The Enigma Woman: The Death Sentence of Nellie May Madison (Women in the West)

The Enigma Woman

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women in the west Series Editors Sarah J. Deutsch Duke University Margaret D. Jacobs New Mexico State University Charlene L. Porsild Montana Historical Society Vicki L. Ruiz University of California, Irvine Elliott West University of Arkansas

The Enigma Woman The Death Sentence of Nellie May Madison

Kathleen A. Cairns

University of Nebraska Press Lincoln and London

A portion of this manuscript was originally published as “Enigma Woman Nellie Madison: Femme Fatales and Noir Fiction,” Montana: The Magazine of Western History 54, no. 1 (Spring 2004). ¶ © 2007 by the Board of Regents of the University of Nebraska ¶ All rights reserved ¶ Manufactured in the United States of America ¶ ∞ ¶ Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data ¶ Cairns, Kathleen A., 1946– ¶ The Enigma Woman : the death sentence of Nellie May Madison / Kathleen A. Cairns. ¶ p. cm. ¶ — (Women in the west) ¶ Includes bibliographical references and index. ¶ isbn-13: 978-0-8032-1141-4 (hardcover : alk. paper) ¶ isbn-10: 0-8032-1141-4 (hardcover : alk. paper) ¶ 1. Madison, Nellie May, 1895-1953. 2. Women murderers—California—Biography. 3. Abused women—California— Biography. 4. Sex role—United States—History. I. Title. ¶ hv6248.m257c35 2007 ¶ 364.152⬘3092— dc22 ¶ [B] ¶ 2006028848 ¶ Set in Adobe Caslon by Bob Reitz]. ¶ Designed by R. W. Boeche.

In memory of my grandmothers Faith Dorothy Garnsey and Grace Jane Terry

Contents List of Illustrations . . . . . . . . . . . viii Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix Prologue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 1. A Girl from Montana . . . . . . . . . . .11 2. Midnight Alibi . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 3. Outlaw Woman . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45 4. Enigma Woman. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59 5. The Ultimate Penalty . . . . . . . . . . . 77 6. The People v. Nellie Madison. . . . . 95 7. The Defense . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115 8. Lady Macbeth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133 9. The Verdict. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .145 10. A Condemned Woman . . . . . . . . .159 11. An Abused Woman . . . . . . . . . . . .179 12. The Reprieve . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199 13. Life in Prison . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 219 14. A Traditional Woman . . . . . . . . . 241 Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 249 Bibliographic Essay . . . . . . . . . . . 269 Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 289

Illustrations Following Page 10 1. A young Nellie Mooney 2. The Mooney family ranch near Dillon, Montana 3. Poindexter’s Grocery, Dillon, Montana 4. Beaverhead County High School girls’ basketball team 5. Portrait of Eric Madison 6. Eric Madison lies dead in his Burbank apartment 7. Nellie Madison on the fi rst day of her murder trial 8. Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Charles Fricke 9. Agness Underwood with a female inmate 10. Downtown Los Angeles circa the 1930s 11. Joseph and Frank Ryan, Nellie’s defense attorneys 12. Nellie Madison following her murder conviction 13. Nellie Madison on her arrival at the California Institution for Women in Tehachapi 14. Nellie Madison after her September 1935 reprieve 15. Nellie Madison in 1941, California Institution for Women, Tehachapi

Acknowledgments

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first learned about the Nellie Madison case during research for an earlier project involving front-page women journalists in the interwar period. One of my main subjects, Agness Underwood, played a prominent role in Nellie’s life. I promised myself then that one day I would spend some time looking into the case, which seemed almost too bizarre to believe and too fascinating to pass up. That day came in March 2002, when I walked into the California State Archives research room and opened the first dusty box containing the massive, but amazingly untouched, appellate records of The People of California v. Nellie May Madison. My first instinct was right—the case was utterly fascinating and the project has been a labor of love ever since. As I strove to uncover the real Nellie Madison, and the time period in which her life, crime, and punishment unfolded, I had the great pleasure of meeting many people who offered encouragement, ideas, and crucial assistance in the unfolding journey. State archivists lugged boxes from the cavernous file rooms, patiently explained how I could find related material enmeshed in a variety of different collections, and laboriously copied reams of material. I wish particularly to thank Linda Johnson and Genevieve Troka. In addition, Annelise Golden, formerly at the state archives, thoughtfully photocopied information, including copies of the Stockton Record, on the Emma LeDoux murder case. I also am most appreciative of the entire staff of the California State Library, none of whom ever, not even once, rolled their eyes when I asked for help—yet again—in making the microfilm machines work. ix

acknowledgments

In Beaverhead County, Montana, I owe an immense debt of gratitude to the late Esther Mooney, who set me on the path toward the Mooney family history contained in the two-volume History of Beaverhead County and shared her memories of hushed family conversations about Nellie. I also wish to thank Ed Mooney and his daughter Carrie Mooney, who drove me to the top of Mooney Mountain one drizzly August afternoon, so that I could look out across the grasslands and river valley that once belonged to their family. Ed also patiently explained, in several e-mails, the realities of sheep ranching and offered recollections of his grandfather, Nellie’s brother Dan. I am also extremely grateful for the support of Clark Whitehorn, my first editor at the University of Nebraska Press. The kind of cheerleader every insecure writer desperately needs, he promoted my work and encouraged me to write Nellie’s story for Montana: The Magazine of Western History. In Frazier Park, California, I thank Don and Daisy Cuddy, who graciously invited me to visit the cabin of Don’s great-grandfather Robert Cuddy, where police arrested Nellie in March 1934. Prior to the visit, Sue and John Manion provided comfortable accommodations, good food, wine, and splendid conversation. At Tehachapi, Lt. Brian Parriott of the California Corrections Institution, formerly the California Institution for Women, spent an entire afternoon escorting me around the prison and answering innumerable questions. He thoughtfully brought along a set of plans for the prison, so that I could locate the room where Nellie spent fourteen months in solitary confinement. Dan Weintraub of the Sacramento Bee provided invaluable assistance in locating newspaper stories of Brenda Aris, also the victim of an abusive husband, whose case led to changes in the law relating to battered spouses in California. The Department of History at Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo, provided financial assistance for the photographs that appear in the book. x

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I have been extraordinarily blessed in my life with supportive colleagues, friends, and family, and this book would not be possible without them. I especially want to thank my husband, Larry Lynch, who not only had to endure endless readings of the manuscript, but stopped me more than once from taking a hammer to my computer. Nellie Mooney never could have imagined as she fought to save her life more than seventy years ago that one day far in the future a stranger would open a box and enter her world. She would have preferred another ending, but I am humbled and grateful that I have been the one to tell her story. It opened many doors and started my love affair with Montana, the place that she longed for, but to which she could never return. I hope with this book to finally bring her home.

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Prologue Nellie Madison, 1895–1953

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ountain View Cemetery sits at the junction of two busy highways on the edge of San Bernardino, a city of about two hundred thousand that lies seventy miles east of Los Angeles. In this peaceful place, the hum of quiet conversations and nearby traffic, lulling sounds of sprinklers, and fragrance of fresh-cut flowers are the only tangible reminders of lives still unfolding beyond the rows of graves that stretch toward the horizon on sixty-four acres of clipped, emerald green lawn. Looking north from the cemetery on a clear day, visitors can see the San Bernardino Mountains. But there are not many clear days in this part of Southern California. For much of the year ocean breezes flow through the Los Angeles basin to the east, carrying exhaust from millions of cars traveling the region’s vast network of freeways. The winds blow from Malibu and Santa Monica through Hollywood, Los Angeles, Burbank, Pasadena, and the San Gabriel Valley until they finally reach San Bernardino. There they bump up against the mountains and spread their murky wings across the city, giving the air a brownish-gray hue and bringing an acrid smell and lung-constricting heaviness that makes it hard to take a deep breath, particularly during the hot summer months. More than seventy thousand people have been buried at Mountain View since its beginnings in 1907, when San Bernardino was 1

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little more than a whistle stop on the Santa Fe Railroad. Scant public notice accompanied the passing of most of the dead: a few brief lines in a local newspaper, an item in a church or club bulletin. But scattered here and there are a few who gained prominence, fame, or notoriety during their lives. James Earp, the brother of lawman and gunfighter Wyatt Earp, is here, as are his sister Adelia Edwards and Alvira Earp, the wife of another brother, Virgil. The parents of the Earp brothers settled in Colton, near San Bernardino in the 1860s, in search of gold, and all of the brothers spent part of their lives in the region. Grant Holcomb is buried here. He was an actor from a local family, best-known for appearing on You Are There, a 1950s television program hosted by Walter Cronkite that reenacted historical events such as the Salem witchcraft trials of the 1690s, the Gettysburg Address, and the crash of the Hindenburg dirigible in the 1930s. Other notables include Randy Rhoads—the original guitarist for heavy metal musician Ozzy Osbourne—who died in a plane crash in 1982, and Swede Savage, a race car driver who led the Indianapolis 500 in May 1973 before he smashed into a wall, suffered extensive injuries, and died a month later. Nellie Wagner is also buried here, though it is safe to say that virtually no one walking past her grave on Lawn K, tucked behind the administration building, has ever heard of her. No one lingers at the grave, or leaves flowers there, for Nellie had no family to speak of at the time of her death, except for her husband John. He is buried in the same plot with her, their two names carved on a single gravestone, separated by a delicately etched granite rose. In July 1953, when she died of a stroke at the age of fifty-eight, the local newspaper, the San Bernardino Evening Telegram, carried a brief, paid obituary provided by Stephens and Bobbitt Mortuary. It stated that Nellie Wagner had lived in San Bernardino for ten years and in California for more than thirty years. She had worshipped at St. Bernardine’s Catholic Church, the site of her funeral 2

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Mass on July 11, 1953. Under survivors, the paper listed three: her husband, a brother Dan, misnamed as Ben, and a sister Lizzie. Both of her siblings lived in Dillon, Montana, but Nellie had not seen either of them for twenty years. Scanning her obituary the morning of July 9, a day that temperatures were expected to top one hundred degrees with afternoon thunderstorms in the mountains, newspaper readers, if they thought about her at all, might have envisioned Nellie Wagner as an ordinary woman, a middle-aged housewife, devout and pleasantly traditional. Possibly she had gardened, taking pride in her roses, which she pruned wearing sturdy cotton gloves, the shirtwaist dresses then in fashion, and a drooping straw hat to keep the sun off her face. On Sundays she probably walked or drove the several blocks from her small frame house on Sixth Street to St. Bernardine’s. Wearing a scarf to cover her hair, she had knelt, prayed, and offered confession. The obituary writer and Evening Telegram readers could never have guessed how vastly different Nellie Wagner’s life had been from that traditional housewife, though she was in fact an avid gardener and a devout Catholic. Perhaps even her husband of nine years did not know her past or that in 1935 she had come within a hair’s breadth of being the first woman executed by the state of California. Nellie was an intensely private woman and this was one secret she would have wanted to keep. By the time she died she had been long forgotten by the headline writers who had referred to her in screaming forty-eight-point type as “The Enigma Woman” and “The Sphinx Woman” and by most of the reporters covering the sensational story of the mysterious dark-eyed beauty who pumped five bullets into another husband as he lay in bed in the couple’s Burbank apartment just before midnight on March 24, 1934. The ironic aspects of the story helped build its potential for newspaper street sales. The brother of the woman then named 3

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Nellie Madison had been a Montana sheriff. The murder of Eric Madison unfolded just over the fence from the back lot of Warner Brothers First National Studio as actors shot machine guns and a film crew labored to wrap up a gangster movie titled Midnight Alibi. Some residents of Nellie’s building believed the shots came from the set. Only one reporter, Agness Underwood, took the time to get to know Nellie. All of the others saw her as an archetype: the onedimensional and deadly femme fatale prevalent in pulp magazines and in dozens of novels in the Depression-era literary genre called “noir fiction.” To journalists covering the case, she might have resembled Brigid O’Shaunessy, the red-haired seductress at the heart of Dashiell Hammett’s The Maltese Falcon; Carmen Sternwood, the amoral, childish killer in Raymond Chandler’s The Big Sleep; or Cora Smith Papadakis, the cunning and murderous wife in James M. Cain’s The Postman Always Rings Twice. Set in Los Angeles, Postman was published at about the time of Nellie’s arrest and trial. To be fair, Nellie’s previous life seemed to make her an ideal candidate for the popular stereotype. She was strikingly attractive and had made many choices that challenged deeply engrained cultural ideas about women prevalent in the first half of the twentieth century. Married several times and childless, she disdained domesticity and took pride in her professional accomplishments. She was restless and disliked staying in one place for too long. She chain-smoked cigarettes and drank her scotch whiskey neat. More comfortable with men than with women, she spent weekends riding and hunting in the mountains north of Los Angeles. Most of the newspaper readers, numbering in the hundreds of thousands, who eagerly awaited each day’s installment of the Nellie Madison story, probably had forgotten her by 1953 as well. There had been so many other sensational murders in Los Angeles. The gruesome and lurid Black Dahlia killing, yet unsolved, was still 4

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fresh in the minds of many Southern California residents. And the intervening years had seen World War II, the Korean War, and the beginning of the Cold War. The lawyers who conducted Nellie’s two-week trial in June 1934 and the eight men and four women who convicted her of first-degree murder and sentenced her to hang undoubtedly would have remembered her. But many of them had died by 1953, including her attorney, Joseph Ryan, who concocted a preposterous and ultimately devastating defense. Ryan was felled by a heart attack in a downtown Los Angeles parking lot in December 1951. Nellie Wagner did not mind the anonymity and obscurity that accompanied the end of her life. Her brush with “celebrity” had been an intensely painful experience, costing her “everything I hold dear,” as she wrote in one letter from prison. Her family, emotionally and financially devastated by the murder and its aftermath, disowned her and she could never go home again. Longtime friends abandoned her. Her trial and prison experience left her embittered and wary, the antithesis of the young woman who began life brimming over with confidence, a sense of possibility, and longing for adventure. It was a warm winter day when I sat near Nellie Wagner’s grave. The afternoon temperature was expected to reach ninety and an unseasonable Santa Ana wind blew the smog toward the ocean. The skies were cobalt blue and the mountains seemed close enough to touch, unlike the woman who lies forever silent beneath the small gravestone. My journey to Mountain View Cemetery had spanned two years and nearly two thousand miles as I hunted for clues to her life. I searched as a historian examining her life for what it might tell me about the intersection between one exceedingly contradictory woman and larger social and cultural forces: the frontier as geography and place for personal reinvention; the rise of mass popular culture and its impact on individual lives; Los Angeles as myth and 5

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reality; criminal prosecution as a force for social control during the Depression. Though her case occurred at a time when the private lives of regular people were not fodder for public consumption, it also presaged important issues that still resonate through society and the criminal justice system, including the media’s ability to elevate and destroy individuals, and intimate abuse as a defense for murder. As a former journalist with an insatiable curiosity about human nature, I also hoped my search would unearth answers to several intriguing questions. What drove Nellie to make life choices so different from those of her female contemporaries, ones that brought her, and her family, such pain and tragedy? What was it about her that led the legal establishment of Los Angeles County to choose her out of a line-up of female murderers—some much more cunning and ruthless—to receive the state’s “ultimate penalty”? What did their treatment of her say about society’s views of women who failed to conform to deeply entrenched ideas about women’s roles? Once I started on my quest, I could not stop. The journey took me to southwestern Montana, where Nellie was born and grew up. I climbed to the top of a small mountain and looked out over golden fields and fertile river-bottom land that once belonged to her Irish immigrant family. It took me to Boise, Idaho, where she fled as a young woman; to Los Angeles, where, like millions of others, she went in search of a dream; and to the working-class San Bernardino neighborhood where she settled after her release from prison and where she hoped to find a quiet place to restore her soul. One icy December morning I waded through knee-deep snow to a small vacant cabin near Frazier Park, a mountain community eighty miles north of Los Angeles, at the top of the Grapevine that links Southern California to the farmlands of the San Joaquin Valley. At the back of a numbingly cold bedroom stood a tiny closet painted turquoise. A gun rack, stacked with rifles, leaned against 6

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one closet wall. It was there that police discovered Nellie two days after the murder, hiding under a pile of coats. On a windy day in January I traveled to the arid valley that once held the Women’s Institution at Tehachapi, the prison that housed all of California’s female felons in the 1930s and 1940s. As the state’s only female death-row inmate, Nellie spent fourteen months there in solitary confinement, in a specially built cell. After her reprieve she spent seven more years at the prison. I could find few traces of Nellie in any of the places I visited. Other people now own her family’s ranch, which was carved up and sold in the 1930s and 1940s; part of the money went to pay her legal bills. Nearly all of the buildings where Nellie lived as an adult have been bulldozed and new structures erected in their places. In Boise the business college where she studied is gone, as is the theater where she worked as a ticket-taker and the hotel where she lived following a divorce. The brick building where Nellie and one husband shared an upstairs apartment still stands, as does a twostory wood-frame house where she boarded in her student days, though it has been significantly remodeled. In Southern California, run-down, graffiti-covered apartments with barred windows sit on the spot where her Spanish-style house once stood near downtown Los Angeles. An upscale complex containing businesses and restaurants has replaced the Sterling Arms Hotel and Apartments in Burbank that was the site of Eric Madison’s murder. Construction workers building a freeway razed the neighborhood in San Bernardino where she spent the last nine years of her life. Even the cell where Nellie waited in solitary confinement to hear whether she would live or die has been turned into a secretarial office with hanging plants and computers whose screen savers feature sunrises, mountain scenery, and laughing children. A prison spokesman pored over blueprints but could not be certain of the exact location of the dormitory-style room where Nel7

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lie counted out the days and years of her sentence as she lobbied relentlessly for parole. An earthquake leveled Tehachapi the year before Nellie’s death and many records were buried beneath the rubble. Women inmates were relocated elsewhere and the prison now serves as a medium-security men’s facility. The only tangible evidence of Nellie Wagner’s life exists in official sources: rolls of microfiche containing news coverage of the murder, arrest, and trial; dusty folders containing the transcripts of People of the State of California v. Nellie May Madison; cardboard files bulging with letters and petitions from groups and individuals hoping to halt her pending execution and save her life; prison reports; an explosive fifteen-page confession, replete with allegations of lies, abuse, and sexual infidelity. These sources are important for what they illustrate about their time and place. The sensational news stories demonstrate how the media treated women who could not be crammed into comfortable categories. Nellie was not a housewife or a mother. Instead she was “a much-married woman,” “good with the ponies and the pistols,” an “iron widow.” The official documents tell much the same story. They depict politicians and lawyers repulsed by her lifestyle and worried sick about potential disaster if such an unconventional woman managed to “get away” with murder, no matter what her motive. What kind of example could she provide for other women? The news accounts and the documents offer only a few hints of the complex person who lived between their lines: a reserved, controlled woman with an impulsive streak that led her into dangerous waters, one who chose her words as though she were picking her way through a minefield and yet was willing to gamble with her life, a woman who prized her abilities and autonomy and yet threw them away each time a new man appeared on the horizon. The reporters who covered her long-ago trial got one thing right—she was a mystery. She believed in the face of overwhelm8

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ing evidence to the contrary that she could live by her own rules without heeding the conventions of her time. Despite the odds, she just might have pulled it off, had it not been for a cool, partly cloudy, early spring night in 1934. In the moments just before midnight she made a choice that sent her reeling down a far different path, one that placed her squarely in the crosshairs of the political and judicial establishment of Los Angeles. Stripped of her identity, she became a caricature rather than a human being. The real story is somewhat different, though no less dramatic, than the media-generated version of the coolly calculating Nellie Madison, “Enigma Woman.”

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Illustrations

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In an undated family photo, Nellie Mooney sits for a formal portrait in Dillon, Montana. Courtesy of Ed Mooney.

Taken from atop Mooney Mountain, the photo depicts what was once a 1,600acre sheep ranch operated by Nellie Madison’s Irish immigrant parents, Edward and Kate Mooney. Courtesy of the author.

Dillon, Montana, was a thriving town at the turn of the twentieth century. Despite the frontier ambience, some customers dressed up to shop at Poindexter’s Grocery Store. Courtesy of Beaverhead County Museum Archives.

Though its population numbered only a thousand in 1904, Dillon boasted a Shakespeare Club, a symphony, and a girls’ basketball team at Beaverhead County High School. Courtesy of Beaverhead County Museum Archives.

Eric Madison came to the United States during World War I. He had an eye for the women, big dreams, and schemes, but needed money to attain them. From the Herald Examiner Collection, courtesy of the Los Angeles Public Library.

Eric Madison, shot five times, lies dead on the floor of his Burbank apartment on March 25, 1934. Visitors discovered the corpse and called police. From the Agness M. Underwood Collection, Urban Archives Center, Special Collections and Archives, Oviatt Library, courtesy of California State University–Northridge.

Nellie Mooney Madison possessed brains, talent, and the soul of a gypsy, but she abandoned her independence each time a new man came into her life. She always walked away, until she met Eric Madison. From the Herald Examiner Collection, courtesy of the Los Angeles Public Library.

Called “San Quentin Charlie” for his hard-line approach to criminal defendants, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Charles Fricke not only presided over Nellie Madison’s trial, he took the stand as a witness. From the Herald Examiner Collection, courtesy of the Los Angeles Public Library.

Agness Underwood, seated on the left, was a young reporter when she covered the Nellie Madison trial. She came to specialize in female criminals— seen here with one from the 1940s—but she never forgot Nellie. From the Agness M. Underwood Collection, Urban Archives Center, Special Collections and Archives, Oviatt Library, courtesy of California State University –Northridge.

Even the Great Depression couldn’t keep people away from downtown Los Angeles in the 1930s. Nellie Madison’s trial drew hordes of spectators, anxious for a glimpse of the gun-toting “Enigma Woman.” From the Security Pacific Collection, courtesy of the Los Angeles Public Library.

Joseph Ryan, left, and his brother Frank, right, with an unidentified man, defended Nellie Madison on capital murder charges, but they were reluctant to tell jurors the real story. Courtesy of the California State Archives.

Nellie Madison stands outside her cell at the Los Angeles County Jail on June 23, 1934, after an eight-man, four-woman jury sentenced her to be the fi rst woman executed by the state of California. From the Herald Examiner Collection, courtesy of the Los Angeles Public Library.

Nellie Madison appears somewhat stunned in the photo taken just after her arrival at the California Institution for Women at Tehachapi and just before officials placed her in solitary confinement to await execution. Courtesy of the California State Archives.

Nellie Madison met with journalists after learning that Gov. Frank Merriam had spared her life sixteen days before the scheduled October 4, 1935, hanging. From the Herald Examiner Collection, courtesy of the Los Angeles Public Library.

Nellie Madison as she appeared in 1941, during an intense lobbying campaign to attain her freedom. Th is photo was attached to her petition to the Pardon Advisory Board, the agency that handled sentence reductions. Courtesy of the California State Archives.

1. A Girl from Montana

illon, Montana, sits in a high valley in the southwestern corner of the state just north and east of the Continental Divide, ringed by mountain ranges of the Northern Rockies. The ranch where Nellie Wagner spent her youth spanned sixteen hundred acres of meadows and hills sprouting scrub pine, prairie grasses, and sagebrush. On its eastern edge it stretched to the top of a small mountain that still bears her family’s name, Mooney, seventy years after the Depression and Nellie’s legal travails took away their hard-won slice of the American dream. By March 1934 Nellie had been gone from the ranch for more than twenty years. But its contours shaped her life. The high-skied, lonely landscape fostered in her an enduring love of mountain valleys and a strong work ethic, but also a tendency to take risks, a solitary spirit, and the soul of a gypsy, dreaming of freedom and adventure that always seemed to lie just over the next mountain. Records offer inconsistent birth dates and birthplaces for both of Nellie’s parents, but it seems that Edward Mooney and Kate Doherty (sometimes spelled Dougherty) Mooney were both somewhere in the vicinity of thirty when they left the village of Ballygorman on the windswept shores of County Donegal near the border that currently separates the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. Edward’s younger brother Daniel joined them

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on their sojourn to America, but other family members stayed behind.1 In choosing to emigrate, the Mooneys joined the tidal wave of three million Irish fleeing their impoverished homeland for the United States between 1841 and 1891. Most, like the Mooneys, came from rural regions in the western part of Ireland.2 Their fortunes did not immediately improve upon arrival. The family landed initially in Kingston, Ontario. There Kate bore their first child, Mary Elizabeth, called Lizzie, in September 1883. Shortly afterward they crossed the border from Canada into the United States. Daniel moved west to Michigan, while Edward, Kate, and Lizzie made their way down the Eastern seaboard, to Chester, Pennsylvania. Edward went to work as a coal miner, one of the few jobs available to immigrant men. Over the next decade, the Mooneys had two more children, both boys. Edward, his father’s namesake, died in infancy. Daniel, named for his uncle, was born in April 1889. By the early 1890s the family had been in the United States for nearly a decade, but was no closer to the elusive place called “home” than they had been when they set out. Seeking a healthier environment for their children and land of their own, the Mooneys packed up and moved again, to the Western frontier, where they hoped to take advantage of the federal government’s program of land to homesteaders willing to brave the brutal elements in what was called “the American desert.”3 On the way, Edward Mooney linked up with work crews hired by the Utah and Northern Railroad to tear up and replace narrow gauge tracks for the growing number of passenger trains running from Chicago to the West Coast and north to the mining and ranching communities of Idaho and Montana.4 Southwestern Montana would be the family’s final destination. By summer 1895 Kate had given birth to her fourth and fifth children, both girls. Ellen, like her brother Edward, died in infancy. But Nellie, born in April 1895 in the small railroad outpost of Red 12

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Rock, Montana, thrived, growing into a sturdy toddler with chubby cheeks and a head of thick, dark hair. At the cusp of a new century, she would live to see new opportunities for women, though many ideas about women’s essential “nature” remained stubbornly consistent throughout her lifetime.5 Her parents were in their forties at the time of her birth. A photo of Kate Mooney taken around the time of Nellie’s birth reflects a life of loss and struggle. Her hair is threaded with gray and pulled back into a knot at the nape of her neck. Her cheeks are sunken and her face lined. But her solemn, dark eyes and firm jaw offer a glimpse of a strong and unabashed woman who accepted deprivation and hardship with few complaints.6 In 1896 Daniel Mooney, who never married, joined his brother and sister-in-law and their children in Montana. The next year, when Nellie was two, her family finally claimed its prize: several hundred acres of homesteaded land a dozen miles south of Dillon. Faced with the need to make a living off the land, they chose a traditional Irish occupation—sheep farming.7 Their property spanned both sides of Grasshopper Creek, a small offshoot of the Beaverhead River, itself a tributary of the Missouri River that had carried the Lewis and Clark Expedition on much of its westward journey in the first decade of the nineteenth century. In fact the expedition passed through Beaverhead County in August 1804, just a few miles from where the Mooneys settled.8 Though sparsely populated, the southwest corner of Montana was becoming a prosperous region and a popular destination for settlers by the last decade of the nineteenth century. But it was a challenging environment. Newcomers had to be willing to brave winter snowstorms with drifts that covered buildings and fused clothing onto raw and bleeding skin, droughts, and summer lightning storms that set off devastating prairie fires. They shared the land with a variety of wildlife, including rattlesnakes, mountain 13

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lions, and the occasional grizzly bear that broke down fences and foraged for food just outside of kitchen doors. Mining, ranching, farming, and railroading provided the economic underpinnings of southwest Montana, which drew migrants from all over the United States and from as far away as China. In the early eighteen hundreds, bands of Blackfoot, Sioux, and Shoshone—including the tribe of Lewis and Clark guide Sacajawea—fished the waters, waded through the tall grasses, and hunted buffalo in the mountains and prairies. By the end of the century only a handful of Native Americans remained. They lived mostly on the margins of society and were treated as objects of curiosity, featured during annual Fourth of July celebrations and in traveling Wild West shows. By the time the Mooneys arrived, Dillon had a population of about a thousand. The seat of government for Beaverhead County, which sprawls across 5,560 square miles, Dillon boasted a thriving downtown with businesses such as the Montana Mercantile and Huber’s Jewelry. It also had two weekly newspapers, an opera house, and the Montana Normal School, an ornate red-brick structure built in the Queen Anne style of architecture and the state’s only teachertraining facility. Residents even dined on fresh vegetables, courtesy of Chinese peddlers who grew produce on their “cabbage patch” and “pig tail” farms just outside of town. By the first decade of the twentieth century, the town also had telephones, sewers, electricity, and a volunteer fire department with a horse-drawn water-pump.9 Dillon’s civic leaders sought to project an image of gracious and refined living. Wealthy residents, whose money came mostly from ranching and mining, built elegant Victorian homes along Idaho Street and the town hosted a Shakespeare Club, an opera society, and a theater as well as nearly a dozen churches. In 1906 prominent businessmen raised $1,683 to buy a four-faced Seth Thomas clock from Connecticut to install in the courthouse tower that overlooked the town.10 14

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Politicians and prominent citizens downplayed the aspects of frontier life such as brawls, shootings, prostitutes, and vigilante justice that reflected the image of the untamed West prevalent in dime novels and other popular culture venues. But the town had some of these elements. Marauders and bandits made sporadic appearances on the outskirts of Dillon. Local prostitutes, called “the girls,” resided in several brothels and proudly turned out for public gatherings. They hired livery drivers who ferried them around town dressed in fine clothing. And rough-hewn forms of entertainment drew large and rowdy crowds—wrestling and boxing matches on dusty street corners, saloon card games, and rodeos.11 The Mooneys lived too far from town and worked too hard to spend much time in Dillon. Between 1907 and 1927, the family added more than a thousand acres to their original land holdings through homestead laws, federal government programs such as the Desert Land Act, and by outright purchase. Kate Mooney bought nearly three hundred acres in her own name. The family did belong to the town’s Catholic Church, St. Rose of Lima, but like other ranching families, much of their religious instruction probably came from home visits by Father Cyril Pauwelyn, who rode hundreds of miles each week visiting parishioners throughout the vast territory.12 Traditional ideas about gender roles seem to have played little part in Nellie Mooney’s upbringing, which might help explain her tendency to ignore risk and embrace unconventionality. Irish women, both in their homeland and in the United States, were outspoken and independent. They expected to take care of themselves and frequently worked after marriage. Notable immigrants or daughters of Irish immigrants included birth control pioneer Margaret Sanger and two labor organizers: Mary “Mother” Jones and Elizabeth Gurley Flynn.13 The demands of ranch life also challenged conventional notions of women’s “work.” Nellie, her sister, and mother handled 15

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domestic chores such as cooking, sewing, hauling buckets of water for drinking, and barrels for bathing and washing. Frequently the river water was so muddy it had to settle and then be strained to make it drinkable. The women also worked alongside the men. They helped to birth lambs, stood waist deep in greasy yellow wool during the summer shearing season, and killed and prepared meat for their meals. They attended auctions where sheep were bought and sold, and rode horses through the fields and pastures, looking for strays and for lurking predators—wolves, coyotes, mountain lions. Nellie’s hands grew chapped and the skin on her face and neck freckled and rough. Though the family fabric would eventually fray and tear apart, Nellie’s parents seem to have taken great pride in their youngest child, whose dark-eyed beauty brought approving smiles and comments from strangers. When she was about four years old, they dressed their small daughter in a frilly dress of white organza and took her into Dillon to sit for a formal portrait. In the undated photograph she sits on a stiff-backed chair holding a white beribboned hat between her chubby hands. Her pigeon-toed feet, clad in black, lace-up shoes, peek out below the scalloped hem. As the shutter snaps, she seems on the verge of a smile, looking to her left as though someone were trying to capture her attention.14 Fifty years after her death and seventy years after her murder trial, family members who never met her recall hearing hushed discussions of her striking looks and her ability to hit a bird on the wing with a .22 while standing in the stirrups of a galloping horse. Esther Mooney married Nellie’s nephew Francis. Curious about their absent aunt, the young couple quietly asked townspeople to describe her from memory. “Beautiful” and a “crack shot” were the adjectives most frequently used.15 By her teens Nellie was tall and slender with long, straight hair that was almost black. Her eyes were her best feature—dark brown, large and luminous, with irises that seemed to swim in pools of 16

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white—and she used them to her advantage. Unlike most girls of her time, she did not avert her gaze or demurely cast her eyes downward in conversations with men. Instead she looked directly at them in a way that some people found unsettling. She also had an attractive smile, though she usually kept her mouth closed to hide a slight overbite. Until early adolescence Nellie Mooney attended a one-room schoolhouse in Barretts Township, a few miles from her family’s ranch, but her formal education ended at the age of thirteen. Possibly she would have left school no matter what the circumstances of her life. By 1908 her parents were approaching their sixties and they undoubtedly needed her help on the ranch. Her brother Dan attended college nearly a hundred miles away and her sister Lizzie had her own family—a husband and three sons, each born about a year apart starting in 1905.16 To attend secondary school in Dillon, Nellie would have been required to travel twenty-five miles round trip each day, or to have boarded with a family in town. Her parents may have balked at this prospect, or they might have agreed to let her go. But the question became moot on a crisp, cool fall afternoon in October 1908 when thirteen-year-old Nellie eloped to Salt Lake City with Ralph Brothers, a man eleven years her senior. It was her family’s first serious warning of the reckless and impulsive streak that would cause them, and her, so much anguish and grief. It is impossible to know how she became acquainted with Brothers. One of fourteen children of a family that lived in Lima, a town nearly forty miles south of Dillon, Brothers worked as a cowboy and Nellie was an expert horseback rider, so she could have met him at a local rodeo. He was also a felon, having spent three years in the Montana State Prison for a grand larceny conviction.17 Her parents were devastated. As soon as they learned of the elopement, Edward Mooney rushed to Salt Lake City and took his daughter away from her new husband. A few weeks later he 17

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filed a petition with the Beaverhead County Superior Court seeking an annulment. The family’s despair can be read between the lines of the annulment petition: “The parents of Nellie Mooney did not, nor did either of them consent to her said marriage. . . . The said Nellie Mooney ran away with the said Ralph Brothers . . . and was married aforesaid, and as soon as her parents found out she was married they took charge of the girl and took her away from the defendant.”18 Brothers, probably fearing criminal charges for sexual activity with a minor under the age of fourteen, did not respond to the petition. The court dissolved the marriage in March 1909 and gave Nellie back her maiden name. Nine months later, Brothers remarried, this time to a woman closer to his own age. The marriage lasted fifty-four years, until Brothers’s death.19 Nellie, on the other hand, had no new relationship to assuage her alienation and humiliation. The scandal cost her any chance at marriage with a man from a “good” local family, particularly one from a Catholic background, and a normal adolescence with friends her own age. She could not attend school or socialize with her peers, some of whom played for Beaverhead County High School’s girls’ basketball team and posed proudly in their bloomers and middy blouses. She could not perform in the girls’ orchestra, or attend parties where teenagers danced to what news accounts called “the latest, improved Edison phonograph” or outings to vaudeville performances, silent films, and plays at the Dillon Theater.20 Asked by a reporter in 1934 to describe her adolescence, Nellie needed only one word: “unhappy.” She never elaborated, but her sensitivity about this period in her life is evident in her false claim that she had, in fact, attended high school in Dillon.21 If Nellie Mooney had read newspapers, magazines, or books, she might have recognized that she was not alone in her restless18

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ness, longing for freedom, or sexual curiosity. Historians have long noted that the years surrounding World War I represented a break with repressive Victorian views of gender roles and sexuality, courtesy of Sigmund Freud, Margaret Sanger, Emma Goldman, and Havelock Ellis, and the popularity of “commercialized leisure”— amusement parks, dance halls, and vaudeville houses—that fueled new and less restrictive relationships between the sexes.22 Southwestern Montana itself seemed to breed rebellion in independent-minded girls growing into womanhood at the cusp of the twentieth century. Local newspapers frequently carried items from parents seeking runaway children, such as this one from 1905: “She is sixteen, but looks eighteen. May have colored her hair black.”23 In 1903 both of Dillon’s weekly newspapers bannered the story of Kate Fitzgerald who went on trial for shooting at a man who lured her teenaged daughter Sally away from home. On the witness stand, Fitzgerald said that she had been “exasperated almost beyond endurance” by the actions of her daughter and her boyfriend. When she spied the couple standing under a tree, she aimed her shotgun over their heads and fired off several rounds. No one was injured and a sympathetic jury quickly acquitted Fitzgerald.24 In the mining town of Butte, about sixty miles north of Dillon, nineteen-year-old Mary Maclane created a sensation with the publication of her memoirs in 1902. Written over a three-month period, it described a life of loneliness, frustration, and sexual longing and immediately climbed to the top of best-seller lists. Maclane moved to New York City, but eventually returned to Butte where she found work as a newspaper columnist.25 Nellie Mooney could not write her way out of her confinement and loneliness. She had to concoct a different sort of escape plan. It took until 1912. By then Daniel Mooney had finished college and returned home to take over the ranch from his parents. He also took a job as a deputy in the Beaverhead County Sheriffs’ Department. Edward and Kate Mooney moved into a small house on a 19

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corner lot in Dillon. In September 1912 Nellie paid one hundred dollars’ tuition to Link’s Modern Business College in Boise and bought a one-way train ticket to Idaho. She was seventeen. At a time when most women still stayed close to home and traveled with chaperones, she would make her own way in the world. She was the only member of her immediate family to leave Montana. Both of her siblings remained there throughout their lives, as did most of their children and grandchildren. Over the next twentytwo years, she returned frequently for short visits and one extended stay after her sister’s son died. In conversation she always referred to Dillon as “home.” But she never lived in Montana again. In choosing Boise as her destination, Nellie Mooney selected a city much like herself—young, restless, and in transition. Until the early twentieth century it had been a small mining outpost, but by 1912 it had become a center for politics and commerce in Idaho, with an economy based on timber, retail, and agriculture. Between 1900 and 1910 the population nearly tripled, from six thousand to just over seventeen thousand. In 1907 Boise gained national attention for the first time during the sensational trial of labor activist William “Big Bill” Haywood, who was tried and acquitted of conspiracy charges in the bombing that killed former Idaho governor Frank Steunenberg. Clarence Darrow, the famed defense attorney, served as Haywood’s counsel.26 Boise’s downtown consisted of a half-dozen blocks running north from the Boise River. It experienced an almost complete renovation in the first decade of the twentieth century. Noted architects, some from as far away as Virginia, were brought in to draw up plans replacing single-story wooden buildings with ornate, multi-story brick and stone structures. When Nellie arrived, construction crews—made up largely of convicts—were putting the finishing touches on a new state capitol building. The neighborhoods emerging around the city center reflected the residents’ 20

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pride in themselves as part of a prosperous and upwardly mobile region. They featured spacious homes with expansive lawns and decorative touches including dormers, turrets, and wrought-iron scrolling.27 It is hard to imagine how a girl reared in virtual isolation must have viewed the myriad choices that confronted her in Boise. She was alone, without family or friends. But here she had no history or reputation to live down; she could become whoever she wanted to be. She could also erase her disastrous early marriage and embarrassment at her lack of education. If asked about schooling, she could claim a business college background, an unusual status for women of her time. She rented a room in a brown shingled house with a wrap-around second-floor porch on Franklin Street, about a half mile from downtown. Alva T. Link founded his school in 1906 with the goal of fitting “young men and women to succeed in life by giving them a practical knowledge of Shorthand, Typewriting, Bookkeeping and all branches of commercial education.” Other subjects in the threesemester program included spelling, letter writing, office methods, and penmanship. One half-hour each day was devoted to “rapid calculation” and grammar because Link believed these skills were crucial to business success. Nellie excelled in math and grammar, though she occasionally had difficulty with spelling and word usage. For example, she consistently used the word “then” when she meant “than.”28 Nellie finished her coursework in early 1914, but did not immediately take a paying job. Instead she married for the second time. She was nearly nineteen and Clarence Kennedy, a fireman in the small Boise city fire department that still used horses and wagons, was twenty, when they married in a civil ceremony in Boise. The newlyweds moved into an apartment on the second floor of a twostory brick house a few blocks from the fire station where Kennedy worked.29 21

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This marriage, like her first, did not last long. In less than a year, Nellie and Clarence Kennedy separated and she moved into rented rooms at the Angus Hotel.30 Afterward she never spoke publicly of the marriage, or of Kennedy. When asked about her marriages, she always omitted Kennedy, who worked his way up to the rank of fire department lieutenant in Boise before moving to Oakland, California, in the early 1920s.31 After she left Kennedy, Nellie went to work, but she did not utilize her “rapid calculation,” typing, or spelling instruction from Link’s Business College. In a move that bespoke an affinity for popular culture, she took a job as a cashier at the newly built Majestic Theatre. In the 1910s, Hollywood studios released as many as seven hundred silent films each year and movies were becoming an integral part of the cultural landscape, even in small towns like Boise. Before the Production Code curtailed on-screen depictions of sexuality and laissez-faire lifestyles, young women like Nellie could sit in darkened theaters and watch female actors such as Theda Bara, Norma Shearer, and Clara Bow act out freer and more overtly sexual gender roles than had been previously imaginable.32 Automobiles were also altering the dreams and identities of Americans, particularly young ones, who now could use them, literally, to escape the confines of rural life and small-town values. In 1917, the same year that American women volunteered for the Allied cause in World War I by working as ambulance drivers in France, Nellie married again.33 This time she chose an automobile mechanic. Her new husband, Wilbert Earl Trask, called Earl, operated an early automobile repair shop in Boise with his brothers. The wedding took place seventy miles west of Boise, just across the state line in Vale, Oregon, and the couple drove there and back the same day.34 On her marriage license, Nellie claimed to have satisfied Oregon’s six-month residency requirement, but this was not a true statement, for she still lived in Boise. Why the lie? It is possible 22

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that she never actually divorced Kennedy before marrying Trask, for her maiden name appears on the marriage certificate and neither Idaho nor Oregon has any record of the Kennedys’ marital dissolution. After her new marriage she continued to work. During World War I she took a job as a quartermaster clerk, ordering supplies and keeping records at Fort Boise’s army barracks.35 By her midtwenties Nellie Mooney Brothers Kennedy Trask was, by the standards of the day, a modern young woman. She was married, yet independent. She lived in a town, drove a car, attended movies, smoked cigarettes, and wore nice clothing. In fact clothes represented her main extravagance. Furniture and other household possessions held little interest for her. She traveled light. But she took great care with her appearance and always wore the latest fashions, including stylish hats, dresses, and shoes with matching purses and gloves to hide her work-roughened hands. She treated herself to fine jewelry and had her hair professionally styled in a trim, modern bob favored by “flappers” and other young women anxious to distance themselves from the conservative styles of the past. Sometimes she wore her dark hair swept back from her forehead and on other occasions she wore it with small curls framing her face. But a “modern” lifestyle and success were not enough to quench her restlessness, nor that of her husband, it seems. In 1920, hearing rumors of oil gushing from the ground in Southern California, Nellie and Earl Trask decided to move to Los Angeles, the city of movie stars, palm trees, and eternal sunshine. Two decades earlier Los Angeles held fewer than one hundred thousand residents, but by the 1920s its population climbed toward a million. By 1930 it would boast a population of nearly two million—fueled by oil, aviation, film, and the automobile industry—making it the fastestgrowing city in America. Post–World War I Los Angeles was a diverse place, though its 23

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neighborhoods were strictly segregated and the city operated under a rigid, hierarchical social and political structure. African Americans lived in the southern end of town with their own business district, including banks, grocery stores, insurance companies, and newspapers located along Central Avenue. Latinos resided on the east side near Boyle Heights and Asians clustered in “Chinatowns” near the city center. Restrictive covenants kept virtually all minorities from white areas and “sunset laws” kept nonwhites—even maids and gardeners—off the streets after dark. Wealthy residents lived in huge homes on tree-lined avenues in neighborhoods such as Hancock Park, near downtown Los Angeles, and in the nearby oak-studded communities of Pasadena and San Marino. Others—Midwesterners seeking mild temperatures, sunshine, and an escape from the problems of urban life, and people looking for easy money or adventure—filled in around the edges of the city and spilled over into suburbs that oozed across the hills and valleys like a gigantic oil spill. Those who planned to stay bought up Tudor cottages, craftsman bungalows, and Spanish-style stucco homes as fast as developers could build them in the Hollywood Hills, Laurel Canyon, Burbank, Glendale, Pasadena, Long Beach, and Santa Monica. Those less interested in permanency rented apartments in newly built complexes near commercial areas of Los Angeles and the downtown neighborhoods of suburban towns. Los Angeles even then was known as a city with no real center or identity, one whose economy and geography fostered individuality rather than community and one based on the image of laissez-faire attitudes toward personal choices and lifestyles. The movies that gave the city much of its allure and cachet provided these images, but as Nellie was eventually to learn, such images could be deceiving.36 The lack of community may have troubled some residents, but it suited Nellie and Earl Trask, who settled into an apartment in 24

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Pasadena. Earl went to work in Long Beach, a thirty-five-mile ride on the Pacific Electric Railway’s “Red Car.” Nellie found a job as a cashier at the Raymond Theater, a few blocks from home.37 But this marriage, like her two previous unions, did not last. In July 1921 the couple separated. Earl moved to Los Angeles where he again found work as an auto mechanic. A few months later Nellie moved to Los Angeles as well. She worked as a clerk and then as manager of an apartment complex. In January 1923 she filed for divorce, claiming desertion: her husband had walked out with no warning one warm summer afternoon, she declared. Despite the fact that Earl’s name and address appeared in the city directory for that year, Nellie insisted that she had no idea of his whereabouts. The divorce became final in January 1924. Befitting her rootless status, she claimed no community property.38 Sixteen months later Nellie married for the fourth time, to William J. Brown, one of two brothers of her divorce attorney, Ralph Brown. She became acquainted with the Browns because they owned the apartments that she managed. It was to be her only Catholic ceremony and it took place in San Diego. William Brown was himself an attorney, who began his career in the Los Angeles city prosecutor’s office before leaving to establish a private practice. He and Nellie moved into a one-story, Spanish-style home in a tidy middle-class neighborhood two miles southwest of downtown, in what is now the working class, ethnic enclave of South Central Los Angeles. It is impossible to know why, at a time when less than ten percent of marriages ended in divorce and when most women remained even in bad marriages, Nellie Mooney did not stay married to one spouse for more than a few years, or why none of her marriages produced children. The divorce rate had begun to climb in the early twentieth century as the growth of individualist urban lifestyles and an “ethos of leisure and consumption” encouraged young people to explore more life choices and opportunities. But it still 25

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carried a strong social stigma, as did a married woman’s decision to remain childless, though it is unclear whether Nellie’s childlessness represented a choice or an inability to bear children.39 Whatever the circumstances, she obviously understood that her serial marriages placed her outside the boundaries that defined “traditional” womanhood of her time. And she was somewhat sensitive about her unconventional background, a sentiment suggested by her effort to conceal her marriage to Clarence Kennedy—eventually she would claim only two marriages—and by her devotion to her religion. Throughout her life she remained a staunch Catholic who regularly attended mass, partook of Communion, and counted priests among her friends. Her behavior may seem antithetical to the teachings of her church, which forbade divorce, but Nellie seems to have been selective in her interpretation of the Catholic doctrine. And the church hierarchy seems to have overlooked her lifestyle choices. Ultimately her pride and self-confidence trumped her concern for public opinion. Her self-confidence during this period is reflected in a professional portrait taken sometime in the early to middle 1920s. In the photo she leans into the camera and gazes directly at the photographer with a look that can only be described as sensual. She wears her dark hair in a bob, curled around her face, drawing attention to her sculpted cheekbones and her large brown eyes. The collar of her fur coat is turned up and brushes her right cheek. The hand holding the collar bears a large cameo ring on the ring finger. If her family in Montana fretted about her unsettled life, it was not evident in their relations with her, for they maintained close ties through all of her restless wandering. In 1924 Kate Mooney made out her will, naming Nellie as a beneficiary along with her other two children. Nellie and Lizzie would each receive five hundred dollars and son Dan—now married, the father of three, soon to be four, children and the sheriff of Beaverhead County—would 26

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eventually inherit the ranch, which had an estimated value of four thousand dollars. Edward Mooney agreed to give each of his daughters an additional five hundred dollars. Over the years, with every new marriage, Nellie’s family crossed out her old last name on the will and replaced it with her new one.40 When Kate Mooney died in October 1930, her obituary listed Nellie as Mrs. William Brown but in fact she no longer lived with Brown. Like her other marriages, this one lasted less than five years. However, the separation that began in February 1930 was much more fraught with conflict and bitterness than the others. It is not possible to know whether domestic violence occurred in her prior marriages, but both she and William Brown claimed to be victims of spousal battery in their separate divorce petitions. She accused him of hitting her, chasing her around the house, and tearing up the marriage certificate. He countered that she struck him over the head with a bottle so hard that it required seven stitches to close the wound. Each charged the other with attempted murder involving guns. The Browns were already separated in April 1930 when, Nellie claimed, William and his brother Charles broke into her home and tried to shoot her and a male guest as they stood in the kitchen. William Brown denied the charge and claimed that Nellie had shot at him as he sat with her, arguing, in their car.41 In fact many of the accusations the Browns hurled at each other in dueling divorce petitions may have been exaggerations or never occurred at all. Since divorce was very difficult to obtain, couples had to present evidence of appallingly bad behavior to convince a judge to dissolve their unions. Neither William nor Nellie Brown could have anticipated that this testimony, offered up in heated anger, would, four years later be used in a much more lethal context. With the end of her fourth marriage, Nellie again sought a new start, this time in Palm Springs, a high desert town about a hundred miles east of Los Angeles. The popular resort catered to film 27

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stars and other wealthy individuals who enjoyed the area’s stark beauty and the reputed health benefits of the warm, dry climate. Despite the Depression, which was settling over Southern California and the rest of the country, Nellie never experienced difficulty finding work. In fall 1930 she took a job at the Village Inn, one of two hotels owned by Nellie Coffman, a Palm Springs pioneer who also owned the Desert Inn. She quickly rose to the position of manager, in charge of accounts, supplies, work schedules, and social events. She organized dances, dinners, concerts and poolside parties. The job put her in contact with celebrities, including actor Gary Cooper, an acquaintance of Nellie and her family in Montana.42 The two Nellies shared more than first names. Both were independent women who thrived on hard work. Coffman first visited Palm Springs in 1908 with her son Earl. At the time, the town had fewer than a dozen buildings and only a small number of yearround residents. But Coffman saw the potential for future growth. In 1909 she returned with a two-thousand-dollar down payment, bought nearly two acres of land, and broke ground for what would become her hotel. To earn money until construction was completed, she ran a boardinghouse. Over the years she continued to add more land and buildings. Her instincts paid off. By 1930 Palm Springs had more than twenty thousand permanent residents and about that many annual visitors.43 By the time Nellie’s divorce from William Brown became final in 1932, Coffman considered her virtually indispensable to her hotel operation. Recognizing her employee’s restless nature, Coffman arranged for her to spend nine months of the year in Palm Springs and summers managing another hotel in Lake Arrowhead, a mountain resort in the nearby San Bernardino Mountains.44 The arrangement was not to last. A wealthy visitor from the East proposed marriage in early 1933 and Nellie Brown accepted. But her heart was not in the relationship. Then, when Eric Madi28

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son arrived in Palm Springs in March 1933 and took a job managing the Village Inn coffee shop, she soon broke off her engagement and began to see him socially.45 Eric, like Nellie’s parents, was an immigrant. Like Nellie, he had led a peripatetic life, was divorced, and sought a life of glamour and adventure. Born to a prominent family in Denmark in November 1892, he spent his youth traveling through Europe. In 1918 he paid for his passage to America working as a ship steward on the Atlantic crossing. Upon arrival he immediately changed his last name, which had been Madsen, and the spelling of his first name, from Erik to Eric. Over the next fifteen years he lived in Brooklyn, New York; Baltimore, Maryland; and three California locations: Los Angeles, Bakersfield, and Trona, a small desert town near the border of Nevada.46 Eric was not classically handsome. He was not much taller than Nellie, had brown hair that he combed straight back from his forehead, was near-sighted, and had a slight discoloration in one eye. But he was sophisticated, possessed worldly experience, and was supremely self-assured. He was romantic. He played the violin and impressed her with stories of his adventures and his business acumen. He was an entrepreneur, he told her, who invested in restaurants, an olive grove, and other property. He had lost money in the Depression, he acknowledged, hence the need for the coffee shop job.47 Coffman tried to discourage the relationship. Eric Madison was quick to anger and had an explosive temper, she warned. He was also an unreliable worker, though he had big ideas and schemes, dressed well, and drove a sporty, 1930 Buick coupe with swooping front fenders. Nellie would not be deterred. She found Eric a “most fascinating man, one whom I can love with all of my body and soul,” she told Coffman.48 In June 1933 Coffman fired Eric Madison for insubordination and he left Palm Springs for the nearby small citrus industry town 29

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of Riverside. Nellie Brown soon followed. She no longer needed the income from her job since her mother’s estate was finally settled and she could collect her one-thousand-dollar inheritance. But she had to travel to Montana to sign the papers.49 Eric proposed marriage and Nellie accepted. She suggested Yuma, Arizona, as a prospective wedding site and Ed Howell, a Riverside County prosecutor and friend from her years in Palm Springs, as a witness. Eric demurred. He had a friend in Salt Lake City, a Lutheran minister, who could marry them, he told her. They could stop there on the way to Montana. In Dillon the newlyweds would spend two weeks with Dan Mooney and his family on her childhood ranch. She would also see her sister, widowed in 1930 and recently remarried.50 Without a backward glance, Nellie sold her Chevrolet and her radio, put the rest of her belongings into storage in Palm Springs, and joined Eric for the eleven-hundred-mile drive to Salt Lake City and Dillon, Montana.

30

2. Midnight Alibi

T

he midnight sky over the southern tip of Burbank where it nudges the Los Angeles River blazed with a noontime glare as the clock ticked toward the final minutes of Saturday March 24, 1934. Weary filmmakers at Warner Brothers First National Studio labored to wrap up Midnight Alibi, a film about a gangster on the run hiding out in the mansion of a lonely spinster. The mists swirling around the klieg lights cast an eerie glow over the set and the surrounding neighborhood.1 Depression era audiences loved stories about crime, which featured strong moral themes about individual choices, justice, and the power of redemption. Warner Brothers First National specialized in gangster films, a genre that reflected the demand for stories in which heroes vanquished villains and virtue always won out in the end.2 Screenwriter Warren Duff had adapted Midnight Alibi from “The Old Doll’s House,” a short story by Damon Runyon. The staccato delivery and “dese,” “dose,” “dem” inflections reflected Runyon’s earlier career as a newspaper feature writer in New York for William Randolph Hearst. Directed by Alan Crosland, Midnight Alibi starred Richard Barthelmess as the gangster wrongly accused of murdering his lover’s brother. He was saved from prison by the spinster’s testimony that he had been with her when the murder occurred, just as the clock struck midnight.

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The film crew had been working since early morning on a portion of the Warner Brothers back lot called “New York Street,” one of nearly a dozen sets tucked into the north end of the studio and designed to resemble real places. The wharf held a dock and a large pond, perfect for movies about battleships or brawls between beefy longshoremen. On a set that represented Main Street in Anywhere usa, a broad green lawn and picket fence spanned the front of a building shell painted to look like a cozy, white-frame home.3 New York Street strove for an authentic Upper East Side ambience—elegant brownstones, sweeping sidewalks, stone pillars, and marbled mansions. On this weekend night, tuxedo-clad actors milled about and smoked as they leaned against the running boards of sleek dark cars whose white-walled tires hugged the curb. A continuing series of mishaps—crew members tripping over cables, cars backfiring, machine guns jamming—pushed the film far behind schedule.4 It was long past time to go home. Residents living in the neighborhood adjacent to Warner Brothers First National surely agreed with this sentiment. Burbank sits at the southeastern end of the San Fernando Valley, about ten miles north of downtown Los Angeles. In late March 1934 it was still a small town, with a population of about sixteen thousand. Until recently it had been farm and ranch country and miles of citrus groves still stretched across the landscape on the western end of town. But the explosive growth of Los Angeles in the 1920s spilled over into Burbank, bringing homes and businesses and taxing the narrow two-lane roads that linked the city to outlying areas. Two large businesses chose Burbank as their headquarters during the 1920s. Lockheed Aircraft Company sprawled across the northern end of town. Nearby, city planners laid out neighborhoods and real estate developers built hundreds of single-family homes—craftsman-style bungalows, Spanish-revival cottages with red-tile roofs, tidy stucco and frame houses. 32

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Warner Brothers First National set up headquarters in the southern part of the city. A busy, mixed-use neighborhood soon surrounded the studio on three sides, including single family homes, duplexes, apartment buildings, barber shops, liquor stores, gas stations, auto repair shops, and restaurants. Forest Lawn Cemetery, the burial place of choice for movie stars and other notables, sat just on the other side of the Los Angeles River from the studio. Its verdant hills offered eternal rest, but living residents of the surrounding area experienced an entirely different reality—noise from traffic-clogged streets and the intrusive sights and sounds of filmmaking.5 The Sterling Arms, a hotel and apartment complex, was a large V-shaped building that straddled the corner of Riverside Drive and Olive Avenue. It was a noisy place at the best of times and its residents felt the intrusion from moviemaking most directly. The studio’s back lot stood less than six hundred yards away, across Riverside Drive. A concrete block wall separated the studio from the complex, but it did not block out noise or the constant glaring lights.6 It was not just the filmmaking that kept tenants awake late into the night. The studio also, inexplicably, kept monkeys and peacocks, which frequently emitted blood-curdling shrieks without warning or apparent provocation.7 But Sterling Arms tenants were not generally the type to complain. The complex catered mostly to people on their way to or from somewhere else, who needed a place for a month or two, who lacked a vested interest in the neighborhood’s quality of life, and who probably one day would boast of having lived next door to movie stars. Some of the tenants worked at Warner Brothers, either as extras or in service jobs. Muriel Gordon had been an extra in Gold Diggers of 1933 and Bruce Earl had played bit parts.8 Eric Madison also worked at the studio in the commissary, helping to install a food processing system. He had been hired in mid33

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February 1934, a few weeks after he and Nellie arrived in Burbank following an extended trip through the West. Their journey took them from Riverside to Salt Lake City, where they had a quiet wedding ceremony in June 1933, then on to Montana, Wyoming, and Oregon. The Madisons planned to stay in Portland, Oregon, where Eric had a job managing a hotel, but he got into a fight with a co-worker and was quickly let go. The Madisons decided to return to Southern California. They spent Thanksgiving in Palm Springs and then moved to El Monte, a city about a dozen miles east of Los Angeles. For a few weeks Eric worked for a friend in the restaurant business, but after a bitter argument, that job ended as well. Several investment opportunities also failed to materialize and by early February 1934, with Nellie’s one-thousand-dollar inheritance gone, the Madisons needed a steady income. Fortunately Warner Brothers hired Eric. In addition to installing the vending machine, his job included working as a cashier in the commissary. The studio also hired Nellie, on a temporary, part-time basis, to work the cash register in the commissary. The couple moved into a furnished second-floor apartment at the Sterling Arms. Room 123 stood about halfway down the hall on the south wing of the building and consisted of one large room that functioned both as a sitting room and bedroom. It also had a large walk-through closet that linked the main room with the bathroom, which held both a shower stall and separate tub. Like most other apartments in the building it lacked a telephone and kitchen facilities. Residents made calls from four communal phones in the halls outside their rooms and took their meals in the first-floor dining room and coffee shop. They also sent their laundry out for professional cleaning.9 To their neighbors, Eric and Nellie Madison seemed an attractive couple, friendly in a casual sort of way, but formal and somewhat pretentious. For example, Nellie once paid for dinner with a 34

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one-hundred-dollar bill. Eric was glib, with a breezy manner and a hearty “hello there how are you doing?” manner when he passed people in the halls or saw them in the coffee shop or dining room, but he was not really interested in their responses, usually walking away quickly before they could engage him in actual conversation. Nellie seemed more genuine than her husband. She was quiet and reserved and did not readily participate in small talk or gossip, but seemed interested in what others had to say. Despite her reticence, she was unfailingly polite and always stopped to talk when her neighbors sought her out, which they frequently did, for she was an unusual sort of person—she listened more than she talked and seldom interrupted or changed the subject to talk about herself. On one occasion after apartment manager Belle Bradley stepped on the prongs of an upturned rake someone had left behind the building, Nellie rushed over to her. She ordered Bradley to sit on the doorstep and wait while she ran upstairs to call a doctor. Then she offered to wait with Bradley for the doctor’s arrival. “Please don’t hesitate to call me if you need help with anything,” Nellie told Bradley afterward.10 Nellie also catered to her husband. Eric seldom ate in the dining room or coffee shop. Instead he sent her to fetch his food. She took particular care to ensure that his coffee was extra hot and his cheese cut extra thick, just the way he liked them, and carefully balanced the tray full of food as she climbed the stairs back to her apartment.11 During their first few weeks at the Sterling Arms, both Eric and Nellie frequently dressed up in evening clothes and went out together to supper or to dances, but after the middle of March, he stayed away from home most of the time while she remained behind in the apartment. He was, again, looking for work. After only a month at Warner Brothers, he had been fired from his cashier’s job. Company presi35

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dent Jack Warner himself did the firing, though executives told Eric he could stay long enough to finish installing the vending machines. Since Nellie was married to Eric, she was let go as well. Cigars, and Eric’s flashpoint temper, had been the catalysts for his dismissal. One afternoon, as Eric worked the commissary cash register, Alfred Green, who had directed Mary Pickford in several 1920s films, approached him, carrying three cigars. He laid them down and held out fifty cents. Eric told him that the cigars cost sixty cents. Green insisted they were only fifty cents, but Eric held his ground. Over the next few minutes the argument escalated and other patrons stood back in trepidation, fearing that the two men would come to blows. Finally Green threw down the cigars and stormed off. When he returned, studio boss Jack Warner was with him. Warner picked up the cigars and ordered Eric to sell them for fifty cents. Eric stared at him for a long moment. Disgusted, Warner fired him. Two days later executives called him back to finish the vending machine job. He reluctantly agreed, even though it meant cutting into the time needed for his job search. By Saturday March 24, he had completed the installation.12 About 5:30 p.m. that afternoon, Eric left the apartment wearing a dark blue suit, white shirt, and red tie. Nellie stayed behind. Just after dark, about 8:00 p.m., she put on a black dress and highheeled black pumps and walked downstairs to the dining room. Since it was a Saturday night, the room was less than half full. Some residents had eaten early and gone upstairs to listen to radio programs. Others had gone out to the movies. Hold That Girl, starring Joan Blondell and Pat O’Brien, was playing at the Fairfax, and Catherine the Great, featuring Douglas Fairbanks Jr. and Elizabeth Bergner, played at Grauman’s United Artists. Still other tenants sat drinking at tables for four or five in the Sterling Arms bar. After 36

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nearly fifteen years of Prohibition, it was again legal to buy and drink alcohol.13 In the dining room Nellie chose a corner table and sat alone. She seemed somewhat preoccupied and picked at her dinner of steak and mashed potatoes with gravy and green beans on the side. She slowly sipped a glass of Scotch and stared into the middle distance. Shortly before 9:00 p.m. she finished eating, paid her bill, and climbed the stairs back to the second floor. At the top of the landing, at the junction where the two wings of the building came together, stood a spacious lobby with a fireplace, couch, and several armchairs designed to encourage conversation. Apartment caretaker Phillip McGuigan, a thin, balding man in his mid-sixties, sat on the couch watching the blazing fire. He invited Nellie to join him. She complied and sat down in an adjacent chair.14 McGuigan did most of the talking while Nellie listened politely, nodding at the right moments and occasionally making brief comments. They talked about the cool and foggy weather that was supposed to clear out by Sunday afternoon and about the movie being filmed at the studio. Just before 10:00 p.m. McGuigan turned to Nellie and asked: “Where is your husband tonight?” “He had to meet someone, he is looking for a job,” she answered. “When will he be back?” She laughed nervously. “Maybe a few minutes, maybe an hour, you know how men are.” A short time later, Eric Madison appeared at the top of the stairs and strode toward his wife and McGuigan. He passed between the fireplace and the chairs. He nodded toward McGuigan. “Hello Mac,” he said. He did not acknowledge his wife as he walked past her, though she was close enough to touch. She abruptly stood up. “Good37

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night,” she whispered to McGuigan, and she followed Eric down the hall and into the apartment. McGuigan rose as well and went downstairs to his own first-floor apartment, undressed, and got into bed.15 Less than two hours later, a series of sharp reports—first two, then a loud scream, a pause, and four more quick reports—woke him. He had fallen asleep just before 11:00 p.m., with the stuttering sounds of machine guns forming a backdrop to his dreams. But these noises seemed closer than usual. They seemed to explode inside his head, in fact. He rolled over and looked at the bedside clock with irritation. This was too much. When would that blasted film crew finally finish for the night? He waited for more noises and heard, instead, blessed silence. He drifted off. A few minutes later he was awakened again, this time by four sharp raps at his door. McGuigan fumbled for his bathrobe and glasses. It took him a moment to get his bearings. Belle Bradley, the matronly Sterling Arms manager, stood in the hallway wearing a robe and slippers. The overhead light created a halo effect behind her spray of tight gray curls. She had been sitting in her own first-floor apartment reading when she heard the same loud reports that woke up McGuigan. She threw on her bathrobe and hurried down the hall.16 Bradley was convinced that the noises had come from the second floor of the apartment building and not from the film studio. “Some man is beating or killing a woman or chasing her,” she gasped, “I want you to search the building.” McGuigan sighed in exasperation, but he turned and walked to a chair near his bed that held his clothing. While McGuigan dressed, Bradley shuffled up the stairs toward the origin of the noises. As Bradley approached the two rows of doors that lined both sides of the hallway, she spied Wilma Smith, a twenty-three-year38

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old secretary to an aircraft executive, standing outside of her apartment in her pajamas.17 She hurried toward Smith, who lived next door to Eric and Nellie Madison in Apartment 121. Smith heard the loud reports as she lay on her bed smoking a cigarette. She rolled off the bed, flattened herself against the floor, and lay there until the noises stopped. She slowly crawled to the door and then raised herself to her knees. She peered through the keyhole. Finding the hallway empty, she cautiously opened the door and stepped outside. As Bradley approached her, Smith began to babble. “The noises sounded so close, they might have been inside my room.”18 Muriel Gordon, who lived across the hall from the Madisons, came out of her apartment as well and joined Bradley and Smith. She too had been awakened by the noises. “I don’t think they came from this building, I think they came from the studio.”19 Bradley crossed her arms over her ample chest and vehemently disagreed. “They were too loud to be from the studio,” she huffed. She pulled her robe tightly around her and announced: “I’m going to investigate.” She ambled down the hall and began to knock on doors. She had no luck with the first few doors she tried: two shoe salesmen, an army sergeant, who always wore a bullet-proof vest, and a brother and sister who shared a double apartment. When she raised her arm to knock on the door of Room 123, Bradley thought she heard muffled noises inside. Then silence. Bradley knocked again. After an interval that she later estimated at thirty seconds, she called out: “If you are in there Mrs. Madison please answer because there is a lot of trouble and we do not know where it is.” After a brief pause, a woman’s voice could be heard through the closed door: “Yes, Mrs. Bradley, I’m fine, thank you.” Bradley insisted that Nellie come out into the hall. She cracked open the door and slipped through, then quickly shut it behind her. 39

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She seemed calm and unconcerned as she offered Bradley, Smith, and Gordon a tentative smile. Everyone else was in nightclothes, but Nellie still wore her street clothes—the same black dress and pumps that she had on earlier that evening. “Did you hear the noises?” Bradley asked Nellie. “Yes,” she replied. She smoothed her skirt and patted her hair. “I was reading the newspaper when I heard them. I think the sounds came from outside and down in the street.” Then she added, as much to herself as to anyone else, “This is a weird place to live and anything might happen. Just the other day a car went by outside with a woman screaming inside.”20 She stood in the hall for nearly thirty minutes, talking with Smith and Gordon as Bradley continued knocking on doors. About 12:30 a.m. Bradley returned. “I couldn’t find anything,” she announced. A few minutes later McGuigan approached the group. He had conducted his own search of the first floor and the grounds and had not found anything. Nellie Madison excused herself and went back into her room. Gordon and Bradley said good night as well. By 12:45 a.m. only Wilma Smith remained in the hall. She was too excited to sleep. She skipped down the stairs to the dining room and coffee shop, relishing her role as the purveyor of exciting news. She passed Belle Bradley’s husband, J. V., on the stairs, grasped his hand and placed it on her chest. “Feel my heart thumping!” she exclaimed.21 J. V. Bradley was the only Sterling Arms resident who saw Nellie Madison as she left the building the next day. It was shortly after 8:00 a.m., when he leaned out of his doorway to pick up his Sunday newspaper. He stood up just as Nellie walked by. She had changed her clothes and now wore a dark tweed coat tied at the waist, a black cloche-style hat pulled low over her forehead. Her legs were bare and she wore a pair of low-heeled dark pumps. She cradled a small bundle under her right arm, wrapped in newspaper. 40

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She looked exhausted. Her face was pale and she seemed surprised to see Bradley. “Good morning,” she said, offering Bradley a slight nod as she passed. “How are you,” he replied, clutching his robe about his waist. “I’m fine, thank you,” she responded and walked on by.22 By that afternoon most of the apartment’s residents had forgotten the previous night’s excitement, if not their resentment toward Warner Brothers. But even that mood began to dissipate in the golden warmth of a beautiful spring day, perfect for visiting and for meandering drives along the sun-splashed beaches or into the foothills and valleys fragrant with lilacs, honeysuckle, and the blossoms of hundreds of citrus trees. Sadie Wahl lived in Hollywood, a few miles south and on the other side of the Santa Monica Mountains from Burbank. About 3:30 p.m. on Sunday she set out to visit Nellie Madison, whom she had met two weeks earlier when Nellie stopped for lunch in the café where Wahl worked as a waitress. Business was slow and the two women chatted for several minutes. “I’m new to the area,” she told Nellie. “Right now I’m living with my brother, but I’m looking for another place. Do you know of anywhere?” “I’m living in Burbank at the Sterling Arms,” Nellie responded. “There are always vacant apartments there. Don’t make any decisions until you come to see me.” The two women agreed to meet at Nellie’s apartment at 4:00 p.m., Sunday, March 25. At the prearranged time, Wahl approached the door of Room 123. She found a note resting against the doorknob. It was written in perfect penmanship, with tall, narrow letters slanted to the right in uniform rows, and it read: “Do not disturb. I will get my laundry later, Mrs. Madison.” Wahl was puzzled, but she knocked anyway. There was no answer. She knocked again. Now she was irritated. She waited several 41

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minutes and then made her way to the manager’s apartment. Belle Bradley opened the door. Wahl explained that she had an appointment with Nellie, but could not rouse her. Bradley commiserated, but prepared to dismiss Wahl, when she remembered the previous night’s disturbance. She retrieved a pass key from a drawer and led Wahl back upstairs and down the hall to Apartment 123.23 The two women knocked. Bradley picked up the note resting against the doorknob and slipped it into her pocket. She knocked several more times. When no one answered, she inserted the pass key and opened the door. To the visitors the apartment seemed closed-in and it had a stale, slightly musty smell as though the occupants had not cleaned recently. A large mahogany double bed took up most of the space in the room; its headboard rested against the wall shared with Wilma Smith’s apartment. The bed stood about three feet from the front of the apartment and about six feet from three windows that opened onto Riverside Drive. Thick drapes were pulled halfway across the windows, dimming the afternoon light in the room and making it hard to see. The room was also messy. The side of the bed nearest the window had been made up, with an orange striped bedspread covering the pillow. The hall side held mussed blankets, as though someone had slept under them and left without straightening them. A woman’s blue evening gown and a man’s dark formal suit hung over the end of the bed. A chair under the window held pages from an early edition of the Sunday Los Angeles Examiner, whose top story detailed the suicide, in China, of C. C. Julian, a once-powerful but bankrupted Southern California oil speculator. The nightstand held a pair of glasses, with their frames bent and one eye-piece cracked. Magazines littered the floor. Personal items—business cards, an ashtray filled with cigarette butts, some of them with tips smudged in lipstick, covered the top of the 42

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dresser. The trash can held an empty bottle of whiskey and a partially filled bottle of ginger ale.24 Bradley and Wahl walked through the apartment, which appeared to be vacant. They moved through the closet to the bathroom. A damp towel hung over the shower stall and butts from a half-dozen cigarettes floated in the toilet. “Maybe she’s fallen in the shower,” Bradley said, as she pulled back the shower curtain. The shower was empty. “She knew I was coming and she isn’t here,” Wahl muttered. The two women turned to leave the apartment. As they retraced their steps through the living room, Bradley glanced down at the floor on the window side of the bed. A bare foot protruded several inches beyond the end of the footboard. She crept closer. A man lay slightly on his left side in a near-fetal position, facing the bed in a pool of blood that had soaked through the brightly patterned carpet beneath him. He wore one-piece, sleeveless cotton underwear that covered his body from his neck to his upper thighs. The dead man’s left hand was draped over the rung of the chair, palm up. Bradley yelped: “Well, who is this?” Wahl covered her eyes. “Is that Mr. Madison?” “I don’t know,” Bradley admitted. Wahl said that she felt ill and needed to sit down. “Well, if you fall down I can’t carry you,” Bradley warned her, and the two women quickly fled the apartment to summon the police.25 D. J. Macheret of the Burbank Police Department was first on the scene. He arrived shortly before 4:30 p.m., less than ten minutes after Bradley’s phone call. He looked at the body on the floor and called his boss, Police Chief Elmer Adams, who immediately phoned the Los Angeles County Sheriff ’s office. Since Burbank was such a small town, the sheriff ’s homicide division had jurisdiction over murders occurring within its borders. Adams decided to drive to the Sterling Arms to see for himself.26 43

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Within minutes he was joined by Captain William Bright of the sheriff ’s homicide division, trailed by nearly a dozen reporters and photographers. They had been playing poker in the sheriff ’s department press room on this somnambulant Sunday, but happily left their cards scattered on the table at the news of a possible murder. As flashbulbs popped and reporters rifled through personal belongings and interviewed neighbors clustered in the doorway, Bright bent over the body. Then he phoned Los Angeles County Sheriff Eugene Biscailuz and County Coroner Frank Nance. By 6:00 p.m. the dead man had a lot of company in the small, stuffy room. Police examined the evidence: bullet holes in the victim’s body, nicks in the walls and the headboard of the bed, blood spattered over walls, bedding, and floor. But they could not locate a murder weapon.27 Everyone in the room pondered the same questions: the identity of the killer and the motive. Nellie Madison was the most obvious suspect, but she seemed a decidedly unlikely murderer. By 7:30 p.m. police had finished their work. Coroner’s officials hefted the lifeless body onto a stretcher, wrapped it tightly in a sheet, and carried it to the waiting hearse for the twenty-minute trip to downtown Los Angeles and the basement of the Hall of Justice building. Sheriff Biscailuz issued an all-points bulletin, warning police throughout the state to watch out for a “beautiful black-haired woman” driving a dark blue 1930 Buick sedan and believed to be “armed and dangerous.”28

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3. Outlaw Woman

R

obert Cuddy lived in a small cabin eighty miles north of Los Angeles and eleven miles west of the summit of the Ridge Route that carried travelers from Southern California over the Tehachapi Mountains into the San Joaquin Valley and northern California. Cuddy was a sixty-four-year-old widower and father of six who had spent his entire life in the mountain valley that bore his family name. Like Nellie Madison, he was Irish; his grandfather had emigrated from Ireland in the middle of the nineteenth century. Just after the Civil War he settled in Cuddy Valley and launched a successful cattle business.1 By March 1934 the ranching operation had shrunk considerably, but Robert Cuddy still owned several hundred acres on the south side of the two-lane highway that led from the Ridge Route to a half-dozen mountain resorts scattered throughout the region. Several of his children and grandchildren lived on his property as well, in houses dotting the same narrow dirt road that led from the highway to Cuddy’s cabin.2 About 4:00 p.m. on Sunday, March 25, four of his grandchildren were playing in their front yards when they spied a dark blue Buick coming toward them down the road. As it passed they stopped and waved. Its driver waved back and then disappeared around a curve, heading toward Cuddy’s cabin. Minutes later Nellie Madison

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pulled her car into a ramshackle wooden garage that stood about fifty yards from the cabin. She slowly opened the car door, walked around to the trunk, opened it, and lifted out a bag of groceries, a jug of red wine, and a package wrapped in newspaper. She closed the trunk and began a slow walk toward the cabin.3 Cuddy’s rustic, five-room home resembled a barn. Made of unfinished redwood with a corrugated tin roof, it was almost square. It had a large open kitchen, a living room with a floor-to-ceiling stone fireplace, and three small bedrooms. It had no telephone, but was the only one in the area with indoor plumbing. Cuddy, a tall, thin man with a ruddy complexion and a lined and weather-beaten face, stood in his kitchen talking with two guests, a husband and wife named Clair and Rose Bush, and he watched through the window as Nellie parked and walked toward the house. He did not expect her, but strode to the front porch and wrapped her in a warm embrace. She handed him the wine.4 Cuddy led her into the kitchen and living room, where his visitors sat. Then he directed her to the middle bedroom, where she could drop her belongings. The room held twin beds, a bureau, and a ladder-back chair. At one end of the room a heavy, dark blue piece of cotton cloth covered the opening to a closet used mostly for storing items. Nellie placed her package in the bureau and returned to the living room. Cuddy offered her a glass of wine. “No, thank you,” she said. “Do you have any tea?” Cuddy heated water in an ancient tin pot on his stove, made the tea, and carried it into the living room. Nothing in Nellie’s demeanor that night seemed out of the ordinary to her host or his guests. She seemed tired, but that could be attributed to the long drive. She was also quiet and reserved, but no more so than usual.5 If Cuddy thought it odd that she had dropped by without warning, or that she never mentioned Eric Madison, he did not remark 46

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on it. But then he and Nellie had the kind of relationship that did not require explanations. Despite the quarter-century difference in their ages, they were close friends and kindred spirits. She recognized that his gregarious nature masked a deep well of loneliness and melancholy that could only be assuaged by alcohol and a constant stream of company. He respected her reticence and her desire for privacy. And he appreciated her nonjudgmental approach to life and her ability to keep confidences.6 They met in 1925, just after Nellie married her fourth husband, William Brown. The Brown family owned a cabin near Cuddy’s property and she soon became part of a large group of weekend guests who made the two-hour drive up from Los Angeles for regular weekend gatherings. Cuddy enjoyed rolling up the rugs in his living room and playing records on the phonograph, organizing barbecues, and camping and hunting expeditions in the nearby hills and forests. Nellie’s reputation as a “crack shot” made her a prized member of hunting parties, for she often shot and skinned the rabbits that Cuddy cooked up into stews. Her visits to Cuddy Valley continued even after her divorce from Brown. “This reminds me so much of home,” she frequently told Cuddy, sweeping her arms wide to encompass the mountains covered in chaparral, sagebrush, and Jeff rey pines. She also loved being part of Cuddy’s big family and was particularly close to his daughter Mildred, a woman about her own age with two small children. Mildred’s daughter Frances Erbes, now in her eighties, still lives in Cuddy Valley. A small child when Nellie visited the area, she holds fond memories of the woman whom she described as beautiful, kind, quiet, but passionately devoted to her friends. Nellie brought candy for Erbes, held the little girl on her lap, and pronounced her “beautiful.” Nellie was a proficient horsewoman with a keen sartorial sense. One riding outfit consisted of rust-colored suede pants, vest, and fringed jacket, Erbes recalled. 47

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Her grandfather disapproved of women wearing pants, she added, but he made an exception for Nellie.7 On Monday morning, March 26, Nellie rose before dawn and slipped out of the house. This time she did not saddle a horse or walk down the road for a visit. Instead she climbed the steep hill outside Cuddy’s back door. She spent several hours hiking in the ankle-deep pine needles and about noon returned to the house, looking pale and tired. By this time the visiting Bushes had left and Cuddy was at work repairing equipment near the horse stalls. He tipped his hat to her as she walked back to the house.8 While Nellie hiked in the forest, Los Angeles residents digested the first details of Eric Madison’s murder on the front pages of the morning newspapers, which carried blazing headlines: “wife sought in mystery murder of film aide;” and “l.a. film man slain in apartment.” The accompanying stories offered some intriguing details. Eric had been shot four times through the back and head with a .32-caliber revolver and neighbors recalled that Nellie had seemed preoccupied the week before the killing and quieter than usual. The Los Angeles Times called it “one of the strangest murders in the annals of county crimes.”9 All of the papers puzzled over the whereabouts of the absent widow, but by 4:00 p.m. the two afternoon papers were able to report her possible location. Los Angeles police were en route, declared the Evening Post-Record, to a remote mountain cabin, where an “undisclosed source” suggested that “Madison’s beautiful widow, Nellie,” might have sought refuge with friends.10 In fact police already had Nellie in custody by the time news boys began shouting headlines from downtown Los Angeles street corners on Monday afternoon. They drove onto Cuddy’s property about 3:30 p.m. Fifteen minutes earlier she had sat, nervously smoking, at the kitchen table. Cuddy, coming in from his chores, noticed her agitation. He sat down next to her. “What’s the matter, Nell?” he asked. 48

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“I’ve had a little trouble with my husband,” she responded in a low voice. “I expect the police.” She did not elaborate and, as if on cue, police arrived in two squad cars, trailing waves of dust in their wake. She stood abruptly and walked into the bedroom.11 Cuddy went to his pantry, picked up a .30-30 rifle and moved to his front porch. He stood there, holding the gun at his side, as Burbank police chief Elmer Adams and Los Angeles County sheriff ’s detectives Willard Killion and Ray Rowe approached the house. A fourth man hung back, standing at the rear of the squad car. It was Charles Brown, the brother of Nellie’s former husband and the source for the police tip on her whereabouts. “If she’s in there I’m not going in because she is a good shot,” Brown told the officers. He remained next to the car as they approached Cuddy. “We’re looking for Nellie Madison; have you seen her?” Killion asked the rancher. “I know her, but she hasn’t been around here since last fall,” Cuddy told them. The officers turned to walk toward the garage, but Cuddy stopped them. “See here, you’ve got to have a warrant if you want to look around here.” Rowe and Killion grabbed Cuddy and threatened him. “This is a good way to get yourself in jail.” They led him to the garage, where they found Nellie’s car. A search of the glove compartment yielded a used Spanish-made .32-caliber revolver and a box containing nearly three dozen unused shells. Turning Cuddy around, the officers pulled out their own guns, pointed them at his back and ordered him to lead them into the house.12 In the kitchen Rowe ordered the rancher to sit down and stood over him as Killion searched the house. He looked in the pantry, rummaged through the living room closet, and stood gazing out of the large living room window across grassy fields all the way to the highway. He turned and walked through the door that led to 49

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the hallway and the bedrooms. He searched through one bedroom, under the bed, in the closet, and behind the long drapes that covered the window. In the middle bedroom, he pulled back the blue drape that served as the closet door. The floor inside was strewn with old clothes and shoes. Heavy coats hung from a horizontal pole. Behind the coats, Killion saw a large suitcase. On the floor just in front of the suitcase, he spied a pair of feet, clad in tan and white lace-up sport shoes. He pulled back the coats. Nellie Madison sat on the suitcase, the lower half of her body covered by a blanket. The closet was too cramped to allow an adult to stand upright. Killion leaned inside. “Come on out, Nell,” he said. After a moment, she responded, “Why, what’s the matter?” But she did not get up. “I’m just sitting in here changing my shoes,” she explained. Killion repeated his request. She said nothing, but he could hear rustling. Nellie had moved to the furthest end of the closet away from him. He waited several seconds, then entered the closet, reached out and grabbed her wrist. “Where is the gun?” he asked. “What gun do you mean?” she replied. “There’s one out there in my car.” Killion thought she seemed unnaturally calm, considering the circumstances. “We know your husband is dead,” he said. “You shot him. We want to talk to you about it.” “I don’t know anything about that,” she said. Killion pulled Nellie toward him. She started to pull back, but then relented and allowed him to lead her out of the closet. As she emerged, he fastened a pair of hand cuffs over her wrists. She stood silently as he searched the rest of the bedroom. In the bureau he found the package wrapped in newspaper that she had carried out of her apartment building Sunday morning. It held her purse, several articles of clothing, and face powder, rouge, and lipstick. 50

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She sucked in her breath as he opened her purse. Inside was a hastily scrawled, misspelled, and not entirely legible note. It read: “In case of death, I wish all my personal belongs [sic] to go to my sister, Mrs. Mary E. Henneberry of Dillon, Mont. Mr. Crandall at Palm Springs, Cal, has many things in storage there which I wish sent to her.” “What’s this?” Killion asked, holding the note toward Nellie. “It’s a note to my sister that I always carry.” The second item was a sharply honed paring knife and the third was a receipt for a .32-20 revolver, made by Colt, a different manufacturer than the gun found in her car and purchased the day of Eric Madison’s murder. “Where is this gun?” Killion asked, waving the paper in front of her. Nellie refused to answer. Killion put his hand under her elbow to guide her to the kitchen and the waiting squad car. She insisted on two brief detours. “I need to get my makeup,” she said, as she stopped in front of the bureau. In the kitchen she paused in front of the sink. A shot glass stood on the drain board, next to an open bottle of whiskey. She poured the whiskey into the glass and drained it in three swallows. To calm her nerves, she said.13 Cuddy still sat at the table with Rowe standing over him. Both men followed Nellie and Killion to the front porch. Rowe now joined Killion as they led Nellie out of the house. Cuddy stood up and walked to the kitchen door. He watched as the officers placed Nellie in one of the squad cars. Burbank police chief Adams and Charles Brown climbed into the other car. “Why didn’t you tell me it was murder, Nell?” Cuddy said softly as she passed by. “I don’t care to say anything about it now,” she responded with her head lowered.14 As the police cars made their way down the dirt road back to the highway, several of Cuddy’s children and grandchildren stood on the porches of their own homes. Doris Miller was among them. 51

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Worried that something had happened to their grandfather, they ran down the road to Cuddy’s cabin. He seemed dazed.15 Nellie never turned to look back at the house, or at the group that watched her drive away. As the police cars headed back to Los Angeles along a narrow and treacherous mountain road with switchbacks, hairpin turns, and stomach-churning dips, she sat silent in the back seat, lost in her own thoughts. The squad cars pulled into the parking lot of the Burbank Police Station about 6:00 p.m. on Monday. Officer Rowe removed the handcuffs and walked behind Nellie into the building. The scene inside the door bordered on chaos as nearly fifty reporters and photographers, alerted to her arrival, jammed the narrow hallway. They shoved, kicked, and pummeled each other in an effort to position themselves closer to the murder suspect. “Don’t you know Madison is dead?” one reporter shouted as she walked past. Another yelled: “Do you remember hearing the shots Saturday night?” She said nothing and, for thirty seconds, stood still and stared straight ahead. Finally she repeated virtually the same statement she had made at Cuddy’s cabin. “I don’t know anything about that.” Exploding flashbulbs momentarily startled her. “Why are they taking my picture?” she asked her police escorts.16 The image captured by photographers that Monday evening depicted an obviously exhausted woman, but one struggling to maintain her dignity and self-control. She stared directly into the cameras, her face pale, but head high and her posture rigidly erect. She strode purposefully toward the camera, black hat pulled low over her forehead, and calf-length coat cinched tightly at the waist. Her legs were bare and she wore scuffed walking shoes. She carried her purse tucked beneath her left elbow and clutched a crumpled handkerchief in her left hand.17 Her preternatural calm only fueled more shouted questions. 52

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Journalists crowded around as she emptied the contents of her purse onto a table in the evidence room. Spying the sharp paring knife, one reporter asked her: “What did you carry this for?” “Oh that,” she responded. “I took it with me in case I had to pare something.” Then she turned to her police escorts and asked for a cigarette as reporters dutifully recorded the request.18 The journalists pursued Nellie into the interrogation room, their pens and notebooks poised in anticipation as she settled onto a wooden bench. She wrapped her coat more tightly about her and folded her arms across her chest. Elmer Adams and Willard Killion sat down on either side of her. The police questioning began about 6:45 p.m. and lasted less than an hour. Adams asked the questions while Killion took notes.19 They began with general background questions. She answered in clipped tones. “How old are you?” “Thirty-nine, will be April the fifth.” “Where were you born?” “Red Rock, Montana. I grew up in Dillon, Montana.” “Where did you go to high school?” “At Dillon and Boise, Link’s Business College,” she replied. “Then you came to California in 1920?” he continued. “As near as I can remember 1920 or 1921. I wouldn’t say.” “When you came to California, did you go to work?” “ Yes, I worked in Pasadena at the Raymond Theater. I was cashier there.” “How long did you work there?” Adams asked. “About a year I think.” “Then what did you do?” 53

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“Then I went to Los Angeles and I worked at the Dagmar Apartments for—as well as I can tell you for—well, I cannot tell you the length of time, and that is when I met Mr. Brown, when I was working there.” The reference to William Brown led Adams to switch gears and question her about personal issues—her marriages and childlessness. She had spent her life guarding her privacy and now she faced having to divulge information, much of it embarrassing, to a room full of strangers. She quickly began to dissemble. “Have you any children?” “No.” “ You married Brown here in Los Angeles?” “No, we were married in San Diego.” “What date was that?” “Gracious, I cannot tell you now. It was April the 11th, but I cannot tell you the year. We were married by Father King.” “That was your first marriage?” Adams asked. “No, I was married before.” “Well, where was your first marriage?” “In Boise, Idaho.” “That was your first marriage now?” “When I was a child I ran away from home and got married, but my parents had it annulled.” “What was his name?” “Brothers.” “What are his initials?” “I think, Robert.” “How old were you at the time?” “I was only a kid, fourteen or fifteen.” “Do you remember what his name was?” “It was either Roy or Ralph, I can’t tell you which.” 54

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“ You remember the year?” “No, I do not. . . . I was only a child. I just don’t remember.” “How long did you live with him?” “We didn’t live together hardly any. My father came down to Salt Lake and took me home. I couldn’t tell you. I don’t want to say something that isn’t the truth.” “About how long was it—a month, two months, three?” Adams tried to pin her down. “No, gracious, it was only a few days.” “All right then, did you go back to school after that?” “I have to stop and think. It has been so long ago, I can’t tell you that. I know I went to Boise, but that was a long time afterwards.” “Then you were married again after that?” “ Yes, in Boise.” “Who was the next marriage to?” “Earl Trask, in Vale, Oregon.” “When was that?” “I am sorry I can’t tell you the date.” “Well, about how long after—about how old were you at that time?” “Well, I am just sorry I can’t tell you. I don’t remember.” “A couple of years, or two years?” Adams tried again. “Beg pardon?” Nellie responded. “Was it two or three years—how did you get to Oregon?” “Oh, I was in Boise then and drove down there.” Adams, puzzling over the logistics, wondered aloud why someone would live in Idaho but marry in Oregon. “It isn’t very far,” Nellie explained, “we just drove there and then drove back.” She offered no further explanation and Adams did not pursue the issue. 55

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“How long did you live with him?” “Well, I can’t tell you right now. I don’t just remember how long it was.” “Well, about how long was it?” he repeated. “Four or five years as near as I can remember.” “Have you ever had any children?” “No.” “No children at all?” “No.” “Where were you divorced at?” “Los Angeles.” “What year was that?” “It was either 1920 or 1921, I can’t tell you which.” “That is when you went to work or were you working already?” “No, I was working before.” “Then after that did you marry Brown?” Adams asked. “ Yes,” Nellie replied. He paused to total up her marriages to that point. “Then you have had—up to that you have had three marriages. You were married three times or more?” Nellie demurred. “I want to be truthful, and I am just trying to think of everything.” Adams pressed her. “You were married three times or more?” “Well,” she paused. “As I said, my folks had the one annulled. I just can’t tell you now. I think there were three marriages before Eric, but there might have been four.” He went back over the names of her husbands and reassured her, “I don’t want to crowd you.” But, he added, “of course, things like this come out, you know that. Eventually it will all shape out.” At this point, though they had not yet gotten to Eric Madison’s death, Nellie Madison stopped answering questions. In the 1930s 56

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police were not obliged to read suspects their rights. Nor did a defendant automatically have the right to an attorney. But Nellie’s marriage to William Brown had taught her the intricacies of the legal system. “I feel I should have an attorney,” she insisted. “I shouldn’t be giving out any information without an attorney.” “Won’t you talk anymore at all?” “No.” “I haven’t asked you anything that happened down here Saturday night or anything else. You know all I have asked you about is your past life.” He tried once more: “You know what you are accused of?” “No, I don’t.” “You are accused of murdering your husband, and I am not going to ask you a question about it at all, not a question, so it is up to you now. We are going to chop this statement off. Any time you ask for a lawyer that is up to you.” “Well, I would like to do that, please,” Nellie said. And she refused to answer any more questions. Directed to a telephone, she called William Brown. He lived in Redondo Beach, a coastal town about thirty miles south of Los Angeles, but he was not at home. With the interrogation at an end, sheriff ’s deputies booked Nellie, escorted her back to the squad car, and drove her to the Los Angeles County Jail, less than ten miles from the Burbank Police Station.20 The jail took up the top three floors of the thirteen-story Hall of Justice building that resembled a medieval fortress and sat atop a hill at the corner of Broadway and Temple, looking down on City Hall and the Los Angeles Times building. The Hall of Justice housed all of the departments related to crime and punishment in Los Angeles County. The basement held the coroner’s office, including the mortuary where Eric Madison’s body lay on a slab, waiting for his family in Denmark to release it to Powell’s Mortuary in Burbank. 57

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Floors one through three contained the offices of the district attorney and his staff, and the public defender’s office. The next eight floors held courtrooms and the top three contained jail cells. Women inmates were housed on the eleventh floor. That is where Matron Vada Sullivan greeted Nellie on this Monday night and handed her a baggy denim dress, a white slip, and a thin, black cardigan sweater.21 Nellie again asked to use the phone to call William Brown. “How do you know him?” Sullivan asked her. “He’s my former husband,” she replied.22 Brown still was not at home. Now worried about her ability to locate a lawyer on short notice, she phoned Joseph Ryan, who promoted himself in local advertisements and whose name now quickly came to mind. He answered on the third ring. She introduced herself and described her predicament. “I’ll meet you at the jail tomorrow afternoon,” he promised. “All right,” she replied.23 Sullivan led Nellie to her cell and locked the door.

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gness Underwood played poker with a male photographer as she waited for Nellie Madison in the conference room of the Los Angeles County Jail on Tuesday morning, March 27. She had not been present at the interrogation the previous evening, but had arranged to meet Nellie for a one-on-one interview in her cell. In the days of freewheeling journalism, before the notion of “objectivity” and arms-length relationships between reporters and officials took hold in the media, top-notch journalists prided themselves on their ability to capitalize on personal friendships to hurdle any obstacles placed in the way of a good story. The arrangement benefited both sides. In exchange for granting easy access to criminal suspects and other sources, officials could count—at least most of the time—on favorable treatment by the press. Aggie Underwood was very good at playing this game. She was a fierce competitor, but also a warm and thoughtful colleague. She loved practical jokes, covering murders, and shocking strangers with her favorite expletive—“gahdammit”—with the words strung out like spun wool. In the spring of 1934, Underwood was thirty-one and working for the smallest of the daily newspapers in Los Angeles, the Evening Post-Record. Short, sturdy, and squarely built, she had dark blonde hair that looked as if she styled it with an electric mixer

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and a pugnacious manner that masked a sensitive soul. She was an anomaly in the field of front-page journalism: a woman in a male-dominated profession and a wife and mother at a time when most white middle-class women did not work outside the home after marriage. When asked about her career she usually explained that she had never intended to have a full-time job, but her family needed help paying its bills. She had started out as a switchboard operator at the Post-Record in 1926 and now, eight years later, could never imagine quitting. “I got a bear by the tail and couldn’t let go,” was the way she described her feelings about her job.1 Underwood’s strategy for getting front-page stories had not changed since her first byline in 1931 on another high-profile Los Angeles murder case. Dave Clark, a former deputy district attorney, stood accused of shooting to death two prominent businessmen. As her male colleagues chased down official sources, she sat with Clark’s parents in their living room and offered kindness, compassion, and a plate of homemade cookies. They, in turn, opened up to her, explaining why their son could not possibly be guilty. After a sensational trial, Clark was acquitted. Dozens of bylines later Underwood counted murderers, celebrities, police, firefighters, judges, and mayors among her friends. She prided herself on her ability to talk to anyone. She faced a challenge in Nellie Madison.2 Shortly before 10:00 a.m. Matron Vada Sullivan opened the door and led Aggie to Nellie’s cell. Nellie looked exhausted. Dark circles stood out in the pale and sallow skin beneath her eyes and she made it clear she was not eager to be meeting another journalist who would probe into her past and ask personal questions. But Aggie Underwood was adept at putting people at ease. “How did you sleep?” “Not very well,” Nellie answered. “Someone down the hall had an epileptic fit in the middle of the night. And another person woke up screaming.” 60

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“What about your family?” Underwood asked, not skipping a beat. “Where are they?” “I have a brother and sister in Dillon, Montana.” “Have you talked to them?” Nellie shook her head, no.3 “What was your childhood like?” she asked. Childhood was a pet topic of Underwood’s, since she was an orphan who had been reared in a series of foster homes in Indiana before ending up in California in her mid-teens. She found temporary quarters with relatives, but eventually ended up on the streets of Los Angeles, alone and broke. Her marriage, at seventeen, represented security and the long-sought sense of “family.” Now her children, colleagues, and sources filled that role.4 Nellie’s family life had been much more stable and secure, yet she declared her childhood to have been, simply, “unhappy.” When Underwood tried to shift the conversation to the murder, she ran into a roadblock. As she had done in the interrogation, Nellie shut down, declaring: “I prefer to wait until my attorney gets here this afternoon. I’m sorry, but I just can’t say any more right now.”5 Aggie Underwood was again in attendance early that afternoon when attorney Joseph Ryan met with reporters in the Hall of Justice press room, following his first meeting with his client. A short, stocky man, he had bushy dark eyebrows that resembled tildes, the Spanish punctuation marks. They gave him a somewhat comical appearance. Reporters hit him with a dozen questions at once. “Does Mrs. Madison say she shot her husband in self-defense?” “She never told me she did any shooting,” Ryan responded. “Did she say she saw anyone else fire the shots?” Ryan hesitated. “I can’t say.” Then, “I can’t take any more questions. Mrs. Madison is in such an upset mental condition it would be unkind and unfair to question her at this time concerning the slaying of her husband.”6 61

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The Nellie Madison story led the news cycle in all of the Los Angeles papers, both Tuesday afternoon and Wednesday morning. Underwood’s story on the jailhouse interview appeared in Tuesday afternoon’s edition of the Post-Record. It offered a sympathetic portrait of the murder suspect. “Mrs. Madison was a pathetic-looking woman. Her blue denim jail uniform was a bad fit. A white silk underskirt extended eight inches below the hem of her uniform. Her tan and white oxford shoes were soiled. Deep dark circles made her eyes stand out, giving her an expression similar to that of a terrorstricken child who doesn’t know which way to turn. Her black hair, however, was neatly parted and combed and her fingernails were immaculately manicured.”7 Aggie Underwood would eventually play a significant role in Nellie Madison’s life, but that came later, when she worked for a much larger paper. Now, with the story gaining “legs,” Underwood’s portrait was quickly buried beneath an avalanche of very different images. Reporters had met Nellie Madison only briefly and under extremely stressful conditions, but the bizarre circumstances of the murder, combined with the suspect’s stoicism, refusal to talk, multiple marriages, and striking appearance led them to offer a confident assessment of her character. Seventy years later, an observant commentator might suggest that she suffered from a form of posttraumatic stress, rendering her numb and unable to comprehend her predicament. But no such term, or idea, existed in the 1930s. Journalists thus only knew one explanation for her behavior: she was a “femme fatale,” the real-life embodiment of the mysterious and diabolical seductress who lurked at the heart of “noir” fiction, the wildly popular Depression-era literary genre equivalent to gangster movies in its depiction of the battle between morality and the dark forces of evil.8 Her “matrimonial adventures,” as the Los Angeles Times dubbed them, provided the building blocks for this archetype, as did her continuing refusal to behave in stereotypically “female” ways. 62

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County Jail Matron Vada Sullivan observed that “Most women brought to jail under such circumstances are nervous, excited, and emotionally disturbed.” Not Nellie Madison. “She seems to have perfect control of her nerves.”9 All of the newspapers, including Aggie Underwood’s, quickly homed in on Nellie’s marital history. The Hall of Records building, just blocks from City Hall and the Hall of Justice, contained files from her two Los Angeles divorces, including the domestic violence charges in the Brown divorce, and reporters eagerly pounced on them, focusing particularly on her reluctance to divulge personal details of her life. “Cryptic and non-committal about those . . . gruesome hours spent in a lonely mountain cabin while her husband lay dead,” opined the Herald and Express, “Mrs. Nellie Madison revealed today a faulty memory also. She said she couldn’t remember the name of her first husband, or whether she had three or four husbands.”10 Interviews with acquaintances added another element—a Wild West background. Nellie was reputed to be “good with the pistols, the ponies, and the lariat.” As a young woman she had “performed in rodeos around the west.” And, in choosing a remote cabin as her hideout, she “was once again in the mountains, where she could ride and hunt and shoot just like she did in her Montana.” William Seaton, Palm Springs police chief, piled on to this characterization, noting that “she was an expert shot. She frequently practiced at the Los Angeles police pistol range.”11 At least a dozen reporters covering the story worked for the Examiner and the Evening Herald and Express. The legendary William Randolph Hearst, who specialized in salacious and sensational stories, owned both papers. Hearst’s newspapers spanned the country from New York and Chicago to Atlanta and San Francisco. All of them featured the same format: screaming headlines, short and punchy sentences heavily laced with adjectives, and retouched photos to make the visual images conform to the tenor of the stories. 63

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The coverage of the Madison case followed this formula. Both the Examiner and Herald immediately provided Nellie with catchy twoword nicknames. To the Examiner she was the “Sphinx Woman,” reflecting her inscrutable demeanor. The Herald dubbed her the “Enigma Woman,” reinforcing the air of mystery that seemed to surround her. Over the next few months, both papers came to use these terms interchangeably along with a third: the “Iron Widow.”12 The stories below the headlines carried the same imagery. To one Herald reporter Nellie was “unutterable ennui turned human,” a woman who seemingly cared more about the location of her seed pearl earrings and cameo ring now in police custody than the fate of the man she allegedly killed. To another reporter she was a woman who could laugh in the face of murder. “A man screamed somewhere—muffled screams behind walls—and yet a woman laughed.”13 A third Herald reporter crafted dialogue that might have come directly from noir fiction. “Aloof, behind her unyielding wall of silence, Mrs. Nellie Madison, ‘enigma woman,’ firmly but quietly resisted the efforts of sleuths to wrest from her the answer to the strange riddle of the murder of her husband. She turns upon (her questioners) a gaze that seems to pierce through their eyes and into some mysterious beyond. Her lips curl in a slow, enigmatic smile. She is mistress of herself and the questioners, beaten back time after time, turn away in disappointment.”14 Still another Herald story described her “inscrutable disdain” and compared her enigmatic bearing to Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa. In case readers missed the connection, the paper helpfully ran side-by-side photos of Nellie Madison and the famous painting. Though she appeared pensive in this particular photo, many photographs carried in Hearst newspapers depicted her as stubborn and unrepentant. She stared directly at the camera, her chin jutting forward in apparent defiance and her lips tightly clamped together in a grimace. In other photos she seemed to be somewhat irritated by the 64

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circumstances in which she found herself, with her eyes cast downward and her mouth twisted into a bemused smirk.15 Though only the most observant readers would have noticed, many photos were altered from their original state, a common practice in the 1930s and 1940s. White paint and black grease pencils made her full lips appear thinner, her nose seem narrower, her eyes bolder and more staring. Photographers air-brushed the fullness out of her hair, so that it seemed to hug her head like a skull cap. And, though she seldom “rouged” her lips, they darkened her mouth to make it appear as though she wore bright red lipstick. The Examiner relied on the same archetype as its sister paper. “Did Nellie Madison lie down there in those long hours of waiting, with her husband’s body crumpled in the narrow space between bed and wall, only a few feet away?” a reporter asked rhetorically. “Did she lie there while stillness descended upon the apartment house and the other tenants went back to sleep, reassured—not knowing that a man’s dead body was slowly growing cold in a room where a locked door shut in a dead man and a living woman?”16 The Hearst papers provided the most dramatic and colorful stories, but the Los Angeles Times also gave the murder prominent play. Harry Chandler published the Times, Los Angeles’s most profitable and powerful newspaper. As the leader of the city’s civic establishment, Chandler focused less on lurid crime and more on the kinds of issues—politics and business—that reflected his prestige and power. Nellie Madison seemed to represent everything that Chandler and the city’s establishment disdained—unconventionality and the flaunting of authority and of “traditional” values—thus the Times could not pass up an opportunity to offer tacit “instruction” on the consequences of such behavior. The paper depicted a woman whose “poised and apparently unworried demeanor” seemed to reflect a cavalier attitude about murder and its potentially devastating consequences for her own life. “ ‘I do not wish to say anything,’ was her repeated reply,” according to a Times reporter.17 65

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This approach may have been designed to sell newspapers, but to an audience steeped in noir fiction it also reinforced a mindset that viewed such females with a combination of fascination, repulsion, and naked alarm. She also might have summoned forth the image of numerous “bad women” characters portrayed in movies by actors such as Barbara Stanwyk, whom Nellie slightly resembled. All of these fictional women faced dire consequences, including death, as penalties for their actions and behavior.18 Those with slightly longer memories might view Nellie as a real-life Roxie Hart, the cynical and hardened murderess in Maurine Watkins’s sensationally popular 1926 play Chicago, based on real trials Watkins covered as a newspaper reporter.19 Journalists did not ignore Eric Madison, who emerged as a somewhat unsympathetic victim. Newspapers remarked on his background, particularly the up-from-the-bootstraps nature of his father’s career. Carl Madsen had started his working life as a cobbler in Denmark, but his involvement with the labor movement brought him to the attention of the king, who asked Madsen to become part of his royal cabinet. Eric’s brother Axel was a well-known musician who performed throughout Europe. Another brother was an attorney in Denmark.20 Between the lines of these descriptions it might have been possible, if one was alert enough to notice, to glimpse a decided dark side to Eric Madison. Birdie Cobb, a female friend with whom Eric had lived from time to time during the 1920s and early 1930s, described him to reporters as “generous and kindly,” but “irresponsible. I used to scold him for drinking too much and he would just smile at me.”21 Others held less charitable views. Mary Lee, a former starlet who also used the name Loria Lee, had been engaged to Eric in the early 1930s. “He was a man of many loves and I think he loved me,” she said. “But he had a violent temper when he drank. Once he tried to choke me when he was drunk. I broke up with him.” Eric’s ex-wife Georgia also weighed in. Her husband had been unfaithful, leading 66

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to two lengthy separations before their 1928 divorce, she explained. Later she would offer a much more chilling portrait of her ex-husband.22 Eric Madison’s murder may have been the catalyst for the news coverage, but after a few days he disappeared from the front pages. As a corpse he was much less interesting than his widow, who continued to captivate Los Angeles. Some official sources, recognizing the potential for favorable publicity and career advancement in the unfolding drama, welcomed reporters with open arms. Their depictions did nothing to soften Nellie Madison’s image or challenge assumptions already hardening into firm opinions. Sheriff ’s homicide captain William Bright was one such source. Tapped to head the investigation, he made himself accessible by phone and at the sheriff ’s downtown Los Angeles headquarters beginning Tuesday, March 27. He invited reporters into his office, where he sat at his battered desk, covered with reports, loose papers, and coffee stains. He rubbed his hands together as he leaned back in his chair, which threatened to pitch him against the wall. Bright placed himself at the scene of the crime, though he had been at home asleep at the time of the murder. “I live in Burbank myself,” he began, “just a few blocks away from Warner Brothers. I heard the same machine guns on Saturday night and I can understand why people might have been confused. The shooting at the studio sounds about the same” as the Sterling Arms gunshots. “First there are two shots, then a pause, then more shots.”23 He quickly brought reporters around to the present. “I don’t believe Mrs. Madison’s defense, if indeed she has one, would preclude a charge of first degree murder.” “Have you found the murder weapon?” a reporter asked him. “No, we haven’t,” he admitted. “Then the gun you have didn’t fire the fatal shots?” It had not, Bright admitted. “We sent deputies back out to Cuddy’s ranch this morning to search the area. He was much more co67

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operative with us than he was yesterday. He said he didn’t know he was harboring a fugitive and he showed us where she went on her morning hike. “Detectives Killion and Rowe went up there, but it was like a forest primeval, what with all the pine needles and underbrush. They couldn’t find anything, but we think that’s where she threw the murder weapon.”24 Though police had not yet found the murder weapon, Bright explained how Nellie had come to purchase not one, but two guns, in the process helping to build a case for premeditation. As he described it, her “shopping trip” had begun in Burbank and moved along Los Feliz Boulevard through Glendale and the northern tip of Los Angeles to Western Avenue in Hollywood. On Friday morning Nellie “arrived at a used gun store on Western Avenue and asked if she could rent a gun for a few days. She talked to Herman Ostrin, who owns the place. He told her that renting a gun was impossible so she chose the used Spanish-made gun we have in our custody,” Bright said. Ostrin then informed her that she could not take the weapon with her because Los Angeles County had a twenty-four-hour waiting period for buying firearms. Nellie paid for the gun but left it at the store for pick-up on Saturday morning. “When she came back to get the gun, she asked the clerk for bullets,” Bright said. “He gave her part of a box, but said they might not work in the gun. She took them anyway.” Nellie then drove to the Central Hardware Store on Hollywood Boulevard. Charles Harter, manager of the sporting goods department, waited on her. “She showed him the gun, said the bullets she had wouldn’t work in it, and asked for different bullets. He looked the gun over and told her it wasn’t any good.” Bright quoted Nellie’s response: “Well then, I guess I’ll have to buy another one.” “She told Harter she was in a hurry,” Bright continued. “She said 68

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she was going target-shooting in the mountains with her husband and needed it quickly. She chose the Colt .32-20 because she thought its long barrel made it good for that use. It cost $31.20, but she did not have enough money, so she left and returned about forty-five minutes later with the cash.” Told that she needed to wait another twenty-four hours to pick up the second gun, she asked Harter if he would waive the waiting period. Harter said she needed police authorization and so Nellie “went to a back room to call someone, but returned, saying that she couldn’t reach him,” Bright said. “She asked if she could take the gun anyway, stating: ‘I understand that it is lawful to have a gun in my possession.’ ” Harter agreed, but told her not to conceal the weapon on the way home. “She was perfectly collected,” Bright continued. “She discussed the gun purchase and the trip she and her husband were to take with the same interest that any woman or man might. She did not appear agitated, her voice was calm; she was pleasant and appeared pleased with the prospect of a weekend in the mountains.” Even without the murder weapon, Bright told reporters, “Our case is almost complete. We will ask for a complaint charging her with murder tomorrow morning.” As for the motive, Bright said that police had discovered a letter Nellie had written but not yet mailed suggesting that her husband planned to leave her because “her money was gone. We will be ready with evidence that she and her husband were quarreling over it.”25 Further evidence of a rift between the Madisons came from Thelma Enrick, a neighbor who told Bright that she saw Nellie Saturday afternoon in the apartment lobby. She had seemed upset, Enrick told police. “I just can’t go back up to that room,” Bright quoted Nellie.26 The notion that Eric Madison had used up all of his wife’s money and then planned to leave her apparently did not cause Bright to reexamine his assessment of Nellie as “the coolest woman I have ever questioned in all my years in this office. There is no point in 69

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questioning her until she is willing and ready to talk about her husband’s death.” One question still puzzled him, he admitted. “I wonder what she did between the time she left her apartment Sunday morning and the time she arrived at the ranch. It’s only a two-hour drive and yet she didn’t arrive until late in the afternoon.”27 Nellie’s ex-husband William Brown was not an official source, but he too proved eager to weigh in with reporters. On Tuesday afternoon he summoned them to a conference at the county jail. He had arrived home too late the previous night to provide advice or help, but, he made it clear, he planned to participate actively in her defense, as did her family members in Montana. Brown held up a telegram from Nellie’s brother Dan Mooney. It read: “Newspapers here report that Nellie held on a murder charge. Please advise. We wish to do everything possible for her.” Then Brown, possibly without thinking of the consequences, offered an observation certain to reinforce the “outlaw” image of his ex-wife. “She used to win bets from me and her brothers [sic] by shooting birds on the wing with a .22 rifle,” he told reporters.28 By Wednesday, March 28, four days after the murder, most of Los Angeles it seemed had become riveted by the story of the muchmarried, gun-toting “Enigma Woman,” which promised to distract the public, at least temporarily, from grim economic news, including the rising jobless rate and a planned strike by longshoremen that threatened to paralyze West Coast shipping. That afternoon witnesses, acquaintances, reporters, photographers, and hundreds of curious spectators jammed the basement of the Hall of Justice for the coroner’s inquest held to issue a formal finding on the cause of Eric Madison’s death. Though rarely used today, this kind of proceeding was common in the 1930s. Belle de Wolfe, a stout, gray-haired woman and one of only a handful of female Los Angeles County sheriff ’s deputies, brought Nellie Madison down from her jail cell. Six men, appointed by the 70

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coroner, sat as jurors. Their findings were not binding; they could only make recommendations on whether criminal charges should be pursued against anyone in connection with the death. Nellie took a seat in a chair behind a rail that separated her from the witnesses. Deputy de Wolfe sat on Nellie’s left, her arm encircling Nellie’s shoulders. Joseph Ryan sat on her other side and William Brown took a seat behind her. Throughout the proceeding, Nellie seemed to be in a trance. She clutched a handkerchief in her left hand so tightly that her knuckles appeared bloodless. Deputy Coroner Frank Munfort conducted the ninety-minute inquest. Birdie E. Cobb, Eric’s friend, was first to testify. She said police had called her to identify Madison’s body. She was not asked, nor did she explain, how police knew to call her. Her name may have been included in the unmailed letter police found among Nellie’s belongings. Autopsy surgeon A. J. Wagner described the bullet wounds. “The killer fired six shots, but only four struck him—two in the back, one in the head and one grazing his right arm, just below the elbow. The victim died from the two bullets to his back, which caused massive internal bleeding from his chest and abdomen.” Sterling Arms manager Belle Bradley described Nellie’s demeanor the night of the shooting. “She was something of a mystery during her weeks at the apartment,” Bradley said. “She seldom associated with the other tenants and sometimes appeared worried. We thought it might have been because she was worried about money because her husband had lost his job.” The night of the shooting, “I was thinking Mrs. Madison might be alone and maybe in trouble, so I ran to her apartment. I knocked on the door and called her name, asking if everything was alright. She answered yes immediately. Her voice was perfectly composed.” Willard Killion and Ray Rowe discussed the suspect’s capture and arrest. Nellie Madison was the last witness Munfort called. She stumbled 71

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and nearly fell as she made her way the witness stand. “Can you give us your name?” he asked. She answered in a voice so low she could barely be heard. “Do you prefer not to testify?” he asked her. “I do,” she replied. She returned to her seat. After deliberating only a few minutes the jury announced its finding that “Eric Madison came to his death on or about March 24 from gunshot wounds of the chest and abdomen and that said gunshot wounds were inflicted by some persons unknown to this jury. “The jury finds further that death was due to homicidal intent. We, the jury, recommend that Nellie Madison be held for trial in connection with this case.” Nellie sobbed quietly into her handkerchief. De Wolfe patted her shoulder, then helped her to her feet, and led her from the inquest room. The crowd parted to let her pass, and then watched silently as she walked down the hall, still leaning against de Wolfe.29 At the end of the hallway, sheriff ’s deputies waited to escort her to Burbank for arraignment before Municipal Court Judge Irving Watson. Reporters trailed the police car like a tail on a kite. In court Watson set Nellie’s preliminary hearing for April 12 and ordered her held without bail. She needed clothing and other items for her stay in county jail, so police drove her back to the Sterling Arms to collect garments and her personal effects. Reporters who accompanied police on this errand reminded readers again of her seeming indifference. “She walked into the apartment house and to the door of her apartment without a tremor. . . . Quickly she packed a suitcase, without a glance toward the bed behind which Madison’s body was found.” Tenants lined the hallway leading to her old apartment. She did not acknowledge them, “or even glance at them,” but kept her eyes averted and her jaw tightly clenched.30 Detective Killion accompanied her. He unlocked the door and then stood back, allowing Nellie to enter first. Journalists dutifully noted the stained carpet, the bullet-scarred walls, and blood72

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encrusted bed clothes. They hovered as she silently opened bureau drawers and lifted out undergarments, a nightgown, sweaters, and stockings. From the bureau she moved on to the closet, and pulled a bathrobe, two dresses, and an off-white coat with pleated shoulders and cuffs from their hangers. In the bathroom she scooped up toiletries. Her arms now weighted down, she headed toward the door. Killion again opened it for her. She walked down the hall, out of the apartment building, and back to the police car.31 A telegram from her brother awaited her at the Hall of Justice. Dan Mooney had been in constant contact with William Brown since shortly after his sister’s arrest. In his meeting with his ex-wife the previous day, Brown had pled with Nellie to change attorneys. Mooney now added his own request that she “wait until a family member can get there” to make a final decision on legal representation. Nellie and her ex-husband met at the jail again on Friday, March 30, with journalists hovering close by. As they described it, the former spouses might have been conspiratorial lovers, leaning toward each other from opposite sides of a conference table. William Brown seemed to implore his wife to listen to him. She sat, stony-faced. According to reporters, the couple’s physical proximity led matrons to approach them twice to make certain they were not engaging in “inappropriate” behavior. Afterward Brown offered reporters the prediction that his former wife would probably change attorneys. “My partner, Richard Kitrelle, should have an announcement soon,” he said.32 But Nellie did not make the switch. During a meeting with her later that day, Joseph Ryan had objected vociferously to the suggestion that he was not up to defending such a high profile defendant. “I have never lost a murder case,” he huffed, “and I’ve been practicing law since 1912.”33 And so it would be Ryan and his older brother Frank, also an attorney, who accompanied Nellie on her last two public appearances 73

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before her trial: Eric Madison’s funeral and her preliminary hearing. Both were heavily attended by members of the media. The funeral took place at Powell’s Mortuary on April 3. It was a beautiful spring afternoon as a Lutheran minister, the Rev. Paul Miller, presided over an unlikely group of “mourners,” most of whom had never known Eric Madison in life—reporters, photographers, jailhouse personnel, and curious bystanders. Superior Court Judge Fletcher Bowron, later to become one of Los Angeles’s most progressive mayors, signed the court order allowing Nellie to leave jail for the service. None of Eric’s immediate family made the trip from Denmark, but Nellie was not the only wife in attendance. Georgia Madison had been twenty-three when she met Eric in 1919. They married soon after, but the marriage ended in 1928 after two long separations. Just before the funeral she offered reporters further evidence of Eric’s darker side. In 1925 he “met a young girl who seemed to have a hypnotic effect on him. I lost him. He started to drink. I tried to forget him and succeeded until I learned through a friend that he had been—well, shot to death.” Georgia now sought closure. She wanted to attend her ex-husband’s funeral, she said, because she wanted to “go up to his bier, hard as that would be, just to, well just say goodbye.”34 Nellie did not meet Georgia Madison at the funeral. Flanked by Joseph Ryan and Belle de Wolfe, she sat behind a curtain. Reporters had depicted her on the eve of the funeral as “undergoing a remarkable transition” . . . her eyes sparkling “as she inspected an array of cosmetics brought to her at the county jail.” They now observed her “crying quietly into her handkerchief ” at the rites, though this behavior raised no more questions than Georgia Madison’s allegations of her ex-husband’s infidelity. Nellie departed before pallbearers from the mortuary lifted Eric’s casket into a hearse for the trip to his final resting place, Valhalla Cemetery in Burbank.35 Nine days later, Municipal Court Judge Irving Watson presided over Nellie’s preliminary hearing, held to determine if there was 74

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enough evidence to warrant a trial. She entered no plea. As she had done at the coroner’s inquest, she declined to testify. And she again clutched a handkerchief tightly in her left hand. On this occasion she wore sunglasses so dark that they virtually obscured her eyes. Seven witnesses testified—autopsy surgeon A. J. Wagner, Belle Bradley, Robert Cuddy, Willard Killion and Ray Rowe, and employees of the stores where Nellie bought the two revolvers. Cuddy said he was drunk during much of Nellie’s visit to his cabin. “I came to once in awhile,” he said. “We talked about hunting and camping and about Bill Brown, her former husband who used to come up here with her.” Immediately after the last witness, Watson ruled that the evidence of Nellie’s guilt was enough to bind her over for trial in Los Angeles Superior Court. Ryan asked the judge to release his client on bail, but Watson refused and set her trial date for June 7.36 As they awaited Nellie Madison’s trial, newspapers turned their attention to other murderous females. On April 13, 1934, Los Angeles police arrested thirty-six-year-old Rhoda Cobler for killing her husband by putting rat poison in his cereal. “I didn’t mean to kill him,” she insisted during her interrogation. “I arose about 6:30 a.m. and prepared breakfast as usual. First I went downstairs and took care of the chickens. Then, while George was shaving, I took the strychnine in the paper sack and mixed it with a cup of milk. It was about one dram and I stirred it up.”37 On May 18 reporters took note of the scheduled parole of Clara Phillips, the notorious “Tiger-Woman” who was serving a fifteenyears-to-life sentence for the brutal 1922 claw-hammer murder of her husband’s lover in Los Angeles. Phillips was to be paroled in June 1935. “I am sure that we are taking no risk in returning this woman to civil life in another year,” San Quentin warden James Holohan told reporters. “She has shown a remarkable proficiency in the dental profession and I understand she intends to continue her training.”38 Not everyone agreed with this assessment. District Attorney Bu75

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ron Fitts called Phillips’s pending release “an outrage. It is just such acts as this . . . that cause our people to lose faith in the administration of criminal justice.” An editorial in the May 19 Los Angeles Times castigated prison directors and declared Phillips “one of the most heartless, cold-blooded murderers in the history of California.” Phillips “should have been hanged. Her easy fate is certainly not likely to deter anybody from committing a murder under similar circumstances.”39 The same week that officials decried Phillips’s pending parole, newspapers across the country carried front-page stories about the ambush slaying in Louisiana of Bonnie Parker, perhaps the most notorious female criminal of the 1930s. Parker and her partner, Clyde Barrow, had both captivated and terrified Americans as they robbed and murdered their way across the Southwest, in the process becoming almost mythical figures that blurred the line between reality and fiction.40 The Los Angeles Evening Herald and Express provided another reminder of the connection between real life and fiction in its June 6 street edition that set the stage for Nellie Madison’s trial: “Like the opening of a detective mystery will be the prosecution’s evidence in the trial of the comely ‘enigma woman.’ There will be told in court the screams of a woman at midnight, excited footfalls in dim halls. Then, like the closing chapters of a ‘thriller,’ in which the mystery is solved, the story of Mrs. Madison will unroll before the jury, providing, it is hoped by the defendant and her counsel, an adequate excuse for blasting Eric Madison into eternity as he lay on his bed that fateful night.”41

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5. The Ultimate Penalty

G

eorge Stahlman stood behind a table in the press room of the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office, on the sixth floor of the Hall of Justice. Stahlman, one of two prosecutors chosen by District Attorney Buron Fitts to try Nellie Madison, twisted the brass cufflinks on his crisply tailored white shirt. He fingered the handkerchief folded into a neat triangle that peeked from the pocket of his navy blue suit coat, and glanced down at his black shoes, polished to such a high sheen that he might, if he tried hard enough, make out the blurry outlines of his face, with his black hair oiled and slicked back from his high forehead. It was June 6, one day before the beginning of jury selection, and Stahlman had an important announcement. As a successful trial attorney, he knew that timing was everything and he wanted to be certain that his voice carried the right timbre and cadence of authority. At thirty-four he was intensely ambitious and he knew that his boss viewed the Madison case as an important one. He cleared his throat and then, gazing at the crowd of journalists pressed in on all sides, peered at the single sheet of paper in his hand. “The district attorney has decided to seek the death penalty against Mrs. Madison,” he intoned. He turned to walk away, but reporters besieged him with questions. They all boiled down to one—why?

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His answer was succinct. “Mrs. Madison shot her husband in the back. The motive for the murder is of no concern to the prosecution.”1 The question still hung in the air after Stahlman’s departure. It was appropriate under the circumstances. California had never executed a woman and only two—Laura Fair, of San Francisco, and Emma LeDoux, infamous as the “trunk murderess” from Amador County—had been condemned to die. Fair was convicted in 1871 of shooting her married lover to death aboard an Oakland to San Francisco ferry. During a sensational trial that featured testimony by her lover’s wife and children, and appearances by prominent suff ragists in support of Fair, she was sentenced to die.2 LeDoux was convicted in 1906 of murdering her third husband when he showed up at the apartment she shared with her fourth. She poisoned him, stuffed his dead body into a trunk, and put it on a train bound for the small gold country town of Jackson, near Sacramento. At a stopover in Stockton, baggage master Thomas Thompson discovered the corpse when he bent down to smell the contents of the trunk. “Some people going into the country were taking a trunk load of meat up with them, and I thought I would examine it and see if it was meat,” he testified at LeDoux’s trial. “It kept bumping in there just like a big chunk of meat, so I gave it a turn and put my nose down to the keyhole and smelled it, and there was a dead smell came out . . . I telephoned the police.”3 Neither Fair nor LeDoux was hanged, the method of execution practiced in California and many other states at that time. The state supreme court, citing procedural problems, overturned the death sentences of both women. Fair was acquitted in a second trial and she went on to live a quiet and secluded life.4 LeDoux’s conviction stood, but she was re-sentenced to life in prison. She won parole in the early 1920s, but within five years had returned to San Quentin following conviction for running a lonely hearts club targeting elderly men.5 78

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In the twenty-eight years between Emma LeDoux’s conviction and Nellie Madison’s trial, California saw its share of murder cases involving female defendants. Many of them took place in Los Angeles County and some cases were so strange that they might have come from the imaginations of novelists or movie writers. But jurors had not sentenced any of them to death. Madelynne Obenchain was charged with hiring a former lover, Arthur Burch, to murder J. Belton Kennedy, a man whom she hoped to marry. But Kennedy’s wealthy parents disapproved of her and he reneged on his promise. In August 1921 he was found shot to death on the front porch of his home near the Los Angeles Country Club. Police soon arrested Burch and Obenchain, who had left Kennedy just moments before the shooting. Reporters covering her trial focused as closely on her frequent changes of clothes as they did on the evidence. On succeeding days, she wore: “Blue taffeta lined with white.” “Black fur with a single red rosebud.” “Dark blue charmeuse dress with American Beauty trimming and buttons.” “Filet yoke. Black, elbow-length gloves edged in white.” “Black slippers and stockings.”6 After two juries failed to agree on a verdict the district attorney dropped charges against both defendants.7 In 1920 Louise Peete moved into a rented house in Pacific Palisades. Several weeks later she killed her landlord, buried his body beneath his house, and began spending his money. Suspicious family members called police, who discovered the body. Charged with first-degree murder, jurors sentenced her to life in prison.8 Clara Phillips’s 1922 murder of her husband’s lover had been particularly gruesome. She waited outside the bank where Alberta 79

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Meadows worked, pretended to be stranded and asked for a ride home. Though Meadows was sexually involved with Phillips’s husband, Armour, she did not know the woman who cheerfully hopped into her car. Phillips then directed Meadows to a remote area and began to attack her with a claw hammer. When Meadows jumped from the car and began to run, Phillips gave chase, beat her to death, and then disemboweled her. “I guess it’s murder,” she informed her shocked husband when she arrived home drenched in blood. Jurors convicted Phillips and she was sentenced to prison for a term of fifteen years to life. Before she could begin her sentence, however, Phillips escaped from the Los Angeles County Jail and fled to Honduras. With help from a news reporter who tracked her via bank records, police captured her and accompanied her to San Quentin Prison.9 In 1930 the district attorney filed first-degree murder charges against Dolly Oesterrich but did not seek the death penalty. Oesterrich hid her lover in the attics of several homes as she moved around Wisconsin and then Los Angeles with her husband. One summer night in 1922, as she and her husband stood arguing in their living room, her lover leapt from the staircase and shot her husband to death. Oesterrich and the lover were not arrested until eight years after the murder. When jurors deadlocked over a verdict, the district attorney dropped all charges against both defendants.10 Even as they built their case against Nellie Madison, prosecutors were preparing to try Rhoda Cobler, charged with the poisoning death of her husband, who was a policeman. Cobler might be presented, arguably, as the more cunning and brutal killer. She visited several drug stores and, using fictitious names, purchased strychnine. Her husband also died a lingering and painful death while Cobler took no action to save him. Nonetheless, prosecutors chose not to seek the death penalty.11 Why did prosecutors believe they could get a death verdict in 80

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the Madison case? Nellie had no prior criminal record and her offense, if she committed it, seemed no worse than those of her “sisters” in crime. The answer turned on politics, timing, and cultural notions of women’s roles. The population boom of the 1910s and 1920s brought an eclectic array of humanity to Los Angeles, according to writer Carey McWilliams: conservative Midwesterners, hedonistic movie people, African Americans fleeing Jim Crow racism in the south, petty thieves and other criminals, “widowers with three wives elsewhere,” religious cultists, and unscrupulous businessmen hoping to make a quick buck off the gullible. Governing such a diverse lot required a heavy hand, at least according to those who held positions of power and who proved eager to make public examples of anyone exhibiting what they deemed “deviant” behavior. Oil speculator C. C. Julian and evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson provide just two examples.12 Julian arrived in Los Angeles in the early 1920s and quickly amassed a fortune by self-promotion and selling small amounts of stock to thousands of working-class investors throughout Southern California. Seeking to bring him down, a coalition of bankers, and local and state officials mounted a public relations effort against him. They branded him a fraud, sicced state regulators on him, and hounded him from Los Angeles. Then prominent businessmen—including some of those same politicians and bankers—looted his businesses. By the early 1930s a bankrupt Julian fled to China where he committed suicide.13 Semple McPherson arrived in Los Angeles in 1918 and quickly attracted thousands of adherents with her charisma and dramatic, unorthodox approach to religion. But her claims of faith-healing and practice of speaking in tongues repulsed the city’s religious and political establishment. Their chance to destroy her came in late 1926, after her reputed kidnapping turned out to be an excuse for cavorting with a married man. The legal establishment 81

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harassed her with criminal charges. Though she escaped prosecution, her career never recovered.14 By the 1930s the Los Angeles establishment, under the leadership of Los Angeles Times publisher Harry Chandler, was a wellhoned machine, with the ability, and the willingness, to crack down on anyone who appeared remotely threatening to the status quo. The Great Depression upped the stakes significantly, bringing new threats, both perceived and real, from what authorities deemed “dangerous elements.” In 1934 unemployment in Los Angeles and many parts of California hovered near 30 percent. Thousands of displaced sharecroppers headed to California to find work as migrant farm workers, some of whom participated in union organizing. Socialist writer Upton Sinclair campaigned for governor on a platform promising to “End Poverty in California,” and retired Long Beach doctor Francis Townsend proposed to give two hundred dollars a month to every person over sixty-five. State and local officials, aiming to deter challengers and to deflect public anger and anxiety, eagerly sought out scapegoats. The infamous “Red Squad” of the Los Angeles Police Department targeted members of the American Civil Liberties Union and other groups that advocated for liberal causes, including unions. State and local laws punished people who encouraged unemployed relatives and friends to relocate to California. And the media establishment, led by the Los Angeles Times and the heads of major film studios, unleashed a vicious and unprecedented public relations campaign against Sinclair.15 The film industry, in concert with the Catholic Church, also cracked down on screen depictions of “deviance” via the imposition of a Production Code in summer 1934. Aimed primarily at overtly sexual and independent women such as Greta Garbo, Jean Harlow, Miriam Hopkins, and Mae West, it curtailed suggestive language and onscreen sexuality. Under the Production Code Administra82

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tion enacted July 1, 1934, according to Mick LaSalle, “sex outside of marriage didn’t pay. Adultery didn’t pay. Divorce didn’t pay. Leaving your husband didn’t pay. Getting pregnant outside of wedlock didn’t pay. Even having a job didn’t pay. Nothing paid.”16 The ability to make public examples of criminals was perhaps the strongest weapon in the establishment’s arsenal during the Depression. In the 1930s many people throughout the country viewed crime as the symptom of a society whose values seemed wildly askew. Others, however, were captivated by such notorious outlaws as “Baby Face” Nelson, “Machine Gun” Kelly, Clyde Barrow, and Bonnie Parker, whose daring exploits provided a vicarious outlet for their own frustration and antiauthoritarian impulses. In this unstable environment, authorities sought to capture both audiences, touting tough-on-crime policies for the former and imposing harsh sentences to remind the latter of the perils of flaunting society’s rules. Mainstream mass media both shaped and reflected establishment views, but made crime entertaining as well as instructive, in pursuit of advertisers and, readers. For political leaders, executing particularly repulsive criminals seemed an appropriate, and possibly the best, way to discourage “deviant” behavior. Across the country, states hanged, gassed, and electrocuted condemned inmates in record numbers—one hundred and seventy annually during the 1930s, one almost every other day. Virtually all of those executed were men, but politicians were demonstrating an increased willingness to include women as well. If women sought equality in other areas of their lives, the thinking seemed to be that they had to accept “equality” in punishment as well.17 The increase in female executions began in the late 1920s. Five women had been executed in the United States between 1903 and January 1928 when New York electrocuted Ruth Snyder, convicted of killing her husband with the help of her lover, who was also executed. Four more women were executed between 1928 and 1931. 83

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In June 1934, as Nellie Madison prepared to go to trial, Anna Antonio, convicted of hiring two men to kill her husband, waited to hear whether New York governor Ernest Lehman would halt her execution, scheduled for that August.18 Altogether eleven women would be executed in the 1930s, one quarter of all those executed in the twentieth century. This number does not include Bonnie Parker, whose May 1934 death turned her into an instant cultural icon. Forty thousand people jammed the streets of the East Texas town where her funeral was held, hoping to claim a piece of history.19 Though it had not yet executed a woman, California’s execution totals kept pace with those of other states. From 1900 to 1928 the state executed an average of five men a year. That number more than doubled during the 1930s to eleven men per year. Not all of them were murderers. Some had been convicted of lesser offenses, such as robbery and kidnapping.20 Entering the criminal justice system of Los Angeles County as a murder defendant, Nellie Madison never could have guessed that she, out of all the women in her circumstances, would be cast in the role of public example and scapegoat. After all, she was acquainted with many prominent individuals through her ex-husband William Brown and his two brothers, Ralph and Charles. Ralph, the youngest Brown brother, had even been featured in Who’s Who in California.21 Nellie also mingled with the rich and powerful at hotels she managed in Palm Springs and Lake Arrowhead. She may have spent time with them during weekend visits to Robert Cuddy’s ranch in Cuddy Valley. Cuddy entertained many prominent individuals from Los Angeles, according to relatives who still live in the area today.22 But Nellie’s acquaintance with powerful men did not matter when it came to prosecuting her. If she had remained below the radar screen of the media and civic leadership in Los Angeles, she 84

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undoubtedly could have maintained her autonomy, anonymity, and somewhat unconventional lifestyle. Eric Madison’s murder and her arrest catapulted her into a different category. Like C. C. Julian and Aimee Semple McPherson, she became an object, useful in the establishment’s campaign to discourage behavior that might be deemed threatening to the status quo. It was not simply the act of murder, though that surely was significant. And it was not just that her husband was the victim and that she had premeditated the killing. Rhoda Cobler had premeditated the murder of her husband and he was a policeman. Nellie Madison was different. She, like Aimee Semple McPherson, was a woman who did not play by the “rules,” at least according to standards long established and still jealously guarded by powerful men. Nellie’s “transgressions” were many and varied. She refused to stay married, despite her adherence to Catholicism. Instead she picked up and cast off husbands with a nonchalance that suggested she had no use for traditional values. She obviously had led an active sex life with numerous partners, beginning when she was barely into her teens. She was a confident, capable, and hard-working professional who did not need men to support her financially. Under extreme stress she exhibited a lack of emotion that seemed distinctly out of character for a woman. Most important perhaps, she was childless despite all of her marriages and religious and political strictures against artificial means of birth control. In spite of popular culture’s emphasis on youth and modernity, women were still expected to embrace motherhood. Choosing not to have children, according to Elaine Tyler May, brought “fierce criticism and social ostracism.”23 Various forms of media reflected real life in this area. In the 1926 play Chicago, for example, protagonist Roxie Hart had to feign a pregnancy to persuade a jury that, instead of a gin- and jazz-loving flapper who killed her unfaithful lover, she really was a traditional 85

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woman at heart. Speaking of popular culture in general during this time, Thomas Pauly noted that: “To be found innocent, these murderesses must . . . ally themselves with the traditional expectation that women be attractive, loyal, and submissive.”24 Nellie’s closest “competitor” in murder, Rhoda Cobler, possessed all of these prerequisites except attractiveness. She was, by the standards of the day, plain-looking, a circumstance that probably worked in her favor, however, by underscoring her more traditional lifestyle. She was a housewife with only one marriage and the mother of a seven-year-old son. Following her arrest Cobler behaved in a much more stereotypically female manner: She broke down and sobbed out a story of spousal abuse and alcoholism. She put poison in her husband’s breakfast cereal, she confessed, to stop him from drinking. Despite her confession, she went to trial and was convicted only of second-degree murder, thus sparing her the possibility of the death penalty.25 If challenged, members of the male establishment in Los Angeles would have adamantly denied that their attitudes about politics and gender roles played any part in their approach to Nellie Madison’s case. On a conscious level this may have been true, for their attitudes were the byproducts of deeply rooted cultural beliefs, education, and personal experiences that encouraged men to view themselves as dominant and women as either virtuous and maternal or strangely unnatural, with a vast, empty chasm between these two extremes. Warren Atherton, a member of the state Board of Prison Terms and Paroles, reflected this establishment notion of womanhood in a 1934 speech to the Commonwealth Club of San Francisco on parole practices. Explaining why Clara Phillips had only been convicted of second-degree murder, he noted that “she was raised amid good surroundings in a Christian home, was a dutiful wife for nine years, and committed no infractions of the law. The crime for which she was convicted was committed under great provoca86

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tion. The slain woman had violated her home and was about to depart with her husband, all of which her husband now admits.”26 As it turned out, all of the men involved in Nellie’s case—including her own lawyer, to her eventual horror—held such traditional views on women, and their conservative values had played significant roles in shaping their professional lives and relationships. The three principal decision makers in her case—Los Angeles County District Attorney Buron Fitts, Joseph Ryan, and Superior Court Judge Charles Fricke—had a personal and professional history that dated to the early 1920s. All three had been colleagues in the district attorney’s office, a place where ambitious young men cut their legal teeth. Networking and “insider” politics fueled all of their careers, a process invisible to outsiders, including defendants and clients who relied on their expertise and believed in their ultimate adherence to a fair and impartial legal system. All three avidly courted leaders of the media and business establishment and craved public attention and approbation. As Los Angeles County’s top law enforcement officer, Fitts oversaw the prosecution of all cases in his jurisdiction, but his was an invisible hand. Though he made all final decisions relating to charges, prosecutors, trial strategies, and penalties, he virtually never appeared in the courtroom and made no appearances in Nellie’s Madison’s trial. He looked the part of a movie tough guy, with a narrow face, close-set eyes, and a gaze of scowling intensity that he never dropped, at least in public. He also boasted an impressive résumé. A decorated World War I veteran, Fitts headed the California chapter of the American Legion. His rise to the top echelon of politics had been nearly meteoric. Fitts spent a half-dozen years as a deputy district attorney in Los Angeles before resigning to run for lieutenant governor in 1926. But he quickly grew bored with the mostly ceremonial job. When the Los Angeles County Grand Jury indicted his old boss, District 87

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Attorney Asa Keyes, for corruption in 1928, he decided to seek Keyes’s job and volunteered to prosecute Keyes as well.27 In a May 28, 1928, interview, Fitts told the Los Angeles Times that, “if elected . . . I will use the powers of the office for law-abiding men, women, and children, and a most unhealthy place for criminals and crooks.” Fitts’s prosecution of Keyes resulted in a conviction and voters elected him district attorney in a landslide.28 In 1930 he ran for governor, but lost in the Republican primary. With an eye toward his political future, he took every opportunity to burnish his image as a man who never backed down from a challenge. He energetically prosecuted every sort of crime, including gambling, prostitution, and vagrancy. Each year his office issued press releases touting the number of prosecutions and the conviction rate. In 1934 he still yearned to be governor. The previous year, his office had prosecuted more than five thousand cases and won 82 percent of them. These figures were not good news for Nellie Madison.29 Joseph Ryan also had enjoyed a rapid career trajectory. Just six years out of law school, by 1926 he had become one of Asa Keyes’s chief deputy district attorneys and was exceedingly proud of his status. Ryan’s entry in Who’s Who in California noted that, “as chief trial deputy,” he was “identified with many celebrated L.A. prosecutions.” But his fall came as swiftly as his rise and Nellie Madison, had she been paying attention, might have gained crucial insights into how the establishment in general, and Ryan in particular, dealt with women who appeared to defy traditional roles and values.30 Ryan was the district attorney’s chief investigator on the Aimee Semple McPherson kidnapping. Initially he believed the evangelist’s story that she had been kidnapped during a swim at Ocean Beach and spirited away to Mexico before escaping and trudging through the desert to a small Arizona town. Ryan accompanied McPherson’s mother, Minnie Kennedy, and two children on the train to Arizona where the family held a joyful reunion. 88

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As he dug deeper into her story, however, holes began to appear. Witnesses came forward to place McPherson not in Mexico but in the northern California beach town of Carmel. Interviews with Carmel residents convinced Ryan that she was lying and that she had spent the five weeks of her disappearance with a married man. Ryan was outraged and pushed Keyes to seek a grand jury investigation. Already reeling under allegations of corruption in office, Keyes could not afford to ignore Ryan’s plea.31 Following a tumultuous hearing Keyes, again pressured by Ryan, charged McPherson and her mother with corrupting public morals. But McPherson fought back, using the newspapers and her pulpit in the five-thousand-seat Angelus Temple she had built with proceeds from her ministry. In one interview, she wailed plaintively: “Am I, a woman, to be deprived of the chivalrous protection with which Americans have always guarded every woman’s name?” Amid the intense publicity and growing charges that he was bullying McPherson, Keyes quietly dropped the charges in early 1927. Then he went on an extended vacation, leaving Ryan to handle the fallout. It came quickly. McPherson used her ministerial platform to target Ryan. On one occasion she stood alone on the temple stage as a male quartet, sitting behind her, sang “Ly-in’ Ry-an Won’t Get Her,” making him the butt of jokes. McPherson also claimed that Ryan’s Catholicism led him to target her “untraditional” approach to religion. He was already sensitive about his religious affiliation in Protestant-dominated Los Angeles and worried that McPherson’s comments would damage his future plans for a political career. He issued angry denials, claimed he had been stalked and had received death threats, and he later called the experience with McPherson “the worst thing ever.”32 To Ryan, Keyes’s decision to drop the case against McPherson represented a betrayal. When Keyes decided to transfer Ryan from downtown Los Angeles to the bunko crimes unit in Long Beach 89

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in summer 1927, Ryan viewed it as a demotion. He fired off an angry letter of resignation. As an astute student of politics, however, he knew better than to challenge the man at the top. Rather than blaming Keyes, he targeted Chief Deputy District Attorney Harold Davis, who he blamed for instigating the transfer. In a letter, which he made available to all of the Los Angeles newspapers, Ryan did not mention Aimee Semple McPherson, but charged that Davis pressed for the transfer after Ryan criticized him for plea-bargaining with violent criminals, including three men convicted of raping a twelve-year-old girl. “In all my years of trial work,” he wrote, “I have vigorously prosecuted all cases that involved crimes against women and little children. If fewer defendants were released on their own recognizance and on small bond, there would be less crime of this atrocious nature.”33 But Ryan misplayed his hand. Newspapers derided him as the “stormy petrel” of the McPherson case, an allusion to the small sea bird whose flapping wings herald the arrival of impending storms. Davis denied the accusations and charged Ryan with grandstanding. “Some months ago this policy was inaugurated of transferring deputies at frequent intervals,” Davis declared in a statement published in the Los Angeles Times. “Every other deputy in the office has fallen in line with the policy except Mr. Ryan, who has sought to keep himself in the position where he could have cases with the most publicity and least work.” And, Davis, continued, “Mr. Ryan has been a candidate for District Attorney for some time past. He has devoted a large portion of his time to electioneering and publicity-seeking in behalf of his candidacy.”34 Though he tried to refute the assertion, Ryan was, in fact, exploring a possible candidacy. When Fitts declared his intention to run for district attorney, however, Ryan quickly withdrew, offered a strong endorsement, and announced the opening of his own law firm in downtown Los Angeles. By the time he became Nellie Madison’s defense attorney in March 1934, Ryan had managed to 90

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regain some of his lost status and he hoped that the case might put him back in the limelight.35 Fricke was in his thirties and had already worked as a lawyer in his native Wisconsin when he decided to relocate to Southern California for health reasons in 1917. He soon joined the district attorney’s staff, where he prosecuted a number of high-profile murder defendants, including Madelyn Obenchain and Clara Phillips. He possessed an eclectic array of interests. While working as a prosecutor he also attended Loyola University at night and earned a juris doctorate degree. He then began teaching at Loyola and wrote legal textbooks used by scholars at many law schools around the country. In 1925 Fricke organized “The Murder Club,” an invitation-only group composed of prominent businessmen and lawyers who met monthly for dinner and discussions of sensational killings, including the still-unsolved February 1922 killing of film director William Desmond Taylor, shot to death in his fashionable apartment. Fricke also dabbled in magic, enjoyed target shooting, and drew up the architectural plans for his sixteen-thousand-dollar home built in the hills above Los Angeles in the 1920s.36 Fricke left the district attorney’s office in 1927, the same year as Joseph Ryan, but under much happier circumstances—Republican governor C. C. Young appointed him to the Superior Court bench in Los Angeles. It seemed to be a perfect fit, for Fricke was erudite, sophisticated, and well-connected in state and local political circles. And he seemed to stand above the kind of partisan political bickering that trapped so many ambitious men. In reality he was exceedingly vain, extremely judgmental, and an avid political gamesman, though much more smoothly subtle than his two former colleagues. Fricke, like Ryan and Fitts, thrived on publicity. He made himself available as a speaker to numerous business and social groups around Los Angeles, where his solemn pronouncements drew 91

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enthusiastic press coverage. As a superior-court judge, Fricke was ostensibly nonpartisan, but his remarks reflected the attitudes of a man with conservative values and a strongly prosecutorial bent. In one speech he lauded female jurors who, he declared, were “fairer” than men. In another he proclaimed three-quarters of all the drivers in Los Angeles “incompetent,” particularly mentioning epileptics. In yet another speech he announced his support for a controversial policy of arresting large groups of people en masse, as a way to stamp out vagrancy and union organizing. And he castigated the legal system for its “lenient” attitude toward inmates seeking parole, specifically targeting the decision, in 1934, to grant parole to Clara Phillips.37 As a judge, Fricke’s role was to act as an impartial arbiter, but he did not always follow the rules. Occasionally he took the witness stand in his own courtroom to testify on minor points, a policy that drew comment, but not official censure. In a 1928 murder case, for example, the defense called him as a firearms expert and he testified about the effect of pistol fire on glass.38 Fricke was also extraordinarily sensitive about his public image and took great care never to appear out of step with the political elite. In 1932, reacting to a rash of high-profile kidnappings, the California State Legislature enacted a new law mandating death sentences for violent kidnappers, though the law did not specify how “violent” the crime had to be to qualify. On May 19, 1934, two weeks before Nellie Madison’s trial began, a Los Angeles Times editorial took Fricke to task for overruling a jury’s death sentence in the case of two convicted kidnappers. “One of the rulings of Judge Fricke in sentencing the kidnapers of William F. Gettle is somewhat puzzling,” the editorial began. The jurist declared, if he has been correctly quoted, that because no “extra violence” had been used upon Gettle . . . the death penalty could not be imposed. Does Judge Fricke 92

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mean it to be implied that a reasonable amount of violence is lawful to kidnapers [sic] under the law of California? What the law should mean is that kidnapers, in order to escape the noose, must be extraordinarily careful not only not to injure their victim, but to guard him against even injury by accident. The surest method is to provide the death penalty for all kidnapers.39 Fricke, who earlier sentenced two other kidnappers to death under the new law, fired back with a letter to the editor that ran on May 24, 1934: “If the court sentenced all kidnapers [sic] to death,” he argued, “there would be little likelihood of a kidnaped person being returned alive even after the payment of ransom. By killing him, the kidnapers would remove the one person most likely to identify them and make possible the conviction. Putting it in another way, the law offers a distinct inducement for the safe return of a victim of kidnaping.”40 In spring 1934 Fricke was fifty-two and had risen through the judicial ranks to become presiding judge of the Los Angeles County Superior Court, the jurist responsible for parceling out cases to colleagues. He was slight, thin-faced, and balding, and he squinted through oversized glasses. He favored colorful ties and expensive suits that hung loosely on his slender frame. He also occasionally sat on the appellate court bench on an as-needed, fill-in basis. Fricke had two murder cases involving women defendants awaiting assignment to courtrooms in Los Angeles Superior Court in early June 1934: Nellie Madison and Rhoda Cobler. Newspapers had carried only a few stories about Cobler, referring to her as “short, squat, and heavy-set” and most of the stories appeared in the local news sections, rather than on the front pages. Fricke assigned the Cobler case to his colleague, Judge William Aggeler. He assigned the Madison case to Department 43—his own courtroom.41 93

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If Nellie had been aware of the nickname defense attorneys had conferred upon Charles Fricke during his seven years on the bench, she could not have been less than terrified. They called him “San Quentin Charlie” for what they viewed as his pitiless attitude toward criminal defendants. With a possible death sentence hanging over her head, the stakes could not have been higher.42 And she could not count on a sympathetic governor, should she need a commutation of sentence. Two days before the opening of her trial, on June 4, 1934, Republican governor James “Sunny Jim” Rolph, known for his open and generous nature, died of heart failure. Replacing him was Lieutenant Governor Frank Merriam, dour, taciturn, and an outspoken supporter of capital punishment.43

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6. The People v. Nellie Madison

n the 1930s the term “speedy trial” was not just a figure of speech. The People of the State of California v. Nellie May Madison opened on June 7, 1934, less than three months after her arrest, in Charles Fricke’s courtroom on the eighth floor of the Hall of Justice. The room had greenish-yellow walls and tall windows, streaked with dirt and partially covered by heavy, dark curtains designed to block out light and muffle the noise from the street below. On looking in from the hallway, the first object to catch an observer’s eye was the solid oak bench that stood several feet in front of the back wall and to the right of the judge’s chambers. To reach the bench Fricke had to walk through his chamber door, make a ninety-degree turn, and climb the steps to the platform that held his high-backed, black leather swivel chair, the only one with padding in the courtroom. Seated in the chair he could look down on the lawyers, defendants, court personnel, and spectators arrayed in front of him. He could tilt his head or move his chair to hear the testimony of witnesses who sat two steps down and a few feet to his right. And he could peer across the room at jurors, sitting in hard-backed chairs behind a three-foot high, polished wood barrier on his left.1 Fricke ran a tightly controlled court. He kept a notebook and

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pen, glass and pitcher of water, his gavel, and a stopwatch on the table in front of him. Participants showed up on time or faced fines and reprimands. He tolerated no emotional outbursts from lawyers or spectators and treated defendants with an icy politeness that all but the most densely oblivious recognized as veiled disdain.2 As a judge who assigned himself interesting cases, Fricke was accustomed to high-profile trials that drew large numbers of spectators, reporters, and photographers. Nellie Madison’s trial was one of the most heavily attended of any in his seven-year tenure on the bench, with many observers undoubtedly making the trip downtown out of curiosity about the much-married, gun-toting, attractive defendant depicted in dozens of news stories, and who faced a possible death sentence. At a time of economic hardship, courtroom dramas offered nearly as many entertaining characters and plots as films, and they were free. The crowds began arriving early Wednesday for jury selection. By 9:30 a.m. so many people had gathered outside Department 43 that the corridor lacked only klieg lights and a red carpet to give it the authentic ambience of a film premiere. Courthouse personnel had to be called to install heavy wooden barriers to keep the crowds at bay and the corridors clear for foot traffic into and out of other departments. When courtroom bailiff Charles Bryant opened the heavy courtroom doors, people at the head of the line fairly fell into the room. Within seconds they had filled up most of the spectator area, two sections of wooden benches just inside the door, divided by a center aisle. The first few rows on each section had been roped off and remained empty, awaiting the large pool of prospective jurors summoned for the case.3 Reporters took up their positions at the press table in front of the spectators and more than a dozen photographers crouched on the floor in front of Fricke’s bench, facing the two counsel tables, where Nellie and the lawyers would sit. They set up their tripods 96

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and camera gear and sat back in anticipation. Although it was a cool day, the heat of more than a hundred bodies pressed together behind closed windows and doors and the growing tension elevated the room temperature to a somewhat uncomfortable level. Spectators fanned themselves with gloves, hats, and handkerchiefs. After a nearly twenty-minute wait, all of the principals except Fricke entered the courtroom. Nellie’s brother Dan Mooney and her ex-husband William Brown accompanied defense attorney Joseph Ryan and his brother Frank. They walked through the door just ahead of prosecutors George Stahlman and Paul Palmer. All of the men wore dark suits and all but Mooney took up seats at the counsel tables, with Nellie’s defense team at one table and the prosecutors at the other. Mooney had arrived the night before from Montana. He squeezed into an empty seat held open for him in the front row of the spectator section. Court reporter Stanley Fraser scooted through a side door and took up his post at the left side of Fricke’s bench near the jury box. As Nellie Madison, brought down from her jail cell, entered through the same side door as the court reporter, a curtain of silence descended over the room.4 Reporters covering the trial did not have to stretch their imaginations to recall the femme fatale image so hastily constructed the previous March. The Examiner confided that Nellie had spent the night before the trial worrying about what she would wear, “one of the principal concerns of a woman murder defendant.”5 The outfit she chose could not have failed to please noir-obsessed journalists, or prosecutors. For the most crucial appearance of her life, Nellie chose black. Her long-sleeved dress had a V-neck and white piping around the neckline and wrists. Her black bowler hat dipped over her right eye and she clutched a flat black purse under her left elbow. She wore little makeup and no jewelry, not even a wedding ring, and her face was pale in the harsh glare of the overhead florescent lighting.6 97

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She looked around the room for her brother. When she found him, she gave him a small smile. He smiled back and nodded. Photographers leaned forward and the silence was broken by the simultaneous sizzling and popping of a dozen flashbulbs and the staccato clicking of camera shutters opening and closing. Nellie sat down on a straight-back wooden chair at the defense end of the counsel table between Frank and Joseph Ryan and gazed down at the floor. She placed her purse on the table and folded her hands in front of her. Reporters rushed toward her. “Do you have anything to say?” asked a Times reporter. “What I have to say will be said from the witness stand,” she answered tersely. The journalists returned to their posts. Moments later they rose, along with Nellie and everyone else, when Fricke swept into the room in his black robes, took his seat, and peered at the large audience over his wire-rimmed glasses. The banging of his gavel announced the beginning of the trial.7 Since this was a death penalty case, it took nearly two days to seat the jury. Joseph Ryan’s initial questions suggested that he planned a self-defense strategy. He asked each prospective panelist: “If you should find that this defendant killed to save her own life, would you find her innocent?” And, “If someone near and dear to you were on trial, would you be willing to have yourself on the jury?” Stahlman and Palmer asked prospective jurors: “Would you be willing to convict someone with only circumstantial evidence?” “If you find this defendant guilty of murder in the first degree, have you scruples against administering the death penalty against a woman?”8 Shortly after 3:00 p.m. Fricke gaveled the first day’s session to a close. Nellie rose and the bailiff escorted her from the courtroom. Six prospective jurors had been dismissed, four by Ryan and two by 98

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the prosecutors after they declared their strong opposition to the death penalty. Reporters surrounded Joseph Ryan in the hallway. “Are you going to argue that Nellie killed Eric in self-defense?” He ignored the question, so reporters shifted gears. “All of the people you excused were women. Do you think that men will be more sympathetic to your client?” Ryan grinned widely, pleased that journalists seemed to read this thoughts. “Yes, I do think men will be more sympathetic. After all, she’s a woman, isn’t she?” He ambled off down the hall. A Herald and Express photo captured the defendant the first morning of her trial as she leaned on her elbows, her eyes staring straight ahead as she listened to the proceedings. The caption accompanying the photo noted that: “The brim of her sailor hat droops over her impenetrable eyes. Her lips are pressed tightly together in a firm line, guarding the secret of what occurred in the midnight darkness when six shots rang out and her husband was later found dead.”9 Jury selection was completed early Thursday afternoon. Ryan did not succeed in his efforts to seat an all-male panel. Four women joined eight men in the jury box, along with two alternates, one man and one woman. They came from all corners of sprawling Los Angeles County: Venice, San Dimas, Glendale, Los Angeles, and Hollywood. All were white and middle-aged or older, many were gray-haired and bespectacled. Just after Fricke swore in the jurors, photographers for the two Hearst papers and the Times lined them up for a group picture. They smiled pleasantly into the camera, looking to the untrained eye like attendees at a class reunion or a church potluck supper, rather than people charged, literally, with making a life-and-death decision.10 Following the photo session, jurors politely obliged when reporters asked for their home addresses, which would appear beneath the group photo in the following day’s news coverage. The late hour left just enough time for the prosecution’s open99

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ing statement and the testimony of one witness, autopsy surgeon A. J. Wagner. The two deputy district attorneys had divided up the duties. Paul Palmer presented the opening statement. Both Palmer and fellow prosecutor George Stahlman would present the closing statements. They took turns questioning witnesses. Palmer was in his early forties, tall and sandy-haired, with a thin face and eyes that slanted up at the corners so that he often appeared to be smiling, even when he wasn’t. His opening statement took nearly three-quarters of an hour. Palmer told jurors that prosecutors would prove that the defendant was a “cold-blooded, ruthless murderess, who planned and executed the killing of her husband with deliberate malice. She went to a store on Western Boulevard on March 23 and bought a used .32-caliber gun and sixteen shells. She had to wait twenty-four hours to pick it up, so she went back Saturday. When the gun didn’t work, she went to Central Hardware on Hollywood Boulevard and bought a Colt .32-20 and a full box of shells. She took them home.” In fact Nellie Madison was “so devoid of human feeling,” Palmer declared, that she could stand outside the apartment where her husband lay dying and calmly argue that the gunshots came from Warner Brothers Studio, sit inside her apartment smoking and drinking whiskey alongside his stiffening corpse, exit the apartment the next day, drive over the Ridge Route to Cuddy Valley, and spend Sunday evening conversing with “old Robert Cuddy, the king of the domain there.” Palmer listed the evidence he and Stahlman planned to introduce: photos of the dead man and his wounds, the layout of the Madisons’ apartment, shell casings from the murder weapon, the stiffened and bloody underwear worn by Madison, and the “death bed” on which Eric Madison lay sleeping when the first bullets struck him in the back. This last item caused Joseph Ryan to leap to his feet. “I object 100

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strenuously to this gory and inflammatory exhibit,” he shouted. “Its purpose is to inflame the jury and to prejudice the case against my client.” Palmer disagreed. “Your honor, the presence of the bed will show the angle of the bullets and how the defendant shot Mr. Madison standing over him as he was lying asleep.” Fricke curtly dismissed Ryan’s objection. “I will allow the bed into evidence.” Then he gaveled the murmuring crowd into silence.11 Palmer sat down, his opening statement completed. Ryan stood. “I will make no opening statement. I will save my comments for the trial and closing arguments.” Then, he added, incongruously, “Robert Cuddy was so drunk he couldn’t have made a coherent statement to police.” Fricke admonished him for offering evidence during opening arguments and ordered the remark stricken.12 Testimony began shortly before 3:15 p.m., Thursday, when Palmer summoned the surgeon who conducted the autopsy on Eric Madison. Reporters watched the defendant closely, reporting on her emotionless demeanor and “icy silence . . . as the death wounds were described or when the morgue pictures of her husband’s body were introduced in evidence and placed on a desk adjoining her place at the counsel table.” Wagner volunteered the same information he had given at the coroner’s inquest and at the preliminary hearing, but he now added another bullet. Five, not four, had struck the dead man. He initially missed the additional bullet, he said, because it only grazed the inside of Eric’s left arm. He repeated his assertion that the bullet through the back, severing an artery, had killed Eric. “Can you estimate the time of death?” Palmer asked him. “Not exactly, but I can say that the state of the body suggested he had been dead between twelve and eighteen hours. Rigor mortis had already set in and we had to break it up when we lifted the body to carry it out.” His estimate meant that Eric Madison 101

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had died between 10:00 p.m., Saturday, March 24 and 4:00 a.m., Sunday, March 25.13 On cross-examination Ryan asked whether a person shot in the back would have been capable of movement and for how long. “Yes, he would have been possessed of all his faculties and could have moved,” Wagner responded. “He would not have died immediately, but couldn’t have lived for more than fifteen minutes.” In an odd gesture, Ryan attempted to interject humor into the proceedings. He asked Wagner if he had made the sketches of the dead Eric Madison and the apartment furniture now pinned to a large bulletin board next to the witness chair. “I drew them,” Palmer interjected. “They aren’t very good, but the evidence is so clear I didn’t think the drawings needed to be.” Ryan asked Wagner if he knew for certain that the dead man was Eric Madison. “No,” Wagner admitted, “someone else told me that it was Eric Madison.” “How big was the person whom you examined?” Ryan asked. “Five foot ten and about 165 pounds.” “What time was the body brought into the morgue?” “About 10:00 p.m., Sunday.” “Did it stay there the whole time?” “Yes, sir.”14 With that, court ended for the day. The Evening Herald and Express predicted that “the plea for acquittal will be based on a story told of ‘self-defense.’ ” The Times offered the same prediction. “Opinion that Mrs. Nellie Madison . . . will make a plea of self-defense when she takes the witness stand . . . appeared to be further verified yesterday afternoon.” The reporter labeled the prosecution’s decision to bring the death bed into the courtroom “unique in local history.”15 The Examiner did not attempt to guess at a strategy. Instead the reporter continued the drumbeat of references to the defendant’s “unnaturally” stoic demeanor. “Maintaining her icy silence, 102

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Mrs. Madison, although constantly alert, showed no emotion as the death wounds were described or when the morgue pictures of her husband’s body were introduced into evidence and placed on a desk adjoining her place at the counsel table.”16 The crowds were even bigger Friday morning. Nellie Madison dressed exactly as she had the previous day. In fact she wore the same clothing every day of the two-week trial. She sat in still, dryeyed silence as a parade of former neighbors, some timidly and others eagerly, described the hours and days surrounding what prosecutors referred to as the “night of horror.” Sterling Arms caretaker Phillip McGuigan said he spent an hour talking to Nellie the night of March 24 in the second floor lobby of the Sterling Arms. “She was perfectly composed,” he said. Then he offered up a different rendition of his conversation with the defendant than his earlier description. Shortly before 10:00 p.m., “I asked where her husband was. She said he was out and that he might be home at ten, or twelve, or one or two, or not at all. I said, in a manner of kidding, ‘What, another woman?’ She said, ‘Yes, another woman.’ A few minutes later, Eric Madison appeared at the top of the stairs near the lobby. He smiled at me and said, ‘Hello, Mac,’ but ignored his wife. She stood up and followed him down the hall toward their room.” On cross-examination Ryan showed McGuigan police photos of the corpse on the Madison’s apartment floor. “Can you identify this person as Eric Madison?” he asked. McGuigan looked at Ryan, “No, I can’t,” McGuigan responded somewhat hesitantly.17 Apartment manager Belle Bradley seemed to revel in her status as a pivotal witness in such a sensational case. Dressed in a flower print dress and jacket, she settled herself firmly in her seat, removed her hat, and fluffed her gray hair. She never looked at Nellie Madison during her testimony and sometimes began answering questions even before attorneys finished asking them. 103

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“I was half-asleep in my chair when I heard noises that sounded like somebody cracking something,” she told George Stahlman. “I jumped up from my chair and went to wake up Mac. Then I went upstairs and started knocking on doors.” As she approached Apartment 123, Bradley testified, she was joined in the hall by Wilma Smith, the Madisons’ young next-door neighbor who was frightened. “I knocked and there was no answer, and I knocked the second time and I said ‘Mrs. Madison, if you are in there please answer. Are you alright?’ If my memory is correct, I think I asked her if she was alone and I cannot remember or I didn’t hear exactly what the reply was. After a few seconds, she said: ‘Well, it is underneath me, Mrs. Bradley.’ ” “Did her voice sound different than usual?” Stahlman asked. “No, not that I can call it to mind,” the witness responded. Stahlman: “Did you get a look into the apartment as she stepped out into the hallway?” Bradley: “No, I couldn’t do that because she closed the door after her.” When she went back to the Madisons’ apartment Sunday afternoon and could not rouse anyone, Bradley recalled that she mused out loud: “Well I wonder what can be the matter. She must be ill.” Inside the apartment she noticed that the bathroom “shower curtain was caught across and I wondered if she had fallen.” Bradley initially thought that the dead man on the floor had been stabbed, she told Stahlman. “I said, ‘Well goodness sakes, who is this?’ and then ‘Well, what under the sun has happened here?’ And then I was right over the body.” “What else did you notice inside the room?” Stahlman asked. “I saw suitcases.” “And where were the suitcases?” asked Stahlman. “Over by the dresser.” “How many suitcases?” 104

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“Well, I only observed two because I just glanced and wanted to get out as quick as I could.” On cross-examination Joseph Ryan did not ask the witness to offer her observations about either of the Madisons during the time they lived at the Sterling Arms. Instead he homed in on the appearance of the dead man lying on the floor. “Well now, the man that you saw in that apartment on the 25th day of March, you wouldn’t say it was Mr. Madison, would you?” “Well, I didn’t know him, you know,” Bradley replied. “Well, you remember that Mr. Madison had light hair, don’t you?” Ryan asked. “I noticed Mr. Madison as he passed one evening and said, ‘Good evening, Mrs. Bradley.’ And I looked up and said ‘Good evening, Mr. Madison.’ He went by and I saw the side of his face and I know his face was full, and I saw his brown hair, I thought.” Ryan then added: “Well, this man that you saw on the 25th you did not recognize as Mr. Madison, did you?” “No,” Bradley admitted Ryan switched gears. “Mrs. Bradley, are you the excitable type?” She smiled. “Some people say that about me, it’s true.” So excitable, Ryan suggested, “that you mistakenly thought the shooting occurred inside the apartment, rather than at Warner Brothers. After everyone said, ‘There is nothing to worry about; it is a shooting at the studio,’ didn’t you just about that time hear some shots coming from the studio?” “Yes, sir, we did,” Bradley said. He then asked her about Nellie’s behavior after the shooting. “What did she seem like to you?” he asked. “The same as always,” Bradley answered. “She was always very gentle you know. She always spoke very quietly and calmly and always appeared that way.” “And that is her general attitude?” “Her general attitude as I judge it.”18 105

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Ryan asked no further questions. As court ended for the weekend, reporters puzzled over the fact that the attorney had asked all of the witnesses whether they could identify the dead man as Eric Madison and that none had been able to do so. They pondered the potential for a trial strategy not based on self-defense. “Like any mystery thriller, the Madison case has inspired many conjectures as to the real solution,” declared the Examiner in its Saturday, June 9, edition. “With the close of court yesterday rumor was rife that the defense may claim that this man was not Madison—that Madison is peculiarly missing. Defense attorneys refused to confirm such a report. Nor did they deny it.”19 The case was absent from the Sunday papers, but Charles Fricke made the local section of the Times. Before court opened June 8, he had addressed the Friday Morning Club, a woman’s civic organization. His speech was titled “The Evils of Parole,” and he charged that the warden at San Quentin Prison hired prisoners as office clerks and allowed them to write up summaries of their own cases for consideration by parole boards. “I learned only yesterday,” he said, “that a criminal with a bad record, sent up for forty-nine years, was given a position in the warden’s office with these synopses and his time of imprisonment was reduced to fourteen years.” The solution, Fricke insisted, was to ensure that voters in the upcoming local election chose politicians who gave criminals the harsh treatment they deserved. The club women clapped vigorously in agreement.20 When court reconvened on Monday, June 11, Nellie Madison’s former next-door neighbor Wilma Smith took the witness stand. Smith was small, blonde, and blue-eyed. She wore a knee-length dress that showed off her trim figure, high heels, and a small white hat. She testified in a small, whispery voice and continually pulled on stray locks of hair that escaped from beneath the hat’s brim. To courtroom observers she offered a decidedly different, a more 106

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softly feminine, image than that of the steely defendant. “I was awakened by two shots,” Smith said. “Then there was a shrill scream of agony. I lay breathless—then sat up in bed. I heard four or five moans or groans, followed by four or five shots. I remember counting them, wondering if they would ever stop.” “Were they shrill?” Stahlman asked Smith. “Well, not so shrill, as high and very agonizing,” she replied. He asked her to estimate the time between shots and handed her a pen knife. She complied and then handed the knife back to Stahlman. Sitting beside her, Fricke silently timed her taps with a stopwatch. After the second set of shots, “I rolled off the bed and stood right by the door. I peeked through the key hole,” she continued. “No one was there, but then I saw Mrs. Bradley shuffling down the hall. She does shuffle you know, so I opened the door.” Smith stood behind Bradley as the apartment manager knocked on the Madisons’ door. “I could hear more moans, but they were soft now.” “How did Nellie look?” Stahlman asked. “Very neat and orderly, just like she always did,” Smith replied. “Had you talked with Mrs. Madison previous to that time at any time, carried on a conversation with her?” “Yes, sir.” “And as you heard her talk that evening what was the condition of her speech or voice?” “Very calm.” Nellie still stood in the hallway when Smith ran downstairs to alert other tenants about the noises. When she returned to the second floor just before 1:00 a.m., Nellie had gone back into her apartment, but “I saw her leaning out of her doorway looking up and down the hall. I told her I was petrified and asked her if she were afraid. She said no, her husband would be home in about ten minutes. Then she went back into her room.” Despite her anxiety, 107

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Smith returned to her own room as well. On cross-examination Ryan did not ask whether Smith had ever heard disturbances in the Madisons’ apartment or witnessed their behavior toward one another. Instead he set out to challenge the image of Smith as young and naive. He asked about her activities just prior to the shooting. “What were you doing as you lay in bed? Were you asleep?” “I was smoking a cigarette,” she responded. “May I inquire without being too inquisitive what you were wearing when you went downstairs?” “I had a gown and a robe on and pajamas—bedroom slippers.” “Bedroom slippers and a bathrobe?” Ryan asked. “Yes,” Smith replied. “And a negligee or pajamas?” “A gown.” Ryan asked whether the screams that accompanied the shots sounded like a man or a woman. “A man,” Smith insisted. “What about the shots, couldn’t they have come from the film studio?” “No,” Smith insisted. “I know the difference between a machine gun and a pistol, because I have seen gangster films and I have heard them from the lot, because they are making gangster pictures over there all the time. And when I was a child I was raised around guns, so I have shot pistols.”21 After prosecutors dismissed Smith Monday afternoon, they called five of the police officers who had investigated the murder and the ballistics expert who tested the bullets removed from Eric Madison’s body. D. J. Macheret of the Burbank Police Department said he received the phone call from Belle Bradley about 4:00 p.m., Sunday, March 25. Upon arrival he quickly shut the apartment door to await Burbank police chief Elmer Adams and police photographer 108

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R. V. Rogers. Rogers said that he took several dozen photos of the corpse. Under cross-examination by Joseph Ryan, he admitted moving the bed to get a better angle.22 Adams testified that he arrived at the apartment just before 5:00 p.m. and stayed only a minute before summoning William Bright, the sheriff ’s homicide captain. Bright said that he came to the apartment about 5:15 p.m., accompanied by several reporters. He acknowledged under cross-examination that he did not prevent the journalists from handling personal items they found on the scene. These included matchbooks, photographs, a business card identifying Eric Madison as a member of Hotel Greeters of America, and one of Nellie Brown Madison’s identifying her as the manager of the Village Inn in Palm Springs.23 Sheriff ’s detective Willard Killion had played the most extensive role in the investigation. He measured the distance from the Madisons’ apartment to the Warner Brothers set of Midnight Alibi—1,023 feet. He catalogued evidence. He found Nellie Madison hiding in the closet in Robert Cuddy’s cabin, arrested her, and brought her back to Burbank. And, except for the coroner’s staff, he had been closest to the dead man—near enough, in fact, to see the laundry tags that Eric Madison had failed to remove from his underwear before putting them on. Killion had extensive experience testifying in court. He was an impressive witness, calm and deliberative as he responded to questions. Prosecutor Palmer picked up the stiff, bloody clothing from the prosecution end of the counsel table, held it at arms’ length, and waved it in front of the detective. “Are these the garments that the dead man was wearing?” “Yes,” answered Killion. For the first time since the coroner’s inquest in March, Nellie Madison appeared on the verge of losing control of her emotions. She pressed her handkerchief to her mouth, closed her eyes, and 109

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seemed to sway back and forth. But she soon stopped herself.24 With Killion in the witness chair, prosecutors approached the judge and announced the arrival of their most sensational piece of evidence. Fricke called a short recess. Several minutes later, six men hefted the heavy bed into the room, turning it sideways to fit it through the door. They set it down directly in front of jurors and less than six feet from the defendant. Another man carried in the bloody blankets and dropped them in a heap atop the blood-stained mattress. It took several minutes for prosecutors to arrange the bedcovers as they had been when police arrived at the apartment. A Herald and Express reporter reprised the noir image in describing the explosive exhibit. “Bullet-scarred, blankets pierced with sinister, powder-burned holes, its sheets stained crimson, it was brought into court and set up before the jury and spectators. . . . The bed was introduced to support the prosecution’s theory that Madison was shot while sleeping and that, wounded unto death, he tried to evade his killer, only to fall, lifeless, as more of the bullets found his body.”25 All eyes in the courtroom turned toward the defendant, who sat with rigid posture, hands folded neatly in front of her and resting atop the table. She did not move as Fricke gaveled the court back into session. On Palmer’s request, Killion stepped down from the witness chair and walked over to the bed. Palmer handed the witness a long wooden pointer. “I will call your attention to the mark on the side of the bed, near the head, the left side and ask whether that mark or groove in the wood was there at the time you went there.” “Yes, sir,” Killion replied. “I will call your attention to the pillow case which appears on the bed without a pillow and ask whether at the time you went there, the same pillow case was in that relative position.” “Yes, sir.” Palmer: “I see when you just turned it back that it contained—or had some blood on it—” 110

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Ryan leapt to his feet. “Just a minute, I object to that as assuming facts not in evidence.” Fricke paused for a moment and then helpfully offered a substitute word—the less-inflammatory phrase “some reddish brown spots,” for the more graphic term “blood.” Palmer agreed to the change. Taking each piece of the bedding individually—bottom sheet, top sheet, striped orange cotton blanket, red wool blanket and finally, the bedspread, he asked Killion to point out the “reddish brown spots.” He then asked Killion to point to the places where bullets tore holes in the bedding and to fill each hole with pieces of white tissue. When Killion finished, thirteen pieces of paper stood at attention like tiny white flags of surrender.26 Except for the bed, Ryan did not challenge Killion’s testimony or subject him to extensive cross-examination on any of the detective’s findings in the Madisons’ apartment or any observations he might have gleaned from witnesses or from Nellie herself. The remaining prosecution witnesses represented something of a letdown for courtroom observers. Ballistics expert Stewart Moxley testified about the murder weapon and the angle of the bullets. The fatal bullets came from a Colt .32-20, he said. “It is more powerful than a .32-caliber weapon. The bullets have 115 grains compared to 74 for the .32-caliber. It is made so that a man might carry ammunition for both his rifle and revolver in one package.” Moxley estimated that the killer had stood no more than six inches away from the victim. “Powder burns indicate this,” he said. “It’s called the tattoo effect from the granules entering the skin.” On cross-examination Ryan questioned Moxley’s qualifications and credentials. “Do you have a college degree?” 111

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“No,” Moxley acknowledged. “Then how is it that you have the qualifications to make such assessments?” “I have taken college courses in ballistics and have conducted more than a thousand tests in my career,” he responded. “I have worked for the police department for five years.”27 By Tuesday morning, June 12, as prosecutors prepared to wind up their case, they still had not produced the murder weapon. But Nellie Madison had purchased not one, but two revolvers the weekend of her husband’s slaying. They called the men who sold her the guns. Herman Ostrin, owner of the first store she visited, said that Nellie told him she wanted a gun for the weekend to go target shooting at Frazier Mountain, a few miles from Cuddy’s ranch. She filled out an application for the used Spanish-made revolver and included her name, race, age, marital status, and the name of her husband.28 She followed the same procedure at Central Hardware the following day when she took the first gun in for bullets and possible repair. C. H. Harter, manager of the sporting goods department, remembered because, he said, “I thought the name Eric was strange. I had never heard it before.” When he told her she would need police permission to take the gun without waiting twenty-four hours, “she called police and asked for one person. She was told that he was either out to lunch or out for some other reason, and she called up—she asked for another person and was told the same thing.” “Did you hear the conversation?” Palmer asked. “I heard that particular part,” Harter replied. “She asked if she could make a second phone call, but at that point the phone was in use by someone else, so I directed her to an upstairs phone. When she returned a few moments later, she said she had talked to an officer named ‘Lew’ and that he had given her permission.” Despite 112

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the fact Harter had not actually heard the phone conversation, “I gave her the gun,” he admitted. On cross-examination Joseph Ryan did not ponder why a woman known to be a crack shot, who reportedly had enjoyed target shooting at the police pistol range, had to purchase a gun. Instead he asked Harter if his client had tried to conceal her identity in any way. “No, sir,” said Harter. “She originally came in to buy bullets, not a gun, isn’t that true?” “Yes, sir.” “During the time that you conferred with her and conducted this transaction, she did not attract your attention in any particular manner?” “No, sir.”29 Late Tuesday afternoon, prosecutors called their last witness. As they announced his name, a wave of loud murmurs swept over the packed courtroom: “Judge Charles Fricke.” Joseph Ryan objected, but Fricke, acting as the judge rather than the witness, overruled him. Moving from his bench to the witness chair, the judge sat down and faced the crowd of stunned onlookers. Few spectators had noticed the previous day when Fricke pulled out his stopwatch to time Wilma Smith as she estimated the interval between the two series of shots. Stahlman faced the judge: “How much time elapsed between the first two shots and the last four?” “Three and a half seconds,” Fricke replied.30 With that the prosecution rested. Ryan announced that he would begin his defense the following morning. As they debated the possibilities for a defense strategy, reporters were certain of one thing: The appearance of a sitting judge as a prosecution witness in a death-penalty case had been extraordinary. “Unprecedented,” declared the Examiner. “Becoming the court in one breath and the witness in the next, the court overruled 113

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objections to his own testimony,” declared the Times.31 Even without Fricke’s testimony, virtually everyone agreed, Nellie Madison was in trouble. A self-defense argument now seemed out of the question. Joseph Ryan had hinted at a shift in approach when he asked witnesses whether they could identify the dead man as Eric Madison, but he had refused to explain his motives. The air of mystery only intensified interest. The Examiner predicted “a record throng” in attendance Wednesday, June 13, for the opening of the defense case.32

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aniel Mooney was forty-five years old and campaigning for his former job as sheriff of Beaverhead County, Montana, when Joseph Ryan asked him to come to Los Angeles and testify for his sister at her murder trial. He readily agreed, even though it meant leaving his wife and four children to fend for themselves under economic circumstances that were grim and daily getting worse. Prices for sheep and wool had plummeted since the onset of the Depression, drought had turned the verdant mountain valleys to dusty brown, and the land that had been worth four thousand dollars in the mid-1920s was now worth only a fraction of that amount.1 Additionally Ryan had asked the Mooneys to help pay Nellie’s legal bills, since she had little money of her own. Edward Mooney, now nearing eighty, promised to raise as much money as he could. He sold more than six hundred acres of his ranch for five hundred dollars. But the responsibility for the rest of the money fell mostly to his son, who had operated the family ranch since 1916, and to his other daughter Lizzie, whose own economic circumstances also verged on desperate.2 In fact his family’s precarious finances may have been responsible for Dan Mooney’s decision to run for sheriff again after a six-year hiatus.3 The juxtaposition of Nellie’s murder trial and his

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own law enforcement background lent an ironic and somewhat worrisome element to his campaign, with its platform calling for “efficiency, fairness, and strict attention to duty.” With the election pending in July, it was not yet clear how, or whether, his sister’s situation would affect his chances for election.4 By 1934 Dan Mooney, along with the rest of Nellie’s family, was accustomed to her unconventional ways. The latest trouble seemed destined to bring embarrassment, particularly to Nellie’s niece and nephews, including Dan Mooney’s two oldest children, a son and daughter who attended Beaverhead County High School.5 Dillon now had a population of approximately four thousand, and anyone who read the newspaper or spent much time downtown knew of the murder charges. On March 29, 1934, the front page of the weekly Examiner carried the banner headline: “Dillon Girl Held in L.A. Slaying.” The accompanying story noted that Eric Madison had been “shot to death in his fashionable Burbank apartment” and that Nellie Madison, “well-known in this city where she was born and spent her girlhood,” had denied “all knowledge of the killing.”6 Less than three months later, with the slaying still holding a firm lead in the local rumor circuit, Dan Mooney kissed his family good-bye and left for Los Angeles. When Nellie’s defense opened the morning of Wednesday, June 13, he was in the same front-row seat where he had sat for the past week. Like his sister, he was quiet and reticent. He was also good-looking—handsome and robust with a full head of wavy brown hair turning gray at the temples and a face tanned from years in the sun. Though he was not much taller than his sister, newspaper reporters called him “tall and taciturn,” and a “picturesque Westerner.”7 Mooney was the seventh witness Joseph Ryan called and by the time he testified stunned participants and spectators in the jammed courtroom finally understood what the defense would be. It would not be self-defense. Instead, for reasons known only to himself and 116

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possibly his client, Ryan planned to argue that the man found dead in Nellie Madison’s apartment was not her husband, but a stranger. His main piece of evidence: photographs taken by sheriff ’s department photographer R. V. Rogers and shown to each person as he or she settled into the witness seat. Mistaken identity obviously carried an extremely high degree of risk for Ryan and his client. The strong prosecution case may have made a self-defense strategy more difficult than he previously anticipated, but Ryan might have tried it anyway, had he used damaging information about Eric that acquaintances and neighbors had already provided to reporters and police. Eric apparently married Nellie to get her money and then arranged to abandon her when it was gone. Police had found a letter in the Madisons’ apartment containing this information. Witnesses also remarked on Eric’s suspected infidelity. His ex-wife could offer additional details on this point. And others had hinted at a dark and violent side. True, Nellie spent two days buying guns and salesmen had noted her icy calm. But she also scrawled a virtually illegible note, leaving all of her worldly goods to her sister. This, from a woman with perfect penmanship, hinted at a woman operating under extreme emotional stress, possibly bent on committing suicide.8 But Joseph Ryan decided not to go this route; instead he hoped to peg this death penalty case on his client’s ability to carry off a defense that strained at the outer limits of credulity. She was no stranger to risk, but this carried more potential danger than anything she had ever undertaken. Ryan’s strategy held three prongs: to convince jurors that Eric Madison was not the dead man on his apartment floor, that the shots had indeed come from Warner Brothers, and that his client was a good woman from a decent, respectable family. Why would such a woman lie? He plunged in quickly. He did not ask any of his witnesses to describe Eric Madison other than providing rudimentary details. Elmer Tripp, who knew Eric when he managed a coffee shop in 117

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the eastern California town of Trona, said: “Mr. Madison’s face, the last I remember him, was very thin. The face in the photo is full.” Under cross-examination by George Stahlman, Tripp acknowledged that he had not seen Eric for two years and had never seen him without glasses. The dead man in the police photos was not wearing glasses.9 Robert Haynes, a carpenter at the Desert Inn Hotel in Palm Springs, said: “The man in the picture has a different nose.” Asked by Ryan how Nellie and Eric had gotten along, Haynes recalled that “they were very congenial with each other.”10 Euretta Douglas, a violinist and music director at the Desert Inn, told Ryan that photos of the dead man “do not look like anyone I have ever seen before.” Coincidentally Douglas also saw the Madisons in Yellowstone Park, just one hour south of Dillon, in summer 1933. “I never saw any couple that seemed to be more in love,” she declared.11 Herman Lane managed the Sterling Arms dining room where Nellie Madison ate dinner on March 24. He was also part of a group of neighbors who gathered outside the Madisons’ apartment late Sunday afternoon after the discovery of the body and he watched as police pored through evidence. “The man I saw lying on the floor had black hair and I knew Mr. Madison as having light brown hair,” Lane said. Ryan then moved on to the origin of the shots. His client had insisted on March 24 that they came from Warner Brothers.12 Celeta Durst lived several doors down from the Madisons. Under oath she agreed with Nellie. In fact she did not bother to leave her apartment, she said, because she knew the noises came from the studio and she was not worried. But Durst had been alarmed about 2:00 a.m. Sunday, she added, when she heard noises just outside her door. She opened it to discover a strange woman, who turned and fled down the stairs.13 Bruce Earl, a Sterling Arms resident and occasional extra at 118

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Warner Brothers, told jurors that he heard nothing except the usual machine-gun fire that night. He left his apartment at 12:30 p.m. to pick up his sister from work and “somebody said there were some shots and I said that there were shots at the studio.”14 Finally Ryan called Dan Mooney to the stand. His client might seem unemotional and withdrawn, but he hoped the courtroom presence of Mooney would refute this image. The siblings obviously cared for each other. Frequently during testimony she turned to look at her brother and during recesses she often left her seat at the counsel table and stood next to him. Mooney’s presence also could not have failed to remind jurors that Eric Madison was not the only victim in this case. As he strode to the witness stand, Mooney passed directly in front of his sister and tapped his knuckles softly on the wooden table.15 He had not been on the scene and could not testify about the direction or the location of the shots, but he could examine the photos and briefly discuss Nellie and Eric Madison during their two-week stay on the family ranch the previous summer. He leaned back in the witness chair and cocked his head to one side. He looked uncomfortable in the tightly buttoned shirt and tie that pressed against his Adam’s apple as he spoke. “What is your occupation?” Ryan asked. “I am a rancher from Dillon, Montana, and was the sheriff of Beaverhead County for ten years.” “How did you know Eric Madison?” “He came to the ranch in July 1933 with my sister, Nellie. They spent two weeks there.” Ryan showed Mooney the police photos. “Do these look like the man who stayed at your ranch?” “No,” was his one-word answer. “How did they behave with one another?” Ryan asked. “I never heard a cross word pass between them,” Mooney responded. 119

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On cross-examination, prosecutor George Stahlman asked if Mooney had any experience with Colt .32-20 revolvers. “No,” Mooney answered, “I have had experience with many types of guns, but not that one.”16 As Mooney walked back to his seat Ryan announced that Nellie Madison would testify the following day. It was late Wednesday afternoon and Charles Fricke gaveled the session to a close. Reporters for the afternoon and next morning’s newspapers had difficulty summoning the words to describe Ryan’s strategy. “The defense had been expected to spring a surprise when it opened today,” announced the front-page story in the Evening Herald and Express. “It did.” The tactics were “baffling even to prosecutors,” the Evening Post-Record declared. Thursday morning’s Times noted that Ryan’s approach represented “a further and even more bizarre situation in a trial already shot full of the weird, unusual, and sensational.”17 The prospect of hearing from the “Enigma Woman” herself brought larger crowds than anyone could remember to the eighth floor of the Hall of Justice on Thursday morning, June 14. The wooden barrier installed the previous week outside of Department 43 splintered under the crush of nearly two hundred people who broke it down in their desperation to get into the courtroom. Before testimony could begin, Sheriff ’s Deputy J. H. Long and Bailiff Charles Bryant ushered out dozens of spectators who, unable to find seats, sat shoulder-to-shoulder on the floor, using their purses and jackets for seat cushions. The area in front of Fricke’s bench resembled a movie set, with cables, wires, cameras, and photographers filling virtually all of the empty space.18 To get to the witness stand Nellie Madison had to pass through the gauntlet of journalists. Joseph Ryan called her name shortly after 10:30 a.m. Wearing her trademark black dress, white coat, black pumps, and hat, and clutching her purse beneath her left arm, she walked slowly and deliberately to the front of the court120

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room. She promised to tell the truth, sat down, and faced the assembled throng. In the photos taken at that moment, she stared directly into the camera, though her eyes held a startled and slightly out-of-focus look. Her left hand clutched her right elbow and her closed right hand, with its fingers folded into a loose fist, rested just above her left breast and below her left shoulder. “Please remove your hat, so we can see your face,” Ryan requested. Nellie obliged and placed the hat next to her purse on the stand in front of her. Her perfectly marcelled dark hair shone beneath the courtroom’s florescent lights. She patted her hair and folded her hands in her lap. “Please describe the events leading up to the night of March 24,” Ryan began. Most of the courtroom spectators, with the exception of attorneys, reporters, and police, had never heard her speak aloud. Her voice was so low initially that several jurors raised their hands and said they could not hear. Charles Fricke, who had moved his chair to the end of the bench closest to the witness chair, asked her to “raise your voice please.”19 For two-and-a-half hours, interrupted by an hour-long recess for lunch, Nellie Madison laid out a story that stunned even the most jaded court-watchers, many of whom had attended dozens of trials. As a Herald and Express reporter described it: “There was an air of hushed expectancy in the room. Everyone waited to see what was going to happen.”20 She measured out her words slowly and carefully, often in a monotone, and she frequently waited several seconds after Ryan finished with a question to compose her answer. The Madisons had lived at the Sterling Arms for several weeks when, on Wednesday afternoon, March 21, Eric phoned Nellie and asked her to pick him up in the Warner Brothers parking lot at 121

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6:00 p.m. “I was surprised, because the studio was less than two blocks away, but I agreed to do it anyway,” she said. In the car Eric “seemed upset and he told me that a man had gotten in touch with him—a certain man with whom he said he had trouble before he married me. He told me this man blamed him for some domestic troubles.” She did not elaborate and Ryan did not prod her on this point. “The following day he asked me to pick him up again and said that the man had phoned and threatened him.” When she arrived at Warner Brothers, “he told me he wished he had a gun to protect himself. Then he asked if I would buy one for him. He suggested a place where I could rent one. On Friday morning I went there, but they sent me to another place. That was the place where I got the Spanish gun.” Ryan asked: “Did the proprietor ask your name and address?” “Yes, of course.” “Did you attempt to hide any information on the application?” “No, of course not,” Nellie replied.21 She explained how she came to purchase the second gun on Saturday March 24, after she returned to pick up the first gun and discovered that it was inoperable. She selected the .32-20 Colt revolver, but did not bring enough money with her, she said. “Did you go home to get it?” Ryan asked. “Yes, I went home to get more money.” “You paid cash for the gun?” “Yes.” “What time did you get home on Saturday?” asked Ryan. “About 1:30 p.m. Mr. Madison came in shortly after. We discussed plans for the weekend. We had hoped to go somewhere—to Lake Arrowhead, or to Mr. Cuddy’s ranch. Mr. Madison told me he had an appointment with a man from Bakersfield and wouldn’t be able to get away until later.” “What was the appointment about?” “Well, Mr. Madison had received a letter from a Mr. Scott, dis122

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cussing a possible job with the Board of Equalization in Bakersfield. He said Mr. Scott was coming to Los Angeles and he had an appointment with him.” That afternoon, to pass the time before his appointment, Eric and Nellie Madison spent several hours driving around Los Angeles in their Buick coupe, she testified. During the outing he asked if she had bought a gun. “I said I had gotten two guns. He said, ‘Why two?’ and I explained that the first gun was no good. He took both guns from me and put the good gun in the pocket of the car door.”22 Eric then dropped her off at the apartment and she walked up to their apartment. She waited for him until about 8:00 p.m., she said. “Then I went down to dinner.” After eating she climbed the stairs back to her apartment, but stopped to talk to Sterling Arms caretaker Phillip McGuigan. Eric returned about 10:00 p.m., while the pair was still chatting. “He smiled at me, said ‘Hello Mac,’ and we went to our apartment. About a half an hour later he told me he had to go out and see the man from Bakersfield again and he might be gone all night. He told me that if he did not return, for me to take the car and go to Cuddy’s ranch and that he would meet me there the next day as the place was only a short distance off the route from Bakersfield and the man he was doing business with had a car.” “Did you go downstairs with him?” Ryan asked. “No, I didn’t. I stayed in the apartment and read the Sunday papers until some time later. I don’t remember exactly what time. When Mrs. Bradley knocked at the door and asked whether I was all right, or something like that, I replied that I was.” “Did you step into the hall?” Ryan asked. “Yes I did.” “Did Mrs. Bradley mention the shots?” “Yes, and I said that I heard them but they probably came from the studio.”23 123

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Eric had not returned by Sunday morning and Nellie, claiming to follow his directions, drove alone to Cuddy’s ranch. Anticipating questions about the length of time it took her to drive the eighty miles, she explained that she filled her car with gas, stopped for breakfast, visited another gas station to have air put in her tire— “there were a few people ahead of me, so it took awhile”—stopped for lunch, and then made a slight detour to buy groceries and a jug of wine at a small mountain store. “I forgot the wine and had to go back to get it,” she added. She arrived at the ranch about 3:30 p.m. When police showed up on Monday afternoon, “I was sitting on a trunk inside the closet changing my shoes. I wasn’t hiding from anyone. I heard someone say either ‘Are you there, Nell?’ or ‘Come on out, Nell.’ “When I stepped out, they slapped handcuffs on me and said ‘We want you.’ “’For what?’ I asked. “ ‘You will find out soon enough,’ they said. They had sawedoff shotguns and everything else in the way of weapons and they pointed them at me.” The last statement set off waves of laughter among jurors and spectators, but the defendant did not join in.24 It was not until she reached the Burbank police station that she finally learned she was suspected of killing her husband, she testified. Ryan pulled out the police photos of the corpse in her apartment and showed them to his client. “Do you know who that person it?” “I do not. I do not see any resemblance to Eric.” “You looked in the coffin supposed to contain your husband when it was arranged for burial services, didn’t you?” queried Ryan. “Yes,” Nellie answered. “But the person in the coffin did not resemble my husband.” 124

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Ryan continued. “And did you say anything to anybody about it at the time?” “Yes, I said so to Deputy de Wolfe.” “Did you kill Eric Madison?” Ryan asked, as his final question. “I did not kill him or anyone else ever. And the photographs they have shown me of the body found in our apartment are not of him,” Nellie said, her voice rising to a high pitch for the first time. “I believe he is alive!” “No further questions,” Ryan announced, and Nellie slumped back in her chair. Left unasked, and unanswered, were several crucial questions: If the dead man on the Madisons’ floor was not Eric Madison, who was it? More importantly perhaps, where was Eric Madison? And, if he was still alive, why had he not come forward to save his wife from a murder trial and a possible death sentence?25 It was now nearly 2:00 p.m. and Fricke announced a recess. In the hallway outside Department 43, George Stahlman, who would do most of the questioning for the prosecution, met with the gaggle of reporters who surged around him. “The story she is presenting is clearly perjured,” he said. “It won’t be hard to prove that.”26 He would keep Nellie Madison on the stand for more than a day and before his job was finished, he would find himself characterized in the media as “devious,” “pitiless,” “merciless,” and “relentless.” His objective was to put as much emotional distance as possible between the defendant and jurors by building on her image as a cold, calculating slayer. His props: the bloody death bed and clothing, her casual lifestyle, and matter-of-fact testimony. He began the cross-examination with such force that the impact of several hundred spectators inhaling simultaneously threatened to suck all of the oxygen out of the courtroom. Guns were the first topic of conversation. Stahlman hoped to lead jurors to the conclusion that Nellie’s proficiency with guns equated to murderous impulses.27 125

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“Did you own a gun when you were married to William Brown?” he asked. “We had one in the house,” the defendant began hesitantly. “Isn’t it a fact,” Stahlman continued, “that some years ago while you were seated in an automobile with W. J. Brown, who, by the way, is now in the courtroom, that you took a similar revolver from your pocketbook, pointed it at him and fired six shots?” Nellie Madison’s voice rose in vehement denial. “I did not!” “And at that time he took your hand and pushed it up until you finished firing?” the prosecutor continued. “Did you hear your former brother-in-law, Charles Brown, testify to this incident at your divorce trial?” “I did not.” Joseph Ryan rose from his seat asking that the testimony be stricken from the record, but Judge Fricke ruled that it could remain.28 Stahlman quickly returned to the present, specifically her purchase of the two revolvers on Friday and Saturday, March 23 and 24. Prosecutors contended that she sold her bridle to pay for the second gun. “Didn’t you take your fancy horsehair bridle to Mrs. Frank McCoy and tell her you needed some money quick, and you would let her have the bridle as security?” Stahlman asked. “I did not,” Nellie replied. “I sold her that bridle outright in January.” “You say that you gave both guns to your husband. What did he do with them?” “He put the good one in the pocket of the car and the other one in his coat pocket. He was wearing a gray suit. I never saw the guns again.”29 The prosecutor next turned to the events of the afternoon and evening of March 24, asking when Nellie ate dinner, where her husband’s appointment was—“Bakersfield, with a Mr. Scott”—and which newspaper she was reading after he left the apartment—“ei126

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ther the Examiner or the Times, I can’t remember which,” she answered. “Did you hear him on the telephone making his appointment?” Stahlman asked. “I did.” “But there wasn’t a telephone in your apartment.” “There was one in the hall,” Nellie responded. “After your husband came back to the apartment about 10:00 p.m. Saturday night, what did you do?” the prosecutor asked. “We talked for a half-hour or so. Eric sat in an armchair and I sat on the bed. I kissed him good-bye and he told me that he would meet me at Mr. Cuddy’s ranch and that I shouldn’t worry if he wasn’t there by late Sunday or early Monday. Mr. Scott would drop him off.” “Of course,” Stahlman quickly inserted, “there was no other woman as far as you knew. Is that right?” “Absolutely not,” came the defendant’s quick reply. The prosecutor asked about Eric Madison’s appearance and his demeanor the night of March 24. “How did your husband seem when he returned that night?” “He seemed nervous.” “Did your husband have any distinguishing facial features?” “He had a little red mark on the side of his nose.” Picking up a pair of broken spectacles with bent gold rims, Stahlman asked: “Are they your husband’s?” “They look something like them.” “What did he wear to sleep in? Did he wear one-piece bvds?” “No, they usually had two pieces.”30 Stahlman strode to the counsel table and pulled a dress bearing a laundry tag with the number 1892 from a small suitcase. He showed the garment to the jury and then carried it to the witness stand. “Is this your dress?” “Yes,” Nellie replied. 127

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He returned to the table and placed the dress next to the suitcase. Then he pulled out the bloody underwear worn by the corpse in the Madisons’ apartment. He carried it to the witness stand. “Please pick up the garment,” Stahlman ordered. Joseph Ryan leapt from his seat. “I appeal to the court to make the prosecutor stop this grandstand play.” Fricke overruled him with a flip of his hand and ordered the defense attorney to make no further reference to “grandstanding.” Nellie exhibited no emotion as she held the underwear and turned it over in her hands. Stahlman pointed to laundry marks on the garment. They, too, bore the number 1892. “Isn’t it true that the numbers match the one on your dress? How do you account for this, if the dead man was not your husband?” Nellie said she could not explain the discrepancy. Stahlman returned the underwear to the suitcase. As he walked back toward the witness chair, he asked Nellie about her actions during the night and morning of Sunday March 25. “Do you smoke?” he asked. “Sometimes,” she replied. He returned to the counsel table and picked up the note that Belle Bradley found resting against the doorknob of Apartment 123. “Did you write this?” “No,” Nellie responded. “What were you carrying when you walked out of the Sterling Arms?” asked Stahlman. “Just my purse; I had left clothing from the previous weekend’s trip to Lake Arrowhead in the car and so I didn’t need to bring anything. It was wrapped in a newspaper in the trunk.” “When you left your apartment, there was no body lying on the floor?” “There certainly was not.” And you weren’t carrying a brown paper with two guns wrapped up in it?” 128

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“I was not,” Nellie answered. Stahlman picked up a newspaper from the counsel table and showed it to the jury and then to the defendant. It was the Los Angeles Examiner and its masthead bore the date Sunday, March 25, 1934. “Police found this in the bureau drawer at Cuddy’s ranch,” the prosecutor charged. “How do you explain it? If your clothes were in the car from the previous week, it should have been March 18.” Nellie hesitated. “I don’t know.” Stahlman asked about her conversation with Robert Cuddy as the pair sat at his kitchen table Monday afternoon March 26. “Did you tell him: ‘I’ve had some trouble with my husband, I expect the police?’” “No, I never said that.” “Didn’t you say to Cuddy, ‘Here they come now?’ ” “No sir, I didn’t.” “Didn’t you see the deputies coming around the mountain?” “I did not.” “Didn’t you see Mr. Brown, the brother of your former husband, with them?” “No.” He moved on to her hiding place. “And from the closet where you were hidden, didn’t you hear the officers ask Cuddy if he had seen Nellie, and didn’t he ask ‘Nellie who?’ and didn’t they answer ‘Nellie Madison.’ And didn’t you hear Cuddy reply: ‘I haven’t seen her in years’?” “I heard no such conversation.” The prosecutor asked about her arrest. “You said you had no idea what you were being arrested for until you got back to Burbank, is that right?” “Yes. Mr. Bright asked me something about (the murder). I don’t remember just how he asked it. I believe he asked me if I did kill Eric Madison. 129

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“And yet you took it about like you are at the present time, isn’t that right?” “I certainly did not. I felt terrible. I didn’t know what to think.”31 Stahlman turned to the police interrogation. “Do you remember the questions they asked you?” “I don’t remember much about that night, but I do remember asking for a lawyer.” Stahlman asked the court reporter to enter the transcript of the interrogation into the trial record, including Nellie’s reluctant discussion of her several marriages and, at 4:30 p.m. on Thursday, the day’s session ended.32 Spectators undoubtedly believed that nothing either side did could faze them. Then just after court opened on Friday, July 15, Joseph Ryan stood up and made an announcement: “The only way to settle the point on whether Eric Madison is alive or dead is to have the body exhumed. I am seriously considering asking the court for an order that this be done.” Observers had just begun to ponder the possibility that Eric Madison might be called to testify at the trial of his widow and accused murderer when Stahlman smacked his hand on the counsel table. “The state has proved conclusively that the dead man is Madison. And before we get through with this case we will bring a dozen more witnesses to prove the same thing.” Charles Fricke suggested that both sides meet for a conference on the issue that afternoon, but neither the defense, nor the prosecution, brought up the issue again.33 For a week the heavy double bed on which prosecutors claimed Eric Madison lay sleeping when he was murdered had stood in the center of the courtroom. Those testifying, including the defendant, had to walk around it to get to the witness stand. As he began to cross-examine Nellie Madison for a second day, Stahlman asked to her step down from the stand and walk over to the bed. “Please 130

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pick up and fold the blankets exactly as they were that night,” he requested. She stood next to the bed and lifted the blankets. Dark stains appeared. She ignored them and stood silently as Stahlman asked her: “You say you slept in this bed the night of the murder. Did you have the outer blanket over you?” “No. It was folded exactly as I have shown.” “What about the inner blanket?” “That was covering me.” “Did you have the sheet over you?” “Yes.” “Please show the court how the sheet was arranged.” Stahlman also asked her to arrange the pillows on the bed. After approximately fifteen minutes, he directed her to “just arrange the blanket as you say it was when you left the apartment” and ordered her back to the witness stand. He was nearly finished. “Mrs. Madison, you stood before the casket of the man we claim was Eric Madison at his funeral and tears rolled down your cheeks. Do you say now that this face in the casket was not Eric Madison’s?” “I do,” was her answer. “Do you believe Madison alive or dead?” “I believe he is alive!”34 As his cross-examination ended, Stahlman returned to the topic he had started with—guns, and the suggestion that she had tried to kill William Brown as the couple sat in their Buick sedan in April 1930. “Can you shoot a gun?” “Not very well.” “Did you ever shoot at your former husband, Mr. Brown, as you sat in a car, and did a bullet lodge in the roof of the car?” “No, certainly not,” came the answer. “No further questions,” announced the prosecutor.35 131

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t was just after noon on Friday, June 15, when Nellie Madison slowly snaked her way through the throng of cameras and journalists and returned to her seat at the counsel table, between Joseph Ryan and his brother Frank. She glanced over her shoulder at her brother who slouched, grim-faced, in his seat. He managed a small, tight smile. The Ryan brothers also slumped in their chairs. Frank leaned away from Nellie and Joseph leaned forward, burying his face in his hands, which were balled into fists. The testimony had not gone well. Spectators and jurors may have been riveted and entranced by the defendant’s performance, but they were also wary and skeptical. At least this was what their facial expressions indicated. She had failed to gain their trust, sympathy, or support. And now the prosecution would spend two days tearing apart the story that she had so methodically laid out.1 George Stahlman and Paul Palmer, on the other hand, seemed on the verge of giddiness as they began to call nearly a dozen witnesses to refute “the calm, dark-eyed defendant’s amazing story that the dead man in question is not Eric Madison.” Rebuttal witnesses took up the rest of Friday, all day Monday, June 18, and the morning of Tuesday, June 19. Under the defense scenario, the body on the floor of the Madisons’ apartment had been there for less than eight hours when

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Bradley and Wahl stumbled on it. Nellie adamantly denied that a body lay on the floor when she left the building at 8:00 a.m., Sunday. But police testified that the body was already stiff when they arrived at 4:00 p.m. Prosecutors called mortician Christopher Penrose to discuss the process of bodily decomposition after death. “Rigor mortis generally begins to set in from two to eight hours after death,” he told Palmer. “A body would not already be rigid in less than eight hours.”2 Nellie had testified that she did not recognize the man in the casket at Powell’s Mortuary as her husband. Pete Powell prepared the body and conducted the funeral. Palmer asked him how she had behaved during the services and afterward, as she looked in the casket. “She was crying during the funeral and then she approached the casket and stood there crying. She waited a while before going outside.” On cross-examination Joseph Ryan asked Powell: “Do you remember Mrs. Madison asking that the body not be cremated because she wasn’t sure it was Mr. Madison?” “No,” Powell replied. “I think that we were awaiting word from relatives in Denmark.”3 As their next witness, prosecutors called Ernest Pillsbury, a photographer hired by the Los Angeles Sheriff ’s Department to copy photographs of the live Eric Madison for use by witnesses during the trial. Though Palmer and Stahlman entered photos taken at the murder scene into evidence, the wounds and the fact that the corpse had lain on his face for several hours necessitated the use of other photos for witness identification. His nose had been pushed to one side and his eyes were blackened and his cheeks bruised. Pillsbury explained that he retouched the photos to eradicate moles, scars, and other blemishes. Specifically he had eliminated a scar on the forehead and two small blemishes on either side of the nose. He did not explain why this was necessary, but admitted 134

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that it might have caused confusion among some of the witnesses. Charles Fricke ordered Pillsbury to restore the photos to their original state and to present them to the court.4 The next three witnesses called by prosecutors did not need restored photos to make a positive identification. Georgia Madison had spent most of the 1920s as Eric Madison’s wife, despite two lengthy separations. She had looked into the casket at the funeral. “It was Eric,” she insisted. “He had a small mole on the right side of his nose.” Shown the retouched police photo by Paul Palmer, she acknowledged that it did not contain the mole, but noted that “it is still a picture of Eric.” When it came time for his cross-examination, Joseph Ryan approached the witness and asked if she had ever been confined to a mental institution. She looked somewhat confused. “No,” she answered.5 Next prosecutors called Howard Scott, a hotel operator from Bakersfield. He was the Mr. Scott that Nellie had named as the man with whom Eric Madison had an appointment the night of March 24. “Eric worked for me as an auditor, but I haven’t seen him for more than a year,” he told Paul Palmer. “I did, however, send him a letter about a possible position with the Board of Equalization in Bakersfield, but I never had an appointment with him.” Shown the retouched photographs, Scott said they were indeed Eric. During cross-examination Joseph Ryan asked him what Eric had looked like in life. “He was about five-foot-eight or -nine and had a Grecian nose and sandy hair. He weighed about one hundred and sixty pounds,” Scott said.6 Hazel Cobb was the daughter of Birdie Cobb, the female friend with whom Eric had lived from time to time between his two marriages. “When did you last see Eric Madison alive?” Palmer asked. 135

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“In 1931,” she replied. She glanced at the photo he held toward her. “That is Eric. He did have brown hair, but it looked black when he slicked it back, which he usually did. I also looked in the coffin and saw him there.”7 The next two witnesses refuted other aspects of the defendant’s testimony. Los Angeles Police Detective Willard Killion contradicted Nellie’s story that she was merely changing her shoes when he arrested her at Robert Cuddy’s ranch. “She was sitting on a trunk in the closet and the lower part of her body was covered by her coat,” he said. “She was trying to hide behind the coat.” He denied threatening her with a sawed-off shotgun, but did acknowledge saying to her as he accompanied her into the Burbank Police station, “You killed your husband over in the Sterling Arms Saturday night and Captain Bright is going to ask you questions about it.” Cuddy was a reluctant witness. He obviously worried about the consequences of his testimony and did not want to cause Nellie any more pain and trouble. But prosecutors had threatened him with a charge of withholding evidence unless he testified. He said he had known Nellie for “about ten years and that she had visited his ranch “many times. She used to come up and go hunting with Bill Brown,” he said. “Was she a good hunter?” Palmer asked. “Yes, she hunted with a rifle,” Cuddy answered. He also conceded that Nellie had been sitting at his kitchen table when police arrived, and that she had moved to the bedroom closet. A few minutes earlier she had mentioned “trouble” with her husband and predicted the arrival of police. Under cross-examination by Joseph Ryan, Cuddy admitted that he had been “pretty generally drunk” during most of her visit. “I came to once in awhile,” he said. For a brief moment, loud chuckles and laughter from spectators broke the tense silence.8 Russ Saunders, an assistant director at Warner Brothers First 136

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National Studio, explained why Sterling Arms tenants might have been so confused about the location of the shooting. His appearance also epitomized the sense of irony that pervaded the entire case—filmmakers winding up a movie called Midnight Alibi while less than a thousand yards away an actual murder was unfolding at the same time. “We saved the machine guns to the end, and the cast was ready to go home,” Saunders told Palmer. “It took six or seven takes; the machine guns started between 11:30 and 11:45 p.m., Thompson submachine guns. We shot off about fifteen rounds.”9 As Saunders left the stand, George Stahlman announced that he was recalling Nellie Madison to the stand. For the second time she picked her way through masses of wires, tripods, and crouching photographers. Stahlman pulled out the restored photos and placed them on the witness stand. “After everything that we’ve just heard, I want you to look again at these photos and tell me if they are of your husband.” “The features look something like him,” she acknowledged, but added nothing further. Stahlman then returned for the third time to her divorce from William Brown, this time to the September 1931 court hearing on the couple’s divorce petitions. “Did you testify for yourself?” he asked. “Yes,” she replied. “Did you have witnesses testifying for you?” “Yes, I had many witnesses.” He asked again about the alleged gun incident in the car. Again Nellie denied it.10 Stahlman excused her and called his next witness: Charles Brown, the older brother of William Brown, the source who led police to her hideout and then announced, “I’m not going in there because she is a good shot.” Cuddy had testified to Nellie’s proficiency with rifles, and Stahl137

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man wanted to impeach her testimony that she could not shoot “very well.” He asked the witness: “Didn’t you see Nellie Madison, then Nellie Brown, chase your brother into the apartment house where he lived on April 2, 1930, and didn’t she have a gun in her hand?” “Yes, that is true,” Brown said. “It was a .38-caliber revolver and I took it away from her, disarming her. Then I went out and saw that one of the six shots she had fired had lodged in their automobile outside. My brother then told me she was attempting to have him resume married life with her. He said he had shoved her arm away, preventing any of the bullets from hitting him.” Joseph Ryan rose to cross-examine him. “What did you think of Nellie while your brother was married to her?” “Well . . .” Brown began, but Stahlman objected and Fricke sustained the objection.11 Recalled for the third time to the stand, Nellie shouted in frustration—“That absolutely did not occur”—when Stahlman again asked about the gun incident.12 Stahlman then recalled Charles Brown, who admitted that he never actually saw what had taken place in front of the apartment. “No, I didn’t,” he murmured, after a pause.13 With the evidentiary portion of the trial nearing an end, prosecutors sought to cap off their rebuttal with one last witness, who, they believed, would leave jurors with a final image of Nellie Madison as a cold and dangerous woman with a tendency to reach for a gun when provoked into anger. William Brown had accused his ex-wife of trying to kill him. George Stahlman called him to the stand. Brown was in his mid-forties and somewhat stocky. He had black hair, with a receding hairline, a ruddy complexion, and a smile that showed off dimples in both cheeks. Despite the bitter divorce he had counseled his ex-wife from the beginning of her case and tried to convince her to change attorneys. He had 138

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brought her gifts, including, on one occasion, a silk scarf. He had spent every day of the trial in the courtroom, usually sitting beside Nellie and the Ryan brothers at the counsel table, but occasionally joining Dan Mooney in the front row of the spectator section.14 Stahlman began: “Isn’t it true that on April 2, 1930, when you and Mrs. Madison, then Mrs. Brown, were seated in an automobile . . . while you were discussing your marital relations, that she drew a revolver and you grappled with her and that the bullet went through the roof of the car, and that you ran into the house, and the gun was taken from your wife by your brother, Charles Brown?” “I’ll have to answer that question,” Brown said. “No. The circumstances are all wrong in that.” Stahlman, clearly surprised, continued: “Didn’t you set forth the facts . . . in your divorce complaint, filed August 11, 1930?” “The complaint may have included this information, but I never actually saw it.” “But you signed it, did you not?” asked the prosecutor. “I didn’t read it,” Brown admitted, “I wanted to go to San Francisco. Besides, my brother put that paragraph in.” Stahlman, openly incredulous, asked: “How long have you practiced law?” “Since 1912,” Brown answered. “You, an attorney, signed something you didn’t read?” Brown responded: “The complaint was to be amended. The attorney was my brother Ralph, that’s why I didn’t read it.” The story he now related was much less inflammatory. “We were sitting in the car—I can’t remember what we were talking about. I had left Nellie and she was staying alone . . . “Did she draw a revolver?” Stahlman interrupted. “No, she did not. There was a revolver in the car, which belonged to me. She said she needed a gun to protect herself. She reached over into the pocket of the car to take it. We both reached for it at the same time and a shot was fired into the roof of the car. I did 139

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not run into the house, and my brother Charles did not take the gun away from her.”15 An irritated Stahlman dismissed William Brown with a wave of his hand and recalled Charles Brown to the stand. Chagrined, Brown admitted that he never actually saw his ex-sister-in-law brandishing a gun. Stahlman curtly dismissed him. And so, on June 19, nearly two weeks after it began, testimony in the “strange case of People v. Nellie Madison” came to an abrupt end. Only final arguments remained.16 Both prosecutors offered closing statements aimed at sealing forever the image of Nellie Madison as a cunning, ruthless, female outlaw. In his two-hour summation of the case, George Stahlman reached back into classical literature to find a female character he deemed worthy of comparison. Newspapers had leaned heavily on stereotypical images from noir fiction since her arrest. But Stahlman now grasped at someone much more infamous—Shakespeare’s Lady Macbeth. But before he got there, he revisited the twists and turns of Nellie’s story, pointing out all of the contradictions. He began speaking at about 2:00 p.m., Wednesday, June 20: “She said she bought a gun because she feared for her husband’s life, but then she left him and went to Cuddy Ranch. When questioned about the murder, she demanded an attorney, rather than” immediately telling police about her fears for her husband’s safety. Under her scenario, Stahlman told jurors, Eric Madison would have had to be shot the next day, but no one heard shots. And a stranger would have had to be wearing Eric’s underwear, because of the laundry tags found on them. She said she looked at the man in the casket and realized that he wasn’t Eric Madison. But witnesses all said that he was. Those who didn’t recognize him didn’t know him very well or had not known him long. I think that the defense concocted the fantastic hoax after 140

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seeing the strength of the prosecution case. When the pathologist described the wounds and the angle of the bullets, it became impossible [to continue with a self-defense strategy]. “We are asking for first-degree murder with a death sentence,” he told jurors, “because the act was so abominable . . . far more abominable than the average case.”17 Then, with his voice thundering through the courtroom, he began to list the traits shared by Nellie Madison and Lady Macbeth. Jurors and spectators sat entranced by his performance, but most observers watched Nellie Madison as Stahlman spoke. She seemed to withdraw even further into herself than usual, hunching forward with her eyes closed, and ashen-faced, with her jaw set in a firm line. She now looked years older than thirty-nine.18 “And how strange it is how close a comparison there is when you come to consider how Lady Macbeth planned and schemed to take the life of Duncan, King of Scotland, in her own home, just as in this case, at the bewitching hour of twelve o’clock. The whole castle was in an uproar. They had all heard the death screams of Duncan. When it was complained to her that the death scream had run out, what did she say? ‘Ah, it is but the mewing of a cat.’ ” Nellie Madison, like Lady Macbeth, “knew just what she was going to do,” Stahlman declared. “And afterward she must have been tortured with all the lashes of conscience that the great dramatist has pictured so well.” He turned next to the issue that had lurked just beneath the surface of the case from the beginning— the defendant’s gender. “If a man killed his wife by shooting her six times he would deserve the most extreme penalty—death. You promised to make no distinction between a man and woman. It was a despicable crime, killing a man in his own home. “Unsuspecting, Eric Madison went to his death. He felt as safe as anyone should in his own home and in his own bed. He did 141

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not know that an assassin, the very woman who had taken the vows of marriage with him a year before, lurked in that apartment with murderous intention in her heart. Her soul is cold and bloodthirsty. Like Lady Macbeth, she can scrub all that she wants, but the blood on her hands won’t come off.”19 Before Palmer began his closing argument late the next morning, Joseph Ryan stood to offer his own hour-long summation. He paced before the jury box and offered a bitter denunciation of the prosecution’s case. It was, he declared, “based on the flimsiest kind of circumstantial evidence. The state has failed entirely to prove a motive. No reason that Mrs. Madison might have had to kill her husband has been shown. The prosecutors have forged a chain made up entirely of weak links.” For example, “none of the witnesses gathered outside the Madisons’ apartment on March 24 said they smelled gunpowder. That would have been present, if shots had been fired.” He accused police witnesses of “glaring inaccuracies and errors.” He attacked Charles Brown’s testimony as “a pack of lies” and begged jurors not to “return a death penalty verdict against a woman.” Then he shifted gears. Apparently forgetting that his entire case had been based on mistaken identity, Ryan leaned toward jurors and, with a sorrowful shake of his head, asked them: Has any one of you ever been accused of murder? Has any one of you ever been confronted with the sudden and startling death of someone you loved? They say Nellie Madison is cold, that she is hard, but let me tell you that as surely as the stars and the sun are in the heavens Nellie Madison loved Eric Madison as ardently as anyone of you ever loved one near to you. They worked side by side, day after day, forever solicitous of each other, forever kind and gentle and loving.20 142

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As Ryan spoke, Nellie’s rigid self-control finally gave way. She pulled a handkerchief from her purse, dropped her head on the table in front of her and, as she held her hands before her face, her gasping sobs could be heard in all the corners of the courtroom. She was still crying when Ryan took his seat next to her and Paul Palmer began to speak.21 Palmer’s closing remarks were much less dramatic and colorful than those of his colleague, but just as devastating. He, like Stahlman, pressed jurors to give Nellie Madison a death sentence, because “she murdered a man who goes into his own home, who lays down in the security of his own couch, wraps the drapery of that couch around him, and then suddenly, that horrible nightmare; and just one short year after the honeymoon.” In death-penalty trials of the 1930s, California jurors were not simply required to find defendants guilty or innocent, but to recommend sentences, either by announcing their recommendation along with the verdict, or remaining silent. Courtroom audiences waited breathlessly for the announced sentences, for silence meant only one thing—death by hanging. Palmer urged jurors to remain silent. “It is necessary for you to decide not only the degree of the crime, but if it is first-degree murder, you have to remain silent or recommend life in prison.” He assured them, “We are not crying for blood, but just doing our jobs. She has lied, and lied, and lied. She lied about knowing how to shoot guns—she hunted and she shot a gun in the car with her ex-husband. She lied about not recognizing her husband in his photos.” She also lied about her actions on Saturday night, March 24. “Eric was lying on his bed reading the Sunday paper and wearing his wire-rimmed glasses when his wife, standing less than six inches behind him, pumped five bullets into his back and head,” the prosecutor told jurors. “She knew immediately that she needed to direct attention away from her door.” Afterward she set about putting the apartment in order. She “picked up the bullets and put 143

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them in the trash can. She smoked and dropped the cigarettes into the toilet. She made the bed and turned over the pillow. She must have sat around awhile.” Palmer criticized Joseph Ryan for choosing to hang his case on the slender peg of mistaken identity, and he criticized the defense attorney’s tactics in the courtroom. What was the purpose, for example, of his asking Georgia Madison if she had been in a mental institution? “The reason for the killing of Eric Madison you don’t know and I don’t know,” Palmer told jurors in his conclusion. “We are not after her life, much less her soul. Her soul belongs to God. Do not worry about it. That is her problem.”22 At 3:30 p.m. on Thursday, June 21, Charles Fricke began reading instructions to the jury. He turned to face them. “You are not to be swayed by pity. You are to carefully and dispassionately weigh the evidence,” he told them. “Flight of a person immediately after the commission of a crime is not enough by itself to establish guilt. Proof of motive is not essential.” He gave jurors only three possible verdicts: acquittal, first degree murder with a sentence of life imprisonment, or first-degree murder with no recommended sentence. He defined first-degree murder as: “poisoning, lying in wait, torture or by any other kind of willful, deliberate, and premeditated killing.” Then he added: “If you should fix the penalty as confinement in the state prison for life, you will so indicate in your verdict. If, however, you fix the penalty as death, you will not mention such finding in the verdict, for the return of a verdict of guilty of murder in the first degree without qualification carries with it the death penalty.”23 Thirty minutes later the eight men and four women jurors in People v. Nellie May Madison retired to the deliberation room just behind the jury box to decide whether the “Enigma Woman” would, in fact, be sentenced to become the first woman executed by the state of California. 144

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ellie Madison sat on the cot in her small cell and wept softly as she leaned against her brother, whose arm encircled her in a tight embrace. Dan Mooney had been with his sister every day since the beginning of her trial, but he would not be in the courtroom for the end. When she stood to hear the verdict, he would most likely be en route to Dillon, Montana. As Fricke gave the jury instructions Thursday afternoon, Mooney had received word that his wife, Lucy, was ill and that his family needed him at home immediately. When he stood to leave, shortly before 7:00 p.m., Nellie clung to him, understanding perhaps that it might be the last time she would see him. He had tears in his eyes as well. He pressed a goodbye kiss on her forehead, hugged her, and quietly shut the cell door behind him. The steady click, click, click of his heels on the linoleum floor faded into the distance as he moved down the hall. It promised to be a long night for everyone.1 As Nellie and Dan Mooney said their good-byes, in a room three floors below, jurors were in the early stages of their deliberation. As the first order of business, shortly after 4:00 p.m. they elected J. A. Grace of Glendale foreman. Grace, a retiree in his early sixties, sat down at one end of the long table and pulled several sheets of paper and a pen from his coat pocket. He placed them on the

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table, hung the coat and his hat over a corner of his chair, rolled up the sleeves of his shirt, and leaned forward. The others filled in the remaining chairs and took off their own coats and hats. Grace called for a preliminary tally, but there was no agreement. At 5:30 p.m. jurors broke for dinner. They returned at 7:00 p.m. and talked for two more hours. It was after 9:00 p.m. when Grace phoned Charles Fricke at home. “We’re done for the night,” he told the judge. He requested only one item for the next day: “Can we have a photo of the dead man and a magnifying glass?” Fricke agreed to the request. “I’ve decided to hold you for at least two days,” he told Grace. “If you haven’t reached a verdict by 5:00 p.m. Monday, I’ll decide on the next course of action”— either issuing an order to keep deliberating or declaring a mistrial. Meanwhile, he added, he reminded Grace that he had made arrangements for jurors to spend the night in a downtown Los Angeles hotel. “Please be back in court tomorrow morning at 9:30,” he told the foreman as he rang off.2 On Friday morning jurors smiled and talked with one other as they returned to their deliberations. They seemed oblivious to the tension that accompanied their arrival. Despite the absence of the judge, lawyers, and defendant, nearly every seat in Department 43 was filled. Reporters and photographers joked and took bets on the timing of the verdict and the outcome. Spectators huddled together, offering their own predictions, and rehashing testimony and evidence from the trial. Panelists deliberated all day and into the evening, stopping only for lunch. Journalists came and went, but most of the spectators remained in their seats, sharing food they brought in paper sacks or in their purses, so as not to lose their places in the event of a quick return to court after the verdict.3 Upstairs Nellie Madison spent the day alternately pacing her cell and sitting on her cot with her head in her hands. She had slept badly the night before, jail personnel told reporters. Matron 146

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Vada Sullivan brought her meals, but she only picked at her food— cereal, toast, and coffee for breakfast and soup, bread, vegetables, and coffee for lunch. She sent back her dinner tray untouched.4 Meanwhile, outside the Hall of Justice, Los Angeles residents went on with their ordinary lives. The Los Angeles County Counsel’s office announced that it would ban the sale of alcohol at parks and recreation areas unless it was sold with meals, contradicting a decision by the state Board of Equalization. The threat of polio sent county health officer J. L. Pomeroy scurrying across the city issuing warnings and detailing symptoms of the dreaded disease to anxious parents. And, despite Nellie Madison’s highly publicized travails, women continued to shoot their partners. Police took thirty-five-year-old Pearl Cayune into custody after she shot thirty-nine-year-old Don Kirk in the forearm during an altercation. Kirk insisted the shooting had been accidental and refused to press charges.5 In another Los Angeles Superior Court courtroom, jurors found husband-poisoner Rhoda Cobler guilty of murder and recommended a sentence of fifteen years to life. They also sought “lenient consideration” at the time of sentencing for the woman whom reporters had dubbed “short, squat, and heavy-set,” because of Cobler’s previous “good conduct.”6 At 7:35 p.m., Friday, Nellie Madison’s jurors buzzed Bailiff Charles Bryant. “We have a verdict,” was their terse, four-word message. Bryant telephoned Fricke, Court Clerk Arthur Moore, all of the lawyers, and Mabel Guilliams, the matron on night duty in the women’s jail. She hung up the phone and approached Nellie’s cell. She made her voice as soft and gentle as possible. “They have a verdict.” Nellie looked at her for a long moment. “How much time do I have to get ready?” “It will take more than an hour to get everyone down here,” Guilliams told her. Nellie nodded. She walked to the wash basin 147

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and splashed cold water on her face. She ran a comb through her hair and changed from her jail-issue denim dress and flat shoes into the black dress, white coat, and black pumps she had worn throughout the trial. Then she sat down on the cot to wait. Her face was pale and devoid of makeup. She remained sitting as the shadows slowly moved across the walls. When Guilliams returned just before 9:00 p.m., it was dark. Nellie stood up and moved to the door when she heard the matron returning to the cell. Guilliams opened it and smiled wanly. She patted Nellie on the arm. Nellie grimaced slightly. “It’s all right,” Guilliams said.7 All of the principals except for Fricke were in place when Nellie entered the courtroom on the arm of Deputy Belle de Wolfe who had met her at the eighth-floor elevator. She looked straight ahead as she walked to the counsel table and took her place between Joseph Ryan and her ex-husband William Brown. Spectators nudged each other and commented: “She looks so pale.” “She looks as calm as if she were walking into her own kitchen.” “What must she be feeling?”8 Within moments of Nellie’s arrival, Fricke walked through the door of his chambers and took the bench. Finally the jurors filed single-file into the room. No longer smiling or joking, many looked grim. A few appeared near tears. No one glanced toward the defendant or her attorney. When all of the jurors, plus the two alternates, had taken their seats, Fricke turned toward the jury box. “Have you reached a verdict?” “Yes, Your Honor, we have,” Grace announced solemnly. He stood up and leaned over the railing to hand a folded paper to Court Clerk Moore, who passed the note to Fricke. The judge quickly scanned it, nodded, and handed it back to Moore, who turned toward Nellie. “Please—” he began, but before he could finish asking her to 148

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stand up, Nellie rose to her feet and clasped her hands in front of her. Moore cleared his throat. “We, the jury, find the defendant guilty of murder in the first degree.”9 The silence was oppressive as the courtroom held its collective breath, waiting for the words, “We recommend . . .,” but they never came. The jury of her peers had given Nellie Madison a death sentence. Joseph Ryan dropped his chin onto his left palm; his face clearly showed distress. William Brown lurched to his feet and then slumped back into his chair, sobbing loudly. The clatter of chair legs on the wood floor sounded like the report of a gunshot in the stillness. It took a few seconds for spectators to grasp the verdict. The court erupted in a crescendo of groans, gasps, and whistles. As one reporter phrased it, “The verdict was as astounding to the courtroom as was Mrs. Madison’s plea that a man shot to death in her Burbank apartment was a stranger and not her husband.”10 The defendant, as if she were in the eye of a hurricane, remained standing and defiantly calm as chaos erupted around her. Fricke struggled to regain control of his courtroom. He peered over his spectacles. “If there isn’t silence, I will begin clearing the room,” he warned. When the din had died down, he turned to the jurors and began polling them, one by one. “Is this your verdict?” “Yes, that’s my verdict.” “Is this your verdict?” “Yes, that’s my verdict.” After the twelfth and final response, the judge thanked the jury. “You have been very conscientious in your attention and deliberation. I am dismissing you. We appreciate your service in this case.” He turned to the defendant and gestured for her to take her seat. She sat and folded her hands in her lap. “I am setting next 149

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Tuesday, June 26, at 9:30 a.m. for sentencing, in this courtroom.” He gaveled the proceedings to a close.11 De Wolfe approached Nellie, grasped her by the arm and led her through the phalanx of photographers and reporters forcing their way through the crowd toward the door. “What do you have to say?” they shouted at her. She seemed stunned. “I haven’t a word to say,” she replied in a flat tone. Then, in a barely audible voice, she muttered: “They gave me the works. They gave me the worst they could give me.” She turned to look back at the spectators watching her leave and, with a strange look on her face, lifted her right arm in a half wave. The puzzled journalists parted to let her pass through. Back in her cell, she became more talkative. Her words were bitter and she nearly spat them out. “I’m innocent and I’m confident of the outcome. There were certain things in the courtroom that I didn’t like, but why should I suffer for something I didn’t do?” It was shortly before 10:00 p.m. when she finally wound down. “I think I want to sleep now,” she said. Guilliams locked the door and tiptoed away, leaving Nellie alone with her thoughts.12 In the corridor outside the courtroom, reporters surrounded the attorneys and jurors. William Brown leaned against the wall and shook his head in disgust. “This is a terrible miscarriage of justice.” Joseph Ryan wiped away tears. “This is the first murder case I have ever lost,” he said. He quickly pulled himself together and then added: “A woman has never been hanged in this state and I do not think Mrs. Madison will be hanged. The case will be appealed. If she is granted a new trial I should not be surprised she would be acquitted.” He stepped back as jury foreman Grace pulled a prepared statement from his jacket pocket, put on his glasses, and began reading. His fellow panelists stood behind him. The four women jurors cried quietly. “We’re sorry it had to be this way,” one of the women said softly. 150

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“There never was any question in our minds as to the guilt of the defendant. There never was any question as to the identity of the victim. The sole question in our minds was one of degree of punishment.” He conceded that one juror—a woman—had held out for life imprisonment until the very end, but he refused to identify her. “We feel that in fairness to ourselves, we cannot tell how we stood numerically. We destroyed all the ballots so that the numerical differences might not become a matter of public knowledge.” “Did it make any difference that [Nellie Madison] was a woman?” a reporter shouted. “According to the oath which we took, it could make no difference if the defendant was a woman,” Grace replied. “I have served on three juries, he continued, and this was the only jury which I feel I could have been tried fairly.” Then he paused and shook his head. “I hope, however, that I never have to sit on another case like this.”13 With that the exhausted jurors headed to the elevators and home, where they no doubt hoped that ordinary weekend activities would help them put the trial behind them. The weekend would be much shorter for reporters assigned to the Madison story. The verdict had come long past deadline for afternoon papers and so close to deadline for the morning papers that they could only insert a few paragraphs for Saturday’s editions. For a fuller version journalists had to get up early Saturday morning, work the newsroom phones, and hit the streets, hoping to glean insightful and colorful comments via the ubiquitous “man on the street” interviews. Through most of the two-week trial, fog had wrapped Los Angeles in a heavy gray shroud, but now a pale sun struggled to break through the slowly evaporating mist. Nellie Madison was actually the third woman in the state to receive a death sentence, but by 1934 few people remembered that Laura Fair and Emma LeDoux had also been condemned. Fair’s 151

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sentence had come in 1871 and LeDoux’s in 1906, too far in the past to recollect. And both women had lived in northern California, not Los Angeles. Nellie was the first women condemned in Southern California. To reporters, therefore, she could legitimately be given the unfortunate designation of “First Condemned Woman.”14 Sheriff Eugene Biscailuz alluded to her unique status when he pondered potential problems connected with her incarceration. San Quentin housed the gallows, but where would she be sent to wait for the ultimate outcome of her case? “We’ll probably send her to the Women’s Institution at Tehachapi,” Biscailuz told journalists, “but there are no accommodations for condemned women. I guess I’ll have to await orders from Warden Holohan,” who oversaw prison operations at San Quentin and Tehachapi.15 The Herald and Express assigned a reporter to poll prominent local residents on their response to the verdict. He posed two questions: “Should the state of California, for the first time in its history, hang a woman?” And, “Will Mrs. Nellie Madison be hanged for the murder of her husband, as a jury decided last night, or will she, finally, escape that fate with commutation of her sentence to life imprisonment?” This second question verged on being a non sequitur. Very few death sentences were overturned or commuted in the crime-steeped and punitive 1930s, when the time from sentencing to execution frequently was counted in months, rather than years. Nonetheless many of those polled predicted that she would not hang. Two of the respondents were club women who had led the kind of conventional and “traditional” lives that Nellie Madison had spent her life trying to avoid. “I do not believe Mrs. Madison will hang, although I know nothing of the case,” said Louise Ward Watkins, president of the Friday Morning Club, the organization that had cheered Charles Fricke’s call for tougher parole laws during a speech two weeks earlier. “We have meted out nothing but prison sentences and pa152

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roles to most of the brutal masculine murderers, so why should a woman hang?” On the other hand, said Watkins, “women are fighting for sex-equality, and there should be no exception made of them in crime.” Mrs. John Stearns Thayer, president of the Los Angeles County Federation of Women’s Clubs, declared that she did not believe Nellie would hang either. “I think that most men still have the old sense of chivalry which would make them loath to send a woman to such a fate.” Like Watkins, however, she also believed in equality for criminals. “If the guilt of any woman is established beyond a doubt, there is no reason why she should not be hanged for murder, just as a man would be hanged. There should be no sex distinction in punishment for a crime.” Two men who examined the question also thought it unlikely that Nellie Madison would be executed. Dr. Clarence M. Case, professor of sociology at the University of Southern California, declared his bitter opposition to the death penalty because “I believe it aggravates the brutality of the original crime as a force against civilization and because I do not believe it is an effective deterrent.” Then he added, “Personally, I rather doubt that Mrs. Madison will be hanged.” Bayard Veiller, the author of The Trial of Mary Dugan, a play and 1929 film, starring Norma Shearer as a woman tried and acquitted of murder, also expressed skepticism about the eventual hanging, but he was less charitable than Case. In fact he reiterated the prosecution’s arguments for the death penalty. “I can’t see the sense of keeping a woman alive who shot a man in the back five times when he was asleep. She was cold and calm enough to kill him and she ought to be cold, calm, and courageous enough to walk the thirteen steps to the gallows.”16 The subject of all the debate woke early Saturday morning after a restless night. She dressed in her usual prison garb and picked at the breakfast brought to her by day matron Vada Sullivan. 153

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Shortly after 9:00 a.m. Nellie met with William Brown in the jail conference room. His eyes were red-rimmed. He reached across the table to grasp her hand, which was cold to the touch. “I telephoned your family in Montana,” he said. “They’re devastated.” With this last statement, Nellie finally lost her composure and began to cry with gulping sobs, pausing only to mop her face with the hem of her denim dress. “When you talk to them again, tell them I’m so sorry,” she gasped.17 In 1934 California had no provision for automatic appeal of death sentences, although state lawmakers would enact such legislation the following year.18 Nonetheless, Brown assured his ex-wife, “We’re going to appeal the verdict to the state Supreme Court. We’ll take it all the way to the highest court in the land, if necessary.”19 A devastated Joseph Ryan arrived a short time later to discuss the options with his client. Then he met with reporters. “I am confident that, somewhere along the line, common sense will prevail, and this woman who was convicted entirely upon circumstantial evidence will be saved from this sentence. California citizens will not accept this ridiculous verdict,” he declared. “I will serve notice of appeal when Mrs. Madison appears before Judge Fricke next Tuesday,” he added.20 Department 43 was again packed Tuesday morning and the energy level so intense that it seemed chairs and tables might levitate themselves and begin spinning around the room. But Fricke did not sentence Nellie on that day and the court proceeding lasted only five minutes. Shortly after the judge took the bench, Joseph Ryan rose from his seat. “Your Honor, I am filing two motions—one for a new trial, and one asking that you modify the jury verdict. I am making the second request under subsection six of section 1181 of the Penal Code.” The seldom-used statute enabled judges to modify sentences, but only by modifying the degree of the crime as well. To 154

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change Nellie’s sentence, Fricke would, retroactively, have to bump the murder charge down to second degree, which did not include premeditation as a condition. Fricke had, in fact, done this very thing less than four months earlier when he overturned a death sentence for the kidnappers of William Gettle, explaining in his letter to the Los Angeles Times that it was necessary to enhance the likelihood of kidnap victims being returned alive. Fricke did not rule on either motion, however. Instead, without comment, he turned to his clerk, who examined the court calendar. “July 5,” he said. Fricke turned to Ryan. “I will hear arguments on both motions at 9:30 a.m., July 5.”21 On that warm summer Thursday morning, all of the main actors in the drama of the People of California v. Nellie May Madison gathered for one last time—Fricke, the defendant, her attorney, exhusband, deputy district attorneys Paul Palmer and George Stahlman, the reporters, and spectators. Several of the jurors made the trip to the Hall of Justice as well. Ryan immediately moved for a new trial, citing “numerous irregularities and improprieties.” They included allowing William Brown’s testimony on the alleged shooting in his car, allowing the prosecution to alter the photograph of Eric Madison to reveal the scar on his face, and admitting the testimony of ballistics expert Stewart Moxley. “Moxley had no way of knowing from what distance the shots were fired,” Ryan argued. But Fricke denied his motion without comment, as well as the motion to alter the verdict. Despite his earlier action in the kidnapping case, he proclaimed that “this court is not empowered to modify the decision of the jury. I am ready to pronounce sentence.” Before he could do so, however, one final bizarre occurrence riveted the courtroom. Paul Taylor, an attorney and friend of William Brown, leapt to his feet. “We are asking for a new trial on another ground,” he said breathlessly, “that Eric Madison had a 155

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finger missing—we can dig up the body and prove definitely that the man was not Eric Madison. We have evidence that Eric Madison is now in Chicago!” The announcement seemed to take Ryan by surprise. He wore a look of sheer amazement. So did Palmer and Stahlman. By now thoroughly disgusted with all of the theatrics, Fricke curtly denied the request. “Is there any reason why this sentence should not now be pronounced?” he asked Ryan. “There is no legal reason,” Ryan responded. Fricke started to ask Nellie to rise, but as she had done for the verdict, she stood up before he finished his request. In the suffocating silence, the judge began speaking slowly and distinctly: “It is the judgment and sentence of this Court that, for the crime of murder in the first degree, of which you have been convicted by the verdict of the jury, carrying with it the extreme penalty of the law, that you, Nellie M. Madison, be delivered by the Sheriff of Los Angeles County into the custody of the warden in charge of the female department of the state prison in San Quentin at the California Institute for Women, and to be, by said Warden, executed and put to death on the 24th day of September 1934, in the manner provided by the laws of the state of California.” Ryan immediately announced that he would appeal the case to the state supreme court.22 If members of the audience thought that she would finally abandon her stoic dignity and suffer a meltdown, they were sorely disappointed. The “Enigma Woman” again offered no public display of emotion, but stood entirely unaided, with the erect posture of a ballerina. Immediately after hearing the sentence, she sat down and calmly smoothed her coat and dress and clasped her hands together on the counsel table. As one reporter remarked, “Men have wept on hearing that sentence. Men have fainted when they felt the noose tighten about their necks. But not Nellie Madison, the ‘iron widow.’ She took it 156

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standing up and without a tear. She didn’t moan. She didn’t say a word. It was as though she cared not at all what was happening, as though this curt session that threatened her life was something that mattered to her not at all.”23 Back in her cell, Nellie assured Ryan, Brown, and the jail matron: “I shall keep on fighting for my life and freedom.” That afternoon, prosecutor George Stahlman issued a statement from the district attorney. “When a jury returns a murder verdict with a demand that the defendant be hanged, that should end the matter. Our office will resist any effort to save Mrs. Madison from the gallows and, further, I say, if she escapes hanging, the death penalty should be abolished in California.”24 Seven days later, early in the morning of July 12, Nellie hugged jail matron Vada Sullivan and deputy Belle de Wolfe and climbed into the back of a sheriff ’s squad car for the hundred-and-thirtymile trip to the Women’s Institution at Tehachapi. Absent a miracle, it seemed, she had less than three months to live.

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he California Institution for Women at Tehachapi stood in a stark and windswept high desert valley a hundred and thirty miles northeast of Los Angeles and twelve miles west of the nearest village, also called Tehachapi, for the mountain range that surrounded it. Bakersfield, an oil and agricultural town, was the closest large settlement. It lay about thirty miles further to the west. Winters in the region were cold, with frequent dustings of snow. In the spring the hills wore blankets of brilliant orange poppies and wildflowers of every hue, but they turned arid and dusty brown amid the summer heat and the Santa Ana winds of fall.1 At slightly more than sixteen hundred acres the prison grounds were about the same size as Nellie Madison’s Montana childhood ranch. It was the kind of high-skied and scrubby landscape that she might have loved had she not faced the prospect of spending the last few months of her life in an eight-by-ten-foot cell with only a single, barred window to the outside world. With each passing mile of two-lane highway, the sheriff ’s patrol car carried Nellie farther from her frontier childhood and her youthful dreams of adventure and freedom and closer to confinement and the gallows. She must have experienced a mounting dread and the kind of numbing, choking terror that has no face or name, but if so, she

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sat quietly and looked out of the window as she sped by in a blur of dusty greens, browns, and yellows. When Nellie arrived at Tehachapi, the state’s only prison for women had been open for only nine months, but it already had a long and tortured history. Progressive politicians and club women had labored since the early twentieth century to convince state lawmakers to cut loose with funds for a single facility to house all of the state’s incarcerated women, who were scattered across the state. Women convicted of misdemeanors languished in county jails. Felons were housed at San Quentin, in separate quarters from their male counterparts. Debate and conflict doomed the plan to unite them all in one facility until the late 1920s.2 The conflict centered on attitudes toward crime and criminals. The debate reinforced the black-and-white notions of womanhood prevalent in larger society: women were either “good,” or “bad.” For both sides, prisoners represented the latter category, no matter what their background or reason for committing crimes. But proponents of the women’s prison viewed most, if not all women, as potentially redeemable and argued that an uplifting environment combining vocational training, “moral instruction,” education, and a consistent approach that rewarded good behavior and punished bad would set them on the road to “virtue,” which they defined as the ability to support themselves until marriage and domesticity—the ultimate goal. The proposed prison training programs would be oriented toward this vision. Rose Wallace, a driving force behind the creation of Tehachapi, explained the philosophy behind it. “If we can teach them some useful occupation, develop the habit of industry, bring them a measure of self-respect, and send them out with healthy bodies and a sense of spiritual values, we’ve gone a long way toward making possible their return to useful citizenship.”3 Critics of this approach called it “coddling.” They included Los Angeles County District Attorney Buron Fitts, who, as lieuten160

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ant governor, had accused club women of “engaging in maudlin sympathy for the hardened criminal.” While agreeing that women incarcerated for minor offenses might be rehabilitated, advocates of the “tough-on-crime” approach strongly objected to putting such notorious killers as Clara Phillips, Louise Peete, and Emma LeDoux in with the general prison population. Better to keep them at San Quentin and leave those convicted of misdemeanors to serve out their terms elsewhere.4 By 1929, however, club women had convinced state lawmakers that established prison facilities had no programs or system for putting women on the road to virtue and productivity. Instead they fostered idleness, which bred trouble, including “gangs” and vicious fights. At San Quentin, for example, Peete and Phillips engaged in a long-simmering feud that occasionally boiled over into open violence and led Phillips at one point to attempt suicide.5 Prisons across the country, including San Quentin and county jails in California, were also becoming overcrowded with women, in large part because of the punitive attitudes of the early l930s. New York Commissioner of Corrections Richard Patterson undoubtedly spoke for many when he declared that “the comparative emancipation of women; her greater participation in commercial and political affairs, and their tendency toward greater sexual freedom may be playing a part in bringing about this situation.”6 To address the growing population of female inmates, in 1930 the state paid one hundred and ten thousand dollars for Tehachapi and broke ground. Officials chose the site because of its isolation from large population centers and relatively easy access to and from Los Angeles, which had more than its share of the state’s women criminals. In keeping with the “reform” model, the newly formed board of trustees, consisting mainly of club women, suggested this motto: “I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills.” Officials also selected the site because they believed the land would be good for farming. Plans called for the women to grow and harvest their own food.7 161

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The prison cost five hundred and fifty thousand dollars and took three years to build. Modeled on Alderson, a federal correctional facility for women in West Virginia, Tehachapi resembled a college campus rather than a penal institution and inmates were to be called “students,” rather than “prisoners.” The cream-colored buildings bore a strong resemblance to the French chateau style of architecture, complete with windows whose diamond-shaped panes concealed the fact the frames consisted of barred strips of steel. Inmates were housed in four “cottages” and two dormitories. Each cottage inmate had her own room, painted in a pastel color but sparely furnished with a small bed, sink, toilet, and desk. Inmates could decorate their rooms with pillows, quilts, photographs, and desk lamps.8 The cottages were segregated by race, but not by crime. Thus murderers and robbers lived side-by-side with check-kiters, prostitutes, and women imprisoned for labor organizing. Inmates also bathed in communal showers located at one end of each “cottage” and ate in communal dining rooms. Their daytime hours were to be spent working. In the evenings they were encouraged to spend time together in cottage lounges, each of which boasted a large fireplace surrounded by chairs.9 To assuage the concerns of those who claimed that hardened criminals would try to escape from such a “sob sister” facility, lawmakers ordered high fences installed and placed Tehachapi under the jurisdiction of San Quentin. The new prison would be called the Female Department of San Quentin. It would have its own warden—usually a woman—but she would be answerable to the San Quentin warden. This did not resolve the disputes, however. For the next decade, club women continued their war of words with men who criticized them at every turn and took every opportunity to point out the shortcomings of their approach.10 Prisoners from around the state began to arrive at Tehachapi in October 1933, before the facility was entirely completed. Still to be 162

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built were classrooms, work spaces, recreational facilities, and gardens designed to foster a strong work ethic, sense of community, and love of nature. The first crop of women, therefore, faced the same idleness and boredom they had left behind. They resented the patronizing and condescending attitudes of authorities and some filled their time by getting into fights or trouble. The latter included brewing their own liquor from cooking supplies they pilfered from the kitchen. They filled jars with the illegal brew and buried them in one end of the prison yard. The discovery of such activities caused club women to gnash their teeth in frustration and their opponents to offer bold, “I told you so,” proclamations.11 When Nellie Madison arrived at Tehachapi, she joined a population of nearly two hundred women inmates crowded into a facility designed for one hundred and fifty. Their median age was thirty-seven and most of the prisoners, like Nellie, had no prior criminal records. Nonetheless nearly one-third of the women had been convicted of murder—nearly half of them of first-degree murder—though none had received the death penalty. Like Nellie Madison, some also had had media-saturated trials. But by the time these women arrived in prison, they were anything but glamorous. As one warden described it, “their faces have been washed clean and their hair bleach has worn off. They come to me forlorn, drab creatures, worn out by the rigors of sensational trials that brought them more attention than they dreamed possible.”12 Nellie Madison may have been worn out by her ordeal, but she never acknowledged her feelings to authorities. A series of letters between acting Tehachapi warden Myrtle Elder and San Quentin warden James Holohan hinted at her mood, however: confidence in her ability to gain a new trial or a reduction in sentence. As it was, Nellie had little opportunity to discuss her situation or her emotional state with other inmates. As the state’s only female death-row inmate, she was not housed with other women, but instead placed in solitary confinement in separate quarters. The 163

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question of where to put her threw Elder into a frenzy of worry until she solved the problem by clearing out a small room in the hospital unit of the administration building, next to the health clinic. Elder wrote to San Quentin warden James Holohan on July 13, the day after Nellie’s arrival. “We had Mr. Haigh put additional bars on the window of Cell #7 in the hospital unit, and we are keeping her there. Following your instructions a twenty-four-hour watch will be maintained. We find Madison to be a very calm and reserved person and do not think that she will cause us any trouble.” Elder wanted to know, however: “Do you allow prisoners with the status of Madison any special privileges such as food, reading matter, or tailor-made cigarettes? She has some money and as commissary orders are all in, it would be some time before she could order.”13 Holohan responded: “She can have reading material as long as guards check it first. She also should receive the same bill of fare that is given to the matrons, just as the condemned men up here receive the same kind of food that is given to the officers and guards. If she uses tobacco, that is smoking, she may have whatever kind is allowed to the other inmates. She may not have tailormade cigarettes.”14 Nellie’s cell was located on the second floor of the building facing the back of the prison. It offered an unrestricted view of highdesert terrain stretching toward a series of mostly barren hills. The room held a cot, toilet and sink, writing desk, and chair. It had only one small window, through which she could look down on other inmates as they exercised and clustered in small groups, but she could not join them. A guard accompanied her when she walked the perimeter of the prison during her daily one-hour exercise period each afternoon. She even worshiped alone. A priest visited her in her cell each 164

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week as she knelt before a crucifix she hung on the wall over her desk. She could have no visitors except for her family, who lived too far away to make the trip, her lawyer Joseph Ryan, and acquaintances, approved by Ryan, who made the five-hour, roundtrip drive from Los Angeles. She did, however, have a few privileges. Her door remained unlocked during the day and she could move about in her section of the administration building. She took her meals with a nurse in the hospital kitchen. She spent most of her days sitting at her desk penning letters to family members, friends, and Ryan, who filed an appeal with the state supreme court shortly after her sentencing. The court was not obligated to accept the appeal. “The best we can hope for in the next few weeks is a stay of execution while the court studies the file,” Ryan warned her.15 She kept herself busy during the day, but when guards turned out the lights at 9:00 p.m., Nellie was left alone to imagine her future. She may have expressed confidence, but she could not help but summon forth terrifying images in the darkened room. Sometimes she awoke in a panic, drenched in sweat with ghostly visions of climbing the stairs to the gallows as the rope danced before her eyes and dozens of people looked on. It took hours to get back to sleep, if she ever did.16 The hanging, if it came to that, would take place on the fourth floor of a San Quentin building called the “Sash and Blind” because at one point in the prison’s history inmates had manufactured window coverings in the building. The day before her execution Nellie would be driven three hundred and fifty miles to her final destination. There the executioner would take her measurements in order to ensure that the rope would neither be too long nor too short. Too long and she would die a slow and gruesome death. Too short and her body would be jerked about before death. In one particularly grisly 1930 hanging, that of Eva Dugan in Arizona, a too-short rope caused the executed woman’s head to snap off and 165

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roll into a corner of the room as dozens of onlookers gasped and shrieked in horror.17 San Quentin executions were carried out on Fridays at 10:00 a.m. At the scheduled hour Nellie would be brought out from a holding cell. A guard would strap her wrists together and accompany her up the steps to the gallows platform. Three other guards would be waiting for her at the top. One would knot the rope behind her left ear. Another would strap her ankles together and the third would place a black hood over her head and pull it tight with a drawstring. Finally the guards would lead her to the gallows, which stood over a closed trap door. When the executioner signaled that he was ready, an official who sat out of view of spectators would spring the trap door and she would fall through to her death.18 Some of the reporters who covered Nellie’s trial would be on hand for her execution, should it come to that. But until that point she would wait alone. Except for Agness Underwood, reporters for daily newspapers in Los Angeles had moved on to other sensational stories following her sentencing, including the pending execution of twenty-eight-year-old Anna Antonio in New York. Antonio, like Nellie, was the daughter of immigrants; her parents came to the United States from Italy. The mother of three, she was convicted by a New York jury in spring 1933 of hiring two men to kill her husband for the insurance money. The appeal process had pushed the execution date back from May 1933 to June 1933, to July 1934, and finally to August 1934. One stay of execution occurred just ten minutes before she was scheduled to be strapped into the electric chair, after one of the two men convicted with Antonio recanted his story. Antonio had nothing to do with the murder, he said.19 Prominent individuals, including famed defense attorney Clarence Darrow, fought to save Antonio’s life and Ernest Cortis, a fifty-seven-year-old playwright and anti–death penalty activ166

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ist from New Jersey, mounted a massive grass roots effort on her behalf. Cortis headed a shoestring organization called the Men’s League of Mercy of the United States. Though he opposed capital punishment altogether, Cortis focused most of his efforts on condemned women. His group’s ultimate goal, he wrote, was to “prevent wives from murdering their husbands. I receive calls all the time from women imploring my help. They are helpless, trapped by scheming men—male beasts who are simply parasites living on women.”20 But the campaign to save Antonio failed. On August 9, 1934, New York Governor Ernest Lehman refused to halt the execution and she went to her death in the electric chair. To prevent the kind of media frenzy that surrounded the 1928 electrocution of Ruth Snyder—whose death was captured by a news photographer with a hidden camera and beamed around the world—female prison guards formed a semi-circle around Antonio in the electric chair to block the view of witnesses.21 Antonio’s execution raised the stakes for Nellie Madison it seemed. By mid-August the California Supreme Court still had not announced whether it would accept her appeal. On August 22, 1934, just five weeks before the scheduled execution, Nellie’s sister Lizzie Ney wrote an anguished letter to Montana Governor Frank Cooney. I am appealing to you in the hope that you may use your influence to avert the disaster which threatens our family at this time. We, that is my father Edward Mooney, my brother Dan F. Mooney, and myself, are without sufficient means to take care of the lawyers’ fees which are $5,000 to make an appeal to the Supreme Court. We are engaged in the ranching game in Beaverhead and for the past few years it has been far from profitable. Please, Governor Cooney for God’s sake help us avert this terrible fate if it is within your power to do so.22 167

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But Cooney did not have to use his influence on California lawmakers. Less than a week later, the seven-member state supreme court agreed to hear the appeal and stayed the execution until their final decision. “Even though it is temporary, I am so relieved,” Nellie wrote to a friend. The outcome was still far from certain, but she maintained an outward calm, asking the Tehachapi warden for a skein of pink yarn so that she could knit a suit to wear in court for her new trial. By fall Nellie spent most of her days sitting on her bed, knitting. She retained her outward serenity, but privately her stoicism was beginning to unravel along with the yarn. Guards remarked that she spent more time on her knees in front of her crucifix and that her hair had begun to turn gray. Lines began to appear on her forehead and, in letters to friends, she began to complain of constant illnesses—colds, the flu, and arthritis pains in her joints. She attributed the latter condition to night air that seeped in through the cracks in her window and clung to the walls and the linoleum floor.23 Joseph Ryan filed his formal appeal on November 3, 1934. Rather than argue specific points of law, he declared that the trial judge had been biased against his client. His complaints covered virtually the entire trial, starting from the moment that Charles Fricke allowed the death bed, with its bloody sheets and blankets, to go on display in the courtroom. He also charged Fricke with demonstrating favoritism in his brief testimony for the prosecution. “Any layman who observes a judge leave his judicial capacity and descend to the witness stand and testify for the state can only be affected by the fact that the judge was taking the affirmative part in the presentation of the state’s case,” he wrote. Ryan also accused Fricke of favoring the prosecution in his rulings. “Whatever the state endeavored to do, the trial court put its stamp of approval on it.” He particularly objected to prosecutors’ questioning of William Brown about the alleged shooting in his 168

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car. “The state, through the assistance of the court, ultimately presented to the jury highly inflammatory matter which not only led the jury to see that [Nellie Madison] was a vicious person, but that her general reputation was impeached.”24 In January 1935 Los Angeles County District Attorney Buron Fitts and California Attorney General U. S. Webb filed the prosecution’s rebuttal. It contradicted all of Ryan’s assertions. “The prosecution was not trying to inflame the jury or impugn the defendant’s character” by bringing up the shooting incident, but was merely trying to demonstrate that she had perjured herself by claiming not to know how to shoot a gun. “We were not trying to prove bad character, but to refresh her memory.” In any case, even if trial errors had occurred, they would not have affected the ultimate outcome, prosecutors declared.25 By the time Ryan filed his appeal, Nellie seems to have begun questioning his judgment. Possibly she was finally listening to the pleas of her ex-husband that she still had time to change lawyers. Her growing doubts can be seen in a letter from Ryan, in which he implored her to avoid contact with Brown. In November 1934 Ryan wrote to Nellie: “I accidentally and unavoidably ran across Bill Brown the other day, and of course he asked how you were and all of that. He stated that he was coming up to see you this weekend. I think it would be best that if he should come that you send back word that you are too ill to see him. I think the more that we leave him in the background at this time the better.”26 Friends of Nellie’s also began to complain about Ryan’s efforts to maintain tight control over her prison visitors. Al Fox, a friend from Cuddy Valley, drove nearly two hours to Tehachapi and was enraged when prison authorities turned him away. “They said Ryan did not have my name on the approved list and so I had to turn around and go back without seeing her,” he fumed.27 As the weeks passed with no word from the state supreme court, Ryan strove to assure Nellie that he was still working assiduously 169

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on her behalf. He asked her to write him a series of undated “philosophical” letters, which he planned to make available to members of the news media at the appropriate moment. And he met with Agness Underwood, the reporter who had seemed most sympathetic to his client after her arrest. At Nellie’s first press conference, Underwood had asked about her family and her state of mind. She had covered her trial and had met with her in county jail. In fact she had been present in the cell in June 1934 when Nellie said good-bye to her brother Dan. Underwood’s ability to forge personal relationships with the subjects of her stories gained her favorable attention from editors at other, more prestigious papers, and in January 1935 she moved from the Los Angeles Post-Record to William Randolph Hearst’s much larger Evening Herald and Express. Was Underwood interested in meeting with Nellie in prison? Ryan asked. Underwood most definitely was interested.28 Nellie Madison had given Underwood her first close-up view of a female criminal and Underwood was fascinated. Following her experience with Nellie, she decided to choose crime as her “beat,” with women criminals as her particular specialty. Underwood never acknowledged her interest in “women’s” issues. In fact she always denied such an interest if asked. Nonetheless, as a woman who was comfortable in the tough, male world of front-page journalism, but who had also experienced discrimination and skepticism from male colleagues, she connected viscerally with other women victimized by a powerful male establishment.29 Underwood decided to interview Nellie in conjunction with a series of stories she planned to write on the Women’s Institution at Tehachapi. Though it had been open for more than a year, no other reporter had exhibited any interest in the prison, or, with the exception of Clara Phillips, any of its inmates. Underwood’s series ran the last few days of March and first day of April 1935. Her subjects included Phillips, Anna de Vries, serving a life sentence for 170

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murdering her faithless lover in October 1934, and Burmah White, a teenager who accompanied her husband on a violent crime spree. Her story on Nellie appeared on March 30. It gave Joseph Ryan more than he could have hoped for.30 “Eight months in the ‘death house,’ ” read the story’s first paragraph. Eight months in which to sit in one tiny room, forbidden to talk to anyone except matrons. Eight months in which to remember—what? Possibly the sounds of six gunshots ringing out in the still of the night—six shots which ended the life of Eric B. Madison. . . . Possibly eight months in which to remember the ghastly moans—moans uttered by a dying man. In this tiny cell . . . Nellie Madison sits day after day, denied visitors, denied privileges of eating or talking with other prisoners. Each morning she awakes with the hope that possibly some word will be forthcoming today from the state supreme court—some word that will send her back to Los Angeles for a new trial and a new hope that her life will not be ended by the jerk of a taut rope. The Nellie Madison who emerged in Underwood’s story differed substantially from the cold and detached murder defendant from the previous year. “Her hair has grown from the trim modern bob until it almost reaches her shoulders. She’s letting it grow long again. And it is generously streaked with gray.” She asked Nellie the question that had been on everyone’s mind the previous year: “Why didn’t you break down during the ordeal?” Nellie responded carefully. “In Los Angeles, I was thoroughly benumbed by all that had happened. I couldn’t realize just what had happened to me, but now that I have been here—let’s see, is it only eight months or is it ten years? I took the sentence standing 171

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up because I knew that I had to—but since I’ve been up here, I’ve heard that sentence again and again, thousands of times, in the still of the night and early morning.” Underwood asked her: “Do you have any regrets about the way you handled everything?” “I regret the disgrace I brought on myself and on my family,” was all that she would say. But she also expressed hope. “I feel that everything will eventually come out right, God knows I have done no wrong, and God will see that justice is done to me and for me. That thought is the only thing that keeps me going through all of these days, each of which seems years long.”31 A month after the story ran, Ryan’s wife, Anita, wrote to Nellie, exulting about Underwood’s portrayal. She apologized for taking so long between letters. “You have quite given up on me, I know, but truly this is my first opportunity. My father is still very ill and Mother was taken to St. Luke’s on Saturday. Neither of them has been well since the tragic death of my brother.” She then turned to the story. Dear—the Herald article was splendid—not a harmful word—very much of you and for you. Coming as it did at this critical time it aroused much sympathy for you. There is nothing new yet. We are waiting as you are—from day to day. Joe is absolutely confident of the reversal. Please God that he may be right. I know you have reached the zero hour in your thoughts and in many and many a midnight I am with you. . . . I’ll send you some money after the first of May. Darling, I didn’t forget your birthday but . . . although I looked at cards there wasn’t one I could intelligently send. One couldn’t wish you a happy birthday there under such circumstances.32 By the end of April, Nellie struggled to maintain her upbeat attitude and self-control, but her growing dread and feelings of 172

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isolation were becoming more apparent. She unburdened herself in a letter to a friend: I have had the flu several times, also pneumonia. This was the first Easter that I haven’t received Communion. Some mishap caused Father to forget me. For awhile, I felt terribly upset. I wanted prayer for my sick father, and I wanted to give thanks for all the little kindnesses done me. Locked up, alone, apparently forgotten, I gave way to self-pity. But I soon realized “as I always do in my darkest hours” that God was with me, regardless, that I must understand the condition and not hold ill feelings for what evidently could not be helped. A few tears were shed, I admit, in my disappointment, but I pulled myself together.33 Less than three weeks later, Edward Mooney died of pneumonia at the home of Nellie’s older sister in Dillon, not knowing whether his youngest daughter would hang or be spared. The May 15, 1935, obituary in the Dillon Examiner listed six survivors: “Mrs. John Ney”—his daughter Lizzie; “Mrs. Nellie Madison of Los Angeles”; son Daniel Mooney; and three brothers, two of whom still lived in Ireland.34 After her father’s death, Nellie’s family cut off all personal ties with her. Less than a year earlier her brother had wept as he kissed her good-bye in the Los Angeles County Jail. But her father’s insistence that they help pay legal bills had cost the family part of its cherished ranch—a bank took possession of six hundred forty acres in early 1935 and Edward Mooney had only $105 when he died. The publicity over Nellie also may have cost Dan Mooney the election as sheriff. He lost his bid to reclaim the job just weeks after the end of her trial.35 On May 27 Nellie received word from the California Supreme Court. It was the worst possible news. The court upheld her conviction and death sentence. In denying the request for a new trial, 173

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the state high court noted that “there was no evidence offered to the jury that would have suggested a lesser crime than first degree. In this case, the defendant cast her all on the chance of obtaining a verdict of acquittal.” The justices also declared that prosecutors had been justified in asking Nellie about her ability with guns. She had downplayed her shooting ability and the prosecution sought to “impeach” her on this point. The court also disputed the claim that Fricke’s testimony prejudiced the jury. As for the introduction of the bed in the courtroom, “although we cannot give sanction to the practice of exhibiting unnecessarily gory physical evidence of the crime which are calculated or likely to inflame the jury’s deliberations, nevertheless, we cannot say that the exhibition during the trial of the bed and bedding from the Madison apartment necessarily was beyond propriety or had that affect.” The bed was necessary to illustrate physical evidence, justices agreed.36 Their decision meant that Charles Fricke could now set a new execution date. He did not wait long. Within the week he announced that Nellie Madison would be put to death at San Quentin on October 4. Nellie was distraught. So was Joseph Ryan. Their only hope now lay in convincing Republican governor Frank Merriam to reprieve her or to commute her sentence to life in prison. The former was out of the question and the latter decidedly a long shot. Merriam, the state’s lieutenant governor, had become chief executive in June 1934, just two days before the start of Nellie’s trial, after Governor James Rolph—a Republican who only reluctantly allowed executions—died of a stroke.37 In November 1934 Merriam won a close election on his own, following a bitter campaign against muckraking writer Upton Sinclair, a long-time Socialist running as a Democrat on a platform promising to “End Poverty in California.” Despite his unconventional background, Sinclair might have won, if not for an unrelent174

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ing series of attacks on him orchestrated by the Los Angeles Times and most of the state’s other newspapers. Merriam owed his narrow victory to the political and media leadership of Los Angeles and it seemed extremely unlikely that he would now do something that might incur their wrath.38 And Nellie had an additional problem—the June 1935 parole of Clara Phillips, which set off a public outcry that gave leaders of the establishment another opportunity to bemoan the “soft” treatment of criminals. Angry citizens lined up to offer their opinions to reporters. They included World War I veterans, law enforcement officials, and Judge Charles Fricke. Agness Underwood returned to Tehachapi to watch Phillips walk out of prison after thirteen years, headed toward San Diego and a career as a dental assistant. “She was older, fatter, harder,” Underwood wrote. “Her once alluring lips had a tinge of grimness about them. But her vanity was the same, her smile was the same, and her fiery temperament was the same.” She quoted Phillips’s remark to newsmen: “Please get it right about my age. They say I’m thirty-seven. I’ll be thirty-five next Sunday.” Ryan sought to prop up Nellie, whose state of mind was now tipping toward hysterical. In an early June letter he explained his ongoing effort to “procure a commutation of sentence” to life in prison. It included convincing jurors to sign a statement admitting their regret at having sentenced her to death. Amazingly the strategy seemed to be working. “Up to this morning I have obtained eight which I think is very good. It has been a difficult task to get them to alter their decision even to this extent. Several of them have moved and were difficult to locate. I am leaving this afternoon to see if I can procure the remaining number.” He also had again contacted Aggie Underwood, hoping for another story. “I have spoken to Miss Underwood of the Herald,” he wrote Nellie. “This paper can be of great help to us.” Ryan also warned his client against discussing her case with anyone not on 175

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his approved list. He specifically mentioned the anti–death penalty activist Ernest Cortis who, with Antonio executed, had now turned his full attention toward Nellie’s case. Cortis had begun to send Nellie telegrams. Ryan admonished her: “I suggest that you do not give any information concerning any of the facts of the case, nor of your previous history.”39 But Nellie chose to ignore this admonition. She had decided she could no longer rely on Ryan’s counsel and needed to take matters into her own hands. She wrote to Cortis on June 12. “I have been waiting for a letter from you explaining in detail the facts mentioned in your telegrams. Otherwise, I would have written you before. I marvel at what you have accomplished and the people you have interviewed in such a short time. Should you go to Riverside—would suggest you see Mr. Ed. Howells of the District Attorney’s office and Judge George R. Freeman: tell them your plans. I’m sure they will assist you in any way possible.” She continued: “I am appealing to everyone I know for their aid in this vital matter. The time is indeed short, and there is much to be done. Please tell Mr. Brown that I shall appreciate anything he may be able to do on my behalf. I’m striving to cling to my hope that something can be done to save me.” She concluded by noting that she had been in contact with another lawyer, former Los Angeles City Prosecutor Lloyd S. Nix, now in private practice. She planned to ask him to aid Ryan in his efforts, she informed Cortis. “I would suggest you see him at your earliest convenience. His office is 433 So. Spring St.”40 She had not yet informed Ryan of her decision to add Nix to her defense team, but did so by letter on June 13. The following day Ryan fired back with his own letter warning her not to disclose “any of the true facts” of the case to Nix. But he gave Nix permission to visit his client. On Saturday, June 15, Nix drove to Tehachapi and spent seven hours talking with Nellie. When he left, Nellie handed him a let176

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ter, addressed to Ryan, requesting Ryan to “give Mr. Nix all the true facts so that Mr. Nix might help me.” Ryan still refused to cooperate. Instead he suggested a new strategy—filing a petition with the court declaring Nellie insane as the only way to avoid the gallows. She would have none of it. “I am not crazy,” she insisted. “Isn’t there any other way?” “No, there’s not,” Ryan said. It had been nearly fifteen months since William Brown, predicting disaster, began pleading with his ex-wife to fire Ryan and get another attorney. With time growing short and the consequences washing over her in tidal waves, she asked the Tehachapi warden to procure a form to substitute attorneys. On June 20 she fired Joseph Ryan and hired Lloyd Nix. That afternoon she sat down and wrote Ernest Cortis: “I am terribly upset and will not attempt to impart to you the many things that have happened today. But I want you to know that I am very anxious to see you and hope that Warden Holohan will grant you permission to see me and that it will be possible for you to come immediately. Mr. Nix wired me that Joe Ryan threatened an insanity petition against me. My God, haven’t I suffered enough?” She gave the letter to the matron on duty. “Will you call Lloyd Nix for me and ask him to come immediately?” she asked.41

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loyd Nix had the kind of rugged good looks that caused people to turn their heads for a second glance. Tall and sturdily built, he had a square jaw, dimples, a cleft chin, and eyes that crinkled at the corners when he smiled. But his round, wirerimmed glasses gave him a serious and scholarly air as well. In many ways Nix’s background resembled that of the other male lawyers involved in Nellie Madison’s case. Like Joseph Ryan, Charles Fricke, and William Brown, he had worked as a prosecutor in Los Angeles. Like District Attorney Buron Fitts, he was a World War I veteran active in the California chapter of the American Legion. Like Joseph Ryan he left his prosecutorial job under unpleasant and controversial circumstances.1 Los Angeles Mayor George Cryer appointed thirty-three-yearold Nix as Los Angeles city prosecutor in January 1929. Eighteen months later, on July 18, 1930, Cryer’s successor, John Porter, demanded Nix’s resignation. The catalyst was a confrontation between Nix and a prominent Los Angeles minister, the Reverend Robert Shuler. Porter had been elected on a reform ticket, promising to clean up City Hall corruption. To help him accomplish this task, he turned to Shuler, one of the most vociferous critics of Aimee Semple McPherson in the 1920s and also intensely critical of the bankers and businessmen who looted the defunct business

L

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of stock speculator C. C. Julian before small investors could regain some of their losses. Nix resented Shuler’s influence over the mayor. He argued that, as an elected official, Porter should not allow an ambitious private citizen, especially an overtly religious one, to unduly influence city policy. In essence, Nix charged, Shuler acted as a “shadow mayor” pulling strings behind the scenes. Porter angrily denied the accusation and asked to Nix resign. Nix took the mayor’s action as evidence for the truth of his charges. Shuler had pressured Porter to fire him, he declared in a public statement. “I wish it clearly and emphatically understood,” he wrote, that “I have no controversy with the real moral forces of this community. I come of New England stock, with a simple Christian viewpoint.” However, “I am against bosses, whether they are bootleggers or preachers. My fight is against Shuler and the kind of political ’morality’ he represents. I know this un-American sectarian political domination cannot maintain itself; and I believe the people of this city don’t want it.”2 If Nix seemed professionally indistinguishable from his male counterparts, his personal life diverged from theirs in one significant area—he was divorced and remarried. At the same time that he fought to save Nellie’s life, Nix was engaged in a bitter battle with his ex-wife over custody of their two daughters. His second wife, Beatrice Montgomery Nix, was herself a practicing attorney. Thus Nix had some experience with, and an appreciation of, women who had carved out untraditional life paths for themselves.3 It is impossible to know how Nix became involved in Nellie Madison’s case. In her June 1935 letter requesting the substitution of attorneys, she referred to him as “a friend.”4 Either William Brown, a former colleague of Nix’s in the city prosecutor’s office, or reporter Agness Underwood, might have suggested him to Nellie. It seems obvious that Underwood began to take a personal interest in the Madison case after her March 1935 interview at Tehachapi 180

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since Joseph Ryan had been in contact with her just two months later to arrange for another story. Or Beatrice Nix might have prodded her husband to become involved, viewing Nellie as a victim of male misogyny or of simple ineptitude. She obviously approved of his decision to enter the case. After he signed on, she spent time with Nellie and frequently acted as her husband’s liaison in the case, carrying documents back and forth from Tehachapi to his law office. Whatever the circumstances of Nix’s involvement, he leapt into the case with alacrity. Money could not have been his motive, since he was unlikely to see any—at least for the foreseeable future. Edward Mooney had left each of his three children only thirty-five dollars. Nellie immediately signed her portion over to Nix and promised him any future inheritance she might receive from her father’s bachelor brother, Daniel, who owned several pieces of property in southwestern Montana with an estimated value of more than fourteen thousand dollars. Despite the fact that her family had disowned her, his will listed Nellie as an heir, along with all the other children of his three brothers. But he could change the will at any time.5 When Lloyd and Beatrice Nix rushed to Tehachapi the evening of June 20, their first order of business was to stop the execution train hurtling toward San Quentin and the gallows. Only two options were viable: they could push for an insanity petition, or Nellie could confess the murder and throw herself on the mercy of the state supreme court and the governor, who might grant her a new trial or executive clemency. After agonizing for several hours, she agreed to the second option. Her confession went a long way toward explaining her rigid stoicism in the face of capital murder charges. Fifty years before the line between personal lives and the public sphere began to blur almost to invisibility, at a time when no language or institutional entities existed to confront the terrifying issue of spousal abuse, 181

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the proud and extraordinarily reticent Nellie Madison had to reveal her status as a battered woman, duped and victimized by a man whose charming and ingratiating manner hid the soul of a sexual predator and psychopath. And she had to divulge the most intimate details of her sex life, including the fact that Eric preferred oral sex and that she was, in reality, a fornicator, never legally married to the man she believed to be her husband. The latter was a social “death sentence” in the 1930s. She had also been victimized by her lawyer, Nellie claimed. Whether out of embarrassment or the belief that a jury would be repulsed by his client’s story, Joseph Ryan refused to put on the defense that Nellie sought. “I did give all of the true facts of the case to my attorney . . . and did request him to prepare a self-defense trial” she wrote. But “he said he had a tip from the jury that if these facts were presented, they would convict me and I could not obtain executive clemency; and he therefore instructed me to plead ‘not guilty’ and offer evidence of mistaken identity.”6 Her confession made the front pages of every newspaper in Los Angeles on June 21, 1935. “New Murder Story Move to Escape Death Penalty,” read the headline in the Herald and Express. “Slaying Told by Mrs. Madison,” declared the Examiner. The first paragraph of the Examiner story read: “In a desperate and sensational last-hour effort to save herself from being the first woman ever hanged in California, Mrs. Nellie Madison, so called Iron Woman of local court history, has broken down and for the first time admitted the slaying of her husband.”7 All of the newspapers printed up thousands of “extras” for street corner sales. The morning papers were sold out by 10:00 a.m. and afternoon papers disappeared within minutes after vendors sliced through the string bindings on the freshly inked stacks. Much of what Nellie described about her relationship with Eric Madison, as well as the way she responded to it—particularly her tendency toward disassociation and denial in the immediate after182

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math of murder—would be easily recognized by therapists who deal with battered women today. The road to murder, according to Nellie, started in Palm Springs, where she met Eric Madison in early 1933. At that time I was engaged to be married to a wealthy man in Washington, D.C. He had given me a lovely diamond ring. Then Mr. Madison, who was a most fascinating man, proposed to me. This was in the spring and we were to be married in the fall. A little later Mr. Madison had serious trouble with Mrs. Coffman. He managed the coffee shop of the Desert Inn, which Mrs. Coffman owns. At that time I was the manager of the Village Inn, which is also owned by Mrs. Coffman. He was discharged and left Palm Springs before I did. About the 18th of June, I, too, left Palm Springs and went to stay with the Ed Howells at Riverside. He is the chief investigator for the District Attorney’s office at Riverside. I was about to leave for Montana, as I had been advised that I would be needed in order to settle the estate of my mother. Mr. Madison pled with me to marry him immediately, and suggested that we make the trip to Montana together; so I suggested that we go to Yuma, taking Mr. and Mrs. Howell to stand up for us. He would not hear to this, but in the presence of Mr. and Mrs. Howell, said that he had a friend in Salt Lake City. His name was Carl Jensen. He said Mr. Jensen was a Danish Lutheran minister, and as long as our road took us through Salt Lake City he desired to be married there by this friend. So I sold my car, a Chevrolet coupe, my radio and several other belongings and the latter part of June we drove to Salt Lake City in Mr. Madison’s Buick. These friends lived 183

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on the outskirts of Salt Lake, toward Ogden. We stayed there all night. The next morning Mr. Madison said that he and Mr. Jensen would go and get the license. I supposed I would have to go, but Mr. Jensen and Mr. Madison assured me that was not necessary. They returned about 11 o’clock, but did not show me the license. A little later, Mr. Jensen performed a ceremony of some sort in Danish, and of course I could not understand a word of it. The ceremony was witnessed by his wife. I signed a typewritten paper, but did not read it. I supposed it was the license.8 Immediately following the ceremony, Eric and Nellie left for Montana. He had no money, so she immediately handed over all of hers. I received $500 from my mother’s estate and father gave me $500. Mr. Madison took all of this money and my other cash and suggested that he put it in Traveller’s Checks in his name, for he would be writing the checks. We stayed there at home for about two weeks. Then we went to Portland, Oregon, where we arrived about August first. We took over the catering department of the Congress Hotel there. At that time Mr. Madison told me he had to invest some money in this business, but Mr. Magee, the Assistant Manager, told me later that Mr. Madison invested no money, but was only working on a salary and commission. Mr. Madison said he had invested $350. Eric’s problems with anger surfaced in Oregon. “We were there about two months, and he had serious trouble with one of the bell boys while intoxicated,” Nellie stated. “He tried to stab the boy in the kitchen and the knife was taken away by another employee. We started dinner dances at the hotel and Mr. Madison had fist 184

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fights with several of the guests. He was quarrelsome with all of them. Mr. Smith, the owner of the hotel, flew from Beverly Hills, his home, after hearing of this trouble and forced Mr. Madison to leave.” The Madisons returned to Palm Springs in November and stayed a month. Just before Christmas of 1933 Nellie was offered a job as manager of the Wayside Inn, a newly opened hotel in Los Angeles. Again, the job did not last long and Eric’s temper was to blame. “Mr. Madison asked the owner to build a coffee shop in connection so that he might run it. The owner came down and Mr. Madison got into a bitter argument with him over construction and again we were forced to leave.” Nellie and Eric then moved to El Monte, a town about twelve miles east of Los Angeles, where Eric’s friend Jack Schultz owned two restaurants. He hired Eric to run the Shamrock Café for a percentage of the profits. Again there were problems. “We were there about two weeks and I helped him run the café. He was supposed to give an accounting of the week’s business at the end of every week, but after two weeks he came home one night and said we were leaving immediately, as he and Jack had had some trouble. When he left Jack Schultz’s café, he took two or three of his knives with him. You can verify that by seeing Mr. Schultz at El Monte. We left without Mr. Madison giving Jack any of the money which was coming to him.” Eric also had big dreams and was constantly after Nellie to raise money for his investment schemes. He wanted to operate the commissary at an apartment complex, he told his wife. He estimated that it would require an investment of $700 to $800. “He said he could raise $300 and asked if I could raise the remaining $500 within a week.” She immediately began telephoning many of the prominent and well-to-do people she had met during her years in Southern California. 185

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I borrowed $25 from Mrs. Laurendeau of Santa Monica. Dr. and Mrs. Isador Flexner, living in the Kingsley House, on Kingsley Drive, gave me $25 or $50; Manny Nathan at Universal Studio gave me $25; Mrs. Dr. Frank McCoy gave me $25 or $50, I forget which, and I left my silver bridle with her as security. Mr. Harry Comstock, manager of the Vista del Arroyo Hotel at Pasadena gave me $50; and a friend at the Gaylord gave me $50; and Jack Williams of Palm Springs gave me $200. I turned all of this money over to Mr. Madison. The next day he told me the people had decided to keep the place themselves. But he refused to return the money, saying he would invest it. In early March Eric finally obtained a paying job, in the commissary of the cafeteria at Warner Brothers First National. He was to install a food control system. He had been there a few weeks when I was installed as cashier of the cafeteria. At that time we were living at the Sterling Arms Apartment, on Riverside Drive, a short distance from the studio. I worked for about two weeks. One noon, Mr. Madison was up front with me when one of the directors, Mr. Green, and Mr. Madison got into a terrible argument about the price of cigars. The director reported the incident to Mr. Warner and as we were a married couple they let us both go immediately. Then Mr. Collan a day or so later asked Mr. Madison to come back and finish the work he had started, that is, putting in the food control system. Nellie’s inheritance was gone, along with all of the money she had raised from her friends. She seems not to have thought about leaving Eric, but instead, like many other women in her circumstances, then and now, took the financial burden upon herself. She decided to go back to the hotel business, where she had been so successful. 186

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The Sunday before March 24 (March 18, 1934), we went to Lake Arrowhead where I saw Mrs. Mitchell in regard to running her court there for the summer. We returned home Sunday afternoon. We were invited to stay at the Lodge to dinner but Mr. Madison said we would have to return in order to let him finish some work which he had started. We arrived home about four in the afternoon. Mr. Madison and I went up to the apartment to clean up; then went downstairs for something to eat. Mr. Madison said he would go to the studio where he would be busy until ten or eleven o’clock. He suggested I go to a movie. I left the apartment about seven o’clock and drove to Hollywood and on my way there I felt ill. I had terrible pains in my stomach. I stopped in a drug store and got a Bromo Seltzer, then drove around trying to decide what show to go to. I began to feel worse so decided to go home. This decision initiated the unraveling of Nellie Madison, turning her from a competent woman with a yen for adventure into a person frozen in disbelief and terrified of the man she loved. When she opened her apartment door, she discovered Eric Madison and a young girl lying on the double bed that had been the prosecutors’ prized courtroom exhibit. The graphic sexual details that followed this discovery provide some insight into why Joseph Ryan might have been reluctant to present this particular information to a jury made up of middle-aged women and men. Newspapers omitted many of the details. “Now comes the part that is so hard to tell,” Nellie wrote. The girl could not have been older than sixteen. I believe she had some sort of a teddy bear on but it was around her neck and, oh, how can I describe it? He was on his back and she was lying facing his feet, not a natural position, and they were both using their mouths on each other. Oh my God, it was awful. 187

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Until this time I didn’t realize what his many previous demands on me meant, for I had never seen a performance of this kind and I didn’t understand his propositions to me. I found several books that very night. They were locked in his traveling case, a small black bag. I walked into the room and was so horrified that I was dazed. The girl screamed: “Oh my God, don’t do anything to me; he forced me to come here.” She hurriedly grabbed her shoes, coat, and purse and ran out, leaving her dress and stockings in my apartment, where they were when I was arrested. Rather than begging forgiveness or expressing remorse for his behavior, Eric leapt from the bed and came after Nellie. His face was livid and he looked like a wild man, like an animal. He knocked me against the wall with all his force, and then with both hands he choked me, pressing my windpipe until I was powerless and everything went black. He struck me in the left eye and my eye was so swollen and black that I had to wear dark glasses all the following week. He said he was going to kill me, that he would teach me never to snoop around on him again. I told him the reason that I came home was that I was sick and had no thought that he was that kind of man. I told him that had I known that, I would never have married him. Then came a stunning revelation. Eric told me that we were not married, that his friend Jensen was not a minister; that he had never gotten the license, nor a marriage certificate and that I must think he was a fool to marry an old woman like me when he could have so many young girls, that the only thing he cared about me was for the money I had. He then told me how he had spent the money. He said he had spent it on sexual relationships 188

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with young girls, said it cost him a lot of money to get the kind of young girls he wanted. He then kicked me in my right side so hard that I could scarcely take a long breath for a week. He then cursed me, calling me a “son of a bitch.” Fearful that Nellie would have him arrested for any of a variety of crimes he had perpetuated—having sex with a minor, taking money under false pretenses, faking a marriage—he aimed to ensure that this would not happen. He grabbed me and struck me in the face again, I could not stand I was so weak, so I leaned against a chair. He called me a dirty son-of-a-bitch and said that he had better kill me and send me to hell right now. His face was so distorted that he didn’t look human. I was frightened almost to death for I thought he would finish me then. He took a writing tablet from a drawer in the dresser, gave me a pencil and the tablet, shoved me in the chair and said: “Now, God damn you, if you don’t write what I tell you to, I will choke you to death now.” All this time he was stark naked. I sat in the chair and he sat on the bed in front of me and had me write the following: “Dear Eric: I hope you forgive me for what I am going to do. I never loved you, otherwise I would have married you as you begged me to. I have been living with the man I am leaving with all the time I have been with you. [According to this “confession,” Nellie had knowingly lived as a fornicator and then cheated on Eric with another man.] Please forgive me for the wrong I have done you. [signed Nellie Madison]” He said if I didn’t leave Los Angeles immediately he would show this note to all of my friends to show them what kind of a woman I was. God knows I never looked at any other man but him. 189

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I sat up all night in the chair so bruised and torn physically and mentally that I could scarcely breathe. He continued to blaspheme me and tell me that he had never cared for me; that he hated me but at the time he proposed to me he was broke; that he had spent all his money on a down payment on the Buick. He went on to tell me that I had never satisfied him sexually; that the only sexual satisfaction he got was with young girls under 20; and by copulation by mouth, which I could never agree to. He continued to rave and tore his clothes off the hangars, took several large drinks which only aggravated him and made him still more abusive and brutal. He put on his shirt and trousers and I believe his coat and left the apartment about 11 o’clock that night. He was gone an hour or two, then returned and went to bed. I looked through his clothes to find the paper he had made me make out, but could not find it. I continued to sit up all night. Monday morning Eric left for Warner Brothers without speaking to Nellie. I was such a wreck that I could not leave the apartment. I thought the manager and all the people in the apartment were aware of the disgrace and I was ashamed to see anybody. That night he returned about six o’clock and asked where the keys to the car were. I gave him the keys and told him I had no money to go to a hotel and no place to go. He cursed me violently and said when I was ready to go he would buy me a ticket, but would not give me a dime. He came back late Monday night under the influence of liquor or dope or both. I again sat up all night in the chair. I was very weak because I had had nothing to eat except a cup of coffee. Tuesday morning he didn’t say anything to me when he 190

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left. I stayed in the apartment all day, almost crazy with fear and horror. It was like a nightmare. I tried to think of a way to get that paper before I left Los Angeles and made up my mind that I would get it. Either Tuesday or Wednesday night he didn’t come home all night. I couldn’t go to bed; I was in a terrible condition. I felt like I was going to die. I was broken hearted but at the same time I tried to retain my mind and composure. At one point apartment manager Belle Bradley stopped by to visit. Though she noticed her tenant’s black eye beneath her sunglasses, she ignored it, remarking only “on Mr. Madison’s constant absence.” After Bradley left, I still couldn’t go to bed. I paced the apartment half insane with grief and so bruised that I couldn’t be comfortable in any position. Thursday night when Mr. Madison came home he asked me if I hadn’t made up my mind where I wanted to go, that he wasn’t going to fool around about it any longer. Then I asked if he would not please give me the money for the paychecks I had received for services at the studio, which pay checks I had given him to cash. I told him I would have to get my things out of storage at Palm Springs. He Goddamned me and said he wouldn’t give me a cent, but would buy me a ticket to get me away from Los Angeles, that was all. He said this was my last chance, that he would leave the apartment with me sitting there and exhibit this letter to all my friends and that after reading what I had written to him they would make me wish I had left. Despite Eric’s irrational behavior, Nellie tried to reason with him. “I asked him if he couldn’t realize what it meant to have him use the money my own mother and father had given me to satisfy his sexual pleasures with these young girls. He became enraged, 191

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threw a glass of whiskey in my face and cursed me dreadfully. I could not reason with him at all and finally he left.” When Eric returned late Thursday night, he immediately went to sleep. Nellie again stayed awake, desperately rummaging through all of his clothes for the piece of paper. She still could not find it, but “I did find the addresses of several other women and $55 in cash, which I kept.” Eric left the apartment Friday morning and warned Nellie: “This is your last chance to leave.” I made up my mind that I had to get that note before I left and I knew I would have to protect myself if I made a demand for it. So about noon I dressed and went to a place on Hollywood Boulevard where they supply all kinds of equipment used in picture making, Balton’s, I think was the name. They didn’t have any guns at that time but the manager gave me a card to a secondhand store on Western Avenue. I wanted to rent a gun because all I wanted it for was to protect myself from him while I got that paper back. I filled out the papers necessary and the manager agreed to let me bring back the gun I had selected within two weeks and promised to give me a refund, charging only a nominal fee for the rental. I signed my own name and address to this paper. He told me to pay a deposit and then I would have to wait until the next day to get the gun. I went home. It was about one o’clock. I stayed home all afternoon. Eric arrived home around ten or eleven o’clock Friday night “very much intoxicated or drugged. He acted peculiar. He stayed in the bathroom a long, long time. I again searched his car and his clothes for that note. I was almost frantic. Saturday morning Mr. Madison was furious and again threatened to kill me if I didn’t leave. He said he would take the note to Mrs. Coffman so she would never employ me again. I was almost wild with fear.” 192

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When she returned to the secondhand store to pick up the gun, the dealer said he had some old shells but didn’t think that they were any good or would fit in the gun. He sold them to me for 25 cents. I then went to the Central Hardware store on Hollywood Boulevard and took the gun to the manager, who told me that it would be of no protection to me for it was no good. He suggested I buy a 32 caliber gun. I purchased the gun but had to fill out the same police department slip. I called Earl Gara, Captain of Detectives at Hollywood to okay the purchase, but I could not reach him, so the manager said he guessed it would be all right to give me the gun. About twelve or one o’clock I left the store and went home. About two or 2:30 Mr. Madison came home. He asked me for the money I had taken, cursed me and told me he had been to see some of my friends and had shown them the note. I was fairly insane with horror, but he only laughed and jeered at me. I was almost crazy. Maybe I was crazy. He then left. I packed up my suitcases and other things. At that time I had the gun in the dresser drawer; later in the afternoon I put the gun in a corner near my grips in the closet. That night, as witnesses had testified in her trial, Nellie dressed, ate dinner, and sat talking to Sterling Arms caretaker Phillip McGuigan as if her life were ordinary, rather than filled with horror, shame, and abuse. When Eric arrived home shortly before 10:00 p.m., she stood and followed him to the apartment. I don’t remember whether I unlocked the door or whether it was unlatched. Mr. Madison was in the bathroom. He came out, reached in the clothes closet for a dark blue suit which he placed over the foot of the bed and sat down on the 193

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side of the bed. He said he was getting ready to leave. He cursed me and said he was leaving immediately. He was furious that I hadn’t left, said he wanted me to get out of his life or he would kill me; said he would show this note every place I tried to work and would ruin me. I went into the bathroom and saw that his shaving things were packed in his little dressing case which stood right by the bathroom door. I asked him if he was really going. The revolver was still in the clothes closet at that time. He was still sitting on the bed cursing me. He was undressed all but his underwear. I was standing in the doorway between the bed and the closet. He was very angry and I was deathly afraid that he would kill me then. He looked like a crazy man. I walked into the closet and reached for the gun. I came back and stood in the doorway of the closet. He was leaning on a pillow with his right elbow. I showed him the gun and said; “I too am tired of fooling around. I want the paper right now.” Then I said: “If you will give me the paper I will go and you will never, never see me again.” I knew to threaten him was the only way I could get this paper. I knew if he got away with that paper he would blacken me and ruin me, then later get me. I walked over toward the foot of the bed near where his coat was hanging on the chair. I pled with him again to hand me the note. By the side of the bed, under a small table on the floor, sat a box about 18 inches square. It held three or four heavy carving or butcher knives, part of the set that Eric had stolen from Jack Schultz in El Monte. Several days after the shooting Mr. Ryan got that box from someone in the apartment. Mr. Ryan told me he had the box and was going to use the knives in my defense. 194

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I was standing toward the foot of the bed; Mr. Madison reached into the box, grabbing a knife, and throwing it at me; it glanced off either the wall or the woodwork and clattered to the floor. He yelled at me: “ You dirty-son-ofa-bitch, you will pull a gun on me; I will cut your Goddamned heart out.” I remember hearing the knife whiz past me. I shut my eyes, shot twice and screamed. He again started to reach for another knife. I knew he was clever at throwing knives and I again shot several times blindly. I was shooting wild with my eyes closed most of the time. I think I shot five times. It all happened in such a few seconds, it happened so fast. He put his arm over the chair and said: “My God, don’t let anyone in here.” I didn’t at that time think he was seriously hurt. Mrs. Bradley called to me to see if I was all right. It was after this Mr. Madison said “[D]on’t let anyone in here.” I then walked out in the hall and talked with Mrs. Bradley and some others. When I returned, my God, I found him dead. Something seemed to snap in me; in a daze I emptied the gun of all the shells, then reloaded it, intending to take my own life. I wrote a note to my sister, leaving all my belongings to her. This was about twelve o’clock. Later, about one, I left and drove around in the car all night. I took my gun with me. I can’t remember anything except that I drove. I was in a dazed condition and couldn’t make myself believe it had all happened. I thought it was all a terrible nightmare. I went back to the apartment and finding it all true, decided to go away and kill myself. I found the note which he had had me write in his coat pocket. I tore it up and later when I was in the mountains at Frazier Park, I burned it. I took some things which I had had at Arrowhead the week before and these, a dress, and 195

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a few other articles, were in a wrapping paper. This is all I took from the apartment. I then drove up to Frazier Park alone, near Cuddy’s ranch home, and I threw the gun under a bush. I later told Mr. Ryan where the gun was and he went out and got it, and it is now in his possession. She still planned to kill herself, Nellie added, when police arrived to arrest her. Reaction to the confession came quickly. Joseph Ryan, prosecutor George Stahlman, superior court judge Charles Fricke, and sheriff ’s homicide captain William Bright expressed sentiments ranging from dismay to outrage. Ryan, predictably, voiced outrage at his former client’s assertion that he had led her to commit perjury while hiding crucial pieces of evidence. He denied ever having possessed the murder weapon, or having any knowledge of its whereabouts. He did not mention the knives. “The statement or so-called confession attributed to Mrs. Madison comes as a complete surprise to me,” Ryan declared. “To me she has at all times maintained her innocence, both verbally and in innumerable letters. If Mrs. Madison did confess, I believe her mind has cracked under the strain of worry and fear as a result gives utterance to fantastic stories. This story at this time, I fear, may further jeopardize her opportunity of obtaining leniency from the Governor.”9 Ryan was obviously embarrassed by his unceremonious firing, which could not have failed to remind him of his public humiliation at the hands of Aimee Semple McPherson eight years earlier. He suggested to reporters that he was still in charge of Nellie’s case. “I intend to have her examined by a competent alienist [psychiatrist] within a few days,” he declared. Stahlman expressed outrage as well. Adjectives tumbled over each other as he characterized the confession: “ridiculous, silly, 196

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foolish, impossible, inane and absolutely contrary to physical facts. It is so completely beyond the wildest flights of imagination that it is not worth discussing in detail.” As Nix had predicted, Stahlman focused on the perjured testimony. “If she admits that her word under oath when her life was at stake is not worth anything, how much less would her word be worth now when she is palpably trying to escape the penalty for one of the most cold-blooded crimes I ever prosecuted.”10 Fricke also labeled the confession “ridiculous.” Attempting sarcastic humor, he added: “They need at least a dozen more butcher knives and a couple of meat cleavers to make the confession look real. When the bed upon which Madison was lying at the time he was shot was brought into court it showed plainly that he had been shot five times in the back while he was lying down and probably asleep.”11 Bright, who had headed the sheriff ’s department investigation into Madison’s murder, declared that the physical facts in the murder itself absolutely contradict statements in the confession. There were no knives in the apartment. There were no marks of knives on the walls, there was no second gun, there were no other woman’s clothes, there were no papers with dope in them and there were no lewd books. If anyone had been drinking it was she. The man was shot the first time while he was lying on the bed and, apparently, the second time when he was lying on the floor. So far as the sheriff ’s office is concerned, the case is closed.12 Only Buron Fitts withheld comment until “I can pursue the confession.” He expressed skepticism, however, noting that “it seems strange that she waits until this time to come forward with this story. If it were true, it appears to me that the story would have been the first thing she would have related at the trial.”13 197

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Lloyd Nix, not surprisingly, declared his absolute belief in his client’s veracity. “It may sound like a fairy story,” he commented, but “I believe it is unquestionably true. It throws a completely different light on this whole murder case.” Reiterating that he would act as Nellie’s sole attorney from now on, with assistance from his wife, Beatrice, he added, “It should certainly result in her getting a new trial, a request I shall make of the Supreme Court at once.”14 Nellie had feared being dubbed insane and now individuals, with varying motives, raised that very issue. Charles Fricke wondered aloud whether she was “telling a goofy story in the hope of raising doubt as to her sanity at present.”15 Anti–death penalty activist Ernest Cortis still believed that insanity was the best way for Nellie to gain a gubernatorial reprieve. He believed that she was crazy, he told reporters, not just at the time of the murder, but at present as well. He offered her most recent communication to him as evidence. “I received a letter from her in which she said she was breaking mentally and physically from worry and incarceration.”16 By the end of June, Nellie Madison’s confession had not drawn comment or action from the supreme court or from Governor Merriam. With the clock continuing to tick toward October 4, no one in any position of authority seemed likely to intervene. Nix’s only hope was to grab their attention by taking the heat off Nellie Madison and turning it on the man she killed. To accomplish this, he had to use the confession to build a case against Eric Madison as a man who preyed on weak women. Nellie’s background enhanced the difficulty of Nix’s job: How could such an independent woman fall prey to such a man as Eric Madison? The answer lay close at hand, with a woman who knew Eric Madison far better than Nellie—his ex-wife Georgia Madison. Remarkably, she had a similar story to tell.

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eorgia Madison was twenty-three and working as a salesclerk at the Broadway Department store in Los Angeles when she met Eric Madison in late 1919. Slender with short, dark brown hair and hazel eyes, she had a narrow nose and somewhat prominent chin.1 She had recently relocated from Illinois and lived alone in an apartment. She found Eric charming, romantic, exciting, and generous. After a brief courtship Eric and Georgia married and settled into a modest house in the small suburb of Huntington Park; but the marriage soon began to unravel. Though the couple did not divorce until 1928, they lived together for less than five years.2 It took a long time afterward for Georgia Madison to get over Eric and the divorce. She still had not remarried at the time of Eric’s murder in 1934, when she attended his funeral and walked up to his casket to “just say good-bye,” and she admitted to reporters that she still held strong feelings for her ex-husband.3 At Nellie’s trial she had testified for the prosecution to refute the defense contention that the dead man was not Eric Madison. In his brief cross-examination Joseph Ryan had not asked about her marriage, but had asked if she had been institutionalized, a question that drew stunned stares from the courtroom spectators and angry comments from deputy district attorneys Paul Palmer and George Stahlman.4

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Now Lloyd Nix hoped to recruit her as an ally in his effort to garner increased public sympathy for his client. In late June 1935 he contacted her and asked if she would be willing to help with Nellie’s appeal. Georgia Madison, like Nellie, was a reticent woman who kept her own counsel, but she quickly agreed to give the Nixes her statement. The story she related paralleled Nellie’s in remarkable ways. After hearing Georgia Madison recount her tumultuous marriage, the Nixes may have wondered about the hold that Eric Madison seemed to have over women. He had been emotionally and physically abusive, drank, took drugs, and stole from his wife. He brought women into her home and tried to set her up for a divorce action based on a phony adultery charge. As he had done with Nellie, he demanded that she write a letter declaring him blameless in the breakup of their relationship and he threatened to “disgrace” her if she refused. There was one crucial difference, however: Georgia had been legally married to Eric Madison. Recognizing how foolish she may have seemed to her listeners, Georgia explained Eric’s continuing appeal for her. He was really two different people, she declared. “On one side he was tender, gentle, and appealing. He was a fine musician and an interesting person. But on the other side of his nature he was cold, merciless, arrogant, and, at times, extremely dangerous and horrifying.”5 It took her a long time to recognize that she could not make Eric change his harmful behavior and she never could have imagined, she told the Nixes, how badly things would turn out during the first year of her marriage. “We were content and happy in our little home,” she said. But one day in the summer of 1921, Eric abruptly walked out, leaving behind a terse note and a mountain of debts. He was moving to Baltimore, Maryland, he wrote without explanation or apology. Georgia repaid his debts and several months later Eric returned. Since Los Angeles was becoming the center of the new automo200

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bile culture and he had mechanical skills, she spent her small savings to set him up in a garage and service station in Huntington Park. For a few months the marriage again seemed to be working. But as his business became successful, Eric began staying away most nights. One night as Georgia lay in bed sleeping, Eric came home about 3:00 a.m., extremely intoxicated. “He turned on all of the lights in the house and cranked up the phonograph. When I got out of bed to turn out the lights in our bedroom, he threw me back on the bed and began hitting me in the face as hard as he could. I begged him for mercy and finally I was able to free myself. I ran out of the room and he ran after me, shouting that he would do worse to me. From that night on, I began to be terribly afraid of him.” Eric made good on his threats. Twice he tried to strangle his wife as she slept. Both times she awoke to the sensation that someone was pressing on her windpipe. “When I told him that I thought someone was choking me, he laughed and said it was only a bad dream.”6 In early 1924 Eric brought home the twenty-one-year-old stepdaughter of a friend, telling Georgia that the young woman needed a place to stay. During her visit Eric began to drink heavily and to take drugs. Georgia also suspected that he had begun a sexual relationship with the young woman. But she did not insist that the woman leave, fearing her husband’s reaction. “Also, I still hoped in some way that I might save him from himself.” By summer 1924 the Madison marriage appeared to be over. The young woman had moved out, but Eric was constantly enraged. One day he arrived home with another guest who needed temporary quarters, this time a man. Georgia allowed him to stay because “frankly, I was afraid to cross my husband.” As soon as this male guest was safely settled in, Eric departed and moved in with his former female guest, leaving Georgia with a man she barely knew. Georgia quickly realized that she was being set up for an adultery 201

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charge as a prelude to a divorce action. She asked the man to move out and he obliged. Eric was furious. He told his wife that “the world was a big place and he would go his way and I could go mine. He said he was too smart a man and I was too dumb for him. And now I could find one of my own dumb kind.”7 Eric now feared that Georgia would try to turn the tables on him with an adultery allegation because of his relationship with the young woman. He “said that I was insane and threatened to have me committed to an asylum.” Fearing for her life, she hired a trained nurse to stay with her and enlisted the help of a doctor in the neighborhood to fight the insanity threat. In early 1925 Georgia agreed to allow Eric to claim desertion as divorce grounds and he began proceedings. He moved all of his belongings out of the house and took some of hers as well. Georgia Madison’s life seemed to settle down. She went back to work at the Broadway. Then in summer 1925, before the divorce became final, an employee of Eric’s contacted her at work. “He told me that my husband had been stricken with paralysis and was probably dying and would I get to him and try to save his life.” Like many battered spouses, Georgia returned to her tormenter, believing that her caring compassion might facilitate a change in attitude and personality. She resigned from her job and went to Eric in the rooming house where he lay in a near coma, brought on by excessive drinking and drugs. “As soon as he was able to recognize me, he begged to be allowed to start all over again with me.” She moved him back to her Huntington Park home. “When he was well enough, I took a position as a domestic servant in order to make enough money to support myself and my helpless husband.” Georgia Madison spent a nearly a year nursing her husband back to health, but her hope of a permanent reconciliation died quickly once Eric recovered. He again walked out with no warn202

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ing. “A taxi driver came one day and handed me a note in which he demanded a divorce. At that time, he was deeply infatuated with a Mrs. Birdie Estelle Cobb and he went to live with Mrs. Cobb and her daughter.” In the note, Eric demanded that his wife write a letter “which he could use for grounds to get his divorce from me. He said if I did not give him the letter so he could get his divorce, he would publicly disgrace me.” Finally worn down by the unpredictability, violence, and trauma of life with Eric Madison, his wife “wrote a letter . . . and he used my letter to get his divorce on the ground of desertion” in early 1928. She saw Eric just once more, she said, several months before his death when he was already involved with Nellie. One evening she passed her former husband walking alone on the pier at Ocean Beach. “I did not speak to him and we passed each other like perfect strangers.”8 She ended her statement with this declaration: “[I]f Eric Madison made Nellie suffer one-quarter as much as he made me suffer, then anything might have happened to him. She does not deserve to die on the gallows for her act against him.”9 Georgia Madison was an extremely important weapon in the Nixes’ arsenal, but she was only one individual. During her lifetime Nellie had been associated with numerous prominent people. The Nixes needed support from many of these individuals if they hoped to get the attention of Governor Frank Merriam. The governor had shown no sympathy toward the pleas of any condemned prisoners who came before him. Seventeen men had been executed in his first year in office. Her status as an abused woman would hardly make a dent, her attorneys realized. Unlike most prisoners in her circumstances, however, Nellie had prominent friends.10 Nix made a trip to Tehachapi to ask his client for a list of people to contact. She was still reeling from the confession, but quickly 203

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wrote down names. Her list included her former boss, Nellie Coffman, and Coffman’s brother, Harry Broughton. Both were active in Republican politics in the state and Broughton was a lawyer and friend of the governor. Nellie also included Charles Cooper, the father of actor Gary Cooper and a former state-supreme-court justice in Montana. All of the people on the list agreed to write letters to Merriam. Without mentioning the abuse or the fact that Nellie had not been legally married to Eric, each of the correspondents described a modest and virtuous woman, vastly different than the “Enigma Woman” constructed by the media. Coffman suggested three more correspondents. Two were Republican state legislators, Assembly members John Phillips and Frank G. Martin. The third was Martin Herlick, a Los Angeles lawyer. “My dear Governor Merriam:” Coffman began her June 27, 1935, letter. “I happen to have firsthand knowledge of the character and conduct of Mrs. Madison and her deceased husband who were both formerly employed by me at Palm Springs and I feel most strongly that should the sentence as now imposed on Mrs. Madison be carried out, it would be a very grave injustice.” As manager of the Village Inn for more than two years, “Mrs. Madison, then Nellie Brown, was always extremely faithful in the discharge of her duties, courteous to our guests and cooperated to a marked degree with her co-workers. At no time did she ever exhibit anything except a mild and pleasant disposition and she appeared always to be a sincere and capable person of unquestioned integrity.” Eric Madison, on the other hand, “was an arrogant and sullen person, possessed of a violent temper, manifested on frequent occasions. His treatment of the young women employed as waitresses in the coffee shop was insulting and even brutal . . . during one of his violent fits of temper he was discharged by me personally.” As for the murder, Coffman suggested that Nellie “was, I be204

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lieve, driven to desperation and brooded about her plight until she was beside herself and unable to think clearly. I loved Nellie. We all loved her. I paid three hundred and seventy five dollars toward her defense and my employees contributed one hundred twenty five dollars. . . . I considered the defense offered for Nellie was not worth a dollar to Nellie or to us.” She ended her letter by reminding Merriam of their personal relationship. “You know me well enough to realize that I am not apt to be emotionally swayed or misled as to the facts surrounding this case. I base my strong conviction entirely on my own knowledge and I sincerely and earnestly implore you to commute the sentence from death to life imprisonment. Petitions have been prepared and are being circulated among organizations and influential persons in this state. I trust that you will give them careful consideration.”11 Coffman’s brother was even more forceful in his telegram to the governor: dear frank as i notified you before i am interested in saving the life of nellie madison stop believe it desirable and therefore recommend commute sentence as soon as possible stop would appreciate opportunity of personal interview for myself and sister nellie n coffman also mrs atherton irish and herbert payne accompanied by lloyd nix stop if you will not be in the south within the next few days please set a date after july tenth for us to interview you in the north.12 Assemblyman John Phillips wrote the day after Coffman visited him. “There is something pretty sour about this case, and before it is finished, there will be a retrial,” he predicted. Therefore, “the woman certainly ought not to hang.” Assemblyman Frank Martin was a member of the state As205

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sembly Committee on Prisons and Reformatories and he assured Merriam that he believed “in capital punishment, ordinarily,” but not in the case of Nellie Madison. “I believe the moral effect upon the population of the state, to hang a woman, would be distinctly bad. I do not believe that this execution would have any more deterrent effect than would life imprisonment.”13 In his letter, Martin Herlick played to Merriam’s ego and awesome responsibility. “There is only one human now who can save Nellie Madison from a horrible death, and save California the dirty name of a state that kills a woman by hanging. Does the Good Lord give the state even a right to take a life? Only you can now save her earthly life.”14 Charles Cooper could not lean on his personal acquaintanceship with Merriam and he had never met Eric Madison, but he could capitalize on his illustrious background, his friendship with the Mooney family in Montana and the celebrity of his actor son, Gary. Cooper began his letter to the governor by listing his many accomplishments in his long legal career, both in Montana and in California. “Practically all of my life has been passed in the courts of these two states,” he wrote. I have known the family of Mrs. Madison the greater number of years of my residence in Montana. I say with all emphasis at my command that the family is one of the highest respectability, good natured and entirely free from any vicious tendencies whatsoever. [Nellie was a] fine musician and wonderful hostess. While visiting the Desert Inn as a guest with my family, I saw Mrs. Madison on many occasions, and she visited myself and family frequently, talking about mutual acquaintances. I do not believe Mrs. Madison could be guilty of the crime of murder of the first degree as defined in the Penal Code of California, the common law or the law of any other state or country. 206

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I could very well understand how a woman of her temperament could become hysterical. But certainly no crime of murder in the first degree could be committed by a person of such a highly nervous disposition as I firmly believe Mrs. Madison possessed. To hang Mrs. Madison after the freeing of Clara Phillips, I am afraid would not redound to the credit of this state. Before signing off, Cooper wanted to make certain that Merriam knew exactly who he was dealing with. “I am authorized to say that all the members of my family, Mrs. Alice L. Cooper, Gary Cooper, residing in California, Arthur L. Cooper and Jean Cooper residing in Montana, join in this appeal to you to grant Mrs. Madison a commutation of her dreadful sentence.”15 The Nixes also contacted the jurors and two alternates at Nellie’s trial and explained their mission. Eight of them had talked to Joseph Ryan while he was still her attorney and now all of them agreed to petition Merriam for a sentence commutation. “We the trial jurors in the case of the People v. Nellie Madison urgently request your Excellency, Frank F. Merriam, Governor of the State of California, to commute her sentence from that of death to one of life imprisonment,” they wrote. Across the bottom of the petition someone typed the words in bold face: “without parole.”16 While her husband contacted Nellie’s prominent friends, Beatrice Nix approached members of a Republican women’s group in Los Angeles. Francine Wright, recording secretary of the Sixteenth Congressional Women’s Club, expressed “horror” at the prospect of the hanging. She did mention the battering in a letter to Merriam: “My organization is putting in a protest against the death sentence of the condemned woman, Nellie Madison. Her crime seems to be one committed in self-defense against long months of cruel abuse.”17 By early August hundreds of letters—the writers all part of a 207

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widening circle comparable to a chain letter—arrived on the governor’s desk each week. All of them implored Merriam to spare Nellie Madison. Olive Thomasson, a lifelong friend of Nellie’s described a “traditional” young girl whose “susceptibility to the attention of boys” proved her ruin. “She loved her dolls. She loved to play house. She was a good girl who was impressionable and idealized boys.”18 Longtime friend Marion Smith added to this characterization. Nellie was, she said, “a convent-bred child, always deeply religious.”19 To “ordinary” people, Merriam’s secretary wrote brief notes of no more than four or five lines of acknowledgement. He wrote more to the governor’s friends and acquaintances, but offered no hint of the governor’s thinking on the subject. To Harry Broughton, who had asked for a personal meeting with Merriam, the secretary noted that “until July 20 it will be almost imperative that his entire time be devoted to the bills that are now before him for signature. I would appreciate it if you would suggest to your friends interested in this case that they postpone their meeting with the Governor until subsequent to July 20.”20 The Nixes were not alone in their effort. Ernest Cortis of the Men’s League of Mercy of the United States was now dedicating all of his time to Nellie’s case, in spite of a lack of encouragement from Lloyd and Beatrice Nix who were somewhat embarrassed by his emotional approach.21 Cortis drove his battered Ford thousands of miles along highways and back country roads interviewing friends, acquaintances, and former neighbors of both Eric and Nellie. Cortis’s correspondents, like those approached by the Nixes, painted Nellie in nearly saintlike terms. “I cannot speak too highly of Mrs. Nellie Madison,” Katherine Higgins, manager of the Warner Brothers commissary, told Cortis. “She was always thorough, cheerful, and a conscientious worker. I noticed that Mrs. Madison seemed to be carrying 208

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some frightful burden and I thought if someone could not help her with it something terrible might happen.”22 Even Belle Bradley, the prosecution’s colorful and eager trial witness, told Cortis that: “If Nellie May Madison had been my own most devoted daughter, she could not have been more concerned about me, more genuinely kind and sympathetic.”23 The men involved in Nellie’s life, on the other hand, all wore the cloak of villains. Though few of them agreed to be interviewed, Cortis felt confident enough in his powers of observation to depict police, attorneys, and her ex-husbands as cold-hearted, prevaricating, and sometimes abusive. Police, for example, had sworn that no knives had been found in the Madisons’ apartment. But Cortis presented affidavits from neighbors who said they had seen the knives under the bed and witnessed police carting them away. Prosecutor George Stahlman emerged as a man who would stop at nothing, including wild and preposterous assertions, to ensure Nellie Madison’s execution. Cortis charged that Stahlman tried to discourage his efforts by claiming that Nellie had used her sexual powers to persuade the proprietor of the second gun store to let her have the weapon without waiting the required twenty-four hours.24 “She fornicated with a man in the store where she bought the second gun,” Stahlman asserted. Cortis visited the store and interviewed the salesman who insisted that “nothing like that ever happened.” Cortis occasionally used capital letters for emphasis in describing individuals. He accused Joseph Ryan of “gross negligence and utter carelessness in his fantastic ‘defense’ of his client. mr. joseph ryan is responsible for turning the jury and the public directly against mrs. nellie madison. any fault found in her at her trial, under the heading of perjury, is his, and not hers.” 209

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He depicted William Brown as a habitual drunk who admitted to Cortis in a conversation that he had never loved Nellie. “I don’t know why I married her,” he said. “My mother had just died and I was all upset, I guess, so I married her, but I never really loved her and I don’t love her now. I’m just sorry for her.” Brown tried to “play the hero” during Nellie’s trial, Cortis charged, but his false claim that she had shot at him, and his trial testimony contradicting that claim, had played into the hands of prosecutors. Not surprisingly, Eric Madison wore the blackest hat in this melodrama. Cortis visited two psychiatrists, both of whom looked at photos of Eric and immediately branded him a “sexual deviant” and a “pervert.” Three former employers who had fired Eric described behavior that ranged from repugnant to extremely dangerous. Amerigo Bozzani had hired Eric as a mechanic at his Los Angeles garage in late 1918 and he was best man at Eric’s wedding to Georgia Madison. When he heard that Eric had been murdered, “I thought Georgia had killed him,” he told Cortis. Bozzani was not surprised at the murder. Eric “was a most quarrelsome man and always in trouble with some other man. He kept a loaded revolver in his locker and a few weeks after his wedding, got into a deadly fight with the foreman and nearly killed him.”25 Helen Garrett employed Eric as a bookkeeper in 1927 and 1928. She fired him three times for inappropriate behavior, she told Cortis, but each time she hired him back after he promised to reform. “He dressed well, drove an expensive car and was obsessed with cleanliness,” Garrett said. “In fact, he never used the same towel twice.” He also “exhibited a peculiar and sinister influence over women. Only an ice woman could be safe when near him.” His conquests included a married, nineteen-year-old telephone operator. “One day I caught Madison showing the girl some lewd Kodak pictures,” Garrett told Cortis. “And she appeared to be fall210

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ing under his evil influence. . . . He seemed to me like a venomous serpent always ready to strike—a woman or girl. He had nervy, twitchy eyes that had a deadly cast in them. One day I found in the drawer of my desk, a paper-covered book that looked like a physical culture book with the picture of a nude woman on the cover. I opened the book and was shocked to see a number of illustrations of men and women in various poses of sex-perversion.”26 V. G. McGee, manager of the Congress Hotel in Portland, Oregon, where Eric worked briefly in fall 1933, described him as “an egotistical, insolent, overbearing nut and when drinking, a dangerous maniac. From what I observed, I am much inclined to think his wife shot either in self-defense or fear.” He added: “Newspaper reports of her trial indicated an idiotic defense by a lawyer either incompetent or deliberately stupid.”27 Cortis typed up all the interviews, had them notarized, stapled them into thick binders, seven in all, and shipped them to Governor Merriam at the end of July.28 Since Merriam encouraged the public to view him as a godly man, and since Cortis was a playwright, the death penalty activist sought to frame Nellie’s case as a drama pitting a good woman against her evil tormentors. Under his creative direction, she was no longer the impulsive person who had made risky and unconventional life choices. Cortis transformed her, instead, into a “broken, helpless, and doomed woman” victimized over and over again by cruel men who took advantage of her good heart and trusting nature. If she had not been so desperate, Nellie might have been amused at this characterization.29 By early August the governor had finished signing and vetoing legislation, but still he made no public pronouncement about the pending execution. Whatever thoughts he may have had about the eclectic array of correspondence, he kept to himself. Throughout August and early September the Nixes labored to keep pressure on the governor. They adopted a different strategy. 211

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Newspapers had been responsible for crafting the image of a dangerous outlaw and femme fatale. Now they would be called on to play up the “new” image of Nellie Madison as a good and virtuous woman. They contacted editors throughout the state, hoping for a well-placed editorial or story. They turned again to Agness Underwood of the Herald and Express who still maintained a strong interest in the case. Underwood agreed to write another story. The first part of her two-part series appeared on September 10, twenty-four days before the scheduled hanging. Nellie’s mental state had deteriorated substantially since Underwood’s last visit less than six months earlier. Her once-black hair was now almost white and she had lost nearly thirty pounds. She felt like a caged animal, she told Underwood; she was desperately lonely and filled with terror at the prospect of hanging. “You cannot realize how long 14 months in a penitentiary really is—especially in solitary confinement. I never realized until I was sent here how birds and animals must feel because of their confinement.”30 Other inmates had regular visitors, but Nellie did not. Everything is measured by visiting days. Just like outside the people say: “[W]ell, it’s so many days to Christmas,” up here it is, “so many days until visiting day.” But visiting day never comes for me. I can hear the girls called to the reception room. They run down the corridor to keep the appointment and not lose a second of the time allotted for the visit. I can faintly hear them talking later about their receptions as they pass by. It gives me a consciousness of human life, though I am in solitary confinement. On clear days I can see miles away from my single window, yet I cannot see a soul. It is like being in a bottomless pit—looking up to the sky, knowing all the while that there are people above. 212

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Nellie had taken to spending many of her days fasting and in prayer, she told Underwood. Father O’Shea, the prison priest, visited her regularly and gave her communion in her cell. But even the prayers did not help at night. “In the middle of the night I can see the noose dangling in front of my eyes. And to get rid of such thoughts I have to get out of bed and walk around. It seems that I will go mad if I don’t. I must confess that at times my nerves are keyed up to the breaking point from this horrible suspense of waiting.”31 The same day that Underwood’s story appeared, the San Diego Sun editorial page published an editorial asking Merriam to reprieve Nellie Madison. An accompanying cartoon depicted Nellie sitting on the cot in her cell and reaching toward a small barred window and the sun. Inside the cell all was dark.32 Merriam continued to receive letters and petitions as summer began to turn the corner toward autumn. A petition from fortyfive Los Angeles women declared that “charity and justice cannot be served by carrying out the Court decision to hang a woman. We believe the hanging would reflect on the justice and integrity of our state. The people of the United States look only with horror and shame on such a verdict.”33 News of the case touched those outside of California as well. Lillian Adams of Marysville, Washington, heard about the pending hanging on a radio program. “Will you please do what you can to at least save her life?” she “very respectfully” wrote Merriam. “A short term would surely suffice. There is so much suffering, let us do what we can to relieve it.”34 F. H. Cooney, the governor of Montana also wrote to Merriam. I know her people near Dillon, Montana, which would undoubtedly influence me some in her behalf. I still believe there is enough doubt about this being an actual premeditated murder to justify you in at least commuting her sentence to life imprisonment. . . . 213

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Since I became governor three murderers have been sentenced to be hanged. In two cases I let the law take its course. In the third, while it was a very close case, I gave the defendant the benefit of the doubt and commuted the sentence. The more I have looked into the matter, the more I am satisfied that I made no mistake.35 The most poignant letter came from Nellie’s brother Dan Mooney in Montana. Mooney’s letter was dated September 10, the same day as the San Diego editorial and Aggie Underwood’s story. He began by noting that, “as sheriff of this county for years . . . I participated in the conviction and punishment of many criminals. I feel that I am not entirely unfamiliar with such matters. “I fully realize that my sister has made numerous blunders in her conduct since proceedings were initiated. I cannot account for these and feel that it is useless to apologize. Never-the-less, I feel the results would have been much different if the mistakes had not been made.” Mooney stopped short of laying Nellie’s death sentence entirely at the feet of Joseph Ryan, but made it clear that Ryan should at least bear part of the blame. Her mistakes, he wrote, “must have been due to her great predicament and nervous condition when she found herself confronted with the real facts, or possibly due to the misdirection of someone.” As for the crime itself: “Nellie was born in this county and reared on a farm. Having been raised in a modest home and lived the simple life of her father and mother, a home where deception was unknown, we, of course, are at a loss to account for her misconduct and feel that there must have been extenuating circumstances, if not good cause for her conduct.” He concluded by turning the focus to his own children, “the oldest of which are in high school. I know the suffering the whole affair has caused Nellie’s relations in Montana. It sometimes seems 214

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unbearable, particularly to my wife and children and my sister and her children and grandchildren, and I feel it will cast such a spell over them that their whole lives will be influenced, should the extreme penalty be administered.”36 In a desperate, last-ditch effort to save her life, on September 14 William Brown filed a writ of coram nobis with the state supreme court, a legal procedure in which the petitioner asks an appellate court to reconsider a case because of errors or facts not submitted that might have changed a verdict. Brown blamed Joseph Ryan for beginning the trial with a selfdefense strategy and then, without telling his client, shifting to mistaken identity. “At the time of her trial and sometime afterward, the mind of Nellie Madison bordered on a state of hysteria, she being unable to comprehend the significance of her counsel changing from the proper to the ridiculous.” Without comment, the court denied Brown’s petition.37 By the middle of September, most of California, it seemed, was waiting to hear what would happen to Nellie Madison. Merriam maintained his silence, but now other public figures began to push him toward a decision. A. R. O’Brien was a newspaper publisher from Ukiah in northern California and president of the Board of Prison Terms, the agency that oversaw the administration of all prisons in the state. He visited Nellie in her cell and afterward gave an interview in which he “let slip” his opinion that “I don’t think the governor will let her hang and I told her so.” Of course, he wrote in his newspaper, “I knew nothing of the sort, but my code of life had taught me that when it becomes necessary to lie to save a woman from great grief, the thing to do is to lie, like a gentleman.”38 Merriam was not amused and quickly distanced himself from the remark. “Mr. O’Brien or anyone else can say anything he wants to on his own initiative, but I believe it was rather indiscreet for him to tell Mrs. Madison her sentence would not be carried out. 215

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I did not authorize him or anyone else to speak for me.” Merriam said he would not make a decision until “later on. In matters of this kind I prefer to wait as long as possible because of the danger of new developments altering the situation. Mrs. Madison may talk again, tell a different story.”39 But the pressure obviously had gotten to him. Seeking an “independent” opinion, Merriam sought out Charles Fricke, the judge who had presided over Nellie’s trial. Fricke was not much help. “In an experience of over thirty years,” Fricke began his letter to the governor, “I have never encountered such a strange case as that of Nellie May Madison. . . . It is my personal opinion that the defense sought to be proved at the trial was not the theory of the defense when the trial began.” Joseph Ryan began with a self-defense strategy, Fricke surmised, but the prosecution evidence that she had shot her husband in the back led Ryan “to realize that any theory of self-defense was hopeless.” Fricke characterized Nellie’s confession as “absolutely inconsistent with the physical facts, particularly with the gunshot wounds entering from the back.” And he discounted the notion that Ryan had led her to perjure herself. “Knowing both Joe and Frank Ryan as ethical lawyers, I cannot believe this.” Despite his skepticism about the confession, Fricke said he could not offer an opinion on the execution. “I find myself without any correct knowledge of it. It may be, if the truth were known, that there were present circumstances and factors which would so mitigate the shooting . . . as to warrant a commutation of sentence.” Fricke would later come to revise history somewhat, recollecting that he had encouraged Merriam to commute Nellie’s sentence.40 By Sunday, September 15, Merriam had apparently made his decision, though he was not yet ready to announce it. That day’s editions of the Los Angeles Examiner floated a rumor that Merriam would, in fact, commute Nellie’s death sentence to life in prison. The action would occur “in a few days,” the paper predicted. 216

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Merriam neither confirmed nor denied the report, but the paper claimed that the tip had come from “sources close to the governor who feels that California should not bear the stigma of hanging a woman.”41 On Monday September 16 Merriam left Sacramento for a brief vacation in San Diego and then a convention in St. Louis. Shortly after noon the governor and his motorcade stopped in Merriam’s adopted hometown of Long Beach for lunch. He offered brief remarks to a luncheon crowd. As he prepared to return to his car, he turned to reporters and made a terse announcement: “I have decided to commute Mrs. Madison’s sentence to life in prison.” He assured his audience that his action did not represent a weakening of his staunch support for capital punishment, refused to make any further comments or to take questions, stepped into his car, and drove away. The official reprieve, bearing his signature, would come later, when he returned to Sacramento.42 Word traveled quickly and by mid-afternoon, radio stations throughout Southern California carried the news. But Merriam had failed to inform either Lloyd Nix or prison authorities at San Quentin of the commutation and the paperwork needed to be completed before Nellie could be officially notified. Nix spent the remainder of the day in a frantic attempt to reach Merriam for verification. At Tehachapi Nellie’s fellow inmates heard the news on the radio and rushed to her cell window. “The governor has commuted your sentence,” they shouted up to her. Nellie swayed slightly and clutched her throat, but she refused to believe the news, she told the women, until she heard it directly from Nix or from prison authorities. She shouted down the hall for a guard and then asked to see Tehachapi warden Josephine Jackson, but she was not available. She stood pacing in front of her cell door until someone official approached. “Is it true that I’ve been reprieved?” Nellie called out 217

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as she heard the footsteps coming down the hall. It was the deputy warden. “I’ve heard the rumor, but it’s not official,” she told Nellie, and walked away to get confirmation. Nellie was left to wait. She spent the afternoon pacing and twisting a handkerchief in her hands. Shortly before 5:00 p.m., Nix reached Merriam, who verified that he had, indeed, commuted the sentence. He refused to elaborate. Nix thanked him and then gently reminded him that he needed to phone San Quentin, which would then relay the news to Tehachapi.43 Merriam promised to sign the executive order. Nix hung up and excitedly phoned his wife and Agness Underwood. After three months of feverish activity, anxiety, dread, and suspense, it was all over. Nellie Madison would not be the first woman executed in California. Someone else would bear that designation.44

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ellie Madison had hardly slept when she arose before dawn on Tuesday, September 17, 1935, to a new life. No more lying on her cot and staring at the wall calendar that served as a constant reminder of the dwindling number of days she had left on earth. No more night terrors as the imagined shadow of the noose jerked her awake. No more watching from a single small window as her fellow inmates gathered outside in the sunshine. Now she could join them. Lloyd and Beatrice Nix and Agness Underwood had arrived at Tehachapi just before dark Monday night. Accompanied by Warden Josephine Jackson, they rushed to her cell to give her official word of the reprieve. Though she had heard the news informally and was prepared for this meeting, the formal notification seemed to send her reeling. She began to sob and her words tumbled over each other. She was nearly incoherent. “I’m not to hang, oh Lord, thank you. Oh how sweet it is to know that I am going to live— that society is not going to claim my life because I destroyed the life of a husband who cruelly wronged me.”1 She grasped both of Lloyd Nix’s hands in her own and showered them with kisses. “You did it! You did it! How can I ever thank you?” She embraced both of the Nixes. Underwood had brought a bouquet of chrysanthemums and Nellie offered her a grateful hug and a tearful smile.2

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Turning to Jackson she wiped her eyes with her handkerchief and asked: “When will this dreadful solitary existence end? When can I leave this cell and join and talk with the other women in the prison? How soon can I begin working?” Jackson laid a hand on Nellie’s arm, trying to calm her. “We can’t move you to another cell until we receive the paperwork from San Quentin. That may not be for another day or two. Then you can join the general prison population.” Nellie nodded. She tucked her handkerchief into the pocket of her loose cotton dress and patted her damp cheeks. She turned to Nix. “Can you please send a telegram to the governor offering him my heartfelt thanks?” “What do you want it to say?” he asked. “Tell him that words cannot express my extreme gratitude for your act of mercy. God bless you.”3 “I’ll send it early tomorrow morning,” Nix told her. He then informed her that, with any luck, she would not have to serve out her life in prison, but might be paroled in ten to twelve years. Hearing this, Nellie began to cry all over again. “It’s not so important that some day I may be free. Now I am only thankful that I am to live.”4 Prison authorities had agreed to an informal 9:30 a.m. Tuesday news conference in Nellie’s cell. That would give journalists from afternoon papers enough time for a few quick questions and photos in order to make their deadlines. Those from morning papers could linger a bit longer. By the time guards ushered reporters through the front door of the prison administration building she had undergone a makeover. Her hair was again dark and trimmed into a sleek bob, courtesy of a female guard who provided dark brown dye. She wore lipstick, face powder, and a touch of rouge. But her trial, sentence, and fourteen months in solitary confinement had taught her the pervasive power of cultural symbols and stereotypes. No matter 220

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what the motive for murder had been, she knew better than to appear remote, reticent, or overconfident. Humility, garrulousness, and repentance were the way to go. When journalists entered her cell they could not avoid noticing the religious items on prominent display. A large crucifix stood front and center on her writing table. Immediately to its right lay a Bible and a book of inspirational poems. In front of the crucifix she placed a small vase containing the flowers given to her by Underwood and a large stack of letters from her supporters. She greeted her audience with a broad smile. “God bless everyone,” she said, and then quickly lowered her eyes. Answering the predictable questions about how she felt, she responded with fervent emotion: “I’m starting to live all over again. I had faith all the while—faith that God wouldn’t let me die! I’m going to go out of doors every day—out into the sunshine and I’m going to stay out there, all day long.” And, she added: “[T]here are no words to describe how much I appreciate all of the work my attorneys and supporters put into saving my life.” “What will you do now?” a reporter asked. “I want to work, to do something to repay society and to show that the saving of my life was worthwhile.” “What kind of work?” another reporter asked. Her response hinted at the beginning of her old self-confidence. “I have spent more than a year in the hospital wing of the administration building and I hope to be put on the nursing staff here.” Journalists appeared to ponder the fact that she had no prior experience in this field, a circumstance that might make this plan somewhat difficult to accomplish. Warden Jackson, who also attended the press conference, also seemed somewhat taken aback by Nellie’s proposal. She quickly interjected. “Whatever type of work Mrs. Madison prefers, she will be given, if we feel that she is capable of doing it and will be happy and contented.” Jackson did not mention nursing, however. “She 221

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probably will be given employment in the laundry, in the kitchen or sewing room.”5 Several photographers asked Nellie to pose for pictures. For the Los Angeles Times she leaned against her writing table, with the crucifix, Bible and flowers in plain view and with her chin resting on her right hand. Her left hand caressed a letter as she gazed pensively off into the middle distance.6 For the Hearst papers she received permission to leave her cell briefly and pose outside in front of a large rose bush. She wore a scoop-necked, dark striped dress that hung mid-calf. With her right foot extended daintily behind her, she grasped a rose between both of her hands and offered the photographer a tentative smile. The caption beneath the photo read: “Fourteen months in a tiny ‘cell’ in preparation for death, each minute ticking her closer to the gallows—then suddenly Nellie Madison’s world is filled with sunshine, the almost-forgotten smell of the out-of-doors and the thrilling beauty of growing flowers.”7 Two days later Governor Merriam issued the formal commutation. Reading between the lines, he seemed critical of Joseph Ryan’s defense. The text read: Twelve members of the jury and two alternate jurors, comprising the jury hearing the evidence and rendering the verdict on which Mrs. Madison was sentenced, have signed a communication requesting commutation of the sentence from death to life imprisonment. A careful examination of the application filed on behalf of Nellie May Madison, and my discussion of her case with those who have known her . . . has satisfied me that, in her case, I should exercise executive clemency. From one who has known her well I have learned of many particularly aggravating acts and conduct on the part of the man to whom she was married, which might 222

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well have been considered in her defense. These facts were not offered in evidence at the trial. A new trial cannot now be had, but the record and these facts have been given consideration in arriving at a decision in her case. Merriam offered assurances that he still strongly favored the death penalty: “Action in this case should not be interpreted as opposition on my part to the observance and enforcement of law or to capital punishment when ordered by a trial jury and the courts, but this case impresses me as one justifying modification, especially since the jurors join in the request.”8 With the reprieve official, Nellie Madison packed up her crucifix, Bible, letters, and other personal items and left her “death cell” for the last time. Guards escorted her to one of the four cottages where women inmates slept, showered, and ate their meals. She now had more than two dozen “housemates,” but she would continue to be a solitary soul, with no family and few visitors or friends. The same day that Nellie moved to new quarters her sister Lizzie wrote to Frank Merriam: “I wish to extend to you my most heartfelt thanks for the action you have taken in the case of my sister Mrs. Nellie M. Madison. I assure you that you have lifted a heavy burden from the hearts of her family here. Your humane action will never be forgotten by us. With best wishes for your continued sucess [sic], I am Sincerly [sic] yours, Mrs. Mary E. Ney.” Her siblings would never see her again, but at least they knew they had done their part to save her life.9 The reprieve also meant the end of Nellie Madison as a story. For the reporters and photographers captivated by the “Enigma Woman,” she would fade into the distance and become someone to recall during late night sessions at local taverns, when the flowing alcohol fueled boastful reminiscence. Agness Underwood moved on to other high-profile murder tri223

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als including that of Hazel Glab. A colorful character, Glab managed to evade arrest for eight years following the 1927 shooting death of her husband, who was gunned down on the driveway of the couple’s Burbank home. Witnesses said they saw a blonde woman running from the scene. Glab had dark hair. She also seemed to have an alibi. Eventually police dropped their pursuit and Glab moved on. When her wealthy fiancé died mysteriously in early 1935—leaving all his money to Glab in a will written in purple ink—his children called police. Glab was convicted of forgery and authorities reopened the investigation into her husband’s death. Jurors ultimately convicted Glab of second-degree murder and she joined Nellie at Tehachapi in April 1936.10 Lloyd and Beatrice Nix and Ernest Cortis eased out of Nellie’s life as well, though Nix would continue to be her attorney and she would pay him whatever she could. Despite her estrangement from her family, Nellie’s Uncle Daniel kept her in his will. When he died she inherited $1,100, which she immediately signed over to Nix.11 Most of Nellie’s friends and acquaintances also drifted away, including those who had fervently sought the sentence commutation. Only two friends, Arthur and Florence Fox of Frazier Park, continued to make the journey to Tehachapi for regular visits. With her old friends falling off, she might have made new ones at the prison, but she did not. Her anger at the legal system that she believed had so badly mistreated her, spilled over into her relationships with other inmates. She kept her distance except when direct contact could not be avoided. On these occasions she was reticent and aloof, an attitude that earned her hostility and an occasional physical confrontation. She came to despise prison officials who treated her no differently than the other women, despite the circumstances of her crime and her professional background. Florence Monahan, a war224

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den during four of the years Nellie spent at Tehachapi, demonstrated the one-size-fits-all attitude of authorities when she called her wards “failures who have been in constant conflict with law and order and who are opposed to society and devoid of sympathy and cooperation, but who are continually grasping for themselves with no feelings that they should give in return.”12 She was not assigned to the hospital as she had asked. Instead officials assigned her the kinds of tasks that reflected their desire to keep inmates subservient and to mold them into proper wives and mothers—cooking, sewing, and housekeeping. She inwardly raged against a system that treated her like a child, that rewarded her for keeping her room clean and washing her silverware properly and that punished her for minor infractions—talking back, arguing with other inmates—by taking away “treats.” By May 1936 a prison psychiatrist who evaluated her remarked that “she has few friends or family now.” No longer grateful just to be alive, she was bitterly resentful, alienated, and almost completely alone. She let her hair return to its natural gray and complained constantly about a long list of ailments, including arthritis. “Why should I be imprisoned,” she mused aloud more than once, “for killing a man who so cruelly wronged me?” This was the term she continued to use whenever she was compelled to mention Eric Madison. She no longer referred to him as “my husband” and she never used his name. And, she made it clear, she was not sorry he was dead.13 Near the breaking point, she had few options. She could either settle into the routine of prison life or craft a campaign to win parole. Despite Lloyd Nix’s optimistic prediction, it was a long shot. Jurors had recommended in their letter to Merriam that she spend the rest of her life in prison. To win parole Nellie had to work her way through a labyrinthine prison bureaucracy with overlapping jurisdictions and many duplicative agencies and functions. The Department of Penology 225

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had six separate divisions: the Advisory Pardon Board, State Board of Prison Directors, Board of Prison Terms and Paroles, Bureau of Criminal Identification and Investigation, California Crime Commission, and Division of Narcotic Enforcement. Three separate entities dealt with pardons and paroles. The Advisory Pardon Board recommended or denied petitions for pardons or sentence reductions; the Board of Prison Terms and Paroles made final decisions on inmates seeking pardons, sentence reductions, or paroles; and some individual prisons, including Tehachapi, maintained this authority as well. The governor could overrule decisions made by any of the three entities.14 Each agency and institution had its own protocol, and politics played a significant role in the way they conducted business. Each operated with its own board whose members jealously guarded their prerogatives. Turf conflicts often flared into open warfare. Tehachapi was no exception. When Nellie Madison began her campaign for parole, voters had just approved a ballot initiative transferring operation of the California Institute of Women from San Quentin to a five-member Board of Trustees appointed by the governor. Club women had long pressed for the transfer of power, believing that it put them in a better position to run the prison their way, with a focus on rehabilitation rather than punishment. But the new law granted them just two seats on the board. Their first defeat under the new law came quickly, when trustees voted in early 1937 to hire Florence Monahan as warden. Some club women immediately challenged the choice. Monahan was power-hungry, they argued, and did not work well with subordinates. Monahan did not help her own case when, upon arrival at Tehachapi, she described the atmosphere as “complete confusion” and derided the staff as unprofessional, lazy, and unwilling to punish prisoners. For the next four years, until her resignation, Monahan and the club women waged constant war.15 Nellie did have one potential factor on her side. In the 1930s 226

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California had indeterminate sentencing, which set prison terms within a prescribed minimum and maximum number of years for all but the most serious offenders, but did not mandate the exact amount of time an inmate actually had to serve. This policy encouraged inmates to cooperate with prison officials in order to pare their sentences to the minimum. Nellie had been re-sentenced to life without parole, but if she could get her sentence reduced to something less, she might have to serve only eight or nine years. First she had to obtain a hearing date from the Tehachapi Board of Trustees and she would not be eligible to appear before the board until she had served at least seven years. That would not be until July 1941. Even if the board recommended a sentence reduction, she still had to gain approval from the Advisory Pardon Board; and that was not the end of it. She had to wait for the governor to rubber-stamp the pardon board’s decision and then appear before the Tehachapi board again for a parole date. There was another, extremely remote, possibility: cutting through all of the red tape by convincing Merriam to pardon her outright or reduce her sentence. He had, in his official reprieve, taken note of Eric Madison’s brutality and hinted at Joseph Ryan’s ineptitude. Perhaps he might prove willing to take a second look at her case. Whatever tactic she used, however, Nellie had gained enough savvy to recognize Eric’s abusive behavior as the key to winning sympathy from the system. In January 1937 she sat down and wrote the governor a letter and attached a copy of her May 1936 meeting with the prison psychiatrist. She built on her portrait of Eric Madison as a violent abuser. “Patient states that one week before the murder, Mr. Madison told her he had no intentions of marrying her, marriage was a false marriage to get out of state and away from another woman and to get patient’s money. . . . All money gone for dope and young girls.” Nellie only agreed to go along with Joseph Ryan’s trial strategy, she told the psychiatrist, because he 227

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“promised he would not call her as a witness, but then he reneged on his promise.”16 Merriam did not directly respond to the letter. Instead he sent word through an aide that she need not bother writing again. He would take no further action in her case. His response sent her into an emotional tailspin. She stayed in her room and refused to eat or speak to anyone. After more than a week the doctor went to see Florence Monahan, who had just arrived at Tehachapi. “She will die unless something happens,” he told the new warden. Monahan summoned Nellie to her office. As she later recalled, she confronted Nellie. “What on earth are you doing to yourself?” she demanded. “When you thought you would die, you promised never to ask for another thing if your sentence were commuted to life. And now look at you. A little more than a year later you’re asking for a full pardon. That’s out of all reason and you know it. Stop sniveling and snap out of it. You’re no worse off than the other women.” Monahan granted one concession. She offered Nellie the job of tending to the flower beds that surrounded the prison administration building. Gardening was not the same as nursing, but it was the kind of job that absorbed her physically and offered her a creative outlet, one that she would pursue for the rest of her life. Over time she came to cultivate what Monahan termed “some of the most beautiful roses I’ve seen anywhere.” She eventually gave Nellie the job of flower-arranging for prison offices as well.17 Within months she bounced back from the disappointment of Merriam’s rejection and began a new campaign, one attempting to build on her image as the victim of abusive and duplicitous men. She now included her trial lawyer, Joseph Ryan, in this group. She contacted A. R. O’Brien, the newspaper publisher and member of the state prison board who had hinted to Nellie in September 1935 that Merriam would spare her life. The Board of Prison Directors, which oversaw the operations for all of California’s pris228

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ons, had no direct role in pardons or paroles, but she hoped that O’Brien might be convinced to intercede with Merriam again. He quickly agreed and wrote the governor in December 1937. His letter targeted Joseph Ryan. Not only did Ryan conduct a disastrous defense, O’Brien asserted, “After her conviction, he took her few pitiful possessions and then went to her relatives who were poor and got them to furnish him funds when he knew he could do nothing for her.” O’Brien also located six members of the jury, including foreman J. A. Grace, and convinced them to write to Merriam as well. She no longer deserved life in prison, they had decided. In January 1938 they wrote: “If we had known what we know now, we would have acquitted her on grounds of justifiable homicide.”18 Nellie also enlisted one of the few friends she had left: Arthur Fox. In his letter to Merriam, Fox described Eric Madison as a “brute. Many times have I seen (Nellie) with her eyes practically closed from being struck by him, but never have I seen her be anything but a lady.” Of Ryan, Fox commented: “I know that Joe was blinded by the publisity [sic] and the hope of putting over a spectular [sic] and weird defense. But knowing Nellie as I do I feel that Society would benefit far more by the release of this fine woman Governor than keeping her locked up behind bars the rest of her life.”19 Merriam did not respond to any of the letter writers. Nineteen thirty-eight was an election year and he could not afford to take any risks. Pardoning a murderer, even one with mitigating circumstances, would cost him precious votes. In the end it did not matter. Merriam lost the election and, in January 1939, Culbert Olson became the first Democratic governor of California in forty-four years. A total of fifty-three men were put to death during the slightly more than four years Merriam spent as governor.20 Now Nellie had to begin all over with a new governor, who knew little or nothing about her case. But he might prove sym229

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pathetic to her. In one of his first actions, Olson pardoned Tom Mooney (no relation to Nellie), a labor activist convicted in 1916 of a San Francisco bombing that left two people dead.21 From the beginning Mooney claimed he had been framed by officials who abhorred his activism and leftist politics. Virtually no evidence linked him to the bombing, but five governors had refused to pardon him. Olson had made the pardon a campaign issue and in January 1939 Mooney finally walked out of San Quentin.22 Nellie wrote to Olson, outlining her case. Within a few weeks she received a reply from Stanley Mosk, a twenty-seven-year-old attorney who had temporarily given up the practice of law to work as Olson’s executive secretary. Olson was unlikely to grant Nellie an outright pardon, Mosk told her, but he would not object if she put together an application for the Advisory Pardon Board seeking a sentence reduction. She should send it to Olson’s office in the state capitol and Mosk would forward it to the board for consideration.23 The five-member board, consisting of the lieutenant governor, attorney general, wardens of San Quentin and Folsom prisons, and the director of the Department of Penology, met every other month to discuss prisoner applications. It was August 29, 1939, when the Advisory Pardon Board met in San Francisco to discuss the case of Nellie May Madison, whose photograph was stapled to the inside of the front cover of the manila folder containing her application. The photo, taken in July 1934 as she was being processed into Tehachapi under a death sentence, showed a woman with a pained and somewhat stunned look. Her pale lips were parted, her face was ashen, and she wore the same black dress with white piping around the V-neck that she had worn throughout her trial. Her prison identification number, 56387, white numbers on a black background, hung around her neck on a placard. The vital statistics that accompanied the photo noted that the pe230

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titioner was now forty-four years old, white, had fourteen years of education, and had worked as a hotel manager before her imprisonment. She was five-feet, seven-and-a-half inches tall and weighed one hundred thirty-nine pounds. Under habits prison officials listed “liquors.” Under family they wrote “none.” The file also listed her marriages—minus her second marriage to Clarence Kennedy—though many of the dates were wrong. The personal details concluded with this notation: “No children resulted from these unions.”24 The file contained letters from supporters and opponents. Prison board official A. R. O’Brien wrote on her behalf, declaring her “unfortunate” both in her choice of lawyers and husbands. Ryan had victimized her both during the trial and afterward, when she was “fighting for her life.” As for Eric Madison he was, quite simply, “a degenerate who, in forfeiting his life, got less than he deserved,” according to O’Brien. Tehachapi warden Florence Monahan wrote in support as well. “She obeys all rules and cooperates in every way and has a good record.” With credits for good behavior, Nellie had spent the equivalent of eight years in prison, Monahan said. But credits did not matter. “Without a pardon, parole, or sentence reduction, she would have to spend the rest of her life in prison.” Several prominent individuals opposed reducing her sentence. They included E. H. Thomas, now Burbank’s police chief, and Superior Court Judge Charles Fricke, who provided a lengthy summary of the case. Ignoring the allegations of brutality on the part of Eric Madison, he wrote: “I can see no reason or justification for either a commutation or a pardon for Nellie May Madison,” Fricke wrote. “She murdered her husband while he lay in bed, shooting him several times through the back. . . . Furthermore, the defense relied on was the most obvious perjury and the story later told by Mrs. Madison, in which she claimed she shot in self-defense, is equally unbelievable.” Two others involved in her case, Los Angeles County District 231

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Attorney Buron Fitts and Sheriff Eugene Biscailuz, offered no recommendation.25 A week later Advisory Pardon Board secretary Paul Yarwood wrote Olson informing him of the board’s decision. Mosk forwarded a copy of the letter to Nellie at Tehachapi. It was not good news. The board refused to short-circuit the parole process. Instead it “recommends to your Excellency that this application . . . be denied. Applicant will appear before the Board of Trustees of the California Institution for Women during July of 1941; therefore, the Board was of the unanimous opinion that she should first receive parole consideration before taking action on the Executive Clemency application.”26 Nellie was distraught. She wrote to Olson, pleading with him to overrule the decision. I have been advised that you are not bound by the actions of this board. I am making a personal plea to you for a “reduction of sentence that would be in accord with justice.” I have nothing to add in the way of facts as everything pertaining to my case has been fully covered. . . . I realize that an appeal based on purely personal reasons would not, and should not be effective, but I also know that if you will study the salient points of my case the injustice to me is too apparent to be overlooked. If I deserved a life sentence or if the facts of my case called for same, I would not waste a minute of your valuable time. But I am facing the rest of my life in prison, to say nothing of the torture of 14 months in solitary confinement, which left me a nervous wreck and crippled with arthritis. I have also lost everyone dear to me since my incarceration.27 Her disappointment at the board’s decision spilled over into her behavior. She usually held her emotions under rigid control, but she lashed out at a fellow inmate during dinner one evening in late 232

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September 1939. The action earned Nellie her first serious punishment of her five years in prison—loss of thirty days credit for good behavior.28 Olson did not overrule the board’s decision, but he apparently prevailed upon the Tehachapi trustees to advance Nellie’s hearing by seventeen months, to February 10, 1940. At that meeting the board voted to recommend a reduction in Nellie’s sentence to fifteen years. She immediately wrote to Stanley Mosk asking what she should do next. “I do not wish to be troublesome, but I do not know how else to become cognizant of the situation,” she stated. “In view of the favorable recommendation made by the Tehachapi Board of Trustees, would it mean that my case has been, or will be, re-referred to the Advisory Pardon Board . . . or is it incumbent upon me to request the same, before that can be done? I am sorry if I appear stupid and trust you will overlook any failure to conform to the requirements in such matters.”29 Mosk wrote back to tell Nellie that she did need to resubmit her application. She mailed the package to Sacramento with a note attached. She was remarkably assertive for an incarcerated woman who desperately needed official approval: “I submitted this form in August 1939. Now, in view of the favorable recommendation of the Tehachapi Board of Trustees, I trust that your Honorable Board will act favorably on my behalf. I believe it is needless to point out that my record, and everything pertaining to this recommendation, is familiar to you.”30 Secretary Paul Yarwood wrote back in June 1940, acknowledging receipt of her application and warning Nellie not to expect a decision soon because “there are so many cases ahead of yours. It will probably be four or five months before they take it up.”31 The months of waiting led to new emotional meltdowns and confrontations. On September 22, 1940, Nellie had a fistfight with another inmate and, for the second time, she lost thirty days of 233

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privileges. That November she wrote again to Yarwood, reminding him that she was still waiting. Finally, in early December, she heard back: “The board will hear your case on January 5, 1941.” The forty-five-year-old woman who appeared in the photo stapled to the file folder that board members opened that day bore scarce resemblance to the “Enigma Woman” or even the woman who had met with journalists after her reprieve. She had steel gray hair set in a permanent wave and curled close to her head. She sat slumped in her chair and wore a flowered shirtwaist dress with short sleeves that revealed flabby upper arms. Though an observer had to look closely to see it, the right side of her face seemed to droop slightly. Her large brown eyes, which held the camera in a steady gaze, offered the only tangible reminder that she had once been a strikingly attractive woman and that she was still a proud woman and a fighter.32 Florence Monahan’s written comments depicted a person both alienated and angry. Nellie’s conduct “has deteriorated of late. Since September 1939 she has received fifteen misconduct reports, mostly for loud arguing. She has always irritated the other women by her ’better than thou’ air and her assumption of privileges not hers. Other than these few incidents, however, she is a slow, quiet worker. Usually keeps to herself and does not participate in cottage activities—prides herself on this.”33 A. R. O’Brien again argued on her behalf. “If ever a woman got a hell of a deal from a man she killed and later from her own lawyer it was this unfortunate woman. I am in no manner connected with the inmate, but my sense of fairness impels me to ask you to go into this case. If you do, I am certain you will see the injustice that has been done her.”34 O’Brien’s letter may have been the catalyst, or it might have been Nellie’s relentless persistence and pressure, but with little discussion, the Advisory Pardon Board agreed to the Tehachapi recommendation. Her sentence would be reduced to fifteen years. The 234

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letter to Olson, copied to Nellie, read: “The Board recommends to Your Excellency that in connection with this Application for Pardon or Commutation of Sentence to Time Served, that applicant’s life sentence be commuted to fifteen years and thus concur in the formal recommendation of the Board of Trustees of the California Institution for Women at Tehachapi.” Nellie Madison’s joy knew no bounds. She wrote to Paul Yarwood and to the members of the pardon board. “My happiness in faceing [sic] a new life—instead of such a horrible sentence— leaves nothing in my heart except the joy of living, and deepest gratitude from that same heart buoyed with faith and courage for the future.”35 She had served almost exactly six-and-a-half years in prison. In the best of all possible worlds, under indeterminate sentencing guidelines, and with extra credits for good behavior, she might be eligible for parole in just a few months. All she needed was the governor’s approval for the sentence reduction and authorization by the Tehachapi Board of Trustees. Anticipating a quick parole hearing she again solicited letters. She cast her net wider, this time seeking people who had not already written on her behalf, to suggest that she had a large circle of supporters, rather than just a loyal handful. Two Palm Springs acquaintances wrote. Herbert Samson depicted Nellie as “a good, decent, respectable woman, well known and well liked. She was the type of person you would type as a ‘good citizen.’ ” Harry Putascio went even farther. “I wish to offer Mrs. Nellie Madison a position as assistant manager in the Eldorado Hotel in Palm Springs upon her release,” he wrote. “This hotel is owned and operated by me. . . . I knew Mrs. Nellie Madison when she resided in Palm Springs and can vouch for her honesty and integrity.”36 In early June 1941, Nellie met with Florence Monahan. Though it was not yet public knowledge, Monahan was nearing the end 235

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of her tenure as Tehachapi warden. The trustees had fired her in December 1939, but Monahan fought the firing, claiming she had not been properly notified of the termination and that one of her antagonists on the board wanted to be superintendent herself. In January 1940 Olson replaced Monahan’s nemesis and she was reinstated. But the situation remained tense.37 After their meeting Monahan wrote up a new report on Nellie, noting that she “could go to Palm Springs to work. She can manage hotels and can cook and keep house. She believes she can obey all of the rules.” She included Nellie’s misconduct reports, but added: “She is usually well-behaved. She works in Administration Building, housekeeping crew and care of flowers.”38 The parole hearing did not materialize. Less than a month later, on July 5, 1941, Monahan resigned, worn down by constant conflicts with the board of trustees. Her resignation set off a round of arrivals and departures at Tehachapi that did not end until Alma Holzschuh arrived at the prison in April 1942 to begin what would become a seventeen-year term as warden. All through the summer and fall of 1941, Nellie continued to wait for word from Culbert Olson, but it did not come. In December 1941, eleven months after the Advisory Pardon Board decision, she wrote to the governor, reminding him that “two separate Prison Boards have recommended that my commutation be granted and I now have a most advantageous opportunity for employment as well as a home with loyal friends.” Arthur Fox and his wife, Florence, had promised to take her in. She would work in their restaurant until she got back on her feet.39 Olson did not respond; nor did Mosk. The abrupt arrival of World War II had riveted their attention elsewhere. Despite her impatience, Nellie could not have failed to pause for a moment of reflection and gratitude as the year limped to an end. On November 12, 1941, the state of California executed its first woman. Eithel Juanita Spinelli, the fifty-two-year-old leader of a 236

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Sacramento gang, went to her death in the gas chamber that had replaced the gallows three years earlier. A jury had convicted Spinelli of arranging the murder of a young member of her gang who she suspected as an informer. There was no grass roots movement, no petition drive, and no prison board members lobbied to save Spinelli’s life. Virtually no one besides Ernest Whitehouse Cortis took up the cause of the “homely, scrawny, nearsighted scarecrow with thin lips, beady eyes, and scraggly black hair,” as San Quentin warden Clinton Duffy later described her.40 Though Olson had ignored her pleas, Nellie mounted a campaign with the Tehachapi Board of Trustees to grant her parole without the governor’s action to reduce her sentence. But three times in the first four months of 1942 the board turned her down. She had to wait for the governor, board members informed her. Increasingly desperate, Nellie sought out prominent surrogates to plead her case. Despite her marital history she had counted priests among her friends during her years in Los Angeles. Father Joseph Truxaw wrote to Olson in late summer 1942: “I have known Nellie Madison for twenty years and I urge you to take action in her case.”41 Stanley Mosk had mostly ignored Nellie for several months, but he quickly replied to Truxaw, apologizing for Olson’s inaction. “He has fallen behind in clemency cases because of the war.”42 Mosk did not mention another, possibly more important, reason for Olson’s failure to respond: he was running for reelection. Nellie had again run into a political wall that threatened to derail her years-long campaign to win her freedom. Olson’s Republican opponent was Earl Warren, California’s attorney general and conservative with a tough approach to crime and criminals. Olson could not afford to give Warren any ammunition. Nellie Madison continued to wait. This time she made certain that she did nothing to draw negative attention from Tehachapi officials. Warden Holzschuh had initiated a “big sister” program at 237

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the prison in which long-time inmates volunteered to take newcomers under their wings. Nellie eagerly volunteered.43 In November 1942 Warren defeated Culbert Olson. For Nellie the loss meant she had only two more months, until Olson left office, to convince him to act on her case. She could not bear the possibility of facing more years in prison as she labored to educate one more governor about her case, and one likely to be far less sympathetic. With three days remaining in his term, on December 31, 1942, Olson finally signed the formal sentence reduction. “In view of the favorable recommendations, I am granting to Nellie May Madison, Tehachapi No. 56387, a commutation of sentence to fifteen years.”44 She had now served nearly nine years in prison, more than enough for parole. Only one barrier remained: a final hearing before the Tehachapi Board of Trustees. On February 8, 1943, Warden Holtzschuh reported on Nellie’s behavior: She “has an excellent record at the institution. She works hard and willingly and is always offering to do extra assignments of work. She is kind and thoughtful and gets along well with others. She is helpful in trying to aid others in adjusting to the life of the institution. Nellie keeps her room and self neat and clean.” The parole hearing took place on March 24, 1943, exactly nine years to the day since Nellie murdered Eric Madison. Trustees unanimously agreed to release Nellie and approved her request to use a new name—Helen Marguerite Brown—in order to escape notoriety.45 Four days later, Nellie walked through the gates of the California Institution for Women. Arthur and Florence Fox were waiting to take her home to Frazier Park, where Nellie would spend her first few months of precious freedom. No reporters or photographers showed up to document her leave-taking from Tehachapi. Four weeks later women’s parole officer Emily Latham visited 238

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Nellie in Frazier Park, where Nellie was staying with the Foxes. She was working in the couple’s restaurant, the Pine Café, when Latham dropped by. “She was more than glad to see me and we had a very nice visit until it was interrupted by some customers who came in,” reported Latham. “Nellie introduced us and it was quite evident that they knew of her parole status. She tells me she knows a great many people up here and they, of course, were interested in her return. “I strongly advised her to remain with Mr. and Mrs. Fox by all means through the summer. It will take some time for her to be really adjusted to outside life. She has dyed her hair and looks well.”46

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14. A Traditional Woman

omen’s lives have changed in extraordinary ways since jurors sentenced Nellie Madison to hang for killing her partner. Although it was not apparent at the time of her death, ideas about gender roles, marriage, and sexuality had begun to disintegrate before an onslaught of challenges. Women’s work in War II as pilots, “Rosie the Riveters,” Major League baseball players, foreign correspondents, and even rodeo riders had significantly eroded notions of traditional womanhood, particularly the idea that, under pressure or stress, “normal” women would suffer emotional meltdowns. Agness Underwood’s experiences reflect this changing attitude. In 1947, as she reported on the Black Dahlia murder—a particularly grisly slaying in which the body of the young female victim was sliced in half, posed in a sexual position and left in a vacant lot near downtown Los Angeles—Underwood’s editor called her into his office and informed her that she was changing jobs. She would now be the Los Angeles Evening Herald and Express city editor, the person responsible for running the newsroom. The news came as a surprise and it made her the only woman city editor at a large metropolitan newspaper in the entire country. Her new title also earned her attention from Harper & Sons, which asked her to pen an autobiography. Newspaperwoman was

W

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published in 1949. In it Underwood detailed her struggles as a young woman in a male profession and discussed many of the stories that had fueled her successful career. The trial of Nellie Madison stood out in her memory as one of the most significant. Fifteen years after the fact, Underwood could articulate the notion, unspoken in 1934, that Nellie had received the death penalty “because she had been married thrice [sic] previously and had no children.”1 Notions of women’s sexuality were also beginning to be reexamined by the early 1950s. Alfred Kinsey, in 1949, published his groundbreaking Sexual Behavior in the Human Male. The year of Nellie’s death he followed with a companion volume on women, which disclosed that half of American women had experienced premarital sex. A new crop of female film stars illustrated this changing climate, headlined by Marilyn Monroe, whose shimmering sensuality and off-screen sexual relationships offered a tantalizing hint of things to come. In 1953 Monroe cavorted with busty brunette Jane Russell in the film Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. Two years later, in Seven Year Itch, Monroe played the role of a single woman having a flirtation with her married downstairs neighbor. Unthinkable at the time of Nellie Wagner’s trial, the film winked at gender stereotypes, specifically at the idea that young single women should shy away from sexual encounters. It made Monroe a superstar and the poster depicting her bare thighs as her white skirt swirled about her waist, became an instant cultural icon. Even such stubbornly rigid fields as the law were slowly moving in new directions by the 1950s. In 1935 California lawmakers passed, and Gov. Frank Merriam signed, legislation mandating automatic state-supreme-court review of death-penalty convictions, although such reviews remained largely perfunctory until after World War II when an active campaign against the death penalty emerged in the state.2 Among the vocal opponents of capital punishment: San Quentin warden Clinton Duffy, who took aim at 242

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the death penalty in two books, The San Quentin Story and EightyEight Men and Two Women.3 Changing attitudes toward the death penalty, and women’s roles, were reflected in the women California chose to execute. All three of the women condemned in the state before 1940 killed their current or former partners. None of the four women actually executed did so. Eithel Juanita Spinelli, executed in 1941, killed a gang member. Six years later, Louise Peete became the second woman executed by the state. Paroled after spending twenty-three years in prison for the 1920 murder of her Los Angeles landlord, less than two years later she killed again. This time the victim was a woman who had hired Peete as a housekeeper and caretaker.4 Barbara Graham, a former prostitute convicted of murdering an elderly woman during a robbery in Burbank, was California’s third executed woman. She went to her death in 1955 wearing a pair of red silk pajamas. Graham’s background and the brutality of her crime precluded a reprieve, but her sex appeal and cool blonde beauty earned her attention from Hollywood, which featured her story in the 1958 weeper film I Want to Live. The movie starred Susan Hayward, who won an Oscar for her performance.5 California executed its last woman in August 1962. Elizabeth Duncan was particularly unappealing, a factor that undoubtedly led Democratic governor Edmund G. Brown—a staunch death penalty opponent—to let her die, rather than commuting her sentence to life in prison. Duncan was extraordinarily close to her son. When he announced his impending fatherhood, Duncan murdered her five-months-pregnant daughter-in-law.6 The last two executions occurred after Nellie Wagner’s death, but she was still in prison for Spinelli’s execution and living in San Bernardino for Peete’s. It is tempting to ponder, but of course unanswerable, what she thought about these deaths, particularly Peete’s. Did she acknowledge having known Peete at Tehachapi, or did she feign ignorance and go about her daily life? Knowing her 243

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lifelong tendency toward reticence, she probably chose the second option. Nellie could not have noticed the incremental changes that had begun to reshape the cultural landscape at the end of her life. She could not have imagined, for example, that young girls gossiping, playing hopscotch, and jumping rope on the sidewalks of her neighborhood could have the kind of independence she had aspired to in her youth. Girls born just fifty years after Nellie would be encouraged to seek adventure and careers, they could engage in premarital sex, choose to remain childless or single, even live openly with partners without benefit of marriage. Occasionally derided for “shacking up,” they seldom experienced fear or shame for choosing this option. And if the relationship soured, for whatever reason, they could simply walk away. They could openly proclaim themselves “feminists” and articulate the idea that women should strive for equality in every realm of life. Though spousal abuse was still an excruciatingly embarrassing issue, women could speak aloud about such painful experiences without finding themselves shunned by respectable society. And attorneys no longer proved reluctant to cite the abuse as a strategy for getting clients exonerated. By the late 1980s spousal abuse had become an acceptable defense in criminal trials and by the early 1990s state laws mandated that judges accept the courtroom testimony of experts in the field.7 California led the way. A major catalyst for the change was a case somewhat similar to Nellie Madison’s. On a hot August night in 1986, Riverside police arrested Brenda Aris for shooting her husband to death as he lay sleeping. Aris, unlike Nellie Madison, immediately confessed the killing and divulged that her husband had beaten her for their entire decade-long marriage. He had, in fact, severely battered her the night she killed him. After he fell asleep, Aris said, she went to a neighbor’s to get ice 244

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for her swollen face, found a gun, and returned home. She initially intended to use the gun only “for protection,” but realized that “when he woke up that he was then going to hurt me very badly or even kill me.” She then shot her husband five times in the back. Aris’s attorney sought testimony from experts on how continual battering had shaped her client’s mental condition at the time of the killing, but the judge disallowed it. The jury found Aris guilty of second-degree murder and she was sentenced to fifteen years in prison.8 In her appeal Aris’s lawyer claimed that the judge had erred in his decision to exclude the expert testimony. In 1989 an appellate court agreed, but upheld her conviction, declaring that she had not been in “imminent” danger at the time of the murder. Two years later the California State Legislature made it mandatory for judges to accept expert testimony on the psychological effects of spousal abuse. Other states have since adopted similar laws.9 Aris, like Nellie Madison, was the beneficiary of a letter-writing campaign. It garnered six thousand responses. Ultimately Republican Governor Pete Wilson reduced Aris’s sentence by three years. She won parole in 1997.10 But not everything related to the issue of spousal abuse has changed since 1934. Generations of activists and feminists have worked hard to explode the paternalistic, one-dimensional image of abused women as childlike victims too dependent or foolish to leave their male abusers. But lawyers in spousal abuse cases still need to play the pity card, to emphasize their clients’ helplessness in order to win acquittal, reinforcing longstanding stereotypes about battered women. Today’s domestic abuse survivors, at least, can start to rebuild and reclaim their lives once their painful legal experience ends. Nellie Madison was not so fortunate. She lived just ten years after her release from prison. As it turned out, she left Frazier Park after only a few months. By fall 1943 she had relocated to San 245

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Bernardino, fleeing her past to create a new life and identity. She apparently did not use the name Helen Marguerite, but soon shed the surname Madison, which, ironically, she had carried longer than all of the others except for her maiden name. As Nellie Brown she moved to San Bernardino, at the foot of the mountains that led to Lake Arrowhead and within driving distance of Palm Springs. The hotel manager’s position promised by acquaintance Harry Putascio in his letter to Governor Culbert Olson did not materialize. Instead she took a job at a San Bernardino hotel as a hostess, responsible for seating guests in the restaurant. On October 14, 1944, she married for the last time. On the marriage certificate she claimed only one prior marriage and one divorce. Her new husband, John Wagner, painted houses for a living. He claimed one prior marriage and a divorce as well. At fortyseven Wagner was two years younger than his new wife. Nellie knocked a year off her age and claimed to be forty-eight.11 The Wagners settled into a modest neighborhood near downtown San Bernardino. As she had done for most of her life, Nellie went to work. The 1949 San Bernardino phone book listed her twice, once alongside her husband’s name and once under her own. The second reference included her home address and noted that she was an office “repairman,” working for the Arrowhead Office Supply Company.12 Despite her somewhat unusual job, Nellie Wagner finally had settled into the rhythm of an ordinary existence. But the circumstances of Eric Madison’s murder, the trial, and her long incarceration took a significant toll on her health, leaving her with dangerously high blood pressure. In 1951, at the age of fifty-six, she suffered a serious stroke that left her partially paralyzed on her right side. Over the next two years she continued to deteriorate. Shortly before 3:00 p.m. on July 8, 1953, she suffered a massive stroke. Rushed to San Bernardino County Hospital, she died just two hours later.13 246

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But the stroke was only the final nail that sealed Nellie Madison’s coffin. Branded a “femme fatale” by the media and legal establishment at the beginning of her ordeal, by the end she had morphed into its opposite: a pathetic victim. Ultimately she could not escape this “prison,” which finished what the state of California started nineteen years earlier: it quashed her spirit and killed her. It was left to her last husband to define who and what she had been for the fifty-eight years she spent on earth. Filling in the blank on her death certificate that asked what “occupation” the deceased had practiced for most of his or her life, John Wagner said that Nellie had been “a housewife.”14

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Notes

gec laehe laepr lae lat rta

Abbreviations Governor's Executive Clemency file f3750:549 (California State Archives, Sacramento ca) Los Angeles Evening Herald and Express Los Angeles Evening Post-Record Los Angeles Examiner Los Angeles Times Reporters Transcript on Appeal crim3826 (California State Archives, Sacramento ca)

1. A Girl from Montana 1. Information on Nellie Mooney’s parents comes from the Beaverhead County Historical Society, The History of Beaverhead County, 389–90; Bureau of the Census, twelfth (1900) and thirteenth (1910) censuses of the United States; Edward Mooney obituary, Dillon (mt) Examiner, May 15, 1935, Catherine Mooney obituary, October 3, 1930, Daniel Mooney obituary, January 9, 1938, all from the Dillon (mt) Examiner; from Kate Mooney, will dated September 14, 1931, Probate Proceedings Book 21, 59, 60, 458, 662; and Daniel Mooney, will dated March 25, 1938, Probate Proceedings Book 22, 377, 382, 385, 387, 403, 434, 441, 532. The History of Beaverhead County information, written by a granddaughter and granddaughter-in-law of Edward and Catherine, place their birthplace in Mayo County, Ireland, but other sources locate their home town in Ballygorman, County Donegal. Birth dates offered for Catherine range from 1850 to 1855 and for Edward from 1852 to 1855. 2. Hasia Diner, Erin’s Daughters in America: Irish Immigrant Women in the Nineteenth Century (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1983), 8. 249

notes to pages 12–20 3. History of Beaverhead County, 390. 4. Thornton Waite, Union Pacific: Montana Division, Route of the Butte Special (Missouri: Brueggenjohan/Reese, Thornton Waite, 1998). 5. History of Beaverhead County, 390. 6. History of Beaverhead County, 390. 7. Daniel Mooney obituary, January 9, 1938, Dillon (mt) Examiner, 1. 8. Bette Meine Hull, Lewis and Clark in Beaverhead County (Dillon mt: University of Montana–Western, n.d). 9. Beaverhead County Historical Museum, “Historical Walking Tour of Dillon;” Anonymous, Beaverhead Historical Society discussion of Dillon’s growth, 19–22. 10. Anonymous, Discussion of Dillon Growth, Beaverhead County Historical Society, 21. 11. Dillon (mt) Tribune, May 28, 1909–November 30, 1909; History of Beaverhead County, 600–601. 12. Beaverhead County Historical Museum, St. Rose Catholic Church, 1888– 1988: A Century of Commemoration (Dillon mt: Beaverhead County Historical Museum, no date), 1, 16, 22. 13. Diner, Erin’s Daughters in America, 16–37. 14. Mooney family photo, circa 1900, courtesy of Ed Mooney. 15. Esther Mooney, telephone interview with the author, August 1, 2002. 16. U.S. Bureau of the Census, Thirteenth Census of the United States (Washington dc: U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1910), 1361a. 17. According to records from the Montana Corrections Department, which listed his occupation as “cowboy,” he spent three years in the state prison at Deer Lodge for grand larceny. 18. Edward Mooney v. Ralph Brothers, c-1332 (Beaverhead County Courthouse, Dillon mt, 1909). 19. History of Beaverhead County, 120–21. 20. Dillon (mt) Examiner, May 28, 1909, 3. 21. laepr, March 26, 1934, a-3; People of the State of California v. Nellie May Madison, rta, vol. 3, 1100–1112. 22. John D'Emilio and Estelle Freedman, Intimate Matters: A History of Sexuality in America (New York: Harper & Row, 1988), 223–35. 23. Dillon (mt) Examiner, October 26, 1905, 8. 24. Dillon (mt) Examiner, September 16, 1903, 1. 25. Mary Maclane, The Story of Mary Maclane by Herself (Helena: Montana Historical Society Press, 2002). 26. Merle Wells and Arthur Hart, Boise: An Illustrated History (Sun Valley ca: American Historical Society Press, 2000). 250

notes to pages 21–28 27. Wells and Hart, Boise. 28. R. C. Polk, Co., Boise City Directory 1912–1913, 269; Idaho Statesman, March 26, 1979, 6–c. 29. Marriage Certificate No. 53866, April 1, 1914, Ada County id. 30. Polk, Boise City Directory 1916, 254. 31. Polk, Boise City Directory 1916, 244. 32. Janet Staiger, Bad Women: Regulating Sexuality in Early American Cinema (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1995); Mick LaSalle, Complicated Women: Sex and Power in Pre-Code Hollywood (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2000); Cari Beauchamp, Without Lying Down: Frances Marion and the Powerful Women of Early Hollywood (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997). 33. Virginia Scharff, Taking the Wheel: Women and the Coming of the Motor Age (New York: Free Press, 1991), 91. 34. Scharff, Taking the Wheel; Marriage Certificate No. 01867, May 1, 1917, Malheur County, Oregon. 35. laepr, March 26, 1934, a-3. 36. Carey McWilliams, Southern California: An Island on the Land (Salt Lake City: Peregrine Smith Books, 1983); Mike Davis, City of Quartz: Excavating the Future in Los Angeles (New York: Random House, 1992); Kevin Starr, Americans and the California Dream, 1850–1915 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1973); Kevin Starr, Inventing the Dream: California through the Progressive Period (New York: Oxford University Press, 1985); Jules Tygiel, The Great Los Angeles Swindle: Oil, Stocks, and Scandal during the Roaring Twenties (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994). 37. People v. Madison, rta, vol. 3, 1000–1012. 38. Nellie Mooney Trask v. Wilbert Earl Trask, 16594 (Los Angeles Superior Court, January 4, 1923). 39. Elaine Tyler May, Great Expectations: Marriage and Divorce in Post-Victorian America (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980), 51. 40. Kate Mooney, will dated September 14, 1931, Beaverhead County mt. 41. No records of the divorce between Nellie and William Brown can be found today in the Los Angeles County Superior Court, but they were easily located by reporters covering the Madison murder case in 1934: lae, March 28, 1934, 1; laehe, March 27, 1934; lat, part 2, 5. 42. Charles Cooper to Frank Merriam, September 11, 1935. People v. Madison, gec. 43. Marjorie Bright, Nellie’s Boarding House: A Dual Biography of Nellie Coffman and Palm Springs (Palm Springs ca: etc Publishing, 1981). 251

notes to pages 28–40 44. Nellie Coffman to Frank Merriam, June 27, 1935. People v. Madison, gec. 45. People v. Madison, gec, June 21, 1935. 46. lae, March 28, 1934, a-1; laehe, March 27, 1934, a-1; lat, March 28, 1934, b-5; Georgia Madison to Frank Merriam, gec, undated. 47. People v. Madison, gec, June 21, 1935. 48. Nellie Coffman to Frank Merriam, June 27, 1935. People v. Madison, gec. 49. Nellie Coffman to Frank Merriam, June 21, 1935. People v. Madison, gec. 50. Nellie Coffman to Frank Merriam, June 21, 1935. People v. Madison, gec. 2. Midnight Alibi 1. People v. Madison, rta, vol. 1, 316–17; 1139–45. 2. Andrew Bergman, We’re in the Money: Depression America and Its Films (New York: Harper & Row, 1972), xii, xiii, 6–7. 3. James Warriner, a set designer in the 1940s at Warner Brothers, interview with the author, Sacramento ca, March 20, 2004. 4. People v. Madison, rta, vol. 1, 315–20. 5. City of Burbank official Web site, http://www.ci.burbank.ca.us/ citymanager/history.htm. 6. lae, March 26, 1934, a-1, a-9; laehe, March 26, 1934, a-1, a-8; lat, March 26, 1934, b-1, b-4; People v. Madison, rta, vol. 1, 74–116. 7. People v. Madison, rta, vol. 1, 135. 8. laehe, March 27, 1934, a-1; People v. Madison, rta, vol. 1, 561. 9. People v. Madison, gec, June 21, 1935, 5; rta, vol. 1, 119–35. 10. People v. Madison, rta, vol. 1, 144; Belle Bradley to Ernest W. Cortis, undated. People v. Madison, gec. 11. Herbert Lane to Ernest W. Cortis, undated. People v. Madison, gec. 12. People v. Madison, gec, June 21, 1935, 5. 13. laehe, March 23, 1934, c-9. 14. People v. Madison, gec, June 21, 1935, 12. 15. People v. Madison, gec, June 21, 1935, 12; laehe, March 26, 1934, a-1. 16. People v. Madison, rta, vol. 1, 75–87. 17. People v. Madison, rta, vol. 1, 98–103. 18. People v. Madison, rta, vol. 1, 226–42; laehe, June 11, 1934, a-3. 19. laehe, June 11, 1934, a-1. 20. lat, June 9, 1934, a-1; laehe, June 9, 1934, a-3; People v. Madison, rta, vol. 1, 103–6. 252

notes to pages 40–57 21. People v. Madison, rta, vol. 1, 248. 22. lae, March 26, 1934, a-1; laehe, March 26, 1934; People v. Madison, rta, vol. 1, 277–80. 23. People v. Madison, rta, vol. 1, 166–77. 24. laehe, March 26, 1934, a-1; lae, March 26, 1934, a-1; laepr, March 26, 1934, a-1; lat, March 26, 1934, b-1. 25. People v. Madison, rta, vol. 1, 118–24. 26. People v. Madison, rta, vol. 1, 342–48. 27. lae, March 26, 1934, a-1, a-5; laehe, March 26, 1934, a-1, a-8, 9; laepr, March 26, 1934, a-1; lat, March 26, 1934, b-1. 28. lae, March 26, 1934, a-1. 3. Outlaw Woman 1. Don Cuddy, Robert Cuddy’s great-grandson, interview with the author, Frazier Park ca, December 29, 2002. 2. Frances Erbes, Robert Cuddy’s granddaughter, telephone interview with the author, October 31, 2002. 3. Doris Miller, Robert Cuddy’s granddaughter, telephone interview with the author, November 1, 2002. 4. People v. Madison, rta, vol. 2, 703–11. 5. People v. Madison, rta, vol. 2, 580–82, 703–11. 6. Don Cuddy, interview with the author. 7. Frances Erbes, interview with the author, Frazier Park ca, December 29, 2002. 8. People v. Madison, rta, vol. 3, 1076–97. 9. lae, March 26, 1934, a-1; lat, March 26, 1934, b-1. 10. laepr, March 26, 1934, a-1. 11. People v. Madison, rta, vol. 3, 1077. 12. People v. Madison, rta, vol. 3, 1209–32. 13. People v. Madison, rta, vol. 1, 347–58. 14. People v. Madison, rta, vol. 1, 349; vol. 2, 918. 15. Doris Miller, telephone interview with the author. 16. lae, March 27, 1934, a-1; laehe, March 27, 1934, a-1. 17. lae, March 27, 1934, a-1. 18. People v. Madison, rta, vol. 3, 847–56; lae, March 27, 1934, a-1; lat, March 27, 1934, b-1. 19. The following interview excerpts between Nellie and Elmer Adams may be found in People v. Madison, rta, vol. 3, 1101–11. 20. laepr, March 27, 1934, a-1. 253

notes to pages 58–70 21. laepr, March 27, 1934, a-1; laehe, March 27, 1934, a-1; lae, March 27, 1934, a-1. 22. laepr, March 28, 1934, a-1. 23. Nellie Madison to Frank Merriam, June 21, 1935. People v. Madison, gec, 10. 4. Enigma Woman 1. Agness Underwood, Newspaperwoman (New York: Harper & Sons, 1949), 2. 2. Underwood, Newspaperwoman, 50. 3. laepr, March 27, 1934, a-2. 4. Underwood, Newspaperwoman, 16–24. 5. laepr, March 27, 1934, a-3. 6. lat, March 28, 1934, b-1. 7. laepr, March 27, 1934, a-1. 8. Sean McCann, Gumshoe America: Hard-boiled Crime Fiction and the Rise and Fall of New Deal Liberalism (Durham nc: Duke University Press, 2000). 9. lae, March 28, 1934, a-9. 10. lat, March 27, 1934, b-5; laehe, March 28, 1934, a-6. 11. lae, March 27, 1934, a-1. 12. lae, March 27, 1934, a-1; laehe, March 27, 1934, a-1. 13. laehe, March 27, 1934, a-1. 14. laehe, March 27, 1934, a-1. 15. laehe, March 28, 1934, a-3. 16. lae, March 27, 1934, a-5. 17. lat, March 27, 1934, b-1. 18. Jeanine Basinger, A Woman’s View: How Hollywood Spoke to Women, 1930–1960 (Hanover ct: Wesleyan University Press, 1993). 19. Thomas H. Pauly, ed. “Chicago”: With the “Chicago Tribune” Articles That Inspired It (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1997). 20. lat, March 28, 1934, b-5; lae, March 27, 1934, a-1. 21. lat, March 28, 1934, b-5. 22. laehe, March 28, 1934, a-4; lae, March 28, 1934, a-9; lae, March 31, 1934, a-5. 23. laepr, March 27, 1934, a-4. 24. lae, March 28, 1934, a-1. 25. lat, March 28, 1934, b-1; laehe, March 28, 1934, a-1; lae, March 28, 1934, a-1; laepr, March 28, 1934, a-1. 26. lae, March 27, 1934, a-9. 27. lae, March 29, 1934, a-1. 254

notes to pages 70–82 28. laehe, March 28, 1934, a-3. 29. laepr, March 29, 1934, a-1; lat, March 30, 1934, b-1; laehe, March 30, 1934, a-1; lae, March 30, 1934, a-8. 30. lae, March 30, 1934, a-1. 31. lae, March 30, 1934, a-1. 32. lae, March 31, 1934, a-5. 33. laehe, March 31, 1934, a-3. 34. laehe, April 2, 1936. 35. lae, April 1, 1934, a-3. 36. lae, April 13, 1934, b-1. 37. lae, April 14, 1934, a-1. 38. lat, May 18, 1934, a-1. 39. lat, May 19, 1934, b-4. 40. John Treherne, The Strange History of Bonnie and Clyde (New York: Stein Day, 1984). 41. laehe, June 6, 1934, a-1. 5. The Ultimate Penalty 1. laehe, June 6, 1934, a-1. 2. Kenneth Lamott, Who Killed Mr. Crittenden? Being a True Account of the Notorious Murder Trial that Stunned San Francisco (New York: David McKay, 1963). 3. Stockton Independent, May 20, 1909, 2. 4. Lamott, Who Killed Mr. Crittenden? 5. Stockton Independent, May 20, 1909, 2. 6. lae, February 15, 1922, b-3. 7. Craig Rice, ed. Los Angeles Murders (New York: Duell, Sloan & Pearce, 1947), 26–44. 8. Marvin J. Wolf and Katherine Mader, Fallen Angels: Chronicles of L.A. Crime and Mystery (New York: Facts on File Publications, 1986), 165–72. 9. Wolf and Mader, Fallen Angels, 61–68. 10. Rice, Los Angeles Murders, 132–48. 11. laehe, April 14, 1934, a-1; laehe, April 15–17, b-1. 12. McWilliams, Southern California, 238–50. 13. Tygiel, Great Los Angeles Swindle. 14. Lately Thomas, The Vanishing Evangelist (New York: Viking Press, 1959). 15. Greg Mitchell, The Campaign of the Century: Upton Sinclair’s Race for Governor of California and the Birth of Media Politics (New York: Random House, 1992). 255

notes to pages 83–93 16. LaSalle, Complicated Women, 190. 17. “The Espy File,” http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/espy.html, contains a list of more than fourteen thousand individuals executed in the United States between 1608 and 1987. 18. Kathleen O’Shea, Women and the Death Penalty in the United States (Westport ct: Praeger, 1998); Kay Gillespie, Dancehall Ladies: The Crimes and Executions of America’s Condemned Women (New York: University Press of America, 1997). 19. Treherne, Strange History of Bonnie and Clyde, 19. 20. California Department of Corrections Web site: http://www.cdc.state .ca.us/issues/capital/capital6.htm, “Number of Executions, 1893–1999,” 1–2. 21. Alice Catt Armstrong, Who’s Who in California, 1928–1929 (Los Angeles: Who’s Who Historical Society, 1929), 128. 22. Don Cuddy, interview with the author. 23. May, Great Expectations, 88. 24. Pauly, ed., Chicago, 79–81. 25. laehe, various dates, April 14–June 24, 1934. 26. Warren H. Atherton, The Parole System of California (Sacramento: California State Library, 1935). 27. Tygiel, Great Los Angeles Swindle, 261–62. 28. lat, May 28, 1928, b-1. 29. Tygiel, Great Los Angeles Swindle, 261–62. The Los Angeles Times carried numerous stories about Fitts’s various jobs and pronouncements, including June 17, 1927, b-11; August 20, 1927, b-1; October 17, 1927, b-8; April 27, 1928, a5; May 1, 1928, b-1; July 17, 1928, b-1; December 3, 1928, b-1; June 29, 1929, b-1. 30. Armstrong, Who’s Who in California, 1928–1929, 191. 31. Thomas, Vanishing Evangelist, 74–81. 32. Thomas, Vanishing Evangelist, 106–8. 33. lat, November 24–25, 1927, b-1. 34. lat, November 25, 1927, b-1. 35. lat, December 14, 1927, b-15; May 28, 1928, b-1. 36. Alice Catt Armstrong, Who’s Who in California, 1957 (Los Angeles: Who’s Who Historical Society, 1957), 135; Charles Fricke obituary, lat, January 29, 1958, 1; Frank Parker, Caryl Chessman: The Red Light Bandit (Chicago: Nelson-Hall, 1973), 45–57. 37. lat, June 1927–March 1931. 38. lat, June 9, 1928, b-3. 39. lat, May 19, 1934, b-4. 40. lat, May 24, 1934, b-4. 256

notes to pages 93–114 41. lae, June 14, 1934, a-4. 42. Parker, Red Light Bandit, 45. 43. lat, June 5, 1934, a-1. 6. The People v. Nellie Madison 1. laehe, June 7, 1934, a-1; laepr, June 7, 1934, a-1; lae, June 7, 1934, a-1; lat, June 7, 1934, a-1. 2. Parker, Red Light Bandit, 45–47, 54–57. 3. laehe, June 6, 1934, a-1; laepr, June 6, 1934, a-1; lae, June 7, 1934, a-1; lat, June 7, 1934, b-1. 4. laepr, June 6, 1934, a-1; laehe, June 6, 1934, a-1. 5. lae, June 7, 1934, a-1. 6. lae, June 6, 1934, a-1. 7. lat, June 7, 1934, b-1. 8. laepr, June 6, 1934, a-1. 9. laehe, June 6, 1934, a-10. 10. lat, June 8, 1934, b-8; lae, June 8, 1934, a-3. 11. People v. Madison, rta, vol. 1, 5–12. 12. People v. Madison, rta, vol. 1, 15–17. 13. People v. Madison, rta, vol. 1, 22–50. 14. People v. Madison, rta, vol. 1, 22–46. 15. laehe, June 7, 1934, a-1; lat, June 8, 1934, b-1. 16. lae, June 8, 1934, a-3. 17. People v. Madison, rta, vol. 1, 76–87. 18. People v. Madison, rta, vol. 1, 94–146. 19. lae, June 9, 1934, a-3. 20. lat, June 10, 1934, c-5. 21. People v. Madison, rta, vol. 1, 225–60. 22. People v. Madison, rta, vol. 1, 305–12. 23. People v. Madison, rta, vol. 1, 312–20. 24. laehe, June 11, 1934, a-1. 25. laehe, June 12, 1934, a-3. 26. People v. Madison, rta, vol. 1, 342–94. 27. People v. Madison, rta, vol. 2, 452–96. 28. People v. Madison, rta, vol. 1, 407–11. 29. People v. Madison, rta, vol. 1, 432–36. 30. lat, June 13, 1934, a-1. 31. lae, June 13, 1934, a-1; lat, June 13, 1934, a-1. 32. lae, June 13, 1934, a-1. 257

notes to pages 115–130 7. The Defense 1. Mary Elizabeth Ney to Montana governor Frank Cooney, August 22, 1934. People v. Madison, gec. 2. Ney to Cooney, August 22, 1934. 3. Esther Mooney, telephone interview with the author, August 1, 2002. 4. Dillon (mt) Examiner, June 9, 1934, 12. 5. Dan Mooney to Frank Merriam, September 10, 1935. People v. Madison, gec. 6. Dillon (mt) Examiner, March 29, 1934, a-1. 7. lae, June 12, 1934, a-1; Ed Mooney, Nellie Madison’s great-nephew, interview with the author, Dillon mt, August 14, 2003. Mooney estimated his grandfather Daniel Mooney's height at about five feet, ten inches. Nellie was five feet, seven-and-a-half inches tall. 8. laehe, March 26, 1934, a-1. 9. People v. Madison, rta, vol. 2, 526–36. 10. People v. Madison, rta, vol. 2, 547. 11. People v. Madison, rta, vol. 2, 601–3. 12. People v. Madison, rta, vol. 2, 636. 13. People v. Madison, rta, vol. 2, 618. 14. People v. Madison, rta, vol. 2, 641–51. 15. laehe, June 13, 1934, a-1. 16. lae, June 14, 1934, a-1; lat, June 14, 1934, b-1. People v. Madison, rta, vol. 2, 677–703. 17. laehe, June 13, 1934, a-1; laepr, June 13, 1934, a-1; lat, June 13, 1934, b-1. 18. laepr, June 14, 1934, a-1. 19. People v. Madison, rta, vol. 2, 712. 20. laehe, June 14, 1934, a-1. 21. People v. Madison, rta, vol. 2, 713–21. 22. People v. Madison, rta, vol. 2, 722–48. 23. People v. Madison, rta, vol. 2, 749–56. 24. People v. Madison, rta, vol. 2, 757–76. 25. People v. Madison, rta, vol. 2, 778–88. 26. lat, June 15, 1934, b-1. 27. laehe, June 14, 1934, a-1; laepr, June 14, 1934, a-1; lae, June 15, 1934, a-1; lat, June 15, 1934, b-1. 28. People v. Madison, rta, vol. 2, 803–9. 29. People v. Madison, rta, vol. 2, 813–32. 30. People v. Madison, rta, vol. 2, 832–46. 31. People v. Madison, rta, vol. 2, 845–903. 258

notes to pages 130–146 32. People v. Madison, rta, vol. 3, 1000–1012. 33. laehe, June 15, 1934, a-1; laepr, June 15, 1934, a-1; lae, June 16, 1934, a-1. 34. People v. Madison, rta, vol. 3, 905–19. 35. People v. Madison, rta, vol. 3, 964–68. 8. Lady Macbeth 1. laehe, June 15, 1934, a-1; laepr, June 15, 1934, a-1; lae, June 16, 1934, a-1; lat, June 16, 1934, b-1. 2. People v. Madison, rta, vol. 3, 1267. 3. People v. Madison, rta, vol. 3, 1011–18. 4. People v. Madison, rta, vol. 3, 1047; laepr, June 16, 1934, a-2. 5. People v. Madison, rta, vol. 3, 1036–39. 6. People v. Madison, rta, vol. 3, 1051–60. 7. People v. Madison, rta, vol. 3, 1073. 8. People v. Madison, rta, vol. 3, 1076–97. 9. People v. Madison, rta, vol. 3, 1139–40. 10. People v. Madison, rta, vol. 3, 1157–67; laehe, June 18, 1934, a-1; lae, June 19, 1934, a-1. 11. People v. Madison, rta, vol. 3, 1175–77; laehe, June 18, 1934, a-1; laepr, June 18, 1934, a-1; lae, June 19, 1934, a-1. 12. People v. Madison, rta, vol. 3, 1181. 13. People v. Madison, rta, vol. 3, 1184. 14. laehe, June 7–8, 1934, a-1, June 17–18, 1934, a-1; laepr, June 18, 1934, a-1. 15. People v. Madison, rta, vol. 3, 1191–1200. 16. People v. Madison, rta, vol. 3, 1203. 17. People v. Madison, rta, vol. 3, 1280–1303. 18. laehe, June 19, 1934, a-1. 19. People v. Madison, rta, vol. 3, 1338–47. 20. Joseph Ryan's closing statements do not appear in the appeal transcript. News accounts reported them, but their accuracy cannot be determined. See laehe, June 20, 1934, a-1; laepr, June 20, 1934, a-1; lat, June 21, 1934, b-1. 21. laepr, June 20, 1934, a-1. 22. People v. Madison, rta, vol. 3, 1346–88. 23. People v. Madison, crim3826, Appeal from the Superior Court, County of Los Angeles, 22–41. 9. The Verdict 1. laepr, June 22, 1934, a-1. 2. laepr, June 22, 1934, a-1. 3. laehe, June 22, 1934, a-1. 259

notes to pages 147–161 4. laehe, June 22, 1934, a-1. 5. laehe, June 22, 1934, a-1; laepr, June 22, 1934, a-1; lae, June 23, 1934, a-1. 6. laehe, June 22, 1934, a-9. 7. lae, June 23, 1934, a-1. 8. laepr, June 23, 1934, a-1; laehe, June 23, 1934, a-1; lae, June 23, 1934, a-1; lat, June 23, 1934, a-1. 9. laehe, June 23, 1934, a-1. 10. laepr, June 23, 1934, a-1. 11. lae, June 23, 1934, a-2. 12. lat, June 23, 1934, a-1. 13. lae, June 23, 1934, a-2. 14. Kenneth Lamott wrote about the Laura Fair murder case in Who Killed Mr. Crittenden? 15. laehe, June 23, 1934, a-1. 16. laehe, June 23, 1934, a-1; Complicated Women, by Mick LaSalle, examines the film The Trial of Mary Dugan, along with the careers of Norma Shearer and other female actors in the years before the Production Code curtailed depictions of on-screen sexuality. 17. laehe, June 23, 1934, a-1. 18. Deering’s California Codes, Statutes of California, Penal Code 1239(b), chapter 679, 1868. 19. laehe, June 24, 1934. 20. lae, June 24, 1934, a-1. 21. lae, June 27, 1934, a-5. 22. laehe, July 5, 1934, a-1; lae, July 6, 1934, a-3. 23. lae, July 6, 1934, a-3. 24. laehe, July 6, 1934, a-1. 10. A Condemned Woman 1. Lt. Brian Parriott, California Department of Corrections, interview with the author, Tehachapi ca, January 17, 2003; Florence Monahan, Women in Crime (New York: Ives, Washburn, 1941), 107. 2. Richard Morales, “A Woman’s Regime: History of the California Institution for Women, 1927–1960, at Tehachapi” (PhD diss., University of California, 1980). 3. California State Archives, f3717:1860, Corrections Institutions Scrapbook. 4. Morales, “History of the California Institution for Women,” 83. 260

notes to pages 161–173 5. Clinton Duffy, Eighty-eight Men and Two Women (New York: Doubleday, 1962), 145. 6. Morales, “History of the California Institution for Women,” 69. 7. Morales, “History of the California Institution for Women,” 104. 8. California State Archives, f3717:1860, Corrections Institutions Scrapbook. 9. Monahan, Women in Crime, 264. 10. Morales, “History of the California Institution for Women”; Monahan, Women in Crime, 179–81; California State Archives, f3717:1860, Corrections Institutions Scrapbook. 11. Monahan, Women in Crime, 188–91. 12. Monahan, Women in Crime, 178, 260. 13. Myrtle Elder (Tehachapi acting warden) to James S. Holohan (San Quentin warden), July 13, 1932. People v. Madison, gec. 14. Elder to Holohan, July 13, 1932. People v. Madison, gec. 15. laehe, March 30, 1935, a-3. 16. laehe, March 30, 1935, a-3. 17. Duffy, Eighty-eight Men and Two Women, 5–14. Gillespie, Dancehall Ladies, 5, discusses the execution of Eva Dugan. 18. Duffy, Eighty-eight Men and Two Women, 9–14. 19. New York Times, May 1932–August 1934. 20. Ernest W. Cortis, affidavit, to Frank Merriam, July 8, 1935. People v. Madison, gec. 21. New York Times, August 10, 1934, a-1. 22. Lizzie Ney to Montana governor Frank Cooney, August 22, 1934. People v. Madison, gec. 23. laehe, March 30, 1935, a-3. 24. Joseph Ryan appeal. People v. Madison, gec, 228–418. 25. Buron Fitts appeal. People v. Madison, gec, 50–71. 26. Joseph Ryan to Nellie Madison, June 4, 1935. People v. Madison, gec. 27. Arthur Fox to Ernest W. Cortis, May 24, 1935. People v. Madison, gec. 28. Anita Ryan to Nellie Madison, undated (probably late April 1935). People v. Madison, gec. 29. Underwood, Newspaperwoman; Kathleen Cairns, Front-Page Women Journalists, 1920–1950 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2003). 30. laehe, March 3–April 2, 1935. 31. laehe, March 30, 1935, a-3. 32. Ryan to Nellie Madison. People. v. Madison, gec. 33. Nellie Madison to Marion Smith, April 28, 1935. People v. Madison, gec. 261

notes to pages 173–199 34. Dillon (mt) Examiner, May 15, 1935, a-1; Death Certificate No. 2168, Beaverhead County, State of Montana, Bureau of Vital Statistics. 35. Dillon (mt) Tribune, July 11, 1934, a-5. 36. Supreme Court of the State of California, Appeal from the Superior Court, County of Los Angeles, People v. Madison, gec, 1–10. 37. lat, June 4, 1934, a-1. 38. Mitchell, Campaign of the Century. 39. Joseph Ryan to Nellie Madison, June 4, 1935. People v. Madison, gec. 40. Nellie Madison to Ernest W. Cortis, June 12, 1935, and June 21, 1935. People v. Madison, gec. 41. Nellie Madison to Cortis, June 21, 1935. People v. Madison, gec. 11. An Abused Woman 1. lae, July 17, 1930, a-1. 2. lae, July 19, 1930, a-2. 3. lae, July 19, 1930, a-2. 4. Nellie Madison to Whom It May Concern, June 22, 1935. People v. Madison, gec. 5. Daniel Mooney, will dated March 25, 1938, Superior Court, Beaverhead County mt. 6. Confession of Nellie May Madison, June 21, 1935. People v. Madison, gec, 1. 7. lae, June 21, 1935, a-1; laehe, June 21, 1935, a-1. 8. Confession of Nellie May Madison, June 21, 1935. People v. Madison, gec, 2. All remaining direct quotations in this chapter and information as to Nellie Madison’s intentions are taken from the confession document cited here, unless otherwise indicated. 9. laehe, June 21, 1935, a-1; lae, June 21, 1935, a-1. 10. laehe, June 21, 1935, a-1. 11. laehe, June 21, 1935. 12. laehe, June 21, 1935. 13. laehe, June 21, 1935. 14. lae, June 21, 1935, a-1. 15. laehe, June 21, 1935, a-1. 16. lae, June 21, 1935, a-1. 12. The Reprieve 1. laehe, March 30, 1934, b-1; lae, March 31, 1934, a-5. 2. Georgia Madison, affidavit, to Frank Merriam. People v. Madison, gec, 1. 3. lae, March 31, 1934, a-5. 262

notes to pages 199–213 4. People v. Madison, rta, vol. 3, 1036–39. 5. Georgia Madison to Frank Merriam. People v. Madison, gec, 2–3. 6. Georgia Madison to Frank Merriam. People v. Madison, gec, 3–4. 7. Georgia Madison to Frank Merriam. People v. Madison, gec, 5–7. 8. Georgia Madison to Frank Merriam. People v. Madison, gec, 8–11. 9. Georgia Madison to Frank Merriam. People v. Madison, gec, 11. 10. The California Department of Corrections Web site (http://www.corr .ca.gov) includes a capital punishment link that provides the names and dates for all inmates executed in California. 11. Nellie Coffman to Frank Merriam, June 27, 1935. People v. Madison, gec. 12. Harry Broughton to Frank Merriam, July 5, 1935. People v. Madison, gec. 13. John Phillips to Frank Merriam, July 30, 1935. People v. Madison, gec. 14. Martin Herlick to Frank Merriam, September 6, 1935. People v. Madison, gec. 15. Charles Cooper to Frank Merriam, September 10, 1935. People v. Madison, gec. 16. Trial jurors to Frank Merriam, undated. People v. Madison, gec. 17. Francine Wright to Frank Merriam, July 31, 1935. People v. Madison, gec. 18. Olive Thomasson to Frank Merriam, July 9, 2935. People v. Madison, gec. 19. Marion Smith to Frank Merriam, July 14, 1935. People v. Madison, gec. 20. Merriam aide to Harry Broughton, July 10, 1935. People v. Madison, gec. 21. Nellie Madison to Ernest W. Cortis, June 21, 1935. People v. Madison, gec. 22. Ernest W. Cortis to Frank Merriam, July 31, 1935. People v. Madison, gec, vol. 3, 6. 23. Cortis to Merriam, July 31, 1935. People v. Madison, gec, vol. 3, 7. 24. Cortis to Merriam, July 31, 1935. People v. Madison, gec, vol. 3 2–7. 25. Cortis to Merriam, July 31, 1935. People v. Madison, gec, vol. 2, 9–13. 26. Cortis to Merriam, Julie 31, 1935. People v. Madison, gec, vol. 2, 6–7. 27. Cortis to Merriam, July 31, 1935. People v. Madison, gec, vol. 2, 4–5. 28. Cortis to Merriam, July 31, 1935. People v. Madison, gec, vol. 3, 3. 29. Cortis to Merriam, July 31, 1935. People v. Madison, gec, vol. 3, 5. 30. laehe, September 10–11, 1935, a-1. 31. laehe, September 10–11, 1935. 32. San Diego Sun, September 10, 1935, b-8. 263

notes to pages 213–226 33. lae, September 8, 1935, a-1. 34. Lillian Adams to Frank Merriam, September 5, 1935. People v. Madison, gec. 35. Frank Cooney to Frank Merriam, September 10, 1935. People v. Madison, gec. 36. Daniel Mooney to Frank Merriam, September 10, 1935. People v. Madison, gec. 37. William J. Brown to California Supreme Court, writ of coram nobis, September 14, 1935. People v. Madison, gec. 38. lae, September 5, 1935, a-5. 39. lae, September 5, 1935. 40. Charles Fricke to Frank Merriam, July 12, 1935. People v. Madison, gec. 41. lae, September 15, 1935, a-10. 42. lat, September 17, 1935, a-1. 43. lat, September 17, 1935. 44. Underwood, Newspaperwoman, 150–51. Underwood described accompanying the Nixes to Tehachapi to give Nellie Madison the news of her reprieve. 13. Life in Prison 1. laehe, September 17, 1935, b-1; lae, September 17, 1935, a-1. 2. Underwood, Newspaperwoman, 150. 3. lat, September 17, 1935, a-1. 4. lae, September 17, 1935, a-1. 5. lae, September 18, 1935, a-26; lat, September 18, 1935, a-2. 6. lat, September 18, 1935, a-2. 7. laehe, September 18, 1935, a-2. 8. Gov. Frank Merriam pardon of Nellie Madison death sentence, September 19, 1935. People v. Madison, gec, 355. 9. Mary Elizabeth Ney to Frank Merriam, September 19, 1935. People v. Madison, gec. 10. laehe, September 1935–April 1936. Glab was convicted of second-degree murder and sent to Tehachapi in April 1936. 11. Daniel Mooney, will dated March 25, 1938. 12. Monahan, Women in Crime, 179. 13. Nellie Madison Psychiatric Summary, May 15, 1936. Advisory Pardon Board Reports, f3717:1222, California State Archives. 14. Elsey Hurt, California State Government: An Outline of Its Administrative Organization from 1850–1936 (Sacramento: Bureau of Public Administration, California State Department of Finance, 1936), 173–83. 264

notes to pages 226–236 15. Monahan, Women in Crime, 178. 16. Nellie Madison Psychiatric Summary, May 15, 1936. 17. Monahan, Women in Crime, 264. 18. A. R. O’Brien to Frank Merriam, December 15, 1937. People v. Madison, gec. 19. Arthur Fox to Frank Merriam, December 8, 1937. People v. Madison, gec. 20. See http://www.corr.ca.gov. 21. In an interesting side note, Nellie’s nephew Francis and his wife Esther Mooney named their son Tom. Ed Mooney, Tom's brother, named his own son Thomas, though they knew nothing about the famous labor leader, he said. 22. Curt Gentry, Frame Up: The Incredible Case of Tom Mooney and Warren Billings (New York: Norton, 1967). 23. Stanley Mosk, interview, 1998. California State Archives, Oral History Collection, oh 98–4. 24. Advisory Pardon Board Reports, August 18, 1939. 25. Advisory Pardon Board Reports, August 18, 1939. 26. Advisory Pardon Board Reports, September 5, 1939. 27. Nellie Madison to Culbert Olson, September 25, 1939. People v. Madison, gec. 28. Florence Monahan to unknown correspondent, September 29, 1939. People v. Madison, gec. 29. Nellie Madison to Stanley Mosk, April 12, 1940. People v. Madison, gec. 30. Nellie Madison to Advisory Pardon Board, April 29, 1940. People v. Madison, gec. 31. Hurt, California State Government. 32. Advisory Pardon Board Reports, December 10, 1940. 33. Advisory Pardon Board Reports, December 10, 1940. 34. A. R. O’Brien to Advisory Pardon Board, January 1, 1941. Advisory Pardon Board Reports. 35. Nellie Madison to Secretary Paul Yarwood, January 15, 1941. Advisory Pardon Board Reports. 36. Herbert Samson to Culbert Olson, May 18, 1941. People v. Madison, gec. 37. Morales, “History of the California Institution for Women,” 230–41. 38. Florence Monahan to Culbert Olson, June 13, 1941. People v. Madison, gec. 265

notes to pages 236–245 39. Nellie Madison to Culbert Olson, December 15, 1941. People v. Madison, gec. 40. Duffy, Eighty-eight Men and Two Women, 135. 41. Joseph Truxaw to Culbert Olson, October 17, 1942. People v. Madison, gec. 42. Stanley Mosk to Joseph Truxaw, October 23, 1942. People v. Madison, gec. 43. Alma Holzschuh to California Institution for Women Board of Trustees, February 19, 1943. People v. Madison, gec. 44. Gov. Culbert Olson commutation of sentence, December 31, 1942. Pardons, Commutations, and Reprieves, f3658:31. 45. Minutes of the California Institution for Women Board of Trustees, f3640:1011, February 19, 1943, California State Archives, Earl Warren Collection; March 24, 1943. 46. Emily Latham to Board of Trustees at California Institution for Women, April 26, 1943. People v. Madison, gec. 14. A Traditional Woman 1. Underwood, Newspaperwoman, 150–51. 2. Theodore Hamm, Rebel and a Cause: Caryl Chessman and the Politics of the Death Penalty in Post-War California, 1948–1974 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001). 3. Duffy, Eighty-eight Men and Two Women, 25. 4. Duffy, The San Quentin Story (Westport ct: Greenwood Publishing, 1968), 126–29. 5. Bill Walker, The Case of Barbara Graham (New York: Ballantine Books, 1961), 174. 6. O’Shea, Women and the Death Penalty. 7. Lenore Walker, Why Battered Women Kill and How Society Responds (New York: HarperCollins, 1989); Angela Browne, When Battered Women Kill (New York: Free Press, 1989); Cynthia Gillespie, Justifiable Homicide: Battered Women, Self-Defense, and the Law (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1989); Elizabeth Schneider, Battered Women and Feminist Lawmaking (New Haven ct: Yale University Press, 2002). 8. People of California v. Brenda Aris, 215 Cal. 3d 1178 (1989). 9. California Evidence Code, sec. 1107 (1991), mandated that courts allow expert testimony of the affects of spousal abuse on murder defendants. The statute also requires that officials examine spousal abuse as a mitigating factor in granting parole. 266

notes to pages 245–247 10. Sacramento Bee, September 18, 1994, a-1; Los Angeles Daily News, February 14, 1997; Sacramento Bee, March 24, 1997. 11. Superior Court of San Bernardino County ca, marriage certificate, October 14, 1944. 12. San Bernardino Telephone Directory, San Bernardino County Publishing, 1949, 632. 13. San Bernardino County, Death Certificate, July 8, 1953. 14. San Bernardino County, Death Certificate, July 8, 1953.

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Female murderers have long been fodder for journalists, novelists, filmmakers, playwrights, politicians, and scholars who ponder—with varying motives and objectives—how members of a gender generally perceived as inherently less violent than men, can be driven to cross the line into brutality and rage. As Helen Birch noted in Moving Targets: Women, Murder, and Representation (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994), “because she is relatively rare, the woman killer represents a far more dramatic spectacle than her male counterpart. Male violence is, after all, old news.” The result of all this attention has been entertaining stories, movies and plays, political finger-pointing, and efforts to discern a common thread that binds such women into neat categories that either hint at or try to explain the nature of female violence. Though the efforts are sincere, and in many cases enlightening, by their nature they tend to reinforce longstanding gender stereotypes—where women are either very, very good, or very, very bad— and to minimize the real complexities of individual personalities, experiences, and motives that shape the lives of both women and men. Nellie Madison is a case in point. A complicated woman, she defies easy characterization. Despite journalistic efforts to paint

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her as a femme fatale, she does not resemble any of the characters portrayed in noir fiction. Nellie was, after all, a hard-working professional woman. Scholars of crime, unlike their counterparts in popular culture who seek to entertain, have to make sense of the phenomenon of women as killers. Since women tend more often to be victims than perpetrators of violent crimes, their small numbers increase their significance in terms of politics, public opinion, and social policies. Researchers, therefore, have sought to locate a common denominator that explains such aberrant behavior. Their findings have tended to reflect some of the same stereotypes depicted in media portrayals, demonstrating media’s power to shape public attitudes. Ann Jones in Women Who Kill (Boston: Beacon Press, 1996) and Vickie Jensen, in Why Women Kill: Homicide and Gender Equality (Boulder co: Lynne Rienner, 2001), for example, suggest that women murder for different reasons than men. Masculine pride, thrill-seeking, or an itch for money make men quick to pull a gun or knife on strangers and then try to slip away undetected; women tend to nurse grievances or murder intimates under stress and often physical abuse. Nellie Madison's behavior does and does not conform to this model. True, she did kill a man who duped and then beat her, but she married and then divorced several other men before killing Eric Madison. Though one previous relationship also appears to have included domestic violence, she left that husband very much alive. Other women murderers exhibited even less stereotypically “feminine” behavior. Eithel Spinelli was the leader of a gang. Louise Peete killed acquaintances, on two separate occasions, for the sole purpose of stealing their money. Barbara Graham participated in a robbery that left a Burbank woman dead. In Pennsylvania Irene Schroeder shot a police officer and led law enforcement on a cross-country chase before being captured in Arizona, where reporters fell all over themselves to come up with catchy nicknames, 270

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including “Irene of the glinting guns.” Then there was Bonnie Parker, whose fascination with Clyde Barrow may initially have led her into a life of robbery and killing, but, as John Treherne points out in The Strange History of Bonnie and Clyde (New York: Stein and Day, 1984), it is difficult to see her, at the end, as anything but a true partner in crime. Books examining female murderers in California include Craig Rice’s edited volume, Los Angeles Murders (New York: Duell, Sloan & Pearce, 1947), a compilation of some of the most notorious slayers, including Clara Phillips and Madelynne Obenchain. Marvin Wolf and Katherine Mader’s Fallen Angels: Chronicles of L.A. Crime and Mystery (New York: Facts on File Publications, 1986) discusses these and several more and provides maps to the murder sites for those so inclined. Neither of the books mentions Nellie Madison’s case. 1. A Girl from Montana The residents of Beaverhead County, Montana—many of them descendants of original settlers—take their history seriously. Much information on the region where Nellie Mooney grew up and on her background is in collections housed at the Beaverhead County Historical Society in Dillon. It contains many artifacts from the area, with a plethora of material crammed into a small room at the back of the building including census data, weekly newspapers dating to the turn of the twentieth century, town directories, school yearbooks, photos, obituaries, histories of the railroad, churches, and various other topics and a comprehensive two-volume local “biography.” The volumes depict colorful events and significant issues that shaped the area, offer sketches of prominent individuals—including Bannack sheriff Henry Plummer, hanged in 1862 by townspeople enraged by his moonlighting as a bandit and gang leader—and contain short profiles of local families, including three generations of Mooneys. Amateur historians provided most of the general in271

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formation, while family members or friends penned the profiles. As such it is possible to tease out underlying tensions and inaccurate information. For example, the profile of Edward and Catherine Mooney, written by Dan Mooney’s daughter, Katherine, and her brother Francis’ widow, Esther, discusses how the elder Mooneys came to America from Ireland and their lives in Montana, including the births of five children and deaths of two. Nellie receives a brief mention tagged on to the end, noting only that she “spent her adult life in California and died there.” Nellie’s first husband Ralph Brothers has his own mini-biography, written by a former Dillon resident who apparently knew his family. It notes that he fell in love and ran off with sixteen-year-old Nellie (actually thirteen), that they married in Idaho (Utah) and that family pressures broke up the young couple. Secondary sources provide background on issues relevant to Nellie’s upbringing. Hasia Diner's Erin’s Daughters in America: Irish Immigrant Women in the Nineteenth Century (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1983) details the lives of those, like Nellie’s mother, compelled to make their way in a tough, new world. The Story of Mary Maclane by Herself (Helena mt: Montana Historical Society Press, 2002) documents the youthful dreams and frustrations of the author, slightly older than Nellie, who grew up in Butte, Montana, just a little ahead of Nellie. And Girl from the Gulches (Helena mt: Montana Historical Society Press, 2003), edited by Ellen Baumler, documents the experiences of Mary Ronan, who settled with her husband on the Flathead Reservation region of Montana in the mid-nineteenth century. Nellie’s life in Boise can be traced through city directories. The Boise City Library maintains a file on Links Business College though, regretfully, no photos of students. The Idaho Historical Society in Boise has a wealth of information on the city’s early history and a treasure-trove of photographs of early buildings and people. Nellie’s second husband Clarence Kennedy appears in two 272

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photos of the fire department. Arthur Hart and Merle Wells’s Boise: An Illustrated History (Sun Valley ca: American Historical Society Press, 2000) offers a comprehensive look at how Idaho’s capital grew from a farm town to the center of culture and politics. In Big Trouble: A Murder in a Small Western Town Sets off a Struggle for the Soul of America (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1997) J. Anthony Lukas documents the 1905 murder of Governor Frank Steunenberg and trial of labor activist “Big Bill” Haywood, which put Boise on the national map. Hundreds of books have been written about the history of Los Angeles, its development as a metropolitan behemoth and its contradictory—some would say schizophrenic—nature. The best is still Carey McWilliams’s Southern California: An Island on the Land (Salt Lake City: Peregrine Smith Books, 1983), first published in 1946. McWilliams argues that Anglo Los Angeles has always been as much myth as substance, that from its beginnings, local politicians created the myth of a romantic Spanish past and downplayed or ignored the less “saleable” aspects—Mestizos, rundown buildings, and an arid desert climate. From there it was only a short step to movie-made myths of palm trees and a laissez-faire lifestyle that ignored the reality of a repressive political structure and hordes of conservative Midwesterners seeking easy money and refuge from immigrants and frigid temperatures. Other books examining the history of the city with no center include Mike Davis’s City of Quartz: Excavating the Future in Los Angeles (New York: Random House, 1992) and Kevin Starr’s series of books on California history, most notably Inventing the Dream: California through the Progressive Era (New York: Oxford University Press, 1985), which includes a chapter on “Hollywood, Mass Culture, and the Southern California Experience.” Books documenting the growth of the film industry in Southern California include Allen Scott’s On Hollywood: The Place, the Industry (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2005); Robert Toll’s The Entertainment Machine: 273

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American Show Business in the Twentieth Century (London: Oxford University Press, 1982); and Robert Sklar’s Movie-Made America: A Cultural History of American Movies (New York: Random House, 1975). Oil also fueled the growth of Los Angeles in the twentieth century and shaped its politics as well. The best book on the juncture of politics and oil and the consequences for the lives of ordinary people is Jules Tygiel’s The Great Los Angeles Swindle: Oil Stocks and Scandal during the Roaring Twenties (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994). 2. Midnight Alibi Most of the information on Nellie and Eric Madison’s lives in Burbank, and the immediate aftermath, comes from coverage in three of the largest daily newspapers and a small one: the Evening Post-Record. The Los Angeles Times, published at the time of Madison’s death by Harry Chandler, was the most powerful paper politically in Southern California, and one of the most conservative. The extraordinarily pro-business, civic booster Chandler controlled the city, determining who ran for election and how they governed. Nineteen thirty-four was a big year for him. Former Socialist novelist Upton Sinclair ran for governor of California as a Democrat and Chandler orchestrated one of the earliest public relations smear campaigns against him. Greg Mitchell’s The Campaign of the Century: Upton Sinclair’s Race for Governor and the Birth of Media Politics (New York: Random House, 1992) offers an extensive review of the campaign. Robert Gottlieb’s Thinking Big: The Story of the “Los Angeles Times,” Its Publishers, and Their Influence on Southern California (New York: Putnam, 1977) provides an in-depth examination of the men who created Los Angeles, along with its most significant paper. While power-brokers read the Times, regular folks read William Randolph Hearst’s two Los Angeles papers, the morning Examiner and the evening Herald and Express. The papers shared facilities 274

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and presses, but competed with each other as intensely as they competed with non-Hearst papers. Hearst’s L.A. papers followed the same practices as others throughout the country—huge headlines, retouched photos, an obsession with crime and sensation. Two good books on Hearst are W. A. Swanberg’s Citizen Hearst (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1961) and David Nasaw’s The Chief: The Life of William Randolph Hearst (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2000). The murder took place in an ambience of studio back lots and gangster films, the genre in which Warner Brothers specialized during the Depression. Andrew Bergman offers an overview of this and other genres in We’re in the Money: Depression America and Its Films (New York: Harper & Row, 1972). The book makes many good points—specifically that “depressing” films during the early 1930s gave way to feel-good films later in the decade. But his depiction of women in 1930s films is very one-dimensional. Two excellent books on that subject are Mick LaSalle’s Complicated Women: Sex and Power in Pre-Code Hollywood (New York: St. Martin’s Griffin Edition, 2001) and Cari Beauchamp’s Without Lying Down: Frances Marion and the Powerful Women of Early Hollywood (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997). 3. Outlaw Woman Cuddy Valley, where Nellie Madison spent many years visiting the Cuddys, has not changed radically since the 1930s. It is still dotted with small houses, businesses, and towns. The drive from Los Angeles, however, has become much easier. Between 1915 and 1933 visitors to the area had to drive the treacherous Ridge Route, with 697 curves, numerous switchbacks, sheer cliff drop-offs, and stomach-churning dips. One portion was aptly named “dead man’s curve.” On another, highway robbers waylaid unsuspecting motorists, who included movie stars on their way to dine at the Hotel Lebec. By 1934 a new, three-lane Ridge Route alternate, now 275

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Highway 99, carried travelers from the San Fernando Valley to the top of the mountain, though it is unclear which route Nellie took when she fled the murder scene. Harrison Irving Scott traces the history of the road in Ridge Route: The Road That United California (n.p.: Harrison Irving Scott, 2002). 4. Enigma Woman It wasn’t unusual in the 1930s for reporters to make themselves at home in police stations and jails or for photographers to stage pictures of individuals just arrested for crimes. Little separation existed between reporters and their official sources, who often drank and partied together. Agness Underwood, who played such an important role in Nellie Madison's case, discusses the cozy relationship between journalists and officials in her autobiography Newspaperwoman. Other books discussing various aspects of this relationship include Stanley Walker’s City Editor (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999); Adela Rogers St. Johns, The Honeycomb (New York: Doubleday, 1969), mostly about herself though it covers other ground as well; Joan Lowell, Gal Reporter (New York: Farrar & Rinehart, 1933); and Gene Fowler, “Reporters”: Memoirs of a Young Newspaperman (Malibu ca: Roundtable Publishing, 1991). Fowler discusses Underwood, the first female city editor on a major American newspaper and his boss. On one occasion when Fowler mistakenly wrote an obituary about the man who phoned it in, rather than the dead man, Underwood handed him five dollars for a bottle of whiskey and ordered him to take it to the informant. “Let’s hope the son-of-a-bitch drinks,” she told Fowler. 5. The Ultimate Penalty Forty-four women in thirty-one states were executed during the twentieth century. That number includes Ethel Rosenberg, electrocuted for espionage in 1953. It does not include Bonnie Parker, gunned down by police in Louisiana. Why certain individuals and 276

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not others have received death sentences is an intriguing and ultimately unanswerable question, though not for lack of trying. The most complete source for basic information on all of those executed in America from 1608 to 1987—14,634 men and women—is on the Internet, from the Espy file: www.deathpenaltyinfo.org./espy./ html. Hugo Bedau is a self-acknowledged opponent of the death penalty. His 1982 book, The Death Penalty in America (New York: Anchor Books/Doubleday), and its 1997 follow-up, The Death Penalty in America: Current Controversies (New York: Oxford University Press), offer a comprehensive overview of the subject, including the evolution of crimes warranting the death penalty—since 1972, only murder qualifies—statistics, and legislation. He does not focus on individual cases. Ted Hamm focuses on one particular death penalty case in California, that of the so-called Red Light Bandit, Caryl Chessman, in Rebel and a Cause: Caryl Chessman and the Politics of the Death Penalty in Postwar California, 1948–1974 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001). The book traces the evolution of deathpenalty politics in the state. Clinton Duffy, San Quentin's warden during the 1940s and early 1950s, discusses individual death row prisoners, including Eithel Spinelli and Louise Peete, in his book Eighty-Eight Men and Two Women (New York: Doubleday, 1962). Wardens might seem unlikely opponents of capital punishment, but Duffy was no ordinary administrator. He declared his opposition to the death penalty at every opportunity, including in testimony before national and state legislators. “Every right thinking person believes in equal justice for comparable crimes,” he wrote. “But there is nothing equal about one man dying for killing in anger while another lives after carefully planning and carrying out murder for personal profit or to satisfy a thirst for revenge.” If Duffy broke the mold with regard to the death penalty, he did not challenge prevailing notions with regard to gender. His depiction of Spinelli and Peete leaned heavily on stereotypical descriptions. 277

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Spinelli was an ugly, “scrawny scarecrow” of a woman, while Peete's grandmotherly demeanor and “peaches and cream” complexion hid a heart of pure ice. Women represent only 2.5 percent of all those receiving death sentences in the United States since 1608, and Kathleen O’Shea offers state-by-state information on the 175 women who were condemned between 1900 and 1998 in Women and the Death Penalty in America (Westport ct: Praeger, 1998), though not all of them ended up being executed. The book also discusses their crimes and the method of execution. Sixty-two women received death sentences before 1973 and two-thirds of those were actually executed, reinforcing the notion that Nellie Madison was fortunate to have escaped that fate. But O’Shea’s is not a complete compilation of cases. Neither Nellie nor Emma LeDoux appears on the list of sixteen women who received death sentences in California since 1900. The author does not attempt to explain why these particular women were singled out for the death penalty, but blames a judicial system skewed toward prosecutors, arbitrary judges, and “death-qualified” juries for inequities in the way the law is applied overall. Jurors willing to confer the death penalty automatically skew cases toward the prosecution, she asserts. L. Kay Gillespie, in Dancehall Ladies: The Crimes and Executions of America’s Condemned Women (New York: University Press of America, 1997), focuses only on women executed in the twentieth century and addresses the question: Why them and not others? She cites three studies that try to provide at least some answers. Murder and male victims—frequently, though not always husbands—seemed to be the common themes. Other factors include “irregular” sex lives, complex personalities that could not be reconciled with prevailing social values, high-profile cases that enabled newspapers to tag the defendants with colorful nicknames, emotional immaturity, and an inability to connect with juries 278

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that tried them. In other words, they could be construed as “unnatural.” The “Enigma Woman” fits most of the criteria. She was sexually active, complex, had a high-profile case, and did not connect with her jury, though she was not emotionally immature and, as far as the jury knew, her sexual activity took place only within marriage. However not all executed women conformed to type. Three of the four women executed in California killed female victims: Barbara Graham, Louise Peete, and Elizabeth Duncan. Anna Antonio, executed in New York less than two months after Nellie received her death sentence, was convicted of hiring two men to kill her husband for insurance. But prior to the murder Antonio’s life conformed to the image of the stereotypically “good” woman. She married young, stayed faithful to her marriage vows, bore three children, and stayed home with them. Her execution took place even after the shooters recanted and declared that Antonio had no foreknowledge of the murder. Anna Antonio did share two characteristics with Nellie: she was Catholic and the daughter of immigrants. It is conceivable that these factors enhanced the jury’s view of her as an “outsider” making them less sympathetic to the fact that her death would leave three orphaned children, or that she may have been a battered spouse. 6. The People v. Nellie Madison Several authors have examined Charles Fricke’s punitive attitude toward criminal defendants and his efforts to seek publicity from the news media and approbation from power figures. Both Ted Hamm, in Rebel and a Cause, and Frank Parker, in Caryl Chessman: The Red Light Bandit (Chicago: Nelson-Hall, 1973), look at Fricke through the lens of the Chessman case, involving a two-bit thug and thief tried and sentenced to death in 1948 for raping two women on lover’s lanes while impersonating a police officer. An arrogant Chessman chose to act as his own attorney and during his trial he 279

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engaged in constant verbal combat with Fricke who refused to allow him to interview witnesses or have access to daily transcripts. The court reporter died during the trial and Fricke replaced him with a man known to be an alcoholic. His transcripts contained gaps and were virtually unreadable. Chessman’s appeal dragged on for twelve years, in part because he became a cause célèbre, claiming in books, interviews, and legal briefs that Fricke’s behavior had caused him to be wrongly convicted. In February 1960, two years after Fricke’s death from throat cancer, Chessman went to his death at San Quentin. In Murder at the Sleepy Lagoon: Zoot Suits, Race, and Riot in Wartime Los Angeles (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2006), Eduardo Obregón Pagán discusses Fricke's behavior in the 1942 case involving two dozen young Mexican-American men accused of a murder near a local reservoir. The crime occurred in a larger context involving ongoing racial conflict in Southern California during World War II. Scant evidence linked the defendants to the murder, but Fricke clearly favored prosecutors and refused to let the young men change clothes or get haircuts. The judge’s behavior became an issue during the appeal and the convictions ultimately were overturned. Buron Fitts’s driving ambition and reluctance to cross the powerbrokers whose support he needed is detailed in Jules Tygiel’s The Great Los Angeles Swindle. 7. The Defense Joseph Ryan is discussed in The Vanishing Evangelist (New York: Viking, 1959), Lately Thomas’s book on the 1926 disappearance of Aimee Semple McPherson. He covers Ryan’s ambition for higher office and eagerness to participate in high-profile cases, his distaste for McPherson after discovering her sexual tryst, and his anger at McPherson for challenging his authority and at Asa Keyes for failing to stand up for him. 280

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8. Lady Macbeth Most of the information for this chapter came from primary sources, specifically from the trial record and newspaper coverage. The trial record would seem to be more reliable than other kinds of source material. But that is not true in this case. Without perusing newspapers one would never know, for example, that Joseph Ryan gave a closing statement. The three-volume trial transcript at the California State Archives does not contain this portion of the record. It contains only closing statements by prosecutors. An additional item of interest: the divorce file for William and Nellie Brown cited by prosecutors has disappeared from the Los Angeles Superior Court civil claims division. A weary clerk took the proffered slip containing the case file number and disappeared for what seemed like days into the vast maw of the court archives. When he reappeared he insisted that no such file existed. 9. The Verdict Kenneth Lamott wrote about the Laura Fair case in Who Killed Mr. Crittenden? Being a True Account of the Murder that Stunned San Francisco (New York: David McKay, 1963). The book is short on analysis and takes too much time discussing the trials in which Fair was first convicted and then acquitted, but the author tells a fascinating story of a woman who was either the victim of a duplicitous man who kept promising to leave his wife and marry her, or a home-wrecker. Either way, she was a woman who refused to take no for an answer. Mick LaSalle’s Complicated Women: Sex and Power in Pre-Code Hollywood discusses Bayard Veiller’s play and film The Trial of Mary Dugan. Starring Norma Shearer in the title role, the 1929 movie (later reprised in 1941 with Laraine Day in the title role) focuses on a woman with a shady past tried for murdering her employer. After a sensational trial, she was acquitted. 281

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10. A Condemned Woman Richard Morales’s 1980 doctoral dissertation from the University of California, “A Woman's Regime: The History of the California Institution for Women, Tehachapi, 1927–1960,” is the only definitive work ever done on the state’s sole prison for female felons during the middle third of the twentieth century. Morales traces the prison’s history beginning with the progressive period when club women and reformers sought to rehabilitate rather than punish female prisoners who were then housed at the maximum-security men’s prison at San Quentin. An early prison was built in Sonoma; after it burned down plans lay dormant for a decade until club women prevailed upon the state legislature to approve a new site at Tehachapi. From 1933 until an earthquake leveled the facility in 1952 club women, wardens—often female—and state officials continued their power struggle over prison administration. In 1944 the state legislature put Tehachapi under the newly created Department of Corrections. In 1952 the women were relocated to Corona, near Riverside. Today female felons are housed in three separate facilities—one in Corona and two in the San Joaquin Valley. Florence Monahan, who spent four years as warden at the California Institution for Women, Tehachapi, wrote of her experiences in Women in Crime (New York: Ives, Washburn, 1941). Though very self-serving, the book provides fascinating insights into the attitudes of women who spent their professional lives focused on female criminals. Virtually all of them maintained the belief that if they could just find the right combination they could direct prostitutes, check-kiters, union organizers, murderers, and the like to lives of domestic bliss. Not surprisingly they were often disappointed in their charges and engaged in constant conflict with each other. At a time when women had few professional options, those who “made it” in the world of penology fiercely guarded their turf. San Quentin warden Clinton Duffy discussed the gruesome details of execution in Eighty-Eight Men and Two Women. 282

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11. An Abused Woman No such phrase as “battered women” or “abused spouse” existed when Nellie Madison was tried and condemned to death. But even without the ability to “name” her oppression she clearly understood the dire personal consequences for admitting her status as a victim of abuse. In that she resembled hundreds of other women whose stories began to be told in the late 1970s and early 1980s when the second wave of feminists began to openly discuss spousal battering. Numerous scholars have delved into the tragic issue. Lenore Walker is a pioneer in the field. Her path-breaking 1979 book The Battered Woman (New York: Harper & Row, 1979) has garnered criticism for making larger cultural assumptions based on the stories of relatively few individual victims and for its overtly feminist viewpoint. But she was among the first to explode many of the myths—such as that virtually all battered women were poor, uneducated, incompetent, and mostly minorities—which, shamefully, fueled the legal system’s longstanding unwillingness to take on batterers. Nellie Madison fits into her argument, but not Eric Madison. Walker argues that batterers tend to be inordinately jealous and to use sex as a way to gain power over their victims. Eric Madison was not jealous and appears not to have used sex as a weapon against either Nellie or his wife Georgia. Other books examining battering from a historical perspective include: Linda Gordon, Heroes of Their Own Lives: The Politics and History of Family Violence (New York: Viking, 1988) and David Peterson del Mar, What Trouble I Have Seen: A History of Violence against Wives (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1996). Though he focuses on the judicial system in Battered Women in the Courtroom: The Power of Judicial Responses (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1999), James Ptacek examines the history of legal responses to spousal abuse in Massachusetts, which did not become a public issue until feminist pressure led to media coverage and then to glacial changes in the courts and judiciary. Contradicting some other studies, he 283

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cites research demonstrating that poor African American women are battered and killed at higher rates than their “sisters” of other ethnic groups. 12. The Reprieve Many historians view the 1934 gubernatorial campaign between Frank Merriam and Upton Sinclair as the beginning of “modern” political campaigning: elections driven by smear tactics created by professional public relations consultants. A married couple— Clem Whittaker and Leone Baxter—led the effort against Sinclair, backed by a massive infusion of money from media moguls. Among those who have written on the subject are Greg Mitchell, The Campaign of the Century: Upton Sinclair’s Race for Governor of California and the Birth of Media Politics; Robert Gottlieb, Thinking Big: The Story of the “Los Angeles Times,” Its Publishers, and Their Influence on Southern California (New York: Putnam, 1977); David Halberstam, The Powers That Be (New York: Knopf, 1979); Kevin Starr, Endangered Dreams: The Great Depression in California (New York: Oxford University Press, 1973); Michael Rogin and John Shover, Political Change in California: Critical Elections and Social Movements, 1890–1966 (Westport ct: Greenwood Press, 1970); and Carey McWilliams's Southern California: An Island on the Land. 13. Life in Prison Anyone doing research on female prisoners in California during the 1930s and 1940s should be prepared for frustration and brick walls. Information is scattered, missing, and, in some cases, literally buried. The California Institution for Women was the only facility for female felons during this period. When an earthquake leveled the prison in 1952, many records were buried in the rubble. Apparently no one ever dug them up. The Department of Corrections has a limited amount of material on the women prisoners, both at San Quentin and at Tehachapi. 284

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For the former the department has a small booklet, San Quentin: Inside the Walls, that offers snapshots of some of the women—including one depicting prisoners in Halloween garb—and a brief discussion of their lives behind bars. The small file on Tehachapi features a typewritten overview of the prison and some photos of prisoners attending classes—typing and other courses designed to turn the women toward “traditional” occupations—but very little else. Phone calls to the current California Institution for Women, at Corona, elicited the information that the prison has no historical material. Most of the available records are housed at the California State Archives in Sacramento, but they are difficult to locate because they are contained in several different collections and researchers have to know exactly what to ask for. It is somewhat easier to find information on male prisoners because the state maintains files on inmates incarcerated at San Quentin and at Folsom, the other maximum security prison at the time. The only women included in the file were at San Quentin or at Tehachapi, while it was under San Quentin’s jurisdiction. Privacy concerns add to the difficulty. In many cases archivists cannot simply look up the names of incarcerated individuals and provide information on their crimes, dates of imprisonment, and parole. Researchers need to have this information on hand when they arrive at the state archives. How can they get it? Some courts, though not all, still maintain transcripts of cases as old as Nellie Madison’s. Los Angeles Superior Court does not have her case on file. Fortunately for researchers, though not for Nellie, hers was a death penalty case. As such it was appealed to the state supreme court and later to Governor Frank Merriam. The appeal record—though incomplete (see above)—and commutation file are available at the state archives. This information covers the trial, verdict, date of imprisonment, and reprieve. 285

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For information about Tehachapi itself during the years of Nellie’s incarceration, two secondary sources are Richard Morales’s “History of the California Institution for Women” and Florence Monahan’s Women in Crime. A few small bits of information, including the fact that Nellie occasionally melted down and got into fights with other inmates, is contained in her commutation file, but the file itself appears to have no discernable organizational structure. One eight-by-eleven page, for example, might include brief snippets of a letter from someone trying to help her win a gubernatorial reprieve, a photocopied newspaper article, and a notation on her attempt to gain parole. Other information on individual prisoners, including Nellie, can be found in the Earl Warren Collection at the archives and in a small file on Tehachapi that contains mostly newspaper clippings focused on debates over the prison. The governor who later became chief justice of the United States Supreme Court apparently saved every scrap of paper that came his way, including monthly reports on board meetings for the California Institution for Women. Each board meeting featured a discussion on pending paroles. No discussion on individual cases is contained in the file, but it does list outcomes. Sources such as this are the only way to find dates for most paroles. A separate file on paroles does exist, but it contains only a few cases, “randomly” selected. Prisoners—both men and women—who wanted to bypass the lengthy parole process filed petitions with the governor’s office to be forwarded to the Advisory Pardon Board. The state archives has files on individual cases, but they are organized chronologically rather than alphabetically, so researchers need to know the approximate times that the hearings took place to find their subjects in the files. 14. A Traditional Woman The proliferation of research into spousal abuse since the 1970s has spawned scholars’ interest in women who kill their abusers. 286

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In the 1980s when scholars began studying the topic, the police and judicial systems were ill-equipped to deal with the “battered woman” defense. Lenore Walker discovered this when she began testifying as an expert in the field. In Terrifying Love: Why Battered Women Kill and How Society Responds (New York: HarperCollins, 1989), she describes being barred from testifying in trials involving battered wives and she details outright hostility by judges toward victims of spousal battering. Judges and juries had difficulty, Walker argues, understanding underlying dynamics involved in intimate partner slayings. For example, battered women generally kill out of terror, rather than anger, but anger usually surfaces later, sometimes during the trial, leading court personnel to view them unsympathetically. Angela Browne’s book, When Battered Women Kill (New York: Free University Press, 1989), looks at statistics on women defendants in the early 1980s: the average age is thirtysix, nearly two-thirds are Caucasian, and half are working-class women. Nearly half worked full time and the women had been involved with their victims for an average of eight years. Eightyone percent of the women used guns to kill their batterers. When arrested the women were usually disoriented, which enabled police to break them down. Prosecutors then used their statements to argue for premeditated murder. In Justifiable Homicide: Battered Women, Self-Defense, and the Law (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1989), Cynthia Gillespie examines the topic in the context of laws related to selfdefense. The laws were constructed in a masculine context, she argues, where men have been compelled to protect themselves from lawless strangers or when violence escalates out of control. Spousal abuse is a relatively recent addition to these criteria. Because it generally involves different circumstances—men battering women—the legal system has been slow to accept it and change the laws accordingly. Recently scholars have begun to reexamine the way the political 287

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and judicial systems handle intimate abuse cases. In Insult to Injury: Rethinking Our Responses to Intimate Abuse (Princeton nj: Princeton University Press, 2003), for example, Linda Mills argues that officials who once ignored and neglected battered spouses now go too far in the other direction. By immediately arresting and charging abusers and giving abuse victims little say in the dispensation of their cases, the victims remain powerless. Instead she recommends that victims be brought into the decision-making process. With the system, and the batterers themselves participating, Mills argues, comes a better chance for long-lasting improvements.

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Index

Adams, Elmer, 49, 108–9 Advisory Pardon Board, 226–27, 230, 233, 236 Alderson Federal Prison for Women (wv), 162 American Civil Liberties Union, 82 American Legion, 87, 179 Angelus Temple, 89 anti–death penalty efforts: activists for, 166–67, 176–77, 208–11, 242, 277; and organizations, 167 Aris, Brenda, 244–45 Atherton, Warren, 86 Babyface Nelson (Lester Gillis), 83 Ballygorman (Ireland), 11 Bara, Theda, 22 Barretts Township mt, 17 Barrow, Clyde, 76, 83 Barthelmess, Richard, 31 Beaverhead County mt, 12–19, 26, 119, 173 The Big Sleep (Chandler), 4 Biscailuz, Eugene, 44, 152, 232 The Black Dahlia, 4, 241 Board of Prison Terms and Paroles, 215, 226, 228 Board of Trustees (Tehachapi), 226, 233, 235–36, 237, 258 Boise id, 6–7, 20–23 Bow, Clara, 22 Bowron, Fletcher, 74

Bradley, Belle: and aftermath of Eric Madison’s murder, 38–42; and comments about NM, 159; mentioned in NM’s confession, 191, 195; NM’s kindness to, 35, 209; and testimony at coroner’s inquest, 71; and testimony at preliminary hearing, 75; and testimony at trial, 103–5, 123, 128 Bradley, J. V., 40 Bright, William, 44, 67–70, 109, 129, 197 Brothers, Ralph (NM’s first husband), 17–18, 54–55 Broughton, Harry, 204–5 Brown, Charles (NM’s former brotherin-law), 49, 51, 126, 129, 137–38 Brown, Edmund G., 243 Brown, Ralph (NM’s former brother-inlaw), 25, 84 Brown, William (NM’s fourth husband): and appeal of NM’s sentence, 168, 176–77, 210; and battery accusations during divorce, 27–28; and conflict with Ryan, 169; and coroner’s inquest, 71; in Cuddy Valley, 47; and discussions with reporters, 70, 73; and filing of writ of coram nobis, 215; and interview with Ernest Cortis, 210; and marriage to NM, 25; mentioned in NM’s interrogation, 54–55, 57–58; and NM’s trial, 131, 136, 138–39; and response to verdict, 148–50, 154

289

index Bureau of Criminal Identification and Investigation, 226 Cain, James M., 4 California Crime Commission, 226 California Institution for Women, Tehachapi, 7–8, 152, 156; Agness Underwood’s stories on, 170–72; and background of, 159–63; and ballot measure making independent, 226; and Clara Phillips’s parole, 175; as female branch of San Quentin, 162; NM’s arrival at, 160, 162–66; NM’s prison life at, 225–40; and NM’s sentence commutation, 217–20 Catherine the Great (movie), 36 Chandler, Harry, 65, 82, 274 Chandler, Raymond, 4 Chicago (play), 66, 85 Cobb, Birdie E., 66, 71, 135, 203 Cobb, Hazel, 135–36, 203 Cobler, Rhoda, 75, 79, 85–86, 93, 147 Coffman, Nellie, 28–30, 183, 192, 204–5 Cooney, Gov. Frank, 167–68, 213–14 Cooper, Charles, 204, 206–7 Cooper, Gary, 28, 204, 206 coroner’s inquest on Eric Madison’s murder, 71–72 Cortis, Ernest Whitehouse, 166, 176–77, 198, 208–9, 211, 224, 237 County Donegal (Ireland), 11 Crosland, Alan, 31 Cryer, George, 179 Cuddy, Robert: background of, 45–47; and NM’s arrest, 49–52, 129; and NM’s trial, 109, 122, 136; and preliminary hearing testimony, 75; and prosecution case, 100; and relationship to NM, 45–47, 84; Ryan’s comments on, 101 Darrow, Clarence, 20, 166 death penalty (California): attitudes toward, 84; and Charles Fricke, 92–93; and description of hanging, 165–66; and Gov. Frank Merriam’s support for, 94, 223; kidnapping as qualifier

for, 92–93; and women, 84, 278–79. See also executions (California) death penalty (Madison case): and efforts to get sentence commuted, 167–70, 175–77, 181, 200, 203–16; final arguments for and against, 143–44; jury’s verdict and comments on, 98–99, 149–51; “man-on-the street” interviews about, 152–53; and NM as an “example,” 8, 80–81, 84–85; and NM’s reprieve from, 217–23; prosecution announcement on, 77 death penalty (United States): and crimes warranting, 277–79; and the Great Depression, 83–84; literature on, 277–79; and Men’s League of Mercy, 167; women defendants as focus of, 83–84, 276–77. See also executions (United States) Department of Penology, 226, 230 Desert Inn (Palm Springs), 28, 183, 206 Desert Land Act, 15 De Wolfe, Belle, 70–72, 74, 125, 148, 150, 157 Dillon Examiner, 116 Dillon mt, 11–20, 30, 118–19 Division of Narcotics Enforcement, 226 Doherty, Catherine. See Mooney, Kate (NM’s mother) Duffy, Clinton, 237, 242 Earp, Alvira, 2 Earp, James, 2 Earp, Virgil, 2 Earp, Wyatt, 2 Elder, Myrtle, 163–64 Ellis, Havelock, 19 End Poverty in California (Upton Sinclair campaign), 82, 174 “Enigma Woman.” See Madison, Nellie May executions (California): Barbara Graham, 243; Eithel Spinelli, 236–37, 243; Elizabeth Duncan, 243; Louise Peete, 243 executions (United States): Anna Antonio, 84, 166–67; Eva Dugan, 165; Ruth Snyder, 83, 167

290

index Henneberry, Mary Elizabeth “Lizzie” (NM’s sister): birth of, 12; and letter to Gov. Frank Cooney, 167; and letter to Gov. Frank Merriam, 223; and life in Montana, 15–16, 20; and NM’s murder trial, 115; NM’s note to, 51; in NM’s obituary, 3 Holcomb, Grant, 2 Hold That Girl (film), 36 Holohan, James, 75, 152, 163–64, 177 Holzschuh, Alma, 236–38 Hopkins, Miriam, 82 Howell, Ed, 30, 176, 183

Fair, Laura, 78, 151 “femme fatales,” 4, 62, 97, 247 Fitts, Buron (Los Angeles County District Attorney): and appeal of NM’s sentence, 169; background of, 87–88; campaign for district attorney, 89; chooses prosecutors for NM’s trial, 77; comments on Clara Phillips, 76; criticism of “coddling” prisoners, 160, 197; and NM’s parole campaign, 177; remarks on NM’s confession, 197 Fitzgerald, Kate, 19 Flynn, Elizabeth Gurley, 15 Fox, Arthur, 169, 224, 229, 236, 238 Fox, Florence, 224, 236, 238 Fricke, Charles (Superior Court Judge): background and judicial philosophy of, 91–94, 106; comments on NM’s confession, 197; courtroom demeanor of, 95–96; and instructions to jury, 110; and jury deliberations, 111–14; as Merriam’s confidante on execution, 216; and NM’s defense case, 121, 126, 135; and NM’s sentencing, 155–56, 174; as opponent of NM’s parole, 231; as prosecution witness, 113–14; and Ryan’s appeal of NM’s sentence, 168–69; speech to Friday Morning club, 106, 152

“Iron Widow.” See Madison, Nellie May I Want to Live (film), 243 Jackson, Josephine, 219–21 Jensen, Carl, 183–84, 188 Jones, Mary “Mother,” 15 Julian, C. C., 42, 81, 85, 180 Kennedy, Clarence (NM’s second husband), 21–22, 26, 231 Keyes, Asa, 88–89 Killion, Willard, 49–53, 71–73, 75, 109–10 Kinsey, Alfred, 242 “Lady Macbeth,” 140–42. See also Madison, Nellie May Lake Arrowhead ca, 28, 122, 128, 187, 196, 246 Latham, Emily, 239 Le Doux, Emma, 78–79, 151–52, 161 Lee, Mary (aka Loria Lee), 66 Lehman, Ernest, 84, 167 Link’s Modern Business College, 20–21 Los Angeles: early twentieth-century growth of, 23–25; and the Great Depression, 82–83; image versus reality of, 24, 81–82; power structure of, 8, 84–93; segregation in, 23–24; and sensational news coverage, 59–60, 63–65; Tehachapi prisoners from, 161; and treatment of “deviants,” 81–83 Los Angeles County Federation of Women’s Clubs, 153

Garbo, Greta, 82 Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (movie), 242 Glab, Hazel, 224 Golddiggers of 1933 (movie), 33 Goldman, Emma, 19 Grace, J. A., 145–46, 148, 150–51, 229 Green, Alfred, 36, 186 Hall of Justice, Los Angeles County, 57, 61, 63, 70, 73, 77, 95, 120 Hall of Records, Los Angeles County, 63 Hammett, Dashiell, 4 Harlow, Jean, 82 Hart, Roxie, 66, 85 Harter, Charles, 68–69, 112–13 Haywood, William “Big Bill,” 20 Hearst, William Randolph, 31, 63–64

291

index Los Angeles Evening Herald and Express: Agness Underwood as city editor of, 241–42; and coverage of NM as murder suspect, 63–65; and coverage of NM’s trial, 99, 102, 110, 120; and coverage of reprieve, 222; “Enigma Woman” nickname created by, 64; and NM’s confession, 182; predictions on trial of, 76–77; and public polling on death penalty, 152–53. See also Underwood, Agness “Aggie” Los Angeles Evening Post Record: Agness Underwood as reporter for, 60–62; and Madison murder coverage, 48; and NM’s defense case, 120 Los Angeles Examiner: and C. C. Julian’s suicide, 42; and coverage of NM as murder suspect, 63–65; coverage of NM’s trial, 102–3, 106, 113, 120; and coverage of reprieve, 222; and NM’s confession, 182; and rumors of reprieve, 216 Los Angeles Times: and Buron Fitts, 88; and Charles Fricke, 92–93, 106; and Clara Phillips’s parole, 76; and coverage of NM as murder suspect, 62, 65; and coverage of NM’s trial, 98, 102, 113; and coverage of reprieve, 222; and Joseph Ryan, 90; and Madison murder coverage, 48; and Upton Sinclair’s gubernatorial campaign, 82, 174; as voice of LA elite, 82 “Machine Gun Kelly,” 83 Maclane, Mary, 19 Madison, Eric (aka Erik Madsen): background of, 29–30; and coroner’s investigation, 70–72; description after murder of, 66–67; discovering body of, 43–44; and employment at Warner Brothers, 33–36, 186–87; explosive personality of, 209–11; funeral of, 74; Georgia Madison’s discussion of marriage to, 200–203; and mistaken-identity trial strategy, 121–31; murder of, 4, 38–40; as spousal abuser, 200–203, 188–94

Madison, Georgia (Eric’s ex-wife), 66, 74, 135, 198, 199–203, 210 Madison, Nellie May: and appeal of death sentence, 168–77, 180–81, 199–216; arrest and interrogation of, 49–57; background of, 12–27; Catholicism as life force of, 2–3, 17–18, 25–26, 85, 168, 173, 213, 221, 237; death of, 2–3; and efforts to gain parole, 225–38; and Ernest Whitehouse Cortis, 166, 176–77, 198, 208–9, 211, 224; Fricke’s comments on, 155–56, 174, 197, 216, 231; and Gov. Frank Merriam, 198, 203–6, 211, 213, 217–22, 225, 228; and Joseph Ryan, 51, 61, 71, 116–25, 130, 133–38, 142–43, 148–49, 174–77; and Lloyd Nix, 176, 180–81, 198, 200, 203–4, 207–8, 211, 217–18, 224–25; media depictions of, 62–66, 68–69, 72–73, 76, 97–99, 102–3, 149–50, 156–57, 212–14; murder of Eric Madison by, 38–44; and perjurious testimony, 121–32, 137; professional life of, 20–23, 25, 28–30, 53, 84, 204, 231, 246; and rejection of traditional roles, 4, 8, 11, 17–20, 23–26, 28, 246; and relationship to Agness Underwood, 59–61, 63, 166, 170–72, 175, 212–14, 217, 242; and sentencing of, 155–56; as spousal abuse victim, 27, 63, 183, 187–94, 203; and Stanley Mosk, 230, 232–33, 236–37 Madsen, Axel (Eric Madison’s brother), 66 Madsen, Carl (Eric Madison’s father), 66 The Maltese Falcon (Hammett), 4 Martin, Frank, 204–6 McGuigan, Phillip, 37, 38, 103–4, 123, 193 McPherson, Aimee Semple, 81–82, 85, 88–90, 179, 186 McWilliams, Carey, 81 media: and depictions of NM, 62–66, 68–69, 72–73, 76, 97–99, 102–3, 149–50, 156–57, 170–72, 212–14; early twentieth-century characteristics of, 59–65, 82, 85; as tool of the elite, 88–93, 106 Men’s League of Mercy of the United States, 167, 208

292

index Merriam, Gov. Frank: assumption of governorship by, 92, 174; as capital punishment advocate, 174, 203, 242; and defeat in 1938 election, 229; and NM’s death sentence appeal, 198, 203– 6, 211, 213; and NM’s parole efforts, 225, 228; and NM’s reprieve, 217–22; and victory in 1934 election, 133, 174 Midnight Alibi (movie), 4, 31, 109 Monahan, Florence, 224–26, 228, 231, 234–36 Monroe, Marilyn, 242 Mooney, Daniel (NM’s brother): birth of, 12; defeat in campaign for sheriff, 173; and letter to Gov. Frank Cooney, 167; and letter to Gov. Frank Merriam, 214; and NM’s trial, 97, 115–16, 119–20, 145; as sheriff ’s deputy, 19; and telegrams to William Brown, 70, 73; Underwood’s discussion of, 61 Mooney, Daniel (NM’s uncle), 11–12, 181, 224 Mooney, Edward (NM’s father), 11–12, 17, 19, 27, 167, 173, 181 Mooney, Edward (NM’s infant brother), 11–12 Mooney, Ellen (NM’s infant sister), 12 Mooney, Esther (NM’s niece-in-law), 16 Mooney, Kate (NM’s mother), 11–12, 15, 19, 26, 183–84, 191 Mooney, Lizzie. See Henneberry, Mary Elizabeth “Lizzie” (NM’s sister) Mooney, Nellie. See Madison, Nellie May Mooney, Thomas (labor leader), 230 Mosk, Stanley, 230, 232–33, 236–37 The Murder Club, 91 Nance, Frank, 44 Ney, Lizzie. See Henneberry, Mary Elizabeth “Lizzie” (NM’s sister) Nix, Beatrice Montgomery, 180–82, 200, 207–8, 211, 224 Nix, Lloyd: and efforts toward commutation, 200, 203–4, 207–8, 211; as Los Angeles city prosecutor, 179; and NM’s confession, 217–18; as NM’s

lawyer, 176, 180–81; and sentence commutation, 217–18, 224, 225 “noir fiction,” 4, 65–66, 97 Obenchain, Madelynne, 79 O’Brien, A. R., 215, 228–29, 231, 234 Oesterrich, Dolly, 80 Olson, Culbert, 229, 232, 235–38, 246 O’Shaunessy, Brigid, 4 Ostrin, Herman, 68, 112 Palmer, Paul, 97–113, 133–34, 142–49 Palm Springs ca, 27–30, 34, 183–84, 235, 246 Papadakis, Cora Smith, 4 Parker, Bonnie, 76, 83–84 Peete, Louise, 79, 161, 243–44 Phillips, Armour, 80 Phillips, Clara: as compared to NM, 207; as “dutiful wife,” 86; and feud with Louise Peete, 161; and murder of Alberta Meadows, 79–80; 1935 parole of, 175; and parole discussion, 75; and prosecution by Fricke, 91 Phillips, John, 204–5 Porter, John, 179–80 The Postman Always Rings Twice (Cain), 4 Powell, Pete, 74, 134 Production Code Administration, 82 Putascio, Harry, 235, 246 Red Squad (lapd), 82 Rhoads, Randy, 2 Rogers, R. V., 109, 117 Rolph, James “Sunny Jim,” 94, 174 Rowe, Ray, 49, 51–52, 71, 75 Runyon, Damon, 39 Russell, Jane, 242 Ryan, Anita, 171 Ryan, Frank, 73, 97–98, 216 Ryan, Joseph: and appeal of NM’s sentence, 165–68, 174–75; and choice of mistaken-identity defense, 116–25, 130, 133; and closing arguments in NM’s trial, 142–43; and coroner’s inquest, 71; death of, 5; and firing by NM, 176–77; and first meeting with NM, 61; and

293

index Ryan, Joseph (cont.) hiring by NM, 58; and jury selection, 98–99; legal background of, 85–91; NM’s accusations against, 182; and prosecution’s case, 90–113; and rebuttal, 134–38; refutation of NM’s charges, 196; and responsibility for NM’s sentence, 214–15, 222, 227, 229; and verdict, 148–49, 154; William Brown’s comments on, 73 San Bernardino Evening-Telegram, 2–3 San Diego Sun, 213 Sanger, Margaret, 15 San Quentin Prison, 153, 156, 161–62, 174, 226, 230, 242 Sash and Blind (San Quentin), 165 Saunders, Russ, 136–37 Seven Year Itch (movie), 242 Shearer, Norma, 22, 153 Shuler, Robert, 179–80 Sinclair, Upton, 82, 174 Sixteenth Congressional (district) Women’s Club, 207 Smith, Marion, 173, 208 Smith, Wilma, 39–40, 42, 104, 106–8 spousal abuse: and Brenda Aris case, 244; and changing public attitudes toward, 244, 283, 286–87; between Georgia and Eric Madison, 200–203; between Nellie and Eric Madison, 183, 187–94, 203, 210–11; between Nellie and William Brown, 27–28; in NM’s divorce records, 63; as ongoing problem in American society, 6; and post-traumatic stress, 63; and state-mandated therapist testimony, 244–45 Stahlman, George: and comparison of NM to Lady Macbeth, 140–41; and criticism of NM’s confession, 197; and defense case, 120, 125–30, 133, 138–40; and opposition to NM’s sentence commutation, 209; trial prosecution conducted by, 97–113 Stanwyk, Barbara, 66 State Board of Prison Directors, 226 Sternwood, Carmen, 4

Steunenberg, Frank, 20 Stockton Independent, 78 Sullivan, Vada, 58, 63, 147, 153, 157 Taylor, William Desmond, 91 Thomasson, Olive, 208 “Tiger Woman.” See Phillips, Clara Townsend, Francis, 82 Trask, Wilbert “Earl” (NM’s third husband), 22–25, 55–56 Truxaw, Father Joseph, 237 Underwood, Agness “Aggie”: and attitude toward her career, 60; background of, 59–60; as city editor of Evening Herald and Express, 241–42; and Clara Phillips, 175; and efforts to save NM’s life, 4, 166, 175; and focus on female criminals, 170; and interview with NM at Tehachapi, 170–72, 212–14; and interview with NM following her arrest, 60–61, 63; Lloyd Nix as friend of, 180; and NM’s reprieve, 217–19, 223; and unique professional skills, 60–62 Utah and Northern Railroad, 12 Valhalla Cemetery, 74 Veiller, Bayard, 153 Village Inn (Palm Springs), 29, 183 Wagner, A. J., 71–75, 100–102 Wagner, John (NM’s fifth husband), 2–3, 246–47 Wagner, Nellie. See Madison, Nellie May Wahl, Sadie, 41–43, 134 Wallace, Rose, 160 Warner, Jack, 36, 186 Warner Brothers First National Studio: and Belle Bradley’s testimony, 105; as Eric Madison’s employer, 34–35; and filming of Midnight Alibi, 31–32; and murder of Eric Madison, 4, 41; and neighborhood ambience, 31–33; and NM’s confession, 186, 190; and NM’s trial, 100, 105, 119, 122, 137; as setting for depression-era gangster films, 31; and Wilma Smith’s testimony, 106–8

294

index Warren, Earl, 237–38 Watkins, Louise Ward, 207 Watkins, Maurine, 66 Webb, U. S., 169 West, Mae, 82 White, Burmah, 171 Wilson, Pete, 245

women as murderers, 83–85, 269–71, 277–79 Wright, Francine, 207 writ of coram nobis, 215 Yarwood, Paul, 232–35 Young, C. C., 91

295

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