Sept. 21, 2012 Vol. 1 Issue 2 Totally Botched: Th e Investigation Th e School into Joan Webster’s Murder Stalker On Saturday November 28, 1981, Joan Webster, a 25-year-old Harvard gradu- ate student, landed at Logan Airport in Boston aboard Eastern fl ight #960. Shortly aft er retrieving a suitcase from the luggage carousel, she disappeared.

by Eve Carson

Th e School Stalker is an extract Th e Cover-up of Pat Tillman’s Death from Written On Th e Skin– an Aus- Pat Tillman was an incredible recruiting asset tralian Forensic Casebook by Liz for the military in the wake of the terrorist at- Porter, joint winner of the 2007 Ned tacks on America on September 11, 2001. Th e Kelly Prize for best true crime book. popular Californian was an academic and ath- letic standout in high school and at Arizona by Liz Porter State University. Motivated by intense patrio- tism, Tillman gave up a lucrative professional football career and joined the Army Rangers. Left to Die: Th e Barbara Payton by Don Fulsom Tragedy Th e “Road Rage” Incident at Newhall A simple “road rage” incident led to the shoot- ing deaths of four rookie California Highway patrol offi cers in the Newhall section of Santa Clarita on April 5, 1970. Th e offi cers’ deaths led to major changes in how the California Highway Patrol and other police departments train their offi cers. by Mark Pulham Barbara Payton reached the pin- nacle of Hollywood in 1950. Blonde A Primer on Forensic Science Justice on Trial and beautiful, her libido was robust, her taste ribald by the Northern by Liz Porter California Inno- by John O’Dowd cence Project Table of Contents

Th e School Stalker Th e “Road Rage” Incident at Newhall

by Liz Porter Page 3 Aug. 14, 2012 Vol. 1 Issue 1 Totally Botched: Th e by Mark Pulham Page 9 Publisher Investigation into Joan A Primer on Forensic Science Joe O’Connor Webster’s Murder [email protected]

Editor J. Patrick O’Connor [email protected]

Authors Ronald J. Lawrence by Liz Porter Page 11 J. J. Maloney David Lohr H. P. Albarelli Jr. Lora Lusher Jane Alexander Lona Manning Justice on Trial Betty Alt Hal Mansfi eld by Eve Carson Page 5 Scott Th omas Anderson Peter Manso Mel Ayton David Margolick Joan Bannan Jessica Mason Th e Cover-up of Dane Batty Allan May Scott Bartz Paula Moore Pat Tillman’s Death Bonnie Bobit John Morris Gary Boynton Richard Muti John Lee Brook Tim Newark Patrick Campbell Denise Noe Amanda Carlos Lt. John Nores Jr. James Ottavio Castag- J. Patrick O'Connor nera John O'Dowd J. D. Chandler Robert Phillips Page 13 Ron Chepesiuk Liz Porter Denise M. Clark Mark Pulham Left to Die: Th e Barbara Kendall Coff ey Joe Purshouse Peter Davidson Patrick Quinn Payton Tragedy Anthony Davis Randy Radic Scott M. Deitche Michael Richardson Michael Esslinger Ryan Ross Steven Gerard Farrell Eponymous Rox by Don Fulsom Page 7 Don Fulsom Anneli Rufus Mark S. Gado Laura Schultz, MFT Mary Garden Cathy Scott Oliver Gaspirtz Fred Shrum, III Erin Geyer Ronnie Smith David A. Gibb James A. Swan, Ph.D. Anthony Gonzalez John Tait Dennis N. Griffi n Marilyn Z. Tomlins Randor Guy Claudette Walker Charles Hustmyre Robert Walsh John F. Kelly Phillip K. Wearne David Kirschner, PhD. Sandra Wells Barbara Kussow Evan Whitton by John O’Dowd Page 15 Doris Lane Peter L. Winkler Jason Lapeyre Daniel B. Young 2 as pranks, she had soon begun keeping them, and had collected a Th e School Stalker considerable number to give to the detective. One note described her as “a big slut who roots boys in year 9 and 10.”

“Th ere’s a word for sluts like you,” said another, “pedophile – sickos who root young boys.” Th at latter note was illustrated with a draw- ing of a bare-breasted woman. A further note featured the teacher’s head, cut from the previous year’s school magazine, and attached to a crudely drawn nude female body.

Detective-Sergeant Warren began speaking to teachers at the school, Handwriting analysis example from the University of Kent asking them for suggestions about possible culprits. To him, the notes Th e School Stalker is an extract from Written On Th e Skin– an Australian all looked to be the work of the Forensic Casebook by Liz Porter, joint winner of the 2007 Ned Kelly Prize same person. Although there had for best true crime book. Th is book is available in a Kindle edition. Hard been clear attempts to disguise the copies from the author: [email protected] writing, certain characteristics re- curred, like the left to right upward by Liz Porter swing of the top bar of the capital “T.” The attractive young female some of her male students and teacher had been delighted to get a threatened to “seek legal advice” Samples of writing were taken from job on the staff of an inner-subur- about it. students at the school, and the ban boys-only high school in the poison-pen notes were sent off to Australian city of Melbourne. But “On many occasions,” this “con- the Victoria Police forensic sciences in late 1996, within months of her cerned parent” wrote, “my son center to be treated with ninhydrin, arrival, she began receiving off en- has mentioned that this lady uses a chemical that reacts with the ami- sive handwritten notes, accusing inappropriate and suggestive com- no acids in the human sweat that is her of having sex with some of her ments to year 10 boys in class.” Th e part of fi ngerprint residue, slowly 15 and 16-year-old year students. “parent” also drew attention to the bringing up a reddish-purple print. A letter from an anonymous parent teacher’s appearance – her ‘very But that process only revealed par- was also sent to the school princi- short dresses which leave little to tial prints, none of them any use for pal. the imagination.” comparative purposes.

Th e opening of the 1997 school When the teacher turned to the po- Th e general assumption among the year triggered a resumption of the lice, Detective Tony Warren, then teachers was that one of the boys notes, including a second letter based at a station near the school, was responsible, and the detec- to the principal, and the targeted was assigned to the case. tive was given several leads on teacher became increasingly dis- “dysfunctional” students thought traught. Th e letter suggested that Although the teacher had de- to be capable of such letters. Th e the young woman had been behav- stroyed some of the early notes she detective himself wasn’t altogether ing in an improper way towards had been sent, dismissing them happy with this hypothesis. A 3 father of three teenage boys him- and the new suspect, in their late self, he considered the wording and Suddenly the detective took a forties and presumably far too style of the notes atypical of boys’ chance with a stunning new ques- mature for some of the silliness on work. Th e drawings bothered him tion – a change of direction that display in the notes. particularly. Th e face of the bare- neither the boy, nor the school breasted woman illustrating one principal, had been expecting: In a horrible way, the scenario had of the notes featured far too many its own logic. If the suspect was a details on it: eyes, nose, hair, and “How long have you been sleeping pedophile (and there were indica- carefully drawn lips. In his experi- with your teacher?” he asked. tions that the boy Warren inter- ence, teenage boys didn’t bother viewed hadn’t been her only target), with that sort of fi nesse in their Th e detective saw the headmas- then she might very well have crude sexual drawings. Th e words ter’s face turn grey as the boy said: viewed the new teacher, prettier were wrong, too, he thought. One “Only three times.” He followed his and younger than she, as a rival for note accused the teacher of acting confession with an assurance that her targets’ sexual interest. Remov- like a “goody-goody”; another said it was “over,” because the teacher ing the younger woman from the she “shakes her arse” and “packs concerned was “crazy.” school would also open up a teach- on makeup goo.” Th ose comments ing position. didn’t strike him as a typically teen Before the interview ended, the de- male critique. tective had another name to work Prosecuting the former temporary with. Th e teacher the boy had men- teacher for having sex with an But this was an all-male school. tioned was 36, and a single mother under-age boy looked impossible, Boys were the only suspects who of a teenage daughter. She had been because the mother of the boy War- had been suggested to him, and at the school late the year before as ren had spoken to had refused to he had at least to eliminate them a student teacher and had returned allow her son to make a statement. before he started looking elsewhere to a temporary placement in early But the information the youth had in the school. Accordingly, he inter- 1997. But there had been no more given in the headmaster’s offi ce viewed several boys, including one work for her at the school aft er that was enough to justify a warrant to who had been named by one of the initial stint. In fact, by the time the search the suspect teacher’s house. few female teachers at the school as detective had spoken to this last A check of criminal records had a potential poison-pen letter writer. boy, the teacher was no longer at revealed a long-ago dishonesty the school. off ence, to do with over-claiming Speaking to the boy in the pres- of welfare benefi ts. Th ere was also ence of the school headmaster, If the boy’s story was true, this something odd and immature the detective was bothered by the woman suddenly looked like a very about this woman. Her own house way the boy was reacting to his good potential suspect. Th e “dys- was barely furnished, and she and questions. Something wasn’t right. functional male student” theory her daughter seemed to spend most But the boy’s discomfort wasn’t, had never really held up to scrutiny. of their time at her parents’ house. he believed, an indicator that he Th e letters had been postmarked at was guilty of writing the notes. various locations, a few miles away, Th e 36-year-old accused denied Th e detective’s gut feeling was not and at times indicating they had all knowledge of the notes but ambivalent. Th is youth was not a been posted during school hours. agreed to meet police at her house. perpetrator. He had the aura of a Yet, the use of a picture cut from She watched as police seized pens, victim, albeit one of another type. the school magazine showed that pencils, handwritten letters, a diary To the detective, this lad seemed the sender was part of the school and notepads, all the time main- just the sort who might well be the community. While it had been taining that the detectives should target of a pedophile. Physically the detective’s gut feeling all along be looking at the boys, and one boy mature for his age, he was a loner that the letter writer was female, in particular, rather than her. As the who wasn’t doing well at school, there were only a handful of female woman defended herself, Warren and his parents were going through teachers at the school, all of them, a very messy marriage break-up. with the exception of the victim School Stalker continued on Page 17 4 Totally Botched: Th e Investigation into Joan Webster’s Murder On Saturday November 28, 1981, Joan Webster, a 25-year-old Harvard graduate student, landed at Logan Airport in Boston aboard Eastern fl ight #960. Shortly aft er retrieving a suitcase from the luggage carousel, she disappeared.

by Eve Carson

Joan Webster, a 25-year-old, second-year student at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, had every- thing going for her as she fl ew back to Boston aft er spending Th anksgiving with her parents in Glen Ridge, New Jersey. Just before she took the holiday break, her presentation of an 11-week auditorium project had been rewarded with high accolades from her teacher and classmates.

At Harvard, she was the dorm proctor at Perkins Hall. Smart, popular, attractive, she was available to anyone who needed her help and friendship. A quote tacked on her dorm room wall read, “It costs so much to be a full human being.” Joan Webster

Her fl ight aboard Eastern # 960 and several other fl ights arrived at Logan Airport around 10 p.m. on Sat- Joan arrived at Logan Airport wearing a red print urday, November 28, 1981. As Joan went to retrieve her blouse, black skirt, navy blue scarf, a brown Chester- one stowed suitcase, many passengers crowded around fi eld coat, and brown knee-high leather boots. She was the only luggage carousel in use that night. Shortly aft er carrying a red purse, a tote bag, and a navy blue Lark retrieving her suitcase, Joan Webster disappeared. suitcase. Th e purse was found in a known dumping ground, a marshy area along both sides of Route 107 in In the days following her disappearance, the media Saugus, Massachusetts on December 2, 1981, four days continuously reported that Joan simply vanished aft er aft er her disappearance. A sum of less than $100 was waiving to a friend at the airport. Many years later missing, but her credit cards and checkbook were in the when I took up in earnest trying to fi nd out what really bag. It was reported later that a distinctive gold charm happened to Joan, who was my sister-in-law, I recov- bracelet was missing from her purse, but that was not ered documents that revealed that a cab driver believed publicly known at the time. An extensive search pro- he saw her as she left the airport. Lt. Larry Murphy, of duced no other clues in the area. Th e location was on the Harvard Police, told the Boston Globe that the cab- the south side of the Lynn Marsh Road, seven miles bie provided a composite description of a bearded man north of the airport, and in the opposite direction from believed seen leaving the airport with Joan. Strangely, Cambridge where Joan resided at Perkins Hall. authorities suppressed the image and it was never broadcast to the public. Joan’s suitcase was recovered intact and undisturbed on 5 January 29, 1982, in a Greyhound killer who ended his spree with her neck. She was not wearing her Bus terminal. Th e media reported Joan Webster. Penn contacted Joan’s shoes and stockings. Her clothes it was recovered in the Park Square parents and gave them a 119-page were intact, and no jewelry was Station in downtown Boston. As manifesto outlining his theory. Th e missing. Police ruled out rape and would prove to be typical about calculations were turned over to the robbery as motives for the crime. so many details involving Joan’s Middlesex offi ce and the FBI, and A prime suspect in Marie’s murder disappearance, the Boston Herald the investigation was diverted down was her boyfriend, David Doyle, revealed in 1990 that the bag may another dead end. Penn published an unemployed drug user with a actually have been discovered in his theory in 1987 in Times 17, known violent relationship with New York. and detailed his extensive contact Marie Iannuzzi. with the Webster family. Th e FBI Th e tote bag Joan carried was never dismissed his theory as one with In February 1981, the Iannuzzi case located. Reports described its con- forced conclusions that lacked a was reassigned to Trooper Andrew tents: pamphlets, books, records, concrete foundation of proof. Palombo, a bearded undercover cop and shoes. Fragile architectural who worked with informants, and drawings were also contained in Th e Murder of Marie Iannuzzi who was based out of F Barracks at the carry-on, but that item was not Boston’s Logan Airport. Th e case disclosed to the public. Marie Iannuzzi was murdered was still handled by prosecutors in 1979. She was strangled and in Essex County, but Trooper Carl Joan’s disappearance was initially dumped on the rocks by the Pine Sjoberg was usurped. One of the handled by the Middlesex County River. Th e area was a known dump- informants who reported what he D.A.'s offi ce of John Droney, the ing ground on the northbound side heard on the streets to Palombo offi ce that covered Cambridge, of Route 107 behind a vacated busi- was the prime suspect in the Ian- Massachusetts. Assistant D.A. Carol ness. Th e victim was found wear- nuzzi case, David Doyle. Ball was assigned to the case in December 1981 with the Th e Iannuzzi case had gone Massachusetts State Police cold and the high-profi le dis- Crime Prevention and Control appearance of Joan Webster unit assigned to that offi ce. was going nowhere until Jan- Th e offi ce handled the case uary of 1982 when a woman for several months and fol- placed two anonymous calls. lowed numerous leads to dead One call linked a man named ends. A legal assistant work- Leonard Paradiso, a parolee, ing in that offi ce on Joan’s case to the 1979 murder of Marie affi rmed that the composite Iannuzzi and the other call drawing constructed in De- linked Paradiso to Joan’s cember of 1981, the likeness of disappearance. Th e fi rst call a bearded man believed seen was to the Saugus police, the leaving the airport with Joan, second was to the parents of was never provided to the Joan Webster. Middlesex D.A.’s offi ce. In the call to the police the Middlesex pursued another woman claimed to have been hypothesis, a claim made by assaulted by Paradiso in a California Mensa theorist Marie Iannuzzi 1972, and she said he was re- who was studying the Zodiac sponsible for Marie Iannuzzi’s murders a decade before in Cali- ing a red, one-piece bodysuit with murder. In the call to Joan’s parents, fornia. Gareth Penn calculations no snaps in the crotch, a matching she told them she was basing her implicated a Harvard professor, wrap around skirt, and a black Michael Henry O'Hare, as the serial scarf double knotted tightly around Joan Webster Continued on Page 19 6 Th e Cover-up of Pat Tillman’s Death

Pat Tillman was an incredible recruit- ing asset for the military in the wake of the terrorist attacks on America on September 11, 2001. Th e popular Californian was an academic and ath- letic standout in high school and at Arizona State University. Motivated by intense patriotism, Tillman gave up a lucrative professional football career and joined the Army Rangers.

by Don Fulsom

A Sports Illustrated All-Pro safety for the Arizona Cardinals in 2000, Tillman enlisted in the elite military squadron at the end of the 2001 season. Just wed to his high school sweetheart, he turned down a three-year $3.6 million contract with the Cardinals to help avenge the surprise air assaults on his homeland.

On April 22, 2004, at age 27, Cpl. Tillman was killed in action in a canyon in eastern Afghanistan. Apparently, his death was a not-uncommon “fog of war” tragedy caused by “friendly fi re.” Th e entire rear of Tillman’s movie-star handsome head was Pat Tillman blown out by a burst of three tightly placed bullets to his forehead from an M-16-type Army investigator on the scene determined “within days” that rifl e. Th e fatal shots were fi red from a scant his fellow Rangers killed Tillman in an act of “gross negligence.” 10 yards away. Th e documents also show that top Army offi cials—including the theater commander, General John Abizaid—were almost immedi- Initially, however, Pentagon offi cials refused ately informed that Tillman’s death was fratricide. to disclose that U.S. bullets had killed the Army’s No. 1 “poster boy.” Th e story the Yet the Pentagon’s phony explanation said Tillman was killed Army put out claimed Tillman was fatally while charging up a hill “under devastating enemy fi re” aft er wounded during an ambush by as many as saving the lives of several members of his platoon. He was post- one-dozen Taliban insurgents. humously awarded a Silver Star for valor and was eulogized by President George W. Bush as a classic war hero. Th ey knew better. Documents obtained by Th e Washington Post in 2005 say the fi rst Only aft er Tillman’s nationally televised May 4th memorial ser- 7 vice, did the truth begin to emerge. “Th ey weren’t shortfalls … they been through the press.” Rumsfeld Th e Army admitted that Tillman were deliberate attempts to cover was also uncertain of when he was had “probably” been a victim of up what happened in order for informed that Tillman’s death was fratricide. Th is prompted Tillman’s them to use Pat’s death for propa- most likely from American fi re. family to press for more informa- ganda purposes at a time during the At the end of the hearings, a frus- tion on Pat’s death. war in 2004 when (the) Abu Ghraib trated Chairman Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) asserted: “You’ve Despite a number of military all admitted that the system investigations and a congres- failed; none of you feel re- sional hearing, Patrick and sponsible. Somebody should Mary Tillman say they still be responsible.” don’t know the full truth about their son’s death. In When President Bush was 2010, Mary Tillman told asked at a news conference CNN’s Larry King: “Th ey when he discovered the truth never did a criminal investiga- behind Tillman’s death, his tion aft er Pat was killed. So, response was equally evasive: without that proper criminal “I can’t give you the precise investigation, they destroyed moment.” evidence (Pat’s uniform, body armor and diary were Congressional investigators burned), which is long gone. say their probe “was frustrat- Th ere is really no way for us to ed by a near-universal lack of know exactly what happened recall” among “senior offi cials to him.” On the same pro- at the (Bush) White House” gram, Patrick Tillman even stated Prison scandal was breaking … it and the military. Th ey concluded he has not “eliminated” the pos- was a terrible time for the military that “the pervasive lack of recollec- sibility that his son may have been and for (the George W. Bush) ad- tion and absence of specifi c infor- deliberately killed. ministration, and Pat’s death was an mation makes it impossible … to opportunity for them.” assign responsibility for the misin- Former Defense Secretary Don- formation” that was originally made ald Rumsfeld and retired General Th e theory that Tillman might have public. “It is clear, however, that Stanley McChrystal – a former been murdered, however, seems the Defense Department did not commander of U.S. forces in Af- absent of any motive, as he was re- meet its most basic obligations in ghanistan – declined to appear on garded with favor and aff ection by sharing accurate information” with the same program. But the Army his fellow troops –all of whom testi- Tillman’s family and the American issued a statement to the news fi ed that his death was accidental. public. outlet admitting to a failure “in our duty to the memory of a fallen During the congressional hearings, In its review of a 2010 documentary soldier and to his family.” Th e Army Rumsfeld and other top offi cials “Th e Tillman Story,” Th e New York added regrets for “the pain and suf- used some version of “I don’t recall” Times was even more direct, say- fering endured by the Tillman fam- 82 times when queried about just ing the Tillman family “emerges as ily as a result of this tragic friendly when they learned that Tillman was fi ner, more morally sturdy people fi re accident, and the shortfalls in killed by friendly fi re. than the cynical chain of command reporting accurate information to that lied to them and used their son them in the days and weeks follow- Rumsfeld told the House Oversight as a propaganda tool.” ing Pat’s death.” and Government Reform Commit- tee: “I can’t recall precisely how I Th at statement did not pacify the learned that he was killed. It could family. Mary Tillman told King: have been internally; it could have 8 Th e “Road Rage” Incident at Newhall

what happened snowballed into a major tragedy.

It was around 11:20 p.m. on Sun- day, April 5, 1970. Jack Tidwell was driving south along Interstate 5 from Gorman, California. Sitting next to him in the passenger seat was his wife, Pamela. Jack was a sailor with the U. S. Navy, and the couple was heading home to Port Hueneme Naval Base, where Jack was stationed.

As they drove their Volkswagen along near the area known as Pyramid Rock, a red Pontiac in the northbound lane was heading A simple “road rage” incident led to the shooting deaths of four toward them. As the two cars got rookie California Highway patrol offi cers in the Newhall closer, the driver of the red Pontiac section of Santa Clarita on April 5, 1970. Th e offi cers’ deaths decided to make an illegal U-turn. Th e Pontiac suddenly turned, led to major changes in how the California Highway Patrol and crossed the center divide, and al- other police departments train their offi cers. most hit the Tidwell’s Volkswagen. by Mark Pulham It was no doubt a scary couple of seconds, but the incident was over, Santa Clarita, in Southern Cali- shows and movies, such as the 1954 no one was hurt, the event had fornia, is the fourth largest city in suspense fi lm Suddenly in which passed. Th at should have been the Los Angeles County. It is known as Frank Sinatra’s character attempts end of it. But probably shaken, and the home of Six Flags Magic Moun- to assassinate the President of the certainly angry, Jack wasn’t going tain amusement park, though the United States as he passes through to let it go. Th e carelessness of the park is actually just outside the city town. other driver had annoyed Jack, and limits. he felt he needed to say something. But to many, the name of Newhall It was a small incident of road rage, Th e city, just 35 miles northwest is synonymous with one thing, an but the process of escalating the of downtown Los Angeles, was, in incident that occurred in April, incident had begun. 2006, ranked as number 18 in the 1970. At the time, Newhall was top 100 places to live by Money more rural than it is now, some Th e Pontiac had slowed down, and Magazine. On a list of cities that may even have described it as a the Volkswagen managed to catch have at least 100,000 inhabitants, it “sleepy town.” In one night, that im- up to it. Jack pulled alongside, is ranked as the sixth safest in the age would change. matching the speed, and Pamela United States, according to the FBI. rolled down her window so that her It began with a small event, a minor husband could call out to the other Th e southernmost, and the oldest, occurrence that should have blown driver. Jack shouted at the man in district in Santa Clarita is Newhall, over a moment aft er it had hap- the other car, telling him exactly a location for many television pened, and then forgotten. Instead, what he thought of his driving, and 9 just to make certain he understood, there that they fi nally saw a tele- though the report said the suspect Jack said that he would like to “kick phone. It was just on 11:36 p.m. was carrying a gun, Gore and Frago his ass!” were unlikely to be worried. With Pamela picked up the phone and the area being rural, it was a popu- dialed the police. She was put lar hunting and shooting location, through to the Newhall offi ce of the and so the incident was reported California Highway Patrol, where as a misdemeanor. Th e police were the call was answered by Jo Ann oft en getting reports of people with Tidey. guns which, upon investigation turned out to be just farmers. Th e Tidwell’s reported that a man had pulled a gun on them, and At 11:54 p.m., Newhall dispatch they gave a description of the man received a call from unit 78-8. Th ey and the vehicle, a late model GM had spotted the red Pontiac and car. Th ey were also able to give the were following the suspect vehicle. license number and said that there By this time, there was no longer was only one person in the car. just one person in the Pontiac. Bobby Davis Davis had picked up his partner, A check on the registration showed 35-year-old Jack Wright Twinning. Now, the driver of the Pontiac, that the vehicle was a 1964 Pontiac Davis and Twinning were both Bobby Augusta Davis, was also two door, and that it was registered career criminals, with Twinning angry. Both vehicles slowed down in Orange County. Th ere were no having a record that stretched back and came to a stop. Davis took the warrants on the car. over 20 years with convictions for already escalating incident up one bank robbery, and at this time, more notch by pulling out a .38 Th e Chase Is On he was on parole for assaulting a snub nose revolver. He aimed it at police offi cer with a deadly weapon. the couple and called Jack a “smart Within a minute, Newhall dis- Beginning at the age of 16, Jack punk.” patch had put out a call about the Twinning had spent time in eight incident and unit 78-8 responded. diff erent federal penitentiaries, Further down the road, headlights Th e two offi cers in unit 78-8 were including a fi ve-year stretch at the were approaching. Jack pointed Walter C. Frago and Roger D. notorious Alcatraz, during which back and said that a California Gore. Both men were just 23 years time he killed a fellow prisoner in Highway Patrol unit was coming old and both rookies, with less self defense. along. Davis took one look, and than two years on the force. Both then motioned for them to drive men knew each other well, both away, an opportunity they immedi- men had grown up in Merced, ately took. and both now lived on the same street, Walnut Street, in Newhall. Davis put the gun away and drove Frago was married to Nikki and off himself. Th e headlights were not they had two daughters, Amorette, those of a CHP unit, it was just a aged 4, and Gabrielle, aged 3. Gore truck. Jack had lied. was also married, but he and his wife, Valerie, only had one child, Th e serviceman and his wife sped an 18-month-old daughter named away and looked for a telephone so Elyce. they could call the highway patrol Jack Twinning and report the confrontation with Aft er they got the incident report, the gunman. Eight miles south of Gore and Frago drove to Castaic Bobby Davis, although at 27 was where the incident took place was Junction, hoping that they would be Violin Canyon Road, and it was able to intercept the car there. Al- Road Rage Continued on Page 28 10 A Primer on Forensic Science

Th e science

Many experts start their forensic science timeline in 1810, when a German scientist did a chemical test for a particular ink dye on a document. Th ree years later, Span- iard Mathieu Orfi la published his Toxicologie Générale, as a result of which he is usually regarded as the father of modern toxicology.

In 1835, Londoner Henry God- dard, a member of the Bow Street Runners, the unoffi cial police force set up by the writer and magistrate Henry Fielding, initiated the use of Skulls on the beach of Punuk Island Alaska bullet comparison when investigat- ing a burglary. He spotted a fl aw in a bullet lodged in a bed’s back- by Liz Porter board, matching it both to other Bergeret was able to exonerate a of her baby’s death could not be bullets in the suspect’s gun and to couple accused of killing a baby established. the mould from which the bullets whose mummifi ed remains had had been made. Th is enabled him been unearthed while they were Th e title of “father of modern to solve the crime. Th e butler did renovating their apartment. Work- forensic science” tends to be given it, then invented a story about a men removing brickwork behind to French police scientist Edmond masked intruder to cover up his the mantelpiece had discovered the Locard, who set up the world’s own “inside job.” remains. Bergeret carried out an fi rst police laboratory in Lyons in autopsy on the body, fi nding some 1910. His exchange principle – that In the following year, English moths and larvae from a fl esh fl y every contact leaves a trace, set out chemist James Marsh, inventor of a on it. Using his knowledge of the in his L’Enquête Criminelle et les method to measure small amounts succession of insects that visit dead Méthodes Scientifi ques (Criminal of arsenic ingested or absorbed by bodies, he calculated that the moths Enquiry and Scientifi c Methods) a human body, used the technique had grown from eggs laid in 1849, – remains the basic precept of in the trial of a man accused of meaning that the fl ies must have 21st-century crime scene investiga- poisoning his grandfather. But the laid their eggs on the newly dead tion and trace evidence collection. jury, confused by the complexity body in 1848, when it was walled “Th ere is no such thing as a clean of Marsh’s testimony, acquitted the in, before the current occupants contact between two objects,” he man. As a result, the scientist im- had moved into the apartment. declared. “When two bodies or proved and simplifi ed his method Suspicion was then directed at objects come in contact they mutu- into a technique that was easier to previous occupants, specifi cally a ally contaminate each other with explain to lay people, devising a test young woman who had appeared minute fragments of material.” for arsenic in dead bodies which at one point to be pregnant but had became known as the Marsh Test. never been seen with a baby. She Locard also identifi ed “the mi- was arrested and tried for murder croscopic debris that covers all In 1850, French physician Marcel but was acquitted because the cause our clothing and bodies [as] . . . 11 the mute witness, sure and faith- cent are AB. In the United States math. ful of all our movements and all and the United Kingdom Caucasian encounters.” On that point, he populations, the ratios are slightly Type A blood left by a killer with a acknowledged the intellectual diff erent. Some ethnic populations cut hand could belong to 38 out of debt he owed to Scottish physician have no members with AB or B any 100 Australians. If that blood Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of the type blood. In 1902, Landsteiner, was also PGM type 1+ in the PGM fi ctional detective Sherlock Holmes, together with Max Richter of the system (a type possessed by 19 per and to Austrian law professor Hans Vienna University Institute of Fo- cent of the population) then the Gross. Locard believed that Gross rensic Medicine, suggested that the killer’s blood would be found in was the fi rst person to discuss the “ABO typing” of crime scene blood only seven per cent of the popula- use of dust in crime investigation. stains, both wet and dry, could be tion, or 70 out of every 1000 peo- In a book published in 1891, Gross used to help identify suspects. ple. A series of up to 10 other tests describes the clothes of a suspect might tell investigators that they being placed in a paper bag, which By the late 1930s scientists were were looking at a blood type found was then beaten with a stick. Under aware of the fact that about 78 per in only one in every 1000 Austra- the microscope, the released dust cent of the population are “secre- lians. was revealed to comprise fragments tors”: their ABO blood and other of sawdust and glue, confi rming blood grouping substances can be Fingerprints that its wearer was a cabinetmaker. detected in bodily fl uids other than blood, such as saliva or semen. Th is Fingerprinting was also introduced Similarly, in the story “Th e Ad- means that a crime scene semen at the start of the 20th century. venture of Shoscombe Old Place,” sample or a swab of saliva from Th e notion that fi ngerprints could Holmes uses a microscope to ex- a cigarette might yield the blood be used to identify individuals in amine dust from a cap found beside type of a suspect. Later a test for criminal cases was fi rst suggested the dead body of a policeman, con- “secretor” status was developed. in 1877 by a U.S. microscopist, cluding that it contains threads and Called the Lewis test, this examined Th omas Taylor, but his ideas were fragments of glue: evidence that red cell antigens known as “Lewis not pursued. More attention was implicated as a potential murder antigens” and indicated if an ABO attracted by an article called “On suspect a picture-frame manufac- group reading would also show up the Skin-Furrows of the Hand” by turer who worked with glue. in an individual’s semen or saliva. Tokyo-based missionary Dr. Henry Faulds, published in the scientifi c Blood groups Over the ensuing decades succes- journal Nature in 1880, to which sive blood grouping schemes were India-based British civil servant Th e dawn of the 20th century developed, allowing a combination William James Herschel replied brought a revolutionary forensic of systems, each based on a diff er- with another article, published in discovery: human blood groups. ent protein or enzyme marker, to be the same journal a month later, that University of Vienna immunolo- used in the hunt for the origin of a explained how he had been using gist Karl Landsteiner identifi ed four particular blood stain. In the early fi ngerprints for identifi cation pur- major blood types, which he desig- 1970s, the Scotland Yard labora- poses on contracts for more than 20 nated A, B, AB and O. His system tory introduced a system based on years. was based on antibodies in the the enzyme phosphoglucomutase blood plasma and antigens (com- (PGM), which was soon adopted In 1901, the assistant commissioner pounds that stimulate the produc- around the world. By 1980, sci- of Scotland Yard began implement- tion of antibodies) on the surface of entists were routinely using more ing a fi ngerprint bureau to record red blood cells. Particular types of than 10 other systems at once. By the prints of criminals. By 1903, blood occur with varying frequency combining several test results, they prisoners in New York State were in diff erent populations. In Austra- could narrow down the search for a being fi ngerprinted, and, in 1911, lian Caucasians, for example, 46 per suspect dramatically. Th e stable fre- a New York Police Department cent are in the O group, 38 per cent quency of diff erent types of blood are A, 13 per cent are B, and 3 per was the key, along with simple Forensic Science Cont. Page 35 12 1997 through 2009, to produce a comprehensive analysis of publicly Justice on Trial available cases of prosecutorial mis- conduct in California.

Th e NCIP study, conducted by Kathleen Ridolfi , NCIP executive director, and Maurice Possley, a Pu- litzer Prize-winning journalist and currently a visiting research fellow at Santa Clara University School of Law, suggested that cases of pros- ecutorial misconduct averaged one a week over that 13-year period.

But that fi gure undoubtedly un- derstates the total number of such cases. Th e 707 were just the cases identifi ed in a review of appellate cases and a handful of others found through media searches and other Th e statue of Lady Justice at Dublin Castle means.

Justice on Trial is a landmark study of prosecutorial miscon- In another 282 cases examined by duct conducted by the Northern California Innocence Project the NCIP, the courts did not decide at Santa Clara University School of Law and released in whether prosecutors’ actions were October of 2010. improper, fi nding that the trials were nonetheless fair. In 2007, a California Court of spending 22 years behind bars. Th e Appeal set aside the murder con- prosecution had sought the death Th e report details how prosecu- viction of Mark Sodersten because penalty, but the jury sentenced him tors are rarely disciplined for their a Tulare County deputy district to life without parole. misconduct and how the courts fail attorney had improperly withheld to report it. Th e California State Bar from the defense audiotapes of his Th e ruling was one of 707 cases of rarely investigates such misconduct. interviews with a key witness. prosecutorial misconduct uncov- ered in a year-long investigation by It expanded upon a study of pros- Th e Appeals court personally the Northern California Innocence ecutorial misconduct conducted by listened to the tapes and concluded Project (NCIP) at Santa Clara Uni- Ridolfi aft er she was appointed to they contained dramatic evidence versity School of Law. the California Commission on the pointing to Sodersten’s innocence. Fair Administration of Justice in Based on this fi nding, the court Th e investigation, made public Oc- 2004. vacated his conviction. “Th is case,” tober 4, 2010 is the most in-depth the court declared, “raises the one statewide review of prosecutorial Th e records show the California issue that is the most feared aspect misconduct in the United States. Bar did investigate the Sodersten of our system—that an innocent case, but failed to take action. Even man might be convicted.” Th e investigation reviewed more though Sodersten’s death ordinarily than 4,000 state and federal ap- would have ended the case, the Ap- For Sodersten, however, the rul- pellate rulings, as well as scores peals Court took the unusual step ing came too late. He had died in of media reports and trial court of issuing a ruling anyway because prison six months earlier, aft er decisions, covering the period of the importance of the issue: “[W] 13 hat happened in this case has such 707 cases – courts found miscon- prosecutorial misconduct. Th ese an impact upon the integrity and duct but nevertheless upheld the include: fairness that are the cornerstones convictions, ruling that the mis- of our criminal justice system that conduct was harmless. Only in 159 development of a course by the continued public confi dence in that of the 707 cases – about 20 per- California District Attorneys Asso- system requires us to address the cent – did the courts fi nd that the ciation, California Public Defenders validity of [Sodersten’s] conviction misconduct was harmful; in these Association and California Attor- despite the fact we can no longer cases they set aside the conviction neys for Criminal Justice to address provide a remedy for petitioner or sentence, declared a mistrial or ethical issues that commonly arise himself.” barred evidence. in criminal cases;

Th e court concluded: “To do oth- Th e study shows that those em- adoption by District Attorney erwise would be a disservice to the powered to address the problem – offi ces of internal policies that do legitimate public expectation that California state and federal courts, not tolerate misconduct, includ- judges will enforce justice. It would prosecutors and the California State ing establishing internal reviews of be a disservice to justice. Most Bar – repeatedly fail to take mean- error; of all, it would be a disservice to ingful action. Courts fail to report [Sodersten] who maintained his in- prosecutorial misconduct (despite and adoption by District Attor- nocence despite a system that failed having a statutory obligation to do ney offi ces and law enforcement him.” so), prosecutors deny that it oc- agencies of written exculpatory curred, and the California State Bar evidence policies. Th e prosecutor was never disci- almost never disciplines it. plined. Sodersten’s attorney fi led Moreover, the report seeks expan- a formal complaint with the Cali- Signifi cantly, of the 4,741 public sion of judicial reporting to include fornia State Bar, arguing that the disciplinary actions reported in the any fi nding of “egregious” miscon- prosecutor “asked a jury to kill a California State Bar Journal from duct, as well as any constitutional man based on a conviction he per- January 1997 to September 2009, violation by a prosecutor or defense verted.” only 10 involved prosecutors, and attorney, regardless of whether it only six of these were for conduct resulted in modifi cation or reversal In April 2010, the State Bar closed in the handling of a criminal case. of the judgment. Th e report recom- the investigation, because “this Th at means that the State Bar pub- mends that judges be required to offi ce has concluded that we could licly disciplined only one percent of list attorneys’ full names in opin- not prove culpability by clear the prosecutors in the 600 cases in ions fi nding misconduct. and convincing evidence” – even which the courts found prosecuto- though the tapes the prosecutor rial misconduct and NCIP re- And the report also recommends wrongfully withheld included inter- searchers identifi ed the prosecutor. that the State Bar expand discipline views with a key witness conducted for prosecutorial misconduct and by the prosecutor himself. Notably, some prosecutors have increase disciplinary transparency. committed misconduct repeat- Th e prosecutor, Phillip Cline, has edly. In the subset of the 707 cases Th e Northern California Innocence never been held responsible for his in which NCIP was able to iden- Project (http://www.ncip.scu.edu/ ) actions, and it is virtually certain tify the prosecutors involved (600 at Santa Clara University School of that he never will. He has absolute cases), 67 prosecutors –11.2 percent Law, founded in 2001, operates as immunity from any civil liability for – committed misconduct in more a pro bono legal clinical program, his conduct as a prosecutor. Cline than one case. Th ree prosecutors where law students, clinical fel- was elected District Attorney for committed misconduct in four lows, attorneys, pro bono counsel, Tulare County in 1992 and remains cases, and two did so in fi ve. and volunteers work to identify in that position today. Th e report contains a series of rec- In the vast majority – 548 of the ommendations aimed at reducing Justice on Trial Cont. Page 47 14 Left to Die: Th e Barbara Payton Tragedy Barbara Payton reached the pinnacle of Hollywood in 1950. Blonde and beautiful, her libido was ro- bust, her taste ribald; her lovers formed a who's who of Hollywood leading men from Bob Hope, George Raft , Gary Cooper, Gregory Peck, Guy Madison to Tarzan -- with dozens and dozens of lesser lights in between. Th e tabloids feasted on her liaisons. When she fl outed Hollywood's code by taking on a black lover in 1955, her career was over at age 27. She went from making $10,000 a week at Warner Brothers to utter destitution and ruin, turning tricks for $5 on Sunset Strip.

by John O'Dowd

of her crumpled body At fi rst the sanitation workers lying on the pavement thought it was a bag of trash scat- made it appear as if tered beneath the dumpster in she had been "dumped Barbara Payton the parking lot behind a Th rift y out of the sky." When at last they Drug Store on Sunset Boulevard noticed that she was still breath- posed prison that spanned a 20-to- and Fairfax Avenue, in the heart ing, the two workers rushed to get 25-block radius of Hollywood — an of Hollywood. As they drew closer help. area roughly the size of New York they discovered instead the body City's Central Park. Th at she had of a woman lying on her side, clad Later that morning, word spread managed to survive the previous 10 only in a thin, cotton shift and a quickly down Sunset Boulevard years of her life had simply amazed pair of slippers. With a smudge of and then across Los Angeles that those who knew of the unrelenting dried blood caked thick around the woman the men had found was hell she had endured. her nose and upper lip, the woman none other than Barbara Payton, appeared, at fi rst glance, to be dead. a former movie star and tabloid Barbara Payton's meteoric plunge Standing over her, the men could queen — and a longtime denizen from the pinnacle of Hollywood see the mass of old bruises and of Hollywood's Skid Row. Th ose fame into the bowels of L.A.'s back welts that covered her arms and who remembered the name were streets and alleys had brought her legs — like purple inkblots, vivid, not surprised, for despite the fact to where she was now, lying in a even in the subdued light of dawn. that her fi lm career had ended 12 contorted heap beneath a mound of Th e woman's brassy blonde hair, years earlier — in a blaze of sordid rotting trash. Few others have fallen with two inches of dark roots, was scandal and poisonous publicity — from its opulence to its squalor in bunched in knots atop her head, Payton had never really left Holly- such rapid and complete fashion... like some tangled bee's nest gone wood...at least not for long. and fewer still, with the absolute awry. So battered was her appear- determination she possessed, to ance that it made it almost impos- When Barbara Payton was found completely self-destruct. When sible to determine what she actu- beside the garbage dumpster in taking into consideration the many ally looked like underneath all the February 1967, she had spent the enemies she made during her 20 layers of dried blood and dirt. One last decade of her life in a self-im- years in Th e Land of Lost Dreams, of the men later said that the sight 15 it is ironic that she would be found est in cooking and became quite tory rape. lying beneath a trash bin — for Bar- good at it by her pre-teen years. It bara Payton truly had been chewed was a skill she kept intact through- During her junior year at Odessa up by the Hollywood machine, and out her life, and one she would later High School, Barbara, then 16, then spit out like so much garbage. relish by preparing gourmet meals eloped with a local boy, William for her various beaus, husbands and Hodge, but her parents quickly Th e path that led her to this place of friends. annulled the marriage. Th e follow- such utter solitude and inner deso- ing year, she wore a low-cut dress lation had begun 39 years earlier, in As she reached her adolescence, she to a dance at a military base and 1927, in a small, Midwestern town began to experience her powerful attracted the attention of a hand- — 2,000 miles, and a thousand and seemingly eff ortless infl uence some, 22-year old Air Force Cap- lifetimes away, amid the towering on the opposite sex. Years later, tain named John Payton. Th ey were pines and cold winds of Cloquet, she would recall an incident that married within weeks, and Barbara Minn. occurred when she was 11 or 12, — who, like so many, harbored when a famous actor appeared at a vague dreams of movie stardom Barbara Lee Redfi eld was an in- war-bond rally near her hometown. since childhood — convinced him fant of tremendous beauty, says A star struck Barbara claimed she to take her to Hollywood for their longtime Cloquet resident Mildred got to see the celebrity only aft er honeymoon. Enraptured as he was Golden, who as a child remembers negotiating with an older boy to get with his sultry young bride, Payton a baby "…with hair so blonde it her into the auditorium. He wanted agreed. As she soaked up the town's was almost snow-white, and the to put his hands under her blouse glamorous ambiance, she decided deepest, most beautiful eyes." Her and "cop a feel" in exchange for the this was the place for her and amaz- parents, Erwin "Flip" Lee Redfi eld, ticket, she said, but Barbara would ingly made enough contacts dur- a construction worker, and Mabel, a only allow him to rest his hand be- ing her initial stay there to obtain housewife, were middle-class, solid tween her legs. She had gotten her a screen test with RKO Studios. It blue-collar types, and by all known way, however, and the lesson she didn't lead to much at fi rst, but Bar- accounts, Barbara and her younger learned was to bargain for what you bara had her foot in the door and brother Frank had a decidedly want, play the game, and win. wasn't about to let the opportunity average childhood. Several former slip away. neighbors of hers — all contempo- In the late 1930s, the Redfi eld fam- raries of Barbara — recall a bright, ily moved to Odessa, a Texas oil Back home, she gave birth to a son, outgoing and athletic little girl who town. Th e teenaged Barbara soon John Lee, and, in rapid succession, seemed to derive a great deal of evolved into a striking, 5'4" beauty ditched her husband, left her baby enjoyment from the state's many "with long legs like an antelope", with her parents, and with a single wintertime activities, including ice remembers one elderly man who suitcase, headed back to Holly- skating, skiing and sledding. knew her. In contrast to her innate wood. She got a job as a carhop at wholesomeness, she picked up a Stan's Drive-In, on the corner of "I loved the winters," she later wrote brazen and tough-talking persona Sunset Boulevard and Highland of her childhood in Cloquet. "Th e at some point along the way, and Avenue, and used the tips she made cold, crisp Minnesota winters, with was easily seduced by all the male to gain entree into the town's night- a blue-black sky at night and a bil- attention she attracted at Odessa club scene. With her sweet-but-sexy lion stars you could reach up and High School. She later wrote that looks and her ribald sense of hu- grab by the handful. I think I made she lost her virginity at 15 — to a mor, she quickly became a popular a wish on every one of those stars." schoolmate's 45-year old father, fi gure at such plush Sunset Strip hot Reared as a church-going Catholic who had sexual relations with her spots as Ciro's, Mocambo and the in a conventional and typical small- in a dry bathtub in his home while Trocadero, and was dubbed "Queen town manner -- one that practically the guests at his surprise birth- of the Nightclubs" by a local news- demanded good behavior and do- day party celebrated downstairs. paper columnist. mestic aptitude in all female family Barbara never reported what was, members — she took an early inter- without question, a case of statu- Barbara Payton Cont. Page 38 16 School Stalker continued intoxication. Almost every time a Aft er comparing the handwriting in person writes, therefore, his or her the notes to known samples of the found himself studying the note- letters will look slightly diff erent. suspect’s writing, Dr. Found could pad found in her bedroom. It was categorically say that the same per- exactly the same kind of paper that Th e handwriting analyst starts with son had addressed all the envelopes had been used in some of the notes. the features of the motor behavior in which the notes had been posted. associated with a person’s known Th ere were also “indications” that handwriting. Th rough study of the this writer had penned the notes samples given as “known” writing, inside as well. But the comparison he accumulates and records a whole process was limited, he explained, “population” of features. Begin- by the amount of writing available, ning by noting down all the varia- its variability (because of the at- tions for each letter in the subject’s tempts to disguise the writing) and known handwriting, he studies the the diff ering formats (block capitals range of the handwriting by essen- and conventional script). tially teaching himself to write the way the suspect writes.

Microscopic analysis helps him to establish exactly how the let- ters have been formed. “Striations” (tiny lines within each letter line, created by imperfections in the housing of a ballpoint pen) indicate the direction in which the ball of Dr Bryan Found the pen point was rotating, helping the expert to determine the way in Electro-Static Detection Apparatus More than 20 items of evidence which the writer has constructed (ESDA) were delivered to Victoria Police each character. Are the writer’s scientist Dr. Bryan Found. Now the “O”s constructed clock- wise, for His next job was to use his depart- chief forensic scientist at the Vic- example, or anti-clockwise? How ment’s ESDA – or Electro-Static toria Police forensic science head- are the upper-case “E”s formed? He Detection Apparatus – to examine quarters at Macleod, Dr. Found was then looks at the equivalent features the notes and writing pads seized then the center’s chief document exhibited in the sample of “ques- from the suspect and see what examiner. His Ph.D. had been on tioned” handwriting, asking and indentations came up. Th e ESDA the theoretical and analytical ap- answering the question, “What is is a key fi xture in the document proaches to handwriting analysis, the likelihood that these two popu- section of any police forensics lab. and his chief area of interest was lations of features were a product Used to fi nd the “ghosts” of previ- the relationship between handwrit- of the same (or diff erent) motor ously written notes on any piece of ing, neuropsychology and motor behavior?” control. Th e handwriting analysis notepad paper, its eff ectiveness is based on the fact that pressure on and comparison that was his bread- If the features appear to be an ex- paper exerted by the tip of a pen and- butter work wasn’t a simple pression of the same behavior, there creates minor disturbances in the matter of visually assessing and are three possibilities. Either the relative position of paper fi bers on counting points of comparison, as same person wrote both, there has the page being written on – and on if the letters were ridges and pat- been a chance match (considered to paper up to fi ve pages beneath it in terns in a fi ngerprint. Handwriting be extremely unlikely), or someone a notepad. is human behavior and can change other than the suspect has forged according to environment, circum- the suspect’s writing. stances, age, or drug and alcohol Th e detection of the traces of previ- 17 ous notes is relatively simple. ESDA is best known internationally a page had been torn out between for the role it played in helping to pages three and fi ve of the seized First, the document under investi- secure the release of prisoners sen- pad. Th e vestiges of paper left at the gation is placed in a special humid- tenced to prison aft er convictions top of the pad lined up exactly with ifi er to increase its water content. based on false confessions fabricat- the top of the note. Th e position- It is then placed on the ESDA, an ed by West Midlands police in the ing of the indentations, coupled innocuous looking box with a brass United Kingdom in the late 1980s. with the exact fi t between the two plate on top. When the red “on” In IRA bombing cases against the edges, confi rmed that the note 4B button is pressed, a vacuum switch Birmingham Six and the Guildford had been written while it was still sucks out the air between the paper Four, ESDA tests on original police attached to the pad. and the brass, fl attening both the interview notes revealed that state- document and the lunch-wrap-like ments had been written and rewrit- Detective Warren was pleased with layer of Mylar fi lm placed over it to ten by police, leading to the quash- these results. But only cautiously protect it. ing of convictions so. Although the evidence was good enough to make any rational Th e scientist then “charges up” the Th is Australian case was less mo- person confess, he was certain the document by passing an 8,000-volt mentous. But the ESDA also struck suspect would continue to deny all wand over it. Th e electrons sprayed gold for the Melbourne document involvement. She did. Aft er all, the over the page will be attracted to examiner. One item, a note in boy with whom she had had sex the “disturbed” fi bers in a diff er- which the writer said the teacher had had access to her room, her ent way to the sections of the paper “shakes her ass,” brought up two notepad, her envelopes. without indentations. Tiny glass lots of indentations – the fi rst from beads covered in photocopy toner an envelope addressed to the vic- Th e writing evidence only proved are then poured over the top of the tim, the second from another note that the notes had been written on sheet. Because they carry a charge attacking the teacher and accusing her pad and, given the envelope themselves, they are also attracted her of having sex with the boys. indentations, in her house. to the areas of “disturbed” fi bers. Th ree other notes also revealed Slowly, an inky image of writing similar indentations from previ- But the detective had luck on his from pages formerly “above” the ously written notes and other enve- side. And science. Some months suspect page becomes visible. lopes addressed to the victim. Th ese earlier, when the notes had been results proved something that Dr. given the “ninhydrin” treatment, Th is technique also brings up Found hadn’t been able to establish only partial prints had come up. fi ngerprints (the use for which the with certainty from the handwrit- Th e treatment works slowly, and the machine was originally devised). ing itself: the fact that the notes and chemical soaked into the paper can But its ability to bring up the in- the envelopes had been written in sometimes continue to react over dentations made by words written the same place (and therefore prob- weeks and, in this case, months. on pages previously torn from the ably by the same person). In August, Warren opened up his same pad has made ESDA a dev- fi le to prepare for an interview astatingly eff ective forensic tool. Th e piéce de rèsistance was “item with the suspect. Looking at one of Best of all, the document itself isn’t 9” on the list of pieces of evidence the notes, he saw a change in the damaged during testing, because seized during the raid on the sus- fi ngerprint on a piece of adhesive the inked indentations come up pect’s house: the large lined school tape used to stick the victim’s photo on the Mylar fi lm placed over notepad found in the bedroom. on to a drawing. In the intervening the document. Th e Mylar is then Th e fi ft h page of that pad brought months the chemical had continued covered with a layer of clear contact up indentations from “item 4B” – a its slow reaction. Th e partial print wrapping to fi x the pattern in place, note which started with “THERE’S had become a complete print. leaving the document untouched A WORD FOR SLUTS.” While the and able to be re-tested for fi nger- ragged edges across the top of note prints. 4B indicated that it had been torn from a pad, it was easy to see that School Stalker Cont. Page 34 18 Joan Webster Continued cal fi ghts though, something Doyle their drive home to return them to admitted himself. Marie at the bar. Paradiso held the accusations against Paradiso on her door for Marie as she exited about alleged 1972 assault. Th e woman, Two months before her murder, one o’clock in the morning and later identifi ed in court records as Marie Iannuzzi had gone to stay turned to tell a friend she would be Patty Bono, was from the North with a friend, Christine DeLisi, back in half an hour. Candy waited End of Boston and knew Leonard claiming Doyle had tried to kill her. in the car while Paradiso returned Paradiso growing up. She also had Multiple witnesses corroborated belongings to Marie in the bar, and another childhood acquaintance the strangulation marks on Marie’s both told police they watched Ma- from the North End, Sgt. Carmen neck. Doyle knew his girlfriend was rie walk around a corner and never Tammaro of the Massachusetts seeing another man, Eddy Fisher, saw her again. State Police assigned to F Barracks and she had been with the other at Logan Airport—Trooper Palom- man the night before Doyle and Marie’s friend in the bar, Christine bo's superior offi cer. Marie attended the wedding recep- DeLisi, did not wait to see if she tion. Aft er that weekend, family returned, and the state began pro- members reported to police they moting the supposition that Para- saw deep gauges on Doyle's hands diso was the last person seen with and observed blood on the steps the victim alive. up to the couple's apartment on the top fl oor of his parent's home. Th e Websters’ Involvement

Autopsy photos showed Marie's Both of Joan’s parents, George and long manicured nails in a clawed Eleanor Webster, worked for the position, but incredibly no scrap- CIA when they met; their unique ings were taken. Stepsister Jean Day background added individuals reported she saw Marie's belong- who were trained in intelligence to ings packed early Monday morn- the complex search. Th e Websters ing, before family members iden- would play a major role into the in- tifi ed the body, in the apartment vestigation of Joan’s disappearance Trooper Andrew Palombo Doyle shared with Marie. Accord- as would the conglomerate George ing to numerous witnesses, Doyle Webster worked for at the time as a For David Doyle the calls placed by was noticeably strung out during senior executive: ITT. Patty Bono were a godsend. Instead the wake, and he took fl ight before of the police investigation focusing the funeral. Th e victim’s boyfriend At the time of Joan’s disappear- on his known abusive relationship was arrested stealing from suitcases ance, ITT was still reeling from with Marie Iannuzzi, it would now on the luggage carousel at Newark two major scandals that rocked veer off in Paradiso’s direction with Airport in New Jersey, and he had a the company in the 1970s. One a vengeance. How Doyle escaped stolen airline ticket from Newark to involved Watergate plumber, and prosecution for Marie’s murder is a LaGuardia in his possession. former CIA operative, E. Howard mystery onto itself. Hunt. Hunt was instrumental in Leonard Paradiso attended the discrediting a memo from ITT lob- Th e day before boaters found Ma- same wedding with his girlfriend, byist Dita Beard who documented rie’s strangled body, she and Doyle Candy Weyant. At the request of the fi nancial infl uence ITT held had fought in front of numerous the groom’s father, Candy gave over Richard Nixon's White House. witnesses during Doyle’s cousin's Marie a ride to a bar two blocks Company CEO Harold Geneen wedding reception. On this par- from the apartment she shared with funded Nixon’s reelection coff ers ticular day, it was verbal, but his her boyfriend, David Doyle. When substantially in return for a favor- mother had to take his arm and Paradiso and Weyant later found able resolution to an anti-trust suit get him out of the reception. Th e items in Candy’s car they presumed levied by the U.S. Department of couple was known to have physi- were Marie's, they detoured from Justice against the corporation. 19 E. Howard Hunt was enlisted to tion where the purse was recovered investigation. I submitted Freedom discredit Dita Beard’s memo that (and it had jurisdiction of the cold of Information requests (FOIA) to exposed the favor. Iannuzzi case), and Suff olk County recover FBI documents. had jurisdiction over Logan Air- Th e second scandal hit a bit closer port where Joan disappeared. Lt. Although Middlesex County con- to home for George Webster. His Col. John O'Donovan, in charge of tinued to pursue dead-end leads, position at ITT was the director of the Massachusetts State Police, was and was the visible presence to the budget and planning for the De- in attendance with MSP offi cers public on Joan's case, one of the fense Group in the telecommuni- representing the three D.A.'s offi ces upshots of the meeting was to shift cations division. His division had and detectives from F Barracks at the investigation to Suff olk County acted as a cover fi rm for the CIA Logan Airport. Th e Saugus police Assistant D.A. Tim Burke and for more than a decade in eff orts and Harvard Campus police round- Trooper Andrew Palombo of F Bar- to undermine the politics in Chile ed out the impressive recruitment racks at Logan Airport. Another and save ITT’s interest in Chitelco, of resources for a missing person's upshot was to have Burke replace Chile’s telephone company. Th e U.S. case. Essex County as the prosecutor in Department of Defense con- the Marie Iannuzzi murder case. trolled 80 percent of the intel- Th is strategy gave the relatively ligence budget, and was the chief novice assistant D.A. a clear shot consumer of the intelligence at going aft er the named suspect product. Th is put George Web- from the anonymous calls: Leon- ster in the position to straddle ard Paradiso. interests of his current and his former employer. Eff orts in Chile Burke’s theory was that Paradiso ended disastrously, and brutal was responsible for Iannuzzi’s dictator Augusto Pinochet rose murder and Joan’s fate and that to power. he would be able to establish that by fi rst convicting Paradiso of Th e Senate Church Committee Marie’s death. commenced in 1975 and con- tinued through 1977. Senators ADA Burke had only begun scrutinized the CIA and ITT for prosecuting murder cases in misconduct, but participants Suff olk County since the fall were shielded from accountabil- of 1981 when he took over the ity. Just a few years aft er the Sen- unresolved triple homicide case ate concluded its inquiry, Joan of Basilia Melendez and her two Webster mysteriously vanished children. from Logan Airport. On March 2, 1982, Burke issued Th e Investigation into Joan’s subpoenas for a grand jury in Disappearance Suff olk County Assistant D.A. Tim Burke the 1979 Iannuzzi case. Th e grand jury convened on Friday, March Just over two months aft er their Th e focus of the meeting was osten- 5, 1982 in case #038655, the Com- daughter’s disappearance, the sibly Joan Webster, but the strategy monwealth v. Leonard J. Paradiso, Websters requested a meeting that emerged from the meeting was but testimony and strong circum- with authorities. Th e meeting was unclear until 2008 when I began stantial evidence brought out in held at Harvard and assembled an uncovering documents. I retained the hearing implicated the victim’s unprecedented and unwieldy list a private investigator and attorney boyfriend, David Doyle, for the of participants. Middlesex County in Boston in 2008 to help recover crime. Tim Burke falsely asserted was handling Joan's disappear- records and interview individu- to the media and other enforce- ance; Essex County had jurisdic- als connected to the Joan Webster ment agencies that this hearing was 20 a John Doe grand jury. However, murder of Bar- transcripts of the hearing clearly bara Mitchell show that the Webster suspect, and pursued a Leonard Paradiso, was the subject relationship with pursued. Mary Foreman, a community On March 11, 1982, Trooper Carl activist he met Sjoberg was dispatched to meet while on a prison with Paradiso's parole offi cer, furlough. Numer- Victor Anchukaitis, and Sjoberg ous witnesses implicated Paradiso in another described Mary’s Boston crime, later learned to be attempts to break Joan Webster's disappearance. off the relation- Later grand jury sessions, convened ship with Bond. for the same case #038655, were He had physically renamed to John Doe grand juries. assaulted her in Paradiso was ultimately indicted August 1981, and for Marie’s murder on June 28, 1982 harassed her; she and a second indictment for rape was afraid of him. was added on June 6, 1983, almost On October 23, a full year later. 1981, he lured her to the house of Using a Snitch to Close in on one of his friends, Paradiso a drug dealer, and shot her point Th e supposed “break” in Joan's case blank through the Robert Bond came a year aft er the anonymous temple. He was inter- status as a government snitch. phone calls in January 1982 to the viewed by the police on November Saugus police, and the Websters 11, 1981, but lied to police and Offi cers conducted a taped inter- naming Paradiso as a suspect. said he never saw Mary that night. view with Bond again on January Paradiso was considered a suspect Th e jury convicted Bond of Mary 14. Trooper Palombo represented in Joan’s disappearance early in the Foreman’s murder on December 13, to the court in sworn warrants that investigation, before the grand jury 1982. this meeting was arranged based hearings for the Iannuzzi murder on an unsolicited letter ADA Burke began, but he was not identifi ed Th e convicted killer met with Sgt. received from Bond on January 5, to the public in Joan’s case until Carmen Tammaro and the Mas- 1983 detailing the murders of both January 1983 aft er ADA Burke sachusetts State Police on January Marie Iannuzzi and Joan Webster. produced a snitch informant who 10, 1983, the same day the judge claimed Paradiso had confessed to sentenced him to return to Wal- Transcripts of the meeting on Janu- murdering Marie Iannuzzi and Joan pole Prison. Strangely, instead of ary 14 exposed that the letter to Webster. going back to the maximum-secu- Burke that authorities anticipated rity lockup, Bond remained at the had not been received. In fact, Robert Bond was a twice-convicted Charles Street Jail in close prox- Bond questioned an offi cer at Con- murderer. Authorities moved him imity to Leonard Paradiso until cord about the letter he sent three to the Charles Street Jail on Decem- authorities moved him to a medi- days before, mailed on January 10, ber 8, 1982, for trial and positioned um-security facility in Concord on 1983, a date when authorities met him close to Paradiso's cell. He was December 29, 1982. Th is treatment with Bond aft er his sentencing. Th e a known off ender with a history of Bond is highly suggestive – send- interview also revealed there were of violent crimes against women. ing a twice-convicted murderer to prior meetings with the Massachu- Bond gained a parole for the 1971 a medium-security prison – of his setts State Police. 21 ing Joan was raped fi rst, and then disappearance, but now multiple Bond was vague and confused on hit in the head. Authorities main- case numbers clouded the issue. numerous points during the inter- tained Bond’s assertion the body (Th e state hid records in other view, and off ered a multiple choice was discarded in the ocean. Bond fi les.) for Joan's murder. He initially saw photographs of Paradiso’s boat asserted Paradiso strangled Joan, tacked up on the cell wall, and the In two diff erent courtrooms, federal but then went over the scenario inmate provided detail down to the hearings ran in tandem with the discussed in their prior meeting. registration number on the vessel. state’s murder allegations in the He told offi cers they could decide. Iannuzzi pre-trial, and the Feds He did provide a clear order of Paradiso reported that his boat listed Joan's name as a victim in the events alleging Paradiso hit Joan was missing on July 26, 1981, four bankruptcy case in the FBI reports. in the head with a whiskey bottle, months before Joan's fated disap- Th is tied Joan Webster’s name to raped her, and dumped her in the pearance, but authorities continued the boat. ocean. Bond pointed to the right to promote Bond’s story, a theory side of his head and described a lot that provided an explanation for Special Agent Broce of the FBI fi led of blood from the injury, but Joan's not having a body. Th ey also con- a search warrant for a safety deposit remains had not been discovered tinued to implicate Paradiso for box held jointly by Paradiso and and would not be for another seven Marie Iannuzzi's murder, ignoring Candy Weyant, but found noth- years. Tammaro, Palombo and Hus- confl icting evidence already in the ing related to the bankruptcy case don were the three offi cers review- case fi les, evidence that pointed to or any crime. Regardless, Assis- ing Bond’s affi davit the following her boyfriend as the assailant. tant U.S. Attorney Marie Buckley Monday, January 17, 1983. indicted Paradiso for allegedly lying Th e fi rst search warrant was fi nally on a bankruptcy fi ling. A confi den- When Bond’s letter was fi nally issued on April 25, 1983 in the tial FBI report indicated that both produced it cleared up vagaries Iannuzzi case. It entangled Joan's offi ces, the Suff olk County D.A.’s from the interview, but was false investigation with Marie’s1979 offi ce and the Boston offi ce of the on numerous points. However, the murder, and sought and confi scated FBI, were working toward a desir- letter did indicate Massachusetts evidence related to Joan's case, not able conclusion in the Iannuzzi and State Police met with Paradiso three Marie’s. Webster cases. Th e FBI offi ce could weeks aft er he was arrested for the give the state additional investiga- Iannuzzi case, and police suggested To up the pressure on Paradiso, tory resources. Paradiso had murdered Joan on his ADA Burke enlisted the Boston of- boat. Another document corrobo- fi ce of the FBI on May 3, 1983, and Paradiso on Trial for Murder rates a meeting Paradiso had with instigated bankruptcy fraud charges Sgt. Carmen Tammaro at that time. against Paradiso regarding the boat Th e participants in the Iannuzzi Tammaro initiated the boat theory by contacting Special Agent Steve trial were the same people involved on August 1, 1982, according to re- Broce in the personal Crimes Divi- in Joan's investigation. Th e Ian- covered documents. His assertions sion of the Boston offi ce. Paradiso nuzzi trial began on July 9, 1984 came four months before he led the had fi led for bankruptcy on August against Leonard Paradiso. Key interview with Bond and promoted 26, 1981, and did not list his boat or witnesses gave confl icted accounts a “break” in the case. the insurance claim as an asset. Th e from testimony they had given boat was the alleged crime scene for during the grand jury proceedings Bond claimed in his interview and Joan’s murder. Burke endeavored that began on March 5, 1982. Dur- his written affi davit that Paradiso to prove the boat was not stolen as ing the grand jury, Marie's friend hit Joan in the head with a whiskey claimed, but he did not establish Christine DeLisi and her stepsister bottle, raped her, and then took his his crime scene was above water Jean Day both provided testimony boat way out and dumped her in when Joan disappeared. In fact, the that negated the state's assertions, the ocean. In sworn documents to Boston offi ce of the FBI had been and implicated the victim’s boy- the court, ADA Burke and Trooper engaged in Joan's case since De- friend, David Doyle, as the culprit. Palombo reordered events stat- cember 3, 1981, just days aft er her 22 Sworn affi davits have been recov- conference where Burke detailed of her injuries. Th e defense counsel ered that these two witnesses said the assault. Th e time frame was de- knew nothing about the assault, they had been threatened with termined to be around the time the and Paradiso was in jail when it prosecution (obstruction of justice) Bond allegations were circulated happened. When Day arrived at the and never seeing their children in the papers, January 1983. Burke courthouse, the defense investigator again by members of the Massa- claimed Day was asking questions took her to a private room to ask chusetts State Police and the pros- about Paradiso at some bars. Th e questions about what she remem- ecutor's offi ce. Similar tactics were next day her house was broken into, bered. Slawsby averred that shortly evident in the state's treatment of she was kicked viciously, and had aft er he interviewed Day, Burke and Paradiso's girlfriend, his alibi wit- a broken bone in her face. Burke Palombo escorted her down the ness the night Marie was murdered. acknowledged she had also received hall. When court resumed aft er the It was also evident in the pile-on threatening phone calls. Burke lunch recess, Day was sworn in and tactics used against Paradiso him- claimed this was somehow con- changed her testimony. Reviewing self; questionable witnesses came nected to Paradiso and tried to get transcripts of the grand jury and forward with unverifi ed accusations the incident into the trial. the trial show the crucial discrepan- against him for numerous crimes. cies enumerated by the investigator. Jean Day confi ded in her neighbor Louis Th e stepsister’s testimony sharply Tontodonato in the contradicted with her grand jury fall of 1984. She told testimony and the investigator’s him the MSP had interview in the morning on three threatened her and crucial points. First, she could no wanted her to tes- longer remember the order her sis- tify in a certain way. ter wore her clothing, in particular Th ey arrested her the pantyhose Bond alleged Para- on unrelated drug diso struggled to remove. In the charges and threat- morning, she recalled the order in ened she would which her sister got dressed. Bond be prosecuted and alleged Paradiso struggled to take never see her son off herpantyhose, but the victim again. She went into was found with her clothing intact, hiding in Somerville and she was wearing a one-piece Leonard Paradiso on trial until she arrived at the bodysuit with no snaps. Dennis Slawsby, a private inves- courthouse on day eight of the trial. tigator working for the defense, She told her neighbor she gave false Jean Day and her mother arrived also gave a sworn statement that and misleading testimony at the at the Doyle’s house before 7 a.m. he interviewed defense witness trial. Tontodonato gave a sworn Monday looking for Marie. Reports Jean Day in the courthouse on July statement fi led with the Suff olk on the radio described a victim 18, 1984, and that the answers she County Superior Court, along with found on the bank of the Pine gave him were consistent with her investigator Slawsby’s, in a motion River they feared was Marie. Jean grand jury testimony. She had been for a retrial on the Iannuzzi case. observed her stepsister’s packed assaulted, and she had gone into (Th e motion for retrial was denied belongings early Monday morning hiding aft er the Bond allegations by the same judge that presided in the apartment she shared with appeared in the paper. In his sworn over the trial, Judge Roger Dona- Doyle. Jean remembered this detail statement, Slawsby stated that Day’s hue, not once, but twice.) in the morning with Slawsby, but recollections were consistent with could not recall that aft ernoon on her grand jury testimony on March According to Burke, Trooper the stand. Th e witness also noticed 5, 1982. Palombo knew when the assault deep scratches on David Doyle’s happened, and the prosecution hands Monday morning as the Judge Donahue held a side bar team suspiciously had photographs family gathered before going to the 23 morgue to identify the body. Her suffi cient evidence, based on Bond's ance money(also in Candy’s name), trial testimony changed, and she testimony, to convict Paradiso of and that he misrepresented em- was vague when she noticed Doyle’s the charges of rape and murder. ployment. Th e government never severely scratched hands. provided evidence that the self- Court records for the 1984 Ian- employed shell fi sherman earned Th e defense introduced police nuzzi murder trial revealed an income. reports and testimony at various inappropriate relationship between hearings that revealed Doyle and Trooper Palombo and the victim’s With Paradiso now convicted of his mother provided four explana- boyfriend, David Doyle. Th e lead murder, rape and bankruptcy fraud, tions for the severe scratches on his offi cer on the case met with Doyle, Burke now wanted to hang Joan hands, none of which matched with a prime suspect in the crime, on Webster’s death on him by linking the injuries. Regardless, the state’s numerous undocumented occa- evidence from her case to him. star witness at trial was the snitch, sions. Palombo, once all these un- Robert Bond, who provided a false documented meetings with Doyle Paradiso as Scapegoat statement to the prosecutor's team surfaced, testifi ed at Paradiso’s trial about Paradiso, but the statement that he did not consider Doyle a A search of Weyant’s house, where was sealed. He testifi ed that Para- suspect. He said this despite all the Paradiso had a room, in April of diso told him how he had killed eyewitnesses and circumstantial 1983 turned up a book that authori- Iannuzzi. evidence pointing directly at Doyle ties claimed was Joan's textbook, – and away from Paradiso – for Maya: Monuments of Civilization, Judge Roger Donahue disallowed Marie Iannuzzi’s murder. by Pierre Ivanoff . It was a large, exculpatory evidence in a private heavy coff ee table type book, and conference with the attorneys. Th e jury found Paradiso guilty of Paradiso's edition was published by On the basis of hearsay, Donahue second-degree murder and assault Grosset and Dunlap. Th e volume excluded Saugus police reports that with intent to rape on July 22, 1984. he possessed was a Reader’s Digest named four witnesses who saw Ma- Judge Donahue sentenced him to off ering that was out of print in rie Iannuzzi back in the bar around Walpole prison with a “from and 1975, six years before Joan's fl ight. closing, a critical time aft er witness- aft er” sentence, a harsh and unusual It would have been a white elephant es saw Paradiso hold the door for sentence. Paradiso was sentenced diffi cult to obtain, and newer edi- her. One witness was patron Carol to life for second degree murder, tions were available. A subsequent Seracuse who took the stand fi ve and not more than 20 years, but not FBI search on July27, 1983 pro- years aft er she spoke to police. She less than 18, for assault with intent duced a red silk jewelry bag that au- had no independent memory of to rape. Th e second sentence was thorities asserted belonged to Joan. her statement stating she spoke to to be served aft er the sentence for In fact, it was part of a three-piece Marie at 1:30 a.m. Judge Donahue murder. set, and Paradiso's girlfriend still rejected another police report of an retained the matching pieces. interview conducted with a friend Meanwhile, in Federal District of David Doyle on July 16, 1981. Court in Rhode Island, the fraudu- Paradiso was X-rayed on November Th e friend, David Dellaria, claimed lent bankruptcy case against Para- 30, 1981 for three small fragments Doyle confi ded murdering his girl- diso was coming to a conclusion. in his fi nger. He indicated they friend. Th e interview with Dellaria On April 9, 1985, Paradiso was were caused by sparks from a grind was detailed in a report that out- convicted on three counts of bank- wheel when he attempted to pol- lined other circumstantial evidence ruptcy fraud and sentenced to fi ve ish an ammo shell he found. Two incriminating Doyle: scratches, years on each count on May 10, splinters had worked out, but X-ray blood on the step, and Doyle’s fl ight 1985. Th e Federal case charged that fi lms showed a splinter still embed- to New Jersey where he was ar- Paradiso lied on his bankruptcy ap- ded in his fi nger on December 22, rested with a stolen airline ticket. plication and did not report assets 1981. Bond had claimed Paradiso Instead, Donahue displayed tre- that were actually in his girlfriend’s had hurt his hand while murdering mendous bias against Paradiso by (Candy Weyant) bank account, he Joan, but the microscopic slivers stating his belief that the jury had did not claim the boat or the insur- were not consistent injuries with 24 the alleged crime. Rather they were Boston offi ce had not been exposed consistent with Paradiso's explana- at the time the offi ce was involved Th e Remains of Joan Webster tion, and the Massachusetts State in Joan Webster's disappearance. Police recovered the ammo shell Karen Wolf Churgin, a veterinar- Paradiso indicated was the source In addition to the misconduct still ian, was walking her dog on Che- of the fragments. hidden in the FBI offi ce in Boston, bacco Road in Hamilton on April the Suff olk County D.A.'s offi ce of 18, 1990. Th e area was remote and ADA Burke also claimed that Newman Flanagan was exposed for heavily wooded, and there were few authorities had recovered marine secret and duplicate fi les under the residents in the isolated area. She equipment from Paradiso’s boat, the head of homicide, John Kiernan, in discovered a human skull clog- alleged crime scene of Joan’s mur- July 1991. Th e Kenneth Spinkston ging a drainage ditch. A week long der. Confl icting evidence came out case brought Suff olk County search of the area led to the grave in the proceedings held in theSuf- convictions, prosecuted between of a young woman later positively folk County Superior Court during 1980-1988, under scrutiny. Burke’s identifi ed through dental records the Iannuzzi pretrial and the Feder- relentless pursuit of Leonard Para- as Joan Webster. Death was ruled a al court hearing bankruptcy charg- diso was during the same period homicide caused by massive trauma es. Testimony in the secret Federal as numerous other questionable from a blunt instrument to the grand jury negated Burke’s asser- prosecutions out of that offi ce. head. Th e fatal blow left a 2” x 4” tions in the highly publicized case hole taking out the entire right side the state was making. Testimony in Boston's history of wrongful con- of the skull. Th e injury was incon- ADA Burke’s courtroom indicated victions is well documented, and sistent with the explanation prof- the Massachusetts State Police con- recovered documents reveal the fered by informant Robert Bond, fi scated equipment manufactured same practices in the cases sur- and local police now involved in by Danforth. In the secret grand rounding Leonard Paradiso. To the case speculated something jury session for the Federal case of secure Bond’s trial testimony, the more like a bat, wielded with enor- bankruptcy, witnesses revealed Ray state off ered him enticements that mous force, landed the blow. Jeff erson manufactured the equip- were not disclosed to Paradiso’s de- ment from Paradiso’s boat, and the fense or the public. Representatives Th e assailant stripped Joan Webster equipment was not interchangeable. of the Commonwealth off ered inap- of all clothing, and discarded her In addition, FBI lab results pro- propriate rewards that they had no body in a black plastic trash bag duced nothing to connect Joan to authority to make: a lesser charge that had broken open beneath her. the boat, but the results were kept of manslaughter was promised. Sgt. Cut logs were piled on top of her confi dential. Carmen Tammaro also discussed grave on more than one occasion. the Webster reward money, up to Jewelry, a gold serpentine neck Corruption $50,000 was announced by the chain and a gold amethyst ring, Websters, backed by George Web- remained on the skeleton. Th e Boston FBI offi ce was argu- ster’s employer ITT. Tammaro sug- ably the most corrupted offi ce in gested the felon might be entitled Bond's statement, claiming the the bureau's history. Ramifi cations to claim it. (No reward money was body had been dumped in Boston are still being tried from the of- ever paid out.) Harbor, was now known to be false. fi ce's practice of protecting criminal Th is realization caused authorities informants such as Whitey Bulger, Th e two principle agencies involved to backpedal on the story to make Stephen Flemmi, and Joe Barboza. in Joan's investigation, the Boston pieces fi t. Burke told the press in Th ere was a confi dential source offi ce of the FBI and the Suff olk 1990 that Paradiso’s boat had a bro- in Joan’s case. Burke and a fellow County DA's offi ce, were both ken rudder, and it was doubtful the offi cer, Dave Moran, identifi ed exposed for serious misconduct. boat could have gone out. Th at fact Palombo providing information Unfortunately, their practices re- was known in 1983, but the state that the FBI listed from a confi - mained undetected and unchecked promoted the harbor theory until dential source in their reports. Th e during the years of Joan’s investiga- Joan’s remains were found in 1990. rampant corruption infecting the tion. Burke also suggested Bond’s state- 25 ment may not have meant “way provided autopsy fi ndings he was offi ce that had used Bond in their out” into the harbor even though entitled to as a suspect. Th e General cause in the 1980s. Wall had been that was the story the core group Laws of Massachusetts, Rule 38, part of a blue ribbon task force stuck to until the buried remains Section 14, specify a body not be delegated the responsibility to set of the victim surfaced. To further released for cremation until there standards correcting and prevent- conceal their tracks, authorities is no more judicial inquiry into the ing wrongful convictions out of kept the condition of the remains crime. In eff ect, the case was closed, the Suff olk County offi ce. Wall was confi dential. but authorities continued to pro- a 1982 Harvard graduate, Joan's mote an implausible and impossible fellow student when she disap- Th e location of the recovery was crime, supported by Joan’s parents, peared, and he was also the former more than 30 miles from the al- accusing Paradiso of Joan’s murder. counterpart to fi rst assistant D.A. leged crime scene at Pier 7, but John Dawley in Essex County, the Burke maintained Paradiso mur- Stripping the Façade from Burke’s current custodian responsible for dered Joan Webster on the boat. Case Joan Webster's case. Burke contended this despite the fact that undisclosed evidence, in- Robert Bond appeared before the One of Mary Foreman’s sisters formation available to authorities at Massachusetts Parole Board on off ered to relinquish her time to the time, indicated the boat did not April 19, 2011 seeking parole for allow my statement, but Wall still exist at the time Joan disappeared. the murder of Mary Foreman. Th e refused to allow me to speak on open hearing was an opportunity behalf of a member of my family. In Th e Paradiso Files: Boston’s for public statements. I am properly Wall's decision at the parole hear- Unknown Serial Killer, a book certifi ed with the Department of ing, suppressing my victim impact Burke wrote about the investiga- Corrections, but Chairman Josh statement supported with docu- tion into Joan Webster’s murder in Wall denied me the opportunity to ments, disconnected the off ender in 2008, he incredibly still maintains speak openly in front of the board. front of them for his complicity in the boat was the scene of Joan’s Bond had accumulated enemies the Joan Webster investigation, and murder, but now he has Paradiso throughout the penal system for his the public's awareness. I wanted the moving the bloody body from the participation as a witness for the parole board to know the personal craft and travelling miles north to Commonwealth in other murder grief Bond’s false assertions about bury her in Hamilton, Massachu- cases, namely the Iannuzzi and Joan’s death had caused Joan’s setts. In his book, Burke contradicts Webster cases. Th e board quickly family and friends by diverting his informant’s statement. Bond changed the subject when Bond the investigation into her murder asserted Paradiso deposited Joan’s made that statement that he had away from fi nding the real killer. belongings in the Saugus marsh testifi ed for the Commonwealth in Wall had received documents prior three weeks aft er her murder even other murder cases. Th e convicted to the hearing that exposed the though they were recovered four felon received a scathing review; misconduct of named colleagues days aft er she disappeared. Now he was described as deceptive, involved in Joan’s investigation. On Burke described Paradiso’s alleged emotionless, and cold-blooded. January 18, 2012, the board unani- route along the Lynn Marsh Road Th e man lacked any remorse, was mously denied parole to Bond on the night of the murder, and dishonest, and had the propensity tossed her purse in the marsh that to kill people. Robert Bond was Th e current custodian of Joan's case night on his way north. the same individual Tim Burke, fi les, the Essex County D.A.'s offi ce, the Massachusetts State Police, and has denied access to its records in On July 13, 1990, Joan Webster Joan’s parents promoted as a cred- a 30-year-old mystery and indi- was cremated at the request of her ible witness in their calculations cated the case is still open. George parents. Th is was still an open mur- against Leonard Paradiso and Eleanor Webster informed der case. Although authorities had the D.A.’s offi ce they did not re- named Paradiso as the suspect for Newly appointed chairman Josh linquish their privacy rights, even years, he was not involved in any Wall left his position as fi rst assis- though they publicly supported inquest, never charged, and never tant D.A. out of Suff olk County, the Tim Burke’s book and the Paradiso 26 theory. (Eleanor Webster, known as to scrutinize in an independent him to the crime. Th e family has Terry, died in June of 2010 of can- review. Th e real evidence found publicly stated it agrees with the au- cer.) Th e meeting my private inves- in recovered documents exposes thorities who investigated the case; tigator and I had with fi rst Assistant coerced, pressured, and enticed the Websters eff ectively closed the D.A. John Dawley, Lt. Det. Norman witnesses. Th e actual records reveal case when they had Joan’s remains Zuk, and two other members of the that evidence was manufactured cremated in 1990. Th e family has Massachusetts State Police on May and distorted. False information instructed the D.A.’s offi ce it does 20, 2010 underscored the resistance was provided to the Federal author- not want its privacy violated for an by Essex County to resolve the case. ities. Exculpatory evidence was hid- independent review in the unre- Several documents were provided den in other cases and grand juries, solved murder. Sadly, I cannot fi nd for their review. and some evidence was suppressed anything in recovered documents entirely. Crucial testimony changed. to justify their opinion. Murder is I shared the suppressed composite the state’s responsibility. drawing reconstructed from tem- Th e composite, Bond’s interview plate numbers recorded in police on January 14, 1983, his written af- No prior examination of Joan’s trag- fi les. Th e composite was suppressed fi davit, and warrants fi led with the ic case ever studied the implausible by authorities, and the Websters court are among the many recov- excuse the state promoted for Joan’s were given the image on December ered documents that should be con- loss. It was an excruciating ordeal 21, 1981. Th e drawing depicts the tained in Joan Webster's fi les in Es- to live through, and the injustice likeness of the man believed seen sex County. Facts seriously confl ict found in recovered records com- leaving Logan Airport with Joan. with Tim Burke's published book. pounded the travesty and multi- Th e image, compiled in December Instead, the offi ce publicly repre- plied the number of victims. 1981 from a witness description, sented other cold murder cases was not Leonard Paradiso, but the are being examined based on Tim Th e state’s misconduct in Joan Web- composite bears a striking resem- Burke's book, and cast suspicion ster’s case suggests two possibilities: blance to the lead offi cer involved on Paradiso posthumously for even overzealous authorities serving up in the case, Trooper Andrew more unresolved crimes. (Leon- an excuse to satisfy public outcry, Palombo. ard Paradiso died on February 27, or the case was covered up to shield 2008, shortly aft er Burke’s book was an off ender from accountability. Palombo, a Harley-Davidson afi cio- published. He was moved from the Neither is acceptable, but the fact nado, was 6’4” and 240 pounds. He Old Colony Correctional Facility to is, Boston has a well-documented was killed in a motorcycle accident Lemuel Shattuck Hospital, a hos- history of wrongful convictions. in 1998. Joan's body was found not pital that treats prison inmates. He Recovered records open a new far from where Palombo lived at the continued to maintain his inno- avenue of discovery into a lingering time. It was a remote area that at- cence for the assorted crimes Burke mystery, and the hope that truthful tracted hikers and bikers. Th ere was asserted including the murders of answers will fi nally bring closure to also known criminal activity in this Marie Iannuzzi and Joan Webster.) the case. area, something an offi cer would know. Th e Hamilton police chief Joan Webster will never receive “Th ere is no crueler tyranny than told my PI that Palombo knew the justice until there is an indepen- that which is exercised under cover area. All the while Joan was buried dent review of records. Th e theory of law, and with the colors of jus- there, Palombo was aggressively promoted by the core principles tice...” US vs. Jannotti, 673 F.2d 578, promoting she was murdered on a does not withstand scrutiny of the 614 (3d cir. 1982) boat that didn't exist and dumped factual records, and scapegoats are in Boston Harbor. not acceptable for the brutal loss of a vibrant and valued life. Joan’s next Actual records support the prob- of kin, George, her brother Steve, lem resolving Joan’s case was the and her sister Anne, maintain investigation itself, and individu- Paradiso murdered Joan Webster als closely involved are the ones despite any real evidence to connect 27 Road Rage Continued Davis drove away so they could test sponded to Gore and Frago’s the walkie-talkies they were using. request for backup, but they were eight years younger than his part- three miles away in Saugus. Th ey ner, was no better and also had a It was around this time, while Davis started to head over, but when they long criminal record. Davis had was on his own, that the near crash heard unit 78-12 radio that they frequently remarked on how much with the Tidwell’s Volkswagen took were almost there, unit 78-16R he hated cops, and that he rather place. went back to their normal patrol. kill them than go back to jail. Between then and the time Offi - Th e Pontiac, closely followed by Both men had met in prison and cers Gore and Frago had caught up the CHP unit with Gore and Frago, had become friends, and knew they with the Pontiac, Davis had picked exited the freeway at Henry Mayo would get together once they were up Twinning and they were back Drive, and then pulled into the on the outside. In May, 1969, Twin- together. Both Davis and Twinning Standard Service Station at J’s Cof- ning was released from a federal had noticed the patrol car behind fee Shop at Henry Mayo and Old penitentiary in Florida, and three them, and they knew that if they Highway 99, close to what today is months later, Davis was released were stopped, the arsenal they had the Magic Mountain Parkway and from another prison. Davis and in the back of the car would be Th e Old Road intersection. Th e Twinning got together in Houston, found. Th ere was no way that they Standard Service Station was open Texas. Both men were unemployed were going to be arrested. 24 hours, so the area was well lit. In and decided to drive to Sacramento. the restaurant, there were around Th e plan was that they would com- Back in the CHP patrol car, Gore 30 witnesses, including a church mit a series of bank robberies, but and Frago requested some backup. choir that had stopped by for a late for some reason, they were unsuc- Unit 78-12 responded. night meal. Th ey all had a ringside cessful. seat for the events that were about Offi cers James E. “Skip” Pence and to unfold, and all were able to de- Th e two men rented an apartment George M. Alleyn in unit 78-12 scribe what happened next. in Long Beach, and they noticed an had stopped two miles away on the armored car making cash deliver- southbound on ramp at Valencia And what happened next changed ies to the Santa Anita Park race- Boulevard where they waited as the law enforcement procedure forever. course. Th e two men, recognizing red Pontiac and the patrol car with an opportunity, came up with a Gore and Frago approached. A Fatal Stop scheme to hijack the armored car as it left a freeway off ramp. Th eir Both Pence and Alleyn had a lot in Unit 78-8, with Gore driving, plan involved the use of explosives. common with Gore and Frago. Like pulled into the parking lot at J’s Some time before, both men had them, they were also young, both Coff ee Shop, following the Pon- been driving along the I-5 and saw only 24 years old, and both had tiac. Both vehicles stopped, with a construction site near Gorman. young families. Pence was married the CHP unit a few feet behind the Th ey decided that they would steal to Janet and had two children, a Pontiac. Unit 78-8 radioed dispatch the explosives needed for the rob- boy, Jay, who was just 14 months and reported that the suspect ve- bery from there. old, and a daughter, Th eresa, who hicle had parked at J’s Coff ee Shop. was 3. Alleyn and his wife, Shirley, Gore turned on the red spotlight, On April 5, Twinning and Da- also had a 3-year-old daughter, Ju- while Frago did the same with the vis headed into the surrounding lie, and a 9-month-old boy, Kevin. white spotlight. It was still only country just off the I-5. Th ey had 11:54 p.m., not even a minute had spent the day practicing with the Like Gore and Frago, both men passed since their radio call that weapons they had gathered, includ- were rookies, also with less than they were following the suspect ing shotguns, handguns and rifl es. two years on the force. vehicle. Aft er some hours of practice, they drove down to get the explosives. Unit 78-16R, carrying Offi cers It’s likely that the two offi cers were Aft er Twinning was dropped off , Holmes and Robinson, also re- not expecting trouble; this was, af- 28 ter all, just a routine call. Both Gore Jack Twinning had turned in his An 11-99 is an “offi cer needs help” and Frago got out of the patrol car seat. In his hand he held a four-inch call and walked toward the Pontiac. Smith & Wesson model 28 revolver. Gore had drawn his service re- Twinning quickly fi red two shots Newhall dispatch rebroadcast the volver, a .357 Magnum, and had it and two .357 caliber rounds hit call, and unit 78-16R, with Holmes trained on the suspect car. Frago Frago in the chest. Th e young of- and Robinson, responded, as did was carrying a 12-gauge shotgun, fi cer died almost immediately. several other units. Th e Los Angeles a Remington model 870 pump action. Th e stock was held against Gore his hip while the barrel was point- heard ing upwards into the air, in what is Frago’s last known as a “port arms” position. words and the shot, Gore shouted to the occupants of and im- the suspect vehicle, “Get out with mediately your hands up!” turned to his right, Th ere was no response from the car. and no doubt Crime Scene Photo saw his partner fall to the ground. County Sheriff Station also received Gore repeated the order three Twinning, who had by this time got the call, and several of their units times, along with “We told you to out of the car, fi red a shot at Gore, also responded. get your hands up!” and Gore fi red one round back, missing Twinning, but hitting a car As unit 78-12 pulled into the park- Finally, they got some response. that was parked in the lot. ing lot, Twinning and Davis opened Th e driver’s side door opened and fi re on it. Unit 78-12 came to a stop Bobby Davis got out. Gore ordered Gore’s attention was now divided to the left of the fi rst patrol car and him to lean against the car in a between the driver and the passen- Davis opened fi re on Pence and search position. Davis, following ger, and he took his eyes off Davis Alleyn. Pence, now out of the patrol the order, placed his hands on the for a fraction too long. Davis saw car, positioned himself behind the car. Gore moved forward to begin a the opportunity and used it, pull- open drivers’ side door of the unit search of the suspect, moving about ing the Smith & Wesson .38 Special and returned fi re. fi ve paces and staying just to the from his waistband, most likely the left . same gun he’d used to intimidate Jack Twinning had emptied his the Tidwell’s. Davis began shooting revolver, so he ducked back inside As Gore did this, Frago also moved at the offi cer, and two bullets hit the car to get another weapon. forward toward the passenger side Gore in the chest, passing through He emerged with a Colt 1911 .45 of the car, his shotgun still held in the left front and lodging in his caliber automatic, but only man- the port arms position. It is not back on the right side. Offi cer Gore aged to fi re one shot before the gun known whether he had chambered dropped to the ground, and just jammed. He dropped the jammed a round or not. like his partner, died almost imme- weapon and ducked back inside the diately. car. Just as Frago reached the passen- ger side and reached for the door At this point, just as Gore died, Offi cer Alleyn came out of his side handle, the door opened abruptly. James Pence drove the second CHP of the unit with a shotgun, and unit, 78-12, into the parking lot. It chambered a round. He moved Frago yelled, “Hold it!” was now 11:56 p.m. back toward the rear of Gore and Frago’s patrol car, then round to the Th ey were the last words he would At Newhall dispatch, Pence’s agi- passenger side door, positioning ever say. tated voice came over the radio, himself there, where he began to “11-99, shots fi red, at J’s Standard.” fi re at the suspects, both of whom 29 had now ducked back inside the Davis fi red yet again, and the buck- moving toward Kness along the Pontiac for more weapons. He fi red shot hit Alleyn in the face. Alleyn passenger side of the Pontiac. Kness three rounds at the suspects, one of buckled, but then stayed on his feet, looked around and, seeing Alleyn’s which shattered the rear window using the trunk of the patrol car shotgun, picked it up. He aimed at of the Pontiac. One of the pellets to support himself. Blood poured Davis and pulled the trigger, hear- from this blast hit Twinning in the from his face, which he brushed ing a click as it fell on an empty forehead, causing pain, but little away, knocking his hat onto the chamber. He pumped the shotgun damage. trunk of the unit. His vision was and pulled the trigger again, and blurred and he was dizzy, yet he still once again just heard a click. Davis came out of the Pontiac with fi red the gun, until he fi nally fell to a 12 gauge sawed off shotgun, while the ground, his life slowly begin- Kness dropped the shotgun and Twinning emerged with a second ning to slip away. picked up Alleyn’s service revolver. Colt 1911 .45 caliber pistol. Davis managed to move to a position Gary Dean Kness was a 31-year-old Davis, by this time, had retreated to between the two patrol cars and computer operator, a former U.S. the front of the Pontiac. fi red the sawed off through the Marine, and a veteran of the Kore- open drivers side door of unit 78-8 an War. He was driving to work and Using a two handed grip, Kness and across the seat. Th e shotgun saw what was happening. At fi rst aimed at Davis and fi red. Th e bul- blast hit Alleyn in the face, chest he thought it was just fi lming going let missed, but struck the Pontiac, and his left hand. It’s likely that on, but soon saw that this was not causing the bullet to fragment. Two in a refl ex action, Alleyn pumped play-acting, this was real. Immedi- of the fragments hit Davis in the the shotgun, ejecting a live round, ately, he drove his car into the lot chest, but they were not enough to though it has also been speculated and parked around 200 feet behind stop him. Kness tried to fi re again, but the revolver was also now out of ammunition.

While this was going on, Pence and Twinning were having their own shootout. Twinning had moved around to the left front of the Pon- tiac and was returning Pence’s fi re. Pence, still behind the open drivers’ side door of unit 78-12, emptied the gun, and now had to reload. Pence retreated toward the rear of Crime Scene Photo the patrol car and began reloading from the dump pouch on his belt, that he ejected it by accident before units 78-8 and 78-12. one bullet at a time. he began shooting, forgetting in the chaos that he had racked a live Kness saw Alleyn fall to the ground Twinning, seeing his chance, round as he got out of the vehicle. and, unarmed, ran from his car to moved out from the front of the Whatever the case, Alleyn’s shotgun the fallen offi cer. Seeing that Offi cer Pontiac and began shooting at was now empty. Alleyn was barely alive, he grabbed Pence, two bullets hitting him in him by the belt and tried to drag the chest, the other two hitting his Alleyn managed to stumble to the him to safety. But Alleyn was heavy legs, one of which was broken by rear of the patrol car where he and Kness was unable to move him. one of the bullets. withdrew his .357 service revolver, and began fi ring at each of the two Davis had now dropped the sawed Severely wounded, Pence continued suspects. off and had taken Frago’s .357 Mag- to reload. num service revolver. Davis began 30 Twinning quickly crossed the gap, the moment it sped away into the Antelope Valley in the north. moving around the left side of the night, the whole tragic incident had patrol car. As Pence loaded the last taken just four and a half minutes. Although severely beaten, Schwartz bullet in his revolver, Twinning ap- managed to walk to a nearby utility peared right next to him. Th e Getaway station where he telephoned the po- lice and told them what happened, Kness heard Twinning say, “I’ve Davis and Twinning didn’t drive giving a description of the camper got you now, you dumb son of a very far, just 150 yards to the end of and the license number. bitch.” Th en there was a single shot a dead end street, where they aban- as Twinning executed Pence with a doned the car and set out on foot, At 4:15 a.m., the police broadcast bullet to the back of the head. heading north. Aft er a while, both a description of the camper and a men split up, and Davis headed east Los Angeles County Sheriff unit With all the offi cers dead or dying, while Twinning headed west. from Lancaster responded. Th e and himself now out of ammuni- unit drove to the San Francisquito tion, Kness knew that he was in an Davis followed the course of the Canyon road and staked it out. impossible situation. He turned and Santa Clara River as it winded its Soon, the suspect vehicle was seen scrambled to a drainage ditch at the way east and then curved north. as it approached. Th e unit blocked side of the road and took cover. Eventually, he came to the San the road and the camper came to a Francisquito Canyon. By this time, stop. Davis was out of ammunition Just as he got to the ditch, more it was 3:25 a.m., on Monday, April and knew that he had no choice. patrol cars arrived. Th e fi rst was 6. Parked alongside a dirt road, Th e deputies ordered him out of the unit 78-16R with Offi cers Holmes Davis came across a 1963 Interna- camper with his hands up. Davis and Robinson. Immediately, Davis tional Scout Camper. Inside, sleep- exited the camper and gave himself and Twinning turned their fi re on ing, was Daniel Schwartz. Davis up. them, the two offi cers returning demanded that Schwartz get out of fi re. Th e two men jumped into the the camper, but Schwartz refused Aft er he split up with Davis, Twin- Pontiac and drove off , both of them and told him to go away. Davis was ning headed west for a while, cross- still carrying Walt Frago’s weapons, angry, and fi red one round from ing the Old Highway 99 and then Twinning the shotgun, Davis the Frago’s revolver through the door. doubled back to head south parallel revolver. to the freeway. He walked for three But Davis was not the only one and a half miles until he reached By the time the next patrol car with a weapon. Schwartz’s answer Lyons Avenue. By coincidence, he arrived, carrying Sergeant Harry was to return fi re with a WWII had come out just a few hundred Ingold and Offi cer Roger Palmer, Enfi eld revolver. yards north of the California High- the parking lot was full of citizens way Patrols Newhall Area offi ce. all pointing out the direction that Davis, now involved in his sec- the speeding car had taken. ond gunfi ght of the night, re- It was just aft er 4 a.m. when treated a safe distance and called to 41-year-old Glenn S. Hoag and his During the shootout, more than 40 Schwartz, telling him he will set fi re wife were awakened by the bark- rounds of ammunition had been to the camper if he didn’t get out. ing of their dog, Tillie. Th e Hoags expended, but only 15 had come With no choice, Schwartz opened lived at 24748 Pico Canyon Road, from the weapons of the offi cers. the door and came outside, where just behind the Denny’s on Lyons On the ground lay four offi cers, Davis grabbed him and pistol Avenue. Glenn climbed out of bed three of them dead, and one, Of- whipped him with the now empty and went to see what the dog was fi cer George Alleyn, barely alive. revolver. barking at. When Glenn didn’t He would take his last breath on the come back, Mrs. Hoag went to way to the hospital. Davis left Schwartz beaten and see what was happening. She saw bloody and drove off in the camper through the living room window From the moment the red Pontiac and headed along the San Fran- that her husband was being held by had stopped at J’s Coff ee Shop to cisquito Canyon Road toward the a man with a gun. She immediately 31 called the police. Within a short they found that he had not been while, more than 200 offi cers had Reporter: “Of course, if you’re held harmed by the return fi re. surrounded the Hoag’s home. in California … you know there hasn’t been an execution in Califor- Th e shotgun blast they had heard Twinning, still bleeding from the nia for a long time.” was not aimed at them. Twinning, forehead, forced the couple into the probably sensing the inevitable, kitchen, where Mrs. Hoag, to keep Twinning: “Nobody’s killed four had taken the CHP shotgun that he her mind occupied and off the situ- Highway Patrolmen in a long time, took with him from the gun battle, ation, made breakfast. either.” and placed the muzzle under his chin. He had then pulled the trig- Th e Police Close In Th e standoff lasted several hours, ger. during which time the police tried Th e Hoag’s told Twinning that their to get Twinning to release his hos- Davis would answer for the deaths 17-year-old son was asleep in the tage and give himself up. Finally, of the four California Highway pa- guest house at the back of the main around 9 a.m., Lieutenant Rudy trolmen, and an additional charge house, and when there was a knock Vasquez of the Newhall Sheriff ’s of robbery, all on his own. on the door, Mrs. Hoag said that offi ce persuaded Twinning to let it must be her son. Twinning told Hoag go. As part of the deal to let Davis Sentenced to Death Mrs. Hoag to go and let him in. Hoag leave the home, Twinning When she opened the door, what asked that he “have time to think.” Davis’s trial began in mid-October she found was a sheriff ’s deputy. He and he pleaded “Not guilty.” De- grabbed her and led her to safety. Th e sheriff ’s department said he spite the defense argument that at Th e son, Jeff , was also wakened by could have one hour. the time of the shooting, his client the deputies and led to safety. was acting without his full mental By 10 a.m., Twinning’s time was capacity, on Friday, November 13, Th e police established contact with up, and he was ordered out, but Bobby Davis was found guilty on Twinning, who seemed unrepen- he never emerged. Th e order was all charges. He was sentenced to be tant and casually boasted of how given to storm the house. Th ere was executed in the gas chamber. On Frago was killed and said, “He got a volley of tear gas launched into hearing his death sentence, Davis careless, so I wasted him.” the home and an assault team of six turned to his right where nine of- California Highway Patrol offi cers, fi cers of the California Highway A reporter also managed to talk to all with gas masks, entered under Patrol were sitting and gave them Twinning, a short interview that the cover of the gas. Th ey were led a grin. But in 1972, the U.S. Su- was recorded. by Sergeant Robert Lindblom. With preme Court struck down the death the tear gas thick inside the home, penalty, declaring that it was a cruel Reporter: “What do you plan to the assault team was unable to see and unusual punishment, and the do?” where Twinning was, so they made following year, Davis’s death sen- their way through the house with tence was changed to life in prison. Twinning: “I just wanted a few extreme caution. more minutes to live before I die, For many years, Davis was held at that’s all.” Suddenly, just as they approached Folsom State Prison, but was later the hallway, they heard the sound moved to Pelican Bay State Prison, Reporter: “Why do you think you of a shotgun blast. Immediately, the which housed some of California’s have to go that way?” team returned fi re, believing that most notorious prisoners. On Au- Twinning, with nothing left to lose, gust 8, 2008, Davis was moved to Twinning: “Well, I’ve been in was shooting at them, making a the maximum security Kern Valley (prison) before, and I don’t want to fi nal stand. Prison. go back again, and … I fi gure it’s better for me to do it myself than to When the gas fi nally cleared and Just over a year later, on August 16, let them do it for me.” they were able to get to Twinning, 2009, Bobby Augusta Davis, aged 32 67, was found hanging in his cell, shaped silhouettes, giving the of- standard, the same caliber ammu- dead. fi cers a more realistic idea of what nition as the ones the offi cers had they may come up against, and the used during training. Learning from Tragedy human shapes helps the offi cer get conditioned to shooting at a per- In a situation such as the Newhall Th e Newhall Tragedy forced the son. Th e offi cer also has to move, shooting, a second can be the dif- authorities to look closely at several learn to fi re from behind obstacles ference between life and death. aspects of police procedures and at targets that are also obscured in James Pence died because seconds how offi cers were trained. It seemed some way. were wasted while he reloaded his that a lack of training led to mis- weapon. Th e dump pouch on his takes being made. One was the port During the shootout, not one of belt dispenses six rounds into the arms position that Frago used to the offi cer’s shots from their revolv- offi cer’s hand when he opens the fl ap. Th e offi cer then has to sort them and insert them into the chambers of the revolver one bul- let at a time. Some offi cers call the dump pouches by another name, suicide pouches. However fast he loaded, it had to have taken several seconds – seconds that enabled Twinning to fl ank him and fi re a shot into Pence’s head.

Shortly aft er the Newhall shootout, the California Highway Patrol ap- proved and issued speed loaders to their offi cers, the fi rst state police department to do so. If Pence had a speed loader, it could have been Th e Widows - Mrs. Alleyn, Mrs. Pence, Mrs. Gore, and Mrs. Frago Twinning who died at the scene - Newhall wall dedication, 6-5-1970 instead. carry his shotgun. Another was the ers hit the target, and there was a Th e lessons learned at Newhall are fact that Alleyn may have ejected good reason. During training, the still taught in police training today, a live round during the confusion, offi cers used .38 Special ammuni- and the California Highway Patrol though he may have ejected it aft er tion. Th ey were used to this type of created an acronym so that offi cers being shot in a refl ex action. If it bullet, they had used it oft en. But would remember their training. was ejected earlier, a longer train- in the fi eld, they used .357 Mag- ing session would possibly have num bullets, which have a much N-Never approach a danger situa- stopped that from happening, greater recoil and brighter muzzle tion until you are adequately pre- though that is not a certainty. fl ash. Th is led to the inaccuracy of pared and supported. their shots. In essence, they were Th ere were also the targets that using unfamiliar weapons. Davis E-Evaluate the off ense and deter- were used during training. Th ey and Twinning had a considerable mine if you might just be dealing were bull’s-eye targets, which may advantage; they had just been prac- with something more dangerous have been okay for target practice, ticing with their weapons and were than it looks. but in a real life situation, no sus- very familiar with them. pect looks like a bull’s-eye, and the W-Wait for backup. suspect is not standing still. Now Not long aft er the tragedy, the Cali- training involves moving, human fornia Highway Patrol issued, as H-Have a plan. 33 with stalking.

In October, when the case came up at the local Magistrate’s Court, the woman continued to maintain her innocence. Quite a crowd was gathered waiting for her case to proceed. Th e accused, ready for a contest, had brought a barrister to represent her, while several par- ents from the school were also in the court precinct. Although they hadn’t wanted to put their boys through the trauma of a court hearing, they were keen to see the teacher punished for a crime direct- ly linked to her activities as a sexual predator.

the four men as heroes. Th en, they Meanwhile, the fi ngerprint expert A-Always maintain the advantage pointed into the crowd. Th ere were was waiting to testify, as was Dr. over the opponent. 300 people attending the ceremony, Found, who had come with charts but the fi nger pointed at one man, he had prepared to illustrate the L-Look for the unusual. Gary Kness, now aged 69. He was clarity of the indentations left on proclaimed as one of the heroes of the teacher’s notepad by note 4B. L-Leave the scene when in doubt. that night – a night which began as But as soon as the teacher’s advo- Th e monument a small incident of road rage. cate had a chance to look at the forensic evidence against his client, A monument to the four offi cers It was a painful and tragic way to he was able to persuade her to see who died that night stands at the learn lessons, but from the Newhall reason. Aft er changing her plea current Newhall California High- Incident came improvements in to guilty, the former teacher was way Patrol offi ce at 28648 Th e Old training and procedures that have sentenced to a month’s in jail, and Road, Valencia. It is a small brick surely saved the lives of many of- wholly suspended for 12 months. monument, with a plaque contain- fi cers over the years since. She was fi ned $500, and had to ing each of the offi cers’ names, and agree to seek psychiatric help. behind, stands four cypress trees, one for each of the fallen men.

In April, 2008, a fi ve-mile stretch Th e School Stalker is an extract of the I-5 in Santa Clarita was from Written On Th e Skin– an renamed in their honor. It runs School Stalker Continued Australian Forensic Casebook by past the scene of the shooting. Th e Liz Porter, joint winner of the 2007 grandchildren of the offi cers helped Maintaining her innocence (and Ned Kelly Prize for best true crime unveil a large sign which reads, no doubt confi dent that she hadn’t book. Th is book is available in a “CHP Offi cers James E. Pence, Jr., left prints), the suspect had ear- Kindle edition. Hard copies from Roger D. Gore, Walter C. Frago, lier allowed her fi ngerprints to be the author: [email protected] George M. Alleyn Memorial High- taken. Th e print on the sticky tape way.” matched them.Confronting her with all the evidence against her, Offi cials at the ceremony hailed Warren charged the 36-year-old 34 Forensic Science Continued suspects, including delivery men, that would have taken years to do gardeners and hairdressers – all manually. Th at year, the head of detective presented the fi rst fi nger- with no success. the Los Angeles Police Depart- print evidence to be admitted in a ment Latent Print section, Wendell U.S. court: a fi nger mark on a shop Sauro was determined to solve the Clements, author of the book Th e window introduced by the prosecu- case. As soon as he arrived at work Study of Latent Fingerprints: A tor of a burglary case. each day, the Th ora Rose fi le was Science (1987), tested the system the fi rst he looked at. Over the next by running a random sample of 50 Th e FBI had 100 million fi ngerprint three years, he continued to check print cards of unsolved crimes. One cards in its fi les by 1946, and an es- its crime scene prints against the of them was the Th ora Rose case: timated 200 million by 1971. Indi- thousands of new sets that came in. It had remained open, as murder vidual police departments also had Th ere was never a match. cases always do, but its print cards their own fi les – and, as diffi cult had been fi led away because in- as it is to imagine in the post-CSI No investigator could have been vestigators were too busy working world, police fi ngerprint experts more persistent than Sauro, who on current cases and historic cases solved crimes manually, comparing kept tabs on the case aft er he was from more recent decades. prints taken at crime scenes with transferred, and regularly phoned the fi ngerprint cards of convicted in from Las Vegas where he retired Th e case was the only one of the criminals already on fi le. in 1978. But it took the advent of test batch to produce a match. Th e computerized records and then the system brought up the fi ngerprints In 1963, Arnold Sauro, a Los Ange- scanning of old case cards for the of Minneapolis-based executive les Police Department fi ngerprint murder to be solved. Vernon Robinson, then 45. At the expert, was called to a Hollywood time of the murder, he had been an apartment where the savagely Th e fi rst semi-automated fi nger- 18-year-old U.S. Navy recruit with beaten body of restaurant waitress print system was set up by the no criminal record. His fi ngerprints Th ora Rose had been found lying Royal Canadian Mounted Police had fi rst been taken in 1968 when, on a blood-soaked bed. Th e assail- in 1973, while the FBI set up their two years aft er leaving the Navy, he ant, who had robbed and attempted automated card-scanning system had become an alcoholic and serial to rape his victim, had left prints in 1975. Th e fi rst U.K. system, petty criminal. He had served three on window slats as he broke in, and computerizing a database of people years in San Quentin for robbery had touched the windowsill, the convicted of breaking and entering, and assault, but had then gone to kitchen sink and the door jambs. was established in the late 1970s. college and had never reoff ended. Dusting the prints with aluminum- In 1984, the California’s Depart- Arnold Sauro returned to the case based powder, pressing tape over ment of Justice set up its automated to appear at Robinson’s murder tri- them, then lift ing it and pressing fi ngerprint system, a monstrous al, in 1993, testifying that the cards the resulting fi ngerprint pattern logistics exercise: as well as new bearing the crime scene prints were onto cards, Sauro managed to prints being recorded and scanned the ones he’d collected. Robinson obtain 36 clear prints. Th ey were in, tens of thousands of old print denied any involvement in the 1963 checked against nearly 30,000 sets cards were also entered. Th e system murder but was found guilty and on fi le at the LAPD and the Califor- worked almost too well, bringing sentenced to life imprisonment. nia Department of Justice, but there up more hits than investigators was no match. Clearly, Th ora Rose’s could process and more cases than Th rough the late 20th and early killer had no prior criminal record the District Attorney’s Offi ce had 21st century, techniques for raising in California. prosecutors for. latent fi ngerprints (prints invisible to the naked eye) from diffi cult Meanwhile, the detectives inves- By 1990, the Californian system surfaces improved. Meanwhile, the tigating the case, working on the had more than a million prints on recognition that palms comprise theory that the man was a serial it, and it could check new un- between 20 and 30 per cent of the rapist who attacked women in their identifi ed prints against the whole prints lift ed from crime scenes, and homes, checked out 3,000 potential database in 45 minutes – a task from knife handles, guns and steer- 35 ing wheels, led to a focus on palm when he began a survey of the ent drug use, with toxicologists prints. Databases of palm prints, hair and eye color of six million regularly testing hair to detect the fi rst created in 1994, were steadily German schoolchildren. Th e fi rst 31 most commonly abused drugs adopted by police forces around the detailed comparative microscopic – from opiates, amphetamines, world through the fi rst decade of hair study, Le poil de l’homme et cocaine, cannabis and methadone the 21st century. des animaux (Th e hair of man and to prescription drugs such as the animals) was published in 1910 by benzodiazepines, which include Th e Australian national fi ngerprint the professor of forensic medicine anti-anxiety and sleeping pills. system, commissioned in 2001, at the Sorbonne, Victor Balthazard, included palm prints. In the United and his associate Marcelle Lam- In recent years U.K. police have States, state-wide palm print da- bert. Balthazard was also an expert begun to use stable isotope ratio tabases were established in 2004 witness in the fi rst reported case in- analysis (SIRA) of human hair to in Connecticut, Rhode Island and volving microscopic hair evidence. tell them where its owners have California, allowing unidentifi ed In 1909, he examined hair found lived or travelled. Th e technique latent palm prints to be searched beneath the fi ngernails of mur- is based on the fact that, although against known off enders in other der victim Germaine Bichon, fi rst all water molecules are composed states. In the U.K., forensic offi cers judging it to be the hair of a woman of two atoms of hydrogen and one began collecting palm prints in and later matching it to the hair of of oxygen, diff erent water sources 2004, and a palm print database suspect Rosella Rousseau, who later contain subtly varying concen- was added to the national fi nger- confessed. trations of hydrogen and oxygen print system in 2006. isotopes (forms of the same chemi- By the mid 1930s the comparison cal element with a diff erent atomic Hair analysis microscope was already established weight). as the basic tool for forensic hair One of the earliest uses of hair analysis. Consisting of two trans- Th is means that water from one evidence in a criminal investigation mitted light microscopes linked area has a subtly diff erent “isotope was recorded in Paris in 1847, when with an optical bridge, it allowed signature” from water sampled in the bloodied body of the Duchess the examiner to compare two hairs another. Th e traces of that water of Praslin was found in the man- side by side. Seen in cross-section, signature, ingested in food and sion she shared with her husband every hair comprises three parts: drink, are found in every cell in on Paris’s Rue Saint-Honoré. Her the outer cuticle, the cortex, and the body, and can be detected in husband’s pistol was found near her the central medulla. Th rough the hair, fi ngernails and bones. Mea- body, with strands of her hair on its microscope, hair color is judged surements are carried out with an bloodied handle. Th e Duke initially by the detail and arrangement of isotope ratio mass spectrometer – a claimed that he had been woken by particles of pigment in the cortex – $400,000 apparatus that enables his wife’s screams and had brought patterns best seen at magnifi cation scientists to measure the ratios the pistol to her room to defend of 400 times life size. At this level of particular isotopes in diff erent her. He swallowed a fatal dose of other detailed features can also be samples of material. Stable isotope poison before he could be arrested, seen in the cortex. profi ling, as it is also known, has and a hurried bedside “trial” was been hailed as the next big thing in held, with the hair evidence pre- Microscopic hair examination can forensic science aft er DNA. sented as proof of his guilt, along categorize hair into three diff erent with the scratches on his arms and racial groups, judging it as coming In late 2007, fi ve years aft er the the blood-soaked dressing gown from people with European, Asian brutal murder of seamstress and blood-stained knife and sword or African ancestry. But, where Heather Barnett in the U.K. city of found in his own apartment. possible, 21st-century hair analysis Bournemouth, stable isotope profi l- involves the extraction of DNA. ing produced an intriguing clue. German physician Rudolph Vir- University of Reading archaeology chow carried out the world’s fi rst Hair analysis is also used to inves- lecturer Dr. Stuart Black analyzed large-scale hair study in 1876, tigate an individual’s past or pres- cut hair that had been found in 36 the victim’s hand. His work on the of Lyons, who published his re- tridges. nine-centimeter strands revealed search results in 1889. In 1912 his that the hair’s owner lived in Brit- compatriot Victor Balthazard, also Th is complex and time-consuming ain, but had visited either eastern noted for his hair analysis work, work could be done only because Spain or southern France 11 weeks devised a method to match bullets Goddard had “suspect” guns to before the hair was cut, for up to six to the guns that fi red them, taking test-fi re and compare with cartridg- days. Th e person had also visited photographs of test-fi red bullets es found at the crime scene. He also Tampa, Florida, for eight days, two and ejected cartridge casings, then had only a limited number of guns and a half weeks before the hair was enlarging and comparing them. to test. cut. At the time of going to print, police were yet to trace its owner. Aided by the 1925 invention of the By the 1990s, in any average year, An Italian national was charged comparison microscope, compara- the Chicago Police Department was with the murder in late 2010, but tive bullet analysis became a rou- seizing between 10,000 and 15,000 pleaded not guilty. He was due to tine part of late 1920s police work. crime guns. By then comparison face trial in 2011. In 1929 pioneering U.S. forensic microscopes had evolved dramati- ballistics expert Calvin H. Goddard cally; specialist bullet comparison Ballistics used the device to investigate the devices could off er clear magnifi ca- guns used in Chicago’s infamous tions of up to 1,500 times life size. British detective Henry Goddard St. Valentine’s Day massacre. On 14 But the work was still impossibly famously solved an 1835 burglary February 1929, seven gangsters, all slow. by the use of bullet comparison. As known associates of the North Side noted earlier, he observed a fl aw in Irish gang’s George “Bugs” Moran, Th e next development in ballistics a bullet found at the crime scene had been mown down by men was a giant leap: a new system that and then matched it to other bul- wearing Chicago police uniforms. could compare the signatures of lets in the suspect’s gun and to the But were the shooters actually po- tens of thousands of guns in less mould from which the bullets had lice offi cers? than an hour. Oft en described as been made. “DNA for weapons,” the Integrated Goddard examined the 70 empty Ballistics Identifi cation System Modern forensic ballistics is based .45 caliber cartridge casings left (IBIS) is now so basic to modern on expert knowledge of the rela- at the scene, identifying them as law enforcement that the script- tionship between bullet and gun. having been fi red from Th ompson writers on “CSI” use it as a verb. Every fi rearm leaves a ballistic “sig- submachine guns. Manufacturer’s “Did you IBIS it”? the show’s fi c- nature” on the bullets and cartridge markings revealed where and when tional forensic specialists ask, when cases fi red from it. Th ese micro- the bullets had been made. Study- discussing any stray bullet or shell scopic markings, unique to each ing two distinctly diff erent ejector found at a crime scene. gun, are made by the gun’s barrel, marks on the cartridge cases, the fi ring pin, fi ring chamber, extractor expert was able to say that two Editor’s Note: “A Primer on Forensics” is and ejector. weapons had fi red them, with one taken from the Introduction to Liz Porter’s having fi red 50 cartridges and the book, Cold Case Files: Past crimes solved by new forensic science, which is available Forensic fi rearms experts can other 20. Goddard then test-fi red for Kindle in the United States on amazon. compare the “signature” of a bullet all eight of the Th ompson guns com or cartridge recovered from a crime owned by Chicago Police. Th ere scene with other “signatures” that was no match on the casing marks http://www.amazon.com/Cold-Case-Files- are already on police fi les. to those found at the crime scene. ebook/dp/B004ZBTHMC Hard copies available at www.panmacillan.com.au A later raid on the home of an as- Th e fi rst scientist to study the sociate of Al Capone, leader of the striations on bullets and their South Side Italian gang, uncovered relationship to specifi c guns was guns which, when tested, produced Alexandre Lacassagne, professor of markings matching those on the St. forensic medicine at the University Valentine’s Day crime scene car- 37 Barbara Payton Continued Veteran B-movie actor Mickey friend Stanley Adams, a heroin Knox also dated Payton during this dealer already serving time for kill- Th ough untrained in acting, Bar- time. In an interview with author ing pusher-turned-informant Abe bara Payton nabbed a starlet's con- Patrick McGillan for the book Ten- Davidian. Payton and Cougar sup- tract with Universal Studios in late der Comrades: A Backstory of the ported Adams's testimony that he 1948 and did a few bit parts, but Hollywood Blacklist (co-authored was dining with them in Payton's the studio dropped her the follow- by Paul Buhle), he recalls a compul- apartment at the time of the hit, but ing summer aft er word got around sive and passionate lover who "... apparently their alibis were so weak that she was having an aff air with kept me in bed once for three days and unconvincing that Adams was married man Bob Hope. She had and nights, even feeding me (there). found guilty of perjury and re- met Hope in March 1949 at a hotel She wouldn't let me get out of bed! mained imprisoned on the murder party in Houston, becoming some- I had to crawl out on my hands and charge. thing of a Hope groupie by follow- knees. A helluva girl!" Payton was ing him around the country for moving so fast she even managed a Payton was signed to Warner several weeks as he made personal brief aff air with actor George Raft , Brothers Studios in 1950 — at appearances. Upon their return and an even shorter engagement to $5,000 a week — and immediately to Hollywood, the actor allegedly high-powered entertainment law- co-starred with James Cagney in set her up in a little love-nest on yer Greg Bautzer. Kicking up dust the violent crime drama, Kiss To- Cheremoya Avenue, for which he like a wild mustang on the loose, morrow Goodbye. Playing a good promptly purchased all the neces- she was playing the entire fi eld. girl gone bad through her associa- sary furnishings, including, in the Reminiscing about the young Pay- tion with a sadistic gangster played words of one tabloid, "... a king- ton, legendary fi lm producer A.C. by Cagney (she ends up killing him size double bed that was the set Lyles fondly recalls, "Barbara never aft er he beats her), Payton turned in for many rollicking good times." had an itch she didn't scratch!" her fi nest screen performance. She Th e couple's sex fl ing, however, acquitted herself so well in the fi lm, would last just six months — end- At 22, she got her fi rst starring role the studio doubled her weekly sal- ing abruptly when Payton began as a doomed nightclub cigarette ary and gave her a featured role as pressuring him for large amounts girl in the well-received 1949 fi lm the conniving prairie tramp "Flo," of money to help cover her living noir, Trapped, with Lloyd Bridges in the Gary Cooper Technicolor expenses. Hope's advisors report- — and her fi rst set of unsavory western, Dallas. Over the years, edly paid her off with a handsome headlines that September when it's been widely alleged that Pay- sum — with the stipulation that she the L.A. Times reported that her ton had sexual episodes with both keep quiet and disappear. Pay- new boyfriend, a 28 year-old movie Cooper and another co-star, Steve ton happily bowed out and went extra (and part-time drug dealer) Cochran, during the making of the through all the cash in a matter of named Don Cougar, beat up Bar- fi lm. A former scene-still photog- months. Th e foul-mouthed, booze- bara's elderly landlady in a 3 a.m. rapher (who worked for another swilling, "hot-to-trot hoyden with dispute over the amount Payton studio) knew Payton in the 1950s an angel's face" quickly evolved owed on her rent. With his bully- and asserts, "(I know) she and into a hard and mercenary little ing ways and propensity for using Steve Cochran fooled around with number with a cunning brain. She strong-arm tactics, Cougar was just each other when they were making went back to partying at Mocambo, one of the many shady characters Dallas. Th ey used to go behind the where she was photographed over to whom an excitement-craving western sets on the WB back lot the next several months dining Payton had gravitated. She was also and grab a 'quickie.' And, she and with billionaire Howard Hughes, running with Hollywood party girl Gary Cooper had, what might be huddled in a booth between movie Lila Leeds and with several mem- called a 'dressing-room romance.'" tough guy John Ireland and mob- bers of the notorious Sica mob, and Th is photographer also recalls an ster Mickey Cohen, and downing in early 1950, there were more lurid amusing — if pathetic — hom- shots with wealthy L.A. paving headlines when she and Cougar age to Payton's increasingly trashy contractor Jerry Bialac. were called before a Federal Grand reputation: "Th ere was a story going Jury in the perjury trial of their around town at the time that the 38 crew would celebrate the end of latest fi lm, the big-budgeted Civil Th e Wolf Man's illustrious Curt each day's fi lming by sending Pay- War drama, Drums in the Deep Siodmak and co-starring Raymond ton's petticoats up a fl ag pole, fl ying South. Madison, then married to Burr and an alcohol-wrecked Lon them over the WB lot at half-staff ! troubled, alcoholic actress Gail Chaney) was the typical low- Barbara Payton was one hot-look- Russell, quickly fell under Payton's budget, jungle melodrama of the ing and raunchy broad!" irresistible spell and began joining day, but Payton's appearance in her aft er work for late-night dates it proved memorable. First seen Payton followed her small but deco- in her new apartment. It didn't take dancing alone under a slow-moving rative role in Dallas with the female long for Tone to learn of his fi an- ceiling fan, Payton -- wearing sexy lead in a Gregory Peck espadrilles and with her fi lm, Only the Valiant shapely hourglass fi gure (in which Army offi cer encased in a tight sarong Peck and cavalryman Gig -- looks stunning. Her Young vie for her virtuous near-perfect physical Cathy Eversham charac- countenance and sensuous ter), and once again, she undulating movements in reportedly had a sexual this scene were mesmer- fl ing with her leading man izing, and helped disguise during its production. By the fact that the fi lm itself this time, Payton was be- was a trashy aff air. During ing squired around town the making of Bride of the by a new sugar daddy Gorilla rumors bounced — the classy movie star, around town that Payton Franchot Tone, a distin- was carrying on in more guished and wealthy man sleazy "dressing room en- 22 years her senior. Tone counters," this time with had spotted her holding two of the fi lm's support- court at Ciro's and was ing actors, aging, alcoholic immediately captivated Tom Conway and black by her beauty and highly actor/ex-L.A. Rams foot- irreverent nature. An ex- ball star Woody Strode. In husband of Joan Craw- an interview with author Barbara Payton near the glamorous height of her career. ford, Tone lavished daily gift s Tom Weaver in 2002, the late of champagne, fl owers and expen- cée's cheating ways, and one night, Herman Cohen, the fi lm's pro- sive jewelry on Payton — while she while spying on her, he allegedly ducer, stated none to kindly that cooked him gourmet meals — and caught Payton and Madison in bed "Barbara Payton was a gorgeous they were soon engaged. Th e debo- together. Th e story spread rap- gal, (and) she was a fun person. She nair actor publicly announced plans idly through Hollywood and was liked to laugh…and she was a little to purchase a ranch for Payton in exposed to the public in a steamy crazy. (You might say) she was a Pomona, and with her fi lm career article in Confi dential magazine, whore who got lucky." ascending, it's clear that the woman the top exploitation rag of the day. whom WB had recently named "the In July 1951, Franchot Tone was in white diamond with blue eyes" was Despite her embarrassing indiscre- New York City on business when sitting on top of the world. tions, Payton and Tone remained Payton attended a Hollywood pool engaged, but WB Studios was not party at the Sunset Plaza Hotel and As was her wont when things were pleased with Payton's antics and met Tom Neal, a hard drinking, un- running too smoothly in her life, punished her by tossing her to employed, cowboy actor who had Payton undermined herself by "Poverty Row" for the now-famous starred some years before in the sneaking around with handsome cult fi lm, Bride of the Gorilla. Th e renowned fi lm noir classic Detour. Guy Madison, the co-star of her picture (written and directed by Legend has it that Barbara spotted 39 the 37-year old Neal on the high- sometimes taking place concurrent- diving board (sporting an impres- ly -- followed over the next several A highly-publicized reconciliation sively muscular build in a tight pair weeks. Driven by too much booze several weeks later at the Warwick of bathing briefs) and later uttered a and her active libido, Payton devot- Hotel in New York City ended statement to the press that was not ed more and more of her time and disastrously following a fi ery argu- only unintentionally comical but energy into pitting her two boy- ment in which Tone reportedly also a keen example of her fl ighty friends against each other. She an- discovered Payton talking to Neal romanticism: "Honey, I took just nounced plans to marry Neal in Las on the telephone, and responded one look at him and I absolutely Vegas on Sept. 14, 1951, but on the by throwing Payton's jewelry box fl ipped!" she gushed. "It was love at eve of their wedding, dumped him out the 15th fl oor window of their fi rst sight. He looked so wonder- for an aft ernoon tryst with Tone at hotel suite. Th e high-pitched drama ful in his trunks, I knew he was the Th e Beverly Hills Hotel. Upon their continued with Payton swinging only man in my life!" Th e sexually return to Payton's apartment aft er the phone at her husband's head, predatory Payton evidently met her a night of bar-hopping, the triangle nearly hitting him, and then lock- male counterpart that day in the fi nally exploded when an enraged ing herself in the bedroom where macho Neal, and the couple dove Neal assaulted Tone on Payton's she swallowed a handful of Seconal. headfi rst into an aff air. Th e actor's patio, leaving the older actor coma- Her bungled attempt at suicide was son (Tom Neal Jr.) reveals that his tose for 18 hours and hospitalized resolved in an extremely messy father was "...intrigued by the way with severe head injuries. During fashion with an emetic admin- Barbara acted and thought like a the melee that made international istered by the hotel doctor. Th e man. She was extremely aggressive headlines, Payton sustained a black circus-like atmosphere surrounding and went aft er what she wanted, eye. A series of bizarre news sto- his marriage to "Hollywood's Hell- with absolutely no fear whatsoever. ries followed, detailing everything Raising Hussy" fi nally convinced Dad said she loved playing games from Payton's climbing the hospi- Tone that he had had enough. He with men and could never get tal's outside fi re escape to visit her divorced Payton in July 1952, us- enough attention. She apparently battered boyfriend, to her bringing ing some sensational photographs drove the men in her life nuts and him shakers of ice-cold martinis, "... taken by a Hollywood private took great pride in her lovemak- to help soothe his nerves." detective to prove his allegations of ing skills. My father told me once infi delity. Th e photos, shot through that Barbara was like 'an alley cat in In the staid societal climate en- the transom of a Sunset Strip motel heat' and was always ready, willing gendered by the McCarthy witch- room, showed Payton (naked but and able to have sex at any time, hunts, Payton's freewheeling life- for a black garter belt and beads) anywhere..." Although engaged to style shocked America's bourgeois engaging in oral sex with Neal. Tone, Payton proposed marriage sensibilities. Th e press responded Incensed and vengeful over this lat- to Neal and invited him to move by crucifying her in print. Soon af- est betrayal, Tone made dozens of into her lavish duplex apartment ter the row irate WB president Jack duplicates of the shots and then dis- (for which Tone was paying the L. Warner invoked the dicta found tributed them around Hollywood rent). Her neighbors later told the in the morals clause of Payton's fi lm in sealed, unmarked envelopes, press that they oft en saw a shirtless contract and immediately dropped hoping the sexually explicit images Neal working out with barbells on her from the studio's roster. A.C. would destroy Payton's chances of Payton's patio, while she lay nearby, Lyles remembers Payton telling getting any future fi lm work. Th e drinking champagne and sunbath- him, "I know I'm getting bad pub- Tone/Payton divorce trial found ing in the nude. When Tone re- licity, A.C., but I couldn't care less. Payton once again being paid off turned to Los Angeles that August, I'm havin' so much fun!" Th ough to disappear, much like she was in Payton did an about-face and she and Tone wed aft er his release the Bob Hope aff air. She reportedly tossed Neal aside for her wealthier from the hospital, the marriage was received a "cash consideration that fi ancé. an alcohol-fueled nightmare that was satisfactory" in the settlement, ran aground in just 53 days when and subsequently moved into a No less than half-a-dozen engage- Payton walked out on him and beautiful, 15-room mansion (with ments to both Tone and Neal — returned to Neal. servants) in Beverly Hills. 40 an audience, the new release went fi nest jewelry and furs, Payton was Now objects of intense ridicule, the way of Payton's two previous always friendly, frequently drunk, Payton and Neal high-tailed it out fi lms: straight to the bottom-half of and reportedly seldom — if ever— of town and traveled to England, double bills across the country. went home alone. Veteran celebrity where she had star billing in the B- interviewer Skip E. Lowe says, "By fi lms Bad Blonde (a dismal melo- Neal and Payton, both appear- this time, she was pretty much drama that found Payton camping ing wrecked and dissipated from 'damaged goods.' She had gotten it up as a sex-crazed murderess) too many late nights carousing on into really wild behavior... (like) and the Terence Fisher-directed Sunset Strip, wound up next at Lip- picking up strange guys in gas sta- sci-fi yawn, Four-Sided Triangle. pert Studios, where they acted in a tions and in two-bit lounges up and Neither fi lm furthered her standing dreary, bottom-of-the-barrel west- down the Pacifi c Coast Highway. in the business. Aft er fi ve months ern, Th e Great Jessie James Raid. She frequently stayed at the Garden abroad, Payton and Neal returned (Payton, her tumid body packed of Allah on Sunset, and there were to Hollywood in December, with into a tight vest and jeans, had the rumors that she was propositioning Payton sporting a faux British part of a tough, buxom, saloon the young bellboys at the hotel and accent, "…so thick, the Duke of singer). In June of '53, the couple taking them back to her bungalow." Windsor might have envied it," as toured in a quickly slapped together Payton's libertine lifestyle was hot acid-tongued gossip maven Sheilah summer stock production of Th e copy, and local journalists began re- Graham reported in her column. Postman Always Rings Twice. Dur- ferring to her in the gossip columns In her newly acquired -- and soon ing the play's opening-night perfor- as "Glitterville's Top Tramp" — that to be cast aside -- British accent, mance at the Drury Lane Th eater is, when not running blind items on Payton formally announced that in Chicago, Payton allegedly went her more sensational escapades. She Neal had taken over the manage- on stage blitzed, and passed out was still maintaining a high profi le ment of her career, and vowed that in Neal's arms. Revived moments on the Hollywood party circuit and she would only be accepting "really later only to collapse again, she was was dating celebrities — married strong fi lm roles." Later that month, fi nally carried off stage and taken and unmarried, openly and secretly Payton capitulated on that pledge to a local hospital for observation. — in a somewhat frantic display of by donning a cave girl outfi t to Th e duo fi nished the tour in a series activity. While vacationing in Las co-star with Sonny Tuft s -- another of dead-end, backwater towns — Vegas, she bedded hotel lifeguard alcohol-sodden performer on a where rumors fl oated that Neal was (and soon-to-be movie Tarzan) career slide -- in a ridiculous com- physically beating Payton — and Gordon Scott. A 6'3" Adonis with edy entitled Run for the Hills (Jack in late 1953, their sadomasochistic 19" biceps and curly hair, Scott was Broder Productions). Directed in relationship fi nally dissolved in a ripe for the picking. He later re- broad slapstick style by B-movie storm of booze and violence. (In called "...an exciting roll-in-the-hay. war-horse Lew Landers (Th e Raven, the mid 1960s, Neal was accused Barbara hadn't gone completely Th e Return of the Vampire), the and convicted of shooting his third around the bend yet...she still 'had fi lm's banal plot concerns an insur- wife to death in a jealous rage, and it'. She was hot." ance actuary's paranoia over what spent seven years in a California he believes to be an impending prison). Payton was delighted when one of nuclear holocaust, and his attempts her suitors, a well-known fi lm star, to escape it by moving into a desert In the wake of her well-publicized bought her a new, $6,000 Cadillac mine with his wife. Peppered with split with Neal, Payton hit the convertible for "services rendered." walk-ons from several lower-rung, town fast...and hard. During this "Th e second time he came back, if dependable, performers such time, she dyed the front half of her I asked him what he was going to as Jean Willes, Richard Benedict, platinum blonde hair a fl aming give me this time", she later wrote. and Byron Foulger, Run for the red, drew bizarre-looking tattoos "He got mad at me and I never Hills had the look and ambiance on her face, and became a nightly spoke to him again. Enough of of a Th ree-Stooges short, minus barstool fi xture at such top local memories. Th ey hurt." Payton, no the charm and the energy. A tired, spots as Chasen's, LaRue's, and the longer particular in her choice of old vaudeville sketch in search of Cock and Bull Bar. Bedecked in her companions, went from stuntman 41 to bit player to gigolo, generously started several years earlier, in the ship aroused the industry's fury, bestowing her favors on all. Car- late '40s, when she was the main making her persona non grata once rying on with punks and riff raff as squeeze of L.A. dope pusher Don and for all. oft en as she was with Hollywood Cougar, and a frequent escort of celebrities, she was cutting a mile- playboy-turned-junkie Stanley Ad- Carlo Fiore, a struggling L.A. wide swath through a town that ams. From smoking pot to popping screenwriter (and recovering heroin was using her up even quicker than speed (which she used almost daily addict), was renting a studio apart- she was using it. to keep her weight down), to her ment in Payton's pool house at the constant use of sleeping pills, and time, and, in his 1974 memoir of Payton's name once again made now, to shooting heroin, Payton his close friendship with Marlon outrageous front page headlines in had traveled down that long, wind- Brando, entitled Bud: Th e Brando May 1954 when it was alleged that ing road 1950's junkies called, "the I Knew, he recalls "...riding down she gave two of her fur coats (val- route." However, as Vickers notes, Sunset Boulevard in Barbara ued at over $12,000) to the owner Payton's stunning looks had yet to Payton's red Cadillac convert- of a downtown Los Angeles tavern wane. "I can't understand it...Bar- ible with her and her friend, a Las — in exchange for the dismissal of bara was still very beautiful. It's just Vegas showgirl named Mickey...two a $200 bar tab she owed! Legendary mind-boggling to me that despite gorgeous lookin' broads." In the cinematic bad girl and genre fi lm looking so gorgeous and healthy, book, Fiore, a onetime actor, tells of icon Yvette Vickers recalls the only she was actually using heroin! But, wandering over to the main house time she met Payton in the summer in a way, I suppose it makes perfect one day and inadvertently seeing of 1954. "I was 18 and dating Nor- sense. Th e town had completely his landlady and her new boyfriend man Levin, who was then the CEO turned its back on her by then, and making love on the living room of Th rift y Drugs (the well-known that had to have made her very de- fl oor. He also claims that Payton drug store chain at whose Sunset pressed. What happened to Barbara once propositioned him during the Boulevard location Payton's uncon- is just so sad." time he lived there, by appearing scious body would later be found)," unexpectedly in his apartment at 2 recalls Vickers. "He and I were Th e following year, Payton's fi nal a.m. and suggesting her "specialty." dining at this nice restaurant in motion picture was released, an un- He writes, "Apparently she was town when Barbara came in alone derrated fi lm noir entitled Murder interested only in oral sex. Th ere and sat at the bar. Norman knew Is My Beat, directed by cult movie was something off -center about this Barbara and introduced us. I can't maverick Edgar G. Ulmer. Payton girl — not sexually, but in some begin to tell you just how stunning played a jaded nightclub singer and strange fashion she seemed to drive she looked that night. Barbara Pay- convicted killer who joins forces men insane." Fiore maintains that ton was, without question, one of with a hard-boiled cop (played by Marlon Brando visited him oft en at the most gorgeous women I've ever Paul Langton) to try to prove her Payton's home during this time and seen! She also seemed like a very innocence. Th ough Payton's per- says that he and Payton watched the warm, friendly person, but sort of formance was convincing, the fi lm Academy Awards on her television preoccupied...and sad. Soon aft er was not a success. Th at same year, the night Brando won the Oscar for Barbara arrived, a man came in she took a new lover — a black man his performance in On the Water- and sat down next to her, and aft er from the other side of town who front. In conclusion, Fiore laments about fi ve minutes, they left to- made his presence known to her the day when he was forced to leave gether. I remember Norman telling neighbors by roaring through the the estate aft er only a few months, me that the man was a well-known grounds of her sumptuous Beverly "...when Barbara's fi nances sud- drug dealer in Hollywood and Hills estate on a motorcycle. Pay- denly collapsed." that he had heard from quite a few ton continued thumbing her nose people in town that Barbara was us- at convention by moving him into Later that year, Payton lost her ing heroin and that this guy was her her home and orchestrating the Beverly Hills mansion under a supplier. I was absolutely shocked." couple's splashy arrivals at several mountain of unpaid bills, and was Hollywood parties. Her reckless arrested that October for passing Payton's substance abuse had fl aunting of their biracial relation- bad checks at Hollywood's Liquor 42 Locker in order to buy booze. Playa de Cortes Hotel in Guaymas. big one". Bob Lippert Jr. remembers Newspapers reported that, "A When Barbara's suitor decided seeing her one evening, sitting at messy and double-chinned Payton to return to the States, she stayed the bar at the Palm Springs Riviera was at least 40 lbs. overweight and behind and promptly met her next Hotel. Old friends from her days wearing skin-tight black toreador husband, George Anthony Provas, at Lippert Pictures, Payton and her pants and a bulging blouse when at the hotel's pool. Th e 23-year former boss spoke only briefl y. "It she was carted off to the police sta- old Provas, the manager of a local was obvious to me she wasn't there tion to be booked." Once there, she sport-fi shing business, was instantly to socialize," said Lippert. "Barbara "mugged" for news photographers, smitten. "We spent the next couple looked terrible — very coarse and laughing and kidding around as if months walking on the beach, haggard and heavily made-up. I the arrest were a huge joke to her. fi shing for marlin and sailfi sh, and looked at her hands, and there was She appeared drugged at her trial partying at night," he said. "And of dirt under her fi ngernails. I re- and snickered when she was fi ned course, making love every chance member thinking, 'What happened $100 and given a 60-day suspended we got. Without question, Barbara to this girl?' Later that night, the jail sentence aft er pleading indi- was the most beautiful girl I ever bartender told me that Barbara was gence. In 1956, a female gossip col- saw." working out of the hotel bar as a umnist named Virginia MacPher- $100-a-night hooker." Shaking his son— a woman who hated Payton Th e couple was married in Nogales, head in disbelief, Lippert added, — staged a campaign to destroy Ariz., and lived for a time in the "Barbara blew it. She had every- what little was left of her reputation tiny coastal village of Kino Bay, an thing going for her, the world at her by exposing many of the actress's enclave of tin-roof cannery shacks feet...and she blew it." character fl aws in a series of scath- on the Gulf of California. "Barbara ing columns. Th e negative public- was happy at fi rst," recalls Provas, Barbara's stay at the Palm Springs ity that followed brought Payton's "but then we both started drink- Riviera was short-lived, as her hard ex-husband John Payton out of ing way too much and everything and puff y appearance prevented the woodwork with an accusation went to hell in a hand basket." her from obtaining much trade in that she had been neglecting their While Provas struggled to keep his a town overfl owing with beautiful 8-year old son (who had been liv- business going in Kino Bay with a women. Once hotel management ing with her since the early part of ragged fl eet of sport-fi shing cruis- heard about her tax-free business the decade). Among Capt. Payton's ers, Payton got suntanned and venture, she was promptly booted long list of complaints was that his bummed around the village...a off the property. ex-wife had routinely exposed the barefoot bohemian in a bikini top boy to "profane language, immoral and blue jeans. Spiritually strapped Like the proverbial phoenix, Bar- conduct, notoriety, unwholesome and drowning in rotgut whiskey, bara rose from the ashes of her activities and no moral educa- Payton and Provas began arguing latest disaster and hitched a ride tion." An ugly, courtroom custody — each blaming the other for their north on the hot, desert winds. A battle for John Jr. followed, with the mounting misfortunes. "In retro- modern-day prairie harlot wander- judge blasting Payton as "...an unfi t spect, I should have tried harder, ing the Wild West, she touched mother, not to mention a thorough- not given up on her so quickly," down again in Nevada, seeking ly confused and misguided young Provas says. "But in those days I solace for a while in the dusty woman." was young and unworldly. I didn't gambling town of Searchlight, understand Barbara's illness...or my located several miles outside Las Her name continued its rapid slide own. I eventually stopped drinking, Vegas near the California border. into the gutter when she lost cus- but of course, Barbara never did. Barbara dated a gambler with mob tody of her son and was granted Aft er we split up, her life became a ties (a man she demurely refers rights of monitored visitation only. total shambles." to in her autobiography as "Dick Now 29, Payton took off for Mexico Fortune"). In order to survive, she with an unidentifi ed male com- In 1958, Payton left Kino Bay and again turned tricks — though this panion, where they spent the next Provas, moving to Palm Springs time not in the lush environment of several weeks as guests at the plush with the hopes of landing herself "a the Palm Springs Riviera, but in a 43 tiny, furnished apartment over a ca- lost, and watched her beauty disap- headlines that summer with her sino. For Payton, it was a long way pear...this time for good. Tailored complaint that she had been beaten from Beverly Hills to what surely suits and bikinis soon gave way to and raped in a vacant lot by a gang seemed the loneliest spot on earth. fi lthy caft ans and dressing gowns of teenage thugs. Accompanied by Searchlight and "Dick Fortune" she left on for days. Finally ren- her witness, a middle-aged man in ultimately proved to be little more dered unemployable — and desti- a bolo tie whom the police report than momentary blurs on Payton's tute — due to her alcoholism, she at described as, "a diaper distribu- twisted road map of memories. last gave-up the fi ght and descend- tor and companion of the victim," Within months, she was back on ed on the streets of Hollywood. a heavyset Payton arrived at the the road — with Hollywood, again, Windsor Hills police station, reek- her destination. By 1960, the 32-year-old Payton ing of booze and wearing only a found herself hopelessly adrift in bathing suit, a sweater and a pair In August 1958, at 31, a revital- an aft er midnight world of seedy of gold slippers. She was reportedly ized Payton reappeared in town dives and back street bars, living covered with bruises and human and called a press conference to in fi lthy, fl ea-bitten motel rooms bite marks, and was missing several announce her divorce from Tony overlooking asphalt courtyards in front teeth. No arrests were ever Provas, and to put the word out downtown L.A. With her platinum- made in the attack the newspapers that she was offi cially resuming her blonde hair bleached whiter, and would only call "a mystery beating." acting career. Tanned, thin, and her lips and fi ngernails painted the Th e next day, her name made the looking stylish in a tailored suit, color of blood crimson, a bloated papers again when she was found she had managed somehow to pull Payton was oft en seen driving up passed-out on a bus stop bench on herself together to face the openly and down the Sunset Strip in her Sunset Boulevard. Barefoot, and hostile reporters. Sitting on a tiny rusted, red convertible, cruising in the same white bathing suit, she table with her skirt hiked-up, she for "dates." Th e woman who once was, according to news accounts, handily dodged their more acerbic earned $10,000 a week as a bona "incoherent and in an agitated state barbs and pushed the cheesecake fi de Hollywood movie star, was still when awakened" and was arrested quotient for all it was worth. When in Hollywood, dispensing crude, for public drunkenness. Incredibly, asked by one newsman what had curbside sex. Her asking price fell another arrest followed a week later brought her back to Hollywood, her from $100, to $50…and fi nally to when she threw a wild, aft ernoon response was fatuous, at best. To a $5 a trick in cars parked with their party in her apartment — while na- round of derisive and rib-poking motors running. ked — and tussled with two police laughter, Payton waved her movie- offi cers when they showed up to star sunglasses, crossed her legs On Feb. 7, 1962, Payton was busted investigate. She was charged with and declared, "Th e ants in my pants for prostitution when she ap- drunk and disorderly conduct and were crawlin' again!" proached an undercover cop in a was later released on $21 bail. bar on Sunset Boulevard and in- Unfortunately, Payton's plans for vited him to her apartment for sex. In keeping with her ongoing fl ir- a fi lm comeback died aborning. Reporters from the L.A. Times were tation with catastrophe, things Unable to fi nd work, and with her waiting to photograph her arrival got even worse in the fall of 1962 pride shattered, she took a series at the police station, and the rather when Payton was knifed by one of of low-paying jobs — working as startling images they caught that her johns and received 38 stitches a cocktail waitress in a seedy strip night show a life completely out- for the stab wound. ("Th irty-eight joint, then as a shampoo girl in a of-control. Clad in a secondhand stitches from my fl eshy belly down," West Hollywood beauty shop, even mink coat, and with her sad, doe is how she put it). Her observations pumping gas for a while on Hol- eyes resembling those of a hunted were downright chilling in their lywood Boulevard. Frustrated that animal that had been cornered, apathy. "It isn't very clear to me, she had been barred from making Payton appears drawn, distraught but I think it happened in a cinder the comeback she had hoped for, and "spaced-out." block shanty, somewhere in the Payton quickly upped her alcohol Valley... Some fi lthy drunk got mad intake, gained back the weight she Payton, 34, resurfaced in the at me when I wouldn't do 'what 44 he wanted.' Guess I gotta be more in that very same area, two hookers and 151 rum. For several months, careful in the future." Aft er news were found beheaded at the Motel Barbara and I holed up in that of the incident spread through 6. Th at area of Hollywood is the ab- godforsaken Wilcox dump where Hollywood, a paperback publisher solute bottom of the barrel. Wilcox we drank all day, screwed, wrote named Leo Guild tracked Barbara and Yucca. YUCCA is right! Poor poems and talked about religion. I down to audiotape her memoirs laid around on my ass like a bum for a book project. Unfortunately, while she turned tricks to support the resulting "autobiography", us. I remember the room smelling titled I Am Not Ashamed, was a like booze, dirty bodies and even muddled and untruthful piece of dirtier sex. Real nice life, huh?" junk that did little to counteract Payton's emotional and fi nancial Many midnights later, an un- troubles. Th e book was pub- fl inchingly candid Rayborn recalls, lished in 1963 to minimal public "Barbara thought she deserved reception, but did receive some everything bad that had happened criticism from industry observers, to her in her life. She believed all many of whom had little sympathy those things the papers had always for a life they believed Payton had said about her — that she was this actively chosen. Following a brief wicked, evil woman — and she blast of noise, it sank without a wanted to punish herself. By then, trace. it was all about her carrying on in a sleazy and demeaning way Payton soon moved into what in order to reinforce her feelings proved to be one of the worst of of self-hatred. And she seemed her latter-day Hollywood ad- desperate for attention...any kind dresses. Her new home was the of attention (good or bad), just as shabby Wilcox Hotel, a monu- long as people noticed her. I can ment to ruined lives on the corner remember her sometimes stand- of Yucca and Wilcox — an area Th is photo of Barbara Payton was taken on ing at the window of our room and of town described cryptically by Sunset Boulevard two or three years before her pulling off her top to display her underground fi lm maker Nick death. breasts to all the people down on Bougas as "...the seediest spot in the street. And we'd both laugh the universe." A foreboding and Barbara!" about it! I mean, is that pitiful, or desolate block of burned-out and what? Barbara once told me that boarded-up buildings, it is the same While living at the Wilcox Hotel, Hollywood had used her all up, Skid Row section of Hollywood Payton began a brief aff air with and then when it was all fi nished where infamous, cross-dressing a down-and-out TV character with her, threw her out to the curb, fi lm director Ed Wood and former actor named John Rayborn, an 'like yesterday's trash.' You know, "Little Rascal"-turned-junkie Mat- ex-Marine sergeant who earned a over the years there have been a thew "Stymie" Beard lived at the Purple Heart for injuries sustained lot of bad things that have been tail-end of their lives. Bougas, well while fi ghting the Japanese on the said about Barbara Payton — and known on the West Coast for his island of Saipan during World War granted, she oft en showed a terrible series of graphic crime and scandal II. Th e Chicago-bred Rayborn had lack of judgment, but I think it's documentaries, describes the area amassed over 300 television cred- important to let people know that as being akin to the kind of waste- its during the fl edgling medium's she was an extremely intelligent land left standing aft er an atomic golden years in the 50's, but by person who just gave up. Barbara war. "It's where (elderly actor) Vic- the early 1960's had fallen on hard had a lot of problems and was quite tor Killian was chased down and times. "I was a drunk," he says now. cynical by the time she came into beaten to death by junkies for his "A lying, thieving, no-good son of my life, but she had a good heart television set," he remembers. "And a bitch, hooked on cheap cigarettes [pauses]... I loved her." 45 sad, tormented woman "...looking Amazingly, though completely Rayborn's short-lived aff air with very bad. Th at place she was stay- addled by her daily intake of booze Payton was obviously doomed from ing at was a real rat trap, the worst and drugs, Payton still harbored the start and he eventually left her in 20 miles. And, Barbara, she was dreams of returning to her glory behind at the Wilcox Hotel and just a wreck...She was missing a lot days. Th ose who saw her hitchhik- found a far better life, away from of teeth and had numerous open ing on Sunset Boulevard in the mid show business and Hollywood. sores all over her face and hands, 1960s recall a woman consumed by (He has been in recovery from his both telltale signs of heroin abuse. an incongruous mix of bitterness, alcoholism since 1976.) "To this Let me tell you...I was in the 'pool' a naiveté and hope. It was almost day, what happened to Barbara long time and I saw a lot of things, as if she had wrapped herself in a still haunts me," he says, ruefully. but I don't remember ever see- protective blanket of self-delusion, "I remember her telling me once, ing anyone sink as low as Barbara one that precluded any chance for 'My life is so messed up and I don't Payton did." Due to 'insuffi cient honest introspection or recovery. know what to do...' How I wish now evidence' and some swift legal Former burlesque entertainer Skip that I could have helped her." maneuvering, the heroin possession E. Lowe frequently spotted her pan- charges against Payton later mys- handling in town during this time Following the end of her as- teriously disappeared in a morass and would sometimes stop to talk sociation with Rayborn, Payton of red tape, allowing her to resume to her. He remembers a venomous continued her journey through a her unwavering march toward anger in her that was tempered by kind of twilight world that with disaster. a heartbreaking plea for reassur- each passing day grew ever darker ance. "Barbara blamed Hollywood and more surreal. Finding herself Payton now spent most aft er- for everything that had happened fi rmly entrenched in a bone yard noons cloaked in darkness, nestled to her, and was pissed off that she of boulevard psychos and derelicts, in a corner nook at the Coach had been forgotten," Lowe says. Barbara watched an endless stream and Horses Bar. A solitary fi gure "And yet, despite this, she seriously of bodies cut a path to her bed in a hunched over a shot glass, she sat believed she could be a star again gray, faceless parade. A human re- in the shadows beneath the bar's and was constantly asking for ad- ceptacle for the worst kind of sexual blackout drapes, and drank her- vice on how she could 'make it back acts imaginable, she handled it by self into oblivion. Th e bartender's to the top'!" As her former attorney, drinking non-stop until she was son, author Robert Polito, remem- Milton Golden, once asserted, "To nearly comatose. Th e nightmare bers well the lonely woman in the those who have basked in fame, continued when she was picked oversized muumuus, and describes anonymity must seem a form of up for shoplift ing an outfi t from a her pitiful and shocking physical slow death." clothing store, and arrested again appearance in the book O.K. You for prostitution. Th en, in 1965, Mugs: Writers on Movie Actors When Payton was found uncon- 38-year old Payton turned a dark [Barbara Payton: A Memoir]: "Bar- scious in the parking lot of Th rift y's corner in her ever-present down- bara's face displayed a perpetual Drug Store in February 1967, she ward spiral when she was jailed on sunburn, (with) a map of veins by had been living on the streets for drug charges. Clad only in a men's her nose. Her feet were very swol- several weeks, languishing in the pajama top, she was seen stumbling len and she carried an old man's wreckage of her destroyed life. Af- down a hallway at Th e Hollywood- potbelly that sloshed faintly when ter it was determined by the LAPD Palms Motel and was later busted she moved. She must have weighed that there had been no foul play by an LAPD Sheriff 's detective 200 pounds." Clinging to the barest involved in the incident, and that when he found drug paraphernalia fragments of her Catholic faith, Payton's bloody face and bruises in her room. Swearing profusely Payton kept a tiny statue of St. Jude had resulted from her hitting the and appearing totally out-of-it, Pay- in the pocket of her housedress and pavement beneath the garbage ton was charged with possession of would oft en take it out and talk to it dumpster aft er an all-night bout heroin and a hypodermic syringe. — laughing one minute, and crying of drinking, she was admitted, as the next. an indigent, to the charity ward Retired Lt. Joe Lesnick recalls the at LA County General Hospital. 46 Filthy and with her stomach badly Police Department traffi c investi- in-stone, unwritten code of behav- distended from her failing liver, gation report noted that she was ior. Once she came up against the she was diagnosed as suff ering neither unharmed in the 3:15 p.m. industry's top guns and revealed from "chronic alcoholic psychosis, crash — nor charged with drunk herself to be a rather ballsy and ir- malnutrition and over-exposure to driving. reverent woman whose unconven- the elements." Following her hos- tional lifestyle held little regard for pitalization, Payton was taken by a Th irteen days later her end would the social norms of the day, she was county social worker to her parents' come. According to the San Diego blackballed for life. By the 1960s, home in the beautiful Mission Hills County Coroner's report, Barbara when she desperately needed help section of San Diego. had been sleeping on the living for her addictions — and salvation room couch for several hours from her miserable existence — Unfortunately, Flip and Mabel when she awoke at 1:50 p.m. and there would be no help forthcom- Redfi eld had long battled their complained to her parents that she ing from anyone in Hollywood. own problems with alcohol abuse wasn't feeling well. Sensing that and thus felt helpless against the there was something terribly wrong John O'Dowd is the author of the sheer magnitude of their daughter's going on inside of her body, she Barbara Payton biography, entitled: rapidly deteriorating condition. As staggered to the bathroom, and "Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye: Th e Bar- a result, upon her arrival at their was soon heard moaning in abso- bara Payton Story," which contains home, Payton's self-destruction lute agony. Her mother found her over 250 photos of the actress. It continued unabated, helped along slumped over the toilet. By the time was published in December 2005 by her parents' willingness to get an ambulance and the San Diego by BearManor Media. Payton's life drunk with her. A man named Lee police arrived at the Redfi eld's Titus story is also the subject of a theatri- Wiseman, whose mother lived next Street home, Payton's long, circu- cal feature fi lm currently in devel- door to the Redfi elds, remembers itous journey had ended violently opment in Los Angeles. O'Dowd's not only that Payton's parents were with her painful death from heart e-mail address is: Jod6cindy@aol. unemployed and living off their and liver failure. com. savings when she came to live with them, but also that the trio seemed It was two days before the authori- to be on a constant bender. Wise- ties realized who the deceased was man recalls that it was clearly obvi- — or had once been — due to her Justice on Trial Continued ous that in addition to her physical bloated and gruesome appearance. and provide legal representation to disintegration, Payton's mental Although she died six months shy wrongfully convicted prisoners. health had been grievously aff ected of her 40th birthday, one offi cer by the many years of unrelent- noted that, in death, "Barbara NCIP educates future attorneys, ing self-abuse. At once, paranoid, Payton looked like a woman 20 exonerates the innocent, and is combative — and completely de- years older than her reported age." dedicated to raising public aware- spondent, Barbara's addictions had Her 20-year old son, John, whom ness about the prevalence and exacted a bitter toll on her state of Payton had seen infrequently over causes of wrongful conviction. Th e mind. While in her parents dubious the years, was serving in the Viet- project also promotes substan- care and with no restraints in place, nam War at the time of his mother's tive legislative and policy reform her drinking soon accelerated to death. Her death was tactfully through data-driven research and the point where she was drunk reported in her back-page obitu- policy recommendations aimed at from morning to night. ary that she had died from natural ensuring the integrity of our justice causes. system. On April 25th, Payton was involved in an automobile accident when No show business tragedy more To read the excutive summery of the she hit a parked car at the corner of than Barbara Payton's illustrates report, http://www.abajournal.com/fi les/ Fort Stockton Drive and Stephens with greater force the unforgiving ProsecutorialMisconduct_Exec_Sum.pdf Road, just a few blocks from the wrath 'Old' Hollywood infl icted Redfi eld's home. Th e San Diego on those who challenged its cast- 47 Westley Allan Dodd: Th e Victorian-Renaissance Evidence: A Review of the Motive to Murder Children by Th omas A. Green

In 1990, nine boxes of corrosive, criminal evidence traveled from the courtroom of Westley Allan Dodd’s execution sentencing to the warehouse for the Washington State Archives in Olympia. Th ey harbor a bizarre secret that could unravel the mystery of Dodd’s murderous motive, heretofore, recognized by most as simply, “Evil." Th e trial is gruesome in its details, leaving psychologically savaged jurors beyond the healing of counseling.

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