The Face on the Barroom Floor

During Prohibition, people drank whatever they could get their hands on—often poor-quality juice. Shady characters distilled booze in basements and warehouses. They cared about nothing but money. Manufacturing overnight whiskey made from “…refuse, burned grain or hay or any old thing that will sour” posed a danger to people’s physical and mental health. After several cocktails containing a noxious blend of chemicals, a person might be capable of anything.

A native New Yorker, Edward P. Nolan came to Los Angeles to make his fortune in the budding film industry. He was luckier than most Hollywood hopefuls. During 1914 and 1915, he appeared in short subjects with Charles Chaplin, Mabel Normand, and Marie Dressler. His most noteworthy appearances were in The Face on the Barroom Floor and Between Showers (1914). He may not have worked in film between 1915, appearing in Hogan’s Wild Oats and 1920, when he appeared opposite Leatrice Joy and James O. Barrows in Down Home.

What Nolan did for a living during the five years between acting gigs is anyone’s guess, but by 1922 he was in the LAPD and had risen to the rank of Detective Lieutenant. Law enforcement was not a reach for him. After all, he played a policeman in several movies.

On June 16, 1931, Nolan made a dramatic arrest of an extortionist, George Freese. Freese sent anonymous death threats to A. H. Wittenberg, president of the Mission Hosiery Mills. Pay $700, or die.

Freese instructed Wittenberg to hand the pay-off over to a taxi-cab driver-messenger who would then deliver the cash to him.

When the extortionist phoned with details, Nolan took notes and planned. He prepared a dummy package, and when the cab driver appeared outside the Wittenberg home, Nolan concealed himself in the auto and told the driver to proceed to the rendezvous point. Detective Lieutenants Leslie and McMullen followed in a police car.

Freese waited at the corner of First Street and La Brea Avenue to collect the money. As he accepted the dummy package, Nolan grabbed him.

Freese confessed without hesitation. He held a grudge against Wittenberg because six months earlier, Wittenberg turned him down for a salesman’s job. Freese said he needed the money because his family had fallen on hard times. A common predicament for people during the Great Depression.

The next day, Nolan and his 36-year-old divorced girlfriend, Grace Murphy Duncan, celebrated Nolan’s success in the Wittenberg case at the Hotel Lankershim. The couple spent a lot of time at the hotel while Nolan sought a divorce from his wife, Avasinia. Once the divorce was final, Duncan, and Nolan planned to marry.

HOTEL LANKERSHIM c. 1925

At 6:30 pm on the evening of June 17, 1931, Mrs. Helen Burleson, visiting from San Francisco, left her upper floor room, and headed to Nolan’s room on the second floor. She wanted to consult with him on a private matter. When she stepped into the room, she saw Nolan and Grace. Drunk. The lovers quarreled. The shouting reached a crescendo, and Nolan shoved Duncan out of the room. Then threw her coat into the hallway after her.

Grace and Helen went to Helen’s room, where they discussed Nolan’s violent behavior. Grace wanted to inform on him to the LAPD brass, but Helen talked her out of it.

While Grace and Helen talked, a trio of traveling salesmen, Robert V. Williams, Dan Smith, and Jimmy Balfe, went up to Robert’s room to catch a ball game on the radio. Robert said, “After a while, the lights went on in a room across the light well and we saw two women enter the room. Smith said he recognized Mrs. Burleson, and he telephoned to her room and asked her if she wanted to come over and listen to the radio. Mrs. Duncan was with her, and I don’t believe the two were in the room five minutes before Nolan burst in.”

“The ball game had ended, and I had dialed some music. It was about 10:30 o’clock. Mrs. Duncan and I were dancing. Nolan walked right up to her and said, ‘What do you mean by making up to this fellow?’ He pushed her over on the bed. Then he turned to me and said, ‘I saw you kissing her.’ Then he hit me. I staggered back into the bathroom.”

In a drunken rage, Nolan shoved Williams onto the bathroom floor.

Nolan shouted obscenities and waved his service weapon around. Williams stayed in the bathroom and locked the door. The other occupants of the room fled into the hallway, where they watched through the doorway as Nolan beat and kicked Grace. The woman’s screams were loud enough to bring Floyd Riley, a bellboy, up to the 8th floor. He didn’t want to confront Nolan, either. He said, “He looked like a wild man to me. His eyes gleamed, and he cursed incoherently. I could smell liquor on his breath.”

Grace rolled over onto her stomach, but the beating continued. At one point, Smith yelled at Nolan to stop, but was told to, “mind your own business.” Addressing no one in particular, he declared, “I’ve done everything for this woman. I’ve paid for her room, bought her food, and paid installments on her car.”

In his mind, his financial contributions entitled him to beat her. The terrified witnesses watched as he drew his revolver and beat her over the head until she stopped moving. Then he fired two shots into the floor. Grace did not flinch. She was dead.

Once Nolan’s rage subsided, Wilson, Balfe, Smith, and Riley cautiously approached him. He allowed himself to be escorted to his second-floor room. He muttered the entire way that he loved Grace, but her battered body told a different story—one of uncontrollable jealousy, rage, and bad booze. After arriving at his room, he downed several more glasses of gin, then he passed out on the floor.

Nolan was charged with murder.

Grace’s two daughters, Edna (17) and Mary Jane (14) visited “Daddy” Nolan in jail. Sobbing in grief or self-pity, Nolan wrapped his arms around the girls. The girls told officers he was always good to them. A judge denied Nolan permission to enter an insanity plea, and jury selection began on November 9th. With several eye-witnesses to the fatal beating, it didn’t seem Nolan had much of a chance to beat the rap. Helen testified Nolan was in a frenzied rage when he cornered Grace.

Attorneys for Nolan tried twice more to get permission to enter an additional plea of not guilty by reason of insanity, but the judge denied the motions. When the insanity plea went nowhere, Nolan took the stand and said that he had no memory of anything after he threw Grace out of his room.

Following four hours of deliberation, the jury returned a verdict of guilty of first-degree murder and sentenced Nolan to life. He was lucky; the prosecution wanted him to hang.

Nolan entered San Quentin on January 9, 1932. He gave his profession as prop man. Disgraced cops are not welcome If he was smart, Nolan never mentioned his decade on the Los Angeles Police Department to his cellmates.

On February 1, 1932, the State Board of Prison Terms and Paroles denied Nolan’s request for release. The Board informed him he would have to serve 10 calendar years before they would review his application again.

They released Nolan in early March 1942. He did not enjoy his freedom for long. He died on July 20, 1943 in a VA facility in San Francisco.

Film Noir Friday: By Whose Hand? (1932)

Welcome!  The lobby of the Deranged L.A. Crimes theater is open! Grab a bucket of popcorn, some Milk Duds and a Coke and find a seat.  Tonight’s feature is BY WHOSE HAND aka PULLMAN 12, and stars Ben Lyon, Barbara Weeks, and Kenneth Thomson. Look for Dwight Frye. You’ll recognize the versatile character actor from his roles in FRANKENSTEIN, DRACULA, and the 1931 version of THE MALTESE FALCON. Enjoy the movie!

TCM says:

When notorious criminal “Killer” Delmar escapes from prison, the editor of The Morning Gazette orders his star reporter, Jimmy Hawley, to go to the train station, as Delmar is expected to try to board the nightly express from Los Angeles to San Francisco. Jimmy reluctantly goes to the station, and while the police unsuccessfully search for Delmar, Jimmy falls in love with Alice Murray when she kisses him in the midst of the confusion caused by a bridal party. Meanwhile, Delmar is slipped on the train in a coffin, and his wife, disguised as a widow named Mrs. Leonard, also boards.

The Lawnmower Made Me Do It

At 1:30 p.m. on April 28, 1932, Mrs. Pauline Pohl pushed her hand mower back and forth across her lawn when she heard a shot. A bullet whizzed past her head. She abandoned her yard work and immediately ran into her house. She telephoned the police.

“The woman next door is trying to kill me,” she gasped. “Send somebody, quick!”

While Pauline hunkered down inside her house praying that no further shots would be fired at her, Ella May Thompson, the woman who was trying to kill her, stood in the bathroom of her small frame bungalow, pistol in hand, glaring at Mrs. Pohl’s house. She had fired a shot through her bathroom at the neighbor.

Still gripping the pistol, Thompson whirled around to face Josie Norton the practical nurse who cared for her over the past few months. Ella had a drug addiction and was also diagnosed with an unnamed incurable disease.

“You get out of here…pack your clothes and get out and stay out.”

Norton swiftly complied.

While nurse Norton ran for her life, Radio Officers Paul Donath and Percy Gunby cruised nearby. They received the relayed distress call placed by Mrs. Pohl.  They sped to the address on Marsh Street and hurried to the front door of Miss Thompson’s home. Neighbor disputes were no more uncommon in 1932 than they are now. Neighbors can get on each other’s nerves and occasionally violence is the result.  Officer Donath jumped out of the patrol car and rushed up to Thompson’s door and rang the bell.  Peering through the glass he saw Ella raise her pistol, but he couldn’t move out of the way in time to avoid the bullet that struck him in the chest.

Donath toppled backward from the porch as his partner ran to his side and tugged him across the lawn out of the range of fire.  Shooting the policeman didn’t snap Ella to her senses. Far from it.  She shouted through the shattered glass in the door.

“That will teach you policemen a lesson not to come to my home without a search warrant.”

Gunby had no choice but to leave his mortally wounded partner on the lawn. He ran into Mrs. Pohl’s house to use her telephone to call for an ambulance and back-up. Within minutes an ambulance arrived and transported Officer Donath to the hospital where he succumbed to his wound a short time later.  Right on the heels of the ambulance were dozens of patrol cars which decanted about fifty police and detectives. Captain Rudolph and Inspector Davidson led a squad of men to the side of Thompson’s house.

For over twenty minutes Rudolph and Davidson tried to reason with Ella. They pleaded with her to throw her weapon out into the yard and surrender, but she refused. An enormous crowd gathered to witness the dramatic dénouement. Police received a supply of tear gas bombs and, failing to convince Ella to come out with her hands up, they hurled one through a side window then they pitched two more into the house.

Officers surrounded the house with their guns drawn, and as the gas made its way through the rooms of of her home Ella appeared at the rear door. Again police pleaded with her to surrender, but without warning she suddenly fired three times and made a mad dash for freedom.  A bullet from her weapon passed near Officer Cliff Trainor’s head and lodged in the garage door behind him.  At least twenty officers, holding pistols and sawed-off shot guns, fired at once. Astonishingly not a single round hit its mark. Officer Trainor leveled his gun at the crazed woman and pulled the trigger. Ella finally went down. Clad in pink pajamas, one slipper on and one off, she fell backwards from the porch steps, shot through the eye.

Detectives questioned Miss Norton. She said that as far as she knew Ella was the former secretary of J.V. Baldwin, a local car dealer.  She believed Baldwin provided financial aid to the dead woman.

Investigators found Baldwin at his dealership and quizzed him about Thompson. He said that she’d been in his employ five years earlier and that when she married a former hospital employee, Roy Alger, Baldwin offered the couple money for a honeymoon trip.

 He continued.

“Since then I have been made the target of an attempt to ‘shake me down’ for money.”

Baldwin sued Alger for $125,000 in an alienation of affection suit which involved Ella.  According to some of her acquaintances, Ella and Alger’s marriage was short-lived and ended with an annulment.

Ella, who took Veronal (a barbiturate used to induce sleep) for her nerves, was a ticking time bomb.  Police arrested her on October 2, 1931 for carrying a concealed weapon.

Her trouble with her neighbor, Pauline Pohl, started just days after ice pick and billy club incident when she was arrested for attacking her in a backyard fight. Ella was accused of beating Pauline and fined $25 for battery.

According to Pauline, she built her house next to Ella’s a little over a year before the shooting and there was no trouble between them until, “Miss Thompson . . . accused me of throwing papers in her yard. She became hysterical and beat me and pulled my hair.”

Dr. Glen Bradford, Ella’s physician, told police he had treated Thompson for a nervous breakdown for quite some time.

“I visited her Wednesday, however, and she seemed to be getting along nicely.”

Paul Donath

The deceased officer, 34-year-old Paul Donath, was on the job for ten years when he was gunned down. Paul’s heartbroken wife, Virginia, fainted at the news of his death.

The gun which Ella used in the shootout was the property of another LAPD officer, Palmer A. Pilcher. Pilcher was recently suspended from duty for being intoxicated. Apparently, the inebriated officer attempted to park his car on the sidewalk in front of the Rosslyn Hotel, and to make matters worse his gun was missing.  There’s nothing that will get an officer in hot water faster than losing his weapon.

View looking north on Main Street near 6th Street. The Rosslyn Hotel with the large sign on roof is on the northwest corner of Fifth and Main Streets.

On the day of his suspension he called on Ella, whom he had been dating, and tried to get his gun back, but she refused to let him into the house. Nurse Norton said.

“I tried to find the gun, but she must have hidden it.  She had been hard to handle for some time and my efforts to quiet her after she shot as Mrs. Pohl were useless.”

Lady trims lawn in or around Washington, D.C., with Ajax Ball Bearing reel mower.” c. 1930

If Ella was driven to a homicidal rage by the gentle whirring of the blades of Pauline’s hand mower, can you imagine how she’d have coped with the constant din of modern leaf blowers and power mowers?

NOTE: This is a revised reprint of a post from 2014. The story is so outlandish, that I had to share it again.

The Black Owl

Gun crimes were rampant in Los Angeles during the 1930s, even purse snatchers armed themselves. Robbers, motivated by desperation, hunger or good old-fashioned greed, stalked Spring Street, the “Wall Street of the West”, hoping to pull off the perfect bank heist.

Security First National Bank.

On December 31, 1931, twenty-four-year-old Timothy Blevins found Old Man Depression a formidable adversary. No matter what he did, he couldn’t escape the financial hole he was in. Knowing that he wasn’t alone offered him no consolation. He recently lost his job as a busboy in a cafe at 5610 Hollywood Blvd. He took a job with a county road gang.

Being on a road gang is exhausting work, but he may have stuck with it if his eighteen-year-old wife, Cornelia, hadn’t left him and gone home to her mother. She was just fifteen when the couple had married in Ojai, Arizona a few years earlier, but living with Timothy was no picnic and after three years she’d had enough. He was despondent, and contemplating suicide. Cornelia couldn’t take any more of Timothy’s dark moods, and she intended to get their marriage annulled as soon as possible. It wouldn’t be too difficult for an eighteen-year-old to start over again.

Cornelia bumped in Timothy when she returned to their former home at 1135 South Catalina Street to get some clothing. She was dismayed, but not surprised, to discover that his mood hadn’t lightened. In fact, he appeared to be as morose as ever.

Timothy was sitting alone in the apartment, brooding over how he could change his circumstances—and he devised a plan.

In 1931, the Spring Street financial district, located just north of Fourth Street to just south of Seventh Street, was the beating heart of capitalism in the city. In fact, they referred the area to as the “Wall Street of the West.”  There were at least twenty banks concentrated within a few blocks. The eleven-story steel frame building at the corner of Fifth and Spring Street that housed the Security-First Bank stood out. Built in 1906 by the architecture firm of Parkinson and Bergstrom, the Italianate style structure was the tallest building in Los Angeles until 1911. 

It was shortly after 2 pm on the last day of 1931, and while the Security-First Bank was no longer the only skyscraper on Spring Street, it was still impressive enough to look to Timothy like an opportunity. He resolved to take it. He gripped his case tighter and stepped over the threshold into the crowded lobby.

Tracy Q. Hall, the vice president of the bank, was in his office and a dozen customers waited to have a word with him. Blevins strode up to the rail which enclosed Hall’s office and placed the case he was carrying on the wood work. He handed Hall a note. The crudely printed note, written on a blank check from the Bank of America, contained a demand for $100,000 and stated that there were enough explosives in the bag to turn the block into smoke and ashes.

Hall quietly read the note and then glanced up slowly to take the measure of the man who would dare to make such a loathsome threat. Timothy drove his point home and, to reveal the contents of the case; he snapped open the catch and suddenly the “infernal machine” (a bomb) was visible.

The two men continued to hold each other’s gaze, but Timothy blinked first. He released his grasp on the case, whirled around, and ran for the exit. Hall grabbed at the fleeing man but just missed him. Blevins continued to run and, in his haste, he knocked down Peter J. Anderson, a patron of the bank and proprietor of a garage at 221 East Fifth Street.

LAPD Traffic Officer Olsen

Anderson let out a cry, and so did Hall, who was in hot pursuit of the fleeing man. Timothy dashed out onto Fifth Street and it looked like he was leading a parade. Behind him were Anderson, Hall, and Sam Sulzbacher, the bank’s doorman. When they reached Main Street, Traffic Officer R. W. Olsen joined the chase.

Timothy ducked into a theater on Main, but Officer Olsen has seen him go into the building. Naturally, Timothy tried to blend in with the theater crowd, but it was no use. Olsen found him and took him into custody.

While police escorted Timothy to their headquarters, Hall turned the infernal machine over to LAPD Captains McCaleb and Malina. Upon examination of the device, they found a dry battery wired to a quart jar full of ethyl gasoline. Also, inside the case, there was an empty milk can and a small bottle of carbide powder; above the quart bottle were two brown sticks of dynamite.

On the lid of the box, printed with black paint, was an admonition:

“The Black Owl. Will deal you death. Don’t talk,”

Then McCaleb and Malina read the note that the suspect had handed to Hall:

“There is enough explosive here to tear up the block. Read carefully. Do exactly as told. Starting with biggest denominations fill bag. We will go to the vault first. When I have enough, you will take me out the back door. Get me a taxi. Then take your time going back, or I have to take care of you. If you describe me too well, this will not fail to work. There is poison gas to kill every one (sic) within.”

The note was terrifying, but it wasn’t enough to prevent Tracy Hall from doing his best to bring the robber wanna-be to heel.

At police headquarters Timothy, sullen and mumbling incoherently, refused to make any statement other than to tell the cops: “you can call me Dave Lowre.” Then he attempted to snatch a pistol from Officer Olsen. Half a dozen detectives jumped on him and prevented his escape. He became somewhat more cooperative following his aborted escape attempt, but he never revealed the inspiration for his nom de felon.

Timothy Blevins, glowering during questioning by an unnamed LAPD detective. [Photo courtesy of UCLA Digital Collection]

The judge arraigned Timothy in Municipal Court and set his bail at $10,000—he was stuck.

The complaint against Timothy charged him with burglary, attempted robbery and violation of Section 601 of the Penal Code because he transported dynamite into a public building, endangering the lives of others.

Timothy originally pleaded insanity, but he withdrew the plea. Instead, he entered a plea of guilty to the charge of illegally transporting dynamite. The likely reason for his change of plea was that he could apply for probation if he wasn’t insane.

Timothy hoped for probation, but the judge denied him, and sentenced him to San Quentin.

An American Tragedy in Pomona–Conclusion

Frank’s chances for an acquittal are dismal, but then his attorney mounts a defense, blaming Lois for the beating that nearly killed her.

Attorney H.A.J. Wolch drops a bombshell in court when he reads excerpts from a June 29, 1931 letter written by Lois and sent to Frank’s wife, Ione

“Dearest Ione:

“You are probably wondering why I should write to you, are you not? I don’t exactly know myself.”

“Honestly ‘Yonnie,’ I didn’t know you cared so much until I read a certain letter. No one could write a letter like that without plenty of reason.

“I’m sure Frank loves me. If I wasn’t, I wouldn’t hesitate a moment to send him back to you, ‘Yonnie.’ You yourself know how it is to be uncertain, but I’m not anymore.”

“I’m afraid you’ll think that the real reason for my writing this letter is to gloat over him. No, I wouldn’t do that. I just couldn’t I just want you to know how I feel about this thing. I want to tell you how I love Frank.”

“I can’t hate you, not even if I try and I have tried…”

“I hope I have not said anything that can be taken any way but the right way. I don’t want to hurt you and I don’t want Frank to hurt you.”

Wolch questions Lois about her relationship with Frank during the six months prior to the attempt on her life. She professes her love for Frank and admits writing to Ione. She also admits to dating other boys. The subtext of the cross-examination is clear—Lois is easy.

In her testimony, Lois confirms her meeting with Frank on February 18, 1931. She says they discuss “getting a doctor,” but abortion is illegal in 1931 and the danger of permanent disability or death is a consequence the expectant mother faces alone.

Ten days later, Lois said, Frank tells her they have an appointment with a doctor. The doctor could be anyone from a licensed physician to a drunken quack working out of a dirty backroom office. 

On March 4, they meet for the last time. Frank attacks her.

Frank takes the stand in his own defense and relates a self-serving account of the crime.

“When she told me she was going to my wife, little baby and my parents, and tell them I was responsible for her condition, well, I just flew off the handle, picked up a stick, hit her three or four times over the head, struck her on the jaw with my fist and left her there.”

The railroad tie he used to batter Lois is hardly “a stick”, and when he says he “left her there” he neglects to say he threw her into an abandoned well and expected her to die.

Wolch kept the kid gloves on during his examination of his client. Frank said he met Lois and Ione at about the same time. Lois lived in Pomona, and Ione in Glendora. He saw each of them about twice a week.

“What was your feeling for both Ione and Lois?

“I cared for Ione very much. I liked Lois, too. In September I made up my mind. I loved Ione…, so we went to Las Vegas and got married. We came home that night to my folks and the next day I took her to Glendora.”

Wolch asks Frank when he next meets with Lois. Frank says, “The following night.”

He describes Lois’ reaction to his marriage.

“Lois was heartbroken and deeply moved over my marriage to Ione. She asked me to get a divorce.”

Frank chuckles, then continues.

“Already she wanted me to get a divorce and marry her. I told her I couldn’t even think of it.”

Frank refuses to consider divorcing Ione; however, he continues to see Lois. They meet frequently from the time of his marriage until December, when they get together only once.

When they resume their affair in January, Lois asks Frank to get her some quinine. Quinine in large doses may induce an abortion, but it is not a sure thing. A pregnant woman who takes quinine risks renal failure. Babies who survive quinine exposure in the womb can be born deaf or suffer other side-effects. Both mother and child can die because of taking quinine.

Frank blew off Lois’ request to get the abortifacient, claiming he does not know what she wants with the over-the-counter drug.

According to Frank, Lois asked for quinine again in early February. This time he asked her why.

“I asked her what she wanted it for and she said she was expecting a baby, ad something had to be done. I said I was sorry and asked her who was responsible, and she didn’t answer. Again, she asked me to divorce Ione and marry her, and again I told her I wouldn’t consider it.”

Frank describes his March 4th meeting with Lois.

“I met her on March 4, about 6:30 p.m. We drove around a bit. I told her I couldn’t get a doctor. Finally, we parked the car on the outskirts of Pomona. She said she was going to blame me. Something had to be done or she would make trouble. I loved my wife very much, and the baby had just come. I had entirely overcome the conflict of the earlier months. I loved Ione, not Lois.”

When testimony concluded in early May, the jury faced conflicting versions of the March 4 attack.

Lois’ version, corroborated by her injuries, is gut-wrenching. The prosecution calls the attack “deliberate and brutal.”

Frank’s defense portrays Lois as a scheming home wrecker—no better than she ought to be.

In the last hours of the trial, Deputy District Attorney Cooper points out parallels between the case against Frank and the incidents in Theodore Dreiser’s novel, An American Tragedy. Cooper reads extracts from the book. 

The jury finds Frank guilty of attempted murder and statutory rape.

Before passing sentence, Judge Bowron has a few words for Frank:

“You are fortunate in that you are not here for the purpose of receiving the extreme penalty. The evidence and circumstances show that you planned to do away with Lois Wade because she was about to become a mother.”

Frank gets one to fourteen years in prison.

In a strange twist, probably orchestrated by a quick thinking reporter or a newspaper city editor, Frank, Ione, and Lois meet in jail a few hours before the prison train leaves for San Quentin. A photo shows the threesome holding hands and, supposedly, putting the past behind them.

Lois leaves without making a statement.

Ione tells reporters, “I intend to wait for him.”

She didn’t.

Marion Linden’s Life of Crime, Part 1

In March 1932 the Elyria, Ohio Chronicle Telegram sang the praises of an Avon High School sophomore for scoring ten field goals, bringing his team to its eleventh straight win for the season. The young man had his whole life ahead of him.

Fast forward to Omaha, Nebraska, April 1936. Marion James Linden, former high school grid iron star from Ohio, was living up to the speed he showed in scoring ten field goals. Unfortunately, the 23-year-old was speeding towards a life of crime. Marion was busted for stealing two automobiles, kidnapping three men and staging a holdup in only 45 minutes. Quite an accomplishment.

News-UT-OG_ST_EX.1936_04_03_LINDEN_headlineWhy was Marion on a crime spree? He told reporters: “I wanted to commit self-destruction in such a way my insurance policy would not be invalidated through the suicide clause.” Suicide by cop would have been his parents the princely sum of $1200 (equivalent to $20,814.77 in current USD). No doubt the cash would have helped his family weather the Depression. Marion entered a guilty plea, but a few days later he reappeared in court and changed his plea to innocent. He was placed on probation for 2 years.

By early February 1937, Marion was living in Denver, Colorado. By mid-February he was in jail on a murder charge. Marion shot Arlene, his 18-year-old bride of two months, in the heart.NEWS-NE-EV_ST_JO.1937_02_22_LINDEN_headline

Marion believed that while he was in Texas trying to find employment as an oil field worker, Arlene was in Denver having an affair. When Marion returned from Texas he immediately went to the home of his in-laws, the Cochrans, where Arlene was staying. He told Detective Captain James E. Childers that he pleaded with Arlene to give up her lover, and when she refused he shot her. But there may have been more to Marion’s motive than jealousy. Capt. Childers quoted Marion as saying that a divorce would have revealed a violation of his Nebraska probation agreement and he would have been compelled to return there to serve out the three year sentence for his mini-crime spree in April 1936.

News-CO-GR_DA_TR.1937_04_24_LINDEN_headlineMarion was convicted of voluntary manslaughter. Judge Henry A. Hicks pronounced sentence–from seven to eight years in the state penitentiary. Lewis D. Mowry, Marion’s attorney, said that the his client had no plans to appeal, nor would he seek a new trial.

After serving only three years of his sentence, Marion was released in 1940. At that point he falls off the radar. Did Marion go straight? As an ex-con he may have found it difficult to get a fresh start, but If he committed any further crimes they weren’t newsworthy.

Marion resurfaced in Los Angeles in 1957 where he would once again be the topic of news stories.

Next time:Marion’s story concludes.

Antone Christ’s First Venture in Crime

The Great Depression began with the stock market crash on “Black Tuesday”, October 29, 1929. The U.S. stock market collapsed with losses for the month totaling $16 billion–an astronomical sum in any age or by anyone’s measure.

stock_crash_07

By 1932 the nation’s unemployment rate was 23.6% and nearly half of all the banks that had been in business in 1929 had closed their doors. Able-bodied young men and women were having a tough time finding employment, but getting a job was especially difficult for sixty-three year old Antone Christ. He was at a time in his life when he should have been retired, not pounding the pavement looking for work.

Christ, formerly of Miami, Florida, had once been a wealthy businessman but he had lost $100,000 [equivalent to $1.5 million in today’s currency] in a bank failure. To add to his stress, the rapid mathematical calculator (in book form) that he had been attempting to market was evidently a tough sell. I’m guessing that the calculator was a sort of speed math that, once learned, would enable a person to solve fairly difficult calculations mentally–no paper, pencil, or abacus needed.  Perhaps Christ’s calculator failed because the average Joe had nothing positive to enumerate.  No earnings, no savings–just money going out the door.

Antone and his wife had only been married for a couple of years, and had moved to Los Angeles in 1931, presumably, as had so many others, to get a fresh start. Christ’s inability to get a job, and his constant brooding over the fortune he had lost, had made him a desperate man.

A little after 10 a.m. on February 15, 1932, August J. Martz, was in his office on the second floor of the building at 758 West Seventh Street when the door opened suddenly and a man stepped in. The man was Antone Christ and he was holding a gun.

Martz said:

“I thought it was a joke.  He forced me to get up.  Then I had to take from his pocket what appeared to be a bomb.  He forced me to put it in my pocket, but wires extended from it and were attached to what appeared like a detonating contrivance he kept in his pocket.  He had a sling around his neck, through which he put his hand that held the gun he kept trained upon me.  In this fashion we descended the stairs and walked east on Seventh Street for nearly three blocks until we came to the Bank of America.  All the time we were walking he kept cautioning me not to try any funny business; not even so much as a glance sideways.  I don’t know how he knew I had an account at the Bank of America.  I had never seen the man before.  He told me to draw out every cent I had in the bank.”

Christ and Martz entered the bank and walked toward a teller’s window.  Two bank guards, G.J. Fitzpatrick and George Constantineu, watched the pair enter and wondered what the hell was going on. Christ may have been momentarily distracted by the activity in the bank– and Martz saw an opportunity for escape.  He said:

“I saw Fitzpatrick and I made up my mind to take a chance on the bomb and jump.”  

When Martz made his dash the wires that connected him to Christ pulled loose. One, two, three…no explosion. On the chance that the contraption might still detonate, Martz ran to divest himself of the black cylinder he had carried in his pocket. He was relieved to discovered the cylinder was stuffed nothing but paper wadding.

christ_photo

Fitzpatrick and Constantineau cautiously approached Christ who had produced a nickel-plated .38 caliber pistol  from his pocket and began to wave it above his head.

“Stand back; don’t touch me.”

Fitzpatrick demanded that Atone give up his weapon, but instead Antone took a step backward. He continuing to slowly move back, still holding the gun. Finally he bumped up against a counter and was forced to stop. As dozens of bank employees watched, Antone lifted the gun up to his head and fired.

antone christ headlineStill breathing, Christ was rushed to the Georgia Street Receiving Hospital where he died on the operating table.

Detective Lieutenant Luke searched the dead man’s clothing and found 25 cents and an envelope. On the envelope was a single sentence written in pencil:

“My first venture in crime, or will I suicide?”

Christ’s brief criminal career was over.