Cell 2455, Death Row

by Caryl Chessman

  I would encourage my father to sell his retail florist shop; we would lay promising plans for going into the wholesale florist business on a bold scale. We would be pals again, the three of us, my mother, my father and myself.

  And as they talked so earnestly, I saw my mother’s and my father’s wasted faces. I saw the jungle, too.

  I got a gun.

  I recruited some guys to work with me who weren’t known to be associated with me. And I was real clever, too clever, remembering the time at San Quentin when I had been “positively” identified. That gave me an idea how to drive the bulls slowly crazy.

  I went to see a man in an adjoining county, a gambler with greedy ideas of empire who was looking for a striking force. We closed a deal. Bookmaking in the county was Big Business, fantastically Big Business, and this particular gambling gentleman wanted to cut himself a large piece of this bookmaking pie. I agreed to help—for a price. The plan wasn’t novel; it was functional.

  With confederates (whom I have never named) I began knocking over some of the larger places where illegal betting on the horses was being done.

  I also began hijacking the collectors for the syndicate while they were making their rounds. At gun point I accepted their contribution to what I assured them was a good cause and lectured them, time permitting, on the error of their ways and the probable consequences attending it.

  Needless to add, the syndicate had gorillas in its employ who were paid to eliminate grinning, wise-guy interlopers. And it had connections in pretty high places, and hence the means to get rid of them in other ways too. So I was warned to lay off—or else! I was told to get out of town and stay out. I told those who warned me to go to hell. I said I didn’t know what they were talking about. And then the gorillas and I began to play games. It was great sport. The damned fools were trying to kill me when I was already dead. I was already dead and just didn’t have sense enough to lie down. I liked to agitate and do battle with dragons too much. They were doing me a real favor, this smart syndicate bunch, when they began to mouth off and to send their gorillas to take care of me. They gave me a chance to declare war in the jungle. And I hated the jungle. I hated what it had done to me.

  My mother kept sinking and twice almost died. I sat at her bedside as she hovered between life and death. In the same breath I prayed to and cursed God. The fires of hell burned in Mother’s side and her face was contorted with pain, yet she managed to smile. She tried to speak and couldn’t. Her suffering was terrible to see. I had a prescription of a powerful drug filled and gave my mother the fifty tablets. “Take these as you need them, Mom, and if the pain gets unendurable I’ll understand if you . . .”

  I was working out the details of a plan to rob a man who ran a big check-cashing business out in the Valley. That was one of his more legitimate enterprises. I enlisted the aid of a couple of bandit acquaintances and we equipped a special car to be used in pulling our victim over to the curb while he was on his way to his place of business after he left the bank. Then one of my confederates, who was overfond of marijuana, got loaded on the weed and got the bright idea of using our special car for another purpose. I read about the stupid manifestations of that idea in the newspapers, and gave my confederate a growl. He didn’t take kindly to my criticism.

  “All right, you smart bastard,” I thought, “we’ll take care of you after the Valley caper.”

  But the Valley robbery was frustrated. The morning it was to be pulled off, my marijuana-smoking, wise-guy confederate had our special car out. He had been gone all night and when he returned we got into a mean argument.

  My friend had a gun. He pointed it at me.

  “Don’t you like what I did?” he challenged insultingly.

  I didn’t like it.

  “Then do something about it. Do something about it in the next five seconds. Because then I’m going to blow your goddamn head off.”

  I did somediing about it.

  PART THREE

  DAMNANT QUOD NON INTELLIGUNT

  • 28 •

  Three Times and Out?

  VOTE DEATH FOR “CRIMINAL GENIUS”

  That, in bold, black type, was the banner headline carried by the Los Angeles Daily News on Saturday, May 22, 1948. In part, the story beneath that headline read:

  A jury of 11 women and one man last night invoked California’s seldom-used “little Lindbergh law” to order that Caryl Chessman, San Quentin-educated criminal genius, be put to death for the kid-napings of two women.

  Besides the two separate kidnapings for which the 12 talesmen exercised their right to fix the death penalty, a life imprisonment sentence was imposed for a still third kidnaping count.

  After 30 hours of deliberation, the jury returned verdicts of guilty in an amazing string of 17 out of 18 felony crimes charged against the 26-year-old “red light” bandit.

  The 26-year-old former convict, who conducted his own entire defense, heard the seemingly endless list of guilty verdicts . . . without flinching from the suave courtroom manner he had constantly maintained.

  On the contrary, he smiled as the first obligatory death sentence was passed—the ninth count read by the court clerk following seven other guilty verdicts and one finding of not guilty.

  Chessman explained afterward he “was afraid” he might have gotten life on all kidnaping convictions, while with the death penalties imposed he felt confident they would be reversed upon appeal.

  Upon the rendering of a death penalty upon any plea, the state penal code calls for an automatic appeal without any action by the defendant or his counsel. . . .

  Gray-haired veterans of criminal law had flocked to the trial to sit in amazement at Chessman’s conduct of his own defense.

  And with the same professional calm, the neatly-dressed defendant walked into the courtroom as word was received from the jury that it was ready to come in.

  The clerk finally got to the jury’s words: “We fix the punishment at deadi . . .”

  I sat on my bunk in the High Power tank at the Los Angeles County Jail, scanning the above newspaper account of my conviction. Some “criminal genius"! I thought disgustedly. For the diird time, I was headed back to San Quentin. And if the state had its way, it would be three times and out; when I left the prison next time, it would be in a box.

  “He who defends himself has a fool for a client.” That is what they say around jails and courdiouses, and they have been saying it for a long, long time. And I had had a fool for a client.

  Turn back the clock. For weeks a “red light” bandit had been terrorizing the inhabitants of Los Angeles County. A lone wolf, he drove a late model Ford equipped widi a red spodight (perhaps portable) and, some of his many terrified victims reported, a police radio. The Ford had the appearance of a police car. Capitalizing on diis, the bandit’s modus operandi was to prowl the lover’s lanes, the deserted stretches of beach highway or the little-used roadways—near the fabled Malibu Colony, near Pasadena’s Rose Bowl—and the less habited hilly areas—along Mulholland Drive, and the winding, unlighted roads lacing the Flintridge Hills.

  When, while on these nocturnal prowls, he spotted a couple in a parked car he would approach, flash the red light and brake to a stop. And the prospective victims, believing it to be the police on a routine checkup, would wait unsuspectingly while the bandit got unhurriedly out of his car and walked to theirs.

  “Got any identification?” he sometimes would demand, flashing a penlight directly into the faces of the couple.

  “Sure,” the man would reply, and produce his wallet.

  “How about the lady? She got any, too?”

  If the woman had a purse with her, she would reach for it to get out identification.

  At that point, or sometimes immediately on reaching the car, without going through any of these preliminaries, the bandit would shove an ugly-looking .45 caliber automatic into the faces of his startled victims and growl, “This is a stick-up!” Sometimes, after demanding and taking the man’
s wallet and the woman’s purse into his possession, he then would rifle both for money on the spot, afterward handing them back. Other times, he would retain the wallet or the purse, or both. Sometimes, on approaching the car, he would be masked; other times he would not be; sometimes he would approach the car unmasked and, only after giving his victims an excellent view of his face, would he then pull up a handkerchief mask. Sometimes, in an atonal monotone, he would repeat over and over, insanely: “If you don’t do what I say they’ll carry you away in a casket.”

  Sometimes he would carry off and criminally assault the woman. If she begged him to show mercy, he would listen without interrupting, his face expressionless.

  Then he would ask in a lifeless monotone, “You through?”

  If she said she was, he repeated his demands. If she burst into tears he sat unmoving and waited until she finished crying.

  “You through now?” that terrible voice then would ask.

  One young woman he kidnaped asked him why he did these things. He told her his wife had been unfaithful to him while he was serving in the armed forces during the last war. He said he was getting even.

  He struck again and again. The reports of his bold, usually brutal forays kept mounting, and because he invariably threatened his victims with the swift loss of their lives if they reported his conduct to the police, law enforcement theorized that many of his crimes were not known to them, and they feared murder would soon be included on the fast-growing list of his offenses. They doubled and then redoubled their efforts to capture him. He could be no novice, they reasoned, so with victims they poured through police mug pictures, hoping for a lead. None was found.

  Heavily armed police officers teamed up in pairs and, with one of each pair disguised as a woman, spent nights parked in the hills in ordinary looking autos, hoping to lure him into striking. He struck elsewhere. All points bulletins were sent out. Police officers in outlying areas were alerted. The search was intensified. Over and over the police radio barked out a description of the “red light” bandit and the car he was using:

  Male Caucasian, possibly Italian, swarthy complexion, 23-35 years, five feet six to five feet ten, 150-170 pounds, thin to medium build, dark brown wavy hair, close cut, dark brown eyes, crooked teeth, narrow nose with slight hump on bridge of nose, sharp chin, possible scar over right eyebrow. Armed with a 45 old-looking black automatic. . . . Uses small pen type flashlight. Believed to be driving early 1947 or late 1946 light gray or beige club coupe. . . . A red spotlight has been seen on left and right side of car . . . Possible radio which receives police calls with switch underneath dashboard, no antenna on car. Believe suspect when operating keeps license plate and spotlight in baggage compartment in rear of car and after leaving scene of crime replaces license on auto. Clothes worn by suspect vary . . . Interrogate any and all occupants using above described vehicle . . . Use caution as suspect armed.

  Friday night. January 23, 1948. 7:40 p.m.

  Radio car officers May and Reardon, both young ex-servicemen, were cruising slowly south on Vermont Avenue at a point between Hollywood and Sunset Boulevards in Hollywood when they spotted a northbound Ford generally fitting the description of the red light bandit’s car. Reardon, who was driving, promptly executed a U-turn, shifting into second gear, and sent his prowl car leaping in pursuit.

  A hundred feet or more up the street, both officers observed the car they were after turn into a gas station at the corner of Hollywood and Vermont. Reardon speeded up, then braked, aiming the nose of his Ford into the service station, which the suspected vehicle was circling. The several hundred feet originally separating the two cars was cut to a car-length at the back of the station, near the grease rack. The Ford eased out into the southerly stream of traffic on Vermont. It speeded up. Reardon followed suit.

  Luck can be bad, insufferably bad. That I can vouch for, for I happened to be the driver of the Ford May and Reardon were following, and I knew they were behind me. I had spotted them before they had spotted me. I thought about my eleven-year parole. Seated beside me, as I guided the Ford back onto Vermont Avenue, was another parolee, and I knew it was a violation of the terms of my parole to associate with ex-cons. I was operating a car—later proved to be stolen—without the permission of my parole officer, another violation of parole conditions. The back seat of the car, a club coupe, was filled with men’s suits and other clothing—later established by police to have been taken in what was called a robbery-kidnaping of a clothier a few hours earlier. In short, if for no other reasons than those just given, whether or not I had stolen the Ford or had even known it was stolen, and whether I had or had not participated in the robbery-kidnaping, standing a pinch meant more long, dreary years in Folsom.

  So I decided to make a run for it, convinced I could shake off my tail. All I had was a Hobson’s choice. Convicts have a saying: “If I run, I get shot; if I stand still, I get stabbed.” For some reason I didn’t trouble to analyze, I preferred to get shot or, stated more nicely, shot at. Automatically I made the physical movements that would send the car I was driving hurtling through traffic at breakneck speeds. All this was done in a fraction of a second. But I didn’t catch my pursuers entirely napping. The red light on the police car snapped on. That car’s siren uttered a low-throated growl. Soon it would be screaming hysterically in my ear.

  Both cars leaped ahead. The chase was on in deadly earnest.

  Unexpectedly, while making a sliding U-turn—after careening through countless screaming-brake efforts to dodge bullets—Dave, my much overwrought passenger, leaped or bounced against me and I was compelled to slam on the brakes to avoid crashing a parked car.

  At that moment the police car swerved around the corner and Reardon, who was driving with inspired skill, deliberately crashed into us, on the driver’s side. Welcoming the opportunity, Dave hastily exited out the door of the Ford on the passenger side. I followed his example with equal alacrity. Simultaneously, May and Reardon leaped from their police car, and two more squad cars shot around the corner and ground to a bucking halt. I didn’t hesitate after alighting; I immediately made a dash for a back yard.

  May shouted “Halt!” and fired twice in rapid succession. I was at most twenty feet away from him when he fired and had just glanced back. May’s marksmanship was bad. The first bullet zinged by me. The second grazed my forehead, gouging out flesh and hair at the hairline. It felt as though my head spun around two full turns while my body continued to travel in one direction. The impact of the bullet slammed me to the ground. The sensation was that I’d been shot through the head. I seemed to float to earth.

  When I struck the ground I felt a sharp, wrenching pain and knew I wasn’t dead—at least not yet. I scrambled back to my feet, tried with indifferent success to run, staggered blindly into an iron fence and was stopped, cold, in my tracks. I was seized, ultimately handcuffed.

  The police told me I was the red light bandit; they told me they could prove it. And I told them that was what they would have to do. At first I laughed at their accusations, but not for long. The game we were playing soon became a deadly serious one.

  At the trial two irreconcilably conflicting versions were given of what was said and what transpired while I was held at the station.

  I testified that I was beaten brutally, denied sleep, threatened with further violence, not allowed to see an attorney or my father, grilled to exhaustion and promised only two or three robbery charges would be filed if I confessed to the red light crimes; that the police threatened to send me to the gas chamber if I refused to confess, or kill me if I failed to do so and then claim I had been attempting to escape; and that, as a result, when these physical and psychological third-degree methods became intolerable, I falsely and involuntarily agreed to anything the police said when the words were put in my mouth.

  These disputed admissions and confessions were made orally only.

  I still maintain my so-called “confessions” were false. I still maintain I was severely
, viciously beaten. I still maintain the “confessions” were cynically obtained in the way I have claimed all along, with the use of violence. I invite all detectives to submit to a lie-detector test with me. If the test shows, with regard to this beating, that they are telling the trudi and I am not, I will abandon voluntarily all possibilities I have of survival and withdraw any and all legal actions or proceedings that may then be pending in the courts.

  I extend this same invitation to other police officers who at the trial denied extorting a false confession in the way I testified and still assert they did. And I state my belief that the prosecutor contrived to get those “confessions” admitted into evidence knowing they had been secured in violation of the Constitution. I am prepared to take the matter to court and back my claim.

  One thing more: Ever since my arrest I have begged for a lie-detector test on the question of guilt or innocence but have never succeeded in being given one. So I make another stipulation. When I am questioned about my treatment after being taken into custody, I want also to be questioned about whether I am the red light bandit. If the test reveals that I am lying, when I flatly and unequivocally state I am not that bandit and that I did not commit the crimes for which I am waiting to die, then I shall abandon my legal fight for survival.

  • 29 •

  A Fool for a Client

  After being held those three days for investigation at the Hollywood police station, I was transferred to the Los Angeles County Jail and, after being put through a show-up, was lodged in the High Power tank, old and familiar custodial quarters.