A Last Letter

April 9, 1927
Los Angeles
motherwrites
Three years ago there occurred one of the most gruesome crimes in Los Angeles history—the slaying of May and Nina Martin, twelve and eight.  They disappeared from their home at 2854 South Mansfield on the evening of August 23, 1924.  On February 5, 1925, their battered and strangled bodies found were found by rancher Leo Saulque while he planted oats on the Anita Baldwin estate.  “I have prayed to God that He might enable me to find my children,” said Mrs. Paul Buus, the girls’ mother.  "My prayers have been answered—now I’ll pray that the brute who lured them away and then killed them will be caught—and God will answer my prayers.”

One Scott Stone, a night watchman in the Glen Airy district where Mrs. Buus and the girls lived, was meanwhile arrested on a charge of contributing to the delinquency of a minor.  Circumstantial evidence linked him to the Martin slayings and on October 1, 1925 he was indicted for murder.  It seemed that Mrs. Buus’ prayers had been answered.

But Mrs. Buus had trouble—as did others, including the DA—with the concept that Stone would go to the gallows after having been convicted without evidence beyond reasonable doubt.  She wrote Governor Young, pleading for Stone, and asking the executive to relieve her of the misery that would follow the execution.  And so Stone, on the very morning of his hanging, March 10, 1927, had his sentence commuted to life imprisonment.  (Jack Hoxie stated that he was “mighty, mighty glad” for the decision to spare his stepson’s life.)

Today Mrs. Buus wrote a belated but nice letter to Stone, saying she was happy his sentence had been so commuted.  Where her heart went from there we do not know.

Only Your Studebaker Knows For Sure

April 2, 1927
Los Angeles

tonyheadlineOn this Spring day in 1927, investigating officers were pavement-pounding in the Italian neighborhoods, attempting to scare up information about the April Fool’s Day discovery of one murdered Antonio (Tony) Ferraro.  But there was no talking to be had, and the crime scene revealed nothing in the way of tell-tale fingerprints or any such evidence, and so Tony Ferraro remains another unsolved Los Angeles gangland slaying.

Tony Ferraro was 34, married, and an erstwhile bootlegger.  He had given up the bootlegging game back in January when officers knocked out his elaborate still at 532 South Soto St.  Thereafter he had gone into the olive oil business–the evening of March 31 he set out from his home at 2724 Cincinnati St. with six one-gallon cans of the unctuous stuff (only to return for his funeral a week later).  On the morning of April 1 a passerby’s attention was attracted by the stream of blood pouring forth from the back seat of Ferraro’s Studebaker, parked at 659 Kohler St.  

ferraroandwifeRobbery was not the motive, as Ferraro’s diamond ring, watch, money clip and olive oil were unmolested.  Persons unknown entered Ferraro’s car, where he was beaten with a tire iron (his bruised hands indicating he put up a strong fight) and then shot in the head once with a .38 and twice with a .32.  The body was then pulled from the front seat and lain across the olive oil in the back.

Ferraro was a Matranga relative and Los Angeles bootlegger who had had some problems with his business partners.  In September of 1925, someone dynamited a vacant two-story building Ferraro owned at 2729 North Main; eight months later the home of his cousin, Victor Pepitone, 317 West 77th St., was dynamited; five months thereafter the home of Jim Mussacci, Ferraro’s business partner, 675 Lamar St., was destroyed in a dynamite explosion.  The news from April 2 hints that Ferraro may have recently talked to authorities and implicated two former liquor trade associates, resulting in their arrest, but that clue went nowhere.  Attempts to quiz the widow Constance resulted in her continued protestations that Tony had no enemies anywhere.

ferraroscarOn April 5 the Times reported a rumor that Ferraro’s car had been seen the night of the 31st in Chinatown between when he set off from home at 6 p.m. and when the car was first spotted at 10 p.m. at Sixth and Kohler, but placing the killing in Chinatown didn’t make solving the murder any more possible or probable.  That day Ferraro was released from the Coroner’s to his home once more; the cinematic mind must imagine properly florid gangland sendoff, with bouquets from those Wright Act violators Tony double-crossed.  

And up in heaven, the special cloud reserved for unsolved LA homicide victims—Harry Katz there waiting with a martini—added one more.

ferraroburial 

A Final Fight

March 26, 1927mystery
Hollywood 

It’s a crowded 3am at the Crescent Club in the heart of Hollywood…just another old bungalow reconstructed into a, uh, tea room. A variety of Volstead violations are in full swing when a fight started, the lights went out, there were sounds of a struggle and furniture cracking, and by the time police arrived to a nearly empty room, pugilist and actor Eddie Diggins, 24, lay dying, stabbed through the heart. Film comedian Lloyd Hamilton cared for the doomed Diggins, while Charles Meehan, noted local bootlegger, was unconscious on the floor with a split to the skull. Diggins died in Hamilton’s arms.

crescentbar 

Those filmfolk known for frequenting barrooms were questioned (there being no small number there) but only Hamilton, having remained at the scene, could give a description of Meehan being hit by a chair before the lights were extinguished. While police found ten gallons of wine and five quarts of vermouth were uncovered, the murdering knife used on Diggins was unfound. Meehan, in the prison ward of General Hospital, could shed no light on anything.

Come March 27, Deputy Assitant District Attorney Dennison advanced a new theory: that Diggins had fallen on a crystal chandelier smashed in the melee. Sisters Rosie and Josie St. George, who had been in evidence that night, were found and questioned; Rosie had been working hat check. She stated that Diggins first became embroiled with Jack Wagner, and that Meehan then fought with stunt man Billie Jones, and that thereafter the great fight ensued, wherein Mrs. Diggins and Mrs. Irene Dalton Meehan escaped with the help of Diggins’ buddy John Sinclair.

mrsdiggOn March 28, a dozen witnesses gathered to present inquest testimony. The memories of all and sundry were hazy at best, agreeing that there was bar, chandelier, bottle and window glass involved, table legs used as clubs, and chairs swung with abandon. Members of a Coroner’s jury reached the decision that Diggins had met his death from “a sharp instrument in the hand of a person or persons unknown to us, with homicidal intent,” while an eighth juror agreed with Dennison’s theory, concluding that “the wound was caused by a piece of glass, accidental.” From the morgue he was taken to O’Donnell Sunset Mortuary, and from there to the grave, where he remains silent to this day.

And in Black Dahlia news…

You may think you’re up on your Black Dahlia lore, but you might have missed two recent books that take very different approaches to the case. First, there’s the memoir from Jacque Daniel, "The Curse of the Black Dahlia." Daniel was daughter and secretary to police psychiatrist Paul de River, whose involvement in the case was tinged with controversy. See her site for ordering info and her rebuttal of the claims in Donald Wolfe’s recent, worthless contribution to the genre.

Then there’s "Exquisite Corpse" by Mark Nelson and Sarah Hudson Bayliss, which takes as gospel the Steve Hodel theory of mutilation murder as homage a l’art moderne, and digs into the notion of the posing and abuses of Beth Short’s body as a Surrealist art piece. While not quite as loopy as Gareth Penn’s "Times 17" (Zodiac Killer as earthworks artist), it does sound rather outrĂ©.

Medium Image

The Night Signal

coltonmad

August 29, 1907
Colton

An augur came to Mrs. John George last night as she meandered through the traumwelt, delivering the most terrible of presage: murder! The prognostication was that of her husband, Mr. George, standing over the bed. Choking her.

But Mr. George, long locked up in the secure confines of the State Hospital for the Insane at Patton, was certainly no threat. Or was he? On the strength of this omen, she fled her home.

Mr. George had in fact escaped. Not finding her at their San Bernadino home, he went late in the night to the home of her parents, and then to Colton, where one of his little boys was staying with an aunt. Before he could gain ingress, the bulls caught up to the fugitive, and threw him in prison.

This morning, Mr. George, having torn off his clothes and soaked them in water, and having ripped apart the mattress and bed quilts, fought violently the attempts of the attendants whose job it was to pack him up and ship him back to Patton.

That Mrs. George will sleep soundly tonight is of course a matter of conjecture, but we hope she does, lest she miss another harbinger from the other side.

Sunset Junction Map of Infamy in the LA Alternative

Original post: The editors of the L.A. Alternative contacted me a few weeks back, asking if I had any ideas for a way to mark the Sunset Junction street festival by looking back at the area’s criminal past. The result: a cover story featuring a pull-out crime map designed by Heidi Fikstad in which 29 of the more notable criminal happenings of the neighborhood are encapsulated for your edification. You can pick up a paper copy anywhere in L.A. this week, or check it out online here. I very much hope that you enjoy, Kim 

Update: since editor Martin Albornoz chose never to pay me for the Sunset Junction crime map that ran in the L.A. Alternative, yet continues to run ads for L.A.’s dopest attorney, hot roomates and male dating services alongside the digital version, I’m going to host my own archival copy right here at 1947project. The art is by Heidi Fikstad from images from my personal collection.

The Horrifying, Bizarre, Unnatural History of Sunset Junction
As illustrated by the Map of Infamy

The strange and unusual multitude of murders, suicides, robberies, car crashes, ukelele beatings, firefighting pups and other odd factual tidbits from the historic era of today’s Sunset Junction.

By Kim Cooper

Los Angeles is older than she looks-225-and her memory banks are piled high with forgotten oddities that were once big news. To celebrate the Sunset Junction street fair, we wanted to revive some of those memories via a crime geek’s digging through the historic L.A. Times. Just like your grandpa might remember when those fools blew their gun shop up every time he tools past in his flivver, you might raise a mental toast to Jac Zinder when driving Sunset Boulevard around November. These memory maps are the soul of our city; we lose so much when they fade. Here is a smattering of historic oddities, to make it a richer neighborhood for whippersnappers of all ages. May all the dead ones rest in peace.

Sunset Junction Map of Infamy 1

1. 3709 Sunset: August 15, 1950- Max Blakeley’s gun shop erupted in flames and careening bullets after an employee making a movie prop rifle telescope ignited a box of blank cartridges with acetylene torch sparks. The building was destroyed by a series of explosions, followed by a high intensity fire that melted the burglar bars “like limp bananas.” Several people inside suffered bullet wounds and smoke inhalation, but somehow no one in the rush-hour traffic along Sunset was hurt. Blakeley told firemen that there had been 85,000 rounds of ammunition and a large quantity of black powder on the premises. Shot through the right shoulder, he estimated his stock losses at $100,000. Also damaged in the incident were a florist, beauty shop, liquor store, dry cleaners and a dress shop, encompassing 3701-3719 Sunset. (Three years later, Blakeley struck and killed a pedestrian near the intersection of Sunset and Edgecliffe.)

2. Sunset at Edgecliffe: Thanksgiving night, 1994- Fuzzyland club promoter, DJ and musician Jac Zinder, passenger in a car traveling on Sunset, is killed in a head-on collision with a drunk driver who crossed into oncoming traffic while driving without headlights.

3. 3719 Sunset: December 1968- A flower power pigeon has made itself at home in a flower shop. It spends much of each day flying with friends, then zooms in the back door between 3:00 and 3:30 p.m. to nap. The proprietors leave birdseed in a bowl in its favorite niche, and have to duck when opening the door in the morning because the beast is so anxious to soar.

4. 3724 Sunset: April 23, 1930- Larry Steere of this address got into an argument with three strangers in an L.A. restaurant, but agreed to give the surly fellows a ride to Rosemead. The 35 year old was discovered unconscious in his car at Rosemead and Foothill, alongside the apparent weapon: a smashed ukulele. October 6, 1940- The new alien registration law had Harry Cahill, 60, terrified. The Finn’s papers weren’t in order, and he was certain he’d be deported to the country he left as a boy. Far easier, it seemed, to hang himself in his apartment closet, leaving the poignant note, “I haven’t any other place to go.”

5. 3725 Sunset: November 22, 1934- Alex Vielmas just wanted to empty the till and patrons’ pockets at Nick Sands’ cafe, but he ended up with a jaw full of lead when Sands whipped a gun from the register and blasted away at the would-be robber as he menaced seven customers and the cook with the old finger-in-the-pocket routine. Vielmas fled the scene but was captured a block away by officers who followed the trail of gore to a stack of lumber, behind which he was attempting an amateur dressing. Almost three years later, Emmett Lee Baldwin, 20, lost his bankroll at the fights and fixed on the cafe as a good place to replenish his funds. To the barkeep he snarled, “Dish out the dough!” while waving a nickel-plated revolver. Then Baldwin told the man to come around the bar and fleece the patrons. At this indignity, unemployed machinist Emil Heyden balked. “No punk can talk to me like that,” he observed, rising. And before said punk could react, Heyden had Baldwin locked in a jiu-jitsu hold, disarmed and cracked over the head with his own gun. Down in the E.R., the woozy hood sang like a lark, listing his crimes (59 hold-ups, including a near-fatal liquor store shooting on Melrose) and fingering accomplice Bob O’Connor, who snapped, “You’re a rat. I just furnished you a car and gave you a place to live-what did you get me into this for?” “Bob, what could I do? They had me dead to rights. I just told the truth.”

6. 3728 Sunset: February 8, 1959- Traveling east on Sunset, Arthur R. Forsyth, 23, clips a light pole and loses control of his car, which crashes into the front of the liquor store here. Forsyth is killed.

7. 3814 Sunset: This was the home of Kentucky Boy III, the brave and clever Airedale doggy who, in 1929, famously snapped his lead and raced two blocks down Hollywood Boulevard towards a burning movie studio. His master Robert Milton Byrne summoned fire engines and an adjacent theater, packed with patrons, was saved. In 1932 a juvenile cowboy orchestra serenaded the pup on the steps of City Hall as he was presented with one of 19 medals he would receive. Kentucky Boy died, aged 15, in September 1937, leaving his master unprotected. On June 23, 1939, the 65-year-old Byrne was found dead in his bungalow, victim of a brutal hammer attack. Evidence suggested the man might have lingered in a confused and bloodied state for as long as two days before dying, just 10 feet from the phone. Concerned neighbors peeked in a window, saw blood, then called police. A table was set as if for breakfast for two, and in the sink a carpenter’s hammer had been wiped of fingerprints. Byrne had seven skull fractures, a serious eye injury, and was covered in abrasions possibly caused by multiple falls. Some partial fingerprints were found in the house, and sent to the FBI in hopes of finding a match. Neighbors reported Byrne often entertained strange young men, so the pool of suspects seemed limitless, but police expressed particular interest in speaking to the 6-foot, 200 pound man seen with Byrne on the evening of June 19. In late July, police picked up and released Emacora F. Foschia, 30, on suspicion of Byrne’s murder, and the following January they questioned taxi driver Knud Troelsen, 46, who was picked up for a robbery and discovered to have a collection of female clothing in his home. Troelsen protested that he was being persecuted for his labor activities. The slaying appears to have gone unsolved.

8. 3900 Sunset: November 9, 1928- A bald-headed man with a mouth full of golden choppers held up the California Bank today, with the aid of a less dramatic-looking associate, to the tune of $4,000. This is the fifth robbery at this particular branch in 18 months, including a notable incident last November, when a dapper (yet toothless) youngster appropriated $3,000 and fled in a stolen green limousine. (Shaken tellers showed no preference for gold teeth over missing ones.)

9. 4013 Sunset: December 26, 1960- Two suicide attempts by Sheridan Kimmel, a 24-year-old writer, were thwarted today. First, his stomach was pumped of 60 barbiturates. Later Officer D.E. Davis stopped Kimmel from jumping off the roof when he grabbed him under the pretense of handing over a cigarette, then took the woozy man back to Central Receiving Hospital for a second pumping. Kimmel, a Korean war vet with a plate in his head, was upset because his wife, Marjorie Cameron, was refusing to let him see their daughter. (Cameron had a long and fascinating career as a Thelemite magician, avant-garde film star and visual artist.)

10. 4017 Sunset: May 9, 1936- Despondent over ill health, taxidermist Joseph Colburn, 60, shot himself in his brother’s shop, surrounded by hundreds of beady eyes of the creatures he had stuffed.

11. 4212 Sunset: December 1931- More than 100 local businesses are donating food to the Jail Cafe, which offers free meals to about 1,000 needy women between 9 a.m. and noon daily, prepared by charitably-minded ladies from the westside. August 22, 1955- You won’t hear comic songbird Barbara Heller trill her Judy Garland parody, “I was born in a booth in a bar on Main Street, L.A.” at the Cabaret Concert Theater any more, now that Muriel Landers has dragged Heller into court claiming exclusive rights to lampoon “Born in a Trunk,” and asking $50,000 damages. Miss Heller says the songwriters gave her the tune in appreciation for her kindness and past loans, while Landers counters she bought the number outright, and made it her theme song. In the hall outside Superior Judge Hanson’s chambers, a scrappy Heller said she’s already working on a parody of her parody, “Born on a bunk in a junk in the middle of the China Sea.” (Two years later, the rivals were in a variety act together at Ben Blue’s nightclub.)

12. 4240 1/2 Gateway Avenue: November 17, 1927- When the cops busted in looking for Harold Thatcher, a suspect in September’s sensational $73,000 payroll robbery at the Bureau of Power and Light, they discovered his wife Mabel, 19, near death in a gas-filled room. Harold was found sleeping elsewhere in the house. Rushed to the hospital, Mabel admitted attempting suicide due to illness. The irony of her life being saved as her husband was arrested was not lost on officers or the Thatchers.

13. 4384 Sunset: January 30, 1942- Spiritual seekers can no longer visit the little shop on the Boulevard to satisfy all the questings of their souls, since Charlotte Jean Le Nord, 25-year-old crystal gazer, fired a bullet through the breast of her “adopted” mother, palmist Mme. Lorraine (née Celeste Frank), 50. The older woman fell dead on the floor of the combined kitchen/dressing room in back of the white frame structure, the scent of incense mingling with the coppery stench of warm blood, beside a dresser topped with a shrine to the ashes of the dead woman’s husband. Her killer placed a pillow under the victim’s head, then drove to the police station to confess.

Charlotte explained that the pair had met in a Michigan department store several years ago. Mme. Lorraine told Charlotte she looked just like her dead son, and asked her to come live with her and her husband. They traveled the country performing a spiritualist act as a trio. When Mr. Frank died last September, Charlotte stayed on, telling fortunes on Sunset while Mme. Lorraine read palms in a downtown shop.

Charlotte said she’d been drinking all day to appease a cold, and had parked her car on Sunset instead of in its space behind the building. Mme. Lorraine upbraided her for this, and Charlotte pulled out the .32 caliber revolver she’d previously hidden from the older woman, citing fears that the bereaved widow might kill herself. And then, the unthinkable.

Charged with murder, Charlotte panicked when she learned her trial would be held on the seventh floor-Mme Lorraine’s unlucky number, and the hour of her death. She sobbed uncontrollably on the witness stand, describing how she had “playfully” pointed the gun at her beloved benefactress and said, “Bang!” after the older woman snapped, “I could wring your neck!” The gun went off, despite Charlotte having, she swore, removed all but two bullets at the bottom of the chamber. She strongly denied police conjecture that they were playing Russian roulette in emulation of a film or that they had a suicide pact. A munitions expert testified that the weapon was defective, allowing the cylinder to spin without the trigger being pulled.

The jury of nine men and three women accepted Charlotte’s profession that the death was accidental, and acquitted her after an hour’s deliberations, calling it “a tragic but unavoidable accident.” Because folks just pointed guns at each other and said, “Bang!” all the time in 1942, but that didn’t mean any harm was intended.

14. 4400 Sunset: April 12, 1952- A spectacular fire gutted the Akron Army & Navy Store warehouse this afternoon, causing $100,000 in damages and sending Fire Captain Earl McKee to the hospital after he fell through the roof and fractured an elbow. Several thousand spectators watched as sixty firemen from ten companies failed to stop the enormous blaze, but kept it from spreading to an apartment house on Virgil Avenue or the ladder shop next door. Curiously, business continued as normal in the surplus store, while the overstock burned down the block.

15. 4415 Sunset: January 4, 1920- Celebrated inventor Dr. Harry Barrington Cox (”the father of the dry cell battery”) called journalists to his laboratory and announced today a revolutionary advance that will preserve fruits and vegetables indefinitely, without the use of ice or chemicals. Cox has found a way to harness the power of the Earth, the same energies that keep food fresh on the vine or branch, even after they’ve been harvested. He proved it by displaying perfectly fresh oranges, peas and other fruits which he swore had been picked more than a year before. This discovery, the product of two years of research, Cox offers to California and the world as a New Years gift. More research is necessary to confirm the findings, but Cox says as long as the food is placed in an ordinary can, with metal wires creating a circuit to earth or water, and a little bit of the good doctor’s top-secret “vitalizer” at the bottom, extended preservation is a certainty, and the world will be immeasurably improved.

16. 4419 Sunset: January 21, 1929- When officers of the LAPD gun squad raided this home they discovered $1,500 in illegal whiskey, plus evidence of a complicated bunko scam. Arrested were Joe Besso, 42, and Gino Cesare, 57. Also seized from Cesare was a wallet containing several hundred dollars in real money and significantly more in counterfeit bills and rolls of newspaper of the type swindlers use to stuff poor boxes in immigrant communities. Victims of recent poor box scams are being urged to visit Central Police Station to see if either yegg looks familiar.

17. 4443 Sunset: November 11, 1947- Somebody has it in for radio shop owner Ted Wells, who got little work done today while dealing with the fallout of this weisenheimer’s idea of fun. First there was the $1,000 TV set supposedly ordered by a downtown bar. Ted lugged the bulky machine up the tavern steps, only to discover no one had called. Back at the store, taxis arrived on the hour, seeking phantom fares. The Fire Department showed up looking for a fire, followed by seven LAPD cars responding to a call of a stabbing. Phoned by a reporter, Wells expressed befuddlement as to the identity of his tormentor, then excused himself to answer the door.

18. 4473 Sunset: April 18, 1971- Christopher Russell, a 29-year-old transient, emerged from the all-night adult cinema where a robbery alarm had just been pulled, and took a revolver from his back pocket. When he ignored police orders to halt, Officer R. L. Bassett shot him twice in the chest. He was taken to County USC in critical condition; the gun was a plastic toy.

19. 4480 Sunset: August 17, 1924- This is the home of Harry Lowe, who, while picnicking with his family near Mint Canyon, discovered a suspicious burial site and alerted the Sheriff on his return to civilization. Deputies returned to the remote site, where they disinterred the remains of a monkey.

Sunset Junction Map of Infamy 2

20. 4413 Camero: December 19, 1922- Although it means giving up a $250,000 legacy dependent on her marrying within her Protestant faith, Mrs. Olga Crane Lynch, 18, today escaped from her father’s home where she had been held captive since confessing her September 1st elopement with Catholic T.J. Lynch. She smuggled a note out to her husband who asked the district attorney to intervene. Called to City Hall, Olga’s father claimed his daughter had gone to San Francisco for six months “to see if she really loves him. I understood that Lynch had acquiesced in this arrangement.” Moments later, the girl was brought in by Detective George Contreras, and raced into her husband’s arms. “I am of age, I love my husband, and I am going to live with him!” she declared. Her father told her to go to blazes, and he and his wife stomped out. The young Lynches plan to go to New York.

21. Sunset at Micheltorena: December 20, 1914- D.C. Porter visits police to complain about the jitney bus that struck his horse and buggy today, pushing man and beast about 100 feet before dashing them roughly to the pavement. Porter estimated the bus was traveling a potentially deadly 25 mph, and says the driver drove on another half block before striding back to curse at the man and horse tangled in wreckage, demanding Porter reimburse him for the smashed headlights on his machine. (It is unclear if this was the same unlucky D.C. Porter who, in 1908, purchased a revolver from a shop at 313 South Main and accidentally discharged it, causing powder burns to the face of a clerk, damaging two showcases and shattering the plate glass window.)

22. Micheltorena & Effie Street: September 5, 1926- Piloting a stock Packard 8, Frank Randall set a record on the Micheltorena grade of 58mph, having turned off Sunset at a full clip. He was then “pulled over” by LAPD motorcycle speed squad officers Snider and Goldy, who gave Randall a souvenir speeding ticket to commemorate the planned record attempt. Six years later, the makers of the Essex Terraplane used the same grade to prove the hill-climbing power of their vehicle, reaching a top speed of 39.5 mph from a standing start, in high gear, with two passengers.

23. 1600 block of Micheltorena: January 27, 1922- Four days after he was found gravely wounded on the ground on the Micheltorena hill, doctors removed one of two slugs from his brain and motion picture cameraman Paul Cramer was able to tell detectives that his mother-in-law Mrs. Mattie Hannon had shot him. It seemed Mrs. Hannon was upset that Cramer and her daughter had moved from her house at 1504 Golden Gate Ave. into their own home. The woman accosted Cramer outside the new place at 1135 North Hoover and solicited a ride. Along the way she pretended to have lost her keys, and while Cramer was looking for them, she unloaded a .32 into his head; four bullets penetrated, two entering the brain, and Cramer knew no more. After the bed-ridden Cramer made his statement, Mrs. Hannon was taken into custody and informed that she would be charged with murder should he die. Winifred Cramer (known on screen as Jean Marlow) declared she would not visit her mother until her husband recovered, which doctors said he would. Mattie Hannon was found guilty of attempted murder and served a year’s sentence. Fifteen months after the shooting, Winifred divorced Paul, charging cruelty. The marriage left him two lifelong keepsakes: a deafened ear and a bullet in the jaw.

24. 3516 Crestmont: January 21, 1937- Dr. Albert F. Zimmerman, ear, nose and throat specialist, enjoyed one final midday meal with his wife before descending into his basement bathroom where, gazing into the mirror, he fired two shots. One pierced the wall, the second his skull. The dead man had been sickly and depressed about financial problems.

25. 1406 Manzanita: April 11, 1924- “Sure, my buddies and I stole gas from William Hill’s gas tank,” admits Charles Duncan Brotemarkle, “But we had nothing to do with hitting him over the head with that claw hammer.” So is the claim of the Hollywood High ROTC sergeant, 16, discovered with a garage full of stolen automotive accessories behind his grocery store manager father’s house at 972 Hyperion. Hill’s brother Joe says otherwise, having seen Brotemarkle strike the vicious blow, and the lad is in Juvenile custody on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon.

26. 3318 Descanso: October 2, 1945- Memo to treasure hunters: when pitching the notion of joining an expedition to locate $10,000,000 in Mexican treasure hidden by Pancho Villa, be sure the lady you met on a streetcar and asked to become your secretary/companion is not already employed by the LAPD Bunco Squad. Such was the misstep of Arthur Stuchal of this address, popped on suspicion of swindling.

27. Vendome Street between Bellevue and Silverlake: March 17, 1928- Mary E. Spangler had a cement block dam constructed behind her home on Vendome Street for use as a bridge. As the waters of the local stream began to spread, panicked neighbors sought legal redress, and all were called before Municipal Judge Bush. A visit to the scene and testimony from a city engineering inspector were sufficient to produce a verdict of guilty, and the lady was fined $25 and ordered to undo her beaver-work before the rainy season. She promptly appealed.

28. 4118 N Reno: March 10, 1926- Jesus Fernandez, formerly of this address, got one last moment in the sun today when his casket was unearthed from its plot in Calvary Cemetery and its lid cracked, all to appease the mania of his sister Mrs. Mary Burke. Ever since the 16-year-old meningitis victim’s body was hustled into the General Hospital morgue, Mary has been insisting that his body had been snatched for purposes of dissection. She claimed the family was refused an opportunity to view Jesus, and that his pallbearers had heard something rolling in the coffin. Deputy D.A. Fitts arranged for the exhumation, which revealed a perfectly ordinary burial. Mrs. Burke was apparently still upset that her father and another brother had been autopsied at General Hospital.

29. 1404 Westerly: February 23, 1941- E.D. Cassidy, hotel clerk, 36, phoned his sister Helen in Yuma and told her, “I’m going to die within a few minutes. I’m washed up. I’ve turned on the gas. Good-bye, sis. A lot of love.” She called her local Sheriff once the line was clear, and a police teletype message was rushed to L.A.’s City Hall. A call went out to radio cars in the vicinity, and Detective Lieutenants Parry and Brown responded within 10 minutes of Cassidy’s hanging up. They rushed the unconscious man to Georgia Street Receiving Hospital; he is expected to survive.

 

The Black Hand Smacked Down

August 1, 1907
Los Angeles sanmarco

July, 1907: It was decided by members of the La Mano Nera, the criminal vein that runs through LA’s Italian community, that seventeen year-old Josephine San Marco was to wed Samuel Laturco. But Josephine, thoroughly modern and resolute in matters of her own heart, would have none of it. She went on to entertain one Joseph Desparti in the parlor of her home.

Laturco, threatened with death by his own father should he not “clean out” the San Marco home, fired three rounds into the parlor. Neither Joseph nor Josephine were hit; one bullet did kill six year-old Marie San Marco. Laturco and his father, Francisco Laturco, were arrested.

And now, with the entire Italian community against her, and with threats of death piling up like unanswered mail, the dark-eyed teen has set out to avenge her tiny sister’s slaying. Under the withering, threatening gaze of the people she once loved, Josephine took the stand today to testify against the Laturci. Warned time and again that she need only wed Laturco the Younger and thereby save him from the gallows, she grits her teeth and stands in Los Angeles Superior Court alone, as all other witnesses refuse to testify.

She bears these men a hate and her sister a duty, whence comes an uncommon bravery:

“They have killed my sister, now let them look to it for their lives. I will never give up. They have abused me and threatened me and tried to compel me to marry Laturco, but they have failed. I do not fear their society. They have killed my sister and I’ll have the satisfaction for that life if I die for it. My mother fears they will murder as they say, that they will burn our home, and cause us trouble. She urged me to marry Laturco and settle the trouble. But I won’t. I have set my mind on this and I won’t back out. Let them burn and murder all they want, but the won’t head off that prosecution. I have started it and I will be there at the finish.”

Tong War Continues

tongwar

 

July 18, 1907

Anaheim 

One more tong war post, and then I’ll return to our regularly scheduled horrors committed by, I don’t know, Dutch people.

Anaheim, California: best known for Disneyland and the Pond, or, at least, known for the winemaking prowess of Victorian Bavarians, and having been run by the Klan in 1924. And I’d like to remind you that on this day in 1907, Anaheim was the scene of a particularly grisly murder.

Mock Fat was an Anaheim vegetable salesman and a particularly card-carrying, dues-paying member of the Hop Sing. But Anaheim is largely Bing Goon territory, and as such, the aged Fat a prime target.

Classic tong style: shot twice in the back, he fell on his face. A knife was stabbed repeatedly into his back and left there. Of course, a hatchet was used to cut up his head.

As usual, the police have been dispatched to the train stations. While imported highbinders are escaping detection by hiding out in downtown Japanese rooming houses, cops have nevertheless managed to nap Visalians Tai Choy and Lin Poon, implicated in the killing.

Wrap-Up of the Recent Tong War

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Tong war, born of woman! Of few days, and full of trouble!

Seems there’s always a highbinder war simmering down in Chinatown. But despite the literality of that damn’d “huddled masses” business, there stays an easy peace down amongst the Celestials. Until.

When a Hop Sing Tong all-tong banquet (for those of you not in the know, a Tong could throw down on your local set) was held in the early weeks of June, the Bing Gon Tong was forbidden to attend—and as such, the Bing Gon elected to remove their slave girls from the Chinatown sex market.

And thus comes the storm.

At first the cops—informed (as they are to-day) by merchants and oldtimers who have little stake in any war—spent their time shaking down and locking up local Chinese for carrying Caliente-smuggled firearms, and having hired Caliente gunmen.

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Then Chin Hai, local laundryman and Bing Gon fellow-traveler, was shot at by the Hop Sing Tong, and cops arrested Ah Quay, Ah Mee, Ah Soo, Tom Tong and Wong Kee. After cops picked up these men and the hammerless revolver they (or one, or perhaps none) used in the shooting, two knifing attempts by highbinders went down. It was a busy night. Chinese merchants slept in their stores. They appealed for police escorts. And all cops could uncover in the Chinese interstices were some smokeless-powder cartridges for great-caliber weapons.

 

lingaukThe young and fair Ling Auk, left, who had been friendly to the Bing Gon, was surprised by Hop Sing hatchetmen on June 19. Luckily, they were scared away by her protectors. The Hop Sing Tong has always been the most warlike in the Chinese settlement. They are centered at 529+1/2 North Los Angeles Street, where they have built a walled fortress replete with intricate tunnels that repeatedly prevent their capture. That White girls retire there to smoke opium is a sad, accepted fact of modernity.

 

Outside agitators are, of course, a factor.

Tong representatives from San Francisco are urging bloodshed. storm

 stab

Meanwhile, the bloodthirsty boys of the Hop Sing have donned their mail. What looks like an ordinary quilted silk Chinese coat to the naked eye actually conceals a screen of steel links, bullet and knife and, most importantly to the tong war, hatchet-proof.

Legendary San Fran avenger Lu Fook has even arrived in town; he is storied to have survived four shots in the back while his followers killed six hatchetmen. Heavy muscle from up north always makes copper flee in LA; where in SF the Great Six Companies War Board settle tong differences, Los Angeles just has some officers watching the trains to note incoming highbinders and look on as the Oriental Quarter, centered at Alameda and Marchessault Streets, erupts in bloodshed.

Luckily, Wong Fong, mayor of the San Francisco Chinatown, was called to Los Angeles last week to settle the dispute. Sui Hoo Fow and Sam Ham Gay were named as the perps in the Chin Hai shooting, and were ostracized by their tongs. Again we settle into an uneasy, easy peace.