by Paul R. Spitzzeri
As the effort slowly evolved to extradite accused killers Gordon Stewart Northcott and his mother Louise from Canada to southern California to answer for the deaths of three boys at the Northcott ranch in modern Jurupa Valley in Riverside County and a teenager near the Homestead in Los Angeles County, the Los Angeles Times of 5 October offered some new information about Jessie Clark, granddaughter and niece of the two and whose brother Sanford was the critical witness in the matter.
Specifically, the paper reported that Jessie, whose photograph was published alongside the article, was questioned at length for a deposition which “contains startling information of more value than any deposition heretofore taken in this case.” While Clark’s narrative was to be made public as trial preparations continued, an official observed that “certain parts . . . might be made public later.”
Another question raised in the article concerned Gordon’s citizenship as it was noted that police officers in British Columbia “learned Northcott was taken to America when only 2 years of age, and shortly before his father, Cyrus G. Northcott, became a naturalized citizen of the United States,” so that it was understood “that young Northcott automatically became an American citizen.”
Moreover, as was done previously, when an arrest warrant from Los Angeles County, in the matter of the unidentified teen’s murder, arrived at Vancouver, Gordon was expected to be handed his suitcases, released from prison and, after a few steps taken, apprehended again. It was noted that these “cautious preparations for the peculiar Canadian technicality” were undertaken “to avert any attempt Northcott might make to either escape or do himself bodily harm.”
Even though it was previously reported that Los Angeles County law enforcement officers were to go to Canada for the extradition of the Northcotts, Sheriff William I. Traeger decided that Riverside County investigators Bert Kelley and Jim Quinn were to be “State agents” as representatives instead. The extradition documents from Riverside County, though, were still under review at Sacramento and then needed to go to the national capitals at Washington and Ottawa before an order to send them south could be undertaken. Those from Los Angeles County were still under local examination. Lastly, it was remarked that a cap found at Wineville was said by the mother of Lewis Winslow, one of the victims, to be similar to that which he wore.
The Los Angeles Record, also of the 5th, noted that the “blood-flecked cap found in a discarded suitcase, thrown in a Vancouver cemetery” was to go under further scientific testing, though it was added that “catching sight of the cap when [criminologist J. Clark] Sellers took it to her yesterday, Mrs. Winslow snatched it from the criminologist’s hand and cried: “It’s the cap I bought for Nelson. It looks like it.” Yet, it was added that, when Los Angeles Police Department detectives took another cap to Mr. Winslow several days prior, he gave a similar response.
Meanwhile, at Riverside, District Attorney Albert Ford and Sheriff Clem Sweeters told the press that “efforts to gradually ‘break'” Cyrus Northcott were “partly successful” with Ford stating,
The old man has given us surprising testimony. But we do not believe that he has told us everything yet. From what he has already told us, we are convinced that he is withholding additional facts. He will be given another opportunity to talk and I am positive he will take full advantage of it.
The Record, an evening paper whereas the Times was a morning edition, added separately that the Riverside County extradition papers were forwarded by California officials to the Secretary of State at Washington that day, where they were to be given further review before transmittal to Ottawa.
The Los Angeles Express was distinct from its rivals in being more willing to embrace the dramatic and sensational, shown in its number of the 5th when it ran a banner headline of “Fear Plot to Rescue Northcott” and told readers that “threats that Gordon Stewart Northcott, master of Wineville’s so-called ‘murder farm,’ will never reach California for trial.” This led Los Angeles County Sheriff homicide squad captain, William Bright, to consult with the county’s district attorney, Asa Keyes, on a plan to immediately send officers to Vancouver to ensure that no attempt to free Gordon from custody was undertaken.
Kelley and Quinn, the sole guards of Northcott on the southern journey during extradition, were concerned that Gordon was willing to waive an extradition hearing before additional authorities were sent to Canada so that it would be easier to engineer an escape. Bright, to augment his Riverside colleagues, hoped that Keyes would allow him and deputy D.A. Thomas Menzies, who was an international law expert and would appear in the hearing, to leave the next day to forestall any such thoughts.
In Riverside, meanwhile, there were reports that “a group of . . . citizens planned to take ‘justice’ into their own hands, saving their county the costs of a lengthy murder trial.” This was redolent of vigilante actions in the region during the mid-19th century when extralegal hangings were conducted with this purported justification.
In the Times of the 6th, attention shifted in a piece by staff representative James M. Kendrick, to Louise Northcott (called “Louisa” in the article) and the issuance of a statement by her that Kendrick wrote meant that “under no circumstances will she see or talk to Riverside authorities.” She was quoted as remarking, while stating that she was content with her three meals daily, adequate sleep and relative freedom in the women’s section of the Calgary jail,
I have had nothing to say about this matter yet and I don’t propose to do so . . . I am not going to be unnerved by interviewing [from] any of these California people . . . I am told [Gordon] is not allowed to read newspapers and has no means of passing time away. That is terrible for my poor boy.
Louise’s seeming insouciance stood in contrast to reports that her son was “sullen and rapidly breaking under the strain of his confinement.” Calgary’s police chief was cited as stating that “removal of Mrs. Northcott . . . to Vancouver in order to have a joint extradition with her son, will be bitterly opposed by him and his office” as he insisted her hearing take place in his city, given that she was arrested in Alberta.
It was also reported that her extradition papers were expected to arrive in Calgary prior to those of her son in Vancouver and Kelley and Quinn were expected to travel to the former for a proceeding. Gordon’s barrister Frank Lyons expressed hope he could get Louise to voluntarily go to Vancouver, but the Riverside investigators were skeptical of the likelihood of such an arrangement.
A local barrister representing Riverside County added “I can’t understand how an American court could prolong such an obvious heinous mess as this affair for a period of thirty days or more” in a blunt criticism of Canadian officials. It was added that there were expectations for American Department of State approval within a couple of days, which, it was noted, would allow local officials to move to get extradition expedited.
In its edition of the 6th, the Record focused on the report that “the person who is believed to have helped Gordon . . . escape from his Wineville murder farm under the eys of federal immigration officers and make his flight to Canada was being hunted” by Bright’s team. It was commented that these deputies, Abel Mendoza, José Ybarra, and José Sepúlveda “have obtained the man’s name and expected to capture him today to clear up the remaining mystery of the supposed Northcott murders,” suggesting, of course, that the investigation was all but complete.
The trio added that this individual “was an accomplice with Northcott in the mistreatment of a number of boys” and Bright added, “he has been arrested for offenses against boys and lived in the vicinity of the Northcott murder farm.” The account went on that, as immigration officers arrived at the ranch and took Sanford Clark into custody while Northcott vanished into “desolate waste land,” they “looked back from an elevation and saw an automobile drive part way up to the Northcott’s house . . . this car sounded a horn once and then turned and drove rapidly away, supposedly with Northcott.
It was added that the alleged accomplice “was once prominent in the Pomona and Spadra [now part of southwest Pomona] district, where he taught school,” but “as his moral character became known on police records, he was dropped from the respect of the community and disappeared.” Separately, another unidentified man, said to have been involved in crimes with Northcott at a mountain cabin in Big Bear Canyon, was to be remanded to the custody of the San Bernardino County sheriff “for prosecution as a molester of boys.”
Also on the 6th, the Express offered its banner headline of “Hunt New Northcott Club Members,” as it was asserted that there was “a second ‘murder farm'” and “actual burial ground of . . . alleged victims” in Big Bear Valley, where officers from Riverside and San Bernardino counties were searching for clues. Meantime, LAPD detectives Ellsworth Hamren and Chester Lloyd “began a roundup of all known degenerates, many of whom are reported to have been members of a ‘club’ reported to have been formed by the accused slayer.”
This included Ernest Baker, connected to a Los Angeles City Council member, of Highland Park, who, it was stated, was accused by two high school boys of molestation, but he denied this and any tie to Northcott. Hamren, it was reported, found a photo of a young man in Baker’s bank book and “this photograph resulted in admissions by a number of youths, students in two high schools, that they had been taken to Baker’s cabin and there abused.” In turn, LAPD chief of detectives Herman Cline “ordered the ‘vag[rant] suqad’ to round up every known degenerate in Los Angeles” for questioning about Northcott and the asserted club.
The only reporting in these three major Angel City papers on the 7th was from the Times and Kendrick, which referred to a lengthy deposition given in Vancouver by Jessie Clark to Kelley and Quinn, in which she told them that her uncle “boasted of a ‘Hollywood tie-up’ and warned her,
I have a friend that can take care of everything if I get into a jam, so you keep your mouth shut if you happen to know anything.
The account went on that Jessie met with investigators over portions of three days and “her story never varied.” It was anticipated that, within a few days, she would start for southern California to join her brother Sanford “as a principal State witness.” Another reference to her deposition concerned that she “declared her uncle often boasted of having cut up his victims and burned them in a fire on his Riverside [area] chicken farm.” While Kelley and Quinn, obviously, had to limit what they revealed from Jessie’s interviews they stated that her deposition comprised “one of the most important documents” they’d ever assembled.
Despite concerns of what Northcott might do when briefly released pre Canadian law, as noted above, District Attorney Keyes decided “not to send men from [Los Angeles] to aid Riverside authorities” nor to take part in Gordon’s transfer to California, following a discussion with members of his staff and Captain Bright. Kelley and Quinn were believed to be a sufficient force in the process, while Bright stated that the case against Gordon was considered complete and no further investigations were to take place before a trial.
At Riverside, however, officials these averred that there was new evidence that the Winslow brothers were “held prisoners on the ranch and killed as related by Sanford Clark . . . when a piece of board was found near the ranch house on which had been traced the model of a yacht.” The names “Albert” and “Lewis” were written in crayon and it was remarked that “the Winslow boys are said to have made numerous yachts similar to the design.”
Further investigation was undertaken as to the vanishing of a 13-year-old San Diego boy, as well as the escape of a Norco boy who “was picked up by Northcott last February and taken to a spot on the Pedley highway [just east of Wineville],” but he jumped out of the car “because of heavy traffic on the road.” Lastly, delays on searching a sewer sump along the Santa Ana River, which runs south and east of the Northcott ranch, were continuing as a search for more evidence was desired there.
With the investigations winding down, the focus largely shifted toward the extradition process, which continued to be slower than officials publicly professed, so we’ll continue to wend our way through media coverage in the trio of Angel City newspapers on that front as well as the paramount role to be played in the prosecution by the Clark siblings. Check with us tomorrow for part four!