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Speaker 6: You are now listening to True Murder the most shocking
Speaker 6: killers in true crime history and the authors that have
Speaker 6: written about them, Gasey, Bundy, Dahmer, The Night Stalker BTK.
Speaker 6: Every week, another fascinating author talking about the most shocking
Speaker 6: and infamous killers in true crime history. True Murder with
Speaker 6: your host, journalist and author Dan Zupanski.
Speaker 4: Forgotten California Murders nineteen fifteen to nineteen sixty eight chronicles
Speaker 4: homicides that happened so long ago they've been forgotten even
Speaker 4: by the families of the killers and the victims. Their
Speaker 4: crimes are no less shocking than the murders that have
Speaker 4: had books and films made about them. The book that
Speaker 4: we're featuring this evening is Forgotten California Murders nineteen fifteen
Speaker 4: to nineteen sixty eight, with my special guest, journalist and
Speaker 4: author David Colchick. Welcome to the program. Welcome back to
Speaker 4: the program, and thank you so much for this interview.
Speaker 4: David Colchick.
Speaker 3: It's great to be here.
Speaker 4: Dan, thank you so much. Once again, you've done it.
Speaker 4: Forgotten California Murders. Some wild, wild stories here. Let's start
Speaker 4: off because we just take the time to just examine
Speaker 4: a few of these and explore somewhat in depth some
Speaker 4: of these wild stories that you've included in this forgotten
Speaker 4: California murders.
Speaker 2: As we spoke before, let's talk about.
Speaker 4: Dirty wealthy scoundrel September ninth, nineteen thirty three, Santa Cruz.
Speaker 4: As I mentioned, it just seems to be almost all
Speaker 4: of the kinds of things, the sensational things that we
Speaker 4: would find in a current case. Yet nineteen thirty three
Speaker 4: tell us about dirty wealthy scoundrel.
Speaker 3: This case was really amazing just because of the level
Speaker 3: of people that were in high society in the San
Speaker 3: Francisco area. This guy named Francis Joseph Morgan Grace. He
Speaker 3: was the nephew of the guy who co founded Grace
Speaker 3: Steamship Lines in the Panama Male Steamship Company. So you know,
Speaker 3: if your own steamships, especially back then, you were pretty wealthy. Yeah.
Speaker 3: He was raised in a lifestyle rivaled European royalty. He
Speaker 3: was a member of all the clubs you could be
Speaker 3: members of in San Francisco, the Yacht Club, Berlin, Game
Speaker 3: Country Club, Santa Cruz, golf and country club in the
Speaker 3: Bohemian Club. He was given a career as an executive
Speaker 3: in the family business. Retired at forty two, and because
Speaker 3: of the company he was involved in, him and his
Speaker 3: family got to travel anywhere in the world that they
Speaker 3: wanted to in luxury on their ships. He married the
Speaker 3: woman he married. She was from a famous California rich family.
Speaker 3: She's a descendant of David Calton, who was not only
Speaker 3: was he a Native American murderer, but he was also
Speaker 3: the attorney for the Big Four railroad bear A Shunter, Stanford, Hopkins,
Speaker 3: and Crocker. So you're talking megabucks. So they had a son,
Speaker 3: you know, one kid. He had married him off in
Speaker 3: nineteen thirty. The idle rich retired at forty two, and
Speaker 3: they had a state in Santa Cruz. And now where
Speaker 3: the area where their estate was is all houses and
Speaker 3: apartments and maybe a block from the ocean right in
Speaker 3: Santa Cruz. I mean, you couldn't be more in the
Speaker 3: middle of Santa Cruz than this place they called They
Speaker 3: called their place the cat the Cabins, and their other
Speaker 3: place they lived at was the penthouse of the Alexander
Speaker 3: Hamilton Hotel. In San Francisco. It's still there. So you know,
Speaker 3: these are you know, the richest people in San Francisco.
Speaker 3: So this great guy, he was basically an alcoholic, lived
Speaker 3: his life in alcoholic days totally. When he had a
Speaker 3: heart condition, was in mal health that it was basically
Speaker 3: from a lifetime babby drinking. So on September ninth, thinteen
Speaker 3: thirty three, Grace and his nurse, twenty eight year old
Speaker 3: Helen Helene Roberts, were walking through the extens of the
Speaker 3: state of the Cabins when his former nurse, forty three
Speaker 3: year old Frieda Willheima Augusta Wells, approached him and after
Speaker 3: a short discussion, she pulled out a thirty two caliber
Speaker 3: pistol and shot him in the chest. He made it
Speaker 3: to the door and slumped into the arms of his butler,
Speaker 3: who was a former guard of the Gazar of the
Speaker 3: Tsar in Russia. He disarmed. The woman called the police.
Speaker 3: Wels was all woozy and she told the police that
Speaker 3: she had taken lumina, which is a mild narcotic, and
Speaker 3: she was taken to the hospital get her stomach pumped,
Speaker 3: and Grace was taken to the morgue. So she was
Speaker 3: fragile and quiet, and she said she only had her
Speaker 3: own reasons and he didn't do what he promised to do.
Speaker 3: Their family shows up and stuff, and you know, goes
Speaker 3: to court. They're very properly represented by attorneys. One attorney
Speaker 3: came out from her hometown and outside of Philadelphia or
Speaker 3: outside of Pittsburgh, and they also hired a Santa Cruz
Speaker 3: former district attorney, Sandford Smith, as co counsel. So people
Speaker 3: right away, you know, we're interested in this case because
Speaker 3: it was you know, rich people and his former nurse
Speaker 3: shooting him. But they really got into it once it
Speaker 3: came into into court. And what happened was that she
Speaker 3: told the story on the stand. She kept it to
Speaker 3: herself until the day she went understand to be pooreded.
Speaker 3: But on June seventh, nineteen thirty two, while she was
Speaker 3: Grace's personal nurse, she drove him or she accompanied him.
Speaker 3: They took the train from San Francisco to Santa Cruz.
Speaker 3: The only people at their Santa Cruz manor was a
Speaker 3: gardener and possibly somebody else, and he basically slipped her
Speaker 3: and Mickey a vat rape drug in her drink in
Speaker 3: her wine over dinner, and she woke up the next
Speaker 3: morning desperately sick, and she had bruises on her body,
Speaker 3: and she realized that she had been raped, and she
Speaker 3: was still too sick to get out of bed. So
Speaker 3: about nine o'clock in the morning, Grace entered the bedroom
Speaker 3: and she accused him of drugging and raping her, and
Speaker 3: he said it was true, and he laughed about it
Speaker 3: and told her she was a nurse and not to
Speaker 3: be able to take care of herself. She could not
Speaker 3: get out of bed the whole day, so she drove back.
Speaker 3: She got right back to San Francisco the next day,
Speaker 3: and after six weeks, she realized she was pregnant, and
Speaker 3: she told Grace her condition. He said that he'd take
Speaker 3: care of her, but he never did, and as the
Speaker 3: weeks went by, she spoke to him. He suggested that
Speaker 3: she take a drug to abort the pregnancy. Yeah, so
Speaker 3: on August twenty first, she took the drug, and she
Speaker 3: lost over twenty five pounds and was weak and sick
Speaker 3: and wasn't able to work. She has Grace for money.
Speaker 3: She could rest without him to worry about paying her
Speaker 3: bills and things and recover from the effects of this
Speaker 3: of this chemical abortion, and Grace claimed that he was
Speaker 3: near poverty and gave her nothing, so she'd used her
Speaker 3: own money, went to Santa Cruz and she stayed at
Speaker 3: a hotel that was behind his property, on his back gate,
Speaker 3: and she'd see him out in his property, and so
Speaker 3: she planned on shooting him, shooting herself in the head
Speaker 3: if he refused to help her. And of course, when
Speaker 3: when it all happened, she ended up shooting him instead
Speaker 3: of shooting herself. Grace before he was shy. He told
Speaker 3: her that a child out of wedlock would ruin him
Speaker 3: and give me in it that she keeps promise to
Speaker 3: take care of the situation. So we have this did
Speaker 3: rich guy who who drugged and raped his personal nurse
Speaker 3: and then wouldn't help her with recovering from the abortion
Speaker 3: or anything, or you know, even wanting to to help
Speaker 3: in any way. So so they go on with this trial.
Speaker 3: She exposes everything, and this is you know, you know,
Speaker 3: Santa Cruz is very close to Carmel and Monterey, you
Speaker 3: know where the rich have lived in California pretty much
Speaker 3: since it began. So you know, these people were the
Speaker 3: high edgelon of higher society. So they go out. The
Speaker 3: ten hours of deliberation, jury came back and found her
Speaker 3: not guilty of murder. And the crowd, they said the
Speaker 3: Santa Criuz Sentinel said, feet pounded, hands clapped, and many
Speaker 3: cheered and whistled, and the foreman of the jury burst
Speaker 3: into tears and fell into the arms of freedom, and
Speaker 3: they both uncontrollably sobbed in each other's shoulders for two
Speaker 3: excuse me, two full minutes. So they were getting ready
Speaker 3: to fly back to Pennsylvania. And as they were getting
Speaker 3: into the train to go to San Francisco to catch
Speaker 3: their plane back to Pittsburgh, Wells was secretly approached by
Speaker 3: one of the jury members and he told her that
Speaker 3: he had been wounded and Fanders during World War One,
Speaker 3: and it was none other than Frieda who had patched
Speaker 3: him up and tended his wounds. Well he waited to
Speaker 3: be transported to the front line. During World War One.
Speaker 3: She worked on the front lines as a nurse.
Speaker 6: That's right.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it was amazing too that so many people thanked her.
Speaker 2: You talk about.
Speaker 4: A jury member said that that he had been wounded
Speaker 4: in Flanders and it was none other than Welts that
Speaker 4: had tended to him. And when you talk about the lawyer,
Speaker 4: her attorney, Oh yeah, he claimed to be she had
Speaker 4: saved his son. So it's an extraordinary story where there
Speaker 4: was no way with her sympathetic story despite not having
Speaker 4: any corroboration whatsoever. It really was why she was set
Speaker 4: free because this was extraordinary circumstances where she had been
Speaker 4: such are to so many people, saved so many people's lives,
Speaker 4: and that was well documented. But just having two people
Speaker 4: so crucial to this trial having been indebted to her
Speaker 4: and saying so is an extraordinary you know, the story incredible.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And you know I found a lot in well
Speaker 3: writing this book of cases where people got away with
Speaker 3: murder just because of the jury, you know, even though
Speaker 3: they were totally guilty and admitted it. I've got three
Speaker 3: or four cases chapters in this book where that happened.
Speaker 4: You actually have a chapter called getting Away with Murder.
Speaker 4: June twenty ninth, nineteen fifty four, Los Angeles. Philip Alm
Speaker 4: is a stuntman and film extra. And Andrew Ackerman, another
Speaker 4: character in this incredible story, is a stuntman and an
Speaker 4: extra as well. So they're involved in the film business.
Speaker 4: And you have Barbara Clampet counsulman and this home with
Speaker 4: a swimming pool and again some opulence and a character
Speaker 4: named ed Neely.
Speaker 2: So tell us.
Speaker 4: About this story getting got away with murder as you
Speaker 4: poll it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, this is nineteen fifty four. And the daughters of
Speaker 3: Edward Clampett, who was a founding father of modern Los Angeles,
Speaker 3: and he helped develop the Los Angeles oil field and
Speaker 3: was involved in all that kind of stuff as a
Speaker 3: city councilman for a while, flying to all the same
Speaker 3: all the great groups and things. He died nineteen nineteen.
Speaker 3: His wife died about eight years later and left the
Speaker 3: whole fortune to his two daughters, Leah and Barbara. And
Speaker 3: Barbara married four times. Leah married six and she was
Speaker 3: involved in the bouse swapping scandal, and she had an
Speaker 3: affair with film comedian Buster Keaton, which broke up his
Speaker 3: marriage and her marriage, and she managed to survive an
Speaker 3: airplane crash in there, so they lived in she lived
Speaker 3: Barbara lived in Wiltshire neighborhood of Los Angeles, which is
Speaker 3: still very tony. It's a little south of Beverly Hills.
Speaker 3: And about noon, well they were having their weekend party,
Speaker 3: was still going on Monday and you know, this was
Speaker 3: nineteen fifty four in La You know, the booze ran
Speaker 3: smoothly and no one got caught drunk driving. So about
Speaker 3: noon the Hollywood stuntman Phil Allam and his friend Andrew
Speaker 3: Aickerman showed up at Barber's house in their swimwear to
Speaker 3: take a dip in Barber's pool, and they pretty much
Speaker 3: had open house all weekend. So Alm was from Sweden.
Speaker 3: He was a captain in the Swedish Army and became
Speaker 3: a citizen in nineteen forty four while serving in the
Speaker 3: us R. And he was in nineteen forty eighth Joan
Speaker 3: of Arc and he was in The Postman Always Rings twice.
Speaker 3: He's in quite a few movies. Even though he was Swedish.
Speaker 3: She had already lost his Swedish accent. He'd only been
Speaker 3: in the country like twenty years and he had no accent.
Speaker 3: While they're at that house, this Neely guy ed Neely.
Speaker 3: He was a Texas oil man, cain of con artist,
Speaker 3: lived in California for decades, but he still had this
Speaker 3: brash East Texas accent, kind of like Foghorn Leghorned her
Speaker 3: tune character from from the fifties, and that So he
Speaker 3: was Leah's six husbands, and I believe it was his last.
Speaker 3: He was They were kind of giving each other crap about.
Speaker 3: You know, they were all drunk for days, and Neely
Speaker 3: was giving him grief about being a Swede, and you know,
Speaker 3: they were raising each other, and you know, he's like, hey,
Speaker 3: at least I lost my accent and you used to
Speaker 3: have a stupid Texas drawl. And they started kneedling each
Speaker 3: other about horses, guns and Sweden and Texas and all
Speaker 3: made a dorog terry remark about Senator Joseph McCarthy, and
Speaker 3: that's when Neely got really mad, pulled out his gun
Speaker 3: and shot him twice with a nine millimeters Italian pistol.
Speaker 3: So when the cops ride, they found out stretched out
Speaker 3: in the living room rug and the campus sisters and
Speaker 3: Ackerman were chatting and passing a bottle of vodka over
Speaker 3: his body. They arrested Neely and took on to the hospital,
Speaker 3: and days later, six almost a week later, almost in
Speaker 3: the hospital, he was recovering fine, and all of a
Speaker 3: sudden he just collapsed and died while he was walking
Speaker 3: around in the corridor. And they couldn't, you know, they
Speaker 3: were like wow, what happened? He figured it was a
Speaker 3: blood clot to his brain, so they charged Neely with murder.
Speaker 3: The trial started in November third, nineteen fifty four, pretty
Speaker 3: quick actually, and you know, they got really good attorneys
Speaker 3: and kind of a lackluster prosecution if you asked me.
Speaker 3: But Neely admitted to shooting him, and and all was
Speaker 3: you know, awakened, could describe the whole thing to police
Speaker 3: that happened. But Neely said it was in self defense
Speaker 3: and that almost was a real strong guy. He was well,
Speaker 3: he was a stuntman, so I'm sure he was in
Speaker 3: great shape and everything. But they decided that he died
Speaker 3: not from being shot, but from a celebral hemorrhage. And
Speaker 3: because they didn't the coroner didn't do examine his brain
Speaker 3: during the autopsy, they never would know. So Neely got
Speaker 3: off the hook because of that. It's a yeah, he
Speaker 3: got away with it. He was acquitted on November fifteenth,
Speaker 3: nineteen fifty four. That's like, there's another case where that
Speaker 3: kind of happened. Where this one happened in in Fresno,
Speaker 3: California in nineteen sixty six, and this guy shot his
Speaker 3: ex wife and her boyfriend and he He was convicted
Speaker 3: of killing his wife, but not her boyfriend who he
Speaker 3: shot with the shotgun. He shot them both of shotguns, right,
Speaker 3: because he had died from catching hippotitis with a blood transfusion,
Speaker 3: And they said he didn't die from actually being shot.
Speaker 3: He died from catching hipatitis with the blood transfusion. He
Speaker 3: still got put away for killing his wife. But I
Speaker 3: never heard of that happening before until these cases. Interesting
Speaker 3: where you know, it's like, all right, you shoot somebody
Speaker 3: and then they catch something in the hospital, so he
Speaker 3: technically didn't kill them, that's what they said. I think
Speaker 3: now you would get convicted of murder from that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And I've seen cases where, you know, they might
Speaker 4: have thought that there was attributing factors outside of the assault,
Speaker 4: but however, the person dies so that you're responsible to
Speaker 4: a varying degree or a certain degree, so there's no way.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you're right. I think today you would not get
Speaker 2: an acquittal. That would be I don't know that was
Speaker 2: you would not get an acquittal.
Speaker 4: You have another story called Little Black Book that just
Speaker 4: seems to have so many parallels with today. We would
Speaker 4: be reading Instagram or Facebook messages or some sort of messages,
Speaker 4: text messages that would have recorded forensically, the police would
Speaker 4: be able to obtain them.
Speaker 2: But you have this little black book.
Speaker 4: A story November twenty fifth, nineteen fifty eight, or under
Speaker 4: contra Acosta County William Roy Anderson, sixty years old, president
Speaker 4: of a collection agency. Not so nice of a well,
Speaker 4: not so nice of a guy apparently, but he's a
Speaker 4: debt collector. So who likes the debt collector? So tell
Speaker 4: us about this little black book. And William Roy Anderson.
Speaker 3: Well, William Anderson was sixty years old in nineteen fifty eight,
Speaker 3: and he was the president of a collection agency in
Speaker 3: downtown San Francisco. They were described the country Costa sheriff
Speaker 3: inspector said they were hard pounding, go getting outfit, and
Speaker 3: they filed as many as twenty to thirty property leans
Speaker 3: a day against Bay area debtors. So he was making
Speaker 3: pretty good money. Arenda is I guess it always has
Speaker 3: been a very upper class place, just east of Oakland
Speaker 3: in San Francisco, just maybe fifteen miles from downtown San Francisco,
Speaker 3: or so. He was married for thirty three years, but
Speaker 3: he was a relentless womanizer and his wife, she claimed
Speaker 3: not know anything about his tom catting ways or anything.
Speaker 3: And so on November twenty fifth, nineteen fifty eight, they
Speaker 3: were relaxing in their separate bedrooms. Around nine o'clock, the
Speaker 3: doorbell rang and Anderson answered the door. He overheard his
Speaker 3: wife overheard him say, you've got the wrong Roy Anderson,
Speaker 3: and she heard a gunshot and she found him laying
Speaker 3: in the doorway deady fired. Someone fired a twenty two
Speaker 3: caliber bullet through the screen door and directly into his
Speaker 3: heart and killed him. So they found a spun shell
Speaker 3: bullet went right through him. And they never did fi
Speaker 3: in the bullets maybe fell down a furnace vent or
Speaker 3: something like that after it came out of Anderson, but
Speaker 3: they don't know. So while they were searching is belongings,
Speaker 3: they found a note in his suit jacket that he
Speaker 3: had worn that day and it said open in case
Speaker 3: of emergency. He just had contact numbers and stuff like that,
Speaker 3: you know, in case something happened to him. And then
Speaker 3: we found an identical envelope in his dresser drawer and
Speaker 3: he was just oddly that he was reading at his
Speaker 3: bedside a mystery novel called Two Deaths Must Die, So
Speaker 3: probably didn't know how quick that was going to happen.
Speaker 3: So the police also found this little black book and
Speaker 3: it had cryptic interest entries in it. It covered over
Speaker 3: ten years of notes to one woman, and there were
Speaker 3: names of a dozen other women in the book, some
Speaker 3: without addresses or phone numbers and just dates for him
Speaker 3: to remember. The police checked down all these people and
Speaker 3: seven of the fifteen women lived in the same apartment
Speaker 3: building in San Francisco, which is really odd. And you know,
Speaker 3: so the cops thought, oh, there's a you know, a
Speaker 3: jealous partner, you know, husband or something, or you know,
Speaker 3: it could be a just scrumbled debtor. They spoke to
Speaker 3: his business partner and he said that Anderson was nervous
Speaker 3: the day of his murder, and he confided in him
Speaker 3: that between the Devil and Deep Blue Sea, his only
Speaker 3: solution was to go to Mexico. And he didn't really
Speaker 3: know what he meant about it, you know, he said,
Speaker 3: we're in a rough tumble business, full angry and to
Speaker 3: scrandle people with free tempers and rooting lives. And he goes,
Speaker 3: as far as I know, Roy had no enemies. We've
Speaker 3: been punched in the mouth, but never shot at. Before
Speaker 3: the police were curious about this one guy named Lawrence
Speaker 3: Swnicki who had worked for him and had cast some
Speaker 3: checks that were for the company into his own private
Speaker 3: gambezzled basically, and they thought that he might have had
Speaker 3: something to do with it because they were filing They
Speaker 3: filed federal charges on him, but it turned out that
Speaker 3: he was living in Pennsylvania with his brother and he
Speaker 3: was just waiting for his sentencing. So there was another employee,
Speaker 3: twenty five year old secretary Wreath Maxine Parks Bill Abertie,
Speaker 3: and police discovered that she and Anderson spent November twenty
Speaker 3: first through the twenty third at a holiday hotel in Reno,
Speaker 3: and he told She told the officers that she companied
Speaker 3: on many overnight trips to Sacramento, Santa Rosa, Santa Cruz
Speaker 3: as well as Reno. They had a little more digging
Speaker 3: and they found out that Anderson was paying her rent
Speaker 3: at her apartment San Francisco, and she was also the
Speaker 3: beneficiary of a twenty five thousand dollars life insurance policy
Speaker 3: to Aamson. Yeah, so she admitted to the affair and
Speaker 3: said that Anderson told her that he was having an
Speaker 3: affair with someone for over ten years and was going
Speaker 3: to break up with her, and then he had two
Speaker 3: other girlfriends and the same time. You know, his wife
Speaker 3: was unaware of any of this, so you know, they
Speaker 3: could not get anywhere in case they didn't. You know,
Speaker 3: there's too many, too many people involved in it. And
Speaker 3: some guy who some mystery people showed up in their
Speaker 3: town asking for them. As you know, nothing came of
Speaker 3: that or anything either. So you know, no one knows
Speaker 3: Sue killed Roy Anderson. It could have been an angry daughter,
Speaker 3: a jealous boyfriend or husband from one of his many lovers.
Speaker 3: It could have been one of his lovers or former lovers.
Speaker 3: Could have been a paid hit. It could have been
Speaker 3: his wife, could have been a case of mistaken identity,
Speaker 3: and according to San Francisco columnists San Francisco Examiner columnists
Speaker 3: Dan Frishman, there were one hundred and thirteen other William
Speaker 3: or Roy Anderson's in the San Francisco Bay area.
Speaker 4: Incredible. I thought that was one of the most incredible
Speaker 4: because he said, when we go back to the beginning
Speaker 4: of the story, that he answered the door and overheard
Speaker 4: his wife overheard them say you.
Speaker 2: Got the wrong Roy Anderson.
Speaker 4: Ye. Well, with one hundred and thirteen of them, and
Speaker 4: at the end of your story. It just adds a
Speaker 4: lot of credence to the idea that well, maybe it
Speaker 4: was a mistaken identity.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, no one will e or know. It's been
Speaker 3: over sixty years and it's been unsolved.
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Speaker 4: we were talking about another interesting story and called spare
Speaker 4: the rod. So let's talk about let's talk about that.
Speaker 3: That was a horrible, horrible case. You know, it makes
Speaker 3: you wonder sometimes why people have kids, and you know,
Speaker 3: this is this is one of those stories that makes
Speaker 3: you just just wonder why what happened here? And what
Speaker 3: happened is on January seventh, nineteen fifty eight. His family
Speaker 3: lived in a two room cottage. Father Claude Schindler was
Speaker 3: worked at a was a farm worker. He was picking
Speaker 3: cotton at the moment. His wife Oppel had known each
Speaker 3: other since their kids. This is in Red Top in
Speaker 3: Madria County, in the San Joaquin Valley where everything has grown.
Speaker 3: You know, they were developed Baptists and they read the
Speaker 3: Bible every night to their five children. But they didn't
Speaker 3: always attend church because you know, he had to work.
Speaker 3: Gone Sundays quite often and stuff about thirteen miles west
Speaker 3: of chow Chillup. So on January seventh, Claude wasn't feeling
Speaker 3: well and he stayed home. Had a four year old Sandra.
Speaker 3: His daughter started acting up and says sending of her
Speaker 3: room or something. Twenty seven year old Opal started beating
Speaker 3: her with a belt for five to ten minutes. So
Speaker 3: Claude was napping on the couch and woke up from
Speaker 3: all the noise and took over from where she let off.
Speaker 3: So he'd beat her with switches broken off on a
Speaker 3: tree in the front of the house, and when one
Speaker 3: switch broke wore out, he'd send Opal out for another one.
Speaker 3: After a while, they were out of her reach and
Speaker 3: she couldn't grab them, so he used a leather strap
Speaker 3: and continued beating her. They beat her for forty five minutes.
Speaker 3: So when they were done beating her, they gave her
Speaker 3: a shower, and they had her a couple more times
Speaker 3: at the belt, and they put sab on her wounds
Speaker 3: and dressed her, and an hour later she just dropped dead,
Speaker 3: and they tried praying over her body and nothing happened,
Speaker 3: so they walked over and called the police. Now this
Speaker 3: is in nineteen fifty eight, right who nine one one
Speaker 3: operators were trained, and they called the police and Napper
Speaker 3: told them to take her to a doctor, and by
Speaker 3: the time they got her to the doctor, she was
Speaker 3: already sire. He had riga mortis. They took her body
Speaker 3: to a funeral home for autopsy, and Claude and Nople
Speaker 3: were arrested the rest of their kids. They had a
Speaker 3: three year old daughter and three sons who were five
Speaker 3: to two and eight months, and they were all put
Speaker 3: in the foster homes. The children were examined. They were
Speaker 3: all covered with bruises and cuts and various states of healing.
Speaker 3: The police were just sickened by what they saw. There
Speaker 3: were bloodstained, switches were broken, were laid all over the
Speaker 3: house in their yard. So the people of Red Tree,
Speaker 3: which is really just I think now it's like a
Speaker 3: gas station, that's it, kind of intersection in between you know,
Speaker 3: tomato fields or whatever. The landlord, the guy oh the property,
Speaker 3: was so shocked and he had known them since they
Speaker 3: were both children, and after the police were done taking photos,
Speaker 3: he had the house burned and surrounding trees bulldozed over
Speaker 3: three days after the murder, right, so he raised the buildings.
Speaker 3: So we turned the site to good clean farm dirt again.
Speaker 3: So I did. The coroner the autopsy was this guy
Speaker 3: named Znik Fluse, who was a former refugee from Czechoslovakia
Speaker 3: during the Nazi occupation. He said it was the most
Speaker 3: vicious thing he ever seen. He didn't see anything worse
Speaker 3: under the hitler regime, and they said they counted more
Speaker 3: than two hundred Weltz bruises and slashes on Sandra's body. Incredible, yeah,
Speaker 3: just incredible. Claude and Nople were let out of jail
Speaker 3: to attend the funeral, but they were raining for murder
Speaker 3: later that day, and the trial was postponed multiple times.
Speaker 3: And uh, you know, the courtroom was packed, of course,
Speaker 3: and they showed the slides as the did child, and
Speaker 3: you know, it was very sickening colored slides of the
Speaker 3: little kid's body all bruised and battered and stuff. Said
Speaker 3: she was set over two hundred times. She died of
Speaker 3: internal bleeding and shock. So my other kid, their oldest,
Speaker 3: their six year old son take the witness stand to
Speaker 3: testify against his parents, and he said that they switched
Speaker 3: Sandra because she messed at the breakfast table. Then he
Speaker 3: said father hit the sister with a belt, then switches again,
Speaker 3: then the belt again. So the Schindlers actually went up
Speaker 3: and testified, which was, you know, now pretty great thing.
Speaker 3: Claude testified that he beat his daughter because he believed
Speaker 3: she was possessed by the devil, and that God commanded
Speaker 3: him to correct the children in that manner and he
Speaker 3: would beat her until she would mind. He said, I
Speaker 3: was raised the same way with a rod and had
Speaker 3: whipping on my own by So his wife goes up
Speaker 3: there and she tells the court, first time I ever
Speaker 3: heard of a whooping hurt and a child, I didn't
Speaker 3: think it could kill it, and explained why she was beaten,
Speaker 3: and she said she was different from the other children.
Speaker 3: She had the mind of a twelve year old. So
Speaker 3: they were both convicted of second degree murder and we're
Speaker 3: sent to five years to life. Opel fought the conviction,
Speaker 3: got a new trial, and she pled guilty and was
Speaker 3: resentenced to one of ten years and was paroled just
Speaker 3: within the year. Within six months, she went and lived
Speaker 3: with her sister in Telceella. Claude died in nineteen ninety
Speaker 3: seven and Opel died in two thousand and nine, and
Speaker 3: little Sandra would have been about sixty seven sixty seven
Speaker 3: years old, and she lived.
Speaker 4: It's fascinating, though, that manslaughter was reduced to manslaughter under
Speaker 4: these horrendous conditions, and she was paroled in nineteen sixty one.
Speaker 4: So again it's hard to believe that they would have that.
Speaker 4: The public outcry was extraordinary and the particulars of the
Speaker 4: case are thankfully rare, and yet you know, given some
Speaker 4: time parole and manslaughter one to ten. So very interesting
Speaker 4: outcome in that particular case, certainly.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Back in those days, if you had like second
Speaker 3: degree murder, the basic sentence was five years to life
Speaker 3: and usually they got out in about seven or eight years.
Speaker 2: Oh really, well, yeah.
Speaker 3: That was based basically it. After the eighties or so,
Speaker 3: you got fifteen to life in and people were usually
Speaker 3: let out after about eighteen years.
Speaker 4: Let's use this as an opportunity to stop for a
Speaker 4: second for these messages.
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Speaker 4: All right, now you have another story called a Wall
Speaker 4: Marines up to No Good September ninth, nineteen fifty six,
Speaker 4: or Land, Glenn County, and you have character Kenneth Nilson,
Speaker 4: twenty year old and patrolman Charles Smith and Everett Harkey.
Speaker 4: Harckey's a corporal at twenty three. Let's talk about this
Speaker 4: Camp Pendleton absent from leave US Marine Corps and this
Speaker 4: story in Contra Costa County and the police. This interesting
Speaker 4: story with these two marines and some police.
Speaker 3: Yeah, this one, this one is kind of like my
Speaker 3: favorite story. I don't know why. Maybe because I've been
Speaker 3: in the Orland area, which is about in our north
Speaker 3: at Sacramento where I live in the Fireland. You know
Speaker 3: it's it's we grow olives and almonds and stuff up there.
Speaker 3: So yeah, nineteen fifty six is twenty three year old
Speaker 3: Corporal Everett Harkey in a twenty year old private Ken
Speaker 3: Johnson or Nelson. We're absolutely without leave from Cap Pennton.
Speaker 3: And they were both from the Bay area. So Hockey
Speaker 3: was from Oakland and Nelson was from Martinez, which is
Speaker 3: right outside of San Francisco. So they were hitchhiking and
Speaker 3: they had they had robbed a store earlier to get
Speaker 3: some money, and so they're hitchhiking up north and they
Speaker 3: got a lift from this guy named Robert Lowry. He
Speaker 3: was a salesman or something. He wasn't sure about these hitchhikers,
Speaker 3: especially when Nelson flashed a pistol when when Lowry asked
Speaker 3: about the dangers of hitchhiking. So he ditched his passengers
Speaker 3: and Willow which is, you know, a little little field town,
Speaker 3: little farm pound and checked in a hotel for tonight.
Speaker 3: So those guys they stole Lowry's car. They saw there
Speaker 3: was a spare key in the glove box, so after
Speaker 3: they left, he went into the hotel. They just got
Speaker 3: car took off. He didn't even know for like six
Speaker 3: hours if the car was stolen. So Nelson drove. They
Speaker 3: drove up Highway ninety nine still there. It's like I
Speaker 3: five and ninety nine. They kind of connect in some places,
Speaker 3: but for the most part they're separate highways still. So
Speaker 3: they were speeding through these little towns blue Gum and
Speaker 3: our tourists blow went through those towns one hundred miles
Speaker 3: an hour SI, sagging through the heavy traffic there was.
Speaker 3: There was a Sunday and there was an unusual amount
Speaker 3: of traffic on the freeway that day or on the
Speaker 3: highway today. These are just two lane roads with maybe
Speaker 3: a lane in the middle to turn. So of course
Speaker 3: the scopsy is the diskuy and he cought name Officer
Speaker 3: Charles Smith, and it takes him a while before he
Speaker 3: catch us up with them because they're going one hundred
Speaker 3: miles an hour traffic. So he's he's behind him and
Speaker 3: this guy was he was a highway California Highway Patrol
Speaker 3: officer for about six years and it was an MP
Speaker 3: in the military before that, and he's an outstanding officer.
Speaker 3: He pulls over these people, uh, these guys in front
Speaker 3: of Dixie Lee White's trailer house and she was just
Speaker 3: doing her ironing that evening and just kind of keeping
Speaker 3: an eye out on traffic because there were so many
Speaker 3: different kinds of cars and trucks going down. You know,
Speaker 3: it was just kind of something to do out there.
Speaker 3: And there's no TV or anything back then. So right
Speaker 3: in front of her house, the cop pulls over the
Speaker 3: car with the two men inside and the upster got
Speaker 3: out and spoke to them. He had hartly step out
Speaker 3: of the car firstom went back to his car. He
Speaker 3: was suspicious that the car was stolen, but of course
Speaker 3: it wasn't reported yet because the car didn't know that
Speaker 3: it was stolen. So Smith walked back to the car
Speaker 3: with his ticket book and as he approached the driver's
Speaker 3: side Nelson was driving, and Nelson jumped out and shot
Speaker 3: Officer Smith four times with a twenty five caliber semi
Speaker 3: automatic pistol. Smith staggered, turned around, fell to the ground,
Speaker 3: but using all his strength, Officer Smith lurched to the
Speaker 3: driver's say of the car before Nelson could put it
Speaker 3: in the gear to take off, and fired his service
Speaker 3: revolver and at the same time, Nelson managed to squeeze
Speaker 3: off one more shot, getting Smith in his shoulder, but
Speaker 3: Smith just let loose, just just pulled the trigger as
Speaker 3: much as he could and middlesecond before before Nelson's bullet
Speaker 3: hit the officer. The officers blew out his brains like
Speaker 3: right there, uh I fired three more shots and the
Speaker 3: bullet hit Cockley in the left hand and then the
Speaker 3: left side of his head killed him too. Then Smith
Speaker 3: stumbled back between the two cars and fell on his face.
Speaker 3: That lady Dixie, she grabbed the phone and call the
Speaker 3: highway patrol, but they were already there. He had already,
Speaker 3: you know, called it in on the radio and stuff.
Speaker 3: But just such a crazy, crazy shootout, leaving three people
Speaker 3: dead on the side of the highway.
Speaker 4: Yeah, there's one big funeral event, wasn't it with law
Speaker 4: enforcement in full force.
Speaker 2: It was a big event this funeral, wasn't it.
Speaker 3: Yeah. It was one of the first times. And now
Speaker 3: it's kind of common that when a police officer dies
Speaker 3: that police agencies send a representative or to their funeral.
Speaker 3: And this was one of the first times that I
Speaker 3: can tell that police departments from all over California center
Speaker 3: representatives to show their respect to the following officer. It
Speaker 3: was only twenty six years old.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 4: Let's talk about one chapter you call shotgun Slang or
Speaker 4: one story shotgun Slang. October seventeenth, nineteen sixty six, in Fresno.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I read you talked a little bit about that,
Speaker 3: because that's the one where this guy named Henry Anderson
Speaker 3: had a hard knacked life. You was born poor, and
Speaker 3: you know, his father died when he was a kid
Speaker 3: and he was in Korea and got trouble with the law.
Speaker 3: His brother, sister, another brother, and his mother all died
Speaker 3: within five years and he just knocked around from one
Speaker 3: low paying job to another. And he got married to
Speaker 3: the Sharon Walker in June nineteen sixty five and the
Speaker 3: relationship only lasted until December of sixty six. She was
Speaker 3: originally from Oklahoma, but lived in Fresno since she was
Speaker 3: a kid, and she had a son from a previous
Speaker 3: marriage that lived with her, so, you know, she had
Speaker 3: a job and stuff, and she dated, and you know,
Speaker 3: she was divorced from Henry, but Henry had a hard
Speaker 3: time that the marriage failed and they had little bickering
Speaker 3: things that happened where she accused her of smashing his
Speaker 3: windshield and trying to fry open the glove box, and
Speaker 3: she showed up at his apartment once early in the
Speaker 3: morning and start arguing with him, and he ended up
Speaker 3: pushing her in the swimming pool. And the DA's off
Speaker 3: was back then, they said that the district attorney's offices
Speaker 3: not issue restraining orders and they were told that they
Speaker 3: were not acting like adults and could avoid any future
Speaker 3: conflict by just staying away from each other. This in
Speaker 3: nineteen sixty six, So so Henry was like thirty years old.
Speaker 3: He was taking pills and drinking the excess. And on
Speaker 3: the day of this happened October seventeenth, nineteen sixty six,
Speaker 3: he figured he had drank forty screwdrivers, vodka, an orange juice,
Speaker 3: took some non narcotic pills and they had not eaten
Speaker 3: in the entire day. He called. He called Sharon, she
Speaker 3: was twenty nine, and she told him she had company.
Speaker 3: And so the guys you was seeing was this guy,
Speaker 3: a forty year old businessman. He was in a Fresno
Speaker 3: on business only arrived a few hours before Henry came
Speaker 3: walking over to her house, went through the back door
Speaker 3: about ten thirty at night and shot this guy, Kenneth Quant,
Speaker 3: in the chest with a bolt action twelve gage shotgun.
Speaker 3: He has walked in through the back door right into
Speaker 3: the kitchen to shot him, and Sharon, who was clad
Speaker 3: in a red negligee, ran out of the house to
Speaker 3: the front door, and he gundered down the driveway to
Speaker 3: blasshom a shotgun. The whole time her four year old
Speaker 3: son was sleeping in the bed. So this Quant guy.
Speaker 3: He was a large landowner in King's County and he
Speaker 3: sold out in nineteen sixty three, got like millions of
Speaker 3: dollars for his property. You know, there was oil property
Speaker 3: ever in King's County and stuff throughm Bakersfield. And he
Speaker 3: had moved to Chico in northern California and dabbled in
Speaker 3: real estate and was a gentleman farmer. And he was
Speaker 3: married and had four kids. So a couple of weeks
Speaker 3: before the murder, Henry talked to Quant's wife by telephoned
Speaker 3: and threatened to kill Quants if he didn't stop. And
Speaker 3: Sharon right, So the police found the twelve gage was
Speaker 3: right in a neighbor's yard, and Anderson ran off the
Speaker 3: Sacramento and laid low for about a week until he
Speaker 3: turned himself in with his brother helping him. So this
Speaker 3: Quant guy died in the hospital from hippotitis, and so
Speaker 3: I was talking about before he caught from a blood transfusion,
Speaker 3: and so Anderson was charged with their death, but it
Speaker 3: was dropped because Queen's death was from hippotitis and that
Speaker 3: from the Chagun flast. It was so weird. Yeah, So
Speaker 3: he tried to plead guilty by reason of insanity, and
Speaker 3: they said that he knew what he was doing. They
Speaker 3: sentenced him to five years to life in prison, and
Speaker 3: he died in prison in nineteen seventy two.
Speaker 2: Yeah, lasted five years.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he died in five years in prison them.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Interesting.
Speaker 4: You have other stories like Pioneer road Rage, an Unwritten Law,
Speaker 4: another story called a Favor the White Hibiscus.
Speaker 2: She Missed, and a story called Young Murderer. I'll tell
Speaker 2: us about another.
Speaker 4: Story that particularly interested you out of this particularly interesting collection.
Speaker 3: Well, thanks, I think the Pioneer road rage. This is
Speaker 3: the first instance of road rage, you know, road rage
Speaker 3: that I've ever come across. Nineteen twenty one, so you know,
Speaker 3: that's very very early in cars. And these two couples
Speaker 3: were riding around in this car that was had a
Speaker 3: cracked frame and was running rough. You know, nineteen twenty one.
Speaker 3: You think about how primitive cars were or nineteen twenty one. Sure,
Speaker 3: the guy's mechanics said to drive it slowly. So and
Speaker 3: this is on a Sunday night, shortly before midnight, at
Speaker 3: the corner of twenty fourth in m Street, which is
Speaker 3: right right in midtown Sacramento. This guy named Elbert Pappy
Speaker 3: cut them off, causing McShane to swerve and like bump
Speaker 3: into the curb. They shouted out to each other and
Speaker 3: something like they claim, like where the hell did you
Speaker 3: get that stuff, implying he was drunk, and Pappy supposedly
Speaker 3: responded by calling them some bile names and invited him
Speaker 3: to follow when they sped up. I don't know how
Speaker 3: that could happen if he was just driving by and
Speaker 3: like they almost collided. They didn't stop and talk, you know.
Speaker 3: So this machine guy, he drove after Pappy, driving down
Speaker 3: M Street the wrong way. It's a two ways street,
Speaker 3: and he was driving in the opposite lane to catch
Speaker 3: up with him. So this Pappy guy, he was a
Speaker 3: house painter and he had promoted a dance that night
Speaker 3: with a friend, and it was like almost midnight, and
Speaker 3: he had the receipts from the dance and he had
Speaker 3: just dropped off his partner and he was driving to
Speaker 3: his house, which was like on L Street, when you know,
Speaker 3: he almost collided with the car, and he didn't think
Speaker 3: about it. He just drove on and when he pulled
Speaker 3: up into the space in front of his house, the
Speaker 3: machine was fouling and pulled up behind him, and they
Speaker 3: jumped out of the car and like he Pappy saw
Speaker 3: like a guy running towards him that the car stopped,
Speaker 3: and he thought he was getting robbed. You know, he
Speaker 3: had the receipts from his dance and stuff. So he
Speaker 3: grabbed this anti theft device that was basically a pipe
Speaker 3: that he stuck in the spokes of the tired right.
Speaker 3: Remember the club that you used to put on your shirt. Yeah,
Speaker 3: And he hit a beal the passenger over the head
Speaker 3: with it, right and left. The guy's wife ran up
Speaker 3: to him and he like shoved her. He didn't know
Speaker 3: what was going on, and he just wanted to get out
Speaker 3: of there, and they took him to the doctor. His
Speaker 3: friends to him a doctor to wrap his hat and
Speaker 3: put him in the hospital. He got an infection and
Speaker 3: he died. He was like a college educated bank teller.
Speaker 3: He grew up across the street from the Sandford Mansion
Speaker 3: in Sacramento, which is like a state historical building now
Speaker 3: across the streets like office buildings and stuff now, but
Speaker 3: you know, that was a pretty exclusive neighborhood back then,
Speaker 3: so he had some connections and stuff. So they held
Speaker 3: this guy Patty without bail they got him to get
Speaker 3: the charge reduced to manslaughter and they got a bond
Speaker 3: for it. They basically said, you know, they said that, oh,
Speaker 3: he endangered them, and but they wouldn't explain why they
Speaker 3: drove off after him, and and no one saw him
Speaker 3: striking the bial guy. There's a lot of people out
Speaker 3: you know, it's kind of funny because you read these
Speaker 3: articles and then it's like, uh's see some ice cream
Speaker 3: shop was robbed at one in the morning. You know,
Speaker 3: these places stay like you know, it's because you know,
Speaker 3: for every article, for every chapter I write, there's two
Speaker 3: that I don't know that that just don't make the cut.
Speaker 3: So you know, it's just pretty weird. But yeah, Pappy's
Speaker 3: neighbor and friends and stuff all called up and said
Speaker 3: about how he was, you know, a great citizen and
Speaker 3: you know, contributed to the neighborhood and stuff. And he
Speaker 3: was acquitted and.
Speaker 2: Straordinary.
Speaker 3: Yeah he went on to live to be eighty five
Speaker 3: years old.
Speaker 2: Yeah, straordinary.
Speaker 4: There's some There was some good attorneys and some good
Speaker 4: louring in almost most of these cases that you have
Speaker 4: written about and featured in this book. I want to
Speaker 4: thank you so much for coming on and talking about
Speaker 4: Forgotten California Murders nineteen fifteen to nineteen sixty eight. Thanks
Speaker 4: for reviving our memory about these murders. For those that
Speaker 4: might want to take a look at other work, the
Speaker 4: other books that you've written about California murders, how might
Speaker 4: they do that, David.
Speaker 3: Well, they're all on Amazon. You can get them. I
Speaker 3: have Amazon page, author page, and there's my six six
Speaker 3: books there. Yeah, it's six books that I've had published,
Speaker 3: actually seven, So you can get it through Amazon or
Speaker 3: you could order it through any bookstore and hopefully this
Speaker 3: will it's only been out about three weeks now, so
Speaker 3: it's just brand new.
Speaker 4: Well, thank you so much for coming on and talking
Speaker 4: about Forgotten California Murders nineteen fifteenth and nineteen sixty eight.
Speaker 4: It's as always fascinating.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much for.
Speaker 3: This interview, Thanks for having me on.
Speaker 2: Thank you, and good night.
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