Tag Archives: 1953

Dead Woman Walking: Barbara Graham, Part 3

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shorter_davis_picOn March 26, 1953, five men were arrested and held for questioning in the slaying of Mabel Monohan. The men were: Solly Davis (a one-time Mickey Cohen lieutenant); William Upshaw and John Wilds (both Mickey Cohen associates); Joe Allen; and Baxter Shorter.

All five men were career crminals — Upshaw had been frequently arrested on gambling charges, Davis had been incarcerated in two Federal pens, Leavenworth and Atlanta, and in the New York State Prison, Sing Sing. Baxter Shorter had a record that dated back to 1927.

The men were acquainted with Mabel Monohan through her former son-in-law, Las Vegas gambler Tutor Scherer. It was the lure of $100k of Scherer’s cash, allegedly hidden in a safe in Monohan’s home, that had brought a gang to her doorstep resulting in her brutal murder.

The cops had to kick the bad guys loose, they didn’t have enough to hold them; but the arrest was enough to convince Baxter Shorter that his best chance for staying clear of the gas chamber at San Quentin was to turn State’s evidence before any of the other members of the gang were busted and could beat him to it. There’s usually only one get out of jail free card available in a capital case, and Baxter grabbed it.

Baxter told the cops he’d gone along on the Monohan job as a look-out. Of course that was a lie, he was there to crack the safe supposedly hidden in the house. Shorter further stated that he’d seen Perkins slug Mrs. Monohan on the head with the butt of a gun. He also said that he’d been horrified to witness the murder. That may have been the truest statement he made. He was undoubtedly terrified to have become involved in a death penalty case.

Shorter probably would have walked on the Monohan murder, and lived to commit other crimes, if details of his statement hadn’t been leaked by someone close to the investigation. Once his duplicity became public Baxter Shorter’s days were numbered.

Only a few weeks after the Monohan slaying Baxter Shorter was kidnapped at gun point from his Bunker Hill apartment at 121 North Flower Street. Shorter’s wife, Olivia, identified the two kidnappers as Emmett Perkins and Jack Santos.

The building from where Baxter Shorter was kidnapped.

The building from where Baxter Shorter was kidnapped.

Shorter’s kidnapping left the Burbank cops with a huge problem. He was an eyewitness to the Monohan murder and had been willing to testify in court to save his own sorry ass. If he had really been kidnapped the chances of him being found alive were slim to none.

The car believed to have been used in the kidnapping was found abandoned near an apartment at 5124 Imperial Blvd; and that’s where Emmett Perkins, Jack Santo, and Barbara Graham were busted.

The sedan was owned by one of Jack Santos’ girlfriends, Brenda Pearney of Grass Valley, California. It had recently been repainted and the mat in the rear trunk compartment was missing. Police Chemist Ray Pinker turned up some small pieces of wood and a little yellow flower in the car that he took to the Los Angeles County Museum for identification.

yellow flowerThe wood was ribbon wood, found only in Southern California and usually in the San Jacinto Mountains at an elevation of between 2500 and 3000 feet. The flower had no common name, but was identified as metzelia affnis and it too could be found at elevations of between 2500 and 3000 feet.

If Baxter Shorter’s remains were buried off a lonely mountain road at an elevation of 3000 feet then he was likely as close to heaven as he would ever get.

Emmett Perkins was arraigned on charges of kidnapping and assault with a deadly weapon in Shorter’s kidnapping. Barbara Graham was charged with seven counts of forgery. She’d gone on a shopping spree in March and April and had passed $266 worth of rubber checks. Santo was released on the kidnapping beef and walked out of court into the waiting arms of Burbank cops who cuffed him and took him in for questioning on the Monohan slaying. They had to release him for lack of evidence, but he wasn’t free for long. He was soon rearrested and charged with forging a fictitious telegram to Baxter Shorter’s mother. The telegram read:

“Sorry to have been away. See Olive (Olivia) and tell her not to make the mistake ’cause I have to return one of these days. All my love. Baxter”

Circumstantial evidence was beginning to mount.

To add to the drama a new witness in the Monohan case came forward. The witness was an ex-con named William Upshaw. He’d voluntarily surrendered to police when he heard that he was wanted in connection with Shorter’s kidnapping.

Upshaw  was cleared of any involvement in the Shorter kidnapping, and he was the first witness called to testify before the grand jury in the slaying of Mabel Monohan. Cops were understandably edgy because of Shorter’s abrupt disappearance, and they weren’t about to lose another witness. Upshaw was heavily guarded around the clock. He testified that he’d been with the gang: Graham, Perkins, Santo,True and Shorter when they’d cased the Monohan home on the night before the crime. He knew all about the plan and had opted out. He decided that he wanted nothing to do with robbing Las Vegas bigwig Tutor Scherer. He remembered what had happened to Tony Trombino and Tony Brancato back in 1951.

The Two Tonys

The Two Tonys

Trombino and Brancato, known as the Two Tonys, were murdered in a car after cheating Las Vegas gambler Sam Lazes out of $3000 by posing as collectors for a local syndicate gambler. Upsahw had no desire to mess with Vegas and end up like the Two Tonys.indictments headline

On June 3, 1953 Perkins, Santo, True and Graham were indicted by the county grand jury on charges of conspiracy to commit burglary, robbery and murder in the death of Mrs. Mabel Monohan.

The cops and the D.A. lucked out when John True decided to turn State’s Evidence in exchange for his freedom. Apparently the indictment in a capital murder case scared John True straight — or as straight as he could be. Taking no chances with this witness, cops guarded John day and night against possible retaliation.

NEXT TIME: The trial and aftermath.

 

Dead Woman Walking: Barbara Graham, Part 2

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Purple Pony MurdersMabel Monohan had been spending a quiet evening reading a mystery novel, The Purple Pony Murders, when she was interrupted by a knock at her front door. Monohan was security conscious, but the young woman on her doorstep looked harmless enough and she said she needed help. Mabel overcame her fears and opened the door. Barbara followed Mabel into the house — and after her came John True, Jack Santo, and Emmett Perkins.

After a cursory search of the house, Jack Santo went out to get their safe cracker, Baxter Shorter to tell him that they couldn’t find a safe. When Shorter got into the house he saw Mabel on the floor of a hallway, she was bleeding profusely and moaning through a gag over her mouth. According to John True’s statement, Graham was holding a nickel-plated revolver. She allegedly handed it to Perkins and said “Knock her out!”

Emmett Perkins

Emmett Perkins [Photo courtesy LAPL]

Shorter supposedly grabbed Perkins and threw him to the floor and yelled at him: “What the hell are you doing? This isn’t the way it was supposed to be! This is no good!” When Shorter glanced down at Mabel she appeared to him to be choking on the gag. Shorter was a safe cracker, sure, but he wanted no part of cold-blooded murder. He managed to get John True to cut the gag off Mabel’s mouth, but she looked to be in bad shape.

True would tell the story a little differently later on — casting himself as the lone do-gooder. He’d also have more to say about Graham’s involvement in beating Monohan.

It was chaos in the house as the gang ransacked it, searching for a safe that didn’t exist. Furniture was torn apart, closets emptied, nobody really cared what happened to Monohan — the gang had other worries. It was beginning to dawn on the group that the caper was a fiasco; but they were so busy mourning the loss of their cash windfall that they couldn’t spare a moment for the woman who lay dying on the floor.

Baxter Shorter

Baxter Shorter [Photo courtesy of LAPL]

While his companions were getting ready to leave the scene of the bungled crime, Shorter rummaged through a drawer and found a utility bill with the address of the house on it. He was going to make an anonymous call to get help for the woman.

Let’s be clear about Baxter Shorter, he was a thug and an ex-con and he didn’t care about Mabel Monohan except what her death might mean for him. It was pragmatism and not a burning desire to do the right thing which compelled him. Shorter didn’t want to be in the middle of a murder rap. He could do time if he had to, but killing the old lady could mean the gas chamber.

Once it sunk in that they’d botched the whole plan, the gang split up into the two cars in which they’d arrived. True, Perkins and Graham rode in one car, Shorter and Santo in the other.

Baxter told Jack that he intended to try to get help for the woman back at the house. Jack said: “I don’t give a damn what you do. That woman stopped breathing before we left.”

Baxter dropped Jack off at the meeting place, and he was warned in no uncertain terms to keep his mouth shut or there would be dire consequences.

Shorter went to the nearest gas station and found a telephone booth. He dialed “O”, got an  operator and told her that a woman needed an ambulance at 1718 Parkside Drive. Before he could be asked any uncomfortable questions, he hung up the phone and sped off.

Photo credit: http://www.johngilmore.com/Books/preview_graham.html

The operator tried to dispatch an ambulance to the address she’d been given, but it didn’t exist — not in Los Angeles anyway. Shorter had been so shaken up that he’d forgotten to mention that the house was in Burbank.

Mabel Monohan’s body wasn’t found for two days. Her gardener, Mitchell Truesdale, had come to do some work and to collect his paycheck. When he went to the front door he noticed that it was ajar, and that was highly unusual. He gave the door a nudge and started in, he could see that the normally neat house had been turned upside down, and the smell of death was pervasive. He found Mabel’s body, and he saw blood spatter on the walls and floors. Monohan’s Labrador retriever, Ziggy, was whining at the back door.

Truesdale ran to a neighbor’s house and called the cops.

An inquest was held and the verdict was that Monohan’s death was a homicide caused by person or persons unknown.

Mabel’s daughter Iris had only recently returned to New York after spending some time with her mother. She offered a $5000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the killer(s).

The investigation into the slaying of the Burbank widow began.

NEXT TIME: A witness is kidnapped and the killers are busted.

I Want To Live!

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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.

iwanttolive_sweThe 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.

iwanttolive_foreign

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.