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 HE WALKED BY NIGHT starring Richard Basehart, Scott Brady, and Jack Webb. It was during the making of this film that Jack Webb got the idea for DRAGNET.
As of several years ago I have a personal connection to this movie. I was given the blue steel revolver that belonged to the screenwriter, John C. Higgins — it was a gift from his nephew, Eric, and I’m honored to own it. Higgins wrote the screenplays for T-MEN and RAW DEAL, two terrific films.
March is nearly half gone and I’ve yet to commemorate Women’s History Month. Let me remedy that now with a post about Florence Coberly—a complicated and fascinating woman.
LAPD 77th Street Station
Officers at LAPD’s 77th Street station were fed up with the wave of assaults on women in their district—nearly 40 between April 2nd and late July 1952. The scumbag responsible for the attacks targeted lone women as they left street cars late at night.
To nab the guy, they set a trap with bait he could not resist, policewoman Florence Coberly.
Florence, in her mid-twenties and recently married, was new to the job. What she lacked in street experience, she made up for in her confident manner and academy training.
Policewoman Florence Coberly
Florence and another policewoman, Marie Little, acted as decoys while patrol officers and detectives cast a net that extended from Broadway to San Pedro Street, and from Manchester Avenue to 67th Street. They deployed officers on foot and in squad cars while the two policewomen attempted to lure the reptile out from under his rock.
The massive stake-out began on the evening of July 31st. Florence, dressed in a pencil skirt with a kick-pleat in the front, a short-sleeved white blouse and a pair of sweet little pumps, was an undeniably appealing target. She walked along the dark street swinging her white handbag in time with her gait like she hadn’t a care in the world.
As she walked along the sidewalk, a man accosted her and asked her to have a drink with him. He kept following her saying, “Would you like to have a little fun?” Florence brushed him off, “No, not tonight, Junior.”
The man disappeared and Florence kept walking. As she passed the darkened doorway of 8209 South San Pedro, the same man emerged and grabbed her. Stunned, Florence took one step backward. He grabbed her again, pulled her into the doorway and shoved a gun into her chest. He held her close with one arm. He said, “Don’t make no noise—I want to kiss you.” She told him he could. She would do anything to keep him from finding the gun beneath her jacket in a holster at her waist.
Pretending to loosen her skirt, she reached for her police whistle. She put it to her lips and blew as hard as she could. The whistle blast signaled detectives concealed nearby that she was in trouble.
Her assailant demanded to know, “What the hell do you think you are doing?” Before she could answer, he slugged her on the jaw. Florence went down as the man continued to beat her.
Colleagues examine Florence’s injuries.
Two detectives, Frank Marz and Walter Clago, heard the whistle and screeched up in a squad car. They arrived in time to see the suspect flee the scene. Meanwhile, Florence pulled out her revolver and fired. One of her rounds pierced the assailant’s left lung.
Note the nifty little bandoleer dangling from Florence’s skirt. Policewomen knew how to accessorize! [Photo courtesy USC Digital Archive]
Detective Clago assisted Florence to her feet as Detective Marz set off in pursuit of the would-be molester yelling at him to “Stop in the name of the law!”. The admonition fell on deaf ears. Marz fired his service revolver five times at the suspect and missed each time.
Detective Marz saw the suspect head toward a car parked on 82nd Street. It was dark, yet Marz could make out the shadow of a man in the driver’s seat behind the wheel. The man didn’t wait for his passenger. With the crack of gunfire, the car sped off into the night.
Still photo from the film noir, THE BIG COMBO, 1955.
Detective Marz watched as the suspect lurched behind a house at 253 East 82nd Street. With a single round left in his revolver, Marz fired and the suspect collapsed.
Identified as Joe L. Parra, of 8465 South San Pedro Street, the dead man, recently paroled from San Quentin, did time for multiple counts of robbery, burglary and sex crimes. His arrest record was extensive. His most recent arrest was on a robbery charge the month before his death, but they had to kick him loose for insufficient evidence.
A bullet ends Joe Parra’s criminal career. [Photo courtesy of USC Digital Archive]
About an hour after Joe died in the debris-filled dirt near a couple of discarded metal signs, police located the wheelman, the person who abandoned Parra on 82nd Street. The getaway driver was seventeen-year-old Henry P. Parra, the dead man’s nephew.
Henry ‘fessed up pretty quickly and admitted that he went with his uncle several times on late night purse snatching raids. I doubt that the kid knew what else uncle Joe was up to on their midnight forays.
Florence received accolades for her role in ending Parra’s reign of terror. The newspapers credited Marz with firing the fatal round; but I have it on good authority that Florence delivered the kill shot.
Johnny Dugan, local L.A. television celebrity.
The camera loved Florence and she appeared in newspapers all over the county. A local TV show host, Johnny Dugan, had her as a guest on his show.
In February 1953, the Exchange Club named Florence “Policewoman of the Year”. She basked in the limelight.
In June 1954, the Los Angeles Policewoman’s Association honored her at a dinner-dance. The guest list included Sergeants Joe Friday and Frank Smith (Jack Webb and Ben Alexander) of the Dragnet series. The two fictional policemen shared the spotlight with LAPD’s Chief of Police William H. Parker and his wife.
DRAGNET — Pictured: (l-r) Jack Webb as Sgt. Joe Friday, Ben Alexander as Officer Frank Smith — Photo by: NBCU Photo Bank
Florence had every reason to expect more star-studded evenings in her future. Who knows, with such an auspicious beginning she could end up with an enviable spot in the LAPD hierarchy. With just over 100 women on the force, there wasn’t much female competition in the ranks in those days.
But wait a minute; you know this is Deranged L.A. Crimes and nobody’s good luck lasts forever. Right?
NEXT TIME: Policewoman of the Year stumbles.
NOTE: This post is a revised version of a 2014 post.
A search of Tony Adams’ residence yielded a few clues, but not the .32 caliber murder weapon.
While the search for Tony Adams, suspected of the kidnapping and murder of CHP Officer Steve Sodel continued, detectives dug into the background of the wanted man.
Adams had served time in New York for grand larceny and he had been AWOL from Camp Rucker, Alabama, since May 1944. He was obviously a crook, but was he a killer?
Based on the forensic science evidence there wasn’t much doubt that Adams had pulled the trigger of the gun that ended Patrolman Sodel’s life. A bullet removed from the dead officer’s body was a match for a slug found in the abandoned, bloodstained sedan discovered near Las Vegas. Tire impressions taken at the location where Sodel’s patrol car was found corresponded to tire tracks found at the place where his body was hastily buried. The most damning evidence against Adams was verified by the Sheriff’s Department—they said fingerprints taken from the left door of the impounded death car belonged to wanted ex-con and Army deserter.
Twelve days after the murder there were several reported sightings of the fugitive in LA. Cops thought that Adams had fled the state, but someone answering his description was seen one or two blocks from the West Los Angeles Police Station. None of the leads panned out. If Adams was in LA he was proving impossible to find.
In the photo on the left, Detective Marty Wynn (left, who would later become a technical advisor for the TV show, DRAGNET, is show with Inspectors Mark Benson (center) and William Yonkin (right) examining Patrol Sodel’s official car. On the right is a photo of fallen officer Steve W. Sodel.
Within a week of the LA sightings of Adams he was busted in New York City. He may have been running home to his mother, Josephine, a resident of the city. In a bone-headed attempt to evade capture the fugitive jumped from a two-story window and injured himself.
Tony Adams, flanked by an FBI agent and a NYC detective, limps to a waiting patrol car.
He was in a wheel chair when he appeared before a U.S. Commissioner in New York on October 8. Adams denied everything. Accompanied by Captain Gordon Bowers, head of the Sheriff’s bureau of investigation and Inspector Mark Benson of the California Highway Patrol, Adams was returned to LA to stand trial.
Adams was also suspected of the June 5, 1946 slaying of CHP Officer Loren Cornwell Roosevelt. The murder had some similarities to Sodel’s murder. It wasn’t until six months later that Roosevelt’s real killer, Erwin ‘Machine Gun’ Walker, was apprehended. Walker was tried, convicted and sentenced to life in prison. Due to some legal twists and turns Walker was released on parole in 1974. He legally changed his name, became employed as a chemist, and vanished from public view. He died in 1982 without ever showing remorse for the cold-blooded murder of Officer Roosevelt.
When Adams arrived at Union Station downtown he was immediately shackled to the aptly named Lieutenant John Law of the Sheriff’s Department.
Adams told detectives that he had run across the country in a panic after he came to from black-out drunk episode to find Sodel’s patrolman’s cap and service weapon in his hands. The story was likely a pathetic attempt by the suspect to lessen his responsibility. And, in my opinion, his tale of being too drunk to recall the murder further unraveled when he managed to remember enough about the immediate aftermath of the crime to direct a car full of deputies to a vacant lot in which they found a charred fragment of the plaid seat cover from the stolen black Chevy sedan.
The deputies drove Adams around until they reached Alameda Street between Seventh and Third Streets. It was in that area, the suspect contended, that he had ditched the guns (his and Sodel’s). Unfortunately no trace of either weapon was found.
On October 23, 1946, Adams told reporters “I have confessed to nothing. I’m innocent of the charge and with God’s help the world will soon know it.” His attorneys said “Adams told us that he has been in a daze since his arrest, but that he has admitted nothing to the officers.”
For a dazed man Adams had managed to accomplish a lot. He’d successfully evaded arrest for weeks following the murder, and he had had the presence of mind to dispose of evidence in such a manner that detectives had been unable to locate it some of it. Imagine what he could do if he wasn’t in a daze.
Next time: Will a jury believe Tony Adams?
Note: Watch HE WALKED BY NIGHT, based on the Erwin ‘Machine Gun’ Walker case. It is one of my favorite films noir.
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 DRAGNET 1966, starring Jack Webb and Harry Morgan.
I’ve show this feature before but I thought that since I’m attending the JACK WEBB AWARDS event tonight it would be appropriate to show it again. I’m looking forward to the evening. It will, once again, be hosted by James Ellroy.
Dragnet 1966 is a made-for-TV movie that initiated the return of the Dragnet series to television. It was intended to be the TV pilot of Dragnet 1967 but was not aired as originally planned. It was eventually broadcast in 1969.
The Internet Movie Database says:
Sgt. Joe Friday is called back from vacation to work with his partner, Off. Bill Gannon, on a missing persons case. Two amateur female models and a young war widow have vanished, having been last seen with one J. Johnson. In the course of tracking down Johnson and the young ladies, the detectives wind up with two different descriptions of the suspect, one of which closely resembles a dead body found in a vacant lot. But the dead man, later identified as Charles LeBorg of France, proves not to be J. Johnson, when a third young model disappears.
The story is based on the Harvey Glatman case which I covered in a series of posts.
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 DRAGNET 1966, starring Jack Webb and Harry Morgan.
Dragnet 1966 is a made-for-TV movie that initiated the return of the Dragnet series to television. It was intended to be the TV pilot of Dragnet 1967 but was not aired as originally planned. It was eventually broadcast in 1969.
The Internet Movie Database says:
Sgt. Joe Friday is called back from vacation to work with his partner, Off. Bill Gannon, on a missing persons case. Two amateur female models and a young war widow have vanished, having been last seen with one J. Johnson. In the course of tracking down Johnson and the young ladies, the detectives wind up with two different descriptions of the suspect, one of which closely resembles a dead body found in a vacant lot. But the dead man, later identified as Charles LeBorg of France, proves not to be J. Johnson, when a third young model disappears.
The 1948 film HE WALKED BY NIGHT starring Richard Basehart was loosely based on the 1946 crime spree of William Erwin “Machine Gun” Walker.
Jack Webb played a forensics specialist in HE WALKED BY NIGHT, and while filming the movie he had an epiphany — what if there was a radio show based on real life police work? Webb’s brainstorm would become a radio show, TV series, and a film (two films actually, one in 1954 starring Webb, and a comedy remake in 1987 starring Dan Ackroyd). The radio program debuted on June 2, 1949 with an episode entitled ROBBERY.
Episode two, HOMICIDE – THE NICKEL PLATED GUN, aired on June 10, 1949. This digitally remastered copy is courtesy of the National Archives.
Who was the real Erwin Walker? He had been a civilian employee of the Glendale Police Department prior to being drafted into the U.S. Army. He was very near-sighted, and would have been classified as unfit for service if not for his remarkable skills in electronics. Walker was sent to the Philippines where his non-combat unit ended up in a three day fight for their lives with a contingent of Japanese army paratroopers.
Walker survived the war physically, but mentally he was broken. His crime spree began even before his release from the army. In August 1945, he entered an Army Ordnance warehouse at night, stealing seven 45-caliber Thompson sub-machine guns, twelve .45-caliber pistols, six .38-caliber revolvers, ammunition, holsters, and magazines.
On April 25, 1946, Walker was on his way to sell some stolen motion picture equipment to a man named William Starr. Starr had suspected that Walker (who was calling himself Paul C. Norris) had stolen the equipment and he phoned the cops. As Walker approached Starr’s home he was confronted by two LAPD Hollywood Division detectives, Lt. Colin C. Forbes, and his partner Sgt. Stewart W. Johnson. Walker opened fire — he wounded both cops and then he disappeared into the subterranean storm drains of Los Angeles.
Walker managed to evade capture, and early on Wednesday, June 5, 1946, he drove to a meat market at the corner of Los Feliz Boulevard and Brunswick Avenue in Glendale, where he was rousted by a suspicious California Highway patrolman, Loren Cornwell Roosevelt. Instead of producing his I.D when Roosevelt asked to see it, Walker pulled out a weapon and fired. Then the cop killer once again vanished into the storm drains of the city.
Walker would later testify that he’d fired at Roosevelt only after the cop had shot at him first. It was a lie. Walker also stated that he fired twice — but Roosevelt had died in the hospital with nine slugs in him. The investigation revealed that the fatal rounds had likely been fired from one of the Thompson sub-machine guns Walker kept with him.
A psychopath, his dog, and a gun — from HE WALKED BY NIGHT
LAPD was tipped off that Walker was living in a duplex at 1831 1/2 N. Argyle Avenue. In the early morning hours of December 20, 1946, using a key provided by the landlord, detectives Wynn, Donahue, and Rombeau entered Walker’s apartment.
Walker came up quick and reached for the Thompson he kept on the bed beside him. He struggled with the cops, but they shot him twice in the shoulder and finally subdued him by cracking his skull with the butt of a pistol. Walker was in custody at last.
Walker entered a plea of not guilty by reason of insanity, but the trial judge found him sane. Walker was tried and convicted for Officer Roosevelt’s murder and sentenced to death in the gas chamber.
While on death row awaiting execution, a shrink diagnosed Walker with paranoid schizophrenia. Thirty-six hours before his scheduled execution Walker was found unconscious with a length of radio headphone cord wrapped around his neck. He was revived and his execution was postponed indefinitely while he underwent an extensive psych evaluation.
Walker was declared insane and committed to the Mendocino State Hospital where he received electroshock therapy, and spent his free time reading chemistry textbooks.
During the early 1970s Walker attempted to get his conviction overturned, but the courts denied his petitions. However, he did manage to get a ruling that deleted the portion of his life sentence that excluded any possibility of parole.
Walker had managed to successfully work the system and cheat the executioner. The convicted cop killer was paroled in 1974! Upon his release he legally changed his name, got a job as a chemist, and disappeared from public view.
Walker died in 2008. He had never once expressed remorse for the anguish he had caused the victims of his crimes. If there is a hell, he is certain to burn for eternity.
HE WALKED BY NIGHT is in the public domain and if you have never seen it, here’s your chance.
