July 22, 1927
Pasadena

Pasadenans, beware!  If you’re Japanese, anyway.  See, there’s a “giant Negro” on the loose, and he’s a criminal.  His crime?  Hanging the Japanese upside-down.  

Seriously.  George Shimanouchi was minding his own business in the garage of his home at 126 Elevado Drive (now Del Mar) when the aforementioned giant negro (hey, not my nomenclature) arrived unbidden and hung the boy upside-down from a rafter.  

A Mrs. C. Duncan, 105 Elevado, heard someone yelling for help across the street and called it in; either she took her own sweet time about it or the authorities did, because when Detective Seargeants Mansell and Cheek arrived, Shimanouchi, now semiconscious, had been suspended head-down for nearly an hour.  

The boy held the opinion that his assailant planned to rob the house after tying him to the rafter, but officers found no evidence of entry.

(While Hippocrates was a firm believer in inversion therapy, practitioners evidently went to absurd lengths in sharing their craft before its popularization via American Gigolo.)

above: Nathan Marsak and Crimebo the Clown prepare for the debut performance of The Jack Parsons Story as presented by the Crimebo Players. Weird Sex! Rocketships! Space Creatures! Warlocks! Sex Slaves! Is this the Pasadena the Chamber of Commerce wants us talking about? Hmmm.... maybe not. But we sure had fun.   

Below, a visit to Mitchell Books, where John Mitchell held us rapt with tales of real and fictional murder.

March 31, 1927
Pasadena

Fourteen year-old Wilbur Garner had a lady-friend, and an older one at that, his inamoratette a fifteen year-old Eula Rittgers. They showed great attachment to one another at their Seventh Day Adventist School. When they decided to exchange biblical dullsville for the world’s treasures, they outfoxed the Man by turning li’l Eula into a boy. Inside a church  wastebasket was found the Eula's hair, and persons conforming to the two young boys' description were spotted in Eagle Rock. A fashionable bobbed 'do meets a Joan of Arc act. Appropriately observant.  Guess they were absent the day they covered Deuteronomy 22:5.

In yet more fifteen year-old news, or, that is to say, further news of fifteen year-olds, fifteen year-old Jimmy Davis and an unnamed pal of his broke into the Monterey Park home of John W. Hardman, stealing fountain pens and trinkets and, more absurdly, did Jimmy garb himself in Hardman’s best suit, silk shirt and black & white scarf. Figuring himself too conspicuous for his own good, Jimmy and pal returned to the house, threw the clothes on the floor and, afraid of being traced through fingerprints (his being known to local authorities for his repeated burglaries and check forgings), lit fire to the house. The house smoldered for some time before being rescued by the fire department, and Jimmy is now cooling his heels in juvenile hall.

March 24, 1927
Los Angeles

Investigators from the State Board of Pharmacy began traversing the city today, in search of physicians who illegally supplied narcotizing agents to Miss Minnie Hines.  It seems that while under the spell of narcotics, Miss Hines develops a “maternity complex” which requires the purchase of infants.  When her mind clears some days later, it then becomes necessary to farm them out again.  Adding complexity to the case is the fact that due to her dope-addled brain, she rarely recollects the homes where she obtained or disposed of the babies.  She is currently under Narcosan treatment for her affliction.

Ms. Hines was arrested March 9th when she attempted to buy a baby at Pasadena hospital, and attempted to escape by putting pillows under her clothes and pretending she was an expectant mother.  Hines, 26, of Long Beach, has farmed out three of her own children (ages eighteen months to twelve years) and an estimated ten others.  Babies, incidentally, generally run between sixty and one hundred dollars ($700-$1,169 USD 2007).

In other baby news:  local actress Lita Grey Chaplin today dropped her renewed bid for temporary alimony for herself and her two toddlers in an attempt to force her husband, one Charles Chaplin, into court.  (Mr. Chaplin had impregnated Lita Grey when she was 16, he 35, resulting in a marriage and sensationally scandalous divorce which, when finalized in August of 1927, cost Chaplin $825,000 [$9,648,650 USD 2007].)

According to Charlie’s biographer Joyce Milton, the 1924 marriage was the inspiration of Nabokov’s Lolita.

Yesterday's Pasadena Confidential Crime Bus Tour was a hoot, as we glided around the Crown City in our air conditioned murder bus with a happy coterie of grisly lookyloos. Here are a few photos snapped along the way...

Below, Crimebo honors the lucky Miss Cathy with a pre-birthday litany of all the horrors that happened on the day she was born.

Here, Crimebo and hosts Kim and Nathan take a mid-tour breather at Connal's on Washington Boulevard, conveniently loated between the sites of a hammer murder and a bathtub suicide. Plus their malts is yummy!

And another view of that scary clown Crimebo... don't you want him at your birthday party?!

All the world loves a clown... especially a Crime clown! And when the editor of Pasadena Weekly heard about Crimebo, he upgraded Carl Kozlowski's planned feature on the Pasadena Confidential tour from the arts section to the cover! Sneak a peek, online or in person, and don't miss Matt Craig's evocative photos.

June 7, 1907
Pasadena

After a hard day of judging Boston terriers, English bulldogs and foxhounds, John Bradshaw went to a local restaurant with two exhibitors, William J. Morris and James Ewins.

Over dinner, and apparently many drinks, Bradshaw told Ewins at great length what was wrong with his prize bulldog, Moston Barnone. Although Ewins had owned several great bulldogs, including one named Moston Monarch, he took Bradshaw

April 15, 1907
Pasadena

As criminality reaches epidemic proportions in sleepy Pasadena, the citizenry grumbles about Chief Pinkham's skills as police head, and makes noises about replacing him.

The latest outrage was visited upon George Syer, a public carriage driver who was called out to 876 Lincoln Avenue this evening, ostensibly to take some women to a train. The address should have been found north of Mountain, in an unlit area. He did not find the house, but while looking was acosted by a man with a thick Irish brogue who demanded his money. Syer parted with a dollar in change, but kept the contents of his other pocket. No mention was made of a weapon being brandished, but it is well known that one can't be too careful with Irishmen! 

March 22, 1907
Pasadena 

A special correspondent follows up on the distressing report of a cow gravely injured when struck by an electric car near Lamanda Park. Bossy was found happily chewing her cud with no sign of injury. As near as can be figured, the trolley ran over the cow's tether, pulling it taut and forcing the reluctant acrobat to turn a dramatic aerial flip. She seems to have landed safely and forgotten all about her wild adventure, until the cries of do-gooders to the Humane Society roused an interest in her case.