A Visitor for Barbara
Sam, Donna’s friend, was a dead-ringer for a young actor named John Derek, who had made his screen debut three years earlier in a Humphrey Bogart movie called Knock On Any Door. Thick, dark hair, broad shoulders, almost too handsome, he might have piqued Barbara’s interest if she hadn’t been so involved with Candy Pants. As it was, the only interest Sam held for her was a possible round-trip ticket to the Monohan murder trial.
Sam had visited Donna first on the morning of August 7, just eleven days before the trial was to begin. At that time, Donna gave him a password to use to prove to Barbara that he was the friend Donna had contacted to provide Barbara an alibi for the murder night. After getting the password, Sam then obtained a second visitor pass, this one to see Barbara.
When Barbara was brought into the women’s visiting area and left alone facing Sam through a metal grille divider, she said to him, "I came like water," and he replied to her, "And like wind I go." It was a quote from a book of poetry by Omar Khayyam that Barbara was reading.
"I guess you’re okay," Barbara said then.
"Does your attorney know anything about this’" Sam asked.
"No, he doesn’t. Listen, if we need more time to make up this alibi, I can probably get the trial postponed a week or so by asking to change attorneys."
"I don’t think you should do that," said Sam. "We’ve got a week to get our stories straight."
"Well, I’m naturally worried," Barbara told him. "Without you as an alibi, I’m doomed to the gas chamber."
"Well, what I’m worried about," Sam countered, "is this guy Baxter Shorter I’ve been reading about. Rumor’s out that the cops have him hidden away and ready to bring to trial. If he tells the same story that True tells, I can get nailed for perjury."
Barbara shook her head. "He won’t be at the trial. He’s been well taken care of."
"Well taken care of’" Sam questioned.
"Yes," Barbara said, lowering her voice to a whisper, "he’s been done away with. I guarantee you he won’t be at the trial."
"Okay," Sam said. "Now this Monohan murder took place on March ninth, right’"
"Yeah. Actually, it was early in the morning of March tenth."
"Okay, how about if I set it up that you and I were out of town together, say, from March eighth to eleventh’"
"Great! That would be wonderful. That would clear me fine."
That first visit between Barbara and Sam was a brief one, primarily to establish contact. Sam returned for a second visit three days later on August 10, and again two days after that on August 12, for his third and last visit with her. During those two meetings, both longer, Sam verified twice more that Baxter Shorter would not turn up as a surprise witness.
"Okay, now what about Bax again, Barbara’" he asked. "That’s one thing you’ve got to positively assure me about. Where is he’"
"I can only say that he definitely won’t be around."
"Do you know personally what happened to him’"
"You can use your imagination. I tell you, he won’t be here."
Another time, Sam said, "I’m still thinking about Bax. That guy worries me. The papers keep hinting that he may be a secret witness."
"I know. Every time I read that, I laugh," Barbara told him.
"So you know what happened to him’"
Barbara nodded. "Just don’t worry. He won’t show up."
The alibi they finally agreed on, to keep it from becoming too complicated, was that on the night of the murder, they were at a motel together at 17448 Ventura Boulevard in the northwestern suburb of Encino. They had checked in under the names of Mr. and Mrs. J. Clark from San Francisco. Both would say that they had been off-and-on lovers since the summer of 1950, before Barbara married Henry Graham. They happened to run into each on March 9, were eager to resume their affair, and checked into the motel late in the afternoon, remaining there together until seven o’clock the following morning. Sam was to pay the desk clerk to fix the guest register to back up their story.
"Okay," Sam finally said, "now I want to know where you really were that night, Babs, because I’ve got to be absolutely sure that I’m protected in this. I mean, if somebody -- anybody -- saw you someplace else that night and came into court with it, I’d get nailed for perjury right away."
"That won’t happen," Barbara assured him.
"Because you were with those four guys that night’"
"I was with them," Barbara admitted.
At the end of their third and last meeting, Sam sat back and asked, "Well, is there anything else we have to go over’"
"No, I think that will do it, Sam," Barbara replied.
"You think we have your alibi covered’"
"I sure do," she said confidently.
PART III
The Trial: Part One
The case of the People of the State of California versus Emmett Ray Perkins, John Albert Santo, Barbara Diane Graham, and John Lawson True, was held in Department 43 of the Los Angeles Superior Court, in an eighth-floor corner courtroom in the Hall of Justice. It began on Friday, August 14, 1953, five months and five days after the vicious murder of Mabel Monohan. The judge was Charles W. Fricke, bald, bullet-headed, bespectacled, a lawyer for more than fifty years, nationally respected in the field, a scholarly writer on criminal law and evidence, a lay expert in the areas of ballistics, forensic chemistry, crime scene photography, medicine and psychiatry, and a living legend in criminal jurisprudence. In his spare time, he grew delicate, crossbred, prize-winning orchids in a greenhouse behind his home.
Barbara was brought into the courtroom wearing a form fitting tan suit, high heels, her hair up and rolled in back into a French twist, nails manicured, looking sleek and stylish. Perkins and Santo, in sport coats and open collars, looked as they always did: seedy and shifty. John True wore a new blue sport coat and tie. The court had appointed three of the city’s best criminal defense attorneys to the case -- one each for Perkins, Santo, and Barbara; a public defender represented True. All of them had been working on rebutting the state’s case for more than three months. J. Miller Leavy led the prosecution team.
It took three days to empanel a jury of twelve and four alternates. The first order of business after that was a motion by Leavy to dismiss the charge against John True for the purpose of using him as a prosecution witness. Since that was allowable under Section 1099 of the California Penal Code, Judge Fricke granted the motion. Under icy stares from the three remaining defendants, True was escorted from the courtroom.
Leavy put on the state’s case in his usual precise, straightforward manner. He first called Mrs. Merle Leslie, the elderly victim’s closest friend and the last person, other than her killers, who had seen her alive. Mabel and Merle had known each other more than twenty-five years. Both widows who lived alone, they frequently stayed overnight in each other’s home, as Merle had done the night before the murder. Merle had then gone home mid-afternoon on the day of the crime, but spoken to Mabel about six p.m. that evening on the telephone. Mrs. Leslie emphasized that her friend was very security-conscious, keeping doors, windows, and gates locked at all times. She was wary of strangers and would never open he door to someone she did not know -- except perhaps in some kind of emergency situation where she felt the need to help.
The next witness was gardener Mitchell Truesdale, who told how during his normal routine of caring for Mrs. Monohan’s yard, he had discovered the grisly crime scene.
Next up was Lieutenant Robert Coveney, of the Burbank Police Department, who led the team that rushed to the Monohan home after the murder had been discovered. He described how he had untied the tight strip of cloth around the victim’s neck, and untied the strip of cloth that bound her hands behind her back. He also read the inventory of cash and jewelry that had been overlooked by the intruders. At this point in his testimony, Perkins and Santo glanced at each other in disgust, while Barbara Graham merely frowned in confusion. During further lengthy questioning about the crime scene, Coveney stated that no fingerprints found there matched those of defendants Perkins, Santo, or Graham.
Dr. Frederic Newbarr was next on the stand. The coroner’s surgeon who had performed the autopsy on Mrs. Monohan, he caused a slight stir in the courtroom when he stated that the cause of death was asphyxia due to strangulation. For months before the trial (and for several decades after it), the most common belief was that she had been brutally pistol-whipped to death. Dr. Newbarr clarified that. The ligature around the neck had slowly shut off oxygen to her brain. That resulted in stimulation of her sino-auricular nodes, causing a reflex action which stopped her heart. There was also intracranial hemorrhaging caused by being struck on the left side of the head by a blunt instrument of a shape resembling a pistol barrel. In Dr. Newbarr’s opinion, that bleeding inside the head would have caused the victim’s death in a very few minutes, but the asphyxiation worked faster and killed her first.
At this point, there was an interruption in the trial. Following the graphic testimony of Dr. Newbarr, when Barbara was being returned to her cell, she became dizzy while climbing steel jail stairs and fell, badly spraining her ankle. Judge Fricke ordered a five-day recess in order for her to have a complete physical examination and several days of rest for the ankle.
The Trial: Part Two
When trial reconvened on Tuesday, August 25, there was heightened anticipation in the courtroom. J. Miller Leavy had carefully established the brutal crime for the jury; now he was ready to establish blame for it. When the prosecutor rose, he said in a loud, clear voice, "The state calls John Lawson True."
The double doors of the courtroom swung open and John True, in the middle of an escort of nine guards, strode up the aisle to the witness stand. Barbara Graham's eyes followed him in a hateful stare, while Perkins and Santo merely looked scornfully at him.
On the stand, True related under direct questioning how he had met Jack Santo the previous January in Grass Valley, California, and how their friendly relationship had led him to agree to participate in the Monohan robbery. The reasons for his decision were straightforward but naive: they would not be stealing money from Mabel Monohan herself, but money skimmed by her former son-in-law from a Las Vegas casino; it would be a quick in-and-out robbery; and, most importantly, no one would get hurt.
When his testimony got to the details of the robbery itself, True told how Barbara Graham had gone onto the porch, rung the bell, and after a minute or two of conversation, the door had opened and she had entered the house. Moments after she was inside, Jack Santo had told True to follow her to get her out if there were other people in the house. Asked what was the first thing he saw when he got in the front door, True replied, "Barbara Graham was striking Mrs. Monohan in the face with a gun, and Mrs. Monohan was crying out, 'No, no!'"
A wave of horror and disgust rippled through the courtroom. Barbara now stared off into space, as if in a trance. Santo nervously fingered a pencil on the counsel table in front of him. Perkins tilted his chair back and sneered at the witness. The scenario continued.
How was Barbara Graham holding Mrs. Monohan' Either by the back of the neck or by the hair on the back of her head.
Was Mrs. Monohan bleeding' She was, across the face.
How many times did he actually see Barbara Graham strike her with the gun' Two or three times.
Then what happened' Mrs. Monohan collapsed.
True then claimed that he quickly knelt on the floor and held the widow's head in his lap. Perkins came in then, took her away from True, and quickly tied her hands behind her back. Then Perkins dragged her back into the house and partway into a hall closet. Barbara Graham put a pillowcase over her head. Santo had come inside by now and secured the pillowcase over the victim's head by tying a strip of cloth tightly over it around her neck. Everyone then began searching the house. Mrs. Monohan was moaning inside the pillowcase. No safe or other hiding place for money was found. Baxter Shorter was called in to be shown that there was no safe.
True estimated that the five of them were in the house as a group between fifteen and twenty minutes. At some point, Mrs. Monohan stopped moaning, but True noticed that she apparently continued to bleed through the pillowcase. Finally Baxter Shorter said, "There is nothing here. We might as well go."
After leaving the house, True rode with Perkins and Graham to the La Bonita Motel in El Monte, where Perkins had a room. True had blood on his trousers from holding the victim's head in his lap, so he washed it out as best he could. Sometime after midnight, Santo came by and picked up True in a blue Oldsmobile and they started driving toward northern California. Early in the morning of March 10, they arrived at Santo's home in Auburn. A woman named Harriet, whom True believed to be Santo's wife, then drove True to his own home in Grass Valley. That night was the last time he had seen Perkins, Santo, and Graham except for the first day of the trial -- and the last time he had seen Baxter Shorter ever.
After John True's direct testimony ended, the Los Angeles press categorized him as "an overgrown boob."
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