7 Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech. 8 So the Lord scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they left off to build the city. 9 Therefore is the name of it called Babel (confusion); because the Lord did there confound the language of all the earth: and from thence did the Lord scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth.
April 2, 1927
Los Angeles
On this Spring day in 1927, investigating officers were pavement-pounding in the Italian neighborhoods, attempting to scare up information about the April Fool’s Day discovery of one murdered Antonio (Tony) Ferraro. But there was no talking to be had, and the crime scene revealed nothing in the way of tell-tale fingerprints or any such evidence, and so Tony Ferraro remains another unsolved Los Angeles gangland slaying.
Tony Ferraro was 34, married, and an erstwhile bootlegger. He had given up the bootlegging game back in January when officers knocked out his elaborate still at 532 South Soto St. Thereafter he had gone into the olive oil business–the evening of March 31 he set out from his home at 2724 Cincinnati St. with six one-gallon cans of the unctuous stuff (only to return for his funeral a week later). On the morning of April 1 a passerby’s attention was attracted by the stream of blood pouring forth from the back seat of Ferraro’s Studebaker, parked at 659 Kohler St.
Robbery was not the motive, as Ferraro’s diamond ring, watch, money clip and olive oil were unmolested. Persons unknown entered Ferraro’s car, where he was beaten with a tire iron (his bruised hands indicating he put up a strong fight) and then shot in the head once with a .38 and twice with a .32. The body was then pulled from the front seat and lain across the olive oil in the back.
Ferraro was a Matranga relative and Los Angeles bootlegger who had had some problems with his business partners. In September of 1925, someone dynamited a vacant two-story building Ferraro owned at 2729 North Main; eight months later the home of his cousin, Victor Pepitone, 317 West 77th St., was dynamited; five months thereafter the home of Jim Mussacci, Ferraro’s business partner, 675 Lamar St., was destroyed in a dynamite explosion. The news from April 2 hints that Ferraro may have recently talked to authorities and implicated two former liquor trade associates, resulting in their arrest, but that clue went nowhere. Attempts to quiz the widow Constance resulted in her continued protestations that Tony had no enemies anywhere.
On April 5 the Times reported a rumor that Ferraro’s car had been seen the night of the 31st in Chinatown between when he set off from home at 6 p.m. and when the car was first spotted at 10 p.m. at Sixth and Kohler, but placing the killing in Chinatown didn’t make solving the murder any more possible or probable. That day Ferraro was released from the Coroner’s to his home once more; the cinematic mind must imagine properly florid gangland sendoff, with bouquets from those Wright Act violators Tony double-crossed.
And up in heaven, the special cloud reserved for unsolved LA homicide victims—Harry Katz there waiting with a martini—added one more.
March 30, 1927
Los Angeles
Afterwards, when they examined the attic, they found evidence that he’d hidden for days up there, nourishing his evil plans with a diet of orange juice and liquor, quietly scheming during banking hours, constructing his army of robot helpers after everyone went home.
Ah, yes, the robot helpers. These were artificial arms with toy guns in their “hands,” constructed with ropes and weights to smash through the ceiling of the Merchants’ National Trust and Savings Bank branch at 24th and Hoover just as the robber, clad in a hideous monkey mask, confronted his prey. Who would dare take on the robber while unseen, if strangely still, friends held the room at gunpoint?
And so it was that the robber, Luger in one hand and .22 in the other, held up Manager Philip Simon and five employees and relieved Simon of about $8400 in bills prepped for the day’s banking. He was hard to ID beneath the gruesome cheesecloth monkey mask covering the upper portion of his face, but his victims noted that he was a small man, with a distinctive jaw and thick foreign accent with which he called some of them by name, apparently having spied on the workers during his time above.
This was the second peculiar robbery to befall Merchants’ National in less than a week; on March 25, two cliche Old West cowboys armed with .45s ambled into the branch at Jefferson and San Pedro and courteously relieved the cash drawers of about $2000 after suggesting customers and staff find comfy spots on the floor.
As for our mad attic genius, he made a clean getaway, and his identity remained mysterious until November 2, 1929, when officers stopped a man named Pete Marzec (aka Pete Nanzec), 33, while he was walking near Seventeenth and Main. They asked if they could open his suitcase, and Marzec obliged, but around the time they pulled out his gun, rope ladder and mask collection, he made a dash for a nearby fence. He didn’t make it; a bullet through the gut sent him to Georgia Street Receiving Hospital in critical condition. Later, more burglary tools and guns were found in his room nearby at 1622 Santee Court.
Marzec recovered in time to be indicted on the 1927 job and an earlier bank robbery that netted $12,600. Despite the claims of a confederate that he was in Kansas City at the time of the crimes, Marzec was damned by the discovery of guns recognized by his victims, masks matching those worn in the robberies, and a notebook in which the dates and amounts taken from the banks was noted in Polish.
Marzec was a three time loser who as Michael Blevika had escaped from a New Mexico Prison in 1922, so his conviction came with a minimum sentence of 14 years in Folsom Prison. Superior Judge McComb, perhaps in recognition of the extra robbers unable to be tried for the crimes, doubled the sentence to 28.
Marzec appealed on the grounds that it was unfair to convict someone of both burglary and robbery for the same crime, but was denied, and shuffled off to prison, where we trust he built many imaginary friends to protect himself and keep off the lonelies in the long, dark nights.
March 29, 1927
Los Angeles
Busted in Exposition Park on a vagrancy charge after aggressively flirting with passing fillies, licensed chauffeur (read: cabby) Jerry McFarlane was dumped in the men’s tank at the Central Jail, where fellow inmates quickly noticed what booking officers had not: trash-talkin’ "Jerry" was actually Grace Kenny McFarlane, 22, blonde and biologically female.
She was promptly pulled from the cell and plopped in front of an L.A. Times photog, who snapped a pair of mirror image pix highlighting the two sides of fair McFarlane, and a reporter whose all-too-brief interview revealed the unique philosophy of the Jazz Age youth.
"It’s much more fun to be a man. Besides, I get along better, too, and the life is freer and easier." Except, of course, when it lands one in the pokey. "I wish I could get out and get back with the gang. I was going to take a frail out the night I was arrested. It’s lots of fun to take a girl to a dance or a show and not have them get wise." And even more fun, we’d wager, when they do.
For more on the secret homosexual shadow worlds of early 20th century Los Angeles, see Daniel Hurewitz’ Bohemian Los Angeles and the Making of Modern Politics or Faderman and Timmons’ Gay L.A.
March 25, 1927
Los Angeles
C. D. Fabrick had just stepped into the Jefferson and San Pedro office of the Merchants’ National Trust and Savings Bank to begin his canvass of the theft and burglary situation in that part of the city. Therefore he thought there was a gag afoot when a booted Olde West cowboy type approached him, twirling a gun. “I’m a robbery and theft insurance underwriter,” said Fabrick, “what are you trying to do, kid me?” But Fabrick was not the butt of a joke but on the business end of a .45.
Fabrick, bank employees and customers were invited in thick Texas drawl to find themselves “a nice cozy spot on the floor” after which another bandit scooped $2,000 ($23,390 USD 2007) from the tills. They then lumbered out to a dust-covered touring car where a third bandit sat with a Winchester rifle across his knees. As the two egressed, one of the bandits held the door for an incoming customer and with true Texas courtesy drawled “It’s all right, lady. It’s all right. Walk right in.”
While bank manager R. E. Blaisdell was not in attendance for the show, he had been present for an east side Merchants’ bank shootout earlier in the year that left one policeman and one bandit dead.
March 23, 1927
Los Angeles
Notorious con artist Mrs. Mary Williams, aka Rose Mary Langhorn, has expired aged 65 in General Hospital while awaiting trial on charges that, shortly after making her acquaintance aboard the steamship Mongolia between Havana and L.A. last spring, she relieved Mrs. Marguerite Nonemacher of Highland, California of the burden of $3000 cash money, in exchange for some oil stock royalties which were certain to yield $10,000 shortly, and $500,000 in the longer term. Mrs. Nonebacher bit, and later squealed when not a nickel or a whisper was forthcoming from her shipboard pal or the phantom wells.
The APB that went out for the flim flam artist described a plump, cheery gal of later years, who was "full of conversation and bounced about the boat calling everybody ‘honey’ and ‘dear.’"
"Sure I stole her money," said Mary whatever-her-real-name-is on her deathbed, but merely for "the fun of the thing." It all started when she was a rich young woman ruined after trusting other wealthy people, and so devoted her career to exacting revenge on other members of her former class. And who can begrudge her that?
The dying woman made a will naming a New York friend as her executor. But as California law forbids wills to be executed by non locals, she was instructed to think again. Not having many friends in California, and perhaps feeling indisposed to benefit Mrs. Nonemacher, Mary chose Chief Matron Vada Sullivan of the County Jail.
And that’s why Matron is leaving work today to take a ride up to Ukiah, where Mary’s strongbox was stored, to examine its contents and her bank accounts. Assuming all are well-stuffed, there will be numerous local souls benefiting from their proximity to the fading swindler, among them attorney M.W. Purcell ($1000), Father Vanderdoucht ($1000), three physicians ($1000 each) and nurse Florence McDaniel (a ranch).
above left: Matron in 1937, and it’s pronounced Dee-KEY, sheesh.
Recommended viewing, Preston Sturges’ The Lady Eve, our favorite filmic treatment of the shipboard swindler’s art and love:
Join us, gentle reader, this Sunday March 18, at the glamorous and seldom open Los Angeles Theater (1931) in the heart of downtown for the Saving LA preservation event. There will be speakers in the main hall and tables hosting representatives from local publishers and historical organizations, including 1947project. Stop by to see one of the most beautiful theaters in the city and to connect with others who care about preserving signs of the past. Linger to hear my visionary husband Richard Schave speak in the 3 o’clock hour about the vast possibilities for community building that can be accessed using free web tools.
Event details: Los Angeles Theater, 615 S. Broadway, 10am-4pm, free.
More info and a full schedule are at the Saving LA blog, https://savingla.blogspot.com/
Gentle reader,
We now have a flier for the 1907 Centennial on March 22, if you’d care to print one or more copies to post or share. Any help in spreading the word would be very much appreciated, and you can download the PDF here.
The proposals for the 1907 Centennial Celebration are in, and what wonderful performances they’ll be! We are so very pleased to host some of our favorite folks in a night dedicated to remembering the Los Angeles of one hundred years past.
When you join us at Bedlam on Thursday night, March 22, this is what you’ll being thrilling to, in order of appearance:
The invocation of Zuckerman the Potato King (Kim Cooper and Kelly Kuvo)
The strange tale of A. Victor Segno, Mentalist with Beautiful Hair (Larry Harnisch)
A description of life in 1907 L.A. (George Garrigues)
The song stylings of Miss Figueroa Daguerre
Witty period readings from George Ade’s "Fables In Slang" (Brooke Alberts)
J. Stuart Blackton’s comic short film "The Starving Artist, or: Realism in Art" (American Vitagraph Company, 1907, live accompaniment by Laura Steenberge, presented by Ross Lipman)
Fortunes told in Madame Pamita‘s Parlor of Wonders
And the lovely Miss Janet Klein accompanied by Tom Marion revealing the next secret year to be blogged at 1947project, in song and patter.
The fun starts at 9pm sharp, and we anticipate about one hour for the show, with a potluck party to follow. Please bring an old fashioned recipe to share, dress in period duds if you’ve got ’em, and join us as we bid a centennial adieu to this great and endlessly surprising year of 1907 and welcome in the next year which we’re certain will prove every bit as worthy of obsession. Will it be 1967? 1887? Shhhh… you just have to come to Bedlam to find out!
Where: Bedlam Arts, 1275 E. Sixth Street, downtown L.A. 90021
When: Thursday, March 22, show starts at 9pm sharp
Cost: Free, but it would be neat if you brought an old timey potluck dish to share (recipe links are here)
See you then!
Kim & the 1947project gang
And so after nearly a week of extraordinary events, last night’s cocktail party, screening, gallery tour and crime scene tour spelled the end of the Lost Weekend. We were very fortunate to have photographer Meeno Peluce and his assistant Adam on hand to document the glamorous celebrants and festivities at the Biltmore, Laemmle Grand, Regent Galleries and aboard the Crime Bus.
Many thanks to all who turned out to be a part of these happenings, to remember Elizabeth Short and reflect upon why her story continues to resonate so strongly and so widely.
Below you will find a smattering of images from Meeno’s January 16th gallery, with many more to be seen here. Bye-bye, Dahlia, until next year…
