December 2007 – Page 2

Main Street Xmas Eve: A Wake for Craby’s Joe’s

Dear Friends,

As Musso & Frank and their employees are a living testament to Hollywood and its golden age, so Craby Joe’s is to downtown Los Angeles’ tenderloin on Main street. At the corner of 7th and Main since 1933, it will close it doors for good on Xmas eve. It has served as a watering hole to John Fante, Charles Bukowski, and many other great souls who drew from this well of characters and atmosphere from the wrong side of the tracks.

The dance to the march of time has changed tempo of late, and commercial property owners humming gentrification and other popular tunes of the day have moved into the neighborhood. The Cecil Hotel, already on the skids when Raymond Chandler described it in his early short stories, can boast of two known serial killers as residents in the 1980s and 90s, Richard Ramirez one of them, is now a self described boutique hotel–a destination for the discerning European traveler. This fragile coral reef on Main Street of artists, galleries (the hub of art walk is two blocks away at 5th and Main at Bert Green’s), SROs and their long time residents and encroaching development will suffer a severe blow with the close of Craby Joe’s.

Please join us there around 10 pm this Xmas eve for what Hemingway wrote of the custom in his beloved Spain, "La Penultima–the next to last drink," for the last one is too bitter a thought. . .

I remain,
Richard
Esotouric

Find The Fox!

December 20, 1927
Los Angeles

As police scour the Bellevue Arms apartment*of "Donald Evans" (an alias for Marion Parker’s purported slayer Edward Hickman, otherwise known as The Fox), they find portions of a chocolate cake, broken golf clubs, and dirty dishes suggesting a hurried departure. Marion’s father Perry, upon discovering that the suspect is a former employee at his Seventh and Spring Street bank who he dismissed on fraud charges, says that the voice on the telephone demanding the $1500 ransom was similar to Hickman’s peculiarly blasé speech patterns when discussing his offense, but that at no time did he believe the young man meant harm to him or his family.

Little Marion’s outraged body lies in the morgue, a tiny, heartbreaking bundle with her missing limbs, hollowed core and unseeing eyes sewn open in doll-like pretence of life. In one small mercy, the Parker’s neighbor is the Autopsy Surgeon, and it’s this Dr. Wagner who makes the identification and pieces his little friend together from the parts that are brought in, wrapped in newspaper, from where they were scattered in Elysian Park.

The reward for The Fox’ capture has swelled to $62,400, with new pledges from outraged citizens, radio stations and fraternal organizations arriving hourly. Will The Fox be snared, or will he slip away to menace other cities, other daughters? Tune in tomorrow to find out!

*attention, modern readers: the Bellevue Arms is the partly boarded up, expansive brick apartment building flush against the 101 freeway heading north out of downtown. The Fox’ lair was upstairs in the middle rear of the Western, burned-out wing. If you decide to visit, you’ll come via Sunset Boulevard, and via… MARION.

“I Never Would Have Let Marion Go…”

December 19, 1927

Superintendent of Schools Susan Dorsey spoke out on behalf of Mary Holt, registrar at the Mt. Vernon Junior High, saying, "I spoke with Mrs Holt, and am satisfied that I would have acted as she did if I were confronted with the same circumstances."

Holt excused Marion Parker from school on Thursday, December 15 when a slender man came to the desk and asked for "P.M. Parker’s youngest daughter," saying that her father had been in an automobile accident. Holt hesitated, knowing that Marion was a twin. However, the man persisted, saying, "I am an employee at the bank where Mr. Parker is chief clerk, and if there is any doubt in your mind, here is the bank’s telephone number. You may call there."

Convinced, Holt sent an office assistant to get Marian from class. "Marion was nervous and excited when I told her that her father had been injured. The news completely broke up a little Christmas party the children were having in their room, and Marion had some of the refreshments in her hands when she came into the room. But at once she forgot about everything but her father."

Marion was excused from school, and left with the man who would, three days later, end her life.

After the kidnapping, Holt said, "Oh, I can think of many things I could have done now. I never would have let Marion go but for the apparent sincerity and disarming manner of the man."

Private funeral services for 12-year-old Marion Parker were held today at the Little Church of Flowers at Forest Lawn Cemetery, after which her body was cremated. The search for her killer continues, with police and citizens as far away as Denver and Portland on the lookout for the Fox.

A “Grisly Rendezvous of Death”

December 18, 1927
Los Angeles

This morning’s headline was set in the giant typeface reserved for only very good or very bad news. This time it was the latter: "Kidnaped [sic] Child Slain By Fiend." For three days now, Angelenos have followed the story of 12-year-old Marian Parker, lured away from Mount Vernon High School by a man who said her father was ill. The kidnapper demanded $1500 (close to $18,000 in 2007) for her safe return, and Marian’s father agreed to pay it.

Shortly after 8 o’clock last night, the kidnapper drove up to the agreed-upon meeting place. Marian’s small form was visible in the passenger seat. "Here’s your child," he told Parker. "Give me the money and follow instructions. She’s asleep now." The ransom changed hands; the criminal drove a short way and deposited Marian’s blanket-wrapped figure on the lawn at 432 South Manhattan Place. Perry Parker rushed to his daughter, scooped her up and—in a waking nightmare that must have haunted him for the rest of his days—discovered she was dead, her eyes wired or sewn open in a hideous simulacrum of life. A wire was bound so tightly around her neck that it cut deeply into her flesh; she had been disemboweled and her legs hacked off close to her body. The Times was filled with stories comparing the Parker case to Leopold and Loeb and a host of other grisly child murderers. Crowds of bloodthirsty thrill seekers (the Times estimated over 25,000) thronged past the Parker household at 1631 South Wilton Place (address helpfully supplied by the paper).

The horror continued today. While most of Los Angeles was still reading its morning papers, citizens aiding the police found five gruesome bundles on a lonely road in Elysian Park. The first contained Marian’s arms and legs; the last, found by "two small boys, carrying on the search," held her viscera. A blood-soaked suitcase previously discovered in the gutter at 620 South Manhattan place is believed to have held the child’s body. Then, late this evening, the police found an abandoned Ford roadster, license number 667-67. It is believed to be the automobile driven by the kidnapper to the meeting with Marian’s father.

A massive manhunt is underway for the fiendish killer.

Ruth Snyder’s Date with Death

December 17, 1927
Ossining, NY Ruth Snyder

Mrs. Ruth Snyder has a date with Sing Sing’s electric chair on January 12, 1928, unless her plea for executive clemency is granted.

The seductive blonde and her lover, corset salesman Judd Gray (see photo), were both tried and convicted of murdering Ruth’s husband by caving in his skull with a window sash weight, strangling him with a garrote fashioned out of picture wire and a gold pen, and finally stuffing chloroform soaked rags into his nostrils.

Judd Gray If there is an explanation for the obvious overkill in the murder of Albert Snyder, it must be that Ruth’s previous attempts to snuff out the life of her husband (twice by asphyxiation and once by poison) had failed – and she wasn’t about to give up. Ruth had persuaded her husband to take out a double indemnity policy, which would pay her in the event of his accidental death. It was the lure of the $97,000 worth of life insurance that compelled her to continue with her diabolical schemes until she succeeded.

Fueled by two bottles of whiskey and profound stupidity, the criminally-challenged duo staged the murder scene as a burglary gone horribly wrong. But their pathetic plan was doomed to failure. They threw an Italian language newspaper on the floor as a false clue to the identity of the killers. They emptied dresser drawers and overturned chairs. And in an act that would eventually help prosecutors to prove her guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, Ruth hid her allegedly stolen jewelry under her mattress, about three feet away from Albert’s battered body!

The trial of Ruth and Judd would be a media circus, and celebrities such as director D.W. Griffith, and evangelists Billy Sunday and Aimee Semple McPherson would attend. Ruth would be called “ruthless Ruth”, “vampire”, and the “blonde fiend” by the press. Evidently not all men found those appellations a turn-off, because Ruth received at least 160 marriage proposals during her incarceration. DEAD

Unfortunately for Ruth, her plea for clemency would be denied by Governor Al Smith. Her execution would be famously recorded by newspaper man Tom Howard. The ingenious reporter had strapped a miniature camera to his ankle beneath his trousers. Just as the executioner threw the switch on the whimpering murderess, Tom raised the cuff of his pants and snapped the tabloid photo of a lifetime.

The murderers were unexceptional, but their crime inspired art. “Machinal”, a play by Sophie Treadwell was deemed one of the best of 1928-29. James M. Cain’s brilliant novels “Double Indemnity” and “The Postman Always Rings Twice” are said to have been inspired by Albert Snyder’s murder. And, of course, each of the novels translated into two of the finest examples of film noir ever produced.

Matthew 5:16 Goes Electric

shedslight

captfixit December 16, 1927
Sawtelle

Los Angeles Police Captain W. L. Hagenbaugh feeds more juice into the stills of Sawtelle than he gets from them; after he raids the moonshiners and chops up their contraptions of copper and coil, he fashions fixtures and floor lamps for his new nine-room Spanish job up on Comstock in Westwood.

Recently, materials from three forty gallon bootleg stills, lined in some very fine silver, have been reclaimed from their sinful ways and turned toward this honest enterprise.

This writer”™s inquisitive interests now satisfied””yeah, you”™re green, I get it””my acquisitive interest takes over: where are these shades now?

4:34? No Loophole

run December 15, 1927

Miss Grace Shannon, national secretary of our own YWCA, has just returned from Turkey, and good news: there’s no Dumb Doras there! Sure, it’s all right for a man to have four wives (“to which every good Mussulman says ‘Amen,’” chuckles Ms. Shannon), but the crafty gals there under Atatürk (we say atagirl!) have found some loophole that goes on to contradict such (referring to the famous Koranic Koran 4:3/Koran 4:129 Paradox). Yes, it seems the new republic’s progressive divorce laws and campaigns for women’s sufferage have made it a veritable heaven on earth for the gentler gender.

Just think, another eighty years of progressive thinking will do a world of wonder for women!

The calm before the storm

December 14, 1927
Los Angeles

The holiday is nearly upon us, and all across the city, citizens are Christmas mad. The Pacific Electric Hollywood car stalled, halfway through the First Street tunnel, and when the wire fell down and sent sparks arcing across the darkened windows, scads of package-laden shoppers panicked and stampeded, despite attempts by train staff to calm them. Several passengers suffered bruised knees, ankles and backs.

There’s naught but sadness at 4528 Amber Place, where the John Vernon Rosses mourn the death of their only child, John Vernon, Jr., aged 4. Mother was working days and father nights in downtown shops, to save enough to give the tyke his best Christmas ever, while a neighbor, Mrs. J.W. Loyal of 4600 Topaz Street watched the babe. When mother called for him around 1pm, he was dead in his cot, victim of some mysterious internal hemorrhage. An autopsy was ordered, but if any cause of death was found, it was never reported in the papers.

And down on Wilton Place, the Parker Twins, Marion and Marjorie, whisper together about what to give their father Perry for his birthday tomorrow. They cannot know that tomorrow Marion will be kidnapped from her school by The Fox, and that despite the ransom Perry pays, she will never come home again.

Beware of the Goat

December 12, 1927

Glendale, CA

Three Glendale families found interesting missives in their mailboxes this week, and they weren’t no holiday wishes.

The Van Pelt family received a note reading: "You are to be killed tonight at 10pm sharp."

The Westons were warned, "Highway bandits will rob your house tonight."

And then, the cryptic letter received by the Simingtons: "Beware of the goat. He is watching you."

Today, Glendale police revealed that two bored 12-year-old girls named Dorothy Alman and May White were responsible for the threats which kept the neighborhood "on the verge of nervous spasms for several days."

The two said they wrote the letters on a lark. Today, these shenanigans would probably get a kid put on some kind of watch list, but in 1927, the preteen terrors were turned over to their folks. The detectives on the case didn’t report the particulars of how the girls’ parents responded to the news, but said that "it sounded like a-plenty."

Reindeer Paws

December 12, 1927

Santa Claus arrived in Los Angeles today, and set up shop in his Los Angeles Times-sponsored Ice Palace at the corner of 8th and Grand. While waiting in line to see Santa, the little ones amused themselves by playing in Santa’s igloo, dropping letters in his shiny red mailbox, or visiting the barn, where Santa’s long-suffering reindeer had their jingle-belled harnesses tugged by sticky mitts.

If you think it’s bad now, just wait a few days. Before the holiday season is over, the Times will give Prancer his own column.

Doesn’t it just give you the shudders?