Turner - Notorious Jefferson County: frontier murder & mayhem

This view of the table lands shows members of the Stephen H. Long expedition in 1822, among the first explorers to document the region. Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division.

Published by The History Press

Charleston, SC 29403

www.historypress.net

Copyright 2010 by Carol Turner

All rights reserved

Cover images: All mug shots courtesy of the Colorado State Archives; other images courtesy of the Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division.

First published 2010

e-book edition 2011

ISBN 978.1.61423.258.2

Turner, Carol.

Notorious Jefferson County : frontier murder and mayhem / Carol Turner.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references.

print edition ISBN 978-1-59629-954-2

1. Murder--Colorado--Jefferson County--History. I. Title.

HV6533.C6T87 2010
364.15230978884--dc22

2010030763

Notice: The information in this book is true and complete to the best of our knowledge. It is offered without guarantee on the part of the author or The History Press. The author and The History Press disclaim all liability in connection with the use of this book.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form whatsoever without prior written permission from the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

For Richard and Joss, with love.

Acknowledgements

Many thanks to Troy Rodriquez at the Golden Cemetery for his help in hunting down several graves and to Kenton Forrest at the Colorado Railroad Museum for sharing his knowledge about Denvers regional tram system at the turn of the twentieth century. I also owe thanks to the helpful folks at the Colorado State Archives, Standley Lake Library, Golden Library and Denver Public Library. I am extremely grateful to the wonderful people who built and maintain the Colorado Historic Newspapers Collection. I owe special thanks to Juliet Johnson and Francesca Redwine, descendants of Concetta and Stella Forgione, for sharing their extensive knowledge of the Garramone case and insight into their ancestors. Im also grateful to my brother, Richard Turner, for his beautiful drawings and to John and Lynn Turner for their continued support, critique and advice.

Introduction

These stories, taken primarily from the pages of the countys earliest newspapers, paint a fascinating picture of crime and punishment in early Jefferson County. As it sometimes is today, justice a century ago was a matter of hit-and-miss, with extremes ranging from a midnight lynching to twentyfour hours in a jail cell for a coldblooded murder.

Many place names mentioned will be familiar to Jefferson County readers; others have long been forgotten, the old settlements wiped away by a century of development. For the latter cases, Ive hunted down where events took place and identified the locations using the modern names. I was intrigued to discover that a couple of areas seemed to be hot spots for murder and mayhem.

One more thing: the newspaper reporters of the day had a casual attitude about spelling peoples names correctly. Ive tried to cross-check against census and marriage records, but those arent particularly reliable, either. If Ive used one of the numerous wrong spellings for the name of someones ancestor, I do apologize.

The Case of the Lovelorn Prodigy (1919)

Back about the turn of the twentieth century, tuberculosis was still destroying many lives. Colorado became a popular destination for those suffering from this maladythen called consumptionbecause of its dry climate. Fresh air and Rocky Mountain sunshine were considered to be instrumental in the recovery of many patients. In 1904, Dr. Charles Spivak founded the Jewish Consumptives Relief Society (JCRS). Located in Edgewater on West Colfax between Pierce and Kendall Streets, JCRS was a sprawling complex on one hundred acres of land with thirty-five buildings of various shapes and sizes. Dr. Spivak, a Russian Jew, took in anyone who needed care. Many people volunteered their services and donated money. A farm associated with the society produced fish, poultry, grain and vegetables.

In August 1919, one permanent patient at the hospital was a twenty-five-year-old musical prodigy. Isadore Victor had traveled a long way from his humble beginnings in Streshin, Russia (todays Belarus). When he was six years old, he was discovered by a blind fiddler, who overheard the child playing on a home-made reed instrument in the manner of a fife. Isadores father was a physician, and the fiddler approached him and offered to teach music to the boy without charge because of his great talent. Isadore was given a fiddle that was almost too big for his hands, and within a month he had surpassed what the fiddler could teach him.

He moved on to another tutor but soon developed beyond this mans abilities as well. His father then took young Isadore to the larger town of Mogilev, where a series of instructors trained him until the age of twelve. At that point, Isadore was sent on to Kiev, the capital of Ukraine, where he became a violin star at the conservatory there. He also organized a stringed orchestra that became well known in Kiev.

The front entrance to the Jewish Consumptives Relief Society. Drawing by Richard Turner, from a Denver Post photo.

He next entered the music conservatory in Warsaw, Poland, and joined the world-famous Warsaw Philharmonic orchestra. Isadore developed a talent on the piano that nearly equaled his skills on the violin.

Sometime during this period, he met and developed a close friendship with the noted Russian violinist Mischa Elman.

Isadore then spent some time traveling with a Russian operatic company. All of this happened before he reached the age of seventeen, at which time his father died.

Isadores two brothers had immigrated to Canada, and after the death of his father, the teenage prodigy and his mother followed them to Winnipeg. The freezing climate there soon wreaked havoc on Isadores health, and he was diagnosed with tuberculosis. In 1914, he came to the United States and settled in Denver, hoping to recuperate. There he tried to teach music, but his ill health soon put an end to that. He became a permanent resident of Dr. Spivaks sanitarium. He played occasionally for the other patients, but his musical career was otherwise at a standstill.

In 1917, the year Isadore declared his intention to become a U.S. citizen, his famous friend Mischa Elman arrived in Denver on a concert tour and learned that Isadore was living in the sanitarium. He came to visit and, out of regard for Isadore, treated all of the patients there to a free concert.

After Isadore had been living at JCRS for five years, a pretty young nurse, Bessie Marold, came from the East Coast and took a job at the sanitarium. Twenty-two-year-old Bessie had been an army nurse during World War I at Camp Mills, New York. Her own health suffered during an influenza epidemic there, and she came to Colorado for relief. She stayed with friends, the Owens family, who lived on the middle Golden Road, which is todays Thirty-second Avenue in Wheat Ridge.