History of Fresno County, California, with biographical sketches of the leading men and women of the county who have been identified with its growth and development from the early days to the present, Volume I, Part 57

Author: Vandor, Paul E., 1858-
Publication date: 1919
Publisher: Los Angeles, Calif., Historic Record Company
Number of Pages: 1362

USA > California > Fresno County > History of Fresno County, California, with biographical sketches of the leading men and women of the county who have been identified with its growth and development from the early days to the present, Volume I > Part 57

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guard writing to the police and learning that no reward had been offered for the apprehension of the murderer related the confession on a visit to Fres- no. The prisoner's confession was made four months before the official recital. No action was ever taken on the supposed confession. Reed is under sen- tence for a criminal assault upon his ten year old daughter in the fall of 1907. Ernest Sievers, the man that Van Meter had identified as his assailant, was tried for his life and acquitted and after liberation returned to his home in Missouri. Reed in his confession claimed to have shot Van Meter five times after having been detected in a burglary of dye works on South I Street. Escaping at the rear door he met the patrolman in the alley at Inyo Street at the spot where the shooting took place.

Watchman Murdered

There was an epidemic of night store burglaries during the fall and winter season of 1907. L. C. Smith, night watchman in the city business center, was found shot and killed on the morning of October 10 in the alley off Fresno Street alongside the Barton theater. He had evidently surprised a housebreaker and in the rencontre was murdered. The attempted burglary was of the Opera Bar at the back transom. Seven shots were fired in the alley flight of burglar or burglars in the direction of Merced Street. Three times was "Dad" Smith wounded in the right side, two shots high and the other low, all evidently from a large caliber revolver and at short range judging from the powder burns. No weapon was in the hand of the watch- man when found dead, or near him. The murder was never cleared up.

Tax Defalcation

In December 1907 report was made to the supervisors in 141 type- written pages covering an exhaustive investigation of the books of the county tax collector's office from January 1, 1899 to July 2, 1907 following discovery of defalcations by W. M. Walden, who was deputy and cashier under the administration of the late J. B. Hancock. The net balance found due was $2,130.14 with discovery of numerous errors and disbursements in a debit originally by the collector of a total of $4,141.77. Walden was in- dicted, pleaded guilty, sentenced and later liberated on probation. The pecu- lations were in small sums and covered a long period. Discovery of them was made incidentally in examination of the collector's books in the auditor's office while working over them at night. In turning over the leaves a page of an account book was held up for better reading with the electric light behind it. This showed erasure with chemical fluid so that the spot was transparent. This excited suspicion and the volume being closer scrutinized against the light numerous other like erasures were discovered. A sensation followed that was at once taken before the grand jury for investigation with stated result. Walden was indicted July 9, 1907 for falsification of public records and pleading guilty October 4, was sentenced to the penitentiary at San Quentin for seven years.

Fifty Years for Highway Robbery

"Why didn't you bury me alive?" hissed back Julius Smith one day in December 1907 upon Judge H. Z. Austin's sentence of fifty years imprison- ment at San Quentin after he had pleaded guilty to the charge of highway robbery. His accomplice had previously confessed and would have been used as state's evidence against Smith. The time was when highway robberies were epidemic. The sentences came under fierce criticism by the prison commissioners sitting as a board of pardon. The sentence was equivalent under the prison credit system for good behavior to twenty-nine years and ten months. Smith was aged twenty-two and his co-defendant, William Harvey, who received the same sentence, about sixteen. They had been con-

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nected with other robberies and burglaries. These and the other robberies on the highway were committed by holding up the victims at point of pistol, or blinding them by throwing sand into their eyes after pouncing upon them from place of concealment. The same sentence was passed upon Harry Finnerty and Charles Washburn arrested at Seattle, Wash., and brought back for robbery, and upon a negro named Archie Scansell. There was a letup then for a time on robberies and burglaries.

Murder of Deputy Sheriff

A fearful crime with escape from justice was the murder of Deputy Sheriff Joseph D. Price March 13, 1907 by Joseph Richardson, who with the price set upon his head became an ontlaw and fugitive from justice. In his capacity as a peace officer, Price liad arrested Richardson for a minor offense and accompanied him in buggy to the lockup at Reedley as the nearest place. Richardson was not bound nor handcuffed, a piece of neglect for which the deputy paid with his life. Richardson turned upon him in an unguarded moment and slashed him to death with knife and then made his escape. The murder was on a long, unfrequented roadway and was not witnessed by any one, and it is a question what would have been the out- come of a trial, even though Richardson had been arrested. Reports have been many of Richardson having been seen and recognized in various local- ities in the county and elsewhere in the years after, some of these reports strengthened by details, but the murderer has eluded arrest and the crime has gone unavenged. If some of these reports were true, the outlaw was taking desperate chances and tempting fate.

Wife Murder at Sixty-five

At the age of sixty-five, and on his plea acknowledging the murder of wife on Sunday September 8, 1907 James P. Leighton, expressman, was sen- tenced January 4, 1908 to imprisonment at San Quentin for the remainder of his natural life. The wife that he murdered was the third that had borne his name, Hattie Leighton, nee Coppin. She had returned on that fatal Sunday from a vacation spent with relatives at Long Beach, Cal. Leighton's first wife left him for cruelty and secured divorce ; the second became insane and the third was murdered premeditatedly. The showing for Leighton was that he labored under great mental stress on the day of homicide over the thought that the wife was maintaining improper relations with another man, a four year old daughter being the informant as to the frequent visits of this man to her stepmother in the absence from home of her father. Leighton was reputed to be a drinking man and a constable testified that several days before the killing Leighton had come to borrow a revolver, saying he wanted the weapon to kill annoying dogs and cats. The theory of premeditation was well established by the evidence of attempts to borrow revolver as much as ten days before the killing, his brooding and crying, and his declaration that something terrible was to happen and the plea that whatever would re- sult care be taken of his child. Leighton's only living relatives were two aged aunts and they were pathetic in their recitals to give the impression that he was not in his right mind when the shooting took place. An occupant of the front portion of the house in which the Leightons lived overheard a conver- sation immediately before the tragedy. He had said: "Hattie, this will end it." Her plea was: "For God's sake don't kill me!" The shots then followed. From the evidence adduced the sentencing judge was of the opinion that the case was not one for imposing the death sentence. Mrs. Leighton was killed in the bed in which she lay partly undressed. The body bore two wounds. On the floor lay Leighton near the bed almost unconscious from a bullet wound to the right of the right eye. Near his head on the floor was an empty phial marked "Poison." The theory was that he had essayed to force her to take poison. Leighton's plea of guilty was accepted by the court without the

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assent of the district attorney. A month before the day that the plea was taken, Leighton's attorney offered that his client would plead guilty if assured that life imprisonment would be the sentence. The offer was rejected. After a long term of imprisonment, Leighton was pardoned and he is again a free man.

Domengine Kidnaping

With a far-away reminiscence of the romantic days when Italian brig- ands seized and made captive of select, hustled them into mountain cave or gorge to be held for liberation on delivery of the demanded money ransom, but in this instance with a local stage setting in the canyons of the Coalinga oil region, and a more modernized ending in penitentiary sentences follow- ing arrest and rapid pursuit in automobiles by the sheriff and citizens' posse was the remarkable Domengine kidnaping case in July 1908. The enterprise was a hare-brained and desperate one but the sensation created by it great. The result was the sentence October 3 of Z. T. ("Tony") Loveall as the chief conspirator for thirty years ; also of Grover Cleveland Rogers as accomplice for twenty years in consideration of his turning state's evidence; and later Charles Barnes, who had also turned state's evidence and pleaded guilty but whose connection with the mad enterprise was a secondary one compared with that of the others, released on parole with judgment suspended. The kidnaping of eightcen year old Miss Edna Domengine on the night of July 29 from the ranch of her father. A. Domengine, on Section 29-18-15 is a fa- mous one in Fresno criminal annals as well for the incidents of the case as the rarity of the crime. Domengine was a well to do freeholder and sheep raiser living on the wild and desert West Side. The ranch home is typical of that section of the county, comfortable, commodious and unpretentious. The bandits had been in concealment hard by all day on the Monday pre- ceding the kidnaping. They were in hiding behind two water tanks below which the house lies in a pocket of the hills rising bare of vegetation all about. A barn to one side of the house and slightly in rear was set fire to at night and when the inmates assembled on the back porch in response to the alarm of fire the two bandits met them, the porch being on the far side of the house. After tying the hands of the family and of the three hired men who had responded to assist in putting out the fire in the barn, Rogers and Loveall commandeered a team of Domengine and drove away with father and daughter. Arriving at the ranch gate about two and one-half miles from the house, Domengine was commanded to leave them after bargaining for the ransom for the daughter. The price first set was $10,000 but the final arrangement was for one-half of that sum. Leaving the father at the gate to find his way homeward, the kidnapers drove with Miss Edna to the town of Coalinga and near there turned the team loose and it was afterward found wandering about the outskirts of town. Loveall here left Rogers and the captive and returned to Coalinga. The younger proceeded with the girl to a place known as Jack's Springs in Jack's Canyon, one of the offshoots of Warthan Canyon, back of the oil town. Here during the day word was awaited from Loveall. Rogers concealed the girl in a rocky and rugged place in the canyon, where there was a clump of trees and a dense under- growth. Here it was that Coalinga posse discovered them, the trail leading straight into the bushes and cottonwood trees, the canyon being shaped like the inverted hoof of a horse. The place was surrounded by the posse and when cornered Rogers shot at them from behind the girl and over her shoulder. Realizing that resistance was useless and that he was trapped, Rogers dragged his captive through the undergrowth up the side of the can- yon rising abruptly to a rocky cleft. Here he compelled her to crouch in the shelter of the jutting out rock and cowered behind her. He wore a mask to conceal his features and had a strip of cotton cloth bound around his head to hide his red hair. The cloth was torn from him in the first scurry of the

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capture. Following her rescue, Miss Domengine was taken to the home of Robert L. Peeler at Coalinga, one of the pursuing posse, and there kept until her parents came for her. Rogers was taken to the flimsy calaboose at Coal- inga. There were threats to lynch him but he was saved from this end by Sheriff Robert L. Chittenden. He broke down under interrogation and named as his accomplice Loveall a known character in the oil fields with unsavory reputation. Loveall had been with one of the posses searching for the girl during the day but when search was made for him after Rogers' confession he had taken to the sand and rock hills surrounding the town on the sun- blistered and desert plain waste. The reason for Loveall joining the posse was stated to have been well recognized by the search party as an effort at self-preservation. Rogers was recognized by the searchers and the belief was that Loveall had resolved in his own mind to kill Rogers should the latter be taken. Succeeding in this, he would have destroyed the principal evidence of his connection with the kidnaping; there was little else then to trace the crime to him and the great danger was in the possibility of the accomplice confessing. Loveall led the posse in automobile pursuit a merry chase, plung- ing into the heart of the Coast Range, his career as a market game hunter making him familiar with every nook and cranny. Loveall was traced to a ranch fifteen miles from the oil town seething with excitement over the kid- naping. Here it was learned that he was willing and even anxious to sur- render provided he was given guarantee of protection against the wrath of an outraged community. The hills and the country were searched for two days for the brigand and then came word that he was in concealment under the house of a cousin at the pumping station at Camp No. 2. There the fellow was found asleep and readily made a prisoner. Miss Domengine had a sight acquaintance with her captors, said she was not ill treated during her captivity and truth to tell did not take her kidnaping seriously. Loveall was a married man. The evidence in the case was complete, even without the confessions of the accomplices. It was a sensational episode at a period when the Coalinga field was overrun by a floating and irresponsible population attracted by the activities of the field. It contributed largely to the criminal annals of the county with corresponding expense in the administration of the department of justice.

Joseph Vernet Murder

The disappearance on or about July 15, 1908, not confirmed and made public until the last day of the month of Joseph Vernet, aged sixty-eight, and the search without result then for three days for the remains was regarded as another Wooton case by the authorities and the foothill dwellers between Letcher and Sentinel in the country where the eccentric old mountaineer had made his home for years. For nearly one week before August 1 one Charles H. Loper had been detained in the county jail pending a rigid investigation and search for the body of the old miner for the recovery of which a reward of $100 was offered. Loper had shared the old man's cabin, was the last man in his company before his sudden dropping out of existence, and later an- nounced that he had authority to settle up the old man's affairs. The finding of the body revealed the commission of one of the most fiendish, calculating and deliberate crimes ever committed in the county with avarice as the motive. Every step of the crime bore the evidence of cold, calculating premeditation in the details. On the last day that it was recalled that Vernet was seen alive, he had called at the Sentinel postoffice and engaged in a casual conversation with Henry Rae, deputy sheriff. He also posted two letters. The conversa- tion was about nothing in particular. This was the verv significance of it for it was rightly concluded that if the old man, who had lived in that neigh- borhood for thirty years, had contemplated departure on a long journey with possible non return, as Loper gave out. he would have made mention of this important decision. Rae was the last man known to have seen Vernet alive.

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The evening after, Loper called at an adjoining ranch. He mentioned that he would not stay longer at the Vernet cabin because Vernet had left and he would not abide there alone. Loper made himself a guest for the night at the ranch and slept there. At breakfast he repeated the remark concerning Vernet's departure and that day left for Fresno by stage and five days later on the 22nd returned wearing new apparel and outfit, had money and pre- sented a general air of prosperity. Meanwhile Vernet's absence had aroused the suspicions of Rae. On return from Fresno, Loper had informed him that Vernet had turned over to him all property and in corroboration produced a copy of a Fresno newspaper, then returned to the visited ranch and after a few hours proceeded to the Vernet place. The produced paper contained the following- notice :

NOTICE

Any one owing me money will pay same to Charles H. Loper. Any debts of mine will be paid by him until further notice.

JOSEPH VERNET, P. O. Address, Sentinel, Cal.

Satisfied that all was not well, Rae sent notification on the 25th to the sheriff and a systematic inquiry was institutted. In the thirty years that Vernet had lived in the hills, he had never left home even for a few days without asking a neighbor to look after his pet cats, his only companions. When Ver- net disappeared, there were five cats at the cabin and when they were later found they were almost starved. Upon his return from Fresno, Loper cir- culated the information that he had been to the county seat to look after Vernet's affairs, that the latter had gone to Oregon and he (Loper) pro- posed to sell off all property on hand. He had sold for $300 a span of horses, wagon and harness. He had also offered at ridiculously low figure 125 cords of wood that the old man had cut. He had also collected some small bills but as Vernet always paid cash there were few debts to be paid. Loper remained at the Vernet place until the 28th, when he started on a second visit to Fresno. Although he had money and it had been his practice to go by stage, this time he walked to Fresno thirty-one miles and there en- gaged a room at the Ogle House. Loper was taken into custody, the in- vestigation as to his connection with the disappearance of Vernet having already been instituted without his knowledge. He was questioned and in the hearing of a stenographer told a long story that Vernet was in Oregon somewhere : they were to meet at Portland in two or three weeks; he had caused the notice to be published on the authority of Vernet but no power of attorney was given. He claimed to have sold only the team and wagon receiving a note for $300 due in nine months; Vernet had talked of closing out his business for two months or more; he left on the night of the 15th, walking to Fresno as he was wont to do nine out of ten times and his reason for leaving his old home was that he was disgusted with the people up there ; there was nothing to hold him, he wanted to get out of the country and to go away to find a new home at the age of sixty-six. There was much more told but it was all a tissue of lies. Loper made no remonstrance against being detained, except to remark that he thought this thing would get him into trouble, referring to the insertion and publication of the newspaper notice. Every circumstance mentioned by Loper was in direct conflict with Vernet's known habits and practices. An examination of the cabin did not lend color to the departure theory. Vernet had left every thing intact; his best clothes were there, money in drafts; he had disappeared as he was dressed when he last talked with Rae. There was found a pair of Loper's trousers stained with what appeared to be blood. But as in the case of Wooton there was as yet no evidence of foul play. The body of Vernet must be found. This must be the first established link in the chain of evi- dence to base a charge of the murder of the old miner and stockman. Loper

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was a man about thirty-five years of age and had lived with Vernet for several months. He had been reared in the country, had good family con- nections but was regarded as a roaming, idle character and possessed of not the best of reputations. He was a dreamer and irresponsible ne'er-do-well, worked at odd things and the wonder was how he made a living. It may be charitable to believe that he labored at times under fits of mental aber- ration. It is not to say that. he was insane, though at the trial there was testimony to show that there is a taint of insanity in the family. If insane, the devilish details of the crime and the consummate preparations for it would dispose of the theory of mental irresponsibility. The investigation that progressed daily resulted in discoveries to give the lie to the many false statements that the prisoner made under interrogation. The chance dis- covery of the brutally butchered body of Vernet crowded into a narrow hole established the fact of the murder. Seven times had the party of searchers passed and repassed the spot where chance finally led to the clearing of the mystery through the humble instrumentality of a mountain squirrel whose disturbance of the ground in its tunnelling operations in a tree shaded nook attracted attention. The remains were exhumed. The legs had been chopped from the trunk. The remains were wrapped in burlap sacks bound with wire from bales of hay and conveyed for more than a mile from the cabin home. of the murdered man. Word was conveyed to Loper of the finding of the body and he sent for the sheriff and submitted a long and full confession, accentuated all the hideous details, declaring that he had shot Vernet through the neck killing him instantly, that he cut up the remains to make their removal easy, conveyed them to the burial place in wheel barrow and told of many more of the details of concealing the body in the cabin, bringing it out for the mutilation, describing the knife and hatchet with which the operation was performed, the wrapping of the body and the re- moval at dusk, and the cleaning of the cabin and the instruments after the bloody business. The manifest purpose of the prisoner was to give the im- pression that the killing was in a fit of insanity. The mute evidences found about the cabin were corroborative of the confessed details. The six-day trial of Loper in February, 1909, resulted in a verdict of guilty on the evening of the 8th of the month with death as the penalty. The late J. S. Jones was the foreman of the trial jury and the verdict was unanimous on the first ballot of the jury. The sentence of death was pronounced April 12. Upon first arraignment Loper had pleaded guilty to the charge of murder but this plea he was afterward permitted to withdraw for the later trial. He was unmoved by the verdict, but on return to the jail remarked to the sheriff :

"It don't matter much to me. If I am going to be hanged, I want to be hanged by the law and not by those people up in the mountains."

After the conviction, Loper was transferred to a cell in the "felony tanks" and had as cellmate one Edward Turpin under life sentence for the mur- der of a Fowler ranchman. From the day of his imprisonment Loper had never been visited by friend, acquaintance or relative save once and that his aged uncle of Sentinel, J. H. Loper, cattleman, who attended every moment of the trial true to a promise to a brother in Adel, Ia., the father of the prisoner, that he would see that the son and nephew should at least have a fair trial. So absolutely deserted had been the defendant that he would have suffered even the deprivation of the solace of tobacco but for the kindly consideration of the sheriff. It was always considered that Loper's stolidity and absolute lack of interest or appreciation of his surroundings while in the courtroom was an assumed and acted part. In the hurried passages from courtroom and jail he was always in pleasant and talkative humor with his guard, while in jail he was more than sociable, enjoyed smoking, was a great reader of magazines and always eager to participate in a game of cards. The death verdict passed on him was the third in sixteen years. The defense on the trial was an attempt to prove the defendant to be insane and there were

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depositions tending to show that the family was tainted with insanity on the maternal side. The prosecution described the prisoner as "a man with a rational mind and a crazy heart," belittled his defense as "flash light insan- ity" and a sham and subterfuge, and the murder a diabolical act for greed deserving the highest punishment under the law. The hanging was of course stayed by the appeal to the supreme court. A new trial was granted, Loper pleaded guilty and March 11, 1911, was sentenced to life imprisonment at Folsom. It was said of this fellow: "Probably Loper is without parallel in Fresno County history. Not only because of his crime, one of the bloodiest and brutal ever committed. But because he is without exception the most striking example of 'exaggerated ego' ever known, outside of the Thaw case."

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History of Fresno County, California, with biographical sketches of the leading men and women of the county who have been identified with its growth and development from the early days to the present, Volume I, Part 57

Author: Vandor, Paul E., 1858- Publication date: 1919 Publisher: Los Angeles, Calif., Historic Record Company Number of Pages: 1362

Author: Vandor, Paul E., 1858-
Publication date: 1919
Publisher: Los Angeles, Calif., Historic Record Company
Number of Pages: 1362