WEBVTT 1 00:00:47.119 --> 00:00:49.920 Los Angeles in the nineteen forties was a sprawling city 2 00:00:50.000 --> 00:00:52.880 of nearly two million people. It was founded as a 3 00:00:52.920 --> 00:00:56.520 Spanish pueblo in seventeen eighty one and had grown from 4 00:00:56.520 --> 00:01:00.719 a dusty frontier town into a booming metropolis. The discovery 5 00:01:00.719 --> 00:01:03.399 of oil, the arrival of the railroads, and the birth 6 00:01:03.439 --> 00:01:05.959 of the film industry had transformed it into one of 7 00:01:05.959 --> 00:01:11.000 America's most dynamic cities. By nineteen forty three, World War 8 00:01:11.040 --> 00:01:15.280 II had raciaped Los Angeles into a massive industrial complex. 9 00:01:16.200 --> 00:01:20.120 Aircraft plants worked around the clock. Shipyards along the harbor 10 00:01:20.239 --> 00:01:23.840 built vessels for the Pacific Fleet. Women took jobs that 11 00:01:23.879 --> 00:01:27.280 were once reserved for men, building plain ports and welding 12 00:01:27.319 --> 00:01:32.159 ship hulls while their husbands, brothers, and sons fought over seas. 13 00:01:32.200 --> 00:01:35.799 The population had exploded. Workers flooded in from across the 14 00:01:35.840 --> 00:01:40.400 country seeking jobs in the defense industry. Housing with scarce 15 00:01:40.920 --> 00:01:46.719 resources were rationed. Everything felt temporary, uncertain, Yet life went on. 16 00:01:47.280 --> 00:01:51.680 People still fell in love, got married, had babies. Families 17 00:01:51.719 --> 00:01:56.000 still gathered around kitchen tables. Mothers still rocked their babies 18 00:01:56.000 --> 00:01:59.760 to sleep in the quiet hours before dawn. In early 19 00:01:59.760 --> 00:02:02.120 maren which of nineteen forty three, The weather in Los 20 00:02:02.159 --> 00:02:06.159 Angeles was unusually mild, spring was arriving earlier that year. 21 00:02:07.000 --> 00:02:11.080 It was the kind of weather that made everything seem possible, hopeful. 22 00:02:11.120 --> 00:02:14.599 Even on the morning of March eighth, nineteen forty three, 23 00:02:15.000 --> 00:02:18.639 that hope was shattered. Los Angeles police received a phone 24 00:02:18.639 --> 00:02:21.240 call that would send officers rushing to an apartment in 25 00:02:21.240 --> 00:02:25.759 the city. It was a quiet residential address, the kind 26 00:02:25.759 --> 00:02:28.800 of place where young families were supposed to thrive, where 27 00:02:28.800 --> 00:02:31.120 the signs of a baby crying should have been nothing 28 00:02:31.159 --> 00:02:34.840 more than the normal rhythm of domestic life. But something 29 00:02:34.840 --> 00:02:38.639 had gone terribly wrong. What officers found inside that apartment 30 00:02:38.719 --> 00:02:42.159 exposed one of the most devastating and least understood medical 31 00:02:42.199 --> 00:02:46.479 crisis that could follow childbirth, a crisis that doctors in 32 00:02:46.520 --> 00:02:50.120 the nineteen forties had no framework to recognize, no language 33 00:02:50.199 --> 00:02:53.879 to describe, and no tools to treat. It was a 34 00:02:53.919 --> 00:02:56.599 discovery that raised questions about how a mother's mind could 35 00:02:56.639 --> 00:03:01.360 betray her in the most catastrophic way possible, Questions about 36 00:03:01.400 --> 00:03:04.159 what happened when the very biology meant to protect new 37 00:03:04.240 --> 00:03:09.439 life instead destroyed it. Questions that in nineteen forty three, 38 00:03:10.159 --> 00:03:28.199 nobody knew how to answer twenty six year old Joseph 39 00:03:28.240 --> 00:03:30.599 Chalfo came from the kind of family that built Los 40 00:03:30.639 --> 00:03:34.319 Angeles one generation at a time. His father, Ross had 41 00:03:34.319 --> 00:03:37.199 been born in Italy in eighteen ninety two and made 42 00:03:37.199 --> 00:03:40.439 the crossing like millions of others, carrying little more than 43 00:03:40.479 --> 00:03:45.439 determination and the belief that American meant possibility. He settled 44 00:03:45.439 --> 00:03:49.280 in Los Angeles, worked himself into the ground, raised his 45 00:03:49.360 --> 00:03:52.960 children in the Titan hit Italian community. Like so many 46 00:03:53.000 --> 00:03:55.879 young men. In nineteen forty three, Joseph worked the graveyard 47 00:03:55.919 --> 00:04:00.199 shift at a shipbuilding company, welding together the vessel that 48 00:04:00.240 --> 00:04:04.960 would carry the war effort across the Pacific. His wife, Rosary, 49 00:04:05.159 --> 00:04:08.800 was twenty two. She'd married young, like most women did 50 00:04:08.840 --> 00:04:13.879 back then. According to Joseph's sister, Mary Sodare, Rosary was 51 00:04:13.879 --> 00:04:16.720 a model wife. The couple lived in an apartment on 52 00:04:16.800 --> 00:04:20.279 a seventy ninth Street. On the twenty first of February 53 00:04:20.319 --> 00:04:23.319 nineteen forty three, Rosary gave birth to a baby boy. 54 00:04:24.079 --> 00:04:28.000 They named him Ross, after Joseph's father. Rosary stad in 55 00:04:28.040 --> 00:04:31.360 the hospital for about a week. It was standard practice 56 00:04:31.360 --> 00:04:34.600 back then, giving new mothers time to recover under medical 57 00:04:34.639 --> 00:04:39.120 supervision before returning to the demands of home. Joseph went 58 00:04:39.160 --> 00:04:42.319 straight back to work the graveyard shift, didn't care that 59 00:04:42.360 --> 00:04:45.720 he'd just become a father. And Rosary came home the 60 00:04:45.759 --> 00:04:49.800 E seventy ninth street with a baby's son, entering that strange, 61 00:04:49.800 --> 00:04:54.639 suspended reality that every mother knows, the sleepless hours, the 62 00:04:54.720 --> 00:04:59.319 endless fading, the beautiful yet terrifying responsibility of keeping something 63 00:04:59.399 --> 00:05:04.560 so small alive. She should have been fine, she wasn't. 64 00:05:16.240 --> 00:05:18.800 Joseph Shelfer pulled up to the apartment on E seventy 65 00:05:18.879 --> 00:05:22.639 ninth straight, just as dawn was breaking. It just worked 66 00:05:22.639 --> 00:05:26.600 another graveyard shift, eight hours of welding in the shipyard. 67 00:05:27.279 --> 00:05:31.800 The apartment was dark. That stopped him cold. Rosary and 68 00:05:31.839 --> 00:05:34.879 baby Raw should have been inside. There should have been 69 00:05:34.959 --> 00:05:38.639 light switched on the ordinary chaos of early morning with 70 00:05:38.720 --> 00:05:41.839 a newborn. He sat in the car for a moment, 71 00:05:41.959 --> 00:05:45.680 staring at the darkened windows. Then he got out, cross 72 00:05:45.720 --> 00:05:49.879 to the front door, fitted his cane to the lock. Inside, 73 00:05:49.920 --> 00:05:53.680 the darkness was complete. It took Joseph's eyes a moment 74 00:05:53.720 --> 00:05:58.360 to adjust. Rosary was sitting in the living room, perfectly still. 75 00:05:59.319 --> 00:06:02.639 Baby Raw was on her lap. He asked his wife 76 00:06:02.680 --> 00:06:05.600 why she was sitting in the dark. She turned her 77 00:06:05.639 --> 00:06:09.959 head towards him. Slowly. Her eyes found his face that 78 00:06:10.079 --> 00:06:13.519 didn't quite focus, like she was looking through him, at 79 00:06:13.560 --> 00:06:17.199 something only that she could say. She remained silent for 80 00:06:17.240 --> 00:06:20.399 a few moments. Then she said she thought there was 81 00:06:20.439 --> 00:06:24.560 something wrong with Ross. Joseph crossed the room and lifted 82 00:06:24.560 --> 00:06:28.199 his son from her arms. The baby was fine, he 83 00:06:28.279 --> 00:06:32.920 was just fussing. Joseph said, he was probably just hungry. 84 00:06:33.199 --> 00:06:35.560 He told Rosary to get a bottle and feed him. 85 00:06:36.360 --> 00:06:38.879 He then handed Ross back to her and headed towards 86 00:06:38.879 --> 00:06:42.680 the bedroom. He needed sleep. The shift had been long, 87 00:06:42.720 --> 00:06:44.639 and he had to be back at the shipyard in 88 00:06:44.759 --> 00:06:48.519 less than twelve hours. He didn't know that this would 89 00:06:48.519 --> 00:07:01.079 be the last normal moment of his life. The next morning, 90 00:07:01.240 --> 00:07:03.639 Joseph woke up to find Rosary perched on the edge 91 00:07:03.639 --> 00:07:07.160 of the bed. Something in her posture made him go still. 92 00:07:08.240 --> 00:07:10.560 She was looking at him, but her face was strange, 93 00:07:11.319 --> 00:07:15.639 an expression he'd never seen before, blank and distant and 94 00:07:15.759 --> 00:07:20.759 somehow already gone. She spoke quietly, almost calmly, and said, 95 00:07:21.279 --> 00:07:25.000 I've just killed the baby. Joseph bolted from the bed 96 00:07:25.120 --> 00:07:28.480 and ran towards the kitchen. His mind racing, thinking that 97 00:07:28.519 --> 00:07:32.959 his wife had dropped Ross there'd been an accident, but 98 00:07:33.000 --> 00:07:36.480 what he found was no accident. As before warning, the 99 00:07:36.560 --> 00:07:42.519 next section contains graphic descriptions of violence against a newborn baby. 100 00:07:42.720 --> 00:07:46.639 Joseph's eyes swept the kitchen, searching until they locked onto 101 00:07:46.639 --> 00:07:50.079 the breadboard. On the counter. There was a small pick 102 00:07:50.199 --> 00:07:55.040 blanket lying on top of it. Ross's legs were poking out. 103 00:07:55.720 --> 00:07:58.959 Joseph reached out with shaking hands and pulled the blanket back. 104 00:08:00.279 --> 00:08:03.519 He recoiled instantly. I saw him escaping him. That wasn't 105 00:08:03.560 --> 00:08:08.120 quite a scream. The baby's head had nearly been severed 106 00:08:09.120 --> 00:08:11.600 in the sink. Beside the bread board lay a butcher 107 00:08:11.639 --> 00:08:15.439 knife with a nine inch blade. Next to that lay 108 00:08:15.480 --> 00:08:19.399 a bottle that was almost empty. Joseph tried to speak. 109 00:08:20.000 --> 00:08:22.759 He tried to ask Rosary what had happened, but she 110 00:08:22.920 --> 00:08:26.759 just stood there in silence. His hands were shaking so 111 00:08:26.839 --> 00:08:30.000 badly he could barely dial the phone. He called his 112 00:08:30.079 --> 00:08:35.519 father first, Roschelfo lived nearby. Together. When his father arrived, 113 00:08:35.519 --> 00:08:39.159 they called the police. Officer A. M. Young was the 114 00:08:39.159 --> 00:08:42.919 first to respond to the scene. He found Joseph, Chlfo 115 00:08:43.000 --> 00:08:48.440 and hysterics gesturing wildly towards the bedroom. Rosary was sitting 116 00:08:48.440 --> 00:08:51.879 on the bed, completely still, with her hands folded in 117 00:08:51.960 --> 00:08:57.000 her lap. Young approached her carefully and asked, what's wrong, kid. 118 00:08:57.919 --> 00:09:00.000 She then looked up at him with those same distance 119 00:09:00.240 --> 00:09:13.039 eyes and said, I killed my baby. The officer would 120 00:09:13.080 --> 00:09:15.360 later say that it nearly knocked him off his feet 121 00:09:15.960 --> 00:09:18.440 the camway, that she said it like she was reporting 122 00:09:18.480 --> 00:09:21.279 the weather. He then went to the kitchen, where he 123 00:09:21.360 --> 00:09:25.960 found exactly what she'd described. Rosary Shelf was arrested on 124 00:09:26.000 --> 00:09:30.440 the spot. Officer Young tried talking to Joseph, tried to 125 00:09:30.440 --> 00:09:33.759 piece together what could have led to this, but the 126 00:09:33.799 --> 00:09:38.600 young husband could barely breathe through a sobbing. He finally said, 127 00:09:39.039 --> 00:09:41.639 I can't understand why she did such a horrible thing. 128 00:09:42.360 --> 00:09:45.480 She'd been happy all the time, she wanted the baby, 129 00:09:45.799 --> 00:09:50.159 and seemed happy after it came, happy after it came. 130 00:09:51.279 --> 00:09:55.200 Those words would echo through the investigation, through the trial, 131 00:09:55.480 --> 00:09:58.879 through every attempt to understand what happened in that dark 132 00:09:58.919 --> 00:10:03.320 apartment on each set ninth Street, because that's what everybody remembered. 133 00:10:03.960 --> 00:10:08.080 Rosary had been happy, a model wife, excited about motherhood, 134 00:10:08.919 --> 00:10:11.799 and then, just two weeks after giving birth, she'd done 135 00:10:11.799 --> 00:10:15.639 the unthinkable. The question that nobody could answer was simple 136 00:10:16.039 --> 00:10:30.879 and impossible. Why. At police headquarters, Rosary Shelfer sat in 137 00:10:30.879 --> 00:10:34.480 a wooden chair, staring at nothing. She was in shock. 138 00:10:35.440 --> 00:10:40.080 The detectives tried to be gentle. What had happened? Why? 139 00:10:40.279 --> 00:10:43.960 Rosary didn't want to talk, But eventually something broke through. 140 00:10:45.080 --> 00:10:49.159 She said quietly, I was making baby clothes and I 141 00:10:49.279 --> 00:10:54.440 wanted a girl. Tears then started, her voice stead flat, 142 00:10:54.600 --> 00:10:58.960 mechanical as she continued, I got a butcher's knife, laid 143 00:10:59.000 --> 00:11:01.799 the baby on the bread, I cut its head off. 144 00:11:03.080 --> 00:11:06.240 She paused, and then said, I went into the bedroom 145 00:11:06.360 --> 00:11:09.000 and woke up my husband and told him I killed 146 00:11:09.000 --> 00:11:14.519 the baby. After that, Rosary said nothing. She retreated back 147 00:11:14.559 --> 00:11:20.480 into silence. Captain Nelson orders a psychiatric evaluation before filing charges. 148 00:11:21.679 --> 00:11:25.480 Even in nineteen forty three, with their limited understanding, something 149 00:11:25.519 --> 00:11:29.200 about this case didn't fit the usual patterns. This wasn't 150 00:11:29.240 --> 00:11:32.799 a crime of passion, It wasn't rage or jealousy or greed. 151 00:11:33.480 --> 00:11:39.120 It was something else entirely. Detectives could see that. Meanwhile, 152 00:11:39.200 --> 00:11:42.840 Joseph was still talking to detectives, trying desperately to make 153 00:11:42.960 --> 00:11:47.639 sense of the impossible his story started to shift, or 154 00:11:47.679 --> 00:11:50.759 maybe he was finally saying clearly through his shock and grief. 155 00:11:51.720 --> 00:11:54.679 He had first said that Rosary seemed happy, but then 156 00:11:54.720 --> 00:11:58.320 his comments changed. He said that Rosary had actually been 157 00:11:58.360 --> 00:12:00.639 moody since they'd come home from the Hall Hospital with 158 00:12:00.759 --> 00:12:04.440 baby Ross. He said that she was withdrawn and she 159 00:12:04.480 --> 00:12:08.039 wouldn't eat her talk unless she was forced to. There 160 00:12:08.080 --> 00:12:11.279 was something else, something that had worried him, but that 161 00:12:11.320 --> 00:12:15.679 he'd dismissed his normal new mother anxiety. Rosary had become 162 00:12:15.720 --> 00:12:20.159 convinced that something was wrong with Ross, Joseph told them 163 00:12:20.759 --> 00:12:23.039 once she said she feared the baby was ill or 164 00:12:23.080 --> 00:12:27.360 abnormal because it didn't cry much. He said he tried 165 00:12:27.360 --> 00:12:30.120 to reassure her. He had even brought in a doctor 166 00:12:30.200 --> 00:12:34.039 to examine baby Ross, then a priest, hoping that religious 167 00:12:34.039 --> 00:12:37.840 authority might calm her fears where medical expertise had failed. 168 00:12:38.840 --> 00:12:42.600 They both assured Rosary that baby Ross was perfect, but 169 00:12:42.639 --> 00:12:46.759 the reassurance never took hold. The fear kept circling back. 170 00:12:47.879 --> 00:12:51.559 Joseph said she seemed perfectly happy right after the baby 171 00:12:51.639 --> 00:12:54.480 was born, but I remember she once said something about 172 00:12:54.519 --> 00:12:57.320 hoping it would be a girl. He was describing a 173 00:12:57.360 --> 00:13:01.039 mystery he couldn't name a transfer metion he had witnessed, 174 00:13:01.120 --> 00:13:05.360 but couldn't explain what he didn't know. What almost no 175 00:13:05.360 --> 00:13:08.200 one knew in nineteen forty three was that he just 176 00:13:08.279 --> 00:13:14.000 outlined the textbook progression of postpartum psychosis. The medical community 177 00:13:14.240 --> 00:13:17.279 in the nineteen forties had virtually no framework for understanding 178 00:13:17.320 --> 00:13:21.159 what could happen to a woman's mind after childbirth. Pure 179 00:13:21.200 --> 00:13:25.320 peril insanity has been documented since the eighteen hundreds, mentioned 180 00:13:25.360 --> 00:13:28.759 in dusty medical journals and case studies, but by the 181 00:13:28.840 --> 00:13:31.840 nineteen forties that knowledge had somehow been lost or dismissed. 182 00:13:32.759 --> 00:13:37.200 There was no clear distinction between postpartum depression, postpartum anxiety, 183 00:13:37.480 --> 00:13:42.519 and the catastrophically dangerous condition known as postpartum psychosis. New 184 00:13:42.559 --> 00:13:45.960 Mothers who struggled were labeled hysterical, weak willed, bad mothers. 185 00:13:46.879 --> 00:13:51.000 The shame kept them silent, The stigma kept them suffering alone. 186 00:13:51.960 --> 00:13:55.440 Most women experienced the baby blues, that wave of sadness 187 00:13:55.440 --> 00:13:59.320 and overwhelming the days after delivery, when hormones crash and 188 00:13:59.399 --> 00:14:03.080 exhaustion sets in. Up the eighty percent of new mothers 189 00:14:03.120 --> 00:14:08.720 feel it, but it passes. Postpartum depression is different. It 190 00:14:08.759 --> 00:14:12.120 affects ten to twenty percent of mothers and goes far deeper. 191 00:14:12.679 --> 00:14:18.200 Persistent hopelessness, worthlessness, despair. Women feel disconnected from their babies, 192 00:14:18.679 --> 00:14:22.960 unable to bond convince their feeling. The guilt is crushing, 193 00:14:23.600 --> 00:14:29.120 the intrusive thoughts are terrifying. Postpartum anxiety often comes alongside it, 194 00:14:29.840 --> 00:14:35.080 overwhelming worry and fear that won't quiet. Mothers become hypervigilant, 195 00:14:35.559 --> 00:14:39.440 obsessively checking if the baby is breathing, convinces something's wrong 196 00:14:39.519 --> 00:14:44.440 despite all evidence to the contrary, panic attacks, raising thoughts, 197 00:14:44.759 --> 00:14:49.960 heart palpitations. Rosaries repeated fears that Ross was ill or abnormal, 198 00:14:50.399 --> 00:14:53.399 despite a doctor and a priest both confirming he was perfect. 199 00:14:54.120 --> 00:14:59.679 That was textbook postpartum anxiety. But what Rosary likely experience 200 00:14:59.799 --> 00:15:04.399 was something far more dangerous. Postpartum psychosis effects only one 201 00:15:04.440 --> 00:15:08.320 to two in every one thousand berths, but when it strikes, 202 00:15:08.480 --> 00:15:13.000 it's a psychiatric emergency. It typically develops suddenly within the 203 00:15:13.080 --> 00:15:18.360 first two weeks after delivery, exactly Rosary's timeline. It's not 204 00:15:18.440 --> 00:15:23.080 depression or anxiety, it's a complete break from reality. Women 205 00:15:23.159 --> 00:15:29.639 experiencing postpartum psychosis have delusions, hallucinations, and severe confusion. Their 206 00:15:29.679 --> 00:15:34.480 moods fluctuate wildly lucid one moment, completely altered the next. 207 00:15:35.519 --> 00:15:39.480 Joseph had seen exactly that Rosary seemed perfectly happy right 208 00:15:39.519 --> 00:15:43.120 after the baby was born, then suddenly moody and unreachable. 209 00:15:44.320 --> 00:15:48.360 Women with postpartum psychosis can hear voices commanding them to 210 00:15:48.360 --> 00:15:52.879 harm themselves or their baby. They develop bizarre beliefs about 211 00:15:52.879 --> 00:15:57.039 their baby, that the baby is possessed defective needs to 212 00:15:57.080 --> 00:16:02.480 be saved through death. Their thinking being becomes disorganized and irrational. 213 00:16:03.559 --> 00:16:07.159 They might go days without sleep, which further deteriorates their 214 00:16:07.200 --> 00:16:13.039 already fractured mental state. The condition requires immediate psychiatric hospitalization. 215 00:16:14.240 --> 00:16:18.679 The risk of infanticide or maternal suicide is significant, and 216 00:16:18.720 --> 00:16:21.759 what makes it particularly insiious is how it can escalate 217 00:16:21.840 --> 00:16:25.360 in ours, not days, and how a woman in its 218 00:16:25.399 --> 00:16:29.120 grip mepp here normal at times, making it nearly impossible 219 00:16:29.159 --> 00:16:32.759 for family members to recognize the dangers until it's already 220 00:16:32.759 --> 00:16:36.639 too late. A husband sees his wife acting strangely and 221 00:16:36.759 --> 00:16:41.519 thinks new mother tiredness hormones. It'll pass. By the time 222 00:16:41.600 --> 00:16:45.080 he realizes it won't past, the tragedy has already occurred. 223 00:16:45.960 --> 00:16:48.279 In Rosary's case, the science had been there all along. 224 00:16:49.159 --> 00:16:53.120 The moodiness that Joseph couldn't explain, the irrational conviction that 225 00:16:53.240 --> 00:16:56.600 something was wrong with a healthy baby boy, the need 226 00:16:56.639 --> 00:17:01.000 for repeated reassurance from both medical and religious authorities, reassurance 227 00:17:01.000 --> 00:17:05.880 that never stuck, never penetrated, whatever dark certainty had taken 228 00:17:06.000 --> 00:17:09.359 root in her mind. And then the comments about hoping 229 00:17:09.400 --> 00:17:12.319 for a girl in a healthy state of mind. That 230 00:17:12.400 --> 00:17:15.519 might have been a fleeting thought, one of those harmless 231 00:17:15.519 --> 00:17:19.359 what ifs that every parent has. I wonder what my 232 00:17:19.440 --> 00:17:22.680 daughter would have been like. But in a mind fracturing 233 00:17:22.759 --> 00:17:26.880 under the weight of postpartum psychosis, it con fester and 234 00:17:26.960 --> 00:17:33.920 twist become something darker and more dangerous. Rosary Chaffo needed help, 235 00:17:34.480 --> 00:17:41.680 but in nineteen forty three, that help didn't yet exist. 236 00:17:52.039 --> 00:17:54.200 The coroner's jury took less than a day to reach 237 00:17:54.240 --> 00:17:59.160 the conclusion Rochalfo's death was a homicide. During the hearing, 238 00:17:59.240 --> 00:18:02.960 Joseph took this and broke down completely. He tried to 239 00:18:03.000 --> 00:18:06.279 describe that moment his wife perched on the edge of 240 00:18:06.279 --> 00:18:09.240 the bed, telling him calmly that she'd killed their son, 241 00:18:10.039 --> 00:18:14.279 but the words kept dissolving into sobs. His sister, Mary 242 00:18:14.400 --> 00:18:18.799 testified next. She told the Chord about Rosary's obsession with 243 00:18:18.839 --> 00:18:22.039 the idea that something was wrong with Ross, how she 244 00:18:22.079 --> 00:18:25.119 had fixated on the fact that he rarely cried, as 245 00:18:25.160 --> 00:18:29.680 if his quietness was proof of some invisible defect. Doctor 246 00:18:29.759 --> 00:18:32.960 Roy Hooper, who had delivered the baby, confirmed what everybody 247 00:18:32.960 --> 00:18:38.640 already knew. Ross had been perfectly normal, perfectly healthy. The 248 00:18:38.680 --> 00:18:42.400 autopsy showed that there was nothing wrong, But then doctor 249 00:18:42.440 --> 00:18:46.720 Hooper revealed something that cast Rosary's mental state into sharper relief. 250 00:18:47.880 --> 00:18:50.960 In the two weeks after Ross's birth, Rosary had shown 251 00:18:51.000 --> 00:18:54.759 up at his office repeatedly, sometimes multiple times a day. 252 00:18:55.599 --> 00:18:59.160 Each visit was the same. She said that something was 253 00:18:59.160 --> 00:19:03.160 wrong with her baby. I know that something's wrong, she said. 254 00:19:03.559 --> 00:19:07.559 No amount of medical reassurance could ever reach her. When 255 00:19:07.640 --> 00:19:10.279 Rosary was called at the stand, she appeared only briefly. 256 00:19:11.359 --> 00:19:15.240 She stared vacantly ahead, mumbled her name when asked, then 257 00:19:15.279 --> 00:19:18.279 covered her eyes with her hands, like a child hiding 258 00:19:18.319 --> 00:19:22.680 from something terrible. Nobody questioned her about what had happened. 259 00:19:23.759 --> 00:19:28.279 She wasn't there, not really. Judge Byron Walters charged her 260 00:19:28.279 --> 00:19:32.839 with murder and ordered her held without bail. After her appearance, 261 00:19:32.920 --> 00:19:36.720 doctor Paul de River provided an update on his psychiatric examination. 262 00:19:37.839 --> 00:19:41.319 He said he wasn't getting anywhere. Rosary sat in silence 263 00:19:41.400 --> 00:19:46.279 during their sessions, occasionally mumbling I don't know to question. 264 00:19:46.400 --> 00:19:49.519 She didn't seem to hear. She'd gone somewhere that no 265 00:19:49.559 --> 00:19:53.400 one could follow. The preliminary hearing came a month later. 266 00:19:54.119 --> 00:19:56.920 For the first time since her arrest, Rosary showed emotion. 267 00:19:58.079 --> 00:20:00.440 She cried as Joseph testified that she he hadn't she 268 00:20:00.440 --> 00:20:04.559 had a single tear since Ross was born, not during labor, 269 00:20:04.680 --> 00:20:07.279 not when she first held him, not in all the 270 00:20:07.359 --> 00:20:10.920 days that followed. It was as if something essential had 271 00:20:10.960 --> 00:20:14.920 been severed inside her and naw hearing Her husband described 272 00:20:14.960 --> 00:20:18.240 it an open court. Whatever dam had been holding everything 273 00:20:18.279 --> 00:20:25.799 together finally broke. Rosary was ordered to stand trial for murder. Meanwhile, 274 00:20:26.240 --> 00:20:30.200 Ross was laid to rest in Holy Cross Cemetery. His 275 00:20:30.279 --> 00:20:34.039 gravestone bore his name, with the word Junior carved above it. 276 00:20:35.000 --> 00:20:38.400 A small life briefly connecting one generation to the next, 277 00:20:39.039 --> 00:20:43.440 then gone. In April, Rosery returned to court to enter 278 00:20:43.480 --> 00:20:56.799 her play not guilty by reason of insanity. Rosary Shelf 279 00:20:56.960 --> 00:20:59.160 was escorted into the courtroom on the eighteenth of May 280 00:20:59.359 --> 00:21:04.559 nineteen four three. The trial was brief by design. Both 281 00:21:04.559 --> 00:21:07.279 the prosecution and defense had agreed to a bench trial, 282 00:21:07.920 --> 00:21:11.400 no jury, just Judge Charles Frick, serving as the sole 283 00:21:11.519 --> 00:21:16.000 arbiter of Rosary Chalfo's faith. He was sixty one years old, 284 00:21:16.079 --> 00:21:19.319 and he'd been sending people to their deaths for sixteen years. 285 00:21:20.200 --> 00:21:22.960 He presided over almost every major murder case in Los 286 00:21:22.960 --> 00:21:26.519 Angeles for two decades, earning a reputation as the judge 287 00:21:26.519 --> 00:21:30.640 who'd sent more convicts to California's guest chamber than anyone 288 00:21:30.640 --> 00:21:33.839 in the state's history. But it was his court demeanor 289 00:21:33.880 --> 00:21:38.440 that defined him. According to one prosecutor's son, Judge Frick 290 00:21:38.880 --> 00:21:42.680 would take his prosecutors aside over launch hours and educate 291 00:21:42.759 --> 00:21:47.720 them on how to introduce evidence. He continued, stating he 292 00:21:47.799 --> 00:21:51.240 prided himself in knowing criminal law better than anybody. He 293 00:21:51.279 --> 00:21:54.839 thought of himself as infallible, intended to look down at 294 00:21:54.880 --> 00:21:57.720 counsul and looked on at people that he didn't agree with. 295 00:21:58.400 --> 00:22:01.039 Just two months before Rosary shelf who appeared before him, 296 00:22:01.359 --> 00:22:04.079 Judge Frick had presided over one of the most controversial 297 00:22:04.119 --> 00:22:09.359 trials in Los Angeles history the Sleepy Lagoon case. After 298 00:22:09.359 --> 00:22:12.960 the murder of a young Mexican American man, Judge Frick 299 00:22:13.039 --> 00:22:18.000 sat all defendants together, isolating them from their lawyers. He 300 00:22:18.119 --> 00:22:20.880 denied their request to get haircuts or clean clothes before 301 00:22:20.920 --> 00:22:23.799 appearing in court. The trial became a symbol of racial 302 00:22:23.799 --> 00:22:28.400 injustice in wartime Los Angeles, occurring against the backdrop of 303 00:22:28.440 --> 00:22:32.640 the Zoots suit riots. Later, the Second District Court of 304 00:22:32.680 --> 00:22:37.039 Appeal reversed the convictions unanimously. They found that Judge Frick 305 00:22:37.119 --> 00:22:40.920 had conducted the trial in a biased manner, violated the 306 00:22:40.960 --> 00:22:45.200 defendant's constitutional rights, and that there was no evidence against 307 00:22:45.200 --> 00:22:49.240 any of them connecting them to the death. This was 308 00:22:49.279 --> 00:22:53.720 the man who would decide Rosary Shelfo's faith. However, when 309 00:22:53.759 --> 00:23:00.720 three psychiatrists testified that Rosary was insane, Judge Fick listened Parkin. 310 00:23:01.160 --> 00:23:04.880 Doctor Samuel Ingham, and doctor E. J. Van Meader had 311 00:23:04.880 --> 00:23:09.079 examined Rosary extensively. All three of them had reached the 312 00:23:09.079 --> 00:23:12.480 same conclusion she had been insane at the time of 313 00:23:12.519 --> 00:23:17.960 her son's death. Rosary sat through the testimony staring straight ahead, 314 00:23:18.480 --> 00:23:23.000 her face empty of expression. Whatever had animated her during 315 00:23:23.039 --> 00:23:27.400 the preliminary hearing was gone again. She'd retreated back into 316 00:23:27.440 --> 00:23:32.400 that unreachable place. Joseph sat in the gallery, looking shattered. 317 00:23:33.480 --> 00:23:37.079 Two months since that terrible morning, and the incomprehension was 318 00:23:37.119 --> 00:23:41.440 still written across his face. Judge Frick then announced his 319 00:23:41.559 --> 00:23:46.640 decision without fanfare. Guilty of second degree murder but insane 320 00:23:48.440 --> 00:23:53.160 Rosary Chauffeur would be confined to Camarillo State Mental Hospital indefinitely. 321 00:23:54.640 --> 00:23:56.720 Joe stood up as the bailiff's move to escort his 322 00:23:56.759 --> 00:23:59.880 wife from the courtroom. He was crying as he reached 323 00:24:00.680 --> 00:24:04.799 as he pulled her into an embrace. Joseph then kissed grocery, 324 00:24:05.519 --> 00:24:08.160 this woman who'd been his wife, who'd been a mother 325 00:24:08.240 --> 00:24:12.599 for two weeks, who'd done something unthinkable while her mind 326 00:24:12.759 --> 00:24:25.319 was breaking apart. When Camarillo State a Mental Hospital opened 327 00:24:25.359 --> 00:24:28.440 its doors in October of nineteen thirty six, it was 328 00:24:28.480 --> 00:24:32.559 the largest psychiatric facility in the world. The sprawling campus 329 00:24:32.599 --> 00:24:36.200 of Mediterranean style buildings sat on former Mexican land. Grant 330 00:24:36.279 --> 00:24:39.400 Territory designed a house up to seven thousand patients in 331 00:24:39.480 --> 00:24:43.319 over seven hundred staff. It looked like a college campus, 332 00:24:44.039 --> 00:24:48.440 manicured lawns, Spanish mission architecture, a bell car that would 333 00:24:48.519 --> 00:24:53.319 later become iconic. The facility was never completely fenced, giving 334 00:24:53.319 --> 00:24:58.200 it a deceptively open, benign appearance. But behind those picturesque 335 00:24:58.240 --> 00:25:01.680 facades Camarillo represented did both the promise and the horror 336 00:25:02.000 --> 00:25:08.160 of mid twentieth century psychiatry. The hospital's population exploded almost immediately, 337 00:25:08.759 --> 00:25:11.279 from just four hundred and ten patients in nineteen thirty 338 00:25:11.319 --> 00:25:15.240 six to one thousand and eighty two in nineteen thirty seven, 339 00:25:15.680 --> 00:25:18.559 and then two thousand, five hundred and one in nineteen 340 00:25:18.599 --> 00:25:22.440 forty one, four thousand, one hundred twenty three in nineteen 341 00:25:22.480 --> 00:25:26.640 forty five, and over seven thousand by nineteen fifty seven. 342 00:25:27.279 --> 00:25:29.920 By the nineteen fifties, crowding was so severe that patients 343 00:25:29.920 --> 00:25:32.960 were forced to sleep on mattresses and hallways and wait 344 00:25:33.039 --> 00:25:37.319 in line to use bathrooms or exercise areas. When Rosary 345 00:25:37.400 --> 00:25:39.680 arrived in nineteen forty three, the hospital was in the 346 00:25:39.720 --> 00:25:45.640 midst of what administrators considered revolutionary psychiatric treatment. Doctor Frostick, 347 00:25:45.920 --> 00:25:49.799 who had established one of California's first insulin therapy units 348 00:25:50.000 --> 00:25:54.160 the hospital, claimed that insulin could cure both schizophrenia and 349 00:25:54.240 --> 00:25:57.480 manic depression, as long as the conditions had not had 350 00:25:57.559 --> 00:26:01.559 enough time to get ahead start. The treatment was brutal 351 00:26:01.640 --> 00:26:05.359 by any measure. Patients were injected with massive doses of 352 00:26:05.359 --> 00:26:09.960 insulin to induce daily comas over several weeks, typically six 353 00:26:10.079 --> 00:26:13.640 days a week for a run two months. They remained 354 00:26:13.720 --> 00:26:18.920 comatose until doctors survived them with glucose solution. The insulin 355 00:26:19.000 --> 00:26:22.440 ward had white cabinets on rollers with emergency and big 356 00:26:22.480 --> 00:26:27.319 red letters filled with syringes of glucose, sedatives and adrenaline 357 00:26:27.319 --> 00:26:31.519 for when things went wrong. And things went wrong often 358 00:26:32.839 --> 00:26:38.599 some patients never woke from their comas. Many suffered fainting spells, sweating, restlessness, 359 00:26:38.920 --> 00:26:42.440 and rapid weight gain from wildly fluctuating blood sugar levels. 360 00:26:43.440 --> 00:26:47.599 Doctor Frostick also used metrisol, described as a powerful stimulant 361 00:26:47.599 --> 00:26:51.880 producing violent shock and convulsions, although he claimed that insulin 362 00:26:51.960 --> 00:26:55.960 was safer. But insulin's shock therapy wasn't the only treatment 363 00:26:56.000 --> 00:27:04.559 the Camarilloo offered. The hospital also performed lobotomy, electroshock treatments, hydrotherapy, isolation, 364 00:27:04.680 --> 00:27:10.599 and restraints, experimental therapies that would later be recognized as inhumane. 365 00:27:10.759 --> 00:27:13.839 They even injected non diabetic patients with insulin to cause 366 00:27:13.839 --> 00:27:17.599 shaking in the brain and injected syphilis patients with malaria 367 00:27:17.839 --> 00:27:21.880 in attempts to affect the cure. A nineteen forty Los 368 00:27:21.880 --> 00:27:25.839 Angeles Times report stated that of California's twenty one thousand, 369 00:27:25.880 --> 00:27:29.880 eight hundred and eighty four state mental hospital patients, fifty 370 00:27:29.880 --> 00:27:34.519 two percent were schizophrenics, ten percent were manic depressives, and 371 00:27:34.599 --> 00:27:40.119 the rest were alcoholics and syphilitics. Women like Rosary, who 372 00:27:40.160 --> 00:27:44.880 were suffering from postpartum psychosis weren't even a recognized category. 373 00:27:45.839 --> 00:27:49.000 They were simply lumped in with everyone else, subjected to 374 00:27:49.039 --> 00:27:54.200 whatever treatments the doctor's thought might work. In nineteen seventy six, 375 00:27:54.240 --> 00:27:58.039 the Ventura Condy District Attorney investigated more than one hundred 376 00:27:58.039 --> 00:28:02.200 deaths at Camarillo over a three year period, with charges 377 00:28:02.240 --> 00:28:07.880 of murder or manslaughter potentially being filed. The investigation focused 378 00:28:07.880 --> 00:28:13.079 on seventy nine deaths, including cases of drug overdoses, strangulation, 379 00:28:13.599 --> 00:28:19.079 and possible gross negligence by hospital staff. Electroshock therapy didn't 380 00:28:19.160 --> 00:28:22.839 end at Camarillo until the nineteen seventies, and the hospital 381 00:28:22.920 --> 00:28:31.119 finally closed amid grand jury investigations. This was where Rosary 382 00:28:31.160 --> 00:28:35.039 Shelfo would spend the next several years of her life. 383 00:28:35.160 --> 00:28:39.559 Records from this error are sparse and often sealed. However, 384 00:28:39.599 --> 00:28:43.279 evidence suggests that Rosary remained at Camarillo for several years. 385 00:28:44.480 --> 00:28:48.160 Whether she improved gradually or suddenly, whether she ever fully 386 00:28:48.240 --> 00:28:52.440 underso what she'd done, whether the hospital's treatment helped or 387 00:28:52.480 --> 00:28:55.440 simply allowed time to do its slow work of healing, 388 00:28:56.279 --> 00:28:59.880 these details are lost to history. What is known, how 389 00:29:00.519 --> 00:29:04.880 is that eventually Rosery was released, she returned to a 390 00:29:05.000 --> 00:29:08.960 world that had moved on without her. The war had ended, 391 00:29:09.440 --> 00:29:12.079 some of the men had come home. The city she'd 392 00:29:12.160 --> 00:29:16.920 left had transformed again, the temporary urgency of wartime giving 393 00:29:16.960 --> 00:29:20.200 way the suburban expansion and the long strange dream of 394 00:29:20.240 --> 00:29:26.160 the nineteen fifties. Joseph had divorced her, an act of survival, perhaps, 395 00:29:26.599 --> 00:29:28.920 or simply an acknowledgment that the marriage had died on 396 00:29:29.000 --> 00:29:32.839 March eighth, nineteen forty three, along with their two week 397 00:29:32.880 --> 00:29:37.599 old son. Rocery eventually remarried a man named James Elliot. 398 00:29:38.480 --> 00:29:41.759 She built a quiet life far from Los Angeles, far 399 00:29:41.799 --> 00:29:45.200 from seventy ninth Street, far from the bread board in 400 00:29:45.240 --> 00:29:48.599 the pink blanket and the kitchen where her mind had 401 00:29:48.599 --> 00:29:53.640