Montrose Harbor, Chicago, Ill., August 1957, showing where a 55-gallon drum and a 5-gallon bucket containing the remains of Judith Mae Andersen, were found.
Montrose Harbor, 50 years later, from Google Earth.
Note: Investigators eventually determined that the bloody rags and hatchet referred to in the top photo were unrelated to the killing.
Aug. 26, 1957
The first time Johnny contacted me was about a year ago.
He called to tell me that he and this other guy were about to have a showdown over a girl. "The other guy's got a roscoe but I don't care," he said.
The second call was a few months ago–in person. He'd been stamped in a fight and wasn't working. He didn't want a handout. Just some legal advice, which, naturally, I couldn't give him.
Time No. 3 was yesterday.
"Something's gotta be done fast," he told me. "We been trying everything with no go, or I wouldn't bother you."
As he talked, I remembered him as the kid (maybe 22, 23) who had told me he hitchhiked out from New York. He was a graduate of orphanages and institutions and the streets.
"It's not me that needs anything," he said. "It's Mrs. Ryan and Mrs. Cruz."
He stopped talking long enough for me to ask, "What about Mrs. Ryan and Mrs. Cruz?"
Then he started:
"Well, since I seen you last, I been eating. Got a job. Got hurt. Drawing $25 every two weeks. Took this apartment on Hoover, near the university.
"I did things, you know–to make it nice. Now I'm manager. Pay 19 bucks a month instead of 34. Get 15 knocked off for looking after things.
"So walking past the mission the other day, I seen these two women on the sidewalk. Crying. They was holding babies.
"Naturally, I asked them what was the problem. They said the mission was gonna throw them out.
"So I told them to wait.
"And I went and called the landlady. I had a couple open rooms.
"I guess the landlady thinks I'm crazy. In the first place, no women and kids are allowed here. Plus they don't have no money.
"But I talk and talk. I'm good at it. God gave me a mouth to talk. Sometimes it's been the only thing I've ever had. My mouth to talk.
"If I use my hands I get into too many fights.
"So finally I tell the landlady I'll pay the rent if she'll let the kids and women in. I do, too. I pay it.
"That was a couple of weeks ago and they try and get food from the city and county, but they won't give them none. Maybe just a little for a day. And the babies are hungry.
"Every day, Mrs. Cruz's husband looks for work, but he can't read and write and he doesn't talk too good. That makes it tough. I know.
"In the Army I used to write letters for the hillbillies and they used to do my shooting. I don't shoot too good.
"But anyway, I give them some food, and I collect some. Milk, bread, a few cans–things like that.
"But food keeps running out.
"Now rent's overdue again. Food'll be gone tomorrow and they barely got clothes.
"Could take my 20 bucks out of the bank. I suppose I will. But sure hate to. I been saving for quite a while.
I wanna get married and should have a little money. Even now she–my girl–thinks we should wait a while till I get a little better fixed.
"I guess she's right."
Johnny paused for his first breath. But he broke it fast.
"Hey," he said. "You KNOW the girl. Same one I was going to fight over a year ago. Never did fight the guy.
"But–you know what–she's still my girl!"
If it’s true that a woman without a man is like a fish without a
bicycle, then author Kate Constance wants every salmon to have a
Schwinn. She’s even written a book on the subject, "How to Get and Keep
a Husband," which is being serialized in the Mirror.
For Constance, the plight of the "manless woman" is a bitter, hopeless
life. Before she landed a husband, she was an outcast at dinner parties
where the married guests chatted about their children, houses and cars.
"I was just another working girl with an apartment and a job," she
writes. "What did I have in common with their busy, meaningful lives?
They wouldn’t have hurt me intentionally for anything, but they could
not avoid impressing me with the fact that really, after all, I did not
belong."
She was humiliated when she tried to charge something at the department
store and was told she had a $200 limit ($1,433.06 USD 2006), while
married women could run up as big a bill as they liked.
Even worse was the time she and a friend were turned away from a supper
club because, "We, my friend and I, were two women without a man!"
And there was the fearful stigma that a single woman with an apartment
was a threat to every happy marriage in the building, she said.
Why do unmarried women have such a difficult time? Because their priorities are wrong, wrong, wrong, she said.
"Many single women approach their problem of finding a mate with the
wrong attitude," Constance writes." They fail to use their talents for
happiness but instead drift into bitter hopelessness, that insidious
paralysis of the soul."
Alas, there is no shortage of unsuitable suitors: A woman friend lists
her prospects and they are grim indeed. Mr. Inge, for example, is 20
years older. And too fat! Bob isn’t good marriage material either–her
friend earns more than he does! The man who lives in the country and
raises oranges and bees? Mere laughter. "Oh no, not that–not that!"
But that’s no excuse. The problem, Constance, emphasizes, is that women are seeking the wrong things.
"A great many are looking for a man with money first; prestige, second;
looks, third; love–well last and maybe not at all if money comes along
without love," she writes.
Her advice? Use the dateless solitude for reflection.
And don’t aim so high, bachelorettes!
"There is no such thing as ‘ideal’ in choosing a mate," Constance
writes. "When a woman sets up a list of requirements beyond basic
compatibility she is doomed to single loneliness or married
unhappiness. If she carries in her mind a hard-and-fast idea of what
she wants and thinks she deserves in a man she probably will fail to
find him."
Now the manless woman shouldn’t necessarily plan to accomplish her task
alone. "For her own wellbeing, the woman with a husband should do
everything in her power not only to hold her man but to help her single
sisters find husbands of their own," Constance writes. (Presumably by
marrying off all the single women on the planet, they will no longer be
potential home-wreckers).
Let me summarize again. Constance writes: Don’t be so picky! If you only get 50% of what you want, that should be enough!
"If more of our women would see the fallacy of holding out for Mr. Just
Right–the man with the nice bank balance, movie star looks, plenty of
lovemaking and social position–and put good character, compatibility
and industriousness at the top of the requirement list, thousands of
our ladies on the sidelines could find happy marriage possible,"
Constance says.
Aug. 26, 1957
In a recent issue of Variety, columnist Dave Kaufman sends off his piece with an opening paragraph sure to be an eye-catcher. It concerns racial prejudice and the way some writers are unsuccessfully trying to peddle their written wares on same — to big business.
This is what Kaufman reports: “Racial prejudice is too strong a subject for television… Rod Serling, one of TV’s top scripters, wrote a teleplay for U.S. Steel… He was ordered to dilute it.
“This year he wrote a similar story but changed it so that instead of Negroes, the yarn would revolve about Mexicans.
“It was designed for ‘Playhouse 90’ and producer Martin Manulis was enthusiastic about it… Not so the sponsors, all but one of them rejecting it.”
Kaufman went on to explain Serling’s holy displeasure because the story wasn’t accepted. Reportedly, Serling is supposed to have remarked that it was a story of “prejudice as it exists,” that “he was tired of fighting this” and — bless his crusading soul — “that he would let someone else do the fighting.”
Personally, I’ll go on record in saying that “Playhouse 90” is very admirable TV fare, certainly one of my top choices.
Of Serling, there can be no middle ground for discussion. He and Paddy Chayefsky lead the race a mile ahead.
But — and this is where big business showed a big sense of values — racial prejudice, whether “diluted” from Negroes to Mexicans or to Jews, or to Manchurians or what have you (if it is generally rampant at all), is not the kind of commodity one bandies around with a price tag. And hoping for the big slice.
If U.S. Steel declined to buy Serling’s tale of prejudice for national showings in the quiet of, in the intimacy of, the American home, I, for one, cannot blame them. No, not in the least.
National television, in my way of thinking, cannot and should not be placed in the same category as hardcover book production, paperbacks or cheap pulps.
P.S. “Serling,” concludes Kaufman, “did get paid for the story that won’t be seen.”
Here’s a list of Serling’s 10 scripts for “Playhouse 90,” from the Serling archives at Ithaca College.
Photographs courtesy of the Chicago Tribune
Investigators examine the oil drum containing the remains of Judith Mae Andersen
that was found Aug. 22, 1957, in Lake Michigan.
Aug. 28, 1957
Chicago
Seek and ye shall find, and so it is with the Judith Mae Andersen case. Delving into the archives of the Chicago Tribune revealed answers to some of my questions, but although the information brings certain details sharply into focus, others have been covered with a frustrating veil of shadows.
Judith, 15, disappeared about 11:15 p.m. on Aug. 16, 1957, after leaving the apartment of a girlfriend, Elena Abbatacola, 16, to walk home. Boaters found a 55-gallon drum containing Judith’s torso, minus the head, right arm and left hand, floating in the Montrose Harbor area of Lake Michigan on Aug. 22, 1957. A 5-gallon bucket containing the missing body parts was found in the harbor Aug. 24. The remains were in an advanced state of decomposition from being in the water and from being exposed to the hot sun as the metal containers floated in the lake.
Police failed to find anyone who definitely saw Judith after she left the Abbatacola home. Alleged sightings at other locations not on her route were eliminated by police. Continue reading
"The average Chicago night produces many apparent screams and shots, which turn out to be of the harmless variety."
Chicago Tribune, Sept. 2, 1957
Aug. 28, 1957
Chicago
To be continued….
Aug. 25, 1957
Chicago
Chicago police recovered the torso from a battered, cut-down 55-gallon drum floating in Lake Michigan. A 5-gallon metal bucket containing the head, hands and one arm were found in the lake two days later. The victim had been shot in the head at least once, maybe four times. It's difficult to tell from news accounts.
Given the location–Chicago–and the advanced method of disposal–victim shot in the head (apparently with a .32-caliber pistol), dismembered, put into metal drums and dumped in Lake Michigan, you might assume that the subject was a low-level mobster. You would be wrong. She was 15-year-old Judith Mae Andersen, who disappeared late one Friday night, Aug. 16, 1957, while walking home from visiting a girlfriend.
This unsolved killing is what Sherlock Holmes would have called a three-pipe problem. Unfortunately, the news reports don't help and in fact hinder the dedicated and impartial inquirer. For at least the last 20 years, police and news reports have focused exclusively on an individual who has never been charged and may have no link to the killing.
The facts in the case are depressingly few and incredibly tragic.
On the night of Aug. 16, 1957, Judith Mae Andersen, 15, was supposedly watching TV at the home of Elena Abbatacola, 1019 N. Central Avenue. Judith was the only daughter of Ralph W. and Ruth A. Andersen, who also had three sons, and lived at 1520 N. Lotus Ave. She was about to enter her junior year at Austin High School. Because she was identified through fingerprints recovered from a picture of Jesus in her room, we can infer that she had no police record and that she was at least somewhat religious.
About 11 p.m., Judith called her mother to say that she and her friend were watching a movie on TV and asked to stay until it was over.
Her mother said no, so Judith began walking home, a distance of 0.8 of a mile. She never arrived.
On Aug. 22, a cut-down 55-gallon drum containing a torso was found at Montrose Harbor. Two days later, the head, hands and an arm were found in a 5-gallon bucket recovered from the same area.
According to The Times, despite the fingerprint evidence, Judith's father, Ralph, refused to believe that the victim was his daughter because the body did not bear traces of a smallpox vaccination on her left arm.
The killing touched off a massive investigation involving large numbers of detectives. Many people called in tips (there were various reports of people hearing shots and screams) but nothing ever proved to be conclusive and the case went into hibernation for lack of leads. Attention eventually focused on a convicted sex criminal identified in 1987 and 1991 articles in the Chicago Tribune. However a recent story in the Tribune withholds the man's identity. He was never charged in the case.
In googling this killing, I discovered a website devoted to the case. It's prudent to be extremely skeptical of websites devoted to actual crimes, so I'm going to limit myself to what appear to be accounts from the original investigation.
According to a 1957 news account, on the night Judith disappeared, she visited the home of Nancy O'Brien, 222 N. Kenneth Ave. According to the Chicago Sun-Times, Nancy and Judith had been dating a sailor named Kenneth Blevins stationed at the Norman, Okla., Naval Air Station while he was on leave in Chicago. Nancy said she and Kenneth were going to get married and called Kenneth in Oklahoma to prove it. Kenneth told them that he loved Nancy but told the Sun-Times that he loved Judith.
In attempting to reconstruct her last day, newspapers also found that Judith was at the Dairy Bar, 5156 W. North Ave, but accounts of her visits are conflicting and problematic.
Judith's father supposedly called the Abbatacolas to check on Judith when she failed to come home. When no one answered, he went to the house, but no one came to the door–at least according to an unverified account on the Internet. He supposedly searched the neighborhood without success and finally roused someone at the Abbatacola household at 2:30 a.m. He was allegedly told that Judith planned to take the bus home.
According to testimony at the inquest, Elena Abbatacola contacted three boys after Judith's disappearance and told them not to reveal that they spent the evening together.
All right, armchair sleuths (especially those of you living in Chicago–you know who you are), I expect some help. Let me preface this by emphasizing that superficially, at least, this seems to be an extremely elaborate disposal.
(At right, Detective James Hennigan, who is assigned to the case, with some of the files on the investigation).
Here's what the killer has to do:
He (and I'm going to assume this was a man–maybe two) must get control of a 15-year-old girl, shoot her in the head several times, find a location where he can safely cut up the body, dispose of the blood, put the remains in two metal drums, seal or close the drums, load them into a vehicle, drive to Lake Michigan and dump them in Montrose Harbor. All without getting caught. And I would say that the killer must have had a good reason for going to all of that trouble instead of simply driving out to rural DuPage County and throwing the victim in a culvert.
Here's a few of the things we don't know. (Keep in mind that the remains had been in the water for about a week, so presumably some questions can't be answered, for example, whether she was sexually assaulted or had suffered any injuries other than being shot).
For starters:
We may not know the killer's identity, but we can be certain he had a gun and a vehicle, and because of the elaborate disposal we can probably rule out somebody acting on the spur of the moment who suddenly finds himself with a dead teenager on his hands. It is also reasonable to assume that the killer was familiar with Montrose Harbor and knew he could dump two drums in the water without being caught. I would also imagine he's either fairly strong to be able to lift the drums in and out of a car with a big trunk (or maybe he had a truck)–or perhaps he had help.
Frankly, this killing seems quite professional and if the victim were a 30-year-old man instead of a 15-year-old girl, I would suspect an execution by someone in organized crime. The fact that nobody has ever come forward with information might again argue for a link to organized crime. But it's absurd and irresponsible to speculate with so little information.
The tragedy, of course, is that there is no resolution to what became of Judith Mae Andersen. Maybe at this late date, someone will come forward and provide some answers.
Photographs courtesy of the Chicago Tribune
Aug. 24, 1957
There are two basic rules for pretty girls who wish to set Hollywood on its pink, shell-like ear.
The first is to meet the right people.
This one has nothing to do with me, so I’ll dismiss it.
The second is to get their names in the columns.
And here, I’m directly concerned. Because I — like certain other people in town — am a columnist. I, in a manner of speaking, write.
Adjectives, verbs, nouns –I’ve got a basket of ’em.
Struggling young starlets (or their struggling young press agents) begin lining the hallway in front of my office door every morning at dawn — each with some fantastic personal experience which happened to them, personally, which is really true and which they made up on the way over from Schwab’s.
They come in bath towels, bikinis, serapes and/or motorcycle boots. Anything to stand out from the mob.
As they’re ushered in, one by one they tell me of their fights with octopi, their subjugation into white slavery, their secret uranium mines.
I listen, intensity written all over my kindly face.
I agree 100% that theirs are stories that should be known.
“But,” I add sorrowfully, “it’s just not quite my type of story.
“Now the man who’d really appreciate a scoop like yours is Matt Weinstock.”
Dutifully, they thank me.
And move along toward Weinstock’s office.
With the exception, that is, of the 50% whom he referred to me.
They insert, I’ve been told, a Mexico angle and go see Pepe Arciga.
Except for the 50% whom HE referred to me.
It’s a nice, time-devouring game.
But every now and then you run into an aspiring starlet who throws the whole operation out of kilter.
Like yesterday.
When Sanita Pelkey walked in.
She was a tall, healthy-looking girl — dressed modestly in boxer’s trunks and a sweatshirt labeled, if memory serves me, “Property of the Beverly-Wilshire Health Club.”
She smiled, graciously, and I smiled. Graciously. “Your story?” I asked. “What happened to you?”
She looked at me blankly. “Me? Nothing. Yet.”
“Yet?”
“Yet! I’m here,” she said, “to break into Hollywood.”
I nodded. “Break, then.”
She laughed, stiltedly, like she wished it had been a funny remark so she could have laughed naturally.
“I’ve been told,” she said, “that it helps to get your name in the columns. That’s why I’m here.”
“The man you should see…”
“I was Miss New York in the Mrs.–excuse me–Miss Universe contest. Semifinalist. I went home afterward, but decided to come back and…”
“is a chap named…” I interrupted.
But she interrupted right back. “I like dancing, swimming, ice skating, acting. Maybe I should put acting first. More diplomatic.”
“Weinstock,” I said. “Matt Wein…”
“I’ve also worked the Town and Country — that’s the largest nightclub in Brooklyn — the Ice Review, Guy Lombardo’s Arabian Nights at Jones Beach…”
“Weinstock is a personal friend…”
“And I don’t believe all those rumors about a career and marriage not working out. It depends on the individual. If I find the right man I wouldn’t hesitate…”
“of mine,” I continued doggedly.
“Besides which, I’ve won 13 other titles. Miss Potato Salad, Miss Jet Age, Miss Stetson Hat, Miss Smiles, Miss Fluidless Contact Lens…”
She took a deep breath and went on.
“I was once Miss Salami…”
“Were you the one?” I asked.
“Sanita nodded. “They gave me a Kosher salami as a prize. About three feet long.
“That,” she added, “ought to make a good story for you. Write it up.”
[Note: “Ghost of Dragstrip Hollow,” one of Sanita Pelkey’s few screen appearances.]
Aug. 24, 1957
Los Angeles
And where does our favorite scandal magazine get
such high-quality dirt? (Oh, I know, people only read it at the beauty
parlor and the barbershop). It turns out that in Hollywood, money will
unseal lips that are locked tightly–at least when it comes to the
printed word if nothing else.
The reasons: Payback (mostly) and publicity (occasionally). The canceled checks tell the tale.
Let’s turn to one of my favorite issues, March 1957. That was the saucy little number with the story about Maureen O’Hara’s tryst at Grauman’s –except she was out of the country at the time.
Canceled
checks written by Hollywood Research Inc. and introduced as evidence in
the Confidential magazine trial showed that Bledsoe was paid $1,000
($7,165.28 USD 2006) to report his earned run average from the
encounter.
The checks also showed:
Bonus facts:
In 1950-51, Shouel appeared in a series of stories about her legal
fight to regain custody of a daughter, Nancy Ann, whom she put up for
adoption. Identified as a TV singer and model, Shouel attempted suicide
during the litigation against adoptive parents Harry and Beverly Jo
Levy, who eventually conceded to return the girl. Shouel died Dec. 22, 1962. She was 33.
Aug. 23, 1957
Los Angeles
Sandra O’Hara, 11, was sent to live with her mother when her parents
divorced and apparently preferred to live with her father, Martin.
So they devised a plan. The next time Sandra’s mother, Veda, 30, had a
male visitor, Sandra would put a light in the window so Martin would
know to come barging in and prove that Veda was an unfit mother.
On a recent evening, Sandra put the light in the window and Martin
discovered Veda entertaining William Griffith, 30. Inquiries revealed
that Griffith was married and the father of four children, The
Times said.
Martin accused his wife of being an alcoholic and punishing Sandra
for no reason. Superior Court Commissioner C. Clinton Clad continued the
case because Veda was too upset to testify, but The Times never
followed up on the matter so we don’t know how it was resolved.
Here is an interview with the late Grace Paley by Elizabeth Mehren and Carolyn See’s review of Paley’s "Later the Same Day." Paley died Wednesday at the age of 84.
Interview, May 22, 1985, Part 1
Review, May 19, 1985, Part 1
Aug. 23, 1957
Los Angeles
Bad things happen when two men (Ralph Meeker and Keenan Wynn)
abduct a movie star (Jane Russell). It turns out that her upcoming
film is "The Kidnapped Bride" and everyone–including the studio and
the alleged victim–assume that the kidnapping is a publicity stunt.
Well, it must have sounded great as a 30-second pitch. Although the film was released with high hopes and a publicity campaign that included a young woman roaming Los Angeles wearing nothing but a–you guessed it–"The Fuzzy Pink NIghtgown" languishes in obscurity today–in fact it was Russell’s last movie appearance of the 1950s.
More to the point, however, is that a copy of Sylvia Tate’s novel–on
which the movie was based–was found in the Encino home of actress Marie "The
Body" McDonald after she reported that she had been
kidnapped by two men. Police Chief William H. Parker, in fact, was so
intrigued by the similarities between the novel and McDonald’s story
that he read the entire book.
For example, the movie star in "The Fuzzy Pink Nightgown" is kidnapped when she is sent to a delicatessen to get some turkey sandwiches–the same story McDonald told police, The Times said.
Parked noted that the similarities "don’t prove anything," but he wanted McDonald to explain the
discrepancies between her various versions of the kidnapping. The LAPD even wanted to give her a polygraph test, but her attorney, Jerry Giesler, said the request was insulting and advised her not to take it.
On Jan. 4, 1957, McDonald was found in Indio wearing pajamas and a housecoat and claimed that she had been kidnapped by "two swarthy men" who broke into her home at 17031 Magnolia Blvd.* Police were immediately suspicious of her story. In the first 15 hours that she was supposedly kidnapped, she placed three calls to friends and none to the police, The Times said. Some words of her alleged abduction note were clipped from newspapers found in her fireplace, the crime lab discovered.
Her ex-husband Harry Karl, better known as "Karl the Shoe Man," doubted the story and told The Times that McDonald "was not a well woman" and had behaved eccentrically. Karl also said McDonald was a "ready fighter" and insisted that anyone who tried to carry her off against her will would have "a lively struggle," The Times said.
In fact, McDonald at one point accused Karl of arranging the abduction but later admitted she made up that part of the story. After an inconclusive grand jury investigation, the matter was dropped. She died of what was apparently an accidental drug overdose Oct. 21, 1965, at the age of 42.
Read my post on McDonald from the 1947project.
Perhaps the biggest mystery of all is what became of Sylvia Tate. Aside from writing the story for the 1950 film "Woman on the Run," she seems to have vanished without a trace.
*(You’re wondering about her being sent out to get turkey sandwiches. So am I).
Bonus fact: According to The Times, shortly before she was kidnapped, McDonald was reading Meyer Levin’s "Compulsion," a fictionalized account of the Loeb-Leopold case.
Aug. 22, 1957
Desmond Slattery–actor, naturalist, man-about Googies–paid his annual visit to my plush offices yesterday.
And, of course, I’m glad he did. Because it means that he won’t be around for another 11 months or so.
But don’t get me wrong.
Personally, I have nothing against this fast-talking, nerve-racking gentleman. He’s really quite charming.
It’s just his weird involvement with animals that frightens me.
He first came to my attention by conning me into writing a story that he owned the only Irish wolfhound in Los Angeles.
The day the column appeared, dozens of irate Irish wolfhound owners phoned in their protests.
Another time he sold me on an utterly ridiculous story about his car being attacked by a Jersey cow.
And a year ago, Desmond came by to inform me that he had gone into the
firefly business. He claimed to have 15,000 fireflies at Knott’s Berry
Farm, in crates.
That, of course, was just too much. I tossed him out of the office and dismissed him from my mind as a hopeless liar.
But curiosity gnawed at me. Finally, I couldn’t resist calling Knott’s Berry Farm.
"Did a man named Desmond Slattery leave 15,000 fireflies with you?" I asked, half-apologetically.
"Yes," an exasperated voice replied, "and we wish he’d come and get them. We don’t know what to do with them."
So when he came in yesterday, I treated him with a new respect.
Immediately, without speaking, he plucked a black object from his
necktie and placed it on my desk. He chuckled, hoarsely. "Looks like a
tie-pin, doesn’t it?"
I backed away in terror as the tie-pin began to walk toward me. "It’s alive!" I cried.
"Certainly," he replied.
Then he added, "It’s a cricket. One month old today. And in my bathroom are 2,000 more."
"Wonderful, Slattery. Hadn’t you ought to get back…"
"My goal," he interrupted, "is to take the cricket off the street and put him in the home where he belongs."
I remained a safe distance from my desk. And picked up a bookend.
But Slattery only smiled. "Bad luck to kill them. For centuries they’ve
been good-luck symbols. And I’m the only licensed cricket-raiser in the
country."
His insect began a slow crawl toward tomorrow’s Mash Notes [Coates’ name for his columns of readers’ letters].
Again, he smiled. "How about that? And only a month old. I think–before
you become a skeptic–I should tell you that I’ve already sold 10,000
of them in California alone. Wonderful pets. Anyone who wants luck
wants a cricket."
"People don’t actually buy them" I challenged.
"Complete with imported cages–small, medium and large. In three weeks
I’m leaving for the Orient to build up a pattern of production to
supply a national market."’
He was grinning. "Already they’re calling me ‘Slattery, the Cricket King.’
"Anything a man can get a monopoly on, he can make a fortune on. I
control the crickets and so far I control the cages. If somebody else
tries to import cages, he’ll need crickets. He’ll have to come to me.
"And," he added on a note of triumph, "I won’t sell them to him!"
The flaw was obvious. "And what," I asked, "if he goes off into the fields and collects his own crickets?"
"Wild ones? Sell wild crickets?"
He had me there.
"It’s foolproof," he persisted. "I have taken–you should excuse me–the bugs out of it."
As the man stepped forward to recover his crawling pet, my mind was
idly plotting devices by which I might drop "my old Cricket King friend
Des Slattery" into future Hollywood party conversations.
But then it happened.
The insect leapt happily toward its master. It misjudged the distance.
And a pleasant crackle sounded from under Slattery’s left shoe.
I smiled, sympathetically.
"Bad luck, eh Slattery?" I purred.
Aug. 17-22, 1957
Los Angeles
Officers Robert J. Steele, 25, and James K. Sherratt, 28, were sitting
in Steele’s car at 4 a.m. after finishing their shifts at Newton
Division when a gunman tried to rob them, The Times said.
Both officers, who were not in uniform, reached for Steele’s revolver,
which was on the seat between them, The Times said. But the gun went
off, sending a bullet through Steele’s right thumb and into Sherratt’s
groin. Sherratt underwent surgery at Central Receiving Hospital for
removal of the bullet.
The gunman fled when the shot was fired, The Times said.
Except there was no attempted holdup and no gunman. Steele and Sherratt
had been off duty for two hours and were drinking in Steele’s car when
the shooting occurred, the Mirror said.
Sherratt resigned from the department. Steele and Officer T.J. Brown, a
witness, were suspended pending a board of rights inquiry on charges of
filing a false report, misuse of firearms and failure to report a
gunshot.
The next year, a man crossing the road at 7th Street and Central Avenue
died after being hit by car driven by James K. Sherratt of West Covina, The Times said. Sherratt was
not charged.
The California Eagle, Aug. 22, 1957. The Times never reported the NAACP’s lawsuit against the Police Department. Apparently the Los Angeles police chief giving sworn testimony about the department wasn’t considered news.
Aug. 21-22, 1957
Los Angeles
Note the contrasting coverage as Kappa Alpha Psi, an African American fraternity, holds its national convention in Los Angeles.
The Mirror, June 13, 1956. Note: No 72-point headline on Jack O’Leary’s hiccups.
Aug. 21, 1957
June 13, 1956, was a grim and heavy news day.
In New York, six children were killed in a cave-in. In San Diego, plans were revealed for production of a new "atom" plane. In Washington, D.C., the U.S. State Department crushed hopes of any meeting between John Foster Dulles and Chou En-Lai, premier and foreign minister of Communist China.
In Moab, Utah, a prospector — found near death in the desert — told of surviving his eight-day ordeal by eating raw lizards and cactus.
And again in the capital, the National Academy of Science gave first warning that waste from atomic industrial plants could contain more lethal matter than could be produced by an all-out atomic war.
But these weren’t the headline stories in Los Angeles.
We had one of our own.
And it read, in bold and black 72-point type:
"JACK O’LEARY’S HICCUPS END"
The date of June 13, 1956, was probably the only one in history when a case of hiccups was explosive enough to push politics and violent death and international tensions onto Page 2.
For the public, it was the end of a story that had held their interest for more than six years — when Jack’s hiccups gained their first inch of newspaper space.
For O’Leary, then 30, it ended an eight-year siege of a malady that had cut his weight from 138 to 72 pounds and shoved him face-to-face with death more times than he’d care to recall.
Jack’s mother called it a miracle, accomplished by "prayer, only prayer, eight years of prayer."
Her comments were greedily absorbed into newsprint.
And every L.A. newspaper dug into its files to compile a history of O’Leary’s fantastic illness.
They recounted that the young Irishman’s hiccups started after an attack of appendicitis on June 15, 1948. They gave play-by-play accounts of:
It was Jack O’Leary’s day — newswise and healthwise.
But it didn’t last.
Twenty-four hours later he was yesterday’s news — something you wrap garbage in.
He was forgotten by everyone but the bill collectors.
And that’s his position today. I know because I talked to him.
He doesn’t complain. He’s still thankful to be alive. But he doesn’t hold anything back, either.
He admits that his hiccups wiped out his mother’s $10,000 bank account and put his family $5,000 in debt.
He’s up to 82 pounds now, he says. He’s strong enough to earn a living. He washes and polishes cars in the driveway behind his apartment at 4015 Edenhurst Ave. He makes about $35 a week.
The hiccups?
He says they’re gone now. But in the last 14 months they began again twice. Once for three weeks. Once for six weeks.
He also contracted a skin disease that, he said, was 10 times worse than the hiccups.
Does he still get letters?
Occasionally, a stranger will write to find out how he’s doing. This compares to the day when his hiccups were first publicized — and as many as 7,000 letters poured in during a 24-hour period.
His diet? Toast and tea for breakfast. A vegetable and a little meat and tea for lunch. And the same for supper.
He’s not putting on weight, and he still gets pains in his chest three or four times a day.
But he can still smile at the future.
"Someday, with luck, I’ll have my own business."
He was a market manager when his hiccup siege started. But now he’d just as soon run a modest carwash establishment.
Jack O’Leary seems like a very nice individual. I’m glad I looked him up.
