Speaker 1: Colpulert calm.
Speaker 2: A heavy fog blanketed San Francisco's ocean beach front at
Speaker 2: midnight on April seventh, nineteen forty. To leland Esk's Cash
Speaker 2: fifty five, counting the day's receipts and preparing to close
Speaker 2: up a lonely barbecue stand, it was just another foggy night,
Speaker 2: although in reality it was to be his last night
Speaker 2: on earth. While missus Cash took a final look around,
Speaker 2: Cash stepped outside a car spurted gravel as its driver
Speaker 2: applied the brakes. On account of his deafness, fifty five
Speaker 2: year old mister Cash did not hear it, and was
Speaker 2: surprised a moment later to see a solitary figure loom
Speaker 2: up out of the fog. This is a stick up,
Speaker 2: the stranger announced, sharply. Cash reached for his pocket to
Speaker 2: turn on his mechanical hearing device that would translate the
Speaker 2: man's mumble into understandable words. As he did so, something
Speaker 2: appeared suddenly in the other hand. There was a spurt
Speaker 2: of flame, a flat report, and Cash fell dead. At
Speaker 2: the sound of the shot. Cash's pretty wife, Beatrice forty five,
Speaker 2: a waitress at the stand, said she heard a noise
Speaker 2: that sounded like a blowout, and then heard her husband
Speaker 2: cry As she recounted events before a coroner's jury. The
Speaker 2: shooting occurred on a Sunday night, actually early Monday morning.
Speaker 2: Monday was their day off and they were going to
Speaker 2: the country on a picnic leland I said, put some
Speaker 2: food in the car. All the customers were gone. I
Speaker 2: was in the rear and I heard a shot. Then
Speaker 2: I heard Leland. He called to me twice, B B,
Speaker 2: Come quick, I'm shot. For God's sakes, call the police.
Speaker 2: Beatrice rushed in from the kitchen, but only in time
Speaker 2: to hear a door slam and a motor per way
Speaker 2: into the fog. Rushing around to the front where her
Speaker 2: husband had been storing material for a tripping their automobile,
Speaker 2: she found him in a pool of blood. True crime
Speaker 2: historian presents an Eye for an Eye, a special edition
Speaker 2: of Yesterday News, exploring the criminal justice system that its
Speaker 2: most extreme, inflicting the death penalty. Although there's nothing funny
Speaker 2: about real life murder, if episode three hundred and sixty
Speaker 2: one were fictional, you could shelve it right next to
Speaker 2: Elmore Leonard or Karl Hyacon and the Wacky characters they
Speaker 2: create who walk in the realm of dark comedy. The
Speaker 2: downfall of this gang that couldn't shoot straight begins when
Speaker 2: one of its members decides to surrender and deliver state's evidence.
Speaker 2: When it begins to look like his days are numbered.
Speaker 2: As it turns out he was right. I'm true crime
Speaker 2: historian Richard O. Jones, and for your astonishment and indignation,
Speaker 2: I give you Duchess Spinelli's Crime School. The Half Wit
Speaker 2: Gang of Golden Gate Avenue. April eighth, nineteen forty. Mystery
Speaker 2: shrouded the fatal shooting early today of leland S Cash,
Speaker 2: fifty five, which occurred as he was closing up a
Speaker 2: barbecue stand of which he was night manager in the
Speaker 2: San Francisco Beach District. Cash was taken to the Park
Speaker 2: Emergency Hospital, where he died an hour later. He was
Speaker 2: in a semi coma during the entire time and did
Speaker 2: not identify his assailant. Missus Cash said her husband had
Speaker 2: made one trip to the car and was returning for
Speaker 2: the second time when he was shot down. She thought
Speaker 2: perhaps her husband, who was rather deaf, failed to hear
Speaker 2: the command of a hold up man and the bandit
Speaker 2: fired five dollars which Cash had in his wallet had
Speaker 2: not been taken. However, the shooting occurred shortly after Cash
Speaker 2: and his wife closed up the stand at midnight. She
Speaker 2: was cleaning the kitchen. He was carrying a package of
Speaker 2: food to the car parked at the back of the building.
Speaker 2: Under the terms of their employment, the couple obtained a
Speaker 2: certain amount of foodstuffs from the barbecue stand. It was Cash,
Speaker 2: as nightly customed to carry out the packages of food
Speaker 2: while his wife tidied up the kitchen. Apparently, a hold
Speaker 2: up man saw Cash and the packages and jumped to
Speaker 2: the conclusion that he was transferring the day's receipts to
Speaker 2: his car. That was his first error, the receipts having
Speaker 2: been placed in a safe inside the building and protected
Speaker 2: from theft by a time lock. As Cash carried his
Speaker 2: package of eggs, butter and bread to the car. According
Speaker 2: to the police theory, the hold up man accosted him,
Speaker 2: thrust a revolver at him, ordered him to put his
Speaker 2: hands up. Cash was hard of hearing hearing, and that
Speaker 2: accounted for the next era. Police believe possibly he did
Speaker 2: not understand the robber's command. Possibly, as was his habit,
Speaker 2: he reached for his hearing apparatus to turn on the switch,
Speaker 2: and the robber, believing he was reaching for a weapon, fired.
Speaker 2: When patrolman Joseph p Engler and James Gallagher reached the scene,
Speaker 2: they found Cash sprawled on the pavement between his car
Speaker 2: and the side entrance to the barbecue stand. He had
Speaker 2: been shot in the stomach. There were no witnesses to
Speaker 2: the shooting. Investigators found a twenty two caliber cartridge near
Speaker 2: the point where Cash was shot down. They pointed out
Speaker 2: that the fatal wound showed Cash was apparently shot by
Speaker 2: a weapon of considerably larger caliber. His wife, in describing
Speaker 2: the shot, said, quote, it was a loud report, a
Speaker 2: very loud one unquote. July fourteenth, nineteen forty. A vigorous
Speaker 2: search for the killer instituted by the police soon brought
Speaker 2: in a suspect, but while detectives were questioning him, they
Speaker 2: received a mysterious phone call. That guy you're holding his innocent.
Speaker 2: A voice told him over the wire, if you want proof,
Speaker 2: we'll send you a bullet from the murder gun, whereupon
Speaker 2: the speaker quickly hung up. The suspect was eventually cleared,
Speaker 2: although no bullet arrived, and there the case rested in
Speaker 2: spite of an intensive manhunt. April seventeenth, nineteen forty, Squealing
Speaker 2: in mortal terror as they felt themselves caught in a
Speaker 2: police tramp of evidence, five members of as oddly assorted
Speaker 2: a crime and murder gang as California has ever caught
Speaker 2: were doing their best in Sacramento late yesterday to talk
Speaker 2: themselves into San Quentin's lethal gas execution chamber. Into the
Speaker 2: amazed ears of hard boiled detectives, the five, each trying
Speaker 2: fiercely to pass the buck of blame to the others,
Speaker 2: poured out in ghastly detail the story of at least
Speaker 2: two murders. One was the hold up killing of leland
Speaker 2: S Cash in front of his Ocean Beach barbecue stand
Speaker 2: in San Francisco the night of April eighth. The other
Speaker 2: was the cold blooded killing by knockout drops and dumping
Speaker 2: into the Sacramento River of one of their own gang
Speaker 2: who was turning yalla. And on top of those murders,
Speaker 2: they were piling up a minor series of stick ups,
Speaker 2: auto thefts, drunk rollings, and assorted banditree that reads like
Speaker 2: an old fashioned dime novel. As they talked Sacramento authorities
Speaker 2: ready to blanket murder charge to be lodged against all
Speaker 2: five of them, as they implicated one another inextricably in
Speaker 2: a net of conspiracy to thieve and kill. These five
Speaker 2: will be named in the accusation. One Missus Juanita Spinelli,
Speaker 2: fifty one year old woman from Detroit, known as the
Speaker 2: Duchess and described as the brains of the gang. Reputed
Speaker 2: mother of six although only three were identified, and reputedly
Speaker 2: the widow of one Tony Spinelle, Detroit hijacker and member
Speaker 2: of the Red Cap Gang, supposedly shot to death. Also
Speaker 2: described as one time fingerwoman in a Detroit laundry racket
Speaker 2: and said to be affiliated with the infamous Purple Gang.
Speaker 2: Two Lorraine Dane, the Gypsy Spinelle, Missus Spinelle's nineteen year
Speaker 2: old dark beauty daughter, used by the gang as a
Speaker 2: lure in hitchhike banditry and described as the authoress of
Speaker 2: the Knockout Drop plot by which one of the gang
Speaker 2: was rubbed out. Three Mike Simeon thirty two from Detroit,
Speaker 2: the common law husband of the Duchess, described as the
Speaker 2: Duchess's lieutenant, whom she imported from Detroit to help her
Speaker 2: wrung the crime ring here. Four Gordon Hawkins twenty one,
Speaker 2: who graduated from small time auto stealing and thievery and
Speaker 2: two years in the Ione Reformatory to membership in the
Speaker 2: Duchess gang. Five Albert Ives twenty three, with the San
Speaker 2: Francisco petty crime record, whose feared that he'd be next
Speaker 2: to be put on the spot by his gang companions
Speaker 2: led him to run to a motor patrolman with the
Speaker 2: confession that landed the gang in the toils and fished
Speaker 2: out of the Sacramento River late yesterday. Dead was Robert Shared,
Speaker 2: another San Francisco youth who had joined the gang and
Speaker 2: who was callously done away with by the rest of
Speaker 2: them when they feared he'd run to the police to
Speaker 2: save his own skin. The Duchess was distressed during questioning
Speaker 2: and insisted she was not the head.
Speaker 3: Of the gang.
Speaker 2: Ives, however, was unruffled from the beginning. Deputy District Attorney
Speaker 2: Jay Francis O'Shea asked him, do you know anything about
Speaker 2: the killing of a barbecue man in San Francisco about
Speaker 2: a week ago? Ives replied, quietly, I ought to I
Speaker 2: shot him. Ives told San Francisco officers who questioned him
Speaker 2: in Sacramento. When he read of the arrest of a
Speaker 2: suspect in the Cash shooting, he telephoned police headquarters to
Speaker 2: say the man was innocent. Officers confirmed the fact of
Speaker 2: the call, which they had been unable to trace. Ives
Speaker 2: and the duchess also said they had planned, if the
Speaker 2: suspect was not cleared, to fire a bullet from their
Speaker 2: gun and send it to the police as definite evidence
Speaker 2: of what gun killed Cash. After ives gave details of
Speaker 2: the Cash shooting, O'Shea asked them what happened to Shared?
Speaker 2: Ives answered, I dumped him in the river. Although three
Speaker 2: San Francisco detectives were in Sacramento to bring the quintet
Speaker 2: back for the Cash killing here, it was decided late
Speaker 2: Tuesday to let them be prosecuted first on the charge
Speaker 2: of killing Shared. Assistant District Attorney J. Francis O'shay in
Speaker 2: Sacramento pointed out, quote in the Shared case, thanks to
Speaker 2: their confessions, we have a complete case against all five
Speaker 2: of them. The San Francisco killing might not be so
Speaker 2: easy depend on all of them. On the Shared case.
Speaker 2: We have them all, so we'll prosecute here unquote that
Speaker 2: decision was reached after the body of Shared, a spindly
Speaker 2: youth who had once been an inmate of the Sonoma
Speaker 2: Home for the Feeble Minded, had been recovered from the
Speaker 2: river some thousand yards south of the Freeport Bridge. From
Speaker 2: that bridge, ives and others of the gang admitted to
Speaker 2: detectives in O'Shea, Shared had been dumped, drugged with knockout drops,
Speaker 2: slipped into a whiskey glass by Duchess Juanita to drown
Speaker 2: last Sunday night. Dragging operations begun yesterday morning succeeded. In
Speaker 2: the late afternoon, Shared's corpse, dressed only in swim trunks,
Speaker 2: was dragged ashore. Quote. After the killing of Cash and
Speaker 2: San Francisco, I and Hawkins and Shared fled San Francisco.
Speaker 2: That was last Thursday. We came to Sacramento next day.
Speaker 2: The Duchess and her daughter and Simeon, along with the
Speaker 2: Duchess's two other kids, boys eight and fifteen years old,
Speaker 2: followed us. We took rooms in a West Sacramento hotel.
Speaker 2: Shared got scared and jittery. We thought he was gonna squeal,
Speaker 2: So the rest of us talked it over. How we
Speaker 2: do it. Finally someone asked why not a picnic. Bobby
Speaker 2: was a very poor swimmer and might be enticed out
Speaker 2: over his depth. They would make a fire on the bank.
Speaker 2: Bobby dearly loved grilled hamburgers. He would have a good
Speaker 2: lunch and then his blabbing tongue and uneasy conscience would
Speaker 2: be stilled forever. The scene would be such a nice
Speaker 2: sind off for poor Bobby. So next day they all
Speaker 2: went on their outing. Finally lunching over the nice young
Speaker 2: people got into their bathing dogs. Bobby balked, saying, I
Speaker 2: won't go in. There's a current of that river. Say
Speaker 2: do you want me to drown? The others exchanged glances.
Speaker 2: That was just what they did want, but they could
Speaker 2: hardly tell him. At a later conference, one eyed Albert suggested,
Speaker 2: another course, let me take him out for target practice.
Speaker 2: Lots of guys have accidents at target practice. Missus Spinelli
Speaker 2: gave ives a look of blasting scorn. I'm not going
Speaker 2: to have the poor lad hurt and bleeding, she said.
Speaker 2: Then Mike Simeons suggested she could give Bob some of
Speaker 2: his favorite cocktails, and they could put a little something
Speaker 2: into the drinks, a little something called knockout drops. So
Speaker 2: this sinister cocktail party was staged the next night in
Speaker 2: the Duchess's hotel room. Missus Spinelli herself presided as the
Speaker 2: smiling hostess, and it was she who took from her
Speaker 2: purse the knockout drops she carried as part of her
Speaker 2: crime equipment. As Bobby stretched out his hand for the glass,
Speaker 2: he smiled. He tossed off his first drink, and soon
Speaker 2: held out his glass again. Into this one went the
Speaker 2: mickey finn that was to start him on the road
Speaker 2: to painless oblivion. He tossed that one off too, and
Speaker 2: the fog started gathering in his feeble brain, gathering as
Speaker 2: a fog on that awful night when the murder was done,
Speaker 2: the murder whose memory would give his dulled senses no peace.
Speaker 2: Soon the doomed dead end kid lay back upon the
Speaker 2: pillows as the other sat waiting, waiting on their unholy
Speaker 2: death watch. By this time, the little boys had been
Speaker 2: put to bed in the next bedroom after just two
Speaker 2: small drinks. For the Duchess later explained another of her
Speaker 2: principles of child training. I don't believe in too many
Speaker 2: cocktails for the little chaps. One or two mild whiskies
Speaker 2: are enough. They waited ten full minutes more. Then the
Speaker 2: duchess arose. It was the signal downstairs. A car shot
Speaker 2: out of the city into the country to the river.
Speaker 2: One eyed Albert was driving. When they reached the untraveled
Speaker 2: midnight streets of the outskirts, the two men hastily and
Speaker 2: efficiently disrobed the numbed youngster, dressed him in his bathing trunks,
Speaker 2: said ives, we stripped off all of his other clothes
Speaker 2: so that when the body was found people would think
Speaker 2: he drowned while swimming. Soon they rolled out on the
Speaker 2: Fremont Bridge across the Sacramento River. Mike Simeon stepped out,
Speaker 2: looked about. Nobody was anywhere near. They pulled the drugged
Speaker 2: boy from the tonneau, lugging him through the darkness, and
Speaker 2: flung him down down into the Royally water. There was
Speaker 2: just one last detail that was to place their victim's
Speaker 2: clothes among some bushes on the river bank, where he
Speaker 2: would have left them himself had he gone on a
Speaker 2: midnight swim. After that, the gang abandoned plans for some
Speaker 2: service station stickups in Sacramento. They admitted they were getting scared,
Speaker 2: so they headed for Grass Valley to case some spots
Speaker 2: there and in Trucky. Eyes finally blew up. He feared,
Speaker 2: He said that he'd get the same treatment Share had.
Speaker 2: In Trucky he saw State Highway patrolman. I want a drink,
Speaker 2: he told his companions. They stopped and let him go
Speaker 2: to a bar instead. He ran to the cop, squealed,
Speaker 2: and the gang was arrested. Yesterday's confessions under police grilling
Speaker 2: followed the killing of Cash the barbecue man was not premeditated,
Speaker 2: missus Spinelli insisted. Instead, after Simeon had cased the spot,
Speaker 2: she instructed Shared in Ives to hold up the stand
Speaker 2: but not to shoot. With some nurses training. According to Ives,
Speaker 2: the older woman instructed them just how and where to
Speaker 2: hit Cash so they'd knock him cold if he resisted.
Speaker 2: Ives confessed instead, I got nervous when Cash resisted and
Speaker 2: I plugged him. Hawkins insisted under grilling yesterday that his
Speaker 2: with the gang was merely to steal cars for their
Speaker 2: other jobs. Quote, I stole nine in two or three weeks,
Speaker 2: but I know I'm guilty under the law for the killings,
Speaker 2: along with the rest of them. I've written my father
Speaker 2: and mother in San Francisco to give me a damn
Speaker 2: good criminal lawyer, or I'll get the gas. Probably I
Speaker 2: will anyway, Gee, I wish it was me they chucked
Speaker 2: into the river instead of sha It unquote. While the
Speaker 2: quintet were pouring out their confessions, the Sacramento Police ballistics
Speaker 2: experts were comparing a bullet fired from a thirty eight
Speaker 2: caliber gun taken from Missus Spinelli's purse with a bullet
Speaker 2: that killed Cash and San Francisco. The tests, police said
Speaker 2: proved that the Cash death's lug was fired from Missus
Speaker 2: Spinelli's gun. Hawkins's only soft moment came when he saw
Speaker 2: the girl Lorraine, taken in to the Detective Bureau for grilling.
Speaker 2: He cried, lay off her. She ain't done nothing. However,
Speaker 2: the girl's own mother stuck to her story that it
Speaker 2: was nineteen year old Lorraine's idea to dispose of Shared
Speaker 2: via the knockout, drops and drowning method. Missus Spinelli explained
Speaker 2: that was a fine idea. I liked young Shared, and
Speaker 2: I wanted him to die easily. She said. She first
Speaker 2: came to California in nineteen thirty seven to get away
Speaker 2: from the vengeance of Detroit's notorious Purple Gang. Who were
Speaker 2: after her because they suspected her of being the fingerwoman
Speaker 2: for killings in the laundry racket there. Later she returned
Speaker 2: to Detroit, but came back to California last January. In
Speaker 2: San Francisco, she recruited eyes Hawkins and shared and sent
Speaker 2: for Simeon. Since then, according to the confessions poured out yesterday,
Speaker 2: the gang admitted, besides the killings of cash and shared,
Speaker 2: the theft of nine cars for them in San Francisco,
Speaker 2: the hold up of a service station at Golden Gate
Speaker 2: and Vans Avenues in San Francisco, where they got twenty dollars,
Speaker 2: the picking up of a drunk named Miller in San Francisco,
Speaker 2: and the clean out robbery of Miller's apartment. Said one
Speaker 2: of the detectives. They were even wearing some of Miller's
Speaker 2: clothes when they were arrested April eighteenth, nineteen forty For
Speaker 2: Albert One I, Ives whose squeal landed the bizarre duchess
Speaker 2: murder ring in police toils, his pals had worked out
Speaker 2: one of the neatest death tricks in their macabre repertoire,
Speaker 2: it was revealed yesterday as authorities moved to bring the
Speaker 2: two women and three youths to trial because they feared
Speaker 2: Ives was going to run the cops. They were going
Speaker 2: to drug him precisely as they had drugged Robert Shared,
Speaker 2: the other gang member. They killed the silence, but they
Speaker 2: weren't going to dump Ives into the river as they
Speaker 2: did Share it. Instead, they were going to slip the
Speaker 2: point of a very sharp, very long hatpin into the
Speaker 2: drug Lad's ear, and then with one quick thrust, they
Speaker 2: were going to drive the pin through Ives's brain quote,
Speaker 2: and that way the cops will never find out what
Speaker 2: killed him unquote, was the triumphant suggestion of fifty one
Speaker 2: year old wan Edi Spinelli. According to the confession which
Speaker 2: the police hold from twenty one year old Gordon Hawkins,
Speaker 2: who facing prosecution with the others, is talking wide and
Speaker 2: open in a desperate effort to save himself from San
Speaker 2: Quentin's gas chamber. The new Hawkins confession, together with other
Speaker 2: grisly details of the fire Person Gang's reign of dime
Speaker 2: novel terror popped yesterday as other developments came thick and
Speaker 2: fast in the Duchess ring case.
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Speaker 2: Missus Spinale conducted in elaborate crime school for her youthful
Speaker 2: band of robbers and slayers. Searching the asserted gang headquarters
Speaker 2: at fourteen twenty one Golden Gate Avenue, the police found
Speaker 2: two pieces of eight inch steel fashioned into needle sharp arrowheads,
Speaker 2: two homemade daggers, a knife with an eight inch disappearing blade,
Speaker 2: and a wooden gun. With these, police said, Missus Spinelli
Speaker 2: taught her youthful gangsters how to properly knife a man,
Speaker 2: how to handle an opponent in any kind of fight,
Speaker 2: and how to strike adversaries quote to lay them out.
Speaker 2: First of all, the duchess explained her obvious membership in
Speaker 2: this strange criminal syndicate as involuntary. That membership merely proved
Speaker 2: her a good and loving mother. She said, she wasn't
Speaker 2: the gang's brains and organized who could tailor as sweet
Speaker 2: a blackjack as ever addled brain and do it as
Speaker 2: serenely as another mother might knit an Afgan. She merely
Speaker 2: lived in the same apartment with them, motored with them
Speaker 2: about the countryside because she wanted to look after her
Speaker 2: daughter Lorraine. Quote that child was in love with Gordon Hawkins,
Speaker 2: so I just stayed with him to protect Lorraine unquote.
Speaker 2: The second time, missus Spinelli explained her conduct via her motherhood,
Speaker 2: she said, of course, she told her two small boys
Speaker 2: all about the stickups. Quote. I don't believe in keeping
Speaker 2: anything from the children unquote, she explained, phrasing a new
Speaker 2: philosophy of child guidance. The next explanation missus Spinelli offered
Speaker 2: for her association with Robert Charrard, escaped inmate of a
Speaker 2: feeble minded institution, one eyed Albert ives not too strong
Speaker 2: in the head himself, Mike Simeon, ex white slaver and convict,
Speaker 2: Gordon Hawkins, auto thief and auto mechanic. Was that they
Speaker 2: all came to her house on Golden Gate Avenue in
Speaker 2: San Francisco from interest in her daughter, and she thought
Speaker 2: them such nice young men. They cheered her maternal middle
Speaker 2: aged heart, she said, and so she entertained them, cooked
Speaker 2: them good home compounded spaghetti, mothered them brightened at the
Speaker 2: sound of their young laughter. But the State of California
Speaker 2: found that missus Spinelli was probably not so motherly as
Speaker 2: she claimed. On the other hand, the state said she
Speaker 2: chose Cherrard, Ives and Hawkins, three young dead end kids,
Speaker 2: feeble minded aspirants to the big time crime, because they
Speaker 2: were suggestible in the brain, because what they needed was
Speaker 2: expert direction for their willing trainers. She chose them because
Speaker 2: they were young and susceptible to the charms of her daughter, Lorraine,
Speaker 2: whom she is alleged to have used as a come
Speaker 2: on girl. The triggermen Ives and Charrard, the auto expert,
Speaker 2: Hawkins the caseman Simeon, the sultry eyed come on girl.
Speaker 2: Lorraine made a perfect organization. Pupils docile to their teacher.
Speaker 2: The duchess and missus Spinelli figured when the dollars got
Speaker 2: unpleasant or dangerous, they could be eliminated. They were cheap lives,
Speaker 2: the cannon fodder of the underworld. There were plenty more
Speaker 2: dead end kids, plenty more psychopathic cases where these discarded
Speaker 2: and liquidated wretches came from. So the police said that
Speaker 2: the woman reasoned and in about the same breaths, she
Speaker 2: interpolated that her nickname Duchess didn't at all mean mother
Speaker 2: and director of the crime school. Instead, she said it
Speaker 2: was a nickname given her admiringly by Bobby Schirrard, the
Speaker 2: feeble minded school alumnus. You're our duchess and our treasurer,
Speaker 2: he is reported to have said, and that's my name
Speaker 2: for you. I trust you with my money, and I
Speaker 2: think you're swell anyway. The story of the peripatetic Crime
Speaker 2: School begins for the record seven months ago when Missus
Speaker 2: Spinelli with her children left Detroit on the wings of
Speaker 2: her slogan, when one town gets too hot, there's always
Speaker 2: another one, safety lies and change of scene. Before her
Speaker 2: sudden departure, she had been the devoted and grieving widow
Speaker 2: of a notorious bank robber, Anthony Spinelli. His life and
Speaker 2: sudden demise following a smuggling exploit on the Mexican border
Speaker 2: had convinced her that many small and fairly regular profits
Speaker 2: are better than a great, big prophet. Perhaps so, she
Speaker 2: is said to a philosophized one big crime doesn't pay
Speaker 2: so well. A small, quick crime quickly executed, turning in
Speaker 2: quick and easy profits. Two two hold ups and three
Speaker 2: carthiffs a week at a modest average of three hundred
Speaker 2: dollars apiece add up to fifteen hundred dollars weekly, and
Speaker 2: fifteen hundred dollars weekly is seventy eight thousand dollars yearly
Speaker 2: with no income tax to pay. Three, no clever executive
Speaker 2: does the actual robbing and killing. To run your business well,
Speaker 2: you must learn to delegate, and it's more economical to
Speaker 2: use human discards directed by a master mind.
Speaker 3: Four.
Speaker 2: Sex is as proper a part of criminal organization as
Speaker 2: it is of life itself. My daughter Gipsy will be
Speaker 2: a valuable lure for the week, and the suggestible to
Speaker 2: these four main points of her crime philosophy. Missus Spinelli
Speaker 2: added a fifth. The boys, she decided, must have schooling
Speaker 2: in a mother's care. She would mend their clothes. She
Speaker 2: would cook them comforting home made meals. Quote. You cannot
Speaker 2: expect the lads to do good work on empty stomachs, unquote,
Speaker 2: she explained. But above all, she would teach them three
Speaker 2: main techniques she had learned from her husband, the bank robber.
Speaker 2: These were how to knife a man properly, how to
Speaker 2: handle an opponent in the main divisions of fighting, and
Speaker 2: how to strike a victim as to knock him out.
Speaker 2: These were three things she taught the dead end kids
Speaker 2: in spells, between cooking them succulent spaghetti and stitching them
Speaker 2: up the very best models in blackjacks. A blackjack, perhaps
Speaker 2: it might here be explained as a long slender, her
Speaker 2: bludgeon of steel or lead, neatly covered with velvet or leather.
Speaker 2: Police Lieutenant Michael Mitchell of San Francisco, who learned that
Speaker 2: Duchess was a former female wrestler and that she had
Speaker 2: taught her gang wrestling holds so victims of stick ups
Speaker 2: could be held by one while another did the slugging
Speaker 2: or frisking. Mitchell said she also was a knife thrower
Speaker 2: and could pin a half dollar at fifteen paces. Her son,
Speaker 2: Joseph seventeen, subsequently declared that he had traveled with his
Speaker 2: mother and carnivals. This philosophy all phrased and the gang selected.
Speaker 2: Everyone was allotted his task. Simeon to case or look
Speaker 2: over the ground for the jobs and be sort of
Speaker 2: assistant to the president. The feeble minded Bobby Schirrard and
Speaker 2: one eyed Albert ives as triggerman, and Gordon Hawkins to
Speaker 2: keep the changing motors in sweetly running conduct. During this
Speaker 2: period of their activities, police say the Spinelli gang admitted
Speaker 2: twelve carthffs and three service station hold ups in San Francisco,
Speaker 2: two attempted petting party stick ups in Sacramento, and rolling, or,
Speaker 2: to put it more politely, robbing several intoxicated men who
Speaker 2: were lured to their fate by gypsy. In fact, when arrested,
Speaker 2: the men were wearing clothes stolen from one of these
Speaker 2: victim's wardrobe. These assorted ad ventures yielded, it was said,
Speaker 2: some three hundred dollars. The police further attributed about a
Speaker 2: score of San Francisco carthiffs and a dozen hold ups
Speaker 2: to them. These were alleged to have brought in approximately
Speaker 2: six hundred dollars. Then came that fateful April seventh, and
Speaker 2: the attempted stick up at the barbecue stand. One eyed Ives,
Speaker 2: according to their admissions, was the one who strode roed
Speaker 2: in out of the fog. Knowing nothing about Cash's deafness.
Speaker 2: When the latter reached for the switch on his hearing device,
Speaker 2: Ives had assumed the night manager was reaching for a pistol,
Speaker 2: and tragedy resulted, said ives, quote, Cash shoved me and
Speaker 2: I shot as I stumbled, he just crumpled and we
Speaker 2: ran to our car and left. Gerard saw me shoot
Speaker 2: cash and decided to talk about it. I got scared
Speaker 2: and told the others we had to do away with him.
Speaker 2: And undoubtedly, despite this shocking murder, things might still have
Speaker 2: gone on as easily as cogs dropping machinery well oiled,
Speaker 2: had the duchess known the psychological fact that in every
Speaker 2: feeble minded person flares up at times some surprising deviation
Speaker 2: from his dullness. Anyway, Gerard kept talking and talking and
Speaker 2: living and reliving murder. Say who would have tumbled that
Speaker 2: the old guy was deaf? He is asserted to have said,
Speaker 2: do you suppose he was really dead when he first fell?
Speaker 2: How do you know when a guy is good and dead? Anyway,
Speaker 2: if you had known the old guy was just reaching
Speaker 2: for his phony ears, would you have killed him out?
Speaker 2: So it wasn't pleasant to be trapped within the close
Speaker 2: confines of a city apartment with a feeble minded boy
Speaker 2: who was having a bad time with his conscience, or
Speaker 2: a bad case of the jitters, as the crime school
Speaker 2: considered it. But the case went on getting worse till
Speaker 2: it had decided something had to be done before he
Speaker 2: talked outside the family. Accordingly, as a first step, Swothy
Speaker 2: Mike Simone decided they should all move soon. They were
Speaker 2: domiciled at a Sacramento hotel. The first night they sent
Speaker 2: Bobby out on an errand, and then they called a conference.
Speaker 2: What was the best way to liquidate jittery conscience plague
Speaker 2: Bobby Chirrard. First of all, Semion mentioned well known expedients
Speaker 2: of the underworld, standing a weakening ally against a garage
Speaker 2: wall and pumping at him with the guns, or pushing
Speaker 2: a stiletto into his back as he slept, or encasing
Speaker 2: him in a block of cement and dumping all in
Speaker 2: the river. The Duchess protested, I insist that poor Bobby
Speaker 2: have a peaceful, pleasant passing. Things seemed again to prosper,
Speaker 2: But again, the one fact that the dominant head of
Speaker 2: the crime school hadn't recognized, or perhaps hadn't even heard of,
Speaker 2: was another point in the peculiar psychology of the weak minded.
Speaker 2: This time it was Albert Ives. But with him it
Speaker 2: wasn't nerves, He wasn't jittery, he wasn't bothered by qualms
Speaker 2: of conscience. His trouble was pride, pride in his work
Speaker 2: or his share of it, pride that he had graduated
Speaker 2: into big crime. And so albert Ives, who was not
Speaker 2: too bright, started to brag. He grew unbearable. Albert Ives,
Speaker 2: skillful at the trigger, precise in his automobile getaways, willing,
Speaker 2: good natured, cooperative, was becoming a loudmouth. Yes, he too
Speaker 2: must be liquidated. But when it had been thus decided,
Speaker 2: the duchess knew that she and her pupils must move again.
Speaker 2: We will go, she said, This town is getting hot,
Speaker 2: will be pulling out. But by some extra sensitiveness of
Speaker 2: the weak minded, perhaps albert Ives became suddenly aware would
Speaker 2: not be good for him to go on that ride.
Speaker 2: He knew the signs, he understood when once looking up quickly,
Speaker 2: he had intercepted a glance. He knew ah, he had
Speaker 2: watched that before. But albert went, and so the car,
Speaker 2: another stolen car, was headed for the high Sierras. The
Speaker 2: two little Spinelli boys, Mike Simeon, the young girl who
Speaker 2: had seen too much too early, the dead end kids
Speaker 2: who had been three and were now only two, and
Speaker 2: one of them shortly to be no more. And the
Speaker 2: black eyed purposeful woman who liked to see all her
Speaker 2: dead lads happy, even to calm, comfortable, happy deaths. And
Speaker 2: finally the sorry cavalcade was forced to stop for gasoline.
Speaker 2: Near Grass Valley, a lunch room door was opened, looking
Speaker 2: through to a rear door facing the woods. All at
Speaker 2: once a wild boy darted out of the automobile filling
Speaker 2: up at the pump, and dashed out into the lunch
Speaker 2: room out the rear door. He then flung and into
Speaker 2: the bushes beyond where he disappeared. Albert Ives wouldn't come out,
Speaker 2: and so after mumbled consultations, the Queer company rode on. Then,
Speaker 2: when they were well away, Albert ran into the highway
Speaker 2: patrol station and screamed its hysterical message Sacramento, California, June fourth,
Speaker 2: nineteen forty, for the first time since it began snuffing
Speaker 2: out the lives of California's convictor murderers. San Quentin's gray
Speaker 2: green lethal gas Chamber's shadow hung over a woman. She
Speaker 2: is fifty three year old Juanita Spinelli, called the Duchess
Speaker 2: by the Underworld gang of Youths, whom she led on
Speaker 2: a crime career that culminated in two murders. Today, the
Speaker 2: Duchess smoothed her own way into the death gas cell
Speaker 2: when she withdrew her plea of not guilty by reason
Speaker 2: of insanity, and thereby made mandatory the passing of the
Speaker 2: death sentence Friday morning. The only possibilities that stand between
Speaker 2: the woman and death by San Quentin's cyanogen gas are
Speaker 2: two a successful appeal from her conviction or Governor Olson's
Speaker 2: commutation of the death penalty. Twice yesterday, Superior Judge Coughlin
Speaker 2: passed the death sentence on two other members of the
Speaker 2: Duchess's gang, Gordon Hawkins and Mike Simeon. Meanwhile, today the
Speaker 2: fourth member of the gang escaped the death penalty via
Speaker 2: the very route the Duchess and the other two it
Speaker 2: turned down. Albert One I Ives was found insane by
Speaker 2: a jury in Judge Coughlin's court, the same jury which
Speaker 2: had previously convicted him of murder. After the insanity verdict,
Speaker 2: the court recessed in late afternoon, and Judge Coughlin announced
Speaker 2: he will determine ives as sentence tomorrow. June fifth, nineteen forty.
Speaker 2: Albert Ives, twenty one year old, squint eyed youth who
Speaker 2: confessed committing the two murders for which three of his
Speaker 2: duchess gang confederates faced death, cheated San Quentin's gas chamber. Today,
Speaker 2: Superior Judge Coughlin ordered Ives, the gang's self styled triggerman,
Speaker 2: commit ded to Mendocino State Hospital for the insane. He
Speaker 2: was adjudged insane late yesterday by the same jury which
Speaker 2: a week earlier convicted the four gangsters of first degree
Speaker 2: murder in the slaying of Robert Charrard. Officials said the jury,
Speaker 2: in finding Ives insane, held he was incapable of committing
Speaker 2: a crime under the law. Hence, should he be declared
Speaker 2: sane after a year's incarceration, he will be eligible for release.
Speaker 2: Only one legal step remained before local authorities complete their
Speaker 2: part in the case, which began with the hold up
Speaker 2: slaying of Leland Cash, san Francisco barbecue stand operator, and
Speaker 2: ended when police learned details of the Charrard slang and
Speaker 2: found his body in the Sacramento River. This was the
Speaker 2: sentencing next Friday of Juanita Spinelli, the fifty year old
Speaker 2: duchess who directed the gang's activity. June twelfth, nineteen forty
Speaker 2: Doomed to death in the state's lethal gas chamber. Missus Juanita,
Speaker 2: the Duchess Spinelle, left today for the State Institution for
Speaker 2: Women at Tahatchipee, weeping and broken in spirit. Missus Spinelli,
Speaker 2: who once directed a Sacramento robbery murder gang, was taken
Speaker 2: to Tahachipee by special deputies of Sheriff Don Cox, where
Speaker 2: she will remain pending her automatic appeal to the State
Speaker 2: Supreme Court. Two other members of the Duchess gang, Mike
Speaker 2: Simeon and Gordon Hawkins, are in San Quentin Prison awaiting execution.
Speaker 2: In the event the Supreme Court refuses to rescind the
Speaker 2: execution order, Missus Spinelli will be returned to San Quentin
Speaker 2: to be executed. On June twenty seventh, Governor John E.
Speaker 2: Miles of New Mexico wired Governor Olsen that won Tony Spinelli,
Speaker 2: a resident of Clayton, New Mexico for fifteen years, has
Speaker 2: identified himself as the husband of the Duchess for the
Speaker 2: double purpose of showing that he had not been killed
Speaker 2: as a gangster and to deny his fatherhood of at
Speaker 2: least two of his children. Spinelli said that a physician
Speaker 2: in Colorado had told him in nineteen twenty six that
Speaker 2: missus Spinelli was incapable of bearing children. Officials and Sacramento
Speaker 2: said the Spinelli assertions would have no bearing on the
Speaker 2: case itself. Editorial, February thirteenth, nineteen forty one. In the
Speaker 2: gripping drama charged book Men at Their Worst, co authored
Speaker 2: by doctor Leo L. Stanley, chief surgeon at the San
Speaker 2: Quentin Prison, and Evelyn Wells, gifted California novelist, the famous
Speaker 2: prison physician recounts that during his twenty seven years of
Speaker 2: service he has watched more than one hundred and fifty
Speaker 2: men die on the gallows, and during the last two
Speaker 2: years he has watched nine other men go to meet
Speaker 2: their maker in the lethal gas chamber. There is one
Speaker 2: grim experience, however, that even doctor Stanley has been spared.
Speaker 2: He has never seen a woman with the hangman's rope
Speaker 2: knotted around her neck, waiting for the plunge into eternity.
Speaker 2: He has never seen a woman caged in the lethal
Speaker 2: chamber tensely waiting for the moment of extinction. For California,
Speaker 2: in all its years of statehood, has never compelled a
Speaker 2: woman to pay the death penalty. With all our vaunted
Speaker 2: talk of equal rights for women and equal responsibilities. We
Speaker 2: have never really meant it, apparently, at least when penalties
Speaker 2: were involved. Women have murdered and been imprisoned, but none
Speaker 2: thus far has been forced to forfeit her life for
Speaker 2: the life she has taken. That peculiarly has been a
Speaker 2: man's penalty, but now a woman. Missus Juanitas Spinelli, the
Speaker 2: so called duchess, leader of a gang of young Tufts
Speaker 2: who robbed and killed, is under sentenced to die in
Speaker 2: San Quentin's lethal gas chamber. Horrible, Yes, of course, it's horrible.
Speaker 2: Violent death, whether it be cold blooded murder or legal execution,
Speaker 2: always is horrible. Capital punishment itself is horrible to contemplate.
Speaker 2: Some condemn it, some defendant, some condone it, and some
Speaker 2: abhor it. Should the duchess die in San Quentin's gas chamber,
Speaker 2: before she dies or receives a commutation, there will be
Speaker 2: violent argument about it a woman. Some will say that's different,
Speaker 2: it's unthinkable. Perhaps it is. Others will say that the
Speaker 2: whole ghastly business, whether it involves man or woman, is unthinkable.
Speaker 2: Perhaps that's true too, But whatever the contention, California must
Speaker 2: either admit that it has a dual standard for murders
Speaker 2: and murderers or do what it has never done before,
Speaker 2: legally kill a woman. This is a case probably that
Speaker 2: will make Governor Olssen wonder why any man aspires to
Speaker 2: be governor. For Governor Olson must decide, while we merely
Speaker 2: argue about it, equal rights are not. We don't envy him.
Speaker 2: June twentieth, nineteen forty one, Late last night, as Missus
Speaker 2: Juanita the Duchess Spinelli brooded in her San Quinton death
Speaker 2: cell awaiting execution. This morning, the phone jangled in Warden
Speaker 2: Clinton Duffy's home. It was Governor Olsen, hurriedly calling from
Speaker 2: Los Angeles to grant her a thirty day reprieve. The
Speaker 2: Governor's intervention came after Superior Judge Raymond T. Coughlin of
Speaker 2: San Francisco, who presided at the Duchess's murder trial and
Speaker 2: trial Forman Lloyd H. Locke, informed him they had certain
Speaker 2: information to place before him in connection with the Cays
Speaker 2: Mike Simeon, her common law husband, and Gordon Hawkins, a
Speaker 2: member of her band, who were scheduled to have died
Speaker 2: next Friday, for their implication with the Duchess and the
Speaker 2: murder of nineteen year old Robert Schirrard were also given
Speaker 2: thirty says. Later, Warden Duffy received a corroborating telegram from
Speaker 2: the Governor. I am issuing a thirty day reprieve in
Speaker 2: the case of Nita Spinelli. You will therefore fix the
Speaker 2: day for execution accordingly. The formal reprieve will be forwarded
Speaker 2: to your office. M. Stanley Mosk, the Governor's secretary, announced
Speaker 2: in Sacramento that the governor had acted at the urgent
Speaker 2: request of the judge and the jury foreman quote. The
Speaker 2: information they have is of such a nature that it
Speaker 2: couldn't be ignored. The Governor will confer with them on it.
Speaker 2: I have no idea of the nature of their information.
Speaker 2: The Governor's sudden action came like a bolt out of
Speaker 2: the blue to missus. Spinelli, who had arrived at San
Speaker 2: Quentin yesterday resigned to be the first woman ever to
Speaker 2: be executed by the state of California, muttering the usual
Speaker 2: protests of innocence and following them with the usual admission
Speaker 2: that she considered them futile. She had been placed in
Speaker 2: a death cell a few paces removed from the Apple
Speaker 2: Green gas chamber, which was to have ended her life.
Speaker 2: At ten o'clock this morning, the Duchess, so called because
Speaker 2: of her sovereignty over a vicious little band of thieves
Speaker 2: and cutthroats, reached San Quentin after a secret, heavily guarded
Speaker 2: night long dash by motor from the women's prison to
Speaker 2: hatchepee in the prison yard. She paid her respects almost
Speaker 2: haughtily to Warden. Duffy then burst into tears as he
Speaker 2: asked if she wished to be interviewed. She refused, Then,
Speaker 2: drying her tears, she walked firmly to the death cell
Speaker 2: and unpacked the few belongings she carried with her. Shortly
Speaker 2: after ward, and Duffy reported with considerable relief she was chatting, laughing,
Speaker 2: and even cracking jokes with a matron specially selected to
Speaker 2: stand by the death cell at this juncture. He went
Speaker 2: to her cell, emerging later with the following statement from
Speaker 2: the Duchess quote, I do not want to talk to anyone.
Speaker 2: I don't see how any statement for me can do
Speaker 2: any good now. The only thing I did was to
Speaker 2: state that I poured the whiskey. I did this in
Speaker 2: order to save my daughter. I was a victim of
Speaker 2: a slave raider. Mike Simeon. I have made my peace
Speaker 2: with God. The only reason I would want to live
Speaker 2: is for my family in the stain against them. I
Speaker 2: hope that my daughter will straighten up and be a
Speaker 2: good mother. Please do not ask me to see anyone.
Speaker 2: If it is God's will, I will go out like
Speaker 2: a true soldier. Unquote. She had repeatedly said that Simeon
Speaker 2: compelled her to do his bidding by threatening to put
Speaker 2: her daughter into a house of prostitution, hence the reference
Speaker 2: to slave raider her euphanism for procureur. That daughter, nineteen
Speaker 2: year old Lorraine the Gypsy, is now in a San
Speaker 2: Diego home awaiting birth of an illegitimate child. Warden Duffy
Speaker 2: had given much consideration as to what garb she was
Speaker 2: to have worn in the gas chamber. At first he
Speaker 2: thought slacks would have been advisable for her, but later
Speaker 2: decided she would wear the same blue prison made dress
Speaker 2: in which she arrived in San Quentin, or, if she preferred,
Speaker 2: a house dress she brought with her. When Warden Duffy
Speaker 2: went to notify the Duchess, she was talking to a
Speaker 2: matron in a small, specially screened cell almost adjoining the
Speaker 2: gas chamber. She was wearing a heavy white flannel, full
Speaker 2: sleeve nightgown. Stunned momentarily, she then dropped to her knees
Speaker 2: and grasps the cell bars and said, thank God, he
Speaker 2: has listened to my prayers. I hope he will find
Speaker 2: a way to get to the truth. Truth, and perhaps
Speaker 2: Mike will tell the truth now. Duffy asked her if
Speaker 2: she wanted to say anything for the press. Please don't
Speaker 2: ask me to see anyone, she replied, but she then
Speaker 2: prepared a statement saying, quote, I don't see where any
Speaker 2: statements for me can do me any good.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 2: I poured the whiskey Erard's Mickey Finn. I did this
Speaker 2: in order to save my daughter. I was a victim
Speaker 2: of a slave raider, Mike Simeon. I have made my
Speaker 2: peace with God. The only reason I would want to
Speaker 2: live is for my family and the stain against them.
Speaker 2: If it is God's will, I will go. I felt
Speaker 2: all along, although people have told me I would never
Speaker 2: come to San Quentin, that I would be executed. I
Speaker 2: don't know why, but that's been my feeling all along.
Speaker 3: Unquote.
Speaker 2: Within a few hours after Governor Olson melodramatically snatched Missus
Speaker 2: Juanita Spinelli from San Quentin's lethal gas chamber with an
Speaker 2: eleventh hour reprieve. The Governor's executive secretary, Stanley Mosk, asserted,
Speaker 2: I feel the Governor definitely has been imposed upon. The
Speaker 2: startling declaration came after Mosque conferred with the principles in
Speaker 2: the trial of the fifty two year old woman and
Speaker 2: three members of her gang for the murder of a
Speaker 2: fourth gang member, nineteen year old Robert Charrard. They met
Speaker 2: to consider new evidence, purported existence of which influenced the
Speaker 2: governor late Thursday night to postpone today's scheduled execution for
Speaker 2: thirty days. After interested parties had presented their case to
Speaker 2: Mosque during a session which produced heated words, Mosque brusquely announced,
Speaker 2: I feel the governor definitely has been imposed upon because
Speaker 2: there has been no new evidence presented here which we
Speaker 2: have not had before us all this time. Present at
Speaker 2: the conference with Mosque where Ralph T. Lewie defense counsel,
Speaker 2: who had claimed new evidence, Judge Ray T. Coughlin, trial judge,
Speaker 2: who asked the governor to grant the reprieve when informed
Speaker 2: of the new evidence and of two of the trial
Speaker 2: jurors George P. York and John L. McGinnis. Although Louis
Speaker 2: had expressed belief that Yorck voted for the death sentence
Speaker 2: for Missus Spinelli and the belief that the governor would
Speaker 2: surely commute such sentence, Yorke denied that his verdict had
Speaker 2: been influenced by any such belief. McGinnis, who held out
Speaker 2: twenty four hours in the jury room before casting his
Speaker 2: vote with the other jurors, told Mosque he still believes
Speaker 2: the evidence was insufficient to merit the death penalty for
Speaker 2: Missus Spinelli. Judge Coughlin left the conference with the rye assertion,
Speaker 2: I will say right now that I shall shall not
Speaker 2: intercede again in behalf of Missus Spinelli, nor will I
Speaker 2: recommend clemency for The Sacramento District Attorney's office commented. Someone
Speaker 2: is stalling, said Chief Deputy District Attorney Jay Francis. O'shay.
Speaker 2: When a defendant confessed to a crime like that, what
Speaker 2: evidence can possibly be produced in his behalf? There is
Speaker 2: no reason whatever why Missus Spinelle should have been reprieved.
Speaker 2: Somebody is stalling. From the governor himself, no comment whatever
Speaker 2: was forthcoming it was believed that missus Spinelli will not
Speaker 2: receive another reprieve at the end of the thirty days.
Speaker 2: June twenty first, nineteen forty one, under slightly macobb circumstances,
Speaker 2: the Duchess received yesterday, at the precise hour when she
Speaker 2: confidently expected to be filling her lungs with deadly cyanide fumes.
Speaker 2: The Duchess held audience for the press beside San Quentin's
Speaker 2: lethal gas chamber, from which she has been snatched by
Speaker 2: an eleventh hour reprieve. The Duchess, whose realm was reputedly crime,
Speaker 2: and whose subjects were pickpockets, thieves, procureurs and cutthroats, and
Speaker 2: thrown herself on a bench outside the death cell and
Speaker 2: frisked and poised and graciously bannered prison officials as she
Speaker 2: informed her audience that her conviction of murder was all
Speaker 2: a ghastly mistake, which divine justice and the governor had
Speaker 2: corrected just in the nick of time. But even as
Speaker 2: she uttered her thanks, the Governor's office in Sacramento was
Speaker 2: announcing that a casual examination of the facts now indicated
Speaker 2: that the reprieve, and not the conviction, was the mistake.
Speaker 2: In granting the melodramatic night before or the execution reprieve
Speaker 2: the governor had apparently been imposed upon according to his secretary.
Speaker 2: That declaration, seemingly making it certain that the Duchess will
Speaker 2: yet become the first woman executed by the state of California,
Speaker 2: was made while she, unaware of that circumstance, was bannering
Speaker 2: with photographers, wise cracking with her matron, reaffirming her innocence,
Speaker 2: but most of all damning her consort, Mike Simeon. She
Speaker 2: was unaware, too, that her levey was occurring beside the
Speaker 2: gas chamber, which had been delicately shrouded in canvas so
Speaker 2: she might not stare at it as she sat in
Speaker 2: the death cell. To begin with, the Duchess made it
Speaker 2: plain that she did not care to be called the duchess,
Speaker 2: or to have her nineteen year old daughter, Lorraine called
Speaker 2: the gypsy. She said, I detest nicknames. She affirmed that
Speaker 2: she was no duchess, no murderous, no female fagin, but
Speaker 2: just misunderstood maligned Miss Evelita Juanita Spinelli, a persecuted, widowed
Speaker 2: mother of three children. Her appearance at least seemed to
Speaker 2: bear her out, Wearing an unadorned house dress, clasping a
Speaker 2: religious metal beaming behind her spectacles. This tiny, plain woman
Speaker 2: with the graying hair looked like no leader, no tutor
Speaker 2: of thieves and murderers. She had, she assured her listeners,
Speaker 2: become deeply religious and was rigidly obeying the command to
Speaker 2: forgive her enemies. But just the same she wanted to
Speaker 2: understood that Mike Simeon is as vile a creature as
Speaker 2: ever wronged a fellow man. Mike Simeon, she asserted, was
Speaker 2: solely responsible for the ruination of her life, for the
Speaker 2: plight of her daughter, for the entire tragic chain of
Speaker 2: events which led her into the shadow of the lethal
Speaker 2: gas chamber. She blurted out. The public has never been
Speaker 2: told that Simeon served five years in Lovenworth for white slavery.
Speaker 2: The public doesn't know that he continued after his release
Speaker 2: to live off women in Detroit, to take their earnings,
Speaker 2: and to blackmail them. Those who are trying to live
Speaker 2: down their little mistakes. He would threaten to expose them
Speaker 2: to their employers and take what they had one dollar
Speaker 2: or two dollars or five dollars. It has been said
Speaker 2: that I was madly infatuated with them. Perhaps I am
Speaker 2: to blame for that. I did say I was in
Speaker 2: love with him, but he threatened to kill me and
Speaker 2: said he would see that the children were disposed of
Speaker 2: in a very cruel way unless I did say it.
Speaker 2: The children, she explained, are Lorraine nineteen and two sons,
Speaker 2: Joseph sixteen and Vincent ten. The boys are now in
Speaker 2: an orphanage near Sacramento. Lorraine, who is to become a
Speaker 2: mother in August, is in a place, the location of
Speaker 2: which cannot be made public, though it has been repeatedly
Speaker 2: published that she is in a home in San Diego.
Speaker 2: Who was through the children, and particularly through Lorraine missus
Speaker 2: Spinelli asserted that Simeon quote forced me to do his
Speaker 2: bidding unquote. Simeon, who came into her life innocently enough,
Speaker 2: quote solely and purely as an emergency fourth hand in
Speaker 2: a pinuckle game unquote, immediately began laying plans to ensnare her.
Speaker 2: He discovered she said that she had innocently married a
Speaker 2: man who was part Negro. That was her first husband,
Speaker 2: Joseph Camplong, whose mother was of noble birth, so she
Speaker 2: had been told, and whose father misrepresented himself as an Indian,
Speaker 2: and Simeon used this knowledge as a club over her
Speaker 2: to strengthen his hold. The Duchess said. Simeon then sent
Speaker 2: her daughter to sam Francisco, sent her out here to
Speaker 2: engage in the white slave traffic, and warned her not
Speaker 2: to communicate with her mother. Missus Spinelli. After ordering Simeon
Speaker 2: from her home, then discovered her daughter's whereabouts. She related
Speaker 2: with the dual purpose of fleeing Simeon and reuniting herself
Speaker 2: with her daughter. She took the two younger children and
Speaker 2: hitchhiked to San Francisco with obvious pride, she said, through
Speaker 2: ice and snow and blizzards, when it was twenty below
Speaker 2: we made it nine days. Simeon followed her to San Francisco,
Speaker 2: she insisted, and intruded upon as fine a little household
Speaker 2: as could be found in the city. Besides her own
Speaker 2: three children, she was mothering three young men friends of Lorraine.
Speaker 2: They were a nineteen year old Bobby Charrard, for whose
Speaker 2: murder she was convicted, twenty two year old Gordon Hawkins
Speaker 2: convicted with her, and twenty one year old Albert Ives,
Speaker 2: who became fearful of his own life fled to protection
Speaker 2: of police, disclosed the murder of Charrard, and turned state's evidence.
Speaker 2: At the trial, he was later adjudged insane. Far from
Speaker 2: instructing these youths in the way of crime, their testimony
Speaker 2: is that she showed them how to make and use blackjacks,
Speaker 2: how to employ knives to best advantage, how to perform
Speaker 2: various tricks useful to the criminal. She set their feet
Speaker 2: along the path of righteousness, she said, and persuaded them
Speaker 2: to register at continuation school. She asserted, the records will
Speaker 2: bear me out. Then, one night, shortly after the arrival
Speaker 2: of Simeon, Ives came into her flat, threw down a
Speaker 2: gun and said, I used it. I picked it up
Speaker 2: and smelled it, she continued, and I said, I guess
Speaker 2: you have. Where did you get it? He said, Simeon
Speaker 2: gave it to her. He said. They were riding around
Speaker 2: and tried to hold up a man at the beach,
Speaker 2: and he made a move for his pocket. We later
Speaker 2: found the poor fellow was deaf and he had to
Speaker 2: use it. Unquote, that she insisted was her first intimation
Speaker 2: of the murder of leland s Cash, the crime which
Speaker 2: led directly to the murder of young Hirard enjoy ad
Speaker 2: free listening at the safehouse. Dubbadubbadubba dot Patreon dot com,
Speaker 2: slash true crime historian July tenth, nineteen forty one. Governor
Speaker 2: Calbert L. Olson refused comment today on how he was
Speaker 2: impressed by the last effort to save the life of
Speaker 2: Missus Juanitas Medali, who will become the first woman executed
Speaker 2: for murder in California unless the governor intervenes. Olson had
Speaker 2: before him the transcript of a long and sordid story
Speaker 2: told him by the Duchess's son, Joseph seventeen, who pleaded
Speaker 2: with the governor for a full hour late yesterday in
Speaker 2: an effort to prevent the execution of his mother July
Speaker 2: twenty fifth in a San Quentin prison's gas cell. The
Speaker 2: governor wouldn't say how the story influenced him, but his
Speaker 2: secretary said he didn't seem to be much impressed when
Speaker 2: Missus Spinelli was spared last June twentieth by an eleventh
Speaker 2: hour reprieve. Olson's secretaries declared, we believe the governor has
Speaker 2: been imposed upon. Joseph supported the latest story told by
Speaker 2: his gangster mother, a story she told the day of
Speaker 2: her first scheduled execution. At the trial, missus Spinelli testified
Speaker 2: she placed knockout drops in a drink giving Robert Charrard
Speaker 2: before he was thrown in the Sacramento River. She told
Speaker 2: how the gang wanted to get rid of Cherrard for
Speaker 2: fear he would squeal about the San Francisco murder of
Speaker 2: Leland Cash, a barbecue stand attendant. The duchess now claims
Speaker 2: that Mike Simeon, her common law husband, drugged the drink.
Speaker 2: Her dress was torn, she said when Simeon forcibly took
Speaker 2: the pills from her. Missus Spinelli said she confessed at
Speaker 2: the trial to protect quote someone I love unquote. Joseph,
Speaker 2: in supporting his mother's latest story, said that he and
Speaker 2: his brother Vincent, lay on the floor of a Sacramento
Speaker 2: hotel room the night Chirard was drugged. He said he
Speaker 2: saw his mother struggling with Simeon, and that Missus Spinelli's
Speaker 2: dress was ripped in the scuffle. Also in the room
Speaker 2: at the time, Young Spinelli said were Cherrard, Albert Ives,
Speaker 2: triggerman of the gang, and Gordon Hawkins, frans o'sheat of
Speaker 2: the San Francisco District attorney's office discredited young Spinelli's story. Quote,
Speaker 2: the boy's been reading the papers. He never told us
Speaker 2: such a story before, and no torn dress belonging to
Speaker 2: missus Spinelli has been found unquote. Joseph talked freely to
Speaker 2: the governor and told of the life he, his sister, Lorraine,
Speaker 2: and his brother had led with their mother. He said
Speaker 2: his earliest recollection was of his mother being a waitress
Speaker 2: and washwoman in the Texas oil fields. They moved later
Speaker 2: to Salt Lake City, where his mother ran a carnival
Speaker 2: gambling wheel and Lorraine was the snake girl in a
Speaker 2: side show. Then the scene shifted to Kilgore, Idaho, where
Speaker 2: Joseph said he believed his mother married a man named Robinson,
Speaker 2: and they lived by herding sheep for two years. The
Speaker 2: children were put in a Catholic home in Texas while
Speaker 2: the duchess went to Mexico. Vincent was born in Mexico.
Speaker 2: The family then drifted to Corpus Christi and later to Detroit,
Speaker 2: where they met Simeon. Lorraine ran away to California. The
Speaker 2: family hitchhiked after her and found she was already acquainted
Speaker 2: with the youth who became the Spinelli gang. In all
Speaker 2: his rambling life, Joseph claimed he never heard any talk
Speaker 2: of murders or robberies. November twenty first, nineteen forty one,
Speaker 2: while the world at large feasted and was Mary, the
Speaker 2: woman known as the Duchess, found no joy in Thanksgiving. Yesterday,
Speaker 2: the Duchess, bitter and full of curses, sat in the
Speaker 2: death cell at San Quentin Prison, preparing for her her
Speaker 2: unhappy role in the pageant of California history, preparing to
Speaker 2: walk into the lethal gas chamber at ten o'clock this
Speaker 2: morning to die and to become the first woman the
Speaker 2: state has ever executed. There was only one infinitismal ray
Speaker 2: of hope for Ernest Spagnoli, a San Francisco attorney, will
Speaker 2: seek a stay of execution from the Appellate Court this morning,
Speaker 2: he said, on the grounds that the law requires a
Speaker 2: formal court order fixing the date of execution. The Duchess
Speaker 2: originally was scheduled to die on June twentieth, and this
Speaker 2: date was never changed. The subsequent delays have been due
Speaker 2: to three reprieves granted by the governor. She reached the
Speaker 2: prison early yesterday after an all night ride from Tahatchepee,
Speaker 2: the women's prison where she has been confined since last June,
Speaker 2: when an eleventh hour reprieved from Governor Olson snatched her
Speaker 2: from the dismal doorway she must enter this morning at
Speaker 2: the request of Warden Clinton T. Duffy, she talked to
Speaker 2: assembled reporters. She cursed them and reviled them, and blamed
Speaker 2: them for the refusal of Governor Olson to halt her
Speaker 2: execution once again, for them and their lives, she had
Speaker 2: terrible curses and for her executioners of today curses even
Speaker 2: more terrible, and the prediction my blood will burn holes
Speaker 2: in their bodies. Her words, her actions, the expressions which
Speaker 2: flitted across her contorted face, lent little support to the
Speaker 2: contention of a half dozen able psychiatrists who assured Governor
Speaker 2: Olson before he abandoned her to punishment prescribed by law,
Speaker 2: that she was is entirely insane. Before she entered the
Speaker 2: death cell to count last twenty four hours, she added
Speaker 2: more confusion and mystery to her involved personal history, confusion
Speaker 2: concerning her legal and common law marriages, the parenthood of
Speaker 2: her three children, her very name, which has been variously
Speaker 2: reported as Juanita Spinelli, and Evlita Spinelli and on prison
Speaker 2: records as ethel Lita Spinelli. Yesterday, she remarked, and my
Speaker 2: name is not even Spinelle. Requests for her true name
Speaker 2: brought the childlike reply, that's for me to know and
Speaker 2: you to find out. She asserted that besides herself, only
Speaker 2: Governor Olsen knows her right name. Her children, a married
Speaker 2: daughter and two minor boys, insists they have never known
Speaker 2: any name but Spinelli. But her asserted husband, from whom
Speaker 2: she says she acquired that name, has recently insisted no
Speaker 2: marriage ever took place. From curses and revilings, the duchess
Speaker 2: turned abruptly to a bid for sympathy from her listeners.
Speaker 2: She said she had been sick, very sick. I'm shot
Speaker 2: full of dope right now to keep me together until tomorrow.
Speaker 2: What truth may be in any of her assertions of yesterday,
Speaker 2: in any of the heroic tales she has formerly told
Speaker 2: of her early hardships, her valiant efforts to rear her
Speaker 2: three children, her involvement with rich men's sons and famous
Speaker 2: doctors and infamous criminals, cannot be estimated the same psychiatrists
Speaker 2: who called her saying also called her a pathological liar.
Speaker 2: Doubt too, must always surround the details of the crime
Speaker 2: for which she must breathe hydrocyde ianic fumes today, and
Speaker 2: for which two of her associates, Mike Simeon commonly called
Speaker 2: her lover and Gordon Hawkins, whom she described herself as
Speaker 2: the lover of her daughter, are scheduled to die next week,
Speaker 2: and so the Duchess spent a joyless Thanksgiving and will
Speaker 2: become an unenvied figure in California history today. To the
Speaker 2: Duchess finally went the sorry distinction of being the first
Speaker 2: woman whose crimes were so foul that she had to
Speaker 2: be killed by the state. Her unique contribution to California history,
Speaker 2: a span of ninety one years in which the state
Speaker 2: never before has violated its traditional chivalry by executing a woman,
Speaker 2: was accomplished in just ten and one half minutes. Mumbling prayers,
Speaker 2: and with snap shots of her two sons, a daughter,
Speaker 2: and a grandchild taped to her breast, The Duchess was
Speaker 2: sealed in San Quentin's gas chamber at ten fourteen and
Speaker 2: a half am. She was pronounced dead at ten twenty five.
Speaker 2: The execution was performed before sixty six men's spectators after
Speaker 2: a nerve racking delay that had prison officials, justices of
Speaker 2: the Supreme Court and appellate courts, and the Governor's office
Speaker 2: in an uproar during the night, while the Duchess veered
Speaker 2: from outbursts to prayer to sporadic conversations with two matrons
Speaker 2: who had accompanied her from the women's prison at to Hatchepee.
Speaker 2: A San Francisco lawyer began attempts to obtain a further
Speaker 2: stay of execution. Ernest Spagnoli went to Superior Judge Edward
Speaker 2: Butler at San Raphael for red of habeas corpus on
Speaker 2: the grounds that the original date June twentieth had never
Speaker 2: been formally changed to November twenty first. He was refused.
Speaker 2: Spagnoley acted at the behest of his ex wife, Sally Stanford,
Speaker 2: notorious nightlife figure who was known as the Woman in
Speaker 2: Red during the nineteen thirty five to thirty seven graft investigation,
Speaker 2: who summed up her efforts this way, killing that woman
Speaker 2: won't make you any better or me any worse. The
Speaker 2: attorney resumed his attempts early in the morning by taking
Speaker 2: the same petition to the State District Court of Appeal,
Speaker 2: where it was denied by Presiding Judge Raymond Peters. Spagnoley
Speaker 2: rushed frantically to the state's Supreme Court for his final
Speaker 2: try and bumped into Attorney William Herron, who also sought
Speaker 2: a rid of habeas corpus on the grounds that execution
Speaker 2: by gas was unconstitutional. In the expectation of such moves,
Speaker 2: developments were being closely watched by Chief Deputy Attorney General
Speaker 2: Robert W. Harrison, by Warden Clinton T. Duffy at San Quintin,
Speaker 2: and by Stanley Mosk, Governor Olson's executive secretary at Sacramento,
Speaker 2: who had a direct telephone connection with Duffy's office for
Speaker 2: more than an hour. The confusion started when the Supreme
Speaker 2: Court writs were filed. Harrison at once tried to call Duffy,
Speaker 2: but could not reach him, as Duffy at the same
Speaker 2: time was calling the Supreme Court and was being told
Speaker 2: by Acting Chief Justice John Schenk that the writs had
Speaker 2: been denied by him and three other justices. At nine
Speaker 2: fifty two a m. Only eight minutes before the time
Speaker 2: set for the execution, Duffy turned to the Sacramento connection
Speaker 2: and formed Mosque and was told there were no new
Speaker 2: orders from the Governor. Olson had granted the duchess three reprietsves,
Speaker 2: but finally could find no reasons for a fourth or
Speaker 2: for executive clemency, despite a barrage of last minute pleased
Speaker 2: by telegraph and telephone from all over the country. Immediately,
Speaker 2: the warden had guards marshaled the sixty six witnesses and
Speaker 2: take them to the death House, where they crowded into position.
Speaker 2: Ten o'clock came and went. Then Duffy rushed out and
Speaker 2: the guards ordered the room cleared. The call from Harrison
Speaker 2: had finally come through. Harrison told Duffy of the ritz
Speaker 2: and the denials. More on edge by then than at
Speaker 2: any time in his prison career, the warden disclosed that
Speaker 2: the Duchess had just had another fit of incoherent ravings.
Speaker 2: Duffy said he wanted to be sure that he was
Speaker 2: not executing an insane woman. Harrison replied that all legal
Speaker 2: requirements had been fulfilled and that the execution should go ahead.
Speaker 2: Visibly shaken, Duffy and his aides dashed back to the
Speaker 2: death house in his official car, explained the situation and
Speaker 2: announced that the Duchess would die as scheduled. Shortly then,
Speaker 2: the condemned woman, whose death warrant gave her name as
Speaker 2: Eithel Alida Juanita Spinelli, was brought into the gas chamber
Speaker 2: to pay with her life for the deaths She decreed
Speaker 2: to Robert Schirrard nineteen, member of her own gang of
Speaker 2: robber killers, in the fear that he would blab about
Speaker 2: the murder of a barbecue stand proprietor in a hold up.
Speaker 2: A husky guard held her by each arm. She wore
Speaker 2: a green smock, hardly more green than her livid skin.
Speaker 2: Through the green glass windows of the chamber. Both fists
Speaker 2: were clenched, and one held a crumpled handkerchief. Her eyes
Speaker 2: were wide and stilling in her ravaged, bony face. Her
Speaker 2: gray black hair gleamed dully. But this was not the
Speaker 2: duchess who minutes before had been raving and incoherent, Not
Speaker 2: the duchess of the day before, who cursed and reviled
Speaker 2: her interviewers, her captors, and especially her executioners, shouting my
Speaker 2: blood will burn holes in your body. From some inner
Speaker 2: recesses of her spirit, she summoned up an inherent dignity.
Speaker 2: She refused to be blindfolded. She did not break. She
Speaker 2: asked for no mercy, excepting the prayer that she muttered
Speaker 2: over and over as the guards strapped her to her chair,
Speaker 2: adjusted the stethoscope, and banged shut the steel door. Into
Speaker 2: thy hands, O Lord, I commend my spirit. The first
Speaker 2: wisp of the lethal cyanide fumes cut short the words.
Speaker 2: Her head snapped back, and she remained thus and till
Speaker 2: a guard opened a door beyond the gas chamber and said,
Speaker 2: that's all, gentlemen. The time ten fourteen and a half
Speaker 2: to ten twenty five. A little later, while guards waited
Speaker 2: for blowers to clear out the cyanide fumes so the
Speaker 2: body could be removed ward and Duffy described how the
Speaker 2: Duchess spent her last hours. She had a turkey dinner
Speaker 2: Thanksgiving evening, he said, but she refused other food except
Speaker 2: for a Hamburger sandwich. Around midnight, he told her of
Speaker 2: Sally Stanford's efforts in her behalf, and she replied, I
Speaker 2: don't know missus Stanford, but I am grateful to her.
Speaker 2: She is a good woman. The Duchess did not sleep
Speaker 2: at all during the night, but talked with Father George o'meira,
Speaker 2: Catholic chaplain at the prison. With the two matrons who
Speaker 2: attended her, and again with Father o'meira in the morning,
Speaker 2: about an hour before she died. It was from this
Speaker 2: religious counsel that she drew the strength to die calmly,
Speaker 2: a strange metamorphosis in the woman whose strength, when she
Speaker 2: was free, had been her iron handed domination of a
Speaker 2: band of thieves and killers. Before the Duchess died, Warden
Speaker 2: Duffy asked her if she wanted any message carried to
Speaker 2: the two men who are in San Quentin's death row.
Speaker 2: She was indifferent. Duffy then asked Simeon and Hawkins if
Speaker 2: they wanted to tell the Duchess anything, but they spurned
Speaker 2: the offer. Two there were no messages from her children,
Speaker 2: nor any claim for her body, which was buried by
Speaker 2: the prison. It remained for missus Alice Gwynn, one of
Speaker 2: the matrons who brought the Duchess from Tahatchepee, to be
Speaker 2: her chief mourner and to pronounce her epitaph quote. I
Speaker 2: took care of her for seventeen months. There isn't much
Speaker 2: that I can say about her. She was cheerful right
Speaker 2: up to the end, the last minute, regardless of what
Speaker 2: you think about her or what she did. She proved
Speaker 2: her point, her belief in God. She didn't even tremble.
Speaker 2: She had no last words for me. We had already
Speaker 2: said everything there was to say. She kissed me goodbye.
Speaker 2: That's all. I wish you would be just as kind
Speaker 2: to her as you can. That was Duchess Spinelli's crime school,
Speaker 2: The Half Wit Gang of Golden Gate Avenue, called from
Speaker 2: the historic pages of the San Francisco Examiner, the Oakland Tribune,
Speaker 2: and other news papers of the era. True Crime Historian
Speaker 2: is a production of popular media. Opening theme by Nico Vitessi.
Speaker 2: Incidental music by Niko Vitessi, Chuck Wiggins and Dave SAMs.
Speaker 2: Some music and sound effects licensed from podcast music dot Com.
Speaker 2: Closing theme by Dave SAMs and Rachel Shatt, engineered by
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Speaker 2: Miller Jones and me I don't know, I'm True Crime
Speaker 2: Historian Richard O. Jones signing off for now.