by Paul R. Spitzzeri
After a trial of under two weeks in December 1924, four months after the shooting death of Theresa Weinstein Moers (Mors), for which ex-boxing champion Norman Selby, known in the ring and to the public generally as Kid McCoy, closing arguments were made by prosecutors and defense attorney to end the first-degree murder proceeding.
The Los Angeles Times of the 21st reported on the plan of the prosecution to attack McCoy’s claims that Mors committed suicide as a “crude fabrication,” while homing in on “numerous asserted discrepancies” in the defendant’s testimony at trial. Among points that were to be raised were his claim that Mors drank alcohol with him before the shooting, but the Los Angeles County autopsy surgeon found no traces of alcohol in her system, that Moers cried out when a knife she allegedly was using to stab herself hit her in the mouth, but witnesses in the apartment building her screams of terror not pain and that the shot immediately followed this, not after an interval as McCoy claimed.
Moreover, McCoy stated that the struggle between him and Mors took place in the living room, yet evidence was found to show that the fight happened in the kitchen. Notably, the prosecuting attorneys were to concede that some injuries on her body were caused by the knife in the battle, but were to posit that she grabbed the implement to defend against an attack by McCoy. He also insisted he never struck Mors, but a witness said she saw him do so, while McCoy was unable to explain a deep bruise found on Theresa’s jaw after her death.
The defendant also claimed that their struggle took place at one end of a couch, but it was clear that it happened on the other side, while his claims of blood running from her nose and ears were contradicted by police investigators and the autopsy surgeon. Additionally, McCoy testified that the shell from the bullet fired by the .32 caliber pistol landed in a given area of the apartment, but it was found elsewhere. An unidentified prosecution team member told the paper,
“Mc Coy [having heard evidence in proceedings] has taken those facts and shifted them around to benefit himself. He has used proved facts as the basis for his story. The general story sounds convincing . . . these minute details have proved the undoing of McCoy. He failed to consider them in weaving his defense.
As paraphrased by the Los Angeles Express in its edition of the 22nd, the defendant was “a graveyard ghoul who got down on his blood-stained knees beside the body of his dead friend and stripped away her jewels.” Lead prosecutor and future judge Charles W. Fricke told the court that “now this arch-murderer works a ‘loss of memory’ gag” and “he must not be allowed to get away with it and he must be sent to the waiting noose which he so surely deserves.”
Fricke’s elucidation of the discharge of the shell and its landing place, as directly contradicting McCoy’s account, was considered “a bombshell into the camp of the defense” and he thundered, “McCoy made up his suicide story when all other stories were denied him by the facts to which he must hitch his hodgepodge of lies.” The deputy district attorney shredded the defendant’s claims of being “paralyzed drunk” by his actions after the killing, from driving to the Mors residence, to seeking an officer at the Hollywood police precinct, to his rampage at the Mors’ store.
More significant perhaps was Fricke’s simple rhetorical question and response:
If Mrs. Mors was a suicide, why did he try to hide the fact of her death? Why did he not go directly to the police? It was because he knew that he was a murderer. Even the next day when McCoy was arrested, and a reporter told the police officer that McCoy had killed a woman, he had his chance to say it was a suicide. But he did not say it. He never told the suicide story until late that night after he had consulted with his attorney. He told it then because it was the only story he could tell without admitting the murder.
Fricke also pointed to the initial revelations of McCoy’s sister, Jennie Selby Thomas, which she modified at trial and continued that Thomas “admits she asked him who Mrs. Mors died,” and added “why, if Mrs. Mors was a suicide, did not McCoy tell his sister that she was?” Thomas let her brother leave the house “although she knew he intended to commit suicide,” so the obvious query was “would she have done that if she thought Mrs. Mors had died by her own hand?”
The prosecutor, however, assumed to understand the Mors’ fractured marriage and resulting divorce as well as his assumption that McCoy “was a type of man Mrs. Mors could never understand” and that “she couldn’t love him” because “no woman could” and that she was “attracted by his notoriety.” As for prior threats Mors may have made toward his wife, it was pointed out that “the day she was foully murdered she kissed her husband.” Lastly, it was noted that McCoy, seeing his meal ticket after being broke, printed cards for his “soft job in Mors, Inc.” and “McCoy posing like a artist, a lover of beautiful things in the art store . . . would have been like a bull in a china shop.”
The closing by Fricke also contained “a scathing criticism of the police detectives who gathered the evidence” as he told the court, “I am wholly unable to understand the conduct of the police . . . No effort was made to obtain the details of the crime when McCoy told his suicide story on the the day of his arrest.” He found it unfathomable that officers were at the death scene for two hours before the bullet wound was noticed or that the whisky bottle wasn’t located or that two officers gave conflicting accounts about where a blood-stained towel was placed. The deputy D.A. concluded, “I am sorry there were no real police officers on this case” and “the conduct of the officers who did investigate the case seems to me to be incomprehensible.”
When Jerry Geisler began his closing argument, he assailed Albert Mors and his relationship with Theresa, which led the voluble Mors to stand up in court and yell, “why didn’t you call me [to the stand to testify]?” The attorney told the jury that it was the state’s responsibility to do so, though, of course, the defense could subpoena any witnesses it wanted, provided proper notification was made to the prosecution. Geisler then claimed that calling Albert “would have placed the defense lawyers in the position of humiliating the husband of the dead woman,” which seems strange given that the opening of the argument was calculated to do just that, if not also to partially set the stage for an appeal, if a conviction was forthcoming. Eventually, the bailiff stepped in to get Albert to quiet down.
Geisler told the jury,
McCoy may not be a good man. You may censure him. You may believe him to be a moral leper. But this defendant is not on trial for any imperfections of manhood. He is on trial for murder, and that alone.
His client, the lawyer asserted, had no reason to kill Theresa, but “there was ample reason for Mrs. Mors to commit suicide,” meaning the seizing by government officers of alleged smuggled jewels, the conditions of the divorce and property settling and “Mors’s theft of her safe” as well as “threats to kill her.” Geisler then insisted that “if this man were the beast the prosecution will have you believe he was . . . he would have pumped her full of lead until every bullet had been fired,” though how this could be known is a clear question. In any case, the attorney ended with “persons who commit suicide never fire more than one shot,” as if this was a definitive statement as to what transpired that evening—Fricke observed that “persons who commit suicide do not scream.”
The Express added that Geisler tried to convince the jury that McCoy tried to stop Theresa from suicide, but it was a mere accident that, as he missed reaching for the gun, and the shot was fired, he was not hit. He averred,
If that had occurred we would today be trying a woman instead of a man for murder. And in that eventuality would that woman be pictured as an angel with a spotless personality by the prosecution? We know that she would not. Yet now that fate has decreed that a man stands before us in peril of his life, is it fair to drag out the history of his past and call him immoral?
Geisler remarked that McCoy offered his account “under the stress of questioning” by LAPD detectives but that this was “the true story of the death,” adding that “had her fabricated anything he would have fabricated murder, not suicide.” Beyond this, it was asserted, “Mc Coy would have placed the death pistol near the body and left the apartment, and you would today be trying another men for murder.” The lawyer contended that “valuable evidence . . . had been suppressed” and “facts had been deliberately clouded by the state.”
As to that other man, the Los Angeles Record, also of the 23rd, reported that faces, many called “murder fans” by another paper, in the packed courtroom turned to Mors when Geisler made the remark. When this happened, Albert seemed on the verge of yelling something, but, mindful of the bailiff, walked out of the room and into the hall where he complained about “that attorney taking such an unfair advantage of him.” Meanwhile, the defendant “seemed thoroughly to enjoy Geisler’s speech and at times smiled and nodded his head emphatically when his counsel made a point in his favor.”
The paper continued that,
A bettor with bloodthirsty inclinations can now get big odds that McCoy will not hang. On the other hand, the odds are just as great that he will serve some kind of prison term and will not be acquitted.
Fricke’s colleague, Charles W. Ostrom, mindful of the Yuletide season, invoked Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol and intoned “God bless us, every one,” as he offered his closing and also inquired, reported the Times of Christmas Eve, “unless we have law enforcement, what will become of us?” Ostrum characterized Geisler’s closing as a “camouflaged smoke screen” while he was paraphrased as telling the jury that the defendant’s testimonial flourishes “were cheap dramatics, learned by the defendant during five years of acting in motion pictures” and suffused with “crocodile tears.”
The deputy D.A. also ridiculed McCoy’s claims of physical helplessness in the struggle with Theresa, exclaiming.
This big burly brute couldn’t take the knife away from Mrs. Mors and couldn’t stop her from committing suicide! Look at him as he sits there. Note his size. Look at those muscles. That’s Kid McCoy, former middleweight champion of America, the man who licked every fighter in South Africa and one of the strongest men who ever entered the fight arena.
When it came time for motive, Ostrum offered the explanation simply and directly,
He was too old for the prize ring. He wanted a meal ticket. He had been a failure in everything he ever tried to do, and he wanted to live a life of ease on the fortune of Mrs. Mors. [Turning Geisler’s invocation of “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned”] Hell hath no fury like a human leech, a parasite on women, when the leech’s meal ticket is slipping!
Geisler returned to bring the proceedings to an end and returned to the prosecution’s claims that the suicide explanation was flimsy, asking,
If he had been fabricating this story wouldn’t he have moved the body to the couch? Would he have left the gun, the wills, the picture of himself? Would he have left the fingerprints on the bed clothing, the towels in the bathroom? Would he have gone to his sister’s home and given her the jewels? Would he have returned to town the next morning? If this was a fabrication he could have placed the body on the couch and called in the police. Then who could have proved that it was not suicide?
As to where the shell casing landed, the defense attorney shrugged that off by saying it could have hit a wall and landed where it was found, while he characterized testimony concerning bloodstains, McCoy’s purported fleeing of the apartment and the timing of the screams as heard by other residents as conjectural. With this, Judge Crail adjourned until after Christmas and the trial turned to jury deliberations.
In its number the day after Christmas, the Express under a blaring banner headline of “LONE JUROR BLOCKS M’COY,” reported that a ballot that afternoon found that (the recent case of Lindsay Clancy in Massachusetts comes to mind here) the vote was 11-1 in favor of acquittal, but a woman juror insisted on conviction. Crail gave the jury five options: two convictions for murder in the first degree with one calling for a life sentence and the other the death penalty; a second-degree murder conviction; one for manslaughter; and, acquittal. With the lone holdout, the jurist sent the jury back to deliberate and find a unanimous verdict.
The following day, reported the Record, a startling change took place as it was stated that there was a deadlock of 6-6, though this changed to a 7-5 for conviction by noon. It was noted that the lone juror from the first day was obviously pleased with the change, while “the women jurors known to lead the voting for the defense were very serious and their faces wore a disappointed look.” Meanwhile, one of the three male jurors reported to District Attorney Asa Keyes that “a mysterious voice over the telephone had sought to influence his verdict,” which led to an investigation, with one theory being that gamblers seeking to secure bets on the trial’s outcome were behind the jury tampering effort.
In its edition of the 29th, the Express informed readers,
Breaking all records in Los Angeles county for length of deliberation, the jury . . . was refused the privilege of returning a compromise verdict and sent back by Judge Crail for further deliberation.
The account went on to observe that “the proposed compromise verdict . . . would bring in a verdict of guilty of manslaughter” but “to this both the state and defense objected on the ground that such a verdict would abrogate the doctrine of reasonable doubt, to which the defendant, under the law, is entitled.”
The following day’s Times, however, reported that, after 78 hours of deliberation (the Clancy trial was less than half that time) and two dozen ballots, that compromise verdict was, after all, what brought unanimity to the jury, with a manslaughter conviction bringing a sentence of 1-10 years in state prison. The paper continued that “McCoy received the decision . . . with a feeble shake of his bowed head, with a few tears trickling down his ashen cheeks.” He bitterly remarked that the verdict might as well have been for first-degree murder as the manslaughter rap “makes me appear just as guilty.” Geisler opined that “there should not have been a half-way point . . . they were fagged [tired] out and wanted to get back to their homes.”
Ostrom felt that “it was a hard case to try” because of the theatrics in the courtroom, while the approaching holiday made the situation more difficult, as did the delay between the closing and the deliberations because of the approach of Christmas. Another member of the prosecution team, Edward J. Dennison merely remarked “the jury’s verdict is conclusive with me.” Juror Grace Kimpel told the press, “it was the best thing we could do,” adding “you can’t realize how tired we are from the strain,” while concluding, “all the members of the jury did their utmost to arrive at a proper verdict.”
There was, however, misreporting of the holdout vote in the early stages. Not only was it for acquittal of McCoy, not a conviction, but it was from John J. Appfel, who not only was the last juror to agree to the manslaughter verdict, but was the one who reported the phone contact to Keyes. An unusual article about what transpired behind the scenes, reflective of how different this case was than most, noted that, when others decided to vote for McCoy’s innocence, reasons included denial of Fricke’s claim that McCoy could not love Mors or other women, while “some liked his eyes,” and “his dramatic story on the stand brought a number over to his side,” as he and his team obviously considered when it was decided he would testify.
The tide turned to 10-2 for conviction when it was stated that a retrial might lead to a conviction and execution, but a manslaughter verdict would spare his life. A woman holdout soon switched and Appfel fell into line after insisting he would hang the jury, perhaps because he reasoned that he was saving McCoy by changing his vote.
It was previously reported, and confirmed by Fricke after the trial ended, that prosecutors would go to trial on the other charges of robbery and attempted murder against McCoy for his rampage at the Mors antique store. As the year came to a close, the obvious appeal motion by the defense was being readied. Mindful of what might be in the offing in an appeal or order for a retrial, Fricke told the Record of the 31st,
The jury reasoned soundly when it returned a verdict of manslaughter. The claim that Mrs. Mors was either murdered or was a suicide, is all defense propaganda. It will be much easier to convict McCoy of manslaughter than it was to convict him of murder.
In an editorial in its issue of the 30th, the Venice Vanguard remarked that “the manslaughter verdict is the enunciation of another compromise in one more court of justice” and added “few will quarrel with the McCoy verdict” with the assumption that he would “probably end his days in a cell.” This leads us to Tuesday and part twelve as we continue with the sentence, appeals and more about this fascinating and instructive case—please check back with us then!