WEBVTT

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<v Speaker 1>Colpulert calm.

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<v Speaker 2>A heavy fog blanketed San Francisco's ocean beach front at

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<v Speaker 2>midnight on April seventh, nineteen forty. To leland Esk's Cash

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<v Speaker 2>fifty five, counting the day's receipts and preparing to close

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<v Speaker 2>up a lonely barbecue stand, it was just another foggy night,

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<v Speaker 2>although in reality it was to be his last night

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<v Speaker 2>on earth. While missus Cash took a final look around,

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<v Speaker 2>Cash stepped outside a car spurted gravel as its driver

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<v Speaker 2>applied the brakes. On account of his deafness, fifty five

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<v Speaker 2>year old mister Cash did not hear it, and was

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<v Speaker 2>surprised a moment later to see a solitary figure loom

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<v Speaker 2>up out of the fog. This is a stick up,

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<v Speaker 2>the stranger announced, sharply. Cash reached for his pocket to

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<v Speaker 2>turn on his mechanical hearing device that would translate the

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<v Speaker 2>man's mumble into understandable words. As he did so, something

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<v Speaker 2>appeared suddenly in the other hand. There was a spurt

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<v Speaker 2>of flame, a flat report, and Cash fell dead. At

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<v Speaker 2>the sound of the shot. Cash's pretty wife, Beatrice forty five,

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<v Speaker 2>a waitress at the stand, said she heard a noise

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<v Speaker 2>that sounded like a blowout, and then heard her husband

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<v Speaker 2>cry As she recounted events before a coroner's jury. The

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<v Speaker 2>shooting occurred on a Sunday night, actually early Monday morning.

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<v Speaker 2>Monday was their day off and they were going to

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<v Speaker 2>the country on a picnic leland I said, put some

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<v Speaker 2>food in the car. All the customers were gone. I

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<v Speaker 2>was in the rear and I heard a shot. Then

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<v Speaker 2>I heard Leland. He called to me twice, B B,

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<v Speaker 2>Come quick, I'm shot. For God's sakes, call the police.

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<v Speaker 2>Beatrice rushed in from the kitchen, but only in time

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<v Speaker 2>to hear a door slam and a motor per way

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<v Speaker 2>into the fog. Rushing around to the front where her

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<v Speaker 2>husband had been storing material for a tripping their automobile,

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<v Speaker 2>she found him in a pool of blood. True crime

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<v Speaker 2>historian presents an Eye for an Eye, a special edition

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<v Speaker 2>of Yesterday News, exploring the criminal justice system that its

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<v Speaker 2>most extreme, inflicting the death penalty. Although there's nothing funny

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<v Speaker 2>about real life murder, if episode three hundred and sixty

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<v Speaker 2>one were fictional, you could shelve it right next to

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<v Speaker 2>Elmore Leonard or Karl Hyacon and the Wacky characters they

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<v Speaker 2>create who walk in the realm of dark comedy. The

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<v Speaker 2>downfall of this gang that couldn't shoot straight begins when

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<v Speaker 2>one of its members decides to surrender and deliver state's evidence.

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<v Speaker 2>When it begins to look like his days are numbered.

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<v Speaker 2>As it turns out he was right. I'm true crime

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<v Speaker 2>historian Richard O. Jones, and for your astonishment and indignation,

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<v Speaker 2>I give you Duchess Spinelli's Crime School. The Half Wit

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<v Speaker 2>Gang of Golden Gate Avenue. April eighth, nineteen forty. Mystery

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<v Speaker 2>shrouded the fatal shooting early today of leland S Cash,

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<v Speaker 2>fifty five, which occurred as he was closing up a

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<v Speaker 2>barbecue stand of which he was night manager in the

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<v Speaker 2>San Francisco Beach District. Cash was taken to the Park

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<v Speaker 2>Emergency Hospital, where he died an hour later. He was

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<v Speaker 2>in a semi coma during the entire time and did

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<v Speaker 2>not identify his assailant. Missus Cash said her husband had

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<v Speaker 2>made one trip to the car and was returning for

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<v Speaker 2>the second time when he was shot down. She thought

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<v Speaker 2>perhaps her husband, who was rather deaf, failed to hear

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<v Speaker 2>the command of a hold up man and the bandit

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<v Speaker 2>fired five dollars which Cash had in his wallet had

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<v Speaker 2>not been taken. However, the shooting occurred shortly after Cash

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<v Speaker 2>and his wife closed up the stand at midnight. She

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<v Speaker 2>was cleaning the kitchen. He was carrying a package of

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<v Speaker 2>food to the car parked at the back of the building.

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<v Speaker 2>Under the terms of their employment, the couple obtained a

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<v Speaker 2>certain amount of foodstuffs from the barbecue stand. It was Cash,

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<v Speaker 2>as nightly customed to carry out the packages of food

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<v Speaker 2>while his wife tidied up the kitchen. Apparently, a hold

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<v Speaker 2>up man saw Cash and the packages and jumped to

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<v Speaker 2>the conclusion that he was transferring the day's receipts to

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<v Speaker 2>his car. That was his first error, the receipts having

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<v Speaker 2>been placed in a safe inside the building and protected

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<v Speaker 2>from theft by a time lock. As Cash carried his

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<v Speaker 2>package of eggs, butter and bread to the car. According

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<v Speaker 2>to the police theory, the hold up man accosted him,

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<v Speaker 2>thrust a revolver at him, ordered him to put his

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<v Speaker 2>hands up. Cash was hard of hearing hearing, and that

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<v Speaker 2>accounted for the next era. Police believe possibly he did

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<v Speaker 2>not understand the robber's command. Possibly, as was his habit,

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<v Speaker 2>he reached for his hearing apparatus to turn on the switch,

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<v Speaker 2>and the robber, believing he was reaching for a weapon, fired.

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<v Speaker 2>When patrolman Joseph p Engler and James Gallagher reached the scene,

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<v Speaker 2>they found Cash sprawled on the pavement between his car

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<v Speaker 2>and the side entrance to the barbecue stand. He had

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<v Speaker 2>been shot in the stomach. There were no witnesses to

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<v Speaker 2>the shooting. Investigators found a twenty two caliber cartridge near

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<v Speaker 2>the point where Cash was shot down. They pointed out

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<v Speaker 2>that the fatal wound showed Cash was apparently shot by

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<v Speaker 2>a weapon of considerably larger caliber. His wife, in describing

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<v Speaker 2>the shot, said, quote, it was a loud report, a

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<v Speaker 2>very loud one unquote. July fourteenth, nineteen forty. A vigorous

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<v Speaker 2>search for the killer instituted by the police soon brought

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<v Speaker 2>in a suspect, but while detectives were questioning him, they

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<v Speaker 2>received a mysterious phone call. That guy you're holding his innocent.

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<v Speaker 2>A voice told him over the wire, if you want proof,

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<v Speaker 2>we'll send you a bullet from the murder gun, whereupon

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<v Speaker 2>the speaker quickly hung up. The suspect was eventually cleared,

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<v Speaker 2>although no bullet arrived, and there the case rested in

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<v Speaker 2>spite of an intensive manhunt. April seventeenth, nineteen forty, Squealing

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<v Speaker 2>in mortal terror as they felt themselves caught in a

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<v Speaker 2>police tramp of evidence, five members of as oddly assorted

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<v Speaker 2>a crime and murder gang as California has ever caught

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<v Speaker 2>were doing their best in Sacramento late yesterday to talk

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<v Speaker 2>themselves into San Quentin's lethal gas execution chamber. Into the

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<v Speaker 2>amazed ears of hard boiled detectives, the five, each trying

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<v Speaker 2>fiercely to pass the buck of blame to the others,

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<v Speaker 2>poured out in ghastly detail the story of at least

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<v Speaker 2>two murders. One was the hold up killing of leland

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<v Speaker 2>S Cash in front of his Ocean Beach barbecue stand

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<v Speaker 2>in San Francisco the night of April eighth. The other

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<v Speaker 2>was the cold blooded killing by knockout drops and dumping

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<v Speaker 2>into the Sacramento River of one of their own gang

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<v Speaker 2>who was turning yalla. And on top of those murders,

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<v Speaker 2>they were piling up a minor series of stick ups,

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<v Speaker 2>auto thefts, drunk rollings, and assorted banditree that reads like

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<v Speaker 2>an old fashioned dime novel. As they talked Sacramento authorities

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<v Speaker 2>ready to blanket murder charge to be lodged against all

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<v Speaker 2>five of them, as they implicated one another inextricably in

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<v Speaker 2>a net of conspiracy to thieve and kill. These five

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<v Speaker 2>will be named in the accusation. One Missus Juanita Spinelli,

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<v Speaker 2>fifty one year old woman from Detroit, known as the

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<v Speaker 2>Duchess and described as the brains of the gang. Reputed

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<v Speaker 2>mother of six although only three were identified, and reputedly

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<v Speaker 2>the widow of one Tony Spinelle, Detroit hijacker and member

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<v Speaker 2>of the Red Cap Gang, supposedly shot to death. Also

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<v Speaker 2>described as one time fingerwoman in a Detroit laundry racket

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<v Speaker 2>and said to be affiliated with the infamous Purple Gang.

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<v Speaker 2>Two Lorraine Dane, the Gypsy Spinelle, Missus Spinelle's nineteen year

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<v Speaker 2>old dark beauty daughter, used by the gang as a

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<v Speaker 2>lure in hitchhike banditry and described as the authoress of

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<v Speaker 2>the Knockout Drop plot by which one of the gang

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<v Speaker 2>was rubbed out. Three Mike Simeon thirty two from Detroit,

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<v Speaker 2>the common law husband of the Duchess, described as the

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<v Speaker 2>Duchess's lieutenant, whom she imported from Detroit to help her

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<v Speaker 2>wrung the crime ring here. Four Gordon Hawkins twenty one,

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<v Speaker 2>who graduated from small time auto stealing and thievery and

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<v Speaker 2>two years in the Ione Reformatory to membership in the

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<v Speaker 2>Duchess gang. Five Albert Ives twenty three, with the San

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<v Speaker 2>Francisco petty crime record, whose feared that he'd be next

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<v Speaker 2>to be put on the spot by his gang companions

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<v Speaker 2>led him to run to a motor patrolman with the

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<v Speaker 2>confession that landed the gang in the toils and fished

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<v Speaker 2>out of the Sacramento River late yesterday. Dead was Robert Shared,

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<v Speaker 2>another San Francisco youth who had joined the gang and

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<v Speaker 2>who was callously done away with by the rest of

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<v Speaker 2>them when they feared he'd run to the police to

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<v Speaker 2>save his own skin. The Duchess was distressed during questioning

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<v Speaker 2>and insisted she was not the head.

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<v Speaker 3>Of the gang.

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<v Speaker 2>Ives, however, was unruffled from the beginning. Deputy District Attorney

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<v Speaker 2>Jay Francis O'Shea asked him, do you know anything about

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<v Speaker 2>the killing of a barbecue man in San Francisco about

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<v Speaker 2>a week ago? Ives replied, quietly, I ought to I

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<v Speaker 2>shot him. Ives told San Francisco officers who questioned him

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<v Speaker 2>in Sacramento. When he read of the arrest of a

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<v Speaker 2>suspect in the Cash shooting, he telephoned police headquarters to

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<v Speaker 2>say the man was innocent. Officers confirmed the fact of

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<v Speaker 2>the call, which they had been unable to trace. Ives

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<v Speaker 2>and the duchess also said they had planned, if the

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<v Speaker 2>suspect was not cleared, to fire a bullet from their

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<v Speaker 2>gun and send it to the police as definite evidence

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<v Speaker 2>of what gun killed Cash. After ives gave details of

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<v Speaker 2>the Cash shooting, O'Shea asked them what happened to Shared?

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<v Speaker 2>Ives answered, I dumped him in the river. Although three

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<v Speaker 2>San Francisco detectives were in Sacramento to bring the quintet

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<v Speaker 2>back for the Cash killing here, it was decided late

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<v Speaker 2>Tuesday to let them be prosecuted first on the charge

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<v Speaker 2>of killing Shared. Assistant District Attorney J. Francis O'shay in

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<v Speaker 2>Sacramento pointed out, quote in the Shared case, thanks to

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<v Speaker 2>their confessions, we have a complete case against all five

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<v Speaker 2>of them. The San Francisco killing might not be so

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<v Speaker 2>easy depend on all of them. On the Shared case.

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<v Speaker 2>We have them all, so we'll prosecute here unquote that

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<v Speaker 2>decision was reached after the body of Shared, a spindly

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<v Speaker 2>youth who had once been an inmate of the Sonoma

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<v Speaker 2>Home for the Feeble Minded, had been recovered from the

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<v Speaker 2>river some thousand yards south of the Freeport Bridge. From

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<v Speaker 2>that bridge, ives and others of the gang admitted to

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<v Speaker 2>detectives in O'Shea, Shared had been dumped, drugged with knockout drops,

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<v Speaker 2>slipped into a whiskey glass by Duchess Juanita to drown

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<v Speaker 2>last Sunday night. Dragging operations begun yesterday morning succeeded. In

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<v Speaker 2>the late afternoon, Shared's corpse, dressed only in swim trunks,

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<v Speaker 2>was dragged ashore. Quote. After the killing of Cash and

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<v Speaker 2>San Francisco, I and Hawkins and Shared fled San Francisco.

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<v Speaker 2>That was last Thursday. We came to Sacramento next day.

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<v Speaker 2>The Duchess and her daughter and Simeon, along with the

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<v Speaker 2>Duchess's two other kids, boys eight and fifteen years old,

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<v Speaker 2>followed us. We took rooms in a West Sacramento hotel.

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<v Speaker 2>Shared got scared and jittery. We thought he was gonna squeal,

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<v Speaker 2>So the rest of us talked it over. How we

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<v Speaker 2>do it. Finally someone asked why not a picnic. Bobby

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<v Speaker 2>was a very poor swimmer and might be enticed out

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<v Speaker 2>over his depth. They would make a fire on the bank.

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<v Speaker 2>Bobby dearly loved grilled hamburgers. He would have a good

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<v Speaker 2>lunch and then his blabbing tongue and uneasy conscience would

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<v Speaker 2>be stilled forever. The scene would be such a nice

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<v Speaker 2>sind off for poor Bobby. So next day they all

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<v Speaker 2>went on their outing. Finally lunching over the nice young

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<v Speaker 2>people got into their bathing dogs. Bobby balked, saying, I

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<v Speaker 2>won't go in. There's a current of that river. Say

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<v Speaker 2>do you want me to drown? The others exchanged glances.

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<v Speaker 2>That was just what they did want, but they could

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<v Speaker 2>hardly tell him. At a later conference, one eyed Albert suggested,

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<v Speaker 2>another course, let me take him out for target practice.

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<v Speaker 2>Lots of guys have accidents at target practice. Missus Spinelli

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<v Speaker 2>gave ives a look of blasting scorn. I'm not going

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<v Speaker 2>to have the poor lad hurt and bleeding, she said.

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<v Speaker 2>Then Mike Simeons suggested she could give Bob some of

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<v Speaker 2>his favorite cocktails, and they could put a little something

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<v Speaker 2>into the drinks, a little something called knockout drops. So

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<v Speaker 2>this sinister cocktail party was staged the next night in

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<v Speaker 2>the Duchess's hotel room. Missus Spinelli herself presided as the

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<v Speaker 2>smiling hostess, and it was she who took from her

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<v Speaker 2>purse the knockout drops she carried as part of her

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<v Speaker 2>crime equipment. As Bobby stretched out his hand for the glass,

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<v Speaker 2>he smiled. He tossed off his first drink, and soon

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<v Speaker 2>held out his glass again. Into this one went the

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<v Speaker 2>mickey finn that was to start him on the road

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<v Speaker 2>to painless oblivion. He tossed that one off too, and

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<v Speaker 2>the fog started gathering in his feeble brain, gathering as

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<v Speaker 2>a fog on that awful night when the murder was done,

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<v Speaker 2>the murder whose memory would give his dulled senses no peace.

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<v Speaker 2>Soon the doomed dead end kid lay back upon the

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<v Speaker 2>pillows as the other sat waiting, waiting on their unholy

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<v Speaker 2>death watch. By this time, the little boys had been

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<v Speaker 2>put to bed in the next bedroom after just two

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<v Speaker 2>small drinks. For the Duchess later explained another of her

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<v Speaker 2>principles of child training. I don't believe in too many

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<v Speaker 2>cocktails for the little chaps. One or two mild whiskies

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<v Speaker 2>are enough. They waited ten full minutes more. Then the

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<v Speaker 2>duchess arose. It was the signal downstairs. A car shot

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<v Speaker 2>out of the city into the country to the river.

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<v Speaker 2>One eyed Albert was driving. When they reached the untraveled

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<v Speaker 2>midnight streets of the outskirts, the two men hastily and

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<v Speaker 2>efficiently disrobed the numbed youngster, dressed him in his bathing trunks,

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<v Speaker 2>said ives, we stripped off all of his other clothes

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<v Speaker 2>so that when the body was found people would think

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<v Speaker 2>he drowned while swimming. Soon they rolled out on the

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<v Speaker 2>Fremont Bridge across the Sacramento River. Mike Simeon stepped out,

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00:18:11.759 --> 00:18:17.240
<v Speaker 2>looked about. Nobody was anywhere near. They pulled the drugged

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<v Speaker 2>boy from the tonneau, lugging him through the darkness, and

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00:18:21.039 --> 00:18:26.000
<v Speaker 2>flung him down down into the Royally water. There was

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<v Speaker 2>just one last detail that was to place their victim's

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<v Speaker 2>clothes among some bushes on the river bank, where he

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00:18:33.759 --> 00:18:36.599
<v Speaker 2>would have left them himself had he gone on a

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<v Speaker 2>midnight swim. After that, the gang abandoned plans for some

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<v Speaker 2>service station stickups in Sacramento. They admitted they were getting scared,

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<v Speaker 2>so they headed for Grass Valley to case some spots

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<v Speaker 2>there and in Trucky. Eyes finally blew up. He feared,

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<v Speaker 2>He said that he'd get the same treatment Share had.

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<v Speaker 2>In Trucky he saw State Highway patrolman. I want a drink,

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<v Speaker 2>he told his companions. They stopped and let him go

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00:19:10.960 --> 00:19:15.640
<v Speaker 2>to a bar instead. He ran to the cop, squealed,

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<v Speaker 2>and the gang was arrested. Yesterday's confessions under police grilling

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00:19:21.599 --> 00:19:27.599
<v Speaker 2>followed the killing of Cash the barbecue man was not premeditated,

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00:19:28.000 --> 00:19:33.839
<v Speaker 2>missus Spinelli insisted. Instead, after Simeon had cased the spot,

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<v Speaker 2>she instructed Shared in Ives to hold up the stand

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<v Speaker 2>but not to shoot. With some nurses training. According to Ives,

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00:19:43.000 --> 00:19:45.880
<v Speaker 2>the older woman instructed them just how and where to

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00:19:45.960 --> 00:19:49.279
<v Speaker 2>hit Cash so they'd knock him cold if he resisted.

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00:19:50.119 --> 00:19:54.799
<v Speaker 2>Ives confessed instead, I got nervous when Cash resisted and

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<v Speaker 2>I plugged him. Hawkins insisted under grilling yesterday that his

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<v Speaker 2>with the gang was merely to steal cars for their

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<v Speaker 2>other jobs. Quote, I stole nine in two or three weeks,

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<v Speaker 2>but I know I'm guilty under the law for the killings,

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<v Speaker 2>along with the rest of them. I've written my father

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<v Speaker 2>and mother in San Francisco to give me a damn

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<v Speaker 2>good criminal lawyer, or I'll get the gas. Probably I

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00:20:20.319 --> 00:20:24.119
<v Speaker 2>will anyway, Gee, I wish it was me they chucked

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<v Speaker 2>into the river instead of sha It unquote. While the

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<v Speaker 2>quintet were pouring out their confessions, the Sacramento Police ballistics

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<v Speaker 2>experts were comparing a bullet fired from a thirty eight

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<v Speaker 2>caliber gun taken from Missus Spinelli's purse with a bullet

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<v Speaker 2>that killed Cash and San Francisco. The tests, police said

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<v Speaker 2>proved that the Cash death's lug was fired from Missus

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<v Speaker 2>Spinelli's gun. Hawkins's only soft moment came when he saw

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<v Speaker 2>the girl Lorraine, taken in to the Detective Bureau for grilling.

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<v Speaker 2>He cried, lay off her. She ain't done nothing. However,

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00:21:07.440 --> 00:21:10.359
<v Speaker 2>the girl's own mother stuck to her story that it

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00:21:10.440 --> 00:21:14.079
<v Speaker 2>was nineteen year old Lorraine's idea to dispose of Shared

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<v Speaker 2>via the knockout, drops and drowning method. Missus Spinelli explained

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<v Speaker 2>that was a fine idea. I liked young Shared, and

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<v Speaker 2>I wanted him to die easily. She said. She first

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<v Speaker 2>came to California in nineteen thirty seven to get away

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<v Speaker 2>from the vengeance of Detroit's notorious Purple Gang. Who were

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<v Speaker 2>after her because they suspected her of being the fingerwoman

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00:21:38.799 --> 00:21:43.119
<v Speaker 2>for killings in the laundry racket there. Later she returned

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<v Speaker 2>to Detroit, but came back to California last January. In

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<v Speaker 2>San Francisco, she recruited eyes Hawkins and shared and sent

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00:21:52.480 --> 00:21:57.759
<v Speaker 2>for Simeon. Since then, according to the confessions poured out yesterday,

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00:21:58.079 --> 00:22:01.920
<v Speaker 2>the gang admitted, besides the killings of cash and shared,

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00:22:02.720 --> 00:22:06.240
<v Speaker 2>the theft of nine cars for them in San Francisco,

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00:22:06.880 --> 00:22:09.519
<v Speaker 2>the hold up of a service station at Golden Gate

293
00:22:09.559 --> 00:22:13.839
<v Speaker 2>and Vans Avenues in San Francisco, where they got twenty dollars,

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<v Speaker 2>the picking up of a drunk named Miller in San Francisco,

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00:22:17.960 --> 00:22:22.000
<v Speaker 2>and the clean out robbery of Miller's apartment. Said one

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<v Speaker 2>of the detectives. They were even wearing some of Miller's

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<v Speaker 2>clothes when they were arrested April eighteenth, nineteen forty For

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<v Speaker 2>Albert One I, Ives whose squeal landed the bizarre duchess

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<v Speaker 2>murder ring in police toils, his pals had worked out

300
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<v Speaker 2>one of the neatest death tricks in their macabre repertoire,

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00:22:49.240 --> 00:22:53.319
<v Speaker 2>it was revealed yesterday as authorities moved to bring the

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00:22:53.359 --> 00:22:58.720
<v Speaker 2>two women and three youths to trial because they feared

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00:22:58.759 --> 00:23:01.960
<v Speaker 2>Ives was going to run the cops. They were going

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00:23:02.000 --> 00:23:05.759
<v Speaker 2>to drug him precisely as they had drugged Robert Shared,

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00:23:05.960 --> 00:23:09.599
<v Speaker 2>the other gang member. They killed the silence, but they

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00:23:09.599 --> 00:23:12.279
<v Speaker 2>weren't going to dump Ives into the river as they

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00:23:12.319 --> 00:23:15.400
<v Speaker 2>did Share it. Instead, they were going to slip the

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00:23:15.400 --> 00:23:18.920
<v Speaker 2>point of a very sharp, very long hatpin into the

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00:23:19.000 --> 00:23:23.920
<v Speaker 2>drug Lad's ear, and then with one quick thrust, they

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<v Speaker 2>were going to drive the pin through Ives's brain quote,

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<v Speaker 2>and that way the cops will never find out what

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00:23:31.359 --> 00:23:35.759
<v Speaker 2>killed him unquote, was the triumphant suggestion of fifty one

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<v Speaker 2>year old wan Edi Spinelli. According to the confession which

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00:23:40.240 --> 00:23:43.519
<v Speaker 2>the police hold from twenty one year old Gordon Hawkins,

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<v Speaker 2>who facing prosecution with the others, is talking wide and

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<v Speaker 2>open in a desperate effort to save himself from San

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00:23:52.240 --> 00:23:58.119
<v Speaker 2>Quentin's gas chamber. The new Hawkins confession, together with other

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<v Speaker 2>grisly details of the fire Person Gang's reign of dime

319
00:24:02.319 --> 00:24:06.720
<v Speaker 2>novel terror popped yesterday as other developments came thick and

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<v Speaker 2>fast in the Duchess ring case.

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<v Speaker 1>To avoid future commercial interruptions, visit us at www dot

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00:24:29.400 --> 00:24:34.559
<v Speaker 1>patreon dot com. Slash true crime historian. For as little

323
00:24:34.559 --> 00:24:37.480
<v Speaker 1>as a dollar a week, you can enjoy full access

324
00:24:37.599 --> 00:24:42.480
<v Speaker 1>to the true crime historian Dusty Vault, exclusive episodes, and

325
00:24:42.599 --> 00:24:49.319
<v Speaker 1>whatever personal services you require. That's www dot patreon dot com.

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00:24:49.480 --> 00:24:51.960
<v Speaker 1>Slash true crime historian.

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<v Speaker 2>Missus Spinale conducted in elaborate crime school for her youthful

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<v Speaker 2>band of robbers and slayers. Searching the asserted gang headquarters

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00:25:07.599 --> 00:25:11.839
<v Speaker 2>at fourteen twenty one Golden Gate Avenue, the police found

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<v Speaker 2>two pieces of eight inch steel fashioned into needle sharp arrowheads,

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00:25:17.359 --> 00:25:21.960
<v Speaker 2>two homemade daggers, a knife with an eight inch disappearing blade,

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00:25:22.480 --> 00:25:30.799
<v Speaker 2>and a wooden gun. With these, police said, Missus Spinelli

333
00:25:30.880 --> 00:25:35.000
<v Speaker 2>taught her youthful gangsters how to properly knife a man,

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00:25:35.279 --> 00:25:38.000
<v Speaker 2>how to handle an opponent in any kind of fight,

335
00:25:38.640 --> 00:25:43.319
<v Speaker 2>and how to strike adversaries quote to lay them out.

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<v Speaker 2>First of all, the duchess explained her obvious membership in

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00:25:48.640 --> 00:25:54.559
<v Speaker 2>this strange criminal syndicate as involuntary. That membership merely proved

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00:25:54.559 --> 00:25:58.079
<v Speaker 2>her a good and loving mother. She said, she wasn't

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00:25:58.119 --> 00:26:02.119
<v Speaker 2>the gang's brains and organized who could tailor as sweet

340
00:26:02.200 --> 00:26:05.839
<v Speaker 2>a blackjack as ever addled brain and do it as

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00:26:05.920 --> 00:26:10.799
<v Speaker 2>serenely as another mother might knit an Afgan. She merely

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00:26:10.880 --> 00:26:13.920
<v Speaker 2>lived in the same apartment with them, motored with them

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00:26:13.920 --> 00:26:17.119
<v Speaker 2>about the countryside because she wanted to look after her

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<v Speaker 2>daughter Lorraine. Quote that child was in love with Gordon Hawkins,

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<v Speaker 2>so I just stayed with him to protect Lorraine unquote.

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<v Speaker 2>The second time, missus Spinelli explained her conduct via her motherhood,

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00:26:33.920 --> 00:26:37.000
<v Speaker 2>she said, of course, she told her two small boys

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<v Speaker 2>all about the stickups. Quote. I don't believe in keeping

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00:26:40.759 --> 00:26:45.359
<v Speaker 2>anything from the children unquote, she explained, phrasing a new

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00:26:45.359 --> 00:26:51.559
<v Speaker 2>philosophy of child guidance. The next explanation missus Spinelli offered

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<v Speaker 2>for her association with Robert Charrard, escaped inmate of a

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00:26:55.920 --> 00:27:00.839
<v Speaker 2>feeble minded institution, one eyed Albert ives not too strong

353
00:27:00.920 --> 00:27:06.359
<v Speaker 2>in the head himself, Mike Simeon, ex white slaver and convict,

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<v Speaker 2>Gordon Hawkins, auto thief and auto mechanic. Was that they

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00:27:11.960 --> 00:27:15.000
<v Speaker 2>all came to her house on Golden Gate Avenue in

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<v Speaker 2>San Francisco from interest in her daughter, and she thought

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<v Speaker 2>them such nice young men. They cheered her maternal middle

358
00:27:24.640 --> 00:27:28.559
<v Speaker 2>aged heart, she said, and so she entertained them, cooked

359
00:27:28.599 --> 00:27:33.480
<v Speaker 2>them good home compounded spaghetti, mothered them brightened at the

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00:27:33.480 --> 00:27:37.440
<v Speaker 2>sound of their young laughter. But the State of California

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<v Speaker 2>found that missus Spinelli was probably not so motherly as

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00:27:41.000 --> 00:27:44.920
<v Speaker 2>she claimed. On the other hand, the state said she

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00:27:45.079 --> 00:27:49.680
<v Speaker 2>chose Cherrard, Ives and Hawkins, three young dead end kids,

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<v Speaker 2>feeble minded aspirants to the big time crime, because they

365
00:27:54.400 --> 00:27:57.880
<v Speaker 2>were suggestible in the brain, because what they needed was

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00:27:57.960 --> 00:28:02.759
<v Speaker 2>expert direction for their willing trainers. She chose them because

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00:28:02.799 --> 00:28:06.440
<v Speaker 2>they were young and susceptible to the charms of her daughter, Lorraine,

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<v Speaker 2>whom she is alleged to have used as a come

369
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<v Speaker 2>on girl. The triggermen Ives and Charrard, the auto expert,

370
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<v Speaker 2>Hawkins the caseman Simeon, the sultry eyed come on girl.

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<v Speaker 2>Lorraine made a perfect organization. Pupils docile to their teacher.

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<v Speaker 2>The duchess and missus Spinelli figured when the dollars got

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<v Speaker 2>unpleasant or dangerous, they could be eliminated. They were cheap lives,

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<v Speaker 2>the cannon fodder of the underworld. There were plenty more

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<v Speaker 2>dead end kids, plenty more psychopathic cases where these discarded

376
00:28:45.640 --> 00:28:50.119
<v Speaker 2>and liquidated wretches came from. So the police said that

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<v Speaker 2>the woman reasoned and in about the same breaths, she

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<v Speaker 2>interpolated that her nickname Duchess didn't at all mean mother

379
00:28:58.440 --> 00:29:02.359
<v Speaker 2>and director of the crime school. Instead, she said it

380
00:29:02.440 --> 00:29:06.279
<v Speaker 2>was a nickname given her admiringly by Bobby Schirrard, the

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00:29:06.319 --> 00:29:11.799
<v Speaker 2>feeble minded school alumnus. You're our duchess and our treasurer,

382
00:29:12.039 --> 00:29:15.000
<v Speaker 2>he is reported to have said, and that's my name

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00:29:15.079 --> 00:29:17.480
<v Speaker 2>for you. I trust you with my money, and I

384
00:29:17.519 --> 00:29:23.480
<v Speaker 2>think you're swell anyway. The story of the peripatetic Crime

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<v Speaker 2>School begins for the record seven months ago when Missus

386
00:29:27.799 --> 00:29:31.240
<v Speaker 2>Spinelli with her children left Detroit on the wings of

387
00:29:31.240 --> 00:29:34.759
<v Speaker 2>her slogan, when one town gets too hot, there's always

388
00:29:34.799 --> 00:29:39.839
<v Speaker 2>another one, safety lies and change of scene. Before her

389
00:29:39.880 --> 00:29:43.319
<v Speaker 2>sudden departure, she had been the devoted and grieving widow

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00:29:43.359 --> 00:29:47.799
<v Speaker 2>of a notorious bank robber, Anthony Spinelli. His life and

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00:29:47.920 --> 00:29:51.960
<v Speaker 2>sudden demise following a smuggling exploit on the Mexican border

392
00:29:52.440 --> 00:29:56.039
<v Speaker 2>had convinced her that many small and fairly regular profits

393
00:29:56.359 --> 00:30:00.880
<v Speaker 2>are better than a great, big prophet. Perhaps so, she

394
00:30:01.039 --> 00:30:05.640
<v Speaker 2>is said to a philosophized one big crime doesn't pay

395
00:30:05.680 --> 00:30:10.599
<v Speaker 2>so well. A small, quick crime quickly executed, turning in

396
00:30:10.680 --> 00:30:15.640
<v Speaker 2>quick and easy profits. Two two hold ups and three

397
00:30:15.720 --> 00:30:19.160
<v Speaker 2>carthiffs a week at a modest average of three hundred

398
00:30:19.160 --> 00:30:23.640
<v Speaker 2>dollars apiece add up to fifteen hundred dollars weekly, and

399
00:30:23.680 --> 00:30:27.799
<v Speaker 2>fifteen hundred dollars weekly is seventy eight thousand dollars yearly

400
00:30:28.160 --> 00:30:34.319
<v Speaker 2>with no income tax to pay. Three, no clever executive

401
00:30:34.440 --> 00:30:38.319
<v Speaker 2>does the actual robbing and killing. To run your business well,

402
00:30:38.359 --> 00:30:41.839
<v Speaker 2>you must learn to delegate, and it's more economical to

403
00:30:41.960 --> 00:30:45.400
<v Speaker 2>use human discards directed by a master mind.

404
00:30:46.680 --> 00:30:47.000
<v Speaker 3>Four.

405
00:30:47.880 --> 00:30:51.920
<v Speaker 2>Sex is as proper a part of criminal organization as

406
00:30:51.960 --> 00:30:55.759
<v Speaker 2>it is of life itself. My daughter Gipsy will be

407
00:30:55.799 --> 00:31:00.519
<v Speaker 2>a valuable lure for the week, and the suggestible to

408
00:31:00.599 --> 00:31:05.160
<v Speaker 2>these four main points of her crime philosophy. Missus Spinelli

409
00:31:05.279 --> 00:31:10.039
<v Speaker 2>added a fifth. The boys, she decided, must have schooling

410
00:31:10.119 --> 00:31:13.519
<v Speaker 2>in a mother's care. She would mend their clothes. She

411
00:31:13.559 --> 00:31:17.920
<v Speaker 2>would cook them comforting home made meals. Quote. You cannot

412
00:31:18.039 --> 00:31:22.000
<v Speaker 2>expect the lads to do good work on empty stomachs, unquote,

413
00:31:22.359 --> 00:31:27.519
<v Speaker 2>she explained. But above all, she would teach them three

414
00:31:27.559 --> 00:31:31.079
<v Speaker 2>main techniques she had learned from her husband, the bank robber.

415
00:31:31.880 --> 00:31:35.079
<v Speaker 2>These were how to knife a man properly, how to

416
00:31:35.160 --> 00:31:38.680
<v Speaker 2>handle an opponent in the main divisions of fighting, and

417
00:31:38.799 --> 00:31:43.039
<v Speaker 2>how to strike a victim as to knock him out.

418
00:31:43.240 --> 00:31:46.680
<v Speaker 2>These were three things she taught the dead end kids

419
00:31:46.680 --> 00:31:50.799
<v Speaker 2>in spells, between cooking them succulent spaghetti and stitching them

420
00:31:50.880 --> 00:31:56.880
<v Speaker 2>up the very best models in blackjacks. A blackjack, perhaps

421
00:31:56.920 --> 00:32:00.079
<v Speaker 2>it might here be explained as a long slender, her

422
00:32:00.160 --> 00:32:04.400
<v Speaker 2>bludgeon of steel or lead, neatly covered with velvet or leather.

423
00:32:05.720 --> 00:32:09.680
<v Speaker 2>Police Lieutenant Michael Mitchell of San Francisco, who learned that

424
00:32:09.839 --> 00:32:13.240
<v Speaker 2>Duchess was a former female wrestler and that she had

425
00:32:13.240 --> 00:32:16.599
<v Speaker 2>taught her gang wrestling holds so victims of stick ups

426
00:32:16.680 --> 00:32:20.000
<v Speaker 2>could be held by one while another did the slugging

427
00:32:20.160 --> 00:32:24.559
<v Speaker 2>or frisking. Mitchell said she also was a knife thrower

428
00:32:24.920 --> 00:32:29.359
<v Speaker 2>and could pin a half dollar at fifteen paces. Her son,

429
00:32:29.519 --> 00:32:33.839
<v Speaker 2>Joseph seventeen, subsequently declared that he had traveled with his

430
00:32:33.960 --> 00:32:40.039
<v Speaker 2>mother and carnivals. This philosophy all phrased and the gang selected.

431
00:32:40.519 --> 00:32:45.359
<v Speaker 2>Everyone was allotted his task. Simeon to case or look

432
00:32:45.440 --> 00:32:48.200
<v Speaker 2>over the ground for the jobs and be sort of

433
00:32:48.240 --> 00:32:52.839
<v Speaker 2>assistant to the president. The feeble minded Bobby Schirrard and

434
00:32:52.880 --> 00:32:56.960
<v Speaker 2>one eyed Albert ives as triggerman, and Gordon Hawkins to

435
00:32:57.039 --> 00:33:01.240
<v Speaker 2>keep the changing motors in sweetly running conduct. During this

436
00:33:01.440 --> 00:33:05.799
<v Speaker 2>period of their activities, police say the Spinelli gang admitted

437
00:33:05.839 --> 00:33:11.039
<v Speaker 2>twelve carthffs and three service station hold ups in San Francisco,

438
00:33:11.119 --> 00:33:16.000
<v Speaker 2>two attempted petting party stick ups in Sacramento, and rolling, or,

439
00:33:16.079 --> 00:33:20.319
<v Speaker 2>to put it more politely, robbing several intoxicated men who

440
00:33:20.400 --> 00:33:24.880
<v Speaker 2>were lured to their fate by gypsy. In fact, when arrested,

441
00:33:24.920 --> 00:33:28.200
<v Speaker 2>the men were wearing clothes stolen from one of these

442
00:33:28.279 --> 00:33:32.880
<v Speaker 2>victim's wardrobe. These assorted ad ventures yielded, it was said,

443
00:33:33.319 --> 00:33:38.279
<v Speaker 2>some three hundred dollars. The police further attributed about a

444
00:33:38.319 --> 00:33:42.400
<v Speaker 2>score of San Francisco carthiffs and a dozen hold ups

445
00:33:42.440 --> 00:33:46.440
<v Speaker 2>to them. These were alleged to have brought in approximately

446
00:33:46.519 --> 00:33:52.000
<v Speaker 2>six hundred dollars. Then came that fateful April seventh, and

447
00:33:52.079 --> 00:33:56.680
<v Speaker 2>the attempted stick up at the barbecue stand. One eyed Ives,

448
00:33:56.799 --> 00:34:00.200
<v Speaker 2>according to their admissions, was the one who strode roed

449
00:34:00.279 --> 00:34:04.799
<v Speaker 2>in out of the fog. Knowing nothing about Cash's deafness.

450
00:34:05.240 --> 00:34:08.280
<v Speaker 2>When the latter reached for the switch on his hearing device,

451
00:34:08.800 --> 00:34:12.360
<v Speaker 2>Ives had assumed the night manager was reaching for a pistol,

452
00:34:13.039 --> 00:34:18.239
<v Speaker 2>and tragedy resulted, said ives, quote, Cash shoved me and

453
00:34:18.280 --> 00:34:21.760
<v Speaker 2>I shot as I stumbled, he just crumpled and we

454
00:34:21.880 --> 00:34:25.760
<v Speaker 2>ran to our car and left. Gerard saw me shoot

455
00:34:25.840 --> 00:34:29.519
<v Speaker 2>cash and decided to talk about it. I got scared

456
00:34:29.559 --> 00:34:33.639
<v Speaker 2>and told the others we had to do away with him.

457
00:34:33.800 --> 00:34:38.440
<v Speaker 2>And undoubtedly, despite this shocking murder, things might still have

458
00:34:38.480 --> 00:34:42.719
<v Speaker 2>gone on as easily as cogs dropping machinery well oiled,

459
00:34:43.360 --> 00:34:46.920
<v Speaker 2>had the duchess known the psychological fact that in every

460
00:34:47.000 --> 00:34:52.280
<v Speaker 2>feeble minded person flares up at times some surprising deviation

461
00:34:52.519 --> 00:34:58.519
<v Speaker 2>from his dullness. Anyway, Gerard kept talking and talking and

462
00:34:58.599 --> 00:35:03.760
<v Speaker 2>living and reliving murder. Say who would have tumbled that

463
00:35:03.840 --> 00:35:07.400
<v Speaker 2>the old guy was deaf? He is asserted to have said,

464
00:35:08.159 --> 00:35:10.719
<v Speaker 2>do you suppose he was really dead when he first fell?

465
00:35:11.159 --> 00:35:13.480
<v Speaker 2>How do you know when a guy is good and dead? Anyway,

466
00:35:13.920 --> 00:35:15.920
<v Speaker 2>if you had known the old guy was just reaching

467
00:35:15.960 --> 00:35:18.360
<v Speaker 2>for his phony ears, would you have killed him out?

468
00:35:19.360 --> 00:35:22.239
<v Speaker 2>So it wasn't pleasant to be trapped within the close

469
00:35:22.320 --> 00:35:25.960
<v Speaker 2>confines of a city apartment with a feeble minded boy

470
00:35:26.280 --> 00:35:29.639
<v Speaker 2>who was having a bad time with his conscience, or

471
00:35:30.000 --> 00:35:33.159
<v Speaker 2>a bad case of the jitters, as the crime school

472
00:35:33.280 --> 00:35:38.320
<v Speaker 2>considered it. But the case went on getting worse till

473
00:35:38.360 --> 00:35:41.400
<v Speaker 2>it had decided something had to be done before he

474
00:35:41.519 --> 00:35:47.800
<v Speaker 2>talked outside the family. Accordingly, as a first step, Swothy

475
00:35:47.880 --> 00:35:52.679
<v Speaker 2>Mike Simone decided they should all move soon. They were

476
00:35:52.719 --> 00:35:57.599
<v Speaker 2>domiciled at a Sacramento hotel. The first night they sent

477
00:35:57.679 --> 00:36:01.480
<v Speaker 2>Bobby out on an errand, and then they called a conference.

478
00:36:02.239 --> 00:36:05.880
<v Speaker 2>What was the best way to liquidate jittery conscience plague

479
00:36:05.960 --> 00:36:11.960
<v Speaker 2>Bobby Chirrard. First of all, Semion mentioned well known expedients

480
00:36:12.000 --> 00:36:16.559
<v Speaker 2>of the underworld, standing a weakening ally against a garage

481
00:36:16.599 --> 00:36:19.719
<v Speaker 2>wall and pumping at him with the guns, or pushing

482
00:36:19.719 --> 00:36:23.800
<v Speaker 2>a stiletto into his back as he slept, or encasing

483
00:36:23.880 --> 00:36:26.760
<v Speaker 2>him in a block of cement and dumping all in

484
00:36:26.840 --> 00:36:31.920
<v Speaker 2>the river. The Duchess protested, I insist that poor Bobby

485
00:36:31.960 --> 00:36:53.039
<v Speaker 2>have a peaceful, pleasant passing. Things seemed again to prosper,

486
00:36:53.880 --> 00:36:56.960
<v Speaker 2>But again, the one fact that the dominant head of

487
00:36:57.000 --> 00:37:01.239
<v Speaker 2>the crime school hadn't recognized, or perhaps hadn't even heard of,

488
00:37:02.159 --> 00:37:05.840
<v Speaker 2>was another point in the peculiar psychology of the weak minded.

489
00:37:06.719 --> 00:37:10.719
<v Speaker 2>This time it was Albert Ives. But with him it

490
00:37:10.880 --> 00:37:15.599
<v Speaker 2>wasn't nerves, He wasn't jittery, he wasn't bothered by qualms

491
00:37:15.599 --> 00:37:20.519
<v Speaker 2>of conscience. His trouble was pride, pride in his work

492
00:37:20.960 --> 00:37:24.239
<v Speaker 2>or his share of it, pride that he had graduated

493
00:37:24.280 --> 00:37:29.159
<v Speaker 2>into big crime. And so albert Ives, who was not

494
00:37:29.320 --> 00:37:35.639
<v Speaker 2>too bright, started to brag. He grew unbearable. Albert Ives,

495
00:37:35.960 --> 00:37:40.840
<v Speaker 2>skillful at the trigger, precise in his automobile getaways, willing,

496
00:37:41.199 --> 00:37:47.320
<v Speaker 2>good natured, cooperative, was becoming a loudmouth. Yes, he too

497
00:37:47.559 --> 00:37:51.519
<v Speaker 2>must be liquidated. But when it had been thus decided,

498
00:37:51.599 --> 00:37:55.119
<v Speaker 2>the duchess knew that she and her pupils must move again.

499
00:37:56.239 --> 00:37:59.440
<v Speaker 2>We will go, she said, This town is getting hot,

500
00:38:00.400 --> 00:38:05.159
<v Speaker 2>will be pulling out. But by some extra sensitiveness of

501
00:38:05.199 --> 00:38:10.760
<v Speaker 2>the weak minded, perhaps albert Ives became suddenly aware would

502
00:38:10.840 --> 00:38:12.960
<v Speaker 2>not be good for him to go on that ride.

503
00:38:13.519 --> 00:38:18.199
<v Speaker 2>He knew the signs, he understood when once looking up quickly,

504
00:38:18.920 --> 00:38:23.559
<v Speaker 2>he had intercepted a glance. He knew ah, he had

505
00:38:23.559 --> 00:38:29.519
<v Speaker 2>watched that before. But albert went, and so the car,

506
00:38:29.800 --> 00:38:34.599
<v Speaker 2>another stolen car, was headed for the high Sierras. The

507
00:38:34.639 --> 00:38:39.280
<v Speaker 2>two little Spinelli boys, Mike Simeon, the young girl who

508
00:38:39.280 --> 00:38:43.039
<v Speaker 2>had seen too much too early, the dead end kids

509
00:38:43.039 --> 00:38:46.280
<v Speaker 2>who had been three and were now only two, and

510
00:38:46.360 --> 00:38:49.880
<v Speaker 2>one of them shortly to be no more. And the

511
00:38:49.920 --> 00:38:53.480
<v Speaker 2>black eyed purposeful woman who liked to see all her

512
00:38:53.559 --> 00:38:59.480
<v Speaker 2>dead lads happy, even to calm, comfortable, happy deaths. And

513
00:38:59.559 --> 00:39:05.320
<v Speaker 2>finally the sorry cavalcade was forced to stop for gasoline.

514
00:39:05.360 --> 00:39:10.280
<v Speaker 2>Near Grass Valley, a lunch room door was opened, looking

515
00:39:10.320 --> 00:39:13.960
<v Speaker 2>through to a rear door facing the woods. All at

516
00:39:14.000 --> 00:39:17.840
<v Speaker 2>once a wild boy darted out of the automobile filling

517
00:39:17.920 --> 00:39:20.480
<v Speaker 2>up at the pump, and dashed out into the lunch

518
00:39:20.599 --> 00:39:24.280
<v Speaker 2>room out the rear door. He then flung and into

519
00:39:24.320 --> 00:39:30.400
<v Speaker 2>the bushes beyond where he disappeared. Albert Ives wouldn't come out,

520
00:39:30.880 --> 00:39:36.440
<v Speaker 2>and so after mumbled consultations, the Queer company rode on. Then,

521
00:39:36.519 --> 00:39:40.000
<v Speaker 2>when they were well away, Albert ran into the highway

522
00:39:40.039 --> 00:39:51.719
<v Speaker 2>patrol station and screamed its hysterical message Sacramento, California, June fourth,

523
00:39:52.159 --> 00:39:57.760
<v Speaker 2>nineteen forty, for the first time since it began snuffing

524
00:39:57.800 --> 00:40:02.400
<v Speaker 2>out the lives of California's convictor murderers. San Quentin's gray

525
00:40:02.480 --> 00:40:07.639
<v Speaker 2>green lethal gas Chamber's shadow hung over a woman. She

526
00:40:07.840 --> 00:40:11.800
<v Speaker 2>is fifty three year old Juanita Spinelli, called the Duchess

527
00:40:11.920 --> 00:40:15.119
<v Speaker 2>by the Underworld gang of Youths, whom she led on

528
00:40:15.199 --> 00:40:20.320
<v Speaker 2>a crime career that culminated in two murders. Today, the

529
00:40:20.440 --> 00:40:23.760
<v Speaker 2>Duchess smoothed her own way into the death gas cell

530
00:40:24.239 --> 00:40:27.199
<v Speaker 2>when she withdrew her plea of not guilty by reason

531
00:40:27.239 --> 00:40:31.760
<v Speaker 2>of insanity, and thereby made mandatory the passing of the

532
00:40:31.800 --> 00:40:37.039
<v Speaker 2>death sentence Friday morning. The only possibilities that stand between

533
00:40:37.079 --> 00:40:40.920
<v Speaker 2>the woman and death by San Quentin's cyanogen gas are

534
00:40:40.960 --> 00:40:46.000
<v Speaker 2>two a successful appeal from her conviction or Governor Olson's

535
00:40:46.000 --> 00:40:52.039
<v Speaker 2>commutation of the death penalty. Twice yesterday, Superior Judge Coughlin

536
00:40:52.440 --> 00:40:54.960
<v Speaker 2>passed the death sentence on two other members of the

537
00:40:55.039 --> 00:41:00.480
<v Speaker 2>Duchess's gang, Gordon Hawkins and Mike Simeon. Meanwhile, today the

538
00:41:00.519 --> 00:41:03.760
<v Speaker 2>fourth member of the gang escaped the death penalty via

539
00:41:03.840 --> 00:41:06.280
<v Speaker 2>the very route the Duchess and the other two it

540
00:41:06.400 --> 00:41:11.719
<v Speaker 2>turned down. Albert One I Ives was found insane by

541
00:41:11.760 --> 00:41:16.000
<v Speaker 2>a jury in Judge Coughlin's court, the same jury which

542
00:41:16.039 --> 00:41:21.280
<v Speaker 2>had previously convicted him of murder. After the insanity verdict,

543
00:41:21.519 --> 00:41:25.800
<v Speaker 2>the court recessed in late afternoon, and Judge Coughlin announced

544
00:41:26.000 --> 00:41:36.880
<v Speaker 2>he will determine ives as sentence tomorrow. June fifth, nineteen forty.

545
00:41:39.360 --> 00:41:43.239
<v Speaker 2>Albert Ives, twenty one year old, squint eyed youth who

546
00:41:43.280 --> 00:41:46.599
<v Speaker 2>confessed committing the two murders for which three of his

547
00:41:46.800 --> 00:41:52.599
<v Speaker 2>duchess gang confederates faced death, cheated San Quentin's gas chamber. Today,

548
00:41:53.880 --> 00:41:59.079
<v Speaker 2>Superior Judge Coughlin ordered Ives, the gang's self styled triggerman,

549
00:41:59.599 --> 00:42:04.079
<v Speaker 2>commit ded to Mendocino State Hospital for the insane. He

550
00:42:04.199 --> 00:42:07.960
<v Speaker 2>was adjudged insane late yesterday by the same jury which

551
00:42:08.000 --> 00:42:11.280
<v Speaker 2>a week earlier convicted the four gangsters of first degree

552
00:42:11.360 --> 00:42:16.639
<v Speaker 2>murder in the slaying of Robert Charrard. Officials said the jury,

553
00:42:16.800 --> 00:42:21.400
<v Speaker 2>in finding Ives insane, held he was incapable of committing

554
00:42:21.400 --> 00:42:25.239
<v Speaker 2>a crime under the law. Hence, should he be declared

555
00:42:25.360 --> 00:42:30.000
<v Speaker 2>sane after a year's incarceration, he will be eligible for release.

556
00:42:31.760 --> 00:42:35.760
<v Speaker 2>Only one legal step remained before local authorities complete their

557
00:42:35.840 --> 00:42:38.760
<v Speaker 2>part in the case, which began with the hold up

558
00:42:38.800 --> 00:42:44.159
<v Speaker 2>slaying of Leland Cash, san Francisco barbecue stand operator, and

559
00:42:44.360 --> 00:42:48.159
<v Speaker 2>ended when police learned details of the Charrard slang and

560
00:42:48.239 --> 00:42:53.039
<v Speaker 2>found his body in the Sacramento River. This was the

561
00:42:53.079 --> 00:42:57.480
<v Speaker 2>sentencing next Friday of Juanita Spinelli, the fifty year old

562
00:42:57.639 --> 00:43:10.599
<v Speaker 2>duchess who directed the gang's activity. June twelfth, nineteen forty

563
00:43:12.920 --> 00:43:17.519
<v Speaker 2>Doomed to death in the state's lethal gas chamber. Missus Juanita,

564
00:43:17.599 --> 00:43:21.519
<v Speaker 2>the Duchess Spinelle, left today for the State Institution for

565
00:43:21.599 --> 00:43:27.800
<v Speaker 2>Women at Tahatchipee, weeping and broken in spirit. Missus Spinelli,

566
00:43:28.159 --> 00:43:32.679
<v Speaker 2>who once directed a Sacramento robbery murder gang, was taken

567
00:43:32.719 --> 00:43:37.440
<v Speaker 2>to Tahachipee by special deputies of Sheriff Don Cox, where

568
00:43:37.519 --> 00:43:41.000
<v Speaker 2>she will remain pending her automatic appeal to the State

569
00:43:41.119 --> 00:43:46.079
<v Speaker 2>Supreme Court. Two other members of the Duchess gang, Mike

570
00:43:46.199 --> 00:43:51.519
<v Speaker 2>Simeon and Gordon Hawkins, are in San Quentin Prison awaiting execution.

571
00:43:52.519 --> 00:43:55.719
<v Speaker 2>In the event the Supreme Court refuses to rescind the

572
00:43:55.760 --> 00:43:59.960
<v Speaker 2>execution order, Missus Spinelli will be returned to San Quentin

573
00:44:00.519 --> 00:44:08.519
<v Speaker 2>to be executed. On June twenty seventh, Governor John E.

574
00:44:08.599 --> 00:44:13.400
<v Speaker 2>Miles of New Mexico wired Governor Olsen that won Tony Spinelli,

575
00:44:13.920 --> 00:44:18.119
<v Speaker 2>a resident of Clayton, New Mexico for fifteen years, has

576
00:44:18.159 --> 00:44:21.679
<v Speaker 2>identified himself as the husband of the Duchess for the

577
00:44:21.719 --> 00:44:24.320
<v Speaker 2>double purpose of showing that he had not been killed

578
00:44:24.320 --> 00:44:27.760
<v Speaker 2>as a gangster and to deny his fatherhood of at

579
00:44:27.840 --> 00:44:31.800
<v Speaker 2>least two of his children. Spinelli said that a physician

580
00:44:31.840 --> 00:44:35.199
<v Speaker 2>in Colorado had told him in nineteen twenty six that

581
00:44:35.280 --> 00:44:41.119
<v Speaker 2>missus Spinelli was incapable of bearing children. Officials and Sacramento

582
00:44:41.159 --> 00:44:44.480
<v Speaker 2>said the Spinelli assertions would have no bearing on the

583
00:44:44.559 --> 00:45:12.679
<v Speaker 2>case itself. Editorial, February thirteenth, nineteen forty one. In the

584
00:45:12.719 --> 00:45:17.599
<v Speaker 2>gripping drama charged book Men at Their Worst, co authored

585
00:45:17.639 --> 00:45:21.239
<v Speaker 2>by doctor Leo L. Stanley, chief surgeon at the San

586
00:45:21.320 --> 00:45:27.119
<v Speaker 2>Quentin Prison, and Evelyn Wells, gifted California novelist, the famous

587
00:45:27.159 --> 00:45:30.639
<v Speaker 2>prison physician recounts that during his twenty seven years of

588
00:45:30.719 --> 00:45:32.920
<v Speaker 2>service he has watched more than one hundred and fifty

589
00:45:32.960 --> 00:45:35.920
<v Speaker 2>men die on the gallows, and during the last two

590
00:45:36.000 --> 00:45:39.159
<v Speaker 2>years he has watched nine other men go to meet

591
00:45:39.199 --> 00:45:42.760
<v Speaker 2>their maker in the lethal gas chamber. There is one

592
00:45:42.800 --> 00:45:47.000
<v Speaker 2>grim experience, however, that even doctor Stanley has been spared.

593
00:45:47.960 --> 00:45:50.559
<v Speaker 2>He has never seen a woman with the hangman's rope

594
00:45:50.639 --> 00:45:54.400
<v Speaker 2>knotted around her neck, waiting for the plunge into eternity.

595
00:45:55.360 --> 00:45:58.119
<v Speaker 2>He has never seen a woman caged in the lethal

596
00:45:58.280 --> 00:46:03.360
<v Speaker 2>chamber tensely waiting for the moment of extinction. For California,

597
00:46:03.760 --> 00:46:07.239
<v Speaker 2>in all its years of statehood, has never compelled a

598
00:46:07.280 --> 00:46:11.280
<v Speaker 2>woman to pay the death penalty. With all our vaunted

599
00:46:11.400 --> 00:46:16.000
<v Speaker 2>talk of equal rights for women and equal responsibilities. We

600
00:46:16.079 --> 00:46:19.519
<v Speaker 2>have never really meant it, apparently, at least when penalties

601
00:46:19.559 --> 00:46:24.400
<v Speaker 2>were involved. Women have murdered and been imprisoned, but none

602
00:46:24.440 --> 00:46:27.119
<v Speaker 2>thus far has been forced to forfeit her life for

603
00:46:27.199 --> 00:46:31.599
<v Speaker 2>the life she has taken. That peculiarly has been a

604
00:46:31.639 --> 00:46:37.239
<v Speaker 2>man's penalty, but now a woman. Missus Juanitas Spinelli, the

605
00:46:37.239 --> 00:46:40.280
<v Speaker 2>so called duchess, leader of a gang of young Tufts

606
00:46:40.280 --> 00:46:43.320
<v Speaker 2>who robbed and killed, is under sentenced to die in

607
00:46:43.400 --> 00:46:49.039
<v Speaker 2>San Quentin's lethal gas chamber. Horrible, Yes, of course, it's horrible.

608
00:46:49.440 --> 00:46:53.480
<v Speaker 2>Violent death, whether it be cold blooded murder or legal execution,

609
00:46:54.119 --> 00:46:58.679
<v Speaker 2>always is horrible. Capital punishment itself is horrible to contemplate.

610
00:46:59.119 --> 00:47:02.840
<v Speaker 2>Some condemn it, some defendant, some condone it, and some

611
00:47:03.039 --> 00:47:07.239
<v Speaker 2>abhor it. Should the duchess die in San Quentin's gas chamber,

612
00:47:08.119 --> 00:47:11.960
<v Speaker 2>before she dies or receives a commutation, there will be

613
00:47:12.079 --> 00:47:16.679
<v Speaker 2>violent argument about it a woman. Some will say that's different,

614
00:47:16.760 --> 00:47:21.039
<v Speaker 2>it's unthinkable. Perhaps it is. Others will say that the

615
00:47:21.079 --> 00:47:26.079
<v Speaker 2>whole ghastly business, whether it involves man or woman, is unthinkable.

616
00:47:26.920 --> 00:47:31.639
<v Speaker 2>Perhaps that's true too, But whatever the contention, California must

617
00:47:31.639 --> 00:47:35.239
<v Speaker 2>either admit that it has a dual standard for murders

618
00:47:35.239 --> 00:47:38.400
<v Speaker 2>and murderers or do what it has never done before,

619
00:47:39.400 --> 00:47:43.599
<v Speaker 2>legally kill a woman. This is a case probably that

620
00:47:43.679 --> 00:47:47.079
<v Speaker 2>will make Governor Olssen wonder why any man aspires to

621
00:47:47.119 --> 00:47:51.119
<v Speaker 2>be governor. For Governor Olson must decide, while we merely

622
00:47:51.280 --> 00:48:00.000
<v Speaker 2>argue about it, equal rights are not. We don't envy him.

623
00:48:00.320 --> 00:48:07.760
<v Speaker 2>June twentieth, nineteen forty one, Late last night, as Missus

624
00:48:07.840 --> 00:48:12.639
<v Speaker 2>Juanita the Duchess Spinelli brooded in her San Quinton death

625
00:48:12.760 --> 00:48:17.840
<v Speaker 2>cell awaiting execution. This morning, the phone jangled in Warden

626
00:48:17.920 --> 00:48:23.280
<v Speaker 2>Clinton Duffy's home. It was Governor Olsen, hurriedly calling from

627
00:48:23.320 --> 00:48:28.039
<v Speaker 2>Los Angeles to grant her a thirty day reprieve. The

628
00:48:28.079 --> 00:48:32.480
<v Speaker 2>Governor's intervention came after Superior Judge Raymond T. Coughlin of

629
00:48:32.559 --> 00:48:37.320
<v Speaker 2>San Francisco, who presided at the Duchess's murder trial and

630
00:48:37.400 --> 00:48:41.480
<v Speaker 2>trial Forman Lloyd H. Locke, informed him they had certain

631
00:48:41.599 --> 00:48:45.679
<v Speaker 2>information to place before him in connection with the Cays

632
00:48:46.119 --> 00:48:50.480
<v Speaker 2>Mike Simeon, her common law husband, and Gordon Hawkins, a

633
00:48:50.519 --> 00:48:53.000
<v Speaker 2>member of her band, who were scheduled to have died

634
00:48:53.079 --> 00:48:56.079
<v Speaker 2>next Friday, for their implication with the Duchess and the

635
00:48:56.159 --> 00:48:59.639
<v Speaker 2>murder of nineteen year old Robert Schirrard were also given

636
00:48:59.639 --> 00:49:05.840
<v Speaker 2>thirty says. Later, Warden Duffy received a corroborating telegram from

637
00:49:05.880 --> 00:49:08.960
<v Speaker 2>the Governor. I am issuing a thirty day reprieve in

638
00:49:09.000 --> 00:49:12.360
<v Speaker 2>the case of Nita Spinelli. You will therefore fix the

639
00:49:12.440 --> 00:49:16.920
<v Speaker 2>day for execution accordingly. The formal reprieve will be forwarded

640
00:49:16.960 --> 00:49:22.280
<v Speaker 2>to your office. M. Stanley Mosk, the Governor's secretary, announced

641
00:49:22.280 --> 00:49:25.280
<v Speaker 2>in Sacramento that the governor had acted at the urgent

642
00:49:25.360 --> 00:49:29.320
<v Speaker 2>request of the judge and the jury foreman quote. The

643
00:49:29.320 --> 00:49:31.840
<v Speaker 2>information they have is of such a nature that it

644
00:49:31.840 --> 00:49:35.360
<v Speaker 2>couldn't be ignored. The Governor will confer with them on it.

645
00:49:35.440 --> 00:49:37.840
<v Speaker 2>I have no idea of the nature of their information.

646
00:49:39.239 --> 00:49:41.920
<v Speaker 2>The Governor's sudden action came like a bolt out of

647
00:49:41.920 --> 00:49:45.000
<v Speaker 2>the blue to missus. Spinelli, who had arrived at San

648
00:49:45.119 --> 00:49:48.599
<v Speaker 2>Quentin yesterday resigned to be the first woman ever to

649
00:49:48.599 --> 00:49:52.719
<v Speaker 2>be executed by the state of California, muttering the usual

650
00:49:52.760 --> 00:49:56.840
<v Speaker 2>protests of innocence and following them with the usual admission

651
00:49:57.079 --> 00:50:00.159
<v Speaker 2>that she considered them futile. She had been placed in

652
00:50:00.239 --> 00:50:03.719
<v Speaker 2>a death cell a few paces removed from the Apple

653
00:50:03.800 --> 00:50:06.880
<v Speaker 2>Green gas chamber, which was to have ended her life.

654
00:50:07.119 --> 00:50:12.159
<v Speaker 2>At ten o'clock this morning, the Duchess, so called because

655
00:50:12.199 --> 00:50:15.400
<v Speaker 2>of her sovereignty over a vicious little band of thieves

656
00:50:15.440 --> 00:50:20.480
<v Speaker 2>and cutthroats, reached San Quentin after a secret, heavily guarded

657
00:50:20.599 --> 00:50:24.239
<v Speaker 2>night long dash by motor from the women's prison to

658
00:50:24.360 --> 00:50:29.800
<v Speaker 2>hatchepee in the prison yard. She paid her respects almost

659
00:50:29.840 --> 00:50:33.719
<v Speaker 2>haughtily to Warden. Duffy then burst into tears as he

660
00:50:33.840 --> 00:50:38.119
<v Speaker 2>asked if she wished to be interviewed. She refused, Then,

661
00:50:38.239 --> 00:50:41.039
<v Speaker 2>drying her tears, she walked firmly to the death cell

662
00:50:41.440 --> 00:50:46.119
<v Speaker 2>and unpacked the few belongings she carried with her. Shortly

663
00:50:46.199 --> 00:50:51.400
<v Speaker 2>after ward, and Duffy reported with considerable relief she was chatting, laughing,

664
00:50:51.440 --> 00:50:55.199
<v Speaker 2>and even cracking jokes with a matron specially selected to

665
00:50:55.239 --> 00:50:59.239
<v Speaker 2>stand by the death cell at this juncture. He went

666
00:50:59.320 --> 00:51:03.119
<v Speaker 2>to her cell, emerging later with the following statement from

667
00:51:03.119 --> 00:51:06.920
<v Speaker 2>the Duchess quote, I do not want to talk to anyone.

668
00:51:07.360 --> 00:51:09.599
<v Speaker 2>I don't see how any statement for me can do

669
00:51:09.679 --> 00:51:12.519
<v Speaker 2>any good now. The only thing I did was to

670
00:51:12.559 --> 00:51:15.519
<v Speaker 2>state that I poured the whiskey. I did this in

671
00:51:15.639 --> 00:51:18.440
<v Speaker 2>order to save my daughter. I was a victim of

672
00:51:18.480 --> 00:51:22.519
<v Speaker 2>a slave raider. Mike Simeon. I have made my peace

673
00:51:22.559 --> 00:51:25.239
<v Speaker 2>with God. The only reason I would want to live

674
00:51:25.360 --> 00:51:28.400
<v Speaker 2>is for my family in the stain against them. I

675
00:51:28.440 --> 00:51:30.920
<v Speaker 2>hope that my daughter will straighten up and be a

676
00:51:30.960 --> 00:51:34.760
<v Speaker 2>good mother. Please do not ask me to see anyone.

677
00:51:34.840 --> 00:51:37.519
<v Speaker 2>If it is God's will, I will go out like

678
00:51:37.559 --> 00:51:42.440
<v Speaker 2>a true soldier. Unquote. She had repeatedly said that Simeon

679
00:51:42.679 --> 00:51:45.559
<v Speaker 2>compelled her to do his bidding by threatening to put

680
00:51:45.599 --> 00:51:49.239
<v Speaker 2>her daughter into a house of prostitution, hence the reference

681
00:51:49.320 --> 00:51:55.079
<v Speaker 2>to slave raider her euphanism for procureur. That daughter, nineteen

682
00:51:55.199 --> 00:51:58.519
<v Speaker 2>year old Lorraine the Gypsy, is now in a San

683
00:51:58.559 --> 00:52:05.039
<v Speaker 2>Diego home awaiting birth of an illegitimate child. Warden Duffy

684
00:52:05.199 --> 00:52:08.280
<v Speaker 2>had given much consideration as to what garb she was

685
00:52:08.360 --> 00:52:11.480
<v Speaker 2>to have worn in the gas chamber. At first he

686
00:52:11.559 --> 00:52:14.920
<v Speaker 2>thought slacks would have been advisable for her, but later

687
00:52:15.039 --> 00:52:18.440
<v Speaker 2>decided she would wear the same blue prison made dress

688
00:52:18.440 --> 00:52:22.039
<v Speaker 2>in which she arrived in San Quentin, or, if she preferred,

689
00:52:22.519 --> 00:52:33.119
<v Speaker 2>a house dress she brought with her. When Warden Duffy

690
00:52:33.159 --> 00:52:36.599
<v Speaker 2>went to notify the Duchess, she was talking to a

691
00:52:36.679 --> 00:52:41.280
<v Speaker 2>matron in a small, specially screened cell almost adjoining the

692
00:52:41.360 --> 00:52:45.559
<v Speaker 2>gas chamber. She was wearing a heavy white flannel, full

693
00:52:45.639 --> 00:52:50.960
<v Speaker 2>sleeve nightgown. Stunned momentarily, she then dropped to her knees

694
00:52:51.039 --> 00:52:55.039
<v Speaker 2>and grasps the cell bars and said, thank God, he

695
00:52:55.199 --> 00:52:58.840
<v Speaker 2>has listened to my prayers. I hope he will find

696
00:52:58.880 --> 00:53:01.199
<v Speaker 2>a way to get to the truth. Truth, and perhaps

697
00:53:01.360 --> 00:53:05.159
<v Speaker 2>Mike will tell the truth now. Duffy asked her if

698
00:53:05.159 --> 00:53:08.639
<v Speaker 2>she wanted to say anything for the press. Please don't

699
00:53:08.679 --> 00:53:11.760
<v Speaker 2>ask me to see anyone, she replied, but she then

700
00:53:11.840 --> 00:53:15.800
<v Speaker 2>prepared a statement saying, quote, I don't see where any

701
00:53:15.800 --> 00:53:17.760
<v Speaker 2>statements for me can do me any good.

702
00:53:17.840 --> 00:53:18.159
<v Speaker 3>Now.

703
00:53:18.880 --> 00:53:22.960
<v Speaker 2>I poured the whiskey Erard's Mickey Finn. I did this

704
00:53:23.119 --> 00:53:26.239
<v Speaker 2>in order to save my daughter. I was a victim

705
00:53:26.280 --> 00:53:29.400
<v Speaker 2>of a slave raider, Mike Simeon. I have made my

706
00:53:29.480 --> 00:53:32.559
<v Speaker 2>peace with God. The only reason I would want to

707
00:53:32.599 --> 00:53:35.679
<v Speaker 2>live is for my family and the stain against them.

708
00:53:36.880 --> 00:53:40.239
<v Speaker 2>If it is God's will, I will go. I felt

709
00:53:40.280 --> 00:53:42.800
<v Speaker 2>all along, although people have told me I would never

710
00:53:42.840 --> 00:53:46.280
<v Speaker 2>come to San Quentin, that I would be executed. I

711
00:53:46.320 --> 00:53:49.159
<v Speaker 2>don't know why, but that's been my feeling all along.

712
00:53:49.760 --> 00:54:05.599
<v Speaker 3>Unquote.

713
00:54:05.719 --> 00:54:09.960
<v Speaker 2>Within a few hours after Governor Olson melodramatically snatched Missus

714
00:54:10.000 --> 00:54:14.239
<v Speaker 2>Juanita Spinelli from San Quentin's lethal gas chamber with an

715
00:54:14.239 --> 00:54:20.239
<v Speaker 2>eleventh hour reprieve. The Governor's executive secretary, Stanley Mosk, asserted,

716
00:54:20.400 --> 00:54:23.920
<v Speaker 2>I feel the Governor definitely has been imposed upon. The

717
00:54:23.960 --> 00:54:27.760
<v Speaker 2>startling declaration came after Mosque conferred with the principles in

718
00:54:27.800 --> 00:54:30.360
<v Speaker 2>the trial of the fifty two year old woman and

719
00:54:30.400 --> 00:54:33.000
<v Speaker 2>three members of her gang for the murder of a

720
00:54:33.039 --> 00:54:37.679
<v Speaker 2>fourth gang member, nineteen year old Robert Charrard. They met

721
00:54:37.719 --> 00:54:42.039
<v Speaker 2>to consider new evidence, purported existence of which influenced the

722
00:54:42.079 --> 00:54:46.719
<v Speaker 2>governor late Thursday night to postpone today's scheduled execution for

723
00:54:46.800 --> 00:54:51.320
<v Speaker 2>thirty days. After interested parties had presented their case to

724
00:54:51.480 --> 00:54:56.559
<v Speaker 2>Mosque during a session which produced heated words, Mosque brusquely announced,

725
00:54:56.880 --> 00:54:59.920
<v Speaker 2>I feel the governor definitely has been imposed upon because

726
00:55:00.119 --> 00:55:02.920
<v Speaker 2>there has been no new evidence presented here which we

727
00:55:03.039 --> 00:55:07.079
<v Speaker 2>have not had before us all this time. Present at

728
00:55:07.079 --> 00:55:11.360
<v Speaker 2>the conference with Mosque where Ralph T. Lewie defense counsel,

729
00:55:11.440 --> 00:55:16.079
<v Speaker 2>who had claimed new evidence, Judge Ray T. Coughlin, trial judge,

730
00:55:16.199 --> 00:55:19.199
<v Speaker 2>who asked the governor to grant the reprieve when informed

731
00:55:19.239 --> 00:55:21.760
<v Speaker 2>of the new evidence and of two of the trial

732
00:55:21.840 --> 00:55:26.639
<v Speaker 2>jurors George P. York and John L. McGinnis. Although Louis

733
00:55:26.719 --> 00:55:29.840
<v Speaker 2>had expressed belief that Yorck voted for the death sentence

734
00:55:29.840 --> 00:55:32.760
<v Speaker 2>for Missus Spinelli and the belief that the governor would

735
00:55:32.800 --> 00:55:36.679
<v Speaker 2>surely commute such sentence, Yorke denied that his verdict had

736
00:55:36.679 --> 00:55:41.360
<v Speaker 2>been influenced by any such belief. McGinnis, who held out

737
00:55:41.400 --> 00:55:44.639
<v Speaker 2>twenty four hours in the jury room before casting his

738
00:55:44.760 --> 00:55:48.480
<v Speaker 2>vote with the other jurors, told Mosque he still believes

739
00:55:48.519 --> 00:55:52.000
<v Speaker 2>the evidence was insufficient to merit the death penalty for

740
00:55:52.159 --> 00:55:57.760
<v Speaker 2>Missus Spinelli. Judge Coughlin left the conference with the rye assertion,

741
00:55:58.440 --> 00:56:00.440
<v Speaker 2>I will say right now that I shall shall not

742
00:56:00.519 --> 00:56:04.239
<v Speaker 2>intercede again in behalf of Missus Spinelli, nor will I

743
00:56:04.320 --> 00:56:10.599
<v Speaker 2>recommend clemency for The Sacramento District Attorney's office commented. Someone

744
00:56:10.760 --> 00:56:15.480
<v Speaker 2>is stalling, said Chief Deputy District Attorney Jay Francis. O'shay.

745
00:56:16.159 --> 00:56:18.960
<v Speaker 2>When a defendant confessed to a crime like that, what

746
00:56:19.079 --> 00:56:22.719
<v Speaker 2>evidence can possibly be produced in his behalf? There is

747
00:56:22.760 --> 00:56:26.599
<v Speaker 2>no reason whatever why Missus Spinelle should have been reprieved.

748
00:56:27.000 --> 00:56:32.679
<v Speaker 2>Somebody is stalling. From the governor himself, no comment whatever

749
00:56:32.840 --> 00:56:37.000
<v Speaker 2>was forthcoming it was believed that missus Spinelli will not

750
00:56:37.239 --> 00:56:41.079
<v Speaker 2>receive another reprieve at the end of the thirty days.

751
00:56:44.440 --> 00:56:52.559
<v Speaker 2>June twenty first, nineteen forty one, under slightly macobb circumstances,

752
00:56:52.840 --> 00:56:58.360
<v Speaker 2>the Duchess received yesterday, at the precise hour when she

753
00:56:58.519 --> 00:57:03.280
<v Speaker 2>confidently expected to be filling her lungs with deadly cyanide fumes.

754
00:57:03.960 --> 00:57:08.119
<v Speaker 2>The Duchess held audience for the press beside San Quentin's

755
00:57:08.199 --> 00:57:12.000
<v Speaker 2>lethal gas chamber, from which she has been snatched by

756
00:57:12.039 --> 00:57:18.360
<v Speaker 2>an eleventh hour reprieve. The Duchess, whose realm was reputedly crime,

757
00:57:18.719 --> 00:57:23.960
<v Speaker 2>and whose subjects were pickpockets, thieves, procureurs and cutthroats, and

758
00:57:24.079 --> 00:57:27.599
<v Speaker 2>thrown herself on a bench outside the death cell and

759
00:57:27.760 --> 00:57:32.440
<v Speaker 2>frisked and poised and graciously bannered prison officials as she

760
00:57:32.480 --> 00:57:35.920
<v Speaker 2>informed her audience that her conviction of murder was all

761
00:57:36.000 --> 00:57:40.320
<v Speaker 2>a ghastly mistake, which divine justice and the governor had

762
00:57:40.320 --> 00:57:44.400
<v Speaker 2>corrected just in the nick of time. But even as

763
00:57:44.400 --> 00:57:48.280
<v Speaker 2>she uttered her thanks, the Governor's office in Sacramento was

764
00:57:48.320 --> 00:57:52.639
<v Speaker 2>announcing that a casual examination of the facts now indicated

765
00:57:52.639 --> 00:57:56.440
<v Speaker 2>that the reprieve, and not the conviction, was the mistake.

766
00:57:57.639 --> 00:58:01.559
<v Speaker 2>In granting the melodramatic night before or the execution reprieve

767
00:58:02.239 --> 00:58:07.360
<v Speaker 2>the governor had apparently been imposed upon according to his secretary.

768
00:58:08.440 --> 00:58:12.320
<v Speaker 2>That declaration, seemingly making it certain that the Duchess will

769
00:58:12.360 --> 00:58:16.000
<v Speaker 2>yet become the first woman executed by the state of California,

770
00:58:16.360 --> 00:58:20.719
<v Speaker 2>was made while she, unaware of that circumstance, was bannering

771
00:58:20.760 --> 00:58:25.960
<v Speaker 2>with photographers, wise cracking with her matron, reaffirming her innocence,

772
00:58:26.280 --> 00:58:31.599
<v Speaker 2>but most of all damning her consort, Mike Simeon. She

773
00:58:31.719 --> 00:58:35.000
<v Speaker 2>was unaware, too, that her levey was occurring beside the

774
00:58:35.079 --> 00:58:39.320
<v Speaker 2>gas chamber, which had been delicately shrouded in canvas so

775
00:58:39.440 --> 00:58:42.000
<v Speaker 2>she might not stare at it as she sat in

776
00:58:42.079 --> 00:58:45.840
<v Speaker 2>the death cell. To begin with, the Duchess made it

777
00:58:45.880 --> 00:58:48.639
<v Speaker 2>plain that she did not care to be called the duchess,

778
00:58:49.199 --> 00:58:52.199
<v Speaker 2>or to have her nineteen year old daughter, Lorraine called

779
00:58:52.239 --> 00:58:58.320
<v Speaker 2>the gypsy. She said, I detest nicknames. She affirmed that

780
00:58:58.360 --> 00:59:02.840
<v Speaker 2>she was no duchess, no murderous, no female fagin, but

781
00:59:03.119 --> 00:59:10.119
<v Speaker 2>just misunderstood maligned Miss Evelita Juanita Spinelli, a persecuted, widowed

782
00:59:10.159 --> 00:59:14.920
<v Speaker 2>mother of three children. Her appearance at least seemed to

783
00:59:14.920 --> 00:59:19.679
<v Speaker 2>bear her out, Wearing an unadorned house dress, clasping a

784
00:59:19.760 --> 00:59:25.239
<v Speaker 2>religious metal beaming behind her spectacles. This tiny, plain woman

785
00:59:25.360 --> 00:59:29.280
<v Speaker 2>with the graying hair looked like no leader, no tutor

786
00:59:29.360 --> 00:59:34.280
<v Speaker 2>of thieves and murderers. She had, she assured her listeners,

787
00:59:34.679 --> 00:59:38.400
<v Speaker 2>become deeply religious and was rigidly obeying the command to

788
00:59:38.480 --> 00:59:42.440
<v Speaker 2>forgive her enemies. But just the same she wanted to

789
00:59:42.639 --> 00:59:46.360
<v Speaker 2>understood that Mike Simeon is as vile a creature as

790
00:59:46.360 --> 00:59:51.320
<v Speaker 2>ever wronged a fellow man. Mike Simeon, she asserted, was

791
00:59:51.400 --> 00:59:55.079
<v Speaker 2>solely responsible for the ruination of her life, for the

792
00:59:55.119 --> 00:59:58.599
<v Speaker 2>plight of her daughter, for the entire tragic chain of

793
00:59:58.599 --> 01:00:02.000
<v Speaker 2>events which led her into the shadow of the lethal

794
01:00:02.079 --> 01:00:06.079
<v Speaker 2>gas chamber. She blurted out. The public has never been

795
01:00:06.119 --> 01:00:10.239
<v Speaker 2>told that Simeon served five years in Lovenworth for white slavery.

796
01:00:10.679 --> 01:00:13.760
<v Speaker 2>The public doesn't know that he continued after his release

797
01:00:14.079 --> 01:00:17.119
<v Speaker 2>to live off women in Detroit, to take their earnings,

798
01:00:17.199 --> 01:00:20.000
<v Speaker 2>and to blackmail them. Those who are trying to live

799
01:00:20.079 --> 01:00:23.760
<v Speaker 2>down their little mistakes. He would threaten to expose them

800
01:00:23.760 --> 01:00:27.199
<v Speaker 2>to their employers and take what they had one dollar

801
01:00:27.280 --> 01:00:30.360
<v Speaker 2>or two dollars or five dollars. It has been said

802
01:00:30.400 --> 01:00:33.840
<v Speaker 2>that I was madly infatuated with them. Perhaps I am

803
01:00:33.880 --> 01:00:36.519
<v Speaker 2>to blame for that. I did say I was in

804
01:00:36.559 --> 01:00:39.119
<v Speaker 2>love with him, but he threatened to kill me and

805
01:00:39.159 --> 01:00:41.719
<v Speaker 2>said he would see that the children were disposed of

806
01:00:42.119 --> 01:00:45.280
<v Speaker 2>in a very cruel way unless I did say it.

807
01:00:46.800 --> 01:00:51.480
<v Speaker 2>The children, she explained, are Lorraine nineteen and two sons,

808
01:00:51.840 --> 01:00:55.920
<v Speaker 2>Joseph sixteen and Vincent ten. The boys are now in

809
01:00:56.000 --> 01:01:00.800
<v Speaker 2>an orphanage near Sacramento. Lorraine, who is to become a

810
01:01:00.880 --> 01:01:04.039
<v Speaker 2>mother in August, is in a place, the location of

811
01:01:04.079 --> 01:01:07.239
<v Speaker 2>which cannot be made public, though it has been repeatedly

812
01:01:07.320 --> 01:01:09.760
<v Speaker 2>published that she is in a home in San Diego.

813
01:01:10.440 --> 01:01:14.440
<v Speaker 2>Who was through the children, and particularly through Lorraine missus

814
01:01:14.480 --> 01:01:18.480
<v Speaker 2>Spinelli asserted that Simeon quote forced me to do his

815
01:01:18.639 --> 01:01:23.679
<v Speaker 2>bidding unquote. Simeon, who came into her life innocently enough,

816
01:01:24.119 --> 01:01:27.760
<v Speaker 2>quote solely and purely as an emergency fourth hand in

817
01:01:27.800 --> 01:01:33.039
<v Speaker 2>a pinuckle game unquote, immediately began laying plans to ensnare her.

818
01:01:34.119 --> 01:01:37.719
<v Speaker 2>He discovered she said that she had innocently married a

819
01:01:37.760 --> 01:01:41.519
<v Speaker 2>man who was part Negro. That was her first husband,

820
01:01:41.960 --> 01:01:46.360
<v Speaker 2>Joseph Camplong, whose mother was of noble birth, so she

821
01:01:46.440 --> 01:01:50.599
<v Speaker 2>had been told, and whose father misrepresented himself as an Indian,

822
01:01:51.280 --> 01:01:54.559
<v Speaker 2>and Simeon used this knowledge as a club over her

823
01:01:55.440 --> 01:01:59.079
<v Speaker 2>to strengthen his hold. The Duchess said. Simeon then sent

824
01:01:59.119 --> 01:02:02.039
<v Speaker 2>her daughter to sam Francisco, sent her out here to

825
01:02:02.119 --> 01:02:05.159
<v Speaker 2>engage in the white slave traffic, and warned her not

826
01:02:05.239 --> 01:02:10.960
<v Speaker 2>to communicate with her mother. Missus Spinelli. After ordering Simeon

827
01:02:11.000 --> 01:02:15.239
<v Speaker 2>from her home, then discovered her daughter's whereabouts. She related

828
01:02:16.000 --> 01:02:19.639
<v Speaker 2>with the dual purpose of fleeing Simeon and reuniting herself

829
01:02:19.679 --> 01:02:22.840
<v Speaker 2>with her daughter. She took the two younger children and

830
01:02:22.960 --> 01:02:28.679
<v Speaker 2>hitchhiked to San Francisco with obvious pride, she said, through

831
01:02:28.719 --> 01:02:31.679
<v Speaker 2>ice and snow and blizzards, when it was twenty below

832
01:02:32.000 --> 01:02:37.360
<v Speaker 2>we made it nine days. Simeon followed her to San Francisco,

833
01:02:37.559 --> 01:02:41.480
<v Speaker 2>she insisted, and intruded upon as fine a little household

834
01:02:41.719 --> 01:02:44.920
<v Speaker 2>as could be found in the city. Besides her own

835
01:02:45.000 --> 01:02:50.440
<v Speaker 2>three children, she was mothering three young men friends of Lorraine.

836
01:02:50.559 --> 01:02:53.559
<v Speaker 2>They were a nineteen year old Bobby Charrard, for whose

837
01:02:53.639 --> 01:02:57.840
<v Speaker 2>murder she was convicted, twenty two year old Gordon Hawkins

838
01:02:58.119 --> 01:03:01.800
<v Speaker 2>convicted with her, and twenty one year old Albert Ives,

839
01:03:02.039 --> 01:03:05.559
<v Speaker 2>who became fearful of his own life fled to protection

840
01:03:05.679 --> 01:03:10.239
<v Speaker 2>of police, disclosed the murder of Charrard, and turned state's evidence.

841
01:03:10.280 --> 01:03:15.679
<v Speaker 2>At the trial, he was later adjudged insane. Far from

842
01:03:15.719 --> 01:03:20.000
<v Speaker 2>instructing these youths in the way of crime, their testimony

843
01:03:20.079 --> 01:03:22.800
<v Speaker 2>is that she showed them how to make and use blackjacks,

844
01:03:23.159 --> 01:03:26.519
<v Speaker 2>how to employ knives to best advantage, how to perform

845
01:03:26.639 --> 01:03:30.559
<v Speaker 2>various tricks useful to the criminal. She set their feet

846
01:03:30.559 --> 01:03:34.039
<v Speaker 2>along the path of righteousness, she said, and persuaded them

847
01:03:34.079 --> 01:03:39.360
<v Speaker 2>to register at continuation school. She asserted, the records will

848
01:03:39.400 --> 01:03:44.599
<v Speaker 2>bear me out. Then, one night, shortly after the arrival

849
01:03:44.719 --> 01:03:48.679
<v Speaker 2>of Simeon, Ives came into her flat, threw down a

850
01:03:48.719 --> 01:03:52.800
<v Speaker 2>gun and said, I used it. I picked it up

851
01:03:52.840 --> 01:03:56.239
<v Speaker 2>and smelled it, she continued, and I said, I guess

852
01:03:56.239 --> 01:03:59.440
<v Speaker 2>you have. Where did you get it? He said, Simeon

853
01:03:59.480 --> 01:04:02.199
<v Speaker 2>gave it to her. He said. They were riding around

854
01:04:02.239 --> 01:04:04.119
<v Speaker 2>and tried to hold up a man at the beach,

855
01:04:04.440 --> 01:04:07.280
<v Speaker 2>and he made a move for his pocket. We later

856
01:04:07.360 --> 01:04:10.440
<v Speaker 2>found the poor fellow was deaf and he had to

857
01:04:10.559 --> 01:04:15.440
<v Speaker 2>use it. Unquote, that she insisted was her first intimation

858
01:04:15.639 --> 01:04:19.199
<v Speaker 2>of the murder of leland s Cash, the crime which

859
01:04:19.280 --> 01:04:27.480
<v Speaker 2>led directly to the murder of young Hirard enjoy ad

860
01:04:27.599 --> 01:04:33.679
<v Speaker 2>free listening at the safehouse. Dubbadubbadubba dot Patreon dot com,

861
01:04:33.719 --> 01:04:42.440
<v Speaker 2>slash true crime historian July tenth, nineteen forty one. Governor

862
01:04:42.559 --> 01:04:46.800
<v Speaker 2>Calbert L. Olson refused comment today on how he was

863
01:04:46.880 --> 01:04:50.280
<v Speaker 2>impressed by the last effort to save the life of

864
01:04:50.360 --> 01:04:54.760
<v Speaker 2>Missus Juanitas Medali, who will become the first woman executed

865
01:04:54.800 --> 01:05:01.079
<v Speaker 2>for murder in California unless the governor intervenes. Olson had

866
01:05:01.119 --> 01:05:04.559
<v Speaker 2>before him the transcript of a long and sordid story

867
01:05:05.239 --> 01:05:09.960
<v Speaker 2>told him by the Duchess's son, Joseph seventeen, who pleaded

868
01:05:10.000 --> 01:05:13.400
<v Speaker 2>with the governor for a full hour late yesterday in

869
01:05:13.440 --> 01:05:16.400
<v Speaker 2>an effort to prevent the execution of his mother July

870
01:05:16.559 --> 01:05:21.159
<v Speaker 2>twenty fifth in a San Quentin prison's gas cell. The

871
01:05:21.239 --> 01:05:24.800
<v Speaker 2>governor wouldn't say how the story influenced him, but his

872
01:05:24.960 --> 01:05:30.079
<v Speaker 2>secretary said he didn't seem to be much impressed when

873
01:05:30.079 --> 01:05:33.880
<v Speaker 2>Missus Spinelli was spared last June twentieth by an eleventh

874
01:05:33.880 --> 01:05:39.320
<v Speaker 2>hour reprieve. Olson's secretaries declared, we believe the governor has

875
01:05:39.400 --> 01:05:44.280
<v Speaker 2>been imposed upon. Joseph supported the latest story told by

876
01:05:44.280 --> 01:05:47.639
<v Speaker 2>his gangster mother, a story she told the day of

877
01:05:47.639 --> 01:05:52.440
<v Speaker 2>her first scheduled execution. At the trial, missus Spinelli testified

878
01:05:52.519 --> 01:05:56.360
<v Speaker 2>she placed knockout drops in a drink giving Robert Charrard

879
01:05:56.800 --> 01:06:00.440
<v Speaker 2>before he was thrown in the Sacramento River. She told

880
01:06:00.480 --> 01:06:03.119
<v Speaker 2>how the gang wanted to get rid of Cherrard for

881
01:06:03.159 --> 01:06:06.480
<v Speaker 2>fear he would squeal about the San Francisco murder of

882
01:06:06.559 --> 01:06:11.920
<v Speaker 2>Leland Cash, a barbecue stand attendant. The duchess now claims

883
01:06:11.960 --> 01:06:15.880
<v Speaker 2>that Mike Simeon, her common law husband, drugged the drink.

884
01:06:17.079 --> 01:06:20.360
<v Speaker 2>Her dress was torn, she said when Simeon forcibly took

885
01:06:20.440 --> 01:06:25.000
<v Speaker 2>the pills from her. Missus Spinelli said she confessed at

886
01:06:25.079 --> 01:06:31.400
<v Speaker 2>the trial to protect quote someone I love unquote. Joseph,

887
01:06:31.840 --> 01:06:35.280
<v Speaker 2>in supporting his mother's latest story, said that he and

888
01:06:35.320 --> 01:06:38.360
<v Speaker 2>his brother Vincent, lay on the floor of a Sacramento

889
01:06:38.480 --> 01:06:42.679
<v Speaker 2>hotel room the night Chirard was drugged. He said he

890
01:06:42.719 --> 01:06:46.679
<v Speaker 2>saw his mother struggling with Simeon, and that Missus Spinelli's

891
01:06:46.760 --> 01:06:50.800
<v Speaker 2>dress was ripped in the scuffle. Also in the room

892
01:06:50.880 --> 01:06:55.679
<v Speaker 2>at the time, Young Spinelli said were Cherrard, Albert Ives,

893
01:06:55.800 --> 01:07:01.119
<v Speaker 2>triggerman of the gang, and Gordon Hawkins, frans o'sheat of

894
01:07:01.159 --> 01:07:07.760
<v Speaker 2>the San Francisco District attorney's office discredited young Spinelli's story. Quote,

895
01:07:08.199 --> 01:07:11.400
<v Speaker 2>the boy's been reading the papers. He never told us

896
01:07:11.400 --> 01:07:15.039
<v Speaker 2>such a story before, and no torn dress belonging to

897
01:07:15.079 --> 01:07:21.360
<v Speaker 2>missus Spinelli has been found unquote. Joseph talked freely to

898
01:07:21.440 --> 01:07:25.039
<v Speaker 2>the governor and told of the life he, his sister, Lorraine,

899
01:07:25.079 --> 01:07:28.440
<v Speaker 2>and his brother had led with their mother. He said

900
01:07:28.480 --> 01:07:31.599
<v Speaker 2>his earliest recollection was of his mother being a waitress

901
01:07:31.599 --> 01:07:37.360
<v Speaker 2>and washwoman in the Texas oil fields. They moved later

902
01:07:37.440 --> 01:07:40.480
<v Speaker 2>to Salt Lake City, where his mother ran a carnival

903
01:07:40.519 --> 01:07:44.079
<v Speaker 2>gambling wheel and Lorraine was the snake girl in a

904
01:07:44.199 --> 01:07:49.280
<v Speaker 2>side show. Then the scene shifted to Kilgore, Idaho, where

905
01:07:49.440 --> 01:07:52.760
<v Speaker 2>Joseph said he believed his mother married a man named Robinson,

906
01:07:53.119 --> 01:07:57.400
<v Speaker 2>and they lived by herding sheep for two years. The

907
01:07:57.519 --> 01:08:00.199
<v Speaker 2>children were put in a Catholic home in Texas while

908
01:08:00.239 --> 01:08:04.400
<v Speaker 2>the duchess went to Mexico. Vincent was born in Mexico.

909
01:08:05.000 --> 01:08:08.679
<v Speaker 2>The family then drifted to Corpus Christi and later to Detroit,

910
01:08:09.079 --> 01:08:14.199
<v Speaker 2>where they met Simeon. Lorraine ran away to California. The

911
01:08:14.239 --> 01:08:18.119
<v Speaker 2>family hitchhiked after her and found she was already acquainted

912
01:08:18.159 --> 01:08:23.479
<v Speaker 2>with the youth who became the Spinelli gang. In all

913
01:08:23.600 --> 01:08:27.760
<v Speaker 2>his rambling life, Joseph claimed he never heard any talk

914
01:08:28.239 --> 01:08:39.439
<v Speaker 2>of murders or robberies. November twenty first, nineteen forty one,

915
01:08:41.199 --> 01:08:45.119
<v Speaker 2>while the world at large feasted and was Mary, the

916
01:08:45.199 --> 01:08:50.119
<v Speaker 2>woman known as the Duchess, found no joy in Thanksgiving. Yesterday,

917
01:08:51.520 --> 01:08:56.159
<v Speaker 2>the Duchess, bitter and full of curses, sat in the

918
01:08:56.239 --> 01:09:00.279
<v Speaker 2>death cell at San Quentin Prison, preparing for her her

919
01:09:00.399 --> 01:09:05.479
<v Speaker 2>unhappy role in the pageant of California history, preparing to

920
01:09:05.520 --> 01:09:08.720
<v Speaker 2>walk into the lethal gas chamber at ten o'clock this

921
01:09:08.840 --> 01:09:12.680
<v Speaker 2>morning to die and to become the first woman the

922
01:09:12.840 --> 01:09:18.399
<v Speaker 2>state has ever executed. There was only one infinitismal ray

923
01:09:18.479 --> 01:09:24.600
<v Speaker 2>of hope for Ernest Spagnoli, a San Francisco attorney, will

924
01:09:24.640 --> 01:09:28.479
<v Speaker 2>seek a stay of execution from the Appellate Court this morning,

925
01:09:28.560 --> 01:09:32.000
<v Speaker 2>he said, on the grounds that the law requires a

926
01:09:32.039 --> 01:09:38.079
<v Speaker 2>formal court order fixing the date of execution. The Duchess

927
01:09:38.159 --> 01:09:41.640
<v Speaker 2>originally was scheduled to die on June twentieth, and this

928
01:09:41.880 --> 01:09:46.319
<v Speaker 2>date was never changed. The subsequent delays have been due

929
01:09:46.319 --> 01:09:51.680
<v Speaker 2>to three reprieves granted by the governor. She reached the

930
01:09:51.720 --> 01:09:55.840
<v Speaker 2>prison early yesterday after an all night ride from Tahatchepee,

931
01:09:56.079 --> 01:10:00.640
<v Speaker 2>the women's prison where she has been confined since last June,

932
01:10:00.840 --> 01:10:04.840
<v Speaker 2>when an eleventh hour reprieved from Governor Olson snatched her

933
01:10:04.880 --> 01:10:11.159
<v Speaker 2>from the dismal doorway she must enter this morning at

934
01:10:11.199 --> 01:10:15.159
<v Speaker 2>the request of Warden Clinton T. Duffy, she talked to

935
01:10:15.239 --> 01:10:20.439
<v Speaker 2>assembled reporters. She cursed them and reviled them, and blamed

936
01:10:20.479 --> 01:10:23.520
<v Speaker 2>them for the refusal of Governor Olson to halt her

937
01:10:23.560 --> 01:10:29.039
<v Speaker 2>execution once again, for them and their lives, she had

938
01:10:29.159 --> 01:10:34.279
<v Speaker 2>terrible curses and for her executioners of today curses even

939
01:10:34.359 --> 01:10:38.840
<v Speaker 2>more terrible, and the prediction my blood will burn holes

940
01:10:38.880 --> 01:10:45.399
<v Speaker 2>in their bodies. Her words, her actions, the expressions which

941
01:10:45.439 --> 01:10:49.920
<v Speaker 2>flitted across her contorted face, lent little support to the

942
01:10:49.960 --> 01:10:54.359
<v Speaker 2>contention of a half dozen able psychiatrists who assured Governor

943
01:10:54.439 --> 01:10:58.720
<v Speaker 2>Olson before he abandoned her to punishment prescribed by law,

944
01:10:59.359 --> 01:11:05.800
<v Speaker 2>that she was is entirely insane. Before she entered the

945
01:11:05.880 --> 01:11:09.960
<v Speaker 2>death cell to count last twenty four hours, she added

946
01:11:10.000 --> 01:11:15.159
<v Speaker 2>more confusion and mystery to her involved personal history, confusion

947
01:11:15.239 --> 01:11:19.439
<v Speaker 2>concerning her legal and common law marriages, the parenthood of

948
01:11:19.479 --> 01:11:23.760
<v Speaker 2>her three children, her very name, which has been variously

949
01:11:23.840 --> 01:11:29.279
<v Speaker 2>reported as Juanita Spinelli, and Evlita Spinelli and on prison

950
01:11:29.359 --> 01:11:35.279
<v Speaker 2>records as ethel Lita Spinelli. Yesterday, she remarked, and my

951
01:11:35.439 --> 01:11:40.600
<v Speaker 2>name is not even Spinelle. Requests for her true name

952
01:11:40.760 --> 01:11:44.159
<v Speaker 2>brought the childlike reply, that's for me to know and

953
01:11:44.279 --> 01:11:48.920
<v Speaker 2>you to find out. She asserted that besides herself, only

954
01:11:48.960 --> 01:11:54.279
<v Speaker 2>Governor Olsen knows her right name. Her children, a married

955
01:11:54.399 --> 01:11:58.239
<v Speaker 2>daughter and two minor boys, insists they have never known

956
01:11:58.319 --> 01:12:02.520
<v Speaker 2>any name but Spinelli. But her asserted husband, from whom

957
01:12:02.560 --> 01:12:06.560
<v Speaker 2>she says she acquired that name, has recently insisted no

958
01:12:06.760 --> 01:12:12.840
<v Speaker 2>marriage ever took place. From curses and revilings, the duchess

959
01:12:12.920 --> 01:12:16.199
<v Speaker 2>turned abruptly to a bid for sympathy from her listeners.

960
01:12:16.960 --> 01:12:20.960
<v Speaker 2>She said she had been sick, very sick. I'm shot

961
01:12:21.079 --> 01:12:24.600
<v Speaker 2>full of dope right now to keep me together until tomorrow.

962
01:12:27.159 --> 01:12:30.680
<v Speaker 2>What truth may be in any of her assertions of yesterday,

963
01:12:31.239 --> 01:12:34.520
<v Speaker 2>in any of the heroic tales she has formerly told

964
01:12:34.880 --> 01:12:38.520
<v Speaker 2>of her early hardships, her valiant efforts to rear her

965
01:12:38.560 --> 01:12:42.800
<v Speaker 2>three children, her involvement with rich men's sons and famous

966
01:12:42.840 --> 01:12:48.640
<v Speaker 2>doctors and infamous criminals, cannot be estimated the same psychiatrists

967
01:12:48.680 --> 01:12:52.960
<v Speaker 2>who called her saying also called her a pathological liar.

968
01:12:54.560 --> 01:12:58.039
<v Speaker 2>Doubt too, must always surround the details of the crime

969
01:12:58.159 --> 01:13:02.079
<v Speaker 2>for which she must breathe hydrocyde ianic fumes today, and

970
01:13:02.119 --> 01:13:06.840
<v Speaker 2>for which two of her associates, Mike Simeon commonly called

971
01:13:06.880 --> 01:13:11.760
<v Speaker 2>her lover and Gordon Hawkins, whom she described herself as

972
01:13:11.800 --> 01:13:15.399
<v Speaker 2>the lover of her daughter, are scheduled to die next week,

973
01:13:16.840 --> 01:13:20.239
<v Speaker 2>and so the Duchess spent a joyless Thanksgiving and will

974
01:13:20.279 --> 01:13:28.600
<v Speaker 2>become an unenvied figure in California history today. To the

975
01:13:28.720 --> 01:13:33.640
<v Speaker 2>Duchess finally went the sorry distinction of being the first

976
01:13:33.720 --> 01:13:37.520
<v Speaker 2>woman whose crimes were so foul that she had to

977
01:13:37.560 --> 01:13:43.800
<v Speaker 2>be killed by the state. Her unique contribution to California history,

978
01:13:44.359 --> 01:13:47.239
<v Speaker 2>a span of ninety one years in which the state

979
01:13:47.640 --> 01:13:52.640
<v Speaker 2>never before has violated its traditional chivalry by executing a woman,

980
01:13:53.640 --> 01:13:59.239
<v Speaker 2>was accomplished in just ten and one half minutes. Mumbling prayers,

981
01:13:59.279 --> 01:14:02.319
<v Speaker 2>and with snap shots of her two sons, a daughter,

982
01:14:02.439 --> 01:14:06.520
<v Speaker 2>and a grandchild taped to her breast, The Duchess was

983
01:14:06.560 --> 01:14:10.680
<v Speaker 2>sealed in San Quentin's gas chamber at ten fourteen and

984
01:14:10.720 --> 01:14:15.520
<v Speaker 2>a half am. She was pronounced dead at ten twenty five.

985
01:14:16.960 --> 01:14:21.880
<v Speaker 2>The execution was performed before sixty six men's spectators after

986
01:14:21.920 --> 01:14:26.520
<v Speaker 2>a nerve racking delay that had prison officials, justices of

987
01:14:26.560 --> 01:14:30.439
<v Speaker 2>the Supreme Court and appellate courts, and the Governor's office

988
01:14:30.479 --> 01:14:35.960
<v Speaker 2>in an uproar during the night, while the Duchess veered

989
01:14:36.000 --> 01:14:41.119
<v Speaker 2>from outbursts to prayer to sporadic conversations with two matrons

990
01:14:41.119 --> 01:14:45.239
<v Speaker 2>who had accompanied her from the women's prison at to Hatchepee.

991
01:14:45.319 --> 01:14:48.960
<v Speaker 2>A San Francisco lawyer began attempts to obtain a further

992
01:14:49.079 --> 01:14:54.960
<v Speaker 2>stay of execution. Ernest Spagnoli went to Superior Judge Edward

993
01:14:55.000 --> 01:14:59.000
<v Speaker 2>Butler at San Raphael for red of habeas corpus on

994
01:14:59.039 --> 01:15:02.800
<v Speaker 2>the grounds that the original date June twentieth had never

995
01:15:02.880 --> 01:15:08.039
<v Speaker 2>been formally changed to November twenty first. He was refused.

996
01:15:09.520 --> 01:15:14.359
<v Speaker 2>Spagnoley acted at the behest of his ex wife, Sally Stanford,

997
01:15:14.880 --> 01:15:18.159
<v Speaker 2>notorious nightlife figure who was known as the Woman in

998
01:15:18.279 --> 01:15:22.680
<v Speaker 2>Red during the nineteen thirty five to thirty seven graft investigation,

999
01:15:23.399 --> 01:15:27.359
<v Speaker 2>who summed up her efforts this way, killing that woman

1000
01:15:27.439 --> 01:15:31.960
<v Speaker 2>won't make you any better or me any worse. The

1001
01:15:32.039 --> 01:15:36.079
<v Speaker 2>attorney resumed his attempts early in the morning by taking

1002
01:15:36.119 --> 01:15:39.079
<v Speaker 2>the same petition to the State District Court of Appeal,

1003
01:15:39.600 --> 01:15:44.880
<v Speaker 2>where it was denied by Presiding Judge Raymond Peters. Spagnoley

1004
01:15:44.960 --> 01:15:48.279
<v Speaker 2>rushed frantically to the state's Supreme Court for his final

1005
01:15:48.399 --> 01:15:53.159
<v Speaker 2>try and bumped into Attorney William Herron, who also sought

1006
01:15:53.159 --> 01:15:56.199
<v Speaker 2>a rid of habeas corpus on the grounds that execution

1007
01:15:56.359 --> 01:16:02.439
<v Speaker 2>by gas was unconstitutional. In the expectation of such moves,

1008
01:16:02.680 --> 01:16:06.600
<v Speaker 2>developments were being closely watched by Chief Deputy Attorney General

1009
01:16:06.680 --> 01:16:11.199
<v Speaker 2>Robert W. Harrison, by Warden Clinton T. Duffy at San Quintin,

1010
01:16:11.640 --> 01:16:16.399
<v Speaker 2>and by Stanley Mosk, Governor Olson's executive secretary at Sacramento,

1011
01:16:17.079 --> 01:16:20.319
<v Speaker 2>who had a direct telephone connection with Duffy's office for

1012
01:16:20.399 --> 01:16:24.760
<v Speaker 2>more than an hour. The confusion started when the Supreme

1013
01:16:24.800 --> 01:16:29.239
<v Speaker 2>Court writs were filed. Harrison at once tried to call Duffy,

1014
01:16:29.319 --> 01:16:32.039
<v Speaker 2>but could not reach him, as Duffy at the same

1015
01:16:32.119 --> 01:16:35.520
<v Speaker 2>time was calling the Supreme Court and was being told

1016
01:16:35.560 --> 01:16:39.039
<v Speaker 2>by Acting Chief Justice John Schenk that the writs had

1017
01:16:39.079 --> 01:16:42.479
<v Speaker 2>been denied by him and three other justices. At nine

1018
01:16:42.520 --> 01:16:46.359
<v Speaker 2>fifty two a m. Only eight minutes before the time

1019
01:16:46.479 --> 01:16:51.920
<v Speaker 2>set for the execution, Duffy turned to the Sacramento connection

1020
01:16:52.279 --> 01:16:55.159
<v Speaker 2>and formed Mosque and was told there were no new

1021
01:16:55.319 --> 01:17:00.399
<v Speaker 2>orders from the Governor. Olson had granted the duchess three reprietsves,

1022
01:17:00.720 --> 01:17:04.039
<v Speaker 2>but finally could find no reasons for a fourth or

1023
01:17:04.199 --> 01:17:08.800
<v Speaker 2>for executive clemency, despite a barrage of last minute pleased

1024
01:17:08.800 --> 01:17:14.560
<v Speaker 2>by telegraph and telephone from all over the country. Immediately,

1025
01:17:14.640 --> 01:17:18.600
<v Speaker 2>the warden had guards marshaled the sixty six witnesses and

1026
01:17:18.680 --> 01:17:22.239
<v Speaker 2>take them to the death House, where they crowded into position.

1027
01:17:23.560 --> 01:17:28.000
<v Speaker 2>Ten o'clock came and went. Then Duffy rushed out and

1028
01:17:28.039 --> 01:17:32.319
<v Speaker 2>the guards ordered the room cleared. The call from Harrison

1029
01:17:32.359 --> 01:17:37.039
<v Speaker 2>had finally come through. Harrison told Duffy of the ritz

1030
01:17:37.119 --> 01:17:40.600
<v Speaker 2>and the denials. More on edge by then than at

1031
01:17:40.640 --> 01:17:44.399
<v Speaker 2>any time in his prison career, the warden disclosed that

1032
01:17:44.479 --> 01:17:48.680
<v Speaker 2>the Duchess had just had another fit of incoherent ravings.

1033
01:17:49.159 --> 01:17:51.399
<v Speaker 2>Duffy said he wanted to be sure that he was

1034
01:17:51.439 --> 01:17:57.199
<v Speaker 2>not executing an insane woman. Harrison replied that all legal

1035
01:17:57.279 --> 01:18:01.680
<v Speaker 2>requirements had been fulfilled and that the execution should go ahead.

1036
01:18:03.079 --> 01:18:06.920
<v Speaker 2>Visibly shaken, Duffy and his aides dashed back to the

1037
01:18:06.960 --> 01:18:11.319
<v Speaker 2>death house in his official car, explained the situation and

1038
01:18:11.439 --> 01:18:17.199
<v Speaker 2>announced that the Duchess would die as scheduled. Shortly then,

1039
01:18:17.479 --> 01:18:21.159
<v Speaker 2>the condemned woman, whose death warrant gave her name as

1040
01:18:21.279 --> 01:18:25.600
<v Speaker 2>Eithel Alida Juanita Spinelli, was brought into the gas chamber

1041
01:18:25.680 --> 01:18:28.840
<v Speaker 2>to pay with her life for the deaths She decreed

1042
01:18:29.000 --> 01:18:33.399
<v Speaker 2>to Robert Schirrard nineteen, member of her own gang of

1043
01:18:33.520 --> 01:18:36.880
<v Speaker 2>robber killers, in the fear that he would blab about

1044
01:18:36.880 --> 01:18:40.520
<v Speaker 2>the murder of a barbecue stand proprietor in a hold up.

1045
01:18:41.680 --> 01:18:45.000
<v Speaker 2>A husky guard held her by each arm. She wore

1046
01:18:45.039 --> 01:18:49.000
<v Speaker 2>a green smock, hardly more green than her livid skin.

1047
01:18:49.399 --> 01:18:54.000
<v Speaker 2>Through the green glass windows of the chamber. Both fists

1048
01:18:54.079 --> 01:18:58.720
<v Speaker 2>were clenched, and one held a crumpled handkerchief. Her eyes

1049
01:18:58.760 --> 01:19:02.880
<v Speaker 2>were wide and stilling in her ravaged, bony face. Her

1050
01:19:02.880 --> 01:19:06.600
<v Speaker 2>gray black hair gleamed dully. But this was not the

1051
01:19:06.680 --> 01:19:11.279
<v Speaker 2>duchess who minutes before had been raving and incoherent, Not

1052
01:19:11.399 --> 01:19:14.920
<v Speaker 2>the duchess of the day before, who cursed and reviled

1053
01:19:14.920 --> 01:19:20.439
<v Speaker 2>her interviewers, her captors, and especially her executioners, shouting my

1054
01:19:20.560 --> 01:19:24.239
<v Speaker 2>blood will burn holes in your body. From some inner

1055
01:19:24.319 --> 01:19:28.039
<v Speaker 2>recesses of her spirit, she summoned up an inherent dignity.

1056
01:19:28.640 --> 01:19:32.760
<v Speaker 2>She refused to be blindfolded. She did not break. She

1057
01:19:32.960 --> 01:19:36.439
<v Speaker 2>asked for no mercy, excepting the prayer that she muttered

1058
01:19:36.479 --> 01:19:40.039
<v Speaker 2>over and over as the guards strapped her to her chair,

1059
01:19:40.640 --> 01:19:46.640
<v Speaker 2>adjusted the stethoscope, and banged shut the steel door. Into

1060
01:19:46.680 --> 01:19:51.439
<v Speaker 2>thy hands, O Lord, I commend my spirit. The first

1061
01:19:51.520 --> 01:19:55.560
<v Speaker 2>wisp of the lethal cyanide fumes cut short the words.

1062
01:19:56.399 --> 01:20:00.239
<v Speaker 2>Her head snapped back, and she remained thus and till

1063
01:20:00.239 --> 01:20:03.319
<v Speaker 2>a guard opened a door beyond the gas chamber and said,

1064
01:20:04.000 --> 01:20:08.000
<v Speaker 2>that's all, gentlemen. The time ten fourteen and a half

1065
01:20:08.279 --> 01:20:13.359
<v Speaker 2>to ten twenty five. A little later, while guards waited

1066
01:20:13.359 --> 01:20:16.199
<v Speaker 2>for blowers to clear out the cyanide fumes so the

1067
01:20:16.239 --> 01:20:20.079
<v Speaker 2>body could be removed ward and Duffy described how the

1068
01:20:20.199 --> 01:20:25.199
<v Speaker 2>Duchess spent her last hours. She had a turkey dinner

1069
01:20:25.239 --> 01:20:29.079
<v Speaker 2>Thanksgiving evening, he said, but she refused other food except

1070
01:20:29.079 --> 01:20:33.479
<v Speaker 2>for a Hamburger sandwich. Around midnight, he told her of

1071
01:20:33.560 --> 01:20:37.439
<v Speaker 2>Sally Stanford's efforts in her behalf, and she replied, I

1072
01:20:37.479 --> 01:20:40.399
<v Speaker 2>don't know missus Stanford, but I am grateful to her.

1073
01:20:40.640 --> 01:20:44.520
<v Speaker 2>She is a good woman. The Duchess did not sleep

1074
01:20:44.560 --> 01:20:48.279
<v Speaker 2>at all during the night, but talked with Father George o'meira,

1075
01:20:48.840 --> 01:20:52.279
<v Speaker 2>Catholic chaplain at the prison. With the two matrons who

1076
01:20:52.359 --> 01:20:55.960
<v Speaker 2>attended her, and again with Father o'meira in the morning,

1077
01:20:56.399 --> 01:21:00.119
<v Speaker 2>about an hour before she died. It was from this

1078
01:21:00.159 --> 01:21:03.680
<v Speaker 2>religious counsel that she drew the strength to die calmly,

1079
01:21:04.359 --> 01:21:07.680
<v Speaker 2>a strange metamorphosis in the woman whose strength, when she

1080
01:21:07.840 --> 01:21:11.880
<v Speaker 2>was free, had been her iron handed domination of a

1081
01:21:11.920 --> 01:21:18.079
<v Speaker 2>band of thieves and killers. Before the Duchess died, Warden

1082
01:21:18.199 --> 01:21:21.119
<v Speaker 2>Duffy asked her if she wanted any message carried to

1083
01:21:21.159 --> 01:21:23.920
<v Speaker 2>the two men who are in San Quentin's death row.

1084
01:21:25.359 --> 01:21:29.840
<v Speaker 2>She was indifferent. Duffy then asked Simeon and Hawkins if

1085
01:21:29.880 --> 01:21:33.399
<v Speaker 2>they wanted to tell the Duchess anything, but they spurned

1086
01:21:33.479 --> 01:21:37.399
<v Speaker 2>the offer. Two there were no messages from her children,

1087
01:21:37.840 --> 01:21:41.039
<v Speaker 2>nor any claim for her body, which was buried by

1088
01:21:41.039 --> 01:21:47.239
<v Speaker 2>the prison. It remained for missus Alice Gwynn, one of

1089
01:21:47.279 --> 01:21:50.880
<v Speaker 2>the matrons who brought the Duchess from Tahatchepee, to be

1090
01:21:50.960 --> 01:21:56.239
<v Speaker 2>her chief mourner and to pronounce her epitaph quote. I

1091
01:21:56.319 --> 01:21:59.680
<v Speaker 2>took care of her for seventeen months. There isn't much

1092
01:21:59.720 --> 01:22:02.680
<v Speaker 2>that I can say about her. She was cheerful right

1093
01:22:02.800 --> 01:22:06.399
<v Speaker 2>up to the end, the last minute, regardless of what

1094
01:22:06.439 --> 01:22:09.000
<v Speaker 2>you think about her or what she did. She proved

1095
01:22:09.000 --> 01:22:12.920
<v Speaker 2>her point, her belief in God. She didn't even tremble.

1096
01:22:13.800 --> 01:22:17.000
<v Speaker 2>She had no last words for me. We had already

1097
01:22:17.039 --> 01:22:20.920
<v Speaker 2>said everything there was to say. She kissed me goodbye.

1098
01:22:21.000 --> 01:22:24.119
<v Speaker 2>That's all. I wish you would be just as kind

1099
01:22:24.159 --> 01:22:49.399
<v Speaker 2>to her as you can. That was Duchess Spinelli's crime school,

1100
01:22:49.720 --> 01:22:53.880
<v Speaker 2>The Half Wit Gang of Golden Gate Avenue, called from

1101
01:22:53.960 --> 01:22:58.800
<v Speaker 2>the historic pages of the San Francisco Examiner, the Oakland Tribune,

1102
01:22:59.119 --> 01:23:03.720
<v Speaker 2>and other news papers of the era. True Crime Historian

1103
01:23:03.920 --> 01:23:08.439
<v Speaker 2>is a production of popular media. Opening theme by Nico Vitessi.

1104
01:23:08.880 --> 01:23:13.199
<v Speaker 2>Incidental music by Niko Vitessi, Chuck Wiggins and Dave SAMs.

1105
01:23:13.239 --> 01:23:18.279
<v Speaker 2>Some music and sound effects licensed from podcast music dot Com.

1106
01:23:18.760 --> 01:23:22.880
<v Speaker 2>Closing theme by Dave SAMs and Rachel Shatt, engineered by

1107
01:23:22.960 --> 01:23:27.680
<v Speaker 2>David Hisch at Third Street Music. Media management by Sean R.

1108
01:23:27.720 --> 01:23:35.279
<v Speaker 2>Miller Jones and me I don't know, I'm True Crime

1109
01:23:35.399 --> 01:23:39.520
<v Speaker 2>Historian Richard O. Jones signing off for now.