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The case of the Public Offender - Ingleside District 1934

11/13/2011 17:34:00

In 1913 the “world’s largest sun dial” was built on Entrata Court, in the middle of what had been the Ingleside race track, off Ocean Avenue. It was perhaps not the ideal location for a device that depends on sunshine to be built in one of the foggiest parts of San Francisco. It does have one unusual feature. If you climb to the top of this sundial you will be able to see the houses of the victim and of the perpetrator of the most famous murder in Ingleside history.

On the night of April 29, 1932. as Warren and Verna Louw walked On the night of April 29, 1932. as Warren and Verna Louw walked home from the El Rey Theater on Ocean Avenue they noticed a suspicious-looking automobile slowly circling the area. After the car drove off, the couple discovered the crumpled body of a woman lying on the pavement near the curb in front of 150 Kenwood Street .

She was soon identified by a neighbor as Jessie Scott Hughes, a 59-year-old widow who lived alone at 41 Lakewood Street . Public Defender Frank Egan could tell them more, the man said, for he was a close friend of Mrs. Hughes and managed her financial affairs.

The 50-year-old Egan was a well-respected figure in San Francisco's political and criminal justice circles. A former city police officer who had passed the bar and established a private law practice in 1914, he had been appointed the city's first Public Defender in 1918 and had been reelected continuously thereafter.

Egan said that his client had been in the habit of going on night hikes without a hat or coat, a practice he had warned her about repeatedly. Egan volunteered that he had attended the fights that night at Dreamland Auditorium at the time of Mrs. Hughes’ death.

When the car was located, the police learned that it had been borrowed by Verne Doran, a convicted burglar who worked as a chauffeur for Public Defender Frank Egan. Also under suspicion was Albert Tinnin, another ex-con who had been paroled through the intercession of the kindly public defender. Neither Doran nor Tinnin could be located.

As reporters and detectives investigated, a different picture of Frank Egan began to emerge. A bank had started foreclosure proceedings on the Egan home at 225 Urbano Drive to recover a $9000 mortgage that had gone unpaid. Dr. Alexander Keenan, who had treated Mrs Hughes, said that Egan refused to pay him, claiming that her funds had been exhausted.. At least three other women had their estates dwindle dramatically under Egan’s care.

In the midst of the investigation the police received a call from Egan, claiming that he had been kidnapped. A few days later Egan turned up in a private sanatorium on Steiner Street where, according to his spokesman and attorney, the legendary Vincent Hallinan, he was recovering from a nervous breakdown. Egan, said Hallinan, couldn't remember anything that had occurred since the preceding Saturday.

As the web of evidence drew around Egan and his two suspected accomplices, Egan's defenders rallied to his cause. It was all a frame-up. Attorney Hallinan and others charged, engineered to abolish the office of Public Defender. The police soon captured Tinnin and, as the authorities were closing in on him, Doran turned himself in to the police, confessed and implicated Egan.

Doran was the star witness for the prosecution, repeating in detail the story of how he and Tinnin had killed Mrs. Hughes at Egan's request. Despite the overwhelming evidence Attorney Hallinan mounted his customary spirited defense throughout. He finished off by going to jail on a charge of contempt for interrupting Prosecutor Golden during his closing arguments. On September 3, 1932 the case went to the jury and three days later they returned a verdict of guilty of first degree murder against both Egan and Tinnin. Their sentence was to be life in prison.

Egan never did admit to the crime and claimed that Tinnin had confessed only to expedite his own release. Over the years, Egan had made several futile attempts to seek an executive pardon and was finally paroled in October 1957. His object, he said in a post-release interview, was to clear his name. He died four years later still protesting his innocence.

"I had occasion to interview Vincent Hallinan in the early 1990s, more than half a century after the most famous San Francisco murder of the early 1930s and I asked him about Egan's claim of innocence, which some still claimed to support. Hallinan just smiled and rolled his eyes.”

Kevin Mullen, Ret Deputy Police Chief , San Francisco

Murder on the 19th Hole

10/28/2011 14:09:00

The Richmond – Murder on the 19 hole

Most murders don’t make the headlines. Without the requisite attractions of celebrity, sex, money, politics, revenge, carnage, blood, espionage, perversity or Nancy Grace, most homicides are relegated to the back pages or completely ignored by the fourth estate. Occasionally a killing has a quirky charm making it worthy of notice.
The circumstances of this case can be best understood by liberally quoting from the October 2, 1951 article in the San Francisco Chronicle.

“When police called at a stately old home, at 335 Thirty First Avenue yesterday they found that Alex Craig, 54, had ended a round of golf by killing his wife.…He had feared for weeks that his wife of thirty one years was planning to leave him…On the eighteenth hole he reached a fateful decision. Then he and his wife went home…After exchanging heated words in the kitchen Craig snatched an ivory handled steak knife and plunged it into Mrs. Craig’s back…He propped his wife’s body against the wall in a sitting position. He stepped outside and plucked a pink geranium and placed it at the throat of her housecoat. Then he located a snapshot of himself and his wife in happier days, soon after their marriage. He placed this picture in Mrs. Craig’s lap.
He decided to commit suicide by drowning himself in the bathtub and filled the bathtub with water.
He did not want to be interrupted while he was drowning so he nailed the front and rear doors shut.

But before he did this he decided to leave some mementos to his grandchildren.
He carefully unpacked the three dolls that his wife had bought them for Christmas and arranged them on a bed upstairs, leaving individual notes that said “We both loved you.”

Then he arranged all the financial papers in a neat pile on the kitchen table. His bankbook showed a balance of exactly $1. Next he began to write notes to family members. While he was writing he began to drink from a bottle of whiskey.

One note read, ‘We played golf this morning and I said on the eighteenth I would not be out again. I can say truthfully she was the only woman in the world for me. We raised five swell kids and eight swell grandchildren…You work steady for thirty years and are in debt and cannot get out….I was more than a continual nag to mother and she could only se her way.’

Somehow all of Sunday night passed without Craig climbing into the bathtub of water. Yesterday morning Craig’s son William became alarmed and called at the home. When he found the front door nailed shut he pounded on the garage door. His father let him in. Homicide officers called to the house said the elder Craig was too drunk to tell a coherent story, To one question Craig mumbled ‘It was an accident.’

The son said Craig had been jealous and brooding in recent weeks believing that his wife was going to leave him for another man- a fellow employee at the department store. Police booked Craig on suspicion of murder.”

Quiz hints

10/22/2011 21:28:00

No response yet on the Quiz. A few hints and extra prizes are in order.

Question 1 - Occurred in Chinatown

Question 2 - The dancer in Question 2 was a victim of inappropriate neckware

We are also giving away a set of 6 Crooks Tour Trading Cards. Some of these cards are pictured below

Always look for a genuine card back, as seen above. This assures you that the card is genuine and not a cheap imitation.

Oceanview District: The Little Frog Catcher

10/22/2011 18:07:00

This murder case had everything- frontier lesbians, French prostitutes, jealous Italians, enraged pimps, reform school babes, even a transvestite frog catcher.

On Thursday, September 15, 1876, the evening quiet at San Miguel Railway Station, located at what is now San Jose Avenue and Sickles Street in the Oceanview District was shattered by the report of a heavy shotgun blast. Pellets from the shot broke the window of a front bedroom of John McNamara's saloon/hotel, and struck 27-year-old Jeanne Bonnet, killing her instantly. Jeanne and Blanche Beunon, a French prostitute, were preparing for bed, when the shotgun blast crashed through the window.

Jeanne Bonnet’s life had been short and turbulent. She was one of two daughters in an unstable family of French theatrical performers. Jeanne had been a frequent inmate of the Industrial school, San Francisco’s19 Century version of reform school. It was said, she would gain entry to the boys’ dormitory and there "attack the largest boy found in the room, just to show how she could whip him."

As an adult, Jeanne’s legal troubles continued, most frequently for refusing to wear female attire, a crime in those days. She said that the law prohibiting her from wearing male apparel was an infringement on the rights of women, and she said that she intended to continue, no matter what the consequences.

Jeanne in her banned attire.

Jeanne made her living by catching frogs in the ponds near Lake Merced and selling them to French restaurants in downtown San Francisco. She made a good living but her drinking and her attraction for round heeled women kept her in constant battles with their procurers.

First the police tried to determine whether Jeanne or Blanche was the intended victim. Blanche’s pimp, Arthur Deneve had threatened both women after Blanche had left him for Jeanne, but he had returned to France weeks before the shooting.

Captain of Detectives Isaiah Lees soon learned that a man named Pierre Louis had been paid $2,000 by someone to kill Blanche. Lees and his detectives hastened to arrestLouis but he had disappeared.

Two years later someone was revealed as an Italian Market Street merchant who had proposed to Blanche and became furious when he learned that Blanche had taken up with Jeanne Bonnet.In mid-July 1880 Louis was arrested near Montreal for assaulting his wife Caroline. Louis hanged himself before police arrived.

In the end, the crime remained officially unsolved, Jeanne was dead, Blanche went back to her Merchant and the frogs relaxed again in Lake Merced.

Crooks Quiz

10/18/2011 22:10:00

Crime Quiz

You think you know San Francisco crime? Here's your chance.

Five challenging questions. The first person who answers them correctly wins a Free Crooks Tour. Send entries to pdrexler8@gmail.com

Question 1. NY Mafia leader Albert Anastasia was killed in a Barber shop in Manhattan in 1957. What famous San Francisco crime leader was killed in a Barber shop in 1897?
Questions 2. and 3. Two famous early 20 century dancers had close relatives in San Francisco who were noted criminals. Name each dancer and her criminal relative.
Question 4. What Zebra Killer victim survived to become mayor of San Francisco?
Question 5. What San Francisco born serial killer was known as the Gorilla Strangler?

Write your post here.

Glen Park - The Death of the Boss from Hell

09/30/2011 23:42:00

Crime Stories from San Francisco Neighborhoods:

Each week we will be presenting notorious crimes that occurred in your San Francisco neighborhood. Isn’t it nice to know that even the most peaceful neighborhood has a few skeletons in the closet.

Episode #2 Glen Park- The Death of the Boss from Hell 1914

George and Harry Gray gave even unbridled capitalism a bad name. The brothers made millions running a strip quarry business in upper Noe Valley. The damage they created by dynamiting on Telegraph Hill causes landslides in the winter, even today. The Gray brothers blasted rock in their quarry in Glen Park, damaging local homes and injuring children. Their abuses lead to the first environmental movement in San Francisco. They were also notorious for not paying their employees, who were often forced to take them to court. The City Attorney called the Grays 'constant law breakers.'"

In their spare time, they probably pulled the wings off flies and ran over kittens and puppies.

In 1914 Joe Lococco, a 26 year old immigrant from Italy worked for them but quit because of failing health. Because he had not been at work on payday (he had been sick in bed) Harry Gray did not pay him his back wages. Because of Gray's actions, Lococco’s family had not eaten for two days and was facing eviction from their Potrero Hill apartment. In desperation Lococo went to see Gray again at the 29 and Castro street quarry. When Gray laughed at Joe’s tale of misery. Lococco lost control. He pulled out a gun and killed Gray. When he realized what he had done he gasped, "God, forgive me." Whether God forgave him is a complex theological issue on which there may be conflicting opinion. Whether San Francisco forgave him is a simple matter of history. Following a sensational trial in April 1915, the jury found Lococco not guilty by reason of temporary insanity and released him

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The Sunset - The Murder of "The Animal"

09/21/2011 12:16:00

Crime Stories from San Francisco Neighborhoods:

Each week we will be presenting notorious crimes that occurred in your San Francisco neighborhood. Isn’t it nice to know that even the most peaceful neighborhood has a few skeletons in the closet.

Episode #1 The Sunset - The Murder of Joe Barboza

On February 11, 1976, when Joe Barboza was shot to death on Moraga and 25

th Ave there was little speculation about who did it or why. It was more “why did it take so long.”

The FBI described Barboza nicknamed “The Animal,” “the most vicious criminal in New England” and “a professional assassin responsible for numerous homicides.” He had been a top enforcer for the New England Mafia but lost favor and was abandoned when he was arrested on a weapons charge in 1966. He became a star witness for the FBI and hit the jackpot when his testimony helped convict seven Mafiosi for the murders of Willie Marfeo and Teddy Deagon. In the Deagon case four men to death row, and two to prison for life. In the Mafeo case, the FBI hit the jackpot when New England Mafia Boss Ray Patriarca was convicted and sent to Atlanta Federal Penitentiary.

There was nothing a grateful FBI would not do for Joe and he became the first participant in the Federal Witness Protection Program. Although Joe admitted killing 26 people he was given a sentence of one year, including time served. The FBI agents he worked with also overlooked another of Joe’s foibles – five of the six people his testimony convicted in the Deagon case were actually innocent. Joe admitted later that “ the Mafia screwed me and I’m going to screw as many of them as possible.”

Twenty five years later the true facts came out and led to the disgrace and conviction of FBI agents Paul Rico and Dennis Conden.

Meanwhile Joe was paroled in March 1969 and told to leave Massachusetts forever.

He was resettled in Santa Rosa by the Witness Protection program under the name of Joe Bentley and enrolled in a cooking school. He gave up cooking and went back to his favorite occupation, homicide, killing a local criminal named Clay Wilson.

Although the FBI did everything they could to get Barboza off, he was convicted of 2

nd degree murder and served 5 years in a California prison. He was released with a new name, Joe Donati and lived with a girlfriend at an apartment at 1250 La Playa Street in San Francisco. Would you buy a used crime from this man?

Two months later Barboza was murdered outside the apartment of Ted Sharliss, a fellow ex con, who later pleaded guilty to helping to set up the murder. In 1992 Joe Russo, a notorious hit man from Boston plead guilty to the murder. By the time of his death Barboza stature in the world had gotten somewhat classier. His nickname had changed from “The Animal” to “The Baron.”