Strangulation – Page 2

If At First You Don’t Succeed…

if you don't succeed headline

October 29, 1927 garrote
Cuba

Convicted murderer Baldomero Rodrigues was legally executed twice today in the Pinar del Rio prison. The means of execution was the garrote, a macabre relic from the Spanish colonization of Cuba. The prisoner was shackled hand and foot, and then placed in the device which would strangle him to death. At least that was the plan.

Following the initial garroting the supposed dead man was laid on a stretcher to be borne to his grave, when he suddenly sprang to life! With no thought of sparing the resurrected felon, prison officials overpowered the struggling man and forced him once again into the death machine. The strangulation band was adjusted more carefully this time, and Rodrigues remained on the machine for twenty-two minutes before he was officially pronounced dead.

Winnie, Minnie, and Baby Norman

Last week, we learned of a baby found dead in a Main Street flophouse, apparently strangled, with cotton stuffed in his nose and mouth. Police were looking for the woman who’d registered for the hotel room, a Mrs. W. Howard, who’d left the establishment the day before the infant’s body was discovered. Since then, things have gone from curious to curiouser.

Police found a bundle of little Norman Howard’s sleepers stashed in a downtown department store shortly after the body was found. Captain of Detectives Bean said, "The mother is probably wandering around in a deranged condition and I believe she will either attempt to take her life or will put in an appearance at some institution within a few hours."

While they continued to search for Howard, police investigations uncovered some information about the missing mother and her recent activities. Winnie Howard, 35, and her husband, Frank, had purchased a chicken farm in Norco, but separated soon afterwards; Winnie left the farm when she could no longer make the payments. Since then, she’d been staying with her baby in hotels around Riverside and Corona, finally going to her twin sister Minnie’s home in Reseda.

Minnie Fabbro said that Winnie had left a few days before the baby was killed, and that she’d experienced a psychic vision where she saw her sister’s body floating in the ocean the night before police came to question her.

After days of searching, Winnie Howard was finally found on the evening of August 26, not in the ocean, but at a Sierra Madre campground. She’d registered there under a false name, but had never claimed her campsite. Instead, Winnie had spent the four days since the death of her son wandering the hills without food or water. She was taken into custody, and placed under psychiatric watch. Upon hearing of Howard’s plight, a group of philanthropic club women took pity on her, and retained Attorney Milton Golden to defend her.

Today, homicide investigator Eddie King files an insanity complaint against Howard, and the District Attorney’s Office warned that if Howard was found sane, they would charge her with murder. Golden replied that, despite this, they would fight the insanity charge. He said, "Mrs. Howard is not insane. She accidentally rolled over on the child in her sleep and caused its death. If the District Attorney’s office wants to file a murder complaint, we are ready to go to trial."

As far as the Los Angeles Times shows, it never came to that. On September 6, Howard was declared sane and sent to a sanatorium for two weeks to complete her recovery. Afterwards, she was released into Minnie’s custody.

Dead Babies, Death and Dissolution

August 23, 1927
Los Angeles

The news of the day is not especially happy. Film director Josef Von Sternberg’s marriage to assistant director/actress Riza Royce has ended after a year following an disagreement over Miss Royce’s determination to have a nose job. Miss Royce had her nose straightened and collected cash and a car, while Mr. Von Sternberg kept their home at 6252 Drexel.

The first anniversary of the death of screen sheik Rudolph Valentino was occasion for a Catholic mass at the Church of the Blessed Sacrament attended by family and a few friends and fans, in stark contrast to the mob scenes that accompanied his burial. Following the service, the worshippers visited Valentino’s crypt in the Hollywood Mausoleum and strewed flowers around the aisles.

And down at a flophouse at 1104 South Main Street, after a day’s posting, the sign on a door warning the residents not to disturb the baby became an object of curiosity, and the door was opened. Inside, a tiny redheaded boy babe of perhaps 14 months, quite dead, with cotton stuffed in his mouth and nostrils, a bloody nightgown and signs of strangulation on the child’s neck. Police have taken fingerprints from the room and handwriting samples from the note and hotel register, and are searching for a Mrs. W. Howard of Los Angeles. The nameless infant now rests in the County Morgue.

Kiss of Death

June 15, 1927
Los Angeles

When the peddler peeked into the back window of John and Lydia Kiss’ home at the defunct address of 1843 Woolan Avenue he found, not a likely prospect, but a pair of gently swaying corpses, result of the couple’s successful suicide pact. Beneath their feet were upturned boxes, suggesting they had stood together and kicked off into eternity.

Lydia, 53, had terminal cancer, and she and John chose to go out together rather than await her inevitable death. Lydia left several notes in Hungarian saying that she and John were tired of life, and their relatives, including a son in L.A., a daughter in Long Beach, and two sons in Chicago, would likely be happy to have their money. $1500 in cash was found in the home.

All for Love

May 30, 1927

murdersuicide The troubled love affair between New York showgirl Evelyn Tatum and her estranged husband, artist Lawrence Mueller came to a violent end this morning at the Rosegrove Hotel at 532 S. Flower St. Reunited for "one last week of happiness" before separating, Mueller strangled his bride while "All for Love" played on the phonograph, then hung himself with the hotel bedspread. The events leading up to the tragedy were revealed through the stack of correspondence found alongside their bodies in the hotel room. rosegrovehotel

The couple met in Denver, quickly wed, and moved to El Centro where Mueller was employed as an artist for a sign company. Tatum found life in El Centro stifling, and left Mueller for Los Angeles after two months of married life. She was immediately cast as the lead in a Shelly Players Theater in Huntington Park, and was set to begin work ten days later. Upon hearing Tatum’s news, Mueller sent a wire addressed to "My Golden Girl" that read, "Received you wire and at first I rejoiced with you. It seemed that the solution to all our troubles was found and that at last we could be happy together."
evelynmueller
However, Mueller began to overanalyze the situation, and concluded that since he would work days, and she nights, it was only a matter of time before another man seduced her. "The first one that did, there would be another murder," he concluded, and wired that it would be best to "take myself out of the picture."

Tatum apparently agreed wholeheartedly, writing back: "It is best you forget the past two months and me. Go alone to Chicago. Have new friends and work. We both realize for the present we cannot have happiness together. We tried and I alone failed… Sorry." Upon receiving this missive, the passionate Mueller raced to Los Angeles where he and Tatum were briefly reunited. However, when it became clear that a reconciliation was not in the cards, Mueller killed her.

The hotel maid found Tatum sprawled across the bed in a filmy pink nightgown, and Mueller’s nude body hanging from the closet door lintel. Their parents later claimed the bodies.

The Street Crime of the Day

May 1, 1927
Los Angeles

In the Times today, a round-up of street crime incidents calculated to terrorize city residents, or at least discourage freelance musicians, good Samaritans and lingering outside a lady’s home in an open car–sheesh, buddy, get a room.

Clarinetist Antonio Cili thought he was being hired to play a gig when three gentlemen picked him up at Sixth and Broadway, drove to Fourth and Pecan, tossed him from the car, beat him silly and stole his instrument and $20.

Jennie Emerson of 2611 Vallejo Street was nearly run down in the street while crossing at Daly and Manitou in Lincoln Heights, and while recovering her wits confronted by the armed driver and his pal, who threatened to kill her before stealing her purse.

A bandit robbed J. Maganuma of $40 cash and a serving of chop suey at his restaurant at 4911 South Broadway. It was not reported if Mr. Maganuma spat in the food, but we certainly hope so.

A. Eisner was carjacked at First and New Hampshire, forced to drive to Sixth and Lucas and relieved of his $100 stick pin, $40 watch and $8 cash. Maybe it’s Eisner’s home address of 5579 Santa Monica Boulevard or the fancy stick pin that gives this brief tale the whiff of rough trade, or possibly we just have dirty minds.

Joseph Michael, while strolling by a doorway near First and Main was lassoed by a couple of rope-wielding miscreants who strangled Michael into unconsciousness and stole $35, this just two blocks from Central Police HQ.

Kindly Arthur Roper was driving along (now defunct) California Street near Figueroa when he spied a fashionably garbed young lady in apparent distress in the middle of the road. He stopped to lend aid and her friend hopped onto Roper’s running board with a revolver, which was clapped to Roper’s chest while the gal riffled his pockets of $53 cash.

And then there was Jacob L. Johannes of 228 South Rodeo Drive, who was sitting in a car with Miss Marie Boucher outside her home at 5806 Carlton Way when a fiend with a revolver relieved the lady of a $1000 fur coat, $75 watch and $50 bar pin. Johannes lost $6 cash. Buddy, you can’t afford a room… or Miss Boucher.

Now be careful out there!

A Last Letter

April 9, 1927
Los Angeles

Three years ago there occurred one of the most gruesome crimes in Los Angeles history—the slaying of May and Nina Martin, twelve and eight. They disappeared from their home at 2854 South Mansfield on the evening of August 23, 1924. On February 5, 1925, their battered and strangled bodies found were found by rancher Leo Saulque while he planted oats on the Anita Baldwin estate. “I have prayed to God that He might enable me to find my children,” said Mrs. Paul Buus, the girls’ mother. "My prayers have been answered—now I’ll pray that the brute who lured them away and then killed them will be caught—and God will answer my prayers.”

One Scott Stone, a night watchman in the Glen Airy district where Mrs. Buus and the girls lived, was meanwhile arrested on a charge of contributing to the delinquency of a minor. Circumstantial evidence linked him to the Martin slayings and on October 1, 1925 he was indicted for murder. It seemed that Mrs. Buus’ prayers had been answered.

But Mrs. Buus had trouble—as did others, including the DA—with the concept that Stone would go to the gallows after having been convicted without evidence beyond reasonable doubt. She wrote Governor Young, pleading for Stone, and asking the executive to relieve her of the misery that would follow the execution. And so Stone, on the very morning of his hanging, March 10, 1927, had his sentence commuted to life imprisonment. (Jack Hoxie stated that he was “mighty, mighty glad” for the decision to spare his stepson’s life.)

Today Mrs. Buus wrote a belated but nice letter to Stone, saying she was happy his sentence had been so commuted. Where her heart went from there we do not know.