Paul puder got Calm August sixth, nineteen thirty five. Bride of less than
a year and an expectant mother, Missus Mary James, twenty seven, of
La Crescento, was found mysteriously dead in the garden of her home last night,
with her head submerged in a fishpond. Tragically, the body was disclosed
by the beam of a flashlight as the woman's husband and a friend who had
accompanied him home to dinner searched the place for her. Authorities of the Foothill
city who investigated said they believe Missus James fainted while gazing into the fishpond and
then fell face forward, breaking the screen covering it. The husband, Robert
James, operator of a Los Angeles beauty parlor, arrived home after dark,
accompanied by a friend, James Pemberton, of Los Angeles. A note in
the room of the home, apparently left by friends who had called during the
day and failed to find Missus James in the house, read quote why don't
you stay at home? Unquote. The house was open, so James and
Pemberton guessed that Missus James was somewhere about the place. They began a search
and Pemberton's flashlight revealed the body married last May. Missus James was an expectant
mother during a fainting spell. It was believed she may have slipped and struck
her head as she fell into the concrete water basin. James told officers that
the last time he saw his wife was early Monday morning when he left for
work in Los Angeles. That night, he and his friends came to Lacracenta
ready for a barbecue supper. There they discovered the tragedy. Meanwhile, Deputy
sheriffs Killian and Gray continued questioning Robert James and intimate acquaintances of the couple in
an effort to bring to light circumstances which led to the death of the young
matron. Among others with whom they talked was miss Eser Templeton, twenty four,
beauty parlor operator, who told officer she was engaged to James at one
time. Miss Templeton told investigators she met James about a year ago their mutual
friends, and that during the course of their friendship, he asked her to
marry him. She learned later, however, that James had been married on
two previous occasions, and her engagement with him was broken off. A short
time later, she assertedly told the deputy sheriff she learned James married another beauty
parlor operator. An unfinished letter was among the sheriff's investigator's material, addressed to
the bride's sister at read in part quote, I'm feeling sick. My leg
is all swollen. Something bit me while watering my flowers. This a m
also cut my toe. Yesterday unquote, true crime historian presents an Eye for
an Eye, a special edition of Yesterday's news, exploring the criminal justice system
that it's most extreme, inflicting the death penalty. Episode one ninety two gets
a bit epic, but it's the story that keeps on giving. With two
botched murders and moral charges to boot, and things go from crazy to crazier
when they bring a pair of rattlers named Lethal Enlightning into the courtroom. Yeah,
you know that's not gonna well. I'm true crime historian Richard O.
Jones, and I give you Snakes on the witness stand the trial of Rattlesnake
James the Redheaded Bluebeard. On April twenty second, while investigators were still inquiring
into the fish pond, drowning of Mary James. The county grand jury indicted
the woman's husband, charging him with three statutory offenses against his knees. James
and the girl, miss Lois Wright, twenty one, were taken into custody
at his home on Southwest Street, after the officers had spent more than two
weeks making dictograph records of their conversations. Although District Attorney Fits and his investigators
admitted they had questioned James, who operates a downtown barbershop, concerning his wife's
drowning, it was announced that nothing relating to the woman's death will be placed
before the grand jury at this time. At the same time, however,
it was disclosed that deputy sheriffs who had made the original investigation, had renewed
their inquiry. According to the grand jury indictment, only three witnesses testified against
James at the hearing. One was missus Ethel Smith of Southgate, sister of
miss Wright, who was asked concerning the blood relationship of James and miss Wright.
Miss Wright also was called before the jury to repeat admissions she had made
to officers concerning her relations with the man. The last witness was investigator Jack
Southard, who told of raiding the James residents and arresting them. After the
indictment was returned, Miss Wright remained in custody of Miss Marjorie Fairchild, District
Attorney's investigator as a material witness pending disposition of the James case. Returned to
his cell in the County jail, James stoutly denied any knowledge of his wife's
death, except that in his belief it was accidental. He declined to discuss
the charges placed against him because of his associations with his niece. Eugene Williams,
Deputy District Attorney assigned to the case, declared that all evidence connected with
James's arrest as being prepared for presentation in court, and that he expects to
prosecute the man on the three counts unless he should change his mind and enter
please to each of the offensive. May three, nineteen thirty six, Lacrecenta's
ste Fishpond death produced an amazing statement of human torture when Charles H. Hope,
thirty seven, unemployed cafe man, related to District Attorney's investigators a bizarre
story that Robert S. James, thirty eight, the oft married barber,
told him that he had killed his wife, Missus Mary Bush James, twenty
eight. Last August fourth, Hope told a group of investigators while stenographers took
notes, that he saw James thrust his wife's left leg into a box of
rattlesnakes picked especially for their viciousness. Later, he helped James carry the woman's
body from the house quote either dead or unconscious unquote. They placed the body
beside the lily padded fish pond in the backyard, screened by dense shrubbery,
and he left the scene. An autopsy report showed Missus James died by drowning.
The woman's left leg bore strange wounds and was badly swollen, a fact
which has puzzled officers ever since last August. Snake bites accounted for the wounds
yesterday, in the opinion of District Attorney Fits. Hope's statement to the officers
was that he procured the reptiles and received payment from James, taking them to
the cottage in a glass covered wooden box on the fateful bright Sunday morning.
In the kitchen, Hope said he found Missus James tied with ropes to the
top of the table, her mouth and eyes covered with adhesive tape. Then
followed the scene in which Hope said he saw James thrust his wife's leg into
the box with the serpents. Confronted by Hope's statement, James stoutly denied he
had anything to do with his wife's mysterious death and termed Hope's story screwy.
Questioned for hours by Fits and deputy sheriffs Killian and Gray, James finally blurted
out, according to Fits, if you convict me of this murder, I
won't squawk, inquired the district attorney. That is because you know that you
murdered Mary. Is that right? James responded, I just as well say
that I did, as that I didn't. Earlier in the day, Fits
and a group of deputies and investigators had attempted to have Hope and James reenact
the scenes at the locres sent a house. The reenactment failed because the house
was locked and its tenants were away. James, however, stood smiling and
bantering with officers while Hope pointed to the spot where he said he last saw
the body of missus James, beside the fishpond in the backyard. Hope pointed
through a window of the kitchen, where he said he saw Missus James tied
with cotton rope to the top of the table, her mouth and eyes covered
with adhesive tape. The woman gave only a little groan before James thrust her
left leg into the box occupied by two vicious rattlesnakes, Hope said, adding
that he didn't see the snake's strike. It was on a bright Sunday morning
that he delivered the snakes. Quote. When I got there, he had
this girl on a table tied. District Attorney Fitz asked this girl, who
do you mean? Answer mister James's wife, question Mary, answer yes,
sir. He had adhesive tape over her eyes and over her mouth. He
says, you can't get out of this thing. Bring those things in here.
I brought in the box and set it down. He stuck her foot
into it. I carried it out and took the snakes back to Snaky Joe's
in Pasadena. Hope told the officers he had purchased the snakes for James on
two occasions. He said he received twenty dollars for the first consignment. Later,
Hope asserted James gave him one hundred dollars to find some real fighters.
It was then Hope told the office that he went to Joseph C. Houghtenbrink,
known as Snaky Joe, and bought two fat rattlesnakes, as vicious an
active rattlers are known to their handlers. He said he paid seventy cents a
pound for them. Houghton Brink last night identified Hope at the District Attorney's office
as the man who bought the snakes and later returned them to him. Hope
said his wife, missus Florence Hope, waited in a car outside the James
home for him while he was inside with the box of snakes. She accompanied
him when he took the snakes back to the abandoned Pasadena snake farm, Hope
said, insisting that he get rid of them. Then they went to a
bridge party. Late that night, Hope said he returned alone to the James
home as he was using James's car. Quote, I drove the car into
the garage. Just as I got in, he came out unquote. Then,
according to the amazing statement attributed to Hope, James told him that his
wife was not dead. About an hour later, while he still sat in
the car in the garage. Hope said, James came back and gave him
a pint of whiskey and returned to the house. Quote. A little later
on, he came out and said, well, that's it. I said,
my god, man, you really killed her unquote, Hope declared.
James answered him in the affirmative and asked him to go into the house and
help carry her out. Quote. I walked in and saw this girl lying
on the floor just outside the bathroom door, with her pajamas on and slippers
unquote, Hope said. The pajamas were dry, but the woman's hair was
damp. Quote. I carried her feet, he carried her head. I
laid her alongside the fish pond unquote. Hope said he refused to demand from
James that he helped put her in there, adding that he left James and
returned to the car. James carried out a bucket of wet clothing and some
blankets and placed them in the back of the car, Hope said, explaining
that later he took the clothing and burned it in an incinerator. He had
the blankets cleaned, He said, kept two and returned one to James afterward.
Hope said the matter bothered him so that he told a friend sales sands,
a wine salesman about it. Sans, questioned by officers, said Hope
had confided in him, and the story Sans said he heard from Hope was
said by the officers to have been substantially the same story that Hope told them
about a month ago. Hope told officers he informed a young attorney of the
whole story, and the attorney conveyed the information to the authorities. Hope was
also quoted by the officers as declaring that James had told him of informing his
wife that a snake bite was a simple way of getting rid of a baby.
James was questioned by officers at the time of his wife's death, but
was not held since then. District Attorney Fits disclosed James has been constantly followed
with his pretty niece Lois Right twenty one, James recently was arrested in a
spectacular raid on the South Side cottage, and James subsequently was indicted on three
statutory counts by the Grand Jury. He is awaiting trial on those counts.
May twenty fifth advised of Hope's amazing story yesterday. Miss Wright hysterically cried,
quote, my god, I know nothing of this. It's too horrible to
think about it. I guess I am a lucky girl. Unquote. She's
being held in custody as a material witness. Hope and his wife were detained
by the District Attorney's men as material witnesses, while James was questioned far into
the night. This last summer of two rattlesnakes under circumstances that arowed his suspicion
was recalled by Joseph C. Haltenbrink, also known as Snaky Joe, in
a statement tending to corroborate the story told by Charles H. Hope involving Robert
James and the fish pond death of James's wife. Last August, Haltenbrink,
who now owns the Anaconda Snake Farm at twenty seven sixty one Valley Boulevard,
al Monte, operated a snake farm at forty two Cypress Street, East Pasadena
until January first. Last summer. He said, a man came to a
Cypress Street place and asked for two of the most vicious snakes he had.
The snake farmer quoted his customer as saying, I've got a big bet that
a rattlesnake will strike and eat a rabbit, and I want the meanest thing.
You've got to make sure I win. Halton Brink added. He brought
a rabbit and a rooster with him and wanted me to try my snat on
them to find how quick they could kill them, but I wouldn't do it,
so he left the rooster and told me to cook it. A few
days later, Mike Alman, who operated the reptile gardens on the Ocean Park
Pier, came to my place and in the course of our conversation, asked
me if a man who wanted some hot rattlesnakes had been to see me.
I told him he had, and we talked it over, and the whole
thing seemed suspicious. That's why I remember the incident clearly. A week later,
the man returned with the snakes and said he had won his bet but
hadn't collected his money yet. He said he didn't need the snakes anymore and
wanted to sell them back to me, so I took them back. He
had a woman with him at the time, and she appeared deathly afraid of
the snakes and quite irritated. Because she had to ride in a car with
them, although he had them in a box with a glass cover. The
two snakes the man took back were six year old desert diamondback rattlers, and
the largest and ugliest reptiles had in the place at the time, he said,
May fourth, nineteen thirty six, like a nightmare coursing through the heated
brain. After the reading of a horror novel Lacrecenta's Rattlesnake and Fish Pond Murder
of Missus Mary James swarmed with new and appealing confessions. The thirty eight year
old barber, his green eyes rimmed with the red of sleeplessness, droned on
in his high nasal twang for three hours in the office of the district Attorney.
His pasty face was perhaps a little pastier, but it was steady,
not twitching, and his voice was even like that of a man telling something
which had no bearing on himself. How a down an outer bribed with a
few drinks, money doles, and the promise of a share and a ten
thousand dollars insurance policy, assertedly aided him in a weird poisoned and drowning of
blonde wife Mary James was told by Robert S. James. James sat in
a chair and District Attorney Fits his office long after midnight and talked as Dorothy
Adam's court reporter recorded, with the prosecutor termed quote, the most amazing story
I've ever heard. The grotesqueness of it brought an involuntary smile to the lips
of his hearers, until they summoned up a vision of the young woman strapped
to a table in one foot, forced into a box of whirring rattlesnakes.
Then they remembered the coroner's verdict that a sting of some kind on the leg
was a possible contributory cause of death, bringing this fantastic story from nightmare like
unreality to plausible fact. Fascinated by a pill of writhing, poisonous reptiles,
the beauty shot Proprietor's fantastic tale of plotting and sudden death, but which blamed
his asserted co plotter, Charles Hope for the actual crime, took him back
to June thirtieth, nineteen thirty five. Fits, When did you first discuss
with Hope the question of killing your wife Mary James? When she was at
long beach and he was at our home. Somehow or other, he knew
she had this insurance. After she came back, he knew she was very
sick. He talked to me and said, she's going to die anyway.
Why don't you kill her? I told him I couldn't do it. He
said, let me do it. I said, how would you do it?
Well, he said, I'd take her up here and i'd shoot her
in a hold up. I said, yes, there have been a lot
of people hung for that. So he had some kind of white powder in
a box. I don't know what it was, but he said, I've
got something right here. I've been working with a bunch of racketeers. You
can just break the skin on your hand and rob a little bit in it,
and it will kill you in five minutes. This is where he sprung
the story on me about the rattlesnakes. I never saw rattlesnake bite anybody.
He said, these California rattlesnakes will kill in fifteen minutes. I'll get a
good couple of snakes and do the job myself. It was agreed upon that
I would give him half the money unquote. At this point, James revealed
that Hope had posed as a medical student, and that he was going to
perform an operation on missus James. The barber's wife in a week in condition,
believed she could not stand the ordeal of childbirth. The snake plot,
however, continued to hold the pair's attention. Fits. Up to that time,
you two had agreed to have the snake bite her. Is that right?
James? Yes, he had gone out and got some, and in
fact he brought three up here. Fits. Are those the ones he got
in Long Beach? James, I don't know. He never would tell.
It was dog days and they were blind, they wouldn't bite anyone. He
took those away, and he brought two more back, and they would bite,
but they didn't have anything in them. He put a rabbit in the
box and the next morning the rattlesnake was dead and the rabbit was walking around.
Fits. That was the second batch. You bought three altogether, James.
Yes. One day he found some hot ones. He said, I
found a fellow in Pasadena who has some that will really do the work.
Deputy Sheriff Gray, when did you bring in the spiders? James? That
was somewhere in that time, Fits? What kind of spiders, James.
He said he had gone to Phoenix to get these black widow spiders. He
had a glass jar full and the top had holes punched in it. So
he said, all you have to do is throw them in bed with her
and they'll buy her. I laughed and threw the damn spiders out. Deputy
Sheriff Killian. When you had this conversation, what was it you said to
each other about having already committed the crime, about doing what you had done
with the snakes? James, I didn't want him to get the other snakes.
I said, we'll fool around and get into trouble. He said,
we already are. We've been hauling rattlesnakes around in the car, which is
a deadly weapon and a felony. I didn't know anything about that. I
said, no one knows it but you and I. He said, I
know it, and you aren't going to walk out on me. Now you
have a barbershop and you're going to make a living, and I want to
have some money. I gave him the money and he goes over and gets
the hot snakes fits. What day was that, James? Saturday night before
she died Monday, Fits. How much did you give him, James,
six dollars. He brought out the snakes back from Pasadena in my car.
He put them in my coop and followed me to my house. I had
a pine of whiskey. He drank, and my wife drank with us.
She dearly loved booze, no matter how sick she was, she loved to
drink Fits. And before he left that night, while you were drinking,
he talked over with Mary again the performing of the operation that night. James.
Yes, He promised that he would come back the next day and perform
the operation. So the next morning, I said, what are we going
to do with her? And he said, I'll tell you what I'm going
to do. She smokes lots of cigarettes, and lots of people die by
smoking in bed. I'll burn the house up. I kept taking a few
drinks, and I got in the car and left about six o'clock Fits with
the understanding that he was going to take care of her by burning the house.
James, that's what he said he was going to do. I went
to work about one o'clock or a little after. He came down to the
shop and said, everything's all right. Kill him. He said he got
rid of her, did he not? James. On the way back to
the shop, I said, did you burn the house up? And he
said no. I said, what did you do? He said, I
threw her in the bathtub and she drowned. I said, you fool,
that's the worst thing you could have done. He said, why, that's
the worst thing you could have done. I had a wife drown in a
bathtub in Colorado Springs a little while ago. He didn't know that. If
he had, he wouldn't have done it. Fits. Is that what he
told you? James? Yes, I said what did you do with her?
Leave her in the bathtub? And he said no, I threw her
in the fish pond. I said, that won't stick. They'll throw me
in the jug good when they find her. I'll be a good sport.
I'll take the wrap. I won't talk. So, of course I arranged
for this couple to go home with me. James and Viola Pemberton fits.
They are perfectly innocent. James, absolutely, The district attorney said, James,
while you are making this statement, let's clean it all up. Did
you kill that girl back east in Colorado? Answer? No, that was
absolutely on the level. The girl in Colorado was his third wife, Naah
Wallace, James found drowned in a tourist cottage. She had been in an
automobile accident a short time before. Fitz then asked about the second death,
saying, and your nephew in San Francisco, James, I was here and
he was up there. Fitz. Did you have anything to do with it?
James? How could I? Fitz? I'm asking you, James,
you know how he got killed? Fitz automobile accident. James, Could I
have had anything to do with that? The district attorney asked him, Will
you face Hope and tell him he killed your wife? James replied that he
would. The best place to listen to True Crime Historian is at the safe
House www dot Patreon dot com slash true Crime Historian, where you can listen
without commercial interruption. At two point fifty am, as James was in the
midst of this dramatic accusation, Hope himself was brought in. He looked jaunty
and self composed. He looked at the district attorney and said, hello,
Fitz. Here he came face to face with the red haired barber. Fitz
ordered, James, you tell Hope what you told me. James sneered,
he knows it. You don't have to tell him. Hope attacked the entire
accusation that he had personally caused Missus James's death by saying, quote, I
was never alone with her at any time unquote. Immediately, Fits began a
rapid fire interrogation of both men. The rattlesnake plot was the center of the
questioning, denying that the reptiles were purchased by him to slay James's wife,
Hope declared, quote, the first two batches were bought by some friend of
his who was going to kill his wife. I bought the snakes and delivered
them to him. With the third batch. He told me he was going
to kill his own wife, and he took those snakes home. Fits,
you knew when you were buying them the third batch that it was for the
purpose of killing James's wife, Hope, Yes, sir, No, sir.
He told me that after he got the snakes in the car. Fits
to James. Was he at the house Saturday night, James, You bet
he was, Hope, I certainly wasn't. I was with my wife.
Fits. Mister James further says, mister Hope, that you represented to missus
James that you were a medical student and were to perform an abortion on her.
Hope, I never talked to missus James. Fits. Mister James further
says that Sunday when he left the house about two pm, that he left
you with his wife, that when he returned about four pm Sunday, that
you told her you had had her bitten by this snake and she was in
bed, and that she had bled quite freely. Is that true, James
James, That is exactly the truth. Fits to Hope. You told him
you were going to finish the job in the morning, and that she was
an inveterate cigarette smoker and had been drinking, and that you were going to
burn her body by burning the house down. Is that true, Hope,
No, Sir, I left the James residence at two thirty pm Saturday and
didn't return until Monday morning. I took my wife up and returned the snakes
to Joe's. James's conclusion that he had Hope at lunch that noon and heard
his story of how the ex sailor had drowned the hapless woman in the bathtub,
was emphatically denied by Hope. The latter admitted, however, that he
had received one hundred dollars from the insurance money. After a time, the
two men were taken out and allowed to sleep for a few hours. Then
in the morning they were returned to the District Attorney's office. Hope was as
jaunty as ever, James was even paler. The two men didn't look at
each other. Fitz motioned James to a chair near Hope, and James said,
I don't want to be any nearer to him than I have to.
Hope grinned had answered, so long as he doesn't sit too near me,
I don't care. It was Hope's turn to be questioned. Fitz asked him
to tell how he and James are supposed to have gone to Ocean Park by
Rattlesnakes. Hope sprang from his seat. He postured a moment and said,
Fitz, I'll show you exactly how James acted down at the rattlesnake place.
With that, he walked to the District Attorney's desk and sat on a corner
of it with one leg folded beneath him. Quote he sat just like this
with a pair of dark glasses on and a straw hat pulled down low.
He sat there for an hour looking at those snakes. Every once in a
while he'd say, how's that one? Is he a good one? He
asked a lot of questions about how savage they were. After this testimony,
Fitz ordered the entire party down to the reptile pit at one forty five Ocean
Park Pier. Mike Allman, the proprietor, was there. He took a
long look at James and said positively, quote, that's the man who is
down here. He came to me with this fella pointing to Hope. This
fellaw said he'd been in a poker game with James and had lost five hundred
dollars, and now they had a bet that none of my snakes was a
killer. Finally I picked the hottest snake in the pit. As James gazed
again at the pit of reptiles, he was positively identified by Mike Allman as
the man who accompanied Charles H. Hope to the snake concession a few days
before Missus James's death, when Hope purchased for three dollars a three and a
half foot rattler. The hottest in the pit, facing Hope and James,
the proprietor of the snake show, looked them squarely in the eye. He
pointed to Hope and said, this is the fellow that did most of the
talking. He is the one that bought the snake. The other fella,
pointing to James, didn't have much to say, but I remember him.
The two of them left together with the snake I sold him. James,
his face a deathly pallor, fumbled nervously with an inch stub of cigar.
His lips trembled, and he leaned back for support on the rail surrounding the
din of snakes. He said, quote, this doesn't mean a thing to
me. I'm not trying to save my skin. But I couldn't have been
there that day. I was working in the barbershop. Almond continued. The
two came in together this fellow. Hope said he and his partner had been
playing poker, and that Hope had lost five hundred dollars to James. Hope
said that he could win some of it back from James if I could guarantee
him that every one of my rattlers were hot. I told him, you
bet they're all hot. They asked a lot of questions, and finally this
fellow, Hope, asked me if they could bring a rabbit over to the
pit and let a rattler strike it. I told him that they couldn't because
I didn't want to get any trouble with the Humane Society. They said that
they had a rabbit in their car. I told him they could buy a
snake and do whatever they liked with it. So Hope had me pick out
the hottest one in the pit. He was a mean son of a gun,
would strike at you every time you passed him. And he paid me
three dollars. That's the last time I ever saw that snake, or these
two fellas until today. James stood at the pit looking down at the reptiles,
one hundred of them, all different kinds. The color was completely drained
from his face. He was dead white. Every few seconds he moistened his
lips with his tongue. When the others had finished, he made a disclosure
that through another even more heartless aspect on the entire affair. He said,
quote, I never came down here with Hope, but I did come down
here with my wife. We stopped and looked at the snakes a long time
unquote with the amusement peer crowded with Sunday throngs, James admitted the District Attorney's
officers that he had taken his wife to see the snakes two weeks before the
night her body was found face down in a fish pond. Robert S.
James, two weeks before the death of his wife, sat with her on
an ocean park pier and there questioned Mike Allman, the proprietor of the Midway
Concession, about the relative deadliness of snakes for two hours. Missus James,
almost hypnotized by the sinuous movements of the serpents and the electric buzz of rattlers,
was at her husband's side while he gleaned first hand knowledge about water moccasins,
geela monsters, rattlesnakes, and other poisonous reptiles. With this disclosure,
Captain Clyde Plummer, chief investigator for the District Attorney's office, took hold of
him and led him back to the car. Roland Kirby, long Beach reptile
expert, disclosed that Charles Hope bought three rattlesnakes and a black widow spider last
summer. Quote. I remember him because he gave me a bad five dollars
and fifty cent check for the snakes. Later he came back and made good
and bought the spider for three dollars. He said he wanted it for a
nature study. Unquote, Kirby said he wasn't ready positively to identify Hope,
but when they were brought face to face, both broke into a laugh.
That's him, all right, said Kirby. How are you, asked Hope.
The snake man, who at that time had a concession in the amusement
zone and is now a consultant at the City Reptile Exhibit said quote. He
came down to me with a lot of questions about the snakes, and I
told him how to handle them so as not to be struck himself. I
was pretty mad when that check bounced on me, but I thought I wouldn't
prosecute for a while, and sure enough, a little later this fellow came
back and made it good. That was when he bought the black Widow.
He said it was part of a nature's study he was making. Meanwhile,
investigators located another important witness, missus ROBERTA. Strickland, cashier at a restaurant
on West Seventh Street, near James's old barbershop. She described a meeting between
James and Missus James and some insurance men. Quote. They came in early
in the summer, sometime I think. First there were James and a couple
of insurance men. They stood around waiting for some time. Finally Missus James
came in. James raised the Dickens with her. I couldn't hear because they
were standing at the counter. I heard them discussing insurance. Following this,
insurance lead Fits announced his office had discovered three different policies which, in case
of double indemnity payment for accident in the death of his wife, would have
netted James twenty one thousand, four hundred dollars. In all, this more
than doubles the ten thousand dollars estimate which James gave as the motive for the
murder and his accusations. Again Hope. One policy, for five thousand dollars
was with the Mutual Life Insurance Company of New York, Another with the Occidental
Life was for five thousand dollars, and the third was for seven hundred.
Fitz is seeking to learn the company which held this policy. Doubled these policies
would have told twenty one thousand, four hundred dollars. James said he had
promised Hope one half, but apparently he had not told him of the double
indemnity clause and may have planned to keep this a secret. Fitz said quote.
We will either get a murder complaint out against him Monday or go to
the grand jury Tuesday with the evidence involving both James and Hope. I personally
believe James is the one who drowned the woman. We will also suggest to
San Francisco authorities that they investigate the death of his nephew and that Colorado authorities
look into the death of his third One May six thirty six, from a
grass covered grave in Forest Lawn Memorial Park, the body of Mary Bush James
was exhumed to give mute testimony to her terrifying experience in a cage of enraged
rattlesnakes a few hours before she was mercilessly drowned in the bathtub in her law
Crescenta home, and from that mute testimony, interpreted by doctor Gustav Bame,
toxicologist District Attorney, fits expects to obtain murder indictments against Robert S. James,
husband of the slaying woman, and Charles S. Chuck Hope, whose
confession disclosed the weird slaying. Doctor Bame, collaborating with doctor A. F.
Wagner County autopsy surgeon, examined the body of missus James at the County
Morgue a short time after it was exhumed. He said, quote, I
am positive that this woman was the victim of the bite of a poisonous snake
unquote, and doctor Wagner agreed. Doctor Bame appointed to several tiny lacerations on
the larger toe of the left foot, which he said were the indentations of
snake fangs. The left leg was badly swollen and quite black, indicating a
heavy blood coagulation. Doctor Bame said, quote This condition is a typical result
following a bite from a venomous reptile. Explaining his examination of the exhumed body
and his subsequent deductions, doctor Bain said, quote, we found a large
laceration wound on the lower surface of the great toe on the left side.
We also found markets swelling in discoloration from the left knee down and market swelling
from the knee up. This condition is typical in the bite of a poisonous
snake. Understand that this same condition was found at the time of the autopsy.
With the present developments, however, we are positive in our opinions that
this condition resulted from a snake bite. Any other infection, except from a
poisonous insect or reptile, would have shown different results. Snake poisoning has three
distinctive effects, one a poisoning of the nerves, two coagulant causing discoloration of
the affected area, and three destruction of the red corpuscles. From the appearance
of this body, I am positive that this woman was the victim of a
bite of a poisonous snake, probably a rattlesnake. Unquote. While doctor Bains's
deductions tended to weave a stronger web of guilt about James and his asserted accomplished
Hope, the toxicologists further explained why Missus James did not die immediately from the
snake venom. In his story to authorities, Hope asserted that the snake bite
did not prove fatal and it was necessary to drown the woman in a bathtub
before placing her body in the fish pond to make death appear accidental. Quote
being bitten or stung in such an area as the great toe where no large
blood vessels are near, the infection naturally was slow and spreading through the bloodstream.
In my opinion, the bite would have caused death if sufficient time had
been allowed. Unquote. Here's a helpful hint. You can easily avoid the
advertising by listening to true Crime Historian at the safe House register at www dot
patreon dot com slash true crime Historian. Indications are that Robert James, Master
Barber, indicted for the murder of his wife and who has admitted four previous
marital mates, may have been a male order of a receipt for a private
mailbox at the Metropolitan Post Office Station expiring June thirtieth, in the name of
Joseph R. Davis. When examined by Captain Jack Southard and Investigator Scott Lyttleton
of the prosecutor's staff, was declared to definitely link James with a wholesale matrimonial
correspondence. Several letters from professional marriage bureaus addressed to Joseph R. Davis were
found in James's home at thirty eight eighty six South Lessal Avenue two weeks ago,
when he was arrested on morals charges. Also among the romantic literature gathered
in James's home was a booklet entitled how to Write Love Letters. The investigators
declared it showed evidences of being well thumbed. Another prize exhibit officers found in
an envelope bearing the Davis nom de plume, was a list of nearly two
hundred special feminine matrimonial prospects. Heavily underscored in the list was the name of
a New York widow fifty three years of age, who had advertised that she
had an income of ten thousand dollars annually. Marked with crosses in the list,
assertedly by James, according to the investigators, were the names of several
other prospects, ranging in age from eighteen to sixty five, all of whom
guaranteed to have annual incomes ranging from two thousand to ten thousand dollars. The
heading of this list, which according to its publisher is for a selected clientele,
bears the statement quote every name and addressed is guaranteed unquote, and invites
customers to send one dollar for ten special introductions to the women listed. According
to the checkmarks on the list, the subscriber had little interest in how old
the prospects were, whether they were blondes or brunettes, but only whether they
had a certain degree of financial stability. May twenty sixth, nineteen thirty six,
Grimly defiant Robert S. James, dapper barber accused of the murder of
his fifth wife, went to trial on a morals charge involving his niece,
Lois Wright, a twenty one year old manicurist, in his downtown barbershop.
After the morals trial, prosecutors announced James will be called to answer for the
murder of Mary Bush James, his fifth wife. A jury of four men
and eight women was completed just before adjournment to hear evidence in the morals case.
Before a witness was called, James's attorney, Samuel J. Silverman,
demanded of the court that all witnesses and spectators attending the trial be searched for
weapons. My client's life has been threatened, Silverman explained. Judge Vickers instructed
deputies and bailiffs to take extra precaution in the courtroom, while Silverman and the
prosecutors Eugene Williams and John Barnes were still wrangling over prospective jurors. Miss Wright
walked into the courtroom. Have any of you jurors ever seen this woman before?
Silverman asked? All the veneermen answered no. May twenty seventh, nineteen
thirty six. Intimate details, including stenographic notes purportedly taken from a bedside dictograph
account of an asserted amorous affair between Robert James, red haired, thirty nine
year old barber and his brunette niece Lowest Right, twenty one years old,
were placed before an intent jury in Superior Court. James was finishing the first
day of his trial on three statutory counts involving the girl who worked as a
manicurist in his downtown barbershop. Still as death, the capacity filled courtroom heard
Captain Jack Southard, leader of a District attorney's raiding party that surprised James and
miss Wright at their cottage at thirty eight eighty six Lesalth Street last April nineteenth
Recite transcript testimony taken over a period of many days by official stenographers. Jurors
heard how the county agents installed a microphone in two rooms of the barber's small
house, and then led wires to an amplifier and headsets in an adjacent cottage.
For Southard. It was a trying afternoon to the investigator fell the task
of reading the surprisingly intimate revelations recorded by Dorothy Adams, District Attorney's reporter and
said to be the supposed confidential conversation between James and miss Wright. The entire
day's proceedings were marked by a barrage of objections from Defense attorney Samuel Silverman.
He flatly repudiated confessions to the morals offense said by officers to have been made
by James shortly after the raid, stating that the latter had not been properly
informed as to his legal rights. Almost simultaneously, however, miss Wright,
weeping and low voiced, was reiterating her own avowal of intimacy with her uncle
over a three year period. Her testimony came out while she was on the
stand in person in the morning, and through the revelations of stenographic transcripts of
interviews held at District Attorney Fitz's office after the raid. During the reading of
the frank unabridged record of her conversations with her uncle in the tiny bungalow.
However, she left the courtroom. A plea by Silverman that the jury be
spared further recitation of the intimate details was denied by Superior Judge Vickers. The
jury, for middle aged women and eight men of varied ages, appeared composed.
I paid half the rent. Miss Wright's testimony asserted she had been asked
concerning the domestic affairs of the Southside cottage at which she and James had lived
since last February. Quote. Uncle Bob paid the other half, and all
the expenses at the shop. I received whatever I took in as my wages
unquote. Then Silverman questioned Southard, who was on the stand for more than
an hour, question, did you ever have any conversation with miss Wright concerning
her turning state's evidence and appearing as a prosecution witness? Answer? No,
miss Wright willingly volunteered to become our witness. Earlier, Silverman hinted that James
was handled roughly by investigators after that Sunday morning raid. That, however,
was denied by Southard after Judge Vickers had questioned him. In the transcript testimony,
James referred to a trip taken westward with miss Wright from Alabama in nineteen
thirty four. Quote. I drove an old, worn out automobile to California.
We stopped at tourist camp. My usual custom was to wake Lois by
tickling her ear. The morning the officers broke into my house, I was
sitting on the edge of the bed, asking her to arise. James did
not reiterate this explanation of the events of April nineteenth. However, when the
district attorney placed him under oath in his office, the transcribed stateman explained that
the barber later refused to comment further concerning his relations with his knees. All
morning, witnesses filed to the stand where, under constant objections from Silverman,
they told the lurid tale of asserted miss conduct between James and miss Wright.
The story begun by Fred Cole, deputy county surveyor, who described the location
and interior of the house on south West south Street where James and miss Wright
were arrested, reached back to the attractive manicurist birth in Birmingham, Alabama,
twenty one years ago. Silverman objected futally, as Deputy District Attorney Williams.
Elicited testimony from Missus Smith, twenty seven year old sister of miss Wright and
niece of the defendant, that the girl was actually the daughter of James's sister.
Incompetent and purely hearsay, he charged as Missus Smith told how she recalled
clearly the night that miss Wright was born. Later, after Silverman's objections had
been overruled, it became apparent that the defense would seek to demonstrate that miss
Wright's testimony was obtained after she and the district attorney's representatives had virtually struck a
bargain. Referring to an interview between the girl and county attorneys shortly after the
raid on James's cottage, Silverman shouted the whole substance of this conversation was directed
toward obtaining her testimony against her uncle in return for immunity. Judge Vickers refused
to permit Silverman to proceed. Called to the stand, miss Wright, frequently
in tears and dabbing her eyes with a lace handkerchief, told how she had
first seen her uncle when she was ten. Then in nineteen thirty three,
when she was eighteen, James proposed a trip to California. Then The Dark
Eyed Girl described her first motor trip across America with her uncle. They stopped
at auto camps, she testified, and finally rented a department in Los Angeles
for a month. In May nineteen thirty three, they returned to Alabama,
but in January nineteen thirty four, miss Wright recalled. She and her uncle
again motored to Los Angeles. This time they remained living together in another apartment.
Frequently, she said her uncle was guilty of statutory offenses in which she
was involved. When the barber married in May nineteen thirty five, she went
to another apartment. James moved with his bride to La Crecenta, where the
latter was found drowned in the fish pond last August, six months after her
death, however, her uncle rented the four room bungalow on South le South
Street. Williams charged James with statutory offenses, specifically on April fifth, ninth
and nineteen. On the latter date, informed by a dictograph installed in two
places in the cottage and connected to headphones and amplifiers in the house next door,
District Attorney's officers raided the barber's home. Beset by rulings of Judge Vicars
that much of his cross examination bestricken from the court records. Silverman then demanded
ended of miss Wright whether she'd heard her mother state quote, you were not
her daughter unquote. The manicurist declared no. May eighth, nineteen thirty six,
voluntarily refusing an opportunity to take the stand in his own defense, and
through his attorney offering no defense. Witnesses Robert S. James yesterday sat stolid
and emotionless as a jury decreed him guilty of three separate morals offenses involving his
twenty one year old niece. Each count found against the red haired James by
a jury of four women and eight men, carries a penalty of from one
to fifty years in prison. Yet James, facing the still more serious charge
of murdering his wife last August by rattlesnake, venom and drowning, merely moistened
his lips as the jury's foreman handed the three decisions to a bailiff. Then
he resumed his cold half smile. The barber's crime, according to prosecution testimony,
involved his comely brunette niece, Lois Wright, whom he brought to California
from her home in Birmingham, Alabama, two years ago, against an array
of incriminating charges substantiated by transcripts of records from a dictograph placed beside a bed
in the cottage. Defense attorney Samuel Silverman remained mute. Immediately, however,
he signified that he will appeal on the grounds that Superior Judge Vickers had not
properly inst instructed the jury as to the significance of James's failure to appear in
his own defense. Like an actor awaiting a cue, the debonair Barber stood
outside the courtroom just before the final scene of his trial took place. At
a nod from Bailiff Putney, he stepped to a seat beside Silverman and heard
the verdict. This has been a distressing case for you to hear, Judge
Vickers told the jury when they had completed their twenty five minute conference and returned
a verdict of guilty. He complimented the members of the jury on their faithfulness
during last Tuesday session, when transcript reports of intimate conversations between James and his
niece became so extraordinarily salacious that several spectators withdrew from the court room June twenty
third, nineteen thirty six, an illegal chess game which may last for more
than a month. Prosecution and defense attorneys yesterday started selection of a jury to
hear the trial of Robert James, Los Angeles barber, charged with the rattlesnake
poisoning and drowning of his fifth wife. When court adjourned, seven men and
four women were in the box as prospective jurors, with one seat vacant.
Meanwhile, from throughout the United States, a group of witnesses, contacted by
district attorneys investigators was prepared to converge on the court room in the Hall of
Justice to testify against James. Defense attorneys Samuel J. Silverman, William J.
Clark, R. E. Parsons, and A. Benjamin announced that
they expect to prove James was insane at the time of his wife's death and
still is mentally incompetent. June twenty fourth, nineteen thirty six. Charles h
Hope, ex sailor, appalled court room thrill seekers yesterday when, with incredible
nonchalance, he told of buying six rattlesnakes for the purposes of murder. His
mumbled testimony tore at the defense of Robert James, red haired barber on trial
and Superior Court Judge Frickey's court quote, James came to me early in June
last year and said he had a friend who wanted to kill his wife,
and that it would be worth one hundred dollars to me to get a couple
of rattlesnakes. I said, all right, it was none of my business
what he wanted the snakes for. Unquote. Hope had to be prompted by
the court to speak more distinctly, and the witness grimaced with annoyance when asked
to repeat indistinguishable fragments of testimony, but his indifference must have hidden an internal
storm. Only a few minutes before being called to the stand, he suddenly
became ill and had to be removed from the court room to recover. James
himself turned the color of clay. At the same time that Deputy Sheriff Toohy
testified to what he found when he reached the Fish Pond death House in La
Crecenta, a spectator, Miss Olive Simon, pitched forward in a faint moaning
under questioning by Deputy District Attorneys Williams and Barnes and over the strenuous objections of
the defense battery of attorneys. Hope said he first brought two rattlesnakes in Long
Beach. Quote the snakeman threw a third one in for good measure. One
of them died unquote. Later, he said, James asked him to go
along to Ocean Park and look at a snake pit. Quote. I heard
James say to the snake man he'd bet twenty dollars there wasn't a poisonous snake
in the pit. The snake man pointed to one and told him it was
a fighter. The next day I came down and traded one of the other
snakes in for that one. Unquote. Hope said James paid them one hundred
dollars and then described two boxes he said were made at James's order as containers
for the snakes. Quote. Later, James said the Ocean Park snake was
no good, and he wanted me to get a real fighter, and I
went to Snaky Joe's in Pasadena and got two more. I went with my
wife, took her home, and then picked up James. We went to
a drug store, got a prescription filled, and bought some adhesive tape unquote.
Earlier witnesses told how the body of Missus James was found by flashlight,
half sunken in the fish pond. James Pemberton, the first to come upon
the body, said, quote, I had the flashlight pointing to the other
side of the pond. I nearly stumbled on the body before I saw it.
I looked down and it was right at my feet. Then I turned
my light upon it and saw Missus James lying with her face in the water.
Her yellow hair was floating. Striking at the prosecution contention that James had
murdered his wife by rattlesnake poison in drowning some eighteen hours before. Defense counsel
Clark carefully questioned Pemberton regarding the barber's demeanor immediately previous to the discovery of the
body. Question, did you notice anything different in the manner of James?
Answer? No. Clark then asked the detailed description of James's action when he
first saw his dead wife. Quote. I told him Mary was dead.
I said to brace up. He appeared terribly shocked. Then he knelt down
beside the body and he talked to it unquote. Question, what did he
say, did he tell her he loved her? Answer? I couldn't say.
I was too excited myself. Question and afterwards did you have to assist
him to the house? Answer? He seemed very weak? Deputy two.
He also described discovery of two notes, one a letter written by Missus James
to her sister in Las Vegas, in which she set her leg was badly
swollen from a bite received in the garden. The other a scrap of brown
wrapping paper signed Ethel which had been left in place of a calling card expressed
regret at missing Missus James. Missus Viola Pemberton, an old friend of the
dead woman, was called a statuesque ample blonde. She told how the body
of Missus James was found in the fish pond. Under questioning by Williams,
she said that with her husband and James, she drove to the death home
for dinner. Quote. The lights were all out and I said, Mary
must be sick. We looked all over the house for her, and then
someone I don't remember who but not I suggested looking over the grounds in case
she had fainted. Mister James took a flashlight and gave my husband one.
A little later I heard my husband say, oh my god. I said
what is it? And there was no answer. Then he called mister James
and I heard him say, buck up, she's gone. Unquote Missus Pemberton
said Missus James was lying face down in the pond with her blonde hair floating
on the water. Her legs and hips were outside on the rim. Quote.
Mister James cried a great deal afterward and said What'll I do without Mary?
Then he became very sick. June twenty fifth, nineteen thirty six,
unnerved by his own incredible story as to how Mary Bush James, gagged and
bound to a table, was tortured by rattlesnakes before she was finally murdered by
drowning. Charles Hope collapsed on the witness stand yesterday and had to be helped
into an ante chamber. Sneering laughter came from Robert S. James, red
haired barber, charged with the murder of his fifth wife, as he beheld
his self confessed accomplice in the crime, wilt under questioning, with Hope half
fainting in the witness chair and coughing in his handkerchief while telling his horror story.
The trial proceeded lamely. After successive attacks of illness. Hope was returned
to the stand for cross examination, but could not proceed. After court was
journed, he was taken to the jail hospital for observation. An account of
Missus James strapped to the breakfast nook table where Hope set her foot was held
in a rattlesnake box, brought on his fainting spell while he recovered. County
autopsy Surgeon Wagner and doctor Gustav Bam, toxicologist went to the witness stand and
gave erudite accounts of poisoning by rattlesnake, black widow spider and other deadly creatures.
Questioned by Deputy District Attorney Williams, from all your observations at the time,
the body of Missus James was exhumed for further examination, would you say
that she had been bitten by a rattlesnake? There was a chorus of protests
from defense attorneys. Judge Fricky ordered the question answered quote. It is my
opinion that the woman probably had been bitten by some venomous creature, perhaps a
snake. The poison of a rattlesnake and many other venomous creatures affect the lymphatic
system kill The red corpuscles affect the nervous system and cause characteristic black and blue
spots in the region of a puncture. The poison of a black widow spider
causes intestinal and gastric disturbances. Unquote. He was asked about experiments performed upon
two guinea pigs with poison extracted from two rattlesnakes supplied by snaky Joe Houghtenbrink quote.
The venom of one snake was injected into a pig, which gave a
sharp squeal and twitched. After several minutes of the little pig fell over and
several times afterwards tried to rise but couldn't. His respiration and heart action slowed
down, and in twenty minutes dead. The second pig was given a smaller
injection and lived for one hour and five minutes. Autopsy surgeon Wagner went on
the stand and testified he had found a puncture on the left great toe of
the body of Missus James. He said there was swelling and some inflammation up
to the knee. Quote. The puncture could have been caused by a rattlesnake
unquote. Attorney Clark fired a rapid series of questions at doctor Wagner, and
toward the end of his cross examination, scored a point for the defense.
Quote, did you see any marks on the skin about the mouth that would
indicate she had been gagged with adhesive tape? Answer? I did not question.
When adhesive tape is peeled off, it leaves a distinct mark usually does
it not? Answer yes? That attacks prosecution contention. Based on Hope's story
that missus James was tied to the breakfast nook with adhesive tape over her mouth
and eyes, Hope looked shaky when he took the stand. His voice was
weak. Judge Fricky, in council for both sides, implored him time and
again to speak louder. He would strike out boldly and then trail off into
a whisper. He plunged into his description of the killing. A few minutes
after taking the stand, Williams recalled to him that when Cort had journed the
previous afternoon, his testimony was that he and James were driving together with the
two snakes in the car after purchasing adhesive tape and feeling a prescription at the
drug store. Question, then what happened? Answer? We stopped at the
corner of Beverly Boulevard and Vermont Avenue. James said to me, you know
there isn't any third party wants these snakes. I'm going to collect five thousand
dollars insurance on my wife. Hope took a deep breath and wiped his forehead.
A contemptuous smirk lifted the lips of James. Question. What next?
Answer? I went to a movie with my wife. The next morning,
my wife and I drove up near James's house. I left her in the
car and walked to the house. James came out to meet me. He
had been drinking quite a bit. I told him I had come after the
snakes. He said that I couldn't have them. Then we had a couple
or three drinks and went out to the garage and I saw the snakes with
two or three dead chickens around them. James said to me, Hope,
you're in this just as deep as I am. You've bought snakes all over
the country. People have seen you with me. We sat there for a
few minutes and he said, come on into the house with me and bring
that box Missus James was lying on the breakfast room table. Her arms were
tied down and there was adhesive tape over her mouth and eyes. James lifted
one of her legs so I could get by. I laid the box on
the seat of the breakfast nook and he picked it up, but the glass
top slid back and he stuck Missus James's foot into it, closed the box
and went back to the garage. Question were there snakes in that box?
Answer? Yes, there was a live one. Question which did James put
in the box? Answer the left leg. All she had on was a
nightgown. And about half an hour he came out to the garage and he
had a glass of whiskey, and he said, what are you nervous about?
Try this? Unquote, Hope said. He left the house in James's
car a little later, returning at one thirty am. Quote James came out
to the car and sat down with me. He put a bottle between us
on the seat. He said, she's not even sick. Why don't you
take her to a hospital. I said, they'd string us higher than a
kite, he said. Then he said, I'm going in and drown her.
About seven o'clock. He came out and said, that's that. Unquote.
Hope said he went with James into the house and saw missus James lying
on the floor. He said she appeared to be dead, was dressed in
dry pajamas, but that her hair was wet. Quote. James took the
upper part of the body and I took the lower. We carried her out
to the fish pond. He said I would have to help put her in.
I said I wouldn't do it and walked away. Later, he said
to me, don't get excited. As soon as I get money, I'll
take care of you. I'm too smart for those officers. I had to
write a note. Unquote. Hope said he burned some towels, ropes,
adhesive tape and other matter, and an incinerator, and disposed of three blankets.
Williams asked Hope, who was becoming paler, if he had any conversation
with James as they stood at the side of the table in the breakfast nook.
Quote. I asked her how he got his wife up there and tied
her down. He told me he wanted her on the table because a doctor
was coming. Unquote. Defense counsel rose to object. While the court's attention
was transferred to another portion of the court room, Hope sagged forward. He
lay with his head in his arms on the witness stand. He was rushed
outside. James laughed and sneered. It was half an hour before Hope could
resume the stand. He was overcome with nausea. Later, he resumed the
stand for a brief period, but when time came for cross examination again was
unable to continue. County autopsy surgeon Wagner took the stand and testified that he
examined the body of missus James and found a puncture and laceration on the left
greate toe and an inflammation of the leg, which he said might have been
caused by a rattlesnake. He said the water was in her lawns and that
death was due to drowning, with an inflammation of the leg as a contributing
cause. June twenty ninth, nineteen thirty six, two fighting mad rattlesnakes behind
glass were placed before the jury at the murder trial of Robert James. Twice
they struck out, knocking their heads against the transparent partition, already streaked with
venom. Some jurors shrank back. Others leaned forward curiously. A high,
vibrant whirring, mounting and pitch almost to a line, filled the courtroom of
Superior Judge Frickie. District attorneys Williams and Barnes contend that these two rattlesnakes sank
its fangs into the foot of Mary Bush James last August while she lay strapped
to a breakfast nook table in her locre sent a home. James held one
of the snakes to her foot and allowed it to strike her. The prosecution
declared the two four and one half foot Western diamondback rattlers were marked Exhibit number
twenty over the objections of defense attorneys while they still rested on the council table
within a few feet of the shock jurors Snaky Joe Houghtenbrink explained that what appeared
to be a third snake was merely a cast off skin of lethal one of
the snakes. Before the snakes were removed, Lois Wright, twenty one year
old niece of James, was called to the stand. She passed directly in
front of the glass box and shuddered. She admitted having conversations with her uncle
regarding insurance. Question by Barnes was that at the time you were occupying the
same house with your uncle. Answer no, I don't believe it was during
the time we were living in the same house. Barnes then asked if she
knew Charles Hope, accuser of James. Answer yes, I first met him
at my uncle's house one Sunday. Later. I saw him more than once
when I was working at my uncle's barber shop. Sometimes he would come in
to get barber work, and sometimes he would just talk to my uncle.
During her testimony, shutters of disgust by jurors led Judge Frickey to order Exhibit
twenty carried out of sight behind the desk of court Clerk Arthur Moore. Court
officers first brought the long boxk into the courtroom on their shoulders. It was
shaped like an old fashioned pine box coffin, but was made of glass.
The courtroom was shocked out of its indolence. A high, vibrant, dry
buzz, like the hiss of water shooting from a nozzle, rose in the
sudden silence. James turned and stared, then he turned away. The buzzing
snakes were carried behind his chair. Then they passed in front of Hope.
Hope took a deep breath. He expelled it. When the snakes were laid
down behind the desk of Court Clerk Moore, the rise and fall of their
angry rattle continued. The snakes lay behind a curtain, it was lifted by
more. Those standing close by could see their little flat heads swinging above the
coils. Forked black tongues darted in and out. A Deputy sheriff thrust his
leg before the glass. The snake on the left darted its head forward.
Then there was a little thump inaudible at a distance. The snake had struck
the glass. No venom was ejected. Poisoned sacks of both snakes had been
virtually emptied earlier in the day, as they punched their heads against the transparent
walls, lunging at passers by in the Bureau of Investigation, the glass was
streaked with the yellow liquid. The snakes held their rattles above the coils like
little plumes. The vibration was so fast the rattles were blurred. Attorney Clark
sprang to his feet when Snaky Joe was asked to identify the two rattlers as
the ones he sold, hope, I object, your honor will observe the
usual interest and consternation of the audience and the jurors. Their minds have been
distracted from the testimony. I saw several spectators half rise from their seats as
the snakes passed by. Their consternationation was such that the effect is still visible
on their faces. Judge Fricky surveyed the courtroom and said he failed to see
any such consternation, and that he would take no cognizance of spectators half rising
from their chairs. The jurors took the rival of the snakes rather apathetically for
an hour before the angry snakes were taken into the courtroom. Rollin' Kirby and
Houtenbrink regaled the jury with the fighting habits of diamondbacks and sidewinder rattlesnakes. Quote.
Sometimes they draw back their heads first and then strike out for three quarters
of their lengths, said Kirby, the long beach expert. Sometimes they just
slap up and down with open mouth, their heads moving only four or five
inches. Under questioning my attorney Clark, he disclosed that the point of a
fang is fifty one times sharper than that of a hypodermic needle. Quote.
If the snake strikes a solid blow, the fang goes into its full depth.
I've seen it sinking so deep that the short feeding teeth have left an
impression unquote. Clark asked him how many rattlesnake victims he had seen. Kirby
answered, quote ten or twelve. Three of them died. One a five
year old girl was struck on the arm. A young woman in Texas was
struck on the leg unquote. Kirby said most rattlesnakes are peaceful and seek to
avoid comment, but added, quote, there are exceptions. You take Texas
rattlers. They won't back up hardly at all unquote. He described the difference
between the diamondbacks he said he sold hope and the smaller sidewinders, and told
of experimenting on dogs with crystallized snake venom, and described a fatal dose of
poison quote. About one milligram of poison to each pound in the body of
the person bitten is generally fatal. The amount injected in the size of the
person struck, Besides whether the victim will die, Clark questioned Kirby about his
experience, his reading on snake subjects, and his formal training. The herpetologist
said he had obtained most of his learning through experiment. Question did you ever
read the articles in the Encyclopedia Britannica. Answer? I don't go for that
stuff at all. Question what sort of a wound does a snake's fangs leave?
Answer a small puncture. Question Is there ever a sliced wound? Answer
yes, if the point of the fang drags across the skin of the victim,
but the fang has no cutting edge itself. That testimony was considered important.
The autopsy showed that Missus James's great toe was both punctured and sliced,
as if struck by a glancing blow. There was only one puncture and a
slice. Kirby said, I've seen cases where only one fang struck the victim.
Houghton Brings followed Kirby to the stand quote. I sold Charles Hope two
diamondback rattlers on August third. I marked it in my book. I sold
them for three dollars. Question by Deputy District Attorney Williams. What did Hope
say to you? Answer? He said he bought some snakes other places and
they weren't hot. He said he wanted some hot ones. He told me
he wanted to kill a dog and win a bet. Holt and Brink then
told the jury that Hope returned with the snakes and received a dollar fifty refund
on August fourth. Quote. I know very well it was August fourth because
my mother in law was there. Question by Clark, did Hope appear intoxicated?
Answer? I drink myself, and I don't consider a man intoxicated after
he's had two or three drinks. Come to think of it, I think
we had something to drink together ourselves. I think we drank a beer together.
Clark asked the witness if he had been paid by the prosecution for advice
and testimony. Answer no, question. Do you expect to be paid?
Answer? I'm pretty well broke myself. I expect a dollar seventy five a
day as a witness. Is that not correct? Late in the day,
when insurance men were called to the witness stand, Lewis Barry of the Mutual
Life Insurance Company of New York told of insuring Missus James for five thousand dollars.
He said the barber was curious regarding double indemnity payments in case of accidental
death. He also testified that James insisted on what is known as a half
price policy, meaning a policy on which small premiums are paid the first three
years and larger ones thereafter. June thirtieth, nineteen thirty six, like a
wheel within a wheel. The death of Winona Wallace James, third wife of
Robert James, was described by the prosecution yesterday in and its attempts to prove
the barber murdered his fifth wife, Mary Bush James. The defense strenuously objected,
and Superior Judge Frickey ordered the jurors out of the courtroom, while deputy
district attorneys Williams and Barnes offered to prove their evidence as admissible. They proposed
to show that James murdered both his wives for the same mode of insurance and
by the same method bathtub drowning. Barnes said, quote for the death of
Winona four years ago in a Manitou, Colorado cabin, James received fourteen thousand
dollars insurance for the death of Mary in their honeymoon cottage at Lacrescinta last August.
He sought twenty one four hundred dollars insurance and received three thousand, five
hundred dollars. Wainona was found submerged in a tub of water curiously enough,
with a grocery boy for witness, and Mary was found drowned in the fishpond
of their home, also in the presence of a witness. The prosecution further
contends that James drowned Mary in the bathtub of their home and then carried her,
already dead, to the fish pond and later in the water in semblance
of an accident. Arrival of five witnesses from Colorado to testify concerning the death
of Weyna precipitated the argument. J. A. Rogers, superintendent of Pike's
Peak Highway, was called to the stand in question concerning an automobile accident which
took place September twenty one, nineteen thirty two. In this accident, Winona
was almost killed. Barnes began a line of questioning which was to lead to
the supposition that James deliberately drove the car off the cliff on a mountain highway
in an attempt to kill his wife. Hardly had he begun questioning when defense
attorneys sprang to their feet, sputtering objections. The jurors were ordered out.
James, dressed in a new checked gray suit, which he had demanded from
his attorneys, showed lively interest in the legal technicalities which followed. He fastened
his attention on Barnes and seemed jarred out of apathy with which he has listened
to testimony. His face was expressionless, however, when Barnes declared he would
attempt to show that James struck Winona over the head before driving the car over
the cliff, Barnes took the stand himself to read portions of the evidence taken
at the trial of the Occidental Life of Los Angeles seeking to cancel its policy
on Missus James following her death. He read James's testimony regarding a fake marriage
with Mary Bush James. At the previous trial, James was asked, when
did you begin living with Mary James as husband and wife? Answer? We
have been living together as husband and wife since May ninth, nineteen thirty.
Question what caused you to have this ceremony? Performed answer, Well, we
had been going together and we wanted to live together. I knew we could
not be married because I was already married. Question was there any preceding pending
regarding this earlier marriage? Answer? Yes, I had an annulment pending.
He was asked why he decided on the fake marriage and answered, I decided
I would have to figure out some way to make her satisfied to live with
me. I knew she wouldn't unless she thought she was married. The way
I figured it out was that I would get this man to marry us,
and I would not tell her. Then I would tell her when I got
the annulment, and we would really get married. Question you did get married,
didn't you? Answer? Yes on July nineteenth and Santa Anna answer who
performed this ceremony? Answer? It was a man named Regal. I don't
know his first name. July one, nineteen thirty. Cut by the whiplash
of new and terrible accusations, Robert James, the barber, broke through his
shell of sneering calm for the first time. Anger pumped a bright color into
his pale cheeks. He flared up like a mad red haired boy. His
lethargy and stoicism evaporated, and he ejaculated. It isn't fair, It isn't
right. Then, with lively gestures and his expression protesting, he whispered excitedly
in the ears of defense attorneys. The transformation stole years from James's face and
came as deputy district attorneys Williams and Barnes began their attempt to prove he murdered
his third wife, Guina no Wallace James in Colorado four years ago by automobile
accident and bathtub drowning. In fearsome procession, the ghosts the famous mass murders
and their victims were paraded before the court as prosecution and defense came to grips
on the propriety of proving one crime by evidence of another. In a brilliant,
lucid hour long dissertation enlivened with gruesome accounts of murder and series, Barnes
contended that such evidence is admissible. He cited from outstanding cases in the past
with bulldog tenacity and with equally harrowing citations from the past, but pointing to
an opposite ruling, Clark stubbornly fought Barnes all the way. The struggle came
to an end at mid morning, after dragging through virtually all the previous afternoon's
sessions, Judge Frickie gave his opinion briefly and simply. He said he would
give no formal opinion at that time, but would rule the evidence admissible.
Clark sprang to his feet and almost triumphantly announced he considered reversal in a higher
court a likelihood. He said he was so confident that he probably would not
put James on trial for his sanity if convicted. Instead, he said he
may appeal directly from the present trial, contending the Colorado evidence not admissible.
Ja Rogers, superintendent of the Pike's Peak Highway, was the first Colorado witness
to go to the stand. With a few words, he pulled back the
curtain. The jurors looked across four years to the tableau that was played one
September evening on the rugged side of Pike's Peak. Rogers said, quote,
I was down at Glen Cove. Mister James came down there and reported an
accident. He said his wife was driving. We went up the highway about
two miles in a truck. James pointed to a switchback and said that that's
where the car went over. We went down to the car missus James was
lying out side the car on the right side. Her head was on the
ground and her feet were on the running board. I knelt down to find
out if she was dead. My face was about five feet from hers.
Question did you notice anything down there? Answer? I smelled liquor. Question
was it strong or weak? Answer? It was strong. I put both
my hands back of her head to lift her and felt a soft spot behind
her ear. Question where was mister James at this time? Answer? He
was sitting on a rock twenty feet away. Question did his breath smell of
liquor? Answer? No, He told the jury he went back up the
hillside after Missus James was put in an ambulance and examined the tracks where the
car went over the bank quote. For eighty feet alongside the tire tracks from
the edge of the road, I traced footprints. They were on the driver's
side of the car eighty feet from the edge. These footprints curved around and
came down the passenger side of the car unquote. Barnes asked him about the
condition of Missus James's clothes, and he said they were smeared with blood.
He said there was blood on the back of the cushion on the seat and
on the floorboards. He said he found a bottle containing a red fluid that
smelled like whiskey. Those were the facts, he told by a chain of
deductive reasoning. The prosecution fills in the picture and contends this is what happened
on the Pike's Peak Highway that evening. James, seeking to murder his wife
for fourteen thousand dollars insurance money, took her up Pike's Peak and gave her
liquor until she was unconscious. He drove her to the switchback and stopped the
car eighty feet from the point where it pitched over the edge. He took
the hammer and got out of the car. He walked around to the passenger
side of the car, leaving the footprints Rogers observed he struck his wife over
the head with the hammer, making the soft spot. Rogers said he felt
behind her ear. He returned to the driver's side of the car and put
the machine in low gear, then hopped out as it moved forward, leaving
more footprints as he walked alongside the slowly moving car, guiding it over the
edge. All this time, blood flowed from his wife's head, staining the
cushion on the passenger's side. The prosecution contends that had mine own had been
driving, she would not have been on the right side, but on the
left side behind the wheel. Rogers was asked the condition of James's clothes by
Barnes, who emphasized the point quote they were neat. I asked him how
far he had gone down with the car, and he told me fifty feet.
I said to him, you must have made a perfect landing. He
said to me he didn't know. Unquote. Rogers was not asked whether he
had informed Miss James of his findings regarding the hammer. The prosecution contends she
never knew she had been hit because she was unconsciously intoxicated at the time.
Miss Grace Yarnew, Winona's cousin, followed him to the stand. She told
of seeing Winona in the hospital after the accident, and later of coming to
the mountain cabin at Manitu where she was drowned. Questioned by Barnes, did
Wynona ever appear dizzy or faint? Answer, No, she did not.
James told authorities that his wife fell into the bathtub and drowned because she was
subject to fainting spells. After the accident, Robert James, fleeing down the
shadowy slopes of Pike's Peak and trembling fear of mountain lions was described at the
barber's murder trial, and meanwhile unconscious at the sight of the wrecked automobile and
easy prey, he had left his wife Guanona to the peril he himself feared.
Alba Custer, Colorado's springs hotel man went to the witness stand during the
day at James's trial and gave this testimony quote. He spoke later of his
not knowing what to do, whether to wait for help to come, that
a car might pass by, or to leave her there, and that he
was rather afraid to do either one due to the fact that he'd lost his
gun and was afraid of mountain lions. James's lips curled in a mocking smile
as that picturesque account was given. A new love tale about the amorous barber
preceded this fragment of testimony and his sensation shot day. A fragile, timid
girl, Grace Yarnell, first cousin of Winona, told how James kissed her
while Wenona was in the hospital with a fractured skull after the accident, which
the prosecution contends was no accident but a murder plot. The serial story of
Winona's death and James's actions while she was recovering from her automobile injuries was revealed.
When miss Yarnell took the stand. She was neatly dressed in a white
dress and white hat, flushing slightly as she felt the courtroom's eyes upon her.
Barnes troubled her embarrassment with his first question, On any occasions when you
were alone with mister James during the time his wife was in the hospital,
did he make advances to you? She looked as sheepish as a schoolgirl caught
reading a forbidden book. Her lips moved, and defense attorney Clark demanded the
question be answered more. She said, desperately, not with the exception of
a few kisses. James head raised, half smiling, appraised her with his
eyes. He watched her, coolly, rested and fresh, wearing his new
gray suit. Barnes asked when answer. I believe it was one afternoon when
we were going somewhere in my car, three or four days after missus James
was hurt when her car ran off the highway, question, what did you
do? Answer? I moved out of the way. The next time,
she said, was a couple of days later, also in the automobile.
Question. Was there any other occasion? Answer? Yes, once in a
hotel room. Question and what did you do upon this occasion? Answer?
I told him to cut it out? James looked on appraisingly. She said
it was in his room at the Elks ho Tell Parsons, cross examiner for
the defense, question, when James and your cousin Wynona first came to visit
you, you kissed them upon their arrival? Did you not answer? I
kissed Winona, not James. He dropped this line of questioning momentarily and asked
her if James did not stay devotedly all night beside the bed of his wife
when she was in the hospital. Answer, I couldn't say, but he
was still in the room with her a number of times when we left.
Parsons then asked about a letter which was introduced into evidence, addressed to the
Kansas City Life Insurance Company, signed Robert S. James. It was dated
October fifteenth, nineteen thirty two, the day after Winona's body was found in
the tub. It asked for the proper forms for applying for payment as beneficiary.
Question you wrote that at mister James's request, because he doesn't use very
good English and is a man of little leedgit occasion. Answer yes, I
wrote a few other letters for him too. Question. When all of you
went down to the train to see James off for Los Angeles, he kissed
you goodbye? Did he not answer? Yes? He did. He then
asked her if she looked up James when she came to Los Angeles. She
said she hadn't, but that he came to see her she denied, asking
him to see if he couldn't locate her a job as a stenographer. Quote.
I believe I mentioned one time that if I found work in Los Angeles,
I would stay here. Unquote Rogers. The grocery boy followed her on
the stand. He got mixed up and sat in the court reporter's chair.
First, he said he was no relative of J. A. Rodgers,
the superintendent of the Pike's Peak Highway, who the day before had testified about
the automobile accident. The grocery boy told what he knew of the drowning.
Quote. James came to Leonard's grocery store and ordered some groceries and said he'd
ride up to his cabin with me in the truck. He went into the
house first, and I went into the kitchen with the groceries. He went
into the bedroom unquote. At Barnes's request, Rogers drew a floor plan of
the house. It showed the bedroom separated from the kitchen by the bathroom.
But James, instead of going directly from the bedroom into the bathroom, according
to Roger's testimony, walked around through the living room and dining room to the
kitchen first quote. Then he opened the bathroom door. I heard him call
out. I went to the door. Question and what did you see?
Answer? I saw missus James. Question where was she? Answer? She
was in the bathtub. Her head was at the faucet end, her legs
over the rounded edge at the opposite end. Question was she clothed or naked?
Answer? She was naked. She was lying on her back, Her
hips and her shoulders were on the bottom of the tub. It was almost
half full of water. Question where was the water in relation to her face?
Answer? It barely covered it. Question what did you and James do?
Then? Answer? We carried her to the bedroom and laid her on
the bed. Doctor George B. Gilmore, who was coroner at the time
of Winona's death, told an interesting story about insurance and altered death certificates.
He said that after first observing the body, he put down the cause of
death to accidental drowning. Some time later, he said, James wrote letters
from Los Angeles to Missus James's physician and to the undertaking establishment requesting that steps
be taken to alter the cause of death. Doctor Gilmore said quote he wanted
it to read death as the result of accidental drowning, with head injuries as
a contributory cause. He explained that the insurance policy on his wife's life had
a clause preventing collection of double indemnity in case of accidental death, but he
said that if it could be shown that the drowning was caused by the injuries
she received in the automobile accident, that he could collect the double indemnity.
Doctor Gilmore said he made the requested change and the death certificate July third,
nineteen thirty six. It was on August fifth, last year that the body
of Mary Bush James was found in the fish pond of her locrecent to home.
Missus Madge, read spirited young governess went to the witness stand yesterday and
testified that on the following August eleventh, Robert James, the barber, approached
her with a proposal of marriage. Quote. He said he didn't believe in
mourning over the dead, and as soon as he buried his wife and collected
the insurance, he wanted me to marry him and go north unquote. No
sooner had she given the testimony, then she accused James of offering her two
thousand dollars to give false testimony in case there was an investigation into his wife's
death. She said he wanted her to testify she had seen Missus James alive
the morning prior to the evening she was found dead. Those spectacular fragments of
testimony exploded in the face of the defense as they vainly sought to have it
ruled inadmissible. Missus reed, Cool, in a white dress with flount sleeves
and a perk turn up hat, was summoned to testify on a day of
interminable wranglings over technicalities between the deputy district attorneys and defense attorneys. Williams questioned
her and asked when she first met James quote the afternoon of July tenth last
year at a cafe. My girlfriend met him first and brought him over when
he said he wanted to meet me. We had a few drinks with him
and stayed until about five p m. He was quite intoxicated and asked my
girlfriend and I to drive him home. He told us he was from Kansas
City and he lived with his sister on Verdugo Road in La Canada. We
drove him out there. He went right into the bedroom, saying he was
going to sleep. He told me to take the car and go get dinner
and that maybe he would be feeling better when I got back. Question and
did you return there that night? Answer? Yes, I did. Then
I saw someone come in the door. She called, oh, honey before
she came in. It was a woman, I think his wife. Unquote.
Defense attorney Clark Rose strenuously objecting to Missus Reed, testifying as to who
she thought the woman to be. Not understanding courtroom procedure, Missus Reed became
annoyed and in the hubbub of voices including the judges, exclaimed, well,
I tell you it was his wife. Superior Court Judge Frickie Clark and Williams
simultaneously ordered strike it from the testimony. Missus Reed told the court that mister
James then drove her to the bus line at Montrose and left her. She
said she didn't see him again until August eleventh, but that he telephoned numerous
times asking for engagements. Quote. He apologized for taking me out there,
saying he didn't expect his wife home because she was supposed to be at a
convention in Long Beach on August eleventh. He asked if I read the papers.
I told him yes, and he said not to believe everything I read
about his wife's death. He said they were trying to frame him. He
asked to come up to my apartment. I asked him not to, but
he came anyway. Unquote. It was at this time missus Reid said that
James offered to marry her as soon as the insurance was collected and his wife
buried. Question did you talk of anything else? Answer yes, He said
if he was indicted, he wanted to spring me as a surprise witness.
He said he would pay me two thousand dollars if I would testify that on
the morning of her death. I happened to go by their home and saw
her on the porch and stopped. He told me to say that she was
lying on the swing and complaining of not feeling well. Above all, he
said, don't mention that she had a sore on her leg. Question what
else did you do? Answer? We went to hermosa. Her voice fell
and she blushed. Question, and what did you do at hermosa? Answer?
We registered at a hotel, as mister, missus Joseph Wright of San
Francisco. Question, Then what did you do? She laughed a bit nervously.
Answer. We went up to the room and talked, mostly about his
troubles and about my being a witness for him. Question did you spend the
rest of the night at the hotel? Answer? Yes. James tilted back
in his chair and laughed. He clapped Silverman on the back. Throughout the
day he was in unusually good spirits. As insurance men took the stand,
he repeatedly whispered to his attorneys and advised them as to questions to ask nexts.
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I Dare you. July sixth, nineteen thirty six. A whirlwind of
angry passion tore through the Rattlesnake murder trial yesterday. A few minutes before Robert
James, the Barber went to the witness stand and testified it was the memory
of a beating he said he received that led two weeks later to his purported
confession of murder. Caught up in their own high feelings, superior judged Fricky,
and attorneys on both sides vehemently sought to shout one another down as the
defense made its desperate stand against admission of the murder statement as evidence. James's
attorneys had determined to put him and other defense witnesses on the stand in what
is known as a war year proceeding. This is admissible in an attempt to
exclude evidence even though the prosecution has not concluded its case. The first gust
of ill feeling swept into the courtroom after Jack. The first gust of ill
feeling swept into the courtroom after Captain Jack Southard of the District Attorney's Bureau of
Investigation went to the stand for questioning. He was asked why he had slapped
James during the early part of the investigation of the death of Mary Bush James
by drowning quote, James said to me, I'm getting tired of being questioned.
She was nothing but a little I got mad at that and lost my
temper and slapped him unquote. Defense counsel Samuel Silverman, William J. Clark,
and Russell Parsons objected vigorously. James himself said only one word. He
spoke it out of the side of his mouth, as Southard quoted him,
but the word was not distinguishable. Silverman, employing the Vardar proceeding, then
took the stand himself as a defense witness, to give his version of the
abuse to which his client says he was subjected. Under questioning by Williams,
he angrily sought to make explanation. Williams leaned forward, shouting objections. Silverman
shouted back, and the judge joined the shouting. The judge ordered Silverman to
be silent. The attorney said he had a right to be heard. The
judge demanded, mister Silverman, are you going to run this court room?
Or am I? I can make it clear to you in a very few
minutes if you don't already know through it all. His face unruffled, James
sat like a stone. Silverman went on to testify. James's ears were blue
and swollen when he saw him in May after the arrest during a mon quarrels
raid involving James's niece Lois Right. James was then called to the stand.
He was erect and proud looking as he walked across the courtroom, his face
deeply furrowed with fatigue. He stepped to the witness chair and crossed his legs
carefully. Clark began the questioning. He asked James where he had been beaten
in his nasal twanging voice. The barber answered slowly and quietly. They took
me out to Lessalth Street in the house where the dictographs were. That was
the day after I was arrested with Lois. They pulled the shades down and
began questioning me. I answered everything they asked me. They kept it up
constantly until Tuesday morning. Southard kept wanting me to say I'd spent the night
with a woman in Hermosa Beach a few days after my wife's death. I
didn't know anything about that. Finally he got mad and said I was lying.
It was then he began beating me. He jumped on me in my
chair and beat me until I got a grip on him. Charlie Griffin,
another investigator, knocked me loose. I said there's no use hitting me anymore
because I'd say whatever they wanted about spending a night with a woman, but
it didn't make any difference to them. Southard would hit me if I answered
yes to his questions or answered no. I collapsed about that time and didn't
know anything until the next day. James then went on to say it was
the memory of this beating which led to the asserted confession two weeks later.
He said he was in jail at the time, early in the morning of
May second, when word was brought to him that Charles Hope confessed accomplice,
had given a complete statement describing the rattlesnake and drowning murder. James said he
told the officers at the time, I have nothing to add to that confession.
Several hours later, he was taken down to the District Attorney's office,
as he said, and there made a lengthy statement which the prosecution seeks to
have admitted as a confession. Under cross examination by Williams, the barber steadfastly
stayed by his story. Williams asked, isn't it true that when I first
met you, I told you I could make you no promises of leniency because
I would be your prosecutor. Answer, that isn't what you said. The
attempt to exclude the murder statement will be continued when James goes back to the
stand. July seventh, nineteen thirty six. Robert James, his red hair
actually standing on end from rage. Robert James beating his young niece Ruth Pounds
in a burst of irritation. Robert James trampling and cursing a prize rooster because
its spurs scratched him. An amazed jury was granted those glooms of the barber's
youth. The descriptions were given by relatives. They traced the life of the
pasty faced defendant from a Weasley boy who never had shoes, to skinny youth
who was involved in cutting scrapes, to a many times married graduate of a
barber college now on trial for murder. Meanwhile, in a bewildering change of
front, his attorneys late in the afternoon announced abandonment of their insanity defense.
That means the barber is to be tried strictly on his guilt or innocence.
Depositions were taken from Missus Annadel Pounds, sister of James, Grady Lycinda,
his brother, and J. H. Murphy, a brother in law,
each of whom described James as being underdeveloped and the possessor of a violent temper.
Missus ann Adel Pounds testified that James cried from headaches ever since he was
a baby, that his memory was bad, and that his total schooling amounted
to about three months or something like that. She testified quote I have thought
he was crazy for a long time. Unquote. Both Missus Pounds, sister
of James, and Grady Lycinba, his brother, described their father and Jameses
as a man with a violent temper who whipped his children unmercifully and who left
home for good about the time James was seven or eight years of age.
Lycinba said his brother, whose true name is Major Raymond Lycinba, was more
or less sick all the time during his youth and had trouble all the time.
Quote. I didn't quite make up my mind whether he was crazy.
I only thought he just didn't act like a man ought to unquote. After
the depositions were read, missus Eva Murphy, sister of James, was summoned
to the witness stand. Quote. He was funny about light He wanted them
left burning. In nineteen thirty three, when he visited us, he beat
up his niece Ruth Pounds, because she turned the lights out. Later we
found him crying and saying he had better kill himself because he was no good
to anybody. Unquote. She said that since nineteen twenty four she has been
of the opinion he is of unsound mind. Question, then, why thinking
he was of unsound mind. Did you approve of his going out to California
with his eighteen year old niece Lois right answer, with his love and respect
for the family, I felt she'd be safe. The last witness of the
day was Charles W. Decker, a city health official. He unfolded a
round package wrapped in tissue paper. After seating himself in the witness chair,
a human skull was exposed to the jurors, who by this time are too
hardened to show much interest. Setting the skull on the judge's bench at his
left hand, doctor Decker proceeded to give a medical description of the injuries on
the skull of Wynona Wallace James, the third wife of the barber who was
drowned four years ago in Manitou, Colorado. The jurors were reminded that this
missus James was first injured in an automobile accident and then drowned in a bathtub.
Doctor Decker's testimony related to the accident, which prosecution contends was no accident
but a plot to kill her. Using the skull to illustrate his points,
he testified that the nature of the fractures which were received by Winona led him
to the belief that they were inflicted by a light hard instrument. A hammer
is what the prosecution contends James hit her with. Doctor Decker reached his conclusions
through examination of X rays taken in Colorado at the time of the accident July
ninth, nineteen thirty six. The wheel made the full turn. At Robert
James's murder trial yesterday, his own sister, who once thought her baby brother
the most beautiful thing in all the world, turned her back on him.
She said, I want to see justice done. She was asked, you
mean you want to see your brother convicted of murder, don't you? She
said, It is immaterial to me what they do with them. The sister,
Lottie Wright Smith, was not in Superior Judge Frickey's court, where James
is charged with the murder of his fifth wife, but in Alabama, and
spoke through a deposition taken several weeks ago. It is a somber document for
Lotty Wright Smith is the sister who worshiped and tended her little red haired brother
when he was a child. She is also the mother of Lois Wright,
the young niece of James, whom he corrupted The deposition was introduced in a
final struggle over the admissibility of James's purported confession that he murdered his fifth wife
by rattlesnake poison and drowning. James's sister Lottie began her deposition with an account
of their childhood days. She referred to him always as Major the Barber's true
name is Major Lesinba. She said, quote, I practically raised him.
I loved him more than anything on earth. He was such a sweet and
friendly and beautiful child. He had red hair and was the most beautiful thing
I had ever seen. Unquote. Then she told of a childhood theft of
a watermelon. Quote, I sure remember that watermelon. We stole it passing
by missus McLoughlin's house, and we ate it a quarter below Brighton. But
pau he got us, and he whipped us down there at the pump house.
He whipped us furst for steeling the melon, and then and again for
telling a story. She was asked about her brother and her daughter, quote,
there has been trouble between us ever since. Question, and you want
to see him convicted of this murder? Answer? If he is guilty,
Missus Smith, then told how James asked her to not collect her insurance policy
on their mother until after he had collected his. He said, mine's a
new policy and they might knock it if you collect yours first. Missus Vandy
McKinney, an aunt of James, testified he came to her and said,
quote, I'm going to give you an age for mama, and you tell
that age to the insurance agent. Quote, well, I done hat her
age already out of the family bible, Missus McKinney said, And I noticed
that the age he gave me was different. He said that age made a
difference on how much he collected. Well, there wasn't any agent come anyway.
She was asked if he considered him insane. Quote, no, sir,
he had good sense. Why he knew all about chickens. Why he
even used to take me out and show me his chickens, real fighting chickens.
And he had a good shop out in California. And besides that,
he was a society man, popular like unquote. The defense then asked her
how old her mother was when she died, and she told them she believed
her parent was seventy five years of age. Question, you believe aren't you
sure? Answer? Well counted up, she was born in fifty five.
You're mixing me all up, missus. McKinny was admonished as follows. If
you'll just confine yourself to answers, you will save somebody a lot of money
in yourself a good deal of time. Da Randall, an Alabama carpenter,
testified extensively regarding James's sporting interests. He told of numerous good fighting roosters the
barber owned, and of a deal James engaged in to buy a fighting dog.
Asked about as sanity, Randall said, quote, Major was right up
to scratch when it came to dogs and roosters unquote. Other witnesses also told
of James's shrewdness and fighting roosters, they never referred to them as cox.
One elderly man said quote, I never went with Major to the rooster fights
because I ain't got enough money to go to jail on if you get caught
unquote. I just got one thing to say. Www dot patreon dot com,
slash true crime historian that's it July fourteenth, nineteen thirty six, to
an endless hymn of Pate sung by Lashing angry rattlesnakes. Robert James, the
Barber and Charles Hope, ex Sailor, played a frightful little drama of their
own in the courtroom, but at its climax their play acting was marred by
an upsurge of genuine rage and repulsion that almost led the blows. The outburst
occurred as defense attorneys re enacted to the last possible detail just how Mary Bush
James, fifth wife of the barber, is supposed to have been bound to
a table in her foot held in a box containing a rattlesnake in the confusion.
They told James to play the role of the dead wife, his murdered
wife, the prosecution says, and Hope was cast in the role of James.
The courtroom for the purpose of the play became the breakfast nook of the
James home in La Crecenta, and the time was last August fourth. Hope
was called to the stand for cross examination by the defense, carrying a big
wooden box with a glass top. Defense attorney Parsons stood alongside him. Parsons
explained the box was a replica of the one Hope said he used to imprison
the rattlesnakes. The reenactment of the asserted rattlesnake poisoning was first attempted in the
morning. Question, Now show us just how missus James's foot was put in
the box? Hope glared at him, using what as what he said in
a hostile tone. Judge Fricki ruled the demonstration impractical. Hope then objected to
the dimensions of the box. He said his box was broader. Parsons carried
the box away and said he would have a larger one made. Deputy District
attorneys Barnes and Williams objected, however, and Judge Fricky upheld their objection,
but late in the afternoon, defense attorneys succeeded in having Hope go through the
scene in the courtroom. Heaps of law books, papers, pencils, and
a water pitcher were removed from the attorney's table. A swivel chair was lowered
under Hope's direction until it was approximate high to the breakfast nook seat, and
the lockers sent a home where Missus James was found drowned last August. Fifth
Defense attorney Russell Parsons asked Hope, now, as that about the way it
should be. No, Hope said, the table's too big. Parsons then
measured off the exact dimensions of the breakfast nook table and chalked them off on
the attorney's table. Hope made some more objections, and Judge Fricky said,
mister Hope, you take charge of this and make it exactly as you think
it should be. Hope look pleased. He ordered the attorneys about in a
loud voice. He made them set the table at just the angle in the
courtroom that suited him. Then he made them put the swivel chair in a
corner of the table. That's the seat on which I placed the rattlesnakes,
he said. Parsons obediently placed the replica of the rattlesnake box on the mock
breakfast nook seat. No get someone to lie there like missus, James,
said, Hope. The gaunt bluebird barber, making a desperate gamble to escape
the gallows, left his chair at the lawyer's table, where he has watched
for twenty one days slow building of the state's case against him. To participate
in the bizarre stage work with two buzzing diamondback rattlers, lethal and lightning,
the guaranteed killers, which the state says James used to torture his pretty young
wife, and a plaster of Paris foot for props. The red haired barber
went through the grizzly performance in an effort to prove he could not have killed
his wife by that means. James's face was ash colored as he stepped to
a cleared lawyer's table. Before most courtroom attaches knew what was happening, he
climbed on the breakfast book table and lay down. Hope flared up angrily.
Deputy District Attorney Barnes hastily stepped in front of him. He lay on his
back as Mary James is supposed to have been lying. Hope was led alongside
In the little play. He was supposed to seize James's foot and jam it
into the replica of the original snake. James's pent up nervousness exploded when his
former helper grabbed his leg, not with the intention of shoving it into the
snake box, but to illustrate the manner in which he said James took his
wife's leg. The accused killer suddenly sat upright and yelled, don't let him
touch me, I don't like him, I don't want to touch him.
But the perspiration started out on Hope's face, and cords of anger showed in
his neck and forehead. In a moment, court guards and attorneys stepped between
the men, glaring and trembling, while the rattlesnakes hummed their signal to death.
They were pulled apart. James was helped off the table, and Superior
Judge Fricky had someone else play the role of missus James. James stood at
one side, arms akimbo, greenish eyes fixed unblinkingly on the scene. His
lawyers brought out a plaster leg and live snakes, which lay hissing in a
long call, often like brown box. The defense expected to prove diamondback rattlers
do not retain their vitality long enough to be venomous after a period of four
to six months in captivity. They challenged the validity of the live snakes a
state exhibition in the case, and all the time above the court room sounds
as chilling as a siren in the night rose the vicious, angry death signals
of the rattlesnakes themselves in their long glass snake box behind the desk of court
Clerk Arthur Moore. They whirred intermittently throughout the court proceedings. The snakes Lethal
and Lightning, identified as the same ones Hope bought last August, were taken
into court by order of defense attorneys. James was just arranging his foot to
put it in the mock rattlesnake box when he was lifted off the table and
taken away. Hope then abruptly changed rolls and became miss James. He was
laid out on the table while Parsons stood at his side in the roll of
the barber. Now raise my leg and stick my foot in, said Hope.
I don't know exactly how James got hold of her leg, because I
was watching the rattlesnake. It looked like it was about to jump right out
of the box. The jurors rose from their seats to get a better view.
Parsons obeyed Hope's instructions, and the re enactment was over. Besides the
two live rattlesnakes, two pickled snakes were taken into the courtroom. They have
not been introduced into the case as yet. There was also a skeleton rattlesnake
head in a fruit jar to show the fangs, and one rattlesnake expert wore
a fang as a tie pin. The entire day testimony was devoted to defense
testimony, the prosecution having concluded its case Monday. Most of the witnesses were
introduced to discredit Hope's story about the rattlesnake. The defense can tends that it
would be impossible for a snake in such a box as Hope described, to
strike Missus James on the bottom of her great toe. There was also considerable
testimony indicating that Missus James was an expectant but unwilling mother at the time of
her death. Last year. The barber's sister, Missus Eva Murphy, of
Birmingham, testified about a Sunday breakfast conversation in the James home last July.
My brother's wife Mary just sat there and couldn't eat. Missus Murphy said,
my brother Bob said, you know it's wrong, honey, and she answered,
yes, I do, and I'm going to the doctor and get something
done about it. Then Bob said, no, you won't. I'm going
to have little Bobby Junior around the house. Hope was there and Mary turned
to him and said you'll take care of me, won't you? Chuck You
bet I will, he answered. Missus Murphy said Hope was introduced to her
as doctor Smith, a former Navy medical student. The first time she saw
him was early in July, she said, when he walked into the James
apartment while she and her brother were treating some ailing chickens. She said she
never saw any rattlesnakes or rattlesnake boxes at the home while she was there.
She said she left July fourteenth, about three weeks before Mary was found dead
in the fishpond of the home. Considerable ill feeling arose among rival snake experts.
While doctor Frank Weinberg, the defense expert, was on the stand,
Snaky Joe Houghtenbrink, the prosecution expert, indulged in derisive snickers and sounds.
Just as doctor Weinberg was describing the pains he felt when struck by a rattlesnake's
fangs, Haltenbrink said, whew. On another occasion, he said oop.
As doctor Weinberg testified rattlers do not live more than six months in captivity.
The defense was trying to prove that the snakes Hope said he bought last July.
I must be dead by now. Snaky Joe contends they are very much
alive. He went to the stand himself for cross examination by Clark and said
the two snakes in the courtroom were the same ones he sold Hope. Clark
answered what he fed them, and he answered kangaroo rats and little cottontail rabbits.
Clark asked, do you feed the milk? Snaky Joe was so overcome
with mirth it took several minutes to recover. He sputtered milk milk a couple
of times and then exploded and it choked. Never Clark asked him where he
bought his rattlesnakes. There's competitors in the room who would like to know,
he objected. Judge Fricky ruled he'd have to tell anyway, and Haughtenbrink disclosed
the world of rattlesnake experts that his source was a mister walker in Indio.
Weinberg said later there aren't any western diamondback rattlers around Indio, but only sidewinders.
Haughton Brinks Sneer July fifteenth, nineteen thirty six. Earlier in the day,
James was sent to the stand in an impressive silence. Even the two
rattlesnakes were quiet. Courtroom sounds dropped to a rustle, like the excited shifting
of a fight crowd when the preliminaries are over and the main eventors climb into
the ring. In a few minutes, James made his defense clear he was
gambling his life on a flat denial of all guilt. He told a long
story which thrust full responsibility on Charles Hope, the ex sailor, provided,
of course, that Missus James was actually murdered. James denied any personal knowledge
that it was murder. There was only Hope's confession, he indicated to make
anyone believe her death was not accidental drowning when she fainted and fell into the
fish pond of their home last August. His own purported confession he attributed to
brutality of investigators. Defence attorneys sent him to the stand after diallying with minor
witnesses during the first hour of the morning. James walked to the stand slowly.
Attorney Parsons escorted him like a comforter. He placed himself in the chair,
carefully crossing one knee over the other. He lounged back until his elbow
rested on a corner of the judge's bench. The barber seemed perfectly calm.
Occasionally he wet his lips, but so did almost every one of the jurors.
He swallowed now and then, but so did deputy district attorneys Williams and
Barnes. There was nothing about his actions that could be viewed as otherwise than
normal. His voice was fairly charged with quiet sincerity. First mention of the
rattlesnakes came within sixty seconds after James was on the stand. Question did you
ever have conversations with Hope when you told him you had a friend who wanted
to get rid of his walk and would pay you to get some rattlesnakes?
James deliberated a moment. He drew his brows together, like a man puzzled
by a ridiculous question. Finally, he said, I never did, shaking
his head slightly. Defense attorney Parsons asked, did you ever tell mister Hope
you wanted him to purchase rattlesnakes? James took his time again, I did
not, he said, Did you ever tell him you were a killer and
wanted to kill your wife. James seemed a little indignant. He drew himself
up straighter in the chair. I never thought of such a thing. Question.
Did you ever tell Hope you had insurance on Mary, and if he
would help kill her, you would give him a portion? James took the
question in a quiet, hurt way. He made it seem an outrage to
ask such things. I did not, he said. Parsons, sedate and
conservative, put the questions frankly, but with an air of hesitancy, as
if he wanted to avoid hurting James's feelings. He next asked James to tell
of the circumstances under which Hope stayed at his home during July last year,
the month before Missus James was found drowned in the fish pond. I had
known him seven or eight years, said James, settling back in the witness
chair. He came up the evening of July third. I think I was
treating some chickens in the garage. He came in when he saw me with
the chicken in my hands, and said, hello, it's old doctor James.
I see my sister Eva was there, and Hope called me aside and
said he wanted to talk to me alone a minute. He was pretty intoxicated.
He said he had a fight with his girl and she threw him out,
and he wanted to stay with me and wanted to borrow a dollar.
I asked him why he didn't get a job. He was doing some pretty
experimental chemistry and pretty soon would be able to have a job. I told
him to come back when he was sober, and walked down the driveway with
him. Unquote. James hesitated. Diffidently. He looked about the courtroom as
if to determine from the faces of his listeners whether he was boring them with
too long a story, said Parsons, Go ahead, mister James. Quote.
Well, Hope had a little tin box with some yellow stuff in it,
and he said it was rattlesnake venom and he would like to try it
on one of my chickens. But I wasn't intoxicated, and I said no.
I got him to his car and he drove off. Unquote. Parson's
questions brought out that Hope reappeared at his home on July sixth. Quote.
He came down to breakfast the next morning. My niece Lois was there and
my wife and my sister. It was Sunday morning. I introduced him as
doctor Smith. He asked me to introduce him that way because he said he
was having trouble with his former wife, not the life he was living with,
and he didn't want her to know his whereabouts. Unquote Hope's story of
the crime, that he and James were together in the breakfast nook, that
missus James was tied to a table and subjected to a rattlesnake bite, and
later she was drowned in the bathtub, has been and will be completely denied.
If she was murdered by Hope, it was entirely without his knowledge.
James contended, the last possible thrill was squeezed out of the Robert James murder
trial. Lethal one of the rattlesnakes escaped in the courtroom during the noon recess,
after James had spent most of the morning on the witness stand in his
own defense. Like a streak of brown quicksilver, the reptile slid under a
bookcase, his vicious rattling through the courtroom into hysteria. A Pierce our tran
Laguna Beach snake expert jammed A waste basket over the snake's coils. Lethal scooted
away again in a new direction. In a moment, our trand with the
aid of snaky Joe Houghton Brink, jerked a wire noose over Lethal's head.
Then he grabbed the snake at the neck with his hand and held it aloft
before onlookers. He forced the snake's jaws open. The fangs sprang into view.
Courtroom spectators had another good shudder. Then our tran put the snake back
in its box. The snake had been removed from the box where it had
been an exhibit at James's trial. Suddenly it squirmed out of our trans hands
onto the floor. July twenty fourth, nineteen thirty six, four ballots,
with no jurors voting not guilty, a verdict to first degree murder was returned
to against Robert S. James, phlegmatic, red haired barber. Exactly nine
hours and fifteen minutes after the jury had retired, the jury of ten men
and two women brought in the verdict at eight twelve pm. At eight oh
one, Judge Fricky was in his chambers the jury room buzzer sent Bailiff George
Purdue up the stairs to the jury room at a run. He returned in
a few seconds and said they're ready. Judge Frickie ordered James brought down from
the jail. Two of the barber's attorneys, Samuel Silverman and Russell Parsons,
were notified, so was Deputy District Attorney Eugene Williams. In a few minutes,
James walked in the courtroom with a bailiff at either side. He looked
neither to the right nor left. He walked rather rapidly. He's just a
bit nervous, just a bit, said one of the bailiffs. I think
maybe his hand trembled a little. Once James set down, his attorneys hadn't
arrived yet. A few hours earlier, Charles H. Hope, the ex
sailor in James's confessed accomplice, had sat in the same chair. He was
waiting to learn his fate. Also, although he confessed to the rattlesnake and
bathtub murder of Mary Bush James weeks ago, the degree of his guilt has
not been set. At his side was public defender Ellery Cuff, who rose
and asked for leniency second degree murder, but Judge Frickie ruled it was first
degree murder. Hope, who had expected leniency for turning state's evidence, swallowed
and asked for a cigarette. He will probably be sentenced to life imprisonment.
So James sat there in the same chair, chewing on one side of his
cheek for a few seconds. Then he crossed his legs and folded his hands
over his knees. He sat like that until Parsons and Silvermen arrived. He
looked questioningly at them. Parsons said it might be bad, Bob, so
you better grit your teeth. I guess I can take it, said James,
I've taken everything else in his black robe. Judge Fricky mounted the bench.
There was a shuffling of feet in the ante room, and the jurors
filed in. They sat down. Judge Fricky asked if they had reached their
verdict. Frank Allen, the dark complexioned foreman, rose with a slip of
paper in his hands and said, we have your honor. Bailiff Perdeue took
the slip of paper from his hands and walked over to the judge. Judge
Fricki handed the slip to court clerk Arthur Moore, rising behind his desk,
Moore read the fatal sentence to himself to make sure. Then he read aloud,
we find the defendant, Major Raymond Lcinba, also known as Robert James,
guilty of murder in the first degree. There was a hush. Everyone
listened to see if Moore would go on. If there was another sentence recommending
life imprisonment, James's neck would be saved, but Moore didn't say word.
There was no recommendation that makes hanging mandatory. James sat as he always sat,
looking forward, batting his eyes rapidly, a habit of his. Finally,
he turned to his attorney Silverman, I can take it, he said.
I didn't expect it, but I can take it. Ten yards away
at the side of a policewoman, James's niece lowest right, arrested with him
in a moral's raid, was crying. The verdict was a surprise to her.
A few hours earlier, she had been laughing merrily about the way she
baked her first biscuits. May one, nineteen forty two, Robert S.
James, forty eight year old rattlesnake killer, mounted the thirteen steps to the
Hangman's News goose and death on the San Quentin gallows today. He was calm
to the end while guards pulled the straps tight around his ankles. He stood
on the gallows platform, his shoulders drawn back by another strap which bound his
arms to his sides. He was dressed in a black suit and a white
collarless shirt. His red hair was neatly combed, and his face was very
white. There was a strange look of triumph in his sharp eyes as he
glanced down at the ninety eight reporters, officials, and guards who stood in
the high ceiling raftered deathhouse. His appearance, almost boyish, gave the impression
he had been interrupted by his executioners while dressing for a dance. Then came
the black hood and the noose, Then the spring of the trap. James
entered the chamber at ten am with Warden Clinton T. Duffy, Reverend Macerriker,
the prison chaplain, his guards, and his executioner. His body plunged
through the trap at ten oh one and a half. San Quentin Warden Clinton
Duffy described the hanging to reporters, quote, the man hit bottom and I
observed he was fighting by pulling on the straps wheezing, whistling, trying to
get air. That blood was oozing through the black cap. I observed also
that he urinated, defecated, and the droppings fell on the floor. The
stench was terrible. I also saw witnesses pass out and have to be carried
from the witness room. Some of them threw up. It took ten minutes
for the condemned man to die. When he was finally dead enough to cut
him down, big hunks of flesh were torn off James's purple face, his
eyes were popped, and his tongue swollen and hanging from his mouth. Unquote.
The former Los Angeles barber was the last person to be legally executed by
hanging in the state. He was hanged because his crime was committed before the
adoption of the Cinai gas method of execution in nineteen thirty seven. Starting with
Jose Gabrielle, a San Diego murderer. On March third, eighteen ninety three,
two hundred and fourteen men climbed the steps of the robins egg blue gallows
before James, but none of the two hundred and fourteen paid with their lives
for so fantastic a crime as the one James committed. His conviction was upheld
twice by the State Supreme Court and once by the United States Supreme Court.
This week, Governor Olson refused to grant a stay of execution requested by the
State Advisory Pardon Board. Day the State Supreme Court denied his application for writ
of habeas corpus. Meanwhile, Charles Hope, who had turned state's evidence,
was sentenced to life imprisonment. He is at San quentin and today. When
questioned by reporters after the execution, he said, quote, I hold no
animosity towards James. He was just another human being to me unquote. It
has not been determined whether the wife James killed was his fifth, sixth,
or seventh wife. Her name was Mary Bush. James. James was born
Major R. Lecinba in Birmingham, Alabama. He served in the Army during
the First World War as a private using the name Davis. In the two
years he spent on San Quentin's condemned row, James became very religious. He
conducted a Bible class, and the other convicts called him Holy Joe. His
religion seemed to give him the courage to face day without cracking. He told
a prison chaplain yesterday morning. I've lived a bad life. I've asked my
maker to forgive me, and I think he has. I feel as though
I were going home. That was Snake's on the witness stand the Trial of
Rattlesnake James the Redheaded blue Beard. For headline clippings, photographs, and source
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