I Love Los Angeles Crime!
Each metropolis has a singular crime signature. In Los Angeles, crime has a distinctly cinematic really feel. In 1910, Hollywood made its first movie, In Previous California. The silent quick ran for 17 thrilling minutes. A western, the characters run the gamut from upstanding residents to thieves. Hollywood has been obsessive about themes of excellent vs. evil ever since.
Within the following story, Jealousy and Gin, the killer is a real-life B-movie unhealthy man. He by no means speaks and not using a cigarette dangling from his mouth, and he cracks clever to the tip.
For extra fascinating true crime tales from Prohibition-era Los Angeles, choose up a duplicate of my guide, Of Mobsters and Film Stars, obtainable now.
–Joan Renner
Jealousy and Gin
Twenty-three-year-old Ruth Malone moved to Los Angeles in August 1927. She fled Aberdeen, Washington, to flee her husband, John, a jealous and violent drunk. To hide her whereabouts, she used her mom’s deal with on Belmont Avenue however lived with a girlfriend in an residence at ninth and Flower. She lived in worry of John discovering her. She labored half a mile from the residence at a drugstore on East Twelfth between Santee Road and Maple Avenue. By December, Ruth determined she wished to break up, however she was in no hurry to confront John.
At 11 o’clock within the morning on Wednesday, December 7, 1927, Ruth’s workday was starting when John arrived. He was drunk and loud, and he made a scene. He begged Ruth to return to him. She mentioned no and wouldn’t budge. John stormed out. He returned at midday and pleaded along with her once more. She accused him of being drunk. He couldn’t deny it. In reality, he mentioned he had been consuming repeatedly for 3 weeks and would keep drunk till Ruth agreed to reunite. She refused once more and requested him to depart her alone. He pulled a revolver from his pocket. Ruth noticed the gun and dashed for the rear of the shop. Some partitions reduce off her escape route, trapping her. As twenty individuals watched, John fired, and every shot hit its mark. Ruth took hits to the chest, face, and hip. Glad that he had killed her, John turned the gun on himself. One bullet entered his chest a number of inches above his coronary heart, after which he raised the weapon to his head and fired.
When detectives Lieutenants Hickey, Stevens, and Condaffer of the LAPD’s Central Station Murder Squad arrived, they discovered Ruth useless and John on the point of dying. John shocked Detective Hickey when he mustered the energy and mentioned, “I’m sorry I killed her, however give me a smoke earlier than I croak, will you?” Though John believed he was dying, his first thought was for a cigarette. The detectives discovered an incoherent observe in John’s pocket, the ramblings of a person obsessed.
Investigators found that John, 29, had an arrest document. Authorities apprehended him in Oakland on October 10, 1917, for housebreaking and later in San Francisco for violating the State Poison Act (a drug cost). John was in Los Angeles for a number of weeks earlier than the capturing. Whereas he was on the town, he stayed at a resort a number of blocks from Ruth’s job.
As John lay in a mattress within the Basic Hospital preventing for his life, a coroner’s jury charged him with homicide. John would go to trial if he survived. After a non-public funeral at Mead & Mead enterprise parlor, they laid Ruth to relaxation in Graceland Cemetery.
For a number of weeks, John hovered between life and dying. He rallied, and by February 1928, he was wholesome sufficient to face trial. John’s lawyer, L. V. Beaulieu, unsuccessfully used his consuming binge as a protection for the homicide, because the choose sided with the prosecution. Alcohol-induced amnesia didn’t sway the jury. They returned a responsible verdict with no advice for leniency. Underneath the legislation, Choose Fricke had no different however to condemn John to hold. They transported him to San Quentin to await execution.
John met one other killer, William Edward Hickman, nicknamed “The Fox,” within the Los Angeles County Jail. The court docket sentenced each to hold. Hickman dedicated the mutilation homicide of 12-year-old Marion Parker solely ten days after John shot Ruth. As soon as, John confronted Hickman and held him chargeable for reigniting the general public’s fascination with capital punishment, resulting in John’s execution.
Following his automated attraction, the State Supreme Court docket upheld John’s dying penalty. Choose Fricke re-sentenced him to hold. Until one thing modified, he would meet his finish on December 7, one 12 months to the day since Ruth’s homicide. John had modified his thoughts about dying since his bungled suicide try on the homicide scene as a result of he took half in a Thanksgiving escape plot that failed. They moved him to the dying cell to forestall any additional makes an attempt to tunnel out of San Quentin.
As a condemned man, they honored John’s final requests. They gave him a document participant, and he listened repeatedly to “I Need to Go The place You Go” till it was time for him to climb the 13 steps to the scaffold. One 12 months earlier than, simply moments after killing Ruth, John’s first thought was for a cigarette. Nothing had modified. John smoked as guards positioned the black cap over his head. As he was about to drop, he held a cigarette between his lips and quipped, “Properly, boys, I received a run for this one.” As he fell via the lure, his cigarette was jerked from his lips. Three witnesses, one in all them a guard, fainted. They pronounced John Joseph Malone useless 12 minutes later.
Jealousy and gin make a deadly cocktail.