Victimless crimes – Page 4

Let Me Rephrase That, Officer …

August 21, 1927
Los Angeles

The voice on the phone was breathless. "Help! Murder! Police!! He’s killing me, come quick!" (All dialogue, however fanciful, comes verbatim from today’s Los Angeles Times.) "Be right over," responded the dispatcher, as he sent two of his "star murder squad officers" to the scene of the crime.

They were met at the door of 1618 East 27th Street by Mrs. Georgia Brown, who quickly assured them there was nothing out of order at her house. "Must be something wrong somewhere [else], everything’s running according to Hoyle here," she told the officers.

Then Mrs. Brown made an error, a grievous one, the kind for which you’ll forever after kick yourself, even if you live to be 100. "Just walk in and see for yourselves," she said.

The cops didn’t need to be asked twice. A five-minute investigation of Mrs. Brown’s house turned up five bottles of home brew. Called before the judge on a charge of possessing alcohol, Mrs. Brown was given the choice of a $100 fine or ten days in jail. She chose the former—though she still believes the police came to the wrong house.

Let’s Hope He Remembered to Cut Her Out of the Will

August 18, 1927
Lancaster

Archie Howell had a flair for the dramatic.

He and his wife divorced after two years of marriage, she awarded her $115 a-month alimony. Howell had gone to see his erstwhile love at their home, but she refused to see him.

Later Howell was in his auto and saw his wife on the street. “Come on over to the car, honey, I want to give you some money” he chirped. The former Mrs. Howell strode over and leaned in, at which point Mr. Howell shot himself in the head.

Death Before Dishonor, Your Honor

August 12, 1927
Los Angeles

leap Alice Miller, 24, was hanging out with her buddies Helen Myers, Norman Myers and Robert Wilkenson—the four of them all out on bail on various charges of grand larceny, pickpocketing, and vagrancy—in her little room at the Hillman Apartments, 1010 Ingraham Street.

There’s a knock on the door. Seems that Robert Seaner, the bondsman who’d bailed Alice out when she got pinched for pickpocketing in downtown department stores, has just received some disturbing news from Chief of Police Laubenhemer out in Milwaukee. Was it true, Alice, that back in Milwaukee, where you were known as Mrs. Mary Becker, you escaped from the Industrial Home for Women at Taycheedah? Would you be so kind as to come with me down to the station so we can sort this thing out? Sure thing, says Alice, let me go in the other room for a moment and change into my street clothes.

alice But the moments come and go and the collected find the room empty. She’s chosen death over jail: through the open window, they see her broken body lying four stories below.

Despite the basal skull fracture, broken nose and arm, and assorted internal injuries, Alice survives to stand trial. On November 26, Alice is freed on the charge of shoplifting, due to insufficient evidence; she is promptly rearrested by Milwaukee officers, who set off with their prisoner.
taycheedah

Hit Records Make a Splash

August 11, 1927
Los Angeles
blasts

Three terrific explosions ripped through the Hall of Records to-day! Who could have committed such a dastardly act? Anarchists? Bolsheviks? Theosophists? Vegetarians?
hor
The twelfth-floor room in which the blasts took place were stained and dripping a deep crimson red. Surely the blood of the innocent! Splattered across our noble governing offices by devious dynamiting moustachio’d malcontents!
kegs
On further investigation, all that dripping gore was discovered to be just red wine…for the Hall of Records, it seems, is a pretty swell place to stash some wine kegs.

Until they burst.

I Did Not Have Sex with that Woman!

Jacobson Headline

August 6, 1927
Los Angeles

Councilman Carl I. Jacobson was arrested in a morals raid at 4372 Beagle Street in the company of a woman who said her name was Mrs. Councilman Jacobson Hazel Ferguson, but who later admitted her real name was Mrs. Callie Grimes.

The married councilman insisted that he was framed and that the raid was the underworld’s retaliation for his much publicized crusade against vice in the city.

Jacobson, who lives in a small bungalow at 3014 Terry Place with his wife of thirty years, told cops that he had called upon Mrs. Ferguson to discuss a matter of street assessments with her. He said Mrs. Ferguson had telephoned him at his home and asked him to look over her property to see if it was worth paying the assessments.

When he arrived for their meeting Mrs. Ferguson poured two cocktails, and then moments later all of the lights in the house went out. It was then that police announced themselves and placed Councilman Jacobson and Mrs. Ferguson/Grimes under arrest.

The four arresting officers, Captains of Detectives Wallis and Williams, and Detectives Lucas and Raymond related a version of events substantively different from Jacobson’s account. They stated that they went to the Beagle street house, watched through a window and then observing what they felt constituted criminal behavior, crashed down a door to arrest the couple on morals violations. The arrest of Jacobson and Grimes begs the question: why were four high-ranking LAPD officers creeping around in the shrubbery with their noses pressed to a window like four Peeping Toms?

The case against Jacobsen would drag on. Jacobson would be tried twice on morals charges. In the first trial the jury would vote 9 to 3 for acquittal; in the second trial the jury would be evenly divided and the DA would decide against trying him for a third time. Mrs. Callie Grimes would confess to her part in the frame-up, and then recant. Grimes along with the four officers who conducted the raid would be tried for conspiracy, and the charges against them would be dismissed in 1929.

One of the detectives, Harry Raymond, would leave the LAPD and become a private investigator. He’d turn up again in the news as the victim of an attempted assassination by car bomb, in a 1938 corruption scandal involving Los Angeles Mayor Frank Shaw, members of his administration, and the LAPD.

A Never-Ending Story

July 31, 1927
Los Angeles

A terrible scene greeted the eyes of sisters Florence and Thelma Schuchart (ages 18 and 23, respectively) when they returned home to 158 W. 52nd Place from the beach about 4:30 p.m. today. There, in a pool of blood on the bedroom floor, lay their mother, Florence C. Schuchart , 44, stabbed to death by the man who lay next to her with a butcher knife clutched in his hand, John C. Bowers, 45. Bowers, most recently of the Fair Hotel, 525-1/2 S. Main Street, apparently cut his own throat. (The Times referred to Bowers as "a friend of Mrs. Schuchart" but given he’d just killed her, I think we’ll skip that locution.)

According to detectives, Schuchart had been dead longer than Bowers and based on the disarray and bloodstains throughout the house, she struggled mightily for her life. Family members said that Schuchart recently tried to cut off a relationship with Bowers of several months’ standing. Neighbors reported that Bowers, a traveling salesman who was reportedly "hard up and out of work," had previously threatened to shoot Schuchart.

A brief note addressed to Mary V. Busy of Riverside was found in a sealed envelope on the kitchen table. In it, Bowers declared his suicidal intentions.

Rest in peace, Florence C. Schuchart.

Exit of a Thirsty Man

July 26, 1927
Beverly Hills

Architect Fred W. Maack was well prepared when he appeared before City Recorder/ Judge Seth Strelinger to answer to a charge of drunkeness and disorderly conduct. He was willing, he read from a most unusual statement, to voluntarily exile himself for a period of four years from the municipality of Beverly Hills (unless granted permission to enter by the BHPD), during which time he would not partake of any intoxicating liquors. Further, he was under the care of a psychiatrist, and would remain so until the doctor deemed him sane.

"In consideration of the above," Maack read, "I beg to request that I be given a suspended sentence and be permitted to forfeit my bail and that the medical staff of the Beverly Hills Health Department abstain from interfering with my case on the grounds that they are acquainted with the worst phases of my character only–" (and here the statement deteriorates somewhat into possibly pixilated confusion) "–and will unintentionally be acting for the good of my family than for my own good and will not be here to bother my family in the future. This is not meant as a criticism, but voices my honest desire to start over, quit drinking and get to work in another community. I have a job waiting for me and if all official record of my being under observation is omitted I will be highly appreciative of the fact."

Judge Strelinger was impressed by Maack’s plea, and not only granted the suspended sentence, but ruled that his $100 bail be returned. Here’s hoping the gentleman stayed dry and built some fine structures, wherever he next settled.

Is Nothing Sacred?

July 10, 1927
Los Angeles

First peanuts and now the All-American ice cream cone. Is there no treat safe from the bootlegger’s evil maw? Assistant Federal prohibition administrator Frank E. Benedict today announced the discovery of what was called "one of the most completely equipped distilleries" ever found in Los Angeles, hidden in the innocent guise of an ice cream cone factory.

A curious fact brought the plant (located at 354-1/2 West Manchester Avenue) to the attention of eagle-eyed prohibition agents: business appeared to be flourishing, yet no deliveries were seen leaving the building. Further investigation ensued. When proprietor James Kanich was informed that the interior measurements of the shop matched those he previously provided to agents, his response was "a flippant remark" that led Benedict to measure the building’s exterior as well. A twenty-three foot discrepancy was thus discovered. Benedict returned inside, sounded the wall with a hammer, found a weak spot, and chopped into the wallboard. Behind it stood a 500-gallon still in full operation. Four thousand gallons of mash were ready for use at the top of a nearby stairway, and forty five-gallon cans of grain alcohol were packed in heavy paper cartons ostensibly used for freshly baked ice cream cones. The distilling room was accessible only through a narrow closet door which, when closed, appeared to be a solid wall. Meanwhile, a thorough check of the main building yielded stale ice cream cones and cone-making machinery filled with cobwebs.

Both Kanich and his wife, Mary, denied knowledge of the still. Mrs. Kanich told agents that she and her husband were the innocent victims of a group who financed the cone factory, led by a man she could identify only as "Harry."

The Kaniches were arrested for violation of the Volstead Act. Benedict promised further arrests would be made.

Unclear on the Concept

July 6, 1927
Los Angeles

Memo to Officer Fritzler of the Los Angeles police: next time you pull a guy over at Twelth and Main because you think he’s driving drunk, don’t tell him to drive you over to headquarters so you can throw him in the pokey.

Oh, everything might go just find as far as the police are concerned, but when you show up in Judge Wilson’s court to defend the arrest, you’ll be roundly chastised for letting someone you believed drunk remain in his car, because… Officer… the point of the drunk driving laws it to get drunks out from behind the wheel, not to turn them into chauffeurs for cops!

Since Fritzler clearly believed Fred Heegal was capable of driving safely through downtown traffic, and no test of drunkenness was given, the charges were dismissed, for this case and a similar one involving Officer Neff against C.A. Peterson.

Hooray for Hollywood!

Rose Host Headline

July 2, 1927
Hollywood

“Hitch your wagon to a star.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson Rose Host

A blue-bound copy of Emerson’s essays, 50 cents, and the clothes on her back were all that Miss Rose Host had with her when she stowed away aboard the Panama Pacific liner “Manchuria” bound for Los Angeles. If Capt. William J. Munroe hadn’t been so understanding and hadn’t allowed her to earn her passage by stamping passenger forms for the ship’s purser Leo Gallagher, she may never have made it.

Rose’s picture appeared today in the Los Angeles Times accompanied by a story about her Hollywood dreams of gold and fame. A beauty contest winner in her home state of New York, Rose believes that a successful career in tinsel town is within her grasp.

Fast forward six months. Rose landed a bit part in the film “Shootin’ Irons” with Jack Rose and Jack Luden. See – that’s Rose in the photograph, nothing more than a silhouette. Her part was so small she wasn’t even mentioned in the credits, and her Hollywood dreams ended with one picture. Rose Host the actress was not heard from again.

Maybe she became an English professor, sharing her love of Emerson with idealistic undergraduates. Let’s hope so, because when a Hollywood dream becomes a nightmare you have Jack Luden’s story.

Jack and Rose were both in their 20s when they made “Shootin’ Irons” together. Jack was an heir to the Luden’s cough drop fortune, but he was young and it was Hollywood so he tried his hand at acting. He was a handsome guy and Paramount planned to feature him in westerns as they’d done with Gary Cooper. Unfortunately for Jack, “Shootin’ Irons” wasn’t a success and by 1930 the studio had either dropped him or he’d walked away from his contract to pursue a life as a junkie.

How he spent the years between 1930 and 1936 remains something of a mystery, but by the 1940s the thrice married Luden had a monkey on his back the size of Cheeta on steroids. He drifted in and out of the movie business – and trouble, for the next decade.

During those six lost years Jack evidently acquired a taste for the seamy side of life. Busted several times for shoplifting to support his heroin habit, he was known to have said "a crooked buck is sweeter than an honest dollar." Jack, it seems, was an unrepentant sinner.

Finally in 1951 he was sent to San Quentin for drug possession and passing bad checks. Nine months into his sentence Jack dropped dead of a heart attack. He was 49.

“Come on and try your luck
You could be Donald Duck
Hooray for Hollywood!”
— Johnny Mercer