Not Just Evil: Murder, Hollywood, and California's First Insanity Plea

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Not Just Evil: Murder, Hollywood, and California's First Insanity Plea Page 17

by David Wilson


  I am writing this letter from a purely Christian standpoint. I do not hold anything against anybody. I wish you joy and happiness and wish Mr. Oliver [the LAPD police officer] the same. God loves us all. I have opened my heart to him. I repent and praise Jesus for my deliverance. I hope everybody will love and serve God so that all violence and injury will cease. I do not ask any favors for my own self. I ask you to pray for us condemned men here at San Quentin for the glory and in the name of our Lord. Please ask Mr. Oliver to do the same.

  I believe Mr. Thoms is living in the spirit of Christ and you can meet him in Heaven. Life is eternal through the Son of God.

  A contrite and humble sinner

  W. E. Hickman

  As the day of Mr. Hickman’s execution got closer, he was allowed to address the media one last time. He returned to a theme he had expressed earlier when he told reporters: “I want no young man to study my crimes. My life has been deplorable. I think the publicity given to crooks and crimes has a bad influence. It should be given to men and women of high purpose who deserve it.”

  Then he handed out his last written statement.

  Crime and other evils are signs of ignorance and death. All criminals and unrighteous men are struggling in the clutch of satanic error. By willful disobedience to God’s law they become ignorant of the laws of truth and life. All creation is based upon positive force. Such is the will of God. However, the devil is exerting his influence upon the minds of men in order to tear down the work of God. By the defeat of Satan crime and violence have come into the world. Men who will fully reject Jesus Christ and deny the grace of God have ultimate damnation and torment…

  The reason that I became such a horrible criminal was because I allowed a demon of hell to lead me on. I praise God for lifting me up out of the pit of darkness and corruption. I was most ignorant…

  I beg young people to keep a close watch over their morals. Cling to the Christian faith and practice. Then you will have a solid foundation upon which to build a good life…

  Jesus Christ is the only way, truth and life. Let all evildoers think on this. Do not let the devil deceive you any longer. May God bless the people of the United States.

  On October 19, 1928, at ten o’clock, the warden of San Quentin allowed the doors to the room holding the prison’s gallows to be opened for a viewing by the media. The high ceiling accommodated a large platform with thirteen steps from the floor of the gallows platform. The California Penal Code Section 1229 clearly states “the warden, a physician, the attorney general, twelve reputable citizens selected by the warden, five relatives or friends and one minister were to observe any execution.” The room was built to accommodate less than a hundred people. Over two hundred people were present to view the hanging. The notoriety surrounding the Hickman case had persuaded the warden to suspend the rules so all interested individuals could see for themselves the end of a notorious criminal’s life. The audience was a mixed group of public servants, press, and the curious who pulled whatever strings they could to see the hanging of the decade. Carroll Peeke was there as a reporter and wrote a description of Hickman’s death:

  When Hickman appeared at the east door of the gallows room, his lips were mumbling the responses to a prayer, which Reverend Frank A. Fleming was reciting. The moment he entered the room, the doomed man flung his head back, apparently to look up at the scaffold. His head remained held back until the black cap was slipped over it. With his arms strapped stiffly at his sides, the young man was rushed up the thirteen stairs to the gallows by two guards, each holding a hand under the armpit.

  The two guards, Charles Alston and Fred Hageboom, held the youth on the trap door while Robert Hageboom, the hangman, brother of the guard, adjusted the noose, the black cap and the straps about his legs. Father Fleming stood nearby reciting the Litany, but Hickman seemed to have lost all capacity for hearing or for any formal response. Head still strained backwards, the young man’s lips framed voiceless words against his hood, and those in the crowd of some 345 persons who stood nearest believed that the words were, “Oh, my God! Oh, my God!”

  Then standing there on the trap he collapsed as the guards withdrew their hands. His knees slipped, and his whole body tilted down to one side. The guards at the bottom of the gallows steadied him with their hands.

  But at this second, and it was only 22 seconds since Hickman had first appeared at the door and caught that one sight of the gallows, the hangman raised his hand. Three men hidden behind a low partition on the back of the gallows, sitting there in a little room awaiting the signal of the uplifted hand, slashed three cords with their knives.

  One of those cords released the trap and with a clang it fell. The condemned youth, because he had been about to fall to one side when the trap sprung, struck one foot against the side of the suddenly opened aperture as he fell, and the blow knocked off the slipper from that foot. The body dropped violently downward to a perpendicular position, but before it could start swinging a trusty rushed forward, placed his hand against the back, and held it steady.

  Dr. Ralph Blecher stepped forward into a small roped-off area at the foot of the gallows, mounted a little stepladder and ripped the white shirt of the suspended man open at the neck. Then he applied the stethoscope and listened carefully. Dr. L. L. Robinson held the pulse. Hickman’s hands during the first few minutes clutched convulsively.

  Detective Lucas of the Los Angeles Police Department, who obtained Hickman’s confession after the murder of Marion Parker, already had fainted before that convulsive movement of the young man’s fingers commenced. While the doctor listened through the stethoscope, the crowd wondered what went on behind the black cap, whether the fall had broken Hickman’s neck or whether he was strangling to death.

  • • •

  After the conviction and execution of William Edward Hickman, Asa Keyes was the talk of not only Los Angeles but of most of California. He was made speeches on the need for law and order, addressed service clubs, and was the guest of honor at political dinners organized to raise money for his upcoming campaign. Keyes wanted to keep the momentum from the Hickman trial going by achieving one more success in the courtroom before the elections.

  A month after the successful prosecution in the trial of the murder and kidnap of Marion Parker, District Attorney Asa Keyes returned to the case he had been working on before the kidnapping. C. C. Julian was a well-known oilman who traveled around Southern California promoting his oil company to the point of selling more stock certificates than the company was worth. C. C. Julian was a Canadian who had traveled to the United States to work in the Texas oil fields.

  In 1921 Julian had relocated in Southern California. Promoting his skills as an oil rigger he managed to convince a handful of investors to buy a vacant lot in Los Angeles. He set up five oil wells in the lot and they all produced oil. His investors made significant profits and Julian became a celebrity in the city’s newly expanding oil-production community. From that point on, Julian concentrated his efforts on finding new investors and selling stock in his company. His sales campaign included daily advertisements in local newspapers. Julian’s flamboyant style came to the attention of investors from Hollywood, including Louis B. Mayer, who encouraged the actors on contract to his studio to make similar investments. The media treated Julian like a movie star, closely following his personal life, including the coverage of a nightclub fistfight with comedian Charlie Chaplin.

  The sale of stocks in the C. C. Julian Oil Company was known as a Ponzi scheme. Julian would pay off the initial investors with money collected from new investors. He managed to keep the scam going for four years until it collapsed. Investors were skeptical of company explanations of the collapse and demanded a criminal investigation. Remarkably, a lawyer from Texas named S. C. Lewis and his partner Jack Bennett took over the oil company, fired C. C. Julian, and kept the scam going for another two years. When the company collapsed a second time it came under investigation by the Los Angeles district attorn
ey. Asa Keyes led the investigation until the murder of Marion Parker made headlines. At that point he dropped the fraud case and concentrated on the kidnapping trial.

  When Keyes was ready to reopen the C. C. Julian case he claimed most of the witnesses had disappeared and went to court to have the charges dropped. At that point forty thousand residents of Los Angeles had been swindled out of an estimated $150 million. It was a con of unprecedented proportions and the subject of national news.

  In January of 1928, Asa Keyes entered a Los Angeles courtroom and asked Judge Duran to drop all charges against S. C. Lewis and Jack Bennett. The judge was incredulous and accused the district attorney in court of incompetence.

  Reaction in the media was split. The Examiner was ambivalent. The Times attacked Asa Keyes with a vengeance. There were rumors Otis Chandler, the owner of the paper, had lost money in the scam. The bad publicity from the Times caused Asa Keyes to lose his bid for reelection.

  The first order of business for newly elected district attorney Buron Fitts was to open an investigation on Asa Keyes based on allegations of corruption in office. The Times reported Keyes had accepted a bribe of $30,000 from the evangelist Aimee McPherson to drop charges of perjury against her during the investigation of her alleged kidnapping. When Fitts failed to take action in the McPherson case, the Times printed excerpts from the diary of Milton Pike, the owner of a clothing store located across the street from the Los Angeles courthouse. The clothing store was a well-known location for paying bribes related to court cases.

  The testimony from Pike made it clear Asa Keyes had not only accepted bribes for dropping charges in the Julian investment case, but he also made specific requests for expensive gifts and the payment of a mortgage. District Attorney Fitts gave Jack Bennett one of the former owners of the Julian Oil Company immunity in exchange for his testimony against Keyes.

  On February 9, 1929, in their morning edition, the Times reported one-time District Attorney Keyes was found guilty of accepting a bribe by a jury of his peers and sentenced to fourteen years in San Quentin. The Times made the following statement in their editorial in March of 1930:

  For probably twenty of the twenty-five years during which Mr. Keyes was a public official, he deserved and deserves, far more praise than blame. As a deputy district attorney, under the direction of a superior, he was a good lawyer, an efficient, honest and able prosecutor, winning the friendship of those with whom he came in contact and the respect of the public. His elevation to command in the office where he had long been one of the chief supporting pillars was, it may now be seen, a tragic mistake. He acquired bad habits, neglected his work, fell in with evil companions, put his trust in subordinates who betrayed him, and at last his liquor-weakened moral fiber yielded under stress of temptation and he was lured to final destruction.

  Keyes was also investigated but not charged with failure to prosecute the main suspect in the killing of William Desmond Taylor, the movie director whose death helped trigger the Hays Commission. Time Magazine reported the downfall of Mr. Keyes in their March 24, 1930 issue. It said in part: “In the first years he was the district attorney of Los Angeles Asa Keyes sent 4030 men and women to California prisons for a variety of crimes. Last week he joined this criminal company himself, entering San Quentin Prison as a convicted bribe taker, a betrayer of public trust.”

  The magazine reported the following statement made by Asa Keyes as he entered the prison gates: “What is life? We have an hour of consciousness and then we are gone.” Just like every other common criminal, Mr. Keyes was ordered to bathe, have his hair clipped short, be photographed and fingerprinted, given a number, and then assigned a jail cell. He was known from that day forward as 48218. The only courtesy shown the former district attorney was his assignment to a single cell in the “Old Men’s Ward” by Warden James Holohan, as a safety consideration against possible retribution by prisoners sent to San Quentin by the once-district attorney.

  Asa Keyes served just three years of his sentence in prison, with another two years of parole following his early release. The Los Angeles Times newspaper, which had praised him constantly during the Hickman trial, criticized the judicial system for letting him out after serving so little of his sentence. Their article read in part: “For the crime of accepting a bribe by a public official in so responsible a position, and upon whom so much of the public welfare depended, nineteen months of imprisonment, even though it followed thirteen months in the County Jail, is obviously inadequate.”

  The newspaper article was the least of Asa Keyes’s problems. Unable to practice law as a convicted felon he tried his hand making a living selling cars, then working as a bail bondsman, and finally by whatever means possible. It was reported by family members that his last paying job was with the movie industry, where he used his skills as a lawyer to advise writers and directors on how to script courtroom scenes in films. While working as a consultant for the film industry he was given a small role in one of the movies made by Louis B. Mayer at MGM.

  Asa Keyes died of a stroke on October 18, 1934. Harry Carr, a reporter for the Los Angeles Times, wrote about his death: “I used to go to school with Asa Keyes. His was the greatest tragedy with which I ever came in personal contact. Asa was not a brilliant scholar; he had a careful, slow mind which worked things out. In later years he turned out to be one of the finest trial lawyers ever to adorn our district attorney’s office. There is something poisonous about politics; it poisoned him.”

  The next day the Oakland Tribune wrote:

  You see, when Keyes was Los Angeles district attorney he was very sympathetic to Hollywood’s problems. After he was released from the penitentiary, Hollywood sought to give him a helping hand. He began as an automobile salesman and the stars, headed by Lew Cody, bought his cars.

  Then came the cycle of trial pictures and the men behind the gun had an idea. Why not let a real lawyer, like Keyes, play the losing lawyer in the court scenes. His voice was a good microphone. He knew the legal phraseology. So Keyes made more than pin money, but his back was always to the camera. Only once did I see him turn. That was recently for a fleeting moment.

  • • •

  LAPD Chief James Davis, one of the members of Hickman’s original escort party from Oregon to Los Angeles, suffered a setback. His first tenure as chief of police lasted only three years because of his involvement in the scandal surrounding the Wineville Chicken Coop Murders, a criminal case adapted for the movies by Clint Eastwood in the film Changeling. Angelina Jolie played a mother whose son was kidnapped by a young man and, as in the Parker kidnapping case, the Los Angeles Police Department failed miserably in their attempt to find the criminal. When the LAPD began to fall under pressure to solve the case they knowingly substituted another boy for the kidnap victim. While Davis escaped prosecution for his involvement in the hoax, several of his police officers were expelled from the force for taking bribes. Four years later, in 1933, Davis was given a second chance as chief of the LAPD and served for five additional years. His second tenure ended when two members of the LAPD Vice Squad were accused of placing a bomb under the car of a former LAPD detective who had agreed to testify in front of a grand jury for an investigation into corruption in the Los Angeles Police Department.

  • • •

  Jerome Walsh went back to Kansas and continued to practice law. Little else is known about him. Richard Cantillon became one of the most respected lawyers in Southern California. He met Asa Keyes in court once again in his very next case, where Cantillon successfully defended one of the investors in the C. C. Julian Oil Scandal. After his retirement, he sat down and wrote about the Hickman trial. The result of his efforts produced a well-written account of what it was like to take on an unpopular client in a day before the general public understood human psychology. The book was titled, In Defense of the Fox. It was published just weeks before his death.

  Ray Nazarro, Cantillon’s law clerk, left the law practice after the Hickman trial and went to work f
or Columbia Pictures as a screenwriter, director, and producer.

  • • •

  Louis B. Mayer did not go gently into retirement from the empire he helped build. In 1944 he faced his last challenge to the industry he loved. The threat came from the acceptance of television by the general public. Like he had not anticipated the invention of sound in movies, Mr. Mayer did not anticipate the public spending their time and money being entertained at home. His failure meant the MGM board of directors forced him to retire.

  With few options left, Mr. Mayer tried his hand as an independent producer. He had a few successes but not enough to make a go of it. When he drove off the MGM lot for the last time he left behind an organization encompassing over 170 acres with thirty fully equipped sound stages. This was more than twice the number of any of his competitors. There were dozens of warehouses filled with millions of items, all saved and preserved so that they could be used in the making of future films and television programs. His replacement would inherit a group of men and women committed to maintaining props for both interior and exterior shots to meet the increasing demands of weekly television shows.

  History has recorded the true asset of MGM as the long list of notable actors and actresses Mr. Mayer discovered, nurtured, and promoted. George Cukor commented on the accomplishment: “Louis B. Mayer knew the coin he dealt was talent. He would husband it and be very patient with it and put up with an awful lot of nonsense if he really believed in it. Of course, he was tough, and he could be ruthless and very disagreeable but he and Thalberg built up this extraordinary concentration of talent, which was MGM, and when Mayer left, the whole studio began going to pot. I think people don’t see how a place like MGM had to be fed, sustained, and organized every day.”

  While in semi-retirement, Louis B. Mayer witnessed the end of his era when the Supreme Court in 1948 ruled on the case of the United States v. Paramount Pictures, Inc. This ruling forced all studios to sever any and all connections between themselves and their movie theater chains, reversing the business model Marcus Loew had created forty years earlier.

 

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