by Paul R. Spitzzeri
After Albert Dewey Gaines, wanted by the Orange County Sheriff’s Department, as reflected in the poster that is the featured artifact from the Homestead’s artifact collection for this post, for the murder of bond broker Joseph J. Patterson in Santa Ana Canyon in the remote northeastern portion of the county, was arrested at Great Falls, Montana, and returned to Santa Ana, the process of holding his preliminary hearing was delayed because of the trial of his accomplice, Philip A. Goodwin.
This was especially because Gaines was the prime prosecution witness against his former partner and we’ve observed the version of events offered by Gaines as he claimed he was driving back to Los Angeles when Goodwin ordered him to stop in the Canyon, asserting that he had friends who would take in an inebriated Patterson, deemed incapable of returning to the Angel City, for reasons that were unstated. It was then, Gaines claimed, that Goodwin returned alone and brusquely brushed off questions as to Patterson’s whereabouts, while, after leaving the scene, Gaines stated that he saw smoke rising where the dead man’s corpse was set afire to prevent identification.
Upon returning to Los Angeles, the two men divided proceeds of about $2,000 realized from the sale of Julian Petroleum Company stock taken from the deceased, though there were conflicting accounts of how that was handled and why more money went to Goodwin than to Gaines. The latter then headed back to his home state of Utah, while the former, an actor as well as an ordained priest with the American Catholic Church, which was not connected with the Roman Catholic denomination, traveled to New York City, apparently to perform a play to raise funds for a Los Angeles church building.
In July, Goodwin was nabbed by Big Apple authorities on suspicion of the Patterson murder and returned to Orange County, with a first trial held in the fall, leading to a death penalty conviction, which was overturned by the California Supreme Court, and a second trial following early in 1928, with a second conviction bringing a life sentence, as discussed here previously. After Gaines’ arrest in Montana, he was returned to Santa Ana and confined in a cell at the county jail across the facility from his former partner.
In November, prior to Gaines’ preliminary hearing and after Goodwin was convicted and sentenced to execution, a letter was produced by Kitt Gould, the latter’s defense attorney from a “J. Mackelbride” claimed that Patterson, who the writer said he knew previously, was accidentally killed as part of a “drunken orgy,” at which Goodwin was not present but Mackelbride was, when he was in front of Gaines’ car and was hit by it, and then the skull fracture came as Patterson slammed to the ground, as the driver was apparently unaware of where he was at the time. The story continued that Gaines was afraid, because of his criminal history, to go to a hospital and thought Patterson could be revived with heat, so the body was put in the car and, on the way to Los Angeles, a stop was made in the Canyon.
Mackelbride asserted that Gaines told him (much as Gaines, in his telling, said Goodwin ordered him to do) to drive the car back to the road. Purportedly, when the heat treatment was attempted, gasoline spilled on an already-dead Patterson and his clothes caught afire. The duo then headed back to San Diego and split up, meeting in Los Angeles later the same day. Further, Mackelbride added that Gaines, a convicted forger, told him he had the Julian stock from Patterson to have Goodwin sell for him when they all returned to Los Angeles.
As already related, however, Mackelbride skipped out on a planned meeting with Gould and Orange County District Attorney Alexander P. Nelson, though Gould said he tracked the writer down in Missouri before Goodwin’s second trial and claimed he could produce him for that proceeding or a clemency hearing before the governor. Gould, however, was fired by Goodwin and Mackelbride, whoever he was, was not mentioned again and the actor-ex-convict-priest was convicted that second time.
It took just 10 minutes before Justice of the Peace Kenneth E. Morrison, who also heard the prelim for Goodwin, for the case against Gaines to be laid out on 15 December, with his counsel, George Halverson and Otto A. Jacobs, making a deal with prosecutors to basically use the Goodwin material in Gaines’ hearing, excepting handwriting analysis and testimony by expert Milton Carlson, because the documents in question were assumed to have been written by Goodwin, despite Mackelbride’ assertions otherwise.
Deputy District Attorney David G. Wettlin commented that “this stipulation saves the time and expense of calling these witnesses” who appeared at the Goodwin prelim, and the Santa Ana Register observed,
Gaines was in court today with his attorneys, nattily dressed in a dark blue suit and immaculately groomed. His attitude exuded confidence and he seemed utterly free from worry. It is known that Gaines and his attorneys feel satisfied that Gaines cannot be convicted.
The other point was his appearing as the star witness in Goodwin’s recent trial and it was claimed by Gaines that he made an advantageous deal with the prosecution in exchange for his testimony, though what this constituted was never publicized. His lawyers sought dismissal of the charges after the preliminary hearing, but Justice Morrison denied the motion and held Gaines to answer at a trial before the Orange County Superior Court, even as Halverson and Jacobs threatened to file a habeus corpus motion claiming the illegal detention of their client.
Moreover, the attorneys pled that, if the court accepted Gaines’ version of events as true, then he must, necessarily, be innocent of Patterson’s murder and, therefore, freed. If his testimony was not believed, they went on, there was no evidence to tie their client to the killing. Either way, they asserted, “there was no ground for holding Gaines to trial.” Goodwin’s conviction, they went on, was all that was needed for a ruling in Gaines’ favor. Additionally, Jacobs reminded the court that Wettlin made a remark about his uncertainty of finding Gaines guilty if he was a juror, this a rather striking comment for the deputy D.A. to make publicly.
Wettlin sought to dismiss this by averring that his statement “is a matter with which we are not concerned here” and that it was not his place “to say whether Gaines is guilty or innocent,” but enough that “I do not know that he is innocent.” Until he could determine this, “it is my duty to demand that he be held to trial.” He then lobbed the ball over to Morrison by intoning that “unless this court can say he is innocent, this court cannot well turn this man loose.” Besides, Wettlin noted, Gaines admitted being present when Patterson was murdered, so there was probable cause for his guilt.
As for Goodwin, the Anaheim Bulletin of 8 November 1926 reported that,
A desire to protect his own accuser, Albert Gaines, which impulse may cost him his life, will be urged by the Rev. Philip A. Goodwin, when he appears for [his] death sentence before Superior Judge E[merson] J. Marks tomorrow, as grounds for granting him a new trial.
The American Catholic priest is ready to toss a bombshell into court, he said today. He declared he can and will produce witnesses who were purposely kept off the stand in Goodwin’s trial in order to save Gaines from hanging.
The priest’s humanitarian impulse has fled, he indicated today, and he is now ready to turn the broadsides of truth upon Gaines, his co-defendant [they were, of course, tried separately] in the charge of murdering Joseph Patterson. By doing this he hopes to acquit himself.
On this basis he will press his motion for a new trial.
District Attorney Nelson, soon to return to private practice, was less than impressed by these remarks as he remarked that California statutes required any new evidence to be “material” and, besides, of a character that was not able to be presented at a first trial “though exercising due diligence to do so.” Nelson asserted that “Goodwin says he has this evidence and didn’t produce it [at his trial]” so “it is disqualified, so far as a new trial is concerned.” As was already mentioned here, however, the state high court did end up ruling that a second trial was warranted based on new evidence it felt was worthy of consideration.
As 1926 neared its end, Gaines was arraigned, with the Register of 28 November informing its readers that Superior Court Judge James L. Allen was to preside and set the proceeding for 11 January 1927, even though Jacobs requested a delay so he could confer with Halversen about “what dates would be convenient” for the latter. Allen went ahead and put the 11th on the calendar, but allowed two additional days for contingency purposes. When Deputy District Attorney Kennith H. Burns commented that the trial would likely take a week, “the court indicated that, in such an event, the court calendar would be cleared to give the murder trial right-of-way.”
With respect to the defendant, the paper observed that,
Apparently unperturbed by his situation and having an air of being perfectly at ease—he wore carpet slippers—Albert Dewey Gaines was arraigned today . . . [After the proceeding] Gaines then shuffled out of the courtroom in his carpet slippers and was led back to the county jail by two deputy sheriffs.
As 1927 dawned and with new figure at the head of the D.A.’s office, the Bulletin of 7 January reported, “faced by a rather staggering array of important criminal prosecutions at the very gateway to his term of office, District Attorney Z]ephaniah] B. West, Jr., today announced that the trial . . . has been postponed from January 11 to March 24.” West noted that he needed additional time to prepare for the proceeding and had two other high-profile cases to which to attend. More strikingly, the new D.A. was paraphrased as stating, “he is not fully satisfied that the Gaines case should go to trial, and that he desires more time in which to decide upon the proper course with reference to it.”
The paper reiterated Gaines’ preeminence in securing, through his detailed testimony, deemed by prosecutors to be reliable, not to mention voluntary, the conviction of Goodwin. Beyond this was the important remark that,
The prosecution, it is said, has little evidence against Gaines other than his own story, and the Gaines defense, it is known, is confident that no conviction can be secured. Aware of the possible weakness of the prosecution’s case, District Attorney West desires time, he says, in which to delve into the case thoroughly and decide whether a trial would be justified or would be a costly waste of public money. The defense [naturally] agreed to postponement and [of course] waived the legal time limit specified for [the] setting of trial dates.
As the previous part of this post observed, the first of February found Goodwin and his attorneys peddling new purported evidence regarding a letter from Ohio, subscribed by someone identified only as “A.K.K.K.,” meaning “Ku Klux Klan,” that was another attempt to absolve the actor-priest, as well as that Gaines was said to have pawned a diamond ring taken from Patterson’s body. This led to a strong rejoinder from Gaines, who accused Gould of having “bribed someone to represent himself as this self-styled writer of underhand letters, Mackelbride,” and discountenanced the “K.K.K.” missive, while adding “I dare his honor as a lawyer to produce him in person,” though he declined to address the matter of the stolen ring.
Although West may have had his doubts about the Gaines case, his deputy, Lewis W. Blodget, was assigned to the matter and, noted the Register of 7 March, “has reached a decision after weeks of close and arduous study of it,” telling the paper,
We will place Gaines on trial. We believe he is guilty and we would not feel right if we did not try him. Further, we believe that there is a real prospect of convicting him, though due consideration must be given to the obstacles before us.
The obvious was stated: only Gaines or Goodwin “saw Patterson die” and it was striking to the original prosecutors that the former voluntarily admitted culpability by being present in the Canyon, while the latter claimed that he was in San Diego. Of course, Gaines could very likely have acted pre-emptively to save his skin, knowing full well that first-degree murder involved a death sentence. For Goodwin, his only opportunity for acquittal was to deny being present and placing the blame on his partner. Otherwise, problematically, there were no witnesses.
As for the Mackelbride letters, it was commented that “Blodget is not giving [them] a thought,” and whatever issues stood in the way of a Gaines conviction, the deputy D.A. “gives the impression of being undaunted by them” and uttered his announcement “in a tone that reflected not only determination, but confidence.” While it was reported that Goodwin and his lawyers were readying for argument before the state Supreme Court and there were views that the high court would quickly render a decision, but it turned out this was not the case, and nothing came from the jurists until near the end of the year.
In its edition of the 11th, and with the Gaines trial to commence in a few days, the Register informed readers that,
The prosecution is whetting the final keen edge upon its battle plans, while the defense is looking to its bulwarks to guard against possible crevices in the ramparts. The trial promises to be one of the most bitterly fought in the history of the county . . .
Gaines, the “Utah cowboy” [a title he sedulously discredited] is as colorful a figure as the actor-priest, say those who have observed both. Young, handsome, well dressed, Gaines is a personality made to order for the sentimental “sob sisters,” court attaches think. They predict [he] will receive as many flowers during his trial as rumor credit to the Rev. Mr. Goodwin, who was said to have been marked for homage for several Hollywood film actresses.
Concerning the battle plans of the contending legal knights, the paper remarked that the prosecutorial team “betrayed a reticence” mirrored by Jacobs, a Santa Ana barrister, and his Angel City associate Halverson, though it was concluded that both sides “will disclose their strategy” once the proceeding commenced.
Apropos of which, we will halt here and return with a concluding part five, looking at the Gaines trial and its aftermath, including his remarkable continuation of a true “hard case” criminal until his ignominious end just about three decades later. Check back with us for that conclusion!