The Mammoth Book of Unsolved Crimes

by Wilkes, Roger

  If Jessie became the heroine, her “Big Boy”, the “kiss-and-tell-cop”, became the villain—after all, you can’t have two heroes in a murder trial: that’s asking too much! Even the Hearst papers jibbed at printing all of McMahon’s testimony; this was so sizzling in character that strong men were seen to blush, and haughty matrons to (pretend to) swoon. A particularly daring publisher put the moving words into a little red booklet, and this sold in cartloads. Meanwhile, “Jessie, heady with adulation and resembling some buxom prima donna entering the opera-house amid the cheers of her admirers, cantered through the crowd from limousine to courthouse and back again.”

  The American male is a chivalrous if simple creature—and seeing Jessie as the heroine of this sordid piece, he commenced to write letters to the prisoner at the rate of five hundred a day. Here are two which were read in Court—both of them in verse, it will be seen.

  The first:

  Tear-drops on a velvet rose,

  Tear-drops—in your eyes,

  Make me wonder if there’ll be

  Tear-drops—in Paradise.

  Freedom-home.

  —Robert E. Lee.

  The second:

  May your life be long and happy,

  May your trouble be but few,

  May you find a home in Heaven,

  When your earthly life is through.

  A Mr J. E. Hazeltine was responsible for this much more mature effort.

  Mr Hazeltine, whilst pouring out his admiration for Jessie, poured out also a liberal dose of verbal prussic-acid for the man who had confessed that he went to bed with Jessie on innumerable occasions—especially when Bill the fireman was out looking after his fires. He wrote of McMahon in the following blistering words: “I would not give him a job cleaning out a pig-pen. I would have more respect for the pigs.”

  Mr Hazeltine was evidently a deep and profound thinker.

  This astoundingly egregious criminal farce wound its way slowly to a close. Every day the radiant happiness of Jessie could be seen depicted more clearly on her dimpled face. For by now there had entered another element: inspired by what they had read in the newspapers, and getting all hot under their vests at the photographs they had seen printed, agents for the burlesque theatre (where “art” is confined to shapely women provocatively taking off their clothes, piece by piece) arrived on the scene. They all carried contracts in their hands.

  Before the Defence had closed its case, there were men in the crowd who talked knowingly of screen tests. Newspapers were said to be prepared to bid fortunes for the rights of Jessie’s life story. The Bright Lights of Broadway seemed as inevitable as acquittal when she faced the jury and said simply, but with dignity: “Gentlemen, send me back to my children”.

  How could they—being men with hearts beating—do anything else? Yes, although the most was made of the evidence, Jessie was acquitted.

  She came back to the world, her head dizzy with prospective further triumphs: amongst other tangible proofs of her popularity, she had a contract for eleven hundred dollars, representing two appearances daily for four days in a New York theatre. Besides the contract, she had also been provided with a maid, a theatrical agent, two thousand four hundred dollars for the exclusive newspaper rights of her life-story, and two reporters who were to act as her Boswells.

  Jessie sped like a meteor—rather a weighty one, with too much flesh round her hips and sagging breasts—towards the Bright Lights of Broadway. In doing so, she disappointed at least one of her admirers—that same Mr Hazeltine, who has been mentioned earlier in this chronicle. Mr Hazeltine was a knight who would not have disgraced himself sitting at King Arthur’s table; he had believed that his heroine might struggle for vindication, but never for profit. To commercialize her great ordeal in the way she had done, was something that threatened to break Mr Hazeltine’s heart. As for Mr Robert E. Lee, it is said that he talked darkly of taking his life …

  America never does anything by halves; this truism was rarely better demonstrated than in the case of Jessie Costello. Contracts were thrust upon Jessie by the handful; they descended upon her like the autumn leaves. And, being so much sought after, Jessie became capricious; amidst the frantic hullaballo in which she now lived, amidst the never-ceasing, hard, unwinking Bright Lights of Broadway, she turned down scornfully a $20,000 contract for a ten-week burlesque appearance. Her ladylike excuse was that “she didn’t think that taking off her clothes in public was refined,” and so she hurried back to her main occupation—which nowadays was shopping. Feeling that she was a great person in her own right, she conducted it on a lavish scale. “A dozen pairs of shoes in one place, half a dozen hats in another, silk underwear by the bundle, hosiery, dresses by the score—everything,” was the description one of her reportorial Boswells wrote, swimmy-eyed, in his paper.

  Arrayed in all this finery, Jessie did not lead a retired life: on the contrary, she was frequently seen in the fashionable places. In these resorts of the élite she could be seen, “the cynosure of all eyes, as she sits down in a beautiful gown and ermine wrap, a smart, self-possessed, well-groomed widow”.

  When such famous Broadway columnists as Walter Winchell of the New York Daily Mirror and Ed Sullivan of the New York Daily News came up to be introduced, she was graciousness itself “as they offered sympathy for the trouble and torture she had been forced to endure.” The picture of Walter Winchell, that hard-boiled commentator on mankind’s frailties, offering sympathy for the troubles and tortures which Jessie had endured, should have been photographed—as, no doubt, it was.

  Meanwhile Hollywood itself had got busy. Those modern magi, who know what the public wants even before the public has given any indication of it, were gathering in the offing like so many potbellied vultures. Presently they descended in shoals, demanding the radiant widow’s appearance on the screen.

  So here she was, sitting pretty as the saying goes, being besieged by all kinds of entrepreneurs. It must have been a gorgeous sight for the observing gods.

  Even more gorgeous was the spectacle which almost immediately followed. There was a certain, but as yet inarticulate, portion of the American public, that saw not the trailing clouds of glory, but national disgrace in the acquitted widow’s wholesale grabbing of newspaper-space. They resented the fact that a woman who had been accused of murder, and who, according to the man who said he had been her lover, had displayed lascivious tendencies too shocking even to be printed in the newspapers, should be thrust upon the public’s consciousness in this manner. They were old-fashioned enough to think that, hidden away somewhere or other, was the merest hint of bad taste. Just a soupçon, perhaps, but still there.

  So they went to Mr Will Hays, who, as the world knows, is the judge of what shall and shall not be seen in American motion pictures.

  Mr Hays, who has been described as “that great Presbyterian moralist,” saw eye to eye with them. The result was swift, devastating and astonishing; told in plain language that this was one of the things that must not be done, the screen magnates lost all interest in the fascinating widow overnight, and the next morning Jessie was left high and dry. All washed up, in fact.

  Difficulties now descended upon Mrs Costello, even more quickly than her former successes. It was not to be wondered at, perhaps, that Jessie did not quite understand the difficulties that now lay in her path. She was still artistically obstreperous. She began her second day in the Metropolis, we are told, by

  actually rejecting an $18,000 contract in burlesque, before hurrying out to do some more shopping. She had been about to sign the document, which stipulated $1,600 a week payment for twelve weeks, when her duties were explained—these duties consisted of acting a little scene, “clean but affectionate” between herself and an actor impersonating the unspeakable McMahon. For an instant Jessie was her old trenchant, eloquent self as she ejected the agent. Then she rushed out and bought a refrigerator, furniture for her six-roomed country cottage, gifts and clothing for her children, and purchas
es for her friends.

  But the thunderclouds were rapidly gathering; the bad news was broken to Jessie by one of her Boswells that she was no longer saleable. Instantly she changed her front; from being the pursued, she was now the pursuer. No storybook detective could have been more assiduous in tracking down the murderer than she was in tracking down the agents who, warned by Mr Hays, were determined now to have nothing more to do with this bad risk. (As Mr Boyer put it: “It wasn’t fair; it was almost un-American.”)

  Despairing of the films, she thought twice about the burlesque theatres. Perhaps, after all, what she had been asked to do was not too bad; she went to the manager who had offered her the $ 18,000 contract referred to above. To her indignant surprise, she was now told that the offer no longer held good. The Bright Lights of Broadway were dimming with a vengeance.

  Jessie stood alone.

  There was nothing else for it but to return to her Boston home. She returned with no contracts, little money, and a magnificent wardrobe. She returned to find a city of angry critics—and no real friends.

  Reaction, you see, had set in; the public had switched their views within an hour. Whereas before there were none so cruel as to impugn her motives, now she found none so brave as to support her. The general comments were summed up in a pregnant phrase by a leader in the campaign for decency. He said: “Public morals forbid commercializing such a tragic event.”

  Determined to snatch what little might remain of her previous astonishing glory, Jessie descended the scale with a sickening thud. No longer able to show herself on stage or dance-hall, she took to the sawdust floor of a Boston public-house. This was owned by Jack Sharkey, the highly temperamental Lithuanian, who had once been heavy-weight champion of the world. In the month of September she entered Sharkey’s employ as a “hostess”.

  Then came the most amazing turn-about of this whole epic of hoopla. Jessie had been working among the sawdust, the spittoons, the drunks and the photographs of other great prize fighters for a fortnight, when she sent word to the local newspapers that she had something to tell them.

  The result was this: On 3 October the local Press carried a statement signed by her to this effect: “I am about to be associated with the noted Los Angeles Evangelist, Mrs Aimée Semple MacPherson.”

  To quote the fuller details about this staggering prospect, she explained that “she had gained Sister Aimée’s consent and would begin work for the Lord on 15 October, when Sister Aimée would open a revival in Boston.”

  In order to dress befittingly for the part, Jessie, we are told, “bought a becoming nun-like costume of black and went immediately into training”. Her trainer was the Rev. Mr William McLam, Boston’s Representative of Aimée’s nation-wide organization. After a long training session, the Rev. Mr McLam emerged into the open and reported progress.

  “I’m always glad,” he said to the reporters, “to cooperate with anyone seeking to enter the Harvest Field. The Master is calling for labourers. We hope Mrs Jessie will come into the great blessing of God’s love. I get down on my knees and pray with her.”

  Well, what could be fairer than that?

  Clemenceau, when he had been a newspaperman, would have found the opening night of the Revival (Jessie’s) a fitting subject for his pen. But even then the withering cynic could not have done justice, perhaps, to this mighty theme.

  In the absence of Clemenceau, let us be content with recording the heart-searing words of Mr Boyer:

  When the great night arrived, Sister Aimée’s heart must have dropped a beat when she saw her glowing protégée. No one knew better than this aged prima donna of the sawdust trail, that the allure which had called so many to God, was beginning to fade. Yet she had retained her coquettish technique. The years that had lined her face had given her such skill that she could sometimes still create the illusion of youth, providing that no younger person stood near.

  But now, in the glare of the Boston Arena’s lights, she stood before 8,000 people, and, beside the electric Jessie. It was a cruel contrast. The young widow radiated triumph. After many vicissitudes, she had gained an audience. There was something tense, positive, and compelling about her figure. In contrast, Aimée’s ageing muscles seemed to sag.

  But the old warrior did not go down without a fight.

  “I have in mind tonight,” Aimée said, “a woman who has been separated from her children, and is now finding her way back to God.”

  It was unfortunate, no doubt, that her voice sounded thin and reedy; or that her white nurse’s uniform, her straw-coloured hair and her pasty face blended with the yellow lights and made her difficult to see: on the other hand, it was even more unfortunate, from her point of view, that Jessie’s solid figure was in black.

  Aimée continued:

  “You must, you know, be broken at the feet of Jesus before you can do anything worth while. Mrs Costello told me, ‘Oh, sister, I have been broken at the feet of Jesus and think I can help the poor.’ She told me she’d like to do something for Jesus and that she ‘didn’t want to die empty-handed.’ “

  Called upon to do her stuff, Jessie began her Evangelist work by lifting up her voice and singing that old favourite, “The Old Rugged Cross”. She gave it all she had—which was plenty—and, it is recorded by the faithful Press present on the occasion, “the more orthodox ‘Amen!’ was drowned in secular cheers.”

  The sound must have been wine to Jessie—it recalled, no doubt, the resounding huzzas of the Salem courthouse—and she warmed to the 8,000 of the faithful.

  She spoke in a husky voice, tremulous with emotion.

  This is what she said:

  “I want to say tonight that I thank God I am saved and that He has brought me back again.”

  With that, according to the strict instructions she had received beforehand, she made about to retire. But the crowd would not have it. Again to quote the sprightly Mr Boyer,

  surely it was not the redeemed who rudely shouted the widow’s name as her rival fought onwards with the service. There was a miniature sailboat on the stage. The pale-faced Evangelist gestured towards it and one could see her mouth open and shut as she recited her parable. Now and again she tortured her face into a smile, and sometimes phrases sounded through the confusion—“sinking in the sea of sin, sinking to rise no more”—and then at last it was over. Sister Aimée had fought the good fight and it had not been pleasant. Sister Jessie received an ovation as she distributed paper-bound copies of the New Testament; when similar scenes happened on succeeding nights, it was unbearable. Mrs Aimée expelled Sister Jessie from her organization, declaring that she had not been sufficiently trained to preach or to make public appearances for the Lord.

  The hard-boiled reporters panted for revelations.

  “Are you jealous of her?” they asked pertinently.

  The reply was as good as could be expected in the difficult circumstances.

  “In the Lord’s work,” said Aimée Semple MacPherson, “one is not afraid of a pretty face.” Her own was twisted as she spoke; she might have been eating a sour plum.

  That was the end. Released from the Lord’s service, Jessie had no further cards to play; she bumped downhill as though she were descending to Avernus on a rickety toboggan. “Expelled” by Sister Aimée, it was just as though she was the victim of a curse.

  She fought back. She even wrote to President Roosevelt about it, but it was no good; her cup became filled to overflowing; bitterness seeped into her soul.

  One must have a certain sympathy with this extraordinary woman. She had been granted a vision of glamour and wealth, and this died hard. She had been told to expect illimitable riches— whereas, all she had actually gained was a sum equivalent to £700, plus clothing, furniture, presents and living expenses.

  No heroine of maudlin fiction suffered more or so intensely. She became the heroine of Victorian melodrama; she was ejected from her old home—exactly twelve months after her triumphant acquittal. It snowed that day …


  In May of the following year, she was forced to ask for relief. She was entitled to do this because her husband had been in the world war, and she was thereby enabled to claim protection under the State Soldiers’ Aid Fund. The authorities gave her the exact sum of sixty-five dollars a month, to keep her and her four children.

  The end?

  My friends, it is a sad one. According to the latest information to hand, our heroine is still alive. But, alas, oblivion has descended upon her in a blue-black cloud. On the afternoon that she received the first instalment of the Soldiers’ Aid Grant, she moved with her four children to a five-roomed apartment on the second floor of a two-family house on Ethel Avenue, Peabody. Her rent there was twenty-five dollars a month, and she paid it from her welfare allowance. Is it any wonder that one of her friends recently declared “that the children might do with a little more clothing, and that food is not too plentiful”?

  Jessie is now said to be thin, although there are no grey hairs on that once thickly thatched black head. Her skin, we are told, is still very white. She can look out of her kitchen window and see her old home just one street away. Perhaps sometimes she thinks of the fireman on his knees—and lying starkly still outside the bathroom.

  One might have thought that her spirit would have been broken. Not at all; the same courage that enabled her to face the applauding audiences at her trial now enables her to plan for the future. She has an eye, we are told, on another residence, which could be bought for just over one thousand pounds. She has not the money, but she is hoping that this will turn up.

  Perhaps a New Hampshire farmer who knocked at her door one night, his face flushed like a crimson moon, and who said apologetically that “he hated to bother her, but he wanted to marry her. His wife had died and he was pretty well off,” could have been prevailed upon to provide it—but Jessie said “No!” For, you see, there was a tag tied to the offer: the New Hampshire farmer naturally wanted a wife who would live with him down on his farm.