Category: Victimless crimes

A Fine Metz He’s In

May 19, 1907
Los Angeles

John B. Metz seems like just another suicide–the 44-year-old Deputy County Assessor was a well-dressed, well-trusted official-about-town who would often brood about how he would never marry because some girl had once jilted him. So when his body was found by the landlady at 514 South Wall Street, hanging out of bed with foam on his lips, self-administered poison was thought to be the death-dealing culprit.

Or could the positioning of his corpse be signs of a struggle? And what of the various recent sums of money, now missing, not properly turned into the Assessor’s office? Yesterday, before his after-work bout of heavy drinking (including, perhaps, a carbolic of some sort) Metz failed to turn in $120 ($2,637 USD 2006) which remains missing to-day.

Metz was removed to Bresee Brothers Undertaking at 855 South Figueroa; they will perform an autopsy as to aid the inquest.

Those Sporting Ladies!


Los Angeles
May 15, 1907

Curious neighbors noticed recently that a large number of well-dressed women have been taking the streetcar to the end of the line at 54th Street and South Central Avenue while still others are arriving in automobiles. Upon investigation, Patrolmen Walsh and Murphy discovered that the women are gambling on horse races at a bookie joint set up next to the Ascot Park billiard parlor in a vacant lot surrounded by a high board fence.

Owners J.W. Carr and W.J. Murphy restricted the clientele to women, so police had a difficult time obtaining evidence, but finally officers raided the place and found 50 stylishly dressed women playing the ponies.

They Ain’t Buying It

May 7, 1907
Los Angeles

Jesse C. Cowd, of 187 South Broadway, told cops he was shot in the groin in the rear toilet-room of the Southern Hotel saloon at Market and Main…when an unidentified stranger dropped a revolver and it discharged on the floor. Cops don’t buy the story–the trail of blood leads from the cigar stand in front of the saloon where there had been a quarrel over a dice game. Despite there having been a large crowd at the time, there were, of course, no witnesses.

One Less Sailor in Pedro

May 6, 1907
San Pedro

The British bark Falls of Gary arrived in San Pedro tonight, 144 days from Antwerp, journeying around the Horn to bring a load of cement to Los Angeles. An uneventful journey, except that they arrived one man short. James Milligan, cook and steward, had been drinking heavily before the vessel set off. At one day out he was put to bed by shipmates and when sought again, had vanished. The disappearance is being considered a suicide.

Not a shocking story in and of itself–but one must wonder: cement? Had Los Angeles not evolved to the point of discovering the wonders of water mixed with gypsum? Granted, I love Hassids and Quentin Metsys and Belgian chocolate, but what makes Flemish cement so precious that it must be imported here on three-masted vessels flying the flag of Edward VII?

New Heroine, Old Story

May 1, 1907
Los Angeles

“I love him, judge, and I just can’t keep away from him,” said winsome Grace Evans as tears coursed down her cheek. But she promised Justice Austin never to go near him again.

She was a simple country girl, caught in the swirl of gay city life, when she was led into a career of sin by one Alfred Medina. He taught her innocent twenty year-old mouth the ways of wrapping around an opium pipe. She stole twenty-three dollars to feed her habit, was popped for grand larceny, and spent a week in jail before being hauled before Austin. It was the contention of Deputy District Attorney Pearson that she had been more sinned against that had sinned, urging that she should escape sentence if she returned to the country to begin life anew.

And so it came to be that she promised never to see Medina again. But a young girl in the throes of having her innocence destroyed can scarcely be believed, though in time perhaps she may be redeemed.

In other Court news, Jesus “Bar Wielder” Suega was convicted of disturbing the peace and sentenced to twenty-five days in the City Jail. Suega had run amok in the Llewellyn Iron Works earlier in the week, attacking the workmen with a heavy piece of iron and driving all employees en masse from the establishment.

Edward M. Robbins — Man of Mystery, Suicide of Curiosity

 
Los Angeles
April 30, 1907
 
Sixtysomething Edward M. Robbins was a Civil War vet and long-time resident of his little house at 2728 Council Street.  No one ever entered the threshold of his hermit home; he never spoke to his neighbors nor made sign of recognition when he passed them on the street.  He was a quiet and at all times inoffensive man, save for those occasional spells when he would go on a colossal drunk. Then he would be seen through the uncurtained windows strumming an old guitar for a time, until he broke into mad fits of rage, pacing and singing at the top of his voice.
 
Given his hermit-like ways, it was no wonder that Robbins’s ten-day disappearance went unnoticed.  But then passersby observed the multitude of flies on the windows…
 
Police broke in to find Robbins on a bed he’d covered in wrapping paper. Bowie knife, razor and pair of scissors were all nearby, all besmeared with blood, as Robbins had used them all on his wrists and ankles.  But what led to his self-destruction was a “queerly fashioned double barreled pistol of ancient make” that Robbins still gripped tight in his decomposing hand, one barrel having been discharged to form a gaping hole in his neck.
 
Perhaps Robbins suffered from the mania associated with the  “flashing back” of memory common to veterans of the War of Northern Agression.

If It Isn’t One Poison, It’s Another

April 29, 1907
Hollywood
 
Hollywood has been rife with excited talk over the recent death of area man T. C. Hoagland.  Hoagland, of Olive Street, raised the interest of locals when his formerly attending physicians, unsure of the cause of this life’s cessation, refused to sign a death certificate after Hoagland’s demise. Hoagland’s cadaver was handed over to a Dr. G. W. Campbell, who therefore performed an autopsy.  The rumors afloat among Hoagland’s Hollywood neighbors were lessened somewhat when it was revealed that there had been no foul play; rather, Hoagland had simply died of alcoholism.  This should have come as a surprise to no-one, given Hoagland’s reputation for heavy drinking, but the rumors remain unquelled.  An inquest has been ordered and the Coroner shall further investigate Hoagland’s death.

Woman Doctor here Near Death

April 24, 1907
Los Angeles
Doctor Mary Green had a thriving practice once, for which she rented an office at 624 Fifth Street; she lives in a comfortable suite of rooms in the Hotel Avalon, also on Fifth.  And yet the Good Doctor, who has practiced in Chicago, Cincinnati, and San Francisco before landing in Los Angeles, is said to be unable to show any certificate showing she is a graduated physician.  It is said as well that she is addicted to morphine.
Last night, according to the proprietor of the Avalon, a man (claiming to be her husband) visited; a short time later, Doctor Mary Green lay dying.  At Receiving Hospital she was indeed found to be a heavy user of the needle.  And, as letters from a Doctor Anderson pointed out (penned after a recent trip of Green”™s to Emergency General), she seemed likely to take her life.  While that life was saved at Receiving, it remains to be seen whether Doctor Mary Green will make it through much more life-time.

Dogs and Whisky: Saviors of Man

April 21, 1907
Newhall
 
Mr. Lorenzo La Frank was working on his ranch in Newhall when attacked and bitten by a rattlesnake, which leaped and fastened itself upon his back, twisting itself around his suspenders.  But La Frank’s brave and faithful dog leapt as well, tearing the snake from his master.  La Frank was admitted to County Hospital with a thinning of the blood, a condition peculiar and particular to a rattler’s bite.  Given as bethinned blood soaks through the walls of vessels, ending up in the lungs, La Frank is being administered copious whisky to combat the pneumonia he has subsequently contracted.    La Frank is expected to recover in full.