I Want To Live!

Posted on February 27, 2013 by Deranged

I’m currently working on a series of posts about the murder of Mabel Monohan in Burbank in 1953. Ultimately three people: Emmett Perkins, Jack Santo, and Barbara Graham would be tried, convicted, and sentenced to death for slaying the 64 year old widow.

The film, I Want to Live! (1958), was adapted from letters written by Barbara Graham and newspaper articles written by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Ed Montgomery.

The film tells the story of the life and execution of Barbara Graham (Susan Hayward) a prostitute and convicted perjurer. Graham is the product of a broken home, and works luring men into fixed card games.

At one point, she attempts to go straight but marries the “wrong man,” and has a child. He is a drug addict and she ends their relationship.

When her life falls apart, she returns to her former professions and becomes involved with a man who had murdered a woman. The police arrest them, and her, and her companions accuse her of the murder to reduce their own chances of going to the gas chamber. She claims her innocence, but is convicted and executed.

A prologue and epilogue contributed to the film by Montgomery characterize the film’s content — which largely portrays Graham as innocent of the murder — as factual. But there was substantial evidence of Graham’s complicity in the crime.

Hollywood writer Robert Osborne, who later became the host of Turner Classic Movies, interviewed Susan Hayward and asked whether or not she believed Barbara Graham had been innocent. According to Osborne, the actress seemed hesitant to answer at first, but ultimately admitted that her research on the evidence and letters in the case led her to believe that the woman she played in the movie was probably guilty.

The film is a powerful indictment of the death penalty, but is only partly factual, not entirely as Montgomery’s statements would lead you to believe.

While I’m busy writing the story of Mabel Monohan’s murder I encourage you to see the film, I Want to Live!, it is worth viewing — but it is absolutely not a documentary.

NOTE: I took most of the description of the film from Wikipedia.

Constance Renner Was A Bad Girl

Posted on February 25, 2013 by Deranged

Mrs. Constance Renner shared a cell with Louise Peete, and when she attempted suicide it was Peete who alerted a jail matron and saved her life.

I wonder if Louise cheered Constance on when, a few months later, the woman and a companion escaped from Tehachapi. Below is an article from the L.A. Times about the escape. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find any further mention of Renner in the paper.

My last name is Renner, and Constance sounds like she could easily have been one of the wacko fruits on my family tree. I may have to search…

Dead Woman Walking: Louise Peete, Finale

Posted on February 24, 2013 by Deranged

Los Angeles Times Photographic Archive, UCLA.

Louise Peete’s trial began on April 23, 1945.

Louise had never denied burying Mrs. Margaret Logan’s body in a shallow grave at the deceased woman’s Pacific Palisades home, but she told several colorful stories about how Logan ended up dead in the first place.

As in her first murder trial for the slaying of Jacob Denton over twenty years earlier, Peete claimed to be broke and was assigned a public defender, Ellery Cuff. Cuff had an uphill battle, the evidence against Peete was compelling.

For the most part Louise sat quietly as the prosecution drew deadly parallels between the 1920 murder of Jacob Denton and the 1944 murder of Margaret Logan; however, she disrupted the trial during testimony by police chemist Ray Pinker. From the witness stand Pinker testified to a conversation between Louise and LAPD homicide captain Thad Brown. (In 1947 Thad Brown’s brother, Finis, would be one of the lead detectives in the Black Dahlia case.)

Pinker said that prior to the discovery of Mrs. Logan’s body in a shallow grave in the backyard of her home, Brown had faced Peete and said: “Louise, have you blow your top again and done what you did before?” To which she replied: “Well, my friends told me that I would blow my top again. I want to talk to Gene Biscailuz (L.A. County Sheriff).” Louise spun around in her chair at the defense table and shouted “That is not all of the conversation.” Her attorney quieted her.

Pinker testified to how he had found the mound covering Mrs. Logan’s body. He said that he had observed a slight rise in the ground which was framed by flower pots. The cops didn’t have to dig very deep before uncovering Margaret Logan’s remains. When Louise was asked to face the grave she turned away and hid her face with her handbag.

All of Pinker’s testimony was extremely damaging to Peete’s case. In particular he said he tested a gun found Mrs. Peete’s berdroom, and when he tested the bullets they were consistent with the .32 caliber round found lodged beneath the plaster in the living room of the Logan home.

The prosecution’s case was going to be difficult to refute. It must have been a tough call for the defense when they decided to allow Louise to take the stand. Louise could be volatile and unpredictable.

Louise testified that Mrs. Logan had phoned her to ask if she’d keep house for her while she was working at Douglas Aircraft Company. Louise went on to say that when she arrived at the Logan home she found Margaret badly bruised, allegedly the result of Mr. Logan kicking her in the face.

Mr. Logan would be unable to refute any of Louise’s allegations because he had died, just days before, in the psychiatric hospital where he was undergoing treatment. Logan had been committed to the hospital by Louise, masquerading as his sister!

Logan’s death was a boon for Louise and she took full advantage of it by blaming him for his wife’s death. Louise was asked to recreate her story which had Arthur Logan shooting and battering his wife, but she appeared to be squeamish. When she was shown the murder gun and asked by the judge to pick it up to demonstrate how Arthur Logan had used it to kill his wife, Louise said: “I will not take that gun up in my hand.”

Louise’s attorney tried valiantly to contradict the evidence against his client. Would the jury believe him and acquit her?

In his summation District Attorney Fred N. Howser addressed the jury:

“Mrs. Peete has violated the laws of man and the laws of God. She killed a woman because she coveted her property. Any verdict short of first degree murder would be an affront to the Legislature. If this crime doesn’t justify the death penalty, then acquit her.”

The jury of 11 women and 1 man found Louise Peete guilty of the first degree murder of Margaret Logan. With that verdict came a death sentence.

Judge Harold B. Landreth pronounced the sentence:

“It is the judgement and sentence of this court for the crime of murder in the first degree of which you, the said Louise Peete, have been convicted by the verdict of the jury, carrying with it the extreme penalty of the law, that you, the said Louise Peete, be delivered by the Sheriff to the superintendent of the California Instution for Women at Tehachapi. There you will be held pending the decision of this case on appeal, whereupon said Louise Peete be delivered to the warden of the State Prison at San Quentin to be by him executed and put to death by the administration of lethal gas in the manner provided by the laws of the State of California.”

It was reported that Louise took her sentence “like a trouper”.

On June 7, 1945, Louise Peete began her journey from the L.A. County Jail to the women’s prison at Tehachapi to wait out the appeals process.

Louise lost the appeals which may have commuted her death penalty sentence to life in prison. On April 9, 1947 an eleventh hour bid to save her life was made to the U.S. Supreme Court. The court denied the appeal.

Louise would die.

A crush of reporters spent time with Louise on her last night; among them was, of course, Aggie Underwood.

Aggie had interviewed Louise numerous times over the years, and she managed to get at least two exclusives. In her autobiography, NEWSPAPERWOMAN, Aggie devoted a few pages to her interactions with Louise, which I’ll share:

“With other L.A. reporters, I interviewed her there for the last time before she was taken to San Quentin to be executed April 11, 1947.”

“Like other reporters, I suppose I was striving for the one-in-a-million chance: that she would slip, or confess either or both murders, Denton’s in 1920 and Mrs. Logan’s on or about May 29, 1944.’

Louise would not slip; but Aggie gave it her best try. Interestingly, Aggie said that she never addressed Louise as anything but Mrs. Peete. Why? Here is her reasoning:

“I called her Mrs. Peete. A direct attack would not have worked with her; it would have been stupid to try it. She knew the homicide mill and its cogs. She had bucked the best reporters, detectives, and prosecutors as far back as 1920, when, as a comely matron believed to be in her thirties, she had been tagged the ‘enigma woman’ by the Herald.”

“So I observed what she regarded as her dignity. Though I was poised always for an opening, I didn’t swing the conversations to anything so nasty as homicide.”

And in a move that would have occurred only to a woman, Aggie spent one of her days off finding a special eyebrow pencil for Louise:

“…with which she browned her hair, strand by strand. I didn’t go back to jail and hand it to her in person. Discreetly I sent it by messenger, avoiding the inelegance of participating in a utilitarian device to thwart nature which had done her a dirty trick in graying her. Royalty doesn’t carry money in its pockets.”

About Louise, Aggie said: “She wasn’t an artless little gun moll.” No, she wasn’t.

Lofie Louise Preslar Peete was executed in the gas chamber on April 11, 1947– it took about 10 minutes for her to die. She was the second woman to die in California’s gas chamber; two others would follow her.

Peete is interred in the Angelus-Rosedale Cemetery in Los Angeles.

NOTE: On March 9, 1950 the DRAGNET radio program aired an episode called THE BIG THANK YOU which was based on Louise Peete’s cases. Enjoy!

http://youtu.be/5ddEOaa4w50

NEXT TIME: Dead Woman Walking continues with the story of the third woman to perish in California’s lethal gas chamber, Barbara Graham.

Dead Woman Walking: Louise Peete, Part 4

Posted on February 23, 2013 by Deranged

Louise Peete spent approximately 18 years in prison before her release in 1939. Did she kick up her heels in joy when walked out of Tehachapi? Not at all She was angry and bitter and let the world know it by handing out a written statement to the reporters who had come out to Tehachapi to cover her release. Her statement read:

“Twenty-one years ago I pleaded not guilty to murder. I still plead not guilty. After having served 18 1/2 years in bondage for a crime I did not commit, I would appreciate the opportunity to reestablish myself without further publicity. I appreciate the parole and shall not violate the faith placed in me.”

Among Louise’s boosters were Miss Monohan, superintendent of Tehachapi Women’s Prison, and Mrs. Emily Latham, Louise’s probation officer. Neither of them doubted Louise’s sincerity. As could have been expected, Louise had put on a very convincing act in a performance that lasted for eighteen years!

Not everyone was a member of the Louise Peete cheering section. In fact the Los Angeles Times printed an opinion on the case:

Louise left prison behind her and faded into obscurity; that is until December 1944 when she was once again in the headlines for another murder!

The body of a woman, believed to be Mrs. Margaret Logan, 60, of 713 Hampden Place, Pacific Palisades, was found in a shallow backyard grave. Logan had employed Louise as a nurse/companion

It was “deja vu all over again”.

Louise assumed her familiar role as the outraged innocent, but there was a mountain of evidence against her. Ray Pinker, head of the police crime lab, examined the physical evidence. In this case the most damning piece of evidence was a nickel-plated .32 caliber revolver, rusty and covered with congealed blood. The weapon was found in a dresser drawer in the the dead woman’s home. The revolver was engraved with the initials E.B.L. and had once belonged to Emily B. Latham — Louise’s parole officer! Latham had employed Louise as a nurse and companion. Unfortunately, Latham wasn’t available to be questioned — she was dead. The cops were understandably concerned. Louise’s employers had a way of expiring under suspicious circumstances. However, it was later determined that Latham had died of natural causes.

Further examination and tests concluded that Margaret Logan’s death had been caused by a gunshot and a brutal beating. Evidently while she was incapacitated Margaret had been hammered to death with the butt of a gun.

Could 63 year old Louise have been capable of the crime and the cover-up on her own? She certainly could have shot and bludgeoned Logan by herself, but dragging the corpse out to the backyard and digging even a shallow grave may have been physically taxing. It’s possible that Louise may have had an assistant.

Just a few months before Logan’s murder Louise had married again. She had been living and working under the name of Lou Anne Lee, and because her husband was from out of state he knew nothing of her notorious past.

Louise’s husband was Lee Borden Judson, and unfortunately for her he was a man with a conscience. Judson found himself charged with “possessing guilty knowledge as a principal” in Logan’s slaying and the Coroner’s Jury recommended that both he and Louise be held for trial. Louise took the 5th at the Coroner’s Inquest, and then desperately attempted to mitigate Judson’s statements which were incriminating to say the least.

Judson described how, on the day of the murder, Louise had left their Glendale home to visit the Logans. She told him that she might be late getting home. About 9:45 that night Louise phoned to say she was going to stay overnight with the Logans. Judson wasn’t happy about the arrangement because Louise had told him that Mr. Logan was mentally unbalanced and sometimes became violent.

According to Judson, the next day when he arrived at the Logan’s he was met outside by Louise. She was dressed in an old pair of slacks and appeared distraught, as if she’d been crying. When he asked her what was wrong Louise spun one of her more imaginative tales; and that’s saying something. Judson stated that Louise had told him that: “Mr. Logan had jumped on Mrs. Logan and had bit her on the neck and cheek…and that Mr. Logan had bitten off the end of Mrs. Logan’s nose.” Judson then asked Louise if she had saved the part of the nose that was bitten off, but she told him that she hadn’t.

Judson testified that he entered the Logan’s residence to find a very large spot of blood on the living room rug, and he found Mr. Logan pacing around the house like Lady MacBeth saying: “I’ve got some blood on my hands–where did I get it?”

Louise took charge of the situation and tried to calm Mr. Logan by telling him that his wife was fine, that she was “away on some real estate deal”.

On the day following the discovery of the blood on the carpet, Judson said that he and Louise took Logan to the psychopathic parole office of the County Lunacy Commission and had the man committed.

What Judson didn’t know was that Louise had masqueraded as Logan’s sister in order to have him committed. Louise was undoubtedly relieved when, during her trial, Mr. Logan died in the psychiatric hospital.

Judson probably had no idea that the blood spot on the carpet had anything to do with a murder. Louise told him, and anyone else who asked, that Mrs. Logan was in a sanitarium undergoing plastic surgery to repair the facial injuries she’d suffered in the asserted insane attack by Mr. Logan!

The story was a variation of the the tale Louise had told about Jacob Denton two decades earlier. You’ll recall she told people that he was away being fitted for, and learning to use, prosthetic limbs as the result of an attack he’d suffered at the hands of a sword wielding Spanish speaking woman.

Judson was becoming a major liability for Louise. He testified that he’d seen her sign a check for $2500 on Mrs. Logan’s behalf. The reason Louise gave Judson for signing the check was that Mrs. Logan’s right arm was paralyzed! Even though, as her husband, he wasn’t able to testify against her, everything he said in his own defense brought her closer to the gas chamber.

In a bizarre side note, while Louise was cooling her heels in the County Jail her cellmate Mrs. Constance Renner (no relation to me that I’m aware of) attempted suicide by taking an overdose of sedatives she’d been given to calm her nerves. Louise heard Renner’s labored breathing and struck a match to see what was going on. She saw foam on Renner’s lips and alerted the matron, thus saving the woman’s life. The cell was later searched because five of the sedative tablets were unaccounted for. You’ll never guess where they were found — Louise had stashed them in her hair! She said she hidden them so that she could give them to the jail chief later, but it’s obvious that she was keeping them just in case she needed an exit strategy.

Things were going from bad to worse for Louise. The State of California contended that her marriage to Judson wasn’t legal.; then they dropped the charges against him and cut him loose. Judson was greeted by his son and daughter following his release and he should have been on his way to happier times but instead, less than twenty-four hours after he was freed, Lee Judson went over to the Broadway-Spring Arcade Building and hurled himself down a stairwell to his death. Whether Judson’s guilty knowledge of Louise’s actions included him actually assisting her in the burial of Margaret Logan’s remains we’ll never know. He was a decent man and it likely that the shame of sharing a life, if only for a few months, with a killer was too much for him to bear.

Louise took the news with a great deal of weeping and drama, but declined to attend Judson’s funeral saying “I prefer to remember him as he was”.

Louise was once again facing a murder charge on her own.

NEXT TIME: Louise meets her fate.

A Cinematic Interlude: D.O.A.

Posted on February 21, 2013 by Deranged

I promise that I haven’t forgotten about Louise Peete. And while I hate to leave you hanging for the final installment, I must. I’m taping two back-to-back episodes of DEADLY AFFAIRS, which appears on the I.D. Discovery channel, and I’ve been busy studying the cases I’ve been given. I plan to be back on track to wrap-up Louise’s tale tomorrow evening or Saturday morning.

Meanwhile, I’ll step into the lobby while you watch the 1950 classic D.O.A., starring Edmond O’Brien and Pamela Britton.

Save me some popcorn.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6npu9k6sJEE&feature=share&list=PLL1v8UWwuxBA5Ed4mPx7YgrZp2mPkcezs

Dead Woman Walking: Louise Peete, Part 3

Posted on February 17, 2013 by Deranged

When I wrote part two of Louise Peete’s story I thought for sure I’d be able to wrap it up in part three — I was wrong. Louise’s criminal career demands at least one more post after this one! So, let’s get started with part three of her tale.

Louise Peete was sent to San Quentin in 1921 to begin serving a life sentence for the murder of Jacob C. Denton. According to prison authorities Louise was a model prisoner, and model prisoners don’t make news.

However, in August 1924 Peete made news in spite of herself when her ex-husband, Richard, committed suicide. Apparently Richard had preferred death to poverty and illness. He traveled to Tucson, Arizona where he purchased a small bore rifle, he then put a bullet in his brain. He died instantly. Louise had no comment.

In July 1926 Louise made news again when she came forward with yet another version of Jacob Denton’s murder. Louise had outdone herself, the new version was a doozy! Louise claimed that William Desmond Taylor was killed by Denton’s slayers!

Louise obviously had one hell of an imagination.

Deputy D.A. Davis, head of the homicide bureau, said:

“It is ridiculous and just another product of an imagination working overtime in an effort to escape just punishment. There never has been a shred of evidence connecting the two crimes.”

William Desmond Taylor

Municipal Judge Turney, who had been a Deputy D.A. and part of the team that prosecuted Peete, weighed in:

“William Desmond Taylor was never mentioned in the case. So far as we knew he never knew Jacob Denton, and Mrs. Peete never mentioned him in any of the twenty or more conflicting statements and inconsistent stories she has issued. She was convicted on overwhelming evidence.”

Louise had never let reason or truth stand in her way before, and she wasn’t about to start. When asked why she had kept the names of the real murderers concealed, she said it was because emissaries of the killers had threatened the kidnapping or murder of her little daughter Betty.

She went on to say:

“William Desmond Taylor knew Jacob Denton intimately. He was a frequent visitor at the Denton home. After Denton was murdered and I was sent to prison for life, Taylor knew I was taking the medicine for others. Why? Because they would kill Betty if I talked. Taylor knew the truth, too. He stood it as long as he could. Then, when he could no longer bear the burden of seeing me in prison for a crime that I did not commit, he threatened to tell everything. He paid for that threat with his life.”

Proof of the maxim that there is “a sucker born every minute” was made manifest when a number of club women and other sympathizers, convinced of Louise’s innocence, began a campaign to have her released from prison!

Louise’s attempts to win parole were unsuccessful until 1939 when she was granted her freedom. There was a problem though — Louise needed a job and, not surprisingly, there weren’t any offers forthcoming.

The soon-to-be ex-con wanted to work as a housekeeper but given the fate of her last employer, Jacob Denton, no one was willing to give her a chance. Really though, can you blame them?

Finally a good Samaritan named Margaret Logan offered Louise employment as a housekeeper and companion. Of course upon her release Louise couldn’t resist talking to the press. She said:

“I still insist I am innocent. I don’t believe it was Jake Denton’s body at all that was found buried in the cellar of his home. If it was his, I don’t know how it got there or who was responsible. I believe some day Denton will let the world know he is still alive.”

Louise kept a low profile from her release in 1939 until December 1944 when the body of her benefactor, Margaret Logan, was discovered buried in the back yard of her Pacific Palisades home.

Had the sword wielding Spanish looking woman reappeared? Perhaps the slayers of William Desmond Taylor were trying to mess with Louise by tangling her up in another murder. Or maybe, just maybe, harmless looking Louise Peete was a multiple murderer and a sociopath.

NEXT TIME: Louise’s second murder trial in twenty-five years.

Dead Woman Walking: Louise Peete, Part 2

Posted on February 16, 2013 by Deranged

Once Jacob Denton’s body had been unearthed from its “basement sepulcher” the search for material witness, Louise Peete, was on.

Mrs. Peete was finally located in Colorado where she was living with her husband, Richard, and their four year old daughter, Betty. Accompanied by her family, Louise Peete returned to Los Angeles as a voluntary witness. Louise was taken to the house at 675 South Catalina Street to view Jacob Denton’s make-shift crypt. Louise offered nothing except her tale of the Spanish-looking woman with whom Denton had allegedly argued.

The District Attorney didn’t believe a word of Louise’s story, and she was hard pressed to explain the silver and furs belonging to Denton that had been discovered in her possession. She also found it difficult to explain why she had purchased two expensive gowns, under the name of Mrs. J.C. Denton, prior to her departure from Los Angeles. And when she was grilled about broken furniture and wild parties at the house she had to be warned by both her attorney and her husband not to “overtalk”. Louise seemed certain of her ability to talk her way out of any situation. Arrogance and garrulousness have tripped up many sociopaths.

Grudgingly I have to hand it to Louise; she was nothing if not ballsy. She told reporters that she was being crucified:

“I am being crucified upon a cross. But I can say, as did Christ, ‘Father, forgive them for they know not what they do’.”

Of course the law knew exactly what it was doing and Louise was indicted for Denton’s murder. The cause of Denton’s death had been determined to have been a bullet to the head. The gun responsible for the fatal wound was found in the closet where Louise’s dresses and other personal belongings were kept.

Trying to sort out the various absurd stories told by Louise in her defense is nearly as frustrating as trying to untangle the story of her life. Louise was an adept and inventive liar.

Louise told the authorities that she and her husband were without the resources to hire an attorney to defend her; she said:

“I have no intention of changing counsel. The Public Defender is entirely satisfactory to me. Mr. Peete and I are entirely without means to employ counsel. Any rumor relative to a large amount, or any amount, of money being or having been raised for my defense is entirely without foundation and unknown to me. I am innocent. I did not kill Jacob C. Denton.”

Thousands of people thronged the streets and sidewalks during Peete’s trial just to catch a glimpse of her.

On February 8, 1921 Mrs. Louise Peete was sentenced to life in prison for the murder of Jacob C. Denton and she was sentenced to life in prison.

Richard Peete had served Louise with divorce papers before she was named as a suspect in Denton’s murder, but he stood by her during the trial. Once Louise was sentenced to life the divorce went forward, and Richard was granted custody of their young daughter Betty.

Louise filed motions for a new trial to no avail. She would spend 18 years in prison. Was she rehabilitated during that time? Hell no. Louise would kill again.

NEXT TIME: Louise Peete finally gets her comeuppance.

Dead Woman Walking: Louise Peete, Part 1

Posted on February 13, 2013 by Deranged

I’ve spent a few frustrating hours trying to untangle the maze of Lofie Louise Peete’s (nee Preslar) life before 1920, and I don’t think it can be done. There is almost no consensus among the sources, except that everyone seems to agree that she was born in Bienville, Louisiana on September 20, 1880, and that she was a killer

I don’t know what caused Louise to become a multiple murderer, but I’m prepared to call her a bad seed and move on to discussing the first murder she committed for which she was actually tried and convicted.

By the time she was in her late 30s, Louise Peete had left a trail of shattered lives in her wake from Boston, Massachusetts to Waco, Texas. She was the reason that two men had committed suicide; and she’d killed a man during an attempted rape — at least that was her story. The truth remains elusive but probably goes something like this: Louise was dating a rich oilman in Waco, Texas. He owned diamond belt buckles and big diamond rings, and Louise loved diamonds. The diamond studded oilman ended up shot to death. Louise claimed that it was self-defense, and the oilman was in no position to argue. Louise was tried for the killing, but when the jury heard her tearful account of her valiant fight to the death for her honor, they acquitted her. And then they cheered! What about the diamond belt buckles and the rings? Everyone seemed to have forgotten about them.

Following the kerfuffle in Waco Louise needed a fresh start and an infusion of cash, and there was no better place to find both than in Los Angeles in 1920.

Louise and her daughter Betty were looking for a place to live when, while checking out rental properties, she met middle-aged mining executive Jacob Denton. He was the answer to her housing dilemma, and possibly to her cash flow problems as well. Denton was a recent widower, having lost both his wife and child in the recent influenza epidemic. Louise quickly sized him up as a man who would be susceptible to her Southern charm. She wooed him non-stop for several weeks but he refused to marry her (and he didn’t even know that she was already married). Denton wasn’t a pushover after all. Louise concealed her annoyance and immediately ordered Denton’s caretaker to dump a ton of earth into the basement of the home because, she said, she planned to raise mushrooms.

Jacob Denton disappeared on May 30, 1920. Louise had concocted an utterly outrageous story for the people who came by to call. She said that Jacob had had a violent argument with a “Spanish-looking woman” who chopped off his arm with a sword! What? Who in the world would buy a story like that? Apparently everyone. If pressed, Louise would say that Denton had survived the horrific amputation but he was so embarrassed by his missing limb that he’d gone into hiding. If pressed further, Louise said that not only had Denton lost an arm, he’d also lost a leg! But she allayed everyone’s concerns by telling them that he’d come out of hiding once he had learned to use his artificial limbs.

Jacob’s absence didn’t put a damper on Louise’s social life. Calling herself Mrs. Denton she threw lavish parties in the man’s home, all on his dime.

Denton had been missing for a few months before his attorney became suspicious. It had taken him long enough. He phoned the cops and asked them to search the house. After digging for about an hour in the basement the cops found the body of Jacob Denton. All four limbs were intact, but he had a bullet in his head.

Naturally the law had a few questions for Louise, but she was nowhere to be found. Had the sword wielding Spanish-looking woman returned? Probably not.

The search for Louise Peete was on.

NEXT TIME: Louise faces a murder charge.

Dead Woman Walking: The Duchess

Posted on February 12, 2013 by Deranged

Ninety years following the undeserved hanging of a young Mexican woman named Juanita for the stabbing death of the Americano who was trying to rape her, another woman named Juanita was sentenced to die. They may have shared a name, but the two Juanitas were polar opposites.

Spinelli, known as The Duchess, was the 50-something mother of three, and the leader of a robber gang in Northern California. Her nickname was bestowed upon her by her gang who thought she had a regal air; but to anyone else who had ever met her the nickname had to have seemed ironic because there was nothing royal about Spinelli — neither in her appearance, nor in her actions.

By 1940, Juanita had three children: Lorraine (21), Joseph (17) and Vincent (9). Sure, she had kids, but Spinelli wasn’t anyone’s idea of a warm or loving mother. She had been described as a “scheming, cold, cruel woman” who was the head of an underworld gang, an ex-wrestler and a knife-thrower who could pin a poker chip at 15 paces!

Over the years, Juanita had dragged her kids from the oil fields of Texas, where she’d worked as a waitress and washerwoman, to Salt Lake City where they joined a carnival. Juanita ran a gambling wheel and Lorraine was a snake girl in the sideshow.

After they quit the sideshow, Juanita and the kids hitchhiked north and landed in Kilgore, Idaho. Her son Joseph vaguely recollected that while they were in Kilgore his mother met and married a man named Robinson.The family spent a couple of years in Idaho as sheepherders, then the Duchess moved them all (sans Robinson) to Texas. The kids were an inconvenience, so Juanita placed them in a Catholic children’s home and took off for Mexico. When she finally returned Joseph and Lorraine discovered that they had a new half-brother, Vincent.

The Spinelli’s drifted from Texas to Detroit, Michigan. Lorraine had finally had enough and she ran away to California, but the whole family hitchhiked after her! It wasn’t a mother’s love that compelled Juanita to chase after her daughter, the girl was an earner. When Lorraine wasn’t working in a sideshow Juanita was using her to lure new members into the gang. She may, or may not, have stopped short of actually pimping out Lorraine, but in any event it’s no wonder that the girl had taken off.

At some point during her wanderings the Duchess had picked up a common-law Duke, Michael Simeone, who was about 20 years her junior.

In early April 1940, the unholy clan had committed the robbery of a barbecue stand in San Francisco during which the proprietor was shot and killed. What do you do after you’ve committed a robbery and murder? Well, if you’re the Spinelli gang you go on a picnic to discuss plans for more crimes.

On April 14, 1940, while the gang was picnicking on the banks of the Sacramento River, the Duchess decided that one member of the mob, nineteen year old Robert Sherrad, had a big mouth and that he’d been “talking too much” about the fatal robbery to his barroom companions. Fearing that Sherrad would bring heat down on the gang, Juanita ordered her minions to bump off the potential squealer.

Spinelli slipped chloral hydrate into Sherrad’s whiskey and once he was unconscious the kid was driven to the Freeport Bridge in Sacramento and dumped into the river to drown.

The killers had left Sherrad’s clothes neatly folded on the bank of the river so that it would appear that the young man had committed suicide. The cops weren’t fooled and it didn’t take them long to bust the Duchess and her wretched brood.

Juanita Spinella enters San Quentin [Corbis photo]

Juanita Spinelli, Michael Siomeone and Gordon Hawkins were tried and sentenced to death for Sherrad’s murder. Another gang member, Albert Ives, was found “innocent by reason of insanity” and sentenced to an asylum.

Spinelli was reprieved a couple of times but, try as he might, Governor Olson couldn’t find a reason to commute her sentence. Eithel Leta Juanita Spinelli was simply too evil to be allowed to live.

Only Spinelli and Simeone would be put to death; and Juanita has the dubious distinction of being the first woman to be executed in California’s lethal gas chamber.

Even San Quentin Warden Clinton Duffy (who was not a death penalty supporter) said of Spinelli: “She was the coldest, hardest character, male or female, that I had ever known, and was utterly lacking in feminine appeal. The Duchess was a hag, as evil as a witch. Horrible to look at, impossible to like, but she was still a woman, and I dreaded the thought of ordering her execution.”

NEXT TIME: Dead Woman Walking continues.

Dead Woman Walking

Posted on February 11, 2013 by Deranged

There have been five executions of women in California since 1851 and, in my opinion, only in this next case was the punishment undeserved.

The first woman to suffer the ultimate penalty was named Juanita — her surname is lost to history.

Gold miners could be a rough and tumble lot, but most of them were decent men chasing a dream. Sadly, Juanita encountered one who meant to do her harm. Juanita was living on her own in a cabin in the small town of Downieville in the Mother Lode country. On the night of July 4,1851, Juanita was awakened by the sound of someone breaking into her home. She only had a few moments in which to decide what to do — so she grabbed a knife and held her breath. The intruder was a man, an Americano, and he intended to rape Juanita. As soon the man had come close enough for Juanita to feel his breath on her, and his hands reach for her, she plunged the knife as far as it would go into his chest. He died on the spot.

Justice was as swift as it was unfair. Juanita was a Mexican and it was illegal for her to raise her hand against an Americano, no matter what the circumstances.

A hastily assembled group of citizens made up the jury and they found Juanita guilty as charged. She was escorted by the jurors, a group of miners and a crowd of curious loafers to a bridge on the outskirts of town. It was determined that the murderess should be hanged from one of the top girders.

One of the crowd assumed the duties of hangman and placed a noose around the doomed woman’s neck. The girl stood on a cross beam at least six feet above the floor of the bridge. She had preserved her honor at the cost of her life. She stared defiantly at her judge and jury. A man stood next to her ready to shove her off the beam.

With unimaginable dignity Juanita turned to her executioner — then she faced the audience. She was smiling.

“Adios, senores” she said, and hurled herself into eternity.

NEXT TIME: Another dead woman walking.

Deranged LA Crimes ®

True 20th Century tales of murder, mayhem, political corruption, and celebrity scandal

Monthly Archives: February 2013