"Jack and John": Chapter IX of the Barbara Graham Story

Jack and John

While Baxter Shorter was laying out the botched Monohan job for the district attorney's office, Burbank detectives were still going after the second suspect they had learned about from John Wilds: the man who lived in northern California, Jack Santo.

Both the Los Angeles and San Francisco police departments were brought into the loop now, and it was learned that Santo had a long criminal and prison record for robbery, kidnapping, attempted murder, and transporting stolen automobiles. He lived in Auburn, north of Sacramento. A known criminal, his activities were loosely monitored by law enforcement on an ongoing basis. For the past three months, he had been seen often in the company of a man who lived in nearby Grass Valley, a deep-sea diver and general roustabout named John True, who surprisingly had no known criminal record. Santo was described as swarthy, with a pencil moustache. True was a muscular, well-built man with wavy gray hair. Together they had recently left the area for a trip to Los Angeles.

Bingo, thought the Burbank detectives. Jack and John.

More links coupled up when veteran Los Angeles detective Dick Ruble joined the expanding investigation. Ruble pegged the name Emmett to Emmett Perkins, a longtime safe burglar and gambler who had done time at both San Quentin and Folsom. Ruble and Perkins had known each other since 1943 and had an informal, but by no means unusual, working arrangement under which Perkins committed no crimes in the Los Angeles department's jurisdiction, and in turn. Ruble would use department informant money to buy information from him about other criminals who were operating in Ruble's area. Ruble also knew about the illegal gambling operation Perkins currently had going in El Monte -- and he knew that for some time a shill that Perkins had named Barbara Graham, who was a heroin addict, had been living with him, after leaving her husband and child. Barbara Graham was known to frequently use the name "Mary" when picking up men.

Perkins, Dick Ruble knew, was a suspect in a $7000 payroll stickup in northern California a year earlier. He was believed to have pulled it with an old prison buddy of his -- Jack Santo.

Jack, John, Emmett, and Mary.

All the names Baxter Shorter had given authorities in his Miramar Hotel statement.