by Paul R. Spitzzeri
After the domestic and commercial drama that marked the bitter divorce between antique dealers Albert and Theresa Moers, along with her lover, former boxing champion, Norman Selby, known as Kid McCoy, which included no small amount of light-hearted reporting by Los Angeles newspapers, came the shocking news of Theresa’s death, a rampage by McCoy and his arrest, though he claimed she committed suicide.
The Los Angeles Express of 13 August 1924 reported that she was died the prior evening and her body found in mid-morning by a porter in her apartment, while Albert was picked up in mid-afternoon on the 13th and taken in for questioning. As for McCoy, he was nabbed by police after he burst into the Moers’ antique store on Wilshire Boulevard across from Westlake (now MacArthur) Park and robbed and shot a trio at the business and then ran into the park, where he was captured.
At the apartment, in the newly opened Nottingham (now the Richmond) Apartments, west of Westlake and just south of Lafayette Park, it was observed that Theresa “was living in the apartment with Selby . . . under the name of Mr. and Mrs. M. Shields.” Around the same time, the paper went on, “a relative of McCoy” was in a detective’s office “expressing the fear and belief that McCoy had slain the woman and himself.”
McCoy, under questioning, told detectives that Theresa killed herself, with the paper adding that “evidence already found tended to corroborate this statement,” though what specifically was left unmentioned, yet it was stated that,
A note signed by Selby which, according to the police, strongly indicates that Selby, crazed by drugs, slew Mrs. Mors [the Los Angeles Times reported that Albert recently changed the spelling from Moers] and then wounded the three others in his mad, fruitless search for [Albert] Mors . . . whom he also intended to kill and then slay himself, was found at the Nottingham apartments. The note read:
“To whom it may concern: All my belongings to go to my mother, Mrs. Mary E. Selby, 6111 Mesa drive. NORMAN SELBY.
From a hospital bed recovering from a bullet wound to the leg, William G. Ross told the Express in a separate article of what transpired at the Moers’ store. He related how McCoy entered, forced him to take off his pants, took some cash and then fired when Ross sought to escape. Mr. and Mrs. Sam Schapp, who owned a millinery (hat store) in the adjoining single-story building next to the multi-level antique shop, were also wounded after the latter tried to flee after he was forced to take off his shoes, to prevent escape.
Albert Mors’ lawyer, Frank M. Andreani informed the paper that, on Monday the 11th, his client and Theresa signed an agreement requiring that “McCoy should remain away from the shop until the husband had finished work checking up on his property in the store.” The attorney added that “McCoy resented this and went gunning for Mors.”
In a “2nd Murder Extra,” the Los Angeles Record, also of the 13th and using the press photo featured here, remarked “Kid McCoy’s tenth romance was his last one” as it was positively stated that he killed Theresa before being caught ten minutes after the robbery and shootings at the antique store, though the paper said the location of his arrest in the street at 7th and Alvarado, off the southeast corner of Westlake Park. Aside from the gunshot wound that killed Theresa, evidently following an early morning quarrel that day, the paper reported,
Her body bore evidence of having been subjected to a terrific beating. Both eyes were black and blue and her lips discolored from blows. Apparently McCoy shot her on the divan in the living room and then dragged her body onto the floor. Her hands were folded across her breast and a picture of McCoy was clasped to her bosom.
It was added that “McCoy’s face gave every evidence of excessive and recent dissipation and apparently his mind had been dulled by alcohol or drugs,” though, when he was bundled into a reporter’s vehicle and driven to the Nottingham, he was calm when he told the journalist, “don’t worry, kid, don’t get excited, just calm yourself. I haven’t anything to say and I’m not going to attempt to start anything funny. You’ve got the best of it.” When he was ushered into the apartment, McCoy uttered, “he separated me from the only woman I ever loved,” presumably the man being Albert.
The Los Angeles Times of the 14th informed readers that McCoy showed up at his sister’s house at 2 a.m. on the prior day and simply told his sibling, “well, I just had to kill that woman. It was interesting that LAPD detectives took Mc Coy to “a little restaurant in the center of the Mexican quarter,” presumably near the Plaza and probably in Sonoratown to the north and, “over a huge bowl of soup McCoy opened his own account of the sensational affair.” At “the little Mexican cafe” and unprompted, he poured out his story in an incoherent manner, declaring,
I love her as I never loved a woman before. She is dead now, but I still love her and I don’t care what becomes of me. I was going to marry her just as soon as we could get things right side up again. Now this thing has happened and I can never be happy again.
It was added that he and Theresa moved into the Nottingham on the 7th, when Albert secured his divorce decree. He claimed all was well and they went out for a drive on the 12th, returning mid-evening, but “Teresa [sic] was very down-hearted and I was trying to cheer her up,” McCoy insisted. He asserted that she claimed she was going to end her life, reached into a drawer for a pistol and fired before he could stop her.
McCoy then remarked that after the shot was fired, he caught her in his arms and then placed her on the floor, where “she died with my arms around her and trying to speak to me.” He put a sheet over her and added his photo, a strange touch, to be sure, if true. within her folded arms. Being covered with Theresa’s blood, McCoy washed up and then “started out to kill Albert E. [A.] Mors, the man who caused it all,” but, apparently, he couldn’t find his target. All he would say about the two hours at the Moers antique store was that he was looking for Albert, though he added that “Mrs. Schapp started all the trouble.”
Anna Schapp was interviewed by police detectives and informed them,
I had quite a number of talks with Mrs. Mors about McCoy and urged her to leave him and break off all relations. I believe that she told him that she was going to leave him and that that is why he killed her and then mace [made] after us.
As for “explaining his wild actions,” the accused repeated over and over that “he was out of his head” and told officers “my lights went out when I saw Teresa dead at my feet.” Another strange explanation was that, while McCoy averred that the suicide was between 9 and 10 p.m. on the 12th, “he remained with the body for several hours and then went out on his hunt for the husband.”
Naturally, recounted the Times,
The police do not believe McCoy’s story. They say that he shot and killed Mrs. Mors in a fit of rage when he learned that she intended to break off her relations with him. They declare that then and in a fit of blood lust he set out also to slay the woman’s husband and failing to find him, opened fire on the people he blamed for Mrs. Mors’s change in attitude.
It was also reported that the assistant manager at the Nottingham heard a gunshot at about 2 a.m. At a mortuary, it was determined that there were no powder burns on her skin, while there was a deep gash on the left wrist and a part of her lip was “split through to the teeth.” The weapon was a .32 caliber revolver, with one cartridge exploded while two more were in a drawer with McCoy’s clothes and a book called “Basis of Marriage” was placed next to the aforementioned will while a record on the phonograph player was called “Parted.” Yet, a second will, dated 1 July, read, “this is my only will. I hereby leave all my property and personal effects to Mrs. Teresa Mors.”
Another revelation of note was that Albert Mors was headed to the antique store when McCoy showed up there, but his car broke down and he learned of his ex-wife’s death from newspaper hawkers on the street. He then headed to the office of his attorney, Andreani, awaiting a summons from the police. There was also more quotations from McCoy during his lunchtime accounting to detectives, including the remark that, “I didn’t want to live, but I wanted to take a few people with me.” His statement that he went to Albert’s Hollywood home was corroborated by a maid to the extent that a man showed up at around midnight.
McCoy also claimed that he drove Theresa’s car all night, asserting “I was going to kill myself, but I forgot” before falling asleep in the vehicle. When he awoke, he did some more driving and then headed for the antique shop to find Albert. He then begged, “let me take Teresa’s picture into my cell. I am 51 years old and expect to live for a long time, but I don’t think I will find another girl like Teresa. Please give me some more potatoes.” Refusing a dessert of peaches, the prisoner pulled on a cigar before being taken to the lockup.
More detail was published by the Times about McCoy’s suicide claim, as he related that he cooked a leg of lamb and they were eating when Theresa suddenly decided to kill herself and reached for a butcher knife to stab herself in the breast. He grabbed her and, during the ensuing struggle, it was stated, she slashed her wrist and lip before she saw the gun McCoy left on the dining table, took it and shot herself.
He admitted driving in her car for some time before going to his sister’s house in the Highland Park neighborhood, though he said “I don’t remember what I told her or how long I remained in her home.” As for drinking, he admitted “I did have a lot to drink in the afternoon . . . and then after she was dead I took a couple of great big drinks.” After hours of more questioning, McCoy stuck to his account.
The Times also reported on the situation with Albert Mors, who was described as “haggard, weary and apparently on the verge of a nervous collapse,” when he offered a statement, including his claim that he knew his wife’s affair with McCoy would lead to no good. Moreover, he disputed the insistence that he had anything to do with his ex-wife’s death, saying they were on good terms when last together.
The bizarre situation with the divorce continued recently, however, when the Morses dithered over a diamond ring he wanted back and a dog she prized that he’d put in a kennel, though that strange swap was consummated. When it was over, lawyer Andreani told authorities, Teresa gave Albert a kiss and, after meeting again at a bank to transact business, he invited her to lunch, though she demurred, saying “Selby is waiting for me in a car.” Lastly, Albert told how he was contacted by an employee at his store asking him to come in, evidently forced by McCoy to do so, but “it certainly was an act of Providence that I did not go” because his machine broke down on the way.
Elsewhere, the Times mentioned that Albert’s arraignment on the charges of robbery and threatening Theresa included his plea of not guilty, with a trial set for the 15th and a $2,000 bond provided for him. A special dispatch from New York City provided information that Teresa was employed as a stenographer in Albert’s wholesale metal business in the Seaport section of Manhattan near the Brooklyn Bridge, though, after their marriage, she helped run the business and was declared “a mighty clever business woman and contributed considerably to her husband’s success.”
The couple then opened an art dealing business near the Ritz-Carlton and then on Fifth Avenue, but the Ritz Art Company foundered and the Moerses migrated to Los Angeles to start anew, while it was commented that “a number of their customers here have been motion picture actors. A separate article went into great detail about what happened at their shop and it turned out that the Schapps decided not to enter the business when called for, but returned to their store. After Ross tried to escape and McCoy shot him, the latter walked out, went to the Schapp shop and shot the proprietors before leaving. At one point in the Moers’ business, McCoy told his prisoners “you’ll see my picture in all the papers tonight” and then said to Theresa’s lawyer, Louis S. Jones, “I’m going to call on you to defend me.”
Another strange twist reported by the Times was that the gun used in Theresa’s death was given to McCoy by Hubert Kittle, who was among 80 persons depicted on a 1923 photo collage called “Southern California Aviators” and which is in the Homestead’s collection. Kittle was an LAPD officer, daredevil aviator and a suspect in an Arcadia bank robbery before killing himself a couple of months before the Mors homicide.
A collage of photographs published by the paper included one of Theresa and a girl friend in bathing suits “when life was sweet;” a copy of the portrait of Selby, “when his [boxing] career was at its zenith,” found on her body; three of the uninjured prisoners of McCoy seated on a divan in the Moers’ shop as they explained what happened during those two hours of terror; the Nottingham Apartments register with the pseudonyms of McCoy and Theresa circled; McCoy posed with young girls in bathing suits on a beach with the remark, “women have figured largely in Selby’s life;” an image of comedy legend Charlie Chaplin clowning with McCoy and featuring an inscription “To the X Champ From another X Champ;” and a mug shot of a forlorn McCoy looking a far cry from the earlier dapper prizefighting champion.
We’ll return with part three and more media coverage from the day after the homicide, so be sure to check back with us tomorrow!