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 REPEAT PERFORMANCE (1947), starring Louis Hayward, Joan Leslie, and Richard Basehart.
This is the film that Southern California teenager Delora Mae Campbell watched on the night of December 29, 1951. It inspired a dangerous IRRESISTIBLE IMPULSE in her. Click on the title for Part 1 of Delora’s story.
Enjoy the movie!
TCM says:
Just before midnight on New Year’s Eve, 1946, Broadway actress Sheila Page shoots her husband Barney and then rushes to see her friend, William Williams. After a distressed Sheila confesses her deed to William, he suggests they talk to John Friday, Sheila’s producer. As Sheila and William, an oddball poet, are walking up to John’s apartment, Sheila wishes that she could relive the past year, insisting that if she had it to do over, she would not make the same mistakes twice. Upon reaching John’s door, Sheila notices that William has disappeared and then gradually realizes that it is now New Year’s Day, 1946.
In Fort Lupton, Colorado, a fight with your mother could end in grounding. For Delora Campbell, it ended in something far darker. Life in post-war Fort Lupton revolved around church socials, 4-H clubs, and county fairs. Residents followed high school football with a passion, and the Fort Lupton Blue Devils were a source of pride. When the Blue Devils partied under the watchful eyes of adults, they danced to Patti Page’s soulful rendition of The Tennessee Waltz, or did a lively country swing to Hank Williams’ Lovesick Blues.
In the 1950s, no matter where she lived, girls had to adhere to a strict code of behavior. Delora didn’t just test boundaries — she unsettled people. According to her parents, Clem and Francis, they sometimes feared she might harm her siblings. Their fear went beyond the usual sibling squabbles — it sounded like a warning.
Was the pressure to conform to community standards too much for Delora? Or maybe it was one fight too many with her mother, or another battle with her younger brother, Dickie. Maybe she feared she would act on an impulse to harm a family member. Whatever her reasons, at fourteen she ran away from home for the first time.
The court intervened, and a juvenile judge placed her on probation.
Delora’s behavior alarmed everyone — from her parents to school authorities and local pastors. Even her peers may have found her behavior unsettling. One of the biggest fears for a girl Delora’s age was getting a reputation. No worse fate could befall her.
In postwar America, the specter of juvenile delinquency haunted dinner tables from coast to coast. It wasn’t the commie down the street that frightened people; it was their own kid — sulking in the next room, listening to Hank Williams, and thinking dark thoughts.
Historically, when teenage boys acted out, their activities were met with a nod and a wink — the old “boys will be boys” trope. If they committed a serious crime, they might be labeled thugs or delinquents, and could end up in juvenile hall.
Girls faced a different kind of judgment. If they failed to measure up, they weren’t rebellious; they were hysterical, or morally compromised. Moral panic, a genuine fear in the 1950s, punished girls differently. Did Delora worry she might face serious punishment as had other girls who stepped outside expected norms? A girl who rebelled might not go to jail, but to a mental institution — until her hormones, doctors hoped, burned out the madness. Such a girl could count herself lucky if she was released without lasting damage from electroconvulsive therapy, heavy sedation, or ice baths. The belief that emotional instability was baked into the female brain dated back millennia. As one modern paper put it: “Hysteria is undoubtedly the first mental disorder attributable to women…”
Whatever was going on in Delora’s life, something caused her to run again. Was she concerned that she would harm herself or someone else? This time, she vanished for three weeks. Not knowing what else to do, her family sent her to live with her aunt and uncle in Long Beach, California. They may have wanted to spare her local infamy and give her a fresh start — or simply chose to quiet wagging small-town tongues.
The whispers in a small town can kill you.
On the surface, Delora appeared to thrive in her new environment. But was she genuinely happy, or just adapting to survive? On September 1, 1950, the Long Beach Press-Telegram listed her among a group of young people who attended a barbecue dinner where they played games and square danced.
Delora wrote home to tell her parents how much she enjoyed living in Long Beach and going to Woodrow Wilson High School. Francis was surprised — her daughter had never liked school in Fort Lupton.
Delora may have received an allowance, but sometimes when a girl needed extra cash, she took a job babysitting. For several weeks at the end of 1951, she babysat for six-year-old Donna Isbell and her eight-year-old brother, Roy.
On December 29, 1951, Delora walked a few blocks from her aunt and uncle’s home to the Isbell’s to sit with the kids. After the children went to bed, she stretched out on the sofa to watch television. The flickering light filled the room as she watched the 1947 film Repeat Performance.
The movie told the story of a Broadway actress who murders her husband on New Year’s Eve, 1946. As she’s leaving the crime scene, she wishes she could turn back the clock and do the year over — and suddenly finds herself transported to New Year’s Day, 1946.
Delora watched the film to its end, a little after 11 p.m. The house was still.; Donna and Roy were asleep. For a moment, Delora sat and reflected on the film she had watched.
Then the strangest thing happened. She had a vision in which she saw herself committing murder. The vision wasn’t terrifying — it was familiar. She had often felt like choking the life out of her siblings when she lived with her family in Fort Lupton, but she had resisted.
On this night, something inside her felt different—out of her control. She felt the tug of an irresistible impulse guide her as she calmly walked toward six-year-old Donna, sleeping snug in her bed. But first, she needed a necktie.
Martha Brinson’s screams tore through the Pullman car, jolting passengers awake in the middle of the night. Moments later, she was dead — murdered in berth 13.
The killer was on the train from Oregon to Los Angeles. But I don’t believe it was Robert E. Lee Folkes.
Wartime paranoia and racism made Folkes the perfect suspect. Black. Working class. Union agitator. Southern Pacific’s second cook. From the moment Martha’s body was discovered, Folkes was railroaded — literally and figuratively.
He worked long shifts in the dining car, sweating over a hot stove, under constant supervision. The train’s conductor later testified there was no opportunity for him to sneak away, let alone murder a woman in her sleep. A physical exam found only flour and grease beneath his fingernails — not blood.
But Folkes was Black. In 1943, that wasn’t a description. It was an indictment.
And he wasn’t just Black. He was political. His father died in the 1920s during the violent white backlash against Black sharecroppers organizing in the Arkansas Delta. His mother, Clara, fled with her children to South Central Los Angeles, chasing safety that never fully arrived.
Folkes grew up in the shadow of that violence. He got his education, then joined Southern Pacific — one of the few decent-paying jobs open to Black men. He started as a fourth cook. He worked hard, and rose to second cook.
By 1942, he was a problem. The company assigned thugs to follow him. They didn’t forget. But Folkes kept pushing, and by January 1943, he’d earned the position of second cook — a step up, despite the pressure from above and below.
So, when Martha Brinson was found dead, the company didn’t have to look far. Despite the pressure, the surveillance, the threats — he remained unbroken. And that made him dangerous.
The detectives dragged him off the train. Stripped him. Locked him in a lavatory. Grilled him through the night. No lawyer. No charges. No real evidence.
Meanwhile, one passenger should have raised every red flag. Harold Wilson, a Marine, had the berth directly above Martha. He was the first to discover the body. He was found with her blood on his clothes. But Wilson wore khaki — and in 1943 America, that was a get-out-of-jail-free card woven into the uniform.
He wasn’t questioned, nor was he detained even though witnesses saw him crawl in and out of his berth. He acted suspiciously. Yet the investigation stayed focused on Folkes.
The trial was a farce. It was never intended to get justice for Martha, the twenty-one-year-old newlywed so callously murdered. The prosecution showed no regard for her as a person. Her death became leverage.
Wilson testified for the prosecution; but he faltered when asked if he could positively identify Folkes. The newspapers labeled Folkes a “zoot-suit wearing negro” — dog-whistle journalism dressed up as coverage. He was never just a suspect. He was a symbol. And symbols don’t get acquitted.
Despite inconsistencies, the unsubstantiated confessions, and a case built more on fear than fact, the jury — nine women, three men — delivered a verdict. Guilty. In Oregon, that meant death.
In 1945, Folkes was hanged. Wilson walked into obscurity.
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 WITHOUT WARNING, starring Adam Williams, Meg Randall, and Edward Binns.
The movie is entertaining, but it is the Los Angeles locations that make it worth watching. Below are a few you should look for. Enjoy the movie!
IMDB says
Carl Martin is a morose and deranged Los Angeles gardener, who, in retribution for the infidelity of his unfaithful wife, sets about to kill as many blondes as he can. From the time the film opens, to the sound of a radio turned up full-blast over the still-warm corpse of a blonde, the audience knows the identity of the killer. The film depicts, with documentary realism (as it was shot on location in and around Los Angeles), how the police, using laboratory techniques against the few clues they have, track down Martin.
(Foot pursuit of freeway interchange. Officially the Bill Keene Memorial Interchange, this is the four level Interchange of Arroyo Seco Parkway, Harbor Freeway, Santa Ana Freeway and Hollywood Freeway. Completed in 1949 and fully opened in 1953 at the northern edge of Downtown Los Angeles)
The case against Robert E. Folkes unfolded against a tense backdrop of wartime fear, racial prejudice, and rising public paranoia. The press inflamed the tensions, describing Folkes as a “zoot-suit wearing negro,” a phrase loaded with menace, meant to reduce him to a caricature and paint him as capable of slashing the throat of 21-year-old newlywed Martha James.
District Attorney L. Orth Sisemore questioned the Black trainmen on board when the train stopped in Klamath Falls, Oregon. Southern Pacific Railroad detectives zeroed in on Folkes. Somewhere between Klamath Falls and Dunsmuir, California, on the night of January 22-23, they pulled him into a men’s lavatory, stripped him, and interrogated him through the night. They released him only for his shifts in the dining car. They treated the sleep-deprived and humiliated man as the prime suspect, even though they did not arrest him.
Not everyone on the train believed in Folkes’ guilt. The conductor stated Folkes couldn’t have committed the murder. According to him, the configuration of the diner and Folkes’ workload made it impossible. He pointed instead to another passenger—Harold Wilson, a white Marine who had occupied the berth above Martha’s. Given his proximity to the victim, Wilson should have been a suspect. Instead, they treated him as a material witness and quietly removed him from suspicion.
When the train arrived in Los Angeles on January 23rd, LAPD detectives took Folkes into custody. He was sleep-deprived, unrepresented, and vulnerable. They bounced him between Central Jail and Police Headquarters, questioned him without legal counsel. LAPD officers phoned Linn County District Attorney Harlow Weinrick in Oregon to report that Folkes had cracked.
But in every official statement before the supposed confession, Folkes had denied guilt. He did not sign or review the alleged confession. The investigators did not record it; the lawyer did not witness it; it seemed coerced.
LAPD’s interrogation practices at the time weren’t just aggressive — they were dangerous. Coercion took many forms: physical abuse (beatings), psychological pressure (threats against family, exploiting a suspect’s fear of mob violence or racial prejudice), or improper inducements (offering alcohol, sexual access, or other rewards). Days earlier, the department faced scrutiny after Stanley Bebee, a 44-year-old accountant, died following a brutal beating in custody for public intoxication. The jury acquitted the officers. However, the case highlighted the LAPD’s violent methods.
Although the Folkes investigation showed no proven evidence of bribery or case-fixing, the environment surrounding his interrogation was badly compromised. Some interrogators used coercive tactics, custody chains were blurred, and courtroom conduct varied from irregular to unethical. It is easy to conclude that the LAPD mistreated Folkes while he was in custody.
There was no physical evidence linking Folkes to the crime. No eyewitness identified him. But the so-called confession was enough for an arrest. Initially, Folkes refused to waive extradition to Oregon. But during arraignment before Judge Byron Walters, he relented and agreed to return north for trial.
On the night of January 29, 1943, accompanied by Sheriff Clay Kirk of Linn County and two Southern Pacific special agents, Folkes boarded a train for Albany.
His trial began in April. The jury of eight women and four men was unusual. In Oregon, women could serve only if they filed a written declaration, making their presence more striking. Their makeup may have influenced how testimony was weighed.
The state’s only link between Folkes and the murder was the testimony of Harold Wilson—the Marine who had been in the berth above Martha. His description of the suspect was vague: “a swarthy man in a brown pinstriped suit.” He never identified Folkes. And witnesses saw Folkes in the kitchen, dressed in his work clothes, minutes after the murder occurred. The police never found a brown pin-striped suit.
Though the defense objected, the court admitted two alleged confessions into evidence. Many red flags riddled both confessions. On April 16, LAPD Lieutenant E. A. Tetrick testified Folkes gave an oral confession after officers brought him a pint of whiskey and let him visit his common-law wife, Jesse. Circuit Judge J.G. Lewelling called the practice “reprehensible,” though he insisted Folkes was sober and in “full possession of his faculties.”
Dr. Paul De River—LAPD’s controversial police psychiatrist—later infamous in the Black Dahlia case, testified that he spoke with Folkes after the confession. According to De River, Folkes “may have had a drink or two,” but was not intoxicated. No one asked how he had reached that conclusion. De River also reported no physical injuries on Folkes’ body and described him as “in good physical condition.”
Robert E. Lee Folkes consults with his defense attorney, Leroy Lomax, left, as his friend and adviser William Pollard, right, looks on. (Image: Oregon Journal)
On cross-examination, Folkes’ attorney, Leroy Lomax, asked if De River had referred to Folkes as an exhibitionist. De River replied, “I might have said that.”
The defense rested its case on April 20, 1943.
The jury began deliberations but returned to the judge saying they couldn’t reach a verdict. He ordered them to continue and provided army cots for them to sleep on inside the courthouse. After thirty hours of deadlock and courtroom drama, the jury filed in at 3:13 p.m. on April 22. Their verdict: guilty of first-degree murder. Death was mandatory.
“I know it was a fair and impartial trial,” Folkes said afterward. “I’m sorry the jury thought I did it, as I didn’t, and I’m sorry my mother and Jesse had to go through this.”
In a letter to his mother, Clara, he was more candid:
“I was not convicted on evidence. I was convicted through prejudice.”
Folkes added: “I truly believe that I could take any one of those jurymen that convicted me, or even the judge who heard the case, and on the same grounds, either one of those people could be placed in front of a Negro jury and convicted. Of course, this incident will never happen, but I assure you it is amazing what prejudice can do.”
On November 5, 1944, a group of Los Angeles clubwomen formed the Robert Folkes Defense Club and pledged to raise $2,000 to bring his case to the U.S. Supreme Court. The court declined to hear the appeal on November 23.
Lomax worked tirelessly, appealing to the Governor of Oregon to commute the sentence to life. The governor refused.
On January 5, 1945, at 9:13 a.m., Robert E. Folkes died in Oregon’s gas chamber for a crime he insisted he did not commit.
NEXT TIME: In the conclusion of “The Lower 13th Murder Case”, we’ll examine the case more closely—and ask whether wartime prejudice condemned an innocent man.
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.
Because today’s post (THE LOWER 13th MURDER CASE) is about a crime that occurred on a train, I thought I’d pair it with one of my favorite movies, THE LADY VANISHES. It is a nifty Hitchcock thriller from 1938, starring Margaret Lockwood, Michael Redgrave, and Dame May Whitty. Two of the film’s incidental characters, Charters and Caldicott, who are mad for cricket, were featured in a 1985 BBC television series.
I love this movie — I hope you’ll enjoy it!
TCM says:
Aboard a train bound for London, Miss Froy, an elderly English governess, makes the acquaintance of young Iris Henderson. When Miss Froy disappears, Iris asks for the other passengers’ assistance in finding the old woman, only to have all contend that Miss Froy was never on the train.
On the night of January 22, 1943, a young woman boarded the Klamath, from Oregon, a crowded wartime train bound for Los Angeles. Her name was Martha Virginia Brinson James. She was twenty-one, newly married, and hopeful—one of thousands of wives trying to reconnect with their men in uniform.
Before the sun rose, she would be dead—her throat slashed in a sleeper car while dozens of passengers slept nearby. The man accused of the crime confessed, then recanted. No one saw him do it. No physical evidence tied him to the murder. Yet he stood trial, and the country watched.
The Klamath c. 1940s
Martha and her husband, Richard, would have preferred to travel together, but heavy wartime ridership made it impossible. She socialized with other Navy wives, each of them looking forward to a reunion, then she retired to a lower berth, number 13.
Typical Pullman car. c. 1940s
About 3:00 a.m., people in the sleeping car heard a woman scream, “My God, he’s killing me!” It was Martha. Bleeding, her throat cut, she tumbled from her berth and stumbled to a nearby lavatory where she died.
Private Harold Wilson, a Marine, occupied the berth above Martha’s. When he heard the scream, he opened his curtains in time to see a burly, black-haired man in a brown pin-stripe suit rushing down the aisle.
Detectives E. A. Tetrick and Richard B. McCreadie met the Klamath at Los Angeles Union Station. Oregon authorities requested they hold the train’s second cook, Los Angeles resident, Robert Folkes, as a material witness. Due to a legal technicality, they booked him on suspicion of murder instead.
Folkes, a 20-year-old black man, came to California from Arkansas with his mother and siblings in the late 1930s The family was part of a large influx of people fleeing the Jim Crow south. They heard that Los Angeles offered more opportunities—which was true to a point. There were restrictions that forced blacks to live in segregated, neighborhoods. Like many of the transplants, Folkes’ family landed in South Central.
Martha Brinson James
Wilbur Brinson, Martha’s father, made a good living as a manager for a coal company. Her mother, Grace, was a housewife and the family had a live-in black maid. They lived on North Shore Road in Norfolk, Virgina. The homes on North Shore Road were large, situated on beautiful tree-lined plots of land; walking distance from the Lafayette River, near the Chesapeake Bay. Nothing about Martha’s background could have prepared her family to lose her in such a brutal way.
LAPD detectives conducted a background check on Folkes; standard procedure for anyone involved in a murder case. They discovered he had a police record. On August 24, 1940, he was arrested on suspicion of assaulting a white woman. She refused to prosecute. On July 30, 1941, police arrested Folkes on a drunk charge after he entered a home and went to sleep. On December 28, 1942, Folkes cut the screen on a house in which three women slept.
During initial questioning, Folkes made a bizarre statement. He said, “I didn’t do the actual killing.” But then he confessed to Captain Vern Rasmussen of LAPD’s homicide detail. A confession he immediately retracted. Something about Folkes’ demeanor made detectives think he might be protecting someone.
Police wanted Folkes to open up, so when he promised to tell them “something important” if they allowed him to visit his wife at home, they took him there. Once the visit was over, he reneged on his promise and continued to maintain his ignorance of the murder.
Police psychiatrist Paul De River questioned Folkes and pronounced him “sane, but a definite exhibitionist.”
On January 27th, District Attorney Harlow Weinrick of Linn County, Albany, Oregon, told the Associated Press he had filed a first-degree murder charge against Folkes. Los Angeles would have to send him there.
Folkes continued to flip-flop. The authorities would not immediately release the details of his confessions until Oregon officials arrived. However, sources said Folkes admitted whetting a boning knife before going to Lower 13, where he attacked Martha James. According to Detective Rasmussen, Folkes admitted getting drunk on the train and walking through Car D, where he noticed Martha sitting up in her berth. He said she “appealed to him.”
He set his alarm clock for an hour earlier than usual, 3 a.m., and when he got up to prepare the galley stoves, he picked up a knife and sharpened it. He slipped it up his sleeve.
He walked past Lower 13 several times to determine if Martha was awake. She was sleeping. He unbuttoned the curtain, and climbed into the berth. Martha resisted and screamed. He cut her throat.
One story Folkes told police was that a man paid him $1000 to kill Martha. Nothing supported that story.
Once Folkes was identified as the chief suspect, much of the reportage focused on his race and referred to him as a “zoot suit wearing negro”—a highly pejorative characterization. Racial and cultural tension in Los Angeles was high, and zoot suits exacerbated the situation.
Cab Calloway in a zoot suit for the 1943 film, Stormy Weather.
A zoot suit was an oversized style of clothing. Long jackets with heavily padded shoulders, wide lapels and baggy trousers pegged at the ankles. Wearers accessorized the suit with a wide-brim hat and a watch chain. Many people considered the zoot suit unpatriotic. Cloth was rationed, so the zoot suit was seen as wasteful. In the minds of most zoot suiters their clothing was a form of self-expression, defiance, and protest.
The suit resulted in racialized policing. Wearing a zoot suit was a sure way to bring unwanted attention from the police. Fueling the already volatile situation, the media linked crimes to zoot suiters and stoked fear and prejudice.
Folkes made another confession, which he refused to sign. He said, “If I were not guilty, I would not make this confession. I have kept my word. As long as she (the stenographer) has it down and I read it thoroughly and understand it, I will be willing to take the medicine, which the killer should take.”
About the murder, he said: “It was all in a fog to me. I reached first with my right hand, then with my left, but evidently in my mind I figured. . . And there is where I killed her . . I guess I cut her . . .”
Chief Deputy Clay E. Kirk of Linn County, Oregon, arrived in Los Angeles to take Folkes into custody and return him north. Folkes waived extradition.
Soldiers armed with submachine guns patrolled the Albany train station platform to discourage any attempt to harm the prisoner. To ensure his safety, they took Folkes off the train at Springfield, 48 miles south of Albany, and transported him to the jail by car.
Not everyone took Folkes’ guilt for granted. The California Eagle, a newspaper serving Los Angeles’ black community, reported that a spokesman for a Citizens Committee, said, “Grave doubts exist as to Folkes’ guilt and it is imperative that his constitutional rights to a fair trial be safeguarded by seeing to it that he has competent counsel.”
Louise Beavers
The Eagle also reported that despite Folkes’ conflicting statements and numerous confessions, the physical evidence was non-existent. Detailed examinations of his clothing and chemical analysis of scrapings from his fingernails and shoes showed no blood or other incriminating evidence of any kind was found.
Hollywood stars including Ben Carter, Hattie McDaniel, and Louise Beavers came forward to support Folkes. They planned to appear at a dance at an Elks Club to raise money to fund his defense.
The marine who saw a man fleeing the scene was vague. He couldn’t identify Folkes—and he couldn’t explain how one minute he was in his pajamas in his berth, and the next he was fully dressed and chasing the killer.
None of Folkes’ co-workers believed him guilty. He performed all his usual duties on the morning of the murder. Nothing in his demeanor was unusual.
Folkes said he would prove his innocence at his trial in April.
NEXT TIME: Folkes’ trial and the conclusion of The Lower 13th Murder case.
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 MY FAVORITE BRUNETTE, because every now and then we need a laugh. It is a film noir parody starring Bob Hope, Dorothy Lamour, Peter Lorre, and Lon Chaney–with Alan Ladd in a cameo role. There’s also a surprise cameo at the end.
TCM says:
In San Quentin prison, baby photographer and amateur detective Ronnie Jackson, awaiting execution for murder, tells the press the story of his demise: Ever aspiring to be a detective, Ronnie invents a keyhole camera lens and buys a gun, hoping to work for private detective Sam McCloud, whose office is across from Ronnie’s studio in San Francisco’s Chinatown. When Sam goes to Chicago, he leaves Ronnie behind to man the telephones, and Ronnie takes the case of Carlotta Montay, a beautiful brunette whose uncle, Baron Montay, is in trouble.
Founded in 1921, Christie-Nestor Motion Picture Company, at the corner of Sunset Boulevard and Gower Street, was Hollywood’s first movie studio. David Horsley, the studio’s producer, cranked out three complete motion pictures each week. The hectic schedule scarcely kept up with the public’s demand for the new medium.
Christie Nestor Studio c. 1916. Photo courtesy of Los Angeles Public Library.
Over the next several years, filmmakers from the East Coast recognized the advantages of setting up shop in Hollywood. The Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce praised the region’s natural beauty, enhanced by year-round sunshine. Sunshine made a difference before indoor studios and artificial lighting. Locals provided cheap labor and extras for crowd scenes. A decade later, the sleepy burg of 5,000 residents became a thriving city of 35,000—most of them in the movie business.
With the studios and the busloads of dreamers came the first fan magazines. Magazines such as Moving Picture World and Photoplay played a part in creating the culture of celebrity by showcasing the lives of famous people. People bought movie magazines for the gossip, fashion, and lifestyle—harmless fun. The magazines fueled the dreams of those who longed to be famous. Few made the cut. Filled with photographs showing stars decked-out in diamond jewelry, standing on the grounds of their Beverly Hills mansion, or seated behind the wheel of an exotic car, the magazines gave would-be extortionists, blackmailers, kidnappers, and robbers ideas of their own.
On January 20, 1929, while making the rounds of local studios, Fern Setril met world-renowned director D. W. Griffith. She was thrilled when he told her she was a “girl of an an unusual type of beauty, unspoiled,” and that she had “remarkable features that would film well in motion pictures.” Despite Griffith’s apparent interest, Fern’s movie career did not take off. Not until 1931 did her name become associated with his.
On February 24, 1931, newspapers broke the story that Fern sued Griffith for $601,000 ($12.3M in current USD). The suit specified $500,000 for actual damages, $100,000 for punitive damages and $1,000 for medical treatment. Fern claimed that on June 25, 1930, she met with Griffith in his apartment to discuss her role as Ann Rutledge in his upcoming film, Abraham Lincoln. According to Fern, they did not run lines. Griffith plied her with champagne and raped her.
From his room at the Astor Hotel in New York, Griffith responded to the charges. He called them absurd and without foundation. He said, “I am astounded at the charges made against me. The whole story is untrue. The name Fern Setril means nothing to me. I don’t know anyone by that name.” Griffith vowed to “fight these charges to the limit.”
D. W. Griffith
Fern’s attorneys, Josef Widoff and J. B. Mandel, denied requests from reporters for an interview with their client. Even without her cooperation, reporters dug up enough information from the lawsuit filing to keep the story above the fold on the front page. They learned that before she moved to Hollywood to pursue an acting career, Fern lived in Wasco, California. Most of the time, she worked as an extra, acting in only a few minor bit parts under the surnames Barry or Darry.
Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle. Photo courtesy of the Los Angeles Public Library.
Although Fern filed a civil lawsuit, District Attorney Buron Fitts had no choice but to begin a criminal investigation into the alleged rape. He assigned his chief investigator, Blayney Matthews, to the case. Matthews found out for two weeks following the alleged attack, Mrs. C. E. Taylor and her son, Earl W. Taylor, nursed Fern back to health in their Pasadena home.
Mrs. Taylor told reporters, “It was another Arbuckle case. The girl nearly died here in my apartment.”
Mrs. Taylor said she first met Fern when Earl brought her home. “The girl was penniless,” she commented. “If my son hadn’t brought her in, she would have been left on the street.” Mrs. Taylor refused to name the Pasadena physicians who attended Fern. According to Mrs. Taylor, she and Earl took Fern to a hospital where doctors operated on her for an unspecified condition.
As often happens in breaking news, the rapid twists and turns had reporters struggling to stay on top of the story. This led to conflicting reports. Newspapers hit the street once a day unless they printed a special edition, which meant the news cycle was not in real time. Within a few days of the first report, Griffith suggested to reporters he might be the victim of an extortion plot cooked up by Fern and Earl.
D. A. Buron Fitts declared, “If the facts develop sufficiently to justify a prosecution on the charge of a conspiracy to commit the crime of extortion or attempted extortion, this office will prosecute.”
While Griffith remained in New York, Matthews delved further into Fern’s background. So did reporters. As they did, their coverage shifted in tone. They did not find enough to pillory Fern, but they could build the framework.
Fern Setril
Marguerite and Verona Shearer, Fern’s former Hollywood roommates, told Matthews that Fern filed for a divorce from someone named Frank in August 1930. Fern was married during the time she visited Griffith’s apartment. Fern made it sound like she had visited Griffith only twice before he pounced, but that conflicted with what the Shearer sisters told Matthews. Verona heard Fern talk about a friend named Lou, which was Fern’s name for Griffith.
Marguerite and Verona were a wealth of information. They told Matthews that several times over the summer of 1930, they heard Earl say he “was going to see to it that Fern sued D. W. Griffith to the limit.” Fern’s story unraveled with each new report. One of the most egregious holes in her account was her contention that Griffith offered her the role of Ann Rutledge in Abraham Lincoln. Griffith finished shooting the film in May, with Una Merkel in the role, a month before the alleged attack. The film debuted in New York on August 24.
The discrepancy in her account shocked Fern’s attorneys. They rushed to file an amended complaint, deleting all references to the movie. Another problem for Fern was Earl’s involvement. He contacted local newspapers to “buy this little girl’s story.” Over the telephone, he told reporters, “… this little girl is just out of the convent.”
Earl struggled to convince jaded reporters of Fern’s story. It would have been tougher still if anyone had thought to check newspapers from a few years back. If they had, they would have found out that a love triangle, in which Fern played a pivotal role, was front-page news for a nanosecond in 1926.
In early May 1926, Setril’s photo appeared in the Los Angeles Times and the Illustrated Daily News. Lillian Schmid said her husband, Frank, betrayed her with her best friend, Fern. Lillian told the judge in her divorce case that Fern had lived with her and Frank for five months. After Fern left, Lilian found a letter from her in Frank’s pocket. She confronted him about it. At first, he played dumb. Later, he admitted he loved Fern and was going away with her. Lillian said, “He left me that day.”
Lillian’s attorney, Frank C. Dunham, read aloud an excerpt from Fern’s letter to the court. “By the time this reaches you, I shall be gone. As I know in my heart, it is the only fair thing to do. I just can’t go on living the way I am. There is no use hiding the fact any longer—I love you dearly. I fought hard to hide my love because it is not fair to Lillian. She has been a good wife to you, Frank, and she loves you. I am not the kind of woman who would come between you and Lil, so I am going to leave.”
Lillian got her divorce, and Fern and Frank married in Pasadena on May 15, 1927. Fern got lucky. Reporters never picked up on her earlier peccadillo, but she was not out of the woods. Reporters located the divorce records in the county clerk’s office.
Fern left Frank in August 1929 and returned to her mother’s home in Wasco. Frank followed her there and, at gunpoint, forced her to return to Los Angeles with him. In the divorce, she charged Frank with cruelty and won an interlocutory decree on October 16, 1930. That was not the end of her marital woes. Frank appeared in court to have the decree set aside. He accused Fern of misconduct with one “John Doe.” Frank said Doe gave Fern money and expensive gifts. He also said she bragged to her friends about being in love with Doe. Frank failed to appear on January 7, 1931. Fern won her decree by default.
Fern replaced her troublesome husband with a problematic boyfriend, Earl Taylor. In August 1928, Judge Fletcher Bowron (future mayor of Los Angeles) sentenced Taylor to San Quentin for embezzlement. Taylor embezzled two $5,000 promissory notes belonging to Lynn. C. Booze. Besides swindling Booze, he stole from several Compton and Long Beach businessmen. Taylor applied for probation, but the judge denied it. After a year in San Quentin, they paroled him on October 29, 1929—Black Tuesday, the day the stock market crashed and plunged the U.S. into a decade-long depression.
Fern and Taylor likely met when he worked at one of the local movie studios following his parole. Did Fern meet Griffith in 1929? Maybe, but there is a chance she and Taylor fabricated the story. Blayney Matthews began his investigation, and the couple’s scheme unraveled. At the end of February, he questioned Fern and Taylor. On the advice of her attorney, Jerry Giesler, Fern declined to make a statement. Taylor should have followed Fern’s lead. Instead, he spoke at length and dug himself a deep hole. Matthews determined Taylor was the “mastermind” behind the extortion plot.
A movie technical assistant, Frank Leyva, told Matthews that Fern and Taylor had tried to extort him, too. In October 1930, Fern threatened to charge him with rape if he didn’t pay. He went to the police instead.
While Matthews questioned Taylor, James Lewis, assistant State parole officer, identified Taylor as the man sentenced to San Quentin in August 1928. Lewis said, “Taylor has been on the borderline of trouble several times since he was paroled. I warned him once before not to be too friendly with Mrs. Setril. That was before she was divorced from her husband, who complained to me of Taylor’s attentions to his wife.”
Lewis had news for Taylor. His parole would not expire until August 18, 1931. A violation would return him to prison. Fitts held Taylor in technical custody until they could settle the Griffith case. Fern sued Griffith, but never had him served. The case fizzled. So, too, did the criminal investigation into the alleged sexual assault.
In custody, the strain got to Taylor, who threatened to commit suicide. “If they don’t do something to break this strain pretty soon, I’ll jump out of a window.” Fern pleaded with him to hang on, “for my sake.” Taylor fought in vain. They returned him to prison. Fern broke her vow to wait. In the summer of 1932, she announced her imminent marriage to a man she did not name. No record of the marriage appeared in local newspapers. Fern disappeared.
Following his parole, Earl Taylor re-invented himself as a Hollywood writer’s agent. In 1935, two women accused him of fraud. A jury acquitted him.
In June 1939, under the sensational headline, L.A. Gunman Runs Amok in Hotel, the Daily News reported that a retired furrier, Frank Setril, took potshots at lights and windows at the Vanderbilt Hotel. Frank locked himself in his third-floor room. Police flushed him out with tear gas. No one could explain his behavior.
D. W. Griffith’s first full talking film, Abraham Lincoln, fizzled at the box-office. He followed it up in 1931 with The Struggle, which also failed.
He never made another movie.
NOTE: I wrote about Fern Setril in my book, Of Mobsters and Movie Stars: The Bloody Golden Age of Hollywood, Wild Blue Press, 2024.
I’ve been working hard on various projects, so I’ve fallen behind on posting. I’m researching some great cases, so stay tuned.
Meanwhile…
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 RACE STREET. It stars George Raft, William Bendix, and Marilyn Maxwell. Enjoy the movie!
TCM says:
When San Francisco bookmaker Hal Towers confides in his boss, racketeer Dan Gannin, that a syndicate is trying to force him to pay protection money, Dan reminds him about their recent pledge to get out of the gambling racket. Although Dan offers his best friend a chance to invest in his new, legitimate nightclub, Hal insists on fighting the syndicate. Dan cautions Hal, who is lame, to be careful, but before the night is over, Dan and another childhood friend, police detective Barney Runson, find the bookie lying dead at the bottom of his apartment stairs. Concerned for his friend’s safety, Barney warns Dan not to seek vengeance on Hal’s killers, but allow the law to pursue justice. Dan’s associates, however, expect him to retaliate for Hal’s murder, and Dan obeys the rules of gangster protocol by not revealing anything about the case to Barney. When Dan goes home that night, he is greeted by two well-dressed men who present themselves as “insurance salesmen.”
