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Skull in the Ashes: Murder, a Gold Rush Manhunt, and the Birth of Circumstantial Evidence in America, by Peter Kaufman

On a February night in 1897, the general store in Walford, Iowa, burned down. The next morning, townspeople discovered a charred corpse in the ashes. Everyone knew that the store’s owner, Frank Novak, had been sleeping in the store as a safeguard against burglars. Now all that remained were a few of his personal items scattered under the body.

At first, it seemed to be a tragic accident mitigated just a bit by Novak’s foresight in buying generous life insurance policies to provide for his family. But soon an investigation by the ambitious new county attorney, M. J. Tobin, turned up evidence suggesting that the dead man might actually be Edward Murray, a hard-drinking local laborer. Relying upon newly developed forensic techniques, Tobin gradually built a case implicating Novak in Murray’s murder. But all he had was circumstantial evidence, and up to that time few murder convictions had been won on that basis in the United States.

Others besides Tobin were interested in the case, including several companies that had sold Novak life insurance policies. One agency hired detectives to track down every clue regarding the suspect’s whereabouts. Newspapers across the country ran sensational headlines with melodramatic coverage of the manhunt. Veteran detective Red Perrin’s determined trek over icy mountain paths and dangerous river rapids to the raw Yukon Territory town of Dawson City, which was booming with prospectors as the Klondike gold rush began, made for especially good copy.

Skull in the Ashes traces the actions of Novak, Tobin, and Perrin, showing how the Walford fire played a pivotal role in each man’s life. Along the way, author Peter Kaufman gives readers a fascinating glimpse into forensics, detective work, trial strategies, and prison life at the close of the nineteenth century. As much as it is a chilling tale of a cold-blooded murder and its aftermath, this is also the story of three ambitious young men and their struggle to succeed in a rapidly modernizing world.

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San Quentin Mug Shot of Fred Stroble. Photo Courtesy of California State Archives, San Quentin Prison files.

Story #1: Child Brutally Slain in LA, Suspect is Hunted

LOS ANGELES, CA, Nov. 15, 1949: The gashed and mutilated body of six year-old Linda Glucoft was found today in a rubbish heap, wrapped in a brightly colored Indian blanket.

Police Sgt. Bill Brennan said he definitely had established that the blanket came from the home where Fred Stroble, 67 year-old baker, lived nearby. Stroble has been missing since last night, shortly after Linda disappeared, and a police broadcast has ordered his arrest. It described him as “wanted on suspicion of murder.”

Brennan said the girl’s head had been bashed in by an axe found lying on the ground near her chubby form. In an incinerator nearby were her underclothes and an eight-inch butcher knife. Police said the knife apparently was not used in the crime. A whisky bottle and a wine bottle lay on the ground.

The gruesome find, a few steps from a church on busy La Cienega Boulevard, climaxed an all-night search of the neighborhood.

PREVIOUS CHARGE

Front page of The Berkely Daily Gazette, Nov. 15, 1949

Deputy Police Chief Thad Brown said Stroble had been sought since May 11, when he failed to answer

a child molestation charge and forfeited $500 ball. Brown said the baker was believed to have gone to Mexico at that time, and a bench warrant issued against him had never been served. The case involved a 10-year-old girl living in suburban Highland Park.

Investigators learned that Stroble returned from Mexico only a week ago. [This is not true. Stroble was at his daughter’s home, where he lived, the entire time, but police never checked his own residence. When his son-in-law threatened to turn him, he got drunk and molested the second girl].

Police said they delayed putting out an all points broadcast on Stroble for more than four hours after the crime was discovered because of variations in descriptions of the man.

NEAR MOVIE STUDIO

The La Cienega-Crescent Heights section is in a finger of corporate Los Angeles, on the southwest side, bordered by Culver City and Beverly Hills. It is not far from 20th Century-Fox Studio.

Det.-Sgt. R. T. Reid and Lloyd Baughn, in charge of the inquiry, said the man they seek lived in a house near where the body was found, but disappeared last night, taking his clothing. An all-points police bulletin set in motion a search for him throughout the West.

The officers said Linda Joyce and a granddaughter of the hunted man are almost constant playmates. But they were not together yesterday. Linda was playing alone because her friend had gone t o a birthday party.

“It’s horrible . . . unbelievable,” screamed Mrs. Lillian Glucoft, the girl’s mother and wife of Jules Glucoft, a commercial artist, when she learned of the gruesome find.

NEIGHBORHOOD SHOCKED

The little neighborhood of postwar stucco homes, on the edge of the Crescent Heights section — an established neighborhood of big Spanish-type homes with red tile roofs—was thrown into confusion by the brutal killing. Little knots of people gathered at street corners, outside a police cordon which kept all away from the backyard where the body was found, until crime laboratory experts had completed a minute examination.

Because of the absence of blood in an alley behind a six-foot fence, detectives believe she was killed in the yard. But they did not discount a theory that her slayer tossed her limp form over the fence as he fled.

Glucoft is 36, his wife, 33. They have an eight-year-old son, Richard. Glucoft came from Milwaukee, Wis., but has lived here about 20 years. His father, Joseph Glucoft, was a Milwaukee watchmaker who now lives here.

Of the killer, Glucoft said: ” It’s a crime that was allowed…to walk around a free man. I only hope he commits suicide—it would save a lot of notoriety we don’t want.”

MOTHER FAINTS

Mrs. Glucoft screamed out her horror, then fainted. She was placed under a physician’s care in an hysterical condition. Capt. Ray Pinker, head of the police crime laboratory, and his men took over the yard where the child’s body was found. They permitted no one but crime lab men to enter as they photographed and fingerprinted the yard, inch by inch, and all objects in the area.

It was in that vicinity that the murders of Nina Martin and her sister, Mae, occurred in 1924—a case that led to the conviction of Scott C. Stone, a night watchman.

Source: Associated Press via The Berkely Daily Gazette, Nov. 15, 1949, pages 1, 3.

Story #2: Fred Stroble Tells Story of Slaying

LOS ANGELES, CA, Nov. 18, 1949: Muttering “I don’t deserve to live,” pasty-faced Fred Stroble, 66 year-old baker, braced himself in a county jail cell today for swift grand jury action in the sex slaying of six-year-old Linda Joyce Glucofi.

Stroble, the grandfather of one of Linda’s favorite playmates, poured out his sordid story to District Attorney William Simpson as a 48-hour fugitive search throughout the week and into Mexico wound up yesterday on stool in a downtown Lobs Angeles bar — about five blocks front Central Police Station.

Simpson said Stroble, formally charged with murder, admitted that he strangled and bludgeoned the little girl to death when she resisted his improper advances. Arraignment is scheduled today in municipal court.

“I had been drinking all day —wine. I wouldn’t have done it if I wouldn’t been drunk,” Stroble was quoted.

Simpson said the ashen, gray-haired grandpa—who liked to buy kids ice cream and candy— then told of enticing Linda into a bedroom of the home where he lived with his daughter, her husband and their two children. The story:

“I was playing with her (Simpson said this involved an act of molestation, but not rape) when she started to scream. She was resisting me.

“This wasn’t the first time. I had played with her once before. “I strangled her first with my hands, then with a tie. She was quiet. I wrapped her up in the blanket and carried her out to the incinerator… I stabbed her with the ice pick, and then I slammed her with the flat aide of the axe six times on the head.

“Then I went back into the kitchen and got a (butcher) knife. I remembered a trick I learned while watching the bull fights in Mexico. I stabbed her in the back, just below the skull, between the shoulder blades. That makes death come easily and fast.

“The little girl did not suffer too much. She was dead within eight or ten minutes.”

That was about 6 p.m. Monday, Stroble said. Linda’s body was found the next morning and the search started.

Stroble told how he boarded an interurban train for Ocean Park and stayed in cheap hotels at the beach city for three nights.

He said he had thought about suicide, by jumping off the pier, but decided yesterday morning to return to Los Angeles and “give myself up. ”

He had just returned on a bus and gone into the bar for a glass of beer when a laundryman, Bill Miller, spotted him and told rookie traffic policeman, Arnold W. Carlson. Carlson confirmed the identification and Stroble submitted without protest.

Source: Associated Press via The Pampa Daily News, Pampa, TX, Nov. 18, 1949, pages 1, 5.

Story #3: Fred Stroble Found Guilty of Brutal Sex Slaying Of 6-year-old Girl

LOS ANGELES, CA, Jan. 19, 1949:, Fred Stroble was found guilty today of the brutal sex slaying of 6-year-old Linda Joyce Glucoft.

A Jury of 10 women and two men, which took the case yesterday, actually deliberated about three and one-half hours.

Thus, in only a little over two months, the state had captured, tried and convicted the 68,-year-old shifty-eyed baker who, in a signed statement, said he choked, stabbed,  hacked and bludgeoned the little girl last Nov. 14 when she resisted his fondling advances.

Stroble also pleaded innocent by reason of insanity, and will be tried immediately on the second plea. The jury’s verdict was guilty of first degree murder, without a recommendation of leniency. This carries an automatic penalty of death in the gas chamber, but under state law must be reviewed by the [state] Supreme Court.

Stroble was impassive as he was brought into court. He took the verdict calmly at first, but then sat down, put his head in his hands and burst into tears. Four bailiffs stood over the trembling slayer.

Superior Judge Charles W. Fricke, setting the sanity trial for 9:30 a.m. tomorrow, instructed the jurors not to discuss the case meantime. If Stroble is found to have been insane at the time of the killing, he would be sent to a mental institution. If found sane, the Supreme Court would then review the case before the death sentence could be imposed.

Weeping, Stroble clasped the hand of his attorney, public defender Al Mathews, and sobbed: “I loved her as my own child. I never thought of murder. I must have been crazy.

If I’d planned a murder I’d have done it in half a minute. I didn’t plan it, because I would have thought of my grandchildren.”

When a reporter asked Stoble if he was afraid to die, he said “I’ll do what God wants me to do.”

Source: Associated Press via The Daily Independent-Journal, San Rafael, CA, Jan. 19. 1950, page 2.

Execution and Epilogue

Fred Stroble was executed in the San Quentin gas chamber on Friday, July 25, 1952. Before he died, he expressed deep remorse for his crime.

It might seem hard to believe but by the time he was executed, most states did not have specific laws against child molestation and rape. According to Alison Arngrim, the woman who played Nellie Olsen in the TV drama, Little House on the Prairie, the punishment for child rape in California before 1950 was just 30 days in jail.

A more graphic account of Stroble’s crimes can be found here.

Posted below is a short but interesting documentary about the murder of Sonja McCaskie in 1963. She skied for the British team during the 1960 Olympics. Her killer, 18 year-old Thomas Lee Bean, was tried and sentenced to die in the Nevada gas chamber in 1963.  In 1972,  the United State Supreme Court overruled all pending death sentences and Bean’s death sentence was commuted to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Bean is still serving his sentence at a medium security prison in Carson City, Nevada. The 68 year-old inmate has been in prison for 50 years. The McCaskie murder has been characterized as the worst murder in Reno’s history.

“While Bean dismembered McCaskie, he played records on her stereo.”

Thomas Lee Bean as he appears in his most recent mug shot for the Nevada Department of Corrections

Read More:

Reno Gazette Journal 2013:

Associated Press, April 15, 1963:

Associated Press, July 9, 1963:

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Romola Abidin endured eight years of married hell.

Wife Accused of Mate’s Murder Sobs Out Details

[Sendai, Japan, Aug. 6, 1955] — An attractive 26 year-old Army wife on trial for her life yesterday told an Army court-martial through shuddering sobs how the husband she Is accused of murdering bragged of his lurid sex life, beat her end threatened the lives of her children and herself.

Brunette Mrs. Romola Abidin, Queens, NY said the fatal shooting of her helicopter pilot husband, Robert, climaxed a night of beastiality and brutality during which he beat her with a belt and choked her at their home on “cherry Blossom Lane.”

She collapsed in tears as she described hew her husband ran toward the room of their three children shouting “I’m going to kill your kids now.”

“I grabbed a gun,” she sobbed “I said ‘Stop, Bob,’ “.4

Then she said, “something happened.”

The next she recalled, she told the packed and tense courtroom, her husband was on the floor pleading “Romola, get me to a hospital.”

He died a few minutes later of a bullet wound in the abdomen,

The Army prosecutor has charged her with premeditated murder, Conviction could carry the death penalty.

Source: United Press via The St. Petersburg Times, Aug. 6, 1955, page 3.

No Title Given

[August, 1955] In Japan, an army court martial listened and shuddered as Mrs. Romola Abidin, on trial for the murder of her pilot-husband, unfolded the story of her eight years of marriage.

Sometimes, she said, he made her and the children eat off the door to the kitchen oven because he couldn’t stand the sight of them. Once, on a Japanese beach, he looked at the kids and said, “I wish I had a cave where I could put them and let them starve to death.” Twice he tried to force her to have abortions.

On his last night he bragged of his love life. “There isn’t a man around who’s had as many women as I’ve had.” Then he told her how he’d seduced her best friend, as well as the wife of a colonel, a New York TV actress, numerous army nurses, and once, a Japanese airline hostess “on one of the plane’s seats, in front of a general.”

Then he told her, “You haven’t had a beating in a long time,” and started whacking her. He choked her, kicked her, flung her across the room. At breakfast he stabbed her with a fork, and threatened to have her killed.

Then, she said, he threatened to kill the kids and ran into the room where they slept. “I grabbed a gun,” she told the court, breaking into sobs, “and something terrible happened.” The something terrible, said the army, was murder. But the men who heard story said no, promptly announced a verdict of innocent.

Source: Front Page Detective, Nov. 1955, page 6.

Woman Who Killed Army Husband Freed

[Sendai, Japan, Aug. 7, 1955] — Mrs. Romala Abidin who shot and killed her officer husband was informed unofficially Monday she will collect his government insurance, his back pay and a special “gratuity” from the Army.

The 26 year-old mother of three whose stateside home is Bayside, NY, was found innocent Sunday of premeditated murder In the Cherry Blossom Lane shooting of her warrant officer husband, Robert, 29, a helicopter pilot.

‘Gratuity’

Army sources said she was expected to receive a $10,000 insurance policy, a special “gratuity” of about $2,000 awarded to dependents of soldiers who die “in line of duty,” and his back pay.

In addition she is entitled to social security benefits and a Veteran’s Administration pension, Army sources said the pensions probably would total about $250 monthly.

Mother Included

Attorneys for Mrs. Abidin said they did not know whether she would receive the entire $10,000 insurance because there was a possibility that Abidin’s mother, Mrs. James Abidin of Flushing, NY, was beneficiary to half the amount.

Although Abidin was killed at  home and did not technically die in line of duty, an Army legal source said it was Army policy to interpret the gratuity matter “as broadly as possible.”

A U.S. Army general court martial freed Mrs. Abidin after hearing that he forced her into sexual indecencies and threatened to kill their three children.

Source: United Press via The Dubuque Telegraph-Herald, Aug. 7, 1955, page 2.

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Told he was dying from a heat stroke, Fuller Schallenberger confessed on a hot summer day in July 1913, that he and another man, Charles Kopf, murdered Julian Behaud in 1899 at the victim’s home in Julian, Nebraska. When Schallenberger awoke the next morning, he was well on his way to recovering. Unfortunately, he had already confessed to the murder. He was later tried, convicted, and sentenced to life in prison. When his accomplice Charles Kopf was arrested in California, Nebraska authorities planned to use a new electrocardiogram machine perfected by a Dutch scientist to assess Kopf’s guilt. The use of this medical device in this way would later spawn the invention of the polygraph test invented in 1921.

UNIQUE “THIRD DEGREE” PLANNED
Electro-Cardiograph Will Portray Heart Beats of Suspected Murderer When Crime Is Reproduced Before Police Officials.

Omaha, Neb. Oct. 18, 1913 – The most unique and scientific “third degree’ ever administered to a criminal in this country is to be given Charles Kopf, arrested in Vallejo, Cal, and charged with having committed a murder In Nebraska fourteen years ago, when he is brought back to this State for trial. Arrangements for the examination are now being made by the Omaha police and scientists connected with the medical school, University of Nebraska.

For the first time in the history of crime the new electro-cardiograph, the invention of Dr. William Einthoven, a famous scientist of Holland, is to be used in clearing up the mystery of murder. This instrument, one of the most delicate pieces of mechanism known, has just reached the university and is now being prepared for the test. The police end of the investigation is in the hands of Col. John J. Ryder, police commissioner of Omaha, while Dr. Gruenther, of the university, will have charge of the electro-cardiograph.

Fright Caused Confession.

Kopf was arrested as the result of a confession by a man who thought himself dying. This man was Fuller Shallenberger, of Burlington, Kans. Shallenberger was overcome by heat last July and physicians said he was dying. When told there was no hope of his recovery, he called the Sheriff and confessed that back in 1899 he and Kopf murdered and robbed Julian Behaud, rich old miser, who lived near Julian, Nebr. He dictated and signed the confession. Then he went to sleep, and when he awoke the next day was well on his way to recovery. Since then he got entirely well and has repudiated his confession. However, he is in jail with a charge of murder against him. Kopf, who also left the State shortly after the murder, was located at Vallejo and placed under arrest. He denies all knowledge of the murder of the old miser. Shallenberger now says his confession was simply the ravings of a man whose brain was ill ordered from sunstroke.

Money Found in Can.

In Shallenberger’s confession he states that after the old miser had been killed he and Kopf found an old tin can half filled with money. There was a jagged edge to the can and in withdrawing his hand cut his wrist badly. The can was found covered with blood. It is remembered in Julian that Kopf’s hand was bound up after the murder. Sometime after the crime both men left the State.

The electro-cardiograph is a machine for recording the electric energy developed by the heart throbs of a human being; if the heart, through excitement or exertion, throbs faster or with more strength, that fact is registered by the machine. And if for any reason its normal action is interfered with, the record is to be found on the machine. The electric energy developed by the heart transmitted by wires to a small fiber which hangs suspended in the magnetic field of a powerful horseshoe magnet. The disturbance of this fiber from its normal position indicates the force of the heart current. The fiber itself is so small that it is invisible to the naked eye – 1,300 of them equaling the space of an inch. Therefore, its action is watched through a powerful telescope. And instead of watching with the eye, the action is received on a moving picture film, which is afterward developed and reproduced upon a screen.

Just behind the fiber is a powerful electric arc light which casts the shadow of the fiber through the telescope, thence through a powerful lens and upon the moving picture film, so that it is the shadow of the current generated by the heart which is recorded upon the film.

Another indication of the wonderful delicacy of the instrument is the fact that in conducting an experiment with it, the slight electric current generated by the sweat glands in the palm of the hand is neutralized and separated from the current which comes from the heart.

And this is the machine with which Kopf will be given the “third degree.” He will not know that the experiment is being performed. He will be seated in an arm chair and questioned by Commissioner Ryder. But the chair will be connected with the cardiograph in the next room and every movement of his heart will be watched by the scientists and recorded by the machine. Afterward the film will be developed and projected upon a screen and every movement made by Kopf’s heart during the ordeal can be seen.

Old Can Center of Interest.

“The main portion of the experiment will be centered around an old tin can,” says Police Commissioner Ryder. “Without saying anything to Kopf about it, one of my men will pick up an old tin can which will be in sight. He will put his hand down in the can and withdraw it filled with money. At the same time there will be a red stain on his hand as though he had cut himself on that can.

In fact it will be a reproduction of the robbery of the old miser as told by Shallenberger in his confession.

“If Kopf is innocent all that will mean nothing to him. On the other hand if he is guilty he naturally will be excited as his memory recalls the murder and robbery. With excitement will come swifter heart action. He may be able to control his face, his actions, his expressions, but he never can control the beatings of his heart. The little fiber in the next room will be making an indelible record of his real mental conditions and when the moving pictures are thrown upon the screen we will know whether or not Kopf recognized the little pantomime which was acted in his presence.”

Col. Ryder says the evidence adduced by the electro-cardiograph is not of a nature which can be brought before a Jury. For the present its use is more for experimental purposes than anything else, but eventually he expects to see the machine in general use for the detection of criminals. In the present instance, Col. Ryder will have to secure the permission of Sheriff Pones, of Nemaha County, where the crime was committed before he can experiment on Kopf. He expects no difficulty on this score, however, and is making the necessary arrangements to carry out the experiment as planned. If successful, a detailed statement and report will be sent to the police of every city in the country.

Source: The Washington Herald, Oct. 19, 1913, page 19.

Update to this story posted on May 16, 2018: Earlier this year, a graduate student in cinema directing at Columbia College in Chicago discovered this unique story of two women who married in small town Colorado in 1913. For her, this story connected with her own struggles in her native Russia. After reading about this unique case of an incredibly rare female-female union in American history, Ksenia Ivanova knew she had to center her required thesis film, a short narrative of ten to fifteen minutes, on the story of Colorado’s first same-sex marriage between “Handsome Jack” Hill, aka Helen Hilsher, and Anna Slifka.

In 2013 I accidentally discovered this story and by assembling articles that were available in online newspaper archives back then, I put together this short post of what I believe is the first retelling of this story in 100 years. Maybe.

In 2017, a writer named Amy Hughes found greater resources not available to me in 2013 and wrote a truly excellent piece about Jack and Anna (which is no longer available online). The Hughes article goes into greater detail and lays the foundation for why this remarkable story, buried for more than 100 years, should be awakened and cast toward the screen to be seen by all–not just those who concern themselves with LGBTQ issues.

“The story of Jack and Anna is unique because there are not many stories that show how members of the LGBTQ community have struggled,” Ksenia recently wrote on her project funding page. “Since this story happened in 1913, it makes their choice to fight for their happiness even more powerful, because at that time it wasn’t even possible.”

But great story telling on film doesn’t come cheap and the cost of Ksenia’s one-of-a-kind project is approximately $15,000. A pie chart on her funding page breaks it all down, but the director with a vision is determined to make it happen, and has already received some impressive grant money from some impressive organizations.

“We are winners of several grants such as the Albert P. Weisman Award, Carole Fielding Student Grant, and The Arch and Bruce Brown Foundation Grant,” the young filmmaker wrote. “We have raised $5,000 so far but this is not enough to bring ‘Jack and Anna‘ to life.”

They have $10,000 to go and Ksenia and her troop of eight talented associates are asking for you to make a donation. It’s not really a donation, though, because they will give you back what they can–cool stuff that only comes with being involved in the industry.

Ever wanted to be a producer for a film? Donate $1,000 or $500 and you got it, executive level or associate. Working downward from $100 to $5 will get you autographed scripts, copies of the film, film credits, film posters, and social media shout outs.

Myself, I’m donating. I think it’s an awesome project with great potential to grow naturally into a major motion picture.

Check out the IndieGoGo fundraising page for this unique project where you can learn more, and have options to donate at different levels from $5 to $1,000.

—–Story Begins Below—–

Handsome Jack Hill Turns Out To Be A Woman

MEEKER, Colo., Sept. 20, 1913.— ‘Handsome Jack” Hill, who for two years has been the ideal of masculinity in the eyes of the young women of Meeker and who was known to the men as “the chap who married the prettiest girl in the White River country,” is a woman.

The disclosure was made today and she was arrested and bound over to the October term the district court charged with impersonating a man.

Miss Anna Slifka, whom the good looking “Jack” Hill married, today supplemented her “husband’s” confession with one in which she stated that she knew before the “marriage” that “her husband’s” name was Helen Halstead and that the two planned the affair so they might work together in earning money to take both of them through an eastern college.

Two years ago Helen Halstead arrived here attired as a man. “He” quickly ‘became the beau of the town, courting many but finally centering “his” attentions on Miss Slifka. Miss Slifka’s brother recently became suspicious and started an investigation which resulted in revealing the “bridegroom’s” identity.

“I dressed in boy’s clothing and came west because I wanted to work my way through college,” she said today.

“A working girl hasn’t any chance in the east and I thought I could dress like a man and get work on ranch in the west where I could earn enough by drawing a man’s wages to start me in a good school.”

United Press via The Des Moines News, Sept. 20, 1913, page 1.

Girl Wore Men’s Clothes to Aid Troubled Chum

Denver, Colo., Sept. 23, 1913.—Handsome Jack Hill or Helen Hilsher, her real name, was not the Beau Brimmel of Meeker, the cowboy hero with broad shoulders and movie manners who deceived a maiden fair.

She looks like a 16-year-old schoolboy and weighs only ninety pounds, according to her friend, Dr. Helen Jones, with whom the girl is staying in seclusion here.

“It is a mystery how Helen could have deceived the people of Meeker for so long, masquerading as a man,” said Dr. Jones today.

“The whole thing is a joke. Helen sacrificed her sex to help her chum, Anna Slifka, whom she “married” some months ago. Anna is an ambitious German girl who wanted to go to college and could not save enough money to do so because it is a German custom for children to give their parents their money. Gossipers put the idea into Helen’s head to ‘get married’ and end the talk, and at the same time allow Anna to keep her money.

“The girls agreed before the arrest that no matter what came they would both swear that Helen was a man. Anna got on the witness stand and declared Helen was a man and stuck to it. She had not seen her ‘husband’ and did not know that Helen had been forced to break down.”

United Press via The Des Moines News, Sept. 25, 1913, page 1.

A Meeker Malfeasance

Two years ago, “Jack” Hill, a feminine looking young man, came to Meeker from a Denver employment agency and took a position as dishwasher at the Davitt House (a restaurant and bar), also acting as a waiter. Finally, “Jack” became a bartender in the Davitt Bar.

While holding this position, he met Miss Anna Slifka, whom he married a year ago. A short time later, after they married, he quit the business, and he and his wife were employed on a ranch. A few days ago, W. B. Thompson arrived in Meeker from Denver, and having seen “Jack” in Denver, recognized “Jack” while he was in his brother-in-law’s shoe shop. When “Jack” left the place Thompson proceeded to tell Slifka that “Jack” was a girl in men’s clothing.

Slifka confronted “Jack” who told him that he had been misinformed, but this did not satisfy Slifka. He went before Judge Sanderson and swore out a warrant for “Jack” Hill’s arrest.

Judge Sanderson appointed Dr. French to investigate, and when the doctor approached Hill, Hill said he was a man and offered to pay the doctor well if he would establish it. [This is another way of saying “Jack” tried to bribe the doctor.] Dr. French was persistent and upon examination found Hill to be a woman.

Hill broke down and admitted she was a girl, and that her name was Helen Halstead, that she was a graduate of North Denver High School and that she had taught school in the vicinity of Denver.

She had made her home with a female doctor of Denver, and had decided to get a college education and thought that as a man she could command better wages. The girl was bound over to the district court.

The Denver News says that Miss Helen Halstead is not known in Denver. According to Miss E.E. Maxwell of the North Denver High School, no graduate of that name has received a sheepskin from the North Denver institution during the past few years. Prof. E.L. Brown of the High school remembers no girls of that name in the various classes.

[Halsted was an alias. Helen’s real last name was Hilsher.]

The Summit County Journal and Breckenridge Bulletin, Sept. 26, 1913, page 8.

Masqueraded As Man And Wed

“MEEKER, COLO, Sept. 27, 1913 – “I would not go through with it again for a million dollars. It is all a horrible nightmare to me now that it’s over and I am glad to be wearing dresses again like other girls.”

Helen Hilsher, the pretty girl of 23 who masqueraded as a man for two years in Meeker and even married Miss Anna Slifka, the town’s beauty, thus expressed herself when interviewed in the county jail, where she is awaiting trial in the district court on the charge of impersonating a man.

“Handsome Jack” Hill, as Miss Hilsher was known during the months of her masquerade, expressed repentance for her deception, but reiterated her previous statements that she had donned the habiliments of man in order to earn a man’s wages and gain enough money to assist her to a college education. She declared she believed she was justified in going to these lengths to gain so worthy an object.

Pressed for an explanation of why it was necessary to “marry” Miss Slifka, the masquerader smiled and related her experiences with the young girls of town.

“When I came here,” she said, “the girls dubbed me “Handsome Jack.” I liked the excitement and fun of the thing at first and enjoyed myself thoroughly. But the girls just wouldn’t leave me alone. They worried me to death with hints to take them to parties and other social events.

“I got tired of it all and I found I just had to tell someone and confided my secret to Miss Slifka. She was a trump and when we both found that our wish to go to an eastern college was mutual, we planned our “marriage.” You see, I knew if I got married, the girls would not bother me. So we fixed it that I was to wed and win Anna. I became an ardent wooer and courted many girls but finally settled my affection on Anna and we were married. Our courtship ended in our marriage 10 months ago.

“Everything was going lovely when I was arrested. We had moved to our homestead and were getting along happily. We were not doing anything wrong or bothering anybody and both of us were saving nicely. I cannot see yet what I have done to deserve arrest.”

It developed that the girl’s statement that she came from the east was fiction. She formerly lived in Denver. Six years ago, she proved upon public land and it was during this experience, she says that she found masculine attire comfortable and of assistance during employment.

During “Handsome Jack’s” two years in and around Meeker, she cooked in a hotel, worked for various bachelor businesses and ranches before taking up the homestead where “he” and his “bride” were living when Jack was arrested.

Oakland Tribune, Sept. 28, 1913, page 1.

Court Testimony

During a court hearing which took place at an unspecified date, Helen Hilsher’s testimony revealed more interesting facts about this case.

“Miss Hilsher,” asked the attorney for the defense, “did you mean any wrong when you went into this marriage?”

“Why certainly not. I wouldn’t harm Anna for the world.”

“Did Miss Slifka know your sex before you were married?”

“Of course she did.”

“And did she know it afterward?”

“Most certainly.”

“How else are you sure she knew of it?”

“Well, she answered at last, “Anna took part of my wardrobe, including a corset, shirtwaist, and skirt. I still love Anna.”

“Naturally, a man wouldn’t give a girl he was engaged to some other woman’s clothing.”

“I shouldn’t think so,” Helen answered.

“Now, Miss Hilsher, the question no doubt rather puzzles this honorable court to know just how you should desire to enter into a contract of this kind. Will you kindly explain it? Just tell it all, in your own way.”

“Well, when Anna and I met we liked each other from the start. We got to going together. Of course, I knew I was a woman and she knew I was a woman but other people didn’t. We got to going to each other’s rooms a good deal. Of course, with us it didn’t make any difference but other people didn’t know and they talked. We knew they were talking a lot and gossiping about us, so we just decided to end the whole thing by getting married. And that’s what we did. We couldn’t very well do anything else. You see, I’d worn men’s clothes around here all the time and I couldn’t come out and say I was a woman. That would cause more talk than ever. So we just got married.”

Related Story: Bert Martin, Horse thief 1900

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Skeletal remains of six people missing since 1969 and 1970 were found in two cars at the bottom of Foss Lake, Custer County, Oklahoma Tuesday afternoon (Sept 17, 2013) after authorities found their two submerged automobiles with new sonar they had been testing.

The first car pulled from the lake was a 1969 Chevrolet Camaro which contained the remains believed to be  of three teenagers who went missing from Sayre, OK on Nov. 20, 1970. One of the victims from that car has been identified. Police have not released the name yet pending notification of the family.

Reporters checking a Department of Justice missing person website identified the three missing teenagers as Jimmy Allen Williams, 16, Leah Gail Johnson, 18, and Thomas Michael Rios, 18.

Information on the second automobile is less clear. It’s believed to be an early 1950s Chevrolet four-door Sedan belonging to Alvie Porter, 69, who went missing with one other known person in 1969. The remains of a third person were found in the Chevrolet but police have no indications on who that individual might be.

A good, six minute video from KFOR-TV, Oklahoma City, can be Found Here. Other reports can be found at The Daily Oklahoman, and the Tulsa World.

Re-posted From: New Albany Evening Tribune, Sept. 14, 1918, page 1.

Raleigh, N.C. Sept. 14, 1918 —Upon the charge of murder, four terror stricken youths stood defendants in court, the result of the hazing of Isaac William Rand, Bon of a prominent lumberman of Smithfleld, North Carolina.

The accused are sophomores at the University of North Carolina. They took Rand from his bed and made him sing and dance until he fell from a barrel and cut his throat on a broken bottle. The accused belong to widely known families. They are Robert W. Oldham of Raleigh; A. R. Styron, ministerial candidate, of Wilmington; W.C. Merriman, Wilmington, and A. C. Hatch of Monroe.

The testimony of the court was that after they attended a reception to the freshmen by President Venable. They took Rand from his room and placed him on the barrel and forced him to sing and dance.

Robert Wellons, roommate of Rand, was also forced to dance and sing, and in a fall received slight injuries. Rand dropped from the barrel, fell upon the broken bottle, which pierced the jugular vein and carotid artery, and bled to death in ten minutes.

Two of the sophomores fled, but the other two called doctors. The boy died before a doctor could reach Rand, and at the instance of President Venable the four men were arrested. Governor Kitchin called upon President Venable to go deeply into the matter, and be prepared to give a statement at the special meeting of the trustees called for this purpose.

Unfortunately, I could find no follow-up stories regarding the fate of the four boys who were charged in this case.

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Classic True Crime, Hollywood Style

While viewers were captivated by the drama playing out on the silver screen, the lives of the stars of these film noir classics were often far more exciting. Uncover true stories of mystery and murder in a dozen different chapters featuring William Desmond Taylor, Thomas Ince, Jean Harlow, Thelma Todd, Joan Bennett, Lana Turner, George Reeves, Gig Young, Bob Crane, Natalie Wood, Robert Blake, and mobster Mickey Cohen. Included in the cast of characters of this book are Johnny Stompanato, William Randolph Hearst, Marion Davies, and Charlie Chaplin. Find never before told mob stories about Ben “Bugsy” Siegel, Virginia Hill, and a host of notorious underworld figures.

From 1922 until 2001, explore some of Filmland’s most fascinating mysteries, scandals and murders …true Hollywood noir lived by the players behind the scenes. From the West Coast mob and city corruption intertwining with Hollywood mysteries on and off the screen, to the plots of noir films pulled from actual happenings in the underworld, get the stories behind the stories. Get the theories behind each case in this page-turner—then draw your own conclusions as to the truth behind some of the most prominent Hollywood mysteries.

While some of this book is retelling of old tales there is new information that has come out in the last twenty years. Deathbed confessions and interviews with those finally willing to talk after the passage of time have provided updated information. Interviews I did with Johnny Stompanato’s son, Mickey Cohen’s right hand man and Gig Young’s ex-girlfriend have offered a new take on stories that films fans and true crime aficionados think they know. Each theory is explored and the reader can make up his or her own mind. I tried to give well-rounded portrayals. No subjects of my chapters are shown as all good or all bad or are portrayed as being one-dimensional.

True Hollywood Noir: Filmland Mysteries and Murders by Dina Di Mambro