Learning to Fly, Part 1

 “If you remember the ’60s, you really weren’t there.”  Charlie Fleischer, comedian

The United States officially banned LSD in 1967.  The government, media and parents all over the country relied on fear-based tactics to keep kids off drugs. It didn’t work.

Attempts to terrify young people into abstinence is nothing new. The Women’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) held that there was no such thing as “moderate drinking”.  A small tipple always led to “an uncontrollable appetite” for more. They used the same approach regarding tobacco. Temperance Helps for Primary Teachers, offered a catchy verse meant to keep young men from smoking:

Say No! to tobacco, that poisonous weed.

Say no! to all evils, they can only lead

To shame and to sorrow, Oh, shun them, my boy,

For wisdom’s fair pathway of peace and of joy

(Preese 1901)

Does the “Just Say No” message sound familiar? If you grew up in the 1980s, you’ll recall First Lady Nancy Reagan’s anti-drug campaign.

Well-intentioned doggerel was replaced by  film.  Watch how a cowboy’s experiment with marijuana turns him into a killer.

In the 1930s film, The Cocaine Fiends (a remake of The Pace That Kills) the ham-fisted anti-drug message is very clear.  Small-town girls, beware.  Big city men will get you hooked on coke and lead you down a bad road.

Thirty years didn’t change the sledgehammer approach to anti-drug messages for young people. The 1960s saw its share of propaganda.  Drug users found the propaganda laughable.

Lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) was criminalized in the U.S. by the government with the Controlled Substances Act of 1970. The act prohibits the manufacture, distribution, and possession of LSD without a license from the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA).

If the possibility of a felony conviction didn’t deter people, maybe the stories circulated about LSD would scare them straight. A gruesome tale, the legend of the microwaved/baked baby made the rounds for a long time.  There are variations, but the gist of it is this:

The parents of a newborn leave their child with a sixteen-year-old hippie-chick babysitter. They go to a party. A few hours later the mother phones home to make sure all is well.  The girl reassures her that everything is great. She tells her “the turkey’s in the oven.”  The mom hangs up, looks at her husband and says, “The turkey is in the oven?  We didn’t have a turkey!”  They go home. Maybe there is something wrong with the sitter.

When the couple arrives home the babysitter, high on acid, is sitting in a chair freaking out.  The baby? The sitter, believing the baby was a turkey, popped the kid in the oven.

A film about LSD, produced and directed by the San Mateo Union High School District, came out in 1967. Ostensibly narrated by LSD himself, the film depicted screaming mental breakdowns and a variety of deadly accidents that could befall a person on acid.

The film carefully curates its message. Most of the horror stories associated with LSD use are apocryphal.  LSD doesn’t cause death from chemical toxicity, but deaths caused by behavioral toxicity are documented.

You’ve heard this one before—a young woman drops acid and, believing she can fly, jumps from a window to her death.

Here is the true story that launched the myth.

On Halloween, 1948, a fifth child, a girl, was born to radio personality Art Linkletter and his wife Lois.  The couple named the baby Diane. Her godfather was Walt Disney.

Art worked hard for everything he had. He was born in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, Canada on July 17, 1912.   Abandoned as an infant, Art was adopted and raised by a preacher and his wife, Fulton and Mary Linkletter.

Art passed his adopted family’s teachings along to his own children and raised his family in a traditional environment.  The kids were healthy and happy.  For a peek into the Linkletter family dynamic, check out this commercial Art and his three daughters made for Kellogg’s Corn Flakes

Diane’s life was untroubled until her teenage years. Like most teens, she tested boundaries and struggled to find herself.  Diane’s path to adulthood was complicated when she eloped at age 17 with  Grant Conroy (seven years her senior). Diane thought she was pregnant, and Grant offered to “do the right thing.” When she discovered she was not pregnant, her parents had the marriage annulled.  Diane and Grant never even lived together.

Diane moved into Shoreham Towers, a luxury building in West Hollywood.  The building’s residents were older than Diane, so she made friends closer to her age in the neighborhood.  One of Diane’s new friends was Ed Durston who lived with a roommate in a building across from hers.

On Friday evening, October 3, 1969, Diane went out with a friend, Robert Reitman, to a show at the Griffith Observatory.  Robert dropped Diane off at her apartment about midnight and she joined a street party on her block.

On Saturday morning, Dick Shephard looked out his bay window and watched in horror as a woman fell from the window of a sixth-floor apartment at the Shoreham Towers. She screamed, then hit the sidewalk with a sickening thud.

NEXT TIME:  A life ends and a myth begins.

Dead Woman Walking: Louise Peete, Part 3

louise_prisonWhen 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.peete suicide pic

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

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.freedom delayed

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.

peete new deathHad 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.