American Monsters: Louise Peete

0:00 Warning, Kind of Murdery contains adult themes, explicit language, and descriptions of violence. It is not suitable for anyone, and we recommend you stop listening now. True crime with a dash of the paranormal, the garish, the strange in the darkly comic. I'm Zevan Odelberg, and you've found your way to kind of Murdery, a place that means more than just murder. It's my very own pocket dimension, home to a curated collection of bizarre and compelling stories. The unsolved, the unsettling, and the unbelievable.

0:35 I cover it all just so long as it's kind of murdery. Welcome to Kind of Murdery. I'm your host, Zevan Odelberg. Thank you for deciding to join me on this safari of sadism, sociopathy, and greed. In two thousand seventeen, Michelle Carter was sent to prison for involuntary manslaughter. It's a famous case. You've probably heard of it. Three years before. In twenty fourteen, Carter, who was seventeen at the time, text badgered her long distance boyfriend Conrad Roy to kill himself, and he did a week before Carter's twenty twenty release from prison, her lawyers petitioned the Massachusetts Supreme Court to vacate her conviction on the grounds that it was unprecedented and violated her First Amendment right to free speech and her Fifth Amendment right to due process.

1:25 Michelle Carter did not cause Conrad Roy's tragic death, they said, and should not be held criminally responsible for his suicide. Her attorney, Daniel Marx, argued further that Massachusetts was the only state to have upheld the conviction of a physically absent defendant who encouraged another person to commit suicide with words alone. On the surface, today's case has nothing to do with Michelle Carter, but rather a famed California killer known as the Black Widow, who was executed by the state of California.

1:58 This was a remarkable distinction for a female criminal. Since the dawn of California statehood in eighteen fifty one, only four women have been put to death in the state. In point of fact, the twenty two years that passed from nineteen forty one to nineteen sixty two were a very dangerous time to be a woman on death row in California. All four women executed by the state died during those two decades, and none were or have been executed in the one hundred and fifty years on either side. The first woman to be executed by California was the Duchess Evlita Wanita Spinelli in nineteen forty one.

2:38 She was a gangster and an ex wrestler who sounds like she needs her own kind of murdery episode. The next woman was executed in nineteen forty seven. Her name was Louise Pete and she's the subject of today's show. Number three was Barbara Bloodybab's Graham in nineteen fifty five, and the last was Elizabeth van Duncan in nineteen sive six two. I'd like to give a shout out to author Robert Walsh. The chapter on Louise Pete from his book Murders, Mysteries and Misdemeanors in Southern California, which he shares on his blog www.

3:12 Dot Crimescribe dot com, was central to my understanding and telling of this story. I'll link to both in the show notes. Thank you Robert. Everyone. Please check out Robert's blog and buy his book. I like to support the people who give me a hand uncovering and telling these kind of murdery tales. Now back to Louise Pete, who you've probably guessed is not some esoteric deep archives find on my part. No, she was known as the Black Widow, and with apologies to Scarlett Johansson's marvel alter ego, the original Black Widow was no hero.

3:48 In fact, she, alongside the mysterious and still unknown Black Dollia Murderer, holds the dubious distinction not only of a nickname that begins with the word, but also of being one of the most notorious Los Angeles killers of the early twentieth century. Pete was famously charming and beautiful when she was young, and famously charming and grandmotherly when she was older. And if a house cat has nine lives, then a spider, a black widow spider has ninety. Or if Louise Pete was a cat, she was a sabertoothed tiger lapping the milk of immortality from the Golden City's Fountain of youth.

4:30 For although she was eventually executed, it took more than forty consecutive years of almost incessant fraud, confidence scams, larceny, grand theft, infidelity, prostitution, murder, and a critical mass of psychological abuse and lies for the magnetic Miss Pete to finally fritter away her many, many extra lives. The Black Widow was convicted of two murders and committed at least the why do I say at least three? Well, the answer to that is why I mentioned suicide Texter Michelle Carter in the opening.

5:08 Carter is a sort of low powered amateur analog to Louise Pete. You see, along with her at least three murders. Louise Pete had four husbands, and all four of them committed suicide when they were unable to cope with the consequences of Louise's actions. And so we find ourselves asking the classic question, a question that seemed virtually impossible for Pete's contemporaries to answer correctly. Who was Louise Pete. Her story begins in Bienville Parish in northwestern Louisiana, a place familiar to historians is the site of the ambush that killed Bonnie and Clyde on May twenty third, nineteen thirty four.

5:53 Two of the ambush party, Henderson Jordan and Prentice Oakley, served as Bienville Parish sheriff from nineteen thirty two to forty and Oakley from nineteen forty until nineteen fifty two. And while Bienville may mean good town, it was a place that gave birth to bad crime, and Louise Pete, who was born there, is perhaps the most dramatic example of this dichotomy. Lethal Louise was a petty thief, prostitute, and small time con artist who eventually turned her hand to serial murder. Born Lofi Louise Presler on September twentieth, eighteen eighty in Bienville, Louisiana, she was, as I mentioned at the top, one of only four women to enter California's gas chamber, portraying herself as a delicate and quiet soul who avoided confrontation, the Arctipo Southern Bell Pete was plausible, convincing, and remorseless, using her manners and charm to manipulate and lower potential vicyvictims.

7:00 One of the darker realities of Pete's story was the fact that she had no real need to do what she did. She was from a prosperous background, the daughter of a newspaper proprietor, and she certainly didn't endure the kind of desperate circumstances that might readily explain her crimes. According to Women Who Kill Men California Courts, Gender and Press, she once remarked that she came from quote a cultured, educated people. My parents, she said, were not delinquents and did not raise delink when children.

7:39 Many who met Louise Pete and survived would likely have disagreed with her. From her mid teens, she lied, cheated, stole, and eventually killed to get what she wanted. At the age of only fifteen, she had to leave the expensive boarding school her parents had sent her to. Repeated lying and regular petty thefts, students and teachers alike forced her departure, and in those less liberated times, serial promiscuity did her no favors either. Expensive respectable boarding schools usually removed students regarded as petty crooks and harlot's, and that's exactly what Louise was, and the incident caused her family no small embarrassment.

8:22 It was the first of many embarrassing incidents. Although embarrassing incident strikes me as one hell of an understatement. The idea of working or securing a sufficiently prosperous husband. Fashionable though that might have been in the South at the time, never seemed to occur to Louise. If it had, she might have been a garden variety gold digger rather than a serial murderer. Her seeming inability to feel remorse for her actions and their consequences paved her path to the gas chamber. Pete was as culpable in her own death as she was an those of her victims.

9:01 Her first marriage was to a traveling salesman named Henry Bosley in nineteen oh three. He was frequently away on business, and being a traveling salesman, he was not a high earner, certainly not high enough of an earner for his new wife at any rate. After several years of Bosley's scratching an honest living, the marriage came to a tragic end in nineteen oh six, when he returned home to find his wife, Louise, in bed with another man. His business trips, of course, offered ample opportunities for infidelity.

9:33 Distraught by her actions, Henry Bosley took his own life. It would be unfair to call him her first victim. His passing was by his own hand, not hers, and she hadn't encouraged or manipulated him into doing so. He was, however, the first of several people who died after having met her, and he would not be the last by any means. Faced with yet another scandal not so many years after her notorious boarding school career, Louise and her society family decided that a relocation was called, for this time to Shreveport, Louisiana.

10:11 For the next few years, the educated, refined Pete supported herself as an expensive, high class prostitute. A string of wealthy and outwardly respectable gentleman became her clients and supported her lifestyle. They were also her victims. Pete stole from them whenever opportunity allowed, knowing full well that they dare not report the thefts. After a few years down south, she decided to find herself another hunting ground. Shreveport had been a gold mine, and it had been played out like a gold mine.

10:44 She'd tapped the vein of every wealthy, hapless john in town, and even calling herself Louise Gould hadn't kept her from achieving notoriety around Shreveport. Southern high society was and remains a small world, and word eventually got around. It's tough to be a successful high class prostitute and sneak thief once word gets around that you're a high class prostitute and sneak thief. And so it was time for Louise to relocate yet again. In nineteen eleven, she headed for the high society of Boston, Massachusetts.

11:23 Boston's wealthy and outwardly respectable gentlemen were often as privately respectable as Shreveports, and equally vulnerable to seduction, theft, and blackmail. Now claiming to be Heiress R. H. Rosley from Dallas, Texas, she had added a hard luck story to her arsenal. She claimed to have been confined to a convent before fleeing North. That would have been news to her family if Louise had still had any contact with them, but their absence only made her latest con routine even easier. Discarding her old life life as an expensive prostitute, she opted for fraud and petty theft instead, reasoning that society families preferred to avoid the embarrassment of pressing charges.

12:10 She'd found a fresh hunting ground, boarding school, and Shreveport had done nothing to curb her criminal tendencies. They'd merely taught her how to avoid punishment. Several of Boston's society families took an interest in her, and her cleverly crafted tale of woe soon saw her taken in by one. She lost no time in doing the same, taking them in. That is, like any major city, Boston had plenty of high end stores catering to wealthy and exclusive clients. It wasn't long before they were catering to Pete, who began charging her purchases to the family accounts shrewdly.

12:49 She was banking on them being more concerned with avoiding embarrassment and the society pages of Boston's newspapers. And again she was. When she was finally exposed, it was privately, not in public. To avoid embarrassment, the family and the Boston police simply let her leave town for a fresh start in a new location. Waco, Texas would be next on her itinerary, So too would oil millionaire Joseph A. Pel. A Pel was wealthy and available, natural prey for someone like Louise Pete. According to Louise, he was also an attempted rapist, and so she shot him in self defense only a week after they had met.

13:36 Southern morals had an unwritten rule regarding a lady's right to preserve her honor. With no reason to disbelieve her version of events, they released her, relocating yet again. The former Dallas heiress now actually arrived in Dallas in nineteen thirteen. The result would be another death Harry, for Roau was her second husband and the second to take his own life. The couple had been married less than a year. A clerk at the upper class Saint George hotel, Farau came under suspicion when over twenty thousand dollars of jewelry vanished from the hotel safe.

14:17 Louise had done the stealing, and whether Farau helped her was never proved. Faraux, however, was blamed and then fired. Despairing at his ruined reputation. Farou was also destroyed by Louise's serial infidelity and shot himself. At least that was the generally accepted version. It is quite likely that Louise knew Farau was the only person who could convict her and simply tied up a loose end for so serious a theft. She knew that Texas penal system was both her likely destination and an extremely unpleasant place to be.

14:57 Her subsequent record strongly suggest killing Farrow to avoid detection was not beyond her. Denver, Colorado was the Black Widow's next stop. There, Lofi Louise Presler and her many aliases finally became Louise Pete, the name by which she is remembered, and for the first time Louise's new alias was acquired legally. Her short lived marriage to salesman Richard Pete was punctuated by constant arguments and the birth of her only known child, her daughter, Francis Anne. After marrying in nineteen sixteen, the couple fought continuously, and by nineteen twenty the marriage was over.

15:45 From Denver, she moved to Los Angeles, leaving her daughter and ex husband behind. Los Angeles was home to retired and very wealthy mining engineer Jacob Denton. Jacob had made a considerable in the mining business, and Louise doubtless knew it. Before long they would be friends. Although it was never confirmed that they were lovers, it made no difference to Louise. Jacob Denton was prey worth catching, and he was also worth murdering. In May of nineteen twenty, she moved into Denton's luxurious mansion on Wilshire Boulevard, an expensive area inhabited only by the very wealthy.

16:26 Denton, hoping to rent out the property while he visited Denver on business, mysteriously rented it to Louise for only seventy five dollars a week, far below the three hundred and fifty dollars he originally wanted. At the beginning of June nineteen twenty, he vanished. Louise, described variously as his tenant, his housekeeper, or his girlfriend, had only been there a week at the time of Denton's disappearance. She immediately began taking advantage, making free with his money only three days after his disappearance, and she forged Denton's signature, withdrew three hundred dollars from his bank, and accessed his safe deposit box.

17:06 Part of the three hundred dollars probably paid the gardener, who delivered a large quantity of earth, not to the garden but to the basement. Louise had told him she was growing mushrooms, presumably culinary mushrooms and not the hallucinogenic variety, but really Who's to say. Accessing the safe deposit box caused problems for Louise, especially when a bank official questioned the signature. Her explanation was weak at best. She said that Denton had been attacked by a mysterious woman who cut off his signing arm with a sword.

17:45 A sword, for Pete's sakes. Now she's getting creative For so practiced a liar as Louise, This kind of preposterous explanation was out of character. Perhaps she made it up in the spur of the moment, not expecting to be questioned. Or perhaps she'd gotten away with so much for so long that she grew complaisent or even arrogant. Certainly she was arrogant. Maybe she just wanted to see if she could slip a true whopper past her suspicious questioner. If the initial lie was a bad one, giving several different versions to different people was even worse.

18:29 What precisely had happened to Denton? His friends wondered. Was he really recuperating and too ashamed to go out in public, as Louise claimed, or was there some far darker reason that they were unaware of Denton's teenage daughter went further than asking questions. Actively suspicious, she hired a lawyer to uncover the truth. Again, Pete performed badly under questioning, and the lawyer was entirely unconvinced. In the meantime, Louise began spending Denton's money, driving his car, pawning his jewelry and belongings, and renting out rooms in the mansion.

19:06 Naturally, her unsuspecting tenants paid her the rent money, but taking the black Widow at face value would not last much longer, especially when she began having checks from Denton's rental properties in Arizona made out to her. The Arizona tenants also grew suspicious, and Pete fled renting out Denton's property. She returned to Denver to Richard Pete and Francis May. It was her biggest blunder. Denton's daughter lost no time in having the mansion searched, including the basement the sight of Pete's supposed mushroom growing inside a wooden cubicle.

19:42 Investigators found earth, but no mushrooms. They also found the decomposing corpse of Jacob Denton, with his supposedly missing arm still very much attached. He had been shot in the head and strangled. His corpse wrapped in a quilt and stuffed into a box. East Pete was now wanted on suspicion of murder, and before long she faced her accusers. Denver police had no difficulty finding her. They had even less trouble dismissing her tales of Denton's missing arm or that he had died because of a sword wielding stranger.

20:16 The fact that his arm was still attached and no attack was ever reported for once made Pete the easy prey found in Denver, It took little time to arrange her return. The hunter had become the hunted. The deceiver was about to be deceived. She foolishly agreed to return to California to give further testimony. It was purely a formality, just a few small questions, said the Los Angeles District Attorney's assistant when he visited her in Denver. But on her return to California, she was almost immediately arrested.

20:51 She had been lured back inside Californian jurisdiction and possibly Hangman's hall. Her first, but not her last, mark my words, not her last, murder trial in California was a media sensation. Her lurid past was recounted in reams of equally lurid newsprint, beginning on January twenty first, nineteen twenty one, and lasting almost a month. Thousands of spectators and hundreds of reporters crowded the Hall of Justice throughout the trial, especially when the verdict was delivered on February seventeenth.

21:29 Guilty as charged, The sentence was comparatively lenient. California was never shy about hanging murderers, but women tended to be exceptions to the rule. Superior Court Judge Frank Willis handed down life imprisonment. He declined to send her to the gallows, as the prosecution case was largely circumstantial and the state had a tradition of not executing women. It may have been better if he had condemned the black widow instead. Her husband, Richard Pete, was distraught. Despite their history, he always firmly asserted his wife's innocence, even after she told him to divorce her and free himself to begin a new life.

22:10 When she abruptly cut off contact after he refused it was too much. Depressed and distraught, Richard Pete was in a hotel in Tucson, Arizona when he shot himself in nineteen twenty four, becoming the third of Louise Pete's husbands to commit suicide. Louise herself enjoyed a brief return to fame when she involved herself in the unsolved death of movie star William Desmond Taylor. Taylor's death remains unsolved to this day. His shooting in nineteen twenty two spawned any number of conspiracy theories.

22:47 Louise's theory drew the attention of reporters when she claimed Taylor was murdered for knowing too much about the death of Jacob Denton. According to her, Denton had been supplying Taylor with illegal narcotics and Taylor had been dealing them to his fellow actors. Like most of the theories about Taylor's death, it lacked credence and was quickly dismissed. Louise, meanwhile, was still asserting her innocence to no effect. At least, Louise was not suspected of Taylor's murder, for once she had the perfect alibi, she was in prison at San Quentin.

23:25 At that time. This was the women's prison at t Hatchepee. The eighteen years she spent it to Hatchepee, were as a model prisoner with a clean record. While incarcerated, she became firm friends with Clara Phillips there for murdering her husband's lover with a hammer. In nineteen thirty nine, she left to Hatchepee on parole. Phillips had been paroled in nineteen thirty five. Louise soon returned to her crooked ways and also to her established modus operendi, namely shooting her benefactor and landlord in the back of a neck, claiming they had disappeared and making off with their property.

24:07 Falling back into that murderous rut would ultimately cost both Margaret Logan, who you'll hear about in a moment, and Louise Pete herself their lives. During Louise's imprisonment, two women in particular had lobbied hard for her release. One was her eventual probation officer, Emily Latham, and the other was a woman named Jesse Marcy. Both of these women would die shortly after Louise moved in with them. There's gratitude for you, huh. Jesse Marcy was recorded as dying of natural causes after Jesse Marcy's death, Pete's probation officer, Emily Latham took her in.

24:52 Latham shortly thereafter died of a heart attack in nineteen forty three. Her place as Louise's benefit was taken by Arthur and Margaret Logan. While many might think that Louise already deserved the death penalty, Margaret Logan certainly did not. After Latham died, the Logans took Pete into their comfortable Pacific Palisades home, believing that everybody can redeem themselves given the right encouragement. Their misplaced optimism in regards to human nature and Louise Pete's nature in particular, would prove fatal.

25:31 The Logans were outstandingly kind, even caring for Pete's daughter Francis, after Richard Pete's untimely death. Moving in in late April nineteen forty three, Louise also married banker Lee Bardon Judson, who had no idea she was a convicted murderer. It was her last marriage and Margaret Logan her last victim, unless, of course, you count poor or Lee Judson. Pete almost immediately began a whispering campaign against Arthur Logan, who suffered from dementia. Only a month after Pete arrived, Margaret Logan suddenly vanished.

26:14 Within days, Arthur was committed to the Patent State Hospital. Pete claimed he was violent and unmanageable. For six months, the Judsons occupied the Logan home. By the time of Arthur's death in December nineteen forty four, the Judsons lived comfortably. Although Lee Judson received no proper answer to his questions about Margaret Logan's disappearance, he still had no idea he had married a murderer or that Margaret Logan was buried on the property. Lee Judson's domestic bliss was about to be shattered when the bank discovered checks forged in Margaret's name and dated after her disappearance.

26:56 Police quickly visited. Knowing Louise's record, they searched the property and found Margaret Logan buried under an avocado tree in the garden. Lethal Louise had murdered again, only weeks after serving eighteen years for her previous murder. She was immediately arrested, and this time California's courts showed no mercy. Margaret was shot in the back of the head after suffering a fractured skull, a death very similar to Jacob Dentons in nineteen twenty. Louise blamed the murder on Arthur's alleged violence, claiming she buried Margaret out of fear of Arthur.

27:34 Margaret's death, she claimed had nothing to do with her. Another death quickly followed Louise's arrest. Arrested and charged with murder, Lee Judson's world collapsed around him. His new wife had murdered at least twice. Judson himself had been arrested for a crime he knew nothing about, and Louise was obviously guilty. The shame and the strain were too much. When charges were dropped against him on January eleventh, nineteen forty five, Judson lasted only one more day. On January twelfth, he jumped off the Spring Arcade building in Los Angeles.

28:11 That's the fourth husband of Louise Pete's who's committed suicide. Now, she was not physically present when any of these suicides occurred, and unlike the Michelle Carter case, there was no cell phone or other ways to communicate, so she certainly couldn't have in real time badgered these men to death However, it is chilling to consider the emotional hold that Louise Pete had on each of her husbands, since each and every one of them decided to end their own life when they discovered she had betrayed them.

28:50 Perhaps, like the true sociopath she was, Louise specifically targeted emotionally vulnerable people for her love affairs. Widowed yet again, Pete had little time to grieve. Her final murder trial, her third after Joe Appel and Jacob Denton, began on April twenty third, nineteen forty five. It was another media frenzy. The result was scarcely doubted. Prosecutors claimed she killed Margaret Logan after being caught for forging Logan's checks. A jury of eleven women and one man convicted her on May thirty first, nineteen forty five.

29:33 The date was a bad omen for her. On June first, nineteen forty five, exactly one year after Margaret Logan's murder, Superior Court Judge Harold Landreth condemned her, barring legal miracles or governor's clemency, neither was likely. Under the circumstances. She would visit San Quentin's gas chamber. Condemned Roe, being men only, female condemned waited at female prisons, and so Pete returned to her old abode into Hatchepee. Her stay was brief. Her court appointed lawyers had a hopeless task.

30:10 Despite their very best efforts, Appeals courts ruled her trial fare and her conviction. Just her previous record did her no favors. Having received mercy, that is, not being sentenced to death the first time around, only to kill again very much weighed against her in her appeals. By spring nineteen forty seven, all was lost. A car arrived at to Hatchepee on Thursday, April tenth, nineteen forty seven, to take her to San Quentin's ready room. Once secured, only steps from the gas chamber, Warden Duffy visited Louise.

30:51 She was the second woman he executed, and familiarity made it no easier. Louise slept until she was awoken at five thirty a m. Duffy visited again. Before she died, she asked him what he thought she should wear. He suggested a plain brown dress. California's male condemned usually had no choice of wardrobe, but women, being a rarity, they got to choose. Louise would rather die in her own clothes, not prison issued denim's shirt and blue jeans. The final chat was both brief and unexpectedly profound.

31:32 After suggesting the dress, the pair talked quietly as the clock ticked down. There was a brief delay, and then they both knew the courts had finished with her and the governor was not going to call. He asked her one final question, minutes before the end. Are you ready, Louise, I'm ready, she said, I've been ready for a long time. The walk was brief, and the straps and stethoscope quickly secured. As the guards left the chamber, one of them offered the now traditional farewell, goodbye, good luck, breathe deep, and don't fight the gas.

32:10 With the door sealed and everything ready, the clock struck half past the hour. Seconds later, Louise looked through one of the observation windows and gave Duffy a slight hand motion. He could read her lips as she spoke, let's go. Duffy instantly complied, silently, nodding to the executioner. A sudden pull of the lever mixed cyanide eggs with acid, and Louise Pete died thirteen minutes after the lever was jerked, the bell of Bienville was officially no more. Duffy confirmed the doctor's diagnosis before leaving the chamber and entering the room filled with over seventy witnesses.

32:49 That's all, gentlemen, he said, please leave. It was ten forty three am. The witness is left and Louise was left to steep in the lethal fumes. She was removed that afternoon. Her clothes were burned and the chamber decontaminated. Louise was interred quietly at the Angelus Roseville Cemetery in an unmarked grave. She was sixty six years old. The Black widow murdered Joseph Appel, Jacob Denton, and Margaret Logan, and she survived four husbands, all of whom killed themselves because of her betrayals.

33:30 Shit, that was heavy, man, Feel like I need a shower and a shot at tequila. There you go. I'm Zevan Odleberg, and this has been kind of murdery. If you've enjoyed today's kind of murdery, please tell your friends and family, tell strangers, leave a review. It's the best way to ensure that I can keep telling that's special brand of bizarre and terrible tales that you'll only find here on kind of Murdery