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| Barbara Graham in Court at her 1953 trial |
Burbank, CA—Mabel Monahan a
former pro-roller skater who had been disabled but was living out her
retirement in a nice Burbank home located at 1718 West Parkside Avenue in
Burbank, CA.
30 year-old Barbara Graham
was a very pretty but troubled gal who came from Oakland, CA. Graham was raised in really crappy conditions
and often often by strangers. Her
education was somewhat marginal.
Back then being homeless was
a crime called Vagrancy. That was her
first offense and Graham was jailed at the Ventura State School for Girls. Graham’s own mother also once did some time
there. Later Graham also did a prison stretch over a
perjury beef while trying to help a friend in trouble.
Back in those days there were
no birth control pills and abortion was a serious felony. Graham unwisely married three men, had a
child by each.
Everyone treated single
mothers of that sad era very poorly.
Their job prospects were limited greatly and Graham understandably fell
into a life of prostitution, bad checks and the underworld.
Barbara Graham was now 30
years old and married to her third husband, Henry Graham. He was a drug-addicted bartender who
introduced his young wife to his own unsavory friends. That union was the beginning and end of
this tale of despair, deceit and doom.
We know for sure Mabel Monahan was
brutally beaten and suffocated to death. We of course can only guess just how that
happened based upon the statements of those involved in the killing.
The killers of Monahan, were
named in exchange for full immunity from prosecution by a co-conspirator by the
name of John True. True’s self-serving
statements sealed the fate of his friends.
They were Barbara Graham along with Jack Santo and Emmett Perkins.
The prosecution theory was
that Santo, Perkins and Graham targeted Monahan because of rumors she keep lots
of cash and jewelry around her home.
True claimed that Graham
knocked on the door and when Monahan opened it all four killers forced their
way in to the home. True claimed that
Graham bludgeoned Monahan repeatedly in the head with a gun and suffocated
her.
I think it was safe to assume
that by implicating Graham is the actual killer that she’d somehow be spared
the death penalty. With luck Perkins and
Santo would then be able to mitigate their actions and be spared too.
They successfully entrapped
Graham to put up the cop as a phony alibi witness.
The conversations were surreptitiously recorded and sensationally used
against her in the Los Angeles superior Court.
That made getting a conviction much easier.
Graham and her two
co-defendants were convicted and sentenced to death. Appeals in those days went very quick. Within two years all three exhausted their failed
appeals and were executed the same day June 3, 1955 at San Quentin.
Two films were made depicting
these events. Susan Hayward and Lindsey
Wagner both played Graham.
The story was told by a
hearing impaired, Pulitzer Prize winning investigative journalist, Edward
Montgomery who did his best to save Graham’s life. His reports along with their written correspondence became the basis for the screenplay.
Graham’s horrible life and
death was used in a failed attempt to champion anti-death penalty efforts in
America.
The death penalty sucks in a
big way. We kill people based on
mistaken or perjured eyewitness testimony every day. The death penalty is a power no government
should be able to exercise against its own citizens.
California like many states
did not just execute murderers. Rapists,
kidnappers and even horse thieves often faced death upon conviction. The last convicted rapist put to death in
California was Caryl Chessman on May 2, 1960.
Comments
too many police and liars err lawyers are looking to put a notch in their grips not seek out truth. Any false conviction should result in the prosecutor or officer who lied being given a free trip to the gallows and a chance to walk on air.