Nathan Marsak

Local Man Sets Record

January 20, 1927
Los Angeles

A short notice in the paper today about Sidney (or Sydney) Adams who, on August 2, 1925 (most likely) mortally shot his wife Annie in their home at 1234 East Twenty-First Street.

august25 Despite there being a chance for a difference—Adams steadily asserted that the woman committed suicide—on October 12, 1925 it took a Los Angeles jury a record twenty-five minutes to send him to the gallows. (This being in part or wholly dependent on Adams’ race seems obvious—writ large as he’s routinely described as the “giant negro,” a term of which Times seems unusually fond.)

Hangings were on the mind of all Californians as executions ushered in C. C. Young’s gubernatorial regime. The previous four years of Friend Richardson’s governorship were marked by constant rejections of eleventh-hour appeals for executive clemency; in a show of consistency Young had five executions in the first five weeks of his stewardship and saw that each one went through unchallenged.

payspenalty

There were six sitting in San Quentin’s death row when S. C. Stone joined the bunch on January 6, 1927—making it lucky number seven. Adams’ departure today took it back down to six.

Mysteries of the Road

accidents
January 19, 1927
Santa Monica, Venice

A drained, shamefaced whisky bottle and wrecked car were all officers found tonight at Colorado Blvd and Twenty-Third Street.

A thorough check of the hospitals and morgues revealed nothing further.

In nearby Venice, at Washington and Brooks, an ambulance was summoned when excited folk in the vicinity witnessed an auto turn turtle. In true 1920s fashion, the two young male occupants righted the thing and drove off, presumably in a crazy zigzag with zany piano accompaniment.

Is a Woman Ever Really Sorry?

shotbywife

January 13, 1927
Los Angeles

mabel George and Mabel Drummond had nothing if not a tempestuous wedded life. Married ten years, hitched when George was fifteen and Mabel twenty-one, their stormy union included many a sterling instance, including the time a jealous Mabel held George in a chair at gunpoint for three hours while she threatened to shoot him with every passing moment.

Today, after the usual morning argument in their Alhambra home, George announced he’d had his fill, and moved his stuff out to go shack up with…a widow. Tonight Mabel followed George to 335+1/2 West 42nd Street, where George was involved with one Mrs. Helen Salyer.

Along for the ride Mabel had taken her old friend the pistol.

In fairness, Mabel did, on the sidewalk in front of Helen Salyer’s house, give George one last chance, asking him to come back to her. George approached and said, firmly, no. With that, Mabel shot him in the stomach; the force of the blast turned him around and Mabel shot him again in the back. Mabel walked back to her car, got in, and sat calmly there until authorities arrived.

helen Mabel was arrested by Detective Lieutenants Brown and Adams of University Station, who found her composed, and that she could only comment that if she couldn’t live with him, no-one could. When asked if she felt any regret, she replied:

“Is a woman ever really sorry?”

(With no defense offered other than the “unwritten law,” on May 19 she was ordered held to Superior Court for trial by Municipal Judge Rosencranz on charges of assault with intent to commit murder. She told the court “I shot him because I loved him” and reiterated “sure I shot him—if I couldn’t live with him I wasn’t going let anyone else live with him.” The jury, out an hour, gave her a full acquittal on May 24.)

Cute Enough to Deserve Them

gladys

January 6, 1927
Los Angeles

itsaCRAVING Gladys Nolan, 22, of 5510 Lexington Avenue, had a craving for fine clothes and expensive perfumes. She needed them. Yes, there’s a difference between needs and wants. She NEEDED them.

Gladys was no klepto. She paid for the items, and not with money from the handbag of some white-glove spinster she’d clobbered and left twitching in her death throes down a urine-soaked alley. Gladys paid for these things with all the nicety befitting a girl of refinement, trouble being, she paid for the lovely things with forged checks.

A $200 ($2,206 USD 2007) fur coat and $34 bottle of perfume, she picked up at I. Magnin’s; a check signed in a fictitious name at Maison Blanche allowed her a gown and hat totaling $110. Some killjoy by the name of “Deputy District Attoney Frampton” got in a twist about this, convincing some other sourpuss called “Judge Ambrose” to hold her to answer in Superior Court and fix bail at $2000.

Gladys was given probation and told to keep her nose clean. Which she almost did.

ohgladysnotagain

Whatever became of Gladys Nolan? A lady whose refinement and obvious taste sadly outdistanced her pocketbook? Guess we’ll never know.

November1939

Why Didn’t God Accept Cain’s Sacrifice? Because He Wasn’t Abel.

January 5, 1927
Albany, New York
aliveandwell
Cain is alive and well (jeepers, the life span of these antediluvians) in the land of Nod York, East of Eden, or at least Schenectady…seems that one Harry Cain was engaged in a phone call, and was having some trouble making himself understood to the person on the other end of the line.

Finally the landlady came to the rescue. “CAIN,” she shouted into the telephone, “C-a-i-n. You know, the man that killed his brother.”

That set off the other party on the phone all right…murder! The police were summoned and Harry Cain was in jail in a matter of minutes. It took hauling the landlady in some time later to explicate the whole mess.

Still, I’d keep an eye on that Lamech character.

The Bell/CHCI3 Stradivarius Colligation

December 30, 1927
Redlands

kloro-form Well-known automobile distributor Lawrence S. Ferguson, 20 San Gorgonio Drive, was called to the telephone today. A hoarse-voiced “Mr. Morris” declared that his auto had broken down five miles outside of town and that Lawrence’d better come quick. Apparently Lawrence always does as he’s told, because he hot-footed it out of town.

But the hoarse-voice chap wasn’t five miles outside of town; he had instead hightailed it over to Lawrence Ferguson’s home. Hoarsey and a buddy paid a visit to the abandoned Mrs. Ferguson, where they stuffed a large wad of chloroform-soaked cotton in her mouth and nostrils, knocking her out and, according to authorities, did so nearly permanently, which would have added murder on top of robbery, and making prank phone calls.

The robbery part, incidentally, netted the robbers three diamond rings worth $1,800 ($19,854 USD 2006) plus a silver saxophone, some jeweled wristwatches, overcoats, the money hidden in the mattress (how many times do we have to tell you people?) (and not in the Bible, either) and Mr. Ferguson’s revolver. And his Stradivarius, valued at $400 ($4,411 USD 2006).

A Holiday Reminder from your Friends at 1947project

clarklobby

stillindanger December 30, 1927
Los Angeles

Christmas is over. Get rid of the tree. Especially if your tree is absurdly large, and its explosion into flame is going to ignite humans.

W. A. Thomas, 2317 Scarff Street, was sitting on a balcony of the Clark Hotel above just such a repulsively titanic symbol of holiday cheer when the spangled, glittering, belighted thing short-circuited. A pop, a flash, a sudden roar, and the tapering fir became a sheath of flame. As did Thomas. He went to Georgia Street Receiving with second and third-degree burns of the face, neck, chest, arms and hands. A Mrs. Ethel Williams of Phoenix took some lesser burns to the face, neck, arms and hands as well.

It would be some years before the advent of the aluminum, flameless variety. (Should you own the Decemberween version of this style, the time is still now to box & basement your shiny friend.) Thank you for your kind attention.

At Least Weâ€™ll Avoid Black Tuesday

thisisit

December 29, 1927
Everywhere

Over there in Paris, noted astrologer and seer Professor Pav has pronounced that as years go, 1927 will pretty much be our last. Pav’s millenarianistic prognostication has it all: Biblical foretelling, global warming (in this case, cooling), even the sky falling. I don’t want to spoil the ending, but we may just come out of this all kinder and gentler. Uh-huh.

“The end of the world is imminent, but the globe will not be totally destroyed,” said Pav the Prof. “The constellation Lion, from the effect of some unknown force, will explode. A tremendous noise will be heard all over the world. Multitudes of stars composing the Fubulae will smash and a rain of falling stars will be visible in the sky.
“An immense block, like a gigantic meteorite, will fall on the earth. The rupture of the planetary equilibrium will not cause disaster to the entire system, but the same night a bitter cold wave will be felt, and in the morning there will be ice and snow, although the catastrophe is due to occur in summer.
“A large number of people will die in all corners of the globe, crops will be frozen and famine will conclude the hecatomb.
“The most terrible part will be the falling on the earth of a colossal meteorite. The earth itself will be jolted from its orbit by the shock, but a magnetic force will prevent it falling and colliding with another planet. Large areas of land will disappear and new continents will appear.
“At the end of the cataclysm only a relatively few people will survive.
“Afterward nature will resume her task and man will become wiser and more tender. The bases of the present civilization will not be destroyed entirely. The survivors will create a new social system, based on the respect of human life and confraternity.
“All holy scriptures and writings point to the year 1928 as being marked with the year 1928 as being marked with a special sign. It is possible that, owing to changes in the calendars during the centuries, there is a discrepancy, but the catastrophe will certainly happen during a summer night.
“Savants will be able to warn us in advance of the approach of the bolide.”

(Speaking of savants, interestingly, 1920s Scottish pyramidologist and BI posterboy David Davidson posited the Beginning Of The End would commence in 1928; he then foresaw the Great Depression, and World War II, and a “union of Britain and America” in 1947-8 [must’ve had something to do with the Arab-Israeli Conflict]. Oh yeah, and he predicted that the “millennial reign of righteousness” would begin on September 17, 2001. Well, close enough.)

The Greatest Show on Earth

December 29, 1927
Los Angeles

Angelenos have stellar opportunities for entertainment this week—the Brothers Marx are performing in Sam Harris’ The Cocoanuts at the Biltmore Theatre (why, and future Marx cohort Thelma Todd can be seen on screen in The Gay Defender at the Metropolitan!), and Jolson’s Vitaphone picture The Jazz Singer, whose thrilling sound production presages a new era for motion picture sound effects, had its magnificent grand opening last night at the Criterion…but where was everyone this week? At the Pantages.

foxycaptors

Hickmaniana

January 23, 1927
Los Angeles

hangingaround

Following up yesterday’s story about whether one Ray McCoy was lynched for looking too much like Edward Hickman…

The verdict of the Coroner’s jury? Jail officials and other prisoners, all vindicated. Nevertheless, it seems that Ralph “Ray McCoy” Fuller raised the ire of Angelenos in the grip of Hickman fever, whose Hickmanmania (Hickmania? Hickmentia?) led an angry mob to chase down and beat Fuller something fierce, believing the twenty year-old to be Hickman, after Fuller robbed a store at 242 South Main and was chased two blocks on foot.

Fellow prisoner Fred Meadows told the Times that once in the hoosegow, the sullen and reserved Fuller was regarded as just another popped burglar. Meadows related how he and the boys started playing “Sundown” in an outer tank and when he returned, Fuller had hanged himself with Meadows’ scarf. (Must be nice to have scarves. And pianos.)

In other lynching news, any and all information regarding Hickman’s departure and route from Pendleton (where he was exhibited in a cage like a circus animal) to Los Angeles County Jail is being kept under strict secrecy.

damnyoufriedrich