by Paul R. Spitzzeri
After his mid-June 1928 arrest and confinement in the Los Angeles Police Department Wilshire Station jail after being caught in the house of bandleader Earl Burtnett, former USC star football player Johnny Hawkins hired a former classmate and attorney, Joseph Ryan, to defend him and almost immediately the makings of a defense based on presumed brain damage from an injury suffered in a November 1924 game emerged.
For some two months, Hawkins purportedly committed more than two-dozen burglaries, amassing up to $75,000 in loot that was stashed in the attic of his parents’ residence in Fullerton, where the gridiron hero first made his name while attending the Orange County burg’s high school. He cited financial struggles and desperation as his wife needed major surgery as the motivation for his crime spree.
The 19 June edition of the Venice Vanguard reported that, as Hawkins confessed to breaking in to the houses of a Santa Monica sportsman, Jack Doyle, as well as that of Lillian Goldsmith, he was driven to the coastal city for questioning by that town’s police chief and a pair of detectives. He freely admitted the crimes, adding that he went to school with Doyle’s son, but, notably, it was reported that, though he first cited his wife’s situation as motivation, he “later changed this statement” when interviewed by the Santa Monica police officials and stated that “I selected the homes of my friends, I never tried to rob a house unless I knew the people that lived there. I had often visited these people. I knew Mr. and Mrs. Doyle and their son. He was one of my best friends in college. I visited the Doyle home socially on occasions.”
After noting that he used a screwdriver and then an ice-pick to break into residences, Hawkins, the account continued, “continually held his hand to a spot on his forehead, where he has a scar, the result of a football injury.” This led detective Frank Watson to opine:
To my mind, he looks as if he is in a daze. I shouldn’t wonder that the injury is responsible for his criminal acts.
Chief Clarence Webb told reporters that his department interviewed Hawkins purely as a formality, as the matter was under the jurisdiction of the LAPD and the district attorney, but the paper remarked that he “was interested in the report from Los Angeles that psychiatrists will examine [Hawkins’] head to determine whether or not a four-year-old football injury had anything to do with” his crimes.
It struck officials that the suspect would, in the course of his burglaries, make himself bacon and eggs and listen to the radio, as, before he was nabbed, the then-unknown figure was dubbed the “Bacon and Eggs Burglar.” As for Doyle, Detective Watson told the Vanguard that the sportsman “is inclined to feel leniently . . . in view of all the circumstances and will probably await the outcome of [the examination into] Hawkins’ mental state.” The Los Angeles Times of that day cited his remark that “his burglaries were the result of an uncontrollable mania to steal and [he] insisted that he had not profited by them.”
The same day’s edition of the Los Angeles Express reported that, as the arraignment was scheduled for the 20th, the suspect “will be examined by three mental experts today in an effort to determine” whether the St. Mary’s game injury “affected his mentality” with respect to culpability for his crimes. Ryan told the press that the kick in the head left his client “unconscious for six hours” and that “a deep scar and a welt have only recently healed.” Police detectives, meanwhile, announced that Hawkins revealed the location of $20,000 in fur coats, while around 100 men’s suits, neatly filed in groups of ten, were also found. The Los Angeles Record, also of the 19th, observed that if the “mental kink” necessitated, Hawkins “will undergo an operation in an effort to correct the trouble.”
On the 21st, the Express reported on the display of Hawkins’ ill-gotten gains at the Wilshire station and noted that “so many persons whose homes have been looted appeared” that officials decided to extend the showing. The suspect was said to be “busy leading officers to additional loot,” including $7,500 in diamonds found in a palm tree and $4,000 in clothes in Fullerton, with a police captain remarking that the value was in excess of $100,000, adding that Hawkins was “the shrewdest second-story man captured in Los Angeles in 10 years.” It was also revealed that the spree was six months, not two, as some of the items returned to owners (Hawkins said he lacked the nerve to appear before them) was nabbed during the Christmas holiday of the prior year.
In its report on that day, the Times stated that north of 1,000 persons, including a half-dozen more identified victims, descended into the basement of the station, looking to identify the stolen loot, which it pegged as worth about $125,000, and the crowd convinced officials to leave the material out for the rest of the week. The items included the aforementioned jewelry and clothing, as well as coffee percolators, radios, silver, binoculars and opera glasses, golf clubs, suitcases and travel bags, flasks, blankets and, notably, a U.S.C. pennant, the last of which no one claimed. As to the diamonds, it was stated that Hawkins’ brother, Jimmy, facing a criminal charge for theft, hid those in the palm tree.
On the 22nd, the Express informed readers that Thelma Alexander Hawkins was on her way from Vancouver to assist the police as she “was requested to return ever gift Hawkins sent her” because it was asserted that stolen goods were profferred to her. It was added that his claim of mental aberration due to his injury was countered by a report that Hawkins, while secretary of the Montebello Chamber of Commerce, was investigated for robberies of the institution’s offices, though nothing further was mentioned about it. A new victim was mentioned, this being Pasadena resident and former Chicago police commissioner Charles R. Francis, who asserted that $15,000 in diamonds and a solid gold badge with jewels were taken by Hawkins from his residence.
In a brief editorial comment, the paper commented,
Said by police to be the “shrewdest second-story man captured in Los Angeles,” Johnny Hawkins, football hero, failed to meet his “friends” who gathered to “pick their stuff” out of his loot, valued at more than $100,000.
The “kink in his head,” which we are asked to believe was responsible for his downfall, didn’t prevent him from exercising good judgment in the matter of meeting the “friends” whom he robbed.
In its number of the 25th, the Express reported that Hawkins was charged with 31 burglary counts with the complaint disclosing that the dollar amount of stolen goods at around $100,000 and that “it brought out that many pieces of valuable jewelry were discovered buried near the roots of palm trees between Fullerton and Alhambra, in the branches of trees and in the eaves of a garage in Los Angeles.
The same day’s edition of the Record published a piece under the headline of “MENTAL EXPERT SAYS HAWKINS ‘NOT RIGHT'” with it noted that neurologist John Mand was to give a fuller examination, but, after spending an hour with Hawkins recently at the police station, he stated,
I found him normal and sane, but am of the opinion that blows on the head received during his gridiron career brought on a mental illness that caused him to commit thefts involuntarily. He told me that he never sold any of the loot and that he wanted to return it to the owners, but didn’t know how to go about it.
On the 25th, with assistance from friends, Hawkins posted $5,000 bail and a 2 July preliminary hearing was set before a municipal court judge. The next day’s Express added that Ryan waived a formal arraignment and that “this indicates that Hawkins desires to go into superior court,” which is where the case would have gone if the lower court magistrate held the hearing and remanded it to the upper court, “and plead guilty.”
It was another month when the Express reported, on 25 July, that the suspect “will plead guilty to several counts of burglary and throw himself on the mercy of the court when his case comes to trial” based on what Ryan stated to the press. It was added that the preliminary hearing was to come up on 9 August, after delays, but the attorney’s advice to his client was based on the assumption that “after several of the counts have been withdrawn” following that proceeding, the conditions would be right to issue the guilty plea.
On 23 August, Hawkins appeared before Superior Court Judge Douglas L. Edmonds and “pleaded guilty to five or more than a score of burglary charges . . . and was granted permission to file an application for probation.” The hearing for that request was scheduled for 13 September, with Hawkins, however, returned to police custody, and it was added by the Times of 24 August that “after a review of the evidence, the burglary charges were fixed as second degree, because Hawkins is asserted to have operated unarmed.” The account went on,
The question of a delicate brain operation upon Hawkins to relieve a pressure believed to have caused his criminal tendencies, is still undetermined, according to Attorney Ryan. The operation probably will be undertaken before long, he said, but the date has not been agreed upon.
On 3 September, Hawkins was visited by Ryan’s wife in the attorney’s room at the county jail “and was being escorted back to his cell when he fell suddenly before turnkeys could catch him” and he landed on his face on the concrete floor, “receiving a serious skull injury.” A deputy sheriff was attending to the prisoner when he “recovered and scrambled to his feet” and then was taken to the lockup’s hospital. There, Hawkins told a physician “he has been suffering from similar fainting spells for two years.”
Henry James, in his column published in the Torrance Breeze of the 7th was more than skeptical of this report as he commented,
Johnny Hawkins, convicted of a lot of burglaries and confessing to more, occasionally throws fits in jail. I admit not being deeply impressed by them.
During September, news came out about the issues involving Hawkins’ brother, Jimmy, and his alleged involvement in his brother’s crimes, much less the one of which he was accused. The siblings were photographed together in late September after Jimmy was nabbed in what was termed by the Times of 24 September as a “secret arrest” after three months of a “secret investigation” and was formally charged as being an accomplice of Johnny in a dozen crimes.
Moreover, the paper reported that Jimmy signed a confession, which “paints Johnny as a modern Fagin [an antagonist who controlled a band of young thieves in Charles Dickens’ novel, Oliver Twist], who at first implicated his younger brother in burglaries through subtle ruses that he was only calling at the homes of friends and taking articles that rightfully belonged to him.” The document purportedly stated that Jimmy realized what his brother was doing and that “Johnny became domineering and forced him to continue his activities as a burglar.”
There was also mention of a “startling phase” in the confession involving a mysterious woman said to be part of the crime spree, though nothing further came from this latter. It was also reported that the Hawkins brothers spent a week-and-a-half casing locations for crimes and this was said to undercut Johnny’s claim that, as paraphrased, “he was suffering from a mania to steal caused by [the] injury . . . and that he chose homes at random entering them upon impulse without preliminary planning.” Instead, police officials claimed, Johnny clearly showed “deliberate intent” and “a cleverly outlined campaign to protect his brother and himself from detection.”
Jimmy’s confession indicated that the siblings would choose possible victims while driving at random through areas and then learn about these people, in terms of identity and job, while also understanding their habits with respect to when they were or were not at home. This latter included days of calling the house to learn when the residence was unoccupied. Jimmy told officers that he waited outside, generally reading a paper, while his brother ransacked the dwellings. Officers determined that the siblings used their father’s car, with the younger Hawkins at the wheel, and it was added,
When this point was established, the witnesses were taken to an orange packing-house in Puente [just a mile or so from the Homestead] where Jimmy was employed and pointed him out to the officers as the man who was with Johnny on the day of the burglary.
When Jimmy was arrested, he’d taken a job with an oil company at Santa Fe Springs and was taken, secretly, to the Glendale jail, that city being where several crimes took place, before being transferred to an unnamed facility and, finally, to the county lockup. The next day’s Times, however, reported that “Jimmy sat in tears in the County Jail yesterday beside his brother Johnny . . . and sought to repudiate the confession.” He told the media, “I was so sleepy. They wouldn’t let me sleep for two nights and I didn’t know what I was signing.” Johnny added that his brother confessed to crimes of which he had no knowledge.
Three further burglary charges and one for receiving stolen property were filed in late September against Jimmy for crimes committed in La Cañada-Flintridge, Los Angeles and Pasadena and his arraignment in two separate chargings followed a little more than a week later and he was held on bail of $8,000, with Ryan, mentioned as a former deputy district attorney, serving as his counsel.
His trial, involving three counts each of burglary and grand theft, was held in mid-December and Ryan claimed that there was “a conspiracy between officers to block the plea of Johnny Hawkins by arresting his younger brother.” A sheriff deputy working in the county hoosegow testified hearing one of his colleagues assert that there was little evidence mounted against Jimmy, but this was denied by that other deputy.
Defense witnesses provided alibis for the younger Hawkins and Johnny took the stand to again insist that his sibling was not involved in his crimes. A jury took only 35 minutes to return a verdict of innocent and, given the notorious corruption and tactics of the LAPD in the period, it may well very be that Jimmy’s confession was coerced under tortuous circumstances.
As for the elder Hawkins, his fate was already determined, this having been done on 11 October and we’ll return tomorrow with the third and concluding part of this post, so come back and check in for that finale.