Transcript - “Secrets from My Hometown” Episode One - Spade Cooley

On the surface, Bakersfield is just another busy California town. But Bakersfield prefers pickup trucks to convertibles and ranching to filming. Generations of farmers and oil men have shaped the character of the place. Hard work, early to bed, early to rise, that type of thing.

[Intro music begins]

But there's a layer of secrets as thick as the Tule fog over the city, and I'm going to tell you all about it.

Reckless Conversationalist Media presents Secrets from My Hometown, Episode one: Spade Cooley.

[Intro music fades out]

Bakersfield is known as a major player in country music, thanks to artists like Buck Owens and Merle Haggard. Some even call it the Nashville of the West, but before Buck and Merle and the modern sounds of country music, there was Western swing. Western swing, with its beat made for dancing, is happy. This genre of music grew out of the heart of the country and moved with the people.

[Excerpt from Spade Cooley’s “Miss Molly” plays]

As the Dust Bowl drove Americans West, their folksy sound Western swing music found commercial success as the country grew out of the Great Depression. By 1940, Western swing artists like Bob Wills, Roy Rogers, and Donnell “Spade” Cooley were weekly TV and radio stars and had Hollywood film contracts.

[Excerpt from Spade Cooley’s “Miss Molly” plays and fades out]

Over the mountains from Tinseltown lies Kern County and Bakersfield and the great San Joaquin Valley. This is where many Dust bowl refugees settled into lives as farmers once again, harvesting potatoes, peaches, grapes, oranges, the bounty of the Valley. John Steinbeck's masterpiece, The Grapes of Wrath, was set near Bakersfield. These

[Spade Cooley’s “Shame on You” plays]

Born Donnell Clyde Cooley in Oklahoma in 1910, Spade’s large family migrated first to Oregon and then to California, to the San Joaquin Valley for work. Spade worked the fields during the day and played fiddle at night. Eventually he landed in Hollywood where he proclaimed himself the King of Western swing and was a famous movie star and bandleader.

Spade met his second wife, Ella Mae Evans, when she was a singer for his band. She was barely 20 years old when they married. They had two teenage children in 1961 when Ella Mae was brutally murdered in her own home in rural Kern County.

[Steel guitar bridge plays]

Melody Cooley was just 14 she happened upon her father torturing her half alive mother. Court documents indicate that Ella Mae had already been struck, strangled, and sexually assaulted before Melody came home the afternoon of April 4th, 1961. With a rifle in hand, Spade commanded Melody to help her mother off the floor as he dragged her out of the shower. When Ella Mae didn't stir, Spade stomped her with his boots and burned her body with a cigarette, all in front of his daughter.

During this hours-long ordeal, Spade calmly took phone calls from business associates and discussed the situation with private nurses and fixers. When he was advised to take the hours-dead Ella Mae to the hospital, he deliberately changed clothes and even remembered to put his bloodstained trousers in the washing machine. He sat down with sheriff deputies at three AM and gave a tape recorded statement in the substation while Ella Mae sat in the morgue.

Transcript of original audio recording from Kern County Sheriff Cooper: It's 3:00 AM April 4th, 1961. We're located in a small room in the Mojave Sheriff's substation. Those present are Sergeant Thomas Schule who was in charge of them in the Mojave substation here. My name is Cooper. I'm with the Sheriff's office in Bakersfield working out of the criminal division. And your name is Spade Cooley. Is that correct? Is that your correct name?

Cooley: It’s Darnell, Darnell Cooley. Cooper: And how old are you Mr. Cooley? You're 50 years of age, Mr. Cooley. I might explain that, uh, in this room here with us at the present time, as you can see, you sitting in front of you is a recording machine. You're probably very familiar with them and your type of work or in the recording business. Uh, as you know, everything's said by me, by you and by Sergeant Schule here will be recorded on this tape, that instrument in front of you and the microphone. Do you understand that… [recording trails off]

[Musical interlude of Spade Cooley’s song “Shame on You”]

Transcript of original audio recording from Kern County Sheriff continues

Cooper: Uh, then what transpired, after the burning? Cooley: Uh, she went to the shower and she staggered when she walked because she was weak. She had not eaten, as I told you for days. She got to the shower and she slipped from the floor. The door opened when she opened the door and I heard her head hit a glass container or something in there. I never did look to see what was broken, but she had landed flat on her face and there was a quite a crack. I would say to you that I believe that the autopsy will prove that she did die of a concussion.

[Musical interlude of Spade Cooley’s song “Shame on You”]

Transcript of original audio recording from Kern County Sheriff continues

Cooper: Mr. Cooley, um, I want to ask you something and you feel free not to answer it if you wish not to. Cause I want you to feel free. I don't want you to say anything that didn't happen, but I'd like to know. I see both of your hands are swelling and swollen and bruised. And, uh, as I told you before and I talked to you, we'll show if it fits a mark on your wife or not. We know that, and you know that, sir, and your hands are awfully swollen, and the bruise... Cooley: May I say that I did not hit her with my fist. I did not hit her with my fist. Cooper: How do you account for both your hands being bruised and swollen on the back side? Cooley: Both of my hands? Well, this hand I hit a car with, well that's when we were on our vacation. I hit a car, I hit a car with my hand as hard as I could. I did like this… [audio trails off]

[Musical interlude of Spade Cooley’s song “Shame on You”]

Spade was held in the Kern County Jail awaiting trial for murder and the appeal of having a famous prisoner in their midst did not escape the jailers and sheriff deputies. Spade was clearly given special treatment according to news accounts. While he awaited trial, Cooley had the run of the jail and could have just about anything he wanted. He often was not confined to a cell, but allowed to walk the jail corridors. He ate with law enforcement officers in their dining room, which served much better food than the regular inmates were given.

Melody testified against her father in court. A jury of 10 men and two women determined, after a 19 hour deliberation, that Spade was guilty of murder in the first degree. These jurors, many of whom were probably Okies, just like Spade, judged one of their own.

Spade’s preferential treatment didn't end there. Sentenced to life in prison, he was remanded into custody at a state prison hospital. He had suffered from heart trouble during his trial. Spade was allowed to roam freely on the grounds, pursue his lifelong passion of music, and even enjoy furloughs to play shows. When one of his movie star buddies, Ronald Reagan, was elected governor in 1967, Spade’s entourage even petitioned Reagan to pardon Spade, which Reagan agreed to, but Spade died before it could be granted.

Of course, this wasn't justice for Ella May's family, including her daughter Melody, but it must have brought some sense of comfort to them that the man loved by the public, but whom they knew as a vicious slayer, was dead.

Still, It must have been forever haunting for Melody to hear Spade’s ironic hit, “Shame on You,” play on the radio.

[Song “Shame on You” continues] [Spoken end of song: “Oh lady! Shame on you!”]