Category Archives: Execution

The Persistence of Memory

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In February 1972, when the California Supreme Court ruled that capital punishment violated the state constitution’s ban on “cruel or unusual punishments,” it gave the 102 men and 5 women on death row a reason to hope. And something else they never dreamed they would have. A future. Their sentences became life with the possibility of parole.

Paul S. Perveler was one of the lucky ones. Over the next several years, he was a model prisoner. In 1982, impressed with his institutional record, the Board of Prison Terms gave him a parole date of August 6, 1985. He’d spent a few years on death row, and over a decade in the general population. He longed to begin a life beyond the walls.

Outside the prison was someone who knew Paul’s history in a way the Board of Prison Terms never could. His former wife, Lela Halverson. Unlike the others whose lives Paul disrupted, Lela survived—and remembered.

Lela turned to Assemblyman Patrick Nolan for help. Nolan initiated a statewide petition drive to keep Paul incarcerated. He called Paul “a cold, calculating killer.”

Lela told reporters that after Paul’s conviction he told his minister that “someday, some way, he would get out of prison and kill me.” She believed him. Paul had remarried in prison, and his wife had made inquiries about Lela’s whereabouts—and that frightened her. But her fear wasn’t enough to silence her.

Public opinion is a powerful tool. Lela and Nolan announced the petition drive from the corner of McCarthy Drive and Caledonia Way in Glendale. Lela spoke about the significance of the location. She recalled that in June 1966, “I was coming home from a meeting and he got in front of my car. He started beating me inside the car, then he dragged me out and started pounding my head against the pavement.” Later that year, hit-and-run autos struck her twice. She didn’t believe in coincidence. She divorced Paul that same year.

In 1982, after news of Paul’s parole date broke, Lela spoke out, “I try not to dwell on it, but it’s always in the back of my mind. I have this great fear. It’s almost like going through that trial again, but this time it’s worse because I know of the brutality he is capable of. During the trial, I didn’t know everything.”

The reason for Lela’s fear lay in two murders Paul had committed years earlier.

In early December 1966, the Los Angeles County Fire Department responded to a routine call at a home on the 2700 block of Ballard Street in El Sereno.

After they extinguished the blaze, they discovered the charred body of Marlin Cromwell sprawled on the couch in the living room. At first, it appeared he had died in the fire. A closer look revealed multiple gunshot wounds inflicted by a small-caliber gun. Kristina, accompanied by the couple’s four-year-old son, was visiting with friends in Twenty-Nine Palms when the murder occurred.

About midnight on April 20, 1968, Cheryl Perveler pulled her convertible Jaguar into the carport of the Burbank apartment where she lived with Paul. A few minutes later, neighbors reported hearing three gunshots. Apartment manager John E. Miller went out to the carport and found Cheryl in the driver’s seat unconscious and bleeding. An ambulance was called and rushed her to Burbank Hospital. They later transferred her to County General where she died without regaining consciousness. She had been married to Paul for about six weeks.

The sixteen-month gap between the murders obscured the relationship between the two crimes. Had the deaths occurred close together, investigators would likely have examined Paul and Kristina’s affair much sooner.

Paul might never have been caught if he had not confided in a co-worker at the Auto Club details of Marlin’s murder. It was a serious miscalculation. The co-worker went to the police.

It took about two weeks for detectives to unravel the murder plot. On May 1, 1968, the police jailed Paul and Kristina. Detectives booked both Paul and Kristina on suspicion of murder in the deaths of their spouses.

At the time of Paul and Kristina’s arrest, detectives told reporters that Paul’s ex-wife, Lela, was deliberately run down by a car in 1965 and was the target of a car which jumped a curb in 1966. Paul would have received $32,000 in double indemnity insurance if she had died.

Juries prefer a case with an understandable motive. Sometimes they don’t get one. But here the D.A. offered them a common one, and one they could comprehend—greed. According to the prosecution, Paul committed the murders so he and Kristina could cash in on two hefty double-indemnity life insurance policies.

In fact, Marlin’s policy paid Kristinia $75,000. She and Paul used most of the money to purchase another Burbank cocktail bar—Paul already owned one.

A jury convicted Kristina Cromwell for her role in the murders, and she served 7 years of a life sentence before being released in 1976.

Paul received the death penalty for the murders and for the attempted murder of Lela.

Paul’s death sentence gave Lela breathing room. The change in his sentence shattered her peace. Once free, he could make good on his pledge to kill her. Would she have to look over her shoulder for the rest of her life?

Lela continued to pressure the parole board. She requested a hearing, and in June 1983, she presented the board with 20,000 signatures from residents of Patrick Nolan’s district, where the murders occurred. As the only survivor of Paul’s murder for money plots, Lela revealed more about him than was in his prison file.

The parole board only saw his exemplary record, college education, self-awareness groups for prisoners, favorable psychiatric reports, praise from prison staffers, and a 1978 marriage that offered him new stability.

Paul opted out of the hearing, which gave Lela the perfect opportunity to speak. “I’m thrilled and delighted we’ve finally been heard and that we have a chance for justice.” She spoke of the severe beating at Paul’s hands. “He tried six times to kill me. I will never forget the feeling of the bones of my face crunching, the smashing of my head against the pavement and the taste of my own blood in my throat while he was choking me. I knew I was going to die.”

She said he had lain in wait for her before the attack and had doused himself with alcohol afterward so he could claim he attacked her in a drunken, jealous rage and that he wasn’t trying to kill her.

Kristina Cromwell confirmed Lela’s testimony and offered her own perspective into Paul’s plans. She described how he intended to commit the murders over a three-year period.

She said in 1965, Paul shot his father from a passing car on Baja Highway south of Tijuana. “We were going to overtake them on a road where there were cliffs, and he was going to shoot out of the back window.” A bullet struck Joseph Perveler on the right side of his nose. His father recovered and died later of other causes. The shooting was never reported to U.S. authorities.

Kristina told of Paul’s plot to murder Lela while on a Memorial Day outing in the San Gabriel Mountains and make it look like an accident.

She told the parole board that three other times Paul had struck Lela with his car.

Paul planned to kill Marlin while he and Kristina vacationed in Mexico in 1966, but she refused to cooperate and fled to Los Angeles. “He told me if he had caught me on the way back to the border, he would have killed me.” He said if she refused to cooperate in her husband’s murder again, he would kill her son.

Kristina revealed that she and Paul were going to kill Lela and described the plan. She was to wait in her car and honk the horn as Lela’s VW neared the house. Paul would emerge from his hiding place, attack Lela until she was unconscious, and stuff her body in the back seat. But after the attack, Paul ran to Kristinia in a panic. Kristina convinced him to pour alcohol on his clothes and tell police he’d been drinking.

Asked why she never reported Paul to the police. She said she loved him and did whatever he wanted.

The board was convinced by the women to rescind Paul’s parole. Lela said: “Our system worked as it should have worked. It’s just unfortunate that I had to go through all that I have.”

Paul showed little emotion as he heard the ruling. Asked how he felt, he said, “Tired, wiped out and gutted.”

At least for a time Lela could rest easy; but the fight would begin again in six months when his parole status would be reviewed.

Paul’s persistence in pursuit of a goal was evident from his continued attempts to kill anyone who stood between him and a large insurance payout.

Lela was persistent, too. But hers wasn’t destructive—it was restorative. She wanted the truth to become part of the permanent record.

Over the next decade, she had to summon her strength repeatedly to keep Paul behind bars.

Lela prevailed.

In 1992, in the landmark case Perveler v. Estelle (1992), the Ninth Circuit affirmed that California’s parole board acted within its legal rights when it rescinded Paul’s parole date based on newly uncovered evidence of his dangerous past. Paul would remain in prison.

For years, Paul Perveler tried to persuade parole authorities that they misunderstood him. In the end, it was Lela Halverson and Kristina Cromwell who persuaded them that indeed they had.


NOTE: My thanks to Blake Leung for introducing me to this case. He pointed me to an extraordinary story hidden in the archives.


Sources

This story was researched using contemporary newspapers, court records, parole proceedings, archival collections, and other primary and secondary sources.


Research Note

The historical record is never complete. This narrative reflects the best available evidence at the time of publication. Any errors or omissions are my own.



The Lower 13th Murder Case: Epilogue

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“Oh my God, he’s killing me!”

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.

The courts called it justice.

History calls it something else.

What do you call it?

Part 2: The Lower 13th Murder Case

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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.

Judy Dull Should Be 83 Today

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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.

An American Tragedy in Pomona–Part 1

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MARY CECILIA ROGERS

Edgar Allan Poe’s The Mystery of Marie Roget, is cited as the first murder mystery based on details of an actual crime. I am skeptical of firsts, but if Poe’s story is not the first, it is an early entry. It appeared in Snowden’s Ladies’ Companion in three installments, November and December 1842 and February 1843.

Behind Poe’s tale of Marie Roget is the murder of Mary Cecilia Rogers.

Rogers, a tobacco shop employee, became known as the Beautiful Cigar Girl. She disappears on October 4, 1848, and local papers report her elopement with a naval officer. She returns later, sans husband.

She disappears again on July 25, 1841. Friends see her at the corner of Theatre Alley, where she meets a man. They walk off together toward Barclay Street, ostensibly for an excursion to Hoboken.

Three days later, H.G. Luther and two other men in a sailboat pass by Sybil’s Cave near Castle Point, Hoboken. Floating in the water they see the body of a young woman. They drag it to shore and contact police.

According to the New York Tribune, Rogers is “horribly outraged and murdered”. Questions regarding Rogers’ death remain. It is alleged she ended up in the river following a failed abortion. The scenario is credible, in part, because her boyfriend committed suicide and left a note suggesting his involvement in her death.

GRACE BROWN

I love it when a novel is based on a true crime. One of my favorites is An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser. Dreiser draws inspiration from a murder in the Adirondacks.

In 1905, Chester Gillette takes a job as a manager in an uncle’s skirt factory in Cortland, New York. It is there he meets factory worker, Grace Brown. They begin an affair and she becomes pregnant.

Chester is neither interested in being a husband, nor in being a father. He takes Grace on a trip to the Adirondack Mountains in upstate New York. Using the alias, Carl Graham, Chester rents a hotel room, and a rowboat.

Grace believes the hotel is where they will spend their honeymoon following a visit to the local justice of the peace. In anticipation of her new life with Chester, Grace packs all of her belongings in a single suitcase.

Chester’s suitcase is small. He is not beginning a life with Grace.

On July 11, the couple takes a rowboat out into the middle of Big Moose Lake. There is no marriage proposal. No wedding ring. He beats her over the head with his tennis racquet and pushes her overboard to drown.

On July 13, 1906, The Sun reports the tragic drowning of a couple in Big Moose Lake. Grace’s body floats to the surface the next day. The body of her companion, Carl Graham, is missing.

Fearing he is dead, police search for Carl. They soon learn the true identity of Grace’s companion. He is alive, well, and his name is not Carl. Police arrest Chester. He denies responsibility for Grace’s death. He insists she committed suicide. The bad news for Chester is none of the physical evidence supports his version of events.

CHESTER GILLETTE

The jury shows no mercy—they find him guilty and sentence him to death.

On March 30, 1908, they execute Chester in the electric chair at Auburn Prison in Auburn, New York.

LOIS WADE

March 4, 1932.

Soaked to the skin, bleeding from the head, and covered in bruises, seventeen-year-old Lois Wade stumbles into the road near Mountain Meadows Country Club in Pomona. A Good Samaritan takes her to Pomona Valley Hospital.

The hospital calls the Sheriff’s department, and deputies arrive to take Lois’ statement. She tells them a terrifying story.

She is is walking from downtown Pomona to her parent’s home at 349 East Pasadena Avenue, when a stranger pulls up alongside her and offers her a ride. She accepts, but rather than taking her home, the man stops his car on Walnut Avenue near an abandoned well and beats her.

Lois’ attacker forces her into the well and shoves her down witht a pole when she attempts to climb out. When Lois vanishes from his view, the man gets in his car and drives away.

The motiveless attack makes little sense, and deputies question Lois’ account. The next day, she revises her story.

Her attacker is not a stranger as she originally claims; he is her nineteen-year-old married lover, Frank Newland.

Deputies Killion and Lynch arrest Frank at his home at 918 South San Antonio Street, Pomona. They book him on a charge of assault with intent to commit murder. Frank denies the attack.

As Lois lay in serious condition in the hospital, the D.A. revises charges against him to include statutory rape. Because of the severity of Lois’ wounds and her inability to appear in court, Judge White resumes Frank’s hearing at Lois’ hospital bedside.

Within a month of the attempt on Lois’ life, Frank goes to trial. Local newspapers pick up on the similarities between Frank and Lois and the characters in Theodore Dreiser’s An American Tragedy.

Future Los Angeles mayor, Fletcher Bowron, sits on the bench. Public interest in the trial is high and draws an enormous crowd—the largest since the 1929 rape trial of theater mogul Alexander Pantages.

The trial begins on April 28; Lois takes the stand, and the courtroom hangs on her every word.

LOIS WADE

Lois is low-key and demure as she testifies to her ordeal.

“By prearrangement we met on a corner in Pomona. We went in his roadster to the Mountain Meadows Country Club, where he drove off the road and stopped the car. We sat in the car for a half-hour; yes, we kissed and loved. He then suggested that we walk over to an old windmill and abandoned well nearby.”

“We looked in the well and then suddenly he turned around and struck me over the head with a club. I fell to the ground. He struck me eight or ten times more and kicked me several times.”

Frank grabs Lois by the feet and drags her, struggling and screaming ten feet to the well. No match for Frank, he overpowers her and throws her in the well.

Lois lands in twenty-five-feet of water. She bobs to the top, and fights for her life. Frank uses a railroad tie to shove Lois under water. A photo of Deputy W.L. Killon, puts the size of the weapon into perspective.  

DEPUTY KILLION POSES WITH RAILROAD TIE USED TO BATTER
LOIS WADE

Convinced Lois is dead, Frank gets into his car and drives away.

Lois claws herself up the wall of the well. She crawls over the edge, tumbles onto the ground, then rises and lurches into the street to summon help. A man stops his car to render aid. Amazingly, Lois’ Good Samaritan is a doctor.

Dr. Roy E. St. Clair testifies to finding Lois in the road.

“I was driving to Pomona on the Mountain Meadows Road about 8:30 p.m. last March 4 when I heard a cry and the lights on my car picked up the figure of Miss Wade standing with her right arm out-stretched. I backed up my machine, and she came to the door and said ‘Take me to a doctor.’”

NEXT TIME: A strange ending.