Death Before Dishonor, Your Honor

 ghost

August 12, 1927
Los Angeles

leapAlice 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.

aliceBut 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

Good Help Is Hard To Find

May 11, 1927
Los Angeles

Most liquor raids are tedious affairs, a pack of lit-up salesmen here, a couple sobbing college boys there. But once in a while, officers make a raid that’s just kind of special.

One such operation was on a blind pig at 3120 South Main Street, allegedly run by Mrs. Ocio Walsh. Mrs. Walsh was taken into custody on charges of possession of liquor and contributing to the delinquency of a minor, while 38-year-old Frank Jones was charged with drunkenness and Robert Maschold, 37, with vagrancy.

That delinquency charge? See, Mrs. Walsh has a 14-year-old daughter, Mary Zella. Great kid, really responsible. When Sgt. Kynetto and Officers Wolf and Pound busted in they found a scantily-clad Mary Zella pouring a bottle of hooch down the sink. Mama sent her up to dress, the the clever minx hopped out a second story window and skedaddled.

Where’s she gone? Maybe back to the convent, from which Mama recently removed her to help out with the family business. Like I said, great kid.