Barbara Graham

"When you hear the pellets drop, count ten. Take a deep breath. It's easier that way."
"How do you know?"

 I Want to Live, 1958

Is that an accurate account of Barbara Graham's last moments, sitting in the San Quinten gas chamber? While there is certainly a grain of truth to it (sixteen reporters witnessed her final minutes), one has to winnow down the layers of drama, of politics, of personal feelings that envelope her story. Like Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man, Graham's character is a beam of light, bounced around and redefined by which ever prism someone chooses to view her through. She's a figure constantly painted and repainted, layer upon layer. Even those who took up her banner with what they considered the best of intentions, failed to see her as she really was, because they could never escape what they wanted her to be. Everyone, death penalty opponents and supporters, judicial reformers, newspaper journalists and reporters, ballad-writers, and movie-makers all tried to mold Graham into something that fit their purposes, be it overturning the death penalty, selling a record, or winning an Oscar. Her true character, still as elusive as ever, may be hopelessly muddled by years of projections, interpretations, and outright showmanship.

Barbara Graham was born in June, 1923 to an unwed teenage mother and a quickly absent father. When a second child was born out-of-wedlock two years later, her mother was sent to the Ventura State School for Girls. Graham would be raised by a series of distant relatives and strangers. 

At age 13, Graham ran away. Located three months later, she was made a ward of the state. In legal nomenclature, she was designated a "wayward" girl after she admitted to multiple sexual partners. Eventually, Graham would herself wind up at Ventura.

By 16, Graham was released by the school and by 18 was free from any state oversight. It seems she made an attempt at settling down in 1940, getting married, having her first child, and attending college. But by 1941, she was divorced and getting by as a "sea gull", one of the women who would hang around the Navy yards of California in order to meet sailors on leave. 

She would be arrested on vice charges several times between 1941 and 1947. Whether she worked as a prostitute or not (Graham herself gave conflicting accounts), she was undoubtedly becoming more involved in California's shadow world of drugs and gambling. She became friends with a number of ex-cons and career criminals who inhabited it. In 1947 she would serve a year in jail for perjury when she provided a false alibi for two such acquaintances. Perhaps it's important to note here that despite a record of petty offenses, Graham had never been charged with a violent crime. She was however, no stranger to men who often were. Her fourth husband, repeat offender and drug addict Henry Graham was one of them. Through him, she met two more, Jack Santo, and Emmit Perkins. Graham began an affair with Perkins and he would share with her the story of an easy mark that would lead to tragedy.

Tutor Scherer was a well-known figure in LA's underground gambling world. Wanting to escape the pressure from the police (in either the form of busts, or demand for a share), Scherer and partners headed to Las Vegas and opened the Frontier Casino. Scherer left behind in LA an ex-mother-in-law, Mabel Monahan, a former roller-skating star of the vaudville era. Monahan lived in the Burbank home her daughter was awarded in the divorce, but Scherer and Monahan remained on cordial terms. He would often visit her when he was in LA. It was these visits that fueled a rumor among LA's criminal underworld: That Scherer was stashing skimmed casino profits at Monahan's home. To Emmit Perkins, this was the perfect job—thousands of dollars being watched over by an old woman. And if it were stolen, Scherer would never go to the police and risk exposing how he gained the money.

Perkins, Santo, and Graham in custody.

Perhaps as with any scheme formulated by a brain trust of thugs and drug addicts, it didn't go as planned. The assembled crew consisted of Graham, Perkins, Santo,  John True, and Baxter Shorter, a known safe-blower. On March 9, 1953, Graham appeared at Monahan's home and asked to use the phone. Only seeing one woman present, Monahan opened the door. The four men emerged from cover and pushed their way inside. The gang demanded to know where Scherer hid his safe, but Monahan didn't cooperate. Monahan was struck repeatedly and strangled with a strip of bedsheet until she died, never divulging Scherer's stash. It wasn't out of loyalty, or stubbornness, or pride, but ignorance—Monahan genuinely knew nothing about a safe Scherer had hidden in her Burbank home—because there was none. It was nothing more than an underworld rumor, spread around and around by hoods and junkies until it's purely speculative origin was forgotten. Graham and company were merely the first to be desperate and foolish enough to try for it. They ransacked the home, searching for the phantom safe. Carpets were ripped up, sofa cushions cut open, vents pulled from the floor, but nothing of value was found. The crooks were so inept, when Monahan's body was discovered two days later, police initially dismissed robbery as a motive—they easily found thousands of dollars worth of jewelry Monahan had hidden away in her purses. 

The police had a more difficult time narrowing down their list of suspects, as it included anyone who had heard the rumors of Scherer's mythical hidden stash. Two outside forces began to change that, one financial, the other psychological. First, the $5,000 reward offered by Monahan's daughter started loosening tougues. Second, was the age-old motivation that had led to many a gang's dissolution: self-preservation. The botched nature of the crime and subsequent media attention put even more pressure on each individual to cooperate with the police. They faced the classic Prisoner's Dilemma: do you keep your mouth shut and hope every other conspirator does as well? Or start talking, and seek a deal with the prosecutors—maybe even immunity? If you wait too long, one of your partners might take the deal first. Even if no deal was forthcoming, talking to the police first offered the opportunity to present your version of the events before anyone else gave theirs.

Baxter Shorter

The reward money enticed an informant to come forward and share the name of John True. Police picked him up, but True remained reticent and was soon released. The newspapers soon got wind of another arrest and announced that a suspect was being held, and he was naming names. It seems Baxter Shorter, the hired safe-cracker was more eager to talk than True. The next day two men, later identified as Perkins and Santo kidnapped Shorter. His connections to Mickey Cohen, LA's most powerful gangster couldn't save him. Shorter was never seen again and would be declared dead seven years later. This was enough to change John True's mind. When he was arrested for a second time, he agreed to testify against Graham, Perkins, and Santo in return for immunity.

True and Shorter's stories aligned on the basics (entry was gained through a ruse by Graham; Monahan was beaten and tied up). Their details differed slightly as each claimed he himself only witnessed the violence, and did not take part in it. The District Attorney's choice was simple. True had no criminal record and was therefore easier to sell as trustworthy. Repeat offender Baxter Shorter was missing and presumed dead. The DA chose to present True's account to a grand jury. True claimed that as he entered the house Graham was beating Monahan about the head with a pistol. He tried to stop her claiming:

"I told Mrs. Graham not to hit her any more. I put my hand between the gun and Mrs. Monahan's face. She fainted or collapsed. I had her head in my lap and went down with her. Mrs. Graham pulled a pillowcase over her head."

True claimed that he later heard someone else finish Monahan off while he was in another room.

Graham, Santo and Perkins were found within a month hiding out in a small apartment. News reports implied Graham had been using drugs and when arrested was caught in flagrante delicto with one or both of her accomplices.

The three were charged with murder and prosecuted in a joint trial. The media immediately picked-up the image of Barbara Graham as a real-life murderous vamp: cold, devious, manipulative, avaricious, and merciless. They dubbed her "Bloody Babs" and the "Ice Blonde". The image of the young attractive woman who was accused of leading such a vicious crime were irresistibly provocative to the newspapers. Often their attention was more on the risque details of Graham's past, rather than the facts of the crime. Stories that did focus on the trial painted Graham as callous, indifferent, even bored with the proceedings. After she fell down a flight of stairs, newspapers implied she staged the accident to delay the trial. Headlines even claimed she was flirting with jurors.

Media bias and John True's self-serving testimony aside, the most damning evidence was a recording of Barbara Graham herself. While being held in jail, Graham was approached by another inmate, Donna Prow who offered to arrange Graham with a false alibi in exchange for $500. Desperate, she took the offer. Little did she know, the Prow was working with the police in exchange for a sentence reduction. An undercover officer met with Graham to arrange the details of the alibi, and recorded several incriminating statements from her: admitting she was at Monahan's house the night of the murder, and claiming that Baxter Shorter had been "done away with." After five hours of deliberation, the jury found all three defendants, Barbara Graham, Emmit Perkins, and Jack Santo guilty of murder, September 22, 1953.

Graham and her co-defendants appealed their verdicts on various grounds, but by June, 1955, all possible avenues of petition were exhausted. All three were to be executed June 3. Graham was to go first, initially scheduled to die at 10:00 AM. The governor's office briefly stayed the execution twice, but in the end, found no grounds for clemency. Graham exclaimed "Why do they torture me? I was ready to go at 10 o'clock!" Even in her final minutes, the reporters gathered to witness the execution took note of her hair, makeup and wardrobe. At 11:34 AM, directly below the chair Graham was strapped, the potassium cyanide tablets dropped into a tank of sulfuric acid, producing a deadly quantity of hydrogen cyanide gas. 32 year-old Barbara Graham was declared dead at 11:43 AM. Perkins and Santo would be executed later that afternoon.

1958 would see Barbara Graham's story come to life on the big screen in the film I Want to Live! Though claiming to present "the true story" of Barbara Graham, many inconveniently damning details were omitted. Producer Walter Wanger was an unabashed opponent of the death penalty. His opinion no doubt shaped by his own experience in California's penal system, having served a brief term for attempted murder after shooting his wife's alleged lover. Star Susan Hayward would win an Academy Award for her portrayal of Graham. Mabel Monahan was not depicted in the film. The following year, several songs concerning the case were released, including "The Ballad of Barbara Graham." It's writer admitted "It had commercial possibilities."