakland and San
Francisco supplied 150 young men from
their-posts. United States Immigration

ered a body crammed into an ivy-cov-
ered culvert. Auxiliary Police Officer
Charles Del Sesseaux made the discov-
ery,

But. as soon as the body was removed
by the coroner’s office, the officers knew
this was not the body of Stephanie.

The coroner figured the body had
been in the culvert at least a year and
was a woman in her sixties. She was
wearing a black suit, black coat and
had $1.90, a pair of sunglasses and a
package of anti-seasick pills in her
pockets. Her false teeth were missing
and nothing was found to identify her.

It looked as if the Berkeley police had
a homicide on their hands, as well as a
disappearance case.

However, an autopsy by Doctor
George Loguvam revealed no evidence
of violence on the body. Later, it was
identified as Mrs. Chiye Kirihara of El
Cerrito by her son-in-law, Richard -S.
Vejo, who said Mrs. Kirihara had béen
despondent before she disappeared on
October 15, 1952. peg

The huge searching party came up
with not one single clue as to what had
happened to Stephanie.

“Somebody must have picked her up

“If You Want Your Child

Back Send Me $12,000.

Send You a Letter 'When to
Send and Where'." |
Was This Letter From the
Actual Kidnaper? .Or Was It
A Hoax Like All the Others the

Distraught Parents

ceived?

Service under Chief Riley M. Barlow
volunteered the Santa Rita Border
Patrol jeeps. Five more radio-equipped
jeeps were sent in to coordinate the
search by the Forest Service.

“I figure I'll have close to a thousand
men on the ground and a half-dozen
planes from the Air National Guard,”
Laird reported to Holstrom when he
finally finished lining up the search.
“If there’s a clue in those hills, we’re
going to find it.”

WHILE the search'on Sunday was

underway, four telephone , calls _

were received by the Berkeley police
from persons who had been in the bus

_ Station at San Rafael, across San Fran-

cisco Bay from Berkeley, claiming they

had seen Stephanie waiting in the bus

station the previous day. j
“The girl seemed very nervous and

‘looked as if she was waiting for some-
‘one,” one woman declared.

When questioned by officers, all of the
persons interviewed seemed quite cer-
tain that the girl whom they had seen
was the missing Stephanie. However,
they described her as wearing a black
suit.

Mrs. Bryan declared that Stephanie
did not own a black suit.

None of the bus drivers recalled see-
ing the girl get on any of their vehicles.

“I think it’s a case of mistaken iden- ,

tity,” Holstrom said. “However, we
can’t take any chances. I’m having
every hotel, motel and eating place
around San Rafael canvassed.” '

About noon, the gigantic searching
party being conducted by Laird discov-

Had Re-

on the street,” Laird declared at the
conclusion of the hunt. “If she had
met someone anywhere in those woods,
we'd have picked up a trace. We’d have
found her books or something.”

“It’s beginning to look that way,”
Holstrom said. “We've had two more
calls today from persons who saw a girl
struggling with a man on the Tunnel

“If we could only be sure it was
Stephanie,” Laird said.

“T’ve asked the newspapers and radio

to cooperate by carrying stories with a

request that in case it was somebody
else for them to please get in touch with
us. I’ve promised I won’t reveal their
names or anything about them.”

“And if it was the girl?”

“We are going to work on the theory
that it was Stephanie,” Holstrom de-
clared. “So far, we’ve had the car de-
scribed as a ‘fifty or ‘fifty-one gray
Chevrolet or Pontiac with a sloping
back. The license registration bureau
is going to give us every car of those
two makes and years in the state. We'll
start investigating those registered near
here and keep on ‘working through
them.” ‘

“Man, what a job!” Laird said, whis-
tling through his teeth.

“There's going to be a bigger job than
that,” Holstrom said. “You know what
the country is like around Mount Diablo
on both sides of the tunnel.”

Laird nodded. It was rugged hill -

sso with deep, brush-choked ra-
vines, . °
“How many of your posse do you think

you can get back for another search?” |

“How soon?"

“Next Sunday. In the meantime,
we'll cover the area by air,”

“All of them, And likely a lot more.”

“If we don’t get a break before that,
I want all the area on both sides of the
tunnel covered in an inch-by-inch
search. - Every bush, tree—every place
the ground has been disturbed.” :

“Do you think she is dead?”

“I'm not going to admit it out lo
Holstrom said. “But we may as we
practical.”

“I know,” Laird said. .“I kept telung
myself all day that we were just look-
ing for her school books. Down deep,

_I knew we were looking for a body.”

H OLSTROM ordered 5000 circulars
printed with every detail known
about Stephanie. They would be
mailed out to all law-enforcement
officers in the eleven western states.

The newspapers in the Bay area co-
operated by printing a reproduction of
the circular. The Oakland Tribune
promised it would carry a daily feature
of the circular until the girl was found.

The publicity brought on the usual
number of crank calls and weird offers
of help from spiritualists, divining-rod
mystics, Indian trackers and sundry
soothsayers, until it was necessary to
assign Sergeants Ralph Bischop and
Victor Viera to the full-time job of
answering calls coming in on the
Stephanie Bryan case.

To coordinate all the efforts, Chief
Holstrom appointed Inspector Charles
O'Meara as the “Stephanie expert” to

’ piece all the information obtained into

some semblance of a pattern.

On Monday, May 2, Doctor Norman
B. Beaver of Dallas, Texas, who was
visiting in San Jose, came in with the
offer to help with his two bloodhounds.
Beaver raised the dogs as a hobby and
had been successful in tracking a num-
ber of missing persons in Texas.

The dogs were given the scent of a
dress that had been worn by Stephanie
and -set off on the trail at the point
where she had parted from her school
friend near the tennis courts.

Four times, the dogs picked up the
trail. Each time they could follow it
only as far as the parking lot of the
Claremont Hotel.

“It fits with our theory that she must
have been picked up by someone in a
car,” Laird observed.

Holstrom increased’ the effort of
questioning the employes and guests of
the hotel. “It was broad daylight,” he
said. “Somebody must have seen her.
We've got to find the person.”

Colonel Alfred—Bud—Marks, cc
mander of the Michigan Air Natic
Guard and Stephanie’s uncle, arri
from his home at Grosse Point to ai
the search for Stephanie. In a bor-
rowed observation plane, he led aerial
scouting parties over the San Pablo hills
and helped Laird lay out the plans for
the next gigantic search.

At TEN o'clock Tuesday morning,
Doctor Bryan called Holstrom.
“We have just received a ransom let-
ter,” he said. “The kidnaper of Steph-
anie wants ten thousand dollars.”

“Are you willing to let us help?” Hol-
strom asked.

Doctor Bryan hesitated. “If I can get
Stephanie back by just paying money—”

“I promised you before that we would
do nothing to interfere with the safe
return of your daughter. -I think we
can help in dealing with this person.”

Doctor Bryan agreed to allow: the
Police to see the ransom demand.

The envelope of the extortion letter
was addressed to “Mr.C.S. Bryan” with
the Bryan home address. It had been
postmarked from Oakland at seven
o’clock the previous evening.

The message, half.in script and half,
printed, said:

Bryan: ote
Don't be idiotic. This is not a
hoax. Don’t contact any law en-
forces, if you expect to see your girl
‘in the near future. .
Your instructions are on Tues-
day, May 3, have $8,000 to $10,000,
no less than $8.000 and no more
(Continued on Page 44)


The Fantastic Case of. Stephanie Bryan (Continued from Page 22)

than $10,000 in $5, $10, $20’s—wrap
it in a small box, then wrap the box
in brown paper.

9:30 p. m. go to the T. and D.
Theater. Be in the last row of the
television lounge at 9:45. There
you will be contacted. Give the
box to your contact. He will give
you instruction. Follow the man
and you will reach your child.

Don’t contact anyone. It will
take the package a while to reach
me._ But your child will be okey if .
you follow instruction. If the man
that contact you in the theatre is
followed the instructions won’t do
you any good.

Wear a brown hat. Put pipe in
mouth. Don’t drive your car. I
have my reasons for waiting before
contacting you. Things have been _
carefully planned, so don’t be fool-
ish. oa '
The note was unsigned: ,

“This sounds like the real thing,”
Doctor Bryan said. ‘My only prayer is
that Stephanie hasn’t been harmed.”

Holstrom agreed that the ransom de-
mand sounded genuine.

“What will you do?” Bryan asked.
“Please don’t interfere in any way
that—"_..

“Don’t worry. The contact will be
observed, but neither you nor the person
you will meet will be aware of it.”

“You won’t try to arrest him before
Stephanie is returned?”

“No. All we will do is try to get a

look at him. The note indicates that it ©

must be someone who knows your
family. We'll get his description and
then work on picking him up after your
daughter has been safely returned.”
Holstrom called the FBI office in
San Francisco and invited William
Whelan, agent-in-charge, to join the
investigation. The FBI had no juris-
diction as yet but promised to come

into the case as an observer and lend’

whatever assistance was possible.

Doctor Bryan followed the instruc-
tions.

Detectives were strategically placed
in the theater so they could observe the
contact without being seen.

But the kidnaper failed to appear.

“Why?” Doctor Bryan cried after
waiting hours beyond the contact time.
“Why didn’t he come for the money?”

“He may have been only testing you,”
Holstrom said. “It’s quite common for
kidnapers to make several contacts
before the actual transfer. You may
receive another note or telephone call
shortly.” |

The telephone at the Bryan home
was connected to a wire recorder so
that all calls would be on record. Patrol-
man Philip Mower was assigned to
permanent duty at the house so that
constant communications: could be
2 ag aa between the family and the
police.

TR tense, anxious hours of Wednes-
day passed without further word
from the note writer.

But the Berkeley police were not
putting all of their eggs in one basket.

The search continued for Stephanie,

with particular attention being given
the San Pablo area where the man and
girl had been seen struggling in the
automobile.

All Bay cities cooperated by picking
up for extensive grilling every known
morals offender. More than 100_men
were brought in for questioning.

Shortly after eight o’clock Wednes-
day night, the Berkeley police were
called by Sheriff Dan Kelsey of
Modesto, about 100 miles southeast of
Berkeley. He~ reported he had just
received a call from a service-station
operator at Keyes, a small town eight
miles south of Modesto.

The attendant, Robert E. Small, was
in his station reading a magazine when
a gray Chevrolet sedan pulled up to the
gas pumps.

“I went out to give the guy gas and
walked around behind the car,” Small

said. “I saw three fingers sticking out
from under the trunk lid.

“I was so shocked that I let out a
holler. I shouted at the guy that some-
body was caught in the trunk of the
car, As soon as I shouted at him, he
slammed the car in gear and roared

, out.”

In making his report to the Berkeley
police, Kelsey said: “We've got every
road in the county blockaded. I’ve
notified the Highway Patrol.”

Quickly .sizing up the situation,
O’Meara, who had taken the report,
said: “The fellow must have needed gas
to go into the station. Can you get the
report on your local radio station and
warn every service station in the area
to be on the lookout for a gray Chevro-
let sedan? It checks with the one we've
got on record as being seen with a girl
and a fellow struggling in it right after
Stephanie was kidnaped.”

“Right away,” Kelsey promised. “I’m
turning out every man I've got to patrol
all the back roads, too.”

The Thursday morning mail brought
a second note from the extortionist.
This, too, had been mailed from
Oakland.

No salutation or signature was on it
and it was undated. It stated:

You tipped the Law. Wise up.
They can’t help you. Only I can.
You will get instructions.

Doctor Bryan asked Holstrom: “Do
you think it is possible whoever it was
knew that you had men at the theater?”

“Impossible,” Holstrom declared. “It
follows the pattern of nearly every
extortion case. The delay is to make
you worry and insure delivery of the
money. I doubt if anyone as clever as
the person sending these notes would
actually have the contact made in a
theater where it would be possible that
he could be observed. All we can do
now is wait for the next instructions.”

“T read in the papers about that thing
in Modesto,” Doctor Bryan said.

Trying to give the anguished father
as much comfort as possible, Holstrom
could only say: “We don’t know that it
was Stephanie. All we can do now is
go on working and hoping.”

By Saturday afternoon, May 7, Laird
had his new posse set up for the big

“search on Sunday. Not only did he re-

call all of the men from the previous
search, but also joining the group were
the Oakland Council of Dads’ Clubs
with 175 members, an additional 85 men
of the Scout Fathers. the Civil Defense
units, the National Guard field artillery
and hundreds of volunteers.

“T'll have better than fifteen hundred
men ready to go on Sunday morning,”
Laird reported. “The Red Cross and
the Civil Defense are setting up field

kitchens. We’ll be able to feed all the .

searchers and make it a dawn-to-dusk
operation.”
One. report that made the Mount

Diablo search look promising came’

from Ralph Mutscher’ of Lafayette
Hills. He called in that someone-had
taken down a fence across an old aban-
doned road into his property. The road
led up into the hills where a number of
deep ravines are.

But Saturday evening, Contra Costa
Sheriff Harry Brown called Chief
Holstrom. ‘We may have a lead for
you. I just got a call from the police at
San Pablo.”

Brown reported that a David Tyree
of San Pablo had called the local police
to report that on Monday he and his
family had been driving to Pinole and
he had stopped near the Christie and
Franklin Canyon road junctions near
U.S. No. 40.

“He says he picked up a French text-
book lying alongside the road. He
gave it to his boy who is in high school
at San Pablo. The kid put. it in his
school locker.”

“French textbook,” Holstrom. re-
peated. Stephanie had been carrying
a French book home for study when she
disappeared.

“Yeah. The man didn’t think any-
thing about it until tonight he happened
to be reading the paper and noticed in
the circular they’re carrying that the
girl had a French book.” .”

“Where is he now?”

“I told them to get the school official
and to wait there until you arrived. I
figured you’d want to see it.”

“We'll be there just as fast as we can
make it.”

The French textbook was Steph-
anie’s—no doubt about it. On the fly-
leaf was written her name with the
name of her teacher, Miss Prisk. :

Tyree took the officers out to the place
where he had spotted the book. “‘I’m
sure sorry I didn’t think about this be-
fore,” Tyree said. ‘But until I read the
paper this evening, it just never occurred

to “cy that the book might belong to the
girl.” ei)
Unfortunately, at the time Tyree
Picked up the book it was covered with
&@ paper jacket. It was wet with dew
and Mrs. Tyree had ripped the jacket
from the book and had thrown it out of
the car window.

“We've got to find that jacket in case
it has finger-prints,” Holstrom de-
clared. He immediately impounded
the book so that it could be sent to the
FBI laboratories for a search for finger-
prints and any foreign matter that
might give some clue to the case.

Studying a map, the officers figured
that if Stephanie actually had been seen
struggling with her abductor on the
Tunnel Road, it was possible the kid-
naper could have taken her through the
tunnel on the road toward Walnut
Creek, heading east. He could have
made a left-hand turn at the San Pablo
Creek Road and then headed north.

“It’s too bad we didn’t know about
this as soon as the book was found,”
Holstrom said regretfully. “But that
can’t be helped now. We'll just have
to make up for lost time.”

Holstrom called Laird and instructed
him to shift the operation of his search
party. They were to report to San
Pablo where they could search the roll-
ing hill country in the area where the
French book had been found.

Stephanie had also been carrying two
library books, a book on the care of
parakeets and a couple of notebooks.
Holstrom issued an appeal to all truck
drivers to watch along the sides of the
roads where they traveled in hope that
some of the other books might be
located.

On Sunday morning, Captain Laird
with Sheriff Brown began the gigantic
search of the area.

UNDER Laird’s command, it became a

military-like operation with walkie-
talkies and radio cars directing the
searchers. : ¥

Some men tramped through oat
fields and grazing land while others
investigated every clump of brush along
the deep ravines and creeks. With
long poles, cfficers probed into the deep
pools of the San Pablo Creek, while
overhead observation planes criss-
crossed the area and shouted down di-
rections with megaphones as they
received orders from the walkie-talkie
operation center.

The field kitchens moved in with
canteen supplies of coffee and sand-
wiches as the more than 1500 men con-
tinued the long day of searching.

Hundreds of objects were located
and thoroughly analyzed, but. by dark
when the search was called off, not one
single further‘clue to the whereabouts
or fate of Stephanie had been found.

Smaller groups continued the search.
during the week, working their way
south toward the Mount Diablo territory
and the Lafayette reservoir.

The anxious vigil at the Bryan home
produced no further contact from the
extortionist.

A new phase was brought into the
strange disappearance of the girl with
word from Police Chief Raymond P,
Murphy, of Fall River, Massachusetts.
He reported that four persons there

had declared they had seen Stephanie
in the eastern city.

‘Doctor Bryan and his family had
lived in the eastern city from 1946
through 1952 while he was a. staff

‘radiologist at the Fall River Hospital.

Those who reported seeing Stephanie
were friends who had known her when
she lived there. ; ;

Both the FBI and the Boston police
helped the ‘Fall River authorities in-
vestigate the reports. When they fin-
ished, they announced that in their
opinion the report that Stephanie had
been seen was “inconclusive,. rather
than unfounded.” :

Commenting on the theory that
Stephanie had voluntarily disappeared,
Doctor Bryan said, “It would be a
comfort if the child"had run away, but
I think that to be as impossible as the
moon to fall from the sky.”

Hundreds of letters and telephone
calls were received by the Bryan family
from residents of the Bay area offering
help and sympathy. Among those who
called was the industrialist, Henry J.
Kaiser, who offered, ‘Every facility of
our organization is at your command if
you should find need of them.”

The stoic mother of the girl when
asked if she believed her daughter still
to be alive, answered: “It would be
foolish to give up hope. It would also
be like breaking faith with Stephanie.
We will continue to hope and pray she
will be returned to us alive.”

WEEKS dragged by with flurries of

excitement as new suspects or
leads were uncovered. But each was fol-
lowed out to a dead end.

On Saturday afternoon, May 28, a
good lead was developed by authorities
across the Bay from Berkeley. A thir-
teen-year-old girl reported to the police
that a man had acted improperly in her
presence while she was at a riding
academy stable. The girl had obtained
the license number of the man’s car.

Michael Yoscovitch, a 24-year-old
unemployed laborer of Redwood City,
was identified by the girl as the man,
Police said.

A further investigation, officials dis-
closed, also brought an identification
from ‘a Menlo Park woman of an at-
tempted morals offense.

Charged with the two counts, Yosco-
vitch was held and grilled concerning
the disappearance of Stephanie. How-
ever, he was finally able to establish
that he had been at work on the day
the girl disapppeared in Berkeley.

Doctor Bryan offered a $2500 re-
ward for any information concerning
his daughter. i

The father began a. canvass of all
rivers, camping sites and resorts in the
area, posting the reward bulletin with
his daughter’s picture. Attached to the
circular was a personal letter from the
Doctor and his wife stating: “You may
be able to help a mother and father
find their daughter.” “

-Doctor Bryan spent untold hours
talking to fishermen and vacationists,
soliciting their aid in searching the
country. State game wardens promised
their help.

A letter was received by the family

near the end of May which held a
diagram of an area near the California-
Nevada border.
_ The letter, postmarked from San
Francisco, stated that the writer had
information “from a trustworthy
source” that Stephanie’s body was in
&@ grave “in an area reached by a dirt
road which turns off from U. S. High-
way 40 not far from the Nevada border
on the California side.”

The crude map showed a section of
the trans-mountain highway with a
building, a meadow and “foliage.”

Captain Laird with W. H. Hutchins
and a crew of helpers searched the
area for days without finding any
place that conceivably could be the
spot indicated by the tipster. The
Police finally filed the letter with the
numerous others received from cranks
and crackpots.


History repeats itself, as murder pays
a return visit to Butcher Boy’s Cabin

by Warner O. Wallace

Harold “Bud” Jackson unearths foot of pretty victim (r.), buried in wooded grave.

5,000 SEARCH FOR
BURIED SCHOOLGIRL

Officers search for further clues where her glasses, clothes and books were buried.

* THE TEENAGE, schoolgirl chums lingered at the corner
near the edge of the parking lot, in Berkeley, California, for
a few parting words,

‘I'm sorry I've got to go now, Stephanie,” said her
friend. “But today’s Mom's birthday and I want to get home
early. We're planning her a surprise.”

“1 understand, dear,” said Stephanie Bryan. “Tell your
mother, ‘Happy Birthday’ for me. And I'll see you in class
tomorrow, ‘Bye bye, bow-bow’.”

The two girls parted and 14-year-old Stephanie started
across the parking lot. On the far side a flight of stone
steps led to a steep path that would take her to Alvarado
Road, not far from her home. It was the teen-ager’s daily
habit to make use of the shortcut from Willard Junior
High School.

Stephanie Bryan was one of the most attractive girls
in her class. Her dark brown hair was cropped to ear length,
her fair skin had the fragrant freshness of new cream, and
dimples played at the corners of her full lips. She was
wearing a white cardigan sweater and pleated turquoise
skirt with sash that afternoon of April 28th.

POLICE FILES

auaust, /A (at

A constant stream of strollers and traffic had hurried
by as the girls talked and parted, but no one appeared to pay
more than casual attention to them.

Yet Stephanie Bryan never reached home that Thursday.

By nightfall, her doctor father, and mother, were wild
with anxiety over the whereabouts of their young daughter.
When they heard what her girl friend had to say they were
even more frightened. What could have happened to Steph-
anie in the short distance between the parking lot and the
Bryan home?

Captain L. H. Laird, of the Berkeley force, took charge
of the search for the missing girl. He checked with the
morgue and hospitals, and arranged for the distribution
of a flyer with the girl’s photo and description. He alerted
nearby Oakland and Alameda, flashed the alarm across the
bay to San Francisco. Patrol cars criss-crossed Berkeley's
streets and beat cops explored alleys, gardens, cellars, and
vacant lots. A team of detectives followed Stephanie's regu-
lar route home from the parking lot, asking questions
along the way. But apparently no one had observed the girl
after she parted from her friend.

33

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Deputies, other members of search party carry slain girl’s body from lonely mountainside grave,

Laird questioned the other girl closely. Had anything
unusual happened on the way from school? Had the girls
been followed? Had they been annoyed by mashers?

The friend shook her head. She had noticed nothing out
of the ordinary. They had walked from school to the Clare-
mont branch of the public library, where Stephanie borrow-
ed two books: Sue Barton, Staff Nurse and Two's Company.
Then they stopped off at a small bookstore where Stephanie
bought a pamphlet on the care and feeding of parakeets.
She was also carrying a French textbook and two notebooks.
They made no more stops until they separated at the parking
lot. ‘ }

Instinct born of long experience made Captain Laird
sense that here was no routine case of a runaway school
girl. Inquiry at Willard Junior High School on Friday
morning revealed that Stephanie was an honor student, with
an excellent record for attendance. Exceptionally pretty,
she had been much sought after for dates, but had given
scant encouragement to the many boys who admired
her. Her friends were sure there was no secret romance
in her life. No could suggest what might have happened

her. 2
5 dani in the torment of the hell of doubt, the girl’s
parents were destined for considerably more heartless
torture. ;

Late on Friday afternoon the telephone rang in the
tragedy stricken home on Alvarado Road. A man’s voice,
muffled as if by a handkerchief, told Dr. Bryan: “If you
want to see your child alive again, it will cost you $5,000.
For 5,000 bucks you get your kid back.” aes ,

“Tl do anything you say,” Dr. Bryan said. “Only don’t
hurt Stephanie.” .

The caller stated the conditions: the money was to be
in old bills of small denomination, none larger than $20; the
payoff was set for Saturday morning in Oakland.

“Tll be there with the money,” the anxious father prom-
ised.

34

“You'd better be,” the man growled. “Don’t tip off the
FBI-—or else-”

R. Bryan was faced with the fateful dilemma which
D arises in every kidnap case. Should he notify the police
and perhaps frighten the abductor into brutal action? Or
make the payoff without police knowledge? Bryan knew
the latter usually means the death of the captive—the one
person who can identify the kidnapper. He decided to
confide in Captain Laird.

“Do exactly as the guy said,” Laird advised. “We'll do the
rest. But don’t bank too much on this thing. There are
always phonies who'll take advantage of a family’s worry
and grief when someone disappears.”

It was not easy to raise $5,000 in cash over Friday night,
but the doctor managed to get the money together in the
denominations demanded. On Saturday he set out for the
rendezvous in Oakland. The police, too, made their prepara-
tions. Officers from Berkeley and Oakland were on hand at
the appointed meeting place, a street corner on the outskirts
of town. !

Two cars drew up and a package wrapped in brown paper
passed rapidly from one vehicle to the other. An instant
later the watching police moved in. The trap operated
smoothly and without mishap. When the police cortege
left, they had with them a prisoner, one Ralph Shrabe.

It looked as if the Stephanie Bryan case was on the verge
of being cracked wide open. But with the grilling of Shrabe,
the hopes of the police waned.

It developed that Shrabe had recently been released from
a mental hospital. He denied ever having seen Stephanie
Bryan, and as officers checked the rambling account he
gave of his movements they were inclined to believe him.
The man had been nowhere neat Berkeley on the day of
the disappearance. Unimpeachable witnesses definitely con-
firmed this fact. Shrabe was guilty only of an attempt to
extort money. He was absolved of any further suspicion

POLICE FILES

and was released from custody by the police.

_ The fate of Stephanie Bryan still remained shrouded
in mystery. But the wide publicity given the case brought
forward witnesses with possible leads. One such informant,
a young college girl, described a Suggestive incident she
had observed on Thursday afternoon while driving along
the crowded highway leading to the Broadway Tunnel, two
miles from where Stephanie Bryan was last seen.

“A car was parked by the highway on St. Diablo Boule-
vard,” the coed declared. “There was a man in the front
seat and a young girl in the back. As I drove by I heard the
girl scream and saw the man reach back and struggle with
her. I couldn’t stop because the lanes were so crowded
the cars were crawling along, bumper to bumper. At the
next intersection I looked for a policeman but couldn't
find one.” :

The informant revealed that she had hurried on to her
home in nearby Walnut Creek and Phoned the police. Eight
other motorists had reported the occurrence, and now
verified the story. None could describe either the man or
the girl. According to the various accounts, the parked car
was blue or gray, a Chevrolet or a Pontiac.

__ If Stephanie Bryan was the girl in the mysterious sedan
it could mean that she was alive, perhaps captive in a secret
hide-out. This was consistent with police failure to turn
up a single clue to indicate that the girl was already dead.

Hope was strengthened on May 2nd, when Dr. Bryan
received a ransom demand in the morning mail. Hand-
printed on blue-ruled Paper, the letter read: “Bryan don’t
be idiotic. This is not a hoax. Don’t contact any law enforces
if you expect to see your girl in the near future. Your in-
struction are on Tuesday May 3 have $8000 to $10000
no less than $8000 no more than 10000 in 5-10-20. Wrap
it in a small box then wrap the box in brown Paper. 9:30
P.M. go to the T and D Theatre. Be in the last row of the
television lounge at 9. There you will be contacted. Give the
box to your contact. He will give you instruction. Follow

POLICE FILES

Suspect (third from left) on trial for life, with Defense Attorneys Hove, Hanson and Whitney (1. to r.)

them and you will reach your child. Don’t contact anyone
it will take the package a while to reach me but your child
will be okey if you follow instruction. If the man that
contacts you in the theatre is followed the instructions
won’t do you any good. Wear brown hat. Put pipe in mouth.
Don’t drive your car. I have my reasons for waiting before
contacting you. Things have been carefully planned. So
don’t be foolish. Follow instructions.”

Dr. Bryan notified the Berkeley police, who jn turn got
together with Donald Hallihan, special agent in charge of
the Oakland office of the FBI. The doctor was instructed
to obey the ransom letter.

Following instructions implicitly the father went to the
rendezvous at the theatre, the box of money under his arm.
No one showed up. ;

_A second letter came in the post on May Sth: “You
tipped the law wise up. They can’t help you only I can. You
will get instructions.”

No further instructions ever came.

The police felt the two notes had not come from the
actual culprit but were the work of some heartless leech
who was trying to cash in on the tragic situation. An
authentic kidnapper would almost always forward some
personal belonging or a note written by the victim.

Nonetheless the lead could not be overlooked. The notes
had been posted in Berkeley and the police did what they
could to trace the sender.

fier leads filtered in, one from as far away as Dart-

mouth, Massachusetts, where the Bryan family had
lived before Dr. Bryan received his appointment as chief ra-
diologist at Peralta Hospital in Oakland. A girl of Stephanie's
general appearance had been reported seen in the Massa-
chusetts city. Checking this girl’s description, the Berkeley
police noted that she had hair reaching to her shoulders.
Stephanie had worn her hair in such a style until a few
days before her disappearance, (Continued on page 46)

35

identified as Stephanie’s.

“I could see how a voter might have
stashed away the pocketbook,” Inspec-
tor O’Meara said grimly, “but I can’t
see him digging up the floor to bury
all this stuff, not in the short while any-
one was here to vote,”

The inspector was voicing the thought
uppermost in the minds of all the of-
ficials. Someone with much more access
to the cellar than a casual voter had
secreted Stephanie Bryan’s belongings.
It was inevitable, under the ‘circum-
stances, that the attention of the police
focussed on the members of the Abbott
family.

MR: Abbott was obviously in the
clear, She had found the red bag
and brought the matter to the notice of
the police. But what about Burton Ab-
bott?

Not expressing their suspicions aloud
for the moment, the officers continued
the search of the house and grounds,
They turned up every inch of dirt on
the property. They broke through the
cement surface which Burton had re-
cently laid over the patio. They dug
in the lawn and the garden and under
the hedges bordering the house. They
probed the floor of the garage and the
driveway. They did not find what they
were looking for: the body of Stephanie
Bryan.

The Abbotts, police found out, owned
a new hardtop Pontiac sedan. They had
also owned a gray 1949 Chevrolet
which Burton recently had sold. It was
this car which Burton had usually driv-
en. The new owner was found and the
car impounded.

The movements of members of the
Abbott family on April 28th, the day
Stephanie disappeared, were quickly
established. It was harder to trace Bur-
ton’s movements. He had not gone to
class that day.

“I drove up to Wildwood in Trinity
County,” the young husband said. “We
have a cabin up there which we use over
weekends and holidays, I didn’t feel so
good and decided a long weekend in the
fresh air was what I needed. I left about
11 in the morning and reached Wild-
wood about dusk.”

This story, if it could be verified,
would put Burton in the clear. Wild-
wood was a good 300 miles away, and
if Burton had reached there by early
evening, he couldn’t have been in Berke-
ley at four in the afternoon,

The officers pressed him closely for
details of his visit to the family cabin.
Abbott declared that he first went to
Alameda to see his wife, After leaving
her, he drove along the East Shore
Freeway to Highway 40, continued on
40 to Sacramento, and there turned off
to U. S. 99-W which took him to Wild-
wood. He claimed that he stopped for
lunch in Yolo County, after driving 125
miles, In Wildwood, he said, he dropped
into the Wildwood Inn for a drink be-
fore going on to the cabin.

Burton Abbott was now a suspect in
the abduction and probable murder of
Stephanie Bryan. But police were un-
able to find a point of contact between

48

Burton and Stephanie. How and where
had their paths crossed, if at all?

' Abbott and Stephanie lived in worlds
far apart from each other. Stephanie’s
little orbit of interests swung around
school and home. Had Abbott at any
time touched that orbit?

In studying the girl’s simple daily
routine, the officers discovered that she
often dropped into a doughnut shop on
Telegraph Avenue, Close to her school,
it was a favorite meeting place of stu-
dents. Officers took a photograph of
young Abbott to the shop and two
waitresses promptly identified him as a
regular customer, Abbott, it appeared,
was in the habit of visiting the shop
for a cup of coffee which he would
drink while reading his newspaper. The
waitresses never recalled seeing Abbott
and Stephanie together.

Having completed all the digging that
could be done at the Abbott house, the
police took their shovels and pickaxes
to the cabin in Trinity County.

The cabin was a ramshackle structure
with a rather remarkable history. Built
of rough logs and roofed unevenly with
weatherbeaten planks, it hugged the
ground in a nest of towering trees.
Around were hills and gulleys which
rumor said concealed rich veins of gold.
Formerly the cabin had been owned by
two prospectors who used it as a base
of operations. One partner killed the
other, dissected the body, and buried
the parts in various places downhill
from the cabin, The killer was appre-
hended, convicted, and sentenced to
San Quentin. Before going to prison
he sold the cabin to Mrs, Abbott’s
brother. Ever since that murder the
place had been known locally as Butch-
er Boy’s Cabin, It was to this haunt of
evil that the Berkeley police shifted
their digging operations.

While officers turned up the soil
around the cabin, others questioned the
local people. Wildwood consisted of an
inn and a dozen or so cabins, The pro-
prietor of Wildwood Inn was asked if
it were true that young Abbott had
stopped off for a drink on the evening
of April 28th. He searched his memory.
He was sure that Abbott had not visit-
ed the inn until the following day, April
29th. Other inquiries were made and
no one could be found who remembered
seeing Abbott before the 29th.

v= the excavations were going
on in Wildwood, police back in
Alameda County grilled Burton Abbott.
Bearing up under the ordeal remark-
ably well, considering his wasted body,
Burton Abbott consented to undergo a
lie detector test. These tests were ad-
ministered on July 18th and 19th by
Inspector A. E, Riedel, the Berkeley
force’s polygraph expert. After two days,
Riedel pointed out the significant fact
that Abbott had reacted violently to
every question which involved the cabin
in Trinity County.

The police were sure now, that the
Wildwood area concealed the secret of
Stephanie Bryan’s fate. More officers
were rushed to the cabin to aid the men
already there. They were joined by a

small army of reporters,

Among the newsmen watching de-,

velopments at the cabin were Ed Mont-
gomery and Bob Bryant, reporter and
photographer team for the San Fran-
cisco Examiner. The two newshawks
contacted Harold Jackson, famed in the
region for his skill as a hunter, and asked
him if he would join them with a brace
of his hunting dogs in looking for the
body of Stephanie Bryan,

Jackson was happy to help. Toward
evening the group set out with two
hounds, Fox and Shorty. Using the
cabin as a starting point, they crossed
a thready creek and plunged into a
clump of manzanita and sugar pines on
the hillside above the cabin.

Suddenly the dogs quivered with ex-
citement and their muzzles pointed up-
hill. They bayed and pulled at their
leads. Jackson let them loose and the
men struggled after the dogs. Then the
barking rose to a hoarse crescendo of
noise that led them to a spot high on
the hill.

Fox and Shorty were poised nerv-
ously beside a mound of brush-covered
earth, Rain had soaked into the spot
and washed away the soil — washed
enough of it away to bare a human foot!

The chore of uncovering the body was
left to the police, who worked under
the probing beams: of flashlights. It was
half past eight when the last shovel of
earth was taken off the corpse.

The upper part of the body was un-
clothed, but among the remnants of
rotted clothing clinging to the decom-
posed remains were the tatters of a
turquoise skirt and brown and white
saddle shoes. Such articles had been
worn by Stephanie the day she disap-
peared.

Word of the grisly find was flashed to
Berkeley and that night Burton Abbott
was taken into custody, booked at the
Berkeley City Prison, and charged with
murder in the first degree

An autopsy on the dead girl was per-
formed by Dr. George S. Loquvam, an
Oakland pathologist. He reported that
death was due to two skull fractures
dealt by a blunt instrument, Around
the throat of the school girl was found
knotted a piece of cloth that might have
been the remains of her panties, The
condition of the remains made it im-
possible to say for certain. It was also
impossible to say whether the girl had
been sexually attacked, However, the
state of her clothing and the half nude
condition of the body indicated that she
had.

Burton Abbott continued to protest
that he knew nothing of the murder,
that he had never even seen Stephanie
Bryan. The authorities were confident
that he was the killer and that sex had
motivated the crime. Delving into the
young man’s background, the officers
learned that he had been inordinately
interested in sex, that he had borrowed
books on this subject from the library,
many of them books that could be bor-
rowed only with special permission.

Just where Stephanie Bryan was slain
was never determined. When Abbott
was brought to trial for the murder early

POLICE FILES

a ROTOR

in December, he took the stand in his
own behalf and stood by the story he
had told the police. He had never met
Stephanie, he claimed. The jury did not
believe him, for after a trial which lasted
some seven weeks, they pronounced him
guilty on January 25th, 1956. The judge
promptly sentenced Abbott to die in the
gas chamber,

The California supreme court turned
down Abbott’s appeal and the date for
the execution was set for March 15th,
1957. The defense lawyers did not give
up easily, however, They kept right on
trying to get a stay and finally succeed-
ed at 11:20 the morning Abbott was
scheduled to die. A call was made to

San Quentin at the exact minute, but it
was too late, Burton Abbott had entered
the gas chamber at 11:16, Cyanide pel-
lets had been lowered into the sulphuric
acid crock at 11:18.

The 11:20 call had been minutes late.
Burton Abbott was dead, taking with
him many of the secrets surrounding
teen-ager Stephanie Bryan’s murder.
His last act had been a good one, Ab-
bott requested that his body be turned
over to the University of California
Medical School for research purposes,
which it was. *

Editor's Note: The name, Ralph
Shrabe, is fictitious,

GHOSTLY RETURN

(Continued from page 31 )

The newspapers published pictures
of the missing housewife on their front
Pages. Squads of boy scouts offered
assistance by combing the deep drifts
of snow around the Ames house on the
chance that the woman had somehow
fallen in one and gotten buried alive.
No sign of Florence Ames was discover-
ed, and despite much newspaper and

. Tadio publicity throughout the ensuing

days, nobody turned up to give any in-
formation concerning the woman or her
whereabouts. The mystery of her strange
disappearance deepened.

Syracuse detectives were baffled—
and somewhat troubled. A housewife
had been in her home when the work-
ing members of the family left in the
morning. By that evening she had van-
ished from the face of the earth with-
out leaving a trace of what happened
to her. The storm of unrest growing
in the local newspapers was based on
the common nature of the mystery—
there were thousands of housewives
left alone every day in Syracuse. What
had happened to one, could conceiv-
ably happen to another, or to many
more.

“A missing person leaves some trace,”
Chief Rapp told his men. “They pack
clothes, buy a train ticket—or if it’s
violence involved, then we find a blood-
stain or an overturned chair. Florence
Ames just evaporated into thin air.”

The concentrated efforts of the force
plugged grimly at breaking through the
curtain of mystery shrouding the Ames
case, but none of the normal avenues
of investigation led to the whereabouts
of the attractive housewife. Christmas
came and went, and the New Year, and
then the entire month of January. The
name Florence Ames could choke off
any joke a cop tried to tell at head-
quarters as January passed and then
the first two weeks of February.

ii WAS on the 17th of that month
that the occupant of the house next
door to the Ames place was called away
POLICE FILES

from his after-dinner newspaper by his
two young children.

“Daddy, please come up here,” the
young boy shouted from the upstairs
spare room. “There’s something you
ought to see—a brown snowman on the
ceiling.”

The paper was instantly put aside,
and the snowman on the ceiling investi-
gated. The father went to the second
floor room and gazed upward. With sur-
prise he noticed a brownish splotch
perhaps three feet long and about half
as wide on the white, calcimined surface,
He frowned. If the roof leaked, he had
to have it repaired at once.

He got a flashlight and hauled his
stepladder up from the cellar. With
these he was ready to get up into the
attic through the ceiling trapdoor in
the hall. After climbing up the ladder, he
pushed open the trap with some diffi-
culty and wriggled carefully up into the
blackness overhead. He played the
slender ray of light from his flash about
the attic, seeking the area above the
stained ceiling. Presently the beam
struck a strange, shapeless mass lying
on the crossbeams. For the first time,
the man became aware of a close, pe-
culiarly offensive odor. He edged to-
ward the object, and as he came closer
the smell became stronger. Genuinely
disturbed, the homeowner noticed in
the light of the flash that the mass
seemed to be a pile of rags.

He lifted the top layer off gingerly,
pointing the beam underneath. A second
later he whirled away and as quickly as
he could make his way back down the
ladder, hurried to his telephone. Within
half an hour after his terse call, a party
of five men arrived at his house. Syra-
cuse Police Chief William Rapp, Coro-
ner Ernest Gak, Identification Expert
Patrick Hanlon and Detectives Frank
Brazell and Donald Tracy gathered
around the man and listened to the
account of his discovery.

“I never had any reason to go u
into the attic before,” he told them,
still somewhat shaken. “I figured there'd
be a leaking roof I'd have to fix. But
when I saw that—that body under the
pile of rags——”

“Let’s get up there right now,”

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46

tired. And I know that you guys will
get to the bottom of all this sooner or
later. How about it if I make a bargain
with you.”

“There’ll be no bargain,” said Lieu-
tenant Sherry sternly. “We're not em-
powered to make bargains.”

William Colleton smiled wanly. “This
kind of bargain won't bother you,” he
said, “Let me have another cup of coffee
and I'll talk.”

dhe coffee was brought in. The
youth drank it in a gulp and set the
cup down on the lieutenant’s desk.

“I was broke that night,” he said. “It
seems |’m always broke. So I came back
to the old neighborhood and figured I
would rob Mrs, Lazarus. I was pretty
sure she would be asleep. She usually
took a nap after supper.”

William Colleton went on to say that
he had slipped the door lock open with
a piece of wire. As he entered the apart-
ment, he heard Rachel Lazarus snor-
ing gently. Quietly he had proceeded to
ransack her home.

He found nothing of value anywhere,
and was about to give up in disgust
when Mrs, Lazarus awakened,

“I panicked,” he said in an unsteady
voice. “I grabbed a knife in the kitchen
and stabbed her. She began to moan. I
figured I had to shut her up somehow.
So I grabbed that wine decanter and hit

her over the head with it.”

At this point in his story, Colleton’s
voice broke. He put his hands to his
head and sobbed bitterly. Lieutenant
Sherry picked up the phone and asked
for a police stenographer.

After a few moments, William Colle-
ton pulled himself together sufficiently
to repeat his confession to the stenog-
rapher. When it was properly tran-
scribed it was handed to him, along
with a fountain pen.

“Sign your name down at the bottom
here,” Lieutenant Sherry instructed him.

William Colleton picked up the pen,
pursed his lips, and frowned as he slow-
ly scrawled the only two words he knew
how to write. é

The prisoner was officially held on a
charge of suspicion of murder, to which
he would plead in Dorchester police
court.

Police Commissioner McNamara
characterized the murder as “senseless.”
He added his congratulations to all the
officers involved in the solution of the
case, Because of Monahan’s quick ac-
tion after the arrest of William Colle-
ton in Brookline, the police head
announced that the officer would be
promoted from his status as Detective
Third Class to Detective First Class,

Editor's Note: The names Barry Jed-
licka and Mrs. Catherine Byslip are
fictitious. :

BURIED SCHOOLGIRL
(Continued from page 35)

when she had it cropped to ear length,
Obviously the girl seen in Dartmouth
could not be the missing Berkeley school
girl.

Then, on May 9th, the discovery of
the first definite clue in the strange
case spurred a hectic flurry of police
activity. A young man who lived in the
town of San Pablo, 12 miles north of
Berkeley, turned over to the police a
French textbook that had been issued
by the Willard Junior High School. On
the flyleaf was the name Stephanie
Bryan, written in the missing girl’s hand,

The youth explained that he had
picked up the book on May Ist while
walking along Franklin Canyon Road.
Only after reading of the girl’s disap-
pearance had he given the book more
than a cursory inspection and discov-
ered the name written in it,

How had the book come to be on the
road? Captain Laird decided that Steph-
anie herself, while a prisoner in an au-
tomobile, had managed to toss it out
in a frantic effort to give the police
a lead that would enable them to rescue
her.

Laird studied a map of the vicinity.
Franklin Canyon Road was just off
Highway 40 which led almost in a
straight line, through Berkeley. Mt.

Diablo Boulevard, on which the mys-
terious sedan had been observed, was
also not far from the highway. The
various pieces, few though they were,
seemed to fit.

By July the Stephanie Bryan case
had long since slipped from the front
pages of the newspapers, It looked as
if Stephanie’s fate would forever re-
main an unsolved mystery. Then, when
the prospect of a solution seemed at its
dimmest, came the first dramatic break
in the probe. It came because Mrs, Ab-
bott of Alameda decided to take part
in an amateur theatrical production.

Burton W. Abbott, 27, thin, bespec-
tacled, and of studious mien, was ma-
jorirg in accountancy at the University
of California under the GI Bill.

Or the evening of July 15th, the
Abbotts had a guest for dinner.
Burton was kidding his pretty wife
about her role in the amateur theatricals,

“What are you going to wear, honey?”
Burton asked.

His wife said, “I'll whip some kind
of a costume together. We have a lot
of old clothes in the basement. I think
I'll go down now and take a look.”

She was back upstairs in about five
minutes, her eyes glinting with excite-
ment. “Look what I found!” she
breathed.

She displayed a red leather pocket-
book, dumped the contents onto the
table. Burton thumbed through the

POLICE FILES

articles: a student identification card, a

-Junior Red Cross membership certi-

ficate, two library cards. “So what about
this junk?” he demanded.

“The name!” his wife said breath-
lessly. ‘All the cards bore the name
Stephanie Bryan. That’s the girl who
disappeared — the one in Berkeley.
They’ve been looking for her for
months, We'll have to notify the
police.”

The electrifying discovery brought
the top brass of Berkeley and a score
of aides hustling to Alameda, Captain
Laird, Lieutenants Henry F. Whaley
and R, T. Sherry, as well as Inspectors
Charles O'Meara and William Robin-
son, were in the contingent headed by
Captain Addison H. Fording, chief of
detectives and acting police chief in the
absence of vacationing John D. Hol-
strom. FBI Agent Donald Hallihan
showed up with his assistant, Special
Agent M. C. Buchanan. The district
attorney’s office of Alameda County was
represented by Folger Emerson, chief
of the criminal division.

Arrangements were made to check
the bag and its contents for fingerprints,
but the cops were not hopeful on this
score. The articles had been handled by
too many persons in the house before
the arrival of the police.

“What we can’t understand,” Cap-
tain Fording told Burton Abbott, “is
how the bag got into your cellar.”

“I can’t either,” young Abbott said.
“I never heard of the girl until my wife
told me who she was.”

Questioning the Abbott family, the
police determined that they were al-
ready living in the bungalow at the time
of the Bryan girl’s disappearance, so the
bag could not have been left there by a
former tenant,

“The bag might have been put there
during the election,” Burton Abbott said
suddenly.

“What do you mean?” Lieutenant
Whaley asked,

Abbott explained that on May 24th,
the basement of the bungalow had been
used as a polling place in a local election.

The police promptly contacted the
county election officials and verified
what Burton had told them, About 200
persons had cast their vote at the Ab-
bott house, and a list of these voters
was turned over to the police. They
plunged into the enormous task of
screening the voters.

A search of the cellar produced no
more clues and the chief officials de-
cided to dig up the floor, Patrolmen,
armed with spades and pickaxes worked
through the long hours of the night.
By morning they had retrieved a re-
markable collection of articles which
had been buried under the dirt floor:
two notebooks, a dirt caked brassiere,
a pair of eye glasses, a pamphlet on
the care and feeding of parakeets, and
two volumes of juvenile fiction — Sue
Barton, Staff Nurse, and Two’s Com-
pany, The books were the same two
borrowed by Stephanie Bryan on the
day she vanished; the pamphlet on para-
keets was the one she had bought that
afternoon, The other objects were also
POLICE FILFS

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‘ witnesses were Naval
equeline.

ROTC instructor said
ir pull off the highway
at a high rate of speed.
ided to a stop. A girl
She had a frightened
half-down. She yelled
vy windows up I could
the front seat to the
idly downward out of

ir?” District Attorney

proximately 30 min-
3ryan left her school-

2e?” Coakley asked.
to her neck.”

3runette. Dark brown
something dark on her
..” (Stephanie Bryan
sweater over a white

n which you saw the

id strands of
air?

Ҥ car.

ed.
1950 Chevrolet. The

‘ill a photograph of
look at that photo-
v looks like the auto

.0 told of seeing the
Stewart, Stephanie’s
bye to the dead girl
ew blocks from the

max. To the witness
-r typewriter repair-
olger Emerson took

nt (a doughnut shop
n’s school) on that
assell.

you see anyone that

replied. (Abbott had
his cabin in Trinity

on the afternoon of
iean, what was he

MARY was the last to see her alive.

doing?”

“He was sitting on the counter side by the window.”

Russell then testified that both he and Abbott had left
Pring’s about 3:15 or 3:20 and that Abbott had gotten into
his car. He said he knew it was Abbott’s car because he’d
seen him drive it previously. Emerson showed the wit-
ness a picture of the car.

“Does that resemble the car you just referred to?” he
asked.

“Yes, it does,” the witness answered.

Came more witnesses. Among them was Mrs. Reva
Leidecker. Of all the.dozen or more people who had
seen the roadside struggle on Mt. Diablo Blvd. on April
28, she was the most positive that Abbott had been the
man in the car, - .

Asked by D.A. Coakley if the man she had seen in
April was now in the courtroom, she pointed a finger
at the defendant. “Yes, the man in the blue suit.”

Abbott was asked to stand. The D.A. asked if Abbott
were the man to whom she referred.

“Yes, sir,” she said; “That is the man.”

Asked to describe the struggle she had seen in April,
she said: “His (the man’s) expression was angry. His
forehead glistened as if it had perspiration on it. He
raised his hand up, almost to the roof of the car and
then quickly brought it down on the girl. He had long,
slender hands, very pale in color.”

Coakley showed Mrs. Leidecker a picture of Stephanie,
and asked her if it resembled the gir] she had seen strug-
gling in the car.

“Yes, sir, it does,” she replied.

Other witnesses came forward to tell of finding a book
belonging to Stephanie on a lonely road in the back
country around Berkeley. They had found the book a
few days after the girl had disappeared while giant search
groups were probing underbrush and pastureland in an
effort to unearth some trace of her.

Throughout this phase of the trial, Abbott’s lawyers
were active, challenging much of the prosecution’s ques-

tioning and themselves cross-examining many witnesses.
They directed a lot of their cross-examination at Russell,
the man who said he had seen the defendant in a dough-
nut shop less than 30 minutes before Stephanie disap-
peared.

They tried to indicate that Russell himself had at one

_ time been a suspect in the case. The purpose of their

actions was clear to courtroom observers: All the evi-
dence against Abbott was circumstantial—sufficient for
conviction, but still circumstantial. The defending law-
yers were trying to establish ‘a reasonable doubt’ in
the minds of the jurors about the credibility of the prose-
cution witnesses.

‘This initial phase dealt with the first charge against
Abbott—kidnapping. Suddenly, the district attorneys
switched to the second phase—murder—and , attempted
to prove that Stephanie Bryan died at the hands of
Burton Abbott, the tense, pencil-twisting defendant who
watched every move in the court with quick, intelligent
eyes.

One of the prosecution’s first witnesses was FBI Agent
Richard E. Nichols. It was Nichols who had dug up many
of Stephanie Bryan’s personal belongings in the base-
ment of the Abbott home, not long after Mrs. Abbott
had found the girl’s red leather purse.

Assistant D.A. Emerson questioned the agent. “What
was the first thing you found?” he asked.

“A group of three books (Sue Barton, Staff Nurse,
Two’s A Company, and a paperbound book on parakeets).
They were turned up by me with a metal probe at a
location by the third stud on the wall adjacent to the
chimney.”

- “Were they buried?” Emerson asked.

“In six to eight inches of sandy soil.”

“Were they completely covered?”

“They were completely covered.”

Emerson then showed Nichols a pair of amber, horn-

. rimmed eye glasses, belonging to Stephanie.

“I recovered these eye glasses from the same immediate

Q.: What about the soil found on
a pair of Abbott’s boots?

A.: Same as that from the grave.

area,” Nichols commented.

Next, the D.A. dangled the dead girl’s white brassiere
in front of the FBI agent. i

“I first saw this in Burton Abbott’s basement on the
occasion of finding the books,” Nichols testified.’ “It was
in the same immediate area.”

“Was it also buried?”

“Also buried,” Nichols said quietly.

Soon came a Trinity County Deputy Sheriff named
Harold (Bud) Jackson. He was the man who found
Stephanie’s grave on July 20. He told how his two hounds
led him up a hill beyond Abbott’s cabin to a towering
yellow pine tree.

“I followed,” he testified. “When I got there, I saw
these clothes sticking out of the dirt and I hollered down

17


axis
Dee

hres

Ait


Somebody killed Stephanie Bryan and Burton Abbott may die for it.

On Monday, November 7, 1955 Burton W. Abbott, a tuber-
cular accounting student at the University of California, was
indicted for the murder of 14-year-old Stephanie Bryan. He
denied the charge. Stephanie’s purse and schoolbooks. had
been found in the cellar of the Abbott home by his own wife.
The girl’s body had been found buried near his fishing cabin
in the mountains. Yet the entire case as presented by the state
was based on circumstantial evidence. Most detective stories
end with the police nailing the supposed murderer. But the
real battle for life and death takes place in the courtroom.
EyeWitness takes you to that battleground so that you may
be an eyewitness to accused Burton Abbott's duet for his life.

D.A:: Did you at any time murder or kidnap Stephanie Bryan?
Defendant: No. |

i on moNpay, November 7, 1955, Burton W. Abbott them of the crime and of the publicity it had created.

walked through a huge door in Oakland, California’s
Superior Court and went on trial for his life. He was
charged with the kidnapping and murder of Stephanie
Bryan, a prétty, 14-year-old junior high school girl who
had disappeared from Berkeley, California, while on her
way home from’school last April 28.

As he entered the courtroom, the 27-year-old Univer-
sity of California accounting student walked erectly. On
his thin, tubercular frame he wore a trim blue suit. He
glanced only briefly at his attractive, red-haired wife,
Georgia.

As soon as he had seated himself beside his defense
attorneys, he listened int vy while Judge Charles W.
Snook read a statement to prospective jurors reminding

~

Then he settled back while prosecuting and defense at-
torneys wrangled over just which of the prospective
jurors would be on the final 12-member panel. .

To Burton W. Abbott, the trial was senseless. Stephani
Bryan’s body had not been discovered until July 20,
nearly three months after she vanished into apparently
thin air. He—the defendant—had not been in or near
Berkeley after 11 a.m. on the day she vanished. He had
been on his way to his family’s mountainside cabin in
Trinity County, far to the north.

To the prosecuting attorneys, however, the trial was
far from meaningless. Stephanie Bryan’s pocketbook and
seme of her garments had been found in the basement of
Abbott’s home by his own wife. Hairs from her long, dark

SMUG AND CONFIDENT, blase Burt dares the world to censure him.

.

15

Q.: What was in Abbott's cellar?

A.: Three books and a brassiere,
all belonging to the girl.

curls and thin strands of yarn from her blue cardigan
sweater had been found in his 1949 Chevrolet, in which
the attorneys said he had abducted her. And clay on his
boots matched dirt found nine inches deep in Stephanie’s
shallow, lonely grave.

For these and other reasons, they had helped bring
Burton W. Abbott to trial—a trial that could send him
to his death.

This, then, in as much space as our editorial demands
allow, is the story of that trial.

It began with the judge’s statement to the prospective
jurors, It continued with the selection of the jurors—a

M.D. shows position of girl’s arms.

16

fatal day of April 28, First of these witnesses were Naval
Lt. Allen W. Hill, and his wife, Jacqueline.

The University of California NROTC instructor said
that he and his wife had seen “a car pull off the highway
(Mt. Diablo Blvd.) onto a shoulder at a high rate of speed.
It raised a cloud of dust and skidded to a stop. A: girl
appeared in the left rear window. She had a frightened
look on her face. The window was half-down. She yelled
the word ‘no’ so loud that with my windows up I could
hear her. The driver moved from the front seat to the
back, and the girl was pulled rapidly downward out of
sight.” ’

“What time did this incident occur?” District Attorney

Coakley asked,

“About 4:15 or 4:20 p.m.” (Approximately 30 min-
utes after dark-haired Stephanie Bryan left her school-
mate.) ;

“How much of the girl did you see?” Coakley asked.

“About six to eight inches. Down to her neck.”

“Can you describe her?”

“She was ten to 12 years old. Brunette. Dark brown
hair. She appeared to be wearing something dark on her
shoulders over something white... .” (Stephanie Bryan
was wearing a dark blue cardigan sweater over a white
pullover the day she vanished. )

“... Can you describe the car in which you saw the

Q.: Where did you find strands of
the dead girl’s hair?

A.: In Burton Abbott's car.

young girl screaming?” Coakley asked.

“Yes. It was a four-door, 1949-1950 Chevrolet. The
color was medium grey.”

The District Attorney showed Hill a photograph of

pictured here?” .

“Yes, it does,” Hill answered.

Then followed more witnesses who told of seeing the
same struggle. Next came Mary Ann Stewart; Stephanie’s
schoolmate. She told of saying goodbye to the dead girl
near the Claremont Hotel, only a few blocks from the
Bryan’s Berkeley home. ~

After that came the trial’s first climax. To the witness
stand went William Russell, a former typewriter repair-
man. Assistant District Attorney Folger Emerson took
over the questioning.

“Did you go into Pring’s Restaurant (a doughnut shop
a half block from Stephanie Bryan’s school) on that
afternoon (April 28)?” he asked Russell.

“Yes. Yes, I did.” :

“When you went into Pring’s, did you see anyone that
you knew?”

“Yes, I saw Mr. Abbott,” Russell replied. (Abbott had
sworn he was already on his way to his cabin in Trinity

- » . While you were in Pring’s on the afternoon of
April 28, where was Abbott? I mean, what was he

groups
effort
Thr«

were a


whom he had been considering the pivot
of the case. She consented to return
with him. No charge was placed against
her, therefore no extradition was neces-
sary, Feehley told her he would hold
her as a material witness.

But was he right in putting so much
stress on this girl’s importance to his
case—merely because her husband was
in trouble with the law? He knew he’d
be in a sad state if, after all this time,
he’d have to start from scratch on a
different line of investigation.

Rommell, walking by the Northeast-
ern Headquarters, dropped in to hear
if there were any new developments.

“Yes,” he was told. “You needn't
mind about that guy Brooks. We’ve got
the young lady herself and are sure
that if we can get her to tell the truth,
we'll know who killed Mrs. Finn. And
we're confident that we’re in a position
to make her tell the truth.”

But when Detective Lieutenant
Feehley returned to Baltimore with
Irene Ayres, they found they had on
their hands a very shrewd and taciturn
young woman. She spoke little, beyond
denying any knowledge of any crime.

Feehley conferred with Rommell
again.

“We’ve been following up those fin-
gerprints found in your home. You
know about the same ones having been
picked up from the car. Now a report
from Washington tells us that these
prints are of a man named Whitney.
Why didn't you put the name of this
friend of yours on your list?”

Mu HITNEY?” repeated Rommell,

with a questioning look at the
officer. “I haven’t any friend named
Whitney.”

Feehley didn’t know what to think
now. “Look here, Rommell, we're all
as certain as can be that the man who
killed Mrs. Finn knew everything about
you and her. We haven't a thing
against this Whitney except those
prints. It’s up to you to tie him to this
murder.”

“But I tell you I don’t know him.”

“Remember if this girl Irene ever
brought a guy named Whitney with
her to visit your son?”

Rommell shook his head.

“Whitney,” he repeated slowly.

“Whitney. Whitney. Say, now I come-

to think of it ... but it can’t be. He’s
out.”

“Who’s ‘out’?” asked the Lieutenant.
“Let’s have it. Who are you thinking
about?”

“Why. Don used to use the name
Whitney sometime ago. But—”

“Don who?” interrupted the officer.

“Donald Brooks.”

“What? Your daughter - in - law’s
brother?”

For a few minutes the two men just
sat there, staring at each other, saying

nothing. The Lieutenant was the first
to come to life.

“Brooks’ possible fingerprints in your
home. On the car. Brooks chasing
around with this Irene. Both skip out
right after the murder. Do you think it
possible that he killed your fiance, just
to rob you?”

“No,” replied Rommell, his voice
trembling with emotion. “I can’t be-
lieve it! I can’t! I’ve been trying to
keep that thought out of my mind ever
since. It’s too horrible . . . He couldn’t
have!”

The officer got up from his chair,
walked over to Rommell and put his
hand on his shoulder.

“Pull yourself together,” he said
kindly. “I’m beginning .to understand
what sort of a Hell you’ve been going
through. It looks as if Brooks is the
man. If he is, you’ve just got to face
it. I had an idea you suspected some-
one ever since that talk at the back
gate. But you weren’t sure and you
didn't want—”

4IQUT I didn’t suspect Don,” inter-

rupted Rommell. “I had no reason
to suspect him. The thought just kept
pushing itself into my mind when I
knew he couldn’t have done a thing
like that.” ;

“Why did this thought keep biting
at you?” asked the detective.

“It’s a silly thing. One day when I was
at home, Don crashed into the house
around back in such a way as to startle
me. I raised Cain with him for doing a
thing like that. He said he thought his
sister was still living there. I told him
the next time he came to see me to
come in the front door like everyone
else did.”

“What did he say?”

“He was nice enough about it. In
fact I wouldn’t have thought much
about it. We all do fool things at times.
But I’m sure he knew his sister was not
at my place any more, and I got the
feeling that he was surprised at finding
me at home.”

“In other words, he gave you the
impression that he had broken in to go
through your house while you were ab-
sent?”

“I just couldn’t figure that out. Then
when Mary was killed and I kept try-
ing to think who would kill her, I
couldn’t think of anything but that day
Donald broke in, through the back, just
the same as the robber did. There was
no real connection. I didn’t really sus-
pect him of stealing the money. I just
knew he wouldn’t kill Mary. And we
don’t know that he‘did kill her, do we?”

“No,” replied the Lieutenant, “we
don’t really know yet. But I wouldn’t
be thinking too kindly of Donald
Brooks if I were you. When we get hold
of him and get his fingerprints, “we'll
feel more sure.”

Why Pick The Widow Blauvelt?

burglaries not far away from here this
week, one of them involving stolen
jewelry.”

With this summary of another pos-
sibility in the case, Brennan accom-
panied the tenants of the building to
the door, where he asked them to re-
main in readiness for further ques-
tioning; then he turned back into the
apartment and joined Lieutenant Wise-
man in the kitchen.

WISEMAN was staring at some huge
marks, almost gorilla-like, that
had been imprinted on the steel jamb
alongside the refuse chute. They
looked like someone of large propor-
tions had clutched there for support
in getting in or out of the man-sized
compartment door.

“Mrs. Blauvelt lived here alone,” said
Wiseman quietly, “and those are the
fingerprints from a man’s hand. They
cannot have been here too long, be-
cause they would have been wiped off
in the normal course of the apartment
being cleaned. So—they are recent
prints of some man who has been here

' investigation.

in the last two or three days. Right
now, I’d give a good deal to know who
it was that left them there!”

UST then Detective Lieutenant Rob-

ert McGarry arrived to aid in the
While Wiseman and
Brennan were to return to the station
house, McGarry was to remain at the
apartment to question Mrs. Catherine
E. May when she returned home. Be-
fore leaving, Wiseman and Brennan
stopped at the lobby desk where Mrs.
Massey was awaiting them with a list
of employes. Lieutenant Wiseman
took it and studied the long list of
names.

“There is a great turnover in hotel
and apartment house help these days,
as you know,” Mrs. Massey told him.
“We are lucky to keep a maid for a
month, in these times.” .

“Which are housemen on this list?”
Wiseman asked. “Those who would
have access to all the apartments, and
might reasonably know the habits of
everyone in the building?”

Mrs. Massey made a mark opposite

Feehley was too experienced an in-
vestigator to reach a positive conclu-
sion without definite proof. True,
Brooks’ movements were suspicious;
but that meant little at the moment.

S SOON as Rommell, stunned by his

thoughts, had left Headquarters,
the hunt for Donald Brooks was pressed
in real earnest. One Sunday evening
a short time later, Brooks was recog-
nized at a trucking station on the
Philadelphia road. He was picked up
and brought to Headquarters. The
police were not prepared to charge him
with the murder of Mrs. Finn. They
had little to go on except their own
convictions. Being. a visitor at the
-Rommell home, it was to be expected
that his fingerprints would be found
there. And fingerprints on an aban-
doned car weren’t much on which to
base a murder charge.

But Donald was carrying a black-
jack. That meant punishment. He got
90 days. Three months for the officers
to work on their case against him.

And they worked hard. The weeks
went by. Brooks continually denied
having anything to do with the robbery
and killing. And Irene was just as co-
operative. In the beginning she even
denied knowing Brooks, but that was
easily proved. Realizing she was the
weak. link in the chain that kept the
case from breaking open, the police
concentrated on her.

“I guess you don’t realize,” Feehley
told her, “that if you don’t tell us
everything you know, we can charge
you with being an accessory.”

Irene looked at Feehley, then at
Captain Kriss and the other officers
who were gathered around her. Her
lips were tight. Feehley turned away,
sighed audibly. He had no case against
Brooks, nothing against anyone. At
this moment he suddenly felt that he
was as far from a solution as he ever
had been. Irene would never talk. Or
‘was it she had nothing to say? Then—

“Donald killed Mrs. Finn. I know it.”

Feehley whirled around. Irene was
sitting on the chair, staring at the
— The Lieutenant rushed toward

er.

“What did you say? Let’s have that
again!”

“I said Donald killed Mrs. Finn. I
know. I know it because he told me.”

And then, in an outburst of words,
Irene told her story. It was so strange,
so fantastic, so different from what
they had thought it would be, that the
officers could just listen and say noth-
ing. The facts of the murder, here at
the climax of the investigation, were
far from what they had surmised.

She had met Brooks, Irene said, and
had fallen for him. He had treated her
well; took her to night clubs, gave her
money and bought clothes for her.

e

“When he said, ‘Let’s go to New
York,’ I fell for it. I didn’t read the
papers. I didn’t know that a woman
had been killed while being robbed. But
even if I had, I wouldn’t have sus-
pected Don.

“One night he brought out a black-
jack. I had never seen one before and
I asked him what it was. He told me. I
asked him what he wanted a thing like
that for, and he told me to mind my
own business. He was unwinding tape
from it and later began winding some
new tape on it. Then we got into some
silly argument and he got nasty. He
threatened me. He boasted he’d killed
and robbed a woman in Baltimore and
I’d better watch my step. I was horri-
fied, and told him I guessed I had him
wrong, and he said, ‘You spent most
of the money I got so you're in this as
deep as I am.’

“I thought he was bluffing, trying
to scare me, so I asked him how come.
He told me he went to the Rommell
house early in the morning of July
first, breaking in the back. He began
looking around. Mrs. Finn came out
of the bedroom and he hit her... .”

APPARENTLY Brooks had intended
to kill Rommell and was surprised
at finding Mrs. Finn in the house. For
Irene said Brooks had told her that
Rommell always carried a wad of mon-
ey; that he expected to wait in the
house until Rommell came home and
then rob him. But when he got his
hands on the $600 and realized he had
killed the woman, he decided to clear
out and not wait for the bridegroom.

“I was afraid,” Irene concluded,
“terribly afraid. Now that I knew he
was a murderer I thought he might
black-jack me to death the same as he
had -Mrs, Finn. So the first time after
that when he left me alone, I packed
my things and lit out. I went to the
Richardson Avenue house where I was
arrested. I felt homesick and wrote to
the landlady and gave her my address.

“I’d never have gone with him if I
had known he was that kind of a guy.”

With Irene’s story as evidence, Don-
ald Brooks was indicted on a first-de-
gree murder charge and, on October.
6, 1944, he went to trial before Judges
John T. Tucker and J. Abner Sayler.
It took the two Judges little more than
a half hour to find the 31-year-old man
guilty of the murder.

His counsel appealed for a new trial,
but this was denied by Superior Court
on November 4. Five days later, Brooks
was sentenced to be executed and he is
now in the death-house as OFFICIAL
DETECTIVE STORIES goes to press.

No charge was ever brought against
Irene Zasada who was of great help to
je State in bringing the killer to jus-

ce.

Read It First In

(Continued from Page 23) ogriciaL DETECTIVE STORIES

several names. “Our present house-
man is gone for the day,” she said. She
indicated his name on the list. ‘He is
a@ quiet old gentleman who came to us
with good reference from a former
friend of mine. I sent him on an er-
rand which kept him away all after-
noon yesterday, so I know he could not
have been involved.”

“We'll want to talk with him as a
matter of routine. Meanwhile, we’ll
look into the records of these others
you have listed here. We ought to
have something definite on the case in
a day or two.”

ON THEIR way back to Wilshire Di-
vision, Lieutenant Brennan said,
“Those fingerprints on the refuse com-
partment are our best lead in this deal.
If we can match those up with one of
the names on your list, we’ll know who
made his entrance or exit through that
chute after he killed Mrs. Blauvelt.”
“If, by some chance, one of these
persons has a criminal record, it’ll be a
break for us,” Wiseman added. “The
way I see it, the thing happened this

way: Mrs. Blauvelt left the apartment
and then returned somewhat sooner
than was her regular habit. She dis-
covered whoever was ransacking her
place, probably looking for the very
diamond rings she had on her fingers—
and what started as burglary ended as
murder.”

uM MONEY belt with a hundred and

sixty-five dollars was found by
the coroner’s attendant on the body,”
Brennan declared. “That wasn’t
touched. I think I forgot to tell you
that. It would mean the killer knew
her—but not well enough to know
about the money belt.”

“Yes, he grabbed the rings and
called it a good day’s work,’ said
Wiseman. “After Mrs. Blauvelt
screamed, he muffled her further
cries with the pillow. Then, realizing
that wasn’t enough because she had
probably recognized him, he snatched
at the nearby electric cord and twisted
it around her throat, forming the
garrote. When he knew his victim was
dead and could never bear testimony

49

against him, he got to his feet and
tried to figure some way out. What
was more natural than the refuse com-
partment, large enough to take a man?
He grasped the sides and let himself
in, holding onto the steel jamb for
support. Then he went sliding down,
not knowing he was leaving the tell-
tale set of fingerprints behind to
register his identity.”

“I'd say that was the size of it.”

Stepping out at Wilshire Station, the
detectives met two fellow officers from
the Robbery Detail just as they were
leaving the _ building. They were
Lieutenant Russell Smith and Ser-
geant Harold Henry. assigned to Cen-
tral Station in downtown Los Angeles
in the notorious “Skidroad” section of
town, center of outlawry and vice.
where “fences” took stolen goods at a
dime on the dollar. The four men
stopped.

Lieutenant Smith said, “You may be
interested in a package we just deliv-
ered to Captain Vaughn.”

“What's that?" asked Wiseman.
“What kind of package?”

“The stolen jewelry in the Frank
Strong robbery. We caught the thief
trying to peddle it. He’s the same
chap who took the two guns at the
Marsalisi home. Captain Vaughn
thought you might be interested in all
that.”

“We certainly are.” Lieutenant Wise-
man consulted the list in his hand.
“What's the guy’s name?”

“Ray Saul,”” answered the Robbery
Detail officer. “He confessed being the
burglar readily enough. We caught him
by tracing a description of a young
man who had been seen ringing door-
bells in the neighborhood, carrying a
small brief case as if he were making
a door-to-door canvass. He made no
bones about his connection to the rob-
beries. Captain Vaughn is questioning
him further now. They’re both inside."

Vj SEMAN said, “There is no Ray
Saul on our employe list here. Is
he a large man? Man we're looking for
has big fingers.”

“No, just a kid. But I didn’t look at
his fingers.”

The Homicide officers nodded and
went inside the building. They headed
straight for Captain Vaughn's office,
where the Captain was sitting with a

good-looking young man who was:

wearing a zoot-suit.

The youth was saying, “I don't deny
pulling the robberies. But I don’t know
anything about Mrs. Blauvelt. You
guys aren’t going to hang that on me.”

Captain Vaughn glanced up as the
two detectives entered, then he turned
again to the tense youth in the seat
across from him.

“No one has accused you of murder,”
he said evenly. “It’s just.a fact that
you and the murderer were operating
in the same part of town at about the
same time. And that, young fellow. is
going to take an awful lot of explain-
ing on your part!”

Lieutenant McGarry stood in the
apartment across the hall from that of
Mrs. Blauvelt. The lady who resided
there. Mrs. May, had, just returned
from the Red Cross meeting, and she
had been told the shocking news. For
a moment, she had remained silent and

then she exclaimed:

“If I had only known what was hap-
pening! How well it all fits together
now! But—I was afraid of interfering
—and that’s why—”

“You mean there was evidence to
lead you to think Mrs. Blauvelt was in
troublé?” asked the officer.

“I'll tell you exactly what happened.
I became aware that someone had come
up the self-operating elevator way at
about five o’clock. ‘This person walked
softly past my door, and then slightly
after ‘that the door across the way
opened and I’m sure the same person
went in. There was a rustle of some
kind, and then I heard Mrs. Blauvelt
ask in an almost friendly voice, ‘What
do you want from me?’—as if she were
reasoning with someone, or even talk-
ing to herself. Then there was a thud—
as if she had dropped her shopping
bag—but I did not hear any scream. I
got the impression a door down the
hall was opening and someone stood
there listening for a few moments—"

‘THE gentleman in the next apart-
ment thought he heard a scream,”
explained Lieutenant McGarry. “He
stepped outside the door for a little
while and then went back inside, con-
vinced that everything was all right.”

“Yes, because then the door there
closed softly. Shortly after that, I
thought I heard the lock in the door
across the hall click into place, as if
someone were double-locking the door.
There were footsteps going away from
the door—heavy footsteps—and that
was the end of it until I'm told now of
this horrible thing that was taking
place right across the way.”

“Those are the only words you heard
—‘What do you want from me?’ ”’ asked
the detective. “It was Mrs. Blauvelt’s
voice. You heard nothing at all from
the second person, who must have been
in the room with her?”

“There might have been a murmur,”
Mrs. May said thoughtfully. “A kind
of low, purring voice—but it was too
indistinct to make out what was being
said after ,Mrs. Blauvelt asked the
question.”

“If Mrs. Blauvelt had not known to
whom she was speaking, she would
have cried out, don’t you think?”

“She most certainly would have,”
agreed Mrs. May.

“Thank you, Mrs. May,” said the of-
ficer. “It seems unfortunate that no
one investigated these noises more
fully when they happened—but that
can’t be helped. It’s not your fault.
People just don’t expect things like this
to happen. It’s only human nature.”

Meanwhile, Fingerprint Expert John
Larbaig had made a beautiful transfer
of the prints found on the steel jamb
alongside the refuse chute. Then he
had gone over the rest of the apart-
ment with great care, finding a num-
ber of other prints—but the ones he
put aside with real concern was the
huge set to which Lieutenant Wiseman
originally had directed his attention.

Larbaig returned to the Scientific
Bureau of Investigation at Central Sta-
tion with the precious fingerprints.
There he immediately eliminated Mrs.
Blauvelt’s own prints. Some other
markings which he had found in the
living-room and bathroom of the

apartment—and which apparently had
been made by a woman—he put aside
for consideration later, should they en-
ter the investigation in any way. Then
he turned all his attention to bringing
out a clear and unmistakable set of
the door jamb prints, to be checked
against the crime files of the depart-
ment in Los Angeles, and then later
in San Quentin and Washington.

The investigator worked slowly and
carefully, taking care to restore every
worl and oval in the thick fingers which
had left their mark on the wall. And
soon he had what he wanted. He con-
tacted the Record Division and told
them what he was searching for. A few
minutes later, the prints were on their
way to the “Records” and it would be
simply a matter of time to determine
whether or not the killer had a previ-
ous police dossier, and on what counts
he had been convicted in the past. -

Steadfastly, Ray Saul maintained
his innocence of any connection to the
Blauvelt murder. As a first offender,
police gave him the benefit of every
doubt. His fingerprints were taken
and transmitted to Records at about
the same time that Larbaig had sent
his in for checking at the same De-
partment. Then the Wilshire Division
turned the prisoner back to Central
Station County Jail, and waited for a
report in all the details still suspended
in the case.

FROM the Catalina Apartments, Lieu-
tenant McGarry brought the results
of his conversation with Mrs. May. The
four officers were in agreement on the
meaning of the words that Mrs. May
had heard across the hall—the words,
“What do you want from me?”—which
had come almost conversationally from
the woman’s lips.

““Mrs, Blauvelt probably recognized
the man and was not too alarmed.”
Lieutenant Wiseman toyed with the
employe list in his hand. ‘We'll wait a
little while longer and then go after
this list one by one. I can’t get it out
of my head that one of these—”

The telephone in front of Captain
Vaughn rang. It was Central Station
calling. Records wanted to report
that they had nothing in the files on
Ray Saul, and that the nature of his
fingerprints and those found in the
apartment were different. In other’
words, if the fingerprints near the ref-
use compartment belonged to the
Slayer, then Saul had nothing to do
with the killing, And, also, nothing in
his possession indicated that he had
been anywhere inside the Catalina
Apartments during‘the previous day,
when Mrs. Blauvelt had met her death.
That was established clearly now.

“All right,” said Captain Vaughn.
“That exonerates him, and he is not
guilty of the murder. You still haven’t
said anything about who did make
those fingerprints on the jamb.”

“We've turned that information over
to Larbaig,” the officer in Records de-
clared. ‘We know who left those prints
out there.”

“Who was it? We're waiting - for
that.”

“The fingerprints were made by a
man who has several aliases, and who
appears in our files as having served
time on a number of burglary convic-

tions. He is originally from Jefferson,
Missouri, where he also has a police
record. He is also known to the local

“What’s his name?” asked Captain
Vaughn. ‘‘May we have it?”

“Admiral Dewey Adamson.”

“What's that again, Admiral?”

“His first name is Admiral. Admiral
Dewey Adamson. His address—as we
have it—is in the Eight Hundreds on
East Twenty-eighth Street. Have you
got that now?”

Captain Vaughn jotted down the
name and address as given him. Then
he reached for the list that Lieutenant
Wiseman still held in his hand. He
glanced at it for a moment, and then
made a mark opposite the name at the
top of the list. He handed the paper
back to Wiseman, and asked, “Is that
man still working out at the Catalina
Apartments?”

Wiseman looked at the name and an-
swered, “No. He was a former house-
man out there. I’ve sent an officer to
talk with the present houseman, who
was nowhere near the apartment at
the time of the murder. He may be
able to tell us something about this
man you’ve got marked here. But we
have nothing on him, except that he is
a former employe!”

“The man I’ve got marked is the one
who left his fingerprints on the jamb
of the refuse compartment. Fresh
fingerprints. Here’s his address. I
wouldn't waste any time getting him!”

A quiet dragnet immediately went
out for Admiral Dewey Adamson. The
newspapers were allowed to play up the
murder as a mystery with no apparent
clew—a perfect crime—while police
closely guarded the name of the sus-
pect. Day and night vigil was main-
tained in the vicinity of East 28th
Street, and on the third night after
the crime the man whose name had
headed the former employes’ list felt
it was safe enough to go home. Police
moved in swiftly.

E WAS nabbed with the key in his

front door, and upon being ad-
dressed by his name, made no effort to
deny his identity. He was Admiral
Dewey Adamson, and he said he had
been away for a week “with friends.”

He vigorously denied the murder of
Mrs. Stella Blauvelt.

He admitted his former employment
at the Catalina Apartments, and did
not deny that he recalled Mrs. Blau-
velt “vaguely.” Yes, he had known she
was a woman with “lots of money.” He
did not remember anything about her
diamond rings, nor were they found
anywhere in his possession. He claimed
he had not been near the Catalina
Apartments in a year!

Adamson, charged with first-degre2
murder, went on trial November 14.
Even though the man did not con-
fess, the evidence of the fingerprints
was enough to convince the all-woman
jury that he was the killer. Adamson
was found guilty on November 27, and
he was sentenced to die in the gas
chamber at San Quentin by Judge
Charles W. Fricke.

The name of Ray Saul is fictitious to
protect the identity of a man who was
in no way connected with the murder.

After Years Behind Drawn Blinds— (Continued from Page 20) ObpiGLALTeETectInN STORIES

stayed for dinner. But all that ended
shortly after Nellie came to live in Min-
nie’s house. .

What did these two women do in that
big house, all by themselves—the place
lit up, the radio blasting away, the
blinds drawn? The yard was ill-kept
with the grass growing tall in the Sum-
mer; the leaves from trees swirling
around in the Fall; the snow unshovel-
ed in Winter. Only after conditions
around the house became unbearable
even for them would Minnie hire some
youngster in the neighborhood to clean
up the premises.

But Nellie was never one for spend-
ing much money. I recall the instance
of the dangerous cess-pool in their

50

backyard which they refused to fix.
Warnings from the village officials
went unheeded until threats of calling
in the State Health Department moved
Nellie and Minnie into action and they
corrected the situation.

Art then it was they went on a
spending spree. It was just last
Summer. They brought a painter in to
redecorate the house—the first strang-
er—in the eleven years I have lived
next door—that ever set foot inside
their place. They put on a new roof—
but when Nellie had to give the roofer
instructions, she would crook her finger
at him, call him to the back of the
house where no one could see them and

there tell him what to do. The roofer,
after one of these incidents, came
back to our side of the house. My hus-
band was standing there. The roofer
put his hand to the side of his head,
stuck out a finger and made circles with
it, his eyes looking toward Nellie Gil-

berson. My husband knew what was

meant. Yes, he thought to himself,
she was crazy—like a fox.

Here’s another little incident that I
remember. We had a big tree in our
front yard. It was becoming danger-
ous and had to be cut down. The tree
doctors came out, sawed it down. Part
of its heavy trunk fell on the front
lawn—the uncut lawn—of the two
teachers. It was near nightfall and

the tree doctors said they would re-
move the logs and branches in the
morning. When morning came I went
outdoors just in time to see Nellie Gil-
berson walk away from the old tree.
She said nothing as she entered her
house. I went to the logs to start mov-
ing some of the branches away. Ima-
gine my surprise to find little signs
posted on the logs. They read:

PLEASE HAUL AWAY REFUSE
NO TRESPASSING ALLOWED

Imagine this, from a school teacher!
I was shocked. When the tree doctors
came, we moved the logs away and I
cleaned up the front yard of the two


Van Diver, who was steeling herself
against panic. “From what you say,
she’s probably been lying there for
twenty-four hours. We must call the
police.’ The friend of the dead woman
walked quickly to the telephone, and
then as she was about to pick it up,
decided quick-wittedly against dis-
turbing anything in the room before
the police arrived. She turned back
to Mrs. Massey. “You'd better call the
police from downstairs. I—TI’ll wait
here.”

At. Wilshire Division, Homicide,
Night Captain Roy Vaughn was study-
ing a report he had found on his desk.
It was dated July 25, and it told about
a robbery that had been discovered at
the home of Frank Strong, on the
Seven Hundred block on South Windsor
Boulevard. Much valuable jewelry
was missing, the report stated, and the
robbery probably had been committed
during the previous afternoon when no
one had been home. A young man had
been seen loitering about the fash-
ionable neighborhood at about the
time of the robbery. He disappeared
and was not seen again.

APTAIN VAUGHN glanced through

a second paper which reported that
two revolvers were missing from the
home of Frank Marsalisi on the Two
Hundred block on West 4lst Place,
nearby. Just then the telephone in
front of him rang and he was speaking
with Mrs. Massey of the South Catalina
Apartments.

“We can only believe,” the apartment
manager was explaining quietly, “that
there was an undertaking at robbery
which Mrs. Blauvelt walked into when
she came back from her shopping trip.
But it’s all very mysterious, inasmuch
as it happened on the fourth floor and
I was on the desk all afternoon. I can
state for certain that no stranger
passed me up to the time that Mrs.
Blauvelt came in with her groceries.

22

Either someone had been hiding up
there all day, or they gained entrance
from the outside.”

“There’s a rear door, isn’t there?”
asked the Homicide Captain. ‘“Some-
one might have come in the rear door
without observation from you.”

“Yes, but that is unlikely, for we
have a peculiar lock on that which
only someone familiar with the build-
ing would know how to open.”

“Someone who worked here?”

“Yes, any of the employes would
know how to get in. Any present or
phen ga employe would know about
that.”

wep you ever hire a young, sharp-
faced man around here?” asked
the police officer. He was thinking of
the reports of burglary in that neigh-
borhood. “Can you think of anyone
like that?”

“No, definitely not,” replied Mrs.
Massey. “It is almost impossible to
get young help in apartment manage-
ment today, and we do not even try
to get it. All our people, maids and
porters and housemen and such, are
people in their thirties and forties.
There has not been anyone such as
you describe here at any time.”

“Very well,” said Captain Vaughn.
“Lieutenants Wiseman and Brennan
will be there shortly. Don’t call un-
due attention to the crime in the
meantime, and they’ll take care of
everything when they arrive.”

Fifteen minutes later, Lieutenant
G. H. Wiseman was in the fourth floor
apartment, speaking with Mrs. Van
Diver.

“As we understand it,’’ he said, “Mrs.
Blauvelt is the widow of a wealthy
Chicago insurance man. Her nearest.
relative is a sister-in-law who lives in
West Los Angeles, where Mrs. Blau-
velt recently sold a house she owned.
None of this is likely to have anything
to do with the murder, but we should

Detectives found Mrs. Stella
Blauvelt's rifled pocketbook, as
well as these other personal be-
longings, lying beside her body

know all the facts about the victim

before we come to any conclusion as
to what the source of the attack was.
May I have the name of the relative
in this town, and the name of the
young lady in Chicago who, as I un-
derstand it, is named executor of Mrs.
Blauvelt’s estate?”

Mrs. Van Diver gave the officer the
required information. Lieutenant Wise-
man made a few notes.

“In making this arrangement in her
will, Mrs. Blauvelt of course was sim-
ply exercising a routine precaution?”
he asked. “She just felt that it was
best to have everything in order in
case of accidental death?”

“That is correct. Mrs. Blauvelt was
in excellent health and would have
lived for many more years if—this had
not happened.”

“Isn’t it strange?” asked the de-
tective, turning to Mrs. Massey, “that
no one in this entire apartment heard
any kind of outcry when that crime
was being committed—a time which
we may assume was shortly before this
time yesterday. If it was an intruder,
Mrs. Blauvelt most certainly would
have cried out. How do you account
for the fact that no such report was
made to the building management?”

"| AM puzzled by that, too,” declared

Mrs. Massey. “I can't believe Mrs.
Blauvelt knew the person who was in
the apartment when she arrived back
from her shopping trip—and yet if she
didn’t know that person, why didn’t
she scream for help?”

“Of course she may have done so—
or at least tried to do so—when she was
overpowered and the pillow used to
stifle further cries,” said the Lieu-
tenant. “The one deduction is that
she knew who it was, and did not cry
out, though she may have been sur-
prised ‘to find the person in her apart-
ment if it was—let us say—some em-
ploye of the building with whom she

'

In this kitchen officials dis-
covered the fingerprints which
they hoped would eventual-
ly lead them to the killer

was familiar. The other deduction is
that she did cry out and was not heard
a second time, in which event whoever
heard her might have laid it to an in-
voluntary exclamation and forgotten
it when it did not come again. We'll
know about that when we’ve questioned
the other tenants on this floor.”

’ The Lieutenant picked up the mar-
ket bag lying near the body. On it
was written the name and address of
the center where the dead woman had
done her shopping.

“Was it Mrs. Blauvelt’s regular habit
to shop at the same time every day?”
he asked. “Would anyone know that
she always was away from the apart-
ment in the late afternoon?”

“She often did shop at the same
time,” said Mrs. Massey, “but it was
not an absolute rule.. I think I may
say that yesterday she came home a
little earlier than usual. I guess & lot
of people knew that.”

HE detective nodded. “Yes, that

seems to be the case. In the course

of things, I should like to have a list of

those employed here for as far back as

two years, say.” He added: “Mrs.

Blauvelt has lived here since that time,
has she not?”

“That’s right. I shall be glad to sup-
ply you with the list. I hope you will
find it was not one of our people who
is involved in this awful thing.”

The three people in the room turned
around as Lieutenant G. H. Brennan
entered.

“I found no one at home in the sev-
eral apartments on this floor,” he told
them. ‘That seems very strange.”

“Yes,” agreed Mrs. Massey, “‘it is.
But it is also the time when most
people are coming home from work.
Mrs. May lives across the hall—”

“Mrs. May was one of us at the Red
Cross,” interrupted Mrs. Van Diver,
“and I don’t doubt she is at the meet-

ee

ing at this very moment. It was the
fact that Mrs. Blauvelt did not come
calling for me at my apartment below
this that led me to come up to find
out what was wrong.”

“I have a Mr. Frank H. Heck living
in the apartment next to this,’ Lieu-
tenant Brennan went on. “If he were
at home, perhaps he could help us to
determine any argument that preceded
the killing.”

“Mr. Heck is an accountant with a
large law firm,’ Mrs. Massey said, ‘“‘who
has lived here many years. He gen-
erally arrives at home about this time.”
She glanced out the door just as a man
passed. ‘““‘What a coincidence! There’s
Mr. Heck now.” She called, “Mr. Heck,
will you stop for a moment?”

B Kaos man reappeared in the doorway,
smiling. He glanced once at the
body on the floor, and the smile disap-
peared immediately.

He shook his head grimly and said,
“I know—I knew I should have investi-
gated—but there was no way of telling
where the muffled scream came from,
and when I didn’t hear it again, I
thought someone perhaps had just
dropped something and I went back
into my apartment.”

Lieutenant Wiseman asked: ‘Did
you hear any voices? Was there no
conversation preceding the scream?”

“I can’t say I did,” Heck replied.
“There was a slight scream and a thud,
or it may have been the other way
around. Then all was silence. I
stepped outside my door and listened—
but when there was no other disturb-
ance, I decided it was nothing serious.
But all day long, I have been thinking
about it and wondering if I had not
made a mistake in not investigating.
Now—lI see that I did.”

At this moment, Police Fingerprint
Expert John Larbaig came into the
room, followed by Official Photograph-
er Sergeant Walter Muntz and several

a

This is the widow's body as it was
discovered by a friend and the
aperivaet manager. Note the
electric cord used to murder her

Lieutenant G. H. Wiseman: He
had to decide whether the killer was
the same young man who had been
burglarizing the neighborhood

attendants from the coroner’s office.

“I think it will be wise if we leave
these gentlemen to do their work here,”
Lieutenant Brennan said, “while you
other folks retire to your quarters to
think this over. Maybe something im-
portant in connection with the investi-
gation will occur to you. I want you
to try especially to remember if any
salesman or other solicitors were on
the premises yesterday—”

“We have a rule against tenants
being disturbed in that way,” Mrs. Mas-
sey told him. “Canvassers are warned
away by a sign on the lawn and again
in the front lobby.”

/ |™M AFRAID that wouldn’t discour-

age anyone who was determined to
gain entry in the guise of a salesman,”
Lieutenant Brennan replied. “As a
matter of fact, we have a definite rec-
ord of a youth posing as a salesman
who has been operating as a burglar in
this vicinity. He goes to the door and
rings the bell. If anyone answers he
makes a spiel about something he pur-
ports to be selling. If no one answers,
he tries to get into the house and takes
on his true self as 4 burglar. We know
he has pulled two such successful

(Continued on Page 49)

23


a

fa Be

a PeHE girl’s body lay face down in the
plowed field, with her face jammed
into the mud. The back of her head
had been beaten in. Her reddish-blond
hair was matted with blood. She was
dead—murdered—a grotesque, pitifully
crumpled figure in the early morning
sun. Her black silk dress and the
jewelry that gleamed on her hands be-
jonged to midnight and gayety—not to
the brassy, uncompromising dawn.
Whoever she was, her killer appar-,
ently had taken her body from a car,
lifted it over the fence and thrown it
into the field. That much we could
tell from the physical evidence in the
field. That much, and no more. Who
she was, why she had been slain in
such a brutal, vicious manner, who the

2:

ry Ti ee ‘im ihe tees S
Clo, Mex., asphyx,.

Sheriff William
author, expected to learn at
least the killer’s line of flight
from this shoe of the victim

killer was—all those things would have
to come later, if at all.

The field was
Diss Road an
miles south of

ntersection of
Alma Street, a few
Palo Alto—not far from
ty campus. This
was the morning of November 23,
1942.
The call to my office h
- 8:36 am.—from a passin
who had seen the body.
Deputy Sheriffs Phil Cuffaro, George
Officer George
ble Dan Hinkey were

Vogel and Consta’
rived. Deputy

already there when I ar
Coroner Harry Ry
t attorney’s office
drove up about the same time I
shortly after 9 o’clock.

Phil Cuffaro was at work with his
identification equipment.

“Lots of evidence around here that
may be useful,” he told me. “A foot-
print over there; tire-tracks on the
edge of the road, cigarette stubs and
that kind of stuff. I’m collecting every-
thing before it gets away from us.”

“Any identification on her?” I asked.

“Not much—so far. Her purse is
missing. So are her shoes.”

Deputy Coroner Ryder just had
turned the body face up. “Look at this
gold pin on her dress,” he said. “It’s
an initial-pin. Could be either ‘R.C.’
or ‘B.C.’”

He held up a large gold pin with
interwoven initials—a pin which might
help immeasurably in identifying the
girl. B.C. or R.C.—had those been her
initials? What was her name? What
else had the killer overlooked?

In short order, we found a number
of other clews. Two large diamond
rings on the victim’s hands, bloody
finger-smudges on a tree, blood on one
of the fence-posts.

Tire-tracks about two feet outside
of the fence were quite plain. Only
the death-car would have pulled in
that far from the road. Phil Cuffaro

By Sheriff William J. Emig

Santa Clara County, California,

as Told to

Edward S. Sullivan

went to work taking plaster casts of
the tire marks.

Deep indentations—apparently the
footprints of a man carrying a heavy
burden—could be seen close to the
body between the road and the fence.
Only one of them, however, showed
the clear mark of a shoe; we took a
photograph of this.

Theri we found one of the slain girl’s
shoes lying in the mud some distance
away. It was a black suede pump, with
open toe and heel. We could find no
sign of the other shoe, though we
made an extensive search for it.

And that was all. Little enough to
identify this girl, to re-create the terror
which had struck her down, to pierce
the secrets of her life and find her
killer.

Finally, Ryder was ready to remove
the body. We stood looking down at it.
The girl’s face was SO battered and
bloody that her features hardly were
distinguishable. Apparently she was
about 25 or 30 years old. Ryder esti-
mated that she had been dead since
about midnight. .

we were ready to go. We could do
nothing else out there at the moment.
Leaving several officers on guard at the

AD--2


Chinaman Hanged,

San Rare, Cal., Sept.—Lee Doon, a
Chineee, was hanged inerethis morning,
forthe murder of Wm. Sheanton in
1890. Sheanton wag painting the boure
were Lee Doon was employed and had a
quarrel with theChinaman. AsShean-
ton was driving away in a wagon Lee
Doon shot himin the back. Sheanton
fell tothe ground and the Chinamaa

fired three more shots into the man’s
body. :

en

teu Swoand or UY

lan)

Jt, UBS pes

TT2O ‘Ter

aa

*C68T/T/6

i?)
rs

oe 7 2a Nevada City, California, on April 8, 1881,
il LUG, WD e 9 NaNngeEea WEVaada City 9 Vaid OL nla 9 on + Pp b ]

At 110’clock he was led from his cell to the
Kallows by the Sherif and Under Sheriff, ac- |
companied by the priest. Betore reaching
. the plage of exeeution he reqrvested that he
} might be allowed to view his cofin, which re-

a a “Mest was granted. He has all along pleaded
JUSTICE, that he might be baried in a nice enftin, Sit) -
ma a tng, “and no let Chinaman get hold of mei”

Ah Luck Suffers Death for Murier ‘Upon viewing his coffin he expressed himself?

at Nevada City. ae satished, and proceeded up the steps uf the
Nevana City italy Aprils. Aftersercpal seaffeld. Te was seated on a chair, and Under
Inefiertual attempts to getu rep weve or new Sherif’ Carter proceeded to’ read. the death

Warrant, after which Luck was asked if he

trial, Ah Lack, the eondeanted Qupde rer, wie had anything tosay. He replied as follows:

exenutell inthis city to-das. It will be re- “Gentlewensg, please allow me to say na faw
membered that Luck, a Chinaman, wae tried Words. Just hat me, This is the last P
“with two of his countrymen or murdering one me. This. last: minute. Friday, Sth of April,
Ah Gow at Tinckee on the nidht of the 10th POST; this is my: last minute in this world, J
Ah Gow needles te. niada know. Hang me all right, whether you be-
of May, 1879. After staking their vietim lieve “poor Charley was innocent er not, |]
fourteen times and nearly severing his bead hope.to God you gentlemens ask of His blegs-
from the body, they threw hin in the Truckee ing for ae See me. a pees A wi
iver. Lhree Chinaincn were arro-tell for the you Kenullemens: happy and prosperity, and.
river. Three Camamen pad ah ef ha always the best. Good-by 1!" He thén
crime, Viz: Ah Luck, Ah Sing and Un Gue. lage His (hare: oie t to th

| The trial resulted ina verdict ot murder-in tbotatore get mado -a bow | to ne
Phe trial resutted 1 peas Mane 7 spectators, and: ‘stepped . upon the tran,

| the first degree, with tne penaity of death as ‘His. courage. secined sito fail him at ttiis
to Luck and imprisonment jor live for the moment. for be béxan.to ery bitterly, ‘alters.
others. Coansel for the prisoner worked nately kissing the crucifix which he held in-
earnestly fora new trial, but withont avail. his hand and praying aloud, civing utterance »
The *xecoution was originally set; for Marelt such expressionsas: “Oh, Jesus! Vh, Lord! Oh,
Sth last, but a petiuen having been sent tu the dear God! L'wasitinocent—to be hanged—oh, |
Governor for a reprieve of thirty days, the Jesus Christ! Pray for poor Charles!" The

time was postponed nntil to-day.

. st black cap and nopse were then adjusted and
Ab Luck bas throughout assiried bis intio-

, lis arnsand Ices were Rirapped. The trap
cence, and had until a week ago great hopes Was éprang at precisely 11:20. Ile died froin
of the Se Car Ses aoe atlaweceadc the. strangulation; the knot having slipped aroun,
imprisonment for. ahi sb Bu Ba ieee executed fubng to break his neck, although every prt-
sine as that-upon which Bat ted. in the jail caution aaa apparently taken - to make.
aie ie Seah ie cia! wees ras ee efluctual worle of it. At 11:52-o'clock the |
var 2 1 Bats af | bs j § . °

Pei arnt » ab eS ; : fe eS ;
Sheriff Tompkins had previously taken the Pon eeeenounced the pulse extinct, ard

° tt 3 dS: h ini ;. ) Ww e ’ a4 -
‘precaution to issue but a limited’ number jot hie Pall Her aie “taken charge of by the
invitations, this resulting in goodsorder being Sisters ot Charity of. the orphan asylum at
maintained. .The prisoner has been Visited jo: | @pabe Valley, whio had everything prepared -
late by aeanets Melton an, M eer fee babe | for his nterment. ‘The rempine will be buridd

.} (> i y, ani yes eruny ne was Li - 1. Baye lp by ga ee Tht thea: %, ign 2 afory > Oat

putes of AN Gh religion, Ho seemed | be thew In. tng Catholic cemetery at thiy
pertectly reconciled to hig tate at the time jo! eet

his exeeution,

CA

ut G_( Fo]
(3-6)


g

UbofiE76. TE

{

ic

5


case
left.

Shown pondering his fate in his bare cell, this man who had too many
girlfriends entered the gas chamber still proclaiming his innocence.

Towler swept his glance up and down the road. Orville
Rockhold, a creamery worker en route to his job in Palo
Alto, stopped at his signal. Towler urged him to call the
sheriff’s office while he, Towler, remained with the body.
Immediately Deputy Sheriff George Pyne answered the
summons. After a brief examination he was convinced that
the young woman had been murdered. A gold pin at the
neck of the dress bearing the initials B. C. was the only
hint of identification on the body.

Pyne called Coroner Jessie Spaulding, who ordered an
autopsy. The body was taken to Palo Alto Hospital and de-
scriptions given to the newspapers and radio stations.

From tire marks on the roadside at the murder scene, Pyne
knew the girl had been brought to the spot in a small car,
possibly a Ford. And the single trail of a man’s footprints
leading from the marks to the body and signs of blood on the
road indicated that she had been carried or dragged into the
field.

The autopsy disclosed deep wounds on the victim’s fore-
head. The back of her head was crushed and the face so
battered that the features were hardly distinguishable.
Bruises and lacerations on the right hand indicated that the
murderer had torn something from the victim’s clenched fist.

Dr. Burt Davis, Jr., of the coroner’s staff, concluded the
woman had died from a skull fracture approximately eight
hours before the body was found. There was no indication
that the victim had been criminally attacked.

While the autopsy was still under way, Deputy Phil Cuffaro
had been dispatched to the murder scene and made a cast
of the tire prints. Armed with this he knew he need only
to find a matching tire to identify the killer’s car.

In San Francisco, R. W. Levey, a cigar dealer, of 900 Market
Street was puzzled when his woman clerk did not appear
for work that Monday morning, November 23, 1942. She was,
according to him, a conscientious girl and would have phoned
if she were not able to be on the job.

By noon Levey knew why he had not heard from her. The
newspaper description of the unidentified slain woman found
in Palo Alto was that of Bernice Curtis. After seeing it, he
called the San Francisco police who at once got in touch
with the Santa Clara County sheriff's office.

Calls by Pyne to Bernice’s roommate, Mrs. Elsa Martin,
232 San Jose Avenue, and the victim’s sister, Mrs. Helen
Ash, 3434 Sacramento Street, both in San Francisco, brought
tentative identification through description of the clothing
and jewelry, including the monogrammed pin and two rings,

4
ts


as

Deputies Pyne, left, and Cuffaro examine the black party
dress worn by the girl bludgeoned to death with a rock,

worn by the victim, which, they said, she highly prized.

Mrs. Ash told Pyne that her sister had come to San Fran-
cisco two months before for a visit of several weeks. But,
instead of returning to Chicago as she had planned, Bernice
got a job and moved into a room with Mrs. Martin in the
home of Mrs. Grace Arnold in another section of the city.
Bernice often visited Mrs. Ash and was in nearly daily tele-
phone communication with her.

Pyne also learned from Mrs. Ash that Bernice, who had
worked as a beauty parlor Operator in Chicago, had been
divorced from a Stanley Koda four years before. Koda had
since been drafted and was reported to be with the Army
on the Pacific Coast. The sister, however, could give no hint
to Bernice’s slayer nor the motive for the murder.

Late that afternoon Inspectors Harry Husted and Al
Corasa of the San Francisco Homicide Squad learned from
her roommate that the slain girl had been dating a man
known to her friends only as Frank,

Frank was very attentive to Bernice, Mrs. Martin told
the police inspectors and always sent her flowers when they
went out. In fact a corsage box from the neighborhood florist
was still on Bernice’s dressing table.

“Frank called Bernice every morning at 9 o’clock and
sometimes late in the evening,” Mrs. Martin said. “He called
at nine this morning and when told that she was not in he

said that he would call later. He hasn’t called as of yet.

hree tir
“I knew something was wrong,” Mrs. Martin went on, a
“when Bernice didn’t come home all night.” she contir
She added that Bernice had been out with Frank Saturday At Bert
night until 2:30 o’clock Sunday morning. And on Sunday tors that
night, the last time she saw her alive, the girl was preparing descripti
to go out with him again. At that time Bernice told her that offer: w
she had to make a decision soon as Frank had urged her to With th
marry him. checking
Mrs. Martin said that she had never met Frank, but that ond day
Bernice had shown her his picture which she carried in her the murd:
wallet. She believed Bernice took the wallet with her Sun- office was
day night in her black cord purse, which was missing. She The bru
described Frank as a good looking Latin type, with flashing paper cov
dark eyes and a small moustache, anveared
Mrs. Martin explained that she had left the house before sedan, O:
6 p.m. Sunday and therefore did not know exactly when Pyne that
Frank had called for Bernice. 12:45 a:
Mrs. Arnold, the landlady, told the inspectors that Frank noticed a
had a deep voice and drove an old green sedan. She said that had seen ;
when she left the house shortly after 6 o’clock Sunday eve- On Frid
ning Bernice was still in her room, gust Terr:
At the neighborhood florist, Henry Schrumpf told the Deputy Si
police that a man answering Frank’s description several “About
times had ordered corsages delivered to the Curtis girl. He for; I jus
remembered him especially because he had once said, “These named F]
flowers are a lot of punk, but they fall for it.” for speed::
Mrs. Ash, the sister, also told Husted and Corasa that she The nan
didn’t know Frank’s last name, She reiterated Mrs. Martin’s and Sant
description of him and added that he was about 5 feet 9 encio (Fr
inches tall and weighed 175 pounds. She said he was about times in |
35 years old and once told Bernice that he was married and Kathleer
divorced. Mrs. Ash believed he worked in a shipyard in the Short},
bay area. She also said that he drove an old green sedan. son, a pre
“Bernice liked dancing,” Mrs. Ash said. “She used to go fogind, a t
to the El Patio dance hall quite often. In fact she met Frank ment at

there three weeks before and they had been together two to It did:

Of the jewelry found at death scene, the BC monogrammed
pin proved to be the best lead to the identity of body.


i as of yet.
went on,

nk Saturday

i on Sunday

aS preparing
told her that
irged her to

NK, but that
.rried in her
th her Sun-
lissing. She
vith flashing

ouse before
tly when

that Frank
e said that
Sunday eve-

ipf told the

tion several

irtis girl. He

said, “These

isa that she

Irs. Martin’s
at 5 feet 9
was about

narried and
yard in the
n sedan.

1ogrammed
of body.

eb a ag ace

three times’a week since then, and both seemed very happy.

“About a week ago she asked me what I thought of him,”
she continued. “Bernice said he had asked her to marry him.”

At Bernice’s place of employment, Levey told the inspec-
tors that he had often seen a man answering to Frank’s
description and driving an old green sedan pick up his clerk
after work.

With the description of the man, Husted and Corasa began
checking the war year shipyard personnel rolls. On the sec-
ond day of the case, a fur coat retrieved near the scene of
the murder and turned in to the Santa Clara County sheriff’s
office was identified by Mrs. Ash as Bernice’s.

The brutal murder of the pretty clerk received wide news-
paper coverage in the San Francisco area. When the story
anveared that the man wanted for questioning had a green
sedan, Orr Meeker, a Palo Alto bus driver, told Deputy
Pyne that he had passed the murder scene on his route at
12:45 a.m. on the morning the body was found and had
noticed a green Chevrolet sedan parked on the roadside. He
had seen a fur coat on the road a short distance from the car.

On Friday morning, four days after the murder, Sgt. Au-
gust Terragno of the South San Francisco police telephoned
Deputy Sheriff Pyne:

“About that Frank with a green sedan you are looking
for; I just have a hunch. He fits the description of a guy
named Florencio Alcalde we’ve picked up a couple of times
for speeding. He is working at Western Pipe and Steel.”

The name was a bombshell to peace officers of San Mateo
and Santa Clara Counties. Several years before, one Flor-
encio (Frank) Alcalde, had been questioned three separate
times in the unsolved murder of a San Mateo girl named
Kathleen Robinson.

Shortly after 9 p.m. on January 26, 1935, Kathleen Robin-
son, a pretty red haired, 26-year-old laundry worker, was
found, a bullet through her head, two blocks from her apart-
ment at 354 North Claremont Street in San Mateo.

It did not take the police long to learn that she had been

Cuffaro points out how tread of tire from accused’s
car matches his cast of imprints at scene of murder.

seen often in the company of Frank Alcalde, son of a well-
to-do restaurant owner. In fact, there was a well founded
report that they were engaged. Then Alcalde’s insistence on
having a free hand where other girls were concerned dis-
illusioned his fiancee and Kathleen, reportedly, gave him an
ultimatum.

The police questioned young Alcalde at length early in the
investigation and released him. Picked up a second time
as more evidence linking him to the Robinson girl was
brought to light, he was again set free. Finally, two months
later, he was arrested a third time when a rusty 32 auto-
matic identified as belonging to a relative of Frank was
found a short distance from the Kathleen Robinson murder
scene, This time Frank Alcalde was charged with murder,
but the case was dismissed at a preliminary hearing.

In view of this background, Deputies Pyne and Roy Lar-
sgn and Robert Drexel, investigator for the Santa Clara
County district attorney’s office on November 29 appeared
at the office of the Western Pipe and Steel plant and asked
to see Alcalde.

When he had been summoned, the officers confronted the
obviously nervous man. Pyne opened the questioning by ask-
ing, “Where were you on ‘Sunday night?”

“Well, I went to my room after work and washed up,”
Alcalde said easily. “Later I had dinner and played cards
with my father and a couple of friends at the Union Club.
Then I went home and went to bed.”

“Do you own a green 1933 Chevrolet sedan?” Pyne asked.

Frank replied that he did.

“I think you had better come with us, Alcalde,” Drexel said.
“We have a few more questions we would like to ask you.”

At the Santa Clara County sheriff’s office in San Jose,
Alcalde took the police interrogation coolly.

* “Just where were you Sunday afternoon?” Pyne asked.

“I worked from 8 to 4:30 Sunday,” Alcalde replied. “Then
I drove to the West Hotel where I live and parked my car.
I dropped in at Welte’s poolroom [Continued on page 93]

Inspector Husted learned from her room-
mate that girl had boyfriend named Frank.


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near the murder scene. It matched parti-
cles of a feather on Alcalde’s bloodstained
gray hat.

Faced with mounting evidence that he
was acquainted with Bernice, Alcalde took
the stand on the fourth day of the trial
and finally conceded that he had met the
girl three and a half weeks before she was
found slain.

He said he and his wife had quarreled
over her working at the radio shop.

He told the court that the last time he

had seen Bernice Curtis was shortly after
midnight the Saturday before she was
murdered. Bernice had told him that she
was going horseback riding in Golden
Gate Park the next day and later on a
dinner date with a man she had known
for only a short time, Alcalde said.
- Aleaide testified that he did not use his
car again after he had driven to his hotel
from work that Sunday and had parked
it in its assigned spot in an alley. Patrol-
man Frank Bertucelli said that Alcalde’s
green Chevrolet was not in its usual spot
when he made his round at 12:20 a.m. that
Monday, but that it was there at 2:20 a.m.

Deputy Prosecutor Andreucetti hit the

ball hard in the closing arguments of the
trial. He hammered on what he presented
as the obvious fact that Bernice Curtis was
with Alcalde on the fatal night of Novem-
ber 22, 1942. He introduced the testimony
of Mrs. Martin to the effect that Miss
Curtis had told her that evening that she
was waiting for Alcalde and that he was
insistent that she marry him.

To these details, he added the fact that
Alealde’s car had been seen parked near
the murder scene by Meeker, the bus
driver, at 12:45 a.m., that the tire imprints
of Alcalde’s Chevrolet had been found
there and that more than half the decora-
tive feather off Alcalde’s hat had been
found near the girl’s body.

On March 10, 1943, ten days after the
trial began, the jury of eight women and
four men believed the State’s evidence
that Alcalde had hammered the girl to
death with a rock and found him guilty
of murder in the first degree.

Alcalde maintained his innocence to the
end, entering the gas chamber on August
18, 1944, with the final declaration that
he had no idea who had killed—or wanted
to kill—Bernice Curtis.

Our Night of Terror

[Continued from page 15]

Golden Gate. And whether we are teem-
ing with customers,’with lights and music
low, or mused and silent, as now, I can
find a lot to look at and think about in the
Belmont Casino. The hoarse horn of a
diesel engine on the Southern Pacific
Railroad tracks nearby jolted me out of
my reverie.

“Guess we might as well close up,” I
said, and Sam, 34, ‘husky and not given
to too much idle conversation, nodded. “I
have to take Esther home,” I added, re-
ferring to my fiancee, Esther Gallagher,
23, slender, red-haired and as pretty as
they come, who was watching television.

I paid little attention when the door
was pushed open and a man hurried in. I
figured he was a customer hurrying in
for one last drink before the 2 a.m. closing
of the bar. I glanced at my watch and saw
he had a few minutes to spare.

But this customer had more than a
drink on his mind. He was thinking of
money, our money, and, as I was to learn,
he was determined to go to any lengths to
get it. He was a big man, about 6 feet,
2 or 3 inches tall, with receding black hair
and a mustache.

Shambling up to the bar, he said to
Sam, “I think I dropped a $20 bill in here
earlier. You know, when my buddy and
I were in.”

“Sure, I remember,” Sam said. ‘Th
— around the bar and help you hunt
for it.”

I picked up some receipts and sat down
at the end of the bar to study them, leav-
ing Sam and the stranger to their search.
I was intent on my work and never heard
the front door open again.

A sharp hard jab in the side jolted me
erect. The receipts fell from my fingers
and I winced as a wave of pain splayed
over my back. A harsh new voice grated
in my ear.

“Don’t make any moves, bud. This is a
holdup.”

Feeling like a spectator at a play, I
watched the big fellow with the black
mustache straighten up from his search
of the floor with Sam and glance in my
direction. With almost a grin on his face,
the big man’s hand inched in and out of

his pocket with tantalizing slowness. I
watched tensely and I wondered what was
coming next. Would the second man be-
side me pull the trigger?

“Sam, don’t move! This is a holdup!”

The cry broke the stillness into a hun-
dred pieces. I didn’t recognize the voice
and for a long moment didn’t realize that
it was mine. But another painful jab of
the gun in my side brought me to the
realization of the spot we were in. The big
man tensed and balanced his weight on
the balls of his feet, ready to swing in any
direction, as Sam straightened up and
stared at me, wondering. Both Sam and
I saw, at about the same time, the white-
covered sap that now dangled loosely
from the right hand of the big fellow.

The robber with the gun eased around
until he was facing me, leaving no doubt
in my mind, if any had been there, that
he carried sudden death in his clenched
fist. “What do I do now?” I said to myself.

With adding machine clicks, my mind
ticked off my _ possibilities—fight-run-
stand still, talk-argue-bluster-plead. I
didn’t do any of the things I often had
thought I might do. I’m just an ordinary
guy who got caught in a table stakes
game, with a low hand against a loaded
deck and my life and the lives of my
friends as the stakes. I did what the man
with the gun told me to do.

The second bandit was 5 feet, 10 inches
tall, a bit shorter than the big guy who
came in first. He walked with a limp, had
a patch over one eye and his left hand
was crippled.

“Get over there,” the Big Guy then told
Sam, motioning with his sap toward the
bandstand at the head of the dining room
where only a short time before people
were chatting, laughing, dancing and
dining. Stepping carefully, Sam did as or-
dered. Big Guy, the sap swinging in his
fist, stayed at Sam’s heels.

“Lie down,” Big Guy ordered.

Sam dropped to the floor. Big Guy
pulled a roll of adhesive tape from his
pocket and with swift, sure twists and
turns, bound Sam’s hands and feet. He
pulled a napkin from a nearby table and
stuffed it into Sam’s mouth.

For a second, Big Guy stared down at
Sam, then he turned toward me. “Now,
it’s my turn,” I thought, but the thought
died and was buried before a second fear-
ful thought that tumulted through my

mind. What of Es*
watching TV in ano’
ing, sitting thert
happening here 1
What would happs
of coffee and can
startling these m
there was only on:
“My girl is he
“Where?” Big |
I motioned with
Patch Eye proc
and we walked arc
of the dining roon
sitting. Her legs »
But her eyes
slowly and tense
taking place. “W
asked, although
“Money?” I nodd:
“Don’t worry,
will be all right
“Come on, pleas
quiet voice al
that had been p!
of my mind brok
actions had bee:
“You first, |
But when it +
again. And
gun. With
Patch Eye
moved back t
lay on the fi
and Big Guy s
Esther gasp¢
tie askew, stret
her hand shot t
that I knew »
whispered. “Ta:
time that gu!
back and I kné
a slighttighten
explode a bull:

We stoppe
Esther's eyes
smile encouras
up her arm t
sweater she ™
avid eyes roa!

“Miss,” Pat
lie on the fi
his manner
firm.

With a sig!
sank to the flo
ing her twee
shadow of fe
was sometntit

Patch Ey«
the latte:
Esther, takin
from his po
wasted moti
bound Sam

“Now, y¥
with the gu

“All I have
“Look! Tak«

Patch Eye
one eye !
huskier
his pocket
over Sam's

“The m
robber said }

A tumult
“But I don *

the gunma:
nation.”

“Tl get
growled, lift
out of him

Patch E3
thought.

“Look, té

Patch E
thought a:
hind the

or


California Terror Killer's

Fe Sra St Vs
Bel Ss eae

One by one, Frankie promised his girls the.
moon —love, marriage ... But when they tried

to collect, he paid them off—in cold murder

PARADE af ti

by FERGUS MACGILL

T’S a simple biological fact that
A most good-looking young men are
vain about their success with the ladies
and confident of their appeal to them.
There is a point in the development
of the normal-human male when he
thinks any girl he turns his eyes on
must inevitably fall for him.

But in the case of young Florencio
“Frank” Alcalde, the  sleek-haired.
lover-boy of the San Francisco penin-
sula, he didn’t just think ithe knew

it. The conviction that.he was abso-
_ lutely irresistible to women was part of

the fiber of his being. Stripped of it,
he -would’ have had nothing at all,
would have been nothing at all—be-
cause girls, and dates and sex were
his whole life.

By the same token, the dark-com-
plected, curly-haired, sleekly handsome
young swain was a prey to fierce jea-
lousy and desperate possessiveness in
his love life. In him, romantic nature
and burning ego were fused into a psy-
chopathic drive to captivate and domi-
nate women.

Like his prototype, the legendary

_ Don Juan of old Seville, Frank Alcalde
demanded complete devotion and sub-
servience on the part of his chosen
females, while at the same time reserv-
ing his masculine right of the double
standard, to let his own affections
rove at will. He soon wearied of one

' conquest and went on to another; but

let any girl beware of dropping him
before he was tired of her!

Like Don ‘Juan, Frank was a .col-
lector of beautiful women, and he
bragged of his bedroom triumphs.
The more. thoughtful among his ac-

Se

‘The second redhead to die.was Bernice Curtis, She was found face down in

the mud, her face jammed among the clods and her hair matted with blood.
Morgue shot, right, of the pre

tty divorcee, helped in her identification. 19

eR


Don ‘himself, young
ht on his merry, pro-

y-two before he got
for the first time —
a young woman as
as possessive as him-
ourn-haired Kathleen
ll, slim beauty with
Mona Lisa smile —
the double standard.
eedom of romance
1 ways.
a twenty-six-year-old
a strong and inde-
aind, who lived alone
ent over a garage. in
ateo. She worked in
and she enjoyed life.
edhead with the se-
d the husky, vibrant
steady succession of
had been engaged
nes before she met

lly met, their similar
temperaments soon
st, Kathleen was just
for the curly-haired
her, he was just an-
‘ke her to the garish
ght clubs that were
But’ before long, the
ed pair were tangled
ission, jealousy and
ove.

to Kathleen that he
arry her, but obvi-
do-so till he found
st as obviously, he
r a job. His: well-to-
whom he lived in
him spending money
1e family, car. Frank
y around his father’s
up an odd job now
dstly spent his time
> taverns and gambl-

) Was getting no
chat marriage might
3ut till Frank could
, She reserved the
ith other men. when
ink railed and raged,
ance on his rivals.
10 knew there was
: her cautious lover
ed in a duel, only
izing, slow smile.
any claim on me,
elong to any man.
ind to giving me that
3ll be different . .'.”
vas that she didn’t
ar man well enough,

intuition to plumb -

id frightening depths
ure,

January 26, 1935,
Kathleen had their

CRIME DETECTIVE

usual Saturday night date to go night-
clubbing on San Francisco’s North
Beach. Kathleen had some shopping
to do in the afternoon, something to

do: with accessories for her evening. .

outfit. At ‘two p.m.,. Frank,’ who had
dropped “in at her apartment after
lunch, put her on the suburban street-
car to the city.

A few minutes after: nine o’clock .

that night, Frank, dressed in his sharp
new black suit and ‘pearl-grey hat,
knocked at the door of Kathleen’s
landlady, Mrs. Thelma Brewer. “Sorry
to disturb you, Mrs. Brewer,” he
smiled, “but I’m looking for Kathy. I

was supposed to pick her up at nine.

sharp, but she isn’t there, and her place
is dark. I thought maybe she left a
message with you—”

No, the Brewers hadn’t seen Kath-

leen since morning. But about seven
p.m., Brewer had noticed a light in the
garage apartment, which was at the

back of the lot, detached from the

house. “Maybe she just stepped out for

' a few minutes, Frank. Why don’t you

come in and wait for her?”

Alcalde came in and sat chatting :

with the landlady and her husband. He
kept looking at his watch, and as the
time ticked by, his increasing anxiety
communicated itself to them.
“It’s odd she wouldn’t call us to tell
you she’d be late,” Mrs. . Brewer

frowned. -“Kathy’s a very punctual °

girl.” .

When. ten o’clock had passed, with- - ;
out a sign of Kathleen nor any mes- *-’

sage from her, Alcalde and the Brew-
ers telephoned several friends of the
girl, but no one had seen her. Sittcé
there had been a light in her apart-
ment at seven, she must have returned
.on schedule from her shopping trip
to the city. Mrs. Brewer took her key
and went back to the apartment, to
confirm that it was empty.

“Something’s happened to _ her!”
Frank said. “Kathleen would never
stand me up like this! She was so
anxious to go up to the city tonight,
too—we’d been planning on it all
week—”

By eleven-thirty, the Brewers agreed
it was time to call in the police. They
drove Alcalde to the San Mateo sta-
tion a few blocks away. The desk
sergeant couldn’t get too excited over
their story. After all, Kathleen was a
grown young woman, and she’d been
missing only two and a half hours on

a Saturday night. There could bea -

dozen perfectly ordinary explanations
for her absence. There had been no
reports of any street accidents. But at
Alcalde’s insistence, the sergeant pick-

ed up the telephone and began a.

‘Check of peninsula hospitals.

A LCALDE and the Brewers were
still at, the police station, : just

f

about midnight, when the call came’

CRIME DETECTIVE ©

"ETE TOPO x ‘TER

itt

\
wt

Police did a magnificent job in preparing circumstantial evidence in the Robinson
case. Above--Officer Frank Steele examines redheaded beauty’s party dress and

shoes. Below—Chief Thomas Burke ex

amines two wine glasses found in her room.


e«
©

”
ne oe oy

h

ispa

Fee |

That was her undoing.

getting any younger and she
age

Kathleen wasn’t
demanded marr’


ie 8 AOA

“‘THAT’S HERS”’

Bernice Curtis’ fellow employees identified clothing, held by Sheriff William: J. Emig and
Deputy Phil Cuffaro, as garments worn, from time to time, by the ill-fated, lovely redhead.

‘quairitances, however, may have real-

ized that, like any philanderer, he was
driven not necessarily by an. imperious
sex urge, but by a constant frantic
necessity to reassure himself of his
potency, of his irresistibility..

Frank Alcalde’s other dominant
characteristic, linked with his jealousy
and possessiveness, was his inflam-
mable temper. He flew into. ‘a blind
rage at anyone or anything that crossed
him, that thwarted his arrogant career.

And finally,.an integral part of all
this, and still another manifestation
of the young Don Juan’s basic selfish-
ness, was a certain shrewdness—a

wary instinct for self-preservation that

operated even in the middle of\ his
violent flareups. Perhaps in the end
it was this that provided the real key

to. his ..personality, and distinguished

him from the legion of other young
20

men of. similar type—sleek, suave, in-
sinuating, with large liquid eyes, long
sideburns and pencil-line moustache.
Because, undeniably, something did
distinguish Alcalde, did lift him out of
his not-uncommon category ‘and raise

-him to a dubious and grim eminence,

after living on borrowed time for
seven years... .

RANK Alcalde, to his friends, was
a Don Juan, even in his teens, He
was the. notorious wolf’ of the ‘high
school ‘dances, and he had a formid-
able list of peninsula. conquests. to his
record before he was twenty-one,
And he had always managed, as'a
typical. Don Juan, to, steer clear of.

-entanglements, ‘though sometimes it

was a narrow squeak, There was talk

of an abortion mess, and some ugly®
threats from fathers and brothers. But. .

cemented sae

like.the carefree Don ‘himself, young

Alcalde went right on his merry, pro-

miscuous way.

He was twenty-two telees he got
really involved for the first time —
ironically, with a young woman as
roving-eyed and as possessive as him-
self. Lovely, auburn-haired Kathleen
Robinson—the tall, slim beauty with
the mysterious Mona Lisa smile —
didn’t believe in the double standard.
She thought freedom of romance
should work both ways.

Kathleen was a twenty-six-year-old
bachelor girl of a strong and inde-
pendent turn of mind, who lived alone
in a little apartment over a garage in
suburban San Mateo. She worked in
a laundry office, and she enjoyed life.

The willowy redhead with the se-
ductive figure and’ the husky, vibrant
voice had had a steady succession of
boy friends, and had been engaged
three or four times before she met

. Alcalde.

When they finally met, their similar
and yet clashing temperaments. soon
struck fire. At first,: Kathleen was just
another conquest for the curly-haired
Don Juan, and to her, he was just an-
other escort to take her to. the garish
San Francisco night clubs that were
her life’s breath. But’ before long, the
paradoxically-linked pair were tangled
in'a web of passion, jealousy and
what passed for love.

RANK vowed to Kathleen that a

wanted to marry her, but obvi-
ously he couldn’t do-so till he found
a steady job. Just as obviously, he
wasn’t looking for a job. His: well-to-
do parents, with whom ‘he lived in
San Bruno, gave him spending money

and let him use the family car. Frank

worked desultorily around his father’s
restaurant, picked up an odd job now
and then, but mostly spent his time
loafing around the taverns and gambl-

‘ing joints.

Kathleen, who was getting no
younger, agreed that marriage might
be a good idea. But till’ Frank could
be more definite, she reserved the
right to go out with other men. when
she felt like it. Frank railed and raged,
swore dire vengeance on his rivals.
But Kathleen, who knew there was
small danger that her cautious lover
would. get involved in a duel, only

. smiled her tantalizing, slow smile.

“You don’t have any claim on me,
Frank, I don’t belong to any man.
When you get around to giving me that
ring, maybe things’ll be different . .'.”
Her misfortune was that she didn’t
know this particular man well enough,

didn’t have the intuition to plumb °

fully the murky and frightening depths
of his violent nature.

N Saturday, January 26, 1935,
Frank and Kathleen had their

CRIME DETECTIVE

REE

Trey

ee es

usual Saturday nig
clubbing on San
Beach. Kathleen |
to do in the after
do: with accessori:
outfit. At ‘two p.n
dropped ‘in at hi
lunch, put her on
car to the city.

._ A few minutes
that night, Frank,
new black suit a
knocked at the «
landlady, Mrs. The
to disturb you,
smiled, “but I’m k
was supposed to yj
sharp, but she isn’t
is dark. I thought
message with you

No, the Brewer:
leen since mornin;
p.m., Brewer had n
garage apartment,
back of the lot,
house. “Maybe she

- a few minutes, Fra

come in and wait

Alcalde came i
with the landlady a
kept looking at his
time ticked by, his
communicated itse

“It’s odd she wo
you she’d be la
frowned. - “Kathy’s
girl.” .

When ten o’cloc
out a sign of Katt
sage from her, Alc
ers telephoned sev
girl, but no one h
there had been a
ment at seven, she
.on schedule from
to the city. Mrs. B
and went back to
confirm that it we

“Something’s _h:
Frank said. “Kat!
stand me up like
anxious to go up |
too—we’d been p
week—”

By eleven-thirty,
it was time to call
drove Alcalde to t
tion a few block:
sergeant couldn’t g
their story. After <
grown young wom
missing only two a
a Saturday night.
dozen perfectly or
for her absence. T
reports of any stre«
Alcalde’s, insistence
ed up the teleph:

- check of peninsul:

LCALDE and
still at the ;
about midnight, w

CRIME DETECTIVE —


ABBOTT, Burton

{cution before the

Attorney Calls
Execution ‘Illegal’

SAN FRANCISCO, Calif.—
(®)—Defense attorney George

T. Davis Saturday described
as “illegal” Burton W, Ab-

bott’s “post-haste execution”.

two minutes before a phone
call from Gov. Goodwin - J.
Knight’s office to order a
stay. .

Leo Sullivan, Davis’ associ-
ate as Abbott’s appeal coun-
sel, told a press conference
“the state acted prematurely”
in carrying through the exe-
United
States supreme court could
consider and act on Abbott’s
final appeal chance, a peti-
tion for certiorari.

Abbott, 29, died Friday in
San Quentin prison’s gas
chamber while an emergency
phone rang with an urgent
call from the governor’s of-

fice that was two minutes
late.

/., wh, gassed CA (Alameda) March 15, 1957

+ Burton Abbott, 27, convicted

by a jury at Oakland, Calif.,
Wednesday, and condemned to
death in the gas chamber by
the jury for the slaying of
Stephanie Bryan, 14, will keep
on receiving $180 monthly
from the veterans administra-
tion “‘so long as he lives.” Ab-
Rott got tuberculosis in the
army and was honorably dis-
charged. What he did after-
wards has no effect on his
compensation, the VA said.

|

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San Jose Mercury News * Perspective ¢ Sunday, December 5, 1993

Klaas kidnapping brings back
memories of 1955, Berkeley case

@ KIDNAPPING
from Page 1C

accompanied by a friend, Mary
Ann Stewart. Their route home
took them east on Ashby Avenue
with stops along the way, the
first at a branch library, where
Stephanie checked out two books,
“Sue Barton, Staff Nurse,” and
“Two's Company.” Next, at the
Elmwood Pet Shop, she bought a
booklet on the care of parakeets.
The girls parted by the Berkeley
Tennis Club.

Whenever Stephanie was not
home by close to 4 p.m., her
mother, Mary Bryan, began to
worry. On this day, when 4:15
came, Mary began calling Stepha-

nie’s friends. Call after call pro-

duced no word of her daughter.

Stephanie's smiling picture
first appeared on the front pages
on Saturday morning, April 30,
with stories far from sensational.
But far down in one story were
three paragraphs about some om-
inous observations by Allen E.
Hill, a red-headed Navy pilot.

Some two miles southeast of
the Claremont Hotel, Tunnel
Road (an eastern extension of
Ashby) led into Mount Diablo
Boulevard, linking the Oakland
area with Contra Costa County
by way of the Broadway Tunnel.

Hill and his wife had been
westbound on the boulevard
about 4:15 on April 28. As they
approached the tunnel, they had
seen an eastbound car whip off
onto the shoulder.

A girl appeared in the left rear
window, Hill said. She had a
frightened look on her face, and
she yelled ‘‘No!’’ very loudly.
There was an individual moving
rapidly from the front seat to the
back, and the brown-haired girl
was abruptly pulled away from
the rear side window and down.

On May 2, Stephanie’s French
textbook was discovered beside
Franklin Canyon Road in Contra
Costa County.

But all other tips fizzled. Where
was Stephanie? As in the Polly
Klaas case, there was no clue.

At age 33, Burton Abbott’s au-
burn-haired wife was six years
older than he. She was support-
ing the family as a hairdresser
while Burton, a thin, pale 27-
year-old, studied accounting at
U.C.-Berkeley on the GI Bill. Con-
fusion and dismay held sway in

Abbott

Bryan

their home the night the purse
was found. yh

“Isn't that the girl who disap-
peared in Berkeley?” Mrs. Abbott
asked, pointing to Stephanie’s
name. Otto an was the first
to respond, suggesting that she
ask the Berkeley police.

She placed the call’ Within half
an hour two,‘carloads of police
arrived. Burton ‘answered ques-

tions cheerfully, profegsing, total
mystification.. 1 PR Egtaak 3
But his performance to:

impress Disirig , Attorney J.-
Frank Coakley. ‘With the ques-
tioning under way, Burton
worked a crossword puzzle — the
behavior of a person trying too
hard to act innocent, Coakley felt.
The next oo. FBI agents
and police began a ‘systematic
search of the Abbott houses W he
an agent jabhed a probe ihto the,
sandy soil ofthe basément floor

he struck a solid gbject,.and un-f4

covered Stephanie's library books /
and “Everything about Para-
keets.” Further digging produced
a white brassiere.

Abbott stayed cool, wondering
aloud who had secreted the in-
criminating items. Voluntarily he
went to the FBI office for ques-
tioning. When advised of his right
to an attorney, he said he didn’t
need one because he was inno-
cent. After the grilling, he was
allowed to leave. Despite his
jaunty declaration that he did not
need a lawyer, he now retained
one, Stanley Whitney.

In mountainous, forested Trini-
ty County far to the north, the
Bryan case would reach its horri-
ble climax.

The Abbotts had a summer cab-
in there, on remote Hayfork.
Creek near Wildwood. The es-
sence of Burton’s alibi was that
on Thursday, April 28, he had
driven there alone, leaving at
about 11 a.m., five hours before

Stephanie vanished.

Abbott told of reaching his cab-
in about 8 p.m., after stopping for
a drink at the nearby Wildwood
Inn, where he had greeted the
innkeeper, Delbert Cox.

Little by little, the fabric of Ab-

- bott’s alibi shredded. Cox denied

he had seen Abbott Thursday
evening, but he certainly did re-
call his arrival Friday afternoon.
Abbott had shown up about 2 p.m
and tossed down eight or 10
straight shots of Old Hermitage
before dinner. After dinner he
had had at least six more drinks
before the bar closed.

FBI agents joined police in a
search of the Abbott cabin and
surrounding woods. By late Sun-
day, having found nothing of in-
terest, they left. But two San
Francisco Examiner journalists,
reporter Ed Montgomery and
photographer Bob Bryant, stayed
on, and on a hunch enlisted the
aid of Harold Bud Jackson, who
stalked mountain lions with
bloodhounds.

About dusk on July 20, Jackson

brought his dogs to the cabin.
They picked up a scent and head-
ed for a pine tree 339 feet from
the cabin. At its base lay the re-
mains of Stephanie Bryan in a
shallow grave. In the skull were
two large indentations and a 12-
centimeter linear fracture. Virtu-
‘ally all soft tissue was gone.
. Less than.30 minutes after the
grave site. was! discovered, police
swooped down on Abbott’s home
in Alameda and arrested him.

“It can’t be, it just can’t be,”
were his first words. Then, ‘How
far from the cabin did they find
the body?”

, The trial opened Nov. 7 in a
carnival atmosphere.
' Mrs. Abbott, who stuck with
Burton to the end, took the wit-
ness stand to declare, “I know my
husband is innocent.”

On the seventh day of delibera-
tion, the verdict was returned:
Death for kidnapping and death
for murder.

At 11:14 a.m. on March 165,
1957, Abbott entered the San
Quentin gas chamber. At 11:20

the silence was broken by the jan- |,

gling of a telephone. The govern-
or’s office was on the line, inquir-
ing whether a postponement was
possible.

The answer: Too late, the pel-

lets just dropped. @

ese 7

pia

att

|

Beau

Baskets |
Sponge, Bath Be:

(To am, *
Glyce
Beautifully

Cand
For |


‘THE PROSECUTION’S Assistant District Attorney, Emerson and District Attorney Folger hammer at a listening Abbott.

to the rest of the party to come up, that I had—or rather
the dogs had— found something.”
“When you saw the clothing on the ground, what did
‘you do?” asked Assistant D. A. Emerson. .
“I asked Ed Montgomery (another of the hunting party)
to go down to the cabin and get a shovel, that I was
going to see what it was,” replied Jackson.
4 “.... When Ed returned with the shovel, what did you
oT"
“I took the shovel and dug down six inches and un-
covered a shoe.”
“Then what?”
“I uncovered a little more and saw another shoe.”
“Did you do any more digging?”
“No more. That’s all we did.” The deputy sheriff said
he remained at the site of the grave during the night,

guarding it. The next day, he said, he began digging -

again, after the area around the grave had been roped off.
The jury was shown photographs of the dead girl’s

Brave, and the scene was described for them by other

witnesses. ;

To the stand then came Dr. George S. Loquvam, a

THIS BRA may hang Burton Abbott. .

Q.: Did you lie when you said you -

went to Sacramento?

A.: I prevaricated a little bit.

18

pathologist. He testified that Stephanie had died from
terrific blows on the head and said that the position of
her body in her grave indicated that she had tried to
ward off the blows. ;

Coakley asked him to describe the position of her hands.

“... You mean the backs of the hands were toward the
face?” he queried.

“Yes,” replied the pathologist, “the left and right hands
and lower arms were internally rotated.”

Other witnesses told how they had taken important
clues from the graveside—strands of blue yarn, clods of
soil, and snatches of hair—for official police inspection.
The testimony was important because it paved the way
for the prosecution’s single most important witness, Dr.
Paul L. Kirk, a University of California criminologist.

But before Dr. Kirk could take the stand, the trial was
suddenly thrown into an uproar. It was discovered that
one of the jurors’ worked in the same office as Burton W.
Abbott’s brother. The defendant’s attorneys immediately
called for a mistrial, but Judge Snook refused.

He did, however, excuse the juror from further court
duty for the good of all concerned. And he appointed an
alternate juror to take his place.

When Dr. Kirk took the stand, he held the jury spell-
bound while he talked about the differences in human
hairs. The purpose of his testimony was to prove that
Stephanie Bryan had once been, in Abbott’s car. Its im-
portance was indicated by the fact that Abbott's lawyers
tried to have it stricken from the record.

Assistant D. A. Emerson asked the criminologist about
his comparison of hairs found in Abbott’s car with those
from the girl’s corpse,

Said Kirk: “A number of hairs found in the sweepings
were completely indistinguishable from the standard
samples (of Stephanie’s hair) provided me... . There
were two hairs that were so identical that they could
not be distinguished as different at all.”

“Where did these hairs come from?” Emerson asked.

“Both came from the sweepings in the rear compart-
ment of Abbott’s Chevrolet on the rear seat and floor.”

The criminologist also testified that Abbott's car had
contained “at least ten fibers” that matched the Navy
blue sweater Stephanie wore when she disappeared; “at
least three fibers” matching the white orlon sweater she
was wearing under the Navy blue sweater; four particles
of green cotton that “were found identical” with the

Ce a
Sho eae gee _

green half-
complete m
The jury
methods he
even more
boots was °
inches deep
Hardly h:
bott’s defe:
First, they
Then they .
questioned
they querie
Asked o:
hair and sa
“No,” K:
factors whc
rule out m
identificatio
“Can you
pursued th

Q.: Wi

Stephanie's
“I could :

_ head. I can :

people’s hea

The defer
proach to «
strands and
car.

As soon 2
the criminc
called him
chance ther:


time—early January—consisted of
3,390 pages and 847,500 words.

There remained the summings-up
by both the prosecution and the de-
fense attorneys. District Attorney
Coakley indicated that the prosecu-
tion’s final work might take as long
as two weeks. It was possible that the
defense rebuttal would take equally

It was apparent that the prosecu-
tion’s case—however strong—rested
on circumstantial evidence.

It was even more apparent that the
defense lawyers had based their case
on an attempt to show that Abbott had
not committed the crime and that
both the prosecution’s scientific wit-
nesses and its unscientific ones could

The defense, however, had not tried
to show how Stephanie Bryan’s body
had wound up in a Trinity County
grave, nor how her clothing and pos-
sessions had ended up in the basement
of Burton W. Abbott's home.

As the trial entered its final stages,
court observers wondered whether or
not the defense would try to answer

as long. have made mistakes.

those questions. THE END

FLASH ... FLASH... FLASH.

TO EYE WITNESS DETECTIVE
60 WEST 46TH STREET, NEW YORK, N.Y.

AFTER A 48 DAY TRIAL, ONE OF THE LONGEST IN THE
HISTORY OF CALIFORNIA, A JURY HAS DECIDED THAT
BURTON ABBOTT IS GUILTY OF THE MURDER OF STEPHANIE
BRYAN. THIS BRINGS TO A CLOSE THE FIRST PHASE OF
THE CASE IN WHICH, BY WEAVING A CHAIN OF CIRCUM-
STANTIAL EVIDENCE, THE D.A. HAS PLACED A ROPE
AROUND THE NECK OF BUD ABBOTT.

APPEAL IN FIRST DEGREE MURDER CONVICTIONS IS
AUTOMATIC BUT WHETHER OR NOT THE DEFENSE ATTORNEYS
CAN UPSET THIS CONVICTION IS PROBLEMATICAL.

ALTHOUGH THE JURY HAS DECIDED THAT ABBOTT IS
GUILTY THE UNANSWERED QUESTION IS WHY DID HE DO IT.

.. FLASH... FLASH... FLASH

thy
WILL HE EVER BREAK DOWN AND TELL, OR WILL HE MAIN-
TAIN HIS SILENCE UNTIL HE ENTERS THE GAS CHAMBER,
SHOULD HIS CONVICTION GO UNREVERSED?

THE PRINCIPAL CAUSE OF THE CONVICTION OF AB-
BOTT, IN ADDITION TO THE FINDING OF THE EVIDENCE IN
THE BASEMENT OF HIS HOUSE AS WELL AS THE BODY OF THE
MURDERED GIRL NEAR HIS FISHING LODGE, WAS THE FACT
THAT HE HAD ALTERED CERTAIN PHASES OF HIS STORY.
IN THIS ISSUE WE BRING YOU THE COMPLETE STORY OF
THE TRIAL AND THE COMPLETE WEB OF THE EVIDENCE
THAT CONVICTED HIM. .

HOWARD GUERRA
EYE WITNESS CORRESPONDENT

MEMO TO A LITTLE GIRL'S KILLER

(Continued from page 32)

been up north in Canada. But Santa
Claus would find the way to her
house, and if she were very good
every day from now on, he’d leave her
presents under the shining tree. She
pressed her small nose against a shop
window and stared, big-eyed, at all
the toys shown there. There was a
washing machine that really worked,
and a monkey that made her laugh,
and a doll that would walk if you held
on to its hands. For a long time she
dawdled in front of the window, play-
ing the tantalizing game of I-choose-

this. Christmas was the best day of all.
Better than birthdays. Better than
Fourth of July. Better than anything
at all!

XMAS IS COMING!

She skipped off down the street,
reminding herself that she mustn’t
be late because Mama would be
waiting. Under her breath she crooned
the words to the new song they were
learning at school: It Came upon the
Midnight Clear. ... She accented the
words of the song, marking the

rhythm, letting her feet keep time.
Strangers smiled as she passed, but
she was scarcely aware of them. Her
mind was filled with all the plans and
schemes she had. Maybe she and
Mama would go shopping tonight.
They might buy a present for Daddy,
or something for her teacher. Or
maybe they’d go to the movies, the
way they sometimes did on Friday
nights. It was very hard to choose.
Her mether was waiting for her,
and together they drove out to the
laundry. If Patricia Van Eeghen

80

seemed |
notice. T__
on the hood c
whipped her }
the way sh
happily all
laundry she
father, sharir
with him.
Late that ;
Eeghen and |
the laundry. .
out of the do
death. Death \
brutally, strik
a child, who'd
might get a d:

Philip Van
chores at the
told police—w'!
ter didn’t retu:
gone to the r
he looked to s«
in back of the |
he did not sa
had stopped t
with friends, |
had fallen ask
in the morni
covered that |!
not returned.
once. Within a
the red conv:
funeral parle:
bodies.

PANG

It took poli
longer to locat
ing. At the ba:
found th
sand, the
rear wall]
struggle, not!

. Patricia) Van

alarmed when
them; nothing
girl had know:
up into the fa:
come to take !
way to tell whx«
first. No witne
tragedy, for th:
spot well. Th«
secluded place
back of the bui
nearby. But the
both Phylis an
brief moment «
the axe bit dow
spurted out on

Then, in th:
lifted the bod
placed it in t!
placed it ther«
dress carefull,
he turned awa,
because a chilc
so uselessly.

It was too la
late for grief. /
were dead. A:
their bodies

: listening Abbott.

e had died from
at the position of
she had tried to

tion of her hands.
were toward the

t and right hands

taken important
ue yarn, clods of
olice inspection.
t paved the way
tant witness, Dr.
criminologist.
ind, the trial was
: discovered that
ice as Burton W.
ieys immediately
used.

om further court
he appointed an

d the jury spell-
‘ences in human
as to prove that
ott’s car. Its im-
Abbott’s lawyers

minologist about
‘'s car with those

in the sweepings
n the standard
me. ... There
that they could

merson asked.

» rear compart-
seat and floor.”
.bbott’s car had
tched the Navy
disappeared; “at
jon sweater she
r; four particles
tical” with the

green half-slip the girl wore; and one fiber that was “a
complete match” with the turquoise blue skirt she had on.

The jury listened intently as Kirk described the
methods he had used to analyze the clues. They listened

even more closely as he said soil on a pair of Abbott’s ~

boots was “identical” with soil samples taken from nine
inches deep in the dead girl’s grave.

Hardly had the criminologist stepped down when Ab-
bott’s defense attorneys tried to attack his testimony.
First, they asked the judge to strike it from the record.
Then they called the criminologist back to the stand and
questioned him closely about his testing methods. Finally,
they queried him about his testimony itself.

Asked one defense “attorney: “Can you individualize
hair and say that it came from any one person?”

“No,” Kirk admitted, “I can only compare hair by
factors where you can eliminate certain things. You can
rule out most people, but you cannot make a positive
identification.” oe

“Can you say the hairs you found (in Abbott’s car),”
pursued the defense attorney, “were definitely from

Q.: With whom was the girl when
you saw her on April 28?

A.: Two strange men, not Abbott.

Stephanie’s head?” : .
“I could not say definitely they were from Stephanie’s

_ head. I can state that they could not have come from most

people’s heads, but that they could have been from hers.”

The defense attorney used the same or a similiar ap-
proach to query the criminologist about the sweater
strands and certain spots of blood found in the defendant’s
car.

As soon as the defénse attorneys finished questioning
the criminologist, however, the prosecuting attorneys
called him back to the stand. They asked him what
chance there was that he had been wrong in identifying

STEPHIE’S parents think he did it.

HAROLD JACKSON found the grave.

the hair found in Abbott’s car as Stephanie Bryan’s.

The court was hushed. Kirk spoke quietly and firmly.
He said “conservative” odds against his having made a
mistake were about 125,000 to one. '

Soon the prosecution rested its case. ‘ /

One of the defense’s first witnesses was a goateed ex
sea captain named Walter Bethel. Unlike prosecution
witnesses, Bethel testified that Burton W. Abbott was not
the man he had seen struggling in a car alongside Mt.
Diablo Blvd. on April 28. He also said—interestingly—
that the car in which the struggle had taken place was
not the same as Abbott’s car.

Soon came another defense witness, a surprise witness
—the defendant himself, Burton W. Abbott. He was
calm and poised while his own attorneys questioned him;
he denied that he had even been in Berkeley on April 28.
He explained in detail how he had packed his fishing gear
and planned to go mountain fishing that day.

It was evident that the defense attorneys were trying to
bolster their client’s story of what he had done on the day
that Stephanie disappeared. Before they even called him
to the witness stand, they had brought forth a Trinity
County fruit and produce merchant named Robert Wetzel.
He said that he had passed the Abbott cabin on April 28
and had noticed nothing unusual. He also said that he had
run into the defendant himself outside the cabin the
following day.

“When you saw the defendant on April 29,” one of the
defense attorneys asked, “did you observe his appear-
ance?”

“Yes,” said Wetzel.

“. . Did you notice any bruises on him?”

“No.”

“Any cuts or scratches?”

“No.”

“Did his clothes appear to be clean?”

“They looked normal to me.” :

Next another witness testified for the defense. Then
came Abbott. No sooner had his own attorneys finished
with him, however, than the district attorneys began
to question him.

D. A. Coakley forced the defendant to admit that he had
lied about one small part of his trip to Trinity County on
April 28. Then the D. A. made other efforts to show that
Abbott was neither honest nor reliable.

Among other things, (Continued on page 79)

19

0 back his
in a panel-

| his wife,
ted Coffin’s
vy had seen
p bearing
s at about
\ few days
policeman,
is. brother,
iilar story,
the time of
had talked
was driv-
who was
This man
it he once
the Army
inters had

‘d earlier?
lefense by
had been

ound,” said
vy by tele-
he Quebec
&. He was
heard
then,
hink-
amount to

to go on,
They an-
hat pros-
‘s finally
vr the first
had con-
:e hunters’

that he’d
ieir truck
. For this
” visiting
/ in U.S.
‘ing knife.
found the
vith none
ad helped
‘hich was

‘ed man’

iad com-
innocent
ot in any
-r. More-
given a

ber, the
onvinced

Wilbert
mger be
d by op-
‘d of and
lered the

ate action

press the
ndings af
over the
-rople
iting

t END

~

ABBOTT GUILTY

(Continued from page 19)

Q.: How was Abbott when you saw him on

April 29th?

A.: We drank for nine hours. He seemed very
calm, like nothing bothered him.

Coakley asked Abbott where he had
gone following a certain police in-
terrogation in the summer.

“I went home,” said Abbott.

“Well, you really went to another
(Otto Dezman’s) house, didn’t you?”
asked Coakley.

“Yes, sir.”

“And you stayed there that night,
didn’t you?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You really didn’t go home at all
that night, did you?”

“No, sir,” said Abbott.

The questioning went on. It was
long and involved. It included Abbott's
Army history, his history of tubercu-
losis, his college years and other
information. Throughout the ques-
tioning, Burton Abbott remained
composed, despite the fact that D.A.
Coakley had caught him in several
minor fibs. :

Then, suddenly, the defendant lost
his composure: he became, in fact,
angry. The reason was simple. District
Attorney Coakley forced him to admit
that three different times he had
changed part of his story about his
April 28 trip to his family’s cabin. The
changes revolved around a side trip to
Sacramento.

Abbott conceded that in his first
story to police he had mentioned
nothing about such a trip.

oly

MUSTACHED Abbott looks like a sleek
character, a real man with the ladies.

He then admitted that he had told
police he had stopped in the Bureau of
Land Management office in Sacra-
mento—California’s state capital—to
ask about government land for a cabin
site.

Later yet. he had said that he
stopped in Sacramento, but had left
without asking about government
land because there was such a large
crowd in the land management office.

On the witness stand, he reverted to
his first story. He said he had never
stopped in Sacramento, “not even to
check a telephone book” for the ad-
dress of the office.

Then came another bombshell. Ab-
bott conceded that he had once
“deliberately” drawn a sketch of the
office which he told police he had
visited—an office he now denied ap-
proaching.

Asked Coakley: “. . . when they
(volice) asked you to describe it (the
office) you knew they were asking
you about the building in Sacra-
mento?”

“I was aware of that,” said Abbott,
“but by the way they asked the
question I don’t think that they were.”

“But you knew it was true, didn’t
you?”

“Mr. Coakley, I was compounding
the prevarication. I told you that I had
prevaricated on three occasions. I

= hte oles

TRIAL! And Burt becomes a clean-cut
collego kid. Jurios don’t like dandies.

have admitted that, yet you continue
to badger me about it.”

If Burton W. Abbott was not en-
tirely successful in his own defense, a
fellow defense witness gave him a
beost in the arm. The witness was a
truck driver named Richard Cox. He
testified that he had seen Stephanie
Bryan in a car with two men on April
28, near San Pablo. He said the car
was not Abbott’s. Nor did his descrip-
tion of the two men liken either of
them to Abbott.

Then, one of Abbott’s defense law-
yers showed Cox a picture of Steph-
anie Bryan.

“Is that the face you saw (with the
two men)?”

“Yes, sir, it is.”

Next came other witnesses for the
defense. Among them were Robert C.
Hall, owner of a cafe in Red Bluff,
California, and one of his waitresses.
They testified that Abbott had eaten
in their cafe about 6:30 p.m. on the
day Stephanie disappeared.

Under prosecution questioning,
however, Hall admitted he had made
a change in his records that would
shew Abbott was in the restaurant on
April 28 and no other day. He also
admitted that, while the clothes Ab-'
bott was wearing in a picture that he
was shown were similar to the ones
the defendant had worn on April 28,
he could not remembcr the clothes a
Berkeley police officer had worn last
October—despite the fact that he had
talked with him for four hours.

The next witness to take the stand
testified that he had spent nine hours
drinking with Abbott on April 29 and
that the defendant seemed calm and
composed. The testimony was de-
signed to indicate, of course, that
Abbott had had nothing on his mind
at that time.

Interestingly, the defense then
brought its own criminologist to the
stand. He was a one-time pupil of the
prosecution witness, Dr. Paul L. Kirk.
He had examined the same clues on
which Kirk had based his testimony.

He admitted that the hair found in
Abbott’s car was identical with
Stephanie’s, but he questioned Kirk’s
conclusions about the sweater strands.
He also said that there were differ-
ences in color between the mud found
on Abbott’s boots and the soil in
Stephanie’s grave, although he con-
ceded that they had “densities in the
Same range which cannot be distin-
guished.”

Shortly thereafter, the defense con-
cluded its case. It had taken 11 trial
days. The prosecution had taken 23.

The transcript of the trial at that

79


294

4 Cal.

165 PACIFIC REPORTER, 2d SERIES

ici in
etc.. was not prejudicial to defendant,
“—?

efendant’s failure to deny r ex view vi wi at he could
Defendant t i i f evidence showing t

’s fai d or explain view 0 : . : h
evidence agains = when he has power to reasonably be are fe) ats a aay et
aa ma he ee by jury as tending all evidence presented. onst. ar
d ; y 1 y y a4 tt, § 13

: and 1,9
to indicate truth of such Sk nkercaes 20. Criminal ibd nye ofdefendalit’s
ili a ial cour ‘
robability of reason in: The tria ; motion of
eEeavouale to defendant therefrom. proposed instructions as to presu oe de-
Ce an 1, § 13 innocence, burden’ on eat sae) doubt
caer Lene sige , ilt beyond reason ’
fendant’s guilt bey to take
317 j elect not
15. Criminal law © “dence which defend- and defendant’s right peer inference OF
Admission of i Bo by his testimony witness stand eng garg. HORRY
a Be Lines © gearlty, Sige eo. eee ae fey "instructions given
renders his failu uld have yiew of ample
eee that he wo : Ere d burden.
peg 3 Saeieke had any, or denied on such presumption an
iven explanation, infer-
Fick tones, if false, but no such 1

3 ee instruction to
Yi here evidence s ieee
onece = oats knowledge of facts Defendant’s prop
that defendant has

V y T 1 i ilur ke witness stand
i i j that his failu e to tak ,

shown b evidence admi ted ag ainst him. jury ‘

' § 1 eee ; § ) raised no presumption or inference 0

Code Civ.Proc. 963, subds. 5, 6 2061 ferenc f his

isleading in
t. 1, § 13 guilt was watt eae a enaigeration
subds. 6, 7; Const. art. }, : failing to point o é

; :
could be given such circumstance

14. Criminal law 6316

Criminal law €=787(2)

imi >= 561(1)
16. Criminal law C= ss age
titutional amendment, pr oe
ie Gefendant’s failure to explain of 22. age bargncr ene ae
fy : | and cot perc i i hich is
! strand couse ive j 3 truction wh
deny evidence ee is counsel and con- to give jury a proposed ins SS
eee we eigen jury does not relieve misleading because it only p
i y cour ; ot F
sceberee of burden of eroiiine < fasca
fanart guilt beyond reasonable " i Be
admissible evidence supporting ~ vi
ment of crime charged. Const, art. 1,

|
23. Criminal law C=787(1) uction that
Defendant’s proposed sg defend-
ee ES) ment on
prosecutor's right = oo stand did not
Ms cinta law €=317, 721(1) » m8 ant’s failure we pe: tsiden: OF establish-
Ss , : to testify can relieve prosecution 0 asonable
Defendant’s failure tna ghareed defendant’s guilt beyond reasc
. as confession 2f cri ing de legal evidence
be fis cused by prosecutor a Gone by praca ae ane arti 8
or pr ; ld have bee :
h confession. shou
tantamount to suc

13.
787(2)
8. Criminal law : '
The jury should have been nga 24, Criminal law pest as See pe
nd counse ‘ ndant, faili } : cay
not merely that court rs ‘ure to explain... Defe he instruction that his fail
comment on defendants t him, but that titled = acs r explain incriminating ev!-
idence against him, bu ure to deny or at Laden vot
or deny any evi miption ot renee on iain
;: reate presump e did not impose 0!
such failure aati ar uilt ‘bet should be Semaine jury of his innocence, though
warrant inference Of Bt to evidence not PETsuacll tion on burden of proof was
considered only in relation : jury may general ninsiirs ee 13
i r denied and that jury. iven. Const. art. 1, i
Ee ascaiants failure to acy he : €=317, 787(1)
1 A :
ead incriminating iow Saat 25. Criminal law ate capable of being
be expected to © Where no ev dant’s -testi-
could reasonably — dicate truth of ; denied by defendant's test
, ling to indicate tru explained or , £ essential
or deny, as tend bability of L nted in support o
; : d greater prob mony is pres¢e fendant’s fail-
stich evidence an ble to de- : charged, defendz ;
s P “ences unfavora element of crime t finding
reasonable inferenc . 1, § 13. ; nnot alone suppor
. Const. art. J, re to testify ca
arm ponent : ainst him by jury on such eet jad
i he ig entitled to instruction that suc i
aR ot ay not by itself support finding
ME IE 1 element of crime.

19. Criminal law >! 173(2)

The trial court's ne hs hint 3
j : ndant’s failure to de A Pape ttees:
jury that fice against him did not create rule ge ro.
een tai or warrant inference of guilt, Const. art. },
presumpt

nied sReaieiow A fli =

PEOPLE v. ADAMSON Cal 5
Cite as 165 P.2d 3

26. Criminal law €>1173(2)
Refusal of defendant’s proposed in-

struction that prosecutor’s right to com-

ment on defendant’s failure to testify can-

not be used to supply failure of proof by

3!. Criminal law > 1037(1)

The prosecutor’s statement in oral
argument to jury, after reviewing evi-
dence, that defendant did not get on wit-
ness stand and say under oath that he
prosecution was not prejudicial to defend- was not guilty of crimes charged, was not
ant, where ample evidence supporting each ground for reversal of conviction, in ab-
element of crimes charged was presented sence of objection thereto by defendant, as
and evidence against defendant was so jury was probably not misled thereby.
strong as to make it improbable that jur
saa have disbelieved al positive at 32. Criminal law ¢=566

dence supporting any essential elements of

Fingerprints are the strongest evi-
such crimes. Const. art. 1, $13:

dence of a person’s identity.
27. Constitutional law ¢=266

-——-_—_-

An authorized inference from proved Appeals from Superior Court, Los An-
fact need not be only plausible i les County; Charles W. Fricke, Judge.
therefrom to be rational under due process

clause of Federal Constitution, but is ra- pepo Pea argc was convicted
tional if proved fact is warning signal ac- rst degree

cording to teachings of experience. U.S, '™ the first degree, and he appe
C.A.Const. Amend. 14, Affirmed.

28: Cossiitational law 5268 ‘ a: aoe a Fang a Safier,
There is rational connection between patos W. ele hey ta me
defendant's failure to deny or explain in- Bowers, Asst. Atty. Gen., and Frank
criminating evidence and inference of Richards, Deputy Atty. Gen., for respond-
credibility and unfavorable tenor thereof, t ; :
as required by due process clause of Fed- °™* :
eral Constitution, so as to authorize jur ’s ;
consideration of such failure, in view af TRAYNOR, Justice. ; ;
common experience that failure to explain. Defendant was charged with murder in
or deny adverse evidence which defend- Count I of an information by the district
ant may reasonably be expected to explain 2ttorney of Los Angeles County, and in
or deny tends to show credibility of such counts HI, M1, IV and V, with four SEPA:
evidence and renders more probable unfa- rate crimes of burglary. He pleaded not
vorable tenor thereof. Code Civ.Prov, § §uilty and was tried before a jury on
1963, subd. 5; §§ 2051, 2061, subd. 6; counts I and IJ. He was tried in a sepa-
Const. art. 1, § 13; U.S.C.A.Const. Amend, ‘ate consolidated case on counts III, IV and
14,

He admitted two prior felony convic-
tions and was adjudged an habitual crimi-
nal. The defendant did not testify and
Any change in law, authorizing court Produced no witnesses. He was found
and counsel to comment on, and court or guilty on count I of murder in the first
jury to consider, defendant's failure to ex- degree, without recommendation, and guilty
Plain or deny evidence against him, must ©n count II of burglary in the first degree.
be made by Legislature, not courts. Pen, This appeal is automatic from the judg-
Code, § 1323; Code Civ.Proc. § 2051; ment on count -I. Pen.Code, § 1239. De-
Const. art. 1, § 13. fendant also appeals from the judgment on
the burglary count and from an order deny-
ing his motion for new trial.

Generally, district attorney’s miscon- The body of Stella Blauvelt, a widow
duct, as in frequently commenting, in oral 64 years of age, was found on the floor of
argument, on defendant’s failure to explain her Los Angeles apartment on July 25,
Or deny evidence against him, cannot be 1944. The evidence indicated that she died

urged on appeal from conviction, in ab- on the afternoon of the preceding day.
sence of objection by defendant t

o such The body was found with the face upward
Raak Pen.Code, § 1323; Const. art. covered with two bloodstained pillows, A

lamp cord was wrapped tightly around the

nference ge

and burglary
als,

29. Constitutional taw >70(1)

30. Criminal law €>1037(1)

eee ee


re ee ea 5 te 8 ee
a at
———

a eee

1 165 PACIFIC REPORTER, 2d SERIES
S i i rs in a
+, a knot. The in the kitchen and some pohge® Ss
at death was dressing alcove, but no © ee Pi teen
paitees on the stockings were found. None.o :

ng rom r atched
| i defendant’s oom mat
that the deceased 1 tops fro tor,

neck three times and tied
medical testimony was
caused by gate aoe
- hands indicate i pa a
ie os severely beaten before her death. with the bo Dp

ad been §

under the body. :
tend : lice, de-
{ant does not con : tions by the police,

[1] The me not justify a find- In reply a ek rib ected or had ever
iia ca Satter in the first degree had fendant ay ae house identified by
ingy twat murde re 189. The been at the apa fifferent

5 : Code, § 18). : . his residence. At ¢
been committed. Pen kes is testimony as his he

* - act that he makes : vo other addresses as
sole contention of fac iden- times he gave tv : f the
ride is not sufficient to } i When shown a picture 0
that the evidence 1s no ngest residence. ne k at it
pres trator. The strong ‘tim. he refused to look at 14,
tifv him as the perpe : ‘fy the de- murdered victim, ren k ead

sie : ding to so identity : ; id not like.to look at
et ae ae eee of six fingerprints, het that he did

fendant was tn 5 z K ‘ eople. .

each identified by expert pear Aes : a theory of the prosecution was oe

: fondant, spread over the surté eel 2 »¢ was burelary.
ie Pe de agree ‘5 the garbage compart- the motive of ae ae pied ye
of the inner co g Sale ites Testimony reveal 2) i

sitchen of the deceased's apt ; . i ings with large-

ser ee Se Pe aces Evidence, 3d Ed., in the habit i apart 6 was wearing
nent, oc 5 e : r ‘Ze ia an é ages
380 After the murder, this pitas ae ore dey of the murder. The nea
389. ; aninge against the kitch- them o a 1 search has faile
found unhinged, leaning AS tioned e not on the body and sea Me:
: defendant questi Wer A witness, positively

en sink. Counsel for ibili { defend- to uncover them. WHERE Soy" 5

; ssibility of de 0 : dant, testified that at

witnesses as to the po d, but the jdentifying the defendant, f

ints being forged, bu : f ; Oth and 14th o

_ prea baie that any evidence some time between a defendant

in 2 yee was uncovered. The theory August, ryt ae pr whether he was
. torthal ene ee jerer ask an unidentifie ’

ion was that the murc e : ; jamond ring.
oad oS cea through the garbage interested in buying a diam

gained 11S x E

i i idence a reasona-
compartment, found the inner eon > Si From the pean i beyond a rea-
latched from the kitchen eR and per ble err SA eau  engabrbed «thie
Ee - its hinges. It was © sonable dou Ra-
the door from its - entere -slary. See People v. Ka
lished that defendant could aoe Pps 8 murder ae oh 708 P. 60; 2 Wig-
through the garbage nor ie fact MiTez, ee Tahany age S
: t his size do so. “x — more ay 07 :
Ne apartment could not be ious were still in the near of here
: slik i fa i found and that fragm
d the testimony © when it was found a pt
found after search an oats Ae hives dommes rts Be
: i t as to sounds hearc wood that appeared to he suiditeate
neighboring tenan artment clinging to them, indic
lerer left the apé screw holes were : :
cate that the murc chia exlt | i removal, served to discoun
our e r thereof and made 1 ing a forced re al,
a pares down a rear stairway. mn possibilities that at cage tae
oma , i been taken from the apart-
omen’s stockings the door had bee rae te
The tops of three w a ace unknown ‘reasoft and #
. , ine been taken from ment for so shapes
identibed :a2 haves itted i id : d by the defendant, or
in evidence. time handled by .
ant’s room were admitte act anting ore
svar the stocking tops was found pole fendant had rage ore a sae
in a drawer Of th€ earlier visit to the ace
dresser, the other two 7 f arel : to the effect that the garbag
other’ articles of appare’. Testimony ae lace when
Thee acne pet were not all of the same pail was not i its lg et Sadat “46
ag: : : murder
each part, awaY found after the “aie ct
At the end of eac ion's theory. £4 t0
eh what was formerly the top pe substantiate ~ a y
ro é . : When 4; d mode of en :
; knots were tied. time an
stocking, a knot or

body of the deceased was found, it did Sait bisa Seat stad! serot
ae have on any shoes or stockings. There [2,
not he 3

: cae i

i the admission of the

-der was committed in n of ae
io eT ee i conversation in w

ps oa had ii going stockings. The timony of alte pcr a -

deceased ha f 2 silk stocking with the top he asked 0 ee spt

pate ake was found lying on the floor shai" wad gp tenets Pe tcc.

ener th y. Mo Sart oF the a ah hen vas admissible in so far as

me a  aat . There were other though peenge ig here 2) ser Be

eetis ae apartment, some hanging the hearsay TU

stockings in

ci a

PEOPLE v. ADAMSON
Cite as 165 P.2d 3

sion (People v. Ferdinand, 194 Cal. 555, found in section 1954 of the Code of Civil
568, 229 P. 341; People v. Britton, 6 Cal.2d Procedure: “Whenever an object, cog-
10, 13, 56 P.2d 491; People v. Chan Chaun, nizable by the senses, has such a relation
41 Cal.App.2d 586, 593, 107 P.2d 455), de- to the fact in dispute as to afford reasona-
fendant contends that it was irrelevant. ble grounds of belief respecting it, or to
The rule is well settled that a witness may make an item in the sum of the evidence,
testify to part of a conversation if that is such object may be exhibited to the jury.
all that he heard and it appears to be in- * * * The admission of such evidence
telligible, People v. Luis, 158 Cal. 185, must be regulated by the sound discretion
194, 110 P, 580; People v. Ramos, 3 Cal. of the court.”
2d 269, 272, 5 P.2d 301; People v. Tar- [8,9] It is contended that the admission
box, 115 Cal. 57, 64, 46 P. 896 ; People of the stocking tops deprived defendant of
v. Daniels, 105 Cal. 262, 285, 38 P. 720; a fair trial and therefore denied him due
People v. Montgomery, 47 Cal.App.2d 1, 19, process of law. Defendant states that their
117 P.2d 437. People v. Rabalete, 28 Cal. admission could serve no purpose except to
App.2d 480, 485, 82 P.2d 707, -709, is not create prejudice against him as a Negro
contrary to this rule, The fragment of the py the implication of a fetish or sexual
sentence there held inadmissible, “242 to degeneracy. No implication of either was
show,” was held to create merely a sus- made by the prosecutor in his brief treat-
Aiea eS “ + Jose of pod each +e ment of the evidence in oral argument.
ence. People v. Jacquaino, 63 Cal.App. :
300, 393, 304, 146 P24 607. Tissast athe ener except in rare cases of abuse,

3 : ” monstrative evidence that tends to prove
conversation here admitted, however, in 4 material issue of clarify the circum-
view of the evidence indicating that the stances of the crime is admissible despite
motive of the murderer was the theft of its prejudicial tendency. People v. Antony,
diamonds, tended to identify defendant as 146 Cal, 124, 79 P. 858; People v. Hawes,
the perpetrator. 98 Cal. 648, 33 P. 791; People v. Haydon,

[4-7] To be admissible, evidence must 18 Cal-App. 543, 123 P. 1102, 1114; see
tend to prove a material issue in the light People v. Colvin, 118 Cal. 349, 351, 50 P.
of human experience. See 1 Wigmore, 232; -See People v. Bolton, 215 Cal. 12, 20,
supra, 407, The stocking tops found in de- 8 P.2d 116; 8 Cal. Jur. 140 et ms Tid.
fendant’s room were relevant to identify 76, § 177; 4 Wigmore, supra, 251, 254;
defendant because their presence on his 2! Mich.L.Rev. 835; 31 Yale LJ. 107.
dresser and in a drawer thereof among [10] The prosecuting attorney com-
other articles of wearing apparel with a mented repeatedly on the failure of the de-
knot or knots tied in the end away from fendant to take the stand, By statute or
what was formerly the top of the stock- by decision, the majority of jurisdictions
ing indicates that defendant had some use prohibit such comment. See 8 Wigmore,
for women’s stocking tops. This interest supra, 412; 31 Mich.L.Rev. 40. In 1934,
in women’s stocking tops is a circumstance however, following studies made by the
that tends to identify defendant as the per- American Law Institute and the American

son who removed the stockings from the Bar Association (9 Proc.Am.L.Inst. 202-
victim and took away the top of one and 218; 56 Reports A.B.A. 137-152), article
the whole of the other. Although the pfes- I, section 13 of the California Constitution
ence of the stocking tops in defendant’s was amended to provide that “* * * in
room was not by itself sufficient to identify any criminal case, whether the defendant

defendant as the criminal, it constituted a testifies or not, his failure to explain or to

logical link in the chain of evidence. Peo- deny by his testimony any evidence or facts
ple v. Graves, 137 Cal.App. 1, 29 P.2d 807, in the case against him may be commented

30 P.2d 508; People vy. Billings, 34 Cal. upon by the court and by counsel, and may

App. 549, 553, 168 P. 396.. Evidence that be considered by the court or the jury.

tends to throw light on a fact in dispute * * *”- Similar provisions are found

may be admitted. The weight to be given in section 1323 of the Penal Code. Article
such evidence will be determined by the I, section 13 of the California Consti-
jury. _ People v. Mooney, 177 Cal. 642, tution also provides that “no person shall

655, 171 P. 690; People v. Graves, supra; be * * * compelled in any criminal

People v. Billings, supra; see 7 McKin- case, to be a witness against himself

ney’s Dig. 54. Codification of this rule * * *.” It is contended that this pro-

as applied to demonstrative evidence is vision and the 1934 amendment are in-

Cal. 7

i e
ve
*
i Ps
ip
F
its
ig
}
(ee
ie

ites
Fa. Ye
Nae


Sha RE ART HARI ta 7m

ITER UES

165 PACIFIC REPORTER, 9a SERIE
ne ides that where, as here,
i ith two or more

: ant is charged. wi ; C
pres 5 connected together =
‘A verdict of acquitta

ts shall not be deemed

g section 702, and peti- Code, which prov

i m try-
tioner secks to restrain the court = tied peat am *
ing im again for this offense. He . — “ pa SR
has been once in jeopardy an
re he

. . ae fr mor coun ‘
. ie h urisdicti n of one O c : 3

ther efore the court 1S wit out 0 b
to pr occed agains or held to e an acquittal of any t f

: mick
t him. count’ See, also, People v- Nes Stang-
‘bition is an appropriate TM a1 2q 247, 125 P.2d 25; Pere oo) a9

[1] Prohi ae retrial of @ defendant y.. 4g Cal.2d 688, 695, 696, 1 20-3
arly reven rs 4 i
a rey been in jeopardy. Jackson S; Log is true that acts constl
bigs sel 2 10) Cal.2d 350, 74 PZ , : rape of attempted rape
perior Court, tuting statutory poe jation of section
113 ALAR: 1422. also constitute a vio ath

£ his claim of double ore dnd. those acts by. their very pe a

[2,3] In Oe eas that since both POS ceeacGies to the delingner as ee
: -dy petition wo : The facts
jeopat dy pe 4 the. same occurrence : the converse is not true. i
counts are based on — jefined in sec- minor, # blish rape Of attempte

i he offense den! ; may fail to establish 1. tion

or transaction, t ; : 1 the : os fiction under sec
tion 702 is necessarily aT ae that ‘ape yet justify 8 Oe siianet’s acquittal |
cape eae sth git offends is a 792, .. Gonsequ’’ “ information 1S
ata “the gre a
an acquittal of

nt of the 1 . at
eo under the first cou : onviction
bar to prosecution of the lesser offense. not a bar to his prosecution and ¢c

a

The test, howev

er, is the identity of the of- oat the i aaa
fenses and not the identit

J the occur- .
3 "A defendant 6] Petitioner also claims that not © y
rence from which they arise. [
may be convicted of separ

i r derlying the rape
ate offenses sii js the occurrence, He relied * ae
i j i cal wl a \
. t of the same transaction when eac charge identi wih a felled. oe , t
ing out. arately stated and the offenses gypport the accusatl sande Gojen
oat eu ‘clements and one is not a put that the proof in sup
differ in : oh
cluded in the other. People v- Kearney,

, re thats ne
charges is the same. re S ecgetaran ‘nk
Cal.2d 435, 126 P.2d 612; People v. Hoyt, would be guilty of rape
al. rohj cs
20 Cal.2d 3

: i ally occurred,
5 ; also, utrix testified to actua \
317, 125 P.2d 29; s6h 8 PrOsceHtse is untrue he is not
People Vv “i 17 Cal.2d 453, 457-458, but that if her gis is se igus
tact 34 403; People v. Coltrin, 5 Cal.2d guilty of any © ee et oie incl
is acqul ;
gees SE ae 20 Cal.2d 435, 126 mg of attempted rape renee
In People v. Kearney, al. tely the falsity of her testimony, and the
dat 0 Et ano i evidence which was
Pp2d 612, _the defen : jolation of cannot be retried upon «sends
charged wt sD sfage Bi 9 ae Both addressed to the charge of whic
section fe) 2

i i merit in this con-
= tted. There is no ™m Soar
re on the same occuf- acqut ee eS pot
— were Fe eaciied that a dis- tention. The ie panes an ibn :
prissa the 12 ted to ac- the testimony © age
: Seiten oe it, The testimony accepted by
missal of the rape ection 288. part of it. e yal elon
he eticou "38, 12 j ort a conviction Of ¢
anit etd, 20 438, 126 P.2d 614, jury may supp ‘ oy
i arge con
rou wipes 2% te and fense while another ¢ : : oe:
: is reat dee eae i i fail because
that: “The pea ee agent elements. the same information may ee
was pre pecigee Waee! apoabeeriseree of the crime.
i i essentie
i netration. The tablish an ‘yp erlipeS
childs sti a incertain on the The alternative writ of prohibition 1s dis
hiss ee medical ot ved a i splication for a peremp-
vir nd the medical testimony showe charged and the api
0% F perietration It does not a cory weit +5 denied,
ack oO é :
gua that defendant’s conduct with t

cutrix at the time was not of a lewd cai soMontDs:
Pe jadciviotts character within the mean-
and le

g ’ nd
1 of section 88, supra. | he contention T RAYNOR, SCHA L\UER a
1 answ y F enal J ae concurt ed.

S. swer ed b section 954 of the

charge of violatin

[4,5] While it

distinct and ma
The rape count was

CARTER,
SPENCE,

PEOPLE v. ADAMSON Cal, s
Cite as 165 P.2d 3

PEOPLE v. ADAMSON.
Cr. 4622.

Supreme Court of California, in Bank.
Jan. 4, 1946.

Rehearing Denied Jan. 31, 1946.

‘t. Burglary €=41(1)
Homicide ©=253(1)
Evidence was sufficient to sustain con-

viction of first-degree murder and bur-
glary. Pen.Code, § 189.

2. Criminal law €=417(1)

A witness may testify as to part of
conversation, if that is all that he heard
and it appears to be intelligible.

3. Burglary €=35
Homicide ¢=170

In prosecution for murder and bur-
glary, testimony as to part of conversation
in which defendant asked unidentified per-
son whether he was interested in purchas-
ing a diamond ring, was admissible as
tending to identify defendant as perpetra-
tor of crimes charged, in view of evidence
that murderer’s motive. was theft of dia-
monds.

4. Criminal law €=382

To be admissible, evidence must tend
to prove a material issue in light of human
experience,

5. Criminal law €=404(4)

In prosecution for murder and bur-
glary, women’s stocking tops, found in de-
fendant’s room, were admissible as tend-
ing to identify defendant as person who
removed stockings from murdered woman.

6. Criminal law ©=338(1)

Evidence tending to throw light on
fact in dispute may be admitted. Code
Civ.Proc. § 1954.

7. Criminal law G=741(1)

The weight of evidence, tending to
throw light on fact in dispute, is for jury
to determine,

8. Constitutional law €=266

In prosecution for murder and bur-
glary, admission in evidence of women’s
stocking tops, found in defendant’s room,
for purpose of identifying him as person
who removed stockings from murdered
woman, was not erroneous as depriving de-

fendant of fair trial and hence denying
him due process of law by creating preju-
dice against him as a Negro by implication
of a fetish or sexual degeneracy, in absence
of cither implication by prosecutor in oral
argument to jury. U.S.C.A.Const. Amend.
14.

9. Criminal law ©=404(1)

Demonstrative evidence, tending to
prove material issue or clarify circum-
stances of crime charged, is admissible,
despite its prejudicial tendency, except in
rare cascs of abuse.

10. Constitutional law C24

The constitutional amendment, author-
izing court and counsel to comment on de-
fendant’s failure to explain or deny any
evidence or facts against him, controls pre-
viously adopted provision of amended sec-
tion that no person shall be compelled to
be witness against himself in criminal case.
Const. art. 1, § 13.

{1. Constitutional law €=206(1), 268
Criminal law C12

State constitutional and statutory pro-
visions, allowing comment on defendant’s
failure to deny or explain incriminating
evidence by court and counsel and consid-
eration of such failure by court or jury,
do not violate due process of law and privi-
leges and immunity clauses of Fourteenth
Amendment. Pen.Code, § 1323; Const. art.
1, § 13; U.S.C.A.Const. Amend. 14

12. Criminal law @=317, 721(1), 787(1)

The constitutional provision that de-
fendant’s failure to explain or deny evi-
dence against him may be commented on
by court and counsel and considered by
court or jury, whether defendant testifies
or not, makes applicable to criminal cases,
wherein defendant does not testify, estab-
lished rule that party’s failure to produce
evidence within his power to produce does
not affect in some indefinite manner ulti-
mate issues raised by pleadings, but relates
specifically to unproduced evidence by in-
dicating that such evidence would be ad-
verse to such party. Const, art. 1, § 13.

13. Criminal law ©=559

All evidence must be weighed accord-
ing to proof which one party had power
to produce and other party had power to
contradict. Code Civ.Proc. § 1963, subd.
5; § 2061, subd. 6.

“6T6T~6-ZT (SeTeSUY SeT) eTMZesTTeED peqeTxtydse *¢t SyoeTq Sfomeq Teatwpy “NOSWVCV


o
:

ab yaoi tears aR be

8 Cal. 165 PACIFIC REPORTER, 2d SERIES

consistent and that therefore both can- was by: the court rather than the prosecutor
is immaterial. State v. Ferguson, 226 lowa

not be effective. Before the 1934 amend- a
ment, it was the rule in California that 361, 283 N.W. 917; see 8 Wigmore, supra,

commenting on the defendant’s failure to 1943 Supp. 30. Twining Vv. New Jersey
take the stand or advising the jury that also held that the privilege against self-
it could draw inferences unfavorable to incrimination is not protected by the privi-
him on that account violated the privilege leges and immunities clause of the Four-
against self-incrimination. People v. Ty- teenth Amendment.
ler, 36 Cal. 522. The 1934 amendment [12-14] It is clear from the terms of
limited but did not abolish this privilege: the constitutional provision that the con-
A person still cannot be compelled in any sideration and comment authorized relates,
criminal case “to be a witness against him- not to the defendant’s failure to take. the
self,” but the privilege no longer extends gtand, but to “his failure to explain or to
so far as to prevent comment upon of con-  geny by his testimony any evidence or facts
sideration of his failure to explain or deny jp the case against him” “yhether he! tes-
evidence against him. The practical effect tiftes or not. The constitutional provision
of the 1934 amendment may be that many thus makes applicable to criminal cases in
defendants who otherwise would not take Which the defendant does not testify, the
the stand will feel compelled to do so t© established rule that the failure to produce
avoid the adverse effects of the comments eyidence that is within the power ate
and consideration authorized by the amend- party to produce does not affect in some
ment. See 26 Yale LJ. 464, 466, Such a indefinite manner the ultimate issues raised
coercive effect, however, is sanctioned by by the pleadings, but relates specifically to
the amendment, which, being later in time, the unproduced evitende in question by
controls provisions adopted earlier. indicating that this evidence would be ad-
[11] It is contended that in so far as it verse. State v. Callahan, 76 N.J.L. 426, 69
limits the privilege against self-incrimina- A. 957; State v. Sgro, 108 N.J.L. 528, 158
tion, the 1934 amendment to the Constitu- A. 491: McDonald v. Smith, 139 Mich. 211,
- tion and section 1323 of the Penal Code 224, 102 N.W. 668; Mooney v. Davis, 75
- violate the due process clause of the Four- Mich. 188, 193, 42 N.W. 802, 13 Am.St.

tecnth Amendment to the United States Rep. 425; Harrison v. Harrison, 124 Iowa
PRE FO 526, 100 N.W. 344; see Cal. Code Civ.

Although there has been Vast 2 ; Wig
much discussion as to the wisdom of allow- Proc. §§ 1963(5), 2061) 6 A os

ing comment upon and consideration of a more, supra, ° : :
defendant’s failure to deny or explain in- “All evidence 1s to be weighed according

criminating evidence (see 8 Wigmore, to the proof which it was 1n the power of
supra, 419; 31 Mich.L.Rev. 40; Ibid. 226; one side to have produced and in the power
22 Cornell L.Q. 392; 2% Yale L.J. 464; of the other to contradict. Mansfield, C.
9 Proc.Am.L.Inst. 202-281; 56 Reports of J., in Blatch v. Archer, Cowp. 66, see 2
AB.A. 137-152; 3 Jour. of Crim, Law Wigmore, supra, 162 et seq. and cases
and Criminology, 770; 13 Ibid. 292; 26 there cited. The Code of Civil Procedure
Ibid, 180), the freedom from federal con- codifies this rule by providing that the jury
stitutional limitations of state provisions 1S to be instructed by the court on all prop-
allowing such comment and considera- er* occasions: 6. That evidence is to be
tion was settled in Twining v. New Jer- estimated not only by its own intrinsic
sey, 211 U.S. 78, 29 S.Ct. 14, 53 L.Ed. weight, but also according to the evidence
97. See 31 Mich.L.Rev. 40, 45; Ibid. at which it is in the power of one side to pro-
228; .22 Cornell L.Q. 392, 393; 8 Wig- duce and of the other to contradict” (Code
more, stpra, 414, § 2272, n. 2, In that Civ.Proc. § 2061 (6) 5. and that it Is to be
case the defendant, who was convicted in presumed “That evidence wilfully sup-
the courts of New Jersey, had not testified pressed would be adverse if produced”.
in his own behalf. The trial court, in ac- Ibid. § 1963(5). The basis in common ex-
cordance with New Jersey decisions, com- perience for this rule as applied to criminal
mented on this fact. The court decided cases has been set forth in State v. Grebe,
that such comment did not constitute a 17 Kan. 458: “The instinct of self-
denial of due process, holding that the preservation impels one in peril ‘of the
due process clause does not protect a per- penitentiary to produce whatever testi-
son against sclf-incrimination. The fact mony he may have to deliver him from

that the comment in the Twining case such peril. Every man will do what he

PEOPLE v. ADA}
Cite as 165 P.2d ge val. 9

can to shicld himself f i
roe tom the disgra f
a conviction of cri sgrace of of the facts wi
punishment, W me, and the burden of has been admi = respect to which evidence
e all know this. We all ex- admitted against him, for it is not

pect it. Whenever = within his “ 0 ” 7
shown which tend se? ee a fact is (6) to c 3 wer” (Code Civ.Proc. § 2061
ends to prove crime upon a_ Ibid xplain or deny such evidence

§ 1963(5); Parker v. State, 61 N.J.L.

defend nt y pia S ys A. uminet V t «
a and an ex lanation of suc h 308 39 651 C 1 i
“a > < ti v. Uni ed St ates

fact is in the natur

Sa. e of the cas i

within his k ase peculiarly 242 U.S, 47

to offer an enna and reach, a failure Ed. ieee 495, 37 S.Ct. 192, 61 L.

a belief that as ct tend to create 1168; Blatch 1917F, 502, Ann.Cas.1917B,
exists.” Therefore the dett, 4 B. & Ung heee aids Die Che cur

: : . 122 sce People yv. Albert-

failure of the
a ( defendant to den
plain evidence presented against ists wtonk ee eee he es

it is in his power to d
ered b : 0 so, may be consid- [16] It was never i
oe Pepa ibs - tending to indicate the she the 1934 $s a Re ee
evidence, and Eo em should reli i eergae  die
that Pomeen t : as indicating relieve the prosecuti
: g the inferences th den of cea broesunom: of the Burs
sat : S$ that ‘mav-réea2 of establishi ui ;
aed < nae therefrom, hock untae able doubt by admiseible eae Sede
; : idenc =
nett : aeringa neg ithe tore ra is bi Si of the crime Snag
D ° cites eopl abhor fy al. 7 5 Pod
aaah Cal.App.2d 105, 109, 110, ty p24 100l; Btate eaten eee
265," 267-269, 108 Pianezzi, 42 Cal.App2d (One of the drctameitee Ge ata
5, 267-269, 108 P.2d 732 Appt ee Assotigtian ieshtioe ates toon
Doz : 32 and People v. r é\ssociation oluti :
8 ee ie ee 94 P24 the adoption of the Coton ee
r,« ing that failure to testi “~. The Rigt TmaRrovisIans)
rectly affects the ulti 0 testify di- ght to Comment he Fai
nebo ultimate issu : the Defend on ae ok
raising an “inferenc © of guilt: by 296" 23 a Uy Sk
sing , 26, 229 231 - , iC h.L.Rev.
guilt, The instr € or presumption : of » £31; 2 Wigmore rd
: structio f : Cleveland 2 2 SEPT OC? a8
Duke n refused ind Ba Bit 3 :
Dukes ease [16 Cal-App2d 105 100 ne Crim. Law RG ae ee
the ants b 9] was in part to the effect th t peers aes
mbers of the jury were “not to ais

Sic er of pc rmit [ ]
2 the sel i i
be inf ue es} In anywise to I i i
h m Vv a Ww t Peop cow. I anc é p
x the ne ct that the defendant 108 I .2d 7. 2 : ie a
need b i , holds that the prosecutor may

as not seen fi

t to offer hi

nimse ‘ .

ness before you.” A_ simil ane wit- properly characterize the def ,

was refused in the Pj ilar instruction ure to testif e defendant’s fail-
e Pianezzi case. The in- Pipi tend satin cease tae Eis Se,

structi ° ion, it is di
tion refused in the Dozier case Pp Sion, It 1s disapproved.
as ro-

vided that fai :
mony “should ae ate or explain testi- lS} Of its own volition the trial
favorable inference i : WA ht meee or un- 8*ve the following as the onl tase em
Jury; no inference eas the minds of the with respect to the right of vig eon ate
the defendant fro bie. BS drawn against to comment on and of the jury Mee ee
[35 Cal.App.2d 49, 5g. failure to testify.” defendant’s failure to Scaiaita agrees a
In these ene Zs a 9, 60, 94 P.2d 603.] evidence against him: “Tt ie a deny the
in holding that th urt was clearly correct court and counscl to comment A mt =
stroy the effect aX instruction would de- “TS of defendant to explai on tre Fay}
of the 1934 amendment. evidence against him es * igh feo
; yet the

(15] The fai j
4 ailure of th Jurors are the exclusive j
ane becomes significant “breaaee: 3 ps tions of fact Sbenined to aS
esence of evide se of the credibility © bhest art o€. th
lai ence that he might “ ility of witnesses,” d
t eet _to deny by his Se cri ex- ly that court and ee I - eee Be
ae 77 Cal.Const.), for it may oy" Bais defendant’s failure to S re Sy ates
if he had an ty be inferred criminati i <piant-or deny in-
i : an expla rating eviden = a eae
Wii given it, or that whee he would compasses a a ey the instruction en-
0c he would have Gear as were court. Heapeniieat tess gy a
tebe, supra; M it. State v. Ker cites” Peaple vf
ue: a oon : ina, 11 Cal.2 2 Rh 7 opegte
Mich. at : ey v. Davis, supra, 75 al.2d 327,336, 79 P.2 c
“at pi , supra, 75. and People v , 336, 79 P.2d 1065
Rach at Page 193, 42 N.W. 802 and People v. Boggs, 12 Cal.2 “
éhaoal os Civ.Proc, Ge igs es o 14 upholding te acon -
, (7). No 3(5), en. In the McKe es
¢ drawn, h Yo such inference ma mae UA EASe; 0
, however, if it a ay was made on the fail ’ comment
Ppears from the to testify, and it “a pie peers
‘ that an instruc-

evidence th: ¢
at defendant }
. ant has no know gatas
165 P.2d—1%, o knowledge tion in the general language of tl
guage of the Con-

[17] Nor

can the defend ’s si
dus ant’s silenc
garded as a confession. In so Ht “

4p fol,


scene, I followed the hearse back to
the undertaking parlor in Palo Alto,
where we took finger-prints.

When the mud and blood were
tleaned away, we could see that she
aad been an attractive girl. The prin-
tipal wound—apparently the death
wound—was at the back of her skull.
Bruises stood out lividly on her left
temple and under her eyes; scratches
were on her throat and arms. Her
knuckles were skinned, as though she
had put up a terrific struggle.

And from those things we had to
find her killer.

How? The case was too indefinite
to allow us to form a plan yet. We
had certain routine things to do, and
if any of them developed a lead we

AD—2

murdered girl

could go on from there. If they
didn’t—

Cuffaro was anxious to get the fin-
ger-prints classified and checked.

“When we find out who she is,” he
declared, “then we'll probably know
the killer right away. Her boy friend,
or someone like that.”

“Possibly,” I conceded. “But what
if her prints aren’t on record? And
what if the killer was someone she
didn’t even know—a robber or a fellow
who picked her up?”

We discussed those theories, and on
the face of it we decided that Cuffaro
probably was right. Robbery—that was
out considering the expensive rings
left on her hands. Apparently she had
not been attacked. What else was left

Unknown, unmourned, unidentified except by
the initial-pin shown above, the body of the
lay

in a newly plowed field

but some personal motive? Why else
but for a personal motive would her
killer have struck at her again and
again?

“Don’t forget,” I said, “that when
we do catch this fellow we have to
convict him. We'll need every scrap
of physical evidence—all those things
that don’t mean anything to us now
and don’t help identify her but may
add up later.”

We decided that someone should go
back and make a more thorough search
of the field. Cuffaro was elected. Pyne
and Larson would get busy on the
dozens of missing-girls files in the San
Francisco Bay district, working with
the various police departments. The
rest of the work would be routine—a

Bernice Curtis: She first knew —

- fear when the subject of
marriage was introduced
-


OR A NE ae alse. theese

“aye: tiey Gelnanaea,

“Naw, I ain’t seen nobody,” Joe told
them from under the car. They went
away. . :

While they were scouring the neigh-
borhood Joe sneaked out of the yard,
climbed a tree and hid in the branches
for hours until nightfall. He watched
the cars and the patrolmen combing
the street. After dark he came down
and made his way, as usual, to the
freight yards. .

After a short stay in California, Joe
decided he needed a complete change
of scene. He always had wanted to
see the Pacific Northwest, so he
headed for Portland. ;

He fell in naturally with the tough
element—by this time he’d fairly de-
cided that he might as well turn to
burglary when he needed money—and
shortly he was picked up for vagrancy.
They sent him to the Kelly Butte jail,

Trailing Violets to "B's'

to tell us what he knew—as soon as
he read of the identification. If not—
well, at any rate Frank was the im-
mediate object of our search.

Not much seemed to be known about
him. The girls remembered that Ber-
nice had told them he was. a shipyard
worker. She hadn’t mentioned what
shipyard. This wasn’t much to go on.
Tens of thousands-of men work in the
shipyards around San Francisco Bay
and hundreds of them have the first
name of Frank.

Mrs. Ash gave us the best descrip-
tion of him. “He’s about five feet
nine,” she said, “and weighs around

40

foolishness and our efforts to get away
from our consciences, that either of
us realized what a lasting thing we
were doing. We weren’t being flippant.
But—well, we just didn’t expect any-
thing to last very long. And we were
wrong, because our marriage has sur-
vived everything. It’s about _all we
have left now.

We were bride and groom when we
reached Denver.

Almost from the day we hit Denver
things went wrong. Joe and Arnold
went out with a couple of other lads
one night. The streets were slippery
and one of them fell down and his gun
went off and shot him in the leg.

They took him to a doctor, who
removed the bullet and fixed it up.
They argued with the doctor and told
him it was just an accident, but the
doctor insisted on reporting the wound
to the police.

175. You might call him good-look-
ing—he’s a dark, Latin type.

“He has a little mustache and black,
wavy hair. He’s about thirty-five
years old. He told Bernice that he’d
been married and divorced. Bernice
seemed to think a lot of him. No, I’ve
never met him, but I did see a picture
of him.”

WITH this information our search
widened. We now had two things
to hunt for—a shipyard worker named

. Frank, and a green Chevrolet. How

could we find them? And when we
did—what? How would we know if

oo w ue we wees VMAs aban, a uUveLdl,
but I decided against it. The bullet
had gone through and it was a clean
hole and TI figured I could doctor it
myself. I swabbed it with iodine and
put on a bandage. I did a good job
and the leg healed nicely. But Joe
was laid up for a while.

_ That, we figured, was pretty tough
luck. It was only the beginning. A
couple of nights later Arnold went
out by himself. A police prowl car
stopped him on suspicion, and they
found a valuable stolen wrist-watch
and a gun on him. Records revealed

~ Arnold’s previous arrests. Almost be-
fore we knew it Arnold was sentenced
to five years to life in San Quentin
for first-degree robbery.

This was in June of 1930. We had
little money by that time, so Joe and
I headed back to Oakland, where at
least we had a few relatives and
friends.

' Killer (Continued from Page 5)

we had the right Frank? How could
we pick one green Chevrolet from
thousands?

Palo Alto, where the murder took
Place, is about 35 miles south of San
Francisco. People from San Francisco
normally don’t drive that far for. an
evening’s pleasure. That fact, and the
fact that Bernice had told her room-
mate about -several trips “down the
peninsula” with Frank, led us to con-
centrate our search in that area rather
than in San Francisco itself. Possibly
Frank lived down that way or habit-
ually hung out there.

I enlisted the cooperation of. Sheriff

turn to Page 36.

cClialice,

And with his record, he’d be go:
for a good, long time.

What could I do?

Was this going to be the end of m
marriage, the end of my new life, wit
first my brother and then my husban
in the pen? .

Or would Joe come out shootin
and would a murder rap be hangings
Over our heads the rest of our lives’

Be sure to read the next instalment
of Edna Cretzer’s exciting, behind,
the-scenes, true story about her lif
with Joe Cretzer, public enemy a
bank robber. It will be in the Jul
issue of ActuaL DETECTIVE STORIE
Magazine,

* For another picture with this story,

James J. McGrath of San Mateo Coun-
ty, which is immediately south of San
Francisco and north of my own counts.
Sheriff McGrath knew well wha i
was up against. Some years back—in
1935, to be exact—San Mateo County
had been the scene of a similar baffling
killing, which still stood unsolved on
the books. The victim was Kathleen
Robinson of San Mateo. She was found
shot to death on the street not far from
her home; the fatal shot had come from
a passing car.

The Robinson case in ‘Many ways
paralleled the killing of Bernice
Curtis. ,

AD—2


Police Scientist Francis X. La-
Tulipe established a girl’s pres-
ence in the death-car with these
photographs of her finger-prints

cisco’s Mission District, and soon we
were in touch with her landlady, Mrs.
Grace Arnold. Bernice Curtis, Mrs.
Arnold -told us, had not been home
since Sunday evening. At 7 o’clock
that evening Bernice had been home,
in good spirits and apparently prepar-
ing to go out on a date.

We described the dead girl care-
fully to Mrs. Arnold and she was sure
it was her roomer. We also talked on
the telephone to Miss Curtis’ room-
mate, Elsa Martin, who confirmed the
landlady’s story. The description fitted
perfectly, she said. Bernice had gone
out on a Sunday night date and had
not returned.

HEY put us in touch with Bernice
rtis’ sister, Mrs. Helen Ash of No.
3434 Sacramento Street, San Francisco.
Mrs. Ash had not seen her sister for
several days.

It sounded as though we were on
the right track. I sent several deputies
to San Francisco with articles of the
slain girl’s clothing, including the ini-
tialed brooch. Inspectors Harry Husted
and Al Corrasa of the San Francisco
Homicide Detail hurried out to ques-
tion Miss Curtis’ friends and relatives
more closely.

I needn’t detail the routine process
by which we became certain, very
shortly, that Bernice Curtis was the
murder victim. The women identified
the clothing, including the coat, and
later that night, Mrs. Ash’s husband,
Bernard Ash, came to San Jose and
identified the body positively. ,

So we had accomplished our firs
major task without too much delay—
the victim was identified. The girl was
Bernice Curtis. But who had killed
her? Why? We had solved the mys-
tery of her life—now what about the
mystery of her death?

In summary, this is what we learned

AD—2

s neem cet ram
ser genes ee

from the slain girl's sister, roommate
and landlady:

Bernice Curtis, 30 years old, for-
morly had operated @ beauty parlor
in Chieago. She had come to San
Francisco only two months before and
had gone to work for Levy as a clerk
in his cigar store at No, 900 Market
Street.

She had been married at an early
age but had obtained a divorce from
him about four years before she was
slain, She recently had been en-
gaged to another young man who, the
sister seemed to remember vaguely,
was in Mexico City.

She was a normal, vivacious girl,
and enjoyed dances and parties. How-
ever, she hadn’t confided very much
in her sister or roommate about her
men friends.

We had one slim lead. About three
weeks before, Bernice had met a young
fellow whose first name was Frank.
She had been seeing quite a bit of

him since then, He telephoned her
nearly every day. She had been out
with him until late Saturday night,
and she wan getting ready to meet him
Sunday evening when Mrs, Arnold and
Miss Martin had left her alone in the
San Jose Avenue house—never to see
her allve again.

Frank had telephoned only Mor
morning—about 9 o'clock, after |
nice Curtis had been dead fo
number of hours. Mrs. Arnold nau
answered the phone and told him Ber-
nice was out.

“Pll call back later,” the man had
said.

Was it an innocent call, or had
Frank deliberately phoned when he
knew the girl was ‘lying dead in the
field—in order to turn suspicion away
from him? We had no way of knowing
at the moment. If Frank were inno-
cent he would be turning up shortly
(Continued on Page 40)

This tire, from a war-plant parking-lot, and the cast of the tlre-print, from the mud near
the death scene, told their stories to Deputy Sheriff Phil Cuffaro, identification expert

SST

ad

=“

request to the State police asking them
to stop any ruapicious cars, a teletype
description of the victim, a round-up
of degenerates and hoboes in the
county, a story to the newspapers
asking the readers’ cooperation in iden-
tifying the victim.

Those were the things we could do
right away—things that applied to any
such case. But would they apply to
this? Could the girl be named by a
California police department or news-
paper reader—or had she come, pos-
sibly, from half-way across the con-
tinent? We only could try what we
had, and hope.

One more piece of evidence was not

long in turning up—in fact, it had been
in the hands of the authorities many
hours before the body was discovered.
It was a bedraggled fur coat, found
near the scene of the crime, which very
probably belonged to the mystery
girl. A motorist had seen it in the
roadway of Alma Street, around 1
—_ that morning. He had turned
it in.
The coat bore no marks of identifi-
cation. Apparently it had been run
over by several automobiles. That was
all it meant, then.

As news of the murder spread
around the county, a valuable witness
turned up with the first piece of in-
formation that helped. He was Orr
Theodore Meeker of Palo Alto, a bus
driver.

He had been driving along Alma
Street on his regular run shortly after
midnight that morning, he said, when

he saw a girl’s coat lying in the mid-
dle of the road,

“I slowed down and swerved toward
the ditch to avoid running over it,” he
suld, tle hadn't wanted to atop on that
lonely road so late at night—the coat
might have been a holdup plant. “I
coasted past It, and just for the sake
of the record I looked at my watch.
It was exactly 12:45 a.m.

“Then, a little distance beyond the
coat, I almost ran into a car parked
off the road. I was still pretty far to
the right and I had to cut back sharp
to avoid it.”

“Did you notice what kind of a car
it was?”

The bus driver was observant—his
answer was more than we had hoped
for.

“Sure—it was a green Chevrolet se-
dan, a few years old. The headlights
were on, shining into the field. That

must have been the same field where

you found the body. The right front
door, nearest to the fence, was open.
Nobody was in the car. «

“It was none of my business, and it
was sort of a suspicious set-up—so I
just drove on. I remembered it as soon
as I heard about the murder.”

Now we had something definite to
go on. Probably the car Meeker had
seen was the death-car. Questioning
him closely, we made certain that the
car had been parked at the exact spot
where the murderer’s car had stood.
So we knew two things—the approxi-
mate time of the murder and the fact

that the killer had driven an old, green
sedan, probably a Chevrolet.

The autopsy by Doctor Burt L. Davis
confirmed the time of death as shortly
after midnight. The girl had died from
a skull fracture caused by the blow
on the back of her head.

The other bruises gave evidence of
a terrific struggle. She had been a
fairly strong girl. Lacerations on her
right hand indicated that something
had been torn from her clenched fist.

Doctor Davis had found no evidence
that she had been attacked.

While I was giving State police’ the
description of the’green car, Phil Cuf-
faro came back from Palo Alto, He
had not been able to ‘find much more
than we had discovered earlier, but
his negative results were valuable in

Kathleen Robinson: She lived
alone and she was_ shot
down as she walked alone

Her struggle for life was in-
dicated by the victim’s dress,
held here by Deputy Prose-
cutor Ameglio Andreucetti

This gun, used to kill Kath-
leen Robinson and traced
to a relative of one who
loved her, was adjudged
not sufficient as evidence

themselves. He had looked all around,
in vain, for the missing shoe. Possibly
this would turn up somewhere else,
and thus would tell us the direction
from which the killer and his victim
had come. Also, he could not find any
weapon. Perhaps the girl had been
bludgeoned with the missing shoe and
the killer had taken it away with him
to dispose of elsewhere.

One definite thing that Cuffaro had
found was a spot of blood on the road
near where the coat had lain. Another
was a little broken green feather—part
of a feather such as men sometimes
wear in their hats. It was under a
piece of dirt, near the body.

Three or four people already had
come to view the body but had failed
to identify it. Now, however, a lead
turned up that looked good.

R. W. Levy, a San Francisco cigar
dealer, had read the description of the
slain girl in the afternoon papers.
When he saw the picture of the
brooch with the initials, he called the
San Francisco police at once, His
young clerk, Bernice Curtis, he told
them, had failed to show up for work
that morning. The description fitted
her and he thought he had seen her
wearing just such a pin.

He gave us her home address, No.
232 San Jose Avenue, in San Fran-

AD—2


‘om the Wom. 4

Vary Nuttin
en threatene
‘id about the

Norton w

, ere
_T readily ad-
nna. “It was
id. “The pus

‘hile confess.
> the car, in.
‘Ow a crime

ois case o

wy Ver.
went before.
tained first

‘ents against
torton and ~

‘ year later
ed out. On
nN and Mc-
{ to plead
murder,
‘ced Fallon
McDonald
Sing Sing

and trial
Jury. Be.
not have
ove com.
tting, he
‘inst the
» than a

materia]
Dorothy
1agingly

. ing contacted..

sue was
‘Ork Te-
an as-
. a run.

uray,
“iting,
2 and
for ob.*

and bullets had plowed’ into the
girl.
“we never got to the bottom of
that slaying,” McGrath — said.
‘Kathleen Robinson hadn’t told
anyone about her boy friend and
we had nothing to go on. We
checked everyone she knew and

finally charged a guy by (he name
of Alcalde with the kil». but he
was set free at the tminary

hearing for lack of evidence. I al-
ways thought he was the right guy,
put...” The sheriff shrugged his
shoulder. “If I can do anything
for you, Phil, just call on me.”
When he arrived back in San
Jose, Sheriff Emig told him that
he had had the Chicago author-
ities contact Bernice’s mother.
From them he had learned that
the girl had once been married,
but was divorced. Her husband
was in the army and was now be-
“Another thing,”
Emig continued, “the mother got
several letters in which the girl
mentioned this mysterious Frank.
She said that he wanted to marry
her and that she was scared. Now
why would Bernice be scared of
Frank, if he was her boy friend?”
Cuffaro didn’t know the answer
to that, “I’ve got a list of places
that Bernice mentioned to her
roommate,” he told his superior.

“Tm going to take her photograph

and see if I can trace her on the
murder night.”

Cuffaro had no luck, that is, at
‘first. He went from one dance hall
to the next, from one nicht club to
the other. Then, as he himself had
a cup of coffee at-a drive-in, he re-
membered the coroner’s statement
that Bernice had eaten hamburger
and green grapes. “They wouldn’t
get those in a night club,” he ar-
gued. “More likely be a place like
this.”

He was right. When he showed
Miss Curtis’ photo to the girls at
the drive-in, one of them recalled
her at once. She gave a descrip-
tion of Frank that checked with
what Cuffaro already had. “I sure
remember. them,” the girl said.
“They had a green car and he was
a fresh guy. The way he looked at
me. I felt sorry for his wife, if he
was that kind of a guy. That’s
why I remember them because she
looked. like she’d been crying.”

No, she said, she didn’t remem-

ber which way they drove off,. but
jt must have been around eleven
when they came. The deputy asked
her how the waitresses checked the
orders when. they took them and
‘the girl explained that they were
supposed to.put the license num-
ber of the car on their ticket, but
she hadn’t done it, because she was
the only curb girl that night and
‘there weren’t many customers.

Cuffaro thanked her and return-

edto his office. “That Frank is our

est bet,” Sheriff Emig said when
the deputy reported. “Let’s concen-

‘

trate on him. We'll check the time
cards at all shipyards, looking for
Franks.”

“Don’t forget that he seems to
have a Latinish appearance.’ If we
find a Frank with a Latin name,
that might be him.”

However, that plan was doomed
to fail, There were too many
Franks. Even too many with Latin
family names. To interview them
all would have seriously interfer-
ed with the war work.

T morning, Cuffaro return-

ed to San Francisco, “I'll make

another fresh start,” he told him-

self, “at her boarding house. There

must be some kind of a clue around
there, if I can only find it.”

But after he had spent more
than an hour going over the girl’s
room, he had to admit that it
seemed hopeless. If there was any
clue, he couldn’t see it.

He plied the landlady and the
victim’s roommate with questions.
Had Bernice seemed happy? Did
they know whether Frank and she
had quarreled? Couldn’t they re-
member anything the girl might
have said about Frank?

But it seemed hopeless. Bernice
had been quite happy. “And she
certainly didn’t quarrel with
Frank,” the young girl declared.
“Tm sure she would have told me.
In fact, Saturday evening, when
she pinned on the corsage Frank

had sent her, she said that she -

and Frank might get married.”

Cuffaro pricked up his ears. “Cor-
sage?” he asked.

She nodded. “He bought her one
every Saturday night. Some florist
sent them over with his boy.”

“Do you know the name of the
florist?”

The women said they didn’t, but
the landlady thought the last box
should be out in the back in the
garbage. Cuffaro hardly dared hope
for such good luck after all the
misdeals he had had. If the box
was there; if it had the florist’s
name on it; that would be the first
definite concrete thing to point the
way to the mysterious Frank.

The little green box was there.
And on it was the name and ad-
dress of the shop.

The deputy hastened to the ad-
dress. Yes, the proprietor remem-
bered that man with the Latin
face, not his name, the had never
heard that. But his looks and his
voice. “He quarreled with me ev-
ery time over the price of the cor-
sages, I told him to go and buy
them elsewhere. And he came back
yet three Saturdays. So I remember
him.”

He didn’t know whether this cus-
tomer drove a green car or not,
never having any reason to look
particularly. But he would recog-
nize a photograph if it was a good
one.

Cuffaro hurried pack to his office,

after asking the San Francisco Po-
lice Department to gather up all
the mug pictures they had of men
of Frank’s type. He himself gather-
ed a number from his own files.
Others he obtained in neighboring
counties, Armed with these he re-
turned to the florist shop.

The man went over the photos
carefully, again and again. Final-
ly he shook His head. “I can’t say
for sure,” he told Cuffaro. “Some-
times I think I catch a likeness
and when I look again, I don’t see
it. I’m sorry, Mr. Cuffaro.”

Well, that was that.

Then a call came from Sheriff
Emig. “Officer Truggani of the
South San Francisco Police wants
to talk to you, Phil. George Pyne
will meet you there. By the way,”
he added, “both Miss Curtis’ ex-
husband and Stanley Dawes, her
fiance in Mexico City, are in the

clear.”

When Cuffaro met Pyne in South

San Francisco, Truggani told the

officers, “I have followed your case
in the paper pretty carefully and
I’ve got an idea.. You’ve heard of
the Kathleen Robinson _ killing
some eight years ago, haven’t you?
That was never solved. Well, the
guy Sheriff McGrath had in court,
he lives around here somewhere
and his description fits your
‘Frank’ pretty well and,” Truggani
leaned forward, “he drives a green
Chevrolet.”

Truggani didn’t know where he
lived. “I’ve picked him up for traf-
fic violations several times,” he
said. “I know he works at the West-
ern Pipe and Steel. You can find
him there. Only his name isn’t
Frank. It’s Florencio Alcalde.”

The officers complimented Trug-
gani on his shrewdness and drove
to the big shipyard on the Bay.
But then a problem confronted
them. They received * permission
readily to check the cars in the
parking lot. But the lot was next
to one of the new ships being
outfitted. “If this guy sees us
prowling around here,” Cuffaro
said, “it’s a straight bet that he’ll
get wise and scram. I don’t want
to scare him until I’m ready to
clamp down on him.”

“Right,” Pyne agreed.
do we do?”

“We'll get his photo from the
shipyard office, They'll have a late
one. And while I show it to the
florist, you keep your eyes on this
lay-out.”

Getting Alcalde’s ‘picture pre,
sented no trouble. It was on file.
“What’s: more,” the clerk said,
pointing to the high side of the
nearest ship, “that’s Alcalde there,
the: guy with the pipewrench in
his hand.”

Leaving Pyne to keep his eyes on
Alcalde, Cuffaro rushed to the
florist shop. He gave the proprietor
a handful of photos, including Al-
calde’s latest. After a while he

: 37

“So what.


7

On March 22d they entered a
Barage on East 125th Street, a
good dozen blocks from where Don-
nelly had estimated: the three
youths lived. It was one of the last

on their list and they expected fur-
ther rebuffs,

There was a 1932 black Dodge
Sedan in the place even then and
Donnelly began questioning | the
Manager about it.

“That belongs to a young fellow
named Eddie McDonald of 204 East
126th Street,” this man said.

Donnelly’s pulse beat faster.
“Ever see him with anyone else
about his own age?” he asked.

The garage man nodded. “Yes, a
couple of other fellows, but I don’t
know their names.”

At 1:30 am. the next morning,
after vainly waiting for McDonald
to return to the garage, the three
detectives raided his .home. In a

_ Closet, wrapped in newspapers, they

found a 45 calibre pistol.

McDonald, just 20, tried to claim
the gun as his, but Joseph Rogers,
awakened from bed, identified it as
the one he had kept in the store
for years. ;

McDonald was rushed downtown,
the weapon turned over to the bal.
listics department. Later that same
morning Donnelly got the report.

The bullet taken from Arbonna’s
brain had‘ been fired from the
stolen pistol! |

The youth faced Marro. “I sup-
Pose you know why you're here?”
the assistant district attorney be-
gan.

McDonald, paling, gulped and

nodded. “Sure, because a pistol
found in my house is said to be
stolen. But that’s a lie. I bought it
from a friend.” .
_ Marro eyed the suspect for a few
seconds. Then he said calmly,
“That’s not the reason at all, my
friend. It’s because a man was kill-
ed with that gun and you’re the
murderer.” 4

CONFIDENTIAL
DEMEGKIVE

plied. “In that case, he wouldn’t.”

Cuffaro agreed with his superior.
“It’s a pretty slim lead at best,” he
answered. “There must be a couple
of thousand Franks working
around San Francisco, and a good
few hundred green Chevrolets.”
After a moment he continued, “I’m
going to question the landlady, the
girl’s roommate, Mrs. Ash and
Levy once. again. Maybe they’ve
thought of some little detail that

they overlooked in their first ex-

citement.”
36

The youth bolted from his chair.
Donnelly and Croke placed him
back,

“I didn’t kill anybody!” he
screamed. “That was Mickey Fal-

lon! He shot the guy with that

gun, trying a holdup!”

So, at last, the murder of J oseph
Arbonna was explained.

“Tell us about it,” Marro urged,
ringing for a stenographer.

It was not much of a story. On
the night of March 3d, the youth
began, he, Michael Fallon, 21, of
124 East 23d Street, and a fellow
named Harry Horton were driving
up and down Riverside Drive, look-
ing for a likely robbery victim.’ Be-
cause of the storm, it was difficult
to see who was in the cars.

At last they spotted the machine
driven by Arbonna and were able
to tell that there was only a man
and a woman in it. ‘

“That’s a soft touch,” Fallon had
said, after the Arbonna car came

‘to a stop at 187th Street. “Pull up
alongside it.”

McDonald, who was driving, did
as he was told. Fallon got out with
the gun and walked around the
parked car. In a few minutes the
others heard a muffled explosion.
Fallon came dashing back.

“I’ve just shot a guy,’ he stated,
hopping in the machine, “Let’s get
away from here fast.”

“And that,” concluded McDonald,
“was all there was to it.” ,

Marro was not taken in so easily.
“Listen, McDonald,” he rasped,
“some witnesses. have told us there
were four people in that car. Who
else was there?”

The youth squirmed. “I didn’t
want to tell about that,” he an-
swered, “but it was Mary Nutting.”

Marro and Donnelly not only
were surprised, they were furious.
Realizing that the girl could have
told all along that she was a wit-
ness to the crime, they had her

“ie

brought downtown from the Wom. °

en’s Prison, :

Then, tearfully, Mary Nutting
told how she had been threatened
with death if she told about the
murder.

When Fallon and Horton were
brought in, the former readily ad-
mitted shooting Arbonna. “It was
an accident,” he said. “The gun
just went off.”

Horton, however, while confess-
ing he was present ‘in the car, in-
Sisted he did not know a crime
was to be committed,

Marro,' building up his case over.
the next two weeks, went before:
the grand jury and obtained first
degree murder indictments against

Fallon, McDonald, Horton and-

Mary Nutting.

But it was almost a year later
before justice was meted out. On
February 14, 1935Fallon and Mc-
Donald were. permitted to plead
guilty to second degree murder.

Judge Rosalsky sentenced Fallon
to 35 years to life and McDonald
to 30 years to life in Sing Sing
Prison. :

Horton elected to stand trial
and was acquitted by the jury. Be-
cause Marro felt he did not have
sufficient evidence to prove com-
plicity against Mary Nutting, he
quashed the charge against the
girl, who had spent more than a
year behind bars.

Mary Becker, held as a material
witness, was freed, as was Dorothy
Gray who. testified damagingly
against the slayers, -

The Riverside Drive crime was

closed by clever detective work re- -

sulting from the hunch of an as-
tute officer sent to question. a run-
away girl.

NOTE: The names, Dorothy Gray,
‘Louis Hamilton, Mary Nutting,
Helen Becher, Harry Horton and
Saul Devinne are fictitious for ob-
vious reasons,

ae a ca lal r

(Continued from page 9)

It took the better part of the
day to cover that angle, but as
Cuffaro drove home, he had two
rather important clues, Bernice’s
roommate had remembered that
Bernice had mentioned several
times ‘trips up the Peninsula’. Did
that perhaps mean that ‘Frank’
lived somewhere south of San
Francisco? It might, at that, Cuf-
faro thought. And then there was
the statement of Levy’s other coun-
ter girl. She had seen Bernice twice
get into an old green Chevrolet,

when ijeaving her work for a date,
As le drove through San Mateo,
he decided to call on Sheriff James
McGrath of San Mateo County. He
told him the progress he had made
so far. :
McGrath said, “Phil, this case‘ of
yours reminds me somewhat of
that Robinson killing. Remember
it??? :
Cuffaro did. Eight years ago,
Kathleen Robinson had been walk-.
ing home rather late at night. A.
car had slowed to a stop beside her

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A
———S
————

pointed to Alcalde’s. “I think that
is the man,” he told Cuffaro, “but
I won’t swear to it until I hear his
voice. I’ll know by that for sure.”

Cuffaro phoned Sheriff Emig the
new developments. “I don’t think
I’d arrest him yet,” the sheriff re-
plied. “Now that you've located
our man, let’s keep him under sur-
veillance. Maybe he'll give himself
away.”

Thus, with the help ‘of the South
San Francisco Police Department,
the suspect was never without a
shadow. In the meantime, Cuffaro
rushed copies of Alcalde’s picture
to Chicago, to Mrs. Ash who had
gone East with the girl’s body. She
wired back that it was a copy of
the photo Bernice had shown her.

Then Cuffaro and Pyne went into
the shipyard as workers. They dis-

- covered that Alcalde was known

sas Frank and not as Florencio.
That he had bragged about his

_latest conquest. He had shown

other workers pictures of this furl.

Several identified Bernice Curtis as

Alcalde’s sweetheart.

One man told Cuffaro, “Frank
told me, kidding, you know, that
he ‘might be this guy the cops were
looking for. We knew he was kid-
din’, because he ain’t got the guts
for ‘that kind of thing.” :

Oh, yeah? Cuffaro thought to
himself. ;

‘Then the man went on, “Frank’s
a fool, anyhow. He’s got a nice
wife and a nice kid. Why he should
leave them and live in an old ho-
tel, I can’t understand.”

The officers in Sheriff Emig’s of-
fice talked the case over. Just what
did they have on Alcalde? First,
that he was Miss Curtis’ sweet-
heart. And second, that he drove
a green Chevrolet. .

“It’s not sufficient,” Emig de-
clared, “We’ve got to put him at
the murder scene. If he’s the kill-
er of Kathleen Robinson, then he’s
a wise guy. He won’t crack under
questioning. He’s been set free once
and he might-be again, claiming
we were persecuting him for the
old killing. We’ve got to put him
right there while the killing is go-
ing on.”

Cuffaro knew his boss was right.
But how was he to put a wily
killer on the spot? What could he
do to prove that Alcalde had been
in that field on Alma Street?

He put his problem up to Chief
Louis Belloni of South San Fran-
cisco. “It’ll be hard to break this
case, Chief,” he said. “But if you
could prove that he wasn’t here,
say in his hotel, at the time of the
murder, that would help. How
about it?”

Belloni promised to do what he
could. He set his men to work.
While the chief handled his end,
Cuffaro gained admittance to Al-
calde’s room, He found nothing in-
criminating. “In fact,” the officer
told himself, “I didn’t find enough

38

of anything, For a gay young
sprout, that Alcalde hasn’t much in
the line of fancy clothes.”

And that thought led to another.
The killer carried his victim into
the field. She was bleeding, as
proved by the bloodspots on the
road. Therefore, the killer must
have gotten blood on his clothes.
Where would those clothes be?
They weren’t in his hotel room.
“They must be at his home,” Cuf-
faro decided. And he couldn’t, not
without warning the suspect’s wife,
search the house. “I’ll have to
pick him up for questioning,” the
deputy decided.

Thus, on November 27th, Cuffaro

and Pyne walked up to Alcalde at
work. “Sheriff Emig wants to ask
you som questions,’ the officer
told him.
_ The suspect made no protest. But
when Schrumpf, the florist, spoke
to him and then declared that he
was the man who had bought the
violets for Bernice Curtis, Alcalde
denied it. “I never bought bouquets
for any dame,” he snarled, “only
for my wife. I never knew no Ber-
nice Curtis.”

He stuck to that story. He said
that on the Sunday in question he
had played cards with a bunch of
guys in a poolroom and could prove
it. “I was there from early after
lunch until after eight, maybe close
to nine,” he said.

Cuffaro asked him where his car
was during that time. “Behind my
hotel, where I always park it,” Al-
‘calde shouted back.

But when the deputy phoned this
information to Chief Belloni, quick
denials came from South San Fran-
cisco. Alcalde had played cards
until six. His car was not behind

the hotel from around seven until

at least after four in the morning.
Two police officers had made that
round and had seen no car there
during those hours.

Next Cuffaro went over the green
Chevrolet microscopically. It be-
came evident almost at once that
the car had been cleaned sys-
tematically, But, the pattern of the
floor mat was exactly the same as
an imprint on the dead girl’s knee.
The tires fitted the cast Cuffaro
had made at the scene. There were
spots on the upholstery that were
identified as human blood, even
though the seat had been washed
carefully, And most incriminating
of all, on the back of the rear view
mirror, the officer found Bernice
Curtis’ fingerprint.

Cuffaro decided to search Al- .

calde’s home. He and Deputy Pyne
made a thorough job of it. They
found a suit that had been cleaned,
but even so, Cuffaro knowing what

he was looking for, found traces of |

carefully washed bloodstains.
“But,” he said to himself as they
were about to leave, “I’ve not found
what I had most hoped for.” He
handled an old hat that Mrs. Al-

-

calde said belonged to her hus-
band, It didn’t fit in with the other
glad rags the suspect owned. It
was too old and too shabby. “ds
this the only hat your husband
has?” he asked.

Mrs. Alcalde said that Frank had
a newer one, but that she had not
scen it for some time.

Cuffaro decided to search the
house once again. And, hidden be-
hind the kitchen stove out of sight
he found it, In the hatband was
the broken piece of a small, blue
feather. “That’s the clincher,” Cuf-
faro told himself. :

He asked Francis X, LaTulipe,.
laboratory expert of the San Fran-

cisco Police Department, to check

the piece of feather against the.

piece in Alcalde’s hatband. After
a careful check, the expert de-
clared, “Those two pieces check
perfectly.”

When Cuffaro reported his find-
ings to Sheriff Emig, Alcalde was
formally charged with the murder
of Bernice Curtis. That was Decem-
ber 1st. And on February 23rd Al-
calde faced a jury of eight wom-
en and four men in Superior Judge
William F. James’ Court.

The prisoner. sat throughout the

long trial without showing any
emotion. As Assistant District At-
torney Ameglio Andreucetti ham-
mered home one point after the
other, Alcalde only smiled. Hadn’t
he been through all this before?
And wasn’t he set free?

But when Cuffaro slowly and
clearly told of the little feather
that had been stamped into the
ground: beside the dead girl’s
bruised face, when he proved that
it fitted the stem left in the pris-

‘oner’s hatband, the confident sneer

left Alcalde’s face.

And when the jury slowly filed
into the box again after deliber-
ating for only a short time; when
Alcalde heard their verdict of
guilty without any recommenda-

tion of mercy, an. anguished cry,

escaped him.

He was taken back to his cell, -

waiting only for the sentence
Judge James must pass on him:
Death by execution.

On June 11, 1944, Alcalde was.

sentenced to die August 18th.

Sheriff Emig has several times
tried to get. Alcalde to state the’
reason for the killing. But as yet
the real motive is clouded in mys-
tery.

Some believe that. Bernice
Curtis wanted to get married.
Others think that. Alcalde-was just.
tired of her and thought killing
her the easiest way to get rid of
the girl. But whatever the real mo-
tive was, only ‘Alcalde knows and
he won’t tell.

Note: Stanley Dawes is a saliva:
name to protect an innocent per-
son from embarrassment, 5

ing to !
cated the
She ¢

noted ¢!
wrote
Smith”
surenes
recog
as gen
for ide
not pa!’
appear
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The
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and ta!
shelled
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sherifi
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»

od

BY ROGER WILLIAMS

The corpses of two of the California

'
|

Casanova's girlfriends

,

| were mute evidence that he had a fatal

attraction for women

{
2
2
ie
=
.
=

42

Huddled among the furrows of the freshly plowed
field, left, and just inside fence was the battered
body of lovely Bernice Curtis, above. The vic-
tim, comparatively a stranger in Palo Alto, had
told a friend of a date for night she was slain.

BEAUTY AND

Some 6 years before, a man linked to Curtis case
was quizzed in murder of Kathleen Robinson, left.

vf histling happily in anticipation of the approach-
ing Thanksgiving festivities, Clay Towler, a Mayfield,
Cal., electrician, drove to work that November Mon-
day morning. He had swung off Diss Road into Alma
leading into Palo Alto and was heading toward his
place of employment in the university town when
he observed the huddled figure of a woman on the
far side of the two-rail fence bordering the road.

He climbed out of his car, crawled through the
fence and stood above the form. One look was enough
for him to know she had been killed. The victim was
about 30 years old and a heavy rock, smeared with
blood, lay a few feet from her bruised and battered
head.

The girl’s face had been pushed into the soft dirt.
She had red hair, was around 5 feet, 3 inches tall
and weighed about 125 pounds and was well dressed.
She wore a black, silk dress and a black open toed
pump lay near her body. The second pump was no-
where to be seen. Two rings, a diamond and an onyx,
were on her left hand, indicating robbery had not
been a motive in the slaying. There were no traces
of either her coat or purse.

Towls
Rockh
Alto, stc
sheriff's

hint of
Pyne
autops\
scripti
Fron
knew t}
possib]:
leading
road ir
field
The
head
battere
Bruis


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RUPTURED

ae 4 is es
surely find it.”
e believed who-

ving
Coon 13, said that it was entirely ible
that the killer hadn’t gotten any blood on
him except perhaps his ds.

“{ think the killer was above her when
he did the slashing,” he surmised. “And
if that was the case he could have jumped
up without getting anything bloody but
his hands.”

When the officers got back to Albany
with Car D they were met by Sheriff
Shelton.

“Pye nothing encouraging to report,” he
told Prosecutor Weinrick. “The footprints
in the snow between the siding and the
main line tracks were made by a brake-
man. The ones near the trail of blood were
made by a man who lives nearby. He had
a nose bleed. We’ve searched the right-
of-way and found no trace of a murder
weapon or bloodstained clothes.

Weinrick called all the men who had
been working on the case into conference.
He had a large scale drawing of Car D

all prepared. : ;

“{ feel positive the killer was in that
car after the murder,” he told the gather-
in the south end an
the cook was working in the galley at
All the train doors were
closed. We've identified the only foot-
stompet Who-

car.

Lieutenant Howard agreed. “But how
berth without being
seen?” he wanted to know. “I've been
unbuttoning the curtain flap on Lower 13
and it’s not something you can do ina
hurry. She most certainly wouldn’t have
left the curtain unbuttoned because she
wore only a nightgown when she was
killed.”

“That makes it look bad for Butler,”
Champlin said. “He was in Upper 13. Could
he have reached down -and undone the
buttons?”

Weinrick didn’t think so. “Besides,” he
be telling a straight-
forward story. He did what any one of
us would have done under similar cir-
cumstances. He first tried to help the
woman and then he chased the man who
was running down

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| think the porter r
car can be considered a serious suspect,
either. Butler chased th
direction, towards the back. The porter
was in the front. That lets him out.”

“What about the cook in the galley?”
Howard asked. “He was working in the
rear.”

“True enough,” Weinrick replied, “but
he was wearing a white shirt, white pants,
white apron and white hat when Butler
saw him. That doesn’t fit the description
we have of the fleeing man.”

It looked as though the investigation
had come to a standstill. All of the officers
had their theories, but it was Lieutenant
Howard who said, “I can't help thinking
that whoever killed Mrs. James knew the
number of her berth beforehand. It could
have been someone in another car or it
could have been someone in Car D. such
as Private Butler, or it could have been
a member of the crew.”

Weinrick didn’t think it could have
been anyone from another car because the
porter up front would have seen him
pass. “And it couldn't have been anyone
| else in Car D, with the possible exception
| Of Butler, because he couldn't have
climbed back into a berth without being
seen,” he theorized.

“That leaves it up to a member of the

train crew,”

tonelessly.

But while the others were trying to ©

fathom the dead end,
rick’s eyes brightened
fingers as though
get Butler in here.
seany et *ONe HA

The young
conference and
peat his story exactly

before.
“But I’ve already told
to Deputy Sutherland

agents and to you,” Butler protested. “Why
the same ground so

do I have to go over
many times?”

The prosecutor put a
the young man’s shoulder.
“i¢ itll do your nerves any §
that we’ve just about eliminated you

you

as a suspect. But you said

you

chasing th

“Now you say you saw the cook there
working in his white
reminded. “You stopped
What else did you see?” 4

Butler shrugged. “Just like I said be- _

“the cook was there in ©
working at a narrow »
frying in a pan and he S

fore,” he went on,
his white outfit
table. Eggs were
was slicing meat with

“Yes,” the prosecutor prompted. “And
what else did you see?”

Private Butler started to speak and then
“Why,” he
“the cook was wiping his forehead with
his hand. He was sweating—and it wasn’t
that hot in the galley!”

There was an ominous silence in the
room. Every one of the officers knew that
the words the marine had just spoken
held the key to the mysterious murder of

stopped abruptly.

James.

“I think I know why the cook was

sweating,” Prosecutor

emnly. “I’m going to call

have the police look
background. And I'm
whether or not he w
that helped her get h

Things moved fast

Beeman reported that he had examined =

stains on it. Los Angeles checked and re-
ported back that Robert z
eral minor convictions against him, but
Sheriff Shelton turned up
that it was Robert Folkes,

no major ones.
the information

doubling as a porter,
Martha James with her
boarded the train in Portland.

“Folkes knew two

Prosecutor Weinrick said. “First, that Mrs.
Lower 13. Second, that

James occupied
she. was alone.

“He’s certainly got

do,” Lieutenant Howard agreed, “but how
are we going to explain the fact
he was frying eggs in
Private Butler saw him there?
dressed in white. Butler says the man he
saw wore something dark.”
“And maybe that galley
Champlin reminded.
“That’s all true enough,” Weinrick said,
“but I've got a strong

we think,” Agent
Folkes is our man.

ing the chief petty ©

Lieutenant Howard ‘said 2 :

and he snapped his
he had hit on something.
“I think I’ve got it!” he exclaimed. “Let's
I want him to tell his
ght from the very be-

marine was brought into the
Weinrick asked him to re-

ister at the time. I just remembered it

I'm going to question
all those we've held all :
The Puilman porter

fficer dress was first. =

Prosecutor Wein-

as he had told it

everything I know
and the railroad

friendly arm on
“Look,” he said,
ood Ill tell

something when
to me that didn’t

outfit,”
and talked to him.

a knife.

stammered,

Weinrick said sol-
Los Angeles and
into Robert Folkes’
“going to find out
as one of the crew
er baggage aboard.”
after that. Doctor ™

Mra rah ered

peat

Martha James’ nightgown and found grease

Folkes had sev-

who had_ helped
luggage when she

important things,”

some explaining to

that
the galley when
And he was

was hotter than

g feeling that Robert
over again.’ 3
who had been help- J

© a *

= ndlaarcl want to cast suspicion on a fel-

crew member, but he did admit that

*- Robert Folkes had passed through Car D

at once that morning.
“I asked him where he was going. That

a — ig « Egy he wanted a
- smoke gave hi and
- him back to the dine” one

He added something else. “I used to
work as a cook,” he told Weinrick, “and
I know it takes between ten and fifteen
minutes to fix a batch of muffins. Right
after the body of that woman was found,
Folkes served the crew fresh baked muf-
fins. It doesn’t look to me as though he
—. tim2 for anything else.”

prosecutor said, “He could ha
worked this thing all out in his mind and

those eggs ready to put in the pan
and the muffins half-cooked and in the
store just in case anything went wrong.
Those things alone would have made it
5 ol 8 a been in the galley right
a . May ie was smart
it that way.” eee en

The prosecutor talked with one of the
Passengers next.
pe “You were in Upper 9,” Weinrick said,

. “and I got the impression when I first
~ spoke with you that you didn’t agree with
_what all the other witnesses said.”

“I didn’t,’ he stated flatly. “Someone
said the killer wore a_pin-striped suit.
Well, he didn’t. He had on an overcoat
ane it be a — color. I saw his back as

e ran down the aisle. I’ iti

_ the overcoat and the it dont paca ar
Fags a him and said
in overcoat wo ve bee ;
a out of fast.” ° ———
einri contacted Los Angel
asked the officers there to pick S nae
Folkes, question him and find out if he
had a pocket knife and a dark overcoat.

Los Angeles wired back several hours
later saying that Folkes was in custody;
that he didn’t have a pocket knife on him,
but that other crew members said he
— carried place They also said he

no pin-stri it, b i
own a dark oo —
Bi oe ae facts in hand, Prosecutor
einrick swore out ‘di
against Robert all murder warrant
ter that same day Captain of Poli
eee Sones en — Weinrick to tell
fi hs

esson suspect just made a full
“First he claimed to hav man
climb into Lower 13,” Rmtee tg seneeed
sthen he said he was hired to kill Mrs.
ames by a man who hated her. He i
to talk with his wife and we let ebay yo

-on my overcoat and crawled into her

eee

in. Mrs. James woke up and when she re-

sisted him, he slashed her throat.”

Weinrick released Private Butl
the other material witnesses collars
“You're all in the clear,” he told them.
‘We've got the right man and we’re grate-

ful for the help you’ve given us.”

Undersheriff Kirk made the trip to Los | &¢quire
e prison:
Oregon. Prosecutor Weinrick aeenpell hes
get Folkes to sign the confession he had
made in the California city, but he refused,
claiming that the Los Angeles police had
tricked him into the confession by giving

Angeles and returned

him liquor.

When the officers in the soi i
heard about this, they 5 Boor Bary nig ae
was given Folkes to steady his nerves,”
oa Rasmussen told Weinrick over
long distance. “Both the medical examiner
and Folkes’ own doctor advised the drink.

We can prove that in court.”

Prosecutor Weinrick finally broke Folk
ony by telling him that he was pi to
taken to Car D to view the lower

i where Martha James had been
The cook didn’t want an of
murder scene and talked frets “She ore
me only a two-bit tip,” he admitted. “That
wasn’t enough because she had a lot of
luggage. After the train started I sneaked
back into the car several times and un-
did one button each trip. I had the eggs
all ready for the frying pan and the muf-
fins half-cooked just in case things didn’t
go the way I wanted them to. Then I put

berth. I wanted to scare her. Bu
scared when she woke up and cold, Pal ns
Bs That’s when I slashed her.”

_ Eight women and four men form

jury that found Robert Folkes ine a
murder in the first degree on April 21st,
1943. Five days later Circuit Judge L. G
Lewelling sentenced him to death in Ore-
gon’s gas chamber at Salem for the brutal
murder of Martha James. He was ex-
ecuted on January 5th, 1945.

Eprror’s Note:
The name Walter Butler is fictitious.

THE KILLER PREFERRED REDHEADS _

(Continued from page 23)

Mindful of the slain redhead’.
fingernails and _ skinned sa yee
alerted officers of Santa Clara and neigh-
boring San Francisco Bay counties to be
on the watch for a man with scratches
on his face, and to be extra diligent in
stopping and examining suspicious auto-
mobiles. His own record bureau checked
its missing-person reports for red-haired
women, but found nothing helpful.

When Phil Cuffaro came back to head-
quarters an hour later, he brought with
him one of the rea they had been seek-
ing: a > -quarter |,
muskrat fur coat. “Fellow turned it rye
the Palo Alto cops just about an hour ago,”

I talked to him and he’s certain it w:

: as
right near that spot, just opposite the
field. Maybe a little way down the road,
toward town. Must be her coat.”

died fur and opened it out.

making Die pe “Just this Chicago label

— at’s a big store, no h ing | ti ;

it there. Nothing in the pouilets. Is Tepe | pewder or passe, because Brimms

. a couple of places and all beat up, but
at’s probably from being run over in |

the road. May’ve bee: i
nigga dosn't n lying there for an

The sheriff eagerly snatched the mud-
“No, no identification,” Cuffaro supplied.

“that be admitted thet ke hed helped Mrs.
James with her baggage and he claimed

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: $ 5600 oy ae she bought the coat in Chicago. eg egrets “and established for certain
Seeeeem Borrow °50 to *6 e Know ier than nothing at all. Have th had been parked in the vicinity
: That’s ents and the description? that no car ; f the murder was
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a +
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More than 60 yearsot |

| o'clock, on my regular run,

| didn’t want to stop

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Ai

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©
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°
©
of
4
&

| if it

jetin te 37
School, t. 1869, Drexel at 58th, Chicago
=e right, next to the

Ginte American ‘Senool, Pegcity te Canadas West. ‘rtreals

“Yes, I did, Sheriff.
a Chevrolet, I think
Dusty, needed
| because the

Corrected by
NON-CONFINING
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Soothing Method
Piles, Fistula, Rectal Abcess and other Colon

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fe pectea in time can be promptly corrected.

| “You were smart. Nor
| did you say this was:

the manner used at Excelsior Institute

a The treatments ime Certificate of : :
eure ag Siite today for this New | “I can tell you a

SREB Illustrated Book. There is no obliga | Yotch as I speeded up,
en Address Excelsior Institute, Dept. R1803, 12:45.”
Excelsior Springs, Mo.

90

NAME

ADDRESS their lives for government
ry STATE jobs. He passed the prints on

. Age ID bureau, with instructions

in that

to the sheriff's

to

through the field,” Caffaro said. “
i kings.
prints and no mud on = _ Bees

No scars added
Emi

wire the

after he killed

co:

T1
and

| her. Think I'll take another run out there

|

| i rocedures were hum-

aig oo egg dozen different Lm

| ; ; il] no word on the slain

rections, with — after noon came the
break. A = Sed

; had just awaken
bus driver who — ba radio at break-

Alto night

said. “I was driving east along Alma Street
early this morning a litt

r i i i the road.
| fur coat lying in the middle of
d drove aroun
‘I slowed down and Fie ag tl
| thought the coat might be a decoy tor a

d it. I

at I almost

the road. I'd lated reports.

“Did you see what kind of car it was?”

ooked at my
it was just

the peninsula roads from. San Francisco

died from a
mt ie brain hemorrhage, caused by a

heavy blow on the back
Saapass might have been a
d brief facts doctor thought it was more

en ocean

tewide police bulletin.
. 0 tad State Highway Patrol head-
and asked that officers patroling

alerted to examine

fractured skull and a

of the l:ead. The
reck, but the
\ikely a ham-
ck handle. Bruises all over the

5 F tion on the musk- mer or ja
HYP N OTIS M | otthecec wien oie Dey bly and oe cre! PL
Entertain | The coat itself Cuffaro tured over to lab xieTOS © A ched right hand had been
Be Popular nner summery ig mgt | technicians = detailed ere ot the savagely forced open and something torn ©
to NT BE- i le e She had not nm raped, —
ing at home, with GUARASTS Emig rete: dio from her grasp. - 2
sUrTs—DON DELAY. write information ae prorcornigle “4 ps a gn a Pag as far as the doctor’s tests could de a
jain wrapper. 0! 4 Pyn min: % “ ‘
bay HOOL OF APPLIED HYPNOLOGY initial brooch, and assigned Deputies ol ies om from Sacramento in mid-
CH | reports A type .
Dept. 411, 120 Central Park South, M.T. 18 MT | ond Larson to o ee counties afternoon was negative; = pore Rg
with the sheriffs of adjol , ints were not on file in the e’s
i is activity was getting underway, prin FBI record search
5 ME An oaie ee CROOK 2 | Sissatie sincey’ cles spor hat be ord ie ger Now came a wire am
crook. deceiver, forget. SK SW Oince to come. used by | had just found one of the missing SiCTT Chicago listing several missing girls of ka
maniae. lave de ators, social workers, business, Pre- | the left one, a —_ —_ ee a. Pt victim's general description, gor io
js fenstonss peeyt- interested in J—in the fie 7 3 ; H f them e inl-
Toe your STainclggy” used Sere No hess 00 “feet down the road from weir So oS ot Depatles Pyne and Larsen
LESSON Daltoation Details, personal reply I@- | the body had lain. There was po eongeorel nevertheless undertook to follow up these
; sae ede., Seduatetd &, Mixrwu | COLO in its and no sign of oe her leads as best they could, contacting rela-
IGAS, Inc., 406 Wilheit Bidg., Springfield 4, “He couldn’t have been sing ote tives of the girls in the San Francisco area.

** “And look at this, Bill!” He extended

it of ay little green feather
— pln oS their hatbands.
“Found it under a clod, right where the
body was lying. .
the ‘killer's hat, all right.
good care of
our man = ir gas
“Green feather, green
pondered. “The lab just called, oe
way. That print is a mans number ei
shoe. That'd make him about middle height.
Keep on like this, and we'll have a picture
of him.” - oe
“It’s building up,” Cuffaro nodded se:
ously as he leafed through the accumu-
d “But that missing ioe a ie
irl’ e hunted all over for it. 1 wou
& cormrioed if that the ggg
weapon, maybe that and the rock, an

murder.
poe down the road, you know, tow :
town. But the car was pointed =
toward the hills, according to this Prec
driver's report. No way of telling whe .
he threw those things out first, before he
parked, or whether he made a U-turn ars
dumping the body.” He looked at
watch. “We ought to get a break soon, on
the identification. Somebody must be miss-
ing that girl, somewhere!
He was right. There
that came to nothing,
5 p.m. Inspector George

were several calls
but shortly before
Engler of the San

Francisco Homicide Detail telephoned with

what the sheriff and his aides instinctively
knew was the awaited break.

description of the murdered

; operator of a big
Turk Street in San Francisco

the
had
in the

girl

wearing just such a pin, molded in her
“initials, “B.C.” Gripped by a fearful cer-

: _ tainty, he had called the police at once.

-

“He gave us her home address on San

Jose Avenue, out in the Mission District,”
Engler told Emig crisply. “We checked
there. Her landlady says Bernice Curtis
hasn’t been home since she went out on
a date at seven o’clock last night.”
. Emig immediately got the landlady on
the telephone, described the dead girl and
her clothes in detail. She was positive the
victim was her roomer. Bernice had worn
a black silk dress with white trimmings,
and her muskrat coat, when she went out
Sunday evening for her dinner date.

“Grab your hats, boys! This one is the

— McCoy, all right,” Emig told his aides as

he hung up the phone. Deputies Cuffaro,
Pyne and Larson hurried out to make the
50-mile run up the peninsula to San Fran-
cisco, taking the fur coat and the gold
brooch with them and stopping at the Palo
Alto undertaking parlor to pick up the
dress for indentification.

At the San Jose Avenue address they
found Inspectors Engler and Alvin Cor-
rasa talking to the tearful landlady and

-. to Bernice’s young roommate. The two
women identified the clothing at once, and-
showed the officers pictures of 30-year-old
Bernice which made the _ identification
practically certain. Another point coin-
cided: Bernice Curtis came from Chicago,
where she had bought the muskrat coat.
She had come to San Francisco only three
months before, at the urging of her mar-
ried sister who lived there, and had gone
to work in the cigar store.

Who was her boy friend? Her landlady
and roommate couldn’t say. Bernice loved
fun and had gone to parties and dances
with a number of fellows, but she was
rather secretive about her personal busi-

Mess and her two friends couldn’t recall
that she had ever mentioned the last name
of any of her escorts. They were positive,
however, that the red-blonde beauty had
no really serious romantic interest re-
cently.

“She'd been married and divorced,” the
roommate explained, “and she always said
she’d be extra careful before she ever.
married again. She liked fun, liked to go
‘out with different fellows. But there was
one—”

Yes, as the deputies had anticipated,
there was one. Some three weeks before,
the redhead had met a young man named
Frank, last name unknown, and had been
seeing quite a bit of him. He telephoned
her often, but never had called in person
at the house; neither of the two women
had ever met him. As a matter of fact, he
had phoned that very morning about 8:30,
and seemed annoyed when the landlady
told him Bernice wasn’t home.

“I know she was out with Frank Satur-
day night,” the landlady said. “She got
home about three o'clock. And though she
didn’t say anything yesterday, somehow
I got the impression she was seeing him
again last night. She'd been horseback
riding in the afternoon, and I went out as
she was dressing for dinner, the last
thing she said was that she was going to
make her boy friend buy her a big steak.

“But when Frank called this morning,
just before the time she usually left for
work, I thought maybe she’d gone out
with someone else. I didn’t want to em-
barrass her, so I didn’t tell him she’d been
out all night, just said she wasn’t home,
and he said he'd call later.

The officers drove over to the Pacific

Heights ‘District, to interview Bernice’s
sister. Prostrated by the news, she said
she hadn’t seen Bernice for several days.

member his last name. She had never
met him.

~The sister supplied the name and ad-

dress of their mother in Chicago, and
filled in some details of the dead girl’s
life. Bernice Curtis had been married at
20, and divorced her husband about four
years ago. He was believed to be now in
the army. Before ic2ving Chicago where
she operated a beauty parlor, she had been
ort for a short time but had broken
it off.

Pyne and Cuffaro brought the slain girl’s
brother-in-law back down the peninsula
with them to view the body and make
identification positive, while the San
Francisco detectives visited her boss and
hunted up her fellow employees at the
cigar store.

Sheriff Emig called Chicago police to
trace the ex-husband and the former
fiance. Since the case seemed to center
between San Francisco and Palo Alto, he
called Sheriff James J. McGrath of the
mid-peninsula county of San Mateo,
briefed him on the facts and enlisted his
cooperation. It was now late at night, and
the investigation marked time, with a call
from Frank expected momentarily.

Two overnight developments spurred
new activity. Police of Hillsborough in
San Mateo County found a battered green
1936 Buick sedan with Arkansas license
plates parked in the shrubbery off Black
Mountain Road. The car was locked and
the rear seat cushion was missing. At
Emig’s request the discovery was withheld
from publication and officers were staked
out in the bushes in case the driver should
return, while Emig wired Arkansas for a
check on the license plates.

A motorist reported having seen a
woman’s black suede shoe lying in the
middle of the Skyline Boulevard, in the
hills between Palo Alto and the ocean.
Two cars were dispatched at dawn to
search for it.

_. There were many angles to be checked,
but when Bernice’s elusive boy friend had
not called either her landlady or the po-
lice by 8:30 Tuesday morning, 24 hours
after the body was found, Emig and Cuf-
faro agreed that the hunt for him rated
top priority.

“He must have read or heard about the
murder by now,” Emig pointed out. “It’s
been in all the papers and newscasts and
aside from that, he told the landlady he’d
call back vesterday. Since he hasn’t called,
it looks like he’s our man. That call of
his yesterday morning could have been a
phony, to throw us off the track.”

“Maybe he’s a married man,”=€uffaro
said. “Maybe he’s heard about it but just
doesn’t want to get mixed up in it.”

“Well, he’s mixed up in it whether he
likes it or not, and I want to talk to him.
Let’s go up to San Francisco right now
and see what we can find out. This girl
lived and worked there, and the key to the
thing is up there. Among other things, I'd
aca to know what kind of a car this Frank

rives!”

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or Tomcat aoe aS NERO had moved into the spotlight as top sus- “Violets? Delivered? Do you happen to — d was in the army, stationed at Fort
r y Ris | remember what florist they were from?” rd, about 50 miles south of San Jose.
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ee cint eer ae rey

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RO 1 a dark-complected, with a flashing smile and frowning as she tried to remember some~ E:
aus a little mustache. Another girl friend said thing further that might be of help. I “courthouse, Cuffaro got his own identifi
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pect.
wets | had described him and shown her a snap-

| twice but had paid little attention and had
forgotten it—Bernice so often chattered
about her boy friends. It was
of foreign-sounding name.” Frank had told
Bernice that he had been married and
divorced,
thought Bernice might have mentioned

| nice had carried it in her purse.

faro assur

Saturday before he called for her, he had
a corsage of violets delivered. Bernice

was fond of violets.”

» €ago police: the slain redhead’s ex-hus-

Sheriff Emig asked.

“Why—no. Somewhere in the neighbor-
hood, I think. But wait. Maybe the box
from last Saturday is still around!”

‘A minute’s search turned up the crum-
pled flower box among the kitchen trash.
It bore the address of a florist on Valencia
Street, a few blocks away.

Spurred by the conviction that the trail .
was gutting warm, the manhunters has- -
tened over to the florist shop. The hunch
paid off. Its owner readily remembered
the swarthy young man with the hair-line
mustache, who for three successive Sat-
urdays had ordered a corsage of violets to
be delivered right away to the San Jose

and asked for a check on the man’s where-

She had never C
z abouts Sunday

night. Chicago also re-

own, had been living and working i
— City for the past couple of pum ey
Mr check. Mexico City police for a dou-
. The sheriff telephoned Bernice’
: in ct: and the call ponies Aon —"
, salgéhypannmne Bernice had mentioned
ag 0a in several letters, without giving
bs it name. And in her last letter to her
rt 4 — a few days before. she had
ang Skene wants me to marry him, but

with me.

A natty dresser.
last name once or

Pipe.

dodanie omn

“some sort

her sister remembered. She nicknanie,

There was no explanation of open!”

that he worked in some sort of war plant, eS 2

but she couldn’t be sure. The snapshot? It Avenue address. ; ae shad ged remark—whether she was “Aléald é

was a full-length one, a good one, and Ber- Apparently he stopped to order them ©) = hae Frank, of herself, or simply of e—Florencio Alcalde,”
and then killed time bayside shipbuilding plant.

.. Pyne and Larson located a i
Mateo where the bartender tp al
smear egge recognized the picture of

‘ : rnice Curtis. They had not known

sj er name, but they knew Frank—by his
: first name only—and thought he lived

somewhere before - =}
calling for Bernice. The florist remem- aa
bered him particularly because he had 4
argued about the price of the fancy box. -~

His description exactly fitted with earlier
ones, and the man had remarked that he
worked in a shipyard “down the peninsu-

“This Frank is our man, all right,”
Sheriff Emig pronounced as they drove
across town heading for the victim’s room-
ing house. “He was romancing her for

three weeks, and yet none of her friends
somewhere nearby.

Pyne and Phil Cuffaro to interview him.
It may ibe nothing,” Truggani told the
deputies, “but I know you fellows are
following up every lead in this Curtis case.
os _ talking to the boys over at
estern Pipe and I thought I'd better pass

“We're not overlooking any bets,” Cuf-
r‘ ; “What’ve you got?” i
‘Well, I’ve been thinking it over, lookir~
agen that description, and there’s a fe]’ow +
be an old green Chevvie, a '36, I tink
who just fits. A wild-haired, Spanish-
looking fellow with a little mustache. I
outs Sunda —- on because he’s a screwball
. ‘ —I've to gi i f
er ex-fiance, as far as was _ tickets, and he ci prarhoniatens sand

_“He drives throu here

lives in San Mateo — works pi Lvl

I Saw him going to work this morn-

ing, and got to thinking. Only trouble is

though, Truggani admitted ruefully, “his

name isn’t Frank. It’s Florencio Alcalde.”

. Okay, thanks. We'll check him out.
aybe aa _— middle name, or a

point, we can’
to overlook anything at all. Keep he se

muttered as he headed the car for the big

seems to ring a bell, but 4 i

it. Well, we'll look him sinc —
Thanksgiving was no_ holid

shipyard workers and haindrtce o Pic

were packed like sardines in the sprawling

parking lot. But the deputies split up and

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E-FIELD CORP., D
-» Dept. T-936
532 South Throop Street, Chicago 7. iMinois

ever met op or know hie sane at workStngier asked the jackpot que don: her weve

like he took care to avoid them- t la er e jac stion: : the positive : t

snapshot could be why he took her purse, “Would you know him if you saw him 4 , night — — ” the bar Sunday beat pag of plant police shortly lo- .22 RIFLE STYLE

while he left the brooch and coat and other again? . . extended their c: e deputies patiently ore a 36 green Chevrolet sedan that

things to identify her. When he kept the “Why, yes, I'm certain of it Yes, fm =. and bars in the visinit to all restaurants Fioreusin Roane card in the name of

purse, he was worried about our identify- positive!” ; — > | By Wedneed cinity. ; dress th calde, with a San Mateo ad-

ing him, not her! But why was he dodging “Would you recognize his picture?” = with the coo ay morning Phil Cuffaro, They n ro car had been recently washed. me e

J if it was a good like- | peration of the ID bureaus of side of the rinndstai ald a inde oct stents
eld. ease esingly accurate Replacement p

ricam Longs.

2 “T thi ould,
around corners for three weeks? Could he I think I woul Saw Mates Couaty snd Sac Yrencuon lal

have been planning the murder that far ness. . z

patad? What was his motive?” Thanking the cooperative florist and cee geal See seca: Sieen

“Could be like I said,” Cuffaro pointed cautioning him to keep his information named F soni photos of possible suspects
out. “He’s a married man, and he pre-_ secret, the officers separated, the San Fran- = He cnd oth :

tended to be single while he was playing cisco homicide men going out to dig up ing displa other deputies spent the morn-

other friends of the slain girl, and Emig isplaying them to the witnesses. Some

paused uncertainly over a few of the pic-

around him was

the right rear wheel.

around with this girl. ~ oe ae hat iene aries headig So aan
for his lying low and dodging her Tien an 1s utes a = yt Sp
from he stast. Then maybe she found out Jose. - : a ; cake 4 —— faces, but all eventually shook their cna dy —— the same! Same tire, MO TUBES. SATTERIES on
lhe was married and threatened to make “Well, it’s shaping up.” Emig said. “Now : at least Frank’s picture was not there— to prove it. in the dirt here. Take the lab SrdNess in’: LOGac Sra.
trouble for him.” we've finally found a man who's seen this i Went not recognizably. pies ri it, of course, but this is good ode. and SPEA a-eryscal
| At the San Jose Avenue address they Frank, who can identify him and tie him «| — Pipe and Steel supplied the pg at et Alcalde’s our man!” tadion to ‘ake “wit Soe capt
isfed fe on hour to the Mines eeseeds, in with Bernice Curtis! a : — {— men named Frank who cured a good Aa is —— office they se- To" WoRK and ghoula “see for
urging them to rack their memories for All we have to do now 1s dig we | ee tee id ere cae and McGrath’s dep- calde, 29 years old me of Florencio Al- Gk) and. oay | postinan $3.03
any possible clue. The women could add Frank or his picture,” Cuffaro remin ed } by a8 oe them unobtrusively. But the records that hi es —_ certain from for jp-n delivery send $4.99
little to what they had already told. Yes, him glumly. padre. AL this activity had come to night. Then Cuff “ é been off Sunday | bam, (wlgety Oyen pent
g. £ the possible suspects had to San hose a oe i road | ; NEBR.
e

“Well, that may not be so hard. He
told the florist he worked in a shipyard
‘down the peninsula.’ Assuming that’s true.
we know there's only one there—Western
Pipe and Steel, over here in South San
Francisco. And ail these night clubs that
we've listed are down the peninusla. in
San Mateo or Santa Clara County. That
makes it look as though Frank lives and
works and plays down this way, not in San
Francisco. There are still a lot of Franks
and a lot of green cars, but we've nar-
rowed it down!”

They stopped off on the way back to
confer with Sheriff McGrath in Redwood

been given a clean bill of hea
4 ealth.

we Buick was found to have a
_ cg oned in the hills several days before
~~ —— And Bernice’s ex-husband

‘been at Fort Ord, the other man in
—, Hef Sunday night. The ex

ies a
— ad not seen her for more than

But, the weary manhunters

this negative information jt eapae Bs
more strongly to the guilt of the myst =
ous Frank. In three days he hadn't pol
fit to contact the authorities to assert his
innocence, and he was apparently avoidi :
his usual cafe haunts. There rin —

| now that it was mentioned, they were

almost sure Bernice had told them Frank
worked in a shipyard. But she had never

; shown them the snapshot, nor told them

| his last name.

|

|

florist without comment.
t ing.
Bernice had met Frank at a party. her “Are you positive?”

| landlady and roommate recalled, and there-
| after had gone out with him about three

| she had dropped the names of severa Frank!”
Significantly,

| it was always a cafe or night club, never
home of friends.

another party tt on that th Cit: d filled him in on the develop

And the women’s impression was that they ity, and ft } p- doubt in Emig’ aun

had always gone by themselves. never ments. He agreed that it seemed most icller: and po kt ganabtige Frank wae the aparters and eet a fe

with others. likely, despite the victim’s connections in closing in. Cuffaro porte but surely Florencio. “Phey eee briefing on young |
San Francisco, that it was a peninsula compiling his photo galley. patiently right!” x ow him there, all

right shoe was finally fou € missing
Street, half a mile from gp ge tree
scene. It had blood on its heel. urder

On Thursday, Thanksgiving Day, the

The San Jose and San Francisco officers
searched Bernice’s room and her belong-
ings thoroughly, but found no snapshot of
the new boy friend nor anything in the

case. centering in the two bayside counties.
The old green Buick on the Black Mountain
Road was still being watched. McCrath
called the security oificer at Western Pipe

| way of a diary, address book or letters to

| gj “his i itv. ; ked for a check of the . :

| give a lead to his identity. If the girl had and Steel. | ; < of fourth day after the murde : Florencic Al I

| kept such things. they must be in her thousencs Fe gee gre ‘ou young cropped up from an ae coe headlines a — in the crime

| missing purse. There were some old let- men nam rank who drove old green ton. Chief Louis Belloni. of South —. case. But with the acess rangely similar

| ters dated weeks before, some old snaps sedans. 7 Francisco, telephoned Emig at ho an been all but forgotten ae time it had
of unidentified men, and some pictures of And he started the county Reet seme One of his men, Patrolman Tony T _ thought to link him i. no one had |
Bernice which they took along for possible at the work the San Francisco bureau ha! gani, had some information he thou eht Coun = man named “Frank” a. seine

y- neo

already begun, hunting for records of men

named Frank with a history of sex offenses might be of value 8 dispatched George

use in the investigation.
The victim’s roommate watched them

‘ MS eae

&

But what drew an exclamati i
on fri

Cuffaro and brought the others oe

; the car’s tires.

whipped a photo of the murder o's tread

marks out of his pocket as he knelt beside

photo, mixed with others, to the paitent

“This one—” he pointed, his e ‘
“This is your Frank, all wee

The conscientious witness hesi :

1 itated. “
want to see him in person before oni
ing to it, but as far as anyonescan be
identified from a photo, this is the man I |
sold those violets to—the man you call |

When Cuffaro teleph i i
phoned Em:

the news, the veteran sheriff smndiiaese |

— the name Alcalde. He advised the

eputy to stop at San Mateo police head- |

And when Cuffaro t.

alked to Chief |

a at Redwood City, it nee
y clear why the r rou

dapper suspect had ick « chord. one

More
than seven years before, on the

Shorts. Long Rifle
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refund. Add Si for postage e sentine

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J.C. LARSON co., INC. Dept. 4133
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93

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HERE IS THE v2 *.< <i. STORY
OF BASEBALL Yi 2..dANDED

The Outstanding Legends—tThe Great Feats ui Skill
The Scandals—The Fights—The Victories

— pho — sory of baseball told facts about the blunders commit

n. Here is the story you. ted by the maj l e
hess always wanted—the real. unvar- and front office cha ee ee
nished panorama of baseball, with all aie

*

or: the slain r
fingerprints on the rear-view mirror re-
assembled hers. en a Se ie E

=~-re and Larson secured positive iden-

z + g men were ly on ;

-ati, 1 4¢nt oto the alertness of. the tif Awons of Alcalde and Bernice as

yrs b+ Son ct %. Ge Frane’sco traffie officer having dined at a San Mateo highway

_jvhe hadn't eve been 6. the force at the cafe and later visited a bar Sunday night.

7 2 tire 2 tbe Ro:sa. ‘mp: .der, things bes They had been neither drunk nor argu-

hy en expert marksman hidden im the © ge i> (ix int. ph.ce. ing, as far as the employees recalled. Final-

shrubbery. Her high-heeled satin evening = Play’ sg it caret. snd ~eeping Alcalde ~ ly, the deputies found a stand in Redwood

_ suant-. were not made for walking; sav & té" “qevillanze . ue ~fraining from City where they had bought hamburgers
obviously had been waiting for som<*-.€- opuy mim off, ti * 4 Jose deputies and green grapes about 11 p.m. The

At the moment a passerby stumbleu on =e". TU fallow- workers at the plant autopsy report showed these foods in the
the body, shortly before midnight, two that Fiore: “10 was commonly known to his victim's stomach. ; :

t the police station making friends as “Frank.” He had left his wife All in all, it was as strong a circum-

anxious inauiries for Kathleen. They were and child two weeks before and moved stantial case as Sheriff Emig or the district

her landlady—and handsome Florencio Al- to a South San Francisco hotel. He fan- attorneys office had ever seen. On De-

i i ething of a Don Juan, cember Ist, 1942, despite his continued

dirylaying pictures protests of innocence, Florencio Alcalde

was formally charged with murder and

held for trial after a brief preliminary

ban train f shoppi trip to San mailed pictures of Alcalde to the victim’s hearing.
Fr gg org = © he landlady sister, who had flown back to Chicago to When the hapless Don Juan went to

had seen a light in Kathleen’s garage be with her mother- in their bereavement. trial in late February before a jury
honed to declare positively eight housewives and four men in the

tv ‘
@ shor BH.
jacket. A crisake UE white ;, uns 1.
~ ‘tyush2d under her. She hac T2
behing the right ear with a 32, appa: |

th Th <s es — tried toe = —/ “Frank” of the snapshot. court of Superior Judge William F. James its glamor all i ’ He

e girl herself. e sergeant tri at he was the of the snap : re * ” as its strife. all its re you meet the greats—

~ tp reassure them, pointing out that, after “Those sleepy eyes, that long face- It’s the at San Jose, Assistant District pyceen drama sy all ite glorious memories. not-so-greats of beconall ibis
all, only 9 few nore ap ag "a Frida afternoon the sheriff felt ready — Boge ie eggrtioon rm Admittedly With this great book you can become on the forming of baseball’s first por
Alcalde insisted on filing a ing-per- y y demate could prove no nnative: the prose an authority on the game because it ganized club and then follow the

covers your favorite sport trom the pastime’s hectic course on its road to

very beginning of organized baseball. ant tie Hae ~— tees: te?
re is ama, excitemen

nei of Baseball bristles with humor end Et E

excitement on every page. It i is i

v page. is a This

oe powerful saga. sprinkled real pe ne

wit off-the-record legends—fabulous baseball.

exploits of the stars—plus the inside this

stories about the wrangies and scan-

dals of baseball—and never-before-

t that moment came the to move. Pyne and Cuffaro quietly ac-

son report—and a Alcalde at his job, informed cutor theorized that perhaps Bernice had

news a <en body nee ne — a. young
In the little apartment where the au- e@ was under a f )
tiful redhead lived alone, detectives found wants to talk to you,” they told him. After haps had told him she was breaking off
two glasses with dregs of white wine one long, thoughtful look at his captors, with him, or possibly had demanded - he
‘garette stubs, one of them Alcalde shrugged and came with them, marry her. Perhaps she had discovered
with lipstick. Alcalde was posi- without even asking what it was all about. he was already married and accused him
tive these things had not been there when At the county jail in San Jose they con- of deceiving her, threatening to tell his
she left with him about 1pm. She had fronted him wtih the florist. “Frank, you're estranged wife. The killer himself was the
just tidied up the room. . the man who bought ee big Bi only | Cae who knew the story, and he :
Young Florencio, proud descendant of me,” the man told him earnestly. “I co t wasn't talking. =
a wealthy pioneer Spanish family, said he be wrong. . : But Andreucetti sensed = the — 4
had been going steady for six months with The murder suspect looked at him with chain of circumstantial evi ence left no =
Kathleen, who worked in a San Mateo 2 leer. “You're crazy! I ere one nee of geome guilt, a Soot ee
rstandi any violets from you. What wou want plicity and _secretiveness ation:
laundry office, tat ee ~ # a seen you before!” with the girl before the killing, and his

i with violets? I’ve never
that they would be marcied gs cont & But the florist told the officers solemnly, subsequent cover-up, rated a first-degree

is the
story Lee Al-

len has written tor your enjoyment

All The Unforgettable Moments of Baseball

SCHOO HOSOHSHOSOSSSSHSHSHSSCHHHSOSGE®S

HOW WELL DO YOU KNOW :

ces? vi i

ae aes ees the only time in major league ;
tO ae e players went out on strike? What
valle ae, place in the Chicago White Sox
soap tose “idee was it to stage the All-Star :
mig and why? hat major league player was ;
ared Op she Sanne, frave with @ pugulet Who Onoe. §
stomarily carried his bat wit tack ie = 3

dad remembers,

as weil as the

present day he-

roes. You meet

the rival mana-

ap aoentemiiot arid eae letra
charged with murder. ; : dents, th - The price of this 7 ; tel dining reoms? Wh

; ver w nts, the com- great volume is onl “er f és at magnate sus
But the was rusty from exposure The deputies shook down the hotel and the same cunning attempt to cover UP eee ners oa, $3.00 a copy, postpaid—and it i y @ player for teiusing to up his hat ¢ Suspended a ¢
find: by inquiring for the “missing girl. f it is sold—¢@ the street? Who went eeting
and couldn't be positively identified as the TOom without ing anything incrimi- ve nan th e vies act you meet on a money-back, if not satisfied basis. § France, to stage a holdowt? in whae way to Paris, @
nating. But when they visited his wife’s Still claiming he was the innocen' : all those who If not thrilled with this book, return : e following sign appean: “Please bail park aid ;
t

over and over again for years to come.
It is the action-packed story of base-
ball. Order your copy today.

9 o'cl ibi valueless. Wh 32 Dray- be positive of the time. but the tavern- ly
—- Ag as ye a ae yr a keeper was sure Alcalde had pulled out leen as

; sor ’s girl 4
vacant near the murder scene, was of the game about 6 o'clock and hurried followed the same pattern Alcalde’s gir
eee “ eine to parece stolen aWaY- ‘And another tenant and a police friend, a beauitful redhead each time, —
officer were prepared to swear the green killed on the roadway a : r
Chevrolet hadn't been parked behind the had a date with him; no motive assignable ~
hotel till at least 3 a.M. except in the Latin lover’s twisted mind; a

ser automatic,

by Alcalde’s father some months before,
young Florencio was picked up and

e

e

e

he got a steady job. They went out to- ‘ 4 : e
ether almost every night. He had called “Gentlemen, Til testify to my dying day verdict. : é . e e
& Kathleen at Som. aA when he found that this is the man who bought those On March 10th, 1943, after deliberating our F avor ite § : YOUR BASEBALL? °
s her absent he had dropped in on the flowers from me on those three Saturday only seven hours, the jury found young Al- S S Why are th :
landlady, and had been with her and her nights!” calde guilty of murder in the first degree, H . Bg an po ge eg ee
husband ever since. This seemed to rule Booked on suspicion of murder, Alcalde without recommendation for leniency. it bene bs ze the important high spots Baseball f ae e@ mitting gave who the first batting ages Fen fow 6
him out as a possible suspect, since the denied even knowing Bernice Curtis. He BE aay at dirty — 4 prot ig Poo the pactirg We oy Of t t pains of Lee ri pe —_ : balle” What oustidides a ae ~purthplace of base- 6

i i i intained he had been layin: in e verdict was read. nmoved, uage e ding of the various oat a interesting @ ‘trpie play? W made the first unassisted
coroner estimated the girl had Wing he back room of 8 gen playing cards in Tinos sentenced him to die in the lethal leagues the outlaw, circuite—the con Written, Lee Allen does not whitewash & GE Lehaas Mrte cee aes moter &
Then a witness came forward who swore tavern from about 7 to 8 o'clock Sunday gas chamber. ao : Clubs~-the revolts and the fights of the  aseball in this all — orig ° burned under nome piste? Uthelper Ste monkey
@ she had Kathleen’s body lyi di night, and had gone to bed about 9, leav- There was no point in reopening the players. calls'a‘spade a spade and } ook. He § 30 victories against 12 loss What pitcher earned @
se : at ~ ne ¢ Phi ated ing Lis car parked all night behind the Kathleen Robinson case, since the Don steps. oh the pee Af the! Bee frequently e in what year Was the World Series ee eons e
the tree shortly Oct the time, for four. Datel ee ee card | evidently one Juan. Killer co only, die one Here, also, are all the great players of in baseball jagest names § ie¢_cees0n besan’ What rule, "now ‘aiconunued, §
agile : i : teats » iff Emi - = aseball history. @ 2verage? When w. ; rded batting

of becoming involved. This made Alcalde’s of desperation; the card players t eriff Emig and Mcura were thorou of : 7 ory joe " hen was the World Seri 3 Py
g — The stars your This is the book that vou will refer to . blished as a fitting climax to. ce Genter :

e

e

e

e

e

e

°

e

murder weapon. calde maintained his . 5 i 5 : 0
innocence, pear x. district attorney was cottage in San Mateo, the frightened young tim of circumstances, Seager! was taken - 2 base rey a important role in base- it in 5 days and we will refund your @ ire; he is doing the best he can.” For the an- §
unable to produce any motive other than mother turned over to them a pile of cloth- San Quentin s Dea ow where, a $3.00 immediately and without question ® :
the theory that the hot-tempered Latin ing she said he had left with her Tues- lar with the other condemned men, ne . SE Seoeosecceccoseccce e
lover had suspected Kathleen of cheating 4ay- spent more than a year before his final “| = E IT AT YOUR BOOKSTORE TODAY : accererseeecese
on him. After hearing evidence at a Laboratory examination disclosed par- appeal was turned down by the State 7 OR, IF MORE CONVENIENT, USE THIS COUPON 9d stocked with amusing of good reading.” |
preliminary hearing, on March 16th, 1935, tially washed-out bloodstains on the coat Supreme Court. ; ] peewee eeeeeeeeseeesesenean soe ane sevens facts and fig- ear pi f
Fustice of the Peace Richard E. O'Farrell and trousers. Cuffaro made a sudden ex- A week before the execution date, he ; t BARTHOLOMEW HOUSE ~ ween eeweng any Se the, value of MPA MORNING TRIBUNE
ruled that there was not enough on which clamation when he saw the pearl-gray sent for Phil Cuffaro and admitted to him | 205 E. #2nd St. N , » INC., Dept. MG.-1154 : or] — am “It's not only a complete st
to hold Alcalde for murder, and set the hat—for in its band was 4 broken little that he had known Bernice Curtis and 4 g 20d S, TEBE hee Ne York 17, N.Y. H MIAMI, FLA., NEWS 5 aod sport. but a record book a
youth free. The San Mateo police were green feather that fitted exactly the half gone out with her, but named, another a W Send me Does aerreactie That 110% Year gt ,Daseteall. 1 enck 1 a “No baseball fan's library can style that wa Ri mee 2
Still convinced of his guilt but nothing he had found at the murder scene. Mateo man as the killer. is man fa | 1 ehted with this took & be without Mr. Allen's book. It will fan.” ill please any baseball
further could be done. , Francis X. LaTulipe. San Francisco framed him, he said. Cuffaro dutifully ; ' — many arguments and provide 7 —EVANSVILLE, IND. PRESS
‘Alcalde shortly married, had a child, police laboratory expert, joined with the made an investigation, but the story prov j W AME. .scsseeeeeeeeee testa ese pcctseaenees P rs of venetian reading.” mw “Mr. Allen covers the field lik
and settled down. He got in no further San Jose officers and contributed the fa- to de pure fiction. - } H Please Pring 7 t ttt rteeeeeeee 7 ienccay HeRato Joe DiMaggio. follows through like
trouble other than traffic tickets, and as Cilities of his lab for examination of all the Governor Earl Warren denied a last- ' 8. ge ~Rilen Siudedes il th Ted Wiiliams.” ugh like
the years went by the Kathleen Robinson _ physical evidence. He pronounced the two minute appeal by Alcade’s family for exec- i 1 standing events and the out- —SATURDAY REVIEW OF LITERATURE
utive clemency. On August 18th, 1944, 1 } the Stee. cH the ma os = ;
1 1a Snat and gw “Baseball is too big a business

® murder case became only a dusty folder in haives as definitely belonging to the same : f
the unsolved files. feather. He confirmed that the tires of mouthing itrantic curses between sobs aS | (cae aanee

When Bernice Curtis, similarly red- Alcalde’s car exactly fitted the moulages he was strapped in the death chair, Flor-
94 haired and similarly dressed for partying, taken by Cuffaro at the murder scene. Fur- encio died in the gas chamber.

ail the queer characters who have
ed in a century of baseball.

and sport NOT to have had a written
nk vou, Mr. Allen. for a lot a

history. It has one now—and. how!”
HUNTINGTON W VA. HERALD ADVERTISER

seeseeezreenaeasaananaand
=


C

For months, 5000 police, FBI and
volunteers tracked down each rumor,
false lead and crank until finally

they discovered the tragic answer

by WALT W. KENTON

HE TANTALIZING ODOR of broiling steaks
wafted from the kitchen into the living room
of the Abbott bungalow in Alameda, Cali-
fornia, that early evening of July 15th, 1955. Bur-
ton W. Abbott, by day a student majoring in ac-
countancy at the University of California under
the G.I. Bill of Rights and by night an amateur
chef, was preparing the supper. Down in the base-
ment his wife, Georgia, was rummaging through
boxes of stored family clothing in search of a cos-
tume she might wear in a forthcoming amateur
theatrical production.

In the living room of the bungalow were Mrs. Elsie
Abbott, who lived there with her son and his wife and their
four-year-old son, Chris. Their guest was Otto Dezman,
whose wife operated a beauty parlor where Mrs. Abbott
was employed. Elsewhere in the -bungalow young Chris
was amusing himself.

“Bud” Abbott had just entered the living room to tell
his mother and Dezman that the steaks were almost ready,
when his wife burst into the room. She clutched a red
leather handbag. She looked shocked. “Look what I just
found downstairs in one of our boxes,” Georgia gasped.
“What did you find?” her husband asked.

4 By floodlights, FBI and police dig up patio at 2:30 A.M.

11

j

‘I'd Rather See

in my home!” he shouted. “You'll mend
your ways or get out!” He pointed a
finger toward the door.

“No, no, Nathan! You must not say
that!” I cried.

He sat down. His fit of anger had
flared and died. Marylee glared si-
lently at her father, -her eyes flashing
fire. Then, suddenly, she must have
been touched by my tears and my plead-
ing look. She put her arms around me.
“I love you, Mother,” she said.

Summer came with its blistering heat.
We made a good crop of corn and cot-
ton and Nathan bought us all new
clothes. I remember how stunning
Marylee looked in her outfit of sunny
yellow. She seemed happy with it, but
she never thanked her father.

The gulf between them widened with
the passing of the days. On the surface
Marylee did his bidding, but his com-
mands filed her nerves like a rasp, and
Nathan’s dark moods showed in the
solemn lines of his face.

PERHAPS what was to happen was all
my fault. I knew all this strife fore-
bode only evil, but I knew not how to
stop it.

One Saturday night Nathan came
back from Poynor greatly disturbed.
As he unloaded groceries from the car,
I was aware his mind was far away in
thought, for he did not seem to hear
me. Marylee was visiting overnight with
a girl-friend in Poynor, for which I was
grateful.

Nathan ate very little, and after he
had pushed back his plate, he said, “It’s
the talk all over Poynor that Marylee
is dating John Dora's boy—sneaking out
nights with him.”

Isat waiting. We had once lived near

the Doras, and Nathan had never liked
“Junior” Dora, as we called him.

“If she ever sees that boy again, I'l
lash her with a whip!” he shouted. “I’m

locking her in her room at nights. ri

' make certain she’s at home!”
“Nathan,” I. pleaded, “that would
solve nothing. She’d leave home and
. throw her life away, and we would be
) miserable.”
“No daughter of mine will disgrace
us under my roof!” he declared.

j) “She's done nothing bad. Marylee is

a good girl.”

We talked far into the night, but in
the end Nathan agreed to let me talk
with Marylee and try to persuade her
‘not to see Junior Dora again.

Nathan was still sleeping Sunday
‘ morning when Marylee returned home.
‘I wanted that we be out of hearing of
; anyone, so we strolled slowly along the
cow path toward the lower pasture as

plain that Nathan loved her and in-
stinctively tried to look after her as he
saw his duty as a parent. But somehow
I failed, for when I mentioned he had
forbidden her to date Junior Dora,
‘anger flared like a searing fron and
burnt its way through her,

“J will not stop seeing Junior Dora,
no matter how much he raves or stamps
pl gga me with his leather whip!” she
said.

“But, Marylee, you must!”

Her arm went around my waist. “It
hurts me to see you suffer over my quar-
rels with Daddy, but I have a right to
live my own life.”

“But your Daddy is furious. You
know how he feels about Junior Dora,
and he says there is talk all over town.”

She shrugged. “It is too late to stop
me now, Mother. Junior Dora and I are
going to be married.”

“Married!” I cried. The shock of
her words made me go limp, and I had
to stop and lean against a tree. I
thought, “Oh, God, what will Nathan do
now!” and then I heard myself saying,
“But you are not of age. You'd have to
get Daddy’s consent for the marriage to
be legal!”

“We'll find a way,” she said.

We strode,back to the house and I

«

COppieal

we talked. I tried as best I could to ex- .

Mises Dead!"

started to prepare breakfast. Nathan
came in shortly and we all ate in silence.
I suggested that we dress and go to
church. “Yes, Mother, I think we
should,” said Marylee. Nathan only
nodded. I wondered how long he would
hold his tongue, but he arose and
changed into his dark Sunday suit.
Junior Dora stood in a group of
youths at the church steps and Marylee
spoke and smiled at him as we entered,
but Nathan kept his gaze straight ahead
and if he noticed he gave no sign of it.

OR

(Continued from Page 45 )

sneaks Marylee out another night,
you'll wish you had. I’d rather see her
dead than married to a Dora!”

Nathan moved forward, his fists
clenched, and I thought there would be
blows, but Dora backed away. ‘Both
became suddenly conscious of onlookers.
I said, “Nathan, it is late, and I have
dinner in the oven.” ee

He turned and walked with me to the
car. Marylee was sitting there. She had
seen Nathan talking to Dora, but had
not heard their words.

.

Craig,

be subdued.

March, 1957, OFFICIAL.

should win
in Berkeley, California,

tive work while it is

legal outcome is attained.

Up to the Minute

WANT to die; give me the death penalty,” Claude
Craig told a jury in San Francisco. The jury promptly
complied; Craig will go to California's gas chamber for the
murder of Helen Ivey last November.
who had killed the woman with his fists, tried to
attack newspaper photographers with a chair and had to

The detective work done by San Francisco inspectors
in capturing Craig appeared in the March, 1957, issue of
OFFICIAL DETECTIVE STORIES Magazine under the
title, “ ‘You’ and ‘Me’ and a Killer”.

Another California killer, Stephen Nash, did not want
todie. When a jury found him sane in Los Angeles, thereby
confirming the penalty of deat
and tried to break away. from
fessed eleven slayings and once offered to lead police to the
body of one of his victims in return for $1000. He wascon- .
victed specifically of killing ten-year-old Larry Rice on
Santa Monica’s Muscle Beach. The detective story behind
his arrest, “For Want of a Set of Teeth”,

h, Nash screamed and cursed

In the same state of California, Burton Abbott died in
San Quentin's gas chamber for
was being telephoned to the warden. Abbott actually lived
for several minutes after the telephone call went through,
but the gas already had been released and man has not yet
found a way to stop this reaction after it has begun.

Now that Abbott is dea
Stephanie Bryan, will be buried. It had been kept in a
morgue for nearly two years as evidence,
a retrial. Stephanie, then fourteen, was slain
April 28, 1955, and the detective
work that was involved appeared in the October, 1955, issue
of OFFICIAL DETECTIVE STORIES under the title
“Fantastic Case of Stephanie Bryan”.

In this instance, more than a year and a half went by
between arrest and execution. To bring readers the detec-
current, OFFICIAL DETECTIVE
STORIES Magazine publishes some stories before the final
This department appears here
regularly so readers may keep up to date on such stories.

d, the body of his victim,

A moment later

his guards. Nash had con-

also was in the

murder while a reprieve

in case Abbott

Nathan seemed to hear nothing of
the sermon. He sat there with lips mov-
ing now and then as if talking to him-
self. Once he caught sight of John Dora,
father of Marylee’s boy-friend, and his
jaw tightened.

At the preacher's “Amen,” Nathan
rose and hurried outside where he
waited until John Dora emerged, then
beckoned him aside.

I could barely hear their subdued
voices. “... that boy of yours is up to
no good, and I’m warning you to keep
him away from Marylee,” said Nathan.

“what's he done wrong?” asked Dora.

“J’'ve no time to waste words,” re-
torted Nathan. “Shes my daughter,
and I don't want Junior Dora coming
near her.”

“T’l] talk to Junior, but I don’t aim to
Fae up nights keeping a tight rein on

im.”
Nathan's voice rose angrily. “If he

But Nathan could control his emo-
tions no longer, and a bitter quarrel
started. Again he forbade her to see
Junior Dora and again she defied him.
He stormed and raved and finally Mary-
lee fell into silence, dry-eyed and staring
strangely into space.

I buried my head
sobbed.

The next day it rained in torrents,
and Nathan could not work on the farm.
He sat in the house reading his Bible.
Now and then he would close the Book
and mumble to himself. Marylee helped
me with the beds and cooking, but

in my hands and

mostly she was in her room writing

letters.

We went to bed at about ten o’clock
but I laid awake until long after Nathan
began breathing heavily in sleep. Then
I must have dozed, for a squeaking floor-
board startled me to wakefulness. In
the shaft of moonlight through the

Read It First In
OFFICIAL DETECTIVE STORIES

windows, I could see a dark figure mov-
ing toward our bed. For a moment I
was stunned. Then I screamed.

Nathan's quick hands darted under
his pillow for his flashlight, and flicked
it on. Standing there in pajamas, five
feet from the bed, was Marylee, a pistol
in her hand. Her eyes were staring in
nervous fright.

Nathan leaped up, jerked the pistol
from her. “What in God’s name are you
doing with my gun?” he shouted.

I hastily turned on a light. Marylee
stood stiffly still. I put my arm around
her. “I heard it, too—the scratching
on the window,” I said.

Nathan’s cold stare broke. “I'll go
outside and look,” he said. Presently he
came back. “I saw nothing,” he said.

I led Marylee back to her bed. Nathan
put the gun under his pillow and lay
down again. I dared not voice the awful
thought that kept echoing through my
brain. I knew he was awake, thinking
wildly. Finally, I said, “She thought
someone was breaking in—that’s why
she had the gun.”

“No, she didn't,” he muttered angrily
at me.

Then he leaped out of bed. I pleaded,
“Don’t do anything now while you're
angry. Let’s talk first——”

He flipped on the light in Marylee’s
room. She sat up in bed, her eyes wide
with fright. Nathan held the leather
whip he used on his mule team. He
moved toward her with measured gait.
He raised his whip hand to strike and I
grabbed it. “No, No...” He pushed
me away and the whip fell on Marylee’s
back. She leaped up, her eyes blazing
with anger.

“you didn’t hear anything outside
the window,” he shouted. “Don’t lie to
me; for I'll lash you until I get the
truth.”

She stood there, facing him like a
tigress with fangs bared. “All right,
you asked for it, so you'll get it. No,
I didn't!”

“I knew it!’ Nathan was gloating,
turning tome. “I told you nothing good
could come of this sneaking out on
dates!”

“You tormented me; you made my
life miserable!” shrieked Marylee in
near hysteria. “You would never give
your consent to our marriage!”

“Nathan,” I cried out, “can’t you see
the girl’s hysterical? She doesn't know
what she’s doing!”

Nathan, too, was fiery mad. It was
an awful scene. Like a horrible night-
mare. I felt faint, and black spots
blinded me. The room seemed to whirl
rapidly, then came oblivion.

WHEN I awoke I was in bed, and
Marylee sat beside me massaging
my brow with a damp towel. Nathan
stood close by, watching me. The ner-
vous quiver of their lips told me I was
not awakening from an awful dream.

Nathan reached for his hat and
started toward the door. “Where you
going at this hour? It must be past
midnight,” I heard myself saying.

“I warned Dor#to keep his boy out of
my family affairs. I'm going after
Junior Dora.” ,

Clad only in nightgown and robe,
I ran toward our car parked in the
yard about 20 yards from the house.
Nathan had the motor going when I
leaped in beside him in the front seat.
“Not tonight, Nathan! Not tonight!” I
pleaded.

He gave no heed to my words. His
foot fell heavily on the accelerator and
the car roared down the road. The
Doras lived a mile north of Poynor and
about three miles from our home, and
we soon skidded to a halt in front of
their small home and Nathan's heavy
fist pounded their door.

I wanted to scream out a warning for
in the moonlight I could see him stand-
ing there, gun in hand, but I sat there in
the car, numbed with fright. Again
and again he pounded. Then he kicked

49


f

f

4.

r

night?” Barbini demanded.

“Monday night? Nobody. Why?”

“All right, Wise Guy,” -Barbini de-
clared. -“I’ll ask the questions. You
just answer them, and they’d better be
the right answers. Where were you at
half-past eight Monday night?”

“Home. I had a cold. I was watching
television.”

Brooks, who said he was 28, lived only
three blocks from the row of old-fash-
ioned pink stucco houses on Neptune
Avenue. He worked the eight-to-four
day shift in a South Brooklyn factory
and drove to and from work. He ex-
plained that he was married but his
wife had left him a couple of weeks
previously.

Nobody had been with him Monday
evening, he said, and he did not know
whether anyone had seen him. “I got
home from work about five o'clock and
had something to eat and went to bed
for awhile, but I couldn't sleep so I got
up and watched television until around
midnight. But why? What's so special
about that night? You'd think I com-
mitted a crime or something.”

WY OURE right,” said Barbini. “We
might think that. But suppose
you tell me where you were Tuesday
and Wednesday.”

“Well, I can tell you one thing for
sure,” Brooks retorted. “I didn’t hold
anybody up.”

Barbini thrust a picture of the slain
woman in front of him.

“Take a look at this,” he said. “Take
a good look. Do you know her?” j

Brooks stared at the morgue photo.
“Man, you’re mistaken,” he asserted.‘

- “If I couldn't do better than that—”

“Never mind the wisecracks,” the de-
tective ordered. “Was she with you
fonday night?”

“I told you nobody was with me,”
rooks insisted. “I never saw her in
aly life.”

“Okay, then, tell me everything you
did Tuesday and Wednesday,” Barbini
directed.

On Tuesday, Brooks said, he had left
for work at seven o'clock, had breakfast
near the plant and reported to his job
at eight. He'd had lunch at the usual
time and left at four in the afternoon,
arriving home just before five. He’d
fixed supper and then gone out for the
evening.

“I met someone about half-past six
and we went to a bar and had some
drinks,” he continued. “About ten
o’clock we went to her place and talked
for a couple of hours and then I went
home. I was in bed at half-past one.”

He was up again at 6:30, dressed and
left for work, as usual, at seven o'clock
Wednesday morning, Brooks stated.
He worked two hours overtime and
then went home.

“I was all in so I didn’t go out
Wednesday and I went to bed about
half-past nine, and that’s all I did those
days.”

“What about this person you met
Tuesday night?” SBarbini asked.
“What’s her name?”

“Helen. I don’t know her last name.”

“Where does she live?”

“She’s got a room a few blocks from
here,” Brooks said. However, he did
not recall the address, explaining, ‘““‘We
had quite a bit to drink.”

Barbini showed the man a picture of
the block on Neptune Avenue, includ-
ing the building where Sarah Saxon’s
body had been found.

“Does this look familiar to you?” he
‘asked.

Brooks shook his head. “I don’t think
0.”

“Were you in any of those buildings
at any time Tuesday night or Wednes-
day morning?”

“No, Sir. Helen’s place doesn’t look
like that.” ‘

Barbini decided to try a bit of trick-
ery. “What would you say if I told you
your car was seen outside this row of
houses some time after half-past two
Wednesday morning?” he asked.

“I'd say you were lying. I haven’t any

jea where this place is!”

“And what would you say if I told you
somebody saw you go into one of those
buildings with a woman?”

~

will you leave me alone? I never was
Pred this place! I never saw it in my
ife!”

Dissatisfied with Brooks’ answers but
unable to prove anything against him
yet, Barbini let him cool his heels in an
anteroom for awhile.

A few minutes later an officer en-
tered the squadroom and handed Bar-
bini a typewritten sheet of paper: it
was a list of green Studebaker coupes,
compiled from Motor Vehicle Bureau
records.

One name almost leaped out at the
detective. William Reid, truck driver,
35, owner of a 1948 green Studebaker
coupe and living at No. 3020 Neptune
Avenue—next door to the building
where the body had been found.

Barbini leafed through a batch of
reports. Sure enough, Reid had been
questioned early in the investigation,
in the routine interrogation of persons
living near the building at No. 3022. He
had not beeri at home the morning the
body was discovered and detectives had
caught up with him later. He'd never

5
| “Who did you pick up on Monday “I'd still say you were lying! Now, Reid shrank from it.

“Here, take a.look at it!” Barbini
=. “Maybe it will help you remember

er.”

“No, Sir, I don’t know her,” Reid
insisted, still refusing to take the photo.

“But you can look at it,” Barbini said.
“Here, take a look.” As Temme played
his flashlight on the photo, Barbini sug-
gested, “Look at her in the light. Maybe
she’s someone from the neighborhood.”

“No, Sir, I never saw her!” Reid
shouted. .

“Okay,” said Barbini, returning the
picture to his pocket. “Just answer a
few questions for us and we'll let you
g0 back to sleep.”’ He was sure now that
Reid knew a great deal more than he
professed, but he was willing to play
cat and mouse with the man.

“In answer to routine questions, Reid
said that he was a truck driver, his wife
worked as a domestic and was home
only two nights a week, and he spent a
good deal of his time with a relative on
Thatford Avenue in the Brownsville
section of Brooklyn.

He had spent Monday night at his

Light to Multiple Homicide”.

not been brought to trial.

RIES Magazine.

chamber.

a

Up to the Minute

pe NEW YORK, a man who apparently could murder with impunity

but who could not drive through a stoplight without being ar-
rested, at last met retribution. John Francis Roche, who had killed
Dorothy Westwater, Marion Brown, Alexander Jablonka and Rose
Chronik, went to death himself in the electric chair at Sing Sing,
calmly and stonily. The story of the investigation into these slay-
ings and the capture of Roche appeared in the August, 1954, issue of
OFFICIAL DETECTIVE STORIES Magazine, under the title; “Red

Elderly Lucy Baysinger, who sat on her porch and rocked while
detectives sought for the body of her husband, Clarence, and then
for evidence that she had killed him, will be able to sit quietly and
rock the remainder of her life, apparently. Two psychiatrists found
her “mentally deranged" and a court in Fort Wayne, Indiana,
ordered her committed to a maximum security hospital. She had

The story of this case and the detective work that was done
when Clarence Baysinger vanished was entitled “$200 Beyond
Temptation” in the September, 1955, OFFICIAL DETECTIVE

Farther west, Burton Abbott, a 27-year-old accounting student,
does not have much time left to straighten out his accounts. In the
basement of Abbott’s home, his own wife found schoolbooks belong-
ing to a long-missing fourteen-year-old girl, Stephanie Bryan. Not
far from a mountain cabin Abbott owned, a neighbor’s dog found
little Stephanie’s body. And now a jury has decreed that Abbott is
guilty of her murder and that he must die in California’s gas
Abbott lived in Berkeley, California. I
Case of Stephanie Bryan” was in the October, 1955, OFFICIAL.
This department is published regularly to bring you up to date
on final action taken on cases that have been published in OFFICIAL
DETECTIVE STORIES Magazine prior to trial.—The Editor.

“The Fantastic

aN woman, he had told them, and
he had no idea how her body got into
the vestibule.

Barbini called his partner, Temme,
over, and showed him the report.

“Hey,” Temme said, “I wonder if
they’ve got a yellow sheet on this boy.”

Headquarters indeed did have a “‘yel-
low sheet” (an arrest record) on Reid.
He had been picked up for disorderly
conduct in March, 1939; given a sus-
pended sentence for burglary in June of
the same year; a suspended sentence
for disorderly conduct in June of 1940;
60 days for vagrancy in September, 1940
—and in April, 1950, a suspended sen-
tence for annoying women.

Barbini reached for his hat and coat.
“Let’s go, Al.”

The two officers drove to Reid’s home,
a basement apartment. They woke him
up with their knocking on the door.

In the dim light, Barbini identified
himself and said, “You told an officer
you didn’t know the woman who was
found dead in the hall next door. We
thought you might recall her now.”

“No, Sir,” Reid said. “I never saw her.
She must be a stranger.”

Barbini took his morgue picture of
Sarah Saxon from a pocket and handed
it to the tall man outlined in the door-
way. “

relative’s home, he said, and stayed
there Tuesday, for he didn’t feel well.
Tuesday evening, he added, he had re-
turned home. On Wednesday he went
to work, again spending the night at
his relative’s home.

“I went to work today, too,” he re-
lated. “I wish you fellows would let a
man get some rest. I work hard and I
need my sleep.”

Barbini and Temme left the building.
Outside, Barbini used his two-way radio
to ask for a plant on the house.

“If Reid leaves have him followed,
but don’t pick him up yet,” he said.

When two squad cars arrived a few
minutes later, Barbini and Temme
headed for Thatford Avenue.

Reid’s relative said that the truck
driver had been at her home both Tues-
day and Wednesday nights. He had
arrived quite late Tuesday night; she
did not know just what time it was, for
she had been asleep.

Barbini had an idea that Reid would .

show up there again, for the man had
been caught now in one lie—he had
said he was home Tuesday night; his
relative said he was in her house.

As he expected, some time later the
officer heard a knock at the door.

“Open it,” Barbini directed the
woman.

She complied, and Reid walked in.

“Welcome, Bill,” Barbini said.

Temme went out the door, saw the
shadowing detectives and signaled to
them that everything was all right.

Once more, Barbini offered the
morgue picture to Reid. 2

Again he refused it. “I never saw her,”
he insisted. “What are you making all
this trouble for?”

“You're the one who’s making all the
trouble,” Barbini declared. “Have a
look, just one look at this picture.”

Still, Reid refused.

“You're frightened, aren’t you?”
Barbini demanded. “Go on, look at it!”
He pushed the picture into the man’s
hand.

Reid turned away from it. “I don’t
want to look at it,” he said.

“All right, you don’t have to,” the
detective said. “Let’s go back to your
place. I think we'll find something
interesting there.”

The officers led him out to the street,
where Barbini asked one of the men
who had trailed Reid to have the labor-
atory examine Reid’s coupe. Then they
took the man back to his room on Nep-
tune Avenue.

“Shall we go in here?” Barbini asked,
pointing to the building where Sarah
Saxon’s body had been found.

Reid made no reply. Barbini answered
his own question. “I don’t think so,”
he said. “Let’s go to your apartment,
instead.”

As they entered, Barbini compli-
mented Reid. “It looks clean. You seem
to take care of the place.” The man was
mute. F

“Who washes the floors?” Temme
asked. “This linoleum is nice and
clean.” Without waiting for an answer,
he went to the bed, for he had noticed
something. He pointed to some dark
spots and asked, “What happened? Did
you cut yourself?”

Reid still said nothing.

Barbini found a shirt and a pair of
trousers in a corner of the bedroom. He
picked them up and as he did so noticed
several dark splotches.

“Man, you really must have cut your-
self badly,” he said. “Let’s look at your
hands.” He pretended to examine Reid’s
hands carefully. ‘“‘That’s funny. I don’t
see any scratches. And you don’t seem
to have nicked your face shaving.”

Temme picked up the cue at this
point. “I wonder if all these stains could
be someone else’s blood. How about it,
Bill?” He whipped out his morgue pic-
ture of Sarah Saxon’s face and pushed
it toward the hulking truck driver.
“Would they be her blood?”

Barbini took his morgue photo from
his pocket. “Look at it now,” he ordered.
“Look at it and tell me what happened.”

Reid covered his eyes, trying desper-
ately to avoid the photo.

“All right,” he said, they claimed
later. “I saw her but I didn’t harm her.
I found her in my car.”

Temme spotted a woman's sweater
on the floor beneath the bed.

“Is that your wife’s?” he inquired.

Reid did not answer.

“We can find out; we’ll ask her,” the
detective said. “You know, I think the
district attorney would like to talk to
you.” ;

BARBINI rummaged through a closet
and realized instantly that the
sweater Temme had found under the
bed was not the same size as garments
which obviously belonged to Reid’s wife.

Under the bed, in a place that would
have been difficult to reach, he saw a
large dark stain, quite in contrast with
the rest of the linoleum.

Fifteen minutes later a half dozen
detectives were on their way, four from
the Coney Island Squad and two from
the technical research laboratory. As-
sistant District Attorney Adler was en
route to the Police Station, as was Cap-
tain Meenahan.

When the detectives arrived, Barbini
and Temme hustled Reid into their car
and drove to the Station. Already there,
having been brought by radio-car
patrolmen, were the woman and the girl
who had told of seeing a man pull a
woman into an automobile on Surf
Avenue Monday night.

Quickly, an impromptu line-up of six

45

4

ABBOTT, Burten, wh, gassed CA fAlameda) March 15, 1957

TRUE DETECTIVE, Nevember, 1955


12

M. F. Coleman holds leash of dogs which found trail to mountain grave.

“A woman’s bag—and it isn’t mine,” she said excitedly.
“But see what I found inside of it!”

The bag’s contents—a student identification card, a Junior
Red Cross membership certificate, two library cards, a
letter to be mailed—all disclosed the obvious fact that the
owner of the red bag was named Stephanie Bryan.

Her husband spoke first. “And who is Stephanie Bryan?”
he asked, moving into the kitchen to look at his steaks.

Georgia Abbott said, “That’s the name of the girl who
has been missing for more than two months. It was in all
the papers, you remember—Stephanie Bryan.”

“Never heard of her,” her husband called from the
kitchen. :

“Oh, Bud,” Georgia cried, “you must have read about
the girl. Stephanie Bryan disappeared over in Berkeley on
her way home from school.”

Dezman said, “Sure, it was in all the papers. Look,
Georgia, you’d better call the police.” He had been examin-
ing the contents of the red handbag. “There can be no doubt
about it. It’s the bag of the missing girl, Stephanie Bryan.”

Georgia Abbott dialed the Berkeley police department’s
number with a trembling hand.

Stephanie Bryan had vanished silently and completely
on the afternoon of April 28th. The 14-year-old daughter of
Dr. and Mrs. Charles S. Bryan simply dropped from sight
on her way from Willard Junior High School, which she
attended, to the family home at 131 Alvarado Road in
Berkeley.

By supper time, when Stephanie had not returned home,
her worried parents notified the Berkeley police. Their
daughter, they explained, was a child of punctual habits
and always arrived home from school shortly after 4 o’clock.
Her arrival time never had varied by more than 15 minutes.
She was described as weighing 105 pounds, with a full
mouth, dimples and an unusually white complexion. Her
dark brown hair was cropped to about ear length. That day

she had worn a white cardigan sweater and a pleated tur-
quoise skirt with a sash, when she left for school. She

ee eh

Hunter Jackson examines brown and white saddle shoe

also wore brown and white saddle shoes and bobby socks.

As the evening wore on, the parents had become more
and more alarmed. Police checked the homes of several
teachers and school chums of the missing girl. By midnight
they had learned ‘that Stephanie had spent a normal day at
school. She had received an “A” in algebra, but this was
not uncommon for Stephanie, an honor student. She had
left for home at the usual time, in company with a 13-year-
old schoolmate, Mary Ann Stewart. The latter told how
they went from school to the Claremont branch of the
public library, where Stephanie borrowed two books. Then
they went to a small bookstore where Stephanie bought a
25¢ pamphlet on the care and feeding of parakeets. Mary
Ann remembered that Stephanie also was carrying a
French textbook and two school notebooks.

The two girls hurried through these errands because it
was Mary Ann’s mother’s birthday and her daughter was
anxious to get home as early as possible. At the parking
lot of the Hotel Claremont their paths divided. Here Steph-
anie started her usual short cut homeward. It was her
daily habit to cross the southern portion of the parking lot,
then climb a steep flight of stone steps and next an even
steeper path that took her out on Alvarado Road and thence
to her home at Number 131.

The two school chums waved, said, “See you tomorrow,”
as they parted at the parking lot. A short time later, Mary
Ann reached her home at the usual time. But at midnight,
Stephanie’s frantic parents were still awaiting her home-
coming.

Then days, weeks and months slipped by without a def-
inite lead to the girl’s whereabouts. Time and time again,
the hopes of the parents were raised and then dashed. Cap-
tain L. H. Laird, veteran Berkeley police officer, was placed
in charge of the hunt for the girl, with every available man
on the force assigned to the case.

Within 24 hours after Stephanie vanished, the telephone
in the Bryan home rang and an obviously disguised mascu-
line voice told Dr. Bryan, “If you want to see your child


clue. Dr. Bryan posted a reward of $2,500 for the recovery,
dead or alive, of his missing daughter.

Then came another break. The French textbook Steph-
anie was carrying the day she disappeared was found on
Franklin Canyon Road, approximately a dozen miles from
the spot where she had parted from Mary Ann Stewart at
the parking lot. David Tyree, a 67-year-old resident of the
town of San Pablo, was trudging along Franklin Canyon
Road on May list—three days after Stephanie’s disappear-
ance, when he picked up the book. He took it home, plan-
ning to contact the name on the inside cover. The name
was Stephanie Bryan. The textbook had been issued by
Willard Junior High School. But several days elapsed
before Tyree realized he had a clue to the missing girl.
Then he called the Berkeley police. .

This French textbook, established as the one Stephanie
carried the day she disappeared, was the first really definite
link that suggested a kidnaping. The theory was that she
had thrown the book from her abductor’s auto.

The cities, towns and villages spread over the rolling
hills east of San Francisco Bay never have experienced a
more thorough search than that conducted for Stephanie
Bryan. More than 5,000 took part. Under the direction of
Captain Laird were National Guardsmen and Boy Scouts.
There were mounted policemen, deputy sheriffs and blood-
hounds. There were army troops and volunteer citizens.
From the Contra Costa County prison farm scores of
“trusties’ were added to the search. Overhead, planes and
helicopters wheeled over the terrain.

In organized, methodical fashion, the searchers spread
out from the spot where Stephanie’s French textbook had
been found on Franklin Canyon Road. Although it wasn’t
announced at the time, FBI agents were with the searching
parties. Until now, the G-men had not been publicly con-
nected with the case. Because of the extent of the search,

nt

Official identification of the body rests with (I.

field kitchens were set up and radio-equipped jeeps pa-
trolled the passable roads to co-ordinate the results of the
search. ‘

The searchers did not find Stephanie or her body, but
they did discover another corpse. It was that of a woman,
Mrs. Chiyo Kirihara, who more than two years before had
wandered away from her home and crawled into a concrete
culvert to die. The 70-year-old Japanese woman, it soon
was established from police records, had left her home with
suicidal intentions.

The mammoth search appeared fruitless, in the case of
Stephanie Bryan. The weeks went by. Captain Laird was
quietly busy. The FBI quietly cooperated. Stephanie’s par-
ents waited and prayed and hoped.

Another clue finally turned up. Bob Small had been at
his gasoline-service station, located at a whistle stop called
Keyes in Stanislaus County, not too many miles from where
Stephanie Bryan was last seen. A two-door sedan wheeled
in for service.,The time was 8 o’clock in the evening.

“Pill ’er up,” the driver said curtly.

Bob Small yanked the gasoline nozzle from its fixture
and started to pump the fuel. Several gallons of gasoline
flowed into the tank before the overspill told Bob Small
to stop. Bob was replacing the gas tank cap when some-
thing caught his eye. It looked like three human fingers
protruding from the auto’s trunk compartment. Bob raced
around to the side of the car where the driver sat, a tall
man with heavy shoulders.

“Say, Mister, you’ve got somebody in your trunk com-
partment,” Small cried in a shocked voice. ‘“‘There’s a hand
sticking out of the trunk.”

The autoist suddenly threw his car into gear, stepped on
the throttle and roared out of the service station. The
startled attendant promptly notified Stanislaus County
Undersheriff Harry Oliver, who called Captain Laird in

a

to r.) Dr. Hanson, Stephanie’s dentist, Dr. Loquva, pathologist, and D. A.

Coakley, who compare victim’s dental chart with that of missing girl. Lt. Sherry inspects wallet and billfold found in basement

14

Dr. Kir!
accused

Berkele
Patrolr
Oliver °
as Fres:
Smal)
by the
away. “
1951 mc
I’m not
the bac)
This
cant fac
a reserr
eight d
struggli
of Step!
the car
others °*
agreed
episode
ing a b
With
By this
FBI, w

. slipping

Then
steaks }
explode
Georgi:
she hac
tents i
Laird ;
time la
place i
and his

eeps pa-
ts of the

vody, but
1 woman,
2fore had
. concrete
1, it soon
come with

1e case of
vaird was
nie’s par-

d been at
stop called
‘om where
n wheeled
ening.

its fixture
of gasoline
Bob Small
hen some-
ian fingers
Bob raced
sat, a tall

runk com-
‘re’s a hand

stepped on
tation. The
ius County
in Laird in

ist, and D. A.
ad in basement

Berkeley. The latter assigned Sergeant Ralph Bishop: and
Patrolman William Hutchins to interview Small, while
Oliver was alerting law enforcement agencies as far south
as Fresno. : j

Small showed the Berkeley officers the tire tracks made
by the car on the station’s paving as it suddenly roared
away. “It was a two-door Pontiac Sedan, either a 1949 or
1951 model,” Small told them. “It was either blue or gray,
I’m not certain which, and there was no license plate on
the back.” ;

This information, meager as it was, pointed up a signifi-
cant fact. Small’s description of the driver and the car, bore
a resemblance to the description given of the car seen by

eight different witnesses who said they had seen a man °

struggling with a young girl on the roadside within an hour
of Stephanie’s disappearance. Some of the witnesses thought
the car involved in the struggle scene had been a Pontiac;
others thought it had been a Chevrolet. But all generally
agreed it was either blue or gray. As for the driver in both
episodes, the general description tallied—a tall man wear-
ing a black leather jacket.

With agonizing tedium the hunt for Stephanie continued. -

By this time every law enforcement agency, including the
FBI, was grimly concentrating on the case, which was
slipping once again from the bold headlines of Page One.

Then, on that evening of July 15th, as Bud Abbott broiled
steaks in his Alameda bungalow, the Stephanie Bryan case
exploded wide open again. Within minutes after Mrs.
Georgia Abbott had telephoned the Berkeley police that
she had found in her basement a red handbag whose con-
tents identified the owner as Stephanie Bryan, Captain
Laird and his men were at the Abbott cottage. A short
time later a tense and poignant, heartbreaking scene took
place in the Bryan home in nearby Berkeley. Dr. Bryan
and his wife required only a quick glance to tell them that

Dr. Kirk, famed criminologist, tests suspect’s car for clues.

Inspector Riedel, polygraph expert, gives lie detector test to
accused who submitted willingly and calmly to the examinations which lasted almost two days. “I did not kill her,” he insists

‘the bag was the one their daughter had carried to school.

Mrs. Bryan sobbed, “It was an old one of mine I’d given
to Stephanie a few days before. But those are her identifi-
cation cards and that letter is in her handwriting.”

This letter, undated and never finished, was one Steph-
anie had intended for Theodora Bliss, of Dartmouth, Massa-
chusetts, a former schoolmate.

“Dear Teddy:

“Dm -writing this letter on notebook paper because I am
at school with some extra time and no letter paper. I sent
the chain letter to five people. Nothing happened on Friday
that had anything to do with the letter.

“J had my hair cut fairly short. I like it better this way.
It’s much easier to take care of. How are you doing in
school? I won a gold pin for being on the superior scholar-
ship during the time I have been here. Fifteen other people
got them.

“We are already planning our summer trip. We are
planning a camping trip to different places in California.
The news reports say there have been big storms in the
East. It’s spring here. It has been dry for a couple of months,
but the spring rains are here now.

“The fruit trees have all blossomed and the trees that
lost their leaves in the winter are getting them back. Dur-
ing February I planted some seeds, and now the plants are
quite big.

“This hasn’t been a very eventful winter, so I can’t think
of anything else to say—”

The letter broke off at this point.

Meanwhile, police of the Alameda and Berkeley depart-
ments and agents of the FBI were at the Abbott bungalow
searching the basement and asking questions. Georgia
Abbott told her story to the investigators. She did add the
information, however, that less than a month previous to
her discovery of Stephanie Bryan’s (Continued on page 89)

15


d white saddle shoe

3 and bobby socks.
had become more
homes of several

g girl. By midnight

nt a normal day at

‘ebra, but this was

- student. She had

iny with a 13-year-

he latter told how
ont branch of the
sd two books. Then

Stephanie bought a

of parakeets. Mary

o was carrying a

»0ks.
errands because it

i her daughter was

ole. At the parking
ivided. Here Steph-

eward. It was her

1 of the parking lot,

s and next an even

ido Road and thence

See you tomorrow,”
ort time later, Mary
ae. But at midnight,
awaiting her home-

.d by without a def-
ime and time again,
id then dashed. Cap-
se officer, was placed
every available man

lished, the telephone
sly disguised mascu-
nt to see your child

alive again, it will cost you $5,000.” This, the worried father
was informed, was a kidnap job. “For 5,000 bucks you get
your kid back.” With Spartan control, Dr. Bryan calmly
agreed to the ransom demand and arranged a rendezvous
in Oakland the following day. The money, Dr. Bryan as-
sured the extortioner, would be ready, in small bills.

“Don’t tip off the FBI, or else—’ was the anonymous
caller’s parting warning as he hung up.

Many fathers in Dr. Bryan’s position would have obeyed
such a menacing order, but Dr. Bryan has faith in our
country’s law enforcement agencies. He promptly notified
Captain Laird.

The next day, at the prearranged time and place, Dr.
Bryan met the “kidnaper.” In a matter of minutes, Captain
Laird’s men moved in and grabbed L. C. Elliot, a recent
mental hospital patient, who had read the account of
Stephanie’s disappearance in the newspapers. Investigation
quickly established the fact that Elliot couldn’t possibly
have had anything to do with the disappearance of the girl.

Scores of leads reached Captain Laird’s desk. Most of
them promptly were checked out. Crank letters and tele-
phone calls by the dozen were received. But from the
plethora of volunteered tips, one grim significant clue began
to assume the substance of a lead.

No less than eight reputable witnesses, whose names in
the beginning were shielded by Captain Laird and his men,
came forth in turn with the account of an incident they
had seen just about the time Stephanie Bryan was known
to have dropped from sight—give or take about 30 to 40
minutes. With only minor variations, all eight of these wit-
nesses described the same scene.

Approximately two miles from the spot where Stephanie
had parted from Mary Ann Stewart at the hotel parking
lot, on the highway leading to the Broadway Tunnel, these
witnesses said they had seen a man and a young girl strug-
gling in an auto. While most of these witnesses came for-
ward after the girl’s disappearance had become known, the
descriptions of the episode were startlingly similar. The
reason none of these witnesses stopped to investigate the
unusual occurrence is plausibly explainable. The highway
leading to the tunnel is a multi-laned, heavily traversed

thoroughfare and around four o’clock in the afternoon the °

traffic rolls swiftly, almost bumper to bumper. But one
woman did report the incident before Stephanie was known
to be missing.

“The car was parked beside the road,” the woman told
the police. “The man was in the front seat and the girl
was in the back. I heard a loud scream as I passed them and
saw the man reaching over the front seat in a struggle with
the girl in the back. I drove to the next intersection and
looked for a policeman, but couldn’t find one.” Then, she
added, she drove to her home at nearby Walnut Creek and
reported the affair by telephone to the police. This witness
was Mrs. Emma Lee van Meter, who later repeated her
story before a grand jury.

There were many who thought that Stephanie had run
away from home. Dr. Bryan and his wife were positive that
their quiet and well-mannered daughter was not a truant.
They were convinced she had been .abducted.

Then, from more than 3,000 miles away, came a report
that Stephanie had been seen on a downtown street of
Dartmouth, Massachusetts. Her family had moved from
that New England community when Dr. Bryan. received

_his appointment as chief radiologist at Peralta Hospital in

Oakland. The Dartmouth accounts described Stephanié as
wearing a white cardigan sweater, a pleated turquoise
skirt with a sash and brown and white saddle shoes. The
report added that the girl’s hair reached to her shoulders.

There was a flurry of newspaper headlines and it ap-
peared that Stephanie Bryan was just another girl who
had run away from home. But there was one discrepancy
in the reports that the girl had been seen on the streets of
her home town. Several days before her mysterious dis-
appearance in California, Stephanie’s hair had been cropped
to ear length. Captain Laird’s men soon checked out this

How could a frail, sickly man have carried a body up the
steep, rugged 10-yard slope, from the cabin to the grave?
Last hopes are shattered when Capt. Fording breaks tragic
news to parents of girl who had been missing three months.


dee lg peat por 6 dtey G
da ep Lee





,

Between courtroom sessions, a relaxed Abbott sat During trial recess, Abbott devoted some time to light reading. :
in Alameda County jail, dawdled with chess set. His testimony showed evidence of having been slightly influenced.

No longer natty, no longer calm, no longer confident, a rattled Abbott
hears himself sentenced to gas chamber, turns away from photographers.

but nine motorists reported the incident
to police. :
_ The other clue was a French textbook
which Stephanie was carrying when she
vanished. It was found May 2, four
- days later, on Franklin Canyon Road
* about 20 miles east of Berkeley. Obvi-
2° ously, it had been thrown from a passing
car, ao
~ The case broke by accident on the
“evening of July 15. Abbott’s auburn-
haired wife, Georgia, found Stephanie’s
red leather purse and wallet in a card-
» board box in the basement of the Abbott
home, Georgia had been rummaging
through old clothes in search of a cos-
_ tume hat, while Abbott was broiling
- Steaks upstairs. A family friend was
chatting in the kitchen with Abbott
when Georgia came pounding up the
. Stairs to show what she had found.
At the friend’s suggestion, Georgia

Abbott called the police. FBI agents
<spaded in the basement floor, unearthing

Stephanie’s white nylon brassiere; glasses

and several of her books and school

tablets. Abbott professed to be mysti-
fied. He had no idea how the girl’s things
' got there.

Abbott offered what came to be called
his “timetable alibi” for April 28. He
said he left Alameda alone at 11 a.m.
that day, driving his gray-green, torpedo-
back 1949 Chevrolet sedan, to go on a
fishing trip. The trip, he said, took him
not to Berkeley, but via Sacramento to
the Abbott family vacation cabin in the
mountains at Wildwood, Trinity County
—260 miles (Continued on page 88)

dictions hurt
ed on stand.

first was the
called because
portal of the
our miles from

28, 15 minutes
seen, a gray-
or 1950 Chev-
op on the road
A young girl
creaming and
[he driver, a
the back seat
n the car sped
cense number,

Grad darttn tas oa: Sa a a a hae PH EE Bo


Layne during the early part.of the fatal
evening,
On Saturday, January 14, Dr. Nenni offi-

cially ruled homicide by strangulation in the -

death of Myrtle Layne, reporting that chemi-
cal and other tests corroborated Potter’s
version of how the woman had died.

He said tests of the victim’s blood showed
the level: of alcohol was twice. that of the
legal limit for intoxication, and that the

primary cause of death was compression of
the trachea (the windpipe). A contributory -

. cause was alcoholic stupor.

Dr. Nenni’s verdict stated: “Any contro-
versy arising would be due to the meaning of
the term strangulation. Strangulation, as in
violent struggle with injury to the neck, due
to pressure, was not evident in this case. The

_ mildness of the action causing death can only

“be accounted for by the victim’s stuporous

condition due to alcohol.”

On Monday, January 16, Prosecutor Spears
filed second-degree murder charges against
Harmon Potter in the court of Mayor Frank
Miller at Athalia. He said the second-degree
charge was filed in order to leave the ques-
tion of intent open for a decision by the
grand jury. He pointed out that in a slaying
case, proof of premeditation makes it first-

degree murder; if intent to kill is present.

without premeditation the charge is usually
second-degree murder;: and where intent to
kill is not present the charge is manslaughter.

On January 25, the Lawrence County
grand jury indicted Harmon Potter for man-
slaughter.. The next day, Potter appeared be-
fore Judge ‘Warren S. Earhart in Ironton
and pleaded guilty. .

wie:
age
The judge asked Potter if he had anything
to say before sentence was pronounced.
The defendant looked up with dull, hope-
less eyes. “What can I say?” he muttered.
Judge Earhart then pronounced sentence.
The night of drinking and sudden, un-
controllable passion is being paid for, and
the tab is tremendous. Plenty of wine, one
woman, one dark lane, one moment of fire
—that’ll be one to 20 years, sir.
Harmon’ Potter now knows that violence
is the most expensive item in this world!

Epitor’s Note: The names Patti Bradshaw
and Jack Danielson are not the actual names
of the persons who were in fact participants
in the incidents described in this article. The
names are used to avoid embarrassment to
these innocent. persons.

‘The Abbott Trial: A Miracle Will Save Me

continued from page 21

north of Berkeley. He said he arrived there
at 9 P.M.

His brother joined him at the cabin April 30,
the first day of the fishing season. The brothers
returned to the Buy area on May 1, traveling
caravan-style in scparate cars and passing the
point on Franklin Canyon Road where Steph-
anie’s French book was found the next

morning.
Abbott ‘was questioned for four days. He
submitted to a lic detector test which, in

the words of Inspector A. E. Riedel, the
Berkeley police department’s noted polygraph
expert, produced ‘“‘a classic graph of a guilty
man.” But Abbott stuck to his story, with
occasional variations.

Stephanie’s body was found on July 20,
buried in a shallow grave beneath a tall sugar
pine, 339 feet up the manzanita-covered hill-
side from Abbott’s Trinity County cabin, The
child had been bludgeoned to death. The girl’s
body was fully clothed except for the brassiere
found in Abbott’s basement, and the nylon

panties, which were knotted around her
throat.
Despite his protestations of innocence,

Abbott was arrested, jailed and indicted by
the grand jury. Those were the known facts
on November 17, when the first witness held

‘up his hand and swore to tell the whole

88

truth and nothing but the truth.

Much, much more was known before it
was over. The trial lasted 54 days, counting
seven straight days of jury deliberations, One
hundred and six witnesses testified about such
varied subjects as weather, soil densities,
Abbott’s history of tuberculosis, the size of
the drinks served at -the bar in Wildwood,
the fuel tank capacity of Abbott’s car, Steph-
anie’s school. grades, Abbott’s college courses
and the technique of giving a permanent wave
in an Alameda hbcauty salon. Almost. three
hundred exhibits were introduced—samples of
Stephanie’s hair, the seats from Abbott’s car,
a huge scale model of hillside, grave and
cabin; Abbott’s ficld boots and leather jacket,
canceléd checks, photographs, gasoline credit
card purchase tays and even a San Francisco
telephone directory. Something over 1,250,000
words were recorded in the official transcript.
The cost of the trial to the district attorney’s
office alone was more than $100,000.

It was a punishing 12 weeks while Abbott’s

life hung in the balance. The chief defense
counsel lost 16 pounds. The prosecutor's
temper became as unstable as quicksilver. The
jurors showed the strain with drawn faces
and dark-circled cyes, The press row let off
steam by composing merciless limericks.

Midway in. the trial, incidentally, 20 news-

men who.had worked -on the story since
Stephanie’s disappearance were asked _pri-
vately for their predictions on the outcome.
Ten guessed Abbott would be condemned to
death; four predicted life imprisonment, and
six thought the jury would be unable to
agree. No one expected an acquittal.

Abbott, however, was confident throughout
the trial—or so he said. When it began No-
vember 7, he announced. he would be home
by Thanksgiving. When the proceedings
dragged he raised his sights and talked of
spending Christmas with his wife and four-
year-old son. When the jury finally retired to
consider his fate on January 19, Abbott told
jailers he would be sleeping in his own bed
soon.

ALMost nothing, it seemed, could pene-

trate the man’s protective shell of ego-
tism. Those who watched him day after day
came to recognize small signs in his behavior
that betrayed inner turmoil. Abbott was a
note-taker; he had a pencil and spiral tablet
before him throughout the trial. When the
testimony was going against him he scribbled
at a furious pace; when the evidence was
especially damaging, his notes became dis-
tracted doodles. His posture was another clue.
When all went well, Abbott sat erect in his
chair, his blue-gray eyes alert and darting;
when the tide was -running for the state, he
would slide low in his seat, his face turned
toward his lap, peering at the witness and
the jury from beneath his eycbrows.

Burton Abbott is a highly intelligent young
man, well mannered, fastidiously neat and
smooth spoken to the point of glibness. He
is slim and erect. His hair is blond, thinning
at the crown. His complexion is normally
pale, almost translucent; in moments of stress
his color turns gray as wet concrete.’ He has
high cheekbones and a long straight nose.
His lips are full and protuberant; he pouts
when crossed. His chin is slightly receding.

His hands are long, slender and tapering; in |

repose, he dangles them limply from the
wrists. His walk, movements and gestures are
quick and definite.

Much of Abbott’s background was summed
up by the district attorney in a single with-
ering question, Coakley had just begun his
cross-examination of Abbott. “What occupa-
tions have you ever had other than patient
and student?” he asked. Cutting through a
fog of evasions and equivocations, the answer
was none.

Burton Abbott enlisted in the army in
October, 1946, two days before the GI Bill
expired. He was 18. There are indications that
he had tuberculosis already and knew it. The
office records of two private physicians show
that Abbott listed the onset of his tubercular
condition as March, 1946. He was hospitalized
with chronic tuberculosis after one month of
army basic training. He was discharged
eventually with a $130-a-month disability
pension. He still gets it.

He met and married his wife, Georgia,
while both were patients at Livermore Vet-

-erans Hospital in southern Alameda County.

Abbott’s wife is five years his senior. One
half of his left lung was removed in October,
1951. He has showed no sign of tuberculosis
since November, 1951. From his hospital dis
charge until his arrest, Abbott was a UC
student. His pension, his GI Bill allowance
and his wife’s earnings as a beauty operator
were the family’s sole incéme.

There was no trial evidence linking Abbott
with other sex offenses. Under California law,
that type of evidence may not be introduced
unless the defense produces character wit-
nesses. This the defense did not do. The prose-
cution made it clear that such cvidence was
available. One police witness, under a goading
cross-examination, remarked that “we had re-
ceived reports of Abbott molesting other
children.”

Fifty-three witnesses were called in the
prosecution’s case-in-chief. Many merely laid
the essential groundwork for other witnesses.
They included mapmakers, photographers and
the like. Among basic technical exhibits one
of the most important—and most damaging
to Abbott—was an enormous plaster-of-paris
contour model of the hillside where Stephanie

ag buried, showing the grave and Abbott
cabin,

This mockup d
convincing the ju:
was physically inc
of a 105-pound <
The actual grade
of trees and bru
“The defendant, u:
stances, was well
with Stephanie Br
declared.

The first majo
psychological tour
was a 14-year-ol
walked part ' wa:
Stephanie and wa
alive before her «

She said noth
known, nothing ¢
fresh, girlish fea:
dark hair, re-cre:
than words or p
complete that D
‘Hove; in the co:
amination, twice :
The jury never |
that.

Stephanie’s ash
Mrs. Mary Brys
stiff father, Doct:
a similar purpo:
share their loss.

Abbott boldly
seeking to stare
the stand. Mrs. |
glance at him; h
furniture for all
more demonstrat

When Abbott .
end of a reces:
turned his back.

The first real :
by five witness:
cident. All of th:
twin of the one
struggle between
All said the gir!
in facial appear:

Three said th
one had not 1
fifth—a surprise
Abbott as the m

“That is the '
said Mrs. Reva
wife. “I would
seen him.”

Attorney Whi
Mrs. Leidecker’s
she had not co
until the trial w:

The next blo.
Russell, a typew:
cley School Dx
Abbott for mor
casual acquaint:
Pring’s Doughnu
Stephanie’s schox

Stephanie was
Pring’s. Abbott
stopping there
shop is more |
classes on the U
first questioned
visits to Pring’s.
from Alameda t:
course which k:
from Pring’s and
Later, he admitt
Telegraph Aven:
shop and Steph:
his frequent visi’

«

! anything
unced.
ull, hope-
uttered.
sentence.
iden, un-
for, and
wine, one
rt of fire

violence
world!

Bradshaw
cal names
rticipants
ticle. The
iment to

rom the
-tures are

summed
tle with-
egun his
occupa-
a. patient
nrough a
‘¢ answer i

army in
GI Bill
tions that
v it. The
ins show
ibercular
witalized
nenth of
charged
‘ ability

Georgia,
re Vet-
County.
or. One
‘dctober,
rculosis
ital dis~
a UC
lowance
‘perator

Abbott
ia law,
roduced
‘Tr oWit-
’ prose-
ice was
zoading
had re-

other

in the
ly laid
inesses.
ers and
its one
maging
»{-paris
-phanie t
Abbott ‘

This mockup destroyed defense hopes of
convincing the jury that the slender Abbott
was physically incapable of lugging the body
of a 105-pound girl 300 feet up that hill.
The actual grade of the mountainside, shorn
of trees and brush, was only 28 percent.
“The defendant, under the compelling circum-
stances, was well able to walk up that hill
with Stephanie Bryan, dead or alive,” Coakley
declared. ;

The first major witness proved to be a
psychological tour de force for the state. She
was a 14-year-old high school student, who
walked part ‘way home from school with
Stephanie and was the last person to see her
alive before her disappearance.

She said nothing that was not already
known, nothing damaging to Abbott. But her
fresh, girlish features, her pink cheeks and
dark hair, re-created Stephanie Bryan better
than words or pictures, The illusion was so
complete that Defense Attorney Harold B.

‘Hove, in the course of a gingerly cross-ex-

amination, twice addressed her as “Stephanie.”
The jury never forgot Stephanie Bryan after
that.

Stephanie’s ash blonde, cameo-faced mother,
Mrs. Mary Bryan, and her stern, ramrod-
stiff father, Doctor Bryan, were witnesses for
a similar purpose. The jury was made to
share their loss.

Abbott boldly sought the parents’ gaze,
seeking to stare them down, when they took
the stand. Mrs. Bryan flicked one impersonal
glance at him; he might have been a piece of
furniture for all her interest. The father was
more demonstrative.

When Abbott entered the courtroom at the
end of a recess, Doctor Bryan deliberately
turned his back.

The first real thrusts at Abbott were made
by five witnesses to the Tunnel Road in-
cident. All of them said Abbott’s car was the
twin of the one in which they had seen the
struggle between a man and a young girl.
All said the girl resembled Stephanie, either
in facial appearance or clothing,

Three said the man looked Hke Abbott;
one had not noticed the driver, and the
fifth—a surprise witness—positively identified
Abbott as the man beating the girl.

“That is the man there in the blue suit,”
said Mrs. Reva Leidecker, an Oakland house-
wife. “I would know that man anywher: I
seen him.”

Attorney Whitney lessened the effect of
Mrs. Leidecker’s testimony by showing that
she had not come forward with her story
until the trial was underway.

The next blow was delivered by William
Russell, a typewriter repairman for the Berk-
eley School Department who had known
Abbott for more than a year. They . were
casual acquaintances as fellow patrons at
Pring’s Doughnut Shop, one half block from
Stephanie’s school.

Stephanie was an occasional customer at
Pring’s. Abbott admittedly was a: regular,
stopping there almost daily—although the
shop is more than half a mile from his
classes on the UC campus. When Abbott was
first questioned by police he concealed his
visits to Pring’s. Asked about his regular route
from Alameda to UC, he-described a dogleg
course which kept him several blocks away
from Pring’s and Willard Junior High School.
Later, he admitted his usual route was along
Telegraph Avenue past both the doughnut
shop and Stephanie’s school. That was after
his frequent visits to Pring’s were uncovered.

Russell swore he saw Abbott in Pring’s at
3 p.mM., April 28, exactly one hour before
Stephanie disappeared. At 3:15 P.M., five
minutes before Stephanie’s last class was dis-
missed, Russell said Abbott walked out of
the doughnut shop and got into his car—
parked in front of Pring’s facing the junior
high school.

This was an hour when Abbott claimed he
was having a snack in a roadside restaurant
at Dunningan, 93 miles from Berkeley. Russell
fixed the date by recalling that he had just
repaired a typewriter at the Willard School,
which was having an open house that day.

Mrs. Marion A. Morgan, an insurance un-
derwriter, was next. She said she saw Abbott’s
car run through a red light, heading toward
the Claremont Hotel, at 3:30 p.m., April 28.
She had picked Abbott from a police lineup
as “the one that I could place in the car I
saw that day.” Mrs. Morgan fixed the time
and date with her business diary; she had

~ just come from a 3:15 appointment when‘
the car crossed against the light, barely miss- ©

ing a truck.

Convincing evidence was introduced to
show that Stephanie’s French textbook was
thrown on Franklin Canyon Road on May 1
—the day Abbott passed in his car. The book
was dry when found early May 2, although
it rained in the canyon on April 28, 29 and
30, May 1 was the first dry day.

Some of the strongest mute evidence against .

Abbott was his gasoline credit purchase rec-
ords, introduced by a Standard Ofl Company
official. Abbott was-bound and tied by them;
he had to adjust his alibi to fit them.

One, for example, showed he bought gaso-
line on April 28 at a station at Twentieth and
Harrison Streets in Oakland. That was 12
blocks off the route he said he took leaving
Alameda on April 28—12 blocks in the direc-
tion of Berkeley. Abbott was forced to. reject
his original story and describe a different
route which passed that filling station.

Another showed he bought gasoline May 2
on Highway 40, about a mile from the Frank-
lin Canyon junction. Abbott said he left his
UC classes that:day—his first school day after
returning from Trinity County—and drove
out Highway 40 in search of bargain tires
for his car.

THe prosecution had another explanation.

Coakley said Abbott rashly threw Steph-
anie’s book out of the car while passing
through Franklin Canyon the evening of May
1; Abbott realized his mistake instantly, but
could not stop because he was following close
behind his brother; he cut classes and re-
turned to Franklin Canyon the. next day,
hoping to retrieve the book. But it was too
late. The book had been picked up at 7
o’clock that morning by an electrician, who
turned it over to police.

Another gas ticket put Abbott near the
Livermore Veterans Hospital on May 3, the
second day after his return from Trinity
County and five days after the kidnaping.

Dr. Elmer J. Shabart, the chest surgeon
who operated on Abbott in 1951, testified
Abbott came to see him at the hospital May
3. Abbott complained of ill health, the sur-
geon said, and asked to be re-admitted to
the hospital as a patient. “He appeared to me
to be almost ovcranxious to enter the hos-
pital for any suggested procedure which I
deemed necessary without any equivocation;”
the surgeon said. But an examination showed
Abbott had nothing wrong with him,

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20

alt

aes
tees

fe Bo

Claiming once he wouldn’t appear in court unl

aa 2 oe .

ess he saw a doctor; Abbott re

lented, shaved, dressed, smiled at deputy, entered courtroom for another day.

Something always saves me when I’m in trouble

on the case. Erle Stanley Gardner,
creator of the Perry Mason mystery
novels, was writing a daily commentary
on the trial for one San Francisco paper.

The activities of the star of the show
were described in enormous detail for
newspaper readers and the television and
radio audience. Followers of the trial

learned Abbott’s brand of cigarets, how -

many he smoked per day, the color and
cut of his clothes, how he slept in the
county jail, the state of his health and
his reaction to all trial developments.
Headlines blared the news when he
pecvishly threatened to stay in his cell
because no tomato juice was served him.
At this stage— November 16, the
seventh trial day—only a handful of
persons knew what Coakley had in store
for Abbott. The prosecutor and his aides
had done a good job of keeping their
mouths shut for the past four months.
And only Abbott, the immediate mem-

- bers of his family, and his two lawyers,

—Stanley D. Whitney and Harold B.

Hove—had more than an inkling of the ©

defense case. Alibi, probably. That was
what Abbott claimed for the day of
Stephanie’s disappearance. But could he
substantiate his story that he was at
least 100 miles away from Berkeley at
the hour Stephanie vanished? Frameup
had been hinted. Would the defense
prove that someone else committed the
crime and planted the evidence to point
at an innocent man?

The bare bones of the case against
Abbott were familiar enough by now.

Stephanie disappeared as if into limbo
at 4 p.m., April 28, 1955, while strolling
from Willard Junior High School toward
her home at 131 Alvarado Road, near
the famous Claremont Hotel in Berkeley.
An intensive two-month search was con-
ducted by the Berkeley police depart-
ment and the girl’s father, Dr. Charles S.
Bryan, Jr., a prominent radiologist.

Only two slender leads came to light

Relief map of grave site and model
of his cabin are studied by Abbott.

Abbott's smart-Alec predictions hurt
him when he was placed on stand.

during that period. The first was the
Tunnel Road incident, so called because
it occurred near the east portal of the
Broadway Tunnel, about four miles from
the Claremont Hotel.

Around 4:15 p.m. April 28, 15 minutes
after Stephanie was last seen, a gray-
green, torpedo-back 1949 or 1950 Chev-
rolet sedan skidded to a stop on the road
shoulder near the tunnel. A young girl
was in the back seat, screaming and
pawing at the window. The driver, a
young man, swung over the back seat
and struck at the girl. Then the car sped
away. No one got the license number,

Maisie Senin

Between
in Alan

but nine
to police
The o
which S:
vanishec!
days lat
about 2:
ously, it
car.
The «
evening
haired v
red leat’
board be
home.
through
tume h
steaks 1
chatting
when G
stairs to
At tl
Abbott
zspaded :
Stephan
and se\
tablets.
fied. He
got the:
Abbo
his “ti
said he
that da:
back 1:
fishing
not to
the Ab!
mounta
—260

SP RES AE Fem

i ani a2 ri,


"with two men under arrest for the slaying of T, K, Ullman,.,one of whom is said to have
confessed the killing and named the other as his accomplice, &puty sheriffs felt last
night that one of the most difficult cases with which they have had to deal for yeaks

was nearing a successful conclusion, Difficulties encountered inthe unraveling of

the crime, it was said at the Sheriff's office, were increased by a local newspaper and
two detective lieutenants of the police department. . In a stenographisc statement made

to Dep. Dist. Atty, Harold L, Davis, chief of the county homicide bureau, Joe Para,
taxicab driver, named the two detectives as Charles Jarvis and Charles Craig.

"A man who, by his own statements, made himself a material witness to a murder and sub-
sequently admitted aiding in the disposal of the body, was questioned and allowed to de-
part without notification being given the Sheriff's office, investigating the case, ac-
cording to deputy sheriffs,- Subsequently to the questioning, the two detectiyes named
were members of a party who gathered at a rendezvous assertedly for thepurpose of meet-
ing the witness, also without notifying the investigators handling the case, deputy
sheriffs charged. The man about whom all the brouble revolved gave his name as Alphonse
Rincon, He is accused by Willie Adams, a 22=year-old ranch hang, of participating in the
slaying of tle Elizabeth Lake recluse, Questioned by Deputy Sheriff Bright and Dep, Dist.
Atty. Davis last night, Rincon maintained that he took no part in the actual slaying,
denying an accusation that he struck two blows while Ullman was mortally injured. He said
that he was forced todrage the body out of the.house later and helped pitch it into a
well,-in fear of his life, Adams confessed that he struck the first blow that ended in
the killing of Ullman shortly after noon yesterday, after he had been subjected to a
lengthy. questioning by Deputies Bright and Hunter and Dep, Dist. Atty. Davis. * Alphonse
told me Saturday we kill him because he got a lot of money,' Adams declared, ‘'I get iron
bar in blacksmith.shop on Ullman's rqamch and we.go to the house, I hit him first -

back of the neck, like this, He fall on his face, Alphonse him him then - twice - he
say he is still alive, We pick up the money, Get #6. We split the money, I get $2,50.'
At which point some one facetiously remarked that Ddams had been. cheated of 50 cents, pro=
bably because he hit only once, Following the murder, Adams said, he and Rincon carried
the body outside and pitched it into a well, Adams said he threw broken boxes and dirt
on top of it so it-wouldn't be found, Several women were questioned during the day, two
of whom, Marie Zarilla dn Mrs, Phyllis McDaniels, were living at 512 Lorena Ste, where
the suspects went after the crime, They were exonerated of any connecton with the crime
but have:been subpoened as witnesses to testify at the inquest over Uliman's body.

The official inquiry will be conducted at 1 pem, today at the Mumaw chapel in Lancaster,'
TIMES,’Los Angeles, 5-20-1925 (II-8-3,) Photoggaphs of each on Part Two, Page Ten,

"Warrants charging William (Willie) Adams and J, Alphonse Rinco with the $6 murder of T,

K, Ullman,..will be asked today...Adams repudiated his confession,,,and reverted to his
original version of the killing, in which fe acctised Rincon of striking all the blows which
‘brought death to the 58<year-old recluse of Leona Cangones.eeAdams said he and Rincon

went to the ranch Monday afternoon to buy some groceries, When they arrived, Rincon

went into the blacksmith shop on the ranch and picked up an iron bar about 20 inches

long, The two of them then went inbide the house, Adams saidg and he asked Ullman for
wome eggs, while he and Ullman were talking he said Rincon stepped around to the side

of Ullman and struck him a blow on the head. eee TIMES, Losangeles, 5-21-1925 (II-10-2,)

245 PACIFIC 821
ADAMS, Willie, and RINOON, Alfonse, hanged at San Quentin (Los Angeles) 190-8~1926,

"Alfonse Rincon and Willie Adams died yesterday morning the the gallows of San Quen-
tin prison for the murder of T. K. .Ullman on his ranch near Elizabeth Lake in May,
1925. The two condemned youths, led out from their death cells by Warden Frank J,
Smith, were accompanied up the steps of the scaffold by Father W. J, McLaughlin of
San “afael, Each walked with trim, brisk step in an attitude of nonchalance,. The
traps were sprung simultaneously at 18:02 o clock, Adams struck his forehead on
the edge of the opening as he fell, He was pronounced dead after 13 minutes and )O
seconds, Rincon's death cap was pulled aside in his fall. , He was dead in 13 minutes
- and 37 seconds. During the night the youths occupied separate death cells, Adams
went to bed about 9:30 o clock and slept soundly, Rincon paced his cell until 1
o'clock in the morning, then took to his couch exhausted, About two hours before
the hanging Warden Smith received a-telegram from H, J. Adams of Melrose, N, M,,
asking him to talk with 'w, or J, Adams and find out if he is my son,' Young Adams
told the Warden that he had no living relatives,which information Smith was about to
wire-to H, J, Adams, when a second telegram arrived from the same source asking if
it were possible to stay the execution, Warden Smith answered that the condemned
youth disclaimed relationship and that only Ghe Governor coyld stop the hanging,
Neither youth made a statement peior to the hanging, Their victim , Ullman, was
shot to death and his.body dropped into a well, where neighbors discovered it,
“dams, who was 23, and Rincon , who was 2h, were sentenced by Superior Judge Keetch

of Los Angeles," CALAFORNIA te
geles eel’: i 9 Oct. 9, 1926 (/2.)

-According to appeal: ",.,.Both defendants are from Mexican ancestry, Rincon is a
native of this state, and was past 246 years of age at the time of the commission
of the crime...As a youth he attended the grammar and high schools of the city of
Los Anzeles, Adams was past 22years of age, a native of Mexico, but had been a
resident of this state since he was of the age of about 12 years..."

"Peace officers from the rim of the Mojave Desert to Los Angeles were piecing together
the bife trail of C, K, Ullman, well-to-do recluse of Elizabeth Lake, last night, in an
effort to solve the mystery of his murder, .They found in their investigation, that they
had plucked a page from the Rook of Fiction and found.its counterpart in real life.
Ullman was as nearly a fiction hermit as modern life permits, and he was slain for his
gold, Acting on this theory, Capt, William J. Bright of the sheriff's homicide squad and
deputies Hunter and Hanby prepared for a systematic series of interfiews of a number of
persons in the Elizabeth Lake and Hughes Lake regions, who are declared to have had
strained relations with Ullman, Sheriff's deputies were being assisted in their investiga-
tion by Constable Price of Fairmount, Constable Cummings of Caneaster and their deputies.
"Ullman was slain in the living room of his ranch home two miles south of Eli,abeth Lake
in Leona Canyon sometime Sunday night, Capt, Bright reported, Death came apparently
after a terrific struggle and was followed by a thorough ransacking of the house, the

only thing left untouched being a small but adamant safe which resisted the efforts of

- the robber-slayer, . After Ullman had been killed his murderer dragged the body from the
house to a well about 25 feet deep in the back yard and pushed the body down it. A

trail of blood told the story of that, Capt. Bright said, The body was found in about

lh feet fof water in the well by John Erraebhuo, a ranch hand, yesterday when he went to
Ullman's ranch, Death, Capt, Bright said, was due to blows from some kind of a blunt
instrument, the exact nature of which had not been determined last night. A cursory
examination, he said, revealed at least two fractures of the skull when the body was
taken to a mortuary at Lancaster, Ullman, it was said, had lived a secluded life, barring
the door of acquaintanceship to allsave a few persons who lived in his immediate vicinity.
"Deputies said they learned that he has a wife living in some eastern city, but that she
and Ullman had been estranged. He also is said to have a son living in this city, Beside
owning about 350 acres of land near Elizabeth Lake, Ullman has had the reputation for
years in the region of having hoarded a great sum of money, althoug no definite
financial statement was available, He never kept money in banks, it was said, but

is supposed to have had it about the premises, The disorderly condition of the ranch
house, officers declared, left no doubt as to robbery being the motive for the crime,
Murder followed, they reasoned, when Ullman apparently put up a desperate battle to keep
his wealth," TIMES, Los Angeles, May 19, 1925 (11/2/1.)


ad
&
Lieutenant
£2,
EDWARD C. KING
a °
District Attorney’s Office,
Los Angeles, Calif.
As told to
ALBERTA LIVINGSTON
E had made his last trip before the
mast!
This was a terrible blow to
Theodore Karl Ullman, but it
was the doctor’s orders.
Karl, just past his forty-seventh birth-
day, had roamed the seven seas and had
seen a good deal of life. But now, as a re-
sult of an accident at sea, he must become
a landlubber. He would be a cripple for
Sai Genet ee
With his savings, he purchased a small esis oe
ranch in that part of Los Angeles County
running through beautiful Boquet Canyon, Front view of the house at Lonesome Ranch near Los Angeles, California, whe:
a few miles south of Elizabeth Lake, and. a elements of mystery su
ms % MN eet tenga Lesa it on DPE IIE TRIES EES — wih
! established himself at “Lone- fo
i , some Ranch.” He bought a ing
- Ford to get around in, and t
- here, for ten years, he led a t nig
F happy, carefree existence, sell- he
( ing the milk and eggs from his Varia
t farm and carrying a small the
4 stock of cigars and tobacco str:
H for those of his neighbors who
wished to buy from him to
j Save the trip to town. To add J!
; to his meager income, he also t
j built a small blacksmith shop hear
4 near his barn. frie
4 a gre
4 NE of the most frequent more \
5 visitors at Lonesome Ranch Mor
i was Johnny Erratchuo, a dawne
i neighboring small ‘rancher. Johnny |
Johnny and Karl soon became day |
fast friends. During the long pa} |
summer evenings, they would $
. sit upon the porch and talk
of days gone by, of the crops
and of local events of the
‘ day.
i Johnny gave Karl a Collie
i pup soon after their friendship
‘ began. This pup became Karl's
Pi staid and staunch pal; never
| Rig
4 (Left) The kitchen at Lone- house
& some Ranch. The victim sat
bE: in the rocking chair, spinning a
g yarn of the sea, as the murderer tc
tl ' stealthily crept behind him, wit
wns Se oe ee ee ee i and rained blows on his head
52
mre enameea iitieeameiliiinaees RR
i
'

Perron


land Tribune, then owned by the
Knowland family. When Stephan-
ie disappeared, her’ parents ap-
pealed to Norton, who convinced
Oakland police to organize a
search. (Then, the failure of a i4
year-old to come home was gener-
ally treated as a runaway case.) |

There was no shortage of vol-

unteers. Naval Reservists, Nation--

al Guardsmen and Boy Scouts by
the hundreds spent thousands of
hours over several weekends,
combing the hilis from Berkeley to
Orinda, to no avail.

Several people reported seeing
a man struggling with a young
woman in a car puiled over near
what is now the Caldecott Tunnel,
but no license number or definite
description of the vehicle was ob-
tained. :

Police established that Ste-
phanie had last been seen near the
Berkeley Tennis Club, adjacent to
the Claremont Hotei but on Tun-
nel Road, the extension of Ashby
Avenue and a main route to Con-
tra Costa County.

7 he Bryans suffered the ago-

ny of not knowing what had

happened to their daughter
for 13 weeks and two days. Then
came an almost unbelievable
break: An Alameda beautician,
Georgia Abbott, called Berkeley
police to say that she had found a
purse with Stephanie Bryan’s ID
cards in it buried in her basement,
along with books and a brassiere.

Police obtained permission to
dig up the Abbott basement and
the recently-laid patio. Attention
‘immediately focused on Georgia
Abbott’s husband, Burton (Bud)
‘Abbott, 27, an ailing accounting
student at UC Berkeley on the GI
bill.

Detectives, led by Berkeley Po-
lice Department Inspector Charies
O’Meara, soon were questioning
Abbott about his movements the
day Stephanie vanished. Abbott
frustrated his interrogators with

vague and contradictory respons-

es. But he eventually told them he
had left his home the morning Bry-
an disappeared to drive to Wild-

Ralph Craib, a retired member of the
Chronicle Editorial Board, covered the
Abboit case for the Oakland Tribune.

The dogs sniffed about the cab-
in and took off across the road and
up a slope. They stopped about 335
feet above the cabin amid pine and
manzanita.

Jackson testified later that he
dug in a shallow depression and hit
a shoe. Certain that his dogs had
led him to a human grave, he sum-

‘After 13 weeks, an

Alameda beautician
called police to say
she had found a
purse with
Stephanie Bryan’s
ID cards buried in
her basement

moned Trinity County sheriff's
deputies, who completed the exhu-
mation of Stephanie’s body.

Abbott was arrested for investi-
gation of kidnapping and murder.
He insisted he was innocent, say-
ing he was north of Sacramento
when the girl was last seen.

His trial began November 8,
1955, in the courtroom of Judge
Charles Wade Snood in the Alame-
da County Superior Court next to
Lake Merritt in Oakland. What en-

sued was unprecedented in Bay:

Area legal history. Front-row seats
were assigned to 30 newspaper re-
porters, backed up by 16 perma-
nent press photographers. The re-
maining two seats were available
to the public, but family members
of both the victim and the defen-
dant were given seating prefer-
ence. Huge crowds lined up out-
side the courthouse at 5 a.m. each
day, hoping to catch a glimpse of
the proceedings.

The trial was the longest in Ala-
meda County history. The prosecu-
tion presented 76 witnesses, some
‘of whom testified more than once.
The defense presented 28 witness-
es. During the investigation —
both during and after the trial —
more than 3,000 individuals were
interviewed for one reason or an-
other. In an effort to determine

AaXQCULS CHICUKCU LUUFe LUMI L0U,YUU
credit card purchases.

But the triai turned on the tes-
timony of Dr. Paul Kirk, a Univer-
sity of California criminalist. Kirk
put Abbott at the grave site
through dirt clots from the defen-
dant’s boots. Kirk also put Ste-
phanie in Abbott’s Chevrolet
through hair samples found in the
car. Kirk testified that the chances
that the hair belonged to someone
other than Stephanie were one in
135,000.

Reporters noted that Abbott
smirked and smiled during the cri-

minalist’s testimony. The defense:
claimed that Abbott, who had tu-

berculosis and had had part of a
lung removed at Livermore Veter-
ans Hospital, would have been
physically incapable of carrying
the victim up a steep, snow-cov-
ered slope.

The Alameda County forensic
pathologist Dr. George Loquvam
testified that Bryan’s death was
caused by a massive depression to
the back of her skull. The murder
weapon and any possible sexual
motive remained a mystery and
went with Abbott to his grave.

he jury reached its verdict
7 on January 25, 1956. Abbott

was found guilty of one
count of kidnapping and one count
of murder. He was sentenced to
die in the gas chamber at San
Quentin.

The jurors were convinced by
the prosecution arguments, in-
cluding testimony from several
witnesses who contradicted Ab-
bott’s contention that he was far
from Berkeley at the time Ste
phanie was last seen.

Abbott’s appeais were fruitless.
His execution, set for March 1,
1957, provided him with a last dra-
matic role. Just before 10 a.m., the
time scheduled for the execution,
he was granted a one-hour stay to
allow for last-minute appeals. At 11
a.m., San Quentin Warden Harley
Teets told him that time had run
out and final preparations began.
A phone line to the execution area
was kept clear. There were 58 offi-
cial witnesses and reporters pres-
ent. At 11:18 a.m., the first cyanide
pellet dropped into the container
ot sulfuric acid to produce the fa-

Police officers Steve Soishnio and Russ Johnson sifted through soil in the Abbotts’ basement

}

tal fumes. A veteran reporter

fainted.

Less than two minutes later,.

the phone rang. It was Governor
Goodwin Knight’s secretary, Jo-
seph Babich, announcing a stay of
execution. He was informed by the
warden that his call was too late.

The next day’s headlines

screamed: “Phone Cail Too Late —-

Abbott Dies.”

At his behest, Abbott’s remains
were turned over to UC Berkeley,
a cadaver for dissection in “hopes
of furthering human knowledge.”

From the time his name first
appeared in print, Abbott’s inno-
cence was prociaimed not only by
him, but also by a large number of
groupies, mostly young women
who believed that the circumstan-
tial evidence that sent their idol to
the chair was rigged.

&

Trinity County officers recovered Stephanie Bryan's body from a
hillside grave in the Trinity Alps


ra naa ie er: se?

* 18a. 910 PACIFIC REPORTER, 2d SERIES

¥ : He e

« trial court, has “every right and the plain explain or deny the evidence against him ge tiee v. ADAMSON Cal 1! 4

#3 duty to scrutinize [defendant's claims] with an have such failure commented upon by Wenote, also, the lengthy histor ae ee oe : 19 | a
4 FE a critical eye, in the fight of its familiarity the prosecuting attorney and the trial court tacks upon the judgment of death 7 a0 B: on Bird’ was unsatisfactory to him
& 3 with the facts of this crime as they had (see discussions of this problem, People v- 2d 15) and the fact that at all times si j : That he, wanted counsel of his 1 i
§ i been adduced in [the trial].” (Hysler v- “Adamson (1946), supra, 27 Cal.2d 478, 494; defendant went to trial on the aie tg choice and counsel chosen by. Loyd if

a Morida (1941), 315 U.S. 411, 417, 316 US. 165 P:2d 3; Adamson v. California (1947), charge he has been represented by Se Wright, * * * with his approval ae

E JAD, 6 $.Ct, 688, 692, 86 L-Ed. 932.) This Sukh 332 US. 46, 57, 67 S.Ct. 1672, 91 Set Agi dcktokconeht Hwa Re Se Oh ist OEE S He

; el does not include the right to post- i ; 4

2,2 50 6 692, 861 ae AE de ) es ,In these circumstances we cannot acce t pone th fo}
te. before us on appeal or on direct applica- justified in consic ering that defendant’s his allegations that he is “poor” and : if the trial of a case indefinitely and
Ps a n m ject the a vi es f i ;
gno- rejec services of the public defender

i
te ;
* i 5 ao rs ‘ +e} 4 " : r ” : 1
on: tion. (See Pen.Code, § 1265.) The Hysler belated desire to take the stand (not, it ant” as an excuse for his failure to pre- while def : |
: case concerns the Florida procedure where- should be noted, before a jury, but only sent a convincing factual showing in s fi efendant, at his leisure, attempts to
: ‘ ; up- : . eh beth

ki after before a judge) 3s not because of any be- port of his conclusionary allegations AE nd cr Ho a serve without charge
- whom defendant and M ;
ant 4 r. Wright {

by convicted’ defendants can, even
affrmance of the judgment on.appeal, ob- lief that he can give testimony relevant to want of due process.
A tain relief of the sort sought here; i, e., the asserted deprivations of constitutional i emirate : ; ps sae (See People v. Manchetti (1946)
a é “the judicial correction of a wrong com- rights (the allegations of his petition and ation of Effective Aid . Cal.2d 452, 458, 175 P.2d 533, and isés aes
f mitted in the administration of criminal jus- affidavit show that he can give very little of Counsel. there cited.) This court can take judicial \! i
onnection) but only to As.to this contention the records on ap- pase come ! would be difficult to find t
a ia any lawyers more experienced .

tice and resulting in the deprivation of life testimony in this ¢ ri
peal from the j eae.
the judgment of conviction and or better qualified 1
alified in defending criminz
g minal

or liberty without due’ process” (page 415 secure further delay. fe
of 315 U.S., page 691 of 62 §.Ct.). “The =". We ase justified also in considering that he judgment denying the petition for
coram nobis show the f : cases that the publi 1
e following: - tn : -; ic defender of Los Ange-
nty and his staff.

such’ consideration we, like t

os étate’s security in the just administration defendant, after having set forth in his
es of its criminal law must largely rest upoM petition all the contentions above stated Defendant was arrested on August 24, |
the competence of its trial courts. But (210 P2d 14), has on this appeal. seen fit 1944. A few days. later, according t : Mr. Safier, an associate of Mr, Morris ij
that does not bar the state Supreme Court to confine his argument to one contention : police officer, defendant said peivigde oF Lavine, undertook to represent atte :
from exercising the vigilance of a hard- that his allegations as to the falsity of Mrs. time comes IJ will have .my vaisesses hice on November 6, 1944, pursuant to a assent . |e
: headed consideration of appeals to it for ‘Turner’s testimony required that the ques- to prove [an alibi defense], and I will b of Mr. Wright made to Mr. Lavine On L
Ye - _ ypsetting, a conviction” (page 422 of 315. tion of fact be tried out. Yet examination defended by one of the best attorneys in November 6 Mr. Safier requested ee was et.
USS., page 694 of 62 S.Ct.). And in giving of the record of the trial discloses that, of Los Angeles”; on August 28 and poe refused a continuance. Four charges of libs
he trial court, all the matters complained of in his peti- 31 defendant made similar statem gust burglaries unrelated to the murd r {Semel
the officer. ents tO tg trial on November 9, 1944; on thi ; vai | ;
; s tria | Pe
1

the testimony of Mrs. ‘Turner is by. z=
efendant was represented by both the pub-

mission with the murder h un con- tem :
: such ee Se cceas pierces Ay Septeniber: 18, 1944, glary connected therewith comme
ppeared for arraignment with- once, with Mr. Safier sphere 8 af
g defend-

< are “not bound to accept at face value tion,
, the allegations of the petition” (Taylor far the least important. Furthermore we [15,16] At the ae
i= ts ; , rel : :
5 y, Alabama (1948), 335 U.S. 252, 262, note that defendant is under sentence for fendant was teheed- Oh pans hee . defender and Mr. Safier. On Novem-
63 S.Ct. 1415, 1420, 92 L.Ed. 1935). four burglaries unconnected in their com- Sullivan.’ The information ae a = ot a pce the trial of these four charges H ‘
: a d Sep- ed, the trial for murder and th a
e bur- H ;
| :

{14] Before discussing separately the “sideration, and that
specific contentions of defendant we note yest upon fingerprint evidence of precisely
the following matters which bear upon the jhe same character as that questioned here
sincerity of the whole of his petition: He and were obtained before the, same judge
“T desire to testify at the hearing and the verdicts were rendered by a jury
petition for writ of error coram selected in the same manner as in the mur-
or any other appropriate writ, for der case. Defendant is also under sentence ant has not attempted to : Defend- testimony he said was vital, some of w
being considered, for a burglary connected in its commission Sullivan withdrew from se cat yee =. ‘addresses he furnished ghd 48k —
dict of guilty of not assume th “he seh Masigteanri’ addresses he could - :
ecisely the same of his duty Lappin RY in violation which witnesses aed pei Cont he
efendant’s wishes. lish am alibi fy ey z ia he prgtvant
se e was insuf-

d in the same The only att :
dntead ry. tempt to explain why the public ficient time f :
er withdrew from the case appears ne for Mr. Safier to locate and

out counsel; the ;
: public defender wa ahteD ;
pointe : Z S$ ap- . efendant did not i :
es are te and trial was set duced no witnesses ot testify and pro-
er FO 3 2s

alleges, the public dak cnack n October 3, 1944, Defendant alleges that h

on my 4c was allowed to with- Safier “th at he gave Mr. <
asthe w as counsel for defendant. e names of eleven persons whose :
t ’
Bent which this application is
on the grounds that my rights under the with the murder; the ver
| Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution that burglary rests upon pr

of the United States have been violated, evidence and was rendere
and request that the court enter an order trial as the verdict of guilty of murder.
for my appearance at said hearing, or oth- Yet it is only the conviction of murder, in an affidavit of Mr.- Milton Safi th interview these witnesses. However, de- 4
ing with it the death penalty, which represented defendant at the es pe fendant has not seen fit to identify these ee
: r. witnesses or to suggest what ideale testi- i

eS oe rh beat

: $ erwise grant an opportunity so that my carry
ae deposition might be taken.” At his trial defendant has questioned. We are entitled Safier avers that defendant “inf
Ste Be defendant chose not to testify before the to question the sincerity of contentions di- that the court * * * ph ange me mony would be, other than alleging tl ‘
then confronted rected only to the judgment which would or consent, appointed a Deputy hehe at about the time the murder Me clad a
- committed he was with his a and

re 4 jury. He was, to be sure,
“with a difficult choice: whether to take dep
the stand and have prior convictions ef cou
felony disclosed to the jury, or to fail to him of liberty.

_ 2 . s fe :
eas eter = see oi =e z they San to-represent him but that the Deputy mot!
yx + y > 4 re “e

d be, to those judgments which deprive 7 ic Defender, named Richard Bird, was eat es re thereafter he “talked with Mrs
, an attorney of his choice; aii ybie Babinean.” In-this proceedi 3
hothing about’ Richard ee eo, knew need not be so credulous as - Samak we
s ability; ‘that because Mr. Safier did not ha ae
7 ave more time

oe eee


9
sii his?

Sy Oe DES

UR eth tk ba Haare Oke eh

o JPORTER, 2d SERIES
20 Cal. 210 PACIFIC RE ;

the court appointed Harry Rogers of the
sheriff’s office. ~Mr. Rogers compared fin-
gerprints found in deceased’s apartment
with defendant’s prints, came to the con-
Asserted Systematic Exclusion of Negroes clusion that the prints found in isoe
from the Los Angeles Superior Court ment were those of.defendant, an
Bench and Jury Panel. fied at the trial.

‘The petition contains no suggestion of On argument in the dae <p e
the manner in which defendant hoped to Ae a ete pg, Boss 23 ae
i NV y were duced a D
pis at EE ec gestural Mr. Allen. Mr. Allen was permitted to
geen Petiak he ee, “J don’t be- take the stand rather than to pela at
eae ea cs paove anything of that sort.” porting affidavit. ace ne
We are justified in concluding that defend- not been ape. an art nS gig
ant’s counsel agreed with this statement, 19 he agit ge po vaetr ied oor
i iz i > ;
sin Panay gore ee oer is or snared to give any evidence as to the
an f estab- comparison of the prints. (The averments
as to the falsity of the fingerprint ¢vi-
dence are contradicted by affidavits, filed in
The Fingerprint Evidence. opposition to the petition for carte wre
Defendant has not ‘suggested that he can of the deputy district pian a vee
i lentiary. facts to support cuted defendant, the fingerpri pert Gr
sage site ion that the fingerprint testified for the People, the court appoin
ie ae vey: ay sid. that the People fingerprint expert, the two police officers
ae way i. Shortly after the be- who investigated the homicide, the nate
— ri ton an the morning of the who originally found and photonTAP e
rere a ft age eatin attorney said the fingerprints in deceased’s pra
oles oa ee the other case against and the eg bik gee ee deceased’s
; g harges apartment after the killing.
se spam cepa ast with ri The fingerprints identified as. defendant's
ff aw under consideration] it in- at the trial were there described by =
coeen, bidet print testimony * * * and experts as “Jatent.’ In his affidavit de-

j i 7 i tion and belief
ury in that fendant avers upon informa
ed as unlike other

to prepare a defense, defendant could not
produce his mother and brother as wit-

nesses.

and has made no a
show that he has any expectance 0
lishing the allegations.

not connec

-ounsel, in commenting to ;
cast mentioned the fact that finger print that Jatent finger: prints,
4 ,

experts were expensive”; that the same types of finger prints, are inaccurate ah
boeefe ert would testify for the subject to many combinations and iscrep-
vole in se piece case. The’prosecut- ancies and falsehoods; that these facts
ea say ee uested and the trial court were known to the State.” “Latent” prints,
oe thdt the: court appoint “as its own according to the aoc ce pang gan
aie é = tri and this defendant does n -
Ce wcith aera Mie wated =" are. simply prints ‘left when the
rane mae . Sis oper qualified expert finger, slightly oily: and damp’ with “
he n eteditints, eounes! suggested. De- ary body secretions, touches a reasonably
whorr
: 1 suggested Mr.
nie idee wolied that he knew prints wie: :
Mr. Allen and did not wish to appoint him of the basis’ fo
e had not been

PN hae 20 years. Appointment of fendant wit
the court’s witness was postpone
defendant’s counsel an opportunity to
a qualified expert. He was apparently un-
able to find one satisfactory to him,

sabato eA bye mae ott

Chester clean, smooth surface, i. the type of
onstitute an essential part
r virtually all fingerprint
in fingerprint identification insofar as connecting a de-
h a particular crime 1s con-
d to give cerned. In the absence of any suggestion
find of evidentiary facts to that effect, we need
not believe that defendant has discovered
and evidence tending to show .that practically

PEOPLE v, ADAMSON Cal. 21
Cite a8 210 P.2d 13

all expert testimony as to such fingerprint
identification is false or mistaken or un-
reliable.

The Testimony of Mrs. Turner.

Although, as stated above, this is the
only point which defendant has argued to
this court, his petition minimizes its im-
portance by averring that “defendant was
convicted principally, if not solely, upon
[the finger print] evidence.”

The murder was committed and de-
ceased’s diamond rings disappeared about
July 25, 1944. The witness Turner testi-
fied that at a time between the 10th and
the 14th of August, 1944, she overheard
defendant ask an unidentified man in a
bar whether he would like to buy a dia-
mond ring. In his affidavit defendant
avers on information and belief that Mrs.
Turner’s husband was “under investigation
for theft” and that she agreed to testify
as the People wished in return for a
promise that her husband would not be
prosecuted. An affidavit of Mr. Harold
Gaines contains the only direct allegations
of evidentiary facts tending to support de-
fendant’s assertion that the People know-
ingly used false testimony. Such allega-
tions are: About two days before Mrs.
Turner testified at the trial of Adamson,
Gaines saw her at a bar with a man un-
known to Gaines. Thereafter, Mrs. Tur-
ner told Gaines that the man was “the
District Attorney” and that “she did not
know why the District Attorney wanted
her to testify in Dewey’s case, because she
didn’t know anything about it.” The next
morning, while Gaines was at Mrs. Tur-
ner’s home, a man arrived and said that
“he wanted her to go down town with him
to the District Attorney’s office.” Mrs.
Turner left with this man. She returned
with the same man and told Gaines that
in the district attorney’s office she had been
shown “some horrible pictures of a de-
ceased woman .* * *; that they told
her that was what they had Dewey for.”
She asked Gaines “what date it was that
Dewey wanted to sell Tim the rings.”
Gaines replied that he had not been present
on any such occasion. “Then Frances Jean
Turner said perhaps she was mistaken,

whereupon the man from the District At-
torney’s office told her not to mention
anything about dates.” After defendant's
conviction Mrs. Turner told Gaines “that
at the time she gave her testimony in the
case she thought she was testifyng for
Dewey and testified exactly to what she
had been told to say.” (In opposition to
the petition for coram nobis the People
filed an affidavit of Mrs. Turner that her
testimony “was true at the time it was
given at said trial and is now true.”)

At the time of argument on the petition
Mrs. Turner, who had been subpeensed by
Mr. Lavine, was present in the court room.
However, since the trial court concluded
that the petition and supporting affidavits
did not require the trying out of issues of
fact, he did not permit defendant to call
Mrs. Turner to the stand. Independently
reappraising the credibility and effect of
the Gaines affidavit in the light of all the
facts before us, we conclude that such affi-
davit does not sufficiently show a depriva-
tion of due process. Defendant has not
attempted to explain why, although he
must have known that Mrs. Turner’s testi-
mony was false (if it was false) at the
time it was given, he did not raise this
point until, nearly three years and nine
months after he was convicted, he filed his
petition for coram nobis. We are not in-
formed who Mr. Gaines is or why years
elapsed between the trial and the making
of his affidavit. The averments of the
Gaines affidavit do not support the asser-
tion, found only in the affidavit of defend-
ant and only upon information and belief,
that Mrs. Turner gave false testimony in
return for a promise by an unidentified
officer of the State that her husband would
not be prosecuted for theft. In striking
contrast to the lack of allegations concern-
ing the discovery of the relevant facts
averred in the Gaines affidavit, are defend-
ant’s detailed, lengthy allegations as to
other matters, some unimportant, some in-
competent, and practically all known to de-
fendant at the time of his trial, concerning
Mrs. Turner and her testimony. Defend-
ant devotes a large portion of his petition
and affidavit to describing a causal social
meeting of Mrs. Turner and defendant

a


his ai caged

(

oe

iy
t

ceo

-Cal.2d 422, 442, 154

(ARES SES NC AALS SLR A CALLER AMAIA EEE EES NS

16 Cal. 210 PACIFIC REPORTER, 2d SERIES

of the defendant, was not then known to [proceeds directly to consideration of the
the court. «(People v. Gilbert (1944), 25 merits of the contention, without discussing
P.2d 657; In Te Lind- whether the writ is a proper remedy]; In
ley (1947), 29 Cal.2d 709, 725-726, 177 P.2d re Tedford (1948), 31 Cal.2d 693, 192
918; People v- Tuthill (1948), 32 Cal.2d P.2d 3 [same]; In re McCoy (1948), 32
819, 821; 198 P.2d 505.) The applicant for Cal.2d 73, 76, 194 P.2d 531 [habeas corpus
the writ “must show that the facts upon is available where petitioner has no other
which he relies were not known to him and adequate remedy]; see also In re Connor
could not in the exercise of due diligence (1940), 16 Cal.2d 701, 705, 108 P.2d 10, 13
have been discovered by him at any time [Under the general rule well established in
substantially earlier than the time of his this state, but which admits of some modi-
motion for the writ; otherwise he has fication under exceptional circumstances,
stated no ground for relief.” (People -v- this contention cannot at this late date be
Shorts (1948), 32 Cal.2d 502, 513, 197 P.2d made the basis of a successful collateral at-
330, 336.) tack by habeas corpus upon the validity of

[4-7] With expansion of the function the judgment” ; the contention could have
of habeas corpus in-this state, an applica- been raised by direct appeal.or by a non-

tion for that writ has become the proper statutory motion to vacate the judgment].

remedy to attack collaterally a judgment of
conviction which has been obtained in vio- coram nobis ignores the above summarized

lation of fundamental constitutional rights. holdings as to the respective functions of
Thus, the appropriate writ to secure relief that writ and of habeas corpus. Appar-
from a judgment of conviction obtained ently defendant formerly recognized that
by the use of false testimony known by the in this state habeas corpus rather than
prosecution to be false is not coram nobis coram nobis is the appropriate proceeding
but habeas corpus (in re Lindley, supra, in which to raise the questions whether he
page 725\of 29 Cal.2d, page 928 of 177 P.2d; was deprived of the right to counsel and
see People v. Mooney (1918), 178 Cal. 525, whether there was discrimination against
174 P. 325; Mooney v. Holohan (1934), Negroes in the selection.of.judges and trial
294 U.S. 103, 113, 55 S.Ct. 340, 79 L.Ed. jurors in Los Angeles County, for he ad-
791, 98 A.L.R. 406; In re Mooney (1937), vanced these contentions in his petitions
10 Cal.2d 1, 73 P.2d 554), although coram for habeas corpus addressed to this court
nobis has been used for this purpose (see and to the United States District Court.
People v, Kirk (1946), 76 Cal.App.2d 496, Defendant now repeats these contentions
498, 173 P.2d 367). . And habeas corpus, not without suggesting any reason why he
a nonstatutory motion to vacate the judg- should be permitted to’ reiterate the same
ment (in the nature of a petition for coram collateral attacks upon the judgment in
nobis), is the proper proceeding to raise various proceedings. Furthermore, he does
the question of systematic, discriminatory not even attempt to make the showing
exclusion of Negroes from the grand jury fundamentally necessary for issuance of
which indicted defendant, a Negro. (See the writ of coram nobis; he does not sug-
People v. Montgomery (1942), 51 Cal.App. gest that he was diligent in advancing these
24 444, 125 P.2d 108.) Habeas corpus can contentions. The facts as to the asserted
be used to advance the contention of denial deprivation of the effective aid of counsel
of the right to counsel, at least where no and the asserted discriminatory exclusion
other remedy is available. (See In re Egan of Negroes from bench and jury either
(1944), 24 Cal.2d 323, 337, 149 P.2d 693, were known to defendant or in the exercise
701 [“It may be assumed that a petitioner of ordinary diligence should . have been
would be entitled to release on habeas cor- known to him (at least through his counsel)
pus if he could show that deprivation of at the time of trial and defendant does not
counsel resulted in an unfair trial or in attempt to show that such facts were not
substance in no trial at all’]; In re Jingles known to the trial court, nor docs he ex-
(1946), 27 Cal.2d 496, 498, 165 P.2d 12 plain his failure to raise them in orderly

Defendant’s application for the writ of

PEOPLE v.. ADAMSON ue Cal 7
fashion on appeal from the j rot Sue 3 3
peo aa c he judgment of neg een te Court (as appellate courts
eas hake ae o on appeal) gave credence to this
ntentios that, the COCTESe which tends to support the judg-
State knowingly used perjured testimony, ment of conviction. d
not only does defendant present it in this
inappropriate proceeding, but he 4 :
comply with the haacien that ages Spahr for ee eae
as he - has . exercised due diligence.
[Where a defendant secks to vacate a
solemn judgment of conviction, particularly
where such judgment has been affirmed on [9-13] The petition for coram nobis
appeal, the showing of diligence essential to and supporting affidavits not only state a
the granting of relief by way of coram case wholly outside the tenable scope of
nobis should be no less than the similar the writ; they also fail to state sufficient
showing required in civil cases where sole eredible facts from which the trial court
is sought against lately discovered hegd: (and this court) would be justified in be-
In such cases it is necessary to aver not lieving that defendant had some expectance
only the probative facts upon which the of establishing. his conclusionary allega-
basic claim rests, but also the time and cir- tions of violations of due process of law
cumstances under which the facts were dis- The proceeding designated “coram nobis"
covered, in order that the court can deter- in this state is a court-made proceeding
mine as a matter of law whether the liti- and, within the limits of the enone

gant proceeded with due diligence; a mere requirements pointed’ out in People v
allegation of the ultimate facts or of the Shorts (1948), supra, 32 Cal.2d 502 506,
197 P.2d 330, must, therefore, be subject to

Rae conclusion of diligence, is insuffi-
cient.” (People v. Shorts (1948), supra, such limitations and procedural require-
32 Cal.2d 502, 513, 197 P.2d 330, 387.) ments as the creating court may ereoetiii
ra does not even mention the time a proceeding is not subject to all the
circumstances under which the asserted rules applicable to an original trial; it is
falsity of the fingerprint evidence was dis- an attack upon a judgment which has “F
covered. Nor does he mention in his peti- come final and in favor of which there are
Be ee the time and pare, prespniperons of regularity; the
ia bobo tgs tig discovery that a nite id regarded as a motion to vacate
mony with k oe Ae heats testi- : hae kee: ae is not a complaint nor
ny with knowledge that it was false. does it initiate an independent action (In re

His first and only attempt to make this Paiva (1948), 31 Cal.2d 503, 509, 190 P.2d
604). The facts that the People filed inter

essential explanation was before this court
ied ize applied for a stay of execution. alia a document entitled “Demurrer” and
At that time he made the following vague that the trial court made an order (seett:
averment: “The perjury involved par- seded by the order now appealed from)
ticularly the testimony of Frances Jean ghat the “Demurret .©'*::*. is sustajnes
Turner, a white’ worian, and was based without leave to amend” did not reudive
upon an investigation made by a detective the trial court and do not require this court
stag OAKS friends of the accused, ae accept every allegation of the petition
her, Sein y rtiehed not only with this am supporting affidavits at face valuc.
Coe hap “ inited States, Supreme Phe trial court considered, and we are en-
0 ‘ consideration ét= the: 46m: titled to consider, the circumstances in
ssa a the testimony.” te Alec Tutors which those allegations were made and
stimony was false, this fact was known to the People’s affidavits controverting them

tions of Fact which Would Constitute
a Prima Facie Case in any Form of
Proceeding.

defendan i ; i
at at the time she testified, and he In the circumstances of the present case
Ty ies excused for his failure to raise —a Coram nobis attack upon a ind nent
on of its falsity until after he which has become final after feast nes
é alk ‘ e

discovered tha i
t this court and i . ;
z10 P.2a—3 the United appeal—we hold that this court, like the

Sahetate,


dl

PREP LEE PLES

WE Li RA SPELL
ie keg Ertan. i

eer mere

ae RSA a ea LB NE SP 4 LRP ee:

22 Cal. 210 PACIFIC REPORTER, 2d SERIES

which took place after the murder and be- solve to delay execution of judgment rather
fore defendant’s arrest and which has no than a sincere attempt to present a serious
connection with the crime. The petition question of fact and law.

and supporting affidavits contain a number Upon the showing made to us nearly five
of allegations such as the following: De- years after the judgment of conviction was
fendant’s counsel avers on information and rendered, we conclude that “if ig asking
belief that after defendant's conviction a1 entirely too much of the court ee ticliewe”
unidentified persey interviewed, by tele- the allegations of the petition and support-
phone, one Dauzat, owner of the bar where, ing affidavits (see Taylor v. ih Seats
according to Mrs. Turner’s testimony, she (1947), supra 335 U.S. 252, 271, 68 S.Ct.
overheard defendant’s conversation regard- 1415, 1424; 92 1 id. 1933) : wie can “Olly
ing Soi a and Dauzat “inferred to the - petieve that this proceeding in the nature
terviewer that this woman was not a Pet- of an application for coram colis and ie
son of reputable character. He also stated appeal therefrom have had as their object
that petitioner Adamson frequently came j thing more than delay in the execution
into the place and was not a drinking man, of the judgment under attack= 4

preferring coca-cola, and that he never
knew Adamson to be other than a perfect [17] For the reasons above stated, the

gentleman; that throughout his experience stay of execution heretofore granted is
in this type of business he found that when terminated, the appeal from the judgment
a party wanted to make some kind of a denying the petition for coram nobis is dis-
deal. he would not discuss it at the bar, missed, and the trial court is directed to
where talk could be overheard, he would proceed with execution of its sentence in
‘do so in a private conversation, and that the manner provided by law. (See People
from his association with petitioner Adam- Y- Shorts (1948), supra, 32 Cal.2d 502, 518,
son and his observation of Adamson while 197 P.2d 330.) Let the remittitur issue

in the establishment, he was of the opinion forthwith.
that Adamsgn would not think of discuss-
ing any business at the bar. He further
stated that he does not believe that Frances
Turner ever. heard Adamson in this dia-
mond ring conversation, put thinks that she EDMONDS, Justice.
testified as she did because she wanted I concur in the judgment solely upon
to clear herself from any association with the ground that relief by coram nobis was
colored men.” Harold Gaines avers in his properly denied because habeas corpus ie
affidavit that “During all of the time I the available and proper remedy. - The
have known Frances Jean purner I have courts developed the modern use of the
known her to be a steady drinker and a writ of error coram nobis in an era when
confirmed drunkard and a person who jt furnished the only remedy for reviewing
sought the limelight.” Defendant avers in ‘certain serious errors. However, ae tes
his affidavit that Mrs. Turner “was a white cent years, generally speaking, habeas cor-.
woman who had been out with Dewcy pus has. been made available for the cor-
Adamson, had visited his home and that yection of errors within the category ‘of
she had had drinks with the said Dewey ‘Jack of procedural due process of law, In
Adamson.” These and similar averments, re McCoy, 32 Cal.2d 73, 194 P.2d 531; In
defendant’s con- re Jingles, 27 Cal.2d 496, 165 P.2d 12; In
10 Cal.2d 1, 73 P.2d 554. Ac-

ing necessity for the

GIBSON, C. J., and SHENK, TRAY-
NOR, and SPENCE, JJ., concur.

incompetent to establish
tention that Mrs. Turner perjured herself, re Mooney,
are relevant to a determination of the sin- cordingly, the compell
cerity with which that contention is ad- use of.a writ of error coram nobis is no
vanced. By secking to buttress a conten- longer present. Moreover, the enlarged
tion of deprivation of due process with al- ‘use of habeas corpus avoids the. necessity
legations stich as those last quoted, defend- for the time consuming practice of making
ant and his counsel indicate a desperate re- an application for relief in the trial court

PEOPLE v. ADAMSON Cal. 23

Cite as 210 P.2d 13

followed by an appeal from an ad

\ n adverse de-- the petition < idavi i

fi Poe d I and affidavits of petitio

cate aaa pe aah v. Nixon and, But in addition to the Fccatind t fs se

: ae poke Be tO believe it is the function of this Court to
¥ A ; » 197 P. ; _ pass upon the credibility and “sincerity”
i “pase ie ‘ it f

cen effect of the present decision is to petitioner’s pleadings. Likewise esa

oreclose in the future most, if not all, of court should not do so in ruling on de

the present uses of the writ of error coram  Miurrer. , sa

wars fae :
obis, for there are no significant situa- This Court is merel i ‘th
erely reviewing the ac-

tions where that writ might i :
which habeas corpus is “or aoe eee ih vs ee a ee ee ee
This result reflects sound policy directed to pes ae Pwd otal a ato
probes: asthe rielus’ of uctatnec ioe woes it must give full weight to the trial
properly Sepesisicts Sedat Mic ectbv the Pe as determination the same as in any
expedites the efficient administration of ee oe see Ce eee
fiat t : reason and cites no authority for the
unique proposition that a di

I do not agree with'the protracted dis- plies to ake pleadings Fé mee ne “4
cussion in the ma jority opinion as to the ceeding than that applicable 4 pe ae
rahe for obtaining coram’ nobis and in other proceedings. The cat
pies mee » cing (See dis? ion is replete with statements that Hinge 2
ob : hiya yer m2 2d 503, at page legations cannot be believed, that they are
a oes = ‘ .) : he opinion holds not sincere, that they are mere conclusions
xpansion of the function and the like. On demurrer all the pleaded

of habeas corpus in this state, an applica- facts must be taken as Pies ine be
sorter er has become the proper lieved. That is especially true ess Se
= y to attack collaterally a judgment demurrer is general. Moreover, they must
‘ conviction which has been obtained in be liberally construed. Hudson v. Craf
Sole of fundamental constitutional $33 Cal.2d 654, 204 P.2d 1. Certainly srten
eid By that rule, the modern use of a man’s life is in the balance and consti
eos Ray pe nobis is judicially tutional issues are raised, the rule of liber.
a it is entirely unnecessary al construction is even more imperative
8 — rules of pleading applicable to a than in the ordinary case. It is said -in
entccaeh id Gebslieedtinorckee ke, WO, Ne Gee sak eet
= : n of those prin- : “The facts. set.out we ficiently
ciples were proper, I would state my rea- definite to raise the issu aici
ree gingrecins with much of what is Plea of guilty was emered jeviea es =
cusable mistake or ignorance of the ac-
ciprenast cused, and whether he was deprived of a
os i substantial defense which he might have

I’ dissent. urged on his trial. Under ick: circum-

é While i aay beSale that delordane tabs stances, the trial court could not arbi-
aa to allege sufficient facts to show due trarily refuse.a. full Hearing upom the Pett
izence—why he did ntdigne Pe aiocee ee The allegations. of a petition need
: vasis for his attack on the judgment be only prima facie sufficient for the grant-
an proceed accordingly, yet the demurrer 178 of such_a hearing.” See also, Howie
to his petition should not have been sus- State, 121 Miss. 197, 83 So. 158, 10 A
ep without leave to amend. He may L.R. 205.
e able to allege facts whi y
A a cee yy ie emia show ; Z the facts stated in the petition and af-
§ e oppor- fidavits, taken at their face vz i
Reis oe tee x Z reir face value, are in-
: o1 z Ci
pas t= Tae tlre oes rhs also sufficient as a matter of law to constitute
ged defects in a ground or basis for relief, the demurrer

{. The 1949 amend sec ( .
: amendment to section 1265 the : € S
f tl 20 Pe Ve present procedural steps (Stat
the Penal Code has avoided some of 1949, Ch. 1309 [A i 20 3) ) -
oO , a 30 A.D. ‘ .


d to visualize
fifteen miles
‘to that chill,

‘cet would be
> specializing
retable crops,
th Or The

University.

ed up near a
and citizens
vd parked. I
face down
lowed field
small black

aro. started

senssi és
Ce

* At°(2) the victim’s body was found where: she had
_“ been.caught by the killer as she fled across the field.
.#fAt (2) police found the green feather, which was .

athe vital clue. Saturnine and mysterious, with the
thin mustache of a movie villain, this man turned
ies out to be a villain in real life.

evidence yet?”

Cuffaro nodded. “Bloodstains gn’ the
road and tire marks that look good. The’
officers are guarding them. No identifi-
cation, of course.”

With Cuffaro and his able fellow
deputies working with me on the case,
I knew we would solve the murder riddle
if it were solvable.

Cuffaro continued hurriedly. “An elec-
trician saw the body as he drove by.
Another motorist was right behind him.
They used their heads. One stayed here
on guard and the other drove to Palo
Alto to report it.” ;

That moment I noticed’a car high-
balling down the highway. It pulled in

“veer theeedge of the road and the fetice

bordering the field. Inghis way we,could

‘i

wide .grasg and

be certain not fo destroy,,possible dlues.

And this might occur if we all.weresto @-

‘barge in at once toward the body. ** |

We began with the ‘atitomobile, ‘tire ,

tracks which were being guatded by Palo®™
Alto Officer Grady. Fritz, who had Been gh

first at the scene. Since curiousӢitizens

began arriving in considerable;numbers) ~

almost at once, we quickly detailed offi-
cers to re-route traffic away from the
scene and to clear the growing crowd |
back a hundred yards in all directions
from the cross roads to protect*whatever
clues were there. Ae

The car which had made the tread
marks had been pulled in sharply at. a

forty-five degree angle off, the paved ,

road, I knelt down to examine the one » &
x x F al

&


eer

she took a terrific beating,” Ryder
exclaimed as soon as he saw the face.
jaw bone is broken. But there
lo not seem to be any heavy bruises or

cuts to indicate that she was dragged any
listance.”
He paused a moment, then lifted one

of the neatly manicured hands. “Look at
this,” he cried.

| looked more closely. The black earth
partly covered a costly ring consisting of
a large diamond set in a cluster of smaller
ones. Finding the ring tended to elimi-
nate turther any robbery motive.

\s though reading my _ thoughts,
Ryder said. “Roughly I'd guess eight or
ten hours since death.”

This would mean that the murder had
occurred between midnight and 2 o'clock
that morning,

I at once arranged for Dr, Bert Davis
to take N-rays of the head and hands
before pertorming the autopsy.

Betore leaving the scene, we found
blood smears exactly three feet up on the
held side of the black acacia tree as
though the slayer had placed his hand
there, and blood traces on the fence rails,

I directed Special Deputy Sheriff

+6

John St. Francis, who lived near by, to
saw out the fence rails for evidence, and
we made a cast of the man’s footprint
found beside the corpse.

The nearest house was about 500 feet
away; other farm dwellings were scat-
tered along the roads distances of sev-
eral hundred yards or more apart. Pyne
and Larson agreed to check these resi-
dents for some possible clue while Cuf-
faro and I hastened on into Palo Alto.

At the funeral parlor Cuffaro and I
scraped the girl’s fingernails carefully,

folding and marking the deposits from

each in a clean sheet of white paper for
future reference.

The girl had been a real beauty, we
now realized. She was 5 feet 2 inches in
height, weighed 125 pounds, had natural
reddish blonde hair and a perfect form.
Her eyes were blue-gray and we agreed
she had been about 26 years old. Her
white even teeth were almost flawless,
the type of teeth a professional model
would delight in.

But still, lacking her identity, we had
little to work on. Cuffaro and T decided
our best lead was the peculiar brooch.
While Dr. Davis did the autopsy, we left

with the brooch to determine what the
script initials were. A near-by jeweler
reported they were “B.C.” and that the
ornament was a type sold only by the
better stores.

With this definitely established, we ap-
pealed to the newspapers to co-operate
with us by publishing complete descrip-
tions of the slain young woman, her cloth-
ing and the initialed plastic brooch. We
also radioed and teletyped her complete
description to every police and sheriff's
office in California, with the urgent re-
quest that missing women reports be
checked. Police of Palo Alto, Redwood
City, San Jose and other near-by cities
also began an intensive search of hotels
and rooming houses tor trace of a van-
ished girl who fitted her description

Phil Cuffaro began checking with va-
rious service stations and wholesale tire
firms in an attempt to trace the Mara-
thon tire, while I started back to the
mortuary to obtain the autopsy results.

A police car swung around the corner
ahead of me and the driver at once put
on his brakes, with his left hand flagging
me down. As I slowed I recognized
Leon S. Lawrence, a veteran Palo Alto
detective. Seated with him was
another veteran officer, Sheriff
Emig.

“We've got a hot lead,” Law-
rence cried. “A girl who fits
the description to a T was reg-
istered in a hotel here. Checked
out last night.”

“Go ahead, I'll follow you,”
I called out, whipping my car
around in the street.

AWRENCE drove rapidly

through the pleasant, tree-
shaded peninsula town, turned
several corners and pulled up in
front of a modest two-story ho-
tel just off the main street. I
parked alongside.

The story we get,” Emig ex-
plained as they got out, “is that
this blonde girl and a soldier
registered here two days ago as
man and wife. Guests in the
next room heard them quarrel-
ing last night and they sud-
denly checked out, very late.”

The three of us barged into
the hotel and quickly located the
manager.

“T told the maid not to touch
the room,” he said, “until after
you looked it over.”

The hotel man led the way to
a second story room. Quickly
selecting a passkey, he opened
the door, going in first, followed
next by Lawrence

The inspector started across
the room, halting beside a waste
basket. He stooped over, care-
fully lifting scraps of paper and

Deputy Sheriff Phil Cuffaro
compares the tire from the right
front wheel of the suspect’s car
with plaster cast of tire tracks
made at the scene of the murder.

STARTLING

Gone is the
tion in the

an empty (
said, “her
hoped to f
of reddis!
It was
hair, 1 de
the room
value.
“How
rence ask
“Priva
hotelman
from a1!
“Desci
eagerly
The h
about t\
brown |
would 1
and sta)
“Let
rence al
army C
on the
Don't t
over it
We
police
eral lo!
a micr
hairs <
side 01
superf
very >
ment t
Law
to the
the r
“The
“Ther
Goetz

An
DET


torney Ameglio An-
dreucetti, left, ques-
tiens Dr. Bert Davis
who performed the au-
topsy and took the
X-ray pictures of the
Slain girl’s skull.

Assistant District At-

clear tread in the black loam more closely,

The tread was a peculiar offset dia-
mond and half-diamond pattern. |
recognized it as a Marathon tire, an
inexpensive make which had been dis-
continued several years by the Goodyear
tire people.

Cuffaro knelt beside me. “Look at this,
Phil,” I said, pointing with a pencil to
th® outside of the tread which came to
a point at uniform distances of several
inches apart on each side. “If I remember
right, the outside of all the new tire
treads are smooth, not pointed.”

“That’s right,” he agreed, ‘They are.”

That actual tread was made of a series
of large diamond patterns centered, with
half-diamonds of heavy rubber making
up the balance of the tire surface.

highway shoulder about thirteen feet
north of the tree. It was almost three
feet in cliameter. Evidently the woman
had fallen here in her desperate attenipts
to escape from the murderer or mur-
derers. Near by was another smaller spot

Working back south I found traces
which had been largely obliterated by the
tires of vehicles passing before discovery
of the murder

Farther south, about fifty-five feet
from the tree were scattered blood spots
There | found a woman's brown comb.
Several teeth were broken out and scat-
tered along the highway. ‘

At this moment Deputy George Pyne
shouted, “Here’s a woman’s black shoe.”
Several of us hurried toward him. The
pump was just off the highway, about

north of thet
and the marks
the road.
1 pickec
gathered arot
type of hat or!
might wear.
It was made
cock and qual
most promine
ring necked j
nated, howeve
ment. What s
tance to me W
been broken
death battle \
sure that no
worn it.
Carefully »
and the other
in envelopes
took blood sa:
spots. Aiter a
to get to the
in a methodi
obvious, fro
one large b
killer had 1
methodical
later on in
to justice.
feather to
off the mu
feather in
less slaye)
Now W
We begal
eriminolo

j
1

“Tl make a plaster of Paris cast,” thirty-five feet south of the tree. Bending
Phil said, starting toward his car for over to examine it more closely, | saw

¥

Bez

Ye
‘

the equipment.

The other deputies scattered at inter-
vals along the near-by highway area and
began carefully working back through
the dry grass and weeds of the right of
Way.

Meanwhile, I decided to make a quick
sketch of the bloodspots on the highway,
in relation to the black acacia tree near-
est the woman’s body.

I found the first crimson spot on the

When beautiful Kathleen Robinson was
murdered eight years ago the same
man was brought to trial but acquitted.

that this was similar to patent leather but
of a new type substance with a sheen to
it, the type of pump a girl would wear for
‘an evening of dancing, most likely.

Pyne made note of the manufacturer's
numbers inside the shoe, which seemed
fairly new,

While Officer Loren Ramsey, the Palo
Alto police photographer, took various
shots of clues and the scene, we continued
the search, finding a man's clean, un-
marked white linen’ handkerchief also
in the weeds.

We worked in nearer the focal tree
through the weeds and grass. At almost
the identical moment several of us saw
the broken green feather. It lay just

STARTLING


thirteen feet
almost three
ly the woman
erate attempts
lerer or mur-
‘T smaller spot.
found traces
Iterated by the
tore discovery

hity-five feet
d blood spots,
brown comb
out and scat-

George Pyne
black shoe.”
rd him, The
Way, about
ree. Bending
Selv. | saw
t leather but
1 a sheen to
ud wear tor
likely

lufacturer’s
ich seemed

¥. the Palo
Ik Various
Cr utinued
clean, un.
chief also

north of the tree, between the!
and the marks left by the auto
the road. ;

I picked it up gingerly w
gathered around. The fea’
type of hat ornament a sport
might wear. i

Tt was made by blendin
cock and quail feathers, w
most prominent. The /eyé
ring necked pheasant, feather »predomi-
nated, however, in the unusual arrange-
ment. What seemed of most vital impor- '
tance to me was that the feather'stem had
been broken off, perhaps in the girl’s
death battle with the owner, for I was
sure that no local farmer would have
worn it. «a

Carefully we placed this green feather
and the other evidence so far uncovered
in envelopes or containers, and quickly
took blood samples from the three largest
spots. After all, much as we were anxious
to get to the body, we had to work now
in a methodical manner. It seemed fairly
obvious, from the near obliteration of
one large bloodspot by traffic, that the
killer had many hours’ head start, Our
methodical care now might pay off well
later on in bringing her slayer or slayers
to justice. We decided not to mention the
feather to the press in order not to tip
off the murderer. Shreds of that identical
feather in a hat might well send the ruth-
less slayer to the gas chamber.

Now we were ready to take the field.

We began working clockwise in the usual
criminological method with the body of

DETECTIVE

Mim in the center. From a distance
it ninety feet we walked slowly in
ircle through the clods of black

soil, noting and marking whatever evi-
dence we might

find, as we closed in.
- The girl’s body lay face down, the feet
toward Alma Street at a ninety degree
angle. Her hands were folded under her,
her feet together, toes pointed backward.

The thing that impressed me as
strangest in this death was that her face
had been buried deep in the black earth
as though it had been pushed there by
some powerful arm.

A clod of hard earth about eight inches
in diameter was over the head and back
of the neck, which were bloodstained. A
gaping wound in the back of the head
resembled a gunshot wound.

Three inches from the girl’s left knee
we saw and marked one print of a man’s
left shoe, size about eight and a half, toe
pointing back toward the road. Then we
decided to turn the body over carefully.
Several deputies helped me.

The girl’s hair was a pretty reddish
blonde. She had been in her middle twen-
ties, and despite several cuts and bruises
across the regular features, must have
been more than usually attractive in life,
I judged.

The body was clad in a stylish black
dress. A light tan, beaded band was
around the waist and fan up in a V pat-
tern over the shoulders from the waist
front. The left side had been torn, doubt-
less in her desperate struggles against the
unknown assailant.

ELT ET

Pinned on the breast was an unusual
brooch. The initials “B.C.” or “R.C.”
were in old fashioned large gold script
letters on a dark reddish brown plastic
background. This and the clothing
seemed to be the only possible clue that
might aid us in making identification.
We had found .no pockethook or other
article which might hold a clue to her
identity. The second black pump, coat
and hat were also missing.

Phil Cuffaro knelt near
pointing to the knees

“What do you make of this!
exclaimed.

It was peculiar. The knee of each nylon
stocking was torn as though the girl had
been dragged across a floor somewhere
in her death struggles. The skin of each
knee also was scratclred, but not as deep
a wound as would have resulted had she
been dragged across the sharp gravel of
the macadam road.

I glanced up as Deputy Coroner Harry
Ryder arrived with a hearse. At once he
climbed over the two rail wood and wire

- fence toward us to make an examination.

the body,

”

he

Sheriff William J.
Emig and Deputy
Sheriff Phil Cuffaro,
right, examine dress
worn by the victim.
Note the brooch with
initials “B. C.” This
detail, included in the
description, identified
pretty Bernice Curtis.

63s

Se a

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a


bein

:
e
rf
2
+
5
z
5
§,
‘

aa Cay

% Ta i Ps Ti ra) Se ee Cy ae
bar ahied Nahe bandied ded gg Wr ede de eg OM LOLS Tee

Guilty

I knew that I was right. But

it is not easy to send

a man to the gas chamber

BY MRS. DOROTHY REA

M@ I START TO CRINGE inside when I hear people
talking about a murder trial. It may be at a
party or on the trolley or in the lobby of a
theater, but too often : overhear a conversation
like this:
" “T see where the case is going to the jury.”
“Yes, I wonder if they’ll convict.”
“You never can tell. I know if I was on that
jury, it. wouldn’t take more than ten minutes.”
“That’s what I say. You know, I’ve never
been on a jury. Must be a real experience.”
“Heavens, yes. I’ve never been called either.
I'd give anything to know what goes on in the
jury room.’
Talk like that puts me on edge because it

continued on next page

<——Frank- Alcalde, executed in 1944, is said
to have died with curses on his lips.

17


a ee

chief stated, “although he didn’t have any
mustache at the time. But he did have a
green, 1934 Chevrolet sedan.” :

At the end of the conference it was
decided to pick up Alcalde and bring him
to headquarters for questioning.

The fellow was completely at ease and
suave when he was ushered into the
office of the chief. One glance and Drexel
felt sure he was looking at the man the
flower store clerk had described.

“Hello chief,” Alcalde greeted Belloni
airily, “still trying to hang that old killing
on me? I should think you’d know by
this time I had nothing to do with it.”

Belloni said, ‘No, Florencio, not that
one. Another. Ever hear of Bernice
Curtis?”

Alcalde blanched and licked his lips as
though at a loss for words. Quickly
though, he regained his composure.
“Never heard of her. What’s it all about?”

Chief Belloni’s face was emotionless,
his voice hard and low as he said, “We'll
see about that. Where were you the night
of November 22?”

For awhile Alcalde fenced words with
the old lawman, denying he ever had
heard of the murdered girl and offering
an alibi for the Friday night when the

victim’s death occurred. But when the
chief ordered him locked up for further
investigation, he burst into a torrent of
abuse, accusing the police of persecuting
him and trying to frame him.

As soon as Alcalde was safely in a cell,
detectives went to his room to search it.
There they found a picture of Bernice
Curtis—the gir] the suspect claimed he
did not know. In a clothes closet they
found a hat and under its band was the
quill of a small feather with a few blue
strands still clinging to it.

Later when they located the garage
where he kept his green Chevrolet sedan,
the same one he had owned at the time
of the Kathleen Robinson investigation, it
was discovered the tire treads fitted one
set of casts taken at the scene of the
murder. Moreover, there were fresh blood
stains on the front seat next to the driver’s
and on the back were several strands of
blond hair. From the rear view mirror
they took a thumbprint.

At the police laboratory it was quickly
proved the blood was the same type as
that of Bernice Curtis. Moreover, the
thumbprint was hers and so were the hair
strands. Examined under the microscope,
the broken ends of the piece of quill found

under Alcalde’s hatband and the bluexg

feather fitted together perfectly.

But even with all this evidence against”

him, Alcalde continued to insist he was 3%

innocent. He finally admitted he knew “ae
the victim but said he had not seen her in »
several weeks. He denied making the ~
telephone calls. He said he had sent her: ¥°
the roses because they had quarreled two >

weeks before and they were a peace .

offering.
Alcalde admitted he was known as

“Frank” after Mrs. Ash and the victim’s ,

roommate, Elsie Martin, identified him,
He said he had taken that name because
of the publicity he had received at the time
of the Robinson killing.

So tight was the net of circumstantial
evidence drawn around Alcalde and so
thoroughly did Prosecutor Andreucetti
prepare his case, that when he was
brought to trial on February 24, 1943, he
was convicted of first degree murder
without recommendation for mercy. Even
then he continued to protest his innocence.

But his protestations were to no avail
for upon the usual appeal to the higher
court, the conviction and sentence were
upheld and he was executed August 18,
1944, in the gas chamber at San Quentin.

Real
Winnie Ruth
Judd Story

[Continued from page 17]

feeling. I knew Sammy’s propensity for
flirting with men or women, and I feared
that she was sitting on a keg of dynamite.
Yet I had no premonition of tragedy. I
had known the same situation before and
usually it ends in an unpleasant flareu

but with nothing more serious than hair
pulling, screaming and black eyes.

As the weeks passed, I spent as much
time with Sammy as I could. Anne
watched over her like a mother hen and
Sammy seemed to like it. She was warm
and friendly toward me, but that feeling
we had back in Whitehall was gone and
I knew it never would return. I saw a
great deal of Ruth Judd and her husband.
They always seemed to be with Sammy
and Anne when I went there in the
evenings,

Ruth was a woman you never got to
know very well. She seemed to live ina
strange and bewildering world of her
own. Sometimes she would be animated
and talkative, even a little too much, and
then she would lapse into a grim silence
and stare at Sammy, watching her every
nove. '

Toward her husband she was change-
able. Sometimes she would hold his hand
and act as if she were madly in love with
him. Then this would change and she
did not seem to know he was around. The
letters the husband later showed to the
police indicated the same thing. In one
she would be warm and affectionate and
plead with him to be with her, while in
the next letter you would have the im-
pression she was writing to an older
brother.

I often wondered, while I was with
them, how Dr. Judd really felt about
Ruth’s infatuation with Sammy. He never
showed his feelings by a sign or word,

54

but a close neighbor later told me she
often heard him admonishing Ruth about
Sammy and Anne.

This was the general picture on August
15 when Dr. Judd had to go to Santa
Monica. He pleaded with Ruth to ac-
company him, and I understand the argu-
ment got pretty hot over her feeling
toward Sammy. But the doctor left alone.

At this time Anne began to show the
strain of caring for Sammy and at the

_ same time holding down a difficult posi-

tion at the clinic. She left for a trip to
Portland, Ore., to get some rest and Ruth
moved in with Sammy .

I didn’t see Sammy during that time.
Ruth closed the door to all visitors. I
worried a great deal, but no such thoughts
as murder or tragedy were on my mind.
Anne’s trip to Portland was cut short by a
letter she received from Ruth. It was full
of insinuations about how Sammy had
found in her a person to take Anne’s place.
It ended with a series of episodes of
Sammy flirting with the ice man and other
men. Obviously the letter was written to
annoy Anne.

NNE took the first train back to Phoe-
nix. There was a terrific row and
Anne ran Ruth and her baggage out of the
house. She took an apartment on Brill
Street. That afternoon Sammy called me
aud asked me to come out and see her.
The girl was upset and nervous. Knowing
how emotional such fights can get, I laid
her condition to this, not suspecting then
that Sammy foresaw what was to happen.
Much has been written about the men
in Sammy’s and Anne’s life. In one ver-
sion of the story I read where the night
before the murder, Ruth drove up to the
bungalow on Second Street with two men.
The men went inside, and through the
window, she saw one of them kissing
Sammy. This was given as the motivation
for the murders. Men did visit Sammy
and Anne, but these calls had nothing
whatever to do with what followed.

The man of mystery may have had a
great deal to do with the murders or he
may have had very little. I can only give
the facts as I saw them in those weeks
preceding that fatal night of October 16.

Things weren’t quite the same after

Anne returned and Ruth was kicked out
bodily and not too gently. Sammy was
nervous and jumpy and she spent a great
deal of time in bed. Anne was grim and
silent, saying little.

I visited them several times, but each
visit was such a strain that I only went
when Sammy called me. I know now that
Sammy wanted to confide in me and I’m
sure @hat she was on the verge of doing
so several times when we were alone to-
gether.

Apparently Ruth made up with the two
because during the first week in October,
she was at the bungalow several times
when I dropped in. Nothing in her actions
or manner indicated hatred. Anne toler-
ated her and Ruth didn’t seem to care
much how she acted.

On October 13, three days before the
murders, I got a frantic call from Sammy.
I rushed out to the bungalow and as I
neared it, I caught a fleeting glimpse of a
man walking hurriedly away from the
house.

When I entered the bungalow, Sammy
was lying across the bed, crying hysteri-
cally. I took her in my arms and after
a while her sobs stopped. “Estie .

Estie,” she whispered. “I...1... am
afraid...1I...I1... can’t tell you any-
thing ... but take care of me...I...
I... want to leave here...”

My brain couldn’t have been working
very well. I didn’t connect the man I had
seen leaving the bungalow with Sammy.
If I had, and had asked her about this
person, the strangest part of the mystery
might have been cleared up long ago.

By this time I was thoroughly alarmed.
The next day I went-+to the clinic to talk
to Anne. I was told she was in the X-ray
room, and as I walked down the hall, the
door to this room opened and a man came
out. He moved swiftly and was around
the corner before I could get more than
a side angle glance at him.

Anne was in a surly and angry mood.
I suppose I shouldn’t have talked to her
then about Sammy. She snapped me off
before I got many words out and turned
and walked away from me.

The cloud of doubt and fear that hung
over me seemed to lift for a few minutes
on that evening of October 16. I decided
to go to the bungalow and have it out


‘ ‘gy

ba
rhe

was nothing more

further, the in#
o leave when he!
long-j

dozen
most faded, in aj

. “Whase were}
ioment’ 3"

fter

«
Miss Curtis three’

landlady replied.\4
lowers from ad-%
concentrated’ on;
aring the giver's |
Turning to Mrs, 4

, “Did she bring 4

" they delivered ?”?#
“That’s right, a ©

n late one after- »

ore the poor girl 4

n the hall down
hem up when she

her there was a
x?”

oughtful. “Can’t
there was some
red when I threw

f a minute before

alized that what 4%

potas

-a hot lead had 4
}instant later his %

the woman said,
1 be in the trash

$

i
4
'
‘
i
a
r

petro

don’t believe it’s |%

e refuse removal

sstigator long to
waste paper and
90n he withdrew
impled and torn,
o the receptacle.
oticed the name
Frar ~ florist
n tu to the

ere was a note of
ice as he waited

said. “I'm sure
box of flowers
ag

house get any
el inquired.
head. “Not that

walked into the
1¢ box had come
a counter asked
‘mbered it.

id. “We put out
ay,” he replied.
hat one?”

rator mentioned
is and the street
ed, the fellow
n a moment re-
ds familiar and

eve we've sent @

the past month.
d book.”
an turned pages

ie pointed to an #

them,” he said.
er 20, a Friday,

irdered body of ,
The girl's name ‘#

ut there was no “#8

Th- ---eg had :@
n th ernoon
ly. ay

el pressed.

em, but maybe /§
the store at the @

layer.”
elpful.

llow looked like 5

After a q dl
dded. He said @

the flowers were bought by a darkly hand-
some, well-dressed man he judged to he
about 30 years old, who had flashed a
large roll of bills when he paid for them.
Pressed for -a closer description by
Drexel, the clerk said the man had a small,
black mustache, a large diamond ring
on his left hand and that after receiving
change, left the store and entered a green
sedan parked outside and drove away.

Satisfied now that he might be on the
right track although he had no name of
the buyer of the roses, Drexel returned
to Palo Alto where he conferred with
Sheriff Emig and District Attorney An-
dreucetti. While the lawmen realized that
some other admirer than her doom date
might have sent the roses to Bernice, they
felt the lead warranted putting out a bulle-
tin describing the flower purchaser. At
the same time, plainclothesmen were dis-
patched to question Mrs. Ash, the slain
woman’s sister, the roommate and the
landlady to determine if any of them
recognized such a man as the florist’s clerk
described.

The result of this move was encourag-
ing. All three women immediately said it
sounded like a “Frank” that Bernice had
introduced them to. Mrs. Arnold said
I*rank had called for Bernice several times
in a green sedan. But none of them ever
had heard his last name.

While the investigation now narrowed
to a search for a mysterious handsome
Frank, with a black mustache, who drove
a green sedan, Drexel turned back to the
telephone company where the request
had been made to trace the long distance
calls from South San Francisco to the
rooming house where Bernice Curtis lived.

7

aoe report from the telephone com-

pany came sooner than had been ex-
pected. This was due to the fact few long
distance calls were made to the pay station
booth in the hall of Mrs. Arnold’s rooming
house. The records of three such calls
were uncovered, the last having been made
on Saturday, November 21, from a public
booth in the shipyards of the Western
Pipe and Steel Company, in South San
Francisco.

On each of the three occasions when
the long distance operator had completed
the calls and asked for the name of the
caller, a man had given a different name.
These were recorded as Harry Albright,
Alfred Stevens and Fred Hartwick.

Drexel was suspicious of this, wonder-
ing if Miss Curtis would be likely to
know three different men, all available
to the same plant telephone booth. Nor
was he wrong in his suspicions. A quick
check of the employes of the shipyard
showed there was not at the time, nor
had there ever been, anyone working there
by any of those names.

After explaining his theory to Sheriff
Emig, Drexel suggested that two deputies
be sent to South San Francisco to make
a closer investigation at the shipyard.
George Pyne and Roy Larson, both top-
flight men, were instructed to have a look
at all the “Franks” employed at Western
Pipe and Steel and to consult with Chief
of Police Louis Belloni of South San
Irancisco.

For two days the deputies, with the
full cooperation of the shipyard manage-
ment, looked over employes named Frank,
but not one of the more than a hundred
men so named even came close to answer-
ing the description given by the florist’s
clerk.

The telephone booth from which the
long distance calls were made proved to
be in a long corridor and easily available

to more than 2000 men working in three
departments. The fact all three calls were
made at night meant little as the establish-
ment was working twenty-four hours a
day. Hundreds of the employes were
shifted from day to night work regularly
while others put in overtime after a full
day's work, sometimes remaining at their
posts until midnight.

Discouraged in his quest for the mys-
terious “Frank” by this method, Sheriff
Emig requested Chief Belloni of South
San Francisco to have detectives concen-
trate on the search of men’s clothing
stores for hats with blue feathers in the
bands, similar to the one found at the
scene of the crime. So many leads having
pointed to the industrial suburb, it seemed
plausible that if the killer actually was
working there he would have bought some
of his clothes in the town, perhaps the
hat.

Late one afternoon, after many weary
hours of visiting innumerable haber-
dasheries, Sgt. August Terragno was

about ready -to call it a day when he

dropped into one of the better men’s
shops. As he had been doing since morn-
ing, he asked the same question, “Do you
sell men’s hats with blue feathers, red
tipped, in the bands?” -

The clerk nodded, turning toward the
hat department in the rear. “We sure
do,” ihe replied pleasantly. “Come this
way.’

Terragno examined several hats none
of which seemed to please him.

“Does the feather have to be blue with
a red tip?” the clerk inquired pleasantly.
“We had some during the summer, but
they seem to be all sold out.”

Taking his problem to the store man-
ager, the sergeant asked, “Is there any
way of finding out who bought them?”

The manager shrugged. “Only those
purchased on charge accounts could be
traced. We could tell you that but it
would take a little time.”

It seemed like a forlorn hope, consider-
ing there were something more than 400
such accounts and the sale of the hats
dated back to July when the shipment was
first put in stock, but after Terragno ex-
plained how vital the information was,
the manager promised to make the re-
quested check.

Three days later Chief Belloni had a
list of seventeen charge customers who
had bought one of the feathered hats. The
number was quickly reduced to four when
thirteen purchasers were found to be men
who could not have had any part in the
murder of Bernice Curtis. Of the four,
three were men about whom little was
known while one worked at the Western
‘Pipe and Steel Company shipyard. This
customer’s name was Florencio Alcalde.

Chief Belloni whistled softly when he
read the name and instantly telephoned
Sheriff Emig. “Better come down here
right away,” he said.

When the sheriff and County Investi-
gator Drexel arrived, they were hardly
prepared for what Belloni had to report.

“This fellow Alcalde,” he told them,
“was a hot suspect in the murder of
Kathleen Robinson, the pretty little
laundry worker, who was found out on El
Camino Highway eight years ago. But
we couldn't get enough on him to bring
him to trial and the case never was solved.
Remember it?”

The Santa Clara County officials did,
although they had nothing to do with the
case at the time. Drexel then repeated
the description of the fellow who had
bought the flowers and who owned the
green sedan, known only as “Frank.”

“That could be Alcalde, all right,’’ the

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Doom Date for
Bernice

[Continued from page 35]

Squad, joined the investigation. District

Attorney Ameglio Andreucetti, of Santa -

Clara County, recalling the furore created
by the unsolved murder of pretty Kathleen
Robinson eight years earlier, put aside
all except the most pressing business to
assist in the case.

The report of the autopsy conducted by
Dr. Burt L. Davis, revealed Bernice had

died of a fractured skull. There also had.

been a secondary skull fracture, inflicted
after death, and a broken jaw, the latter
occurring before the fatal blow on the
head. In addition, three fingers of the
right hand were broken and the upper
portion of the body bore bruises that indi-
cated the woman had been cruelly beaten.

There was no evidence of any recent
sexual relationship. The time of death
was established as ten hours prior to the
autopsy, making it approximately 11
o’clock the evening of November 22. Just
when the body had been tossed in the
vacant field could not be determined with
certainty.

In an attempt to theck on as many of
the victim’s men friends as possible, In-
spector Husted haunted the cigar store
where she worked while Inspector Co-
rassa questioned Mrs. Martin, the room-
mate, again. Husted had no luck at all,
customers refusing to admit they knew
the girl beyond a speaking acquaintance.
Moreover, they said they never had seen
her on a date with anyone, though it was
too clear that Bernice’s latest date had
been one of doom.

VENTUALLY Corassa- learned the

first names of several young men Mrs.
Martin said she had heard Bernice men-
tion. There was a “Tom,” an “Al,” a
“Frank,” a “Harry” and an “Adrian.” She
couldn’t recall others although she said
she believed there were many more who
had taken the young woman out at one
time or another during the two years they
had roomed together.

Mrs. Arnold, the landlady, said Bernice
had made and received many telephone
calls in the booth in the hall, but that she
had no idea to whom or from whom.

Upon being pressed about the phone
calls, Mrs. Arnold said she did remember
two or three times fairly recently when
she answered the phone, the operator had
asked for Miss Curtis, stating South San
Francisco was calling. This lead seemed
to offer little, when considering the com-
munity of more than 15,000 population
was packed with war workers, but Inspec-
tor Corassa thought it worthwhile to
check the telephone company in an effort
to trace the origin of the long distance
calls if possible.

The day after the discovery of the
murder David Burd, at the Sacramento
crime laboratory, reported the stains on
the rock and the shaving from the fence
rail were human blood and that it was
of the same type as that of the victim.
The strands of blond hair also came from
the head of Miss Curtis, he said. But
scrapings taken from underneath her
fingernails had produced no evidence of
human tissue or skin.

As to the blue, red-tipped feather, it
definitely was from a bird and not arti-

52

ficial except that the red tip had been
colored with dye. Moreover, the part
County Investigator Drexel had found
was approximately two-thirds of the
whole, the lower part having been broken
off.

Drexel, who had been examining the
report, turned to Sheriff Emig. ‘This
feather business might be the clue that
will lead us to the man we want,” he said.
“T figure it might be a decoration worn in

‘men’s hatbands.”

The sheriff shrugged. “Could be,” he
rejoined, “but it will be quite a job to
find out who owned the one hat out. of
thousands sold we are looking for, won't
it?”

“Right,” said Drexel. “I’m not going to
start looking for that one hat for the time
being. But if we pick up a suspect we'll
take a look: under his hatband for the
lower part of the feather. If we find it,
we have our killer.”

Nevertheless, the county investigator
assigned several detectives to visit haber-

dasheries in Palo Alto in search for men’s.

hats with similar feathers. He also re-
quested Inspector Latulipe, in San Fran-
cisco, to do the same there on the slim
chance of success.

Meantime, not being satisfied with the
meager information obtained about the
slain woman from her roommate and
landlady, Drexel returned to the rooming
house in San Francisco where he found
Mrs. Arnold.

“Thought I’d better take another look

Inspector Husted figured out a way to
learn the identity of the lovely victim.

around the girl’s room,” he told her

pleasantly. “You don’t mind?”

Mrs. Arnold smiled. “Of course not,”
she said, leading the way to the well
furnished second-floor chamber where
Miss Curtis had lived with Elsie Martin.

As in the first search, nothing of im-
portance was found by Drexel after an
hour’s examination of the victim’s per-
sonal effects. If she had kept an address
or date book, containing names and tele-
phone numbers of male friends, it was
nowhere to be found. Neither were there
any personal letters.

“She got very little mail,” Mrs. Arnold
explained, when Drexel asked about cor-
respondence. ‘“Maybea half dozen letters
in all the time she lived here.”

At last satisfied there was nothing more)
to be gained by looking further, the in-}
vestigator was about to leave when he‘

noticed a bouquet of a dozen long-.

stemmed red roses, almost faded, in a’
“Whose were ¥
these?” he inquired after a moment's {

vase on a small table.

silence.

“Oh, they came for Miss Curtis three’}
or four days ago,” the landlady replied. 4

“She often received flowers from ad-
mirers.” Drexel

name but found none. Turning to Mrs.

Arnold again, he asked, “Did she bring 4

them in herself or were they delivered?”

The woman nodded. “That’s right, a
messenger brought them late one after-
noon a day or two before the poor girl
died. I left the box in the hall down
stairs and she brought them up when she
came in that evening.”

“Do you recall whether there was a
florist’s name on the box?”

Mrs. Arnold was thoughtful. “Can’t
say that I do although there was some
printing on it that I noticed when I threw
it out the next day.”

Drexel’s enthusiasm of a minute before
sagged sharply as he realized that what
he had hoped would be a hot lead had
failed to materialize. An instant later his
spirits rose again when the woman said,
“But I think it may still be in the trash
barrel out in the alley. I don’t believe it’s
been emptied yet by the refuse removal
crew.”

It didn’t take the investigator long to
start going through the waste paper and
rubbish in the barrel. Soon he withdrew
a long carboard box, crumpled and torn,
that had been shoved into the receptacle.
Smoothing it out, he noticed the name
and address of a San Francisco florist
printed on the top, then turned to the
woman.

“TS THIS the one?” There was a note of
excitement in his voice as he waited
hopefully for her reply.

“Yes, that’s it,” she said. “I’m sure
because it was the only box of flowers
she has received in a week.”

“Anybody else in the house get any
during that time?” Drexel inquired.

Mrs. Arnold shook her head. “Not that
I know of.”

An hour later Drexel walked into the
florist shop from where the box had come
and after placing it on a counter asked
the proprietor if he remembered it.

The man shook his head. “We put out
many of those every day,” he replied.
“How could I identify that one?”

But when the investigator mentioned
the name of Bernice Curtis and the street
address where she lived, the fellow
scratched his head and in a moment re-
plied, “That name sounds familiar and
the address, too. I believe we’ve sent
several deliveries there in the past month.
Let me look at our record book.”

For five minutes the man turned pages
of a ledger until finally he pointed to an
entry. “There’s one of them,” he said.

The date was November 20, a Friday,
three days before the murdered body of
Miss Curtis was found. The girl’s name
and address were there but there was no
record of the purchaser. The roses had
been bought at 3 o’clock in the afternoon
and delivered immediately.

“Remember what the fellow looked like ee

who bought them?” Drexel pressed.
“Well, I didn’t sell them, but maybe

then concentrated’ on “
looking for a card bearing the giver’s }

i
£
ft

ae

4 Soeagrmmad th tea

Johnny here, who was in the store at the .» 7

time, will recall the purchaser.”

Johnny proved more helpful. After a -
moment’s thought he nodded. He said.


(Continued trom Page 34)

tened out when her strengtn was
exhausted.

The motorist got cautiously out of
his car and walked toward the
woman. He gct real close and saw
she had a gaping hole in the back
of her head. She not only was dead
but had been that way for some
time. It wasn’t hard to judge this
because the bright sun had spot-
lighted her for at least four hours
since dawn, and the flies, thousands
of them, had been very industrious.

Back to the road the an went.

He had to wait ten minutes:or more
before he could flag down another
car. The driver agreed to wait at the
scene while the motorist who found
the body drove into Palo Alto and
notified the police.
, He returned with Constable
Daniel Hickey, Deputy Sheriff Phil
Cuffaro~and Officers George Vogel
and Loren’ Ramsey. Before leaving
his office, Cuffaro had phoned Sher-
iff William Emig at San Jose.

Sheriff Emig arrived with Chief
Investigator Lee Drexel of the Dis-
trict Attorney’s Office in Santa Clara
County before the local men had
really had a chance to survey the
scene.

“No use plowing up things till the
coroner gets here,” Cuffaro said un-
hurriedly. “He promised he’d be
right over.”

They gazed at the dead woman.
Even in death she showed distinct
evidences of prettiness. She was
about 25, petite, a redhead. Not
flaming red, but blondish.

Sheriff Emig guessed her weight

at 120 pounds. The belt around her.

waist couldn’t have measured more
than 24 inches. Her feet were small
and well shod. Her torn nylons
«were ef good quality Phe dress was
definitely not bargain’ basement
merchandise.

Emig glanced around. He was
searching for the woman’s handbag.
It ‘was nowhere in sight and the
realization of this fact had a dis-
quieting fact on the Santa Clara
officer. Drexel nodded. He too had
noticed the absence of any handbag.
An added hurdle in the way of
identification.

There were no rings on the red-
head’s fingers. No wrist watch. No
jewelry of any kind. Drexel and
Emig exchanged glances. This one
wasn’t going to be easy. Not by the
looks of it, at least.

Deputy Coroner Harry Ryder
pulled up at the side of the road
with a hearse. The grim vehicle
looked particularly incongruous in
the glaring sunshine against a
cheerful background of green and
yellow foliage. He got out and strode
briskly toward the corpse.

“Bludgeoned,” Ryder pronounced.
“Not one blow or two but maybe a
half dozen or more. And whoever
wielded the weapon wasn’t just try-
ing to beat her. He hit her because
he wanted her to die. And he seem-

ed to like what he was doing. It’s
a cinch some of the blows were
showered on her after she died.”

“What kind of a weapon, Harry?”
Deputy Sheriff Phil Cuffaro asked.
“The usual blunt instrument or can
you narrow it down?”

“The usual, I’m afraid. Some-
thing heavy and narrow. Almost like
the butt of a gun but longer. I
think a ridged edge or edges.”

“And the time of death? How
close can you figure it?”

“Not too close, although I'd say
somewhere around midnight isn’t
very far off.”

The coroner turned the body over.
The woman's face had been beaten,
especially the jaw which seemed to
be broken. From the sheer violence
of the scene, and the obvious good
looks and shapely build of the vic-
tim, it appeared that robbery might
not be the motive for the slaying
even though her handbag was miss-
ing and she had nothing in the way
of jewelry on her person.

* * *

FFICER Loren Ramsey had his
Graflex and he took several
shots of the victim before her body
was carried.to the hearse. Coroner
Ryder did not drive off immediately.
He remained to help with the search

for clues.

The motorist was Ed Healy.

“All right.” Cuffaro told him
briskly, “you can go now but drop
by my office later and sign a state-
ment. Thanks for your help.”

Chief Investigator Drexel found
the tread marks of a car that had
been pulled in off the paved road at
a point less than ten feet from
where the body lay. The tread was a
half diamond pattern and Drexel
roped off the tracks so that a cast
could be made. It was likely that
an auto had figured in the slaying.
Perhaps these were the tire treads
of the killer’s car.

A man in overalls ambled up to
the group of busily engaged officers.
He was the farmer on whose prop-
erty the body had been found. Ques-
tioned, he declared he hadn’t heard

‘a single sound that he could recall

as being suspicious, or that might
have prompted him to come over
and investigate.

“Me and Ma were abed at ten
o’clock,” he related. “Of course we
heard cars along the highway and
the usual screeching of brakes and
whizzing of automobiles easing
around the bends and turns, but
we hear that every night.

“Screams? No sir. Ma’s a light
sleeper and she would have heard.
And if she had heard, she’d have
sent me out with a shotgun to have
a look, you can bet!”

While Drexel made a plaster of
Paris cast of the tracks, Sheriff
Emig was examining the macadam

_road near the track marks. He found

a crimson stain, about a foot long.
Assuming that the tire treads were

from the slayer’s car and that the
crimson stain was blood, a likely
reconstruction that the killer had
stopped his auto and that the wom-
an, already terribly bludgeoned and
perhaps dying, had stumbled out
and tried to crawl away from her
tormentor.

Other stains, smaller in diameter,
indicated the woman’s tortured trail
toward the tall grass and weeds
that flanked the road. There, she
had sought a hiding place from the
pursuing killer. In the weeds, Emig
found a woman’s comb and a black
patent leather shoe. Only one shoe,
an identical patent leather pump,
had been found on the victim’s left
foot.

“That tells us a little,” Drexel
said cautiously. “She was riding in
the killer’s car which means he was
somebody she knew. With Cuban-
heel pumps like these she wouldn’t
have been traipsing along a desert-
ed highway on foot. Not around
midnight.

“She and her boy friend had a
fight. He hit her and she tried to
break clear. The second she struck
the macadam, he veered his auto
sharply off the road—these tracks
were made almost at a forty-five
degree angle—then he went after
her.

“Out there in the field he caught
up with his victim and finished her
off. He got Lack in the car and
beat it.”

A set of half-diamond tire marks,
a black comb, a dead body without
a single positive mark of identifica-
tion; these were the sum total of
clues the investigators were able
to gather. Would they be enough?

Deputy George Pyne, one of
Sheriff Emig’s most experienced
aides, joined the group with Assist-
ant District Attorney Ameglio An-
dreucetti and Deputy Roy Larson.
It was Pyne who pounced on a
broken green feather that lay al-
most completely hidden in a patch
of grass between where the’ body
had been found and the highway.

“Now this could be real help-
ful,” drawled Pyne, “if we get our-
selves a suspect. A dudish type of
feller would wear a hat with a
fancy little feather like this stuck -
right in his hat band. Maybe a
couple of feathers tied together.
This one broke off in the scuffle with
the girl. It could be we’d get a
lucky break and he’d never eve:
notice it was missing.”

* * *
REXEL completed the plaster
casts. He now took blood sam-
pies of the crimson stains found
on the macadam. The District At-
torney’s chief investigator was de-
termined to take full advantage of
every scrap of physical evidence he

‘could find.

The body was removed to San
Jose for autopsy. Drexel, Emig,

(Continued on page 38)


CASANOVA

(Continued from Page 38)

“No.’’

“Did you ever see him?”
- “Only his picture. She carried it
in her bag and showed it to me
once. He was dark, pretty tall, and
had a wavy little mustache. I. think
she mentioned he was working for a
shipyard company in Oakland.”

Ruefully, Pyne and_ Larson
‘thought of the missing handbag.

Bernice Curtis had lived in Chi-
cago until about a year ago. Then
she had come to San Francisco for
a while, and being bored had taken
the job in the cigar store. She had
wonderful clothes including the

black Persian lamb coat, jewelry,

enough money to last her for a
long time.

With her natural beauty and
charm, Bernice Curtis had indeed
been a worthwhile target for any
fast-talking adventurer.

There was little doubt in the .-

minds of the officers that “Frank”
and Private W. L. Goetz were one
and the same persons despite the
fact that the shipyard worker had
sported a mustache. Except for that
one detail their descriptions tallied
to a T. ?

Russ Yates was held as a material
witness while the killer was being
sought, but no actual suspicion was
directed at him.

Chief Investigator Drexel got
Coroner Ryder’s report of autopsy.
- Bernice Curtis had not been crimin-
ally violated. She had died of a
hemorrhage of the brain induced
by repeated blows with a heavy
blunt instrument.

Insofar as the autopsy showed, the
approximate time of death stood as
around midnight, November 23.

A detailed description of the
' wanted sweetheart of Bernice Cur-
tis was relayed to District Attorney

40 |

Ralph Hoyt and Sheriff Jack Glea-
ion of Alameda County, and they in
‘urn flashed the suspect’s descrip-
tion to Oakland, East’ Bay shipyard
police and coastal towns and ports
aear Oakland.

Leads came trickling through. A
motorist came to Drexel’s office and
revealed that on the night of No-
vember 23, a half hour past mid-
night, he had passed the murder
scene on his way to Palo Alto and
observed a green Chevrolet sedan
parked almost at right angles on the
shoulder of the road.

“I thought it funny at the time

‘but I didn’t want to get out and

investigate,” he said. “Too many
holdups lately. Then I got to reading
about the murder and...”

“You put two and two together?”

“Exactly. About that Chevy. It

was a 1935.”

The Chevy might have been the
killer’s. On the chance that it was,
a description was put on the wires.
That night, Police Sergeant August
Terragno of South San Francisco

called Drexel, and told him he had ~

spotted a 1935 green Chevrolet in a
parking lot used by workers in a
shipyard in South City. Terragno
hung around the lot at quitting time
to get a glimpse of the driver. The
man was about 30, dark, medium
build, clean-shaven.

“He looked pretty much like the
guy you're after,” Terragno said,
“so I jotted down his license num-
ber and checked it. Here is where it
really begins to look good. The car
is registered in the name of Flor;
encio Alcalde. That name struck a
bell so I checked back in our files.

“Alcalde, whose nickname by the
way is Frank, was involved in a
girl’s murder back in 1935, in San
Mateo. He wiggled loose from the
charge but the case was a lot like
the Bernice Curtis business. He
dated her the night she was killed
and they found her out on the road.
_ Drexel was quite sure they “had
something” but he acted cautiously.
Pyne was sent down to make a
secret cast of the car’s tires. One of
them, the rear left, was a Mara-
thon! The worn tread checked .ex-
actly with the cast Drexel had made
at the murder scene!

And on the car’s right front wind-
shield were several crimson spots,
no bigger than pinpoints. Uphol-
stery on the front seat showed ir-
regular light patches where soap
and water or some cleaning agent
had recently been used.

Alcalde was arrested while at
work. A search of his hotel room
disclosed a dark grey hat in which
the broken half of a Chinese ring
necked pheasant feather still was
stuck into the crown band.

But Alcalde was no callow ama-
teur. He steadfastly denied he had
ever known Bernice Curtis or that
he had even seen her. There seemed
no real way of breaking down his

bravado. And the weak link in the

police chain of evidence was that

nobody on record had seen the pair

together; neither Bernice’s relatives,

room mate, nor fellow employees.
& & *

was a policeman who cracked

Alcalde’s story, however. Inspec-
tor Frank Latulips, found a clear
print of Bernice Curtis’ middle
finger on the rear mirror of the
suspect’s car. David Burd, a State
Bureau of Investigation expert,
proved that the pinpoints on Al-
calde’s windshield were bloodstains
and that they were the same type
as the dead girl’s. He likewise
clinched the matter of the broxen
green feather. Microscopic tests
showed that the two pieces fitted
together with absolute accuracy.

On February 23, 1943, Florencio
“Frank” Alcalde, still unwilling to
admit his guilt, went on trial in
San Jose, before Superior Judge
William F. James for the wanton
murder of Bernice Curtis. A jury
of eight women and four men was
picked.

Assistant District Attorney Ameg-
lio Andreucetti presented the case
for the prosecution. He outlined to
the jury the State’s version of the
-killing:

Alcalde had been riding in his
car with his trusting sweetheart
around midnight on November 23.
They had a fight. Probably she had
pleaded with him to marry her. She
wanted no more of the secret and
shameful “Private and Mrs. A. L.
Goetz’ trysts. Enraged at her “nag-
ging” he hit her with a weapon
believed to be a car jack, one of
the tools missing from the prison-
er’s car. She managed to fling her-
self from the car and her attacker
and painfully she started t6 crawl
toward the protection of the trees
and high grass along the road’s
shoulder.

He caught up with her and finish-
ed her off. Then he fled. The argu-
ment had probably begun at a point
near the intersection where Russ
Yates had found the victim’s coat.

An ironical twist was given to
the trial when Alcalde named as
his defense attorney the able lawyer
who had successfully defended him
eight years before on the charge
of killing another sweetheart, Kath-
leen Robinson.

This time, however, the fates had
a sterner verdict in store for the
ruthless slayer. He was found guilty
of murder and the jury did not
deem it necessary to make a rec-
ommendation of leniency.

Three days after the trial ended,
on March 10, 1943, Florencio Al-
calde was sentenced by Judge James
to die in the gas chamber at San
Quentin.

Eprror’s Nort: The names Russ
Yates, Benjamin Trollope, Ed Healy
are fictitious.


OA MOMS 9H +SEE
tpi sStt Siw
gor ats ¢

‘Evidence trom the autopsy reports on Bernice Curtis played a large part in the
conviction of Florencio Alcalde for her murder. Above, Assistant District Attor-
ney Ameglio Andreucetti discusses a tell-tale fluoroscope plate with Dr. Bert Davis.

When he realized his position, “Frank” Alcalde lost the cockiness with which he
had defied police when first taken into custody (see. photo on page 33). Besides
the Curtis case, another similar incident helped. swing sentiment against him.

34)

The man fidgeted. “No, it doesn’t.”

“You got a bill of sale, maybe?
We always like t havea bill of...”

“Look, mister, I want twenty
bucks. The coat’s worth plenty more.
But I need dough. Exactly twenty
bucks. What d’ya say?”

“T say fine, if you'll tell me where
you got it.”

“All right, I found it. Satisfied?”

“You found a coat like this? A
black Persian lamb?” Mr. Trollope
was incredulous.

Frankly, the store owner was lik-
ing this less and less. He almost
wished the man had never walked
into his shop. A second hand store,
like a pawnshop, is subject to close

_ scrutiny by police and Mr. Trollope

had no desire to jeapordize his ex-
cellent reputation by buying a. coat
that might have been stolen.

~ “Look, Mr. Yates,” he said at last,
“I think we can work this thing out.
Let me call the Sheriff’s office.
They’ll send a man over here and

you can tell him how you got the.

coat. If he says okay, I'll buy it for
thirty dollars, not twenty. Fair?”

“Thirty dollars, eh?” The man
licked his lips. “Go ahead and call,”
he said defiantly. “I’m telling the
truth.”

A detective came. Yates explained
how he had found the coat lying on
the highway near the intersection
between Diss and Alma, the night
before, around midnight.

“What was I supposed to do, just
leave it there?” Yates demanded.

Reasonably, the detective argued
that it might be better all around if
Yates spent the day in jail sobering

up while the police checked up on

his story. To this, the befuddled man
hustled away to a San Jose jail.

‘I'll see you temerrew,” he told
Trollope. “Have that thirty bucks
ready!”

But Russ Yates did not return to
the second hand store. Not on the
next day or ever.

* * *&

BOUT 15 miles from San Jose, on
the outskirts of Palo Alto, there
is a pleasant macadam road that
twists gently past plowed fields and
lovely vistas of brightly painted red
barns, pastures, cows, chickens,
horses, and here and there a flock

of noisily honking geese.

Slim black acacia trees border the
highway but they are spaced far
enough apart so that a passing
motorist can glimpse the pretty farm
scenes beyond the highway.

At 9:15 on the morning of Novem-
ber 24, a motorist happened to
glance into a plowed field behind
the rim of trees and he saw a scene
that wasn’t so pretty.

A woman was lying face down in
the soft, rich earth. She was fully
clothed but her dress. was pulled
up over her knees and her arms and
legs were twisted into a crazy angle
as though she had been crawling
along the ground and then had flat-

if Continued on page 36)

Te

CASANOVA

(Continued from Page 36)

Pyne and Cuffaro mapped a plan
of operation. It was decided to
leave a half dozen sleuths at the
scene to continue a search of the
difficult terrain for any clues that
might have been overlooked.

The Missing Persons files in San
Jose, Palo Alto and adjoining cities
and counties would be examined al-
though there was little chance that
a,report on the dead womhin’s ab-
sence had already been filed. A
better bet would be to check police
blotters of the previous night. Per-
haps some frantic parent or husband
had telephoned.

Drexel had instructed Deputy
Coroner Ryder to strip the body of
its black dress, belt, shoe, stockings,
underwear and deposit the lot at the
District Attorney’s office for detailed
scrutiny for manufacturer’s labels,
laundry and tailor marks, etc. Local
shops might identify one of the
articles.

Also, the efficient investigator
wanted every scrap of parings from
under the dead girl’s finger nails.
And a complete dental chart.

Checking on the diamond, half-
diamond pattern of the tire marks,
police learned that it was a Mara-
thon, a tire discontinued by the
Goodyear company years ago. Depu-
ties canvassed gas stations, garages,
tire dealers for a possible
ead.

The broken green feather was
identitiea as peirig rrom a Uninese
ring necked pheasant, and the “eye”,
peculiar to that game bird, was
intact in the fragment the police
had found. However, similar feath-
ers were being manufactured by
the thousands and tracing any par-
ticular one was out of the question.

But with so many irons in the
fire it was inevitable that the police

would soon strike a lead. One came

from a San Jose deputy who had
been on station duty on the morning
of Nov. 23. He told Sheriff Emig
of Russ Yates’ attempt to sell a
black Persian lamb coat he had
found on the highway for twenty
dollars to a local second hand
dealer.

“There might be a conhection.”

the deputy punted out. “Yates says
he picked up the coat at Diss Road
and Alma Street. That’s fifteen
milies away from where the body
was found but it’s the same high-
way and on a direct line to Palo
’ Alto. Maybe the woman dropped it
out of the car as she was struggling
with the killer.

“Another thing, Sheriff. If Yates
s speaking the truth, he found the
‘oat around midnight. According to
Coroner Ryder, she was murdered
around midnight.” }

Sheriff Emig nodded. “One thing

38

Pie bhp 4

more fits,” he suggested. “We've all
been trying to figure out why, on a
cold November night, she wasn’t
wearing any coat. This could ex-
plain it.”

Russ Yates, completely sober now,
was questioned by Emig and Drex-
el. ‘The unhappy prisoner repeated
his story of having found the fur
coat while it was lying on the
highway. It sounded convincing
enough and the officers were in-
clined to go along with it for the
present. Yates was kept in jail
while the investigators turned their
attention to the coat.

Aside from the Chicago label they
found half-inch high initials “B.C.”
inked on a hidden strip of lining
underneath the collar, a precaution
by the owner against theft. And
clinging to the curled fur itself were
two tiny particles of hair of a blond-
ish red shade.

Within an hour Sheriff Emig had
the Chicago manufacturer on the
telephone. He described the coat
and asked if there was any record of
the person to whom it had been
sold. Emig was told it would be
necessary for them to examine the
coat in detail; the San Jose officer

‘shipped the garment off without de-

lay.

Deputies who had stayed behind
to make a further search of the
scene now reported two finds. One
was a beautifully set diamond ring
with a large stone ringed by a cluster
of smaller diamonds. The other was
a-brooch with the initials “B.C.”

“T think we are on the right track
now,” Drexel expressed his satis-

faction. “Once we learn who she is

we can really make some headway
in tracking down the murderer.”

Pictures of the Persian lamb coat,
ring and brooch were given imme-
diate newspaper publicity.

Deputy Phil Cuffaro had little
luck with the Marathon tire angle
but when switched to the task of
checking rooming houses and hotels
for a lead to the slain woman he
struck something hot.

A hotel owner remembered that
on the night of November 21, a
blondish red-head whose general
description exactly fitted the vic-
tim’s had checked in with a soldier
and they had registered as man and
wife.

The pair had quarreled frequent-
ly in their room. At seven o'clock,
on the evening of November 23,
they had checked out. The register
was signed “Private and Mrs. W. L.
Goetz.”

Cuffaro talked to the desk clerk
who recalled the pair quite well.
The woman was about 25. She had
been wearing a black persian lamb
coat and a diamond engagement
Ying and a wedding band. The
soldier was described as being about
five feet, ten inches tall, clean

shaven, dark, lean and wiry in build.

Luckily, the room they had oc-
cupied was still empty. Fingerprint
experts went to work. Emig and
Cuffaro searched the place but
found nothing to link it with the
murdered redhead.

Private Goetz had given a nearby
army camp as his address. Investi-
gator Bob Drexel checked at the
camp. No Private W. L. Goetz was
listed on the rolls.

“A phony,” said Drexel. “Wouldn’t
you know that any lead we got
would fizzle out!”

* * »

REXEL’S pessimism was short

lived. A telephone call came
from Homicide Inspector Alvin Cor-
rassa, of San Francisco. The owner
of a cigar store in that city had just
phoned Corrasa saying he had read
about the murder in a newspaper
and was sure the dead girl was
Bernice .Curtis, a clerk in his em-
ploy. Miss. Curtis had not shown
up for work on the morning of No- »
vember 23 or since.

Deputies George Pyne and Roy
Larson hurried to San Francisco.
They had a morgue shot of the
slain redhead which they showed
to the store owner. He identified her
instantly.

Pyne and Larson were given the
girl’s address. They went there. It
was a modest apartment on San
Jose Avenue which she shared with
another young woman. The pretty
room mate was frankly worried.
Miss Curtis had packed an over-
night bag on November 22, saying
she was going to San Jose to meet
a woman friend and would probably
stay over at a hotel.

She hadn’t phoned or written
since.

“It’s like she dropped right off the
earth,” the attractive brunette said,

She was able to identify Miss
Curtis from the morgue picture. Un-
fortunately, she knew very little
about Bernice’s personal ‘affairs.
The officers searched among the
scattering of papers, letters, cloth-
ing belonging to the redhead but
found nothing of any importance.

Miss Curtis had a relative in town.
With Inspector Corrasa the two San
Jose sleuths went to her home.

“Bernice was a wonderful girl,”
the woman said unhappily, “and I
can’t imagine her taking off with a
man she hardly knew.”

Corrasa’s ears pricked up. “Which
man?” he flashed.

“Frank. I don’t know his last
name. Since they met at a dance
weeks ago all she did was rave
about him. She was supposed to
meet him at a night club near San
Jose the night she left.”

“You know his address?” Corrasa
(Continued on page 40)


Klaas kidnapping evokes

H
memories of 1955 case Pe
art they
‘BY HARRY FARRELL band, Burton Abbott, was broil- | 9°
ing steaks for dinner. A friend, Prici
OR THOSE who remem- Otto Dezman, had just arrived trolle
ber the 1950s, the Polly when Abbott’s wife came up the Mar
Klaas case evokes poign- stairs screaming. In the All box,
wto ant membories. Millions are amid her husband's old under- Avel
E4D praying that Polly is found alive | wear, she had discovered a red ne
— and well. In 1955 there was an- __ leather purse containing a wal- ith
other smiling girl on a “missing” — let with a Red Cross card bear- Aver
poster, another wave of grief | ing the name Stephanie Bryan, a me
and outrage throughout North- and another card identifying durir
g ern California. In 1955 thename __ her as a pupil at Willard Junior — | proj
of the girl was Stephanie. High in Berkeley.
It was about 6:30 on Friday Abbott’s wife sickened. The Avet
. evening, July 15, 1955, when a___ girl’s name had been in the | by@
E3p housewife in Alameda, rummag- headlines for the past 11 weeks. he
—— ing in her basement, pried into a At age 14 Stephanie was the Aven
carton that had once held All - oldest of five Bryan children. ond:
detergent, turning loose a tor- She was a small girl, with milk-
rent of anger, suffering and in- white skin and dark brown Nurr
ve trigue. glossy hair. Her father, Dr. this
ee Upstairs, the woman’s hus- _— Charles Bryan, was a radiolo- beer
gist. The family lived in a spa- velt:
E2D Harry Farrell, a retired Mercury News  ©10US hillside home just south of
— __ reporter and columnist, is the ehor of the Claremont Hotel. a
3p © “Swift Justice” (St. Martin’s Press). At 3:15 on Thursday afternoon, pare:
= He is working on a book on the Stepha- April 28, Stephanie had set out on
—— ___nie Bryan kidnapping. He wrote this — her usual walk home from school, Copyri
6D = article for Perspective. See KIDNAPPING, Page 8C neg


om

ion

- soadway Tunnel highway that leads

track the girl’s normal homebound
te and question every shopkeeper
; resident. Still others questioned
‘ers and attendants at the tennis
as well as guests and staff of the
emont Hotel. Here a detective
ed a woman who said she had seen
phanie linger at the tennis club gate,
ve goodbye to her chum, then walk
«ard the tennis court. This woman
comed to be the last person to have
‘) the girl. Somewhere between the
‘+ gate and her home, less than a
away, Stephanie Bryan had vanish-

Chief Holstrom’s police investigation
hed every investigative base, over-
oking nothing which offered any
mise, and exploring avenues which
somised nothing at all except perhaps a
-otial bearing on the case. Known
‘fenders were rounded up and grill-
and forced to account for their
wements. A yard-by-yard search was
aducted in hope of finding some
ssession of the missing girl—her
»olbooks, for instance—which might
been dropped if she struggled with
abductor.
Meanwhile, the baffling disappear-
e of the schoolgirl had been headlin-
py San Francisco Bay Area news-
vers. This brought the first solid lead.
orge Carey, 20, a U-Cal student, re-
ced that on Thursday afternoon,
jie driving with his wife along the

der the hills back to Oakland, they

-w a man struggling with a teenage girl

. an old sedan that was stopped on the
_noulder of the road near the east
portal.

“The man was slugging the girl,”
‘Cary said. “She was trying to get out of

se car. I wanted to stop and see what
as going on, but the traffic was too
vavy.””

Continuing publicity in the press, on

, and television soon brought fur-
+r substantiation of this report from 7
ore witnesses. All agreed on the
wne-4:15 p.m.—and the place, which
vag within two miles of the spot where.
we Bryan girl had last been seen. None
of the witnesses had gotten a good look
a the assailant, unfortunately, but all
‘greed that he looked ‘young and
vender.” The girl victim was dark-hair-
4 around 14 or 15, which generally
itted Stephanie’s description. The car,
-yitness agreed, was an old two-door
‘edan, but beyond that there was some
‘ifference of opinion. Some thought it
ns a Chevy, some a Pontiac. It was
Fither gray or a dusty blue. It was
uriously described as a 49, 50, or 51
jnodel.

Police study of the witnesses’ ac-
{ounts suggested that the eastbound car
: id come out of the long tunnel, pulled
| beside the road and the driver turned
Gud grabbed the girl, who apparently
‘Aus trying to get out of the car from the
Dehicle’s righthand door. The man hit
> he girl with his fist several times, stunn-
ng her, then sped away, with the girl

“gull in the car.
* One woman witness, who said she *

Burton W. Abbott was unlike any suspect ever encountered by veteran probers. He

was more concerned about loss of sleep than about involvement as a murder suspect

was driving alone, claimed she heard the
girl scream for help as she passed, but
like the others, the woman couldn’t
stop because of the heavy traffic. The
woman said she looked around for a po-
liceman, but saw none. When she reach-
ed her home, shg called the Contra
Costa sheriff’s office and reported what
she’d seen. A deputy went to investi-
gate, but the car was long gone.
Convinced of the authenticity of
these independent witnesses’ report, po-
lice officials spearheading the probe pri-
vately held little hope ‘hat Stephanie
Bryan would be found alive. It seemed
clear that the girl had fallen into the

‘clutches of a sex fiend who would kill, -

undoubtedly, rather than risk being
identified by his victim after he had
wreaked his lust on her.

The agonizing suspe::¢ in the case .

at 8 o’clock
girl’s disap-

continued to mount, »:\'
on the night follow

pearance, her fami!; ved a ransom
demand for $5,000. : vere inform-
ed, and a trap was set, |. the man who
fell into it proved to be « former mental
patient who, officials were sure, had
nothing to do with Stephanie’s disap-

pearance and was guilty only of a crude
shakedown attempt.
Meanwhile, the continuing publicity

sparked a flood of reported sightings ©

from far and near. All such tips had to
be carefully checked, and Chief Hol-
strom ordered every man in the
Berkeley department to 24-hour duty.
Chief Wyman. Vernon of Oakland
supplied additional men to help in the
task, the FBI was already involved in
the case as “observers.”

Beginning at daybreak on Sunday,
May ist, a posse of more than 1,000
persons took to the field. It included
police, deputies, reserves and auxiliaries,
National Guardsmen, sailors, forest
service men, veterans groups, Boy
Scouts, county jail trusties and other
volunteers, some mounted, some foot.
Fanning out from the Broadway
Tunnel, they combed a mammoth area
of the rugged Berkeley hills, low-flying
National Guard planes, Navy helicopters
and radio-equiped Jeeps coordinated the
massive search, which covered every
back road, farm, dwelling and clump of
brush. Bloodhounds brought into the

(Continued on page 58)

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51

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SOMETIMES ||

OFFICIAL DETECTIVE, ————s
October 1972 ;


eas in that state, was a major victory.

Few minorities in the history of this country ever have been
More vocal than this battle-scarred group. One may doubt
their wisdom, and question their logic, but no man can impugn
their sincerity. For long years, they fought with no scintilla of
hope that they might achieve victory. They went the full
battle route, too. They besieged legislators with petitions.
They made speeches anywhere people would tolerate their
Presence and even pretend to listen to them; often their speak-
ets did their whole thing to audiences which dwindled to no
more than two persons. They orated in public parks, at
schools, colleges, in church basements, at lodge meetings, at
Sunday School picnics, at festive holiday gatherings, and

oe yes~even at kindergartens. They demonstrated at state capi-
lals, before prisons, courthouses, county jails and wherever
Politicians might be making an appearance,
‘nN cabin

Ret ee rare ia peers ectte pce Cm oe eee a knoe ect

This is one of the classic cases which foes of the death penalty
like to cite as a miscarriage of justice, Claiming that an
innocent man was executed. In order to sustain that position
against the weight of evidence, one must believe there are no limits
_,on coincidence, or that nothing can stay the Easter Bunny and
Santa Claus from the swift completion of their appointed rounds

by ED Mc COY
Special Investigator for OFFICIAL DETECTIVE STORIES et

' . And on June 29th, they achieved their greatest triumph of all

Officers dig in uncemented part of basement floor in suspect's house—located 6 miles from where girl had disappeared

~

OT er aon eR mm, T *

Indeed, theirs is the classic example which proves that per-
severance pays off, for it now seems clear that their long battle
to outlaw capital punishment in America is nearly won. Hard
on the heels of their California victory, they narrowly defeated
a proposal to restore capital punishment in New York State.

when the United States Supreme Court, in a 5 to 4 decision,
handed down their long-awaited decision on whether capital
punishment constituted cruel and unusual punishment. For all
practical purposes, at this writing, that decision appears to rule /
out the death penalty throughout the United States | yee
Some legal experts hold out the hope the high court left
open a loophole under which the states could restore capital
punishment, under special circumstances, by intricate rewrit-
ing of their laws. It is too early to find any sort of agreement
on whether this is true, and only one thing is certain at this :
writing: If the loophole is indeed there, it will probably be at
least two years before the new laws get on the books; and if
the laws do get on the books, it may be as much as seven years

-before any person convicted of a capital crime is executed in

this country. That is because of the certainty of appeals

wih


ea

through a succession of federal courts
and the inevitable delay before the
nation’s highest tribunal gets around to
acting on the question.

In the meantime, of course, the ap-
peals will produce another moratorium
on the death penalty, and all executions
will be suspended pending the final
word from the U. S. Supreme Court.

As for the embattled crusaders for
the latter goal, they are acting as if the
battle is won. They have, in fact, begun
fighting in many instances for new ob-
jectives, and one of them in California is
an attempt to prove the innocence of
men already put to death by judicial de-
cree.

In the case of the man who was
charged with killing a Berkeley school-
girl in 1955, this new crusade is actually
the resumption of a campaign of long

- standing, intermittently interrupted for

various periods of time to pursue goals
of more immediate importance. Now
they have returned to it, but it is
characteristic of their tactics to publi-
cize only those portions of the record
which serve their cause. The details

which follow tell the WHOLE story

about one of the most controversial
murder cases in modern times...
It began with a report to police of

_ Berkeley, California on the evening of

Thursday, April 28, 1955, of the. disap-
pearance of a 14-year-old junior high
school girl named Stephanie Bryan. Her
father was a doctor who specialized in
radiology. And although the girl was
only two and a half hours late returning
from school when that first report was
logged, there was a special urgency
about it which almost instantly trigger-
ed police concern.

The character of the girl had a lot to
do with this. Her family was positive she
had not run away, and that she would
never, voluntarily, get into a car with a
stranger.

Said one source close to her family:
“Stephanie’s a good, sensible girl. She’s
fourteen, but she isn’t even interested in
boys yet. She’s shy, quiet and studious.

She’s perfectly happy at home with her
little brother and sisters. You’d have to
know her to understand. Something ter-
rible must have happened to her.”

Police quickly learned that Stephanie
normally arrived home after school
around 4 o’clock, give or take a few
minutes. Concern began to mount when
she wasn’t there by 4:30. Calls were
made to the homes of her girl friends,
on the outside chance that Stephanie
might have paused for a visit and lost
track of the time. No one had seen her.
A retracing of the route she normally
walked from Willard Junior High to her
home was equally unproductive.

One girl finally was located who had
at least some information. This was
Julie Dann, the missing girl’s close
friend, and like Stephanie, an honor
student. She and Stephanie had left the
school about 3:30, Julie told detectives.
Stephanie was carrying her books and a
red leather handbag which had belonged
to her mother. The two girls went to the
public library, where Stephanie took
out a couple of teenage novels. After
leaving the library, they stopped at a pet
shop on College Avenue where Step-
hanie brought a pamphlet on the care of
parakeets. It cost a quarter, and Julie
recalled Stephanie saying that she still
had a half-dollar left in her purse.

They left the pet shop, talking girl
talk and headed up Ashby Avenue, a
busy street. They walked fast then, Julie
said, because Stephanie had recalled it
was her mother’s birthday and she want-
ed to get home early. It was a few min-
utes before four, Julie said, when they
parted in front of the Berkeley Tennis
Club. Stephanie turned into the club
grounds to take a short cut, as she us-
ually did, across the tennis courts and
the adjoining parking lot of the Clare-
mont Hotel, then up a flight of stone
steps and a step, widening hillside path
to Alvarado Road, her home street, in a
lovely residential district in the wooded
hills overlooking the campus of the Uni-
versity of California.

Police obtained the following de-

“backtrack the girl’s
'route and questio
* and resident. Stil
players and. atten
- club, as well as gu
Claremont Hotel

scription of Stephanie Bryan: dark
brown hair,. brown eyes, 14 years old, 5
feet 2 inches tall, 105 pounds. Attrac-
tive dimples when she smiles. Wears
glasses for reading. When last seen, she
was wearing a pleated turquoise skirt

with a black velvet sash, white orlon
short-sleeved pullover sweater with navy
blue cardigan over it, white sox and tan
and white saddle shoes.

Sergeant Arthur Lyman was so im-
pressed by the very first reports that he
marked the complaint sheet “Possible
kidnaping” at once. Discussing it with
Captains L. H. Laird and Addison H.
Fording of the detective bureau, they
agreed with his evaluation and shared
the general concern.

They immediately assigned officers
to an intensive search pattern of the
neighborhood where Stephanie was last
seen. Men scoured the tennis club and
hotel grounds, as well as the entire hill-
side area, poking into shrubbery and
wooded sections with powerful flash-
lights. Throughout the night, bulletins
were flashed on police radio and tele-
type. networks throughout the Bay
Area. Officers of adjoining Oakland
cooperated closely, as did the Alameda
County sheriff’s office. Dozens of sus-
picious cars were stopped and searched
and their occupants questioned.

When no trace of Stephanie Bryan
had been turned up by Friday morning,
Berkeley Police Chief John D. Holstrom
pulled out all the stops in intensification
of search efforts. He assigned men to

Suspect’s car was subjected to intense
scientific processing (above). Victim's
books and torn bra (/.) were recovered
from the basement in his house...

located a woman \¥
Stephanie linger at

| wave goodbye to

toward the tennis
seemed to be the
seen the girl. Son
picket gate and h
mile away, Stepha

ed.

Chief Holstrom
touched every in\
looking nothing
promise, and exp
promised nothing :
tangential bearing
sex offenders wer¢
ed and forced |
movements. A ya
conducted in hc
possession of

» schoolbooks, for
have been droppe
her abductor.

Meanwhile, th
ance of the schoo
ed by San Fran:
papers. This brou
George Carey, 2(
ported that on
while driving wi

- Broadway Tunne
under the hills |
saw a man strugg

in an old sedan t!

shoulder of the
portal.

: “The man w

» Cary said. “She \

} the car. I wantec

© was going on, b

| heavy.”

; Continuing pu

~-radio and televi:

_ ther substantiati

-more_ witnesses

time—4:15 p.m.

» was within two:

r the Bryan girl he

of the witnesses

* at the assailant,

agreed that he
slender.” The gi

ed, around 14

| fitted Stephanie
witness agreed,
sedan, but beyo

_ difference of or

was a Chevy, s

either gray or
variously descrit
model.

Police study
counts suggestec
had come out o
up beside the ro
and grabbed tl!
was trying to ge
* vehicle’s righth:
» the girl with his
'-ing her, then s

still in the car.

One woman


tectur

i that
ichion

tramping through the manzanita growth

A little while later, they detected a
sickly sweetish odor, which smelled to

+ them like death. It was too dark for any

further exploration that night, however,
so they carefully marked the spot for

“examination in daylight.

i considerable distance from the shack.
3
!

The following day, at the very time

_ that Bud Abbott was holding his news
* conference, the two newsmen up in
4 Trinity County contacted Harold “Bud”
* Jackson, a local rancher and a former
_ deputy sheriff. Jackson agreed to help
_ them with his bloodhounds.

‘ Late that afternoon, the hounds led

the men to Stephanie Bryan’s shallow
grave at the foot of a tall sugar pine

_ situated some 200 yards up the slope

Sat aed

from Abbott’s mountain cabin.

A small foot in a brown and white
saddle shoe protruded from loose earth
washed out by recent rains. Clearly visi-
ble was a patch of turquoise-colored

| skirt. Exhumed by men from the

sheriff’s office who hurried to the scene
when they were notified about the dis-
covery, the body was found to be in an
advanced state of decomposition, but
no one had any doubts that it was the
remains of Stephanie Bryan.

Her skull had been crushed by heavy
blows. Her white nylon panties were
twisted around her throat.

Ed Montgomery flashed the news to
San Francisco, and the Examiner had
the news scoop of the year. A reporter
was sent to break the news to Bud Ab-
bott at his home shor::, after 9 p.m.

“T can’t believe it!’’ he cried. It was
the first time since his name entered the
case that the sickly suspect had shown
any sign of actual distress.

“IT don’t know anything about it.
Maybe somebody planted it [the body]
there.”

Abbott was still protesting his inno-
cence when detectives placed him under
arrest, took him to Berkeley City
Prison, and booked him on suspicion of
murder.

Stephanie Bryan’s pitiful remains
were positively identified through her
dental chart. The autopsy showed she
had been bludgeoned to death with a
heavy instrument of some sort, as well
as strangled. At that late date, it could

' not be determined whether she had

been assaulted sexually.
Where the murder was actually com-

' mitted was not known, but the question
| of jurisdiction seemed to be settled

_ when Burton Wilber Abbott was formal-

| ly charged with murder in Alameda

County. The grand jury in Alameda

{ on July 30th, indicted him for murder

and kidnaping with bodily harm.
His family and a host of friends
rallied to his defense, insisting that Bud
‘had been framed. But when pressed,
they could not say whiy, or by whom.
iowever, they argued with considerable
logic, ““Would a guilty man bury a body
, outside his own cabin, and_ hide
| damning evidence in his own basment?”
The Abbott case created the greatest
sensation the Bay Area had seen in more
, than a decade, and public opinion was
_ sharply divided. The trial opened in
} Oakland in November in a courtroom

packed with spectators and representa-
tives of all news media. Five women
and seven men made up the jury, and
for 48 days, each session of the trial
produced a new sensation as opposing
attorneys continued to wrangle bitterly.

Witnesses disagreed on points of Ab-
bott’s alibi. Some placed him in Berkeley
on the afternoon of April 28th, others
swore they saw and talked to him miles
away, on his way to Trinity County.
One of the most damaging witnesses to
the defense was the Wildwood tavern
keeper, who exploded Abbott’s claim
that he had stopped by for a drink on
Thursday night ‘on his arrival in Wild-
wood.

The innkeeper said Abbott had not
shown up at his place until the next
morning, Friday, and then had spent
nine hours there drinking and discussing
philosophy and literature with a casual
bar companion.

Another damaging witness was a
typewriter repairman who knew Abbott
personally and said he had seen him in a
doughnut shop near Stephanie’s
school—a shop that Stephanie herself
often patronized—at 3:15 p.m. the day
she vanished. Another witness placed
him near the Claremont Hotel at 3:30
the same day. Five witnesses to the
Broadway Tunnel incident identified
Abbott’s old car; one of them identified

Abbott as the man she saw struggling
with the teenage girl by the side of the
road near the tunnel.

Criminalist Dr. Kirk testified that
hair and clothing fibers found in Bud
Abbott’s old gray Chevy were identical
with Stephanie’s, and that the rear floor
mat bore traces of blood. He also said
soil found on Abbott’s boots was of the
same type as that in the girl’s grave.

A defense expert disputed Dr. Kirk’s
testimony.

The defense relied heavily on the
contention that the sickly, 130-pound
defendant was no physical match for a
robust, 105-pound yvirl and could not
possibly have carric’ her body up the
steep mountainside to the grave.

Bud Abbott took the witness stand
himself and remained there for four
days. He testified in his own defense for
two hours; for the remainder of the four
days, he underwent a searing cross-ex-
amination by the prosecutor, who
caught the defendant in numerous con-
tradictions and even got Abbott to ad-
mit that he origin«ily had ‘“fibbed”
about certain points.

In his closing arg.:ments, District At-
torney Coakley branded Abbott “either
a cunning sexual psychopath egomaniac
who tried to commit the perfect crime.”
He declared it was utterly beyond the
realm of coincidence that a murder vic-
tim’s belongings should be found in an
innocent man’s basement and her body
unearthed outside the same man’s
mountain cabin hundreds of miles away.

The DA insisted there could be no
doubt in the world that Burton Abbott

had kidnaped Stephanie Bryan to

commit a sexual assault upon her, then
murdered her to protect himself,

Defense Attorney Harold B. Hove
stressed the wholly circumstantial
nature of the State’s case and reminded
the jurors that they could not find Ab-
bott guilty unless they were convinced
of his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.

The battling defense attorney in-
sisted the trial had shown there was in-
deed reasonable doubt of Burton Ab-
bott’s guilt.

The case retained its suspense to the
very end. A total of 52 hours had been
spent in deliberation before the jurors
finally filed back into the courtroom.
To the clerk’s question, the foreman of
the jury replied:

“To the charge of first degree
murder, we find the defendant guilty.

“To the charge of kidnaping with
bodily harm, we find the defendant
guilty.”

The panel of jurors made no recom-
mendation for mercy. One of the jurors
later disclosed that they had voted 11 to
1 for conviction on the very first ballot,
and there never had been any serious
disagreement among them.

On February 11, 1956, Superior
Judge Charles W. Snook imposed two
death sentences on Burton Abbott, one
for murder, one for kidnaping with
bodily harm.

Abbott then was taken to San.Quen-
tin Prison, where he waited in Death
Row for action on his automatic appeal,
Even then, however, his case continued
to produce explosive repercussions
which kept public interest in it at fever
pitch.

Through the mails, Judge Snook re-
ceived a threat to bomb him and the 12
jurors who had found Abbott guilty.

On April 1st, up in the Trinity Alps,
the infamous Butcher Boy’s Cabin,
scene of two murders in seven years,
was burned to the ground. The sheriff
arrested five lumberjacks who confessed -
they had set fire to the shack during a
drinking spree “‘so there wouldn’t be no
more murders there.”

When the California Supreme Court
rejected Burton Abbott’s appeal, he was
re-sentenced to die on March 15, 1957.
But Abbott’s new attorneys, George T.
Davis and Leo A. Sullivan, famous foes
of capital punishment, fought on half a
dozen fronts right down to the wire to
save their client from the gas chamber.

Abbott was scheduled to die at 10
am. At 8:35 a.m. on that last day,
Judge Walter L. Pope of the U.S. Court
of Appeals in San Francisco, refused at-
torneys’ petition for a stay of execu-
tion. Then, unable to reach Governor
Goodwin J. Knight through his office,
Attorney Davis telephoned the Holly-
wood headquarters of a network and |
was interviewed for a television news-
cast in which he made an impassioned
appeal to the governor to delay the exe-
cution until another petition could be
filed with the State Supreme Court.

Governor Knight heard the T'V inter-
view a few minutes later while waiting
at Alameda Naval Air Station to board
the aircraft carrier Hancock. Davis was
able to contact him there and the gover-

61

ra

<<

a

Saturday morning for the opening of
the fishing season, and all returned, in
separate cars, on the night of Sunday,
t. On his way home, Abbott ad-
mitted, he drove through Franklin clusive.
Canyon. That was where Stephanie’s
French book was found on Monday.

He was allowed to return home

at the Wildwood Inn.

WENTY-YEAR-OLD Patrick Ramirez recently committed

suicide in his Lubbock County, Texas jail cell where he was
awaiting trial on charges of murder, two counts of rape and robbery
by assault. A deputy found Ramirez’ body hanging by his belt from
a ventilator in the cell. On September 4, 1971, Mrs. Myrle Carlisle,
46, of Levelland, was found dead. She had been raped and “tabbed
several times. Her bloody murder was on the heels of several rapes
and rape attempts in the area. In most of the rape or assault cases,
the assailant had made off with car ignition keys belonging to his
female victims. When Ramirez was finally arrested, police found in
his possession a key ring with 11 car ignition keys on it. [Curious
Hobby of a.Southwest Killer-Rapist, February, 1972]

T A STATE DISTRICT COURT in Fredericks-
burg, Texas, Judge Marvin Blackburn Jr. sen-
tenced Patrick Teague, age 19, to serve 23 years in
prison for the bizarre kidnap-slaying of a San Antonio
housewife, Mrs. Gaynell Newsom, 61, on February
19, 1971. Teague was found guilty of murder with
‘ malice in the non-jury trial after only one day of
testimony during which 14-year-old Keith Hughes, of
Houston, testified that it was he who shot and killed
Mrs. Newsom. Hughes, who was 13 at the time, and
his stepsister, Cindy Horner, then 12, also involved in
the abduction-slaying, were both committed to a
state home under juvenile correction officials’ cus-
tody because of their ages. The trio, after the killing,
made their.getaway in the victim’s Cadillac, which,
when found, contained a “Satanic Bible” and other
odd items belonging to the suspects. [Tell-Tale Clue
of the Hippies in a Cadillac, September, 1971]

EATH IN THE ELECTRIC CHAIR was the sentence imposed

on Witmer Jean Ballard, 46-year-old convicted murderer of a
Texas rancher. On March 3, 1972, a Glasscock County jury of eight
men and four women returned the verdict of guilty of murder with
malice aforethought. The murder in question took place on Decem-
ber 2, 1970, during a robbery at the fashionable home of wealthy
rancher Steve Currie, 71. Currie was shot dead when he fought the
armed killer. Four other persons were charged in’ the slaying of
Currie: Orville Blanton Davis, now serving a life term; a second man,

~ ‘to be tried at a later date; Floyd Palmer, who fell to his death in an

unsuccessful jailbreak attempt, and a young woman who was granted
immunity from prosecution in exchange for her testifying for the
state. [Who Was the Mystery Woman in the Texas Rancher’s Slay-

ing? June, 1971]

Officers drove the 260-mile route to the
cabin, stopping -to question people at
cafes. and other places he claimed to
have stopped at. The results were incon-

They could not corroborate Abbott’s
story, but neither could they disprove
it. No one could be found who recalled
_ pending verification of his alibi. Besides, seeing Abbott on the 28th, but his
at this time police had no positive evi-
dence that a crime had been committed.
Abbott’s account of his trip to his
wilderness cabin was confirmed in great
part by his relatives, all of whom were
‘eminently respectable and responsible
citizens. Yet much of his alibi—particu-
arly the time element—depended entire-

movements the next day were easily
traced. For one thing, he had spent that
Friday afternoon and evening drinking

Berkeley police, as well as FBI agents
and local sheriff’s deputies, searched
Abbott’s mountain shack, which, they
learned, was locally known as “Butcher

ly on Abbott’s word; it was unverifiable. Boy’s Cabin” because a prosecutor had

_ Up to the Minute

murdered and dismembered his partner ©

there in 1948. The searchers could find a a

ts

no evidence of a recent crime.
In Berkeley, meanwhile, detectives.
were digging into the background of the-*
No. 1 suspect. They learned he was ori-
ginally from Oregon, had no police }
record, nor much of an employment
record. In 1946, at the age of 18, he
joined the Army and was hospitalized:
for tuberculosis, but he continued to .
suffer from a chest abscess. He was dis-
charged from the Army with a disability
pension of $178 per month. He enrolled
under the GI bill at the University of
California for an accountancy course,
and his pension money was supplement-
ed by his wife’s earnings.
From all available information, Bud
Abbott appeared to be a good husband,
devoted to his family, with nothing
sinister in his background save the possi-
ble inconsequential fact that he regular-
ly borrowed from the public library
books dealing with sexual abnormalities.
He volunteered to take a lie detector
test, but the results were inconclusive.
The polygraph operator reported that
while he seemed to show guilty reaction
to certain critical questions, the sub-
ject’s lung condition threw off the read-

ng.

Abbott gave police the name of an
ex-GI who had visited his home early in
May; this man had had access to his
garage, and possibly it was he who had
hidden Stephanie’s things there. A
search was launched for the former ser-
viceman. In the meantime, police had
located and impounded Abbott’s old
Chevy and lab men began processing the
car.

On July 20th, Bud Abbott told a
press conference called by his lawyer:
“Pm just-as anxious as the district at-
torney is to clear this thing up. T'll do
anything I can to help. I know it looks
bad for me, but all I can say is, I simply
don’t know how those things got in my
basement.”

Abbott took his shirt off for the pho-
tographers and displayed his spindly

torney stated it was a physical impossi-
bility for Abbott to have overpowered a
strong, healthy young girl like Stephanie
Bryan. Abbott’s wife vowed her com-
plete faith in her husband.

But that very same night, Wednesday
July 20th, another bombshell exploded
in the case. The San Francisco Examiner
had sent a couple of men, Pulitzer
Prize-winning reporter Ed Montgomery
and photographer Bob Bryant,: up to
Trinity County to see if they could turn
up anything the police might have over-
looked. They flew up in a small, charter-
ed plane, landed in a cow pasture,
stopped briefly at the Wildwood Inn,
and reached Butcher Boy’s Cabin
around dusk on the evening of Tuesday,
the 19th.

Poking around with flashlights, they
noted signs of recent digging done by
the officers who had searched the cabin
and surrounding ground. Montgomery
and Bryant, reasoning there was little
use looking around the same area which
had already been searched, went beyond

‘the farthermost digging site and began

arms and caved-in rib section. His at- |

© tramping through i

considerable distan
A little while |:
sickly sweetish od
them like death. I!
further exploratio:
so they carefully
examination in da‘
The following
that Bud Abbott
conference, the
Trinity County co
Jackson, a local
deputy sheriff. J:
them with his blo:
Late that afte
the men to Ste;
grave at the foo
situated some 2'
from Abbott’s m
A small foot
saddle shoe prot
washed out by r
ble was a patc
skirt. Exhume:
sheriff’s office
when they were
covery, the bod
advanced state
no one had an}
remains of Step!

Her skull hac
blows. Her wh
twisted around |

Ed Montgon
San Francisco,
the news scoor
was sent to bre
bott at his hom

“T can’t bel
the first time s!
case that the s
any sign of acti

“T don’t k
Maybe somebo
there.”

Abbott was
cence when d:
arrest, took
Prison, and bo
murder.

Stephanie
were positive!
dental chart.
had been blu
heavy instrum
as strangled. .
not be deter
been assaultec

Where the
mitted was n«
of jurisdictio
when Burton
ly charged °
County. The
on July 30t!
and kidnapin

His fami!
rallied to his
had been fr
they could :

However, th:
logic, ‘‘Woul
outside hi
damning evi:

The Abb:
sensation thé
than a deca
sharply div
Oakland in

ox

~
<NODE OE EOS RAT LM —

Sometimes Innocence. . .

hunt several times followed scents that
repeatedly dead-ended in a corner of the
Claremont Hotel parking lot, which led
to the conclusion that that was where
the girl had been forced or enticed into
a car in the unattended lot.

Another ransom demand, this one
for “$8,000 to $10,000,” was received
on the morning of Tuesday, May 3rd.
The rendezvous to deliver the money to
the purported kidnaper was to be in an
Oakland movie theatre, but the extor-
tioner never showed up and no further
word was heard from him. Police were
convinced it was another hoax attempt
to cash in on the case by someone who
had no knowledge of Stephanie’s where-
abouts, and nothing to do with her dis-
appearance,

The first solid clue did not material-
ize until Friday, May 6th, although it
could have been reported five days earli-
er. Stephanie Bryan’s French textbook
was turned in by a San Pablo electrician.
He said he had found it on Monday,
four days after Stephanie vanished,
lying beside the Franklin Canyon Road
near Pinale, in Contra Costa County,
some 16 miles north of Berkeley. He
gave the book to his son and forgot
about it, till he read about the kidnap-
ing belatedly and recalled seeing Step-
hanie’ Bryan’s name written in the
French book’s flyleaf. The book ob-
viously had been thrown from a car, and
police speculated that the young girl
herself had tossed it out, hoping it
might mark her trail.

The investigation now concentrated
on the Franklin Canyon area off U.S.
40, but no further clue was discovered.
Chief Holstrom, Captain Laird, and
authorities of both Alameda and Contra
Costa Counties now proceeded to organ-
ize the greatest search effort yet, sched-
uled for the following weekend. An
army of more than 3,000 men con-
ducted a saturation search of a 40-
square mile area in the East Bay Hills.
This effort too proved unavailing.

From this point on, the search
settled down to grim, relentless plod-
ding, Chief Holstrom assigned Inspector
Charles O’Meara, a canny police veteran,
to coordinate the activities of the var-
ious enforcement agencies involved in
the probe, and O’Meara’s office became

the clearing house for all information’

developed in the case. He supervised dis-
tribution of 5,000 police circulars to 11
western states. He also publicized the
posting of a $2,500 reward for informa-
tion leading to discovery of the missing
girl’s whereabouts, dead or alive.

Chief Holstrom issued an appeal to
the public through the press: ‘We wel-
come any information whatsoever, no
matter how fantastic it may seem,” his
statement concluded.

The following weeks brought scatter-
ed reports that Stephanie had been seen
at points throughout the U.S. A couple
of persistent reports indicated she had
been spotted in Fall River, Massachu-
setts, where her family had once lived.
Nothing came of it. Neither did the

58

crude map contained in an anonymous

(from page 51)

letter, which claimed the girl could be
found “in an area reached by a dirt road
which turns off from U. S. 40 not far
from the Nevada border on the Califor-
nia side.” :

Still another ransom de-
mand—$2,000 this time—also ended
frustratingly.

Two and a half months after Stepha-
nie Bryan’s disappearance, detectives
had questioned some 2,000 persons in
more than a dozen states. They also had
checked out more than 600 automo-
biles. Despite all this, they believed that
only two things in the entire investiga-
tion could be regarded as solid, reliable
leads: the reported incident at the
Broadway Tunnel, and the discovery of
Stephanie’s school book. The police
never relaxed their efforts, but reports
on the case slipped first into the inside
pages of newspapers, and then were
dropped completely.

But 85 days after the Berkeley teen-
ager had vanished, the case broke wide
open.

On Friday, July 15, 1955, Burton
Wilbur Abbot, whose nickname was
“Bud,” was entertaining at his neat
white stucco bungalow on San Jose
Avenue in the bay island city of Alame-
da, six miles from where Stephanie
Bryan had disappeared. Abbott and his
wife were having a cookout on the new
cedar-block patio he had recently built,
among the others present was a retired
44-year-old Navy chief petty officer,
whose wife owned the beauty parlor
where Abbott’s wife was employed.

Bud Abbott was a lanky, nervous
sickly, bespectacled accounting student
at. the university. He was 27, an ex-Gl,
and he had light brown hair and wispy
mustache of the same color. He fancied
himself as an amateur chef.

While Abbott was broiling steaks
over a charcoal barbecue on the patio,
his wife went down to the basement
garage to rummage for a flapper cos-
tume she needed for some amateur
theatricals. She came running back to
the group, excitedly waving a woman’s
worn red leather purse and a small red
billfold.

“Bud!” she cried. “Look what I
found down there! Where did these
come from? The name on these cards—
Stephanie Bryan—”

reoccupied with his sizzling steaks,
Bud Abbott asked innocently, “Who’s
Stephanie Bryan? What are you so excit-
ed about?”

“Why isn’t that the little girl who
was kidnaped over in Berkeley—the one
that’s been in all the papers?” one of
the guests asked. - .

“T don’t know,” Abbott said mildly.
“You know I don’t read the papers—ex-
cept to work out the crossword
puzzles.”

The Navy guest agreed that Stepha-
nie Bryan was indeed the name of the
kidnaped girl. He examined the things
the young wife had found. Stephanie’s
name was on a card in the flap of the

purse, as well as on several personal

identity cards.

‘‘We’d better not handle these

things,” the ex-chief petty officer ad-
vised soberly. ‘We should call the po-
lice—the Berkeley police.”

When the Berkeley police car arrived,
the officers were shown where the purse
and wallet had been found in a carton
full of old clothes which had been
stored on a shelf at the rear of the base-
ment. Abbott’s wife was sure the stuff
had not been there when she looked at
the box a few weeks before. Bud Ab-
bott said he had never seen the red
purse before, and he had no idea how it
came to be in his basement. The radio
car officers sped back to Berkeley with
the items.

Inspector O’Meara took them out
to the Bryan home. Stephanie Bryan’s
parents immediately identified them as
the property of the missing girl. Besides
the identity cards, the wallet contained
snapshots of Stephanie’s pet poodle and
some of her girl friends, and a half-fin-
ished letter to one of her former class-
mates back in Massachusetts.

Within the hour, three carloads of de-
tectives and FBI agents descended on
the Abbott bungalow in Alameda. But
Abbott seemed mildly surprised when
they informed him that the articles
found in his basement had indeed be-
longed to the missing Berkeley teenager,
but there was little light he could shed
on the matter.

“T’m sorry I can’t help you,” he said
politely. ‘‘We’ve lived here more than a
year. We don’t know Stephanie Bryan
or her family. I never even heard the
name before tonight. I don’t know how
those things got in my garage. Almost
anybody could have put them there.”

Abbott claimed—and this was soon
confirmed—that they often left the
basement garage unlocked, and even
open. Also, they seldom had occasion to
go to the storage shelves in the back.
Neighbors and friends went in and out
freely.

About a month and a half before, in
fact, on May 24th, the garage had been
used as a polling place for some 150
voters.

Asked what kind of a car he owned,
Bud Abbott said he was now driving his
wife’s new Pontiac hardtop. But he then

startled officers by calmly adding that |

until a month ago, when he sold it, he
had owned a slate gray 1949 Chevrolet
two-door sedan. - :
Abbott acted as if he actually did not
know that the long-sought kidnaper
drove an old gray sedan, a fact known
to virtually every newspaper reader and
radio or TV listener in the United
States. The detectives and FBI men did
not press the point further at this time.
Abbott told them they were wel-
come to look around the place to their
heart’s content. When they asked for
permission to dig up the uncemented
part of the basement floor, however, he
was thoughtful for a moment, then re-
plied, “I think you should get the land-
«lord’s permission before you do that.”
It was then quite late at night, so the
detective arranged to return the next
morning. When they returned, they
brought with them Dr. Paul L. Kirk,
nationally famed University of Califor-

7 nia criminalis
» armed with a

ment. Also «
score newsme

Bud Abbo
he said he ha

: playing chess

curiously uni
being accord
The hot
foundation |
and without
criminating |
afternoon, t!
in the uncen
of the basem
they turned
with Stephar
Other iter
girl were une
French con
library book
her library c
she had. b«
reading glas:
siere, with

loose. These

from six to
sandy soil.

Bud Abt
more than
head incred:
was lifted o
went on g?
under the ¢!
men and te}
around the «
to be summ:
crowd whicl

When dig
ment, they
Abbott’s ne
several spot
Finally con
was to be f:
bott bungal«
tion to Buc
unique in t
the many \
scene.

They for

» concer was

a row he ha

:. he had no

officers to t
for question
torney coulc
Under th
course, Bud
pect yet fi
months lon;
appearance
on incredib!
made Abbo
the unlikeli
would ev:
damning ev
when it mig
easily in a
which wou!
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party.

’ The heai
cool off so
tioned by ¢
officials. A
while, Bud

_ alibi for th

been away
Berkeley, a


, eriminalist, and a host of technicians
ened with all sorts of scientific equip-
vent. Also on hand were some two-
wore newsmen and photographers.

Bud Abbott greeted them all sleepily;

said he had stayed up tiil after dawn,

»ying chess with his guest. He seemed

iously unimpressed by the attention

ving accorded him and his home.

The house was searched from

undation to roof, without incident,

) without finding anything of an in-
eminating nature. Late that Saturday

noon, the searchers began digging
the uncemented soil of the rear half
the basement. Less than an hour later
sey turned up a spiral ring notebook
ih Stephanie Bryan’s name on it!

Other items belonging to the missing
od were unearthed soon afterward: her
“rench composition book; the two
brary books, one of which contained
ser library card; the parakeet pamphlet
ne had bought: her piastic-rimmed

ading glasses; her white nylon bras-
ere, with one shoulder strap torn
ose. These articles were found buried
com six to eight inches deep in the
sandy soil.

Bud Abbott reacted with nothing
more than mild surprise, shaking his
head incredulously as each new object

was lifted out of the dirt. The digging
{ ‘went on grimly, far into the night,
under the glare of floodlights, as news-
a men and television cameramen hovered
a around the excavation. Extra police had
» be summoned to control the curious
rowd which gathered around the place.
Ww When diggers finished with the base-
nent, they moved outside and dug up
Abbott?’s newly laid patio, then probed
everal spots in the lawn and garden.
‘inally convinced that nothing more
vas to be found in or around the Ab-
it bungalow, they turned their atten-
uon to Bud Abbott. He proved to be
‘unique in the combined experience of
+ the many veteran investigators\ at the

‘scene. vA
They found that Abbott’s principal
0 ‘ concern was that for the second night in
i a row he had lost a lot of sleep. He said
‘he had no objection to accompanying
‘ officers to the district attorney’s office
for questioning, provided his family at-

torney could be present.

, Under the bizarre circumstances, of
‘course, Bud Abbott was the hottest sus-
‘pect yet found in the nearly three-
‘months long investigation into the dis-
‘appearance of the pretty teenager. The
on incredible note in everything which
‘made Abbott a suspect, however, was
ed ‘the unlikelihood that a guilty murderer
would ever attempt to hide such
“damning evidence in his own basement

wei ‘4 when it might have been disposed of so
theix ‘easily in any of several other ways
\ which would have precluded any possi-

‘bility of connecting them to the guilty
party.

_ The heat on Abboti also seemed to
cool off somewhat when he was ques-
‘tioned by the DA and Berkeley police
4 officials. After thinking about it for a
‘while, Bud Abbott told them he had an
‘alibi for the time in question; he had
‘\been away on a fishing trip, far from
of Berkeley, and he remembered the date

because the fishing season had opened
that weekend.

“On that Thursday. when Stephanie
vanished, Abbott said, he left home at
11 a.m. He drove over to the beauty
shop to say goodbye to his wife, then
drove alone up to his vacation cabin
near Wildwood, in the Trinity Moun-
tains, about 260 miles north of Berke-
ley. First, he said, he drove up U.S. 40
to Sacramento, where he planned to file
a homestead claim on some land in
Trinity County. He changed his mind
when he had trouble tinding the post

office building, drove back to the

Davis ““Y,” and then turned north on
U.S. 99-W. He said he reached Wild-
wood soon after dusk, about 8:30 p.m.
He stopped for a drink at the ‘small
town’s one tavern, then left there about
9 p.m. and went to his cabin.

It was clear to the investigators that
to have made the trip in that time,
Abbott would have had to be almost
halfway to Trinity County at the crucial
time period, 3:45 to 4:00 p.m., on
Thursday, April 28th. His brother and
sister-in-law joined him at the cabin

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— oe —

ee ee eS SS eS eS eS SD monroe

59

~Y

caiei

hee

nor agreed to stay the execution for one
hour, till the Supreme Court could act.
He called Warden Harley O. Teets at San
Quentin and the warden rescheduled the
execution for 11:15 a.m.

._ At 10:45 the new petition was
denied by Chief Justice Phil S. Gibson.

-Abbott’s two lawyers now made des-
perate calls to a succession of other
Judges, both state and federal, but none
would take any action to delay the exe-
cution.

A few minutes after 11 a.m., At-
torney Davis placed a radio-telephone
call to Governor Knight, who now was
aboard the aircraft carrier outside the
Golden Gate.

At 11:16, Warden Teets escorted
Bud Abbott into the death chamber,
where he wished him the traditional
“Goodbye and God bless you” as the
condemned man took his seat in the
octagonal-shaped gas chamber.

At 11:18 the cyanide pellets were
dropped into the corck of sulphuric
acid. The gas rose about the man strap-
ped into the steel chair. His head fell
back. His jaw dropped, his eyes rolled,
his mouth gaped open. A guard at the
door made the Sign of the Cross. Only
the sound of men breathing could be
heard as the 58 official witnesses silent-
ly watched the spectacle of death
through the thick glass windows of the
eight-sided execution chamber.

But quite suddenly as they watched
the death throes of the condemned
man, the hushed tension was shattered
by the ringing of the telephone at the
warden’s elbow. Warden Teets picked it
up. The caller was Joseph Babich, the
what lly clemency secretary, calling

rom Sacramento. Governer Knight,
after another impassioned plea from At-
torney Davis, had agreed to see if there
was time for another stay. The governor
called Sacramento by ship to shore tele-
phone.

“Has the execution started?” Babich
asked Warden Teets.

“Yes, sir, it has,” the warden said.

“Can you stop it?”

The warden’s face was ashen, and his
voice trembled as he replied, “No, sir,
it’s too late.”

Only minutes later, at 11:25, the
prison physician, listening to Abbott’s
heart through a special type of remote
stethoscope, pronounced Burton Ab-
bott dead.

According to reports of persons who
visited him shortly before he went to his
death, Abbott insisted to the very end

that he was innocent of the murder and .

kidnaping of Stephanie Bryan. These
protestations of innocence were added
fuel to the controversy over capital
punishment which had been raging in
California for several years. A score of
groups, and thousands of unaffiliated
citizens, protested bitterly that in the
absence of a confession of an eyewitness
to the crime, Burton Abbott’s death
sentence should have been commuted to
life imprisonment, that he should never
have been executed because of a verdict
based on circumstantial evidence.

The controversy did not die with Ab-
bott. Periodically it flared up anew, but
finally, on September 21, 1961, a new

62

development occurred which promised
to i many of the doubts in the case at
rest.

On that date, Marin County District
Attorney Roger P. Garety disclosed that
shortly before being executed, Burton
Abbott had admitted his guilt to the
chief psychiatrist of San Quentin
Prison!

Garety said the disclosure came in
sworn testimony from Dr. David
Schmidt when the psychiatrist testified
in the sanity trial of a convicted rape-
slayer. Garety was cross-examining the
prison psychiatrist, who had testified
that all but 10 to 15 per cent of the
men on Death Row confess their guilt
“either to the physician or to the
psychiatrist.”

Q. Did Burton Abbott. admit it (his
guilt)?

A. He admitted it—not directly, but
indirectly, to me.

Q. Burton Abbott admitted to you
that he had murdered this girl in the
East Bay?

A. This he did.

Q. “Indirectly.”” What do you mean
by “‘indirectly?”

A. Under oath, I will testify to this: I
supposed I could—I wouldn’t like this to

get to his mother, because this is a state-

ment he made to me.

Q. I am not trying to infringe on any
confidential communication or to em-
barrass you. I will accept your state-
ment that he indirectly admitted it to
you.

This was the testimony, under oath,
of a qualified psychiatrist of impeccable
integrity and reputation. But anyone
who thought this belated disclosure
would silence, once and for all, those
doubters who questioned the validity of
Abbott’s guilty verdict based on circum-
stancial evidence, was wrong.

They are still doubting, and still try-
ing to prove that in the case of Burton
Abbott, the state of California executed
a man who was innocent of the crime of
which he had been convicted. In the
face of that unequivocal stand, it seems
safe to assume that nothing will ever
make them believe otherwise. kkk

EDITOR’S NOTE:

Julie Dann and George Carey are
not the real names of the Persons so
named in the foregoing story. Ficti-
tious names have been used because
there is no reason for public interest

in the names of these persons.

It Takes a Thief ee

marble, with its cracks and areas of dis-
coloration. This, coupled with the great
ability that Dossena didn’t realize he
had, practically threw the art critic off
his rocker and he came out with almost
a column of excited_prose telling of
the great new discoveries which had,
somehow or other, come into the pos-
session of the duo of art dealers named
Fasoli and Pallesi.

For the next few weeks, the two con
men did little except sit around their
dreary quarters on the Left Bank admit-
ting visitors—if the visitors looked im-
portant—to view the great new discover-
ies. The London Times shot an art
expert over to Paris for a look-see and
the Times came out with a long story
about the great discoveries in marble
that were now in the little place on the
Left Bank.

Now the offers began to come in
—from both private collectors und mus-
eums. But Pasquale and A’’redo were
playing it smart. They listened to the
offers, which were running from a hun-
dred thousand to a quarter of a million,
for the phony marbles. But that’s all
they were doing—listening. The boys
knew they had something and they were
playing hard to get.

There was one question the two con
men refused to answer. And that was
where, when and how had they come
upon this particularly-priceless ancient
art. They aroused no suspicion by refus-
ing to go into the slightest detail be-
cause, under such circumstances, that’s
normal behavior for discoverers of great
new treasures in the field of art.

There was .one comparatively small
problem at this stage of the con. And
that was that Pallesi, a runt of a man
with thick-lensed eyeglasses, suffered

(from page 53)

from two very offensive handicaps: hali-
tosis and body odor. More than once, an
expert or a prospective buyer looking at
the counterfeit pictures, would be seen
to back away from Pallesi because of
the offensive aroma that he constantly
exuded. Presumably Fasoli must have
tried—but unsuccessfully—to do some-
thing about the situation.

One day, a few months after they
had begun to cut their caper in Paris
with the marble carvings that Fasoli had
brought from Rome, the boys had a visi-
tor—a character a con man dreams of.
He was a tweedy, mustached English-
man of middle age—strictly a broad—A
snob who considered everything and
everyone within the range of his super-
ior vision strictly inferior to himself.

The visitor’s handsome, engraved
name card, with which he favored
Fasoli, identified him as Edgar Shots-
worth. He wished, he announced, to
look at these newly-found Martino
statues that he had been hearing about.

Fasoli knew instantly that Shots-:

worth was a beautiful takee but then
Pallesi, with his halitosis and body odor,
got too close to the man. When Shots-
worth got a whiff of Pallesi, he was one
day to tell friends when the big fraud
was exposed, he damned near threw up.
But Fasoli, coping with the problem,
got the other con man off the premises
and nothing happened but that Shots-
worth bought a life-size Christ for a
hundred grand.

The two con men were so elated, ob-
viously, at this beginning of what was
going to be a three-million-dollar good
thing that they showed their apprecia-
tion by sending Dossena a few francs,
along with a letter saying that they had
sold one of his paintings to a private

ae ne nan See ee

collector for a song.

The Shotsworth
don Times, and th

- Times, and our two

speak, off and runnir

| politan Museum wa
. interested in this gr:

field of ancient ma

dispatched two exp:

checkbook, over to
—with instructions |
for anything that str
ed fancy.

The Met’s pair of

. to be, in the eyes o!
- simply beautiful. Th

a Madonna and Chi!

~ Roman stonecutter
_ were dickering with |

most of the negot'
Pallesi’s bad breath ;
a singular part that P:
the swindles—rushin¢
about to be closed \
somebody else had n
The Met experts,
be disclosed, had bid |
for the Madonna and
popped up, just as th
be applied to the cont
“Hold everything!’
He had, it seemed, |
conference with the :
Louvre and was wa
phony as the statue t!
ers badly wanted to {
hattan. The check loo
it was spurious and
‘made out for? Nothi
round number. Part
genuineness of this ch«
it was for: two hund)
grand. So the Met bx
their offer by ten th
back to New York wi
ture—a really stunnii
phony though it was,
tics off their rockers.
A couple of ye:
Pasquale and Alfredo
train and with poor
Rome, increasing th
night and stonecuttin
beautiful Martino cou
Every once in a whi
appear in the Eternal
Dossena’s grim diggin
have a little loot—de
enough to keep Dosse
be realized that every
this singularly talented
In a way, Dossena \
that he almost deser:
The newspapers of ty
cluding the Italian pre
ly carrying stories al
iscovered marbles of
Martino. Dossena’s t)
neither he nor any o
read anything—in the ;
else. And they lived o
where art was seldom
alone discussed, and
neighbors read as littl:
was Dossena of the so
he ever got into discus
ers. Quite obviously, |
all of this into consid«
walked in on Dossena t!
All this time, with t!

a


At the time, the Claremont was a
good hotel and the center of social life
in Berkeley, just about the last of the
mammoth, ornamental structures with
decorated carvings which once pepper-
ed the coastline of the Bay area. The
unique building still stands high on a
hill, an attractive piece of real estate.
The lavish tennis courts are at the
bottom of the elevation, close to the
abutment of the train tracks which at
one time crossed the Bay Bridge, a
miracle of engineering that reaches to
San Francisco. A rush of school kids
constantly used the deserted paths that
edged the Claremont property as
short-cuts to and from school.

The sun was squinting by four

o’clock and still no Stephanie, which '

was entirely foreign to the child’s
character. A trembling Mrs. Bryan
retraced the well-worn short-cut that
her daughter had been instructed to
take, all the way to the school, which
was deserted. The entire way home
Mrs. Bryan’s heart jumped, jabbed by
fear’s calloused finger. The living-
room clock now said 4:30 and Stepha-
nie was still missing.

When Dr. Bryan received a call at
4:45 from his answering service
informing him that his daughter had
vanished, he requested the answering

service to notify the police and went*

home. There were fruitless calls of
inquiry to Stephanie’s school chums,
but somehow the family overlooked
the girl she had been with. After
questioning neighbors, the police had
to agree that the girl would no more
have remained away voluntarily
without permission, than she would lie
to her diary.

As the third day of the girl’s strange
departure wore on, a minute search
was conducted. Boy scouts, Search and
Rescue units with dogs, and police and
sheriff patrols fine-combed the
Claremont Hotel acreage. The imme-
diate vicinity was scoured and residents
were asked to check deserted buildings
and trailers, discarded refrigerators
— any place where a body might be
hidden. Off-duty members of the
Berkeley Fire Depatrment joined the
massive search along with civilian
volunteers.

The entire countryside shared the
agony of the Bryans as they waited,
red-eyed with weeping and fatigue,
sustained only by the hope that their

Inspector Reidel administers
lie detector test in which sus-
pect reacted to word, ‘cabin.’

26 i

litte girl was alive and safe. Postcards -

and letters of sympathy arrived by the
sackful at their home. Dr. Bryan
hastily announced that he would pay
$2,500 for information leading to the
discovery of his little girl. This
triggered a ransom call, but the caller,

traced by FBI agents, was found to be -

a recent graduate from a mental ward
who had received his diploma much
too early. :
Within three weeks Berkeley police
and sheriffs of adjacent counties had
widened their search to within ten
miles of the Bryan home. Trackers
covered areas with thick ground cover

— sword ferns, vine maple saplings, .

wild sticker bushes, and fallen logs
encircled with creeping vines. It was
tough going for the volunteers but
their members did not diminish as time
passed. Still, the file marked ‘‘clues’’
at Berkeley police headquarters was
empty.

It was May 6. Night had fallen. The
city was a tangle of luminous necklaces
on black velvet. Armed with a flash-
light, an electrician searching for clues
around Franklin Canyon in Contra
Costa County found a French text-
book in the woodland. There were no
fingerprints, only persuasive evidence
that it did belong to Stephanie.

The activity of the police and the
district attorney’s office accelerated
and on June 3, a 35-year-old man with
wide shoulders and ears that could
swat flies, was arrested during a

disturbance call in Berkeley’s south-
side. Hustled downtown, ‘he was
questioned about the Bryan disappear

-ance. The man met the general des-

cription of a guy reportedly seen
wrestling with a young girl in a car near
the Berkeley freeway. When arrested
he had a .38-caliber revolver in his
possession. He vehemently denied
being involved in the crime. Legal lip
service arrived and he was released.
Two other men were arrested at the
scene of the same disturbance call, but
investigation was cut at the bud when
both men proved they were out of

town at the time of the girl’s disappea- °

rance. Police were stymied.

A day later, on June 4, a pickup
order was issued for a 63-year-old
heavyset man who, acquaintances said,
walked his springer spaniel past the
Bryan house ‘‘every day until the time
of catastrophe.’’ Suddenly he took a
different route. The pickup order was
issued only after Berkeley officers were
able to locate him at his residence.
Police emphasized that the man was
only wanted for questioning, and that
no warrant had been filed for his
arrest. Two days later, when the fat
man was located, he was interrogated.
He had no connection with the crime
and was released.

The quest continued along these
lines for the next few weeks. Suspects
were as plentiful. Nearly two dozen
were questioned about the Bryan case
but each person was cleared after

providing a solid alibi. Veteran officers
tended to believe that short of a
message from God, only a tip from
an informant could supply new
information that would lead to the
arrest of the fiend they were looking
for.

A small ray of light came by way of
a tipster on July 15, three months after
Stephanie vanished into thin air.
Burton ‘‘Bud’’ Abbott and his wife
Georgia were entertaining guests at
their home in a suburb of Alameda, a
quiet city near Berkeley on the east
shore of San Francisco Bay. Their
dinner guests were Bud’s mother,
Elsie, Georgia’s employer at the
beauty parlor, Leona Dezman, and
Leona’s husband, Otto.

But Abbott, a 27-year-old account-
ing student at the University of
California at Berkeley, was an
incapacitated veteran drawing:a

‘ humble pension. He was on the patio

barbecuing steaks for his guests; Elsie
was chatting with Leona Dezman in
the living room. Otto was setting up

. the chess board for his weekly game

with Bud. Georgia, a high-breasted,
round-butted redhead of 32 was
preoccupied. On occasion she took
part in amateur theatricals, and she
needed a costume for an upcoming
part. Hoping to find a suitable
costume, Georgia descended to the
unfinished basement, where the
Abbotts stashed scrap-heaps of
costumes, disguises, and such garb that

* people cram in their garages, base-

ments or attics, if they have one.

While. rummaging through a card-
board box she came across a red
leather handbag that didn’t look
familiar. She peeked inside. Georgia
stood transfixed as, she thumbed
through a wallet, which contained
identification papers, photos, a bus
card furnishing special rates to
students, and an unfinished letter
— all the personal effects of Stephanie
Bryan.

Georgia, her long, tapering legs
straddling the basement steps in leaps
and bounds, bounced into the living
room cradling her startling discovery.

“‘Isn’t this the girl who disappear-
ed?’’ she exclaimed.

Fortune had finally flashed a grin
in the direction of Justice... but to Bud
Abbott the news was as welcome as
the plague.

According to Georgia, it was she
who called the police and not. Otto
Dezman as the papers dramatized. She
did so at Bud’s insidious encourage-
ment. Sleuths arrived in a wink and
Bud Abbott terminated the conversa-
tion by way of a daffy explanation that
caused commotion in City Hall beyond
description. He told them the base-
ment had been used in May as a polling
place in a community election, so any
snook coming to vote could have
planted the evidence. To the police,
the idea of a voter, his pockets jam-
med with the girl’s possessions, casting
his ballot, then hiding the evidence,
was extremely unlikely.

Detectives unearthed victim’s
personal effects from sus-
pect’s basement while he wait-
ed calmly on the floor above.

Whether police believed him or not
seemed to be of least concern to Bud
Abbott at the moment. When the
police left, he moved to an orbit of
more importance. ‘‘Otto, ’’ he said,
“how about that game of chess?”’

And then Abbott’s mother, Elsie,
told a farfetched story that kept
attorneys for the defense awake nights.
She said she had found the handbag
in May and that, without opening it,
tossed it into the box where Georgia
found it. Behavior scientists agreed
that picking up a strange bag and not
giving it a curious look would be
tantamount to visiting the Louvre and
skipping the Mona Lisa. Besides, the
sudden departure of little Stephanie
had flooded the airwaves, so it would
have been incomprehensible for Elsie
not to have heard about the case.

It was the judgment of others,
however, that some people are
naturally not curious. But according
to those who knew Elsie best, she was
an inquisitive as an X-ray.

Bud Abbott, tubercular, pale, thin-
chested, and sickly, often fled his nest
in Alameda to a small, remote
bungalow high in the Trinity Moun-
tains, some 200 miles away. Here, in
a scraggy talus of runty trees and
tremendous hills, far from the city, he
went to find himself.

He had hardly returned from his
retreat in the shadowed valley when
he was visited by officers with a search
warrant. He let them in and busied
himself with a crossword puzzle while
members of the crime scene section of
the crime laboratory ransacked the
basement and dug up the yard. It was
remembered later that Abbott sat
unruffled, and seemed to accept their
browsing as a fact of life, as one
accepts, say, a dead battery.

There was still no obvious reaction
from Abbott when police carpenters
took the basement and garage to
pieces. But there was hostility in the
very absence of expression when
lawmen unearthed schoolbooks,
notepapers, and Stephanie’s eyeglasses
from a hollowed-out joist in the
basement. They also found a training
bra, bought to fit her budding breasts,
the day before her disappearance,
along with a library book.

While Georgia eyed him with horrid

(continued on page 42)

27


rine tats ats AD iin oA

HER FIRST BRA
WAS LACED |
WITH MURDER

©0800 0808880800008 088O88HHOOHHO88H8SHH8O8O
by BILL KELLY

ders, causing whispered insinuations and shrieking headlines, have been committed

| n the annals of homicide, there are few truly unique crimes. A majority of types of mur-
before — and will be again. Yet there is a peculiar and ghastly mysteriousness about

the murder of Stephanie Bryan in 1955. Mysterious because the only evidence against her .

accused killer was entirely circumstantial, for not a soul in the world heard him plot the

SP Gs

Defense lawyers insisted
the suspect was too weak
from tuberculosis to carry
the corpse up the steep,
snow-covered hill. The
prosecution agreed — but
still sent him to the gas
chamber.

Sex and chess were the two
great passions of Bud Abbott,

shown here finishing his last
game on the eve of execution.

RTE REGS

reba bt}

murder, and no one saw the murderous blows inflicted.

But often when a connected chain
of circumstances, each link proven
beyond a reasonable doubt, wiggles a
finger at guilt, circumstances at long
last become an unmistakable, unesca-
pable, unmitigated fact. This is often
the best evidence there is.

She was only 14 years old, a

_hairsbreadth from puberty. She was

hardly pretty, but comely; her skin was

Teenage Stephanie Bryan was
beaten on the head with a club
_ and choked with her panties.

24

wig RUE POT Th {tA ST ct

* tarnished with an inflammation mark-

ed by redness, and scaly lesions that
the doctor diagnosed as eczema. She
was so sensitive about her condition
that her teachers seldom called upon
her to recite in class and so self-
conscious that she rarely mixed with
her classmates.

William Junior High School in
Berkeley, California, was full of girls
whose private theory was ‘‘girls who
do right get left,’’ but Stephanie was
not one of them. Reared in one of the
most comfortable, choicest homes in
an upper-middle-class neighborhood,

ACRIME
CLASSIC

with a gracious garden where the
family often relaxed, she and her three
younger sisters and a little brother were
protected to the brink of absurdity by
parents who were deeply, fiercely,
devoted to their children.

Her father was a physician, a
radiologist in an Oakland hospital, a

Young victim bought her first bra just a few hours before she
was last seen alive.

PUMLLUGE VCAOBD 3

Octobe
Ucvooder, 198), *

man so attentive to his children that
he drove them all to school with
insistent regularity every morning.
Mrs. Bryan laid out a path by which
they were to return, with almost
patholological detail, and was con-
stantly on the lookout for them when
the schoolbell buzzed. Stephanie
always danced to the piping of her
parents, Dr. and Mrs. Charles S.
Bryan Jr., and it wasn’t likely that she
would have voluntarily entered a
stranger’s car, or even stop to chit-chat
with him.

Not much is known of Stephanie’s
last hours on earth beyond the fact that
she left school at promptly 3:30 in the
afternoon of April 28, 1955. Chape-
roned by a classmate; she stopped by
a pet shop to purchase a book on
parakeets. From there the two girls
went to the library to withdraw two

Victim’s purse containing wal-
let and identification was turn-
ed over by surprise finder.

books, then on to a doughnut shop
for munchies. Stehanie bid her friend
goodbye at the Claremont Hotel tennis

courts, an ancient, remarkable’

structure comprising acres of elegant
grounds laid out like an Oriental rug.
As usual, Stephanie, attached to her
mother by long, invisible strings,
planned to take the regular short-cut
which led directly to the street where
she lived. But tragedy waited in the
wings. And once again, pleasure would
prove more powerful than all the fear
of penalty.

(continued on next page)

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Her Bra Was Laced With Murder

(continued from page 27)

surmise, Bud returned to the same
story that the place had been used as
a polling place and anyone could have
planted the stuff as dozens of voters
had gone in and out.

Even with this incriminating eviden-
ce, police were not convinced that Bud
Abbott was a genuine killer. He was
still not under arrest, but officers
wanted to know in detail where he had
been and what he had been doing on
April 28.

He offered a puncture-proof alibi.
He said he had decided to drive up to
his bungalow in the Trinity Mountains
that morning, for the commencement
of fishing season, and therefore it
would have been utterly impossible for
him to have been in Berkeley at the
time of Stephanie’s abduction. That
alibi was his entire defense, and later,
a string of witnesses would both
confirm and upset this, adding to the
mystery.

On the night of July 20, Harold
Jackson, a frolicsome character most
celebrated as a ‘‘bear and bobcat
hunter,’’ was night-wandering with his
two mutts when they suddenly wailed
and scurried to a knee-deep grave on
a slope 335 feet above the bungalow.
The hunter stood in a trancelike gaze
as the dogs unearthed a decomposed
body, arms shrouding her head as if
in protection from a fierce onslaught.
The corpse, gnashed and gobbled by
wild animals, was unrecognizable, but
the clothes were those Stephanie
reportedly wore last.

Her sheer, white panties were
knotted loosely about her neck,

‘perhaps in an effort to strangle her,

Someday...

research may
conquer

CEREBRAL
PALSY.

Think about that
the next time
you’re asked to

Give to
UNITED
CEREBRAL
PALSY a)

42

although a coroner, after being’

summoned, said she had died from a
series of blows on the skull by some

club-like tool. He said he could not

not be sure if she had been sexually
abused or not.

Abbott’s defenders claimed that this
slight man, whose medical history had
diagnosed him as tubercular, could
never have climbed that steep hill,
covered with snow in April, breathing
intangible air, supporting the dead
weight of a 105-pound corpse, then
bury the body and scamper down the
hill again. A strapping detective tried
it and failed.

But, certain criminal analysts
suggested that Abbott could have
hiked Stephanie up there while she was
still alive, and could have buried her
where she died.

In any case, the discovery of
Stephanie’s corpse on Abbott’s
bungalow property was the shot police
needed for his arrest. The Grand Jury
charged him with kidnapping and
murder. :

But Abbott was held at the Alameda
County Jail until his trial began on the
afternoon of November 7, 1955. He
had two highly skilled lawyers in
Stanley Whitney and Harold Hove.
Whitney was a sophisticated man with
a pencil moustache, formerly an
Alameda city attorney, and Hove was
an Alameda city councilman, and an
ex-FBI agent. District Attorney J.
Frank Coakley undertook the prose-
cution with vindictiveness.

During the longest murder trial on
record in Alameda County, Whitney
stressed the point of ‘‘reasonable
doubt,’’ and while the prosecution
introduced witnesses who swore they
had passed Abott in Berkeley on the
afternoon of April 28, Whitney
imported people who claimed they
had seen Bud two hundred miles away.
Abbott himself claimed to have
stopped at the State Land Office in
Sacramento, and at various eateries,
en route to his retreat in. the moun-
tains.

The cook of the luncheonette in
Corning had a notoriously bad
memory for faces and couldn’t
remember Abbott from scrapple. The
owner of a restaurant in Wildwood,
near Bud’s hideaway, was unsure of
the date. But the.proprietor of a third
lunchery said that Abbott had eaten
at this place in Redding on April 28th

and produced a log book which
supported his statement.

His visit to the Wildwood cafe was
a highly important alibi. Abbott said
he had driven there on the night of
April 28 and had consumed quite a
bit of alcohol in the nine hours he
spent at the bar. Whitney produced
an essential witness, a maverick
University of Chicago graduate, whose
station-wagon broke down near Wild-
wood. He testified that he chatted
with Abbott briefly and that he was a
little tipsy, but at no time did Abbott

say anything ‘‘that was neurotic,

antisocial, or vicious.”’
Leona Dezman, who had since fired
Georgia Abbott from her beauty

. parlor job, told the court that Bud

Abbott had visited his wife in the
Dezman beauty shop at approximately
2:30 on the afternoon of April 28. This
seemed to outbalance testimony that
he was sitting in the Wildwood Cafe,
communing with a bottle of spirits,
when the owner of the bar and grill,
Delbert Cox, blurted out: ‘‘Why, Bud
Abbott, what the hell are you doing
here this time of year?”’

Defense attorney Whitney describ-
ed Bud Abbott as a nice guy, a bit
spoiled perhaps, babied by a mother.
An army veteran who, while encamped

at Kentucky, suffered double pneu- }

monia which had awakened a latent
tuberculosis. Subsequently one
lung and five ribs were removed. After
his medical discharge, he, his wife and
baby, moved into his mother’s
Alameda one-story stucco house.
Under the GI bill he became a student
in accounting at the University of
California.

His brother Mark told the jury: ‘‘He
is still in constant pain, and is so weak
he can’t lift his four-year-old son.’’
His wife said: ‘‘He still has trouble
breathing — Bud is gentle and kind
and good. Everybody likes him.’’

J. Frank Coakley, the prosecutor,
painted his own version. He saw
Abbott as a sex maniac and brought
into court several women who had
complained Abbott had tried to lure
them into his Chevy. One of these
witnesses was a 13-year-old student
whose charge came after Stephanie
disappeared.

A Berkeley housewife asserted that
Abbott followed her from a parking
lot three years previously and tried to
pick her up. It was the only time dur-
ing the trial that Abbott lost his cool.
Looking at the woman with loathing,
he blurted from the defense table:

(continued on next page)

*‘She is absolutely false! I can’t explain
how she could have said such a thing.
I’m not in the habit of following
women. I’m married and have a son.
I only follow one woman — my wife.”’

Georgia told the court that since his
lung operation Abbott’s sex drive had
slackened. But earlier she had testified:
‘There is no incompatibility between
us of any kind.’’

District Attorney Coakley dwelt at
length on the testimony of Dr. Paul
L. Kirk, of the criminological depart-
ment of the University of California,
who had compared microscopic fibers
and hairs taken from Abbott’s Chevy
with fibers from Stephanie’s sweater
and with hairs from her head. He
analyzed small clumps of soil from
Abbott’s boots and compared them
with earth at the gravesite. The biggest
and reddest of red herrings in the case,
however, was the specks of blood
found in the back seat of Abbott’s
Chevy. Although found to be human,
technicians failed to prove that the
blood was Stephanie’s... or even her
type.

The trial ended on January 25, 1956.
And Abbott, to paraphrase Cowley,
had suffered ‘‘all the ills that men
endure.’’ His stony-hearted attitude
and unexpressive mask undoubtedly
affected the jury adversely. What
average man charged with so cruel a
crime could sit through his trial hardly
ever blinking those eyes, while looking
death in the face? Abbott explained
his ‘‘cool’’ this way:

‘There is no reason to be immature
and jump up and down and yell. After

’ all, I’ve spent several years in the

hospital and have learned to keep
myself under control while looking
death in the eye.”’

The jury broke another county
record by remaining out for seven days
before finding Abbott guilty of
kidnapping and murder, and he was
sentenced to the gas chamber in San
Quentin.

Abbott continued to cry out his
innocence from a prison cell while his
mother and brother worked round-the-
clock to save him. Their lingering
battle was further dramatized by a
newspaper ad offering a $2,500 reward
for information establishing his
innocence. Then the automatic appeal
to the California State Supreme Court
failed, with such ardent foes of capital
punishment as Supreme Court Justice
William O. Douglas rejecting his pleas,
and Edmund G. ‘‘Pat’’ Brown, then
attorney general, wiring the clerk of
the United States Supreme Court to

’ say: ‘‘These last minute tactics are just

a device to delay justice’. Judge
Snook set an execution date for March
15,-1957%

A woman columnist recorded the
scene at the undertaker’s parlor in
Redding where the remains of poor
Stephanie were at long last released
for cremation. Local police cleared the
streets and a blanket of roses, orchids,
and lilies covered the grave at the
family plot. The reporter’s definition
of the ceremony was: ‘‘A river of tears
among the perfume of flowers.”’

On March 13, Abbott’s mother and
brother visited him and his wife
Georgia, shunned by the family, spent
an hour with him. Abbott was calm
when they moved him from Condemn-
ed Row to the cell next to the green
chamber. His appetite never deserted
him; he devoured prawns, ravioli, and
was picky in ordering salad ‘‘principal-
ly romaine lettuce with vinegar and oil

dressing.’’ He chatted with the

warden, prison guards, and the Roman
Catholic prison chaplain. That night
he drifted into sleep and awoke at 6:30
a.m. At breakfast he wolfed down a
hearty meal of ham, bacon, scrambled
eggs, hashbrowns, coffee and orange
juice. — ~

Usually, San Quentin executions are
underway by 10 a.m., but while
Abbott’s attorneys made a last effort
to save him, Governor Knight allowed
several minor stays of execution —
once within 15 minutes of his date with
death. Furious correspondence to the
governor from sympathetic citizens
accused him of taunting the prisoner.

Abbott’s last visitor was San
Quentin psychiatrist Dr. David
Schmidt, who asked Bud to come clean

VERDICT?
SOLUTION

The jury returned a verdict of not
guilty. It decided that since the first
wound had caused Abbot’s death, the
second blow was inconsequential for it
caused no additional harm. Even if
Miller had struck a dozen more blows,
he could not have injured Abbot more
seriously than he did with that first
stabbing. And since this blow was struck
in self-defense, Miller could not be
guilty of murder. Miller v. State (1871)
37 Ind. 432.

about the killing. Abbott replied
tersely: ‘‘I can’t admit it. Think of
what. it would do to my mother.”’

On the appointed day, Abbott was
taken from his cell at 11:12 a.m. and,
with the nonchalance of an astronaut,
accompanied guards to the ‘“‘little
green room.’’ Through tear-glazed
eyes he returned the gaze of the fif-
ty-three witnesses gathered outside the
chamber. As he was being strapped
to the chair he remained a mountain
of stability.

At 11:15 a.m. the gas pellets
thudded into a pail of sulphuric acid.
As the deadly puffs of cyanide gas
swirled about in Abbott’s head the
hotline from Governor Goodwin
Knight’s office buzzed for Warden
Harley O. Teets.

“Can you stop it?’’ asked Knight’s
secretary, Joseph Babich.

“No,”’ Teets said, ‘‘the gas has been
applied.’’

The additional stay was never
explained by Knight’s office, but it
mattered not to Bud Abbott, for he
was slumped in his chair with a dreamy
smile on his face. A doctor pronounc-
ed him dead at 11:25.

In accordance with his will, Abbott’s
body was sent directly to the University
of California for use by medical
students. His eyes were shipped to the
university’s eye bank for cornea
transplants. A $10,000 veteran’s life
insurance was nullified because of his
execution.

A year later, almost to the day, Dr.
Bryan collapsed from a heart attack
and died while puttering in the garden
where Stephanie once played.

Georgia Abbott changed her and her
son’s name and vanished into seclu-
sion. In 1961, Elsie Abbott appealed to
Stanley Mosk, then state attorney
general, for a full review of the case,
but Mosk said, ‘‘We have no new
evidence that warrants reopening.’’

Before he was taken to the same gas
chamber (May 3, 1960) and seated on
the same seat where Abbott had died,
Caryl Chessman told a private detec-
tive, Bill Linhart, of a conversation
he had with Bud Abbott on Death
Row. Chessman claimed Abbott told
him that someone close to him
murdered Stephanie Bryan and
Abbott, ‘‘feeling a desperate need to
help his friend, took the girl’s body to
his mountain bungalow and buried it.’’

And there, the judgments, and the
lingering doubts that follow so many
executions, remains today, amidst a
swirl of controversy. Our judgments
are like our watches; none go just
alike, yet each believes his own. *&

43


SPECIAL TO THE EXAMINER
ey

NEERIE PUBLIC obsession
with a Berkeley murder
case took root in 1955.
Nothing like it had oc-
curred before and
wouldn’t again, be-
cause it was an emo-
tional reaction born
of the culture and
consciousness of the ’50s. Stuff like this
just wasn’t supposed to happen then.

The case began April 28 that year.
Times were good. Eisenhower was presi-
dent. Goodwin Knight was governor. War
was in the past. The oldest baby boomers
were about 10. Television had arrived but
had not yet found immediacy. San Fran-
cisco still had four daily newspapers.

Berkeley was a peaceable kingdom,
mildly intellectual, upscale and comfort-
ably at home with the University of Cali-
fornia. UC was years away from the Free
Speech Movement.

That Thursday afternoon a quiet, pret-
ty, adolescent girl, Stephanie Bryan,
failed to come home from her ninth-grade
classes at Willard Junior High School in
Berkeley. At 14, she was the eldest of five
children in a family living on Alvarado
Road near the Claremont Hotel. Her
physician father was a radiologist at Per-
alta Hospital.

Berkeley police were notified shortly
before nightfall. The case swiftly attract-
ed wide public attention. There were
modest newspaper, radio and TV reports
at first, followed soon by banner head-
lines and unrelenting front-page stories

Ss: sa FRANC ISto = XAM

that would continue until a gas chamber
execution at San Quentin Prison two
years later.

Harry Farrell, a retired reporter and
writer for the San Jose Mercury News, re-
searched the case for four years and has
written a compelling book that lets read-
ers look closely at the crime, the police in-
vestigation, the trial and the bizarre
events of what came to be
known, simply, as The Trees wit! 3
Abbott Case. wae

This is Farrell’s sec-
ond major work. In 1992,
he published “Swift Jus-
tice,” a gripping account =
of the lynching of two ~
killers in St. James Park
in San Jose in 1933. It won
the Edgar Allan Poe Award

Stephanie Bryan’s disap-

pearance remained just that ’
for almost three months, with
scores of false leads and only
two real but tantalizing clues:
a car seen at roadside near the Broadway
Tunnel, with the driver shoving at a girl
in the back seat, and a schoolbook of
Stephanie's found at roadside a few miles
away in Franklin Canyon.

Farrell opens his account with a scene
of domestic tranquility in a small stucco
home in Alameda on July 15. It was din-
ner time, and Burton W. “Bud” Abbott,
27, an accounting student at Cal, was
broiling steaks. His wife, Georgia, 32, a
hairdresser, was in the basement looking
for a costume hat.

Moments later, Georgia pounded up-
stairs holding a red leather purse, found

in a soap carton. Inside was Stephanie’s
school pass. Georgia wondered if that was
the missing Berkeley girl. Abbott pooh-
poohed. “Must belong to one of your girl-
friends,” he said. But Georgia, worried,
picked up the phone, and the house was
quickly full of cops. Dug up in the base-
ment sand were two of the girl’s school-
books, a spiral notebook, her
wan*") glasses and her white I.
a Magnin brassiere, one
cc strapbroken. .
But as Farrell explains,
Abbott had an alibi. The
day Stephanie disap-
peared he had driven
alone to the family’s rus-
tic isolated cabin at
Wildwood near Hayfork
in mountainous Trinity
County. It was to get
the place ready for
fishing season, he
said, and others con-
firmed that he was
there.

Police and FBI agents searched the
Wildwood cabin’ and the surrounding
area but did not find what they suspected
was hidden somewhere — ‘the Bryan
girl’s body.

Five days passed, and William C.
Wren, managing editor of The Examiner,
decided that not enough digging had been
done at Abbott’s cabin. Farrell takes read-
ers along as Ed Montgomery, a reporter
whose digging elsewhere had won a
Pulitzer Prize, flew to Trinity County
with photographer Bob Bryant.

With the help of a local rancher and a
pair of bluetick hounds, Montgomery
found Stephanie on July 20; buried in a

WER SUNDay /2

“LP-9F7
shallow grave at the foot of a tall sugar
pine 339 feet up the mountainside across
the road from Abbott’s cabin. Her skull
had been crushed, and her panties were
knotted around her neck.

The public was mesmerized. On a sin-

gle day, in an hour and 15 minutes, more
than 500 subscribers called The Examin-
er to ask questions or to offer advice on the
case.
After that came Abbott’s arrest and
59-day trial. Farrell recreates in absorb-
ing detail a prosecution based largely on
circumstantial evidence. Readers get a
close-up view of fiery District Attorney J.
Frank Coakley; his polished assistant,
Folger Emerson; the stumbling defense
attorneys, Stanley Whitney and Harold
Hove; the never-ruffled Judge Charles
Wade Snook; Abbott’s wife, mother and
brother; and the defiant Abbott himself,
dueling from the witness stand, proclaim-
ing his innocence to the end.

The jury deliberated seven days and
returned two death verdicts for kidnap-
ping and murder.

Farrell reports Burton Abbott’s final
request for dinner at San Quentin on
March 14, 1957: tossed green salad, but-
terfly jumbo prawns and chocolate cake,
followed by a few hours of sleep. He was
executed at 11 o’clock the next morning,
shortly before Gov. Knight’s clemency
secretary called with a stay. To borrow
Farrell’s book title of the San Jose lynch-
ings, this too was “swift justice,” but of a
legal kind.

Gale Cook is a retired reporter, writer and city
editor of The Examiner. He was assigned to the
Stephanie Bryan case, wrote the story of the dis.
covery of her body by Ed Montgomery, covered
Abboit’s trial and attended his execution.


SUNDAY, MAY 7, 1995. ® A Section of the Son Francisco Examiner & Chronide SUNDAY Ine! xox San Francisco Chronicie 5

An Appetite for Murder

As the nation feasts on the sordid details of the O.J. Simpson case, |
the drama harks back to the mid-1950s when the Bay Area was riveted
by an equally notorious case — the trial of Burton (Bud) Abbott

By Raiph Craib

he murder generated a me-
dia feeding frenzy. The taci-
= turn suspect never admitted
guilt. No murder weapon was ever
found. The public followed every
development of the case fervently.
Many people believed that the de-
fendant couldn’t have committed
such a brutal killing. Sex was un-
doubtedly part of the script but no
one knew what part it played.
There were no eyewitnesses, so the
prosecution
was forced to
rely entirely
on  circum-
stantial but scientific evidence.

Sound familiar?

Of course: This was the Abbott.
case 40 years ago in Alameda —
the most sensational trial of its era.

While the defendant, Burton
W. (Bud) Abbott, was in no way as
famous, admired and rich as O.J. -
Simpson, the trial sparked a simi-
lar media frenzy — although tele-
vision’ cameras were not yet as
ubiquitous as they are today.
There were more than 30 full-time
reporters representing newspa--
per, radio and wire services. There
were an average of 10 cameramen
standing by outside the courtroom
to take photographs of the witness-
es. abort was a6 — and close- : PHOTOS BY GORDON PETERS/THE CHRONICLE 1955, 1956
mouthed as O.J. Simpson. Eventu- Cameramen, above, waited
ally he went to his death at San outside the courtreem to
Quentin — his lips sealed. photograph witnesses, Dr. Paul

The Abbott case began Thurs- Kirk, a U.C. criminalist, right,
day, April 28, 1955, when Stephan- pointed to evidence that Abbott
ie Bryan, a 14year-old student at had been at the grave site.
Willard Junior High School in

Berkeley, failed to arrive home On yooq in the Trinity Alps, 250 miles

Alvarado Road, just behind the orth of the Ba
y Area, where the
Claremont Hotel. The Claremont- npotts owned a cabin.

Elmwood neighborhood, an afflu- i

22 -- 2 24d en et ne alitenA


' INTERVIEW CRIME

Brewer _ An Appetite
tin sits down 2 For Murder
on of _ Ralph Craib recalls the
mental ' notorious murder trial
it of Burton Abbott


ee

Abbott was as cool and close-
mouthed as O.J. Simpson. Eventu-
ally he went to his death at San
Quentin — his lips sealed.

The Abbott case began Thurs-
day, April 28, 1955, when Stephan-
ie Bryan, a 14-year-old student at
Willard Junior High School in

Berkeley, failed to arrive home on,

Alvarado Road, just behind the
Claremont Hotei. The Claremont-
Elmwood neighborhood, an afflu-
ent area of substantial homes and
even a few mansions, was home to
many University of California fac-

ulty families and trans-Bay. com-..

muters. Like Nicole Brown Simp-
son’s neighborhood, it seemed an
unlikely site for a sordid drama.

Stephanie lived with her youn-
ger sister, her mother, Mary, and
her father, Charles, a radiologist.
Among Dr. Bryan’s patients was
Stanley Norton, the longtime assis-
tant managing editor of the Oak-
land Tribune, then owned by the
Knowland family. When Stephan-
ie disappeared, her parents ap-
pealed to Norton, who convinced
Oakland police to organize a
search. (Then, the failure of a 14
year-old to come home was gener-
ally treated as a runaway case.)

There was no shortage of vol-
unteers. Naval Reservists, Nation-
al Guardsmen and Boy Scouts by
the hundreds spent thousands of
hours over several weekends,
combing the hills from Berkeley to
Orinda, to no avail.

Several people reported seeing
a man struggling with a young
woman in a car pulled over near
what is now the Caldecott Tunnel,
but no license number or definite
description of the vehicle was ob-
tained.

Police established that Ste-
phanie had last been seen near the
Berkeley Tennis Club, adjacent to
the Claremont Hotei but on Tun-
nel Road, the extension of Ashby
Avenue and a main route to Con-
tra Costa County.

he Bryans suffered the ago-
7 ny of not knowing what had

happened to their daughter
for 13 weeks and two days. Then
came an almost unbelievable
break: An Alameda beautician,
Georgia Abbott, called Berkeley
police to say that she had found a
purse with Stephanie Bryan’s ID
cards in it buried in her basement,
along with books and a brassiere.

Police obtained permission to
dig up the Abbott basement and
the recently-laid patio. Attention
immediately focused on Georgia
Abbott’s husband, Burton (Bud)
‘Abbott, 27, an ailing accounting
student at UC Berkeley on the Gi

aoe

Cameramen, above, waited
outside the courtrcem to
photograph witnesses, Dr. Paul
Kirk, a U.C. criminailis:, right,
pointed to evidence that Abbott
had been at the grave site.

wood, in the Trinity Alps, 250 miles
north of the Bay Area, where the
Abbotts owned a cabin.

The investigation shifted
north.

Among the first journalists to
arrive was San Francisco Examin-
er crime reporter and Pulitzer
Prize winner Ed Montgomery,
who learned that the most respect-
ed outdoorsman in the area was
Harold (Bud) Jackson. Jackson,
who tracked and hunted mountain

lions, bobeats and bears, agreed to’

come to the Abbott cabin with his
dogs, Shorty and Spot.

The dogs sniffed about the cab-
in and took off across the road and
up a slope. They stopped about 335
feet above the cabin amid pine and
manzanita.

Jackson testified later that he
dug in a shaliow depression and hit
a shoe. Certain that his dogs had
led him to a human grave, he sum-

After 13 weeks, an

Alameda beautician
called police to say
she had found a
purse with
Stephanie Bryan’s
ID cards buried in
her basement

moned Trinity County sheriff's
deputies, who compieted the exhu-
mation of Stephanie’s body.
Abbott was arrested for investi-
gation of kidnapping and murder.

’ He insisted he was innocent, say-

ing he was north of Sacramento
when the giri was last seen.

His trial began November 8,
1955, in the courtroom of Judge
Charles Wade Snood in the Alame-
da County Superior Court next to
Lake Merritt in Oakland. What en-
sued was unprecedented in Bay
Area legal history. Front-row seats
were assigned to 30 newspaper re-
porters, backed up by 16 perma-
nent press photographers. The re-
maining two seats were available
to the public, but family members

of both the victim and the defen-
dant were siven seatins nrefer-

when the defendant made a cer-
tain purchase of gasoline, FBI
agents checked more than 150,000
credit card purchases.

But the trial turned on the tes-
timony of Dr. Paul Kirk, a Univer-
sity of California criminalist. Kirk

put Abbott at the grave site Police officers Steve Soishnie and Russ Jehnsen sifted through seil in the Abbotts’ basement

through dirt clots from the defen-_,
dant’s boots. Kirk also put Ste-
phanie in Abbott’s Chevroiet
through hair samples found in the
car. Kirk testified that the chances
that the hair belonged to someone
other than Stephanie were one in
135,000.

Reporters noted that Abbott
smirked and smiled during the cri-

minalist’s testimony. The defense:
claimed that Abbott, who had tu-

berculosis and had had part of a
jung removed at Livermore Veter-
ans Hospital, would have been
physically incapable of carrying
the victim up a steep, snow-cov-
ered slope.

The Alameda County forensic

pathologist Dr. George Loquvam
testified that Bryan’s death was
caused by a massive depression to
the back of her skull. The murder
weapon and any possible sexual
motive remained a mystery and
went with Abbott to his grave.

he jury reached its verdict
T on January 25, 1956. Abbott

was found guilty of one
count of kidnapping and one count
of murder. He was sentenced to
die in the gas chamber at San
Quentin.

The jurors were convinced by
the prosecution arguments, in-
cluding testimony from several
witnesses who contradicted Ab-
bott’s contention that he was far
from Berkeley at the time Ste-
phanie was last seen.

Abbott’s appeals were fruitless.
His evacutinn set far March 1

Abbott consults with attorneys Harold Heve and Stanley Whitney

tai fumes. A veteran reporter
fainted.

Less than two minutes later,
the phone rang. It was Governor
Goodwin Knight’s secretary, Jo-
seph Babich, announcing a stay of
execution. He was informed by the
warden that his call was too late.

The next day’s headlines

naman mad. “Dhawan Gall Man T ata


~~ * rie Anns aah emenipetet ne to
tse apeth mame baci erica rete RR NET Y Nia aistee ROTC TS

SERIES
~ACIF sPORTER, 2d §
Cal 165 PACIFIC RI oving guilt be-
10 th The defendant

of pr
ici The Boggs the people the burden i)
nel his innocence OF

bt.
reasonable dou
round yond a red :
given was not is not obliged to Dove We Pe etend:
n is con- offer any proof thereon, ciaeexatase bet

stitution was not pre 3
case likewise rested me pve
that the instruction there

PEER jury, however,
prejudicial. The jury 1 nature of the

take the v re
ant elects not to believes to be t
: ec : what he be 5
cerned with es Peas. give defendant’s to ba Dee insufficiency of me ea
’ att that 1 pet a se iminating weakne : do and no
consideration tna deny incrimina has a right to so ¢ .
explain or deny hould case, he has a rist iIt arises from
failure to exp nt case shov umption of gu 4?
; in the prese t’s ence ‘or presump itness stand.
evidence, and i d he defendan . : take the w f
= . that the his failure to burden 0
re been instructe . idence pre- hi : that the 4 :
sits to deny or explain evidence P “You are instructed tion and the fail-

: te a pre- the prosecu 1

: does not crea ; rests on the stanc

9 eae 98h a an inference of guilt, ee the defendant to take Presi of
? : n
sumption or W dered only in relation i

no presumption or | a tial
There was no error in tie io
instructions. Battie) Le
i i elsewhere 0

] instructions 2
of innocence and asta i

t, moreover, tha

but should be cons! eo os
to evidence that he a og
deny; and that if it caver psa
| nde that defendant coul Lee
Sates to explain or deny eV

ider presumption men
: jury May consi The bare state the
sented against gee pee re to indicate proof. dant to take
s : $oO a
his failure to do

j defen :
ae “she failure of the . ference
‘dence and as indicat- “the fail es no presumption or inf par
the truth of such ag nees that may stand fais isleading in
re
. ong the inie
ing that am

of guilt,” is deficient and mi
m, those un-

y drawn therefrom,

reasonably be

ideration can
hay a int out what consi ;
e it fails to point The court may
t are the mor é he circumstance.
the defendan be given th
favorable to ‘

i d instruc-
3 se to give a propose ~
probable. properly refu t only par

2 i
Seek, is misleading because
failure to give such an a tion Pet nats
a : : F e Ww:
[19] ‘genic not prejudicial, however. tially sta
struction W

- dant : roposed in-
ppears from the evidence nee err or = [23, a. eo dignity P ee been ae
aid? te See i owever, t the
bly be expec ry struction, the fact tha
could reasona 1. Thus the jury 5 actaitadk that :
E . resented. : “You are ins c crit ion tht
deny all es . idence concerning has a right to co nd
i from the evice han- prosecutor 1) to take the sta
could infer “ay that defendant C the defendant to t :
ints either tha in the failure of the tion of the bur
the fingerprints ent door in t lieve the prosecuti a
compartm der does not relieve , nd a reasona
dled the garbage glary and murde blishing guilt beyo :-
3 he burglary den of establi 1d legal evi
rpetration of t at some competent and :
a ‘it they were places oa reasona- ble doubt pS eee ig general instruction
other time. The og Ee or not dence.”  Altho
ted to know
bly be expec

i be-
: f had been given, t
= door and if on ntti ME tscd of misconstruction
had handled the garbage idence that cause of is d effect to
- a what occasion. The om " aasbind of the weight and ¢
so, 3 a

be given the
itled
E t was entitle
: >, the defendan
he solicited some one to ct nce either circumstance,
ns is susceptible of an mtcre to a specific in
ring

: failure to deny

struction that t

ft sian A nce does no

: he victim's ‘incriminating evider ;
that he was blero iC aioe with or explain gh the burden of persuading
: at had no - impose upon :
me Ot Se ee ercarie could reasona- imp P f his innocence.

‘ e
the crime. nh

In view, how-
j oO : s in-
d to know whether or not he bs si the fact that the jury wa
bly be expecte liciti and
iciting and,
had done such so

3 f
if a Pairs thoroughly on burden of proo
His failure to ex- structed g
hat rings. is =
— 2 ee this evidence by his tes

lain or Syme
1e evi- gui t.
bly be to give these
“pre- ample genera

dict
++ i¢ improbable that the ver :
ag age vifferent had the instruc

8 . the would have

plain or Id have been considered by as tion been given.

nny CO od t the evidence w ing instruction was
; 5 indicating tha favorable 6] The following 10 hat
ea! vie that the inferences unta [25, 26] “You are instructed tha
true a

obable. roposed: i mment
were the more pr also p ecution to co
to the defendant 5s that the right of the pros dant to take the

: defen
dant contends tt failure of the : f
[20-22] The defen ‘¢ the following on the be used to supply a failure o
d in refusing tand cannot be om: -.e the cir-
the court erre “Yo are instruct- s the prosecution. ince

i ctions: i saere
Pe ay te policy of the law to zeal- Pp
ed that 1

a: mstance O a
. a criminal cu ly to assis
innocent. In ; fy serves only to |
ously protect atin the defendant witha t faut the credibility 0
case the law sf innocence and casts upon m
tion o
presump

ilure to tes-
defendant’s fai ;

Aop t the jury in deter-
f and the inference

PEOPLE v. ADAMSON
Cite as 165 P.2a 3

to be drawn from evidence that is capable
of being but is not explained or denied by
his testimony, where no such evidence is
Presented in support of an essential ele-
ment of the crime, this circumstance clear-
ly cannot alone support a finding on that
element against the defendant,
Sawaya, supra;
see 2 Wigmore, supra, 179;
31 Mich.L Rev. 226, 229, ays
4 Cleveland Bar Journal 12; 3 Jour. of
Crim, Law and Criminolog
ant was therefore entitled to an in-
struction that his failure to testify may
not by itself support a finding against h’m
on an essential element of,the crime.
refusal to give the proposed
however, was not prejudicial.
dence supporting ¢

It is true that defendants convicted of prior
crimes often do not take the stand because
of fear that upon cross-examination their
criminal record will b
Sce Code Civ.Proc. §
9 Proc.Am.L
56 Reports of A.B.A.
Jeur. of Crim, Laws and Crit
Clearly, however,
thorized need not be the
that can be dr

e given to the jury.
2051; 22 Cornell L,
Inst. 202, 204, 207;
137, 142, 144;
minology, 292,
the inference au-
only plausible one
awn from the proved fact,
al under the due process clause.
al if the proved fact
cording to the teach-

People v. Scott, 24
, 780, 151 P.2d 517;

State v. Callahan, supra;
26 Yale LJ. 295,

The inference is ration
is a warning Signal ac
ings of experience.

The Cal.2d 774
instruction, California, 29} LS:
Ample evi- 78 L.Ed. 664.
ach element of the crime
was presented, Moreover, the strength of
the evidence against the defendant makes
it improbable that the jury could have dis-
Positive evidence support-
1 element of the crimes
leaving defendant’s fail-

82, 90, 54 S.Cr.°281,
It. is common
plain or deny adverse
at a defendant may reason
ain or deny tends to
of such evidence and

that the failure to ex

be expected to expl
show the credibility
renders more probable the
tenor thereof,
State y, Grebe,
pra, 164 et seq.; 31 Mich.L.

believed all the
ing any essentiz
charged, thereby

ure to testify the sole circumstanc
port of that element.

roc. §§ 1963(5),

Wigmore, su
Rev. 226, 229,
[27,28] Defendant contends that the
rational connection between a fact proved
and the fact presumed required by the due
Process clause of the Fourteenth Amend-
ment (People y. Scott, 24 Cal.2d 774, 779,
151 P.2d 517, ‘and cases there cited; Tot
, 319 U.S. 463, 467, 63 S.Ct.
1519) does not exist be-
ailure to deny or explain in-
evidence and the inference of
the credibility and unfavorable ten
provisions permit th
Defendant argues th
ack of power to explain f
to himself or to deny such evid
example fear of disclosure to th
Prior crimes through impeachm
Civ.Proc, § 2051;
Ibid, 380) or fear of cre
impression by being
Prompt a defendant not to t
In view of the even poorer i
mally created by
v. Grebe, supra;
Mich.L.Rev, 226, 229, 231
supra, 410; Ibid. 424;
Law and Criminolo
a bad impression bec
“poor witness” is not an
planation of a defend
22 Cornell L:@:.39
of Crim, Law and Crimi

[29] There has been much criticism of
the present state of the law
a defendant who has been
prior crimes in the dilemm
choose between not t
plain or deny the
risking unfavorable
and taking the stand
crimes disclosed to the
See 22 Corne
or there- Mich.L.Rev. 40; 9 Pro
e jury to 56 Reports of A.B.A.,
ent case defendant admitted
avorably felony’ convictions for
terms of imprisonment in the Missouri
The fact of the commission
€s was not offered or intro-
duced into evidence and would h
missible under the general rule with
ect to prior crimes,
son, 23 Cal.2d 550, 576, 145 P.2d 7,
there cited.

taken the stand, howey
see Bruce, 31 of tl

8 Wigmore,
3 Jour. of Crim.
Sy, supra), fear of cre-

, which places

a of having to
aking the stand to ex-
evidence against him
v. United States
1241, 87 L.Ed. and having his prior
tween the f jury on cross-exam-
I] L.Q. 392, 395; 31
c. Am.L Inst., supra;

In the pres-

of that these

at reasons oth-

state prison.

ent (Code of these crim
see 3 Wigm

a “poor witness,’
ake the stand.
mpression nor-
not taking the stand

People v. Albert-

Had defendant
er, the commission
iese crimes could have been revealed
to the jury on cross-examination to im-
peach his testimony. Code Civ.Proc,

People v. Braun, 14 Cal.2d 1, 92 P,
see 28 Cal.L.Rey, L228 *
more, supra, 380. Since fe
See is a plausible explan

ause of being a 2d 402:
impressive ex-
ant’s silence,
et seq.; 13 Jour.
nology, 292, 293.

ar of this result
ation of his failure to
and to deny or explain evidence
against him (see 22 Cornell LO 392.3213

abaebyepis.

Co ee

t

tytn tes a

shia ag eames anya ES *

silica 8 atone

Cal 210 PACIFIC REPORTER, 2d SERIES’: +)!
12 al. 2

outside men, not to regular members. it
plaintiffs were qualified for full member-
ship in Local 162 but defendants neverthe-
less arbitrarily denied them admission and
at the same time refused to permit them to
work without belonging to the air plain-
i i to recover damages
: é ‘thin the machinery pro- tiffs would nent fo) ne ee
their hg wi py appealing to the. 108 wrongful inter ae aia Cote
i the union, 2 ; SS oe Maki :
ee or the International or to the om ek ay oarie tsi P24 329, 10
general executive board or the convention te a Oe ea Torts, §§ 766, 210; a
are messi woe Am.Jur. 844 et seq-; 30 Am.Jur. 64; se
Plaintiffs’ Appeal Brotherhood of Locomotive vines PG a
t the court erred in Enginemen Vv. Tunstall, 4 es ate
neral and exemplary 289, 293; Smetherham v. Laun 7 ae
ers’ Union, 44 Cal.App.2d 131, 159, :

The trial court’s findings show that
ly reduced

nicd. The offer of defendants to present
rebuttal evidence is also denied.

The judgment must be reversed for the
reasons above stated, and it is unnecessary
to discuss defendants’ further ground for
reversal that plaintiffs failed to exhaust

Plaintiffs claim tha
denying them both ge ae,
damages, and they rely in part upon their
testimony that they were forced to leave 948. The Sones
their work and in part upon the finding of plaintiffs’ earning

ei

' z
the tr ial court that since July, 1945, de- after they stopped working in the juri dic-
fendants have not made we ork availa ble to tion of Local 162 . No findings were made,

: eee . ‘
i . to. plaintiffs’ right

hed them to em- however, relating
cn aise ee py on the. theory that the reduction

in their earnings was caused by a wrongful

3 ot 4
inter th their right to work, an
the theory interference wi “3

cessfully attacked upon é Gott BE OT ae

oe ae forced to leave their the denial of damages, ne a has

is ee eae the evidence is clearly suffi- sence of findings Sa Keene Loews

ck bo support the specific finding of the consistent ‘with st eee of Fl

ee : laintiffs were entitle

i Sti t true that a con- plain
trial court that “it 1s no

ice, inti i should “have: been given

i i : 7 intim- membership and s

areata ur eye or on that status retroactive to June 29, 1945.

idati i 3 ticed by 2
jation or coercion was prac .

he part of deforidints-*,**% 8 de- Inasmuch as the portions of the jude:
rive plaintiffs of their livelihood as MO- ment pertaining to plaintiff's rig as sa

a ! ;

ea picture operators oF of their member- membership must be sce ereed. aa

: ’ : ee s, at least in
ship in the International union, OF ‘0 deny the right to damages sh = ership
. ” - . > » 4 -
them admission: into Local 162. oe = part, upon the outcome : t - - sethrce
t damages De at; the entire matter should De :
the court’s refusal to gran sii issue, %
tacked on the ground that plaintiffs were 24 to the trial court so that all of the prob:

not dispatched to work as outside members, lems may be considered together.

ituti ational :
since the constitution of the Internat AES oe hs a Oe ide cated
from are reversed. i

provides that outside men must keep nee
working cards on deposit with the ae
and plaintiffs admit that they had picke
up their working cards.

ployment.
The refusal to allow damages may not

SHENK, EDMON DS, oe
, R and 3 ‘
(9] The provision requiring deposit of TRAYNOR, SCH AUER anc 7

i ., concur.
working cards, however, applies only to +}: 80

PEOPLE v. ADAMSON Cal. 13
Cite as 210 P.2d 13

PEOPLE v. ADAMSON.
Cr. 4989.

Supreme Court of California, in Bank.
Sept. 29, 1949.

Admiral Dewey Adamson was convicted of

‘ murder in the Superior Court, Los Angeles

County, Thomas L. Ambrose, J., and he ap-
pealed from an order denying his motion to
vacate in the nature of coram nobis.

The Supreme Court, Schauer, J., dismissed
the appeal holding that no grounds for relief
within the scope of the writ of coram nobis
were stated and that the petitioner failed to
present credible allegations of fact which
would constitute a prima facie case in any
form of proceeding.

- Carter, J., dissented.

!. Criminal law €=997
Petition for coram nobis is in legal
effect a motion to vacate a judgment.

2. Criminal law €=997

Purpose of “coram nobis” is to secure
relief, where no other remedy exists, from
a judgment rendered while there existed
some fact which would have prevented its
rendition if trial court had known it and
which through no negligence or fault of
defendant was not then known to the
court.

See Werds and Phrases, Permanent

Edition, for other judicial constructions
and definitions of “Coram Nobis’.

3. Criminal law 997

Petition for coram nobis must show
that facts upon which petitioner relies were
n0t known to him and could not in exercise
of due diligence have been discovered at
any time substantially earlier than time of
his motion for writ, otherwise no ground
for relief is stated.

4. Habeas corpus €=29

Habeas corpus is proper remedy to
attack collaterally a judgment of conviction
which thas been obtained in violation of
fundamental constitutional rights.

5. Criminal law €=997

Appropriate writ to secure relief from
a judgment of conviction obtained by use
of false testimony known by prosecution

to be false is not coram nobis but habeas
corpus.

6. Habeas corpus €=29

Habeas corpus is proper proceeding to
raise question of systematic, discriminatory
exclusion of Negroes from grand jury.

7. Habeas corpus €=25(1)

Habeas corpus can be used to advance
a defendant’s contention of denial of right
to counsel, at least where no other remedy
is available.

8. Criminal law €=997

Where a defendant seeks to vacate a
solemn judgment of conviction, particularly
one affirmed on appeal, showing of dili-
gence essential to granting of relief by way
of coram nobis should be no less than
similar showing required in civil cases
where relief is sought against lately dis-
covered fraud, and in such cases, defendant
must aver not only probative facts upon
which basic claim rests but also time and
circumstances under which facts were dis-
covered, and mere allegation of ultimate
facts or of legal conclusion of diligence
is insufficient.

9. Criminal law €=997

Where defendant contended that state
used perjured testimony to obtain murder
conviction and that method of selection
of judges and jurors permitted systematic
exclusion of colored persons, and defendant
did not exercise due diligence in advancing
contentions, no ground for relief was
stated within scope of writ of coram
nobis.

10. Criminal law ©=997

Petition for coram nobis and support-
ing affidavits failed to state sufficient cred-
ible facts from which trial court and
Supreme Court would be justified in be-
lieving that defendant had some expectance
of establishing his conclusionary allegations
of violations of due process of law. U.S.C.
A.Const. Amend. 14.

{1. Criminal law €=997

Coram nobis proceeding is a court-
made proceeding, and, within limits of
constitutional requirements, is subject to

*616T-6-cT (SeTesuy sO]) eTusesT Te) poqetTxfydse ‘61 SyoerTq S£omeqd Teatupy *NOSNyqy


EO SOIT TREE hg

14 Cal.

such limitations and procedural require-
ments as creating court may prescribe.

12. Criminal law €=997

Coram nobis proceeding is not subject —
to all rules applicable to an original trial
but is an attack upon a judgment which
has become final and in favor of which
there are strong presumptions of regularity,
and petition is regarded as a motion to
vacate judgment and not as a complaint
nor does it initiate an independent action.

13. Criminal law €=997

Where state filed a demurrer to peti-
tion: for a writ of coram nobis, Supreme
Court would not accept as true allegations
in petition but would consider circumstances
in which those allegations were made and
state’s affidavits controverting them. Pen.
Code, § 1265.

14. Criminal law €=997 ;

In coram nobis proceeding, defendant
failed to present credible allegations of fact
which would constitute a prima facie case
for relief. in any form of proceeding.

{5. Criminal law €=641 (4)

‘Defendant's right to counsel did not
include right to postpone trial of a case
indefinitely and reject services of public
defender while defendant at his leisure
attempted to find counsel who would serve
without charge and of whom defendant
and another person approved. °

16. Criminal law 6=304(1)

Supreme Court can take judicial notice
that it would be difficult to find in Califor-
nia any lawyers more experienced or better
qualified in defending criminals than public
defender of Los Angeles County and his

staff.

17. Criminal law e=1001, 1131(4)

Where proceeding in nature of an
application «for writ: of coram nobis and
appeal therefrom had as‘their object noth-
ing more: than delay in execution of a
judgment, stay of execition ’ previously
granted would be terminated, appeal from
judgment denying petitioner coram nobis
would be dismissed, and trial court would

1. Tho only presently existing orde
4, 1949.

eR a OE ce terse eS renner as Ae

210 PACIFIC REPORTER, 2d SERIES

be directed to proceed with execution of
its sentence in manner provided by law.

Morris Lavine, Los Angeles, for appel-
lant. :

Fred N. Howser, Attorney General, Wal-
ter L. Bowers, Assistant Attorney General,
William E. Simpson, District Attorney,
Jere Sullivan and Robert Wheeler, Deputy
Attorneys General, Los Angeles, for re-
spondent.

SCHAUER, Justice.

There are before this court defendant’s
appeal from a judgment denying his peti-
tion for coram nobis ard the People’s mo-
tions that this court dismiss such appeal,
vacate all orders staying execution of the
sentence,! direct the trial court to proceed
in the manner provided by law with execu-
tion of its sentence (which imposes the
death penalty), and direct immediate issu-
ance of the remittitur. For the reasons
hereinafter stated, we have concluded that
the motions of the People should be grant-
ed.

[1] By his petition for coram nobis
(which is, in legal effect, a motion to vacate
a judgment [People v. Adamson (1949), 33
Cal.2d 286, 287-288, 201 P.2d 537]) defend-
ant attacks a judgment of conviction of
first degree murder which has been affirmed
by this court (People v. Adamson (1946),
27 Cal.2d 478, 165 P.2d 3; rehearing de-
nied) and by the United States Supreme
Court (Adamson v. California (1947), 332
U.S. 46, 67 S.Ct. 1672, 91 L.Ed. 1903, 171
A.LR. 1223; rehearing denied, 332 U.S.
784, 68 S.Ct. 27,'92 L.Ed. 367). He con-
tends: That he was given only two days in
which to prepare his defense and was thus
deprived of the right to effective aid of
counsel. That “there has been a constant
and systematic exclusion of colored persons
in the appointment of judges” of. the Los
Angeles Superior Court, wherein he was
convicted, thus denying to defendant, a
Negro, “due process of law atid equal pro-
tection of the law.” ‘“That the mode and

r staying execution is an order of this court made May

PEOPLE v.

ADAMSON © «" i Cal. a!

Cite as 210 P.2d 13

method of. selection of jurors in Los
Angeles County was such as to permit
systematic and persistent exclusion of mem-
bers of thescolored or African race on ac-
count of race * * *, and that the jury
commissioner called only white persons to
attend the trial and try Admiral Dewey
Adamson. * «* *, .and that the jury
selected to try your petitioner consisted en-
tirély of women, all white. That such pro-
cedure and proceedings denied him the
equal protection of the law and due process
of law.” That defendant was convicted
upon false testimony of fingerprint experts
and of Mrs. Frances Turner, used by the
State with knowledge. of its: falsity.

The judgment attacked on the above
grounds was rendered on November 27,
1944.. It was affirmed on appeal on January
4, 1946 (People v. Adamson, supra, 27 Cal.
2d 478, 165 P.2d 3); a petition for rehear-
ing was denied on January 31, 1946; and
defendant was resentenced by the trial
court on February 15, 1946. On June 23,
1947, the United States Supreme Court
affirmed the decision of this court (Adam-
son v. California, supra, 332 U.S. 46, 67 S.
Ct. 1672, 91 L.Ed. 1903, 171 A.L.R. 1223),
and on October 13, 1947, that court denied
a petition for rehearing, 332 U.S. 784, 68
S.Ct. 27, 92 L.Ed. 367. On November 18,
1947, the trial court set February 6, 1948,
as the date for defendant’s execution. On
January 30, 1948, just one week before the
date set for his execution, defendant peti-
tioned this court for the writ of habeas
corpus. The petition was denied. The
United States Supreme Court denied certio-
rari to this court (Adamson v. California
(February 5, 1948), 333 U.S. 831, 68 S.Ct.
610, 92 L.Ed. 1115). ° Thereafter (later in
the day on February 5, 1948), a judge of
the United States District Court granted a
stay of execution to permit consideration of
a petition for habeas corpus in that court.
On February 16, 1948, the district judge
denied the petition for habeas corpus and
on March 2, 1948, he refused a certificate
of probable cause for appeal. On March
29, 1948, the trial court again fixed a date
for execution: June 4, 1948. Thereafter
a judge of the United States Court of Ap-
peals for the Ninth Circuit denied defend-

ant’s application for certificate of probable
cause for an appeal from the District Court
order (Ex parte Adamson (May 11, 1948),
167 F.2d 996). The United States Supreme
Court denied certiorari to the Court of Ap-
peals (Ex parte Adamson (June 1, 1948),
334 U.S. 834, 68 S.Ct. 1342, 92 L.Ed. 1761).
On June 2, 1948, defendant filed his peti-
tion for coram nobis in the trial court and
that court ordered execution stayed and
issued its order to show cause why the
petition should not be granted. The People
then filed a “Motion for a Denial of the
Relief Prayed For” with affidavits denying
generally and controverting specifically the
material allegations of the petition, and al-
so a “Demurrer.” On July 12, 1948, the
trial court made its order that “Demurrer
to petition * * * is sustained without
leave to amend.” Defendant attempted to
appeal from this non-appealable order (see
People v. Adamson (1949), supra, 33 Cal.
2d 286, 201 P.2d 537). After dismissal of
this purported appeal the trial court, on
February 15, 1949, heard argument and
rendered the “Judgment Denying Petition
for Writ of Error Coram Nobis’ from
which the present appeal is taken, ‘and set
May 6, 1949, as the date of execution. On
April 25, 1949, defendant filed with this
court an application for stay of judgment
pending appeal and, some of the justices
being of the view that defendant had shown
probable cause for reversal, on May 4, 1949,
we granted defendant’s application for stay
of execution. After further consideration
we are satisfied that the appeal is devoid
of merit.

The Failure to State any Ground for Re-
lief within the Scope of the Writ of
Coram Nobis.

[2,3] In this state a motion to vacate
a judgment in the nature of a petition for
coram nobis is a remedy of narrow scope.
(See People v. Darcy (1947), 79 Cal.App.
2d 683, 693, 180 P.2d 752; People v. Mar-
tinez (1948), 88 Cal.App.2d 767, 774, 199
P.2d 375.) Its purpose is to secure relicf,
where no other remedy exists, from a
judgment rendered while there existed
some fact which would have prevented its
rendition if the trial court had known it
and which, through no negligence or fault


CIFIC REPORTER, 24d SERIES

s fingerprints on the garbage
Fingerprints are the
f identity of a person
and under the circumstances of the present
case they were alone sufficient to identify
the defendant as the criminal. People v.

12 Cal. 165 PA

a

Criminology, 292, of defendant’
Re- compartment door.

Jour. of Crim. Law and
strongest evidence 0

295; °3 Proc.Am.L.Inst., supra;
“ports of A.B.A. supra), the inference of
the credibility and unfavorable tenor of
such evidence that arises from this fail-

ure is definitely weakened by this rule of
impeachment. This weakness, however, Ramirez, 113 Cal-App. 204, 298 P. 60.

could not be revealed to the jury by coun- The judgments and the order denying a
gel or court without prejudicing the de- new trial are affirmed.

fendant through the revelation of past
crimes. Court and prosecutor are left no GIBSON, C. J. and SHENK, ED-

alternative but to comment on defendant's MONDS, CARTER, SCHAUER, and
failure to deny or explain evidence against SPENCE, JJ., concurred.

him as though the sole reason for his

silence was that he had no favorable ex-
in this

planation. Any change in the law :
respect, however, must be made by the Leg-
islature.

secutor commented seven

times in oral argument on defendant’s si-
lence. Defendant did not object below to
these comments. In the absence of such
objection it, is the general rule that mis-

‘conduct of the district attorney cannot be In re JINGLES.
urged on appeal. People v. King, 13 Cal. Cr. 4686.
2a 521, 527, 90 P2d 291; People v. Boggs,

12 Cal.2d 27, 40, 82 P.2d 368; People v.
Hight, 37 Cal.App.2d 498, 501, 99 P.2d 657.

[31,32] Moreover, in the majority of
instances these comments were properly
Jimited to specific parts of the evidence accused to
that defendant could reasonably be ex- be jealously guarded,
pected to explain or deny. The prosecutor may be waived. Const. art. 1, § 13.

the borderline of permissible :
when he closed his oral 2. Criminal law e=304(1) ;
Court will judicially notic

[30] The pro

Supreme Court of California, in Bank.

Jan. 4, 1946.

1. Criminal law C641 (1)
Although the constitution
be represented by co

al right of an

approached
comment, however,

argument as follows:
going to just make this one statement to s :
= monly waived in pros

you: Counsel asked you to find this de- anand
fendant not guilty. But does the defend- rset ne 13.
ant get on the stand and say, under Gath, eee ao :

Not one word from him, 3, Criminal law C25!

‘J am not guilty?”

and not one word from a single witness. I Evidence establishe

leave the case in your hands.” This state- was fully eatructed Sa te

ment could be construed as a declaration to plea of guilty to

that the jury should infer guilt solely from police court, anit -itt
if defendant had quest for assistanc

defendant’s silence, and
objected thereto, he would have been €N- fore waived that right.
titled to have the jury advised that his Act 1970, § 5; Const. art.

silence could not be given such construc-
tion. It is improbable, however, that the 4. Criminal law o=641(1)
jury was misled. The prosecutor’s state- Where an accuse

ment followed his review of the evidence concerning his righ

and could be construed in connection there- full knowledge of
with as a conclusion that although the evi- right to be represe
dence established guilt, the defendant failed fact that he may
to explain or deny it. A major part of the familiar with those 1
testimony and of the proscctitor’s oral procedure,
argument concerned the presence of six art. 1, § 7.

1, §§ 7, 13.

unsel should
it is a right which

“In conclusion, fam ce that the
right of an accused to counsel is very Com-

ecutions for misde-

and police courts.

d that defendant
his rights prior
misdemeanor charge in
at he had made no re-
e of counsel, and there-
Gen.Laws 1943,

d is fully instructed
nts and thereafter, with
those rights, waives his
nted by counsel, the mere
not previously have been
ights or with court
is not determinative. Const.

IN RE JINGLES
Cite as 165 P.2d 12 sea, 13

5. Criminal law €=
251
Wh : E
ere defendant, convicted of a mis- for he D. Mabson, of San Francisco
oner,

demeanor in ;
in police court, had been in- =
ad ly, Atty Gen and Davi
. ee avid

formed of his Tee
con :
request for the ie heap Aeie made no K Lener D fs
e of counsel and ey » Deputy Atty. Gen., f
ent, . .. for respond-

was i
MTA che intelligence, he had
petently, intelligently, and completely”

waived the assista
Ronde? nce of counsel. Const.

SPENCE, Justice.

Petitioner, who is i
; , who ts in the
6. sh custody of t
Criminal Jaw €5641(1) pe! of Contra Costa County soaks ‘a
Waiver by accused of ri ease on habeas corpus é =
ance of counsel need of right to assist- Petitioner was ch roe
may be impli not be expressed but Court of vas charged in the Police
plied. Const. art. 1, § 7. pe of the City of Richmond with a mis-
7. Criminal law €=251 of ee Pas wit: rcheigagr of section 5
Whe erous Weapons’ :
“eats enn tad oon tay ade 2H, SAEIOR,  OH, Deerngs Gen
is right to b aws 1943, A cet 8 en.
ed by counsel Ahi € represent- , Act 1970, in that
; an implied wai August 15, 1945, in the city on or about
right fesulted: #r : aiver of that <2) , in the city of Ri
: om his act of he had in hi : y of Richmond
entering his plea é of voluntarily 1S possession a revolv :
. of guilt i : ly wea ver, a dead-
the aid of co guilty without having 1; pon, capable of bei
unsel and withou 8 his : ing concealed on
s = © person. U 4
such aid. Const. art. 1, § 7. equesting tered on Sigua sd peta goaber aba
8. Jury €=29(4) sentence was suspended wad Ee cae ee
A on probati , was placed
BAe pitens anicadane had entered a valid ihre conde for a period of one year upon
trial b gul'ty, no question of the righ six m n, among others, that he ser
al by jury or of the manner of ight to onths in the county jail. ve
such right remained. Con waiving The writ was issued by thi
start: 1; §°7, the filing of ph iets this court upon
alleged: (1) Pt dates in which petitioner
by. sie did he Wate 4H dt eiece oe ee
sel, nor did ave the assistance of, coun-
a revolver, a deadly wea completel id he competently, intelligently
being concealed on his set capable of of 1 ens: or 3) all, waive the assistance
cient to give def son, was suffi- oj on his said trial, nor was
fense of whi efendant notice of th given the opportunit » nor was he
which he was ac So and j y of obtaining tl i
59. cused. P nd assistance ; g the aid
§ 952; Gen.Laws 1943, Act 1970 Stes Constitution SLE coal ss fe 8
: : ate of California) ;

10. Ind or : 7
ictment and information S>1t1(1) ee = : “by a rie a a
urt “by defendant and his counsel”

_ Complain i iolati
ae eda paaie violation of statute (Art. I, § 7, Constituti
volver, a deadly rian his possession a re- California) ; (3) that the sr pronounced
pital tech spon, capable of being judgment forthwith and in Ie pees
Sti a there Pe son”, was sufficient hours after the plea of ¢ il pe ge ae
in statute. Ge Ewee 9G; Act | specified Contrary to the provisions i section 1449
1. Habeas , Act 1970, § 5, Of the Penal Code; and resecelices
neice ecakhs was convicted and j r ea take
is now confined “for the

In habea me
: co
sein Bites Oded she sarge mmission of an act which is not a crime.”
hiceee os o sufficiency of indictment is te a ee ees le
Stated én off if there is attempted to be soos nest iey gen enti ind Chin
ense of the kind i 9g ea art ofthe City
sated an off ined Wai, ocket of the Police C
to proceed eG € of Rict Y ae te tie Sour
the questi § to proceed has jurisdicti pqerieens :
on whether the f action, ° on th a eee
3 a i edings
Hpebde to constitute A ye changed ats ttioner. Th pees Bay oe r
peta nse w : ” age .
ent to at act “teen aos  pieerin Lhe 3 of these
ae Seed: ned and inst
Hire nbong od Defendant nce gb
iu rye be pronounced forthwith.” Up.
A bi me day, petitioner and Judge ee
pe aa pc who presided in the: police
— oe regarding the proceedin
6 at! hile there was some conflict nh
imony, we are satisfied that prior “i
r

9. Indictment and Information 7!

. . ° :
Pp. g & 1@) f a
ute in that defendant had in his possession

—_->—___.

P . . .
Toceeding in habeas corpus by Thoma
s

Jame j
| s Jingles
tody. S!es to secure release from cus-

Writ di
rit discharged.

a .preers a5:

eee

I EDA Ae
nO an SI

Senclehenbeiliennattedith eee

Sei Retina

SBE PTT GS Tr


a am,

ALCA

DE, Florencio, his, gassed CA (Santa Clara) August 18,

STARTLING DETEC

July, 1943

”

flat. pear
: “{ a
i , amen

Be ae OPO mp

a hl

Y SECRETARY“ hurried ice.
ward as I entered"the offices of
District Attorney John P.
Fitzgerald at San Jose, Santa Clara
County, Calif. It was the morning of
Nov. 23, 1942.
“Keep your hat on,” she said seriously,
handing me a yellow teletype message.

#“Here’s a girl murdered.”

> Hurriedly I read the message, relayed

San Palo Alto police, A: blonde girl's

body had been found only minutes before
in a plowed field at Diss Road and Alma
Street, just south of the Palo Alto city
limits. Sheriff William Emig already had
been notified.

“Okay. Tell the chief:*where I’ve
gone,” I. exclaimed,’ leaying quickly for
i ¢ y

TIVE,

Roy

te Pied =

49444

‘%
|

”

“my parked car. I attempted to visualize
the location as’ I raced the fifteen miles
northwest toward Palo Alto that chill,
murky morning.

Diss Road and Alma Street would be
in an area of scattered farms specializing
in intensively cultivated vegetable crops.
It was several miles south of ‘The

Farm,” as the Stanford University.

campus is called locally.

It was 9:15 a.m. as I pulled up near a
tight little knot of officers and ‘citizens
beside the macadam road, and parked. I
saw a woman’s body lying face down
about 25 feet inside the plowed field
which was bordered with small black
acacia trees. :

Deputy Sheriff Phil Cuffaro started

| 8 ie. ‘y
Tha. 3
Mev o.. * . °

cation,
Wit!
deputit
I knew
if it w
Cufi
triciar
Anoth
They
on gu
Alto |
Thi
ballin


break we had been waiting for had
cone,

For Florencio Alcalde was the man
who had been arrested, charged with
murder and Tater exonerated ine the
1935 slaying of Kathleen Robinson in
San Mateo. His photo had been in-
cluded among those of the suspects as
a matter of course—-because once be-
fore he had been a girl-murder sus-
pect.

And now we had two entirely in-
dependent identifications of him.

I contacted Sherif? McGrath, and
we dug up the records on the Robin-
son case.

Kathleen Robinson, 26-year-old, au-
burn-haired girl, lived alone. She was
shot down as she walked along Poplar
Avenue in San Mateo late on Satur-
day night, January 26, 1935. She was
wearing a sheer, black evening gown
and a white gardenia. The case cap-
tured the imagination of the news-
papers.

HE had been neither robbed nor
molested. She was shot from the
back. Tire-marks showed that an
automobile had veered near her, then
turned around.

At the moment that the man who
found the body telephoned the police,
young Florencio Alcalde—he was 22
then—was sitting in the police station
talking to the desk sergeant. He had
had a date with Kathleen earlier in
the evening, he said, she had failed to
show up, ‘and he had come to inquire
if she possibly had been injured in an
accident.

Alcalde was arrested for question-
ing, despite his protestations of in-
nocence and love for the girl.

Kathleen’s foster-mother, Mrs. Al-
bert Uhl of Redwood City, told of an-
other young man who, she said, had
threatened to kill Kathleen because
she had spurned him. Officers found
a .32 gun in this man’s room—the

‘game caliber as the gun that had
killed the girl. But he was exoner-
ated when he proved an alibi, and
when ballistics tests showed that his
gun had not fired the fatal shot. .

Witnesses revealed that Alcalde had
quarreled with the girl, whom he used
to take to night-clubs in San Francisco.
But he continued to protest his in-
nocence and was released after a few
days.

Then the murder-gun was found in
a vacant lot—and it was traced to’a
relative of Alcalde. This relative
claimed that the gun had been stolen
some time before.

On this and other evidence, Floren-
cio Alcalde was re-arrested and was
formally charged with murder. But at
his preliminary hearing in Justice

ae

Court, the judge decided that the evi-
denees npgotint bim warn inaaMeient to
warrant holding him for trial, and he
was set free. 1

Young Alcalde since had married
and had a ehild, and recently had gone
to work at the shipyard. The Alcaldes
were an old Spanish family, and Flor-
encio was the only one who ever had
been in trouble.

We set a watch over young Alcalde
without his knowledge. We concen-
trated on checking his background
and his iit 9 inte dropped all
other lines of investigation for the
time ‘being. I might mention that
by this time we had given the slain
girl’s former husband, the soldier,
a clean bill of health. Also we had
eliminated the Buick sedan that had
been found in Hillsborough—and,
about this same time, we had found
the missing shoe, up Alma Road 200
yards from the murder spot.

We showed Schrumpf, the florist,
the new picture of Alcalde which we
had obtained from the shipyard. He
was almost positive in his identifica-
tion this time. ‘With reservations,” he
said, “that’s the man. The reserva-
tions are that I would want to talk to
him face to face before swearing to
it.”

We rushed prints of the pictures to
Mrs. Ash in Chicago. The slain girl’s
sister unhesitatingly identified them.
“That’s the man—it’s almost exactly
the same as the picture Bernice showed
me of him. Of course, I’m ready to
swear to it.”

Pyne and Cuffaro learned from other
workers that Alcalde often called him-
self Frank. They discovered that he
had been showing pictures of his new
girl friend and bragging about her.
And since the murder he even had
been saying, in a kidding way, that the
description of Frank could fit him!

They learned that he had left his
wife some three weeks before and had
been living in a hotel, going home. only
occasionally. :

Late on November 27 Pyne and. Cuf-
faro approached him at his work and
told him he was under arrest. He
didn’t appear surprised. He went
along without protest; he was an old
hand at police questioning. He didn’t
maintain his innocence or shout about
his rights, as an innocent man might
have been expected to do. All he said
was, “What do you fellows want me
‘or?’

“The Sheriff just wants to talk to
you,” they told him.

When Alcalde was lodged in the
county jail, we brought Schrumpf, the
florist, down to see him. Schrumpf in-
sisted that he wanted to talk to the
man face to face, just as he had in the

store, before making the identification
ponitive,

We left him alone with the prisoner
for a moment.

“Frank,” he said, staring him in the
face, “you're the one who bought
those flowers.”

“You've got the wrong guy,” Alcalde
said, unrufiled. “I never bought any
flowers from you.”

“You're the one who bought those
flowers,” the florist insisted,

“You lie! You got the wrong guy!”

Henry Schrumpf_ rejoined us and
said, “Gentlemen, I'll testify to the day
I die that he is the man who bought
those flowers on the three Saturday
nights.

Alcalde denied any knowledge what-
ever of the crime. He said he didn’t
even know Bernice Curtis. On the
night of the murder, he claimed he had
been playing cards from about 7 to 8
o’clock. He had gone to_his hotel
room and to bed about 9 o’clock, leav-
ing his car parked all night in the
alley behind the hotel.

But Chief Louis Belloni of South San
Francisco dug up witnesses—includ-
ing police officers—who declared that
the car had not been there before mid-
night, and probably not before 4
o’clock Monday morning. And one of
the card players declared that Frank
had left the game at 6 o’clock, not 8.

The next day Pyne and Cuffaro went
to Alcalde’s home—where he formerly
had lived with his wife—to pick up
his discarded clothes for examination.

Mrs. Alcalde willingly turned over
the prisoner’s clothes to the officers.
Among them was a gray hat.

- Cuffaro examined the gray hat care-
fully. In the ribbon he found a broken
part of a green feather. | ‘

The officers hurried back to San Jose.
In his laboratory, Cuffaro found that
the piece of feather matched in every
detail the portion he had picked up
at the murder scene.

Bt by bit we built the mosaic of
evidence against Florencio—Frank
Alcalde. The tires of his car matched
the tracks we had found at the mur-
der scene. The windshield was cracked
from the inside, as though by a blow.
The pattern of rough floor-mat
matched exactly the pattern of
scratches on the slain girl’s knees.
Spots on his clothes—although great
efforts had been made to wash them
away—were identified as blood-spots.
We found other witnesses who had
seen him with the murdered girl. We
found a place where they had bought
some hamburgers and green grapes;
hamburger and green grapes had been
in the slain girl’s stomach,
Fragmentary finger-prints on the

rear-view mirror afd in other parts
of Alcalde’s car matched those of Ber-

nice Curths,
We did not rely only on our own
technical laboratory—we submitted

various pieces of evidence for tests to
David W, Burd, expert chemist of the
State Bureau of Criminal Identification
at Sacramento, and to Francis X. La-
Tulipe, laboratory expert of the San
Francisco Police Department. All
their findings drew the net of evidence
tighter around Alcalde.

Finally, on December 1, 1942, the
formal murder complaint was filed.
The trial began on February 23, 1943,
before Superior Judge William F.
James. A jury of eight housewives
and four men was selected after con-
siderable legal maneuvering.

Assistant District Attorney Ameglio
Andreucetti demanded the death
penalty.

March 10, 1943, the jury, after de-
liberating for seven and a half hours,
found Florencio Alcalde guilty of mur-
der in the ee, without any
recommendation for leniency. It was
one of the few times in California legal
history that a death verdict has been
returned on purely circumstantial evi-
dence.

Alcalde tensed in his seat and cried,
“This is a dirty deal!”

They led him back to his cell, over
the door of which other prisoners had
hung a sign reading “Lovebird.”

Mrs. Uhl, foster-mother of Kath-
leen Robinson, slain eight years be-
fore, also has expressed satisfaction.
The evidence in the Robinson case has
grown cold, and we would have no
reason for reopening it, since Alcalde
already has been convicted of the
more recent murder. ;

I took him to San Quentin at once.
The date for his execution has not been
set yet—under California law, an auto-
matic appeal to the State Supreme
Court is filed in all cases involving
the death penalty.

Up to this writing, Alcalde has not
made any move toward confession. He
is sullen and uncommunicative.

The motive for the brutal slaying
of the Curtis girl still remai .s a mys-
tery. We do not know whether she
tried to break off her association with
Alcalde and he killed her in a jealous
rage or whether she was pressing him
to marry her and he,chose murder as
the way to get rid of her rather than
admit that he was already married.
Or whether he simply tired of her.

We are certain of only one thing—
that we caught and convicted the
right man.

For another picture with this story,
turn to Page 48.

War Comes to Alexandria (Continued from Page 32)

“Jo Darling—

“Since I wrote you last about my
buddy, I have found that the girl who
nursed him used to be at your school.
She said after she was released she
took a nurses course and came with
the Army to Australia. She told me
all about the school and I’m glad
you’re there.

“You don’t know how close it makes
me feel when you told me all about the

war work you girls are doing there.
I envy the boys you dance with, and
maybe I’ll get a furlough and be danc-
ing with you myself one of these days.

“Please tell me more about your
plans when you are paroled from the
school. You said something about war

work...’

Although the State Industrial School
for Girls is a correctional institution,
with the population age ranging from

twelve to nineteen years, girls are pa-
roled on good behavior and many of
them at present are doing well as riv-
eters, welders and mechanics, as nurses
in active service, as workers in shell
factories, and in all types of war jobs.

Mrs. Jackson has made arrangements
with both the NYA center in Pineville
and the trade school in Alexandria
whereby girls who are released or pa-
roled from this institution may take

courses in welding, riveting, mechan-
ics, nursing and other war jobs.

As the caissons go rolling past the
school, as the dive bombers zoom over
the water-tank and V-mail letters flood
into the office, the girls of the State
Industrial School fall into step with
their brothers, fathers and sweethearts
overseas and march forward, carry-
ing their load in the war effort so that
victory soon will be a reality. .

| Learned My Bitter Lesson (Continued from Page 25)

Did I know many people in Los

Angeles? Did I have parents or
relatives here? Did I have a boy
friend?

I thought they were just making
conversation asking me all those per-
sonal questions. I didn’t dream that
they were sizing me up, trying to
figure out what chances they were tak-
ing with me.

My answers must have pleased them.
Father and Mother lived back in Kan-
sas. I had a girl friend in Los Angeles
with whom I went to shows or bowling

42

occasionally. I didn’t have a boy
friend who would get mad and run for
the cops. I was a girl all alone in a
big, strange city—just what they were
looking for.

But I suspected nothing.

After a while I tried to leave.
“Thanks for the drink,” I said.

Theo swung around on his chair.
“But what’s the hurry?”

“T told you T’ve got to be up early
tomorrow.”

“Don’t be a wet blanket. Come on
dancing with us. Nat’s girl friend

works in a drive-in just like you. If
we leave now we'll catch her just be-
yoo she goes home and we can all go
out.”

I said no and no, but they kept on
arguing. In the end I gave in.

“But I’ve got to leave early,” I re-
peated.

“Okay,” Theo declared. “Any time
you want. I’ll take you home.”

So I got into the car with the boys
and we drove off.

“Where does your girl friend work?”
I asked Nat.

“Near Tujunga Canyon.”

That was over in the ‘“‘Valley,” north
of Hollywood and quite a distance
from my hotel. But if you live in Los
Angeles you soon forget to count miles.
I didn’t mind the half-hour or so trip
with the boys. Maybe if I had been
more familiar with the city the men-
tion of Tujunga Canyon would have
struck a sinister note. It’s a wild,
desolate spot. Danger may lurk in
every shadow. But my mind was
happy and carefree as we drove
along. .

AD—2

mat setinatneanttnecactnmectnnmestniaeainilait,

That definitely meant Kramer's
theory was strictly on the beam. For
if Smith had lost the watch while gam-
bling, the new owner most likely would
have pawned it in Milwaukee—not
Chicago—and wouldn't have used a
false name and address as was quickly
established. Yes, Smith definitely had
been slain by someone clever enough to
leave some money and jewelry on the
dead man’s body in order to mislead
police on the motive.

The same technique had been used
in Gordon’s slaying—and the same
modus operandi. But it still didn’t
prove definitely that the two killings
were linked—and who had committed
them.

The watch had been sold by a “John
Brown" who listed an address on 44th
Street. Police learned that that ad-
dress was phony and the name John
Brown obviously also was a fake.

EVEN the man's description on the
sales ticket wasn’t too helpful: Five-
feet-ten, about 37 years old. And Riley
knew from experience that some pawn-
brokers weren't too observant or ac-
curate in jotting down descriptions.

But the signature on the ticket was
important—very important. It held
the key to the solution of at least Babe
Smith's slaying.

The envelope containing the signa-
ture was turned over to Orville Living-
ston. the Milwaukee Police Depart-
ment’s handwriting expert. It didn’t
take him long to determine that the

They Were

crossed, Sheriff. while we wait.”

While the waiting process was going
on, the deputies came in with their re-
ports on the name-checking business.
It appeared to the officers that all
those who had registered at the hotels
and rooming-houses the night of the
slaying had given their correct.names
—all but two, that is. One was a
couple—Mr. and Mrs. Hugh M. Queen
of Paris, Kentucky, they had signed.
But the officers had learned that no
such people lived in Paris. Neither was
there such an address as the couple
had given. The other party was a man
named Glenn Morgan. He had given
a name and an address in Frankfort,
Kentucky, which were proven to be
fictitious.

“All right.” Noe told the deputies.
“get all the information you can about
both parties—how old they were, how
they were dressed, everything you can.
Then try to locate them somehow or
another. It’s a job. boys, but believe
me. we've got to do it. So go to it.”

The report from the FBI on the
dead man's fingerprints was not en-
couraging. They had no record of him.
That angle was out.

But the Cincinnati police had better
luck. From the information Sher-
iff Noe had given them, they had been
able—-they were almost positive—to
identify the dead man.

The dry cleaning marks belonged to
a man named Otto Jaeschke. He was
55 years old and fit the description of
the dead man. He was a piano dealer,
and was supposed to be on his way to
Knoxville, Tennessee, at that time with
a load of pianos. A friend of Jaeschke’s
from Cincinnati was already on his
way to Stanford to try to identify the
body.

Jaeschke had left Cincinnati early
on the morning of the previous
Wednesday. He intended to go to
Findlay, Ohio—about 150 miles north-
west of Cincinnati—where he had a
branch office, pick up several pianos
that had been repaired, take them to
Tennessee to sell them.

So Sheriff Noe immediately got the
Findlay police chief on the telephone,
asked him to check on Jaeschke. The
chief did, and called back about 30
minutes later. Jaeschke had arrived
at Findlay shortly after noon Wednes-
day. He had loaded the pianos and

54

signature belonged neither to Frank
Petrowski, the ex-convict, Fred John-
son, the Indian, nor to any of Gordon's
few relatives and friends.

Then Livingston settled down to
compare it against the hundreds of
signatures taken from Gordon’s files.

THREE days later Chicago police re-
ported that they had again made an
important find. This time it was a
micrometer and a watch, both missing
from Gordon's stock.

The description of the man who dis-
posed of both items, as well as Babe
Smith's watch, tallied. But different
names had been used. The micrometer
had been sold by “Henry Brown,” the
watch by “Henry Williams.” As ex-
pected, fictitious addresses were given
in both instances.

Handwriting Expert Livingston went
to work on the three signatures.

“There’s no doubt about it,” he re-
ported to Captain Kramer, pointing to
the similarity in style and formation of
such letters as “h,” “r” and “n.” “John
Brown and Henry Brown and Henry
Williams are one and the same per-
son.”

“That proves the Smith killing and
the Gordon murder are linked hand in
hand!” exclaimed Kramer. “Find the
slayer of one and you have the other!”

Before long Livingston had elimi-
nated all but 30 signatures from Gor-
don’s records. These were the ones
that warranted closer examination,
not only because of similarity in hand-

writing but also because the personal
description approximated the descrip-

tion of their quarry.

The 30 potential suspects were asked
to fill out special handwriting cards.
These specimens included capital and
small letters of every initial in the al-
phabet.

All of them consented readily.

Then Livingston dug in again,
closeting himself in his laboratory.
When he emerged, he was smiling
broadly.

“I'll stake my reputation on it,” he
told Kramer. “The fellow who signed
these three sales tickets is the same per-
son who filled out this handwriting
record.” He held out the white card
he was fingering.

Kramer examined the card. It had
been filled in by Thomas Nolden, who
listed an address in the Twenty-one
Hundreds on North Seventh Street. -

PARTICULARLY interesting was the
fact that Nolden lived in the same
neighborhood as did Babe Smith and
was a regular client of Gordon.

A squad of detectives launched a
quiet investigation. They learned that
Nolden had repaid loans totaling sev-
eral hundred dollars two days after
Smith’s body had been found. And
after Gordon’s death he had blossomed
out with new clothes and a fat bank-
roll. A check established the fact that
Nolden had been sentenced in 1930 to
25 years’ imprisonment in Missouri
State Penitentiary for burglarly and

. a
assault, but was paroled in July, 1943.

Nolden was employed by a South
Side foundry. Police went there and
obtained permission to search his
locker.

They found what they were looking
for—a watch that had disappeared
from Gordon's shop.

HUSKY 37-year-old Nolden was ar-
rested as he left work. He denied
his guilt vehemently, claiming that he
had purchased Smith’s watch and the
other stolen merchandise from a
stranger. Later, seeing his denial was
doing no good, he offered to confess if
the district attorney would decrease
the charge against him.

But Milwaukee authorities were in
no bargaining mood. They brought
him to trial on charges of first-degree
murder in Gordon’s death. On Decem-
ber 6, Nolden was found guilty by a
jury and sentenced to life.

On January 7, 1946, Nolden was re-
turned from the Wisconsin State Pris-
on to answer a first-degree murder
charge in the slaying of Babe Smith.
Nolden was found guilty of the Smith
killing. On February 27, Judge Her-
bert J. Steffes sentenced him to a
second term of life imprisonment.

The names Edwin Brandenburg,
Frank Petrowski, Albert Connen, Fred
Johnson and Randolph Shrader are
fictitious to save embarrassment to
persons innocently involved in this in-
vestigation. ‘

Eight Pianos from His Killers (Continued from Page 33)

early Wednesday night had started for
Tennessee.

A young man named Don Breitigan,
who worked for Jaeschke at Findlay.
said that Jaeschke had told him he
was to go along on the trip to Ten-
nessee; but when he arrived in
Findlay Wednesday afternoon, Jae-
schke said he had changed his mind—
that Breitigan would remain at Find-
lay. Jaeschke said he was taking along
a discharged soldier and his wife to
help him ‘drive. Breitigan said the
young couple arrived at Jaeschke’'s
place just before the piano dealer left.
They immediately got into the truck
and Breitigan said he didn’t get a very:
good look at them.

HEN Noe had completed the call,
after asking the Findlay police
chief to continue working on the case
from that end, the Sheriff turned
around to face Beaty. “Things are

lookin’ up. We're beginnin’ to get
somewhere now.”

“Yeah? Tell me more.”

‘“T think our killers are a discharged

soldier and his wife who so kindly off-_

ered to assist Mr. Jaeschke drive his
truck load of pianos to Knoxville. And
I think they stayed all night here in
Somerset. I believe, also, that. they’re
the couple who used the name Queen.”

THE Sheriffs found the deputy who
was checking on the couple. The
deputy already had gotten a description
of them. They were about 21 years of
age. The young man was about six
feet tall, was slight of build, weighing
no more than 145 pounds. He was
nicely dressed in civilian clothes,
combed his hair straight back and had
a scar about three inches long across
his forehead. .

The young woman was what might
be considered a medium-large type.

known:

a th were dropped.

Up to the Minute

ERE are more legal dispositions of persons accused. You
read of them before the final outcome of their cases was

William Blader, accused of killing Frank Amberson—
“Who Is This Here—Now—Nietzsche?” issue of March, 1946
—was pronounced “incurably and dangerously insane” by
psychiatrists and he was ordered to be sent to the Farview
State Hospital for Criminal Insane.

As the issue of February, 1946, went to press, Henry Riley
(“But I Couldn’t Fool Cordelia’s Ghosts”) had been sentenced
to death for the murder of Mrs. Tal Stanley. Riley has since
been executed at Baton Rouge.

Ethel Marie Taylor and John Edgell, bandit team in “Stop
That Gun Girl's Reign of Terror’—issue of May, 1944—have
been tried and sentenced as follows: Ethel Taylor received.
ten to 25 years for robbery, and John Edgell was sentenced
to ten to 25 years for robbery and to another twenty years
on a charge of robbery while armed. Kidnaping charges

Florencio Alcalde, bludgeon-slayer of Bernice Curti
“Trailing Violets to ‘B's’ Killer,” June, 1943, issue of ACTUAL
( —was executed in the gas chamber at San Quentin.

——

ee

She was about five feet, five inches
tall, and weighed about 130 pounds.
She was carefully dressed in good
clothes and had a “charming smile.”
Her hair was dark and she wore it long.

“A charming smile!” Noe said.
“Wouldn't you know it? They always
do.”

“Just how are we gonna find this
couple?” Beaty asked. “There's lots
of good-lookin’ women who have just
had their husbands discharged from
the Army. And Jaeschke didn’t tell
anyone at his place of business who
the couple was or where they were
from—except that they were going to
Knoxville with him. And it’s a cinch
they won’t go to Knoxville after they
bumped him off.”

“Come on,” and Noe grabbed his hat,
“we're goin’ to that room where they
stayed all night and tear the place
apart if mecessary. Maybe we'll find
somethin’ there.” : :

So the Sheriffs went to the place
where the couple stayed, a rooming-
house in the Three Hundred block on
South Main, just two blocks from
where the truck was found parked. The
manager of the place took the officers
to the room occupied by, the couple,
explaining all the time that he had no
idea that the couple wasn't on the level
because “they had such good manners
and were so well dressed.” ;

The officers began searching the
room, finding absolutely nothing to
help them. The manager explained
the room had been cleaned several
times since the couple had stayed there.
Noe nodded. But at the same time, he
was staring at a closet door, They
hadn’t looked in there yet.

| NSIDE the closet was a waste paper
container. Noe picked it up, looked at
it. Empty. He started to put it down
when something in it caught his at-

. tention. Beaty saw it about the same

time. It was a tiny piece of gum that
someone had thrown into the basket.
To the piece of gum were clinging sev-
eral small pieces of paper. The officers
looked closer—saw that the pieces
were burned.
Carefully removing the paper, the
two Sheriffs discovered a tiny bit that
d not been burned. It was a piece
of a postmark from an envelope. All
at remained was “ey, Ten.”
/ “Some town in ‘Tennessee that ends
‘ey,’ ” Beaty said quickly. “No doubt


Kathleen Robinson, like Bernice Cur-
tis, had not confided in her friends.
Her affairs were known only to herself.
She was shot down on the street with-
out apparent motive, just as Bernice
Curtis had been killed in a field.

Several of Kathleen Robinson’s suit-
ors had been held for questioning at
the time—back in 1935—and one of
them even was charged with murder
when circumstantial evidence seemed
to point to him. The charge was dis-
missed, however, for lack of evidence,
and the killer of Kathleen Robinson
still remained at large.

Bur I had more immediate problems
which ‘left little time for specula-
tion about seven-year-old killings.

I wired the Chicago police and they
interviewed the slain girl’s mother,
Mrs. Mary Miller. They ascertained
that Bernice’s former husband was in
the Army and supposedly was_sta-
tioned somewhere on the Pacific Coast.
We contacted the Army and launched
a search for him. We also checked on
the man to whom she had been re-
ported engaged—we quickly estab-
lished that he had been in Mexico
City for some time and definitely was

out of the picture.

Mrs. Miller said that Bernice had
mentioned Frank in several of her let-
ters—always just “Frank,” never any
last name. .

Her last letter to her mother, re-
ceived in Chicago just a few days pre-

‘viously, had contained an ominous line.

“He wants to marry me, and I’m

afraid!” Bernice had written. Nothing

further. Why had she been afraid of
a man who wanted to marry her?

As is usual in a sensational murder
case, telephone calls poured in from
well-meaning persons who wanted to
help us. My deputies and I ran down
a number of leads that came to noth-
ing. But among the calls that we took
more seriously was one from a motor-
ist who remembered having seen a
woman’s shoe lying beside the Skyline
Boulevard in the hills west of. Palo
Alto. I sent a couple of men out there
and they searched along the road for
miles without finding it.

The police of Hillsborough, in San
Mateo County, found an, old green
Buick sedan parked in the shrubbery
off the Black Mountain Road. It was
locked and the rear cushion was miss-
ing. It bore Arkansas license plates.
We kept this discovery secret and
placed a watch over the car against
the return of its owner while we
wired to Arkansas to check on the
plates. This was on Tuesday, the day
after the body was discovered.

We also. canvassed. night-clubs
which, Elsa Martin told us, Bernice

-and Frank had patronized. We located

a hat-check girl in a San Jose night-
club who identified a photo of Bernice
Curtis and confirmed the description of
Frank.

“They were in here Sunday night,”
she said positively. “I think another
couple was with them. They all left
about 11 o’clock, and they were feel-
ing pretty good.”

The other couple she described as
“a girl with a pug nose” and “a man
with a bald head who danced well.”

She couldn’t be certain whether they
actually had come in with Bernice and
Frank or whether the couple had met
each other in the night-club. —

The San Francisco police dug up
evidence to link Frank with a green
car. A girl at Levy’s cigar store said
she had seen Bernice Curtis getting
into such a car several times after
work after remarking that Frank was
calling for her. .

When Tuesday passed without Frank
coming forward to assert his inno-
‘scuce, we were morally certain that
he was our man. He certainly would
know by this time that Bernice Curtis
had been murdered and that we were
looking for him. Yet he hadn’t even
telephoned her home again.

Of course, we theorized, he might

be a married man who, even though
innocent of the murder, was afraid to
have his name linked with the case.
He always had avoided meeting her
friends.

The green sedan was the pay-off—
our information linked such a car both
with the death scene and with Frank,
the mysterious shipyard worker.

We postponed other lines of inves-

tigation and concentrated on the hunt .

for Frank. We went carefully over
the rosters of all the shipyards, look-
ing for men named Frank, possibly
with Latin family names. We ac-
cumulated an enormous number. We
couldn’t, of course, interview and in-
vestigate all of them. This would
cause too much confusion and resent-

ment, as well as interrupt the war-_

production program.
: But we kept that list of names, just
in case.

A number of other suspects had been
rounded up, men who recently had
been released from prison, men who
had been convicted of beating women
and so forth. But none of them fitted
the description of the hunted man and
most of them had alibis. We were con-
vinced that Frank was not among
them.

Would we ever find him? And if we
did, would he be involved?

My deputies and the San Francisco

police requestioned Mrs. Arnold and‘

Miss Martin, urging them to rack their
memories, to be sure they had omitted
no detail that might help us.

HEY told us again of the last time
they had seen Bernice, Sunday night
about 7 o’clock. .
“She was just dressing to go out to
dinner with Frank,” Miss Martin said.
“She was happy and laughing. She’d
been horseback riding earlier in the
day. She said, ‘My, I’m hungry! I
guess I’ll have a big steak for dinner.’ ”
The women were positive that Ber-
nice had not quarreled with Frank.
She would have mentioned it, they
believed. They were at a loss to ex-
plain her remark in the letter to her
mother—that she was “afraid.”

Mrs. Arnold nearly always had an-
swered the phone when Frank had
called, and she described him as hav-
ing a deep voice.

“Can’t you think of anything else
that might help us?” the officers urged.
“Someplace she went with Frank or
something she said. about him?”
‘Wait a minute!” Miss Martin said.
“There’s one thing—he used to send
her a corsage of violets every Satur-
day night when they went out. Maybe
one of the boxes is still around.”

She rushed to the back part of the
house.

We already had searched the girl’s
room, of course, and found no diary,
no letters, nothing to give a clew ‘to
Frank’s identity. But now Miss Mar-
tin was back in a moment with a
crumpled little flower-box. ‘Here it
is!” she exclaimed. “This is the box
he sent her last Saturday night—the
night before the murder.”

The florist might remember his Latin
customer—might even know his name,

The box bore the label of Henry
Schrumpf of No. 911 Valencia Street—
not far from the San Jose Avenue
room. Mr. Schrumpf readily remem-
bered the customer who had bought
a corsage of violets on three succes-
sive Saturday nights. His description
fitted Frank perfectly.

“I remember him,” Schrumpf said,
“because the first time he bought the
flowers and the box without question-
ing the price, but the second and third
times he objected because the box
was twenty cents extra.”

“Would you know him if you saw
him again?”

“I’m sure I would.”

“If you saw his picture?”

“Well, if it was a good likeness, I °

might.”
That was that.
of Frank.

We had no picture

As a slim hope, however, Phil Cuf-
faro was working on a collection of
rogues’ gallery photos of various men
with bad‘ reputations around the
county. He concentrated on Latin-
type men with black hair, most of
them with mustaches. They included
pictures sent to us from neighboring
counties, of sex offenders, known sad-
ists and the like.

By the time Cuffaro had narrowed
this collection down to about 30 pic-
tures, Mrs. Ash had left for Chicago
with her sister’s body, so we could not
show them to her. But deputies made
the rounds of the other witnesses who
might be able to pick out Frank from
the collection—on the thin chance
that his picture was included in it.
It was better than nothing.

Our first real break came on Thanks-
giving Day—the fourth day after the
murder. Patrolman Truggani of the
South San Francisco Police Depart-
ment up in San Mateo County tele-
phoned my office and said that he
might have some information for us.
George Pyne and Phil Cuffaro drove
up to meet him.

“It’s just an idea,” Truggani said,
‘mostly from reading the newspaper
stories, but it might be worth looking
into. There’s a young fellow who fits
the description of this Frank pretty
well, only his name isn’t Frank. But
he drives an old green Chevrolet, and
he’s been in trouble a lot around here
for traffic violations. Putting the car
and the man together, I thought I
ought to tell you.”

He explained that the man he had
in mind had been arrested for speed-
ing a few weeks previously.

“I can’t show you where he lives,”
the officer said, “but I think he works
at Western Pipe and Steel, and if you
go over there now you might find his
car parked there and you can take a
look at it.”

“What's his name?”

“Florencio Alcalde—a
Spanish name.”

The name seemed to strike a re-
sponsive chord in the memories of the
two deputies, but they could not place
it at once. —

“Okay, thanks. We'll take a run
over there.”

They drove to the big shipbuilding
plant in South San Francisco on the
shore of San Francisco Bay. Hun-
dreds of workers’ cars were parked
there—Thanksgiving was no holiday
in the shipyards.

They spotted a number of green
Chevrolets, finally found a 1936 sedan
that bore a registration certificate in
Florencio Alcalde’s name.

“It fits the description, all right,”
Cuffaro pointed out. “And look—the
tires! It’s the same sort of tread that
we have in the cast!”

sort of a

Ts car looked as though it had been
washed and cleaned recently. The
men couldn’t find any suspicious stains
on the seats. ;

Even so, it looked good. The man’s
name was not Frank, but it was close
to it. The officers went to the ship-
yard personnel office and obtained a
good, recent photo of Florencio Al-
calde.

Meanwhile, other officers had been
displaying the other photos that Cuf-
faro‘had collected. They showed them
to Henry Schrumpf, the San Francisco
florist. He peered at them carefully,
laid some. aside, shuffled the others,
finally narrowed them down to three.
At length he put his finger on one of
them. o

“Gentlemen,” he said, “this is fhe
closest to any picture I’ve seen of the
man I have in mind—the man who
bought the violets. I’d want to talk
to him, though, to be positive.”

It was a picture of Florencio
Alcalde.

When the officers came back to San
Jose with this information—and when
the other story came in from Cuffaro
and Pyne—we realized that the big

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Although he was loath to sign a com-
plaint against the accused kidnaper, whom
he described: as a sick and unfortunate
woman, Frank Chionchio on Monday
morning yielded to the arguments of the
officials who had worked so hard on the
case. In a stormy session before Magistrate
James A. Roe, Jr., Mrs. Jean Iavarone was
held in $50,000 bail on kidnaping charges.
She was immediately remanded to the
Woman’s House of Detention.

At this writing the 43-year-old grand-
mother’s history is still under study for
some clue to a possible motive. She has
made no formal statement. Twice married,
and separated from her youngest children

by court order, the emotional pressures
which exerted their strain are not difficult
to comprehend.

Some officials hold to the theory that
Mrs. Iavarone might have hoped to use
the baby as a means of persuading the
Brooklyn man to marry her and thus es-
tablish a home to which her own children
could be returned ‘from foster homes.

On January 19, a Kings County grand
jury voted a kidnaping indictment against
Mrs. Iavarone. But the fact remains that
she steadfastly denies abducting the baby,
and it is up to the processes of justice to
determine her innocence or the degree to
which she was involved in the case.

Bludgeoned Beauty

[Continued from page 45]

for a few minutes and then went to my
hotel room and changed my clothes.

“Tt was then about 5:30, so I went across
the street to a coffee shop. I met a friend,
Tony Ramos, and ate with him. After Tony
left I went to the Union Club and played
cards with my father and the bartender,
Juanito Romeras, and a man named
Tomas until 9 o’clock.

“My father asked me when I was going
to see my wife. I told him that I was
getting the next day off and was going to
see her.”

“Are you separated from your wife?”

“No,” Alcalde said. “But we had a
quarrel two weeks ago and I moved to the
hotel.”

“T see,” Pyne said. “What did you do
after 9 o’clock?”

“T returned to my room and went to
bed,” Alcalde said. “When I got in bed,
I heard Al Delaney coughing. He has the
room across the hall from mine, and I
called to him. Delaney said he had a cold.

“4 got up early the next morning be-
cause I wanted to pick up my wife at seven
when she finished the graveyard shift at
the radio shop where she works,” Alcalde
told the officers. “I went to get my car,
but it had a flat tire.

“I took the tire across the street and
had it fixed,” Alcalde said. “Then I went
to the radio shop to wait for my wife, but
she hadn’t worked that night. So I went
to the house to see her. She asked me
if I was going to stay, and I told her that
I was and drove back to the hotel for my
clothes.

“After lunch my wife said the car was
dirty and offered to clean the inside if I
would do the outside. I told her that I
would clean the inside also, but she in-
sisted upon doing it. Later I went back to
the hotel to check out with the clerk. Then
I took my wife to see a doctor.”

Later that afternoon Pyne showed Mrs.
Ash and Mrs. Martin pictures of Alcalde
taken in the Santa Clara County Jail.

“Oh, my goodness!” Mrs. Ash gasped.
“That's the Frank that Bernice knew!”

“Yes,” Mrs. Martin corroborated. “That’s
Frank, all right.”

At Frank’s house, a cottage in the rear
of the senior Alcalde’s home, his wife
turned his clothes over to the police. After
a microscopic examination, David Burd,
chemist and ballistics expert for the State
Bureau of Identification in Sacramento,
found blood stains on a coat sleeve and
trouser leg of a suit and on a gray hat.

Pyne also found that Deputy Cuffaro’s
cast of tire imprints at the murder scene
matched a tire on Alealde’s car. When the

police checked Alcalde’s whereabouts the
Sunday afternoon of the murder, they
learned that Tony Ramos saw Frank enter
the restaurant as he was leaving, but that
they did not have dinner together that
night.

Alcalde’s alibi that he had played cards
with Juanito Romeras, his father and a
man named Tomas until 9:30 o’clock that
night was refuted by Romeras. The bar-
tender said that he had been too busy
that day to play cards with anyone.
Romeras added that he did not remember
seeing Alcalde in the Union Club that
night.

Moreover, Al Delaney, whose room was
across the hotel hall from Alcalde’s, cast
serious doubt on another part of Frank’s
alibi. He said that he definitely did not
have a cold that Sunday nor did he speak
to Alcalde that night.

At the shipyard, Peter Giardonego,
Alcalde’s former boss, told Pyne that
Alcalde had often mentioned having been
to the El Patio dance hall where Mrs. Ash
said Bernice Curtis had met Frank.

From Alcalde’s co-workers, Pyne
learned that Alcalde had talked about a
new girl friend and had shown them a pic-
ture of a girl similar to the photograph
of Bernice Curtis. Confronted with this
information, Alcalde began to lose some
of his poise.

He told the police that he had borrowed
the picture from a fellow worker to show
to his friends.

Indicted for the murder of Bernice
Curtis, Alealde continued to deny that he
ever knew the girl. The Alcalde family
retained James J. Bullock, the criminal
lawyer who had successfully defended
Frank in the Kathleen Robinson murder
hearing, to represent the son.

At the trial before Superior Judge Wil-
liam F. James, Deputy District Attorney
D. A. Andreucetti called George Menecis,
an Alcalde co-worker, to prove that the
defendant did know Bernice Curtis.

Menecis testified that Alcalde had intro-
duced the girl to him at a tavern three
weeks before she was slain. Menecis said

. that he had danced with her after they

were introduced, and that he had noticed
she was wearing a gold pin with the ini-
tials “B.C.”

To further establish Alcalde’s acquain-
tance with Bernice Curtis, Andreucetti
called to the witness stand Inspector
Frank Latulipe, San Francisco police
criminologist. Latulipe testified that Ber-
nice’s thumbprints were found on the rear
view mirror of Alcalde’s car.

Kendall Hall, a Pacifig Telephone and
Telegraph Company representative,
showed records of six calls to Bernice’s
number made from a pay phone at the
shipyard. Alcalde had often been seen
using this phone.

But the most damaging evidence intro-
duced against Alcalde was a feather found

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° in & +: 9 {} = } }
LCALDE, Florencio, Mex., asphyx. San Quentin peat Saere | a

She knew plenty

about men, but learned
too late about the

fury of one who left

ave behind a broken feather

ae a

BY HORACE BAILEY BROWN ©

STARTLING DETECTIVE,
May, 1952.

VEN in the starkness of violent death she was beautiful. For a full
minute the man stood motionless, staring in unbelief at the girl lying
‘partially propped against an outcropping of rock. Beads of dew
sparkled in the early morning sun on the modishly bobbed blond hair. From beneath a
blue dress, sodden and limp from the night mists blowing in off San Francisco Bay a few
miles to the north, protruded one shoeless, nylon-clad foot. Her arms were at her sides,

one hand resting naturally on her mid-riff.

These details together with the large wound on the girl’s head barely had registered
in the mind of Orville Rockhold when he backed away and hurried to the highway where
his truck was parked. Before he could start the motor, a sedan approached and stopped
at his signal. “There’s a dead woman over there,” he said, pointing to the open field at
the right. “Telephone the sheriff and I'll stay here until someone comes.”

A half-hour later Sheriff William Emig of Santa Clara Cotinty, accompanied by
Deputies Philip Cuffaro and Roy Larson, arrived at the scene. Behind them in another
car were County Investigator Robert Drexel and Deputy Coroner Harry Ryder.

While Ryder examined the body, the sheriff and Drexel questioned Rockhold. The man
said he was a laundry driver and had left Palo Alto early in the morning on his route.
He had noticed the body lying about forty feet off the highway and at first thought it
thight be a drunk, dumped out of a car after a wild night. On approaching to make certain,
he had discovered the very evidently murdered girl.

Upon completion of a hurried examination of the corpse, Coroner Ryder estiniated the
victim had been dead about eight hours. One side of her head had been crushed with a
large, blood-stained rock lying nearby. There were bruises on her wrists and arms, as
well as an ugly contusion on the jaw, which seemed to indicate she had attempted to
fight off her attacker.

“From the condition of her clothing,” he added, “there apparently was no attempt
at rape. At least not here.”

Drexel looked at him sharply. “Here?” he repeated. “Do you think the attack occurred
somewhere else?”

Ryder nodded. “She must have bled quite a bit,” he replied. “Her dress is soaked with
blood but there is almost none on the ground. So I’d say she was killed elsewhere and
the body brought -here in a car.”

“How old is she?” Drexel asked.


cence

34

Thinking he was still being linked to the
unsolved slaying of Kathleen Robinson, above,
the suspect was calm enough at first.

For a moment the coroner was thoughtful. “Middle
twenties,” he said. “Maybe thirty, but I doubt it. Expensive
clothing, too, and this BC monogram clip on her dress isn’t
cheap by any means.”

He held out his hand and Drexel took the clip and two
rings the coroner had removed from the dead woman’s
hand. One ring was a large onyx of the costume variety, the
other a good-sized diamond, certainly worth several hun-
dred dollars. There was also a pearl necklace.

The county investigator shrugged. “This doesn’t add up
to a robbery motive,” he mused, “and you say no rape?”

“I said no apparent attempt at a criminal attack here.
But if she was killed elsewhere, in a car perhaps, there
might have been. Can't tell for certain until we do an
autopsy.”

Meantime, Deputies Cuffaro and Larson, under direction
of Sheriff Emig, had been searching the area for clues. At
first they found nothing. The left shoe was missing. If she
had carried a handbag, it was nowhere around. Neither
was there a wrap nor hat and it seemed likely she would
have worn a coat for the evening before, November: 23,

1942, had been unusually chilly. :

Close examination of the roadside revealed four distinct
and different tire tread impressions where cars had stopped
and parked recently. One set was seen immediately to have
been made by Rockhold’s truck and one was presumed to
have been that of the car that stopped when the laundry

driver signalled for help after discovering the body.

In order to miss nothing in the way of a clue, however, ’
Drexel ordered plaster impressions made of them all. There
were a number of trails of broken weeds and grass from
the highway to the spot where the body lay, but no evidence
a body had been dragged. From this the investigators ‘con-
cluded the victim had been carried from a car, or, if she was
still alive, had walked.

The bloodstained rock, to which clung strands of blond
hair, found near the body, puzzled Drexel and Sheriff Emig.
It seemed hardly possible the murderer would have carried
such a bulky, awkward weapon with him had he used it at
some other spot. Yet the coroner said he believed the
woman had been killed elsewhere.

Upon removal of the corpse to the county seat of San
Jose for an autopsy, the search of the area continued. Pres-
ently Deputy Larson found a place in the weeds where the
rock bludgeon had been torn loose. When placed in the
bare spot partly concealed by grass, it fitted perfectly.

This led Drexel to the conclusion that even though his
victim actually was dead when carried to the field, the
killer, fearing she might be alive, had picked up the rock
and battered her with it to make sure.

After several hours of searching, the officers were about
to admit there were no more clues to be uncovered when
Drexel, returning to his car parked along the highway, dis-
covered a place on a rail fence that appeared to have blood

Becccumen


Sci i Dae

spots on it. There was evidence too that someone had
trampled down the grass on both sides.

At this spot the fence ran close to a small tree, the
branches of which hung so low the lawman had to duck his
head to pass beneath them. Instinctively, he looked up and
so noticed caught in the bark a bit of brightly colored
material. Carefully he removed his find—the upper portion
of what had been a small blue feather, tipped,red on the
upper end.

While he studied it, Drexel tried to remember what
native birds had such blue and red plumage. He could think
of none but placed the feather in his wallet, whittled off a
piece of the rail atop the fence that appeared bloodstained
and rejoined the other officers who were ready to return
to San Jose.

While the lawmen awaited the report of the autopsy,
they alerted the police of San Francisco and Oakland as
well as Chief of Police Louis Belloni of South San Fran-
cisco, a community of humming shipyards and war plants.
At the same time, Deputy George Pyne was sent to the
state laboratory at Sacramento with the rock and shaving
from the fence to determine if the stains were human blood.
He also took along the blue feather and the strands of hair
found on the bloodstained rock to be examined and studied
by State Pathologist David Burd.

So far no: identification of the slain woman had been
made but, at the suggestion of Inspector Harry Husted,
accounts of the murder in the San Francisco afternoon
papers listed the victim’s clothing and jewelry, including
the BC monogram clip. Soon after the early editions hit
the streets, Sheriff Emig received a telephone call from
a cigar store owner in the Golden Gate city, saying he had
read the account of the finding of the body and he thought
the description fitted one of his employes who had not
appeared for work that morning.

An hour later Jack Milford, operator of the Market
Street tobacco store, stood by a slab in the San Jose mor-
tuary and nodded sadly. “That’s Bernice Curtis, alright,”
he said.

Before the day was over the identification was corrobo-
rated by the victim’s sister, Mrs. Bernard Ash, of South
San Francisco as well as the slain girl’s roommate, Mrs.
Elsie Martin, and their landlady, Mrs. Grace Arnold, who
operated the San Jose Avenue rooming house where the
two friends lived. This address had been supplied by
Milford. ;

Knowledge of the victim’s name, her occupation, habits
and background, however, only served to complicate the
case. Bernice Curtis had come to San Francisco a year
before from Chicago, where she had divorced her husband,
Stanley Koda, who thereupon went into the armed forces.
According to Mrs. Ash, he was serving somewhere in the
Pacific war theater. Yet Drexel took no chances and im-
mediately communicated with army authorities to deter-
mine the facts.

Bernice, at 27, was a trim, vivacious matron who had
weathered several romances before succumbing to the
blandishments of Koda. The marriage had lasted but two
years. Friends said both Bernice and Stanley appeared
glad to have it over, each going separate ways without
rancor or recriminations. The woman's eventually led her
to San Francisco.

As an employe of the tobacconist, she sold cigars and
cigarets and operated a dice game in which prizes of mer-
chandise were given for high scores. In this capacity
Bernice knew hundreds of men who frequented the popular
emporium. She dated those she liked but always avoided
entanglements that might lead to serious affairs. As far as
her companions knew, she had no regular boy-friend, fre-
quently stating in no uncertain terms that she was fed up
with marriage. In short, Bernice liked men, not husbands—
hers, that is.

A search of the pretty victim’s room added no valuable
lead to the investigation that now was in full swing from
San Diego to Sacramento and as far east as Chicago. San
Francisco police, under direction of Inspectors Francis
Latulipe, Al Corassa and Harry Husted of the Homicide

[Continued on page 52]

35


ed might even

1ess been’ diag-
- and both lay-
rained to recog-
endencies, and
re designed so
e could be com-
lid harm, then
would now be
appily married
. As it is, two
ste, and Society
own shameful

n Henry Harri-
Mrs. John Sex-
r and Paul Cor-
foregoing story,
mes of the per-
> persons have
names in order
embarrassment.

st the Don Juan.
t dodge it any
d a demure and
rl with whom he
hey settled down

in San Mateo,
; a curly-haired
the outbreak of
rencio went to
yard of Western
th San Francisco.

: how Frank Al-
lice Curtis, the
airty-year-old di-

ierly operated a
or, had divorced
yur years before.
en engaged to a
they broke up.
xico City at the
‘0 California.
atory caution had
irs, and his affair
¢ less open than
»binson had been.

aber, 1942, just
ter she had come
:d to her married
t she was in love.
her sister a snap-
’ friend, a sleek,
with black curly
ad large liquid

ned Frank’s last
interested sister
. couple of times,
d to bring him to
g came up at the
similarly dodged
ly or roommate.

CRIME DETECTIVE

On November 18th, Bernice wrote
to her mother in Chicago, to whom
she had previously mentioned her
steady dates with a man named Frank,
whom she identified only by his first
name: “He wants to marry me, but
I’m afraid!” She didn’t give any ex-
planation of why she should be afraid.
On Sunday night, November 22,
1942, Frank called for Bernice about

seven. She was all ready and hurried |

downstairs at his ring.

They stopped in at several bars,
then went dining at San Jose, where
they met another couple. At about
eleven, the four left together.

T eight-thirty, Monday morning,
a passing motorist spotted the
sprawled body of a woman lying in a
plowed field at Diss Road and Alma
Street, on the outskirts of Palo Alto
near the Stanford University campus. .
His excited call to the constable
brought Sheriff William J. Emig of
Santa Clara’ County up from San
Jose with a crew of eager deputies.
The young woman lay face-down in
the mud, her face jammed among the
clods, and her auburn hair matted:
with blood. In grotesque contrast to
the dreary autumn morning and the
bleak surroundings, she wore a high-
style black silk dress, and expensive
jewelry gleamed on her hands. The
back of her head had been beaten in
with savage blows of some heavy
weapon.
Her bedraggled fur coat was found
on the road a short distance away,
and one high-heeled slipper was dis-
covered in the field. Chief Criminal
Deputy Phil Cuffaro, Emig’s identifi-
cation man, took a plaster cast of tire
marks close beside the fence, over
which the body had apparently been
hoisted from an automobile. He also
found ‘the partial print of a man’s
‘ shoe, and part of a little green feather,
the kind that men wear in their hat-
bands. ,
Then a bus driver came forward
who had seen the fur coat lying in

the road at. 12:45 that morning and.

had noticed a green 1936 Chevrolet
sedan standing close to the fence, with
its headlights on and a door open.
Fearing a hold-up trap, he had driven
on, but his evidence established the
time the body had been dumped in
the field, and checked with the coro-
ner’s estimate that the young woman
had been killed around midnight.
Late that afternoon, a San Francisco
tobacconist who read the descfiption
of the murdered redhead in the news-
papers, called Emig and identified the
woman as his clerk, Bernice Curtis.

OON, the identification was posi-
J tive, and San Jose and San’ Fran-
cisco detectives were interviewing the
murdered divorcee’s relatives and
friends.’ They swiftly got on the trail
of the mysterious “Frank,” but found
that no one knew his full name or his

address. Bernice’s sister recalled. only |.

that he worked in a shipyard.
CRIME DETECTIVE x

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That was my problem. I wanted to

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53

>

in from an excited citizen. He -had
just found the dead body of a young
red-haired girl in evening dress, lying
on the sidewalk of quiet Poplar Ave-
nve, right around the corner from the
Brewer home. a

“My God, that must be Kathleen!”

Frank Alcalde exclaimed in wide-eyed |

horror. ‘

And so it was. The willowy girl
with the Mona Lisa smile lay crum-
pled, face down, on the pavement in
the black shadow of the tall trees, an
aura of seductive perfume still hover-
ing about her. She wore a sheer black

chiffon evening gown, cut low from:

her white throat,.a short black velvet
jacket and high-heeled black satin
slippers. A gardenia corsage was
crushed under her body, and a black

evening bag and black gloves lay

‘nearby in the dust.:A cigarette in her
left hand had burned itself out and
blistered the dead fingers. There was a
small bullet hole just behind her right
ear.

“Looks like she was shot from am-'
bush as she walked: down the street,” .

Police Chief Thomas Burke summed
up. “The killer could have been hiding
in these bushes. Or else he could have

22

come up behind her. Most likely she
“never knew what hit her.” --

C\CRUTINY of the’ slain girl’s apart-
ment yielded cryptic clues. On the

stand beside the: disordered bed- were

two glasses with dregs of white wine.
There were two cigarette stubs in the
ash tray, one of them smeared with

lipstick.

Frank . Alcalde, sobbing and ap-
parently on the verge. of hysteria, had
no idea what could. have happened. He
said he was ‘sure the wine glasss and
cigarettes definitely hadn’t been there,
and that the bed had been neatly made
up, when Kathleen had tidied her
room just before she left with him
at one-thirty. Plainly, she must have
hada secret. date, with someone else

early in the evening. Come to think of.

it, she had been very. ‘insistent on
Frank’s calling for her at exactly nine,
no earlier or later, —

Could Alcalde name any suspect?
Well, Frank frowned through his tears,
he didn’t like to get anyone in trouble,

but there was one fellow, Dan Da- .

mone, ‘to whom: Kathy had once been
engaged, who'd been hanging. around.

Not long ago, Kathy said Dan had

moran cemmronennahine 8! a

’ threatened Violence to her and Frank,

if she didn’t come back to him and
drop Alcalde.
Alcalde himself seemed to be in

the clear on the strength of his alibi. |

He had dined with his folks in San
Bruno, driven to San Mateo a little
before seven, dropped into a couple
of taverns and walked around the
streets, killing time while waiting to
pick up his girl, he said. The coroner
believed Kathleen had. been shot short-
ly before her body was found at mid-
night. A Poplar Avenue resident was
positive the body hadn’t been there
when he. had passed at eleven. And
Alcalde had been with the Brewers
since a few minutes after nine.

ETECTIVES went after young

‘Dan Damone. He had been out
all evening, and‘ they picked him up
at a cafe at two a.m., a bit under the
weather for liquor. He admitted he
might have threatened Kathleen in
a moment of anger, but denied killing
her. He was hazy as to his movements
during the evening, and when they
found a: .32: automatic in his room,
they brought him in for questioning.
They checked his fingerprints, but

CRIME DETECTIVE

PR AS

HE’LL DIE FC

-.. HER MURDER

Bernice Curtis, in life. '
killer was executed, 1
ple thought his punishr
just seven long years

there were no identi
wine glasses.

_ Developments wer
ner found that Kez
killed with a .32, bu
had not been shot w
The autopsy indicat
might have been k
eight or nine o’clc
little girl came forw
had seen the body
walk at nine.

Thus, Alcalde’s al

‘ And at the same ti
- was able, step-by-ste

alibi that cleared |
volubly maintained
gave the police nam
other current boy f)
beauty.

The police check
Kathleen’s past and
friends. They cou
with> whom she mi
early evening date,
dence in her room
But by a process 0!
kept coming back
the fiery Don Jua
said was fiercely:
threatened to kill K

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paid the Piper for its own shameful
neglect,

Note: The names John Henry Harri-
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are not the actual names of the per-
sons involved. These. persons have
been given fictitious names in order
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GRAVE-BOUND

REDHEADS

(Continued from page 23)

heavily stacked against the Don Juan.

When he couldn’t dodge it any
longer, Frank married a demure and
pretty young local girl with whom he
had gone to school. They settled down
in a modest cottage in San Mateo,
and soon there was a curly-haired
little Alcalde. With the outbreak of
World War II, Florencio went to
work at the big shipyard of Western
Pipe and Steel in South San Francisco.

O one knows just how Frank Al-
calde met Bernice Curtis, the
buxom, red-haired, thirty-year-old di-
vorcee.

Bernice who formerly operated a
Chicago beauty parlor, had divorced
her husband about four years before.
Recently, she had been engaged to a
young salesman, but they broke up.
He had gone to Mexico City at the
same time she came to California.

Frank’s self-preservatory caution had
increased with the years, and his affair
with Bernice was far less open than
that with Kathleen Robinson had been.

ARLY in November, 1942, just

about a month after she had come
West, Bernice confided to her married
sister that she thought she was in love.
She proudly showed her sister a snap-
shot of her new boy friend, a sleek,
nattily-dressed fellow with black curly
hair, moustache, and large liquid
eyes. ‘\

If Bernice mentioned Frank’s last
name, her politely interested sister
promptly forgot it. A couple of times,
Bernice was scheduled to bring him to
dinner, but something came up at the
last minute. Frank similarly dodged
meeting her landlady or roommate.

CRIME DETECTIVE

On November
to her mother in
she had previot
steady dates with
whom she identif
name: “He want
I’m afraid!” She
planation of why

On Sunday n
1942, Frank call
seven. She was <
downstairs at his

They stopped
then went dinin;
they met anoth:
eleven, the four

T eight-thirt

- a passing
sprawled body c
plowed field at
Street, on the
near the Stanfo:
His excited c:
brought Sheriff
Santa Clara’ C
Jose with a cr

The young w:
the mud, her fa
clods, and her
with blood. In
the dreary auti
bleak surroundi
style black silk
jewelry gleame
back of her he
with savage b
weapon.

Her bedragg
on the road 2
and one high-!
covered in the
Deputy Phil C
cation man, to
marks close |
which the boc
hoisted from :
found ‘the pa
shoe, and part
the kind that
bands.

Then a bu
who had seer
the road at 1
had noticed <
sedan standin;
its headlights
Fearing a hol
on, but his «
time the bod
the field, and
ner’s estimate
had been kill:

Late that a
tobacconist v
of the murde
papers, callec
woman as bh

OON, the
WJ tive, and
cisco detecti
murdered d
friends. The
of the myste
that no one }
address. Ber!
that he work

CRIME DETECT


dlence to her and Frank,
come back to him and

mself seemed to be in
the strength of his alibi.
d with his folks in San
1 to San Mateo a little
dropped into a couple
nd walked around the
; time while waiting to
irl, he said. The coroner
leen had been shot short-
body was found at mid-
ar Avenue resident was
»ody hadn’t been there
passed at eleven. And
been with the Brewers
uinutes after nine.

ES went after young
none. He had been out
ad they picked him up
vO a.m., a bit under the
iquor. He admitted he
hreatened Kathleen in
inger, but denied killing
izy as to his movements
ening, and when they
tutomatic in his room,
tim in for questioning.

his fingerprints, but

CRIME DETECTIVE

i
;
J
%

HE’LL DIE. FOR
HER MURDER...
Bernice Curtis, in life. When her
killer ‘was executed, many peo-

ple thought his punishment was
just seven long years overdue.

there were no identifiable ones on the
wine glasses.

Developments were rapid. The coro-
ner found that Kathleen. had been
killed with a .32, but tests proved she
had not been shot with Damone’s gun.
The autopsy indicated that Kathleen
might have been killed as early’ as
eight or nine o’clock. And now a
little girl came forward who said she
had seen the body lying on the side-
walk at nine.

Thus, Alcalde’s alibi was blown up.

And at the same time, Dan Damone

was able, step-by-step, to establish an’

alibi that cleared him. But Alcalde
volubly maintained his innocence. He

gave the police names of half a dozen

other current boy friends of ‘the slain
beauty.

The police checked and rechecked
Kathleen’s past and questioned all her
friends. They couldn't find anyone
with: whom she might have had the
early evening date, of which the evi-
dence in her room spoke eloquently.
But by a process of elimination, they
kept coming back to Frank Alcalde,
the fiery Don Juan, who everybody
said was fiercely: jealous and had
threatened to kill Kathleen if she ever

CRIME DETECTIVE

left him. Kathleen’s foster-mother was
certain Alcalde was the killer.

A month after the murder, a rusty
.32 Dreyser automatic was found lying
in the weeds, a block from where
Kathleen’s body had been found. Ex-
posure to the.elements had ruined
hope of matching it with.the death

_ bullet. But the gun was identified as
one that Alcalde’s father had reported

Stolen from his tavern some. months

before!

By this time, all of the murdered .
" girl’s acquaintances had been exhaus-

‘tively checked out, and Chief Burke
was convinced that Alcalde himself
was the man who had shared the wihe
and cigarettes and Kathleen’s bed

- with her at. seven: o’clock. He also

noted that she had been fully dressed
for her Saturday night date with Frank
at the time she was killed, ——

On the strength of all this, District

‘Questioned by Assistant ‘D.A. And

Attorney Gilbert Ferrell, issued 4 com-
plaint, charging young Alcalde with
murder. But Alcalde retained a skillful
criminal attorney, and at his prelimin-
ary hearing, Justice of the Peace
Richard E. O'Farrell agreed that the
circumstantial evidence wasn’t strong
enough to hold him for trial, and dis-
missed the charge. The murder of
Kathleen Robinson went back in the
unsolved file, though the authorities.
were certain of Alcalde’s guilt.

H* close brush with the murder
rap apparently had a temporarily
sobering effect on the handsome young
ladies’ man. He settled down to a con-
struction job and stayed close to home
for a long time. Eventually, he blos-
somed out again. As usual, he tried to
steer clear of marriage, but since he
was getting older, the romantic cards
were now (Continued on page 52)

reucetti (left), Dr. Burt Davis, autopsy surgeon, iden-

tifies Bernice Curtis’s skull X-ray during the sensational murder trial of Frank Alcalde.

9 Eternity, Febru-
. dly signed a con-
. @ bomb in his
before the plane
ontends that the
r duress. Accord-
dort, Graham was
. faculties on the
on the day that
Jefense attorneys
sion is the only
m to the crime
lowed to be en-
u, Graham could
tal punishment.
2rson cannot be
there is either a
ewitness,

d with the brutal
in Palos Verdes
Over, February
mmitted to the
dital for 90 days
Hedlund had a
atric _maladjust-
‘robbery

for the

afessed

in two

. Shocked

court acted on

ists who agreed
Sexual psycho-
der study.

> runaway ro- «
nd ended in a
ith of Chicago
'pade, January
0 a brief jail

_ , 25, who was
‘es of breaking
vas conducted
of each other,
corridor. The

. lina proposal

“Ning but
Ernest

June Fortin, 21, and her’ husband Leo,
24 (top), have beep, sentenced to life for
the murder of Burton. E, Kelley, June’s
uncle (Big as a Button, Greedy as Sin,
February rnsmpe, 1956). After Kelley’s
body was discovered in his Salem, N.H.,
home, bound with wire and dead from four
_ hammer blows on the head, suspicion fell

on the Fortins because, although they had

been friendlycwith they. could not
be found for questioning. ” were found

many weeks later in Syracuse, N.Y., and
readily confessed to the murder. The signed
confession stated they murdered him in the
hopes of finding money in the house but
after ransacking the house from cellar to
attic, left empty handed. They overlooked
several hundred dollars in Kelley’s pocket.
The Fortins entered a plea of guilty to
first-degree murder in court.

Burton W. Abbott, tried for the murder
of 14-year-old Stephanie Bryan in Berkeley,
Cal. (The Finding of Stephanie Bryan,
’ October INSIDE, 1955), has been found
i guilty and sentenced to die in the gas
a4 chamber by a jury of seven men and five
women who deliberated a full week before
arriving at a decision. Abbott, who had
pleaded not guilty and had vigorously
repudiated the charges, entered the court
room with a smile. His face turned to a

. chalky white when the jury foreman an-

nounced the result. Abbott’s mother fainted
and his wife, who had stuck by him
throughout the trial, glared: at the jury
without giving way to emotion. Stephanie
: Bryan, a shy, serious, dark-haired girl,
is disappeared on her way home from school
and after a large scale search, was dis-
: covered in a grave in Trinity County,
4 scarcely 100 yards from Abbott’s summer
cabin. Previously, her handbag had been
discovered in Abbott’s basement. Abbott,
a 27-year-old accounting student at the
University of California, contended that
tuberculosis had left him’ physically in-
y capable of committing the crime. ‘

at,
£2.

Two more men have been arrested in
the slaying of Lulubel Rossman, wealthy
Philadelphia widow who was slain in her
Philadelphia hotel room (Nine Wigs and
a Potful of Dough, October INSIDE, 1955).
Gus De Moss, 48, a radio dispatcher for
the Tulsa, Okla., police department and
Robert Thomas, 46, of Miami, Fla., a for-
mer Tulsa policeman, were both named
in a surprise grand jury indictment on
charges. of interstate transportation of
stolen money. The indictment also named
Frank J. Ellsworth and Raymond P. Wilson, :
already in custody on charges of strangling
Mrs. Rossman. Both Ellsworth and Wilson
were arrested in a Las Vegas gambling
casino while trying to cash $87,000 in $100.
bills in their possession.

Arthur Ross Brown, who admitted to
police that he shot. and killed Mrs. Wilma
Allen, the pretty 34-year-old wife of a
-wealthy Kansas City, Mo., automobile
dealer (So Rich, So Lovely, So Dead, Feb-
ruary INSIDE, 1956), entered a plea of
guilty to a federal kidnaping charge. A
jury found him guilty and he was given
the death penalty. Brown told how he
forced his way into Mrs. Allen’s car at gun-
‘ point as she prepared to-drive away from a
pues lot in a shopping district. Her nude
o¢y was found three days later on the
Kansas side of the Missouri-Kansas line.
Brown said that robbery had been his
motive and that he decided to shoot her
because he was afraid she would identify
him in the robbery, but later buried all the

jewelry he’d stolen because he was afraid
they would identify him as the killer. The
trial for the federal kidnaping charge was
heard by a jury impaneled outside the area‘
where the crime took place. Brown will

die in the lethal gas chamber at the Mis-
souri State Prison at Jefferson City.

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L om — 15

TICE

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foe

a

be
b7Sé

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Ap:


ha..u.,..ting
y the same

1 clinch it,”
1 to Captain

: Lieutenant
‘m.” he said.
you in the
ntil then. I
a confession

dure. Miny
appealed to
and consid-

* some time
uesday eve-
ly. Shortly
{ announced
im and was
to the dis-

1is uniform,
of District

Iso present
sse Gunter-

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Ist

|

attempted
ary llth to
made cer-
ome alone,
conversa-
‘ough win-
ad left the

g time,” he
know how
n Alexan-
two houses
lon’t know

it. He sce
from Mrs.
ck. “There
,” he said.

Balas held
i the case
were filed
Hall and
istrict At-
he would

concerned
ent should.
dominoes
e a hearty
ahd: Ptr -

kraut. The next morning, however, he
asked for a priest.

Monsignor J. J. Kearns of St. Mary’s
Church of the Assumption arrived at the
jail at 6:30 a.m. With his head lowered in
his hands, the accused talked long and
privately with the monsignor and re-
quested sacramental absolution. The con-
fessional seal prohibited Monsignor Kearns
from divulging any statements made by
Balas.

On Saturday, August 6th, the air force
issued a statement charging that Balas had
obtained his commission under fraudulent
conditions. On his air force security
clearance application, as well as on his ap-
plication for commission, he had failed to
indicate previous arrests. Evidence now
brought to light, the air force says, shows
that Balas concealed a lengthy juvenile
record of burglaries, purse snatchings and
housebreakings. The penalty under the
Uniform Code of Military Justice for mak-
ing a false statement is dishonorable dis-

charge and also one year of confinement.

The McLennan County grand jury con-
vened in special session before 54th Dis-
trict Court Judge D. W. Bartlett on August
llth. A 9-count indictment was promptly
returned, charging Balas with three cases
of rape, one of attempted rape, and five
burglaries. :

Waco is quiet and peaceful again and
Captain Stem is at ease. He is confident
that the city’s reign of terror is over. But
District Attorney Moore does not consider
the case closed yet. He intends to con-
tinue to question Balas about several other
sexual attacks which the ex-airman failed
to mention in his confession. oo¢

Epiror’s Note:

To protect the identities of women
victims, all women’s names used in the
foregoing story are fictitious. The name
Harold J. Kelly is also not the real
name of the person concerned.

Stephanie Bryan
(Continued from page 15)

bag, she had looked for something in the
same basement storage box—and the red
leather handbag was not in the box then.

Bud Abbott could contribute nothing
whatever to the mystery. “In fact,” the tall,
pale accountancy student volunteered, “I
never heard of Stephanie Bryan before.”

“But the newspapers have been full of
the story,” Georgia Abbott exclaimed.

“My dear,” he reminded her, “you know
I seldom read the newspapers. Current
affairs have little interest for me.”

Mrs. Elsie Abbott, mother of the be-
spectacled, 27-year-old student, was ques-
tioned briefly, as was the Abbott dinner
guest, Otto Dezman, an old friend of the
family. Bits of Abbott family history were
carefully noted. Georgia, who was seven
years older than her husband, had met him
when both were tuberculosis patients in
Oakland Veterans Hospital. Georgia was a
former WAC; Bud. an ex-army man. Twice
a month Bud reported to the hospital for
injections of streptomycin, necessitated by
the removal three years before of seven
ribs and a tubercular lung. While Georgia
was employed at a beauty parlor and Bud
Abbott attended his University of Cali-
fornia classes, Mrs. Elsie Abbott took care
of 4-year-old Chris.

The police finally left the Abbott home,
announcing their plans to return the next
day. Mrs. Elsie Abbott, Mrs. Georgia
Abbott and Chris went to bed. Bud Abbott
and Otto Dezman started a chess game,
which lasted until past daybreak,

Early the next morning the police and
several G-men returned to the bunga-
low. With them they brought picks and
shovels. They started to dig in the base-
ment and within a short time had un-
earthed more and conclusive evidence that
linked the Abbott basement with the dis-
appearance of Stephanie Bryan. Shallowly
buried in an uncemented section of the
basement floor the searchers found a 25¢
pamphlet on the care and feeding of
parakeets, two library books, two school
notebooks, a pair of eyeglasses and a bras-
siere. All were identified as the property
of the missing girl.

All that day the digging continued.
When the basement floor surface had been
exhausted, the excavating was transferred
to the Abbott back yard. But nothing else
was found, even under the bricks in the

,

patio which Bud Abbott had laid only a
few weeks previously.

Bud, his mother and his wife could not
account for this baffling discovery of
Stephanie Bryan’s belongings in their
basement. They pointed out that they only
rented the place and that the basement
door was never locked. Then it was dis-
closed that on May 24th, almost a month
after Stephanie Bryan dropped from
sight, the Abbott basement had been used
as a polling place in a local election. The
detectives would have to check out about
200 persons who had voted that day.

They asked where the entire Abbott
family had been on last April 28th, the
day Stephanie was last seen. Georgia Ab-
bott had been at work in the beauty par-
lor, she stated. And Mrs. Elsie Abbott had
remained at home, minding young Chris.
Bud Abbott had driven some 300 miles to
the north for a week end at the family
cabin in Trinity County.

He had left home at 11 a.m., Bud said. He
drove by way of California’s state capital,
Sacramento, using Highway 40 as his route
to Wildwood, in Trinity County, where
the family summer fishing and hunting
cabin was located. He told of stopping for
lunch at a restaurant in Yolo County, after
about 125 miles of driving. Dusk was fall-
ing when he drove into Wildwood. Before
driving to the cabin, he said, he stopped at
Wildwood’s only tavern and had a drink.
Between 10 and 10:30 p.m., he added, he
reached the cabin and went to bed.

Abbott’s straightforward account of his
movements on April 28th seemed to elim-
inate any chance of placing him within
more than 200 miles from the Berkeley
parking lot where Stephanie had last been
seen. Abbott would have had to journey
more than half of the way to the Trinity
County cabin while Stephanie was still in
school. The detective made a note of the
auto driven that day by Abbott, a 1949
Chevrolet, gray ‘in color. The only other
car owned by the Abbotts was a new hard-
top Pontiac sedan, which Georgia Abbott
usually drove.

That night Berkeley detectives, headed
by Inspector Charles O’Meara, drove the
nearly 300 miles to Wildwood for a routine
check on the story Bud Abbott had told.

Assuming that any member of the Ab-
bott family was connected with the
mystery of the missing girl, who would be
foolish enough to leave telltale evidence
in such a conspicuous place? Had it been a
matter of hours, or even days, such cir-
cumstantial evidence might be explainable,
but now almost three months had elapsed
since the girl’s disappearance.

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At one of a series of press conferences a
reporter bluntly asked District Attorney J.
Frank Coakley, “Is Bud Abbott under
suspicion?”

Coakley sighed. “We have all sorts of
ideas, all sorts of suspects. But you must
remember this: we haven’t got a crime on
our hands yet. In fact, we haven’t even
got a body.”

Word of this pronouncement soon
reached Bud Abbott’s ears and the pale
student promptly demanded and received
a lie detector examination, which lasted
the better part of two days. He emerged
from this ordeal with the same calmness
that had marked all his previous inter-
rogations.

At 9:30 p.m. the next night, July 20th,
1955, a man was booked at the Berkeley
City Prison as the 97th prisoner of the
month. The brief notation on the desk
blotter stated: “Burton Wilbur Abbott,
male, 27 years; race, white; born, Oregon;
occupation, student—187 P.C.” The latter
entry referred to Section 187 of the Cali-
fornia penal code, the charge of murder

When detectives and G-men converged
on the Abbott cabin on the Hay Fork of
the Trinity River, they learned from a
Wildwood townsman that the place already
bore a sinister reputation. For more than
seven years the ramshackle dwelling had
been called “The Butcher Boy’s Cabin.”

In 1948 two miners, Lloyd Snyder and
Ray Latham, had shared the cabin as they
prospected for gold. One night, during a
quarrel over who had to wash the supper
dishes, Snyder shot and killed his mining
partner, dismembered the body and buried
the parts in various places downhill from
the cabin. Before being sentenced to San
Quentin prison. Snyder sold the cabin and
the mining claim to a man named Robert
Schorch Jr. The new owner is Georgia
Abbott’s brother. Then on April 7th, three
weeks before Stephanie Bryan  disap-
peared, Snyder was released on parole.

As detectives searched the “Butcher
Boy’s Cabin” for clues, others searched for
a possible grave in the cabin’s vicinity.
Nothing came of either effort.

Among the contingent of newspapermen
who had trailed the detectives to the
lonely Wildwood cabin were Reporter Ed
Montgomery and Photographer Bob Bry-
ant of the San Francisco Examiner. As a
cameraman in World War II, Bob Bryant
had covered General “Vinegar Joe” Still-
well’s history-making campaign in the
China-Burma-India theatre. Montgomery,
former football star at the University of
Nevada, also did a stint in the war, serving
as a Marine in the South Pacific. But he
is better known for his expose of the In-
ternal Revenue income tax scandals that
rocked the nation and.earned for him the
1950 Pulitzer Prize for newspaper report-
ing.

In a chartered plane, the two newsmen
flew northward into Trinity County. Their
pilot, Bill Kelly, landed them in a cow
pasture some 15 miles from the hamlet of
Wildwood. Actually, Wildwood is a rustic
inn, owned by Delbert Cox, surrounded by
a dozen or so cabins favored by fishermen
and hunters. It was in Cox’s inn. Bud Ab-
bott previously had told the detectives, he
had stopped for a drink on his arrival
that night of April 28th, after the long
drive north from Alameda.

Montgomery, Bryant, and the pilot,
paused at Cox’s Inn for a number of
reasons: to get a drink after their 15-mile
trek from the cow pasture where Biil
Kelly had set them down; to inquire the
way to the Abbott cabin and to pick up
any available information. The newsmen
got their drink and the directions for find-
ing the Abbott cabin, but very little in-
formation.

“My husband is sick in bed,” Mrs. Cox

told them. “Anyway, even if he could talk
to you, he couldn’t give you any infor-
mation. We were told to say nothing to
the newspapers.”

Montgomery nodded sympathetically. “I

‘know how it is. I suppose you and Mr.

Cox were able to verify Bud Abbott’s
story, that he was in here the night of
April 28th for a drink?”

“We can’t talk to the papers,” was the
reply.

Montgomery, Bryant and Kelly made
their way to the Abbott cabin. It was
growing dark as the newspapermen ap-
proched the weathered board and batten
structure, but it was still light enough to
see the name “Lloyd Snyder” burned into
a door plank. While Bryant took pictures
of the cabin, Montgomery and Kelly
strolled along the bank of a small creek
which flowed about 50 feet back of the
cabin. All around were heaps of earth,
testifying to the digging of police and
FBI agents. By now it was quite dark. It
was stifling hot and there was only a sug-
gestion of a breeze. Suddenly a peculiar
odor assailed their nostrils. As they moved
around in the darkness, the smell fleet-
ingly returned, and then was gone.

The next day Montgomery played a
hunch. He circulated among the townfolk
and located Harold Jackson, the area’s
foremost hunter of bear and mountain
lion. Jackson, a former deputy sheriff,
owned a pack of well-trained hunting
dogs. Montgomery found Jackson bailing
a field of alfalfa. Could Jackson be hired
to search the neighborhood with a team
of his dogs? he asked.

“T couldn’t be hired for any amount of
money. But if you think we might find
that little girl,” drawled Jackson, “I’ll do
it for nothing, Mister. Heck, I’ve got a
daughter of my own. But you'll have to
wait until I get this alfalfa bailed.”

So Montgomery patiently waited and it
was well past 6 o’clock in the evening
when Jackson was ready to start with
Spot and Shorty, which the mountaineer
said were his two best hunting hounds.
Montgomery, Bryant, Jackson and M. F.
Coleman, Jackson’s hired hand, picked up
the trail from the Abbott cabin.

Several times the dogs paused at exca-
vations previously left by the FBI agents,
sniffing the earth before trotting off. An
hour went by and soon the shadows of
night began to descend. Montgomery sug-
gested moving to the spot where, on the
previous evening, he and Kelly had
noticed a strange odor. The four men and
the two dogs crossed the rippling creek
into a steep and rugged terrain of man-
zanita and towering sugar pines. Slowly
the men followed the hounds, zigzagging
through the dense vegetation.

The search appeared to be futile. Just as
Montgomery was prepared to call it off,
both dogs stiffened. Their big muzzles
raised, their bodies trembled and their
nostrils dilated.

“They’ve got something,” Jackson
whispered. “Look, their ears are up. That
scent is coming from a distance. That’s
not a trail, or their noses would be on the
ground.”

Jackson gave the hounds their heads
and the dogs raced out of sight. Jackson,
Montgomery and Bryant, scrambled up
the incline in the direction the dogs had
taken. Through the thickets of manzanita
the men followed as best they could. Cole-
man, under Jackson’s instructions, re-
mained at the spot where the dogs had
picked up the scent. A few minutes later,
Spot was back at his master’s heels,

“This is it,” Jackson grunted. “They've
found something, That’s the way these
dogs: operate. Let’s go, Shorty will be
waiting at the place. Spot only came
back to get us.”

AERATED ERIN

sa iii a

The three n
up the hill. Th:
keeping vigil ¢
Bryan.

In the
the big
eroded ___-
slim leg shod i
shoe. Above tk
recent rains \
pleated skirt
white cardigan

J. Edgar Hc
from FBI head
next morning:
prise of Repc
Photographer
body of the vi
in the highes
Their acts are
splendid cont)
tives of the pri
law and order.
iest commend
job.”

While the p
were gratify
Stephanie Br)
being solved. '
bott, had bee
damaging evic
had been loca‘
confidently wi
paring the ev
latter’s attorn:
member of thi
guments to s
possibly have
one point, h
Alameda Cov
Abbott on kid
was a seemin

Throughout
and during tl
clung unwave
had paused «
tavern about
disappeared.
have been a
Abbott
parking
time St_..
Delbert Cox s
Abbott had nc
the evening <
hinged the fi
attorney. And

How was St
and reserved
car? Where
home in Alam
cabin nearly 3
official theor
of the shall
opinion was
bercular Abb:
He was, his f
his own 4-y«
have been ak
105-pound gi)
the steep, ru;

More than
Stephanie hac
to climb the }
where the b:
of this theo1
the earth aro
of copious fk
were found ib
1949 Chevrole
of April 28th

The autops
been bludgec
or both. A c
panties, was
cause of the
body, the act
be determine
establish whi
assaulted.

Detectives,

1e talk
1 any infor-
y nothing to

thetically. “I
you and Mr.
3ud Abbott's
the night of

”

ors,’ was the

Kelly made
abin. It was
apermen ap-
d and batten
ht enough to
’ burned into
took pictures

and Kelly
. small creek
back of the

aps of earth,
f police and
quite dark. It
is only a sug-
ly a peculiar
.s they moved
> smell fleet-
is gone.

ry played a
the townfolk
n, the area’s
ind mountain
eputy sheriff,
ined hunting
ickson bailing
kson be hired
with a team

my amount of
ve might find
eckson, “I'll do
2k, I’ve got a

yo! ve to
be
w and it

a the evening
to start with
e mountaineer
inting hounds.
son and M. F.
and, picked up
abin.
aused at exca-
he FBI agents,
rotting off. An
ne shadews of
yntgomery sug-
where, on the
id Kelly had
four men and
rippling creek
orrain of man-
pines. Slowly
nds, zigzagging
on.
e futile. Just as
| to call it off,
r big muzzles
bled and their

ing,” Jackson
rs are up. That
distance. That’s
vould be on the

ds their heads
sight. Jackson,
scrambled up
n the dogs had
ts of manzanita
aey could. Cole-
astructions, re-
e the dogs had
vy minutes later,
ster’s heels.
unted. “They've
the way these
Sh rill be
‘po’ came

The three men scrambled breathlessly
up the hill. They found the hound, Shorty,
keeping vigil over the grave of Stephanie
Bryan.

In the dwindling light of gathering dusk,
the big dog stood poised over a spot of
eroded earth from which protruded a
slim leg shod in a brown and white saddle
shoe. Above the leg and washed clear by
recent rains were a patch*of turquoise
pleated skirt and an inch or two of a
white cardigan sweater.

J. Edgar Hoover issued this statement
from FBI headquarters in Washington the
next morning: “The ingenuity and enter-
prise of Reporter Ed Montgomery and
Photographer Bob Bryant in locating the
body of the victim of a ruthless crime is
in the highest tradition of journalism.
Their acts are another illustration of the
splendid contribution which representa-
tives of the press can make to the cause of
law and order. I extend to both my heart-
iest commendations for their excellent
job.”

While the plaudits of the FBI director
were gratifying to the newsmen, the
Stephanie Bryan tragedy was far from
being solved. True, a suspect, Burton Ab-
bott, had been taken into custody and
damaging evidence pointing to the crime
had been located in his home. Authorities
confidently went abou‘ the task of pre-
paring the evidence against Abbott. The
latter’s attorneys, who included a former
member of the FBI, struck back with ar-
guments to show their client could not
possibly have committed the crime. The
one point, however, which moved the
Alameda County grand jury to indict
Abbott on kidnaping and murder charges,
was a seeming flaw in his alibi.

Throughout many hours of questioning
and during the lie detector tests, Abbott
clung unwaveringly to the story that he
had paused at Delbert Cox’s Wildwood
tavern about dusk on the day Stephanie
disappeared. If this was true, it would
have been a physical impossibility for
Abbott to be at the Claremont Hotel
parking lot, nearly 330 miles away, at the
time Stephanie dropped from sight. But
Delbert Cox swore to the authorities that
Abbott had not visited the tavern early on
the evening of April 28th. On this point
hinged the flaw stressed by the district
attorney. And so Abbott was indicted.

How was Stephanie, a normally cautious
and reserved girl, lured into the kidnap
car? Where was she killed? Near her
home in Alameda County, or in the Abbott
cabin nearly 300 miles distant? Or, as some
official theorists suggested, at the side
of the shallow mountain grave? This
opinion was advanced because of the tu-
bercular Abbott’s evident physical frailty.
He was, his family insisted. unable to lift
his own 4-year-old son. How could he
have been able to drag the body of the
105-pound girl more than 100 yards up
the steep, rugged slope above the cabin?

More than one detective insisted that
Stephanie had been forced by her abductor
to climb the hill and was slain at the spot
where the body was buried. In support
of this theory, it was pointed out that
the earth around the corpse bore evidence
of copious bleeding, yet no bloodstains
were found in the Abbott cabin or in the
1949 Chevrolet car Abbott drove that day
of April 28th.

The autopsy revealed that the girl had
been bludgeoned to death, or strangled,
or both. A cloth, possibly the girl’s own
panties, was knotted about her neck. Be-
cause of the decomposed condition of the
body, the actual cause of death could not
be determined. Nor was iit possible to
establish whether she had been sexually
assaulted.

Detectives, in search of a motive for the

LNT INT

brutal crime, explored the sex angle. Re-
cords of the Alameda public library re-
vealed that Abbott had checked out many
volumes dealing with sex, many of a
nature that could be withdrawn only with
the specific permission of a librarian.

“Abbott .was reading more on sex than
was required by his course of study,” de-
clared Dr. Douglas Kelley, Berkeley police
department psychiatrist, who also teaches
at the University of California. Only one
of the books Abbott had withdrawn from
the library was used in connection with
any university course. That book, “Sexual
Psychopaths,” was used in Dr. Kelley’s
own course, “Psychiatric Aspects of Crimi-
nology.” But Abbott was not enrolled in
Dr. Kelley’s course.

Many of the books Abbott read con-
tained accounts of abnormal case histories.
Dr. Kelley cryptically commented, “The
detail these books provide is such that a
guy might read it, smack his lips, and say,
‘That’s me.’”

One baffling factor stood out: Why did
Abbott, if he was the slayer, retain the
purse, books, brassiere, glasses and other
belongings of Stephanie that were found
in the basement of his home? And if it
were he who buried most of the articles
in the basement floor, why did he leave
out the red leather purse which his wife
found in a box of her own belongings—a
discovery which led to his arrest and in-
dictment for murder?

Still another complication was the sud-
den disappearance of Mrs. Elsie Abbott,
the suspect’s mother, the day the grand
jury convened to hear the state’s case
against Abbott. She had been subpoenaed
as a witness—both Abbott and his wife had
refused to testify on constitutional grounds
—and did not appear again until after
Abbott had been indicted. It was later
learned that Mrs. Abbott merely had
sought sanctuary at the home of friends.

A question seemingly destined to remain
unanswered was how Stephanie was in-
duced to enter the abductor’s auto. There
was no place around the Berkeley Tennis
Club, the Hotel Claremont parking lot, or
the path from the parking lot up to
Alvarado Road where her home was lo-
cated, where a struggle would not have
been witnessed. Her parents, moreover,
insisted that their daughter never would
have entered the car of a stranger will-
ingly or walked off with him in the street.

In the hope of proving that Stephanie
and Abbott were not strangers, two pecu-
liar coincidences were announced. In one,
their paths had crossed in Berkeley near
Stephanie’s school. From several unim-
peachable witnesses it was established that
both frequently had visited a doughnut
shop, a popular rendezvous for students
of Willard Junior High School. Yet ex-
haustive investigation completely failed to
place both victim and suspect in the shop
at the same time, or even on the same
day. The other coincidence revealed that
Abbott and Stephanie had at least one
interest in common—parakeets. One of the
articles found in the Abbott basement
was the 25¢ pamphlet on the care and
feeding of parakeets, which Stephanie
bought a mere matter of minutes before
she dropped from sight. A similar pam-
phlet was found in the living room of Bud
Abbott’s bungalow.

Thus the case stands as Abbott awaits
trial on charges of abducting and slaying
Stephanie Bryan.

The prosecution has repeatedly claimed
it has more than sufficient evidence to
convict the tubercular young man. District
Attorney Coakley flatly stated. “There is
no doubt in my mind that Abbott is the
murderer.”

“Y did not kill her,” Abbott calmly and
repeatedly retorted. oo¢

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91


42

HOW KILLERS DIE

#16 in Series

Under floodlights officers dug up patio of house where missing Stephanie’s books and billfold were found

STEPHANIE AND THE FIEND

It took three months to find
the missing sophomore and two years
to bring her silent

killer to his just punishment

BY EDWARD S.SULLIVAN

HE POLICE WERE not too concerned at first.
"LT sjter all, the girl had been missing less than

three hours. But the agonized father’s despera-
tion was infectious. “Sergeant,” he assured the desk
officer earnestly, “I know Stephanie hasn’t run
away, and I know she’d never, never get into a
stranger’s car of her own free will. She always
comes straight home from school. Stephanie’s a
good, sensible girl. She’s 14, but she isn’t even in-
terested in boys yet. She’s shy, quiet, studious.
She’s perfectly happy at home, with her little broth-
er and sisters. You'd have to know her to under-
stand. Something terrible must have happened to
her.”

Runaway schoolgirls are an old story to police every-
where. Almost invariably they turn up safe and repentant.
But brief investigation that Thursday night, April 28th,
1955, soon convinced police of the bayside university city
of Berkeley, California, that the case of Stephanie Bryan

TRUE DETECTIVE, September, 1959

was th
usual |!
Dark
stood
oldest
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glasses
For sct
pleate
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gan o
shoes.
It w
Stepha
graph
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Acc
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pet sn
of par
in gir)
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pany i


t first.
s than
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e desk
‘t run
into a
ilways
nie’s a
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sity city
> Bryan

ae

bgp
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Pa 8

was the one in a thousand that was not going to have the
usual happy ending.

Dark-haired, serious-eyed, dimpled Stephanie, who at 14
stood 5 feet 2 inches and weighed 105 pounds, was the
oldest of the five children of Dr. Charles S. Bryan Pp a
radiologist at Oakland’s big Peralta Hospital. She wore
glasses for reading and was just starting to use lipstick.
For school that crisp spring Thursday she was dressed in a
pleated turquoise skirt with black velvet sash, white orlon
short-sleeved pullover sweater with a navy blue box cardi-
gan over it, white bobby sox and tan-and-white saddle
shoes.

It was just about 3:30 p.m., after a gym session, when
Stephanie Bryan left Willard Junior High School.on Tele-
graph Avenue, where she was an honor student, and started
home to the family residence on Alvarado Road up in the
wooded hills overlooking the University of California cam-
pus. She carried her schoolbooks and a red leather hand-
bag that had belonged to her mother. Her 13-year-old
chum, Mary Ann Stewart, walked along with her.

According to Mary Ann’s account, the two girls went to
the public library, where Stephanie took out a couple of
teenage novels. Then they stopped at a College Avenue
pet shop, where she bought a 25-cent pamphlet on the care
of parakeets. She had only about 50 cents left. Engrossed
in girl-talk, the two teenagers walked on up busy Ashby
Avenue. They didn’t dally, because it was Mary Ann’s
mother’s birthday and she wanted to get home early.

It was a little before 4 o’clock when the girls parted com-
pany in front of the Berkeley Tennis Club. Stephanie told

elie, ghee

m vom ts
¥

a :
bey . b/ a< see r ely ‘

Ke a » Seen <. * ‘ *. &
Shallow grave on mountain revealed girl’s pitiful remains |

me

i

oah


ie ;
i "

While Dr. Kirk (l.), criminologi

Mary Ann goodbye and turned into the club grounds, to

take her usual short cut across the tennis courts and the:

adjoining Claremont Hotel parking lot, thence up a flight
of stone steps and a steep, winding hillside footpath to her
home street.

She never reached home. When Stephanie Bryan stepped
through the white picket gate of the Berkeley tennis courts
that spring afternoon, like an ill-fated Alice into an evil
looking glass, she walked straight into the heart of the San
Francisco Bay area’s blackest crime riddle of a generation.

When the always punctual, conscientious gir] didn’t come
home by her usual time of a few minutes after 4 p.m., her
worried mother telephoned several ‘neighbors, then went
out and retraced the route she knew Stephanie took, all the
way down to the now deserted and silent high school. When
Dr. Bryan arrived home the frantic parents phoned half a
dozen of Stephanie’s schoolmates. They talked to Mary
Ann Stewart. They called family friends and neighbors.
As darkness fell, they drove all around the elite hillside
residential streets.

Dr. Bryan drove to Berkeley police headquarters and re-
ported Stephanie’s disappearance at 6:45 p.m. On routine
investigation and questioning of the girl’s friends, Sergeant
Arthur Lyman came to share the father’s alarm. He re-
ported that Stephanie Bryan apparently had been kid-
naped. That night Captains Addison H. Fording and L. H.
Laird of the detective bureau headed an intensive search.
Officers scoured the tennis club and hotel grounds and the
whole hillside. aréa, poked into the shrubbery with flash-
lights. Radio and teletype bulletins alerted police through-
out the bay district. Officers of adjoining Oakland
cooperated closely, as did Alameda County deputy sheriffs.
Suspicious cars were stopped on the streets and highways.
But the night passed without a trace of Stephanie Bryan,
nor any clue to her fate. ri

Friday morning, Berkeley Police Chief John D. Holstrom,
taking the most serious view of the case, threw all the re-
sources of his department into the hunt. Detectives pains-

takingly backtracked every step of the missing schoolgirl’s -

route of approximately one mile, talking to every resident

ist, examined suspect’s car,

She

Lt. Sherry studied contents of girl’s billfold

and shopkeeper along the way. They questioned school-
mates, tennis players and club attendants, interviewed
guests and staff of the big old luxury resort hotel, which
with its landscaped grounds is an historic Berkeley land-
mark. They talked with a woman who had seen Stephanie
linger at the picket gate, wave goodbye to her chum, then
walk toward the tennis courts. But no one could be found
who had seen the slim, dark-haired teenager after that
moment. It seemed incredible that she could have been
kidnaped forcibly in broad daylight, in full view of scores
of passers-by on the busy arterial street or the well-fre-
quented hillside terraces, but there the riddle stood.

Detectives bore-down on a roundup of known sex offend-
ers and molesters of children. A score of potential suspects
were quizzed and their alibis checked. Other officers
combed the steep grounds and the wooded residential area,
yard-by-yard, looking under every bush. They were look-
ing for Stephanie’s school and library books, which she
might have dropped in a struggle with her kidnaper.

Early that afternoon came the first break, an ominous
one. A young university student, Allan E. Hill, whd had
just read about Stephanie’s disappearance, called police. He
reported that on Thursday afternoon he and his wife, driv-
ing along the Broadway Tunnel highway that leads under
the hills back of Oakland, had seen a man struggling with
a teenage girl in an old sedan stopped on the shoulder near
the east portal. “The man was slugging the girl,” Hill said.
“She was trying to get out of the car. I wanted to stop and
ask what was going on, but the traffic was too heavy.”

As the day wore on, with press and radio headlining the
kidnap news; no less than seven more reports came in from
motorists to substantiate Allan Hill’s story. The incident
had taken place about 4:15 p.m., a couple of miles from the
spot where Stephanie vanished. The girl was described
as dark-haired and about Stephanie’s age. No one got a
close look at the man at the wheel, whom they could de-
scribe only as young and slender. The car was an old two-
door sedan, variously thought to be a Chevrolet or a
Pontiac, gray or dusty blue, anywhere from. a 1949 to a ’51
model.


cl’s billfold

ied school-
nterviewed
otel, which
<eley land-
1 Stephanie
chum, then
d be found
after that
have been
w of scores
ie well-fre-
stood.
sex offend-
tial suspects
her officers
iential area,
were look-
which she
inaper.
an ominous
il, whdé had
-d police. He
s wife, driv-
leads under
iggling with
noulder near
“|,” Hill said.
i to stop and
heavy.”
-adlining the
‘ame in from
The incident
iles from the
as described
Yo one got a
ey could de-
s; an old two-
evrolet or a
1949 to a ’51

Si vrywyers
fegeeaas

iP”

Insp. Riedel gave polygraph test to young suspect

As the police reconstructed it, the eastbound car emerged
from the long tunnel, pulled up on the shoulder, and. the
driver turned and grabbed the girl, who was trying to get
out of the back seat. He slugged her several times, then
sped off with her. One witness, Mrs. Emma Lee van Meter
of Walnut Creek, heard the girl scream for help as. she
passed. Mrs. van Meter, who was driving alone, looked
around for a policeman but saw none. For one reason or

another, mainly the dense multi-lane highway traffic, nei--

ther she nor any of the ‘others stopped. When she got
home, Mrs. van Meter called the Contra Costa County
sheriff and a deputy went out to the spot, but the car had
long since driven off. :

Ashby Avenue, where Stephanie was last seen, leads di-
rectly into Tunnel Road. The time element checked. The
Berkeley detectives were certain these witnesses had seen
the kidnaper driving off with Stephanie Bryan, though it
remained a mystery how and where he had forced her into
his car in the first place. Possibly the snatcher was some-
one the girl knew and trusted. Description of the kidnap
car was broadcast. .

By this time the police had little hope that Stephanie
would be found alive. They believed she was the victim
of a murderous sex fiend. But at 8 o’clock that same Friday
night, a little more than 24 hours after Stephanie’s dis-
appearance, the case abruptly took a new and dramatic
turn. Dr. Bryan received an anonymous phone call. “If
you want to see your daughter again,” an obviously dis-
guised male voice told him, “get (Continued on page 72)

who said, “I simply don’t know how all those things got into my basement.”

Pte orn ans

~
se call was too late


72

tN aetna eee FC

Elmore County peace officers at once
went to the office of the base provost mar-
shal and asked that the air police take
Airman 2/c Jackie Myers into custody.

According to the serviceman’s classifica-
tion record, Myers was living off the post
with his wife and small daughter. The
Elmore County officers learned that Jackie
Myers had been inducted into the air force
on May 15th, 1956. After basic training in
the United States, he was posted to Ashiya
Air Base in Japan. While at this station he
met a Japanese girl, Yoko, whom he sub-
sequently married, with the permission of
his superior officers, in the picturesque
mountain village of Fukuoka. He and Yoko
lost their first child. Their second, a daugh-
ter named Janet, was born in June, 1957.
Posted back to the United States on Janu-
ary 30th, 1959, Myers had been given a
furlough to visit his home in Joplin, Mis-
souri. His reassignment to Mountain Home
Air Force Base took place a little more
than three months before Josephine Hol-
lon met her violent death.

Air policemen and Elmore County offi-
cers went to the Myers home, when the
young airman was found to be missing
from the place of his regular duty assign-
ment. It was soon evident that Myers was
not in his home, either. Neighbors told the
investigators that the couple, along with
their small daughter, had driven away
from the house several hours before.
Myers was wearing civilian clothes at the
time. It was recalled that he had spent a
good deal of the morning washing and
waxing his automobile.

A pickup order for the airman was at
once put on the state police teletype net-
work. A description of the automobile, to-
gether with its license number, was
incorporated in the alert. From Geneva
on the Wyoming border, to Lewiston near
the Washington-Oregon line, state police
cruisers scoured the roads, hunting for the
Myers’ automobile.

The statewide search came to a dra-
matic close four miles east of Boise at 3
o'clock on Monday afternoon. State High-
way Patrolman Ed Given, cruising U.S. 20-
30 just inside the Ada County line, saw a
green and buff Oldsmobile lazing along in
the Boise-bound lane. The license plate
checked with the tag numbers in the alert.
Ed Given turned his cruiser in a short arc
and gave chase.

Myers pulled off the road and got out of
his car. ‘“What’s the matter, officer?” he
asked. ‘‘Am I doing anything wrong?”

“Put your hands on your head,’ Ed
Given said. “You’re Myers, aren’t you?”

The youth nodded and ¢lasped his hands
as the officer directed. Given deftly frisked
him, then snapped a T-bar shut around his
wrists. In the Oldsmobile, Yoko Myers and
her little daughter Janet stared at the dra-
matic scene with scared, uncomprehending
eyes.

With a good grip on the T-bar, Given
walked the prisoner back to the Olds. “Do
you drive a car, ma’am?” he asked.

She stared at him. “A little,” she said.
“Jackie is teaching me.”

Given thought about this. “I’d better
drive,” he said. “We’re going to the Ada
County sheriff’s office.”

Mrs. Myers moved into the back seat
with her little girl. “What’s the matter?”
she asked softly. “What have we done?”

The trooper ushered tight-lipped Jackie
Myers to the right half of the front seat,
then moved in under the steering wheel. A
pair of baby booties hung from the sun
visor, directly in his line of vision. Given
wedged the tiny shoes between the visor
and the top. ‘Your husband’s wanted for
questioning about a murder,” he answered
gently.

Ada County Sheriff Myron Gilbert noti-
fied Sheriff Keith Anderson in Gooding
that Myers was in custody. Anderson, Dep-
uties Coles and Bunn, and Gooding County
Prosecutor Cecil Hobdey left for Boise in
one car. Police Chief William Austin and
witness Edwin Wheeler followed in an-
other.

Myers, who had been questioned by
Sheriff Gilbert, professed to know nothing
about the killing of Josephine Hollon. He
was still firm in his denials later that
Monday evening when the Gooding County
officers arrived.

Farmer Ed Wheeler was not permitted
immediately to confront the young service-
man. Four other men of Myers’ general
build and appearance were dressed in
sports clothes and lined up against the
wall in the sheriff’s office. Myers was
placed among them and Ed Wheeler was
asked to look at all five.

Without hesitation, Wheeler pointed out
the airman. ‘“He’s the one in the white
shirt with the red trim,” he announced
unequivocally. “But those aren’t the
clothes he was wearing when he came to
my door.”

For several hours afterward young
Myers was questioned by Sheriff Keith
Anderson and County Prosecutor Cecil
Hobdey in the Ada County  sheriff’s office.
His petite wife, Yoko, four months preg-
nant, and holding little Janet on her lap,
sat outside in the corridor, keeping a

pathetic vigil. She had maintained her
masklike composure ever since her hus-
band’s arrest.

When deputies finally came out of the
closed office with word that her husband
had signed a formal statement, admitting
the murder of 18-year-old Josephine Hol-
lon, Yoko broke down and wept bitterly.
Refusing all offers of aid, she and her
daughter left the county building to make
their way back to Mountain Home.

In the statement which Airman Myers is
alleged to have signed, the 22-year-old
youth told of picking up Jo Hollon on the
highway near the air base. She was hitch-
hiking to Twin Falls, she told him. The
young woman “made a pass” at him, Myers
claims. He then drove into a side road
and finally parked the car in Edwin
Wheeler’s wheat field. Here they were
intimate, Myers’ statement continued.
Afterwards, inexplicably, the girl began to
scream. Frightened, Myers picked up a
rock and hit her on the head “six or seven
times, to quiet her.”

Dragging the girl's unconscious form
into the sagebrush, Myers attempted to
flee from the scene in his car. The au-
tomobile became mired down.

At 10:20 a.m. on Tuesday, May 26th,
Jackie A. Myers was arraigned on a
charge of second-degree murder in the
killing of Josephine Hollon. The complaint
was signed by Gooding County Sheriff
Keith Anderson. Probate Court Judge
James P. Gossett scheduled a_prelimi-
nary hearing for 2 p.m. on Friday, May
29th.

On Wednesday, at 5:15 p.m., Myers ap-
peared before Judge Gossett and waived
this scheduled hearing. The court appointed
an attorney to defend Myers and the de-
fense attorney and the prosecuting at-
torney were directed to file briefs. Jackie
Myers was then remanded without bond
to the custody of Sheriff Anderson, to be
bound over for trial in the probate court
during the summer term of the court.

It has been announced that the airman’s
ear has yielded bloodstains of the type of
the dead girl. Grass and wheat specimens,
trapped in the undercarriage of the Olds-
mobile, have also been collected.

But in the final analysis, specimens of
mud found on Myers’ shoes comprise the
most dramatic physical evidence offered by
the state in support of their case. Ed
Wheeler’s quagmire may well prove to
be Jackie Myers’ undoing. Just as truth
is to be discovered at the bottom of a
well, so may justice, perhaps, be found in
a slough of Magic Valley mud. o¢¢¢

Stephanie
and the Fiend

(Continued from page 45)

$5000 in cash together as fast as you can,
and you and your wife meet me at Eighth
and Brush in Oakland at 10 o’clock to-
night.” Ignoring the man’s warning to tell
no one, the doctor reported the call imme-
diately to Captain Laird. Bryan was not a
rich man, and the possibility of ransom
kidnaping had been considered remote. But
the call raised hopes that perhaps the girl
was actually held prisoner and might yet
be rescued alive.

Laird and Fording laid an elaborate trap,
with the cooperation of Oakland detectives.
A policewoman took the place of Mrs.
Bryan, and two detectives hid in the back
seat of the Bryan car. A heavily armed
cordon surrounded the rendezvous spot in

downtown Oakland, keeping in touch with
the car by walkie-talkie. The result was
an anticlimax. The scared 18-year-old
dishwasher who fell into the trap was a
former mental patient. He said a strange
man had hired him to pick up’a package
from Dr. Bryan. The detectives jailed him
and a young pal, but after prolonged ques-
tioning were convinced the youths knew
no more than they had read in the papers,
and had dreamed up a crude and cruel
shakedown attempt.

As is usual in kidnap cases, the police
were deluged with reports that the missing
girl had been seen here or there. Tips
came from all over Northern California,
and all had to be checked out. Chief Hol-
strom called every Berkeley officer to duty,
and Chief Wyman Vernon of the Oakland
force supplied additional men. The FBI
came into the case as unofficial observer.
Throughout Saturday police made a door-
to-door canvass of the whole kidnap neigh-
borhood, for a radius of a mile around.
Chief Holstrom appealed to week end mo-
torists to be on the watch for any clue.
Starting at daybreak Sunday, May lst, a

huge posse of more than 1000 police, dep-
uties, reserves and auxiliaries, National
Guardsmen, sailors, forest service men, Le-
gionnaires, Boy Scouts, jail trusties and
other volunteers, both mounted and afoot,
combed a wide area of the rugged Berkeley
Hills around Broadway Tunnel. Low-fly-
ing National Guard planes, navy helicop-
ters and radio-equipped jeeps coordinated
the massive search, which covered every
back road, every farm, every dwelling and
every clump of brush.

A visiting Texas physician volunteered
the use of his celebrated bloodhounds,
which had been successful in tracking a
number of missing persons in Texas. The
dogs were taken to the gate where Steph-
anie had said goodbye to Mary Ann, and
given the scent of one of her dresses. Four
times the highly trained hounds picked up
the trail, but each time they ran it to a
dead end a short distance away, at the
same spot in a corner of the Claremont
Hotel parking lot. The police could only
theorize that Stephanie had been forced
or enticed into a car by someone parked in
the unattended lot. They intensified their

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Chief Holstr:
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———

=e

76

A woman driver testified that she had
seen Abbott run a red light near the
Claremont Hotel at 3:30 p.m. that day. She
identified him positively. Five witnesses to
the Broadway Tunnel incident identified
Abbott’s car, and one of them identified
Bud himself. Dr. Kirk, the criminalist,
testified that hair and clothing fibers found
in Abbott’s old gray Chevrolet were iden-
tical with Stephanie’s, and that the rear
floormat bore traces of blood. He reported
that soil found on Abbott’s boots was of
the same type as that in Stephanie’s grave.
A defense expert disputed Dr. Kirk’s testi-
mony.

The defense relied largely on the claim
that the 130-pound, sickly defendant was
no physical match for a robust 105-pound
girl, and couldn’t possibly have carried her
body up the steep mountainside to the
grave. Principal alibi witnesses were two
people who swore Abbott had eaten in a
cafe at Red Bluff, 200 miles from Berkeley,
at 6:30 p.m. on the crucial Thursday.

Bud himself was on the witness stand
for four days—two hours testifying in his
own defense, and the rest under withering
cross-examination by the district attorney.
Though he carried himself with assurance,
he made a poor impression, crossing him-
self up on many details of his alibi trip,
and admitting that he originally had
“fibbed” about certain points.

The prosecutor brought out several prior
statements of Bud’s, which didn’t help the
defense case. Once, when urged to con-
fess for the sake of Stephanie’s parents,
Abbott had said, “I don’t give a damn about
the Brian family!” On another occasion he
told a detective, ‘A miracle will save me.
You'll see. Something has always come
along to save me when I’m in trouble.”

The massive testimony left a number of
questions unanswered, but there were var-
ious theories to fill in. How had Abbott
lured Stephanie into his car? Both the
accused killer and the victim had fre-
quented the doughnut shop near the school,
and it was speculated they might have
become casually acquainted, though this
could not be established. Too, both were
interested in parakeets.

Why had Abbott, if guilty, hidden the
girl’s belongings in his basement? Possi-
bly he had meant to unearth them later,
one by one, and send them to the stricken
family, to derive sadistic satisfaction from
their torment. Or possibly he was simply
impelled to preserve them as grisly me-
mentos, even sexual fetishes.

As for carrying the body up the moun-
tainside, one theory was that Stephanie
had been killed beside the grave in the
manzanita thicket. And state testimony
indicated that Bud Abbott was physi-
cally stronger than he admitted.

District attorney Coakley in his closing
argument branded Abbott “either a cun-
ning sexual psychopath, or an egomaniac
who tried to commit the perfect crime.”
Summing up the evidence, he declared it
was utterly beyond the realm of coin-
cidence, that a murder victim’s belongings
should be found in an innocent man’s
basement, and her body unearthed outside
his mountain cabin, miles away, Coakley
maintained there could be no doubt in
the world that Burton Abbott had kid-
naped Stephanie Bryan to assault her sex-
ually, then had murdered her to keep her
quiet.

“There are people in this world today,
plenty of them, capable of committing
flagrant antisocial behavior without re-
morse,” the district attorney told the jurors.
“They are not insane, they have psycho-
pathic personalities. They fill our penal
institutions. They have superficial charm.
But they are untruthful. They lack emo-
tional stability. They have no real, genuine
capacity to love another person.

“They are extremely vain, egotistical

and self-centered. They think they are
smart enough to do anything and get
away with it. They are the kind of peo-
ple who do not crack, do not confess. Their
vanity is such that it is practically im-
possible for them to break down.”

Abbott’s defense attorney, Harold B.
Hove, stressed the wholly circumstantial
nature of the state’s case, and insisted there
was reasonable doubt as to Abbott’s guilt.
But the jurors were soon able to resolve
any doubts some of them might have had.
At the end of the 48-day trial, which lasted
over the Christmas holidays and into the
new year, they deliberated 52 hours to find
Burton Wilbur Abbott guilty of first-degree
murder and kidnaping with bodily harm,
with no recommendation for leniency.

One of the jurors disclosed they had
voted 11 to 1 for conviction on the first
ballot, and there had been no serious dis-
agreement. On February 11th, 1956, Su-
perior Judge Charles W. Snook twice
sentenced the jittery, bespectacled young
accountant to die—once for the kidnaping
and once for the murder of Stephanie
Bryant—in the San Quentin gas chamber.

“The gas chamber isn’t enough punish-
ment for him,” was Dr. Charles Bryan’s
bitter comment.

While Abbott was taken to Death Row,
pending action on his automatic appeal,
the bitterly controversial and widely pub-
licized case had explosive repercussions
both in the bay area and in Trinity County.
Judge Snook received an anonymous, il-
literate, mailed threat to bomb him and
the 12 jurors. On the other hand, a scar-
faced motorist shouted threats to “blow
the head off” an Alameda nursery school
operator, because she had accepted Bud
Abbott’s innocent little son as a pupil.

Up in the rough-and-ready Trinity Alps,
expression of opinion was more forceful.
On April 1st, 1956, Butcher Boy’s Cabin,
the scene of two murders in seven years,
was burned to the ground. The sheriff
arrested five lumberjacks, who confessed
they had set fire to the shack during a
drinking spree, “so there would be no more
murders there.” The five men were
ordered to pay for the cabin, and given
suspended sentences.

Justice, which sometimes drags its heels
in capital punishment cases, was compara-
tively swift in this one. The California
supreme court turned down Burton Ab-
bott’s appeal, and he was resentenced to
die on March 15th, 1957.

The doomed sex killer, now aged 29, had
been a docile, if morose and solitary pris-
oner. He had gained about 20 pounds dur-
ing his year’s stay in Death Row. He still
declared to anyone who would listen, that
he was the innocent victim of a devious
frameup. His wife visited him a few days
before the end.

On his last night, Abbott conferred with
the prison chaplain, who was of a different
faith from his, for two hours, and guards
reported that he seemed easier in mind.
He woke up in the death cell at 5:10 Fri-
day morning, the 15th, to ask what time
it was. He listened to a radio newscast
at 7:55 a.m. He dressed in new blue den-
ims, a clean white shirt and felt slippers,
and breakfasted on bacon, eggs, hashed
brown potatoes, orange and tomato juice,
and coffee, a menu which he had requested.

Abbott’s new attorneys, George T. Davis
and Leo A. Sullivan, long-time foes of
capital punishment, meantime were press-
ing last-minute appeals. At 8:35 a.m. that
last day, Judge Walter L. Pope of the
United States Court of Appeals in San
Francisco turned down their petition for
a stay of execution. Attorney Davis, un-
able to reach Governor Goodwin J. Knight
through his office immediately, telephoned
the Hollywood headquarters of a broad-
casting network and was interviewed for
a television newscast, in which he made

ERT a a aT IT TTI

an impassioned appeal to the governor to
delay the execution till another petition
could be filed with the state supreme
court.

Governor Knight heard the TV interview
a few minutes later, while waiting at Ala-
meda Naval Air Station to board the air-
craft carrier Hancock. Davis was able to
contact him there, and the governor agreed
to stay the execution for one hour, till the
supreme court could act.

At San Quentin, meantime, Bud Abbott
tried to put up a brave front as he awaited
his doom, but his ashen face and trembling
lips betrayed that he was near the crack-
ing point. The execution originally was set
for 10 a.m. When the governor called
him at 9:20, Warden Harley O. Teets re-
scheduled it for 11:15 a.m.

The two attorneys, accompanied by Ab-
bott’s brother Mark, hurried over to the
state building and presented their petition
for a writ of habeas corpus and a new stay
of execution. At 10:42 a.m. Chief Justice
Phil S. Gibson denied the petition. The
lawyers frantically called other judges,
both state and federal, but none would
act. A few minutes after 11 o’clock, George
Davis put in a radiotelephone call to Gov-
ernor Knight, who was now aboard the
aircraft carrier outside the Golden Gate.

At 11:16, Warden Teets escorted Bud
Abbott the few steps from the death cell
to the green octagonal gas chamber, and
wished him the traditional “Goodbye and
God bless you.” Abbott walked in with
head erect. Seated in the death chair, he
glanced unseeingly out the little window
at the 58 official witnesses pressing around,
then stared straight ahead. He smiled and
nodded when one of the guards asked him
if the arm and chest straps were com-
fortable. His lips started trembling again,
and there was moisture in his eyes as the
steel door banged shut.

The cyanide pellets were lowered into
the sulphuric acid crock at 11:18 am.
Abbott waited with outward calm for the
deadly fumes to reach his nostrils. He
neither held his breath nor inhaled deeply.
His chest rose and fell rhythmically. He
closed his eyes briefly, then opened them.

When the gas hit him, his head fell
back, his mouth dropped open and his
eyes rolled. His face immediately began
to flush deep red. One of the guards at
the door made the sign of the Cross.

At 11:20 the telephone rang. It was
Joseph Babich, the governor’s clemency
secretary at Sacramento. Governor Knight,
at the earnest plea of Attorney Davis, had
agreed to see if there was time for an-
other stay. The governor had called Sac-
ramento by ship-to-shore telephone while
Davis waited on another radiophone line.

“Has the execution started?” Babich
asked Warden Teets. —

“Yes, sir, it has,” the warden told him.

“Can you stop it?”

“No, sir,” replied the gray-faced warden
in a shaken voice. “It’s too late.”

It was, indeed. The death chamber was
already filled with fumes. A few minutes
later, at 11:25, the prison physician, listen-
ing to Abbott’s fading heartbeat through
a long stethoscope, taped to the doomed
man’s chest, announced, ‘“‘That’s all, gen-
tlemen.”

The murder of Stephanie Bryan was
atoned in full. Burton Abbott took his
grisly secrets to death with him, and no
one will ever know the full story. Abbott’s
body, by his own request, was turned over
to the University of California Medical
School for research purposes.

The execution of Burton Abbott had a
tragic aftermath. Warden Teets, who did
not believe in capital punishment, endured
a terrible ordeal when a man was put to
death. Less than six months later the 50-
year-old warden died of a heart attack.

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i maintained her
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came out of the
that her husband
atement, admitting
ld Josephine Hol-
and wept bitterly.
aid, she and her
building to make
itain Home.
n Airman Myers is
the 22-year-old
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Here they were
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n 1000 police, dep-
ixiliaries, National
*st service men, Le-

jail trusties and
mounted and afoot,
he rugged Berkeley
Tunnel. Low-fly-
anes, navy helicop-
| jeeps coordinated
1ich covered every
every dwelling and

vsician volunteered
rated bloodhounds,
ssful in tracking a
sons in Texas. The
gate where Steph-
to Mary Ann, and
tf her dresses. Four
i hounds picked up
» they ran it to a
ance away, at the
of the Claremont

police could only

had been forced
someone parked in
ey intensified their

questioning of employees and guests of the
hotel. They talked with every guest whose
windows overlooked the parking lot.

On Tuesday morning the anguished par-
ents received an illiterate penciled note in
the mail, demanding “from $8000 to $10,-
000” ransom. The note, mailed Monday
night in Oakland, directed Dr. Bryan to
bring the money to a downtown Oakland
theatre at 9:30 Tuesday night, sit in a cer-
tain row and wait to be contacted. “This
is not a hoax,” the demand read. “Don’t
contact any law enforces if you expect to
see your girl in the near future.”

Dr. Bryan called Captain Laird at once.
The police and FBI agents believed the
ransom note had a genuine ring. They
agreed that Stephanie’s father should com-
ply with the instructions.

Detectives were placed in and around the
theatre, with the understanding that they
would merely observe the contact and do
nothing to imperil Stephanie’s possible safe
return. The distraught father, carrying the
ransom money in a package, went to the
theatre and waited for hours past the ap-
pointed time, but no contact materialized.

The lawmen believed the kidnaper might
have been testing Dr. Bryan, and would
give further instructions. Detectives were
posted on 24-hour duty at the Bryan home,
and a recorder attached to the telephone.

Thursday, a week after Stephanie’s dis-
appearance, Dr. Bryan received another
scrawled note in the same hand: “You
tipped the law. Wise up. They can’t help
you. Only I can. You will get instruc-
tions.” But no instructions arrived.

Then came a solid, vital clue, unfortu-
nately belated. A San Pablo electrician
turned in Stephanie’s dog-eared French
textbook, which he had found on Monday,
May 2nd, four days after the disappear-
ance, lying beside the Franklin Canyon
road near Pinale in Contra Costa County,
16 miles northeast of Berkeley. The finder
had given the book to his student son and
had forgotten it, till he read about the kid-
nap hunt and recalled Stephanie Bryan’s
name written on the flyleaf. The book
obviously had been thrown from a car,
possibly by Stephanie, to leave a trail.

Search and investigation focused on the
Franklin Canyon area off U.S. 40, but no
further clue turned up. Chief Holstrom,
Captain Laird and Alameda and Costa
County authorities organized an all-out
search for the next week end, May 7th and
8th. An army of some 3000 men fanned
out over a 40-square-mile area of the East-
bay hills, including the wild country
around Mount Diablo and the Lafayette
Reservoir. Field kitchens were set up for
the massive operation, which was con-
ducted along military lines. The posses
were directed by field radio from command
posts in the various sectors. Helicopters
and planes hovered low over the wooded
canyons. But two full days of intensive,
bush-by-bush search again produced noth-
ing whatever to shed light on Stephanie
Bryan’s fate.

There was no further contact from the
letter-writing extortionist. Dr. Bryan
posted a $2500 reward for information on
his daughter’s whereabouts, dead or alive.
The hunt settled down to grim plodding.
Chief Holstrom assigned veteran Inspector
Charles O’Meara to coordinate the work of
the various law agencies and act as clear-
ing house for all information on Stephanie.
Five thousand police circulars were
printed, with the missing girl’s picture and
description, including even her dental chart,
for distribution to law officers throughout
11 Western states. Dr. Bryan, believing
his daughter had been driven away from
the bay region, toured Northern California
resort and backwoods areas and handed
out bulletins of his own, emphasizing the
description of her clothing and belongings.
He appealed through the press, for Memo-

rial Day week end vacationers to help find
his child.

The Berkeley detectives patiently fol-
lowed up hundreds of tips from well-mean-
ing citizens. Chief Holstrom encouraged
the public to come forward with any
slightest clue. “We welcome any informa-
tion whatsoever, no matter how fantastic
it may seem,” he said in a press statement.
Investigators talked to everyone with
whom Stephanie Bryan was even slightly
acquainted.

Time and again, they’ went from door to
door along the route between the high
school and her home, hoping to turn up
something they had missed. A special crew
combed the state motor vehicle files and
began a tedious check of all the blue or
gray 1949-51 Pontiac and Chevrolet sedans
in Berkeley and surrounding communities
—a Herculean job, since car colors are not
listed with the registration, and each car
had to be located and checked.

From week to week, the missing 14-year-
old schoolgirl was still reported seen alive
in this place or that. Five persons were
quite positive they had seen her in the
bus depot at San Rafael, over on the other
side of San Francisco Bay, but in each in-
stance it proved a case of mistaken identity.
The investigation ranged as far as Fall
River, Massachusetts, where the Bryans
formerly lived. Several people who knew
the family reported they had seen Steph-
anie on the street in Fall River or Dart-
mouth, dressed in her white sweater, blue
cardigan and turquoise skirt, just as she
had been when she disappeared. But this
report was discounted by police and FBI
agents when the witnesses said the girl
they had seen had shoulder-length hair.
Stephanie’s dark hair, formerly long, had
been cropped to ear-length just a few days
before she vanished.

These persistent reports led to renewed
speculation that Stephanie might have dis-
appeared voluntarily. Dr. Bryan simply
refused to believe it. “It would be a com-
fort if we knew the child had run away
and is still alive somewhere,” he told re-
porters, “but I think that to be as impos-
sible as for the moon to fall from the sky.”

The newspapers kept the story alive, re-
peatedly printing Stephanie’s picture and
description, and the anonymous crank let-
ters continued to come in. One, posted
in San Francisco late in May, said the
writer had “information from a trust-
worthy source” that Stephanie’s body was
in a shallow grave “in an area reached by
a dirt road which turns off from U.S. 40
not far from the Nevada border on the
California side.”

A crude map was appended. Officers
spent several days searching the mountain
area but found nothing. A post card sent
to the Bryans from South San Francisco
on July 5th said: “If you want your child
back, send me $2000. I’ll send you a letter
when to send and where.” But no further
letter came. ‘

By midsummer, two-and-a-half months
after Stephanie’s disappearance, detectives
had questioned more than 1500 persons in
connection with the case, investigated an-
other 800 as possible suspects, and were
still at it. Some 600 cars had been checked
out. But the sole clues remained the
Broadway Tunnel incident and the school-
book found beside the country road.

Then on July 15th, 1955, after 85 sus-
penseful days, came new developments.

Burton Wilbur “Bud” Abbott, a lanky,
nervous, sickly, bespectacled, wispy-mous-
tached, light-brown-haired, 27-year-old ex-
GI and university accounting student, and
his tall, red-haired, comely 32-year-old
wife Georgia, a beauty operator and form-
er WAC, were entertaining that Friday
evening in their comfortable white stucco
bungalow on San Jose Avenue in the bay
island city:of Alameda, six miles from the

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74

kidnap neighborhood. Other members of
the household were Bud’s mother Elsie and
the young couple’s four-year-old son, The
Abbotts’ dinner guest was a 44-year-old
retired navy chief petty officer, whose
wife operated the beauty parlor where
Georgia Abbott worked and was now at
a convention in Louisville, Kentucky.

While Bud Abbott, an amateur chef, was
broiling the steaks in the new cedar-block
patio he had built himself, Georgia went
down to the basement garage to rummage
for a “flapper” costume she needed for
some amateur theatricals. A few minutes
later she came running up in high excite-
ment. She was waving a worn red leather
handbag and a smaller red billfold. “Bud!
Bud! Look what I found down there! Where
did these things come from? The name on
these cards—Stephanie Bryan—”

“Who’s Stephanie Bryan?” her husband
asked, still watching the sizzling steaks.
“What are you so excited about?”

“Why, isn’t that the little girl who was
kidnaped over in Berkeley? The one that’s
been in all the papers?”

“IT don’t know,” Abbott said. “You
know I don’t read the papers—except to
work the crossword puzzles.”

“Sure, that’s her name, Stephanie Bryan,
the doctor’s daughter,” their guest ex-
claimed, jumping up from his chair. “Let’s
see that stuff!” He examined the purse
and billfold gingerly. There was no doubt
the articles belonged to Stephanie. Her
name was on a card in the flap, and there
were a number of personal identity cards
in the wallet. “Better not handle these
things,” he advised. “Better call the police
right away. The Berkeley police.”

Burton Abbott, busy with his steaks,
didn’t seem to be paying much attention.
His wife called the police. A Berkeley
radio car came, and the wide-eyed young
housewife showed the officers where she
had found the handbag with the wallet in-
side it, in a cardboard soap box full of old
clothes, on a shelf at the rear of the base-
ment. She was sure it hadn’t been there
when she looked through the box a few
weeks before. Bud Abbott and his mother
said they never had seen the red purse be-
fore, had no idea how it came to be in
their basement.

The officers rushed the purse and billfold
back to Berkeley. Captain Laird and In-
spector O’Meara took them to Stephanie’s
parents, who instantly identified the miss-
ing girl’s pitful belongings. In addition to
the cards, there were snapshots of Steph-
anie’s girl friends and her pet poodle, and
a half-finished letter to one of her former
school chums back in Massachusetts.

Three carloads of detectives and FBI
agents descended on the Alameda bunga-
low that night. Cadaverous, spindly young
Burton Abbott was politely concerned
when he learned the purse indeed belonged
to the long-missing teenager. “I’m sorry,
but we can’t help you,” he told the inves-
tigators. ‘“We’ve lived here more than a
year. We don’t know Stephanie Bryan or
her family. I never even heard her name
before tonight. . I don’t know how those
things got in my garage. Almost anybody
could have put them there.”

The Abbotts explained that they often
left the basement garage unlocked and even
open, and seldom had occasion to go to
the storage shelves in back. Neighbors and
other friends went in and out freely. .Fur-
ther,“a month and a half earlier, on May
24th, the garage had been used as a polling
place for some 150 voters.

Asked what kind of car he owned, Bud
startled the officers by calmly disclosing
that he had sold his slate-gray 1949 Chev-
rolet, torpedo-back two-door sedan, about
a month before. He now drove his wjfe’s
new Pontiac hardtop. Abbott acted as
though he actually didn’t know the hunted
kidnaper drove an old gray sedan, a fact

known to almost every newspaper reader
and radio or TV listener in the United
States. The detectives and G-men didn’t
press any further questions that night.
Abbott readily agreed to let them do all
the searching they wanted around the
place. When they asked if they could dig
up the uncemented part of the basement
floor, he suggested they should get the
landlord’s permission. It was now late at
night, and they arranged to come back
the next morning.

When the detectives returned early Sat-
urday morning, they brought with them
Dr. Paul L. Kirk, the eminent University
of California criminalist, and a corps of
technicians with equipment of all sorts for
a thorough search of the premises. A horde
of eager newspapermen accompanied the
officers. Bud Abbott was half-asleep, but
still self-possessed and unruffied at all the
attention his home was getting. He said he
and his visitor had stayed up till after
dawn, playing chess.

After the bungalow had been methodi-
cally searched and inspected from founda-
tion to rafters, without yielding anything
further in the way of evidence or clue,
late in the afternoon the probers started
digging in the sandy loam of the uncon-
creted rear half of the basement. Within
an hour they turned up Stephanie’s spiral-
ring school notebook. Her other belong-
ings followed: her French composition
book, the two library books, one contain-
ing her library card, the parakeet pam-
phlet, her plastic-rimmed glasses—and her
white nylon brassiere, with one shoulder
strap torn loose. All these articles were
found buried from six to eight inches deep.

Bud Abbott expressed mild surprise,
shaking his head and clucking his tongue,
as each new object was found. His wife and
mother were dumfounded. Grimly the dig-
ging went on, far into the night, under the
glare of floodlights.' Press and TV camera-
men hovered around the scene. Extra
police were called to hold back the mut-
tering throng of curious onlookers that
gathered out in the street. At any moment
the diggers expected to find the body of
Stephanie Bryan. They excavated the
basement to a depth of four feet, then dug
up Bud Abbott’s newly-laid wooden patio.
They probed other spots around the lawn
and garden, but found nothing further.
When the digging was completed at dawn
Sunday, the weary lawmen were satis-
fied the little white house on San Jose
Avenue held no further secrets.

Then the police and G-men turned to the
serious interrogation of Burton Wilbur
Abbott, whose main concern seemed to be
that he had lost another night’s sleep. He
agreed to come down to the district at-
torney’s office for questioning, provided
his family attorney could be present.

Clearly Abbott was the natural candidate
for suspicion, even though it seemed in-
credible that a guilty killer would hide
such damning evidence in his own base-
ment. However, under questioning by In-
spector O’Meara, Captains Laird and Ford-
ing, and District. Attorney J. Frank Coak-
ley, the thin, narrow-faced, hollow-cheeked
young suspect came up with what seemed
a good alibi. He had been on a fishing trip,
many miles from Berkeley. He could
verify the date, because the fishing season
opened that week end.

On April 28th, the Thursday of Steph-
anie’s disappearance, Abbott said, he left
home at 11-a.M., drove over to the nearby
beauty shop to say goodbye to Georgia,
who was at work, then drove alone up to
the family’s vacation cabin near Wildwood
in the Trinity Mountains, about 260 miles
north of the college city. He first drove up
U.S. 40 to Sacramento, intending to file
a homestead there on some land in Trinity
County, he said. But when he couldn’t
find the post office building immediately,

he changed his mind, drove back to the
Davis “Y” and turned north on U.S. 99-W.

Bud said he reached Wildwood soon after
dusk, about 8:30 p.m., stopped for a drink
at the hamlet’s single tavern, then pro-
ceeded up to the cabin about 9 o’clock. At
the crucial hour, 3:45 to 4 p.m. Thursday,
Abbott pointed out, he would have had
to be almost halfway to Trinity County, to
make it in that time. He said his brother
Mark and his sister-in-law joined him at
the cabin Saturday morning for the open-
ing of the fishing season, and all returned
home in their two separate cars on Sunday
night, May list.

The interrogators noted that Abbott, on
his way home, admittedly drove through
Franklin Canyon, where Stephanie’s
French textbook had been found beside the
road on the morning of May 2nd. He had
taken that road en route to his brother’s
home in Castro Valley, he said.

After a lengthy Sunday session at the
district attorney’s office, Abbott was al-
lowed to return home. After all, there
was not even any positive evidence as yet
that a crime had been committed. The
detectives and FBI agents set out Sunday
night to make a thorough check of Bud
Abbott’s alibi.

Abbott’s relatives, all respectable and
responsible people, confirmed the story
of his trip to the Trinity wilderness cabin.
But the exact timetable depended on his
word. Inspector O’Meara and other officers
drove over Abbott’s 260-mile route to Wild-
wood that night, questioning people at
cafes and other places where he said he
had stopped, with equivocal results.

The alibi couldn’t be verified, but neither
could it be immediately disproved. People’s
memories were hazy after almost three
months. No one could be found who re-
membered having seen Burton Abbott on
April 28th, though his movements were
readily confirmed, starting early the next
day, Friday the 29th, the day after Steph-
anie vanished, when Abbott appeared at
the Wildwood Inn and spent the after-
noon and evening drinking at the bar.

Berkeley police, FBI agents and local
deputies shook down the weather-beaten
Trinity mountain shack, which they were
told was known locally as “Butcher Boy’s
Cabin,” since a prospector had been mur-
dered and dismembered there by his part-
ner in 1948. Georgia Abbott’s brother had
bought the place from the convicted killer.
The officers sought in vain for bloodstains
or other evidence of a more recent crime.

Meanwhile other Berkleley detectives
probed the background of Burton Wilbur
Abbott. The unhealthy,  sallow-faced
young man, with the big glasses, little
moustache and wavy blondish hair, who
came originally from Oregon, had no police
record. Neither did he have any history
of gainful employment. He had joined the
army in 1946, at 18. While stationed in
Kentucky he was hospitalized for tubercu-
losis, from which he was apparently suffer-
ing before he enlisted. He met and married
red-haired Georgia, five years his senior,
while both were patients at Livermore
Veterans Hospital near Oakland.

In October, 1951, Abbott’s whole left lung
and five of his ribs were removed. Later,
though he was pronounced cured of TB,
he suffered from a chest abscess. He was
eventually discharged from the army and
received a $178 monthly disability pension.
He had intellectual pretensions and wanted
to go to college. He enrolled at the Uni-
versity of California for an accountancy
course under the GI Bill, his pension and
allowance supplemented by his wife’s earn-
ings. He appeared to be a dutiful young
husband, devoted to his wife, his child and
his mother. The investigators could find
nothing sinister in Bud Abbott’s back-
ground except the possibly inconsequential
fact that he regularly took clinical books

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Questioned again, Abbott volunteered to
undergo a lie detector test, and the police
gladly accommodated him. However, the
two-day test administered by Inspector
A. E. Riedel was not fully conclusive. The
charts indicated strongly that Abbott was
lying; he showed guilty reaction to critical
questions; but his jung deficiency threw off
the polygraph reading.

Bud gave his interrogators the name of
a young ex-serviceman who had visited
at his home early in May and had access
to the basement garage. Perhaps it was he
who had hidden Stephanie’s belongings,
Abbott suggested. Police sought the man,
who was believed to have gone to Los
Angeles. At the same time they located
Abbott’s old Chevrolet, which he had sold
to a dealer, and impounded it for lab
scrutiny.

On July 20th, following the last poly-
graph session, Abbott’s lawyer called a
press conference. Bud answered the re-
porters’ questions affably. “I’m just as
anxious as the district attorney is, to clear
this thing up,” he told them. “Tll do any-
thing I can to help. I know it looks bad
for me, but all I can say is, I simply
don’t know how those things got in my
basement.” Abbott took off his shirt for
the photographers and displayed his
spindly arms and caved-in rib - section.
His attorney said it was a physical im-
possibility for him to have overpowered a
strong, healthy young girl like Stephanie.
Abbott’s wife avowed her complete faith
in him.

But that same Wednesday night, while
the police and district attorney’s staff were
grimly hunting further evidence, another
development came.

The San Francisco Examiner had sent a
two-man task force, Reporter Ed Mont-
gomery, a Pulitzer Prize winner, and Pho-
tographer Bob Bryant, up to Trinity
County to see if they could turn up any-
thing the lawmen might have overlooked.
Flying into the rugged Hay Fork country
of the Trinity Alps in a small chartered
plane, they landed in a cow pasture, and
after stopping at the Wildwood inn, reached
Butcher Boy’s Cabin at dusk Tuesday.

Poking around the place with flashlights,
the newspapermen noted the heaps of earth
where the police and FBI shovel crews
had dug the day before. Extensive digging
had also been done along the creek be-
hind the cabin, but the steep slope across
the road didn’t seem to have been probed
very much. Tramping through the man-
zanita growth some distance up from the
shack, Montgomery. and Bryant noted a
sickly, sweetish odor.

It was only a whiff on the breeze, but
with a cold chill, they recognized it as the
smell of death. The woods were too dark
for further exploration that night. The
next day, July 20th, while Bud Abbott was
completing his lie detector test and hold-
ing his press conference down in Berke-
ley, the newsmen contacted a local rancher
and former deputy sheriff, Harold “Bud”
Jackson, a hunter of considerable local
repute, who agreed to help them with his
bloodhounds. They had to wait all after-
noon till Jackson finished baling his alfalfa.
It was almost dusk again when they headed
for the cabin with Jackson’s top hunting
hounds, Spot and Shorty. Jackson’s hired
hand completed the party.

It didn’t take the well-trained dogs
very long. They quested around Butcher
Boy’s cabin, sniffed the breeze, then loped
across the road and headed straight up the
mountainside. Dark was just falling when
the whining hounds led the silent, grim-
faced quartet to Stephanie Bryan’s shallow
grave at the foot of a tall sugar pine, 200
yards uy: the slope.

A slim foot in a brown-and-white saddle

nd

shoe protruded from the loose earth,
washed out by recent rains. The flashlight
glow revealed a patch of turquoise skirt.
Deputy Sheriff Bud Jackson called Under-
sheriff Leonard Adams at Weaverville, and
soon the body was unearthed by official
diggers. It was badly decompsed, but no
one had any doubt it was the body of
Stephanie Bryan. Her skull was crushed
by .heavy blows, and her white nylon
panties were twisted around her neck.

Montgomery flashed the news to San
Francisco, and a reporter broke it to Bur-
ton Abbott at his home, shortly after 9
o'clock that night. “I can’t believe it!”
the gaunt young student cried, showing
real distress for the first time. “T don’t
know how that body got there. I don’t
know anything about it. Maybe somebody
planted it there.”

He was still protesting total innocence
when detectives came and took him to
Berkeley City Prison, where he was booked
that night on suspicion of murder.

Stephanie Bryan’s pitiful remains were
positively identified through her dental
chart. The autopsy showed she had been
bludgeoned to death with a heavy weapon,
as well as strangled. At that late date, it
could not be determined whether she had
been raped.

The legal question arose, whether the
murder had been committed in Alameda
or in Trinity County, but after a confer-
ence of officials, Abbott was formally
charged with murder by the Oakland dis-
trict attorney. On July 30th the Alameda
County grand jury indicted him for mur-
der and kidnaping with bodily harm.

The ex-GI pleaded not guilty and con-
tinued to maintain his innocence. His
family stood staunchly by him. He and
his relatives insisted hé had been framed,
but they couldn’t say by whom, or why.
“Would a guilty man bury a body outside
his own family cabin, then hide evidence
in his own basement?” they asked.

The Abbott case was a tremendous public
sensation, and opinion was sharply divided.
There were rumors that Abbott had mo-
lested children before, and a woman made
headlines by identifying him as a man who
had followed her on a dark street. But
these reports could not be verified. The
police and district attorney continued their
investigation to build up an airtight cir-
cumstantial case. By the time Burton Ab-
bott came to trial that November before
a jury of seven men and five women in the
Oakland courthouse the state was ready
with 53 witnesses.

The lengthy trial was bitterly fought.
Some witnesses placed Abbott in Berkeley
on the afternoon of April 28th, while others
swore they had seen and talked with him
miles away, on his way to Trinity County.
Buda’s loyal wife testified, in support of his
story, that he had stopped by the beauty
shop in Alameda about 11 aM., to say
goodbye before driving north on his fish-
ing trip. But her employer and a woman
patron swore it was between 2:15 and 2:30
p.m. when Bud Abbott came in to see
Georgia. And a woman clerk at the Oak-
land state controller’s office testified he had
come in at 1:30 p.m. to pick up some docu-
ments for his wife, in connection with
tax-deeded land in Trinity County.

Scoring heavily against Abbott was the
testimony of the Wildwood tavern keeper,
who refuted Bud’s claim that he had
stopped there for a drink at dusk on
Thursday. The man said Abbott hadn’t
come in till the next morning, Friday, and
then had spent nine hours drinking, dis-
cussing philosophy and literature with a
casual bar companion. A school typewriter
repairman, who knew Bud by sight, swore
he had seen hin in a doughnut shop near
Stephanie’s high school, a shop that Steph-
anie herself patronized, at 3:15 P.M. on the
day she vanished.

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vo him.’

A surprise witness.
identification of d

Dr. Paul Kirk lectu

vacuum sweepings

|

s

Oakland housewife makes first Positive
lefendant.-im. dramatic courtroom scene,

red on human hair, Abbott strips, Dr. Shabart

On opening d

i

points out scars, explains
and - soil densities. atory cripple, has 75% lung capacity; enjoys

he

ses

ay of trial a confident Abbott tries
‘ to pass some of his confidence on_to his wife,

man is no respir.

unimpaited physical energy.

19


Oye ates ae

In brief, ladies and gentlemen, we will prove the guilt of the defendant not

only beyond a reasonable doubt but beyond the peradventure of any doubt

Uy

: ia

On the opening day of the inge A potential jurors file in past On the bench, Superior Judge Charles Wade

ly room
mm trial, the man on whose right to live they will pass their judgments, Snook. Here he answers some reporters’ questions.
X 17

FRONT PAGE
DETECTIVE

MAY, .1956

by HUGH COBURN

BERKELEY, CAL., JANUARY 25, 1956

m@ The stubby little man in the drab
gray suit was getting near the end now,
raising his voice a trifle. It was an oddly
compelling voice, harsh, implacable and
full of conviction; it commanded atten-
tion, admitted no compromise.

“In brief, ladies and gentlemen,” he
said, each word like a whiplash, “we will
prove the guilt of the defendant not only
beyond a reasonable doubt but beyond
the peradventure of any doubt .. .”

’ That was all. It was a short opening
statement, less than thirty minutes, J.
Frank Coakley, district attorney of Ala-
meda County, banged his rotebook shut
and resumed his seat at the counsel table.
‘ He whispered to his chief assistant, the
studious Folger Emerson, then leaned
across the back of his chair to speak to

another deputy. ;

“Call the first witness,” Coakley said.

A moment, long and impatiently

awaited, was at hand. Testimony was
about to begin in California’s strangest Just before the courtroom doors were flung open—an empty room
case. A jury of seven men and five except for the quiet, patient, hopeful wife of the man on trial.

On the
the man

continued on page 18

. TA, sy p> Derr iys

(AE.


18

women was ready to hear evidence in the trial of Burton
W. Abbott. The charges: kidnaping and murder.

Coakley’s formidable task was'to prove by circumstance,
science and logic that Abbott was responsible for the eerie
disappearance and death of 14-year-old Stephanie Bryan, a
shy, dark-haired Berkeley schoolgirl (INSIDE DETECTIVE,
October, 1955).

No other prosecutor in the state envied Coakley. Burton
Abbott was a veritable preening celebrity, damned and

_ defended with equal vigor on streetcorners, in taverns and

over back fences. Citizens who didn’t know the governor’s
first name could list Abbott’s age (27), weight (134
pounds), address (1408 San Jose Avenue, Alameda), and
occupation (accounting student at the University of Cali-
fornia, Berkeley). There was argument over Abbott
wherever two Californians met. He was guilty! He was
innocent! He was framed! How could anyone ever persuade
12 jurors to agree?

The press was out in force, correctly anticipating the
most sensational trial in the state in two decades. Forty
reporters were massed behind the railing in the high
ceilinged, oak paneled Oakland courtroom. Some of the
metropolitan papers were carrying up to 7000 words a day

continued on page 20

The victim’s father, Dr. Charles Bryan, Jr. (right), with
DA Frank Coakley, goes over a map of the Berkeley area,

Always nattily attired, beautifully groomed, a relaxed Abbott confers with . Victim’s mother with DA. She glanced
his brace of attorneys as testimony swings first in his favor, then away. briefly at the defendant, looked away.

» pra

Dr

va

ee eran eed


2)

in BoQueT CANYON

8 ail + Bee Ro aie’ “Oh Karl!’ There was no answer

A ae gee mee.’ aes . i a rea. to the call; not a sound except
, | low growls from Prince, the collie.
What had happened to his master,
Karl Ullman, old sea salt? That
was a question which was to be
answered by a splotched kitchen,
a near-by well, and the intensive
work of wide-awake detectives.
What would that answer be?

loved Johnny, lay on the porch as usual,
but instead of bounding down the path
from the house to the gate, as was his cus-
tom, he -lay very still. There was no
friendly wag of his bushy tail at Johnny’s
approach, instead, from his throat came a
deep growl. Johnny stopped short in his
tracks. He sensed something wrong at once,
stood still for a moment, then called loudly
—‘“Oh, Karl!”—anxiously awaiting a reply.

omnia, where on Sunday, May 17th, 1925, a brutal crime was committed with many
ystery surrounding it

_one- for a moment during his wak-
sht a ing hours allowing his master
and out of his sight, and sleeping
led a at night on the porch under
sell- the kitchen window. He in-
m his variably barked a warning at
small the approach of anyone who
bacco strayed in the direction of
s who Lonesome Ranch.
| m to
- add JOHNNY had two good legs,
| also two powerful arms, a warm
shop heart, and a real and lasting
friendship for Karl, so he was
a great help to the cripple in
quent more ways than one.
<anch Monday, May 18th, 1925,
0, a dawned bright and warm.
| ncher. Johnny had not seen Karl the
| ecame day before so he decided to
| + long pay him a visit. He wanted
would especially to see about a calf
talk Karl owned, which was now
crops ready for market.
the He walked slowly up the

lane to the house. All was as
still as death itself as he
opened the gate that led to the
tumble-down shack.

Prince, the Collie, who also

Deytt SSC
: Ba SF

(Right) Rear view of ranch
house and the old well. The
body of the victim was dragged
through the door shown, thrown
into the well, and then covered
im with the boxes seen sur-
oad rounding the pump

GSA HENICAN PEIN RT RT SES Te NIE I 2H 1


54 The Master Detective

There was no answer—not a sound except low growls
coming from Prince. Johnny, speaking softly to
the dog, went up to the porch, and shading . his
eyes with his hands, looked into the kitchen win-
dow. At first he could see nothing, but as his vision
cleared to the darker. room inside, he noticed a
large smear upon the kitchen floor. Then he saw several
stains on the window-panes.

IS heart sank. He knew at once that something terrible
had happened. Had his old chum—his pal—been
harmed? Where was he? What could these stains mean?
In his terror, he ran from the porch around the quiet little
house, calling loudly to Karl. But still no an-
swer came back.

On the door-sill was another large
dark spot which looked as if a
body had been dragged over it.
Large stains appeared on the
ground leading to a well in
the rear of the house,
about sixty feet back.
Johnny followed them
and hesitatingly looked
into the dark hole.

A ladder extended
down into it, nailed
to the wooden side.
Johnny looked at
its crimson rungs
and his heart seemed
to turn to stone, for
the sight he saw con-
vinced him that his sus-
picions had been correct.

(Right) ‘Cannon Ball
Eddie” King of the Los
Angeles (Calif.), District At-
torney’s office, co-author of the
story, and largely responsible for
the solution of the mystery

_ Sick at heart and knowing that the closest neighbors were
so far away that his calls would never reach them, Johnny
decided to go down into the well and see what he could
find. First he leaned far over, peering down into its dark
depths. For a moment he could see nothing in the black,
inky darkness, but after awhile he was able to discern boxes
—many of them—floating upon the surface of the still water.
He started slowly down the ladder. When he had reached
a depth of some fifteen feet, he suddenly heard a terrible
groan. He almost lost his hold upon the rickety ladder.
Such a mournful sound he had never heard in all his life.
As quickly’ as his legs could carry him, he climbed back up
the ladder and into the bright light of the warm sun.
As his feet touched earth, a thirsty calf tied be-
hind some heavy brush near the well bel-
lowed long and loudly, and while this
bellow did not sound as it had when
echoing in the well, it was not
difficult for the frightened
Johnny to recognize it as the
groan he had heard.
But, one experience was
enough. Johnny decided
to hasten to the ranch of
F, J. Talamantes, a re-
tired Detective Lieu-
tenant, of the Los An-
geles Police Force, who
owned a small tract
near. Elizabeth Lake,
possibly. a mile and a
quarter from Lonesome
Ranch. Talamantes, a
man of many years’ ex-
perience as a detective,
one of the best-known and
most-loved officers of his
day—called by all his friends,
“Tally”—was at work in his

The Blacksmith Shop at Lonesome Ranch. It was here (paper in foreground marks the spot) that the murderers
picked up the weapon, which was-to be used with such savage ferocity on the unsuspecting victim

To oe ore seechilicihdiieatidaahiieaiaiaial

garde:
long p
stayed
fished «
his hez
heavy
Tala
murder
Loneso
case be
them. (
Stensla
into th

VEk
E to

commit
the nei
Sever
or thre
visited
and re
lived ¢
ranch
run Ou
rabbits
Thes
Rincon
man. —
the sea
world
from h

oa

The


hbors were
m, Johnny
t he could
o its dark
the black,
cern boxes
still water.
ad reached
a terrible
sty ladder.
all his life.
:d back up
warm sun.
lf tied be-
2 well bel-
while this
- had when
t was not
frightened
e it as the
‘d.

lence was
y decided
e ranch of
ntes, a re-
ive Lieu-
e Los An-
“orce, who
nall tract
‘th Lake,
ule and a
Lonesome
nantes, a
years’ ex-
detective,
‘nown and
-s_ of his
ius friends,
rk in his

The Strange Crime in Boquet Canyon 55

garden when Johnny came running to him for help.
The two of them hurried back to the old well, with
long poles. Tally went down into the well as Johnny

‘stayed on top and lowered a rope. The boxes were

fished out, then the poor broken body of Karl Ullman,
his head badly beaten with what must have been a
heavy instrument, was, brought to the top.
Talamantes, who had handled some of the worst
murder cases in Los Angeles, knew’ just what to do.
Lonesome Ranch was in Los Angeles County. The
case belonged to the Sheriff’s office, and so he notified
them. Captain William Bright assigned Deputy Sheriffs

‘Stensland and Allen to the case, and the investigation

into this dastardly deed was soon under way.

FVERY ranch in the vicinity was visited in an effort

to find someone who might have had a motive for
committing this crime, or who had seen a stranger in
the neighborhood of Lonesome Ranch, °

Several Mexican families lived within a radius of two
or three miles of the Ullman ranch. These. families
visited Karl frequently, bringing with them their friends
and relatives. -On the ranch nearest to Karl’s place
lived one A. M. Nieto. Among the visitors to the Nieto
ranch were two young Mexican boys ‘who often. would
run out from Los Angeles over the week-ends to hunt
rabbits in the surrounding hills and canyons.

These two Mexican boys, Willie Adams and Alfonso
Rincon, would frequently drop in and visit Karl UIl-
man. They. were greatly entertained by his stories of
the sea and his experiences in,the many ports of the
world. They would always purchase tobacco and cigars
from him, paying much more than they were actually

seni

- The Coyote’s associate in the murder plot which resulted

in the death of the owner of Lonesome Ranch. He also
“was executed at San Quentin .

The Coyote; one of the murderers of Karl Ullman who was
executed at San Quentin prison for the crime

’ worth. Everyone in the vicinity knew of the friendship

between these three and it was nothing strange or new
to see the two youths hanging around Lanesome Ranch.

Just back of Karl’s tract and to the West, was an-
other small ranch, owned by a Mexican named San-
chez. This ranch: could only be reached by crossing
Karl’s land. To this, Ullman finally objected because
the Sanchez fanilily refused to close the gate, allowing
cattle to stray into his .garden. Heated words had
passed between the two ranchers over this condition,
But, was this sufficient cause for a brutal murder?

After hours spent trying to locate a clue of some’
sort, a neighboring rancher informed the investigators
that he had seen Willie Adams and Alfonso Rincon near
the gate that led to Lonesome Ranch early on Sunday
morning. About 1:00 o’clock these same boys had been
seen leaving the ranch, driving Karl’s old Ford. This
neighbor thought it queer that the two boys should
be riding around in the Ford. Karl was very jealous
of that old car. It was really his legs and took him
about the countryside on his little errands. Knowing
that Karl, the Ford, and Prince (the Collie), were in-
separable, suspicion rested on the two boys and a
search for them was started.

T was learned that Willie Adams had been taken when

only a tiny tot, out of the mountains of Mexico, and
had been reared in Los Angeles and Yuma by an Ameri-
can family named Adams, hence the name he bore.
Alfonso Rincon, his pal, worked for the Los Angeles
Examiner, in the circulation department, and was a
rather timid, backward boy, while Adams was just the
opposite. He had left the (Continued on page 59)


reasons

‘turn to
rity of
ng stud-
that a
It was
as born.
sht. they
argu-
ncial
also

to. pur-
uildings.
rere they
irm= and
toil all
ts which

‘re were
prisoners
turn one
ose upon
size and
nvenient
vand, ap-
1 and ill-
lan was
ment.
of the
ide. the
* the ac-
it fifteen
vas sup-
nN popu-
ace with
province.
number
iecreased
IV popu-
ieighbor-
d
egan_ his
careful
rm his
were
humane
had
con-
I Was
88)

September, 1931

The Master Detective

59

The Strange Crime in Boquet Canyon

home of his foster parents at the age
of fifteen and had shifted for himself.

No one could be found who knew the
addresses of these two boys, but Rin-
con was finally located at the home of
his sister, Mrs. Robert. McDaniels, 512
Lorena Street, Los Angeles. Mrs. Mc-
Daniels cooperated with the officers to
the fullest extent, explaining that Willie
Adams sometimes stayed there over-
night. On the evening of the particu-
lar Sunday in question, Adams and
Rincon had come home in a Ford, ex-
plaining to Mrs. McDaniels that Willie
was going to buy it.

ON Monday evening Adams and Rin-

con were noticed by the woman
conversing in low tones in the upstairs
room after an extra edition of an eve-
ning paper had appeared on the streets,
announcing the murder at Lonesome
Ranch.

Alfonso, who was working nights at
the Examiner, evidently became quite
frightened, for, after seeing the papers,
he went to his. superiors at the office
and told a wild story about the murder,
claiming that Adams had killed Karl
Ullman and had forced him to help ‘in
the job; had, in fact, compelled him to
help carry the body out and thfow it
into the well. He went into the story
at great length, and the following morn-
ing, May 19th, 1925, the Examiner came
out with a “scoop.” A state-wide search
was then started for Willie Adams.

About 2:00 p. m., the same day,
while Charley Downing, a rancher in
the neighborhood of Lonesome Ranch,
was on the watch for the possible re-
turn of the Mexican boys, or to prevent
anyone from taking anything from the
house—having been detailed to this
post by Talamantes—he saw Karl’s old
Ford being driven slowly up the lane
from the Elizabeth Lake road. Charley
Downing was a true son of the West
and had a bronco hitched at a post
near the door of a little cabin
halfway between the main road and
Lonesome Ranch, about twenty-five
yards back from the lane. As Down-
Ing watched the Ford approach, he
walked slowly out to meet it.

The car was being driven by the
Mexican boy, Willie Adams. In the
rear seat sat two middle-aged Mexican
women. The three were laughing and
talking in their own language, as happy
as could be. Charley Downing slid his
Colt .45 around to a handier position as
the car drove up and Willie Adams
brought it to a stop. Downing took
him by the arm and told him Mr. Tala-
mantes wanted to see him.

Adams expressed much surprise, and
asked why. Downing explained that
Karl Ullman had been found murdered
and his body thrown into the well, and
that “Tally” wanted to talk with any-
one who had been around Lonesome
Ranch recently. Willie started turning
the Ford around slowly as if to head
out to the road again and towards the
Talamantes ranch. Charley called to
him to wait; that he would get his

(Continued from page 55)

bronco and would go along with him.
Charley had walked towards the
bronco. only a short distance when

Willie started the Ford in the op-

posite direction and stepped on the gas.
Downing secured his‘'mount and gave
chase as fast as his little bronco could
carry him.

Down the lane went Willie Adams, ,
driving the old Ford as it had never

been driven before, careening from side
to side with the two Mexican women
thrown first one way and then another.
Willie Adams, who, we afterwards
learned, was called the “Coyote,” was
acting the part of his brother of the
hills; that of running, as a coyote will
always do, when danger is sighted
ahead.

It was at this point that Fate took a
hand in the game, as it has always done
in every case I have ever handled.
Willie Adams, the human coyote, was
making his escape. He would be hard
to find in the future. He would make
his way to. the border and into old
Mexico to freedom, and would prob-
ably never be brought to justice. But,
as the old car reached the main road
at the end of the lane, the speed was
too great to enable him to make the
turn. Willie swung hard to the right
on that old steering wheel. Over went
the Ford, throwing the badly fright-
ened women from the rear seat, entirely
clear of the car, up on a grassy bank
on the far side of the road, where they
quickly scrambled to their feet un-
harmed.

Willie could not at first be found, but
as the dust in the road cleared away,
and Charley Downing came thundering
down the line to the overturned car,
there came a faint groan from beneath
the Ford. The motor was running full
speed and the wheels were spinning.
Dismounting, Charley ran to the ma-
chine and there, held fast to the ground
by the steering wheel, unable to move,
was Willie Adams, the “Coyote,” call-
ing weakly to “take it off—it’s killing
me.”

Charley took a good look to ascertain
whether or not Willie was in a danger-
ous position, told him it was a good
place for him to remain until he re-
turned with Talamantes, then rode
away as fast as his bronco could carry
him. He had ridden but a short dis-
tance when he was met by “Tally” him-
self, who was on his way to Lonesome
Ranch to see if there were any new de-
velonments.

THE Ford was lifted from.the squirm-

ing Willie and handcuffs were placed
on his wrists. The Sheriff’s office was
then notified to come for him. Captain
William Bright .and Deputy Sheriff
Sepulveda, who were working on. the
case in the vicinity, returned Adams to
Los Angeles.

Jimmy Costello, the ace of prosecu-
tors in the District Attorney’s office,
walked into my.office several days after
the murder, and briefly outlined the
case to me as I have described it to

tour adding that while Rincon claimed
illie Adams had committed the crime
and forced him to help throw the body
into the well, Adams had stated it was
just ‘the other way around; that Rincon
had murdered Ullman and forced him
(Adams) to help throw the body into
the well. Deputy District Attorney
Costello asked me to go over to the old
county jail and get Willie Adams, as
he wanted to visit Lonesome Ranch
and wanted Adams there with him at
the time.

This I did and soon the three of us,
together with a driver, were on our way
to the ranch. I shall never forget that
ride with Willie Adams, who sat in the
rear seat handcuffed to my left wrist.
He was extremely nervous and did not
want to go to or see Lonesome Ranch
again.

He explained during the ride that he
had been taking the two Mexican
women to the ranch to sell them the
furniture in the cabin as poor old Karl
would have no further use for it. He
added, “If the darned old Ford had not
overturned, I would have made my get-
away and they would have had a “hell-
uva’ time finding me.”

We kept up a running fire of ques-
tions at Willie all the way through
Boquet Canyon and out to the ranch,
and gained from him many of the ma-
terial points of the case, as he talked
freely. But he insisted at all times that
Rincon had struck the blows which had
caused the death of poor old Karl.

His story was virtually as follows:

Rincon had told him that Karl was
very wealthy and that he kept his
money hidden away at the ranch house.
They began planning a way to get this
hidden wealth. They watched Karl
from the Nieto Ranch for awhile, then
made many visits to Lonesome Ranch,
there to talk with Ullman and to get a
line on where he kept his money.

ON the Saturday evening before the
murder, they stood near the gate
for a long time, discussing the best pos-
sible way to get his wealth, and fi-
nally decided that it could be done
only by putting Karl out of the way.

They retired late Saturday night but
were up again early Sunday morning.
They did not go to the ranch house at
once but kept watch for some time at a
distance. As the noon hour approached.
they started up the lane. Mr. R. B.
Burns, living on Rivera Ranch nearby,
later stated that he saw them wending
their way slowly up the trail.

At the gate leading into the ranch
proper, they decided to go first to the
blacksmith shop and secure a heavy
piece of iron with which to commit the
murder. Alfonso picked up a piece of
an iron bar about a foot and a half
long, weighing about five pounds, and
concealed it in his rear trousers pock-
et, covering it with his coat. Prince, the
Collie, met them on the porch. They
stopped and petted him.

Karl Ullman was seated in his old
rocking chair in the kitchen. He called


Calif. (River

The Gaudy Hat Told Officers One Thing
—The Killer Had Been Familiar With

This Farmhouse Near Indio, California

By

Chief Criminal Deputy

Wes W. Walrath

Riverside County, Calif.,

. As Told to

Robert James Green

With the Ban
n Gabriel's Hat

about the murder of Gabriel Con-
treras were the time and place.

He was a small, dark-complexioned
man of 35, who owned a small acreage
of desert land just north of the fabulous
Salton Sea in Southern California. The
sandy soil was irrigated by water from
the swift Colorado River, 100 miles east,
and in the vast area were many truck
farms and date-palm orchards. Gabriel
Contreras grew okra on his farm, which
was about two miles from the village of
Arabia. .

He had three other possessions which
were his pride and joy, and one of them
the cause of considerable trouble. They
were his wife, Marie, extremely pretty
and dark-eyed, and two children,
Philip, seven, and Marguerite, eight.

Gabriel had not won his petite wife
without first overcoming a great deal of
parental opposition, as often happens.

TT of the several mystifying points

nin

Always she had had many suitors, and
several of them had money. But the
quiet, sloe-eyed Marie, for reasons best
known to herself, had chosen Contreras.
The children were hers by a previous
husband who had died.

Gabriel and Marie had been married
some two years before our investigation
and they had come directly to the
ranch, in which he had invested his
life’s savings. During that time they
had been very poor. But Gabriel had:
worked hard, from dawn until late at
night, and at last the truck farm was
beginning to yield a return.

The night of the murder, July 25, was
sweltering hot. A full, clear moon hung
in the sky, flooding the desert with an
unusual brilliance. The Contreras
family went to bed at eight o’clock.

A half hour later Gabriel got up, an-
nouncing that he was going to get a
drink of water. He took the water
bucket from the table and stepped out
into the moonlight, intending to walk
across the dusty road. The cement
irrigation reservoir was about 100 feet
from the house.

A minute later the quiet night was

OFFICL AL DETECTIVE STORIES, SEPTEMBE

rudely shattered by two shots. Gabriel
did not return.

~Marie said afterward that she and her
children huddled, frightened, until day-
light. Then they ventured outside and
found her husband lying on his back
near the reservoir, his head in a pool of
dried blood. He lay very still and they
had no doubt about the meaning of the
two shots.

The family hurried through the fields
to their closest neighbor, Herbert Leach.
He telephoned Deputy B. B. deCreve-
couer and his assistant, Deputy Lee
Smith, in Indio, ten miles north.

HE two deputies hurried to the scene.

One glance told them that the vic-
tim had a bullet hole above the upper
lip and that he had been dead for some
time. It was murder, pure and simple,
and deCrevecouer telephoned me at
Sheriff Carl Rayburn’s office in River-
side, 76 miles away.

I 'asked Deputy Mel Vivion of the —

Homicide Detail and Deputy Coroner
Cash to accompany me. We started out
that morning under a brassy sky with
the temperature already close to 100.

Deputy Smith was waiting for us in
Arabia, on Highway No. 111, and guided
us to the farmhouse. The body, covered
with canvas tarpaulin, still lay near the
reservoir. DeCrevecouer. and four
neighboring truck farmers were talking
to a mortician from Indio,

The farmers said they didn’t know
Gabriel Contreras very well, since he
had not entered into any social activi-
ties. He was well-liked, though, and
they had no ideas to offer about his
murder.

“My mother thinks she heard the

’ shooting last night,” said Leach.

Vivion took photographs while de-

' Crevecouer explained what little he had

been able to find out. Beside the vic-
tim’s body was a big, heavy knife that
left us guessing. The killer had not
used it, for Coroner Cash could find no
marks on the dead man except the
bullet hole near the lips.

hadi

Co-Author Walrath, Deputy
Vivion: They. missed the hat


“The widow says it’s her husband's
knife,” deCrevecouer told me. “He used
it to cut okra and weeds.”

“But why was he carrying it, if he
was only going for a pail of water?” I
asked. “Was he expecting to meet
someone?”

“TI guess she doesn’t know. She said
the knife usually hung in a shed behind
the house.”

“Lift that knife carefully,” I told him.
“It may have some finger-printsson it.”

We found no dust on the top of the
body. Contreras evidently had fallen

Here, where the man is standing in high reeds, Gabriel
Contreras’ killer stood and fired the two fatal shots

thought this over for a minute and
hesitated. “About six months ago, two
men came to see my husband. They
wanted him to grow marajuana for
them, but he wouldn’t do it.”

They had not come back and she had
no idea who they were. That was all
Gabriel had said about it.

“What about some of your boy

on his back, in the thick dust of the friends?” I asked. “One of them might

ee and had not moved after-
ward.

We looked around the water tank.
In one spot the grass was trampled and
here we found several stubs of hand-
rolled cigarets made of brown paper.
Apparently this was where the killer
had waited for some time.

Mrs. Marie Contreras was in the
small, one-story house, so while the
body was being removed we walked over
and talked to her. I hadn't expected
to find such‘a flower in the desert. She

was very pretty in a fragile way, pale.

as the housedress she wore, her dark
eyes red from weeping.

After the bright sunlight, the house ~

interior was cool and dark. The chil-
dren sat very quiet and well-behaved.
Marie, too, was quiet and we had diffi-
culty at first getting her to tell any-
thing without prompting. Her voice
was soft and musical and she spoke
barely above a whisper.

She repeated what she had told
deCrevecouer and the children corrob-
orated her story.. No one could have
had a reason, she insisted, for mur-
dering her husband.

“Did he go to the reservoir for water
each night?” I asked. “About the same
time?”

“No. Usually he went to bed and
fell asleep right away. Last night he
wanted a drink.”

Why, I wondered, would a killer wait -

outside the house on the slender chance
that Gabriel Contreras might get out of
bed and walk in his particular direction
on that particular night?

“Did you hear a car drive away after
the shooting?”

The three shook their heads. They
had been too frightened, Marie said,
to pay attention to anything.

I asked if Gabriel had any enemies
or had been in any trouble. She

38

have been pretty jealous of Gabriel.”

She solemnly assured me this was
not so. After she married, she had seen
none of her other suitors. In fact, she
seldom had driven to visit her parents
in El Centro, 85 miles south of Indio.

Next, I asked about her husband’s
insurance and Marie brought out the
policy. It was issued, I saw, by the Val-
ley Mutual Company, through a truck

farmers’ cooperative association, and
was for only $300, barely enough to de-
fray funeral expenses.

We went outside, into the burning
sun, and looked around the sheds, Ga-
briel's old, faded blue pickup truck
stood under a pepper tree. When a
thorough search didn’t turn up any-
thing of interest, we drove with Her-
bert Leach to his farm.

His mother told us that she had
heard two shots the night before, at
exactly 8:30. She was positive of the
time because she had been winding the
clock.

We talked to other near neighbors;
Salgado, Jones, Oultman and their
wives. From them we got a little
clearer picture of Gabriel Contreras
and his family. Everyone knew, they

The man who wore the hat

"He's Short, Dark, Wears a
‘Fancy Hat and Is Wanted for

Murder.

If You See Him—"

"| Did- See Him! He Left
Here Ten Minutes Ago, Going
In That Direction! Hurry!"

ante mn eect

said, that the demure, soft-spoken
Marie had quarreled violently at times
with her husband.

“Marie was dissatisfied with the
ranch life,” said Mrs, Oultman. “She
wanted to live in town and go to par-
ties and dances. She’s pretty and she
knows it.” .

“She seemed very quiet and re-
served,” I remarked.

“Yes, but she could be stormy, too.
She told me that she always had lots
of men friends before she married Ga-
briel. And her family didn’t approve of
him.”

All the neighbor folks agreed that the
Contreras family was devoutly religious
and had attended church in Arabia
every Sunday.

But they also hinted this was because
it gave Marie a chance to dress up.
They were sure she was ashamed of the
old truck, for she had made Gabriel
park it some distance from the church.

Here was the old story of a husband
working hard, trying to get ahead, and
a pretty wife who was dissatisfied.
Still, question as I might, I could find
no evidence of any suitors or men
friends.

I wondered if maybe some of the
women were a little envious of the
widow’s good looks,

JN TALKING to the neighbors, we
found one man to whom the victim
had confided some of his_ personal
troubles. He had mentioned that Marie
had developed some odd quirks of tem-
perament and he could not please her.

For example, she had taken a sud-
den interest in fishing and had tried
to persuade him to drive her to the
Colorado River. He had refused be-
cause his crops needed irrigating and
this in turn had caused a quarrel be-
tween them. .

We four officers got into the sheriff’s
car and drove back toward the Con-
treras home. In the distance the heat
waves shimmered on the burning sands
and made the Pinto Mountains dance.

“Well,” said Vivion, “what do you
make of it?”

I wiped the perspiration from my
sun-glasses. “Frankly, I don’t know.
The family had gone to bed and the
lights were out. How was the killer to
know Gabriel would get up and go to
the reservoir?”

“What about some jealous boy
friend?”


His fancy clothes taken away from him, his swagger gone for

good, the suspect awaits questioning in Police Headquarters

“Don't you ‘think the neighbors
ould have known of one, if he
dsted?” "
The Homicide deputy frowned. “But
iere’s no other motive. It’s just that
1e’s so pretty.” . ‘
I knew from past experience that
iything was possible in a murder.
nce we had to start somewhere in the
vestigation, I thought we might as
ell begin with the attractive widow
id her home. :
DeCrevecouer and Smith, on the ex-
ise Marie was needed at the mortuary
make formal. identification of the
dy, drove her and the children to
dio. When they had gone, Vivion
id I went through the house on a
— for the murder gun. We didn’t
id it.
We looked through the _ victim’s
othes, thinking we might discover
mething in the pockets that would
ve us @ lead. His work clothes first.
ren his Sunday suit, in a closet. It
is a plain, dark-brown suit, with a
iled gray felt hat hanging on a nail
rove it.
There was nothing of interest in the
vckets. We did find an old receipt
owing payment to a Doctor H. W.
ogan of Indio. I pocketed it, think-
g the Doctor might know something
out Gabriel’s private life.. We also
me across a bank book with a bal-
ice of $67.33 in a bank in Arabia.
In a dresser drawer were his socks .
id underwear and another hat, a new
immer straw. It was evidently Ga-
iel’s one garment of bright color, that
caw hat with its striped red-and-
lite band. It was size seven and a
uf, I noticed, and had been bought
a store in Arabia.
We went through Marie’s belongings,
o. In contrast to Gabriel’s wardrobe,
e had quite a few dresses and consid-
able perfumed, filmy articles of -
iderwear. Nowhere in the house did
> come across any suspicious papers
letters, or anything else. ‘

HE search completed, we drove to
Indio and found elderly Doctor Ho-
n without any trouble. He said that
abriel Contreras had paid off his med-
il bills very faithfully. ;
“He paid Marie’s debt, too,” added
e Doctor. .
“Why shouldn't he?” I countered.
the was his wife.”
“Not when she incurred the debt. It
is for the birth of her last child, an
i balance. She was Mrs. Alex Esco
en.”

“What happened to Esco?”

“He drowned on a fishing trip, in the
Colorado River. It was probably just
as well Gabriel couldn't have any chil-
dren, the way things turned out.”

“Just what do you mean—that he
couldn’t have any children?”

Shortly after the marriage, he ex-
plained, ‘Gabriel had been in an auto
accident and a serious operation was
necessary. As a result, he never could
have been a father.

The Doctor said he knew Marie was

@ little spoiled and vain, but he was not’

aware of any trouble the pair had ex-
perienced, Although the children were
hers by a previous marriage, Gabriel
had been very fond of them. Doctor
Hogan had no idea why anyone would
have murdered Gabriel Contreras.

We next drove to El Centro, where
we looked up Marie’s parents and two
brothers. They expressed no grief over
Gabriel’s death, but each one came up
with an alibi that proved true enough.

By late afternoon the autopsy on the
victim had been performed and the
surgeon had extracted a .38 slug in sur-
prisingly good shape. So far, it was
the only tangible clue, and not much
with which to solve the murder puzzle.

That night Deputy Coroner Cash took
the bullet and knife back to Riverside

on a bus. Vivion and I stayed at a-

hotel in Indio. Next morning we drove
to Arabia and talked to officials of the
truck farmers’ association, of which
Gabriel had been a member.

But as we expected, the victim had
not been well known. He had a repu-
tation for honesty, hard work and co-
operation, but that was all anyone
knew. No one offered any theories
about the murder. :

As0ur noon we were coming out of
a restaurant when Vivion nudged
me. “Look—in that old blue truck!” he
exclaimed.

Marie Contreras was driving her
pickup along the dusty main street and
she was alone. Mildly curious, we
watched her head the truck to the curb
and go into a doctor’s office. Fifteen
minutes later she came out and went
into a grocery store.

Certainly her actions had not been
suspicious. But we were desperately in
need of a lead, and we thought this
doctor might know of something. We
crossed over and saw that the name
plate read “Peter Clark, M. D.” Vivion
rang the bell... :

. Clark turned out to be a young doc-
tor. I explained that we were deputies,

Deputies standing around the
humble Contreras ranch home

investigating the murder. “We saw
Mrs, Contreras come in here just now,”
I added. “Do you mind telling us what
she wanted?”

“Not at all—since you're officers,” he
replied. ‘She comes here for pre-natal
care. Mrs. Contreras is expecting a
child in about five months.”

“A child!’"" I asked. “Are you sure?”

The Doctor smiled, “Oh, yes, I’m
quite positive. Is there something
wrong about it?”

“Yes, but I don’t know exactly what.”
I told him what Doctor Hogan had said
about Gabriel.

“Well, I don’t know anything about
that,” Doctor Clark said. “I’ve never
met Mrs. Contreras’ husband. But I
do know definitely that she is expecting
a child.”

We thanked him and went out into
the blistering heat of Main Street.
Marie's truck was gone.

“So there is another man,” said
Vivion.

(Continued on Page 48)

39


ower

24 Cal.

should have been sustained, and, in the ab-
sence of an ame

ndment setting forth fur- ble neglect, is appealable

210 PACIFIC REPORTER, 2d SERIES

mistake, inadvertence, surprise, or excusa-

Code Civ.Proc.

ther facts, that should be the end of the § 473.

story.

opinion relative to the good faith and sin-

iscussi i h jorit
The discussion in the majority 2. Judgment 67139

In considering motions to sct aside de-

i ‘tioner and his counsel in mak- : :
cerity of Bek faults, trial court must exercise a sound

ing the statements contained in the peti-

and legal discretion in such matter as to

i i i beyond the 2
tion and affidavits, Bocs entirely Dey serve and not defeat or impede ends of

scope of the review which this Court is
called upon to make in deciding the issue

presented by this appeal.

I would reverse the judgment and direct
the .trial court to permit petitioner to
amend his petition if he be so advised.

HOWARD GREER CUSTOM ORIGINALS
V. CAPRITTI et al.
Civ. 17036.

District Court of Appeal, Second District,
. Division 1, California. ‘

‘ Oct. 3, 1949.
’ Rehearing Granted Nov. 1, 1949.
See 213 P.2d 78.

Howard Greer Custom Originals, sued i
CG. Capritti, doing business under the ficti-
tious firm name and style of Rose Marie of
California, and other fictitious defendants,
and Rose Marie of California, Inc., sued as

Black and White Company, for claim and
amages for breach

delivery, conversion and d
s-complaint was

of contract, wherein a cros
filed by the corporate defendant.

A default judgment was entered against
the defendant, J. ©. Capritti, and its motion
to set aside the default was denied by the
Superior Court of the County of Los An-
geles, Stanley N. Barnes, J. and such -de-
fendant alone appealed.

'She District Court of Appeal, Drapeau,
J., affirmed the order on ground that de-
fendant had failed to prove any of the
grounds provided for under statute which
would enable trial court to grant relief re-

quested.

{. Appeal and error C>113(1)
An order denying motion under stat-
ute to set aside judgment as taken through

substantial justice. Code Civ.Proc. § 473.

3, Judgment €=363

The statute authorizing court to relieve

party from judgment taken against him
through ‘his mistake, inadvertence, sur-
prise or excusable neglect, is remedial and
should be liberally construed so as to dis-
pose of cases on their substantive merits
and give party claiming meritorious right
in good faith opportunity to present it.

Code Civ.Proc. § 473.

4, Appeal and error €=982(2)

Reviewing courts will scan more close-~
ly and are more prone to reverse orders
denying relief from judgments on ground
of mistake, inadvertence, surprise or €X-
cusable neglect than orders granting such
relief, but the rule not to disturb trial
court’s action except in clear case of abuse
of discretion has not been relaxed. ~ Code

Civ.Proc. § 473.

5.: Appeal and error €=>1008(3)

On appeal from order: made on affi-
davits, involving the decision of a question
of fact, appellate court is bound by same
rule that controls it where oral testimony is
presented for review, and if there is any
conflict in affidavit, those in favor of pre-
vailing party must be taken as true, and
fact stated therein must be considered to be

established.

6. Appeal! and error 948

On appeal from order denying motion
under statute to sect aside default judgment,
burden of convincing that denial of mo-
tion was an abuse of discretion was On ap-
pellant. Code Civ.Proc. § 473.

7. Judgment = 162(4)

Affidavits supporting and opposing in-
dividual defendant’s motion to set aside de-
fault judgment under statute as taken
through mistake, surprise, inadvertence, or

HOWARD GREER CUSTOM ORIGINALS y. CAPRITTI Cal Js
a

i)

Cite as 210 P.2d 24

excusable neglect on ground that defendant
had meritorious defense and that he had
failed to answer individually under impres-
sion. that amended answer and amended
cross-complaint filed by corporate defend-
ant would be suflicient showed sufficient
facts to warrant trial court’s belief that de-
_fendant had failed to prove any of the
grounds provided for under statute which
would enable it to grant relief requested.
Code Civ.Proc. § 473.

—~—_—_——

‘Geo. W. Rochester, Los Angeles, for
appellant.

Abraham Gottfried, Los Angeles, for re-
spondent.

DRAPEAJU, Justice.

This is an appeal from an order denying
a motion of defendant Capritti made under
section 473, Code of Civil Procedure to set
aside a default judgment.

It appears from the record herein that
on March 19, 1948, respondent corpora-
tion sued J. C. Capritti doing business as
Rose Marie of California, and other ficti-
tious defendants, for claim and delivery,
conversion and damages for breach of con-
tract, and on April 1, 1948, filed its amend-
ed complaint based on contract. . On the lat-
ter date writ of attachment issued against
the personal property of defendant Caprit-
ti, ‘hereinafter referred to-as appellant.
Undertaking to discharge such attachment
was filed on behalf of appellant in his in-
dividual capacity on April 23rd.

Thereafter, on May 7th, the answer and
cross-complaint of Rose Marie of Cali-
fornia, Inc., sued as Black and White Com-
pany, a corporation, were filed, and on the
following day summons on the amended
complaint was filed showing proof of serv-
ice thereof on appellant as of April 26th.
Demurrers to the answer and the cross-
complaint-were interposed and sustained on
May 20th and defendant was given fifteen
days to amend.

In the meanwhile, on May 17, 1948, upon
request of respondent the default of appel-
lant was entered by the Clerk.

20 P.2d—2%

Thereafter, on June 24th, Rose Marie of
California, Inc., filed its petition in bank-
ruptcy and E. A. Lynch was appointed :re-
ceiver. ~

On July 21st, appellant in his individual
capacity filed an answer to the amended
complaint in which he alleged that he did
not at any time “do business under the
fictitious name and style of Rose Marie of
California, but was employed by Rose
Marie of California, a corporation or-
ganized and existing under the laws of
the state of California, as an employee hav-
ing no other business nor entering into
any agreements, contracts or understand-
ings of any kind whatsoever, save and
except within the capacity of his employ-
ment with the said Rose Marie of Cali-
fornia, Inc.”

On July 22nd counsel for appellant filed
and served notice of motion to set aside the
default, supported by appellant’s affidavit
averting that an answer to the amended
complaint having been filed on behalf of
Ross Marie of California, a corporation,
affiant was under the impression that this

would be sufficient and that there was no
need for affiant to file an answer in his in-
dividual and personal capacity”; that when
informed that a default had been entered
against him, he conferred with counsel for
the corporation, who prepared and filed an
answer in his behalf on July 21st.
, The default and appellant’s motion to set
it aside were heard jointly on July 29, 1948,
resulting in a denial of the motion and the
granting of a default judgment against ap-
pellant.

No appeal was taken from such judgment
which was entered on August 3rd, but on
August 5th, appellant served and filed his
notice of motion under section 473, Code of
Civil Procedure, to set such judgment aside,
and for permission to file his proposed an-
wer to the amended complaint, such mo-
tion being. supported by affidavits of ap-
pellant, his counsel and others, all to the ef-
fect that appellant hada. meritorious de-
fense to the action, to wit: that he had
been employed as manager of the plant
owned and operated by Rose Marie of Cali-
fornia, Inc., and at no time had done busi-


HAT is the secret of music that kills?

A German battleship captain killed
himself after listening to the Danse Macabre.
A wave of suicides caused the song Gloomy
Sunday to be banned from a nation’s radio
networks. Violent deaths and suicides fol-
lowed talented Elsie Houston, above, over
two continents when she adopted:a forbidden
voodoo chant as her theme song. Why are
these refrains so closely linked with death?
Why do famed conductors refuse to play
certain symphonies? Read the full story in
the new True.

She ‘brought us an orchid colored box.
Printed on it was the name of an ex-
pensive florist on Valencia Street.

“I know that man personally,” Husted
declared, turning toward me. “I'll take
him while you clean up here.” Husted
and Deputy Larson at once left.

Meanwhile, the roommate told us as
much as she could about Bernice Curtis,
her friends and habits.

Several hours later we all met at San
Francisco police headquarters. “That
florist is a high class man,” Husted re-
ported. “He gave us a perfect description.
This ‘Frank’ bought her a corsage three
Saturday nights running. He’s a tough
type, not the kind who usually buys
flowers for his woman, : Pa

“He’s five feet ten, thin faced, one hun-
dred and fifty pounds, ldng sharp nose,
dark hair, receding forehead, wore a gray
hat, dark pin stripe suit, with a hairline
mustache.”

E at once flashed this detailed de-

scription to the office of District At-
torney Ralph Hoyt and Sheriff Jack
Gleason of Alameda County. These of-
ficials pledged the utmost co-operation in
contacting various East Bay shipyard
police and authorities of a dozen cities
near Oakland in an intensive search for
the murder suspect. .

It was late at night and we Santa Clara
County officers started home for a few
hours’ rest, after giving the suspect’s
description also, to the newspaper re-
porters.

For the next two days hundreds of
police officers concentrated on the search
for the slayer. The night club lead failed
to pan out, Literally thousands of other
leads came in, Each had to be run down.

A girl phoned Sheriff Emig with the
name of a San Francisco man who fitted
the killer “perfectly.” Larson and I finally
located him. The man was positively elim-
inated by friends of the dead girl. An-
other tough letdown.

Then a tractor driver plowing in a field
600 feet west of the murder scene found
the second black pump where it had been

hurled, probably from a moving car. There

were no fingerprints on it.

The following day Deputy Sheriff_Ray
Stoeffels, of Martinez, Contra Costa
County, phoned me. “We have a suspect
here,” he said, “who’s been on a week's
drunk. His hands are cut up. He works
in a shipyard and fits the murderer’s
description.”

“We'll be right up!” I replied.

Larson, George Pyne and I raced the
seventy-five miles north to Martinez.
With Stoeffel’s help we:checked this sus-
pect thoroughly. But a dozen workmen
had seen him receive the hand injuries.
Finally we eliminated him, once more re-
turning home.

During these several days of frantic
search for identity of the shipyard mur-
derer, we also delved more deeply into
Bernice Curtis’ background. We checked
everything about her, where she ate, at
what stores she bought her clothes, who
her friends and acquaintances were. Not
one thing changed our first impressions,
She had been a beautiful although a
rather lonely girl with an impeccable
reputation.

Had she fallen in love with the mys-
terious “Frank?” Had he slain her in a
fit of morbid jealousy?

And yet another clue developed in the
tightening web of the case. A bus driver
informed Pyne that he had passed the
murder scene at about 12:30 the night of
the slaying.

“J saw a green Chevrolet sedan parked

just where the boards are now cut out of
the fence,” he said.

“You're sure it was a Chevy sedan?”
Pyne asked.

“Positive. I’d say about a 1935. I know
cars.”

We added this to the growing file of in-
formation. It was late November 26, when
Police Sergt. August Terragno of South
San Francisco phoned me.

“Bob,” he said hurriedly, “I’ve got a
hot suspect for you. The guy’s name is
Florencio ‘Frank’ Alcalde. He was_in-
volved in that unsolved Kathleen Robin-
son murder at San Mateo in 1935.”

“Does he own a car, Gus?” I asked
breathlessly.

“Sure does.” I caught the triumphant
note in Terragno’s voice. “It’s a 1935
green Chevrolet sedan. I checked the reg-
istration.”

“How about his description?”

“Identical, And he works for a pipe and
steel company here in South City.”

Through my mind flashed the parade
of clues: green sedan, identical descrip-
tion, shipyard job, nickname “Frank,”
and it would have been easy for the mur-
dered girl’s relative to tie the first letter
of the last name, “C” into the name
Alcalde. On top of that there were many
similarities between the Bernice Curtis
slaying and that of Kathleen Robinson
eight years before, Alcalde had gone with
that pretty young girl, had had a date
with her the night of her murder; had
called at her home an hour after she had
been slain “to take her to a movie.”

“Gus,” I cried, “it sounds like a natural.”

“Another thing,” he added, “Officer
Bertucelli saw Alcalde and the Curtis girl
parked in a lover's lane here one night
last week. He’s positive of her identity
through newspaper pictures, and knows
Alcalde by sight as I do.”

My fatigue dropped away like an old
coat. Hurriedly I called several deputies
and we planned our campaign. Phil Cuf-
faro and Pyne selected sheriff’s photos of
Alcalde and several other tentative “sus-
pects” for a “line-up” test.

“We'll have the San Francisco florist
look these over,’ Pyne said. “If he picks
Alcalde it'll be good enough for us.”

While they were making this trip, I
completed arrangements to go into action
as soon as possible the following morn-
ing. We must be certain before we moved.
No. point in exciting the suspect’s sus-

« @ .
picion before we had an ironclad case
against him. After all, with the experience
of one murder investigation and trial,
Alcalde would be cold and calculating.

1* WE could find traces of the broken
green hat feather in Alcalde’s hat, and
the right front auto tire of his machine
was an identical Marathon tread, with our
other evidence I'd be positive that he was
the killer.

The rest of that evening I spent in
digging deeply into the suspect’s past.

When the deputies returned, Pyne
called me. “The florist positively identifies
Alcalde as the man who bought flowers
for the murdered girl,” he said.

For the first time since the murder I
slept soundly that night.

Early the next morning, five days after
Bernice’s murder, Pyne, Cuffaro, Larson
and I rolled up to South San Fran-
cisco police headquarters. There we met
Police Chief Louis Belloni and Sergt.
Terragno.

Larson, Sergt. Terragno and I drove
on the short distance to the great ship-
yards on San Francisco Bay. “Let’s check
the cars in the lot first,” Terrango sug-
gested,

ee

RAMP aaa

oO

4 hte


) determine what the
2 Rear-by jeweler
C. and that the

pe sold only by the

y established, we ap-
apers to cO-Operate
ig complete descrip-
ng woman, her cloth-

plastic brooch. We
‘typed her complete
police and sheriff’s
with the urgent re-
Women reports be
alo Alto, Redwood
ther near-by cities
ve search of hotels
‘or trace of a van-
her description
checking with ‘Va
and wholesale tire

) trace the Mara-
irted back to the
© autopsy results
«round the corner
Tiver at once put
lett hand flagging
ed] recognized
eteran Palo Alto
ted with him was
n officer, Sheriff

‘ hot lead,” Law-
\ girl who fits
toa T was reg-

tel here. Checked

I lI follow you.”
hipping my ear
treet :

drove rapidly
' pleasant, tree-
a town, turned
ind pulled up in
t two-story ho-
main street.

get.” Emig ex-
Ot out, “is that
and a_ soldier
wo days ago as
Guests in the
them quarrel-
ind they sud-
t. very late.”
Is barged into
klv located the

| not to touch

. “until after
ed the wav to
om. Quickly
\, he opened
Irst, follow ed

arted across
eside at Waste
| oVer, Care-
i paper and

hil §=Cuffaro
om the right
suspect’s car
f

{ tire tracks
the murder,

ARTLING

Gone is the swagger and confidence—the condemned k
tion in the San Quentin gas chamber. He could not “beat the rap

an empty carton. “By George,” Lawrence
said, “here’s a combing of hair—what I'd
hoped to find.” He held up several strands
of reddish gold hair for us to see.

It was a close match to the slain girl’s
hair, I decided. We covered the rest of
the room quickly, finding nothing else of
value.

“How were they registered?” Law-
rence asked.

“Private and Mrs. W. L. Goetz,” the
hotelman said, adding that the man was
from a near-by army camp.

“Describe the soldier,” Emig cut in
eagerly.

The hotel manager frowned. “He was
about twenty-four or twenty-five, dark
brown hair and close to my size. That
would make him weigh about 160 pounds,
and stand five feet ten inches tall.”

“Let’s get back to headquarters,” Law-
rence at once said. “I’ve got some good
army connections. Should have the dope
on the soldier inside of fifteen minutes.
Don't touch the room until we can go
over it for fingerprints.”

We drove hurriedly to the Palo Alto
police station and Lawrence placed sev-
eral long distance phone calls. I obfained
a microscope and placed one of the red”
hairs obtained in the hotel room along-
side one from the slain girl's head. In this
superficial way, enlarged, they seemed
very similar in appearance. At the mo-
ment this lead looked good.

Lawrence just completed a phone call
to the army camp when I returned to
the room, He swung around toward us.
“The soldier's a phony,” he said quietly.
“There’s no Private Goetz or any other
Goetz in the whole camp.”

And we soon learned that fingerprint

DETECTIVE

iller in his cell aw:

This is a recent pi
the clue of the green

experts were unable to obtain a single
print at the hotel which would lead to
the real identity of the soldier occupant
of the room.

Deputies Pyne and Larson now Te-
turned, They had not located a resident
within half a mile of the murder scene
who had seen or heard anything unusual
the previous night.

Since. the Palo Alto police building
was the most central location for the
various county officers co-operating in-
tensively on the murder investigation, we
decided to use that as headquarters for
the time being.

The murder case was a tough one. We
had little chance of getting at the actual
solution of the riddle until we had posi-
tive identification of the slain girl. I hoped
against hope that the headlines and de-
scriptions in all the San Francisco and
peninsula newspapers might soon bear
fruit.

While various deputies and officers ran
down many leads I drove to the mortuary
for Dr. Davis’ autopsy report.

The girl had died from severe head in-
juries, shock and loss of blood. Partial
strangulation had been contributory but
she had not been shot. Death had occurred
between midnight and 1 a. m.

Back at headquarters, since every lead
seemed to have played out, we analyzed
the evidence uncovered so far. It seemed

[Continued on page 79]

cture of attractive Bernice Curtis, whose murderer was trapped by
feather and excellent teamwork of various investigative agencies.

——


seemed to

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We Caught the Green Feathered Slayer

[Continued from page 47]

fairly obvious that the girl had been slain
on the isolated macadam road, after put-
ting up a desperate battle for her life.
The evidence now seemed to indicate
that probably only one man had taken
part in the slaying. Judging from the
girl’s clothing she had evidently gone out
on a date.

It was 3:30 p. m. when the break we
had hoped for came. The sheriff’s office
relayed an electrifying phone message
from San Francisco Homicide Inspector
Alvin Corrasa.

The proprietor of a cigar store had
read a description in the San Francisco
afternoon newspapers of the slain girl
and the brooch initialed “B. C.”

One of his clerks, Bernice Curtis, had
failed to show up for work. She had not
returned to her apartment after a date
the previous night. He had at once phoned
San Francisco police.

“This is hot,’ I exclaimed, turning to
George Pyne and Roy Larson. “Let’s get
going.”

E started for the door when a clean-

cut blond youth entered carrying
an expensive looking black Persian lamb
coat under his arm, Something impelled
me to delay a moment.

The youth turned toward a uniformed
officer. “I just heard a radio broadcast
about the girl murdered,” he began, hold-
ing out the coat. “I found this on Alma
near Diss Road about quarter of one this
morning.” ‘

“What were you doing there?” the of-
ficer asked quietly.

“On the way home from my job at the
iron works, Boy,” he grinned, “I sure
thought for a minute I'd run over a
woman when this loomed up right in
front of my headlights. I stopped the car
and ran back.

“Tt was only a coat but when I looked
at it by the headlights it-looked pretty
good. I thought somebody must have lost
it. Because it was so late I just took it
on home with me, figuring on turning it
over to you today.” .

We examined the fur coat. It was ex-
tremely heavy, with expensive interlining.
The label was that of a fur company in
Chicago. The coat was worth at least
$400, perhaps more.

“\WVhat else did you see at the scene?”
I asked.

“Not a thing,” the lad said. “I was tired
and it was dark. I glanced around and
didn’t see anybody, so I got into the jalopy
and came on home.”

“Exactly where did you find it?”

“On the road, fifty or sixty feet south
of the intersection of Diss and Alma.”

Taking the coat, ring and brooch with
us, we only touched the high spots4n get-
ting on into San Francisco and the cigar
store proprietor at Fourth and Market
Streets, the busiest corner in the city.

As we hurried into the store a tall, well
dressed man came toward us immediately,
as though he expected us.

“My clerk, Bernice Curtis, failed to
show up for work this morning,” he said
at once. “The first time since she went to
work in August.

“T thought she might be ill sol phoned
her home on San Jose Avenue. Her room-
mate told me Bernice didn’t come home
after a date last night. A relative who
lives in town didn’t know a thing either.

I described the slain girl in detail, and
the man felt certain it was Bernice Curtis.
“That brooch is identical to one she often
wore,” he said as he examined it closely.

After making arrangements to pick the
proprietor up at his-home down the pen-
insula that evening to make identification
positive at the Palo Alto mortuary, we
raced to the home of the girl’s relative.

An attractive blonde young woman
opened the door at our ring. “I’m Bob
Drexel of the Santa Clara County Dis-
trict. Attorney’s office,” I began, intro-
ducing Pyne and Larson.

“Come in,” she said simply, opening the
door wider and gesturing toward chairs
in the comfortable living room.

“A girl named Bernice Curtis is miss-
ing,” I said. “Have you any photographs
of her?”

She disappeared into a back room and
while she was gone I got the black Per-
sian lamb coat from the police car.

The girl entered with a photograph
album and walked unsteadily toward me,

eyes on the coat in my hands. “That’s .

Bernice’s,” she said simply, sinking into
a chair. |

We broke the news to her as gently as
possible, one of the hardest parts of a
police officer’s job. Then the bell rang
again, She went, to the door and admitted
San Francisco police homicide Inspectors
Corrasa and Harry Husted.

She did everything possible to aid us,
selecting half a dozen of Bernice’s snap-
shots from the album. I studied one of
them. Without doubt we now had the
murdered girl identified.

She said Bernice had been keeping
company with a boy named “Frank.”
She had phoned at 5:30 the previous
evening that she was just leaving to have
Thanksgiving dinner at a night club near
San Jose with him.

Bernice had been living in Chicago the
previous year and had come to San Fran-
cisco to visit relatives. She had taken
the job in the cigar store to give her
something to do.

Bernice Curtis had been athletic and
an excellent horsewoman, She had met
“Prank” at a dance about six weeks pre-
viously, and had been keeping company
with him steadily since then. His last
name began with the letter “C” or one
almost like that, she thought.

At Husted’s question she said she had
seen a photograph of “Frank” once.
He had a thin mustache, and was good
looking in a hard way. Bernice had told
her that he worked ina shipyard in Oak-
land, and made very good money. He
was 30 years old.

“Where is that picture of ‘Frank’ you
saw?”

“Bernice always carried it in her purse.”

I felt a sinking feeling in the pit of my
stomach. We had not found that purse.
It held the positive clue to identity of the
ruthless slayer.

We left the house, hurrying to the
apartment of the slain girl on San Jose
Avenue. Her roommate was able to help
us more, Bernice had left about 5:30 the
previous evening for a dinner date with
“Frank.” She had worn a corsage of gar-
denias and orchid colored sweet peas that
“Frank” bought her. The box was still
on her dresser.

“May we see it?” I exclaimed.

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79


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We covered three long rows of ship-
yard workers’ parked cars before we
found the green Chevrolet sedan. Eagerly
we examined the tires. The right front
was a Marathon. So was the left front,
although more worn than the other.
“This clinches it,” I cried.

The right front windshield also was
freshly broken and I found what appeared
to be faint bloodspots on the front seat
upholstery, despite a wash job so recent
the cloth was still damp to the touch.

Now we hurried to the shipyard police
and explained our mission. An_ officer
checked Alcalde’s job, then guided us
through the yard, teeming with thou-
sands of steel helmeted men and women
workers swarming over scaffolding and
the sides of huge steel hulls of ships under
construction. We decided to use a ruse in
making the arrest.

HE shipyard officer made several in-
quiries. Finally a helmeted woman
welder pointed to a_thin-faced man
working beneath the hull. The officer
was unable to make himself heard in the
clatter and roar of steel hammers and
drills and winches. He stepped nearer
and tapped the suspect on the shoulder.
The man turned scowling. The offi-
cer bent forward, shouting something
through cupped hands. From his photo-
graphs I recognized Alcalde as he got
slowly to his feet and with a truculent
look on his face walked toward us.

He perfectly fitted the florist’s descrip-
tion—tall, with a receding forehead, long
nose and thin mustache.

We walked him directly to our parked
machine and rushed him to South San
Francisco police headquarters. Although
he appeared suspicious he said nothing.

“What's your home address, Alcalde?”
I began. He looked at me sideways, then
named a South City hotel. Quietly two
deputies left to frisk his room.

At the first word about Bernice Curtis
he dummied up. “Look, you cops,” he
snarled, “I had nothing to do with that.
I'm through talking. See my lawyer at
Redwood City.”

; He wouldn't tell us the time of day after
that. ;

Soon Pyne and Terragno returned, car-
rying a suit of dark pin-striped clothes,
a dark gray overcoat and a dark gray
hat. I caught triumphant looks in their
eyes.

“We got these in your hotel room,”
Pyne said quietly. “Are they yours?” ©

Alcalde’s dark eyes snapped. He looked
at the clothes and hat, then glanced
around the little semi-circle of grim faced
officers. “Yes,” he snapped, crouching
back in his chair. “What’s that got to do
with it?”

Pyne signaled me and stepped out of
the room carrying the hat. As I followed
he closed the door, then pulled the bénd
back from the crown of the hat. Plainly
visible were shreds of a green feather.

“That clinches it,” I said quietly. “This
guy is our green feathered killer. Let’s
book him for murder. Better have Chief
Belloni hold the car for bloodstains and
fingerprints.”

We rushed Alcalde on to San Jose and
questioned him for many hours. Finally
he claimed he had been playing cards in
a poolhall with friends until 8 :30 the night
before the slaying, and had gone to bed
at 9 p. m.

He emphatically denied knowing, even
casually, the murdered girl.

We checked with every witness he
named, Only one—a relative—backed up
his statements. We drove ahead com-
pleting our case during the next several

days. Since we had no actual witness to
the slaying it would necessarily be a com-
pletely circumstantial case.

Inspector Frank Latulipe, San Fran-
cisco police criminologist, found the print
of one of Bernice Curtis’ fingers on the
rear mirror of Alcalde’s car. David Burd,
State Bureau of Identification criminolo-
gist, made exhaustive tests, proving with-
out doubt that bloodstains found in
Alcalde’s machine were the same type
as that of the slain girl, and that the
green feather found by the black acacia
tree and the shreds under the hat band
matched perfectly.

Telephone company records also
showed that a public phone booth within
thirty feet of where Alcalde worked had
been used during the three weeks prior to
the slaying for calls to both the San
Francisco cigar store where Bernice had
worked and to her apartment. Our case
was almost perfect when fellow workers
identified pictures of the slain girl as those
of the “new girl friend” about whom
Alcalde had boasted.

Trial of the most sensational murder
case in recent years in Santa Clara County
got under way in San Jose on Feb.
23, 1943, before Superior Judge William
F. James. A jury of eight women and
four men was quickly chosen.

Alcalde was defended by one of the
outstanding criminal attorneys of Cali-
fornia who, eight years before, had won
Alcalde acquittal.on the charge of ruth-
lessly murdering his girl friend, Kathleen
Robinson. .

My chief, District Attorney Fitzgerald,
assigned his tall, soft-spoken and able
deputy, Ameglio Andreucetti, to present
our case to the court and jury for a hear-
ing,

In his opening statement Andreucetti
reconstructed the brutal murder. He pic-
tured Alcalde slugging the unsuspecting
girl in his parked car. When she fled in
terror for her life, the maniacal shipyard
worker had pursued her, raining blows
from a lethal weapon we believed to bea
missing automobile jack handle, on the
back of her head.

Several times she had fallen to the road-
way, leaving the traces of blood. With her
last frantic efforts the doomed girl had
somehow managed to climb across the
fence into the plowed field where Alcalde
overtook her to deliver the final bludg-
eoning. Then he shoved her face deep
into the suffocating black soil and hurled
a clod on her bleeding blgnde head.

| HIS opening statement, the defense
attorney contended that his client had
never known Bernice Curtis,

But Andreucetti relentlessly drove
home our evidence with a parade of
strong witnesses. It would have been
impossible for any juror not to believe
that Alcalde had gone out with the girl.
It seemed probable, in fact, that Alcalde
had not been entirely frank with his own
attorney.

In mid-trial the defense reversed its
position. Alcalde was put on the witness
stand which provided a sensation in the
packed courtroom, Alcalde testified that
he had known the girl, but had denied
this to authorities simply because he was
“not under oath.”

On March 10 the jury brought in a ver-
dict of guilty of murder without recom-
mendation of leniency. On March 19, 1943,
Judge James sentenced Florencio “Frank”
Alcalde, now white-faced and trembling,
to die in the lethal gas chamber at San
Quentin prison for the wanton slaying of
lovely Bernice Curtis.

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81


2 RE Ps

She looked at me with new interest. “Why,
I'll bet you’re going to be on that murder
trial,” she said.

I didn’t know what trial she meant. I
said, “Oh, no, I’m sure I wouldn’t be
called for anything like that.”

‘VE NEVER been an avid newspaper

reader. I scan the headlines every day
but don’t often bother to read for details.
I guess I’m a Pollyanna. I get no enjoy-
ment from other people’s tragedies. Any-—
way, I was only vaguely aware that the
papers were discussing a murder case. I
had no idea what it was about. ~

I reported to the courthouse, not ex-
pecting to be there very long. My mother
was taking care of the youngsters, and I
had told her I’d probably be excused.
My husband told me I’d be challenged
because of my hat—a wide-brimmed affair
that he didn’t. like. . © ,

‘The courtroom was so full that -I
thought at first the trial had already
started. Then I realized that the people
were all prospective jurors like myself.
There were over 100 of us in the panel.

In a few minutes, I got my first
glimpse of the man facing trial. A woman
beside me jostled my elbow. “That’s him,”

‘she said, “that’s Alcalde.” ;
I saw a young (Continued on page 46) —

nto ees pain ,
bie Clea le ee eet

plumber, a ranch foreman, a factory foreman and a retired railroad telegrapher. | came to know them well.

a: he a ed Pernt cr

Highlight of the trial came when Della Alcalde stormed
from courtroom after refusing to testify for husband.

% ~ rs

Tire from suspect's car
found in a. plowed field. and the cast. They match..

Bernice Curtis’ body was


He sat, knees crossed, not looking
like a man accused of a major crime.

Eight of us were women, four were men.

.

reminds me of an unhappy chapter in my
life. ‘It recalls a grave responsibility once
thrust upon me—the task of joining with
11 of my fellow citizens in condemning
a man to the lethal gas chamber.

Yes, it’s true—though I’ve never talked
about it before.

I was a juror on a murder trial that
made. big, black headlines in the papers.
It was a case in which sex plus violence
equalled a new sensation every day. But
more than that, it was one of those rari-
ties—a murder proven entirely on cir-
cumstantial evidence.

It’s been ten years now. Yet even -to-
day that trial is a painful memory to

me. I was emotionally exhausted and —

physically ill for eight months after I
came home from the jury room. You
can gather that I didn’t take my verdict
lightly, i ’

I don’t think it would bother me so

much to be on a trial like that- today.
I’m older now, a little wiser, I hope, and
I don’t take the world on my shoulders
any more. But I think I was as good a
juror then as I would be now—maybe
better. ;
I’m a housewife. I’ve lived in Cali-
fornia all my life, in San Jose since I
was two years old. I went to San Jose
High School, then San Jose State. I’m

*

All the women were housewives;

I VOTED GUILTY continued | : :

telling you all this so you'll know as
much about me as the district attorney
and the defense lawyer did on the day
ten years ago when I was ‘picked as a
juror in a murder trial. -

My ‘husband is a successful business
executive, We live in a comfortable, pre-
war home in the Willow Glen district—a:
comparatively new section of San Jose.
We have two daughters, one is 14 and
the other is 16.

We're a family with varied interests,

ranging from sports to music. Both my

husband and I play golf; we used to play
tournament tennis. All four of us take
piano lessons. We're active in our neigh-
borhood church, the Christian Mission
Alliance.

Things weren’t easy for me back in
1943. It was wartime. The girls weren’t
much more than toddlers. Paul, my hus-
band, was working practically day and
night. Mes

One day in February, a postcard came ~
from the county courthouse. The card
said that as a registered voter of Santa
Clara County, I was ordered to report to
the court of Superior Judge William F.
James on February 23 for examination as
a prospective juror. a

That afternoon, chatting with a woman
friend, I mentioned my jury summons.

the men. included a master

I Voted Guilty
continued from page 19

man—my own age exactly, I learned later—
walking into the’ courtroom between two uni-
formed officers. He was a slender, pallid: fel-
low with black hair, neatly combed and glis-
tening with brilliantine. Outwardly, he seemed
nonchalant and. unconcerned. But. as his eyes
flicked over the crowd I got the impression he

was trying awfully hard to be casual. The:

jailors took him to a table inside the rail. He
sat there, knees crossed and swinging one foot,

not. looking much like a man accused of any-

thing serious.

The jury selection began as soon as Judge.

James arrived. He was a white-haired, soft-
voiced: little man with a lined, indly face,

known ‘as a fair and impartial judge. I still-

have a warm spot in my heart for him.

The clerk started calling names drawn from

the panel by lot. Mine was the sixth name
called. I took my seat in the jury box self-
consciously, wishing.I would see a friendly face,
The very next person called was Mary Coli,
a pretty brunette who had been my classmate
in high school.

I think Mary and I were the only ones to
stay on the jury from the first 12 called. The

whole first. day. was spent in asking questions |

—“examining” us, they called it. They wanted
to know everything about us.

First the judge would ask a few questions,
then the prosecutor and the defendant’s law-
yer would take over. I remember some of the
key questions:

By the district attorney—“Do you have any
scruples against capital punishment?” “Would

it be against your principles to return a guilty ©

verdict on circumstantial . evidence, provided
the evidence left no reasonable doubt in your
mind?” And .by the defense—“Have you
formed any opinion about this case from read-
ing the newspapers?” “Do you know anyone
connected with this case?”

A “yes” answer to any of these - questions _

would put you off the jury.

The prosecutor was Ameglio Andreuccetti, a.

fiery young assistant DA nicknamed “The
Convictor.” He had built a reputation as a
relentless prosecutor. The defense counsel was
Joseph J. Bullock, a famous old-timer called
“The Courtroom Fox.” No client of his had
ever received the death penalty.

B te Bullock is dead now. The Alcalde trial

spoiled his law record. Andreuccetti has
given up relentless prosecution for private law
practice. I see him at: the country club now
and then. He probably remembers me ‘asia
particularly stubborn woman juror. ‘
- Almost all the panel was used up before
12 jurors were chosen. When we were finally
sworn, eight of us were, women and four were
men. All the women were housewives; the men
included a master plurhber, a ranch foreman,

* a. factory foreman and a retired railroad teleg-

rapher.

I came to know my fellow jurors very well—
too well, almost—yet I’ve never seen any of
them since the trial. Not even Mary Colli.

You hear of lifelong friendships which began —

on a jury. This was not the case with me. .
The trial began the next morning. Crowds
of men. and women—some with babies in their
arms—pushed and struggled to get into the
courtroom. Scores were turned ‘away. All day
long, everyday of the trial, a throng stood

outside the courtroom door, hoping to get a
seat when a spectator left.

Things got underway with a brief opening
statement by. Prosecutor Andreuccetti. I was
expecting a simple outline of the case, possibly
in narrative form—something an ordinary
housewife could readily understand. I got a
rude awakening. .

I learned that the prosecution doesn’t present
its evidence like you or I would tell a story.
Witnesses and exhibits are thrown on stage in
seemingly helter-skelter fashion. The idea is
not to present facts’in a way the jury can
follow easily, but to satisfy the hoary rules
of evidence. ;

After the légal requirements are met, the
jury is left to make the best’ of ‘disordered
bits and pieces. The wonder to me is that there
aren’t more hung juries.  *

So I'll outline the case here—not the way
the lawyers presented: it—but as I know it
now. ‘

For THE POLICE, the case began early
Monday, November 23, 1942, when a wom-

an’s body was found in a plowed field near.

Stanford University, south of Palo Alto. The
body was face down and fully clothed, a short
distance from an adjacent highway. Her head
had been crushed by blows from a heavy ob-
ject, although the weapon was never found.
She had been dead less than 12 hours.
There were bloodstains on the fence at the
edge of the field and on the ground beside

the road itself. This seemed to indicate the

woman had been murdered in a parked car and
carried into the field. Distinctive tire prints

_ Were visible in the soft earth at the edge of

the road.’

The woman was a rather pretty blonde di-
vorcee named Berhice Curtis, 32 years old.
She had come from Chicago about two months
before to live near her sister in San Francisco.

‘Miss Curtis had been staying in a San Fran-

cisco rooming house and working as a clerk
in a cigar store'downtown. _

_ She. had not: been seen by her relatives or
friends since Sunday afternoon, when she had
been horesback riding in Golden Gate Park.

The family said she had_ been dating
recently with “a shipyard worker named
Frank,” a suave, dark-haired, dandified: fel-
low who owned a car. None of the relatives
or friends had ever seen him, but Miss Curtis
had talked of him and had once shown them
his snapshot. They also recalled that she had
mentioned a dinner date with “Frank,” planned
for Sunday. night, .

The police went looking for “Frank,” con-
centrating in shipyards on the San Francisco
Peninsula. Not many days passed before they
reached the Western Pipe and Steel Company
plant in South San Francisco.. There they ar-

rested a 29-year-old -welder named Florencio ©

“Frank” Alcalde. — ;

This was the pale, liquid-eyed young man I
watched day after day during that agonizing
trial. This was the man the State said was
Bernice Curtis’ murderer.. This was, the man
whose life was sogn to be in my hands.
Incidentally, I wondered throughout the trial
how the police had found Frank Alcalde on

such slender clues. Surely there were hundreds

of Franks in the Bay area shipyards. I put it
down to brilliant police work at first. I finally
got the real answer in the jury room—but
I’m getting ahead of my story.

Florencio Alcalde (his friends knew him as

Frank) was born in Santa Clara County of

r

~ Spanish immigrant parents. Five of his mother’s

children were stillborn. Only Frank and a
brother and sister reached adult life. His father
was a laborer and farmer. In recent years the
family home had been at San Bruno, on the
Peninsula below San Francisco. .
Alcalde had a limited education. He quit
school in the eighth grade and never went
back. His I.Q. was rated at 91, or “normal.”
As a young man he was a pool-hall dude,
a sharp dresser and—in his own view—a
devil with the women. Whether he was ac-

_ tually the woman’s. man that he fancied him-
_Self, I rather: doubt. But there is ample evi-
* dence that his “conquests,” real or imagined,

were his chief topic of conversation. .
Alcalde married a pretty Italian girl in
1936, apparently settling down for a time.
When he was arrested, his wife and 5-year-
old daughter were living at his father’s home
in San Bruno. Alcalde himself was_ living in
the West Hotel in South San F rancisco, under
the assumed name of Frank Gilarda. He had

left home about three weeks. before.

-Now for the evidence presented at the trial.

I am ignoring the order in which it. was
offered, for convenience sake.

Four police detectives described the prelim-
inary events of the case—the finding of Ber-
nice Curtis’ body, its identification and the
subsequent arrest of Frank Alcalde. They read
into the record the details of many interroga-
tion sessions with Alcalde.

The important fact which emerged was that
Alcalde flatly, repeatedly and persistently de-
nied that he even knew Bernice Curtis. An-
swering - specific: questions, he said he had
never met the girl, never telephoned her, never
sent her flowers, never‘had a date with her,
never carried a picture of her, never been at
her apartment.

Alcalde had continued his denials right up
to this stage of the trial—three months after
his arrest.

DURING the testimony, I found myself
studying Alcalde from. my vantage point,
trying to fathom his mind, gauge his reactions,
Often I would glance at him and find him
gazing steadily at me. But from his expres-
sion I could learn nothing. He seemed impas-
Sive, * :
Prosecutor Andreuccetti followed up the po-
lice testimony with about 30 witnesses who
proved Alcalde to be a liar—at least as far as
his acquaintance withthe girl was concerned.

A South San Francisco police officer said he
saw Alcalde and Bernice Curtis together in a
parked car in a lovers’ lane on the night of
November 21—thie night before the murder.
On routine patrol, he had shone his flashlight
on their faces and even inspected Alcalde’s
driver’s license.

A friend of Alcalde téstified that about two
weeks before the slaying he went to a dance
hall in San Francisco with Alcalde. Frank’s
date that night, he swore, was Bernice Curtis.

A ‘florist near the Curtis girl’s apartment
identified. Alcalde as the man who bought a
gardenia-and-sweetpea corsage: on three suc-
cessive Saturday nights in November. Other
witnesses said the corsages and florist boxes
were seeh in Bernice’s room.

Miss Curtis’. sister -testified—over violent
defense objections—that Bernice once showed
her a snapshot of Alcalde. The sister’s hus-
band said Bernice discussed plans to go to
dinner with someone named “Frank” on the
fatal Sunday night,

‘

to get a

f opening
-_i-
e, Po!
F ord’)...
1 I got a

n't present
ll a story.
on stage in
he idea is
e jury can
hoary rules

e met, the
‘disordered
s that there

ot the way

I know it

begin early
hen a Wom-

1 field near.

o Alto. The
hed, a short
y. Her head
a heavy ob-
ever found.
hours.

fence at the

ound beside

indicate the
rked car and
» tire prints
the of

y blonue ui-
2 years old.
‘two months
an Francisco.

a San Fran- -

g as a clerk

relatives or
vhen she had
1 Gate Park.
been dating
orker named
jandified: fel-
the relatives
t Miss Curtis
.shown them
that she had
ank,” planned

‘Frank,”’ con-
san Francisco
d before they
teel Company
‘here they ar-

ned Florencio |

young man I
that agonizing
tate. said was
was, the man
hands.

ghout the trial
ak A on
were reds

yards. I put it

first. I finally
ry room—but

knew him as
a County of

- Spanish immigrant parents. Five of bis mother’s

children were stillborn. Only Frank and a
brother and sister reached adult life. His father
was a laborer and farmer. In recent years the
family home had been at San Bruno, on the
Peninsula below San Francisco.
Alcalde had a limited education. He: quit
school in the eighth grade and never went
back. His I.Q. was rated at 91, or “normal.”
As a young man he was a pool-hall dude,
a sharp dresser and—in his own view—a
devil with the women. Whether he was ac-
tually the woman’s.man that he fancied him-
self, I rather: doubt. But there is ample evi-

- dence that his “conquests,” real or imagined,

were his chief topic of conversation. — .
Alcalde married a pretty Italian girl in
1936, apparently settling down for a time.
When he was arrested, his wife and 5-year-
old daughter were living at his father’s home
in San Bruno. Alcalde himself was, living in
the West Hotel in South San Francisco, under
the assumed name of Frank Gilarda. He had

‘left home about three weeks. before.

-Now for the evidence presented at the trial.
I am ignoring ‘the order in which it . ‘was
offered, for convenience sake.

Four police detectives described the prelim-

_ inary events of the case—the finding of Ber-

nice Curtis’ body, its identification and the
subsequent arrest of Frank Alcalde. They read
into the record the details of many interroga-
tion sessions with Alcalde. Sd

The important fact which emerged was that
Alcalde flatly, repeatedly and persistently de-
nied that hé.even knew Bernice Curtis. An-
swering - specific. questions, he said he had
never met the girl, never telephoned her, never
sent her flowers, never‘had a date with her,
never carried a picture of her, never been at
her apartment.

Alcalde had continued his denials right up
to this stage of the trial—three months after
his arrest.

Pees: the testimony, I found myself’

studying Alcalde from. my vantage point,
trying to fathom his mind, gauge his reactions.
Often I would glance at him and find him

gazing steadily at me. But from his expres- —

sion I could learn nothing. He seemed impas-
sive. —° * ;

Prosecutor Andreuccetti followed up the po-
lice testimony with about 30 witnesses who
proved Alcalde to be a liar—at least as far as
his acquaintance with the girl was concerned.
_- A South San Francisco police officer said he
saw’ Alcalde and Bernice Curtis together in a

_ parked car in a lovers’ Jane: on the night of

November 21—tlie night before the murder.
On routine patrol, he had shone his flashlight

on their faces and. even inspected ‘Alcalde’s

driver’s license. :

A friend of Alcalde téstified that about two |

weeks before the slaying he went to a dance

hall in San Francisco with Alcalde. Frank’s.

date that night, he swore, was Bernice Curtis.

A ‘florist near the Curtis girl’s apartment
identified. Alcalde as the man who bought a
gardenia-and-sweetpea corsage’ on three suc-
cessive Saturday nights in November. Other
witnesses said the corsages and florist boxes
were seeh in Bernice’s room.

Miss Curtis’. sister -testified—over violent
defense objections—that Bernice once showed
her a snapshot of Alcalde. The sister’s hus-

_ band said Bernice discussed plans to go to

dinner with someone named “Frank” on the
fatal Sunday night.

‘made from a coin phone at the shipyard. The .

Telephone company records showed that
many calls to Miss Curtis’ rooming house were

The unexpected is norn
when an art col

DELL a
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A Brilliant Novel of Bohemian Life “>

landlady said she had often answered the calls
and heard Alcalde’s voice.

Alcalde’s fellow workmen in’ the shipyard
testified that he showed them Bernice’s picture
and made obscene boasts about his relation-
ship with her. They added that he was forever
leaving his work to call her by telephone.

Two workmen gave particularly devastating
testimony.

Harold Hillyard, who had known Alcalde
eight years, said he noticed some “red bites”:
on Alcalde’s neck about’ four days before the
murder.

“J asked him what it was all about. He said
he had a hot blonde lined up. I said, ‘I thought
you was married.” He said, ‘I am; I am
going back to my wife this weekend.’ I said,
‘What are you going to do with the girl?’. He
said, ‘Well, I don’t know—I will have to get
rid of her some way by the weekend.’ ”

.Q.—“In relation to marriage, did he say
anything about the girl that he was going
with?”

—Well, he told me she was the type of
girl that wanted to get married. She didn’t
know he was married, and of course he couldn’t
marry her.” 5

Ben “Pop” Moore, who worked beside Al-
calde in the yard, described a conversation
with him on Saturday, .November 21—the day
before the crime:

| WAS working around the job; he hollered,
‘Hey Pop, come over here; I want to show
you my blonde.’ I walked over. He had two
pictures in his hand, one of the girl—Bernice
Curtis; one, his wife and baby. I picked the
‘picture of the wife and baby out of his hand.
I said, ‘You mean to tell me you: give up-that.
baby “for this girl? There doesn’t seem to be
any class out of that.’ He said, ‘I'll tell you,
Pop, I have a date with her tonight. I am
going to try to... get rid of her.’”

Frank Alcalde’s car, a faded green 1936.
Chevrolet sedan with one battered door and a
‘cracked windshield, was an important part of
the casé.

A Greyhound bus driver testified he saw ‘that
car parked along the fence where the girl’s
body was found, at 12:45 a.m. on November
23. This was a few hours before discovery of
the body. He had passed there in his bus, no-
ticing the unoccupied car with lights burning |
and the right front door open.

A woman roomer at Bernice Curtis’ apart-
ment house said she saw Bernice drive away
with a man in an “old green sedan” about
7 pm., Sunday, November 22.

Evidence was produced showing that . Al-
calde’s car had been washed before the police
got to it. Officers testified that the seat cush-
ions were damp as if the inside too had been

For tops in mystery read’

THREE WOMEN
__ by HELEN Rt

Eighty people saw Dr.
murdered—-but no one
‘Before he catches the
McKee is led a merry ch
women in black who we
the time of the murder.

A Occtor Fou Mystery 25°

m
aa JOHN DICKSON CARR THI

MAD HATTER
MYSTERY |

scrubbed. . Ay
Chemical analysis raised bloodstains on sev- wit)

eral places inside the car, as well as on a blue

pinstripe suit which Alcalde had worn that

night. mu
The police brought in a plaster cast of the soli

tire track found in ‘the damp ground at the at;

edge of the road near the body. This was
matched with the tread on the right front tire
of Alcalde’s car. .
_” A small green feather, like those in the band
of Alcalde’s grey hat, was found beside the
body.

Strands of Bernice Curtis’ blonde hair were |


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Bernice’s snapshot of her handsome
sweetheart couldn’t be found in her

-room. Evidently, she had carried it in

her purse, which wasn’t found with
the body. But the homicide men ob-
tained a good description of him from
one of the girls at the cigar store who
had been watching several’ times when
he picked up the divorcee in his green
Chevrolet sedan...

The landlady’s alertness produced
another ‘clue. In her garbage pail, she
found the discarded box in which
Frank had brought Bernice a corsage
of violets for their Saturday night
date, as was his weekly custom. The
flerist on Valencia Street remembered
him well, and was positive he would
able to identify him.

RANK Alcalde had covered his

tracks well, but not well enough.
It-was Patrolman August Truggani of
South San Francisco who came up
with the vital tip, on Thanksgiving
Day. “

“This. fellow you’re looking for—”
he told Deputies Cuffaro and George
Pyne, “—I know a fellow who fits that
description to a- T, and he drives a
green 36 Chevvy, I’ve stopped him a
couple of times for speeding. I see
him drive past every morning—he
works over at Western Pipe and Steel.

‘His name isn’t Frank, but—”

The moment they heard the name
Florencio Alcalde the deputies remem-
bered the Kathleen Robinson case and
the youth who had gotten away with
murder,

Now they hastened-over to the ship-
yard and checked the cars in the

‘| parking lot. One of. the tires of Al-

calde’s old green sedan’ matched ex-
actly the cast that Cuffaro had taken
at the murder scene. uy

_ The rest was. homicide routine. The
deputies learned Florencio Alcalde was
known as. Frank. They secured pic-
tures of him from the shipyard per-
sonnel office, which the florist, Ber-
nice’s sister and the cigar girl. in-

’ San Francisco
Francis X. LaT
Cuffaro, found f
Bernice’s hands <
car, and establish
the floormat mat
her knees.

LCALDE w

‘innocence V
before Superior
James at San Jc
the identification
experts left no 1
guilt. Assistant
Ameglio Andre
Bernice had fot
married man, ar

Judge James sei

The sleek Do
with the other
who hung a sig
his cell door. Th
turned down his
sentence. A wee
execution, Alcal
uty Phil Cuff:
Cuffaro that h
Curtis, but nam
murderer, a @
had framed hin
and satisfied h
nothing to the c

Cursing and
ged him to th
Alcalde died ir
August 18, 194.
his execution v

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stantly identified.

When they picked up the startled
Don Juan at his job on the hull of a
Liberty Ship and brought him to San
Jose, he sullenly denied everything.
He claimed he’d never even known
Bernice Curtis.

He said he had been playing cards
at his hotel in South San Francisco—
he’d moved out on his long-suffering
wife two weeks before—all Sunday
evening, and that his car had been
parked outside. the hotel all night. But
the other card-players said‘he had left
early, and a policeman was sure the ~
car hadn’t been parked behind the
hotel till one or two a.m.

The florist who had sold Frank the
‘violets identified him to his face, and

the robbery v)
motorists who
But he conside
cidence that t
armed thieves
a pair of wel
The sheriff s
these robberies
Seeking an a:
to work, Powe
further, and |
man—Jim We
bowling alley.

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1 Dept. SDG-121H

1 811 Wyandotte St.

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C money order. other pieces of evidence swiftly clicked Wsfice «
(Send C.0.D. (We prepay postage except on COD's.) - into their grooves. Alcalde’s frightened La aie. .
Measurement around my lower chest: is inches. wife handed over a pile of clothing he 0: 73

: ora had left with her Tuesday night, and from Alton t

lab tests showed bloodstains on the

had picked up
garments. Among them was a grey hat

FOR MEN roi 9 ing suspiciou:

OR WOMEN we with a broken green feather that fitted The bowling-a
| city. state. the broken piece found near the body. boxer in his y
ih CRIME DETECTIVE CRIME DETECT!


a

ALCALDE, Fyorencio, Mexican, asphyxiated San Quentin (Santa Clara) on 8-18-19).

Matching tire treads were the strongest
links in the chain of evidence against
Florencio “Frank” Alcalde, 29. The print
in the box displayed by a deputy sheriff
was made at the scene of the crime. The
tire was taken from the suspect's auto.

by Jack Slater

“ye happiness of love was on the face
Bernice Curtis when this photo was

~ taken. She had just come West from her

home in Chicago and met the handsome
man her friends knew as “Frank.”

32

R. Benjamin Trollope was a

man in his middle fifties.

He had pale blue eyes, a

timid smile, and a second

hand store that Wis filled from floor

to ceiling with an assortment of

merchandise that included swords,

wedding gowns, gold teeth and a
live parrot.

The store was situated in mid-

town San Jose, California, and in:

his twenty years of buying, selling,
trading second hand stuff, Mr. Trol-
lope had dealt with just about every
type of human being there is.
Accordingly, he wasn’t too sur-
prised when, on the early morning
of November 24 a boozy derelict
stumbled in and offered to sell a

woman’s black Persian lamb coat
for twenty dollars cash. The coat
wasn’t brand new, but it wasn’t old
either, and a conservative estimate
of its value was four hundred dol-
lars. There was a Chicago label on
the garment; a faint scent of per-_
fume from its recent wearer clung
to it.

The derelict identified himself as
Russ Yates, a resident of Los An-
geles, roughly 300 miles away. He
was about 30 years old, ruggedly
built despite a flabby middle,
broken-nosed. His eyes were restless
and he hadn't shaved for days. His
clothes had a slept-in smell.

“This coat belongs to your wife?”
Mr. Trollope asked.

There are many ways to end a
love affair. A word, a

glance, a kiss, can murder
love. But this amorous
Californian chose to

kill more literally. His

weapon was lethal;

a deadly bludgeon.

REAL DETECTIVE, September, 19726

ES I eee

ERR LENS RRR 6 UR


handsome
nd in her
ried it in
sund with
> men ob-
him from
store who
imes when
1 his green

produced
e pail, she
in which
a corsage
day night
stom. The
membered
he would

overed his
‘Il enough.
ruggani of
came up
anksgiving

‘ing for—”
nd George
ho fits that
e drives a
ped him a
ling. I see
1\orning—he
and Steel.

the name
ies remem-
m case and
away with

‘o the ship-
airs in the
res of Al-
atched ex-
had taken

dutine. The
\lcalde was
cured pic-
pyard per-
lorist, Ber-
ar girl in-

‘he startled
e hull of a
him to San
everything.

ven known

aying cards
Francisco—
ag-suffering
all Sunday
' had been
1 night. But
he had left
as sure the
behind the

i Frank the
is face, and
iftly clicked
s frightened
clothing he

night, and
ins on the
'S a grey hat
x that fitted
ar the body.

\E DETECTIVE

' San Francisco Police Criminologist
Francis X. LaTulipe, working with
Cuffaro, found fragmentary prints of
Bernice’s hands and fingers in Frank’s
car, and established that the pattern of
the floormat matched the scratches on
her knees. Pte

PS mnie was still protesting his
innocence when he went to trial
before Superior Judge William F.
James at San Jose. But testimony of
the identification witnesses and the lab
experts left no room for doubt of his
guilt. Assistant District Attorney
Ameglio Andreucetti theorized that
Bernice had found out. Frank was a
married man, and accused him of be-
traying her.

On March 10, 1943, the jury found
Alcalde guilty of murder in the first
degree.

“This is a dirty deal!” he shouted as
Judge James sentenced him to die.

The sleek Don Juan was unpopular EARN 0 U to

with the other men in Death Row,
who hung a sign, “Lover Boy,” over
his cell door. The State Supreme Court
turned down his appeal from the death
sentence. A week before his scheduled
execution, Alcalde sent for Chief Dep-
uty Phil Cuffaro. He admitted to
Cuffaro that he had known Bernice
Curtis, but named another man.as her
murderer, a man who, he claimed,
had framed him. Cuffaro investigated
and satisfied himself that there was
nothing to the condemned man’s story.
Cursing and sobbing as they drag-
ged him to the death chair. Frank
Alcalde died in the gas chamber on
August 18, 1944. The lawmen believed
his execution was seven years late.

Note: The names Thelma Brewer
and Dan. Damone are fictitious.

TEEN
GIRL BANDITS

(Continued fron page 29)

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the robbery victims were out-of-state
motorists who wouldn’t be available.
But he considered it more than a coin-
cidence that they had described the
armed thieves they had encountered as

FIGHT CEREBRAL PALSY

|
a

yon THE (7) B

MINUTE ia
MARCH

a pair of well-dressed young fellows.
The sheriff saw a connection between
these robberies. and Heininger’s murder. @
Seeking an angle on which he could go
to work, Powell combed the complaints
further, and found one from a local
man—Jim Westerberg, proprietor of a

bowling alley.

ESTERBERG had come into Powell’s
W office on April 17th, and had
told Powell that while driving home
from Alton the previous evening he
had picked up two boys who began act-
ing suspiciously almost’ immediately
The bowling-alley man who had been a
boxer in his youth, thought of “strong-

CRIME DETECTIVE

arming the kids.” But changed his mind.
“But I figured they might have a
gun,” he told the sheriff, ‘“‘so I reached

into my cat pocket, and I pulled out:

the one I carry for protection. Then I

braked the car, and I ordered them out. -

They went fast.”

“What did you think they were up
to?” Powell had asked at the time.

“I think they were getting ready to
stick.me up,” Westerberg had replied.

Powell had briefed his deputies on the,

complaint, but they hadn’t been able

‘to get a line on the pair. Now, anxious
to

ow whether Westerberg could tell

him anything more, in view of what’

had happened to Heininger, Powell hur-
ried to the ex-boxer’s home. There he
found: Westerberg, reading his news-
paper, the page open to the account of
the Heininger killing.

“Same fellows, Sheriff,” he said. “I'll
bet ‘my shirt on it.”

“I figured as much,” Powell said.
“Done any more thinking about them?”

“Yeah. They're a couple of slick
punks who've been around. I wish now
I'd brought them in by the scruff of
their necks.”

Westerberg, the sheriff knew, had
been driving toward Carrollton when
he picked the boys up, and this puzzled

55,

ES" RCSLT TETAS SMR
oe aa


ae mutta: 5

her husband alleged-
sar-old Nancy Penton.
gun went off. when the
ajama top, bumped her
own lawyer at a cor-
subjected her husband
ng about his romance.
a verdict of accidental
1 charged with assault,
and refused to testify,
from court for “want

Francisco’s photogenic
hose colorful past in-
yr panhandling, disturb-
»plifting, has added two
ring. (Tina, The Queen
, June INsmE, 1955)
. shoplifting and beg-
etter to the judge who

se. An impassioned plea
part it read: “When I
le admired me for my
ch I thought was great.
etter than the average
young and pretty and
ore for me than they

nan walking the streets .

r wine. But if you want
espected, you have to
the law. As long as you
what wrong you have
in be sure of having
hanniness.” The judge

‘ence for begging,

t $500 of her bail
w.-.ced her to 30 days
veace

@ John C. Siemer, 23-year-old Staten Is-
land ex-bank clerk, has pleaded guilty to
the embezzlement of more than $65,000.
(The Hottest $80,000 on the Staten Island
Ferry, February FRONT PAGE, 1955; John-
ny’s Back and the FBI Has Him, October
INSIDE, 1955) Siemer, who packed off his
wife, three kids and a satchelful of money
belonging to the Staten Island bank where
he worked, to a one-room house in Ohio,
evaded FBI agents for 11 months before
somebody in the town recognized him from
a picture. Siemer, unable to get a job that
paid as well ds his $55-a-week bank clerk
job had grown a handlebar mustache to
foil identification. FBI agents discovered

“ample evidence” of Abbott’s guilt. Stepha-
nie’s body was found only 400 feet from
the mountain cabin Abbott admitted visit-

more than $20,000 in the attic. Siemer
waived extradition proceedings, was re-
turned to New York where he was charged.
His wife, who had found a job in a store,
was returned with him. She announced that
she would stand by her husband. However,
he pleaded guilty to embezzling. a lesser
amount than the indictment listed. New
York Judge Matthew Abruzzo rejected pleas
for psychiatric examinations and announced
that Siemer would receive a prompt trial.
He indicated that prompt trials and stiff
sentences were necessary to halt a wave of
bank embezzlements. If convicted, Siemer -
faces a possible 15-year-sentence and a fine
of $15,000

A California grand jury has formally in-
dicted 27-year-old Burton W. Abbott on
two counts for the kidnap murder of 14-
year-old Stephanie Bryan, (The Finding of
Stephanie Bryan, October INSIDE, 1955)

ing on the day of her disappearance; her
and Berkeley, Cal., police say they have

purse and several other articles of clothing

were found in Abbott’s basement; his car is
of the same color and general description as
that in which several people reported see-
ing a young girl struggling with a man on
the day she disappeared; Abbott was iden-
tified as “an almost daily visitor” to the
sweetshop near Stephanie’s school which
he also frequented. The body did not come
to light until nearly three months after her
disappearance and since then, Abbott has
steadily maintained his innocence. His wife
and others who have been familiar with Ab-
bott, contend that due to an arrested case of
tuberculosis, Abbott was not physically ‘able
to commit the crime for which he jis
accused. Investigators admit that two im-
portant questions remain unanswered: the
motive and the weapon. The indictment
against Abbott, cites California’s “Tittle
Lindbergh law,” which carries the death pen-
alty for kidnapings involving bodily harm.

Robert Taylor, the Oklahoma City land-
lord convicted of the fatal shooting of ten-
ant Daniel Sampson, died while free on
bond waiting an appeal of his sentence.
(My Husband Was Murdered, June 1Nstwe,
1954) Sampson, married with one child,
was shot and killed when he attempted to
turn on the gas meter in the apartment he
rented from Taylor. Taylor had turned the
meter off because Sampson was $48 behind
in his rent. At the time, Taylor said he
thought the shooting was justified because
Sampson had ignored his warnings. Found
guilty of murder and sentenced to 20 years
in prison. Taylor took the case to the crimi-
nal court of appeals and was waiting for
the outcome.

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that would have sent the painting to the Dub-
lin Museum.

Of another class is Giovanni Pelisi, an ele-
sunt 55-year-old Italian who was arrested this
September in Nice and charged with master-
minding two Riviera art thefts. His gang got
caught when they tried to sell a Picasso and a
Modigliani in Geneva. The paintings were rec-
ognized instantly.

Some officers believe that the arrest of Pelisi
and his gang will make other thieves realize
that the masterpieces they have stolen are even
harder to get rid of than they were to obtain.
And these officers fear that all the missing
works will be burned by the thieves,

Other investigators point out that the Pa-
lermo burglary of Baron Gabriel Ortolani di
Bordonaro’s villa occurred long after the ar-
rest of Pelisi. And the Palermo job was per-
fectly executed, not a crackpot robbery.

Some theorize that the thefts are a cross
between extortion and kidnaping and that the
thieves eventually will show up to demand
ransom. Already, the London gallery has had
letters and phone calls asking about rewards

} : ’
for the return of Wellington. But most of them

were checked out as crank calls.
A 19-year-old typist was jailed for investiga-
tion on October 7, following her confession that

she had made hoax telephone calls demanding a i

ransom for return of the Duke’s portrait. The
young lady also pleaded guilty in court to steal-
ing a portrait valued at $28 from the National
Gallery.

Her lawyer said she got the idea of making
the hoax calls to a news agency office after
reading in the newspapers that a $392,000 ran-
som had been demanded for return of the
Goya in an earlier letter written to a London
newspaper. She telephoned that she was acting
for “the gang that wrote the letter.” She first
said the whole sum would have to be paid, but
in later calls reduced the sum to $140,000,

In her phone calls the girl said the gang
wanted the money to turn it over to the “Com-
mittee of 100,” a group fighting for the abolish:
ment of nuclear weapons.

The motive remains as deep a mystery as
the identity of a possible master thief who
plans the thefts.

The Death That Stays Alive

continued from page 29

come back now ... J. Frank Coakley, the
prosecutor, shaking the jury as he read from a
letter of Stephanie Bryan’s . . . Stephanic’s
father, at a courtroom recess while he was on
the stand, turning his back so that he would
not have to look at Abbott .. . Stephanie’s
mother identifying the child’s clothing... .
Abbott taking off his shirt to show the jury
the great angry scar on his back, the lung-
removal incision . . . A juror dismissed mid-
way in the trial when Judge Charles Wade
Snook learned that the man worked in an
office with Abbott’s brother . . . Abbott’s
mother, afraid to hear the verdict, running
out of the courtroom as the jury came in... .

One of the first surprises was a type-
writer repairman who put Abbott in the
doughnut shop next door to Stephanie’s school
at 3:15 p.m. on April 28. Other witnesses said
Abbott was a “regular” at the doughnut shop,
which was his route from Alameda to UC.

Two women in Mrs. Abbott’s beauty parlor,
one of them the defendant’s wife’s boss, swore
Abbott was in the shop as late as 2:30 that
afternoon (rather than 11, as Abbott claimed).

A stream of persons who had seen the so-
called Tunnel Road incident said the car looked
like Abbott's, the girl looked like Stephanie
and the driver resembled Abbott. One woman
positively ideritified him, but her testimony
for several reasons was questionable.

The owner-operator of the Wildwood Inn
said Abbott was never in his bar on the night
of April 28. Abbott first came in on April 29,
he said, and he remembered it well because
Abbott drank whisky all day instead of his
usual beer or two.

But the star of the State’s case was the
brilliant UC criminologist, Dr. Paul L. Kirk, a
small, pipe-smoking man who was called on
for assistance the day Stephanie’s belongings
were found.

Talking at a mile-a-minute clip, Kirk told
of finding blood deep in the nap of the rear
floormat in Abbott’s car. He vacuumed that

car, said Kirk, and found in the sweepings
some of Stephanie’s hairs and bits of fabric
from the girl’s navy blue cardigan, white orlon
sweater, green petticoat and turquoise skirt.

Then there were the boots, said Kirk. Hé
had examined the boots. Abbott wore to Trinity
County on April 28 and found .considerable
mud on them. This red clay, Kirk found, was
identical with subsoil nine inches deep in
Stephanie’s grave, and unlike any other where
Abbott might have been that day.

The defense produced a few witnesses in
support of Abbott’s alibi, but all were easy
targets for the rapier thrust’s of the State’s
cross-examiner, Assistant DA Folger Emerson
(now a Superior judge).

The two major ones were a cafe owner and
waitress from Redding who swore Abbott was
in their restaurant at 6:30 p.m. on April 28—
far enough away so that he could not have
been in Berkeley when Stephanie got out of
school,

But the cafe owner was forced to admit that
before coming to court he had altered his pay-
roll records—records which he and the waitress
relied on to fix the date of Abbott’s visit. And
the waitress conceded that she had said pub-
licly, “You have to take sides in a case like
this, and I am on the defense side.”

Abbott was his own chief witness, and his
own worst enemy.

He proved to be a quibbler, a mincer of
words, a man given to astonishing lapses of
memory, and a liar. He admitted “fibs”—that
was his word—about his route to UC (his first
version having steered clear of the doughnut
shop) and his visit to Sacramento on April 28.
He had first claimed he had stopped at the
State Land Office there, even drawing a map
of the office for police. (Abbott called that
“compounding the prevarication.”) Abbott, as
the DA amply demonstrated, had been a con-
firmed fibber throughout his adult life—lies to
doctors about his past illness, lies to the Army
about his educational qualifications. ‘

“Meanwhile, art museums are installing more
complex burglar alarms and hiring additional
guards. French police have requested that the
Louvre stop publishing floor plans with loca-
tions of the art works, But the Louvre direc-
tors answered bluntly, “There are many more
art lovers than thieves, and they must be able
to find what they come to see.”

Lloyd’s of London, the giant of the risk-
takers, doesn’t like to discuss the rash of
thefts, but some U.S. insurance companies
have hinted they may raise their art rates from
the present extremely low 16% percent, if
there are many more disappearances.

This month, New York City’s Parke-Bernet
auction house is scheduled to sell a Rembrandt.
Its sale price may wind up as the highest in
history, since no painting has ever been auc-
tioned for a million dollars.

Somewhere, perhaps a master thief has made
his plans, for it would be typical of the slick-
est art hijackers to have their eyes on that
Rembrandt. If it is taken, Rembrandt’s work
will be in good company, among works of
comparable value. But where? a

No big holes were opened in Abbott’s story,
but two days of cross examination ‘heavily
damaged the image of Abbott as a hapless
victim of circumstance.

The motive for the crime was sex, of course,
but the State had to rely on theory and argu-
ment alone in contending that Abbott was a
supremely egotistical sexual-psychopath.

Coakley argued that the purse and buried
brassiere and other belongings were retained
by Abbott as “fetish symbols” of sexual per-
version. He said, too, that Abbott’s monu-
mental conceit impelled him to leave evidence
“like a trail of corn” to challenge the authori-
ties.

I agree with most of that. Certainly Abbott
was a couch case. He had a shining mother
complex. And there was evidence which never
reached the jury of a history of suspicious
sexual behavior. In Stockton, where he spent
his youth, he was involved in stealing women’s
underwear from clotheslines. Berkeley police
had reports which made Abbott a suspect in
child molestations. ;

Another attitude of Abbott’s may have a
bearing on the articles found in the basement.
His enormous ego made him “always right.”
The late Dr. Douglas M. Kelley, who was chief
psychiatrist at the Nurenberg trial, once told
me that of all the persons he examined “Her-
man Goerring|and Abbott were the most self-
centered.” Abbott was able to believe that
simply because he had put Stephanie’s belong-
ings in the basement, that was the best place
for them.

The jury, who obviously had some fairly
advanced ideas along this line, stayed out seven
days before coming in with two death verdicts
—guilty of kidnaping, guilty of murder.

Abbott was as close to breaking at this mo-
ment as I ever saw him. He bowed his head and
bit his lip for a long moment, fighting for self
control. He recovered his old defiance quickly.
When he was returned to the county jail half
an hour later, he casually played a few hands of
bridge. ;

There were the usual appeals, al) brusqucly
turned down, and somewhat to everyone's sur-
prise the day came for Abbott’s execution
in that much-written-about instrument of
death, the apple-green, octagon lethal gas
chamber at San Quentin.

Sg Rime

That was March 15, 1957. In a way, Abbott
got short shrift. He was the only man on
Death Row I can remember who went to the
chamber without a single stay of execution. I
had half-expected to see him crack at the door
to the chamber, as some of the condemned do,
I was relieved that he didn’t.

I drew a familiar position for the death
chamber ritual—Window No. 2, beside and
slightly forward of the “A” chair, the same
place where I had stood as a witness to the
executions of Barbara Graham, Jack Santo
and Emmet Perkins.

Abbott walked into the chamber unaided,
head erect, preceded by one guard and fol-
lowed by two others. Two quick steps took
him to the chair, He seated himself firmly and
shot a single swift glance at the witnesses.

He was about 15 or 20 pounds heavier than
when I had seen him last. As always he looked
dressed up, even in the blue jeans, white shirt
and carpet slippers which were the uniform of
those about to die.

There was no recognition in his glance
through the windows. He smiled once and
nodded, but that was when an officer asked
him if the two arm and two chest straps were
comfortable. The officer patted his shoulder.

Abbott's lip trembled slightly and there was
a suggestion of moisture in his eyes as the
guards stepped out and the door banged shut.
The warden, Harley Teets, told me later that
he noticed the same quiver as Abbott was led
to the chamber. “He was making an extreme
effort to control himself and he succeeded, al-
though it was a narrow margin, very narrow.”

The 16 one-ounce cyanide pellets in their
cheesecloth bag were lowered mechanically into
the crock of sulphuric acid at 11:18 a.m. Seven
minutes later, the prison medical officer pro-
nounced Burton Abbott dead.

Afterward, the usual questions were asked.
Had Abbott made a last-minute confession?
The warden shook his head. To the very last,
Abbott had proclaimed his innocence.

This did not surprise me. I felt it would be
against Abbott’s nature to confess; in short, to
admit he was wrong. But this was fuel to keep
the controversy burning. Two years later,
Abbott’s mother was formally asking the At-
torney General to reopen the case, claiming the
State had condemned the wrong man,

-statement that he indirectly admitted it to you.

And so it went until a startling revelation
popped out on September 21, 1961.

Dr. David Schmidt, the San Quentin chief
psychiatrist, was testifying in a sanity hearing
for a Death Row inmate, being held in Su-
perior Court at San Rafael. Schmidt had just
declared that all but 10 or 15 per cent of the
condemned admit their guilt either to the
physician or the psychiatrist.

“Did Burton Abbott admit it?” the district
attorney demanded, in cross examination.

“He admitted it . . . not directly, but in-
directly . . . to me,” Schmidt replied.

Q. Burton Abbott admitted to you that he
had murdered this girl in the East Bay?

A. This he did.

Q. Indirectly? What do you mean by in-
directly ?

A. Under oath I will testify to this. I
wouldn’t like this to get to his mother, be-
cause this is a statement he made to me.

Q. I am not trying to infringe on any con-
fidential communication . . . I will accept your

This was not enough for everyone, how-
ever. Abbott’s mother challenged Dr. Schmidt
to back up his statement. The ex-governor
grumbled that he’d like to have known about
this confession at the time he was sweating
over Abbott’s appeal for clemency. And the
State Director of Corrections demanded a full
report from Schmidt.

Schmidt so reported on September 28, in
writing.

Abbott made his admission during 4 rou-
tine conversation with Schmidt about 60 days
before his execution, the psychiatrist said.
Schmidt said, “Burton, why don’t you come
out and admit your guilt and throw yourself
on the mercy of the governor and ask for
executive clemency ?”

Abbott: “I can’t admit I’m guilty because
of what it would do to my mother. She
couldn’t take it.” _

There was a pause. Abbott was perspiring
freely. He went on: “Perhaps I’ve said too
much already, but I hope you'll treat this as
confidential so that it won’t get back to my
mother.”

That was the end of it.

And perhaps now the Abbott case can be
laid to rest. a

Mad Monster of Lookout Mountain

continued from page 41

this way, she could air out the hot anger from
her mind, and maybe punish her husband for
fussing with her. Maybe he’d find her gone and
worry. He’d be looking for her, searching the
neighborhood, calling her name.

The walk seemed safe and harmless enough.
She wandered about a mile and a half and
wound up at a tavern. There she met her
31-year-old brother, and two of his friends.
Her temper had cooled now, and she didn’t
need to walk any more. All the anger was
gone. She asked her brother and his com-
panions to drive her back to her mother’s
house.

As Sug talked with the trio, she noticed a
man gazing at her in the tavern. He was big and
husky, probably in his 20s, but he looked
younger, like an overgrown kid with his mussed

short. blond hair on the hulking but immature
looking and underdeveloped torso. Every time
she glanced his way she saw his eyes riveted on
her and she didn’t like it. She turned to her
brother.

“Let’s get out of here. Take me home to
Mother’s.”

It was a little past midnight. As Sug and the
three men left the tavern, the blond man backed
away from the bar and followed them outside.
He approched the foursome. “How about me
taking you home?” he invited.

“No, thanks,” the men answered. “We've got
a pickup truck.”

They climbed into the truck, started the
motor, and eased along the street. Behind
them, the blond man climbed into a pink and

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continued ‘ XS

THE DEATH THAT STAYS ALIVE

His wife did call the police, and very quickly the Abbott
cottage was swarming with detectives and FBI agents. No
more treasures were found in convenient cartons, but a fine
trove was uncovered when digging began in the sandy loam
of the unfinished portion of the basement.

The cache, buried about eight inches deep, consisted of
Stephanie’s glasses, her two spiral notebooks, the two
library books, the booklet on parakeets and her brassiere

. with one strap broken.

Abbott was the calmest man there. He sat on a couch
working a crossword puzzle while the cops dug and probed.
He was surprised and puzzled at their discoveries, he said—
mystified, in fact—and just as anxious as the police to get
the mystery cleared up.

This I remember well: Abbott was’ believeable at this
point. Many of the reporters on the case were convinced of
his innocence. He seemed straightforward, cooperative, at
ease and above all, confident. He urged the police to give
him a lie detector test.

“I have nothing to hide,” he said. “My conscience is clear.
Let’s get it over with. That’s my attitude . . . shoot the
works.”

He didn’t know Stephanie, he said; never heard of her,
even, “because I don’t read the crime news;” had never seen
the red purse before, and had no idea how the other articles
came to be buried in his basement.

“Look,” he said reasonably, “I just happen to be a man
who lives in a house where some articles were found. Lots
of people go in my basement, Why, it was a polling place
for the election last month. I want to see this resolved
because I know if it isn’t, there will always be a suspicion
hanging over me.”

Inevitably, the detectives got around to the key question:
What was Abbott doing last April 28, the Thursday that
Stephanie disappeared?

Abbott reflected. Well, that was awhile back but, um,
April 28, yes, that must have been the Thursday before the
opening of fishing season on April 30. And with that he
offered the first account of what came to be called Abbott’s
time-table alibi.

‘THE gist of it was that he left home about 11 a.m. April 28,

alone in his 1949 gray Chevy sedan, and drove first to
Sacramento, then north to his family’s mountain cabin at
Wildwood, Trinity County. By the route he described, it
was a drive of close to 400 miles.

Abbott said he got to Wildwood about eight o’clock that
night, had a drink at the Wildwood Inn bar and went to
the cabin to bed. The next day he lounged around, spending
most of his time at the Inn bar. On April 30, he was joined
at the cabin by his brother and sister-in-law, Sunday, May 1,
he drove home in caravan with his brother, passing through
Frankling Canyon (where Stephanie’s French grammar
was found by the electrician).

For three or four days there was a lot of digging both at
the Abbott home and at the Wildwood cabin. The object of
all this spading, a body, was not found. Abbott took a lie
test and engaged a lawyer. The Berkeley chief of detectives
noted for the record that Abbott was not under arrest, but
was cooperating voluntarily in the investigation.

About this time my boss, the late William C. Wren, man-
aging editor of the San Francisco Examiner, decided that not
enough digging had been done at Abbott’s cabin. Ed Mont-
gomery, a reporter whose digging in other fields had won
him a Pulitzer prize, was flown to Trinity County.

Montgomery found Stephanie—with the help of a local
rancher and a pair of Blue Tick hounds—buried in a shallow
grave at the foot of a tall sugar pine 339 feet up the moun-
tainside across the road from Abbott’s cabin. Her skull had
been crushed and her panties were knotted around her neck.

Montgomery phoned the city desk with his discovery about
eight o’clock the night of July 20. We broke the news to
Abbott in his home half an hour later.

E was hit hard. Tears came to his eyes and he shook his

head, as if in disbelief. “It just can’t be,” he cried, “I
can’t understand how it got there. I don’t know anything
about it. My story stands.” He seemed to recover his poise
after a moment, and shook off other questions. Spacing his
words carefully, he said, “I... did... not... do it!”

Abbott's trial in the Alameda County courthouse in Oak-
land was a 54-day sensation, beginning November 8, 1955.
The press corps included novelist and crime authority Erle
Stanley Gardner. Abbott, confidant of acquittal, predicted
he would be home by Christmas. <3

The prosecution had three main tasks. One was to prove
that contrary to Abbott’s claim, he was in Berkeley at the
hour Stephanie disappeared. A second was to show through
indirect evidence (since no one had ever seen Stephanie and
Abbott together) that she had been in his ear. A third was
to prove by similar means that he buried her.

The defense had one primary objective. That was to set
forth and buttress Abbott's time-table alibi.

Like the jurors and the other reporters, I spent much time
during that trial trying to read Abbott's mind. It was tough
sledding. He seldom reacted in normal fashion. He was a
good actor who affected an urbane pose. He was patronizing
at times, conceited, unemotional and always on guard. He
was vain about his dress, which usually was a blue gabardine
suit, always with a handkerchief in the breast pocket.

But eventually I came to understand the little signs.
Abbott was a great note-taker. He always had a spiral note-
book and pencil in his hand. When the testimony was going
against him, Abbott’s note-taking became distracted dood-
ling. If he was angered, he squirmed and fidgeted, shooting
baleful glances at the witness; if frightened, his pallor gave
way to the gray of wet concrete.

Many high moments from the trial (Continued on page 72)

Chess passed tense moments in jail awaiting jury's verdict.

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THE DEATH THAT —

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FRONT PAGE DETECTIVE MAGAZINE, JANUARY, 1962. >

,
SAN FRANCISCO, OCTOBER 9, 1961

@ At intervals this small ad appears in the Personals column
of a San Francisco newspaper:

WANTED—rnNForMATION, OPINIONS, ADVICE

AND SUGGESTIONS TO CRACK THE BURTON w.

ABBOTT CASE ARE URGENTLY NEEDED. CONTACT

Now. MF Box 46040.

The notice is paid for by a woman office worker who has
turned amateur detective in hope of finding a new solution
to a murder that is officially closed.

She never knew Burton W. Abbott. She saw him only
once—a glimpse across a crowded courtroom. No one asked
her to dig into the case. No one has thanked her for doing
it; publicly, at least. She has no thought of gaining com-
pensation or reward.

Her ads have been appearing off and on for almost five
years—about as long as Burton W. Abbott has been dead.

Why? Because she is passionately dedicated to a belief
justice blindly condemned an innocent man for the kid-
naping and murder of Stephanie Bryan. And she means to
do somethig about it. Not long ago, in a note to me, she
wrote: “I’ll prove him innocent if I have to wring everybody’s
neck to do it.” :

There’s a chilly thought, almost enough to make a man
loosen his collar. But it illustrates the point that you can
always get an argument on the Abbott case in California.
Practically everybody has an opinion.

Sometime back, a hearing was being held in the State
Capitol on a proposed bill to abolish the death penalty. The
Attorney General, urging a moratorium on executions, said
he opposed the gas chamber even for a man who was “un-
questionably guilty, like Abbott.”

In the gallery, a gray-haired woman leaped to her feet
and shouted, “No he wasn’t!” Then Mrs. Elsie Abbott, the
man’s mother, quietly took her seat again.

One of my friends, a newspaper circulation manager, has a
standard greeting whenever we meet: “Hey, when you
going to get another Abbott case?” He means, let’s get a
story that will make the public fight to buy papers. He has
fond memories of the period when Abbott made headlines
day after day and newspaper circulation soared.

The name still has that old magic, too, even after four
and a half years.

The case was suddenly revived in a surprising way one
day recently and Burton Abbott was back on Page 1. That
day newspaper street sales in San Francisco jumped 30,000.

That is because in the minds of many persons—like the
woman who advertises for clues—the Stephanie Bryan case
remains a mystery. The solution was circumstantial. Many
tantalizing questions remain unanswered. Like the Lind-
bergh kidnapping and the execution of Hauptmann, it left a
legacy of maddening puzzles.

But now we have some new light on the subject. Let’s
look once more.

I knew Burton Wilbur Abbott rather well, in the im-
personal way of a newspaper reporter. I covered the case
from the day Stephanie disappeared to the moment when
Abbott took a last breath of hydrocyanic acid gas.

Stephanie, I never knew, of course. But I see her clearly
in my mind’s eye, a composite picture drawn of photographs
and the many descriptions I heard . . . from her mother,
father, friends and teachers. .

GHE was a warm, friendly sprite, 14 years old, slender dark-

haired and shy, a budding woman just starting to wear
lipstick and yet to have her first date. Her enthusiasm
embraced schoolwork (she was an honor student), piano,
ballet, romantic novels, four younger brothers and sisters,
a parakeet and a poodle, Hoagy.

Steffie, as the family called her, lived in a well-kept,
two-storey, Moorish style home in the hilly section of
Berkeley above the Claremont Hotel. Her father was a
radiologist, eminent in his profession though not wealthy.
Stephanie attended Willard Junior High School near the
University of California campus, a 15 or 20 minute walk
from home.

School let out at 3:20 p.m. on Thursday, April 28, 1955.
Stephanie’s next 25 minutes are well-documented because
she walked part way home with a girl chum.

She was casually dressed . . . saddle oxfords, turquoise
pleated skirt, navy blue ‘cardigan over a white pullover
sweater. She was carrying a French grammar, two spiral
notebooks, a red leather purse, red billfold pocketbook and
plastic rimmed reading glasses.

On the way, she made two stops. At the public library

continued on page 27

e

DEAD FOUR YEARS, HIS NAME STILL
ROUSES CONTROVERSY BETWEEN
THOSE WHO FEEL HE WAS INNOCENT
AND OUTRAGED CITIZENS WHO FEEL
HIS SENTENCE WAS A JUST ONE

.

Bryan murder always stimulated interest.

bbott had little need fo

TV) erusost Te) peqeTxdydse feqtum *LIOgay

*LS6T
‘oT yore

uo (ep


tec ea ee ee

26

Burton went to movie day Steffie was found.

: 1 et “2
. |

Dr. Kirk’s technical testimony was deadly.

‘ al

Dr. Bryan Jr. (R.) and DA Coakley study Berkeley map.

continued

.

Defendant strips to reveal scar left from TB operation.

she checked out two teenage novels; at a College Avenue
pet shop she paid 26 cents for a booklet called Everything
About Parakeets.

Stephanie and her friend parted below the Claremont
Hotel at the main gate to the Berkeley Tennis Club, where
Stephanie always took a shortcut to her home. It was
3:45 p.m. and she was never seen alive again by family
or friends.

It takes time to put things in perspective, even for the
police. Stephanie’s disappearance, first reported to Berkeley

police about 6:30 that evening, got to the papers next day’

as a simple missing girl case.

I was on rewrite that day. When the story came to me,
one of the city deskmen cautioned, “Don’t go overboard
on it. The cops think she’s a runaway.” ,

Ah, hindsight, it’s wonderful. But another day passed
before the police associated Stephanie with an ominous
incident witnessed on the Tunnel Road going out of Berkeley
about two miles from the girl’s home.

This had happened about 4:15 p.m. on Thursday, half an
hour after Stephanie started across the tennis courts.

A car skidded to a stop on the shoulder of the road; the
face of a frightened young girl appeared at the rear window;
the man driver turned across the back seat, struck her and
pushed her to the floor. Then the car sped away.

Eight persons eventually came forward to report the
struggle. The car was described variously as a 1949 to 1951
Chevy or Pontiac, either light blue or gray. That was all.

The case was tentatively listed as a kidnaping. The FBI
was called in. Mass foot searches were made in the East
Bay hills. Results? None.

HERE was a big stir on May 9 when an electrician came

to police with Stephanie’s French grammar. He’d found it
the morning of May 2, four days after the girl vanished,
lying beside Franklin Canyon Road, a winding route in the
next county many miles east of Berkeley. But a week had
passed before he read a story about Stephanie and remem-
bered seeing her name in the book.

Police reasoned the grammar had been jettisoned by the
fleeing kidnaper, but a search through the canyon did not
turn up any other of Stephanie’s belongings.

An astute Berkeley detective named Charles O’Meara
noticed that the book was dry, although it had rained in the
canyon April 29 and 30. So it was not thrown out of a car
the day of the kidnaping; it must have been tossed there

Sunday, May 1, the first rainless day. But it was a long.

time before O’Meara’s deduction became important.

The weeks and months passed without another break.
And then, finally, came the night of the steak fry at the
white stucco house on San Jose Avenue, in Alemeda, and
we all got our first look at Burton W. “Bud” Abbott.

That was a Friday, July 15, 1955, 78 days after Stephanie
Bryan had started home from Willard Junior High School.

And now in the Abbott home, six miles across the metro-
politan East Bay area, strange events were about to occur.

But first, a glimpse of Burton Abbott, the host of the
evening, as he stands at the stove tending steaks.

WHEN I remember him, the word that comes to mind is

“pale.” He had the clear, translucent pallor of one who
is in good health but seldom goes outdoors. His hands were
long and white with bloodless fingernails. He had pale blond
hair thinning a bit at the crown and temples. His hair was
always in place; he carried a pocket comb and used it
frequently. His eyes were pale blue. His teeth were promi-
nent and he wore a pale, downy mustache.

He was 27 years old at this time, slightly under six feet
tall and weighing 137 pounds. He was quick of movement
and voluble, with a pleasant, resonant voice. He had a
slender, boyish, freshly-scrubbed-and-barbered look that
aroused the maternal instinct in many women. (He was his
mother’s favorite; his wife was several years older than he).

Abbott was a junior at the University of California, study-
ing accounting under the G. I. Bill. He also had an Army
disability pension for tuberculosis discovered soon after he
was drafted in 1946. He had been cured by the partial
removal of one lung. *

While recovering his health at the Veterans Hospitai,
Abbott had gained a wife—a 32-year-old pleasant woman
who fell ill with tuberculosis while serving as a WAC and
met her husband while being treated in the VA Hospital
in Livermore. She worked as a hairdresser in Alameda.

As Abbott prepared the meal—he was handy around the
house—his wife was in the basement rummaging for old
clothes for a cosmetologists’ costume party. Abbott was
chatting wtih his dinner guest, a family friend whose wife
ran the beauty shop where Mrs. Abbott worked.

Abbott’s wife suddenly came pounding up the stairs shout-
ing “Abbott! Abbott!” and holding up a red leather purse.
She had found the purse in a cardboard carton in the base-
ment. In it were a red billfold and several identity cards
in the name of Stephanie Bryan.

Mrs. Abbott thought that was the girl she’d read about
being kidnaped. Hadn’t she better call the police?

Abbott shrugged. The name didn’t ring a bell with him.

continued on next page

27

The defense used: Doctor Shabart’s appear-
ance as an occasion to give the jury a view
of Abbott's operation scars.

Abbott stripped to the waist, standing be-

fore the jury box while the surgeon explained
the nature of the operation. Abbott has a
deep semicircular scar running around his left
shoulder blade to the side of his rib cage.
From the front, he looks normal except. that
his chest is slightly less developed on the left
than the right. From the rear, the scar is
plainly. visible, but his shoulders and back
seem adequately developed. His body tapers
normally to narrow hips, His right arm is
slightly more muscular than his left.
. Doctor Shabart noted .that Abbott is no
“respiratory cripple,” has 75 percent lung
capacity and cnjoys unimpaired physical
energy. “fi

A key point of Abbott’s timetable alibi
was_his claim that he stopped for a highball
at an inn near his cabin at 8:30 P.m., April
28, after his long drive from Alameda. He
said he stayed there 20 minutes,. speaking
briefly to the proprietor, Delbert Cox.

Not true, said Delbert Cox. Not true, said
Cox’s wife, Myrrh. The innkeeper said Abbott
came into his bar for the first time at 2 P.m.,
April 29, the day after Stephanie's disap-
pearance.

Mr. Cox had a good reason to dumeinabies
Abbott on‘April 29. Abbott spent nine hours
at the bar, drinking about $15 worth of
bourbon and 7-up highballs. It was quite a
day for Abbott, who usually drank beer.

T= prosecution wound up with an unfor-

gettable show of laboratory wizardry, put
on by Dr. Paul L. Kirk, the eminent UC crim-
inologist and biochemist. Kirk lectured to the
jury at,a mile a minute clip, testifying to
these main. points:

1—Vacuum sweepings from Abbott's car
yielded 18 tiny fibers which matched four of
Stephanie’s garments. Ten fibers were identical
with her blue cardigan sweater; four tallied
with her white orlon sweater; three matched
her green mercerized bouffant petticoat, and
‘ one matched. her turquoise skirt.

2—The’ same sweepings produced two
human hairs identical with Stephanie’s hair.
The odds were 125,000 to one that the hairs
from the car- were Stephanie’s, Kirk added.

3—The rear floormat in Abbott’s car gave
a positive reaction for blood. ‘The reaction
- was obtained not on the surface but deep in
the nap, leading Kirk to -conclude that the
floormat had been scrubbed to remove surface

blood.

-  4—By.a complex method of determining
soil densities, Kirk compared the dried clay
on Abbott's field boots with 47 earth samples
taken from places where Abbott might have
been. The clay on the boots, said Kirk, was
identical with the subsoil nine inches deep in
Stephanie's grave, and different from the other
46 samples.

The defense cmployed its own expert—
Lowell Bradford, director of the Santa Clara
County Criminalistics Laboratory. Bradford
checked Kirk’s findings and agreed with all
of them except for one hair, That one hair
bore: a speck of foreign substance which en-
abled, him to distinguish it from Stephanie’s.
But.-except for that speck, he said, the hair
was. indeed a perfect match for Stephanie’s.
‘The defense failed to develop the frameup
theory, although Abbott’s lawyers hinted that
this or that prosecution witness would make
a good suspect,

, his restaurant bore

Abbott was his own chief witness—and'

his own worst enemy, He was on the
stand four days, two hours under direct ex-
amination and the rest under a scathing cross
examination by Coakley. He fenced, hedged,
equivocated and evaded.

He smilingly explained away admitted lies

and misstatements, calling them “fibs.” The
lie which caused Abbott the most trouble
concerned his claimed detour to Sacramento
on the way to Trinity County on April 28.
He first told police he stopped in Sacramento
to visit a state land office, to inquire about
tax-deeded land in ‘Trinity. He even drew a
floor plan of the office he had visited.

Later he admitted the story was a com-
plete fabrication—“compounding the prevari-
cation,” as he blithely described it on the
witness stand. Actually, Abbott said, he did
not stop in Sacramento, but cruised around
looking for the post office, could not find it
and left town without getting out of his car.

This laid the ground for Coakley’s cogent
argument that Abbott never went near Sacra-
mento that day.

Coakley threw back at Abbott a number
of bizarre statements he had made while being
questioned by police. For example, when
police urged him to confess for the sake of
the Bryan family, Abbott snapped: “I don’t

' give a damn about the Bryan family. They
* mean nothing to me, When do we eat?”

Abbott ‘also was hurt by his smart-alec

prediction to a police officer that in spite of .

the evidence, “A miracle will save me...
Something has always saved me when I’m in
trouble.”

The defense leaned heavily on the testimony
of two alibi witnesses, who supported Abbott’s
claim that he had eaten in a restaurant in
Red Bluff at 6:30 p.m., April 28. Red Bluff
is 200 miles from Berkeley.

These witnesses, one of them a co-owner
of the restaurant, swore they saw Abbott in
the restaurant around 6:30 that evening. They
recalled a conversation with him about fish-
ing. On the face of it, this was potent evi-
dence that Abbott was innocent.

Below the surface, however, all was not
crystal clear, Neither of the witnesses it de-
veloped, identified Abbott until they were
brought to see him privately at the Alameda
County jail. One of them had a lengthy con-
versation with Abbott in the attorney’s room
at the jail.

She had refused to talk to police officers.
She referred to Defense Attorney Hove as
“my attorney,” and made the statement: “In
a case like this you’ve got to be on one side
or the other, and I am on the defense side.”

Unfortunately for the defense, the co-owner

of the restaurant had given police two earlier
Statements, one signed, the other transcribed
by a police stenographer. His testimony con-
flicted with his prior statements.

He had said previously that: the man in
“some resemblance” to
Abbott, but he could not make a positive
identification. He was certain it was “after
dark” when the man came in. Sunset occurred
at 8:01 P.m. on April 28.

He produced payroll records to fix the date
of the incident. He admitted under cross-
examination that he had altered one of these
records before coming to court. Although the
alteration seemed to be of little consequence,
this made an indelible impression on all who
heard it.

It turned out that the prosecution had
sayed its most+potent witnesses for rebuttal.

Ri

Three shocking surprises were doled out to

Abbott in rapid succession. :
The first—and probably the most impres-

sive single witness aside from Doctor Kirk—

was Mrs. Alma Stegall, a clerk at the State

. Controller’s office of tax-deeded land in Oak-

land. Mrs. Stegall said she received a tele-
phone call from Mrs. Georgia Abbott 10:30
A.M. on April 28.

Mrs. Stegall said Abbott’s wife asked about
buying tax-deeded land in Trinity County.

Mrs. Stegall told her the place to inquire

was in the Post Office Building in Sacramento.

. She said she would be glad to send Mrs.

Abbott a letter .explaining the procedure.
Taking down the address, Mrs. Stegall ad-

dressed an envelope .to Mrs. Abbott to be ©

mailed that evening.

But it was never mailed, Mrs. Stegail said,
because at 1:30 that afternoon Burton W.
Abbott came to her office and picked up the
envelope. “He identified himself as Mr.
Abbott, the husband of Mrs. Abbott, and
said: he had come to get the letter.” Mrs.
Stegall fixed the date through her April 28
correspondence records.

The next blows were even more devastat-
ing, because they came so close to home.

. They centered on a beauty salon in Alameda,

where Mrs. Georgia Abbott was employed as
a hairdresser,

Two witnesses swore that Abbott stopped
in the beauty shop between 2:15 and 2:30
p.M., April 28, to announce that he was leav-
ing on a fishing trip. The witnesses were a
customer in the beauty shop, and Georgia
Abbott's longtime friend and employer, the
beauty shop proprietor.

Both women knew Abbott well. They fixed

the date two ways. The appointment records °

of the beauty shop showed that the cus-
tomer was there from 2 P.M. to 5 P.M., re-
ceiving a shampoo, permanent wave and
manicure. This witness also produced her can-
celed check of April 28, payable to the beauty
salon.

The defense tried desperately to repair the
damage. Abbott resumed the stand and cate-
gorically denied going to the Oakland tax-
land office. He said hé was in the beauty shop
just once on ‘April 28—at 11 a.m. to say
goodbye to his wife.

Georgia Abbott was called as a further
emergency measure. She swore she had never
telephoned the Oakland tax-land office. And
she agreed with Abbott that she chad seen
him at the beauty parlor only at 11 a.m.

Frinar arguments took five days. The de-

fense emphasized “reasonable doubt.” The
prosecutor wound up with an impassioned,
broken-voiced appeal which made the flesh
crawl and reduced a score of women specta-
tors to tears, He called Abbott a “sexual
psychopath” and, quoting Shakespeare's
Merchant of Venice, “a shining apple rotten
at the core.”

Coakley compared Abbott with such in-
famous criminals as William IHIcirens, the
slayer of Suzanne Degnan; Leopold and Loeb,
the murderers df Bobbie Franks, and Theo-
dore Durrant, who killed two girls in a
church belfry in San Francisco.

“There are people in this world, plenty of
them, capable of flagrant antisocial behavior
without remorse,” he said.

“There are people in the world, not insane,
with psychopathic personalities. They fill our
penal institutions, They have superficial
charm, They make a good first impression,

but they do n
truthful. They |
to love another
“They are e
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find it? Where
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or so. We foun
‘Sergeant Kin
wife, and wher.

' der he held he

terically. She |
worry, hadn’t .
shock of Joe’:
soothed her as
to a doctor for
The police cam
Sheriff Tom
after he was
found. But he
been handled |!
that .state polic
him quickly en
letting evidence
could get there
marshal said th
that was remov:
to the Kings {:
Sheriff Gulley
autopsy report
King in to him
Pulaski Count
said the head
would not have
had been wipe:
put in the bri:
was dead when
from a severe b:

“ hemorrhaged. S

tried to strang!
so powerful th
choking.

Why would

vere doled out to

the most impres-
*m Doctor Kirk—
clerk at the State
‘ded land in Oak-
' received a tele-
xia Abbott 10:30

wife asked about
Trinity County.
place to inquire
og in Sacramento,
id to send Mrs.
the procedure.
Mrs. Stegall ad-
‘. Abbott to be

Mrs. Stegail said,
oon Burton W.
d picked up the
limself as Mr.
rs. Abbott, and
he letter.” Mrs,
‘ch her April 28

more devastat-
close to home.
lon in Alameda,
as employed as

Abbott stopped
2:15 and 2:30
it he was leav-
itmesses were a

and Georgia

employer, the

cll. They fixed
ntment records °
that the cus-
to S P.M, re-
wave and
‘uced her can-
to the beauty

to repair the
and and cate-
Oakland tax-
e beauty shop
A.M. to say

as a further
he had never
d office. And
she had seen
1l AM,

ays. The de-
doubt.” The
impassioned,
de the flesh
omen specta- 1
t a “sexual
shakespeare’s
apple rotten

th such in-
Heirens, the
d and Loeb,
and Theo-
girls in a

d, plenty of
ial behavior

not insane,
hey fill our

superficial
impression,

) j . }

but they do not wear well, They are un-
truthful. They have no real, genuine capacity
to love another. They lack emotional stability.

“They are extremely vain, egotistical and
self-centered . . , contentious, ‘argumentative,
opinionated and conceited. They think they
are smart cnough to do anything and get
away with it. They are the kind of people
who do not crack, do not confess. Their van-
ity is such that it is practically impossible
for them to break down.”

Coakley declared that Abbott “kidnaped
Stephanie, ravished her and buried her up on
that hill . . . and he arrived home with the
brassiere, the purse and Possibly the glasses

as fetish symbols and the books as excess
baggage.”
The jury considered the evidence for 51

’ hours and S6 minutes, returning to court at

10:20 p.m., January 25. The verdict: guilty
of kidnaping, guilty of murder, with the pen-
alty fixed at execution in the San Quentin
lethal gas chamber on both counts,

On February 11, 1956, Superior Judge
Charles Wade Snook pronounced the formal
sentence of death against Abbott. He was
taken to condemned row at San Quentin to
await the automatic review of his case by the
State Supreme Court—perhaps still waiting for
a miracle to save him. !

Young Girlse—Little Boys: That’s for Me
ter continued from page 33

a .

an officer will say they've searched it all and
they're sorry but there's no trace of Joe.

Someone knocked at the trailer door.

Bob King opened door and saw the
strange look on the officer’s face. Then his
eyes fell on the rolled-up cloth under the man’s
arm, and he reached for it.

“Joe’s jacket! That's it!
find it? Where is Joe?”

He could hear his wife’s voice, calling hope-
fully, “Is it Joe?” But he knew it was
something bad. He could tell by the way
the officer said nothing and just stood there
waiting to be invited inside.

The officers came in, and they all sat
down, and the officer told them.

“One of the airmen found him. Heavy
underbrush there, not far from Highway 67.
A bad briar patch. Sonieone had tried to dig
a grave for him, but the roots were so
tangled they had to give it up after a foot
or so. We found the jacket nearby,”

Sergeant King had his arm around his
wife, and when she collapsed on his shoul-
der he held her close while she wept hys-
terically. She had been almost frantic from
worry, hadn’t slept for days, and now the
shock of Joc’s death was too much. He
soothed her as best he could, then took her
to a doctor for something to make her sleep.
The police came for him the next morning.

Sheriff Tom Gulley had worked fast
after he was notified. that the body was
found. But he didn’t like the way it- had
been handled before that. He didn’t think
that -state police and city police had called
him quickly enough, and he accused them of
letting evidence be carried away before he
could get there to protect it. The assistant
marshal said the only evidence he knew of
that was removed was the boy’s jacket, taken
to the Kings for identification. ’

Sheriff Gulley already had the preliminary
autopsy report when they brought Sergeant
King in to him. :

Pulaski County Coroner Howard Dishongh
said the head wound above Joe's right eye
would not have been fatal. It had bled and
had been wiped clean before the body was
put in the briar patch, indicating that Joe
was dead when he was put there, He died
from a severe bruise of the larynx which had
hemorrhaged. Someone with huge hands had
tried to strangle him, but the hands were
SO powerful they pressed too hard for mere
choking.

Why would such a strong man be so

Where'd you

angry with the boy? Tests showed Joe
had not been sexually molested.

Gulley probed for a motive. “It was either
a sex crime or someone was awful mad at
him,” he said. “The coroner’s report showed
it was probably not a sex crime. So someone
was awful mad... .”

Bob King interrupted quickly. “Joe wasn’t
my own flesh and blood, but I loved him.
When I married his mother, I wanted him to
be my son. I adopted him, legally.”

The officers nodded, believing him, and yet
they had to go on asking questions—leading
questions, insinuating questions. Every pos-
sibility had to be covered.

‘They asked if he ever whipped Joe. They
remembered that during the earlier question-
ing, when Joe was first missing, the airman
said he left his trailer twice to.look for the
boy, beginning about 11 P.M. Friday. He'd
said he was gone only about half an hour
each time, but Mrs. King questioned separate-
ly, had said he'd been gone more than an hour
each time. :

Could the airman have found his son at
the theater and, angry because the boy had
stayed out so late, hit him on the head? If
the boy fought back; could the stepfather
have become enraged enough to grab his
throat and cause the fatal hemorrhage? Could
he have used his second trip from the trailer
to dispose of the body? .. .

Usty questions and insinuations, and the

police didn’t believe them, and yet they
had to ask them. Sergeant King shook his
head quietly. “That kind of thought won't
catch my boy’s killer, Sheriff, I loved Joe. My
mother and dad back in Charleston, W. Va.,
thought of him as their own grandson. He
called my dad Gramps ever since he first
visited them two years ago. You can ask
anyone who knew Joe and me. . ” He
paused. “But that'll take too long. Why
don’t you give me a lie detector test—right
now?”

The sheriff smiled and nodded. That was
the thing he wanted to hear. “Okay,” he
said. “Okay, Sergeant.”

The sheriff talked about it with his deputies.
The stepfather was an
They all admitted it. But he was the only
suspect they could find. Officers were chéck-
ing every known sex offender in the Little
Rock area, and they hadn’t come up with a
likely suspect yet,

One deputy shook his head. “King said

unlikely suspect. -

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TUESDAY, MARCI. 1987

26 |

| <
THE EXAMINER CENTENNIAL ote on. a LAIAAACLE ACE

shadow falls so cruelly across its most lengendarily sinful city:
George Sterling, its premiere poet, called it the cruel, gray.
city of love. San Francisco, like Paris, is a city of light, but it
has a dark strain, a mixture of the quick violence of the’
frontier and a deathly hedonism born of boredom with:
earthly perfection. There has always been a mystery to
the place, a mystery which was spore to the work of
Dashiell Hammett, who invented the hard-boiled detective
novel during his years in Frisco. The Maltese Falcon is the
gem of the genre.

I once tried to explain Hammett’s complex relationship

with San Francisco: Hammett didn’t simply use the town as a
setting, San Francisco was a character in his work, at times a hood,
with high class insights of a compact beauty. Hammett was used often
nthologists) that appeared in the Examiner in 1946, is reprinted here.

in fact rather than fiction. Of the reporters who chronicled the underworld of the smiling city, the best-
was Ed Montgomery, the Examiner's Pulitzer Prize winning crime reporter, pictured above. Montgomery fits the cliche about the mold being broken when they made it: He was Casey Crime Photo

without a camera, he wore brown hats and gray suits and glasses that fit his firm face like the bridle on a horse and a hearing aid as large as the nipple on a baby bottle. (Once,
above a jury room, he lowered his hearing aid into an air duct to catch the jury’s final deliberations and scoop the opposition on a murder trial verdict.)

Montgomery’s no-nonsense reporting helped send many among the elite to prison, among them Artie Samish, the lobbyist-czar of the California Legislature,
publisher who shook down the high and the mighty. But Montgomery got as many out of jail — several of them off death row — as he put it, innocents who were t
term of opprobrium for the abuse of process that was by no means geographically confined to Lotus Land.

Montgomery’s one failure was the celebrated case of Barbara Graham, a hard luck girl with a good heart who died in the San Quentin gas chamber for a murder she had nothing to do with. Montgomery
believed her innocent and fought to save her, and to his everlasting regret came up with the proof of her innocence three weeks after her death. :

The retired Examiner ace is currently writing his memoirs with former UPI man Don Thackery, a book every crime buff will salivate for. Montgomery was so good at his trade that not only did criminals’
respectfully confess to him rather than to the cops, but he actually found the buried bodies when the cops couldn’t, Witness, here, two of the Bay Area’s most famous murder cases — “Grandma” Iva Kroeger’s

burying two bodies in the basement of her Mission District home, and the slaying of schoolgirl Stephanie Bryant by Burton Abbott. In both cases, Ed Montgomery of the Examiner dug up the bodies.
Literally. — Warren Hinckle.

at times a madam, at times the tough beautiful crust of the earth that influenced people and defined the course of events in his world of low life
by The Examiner, which published his fiction in seriatim; “Tale of Two Women,” one of his original stories (which remains unknown to the a
This noir side — the dark back side of San Francisco’s smiling moon — is based, however unfortunately,

grapher
from a precarious perch on the floor:

and Jimmy Tarantino, a ’50s gossip magazine
he victims of what he called “L.A. Justice,” his’

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The Stephanie Bryant Murder Case }

“7 DON'T KNOW if you've ever experienced the odor ¢ “The next morning I went shopping for a guy with dogs. 1
of a body — a human body. 9 found the right man. We went back down the trail and the
“] was up near the Trinity Alps, at Burton Abbott's cabin. | dogs found the shallow grave.
The cops and the FBI had dug holes all over but hadn't found “l notified the authorities and when the cops began
the body of Stephanie Bryant, the missing schoolgirl. They'd digging, the first thing they uncovered was a foot.
found her textbook and her brassiere in the basement of “By the time we dug up the body the sheriffs and the cops

Abbott's Alameda house, but no body. were all over the place. | was worried about keeping my

“} knew it had to be up there. | was a distance from his | exclusive.
cabin when I caught the smell. “There was only one phone in the remote area around
“| wandered around for 45 minutes and then I got a | Abbott's cabin, at a sort of combination coffee shop,
second wiff of it. Then it went away. There was no wind, You | everything. Sure enough, the word leaked out and the
could throw dirt up in the air and it would land at your feet. | Chronicle called up to ask if the rumour was true. Bob
“The body was there, all right. A cub bear had come and Bryant, my photographer, happened to answer the phone. He
worried the grave. The first day 1 was within 80 feet of the disguised his voice as a yokel and of course he didn’t lie,
grave but | didn't know it. but he kind of said, well, we find old kinds of things the
bears dig up around here ... could be a body, could be

: —+- ie
4

- anything.
“We got the scoop.”
EW ARD Burton Abbott was later convicted of Stephanie's
murder. Sie, .
ean” | 4, ee im Grandma

H iy agourTs. THIS yMeRT THE
' SEE DETERMINATION i w HER EOE THIS CIRCULAR, THE Row Ee TRUCTIONS DATED

7 THE O rom OB THES er AINED I \ < s : :

Toi “pcr Six MONTHS ST airw THE TERMS CONTAINE \ j .

BE mADE Is ACC pay, APRIL 22,1955. I" THE \ Rss, : “\: 4 : 3 eye) an
. : acy :;

Axe...

“ CHE SANG “When Irish Eyes
: , ae 3 : : eS Are Smiling” from the wit-
<= one 5 Ss i ness stand. She was a charmer,
6 all right.

“The missing couple whose
bodies I later found were from ©
Santa Rosa. Grandma Kroeger ~
and her husband, Ralph, wanted
their motel and did away with

them. -

i “| went up to Santa Rosa and
und. a guy... who..had.. done

i 1955, HURS!
2 ayy was LAST SEEN AT eu. UELIFORNIA. AT THA ana
PHAN! ; ay AVENUE, "eR HOME SEVERA
G0 AND ASH To WALK TO HER
vicinity OF Cote or A GIRL CLASSMATE

LEFT THE COMPANY oF

crest

aarar cuanto$t Z
Astic EHC RINOS

HER
avs, BLL Oo


60

to the two boys to come in. They ex-
plained that they had come to the ranch
to get some cigars, and, after buying
a quarter’s worth, they sat down and
asked Karl to tell them some stories of
the sea. Karl started telling them about
a trip he had made around the world.
While he was talking, Rincon rose,
walked behind his chair, took the iron
rod from his pocket and quickly struck
his unsuspecting victim a terrible blow.
Rincon continued his attack until old
Karl lay still on the floor where he had
fallen from the chair.

Rincon had then commanded Willie
Adams to carry the body to the well
and throw it in. Rincon proceeded to
throw the old boxes in on top, in the
event that the body should come to the
surface.

ADAMS stated that Karl was very
heavy. They could not carry him
but were forced to drag his body most
of the distance, through the dining
room, out the rear door and to the well.
They then returned to the house and
ransacked it thoroughly, finding only
$2.50. They were much put out because
they could not open a small safe that
stood in the corner of the bedroom.
This safe was about two and one-half
feet square and a very solid little affair
—so solid, in fact, that they could not
open it, try as they might.
They finally gave up hope, took poor
old Karl’s coat from a nail in the kit-
chen, mopped up the stains from the
kitchen floor, threw the coat beneath
the kitchen stove, went to the barn, se-
cured the old Ford into which they
loaded some of Karl’s belongings, and
started on their way to Los Angeles.
We were drawing near Lonesome
Ranch as Willie finished his story. |
noticed that as we drove up the lane,
he was shaking violently and his eyes
never left the old cabin which stood
back among the trees. What fearful
thoughts must have been racing through
his brain. He was living over again the
sight of the heavy bar striking the old
man’s head and body—the body rolling
out of the chair in the death struggle.
We pulled up at the blacksmith shop,
which was about sixty feet in front of
the barn and in the same lot. Willie
pointed out the place where the bar
of iron was secured, there being sever-

al others the same size lying there. As.

we started slowly up the path to the
house, Willie hung back as far as the
pair of handcuffs would allow him. He
begged me not to take him into the
house. But, in we went. I thought he
would sink to the floor as we crossed
the threshold. His eyes were glassy and

glued to the stains which covered a:

spot at least a yqrd each way—the spot
where the old Hermit of Lonesome
Ranch had breathed his last. Willie
tried to speak but his voice froze in his
throat.

I noticed the coat under the stove
and brought that in. On the linoleum
in the bedroom I discovered a dark
footprint. I fitted Willie’s foot into this
print and found it to be the exact size.
Rincon’s prints were later checked and

found to be much smaller. I cut this.

print out by removing a piece of the

The Master Detective

linoleum about a foot square, and with
the stained coat, placed it in the car
to be used as evidence. Were Willie
Adams’ story true, the footprint could
be used to show that he had made a
search of the house and that the mo-
tive for the murder was robbery.

We then took Adams out in front of
the house near the barn. Mr. Costello
and 1 wanted to make a search for
some keys that Willie had explained
he threw away after the murder. As ft
was a real handicap to make a search
with Willie handcuffed to my wrist, |
decided to take him over to a good-
sized tree and handcuff him to that
while I worked. When this had been
accomplished, | walked away from him
and entered the barn where | watched
him through the weather-warped
boards.

I shall never forget the actions of
that young Mexican as he stood there
facing the lonely little house. Believ-
ing himself to be alone, he stood stiff-
legged, staring straight at the spat-
tered window which lighted the room
in which he had brought sudden death
+o poor old Karl. illie’s agony in
those few moments must have been ter-
rible. In his ignorance | feel sure that
he fully expected Ullman to walk right
out of the partly-opened door.

The telltale ladder was removed
from the well, taken to Los Angeles
and booked as evidence.

ON May 28th, 1925, in a little dance
hall ‘at Elizabeth Lake, in Fair-
mount Township, the preliminary trial
took place and the two murderers were
held to answer to the Superior Court.
The trial was a riot—as much of a show
as you would see on any stage. The
dance hall had been the scene of a
dance the night before and was decor-
ated with flags, bunting and flowers.
The ranchers, their wives and families
for miles around flocked in. This was
the one really big event of their lives,
so they came from far and wide—
babies in their arms, and barefooted
children by the dozens.

The Honorable H. P. Libby, Justice
of the’ Peace, because of the warm
weather—the sun was beating down full
upon the roof of the dance hall, caus-
ing the hall to feel like a boiler room
in a factory—removed his coat and no-
tified all present to do likewise.

The low benches about the walls to
seat the dancers, were brought into use
to accommodate the crowds, while the
Judge and the attorneys were seated
about a small table in ordinary chairs.

Many funny little items of testimony
crept into the sordid tale as it was un-
folded, especially the account of Johnny
Erratchuo’s exit. from that well when
he heard the groans that turned out to
be those of the calf tied to the brush
back of the well.

The preliminary examination lasted
two days. On account of the distance
from Los Angeles, all of us. concerned
in the case remained at the little board-

-ing-house at Elizabeth Lake overnight.

The trial in Superior Court was
started on July 20th, 1925, and both
boys went on trial under their true

- names, Guillermo Granado alias Willie

Adams, and Alfonso Rincon. On Au-
gust 5th, 1925, a verdict of first degree
murder was returned against both de-
fendants by the Jury, and there was
no recommendation—which meant that
they were to hang.

On August 10th, 1925, Judge Arthur
Keetch sentenced them to “hang by the
neck until dead,’ within sixty days.
On August 3lst, an appeal was taken
to the Appellate Court, which affirmed
the judgment of the lower court. On
September 15th, 1925, the case was
taken to the Supreme Court. The Su-
preme Court affirmed the judgment of
the Appellate Court, and on Friday,
July 23rd, 1926, both defendants were
re-sentenced to die at San Quentin
prison on October 8th, 1926.

On October 5th, 1926, the following
notice was received by the District At-
torney of Los Angeles County, as is
always customary and in accordance
with the law:

Asa Keyes,
District Attorney, Los Angeles,

California.

Friday, October 8th, 1926, at
10:00 a. M., is the time set for the
execution of Willie Adams No.
42470 and Alfonso Rincon No.
42471, and in conformity with the
law governing, I send you this
notification and ask you to be
present as witness. Bring this let-
ter with you as it cannot be used
by any other person. Please bring
this letter to the Captain of the
Guard not later than 9:30 a. M——
F. J. Smitu, Warden.

The .execution of these two young
murderers will long be remembered by
those, who witnessed it. The two de-
fendants were brought to the gallows
together, just as they had been together
for so long before the murder, at the
murder} at their trials, and through the
long, weary months in prison awaiting
their death. They walked together up

_ the thirteen steps of the gallows, were

placed side by side, the black caps and
the nooses adjusted at the same mo-
ment, the trap sprung and both boys
shot into eternity together... .

THs did these two youths pay the

supreme price for taking the life of
poor old Theodore Karl Ullman—sailor
of the high seas, world roamer, and her-
mit of Lonesome Ranch.

Sometime later, Irving Chappel, Ed-
die Dozier and myself went back to the
ranch to perform one more act in con-
nection with the winding up of this
case. These two men had made several
trips with me to the ranch during my
investigations and had taken _photo-
graphs of the scenes to be used at the
trial.

With a distant relative of Karl, who
had been made administrator of the
estate, we opened the small safe men-

tioned elsewhere in this story. We
- knocked this safe to pieces with a

heavy sledge hammer. after several

* hours’ work, and found a pitiful $35

in currency within. This constituted
the entire wealth which had cost Karl

his life. /

Septembe:
Cragsit

I thought
Christmas
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marriage?
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about Le:
to go ont
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After f
said, “Bri
after he t
me on th
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the room
“Red c
you think
Buckley's
clay. * We
Leroy as
Schalte:
of the co
the count
outside, |
Just as
Leroy ca
house wa
“Hello
“T und
here,” Le

“YES.”

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“All rig
walked 1
house be:
This w

just ane
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“We h

talk to \
at the |

you any


se

* (Continued from page 43)
just a few steps away feel certain
something was out of kilter, then
reach in your pocket and find out
you've left your keys in the office?”

Hunter laughed. “Yeah, I know that
feeling. But what the devil’s it got
to do with Ullman’s murder?”

“That funny feeling you get just a
couple of steps away from the door, do
you know what it comes from?”
Bright went on. “T’ll tell you. You
hadn’t remembered, but your mind
had, leaving the keys in your desk.
Well, that’s the kind of hunch I have
right now about this. I feel there’s
something out of whack, but I’m
darned if I know what it is. That’s
why I’m sure it’s important that the
killers don’t learn that we know about
the murder.”

“I don’t see...

“Skip it,’ the inspector chuckled.
“Y’m turning into one of those arm-
chair detectives, maybe. Before I do,
you scoot on into L. A. and have the
boys photograph this silver dollar and
check the print against the records.
I’ll hang around here.”

Hunter returned that evening. “We
got a good print off the coin,” he said.
“But it was no go in the record

bureau. Our man’s print isn’t in the
files.”

”

T= SLEUTHS SPENT the night in
nearby Palmdale, Gautiously in-
quiring whether any — suspicious
strangers had been seen in the com-
munity. They hoped the fact that
one man they sought wore glasses
would provide a lead, but their ques-
tions were fruitless. Bright was elated
to note that the secret of the grue-
some discovery in Ted Ullman’s well
still was kept.

Bright and Hunter spent the next
day searching the cabin and grounds
at the murder scene, but found no
further clues to the killers. That night
they returned to Los Angeles.

The inspector sat at his desk in the
bureau of investigation offices next
day when Hunter trooped in.

“Well, chief,” the captain greeted
him cheerlessly, “where do we go
from here? Look some more?”

Bright glanced up, a_ puzzled
frown on his face. “Look some
more?”

“The Ullman case, Bill. We’ve been
prowling out there for two days. Do
we go out and look around some
more?”

The inspector’s fingers thrummed .

on his desk. “Look some more...
look some...” he rose quickly from
his chair. “I think I’ve got it! Ill

bet I know where I left my keys!”
Amazement struck Hunter dumb.
He waited for Bright to explain.
“The keys, Walt. Remember that
funny feeling I had about the case?
Like leaving your keys at the office?

‘were after!

I think now I know what was wrong
with the picture out in that old man’s
cabin.

“We're pretty sure,’ he went on,
“that the killers were after the old
man’s money. Well, if they robbed
him, why did they take such pains to
clean up the place afterwards? Why
did they try to cover up every indica-
tion of their crime?”

“I don’t get it.”

“Because they didn’t find what they
And they were certain
Ullman had a big wad of money hid-
den somewhere. They planned to re-
turn later and make a_ thorough
search.”

“Well, then, why didn’t they come
back the next day, or yesterday?”

“They had to make sure their crime
hadn’t been discovered and that the
place wasn’t full of cops. So they laid
low, listening around some small town
in the vicinity. They knew that the
discovery of the murder would be big
news. If it leaked out, they’d simply
lam out of the country. But if a few
days went by and everything wags
eet’...

“IT get it, chief! Well, whatare we
waiting for?”

They reached Ullman’s cabin, 70
miles northeast of Los Angeles, 90

_ minutes later, parking their car out of

sight behind the structure. Quickly
they made their way inside. One re-
lieved glance told them the place had
not been ransacked again. They sat
down, mopping their perspiring brows,
and prepared for a long wait.

One after another the hours passed.
The shadows lengthened. Bright and
Hunter paced the cabin floor, sat down
and paced again. After many long
hours a faint, familiar sound reached
their ears, and in a twinkling both
men were on their feet, crouching at
the window. Up the shadowy trail a
tan sports roadster was crawling
towards them.

“You see what I see?” Bright

- whispered.

“‘T sure do! Two young mugs in
that car—and one of
glasses!”

They drew their guns and waited.
The roadster inched into the yard al-
most in front of the concealed men.
“When they come in.. .” Bright be-

gan, and then he let out an exclama- °

tion of dismay. The roadster had
lurched through a full turn and was
roaring away in the direction whence
it had come!

The two sleuths shot out of the
cabin as though they had been cata-
pulted. The shadows were swallow-
ing the escaping car. Hunter yelled
to the occupants to halt, but the
sound only bounded off the canyon
walls. Bright raised his gun. There
was a flash and a sharp explosion.
Down the trail, the roadster swung
crazily and turned over.

"em wears -

“Got his rear tire!” Bright snapped.
“Let’s take ’em!”

But only one of the prisoners—a
slender, swarthy man of 26—was in
sight when they reached the over-
turned car. He _ stodd_ trembling,
rubbing his bruised face with one
hand while he kept the other arm
raised skyward. ‘

“Where’s your pal—the guy with
the glasses?” Hunter gritted.

“Kept running! Don’t—don’t shoot,
officers. I—I won’t try to escape...”

Hunter ducked into the deepening
shadows. Bright clicked a handcuff
about his prisoner’s wrist, snapping
the other cuff to the wheel of the
car.

“What’s your name?” he demanded. /

“Joseph—Joseph Alfonso Rincon.”

“What's your pal’s name?”’

“Willie Adams. What is this all
about?” ,

Bright’s voice dripped sarcasm.
“You don’t know, do you? Why were
you running away? What were you
doing here?” :

“Just riding. The first thing we
knew, we had a blowout and the car
turned over. Then you fellows came
running, pointing guns at us. Who
wouldn’t be scared?”

“You wouldn’t know a thing, of
course, about a murder?”

Rincon’s swarthy skin paled. “Mur-
der? Who got murdered?”

Hunter came into view, his gun
prodding the manacled Willie Adams
—a black-haired, high-cheek-boned,
bespectacled individual of 22. ~

“He says he doesn’t know any-
thing,” Hunter exclaimed.

Bright’s voice cracked out suddenly.
“Which of you dropped a silver dollar

_during the fight in the cabin?”

“What cabin?” Willie Adams wanted
to know.
“I don’t know anything about a sil-

ver dollar, or anything,’ Rincon
blubbered.

“You will,” the inspector said softly.

“Because that dollar is going to get
both you rats a one-way trip to
eternity!”

Taken to Los Angeles, their bravado
now gone, the prisoners were mugged
and then brought into the fingerprint
room. Rincon’s thumbprint was laid
alongside the print lifted from the sil-
ver dollar. It did not match. Willie

Adams came next. Fear blazed in his ~

eyes as his print was compared. It
was identical with that on the cein!
Brought to trial the following
month, the prisoners were found
guilty of Ullman’s brutal murder and

sentenced August 10, 1925, to hang ~

on the gallows of San Quentin prison.
But it was not until October 8, 1926,
that Willie Adams and Joseph Alfonso

Rincon took the one-way trip Bright ~~

had promised them. A: blood-marked

silver dollar had paid their fare to. |
hell! aaa eH

COMING NEXT MONTH:

“‘COME-ON GIRL” and the MURDERED LOVE CHEAT

Plus many other top-notch true-life police thrillers in the—

August FRONT PAGE DETECTIVE

44

* On sale July 16 &

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N the Leona Canyon section of California, between Palm-
dale and Elizabeth Lake, the sun was hot. It blazed
mercilessly upon the two coroner’s men as they started

to work at 11 o’clock that morning of May 17. By noon
it was a blast furnace, scorching the canyon’s mountains
and reaching out to envelop the white floor of the desert far
below; but by that time the coroner’s men were done.
They brought the body of Theodore K. Ullman out of the
well and placed it carefully on the shaly ground. Then
they stumbled, faces glistening, clothes steaming, to the
shade of a runt pepper beneath which they collapsed.
From now on it was the gory busi-

ness of the homicide men—and they

BY BARNABY FRAME

and saucer, and knife, fork, and spoon, all quite unused.

The inspector strode to a small wood stove. It was
cold, as he had expected. He lifted the lid from a grimy
pot. In it was a stew as cold as the stove.

“That gives us the time when Ullman got it,” he deduced.
“He was sitting down.to supper last night when—boom!”

He squatted and inspected the floor minutely. “Blood in
all the cracks, but none on the floor itself,” he announced
after a moment. “That means an effort was made to hide
what happened here and...”

Something gleamed dully under the table and he lifted
it gingerly between thumb and fore-
finger. It was a silver dollar bear-

could have it!

Inspector William J. Bright and
Captain Walter Hunter of the Los
Angeles County sheriff’s bureau be-
gan an examination of the corpse.
Ullman had been 65, maybe more—
a muscular, wide-shouldered man
with a set of handlebar mustaches.
There wasn’t much left of the side
of his head, except the blood. There
was plenty of blood. A blunt instru-
ment evidently had been responsible
for that. His pockets were turned
inside out.

Bright turned to a stooped, over-
all-clad little man. “Tell us again,
John,” he directed.

The old man took an ill-smelling
pipe from between his teeth. “Like
I said, I came over from my place
up the mountain to give Ted a tussle
at checkers. We been doing that
every morning for years. But he
wasn’t arourid here when I arrived,
so I came over to the well for a
drink. Well, sir, you could have brushed me over with a
twig o’ tumbleweed when I saw Ted’s body wedged a
couple feet down there in the well. I had to scamper a
mile to get to a telephone... .”

The inspector nodded. “The neighbors know nothing
of this as yet. Don’t tell ’em, John,” he warned.

“I won’t,” the fellow promised grimly. “Anything to help
you fellers get the rat who did this!”

Bright and Hunter trudged over the rough ground to
Ullman’s cabin, a hundred feet away. It was a three-room
structure, and the first thing the investigators observed
-as they entered was the table. On it was a plate, a cup

42

The body of Theodore Ullman was
found in a well 100 feet from his cabin.
Robbery seemed to be the motive.

ing a dark red smudge!

“A thumbprint!” Bright exclaimed,
exhibiting the coin to his partner.
“What a break! . The clue of the
silver dollar! Train fare to hell for
the killers...” ;

‘Killers? How do you know there
was more than one?”
queried. 2

“There had to be at least two,”
the inspector explained. “One
couldn’t have carried a man as heavy
as Ullman, and there were no tracks
to indicate he’d been dragged out
to the well.”

“Couldn’t that coin have been Ull-
man’s, the print on it his?” the cap-
tain asked.

“The  victim’s hands weren't
bloody,” Bright rejoined. “My guess
is one of the slayers dropped it from
his pocket shortly after the crime.”

As though it were a priceless
jewel, the inspector wrapped the sil-
ver dollar in his handkerchief and
dropped it carefully into a vest pocket. “What I can’t
make out,” he said slowly, “is why the killers took such
pains to clean up this place. There must be a reason.”

The investigators shuffled into the bedroom. There was
a trunk there, and they went through it. Blood flecked
much of its contents. :

Hunter regarded his colleague thoughtfully. “Our killers
weren't overlooking anything. My hunch is they figured
Ullman had a wad of money cached away somewhere
around the place.” \

“Of course!” Bright slapped his knee. “That’s probably
the angle. They came here looking for dough. All home-

FRONT PAGE DETECTIVE

Hunter

Be tyne ented one

When detectives came upon Joseph

Rincon beside an overturned car,

he protested that he knew nothing
about a murder in the cabin.

steaders are supposed to keep their heavy sugar buried
on their premises!” é

At the foot of Ullman’s old, four-poster bed, the captain
made another discovery—a torn, wrinkled strip of news-
paper, only a few inches square. Blood streaked its surface.

“Holy smoke!” Bright blurted.

“I get it too!” Hunter cried excitedly. “One of the killers
wore glasses. He got blood on them and tore off this piece
of newspaper to wipe them. That's why the paper is
wrinkled and bloodstained as it is!”

When they stepped from the cabin into the searing sun-
light the coroner's men had gone with the body. There

JULY, 1942

SLAYERS OF THE CALIFORNIAN

Fear blazed in the eyes of swarthy
Willie Adams when the detectives
took his thumbprint and matched
it with that on the silver piece.

was not a soul in sight. A great, blistering silence lay upon
the countryside like a smothering blanket on a fever
patient. ; .

“Well, word hasn’t got out yet about Ullman’s corpse
being found,” Bright said. “Somebody’d have beeh up
here if it had. You know, Walt, there’s an idea buzzing
around my head that if the killers don’t find out their
crime has been discovered, we’ll have a better chance of
landing ’em.”

“How do you figure that?”

“7 don’t know,” the inspector admitted. “Did you ever
walk up to your house door, and (Continued on next page)

43

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ADAMSON, Admiral Dewey, bl, gassed CAS (Les Angeles) December 9

» 1949

The Widow.

Blauvelt?

Stella Blauvelt: Officials
worked on the theory
that she knew the man
who strangled her with
an electric lamp cord

By Z. Williams
Special Investigator for

ACTUAL DETECTIVE
STORIES

This Los Angeles, California, Woman Was Marked for Death by the Man

Who Left the Ape-Like Fingerprints. But Who Was He? How ‘Find Him?

. RS. MABEL VAN DIVER was
worried. Why didn’t her friend

open the door?

“There must be something wrong
inside,” Mrs. Van Diver insisted. ‘Or
Stella would have answered our knock
long before this!”

Mrs. Eulalie Massey, manager of the
apartment house in the fashionable
Wilshire district of Los Angeles, Cali-
fornia, brought out her pass-key. “May-

be you’re right. Perhaps we’d better

let ourselves in and make sure.”
“Yes,” replied Mrs. Van _ Diver.
Then she gasped. “Look! The morn-
ing paper hasn’t been touched here
outside the door, and it’s almost six
o’clock already. It must have been out

here all day. Another thing. Stella
and I were supposed to go to the
bandage-wrapping meeting of the Red
Cross. She has never missed a, meet-
ing before this.”

Mrs. Massey reached down for the
paper, dated July 25, 1944. “If there’s
nothing wrong, I’m sure Mrs. Blauvelt
won’t mind our making sure. If there
is—”

The apartment manager inserted the
key in the lock and stepped into the
room. As she did so, she inadvertently
kicked a hard round object which went
rolling into one corner. It was an
orange—the first of a.series of fruit
and vegetables which lay in spilled
profusion like a trail across the room.

—

At the end of that trail was the
crumpled body of a pretty, well-dressed
woman, a coat draped over her figure
and her face covered by a sofa pillow.
About her throat, biting viciously into
the discolored flesh, was wound a cord
from the toppled floor lamp nearby.
Beads from a broken string were
strewn about her; and on a chair near
the body lay an open, empty purse.

|= WAS clear not only that the woman
on the floor was dead, but that she
had been dead for some time; and that
the murderer, who had stilled her cries
with the pillow and then strangled her
with the light cord, had also robbed her.
And it was not difficult for Mrs. Van

D

Diver to understand why her friend,
Mrs. Stella Blauvelt, had missed her
first bandage-wrapping session since
the start of the war. e

“Her rings have been stolen, too!”
exclaimed Mrs. Van Diver involuntari-
ly. ‘‘Her beautiful diamond rings!
They’ve been torn from her hands!”

Mrs. Massey stood in unbelieving
silence at her side. She whispered
nervously: ‘‘I—I saw Mrs. Blauvelt yes-
terday, when she.came in with those
groceries. She said hello in the most
pleasant manner and took the elevator
up to her apartment. She could have
had no suspicion anything like this was
about to happen.”

“We mustn’t stand here,” said Mrs.

21

LPF ICME DETECTIVE 7

Via lh Fes


of Mrs. Werner's

pinned to the door
apartment.

On a table by Werner's bed wan the
book, The Show of Violence, a study of
homicide by Doctor Frederic Wertham,
From college officials, the police learned
that Werner was taking a course in
criminology.

Assistant District Attorney Richard
Shepard and Detective Sergeant L. M.
Morris went to Los Angeles, where they
took a formal statement from Sigurd-

land. When they returned on April 6,
1951, Bhepard Ned a charge of murder
against Werner,

From various letters, .Chief Morton
soon established that Werner had left
the state of California, Consequently,
he asked the United States Attorney in
Los Angeles to issue a fugitive war-
rant for Werner. This brought the
FBI into the case with a Federal charge
against Werner of crossing a state line
to avoid prosecution,

With the Band on Gabriel's Hat

“It looks that way,” I said. “That
fancy straw hat was just too bright for
Gabriel.”

“Then that hat,” Vivion declared,
“belongs to another man.”

“Looks like it,” I agreed. “I wondered
about it, because Gabriel’s other clothes
were SO conservative and inexpensive,”

“Still, there’s something I can’t figure
out,” objected the deputy. “How did
the hat get in the dresser drawer?”

We mulled this over. If it really did
belong to some other man, I reasoned,
he must have left it behind during a
visit. :

Of course, this was all an assumption, .

We were a long way from proving any-
thing. The first move was for us to get
the hat, then go to the store and learn
who had bought it. Accordingly we
drove back to the murder scene.

The children were Playing under a
tree and Marie sat in the shade watch-
ing them. I told her we wanted to look
over her husband’s clothes. Without a
word she took us inside, moving like a
Pale, small shadow.

We made a pretense of examining the
pockets of Gabriel's clothes, then turned
our attention to the dresser. When this
was finished, I thanked her and asked
some routine questions.

“Did Gabriel own a revolver?”

She shook her black, shoulder-length
hair. “No.”

“Are you going to sell this farm?”

“What else can I do?” she asked help-
lessly. “I must go back to my father
and mother, at El Centro.”

She paused. “I’m going to have a
baby, and this is no place for children.
There’s too many rats around here.”

When we got to the car, Vivion looked
at me inquiringly.. “Did you find out
where the hat was bought?”

“The hat,” I replied grimly, “was
gone,”

Vivion whistled ‘softly.
thing else was there.”

“We still have a chance. I remember
the label. It was bought in Arabia. I
can’t recall the, store name, but the
town is so small we should find it.” F

We drove in and canvassed the town,
finding only two shops that carried
men’s apparel. The first one had
stocked no straw hats with striped red
and white bands. But the second store,
Lindy’s Men’s Shop, was the right one.
In their shipment of Summer Straws,
the proprietor said, he’d had two with
such bands. :

“I've still got one of them,” he said,
“Here it is.”

It was an exact duplicate of the hat I
had seen in the Contreras dresser
drawer. We told Ed Lindy what we
were after. “And I hope,” I added,
“that you can remember who bought
the other hat.”

The store owner said he could. It had
been sold to a young man who drove a
delivery truck for Jensen’s Market, in
town,

“Yet every-

TEN minutes later we found him at the

market. He was a bland youth named
Leonard Dilhouser and he eyed us
wonderingly. We didn’t waste any time
in identifying ourselves and asking
about his straw hat.

He readily admitted buying the hat
out, he added, he had not liked it, and
3oon afterward he sold it to a young
nan named Frank who lived in the
same rooming-house.

He didn’t know much about Frank, he
48

said, beyond having talked to him oc-
casionally. Frank was a man of about

30, dark-complexioned, who did odd

jobs or worked for truck farmers. He
was a quiet fellow, well behaved.

“Is he at your rooming-house now?”

“No, he moved out yesterday. I didn’
see him move but the landlady said he
had gone.”

Dilhouser guided us to the place,
where we talked to the owner, Mrs. Cot-
trell. She said the man we were asking
about was Frank Aguirre, who had left
to take a steady job somewhere. He
had roomed there five months, but she
knew little about him.

“He didn’t say where he was going. I
bought his small radio for five dollars.”

“Did he own a car?” [ asked,

“No. A woman in a Small blue truck
came to move him. Frank carried out
three suitcases and put them in the
truck. . She drove away and he walked
toward downtown.”

I pulled out a notebook and pencil.
“How was he dressed?”

Mrs. Cottrell, as it turned out, had a
good memory and an eye for detail. She
said Frank Aguirre was somewhat of a
dandy in the matter of clothes,

When she last saw Frank, he had
been wearing a blue Sports coat, light
tan trousers, two-tone brown and white
shoes and a straw hat with a striped
red and white band, 2

She was a little vague about the
truck, but from what she said, we
thought it sounded like the Contreras
vehicle. So I sent.a wire to Head-
quarters in Riverside, requesting that a
bulletin be teletyped out on Aguirre.

THAT night at our hotel we received

a& telegram from Deputy Coroner
Cash. The knife handle, he said, had
been too smudged to yield any finger-
prints of value. The death bullet had
been identified as a 38 Smith and
Wesson.

We discussed the case at some length
and agreed that if Marie had moved
Aguirre, she would have stored his be-
longings at her place, Next morning
we drove out and paid her another visit.
She was wearing a fresh red housedress
and a white rose in her black hair,

While Vivion talked to her, I
searched the sheds,
In a corner of one small building,

used to store machinery, I came across
something covered with oilcloth, boards
piled on top. I didn’t remember see-
ing it when we had searched the sheds
before. .

I dug down and uncovered three suit-
cases. They were filled with men’s
clothes but in one I found a nickel-
plated .38 Smith and Wesson revolver,
Two empty shells and two loaded cart-
ridges were in the cylinder. I pocketed
the weapon and went back to the house.

“Who owns those Suitcases out in the
shed?” I asked casually, .

I expected the question to startle her
from her usual calm, but I was dis-
appointed. Marie’s composure was
literally steel under silk and velvet,
“They belong to Frank Aguirre,” she
replied in a matter-of-fact tone. “He
was one of the hired men who worked
for my husband occasionally,”

“They were not here the other day.”

“No, I brought them from Arabia
yesterday. I met him on the street and
he asked me if they could be left here.
He was going to see about a new job
somewhere,”

Thereafter PRE agents and Chief
Morton waned titan Mem worked Copehher
on the case. They discovered that
Werner had acquaintances in Okla-
homn, New York City and Connecticut,
FBI axents watched for him in all of
these places.

ON JUNE 7, 1951, Werner was ar-

rested as he entered a refuge for
homeless men run by a religious order
in Garrison, New York. The Federal

(Continued from Page 39)

As always, she seemed to interpret
my thoughts and beat me to the punch,
I switched suddenly and told her we
had talked with Doctor Hogan at Indio,
“He told us about Gabriel's auto acci-
dent,” I said, “and that he could not
be a father. How does it happen that
you're expecting a child?”

Marie regarded me with a steady
look, “I don’t understand how that
can be. Of course Gabriel is the father.
What do you mean?”

“I mean some other man must be in
your life. The man who shot Gabriel
with this gun, maybe.” I took the re-
volver from my pocket. “T found it in
one of those suitcases.”

Marie didn’t turn a hair,
I don't know what you
found,” she said softly.
Frank Aguirre had a gun,
pose he did,
me.”

“I don’t
bluntly.

Two small red spots of anger glowed
in her pale cheeks. “If you mean he’s
the father of my baby,” she said coldly,
“then I think you should be ashamed.
Don’t I have enough trouble, without
you insulting me?”

Vivion, sitting by the door, scratched
his chin and looked the other way, I'll
admit I felt a little uncomfortable, and
I knew that if my accusation wasn't
true I would feel even more so.

I got to my feet. “A}l right, Marie.
But we have the bullet from Gabriel’s
head, and we can tell if this gun fired
it. Murder isa pretty serious business.”

By now we were pretty sure that
Marie was the hidden motive. Cer-
tainly she was not telling all she knew.
That night two deputies, Vivion and
Smith, kept a stakeout on the Con-
treras place, in case the hired man re-
turned or the widow decided to leave.

I waited only until the blazing sun
dropped from sight, then I drove for
Riverside with the .38. When I got
there, I roused our lab men and we
made test firings. Sure enough, the
Smith and Wesson apparently was the
death weapon, and shortly after mid-
night I was on my way back to the
murder scene.

“I’m sure
may have
“If you say
then I sup-
He means nothing to

believe that,” I told her

| GUESSED that we would have
trouble finding Frank Aguirre, The
vast Coachella Valley, with its moun-

tains and desert stretching south to the
Mexican border, offers a thousand
hiding-places for a fugitive.

But I was to learn that I had guessed
wrong. That very afternoon in the
desert town of Niland, 50 miles south of
Arabia, Aguirre was Seen making his
way leisurely south toward the border,

Niland, located at the southern end
of the Salton Sea, is in Imperial County,
Deputy Phil DeWitt, stationed there,

‘had noticed a stranger idly sauntering
- along the main street,

apparently un-
decided where to go. | He was a thin,
sSwarthy man, exceptionally well dressed
for anyone in the desert town. The
deputy noticed the blue Sports coat,
two-tone shoes, the striped band upon
his straw hat. But the officer had not
yet received our bulletin and had no
reason to question this man,

Two hours later DeWitt received our
teletype and realized that he had seen
the suspect. Immediately the deputy
cruised the streets, investigating all
likely stores, taverns and cafes. How-
ever the stranger was not around.

Men rald that he bad two Dackola of
cyanide on him when he was arrested,

As this issue of OFFICIAL DETEC-
TIVE STORIES goer to preas, Werner
is under arrest and extradition and ac-
tion on the murder charge against him
in California are pending.

In this story, to protect persons in-
nocently drawn into the investigation,
the names Douglas Sigurdland and
Theodore Gough are fictitious,

Read I# First In
OFFICIAL DETECTIVE STORIES

DeWitt learned that no bus or train
had left Niland in the past three hours.

have hitched a ride,
cluded, and he notified Sheriff Ware at
the Imperial County seat of El Centro,
near the border. .
Then on the chance that Aguirre was
still in town, the officer asked help from
his brother, who owned a restaurant on
Main Street. The deputy described
Aguirre. “If you see him,” he added,

“let me know. He might walk past the
restaurant.”
“See him?” the brother repeated.

“Why, I did see him! He just had a
sandwich and coffee and he left here
ten minutes in that direc-
tion, toward the railroad! Hurry!”

He hurried to his car and drove to the
However, the
well-dressed stranger was not in sight.

At the end of the switching yards he
man hunched down by a
culvert.

He admitted that he was Frank
Aguirre, and that he was waiting for a
freight. “I got a Job,” he said, “down
at Calexico,”

“Where you could step across the
border,” answered the deputy. “Come
on. Riverside officers want to see you.”

WHEN Vivion and I got to Niland, we
found Aguirre was ready to talk.
He admitted shooting Gabriel Con-
treras but said that Gabriel had at-
tacked him first with a big knife,

“What were you doing at his place in
the night?” I asked.

“IT went to collect some money he
owed me, but I found he had gone to
bed. While I was standing there by the
reservoir, wondering what to do, he
came out for a pail of water, He came
; me with the knife and I had to shoot

im.”

“Why were you carrying a gun?”

“For protection, He once told me
he'd shoot me if I asked for my wages.”

“How about you and Marie, and the
baby that’s coming?”

For a long time he was Silent. Then
he broke down and confessed that he
was the father. ;

When he got the new job, he said,
Marie and her children intended to
join him, .

He declared that Marie knew nothing
about the murder.

We had an idea that he had gone to
the Contreras home with murder ‘in his
mind, but he wouldn't admit it.

In jail, he renounced his confession
and demanded a jury trial. On Novem-
ber 10, 1937, the jury found him guilty
of first-degree murder, as charged, and
Superior Court Judge O. K. Morton
sentenced him to be “hanged ‘by the
neck until dead”,

On the morning of September 2,
1938, Frank Aguirre mounted the tra-
ditional thirteen steps to the gallows of
San Quentin Prison, and the trap was
sprung. Five minutes later he was
pronounced dead.

Soon after the trial, Marie Contreras
took the two children and moved away.

In this story the names of Doctor
Peter Clark and Doctor H. W. Hogan are
fictitious,


Only’ day or two previous to the murder, MoDan- |
{els had arranged for # couple of days racing sport on
Thanksgiving and the day succeeding, between noted
flyers, Raras and Sweetser. The occasion naturally -
drew a largo crowd to thecourse, and acorresponding —
influx of coin to McDaniels’ till. The latter fact ex-
cited the cupidity of the usly-inclined Ah. .
Ben, a vilinous-looking Chinaman, who undertook the
Job of securing what he could of it. Accordingly
about three o'clock on the morning of the 80th of
November, he entered the bar-room adjoing theslesp-
ing apartment of Mr. and Mrs, McDaniels. McDanicls.
being aroused by his wifo, who heard the noise, arose.
and, without stopping to dress Rimaelf, entered the
bar-room where he was confronted by the Chinese
burglar, who, it is supposed, gained hig entrance by -
‘tho aid of large chisel, which he afterwards. 80
grappled with the intruder, and in the flerce struggle.
which ensued, received a fatal wound from the chisel,
which the Chinaman placed over the region. of hid
-heart as he Iay prostrate, and jumping on it with his
might, forced it into s vital portion ‘of his victim’s
body to's depth of nearly siz inches, ‘producing -.
almost ingtant death. During this death grapple the -
wife of the victim hastily ran to her husband’sessist-
anco, as did also the Chinese cook, Ah Joe. The mur
derer, having completed his murderous work, mvs —
an effort to escape, buf was soon caught and securely
tied by Ah Joe, he using hislong, braided queue, {a |
the absence of a rope, for that purpose. Officers were
soon on the: ground. Ah Ben was handed over to.
them and was removed to the county jall. He was
shortly after indicted by the Grand Jary,and thecase .

coming on a¢ the January Term of the District Court |

of the Tenth Jndicial District, he was arraigned atthe |
bar of justice on the 20th of same month, and though 4

" an interpreter made his plea, “Guilty as charged.”

On the Ist of February, in the same court, testimony.

wae heard by Judge Keyser, sitting on the jur}in the:

"pase, to fix the degree of punishment—esin California:
the Jury define the punishment in murier cases,
which must be either death by hanging or imprison- .

ment for life in the penitentiary. The decision inAb

_ Ben’s caso was death by hanging, and on the 6thof |

November sentence was passod, fixing Friday, March”

14th as the day ofexecution. Thissentence wasstrictly

carried ont, as stated, at the time appointed, under

the judicious ms 1agement of Sheriff McCoy.


Ah BEN

Ah Ben, a native of China, emigrated to the United States and settled
in Sacramento, Calif., where he became a member of the Si Yup Company.
In September, 1878, he went to Marysville where, unable to find work,
he slept in outhouses and obtained his food in any way possible,
Around 3 o'clock on the morning of Nov, 30, 1878, Mrs. John McDaniels
was awakened by a noise in the XHXHAKXXEXKAMKANK business portion of
the saloon-living quarters owned by her husband. She aroused Mr, Mc-
Daniels who xwxakinm mistakenly grabbed an unloaded revolver and rushed
into the front of the building where he intercepted Ah Ben who was
attempting to leave with a bag of plunder, McDaniels attempted to
shoot him and when he discovered that the gun was not loaded, he began
beating him over the head with the pistol, Ah Ben knocked the weapon
from his hand and drew a dagger over which they began fighting. Mrs.
McDaniels joined the affray by grabbing and pulling Ah Ben's oueue
and McDaniels managed to take the knife from him and stab him in the
arme Ah Ben then drew a 1) inch chisel and plunged it through Mc-
Daniel's haart, killing him instantly, He cut Mrs, McDaniel's throaty
not fatally, in order to rekease her hold on him and escaped out of

the doors i@ was overtaken 100 yards away by the Chinese cook who
grabbed his queve and held him until others could arrive and over«

- power him, Ah Ben, who was suspected of several other mrders though
he made no confession, was sppedily brought to trial, convicted and
sentenced to die, There was no appeal and he was hanged at Marysville

on March 1h, 1879.

IDAHO TRI-WEEKLY STATESMAN, Boise, Idaho, March 20,. 1879 .
NATIONAL POLICE GAZFITE, Dec. 21, 1878 (10-h); March 29, 1879 (10-1)


LARGE CARD

AH BEN

Ah Ben, Chinaman, hanged at Marysville, Calif., on March
1h, 1879, for mrder -f John McDaniels at Marysville Park
in Nov., 1878. Believed to have committed several other
murders but made no confession,

IDAHO TRI-WEEKLY STATESMAN. BOLSE. March 20, 1879

NPC Ja-fl- LE IE O- A);
W CHINawaN CHOKLD? 4 Chinaman, named Ah Ben,
was hanged at Marysville, val., on the 14th, for.
murdering vohn McDaniels, at Warysville Park,
last November. He 4s believed to have committed
several other murders, but meade no confession."
Na DT LON b puLlionw Sal bes warch <9, 1879 (1O:1.)

ALL OsLIF. BOOK pwD MnGaZl Na EXCLAPTO.


&49P HAT fur coat,” Phil Cuf-
Tiere, Chief Criminal Dep-
uty of Sheriff William
Emig's office in San Jose, Cali-
fornia, said to his partner,
George Pyne, “once upon a time

_ cost money. What happened?"

Deputy Pyne fingered the soft
fur thoughtfully. “Some guy
brought it in this morning. Said
he found it on the rood near
Palo Alto. Sure is a mess, isn't
it?"

Little did the officers guess
under what desperate circum-.
stances -the owner had gotten
rid of that valuable cvai, nor

that it was their first clue in a

gruesome. murder. mystery which
was to baffle the law-men of
three counties for many a week.

Then the call came. It was just
8:30. in the morning of November
23, 1943. “There’s a dead woman

. lying in the field at the intersec-

tion of Alma Street and Diss Road,
near Palo Alto,” a motorist phoned.
“T saw her from the road as I
passed by.”

Cuffaro and Pyne picked up Dep-
uty Roy Larson and rushed to the
scene, She was lying in a plowed
field, her face pressed into the
soft, black dirt, some 30 feet from
the highway.

“Dead,” Cuffaro said, after a
hasty, examination. “Looks like a

grudge killing. The back of her

head is smashed in. And for good
measure the killer jammed her
face into the dirt.” :
She was about. 25 years old. Her
shoes were missing. Her black
dress was torn. “I think she put up
a good fight,” Larson exclaimed.
“Took at the bruises on her
hands!” —
Cuffaro stood up. “Call the of-
fice,” he told Larson, “and get
some help here. See that track in
the dirt?” “

He pointed to deep-printed foot-

marks that led from the body to
the fence which bordered the field.
“The killer must have carried her
here from the ‘road. Block it off
until we get a chance to look it
over.”

Two other officers, George Vogel

and Dan Hinkey, arrived and short-
ly after, Sheriff Emig, with Deputy
Coroner Harry Rider and Robert
Drexel, Investigator forthe Dis-
trict Attorney’s office.

Rider turned the body over.
“She surely took a beating,” he
said softly. “Look at the bruises on
her temple and cheeks!” Then he
added, “I guess she’s been dead
about eight or nine hours, Perhaps
a little more.”

Cuffaro gently eased a brooch
from the woman’s dress. It was

BERNICE CURTIS: Why had &
she been so secretive about &
the mysterious Frank?

KILLER: He had
been acquitted
once on a mur-
der charge, but
he wasn't.as for-
tunate this time.

¢


marks?”
ad. “Nothing
eS an item

been eating
+ grapes, By
Olunt instru-
ier weapon.
-n that heel

rger! That
at,” Cuffaro
‘ety eating -
ing to the
_ Someone
‘man and

é busy at
‘d to the
n he fol-
‘ he had
to find
escaped

heavy
Y bright
ned it
i small

some.

of a
refully
nd the
omised

‘uffaro
'S usu-

tips
l'S of-

vere

. A
orted
on of
night
. just
‘ight

ving

jin the street and had to swerve
sharply to avoid it, And a few feet
further on was a car, its lights

-nearly blinding me.”

“Did you see anyone?” Cuffaro

asked.
The bus driver hadn’t. “Thought

’ they were a couple of spooners, so
* I took no particular notice.”

“How about the car? Can you
give us something definite on

. that?” the deputy asked hopefully.

“That was a Chevvy, about, ’36 or

- 37 model. One of the doors stood

open and I know it was painted
green.” ;

Cuffaro immediately gave this
dope to the California Highway Pa-
trol, Even without the license num-

‘ber, which the bus driver had been

unable to see ‘on account of the
glaring headlights, this was a step
further.

“you didn’t by any chance see
a woman’s shoe somewhere on the
road?” he asked. ~

The bus driver hadn’t. It would
have helped, Cuffaro thought, to’
establish the route the killer had
used to bring his victim to the
death scene,

After the man had gone, a call
came from the San Francisco Po-

lice. A cigar store proprietor, R. :

W. Levy, had reported that a girl,
Bernice Curtis, worked for him,
that she hadn’t shown up that
morning, and that she owned a
brooch like the one in the papers.
“we're bringing him up to San
Jose,” the San Francisco officer
continued. “He'll be able to tell
you for sure whether it’s Bernice
Curtis.”

Levy had no doubt about it.
“That’s Miss Curtis,” he told Cuf-
faro. “I think she lived at 232 San
Jose Avenue in San Francisco.”

Cuffaro wasted no time getting
to that address. The landlady told
him that Bernice left the house
about seven o’clock Sunday night
and hadn’t come home, The officer
searched the girl’s room, but found
little that could shed light on the

-~mystery. There were no phone

numbers, no addresses, no pictures,
no letters, no diary.

“Did Miss Curtis,” Cuffaro asked,
“have any boy friends?”

“Not many,” the landlady re-
plied. “She came from Chicago
only two months ago. But she con-
fided in me that she was engaged
to Stanley Dawes, who is now in
Mexico City for a power company.
And of course,” the woman added,
“she went around a lot with
Frank.”

Cuffaro’s spirits soared, Here at
last was the link he had been look-
ing for, a boy friend. But his hopes
were dashed almost at once, The
landlady knew only ‘Frank’ as a
name. She had never seen the man,
although she had spoken to him
several times when he called Ber-
nice up for a date. “He had a very
nice, smooth voice.” And that is

all she knew.

The girl who roomed with Miss
Curtis could add very little. Bernice
had often spoken of Frank, but she
had not seen him, “Maybe Ber-
nice’s sister might have,” she sug-
gested. “Her name is Mrs. Helen
Ash and she lives-at 3434 Sacra-
mento Street here in San Francis-
co.”

Cuffaro was now joined by
George Pyne who brought with
him the brooch and the dead girl’s
dress, Together with Inspectors Al
Corrasa and Harry Husted of the
San Francisco Homicide Bureau,
they went to see Mrs. Ash,

She identified the brooch and

dress at once. But “Frank” still re-

mained just a name. Mrs. Ash had
never met him, “Bernice showed
me a picture of him one day,” she
added. “He must be about 33 years
old and looked rather Latiny. He
has a small mustache and dark
hair and Bernice told me that he
had been married but that his
wife got a divorce.”

Cuffaro asked her to try to re-
member any little detail she could.
‘But Mrs. -Ash knew no more, “Ex-
cept that he works at some ship-

Pane A
a 3

. This brooch established the

identity of the slain girl.

yard,” she told the officers. “T know
because Bernice mentioned that he
came off shift at four.”

Mrs. Ash’s husband returned to
San Jose with the officers and
made the official identification.

ARLY the next day the dead

girl’s landlady called Sheriff
Emig’s office. “I forgot to tell you,”
she said, “that Frank called yester-
day morning. He wanted to speak
to Bernice, but I told him that she
had not come in. He said he’d call
later, but he didn’t.”

Cuffaro thanked her for the in-
formation and immediately got in
touch with Inspector Husted in
San Francisco. “This Frank guy
may call again,” he said. “We
might get track of him that way.”

Husted promised to cover that
angle. But as a matter of record,
Frank didn’t. call again. “If he’s
in the clear,” Cuffaro told Sheriff
Emig, “he would have called. He
surely read about this in the
papers.” —

“Might be a married man step-
ping out on his missus,” Emig re-

(Continued on page 36)


|

Py IRENE SAUNDERS <

t

Tt
Teer
uty
Emig's «
fornia,
George
cost m
Depu
fur th
brous!
he for
Pale ¢
it?"
Litt!
under
stance
rid of
that ii
gruesc
was |
three
Then

8:30 in
23, 194

_ lying i

tion of
near P:
“IT saw
passed
Cuff:
uty R°
scene.
field,
soft, b
the hi
“Der
hasty
grudg:
head
meas\
face |
She
shoes
dress
ag
“Loo'
hand
Cu:
fice,’
some
the
He
mark
the 1
“The
here
unt
over
Tv


LO ee eet

in the strev
#@ sharply to ©
further on

nearly blinc
“Did you
ked.
Pine bus «
they were ©
ook no Pp
I a ow ab
give us .
Saat?” the
“That wa
37 model. (
open and ‘
green.
Cuffaro
dope to the
trol, Even \
, ber, which +
unable to
glaring he:
further. —
“You did
a woman's
road?” he «
The bus
have help
establish t
used to |
death sce:
After
be ‘ bs came fro:
made of some soft wood, with two on the road. “She'd already been “How about laundry marks?” lice. A
gold initials imbedded in it. “R. c, beaten up.” Rider shook his head, “Nothing W. Levy.
or Maybe B.C.,” the deputy guessed. The officers returned to the car- on her things. But here’s an item Bernice
“It'll give us a@ lead to her iden. tracks near the fence, To Cuffaro’s that might help. She’d been eating that sic
tity.” He turned to Rider, “Any Surprise, the blood trail led beyond hamburger and green grapes. By morning.
other identification on her?” the spot where the car had cer. the way, the usual ‘blunt instru. brooch 1i
The deputy coroner Shook his tainly been parked and where the ment’ was the murder weapon, ; “We're |
head. “I don’t see her purse. And killer had climbed over the fence. Might be a gun, or even that heel Jose,”
as far as I can tell now, there is He followed it for 300 feet. And on her shoe.” continw
nothing to tell us who she is,” there, hidden’ in the weeds, he “Grapes and hamburger! That you for
“You may find something when found a black shoe, with high heels might be a lead at that,” Cuffaro Curtis.
you get her into your laboratory,” and open toes. Carefully he search. thought. “I'll have every eating Levy
Cuffaro said. “Let’s have laundry ed for its mate. It wasn’t there. joint on the roads leading to the “That's
marks, if there are any.” Nor did the blood trail go any fur. murder scene, checked. Someone faro, °-
Rider promised to Overlook noth. ther, But twice, on the edge of might remember the woman and Jose !
ing and took the body away with the pavement the officer found her companion.” Cuff:
him. Cuffaro tried to reconstruct dim traces of the killer’s shoes,
the crime. “He must

While other officers were busy at to that
be’ a pretty Cuffaro said to Sheriff Emig, “The that end,
husky: man,” he told Sheriff Emig,

Cuffaro returned to the him th

quicker we get her identified, the field. Over and over again he fol- about -

“judging by his stride. There’s a quicker we can get a line on her lowed the killer’s trail as he had and he

Couple of good footprints here, of friends and maybe the killer. Let’s it reconstructed, hoping to find search¢

which we better make some casts.” check ‘her fingerprints. If She’s a something that might have escaped little a

e Larson and Pyne were war worker, they'll be on record,” him, And finally he did, mysters

busy at that, Cuffaro followed the But that lead brought no results. Hidden between two heavy numbe:

tracks to the fence. Marks showed ‘Tl Photograph that brooch,” Cuf- clumps of dirt, was a tiny bright no lett

where the killer had Climbed: over, faro told his Superior. “We'll give Spot. As the officer examined it “Did
From there the trail led a few feet it to the papers and Somebody may closer, he saw that it was & small

to some fresh, distant tire tracks.

“have é
recognize it.” tuft of feathers, such as are some. “Not
“Parked his car here,” Cuffaro rea- “Good,” Emig agreed. “Write up times worn in the ribbon of a plied. ;
soned. Then he Saw something &@ good description of her and her man’s hat. He placed it carefully only t
queer. About ten feet away was a clothes, We’ll give that to

the news- in an envelope, “When I find the fided i:
clear imprint of a woman’s foot, hounds too, In the meantime Tl
Cuffaro searched further. The trail

rest of this feather,” he promised to Sta:
phone all the Missing Persons Bu- himself, “I'll have the killer,” Mexicc
led nearly a hundred feet away reaus in the bay district. She might And ¢
from the Car, then disappeared on already have been reported in.” T was getting dark and Cuffaro “she ;
the hard surfaced road. “She must But she hadn't. The afternoon returned to his office, As is usu- Frank.
have walked, or perhaps stagger. Papers came out with the picture al in major murder cases, tips Cul
ed is the better word,” he Said to of the. brooch and her description. came pouring into the sheriff’s of- last hi
Emig. “Trying to €scape, no doubt.” But no one called. No one claimed fice. Each was checked. None were ing }!
“Looks like it,” Emig replied, to know her. Then Deputy Coroner of any importance, except one. A were
“Judging by the weavy trail she Rider made his report. “She wore bus driver of Palo Alto reported landl:
left.” a couple of expensive rings,” he that he passed the intersection of name.
“The killer overtook her here,” — told Cuffaro. ‘Couldn’t see them _ Diss and Alma at 12:45 the night } altho
Cuffaro thought aloud, “and car- for dirt at first.” : before. “I looked at my watch just seve:
ried her back to the car.” He Point- “That excludes robbery as the then. So I know that’s the right nice
ed to several SMall spots of blood motive,” the investigator replied. time. I saw a woman’s coat lying | ae
8 ="

|


found in Alcalde’s car, and her right thumb
print was discovered on the rearview mirror.

Obviously; this mass of evidence called for
a lot of explanation by Frank Alcalde.

I remember we were all holding our breath
a little bit the morning he took the stand.
The courtroom was filled to capacity; people
were standing around the walls and at the
windows. He looked shaky as he seated him-
self in the witness chair, so close I could have
leaned over and touched him.

The most startling part of his testimony can
be gleaned from a few questions’ and answers
in the cross examination:

ANDREUCCETTI: “Why did you tell us
you didn’t know Bernice Curtis?’

ALCALDE: “The reason I told you that—I
didn’t’ want to be connected with the case.’

Q.—“You didn’t .want to be connected?”

A.—“Yes, I figured I was going to be framed
because I knew her. I thought I would tell the
truth at the proper time . . . when Mr. Bul-.
lock told me to tell the truth.”

(THROUGH all this I sensed a strange un-

dercurrent of double meaning—both in
questions and replies. I couldn’t put my finger
on it. But I felt instinctively that Alcalde, the
DA, Bullock and the whispering reporters in
the press row knew what was in the air. To
me it remained a puzzle—until I reached the
jury room to begin deliberations. —

Of course, I could have had the answer by
reading the papers at home each night. But I
took my responsibilities as a juror very se-
riously, particularly Judge James’ daily ad-
monition not to “discuss the case or form
any opinion until all the evidence is before
you.” I felt that reading press accounts would
be a violation of the spirit, if not the letter,
of that admonition. I believe some of my fel-
low jurors read the. anes thoroughly each
night, however.

Frank Alcalde’s story was what the lawyers

call an alibi. My dictionary defines an alibi as
“the defense by an accused person that he

was elsewhere at the time the offense was com- |

mitted.”

H admitted everything the prosecution had
been at pains to prove about his relationship
with Bernice Curtis, with these exceptions: He
denied saying he planned to “get rid of her,”
and denied that he had been with her on Sun-
day, the day of the murder.

Guided by his attorney, he told us of —

meeting Bernice at a dance hall about three
weeks before her death. He explained that he
had left home about that time after a dis-
agreement with his wife, Della. Della had
taken an outside’ job against his wishes, he
explained.

He told of taking Miss Curtis to dances or
movies on four occasions, of visiting her apart-
ment and buying her flowers, of telephoning

her from the shipyard, of bringing her to his-

hotel room one evening, and of dating her on
Saturday night, the next-to-last day of her
life.

But as for the following day, he swore in a
firm, level voice: “I did not see Bernice Curtis
that night. I did not drive Bernice Curtis in

my car to any place on Sunday night, Novem- .

ber*22. I did not see her at all.”

This is how he accounted for his time on
Sunday and Sunday night:

“I worked at the shipyard that diy until
4:30 p.m., the usual hour. I drove my car to
South ‘San Francisco, where I parked it in
an alley in the rear of the West Hotel. I went

up to the room and changed clothes, put on
the blue suit.”

He said he ate in a Greek restaurant, and
went to the Union Pool Hall nearby. °

“I played cards with my dad, a gentleman
named Juanito Ramirez, one named Delgado
and two others. I played until about 9:30.

“FRom there my dad and I had a conversa-
tion. He asked me if I would go over and
see my wife that night. She was home in San
Bruno. I said, ‘I think I will do that.’ From
there I went over to my car. I got in the car,
backed out a little ways; I noticed there was
a flat tire, the right front tire. I pulled the
car up to where it was.
I went back to my hotel, went to bed.

ANSWERS TO HEADQUARTERS
LINEUP

(Questions on page 7)

a husband who reports his wife missing,
he says he wants to look through her be-
longings for clues as to where she may have
gone. What the sleuth is really after is evi-
dence of murder. Hubby i is tentatively under
suspicion. If the missing woman’s lingerie,
stockings and jewelry are still in the bed-
room chest of drawers, it’s pretty syre she
didn’t walk out.

2 (a) Two out of thyes females in states’
prisons turn out to be married and living
at home, so.to speak...

3 Dr. Hawley Harvey Crippen.

4 (a) The first-born of a family. He has
a hard row to hoe. Pampered by his moth-
er, he tangles too much with his father. On
the one hand, he expects everything done
for him; at the same time he resents and
rebels against discipline and authority. He
is apt to grow up with the idea he can
take what he wants and get away with it.
If this attitude gets him into trouble, he’s
been through it so often with his father
~~ he is used to it...

5 <b): Executional protocol calls for the
lady to be put to death first to spare her the
mental torment of sweating out a few extra
minutes on earth.

6 (a) A person standing or.seated writes
on a vertical surface at eye level. Witness the
height of doodling and digits on the walls of
a pay station phone baoth. ~*

7 (b) Most prisoners plead, “Guilty,
Your Honor.” Only one in five insists on
his constitutional right to a jury. trial.

8 (b) It’s impossible to lift a fingerprint
impression from the human skin. °

9 (a) Single men get into the most hot
water with the law—married men less than
widowers or divorced men.

1 (a) When a detective goes home with P

I got to my room about ten o’clock that
night and went to bed shortly after that.”

Alcalde said he awakened about 11:30 p.m.
and heard loud coughing from the room across
the hall. He said he spoke to the roomer, a
man named Delaney, asking if he had a cold,
before going back to sleep.

The next morning, he said, he fixed the flat
tire. He said someone had deliberately let the
air out of it. Then he went home to his wife,
moving all his clothes out of the hotel room.

At this point he made a vital slip:

“Around 11 o’clock my wife asked me to
wash the car. I washed the car; took and
brought the car out in front of the driveway

“and washed the .car.”

Q.—‘How frequently did you wash the car?”
—‘Well, I only washed the car under

pressure; my wife put pressure on me to wash
the car; I didn’t think I should wash the car
because it was raining. I believe my wife
swept the back and front, inside . . . I never
washed the car inside.”

Things moved swiftly after Alcalde left the
stand.

Delgado and Ramirez, the pair with whom
Alcalde said he had played cards till 9:30 the
night of the murder, agreed they had seen him
at the cardroom—but only till 6 p.m. He left
at that hour, they said.

Delaney, the roomer next to Alcalde’ at the
hotel, said the defendant did not ask about
his cough at 11:30 that night. That happened
the following morning at about nine o’clock,
he said.

Alcalde’s story that hig car was behind the
hotel all night with a flat tire was challenged
by the policeman on the beat. The officer, who
knew the car, swore it was not in the alley
at 12:20 a.m. Sunday. But it was there, he
said, at 2:20.a.m. when he made the rounds
again. :

To me, the diasiatic dimes of the trial was
the brief, pathetic appearance of Alcalde’s
lovely young wife.

We had been led to believe that Della Al-
calde was the defense’s ace in the hole. We
had expected her to take the stand and vin-
dicate her husband. We _ pictured her the
loving mothér, the loyal: wife: who would fight
for her man.

No one knows the terrible inner struggle
that woman must have had. We can only
guess.

On the day she was to testify, we noticed
whispered conferences between Alcalde and his
lawyer. Attorney Bullock. talked in low tones
with Judge James, who retired to his cham-
bers.

Then Della Alcalde swept into the court-
room. She wore dark glasses and a floppy
cloth hat, pulled low over her forehead. Al-
calde looked up expectantly, half smiling. Then
the smile died on his lips. His wife passed him

without a glance and marched into. the judge’s

chambers. Bullock hurried after her.

Moments later, she dashed from the cham-
bers, head down, and disappeared from the
courtroom without a word. Only the echo of
her angry heels remained to remind us she
had come and gone.

HE crowd sat in stunned ‘silence. Alcalde
slumped in his chair. Then, half-heartedly,

‘trying to pretend that nothing had gone

wrong, Bullock called a different witness.

We never saw Della Alcalde again. She died
within the year, crushed and humiliated. by
the realization that her husband was a mur-
derer.

All that remained of the trial now. was the
heart-rending spectacle of Alcalde’s father on
the witness stand—a: broken-voiced old man
trying desperately to save his son. He did all
he could: he swore that he and Frank were to-
gether in the cardroom until nine o’clock that

. Sunday night.

It was pitiful to watch the prosecutor de-
stroy him. Andreuccetti bought in two wit-
nesses who told how old Alcalde offered to

“pay good and well” if they would swear that

Frank “was in bed at 9:30 in the West Hotel
that night.”

We retired to the jury room vat 11:10 AM.,,

March 10,.with the lawyers’ arguments and
the judge’s instructions still-in our ears. It
was the tenth day of the trial.


ns 2¥ a / :

jeter

WHEN HE DATED A GIRL BY EDWARD S. SULLIVAN

<<

OFTEN IT WAS AN “UNTIL. ee
3 2 : MODISH BLACK silk dress with white trim, the

diamond rings that gleamed on soft, manicured hands,
the svelte wave that the reddish-gold hair still retained
obviously would have been more in place in a big city
nightclub than in a plowed field out in the country. They
went with soft lights and seductive music, rather than
the gray bleakness of a chilly autumn morning, the wail
of sirens and the crisp accents of sober-faced lawmen.

But then, murder is always out of place; and although
not much else was known at the moment, there was no
doubt at all that the red-gold blonde girl who lay face
down among the soggy clods had been savagely murdered.

The scene was on Alma Street at Diss Road, in the
rural district on the outskirts of Palo Alto, California,
near the big Stanford University campus. A passing
motorist had called the Palo Alto police at 8:15 on that
overcast Monday morning of November 23rd.

“There’s a woman lying out here ina field. I think
she’s dead.”

-The spot was in county territory just outside the city
limits, but Officer George Vogel nevertheless hastened
out to investigate, picking up Constable Dan Hinkey on
the way. They saw at a glance that the girl was dead,
and Hinkey called the Santa Clara County sheriff's office
at San Jose, 20 miles away. “It’s a murder case, all
right—and it looks like a tough one!”

Chief Criminal Deputy Phil Cuffaro and Deputies
George Pyne and Roy Larson sirened up the country
road 15 minutes later, to find the two local officers guard-
ing the body and keeping back the curious throng of
motorists that had already gathered.

“We haven’t let anybody over the fence, Phil,” Con-
stable Hinkey told Cuffaro as the chief deputy swiftly
sized up the gruesome picture with a practiced eye. “And
we've been careful where we walked, ourselves. No
= what sort of prints you might find in this soft
earth.”

Cuffaro nodded and started to unlimber his identifi-
cation equipment. The main thing was to work fast and
glean whatever clues the scene might yield, before it
should be trodden over by the inevitable throng of
officials and newspapermen. .

The girl, who looked to be about 25 or 28 years old, lay
at full length with her face buried in the soft brown

DEATH DO US PART” DEAL

Gold-plated brooch with initials “B.C.” led police to identity of

girl (l.), wh pies ined by C iL) aud Eegler Green and red were his favorite colors. Red appeared in connection with

the hair of girls; green was the color of his car and the feather in his hat

pte
t
MASTER DETECTIVE MAGAZINE, November, 195), pe


a hgh same

earth. The back of her head was smashed in, the red-
gold hair matted with dried blood: A heavy rock that lay
nearby looked as though it could have been the murder
weapon. She was shoeless, but there was no mud on the
soles of her silk stockings, which indicated the body had
been dumped where it lay.

When Sheriff William D. Emig arrived, closely followed
by Deputy Coroner Harry Ryder and Investigator Robert
Drexel of the district attorney’s office, Cuffaro had
already made some progress interpreting and preserving
the mute evidence.

“No identification on her yet,” he reported. “No sign
of a purse anywhere, though it may be somewhere
around. Hinkey’s still looking for it. But there are some
other things—these tire tracks and footprints.”

The tire marks, on the shoulder of the road a yard or
so outside the breast-high rail fence, were fresh, clear
and distinct: Cuffaro was getting ready to take a moulage
of them. Several deeply indented footprints, quite plainly
those of someone carrying a heavy burden and taking
short steps, led from where the car had been parked to
the fence. One of these, which Cuffaro had already
photographed, showed the clear imprint of a man’s shoe.

There was blood on the top rail of the fence right
beside the tire marks, and the smudges of bloody fingers
on the bole of a peach tree nearby. “It’s pretty clear,”
the chief deputy pointed out. “The fellow parked here
close to the fence and dumped the body over into the
field. Looks like he got a lot of blood on his hands and
wiped them on the tree, just smears though, not enough
for prints.”

“Probably killed her in the car while parked right here,
then,” the sheriff theorized. “Any weapon?”

“Well, this rock lying near the body seems to have
some blood and hairs on it.” Cuffaro frowned. “Trouble
with that is, the body was dumped over the fence and

am oe a Ra SON RL aT an

Sheriff William J. Emig (J.) built a strong cire ial-evid case
against savage killer, and tire tracks of death car played big role at trial

there are no footprints around it—they only go up to this
side of the fence.

“If he killed her in the car, he wouldn’t be likely to
have a rock handy—more likely a heavy tool of some
kind. But these clods here seem to be trampled, alongside
where the car was parked. Could be they both got out
and struggled and he picked up the rock and hit her,
then threw it over the fence after he dumped the body.
Or could be the rock has nothing to do with it—may
have picked up the blood and hair when the body rolled
on it.”

The sheriff nodded thoughtfully, eyeing the tire marks.
“Anything else?”

“These cigarette stubs I picked up, some with lipstick
on them, right beside the tire tracks.”

“Look here, Bill,” the deputy coroner interrupted with
a touch of excitement in his voice. “Maybe this is your
identification!” He had just turned the body over and
brushed some of the earth away. A large brooch of heavy,
dull gold was disclosed at the V-neck of the black silk
gown. “One of those initial brooches—looks like the
initials ‘B.C.’”

“It’s not a common-looking one, either. This may be
just what we need for ID, if her purse doesn’t turn up,”
Sheriff Emig said.

The face under the muddied red-gold curls was battered
and bruised, but they could see, even viewing her in
death in the harsh morning light, that the slain girl had
been beautiful. Her face rounded in soft curves, the wide
mouth a calm and sensitive one, the brows finely arched
over light brown eyes.

There were dark bruises, too, on her throat and arms,
marring the perfection of her figure as set off by the silk
dress. Several of her pointed, pinkly polished fingernails
were broken, and her knees and knuckles were skinned.
The black dress, oddly, was not torn as might have been

expected from these evidences of a
desperate death struggle; it seemed only
slightly pulled awry in the lifting of the
body over the fence.

Sheriff Emig pursed his lips as he
studied the gold brooch and the two
diamond and platinum dinner rings.
“It looks as though we can rule out
robbery, for one thing. Whoever killed
her wasn’t interested in her jewelry.
Most likely someone she knew.”

“No wedding or engagement ring,”
Cuffaro pointed out. “A girl this age,
unmarried—my bet is on her boy
friend!” ae

The deputy coroner estimated roughly
that the unknown beauty had been dead
about eight hours, since shortly after
midnight. This fitted in with her festive
attire suggesting a party or night-
clubbing tour.

While Cuffaro finished photographing
the body and Ryder and his aides pre-
pared to remove it, other newly ar-
rived officers at the sheriff's direction
searched the field and the road in
widening circles, looking for the miss-
ing shoes and the purse the girl must
have carried.

“She probably had a coat, too,” Emig
reflected. “It was pretty cold last night.
Maybe the killer carried all those things
away in the car with him, but if he did
it wasn’t to delay identification or he
would’ve taken that brooch off her
dress. Unless he was so mixed up he

Bit of feather, tiretrack moulages, photos of seratches,
fingerprint fragments told microscopic story to LaTulipe

didn’t know what he was doing. He couldn’t have been
very drunk, or he wouldn’t have been able to lift her over
the fence.”

The sheriff talked to the motorist who had reported the
body lying in the field. He had glimpsed the black dress
through the rails as he sped by; he stopped and walked
back to investigate. He first thought the prone woman was
drunk or asleep, but when he leaned over the fence and
eyed her at close range he saw the blood matted on the
back of her head. That was enough for him. Realizing
the importance of not disturbing anything, he had re-
treated gingerly across the road shoulder and hastened
to the nearest telephone. The man lived nearby and had
been on his way to work; Constable Hinkey knew him;
he obviously had no connection with the case.

The body had lain partly concealed by the lower fence Z
rail, not too easily spotted from the road unless one just
happened to glance in that direction. Alma Street was
a fairly busy thoroughfare in the morning, but it was
understandable that the body had lain there without
being seen for several hours after dawn. That it had so
lain was proved, Cuffaro observed, by the dew on the :
back of the dress and in the footprints and tire tracks. j
That seemed to be all that the murder scene had to
yield for the time being. In
the absence of any imme-
diate lead to the identity of
the victim or the killer, the
sheriff and his men followed
routine. Ryder removed the
body to an undertaking
parlor in Palo Alto, where
Cuffaro stopped briefly to 4
take fingerprints and meas-
urements of the dead girl.

Leaving several officers to
continue searching for the
shoes and purse, Emig drove
back to his office and drew
up a sketchy bulletin for
broadcast by radio and tele-
type. (Cont'd. on page 89)

5) 4 Mid Meise

Deputy Phil Cuffaro (r.) was convinced
that the seven-year-old unsolved slaying
of Kathleen Robinson (above) was linked
to the latest murder mystery by more than
the color of the beautiful victims’ hair

ne to wash
ish the car
my wife
. I never

eft the

vith whom
il 9:30 the
.d seen him
om. He left

‘alde’ at the

ask about
it happened
ine o’clock,

behind the
; challenged
officer, who
in the alley
1s there, he
the rounds

he trial was
of Alcalde’s

it Della Al-
re hole. We
ad and vin-
ed her the
would fight

ner struggle
Ve can only

, we noticed
calde and his

ix Inw tones .

is cham-

o the court-
nd a floppy
forehead. Al-
smiling. Then
fe passed him

to the judge’s

cher.

im the cham-
red from the
y the echo of
omind us she

lence. Alcalde

half-heartedly,
ng had gone

at witness.

gain. She died
humiliated by
d was a mur-

| now. was the
de’s father on
riced old man
on. He did all

Frank were to

ne o’clock that

prosecutor de-
t in two wit-
ilde offered to
swear that
West Hotel

at 11:10 AM.,

arguments and

no our ears.

It

‘table:

The judge had. set before us a difficult task ;
he gave us only three choices of verdict—not
guilty; guilty of first-degee murder with
recommendation for life imprisonment, and
guilty of first-degree murder without recom-
mendation. The last meant death in the lethal
gas chamber at San Quentin Penitentiary. :

The first thing we did was choose a foreman.
There was little argument over that. The job
went to a level-headed, conscientious man
named Ural Williams, a master plumber from
Palo Alto. Doe

As soon as that was done, there was im-
mediate clamor around the long conference
“Let’s take a vote. Let’s take a: vote.”

So the little slips of paper were passed
around and we voted “yes” or “no” on the
question of guilt. I believe the count was nine
to three for guilty. Mary Colli and one other

: juror and I voted “not guilty. me

As I told my fellow jurors, it wasn’t that
I believed Alcalde innocent. It was merely that
I had no real picture of the crime from the
evidence.
case and try to arrange the evidence: so that
we had a clear idea of what had happened.

A man across from me said disgustedly,
“Can’t you tell he’s guilty without going
through all that?” :

A woman juror raised her voice: “Why, you
can just sit and look at him (Alcalde) and tell
he’s a murderer. I didn’t even bother to listen
to the evidence.”

Another man spoke up: “Mrs. Rea, I don’t
think you understand this type of case. You’ve
led a sheltered life. You’ve had no experience.
This is a sex murder.”

Pretty soon everyone was shouting at me.

The other “not guilty” juror switched over,

but Mary Colli stuck with me. I began to get

stubborn and even a little angry. Finally, I —

made a little speech myself.

“I may be just a naive housewife,” I said,
“but I am not even going to vote again until
we sit down and discuss this case from start to
finish. And I don’t care if I have to stay here
a week,”

The foreman said I was right. So from that

' point, we began to reconstruct the case—much
.as T’ve outlined it.

Dont think that all our discussions were
calm and orderly after that..Far from it.
During one wrangle, I found out why the po-
lice had ‘suspected Alcalde in the first place.
One of the women was haranguing me when

it popped out. “You can’t let this man free,”

she said. “He’s already killed two women.
If we turned him loose he’ll kill another one.”
It turned out—and almost every juror. but,
me knew this—that Frank Alcalde had been
accused of the murder of another woman in
San Mateo, almost eight years before.
Alcalde’s sweetheart, a girl named Kath-

’ leen Robinson, had been found shot through

the head in January, 1935. The death weapon
was a rare foreign-make pistol, of which only
six were known to be in California. The police
said this particular gun had “disappeared” a
few weeks before from a tavern where Al-
calde had worked.

Frank Alcalde was arrested, charged and
held for a month. He was finally released for
lack ef evidence, although police and public
opinion were unanimous that he was the
slayer.

‘Nothing concerning this case, of course, was

, admissible during the trial. But it did explain

a lot. And don’t think for a minute that the

_ thing relating to human affairs eae

‘I thought we should discuss the -

old case wasn’t discussed in the jury room.
After we had reconstructed the case, the

only thing that bothered me was the fact

that the evidence, strong as it was, was all cir-
cumstantial.

Two things tipped the balance in my mind.

One was that Alcalde had washed his car in
the rain and apparently had scrubbed the up-
holstery as well. The other was the fact that
Alcalde’s wife had refused to testify for him.

I knew I was convinced beyond the required

- “reasonable doubt” when I remembered Judge

James’ instruction: “A reasonable-doubt .

is not a mere possible doubt; because every-
. is open
‘to some possible or imaginary doubt.” ;

-Yet it is a hard thing to condemn a man
to death. With Mary Colli supporting me, I
convinced the -other jurors that we should
vote for life imprisonment, provided we could
be sure Alcalde would. never be released.

So the foreman wrote a note to J udge
James: “May we render a decision of life im-
prisonment and not eligible for parole.” Judge
James replied: “The answer is no.” I know the

"reason now—in ‘California, only the parole
board can determine the length of a sentence.

; T HEN we did what our consciences dictated:
we voted Alcalde guilty of first- degree mur- |

der without recommendation.

We returned with the verdict at 9:10 that
night, after deliberating the case for seven
hours and 25 minutes.

I'll never forget the ashen fear on that'man’s

face when our decision was announced. It
was impossible not to look at him.

I wept like a schoolgirl after it was over, I
remember that a couple of women jurors
asked me to come and have coffee and cake
with them before going home. I shook my head
blindly. I couldn’t have eaten then to save my
life.

During the next few days, I searched my
soul. Had I done the right thing?. I knew
Alcalde had killed Bernice Curtis, but still I
was upset. So one day I got on the bus and
went to call on Judge James.

He stood up and smiled when I came into
his private office.

“I knew you were coming to see me, my
dear,” he said. “I knew you wanted to talk
about it.” :

I unburdened myself to that good, wise man,
telling him everything that had happened in
the jury room. :

He smiled again when I had finished. “I
believe there was no miscarriage of justice,

Mrs. Rea,” he said. “I believe justice was.
done.”

“Just the same,” I said, “I never want to
serve on another jury.” .

He reprimanded. me for that. “Jury service
is an obligation of citizenship,” he said. “We

want people like you, ordinary good citizens,

on our juries. Otherwise, a class of ‘profes-
sional’ jurors would -develop, and our system
of justice would be destroyed.”

Alcalde was executed on May 31, 1944. I
didn’t read the newspaper stories, but I am
told he died with curses on his lips.

The Supreme Court of California reviéwed

‘the case before the execution. In upholding

our verdict, the court remarked: “The circum-
stantial evidence was sufficient to connect the
defendant with the commission of the crime
and to establish beyond a reasonable doubt
that he was the perpetrator thereof.”

And thus justice is done.

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