In the week that followed Mabel Monohan's murder, two significant events took place.
First, at the coroner's inquest it was ruled that the victim's cause of death had been asphyxiation due to strangulation -- not, as the story would be retold over the years, from being pistol-whipped to death. It was true that she did have twelve head wounds that had crushed her skull in two different places, but those blows had not killed the elderly widow; the strip of bed sheet around her neck had done that.
The second significant event was that Mabel Monohan's daughter, Iris Sowder, so anguished over her beloved mother's ghastly death, publicly offered a $5,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of her killer or killers. The reward information spurred a small time criminal named Indian George Allen to telephone Burbank police chief Rex Andrews and request a meeting. Allen said it was about "a recent unsolved homicide."
Chief Andrews met with Allen and was told that sixteen months earlier, in December 1951, Allen and four other men had discussed a plan to rob the Monohan home when Mabel was away visiting her daughter, because it was believed that Luther Scherer kept sizeable amounts of skimmed gambling money in a safe there. The plan had never come off, but Allen strongly suspected that one or more of the other four men might have been involved in the recent plan.
Indian George Allen was the first link in an investigative chain that would eventually lead police to Mabel Monohan's killers. Two of the men Allen named were Baxter Shorter and John Wilds. Shorter was an ex-con who had done time in San Quentin for burglarizing a dozen hotels in the Los Angeles area. He was also known as an expert safe blower.
Wilds had once operated illegal gambling clubs in the Los Angeles area and was reputed to have worked for local mobster Mickey Cohen at one time. When police located him now, however, Wilds had apparently gone straight and owned a legitimate aircraft parts business in which he was doing very well financially. He did admit, however, that he had been involved in a discussion to rob the Monohan home, and that he had mentioned the discarded robbery plan to a man named Jack Santo, who had tried to sell him some hijacked gold. Santo, he said, lived somewhere in northern California.
While police looked for Santo, Baxter Shorter was arrested and questioned about the Monohan murder. A cherub-faced, experienced criminal, Shorter denied any part in the crime and refused to answer further questions. He was eventually released, but was warned that because of the public indignation over the savage, merciless killing, and the strong suspicion that he was involved, he was going to be dogged constantly by police until the crime was solved.
Shorter went at once to a prominent Beverly Hills attorney for advice. A short time later, that attorney telephoned Los Angeles county district attorney Ernest Roll and inquired about an immunity arrangement for a client of his who had information on the Monohan case.
A meeting was set for nine o'clock that night in a suite at the Miramar Hotel in nearby Santa Monica.
The Confession
That night, Baxter Shorter related to a group of high-level Los Angeles county lawmen how he had received a telephone call from a man named Emmett, whom he did not know, but who stated that two friends of his had a "business proposition" that could be very much in his interest. Shorter was asked to meet two men named Jack and John the next day at a motel in El Monte.
When Shorter kept the appointment, he met a swarthy man with a pencil moustache, named Jack, and a muscular, wiry man, deeply tanned, with prematurely gray hair, named John. No last names were given. Jack asked whether Shorter was still interested in robbing the Monohan house in Burbank, as he had discussed with some other men a couple of years earlier. Shorter was not enthusiastic; he was not convinced there was really a safe full of money in the house.
"There is," the man named John assured. "I recently drove with Luther Scherer from Las Vegas and he brought a shoebox with a hundred grand in it."
"You personally know Luther Scherer'" Shorter asked.
"Sure do," John boasted. "He even invited me to his daughter's wedding."
Convinced, Shorter agreed to come in on the job.
A second meeting was set for the next night at a drive-in on Ventura Boulevard. At that time, Shorter met Emmett, the man who had telephoned him, a hick type with large jug ears, along with a good-looking woman about thirty with reddish-brown hair, whom they called Mary. Again, only first names were used. Shorter balked at having a woman along. Emmett said she was necessary.
"The old lady who lives in the house might spook easy," he explained. "She might not open the door to a guy at night."
Shorter conceded. A plan was agreed upon. The job would be pulled the following night.
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