The Love Poisoner, Part 2

Joyce found Richard peering into her refrigerator and he seemed startled when she spoke to him. Joyce couldn’t tell what Richard was doing, but she wasn’t alarmed. Richard visited Joyce and Robert so often that it wasn’t surprising to find him searching the fridge for a snack.

The refrigerator incident took on a more ominous aspect when Joyce and Robert noticed a “funny taste” in their water and milk. Then they recalled how ill Robert became after he and Joyce paid a visit to Richard at Caltech. They didn’t want to think the worst of Richard, but it got harder to believe the best.

Joyce and Robert went to the L.A. County Sheriff’s substation and told the deputies of their suspicions. They brought a bottle of milk with them that they suspected was tainted. Sure enough, an examination of the contents proved that someone had tampered with it.

On February 6, 1953, Sergeant Bert Wood and Detective A.S. Martin sent the couple out for the evening and then waited in the dark outside their home to see if Richard would turn up. He did.

Joyce and Robert routinely left their door unlocked (hey, it was Downey in 1953). The two cops watched Richard let himself in and then waited for him to come out. Sergeant Wood and Detective Martin stopped him as he exited and found two half-pint bottles of arsenic trioxide in his possession. Enough poison, said one investigator, “to kill off a whole town.”

Richard confessed he had put some of the arsenic into a water bottle in the fridge. When asked if he was trying to kill both Joyce and Robert, Richard said no. He knew Robert was the only one to drink from that bottle. He also confessed to poisoning Robert’s soft drink at Caltech and said that he tried at least five times over several weeks to kill Richard.

Why had he tried to poison his friend? He said, “I have always wanted Joyce for my wife and I felt that if my plan to poison Bob was successful, I would have a chance with her.” He continued, “I’ve never been out with any other girl–she’s the only one I loved.” Richard said he had chosen poison to kill Robert, “Because of its convenience.” He could acquire the poisons at school. He admitted that, “It could have been done in a more perfect way, but I got to where I had to do something.”

What made Richard think he had a chance with Joyce at all? According to him, he had visited Joyce many times in her home when Robert was away. He told investigators that he and Joyce had taken long car rides and walks. During their time together, Richard said he and Joyce, “talked a lot about love and marriage.”

On February 10, 1953, the Los Angeles County Grand Jury indicted Richard on two counts of poisoning with intent to kill. Each count carried a sentence of 10 years to life in prison. Joyce and Robert told reporters they bore their former friend no ill will. They felt sorry for him.

Psychiatrists Dr. Frederick J. Hacker and Dr. John A. Mitchell examined Richard. The doctors said they found indications of, “a thinking disorder, in the direction of schizophrenia.” According to the National Alliance on Mental Illness, “schizophrenia can occur at any age, the average age of onset is in the late teens to the early 20s for men.”

Was Richard schizophrenic? The doctors didn’t offer a firm diagnosis and, despite their concerns, they declared Richard was sane at the time of the poisonings and was sane enough to stand trial.

Interestingly, Dr. Hacker said Richard told him he, “wanted to take suspicion of poisoning attempts from Joyce.” Was Richard falling on his sword to protect his lady love, or was his statement a calculated move to shift blame to Joyce?

By the time his trial began in late April 1953, Richard claimed he and Joyce were having an affair. In fact, he figured that her unborn child had an 80% chance of being his and not Robert’s. In 1953, when DNA tests were decades in the future, a blood test could rule a person in or out, but that was it. No definitive test for paternity.

Joyce vehemently denied that she was romantically involved with Richard. But rumors surfaced that Richard kept over a dozen love letters written to him by Joyce while she and Robert were in Alaska. If the love letters existed, they could turn the case on its head.

NEXT TIME: A few more twists in the Love Poisoner case.

The Love Poisoner, Part 1

Current thinking about the teenage brain is that it’s a work in progress. Intellectually, teens can be a match for adults, but emotionally it is a different story. A teenager’s moods are the emotional equivalent of a world class chanteuse’s five octave range. Teenagers are mercurial. A potentially deadly trait when mixed with a love triangle involving nineteen-year-olds.

Downey residents Richard LaForce, Joyce Salvage, and Robert Hayden had been friends since middle school. During the war years, while they were growing up, the aircraft industry established deep roots in the town and had an enormous impact on the area. The postwar years saw the three friends enter high school and the town’s close ties to the aircraft industry likely resulted in the establishment of an aviation club at Downey High School–Joyce and Robert were both members. Surrounded by engineers and aircraft workers may have inspired Richard’s keen interest in science; with his high IQ (estimated to be 150) he hoped to pursue physics in college.

Robert Hayden (4th from the left, top row), Richard LaForce (far right, top row), Joyce Salvage (5th from the left, middle row).

Physics wasn’t the only thing Richard hoped to pursue into adulthood. He had loved Joyce since they were sixth graders and he hoped that one day they would marry. Was Richard surprised when, on May 12, 1951, at age 17, Joyce and Robert married?

If it shocked or hurt him, he kept his feelings to himself. At least the marriage didn’t end his friendship with the couple. Richard was a frequent guest in the Hayden’s home at 8558 Firestone Boulevard and he could still spend a lot of time with Joyce.

Aviation Club, Downey High School [1950]

The day after Joyce and Robert’s first wedding anniversary, and the day before they were scheduled to depart for a couple of months in Alaska visiting Robert’s older brother George and his sister-in-law, Charlotte, Richard took Joyce to a movie ostensibly at Robert’s request. Joyce and Richard were out together until 4 o’clock in the morning. Suspicious behavior for a married woman, but not so odd for a teenage girl. However, Richard complicated the evening by admitting in a note, just days before, that he loved her. He didn’t plan to act on his declaration of love. He doubted Joyce reciprocated his feelings, but during their evening out, he got the impression that Joyce loved him too. There wasn’t enough time to talk about the change in their relationship before Joyce and Robert left for Alaska.

Richard and Joyce corresponded regularly, some would say obsessively, during her absence. Robert was well aware of the exchange of letters between the friends but seemed unconcerned about them. When Joyce and Robert returned in late 1952, the three friends had quickly reestablished their former routine of spending at least two or three evenings together every week. Because the trio knew each other so well, both Joyce and Robert noticed Richard appeared to be distracted and he seemed to be depressed, but since he hadn’t confided the reasons for his melancholy in either of them, they could only stand by and wait.

A week after Christmas, 1952, Richard invited Joyce and Robert to the Caltech campus, where he was a physics major, for a visit. While there, he suggested they stop for Cokes at a nearby refreshment stand. Robert couldn’t finish his drink. He became violently ill and vomited. Recovering quickly, he resumed his ministerial studies at Whittier College.

In late January, during one of his visits, Joyce found Richard at the refrigerator. He seemed unnerved when she asked him what he was doing.

NEXT TIME: The teenage triangle turns poisonous.

Film Noir Friday: Where the Sidewalk Ends [1950]

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 WHERE THE SIDEWALK ENDS, directed by Otto Preminger and starring Dana Andrews, Gene Tierney and Gary Merrill.

Enjoy the film!

 TCM says:

New York City police detective Mark Dixon and his partner Klein return to the 16th precinct where Inspector Nicholas Foley introduces them to their new commander, Lt. Thomas. Later, Foley meets with Dixon to inform him that more battery complaints have been filed against him, but Dixon is unrepentant.

Film Noir Friday: Girl Gang [1954]

Two attractive young women posing as hitchhikers flag down a male driver on an isolated highway and flirt with him. Two women in another car then block the victim’s vehicle and steal it at gunpoint after slugging him with the gun. After parking the stolen car in an urban alley the thieves enter a building to meet their boss, Joe, and exchange the vehicle for cash and drugs. When Doc Bedford, a physician whose license has been revoked, arrives, Joe asks him to introduce June, Joe’s girl friend and the leader of the girls’ gang, to heroin use, but Doc refuses. Joe then shows June how to prepare and inject the drug. When Jack, Joe’s accomplice in the car theft racket, returns from delivering the car to a buyer, he, too, injects himself with heroin. 

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 GIRL GANG starring Joanne Arnold, Timothy Farrell, and Harry Keaton as Harry Keatan.

Enjoy the movie!

TCM says:

Two attractive young women posing as hitchhikers flag down a male driver on an isolated highway and flirt with him. Two women in another car then block the victim’s vehicle and steal it at gunpoint after slugging him with the gun. After parking the stolen car in an urban alley the thieves enter a building to meet their boss, Joe, and exchange the vehicle for cash and drugs. When Doc Bedford, a physician whose license has been revoked, arrives, Joe asks him to introduce June, Joe’s girl friend and the leader of the girls’ gang, to heroin use, but Doc refuses. Joe then shows June how to prepare and inject the drug. When Jack, Joe’s accomplice in the car theft racket, returns from delivering the car to a buyer, he, too, injects himself with heroin. 

Happy New Year!

Welcome to Deranged L.A. Crimes. Ten years ago, I started this blog to cover historic Los Angeles crimes. I am not surprised that I haven’t even scratched the surface of murder and mayhem in the City of Angels.

I have been absent from the blog for a while, focusing on finishing my book on L.A. crimes during the Prohibition Era for University Press Kentucky. It’s not done yet, but I’m close. No matter, it is time to return to the blog. It is something I love to do.

Focusing my energy on the book, I failed to pay tribute to the inspiration for Deranged L.A. Crimes, Agness “Aggie” Underwood, on December 17, 2022, the 120th anniversary of her birth. If you aren’t familiar with Aggie, I’ve written about her many times in previous posts.

Aggie Underwood

In 2016, I curated a photo exhibit at the Los Angeles Central Library downtown. The exhibit, for the non-profit Photo Friends, featured pictures from cases and events Aggie wrote about over the course of her career. I wrote a companion book, The First with the Latest!: Aggie Underwood, the Los Angeles Herald, and the Sordid Crimes of a City.

Aggie is a dame worth learning about. She is a legendary crime reporter, who worked in the business from 1927 until her retirement from the Los Angeles Herald in 1968. A force to be reckoned with, Aggie worked as a reporter until her promotion to City Editor of the Herald in January 1947, while covering the Black Dahlia case. She was the only Los Angeles reporter, male or female, to get a by-line for her reporting on the ongoing investigation.  

On her retirement, she told a colleague that she feared being forgotten. That won’t happen on my watch. Thanks again, Aggie, for the inspiration. Deranged L.A. Crimes is dedicated to you.

Among the things I’ve learned over the years researching and writing about crime, is that people don’t change. The motives for crime are timeless: greed, lust, anger, betrayal, and jealousy are but a few.

What is different is crime detection. Science has come a long way. Detectives no longer use the Bertillon system to identify criminals—they use DNA. I think part of the reason I’m drawn to historic crime is the challenges overcome by former detectives and scientists. Despite the advancements in science, it is my belief that if it was possible to pluck the best detectives and scientists from the past and set them down in the present, they would still be great. I am amazed at the cases they solved.

Class on the Bertillon system c. 1911

I look forward to this new year, and to the challenges it will bring. I am so glad you are here, and I invite you to reach out if you have questions and/or suggestions.

Best to all of you in the New Year.

Joan

Film Noir Friday, on Saturday: Woman on the Run [1950]

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 WOMAN ON THE RUN, starring Ann Sheridan and Dennis O’Keefe.

Enjoy the movie!

TCM says:

After San Francisco artist Frank Johnson witnesses the gangland murder of informant Joe Gordon while walking his dog, Inspector Ferris attempts to take him into protective custody. Afraid that he will be killed if he testifies against the murderer, Frank instead runs away. Ferris questions Eleanor, Frank’s estranged wife, about her husband, but she offers little help. Ferris does convince Eleanor, however, that Frank would be safer in police custody than alone on the streets. Later that night, Eleanor sneaks out of her apartment and goes to a nightclub in Chinatown. She is followed there by tabloid reporter Dan Leggett, who offers to pay her $1,000 for exclusive rights to Frank’s story.

Film Noir Friday: Between Midnight and Dawn [1950]

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 BETWEEN MIDNIGHT AND DAWN, starring Mark Stevens, Edmond O’Brian and Gale Storm.

TCM says:

Rocky Barnes and Daniel Purvis, two policemen working the night shift, have been partners since they served in the war together. Although Rocky believes that even criminals have some good inside, Daniel is more cynical. Daniel is particularly anxious to capture petty criminal Ritchie Garris, but is hampered by the fact that the victims of Garris’ strong-arm tactics refuse to testify against him. Rocky is more interested in the face that belongs to the sultry voice of the night dispatcher than he is in Garris and soon discovers that the attractive voice is that of Katherine Mallory, a policeman’s daughter and the captain’s secretary.

There are some cool shots of Los Angeles.

Judy Dull Should Be 83 Today

Too often we recall the names of killers, but not their victims. Today, on what should be her 83rd birthday, I am highlighting Judy Dull.

JUDY DULL

Judith Ann “Judy” Van Horn Dull turned nineteen on June 23, 1957. She had a 14-month-old daughter, Susan, and a soon-to-be ex-husband, Robert, who intended to keep custody of their little girl. A decent lawyer costs money, and Judy needed as much cash as she could scrape together for the coming battle.  

Judy lived at the El Mirador apartments at the corner of North Sweetzer and Fountain Avenues in West Hollywood.

EL MIRADOR

Most of the young women who inhabited the El Mirador during the summer of 1957 were still in diapers when the building’s most famous resident, actress Jean Harlow, died at age 26 in June 1937.

JEAN HARLOW

At least the building had a Hollywood provenance, which may have given the new crop of wannabes hope for the future.

Judy’s need for a quick buck prevented the usual Hollywood rounds to agents or cattle calls to appear as an extra in the latest western. The best and quickest way for an attractive blonde like Judy to make money was as a model. Modeling gigs ran the gamut from legitimate work for catalogs and harmless cheesecake photos to pornography.

Judy’s roommates, eighteen-year-old Betty Ruth Carver and twenty-two-year-old Lynn Lykels, were models, too. All three were in demand and they looked out for each other, trading gigs to keep the money flowing.

On August 1, 1957, Judy took a job that Lynn had to pass on. At 2 pm, when the photographer, a guy named Johnny Glenn, a geeky-looking guy with bat ears and horn-rimmed glasses, showed up to collect Judy for the job, she was reluctant to go with him. He overcame her reluctance by offering her $20/hour for a two-hour shoot. How could she say no?

At Judy’s request, Johnny left his telephone number with one of her roommates.

Johnny and Judy walked out of the El Mirador.

It was the last time anybody saw her alive.


NOTE: Harvey Glatman murdered Judy and two other women, Ruth Mercado and Shirley Bridgeford. There was not enough evidence to try him for Judy’s murder, but he was found guilty of murdering Mercado and Bridgeford. Glatman died in the gas chamber at San Quentin on September 18, 1959.

Satin Pumps: The Moonlit Murder That Mesmerized The Nation [Book review]

In Satin Pumps: The Moonlit Murder that Mesmerized the Nation (WildBlue Press, $13.49), screenwriter and author Steve Kosareff offers a unique perspective on one of Southern California’s most riveting domestic murders.

Mid-century is at its zenith in 1959. The era is a pink and turquoise mix of future and past as decades old orange groves and strawberry fields give way to miles of modern tract homes in newly minted suburbs. The rows of cloned houses are an artifact of the explosion of growth in the area following WWII. During the summer, the neighborhoods smell like pool chlorine, backyard barbeques and Coppertone suntan lotion.

The reported suicide of television star George Reeves, known for his role as Superman, by gunshot, on June 16, 1959, obsesses his young admirers. Kids deal with the untimely passing of their superhero by making tasteless jokes to hide their discomfort. The following month, on July 18, the kids’ parents become obsessed with a different gunshot tragedy, the murder of thirty-six-year-old Barbara.

Phyllis Coates and George Reeves

Barbara and her husband, Bernard “Bernie” Finch, live the Southern California dream. He is a successful surgeon, who delivered author Kosareff, and he and Barbara and their son, live in a custom-built home on a hill in the San Gabriel Valley.

Handsome, in a sun-tanned country club way, Bernie is the son of local gentry. He is a spoiled child, an entitled adult and not a fan of sharing. If he and Barbara get a divorce, he can kiss a pot of money goodbye. He will pay alimony and child support. Rather than go through with a messy and costly divorce, Bernie concocts a plan.

Bernie’s desire to be single is motivated by his desire for his latest lover, his secretary, twenty-two-year-old Carole Tregoff. Being with the stunning redhead is all Bernie can think of.

Carole Tregoff (r.) and Dr. Bernard Finch (c.) talk in the courtroom as Carole’s lawyer, Rexford D. Eagan (l.), listens in. Finch and his girlfriend, Carole, were on trial for the murder of the doctor’s wife, Barbara Finch, who was shot to death on July 18, 1959. (Bettmann / Bettmann Archive)

The problem for Bernie is he is a surgeon, not a career criminal. His plan is clumsy, cruel, and dissolves under police scrutiny.

Satin Pumps tracks the byzantine course of the case through three trials. The story has enough sexual tension to cause Grace Metalious’ 1956 novel, Peyton Place, to spontaneously combust. The trial is as mesmerizing as Kosareff’s title declares. Courtroom seats are filled by journalist Dorothy Kilgallen, British spy novelist Eric Ambler, and writers for the Perry Mason television series.

Like Kosareff, I, too, grew up in Southern California, so getting his take on the case, first through his 7-year-old eyes, and later through his adult research, is a treat.  I recommend the book. Enjoy.

Policewoman of the Year, Conclusion

Florence Coberly testifies at the Parra inquest. (Photo courtesy USC Digital Archive)

In 1952, LAPD Policewoman Florence Coberly had a bright future in law enforcement. She helped take down a career sex criminal, Joe Parra, in a treacherous sting operation.

Florence stayed tough during the inquest following Parra’s shooting—even when his brother Ysmael shouted and lunged at photographers. She appeared on television and received honors at awards banquets all over town.

After three years of marriage, she divorced her husband Frank in 1955. We’ve heard countless times how tough it is to be a cop’s wife, but I imagine being the husband of a cop is not any easier. The unpredictable hours and the danger can be enough to send any spouse out the door forever.

We don’t really know what caused the Coberly’s marriage to dissolve. The divorce notice appeared in the June 29, 1955 edition of the L.A. Times, but it was legal information only and gave no hint of the personal issues which may have caused the couple to break up.

Florence with her back to the camera, befriends a lost girl c. 1954
[Photo courtesy of USC Digital Archive]

With no further mention of Florence in the Times for several years, we can assume that her career was on track. Then, nearly six years after the Parra incident, on July 2, 1958, the Times ran a piece buried in the back pages of the “B” section under the headline: Policewoman’s Mother Convicted of Shoplifting.

A jury of eleven women and one man found Mrs. Gertrude Klearman, Florence’s fifty-three-year-old mother, guilty of shoplifting. It is embarrassing to have your mom convicted of shoplifting, and it is worse if you are in law enforcement. But it is orders of magnitude more humiliating if you are a police officer busted WITH your mother for shoplifting.

According to George Sellinger, an off-duty police officer working as a store detective to supplement his income, Florence and her mother stole two packages of knockwurst, a can of coffee, a package of wieners and an avocado–$2.22 worth of merchandise. The accusation could destroy Florence’s career.   

Florence seated next to her husband, Sgt. Dave Stanton.
[Photo courtesy USC Digital Archive]

At her misdemeanor trial Florence’s attorney, Frank Rothman, vigorously questioned Sellinger and got him to admit that he had not actually seen Florence stuff the food items into her purse. He pressured her to submit to a search outside the grocery store based on the scant evidence seeing her with packages in her hand. Rothman made the case for illegal search and Florence got off on the technicality.

LAPD in the late 1950s was touchy about any hint of scandal or misbehavior by its officers. During the decades prior to William H. Parker’s ascension to Chief, the institution watched as some of their number went to prison for graft and corruption.

While a package of knockwurst hardly rises to the standard of unacceptable behavior that had plagued LAPD earlier, just being arrested was enough to get Florence suspended from duty pending a Police Board of Rights hearing.

It couldn’t have been easy for Florence to sit on the sidelines and await the decision. Law enforcement wasn’t a 9-5 job for her, it was a career and one for which she had displayed an aptitude.

While Florence waited on tenterhooks for the Board of Rights hearing, her mother received either forty days in jail or a $200 fine (she paid the fine).

Florence’s hearing began on July 22, 1958, before a board composed of Thad Brown, chief of detectives, and Capts. John Smyre and Chester Welch. Even though a civilian court of law exonerated Florence, the board found her guilty and ordered her dismissed from LAPD.

Florence at the police board hearing. (Photo courtesy USC digital archive)

It was an ignominious end to a promising career, and I can’t help but wonder if there was more to Florence’s dismissal from the police force than the shoplifting charge.

In February 1959, Florence sued in superior court, seeking to be reinstated. She directed her complaint against Chief Parker and the Board of Rights Commission.

Florence denied her guilt in the shoplifting charge. She contended that the evidence applied only to her mother.  

It took several months, but in July 1959 Superior Court Judge Ellsworth Meyer sided with the LAPD and refused to compel Chief Parker to reinstate Florence.

I salute Florence for her no-holds-barred, kick-ass entry into policing in 1952; and I would be remiss if I didn’t mention one last time that fantastic bandolier that dangled from her belt. I maintain my position that women police officers know how to accessorize.

If you want to know more about Florence, a reader kindly sent me a link to this LAPD press release.

MANY THANKS to my friend and frequent partner in historic crime, Mike Fratantoni. He knows the BEST stories.

NOTE: This is an update and revision of a previous post.