April Moore - Folsoms 93: The Lives and Crimes of Folsom Prisons Executed Men

F OLSOM S 93

The Lives and Crimes of Folsom Prisons Executed Men

April Moore

Fresno, California

Folsoms 93

Copyright 2013 by April Moore. All rights reserved.

All photos are from the authors private collection.

Published by Craven Street Books

An imprint of Linden Publishing

2006 South Mary Street, Fresno, California 93721

(559) 233-6633 / (800) 345-4447

CravenStreetBooks.com

Craven Street Books and Colophon are trademarks of Linden Publishing, Inc.

ISBN 978-1-61035-203-1

135798642

Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Moore, April

Folsoms 93 : the lives and crimes of Folsom Prisons executed men / by April Moore.

pages cm

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-1-61035-172-0 (pbk. : alk. paper)

1. Prisoners--California--Biography. 2. Executions and executioners--California. 3. Folsom Prison. 4. Murderers--California--Biography. 5. Prisons--California. I. Title. II. Title: Folsoms ninety-three.

HV9467.8.M66 2013

364.66092279453--dc23

2013002868

Contents

Introduction

G rowing up, I had a fascination with my great-great aunt. Betty was distinctive for both her six-foot height and her fiery red hair. She also possessed impeccable taste, invariably sporting the latest fashions. She could often be found lounging on her patio, wearing large sunglasses, a silk kimono, and smoking a cigarette. Her passion for Chinese art filled her home with Asian antiquesjade dragons, embellished screens, and ginger jars of every size and pattern.

Betty lived in Los Angeles, a fact that only added to my infatuation. Stories of Bettys work in L.A. clubs shimmered with exciting details Id never imagined during my Colorado upbringing. Betty had married Tom, a self-proclaimed professional gambler who ran a bookie business from their home, and this situation made our visits to Bettys even more intriguing. Betty never divulged much of her secretive past, but several family members enjoyed dishing up the gossip they were privy to.

Not one to pass up an opportunity to impress and awe, on one occasion, Betty brought out a small, flat box during one of our visits. We never knew what treasure Betty would show us next. Sometimes it was a piece of art or an antique brooch. Her hats and costume jewelry always provided my sister and me with plenty of entertainment.

Expecting to see an antique Chinese sketch or a string of crushed pearls, we received a shock. From inside the box, an assortment of black-and-white mug shotsimages of men with austere expressions and old-fashioned hairstylesstared back at us. Betty had a flair for drama, so as a twelve-year-old I relished hearing the story behind this disturbing, yet fascinating, find.

The Folsom warden gave these to him, she told us.

Betty met Tom in 1937 when she was 17. He was 46 and married. Toms wife refused to grant him a divorce, but he and Betty carried on a relationship anyway. They finally married in 1968, after Toms wife passed away. He made a living as a gambler and by investing in real estate deals. According to my grandmother, Tom entered a silent partnership with Anthony Cornero, an organized-crime figure, to build the Stardust Hotel in Las Vegas. Cornero died before construction was complete, and Tom apparently pulled out of the deal. Tom supposedly had more ties to the mob than just his relationship with Cornero. His inner circle of friends and associates included the notorious gangster Benjamin Bugsy Siegel. Betty and other family members insisted Tom never crossed that line into the business, and preferred to remain only a social acquaintance to these men. People described Tom as kind and gentle, characteristics which he often disguised with a gruff exterior. He died in 1979.

When Betty eventually went through his belongings, she came across the box of mug shots. Other photos included twentieth century inmates lining up outside a prison, as well as images of what appeared to be the early construction of a cell-block and other surrounding buildings.

Stashed beneath the pictures was a stack of papers. On forty pages of onionskin, someone had typed a chronology of Folsom Prison, detailing its initial planning stages in 1884 through 1943, when, presumably, the text was written.

The text found with the photos documented important events, along with the prison population and daily per-capita costs. It also listed the number of parolees and how many had violated parole and returned to the prison. The texts author remains unknown, but according to Jim Brown, former Folsom guard and curator of the Folsom Prison Museum, an inmate entrusted with secretarial duties likely compiled the information from another source. The text serves as an entertaining read, describing in detail several escape attempts and other amusing anecdotes.

Tom acquired the photos when he visited the prison some time during the 1930s or 1940s to collect money from an indebted inmate. Betty said that Tom never intended to keep the pictures, but he didnt know who to give them to. They remained tucked in a closet for the next thirty to forty years until Betty rediscovered them. She showed them to me and my family in the late 1980s.

We warily looked through the pictures, fearing that somehow the fiendishness of the subject would rub off on us. Some men in the photos wore bowler hats, others bowties. A few had their hair smoothly slicked back, while others appeared disheveled and unkempt. The pictures spanned a number of years, as evidenced by the mens evolving fashions and mustache styles. Some mug shots depicted a friendly, neighborly-looking kind of guy, or even a schoolteacher type of person. Others fit the criminal stereotype, with shifty eyes and a menacing stare. Many looked downright surprised or stunned, not unlike a typical drivers license photo.

Ninety-three men were executed at Folsom prison from 1895 to 1937. All had been convicted of first-degree murder, except one, and all were hanged to death.

Typed on the back of each picture is the mans name, along with information such as his crime, the county in which his particular crime occurred, and his date of execution. At the top right corner was a numberthe order in which he was executed. A few of the pictures had a piece of paper attached to the photo with a rusty paperclip, providing more information about the condemned man and his crime.

The pictures and the original document remained with Betty, but she supplied us with copies of the text. As I grew older, I stored Bettys unusual treasure in the back of mind, recalling every so often that my great-great uncle had visited Folsom prison once and brought back creepy photos of inmates.

In 2008, I found a copy of the text among my fathers own writings. I had forgotten he planned to write about the photographs, but he passed away the previous year. I spent the next hour reading the pages, something I hadnt bothered to do until then. As a writer and history enthusiast, I was enthralled. I needed to see the pictures again, but Betty had since died. Fortunately, my grandfather, Bettys nephew had kept them. I dont know why youd want to look at these ugly mugs, but youre free to have them, he said. Frankly, I didnt know either, but if there were stories behind those mug shots, I wanted to tell them.

Within a week, I had the photos and original text. Perhaps it was because of their particularly sad, vacant eyes or their sinister glares that I recognized certain faces from when I first laid eyes on them nearly twenty years earlier. After I had exhausted online resources, my ensuing research led to two trips to Californias State Archives and a tour of Folsom Prison in 2011. After four years, the project that began with a return trip down an unlikely memory lane turned into a book detailing the eerily fascinating lives of ninety-three condemned men and their victims. The stories that unfolded made me cringe, laugh, and cry. Regardless of my personal reactions to these men and their lives, I knew these were stories that deserved to be told.