American Monsters: Louise Peete
Sources:
https://crimescribe.com/2021/04/11/on-this-day-in-1947-louise-peete-the-belle-of-bienville/
https://murderpedia.org/female.P/p/peete-louise.htm
https://michaelthomasbarry.com/2014/04/11/the-black-widow-louise-peete-was-executed-1947/
As well as primary sourced newspaper articles from www.newspapers.com
Buy Robert Walsh's Book: https://www.amazon.com/Murders-Mysteries-Misdemeanors-Southern-California/dp/1634993241
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/kinda-murdery-true-crime-murder-stories--5496890/support.
Zevon Odelberg is a true crime podcast host and disability advocate. Zevon has cerebral palsy and he wants Kinda Murdery to be welcoming community for people with disabilities and for people living with challenges of any kind. Life can be hard, but being together makes it better.
Speaker 1: Warning, Kind of Murdery contains adult themes, explicit language, and
Speaker 1: descriptions of violence. It is not suitable for anyone, and
Speaker 1: we recommend you stop listening now. True crime with a
Speaker 1: dash of the paranormal, the garish, the strange in the
Speaker 1: darkly comic. I'm Zevan Odelberg, and you've found your way
Speaker 1: to kind of Murdery, a place that means more than
Speaker 1: just murder. It's my very own pocket dimension, home to
Speaker 1: a curated collection of bizarre and compelling stories. The unsolved,
Speaker 1: the unsettling, and the unbelievable. I cover it all just
Speaker 1: so long as it's kind of murdery. Welcome to Kind
Speaker 1: of Murdery. I'm your host, Zevan Odelberg. Thank you for
Speaker 1: deciding to join me on this safari of sadism, sociopathy,
Speaker 1: and greed. In two thousand seventeen, Michelle Carter was sent
Speaker 1: to prison for involuntary manslaughter. It's a famous case. You've
Speaker 1: probably heard of it. Three years before. In twenty fourteen, Carter,
Speaker 1: who was seventeen at the time, text badgered her long
Speaker 1: distance boyfriend Conrad Roy to kill himself, and he did
Speaker 1: a week before Carter's twenty twenty release from prison, her
Speaker 1: lawyers petitioned the Massachusetts Supreme Court to vacate her conviction
Speaker 1: on the grounds that it was unprecedented and violated her
Speaker 1: First Amendment right to free speech and her Fifth Amendment
Speaker 1: right to due process. Michelle Carter did not cause Conrad
Speaker 1: Roy's tragic death, they said, and should not be held
Speaker 1: criminally responsible for his suicide. Her attorney, Daniel Marx, argued
Speaker 1: further that Massachusetts was the only state to have upheld
Speaker 1: the conviction of a physically absent defendant who encouraged another
Speaker 1: person to commit suicide with words alone. On the surface,
Speaker 1: today's case has nothing to do with Michelle Carter, but
Speaker 1: rather a famed California killer known as the Black Widow,
Speaker 1: who was executed by the state of California. This was
Speaker 1: a remarkable distinction for a female criminal. Since the dawn
Speaker 1: of California statehood in eighteen fifty one, only four women
Speaker 1: have been put to death in the state. In point
Speaker 1: of fact, the twenty two years that passed from nineteen
Speaker 1: forty one to nineteen sixty two were a very dangerous
Speaker 1: time to be a woman on death row in California.
Speaker 1: All four women executed by the state died during those
Speaker 1: two decades, and none were or have been executed in
Speaker 1: the one hundred and fifty years on either side. The
Speaker 1: first woman to be executed by California was the Duchess
Speaker 1: Evlita Wanita Spinelli in nineteen forty one. She was a
Speaker 1: gangster and an ex wrestler who sounds like she needs
Speaker 1: her own kind of murdery episode. The next woman was
Speaker 1: executed in nineteen forty seven. Her name was Louise Pete
Speaker 1: and she's the subject of today's show. Number three was
Speaker 1: Barbara Bloodybab's Graham in nineteen fifty five, and the last
Speaker 1: was Elizabeth van Duncan in nineteen sive six two. I'd
Speaker 1: like to give a shout out to author Robert Walsh.
Speaker 1: The chapter on Louise Pete from his book Murders, Mysteries
Speaker 1: and Misdemeanors in Southern California, which he shares on his
Speaker 1: blog www. Dot Crimescribe dot com, was central to my
Speaker 1: understanding and telling of this story. I'll link to both
Speaker 1: in the show notes. Thank you Robert. Everyone. Please check
Speaker 1: out Robert's blog and buy his book. I like to
Speaker 1: support the people who give me a hand uncovering and
Speaker 1: telling these kind of murdery tales. Now back to Louise Pete,
Speaker 1: who you've probably guessed is not some esoteric deep archives
Speaker 1: find on my part. No, she was known as the
Speaker 1: Black Widow, and with apologies to Scarlett Johansson's marvel alter ego,
Speaker 1: the original Black Widow was no hero. In fact, she,
Speaker 1: alongside the mysterious and still unknown Black Dollia Murderer, holds
Speaker 1: the dubious distinction not only of a nickname that begins
Speaker 1: with the word, but also of being one of the
Speaker 1: most notorious Los Angeles killers of the early twentieth century.
Speaker 1: Pete was famously charming and beautiful when she was young,
Speaker 1: and famously charming and grandmotherly when she was older. And
Speaker 1: if a house cat has nine lives, then a spider,
Speaker 1: a black widow spider has ninety. Or if Louise Pete
Speaker 1: was a cat, she was a sabertoothed tiger lapping the
Speaker 1: milk of immortality from the Golden City's Fountain of youth.
Speaker 1: For although she was eventually executed, it took more than
Speaker 1: forty consecutive years of almost incessant fraud, confidence scams, larceny,
Speaker 1: grand theft, infidelity, prostitution, murder, and a critical mass of
Speaker 1: psychological abuse and lies for the magnetic Miss Pete to
Speaker 1: finally fritter away her many, many extra lives. The Black
Speaker 1: Widow was convicted of two murders and committed at least
Speaker 1: the why do I say at least three? Well, the
Speaker 1: answer to that is why I mentioned suicide Texter Michelle
Speaker 1: Carter in the opening. Carter is a sort of low
Speaker 1: powered amateur analog to Louise Pete. You see, along with
Speaker 1: her at least three murders. Louise Pete had four husbands,
Speaker 1: and all four of them committed suicide when they were
Speaker 1: unable to cope with the consequences of Louise's actions. And
Speaker 1: so we find ourselves asking the classic question, a question
Speaker 1: that seemed virtually impossible for Pete's contemporaries to answer correctly.
Speaker 1: Who was Louise Pete. Her story begins in Bienville Parish
Speaker 1: in northwestern Louisiana, a place familiar to historians is the
Speaker 1: site of the ambush that killed Bonnie and Clyde on
Speaker 1: May twenty third, nineteen thirty four. Two of the ambush party,
Speaker 1: Henderson Jordan and Prentice Oakley, served as Bienville Parish sheriff
Speaker 1: from nineteen thirty two to forty and Oakley from nineteen
Speaker 1: forty until nineteen fifty two. And while Bienville may mean
Speaker 1: good town, it was a place that gave birth to
Speaker 1: bad crime, and Louise Pete, who was born there, is
Speaker 1: perhaps the most dramatic example of this dichotomy. Lethal Louise
Speaker 1: was a petty thief, prostitute, and small time con artist
Speaker 1: who eventually turned her hand to serial murder. Born Lofi
Speaker 1: Louise Presler on September twentieth, eighteen eighty in Bienville, Louisiana,
Speaker 1: she was, as I mentioned at the top, one of
Speaker 1: only four women to enter California's gas chamber, portraying herself
Speaker 1: as a delicate and quiet soul who avoided confrontation, the
Speaker 1: Arctipo Southern Bell Pete was plausible, convincing, and remorseless, using
Speaker 1: her manners and charm to manipulate and lower potential vicyvictims.
Speaker 1: One of the darker realities of Pete's story was the
Speaker 1: fact that she had no real need to do what
Speaker 1: she did. She was from a prosperous background, the daughter
Speaker 1: of a newspaper proprietor, and she certainly didn't endure the
Speaker 1: kind of desperate circumstances that might readily explain her crimes.
Speaker 1: According to Women Who Kill Men California Courts, Gender and Press,
Speaker 1: she once remarked that she came from quote a cultured,
Speaker 1: educated people. My parents, she said, were not delinquents and
Speaker 1: did not raise delink when children. Many who met Louise
Speaker 1: Pete and survived would likely have disagreed with her. From
Speaker 1: her mid teens, she lied, cheated, stole, and eventually killed
Speaker 1: to get what she wanted. At the age of only fifteen,
Speaker 1: she had to leave the expensive boarding school her parents
Speaker 1: had sent her to. Repeated lying and regular petty thefts,
Speaker 1: students and teachers alike forced her departure, and in those
Speaker 1: less liberated times, serial promiscuity did her no favors either.
Speaker 1: Expensive respectable boarding schools usually removed students regarded as petty
Speaker 1: crooks and harlot's, and that's exactly what Louise was, and
Speaker 1: the incident caused her family no small embarrassment. It was
Speaker 1: the first of many embarrassing incidents. Although embarrassing incident strikes
Speaker 1: me as one hell of an understatement. The idea of
Speaker 1: working or securing a sufficiently prosperous husband. Fashionable though that
Speaker 1: might have been in the South at the time, never
Speaker 1: seemed to occur to Louise. If it had, she might
Speaker 1: have been a garden variety gold digger rather than a
Speaker 1: serial murderer. Her seeming inability to feel remorse for her
Speaker 1: actions and their consequences paved her path to the gas chamber.
Speaker 1: Pete was as culpable in her own death as she
Speaker 1: was an those of her victims. Her first marriage was
Speaker 1: to a traveling salesman named Henry Bosley in nineteen oh three.
Speaker 1: He was frequently away on business, and being a traveling salesman,
Speaker 1: he was not a high earner, certainly not high enough
Speaker 1: of an earner for his new wife at any rate.
Speaker 1: After several years of Bosley's scratching an honest living, the
Speaker 1: marriage came to a tragic end in nineteen oh six,
Speaker 1: when he returned home to find his wife, Louise, in
Speaker 1: bed with another man. His business trips, of course, offered
Speaker 1: ample opportunities for infidelity. Distraught by her actions, Henry Bosley
Speaker 1: took his own life. It would be unfair to call
Speaker 1: him her first victim. His passing was by his own hand,
Speaker 1: not hers, and she hadn't encouraged or manipulated him into
Speaker 1: doing so. He was, however, the first of several people
Speaker 1: who died after having met her, and he would not
Speaker 1: be the last by any means. Faced with yet another
Speaker 1: scandal not so many years after her notorious boarding school career,
Speaker 1: Louise and her society family decided that a relocation was called,
Speaker 1: for this time to Shreveport, Louisiana. For the next few years,
Speaker 1: the educated, refined Pete supported herself as an expensive, high
Speaker 1: class prostitute. A string of wealthy and outwardly respectable gentleman
Speaker 1: became her clients and supported her lifestyle. They were also
Speaker 1: her victims. Pete stole from them whenever opportunity allowed, knowing
Speaker 1: full well that they dare not report the thefts. After
Speaker 1: a few years down south, she decided to find herself
Speaker 1: another hunting ground. Shreveport had been a gold mine, and
Speaker 1: it had been played out like a gold mine. She'd
Speaker 1: tapped the vein of every wealthy, hapless john in town,
Speaker 1: and even calling herself Louise Gould hadn't kept her from
Speaker 1: achieving notoriety around Shreveport. Southern high society was and remains
Speaker 1: a small world, and word eventually got around. It's tough
Speaker 1: to be a successful high class prostitute and sneak thief
Speaker 1: once word gets around that you're a high class prostitute
Speaker 1: and sneak thief. And so it was time for Louise
Speaker 1: to relocate yet again. In nineteen eleven, she headed for
Speaker 1: the high society of Boston, Massachusetts. Boston's wealthy and outwardly
Speaker 1: respectable gentlemen were often as privately respectable as Shreveports, and
Speaker 1: equally vulnerable to seduction, theft, and blackmail. Now claiming to
Speaker 1: be Heiress R. H. Rosley from Dallas, Texas, she had
Speaker 1: added a hard luck story to her arsenal. She claimed
Speaker 1: to have been confined to a convent before fleeing North.
Speaker 1: That would have been news to her family if Louise
Speaker 1: had still had any contact with them, but their absence
Speaker 1: only made her latest con routine even easier. Discarding her
Speaker 1: old life life as an expensive prostitute, she opted for
Speaker 1: fraud and petty theft instead, reasoning that society families preferred
Speaker 1: to avoid the embarrassment of pressing charges. She'd found a
Speaker 1: fresh hunting ground, boarding school, and Shreveport had done nothing
Speaker 1: to curb her criminal tendencies. They'd merely taught her how
Speaker 1: to avoid punishment. Several of Boston's society families took an
Speaker 1: interest in her, and her cleverly crafted tale of woe
Speaker 1: soon saw her taken in by one. She lost no
Speaker 1: time in doing the same, taking them in. That is,
Speaker 1: like any major city, Boston had plenty of high end
Speaker 1: stores catering to wealthy and exclusive clients. It wasn't long
Speaker 1: before they were catering to Pete, who began charging her
Speaker 1: purchases to the family accounts shrewdly. She was banking on
Speaker 1: them being more concerned with avoiding embarrassment and the society
Speaker 1: pages of Boston's newspapers. And again she was. When she
Speaker 1: was finally exposed, it was privately, not in public. To
Speaker 1: avoid embarrassment, the family and the Boston police simply let
Speaker 1: her leave town for a fresh start in a new location. Waco,
Speaker 1: Texas would be next on her itinerary, So too would
Speaker 1: oil millionaire Joseph A. Pel. A Pel was wealthy and available,
Speaker 1: natural prey for someone like Louise Pete. According to Louise,
Speaker 1: he was also an attempted rapist, and so she shot
Speaker 1: him in self defense only a week after they had met.
Speaker 1: Southern morals had an unwritten rule regarding a lady's right
Speaker 1: to preserve her honor. With no reason to disbelieve her
Speaker 1: version of events, they released her, relocating yet again. The
Speaker 1: former Dallas heiress now actually arrived in Dallas in nineteen thirteen.
Speaker 1: The result would be another death Harry, for Roau was
Speaker 1: her second husband and the second to take his own life.
Speaker 1: The couple had been married less than a year. A
Speaker 1: clerk at the upper class Saint George hotel, Farau came
Speaker 1: under suspicion when over twenty thousand dollars of jewelry vanished
Speaker 1: from the hotel safe. Louise had done the stealing, and
Speaker 1: whether Farau helped her was never proved. Faraux, however, was
Speaker 1: blamed and then fired. Despairing at his ruined reputation. Farou
Speaker 1: was also destroyed by Louise's serial infidelity and shot himself.
Speaker 1: At least that was the generally accepted version. It is
Speaker 1: quite likely that Louise knew Farau was the only person
Speaker 1: who could convict her and simply tied up a loose
Speaker 1: end for so serious a theft. She knew that Texas
Speaker 1: penal system was both her likely destination and an extremely
Speaker 1: unpleasant place to be. Her subsequent record strongly suggest killing
Speaker 1: Farrow to avoid detection was not beyond her. Denver, Colorado
Speaker 1: was the Black Widow's next stop. There, Lofi Louise Presler
Speaker 1: and her many aliases finally became Louise Pete, the name
Speaker 1: by which she is remembered, and for the first time
Speaker 1: Louise's new alias was acquired legally. Her short lived marriage
Speaker 1: to salesman Richard Pete was punctuated by constant arguments and
Speaker 1: the birth of her only known child, her daughter, Francis Anne.
Speaker 1: After marrying in nineteen sixteen, the couple fought continuously, and
Speaker 1: by nineteen twenty the marriage was over. From Denver, she
Speaker 1: moved to Los Angeles, leaving her daughter and ex husband behind.
Speaker 1: Los Angeles was home to retired and very wealthy mining
Speaker 1: engineer Jacob Denton. Jacob had made a considerable in the
Speaker 1: mining business, and Louise doubtless knew it. Before long they
Speaker 1: would be friends. Although it was never confirmed that they
Speaker 1: were lovers, it made no difference to Louise. Jacob Denton
Speaker 1: was prey worth catching, and he was also worth murdering.
Speaker 1: In May of nineteen twenty, she moved into Denton's luxurious
Speaker 1: mansion on Wilshire Boulevard, an expensive area inhabited only by
Speaker 1: the very wealthy. Denton, hoping to rent out the property
Speaker 1: while he visited Denver on business, mysteriously rented it to
Speaker 1: Louise for only seventy five dollars a week, far below
Speaker 1: the three hundred and fifty dollars he originally wanted. At
Speaker 1: the beginning of June nineteen twenty, he vanished. Louise, described
Speaker 1: variously as his tenant, his housekeeper, or his girlfriend, had
Speaker 1: only been there a week at the time of Denton's disappearance.
Speaker 1: She immediately began taking advantage, making free with his money
Speaker 1: only three days after his disappearance, and she forged Denton's signature,
Speaker 1: withdrew three hundred dollars from his bank, and accessed his
Speaker 1: safe deposit box. Part of the three hundred dollars probably
Speaker 1: paid the gardener, who delivered a large quantity of earth,
Speaker 1: not to the garden but to the basement. Louise had
Speaker 1: told him she was growing mushrooms, presumably culinary mushrooms and
Speaker 1: not the hallucinogenic variety, but really Who's to say. Accessing
Speaker 1: the safe deposit box caused problems for Louise, especially when
Speaker 1: a bank official questioned the signature. Her explanation was weak
Speaker 1: at best. She said that Denton had been attacked by
Speaker 1: a mysterious woman who cut off his signing arm with
Speaker 1: a sword. A sword, for Pete's sakes. Now she's getting
Speaker 1: creative For so practiced a liar as Louise, This kind
Speaker 1: of preposterous explanation was out of character. Perhaps she made
Speaker 1: it up in the spur of the moment, not expecting
Speaker 1: to be questioned. Or perhaps she'd gotten away with so
Speaker 1: much for so long that she grew complaisent or even arrogant.
Speaker 1: Certainly she was arrogant. Maybe she just wanted to see
Speaker 1: if she could slip a true whopper past her suspicious questioner.
Speaker 1: If the initial lie was a bad one, giving several
Speaker 1: different versions to different people was even worse. What precisely
Speaker 1: had happened to Denton? His friends wondered. Was he really
Speaker 1: recuperating and too ashamed to go out in public, as
Speaker 1: Louise claimed, or was there some far darker reason that
Speaker 1: they were unaware of Denton's teenage daughter went further than
Speaker 1: asking questions. Actively suspicious, she hired a lawyer to uncover
Speaker 1: the truth. Again, Pete performed badly under questioning, and the
Speaker 1: lawyer was entirely unconvinced. In the meantime, Louise began spending
Speaker 1: Denton's money, driving his car, pawning his jewelry and belongings,
Speaker 1: and renting out rooms in the mansion. Naturally, her unsuspecting
Speaker 1: tenants paid her the rent money, but taking the black
Speaker 1: Widow at face value would not last much longer, especially
Speaker 1: when she began having checks from Denton's rental properties in
Speaker 1: Arizona made out to her. The Arizona tenants also grew suspicious,
Speaker 1: and Pete fled renting out Denton's property. She returned to
Speaker 1: Denver to Richard Pete and Francis May. It was her
Speaker 1: biggest blunder. Denton's daughter lost no time in having the
Speaker 1: mansion searched, including the basement the sight of Pete's supposed
Speaker 1: mushroom growing inside a wooden cubicle. Investigators found earth, but
Speaker 1: no mushrooms. They also found the decomposing corpse of Jacob Denton,
Speaker 1: with his supposedly missing arm still very much attached. He
Speaker 1: had been shot in the head and strangled. His corpse
Speaker 1: wrapped in a quilt and stuffed into a box. East
Speaker 1: Pete was now wanted on suspicion of murder, and before
Speaker 1: long she faced her accusers. Denver police had no difficulty
Speaker 1: finding her. They had even less trouble dismissing her tales
Speaker 1: of Denton's missing arm or that he had died because
Speaker 1: of a sword wielding stranger. The fact that his arm
Speaker 1: was still attached and no attack was ever reported for
Speaker 1: once made Pete the easy prey found in Denver, It
Speaker 1: took little time to arrange her return. The hunter had
Speaker 1: become the hunted. The deceiver was about to be deceived.
Speaker 1: She foolishly agreed to return to California to give further testimony.
Speaker 1: It was purely a formality, just a few small questions,
Speaker 1: said the Los Angeles District Attorney's assistant when he visited
Speaker 1: her in Denver. But on her return to California, she
Speaker 1: was almost immediately arrested. She had been lured back inside
Speaker 1: Californian jurisdiction and possibly Hangman's hall. Her first, but not
Speaker 1: her last, mark my words, not her last, murder trial
Speaker 1: in California was a media sensation. Her lurid past was
Speaker 1: recounted in reams of equally lurid newsprint, beginning on January
Speaker 1: twenty first, nineteen twenty one, and lasting almost a month.
Speaker 1: Thousands of spectators and hundreds of reporters crowded the Hall
Speaker 1: of Justice throughout the trial, especially when the verdict was
Speaker 1: delivered on February seventeenth. Guilty as charged, The sentence was
Speaker 1: comparatively lenient. California was never shy about hanging murderers, but
Speaker 1: women tended to be exceptions to the rule. Superior Court
Speaker 1: Judge Frank Willis handed down life imprisonment. He declined to
Speaker 1: send her to the gallows, as the prosecution case was
Speaker 1: largely circumstantial and the state had a tradition of not
Speaker 1: executing women. It may have been better if he had
Speaker 1: condemned the black widow instead. Her husband, Richard Pete, was distraught.
Speaker 1: Despite their history, he always firmly asserted his wife's innocence,
Speaker 1: even after she told him to divorce her and free
Speaker 1: himself to begin a new life. When she abruptly cut
Speaker 1: off contact after he refused it was too much. Depressed
Speaker 1: and distraught, Richard Pete was in a hotel in Tucson,
Speaker 1: Arizona when he shot himself in nineteen twenty four, becoming
Speaker 1: the third of Louise Pete's husbands to commit suicide. Louise
Speaker 1: herself enjoyed a brief return to fame when she involved
Speaker 1: herself in the unsolved death of movie star William Desmond Taylor.
Speaker 1: Taylor's death remains unsolved to this day. His shooting in
Speaker 1: nineteen twenty two spawned any number of conspiracy theories. Louise's
Speaker 1: theory drew the attention of reporters when she claimed Taylor
Speaker 1: was murdered for knowing too much about the death of
Speaker 1: Jacob Denton. According to her, Denton had been supplying Taylor
Speaker 1: with illegal narcotics and Taylor had been dealing them to
Speaker 1: his fellow actors. Like most of the theories about Taylor's death,
Speaker 1: it lacked credence and was quickly dismissed. Louise, meanwhile, was
Speaker 1: still asserting her innocence to no effect. At least, Louise
Speaker 1: was not suspected of Taylor's murder, for once she had
Speaker 1: the perfect alibi, she was in prison at San Quentin.
Speaker 1: At that time. This was the women's prison at t Hatchepee.
Speaker 1: The eighteen years she spent it to Hatchepee, were as
Speaker 1: a model prisoner with a clean record. While incarcerated, she
Speaker 1: became firm friends with Clara Phillips there for murdering her
Speaker 1: husband's lover with a hammer. In nineteen thirty nine, she
Speaker 1: left to Hatchepee on parole. Phillips had been paroled in
Speaker 1: nineteen thirty five. Louise soon returned to her crooked ways
Speaker 1: and also to her established modus operendi, namely shooting her
Speaker 1: benefactor and landlord in the back of a neck, claiming
Speaker 1: they had disappeared and making off with their property. Falling
Speaker 1: back into that murderous rut would ultimately cost both Margaret Logan,
Speaker 1: who you'll hear about in a moment, and Louise Pete
Speaker 1: herself their lives. During Louise's imprisonment, two women in particular
Speaker 1: had lobbied hard for her release. One was her eventual
Speaker 1: probation officer, Emily Latham, and the other was a woman
Speaker 1: named Jesse Marcy. Both of these women would die shortly
Speaker 1: after Louise moved in with them. There's gratitude for you, huh.
Speaker 1: Jesse Marcy was recorded as dying of natural causes after
Speaker 1: Jesse Marcy's death, Pete's probation officer, Emily Latham took her in.
Speaker 1: Latham shortly thereafter died of a heart attack in nineteen
Speaker 1: forty three. Her place as Louise's benefit was taken by
Speaker 1: Arthur and Margaret Logan. While many might think that Louise
Speaker 1: already deserved the death penalty, Margaret Logan certainly did not.
Speaker 1: After Latham died, the Logans took Pete into their comfortable
Speaker 1: Pacific Palisades home, believing that everybody can redeem themselves given
Speaker 1: the right encouragement. Their misplaced optimism in regards to human
Speaker 1: nature and Louise Pete's nature in particular, would prove fatal.
Speaker 1: The Logans were outstandingly kind, even caring for Pete's daughter Francis,
Speaker 1: after Richard Pete's untimely death. Moving in in late April
Speaker 1: nineteen forty three, Louise also married banker Lee Bardon Judson,
Speaker 1: who had no idea she was a convicted murderer. It
Speaker 1: was her last marriage and Margaret Logan her last victim, unless,
Speaker 1: of course, you count poor or Lee Judson. Pete almost
Speaker 1: immediately began a whispering campaign against Arthur Logan, who suffered
Speaker 1: from dementia. Only a month after Pete arrived, Margaret Logan
Speaker 1: suddenly vanished. Within days, Arthur was committed to the Patent
Speaker 1: State Hospital. Pete claimed he was violent and unmanageable. For
Speaker 1: six months, the Judsons occupied the Logan home. By the
Speaker 1: time of Arthur's death in December nineteen forty four, the
Speaker 1: Judsons lived comfortably. Although Lee Judson received no proper answer
Speaker 1: to his questions about Margaret Logan's disappearance, he still had
Speaker 1: no idea he had married a murderer or that Margaret
Speaker 1: Logan was buried on the property. Lee Judson's domestic bliss
Speaker 1: was about to be shattered when the bank discovered checks
Speaker 1: forged in Margaret's name and dated after her disappearance. Police
Speaker 1: quickly visited. Knowing Louise's record, they searched the property and
Speaker 1: found Margaret Logan buried under an avocado tree in the garden.
Speaker 1: Lethal Louise had murdered again, only weeks after serving eighteen
Speaker 1: years for her previous murder. She was immediately arrested, and
Speaker 1: this time California's courts showed no mercy. Margaret was shot
Speaker 1: in the back of the head after suffering a fractured skull,
Speaker 1: a death very similar to Jacob Dentons in nineteen twenty.
Speaker 1: Louise blamed the murder on Arthur's alleged violence, claiming she
Speaker 1: buried Margaret out of fear of Arthur. Margaret's death, she
Speaker 1: claimed had nothing to do with her. Another death quickly
Speaker 1: followed Louise's arrest. Arrested and charged with murder, Lee Judson's
Speaker 1: world collapsed around him. His new wife had murdered at
Speaker 1: least twice. Judson himself had been arrested for a crime
Speaker 1: he knew nothing about, and Louise was obviously guilty. The
Speaker 1: shame and the strain were too much. When charges were
Speaker 1: dropped against him on January eleventh, nineteen forty five, Judson
Speaker 1: lasted only one more day. On January twelfth, he jumped
Speaker 1: off the Spring Arcade building in Los Angeles. That's the
Speaker 1: fourth husband of Louise Pete's who's committed suicide. Now, she
Speaker 1: was not physically present when any of these suicides occurred,
Speaker 1: and unlike the Michelle Carter case, there was no cell
Speaker 1: phone or other ways to communicate, so she certainly couldn't
Speaker 1: have in real time badgered these men to death However,
Speaker 1: it is chilling to consider the emotional hold that Louise
Speaker 1: Pete had on each of her husbands, since each and
Speaker 1: every one of them decided to end their own life
Speaker 1: when they discovered she had betrayed them. Perhaps, like the
Speaker 1: true sociopath she was, Louise specifically targeted emotionally vulnerable people
Speaker 1: for her love affairs. Widowed yet again, Pete had little
Speaker 1: time to grieve. Her final murder trial, her third after
Speaker 1: Joe Appel and Jacob Denton, began on April twenty third,
Speaker 1: nineteen forty five. It was another media frenzy. The result
Speaker 1: was scarcely doubted. Prosecutors claimed she killed Margaret Logan after
Speaker 1: being caught for forging Logan's checks. A jury of eleven
Speaker 1: women and one man convicted her on May thirty first,
Speaker 1: nineteen forty five. The date was a bad omen for her.
Speaker 1: On June first, nineteen forty five, exactly one year after
Speaker 1: Margaret Logan's murder, Superior Court Judge Harold Landreth condemned her,
Speaker 1: barring legal miracles or governor's clemency, neither was likely. Under
Speaker 1: the circumstances. She would visit San Quentin's gas chamber. Condemned Roe,
Speaker 1: being men only, female condemned waited at female prisons, and
Speaker 1: so Pete returned to her old abode into Hatchepee. Her
Speaker 1: stay was brief. Her court appointed lawyers had a hopeless task.
Speaker 1: Despite their very best efforts, Appeals courts ruled her trial
Speaker 1: fare and her conviction. Just her previous record did her
Speaker 1: no favors. Having received mercy, that is, not being sentenced
Speaker 1: to death the first time around, only to kill again
Speaker 1: very much weighed against her in her appeals. By spring
Speaker 1: nineteen forty seven, all was lost. A car arrived at
Speaker 1: to Hatchepee on Thursday, April tenth, nineteen forty seven, to
Speaker 1: take her to San Quentin's ready room. Once secured, only
Speaker 1: steps from the gas chamber, Warden Duffy visited Louise. She
Speaker 1: was the second woman he executed, and familiarity made it
Speaker 1: no easier. Louise slept until she was awoken at five
Speaker 1: thirty a m. Duffy visited again. Before she died, she
Speaker 1: asked him what he thought she should wear. He suggested
Speaker 1: a plain brown dress. California's male condemned usually had no
Speaker 1: choice of wardrobe, but women, being a rarity, they got
Speaker 1: to choose. Louise would rather die in her own clothes,
Speaker 1: not prison issued denim's shirt and blue jeans. The final
Speaker 1: chat was both brief and unexpectedly profound. After suggesting the dress,
Speaker 1: the pair talked quietly as the clock ticked down. There
Speaker 1: was a brief delay, and then they both knew the
Speaker 1: courts had finished with her and the governor was not
Speaker 1: going to call. He asked her one final question, minutes
Speaker 1: before the end. Are you ready, Louise, I'm ready, she said,
Speaker 1: I've been ready for a long time. The walk was brief,
Speaker 1: and the straps and stethoscope quickly secured. As the guards
Speaker 1: left the chamber, one of them offered the now traditional farewell, goodbye,
Speaker 1: good luck, breathe deep, and don't fight the gas. With
Speaker 1: the door sealed and everything ready, the clock struck half
Speaker 1: past the hour. Seconds later, Louise looked through one of
Speaker 1: the observation windows and gave Duffy a slight hand motion.
Speaker 1: He could read her lips as she spoke, let's go.
Speaker 1: Duffy instantly complied, silently, nodding to the executioner. A sudden
Speaker 1: pull of the lever mixed cyanide eggs with acid, and
Speaker 1: Louise Pete died thirteen minutes after the lever was jerked,
Speaker 1: the bell of Bienville was officially no more. Duffy confirmed
Speaker 1: the doctor's diagnosis before leaving the chamber and entering the
Speaker 1: room filled with over seventy witnesses. That's all, gentlemen, he said,
Speaker 1: please leave. It was ten forty three am. The witness
Speaker 1: is left and Louise was left to steep in the
Speaker 1: lethal fumes. She was removed that afternoon. Her clothes were
Speaker 1: burned and the chamber decontaminated. Louise was interred quietly at
Speaker 1: the Angelus Roseville Cemetery in an unmarked grave. She was
Speaker 1: sixty six years old. The Black widow murdered Joseph Appel,
Speaker 1: Jacob Denton, and Margaret Logan, and she survived four husbands,
Speaker 1: all of whom killed themselves because of her betrayals. Shit,
Speaker 1: that was heavy, man, Feel like I need a shower
Speaker 1: and a shot at tequila. There you go. I'm Zevan Odleberg,
Speaker 1: and this has been kind of murdery. If you've enjoyed
Speaker 1: today's kind of murdery, please tell your friends and family,
Speaker 1: tell strangers, leave a review. It's the best way to
Speaker 1: ensure that I can keep telling that's special brand of
Speaker 1: bizarre and terrible tales that you'll only find here on
Speaker 1: kind of Murdery
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