Marli — not to be confused with Myra — plays Marion
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Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly
October 11, 2024 Marion Crane was nervous. She had just stolen $40,000 from her employer and was fleeing to California to meet her cash-strapped boyfriend. After driving a lengthy distance, she pulled off the road into a lonely 12-room rundown motel, named after the family who ran it. Norman Bates, thin, nervous and gangly, made small talk with his lone guest and soon asked if she was hungry. She was, and Bates fetched her some dinner, which she ate quickly, anxious to get away from the strange young man and the eerie birds that he stuffed as a hobby and hung on the wall. Wanting to unwind and relax after a long and stressful day, she went to her room, where she ran a hot and steamy shower. As she undressed, she did not feel the stare of Norman peeking through a small hole in the wall. Read more. |
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'Con Edison crooks - This is for you'
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Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly
August 15, 2024 The first bomb was planted in mid-November 1940. Placed on the windowsill in a Consolidated Edison plant in Manhattan, the crudely made device was discovered before it detonated. Indeed, it appeared that it was never intended to explode, as a note accompanying it would have been destroyed. In distinctive block letters, the missive read: “CON EDISON CROOKS — THIS IS FOR YOU — THERE IS NO SHORTAGE OF POWDER BOYS.” It was signed F.P. A second dud, this one without a note, came the following September, five blocks from Con Ed headquarters. Little attention was paid to the non-explosions despite the bomber’s best efforts to publicize his actions through an onslaught of letters to Con Ed, the police, newspapers, department stores, hotels and clothing stores, all of which were ignored, probably due to more pressing matters in Europe. Read more. |
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Starlet disappears while having the time of her life
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Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly
July 5, 2024 Oct. 7, 1949, fell on a Friday. In Los Angeles, the weather was pleasant with mild temperatures and clear skies. Before she left her house at around 5 p.m., Jean Spangler kissed her young daughter and told her sister-in-law, Sophie, with whom they lived, that she would be home very late, as she was meeting with her divorced husband to discuss child support followed by a night shoot for a movie on which she was working. Although no one ever knows of another’s thoughts and demons, Spangler, 26, was seemingly doing well. After bitter legal battles with her husband, Dexter Benner, she had finally regained custody of her much-loved young daughter, Christine, who had been born five years earlier. The dispute had been brutal, with Benner initially successfully claiming that Spangler’s lifestyle and wild ways made her an unfit parent. The argument appealed to the judge, given Spangler’s employment at 18 as a scantily clad showgirl at Sunset Boulevard’s Earl Carroll Theatre, whose entrance enticingly announced, “Through these portals pass the most beautiful girls in the world.” Read more. |
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Nazi rally in NYC proves beginning of end for German American Bund
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Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly
April 19, 2024 On Feb. 20, 1939, Nazi sympathizers and supporters gathered at a sold-out Madison Square Garden in New York City to hold a “Pro-American Rally,” which in reality trumpeted support for Germany and its Fuhrer. With more than 20,000 fascists inside the building, thousands demonstrated against them outside. Separating the two was an army of New York’s finest, with over 1,700 police officers outside and 600 inside, in uniform and plainclothes. “We have enough police here to stop a revolution,” intoned a police official. Firefighters, armed with a heavy-duty fire hose to disperse an unruly mob if necessary, along with bomb squads, added to the security. With membership declining, leaders of the German American Bund, a pro-Nazi organization established in 1936, hoped a well-publicized event would inspire the masses. In the end, it didn’t, although the spectacle was one even Hitler and his cohorts in Germany would admire. As music blared in the background, uniformed Bund members marched in carrying both American and German flags. Audience members — who paid between 40 cents and $1.10 for admission — jumped to their feet, greeting them with raucous cheers and Nazi salutes as the ensemble made its way to the stage. There, a 30-foot picture of George Washington with Nazi insignia flanking him awaited. Read more. |
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‘Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a hoot’
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Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly
December 30, 2023 On Dec. 15, 1939, “Gone with the Wind” premieres at Loew’s Grand Theater in Atlanta. At approximately four hours, it is the longest and most expensive movie to date. It is also one of the most successful and acclaimed films ever, despite racial criticisms. In all imaginable ways, the making of the movie was a monumental task, thought initially to be insurmountable. Among the battles the producers, writers and director had to contend with were the censors. A single word — “damn” — threw all concerned into a tizzy. So popular and well-known is the movie that a detailed synopsis is not really needed. The story’s melodrama is overshadowed not only by the sheer spectacle of the movie using new coloring techniques, but by the brilliance of the performances, which garnered Oscar nominations for Best Actor, Best Actress, and two for Best Supporting Actress. Read more. |
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‘You can’t help liking this guy, somehow’
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Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly
September 22, 2023 Like so many murders and trials of the century, as the years grow longer, the memories grow dimmer — until they disappear altogether. And the spectacular case of Dr. Crippen is no exception. Its unexpected legacy, however, is one that permanently reshaped the world. Everyone who knew the short and slightly built Hawley Harvey Crippen liked him. Except his shrewish wife, Kunigunde Mackamotzki, who forsook the name in favor of the far simpler Cora Turner, believing it more tolerable for an aspiring opera diva who lacked the talent but carried the attitude. Read more. |
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From mob hitman to movie extra: the story of ‘Big Gangy’ Cohen
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Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly
August 4, 2023 The film “Golden Boy” was released in 1939, featuring, among others, Barbara Stanwyck as Lorna Moon and a very young and barely recognizable William Holden playing Joe Bonaparte. Billed as a drama, one today cannot quite hold back some well-deserved snickering with Holden playing a violin-playing boxer. In the pivotal fight scene, Holden pummels his opponent, who promptly dies, causing Joe and Lorna to re-evaluate their lives. Joe gives up boxing, returns to his beloved violin, and presumably lives happily ever after. When the movie was released, many New York boxing fans eagerly attended, anxious to see the Madison Square Garden fisticuffs. One such attendee was Murder, Inc. killer Abe “Pretty” Levine, who while viewing the match also saw brief shots of the screaming crowd cheering on the fighters. His mouth opened in shock when he spotted one particular ringside fan. What in God’s name was Irving “Big Gangy” Cohen doing there? When Levine last saw him two years earlier, they were murdering Walter Sage. Read more. |
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Judge Crater, call your office
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Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly
April 21, 2023 The saga started on Aug. 6, 1930, a steamy Wednesday night in New York City. Despite the heat, Judge Joseph Force Crater was, as always, nattily attired in the hip style of the recently ended Roaring Twenties. With a double-breasted suit, high-choker collar, bow tie, spats and Panama Hat, he fit right in with the crowd he wished to associate with: the high-living businessmen, politicians, show people, chorus girls and gangsters. He held his own. Unattractive though tall and distinguished, he was a well-known and highly successful lawyer who had just realized his dream. Despite his young age of 41, Crater had recently been named by Gov. Franklin D. Roosevelt to fill a temporary opening on the city’s prestigious trial court. With his sights set on turning the job into a permanent post in the fall, he spent much of the summer at his vacation cabin in Maine with his wife, Stella. On Saturday, Aug. 2, he unexpectedly announced to Stella that he had to return to Manhattan the next day “[to] clear up a few things” and “straighten out a few people.” Read more. |
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Before Rosa Parks, there was this man
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Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly
February 17, 2023 Nearly 10 years before Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a bus, a young African-American lieutenant in the U.S. Army had done the same thing. For his refusal to get up, he was court-martialed and charged with six violations: two counts of disrespecting an officer, one for refusing to obey a lawful order, and three counts of “abusive, vile and obscene” language toward civilians in a public place. On a hot day in August 1944, nine combat officers assembled to hear the evidence in a courtroom at Camp Hood in Texas to decide the lieutenant’s fate. Read more. |
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The fall of the BSO’s once renowned conductor
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Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly
November 23, 2022 When Henry Lee Higginson, the aristocratic founder of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, hired Karl Muck, he thought he had struck gold. Born in 1859 in Germany, Muck had risen to the very top of the European maestros. Assuming his post in 1906, he quickly fulfilled Higginson’s vision. Known as a strict taskmaster who extracted nothing short of brilliance from his musicians, Musk’s orchestra became immediately and immensely popular. After a few years, though, despite his success and the initial fondness he held for American audiences, Muck and his wife, Anita, were summonsed back to Germany by its leader and Muck’s close friend and supporter, Kaiser Wilhelm II. But he soon grew to miss the opportunities and freedoms the BSO provided. When Higginson in 1912 again beckoned with a generous salary, Muck eagerly jumped. Once back in Boston, Muck again prospered, although he kept a wary eye on the events in Europe. While he had left Germany at an early age, moving with his family to Switzerland where he became a citizen, his ties to his homeland remained strong. Read more. |
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"Just send the guy to California"
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Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly
July 29, 2022 On March 23, 1939, a Philadelphia jury returned a guilty verdict against Herman Petrillo, captivating the nation in what had been dubbed “the Great Arsenic Murder Trial.” Charged with the murder of Ferdinand Alfonsi, Petrillo was the first to be tried and sentenced to death. His co-defendant, Stella Alfonsi, would be tried later for her role in her husband’s painful death. With numerous other trials remaining, the public would not be disappointed. The main players in the “You’re tired of your spouse, allow us to aid you” ring included cousins Herman and Paul Petrillo and Morris “Louie the Rabbi” Bolber, who when not teaching Hebrew school and training young Jewish students studying for their bar and bat mitzvahs, was arranging various murders. Read more. |
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Who was Donald Webb and where did he go?
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Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly
May 20, 2022 There was blood, a lot of it — evidence of a violent struggle — on the typically quiet parking lot of the Agway store, as well as in and on the police cruiser with its door open. Type A as it would turn out, the same blood type of the now-dead police chief. Type O of the person who killed him, and who himself was also likely shot, given the trail of blood back to the car in which the killer came and left. Two bullets hit the chief, both fired from his own now-missing gun. On the seat of the cruiser lay a clipboard that indicated a piece of paper had been ripped from it. Far more importantly, on the ground was a driver’s license: Stanley Portas, age 50, 41 S. Main St., Phillipsburg, New Jersey. The police had far more than a clue; they had, in all likelihood, the identity and location of the killer. Also a description — a white male with longish hair, wearing aviator glasses and driving a white car. He was found 37 years later. Read more. |
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Alexander(s) the Great
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Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly
February 17, 2022 When Ferdinando Alfonsi died on Oct. 27, 1938, his wife, Stella, was charged with his murder. As she quickly grew tired of her attorney, she petitioned the court to have the highly regarded and talented Raymond Pace Alexander represent her. It was not surprising that she wanted him in her corner. He was, after all, impressive. At 6-foot-3, he possessed a lean runner’s physique and carried himself with confidence, grace and charm. Read more. |
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Tom Neal: boxer, actor, killer
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Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly
November 24, 2021 On Sept. 14, 1951, Tom Neal’s Hollywood career basically ended when he pummeled the sophisticated and Academy-Award-nominated Franchot Tone. The injuries were so severe that Tone went into an 18-hour coma after suffering a concussion and serious facial injuries. Starlet Barbara Payton watched the mayhem play out on her property as her lover, Neal, beat her fiancée, Tone. Being the dutiful girlfriend, Payton married Tone two weeks later. But with Payton unable to stay away from Neal, the marriage ended in less than two months. Read more. |
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The short and tragic life of Olive Thomas
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Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly
May 29, 2021 In search of a more exciting life, 18-year-old Olive Thomas left her husband of two years behind in Pennsylvania and moved to New York City. A year later, in 1914, she entered and won a beauty contest and was crowned “The Most Beautiful Girl in New York City.” Actress Mary Pickford, “America’s Sweetheart” who in 1917 signed to a contract worth $1 million, described her future sister-in-law Olive as a legendary beauty with the “loveliest violet-blue eyes I have ever seen. They were fringed with long dark lashes that seemed darker because of the delicate translucent pallor of her skin.” Read more. |
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Shootout in Matewan
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Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly
March 18, 2021 “The Man” owned everything: the homes in which their families lived, the store in which they shopped, the mine where they worked, the school their children attended, the church where their families prayed, and the cemetery in which they most assuredly would be buried at an early age. Their lives as coal miners were unduly harsh, often descending into dark, dank and deep holes before the sun rose and arising after sunset, covered in soot and grim and despair. For their efforts, they received a pittance while the rich and powerful who owned the mines, and the equally rich and powerful who bought the much-needed coal, stuffed their bottomless pockets. 1920 found American workers in the throes of crisis. Wanting a decent salary, safe working conditions, and the value of their worth recognized, they lobbied and often struck to get their point across. Unfortunately, those sitting on the other side of the bargaining table often held the upper hand and rarely lowered it. Read more. |
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Larry, Moe and Curly Kidnap a Megastar’s Son
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Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly
December 10, 2020 Dean Torrence, half of the famous Jan and Dean rock duo, could barely believe the babblings of his friend Barry Keenan. They had gone to high school together, along with Nancy Sinatra and Dean’s future partner, Jan Berry, with whom Dean helped usher in California’s rock and roll scene. Dean knew Keenan was a little different — smart, wildly ambitious and a partier, but also a tad odd. It came as little surprise that Keenan’s early career skyrocketed. By 21, he was ensconced in the real estate market and the youngest member of the Pacific Coast Stock Exchange, earning the then-exorbitant sum of more than $100,000 a year. He was married and living the good life — until tragedy struck in the form of a serious car accident. Soon he was drug addicted, having run-ins with the law, bankrupt and separated. Needing money, he approached Dean Torrence, who having benefited financially from Keenan’s financial advice, provided it. Read more. |
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‘Buy a choker from the Strangler’Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly
October 8, 2020 The wave of terror swirled like a hurricane through Boston. Thirteen women brutally sexually assaulted and murdered from June 1962 to January 1964. Hundreds of sexual perverts were rounded up and questioned. Any one of them was possibly the person dubbed “the Boston Strangler.” And then, as quickly as the murders started, they stopped. And a man on no one’s suspect list, Albert DeSalvo, a psychopath with a warm smile and a gift of gab, confessed to the crimes. Sitting in the mental health facility in Bridgewater on charges of breaking and entering, robbery and sexually assaulting, but not killing, four women in 1964, DeSalvo, at the behest of his attorney, F. Lee Bailey, freely admitted his role in the slayings. In exchange for his cooperation, his confessions could not be used against him. As no physical or eyewitness evidence existed, the police were left with corroborating the admissions. Read more. |
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The not-so-Smart death of a salesmanMassachusetts Lawyers Weekly
May 28, 2020 / June 4, 2020 The crime scene screamed burglary. Both the upstairs and downstairs of the condo were ransacked, with articles haphazardly strewn about. What differentiated this burglary from others, though, was the presence of a dead body blocking the carpeted dining room from the tiled foyer. The victim was Greggory Smart, a successful 24-year-old insurance salesman on his way up the ladder at MetLife, who had been married six days short of a year. Shot once in the head, blood slowly oozed onto the carpet. His wife, Pamela, discovered the body shortly after 10 p.m., when she arrived home from a school board meeting. Screaming and fleeing the apartment, she sought the help of her frazzled neighbors, who responded by hurriedly calling the Derry, New Hampshire, police. Click here for Part 1 and Part 2. |
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The story of ‘Dixie’s most blatant rape case’Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly
November 7, 2019 When her mother died, Recy Taylor was 17. It fell upon her slender shoulders to raise her younger siblings. Despite her many responsibilities, she married young and gave birth to a daughter. Finding solace at the local segregated church in Abbeville, Alabama, 24-year-old Recy went often. Sept. 3, 1944, proved to be both her undoing and the birth of a movement. READ MORE. |
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‘I am the law and the power’Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly
September 12, 2019 Born in Houston in 1891, D.C. Stephenson either was blessed at birth with, or developed somewhere along the line, a knack for self-promotion and organization. After serving but seeing no action in World War I, he located to Evansville, Indiana, where he unsuccessfully sought a congressional nomination. Along the way, he may have married and abandoned two wives. Undeterred, Stephenson joined the Ku Klux Klan, meshing well with the growing sentiment of the time. His recruitment skills resulted in droves of new members. He started a newspaper, the Fiery Cross, and spread both his wings and the Klan throughout the entire state. READ MORE. |
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The death of the ‘Tea Time’ ladyMassachusetts Lawyers Weekly
July 11, 2019 She was so deathly afraid of the water that she wouldn’t take baths, preferring to shower instead. She did not know how to swim nor did she care to learn. How then did she come to drown in four feet of ultra-calm waters, showing no signs of bruises or abrasions and a system clear of drugs and alcohol? READ MORE. |
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Grace Humiston, the female Sherlock Holmes
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Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly
April 18, 2019 With her black outfit matching her black hair and eyes, she struck an imposing and determined tall and slender figure. It thus came as no surprise when a desperate Henry Cruger turned to her to do what the police couldn’t: find, as the New York Times heralded, the “Pretty Girl Skater Strangely Missing.” Ruth Cruger, an attractive 18-year-old who had recently graduated high school and taught Sunday school, left home to run some errands on a cold February day in 1917. When she didn’t return, her frantic family contacted the police. READ MORE. |
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A dark road in the middle of nowhereMassachusetts Lawyers Weekly
January 7, 2019 Born on Nov. 4, 1946, in Midland, Texas, Laura Lane Welch was the apple of her parents’ eye. As an only child, how couldn’t she be? With devoted parents, her father in real estate and her mother his bookkeeper, she grew to love life and literature. As she progressed in school, she rewarded her adoring parents by becoming an excellent student with a voracious appetite for reading. And then came Nov. 6, 1963, two days after her 17th birthday. READ MORE. |
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The New Bedford highway murdersMassachusetts Lawyers Weekly
November 8, 2018 The district attorney thought he had his man. And rather than try him on all nine murders, he’d start with one: The killing of 28-year-old Rochelle Dopierala, a mother of two young children, who had been living with the suspect. And better yet, the suspected killer had connections with some of the other murder victims. Nine months later, with the charge about to be dropped, another suspect killed himself. Usually, when tough guy Frankie Pina came into a police station, he wore handcuffs. This time, in July 1988, he came in voluntarily. “My girlfriend is missing,” he nervously reported. “Her name is Nancy Paiva. She’s 36.” Initially, some saw little credence in the report, as drug addicts were known to drop in and out, popping up after a week-long bender. When her body was discovered a few weeks later, their doubts vanished. READ MORE. |
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The invasion of AmericaMassachusetts Lawyers Weekly
September 20, 2018 The 3,000-mile journey had been a long one. Two weeks on the ocean; under its waters during the day, above it at night. A German submarine U-202 cruising to its destination. Finally, on June 12, 1942, it arrived at Amagansett on the eastern part of Long Island. It was, late, dark and foggy. As the four-member team of German saboteurs lowered themselves onto their inflatable raft, they knew of a second team traveling aboard another U-boat, this one headed to Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida. And if successful, other teams would follow, landing in America every month or so to wreak havoc, blowing up factories, plants, railways, bridges, canals and stores. READ MORE. |
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'Jimmy the Gent'Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly
June 28, 2018 and July 5, 2018 It was the largest money heist in American history. It also led to the downfall of all those involved. In the end, numerous people would be murdered, most at the hands of the one who orchestrated it: Jimmy “the Gent” Burke. As he lay dying in prison, Burke assuredly came to grips with the foolhardiness of his caper, bringing in too much money, too much heat, and too much grief. READ PART 1 and PART 2. |
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The sex scandal of 1936Massachusetts Lawyer’s Weekly
March 22, 2018 A rather ordinary-looking man with a fear of germs, he did possess a great head of hair. As an added bonus, he stood over 6 feet tall. Most alluring, though, was the fact that he was one of America’s foremost playwrights. A virgin when he married in his later 20s, his timing was off. Most sow their wild oats in anticipation of marriage. He decided to do so after. Some friends and fellow wits quickly dubbed him “Public Lover #1,” while others tagged him a male nymphomaniac. Read more. |
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The life and times of Crazy Joey GalloMassachusetts Lawyers Weekly
September 21, 2017 That Joe Gallo was certainly a killer and perhaps a sociopath did not impact the adoration heaped on him by many of New York’s literati. He married his second wife in the home of actor Jerry Orbach, with comedian David Steinberg serving as his best man. Bob Dylan, in his twangy voice, immortalized him in his ode, “Joey,” singing “Joey, Joey; What made them want to come and blow you away?” It seemed that everyone, with the apparent exception of Dylan, knew the answer. Joey Gallo was born in Brooklyn, New York, on April 7, 1929, to a bootlegger father bent on teaching Joe and his two brothers, Larry and Albert, the art of crime. It was a lesson well learned. Read more. |
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The Buck stops … where?Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly
July 27, 2017 “Three generations of imbeciles are enough,” wrote perhaps the greatest of all the Supreme Court justices, Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., in an opinion permitting the state of Virginia to sterilize Carrie Buck. There was only one problem: Carrie wasn’t an imbecile. A panic had set in, from the cities to the farmlands, from east to west. Both the government and charities sagged at the tonnage of the problem. Fortunately, academia and science leaped at the opportunity to calm the waters and settle the issue as to what to do with the feeble-minded. The nation was engulfed with ideas as to how better mankind. Read more. |
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The murder of the Massachusetts Masked MarvelMassachusetts Lawyers Weekly
May 25, 2017 His grandfather was the secretary of state under one president and ambassador to France under another. His father — who served under Generals Pershing and Patton during World Wars I and II — attended Harvard and Harvard Law before entering politics, rising to the presidency of the state Senate and going on to lieutenant governor. Born into this Boston Brahmin family in 1914, much was expected of Gaspar Griswold Bacon Jr. and his two brothers. He didn’t disappoint, at the beginning at least, going to Harvard and summering on the Cape. Along the way, he befriended Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s children and spent many a day at both the White House and Hyde Park. Read more. |
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The woman in red wore orangeMassachusetts Lawyers Weekly
February 2, 2017 As he lay dead in the alleyway by the Biograph Theater in Chicago’s North End, onlookers rushed forward to dip their handkerchiefs in the still-flowing ruby red blood of Public Enemy No. 1. Although his career lasted a short time, during which he and his gang robbed more than a dozen banks, netting over a quarter-million dollars, the now-dead 31-year-old John Dillinger had managed to capture the attention, if not the hearts, of the public. Many felt a certain allure and sympathy for a robber of banks, which they saw as malevolent institutions: the real robbers that unfairly stole the homes, cars and possessions of those brutalized by the Great Depression. Read more. |
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The tale of the murderous fish peddler named Lenny ‘The Quahog’ Paradiso
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Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly
November 2016 Sixteen-year-old Florence White was working the streets of Boston’s Combat Zone when a car pulled up. A business transaction was consummated, and White slid in. When the stocky, pot-bellied john pulled a gun and uttered, “You’re coming with me, bitch!” White knew it was not going to be an ordinary, run-of-the-mill evening. Driven to East Boston and hauled into a third-floor apartment, she was raped, beaten and robbed by two men before she was allowed to leave. As she cried, bled and limped to a nearby police station, she thought of the bullets the stocky one showed her. “You see these, honey? I got one waitin’ here just for you. If ya sez a word to anybody, you’re dead meat.” Read more. |
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The Jewish murderer who married the minister’s daughterMassachusetts Lawyers Weekly
September 2016 While Pretty Boy Floyd, John Dillinger and Bonnie and Clyde terrorized America, Murt and Irv Millen, along with MIT-educated Abe Faber, did their best to contribute to the mayhem by shooting up Massachusetts. Their criminality reached its crescendo shortly after Murt married the Rev. Brighton’s very beautiful teenage daughter, Norma. By the time they were caught in 1934, movie theaters and banks had been robbed and people killed in Fitchburg, Lynn and Needham. In the end, a minor repair job on the battery of their getaway car did them in. Read more. |
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Murder - and suicide? - at GreystoneMassachusetts Lawyers Weekly
July 2016 The second of two parts. Ned Doheny and Hugh Plunkett were an odd couple, habituating different economic stratospheres. Other than age, they had little in common. Ned, handsome and athletic, heralded from a wealthy family and was considered, even at his young age, one of the most eligible bachelors in Los Angeles. While he could have led a hedonistic lifestyle, he instead married the first love of his life, Lucy Smith, whose father was vice president of Pasadena Rapid Transit Co. On June 10, 1914, the 21-year-old Ned Married the slightly younger Lucy. Among the guests at the lavish affair was Theodore Hugh Plunkett, who worked as a machinist changing tires and servicing cars at a gas station owned by Lucy's father. Read more. |
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Tempest in a Teapot? The case vs. Albert Fall, et al.Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly
July 2016 The first of two parts. Edward L. “Ned” Doheny Jr. and his good friend Hugh Plunkett were tired from their long travels from Los Angeles to New York City to Washington. But they had a job to complete and didn’t want to disappoint the prominent figure for whom they were working — Ned’s father, Edward Doheny, one of the richest oil men in the world. Disembarking their train in D.C., the lugged the ungodly sum - it was 1921, after all - of $100,000 in cash from Ned's bank account in New York, as they headed directly to the seventh floor of the upscale Wardman Park Hotel on prestigious Connecticut Avenue. There they delivered the five tightly bound bundles to Albert Fall, President Warren G. Harding's secretary of the Interior. And thus the beginning, next to Watergate, of our government's greatest scandal. Read more. |
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Girl's long road paves way for others who follow in footstepsMassachusetts Lawyers Weekly
June 2, 2016 On a cold, blustery morning in Boston in 1847, 5-year-old Sarah Roberts trudged past a well-regarded elementary school, and then four other schools before finally arriving at her destination: the doorstep of the Abiel Smith, an inferior school with few books and a staff overseeing an overcrowded class. She joined her fellow students who, like her, were black. Located on present-day Joy Street in downtown Boston, the school served the city’s black community, concentrated on the north slope of Beacon Hill where Pinckney Street divided the rich from the poor. What separated Sarah from her fellow students was a father not only fed up with a system that compelled children to walk great distances to an inferior school, but one who decided to act. Read more. |
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John Holmes: The Elvis Presley of PornMassachusetts Lawyers Weekly
March 2016 At a time when making adult films was a crime, John Holmes was the king. He made over 2,000 such movies, bedding thousands both on and off screen. Most were women. His legacy was multi-faceted. He exposed pornography to a mesmerized mainstream America; his drug habit was as legendary as one of his appendages — considered the largest in an industry known for genital excess; and he had connections to one of the most brutal murders in the history of California. Read more. |
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Tragedy at the Upstairs LoungeMassachusetts Lawyers Weekly
December 2015 They gathered to socialize, party and enjoy each other’s company. While the chains of hatred and homophobia still held a chokehold, a few links had ever so slightly loosened. Perhaps sensing the hint of freedom — it was, after all, four years after Stonewall and the start of the gay rights movement — approximately three score, all men minus one, met clandestinely to celebrate the final day of an understated Gay Pride Weekend. For half, it would be their last celebration. Read more. |
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The Dead Minister and His Dead GirlfriendMassachusetts Lawyers Weekly
October 2015 The bodies were discovered on the morning of Sept. 16, 1922, a Saturday. It was striking how they were laid out, seemingly choreographed: both serenely on their backs as if sleeping, her head gently resting on his right arm, her left hand on his right knee. His face was shielded by a Panama hat, as if he were sleeping on the beach. His right hand was just under her shoulder and neck. Read more. |
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The Headless-Body Murder MysteryMassachusetts Lawyers Weekly
August 2015 Why is it that some murders rivet attention while others are relegated to anonymity and oblivion, sharing the scattering ashes of their victims? Frequently, it all comes down to the mood of the press. And when, on June 26, 1897, a chopped-up body with a missing head — followed by subsequent doses of other body parts, adultery and abortion — landed in the laps of newspaper rivals Joseph Pulitzer of the New York World and William Randolph Hearst of the New York Journal, newspaper fortunes soared. Read more. |
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A Fiery End to a Girl on the TownMassachusetts Lawyers Weekly
May 2015 With smoke and terror filling the hallway, the madam of the house, Rosina Townsend, pounded on the bedroom doors. As screams of fire rang out, everyone scrambled, the prostitutes for safety, their customers for anonymity. When Rosina rushed into Helen Jewett's room to rescue her, surprisingly neither a fire nor even a blaze greeted them. Just Helen's smoldering lifeless corpse, swimming in a pool of blood, her nightclothes reduced to ashes and one half of her body charred, like a roasted marshmallow, to a crusty brown. And three deep bloody gashes on the once vivacious twenty-three year old's battered forehead. Helen had been murdered. Read more. |
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Charles Ponzi: Robbing Peter to Pay PaulMassachusetts Lawyers Weekly
February 2015 Born in 1882 in Italy, Carlo showed promise as a young man. In school, though, he quickly gravitated to the opposite end of good, adopting the questionable habits and lifestyles of his far wealthier classmates. Within a year, he had blown through his savings and was forced to drop out. His family decided that the gold-lined streets of America might better suit the large dreams of 5-foot-2 Carlo and purchased him a ticket. Read more. |
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The Mad Butcher of PlainfieldMassachusetts Lawyers Weekly
October 2014 Elmo Ueeck and the unassuming but odd Ed Gein chatted about the mysterious disappearance of tavern owner Mary Hogan. Older and unattractive, the nearly 200-pound Hogan had served those residing in the sleepy town of Plainfield, Wisconsin, with alcohol and a ramshackle place in which to drink it. The surroundings were much like the town itself — small, dark, quiet and rundown. “Eddie merely rolled his eyes,” Ueeck later recalled, “and wiggled his nose like a dog sniffing a skunk and said, ‘She’s not missing. She’s down at the house now.’ But Eddie was always talking crazy like that.” Read more. |
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The Movie Star and the MobsterMassachusetts Lawyers Weekly
July 2014 Married eight times to seven men, Lana Turner epitomized the fast lane of show business. When she wasn’t married, she was having affairs with many of Hollywood’s leading men. The high life included partying, drugs, alcohol, abortions and an attempted suicide. It also included murder. Read more. |
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Chicago Blows UpMassachusetts Lawyers Weekly
May 2014 The city was simmering. Just the day before workers were shot and killed by the police. And now, on May 4th, 1886, the workers again assembled, again calling for an eight hour work day. Their employers bristled at the outrageous demands and proclaimed that anarchists and socialists were behind the turmoil. Marches were held and speeches were made. And more tragedy awaited. Read more. |
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Who Killed Colonel Hogan?Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly
March 2014 To his many fans, he was the epitome of an accommodating star — friendly, likeable and outgoing. With his dark brown hair just starting to gray, the 6-foot and fit Bob Crane — star of the well-received comedy “Hogan’s Heroes” — exuded a smooth-talking, glib and confident persona. He also lived on the edges; into pornography and swinging and having sex as frequently as possible with a litany of women, married and unmarried, who wanted to be with a star, even one whose career was fading. Read more. |
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For Whom the Belle TollsMassachusetts Lawyers Weekly
December 2013 Lonely men came to the doorstep of Belle Sorenson Gunness one by one with their life savings in hand. Dreams of newfound wealth and comfort on Belle's farm in La Porte, Indiana danced in their heads as they responded to her matrimonial advertisements. The stout Norwegian-born widow and mother had the appearances of a busy and well-to-do housewife. Most of the many of men who arrived on her rural altar and entered her farmhouse were never seen again. Read more. |
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A Place at the Bottom of the LakeMassachusetts Lawyers Weekly
November 2013 Chester Gillette had it all worked out. Cashing in on his uncle’s lofty position in town, Chester mingled with some of the area’s loveliest ladies. He was also seeing Grace Brown on the side. Everything was perfect. Until Grace got pregnant. Read more. |
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Leopold and Loeb: A Match Made in Hell?Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly
September 2013 On May 21st, 1924, nineteen year old Nathan Leopold was out on a mission with his lover and equally brilliant partner, Richard Loeb, who at eighteen stood a year younger. When they spotted Loeb's fourteen year old cousin Bobby Franks walking home from an after-school basketball game, they offered him a ride. The Franks family never saw their son alive again. Leopold and Loeb both heralded from Kenwood, a wealthy neighborhood in the south side of Chicago. When the two met at the University of Chicago, each filled a void in the other. Leopold, short and unattractive in his early years, never had many friends; indeed he was often bullied in school. He had also been sexually abused by his nanny. He grew to be an egotistical and unpleasant young man. Read more. |
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The Congressman Who Got Away with MurderMassachusetts Lawyers Weekly
July 2013 With wealth, power, and political connections, Daniel Edgar Sickles knew how to get what he wanted. When the popular, albeit emotional and volatile, Congressman from New York learned that the District Attorney of Washington, D.C. was having an affair with his wife, he took matters into his own hands. Read more. |
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Who Whacked the Doctor's Wife?Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly
September 2012 The headline of the Cleveland Press wailed: “WHY ISN’T SAM SHEPPARD IN JAIL?” After all, everyone knew he was guilty. Even the judge, before the trial started, confided to a newspaper reporter that Sheppard was “guilty as hell. There’s no question about it.” The police even had a motive -- Sheppard’s longtime affair with his fetching assistant, the 24-year-old Susan Hayes, who worked with him at the hospital. Read more. |
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Thalia Lied, Joe DiedMassachusetts Lawyers Weekly
July 2012 A decade before Pearl Harbor, the Massie affair shook the Hawaiian Island like no other catastrophe. The reverberations were felt all the way to Washington. That lies and racism played a key role was of no moment. And at the center of the hailstorm sat Thalia Massie, the lovely 20-year-old, spoiled housewife from a wealthy and connected family. Read more. |
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A Graveyard for Our FriendsMassachusetts Lawyers Weekly
July 2012 "Diamond" Jim Fisk, one of the great Robber Barons of the Gilded Age, was a dandy. Heavyset, he perfumed his hair and waxed his mustache. His ostentatious dress was adorned by large and shiny diamonds, which he also wore on his stubby fingers. His girlfriend, Helen Josephine Mansfield- Josie- was more charming and attentive than attractive. Men were drawn to the 22-year-old's flowing brown hair, oceany blue eyes and voluptuous figure. When she spotted Diamond Jim in November 1867, she asked the madam of the house to introduce them. So much heartbreak would have been spared if Annie had merely said "no." Read more. |
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Chicago’s Sausage King Sizzles His WifeMassachusetts Lawyers Weekly
July 2012 Adolph was the King, King Luetgert, the King of Sausages. He even looked the role. A large man, broad and stocky, he commanded the respect of all those with whom he came in contact, not only for his foreboding physical appearance but for his business acumen. He was, after all, the preeminent maker of a scrumptious item that the population of Chicago could not get enough of. His factory commanded the street. Read more. |
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Old Whiskey and Young WomenMassachusetts Lawyers Weekly
June 2012 Errol Flynn was the original Tasmanian devil; a charming rogue as dashing and devilish off the screen as he was on it. At a fit and muscular 6-foot-2 and 180 pounds, the seemingly permanently bronzed hulk, complete with a cleft chin and dimples, looked every bit the movie star that he was. Perhaps unknowingly being far more insightful than he intended, he described his life as, “I like my whiskey old and my women young.” Little did he know he was describing his downfall. Read more. |
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H.H. Holmes: Dr. Slice, Dice and SauteMassachusetts Lawyers Weekly
May 2012 He was a catch. Handsome, of medium height and build, dapper in appearance and dress, exuding wealth. A doctor no less and young, in his later 20s. And with an affable manner that no one, neither man nor woman, could resist. When he focused his attention upon you it was as if you were the only person in the room. At least that's what his innumerable murder victims thought. Read more. |
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Thaw Ices WhiteMassachusetts Lawyers Weekly
April 2012 So scandalous the trial that the House of Representatives passed a resolution calling for President Teddy Roosevelt to ban the postal service from delivering newspapers that carried accounts of its lurid testimony. After all, it wasn't every day that the loony son of a multimillionaire fatally blasted a world renowned socialite in front of a large partying crowd. And all over a woman. Read more. |
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A Cold-Blooded Murder ... But with an AsteriskMassachusetts Lawyers Weekly
February 2012 As Joshua Spooner stumbled home on March 1, 1778, he could barely make out his feet hitting the gutted, frozen ground. Whether it was due to his inebriated state or, more likely, the moonless night, was of no consequence. The businessman-farmer trudged up the four stone steps leading to the front door of a secluded house buttoned shut against the cold. Little did Spooner know that he had but a few minutes left to live. As Spooner went to open the door, he was pounced on, beaten and strangled. Surely Spooner s wife, who had been sitting on the other side of the door, heard his screams. But she did nothing. And why would she? She had orchestrated the murder. Read more. |
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Beautiful Cigar Girl Gets SnuffedMassachusetts Lawyers Weekly
December 2011 Much like Paris Hilton and all of the Kardashians, Mary Cecilia Roger's notoriety was neither burdened by talent nor achievement. What Mary had was uncommon beauty and charisma, both of which served as lightning rods for the attention and affection of men. Sadly, her life met an untimely end. Read more. |
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What Does M-U-R-D-E-R Spell?Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly
October 2011 Lambeth Marsh in London was a crime infested cesspool of humanity. Crowded tenements housed far too many people, living in, or at the edge of, poverty in a dank area smelling of rotten eggs. Notwithstanding the ongoing and overt violence of the area, gunfire was a rarity. Fists, knives, bricks, rocks, shanks were the choices of mayhem. Thus when shots rang out shortly after 2 a.m. on February 17, 1872, all took notice. Read more. |
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The Death of Harlow's HusbandMassachusetts Lawyers Weekly
September 2011 When authorities found Paul Bern's body, they quickly concluded that the 42 year old wunderkind movie producer had taken his own life. They even had a suicide note. But whispers, followed by a press conference, provided the reason for Bern's suicide. He could not sexually satisfy his 21 year old wife, "the reigning sex queen of the 30s", Jean Harlow. Read more. |
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The Unlikely Partnership of Al Capone and EJ O'Hare
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Kid Twist Goes FlyingMassachusetts Lawyers Weekly
June 2011 Abe "Kid Twist" Reles sat in jail and mulled his options. Charged with murder, he faced the electric chair. Deciding that he would rather sing than fry, he cut a deal. As he flew out the sixth-floor window of his police-protected hotel on Coney Island, however, he might have been wiser to risk the chair. Read more: Part I and Part II. |
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Good Golly, Miss DollyMassachusetts Lawyers Weekly
May 2011 The call to the police came in at 3 in the morning. An explosion had obliterated the front porch and door to the home of a gangster known simply as "The Kid." When Dolly Mapp heard the news, she knew she had a problem on her hands. When the police came looking for one of the bombers at her house, her problems grew. What happened next is huge. Read more. |
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The Rape of RappMassachusetts Lawyers Weekly
March 2011 Roscoe Fatty Arbuckle was a superstar in Hollywood. A household name making a million bucks a year while the average American made less than a grand; as famous as Charlie Chaplin, Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford. All of his fame and fortune though could not shield him from the unspeakable crime with which he was accused. Read more: Part I and Part II. |
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The GodmotherMassachusetts Lawyers Weekly
February 2011 Her story of cruelty, inhumanity, murder, torture and robbery paints a person so perverse as to seem unreal. But Griselda Blanco was no fictional character. Rather, she was a force of nature, a combination of those depicted in "The Godfather," "Scarface," "Wiseguys" and "Catch Me if You Can." Perhaps the stories told of her are apocryphal; perhaps the truth has been stretched. What is clear is that she -was born in 1943 in the slums of Colombia and rose to become a drug trafficker on a level inhabited only by her. Read more. |
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The Bastard Birth of the State Secrets PrivilegeMassachusetts Lawyers Weekly
December 2010 There is no question that the government has a right to protect its secrets, the release of which would jeopardize national security. The U.S. Supreme Court case that gave rise to that right involves a fascinating tale. At 1:20 p.m on Oct. 6, 1948, 13 men boarded a B-29 on a secret mission to test radio equipment. Forty minutes later, at approximately 20,000 feet, a fire broke out in one of the engines. The plane started to fall from the sky. Four men bailed out. The plane blew up. Read more. |
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Paul Revere: American ThiefMassachusetts Lawyers Weekly
November 2010 Paul Revere was one of our most illustrious Americans. The multi-talented Revere seemingly did it all. Immortalized in Longfellow's poem about one famous midnight ride, the poem somehow fails to note the more mundane aspects of the journey – that Revere was but one of many Patriots riding throughout the countryside; that the warning shouted out was not the catchy "the British are coming" but something far more mundane; and that Revere was captured and did not complete his mission. Read more. |
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The Most Notorious Murder Trial of the 19th CenturyMassachusetts Lawyers Weekly
October/November 2010 There are few, if any, cases that have produced or furthered the number of fundamental legal principles used throughout our nation today than the trial of Dr. John Webster. A murder without a body, forensic dental testimony, handwriting experts, proof of character and reputation, malice, murder and manslaughter, consciousness of guilt, alibi, taking a view, juror bias and circumstantial evidence were all highlighted in one manner or another. Perhaps the greatest contribution to the law was the formulation of a reasonable doubt jury instruction that is still give, over verbatim in every criminal trial in Massachusetts. Read more: Part I and Part II. |
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