The Raymond Ripper: The Brutal 1906 Murder of James Logan

In 1906, the mutilated body of young sales clerk James Logan was discovered on Southern California’s grandest resort hotel, The Raymond. When an African American tailor was accused of the crime, the city’s allegiances split. Half of the city of Pasadena wanted the man condemned to death, but the other half fought to save him, believing he had been framed.

Sources:

Biery, Bryan. “The Princes: Pasadena’s Regal Family.” Colorado Boulevard Newspaper. 12 March, 2024. https://www.coloradoboulevard.net/the-princes-pasadenas-regal-family/

Lindquist, Heather. “‘Exploring Pasadena’s Past’- The Heart of Pasadena’s Communities of Color.” Pasadena Museum of History. 18 June, 2022. https://pasadenahistory.org/exploring-pasadenas-past-the-heart-of-pasadenas-communities-of-color/

Liu, Yan. “A full moon in another land: The Moon Bridge in the Japanese garden of the Huntington Library.” Frontiers of Architectural Research Vol. 9 Iss. 3, September 2020. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2095263520300182#abs0010

Most of this episode consists of original research, drawn from the newspapers listed below.

Newspapers: 

California Eagle

Liberator (Los Angeles)

Long Beach Tribune

Los Angeles Evening Express

Los Angeles Evening Post Record

Los Angeles Herald

Los Angeles Times

Pasadena Star News

Pasadena Post

Sacramento Daily Union

San Francisco Daily Call

South Pasadenan

South Pasadena Record

Music: Edvard Grieg's 1906 'Butterfly' is this episode's background music. Credits to Holizna, Fesilyan Studios & Virginia Liston. 

For more information, visit www.oldbloodpodcast.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:11

If you traveled to Southern California around the turn of the century, odds are you would find yourself in Pasadena at the Raymond. Pasadena is famous today for the rose parade that streams nationwide every New Year's Day. But in the 1890s, the city was renowned for its resort hotels. People from all over flocked to Pasadena for the salubrious climate, hoping the sunshine would cure them of all ills. Some travelers checked into sanatoriums to recover from whatever ailed them, but the healthy made their way to one of Pasadena's many luxury hotels. The grandest of them all was the Raymond. It was first known as the Royal Raymond, a 200-room hilltop castle with acres of gardens to stroll, from the wild orange groves to the manicured cactus gardens. But on Easter Sunday of 1895, an ember from one of the hotel's two dozen chimneys burnt through the hotel and raised it to the ground. Luckily, no one was hurt, and hotel owner Walter Raymond decided to rebuild the hotel as just the Raymond, which opened in 1901. The new Raymond was in the same spot, according to Walter Raymond, the finest located hotel in the world. Depending on the time of year, hotel guests could look in one direction to see these snow-capped mountains, and then to the other for a view of the Pacific Ocean. The Raymond's backyard was the San Gabriel Mountains and a view of the growing city of Pasadena below. In the front yard were sloping hills of orange groves that led to South Pasadena. Much of the landscape had been turned into gardens and little hiking paths, but by 1902 a large part of the front yard became a golf course, the only hotel in California to have one at the time. All the biggest East Coast names checked into the Raymond when it reopened. Families like the Pullmans, the Rockefellers, who liked playing golf on the grounds, the J.P. Morgans, and the Carnegies. President Theodore Roosevelt visited Pasadena in 1903 as part of his Panama Canal campaign, and his first stop was to have lunch at the Raymond. But this is California, and actors like Charlie Chaplin got a lot more attention than the president when he later visited the hotel. Manuel Borquez came from the other Pasadena. There was the Pasadena of millionaires, and then there was the Pasadena that the rest of its residents experienced. Manuel was not some East Coast millionaire who relocated to SoCal in a huge mansion along Orange Grove. In fact, he was a single laborer who was born in Mexico and migrated to California and managed to get a job at Pasadena's Raymond Hotel. On May 19th, 1906, Manuel was employed as a caddy and was patrolling the Raymond's golf course looking for stray balls. He was walking on the golf links about a half mile south of the hotel when he saw a curious-looking mound at the bottom of a ravine. The golf links were usually impeccably maintained, with not a blade of grass out of place, so it was odd to see a lump of grass and debris piled up. Manuel scrambled down the grassy slope and approached the mound. Not a minute later, Manuel was running back up that hill across the golf course and down to South Fair Oaks Avenue, where he encountered a crew of laborers repairing some car tracks. Manuel was out of breath, but managed to gasp that there was a dead body on the Raymond's golf course, and from the looks of it, it was murder. I'm your host, Elise, and this is the historical true crime podcast, Old Blood. The body on the Raymond Golf Lynx was twenty four year old James Logan. A Pasadena constable who arrived on scene recognized him immediately. Some newspapers said that Logan was black, others called him a mulatto. One paper used the term dragoon, meaning he was one quarter black, and yet another paper said that he was an Octoroon, meaning he had one black great grandparent. There are no surviving photos of James Logan, but from these descriptions we can infer that he mostly looked white, but it was clear that at least one of his ancestors was black. Pasadenians treated him accordingly. Logan was employed as a sales clerk at a luxury store in downtown Pasadena. The Marsh family was famous for their love of Japanese art and collectibles. They were all born in Australia, but fell in love with Japanese culture during a brief stay there on their way to California. One of the Marsh sons set up a Japanese art repository in San Francisco, which was so successful that the family began to branch out. Victor Marsh opened his own curio store in Pasadena on the corner of Green Street and Raymond, titled Marsh's Japanese Art Store. The store catered to the Pasadena elite, who were interested in decorating their mansions with oriental styles that had recently become popular. Thus, Marsh needed a salesman who was amiable and polite. Marsh liked James Logan, which was why he employed him in his store. Marsh described him as sober, steady, and reliable. The Los Angeles Herald explained how Logan's position at the store, quote, brought him in contact with the best people of Pasadena, as well as hundreds of tourists who bought goods there, end quote. He had developed excellent taste in his years of working for Victor Marsh, and became a connoisseur of sorts for the shop and its customers. James Logan often attended church and had a beautiful singing voice, which he often employed for charity. Logan was always well dressed and probably quite attractive too, as he was popular with the ladies. He was well educated and charming, and Marsh's customers took a liking to him. He was known around Pasadena for being an honest man and well liked by all. But Logan was also known for his always hanging out with white folk. Logan's mother, Laura Young, lived in Los Angeles with his sisters. She had since remarried after Logan's father's death. When Logan's death was announced, the papers felt it necessary to tell everyone that she looked just as white as her son did. According to the Los Angeles Herald, Logan was, quote, so nearly white that he was usually taken for a white man by customers. Because let's be real here, it is unlikely that Victor Marsh in 1906 would have employed Logan in his luxury store if he hadn't looked mostly white. And from the moment Pasadenians learned Logan had been murdered, they all began to speculate that it was because of his skin color. He was sort of white, but also not, and yet he was connected to some of the white women of Pasadena. The San Francisco Call reported on the murder, commenting, quote, Logan, who was a handsome youth, had been attentive to many women, and jealousy and revenge are said to be the most likely theories advanced as to the cause of the crime. End quote. A month before Logan was murdered, a Chattanooga mob lynched the innocent Ed Johnson after he was wrongfully accused of raping a white woman. The lynching was so atrocious that the U.S. Supreme Court had to step in for the very first time to intervene in a criminal trial. Even across the country in Pasadena, its African American residents were horrified. A Los Angeles monthly journal for the city's black residents called The Liberator wrote, quote, The mob spirit now dominates the country. The president is afraid to act, the country has got to be free again, and the black men have got to save it. When the authors behind The Liberator learned of Logan's murder, they wrote up an article in which they declared it was an act of mob violence. Quote, it was the most fiendish, cold-blooded murder ever committed in this state. The shockingly mutilated corpse of the unfortunate young man showed that his murder had been attended by all the low, unspeakable, fiendish brutality characteristic of southern mobs. That his murderers have had many previous experiences in slaughtering Negroes, there can be no doubt. The Liberator declared that Logan had no enemies within the black community, but that he was popular with the whites of the city, which was what likely led to his death. They wrote that Logan was, quote, chief man in a store owned by a white man and patronized only by wealthy people. In Pasadena, owing to his business connections, his chums were mainly young white men with whom he seemed to be popular. End quote. This Black Run newspaper firmly believed that a black man would never commit such a crime as was committed on the body of James Logan. For if they did, there would be mobs in all the streets coming for them. Which is a valid point, given what had just happened to Ed Johnson in Chattanooga, Tennessee. The very conservative newspaper, the South Pasadenian, declared just the opposite, saying Logan, quote, occupied an enviable position in the swell circles of colored society, and it is thought that to this popularity is attributed his cruel fate. The manner in which he was slain is almost a mute testimonial that one of his tribesmen had a hand in the deal. End quote. Just the fact that they use the word tribesmen should tell you a little something about the author of that article. The article about this murdered man was, by the way, printed on the last page of a four-page paper in a city where nothing else ever happens. On the morning of Logan's discovery, South Pasadena's Marshal Maurice Birdsell Reed summoned Pasadena's Constable Austin to the scene to investigate. Los Angeles Sheriff White would soon join, along with the coroner trout. Officials had to brush off all the grass clippings and leaves to see his mutilated, blood-soaked body. Logan's killers slit his throat from ear to ear, so deeply that he was nearly decapitated. A deep gash sliced through his right cheek, exposing the bone, and his head had been bashed in with a blunt instrument. Stab wounds covered his torso, and defensive wounds were found on his arms and hands from when he tried to grab the knife away from his attacker. According to the Liberator, quote, his hands were literally hacked to pieces. Authorities determined that he had been stabbed with a long, sharp instrument, more like a stiletto than a knife or a razor blade. There were three deep knife thrusts near Logan's heart, but it was unlikely that the same instrument was also used to slit his throat and face, leading investigators to believe that there was probably more than one killer, particularly since a third weapon was used to beat him in the head. The tool used to bludgeon Logan was discovered at the crime scene near his body, along with a black cloth face mask tossed on top of the corpse. It was a laundry puffer. Something we don't use today and haven't really needed since the turn of the century. Laundry puffers were egg-shaped pieces of metal on a rod that were heated up and then used to iron the big puffy sleeves that were in style in 1906. Laundromats used them all the time at the beginning of the century for all of the shirt waists that were then in fashion. The Liberator declared that one of Logan's fingers had been cut off and carried away as a souvenir. They then made the ominous statement, quote, and you can imagine the rest, end quote. There was a lot that couldn't be printed of in newspapers at the time, so what was it that they did to Logan's body that was so bad they couldn't print of it? Then, to add insult to injury, Logan's killers dragged his body over to a ravine and tossed him in. They covered him with leaves and grass to hide their crime, then, according to the liberator, went to the bathroom in Logan's hat. Not far from the body, authorities found another important clue, a button. It was a decorative one that looked unique, and investigators believed that if they could find other buttons like it, it would lead them to the killer. Authorities thought that Logan had been dragged to the ravine from further up on the golf course, for they found a trail that led from there down to the body in the ravine. But it wasn't until a day later that law enforcement searched the entire area for all the evidence that was left behind. Both the black community and the white authorities investigating the crime believed that Logan had been lured to the Raymond late on Friday night, and that it was probably one of the women he had been seeing. In his pockets, Logan had some business cards, eighty-five cents in change, and a gold pocket watch. The watch was still running, and, according to the papers, it had been wound within an hour before the murder. Armchair sleuths theorized that as most men wound their watches at night before bed, it was likely that Logan had been called out of bed for whatever reason. The Los Angeles Herald, not always reliable, claimed that Logan left his rooms at 128 Dayton Street at around 7 PM that Friday night, saying he was going to Los Angeles to visit his mom and sisters. He was also known to visit a woman there, but she claimed she never saw him that day. Yet another LA paper claimed that Logan was going to a skating rink in Los Angeles that night. The newspapers finally announced that a friend of Logan's came forward and told of seeing Logan the night he was killed. The friend said Logan purchased a Pacific Electric streetcar ticket at the Fair Oaks and Green Street station. But Logan bought only a five cent fare, leading the friend to believe Logan was staying in Pasadena and not going all the way to LA. Logan had been at work at the Victor Marsh store that Friday. Customer Mr. Whitmore spoke to Logan that day and said that Logan confessed to him that he was having some trouble with some men from a Los Angeles club, but wouldn't specify which one. Other customers declared that Logan had been in good spirits that day and behaving totally normal. After investigators observed the body, they had it transported to the Ives and Warren Undertaking parlors, then on Colorado Boulevard in Pasadena. Crowds at the crime scene dissipated that Saturday when Logan's body was taken away. Some of them went home, but most of them followed the wagon to the Undertaker's to try and get more information. No one thought to search the rest of the crime scene until the following day, Sunday. That's because two young boys, John Simmons and Raphael Rogers, were walking on the Raymond grounds when they discovered the knife. It was covered in blood and had a piece of skin still stuck to the blade. The boys gave the knife to police, who returned to more fully search the scene. Also, that Sunday, a Raymond Hotel Gardener was at work early in the morning when he saw a woman riding a bicycle on a road to the east of the hotel. He couldn't recognize her, but saw that she rode as close to where Logan's body had been discovered the morning before. She then dismounted, leaned her bike against a fence, and then walked over, not to the ravine where Logan was discovered, but to the grassy bank where authorities think the murder actually took place. The gardener watched the woman, dressed in all black, as she walked back and forth several times. Quote, finally she lifted her veil and dropped down on her knees. It was as though she was searching for something as she crawled around for a minute or two before heading back to her bike. She returned the next morning, but this time the mysterious woman went down into the ravine where the body was found. Two young boys on the golf link saw her and were also curious, so they walked over to where she was. But just as they got there, the woman had climbed up and left. They told this to the sheriff, and the gardener also informed him of the woman in black. For several days the papers gossiped about the mystery woman, saying that it must have been she who lured Logan to the scene that night, and she had returned to make sure she didn't leave behind anything that connected her to the attack. But no more was ever heard of this mystery woman, and the newspapers went back to discussing other theories. Authorities wanted to believe that the killers had been black. But the black community in Pasadena and Los Angeles believed that if they kept operating under that assumption, Logan's murderers would never be caught. And everyone, whether white or black, wanted the killers caught. Clearly not everyone liked Logan, but most people did. He was a good man, and Pasadenians wanted justice for him. Robert Curry Owens led the effort to raise reward money for Logan's killer. Owens' father is famous in Pasadena for owing a large swath of land in Altadena called El Prieto Canyon, meaning the dark skinned one. Other Pasadenians just referred to it as Negro Canyon, but I will not be doing that. Robert Owens was born into slavery, bought his Freedom moved to the San Gabriel Valley where he started a lumber and livery business, and eventually became one of the wealthiest black men in Los Angeles. Owens helped to free the illegally enslaved Biddy Mason, who ended up owning tons of real estate in LA and became very wealthy despite giving much of her money away. Owens and Mason's daughter married and had a child, which was Robert Curry Owens. He would later go on to be one of the wealthiest blacks on the West Coast and a community leader in Los Angeles. In 1906, Owens helped raise the reward for Logan's killer. The rest of the money was raised through a subscription paper they circulated amongst, quote, the representative Negroes of this city and Los Angeles. Pasadena police did conduct an investigation into Logan's love life. Only one woman was ever named, and that's probably because she was the only one who was black. All the white women that Logan was rumored to have been dating remained unnamed in the papers. Logan had been seeing an Agnes Rogers in LA, the one who told police she never saw him the night he was killed. But he was also seeing more than one white woman in Pasadena that the papers refused to name, likely to respect their privacy. According to the Los Angeles Evening Express, Pasadena police had two men under suspicion early in the investigation. One of them was the husband of a woman Logan was seeing, and the other was the woman's brother. Pasadena PD kept their eye on the brother, but the husband had disappeared shortly after Logan's murder. They theorized that the man was in hiding until all the scratches and wounds on his hands healed. Which was the other thing investigators were looking into. LA Deputy Sheriff Bert Franklin began a search of every hospital in Los Angeles and the surrounding area, looking for people with hand wounds as they operated under the assumption that Logan had scratched at his attackers before dying. The Los Angeles Post Record reported a clue sent in to police that back in 1903, Logan had been threatened by a woman he jilted, along with her husband. She claimed she would fix him if he didn't return to her, and the husband wanted to shoot Logan. But that was three years ago, and who knew if that was even true. The Los Angeles Evening Express printed LA Deputy Sheriff Franklin's suspicion that Logan was killed in a blackmail scheme gone wrong. The paper wrote that Franklin believed Logan was killed by, quote, some Negro, end quote, who knew something incriminating about him. Franklin said that several days before his murder, Logan withdrew some money from a Pasadena bank, but then returned the money the next day. He believed this meant Logan had changed his mind about paying the blackmailers. This same newspaper began criticizing the sheriffs and Pasadena police for not having caught the killer yet, this being 10 days after the murder. And then, on June 2nd, the Evening Express printed that the police arrested and then released a murder suspect. The very next day, the police responded in the LA Times, saying that no man had been arrested and the story was a lie. Or, to read you the exact headline, story was a wild canard. And yet, about a week later, on June 12th, South Pasadena's Marshall Reed arrested the same man and transported him to the LA County Jail. His name had already been printed in several newspapers multiple times over the past week, and Pasadena streets were abuzz with gossip about him and his alleged rivalry with James Logan. His name was JCC Jackson, and all of Pasadena knew who he was. John Carter Clay Jackson was born in Paris, Kentucky around 1859 and came to Pasadena in his late thirties. He first appears in the city in 1892. He is listed in the census as 33 years old, living alone in San Pedro. Of all the skin color descriptions given, from light, fair, ruddy, florid, medium, colored, dark, and black, Jackson's complexion was listed as black. He had black hair and black eyes, and was nearly five foot ten. He was a tailor by profession, and had a scar under his left eye. Jackson relocated to Pasadena the following year and established his tailor business on Colorado Boulevard, Pasadena's main thoroughfare. By the 1900 census, Jackson was living with his wife, Clara, and her 22-year-old brother, James Harris. His tailor shop moved around to several different locations in Pasadena, but by 1906, Jackson's shop was located at 41 East Green Street, directly across from Pasadena's other famous luxury hotel, the Hotel Green in downtown Pasadena. It was right around the corner from Victor Marsh's Japanese art store, where James Logan had been working for the past four years. Jackson lived in a neighborhood in Pasadena that no longer exists, south of the central business district. Because there were no restrictive covenants telling people of color they could not live there, as there were in other parts of Pasadena, many African Americans, as well as Japanese, Chinese, and Mexican immigrants, resided in a semi-commercial area at the far end of the city's old town. Jackson lived on Elado Drive, where most of the Japanese citizens lived, though the black portion of the neighborhood stretched along Vernon Avenue between Colorado and Elado, and many others lived on Dayton Street. Mexican residents also settled in these neighborhoods, as well as along South Raymond. One of Jackson's closest friends, William Prince, lived on North Vernon. He was later known as Reverend Will Prince for his many years of service at the First AME Church, of which he helped found. He had no formal schooling, but was self-taught and given a license to preach and named the church's assistant preacher, a position which he held until his death by auto accident in 1942. According to a biography about him, Prince was, quote, the most active Negro minister in Southern California, end quote. He became politically active and was often elected the representative of his community whenever the need arose. In 1900, Prince, his brothers, and some friends, organized the San Gabriel Investment Company. Newspapers later explained it as a company that bought up real estate in wealthy white neighborhoods to then sell at a profit. In reality, it was an organization for African Americans who wished to own property and make business connections. John Clay Jackson was one of the members. Reverend Robert Herring, the pastor of Will Prince's first AME Church, was the organization's president. Seventy-three-year-old fellow Reverend Robert Hunter served as the treasurer. Henderson Boone was also a member. When he died in 1914, Will Prince wrote a memorial about Boone. In 1906, Boone had been a blacksmith for all of the wealthiest Pasadenians and took care of all their horses. His business flourished, and Boone eventually became the first black man to own a car and build a modern home in the city of Pasadena. Boone also preached at the first AME Church, and Prince recalled that many of their community liked to hang out at the Boone home, for one of the daughters was very beautiful, and their mom loved to cook for all of her friends. On may eighteenth, nineteen oh six, the members of the San Gabriel Investment Company held a meeting at Jackson's Taylor Shop on East Green Street. Earlier in the day, Will Prince had been at Jackson's shop when James Logan entered. Prince left the store as Jackson and Logan walked to the rear of the shop to have a discussion, but since Prince left, he didn't know what was said. He spoke to both Jackson and me in a friendly tone, Prince said. In fact, I never knew of any enity between Logan and Jackson. Thirty two year old janitor Lyttleton Baker was to attend the evening meeting, and also spoke to Jackson earlier in the day. Jackson told him that he would be busy with some business that night and didn't think he would be able to make it in time to open up the tailor shop for the meeting. Jackson gave Baker the key and asked him to leave it in a certain place when he was done. When the meeting began, Jackson was not there, nor was he there for most of the meeting. The others who attended all gave varying accounts of when they saw Jackson appear, but all agree it was sometime between 9.30 and 10 PM. At 9.30, Baker exclaimed that it was 9.30, bedtime. Jackson still had not arrived at the meeting, though, so he gave the keys to lock up to Reverend Hunter and left around 9.45, according to his best guess. Reverend Hunter remembered seeing Jackson enter the store at around 9.40, or about ten minutes after Baker left the meeting and gave him the shop key. Jackson seemed normal, but walked to the rear of the shop where he dropped a bundle of clothes, then went to the sink for a few minutes. Hunter thought he had a drink of water but couldn't swear to it. He overheard Jackson say that he needed to make another errand to the drugstore that night. Organization president and first AME Church founder, Reverend Herring, claimed that Jackson entered the meeting huffing and puffing and immediately went to the sink, though he also couldn't say if he drank or washed his hands. Blacksmith Henderson Boone also remembered seeing Jackson entering the meeting late. Boone said Jackson looked out of breath when he arrived and went right to the sink where he got a drink of water and washed his hands. Boone remembered Jackson explaining that he was late because he had to stop and do some work for a customer. Will Prince had the most interactions with Jackson that night. After everyone else left, Prince stayed behind to help Jackson fill a tub of water. Jackson said he needed the clothes to soak that night, and he couldn't wait until the morning, so Prince helped him with the chore. When everyone woke up the next morning and Logan's mutilated body was discovered, Pasadena erupted in rumors of all sorts. The first theory was that Logan had been offed by the husband of one of his lovers, or some white woman he had been paying attention to. The Los Angeles Herald printed that, quote, Logan's alleged intimacy with several women showed why he should have been put out of the way in such a brutal fashion. But then, with Jackson's late arrival the evening before, others began to gossip that maybe Jackson was the killer. People jumped to the conclusion that perhaps Logan had been trying to hit on Jackson's wife Clara, and that angered Jackson enough to kill Logan. Jackson and his supporters would later deny that anything improper happened between Clara Jackson and Logan. And the fact is that Clara was about ten years older than Logan, closer to Jackson's age. Not that that excludes the possibility of Logan and Jackson's wife being romantic entirely, but it just isn't likely. Hunter and Jackson were speaking on the street the day after Logan's murder when a white boy passed and asked Jackson if the guy who was murdered was his brother-in-law. Jackson replied that he wasn't, and Hunter told Jackson that he believed it was white men who had done the killing. Jackson was growing nervous, knowing the rumors that were being spread about him, and at one point suggested to Reverend Hunter that he maybe say he saw Jackson at the meeting a little earlier than he actually got there. But Hunter did not want to lie and didn't think there was a need to. Brother Jackson, Hunter told him, what is the use of trying to change facts? We all know you did not kill Logan. Jackson confessed to Hunter that he actually was not all that late to the meeting. He explained that he had arrived earlier than they all knew, but Jackson stood outside of the shop for a while. Apparently there was to be a vote in the meeting that night, and there was a troublemaker and obstructionist there by the name of Latimer, whom Jackson was trying to avoid. He wanted to stay away from the meeting until Lattimer had his say and the vote was done before Jackson joined in on the meeting. Apparently, Jackson repeated much of what was said during this meeting to Reverend Hunter, who then believed that Jackson actually had been standing outside of the shop earlier, eavesdropping on the meeting. Deputy Sheriff Franklin from Los Angeles approached Jackson the morning after the murder. I then told him that Logan had been killed. He said he had not seen Logan since the evening before, when they had effected a settlement of some money affairs. South Pasadena's Marshal Reed was investigating the murder, and he had an entirely different take on the murder. Jackson was late to the meeting because he was at the Raymond, slaughtering James Logan. He then rushed back to the meeting to try and give himself an alibi, which was why he was huffing and puffing when he got there, then immediately went to the back of the shop. The men at the meeting said they saw him come in with a bundle, allegedly filled with dirty clothes to wash, but who's to say it wasn't filled with bloody evidence he wanted to dispose of? They then saw him at the sink, washing his hands. To read, only a guilty man with blood on his hands, would rush into the shop and frantically wash their hands. Reed interrogated everyone at the meeting that night, and heard that Jackson tried to get people to lie and say they had seen him there earlier than he actually was, and this further cemented Jackson as the murderer in his mind. The LA Times agreed it was suspicious, saying, quote, Efforts to induce Reverend Hunter to swear that he was there was damaging to say the least. Reed spoke to another man who further confirmed his theory about Jackson. Reed explained, I was told by a negro that two suitcases had been smuggled into Jackson's house, 280 Elevado Street, and that he had given another man to understand that if the worst came, he was going to run away. Jackson allegedly asked that man to sell his things for him once he left. Word on the street was that Jackson asked Will Prince to help him out, quote, if the worst came. Reed interpreted this to mean that Jackson was asking his buddy to sell his shop and things for him in case he needed to leave and go into hiding. Prince himself said that this was not true and explained that Jackson was expecting to have an operation on his appendix and had recently made an arrangement with him to take care of his things if worse comes, meaning if Jackson died during the operation. Not a single man that was at the meeting mentioned seeing blood on Jackson, or scratches on his arms and hands. When the case went to trial, they would all deny seeing any such thing, including Will Prince, who was working right next to Jackson that night, helping him soak clothes in the tub. But according to Marshall Reed, he noticed scratches on Jackson's hands when he first spoke to him. Reed was so into his investigation that he didn't even wait to get a search warrant before heading to East Green Street and hopping over the high wooden fence in the backyard of Jackson's tailor shop. Who knows what else Marshall Reed did when he was at Jackson's shop with no search warrant, but he walked across the backyard, over to a wooden box that collected all the rubbish and burnt trash and began to sift through it. He admitted to not finding much of importance, certainly not the smoking gun he was hoping to find, but he did find a bunch of burnt envelopes with a man's name and address on them. The name read Peter Goldie, and I'm sure it did not take Marshall Reed long at all to find that Peter Goldie, a white man, had been employed at Jackson's tailor's shop, working for him as a coatmaker. This same man disappeared from the city of Pasadena just after James Logan was found dead. Reed tracked Goldie down to Brockton, Massachusetts, where he coordinated with law enforcement there to have him taken into custody and questioned about Logan's murder. Goldie had been a well-known tailor himself back in Massachusetts, but as there's not a lot on him, I can't say what brought him to the West Coast, other than perhaps seeing a son that lived in California. In 1906, Goldie was living in Pasadena, having recently tried to start his own tailor business in nearby Pomona but failed. Apparently Goldie worked at Jackson's shop for a bit before moving back to Brockton, Massachusetts, like two days after Logan's murder. Goldie told authorities that he had been at the shop that evening, and that he was the one with the key to open up the shop for the meeting. He claimed he ran into one of the organization's members a bit later and gave the key to him to open up instead. He said he found Jackson vigorously scrubbing his coat the next morning, acting agitated and giving excuses for being up so early when Goldie didn't even ask. And yet, most other papers declare that Goldie had nothing to say about the murder, that he knew nothing of Logan's killing and did not think his old employer Jackson had anything. To do with it. Apparently, the authorities had no more to keep Goldie detained, and they let him go. On June 11th, Marshall Reed arrested Jackson. Pasadena reacted by raising money for Jackson's bond, though it took some time. Reed, meanwhile, was busy assembling his case against Jackson. He knew his strongest evidence was found at the scene with Logan's body: the laundry puffer, the black face mask, the button, and the knife later found by the two boys. He was certain that the laundry puffer came from Jackson's shop and began searching through it for evidence that it had. Reed claimed to have found a counterpart piece of the laundry puffer in Jackson's store, and he searched throughout Pasadena stores to find the one that had sold the knife. Reed found it had been sold by Edgar Braille. Brailly was a wholesale and retail dealer who sold everything from bicycles and produce to tools and knives in an emporium that he had just finished construction at the beginning of the year, and was located next door to Victor Marsh's Japanese art store. Brayley declared that the knife used in the slaughter had been sold at his shop. He remembered selling the knife to Jackson several months before, but could not say exactly when. He produced receipts showing he had purchased a batch of that model knife from a Chicago hardware dealer back in 1904. Pasadena Police Detective Copping and patrolman Longley were assigned to search through Jackson's tailor shop on May 29th, about a week and a half before Jackson was arrested. They left the shop with three pieces of evidence. The first was a puffing iron that was similar to the one used to bash Logan's head in, along with a piece of steel shafting that they believed was the counterpart to the actual puffing iron used. The third was a square piece of black cloth. They thought it resembled the cloth used to make the face masks tossed on Logan's body. But it was Marshall Reed, along with an officer Eichholtz, who searched the tailor's shop and found three buttons that they claimed matched the one found by Logan's body. The two did some old fashioned police work by sifting through all the jars of buttons until they found its match. They had already seized Jackson's clothing and were trying to determine which articles the buttons had come from, along with sending the clothes for chemical testing to check for blood. Court proceedings took place in Pasadena's old city hall, then located on Fair Oaks and Union, where there's now a container store designed to resemble the old building. The LA Herald noted that most of the spectators were African American and that Jackson's wife and mother were in attendance, along with Logan's sister and stepfather. I'm not sure how he managed it, but Jackson ended up with a former California senator as his defense attorney. Benjamin and Edwin Hahn founded the Hahn and Hahn legal practice that is still active today, and in 1906, they decided to throw their weight behind John Clay Jackson. The Haans hired none other than Earl Rogers to help with their defense, aka Perry Mason. Earl Rogers was the lawyer who other lawyers called on. Other lawyers with names like Clarence Darrow and Senator Hahn. He was such an effective lawyer to have on your side that those charged with serious crimes often pled get me Earl Rogers. Earl Stanley Gardner wrote his character Perry Mason after Earl Rogers, who inspired him. Not only did Jackson have a veritable dream team to defend him in court when the time came, he also had a large part of his community rally behind him, trying to get him cleared of the charge and trying to get him out on bail. Horror members of the community had been trying to free Jackson since his arrest, but it was not until prominent men from Los Angeles and Pasadena chipped in that Jackson was able to go free. The four bondsmen included J.R. Harris from Pasadena Grocery and three LA men. Frank N. Fish was a manager at Equitable Securities Company, P. E. Weaver, and Frank Sievert, who got super rich in the 1920s when he worked as an oil executive for Doheny. He and his wife gave much away to charity and gave most of the money to fund Malibu's Pepperdine University, as well as funding for Pomona College. Pasadena's loyalties were split. Many citizens supported South Pass's Marshall Reed in his efforts to bring Jackson to justice for murdering Logan, and yet many others were certain that Jackson was innocent and being framed for a crime he did not commit. Before he was arrested, Jackson approached friend Oscar Consman, asking if he would help him. Consman was a former Pasadena police officer and went on to be a special officer for Pacific Electric in the 1920s. In 1906, papers said he was a private investigator and deputy constable, and Jackson thought he was in a position to help him. Cunzman was sympathetic and said he tried to help, but told Jackson that he should also hire a criminal attorney. Jackson complained to Cunzman that he was innocent and being framed for a crime he didn't commit. According to the LA Times, Jackson told Cunzman that a white woman on East Colorado, quote, had paid the officers to keep the facts suppressed. South Pasadena's Marshal Reed was determined to get Jackson as the killer, but Pasadena's chief of police disagreed. The LA Herald printed, quote, Chief Pinkham has repeatedly stated that in his position, Jackson was not in any way connected with the murder of young Logan. Pinkham warned everyone that other persons who have followed the case are as positive that nothing but trouble will follow anyone who attempts to fasten the crime on the tailor. Jackson's wife Clara stayed loyal to him and snuck food to him on occasion. Once she smuggled some eggs in a paper bag into his cell, but no one knew where they came from and everyone freaked out about the mysterious package delivered to Jackson until they opened it and realized it was hard boiled eggs from Clara. Marshall Reed had interrogated Clara too, but she maintained her husband's innocence. One reporter asked her if she believed her husband was innocent. I know he is innocent, she retorted. Marshall Reed was certain that Clara knew more than she was saying. He was trying to get information out of her once, when she snapped and glared at Reed, saying, You know that it was a white man who killed Logan. But if Reed believed Clara, he certainly did not go out and find this alleged white man. He still believed Jackson was his man. When the trial began, attorney Hahn convinced the judge to allow no spectators, police included. Hahn believed that Logan was killed as a result of his socializing with white women, and had salacious testimony to present in order to prove his point. Hahn wanted to expose the lurid romances of 1906 Pasadena to get to the truth of Logan's death. The LA Herald explained Hahn's approach, writing, quote, The defense is determined to prove that Jackson had no motive for killing Logan, but that certain white men did. The evidence was presented at the trial without much fanfare. The prosecution and Marshall Reed wanted to say that the black face mask found at the scene had been constructed using cloth from Jackson's shop. Some called to the stand declared the fabrics were a match, others that they were wholly different. Same with the buttons. Reed and his detectives argued that they searched through all of Los Angeles to find a match to these buttons, and could not find them anywhere but in Jackson's shop. And yet, by the following day, the LA Times reported that similar buttons had been located in Los Angeles. All of Jackson's clothing that was seized and sent away for microscopic testing returned without any signs of blood. Edgar Brayley, who owned the emporium that sold Jackson the razor blade, testified on the stand. He remembered selling Jackson a knife that looked just like the one found at the murder scene. But no matter how certain Brayley was that the knife used in the murder looked like the one he sold Jackson, he refused to say that it was the exact same one. Pasadena's doctor Albert McCoy, who had an office in the still existing Slavin building, conducted the autopsy and reported his findings at the trial. McCoy declared Logan suffered two fractures of the skull, which was what caused his death. He was stabbed with a long, sharp instrument, which punctured his liver, but was not necessarily fatal. McCoy believed the blows to the head with the puffing iron was what caused his death. In addition to the stab and bludgeon wounds, McCoy believed a third weapon of some sort was used to slice open Logan's cheek because it didn't make sense for the wound to have been caused by the stiletto. Attorney Hahn presented McCoy with a knife allegedly from Braille's store, and McCoy said he didn't think that was the weapon used to stab Logan. The men from the San Gabriel Investment Organization all testified about that evening's meeting and all agreed that Logan had arrived late. Not a single one of them testified to seeing either blood or scratches on Jackson when he entered the shop, which directly contradicted Marshall Reed's claim of seeing wounds on Jackson's hands. Reverends Hunter and Prince were upset that certain members of the organization were spreading lies about Jackson, specifically Lyttleton Baker. Thirty-two year old Baker lived right next to Reverend Hunter on Peach Place, and was supposed to have been the one to take Jackson's shop key to open and close for the meeting. But then his bedtime came at 9 30 and Baker left. After Logan was found dead, Baker was rumored to have been telling everyone that Jackson never arrived at the meeting that night, and when he finally showed up, Jackson asked them all to lie and say he had been there earlier. By the time the trial was in motion, Baker was back to denying that Jackson asked them to lie. Did he decide to start telling the truth? Or did his community pressure him to recant certain things he said? Just days after the murder, when rumors were swirling and Jackson was still free, Reverend Hunter told one resident, quote, this fellow Baker is responsible for all these rumors connecting Jackson with it. Had Baker also been the one to spread rumors about Logan and Jackson's wife Clara? Logan's mother, Laura Young, did not like Jackson. But was this because she was convinced that Jackson was responsible for her son's death? Or did she have information about the men's relationship that we don't? Papers reported that after Logan's body was found, authorities sent word to Laura Young in Los Angeles that her son had been seriously injured. She rushed to Pasadena, and on her way to Victor Marsh's store where Logan worked, she passed Jackson's tailor shop. Jackson and wife Clara recognized her when she passed and called out to her. Laura Young walked over to them and asked, Is Jimmy dead? Jackson and Clara heard the rumors and were looking through the newspaper for confirmation. I don't know, Jackson told Logan's mother as he held out a newspaper. Jackson told the frantic woman that he wasn't sure he was still trying to find out. She started to panic, asking, quote, if it were really true that he was dead. Jackson responded that she would likely find him alive and well at the home of a misses Payne, and then pointed her in that direction. I am not sure why Jackson told her this. I can only speculate that he was trying to calm her down momentarily. Jackson's friend Tom Wardlow spoke to him that morning and recalled that Jackson told him of rumors that Logan had been killed. Wardlow recalled that Jackson was recounting a rumor that Logan had been killed while breaking and entering someone's property. They both soon found that that wasn't what happened, but Wardlow remembered Jackson being upset that Logan was dead and expressing regret at it. Sheriff Franklin also spoke to Jackson that morning before news of Logan's death became official. Franklin recalled I asked Jackson if he had seen Logan that day, and he replied that he had not. I then told him that Logan had been killed. He said he had not seen Logan since the evening before, when they had effected a settlement of some money affairs. Right before the trial was set to begin, Marshall Reed received a mysterious letter addressed to him regarding the Logan murder. I noticed that you were trying very hard to get the murderer of Logan, it read. Well, what I want to say is this. I will not sign any name to this letter, but I am a person with an eagle eye. I saw Taylor Jackson on the morning the murder happened. I saw him quarrelling with James A. Logan. They were in the rear of Marsh's curio store. Jackson was mad and I could plainly see it. He came out on the sidewalk on Green Street, and mounted a wheel and rode west on Green Street. Logan came out of the store on Green Street to watch, perhaps what Jackson was about. Logan had on a black apron. I will state positively that Jackson was quarrelling with Logan. I will swear to this on all the Bibles you could put under my hands. You can put faith in this letter, as it is all the truth. I do not intend to do any person harm, but to see a murderer brought to justice, as you call it. Jackson knows something about it. This happened in the morning, and at night they trapped their victim. If you take any notice of these words, I wish the daily papers to learn about it so I can know, and then I will come out in the open and tell all I know. I remain your eagle eyed friend. And it was signed Capital D E T E Marshall Reed had the letter published in all the major newspapers, and it was printed alongside reports of the first trial days. For days, Pasadenians wondered whether this eagle eyed friend would come forward, and if so, would they have anything important to say? No one ever heard any more from this letter writer, though, despite them agreeing to identify themselves after the letter was posted, the author remained anonymous. And it has to make you wonder why, if they really did have evidence against Jackson, why not bring it to light? Another theory is that someone interested in Jackson being convicted of Logan's murder was the one to write the letter, to throw everyone off and hopefully persuade the jury of Jackson's guilt. There was an eyewitness, though, a Franklin S. Jenkins, secretary for the Long Beach Hotel Company. Jenkins was in the routine of going for an evening walk after dinner, and lived only several blocks from the Raymond Hotel. He was out walking on may eighteenth, the night of the murder, when he saw three suspicious people near the Raymond train station, close to where police thought that Logan was killed. Jenkins saw two men by the depot and called out to one of them, thinking it was his friend. The man didn't reply, so Jenkins again called out and then crossed the road to approach them. When he got closer, Jenkins realized there was a third figure by the depot, but he couldn't see him as well as he stood in the shadows. By this point, he realized the man was not his friend. Jenkins swore the other two men were white, or at least one of them was white, and the other might have been Mexican or some sort of mix. At trial, the prosecution argued that Logan was the Mexican or racially mixed man, and Jackson was the darker figure standing in the shadows. Who the white man was is anyone's guess, though the prosecution wanted to say it had been Peter Goldie, Jackson's former white employee. The prosecution tried to make Jackson look even more shady by calling on witness E.J. Howell. His testimony was not in the preliminaries, and when the DA placed him on the stand, it was a complete surprise to Jackson and his defense team. Howell testified, quote, I was in Jackson's shop about eight months before the murder, and we were talking when Jackson said that Pasadena would be better off if a certain damned nigger were dead. Jackson leapt to his feet before Howell was even done speaking. Earl Rogers hopped up at the same time, crying objection and attacking Howell for lying. The LA Evening Express claimed that the court had to pause the trial and intervene to protect witness Howell from attorney Earl Rogers. But it's likely that the jurymen were not taking Howell seriously, anyway. Saying that you wished someone was dead is not the same as murdering them in cold blood. And it makes even less sense when you find that the incident happened eight months before the killing, anyway. When the LA Evening Express first announced Logan's murder, they declared that Logan was quote. A man marked for death and he knew it. They explained that Logan had only one good friend he truly confided in, and just before his death, he told him that he was afraid. He confessed to getting into arguments at a Los Angeles club, though he wouldn't specify which one. Logan said that after he got involved in the disagreement, a man had been fired on his account. Now Logan was afraid to walk alone at night. Logan had told something similar to Marsh customer Mr. Whitmore, though with less detail. With so many different rumors floating around about Jackson and Logan, how could the police be certain that any one of them was true? The trial had not proven that Jackson was near the scene of the crime, and the prosecution failed to connect any of the items left at the scene with Jackson. The Liberator, the Black Run LA newspaper, declared that, quote, while there is strong circumstantial evidence against Jackson, we still believe the murder was committed by white men. End quote. They entertained the theory that Jackson might have had some other connection to the murder, but that he could not have been the chief killer. It's hard to believe that even Marshall Reed, who was so eager to get Jackson for the crime, would honestly believe that Logan, a man killed with at least three different weapons, was killed by only one man, and that one man was Jackson. For even if Jackson did take part in helping someone murder Logan, there is still at least one murder suspect who was never even brought into the court and put on trial. On Saturday, December 29, 1906, the judge told the jury that the entire case against Jackson had been built on circumstantial evidence. Therefore, I advise you to acquit this man. At eleven forty AM, Jackson walked free. Dozens of his friends converged upon him with a shower of hugs and congratulations, as Logan's mom Laura, retired to a back room where she wept for her son. Laura Young still believed Jackson guilty, as did her other surviving son. The trial had split Pasadena into two factions. There were those who believed Jackson was as nasty as the rumors, and that he had killed Logan in cold blood. And then there were those who believed Jackson had been framed by white men. Just as I was almost done writing this episode, I uncovered an LA Times News article from 1909 that wrote about black businesswomen in the city, and one segment focused on Logan's mom. The Times wrote how Laura Young was a tailorist for two different companies and had learned the trade from a, quote, member of her own race, end quote, J. C. Jackson of Pasadena. So it turned out that Taylor Jackson had taught Logan's mom her trade, and the two of them had a relationship before Jackson and Logan ever did. It makes you wonder if there was some sort of bad blood between Jackson and Logan's family. Jackson had won the fight for his life, and less than a week after his acquittal, he came for those who came for him. Jackson called the district attorney's office to charge How with perjury. Howell, the man who claimed he heard Jackson say that Pasadena would be a better place if Logan were dead. During court, both Jackson and Earl Rogers jumped to their feet, declaring it was a lie. But now, Jackson wanted to take things a step further. He wanted to clear his name for good by proving that he did not say such a nasty thing about Logan. Jackson told the deputy DA that he had evidence that Howell had been lying on the stand. But the deputy DA retorted that this evidence was not enough. Jackson felt like he was not being taken seriously, so he escalated his complaint and also accused the LA Sheriff, Pasadena Police, and Logan's employer, Victor Marsh, of railroading him for a crime he didn't commit. According to the LA Evening Post record, Jackson told papers that he had an opportunity to end the prosecution of his case entirely with a payment of$550. He wouldn't say so directly, but accused the district attorney's office. Quote, Jackson insists that he is an innocent man who has been grievously prosecuted and that he intends to have the law on the persons who mistreated him. By 1912, he owned Pasadena Pantatorium on 121 West Colorado. His cleaners, tailors, and hatters services had bargain days Mondays and Wednesdays. We make a specialty of cleaning and blocking hats, his ad read. 1914 was an active year for Jackson, Will Prince, and the rest of Pasadena's black community. Prince kicked off the year by inviting none other than Booker T. Washington, head of Tuskegee University, to Pasadena. Once in the city, Washington was a guest of Robert Curry Owens, the man who put up the first rewards for Logan's killer. The city's African American church services paused for the evening of March 10, 1914, as congregants instead filed into the city high school's new auditorium to hear Washington speak. It wasn't just blacks who wanted to hear him, though. Every event he attended was packed, so much so that the news article for Washington's speaking engagement in Pasadena noted that only a few seats would be reserved for whites. Booker T. Washington's visit was as apt as his timing, as both Jackson and Prince had battles to fight that year. Just days before Booker T. Washington was due in Pasadena, Jackson attended a city meeting to protest a proposed industrial district on Vernon Avenue, where many African American families lived. Not to mention the fact that their church, First AME, was located on Vernon and Kensington. When it first opened in 1910, there were attempts to burn the building down because whites in the neighborhood didn't want them there. Jackson did not live in that area, but he became spokesperson for the neighborhood anyway. When it became clear that city commissioners had approved plans for the industrial park, residents of Vernon Avenue met and decided to fight the city, with Jackson serving as their spokesperson. At the meeting several days later, Jackson had the support of some white property owners who also felt that their homes would be affected. Jackson bluntly told the city commissioners that they were beholden to the people, and that if the people living in that district opposed an industrial district, the commissioners had no right to act in defiance of their wishes. Then he went even further by hinting at corruption. Jackson argued that the commissioners were not serving their people, but perhaps they were serving the railroad industry. The city of Pasadena officially opened its new municipal swimming pool in July of nineteen fourteen called the Brookside Plunge. They also promptly declared it whites only, except for Wednesdays from 2 to 5 PM when everyone else was allowed to use the pool. They called this International Day, and when it was over, employees drained the pool and refilled it with clean water. African American residents declared this was a direct violation of their rights, as it was. The city argued that African Americans were allowed to use the municipal pool just like anyone else, but on separate days. And there is that separate but equal belief. But black leaders like Will Prince declared that nothing about the situation was equitable. Prince led the crusade against Brookside Plunge's segregation and was sent a letter from the Commissioner of Public Affairs, Mr. Metcalfe. He wrote to Prince about what the commissioners had discussed and hoped to appease him by saying that those who visit the pool on International Day will get to use it for free, just like white citizens. Prince responded by asking if it was really their intention to segregate whites and blacks at their city pool, and declaring that his community demanded to have the same use and enjoyment of their city facilities as other citizens do, on the same conditions. Prince was in the right, but his demands were rejected and international days continued. A meeting was held at Friendship Baptist Church, the oldest black Baptist church in Pasadena, located on Dayton and Green Streets, which is still flourishing. More than two hundred people congregated there to hear Willis O. Tyler from the Negro Taxpayers and Voters Association give a speech. Jackson, then the association's vice president and chairman, was encouraged by the turnout and stated that he planned to hold similar meetings at the Friendship Baptist Church in the future. Look for announcement of mass meetings, wrote the Pasadena Star. Controversy followed Jackson, though, or perhaps Jackson followed controversy. In October of 1914, an African American woman named Edith Hill charged Jackson with forgery. He was subsequently arrested and then released on bail, denying any wrongdoing, but then resigned from the Negro Taxpayers and Voters Association the following month. Pasadena Star News declared that the organization would select his replacement from the local branch of the NAACP, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. But had Jackson resigned for the sake of the association, to avoid bringing it shame and scandal, or had he resigned because he was guilty? Either way, Jackson and wife Clara were still living relatively well. They had since purchased a home on Elevado Drive, and it happened to be right next door to one of Pasadena's millionaire families, the Clapps. The Clapps are infamous in Pasadena history because Jenny Clapp was the city's first teacher for the city's first students in the parlor of her father's home. But the entire Clapp family was and is well known throughout Pasadena. Apparently, Dr. E. M. Clapp did not exactly like looking at his neighbor's house and built a very tall fence to divide the two properties. The brick fence was nine feet tall and 1,770 feet long. Unfortunately, when it rained, the new fence made water pool up in Jackson's yard and home, causing considerable damage to the property. Jackson hired Willis Tyler, the attorney who had just spoken at Friendship Baptist Church against segregation at the Brookside Plunge. And surprisingly, the court sided with Jackson and ordered the collapse to pay up. Even when the collapse appealed the order, the court reaffirmed their decision. In nineteen twenty one, Jackson's wife Clara died of gastric catar and liver cirrhosis. Also, in nineteen twenty one, city directors again decided to develop Vernon Avenue. Again, Jackson served as spokesman for the African American residents who lived in the area. The Pasadena Star News declared that, quote, the street is to be improved with pavement, sidewalks, curbs, and gutters between Colorado Street and Elvado Drive. Reverend Hunter reappeared to protest the improvements, as Jackson complained that, quote, many of the property owners that he represented had been misled in signing the petitions. He argued that Mrs. Taylor had purposely deceived residents by telling them that the petition was only about a sidewalk. Despite the objections, Jackson was overruled and the plans continued. As did the International Days at Brookside Plunge. Legal battles continued for decades before the city was forced to stop. The California Supreme Court finally declared International Day as unconstitutional in nineteen forty-seven. Jackson remained political after his wife's death. In nineteen twenty-two, he was registered as a Republican. The Republican Party was then still thought of as the party of Abraham Lincoln, though many African Americans were beginning to desert them at around this time as they felt that the Republican Party had begun to abandon them. Jackson appeared in newspapers again that August when he attended a meeting to promote Charles Moore as California Senator. Will Prince, temporary chairman of the Voting League, opened the meeting and many gave their support for Moore, particularly as he supported the anti-lynching bill. Those congregated also debated supporting Charles Kelly in his race for sheriff of LA County. Kelly would be Pasadena's chief of police for two decades from 1921 to 1941. Most at the meeting supported Kelly, who came to give a talk there, but Jackson was the one holdout, seemingly unconvinced that Kelly had no connections to the KKK. Kelly, upon hearing this, emphatically denied having any connection with them. By 1930, Jackson was supporting a William Traeger for sheriff. He was no longer the same man who worked at the tailor shop on East Green, though. He was now an old man of nearly 75 years old. In January of 1931, Jackson appeared at a court trial, but fell down the steps of the Hall of Justice and was transported to the hospital. Whatever the case against him was, the courts decided to dismiss it as the old man recovered in the emergency room. Almost exactly a year later, Jackson was again embroiled in scandal when papers announced that he had been ousted from the Pasadena Nonpartisan Political Club held at Cavalry Methodist. Apparently, Jackson was in charge of printing out pamphlets declaring the club's support for one candidate, which Jackson agreed to during the meeting. But then he inexplicably changed the name of the candidate the club was to support without saying anything to anyone. Shocked at Jackson's duplicity, the club kicked him out. Two months later, Jackson was arrested again on murder charges. In May of 1932, 75-year-old Jackson lived on Camden Place near Vernon Avenue. He loaned some money to a friend, Selvin Bevins, so that he could buy a car. Bevins, a chauffeur who migrated from Belize in 1898, bought the car, then left it at Jackson's place until he could repay him the money. Jackson was perturbed to look outside one day to find Bevins sitting in the car he had not yet paid off, and he went to confront him. This turned into an altercation when Jackson lost his temper and swung at Bevins, who then hit Jackson back and called the police to file a complaint. Chief Charles Kelly, who must have recognized Jackson's name, sent an officer to go handle the situation. Patrolman Farmer pulled up to 300 Camden Place and walked over to the two men. Jackson suddenly disappeared into his home, and a moment later he emerged with a 38-caliber revolver. The patrolman grabbed for the gun, and as Jackson tried to maintain possession of the weapon, it fired, sending a bullet past Farmer and into Bevan's chest just below his heart. Jackson was difficult while being arrested and became so agitated that he was also transported to the hospital along with Bevins. Dr. Kenneth Tabor examined Bevins at the hospital and declared that the wound was likely fatal. The final paragraph in the shooting article reminded everyone of Jackson's past. Quote, some 25 years ago, a man who was prominent in the colors section, James Logan by name, was found murdered on the Hotel Raymond golf course. He had been clubbed to death with a puffing iron, a utensil used in those days for ironing the leg of mutton sleeves. The iron was found beside the body of Logan. The victim had also been stabbed repeatedly. In the dead man's hands were two buttons, presumably torn from the coat sleeve of his assailant. Similar buttons were found in the Jackson tailoring shop, and the puffing iron was fairly well identified as having come from the same place, said authorities. But that was all the police force was able to produce as important evidence, and the judge directed the defendant, Jackson, be freed by the jury, which the jury did. Since that time, Mr. Jackson has at times been before the police, either complaining about others or to answer complaints against himself. He is now an elderly man and not in good health. The police are holding him pending the outcome of injuries to the man he shot today. He rallied the strength to walk to his seat on his own. Bevins was still in the hospital, and the court charged Jackson with assault with a deadly weapon with intent to commit murder. Jackson argued that he didn't even know Farmer was a policeman and ran inside his home for a gun to protect himself. When he came out the front door, Jackson said the man wrestled the gun from him, which was what caused the gun to fire. He never meant to shoot at Bevins, he said. Newspapers described Jackson as agitated and slightly hysterical. He ranted about his injured friend Bevins, saying that the man had threatened him for days before the shooting occurred, and even once attacked him with a hammer. The papers say he could hardly walk, and was complaining that the police had violated his rights by refusing to let him see an attorney. Moreover, Jackson kept ranting about a mysterious plot against him. This time, the jury convicted Jackson of the crime, which carried a penalty of 1 to 10 years in prison. Selvin Bevins did not die yet, though. He miraculously survived the shooting, though he declared that he would be paralyzed for the rest of his life. Before the trial even ended, Bevins filed a suit for$27,000 in damages against Jackson. As Jackson was unable to stand during his sentencing, he was allowed a seat at the Pasadena Superior Court while the judge informed him that he was going to San Quentin for no more than 10 years. Jackson's lawyer appealed the case, though, which stayed the sentence for the time being, and sent Jackson to the county jail instead. From there, because of his declining health, he was transported to the prison ward at the General Hospital. Bevins outlived Jackson, but not by long. He died about four years after Jackson shot him in 1936, though the cause of death was acute intestinal obstruction and acute dilation of the heart. Perhaps the old bullet wound did ultimately kill Bevins after all. Not that I can say for certain, as I'm not a doctor. On July 26th, 1932, the judge demanded that Jackson pay Bevins$8,091 in damages. But a month later, Jackson died. The paper said it was mostly due to his age, but that he had also been suffering from a chronic disease for some time. His death certificate says that he died of lobar pneumonia. The Pasadena Star news article about his death ends with a short paragraph about his connection to the murder of James Logan a quarter century earlier. Quote, the iron was traced to the Jackson shop, but he was never strongly connected with the actual killing and proved an alibi effective enough to free him on a directed verdict. It seems the official narrative was that Jackson had been able to manipulate himself out of a murder. It is true that Jackson was missing from his club's meeting on the night of Logan's murder, at just the time he would have been killed. It is true that certain people claim to have seen blood and scratches on Jackson that night, and it is true that some of the witnesses claim that Jackson came into the meeting huffing and puffing and went straight to the back of the shop where he washed up. It is true that his white employee Goldie went MIA just days after the murder, and it is true that both Goldie and Jackson matched the description of the men the witness saw at the Raymond station that night with the Mexican he saw, who we can infer was Logan. And I will say that a lot of Jackson's moves were sketchy. So yes, it is possible that it was Jackson and Goldie who met Logan at the Raymond train station that night and lured him to his death. And yet, it is unlikely that Jackson, a well-known tailor in Pasadena, would murder a man and then leave behind a laundry puffer, tailoring equipment that would lead right back to his shop. It is unlikely that Jackson would plan to murder a man at the exact time when he knew an entire organization would miss his absence at a meeting. It is unlikely that the wealthiest and most prominent citizens of Pasadena and Los Angeles would jump at the opportunity to defend Jackson if they believed him capable of committing such an atrocity. It is unlikely that a California state senator in 1906 would agree to defend Jackson if he knew there was substantial evidence against him. It is unlikely that William Prince, leader of the black community, the man who literally built a church for his people in the city of Monrovia, would be best friends with a man he thought capable of cold-blooded murder. And it is unlikely that he would stay friends with him for years afterward if Prince suspected him guilty. It is unlikely that so many pillars of the black community in Pasadena would rally behind Jackson if they really believed he killed one of their own. It is unlikely that so many people in a city so angered by the death of James Logan would defend Jackson against such allegations if he had been known around town as a bad man. It is unlikely that a white courthouse filled with white jurors, white attorneys, and a white judge would acquit a black man of murder in 1906 and literally instruct the jury to acquit him if there was any real evidence that connected Jackson to the crime. What is likely is what everyone first thought when they heard that Logan had been killed. Logan had been killed by some white guys. Or at least, it is the more likely scenario of what happened to him. What little evidence there is points to there being two or more killers. Three figures were seen loitering around the Raymond train depot. Three different weapons were used in Logan's attack. If we discount the possibility that there was one ninja-like assassin wielding three weapons at once to off the young store clerk, we can infer that each weapon was held by one person. And even if we agreed that Jackson and Logan were two of the figures seen at the train depot, who was the third? This leaves at least one person connected to the murder who walked free. More than that, if you believe Jackson was not there. Who even knows who the mysterious woman in black was? Who knows what it was she was searching for or if she ever found it? We will also never know the names of the white women and men connected to Logan, because unlike the black women connected to him, the white women had enough money, or at least enough respect to keep their names from the papers. And with no names in the papers, it becomes impossible to even look into any other suspects. Someone in Pasadena got away with murder on May 18, 1906. Probably more than one someone, too. When Jackson was first arrested for the murder, the African American newspaper The Liberator declared that though there may be a lot of circumstantial evidence connecting Jackson to the crime, they still do not think Jackson guilty and declared outright that we still believe that the murder was committed by white men. It was hard for them to say for certain that Jackson was 100% without a doubt innocent. He had, after all, not been there at the meeting during a crucial part of the evening, and there was evidence at the scene that led back to Jackson. They admitted the possibility that Jackson was connected in some tangential way, but argued that even if he was, Jackson was certainly not the main perpetrator or leader. And anyway, if Jackson was guilty, the liberator wanted him punished. They just didn't think that he was. Because yes, it was possible that Jackson helped kill Logan that night. It just wasn't likely. The scenario was as puzzling to us as it was to Pasadenians of 1906. Too many things about the case just didn't add up, and it didn't make sense for Jackson, of all people, to have committed such a brutal murder single-handedly. Some believed it was Goldie who helped Jackson, and that's why he disappeared so soon after the murder. But Goldie had no criminal record from what I know, and was just an ordinary guy living with his wife and kids back in Brockton, Massachusetts. He apparently had a son in California, so perhaps that was the reason for his visit, and he just returned home after the murder, not wanting to get swept up in it. Because why would a man like Goldie risk everything he had just to help Jackson kill Logan? Moreover, as soon as law enforcement got their hands on Goldie, they pretty much immediately let him go. The paper's initial reaction was that James Logan had been killed by a vicious mob. But as the investigation began and law enforcement targeted Jackson for the crime, the Liberator demanded answers. By the July issue, Liberator editors expressed happiness that law enforcement was actually doing something to catch Logan's murder. They repeated claims that Jackson had been absent from the meeting and was refusing to cooperate with investigators, which to them was a sign of Jackson's guilt. Still, they were surprised that Jackson, a man in good standing at the first AME Church, and leader of several Pasadena societies and organizations, would be the one responsible for such a gruesome act. Still, with all the evidence printed in the newspapers lately, the readers had to agree that Jackson looked awfully suspicious. Perhaps Jackson did do it after all, and had his white employee Goldie help him with it, which is why he immediately skipped town. They had questions. Logan had been viciously stabbed like thirty times before being bludgeoned. The coroner couldn't say at what point his throat had been slit. The killers then mutilated his body, with some saying they carved a cross on Logan's chest, others that they chopped off his finger, others that they cut his kidneys from his body, and yet other newspapers hinted that Logan's killers cut off his genitals. What a vicious way to go. This is what confused the Liberator editors and readers. Did Jackson really have the motive to slaughter Logan in such a brutal fashion? Whoever killed Logan hated him passionately and wanted him to suffer. That much is clear. The Liberator suggested an alternative theory, though, wondering if the coroner had made a mistake. End quote. It was found near Logan's body, along with other clues, and it up and vanished while the inquest was in session. Who got that handkerchief? The Liberator asked. Quote, if the coroner ordered the clothes burned, it was a serious blunder and may have covered the murderer's tracks. With the clothing burned and the bloody handkerchief again in his possession, the murderer doubtless congratulated himself on the completeness of his gruesome, cowardly job. We trust that Jackson is innocent of complicity in that awful deed and will come forward and vindicate himself, they concluded. The Liberator revisited the Logan Murder in 1910 when they wrote an article complaining about the District Attorney's Office for failing to prosecute crimes against African Americans. Quote, While Logan's body was in the hands of the coroner and district attorney, the handkerchief was taken away by some friends of the murderers, and his, Logan's, bloody clothes were ordered burned. That Logan's clothes undoubtedly contained strong clues is the presumption, or the unprecedented thing, of burning them before the inquest would not have been allowed. With the telltale handkerchief gone, and his clothes with the evidence for the state they undoubtedly contained curved, Logan's naked body cut to ribbons was delivered to the coroner's jury. Apparently, in the years since the murder, the authors of the paper had only grown more certain of Jackson's innocence. A colored tailor of Pasadena with absolutely no evidence against him was arrested and put in jail as a bluff, they wrote. With evidence destroyed, an investigation subverted, and a trial manipulated, it may be impossible to learn exactly who killed James Logan in 1906. We are instead left with a feeling very similar to what the Liberator described when they first heard of Logan's death. It was a crime against society, one so heartless, fiendish, and brutal that the entire community is appalled. The hopeless, miserable gang that decoyed Logan to a lonely spot on the Raymond Golf links and deliberately butchered him with long, cruel knives may escape the penalty of the law. But they will spend the rest of their existence in a relentless hell of their own creation. Logan's appeals for mercy will evermore ring in their ears. The desperate, bloody death struggle in all of its ghastliness, is still on. Logan's troubles are over. Theirs have just commenced, and in less than five years his ghost will have put them all in the graves of suicides or dope fiends. We have witnessed the horrible ending of several cold-blooded murderers. We have seen them chased into the grave by the unseen. Their awful fate is sealed. They cannot escape. Thank you so much for joining. For more info and photos on this episode, check out our Instagram by searching for Old Blood Podcast. Music credits to Vasilian Studios, Holizna, and the original sung by Virginia Liston in nineteen twenty six.