Note: This is an encore post from 2006.

May 20, 1907
Los Angeles

Night jailer O.L. Gilpin thought the man in the drunk tank looked familiar—and indeed he was. Despite passing himself off as George Thompson, it was our old friend James G. Fleenor, otherwise known as the “barefoot burglar,” who walked out of a San Francisco jail en route to serving a prison term at San Quentin and hopped a freight train to Los Angeles.

“I was fair about the whole thing,” Fleenor told The Times. “When the officers left here I told them I would escape, but they were not bright enough to realize I meant what I said. When they placed me in that cell in the San Francisco station, I walked about and inspected it. Awaiting my time, I pried open the door.

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May 17, 1907
Los Angeles

Note: This is an encore post from 2006.

The Le Canns continued their spat in court after Mrs. Le Cann showed Judge Chambers a piece of skin she said was torn from her lip when her husband, Fred (also listed as Ferdinand), shoved her as she was calling the police.

“He threatened to kill me and I’m afraid to death of him,” she testified.

The husband cross-examined the wife (apparently that’s how things were done in 1907), demanding: “Who gave you those diamond earrings you were wearing that day?”

Mrs. Le Cann refused to answer and the quarrel resumed until it was squelched by the judge in dismissing the case.

In the meantime, Charles Richmond was fined $40 ($820.94 USD 2005) for beating his 18-year-old wife and is facing a trial June 5 on charges of disturbing the peace.

“The husband cross-questioned his wife yesterday while she was on the witness stand. He tried to make the woman admit that he has been kind and attentive to her,” The Times said. “She was poorly dressed and seemed to fear the man. She declined to testify in his favor and the court found Richmond guilty.”

Anna Larson of Boyle Heights pleads not guilty to slashing a burro with a knife… J.W. Church is fined $10 for speeding after he struck stenographer K.M. Spooner with his auto at 3rd Street and Broadway… M.J. Lester is fined $10 for beating his son Rial, 13, so badly that he was covered with welts and had to be treated at the Receiving Hospital. The Times identifies Lester as being black.