"Captured": Chapter XIV of the Barbara Graham Story

Captured

Emmett Perkins was quickly put into a live lineup of twelve men and immediately pointed out by Olivia Shorter as the man who had kidnapped her husband at gunpoint. "That’s him," she said emphatically. "Without a doubt, that’s him. I’d never forget that face!"

There had still been no trace of Baxter Shorter, but police found an abandoned late-model Oldsmobile several blocks from the Lynwood apartment where the trio had been captured. It had Washington state license plates on it, and four additional sets of California plates under the seat. The original registration of the vehicle traced back to a woman named Bernadine Pearsey, who lived up north in Auburn, California, where Santo lived with another woman who was his common-law wife. Bernadine was subsequently identified as a girlfriend that Santo had on the side. The interior panels and floor matting of the trunk had been torn out and were missing. Crime lab technicians found bits of weed and grass under the chassis that were indigenous to the California desert 75 miles or so outside of Los Angeles.

Charged with suspicion of murder, Perkins and Santo were booked into the Los Angeles county jail. They were put into an area with several jail informants, in the hope that some incriminating conversation between them might be overheard. But the two career criminals were much too seasoned to fall for that. They shunned everyone, prisoner and guard alike, and only spoke to each other in whispers through cupped hands.

Barbara Graham was housed in the women’s jail. Ironically, Detective Dick Ruble, the old friend of Emmett Perkins, was one of those who escorted her there to be locked up. The last time they had met, Ruble had been wearing pajamas and a robe, sitting in the back seat of a car. Now, on her way to jail, Barbara nudged Ruble playfully in the ribs, and whispered, "What are you booking me on’"

"Suspicion of murder, Babs," he replied.

"Well, remember what I told you, Dick," she said confidently. "You’ll never prove it."

Once in the lockup, Barbara, like Perkins and Santo, also kept mostly to herself. But while they had each other for moral support and company, she was alone in that respect. Needing someone, Barbara finally settled on a non-criminal type she thought would be safe, a woman named Donna Prow. A petite, pretty, 20-year-old divorcee, she was serving one year in the county jail, with five years of probation to follow, for driving under the influence of barbiturates and causing a head-on collision that killed a 51-year-old woman and severely injured her husband. Donna was in her third month of the sentence, had virtually no friends in the snake pit environment of the women’s jail, clearly was frightened most of the time, and seemed genuinely grateful when the 30-year-old, high-profile Barbara Graham "adopted" her. In no time at all, the two became close friends.

Very close.