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Speaker 1: Noll Prig Necessary, Dripod where Everybody lost in terms of it.
Speaker 3: Since eighteen plus, you are now listening to True Murder,
Speaker 3: the most shocking killers in true crime history and the
Speaker 3: authors that have written.
Speaker 4: About them Gaesy, Bundy, Dahmer, The Nightstalker DTK. Every week
Speaker 4: another fascinating author talking about the most shocking and infamous
Speaker 4: killers in true crime history. True Murder with your host
Speaker 4: journalist and author Dan Zupanski.
Speaker 5: David Kolcheck's eighth book, Deadly California, is another tome of
Speaker 5: off the wall murders, accidents, and robberies gone wrong that
Speaker 5: have happened in California, with true crime tales from nineteen
Speaker 5: twelve to nineteen sixty four, occurring in the San Francisco,
Speaker 5: Los Angeles, Northern and Southern California, and Sacramento. Stories such
Speaker 5: as When Sally Shot Harry, double murder on O Street,
Speaker 5: Callern Sargent Liquor Store, and Corpus Delecti. The book that
Speaker 5: we're featuring this evening is Deadly California Murders, Accidents and
Speaker 5: Robbery's Gone Wrong with my special guests, Crime is Storian
Speaker 5: and author David Coolcheck. Welcome to the program, and thank
Speaker 5: you very much for this interview. David Coolcheck, Well, thanks
Speaker 5: for having me again. Let's start off that the last
Speaker 5: interview we had was from your last book, Forgotten California
Speaker 5: Murders nineteen fifteen to nineteen sixty eight. Tell us of
Speaker 5: your past books involving California, and tell us a little
Speaker 5: bit about your background living in California.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 7: When I moved to California two thousand and two, my
Speaker 7: wife's from Sacramento moved home for family reasons. I immediately
Speaker 7: got into the history of California. I was a history
Speaker 7: major at the University of Wisconsin at Madison and left
Speaker 7: my studies to come to California. And I realized that
Speaker 7: all these books, especially about the more frontier days, were
Speaker 7: all written about the same people. And I thought, well,
Speaker 7: there's got to be more to this, and so I
Speaker 7: started researching criminals that you haven't read about before, murderers especially,
Speaker 7: and that's how I came up with my first book,
Speaker 7: California Justice, shootout Slynchings and Assassinations. I inquired Quill Driver
Speaker 7: books and they said, yeah, sure, sounds good and just
Speaker 7: happen that way. So here we are eight books later,
Speaker 7: and it's been.
Speaker 5: Good Now let's get to this collection you have had.
Speaker 5: This is murders, accidents, and robbery's gone wrong. You searched again,
Speaker 5: and in introduction we talked about these stories emanate from
Speaker 5: Los Angeles, the San Francisco Bay Area, Sacramento, your hometown
Speaker 5: in California, and also northern and southern California stories. So
Speaker 5: tell us just a little bit about the process of
Speaker 5: gathering these stories and sort of the criteria you had
Speaker 5: for putting this collection together.
Speaker 7: Yeah, the stories are just ones that I come across,
Speaker 7: because you know, once you read like an Oakland Tribune
Speaker 7: from nineteen twenty, they'll tell you about everything that's happening
Speaker 7: all over the state. You know, the Sacramento Bee was
Speaker 7: another great paper of record, the Fresno b So if
Speaker 7: it wasn't in those papers, it woul at least have
Speaker 7: a little bet. So if you read those papers, you
Speaker 7: could find out about a lot of crimes and things
Speaker 7: that happen in more out there parts of the state.
Speaker 5: Now, let's talk about when Sally shot Harry. This is
Speaker 5: May eleventh, nineteen sixty one. This is in Redwood City,
Speaker 5: San Mateo County, and a Harry Oliff. You say, is
Speaker 5: an odd guy, average intelligence, good physique, wanted to be
Speaker 5: police officer and married a woman named Sally le Bla
Speaker 5: in nineteen fifty four. Tell us about Sally and Harry's
Speaker 5: life and what happens one day in May nineteen sixty one.
Speaker 7: Well, Sally worked as a secretary at an insurance company
Speaker 7: and Harry just took on menial jobs and took classes
Speaker 7: at community colleges. He was insecure guys about his situation.
Speaker 7: He used to just haul off and hit Sally like
Speaker 7: they were driving once on al Camino Reil, and with
Speaker 7: that warning of provocutation, he'd just started beating her with
Speaker 7: one hand while steering the car. So and he's just
Speaker 7: backhander across the face. He told him how to get
Speaker 7: someplace for directions, and he smacked her for not being lost.
Speaker 7: So Harry joined the Air Force is in was stationed
Speaker 7: in Paris, and Sally came to visit him, and he
Speaker 7: wanted to do the badger scheme, which is scheme where
Speaker 7: women would pick up a guy at a bar able
Speaker 7: to pick out a target, you know, somebody who's there
Speaker 7: in a convention or something, or some big wig, and
Speaker 7: then guy cleaning her husband or her husband comes in
Speaker 7: on them and they blackmail them and get money out
Speaker 7: of them. He wanted to do that with his wife
Speaker 7: while she was visiting him in Paris. I was in
Speaker 7: the Air Force. It's kind of an odd duck. So
Speaker 7: when he got out of the Air Force, he got
Speaker 7: friendly with the San Materio Sheriff's Department in Redwood City
Speaker 7: Police Department, and he went under cover as an agent
Speaker 7: for the San Matero County Sheriff's Department, and he posed
Speaker 7: as a beat nick marijuana user to entrap other Peninsula
Speaker 7: marijuana users and sellers, and the police department paide for
Speaker 7: a little house he had where you know, it was
Speaker 7: like the pot smoking party house and stuff right, and
Speaker 7: Harry grew like a go tee and Kangero's hair out
Speaker 7: a bit and spoken beat nick lingo, and he had
Speaker 7: orange fur covered shoes that he used to wear around,
Speaker 7: so he was noticeable. And so yeah, he went and
Speaker 7: knarked on all the people that he had made friends
Speaker 7: with and had smoked marijuana with. In April nineteen fifty nine,
Speaker 7: he snitched on two guys. One guy was just a
Speaker 7: janitor and another one was a twenty three year old laborer,
Speaker 7: and they found like five ounces of weed and three
Speaker 7: marijuana cigarettes in the guy's shirt pocket, and overall he
Speaker 7: was responsible for fifteen arrests. So whether that's good or bad,
Speaker 7: I don't know. But he was just basically getting casual
Speaker 7: marijuana users off the street. So you know, he thought
Speaker 7: that that would be a lead into the police department
Speaker 7: and did some low lectures and stuff for lunchtime rotary
Speaker 7: clubs and stuff about his experience being a narc guy.
Speaker 7: But he kept on trying. He tried twice for the
Speaker 7: police examination and failed both times, and that's pretty much
Speaker 7: ended his chances of being a cop. Ended up being
Speaker 7: a swimming instructor in San Carlos, and the marriage fell
Speaker 7: apart and he separated. So on oh oh, if he
Speaker 7: like crashed his car in another car, like put the
Speaker 7: driver of the other car in the hospital, and you know,
Speaker 7: they didn't check the seer he was intoxicated or anything,
Speaker 7: but he was getting drunk a lot at that time.
Speaker 7: Sally rented a three bedroom or a three room apartment
Speaker 7: over a Garadge and Rea her house at twenty one
Speaker 7: Birch Street in Midwood City, and the house is still there,
Speaker 7: and so was the apartment there. Harry dropped in whenever
Speaker 7: he wanted, and Sally couldn't get rid of him. She
Speaker 7: did his laundry and fed him while he hit the
Speaker 7: local taverns and dated younger women. On May tenth, he
Speaker 7: called Sally about ten thirty at night and he wanted
Speaker 7: to chat. About hour later, after Sally had gone to bed,
Speaker 7: he called again, and he was drunken in a noisy
Speaker 7: bar room. He asked her to join her at a tavern.
Speaker 7: She said she wouldn't, and he frettened her, saying you
Speaker 7: better come, or I'll come over and get you. So
Speaker 7: she was terrified she was going to get beat up
Speaker 7: again since she picked up his thirty eight caliber revolver
Speaker 7: that he had left at her place and sat in
Speaker 7: her darkened apartment waiting for Harry to show up. And
Speaker 7: Harry shows up right about midnight, let himself in. He
Speaker 7: had his own key, and he walked towards her menacingly,
Speaker 7: and she shot him when he was about two feet away,
Speaker 7: shot him right in the middle chest. One hit his
Speaker 7: left arm. The other one got him right now and
Speaker 7: turned around and staggered sixty feet down this falcony, the
Speaker 7: stairways and into the driveway. Where he fell down dead.
Speaker 7: So Sally called her close friend, the cop that helped
Speaker 7: Harry get into his informant work, and he came over
Speaker 7: first before the police or anybody showed up. She was
Speaker 7: booked in jail open charge of murder, and her attorney
Speaker 7: said that he had never gotten so many requests to
Speaker 7: testify for a defendant, because people who knew the couple
Speaker 7: voluntarily requested to testify in her defense. Even Harry's parents
Speaker 7: visited Sally in jail. Yeah, no one liked Harry. He's
Speaker 7: you know, he slapped his wife right right in the bar,
Speaker 7: right in front of people and stuff, and yeah, he
Speaker 7: was a very nice guy. Harry had this girlfriend named
Speaker 7: Amy Burke, who was the seminarial Times described as a
Speaker 7: blonde and a real doll, and she's nineteen. She stabbed
Speaker 7: till the detectives that oh, I promised that they'd get
Speaker 7: to Mexican divorce and they'd get married, and they shared
Speaker 7: an apartment.
Speaker 6: In San Francisco.
Speaker 7: So the trial begins on July fifth, and it's hot,
Speaker 7: like one hundred degrees and it's in the old courthouse,
Speaker 7: no air conditioning and stuff, and they just paraded a
Speaker 7: list of people who all testified to seeing Harry, you know,
Speaker 7: slap Sally around in front of people, and she talked
Speaker 7: about how he'd force her to take off her bra
Speaker 7: before they entered a bar, and then she was just
Speaker 7: like he had her flirt with guys and he would
Speaker 7: be a couple of seats away in the bar and stuff.
Speaker 7: He guy just kicks out of that if Harry gust
Speaker 7: some reason. But yeah, she was terrified that he was
Speaker 7: going to beat her up. And they had the trial
Speaker 7: and she was found that guilt after a nine day
Speaker 7: trial and one hundred degree heat.
Speaker 5: You write about how big this trial was and how
Speaker 5: sensational it was in terms of the salacious testimony of Sally,
Speaker 5: where she talked about, as you say, forcing her to
Speaker 5: take her bar raw off before she went into the
Speaker 5: bar and to flirt with men, and all these conversations
Speaker 5: about There was pornography found, there was naked photos found.
Speaker 5: So there was a vigorous cross examination of Sally that
Speaker 5: she endured quite successfully. And then you write about the
Speaker 5: dramatic verdict not guilty and she collapses in the arms
Speaker 5: of her attorneys.
Speaker 7: Yeah, and her parents who had moved away right after
Speaker 7: her she graduated from school, they moved to the East
Speaker 7: Coast and they were there and they led her out
Speaker 7: of the courthouse. Attorney had a press conference at his
Speaker 7: house with them and they asked her. The press asked
Speaker 7: her some questions before she was going to go leave
Speaker 7: it to her parents' house in Massachusetts. But she just
Speaker 7: answered a few questions as.
Speaker 5: It incredible tale. Let's talk about another extraordinary tale. Keller
Speaker 5: and Sergeant Liquor Store. This is December twenty third, nineteen
Speaker 5: fifty three in Long Beach, California, and very interesting character.
Speaker 5: Lynn Feaster, tough man who despised criminals and he worked
Speaker 5: at a clerk as a clerk at Keller and Sergeant
Speaker 5: liquor store. And he was a World War One veteran.
Speaker 5: Tell us about Lynn Feaster and some of the things
Speaker 5: that he does to counter anybody trying to rob the
Speaker 5: liquor store.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 7: He was born in Missouri and moved to Long Beach
Speaker 7: in nineteen thirty eight and he was bill forty two.
Speaker 6: He had gotten divorced.
Speaker 7: He his sister lived in a Long Beach and had
Speaker 7: a son like in Phoenix or something. But he had
Speaker 7: no problem to justinal life in California. He got a
Speaker 7: job at Keller and Sergeant liquor store and Long Beach,
Speaker 7: and he lived in an apartment just a couple of
Speaker 7: doors down from the store. He's a nighttime clerk and
Speaker 7: it was pretty dangerous jobs. It's like, why I put
Speaker 7: these robberies gone wrong in this book, because it's just
Speaker 7: fascinating the liquor store robberies that happened in the nineteen fifties,
Speaker 7: late forties, early sixties, but just amazing. I don't know
Speaker 7: why anybody would do that for a living. I read
Speaker 7: about one story in San Francisco and the place now
Speaker 7: is like a very nice for coffee shop. So Lynn Feaster,
Speaker 7: he's a nighttime clerk, and he kept a bunch of
Speaker 7: guns on him. He hit him under the counter, and
Speaker 7: he practiced shooting. He did rehearse scenarios of how you'd
Speaker 7: act when he'd getting it held up if he could
Speaker 7: grab the gun. So there's no record how many robberies
Speaker 7: Feaster had hindered over the last six years he worked
Speaker 7: at Keller and Sergeant that he had officially killed two
Speaker 7: would be bandits, wounded a third, and brought about the
Speaker 7: arrest of five other people. So that's just crazy if
Speaker 7: you think about it. You know what a job. You know,
Speaker 7: I was a process process server for like four years,
Speaker 7: and it was this guy had a much, you know,
Speaker 7: scarier job.
Speaker 5: Absolutely.
Speaker 7: But on March twenty fourth, nineteen forty eight, this twenty
Speaker 7: one year old David Krueger and nineteen year old Donald
Speaker 7: Moore walked into the liquor store told FISA it was
Speaker 7: a stick up. So Feaster pretended he was fainting. He
Speaker 7: grabbed a pistol from under the counter and shot Krueger
Speaker 7: in the chests.
Speaker 6: And the guy sur vibe.
Speaker 7: They were so young that they were sentenced to the
Speaker 7: California Youth Authority and they did some time for that.
Speaker 7: In August twelfth, nineteen forty eight, these two guys robbed
Speaker 7: Feaster of one hundred and forty bucks, and Feaster ran
Speaker 7: out and fired a shot from his pistol, and guy
Speaker 7: went by and said, hey, the cops just jroe bis
Speaker 7: a Feast fired another shot in their cops came back.
Speaker 7: He hopped into the police card and they found one
Speaker 7: of the robbers, Walter Gillen, and they arrested him at headquarters.
Speaker 7: He told the police he had never been a rescued before.
Speaker 7: He was like terrified. So the first time he attempted
Speaker 7: a robbery, he sang like a canary, and the police
Speaker 7: broke up a robbery ring that was all over Los
Speaker 7: Angeles area, and five guys, they were all under twenty
Speaker 7: six years old, were all arrested for the crimes for
Speaker 7: all those robberies. So in March seventh, nineteen forty nine,
Speaker 7: James Phillips and Gail Hare went out of robbery spree.
Speaker 7: And Hair was an auto mechanic and fender guy. Phillips
Speaker 7: was a car salesman. They were both out of work
Speaker 7: and broke. They went and hit this one liquor store
Speaker 7: at about ten thirty and got seventy five dollars from them.
Speaker 7: About half hour later, they showed up over at Keller
Speaker 7: and Sergeant liquor store tending to rob it, and they
Speaker 7: formed a fifty four year old Feaster that they're robbing
Speaker 7: the place. Fisa had a different idea. He pulled out
Speaker 7: his thirty eight caliber pistol and plugged Phillips in the heart,
Speaker 7: killing him instantly. Easter put down Hair with a bullet
Speaker 7: to the throat and he died later in the hospital. So,
Speaker 7: you know, I kind of enjoyed the notorarity he had,
Speaker 7: and he told the Long Beach Independent that he had
Speaker 7: been practicing for six months what to do in case
Speaker 7: he was a victim of fugs. I figured the hold
Speaker 7: up men would take all there is in the cash
Speaker 7: register and then beat or kill you if they figured
Speaker 7: you had hidden other money around the store. I'm just
Speaker 7: a workingman who needs his job. I wish they would
Speaker 7: let me alone. So not long after that, a postcard
Speaker 7: arrived at the liquor store for Feaster and said you
Speaker 7: will be taken care of for what you have done.
Speaker 7: And it was signed to Gail pal So the police
Speaker 7: kicked it out. They couldn't figure it out. They couldn't
Speaker 7: trace it or anything like that. So that was one thing.
Speaker 7: So on December twenty third, nineteen fifty three, Billy Morris
Speaker 7: and John Davis sent to the liquor store about eleven
Speaker 7: thirty and they tried to cash a forged check. Feaster
Speaker 7: wouldn't catch it, and mor Scott Angry pulled his pistol,
Speaker 7: so Feaster was caught off guard. He pleaded for his
Speaker 7: life on his knees. He's probably gonna He was trying
Speaker 7: to grab a pistol that he had underneath the counter.
Speaker 7: You know, he was doing his overroutine and a Morsekuy
Speaker 7: shot him in the mouth with a three eighty bullet
Speaker 7: ended up bouncing aroundside his skull, and fifteen minutes later,
Speaker 7: Feusture's body was discovered by a sailor keem in to
Speaker 7: buy cigarettes. You know, that's amazing too about these liquor
Speaker 7: stores were open until two in the morning, and kids
Speaker 7: would come in at you know, eleven o'clock at midnight
Speaker 7: and stuff. Wow, yeah, things are open a lot.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 7: I think it was too because air conditioning wasn't around
Speaker 7: a lot and more people did things than the evenings.
Speaker 7: Just like in Sacramento. I read about this guy who
Speaker 7: was shot at an ice cream parlor at twelve thirty
Speaker 7: and on like a Tuesday, you know, and it's like,
Speaker 7: you know, he was an attorney, he was like forty
Speaker 7: years old. It's like, I don't know, man, people stayed
Speaker 7: out more, I guess. But yeah, they found Feuster's body.
Speaker 7: There was a thirty eight line by his head, and
Speaker 7: then he had a semi automatic pistol in his pants pocket.
Speaker 7: He didn't have a chance to grab any of them.
Speaker 7: So it was a couple of years before, the Long
Speaker 7: Beach detectives linked on Skis to the murder, and they
Speaker 7: arrested Davis at Salt Lake City and Morris and Compton,
Speaker 7: who still lived in the same place.
Speaker 6: And at the.
Speaker 7: Trial, John Davis's sixteen year old son took the stand
Speaker 7: as a witness against his father, and he said the
Speaker 7: knight of the murder who waited in his father's automobiles.
Speaker 7: Davis and Morse went in a liquor store and a
Speaker 7: few minutes came out of the store and he told
Speaker 7: his father drove Morris To's Compton home, and then they
Speaker 7: went to their trader in Guardania their trailer. He overheard
Speaker 7: his father tell a woman who lived there that Morse
Speaker 7: had killed the clerk. The next day they hooked up
Speaker 7: the trailer and moved to Redwood City, of all places,
Speaker 7: New San Francisco. So the jury found them guilty and
Speaker 7: sent them to die. Yes, and they appealed it. They
Speaker 7: gave him another trial, and in it his son said
Speaker 7: that the court the da made him say those things,
Speaker 7: And he said, you told me to answer the questions,
Speaker 7: tell the truth. You and the other officers told me
Speaker 7: not to ask for death penalty if you knew you were,
Speaker 7: I would have never testified.
Speaker 6: And had told the judge that he couldn't think straight.
Speaker 7: And he was asked directly if he was with his
Speaker 7: father Knight and murder, and then if you overheard David
Speaker 7: Study shot, is that David Study more shot Feaster and
Speaker 7: youth applied no to both questions, and the judge dismissed
Speaker 7: the case.
Speaker 6: Two guys are left free.
Speaker 5: Very interesting legacy of all the incredible lives that were
Speaker 5: changed and all the people that were killed, just at
Speaker 5: this little liquor store, like you say, openly and see when.
Speaker 7: I checked, I think that's one of the liquor stours
Speaker 7: that's still there, so and it's I think it's still
Speaker 7: a liquor store.
Speaker 6: And no couple of them in the book.
Speaker 5: Are you talk about an incredible occupation as well, even
Speaker 5: though he was a World War One that he was
Speaker 5: read for these criminals, and you say he didn't couldn't
Speaker 5: stand these criminals, and so again he almost gloated when
Speaker 5: he was able to kill a couple of these would
Speaker 5: be robbers at his liquor store. And then the fate
Speaker 5: that he injured himself where he was on his knees
Speaker 5: begging for his life. You're right that he's trying to
Speaker 5: go for his pistol. Likely, but he was not able
Speaker 5: to do that and was shot in the mouth and
Speaker 5: killed in that liquor store and left to die in
Speaker 5: a pool of blood.
Speaker 6: Yeah, he was.
Speaker 7: He was barely acting, you know, getting down his knees
Speaker 7: like go, don't do it, and he was ready to
Speaker 7: grab that gun and blast the guy.
Speaker 5: Yeah, very very interesting and interesting the behavior of the
Speaker 5: son that again was forced to testify against his father,
Speaker 5: the crowd and the district attorney assuring him that they
Speaker 5: wouldn't ask for the death penalty, and then in that
Speaker 5: first trial, certainly they did, and his father received the
Speaker 5: death penalty in the retrial as a result of the appeal.
Speaker 5: Then the sun turned the tables on the district attorney
Speaker 5: that had lie to him.
Speaker 6: Incredible.
Speaker 5: Let's use this, David as an opportunity to stop for
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Speaker 5: with one of the extraordinary stories, this one called Corpus
Speaker 5: Delecti and January twenty eighth, nineteen twenty six in Sacramento,
Speaker 5: and this features a person named George Waters and his
Speaker 5: wife Myrtle and they're getting ready for work. She works
Speaker 5: as a kitchen maid and he is a porter. What
Speaker 5: happens that morning, Well, this is.
Speaker 7: A pretty bad morning. They were kind of arguing. She
Speaker 7: was angry at him for something, and George was up
Speaker 7: porter for the Southern Pacific Railroad, you know, which was
Speaker 7: great job for especially an African American in nineteen twenty six.
Speaker 7: And he picked up a twenty two rifle and shot
Speaker 7: her in the bedroom from the twelve year old daughter, Genevieve.
Speaker 7: And they have like other four kids, three other kids,
Speaker 7: so we're two other kids.
Speaker 6: So you know. It happened all in.
Speaker 7: The morning, and was getting ready for school and work
Speaker 7: and stuff. Her mother like bled out on the bed
Speaker 7: and Waters. Her father ordered Genevieve to get a wash
Speaker 7: rag and a basin water, and he cleaned off the
Speaker 7: blood and carried the body to a spare room that
Speaker 7: he sat down and had breakfast with his children, Genevieve,
Speaker 7: eight year old George, and four year old Dadan. After breakfast,
Speaker 7: Waters grabbed a couple of sacks and some canvas from
Speaker 7: the backyard and went to the spare room, and Genevieve
Speaker 7: could hear him chopping and sawing his mother's her mother's
Speaker 7: body to Piethos. Waters told Genevieve that he would cut
Speaker 7: her throat if she told anyone or if she said
Speaker 7: anything when if the police questioned. Waters called up his
Speaker 7: wife's place of employment. It was a sanitarium and spoke
Speaker 7: to her supervisor, who was concerned that she and showed
Speaker 7: for work. He said she was sick and probably would
Speaker 7: not come back to work. He showed up at the
Speaker 7: sanitarium a couple of days later, collected her clothes and
Speaker 7: personal effects that she had at work. He also picked
Speaker 7: up her wages, and he said that they were all
Speaker 7: moving to San Diego. So the family left Sacramento on
Speaker 7: February second, nineteen twenty six, to live with Water's mother
Speaker 7: in San Diego, and by May, Genevieve told her nineteen
Speaker 7: year old sister, who had lived there, about the murder,
Speaker 7: and Dorothy called the police. San Diego police ended up
Speaker 7: calling Sacramento because water story didn't add up, and they
Speaker 7: sent the cops down there to pick them up and
Speaker 7: bring him to Sacramento. They found the rifle and several
Speaker 7: knives that traced the human blood on him, so Waters
Speaker 7: pleaded not guilty. He said that the wife left. The
Speaker 7: family moved to San Diego, and they were all confident that,
Speaker 7: you know, he was lying. They called like people that
Speaker 7: were neighbors and things that came by and thought things
Speaker 7: were fishy and stuff where she worked and things like that.
Speaker 7: Genevieve went up on the stand and told what she saw.
Speaker 7: She said that they were getting dressed and the other
Speaker 7: children are asleep. She said, Mama was dressed and she
Speaker 7: was just lacing his shoes when Papa sat up on
Speaker 7: the bed, reached for his rifle, inserted a shell, and
Speaker 7: shot her in the chest. Jenfy told that her father
Speaker 7: carried her mother's body to the front room for several hours.
Speaker 7: She heard him chopping and saw on around six in
Speaker 7: the evening from the kitchen windows, she saw him carrying
Speaker 7: two heavy sacks outside. So she was questioned by the
Speaker 7: fleet six different times, and his attorney took advantage of
Speaker 7: you know, inconsistencies and contradictions. And she was a ten
Speaker 7: year old kid up there, you know, talking about her
Speaker 7: others death in front of a bunch of people in court.
Speaker 6: You know, of course she was. She was just a kid.
Speaker 7: So he got sentence to death, and they went through
Speaker 7: other peels of system and stuff. And he had people
Speaker 7: say that they bumped into his wife on a street
Speaker 7: car in San Francisco or Los Angeles. They were all
Speaker 7: their claims were all dismissed. But his water sentence was
Speaker 7: commuted to life with no parole, and Governor Young he wrote,
Speaker 7: never in the history of California's death penalty and imposed
Speaker 7: for a human being without the production of a body
Speaker 7: of the victim, and that only twice before in this
Speaker 7: state has a verdict of guilty been rendered in such
Speaker 7: a case. And in both instances, the defendants were sentenced
Speaker 7: to life imprisonment.
Speaker 6: So he lucked out absolutely no body.
Speaker 5: Usually no conviction, but in this particular case there was
Speaker 5: a conviction.
Speaker 7: Yeah, And being that he worked on the railroad, and
Speaker 7: you know with all the viaducts and bridges and things,
Speaker 7: you know, it's it's an old Midwest mafia trick to
Speaker 7: drop bodies onto passing trains off bridges, like there's a
Speaker 7: train under off the bridge and you just dump them
Speaker 7: into like a you know, the gondola or something. Then
Speaker 7: it's Portland's problem, Santa Fe's problem. After that, you won't
Speaker 7: get noticed for thousands of miles.
Speaker 5: Incredible, let's talk about another extraordinary tale double murder on
Speaker 5: O Street, and this is involving November twenty second, nineteen
Speaker 5: twenty two, in Sacramento. Martin Sliskovic, a twenty year old
Speaker 5: Slovenian immigrant, you say, who was a bully who liked
Speaker 5: the flash his gun, and he ran the Young American
Speaker 5: Cafe and he roomed with his cousin, Marco Radman at
Speaker 5: a house on O Street. Tell us the living arrangements
Speaker 5: on the house on O Street and a little bit
Speaker 5: more about Martin Sliskovic and what happens November twenty second,
Speaker 5: nineteen twenty two.
Speaker 7: Well, Marco and his wife Jenny, she's twenty five. They
Speaker 7: had three kids, and another cousin, thirty year old John Seleskovitch,
Speaker 7: lived there too. So Martin, there's something wrong with that guy,
Speaker 7: you know, he didn't know about boundaries or something. He
Speaker 7: wanted to have sex with his cousin's wife, Jenny, and
Speaker 7: she wouldn't have nothing to do with him, and she
Speaker 7: went and kicked him out of the house. He didn't
Speaker 7: stop pursuing infections and so he got mad at the rejection.
Speaker 7: So about five pm on November twenty second, nineteen twenty two,
Speaker 7: Martin entered the house and walked into the dining room,
Speaker 7: where John Lokovich and Jenny sat at the table along
Speaker 7: with their nine year old daughter.
Speaker 6: Agnes.
Speaker 7: Marco was at work at the restaurant event, so approaching
Speaker 7: the cousins, he pulled out a small caliber semiautomnic pistol
Speaker 7: and fired two shots at Jenny and she sank to
Speaker 7: the floor, where John picked up stood up to grab
Speaker 7: the gun, but Martin.
Speaker 6: Shot his cousin three times.
Speaker 7: He turned to Jenny's prostate body and fired one more
Speaker 7: bullet into her. According to Agnes, he stood in the
Speaker 7: doorway of their home for ten minutes, but that was
Speaker 7: probably the exaggeration by a little girl. He was picked
Speaker 7: up by a cab driven by his friend. He only
Speaker 7: wrote a few blocks in the cab and he jumped
Speaker 7: out and he hid the Yolo County side of the
Speaker 7: Sacramento River. He crossed the Sacramento River. You're in a
Speaker 7: different county. You're in Yolo County in the city of
Speaker 7: West Sacramento, and then Davis is about ten miles from
Speaker 7: there too. So he was hiding in the jungle of
Speaker 7: the river near the Ice Street bridge until he could
Speaker 7: hop a freight train going to Oakland. So the police
Speaker 7: came and they were just idiots. They completely contaminated the
Speaker 7: crime scene. They allowed newspaper reporters into the house and
Speaker 7: while the police scratching their heads over the body of
Speaker 7: John Slukovich laying in the hallway, the reporters discovered the
Speaker 7: body of Jenny laying.
Speaker 6: In the kitchen.
Speaker 7: Like the cops didn't even going to the other room
Speaker 7: or to clear the house or anything. And an old
Speaker 7: nine year old kid, Agnes, was weeping over her mother's
Speaker 7: dead body. So the police where He said that Redmond
Speaker 7: Home was the place where you can get a drink
Speaker 7: of Jackass brandy and relaxes to your fellow Slavs. And
Speaker 7: you know that was not uncommon. You're in phoibition with
Speaker 7: all ethnic groups. Police put pressure on Sacramento Slavic community.
Speaker 7: They raided the boarding houses owned by Slavs and interrogated
Speaker 7: suspected acquaintances of the killer. They wasted valuable resources tracking
Speaker 7: down the cab driver, knew nothing about his friend was doing.
Speaker 7: So you know, they had a big double funeral at
Speaker 7: Saint Stephen's Catholic Church and they were buried next to
Speaker 7: each other. In the cemetery. So later on May eleventh,
Speaker 7: in nineteen twenty three, Slovich was discovered working in a
Speaker 7: restaurant San Diego, and he confessed to his crime the
Speaker 7: San Diego detectives.
Speaker 6: They came up.
Speaker 7: Sacramento cops came and picked them up and brought them back,
Speaker 7: and Soluovic said, it's better to be dead than put
Speaker 7: in prison for the rest of my life and made
Speaker 7: to eat mush and beans and break rock. So Slogovich
Speaker 7: got his wish when he was sentenced to the gallows
Speaker 7: and Fulsome prison, and his last words were goodbye boys,
Speaker 7: and took him fifteen minutes to die, so they hung
Speaker 7: him in Fulsome prison.
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Speaker 6: No necessary dail.
Speaker 3: I I lost in terms of conditions eighteen plus.
Speaker 7: You know that's the whole area over there from that
Speaker 7: last story and this one has all been torn down
Speaker 7: and redeveloped like for the last sixty years. You know,
Speaker 7: there are no old buildings in that whole neighborhood. And
Speaker 7: it's blocks maybe ten blocks on O Street, which is
Speaker 7: on side of the Capitol. But guys were staking out
Speaker 7: in the rain this bakery at the Sutter Bakery that
Speaker 7: was at seventeen twenty L Street, and these guys came
Speaker 7: in and woman who has partners with this guy. Her
Speaker 7: name is Minnehawkley, and Max Karl was the owner and
Speaker 7: the baker. She shouted out to him and again this
Speaker 7: is like in the evening too. He shouted out to her.
Speaker 7: You know, there was a robber and Krawl was like, well,
Speaker 7: I'll get my gun too, and they grappled and broke away,
Speaker 7: fire te shots ready to krawl. First bullet entered his
Speaker 7: back and passed cleaned through his body, and the second
Speaker 7: child in his heart. Killers ran off into the rainy night.
Speaker 7: Here again it's a bakery and it's open at night.
Speaker 7: You know, it's just it's amazing that people were out
Speaker 7: and the belt so late in the old days. So
Speaker 7: you know, people saw it, saw these guys loitering and stuff,
Speaker 7: and all they could see is that there were two
Speaker 7: guys in their late twenties. So the cop set up
Speaker 7: roadblocks and they went into all the pool halls and
Speaker 7: cafes and dance halls and shook down all the usual suspects.
Speaker 7: That's kind of how they did things in Sacramento back then.
Speaker 7: This guy named Charles McGuire popped into a Southern Pacific
Speaker 7: freight car and there's a sky named Meaner Barry. It
Speaker 7: was a medical student from New York City and he
Speaker 7: was bumming around the country being a hobo, like a
Speaker 7: lot of young people did during those times, like on
Speaker 7: their summer vacation, just to get experienced, have fun, maybe
Speaker 7: work a little bit. They started chatting and McGuire started
Speaker 7: dragging that he had pulled hold up in Sacramento and
Speaker 7: had shot up shot this guy when he put up
Speaker 7: a fight. So Barry got off a train in Collfax,
Speaker 7: which is about forty miles east of Sacramento, like right
Speaker 7: on the Donner Pass, towards Donner Pass. So Barry got
Speaker 7: off and told the trained dispatcher about McGuire, and they
Speaker 7: sent the message to the next stop and pulled him
Speaker 7: over and Gold Run, California, which is now it's like
Speaker 7: it's just a rest stop on the way and eighty.
Speaker 7: So you know, they brought him back to Sacramento and stuff,
Speaker 7: and the guy denied that he was involved, but after
Speaker 7: a couple hours of interrogation room they probably smacked him
Speaker 7: across the head with a phone book and a rubber
Speaker 7: hose and stuff, and he finally admitted that he fired
Speaker 7: the gun, but had no intentions on doing it. So
Speaker 7: he told about his partner, twenty three year old Zero Roski,
Speaker 7: and McGuire said that he met him ino Pool Hall
Speaker 7: only hours before the murder, and after a couple of drinks,
Speaker 7: they decided to go rab the bakery. They hung out
Speaker 7: in the rain scouting out the situation for ten minutes,
Speaker 7: and McGuire admitted pulling the trigger, killing the Austrian immigrant.
Speaker 7: And he said, instead of complying, he grabbed all of
Speaker 7: them and so he started calling me names and he
Speaker 7: fired twice. So McGuire still talking and he said about
Speaker 7: how you know where they went after the crime and
Speaker 7: the partner was supposed to meet him at eleven o'clock
Speaker 7: the next morning, and he just didn't show up, so
Speaker 7: he went and hopped a freight train. So yeah, McGuire
Speaker 7: talked about you know, he was on the train with
Speaker 7: him and he was scared that he was would get
Speaker 7: shot by the guy and stuff.
Speaker 6: So that Rotowski guy.
Speaker 7: A few days before the murder, he was caught riding
Speaker 7: in a stolen car, but he wasn't the driver, and
Speaker 7: no one in the car new was stolen, so they
Speaker 7: charged Rowski with vagrancy and he served a couple of
Speaker 7: days in jail and was told to leave. So he
Speaker 7: was captured March twenty first, nineteen thirty seven, in Leadville, Colorado,
Speaker 7: and he pled that guilty and changes plead guilty sentence
Speaker 7: to life in prison. McGuire was executed on December third,
Speaker 7: nineteen thirty seven, and he was the last prisoner executed
Speaker 7: in fulsome prison.
Speaker 5: I have one other story that I'd like you to tell,
Speaker 5: at least we can discuss, and it's the very first
Speaker 5: story in your collection, and it was Papa was awfully mad.
Speaker 5: This is August third, nineteen forty two in San Francisco,
Speaker 5: and rod and Gertrude haik and they're going to go
Speaker 5: out on August second, nineteen forty two with the brother
Speaker 5: in law, with their brother in law, Warren Ritchie. And
Speaker 5: in this particular case very much reminded me of the
Speaker 5: story about Genevieve witnessing the horror of her mother being
Speaker 5: killed and then dismembered in the side room. This young
Speaker 5: girl named Janice is only six years old and gets
Speaker 5: to witness some horror of her own that August third,
Speaker 5: nineteen forty two. Can you tell us a little bit
Speaker 5: about Rodney and Gertrude and what happens that night after
Speaker 5: they go out and he comes back early and she
Speaker 5: decides to stay out late.
Speaker 7: Yeah, it was during war time in San Francisco and
Speaker 7: things are just open twenty four hours a day, and
Speaker 7: you know, there was work to be had everywhere. Other
Speaker 7: shipyards were all booming, and Rad worked at a bulldozer
Speaker 7: operator on Treasure Island. Treasure Island is the island in
Speaker 7: the middle of the Bay Bridge and there was a
Speaker 7: major seaplane base there. All kinds of things now it's
Speaker 7: kind of there was a World's Fair there too. Now
Speaker 7: it's kind of like condos and stuff. So he was
Speaker 7: safe from military services. He's married and had a kid,
Speaker 7: had a job that had to do with you know,
Speaker 7: military out there. So at eleven o'clock in the evening,
Speaker 7: the left six year old Janis alone in the apartment
Speaker 7: in eighty one ninth Street, which is I think the
Speaker 7: dog Patch area of San Francisco, go pretty close to
Speaker 7: the stadium, the baseball stadium. They went out to paint
Speaker 7: the town red and only after an hour Radney came
Speaker 7: home and he was really drunk, and Gertrude stayed out,
Speaker 7: and he was angry that she stayed out. Later and
Speaker 7: Rodney laid down the couch with one eye open. About
Speaker 7: four in the morning, Gertrude came home with their brother
Speaker 7: in law, Warren, and he jumped up immediately and attacked her,
Speaker 7: and Warren took off. He just got out of there,
Speaker 7: got in his car and took off. He started beating
Speaker 7: his twenty seven year old wife senseless, tearing off her
Speaker 7: clothes and just beat her to a bleeding poulp it's
Speaker 7: all right, in front of his six year old daughter. Janice,
Speaker 7: and the walls of the apartment were splattered in blood,
Speaker 7: and just so was the clothes Rodney was wearing. The inspector,
Speaker 7: Cop Frank Arihorn San Francisco PD, accepted Roddy's confession, took
Speaker 7: him to jail, and they got a statement from Janice,
Speaker 7: who told the inspector Papa was awfully mad. When Mama
Speaker 7: came home, he hit her and I heard him say
Speaker 7: something about a knife. I ran into the kitchen and
Speaker 7: hid the big knives there so he wouldn't hurt Mama more.
Speaker 7: Danis had a plenty of love caused by her getting
Speaker 7: it away while he was beating his her mother and
Speaker 7: to death.
Speaker 6: They called so.
Speaker 7: Rodney's father Auto is this rich farmer from Chaucella and
Speaker 7: he owned land like all over California, including in Oakland.
Speaker 7: In nineteen thirty eight, Rodney got arrested by Mondesto police
Speaker 7: for selling some of his father's grain and keeping the proceeds,
Speaker 7: and he was angry that his father turned him in.
Speaker 7: He was basically if I thought he was getting a loan,
Speaker 7: none what you know? He was owed flirted out to
Speaker 7: the police, says his father is responsible for the murder
Speaker 7: of his uncle fourteen years earlier, legally his uncle taking
Speaker 7: carnal liberties with Otto's fourteen year old daughter and this
Speaker 7: guy named Fred Green and Otto were arrested and lodged
Speaker 7: the same place as Rodney. This is like three years
Speaker 7: four years before he murdered his wife. So supposed to
Speaker 7: be this guy named Karl Rasmussen who was a ranch hand,
Speaker 7: shot or beat Collins to death in front of a
Speaker 7: bunk house screen who was eighteen at the time, was
Speaker 7: working at the ranch and helped Auto and risk meson
Speaker 7: Barry Collins. So they kind of said it was an
Speaker 7: honor slaying, and they just the eight dropped the case.
Speaker 7: You know, the guy was a rich landowner and just
Speaker 7: kind of an honor murder and they couldn't find a body,
Speaker 7: and they couldn't find the Otto guy, and so they
Speaker 7: just dropped the charges. So, you know, he Rodney confessed
Speaker 7: to killing his wife and so they senced him to
Speaker 7: five years of life in San Quentin. He pleaded guilty
Speaker 7: to second degree murder. He was transferred to Chino, which
Speaker 7: is a was a medium security prison in nineteen forty four,
Speaker 7: and then he was granted special for role. In April
Speaker 7: eighth nineteen forty four, and he has listed in the
Speaker 7: US Army. Just like a couple months later, in nineteen
Speaker 7: fifty the census lists around me Hackey as a prisoner
Speaker 7: at the Madria County Jail, and he died in nineteen
Speaker 7: sixty three at age forty seven.
Speaker 5: It's very interesting sort of what's written between the lines
Speaker 5: that he was only sentenced to five years in San
Speaker 5: Quentin after pleading two second degree murder, but he was
Speaker 5: also when he was transferred to nineteen forty four. He
Speaker 5: was also given a special parole in nineteen forty four
Speaker 5: and enlisted in the US Army. From other stories, it
Speaker 5: sounds like that's you go to jail or you enlist
Speaker 5: in the army. But this five year sentence seems to
Speaker 5: be a somewhat of a nod in that where men
Speaker 5: were given sort of an understanding for a murder involving
Speaker 5: again jealousy and other men.
Speaker 7: Yeah, it wasn't seemed as big of a crime as
Speaker 7: if it would have been two guys in a parking
Speaker 7: lot of a bar or something. It's like, oh, it
Speaker 7: was just his wife, so but it didn't sound like
Speaker 7: he had a very good life afterwards, and the poor daughter.
Speaker 7: She was just bounced around between her mother's family and
Speaker 7: his father's family, and I think she ended up in
Speaker 7: foster care and she kind of fell off the map
Speaker 7: at about age sixteen. I couldn't find anything else about her.
Speaker 5: It's incredible when you realize that this Genevieve again vigorous
Speaker 5: cross examination is what they call it, and this other
Speaker 5: Janis is six years old, so even younger, and there
Speaker 5: was no way that the kind of trauma that has
Speaker 5: injured at at a court trial can be undone, I think,
Speaker 5: in any doable way.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 7: Yeah, And it's pretty hard to find any of these
Speaker 7: people afterwards. You don't, especially with women. They get married
Speaker 7: and change their names and things, and you know, it
Speaker 7: turns into a wild use chase trying to figure.
Speaker 6: Out who is who.
Speaker 7: Absolutely, you know, some people just don't want to be found. Yeah.
Speaker 5: It's interesting too, though, that two small children in all
Speaker 5: of these stories that you just you know, there was
Speaker 5: not a concerted effort to include two stories with children
Speaker 5: being witnesses to murder, but it is an unusual aspect
Speaker 5: of these incredible stories in this collection.
Speaker 6: Yeah, thank you.
Speaker 5: I want to thank you so much David for coming
Speaker 5: on and talking about deadly California murders, accidents, and robberies
Speaker 5: gone wrong. For those people that might want to take
Speaker 5: a look at your rather work, where would you advise
Speaker 5: them to go.
Speaker 7: Well, I have an author page on Amazon that'd be
Speaker 7: a good place to start. All my books are available
Speaker 7: on Amazon and in your local bookstore.
Speaker 6: I've seen them.
Speaker 5: Thank you very much, David Kolcheck for coming on and
Speaker 5: talking about murders, accidents, and robberies gone wrong.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for this interview. You have a
Speaker 1: great evening.
Speaker 6: Thanks for having me. Good night,