Category Archives: Los Angeles County

The Night Stalker, Part 2

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On March 17, 1985, Los Angeles County Sheriff’s homicide detectives Gil Carillo and Jim Mercer were called to the scene of a murder and an attempted murder in Rosemead. The dead woman was Dayle Okazaki. Her injured roommate, Maria Hernandez, reported the crime. Maria was lucky to be alive. The same guy who killed Dayle shot her. She gave detectives a heart-stopping account of the evening’s events and provided them with a description of the killer. 

Deputy Gil Carrillo and his family.

Detective Carrillo had a feeling about the Okazaki murder. The killer took nothing from the condo. What was the motive for the attacks? Maria’s statement bothered him. She said when she and her attacker were in the garage; he had deliberately smacked the hood of Dayle’s car. Carrillo knew such behavior was odd. Criminals usually rely on stealth. The killer obviously got a thrill from terrifying Maria before he shot her and left her for dead.

About forty-five minutes after Okazaki’s slaying, Carrillo, and Mercer heard a call about another random assault. Someone shot a young Asian woman named Tsai-Lin Veronica Yu and left her to die in the middle of a street in Monterey Park. A .22 caliber gun killed her. The same caliber weapon used to murder Dayle.

Sheriff’s crime lab

Criminalists at the Sheriff’s crime lab analyzed the shell casings from the two scenes. Although their findings were inconclusive, the scientists surmised the casings were a likely match.

About ten days after the murders of Okazaki and Yu, detectives picked up a double homicide in Whittier. Vincent Zazzara and his wife Maxine were murdered in their ranch style home. An intruder entered the house by upending a plastic pail and using it as a stepping stool to climb through an open window. He shot Vincent and bound and raped Maxine.

The stranger briefly left the room, and Maxine loosened her bindings. She reached under the bed for the shotgun she knew her husband kept there. She aimed it at the intruder and fired. The gun was not loaded. In a rage, the intruder shot and stabbed her. Then used his knife to gouge out Maxine’s eyes, which he took with him. They were never found. He also carved an unintelligible L-shaped word or symbol into her stomach. The gun used was a .22 caliber. The crime lab could not match the casings to those used in the previous crimes because of the distortion, not uncommon, with a .22. Still, the shell casings were determined to be consistent with those from the other slayings. It was possible that the same perpetrator had committed the murders.

Carrillo was the youngest homicide investigator in the bureau. He believed the same person who killed Okazaki and Yu also committed the Whittier murders. The other detectives shrugged off his theory. Carrillo took his hunch to Salerno. For years, Salerno worked in homicide and gained experience with serial killers. He cracked the Hillside Strangler case in 1979.

Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department

Carrillo explained his reasons for believing the same man had committed all the crimes while Salerno listened intently. Salerno considered the young detective’s theory to be credible. He took the information, his experience as an investigator, and his intuition to the head of homicide, Captain Bob Grimm. Convinced that Salerno and Carrillo were on to something, Grimm suggested Salerno form a small informal task force to investigate.

On May 14th, the Valley Intruder’s killing spree resumed. The intruder broke into the Monterey Park home of William and Lillian Doi. He shot William and sexually assaulted and beat his invalid wife, who had suffered a stroke. After William heard the man leave, he crawled to a telephone, dialed 911–then he died. Monterey Park police arrived at the scene. A quiet town, homicides in Monterey Park were rare. Someone called the Sheriff’s office and requested Detective Gil Carrillo come to the scene.

The Monterey Park investigator gave Carrillo a cool reception, and declined his offer of assistance. With no reason to stay, Carrillo gave the cop some friendly advice. He told him to be careful in collecting and preserving the evidence. It would be important later.

Just as the case against the Valley Intruder heated up, so did Los Angeles. Residents can take comfort knowing that no matter how hot it gets during the day, the nights are cool and pleasant. But the summer of 1985 was different. Angelenos were sweltering in triple digit heat, shattering records established one hundred years earlier. Temperatures climbed to over 100 degrees during the day, and at night back yard thermometers rarely dipped below the upper 70s. People did everything they could think of to beat the heat. They slept with their bedroom windows open wide to entice a breeze. A sadistic killer saw the open windows as an invitation.  

By the middle of August 1985, the local media was obsessed with the heinous crimes committed by the Valley Intruder. The media coverage increased exponentially with each attack. They finally gave the mysterious killer in black a nickname; the Night Stalker.

Citizens were so terrified by the random and vicious murders that they altered their behavior. The sale of guns and locks skyrocketed. The animal shelters emptied of small dogs who could bark a warning, and big dogs who could bring a man down. 

A San Fernando Valley nurse told newspaper reporters she kept two guns in her house, and she was prepared to use them. An Alhambra woman said when her husband left for the night shift, she would take their three-year-old daughter into the master bedroom and lock the door. A Monrovia man patrolled the perimeter of his property all night with a hockey stick. Six hundred Monterey Park residents packed a neighborhood watch meeting. In some neighborhoods, people held huge slumber parties, praying for safety in numbers

On August 14th, newspapers broke the story that Frank Salerno was heading up a multi-agency task force to investigate the Night Stalker case.

Los Angeles Times, August 14, 1985

The detectives found important evidence, including a print from an Avila size 11 ½ shoe found at multiple crime scenes. At the time, the press and public were unaware of this. They also did not know the detectives had been working the case for months. They had a composite drawing of the perpetrator that they circulated to deputies, just in case they ran across someone who matched the art work.

During their investigation, detectives discovered the same Avila shoe print found at the Zazzara crime scene was also present in a child abduction and molestation case being investigated by the Los Angeles Police Department’s Northeast Division. The suspect took an eight-year-old girl from her home and assaulted her at a construction site before abandoning her. Passersby discovered her in the middle of the night. The suspect left a perfect shoe print in cement at the scene.

That they found the shoe print at the scene of a child rape and at homicides of adult victims was stunning. No one ever investigated a serial killer who was also a pedophile. The detectives knew the person who committed the murders, mutilations, and sexual assaults of children was a deviant whose penchant for evil was impossible to comprehend.

To gain a better understanding of the killer they pursued, the detectives invited the FBI to review the cases and produce a profile. Although not precise, criminal profiling is a useful tool. His rage against women and his fear of men were evident at every scene. He had not hesitated to murder any adult male who was present in the homes he entered, and the overkill of most of the female victims was blood-curdling. While the killer may have had multiple motives for his crimes: burglary, rape, child molestation, murder, and kidnapping–the most salient feature of his attacks was his rage.

With the FBI profile and evidence from more murder scenes, the detectives persisted.

Detectives hold back information in a murder case whenever they can. It is invariably something that only the killer would know. In the Night Stalker case, the detectives kept mum about the Avila shoe prints. Regrettably, the shoes became headline news.

The Night Stalker read the press on his murder spree. He caught the story about Frank Salerno’s assignment to the case. It fed his ego. Salerno was a heavy hitter, a consummate investigator, and a worthy adversary. The task force made it tougher for him to commit crimes in Los Angeles. He needed to take a break. He stole a car and headed north to San Francisco.

Barbara and Peter Pan slept soundly in the bedroom of their two-story home on a residential street near Lake Merced. The Night Stalker removed the screen from an open window and slipped inside. He murdered Peter with a gunshot to the head and then he sexually assaulted Barbara. Before he left, he drew a pentagram on the wall and signed it “Jack the Knife.”

Carrillo and Salerno recognized their suspect from the modus operandi at the Pan house. He had taken his horror show on the road. They spoke with San Francisco police, who agreed to a reciprocal trade of information.

Carrillo and Salerno’s information reached Mayor Dianne Feinstein. She held a press conference.

With their mouths hanging open in disbelief, and their hands clenched in anger, Salerno and Carrillo watched as Feinstein made public every piece of evidence they had discovered. The mayor spoke about the Avila shoe prints, the weapons, and the thumb cuffs the killer used to restrain his female victims. Investigators feared the mayor’s irresponsible statements could destroy their case.

The Night Stalker watched Mayor Feinstein’s press conference, too. He could not believe it. He owed the mayor a debt of gratitude. For months, he was unaware that he left distinctive shoe prints at the crime scenes. He ditched the shoes and anything that tied him to the crimes. Feeling cocky, he returned to Los Angeles.

Thirteen-year-old Mission Viejo resident James Romero, saw a man in an orange Toyota driving down his street. He noticed the car’s headlights were off, and he grew suspicious. He memorized a portion of the license plate number.

James Romero

The Night Stalker broke into a house in Romero’s neighborhood. He shot Bill Carns twice in the head, then raped his fiancée, Inez Erikson. Though he left them for dead, they survived. He returned to the stolen Toyota and drove back to L.A.

It was another steamy night, so the killer removed his gloves. He abandoned the car, and wiped it down, but neglected to clean the rearview mirror he had adjusted with his bare hand.

The Night Stalker task force worked hundreds of hours of overtime. The Feinstein press conference in San Francisco gave them a few bad moments, but they trusted Sheriff Sherman Block to have their backs. He held a press conference of his own, during which he lambasted Feinstein for compromising the case.  

Salerno and Carillo finally caught a couple of breaks. One of them was a phone call from a woman who worked in the courts in Los Angeles. She said her father, Jose Perez, was a street person who hung out at the Greyhound Bus Depot downtown. He had befriended a guy named Ricky. Ricky shared details with Jose about a murder he had committed. Jose told his daughter he and Ricky took a gun to Tijuana and sold it.  

The detectives felt certain that they were only steps behind the Night Stalker. Other detectives traveled to Tijuana and to their shock, recovered the weapon. Ricky did not sell the gun. Jose gave it to one of his girlfriends.

Perez said LAPD arrested his friend Ricky recently for car theft after Ricky crashed the car into the bus depot. He served a couple of days in county jail. Salerno and Carrillo contacted LAPD’s Central Division, but officers there could not locate the case.

While they waited for information from LAPD, the detectives got a call from San Francisco investigators. It was what they needed. A person who knew Ricky, and knew he fit the description of the Night Stalker, provided the investigators with their suspect’s full name. Richard Ramirez.  

Police found the stolen Toyota. Criminalists recovered a single fingerprint from the rearview mirror. An Orange County detective took the print up to Sacramento and, visually, as they had done for decades, compared it to all the prints of anyone with the Ramirez surname. They found a match. After months of painstaking police work, they identified the killer.

On Friday, August 20, 1985, in a joint news conference, Sheriff Sherman Block, Orange County Sheriff Brad Gates and Los Angeles Police Chief Daryl Gates publicly identified Richard Leyva Muñoz Ramirez as the Night Stalker.

The next day, his photo was on the front page of every newspaper in town.

Salerno and Carrillo knew Ramirez hung out at the Greyhound Bus Depot. They set up surveillance on the chance that he would try to leave town. No one expected him to be returning to Los Angeles, but that was what happened.

Greyhound bus depot c. 1970s

Ramirez was out-of-town visiting a brother in Arizona. When he arrived at the Greyhound Bus Depot, he spotted the surveillance. He was oblivious to the fact they were searching for him, but he knew law enforcement meant trouble, and that was the last thing he needed. He walked out of the building where the bus had entered instead of staying with the group of passengers who exited through the front door.

At a nearby liquor store, he bought a carton of orange juice. Then he saw his picture on page one of a local newspaper. In a panic, he got on a bus headed to East Los Angeles, where one of his brothers lived. The other passengers began to whisper and stare at him.

He got off the bus and, in desperation, he ran across several lanes of Interstate 5. Miraculously, on the Saturday morning of the Labor Day holiday, he made it across unharmed. He attempted to carjack vehicles in LAPD’s territory, but failed.

Richard Ramirez sweated profusely. Exhausted and near collapse, he ran onto the 3700 block of Hubbard Street in Boyle Heights. He was one block into Sheriff’s territory.

Faustino Pinon and Jaime Burgoin in front of the Ford Mustang

He tried to carjack a classic Mustang, which was being lovingly restored by its proud owners. The car wasn’t drivable, so the fugitive attempted to hijack a car from a pregnant woman who was about to run errands. The woman screamed. Her husband heard her and came running. He was wielding a length of pipe. He took one look at the shaggy-haired stranger who had the audacity to molest his wife and bashed him over the head. The ruckus brought more people into the street. Many of them picked up baseball bats and hammers and gave chase.

The battle of Hubbard Street was on.

Someone placed a call to the East Los Angeles Sheriff’s station about a fight on Hubbard Street.

Cries went up. “It’s him!” “It’s the Night Stalker!”

NEXT TIME: The Night Stalker in custody.

The Night Stalker, Part 1

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About 11:30 p.m., on the night of March 17, 1985, a twenty-five-year-old unemployed drifter from Texas drove aimlessly through the streets of Los Angeles. He cruised around for hours in a stolen car. Dressed in black with a baseball cap pulled low over his eyes, the cocktail of drugs in his system fueled his hateful fantasies of blood, death, and Satanic power. He cranked up the volume on his Walkman and listened to his favorite album, AC/DC’s Highway to Hell.

He was hunting human prey.

The drifter lived in downtown Los Angeles, and during the day he walked to one of the nearby dives and joined the shabby strangers who sat side-by-side on bar stools nursing glasses of cheap booze, lost in their own realities. Sometimes he would visit a local liquor store and buy a bottle, a “short dog,” he could sip from a brown paper sack. At night, he came alive. The darkness energized him. The cars he stole gave him the freedom to go wherever he wanted, and on that March night, as he drove the freeways, he spotted a lone woman in gold Camaro. On a whim, he followed her.

Maria Hernandez’s car caught the attention of the drifter. She spent the evening with her boyfriend and was on her way home. She exited the highway for Rosemead, a quiet bedroom community in Los Angeles County Sheriff’s territory, and the stranger followed her. Maria turned right onto Village Lane, where she lived in a new condominium owned by her roommate Dayle Okazaki. She pressed the button on the automatic door opener, and stepped into the garage. Maria pressed a button on the wall to shut the garage door behind her. Her black clad stalker entered the garage. His soft-soled sneakers, and the carpet runner near Dayle’s green Toyota muffled his steps.

The man could have snuck up behind Maria, but he wanted to see her fear. He slammed his hand down hard on the hood of Dayle’s car. Maria jumped and turned toward the noise. As the garage door closed, the garage got darker, with just enough light to see into the shadows. Maria saw a tall, thin man in dark clothes and a baseball cap with a logo for the heavy metal band AD/DC on it. As he lifted the .22 he carried, his baseball cap fell to the floor. The garage door took eight seconds to shut before plunging them into darkness. Maria clutched her keys and reflexively threw her hands up in front of her face, as if they could repel the bullet she knew was coming.

Maria’s hands did not stop the bullet, but her keys deflected the round and saved her life. She dropped to the floor of the garage and played dead. The stranger entered the condo. Maria crept up, opened the garage door, and went around to the front of her building—she wanted to get inside and warn Dayle.

Dayle Okasaki had heard the shot, and saw a man enter her kitchen. She ducked down behind the counter, hoping he did not see her. The stranger smiled. He caught the movement as Dayle dropped behind the counter. He knew that if he was patient, her curiosity would get the better of her and that eventually she would pop up to see if he had gone. Just as he knew she would, Dayle cautiously rose from behind the tiled counter. She stared down the barrel of the .22 the man had pointed at her head. He fired, and a bullet entered her forehead, knocking her to the floor.

Dayle Okazaki

As Maria approached the front door, she heard a gunshot. Then, to her horror, the gaunt man in black who had tried to kill her walked out onto the stoop. She couldn’t believe it. She was certain he would exit the back way. The two stood facing each other for a second that stretched into eternity.

A black-topped orange Volkswagen sat at the curb in front of the condo. Maria bolted to it, pursued by the man. The two chased each other around the car in a macabre version of a child’s game of tag. Finally, the man caught up with Maria and raised his gun. Maria spoke to him. “You’ve already shot me. Don’t shoot me again.”

Maria held the stranger’s eyes and waited for a gunshot. The man lowered his weapon and walked away. She ran back into the condo and found Dayle on the kitchen floor, a pool of blood formed around her head. Maria phoned the Sheriff’s station and waited for deputies to arrive.

The killer drove away from the scene; but he was in no rush for the evening to end.

Forty-five minutes later, he was back on the freeway when he noticed a young Asian woman taking an exit for Monterey Park. He followed her, just as he had done with Maria Hernandez. But the woman, thirty-year-old law student Tsai-Lin Veronica Yu, noticed the man behind her, and started looking for a police car. A block or two later, she pulled over to the curb and waited for the man to drive past—then she followed him. They caught a red light on North Alhambra Avenue. The man switched off his headlights, got out of the stolen Toyota, and approached the driver’s side of Veronica’s vehicle.  

Veronica confronted him and demanded to know why he had followed her. At first, he denied her accusation. Then he said he thought he knew her. She called him a liar. He grabbed at her through the open window and tried to drag her out of the car. Failing to yank Veronica from the driver’s seat, he ran around to the passenger side. Before Veronica could push the lock down, he slipped into the seat and pointed a gun at her side. He fired and wounded Veronica. She opened the door to escape. He shot her again, this time the bullet struck her in the lower back. She got out of the car and took a couple of shaky steps before she collapsed on the pavement and died.

Satisfied, the drifter returned to his room in the Hotel Cecil on skid row.

NEXT TIME: Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department Homicide Bureau detectives begin an investigation into the murder.

Tell My Wife I Love Her

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Driving east on Ventura Boulevard in North Hollywood (now Studio City), architect Julian L. Zeller saw a well-dressed man staggering out of the weeds on the south side of the street. Zeller stopped to render aid. The man said, “I was shot by bandits in the hills. The bandit stole my car and my sweetheart.” Then he said, “If I die, tell my wife I loved her.” The man bled profusely and grew weaker as Zeller rushed him to the Hollywood Receiving Hospital. Zeller assisted his injured passenger into the hospital’s emergency room. Doctors tried, but they could not save the man.

From the contents of his pockets, police tentatively identified the deceased as fifty-one-year-old Merton L. Jenks. Merton, a wealthy real estate broker and oil speculator, lived in Beverly Hills with his wife Ruby. A prominent member of the Los Angeles Athletic Club, Merton had friends in high places, like the Police Commissioner.

As detectives contemplated their first steps in investigating Merton’s death, motorcycle officer J. E. Clementine sped to answer a call at 11414 Berry Street in the hills above Ventura Boulevard. The resident, Mrs. J. B. Mield, phoned because a woman arrived at her doorstep pleading for help.

Clementine guided his bike to the curb of the Berry Street home and found a hysterical woman in the yard. The woman choked out her name, Helen Moffitt. She calmed down enough to tell Clementine that she and a companion, Merton Jenks, were the victims of a hold-up at the top of the hill.

Helen said she did not know what happened to Merton. As soon as he grappled with the armed robber, she took off in the car to get help.

Chief Detective Joe Taylor and Inspector David Davidson took Helen downtown to LAPD’s Central Station for questioning. They contacted her husband, Norval, a Glendale car salesman, and he joined them.

Detectives asked Helen how well she knew Merton, and why they parked on a lonely road in the hills. She said, “I met Mr. Jenks at my sister’s home about a year ago. He knew that myself and my husband were anxious to dispose of our house in Venice and he was interested in showing me some new places. Tuesday, he called for me at home and we went to the North Hollywood district. We drove up to the head of Berry Drive (where the shooting took place) and stopped to admire the view.”

“Mr. Jenks got out of the car and was standing talking to me when suddenly a man walked out of the bushes by the roadside. He was dressed in blue-bib overalls, a blue shirt, and a cap. He had a white handkerchief drawn over his face through which holes were cut.”

The bandit held a gun on the couple and told them to “Stick ‘em up.”

Helen thought the bandit hit Merton over the head with a gun. She said, “I saw Mr. Jenks stagger over the embankment. My first thought was to get help and, as the motor of the car was still running, I moved to the driver’s seat and drove as fast as I could to the first house, where I could get a telephone.”

The detectives listened attentively to Helen’s account of the crime; but they did not entirely buy her story.

When police and deputy coroners searched Merton’s belongings, they found photographs of Helen. One in the back of a gold watch and another in his wallet. In one photo, Helen wore a bathing suit. They also found a telegram postmarked in Santa Monica. It read: “You have been my Valentine for several years.” It was signed “H. S.” Was it from Helen?

The couple clearly had a relationship, and likely parked on the lonely hillside for more than the view. Judging from the newspaper coverage, police weren’t the only ones to doubt Helen’s story. They began reporting the story as a “petting party,” and a “love tryst.”

If you are not familiar with the term, a petting party was a gathering at which couples would hug, kiss, and perhaps fondle each other. Petting did not always stop with a kiss, but it stopped short of intercourse. Popular during the 1920s, and into the 1930s, petting parties outraged the older generation. Which, of course, was the point.

The post-WWI era saw a fundamental shift in the behavior of young adults. The previous generation had to follow strict courtship rules. Modern couples no longer had anyone looking over their shoulders. Three things contributed to the shift. World War I. Cars. Prohibition. The war made cynics and hedonists of many of its young survivors. Cars offered mobility and privacy—a bedroom on wheels. Prohibition normalized law-breaking.

By 1932, when Helen and Merton parked in the hills above Ventura Boulevard, petting parties were passe. But couples of any age who wanted privacy often drove to a remote spot.

Helen’s ever-changing version of events did not help the investigation. In fact, the only part of her story that did not change with each telling was her description of their assailant.

Before he died, Merton told Zeller two people attacked him. But Helen insisted only one man held them up.

Within days of the crime, police brought three suspects, Robert Gilreath, Robert Campbell, and William Saxton, into the station for questioning. They soon released them.

Inspector David Davidson, in charge of the investigation, told reporters they believed the bandit might be one who specifically targeted couples parked in the hills. Following Merton’s refusal to comply with the robber’s demands, the bandit slugged him. When he ran, the bandit shot him in the back. Merton may have been a faithless husband, but he did not deserve to die.

Among his belongings police found Merton had a carry permit, issued by the Sheriff’s Department on September 16, 1931. At the time of issuance, Merton said he needed a gun for “travel protection.” However, having an affair with Helen, may have made him cautious. Perhaps he feared her husband coming after him. However, Norval seemed genuinely surprised that Merton kept photos of Helen, or had a relationship with her.

Was Norval feigning surprise? Detectives could not afford to take him at his word. They investigated and found he spent the afternoon of the shooting in a movie theater.

On Thursday, July 16, the coroner’s jury returned a verdict in Merton’s death, “shot by persons unknown with homicidal intent.”

Helen testified at the inquest. The attractive 30-year-old insisted there was “no lovemaking,” and she and Merton sat in his car “looking at the scenery.” Deputy Coroner Monfort challenged her.

“Now, Mrs. Moffitt, you were never in the rear seat of that car at any time, were you?”

“I never was,” she replied.

“How do you account for the forty-five minutes you spent with Mr. Jenks at this point?”

“Well, we were admiring the scenery, and there was a general discussion about real estate and other topics. I don’t remember all that was said.”

The reason for Monfort’s line of questioning is not clear, although he may have suspected Helen hired someone to kill Merton. It was troubling that Merton said two persons attacked him, and Helen said there was one.

Two weeks after the murder, police searched Helen’s home looking for a weapon. Two hundred yards from where the bandit stood, police found a .32 caliber shell fired from an automatic. Police chemist, Ray Pinker, said he could match the shell to a gun if they found one.

The case stalled. In September, twenty-three-year-old Chester Bartlett surrendered himself to police and confessed he had “done something wrong” in the hills near Mulholland. Bartlett’s confession did not survive scrutiny. He admitted he attempted suicide by swallowing gasoline. The obviously unstable man may have done wrong, but he did not commit murder.

The scant leads dried up, and nobody offered new information, so police had to shelve the Jenks case. It remains unsolved.

What happened on June 14, 1932? Hungry, homeless and without hope, many desperate people roamed the streets of Los Angeles during the Great Depression. Did one of them pick up a gun and attempt to rob Merton and Helen? Did Merton perish at the hands of a would-be robber, or was he the victim of something more sinister?

We can only speculate.

Ode to Joy

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Incorporated in 1913, San Marino is a quiet, residential-only enclave catering to people with money; lots of money. It is unthinkable, not to mention in poor taste, for a resident to die of unnatural causes. But on December 31, 1949, the body of a 39-year-old socialite, and well-known party girl, Joy McLaughlin, was found in the lush bedroom of her San Marino rental home. A gunshot wound to her chest. The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department sent detectives Herman Leaf and Garner Brown to investigate.

When Brown and Leaf arrived at McLaughlin’s Spanish-style bungalow at 2002 Oakdale Street they found the attractive blonde artfully sprawled on a blood-spattered Oriental rug in her bedroom next to her lace canopied bed. If they hadn’t known better, the detectives may have thought that they were looking at a scene from a film noir. The deceased was wearing a maroon off-the-shoulder blouse, blue skirt, and black peep-toed pumps. Her jewelry comprised a simple gold bracelet and gold earrings. A .38 revolver lay near her right hand.

As the detectives scanned the frilly bedroom for clues, they noticed a framed pastel portrait of McLaughlin. The portrait appeared to be from the 1930s. In it, McLaughlin had long blonde hair, kohl-rimmed eyes, and vaguely resembled actress Mary Astor, if she was a blonde. A bullet broke the glass in the portrait. The shattered glass was another film noir touch in the real-life death scene.

What had Joy’s life been like in the years since the completion of the portrait? And why had she died? In order to better understand Joy’s death, detectives would have to examine her past.

According to some records, Joy was born in Denver as Joy McLaughlin on September 22, 1910, or 1911 in Memphis, Texas. By the 1930 census, Joy lived with her widowed mother, Daisy, and her sisters, May, Dorothy, Novella, Ysleta, and Thelma, in a home on Larrabee Street in Hollywood. Joy was 19 at the time of the census, and was in a relationship with automobile (Cadillac and LaSalle) and radio (KHJ) magnate Don Lee. The older man, twice divorced, had been seeing Joy since she was sixteen.

Joy believed she and Don would eventually marry, but he met another age-inappropriate woman, twenty-four-year-old Geraldine May Jeffers Timmons, and dropped Joy like a burning coal. Don and Geraldine dated for only a few months before being married in Agua Caliente, Mexico.

Disappointed and angry, Joy filed a breach of promise lawsuit, aka a “heart balm” suit in 1933 against her former lover in the amount of $500,000. To put it in perspective, $500,000 then is equivalent to $11 million dollars today. Certainly enough cash to soothe a broken heart. Following a brief court battle, Joy walked away with $11,500. Not what she hoped for, but not chump change—it had the same buying power as $266k has today. You could stretch that sum a long way during the Great Depression.

For the next several years, Joy traveled. She sailed through the Panama Canal, she visited Hawaii, and she spent time at the resort in Agua Caliente, Baja California, Mexico. She even found time to marry a man named Robert Stark; but the marriage ended in divorce.

During years before her death, Joy met an oil millionaire, John A. Smith. John was married but when asked about it he said: “I’m not working at it.” During their investigation of Joy’s death, Sheriff’s Department detectives discovered John had been with Joy in the hours prior to her death.

Had John killed her? Not according to his testimony at the coroner’s inquest. John described an evening of drinking (Joy’s blood alcohol registered.021 at her autopsy) and dancing. The couple, accompanied by Fern Graves, a friend of Joy’s, partied at the Jonathan Club and the Zebra Room of the Town House.

John said: “Joy wanted to dance. She called the orchestra leader over and arranged for some music. I bought the orchestra a drink. We danced and drank until the bar closed.” At 2 a.m. Joy, Fern, and John accepted the invitation of bar acquaintance named George to have a nightcap in his room at the Biltmore Hotel. The party continued until 8 a.m. It incensed Joy when John john sobssuggested they call it a night. She bolted from George’s hotel room, and John had to retrieve her.

Photograph of the Zebra Room in The Town House hotel, Los Angeles. “Photograph by Julius Shulman / P.O. Box 8656, Cole Stn. Los Angeles 46, Claif.” — stamped on verso. Verso dated, “February 14, 1955”.; Streetscape.

Joy and John finally made it back to her home. Between sobs, John testified Joy became melancholy, and occasionally belligerent, when she drank. He followed her into her bedroom, where she undressed. He said that she turned to him and said, “You can get out.” John said he knew better than to cross her when she was in a mood, so he left the house. As he got to his car, he thought he heard a gunshot. “I ran back into the house. Joy was sitting on the floor…”

John fell apart on the stand, and it took him several moments to regain control and continue his testimony. “She (Joy) was sitting at the foot of the bed, sort of half sprawled and leaning against the bed. I saw the whole scene in an instant. Her hand was out, and a gun was lying not over three feet from her body. I grabbed it.”

“I said, ‘My God, what have you done?’” Joy was beyond answering. John picked up the weapon and it went off. It scared him half to death. Joy remained quiet. When John tried to lift her, he felt blood ooze through his left hand. “I listened for life. In my judgment, she was dead.”

He panicked. He left without calling a doctor because he believed Joy was dead. He then drove through a thick fog to the Wilmington home of two of Joy’s sisters, Thelma, and Ysleta. When they opened the door, they found John wringing his hands and crying.

When Joy’s sister Ysleta was called to testify at the inquest, she revealed it was she who gave Joy the weapon that killed her. Friends described Joy as a person who felt things keenly; sensitive and sympathetic to other people’s problems.

Upon hearing from all the witnesses, the coroner’s jury concluded Joy had discharged the .38 firearm into her chest, just one inch from her breast.

There appeared to be no single event which caused Joy to take her own life. Perhaps her suicide was the culmination of a life of unfulfilled dreams.

NOTES: This is another great story I owe to Mike Fratantoni–historian par excellence. It is also an encore post from 2017.

Death on the Driver’s Side

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About 2:30 a.m., on February 1, 1931, after a night of nightclubbing, twenty-four-year-old Julia Tapia and several of her girlfriends stopped at Alfonso’s Café at Temple and Figueroa for a bite to eat. Julia wanted to sober up before leaving on a quick turn-around trip north.

A friend of hers, Harvey Hicks, missed his train to Tehachapi, about one hundred miles north of Los Angeles. She had nothing better to do, so she said she would drive him there. She had no desire to make the return trip by herself. She would have asked her girlfriends to accompany her, but they were “family girls,” not the type to take a trip on the spur-of-the-moment.

Julia didn’t scoff at family girls, but she knew she wasn’t one herself. She was married, but her husband left for Mexico five months earlier, and had not returned. She was recently “vagged,” which is a vagrancy charge, usually prostitution. She spent ten days in the county jail rather than pay a $50 fine.

Woman driver c. 1930s

She scanned the café for another girl, not the family type, who might take the Tehachapi jaunt with her. She spotted Adeline Ortega. Julia and Adeline weren’t close, but they’d seen each other around, and had chatted before at Alfonso’s. Adeline had recently been “vagged,” too. Julia persuaded her to come along for the ride. They would have lots to talk about on the way home.

Adeline made only one request. She wanted her friend Manuel to join them. Julia didn’t object; what the hell, the more the merrier. Four young people in a car, a pint and a half of illegal booze, and a few hours on a dark highway–it would be a miracle if trouble didn’t find them. Miracles never happened to Julia.

The trip to Tehachapi was uneventful. They took Harvey to the home of a friend of his, and spent about thirty minutes passing a bottle of whiskey around. When it came time to leave, Manuel said he was exhausted. He stretched out on the back seat of Julia’s car and nodded off. Julia drove while Adeline kept her company. A little later, Adeline got sleepy and switched places with Manuel.

Manuel was the perfect passenger until he started pestering Julia to let him drive. She refused. The two had words, and Manuel tried to throw the car out of gear and grab the steering wheel. Julia, accustomed to dealing with men who would not take no for an answer, told Manuel to cut the crap or she would put him out on the highway. Manuel got belligerent and declared he’d leave the car willingly.

After Manuel got out, Julia drove her car, a 1930 Chevrolet, in low gear down the road. She was a softer touch than she seemed. She would give Manuel another chance to behave. But minutes after he got out of her car, she saw a light-colored car, with three guys in it, pick him up. The car caught up with Julia; Adeline still slept in the backseat. When the car pulled up alongside her, Manuel shouted he left his overcoat and hat behind and wanted to retrieve them. Julia reached over to the passenger’s side and grabbed his belongings. She threw them out of the car at him.  

Manuel got angry. He jumped onto the running board of her car. He was on the driver’s side, screaming abuse at her. Then, he reached over and pulled her hair and smacked her hard on the jaw. She noticed Harvey had left his .38 revolver stuck in the seat cushion. She grabbed the gun and shot Manuel right above his heart. He fell from the running board and tumbled to the pavement.

Julia braked the car to a stop and ran over to him. He was lying in a pool of blood, wheezing. He was about two heartbeats away from death. She dragged him to the side of the road. The car that Manuel had hitched a ride on sped off into the night. Seconds later, another car with three men in it pulled up to see what was going on. In the car were Dean Markham and his buddies, Joe Frigon, and Bob Tittle. The trio were rabbit hunting in Mojave, and headed back to L.A.

Markham got out of the car, and walked over to speak with Julia. On his way over to talk to the distraught woman, he noticed a pool of dark-colored liquid, and Manuel on the pavement. He stepped wide.

Markham’s car had overheated. They left Julia and Adeline behind, and took Julia’s car to fetch help in nearby Lancaster. They arrived at a hotel and asked the clerk where to find a cop. The clerk pointed at a pool hall down the street. He suggested they would find an officer there. Sure enough, just as the clerk said, Markham and his buddies found an officer shooting pool.

Markham, et al., piled into Julia’s car, and returned to the scene. They could hear the siren wailing on the police car ahead of them as they sped down the highway.

Markham, his friends, and the officer, pulled up to the scene. Julia and Adeline stood in the road, shell-shocked. No wonder. The local undertaker beat the cop to the scene. He loaded Manuel’s body into his hearse and drove it away.

In the days following Manuel’s death, his business partner asked about $500 (equivalent to $10,500.00 in 2023 U.S. dollars) Manuel carried with him. He was supposed to have deposited it. The morgue property slip listed the dead man’s belongings. No mention of money.

They indicted Julia for Manuel’s murder on April 27, 1931. The case was called for trial in Department 27 of Superior Court; Judge Walton J. Wood presiding, Deputy District Attorney Barnes representing the People, and S .S. Hahn representing the defendant. The Deputy D.A. who prepared the case against Julia, was unavailable. Barnes requested a continuance. Judge Wood denied the motion and ordered Barnes to proceed with the trial.

At the conclusion of the state’s case, prior to being submitted to the jury, S. S. Hahn moved for an instructed verdict. The judge agreed with Hahn that all the evidence showed Julia shot Manuel in self-defense.

Julia left the court a free woman. Was she $500 richer? We’ll never know.

NOTE: This is an encore post from December 2012. This is one of the first posts I wrote for the blog. As I did then, I want to thank my crime buddy, Mike Fratantoni, curator of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department Museum. He told me this story because he knows I have a weakness for tales about bad girls, and cars with running boards.  

The Green Scarf Bandit, Conclusion

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Two weeks after Sheriff’s deputies shot James Monroe Rudolph, the Green Scarf Bandit, he was on the mend in the prison ward of General Hospital. Doctors said Rudolph was weak. Evidently, he was strong enough to confess to scores of robberies, burglaries, assaults, and kidnappings. Deputy District Attorney Howard Hurd and a couple of Sheriff’s deputies, including one of my favorites from the era, Detective Sergeant Ned Lovretovich, were on hand to witness the statements made by Monroe.

Photo dated 29 January 1951. James M. Rudolph; Sheriff’s Sergeant Dave Terry; Attorney Abraham Becker; Sheriff’s Department Sergeant Ned Lovretovich (walking behind Rudolph). [Photo courtesy of USC online collection.]

Deputies placed Rudolph in custody following a call from eight-year-old Jimmy Jones. While Rudolph kidnapped his parents at gunpoint, Jimmy feigned sleep. As soon as it was safe, he called the sheriff’s department. Jimmy’s call resulted in the capture of the Green Scarf Bandit. For his courage, Sheriff Eugene Biscailuz had awarded the boy a miniature Sheriff’s badge.

The authorities were keen to get Rudolph in front of a judge, but his physical condition delayed the proceedings. Another complication was there was so much stolen loot in the Rudolph home in Placerville that it would take time for it to be sorted out, put on trucks, and placed into evidence. Cops estimated the worth of the stolen goods to be about $60,000 [$537,851.00 in current U.S. dollars].

On January 30th, James Monroe Rudolph, clad in his prison ward jammies, sufficiently healed from his multiple gunshot wounds, appeared for arraignment before Municipal Judge F. Ray Rennett.

In the complaint, sworn to by Deputy Sheriff Dave Terry, and issued by the Deputy D.A., Rudolph found himself charged with five counts of robbery, four of attempted robbery, nine of kidnapping and two of false imprisonment. Four of the robberies involved food markets from which Rudolph had stolen thousands of dollars in cash.

One robbery was especially audacious. Just a few days prior to the kidnapping of B.G. Jones and his wife, the Green Scarf Bandit used the same M.O. to rob a La Crescenta supermarket manager and his wife twice in one day!

Alfred W. Boegler and his wife Irene awakened by a soft noise at about midnight, saw a man in a green scarf mask climb through their bedroom window. Holding a pistol to the couple, the bandit politely turned his head as Irene changed from her nightgown into street clothes so she could accompany her husband and the crook to the Shopping Bag Market at 3100 Foothill Blvd in La Crescenta.

Alfred related to investigators a conversation he had with the masked intruder. “When we asked him what was to be done about our two sleeping children, he said that it was too cold to take children outdoors–and that they might get injured if there was a night watchman who started any shooting. He said if we co-operated on driving him to the store and opening the safe, we would be safely back home within 30 minutes.”

He may have been a gun wielding thug, but he wasn’t indifferent to the comfort and safety of young children. As the couple’s two daughters, Barbara (4) and Karen (18 months) slept, Boegler drove his wife and the robber to the market. Once they arrived at the store, the gunman used Irene as a hostage while Alfred went into the store with a passkey and turned off the burglar alarm. All the while, the gunman apologized, saying that his boss was “pretty tough” and he’d face dire consequences if the job didn’t go off perfectly.

After looting two safes at the market, the bandit let the Boeglers out of their car at the corner of Altura Street and Pennsylvania Avenue. They phoned the Montrose Sheriff’s station (the same station young Jimmy Jones called a few days later) and walked the short distance to their home. They collected their two kids and went to the home of Boegler’s brother, William.

When the Boeglers returned to their own home, a mere six hours after being taken from their warm bed, they were met by the green scarfed gunman who was waiting patiently for them in the kitchen.

“You double-crossed me. My boss doesn’t like that. We missed one safe.”

The man then kidnapped the Boeglers for a second time, emptied a third safe, and fled.

Rudolph may have thought of himself only as a bandit, but two of the kidnapping charges involved bodily harm, which in California, because of the Little Lindbergh Law, could send him to the gas chamber.

Following the kidnapping and murder of Charles Lindbergh, Jr. on March 1, 1932, Congress adopted the Federal Kidnapping Act (aka Lindbergh Law), a law which allowed the feds to step in once kidnappers had crossed state lines with their victim. There were several states, California among them, that implemented their own versions of the law which applied in cases of kidnapping when victims were not transported across state lines; hence Little Lindbergh. California’s Little Lindbergh statute made kidnapping with bodily harm a crime eligible for the death penalty.

In 1951, when the Green Scarf Bandit was busted, the Red-Light Bandit (Caryl Chessman) was already on California’s death row for kidnapping—convicted under the Little Lindbergh law. Knowing that another bandit was sitting on death row may have provided the motivation for Rudolph to plead guilty to three felony charges: armed robbery, kidnapping for purpose of robbery, and false imprisonment. With his plea, Rudolph evaded the death penalty. For his misdeeds, they sentenced him to a term of five years to life.

The Green Scarf Bandit had no intention of serving his full sentence. About seven months after arriving at Folsom Prison, Rudolph, and his cell mate, Claude Newton, tried to break out.

They used an age-old method to fool the guards. They stuffed their overalls with paper and placed decoys in their bunks. Newton even braided a rope out of bed sheets and put a hook on the end so they could scale the wall. As they waited for the right moment to flee, the guards found them.

Warden Robert A. Heinze had the last word on the attempted escape.

“Everything was set to go on the escape, but it didn’t work.”

The Green Scarf Bandit, Part 1

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It was just after 6:00 a.m. on December 10, 1951 when a bandit broke into the home of supermarket manager B.G. Jones and his wife Juanita. The bandit had tied a green scarf around the lower half of his face, and he was holding a weapon. He slugged B.G. with a leaded sap and Juanita screamed. The man gruffly asked if anyone else was in the house. B.G. said, “Just my little boy, and he’s asleep.”

But eight-year-old Jimmy Jones wasn’t asleep, he was playing possum. He feigned sleep even as the masked man entered his bedroom with a flashlight and looked around.

Few kids would have had remained as cool and collected as Jimmy, but the boy had an advantage. His father had prepared him for the possibility of a break-in.

B.G. recently warned Jimmy that a bad guy roamed the area. He abducted supermarket managers and forced them to open the safes at their stores. B.G. told Jimmy if he heard anyone break into the house that he was to lie still, wait until he felt safe, then run to the phone and call the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Montrose substation. That is exactly what Jimmy did.

Jimmy told the deputy who answered the phone, “A man just took my father and mother away to make my daddy open the safe.” Then he told the deputy, “He shined his light right in my face, but I pretended I was asleep. I kept my eyes shut and didn’t move.”

Deputies Joe Rieth and J.R. Shelton were dispatched to the Shopping Bag Market at 920 Foothill Blvd in La Canada. The Deputies roared up just as B.G., stalling for time, fumbled with his key before unlocking the door for the bandit. Alerted to the arrival of the deputies, the masked man attempted to escape. He collided with off-duty deputy John Davis. Davis pulled his pistol and commanded the man to halt, but the fugitive continued to run even as Rieth and Shelton fired at him.

Slugs from Reith’s weapon penetrated the man’s neck, while pellets from Shelton’s shotgun peppered his legs. The man was so pumped with adrenaline he continued to flee. When Rieth and Shelton tracked him down, they discovered him hunched over the wheel of deputy Davis’s car, frantically trying to start it.

An ambulance took the critically wounded crook to Physicians & Surgeons hospital, Glendale. The bandit gave his name as Jim Marcus.

The Sheriff’s didn’t take the man at his word, which was just as well. He lied. It didn’t take long for them to ID him as James Monroe Rudolph of Placerville, California, which is about 450 miles from where he’d committed his most recent crimes.

Deputies found Rudolph’s late model Buick sedan parked about a block from the Jones’ home, and when they searched the trunk, they found highly incriminating evidence including, 100 empty money sacks, scores of rolls of coins, a wallet containing five $100 bills, and an ID that gave Rudolph’s L.A. address as a motel at 4562 N. Figueroa Street.

Also in the car were several changes of clothing, a.45 caliber automatic pistol, a Las Vegas police badge, and a fire extinguisher loaded with a knockout solution for spraying victims, and a green scarf. Police finally had the Green Scarf Bandit, the villain who had eluded them for weeks.

Sheriff’s robbery squad detectives went to Placerville where they arrested Rudolph’s wife, Inge, a German war bride. Inge surrendered to the detectives two fur coats, a fur jacket, a fur neck piece, several pairs of expensive field glasses, a half dozen cameras, and several thousand dollars’ worth of jewelry.

Inge insisted she wasn’t a party to her husband’s misdeeds, and the police believed her. She believed he had purchased the luxury items with money that he won in card games. Inge must have thought her husband was a high roller when he put over $8,000 (equivalent to $92,000.000 in 2023 USD) down on their $17,000 (equivalent to $195,000.00 in 2023 USD) home.

Rudolph and Inge met in Germany. They married in a civil ceremony in Linz, Austria in 1947. After Rudolph’s discharge from the Army in 1949, Inge accompanied him to the U.S., first to his hometown of Atlanta, GA, then to Washington, D.C., and finally to California.

While police searched the Rudolph home for more of the Green Scarf Bandit’s stolen loot, Inge traveled from Placerville to Los Angeles to visit James. When she saw his condition, she wept at his bedside, and declared that she would stand by him.

As the critically wounded man lay in a hospital bed struggling for his life, eight-year-old hero Jimmy Jones was recognized for his bravery by Sheriff Eugene Biscailuz. They gave the boy a miniature sheriff’s badge, and Biscailuz said, “Jimmy demonstrated a courage and calm presence of mind seldom found in a youngster of his age.”

Would James Monroe Rudolph, the man Jimmy helped to capture, recover from his gunshot wounds, or would he die before they could try him?

NEXT TIME: The fate of the Green Scarf Bandit.

Death of a Gridiron Great, Conclusion

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Former USC football idol, Johnny Hawkins, was arrested for burglary in the home of Biltmore orchestra leader, Earl Burnett. They found him in the living room holding a flashlight and listening to the radio. Hawkins immediately confessed to over two dozen residential burglaries over the period of a few months, and he told the police that he had committed the crimes because he was desperate for money, in part because his wife had major medical bills.

Hawkins was about the last guy anyone would expect to turn to crime. He had been the captain and quarterback of the USC football team. In fact, he was an all-around fine athlete playing football, baseball, and basketball with equal skill. He could have had a career in any of the sports in which he excelled, but the first couple of years following his graduation from college had proved difficult for Johnny.

Cops were baffled when Johnny led them to the attic of his parent’s Fullerton home and showed them his ill-gotten loot because he had tried to sell none of the items. If he desperately needed money, why would he have kept the loot?

Another odd wrinkle in the case came when it was discovered that about a week before Johnny’s arrest, one of his younger brothers, Jimmy, was taken into custody for grand theft.

In early June 1928, just days prior to Johnny’s arrest, Jimmy Hawkins stopped in at the home of Mrs. Betty Sheridan on Normandie Avenue. While Betty was on the telephone with her sister, Jimmy disappeared, taking with him $1500 worth of her jewelry. It isn’t clear how Jimmy became acquainted with Betty. She said she knew his father was a prominent citizen in Fullerton, but didn’t seem to know anything else about the young man or his background.

While he was cooling his heels in a jail cell, he got a visitor, Johnny. Johnny delivered a severe lecture to his sibling and convinced the younger man to return the stolen jewelry. The D.A. declined to press charges, and released Jimmy.

Unfortunately, Johnny’s encounter with the law didn’t go as well as his brother’s had. They charged him with thirty-one counts of burglary. If Johnny thought his life couldn’t get any worse, he was wrong. The law arrested Johnny’s brother, again. This time, it was as an accomplice.

The L.A. Times likened Johnny to Fagin, the receiver of stolen goods and leader of a group of thieving children in the Charles Dickens novel “Oliver Twist.” Not a flattering comparison, and it showed how far Johnny had fallen, at least in the eyes of the press.

Jimmy didn’t hold up well under interrogation, and he confessed. He shifted the bulk of the blame onto his older brother. He told cops when he became unwilling to continue the residential crime spree, Johnny became domineering and forced him to continue the illicit activities.

Johnny hired an attorney, Joe Ryan, who appeared to believe in his client. Hawkins confided in Ryan he was stealing because he was seized by an uncontrollable mania, which he believed had been caused by an injury to his head while playing football. He had a lump over his left eye that may have been the outward sign of severe brain trauma.

Johnny finally got a piece of good news when his brother Jimmy recanted his confession. Jimmy said,

“I was so sleepy. They (the cops) wouldn’t let me sleep for two nights and I didn’t know what I was signing.”

In August 1928, Johnny Hawkins appeared in Superior Court to plead guilty to five out of thirty-one counts of burglary and to apply for probation so he might avoid a prison term. Hawkins’ attorney, Joe Ryan, told the court that his client was under the care of Dr. Cecil Reynolds, a brain specialist, who intended to perform brain surgery to relieve pressure believed to have been caused by a football injury. The injury on which Johnny blamed his recent criminal tendencies.

While awaiting a probation hearing, Johnny fainted. He fell to the concrete floor of the attorney’s room in the jail and received another serious head injury.

Despite the argument that his repeated head injuries had caused Hawkins to pursue a brief life of crime, there was no recommendation for probation, and Superior Judge Fricke sentenced the former college gridiron great to from five to seventy-five years in prison.

Given an opportunity to address the court, Johnny said, “Don’t you think I would be a respectable citizen after all this trouble if I were given another chance?”

To which Judge Fricke replied, “I am sorry, but I am not certain that you would be.”

After the pronouncement of sentence, Johnny shook hands with his counsel, who was also a friend of his from his glory days at USC, then bowed his head and walked from the courtroom manacled to a deputy sheriff.

Nothing ever came of the brain operation that Johnny had hoped for.

Hawkins served twenty-nine months in San Quentin before they paroled him. For seven years following his release, he held a position in M.G. M’s art department; he even coached the studio basketball team to championships.

On May 22, 1939, thirty-seven-year-old Johnny Hawkins died of an apparent brain abscess. Dr. Louis Gogol, assistant county autopsy surgeon, stated that in his opinion the injury Johnny had received while playing football at USC was the probable reason for the string of burglaries that he’d committed eleven years earlier. He said that the previous injury was undeniably the cause of his premature death.

Death verified Johnny Hawkins’ innocence, yet shockingly, very little has changed. Other than repeated brain trauma, the risk factors for chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) remain unknown. The disease can only be accurately diagnosed postmortem.

Death of a Gridiron Great, Part 1

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Johnny Hawkins had the college sports career one can only dream of. He was a gridiron hero who was equally skilled at basketball and baseball. During the 1924 season, Hawkins was quarterback and captain of USC’s football team.

Despite his sports successes, Hawkins found the transition from Big Man on Campus to Joe Everyman a difficult one. Following his graduation from USC, he bounced from job to job.

By 1926, Johnny had settled into a career as head coach the South Pasadena military school, the Oneonta Academy. It thrilled Oneonta to have Hawkins on their coaching staff. They were so proud they took out a half-page ad in the L.A. Times to announce his hiring. But Hawkins’ career took a downturn that same year when the Hollywood Generals, a Pacific Coast Football League team he organized and played with, failed.

The death knell for Johnny’s post-college dreams of success came on an evening in mid-June 1928 when he was busted in the home of Earl Burtnett, leader of the Biltmore orchestra.

Clarence Thomas, a houseboy at the Burtnett home on South Catalina Street, spied a man entering the rear door of the house and promptly called the law.

LAPD Detective Lieutenants Steed, Green, and Mole of Wilshire Division answered the call and found Hawkins sitting in the living room listening to the radio.

Portrait of Earl Burtnett, director of the famous Los Angeles Biltmore. Photograph dated February 16, 1929. [Photo courtesy of LAPL]

Hawkins wasn’t a hardened criminal, and he confessed to dozens of burglaries. He told his interrogators that he desperately needed to raise money because his recent career as a real estate salesman had gone to pieces and his wife, Thelma (his college sweetheart), needed major surgery.

Hawkins said,

 “I know I’ve got it coming to me, but what torments me the most is the thought of my family and my wife’s family. I was driven to desperation by financial troubles.”

Johnny was with his parents in their Fullerton home while his wife was in Vancouver, Washington, for treatment. He said he waited night after night until his parents were in bed before going out to commit the burglaries, then returned home to stash the loot in their attic.

Police valued the recovered property at more than $35,000 ($622,482.16 in 2023 USD). It surprised them that Hawkins had stolen such a hodgepodge of high and low dollar items, including furs, old silverware, gowns, blankets, percolators, typewriters, lingerie, and jewelry.

According to Johnny, he never carried a weapon, a fact borne out by the arresting officers. Johnny had a flashlight, jimmy, ice pick, pass keys, and was wearing white gloves when the police found him in the Burtnett home.

It was strange enough that the football idol had perpetrated a series of at least 25 residential burglaries, but it was stranger still that never attempted to dispose of the loot. He purportedly committed the thefts for a few months, but all the items, except a suitcase full of “presents” for his wife, were traced.

If he was in dire need of cash, as he’d said, then why didn’t he borrow money from his folks or his in-laws? Perhaps the former gridiron star was too proud to ask for help. The alternative, having his name splashed all over the local newspapers, was even more humiliating.

What was going on with Hawkins? Why would he jeopardize his freedom and his reputation in such a stupid way?

NEXT TIME: A unique defense strategy.

The Love Poisoner, Conclusion

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On May 2, 1953, fragments of love letters written by Joyce to Richard during the previous summer when Joyce and her husband Robert were in Alaska, were read aloud in court. Richard told the truth about the existence of the letters.

Did Robert know anything about her affection for his friend? On the witness stand, Robert admitted he knew Joyce had deep feelings for Richard and he had “turned-the-other-cheek.” Joyce said she wrote the letters (26 of them, each at least 20 pages) to cheer Richard up and, “to keep him from committing suicide.” Joyce denied Richard’s claim that he was the father of her unborn child. Joyce responded to his claim, “Hearing that read in court from his confession didn’t surprise me–or Robert, either. We’d read it before. Richard is like that, always imaging things. He’s making all that up.” But was he? He didn’t lie about the letters.

Whether the jurors would hear the contents of the letters was up to Superior Judge Mildred L. Lillie. One important question about the letters was whether they were Joyce wrote them. Had Richard forged or tampered with them? Joyce was sworn in and handed a bundle of letters. She gave them a cursory look and then said that she didn’t think all of them were in her own handwriting. “I’d have to read them all,” she said. “There’s been all kinds of stuff added,” although she finally conceded that “basically” she was the author. Judge Lillie instructed Joyce to go through the letters and delete whatever was not in her handwriting. Then Judge Lillie allowed the letters to be entered into evidence. Maybe the letters would reveal the truth about Joyce and Richard’s relationship.

On June 3, 1952, Joyce wrote to Richard telling him she received two letters which were delayed by a storm. She said she went off by herself to read them. “Anyway, I got to sit down–all by myself–in the ‘Garden’ (we know nothing will grow before we leave) and read them–which made me very happy.” She continued. “The only time I can really be alone is when it’s nice, so I can go outside and at nite after everyone leaves and Robert is asleep. And then I am not only alone but lonely. Richard, don’t worry about if I’ll be interested at least a little bit–I am interested very much in everything you write and do, so make it a problem to write me, just write exactly like you have been and tell me anything or everything you think, do or feel and I’ll be very happy. OK?”

Joyce asked Richard to take the time to sit down and write her a long letter. She wanted to know how he would have planned his life if he had done anything he wanted “from grammar school on.”

On June 6, Joyce wrote, “What I said about all the hours we spent–I didn’t mean wasted. I just was thinking how nice a few of those hours would seem now and it seems like there is so much to be said that could have, but really, I guess it’s like you say, there are better ways of saying things than words. That’s what is lacking because we can use all the ‘words’ we want now — and nothing else! But I do remember, too, surely you expected me to. And it makes me very happy, but I can’t keep from thinking–then what!”

In one of her letters Joyce talked about marriage: “You ask if I would have accepted to marry you–yes, I would and it seems, Richard, that our dreams are very similar.” Joyce signed most of her letters “All My Love.”

Was Joyce in love with Richard? She described her loneliness to him in many of her letters. She may have sought the attention she felt Robert didn’t give her. No matter how sophisticated the situation seemed, it is important to remember that each of the principal players was only 19-years-old. The extreme emotional highs and lows of teenagers are well documented.

Joyce’s denial of loving Richard stung. A Los Angeles Times reporter observed the defendant lower his head when he heard the love of his life testify that once she and Robert arrived home from Alaska, her feelings for Richard changed. “He hung around too much, and he was very moody. I was a little tired of him,” she said.

During the middle of the trial, a note from Joyce to Richard written prior to the 1952 Alaska trip surfaced, and it shed some light on the relationship. Joyce and Robert were married for only a year when Richard confessed his love for Joyce in a letter. Joyce confessed she loved both Robert and Richard, but she felt she was better suited to Robert. She said, “Richard, you and I–I feel are really genuine friends and I feel will always be, even now, but it’s horrible to ruin a beautiful friendship.” She encouraged him to find someone who would make him happy.

What would the jury of eight women and four men make of the case? Was Richard’s testimony that he and Joyce were intimate credible? And what about the suggestion that Joyce, and not Richard, tried to poison Robert?

The jury failed to reach a verdict after the first four hours of deliberation. They returned to the jury room and at last decided Richard’s fate.

They acquitted Richard of attempted murder, but found him guilty of mingling poison with beverages with intent to harm Robert.

When she heard the news, Joyce said, “We are going to try to forget we ever knew Richard.”

EPILOGUE: I always try to find out what happened to the people involved in a criminal case–and this one is no exception. Joyce and Robert’s teenage marriage survived for nearly twenty years before they divorced in 1970. Joyce may have remarried, but I don’t know if Robert did.

Richard LaForce earned a Ph.D. He moved to Modesto in 1986, and died there in 1992 at 58. His obituary names his children, and a brother. No spouse is mentioned, so he was probably divorced or widowed.