by Paul R. Spitzzeri
As the investigation into the August 1924 homicide of Theresa Weinstein Moers (Mors) entered its fourth day, a startling new element entered into the case, with the Los Angeles Times of the 16th posting a large blaring banner headline: “NEIGHBOR BARES MYSTERY CLEW IN MORS DEATH CASE.”
Iva Martin, whose unit was directly beneath that of Mors towards the rear, or north end, of the recently completed Nottingham Apartments (now the Richmond) south of Lafayette Park, told Los Angeles Police Department Detective Herman Cline in the office of her lawyers that it was just after midnight on the 13th, when she heard “an anguish-filled voice” of a woman above her beg “Oh, my God, don’t do that” three times, while a male voice, too muffled to make out the words, was heard next. Then, the final words from the female were, “Oh, my God, don’t do that. Oh, this will be terrible.”
A gunshot rang out, followed by a brief silence and then “the thump of a heavy body falling on the floor.” After another interval of quiet, Martin told Cline, “some one in the apartment was moving about, but stealthily,” and she added that, when she heard the gunfire, she got out of bed, turned on a light and saw the time: 12:05 a.m. Frightened, she darkened the room and waited, saying that, up the seven minutes later, she heard steps on the back stairs, near which was her bed.
What was striking, however, was that Martin was sure there were two sets of feet running down the stairs and out the back door. The witness went to her kitchen window and heard up to a dozen steps at that rear area that faded away. But, she saw a figure crawling on the ground and then rise only feet from where she watched behind a curtain—this was not, she averred, Norman Selby (Kid McCoy), Mors’ lover who was arrested for shooting and killing her after a quarrel and whose guilt seemed beyond a reasonable doubt.
She gave a detailed description of a man about 5’9″ with a thick waistline and without a hat, who appeared “drunk or entirely unnerved” as, after he stood up, he leaned against the building and remained there for several minutes before heading towards the front of the edifice at Leeward Avenue. Soon, she heard the grinding of the gears of a car (the parking attendant told the police that McCoy did this with Mors’ new Cadillac as he used the vehicle a few times that early morning) as it drove off. Martin was taken to the jail to identify McCoy, but positively stated that “McCoy is tall and stately. The other man was thick and pouchy. He was not a bit stately.”
As to why Martin waited three days to say anything, she said that “if anything serious had taken place that an investigation had certainly been made” and she wondered if a police officer was chasing someone. Then, she related that several weeks prior tenants in the building thought they heard a gunshot, but found no evidence of it, so “we joked about that among ourselves.” Still, Mors’ begging, the shot and the loud thump on the floor would appear to be obvious signs of a serious matter and, for three days, the news was filled with coverage of the case.
Of course, Martin’s detailed statement did not McCoy’s claim of Mors committing suicide at all tenable, yet, the Times headlined an article on the coroner’s inquest, “M’Coy Tale Gains Support,” as it began by reporting that evidence showed conclusively that the gun was held at close range or against her temple when fired. The county chemist, G.L. Walker, tested tissues at the wound site and found no powder, but it was added that, as autopsy surgeon Andrew F. Wagner earlier noted, smokeless powder in the bullet would account for that.
Notably, while Martin mentioned a neighbor, Mrs. A.A. Avery, hearing a woman’s voice and running down the stairs, this latter testified at the inquest and said the time was between 1 and 2 a.m., though she did not check the time, nor turn on a light and that she heard footsteps in a hallway or outside and it seemed to be one man, though she lacked the detail of Martin. There were also two couples, including one in a ground-floor unit at the Nottingham and another in the adjacent apartment building (still standing) to the west who heard a woman’s screams and a gunshot at around midnight.
Several other articles in the Times add further information and interest, including the insistence of his sister Jennie Selby Thomas that, despite her grand jury testimony that he confessed to having killed Mors, “the words of an irresponsible man can hardly be counted against him” because “he must have been under some influence when he came to me.” Another piece, concerning a meeting between Albert and Theresa Mors and a city prosecutor over their conflicts, which led to her defiance about her personal life, revealed that, in mid-July, McCoy, under the assumed name of “Nathan Stone,” was the subject of a complaint and arrest warrant for defrauding an apartment manager for unpaid rent.
More detail was also published regarding McCoy’s 3 a.m. appearance at a Hollywood police station, as he asked for the officer who appeared at the Mors’ nearby house and ejected the former boxing champion after the squabbling that took place. The desk sergeant was cited as relating that, after McCoy was told the officer was not on duty, “you tell him he’s lucky. He’ll know how lucky he is after reading the morning papers.” Despite these words and his drunken state, the retired pugilist was well-known at the station, so, as noted previously in this post, he was driven home in Mors’ Cadillac by an officer.
There was also more information from Samuel Schapp, one of three persons, including his wife, Anna, shot and wounded by McCoy during his spree at the Mors antique shop and the Schapp’s adjacent millinery. Just after Theresa and McCoy began their romance, the Schapps, close friends of the Morses, insisted she end the relationship, calling him a “fortune hunter,” while Schapp told the paper “he saw a beautiful, sweet woman, wealthy, lonely . . . she was so wonderful that I believe even that heartless creature loved her toward the end.”
Schapp added that Albert Mors, while running his metal company, became a private antiques collector and purchased so much of these on a European business trip, that he decided to go into that line. He also remarked that, when Theresa’ family in New York City heard about her dalliance with McCoy, they wrote her asking her to break it off, but she would not reply. On a visit to the Big Apple, the Schapps visited the Weinsteins, who asked them to write a letter on their behalf and this yielded a 12-page reply, the gist of which was not provided. But, Schapp recounted the conversation with Theresa the day before her death in which she told him “he would kill me. He has threatened to do so” if she tried to end their relationship.
As for the prisoner, he evinced clear signs of paranoia from the time officers took him to a Mexican restaurant in the Plaza area after his arrest and was concerned he’d be attacked in jail, though LAPD officials downplayed that expressed fear of his and were more mindful of a possible escape or suicide attempt. McCoy talked about writing his autobiography while in the lockup once he could get a typewriter, saying “maybe it will help someone else—I don’t know.” Loquacious about the long-past glories of his career in the ring, the accused killer clammed up when it came to any questions about Theresa or the shootings at and near her shop.
The Los Angeles Express began its coverage by noting that District Attorney Asa Keyes brought in mental health specialists to examine McCoy and the trio “subjected the ‘kid’ to a withering barrage of questions and scientific experiments to ascertain the caliber of his mentality” as Keyes hoped to forestall an insanity defense. An Army test and bright lights were among the tools utilized, but it was reported that McCoy “flicked back answers with the same cleverness that made him the prize ring idol of two continents twenty years ago.” These proceedings were conducted under strict secrecy and the results only to be made public if Keyes desired to do so.
While the coroner’s jury decided not to identify McCoy as responsible for Mors’ slaying nor did it determine that the incident was a murder or suicide, recommending that the D.A. continued investigating, Keyes was ready to seek an indictment of first-degree murder when the grand jury completed its deliberations. With respect to Iva Martin’s detailed testimony, the paper observed that this “serves to add mystery surrounding the case” but added that “detectives are convinced they have the slayer in McCoy” and these officers believed that the two men she saw were robbers disturbed in their work when they heard what happened in Mors’ apartment.
The Los Angeles Record informed its readers that detectives with the LAPD and DA’s office were seeking a “murder pal” of McCoy “working on information supplied” by the paper, though what this was specifically was not stated and a DA detective told the paper that the figure might be an accomplice or a witness. The paper interpreted Martin’s testimony as meaning that McCoy was the man who ran off to the north of the apartment building, but also remarked that his sister told authorities that McCoy said to her that he killed a man and that others would follow.
Another bit of news was that the office of LAPD Chief Robert Lee Heath received a letter in a blood-stained envelope by someone who professed to be Mors’ killer, but Cline, took no stock in it. An item of significance concerned the period when McCoy held prisoners at the Mors antique shop and pulled a photo of Theresa from a pocket and snarled, “I’ll about [sic] to go to the electric chair on account of you!” apparently referring to the Schapps.
While the verdict of the coroner’s jury seemed to somewhat buttress McCoy’s suicide claims, Keyes pointed out that “the verdict also included murder as a possible explanation” and added that “no exact cause was ascribed because of the circumstantial nature of the evidence.” There was, however, discovery of a bullet mark in woodwork in the apartment which led the conclusion that the shot was fired from the kitchen as Theresa lay on the couch, though Dr. Wagner testified to the jury that she was shot at close range.
As part of its dramatic approach, the Record included a short article titled “MORS, INCORPORATED! AND DEATH LURKED WITHIN,” as it recorded that,
Surrounded by glittering gold tapestries and gorgeous works of art, Gladys Barbieri [the firm’s vice-president and a close friend of Theresa] waits within the barred doors of the spacious antique shop opposite Westlake Park.
Occasionally she rises, paces the floor nervously, moves a picture, rearranges a table scarf; then returns to her place on the divan and waits.
She speaks in subdued tones to one of the clerks. She speaks of the weather, the furniture, the rugs, her friends. She talks of everything and everybody—except McCoy.
Will [Albert] Mors come to take charge of the store? She does not know. She waits.
The piece mentioned curious passersby looking in the from the street, with a few making comments, including one who noted the blood stained sidewalk and told a companion that the spot marked were McCoy “plugged” William G. Ross with a bullet as the latter tried to escape the shop.
Hazzard Page, whom the Record called a “practical psychologist” and provided similar “refreshing observations” on previous prominent local murder cases, offered his take on McCoy, noting that he was “in the sinister grip of an inexorable psychological Destiny” as “a cringing, dissipated and abhorrent figure behind prison bars” waiting for a capital crime to be formally charged against him.
Moreover, Page offered his impression that “the personality of this man [is] one of the most tragically dramatic figures that has ever stalked across the screen of public attention and interest” not to mention “one of the most illuminating demonstrations of psychological and psychiatrical [sic] urge influence and manifestation.”
To this specialist, McCoy was “the possessor of a distinctly dual personality” whose laser focus on pugilistic success brought “his first manifestation of psychosis, that of egomania, a superbly superior belief in his own abilities and possibilities.” The second psychotic component was “martial-paranoia,” which, Page asserted, “eventually developed the man into a sex-paranoic.” This meant that, instead of “love and tender regard” in his relationships, McCoy was consumed “by the egomania of conquest of [the] sex urge.”
The writer also remarked on the former champ’s ability to move into elevated social circles as “he graced the drawing rooms of up-town New York society admirers, where his suave and well modulated voice contributed seasoned and judicious comments to the conversations,” while he could easily move to “the honky-tonks and brothels of the red light district” and become a “hail-fellow-well met companion.” The analysis concluded,
Norman Selby did not artificially assume the protean characters he manifested, but instead, in the urge and impulse of his egomania he actually became, for the period of their manifestation the various characters he played . . .
his consciousness has been forever driven by his imagination to play a part, and he has lived in dreams until his destiny has overtaken him in its most sinister aspect.
Today, in his prison cell, this man is a victim of various psychoses and manias. A sex-paranoiac, an egomaniac and, finally, a homicidal maniac, he is utterly irresponsible, a victim of psychic characterization, dissipated intellectual energies and delusions supplemented by physical sex and alcoholic indulgences, a remarkable and tragically pathetic example of both physical and mental deterioration and decay.
Columnist Ted Taylor offered a short account of his one meeting with McCoy, which was a card game in which he was bluffed by a supremely confident antagonist and won all of 74 cents. What the point of the article was, other than that Taylor lost a hand based on a classic strategy is not entirely clear. Of more interest was a third editorial about the former boxing titleholder by Don Ryan, whose piece was titled “The Final Atavism of Kid McCoy.”
It begins with “the pitiful fact about Kid McCoy—about the Kid McCoy who sits in a wondering stupor, his hands like the hands of a girl, toying nervously with his belt buckle—is that all his religion has deserted him.” Consequently, Ryan noted, “the Kid is as naked as a baby. Naked and vulnerable. He knows it.” The famed smooth talker was long gone and it was added that he “has been drained of his soul’s blood” and the “draught all-powerful has turned to water in his veins.”
There was something of a parallel to Page’s psychological profiling as Ryan remarked that “his powerful ego sought and found abundant conquests” after his career in the ring ended. Additionally, his social climbing meant that among writers, musicians, royalty and others “the prize fighter was an initiate” in which “his tremendous vital force was the key; his veneer of civilization the visiting card.” The truth was, the columnist continued, that “inside, the Kid was abysmal—as abysmal as Jack Johnson or Jim Jeffries [other renowned boxing champions]. An intelligent Neanderthal, endowed with the talent of a mime.”
Despite McCoy’s aura in certain segments of society, Ryan held, “his life now became a paradox” as “physically he remained a primitive” with conquests of women unabated, “but on the mental side the Kid grew more and more religious,” though this apparently didn’t mean the traditional religion, but, rather, one of his own sense of superiority. The writer noted that “this dual personality is not so unusual. History is full of parallels.” Decline, though, followed and “his last bit of fame came as a movie actor,” but that ended and money no longer was easy to make.
While McCoy maintained strong desires, “ardent, flaming, masterful,” and directed for dominance, Ryan commented that,
The Kid was now ripe, ready for the beginnings of decay. He was past his prime. He had had his day. The love affair with Mrs. Mors was a deterioration. The last great affair—which the Kid pathetically called his only real love. Nobody would think of comparing the wife of the art shop proprietor with the women which the Kid had possessed in the past.
It came down to the view that “the conquering hero saw himself about to be robbed of his last love by a fat man who wobbled when he walked” as it was assumed Theresa would return to Albert, though the latter sedulously denied this. Ryan stated that “this final insult to his dominance could not be swallowed by a man such as Norman Selby has been.” Therefore, “out stepped Kid McCoy, the original savage,” which explained the brutality of the slaying of Theresa Weinstein Moers/Mors: “it explains the bullet wound, it explains her scarred body, and the trago-comic [sic] piezza furiosa on West Seventh street.”
This typically overwrought work by Ryan ended with:
But having once dropped his religion the Kid is helpless now. He cannot pick it up again. His staff and stay are gone. He can work no more cures, hold no more good thoughts. By his final atavism he has robbed himself of the chief things he gained by civilization. He is alone in his grief. And this is the pitiful fact about Kid McCoy.
It is remarkable, however, to see an editorial in the Hollywood Citizen, also of the 16th, as it addressed the media feeding frenzy embodied in the coverage of the Angel City papers. It assailed the fact that these sheets were dedicating such column space and ink to “the escapades of Kid McCoy” and “the sensational in overwhelming quantities of news stores and pictures concerning this decadent prize-fighter.”
The Citizen rhetorically wondered “do they do it because they feel the readers do not want it?” The answer it offered was “they do it because they feel that they will be able to bolster up their summer circulation through the increased sales that will result from the popularity of such use of the news columns.” The upcoming presidential election might hold some reader attention, “but when it comes to Kid McCoy, oh boy!”
The piercing piece ended with the remark, which might ring true for many over a century later:
Yes, if the newspaper managers are right, it is a sad reflection on the character of a people to believe that we demand this type of news above all else.
We’ll return tomorrow with part six and, hopefully, not with the “sensational in overwhelming quantities”!