The Boos Cruise, Conclusion

cassie boosBy early August 1916, Cassie Boos and Naomi Ernst had been locked in mortal legal combat for weeks. Cassie had accused Naomi of attempting to extort money from her; Naomi accused Cassie of trying to steal her husband from her. Neither woman seemed willing to give an inch, at least if what their attorneys told the reporters was true.

E.E. Ernst, the man in the middle of the embarrassing skirmish, was trying to diffuse the situation, or maybe he was just trying to get released from police custody, when he signed an affidavit denying that he or his wife were involved in a plot to blackmail Cassie Boos, and he also vehemently denied that Mrs. Boos had made an effort to alienate his affection from his wife.

Naomi won the first round when Judge Richardson sustained the demurrer to the complaint against her, in which she was accused of attempting to extort $15,000 from Cassie Boos.  The judge’s action automatically dismissed the charge; however, it was stipulated that the prosecution could, if it desired, file an amended complaint.naomi

It is difficult to say who blinked first, but on August 16, 1916, the Los Angeles Times reported that Cassie’s attorneys, Morton, Behymer, Craig and Salzman stated that an agreement had been reached by the waring parties, and that Mrs. Boos was going to withdraw the criminal complaint she’d filed against Naomi.

Maybe a good faith sign from Cassie was all the incentive Naomi needed to drop her suit too. Naomi even went so far as to admit that she’d been misled and deceived by a few of Cassie’s enemies who urged her to bring the suit.  Who the enemies were and how they came across Naomi wasn’t revealed in the papers. Naomi (as her mother had earlier advised her to do) agreed to return to Cassie the letters that she had written to E.E. during the summer of 1915.

By the end of August 1916, the combatants had negotiated a peace treaty–but it lasted for only a couple of months.

sues boosE.E. must have spent the time from August to October ruminating over the claims and counterclaims that had resulted in his arrest and seven day detainment in the City Jail–because on October 13, 1916 his attorney, Daniel M. Hidey, filed a false arrest suit against Cassie Boos on behalf of his client.

The newspapers took the opportunity to rehash some of the more humiliating moments of the alienation of affection claim against Cassie. To buttress her argument that Cassie had attempted to steal her spouse, Naomi had produced letters from Cassie to E.E. in which she addressed him as “The Duke of Catalina”, “My Sweetheart” and “My Dear”.   A disclosure of this kind would have been bad enough for anyone, but for the wife of a wealthy and respected man it had to have been devastating.

Through his attorney E.E. stated that he had suffered damages amounting to $60,796 (equivalent to $1.3M in today’s dollars) due to his false arrest.  He had spent seven days in jail where he declared he was made ill after being subjected to a “third degree” interrogation by detectives.  Further, according to E.E., Cassie knew he was innocent when she swore to the complaint charging him with blackmail.

Daniel M. Hidey submitted an itemized list of damages to the court:

“Seven days in jail, lost time at $3 day, $21; legal counsel, $150, securing above sum he sacrificed property valued at $300; seventy-five days lost by reason of arrest, $225; illness caused by “third degree” required medical services, $100; injury to feeling and loss of pride, $10,000; general damages, $25,000; punitive damages, $25,000.”

Cassie Boos’ attorney, Ona Morton, issued a unequivocal denial of the charges, alleging Cassie was the victim of a conspiracy to extort money from her.

Mr. Morton said:

“Mr. Ernst has no just claim against Mrs. Boos for false arrest and we will show that, by his own statements, Mrs. Boos was fully justified in causing his arrest on the charge she did.  There was no malice in the charge.”

Unfortunately, there was no further mention of the Ernst vs. Boos lawsuit in the L.A. Times so I don’t know if E.E. emerged triumphant. My guess is that the lawsuit went nowhere; I can’t imagine that the L.A. Times would not have reported on such a large settlement, if there had been one.

henry boos deathI don’t know how E.E. and Naomi fared in the months and years following the lawsuits; but the Boos’ marriage survived another four decades beyond Cassie’s brief infatuation with “The Duke of Catalina”. Henry passed away at age 78 at his home on Plymouth Blvd in April 1957. He had retired in 1946. He was survived by his widow Cassie, brother Cyrus and four married sisters. Services for the cafeteria pioneer were conducted in Grace Chapel, Inglewood Park Cemetery.

Film Noir Friday: Convicted [1950]

convicted_ver2

 Welcome!  The lobby of the Deranged L.A. Crimes theater is open. Grab a bucket of popcorn, some Milk Duds and a Coke and find a seat.

Tonight’s feature is CONVICTED starring Glenn Ford and Broderick Crawford.

Enjoy the film!

TCM says:

After a fight in a nightclub ends with the death of a prominent politician’s son, Joe Hufford is arrested and charged with murder. Although the district attorney, George Knowland, advises Joe to hire a good criminal lawyer, Joe decides to stick with Vernon Bradley, the corporation lawyer sent by his employer. Knowland, who believes the death to be accidental, suggests that Bradley have Joe plead guilty to manslaughter. Bradley refuses and, after the case goes to trial, the lawyer’s lack of experience in criminal law results in a guilty verdict for Joe, who is sent to prison. After six months, Joe joins a group of prisoners who are planning an escape.

 

The Boos Cruise

In 1905 the four Boos brothers, Henry, Cyrus, Horace and John moved to Los Angeles from Moscow, Ohio with a dream of opening their own cafeteria. Cafeterias were a new concept in those days; in fact the term hadn’t even been coined until 1893 when John Kruger opened an eatery in Chicago modeled on European smorgasbords.

Boss Brother Cafeteria c. 1934 [Photo courtesy of LAPL]

Boss Brother Cafeteria c. 1934 [Photo courtesy of LAPL]

The brothers had worked in restaurants in New York and St. Louis and they were drawn to Los Angeles, as were so many others from the East and Midwest, because of its weather and the opportunity to create something completely new.

Angelenos loved the cafeterias, they offered a multitude of choices and, even better, you didn’t have to tip! By 1916 the brothers were operating four cafeterias downtown.

00037577_boos bros xmas dinner 1934

Cassie Altherr arrived in Los Angeles a few years after the Boos brothers. Cassie’s husband, William, trained and showed Shetland ponies and was involved in what was referred to as the “amusement” business–I read that to mean carnivals and/or circuses. William may have been good with horses, but he was a miserable husband. The pair had married in 1902 in Alton, Illinois, but the union lasted for only a few years before William deserted Cassie. At least he left her stranded in Los Angeles–not the worst fate that could have befallen her.

In September 1910, Cassie sought to divorce her spouse on the grounds of desertion. Cassie testified that William wasn’t a total deadbeat, he had sent her regular checks–usually accompanied by a terse note:

“Cassie, Please find enclosed check for $35.”

The judge asked her if that sort of abbreviated communication was typical of William’s correspondence, and she said that it was. The judge said:

“Well, they are brief and to the point, but they are not examples of the missive a man would send to his wife if he really cared for her.”

Cassie won her divorce.

Cassie remained in Los Angeles; and it isn’t clear how she and the cafeteria magnate met but they married on March 20, 1912. The wedding, a small affair, was covered the next day in the Society page of the L.A Times:

“Miss Cassie Altherr, daughter of Mrs. Mary Green of Kingsley Drive was married yesterday, to Henry Boos, a young business man of the city. Rev. J. M. Schaefle read the ceremony at the Hotel Alexandria, in the presence of twenty-four guests. The room was aglow with bride roses, and where the young people stood a forest of palms was effective.
Luncheon was served from a table, enhanced with a beautiful centerpiece of bride roses. A three months’ trip through Florida, Cuba and the East will be enjoyed before making this city their home.”

Only a few weeks into their honeymoon Cassie and Henry, along with the rest of the world, would hear the news that the luxury vessel Titanic had gone down in the frigid waters of the North Atlantic Ocean just four days into her maiden voyage. They must have felt fortunate knowing that, even if they had wanted to, they would never have been able to make it to Southampton, England in time to take the cruise.

The newlyweds returned from their extensive trip in June and eventually made their home in a palatial mansion on Gramercy Place.

Other than an occasional mention in the society pages the Boos appear to have led a quiet life. But this is Deranged L.A. Crimes, so you know that quiet domesticity never lasts.

On June 24, 1916, LAPD detectives Raymond and Canto, and a private detective named Blair, went to the small home of Naomi and Erwin Ernst at 1321 1/2 W. 25th Street. The Ernst home was about two miles and two million light years away from the Boos mansion.

The police had a warrant issued by Judge Richardson to arrest Naomi and Erwin for being members of a blackmail gang that was said to have extorted large sums of money from well-known businessmen and their wives over the course of about six months. A complaint had been signed by Cassie Boos alleging that the Ernsts had attempted to extort money from her.

blackmail headlineNaomi told the detectives that the charges against she and Erwin were absurd. She said she wasn’t a blackmailer at all, in fact she was a wronged woman. She said she was going to name Mrs. Boos in a $50,000 alienation of affection (heart balm) suit.

Erwin, who was cooling his heels in the City Jail, was more than willing to talk about what he considered to be a misunderstanding. He backed up Naomi’s claim that neither of them were blackmailers; however, he said that his wife had recently come into possession of some overly friendly letters sent to him the previous summer by Mrs. Boos, and therein was the problem.

Apparently, in August 1915 Erwin had been employed by the Catalina Excursion Company as a boatman and he had met Cassie and several of her wealthy friends when they hired the boat he piloted for an outing. It may only have been a day cruise, but apparently Erwin made quite an impression on the ladies.

Erwin said:

“I met Mrs. Henry Boos and several other ladies on an excursion and extended every courtesy; these ladies seemed to appreciate the kindness extended to them and I later received several letters from them manifesting their interest in me and their intention to help me.”

Erwin claimed that he and Naomi had separated a couple of months prior to his meeting Cassie, so there was no way that the cafeteria owner’s wife could have been responsible for alienating him from Naomi. He maintained that the correspondence from Cassie was innocent,  and certainly not intended to rupture his already rocky marriage.naomi

By December 1915, Naomi and Erwin had resolved their differences and resumed their marriage; that was until the letters surfaced. Like most daughters in a similar situation, Naomi sought the counsel of her mother, Mrs. L.C. Osborne, a former Long Beach osteopath.

Mrs. Osborne protested her daughter’s innocence to the detectives and recalled her advice to her offspring:

“When my daughter obtained those letters from her husband, last December, I advised her to take them to Mrs. Boos and have it out with her and return them without resorting to any legal action.”

Good advice that had fallen on deaf ears.

Cassie’s attorney’s tried to spin the case as an egregious attempt by two sinister individuals to perpetrate a crime against their client:

“We regret exceedingly that there has been any publicity of this case. The facts unquestionably show that a certain coterie of people deliberately planned and purposely acted to extort money by blackmail from our client. We are prepared to prove this beyond any question from many sources.”

“Unfortunately, blackmailing in Los Angeles is becoming a fad.”

They continued:

“In this instance they (the alleged blackmailers) have found one who has been strong enough to meet the light of publicity full in the face, for the sake of exposing the attempt that has been made to extort money from her, and the authorities, after a careful investigation are now bringing justice to the instigators of this nefarious plot.”

Nefarious plot? Maybe. Maybe not.

The attorneys for both sides traded barbs in the newspaper, but it was tough to tell who was in the right. Were Naomi and Erwin blackmailers–was Cassie a home wrecker; and who would emerge victorious once the smoke cleared?

NEXT TIME: The Boos Cruise continues.

Film Noir Friday: Kiss of Death [1947]

 

kiss_of_death_ver4_xlg

Welcome!  The lobby of the Deranged L.A. Crimes theater is open. Grab a bucket of popcorn, some Milk Duds and a Coke and find a seat.

Tonight’s feature is KISS OF DEATH starring Victor Mature, Colleen Gray and Richard Widmark. This film is a classic, in particular Richard Widmark’s portrayal of a vicious psychopath is not to be missed.

Enjoy the film!

TCM says:

On Christmas Eve, down-on-his-luck Nick Bianco, an ex-convict, and his three cohorts rob a jewelry store located on the top floor of a New York skyscraper. Before they can exit the building, however, the proprietor sets off his alarm, and Nick is apprehended by the police. Later, Assistant District Attorney Louis D’Angelo tries to persuade Nick, who has two young daughters and a wife, to name his accomplices in exchange for a light sentence. Sure that his lawyer, Earl Howser, and cohorts will look after his family while he is incarcerated, Nick refuses and is given a twenty-year sentence.

 

http://youtu.be/ssrg4xPxAPA

Film Noir Friday: Quicksand [1950] & Drive A Crooked Road [1954]

QUICKSAND

Welcome!  The lobby of the Deranged L.A. Crimes theater is open. Grab a bucket of popcorn, some Milk Duds and a Coke and find a seat.

Tonight, as a tribute to Mickey Rooney who passed away earlier this week, we’re showing a double feature starring the diminutive actor. If you only recall Rooney as Andy Hardy, you’re in for a surprise. The actor actually took his turn at film noir during the 1950s.

First up is QUICKSAND [1950] starring Mickey Rooney, Jeanne Cagney, Barbara Bates and Peter Lorre.

TCM says:

At a diner, young auto mechanic Dan Brady has just finished telling his co-worker Chuck that he has broken up with his adoring girl friend, Helen Calder, when he notices the stunning blonde cashier, Vera Novak. Dan convinces Vera to go out with him that evening, but when he returns to his job at the garage, he remembers that he has no money. While making change at the register, Dan realizes that the bookkeeper will not be in to check the cash drawer for a few days and decides to borrow twenty dollars, intending to pay it back the next day when he collects the money that his friend, Buzz Larson, owes him.

And thus begins Brady’s downward spiral…

drive_a_crooked_road

Second on tonight’s bill is the 1954 film DRIVE A CROOKED ROAD starring Mickey Rooney and Dianne Foster.

TCM says:

Los Angeles auto mechanic Eddie Shannon, a devoted car buff with no family or other outside interests, frequently competes in local car races to improve his driving. The other mechanics at work tease Eddie constantly over his diminutive stature and solitary nature. One day Eddie meets Barbara Mathews, an attractive woman who invites him to the beach. Uncertainly, Eddie accepts the invitation, and at the beach Barbara introduces him to Steve Norris, a handsome businessman from the East, who is spending several weeks in a Santa Monica beach house. Eddie is surprised when Barbara shows an interest in him and shyly begins dating her. Barbara tries to learn as much about Eddie’s interests as possible, but asks him if he is content to remain a mechanic all his life. Eddie confides that his dream has always been to drive in one of the top European races. Barbara takes Eddie to a party thrown by Steve and his associate, Harold Baker, and during the evening, Steve asks Eddie his opinion about the best kind of race car. After the party, Barbara advises Eddie that Steve might be able to help him realize his dream of racing in Europe. Later that evening, Steve visits Barbara, eager to discuss plans for a bank robbery, for which they hope to use Eddie’s driving skill. Barbara pleads with Steve to call off the heist, as she feels sorry for Eddie, a lonely man who has never experienced love…

Let’s Kill All The Lawyers, Redux

plot_headline
In 1939 Arthur Emil Hansen was sentenced to from two to twenty years in San Quentin for the courtroom slayings of two attorneys, R. D. McLaughlin and J. Irving Hancock, who were besting him in a civil suit that cost him every cent he had.

Did Arthur learn anything from the crime or his punishment? Evidently not, because in January 1951 a plan he’d hatched from behind the gray walls of San Quentin to assassinate four Los Angeles judges and two attorneys was uncovered by the Sheriff’s Department.

On Hansen’s list for liquidation were: Superior Judges Charles W. Fricke, Arthur Crumm and Frank G. Swain; Municipal Judge Lewis Drucker, former District Attorney Buron Fitts and Attorney Isaac Pacht. Apparently, Hansen had discussed his plan with a few of his fellow convicts — a big mistake–nobody will rat you out quicker. He had approached an inmate scheduled to be released on parole and offered to pay him $10,000 if he would murder one of the six men on his hit list.

hansen_prisonHansen’s plan was diabolically elegant in its own way. He wanted the parolee to whack one of the people on the list, then he would “take care” of the remaining five when he was paroled. He told his confidant that he intended to leave one clear fingerprint at the scene of each murder. Then, when the five murders had been committed, the police would have all the fingerprints of one of his hands and his identity would be revealed.

Sounds a little crackpot, doesn’t it. But in the 12 years that Hansen had been in prison he’d become quite paranoid. He had little else to do but sit and stew about the real or imagined wrongs he’d suffered in the L.A. courts. He refused to accept blame for his actions and his rage continued to build to a detonation point.

Hansen gave his soon-to-be paroled friend a vitriolic letter, copies of which were to be given to various L.A. newspapers. The letter bitterly accused the judges, the Attorney General’s Office, the District Attorney and Governor Warren of conspiracy. Hansen’s letter also predicted that he would not be prosecuted for the murders because he would be revealed as an emancipator and a protector of the public.

I wonder if he thought he had super powers.

The letter advised the police that they could not save the victims on the hit list because “Their doom is sealed.”  Hansen remained unrepentant for the double murders saying: “I regret nothing I did. I had nothing to lose.”

Hansen made a huge mistake when he directed that the letters be sent just as he was coming up for parole, He was just days away from being released when his plot was discovered. For the murder plot, Hansen forfeited all of his good time and at least six more years of his freedom.

Let’s Kill All the Lawyers, Part 2

hansen smokesOn June 22, 1938, Arthur Emil Hansen emptied his pistol into attorneys J. Irving Hancock and Richard D. McLaughlin in a Hall of Records courtroom and then he attempted to flee. He had taken only a few steps before he was grabbed by Sheriff’s Deputies and held incommunicado. Under questioning by Chief Criminal Deputy Bright he explained why he had whipped out a pistol and shot his two adversaries to death in such a cold-blooded way.

Bright: Now, Mr. Hansen, tell us exactly what happened from start to finish.
Hansen: Well, there was a hearing in that courtroom on a suit I was involved in. I walked into the courtroom and sat in the last row.
Bright: What did you do then?
Hansen: I just sat thee. Suddenly I saw those two attorneys seated in the front row–or maybe in the second row. There nudging each other and smirking at me.
Bright: Did you say anything to them?
Hansen: No, but when they started to whisper, that was the end.
Bright: Did you walk up by them then?
Hansen: No, I just sat there for a couple of minutes.
Bright: Then what did you do?
Hansen: Well, I don’t know whether I stood up or not, but I drew the gun and took direct aim at Hancock’s head, and fired.
Bright: Did you shoot him in the back?
Hansen: I don’t know–I think I did.
Bright: Then what did you do?
Hansen: then I looked at McLaughlin, and he started to rise.
Bright: Did he run?
Hansen: I don’t think so–I fired and he fell to the floor.
Bright: Before you shot McLaughlin, did you reload the gun?
Hansen: No–I just shot all that was in it.
Bright:Was McLaughlin seated when you fired?
Hansen: No, he just started to get up and run when I fired.
Bright: Did you say anything to the two men?
Hansen: No, nothing.
Bright: How many times did you fire the gun?
Hansen: I don’t know–all that was in it.
Bright: When did you buy the gun?
Hansen: Abpout two months ago, in a Main Street pawnshop.
Bright: did you load it then?
Hansen: No, I didn’t load until several days ago–that was when I received some threatening phone calls.
Bright: Do you know who made the threats?
Hansen: Well, I couldn’t recognize their voices, but I think it was those men who swindled me.
Bright: Why did you buy the gun?
Hansen: It was to protect myself from those phone threats

Bright then began to question Hansen about the lawsuit that was the reason for the court case:

Bright: What was this suit about?
Hansen: Well, I used to own the Chatham Apartments on Berendo Street. I traded it for a ranch in Imperial Valley, but I never even got possession of the ranch. By trick and device they made me sign a trust deed, then they foreclosed on me–I lost the apartments, and the ranch too. If they hadn’t tried to take everything away from me things wouldn’t have
happened like they did.
Bright: When did you sew that holster in your coat?
Hansen: When I bought the gun–I was too poor to buy a holster.
Bright: Who told you to do it? did you learn it from someone else?
Hansen: No, I just thought it up out of my head.

Hansen was indicted for the double homicide and he entered a plea of not guilty by reason of insanity. When his trial began in late August Dr. Boehme, the psychiatrist who had declared Hansen “excitable” finally determined that, in his opinion, the shooter was legally sane at the time of the murders. It would be up to the jury to decide if they concurred.

hansen_agnesHansen had dreamed up the improvised sewn-in holster, but apparently he hadn’t concocted the phone threats against him. Mrs. Agnes Shaw rented a room in the same building on Bonnie Brae Avenue as Hansen and they had been friends for several years. Shaw testified that she had been threatened prior to the civil suit:

“I was exercising my dog Henry in the alley in the rear of the apartment during the litigation involving Hansen when a car jerked to a stop beside me. The driver, whom I recognized, even though he attempted to hide his face spoke rapidly. ‘When you go into court I don’t want any of your lying. If you do I’m going to have someone there who’ll fix you and fix you right.'”

There were two men in the car, the one who spoke and another man who had pulled his hat low over his face obscuring him from view.

Shaw recognized the threatening voice in a court session soon after the incident, but when she shared what she’d learned with Hansen he advised her not to disclose the warning because no one would believe her.

Had Shaw been threatened by one of the lawyers opposing Hansen? It would seem so, but there was no evidence apart from Agnes’ testimony–and with McLaughlin and Hancock dead there was simply no way to get to the truth.

Agnes wasn’t a disinterested third party–she had a stake in the outcome of Hansen’s civil case. She was a fairly recent widow living on an $18 per month relief allowance, but she had hoped to recover the $1000 her husband had loaned to Hansen to make the Imperial Valley land deal.

hansen_lawyerIn court Hansen frequently broke down as he described the events that led him to murder the two lawyers. His hands spasmodically clenched and unclenched as he recited a tale of indignities which he said climaxed when one of the attorneys he subsequently shot spat in his face.

“I pleaded with Hancock not to take everything I had. He said, ‘You know what I think of you, don’t you?’ and then he spit on this cheek right here.”

Hansen pointed a finger to the side of his face down which the tears were streaming and said:

“He (Hancock) said ‘the county will give you a bowl of soup if you need it.”

It was shortly after that exchange that Hansen pulled out his concealed pistol and fired at Hancock and McLaughlin until it clicked impotently–all rounds spent.

I’m inclined to believe Hansen’s story about his unpleasant hallway exchange with the attorneys. I also believe Agnes’ testimony about the threat in the alley. It seems to me that the big city attorneys had facilitated the ruination of the South Dakota farmer; but even if that was the case Hansen had no right to murder his tormentors.

Maybe the case would have gone differently if only Hansen had shown the slightest bit of remorse, but instead of saying he was sorry he blamed the dead men for their fates and declared that he was glad they were gone.

A jury of six men and six women deliberated for one and one-half hours before finding Hansen sane at the time he shot the attorneys and he was found guilty of the double homicide.  Judge Arthur Crum was sentenced to serve from two to twenty years in San Quentin.

NEXT TIME: Let’s Kill All the Lawyers, Redux

Film Noir Friday: Jigsaw [1949]

Jigsaw

 

Welcome!  The lobby of the Deranged L.A. Crimes theater is open. Grab a bucket of popcorn, some Milk Duds and a Coke and find a seat.  Tonight’s feature is JIGSAW [1949] starring Franchot Tone and Jean Wallace.

Enjoy the film!

TCM says:

After New York City printer Max Borg is murdered, District Attorney Walker, who is assigned to the case, learns that Borg, who had recently been exposed as the printer of propaganda posters for a race hate group called “The Crusaders,” was apparently silenced by them. When an article about the group appears in a local newspaper, Walker’s deputy, Howard Malloy, visits the author, Charles Riggs, who is also his sister Caroline’s fiancé. Later, Charlie is followed home by a mysterious figure, who knocks him unconscious and pushes him out of his high-rise window.

Uh, oh…the plot thickens!

Let’s Kill All the Lawyers

Dick the butcher: “The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers.”

 –Henry The Sixth,  William Shakespeare

Like many residents of Los Angeles, Arthur Emil Hansen was a transplant. He had been a successful farmer in South Dakota before moving to the city in 1932. Perhaps he’d grown tired of farming and longed for a change; whatever the reason he had traded his 200 acre farm for the Chatham Apartments on Berendo Street. He assumed a $15,000 (equivalent to $256,000 in 2014 U.S. dollars) mortgage against the building. Subsequently, he traded his equity for an equity in another apartment house and assumed a $150,000 (equivalent to approximately $2.5M in current U.S. dollars) liability against it.

lawyers slain

If not a real estate mogul, Hansen was fast becoming quite the wheeler and dealer. Following his success with the apartment building he then invested in an 800 acre parcel of land in the Imperial Valley. Unfortunately the deal didn’t go smoothly, and by June 1938 the thirty-eight year old former farmer, and land baron wanna-be, had been tied up in a civil suit for over five years. For his part Hansen claimed that he’d never even taken possession of the ranch and that after signing the trust deed he was foreclosed upon. Arthur had lost both the apartment building AND the ranch for a total of about $39,000 (equivalent to $665,892.00 in 2014 U.S. dollars)–hardly a pittance at any time, and a veritable fortune at the tail end of the Great Depression. He was convinced that he had been swindled.

In the first round of litigation Hansen was awarded $7000, but the case didn’t end there and more legal wrangling ensued. After all was said and done he was on the hook for taxes and water assessments for the ranch and Mr. John Hancock (no, I didn’t make it up) was seeking to collect the $5000 judgement he’d won against Hansen in 1935.

On June 22, 1938, Hansen entered the courtroom of Referee in Bankruptcy on the eighth floor of the Hall of Records where he was about to lose every dime he had left–the real estate deals had gone south and paying an attorney over a period of five years is an extremely expensive proposition. Financially, Hansen was on crutches and they were about to be kicked out from underneath him. As soon as he crossed the threshold, he caught sight of the two attorney’s who were representing his opponent.

lawyer vics

The attorneys, J. Irving Hancock, who was representing his father (John must have saved a fortune in attorney’s fees)  and R. D. McLaughlin, were seated toward the front of the room with their heads together. Anyone else observing the pair would likely have thought that they were conferring on a point of law, or maybe asking after each others wives and children, but as far as Arthur was concerned the two lawyers were sneaking glances at him, whispering, smirking, and plotting his complete financial annihilation.

E.F. Crozier, clerk in Commissioner Kurtz Kauffman’s court, was working on some papers when he noticed Hansen enter the room and sit behind McLaughlin and Hancock. Then he heard shots. Crozier ducked behind the desk and then got up and ran for help.

death scene diagram

Deputy Sheriff Frederick O. Field arrived and took charge of the situation: “Don’t let anybody in or out” he said. Field saw Hansen attempt to exit the courtroom and prevented him from escaping. Then  the deputy ordered the courtroom to be kept closed until Capt. William Penprase, head of the Sheriff’s Bureau of Investigation, arrived with a squad of officers.

Hansen confessed on the spot:

“When I entered that courtroom and saw those two attorneys whispering together to harass me further I could not stand it. I wanted to kill them both–I am glad they’re dead–they can’t hurt anybody else.”

Hansen was summarily booked in the County Jail, charged by Deputy Sheriff Killion with suspicion of murder and ordered to be held incommunicado for forty-eight hours.

Shortly after being placed in his cell, Hansen was interviewed by Gustav F. Boehme, Jr., a psychiatrist. Reporters attempted to get an in-depth statement from the alienist, but all he would say was that Hansen was emotionally excitable.

Hansen was definitely volatile, but even so he’d made some interesting allegations about harassment and about having been swindled by Hancock and a few others in the real estate transactions. Was he just hysterical, or had the South Dakota farm boy been duped?

NEXT TIME: Hansen’s criminal case and aftermath.