Convicting 'gun moll' Barbara Graham was a famous win for L.A. prosecutors. Did they cheat?

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Near the extremity of his life, the authoritative who sent 32-year-old Barbara Graham to decease enactment proclaimed his conscience clear. Her execution by cyanide state successful June 1955 was merciful compared to her crime, arsenic J. Miller Leavy saw it.

Leavy won galore high-profile cases during his storied vocation at the Los Angeles County territory attorney’s office, but fewer drew much attraction than the lawsuit against the pistillate nicknamed “Bloody Babs.”

She was streetwise and brassy and physically striking, a small-time hustler and “dice girl” who lingered successful casinos to induce men to portion and gamble. She had a heroin wont and a babe to feed. In March 1953, successful the institution of 4 men, she participated successful the home-invasion robbery of a disabled Burbank widow who was recovered bludgeoned and strangled.

In this series, Christopher Goffard revisits aged crimes successful Los Angeles and beyond, from the celebrated to the forgotten, the consequential to the obscure, diving into archives and the memories of those who were there.

Relentless and skilled, with a flair for theater, Leavy told jurors that Graham had not conscionable participated successful the robbery but was cardinal to the violence. “Barbara Graham tied Mabel Monahan’s hands down her back, pistol whipped her and near her to die,” Leavy, past 85, told a Times columnist successful 1990. “Sending her to the state enclosure didn’t fuss maine astatine all.”

“For the People,” an authorized past of the territory attorney’s office, burnishes Leavy’s fable and repeats the assertion that Graham pistol-whipped the victim. For generations of prosecutors, Leavy loomed truthful ample that erstwhile they mislaid a case, they’d quip, “Leavy could person won it.”

Marcia Clark, who would go 1 of the best-known prosecutors of her generation during the ill-fated O.J. Simpson lawsuit successful the mid-1990s, heard each the stories astir Leavy during her 14 years astatine the D.A.’s office. She began researching the Graham lawsuit for her publication “Trial By Ambush,” which published successful November. She went into the task with admiration for Leavy — and emerged with the certainty that helium had cheated.

Deputy Dist. Atty. J. Miller Leavy questions an undercover constabulary serviceman during Barbara Graham's trial.

He hid a cardinal witness, she concluded. He constructed the prosecution communicative based connected the connection of a co-defendant who had bully crushed to lie. He did things that would beryllium amerciable today, Clark said, similar planting the jailhouse informant who won Graham’s emotion and helped doom her.

“He was a precise bully lawyer, don’t get maine wrong,” Clark told The Times successful a caller interview. “But what I didn’t expect to spot was that helium was a sleazy player.”

From her apprehension to her execution, thing astir Barbara Graham inspired frenzied verbiage from the journalists of the era. Newspapers portrayed her arsenic a chilly, oversexed murderess from the pages of pulp fiction. Sometimes she was “the redhead,” sometimes “the icy blond.” She was “the weapon moll.” She was “sultry.” She was “shapely Barbara Graham, the blond iceberg.”

In the Los Angeles Daily Mirror, she was “that monster disguised arsenic a woman.” In the Herald-Express, she was “the astir beauteous unfortunate that the state enclosure volition ever person claimed.”

Abandoned by her mother, she was sent, successful her teens, to the Ventura School for Girls, a brutal betterment schoolhouse from which she emerged with an acquisition successful crime. She ne'er made it to precocious school. She hustled for a living. She wrote atrocious checks. She shoplifted. She was busted for cause possession, prostitution and perjury. She joined 4 times. She had 3 kids. She loved jazz.

She was broke, and trying to rise a baby, portion moving arsenic a shill astatine a dice-and-poker location successful El Monte. A rough-looking outlaw named Jack Santo showed up. He was a transgression confederate of the antheral who ran the gambling house, Emmett Perkins. They had heard that a retired vaudeville performer, Mabel Monahan, stashed wealth successful her location safe.

A Los Angeles County sheriff's van passes done the gates of San Quentin State Prison.

“These guys were precise atrocious news,” Clark said. “I deliberation overmuch much atrocious quality than Barbara knew.”

The safety-conscious Monahan would not unfastened her doorway to conscionable anybody, particularly not to hard-looking thugs. But the petite, beauteous Graham mightiness get them inside. And so, connected March 9, 1953, Graham appeared astatine Monahan’s doorway with the communicative that her car had breached down.

Monahan fto Graham in, and the hooligans followed. In came Santo, Perkins, safecracker Baxter Shorter and John True, whose self-serving relationship of what happened would beryllium adopted arsenic information by the authorities. The robbers sacked the house, recovered nary harmless and near Monahan bludgeoned with a pillowcase implicit her head. “Wealthy widow beaten to decease successful California,” work 1 headline.

Detectives caught up to Shorter wrong weeks, and his relationship led them to the others. As Clark documents successful her book, helium described Perkins “slugging [Monahan] successful the temple” with a gun.

Shorter mightiness person been the state’s prima witnesser had helium not vanished soon after. (He was kidnapped by Perkins astatine gunpoint, according to a witness, and presumed dead.) Jurors would not get his mentation of the murder.

That near True arsenic the prosecution’s cardinal witness. He was granted immunity for his testimony, minimized his ain culpability — helium had really tried to save Monahan, helium said — and pointed a digit astatine Graham. He said she held the unfortunate by the cervix with 1 manus and pistol whipped her with the other.

Barbara Graham and 2 different suspects successful the execution of Mabel Monahan beryllium successful a hallway aft their capture.

Hoping to clinch Graham’s conviction, authorities planted an informant beside her astatine the L.A. County jail. The works was Donna Prow, who was successful her aboriginal 20s and serving clip for manslaughter. She approached Graham. She poured connected the charm. She brought her candy. Jail was lonely, and Graham fell for her.

“Hi Baby,” Graham wrote to her successful 1 of galore letters constabulary obtained. “Your enactment was truthful sweet, honey, but I privation you to beryllium definite of your feelings, oregon I wouldn’t privation to commencement thing we couldn’t finish. You are a precise beauteous and desirable woman, honey, and I privation you precise much.”

As Graham’s proceedings approached, she had a hopeless occupation — nary alibi — but Prow offered a solution. She arranged for Graham to conscionable a antheral who would prevarication for her. He’d assertion to person been with her miles distant astatine an Encino edifice during the killing.

All of it was a constabulary set-up. Prow’s “friend” was an undercover constabulary serviceman named Sam Sirianni, and erstwhile Leavy introduced concealed recordings of Graham cobbling unneurotic the fake alibi — and admitting she’d been with her co-defendants connected the fatal nighttime — her credibility was destroyed.

But Graham’s defence lawyer ne'er got a accidental to cross-examine Prow. The D.A.’s bureau had arranged for her to beryllium released from jail, and to permission California — safely beyond the scope of the defense.

“No 1 could find her, and the prosecution made definite of it, and that was illegal. They hid a cardinal witness,” Clark told The Times. “They would person pried retired of her however overmuch effort she went to get Barbara to spell on with the mendacious alibi scheme. And that would person made, I think, things look a batch antithetic to the jury.”

The authoritative dwelled astatine excruciating magnitude connected Graham’s emotion letters to Prow.

Barbara Graham looks implicit her enarthrosis portion seated astatine a courtroom table.

“And it was precise wide wherefore helium did it,” Clark said. “He’s tarnishing her quality successful beforehand of the jury. Back then, determination was not overmuch grace fixed to homosexual relationships of immoderate kind.”

In his closing argument, Leavy told jurors that Graham had testified with the purpose of seducing the antheral jurors, deterring them from their work to convict her with the anticipation that she could “just get up determination and look pretty.” It was a maneuver Clark finds “morally repugnant.”

“The instrumentality was antithetic backmost then, and [they did] a batch of things that would beryllium perfectly grounds for disbarment today,” she said.

Susan Hayward won an Oscar for her sympathetic but campy portrayal of Graham successful the 1958 movie “I Want to Live!” In it, Graham is punished for defying the conventions of the time. She is sexually adventurous. She smokes cigarettes with men successful darkened rooms. She sneers clever quips astatine the tormenting cops. She is simply a wildcat with a tender heart.

“She was the wildest of the jazzed-up generation,” proclaimed the advertisement copy. “She had tons of friends, astir of them bad. She was driven by a 1000 desires, a fewer of them decent. She sinned. She stole. But she swore she ne'er murdered.”

State witnesser John True seated with 3 attorneys.

Though Graham denied she was astatine the victim’s house, Clark believes she was determination — but arsenic a decoy. It struck her arsenic improbable that the 5-foot-3 Graham, successful the institution of 4 stronger antheral accomplices, immoderate with records of violence, had been the bludgeoner.

Under the felony execution rule, Graham would person been blameworthy for immoderate information successful the crime, but successful a otherwise handled case, she mightiness person avoided a decease sentence.

Jurors convicted Graham, Santo and Perkins of murder, and a justice sentenced them each to death. At San Quentin, 1 of Graham’s past requests was to deterioration a disguise arsenic she went to the state chamber. “I don’t privation to spot the people,” she said.

Leavy was 1 of the witnesses to her execution, his fable astir to get different notch.

Also contiguous was writer Al Martinez, who would go a Times columnist and, decades later, constitute astir being haunted by what helium saw arsenic the cyanide pellets dropped and the state rose.

The bull adjacent to him said, “Mabel Monahan died hard too.”

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