Near the end of his life, the prosecutor who sent 32-year-old Barbara Graham to death row inmate clearly declared his conscience. As J. Millerleebee saw, her execution by cyanide gas in June 1955 was merciful compared to her crimes.
Leavy has won many well-known cases during his well-known career with the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office, but few have attracted more attention than the lawsuit against a woman called “Bloody Bubbs.”
She was a streetwise, brassy and physically impressive, a hustler of small time, staying at the casino to induce men to drink and gamble. She had a heroin habit and her babies were eating it. In March 1953, in the company of four men, she participated in a family burglary of a disabled Burbank widow who was strangled with BL arrogance.
In this series, Christopher Goferard revisits old crimes since Los Angeles, from famous people to forgotten people, to the consequences of unforgettable people, and the memories of those who were there.
Leavy is relentlessly skilled, theatrical talent, and told the ju judge that Graham was not only involved in the robbery, but also at the heart of the violence. “Barbara Graham tied Mabel Monaghan’s hand behind her back, the pistol whipped her and left her to death,” Leavy, 85, told the Times columnist in 1990.
“For People,” a recognized history of the District Attorney’s Office, burnishes Leavy’s legend and reiterates the claim that Graham Pistol drove the victims. For generations of prosecutors, Leeby was so close that when they lost the case they said, “Lebee might have been able to win it.”
Marcia Clark, who is expected to become one of the most famous prosecutors of her generation in the unfortunate OJ Simpson case in the mid-1990s, has heard all the stories about Leavy over 14 years in the DA’s office. She began investigating the Graham incident in her book “Trial by Ambush,” published in November. She took part in the project with praise for Leevee.
Sub-ward. Atty. J. Millerleeve, left, questioned by undercover investigator Sam Silianni at the trial of Barbara Graham.
(AP News)
He concealed a key witness, she concluded. He constructed the prosecution’s narrative based on the words of a co-defendant who has reason to lie. He did what would be illegal today, Clark said.
“He was a very good lawyer. Don’t get me wrong,” Clark told The Times in a recent interview. “But what I didn’t expect was that he was a sneaky player.”
From her arrest to her execution, something about Barbara Graham sparked enthusiastic words from journalists of the era. The newspaper portrayed her as a chilly, covered murderer from her pulp fiction pages. Sometimes she was a “redhead” and sometimes a “icy blonde.” She was a “gun mole.” She was “smoothed.” She was “Barbara Graham, a blonde iceberg, like a shape.”
In the Los Angeles Daily Mirror, she was “the monster disguised as a woman.” At the Herald Express, she was “the most beautiful victim that the gas chamber has ever claimed.”
Abandoned by her mother, she was sent to the Venturas School Four Girls, a teenager and brutal reform school that emerged with a crime education. She didn’t reach high school. She ust to make a living. She wrote a bad check. She shoplifted. She was arrested for possession of drugs, prostitution and perjury. She has been married four times. She had three children. She loved jazz.
She was broken and was trying to raise a baby while working as a sil in El Monte’s dice and poker house. A roughly-looking outlaw named Jacques Sante appeared. He was a criminal Confederate army of a man who ran the gambling house Emmett Perkins. They had heard that retired vaudeville performer Mabel Monaghan had hidden money in the safety of his home.
Los Angeles County Sheriff Van passes the gates of a prison in San Quentin and carries convicted murderers, Jack Santo and Emmett Perkins.
(Bettmann Archive)
“These guys were very bad news,” Clark said. “I think it’s much worse news than Barbara knew.”
Safety-oriented Monaghan is not particularly hard thugs and can’t open her door to anyone. But the petite, cute Graham might put them inside. And on March 9, 1953, Graham appeared at Monaghan’s door, telling her that her car had broken.
Monaghan put Graham in and the hooligans followed. Santo, Perkins, Safecracker Baxter Shorter and John True are here. The robbers plundered the house, not safe, leaving Monaghan left BL struck with a pillowcase above his head. Read one headline: “A wealthy widow died after being beaten in California.”
The detectives were shortened within a few weeks, so his account led them to others. He said Perkins would “sluggish” as Clark documents in her book. [Monahan] At the temple with a gun.”
If he didn’t disappear soon, the state star witness might be short. (According to eyewitnesses, he was lured to Perkins at the muzzle and was presumed dead.) The ju judges were not subject to his version of murder.
It left the truth as a key witness to the prosecutor. He was given immunity for his testimony, minimizing his own negligence – he said he actually tried to save Monaghan – and pointed his finger at Graham. He says she rested the victim on her neck with one hand and the pistol whipped her with the other hand.
From left: Emmett Perkins, Jack Santte and Barbara Graham after their capture in May 1953.
(Los Angeles Times)
Wanting to convict Graham, authorities planted informants by her side at the LA County Jail. The plant was Donna Prau, who spent time in her early 20s on manslaughter charges. She approached Graham. She poured charm. She brought some candy. The prison was lonely and Graham fell for her.
“Hello baby,” Graham wrote her in one of the many letters the police got. “Your note was very sweet, honey, but I want you to be sure of your feelings, or I wouldn’t want to start something we couldn’t finish. You are a very nice and desirable woman, honey, and I want you so much.”
As Graham’s trial approached, she was desperately having problems – no alibi, but Plow provided a solution. She arranged for Graham to meet a man who lies for her. He claimed he was miles away at the Encino hotel during the murder.
It was all a police setup. Prow’s “Friend” is a secret police officer named Sam Sirianni, who, when Leavy introduced Graham’s secret recording, veiled the fake Alibi together and admitted to being with the co-defendants on a fatal night. Her credibility has been destroyed.
However, Graham’s defense attorneys did not get the opportunity to oppose Prow. DA’s office had arranged for her to be released from prison and leave California.
“No one could find her and the prosecutor confirmed it. It was illegal. They hid a key witness,” Clark told The Times. “They would have pryed out from her how much effort she put in to go with Barbara with the false alibi scheme.
The prosecutor lived to an unbearable length of Graham’s love letter.
Barbara Graham looks back at the camera during the trial.
(Herald-Examiner Collection / Los Angeles Public Library)
“And it was very clear why he did it,” Clark said. “He hurts her personality in front of the ju umpire. At the time, there was not much blessing given to all sorts of homosexual relationships.”
During his final argument, Leevee told the ju umpire that Graham testified with the aim of seducing the male ju umpire, blocking them from his obligation to convict her in hoping that she “just get there and look pretty.” It was a tactic that Clark felt “moral disgust.”
“The law was different back then. [they did] There are many absolutely grounds for today’s disadvantageous reasons,” she said.
Susan Hayward won an Oscar for his sympathetic but campy portrayal of Graham in the 1958 film “I Want To Live!” In this, Graham is punished against the customs of the time. She is sexually adventurous. She smokes with a man in a dark room. She dismisses a clever resignation to a clever policeman. She is a wildcat with a soft heart.
“She was the wildest of the generation that was jazzed up,” the ad copy declared. “She had a lot of friends, most of which are bad. She was driven by a thousand desires. Some of them are decent. She committed a crime. She stole.
John True, second from the right, served as a state witness, testified against Barbara Graham and her co-defendants at the trial of Mabel Monaghan’s murder.
(Los Angeles Times)
Graham denied that she was at the victim’s house, but Clark believes she is there – but as a decoy. It is unlikely that the 5-foot-3 Graham was a bludgeoner in the company of four powerful male accomplices who have records of violence.
Under the felony murder rules, Graham would have been guilty of participating in the crime, but in cases where it was treated differently, she may have avoided the death sentence.
Ju-dean was convicted of the murders of Graham, Santo and Perkins, and the judge sentenced them all. At San Quentin, one of Graham’s final requests was to wear a mask when he went to the gas chamber. “I don’t want to see people,” she said.
Leevee is one of the witnesses to her execution, and his legend is about to win another notch.
Journalist Al Martinez was also present. He became a Times columnist and writes about decades later he is troubled by what he saw when cyanide pellets fell and the gas rose.
The police next to him said, “Mabel Monaghan also died violently.”
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