Joan Renner

Drink a Toast to Death!

Drink a Toast to Death Headline

September 30, 1927
Long Beach

Take a spurned sweetheart, a former girlfriend, one love rival, two bottles of beer and a revolver, and you have the recipe for an evening in hell.

Frances Curnow was at home with her new beau Edward Teel when there was a knock at the front door. Edward went to answer and found that he was staring into the business end of a revolver held by Frances’ former flame Russell Bishop, a Signal Hill oil worker.

The oil man wasn’t making a social call, he was bent on revenge. He barged through the door and then forced the frightened couple into his car at gunpoint. He told them that he was going to “take them for a ride in the country” and then kill them.

With the muzzle of Bishop’s revolver pressed against the back of his head, Edward drove to a secluded place, stopping only once to buy some beer.

When they arrived at their destination the gunman made the couple get out of the car. Thrusting a bottle of beer into Frances’ trembling hands, and then he handed another beer to Edward. “Drink and be merry, for tonight you die.” With that sinister toast, the apparently doomed lovers drank their beers. The rejected swain then tried to compel his victims to embrace each other in a final farewell. Frances refused, and Bishop began firing – wounding Edward in the abdomen and the leg. Leaving Edward in a pool of blood, Bishop vanished into the night.

Supporting her injured boyfriend, Frances managed to get to the side of the road. Detective Sergeants Kirkpatrick and Blunt were transporting a prisoner from Pomona to Long Beach when they caught Frances in the headlights of their car, waving and pleading for assistance. She was sobbing hysterically but otherwise unharmed. Edward was rushed to Long Beach Hospital where he is said to be recovering.

Bishop is believed to have driven to a lonely spot and committed suicide.

The Cruel Miss Doe

Cruel Miss Doe Headline

September 29, 1927
Los Angeles

Following a frenzied search, three year old Betty Jane Wagner is finally back at home where she belongs. The little girl went missing during a downtown shopping trip with her mother, Mrs. Agnes Wagner.

Covered in painful welts and bruises, the tiny victim recounted her ordeal to Detective Lieutenants Cawthorne, Harrah, and policewoman Vesta Dunn. “A naughty old woman took me and hurt me a lot”, she sobbed. She told police that she had been walking alongside her mother when she was suddenly grabbed by a strange woman who stuffed a handkerchief into her mouth, then carried her away. Unfortunately Betty Jane is much too young to give a detailed account of her kidnapping, but police are following up on a tip given to them by an elevator operator. The tipster works in a building downtown and told police that he’d taken a woman and child to the top floor. He was suspicious when the woman later exited the building without the tot.

Police are seeking a woman whom they have described as a being a “mental case who derives pleasure from inflicting pain on others”. Her identity is unknown, so a warrant for assault has been issued in the name of “Jane Doe”.

Betty Jane’s family is relieved that she has been returned to them, but they are bewildered by the brutal treatment that the toddler received at the hands of her abductor. The girl’s mother said that she could offer no reason for the pitiless attack upon her child.

There was no follow-up to little Betty Jane’s story in the Los Angeles Times, so we’ll never know if Jane Doe was caught – and we’ll also never discover if she was a sad mental case, or a monster. There would be one account later in the year of a mystery woman’s failed attempt to lure a child into her car, but no arrest was made.

Jane Doe may have resurfaced in 1929 when several children in the Los Angeles area were abducted in department stores, taken to a restroom, and severely beaten by a woman who then released them. If it was the same woman who snatched Betty Jane Wagner and so cruelly battered her – where was she from 1927 to 1929?

During the 1920s, one of the most common methods of treatment for mental disease was to dose the patient with barbiturates and other depressants to induce sleep. Was the mystery woman confined to an institution and subjected to “narcosis therapy” for two years? It’s conceivable that Miss Doe spent time in a dreary hospital room, sleeping fitfully on a narrow metal-framed bed, tortured by her drug induced nightmares.

Robber Queen

Robber Queen Headline

September 24, 1927 Patricia Sullivan
Los Angeles

What’s wrong with the dames in this town? When they aren’t powdering and painting their faces, they’re at petting parties, drinking in blind pigs, or dancing the night away doing the black bottom or the kinkajou. Now it seems that they are also morphing into gun molls. According to police, several female stick-up artists are currently menacing Los Angeles residents, and at least two of them are red-heads.

With so many women bandits prowling the streets and preying on the unwary, competition for the title of Robber Queen is fierce…the most recent contender for the crown is Patricia Sullivan, aged 23. Miss Sullivan and a male companion were taken into custody by Officers Reid and Garner in front of her apartment building at Tenth and Western.

Patricia was transported to the county jail where she was booked on suspicion of robbery. Her accomplice has been identified as 27 year old shoe salesman, Alvarado Contreras, of 1132 West Thirty-First Street. The two have avowed their innocence but Miss Sullivan closely resembles the description of the lady crook given to police, from her toes right up to her auburn tresses.

Detective Lieutenant Smith and Captain Kallmeyer of Wilshire Division are arranging for the victims of Her Royal Heistness to come to down to the station to positively identify her as the woman who terrorized them.

Patricia’s reign as Robber Queen was short-lived…she was only Queen for a Day.

The Long Count to Death

LONG COUNT HEADLINE

September 17, 1927
Bell

young boxer 1920s

When two amateur fighters faced each other in the boxing ring at the Cudahy Athletic Club in Bell, each expected to emerge victorious…they could never have imagined that one of them would die.

The young pugilists had been promised two dollars apiece by fight promoter and referee, A. De Weese. Harold Williams, seventeen, of 580 Wilcox Avenue, Bell, was upright for barely two minutes before he was knocked to the canvas three consecutive times by James Campbell, nineteen, of 4549 East Sixth Street, Los Angeles. Harold died of a brain hemorrhage at the scene.

At the coroner’s inquest Harold’s brother Loren who had witnessed the fight, stated that Harold was given a “long count” (longer than ten seconds) by referee De Weese and so was allowed to continue fighting when he should have been counted out. De Weese and Campbell were arrested for manslaughter and each held on $10,000 (119,712.07 USD 2007 dollars) bail. Charges against them would be dismissed when Municipal Judge Baird ruled that there had been no violation of the California Penal Code.

Harold’s may be one of the saddest long counts, but the most famous long count in boxing history is still five days in the future.

Dempsey vs Tunney The much anticipated rematch between defending heavyweight champion Gene Tunney, the “Fighting Marine”, and former champion Jack Dempsey, the “Manassa Mauler”, will be held at Solider Field in Chicago on September 26, 1927. Tunney will dominate for the first six rounds, but during the seventh round he will find himself in a corner being pummeled by a savage combination of punches that will drive him to the floor.

Referee Dave Barry ordered Dempsey to return to a neutral corner, but the former champ ignored him for approximately nine seconds. Those few seconds would prove crucial. According to the rules the referee was not allowed to begin the count until Dempsey had returned to a neutral corner. It is very likely that Dempsey’s delay cost him the championship. Tunney had thirteen to sixteen seconds to recover during the long count.

Tunney dropped Dempsey briefly during the eighth round – he retained his title and retired undefeated.

Dempsey retired after his bout with Tunney and opened a restaurant in New York City.

Suicide by Car

Suicide Headline

September 16, 1927 Laguna Beach

Jerome Shaffer, 35, may have been the first case of suicide by car ever reported in California. A resident of Laguna Beach and professional entertainer, Shaffer had been ill and in financial difficulties when he drove his car to Laguna Beach Grammar School to end his life.

Jerome parked his car on the playground of the school and crawled underneath leaving the engine running. He then wrapped himself in a blanket and held one end of a rubber hose in the self-made shroud with him, and thrust the other end into the car’s exhaust pipe so that the deadly gas would propel him into oblivion. His body was found by the school principal, George K. Bingham.

According to his roommate, Jack West, Jerome had slipped quietly from their shared dwelling sometime during the pre-dawn hours of the morning. Shaffer and West had performed at the Masonic Hall in South Pasadena and returned home at 1 am. Jack told police that he hadn’t heard Jerome leave and only learned of his roommate’s fate when he found the letter which had been left for him.

Shaffer also left a letter addressed to Judge Raymond Thompson of Pasadena. In that letter he gave instructions for the disposition of his automobile and said that he regretted that he had no money to bequeath West. He asked that his body be cremated by the Charles Lamb Company of Pasadena, and requested that his ashes be given a public funeral in the Laguna Beach open air theater. His final wish was that his remains be scattered over the Pacific by his longtime friend and pilot, Joe Skidmore.

Don’t Make Us Use Machine Guns

Tear Gas Headline

September 15, 1927
Long Beach

When members of the Long Beach vice squad got wind of a dice game going on in a pool hall at 1240 California Avenue, they swooped down on the place with tear gas. They hurled a few gas bombs into the building, and then watched as the pool hall belched forth men of color from every door and window as they fled the noxious cloud of gas.

The vice squad thought that employing modern weapons such as those previously used in battle, would be an efficient way to combat criminals. Heck, tear gas worked on the Hun. Alas, gas bombs may be fine for driving a barricaded gangster out of his hidey-hole, but they are not the best weapon for busting a dice game.

It took a very long time for the pool hall to clear of the blinding fumes. When cops were finally able to enter the room they discovered dice and money on the table, but the tear gas had destroyed all evidence of guilt on the part of the suspected gamblers.

The police had several shady characters lined up outside of the reeking building, but with no way of proving their guilt they were released. The only person to roll snake eyes was the establishment’s proprietress, Edith Gilmore. There were still “galloping cubes” and money on the table, and this was sufficient enough for Judge Cook to fine her $5 and give her a suspended sentence of ten days in jail for permitting gambling in her place of business.

The Adventures of Tiger Girl

Tiger Girl Headline

September 10, 1927 Clara Phillips
San Quentin

Infamous murderess Clara Phillips, aka “Tiger Girl”, has attempted suicide. She was found on the floor of her San Quentin prison cell bleeding profusely from self-inflicted wounds to her wrists. Clara is currently five years into a term of from ten years to life for the hammer slaying of a twenty year old widow, Mrs. Alberta Meadows. She considered the woman her “love rival” and lured her to an open field, where in a jealous rage she battered the woman to death in front of a witness.

Before committing murder at age 23, Clara had already led an extraordinary life. Married to Armour L. Phillips at age 14, she had been a chorus girl, Santa Monica bathing beauty, and briefly in the employ of the Eclipse Film Company.

Clara was known to be very jealous of her husband and they quarreled often – usually because she was accusing him of infidelity. When neighborhood gossip hinted at a love affair between Armour and the attractive young widow, Clara had a mission – remove her rival by any means necessary.

Fabricating a story of needing transportation to her sister’s house, Clara and her friend Peggy Caffee caught a ride with the unsuspecting Alberta. At some point during the drive Clara asked Alberta to pull over for a private conversation…moments later Peggy witnessed Clara viciously beating Alberta with a hammer, and then smashing her with a rock.

After bludgeoning and mutilating Mrs. Meadows, Clara went home and announced to her husband that she had killed the woman who was stealing his love. She then told him that she was going to cook him the best dinner he’d ever had because she was so happy.

Armour helped her to escape on the morning following the brutal crime. He then went to police and told them everything. Clara was arrested in Tucson, Arizona on a train bound for El Paso, Texas.

Clara’s defense team engaged five alienists (psychiatrists) who testified that the hammer wielding twenty-three year old woman had the mental capacity of an eight year old child, and that she was also susceptible to epileptic fits, which could account for her violent rages. Apparently epilepsy was a viable murder defense in 1922.

Peggy Caffee Clara gave her version of events from the witness stand. She said that it was her friend Peggy who had struck the fatal blow. The homicidal charmer had been at a loss to explain the bruising to her hands and the fingernail scratches covering her arms and legs – even so, public opinion began to sway in her favor.

Evidently some of the jurors were convinced by her story because during their deliberations they became deadlocked. Most of the eight men voted for acquittal, three of the four women voted for hanging. The jurors reached a compromise decision, finding Clara guilty of second degree murder. Clara called her conviction an “unfair deal”.

On December 5, 1922 she escaped from the county jail by cutting the bars of her cell, hoisting herself to the roof of the building and then shimmying down a drainpipe. At least that was the story for publication. She was aided by a Mr. Jesse Carson whose motives for assisting her remain uncertain. Self-described adventurer and South American revolutionary, Carson was more likely to have been a cattle thief and small time grifter. In any case Clara and Jesse made their way to Mexico where she was reunited with her younger sister Etta Mae Jackson, and the threesome then headed off to Tegucigalpa, Honduras.

There were dozens of Tiger Girl sightings from Mexico to Wyoming. None of them panned out. After being on the loose for over four months, a tip that Clara was in Honduras led police to her hideout and she was finally arrested and returned to the U.S. She was taken directly to San Quentin and incarcerated.

Following her capture, she claimed that she had been the victim and that her so-called escape was actually a kidnapping. According to Clara, Carson had forced her to flee her cell at gun point. Carson was never held to answer for his part in Clara’s escape.

Ultimately she would serve twelve years in prison, losing some of her good time when it was revealed that she and a male convict were exchanging graphic love notes.

She filed for a divorce from Armour in 1938. She said she intended to remarry, but would not divulge the name of her husband-to-be. She moved to the east coast and vanished from public view.

The Killer on Page Six

September 3, 1927 Marmola
Los Angeles

Not all crimes are reported on the front page – and not all criminals are gun toting bandits. It may seem like a slow news day, but lurking on page six of the Los Angeles Times was this innocent looking advertisement for the diet drug Marmola. In the future the drug will be exposed as a possible killer!

Let’s hop into the time machine and travel to 1938… The public was fed up with products that promised the world, but delivered illness, disfigurement, and death. A Senate subcommittee was formed to investigate the outrageous claims of some over the counter medications. Following the subcommittee’s recommendations, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act on June 25, 1938.

Attorneys for Marmola challenged the constitutionality of the law. They insisted that people had the, “inalienable right of self-medication”. The judge who reviewed the case disagreed stating that the legislation was enacted to, “make self-medication safer and more effective”. Marmola toned down its claims but remained on the market. Finally in the early 1940s the FDA, believing the drug to be dangerous, seized dozens of packets while they were in transit to La Crosse, Wisconsin. The drug went on trial in Madison, Wisconsin in 1943.

fat girls A young woman from Chicago came forward with a horror story that left courtroom watchers in tears. She told the judge that she had purchased Marmola because she was tired of her weight being the subject of cruel taunts by her classmates. Her excess pounds began to melt away, but she had also developed some nasty side effects. She hadn’t known that she was taking desiccated thyroid in toxic amounts. By the end of seven months she was vomiting regularly and her weight would eventually plummet to a cadaverous 50 pounds! At the time of the trial she was deathly ill with persistent symptoms of hyperthyroidism.

Due in large part to the girl’s testimony, Marmola was finally pulled from drugstore shelves.

Diet elixirs such as Marmola aren’t quaint artifacts of bygone days. Just spend any Saturday morning watching today’s television infomercials hawking diet drugs and quack devices, each promising to transform you from a flabby couch potato to a sculpted body beautiful.

Caveat emptor.

Have a Zesty Labor Day!

September 3, 1927
Los Angeles

If you’re planning to escape the heat this Labor Day by going boating on Lake Arrowhead, don’t forget to take along your radio!

Radio

The Politics of Insanity

Crazed Headline

August 27, 1927
Pasadena

All it takes to be considered insane these days is to assert your First Amendment right to free speech…with a knife. Oppressed Cartoon

According to night watchman F.M. Winchester, he was making his rounds when a man confronted him shouting, “Down with America! Sacco is dead!” The agitated man then lunged at him with a shiv.

The aptly named Winchester fired three shots above the man’s head, at which time the stranger turned and ran off into the night. The shots drew a crowd of on-lookers and police to Miller’s Alley near Marengo Avenue.

Detective Sergeants Cheek, Mansell, and Officer Armer followed the trail of the alleged lunatic, who was subsequently identified as Elias Soto Hernandez. The suspect was arrested at 230 East Union Street and transported to the County Hospital in Los Angeles on suspicion that he may be insane.

Hernandez was protesting the execution in Massachusetts of Italian born anarchists and convicted murderers, Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti. Their executions on August 23rd followed two trials of dubious fairness. Both trials were presided over by Judge Webster Thayer who displayed a blatant bias against the defendants. During the second trial, defense motions made by California attorney Fred Moore were frequently denied by the Judge who said, "No long-haired anarchist from California can run this court!" Thayer was also overheard referring to Sacco and Vanzetti as, “…those anarchistic bastards…”.

Sacco and Vanzetti Whether or not the men were guilty of robbery and murder remains a topic for debate. What is certain is that their case was the culmination of the first so-called “Red Scare” which began amid the violence, chaos, and political unrest circling the globe during World War I.

World wide protests had failed to save the condemned men from the electric chair, but fifty years later on August 23, 1977, Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis (who became the democratic presidential nominee in 1988) issued the proclamation that the men had been treated unjustly and that "any disgrace should be forever removed from their names."