Читать книгу History of Fresno County, Vol. 2 - Paul E. Vandor - Страница 5

An historical review of the early times in Fresno County was published in a holiday number of the Expositor on New Year's day of 1879. It was up to that time the most comprehensive one printed and since the most quoted because of its authenticity, written as it was by one who treated of personal knowledge and recollections, inclined though he was to be biased because of that personal participation in the events of the times recorded. That review, a sketchy effort, of no literary merit, treats incidentally of the lawlessness of the times, and declares that "numerous other murders and homicides" than those enumerated "were committed in different parts of the county" up to the period of writing, nearly all of them, he said, still fresh in the minds of citizens. Writing thirty-nine years ago of the early deeds of violence and crime, he employed the following words as pertinent then as they were for years after:

"Deeds of blood and violence were committed at lower and upper King's River, at the San Joaquin River near Temperance Flat, at Firebaugh's, at Buchanan, on the road leading from Crane Valley to Millerton, at or near the Tollhouse, at McKeown's old store on the Fresno, at Texas Flats, at Fresno Flats, and in fact human life has been sacrificed in almost every neighborhood in the county where a whisky mill has been established. . . . But we will turn aside from the nauseating spectacle; a sufficient number of murders and deeds of violence has already been mentioned to demonstrate the lawlessness which has prevailed heretofore, and the laxity and almost criminal indifference with which the law was formerly administered by juries; it is not necessary here to go into further detail of the sickening atrocities which were committed and which appear today and for all time to come as black stains upon the record of the county.

"And if perhaps," said this writer in conclusion, "twenty-eight years hence someone should see fit to continue the 'Reminiscences of Fresno County' it is to be fervently hoped that the recital will contain less crime and deeds of blood and violence than is interwoven in the history of our county for the twenty-eight years last past."

Some of these recalled deeds of blood were of a time before organization of Fresno County out of Mariposa with the district seat of justice at Mariposa and the Fresno territory a remote corner of it. The early treatment of the Indian was characteristic of the cruel roughness of the times. The aborigine had apparently no rights that the white man seriously respected. He was given little consideration as a human being. Force, cruelty and taking advantage of his ignorance characterized the general dealings with him. This was all the more remarkable, when it is recalled how many of the first whites, in the absence of women of their own race, readily took up relations with the young squaws and profited materially thereby. The California Indian, although classed low in the scale of humanity, was at least racially docile and amenable to kindness and fair treatment. The squaws were invariably loyal to their white protectors. When by way of reprisal according to his view point, the Indian rebelled against the barbarity and cruelty of the white man, there was a hue and cry, an excited round up and the Indian fighting in self-defense when pursued was massacred and done for by superior armed force.

At this late day, it were vain to recall "the deeds of blood and violence" enumerated in the review of 1879. They have no bearing on the history of the times, save to emphasize the admitted lawless character of the period. Yet even in that respect, conditions were probably no more acute in the Fresno region than elsewhere in California in the pioneer days when there was little or no government, when human life was valued at so little and every one was a walking arsenal. Nor does one have to go back to the days of the pioneers to find warrant for the complaint of the almost criminal laxity with which justice was administered. Only once in the sixty-three years of county organization of Fresno has there been an execution of a murderer under the sentence of court. That was twenty-six years ago. And fearful murders were committed before and have been since. The wretch that was hanged in the courtyard of the old jail in rear of the courthouse was a dipsomaniac and a drug fiend. The others before and after him that cheated the hangman were given life sentences, or escaped altogether, though their crimes involved every legal element of fiendish deliberation, premeditation and preparation, with avarice as a motive for taking life.

Murder of Major Savage

As foul a deed as recorded in the criminal annals of the county was the murder in August, 1852, at the King's River Indian reservation by Walter H. Harvey, county judge of Tulare, of Maj. James D. Savage, one of the most heroic and picturesque characters in Fresno County's history. The effort to bring Harvey to justice, with the murderer appointing the special justice of the peace to hold the preliminary examination, was a travesty. After Savage's death, many aspired to be his successor in gaining the prominence among and control over the Indians but no one filled his place — they felt like orphans and realized that their best friend was gone.

Murieta's Career Ended

Next to be recorded is the bloody, meteoric and historic career of the bandit, Joaquin Murieta, which ended with his death in July, 1853. The retreat of this cutthroat was in the Cantua hills of the Coast Range in this county. At Millerton was made the first exhibition of the trophy of his decapitated head as proof of the successful termination of the man hunt for him, the killing of his principal lieutenants and the scattering of the bandit gang to the four winds, with peace returned to a sorely tried and raided state.

Murders Common In 50's

Murders of whites by whites and of prospectors by Indians were common in the 50's. If the murderers did not escape, the grand jury ignored the charge, or if it found true bill the trial jury at Mariposa or Millerton acquitted. There was poetic justice in many of these cases. Very often these gun men died violent deaths with their boots on. Often also in these murders evidences were left to make it appear that the crimes were the work of Indians.

Mining Camp Burglaries

In 1858 there was an epidemic of burglaries of Chinese stores and mining camps and notorious among the thieves were Jack Cowan and one Hart, the first named a half breed Cherokee. They lay in concealment by day in cool retreat and at night sallied forth robbing inoffensive Chinese at point of pistol and hesitating not at sacrifice of life if their demands were not complied with or resisted. The pair was encountered one day in August by cattle rangers in the hills between the Fresno and the Chowchilla and a battle ensued. Hart was wounded, crippled for life and upon recovery from wounds was sent to the penitentiary. Cowan was shot through the skull and the perforated skull was in the possession of Dr. Leach as a paper weight on his desk as a memento for years.

Last Indian Uprising

The last serious Indian uprising was in the summer of 1856 among the Four Creek Indians of Tulare. The soldiers from Fort Miller under Captain Livingstone were dispatched to the scene of hostilities, also a company from Millerton and vicinity under Capt. Ira Stroud and another from Coarse Gold Gulch and Fresno River under Capt. John L. Hunt. The Fresno contingent achieved the name of "The San Joaquin Thieves." The campaign over. Fort Miller was evacuated September 10, 1856.

Acts of Disloyalty

It was reoccupied in August, 1863, by United States troops and a volunteer company under Col. Warren Olney was dispatched also. Acts of disloyalty were numerous. The offenders were rounded up at the fort and made to walk a beat carrying a bag of sand as a punishment. Peter van Valer was the provost marshal, and other disloyals were transported to cool their ardor in the military prison of the bleak and ocean wind swept Alcatraz Island in San Francisco Bay.

Looting of Chinese

In 1863 the looting of Chinese stores and camps was resumed with at least eight known desperadoes in the gang. The China store at Andrew Johnson's place at Coarse Gold Gulch was robbed three times and patience had ceased to be a virtue. A company of about a dozen men organized and one dark night in the dead winter of 1864 it invaded the camp of the desperadoes. Whether warned or not of the coming, only one of the gang — Al Dixon — was caught that night and found a corpse hanging from a tree next morning between Coarse Gold Gulch and the Fresno. The life of the brother" John, was interceded for and six of the gang left the county and were not again heard from. The eighth, James Raines, remained to weather it out and came in conflict with the provost marshal in the latter's prosecution of his duties. A squad from the fort was sent to arrest him. Raines appeared pistol in hand to resist arrest and himself was shot and wounded in the arm. After having convalesced at the fort, Raines was taken to Alcatraz and spent several months at hard labor on the rock. Following release, he moved with his family to Raines' Valley, cast of Centerville. He and others took up cattle and hog stealing until the neighborhood decided that it had enough of this business and one fine morning Raines' carcass was found dangling from a tree in or near the valley that bears his name.

Indians Hanged

It was about this time that an Indian killed a sheepherder of E. J. Hildreth, burying the corpse under a log in a corral. An old squaw betrayed Mr. Indian and in daylight he was hanged in the gulch near Judge Winchell's home, half a mile from the fort and the judge's calf rope was borrowed for the event.

Died With Boots On

A sensational case of the day was that of J. P. Ridgway, who in the summer of 1868 shot and killed P>. A. Andrews at Kings River above Centerville. Ridgway escaped to Arizona where he engaged in mining. About two years later he appeared in San Francisco, was arrested and brought to Millerton. He was indicted but before tried escaped from the jail and made his way back to Arizona. His escape was with confederates who aided him with horse. A reward of $1,000 was offered for his arrest and a San Francisco detective earned the money by going to the Cactus state, arresting and bringing back the fugitive. At the May, 1872, district court term, Ridgway was tried and acquitted and shook the dust of Millerton from his feet and a third time made tracks for Arizona. This time the bully met his match and received a load of buckshot in the head and died with boots on.

Killed in Petty Squabble

At the October term of the county court, John Williams, a negro, was sentenced to a term of two years in the penitentiary for the killing of Theo. J. Payne, whom he had shot in the knee at a store near Tollhouse. Payne was so wounded that an artery was severed and he bled to death. The shooting was over a squabble at target shooting.

Chinese Hanged

That same year vigilantes hanged two Chinese just below Jones' store (Pollasky or Friant as now known) for having killed a countryman. On a Sunday afternoon that year, another was found hanging from a tree a quarter of a mile from Millerton, the county seat, for having committed a nameless crime.

Vasquez and Robber Band

The state at large was agitated during the years 1873 and 1874 with the bandit exploits of Tiburcio Vasquez and his robber band. Vasquez ended his career on the gallows at the San Jose jail in March, 1875. He and his gang operated in the central portion of the state, committed several robberies in this county and like Murieta and his band made the Cantua hills their stamping ground and retreat in hours of idleness.

Killing of Fiske

John D. Fiske was killed July 26, 1890. J. L. Stillman shot him thrice in the back. He pleaded insanity on his trial but was found guilty and sentenced to life imprisonment. The homicide followed a wrangle and demand for royalties on a car-coupling patent. Fiske was a promoter in the early days of Fresno City, conducted the Fiske Theater and for him was named the showy and cheaply constructed building on the Mariposa and J present site of the first "sky scraper" in the city.

Hanged for Wife Murder

One man and one only was ever legally hanged in this county. He was Dr. F. O. Vincent and he was hanged in the court of the county jail in the courthouse park at noon October 27, 1893. Jay Scott was the sheriff in office at the time and F. G. Berry — not Fulton G. — was the under-sheriff that made the return on the death warrant that the order and judgment of the court had been duly executed. The death sentence has been only three times pronounced in the county for the crime of murder; first time on Vincent in April, 1891, second time on Elmer Helm in 1906 and third time in 1908 on Charles H. Loper. After the Vincent case, the law was changed to make the warden at the state penitentiary the state executioner. Before that, the sheriff was the official to carry out the death penalty on the murderer convicted in his county. Vincent's case is No. 651 in the register of criminal actions in the superior court of the county. He was informed against December 31, 1890, for the murder of wife, Anna L., on the 18th of the month. The trial before the late Judge S. A. Holmes opened March 11, 1891, continued for eleven days and ended March 24. Sentence of death was pronounced April 8, 1891, and two days later the death warrant was delivered to the sheriff. Appeal was taken, judgment affirmed August 25, 1893, and fixing time of execution under the original sentence was on September 21, 1893. On hanging day people climbed the trees around the jail for a view of the spectacle in the little court yard of the jail. The indecent curiosity of the populace was editorially commented upon in the newspapers of the day and rebuked. The record in the Vincent case is sufficient as to the procrastinations of the law in the prosecutions of that day. The attempted defense on the trial was that the act of homicide was not premeditated because the accused was an irresponsible dipsomaniac and drug user. The late County Recorder W. W. Machen was the foreman of the jury. There was little brought out at the trial to arouse sympathy for the prisoner. On the contrary, the showing was that the married life of the Vincents was anything but a happy one and that the suffering wife had been for years the victim of his cruelty and harshest treatment and neglect. There was not an extenuating circumstance in the case. The Vincent case is a notable milestone in the criminal annals of the county.

Assassination or Suicide?

Cause celebre was that of Richard S. Heath indicted March 16, 1893, for the alleged assassination of Louis B. McWhirter while entering his home at the rear entrance on the night of August 29, 1892. The case attracted widest attention as it was claimed that the assassination was a political one on account of the division in the Democratic party in the county at the time over the presidential candidacies of Cleveland and Hill. McWhirter was a Tennesseean who a few years before had come to Fresno, engaged in the practice of the law in association with M. K. Harris, made a failure of the law and as an erratic Bourbon reform Democrat was engaged as editorial writer for the Evening Expositor. He had been a reform politician in Tennessee which state he left to come west after a homicide, also growing out of political dissensions in the Democratic party. Much feeling was aroused over the McWhirter case here because at the time the Tennesseean wing of the local Democracy was in control of the county offices. So intense was the "interest and indignation" over the affair that in addition to the $10,000 offered reward by the citizens for the arrest and conviction of the assassin, the widow, Mrs. L. B. McWhirter, also offered a reward of $10,000 and the Blasingame family into which McWhirter had married made offer of an additional $5,000. The rewards were never claimed because there never was a conviction and dismissals were entered against the two accused. The first trial of Heath before the late Judge Holmes commenced June 12, 1893, lasted for thirty-two court days and ended in a disagreement of the jury. The evidence supporting the assassination theory and Heath's connection with a homicide was largely circumstantial. The plea set up at the trial was that McWhirter had committed suicide. This was one of several constructive defense pleas. The trial jury stood eleven for conviction and one for acquittal — Juror J. H. Lane making the declaration that firearms were coercively exhibited in the jury deliberation room. Motion for a change of venue was denied and the second trial commenced March 5, 1894, was before Judge Lucien Shaw of Tulare. It lasted thirty days and also ended in a disagreement. Change of venue was granted for a third trial to Los Angeles County but the case never again was taken up. Heath later died in Alaska in the Klondike gold fields. His co-defendant was Frederick W. Policy, a carpet layer, the accusing joint indictment having been found by a grand jury of which the late ex-Judge Hart was the foreman. Policy had one trial, the jury disagreed and the indictment against him was dismissed in October, 1893. Heath was a young man related to the Perrins and employed as a sub-foreman on the "Sam'l of Posen" vineyard, the property of M. B. Curtis and wife. Curtis was an actor who had made a success of the dialect character acting of the Polish Jew, made a fortune, invested in Fresno real estate and also founded a town near Berkeley which he named after his play. He was impoverished afterward defending himself on a charge of the murder of a San Francisco policeman. Sensational disclosures were made in that prosecution that the defense was predicated on suborned testimony. Heath was defended by a strong retinue of lawyers retained by the Perrins and Mrs. M. B. Curtis, while the special prosecutors were as distinguished attorneys in the pay of the Blasingame family. Few cases in the county aroused a greater interest than the Heath prosecution, divided as public sentiment was on the question of assassination and suicide and this division made more acute by the political differences of the respective theorists. Known as a barroom politician. Heath was lifted into sudden and unenvied notoriety. McWhirter had made political enemies by reason of his editorial writings and the division in the county Democracy was at the fever heat. However, public opinion was never settled as to whether his end was the result of assassination to silence him politically, or whether an act of self-murder. He had his life insured for a large sum and it was known that his financial circumstances were such that but for friendly aid the policies would have lapsed because of inability on his part to meet the premiums due. His career as a lawyer had proven a failure. It was also known that he had spent the marriage endowment of his wife. He had become confirmed in habits of which the wife declared in her testimony she knew nothing about and which in fact she denied. The political stir and enmities that he aroused by his writings obsessed him with the thought that he was tracked as a marked man for assassination. Many believed then and do now that McWhirter took his own life when he realized that he was at the end of his financial career. The widow married a second time and recovered the insurance on the policies which did not contain the suicide clause. If McWhirter was assassinated, it was a cowardly murder by plotters that lay in wait for him to take him at a disadvantage. If so, the case would not have commanded the wide attention that it did for the political and personal interests that raised it above the ordinary. The end of McWhirter is one of the unsolved mysteries.

Evans-Sontag Reign of Terror

The years 1891-94 have to do with the lurid chapter of the crimes of the Evans-Sontag train robber bandits, their pursuit, bloody and murderous resistance when driven at various times to bay, their final capture and the trials in Fresno. The details are given in another chapter. Chris Evans and John Contant (Sontag) were indicted November 22, 1892, for murder and Evans after a November and December trial of seventeen days was found guilty in 1893 and February 20, 1894, was sentenced to life imprisonment at Folsom. The operations of the gang in California began with the train hold up in February, 1889, south of Pixley in Tulare County. Contant died at the county jail in Fresno from the wounds received when he and Evans were captured after a battle. One Clark Moore indicted as an accessory after the fact on December 2, 1892, was tried on the second of three such charges March 14, 1892, and acquitted. The other charges were afterward dismissed. The newspapers at the time were full of the exploits of the bandit gang, sent special correspondents into the field to tell of the many efforts to capture it, the man hunts, pursuits, final capture and the trials, centering all these activities in Fresno and giving it unenviable notoriety for crime, criminals and the head-hunters fattening on the business of pursuing marked and proscribed men to capture them for rewards, dead or alive. The exploits of the gang were retold with renewal of the various applications of Evans for parole. One of these applications in January, 1908, inspired an "appreciation" of the bandit by Joaquin Miller, "the Poet of the Sierras," having at least curious interest if nothing else. It was published in the Pacific Monthly in the course of an article on famous bandits of the early and later days in California. In this "appreciation" at a time when Evans had served thirteen years of his life sentence, Miller made the point that Evans had never been tried for a train robbery, affected to believe that it was only the railroad influences that kept the crippled, blinded and dying outlaw in the penitentiary and introduced his subject with the following words:

"And now a few pages about the most famous gun-fighter of all; a well-bred and well-read man; a man with a most bloody record, yet a man who never fired a shot except to defend; so say his hosts of friends."

The publication provoked criticism and indignation in Visalia and those familiar with the unsavory history of Evans in that locality declared the Miller statements to be a tissue of misrepresentations and almost devoid of truth. There was there practically unanimous opposition against the liberation of Evans and the effort of the poet, at best an erratic and theatric personage, was little more than attempt to create sentiment through callous misstatements, unseemly and not calculated to inspire confidence even in Miller's veracity. The Times published in answer to the poet a statement that had been prepared on a previous attempt to secure a parole or pardon giving brief history of the many crimes of Evans, including the wanton killing of five men and the wounding or crippling of nine more, clinched by the recital of Evans' boasts of his crimes while yet at large and pursued, and his threats of death for any and all who would give information of his movements to the officers of the law. Which recalls also that in May, 1908, after his sixteen years and more spent in Folsom penitentiary and crippled with a limp after the desperate attempt to escape in 1893 after one year's confinement under his sentence, George Sontag appeared in Fresno looking for work, seeming to think that if he were given employment as a barkeeper the saloon would lose nothing by the advertisement of his presence. After recovery from the wounds received in the attempted jail break, Sontag came at the request of Wells. Fargo & Company to Fresno to give state's evidence against Evans. His final release from prison was on the authority of the governor.

Wooton Mystery

Celebrated case of mystery was the one that grew out of the unaccounted for disappearance "on or about February 1, 1894," as the lawyers would say, of William Wooton, a well to do farmer of near Kingsburg. Murder prosecution could not be instituted because the first link in the proof was lacking — the corpus delicti — proof of death. Wooton's body never was discovered, although there can never have been moral doubt that he was the victim of foul play and the body disposed of in some unknown manner. In one of the proceedings, legal recognition of death was given in a ruling by Judge M. K. Harris in this language of his written decision: "The disappearance of William Wooton last February, an old man and a highly respected citizen of this county, is darkly mysterious. His habits of life, business methods, and neighborly associations added to his sudden and utter obliteration from the gaze of man but deepen that mystery." A near neighbor of Wooton was Prof. W. A. Sanders, who was regarded as one of the foremost educators in the county. As a teacher his specialties were arithmetic, botany and chemistry. At one time he was instructor at the Academy which was in the county the only institution where the higher courses could be pursued preparatory for entrance here to the state university. Sanders was a prolific writer on the subject of botany. He conducted an experimental farm and experimented with many foreign botanical importations. He was the man that introduced in this county the Johnson grass as a forage plant. It has become such a pest for the farmer that if had to be legislated against. And it has passed into a saying "that if Professor Sanders was not hanged for the murder of Wooton, he should have been for introducing Johnson grass in the county." Suspicion pointed to Sanders several months after Wooton's disappearance when he presented for negotiation a warehouse receipt for grain in the name of the absentee. Thereupon followed also his presentation of a deed to the Wooton property, fortified by an unlikely story that Wooton had left the country and had vested him with authority to dispose of his property without a power of attorney, and thus he came into the possession of the documents in question. Sanders was indicted for forgery May 19, 1894, and during his long incarceration several attempts were made to learn from him the mystery of Wooton's disappearance and Tyndall, the mind reader, had interviews with him to worm the secret from him. The interviews never had result, because Sanders never would subject himself to the test but resisted every advance on this line. A fourteen days' trial in June and July, 1894, had no result; another fourteen days' trial in April, 1895, resulted in his being found guilty and the sentence was ten years' imprisonment. Appeal was taken and new trial granted in a decision of October, 1895. The third trial in January, 1897, resulted in a disagreement of the jury and the fourth of sixteen days in April resulted in conviction with fourteen years imprisonment as the sentence. Sanders served his time and came out of the penitentiary broken in health. He entered it a bankrupt as the result of the long litigation. He died wretchedly an outcast in the county poorhouse. There was some testimony that might have connected Sanders as being in Wooton's company the night before a large brush fire on one or the other's premises about the time of the disappearance date, but it and other circumstantial details were so remote and lacked such definiteness that in connection with the inability to prove the death of Wooton no charge of murder could have been maintained. It was only when he made effort to realize on the Wooton property that he set for himself the trap that he fell into and raised the more than strong moral belief that he was the agency in the removal of Wooton. Various have been the theories how the body was disposed of. One has been that the corpse was buried in some secluded nook and with the lapse of years the place has been lost and all evidences of burial dissipated. Another was that the body was consumed in fire and still another that chemical means were employed to dispose of it. At any rate no one knows how, when or where Wooton disappeared from the face of the earth. Human bones or remains of skeleton have not been discovered these many years in the vicinity of Kingsburg in a circuit of miles but to revive in the newspapers the story of the Wooton disappearance, and the speculation as to whether they might be Wooton's or not. The latest such revival was in November, 1917, anent the finding of a skeleton on the Fortuna ranch northwest of Reedley. The assembled bones led to the conclusion that they had been buried "about twenty years ago," had been those of a man about fifty-five years of age and about five and one-half feet tall. The solution of the mystery of Wooton's disappearance was taken by Sanders with him into the grave.

Tweedle-dee Tweedle-dum

Sensation was made public in April, 1899, when the city attorney presented before the city trustees affidavit that City Clerk J. W. Shanklin was an absentee from the city and his whereabouts unknown. Examination of the book showed a defalcation but in how much never was ascertained because under the circumstances the fact could not be learned. The office was declared vacant and the vacancy filled. The absentee was and remained without the state until early the following year when the grand jury indicted him on January 13, 1900, four times for embezzlements of small sums. Shanklin was learned to be in a small town just across the Oregon line, where he was doing business openly as a potato merchant. Brought back he was placed on trial in May, the jury acquitted him and thereupon the other indictments were dismissed and the affair ended in a farce. The sums alleged to have been embezzled were business taxes, perhaps liquor license moneys, that had come into his hands. It was not the duty nor an obligation of the city clerk to receive or make these collections but the task of the city license collector, though the money was receivable at the office as an accommodation, with the clerk giving receipt. The acquittal was on instructions of the court that no public offense had been committed and no embezzlement from the city of public funds. Inasmuch as the money was not payable to the clerk, he was not receiving it for the city and if the city did not receive it, it was then a matter between the private and unofficial receiver of the money and the person to whom he had given receipt for the money. So ended Shanklin's Republican city political career and Fresno no longer knew him as a resident.

The Case of the Helm Boys

The verdict returned at a late hour on the night of June 19, 1908, by a jury in the city of Stockton, Cal., sealed the doom of the brothers, Elmer and Willie Helm for one of the most diabolical crimes ever committed in this community. The trial was had in Stockton on a change of venue because of the represented prejudice against the boy murderers in Fresno. The verdict was accompanied by recommendations of life imprisonment for both. The verdict saved Elmer from the death penalty passed upon him after conviction of murder in the first degree in Fresno in June, 1906, on first trial. The younger boy gained nothing by the second trial because after the first in September, 1906, the sentence upon him was life imprisonment at San Quentin. The case of the Helms was one of the most atrocious brought to the attention of a public prosecutor. Their crime was the wanton murder on the evening of October 30, 1905, of William J. Hayes and wife while camping out near a deserted cabin on the Whitesbridge road, about eighteen miles west from Fresno. The murderers rewarded themselves for the double crime with about three dollars taken from the person of the murdered man. Clues to the murderers were meagre. The authorities worked long and diligently with little success and they might have been baffled in the end but that the fiends, the elder aged twenty-one and the younger nineteen at the time, were not content with their work but undertook another man killing a few months later. Singularly enough the father of the boys was the one to discover the second murder and to report it. Circumstances directed attention to the Helm boys and they were connected with the three murders. The late Sheriff Walter S. McSwain, then a township constable, made a name for himself in working up a wonderful case of circumstantial evidence. The story of the crimes and the bringing of the youths to justice is replete with incident and detail. The Hayes were an aged couple who lived at peace with the world and no other motive for their taking off could be conceived than robbery. Hayes had been a justice of the peace at Mendota and lived in Fresno. They owned a tract of land on the West Side, which it was their habit to visit at intervals. The murder was on the home coming from one of these periodical visits. At Whitesbridge stop was made to buy hay for their horses and paying with check he received about three dollars in change. They were overtaken by night on the journey home and camped near a deserted Mexican cabin, having food and bedding with them. Horses had been fed and picketed and the evening meal was being prepared when the murderers pounced upon them, shot both to death and levanted with the paltry booty. Conditions at the camp indicated that the Hayes were taken unawares. The canvas bed lay on the ground as it had been taken down from the wagon and the uncooked potatoes were in the frying pan. Remains were discovered next day by a passing traveler. .Autopsy showed that Hayes had received gunshot wound, six inches in diameter in the breast and the heart was literally filled with shot. Her wounds were almost identical. Death came to both instantly. A single barreled shot gun with which the murders were committed was found not far from the scene of the crime, but whose gun was it? Two boys riding bicycles and carrying a package that might have been the shot gun wrapped in gunny sack had been seen on the Whitesbridge road on the day of the murder. But who were these boys? About February 8, 1906, Henry Jackson, a bachelor of over sixty years of age, was surprised in his little cabin home a mile or so out of Fresno and murdered. He had sat at the table and the murderer let loose through the window glass a charge of shot that shattered the old man's neck and almost tore the head from the trunk. The window sill was left powder-marked. The murderer sawed a strip from a near-by board and nailed it over the powder-marked spot. The body was covered in bed quilt and with the aid of buggy axle and two wheels was conveyed to a culvert on the Southern Pacific railroad miles away and jammed therein. The Helm family of husband, wife, daughter and two sons lived only about a quarter of a mile from the Jackson cabin. They were practically nearest neighbors. Helm missed the old man several days, visited the cabin and found it a veritable shambles. He gave the alarm. Days were spent in locating the body and it was found in the siphon, five miles from Fresno near Herndon. There was also a bruise on the head where it had fallen forward on the table after the firing of the shot. Suspicion fastened on the Helm boys. Their reputation was not the best, especially that of the elder. On or about the night of the Jackson murder, Elmer had spent paper money lavishly in Fresno's tenderloin. The youths were taken to prison and the gathering of evidence began. The father was also imprisoned on suspicion but soon released. The owner of the shot gun was discovered, the chain of evidence was started and the links were added. A resident of Fowler, who had been a neighbor of the Helms about the time of the Hayes double tragedy, recognized the gun as one that had been stolen from him. Witnesses were found who saw the gun in the possession of Elmer. Paper money identified as part of that he had spent in the tenderloin was identified by denominations and name of issuing banks as money received by Jackson not long before. The brothers were identified as the pair that was seen on the Whitesbridge road with the package in gunny sack; fabric threads of the sack were found clinging to the gun; the movements of the pair on the day of the murder were traced to the neighborhood of the Hayes camping spot. The formal accusation for the Hayes murder followed and on it Elmer Helm was first brought to trial June 16, 1906. It lasted sixteen days with much difficulty experienced in securing jury. The verdict was guilty as charged and July 16, 1906, the death sentence was pronounced. Willie's trial in September lasted twenty days. It resulted in a verdict of guilty as charged but with life imprisonment recommended as the punishment. Appeals were taken in both cases. The supreme court granted new trials in December, 1907. In the Elmer case a sapient supreme court reversed the judgment though holding that the evidence while circumstantial was sufficient to sustain the verdict. The ruling was against the appellant on the point that the information was void because filed on one of the continuous holidays declared by the governor following the earthquake and the fire in San Francisco. The reversal was on a purely technical ground that it was prejudicial error to overrule good challenge for cause compelling exhaustion of peremptory challenge to be relieved of jurors who should have been excused under the challenge for cause. The alibi defense of the boys had fallen before the strength of the people's case. For the second trial the county roads near and about Fresno were canvassed for declarations of people as to their prejudice for or against the accused. They were used on a motion for a change of venue to some other county because of the prejudice in Fresno against the Helms for their crime. And so it was that the case went to San Joaquin County for the second trial in June 1908 lasting sixteen days. This trial was notable for the unexpected reappearance of chief witness, Charles Molter, for the prosecution who had disappeared after the first trial. Without him the prosecution would have been greatly weakened in its case. On account of the notoriety because of his connection with the case, he had concealed his whereabouts and for months had been searched for high and low without locating him. Notable as new evidence was the testimony of Willie Helm's cellmate, one Kaloostian, who told of a confession made to him with various threats by Willie as to what he would do when out of the toils. McSwain's evidence was also very material in the tracking of the defendants by the corrugated bicycle tire and a heel-worn shoe. After this second conviction, there was talk of another appeal but it was abandoned and the prisoners left the Stockton jail on their life imprisonments, Elmer to Folsom and Willie to San Quentin.

Murder of Policeman Van Meter

Policeman Harry S. Van Meter was murderously shot while on duty on the night of February 20, 1907, and died on the following day. He encountered a suspect at the corner of I and Inyo Streets. Three shots were fired by the night prowler and all took effect. Van Meter wearing a heavy overcoat was unable to open it to draw revolver to defend himself. One Ernest C. Sievers was arrested suspected of the murder but never prosecuted as the evidence proved insufficient. Van Meter twice identified him as his murderer, the last time on his death bed, but there was no corroboration save in a gray hat such as Van Meter stated the fellow, who had shot him, wore. Sievers claimed an alibi and that at the time of the shooting he was in a certain saloon. This was in part corroborated, but not positively as to the hour. The murder of the young policeman created such a sensation that a public money subscription was raised for the widow. He was a son of City Attorney E. S. Van Meter. Early in December 1909 came a story from Folsom penitentiary of the murderer of Van Meter in February 1907." One Mack Reed imprisoned under a life sentence claimed to be the murderer according to admissions to a cellmate. The latter drew the story from him, informed a guard and former resident of Fresno of the details, and the guard writing to the police and learning that no reward had been offered for the apprehension of the murderer related the confession on a visit to Fresno. The prisoner's confession was made four months before the official recital. No action was ever taken on the supposed confession. Reed is under sentence for a criminal assault upon his ten year old daughter in the fall of 1907. Ernest Sievers, the man that Van Meter had identified as his assailant, was tried for his life and acquitted and after liberation returned to his home in Missouri. Reed in his confession claimed to have shot Van Meter five times after having been detected in a burglary of dye works on South I Street. Escaping at the rear door he met the patrolman in the alley at Inyo Street at the spot where the shooting took place.

Watchman Murdered

There was an epidemic of night store burglaries during the fall and winter season of 1907. L. C. Smith, night watchman in the city business center, was found shot and killed on the morning of October 10 in the alley off Fresno Street alongside the Barton theater. He had evidently surprised a housebreaker and in the rencontre was murdered. The attempted burglary was of the Opera Bar at the back transom. Seven shots were fired in the alley flight of burglar or burglars in the direction of Merced Street. Three times was "Dad" Smith wounded in the right side, two shots high and the other low, all evidently from a large caliber revolver and at short range judging from the powder burns. No weapon was in the hand of the watchman when found dead, or near him. The murder was never cleared up.

Tax Defalcation

In December 1907 report was made to the supervisors in 141 typewritten pages covering an exhaustive investigation of the books of the county tax collector's office from January 1, 1899 to July 2, 1907 following discovery of defalcations by W. M. Walden, who was deputy and cashier under the administration of the late J. B. Hancock. The net balance found due was $2,130.14 with discovery of numerous errors and disbursements in a debit originally by the collector of a total of $4,141.77. Walden was indicted, pleaded guilty, sentenced and later liberated on probation. The peculations were in small sums and covered a long period. Discovery of them was made incidentally in examination of the collector's books in the auditor's office while working over them at night. In turning over the leaves a page of an account book was held up for better reading with the electric light behind it. This showed erasure with chemical fluid so that the spot was transparent. This excited suspicion and the volume being closer scrutinized against the light numerous other like erasures were discovered. A sensation followed that was at once taken before the grand jury for investigation with stated result. Walden was indicted July 9, 1907 for falsification of public records and pleading guilty October 4, was sentenced to the penitentiary at San Quentin for seven years.

Fifty Years for Highway Robbery

"Why didn't you bury me alive?" hissed back Julius Smith one day in December 1907 upon Judge H. Z. Austin's sentence of fifty years imprisonment at San Quentin after he had pleaded guilty to the charge of highway robbery. His accomplice had previously confessed and would have been used as state's evidence against Smith. The time was when highway robberies were epidemic. The sentences came under fierce criticism by the prison commissioners sitting as a board of pardon. The sentence was equivalent under the prison credit system for good behavior to twenty-nine years and ten months. Smith was aged twenty-two and his co-defendant, William Harvey, who received the same sentence, about sixteen. They had been connected with other robberies and burglaries. These and the other robberies on the highway were committed by holding up the victims at point of pistol, or blinding them by throwing sand into their eyes after pouncing upon them from place of concealment. The same sentence was passed upon Harry Finnerty and Charles Washburn arrested at Seattle. Wash., and brought back for robbery, and upon a negro named Archie Scansell. There was a letup then for a time on robberies and burglaries.

Murder of Deputy Sheriff

A fearful crime with escape from justice was the murder of Deputy Sheriff Joseph D. Price March 13, 1907 by Joseph Richardson, who with the price set upon his head became an outlaw and fugitive from justice. In his capacity as a peace officer, Price had arrested Richardson for a minor offense and accompanied him in buggy to the lockup at Reedley as the nearest place. Richardson was not bound nor handcuffed, a piece of neglect for which the deputy paid with his life. Richardson turned upon him in an unguarded moment and slashed him to death with knife and then made his escape. The murder was on a long, unfrequented roadway and was not witnessed by any one, and it is a question what would have been the outcome of a trial, even though Richardson had been arrested. Reports have been many of Richardson having been seen and recognized in various localities in the county and elsewhere in the years after, some of these reports strengthened by details, but the murderer has eluded arrest and the crime has gone unavenged. If some of these reports were true, the outlaw was taking desperate chances and tempting fate.

Wife Murder at Sixty-five

At the age of sixty-five, and on his plea acknowledging the murder of wife on Sunday September 8, 1907 James P. Leighton, expressman, was sentenced January 4, 1908 to imprisonment at San Quentin for the remainder of his natural life. The wife that he murdered was the third that had borne his name, Hattie Leighton, nee Coppin. She had returned on that fatal Sunday from a vacation spent with relatives at Long Beach, Cal. Leighton's first wife left him for cruelty and secured divorce; the second became insane and the third was murdered premeditatedly. The showing for Leighton was that he labored under great mental stress on the day of homicide over the thought that the wife was maintaining improper relations with another man, a four year old daughter being the informant as to the frequent visits of this man to her stepmother in the absence from home of her father. Leighton was reputed to be a drinking man and a constable testified that several days before the killing Leighton had come to borrow a revolver, saying he wanted the weapon to kill annoying dogs and cats. The theory of premeditation was well established by the evidence of attempts to borrow revolver as much as ten days before the killing, his brooding and crying, and his declaration that something terrible was to happen and the plea that whatever would result care be taken of his child. Leighton's only living relatives were two aged aunts and they were pathetic in their recitals to give the impression that he was not in his right mind when the shooting took place. An occupant of the front portion of the house in which the Leightons lived overheard a conversation immediately before the tragedy. He had said: "Hattie, this will end it." Her plea was: "For God's sake don't kill me!" The shots then followed. From the evidence adduced the sentencing judge was of the opinion that the case was not one for imposing the death sentence. Mrs. Leighton was killed in the bed in which she lay partly undressed. The body bore two wounds. On the floor lay Leighton near the bed almost unconscious from a bullet wound to the right of the right eye. Near his head on the floor was an empty phial marked "Poison." The theory was that he had essayed to force her to take poison. Leighton's plea of guilty was accepted by the court without the assent of the district attorney. A month before the day that the plea was taken, Leighton's attorney offered that his client would plead guilty if assured that life imprisonment would be the sentence. The offer was rejected. After a long term of imprisonment, Leighton was pardoned and he is again a free man.

Domengine Kidnaping

With a far-away reminiscence of the romantic days when Italian brigands seized and made captive of select, hustled them into mountain cave or gorge to be held for liberation on delivery of the demanded money ransom, but in this instance with a local stage setting in the canyons of the Coalinga oil region, and a more modernized ending in penitentiary sentences following arrest and rapid pursuit in automobiles by the sheriff and citizens' posse was the remarkable Domengine kidnaping case in July 1908. The enterprise was a hare-brained and desperate one but the sensation created by it great. The result was the sentence October 3 of Z. T. ("Tony") Loveall as the chief conspirator for thirty years; also of Grover Cleveland Rogers as accomplice for twenty years in consideration of his turning state's evidence; and later Charles Barnes, who had also turned state's evidence and pleaded guilty but whose connection with the mad enterprise was a secondary one compared with that of the others, released on parole with judgment suspended. The kidnaping of eighteen year old Miss Edna Domengine on the night of July 29 from the ranch of her father, A. Domengine, on Section 29-18-15 is a famous one in Fresno criminal annals as well for the incidents of the case as the rarity of the crime. Domengine was a well to do freeholder and sheep raiser living on the wild and desert West Side. The ranch home is typical of that section of the county, comfortable, commodious and unpretentious. The bandits had been in concealment hard by all day on the Monday preceding the kidnaping. They were in hiding behind two water tanks below which the house lies in a pocket of the hills rising bare of vegetation all about. A barn to one side of the house and slightly in rear was set fire to at night and when the inmates assembled on the back porch in response to the alarm of fire the two bandits met them, the porch being on the far side of the house. After tying the hands of the family and of the three hired men who had responded to assist in putting out the fire in the barn, Rogers and Loveall commandeered a team of Domengine and drove away with father and daughter. Arriving at the ranch gate about two and one-half miles from the house, Domengine was commanded to leave them after bargaining for the ransom for the daughter. The price first set was $10,000 hut the final arrangement was for one-half of that sum. Leaving the father at the gate to find his way homeward, the kidnapers drove with Miss Edna to the town of Coalinga and near there turned the team loose and it was afterward found wandering about the outskirts of town. Loveall here left Rogers and the captive and returned to Coalinga. The younger proceeded with the girl to a place known as Jack's Springs in Jack's Canyon, one of the offshoots of Warthan Canyon, back of the oil town. Here during the day word was awaited from Loveall. Rogers concealed the girl in a rocky and rugged place in the canyon, where there was a clump of trees and a dense undergrowth. Here it was that Coalinga posse discovered them, the trail leading straight into the bushes and cottonwood trees, the canyon being shaped like the inverted hoof of a horse. The place was surrounded by the posse and when cornered Rogers shot at them from behind the girl and over her shoulder. Realizing that resistance was useless and that he was trapped, Rogers dragged his captive through the undergrowth up the side of the canyon rising abruptly to a rocky cleft. Here he compelled her to crouch in the shelter of the jutting out rock and cowered behind her. He wore a mask to conceal his features and had a strip of cotton cloth bound around his head to hide his red hair. The cloth was torn from him in the first scurry of the capture. Following her rescue, Miss Domengine was taken to the home of Robert L. Peeler at Coalinga, one of the pursuing posse, and there kept until her parents came for her. Rogers was taken to the flimsy calaboose at Coalinga. There were threats to lynch him but he was saved from this end by Sheriff Robert L. Chittenden. He broke down under interrogation and named as his accomplice Loveall a known character in the oil fields with unsavory reputation. Loveall had been with one of the posses searching for the girl during the day but when search was made for him after Rogers' confession he had taken to the sand and rock hills surrounding the town on the sun-blistered and desert plain waste. The reason for Loveall joining the posse was stated to have been well recognized by the search party as an effort at self-preservation. Rogers was recognized by the searchers and the belief was that Loveall had resolved in his own mind to kill Rogers should the latter be taken. Succeeding in this, he would have destroyed the principal evidence of his connection with the kidnaping; there was little else then to trace the crime to him and the great danger was in the possibility of the accomplice confessing. Loveall led the posse in automobile pursuit a merry chase, plunging into the heart of the Coast Range, his career as a market game hunter making him familiar with every nook and cranny. Loveall was traced to a ranch fifteen miles from the oil town seething with excitement over the kidnaping. Here it was learned that he was willing and even anxious to surrender provided he was given guarantee of protection against the wrath of an outraged community. The hills and the country were searched for two days for the brigand and then came word that he was in concealment under the house of a cousin at the pumping station at Camp No. 2. There the fellow was found asleep and readily made a prisoner. Miss Domengine had a sight acquaintance with her captors, said she was not ill-treated during her captivity and truth to tell did not take her kidnaping seriously. Loveall was a married man. The evidence in the case was complete, even without the confessions of the accomplices. It was a sensational episode at a period when the Coalinga field was overrun by a floating and irresponsible population attracted by the activities of the field. It contributed largely to the criminal annals of the county with corresponding expense in the administration of the department of justice.

Joseph Vernet Murder

The disappearance on or about July 15, 1908, not confirmed and made public until the last day of the month of Joseph Vernet, aged sixty-eight, and the search without result then for three days for the remains was regarded as another Wooton case by the authorities and the foothill dwellers between Letcher and Sentinel in the country where the eccentric old mountaineer had made his home for years. For nearly one week before August 1 one Charles H. Loper had been detained in the county jail pending a rigid investigation and search for the body of the old miner for the recovery of which a reward of $100 was offered. Loper had shared the old man's cabin, was the last man in his company before his sudden dropping out of existence, and later announced that he had authority to settle up the old man's affairs. The finding of the body revealed the commission of one of the most fiendish, calculating and deliberate crimes ever committed in the county with avarice as the motive. Every step of the crime bore the evidence of cold, calculating premeditation in the details. On the last day that it was recalled that Vernet was seen alive, he had called at the Sentinel post-office and engaged in a casual conversation with Henry Rae, deputy sheriff. He also posted two letters. The conversation was about nothing in particular. This was the very significance of it for it was rightly concluded that if the old man, who had lived in that neighborhood for thirty years, had contemplated departure on a long journey with possible non return, as Loper eave out, he would have made mention of this important decision. Rae was the last man known to have seen Vernet alive.

The evening after, Loper called at an adjoining ranch. He mentioned that he would not stay longer at the Vernet cabin because Vernet had left and he would not abide there alone. Loper made himself a guest for the night at the ranch and slept there. At breakfast he repeated the remark concerning Vernet's departure and that day left for Fresno by stage and five days later on the 22nd returned wearing new apparel and outfit, had money and presented a general air of prosperity. Meanwhile Vernet's absence had aroused the suspicions of Rae. On return from Fresno, Loper had informed him that Vernet had turned over to him all property and in corroboration produced a copy of a Fresno newspaper, then returned to the visited ranch and after a few hours proceeded to the Vernet place. The produced paper contained the following notice:

NOTICE

Any one owing me money will pay same to Charles H. Loper. Any debts of mine will be paid by him until further notice.

JOSEPH VERNET, P. O. Address, Sentinel. Cal.

Satisfied that all was not well, Rae sent notification on the 25th to the sheriff and a systematic inquiry was instituted. In the thirty years that Vernet had lived in the hills, he had never left home even for a few days without asking a neighbor to look after his pet cats, his only companions. When Vernet disappeared, there were five cats at the cabin and when they were later found they were almost starved. Upon his return from Fresno, Loper circulated the information that he had been to the county seat to look after Vernet's affairs, that the latter had gone to Oregon and he (Loper) proposed to sell oil all property on hand. He had sold for $300 a span of horses, wagon and harness. He had also offered at ridiculously low figure 125 cords of wood that the old man had cut. He had also collected some small bills but as Vernet always paid cash there were few debts to be paid. Loper remained at the Vernet place until the 28th, when he started on a second visit to Fresno. Although he had money and it had been his practice to go by stage, this time he walked to Fresno thirty-one miles and there engaged a room at the Ogle House. Loper was taken into custody, the investigation as to his connection with the disappearance of Vernet having already been instituted without his knowledge. He was questioned and in the hearing of a stenographer told a long story that Vernet was in Oregon somewhere; they were to meet at Portland in two or three weeks; he had caused the notice to be published on the authority of Vernet but no power of attorney was given. He claimed to have sold only the team and wagon receiving a note for $300 due in nine months: Vernet had talked of closing out his business for two months or more; he left on the night of the 15th, walking to Fresno as he was wont to do nine out of ten times and his reason for leaving his old home was that he was disgusted with the people up there; there was nothing to hold him, he wanted to get out of the country and to go away to find a new home at the age of sixty-six. There was much more told but it was all a tissue of lies. Loper made no remonstrance against being detained, except to remark that he thought this thing would get him into trouble, referring to the insertion and publication of the newspaper notice. Every circumstance mentioned by Loper was in direct conflict with Vernet's known habits and practices. An examination of the cabin did not lend color to the departure theory. Vernet had left everything intact; his best clothes were there, money in drafts: he had disappeared as he was dressed when he last talked with Rae. There was found a pair of Loper's trousers stained with what appeared to be blood. But as in the case of Wooton there was as yet no evidence of foul play. The body of Vernet must be found. This must be the first established link in the chain of evidence to base a charge of the murder of the old miner and stockman. Loper was a man about thirty-five years of age and had lived with Vernet for several months. He had been reared in the country, had good family connections but was regarded as a roaming, idle character and possessed of not the best of reputations. He was a dreamer and irresponsible ne'er-do-well, worked at odd things and the wonder was how he made a living. It may be charitable to believe that he labored at times under fits of mental aberration. It is not to say that he was insane, though at the trial there was testimony to show that there is a taint of insanity in the family. If insane, the devilish details of the crime and the consummate preparations for it would dispose of the theory of mental irresponsibility. The investigation that progressed daily resulted in discoveries to give the lie to the many false statements that the prisoner made under interrogation. The chance discovery of the brutally butchered body of Vernet crowded into a narrow hole established the fact of the murder. Seven times had the party of searchers passed and repassed the spot where chance finally led to the clearing of the mystery through the humble instrumentality of a mountain squirrel whose disturbance of the ground in its tunneling operations in a tree shaded nook attracted attention. The remains were exhumed. The legs had been chopped from the trunk. The remains were wrapped in burlap sacks bound with wire from bales of hay and conveyed for more than a mile from the cabin home, of the murdered man. Word was conveyed to Loper of the finding of the body and he sent for the sheriff and submitted a long and full confession, accentuated all the hideous details, declaring that he had shot Vernet through the neck killing him instantly, that he cut up the remains to make their removal easy, conveyed them to the burial place in wheel barrow and told of many more of the details of concealing the body in the cabin, bringing it out for the mutilation, describing the knife and hatchet with which the operation was performed, the wrapping of the body and the removal at dusk, and the cleaning of the cabin and the instruments after the bloody business. The manifest purpose of the prisoner was to give the impression that the killing was in a fit of insanity. The mute evidences found about the cabin were corroborative of the confessed details. The six-day trial of Loper in February, 1909, resulted in a verdict of guilty on the evening of the 8th of the month with death as the penalty. The late J. S. Jones was the foreman of the trial jury and the verdict was unanimous on the first ballot of the jury. The sentence of death was pronounced April 12. Upon first arraignment Loper had pleaded guilty to the charge of murder but this plea he was afterward permitted to withdraw for the later trial. He was unmoved by the verdict, but on return to the jail remarked to the sheriff:

"It don't matter much to me. If I am going to be hanged, I want to be hanged by the law and not by those people up in the mountains."

After the conviction, Loper was transferred to a cell in the "felony tanks" and had as cellmate one Edward Turpin under life sentence for the murder of a Fowler ranchman. From the day of his imprisonment Loper had never been visited by friend, acquaintance or relative save once and that his aged uncle of Sentinel, J. H. Loper, cattleman, who attended every moment of the trial true to a promise to a brother in Adel, la., the father of the prisoner, that he would see that the son and nephew should at least have a fair trial. So absolutely deserted had been the defendant that he would have suffered even the deprivation of the solace of tobacco but for the kindly consideration of the sheriff. It was always considered that Loper's stolidity and absolute lack of interest or appreciation of his surroundings while in the courtroom was an assumed and acted part. In the hurried passages from courtroom and jail he was always in pleasant and talkative humor with his guard, while in jail he was more than sociable, enjoyed smoking, was a great reader of magazines and always eager to participate in a game of cards. The death verdict passed on him was the third in sixteen years. The defense on the trial was an attempt to prove the defendant to be insane and there were depositions tending to show that the family was tainted with insanity on the maternal side. The prosecution described the prisoner as "a man with a rational mind and a crazy heart," belittled his defense as "flash light insanity" and a sham and subterfuge, and the murder a diabolical act for greed deserving the highest punishment under the law. The hanging was of course stayed by the appeal to the supreme court. A new trial was granted, Loper pleaded guilty and March 11, 1911, was sentenced to life imprisonment at Folsom. It was said of this fellow: "Probably Loper is without parallel in Fresno County history. Not only because of his crime, one of the bloodiest and brutal ever committed. But because he is without exception the most striking example of 'exaggerated ego" ever known, outside of the Thaw case."

Sentenced in the Jail

Deserving of mention was the case of Edward Delhantie, a giant, burly negro accused of an unmentionable crime. One of the criminal puzzles of 1909 was "Is Delhantie crazy?" He assumed the ferocity of a tiger and his every appearance from jail meant physical overpowering of him. He made on one court appearance an assault on the unoffending courtroom clerk. There was apparently no physical control of him save when he was manacled and shackled. He entered a plea of guilty and was sentenced to imprisonment at Folsom for fourteen years. The sentencing was in the county jail, the burly giant behind bars and the attending court officials in the corridor. An imaginative writer referred to the episode as one that "will long remain as one of the most Dantesque events of 1909 silhouetted on the brain until time shall efface the memory of all things."

An Unpunished Homicide

Because denied a second time permission to see his wife stopping at a lodging house at 625 K Street, J. E. Kerfoot, a packing house laborer, shot and killed Hamlet R. Brown, proprietor of the house, on the night of November 16, 1909. The police was notified but was given the number 645 J Street. There is no such number. People in the vicinity thought they had heard three shots fired coming from a lumberyard two or three blocks away. This also proved a delusive errand. A second police call, nearly one hour and a half after the fatality, gave the right address. Brown was found dead in the house hallway near the back door with a bullet wound in the left breast. Kerfoot had escaped and he never was arrested. The Kerfoots had come to Fresno from Bakersfield about two months before, lived together at the Brown house about a month when a separation took place and Kerfoot left, owing one month's rent. Kerfoot had come drunk to see the wife and was denied admission. Brown telling him to come in the morning when sober and making a taunting remark about the rent due. Kerfoot returned later, was again ordered away, there was a scuffle, a slap in the face and the shooting followed. The woman was in the house when the affair took place but remained in seclusion.

Madman Runs Amok

Three dead, one supposed to be fatally injured and two others slightly wounded was the bloody record achieved by George C. Cheuvront, a local rancher, who in a fit of insanity attempted on the morning of December 23, 1901, to exterminate a family of five with hatchet at his home at 167 Nielsen Avenue while preparations were being made for the breakfast. After the ghastly deed, Cheuvront apparently regained his mind and escaped from the house. He hurried in the direction of his peach orchard, west of town, but crossing the Southern Pacific tracks he became either remorse stricken or attempted to board a train and fell — at any rate the passenger train passed over him, mangled him to death and the remains were later in the day found in a culvert into which they had been tossed by the swift moving train. Next day the remains were at the morgue with those of the murdered wife and of twelve-year-old son, Claude, while at a sanitarium lay little nine-year-old Blanche Gladys, not expected to live but proving a physical marvel, fighting a long fight against death and after months of suffering recovering to baffle every surgical diagnosis. The act of Cheuvront was that of an insane man as abundantly established by proof. The instrument in his hands was an axe in the hands of a man who weighed 200 pounds and who for his age had remarkable physical strength. The wife and son did not expire until the day after the murderous attack. She was struck three blows from behind in the back of the head near the left ear. She died in the operating room at a sanitarium. The boy died without regaining consciousness. He had wound in the back of the head similar to the one of his mother and the brains oozed at the gaping wound. With the loss of several ounces of the brain, the lad lived nine hours. Little Gladys received a hard blow on the top of the skull and face was cut about eyes and nose — the skull bone pressed against the brain. The assault on the wife was committed in the kitchen. No words were exchanged in the house. The first intimation of a tragedy was her piercing screams as she attempted to retreat at the kitchen door. The children leaped from their beds when they heard the screams. Cheuvront rushed into adjoining bed room brandishing the blood covered axe and heeded not the terrified pleas of Gladys. Cowan M. McClung, nineteen-year-old stepson, and George Cheuvront, the older son grappled with the demented man but their strength was not equal to the occasion and the little girl was struck a glancing blow. Claude, the other son, received his fatal injury a few seconds later, falling back on bed with blood streaming from wound. Gladys also sank on her bed unconscious and bed clothes were crimsoned with blood. Then Cheuvront turned his attention to McClung and the son George, striking the latter several glancing blows on head, face and body but they proved only abrasions. McClung attempted to wrest the axe and Cheuvront pausing and placing hand to forehead surrendered possession of the weapon to the step son and fled from the house. The struggles carried the trio from the bedroom out to the front porch, where Cheuvront staggered and fell on his head. He was fifty-one years of age and a Frenchman by nativity. The wife was of the same age, her maiden name was Blanche Sanders; Cheuvront was her second husband. By a previous marriage with McClung, she had two sons. Cheuvront had been a resident of the valley for twenty years coming from near Visalia to Fresno fifteen years before and residing for a time at Easton. His specialty was hog raising. He was a man of some property and for a year or more before the tragic event of December, 1909, had on divers occasions manifested evidences of insanity. He had been arrested once, was kept in detention awaiting examination as to his sanity but had apparently recovered it before the examination as the medical men pronounced him sane.

Saved by a Miracle

Coming upon a suspicious character named V. L. Johnson on the night of January 30, 1912, in the alley in rear of the Union National Bank and the order to halt being unheeded, an exchange of pistol shots followed. The shot of Policeman James L. Cronkhite killed his man dead in his tracks. Cronkhite's life was miraculously saved, the bullet striking bis metallic star and being deflected. For his heroic act the bank presented him a gold watch and chain as a testimonial. Cronkhite died September 8, 1912, after a surgical operation, having long suffered from cancer of the stomach. He wore Star No. 2, was six years a fireman and seven a policeman, promoted from roundsman to be detective.

Traced by a Rag

Clarence French and George H. Ashton, professional safe crackers, with a record of prior convictions which they acknowledged, were sentenced November 22, 1913, each to fifteen years imprisonment at San Quentin. They were arrested in San Francisco for the dynamiting in Fresno of the safe in October before of Holland & Holland's grocery store. They were placed on trial and so strong was the case presented against them that their attorney abandoned further effort and the prisoners pleaded guilty. A third defendant, John O'Keefe, was discharged. The principals were expert safe crackers and a perfect case of circumstantial evidence was presented by the detectives of the two cities. The clue against them was a piece of rag torn out of a shirt cloth in which the burglarious tools were wrapped. The piece was dropped at the safe door and was of a particular pattern. Raided in their apartments in San Francisco, tools and wrapping shirt cloth were found in their possession. Piece fitted the tear and the pattern. The couple was suspected of other safe cracking jobs in the county committed at the time but they were such expert operatives that only the Holland job could be definitely saddled upon them by legal proof.

Murder by Man and Wife

Women have not figured conspicuously in Fresno in the annals of crime. A notable exception came to light in the murder March 31, 1917, of Faustin Lassere, a well to do farmer of National Colony. The murderers, according to their pleas of guilty in the expectation that this would save them from the gallows, were C. L. Hammond and wife, Anna. Avarice was the motive for the crime. The woman was young and by some might be regarded as prepossessing in appearance. The couple was not given the best of records by the authorities in that pretending that she was single and marriageable several attempts had been made to obtain money and property from aged bachelors or widowers on her promises of marriage. This was the plan adopted to worm herself into the confidence and good graces of Lassere. Hammond and wife both made confessions when they realized that there was no further hope. He declared that the murder was her inspiration and suggestion, and she that he planned the crime and forced her to be his accomplice. At any rate, she became the housekeeper for Lassere and on the day in question before the meal Lassere was bludgeoned into unconsciousness and slashed with knife until there was no doubt of his death. Then both dragged the body out and having opened a grave to receive the remains they were buried under a manure pile and the grave frequently watered to accelerate decomposition. The Hammonds were never allowed after arrest to communicate with each other. They were not even brought into court together. They were arraigned on separate occasions and they were to have been tried separately. On the day set for her trial June 7, she pleaded guilty and after a long statement of the crime was sentenced to life imprisonment at San Quentin. Thereupon she had an attack of hysteria and had to be removed from the courtroom. He was brought in later in the afternoon after a change of mind and heart and also pleaded guilty, made his statement of the crime, declaring that he was moved to act as accomplice because of his love for her. He was also sentenced to life imprisonment but at Folsom penitentiary. In their statements both unbared their past and revealed circumstances which were not to the moral credit of either. Both, it was understood, would have pleaded guilty in the first place if any promise had been held out to either that their lives would have been spared for their diabolical crime. Whether the crime was her inspiration or not, certain it was that Hammond was the cringing yellow cur in the court after his plea when he attempted to fasten all the blame for the crime and the program of its details on the woman. The Hammonds were comparatively young people. Their life imprisonment left parentless two young children, who became county charges, who if they ever learn their antecedents will in shame abjure their names. So with the murder of Lassere three children were left orphaned. He left an estate of about $8,600 after payment of expenses. A relative was appointed guardian of them to receive the estate on distribution, and thereafter the children removed to make their home with the guardian at Lawton, la. The confessed details of the butchery of Lassere were as revolting as in the case of Vernet.

A Costly Jamboree

Constable A. B. Chamness of Fowler was run down and killed on an evening in September, 1917, on the state highway near Calwa by an automobile driven by W. A. Johns, while intoxicated, a prominent vineyardist of Parlier. He was arrested and held to answer for manslaughter and for neglecting to render aid to those he had injured in his wild ride. Chamness fell in front of Johns' car while trying to arrest him. Before this accident, Johns had demolished a wagon in which rode a woman and two girls. They also were injured. The constable alighting from the Fresno-Selma stage in pursuit of Johns fell and his skull was crushed. Johns pleaded guilty before the Superior court and was released on probation, one condition being that he abjure the use of intoxicants for the remainder of his life, his state at the time of the accident disproving malicious intent. The representation was also that he had made "restitution" to the widow in the sum of $2,500, also recompensing the other injured. Chamness was sixty years of age, had been constable of Fowler for seven years and at one time was town marshal. Johns was sentenced on the lesser accusation of failing to render aid to the injured victims of his reckless exploit.

Murder of the "Old Broom Man"

May 16, 1919, Edwin S. Taylor, a well-known character of Fresno City, known as "The Old Broom Man," was treacherously and foully murdered in the tractor shack on the L. W. Gibson ranch, three miles northwest of the town of Clovis. Friday, June 6, the murderer, Ernest Nakis, was in custody as the murderer, and two countrymen were in jail as accessories after the fact in having harbored and concealed him after the crime. The search for the principal had been a long one, involving a journey to towns in Lower California. Taylor was an inoffensive old fellow who was a street and house-to-house peddler of brooms. He affected great poverty, and, to give semblance to his pretensions, went for days unshaven, wearing cast-off and patched clothing, looking the part of a very beggar. He had money, though, and this led to his undoing. After his death the public administrator unearthed thousands of dollars on deposit in banks. He was supposed to carry considerable money on his person — no one knows how much. It was to gain possession of this that he was lured to the Clovis ranch on some pretense of a sale of the place to him. Whatever the plan, the old fellow fell into the trap, and his life was the forfeit. The murderer was seen to arrive at the ranch in an auto, with the murdered man, to inspect the ranch; the report of shots within the tractor shed was heard, Nakis was seen to come out and walk around to the front of the ranch, until he drove away; and later curiosity drew attention to the shed and Taylor was found there shot to death. Nakis was arrested at the Fleener ranch, two and one-half miles from the scene of the murder, sleeping on a mattress under the bed. The identification of the prisoner was complete. Placed between five prisoners, the brothers Edward and Frederick Smith, ranchers, who had seen Nakis drive up to the Gibson ranch with Taylor, identified him positively, and Edward created a dramatic scene. The latter had also made note of the numbers of the auto. Besides there was the identification of Nakis by a policeman as the man he had seen on May 16th, in an auto on Callisch street with Taylor, and the circumstance was not one to be forgotten, because it was probably the one occasion in Taylor's long residence here that he had ever been seen riding in an auto. There was also a fourth identification by a woman caller at the jail, who had known the old man well and who recognized Nakis as the auto companion of the broom peddler on the morning of that ride to his death. The arrest of Nakis occurred in an unoccupied house on the Fleener ranch, which is said to have once been leased and occupied by the accused. It was stated that the blood-stained coat of Taylor, besides a .38 caliber revolver, and $137 in currency, were found in the prisoner's possession when arrested. The accessories were the lessees of the ranch who harbored Nakis on the premises, Nakis probably having been animated by the same lure that has led to the undoing of many another criminal, in a return to the scene of his crime.