American Sherlock

by Kate Winkler Dawson

  “Found evidence of a struggle between man & woman,” he wrote in his field journal.

  He stared at his most compelling evidence, two latent handprints a few feet above the doorknob on the door of 1220. They appeared to belong to a man and a woman—the man’s print was pressed on top. He sprinkled fine powder against the dark door. The cracks in the wood filled with white dust, and Oscar’s hidden clues were suddenly exposed. He quickly jotted down complicated math, the potential number of people who had been in that room since the hotel opened almost two decades earlier: “720 per year, 12 years—8640 people may have used room since opening.”

  He rolled over a metal stand holding his large camera and snapped photos. There were clearly two hands, but the fingertips seemed longer than they should have been; the whirls, arches, and loops were all there, but they were elongated. They weren’t simply placed there but dragged, and now they were smudged. He wrote down to “practice developing latents.” He also noted that he should call his good friend August Vollmer for help. This case seemed too daunting to go it alone.

  Oscar urgently needed to see Virginia Rappe’s hands, so in less than two hours he and his assistant were hovering above the dead woman’s casket at the undertaker’s parlor, preparing for a morbid task. Oscar unpacked some paper along with a small metal roller and black ink. He gently picked up Rappe’s hands, one at a time. He pressed her palms onto a white sheet, an official fingerprint form from the San Francisco Police Department. He repeated the process with each of her fingers—now he had samples to compare with the latent prints on the door. He flipped over a notepad and jotted down the measurements of her fingers. He would collect Fatty Arbuckle’s prints in jail later.

  Oscar picked up a suitcase filled with Virginia Rappe’s clothing from the night of the party: a jade skirt and a jade sleeveless blouse over a white silk shirt, completed with a white Panama hat. Inside Oscar also found a pair of panties and two garters.

  When he returned to his lab in Berkeley, he used tweezers to carefully seal each clue in sanitized containers. His approach was quite a deviation from the haphazard methods used by most investigators at the time, who refused to use labels and often stored evidence together without regard for order and method.

  Oscar lived for order and method.

  Oscar and his assistant retired to Berkeley for the night. They returned to the hotel the next morning to search for more fingerprints, but when Oscar and Boyle arrived at the St. Francis that Sunday, someone else had already been there.

  “On entering room in morning, found that room 1219 had been entered after my departure and inspection made of fingerprints developed on hallway door,” he wrote. “Markers on floor kicked about, but no other damage.”

  Someone was watching Oscar Heinrich.

  * * *

  —

  The district attorney had an admittedly weak case against Fatty Arbuckle, an investigation that relied on testimony from problematic witnesses like Alice Blake, Maude Delmont, and Zey Prevon.

  “As everyone knows, I had had quite a number of drinks myself,” Prevon told the press. “But they didn’t blind my eyes to what was happening. Virginia Rappe’s condition woke me up. Like ‘Fatty,’ I am off the booze forever.”

  Oscar and his forensic investigation would have to serve as the linchpin to Brady’s case, and luckily for the district attorney, the criminalist’s profile was rising in the newspapers thanks to Father Heslin’s case.

  San Francisco’s police chief sent a large lock of Rappe’s hair to Oscar’s Berkeley laboratory for analysis. And now there were more disclosures. Federal agents claimed to discover an underground “booze” railroad—a network originating in Hollywood and ending in certain affluent San Francisco hotels, keeping them well supplied with the illegal alcohol that fueled wild parties such as the one at the hotel that night. The country’s attorney general, Harry Daugherty, and his team were investigating Volstead violations, and they had already received statements from the Hollywood men at Arbuckle’s party concerning the illegal liquor. The federal government threatened the guests with arrest and felony charges.

  “A regular system was in operation whereby certain wealthy men in the know could come from the southern ‘picture and millionaire’ colony [aka Los Angeles] to this city,” said Daugherty’s assistant, “and be assured of ample liquid substance.”

  In the 1920s, Hollywood had likely never been described so politely. When reporters asked Oscar if he had found evidence to prove Fatty’s guilt, he replied yes.

  “Following orders from Brady, Heinrich refused to divulge the nature of his findings,” read one report, “but intimated that he had found evidence of positive value in the room.”

  Oscar was confident in Arbuckle’s guilt, and Vollmer could take some of the credit. The police chief stood next to him, staring at the suite’s door. Vollmer pointed to one handprint in particular, and holding up a photo of Rappe’s hand, both men concluded that it belonged to her. Oscar trusted him implicitly.

  Oscar was even more explicit in his updates to his friend John Boynton Kaiser. The country was struggling with a crime wave, which included a disturbing increase in sexual assaults. Oscar claimed he knew the cause—and it wasn’t organized crime, whorehouses, or Prohibition.

  “I perceive a direct connection between the movies and these crimes,” Oscar complained to Kaiser. “There is no form of caress which is not displayed in the movies.”

  He bemoaned the vulgarity of young people and their degrading morals, particularly those of women. Oscar had joined the ensemble of Fundamentalists who cursed Hollywood.

  “The prevailing opinion among the college girls of the University of California today is that young men will not dance with them if they wear a corset,” Oscar grumbled. “The movie has become such a powerful factor in liberty and license.”

  Oscar Heinrich was disgusted with the film industry and distressed by young people who mirrored the vile behavior they saw in movie theaters. He complained to August Vollmer, his preferred consultant (aside from Kaiser). Vollmer agreed—he was disgusted with Hollywood’s fondness for portraying police officers as clowns.

  The criminalist was suspicious of Fatty Arbuckle—a dangerous stance for a scientist who had pledged to remain unbiased during a criminal investigation.

  * * *

  —

  Oscar Heinrich quickly peeked over his shoulder. Someone was watching him as he traveled around San Francisco on September 20. He had just met with the district attorney at the Hall of Justice for a discussion about courtroom strategy in Fatty Arbuckle’s trial, and now a man was tailing Oscar, lurking just a few blocks behind.

  “I think I lost him about two o’clock,” said Oscar in a letter to librarian John Boynton Kaiser. “He picked me up at the Hall of Justice and stayed with me as long as he dared, but he realized that he was caught and dropped out.”

  Oscar Heinrich had proven to be the state’s most important witness, the expert who would alter the course of Fatty Arbuckle’s life in a surprising way. Oscar’s investigation would make headlines quite soon.

  “Have made a number of important discoveries these hicks around here have overlooked,” he promised Kaiser.

  Oscar’s letters had frequently amused the reference librarian, especially when they contained gossip about cases or criticism of dim cops. The scientist and the librarian both considered themselves to be intellectual giants with little tolerance for dimwits.

  “I should think you might get a good deal of fun out of finding yourself shadowed,” Kaiser joked.

  The forensic scientist enjoyed briefing his closest friend on shocking cases—detailed facts followed by frank commentary. Oscar confided to Kaiser that while he was making progress, Arbuckle’s team had stymied him. Kaiser offered an idea. He told Oscar to have a chat with the people hiding in the background at the St. Francis—the housekeepers. Those quiet worker
s often kept the best information, Kaiser promised.

  “You suggest that I chat with some of the maids around here. Those maids are coo-coo,” Oscar told Kaiser. “There has been considerable Arbuckle money floating around so I don’t think they will talk any more than they have to.”

  He would regret not taking Kaiser’s good advice.

  Oscar Heinrich felt nearly crushed under the strain of two remarkable investigations. He was evaluating evidence in Fatty Arbuckle’s case, collecting fingerprint samples and placing hair follicles atop glass slides, while he was also preparing for William Hightower’s trial, which would begin in a few weeks. Oscar was featured daily in headlines from both cases.

  “The Arbuckle Trial,” read one headline. “What Heinrich Saw Through His Microscope! Sherlock Holmes in Real Life.”

  The criminalist had now processed all the evidence and made a declaration—Arbuckle deserved to be in prison. Oscar despised the actor and the Hollywood excesses that he had represented. The press made much of the alleged crime, describing in detail how Virginia Rappe likely died under the star’s large body. Oscar Heinrich was looking forward to trapping Fatty Arbuckle in court using forensic science.

  “By the way the new drink down here in bootlegging circles is the ‘Arbuckle Crush,’” Oscar crassly joked to Kaiser. “Fatty is guilty as hell of everything charged.”

  * * *

  —

  By mid-September, San Francisco’s district attorney Matthew Brady had already spent several weeks diligently building his case, gathering statements from three showgirls at Fatty Arbuckle’s party along with an affidavit from a nurse who had treated Virginia Rappe before she died. The woman who had kept a vigil by Rappe’s side, Maude Delmont, would be his key witness, which was tricky because Delmont’s affidavit was inconsistent. In fact, none of the witnesses seemed to totally corroborate one another, and yet their summary of the night’s tragedy was similar—Fatty Arbuckle had followed the starlet into his private suite, assaulted her, and then joked as she lay dying.

  “Arbuckle took hold of her and said, ‘I have been trying to get you for five years,’” read Maude Delmont’s affidavit.

  Those quotes, printed in newspapers across the country, had sharp consequences—even before a jury was selected, one of the most respected actors in America was blacklisted by Hollywood. Many movie theaters banned his films, including one of the actor’s biggest bookers. Theater mogul Harry Crandall owned eighteen elegant, upscale movie houses along the East Coast. Once enamored of the comedian, Crandall became repulsed by the vile details.

  “The evidence adduced since the young actress’ death constitutes one of the most repulsive crime stories ever printed,” said Crandall.

  Within weeks of Rappe’s death, one of America’s most beloved actors had vanished from movie screens.

  District Attorney Brady was excited to begin the trial, a spectacle that would surely stoke his own positive public image. The forty-five-year-old was part prosecutor, part politician—an intelligent attorney with career ambition. Just one week after the now-infamous party, Brady quickly orchestrated two concurrent court proceedings, a coroner’s inquest and a grand jury hearing. On September 12, the coroner’s jurors sat inside an office in the Hall of Justice, waiting to hear medical evidence that would explain how Virginia Rappe died—and if Fatty Arbuckle was a killer.

  A physician who had treated Rappe at the medical facility testified along with the two doctors who had performed the postmortem exam. They agreed that a ruptured bladder had caused her death, but there was no definitive evidence of violence. Two attending nurses described Rappe’s complaints about chronic health issues, including abdominal pain. They testified that Rappe recalled few things about that night—her memory was hazy.

  “She said that Arbuckle threw himself on her,” testified Jean Jameson. “At other times she would say that she did not remember what happened after she got into the room.”

  Jameson testified that Rappe remembered having only three drinks. And the nurses declared that the actress never accused Arbuckle of hurting her, at least not in front of them. One nurse did say that Rappe made a small, private confession.

  “The patient admitted to me that her relations with Arbuckle in the room had not been proper,” testified Vera Cumberland. “She did not say whether her actions were voluntary or involuntary.”

  Coroner’s inquests were frequently banal, clinical trials filled with medical jargon delivered by eggheads in white coats, so the panel suddenly became alert when the state’s most intriguing witness, showgirl Maude Delmont, walked nervously toward the witness chair. The thirty-eight-year-old, swathed in black, peered down and fidgeted in her seat. Her answers were quiet, tentative, and sometimes lively, like when she was asked about her impression of Arbuckle at the party.

  “I don’t like fat men,” Delmont replied.

  The showgirl described a tipsy night of liquor binges, dancing, and singing to tunes spinning on the Victrola record player and then detailed what she told the police.

  “I’m dying, I’m dying, he did it,” cried the victim, according to Delmont.

  The official in charge of the inquest, coroner Thomas Leland, was skeptical.

  “How do you know what happened if you had so many drinks of whiskey?” asked Leland.

  “My memory is always good,” replied Delmont.

  District attorney Matthew Brady was concerned about Delmont’s vulnerability as a witness because, he admitted, her memory didn’t seem to be clear. He worried that she wouldn’t sway a grand jury to indict Arbuckle for murder, and Brady earnestly believed that Rappe was murdered. He made a strategic decision to exclude Delmont from testifying before the grand jury, which was meeting later that day.

  That panel gathered in San Francisco’s Hall of Justice to decide if there was enough evidence to indict the actor for murder. Those jurors were asked to consider the entire scope of evidence against Arbuckle, not just medical opinions. The jury sat for hours listening to the testimony of doctors, Hollywood players, and showgirls. Arbuckle, as expected, refused to answer any questions. But there was a hitch in the prosecutor’s case, and the jury knew it. Matthew Brady’s toughest obstacle was not Fatty Arbuckle’s attorneys; it was a showgirl. And it wasn’t Maude Delmont.

  Zey Prevon slipped into the witness chair near the grand jury and vowed to tell the truth. She was asked about her police affidavit, the statement that confirmed Delmont’s story and then convinced the district attorney to pursue murder charges. Prevon told police that Rappe cried out, “He did it,” but now sitting before a grand jury, Prevon denied it all, and she declined to testify. She also refused to sign another formal police statement. The prosecutor was furious because his shaky case against Arbuckle was suddenly weakening even more.

  “We have sent Miss Zey Pryvon [Prevon] home under surveillance,” Brady told the press. “The girl changed her story completely before the grand jury.”

  Brady accused Fatty Arbuckle’s team of witness tampering.

  “I am convinced that undue influence and pressure of a sinister character had been brought to bear on her and other witnesses,” he told the press.

  The prosecutor spirited away Zey Prevon and Alice Blake into protective custody to guard their testimony. Prevon felt trapped inside a strange home, watched by police officers while Arbuckle’s defense attorneys accused Brady of intimidation, threatening both witnesses with jail time. And now an inflamed media, infected with yellow journalism, fixated on Zey Prevon.

  Newspaper journalists stalked her, snapping her photo in court and searching for tawdry details about her personal life. Reporters ridiculed her entertainment career, joking that her credentials were limited to disrobing for bathing suit newspaper ads. She feared the defense would belittle her on the stand, but the district attorney didn’t trust her, either.

  As Matthew Brady hurriedly gathered more ev
idence for the grand jury, he ordered Prevon and Blake to his office for a scolding. They must sign new statements, he told them, and they had to match Maude Delmont’s accusations. Brady refused to allow a trio of showgirls to derail his case.

  Prevon surrendered. She stepped back in the grand jury room and testified that yes, Rappe had directly accused Arbuckle of hurting her—Maude Delmont was right. Jurors listened, deliberated, and then handed Matthew Brady a partial victory by indicting the actor for involuntary manslaughter, a less serious charge than murder. Jurors concluded that Arbuckle hadn’t planned for Rappe to die, but he was responsible—Zey Prevon had convinced them.

  Brady returned to the coroner’s inquest the next day and notched another win. The two physicians from Rappe’s autopsy had concluded that she died from the inflammation of the peritoneum, a membrane in the inner abdominal wall—peritonitis caused by a rupture of the urinary bladder. They had also testified that “some force” caused her fatal ruptured bladder, like “finger pressure,” but there was no way to be certain. The coroner’s jury deliberated and, like the grand jury, concluded that the appropriate charge would be manslaughter.

  And those jurors added one note of judgment—a condemnation of anyone associated with crime; the panel feared that San Francisco would become the “rendezvous of the debauchee [deviant] and the gangster.” Now two separate juries had recommended Fatty Arbuckle be tried for manslaughter. He was now facing up to a decade in prison.

  While he was in jail, the actor fretted over his unraveling reputation along with his safety because he was receiving death threats. His movie career was seemingly over. “Fatty Arbuckle Is Done,” proclaimed the Santa Ana Register. Old friends turned against him, and he had to endure even more court hearings before his trial would begin in November.