The Little Old Murder From Pasadena
A retired police sergeant and a historian discuss history and true crime in the City of Roses.
The Little Old Murder From Pasadena
A Bungalow Bludgeoning
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In 1924, misplaced charity turns deadly for a wealthy socialite as an ex-felon that she tries to help has other plans.
And we are back with another Little Old Murder from Pasadena. I'm the historian Elise, and I'm here with my co-host.
SPEAKER_02:Victor Cass, retired police sergeant with over 30 years' experience all with the Pasadena California Police Department.
SPEAKER_00:And we have a tale from 1924 for you. Going back to uh Chief Kelly's time, he'll make another appearance today.
SPEAKER_02:Yes, I think he holds the record for most appearances in our podcasts, as most of our episodes seem to be from the roaring twenties.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, the twenties and thirties, and those were the two decades when he was the chief. So yeah, it seems like he pops up for every case. So we're also doing another murder on Madison Avenue.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, you wouldn't think that this uh little neighborhood in Pasadena called Playhouse Village would have had so many uh murders during its time. But uh it does uh the bodies do pile up in Playhouse Village for some reason, even up till the the 2020s.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, and I've been referring to it as like Murder Avenue because of that. Yeah, there's so many uh murders we've done on this uh podcast that have happened on Madison, and this one occurred on 90 North Madison. Today it's like a commercial medical office building.
SPEAKER_02:It doesn't exist anymore.
SPEAKER_00:Uh but back in the day, it was a cute little bungalow court, that's right, which we have quite a few of those.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, there's still some plenty of them here.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, just a little court of bungalows all facing each other. And then one of these bungalows was Dorothy Lee Hun. She was a little bit older, she was about 60 years old, and she was married, and her and her husband were originally from Chicago. He stayed there for whatever reason. I haven't.
SPEAKER_02:Did he have business or something?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, business, or were they separated? Um, she also, or the people who knew her said that she came to California because she was having asthma and heart trouble.
SPEAKER_02:Right.
SPEAKER_00:But she first landed in Monrovia.
SPEAKER_02:That's right. Uh on Myrtle, I believe, or not too far from Myrtle, which is a prominent little area in Monrovia today.
SPEAKER_00:Mm-hmm. And she was a prominent lady there. She was one of the I would call her like a society lady.
SPEAKER_02:Yes. I want to say she was a little younger. I think she was 55, too, at this time that this happened.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, some of the articles say she was 60, some say she was 55. Um but yeah, she was a she was getting a little older. She did have an adopted child named Virginia Lee Weimar. I don't think she was legally adopted, but she ended up taking the Huns last name and living with them for several years. And she moved with Dorothy Lee Hun to Monrovia when she came to California. They call her a social worker at times, which is a little confusing for us because for us, the social worker is like a the name of a profession, but she wasn't Yeah, she was more.
SPEAKER_02:I think back in this time period, she would have been more like a um bleeding heart uh uh seeker out of lost souls and uh kind of a generous uh benefactress in terms of both money and encouragement. Um, I'm not sure she actually worked as a social worker like for like the county of Los Angeles or anything like that.
SPEAKER_00:Right. It wasn't her profession, it was just something that she kind of took up herself. And she she was a prominent member of Monrovia, the women's club there. And just to give you a sense of like her uh how wealthy she was, she had tons of diamonds and jewels, and she once hosted a bridge party of about like 60 people at the Ritzy Biltmore Hotel in Los Angeles, and that is still there, and you can go see it today.
SPEAKER_02:Those of you who are visiting the Southern California Los Angeles area, it's one of the historic hotels of the United States. Um she had diamonds and jewels worth in excess of some of them over$20,000 to$100,000, and this is in 19 you know, 20s money. So it kind of gives you an idea of how wealthy uh she was.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. And so when she moves from Monrovia to Pasadena, she continues on her uh social work, I'll just say, unofficially.
SPEAKER_02:Um she was criticized at certain times by members of her family for befriending the friendless and uh having this bleeding heart for lost souls, some of which could be people who were like unsavory characters.
SPEAKER_00:Mm-hmm. Yes, and Mr. Hun, who stayed behind in Chicago, living at the Illinois Athletic Club, weirdly, um, but he said of his wife, he said that he warned her about the things she was doing and said, quote, someday you'll regret befriending so many social outcasts, you'll run up against an unpleasant situation.
SPEAKER_02:Yes.
SPEAKER_00:And the newspaper said that he was a cousin, but then we later find out that he actually wasn't related to her, he was just a very close family friend. Fred Gibson. And Gibson also warned her about taking in these outcasts, saying what you said basically. She persisted in being a friend to the friendless.
SPEAKER_02:Yes, and uh unfortunately for her, one of the last kind of uh I can fix them cases was a guy from state prison.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, so she met this guy because she was friends with another, they call her a social worker, but it's the same situation, this wealthy woman who's just wanting to help the less fortunate in society. And so, you know, they were friends, and Mrs. Moorehouse, the friend, had a nephew who just got out of Joliet State Prison in 1923, just before Christmas. And he came to LA to kind of get a fresh start.
SPEAKER_02:Right. And as we know, you never escape your problems, you are the problem and you bring them with you.
SPEAKER_00:And you bring them with you. Yes. His name was Harry Garbut, which is a funny name, but like that was his real name. Right. When he came to LA, he took up an alias, um, you know, because he had that uh past. He started to call himself Harry Connors.
SPEAKER_02:Right, because what like normal law abiding citizen has multiple aliases uh whenever they travel somewhere else, you know.
SPEAKER_00:Not not exactly a normal thing.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:So he meets Dorothy Lee Hun through his aunt, Mrs. Morehouse. And Mrs. Morehouse was also trying to help out her nephew. She gave him, I think, like a thousand dollars, um, was trying to get him like back on his feet because he says that he's through with crime, you know, he just wants to live on the straight and narrow, he's looking for jobs. Um but then, you know, after some time passes, Mrs. Morehouse realizes that he's not he's not really into turning his life around. He eventually ends up leaving the house and going somewhere else, living in LA somewhere, but he stays in contact with Mrs. Hun. And at this point, Mrs. Morehouse gets a little bit worried because she knows her nephew, she knows his nature and that he's not the greatest guy. And to give you a little more background on him, in 1912, he was arrested for auto theft and he served about 30 days in prison. And then in 1919, and this is what he was just getting out of prison for, he and two men broke into a fur store and stole the newspaper, it was a little bit blurry. So I can't tell if it was three thousand dollars or eight thousand dollars worth of fur. Either way, that is a lot of money in 1925.
SPEAKER_02:Definitely a felony, and of course that's why he ended up in state prison.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Or felons go.
SPEAKER_00:And um, you know, Mrs. Morehouse remembered one time Harry telling her, like, you know, about uh Mrs. Hun, she should be careful with her diamonds and jewels. Quote, some crook will get Mrs. Hun and get her good if she doesn't quit flashing her diamonds around.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And so Mrs. Morehouse hears that and she starts to get a nervous for her friend, Mrs. Hun, and tells her, like, you know, be careful around him. He's not exactly who you think he is. Gibson was kind of uh describing Garbut, like how he he was charming and he was able to get onto Dorothy's good side.
SPEAKER_02:Um but he was charming in a superficial way. Like he knew things, but it was always like, woe is me, life dealt me a bad hand, I'm the victim, which is very common for these kind of like hustler crook people.
SPEAKER_00:Right. Yeah, I think we all know someone in our life who is just it's never their fault, and all these bad things happen to them all the time, and like people are always out to get them, and the world is against them, and they're just always a victim.
SPEAKER_02:Meanwhile, while they're plotting their next scam, their next uh you know, defraudment of somebody, yeah, their next get rich quick scheme.
SPEAKER_00:Gibson said he was a whiner. Yeah, he just whined about everything. So that's you know how Gibson felt about him. So Garbutt kind of went MIA for a while, but he started to reappear at Mrs. Hun's house.
SPEAKER_02:Yes, coming around, no doubt free food, free companionship, and uh, you know, searching out her place with his eyes to see what a value he could someday get his hands on.
SPEAKER_00:Uh-huh. Uh, because he doesn't have a lot of money, and he doesn't have any money when he arrives at the uh bungalow home of the Huns on September 19th, 1924.
SPEAKER_02:Right. Now, I'm gonna digress here. You gotta kind of wonder these social light types like Mrs. Hun. Like, how much is this, how much is it, oh, I'm gonna help this poor guy, or is there a love angle?
SPEAKER_00:I don't know. I wondered that too. But it got weirder because, you know, at first we think that Mr. Gibson is a cousin, but then we find out that he's not. So what's going on there? Because he's eating dinner every night at the Hun Ball.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, so there's that, but you know, with these criminal felon types, uh, you know, while they're setting up their mark to rob, there's always a young little honey on the side somewhere.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:And in this case, uh old Garbutt slash uh, you know, whatever his latest uh aka was, did have a little honey on the side, didn't he?
SPEAKER_00:Yes. Twenty-four-year-old Irene Kirchhoff. She said she was a waitress.
SPEAKER_02:And apparently Irene Kirchhoff was popular with the boys too.
SPEAKER_00:He was, and there was Well, she was too.
SPEAKER_02:She was kind of a uh little woman about town, as her diary listed names of lots of men that she was familiar with. So uh she was either one, a party girl or two, a good time Charlie. Um, but she apparently got enamored with old uh Garbut because she wrote in her diary, he loves me so much, this must be the one for me.
SPEAKER_00:And I think she came to California with him. Yeah, like she was from Michigan or something like that. Um so yeah, I don't know. She followed him across the country, and when he left his aunt Moorehouse's apartment, he was staying with her at these hotels hotels.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, yeah, in some sleazy, some sleazy hotel, no doubt, in uh downtown LA.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:So yeah, he arrives at the home on September 19th. They weren't really expecting him. But he shows up around like 4:35, and he is, you know, talking to Dorothy and her daughter Virginia, the 10-year-old, is there. Also, there is the cousinslash friend, we don't know what, Gibson, because he's always there.
SPEAKER_02:And they're all having d they have dinner together.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, he stays so long that uh Mrs. Hun is feels obliged to invite him to dinner, basically. So they're all having dinner, and they finish dinner at around 7 p.m. And Mrs. Hun takes little Virginia up to her bedroom, tucks her in, and little Virginia starts to say her prayers to go before she goes to bed, and Dorothy Hun returns to the kitchen as Virginia is praying. She like hears a scuffle and hears her mom go, like, oh, oh, and then she comes down to see what's going on, and she sees Harry Garbut run through the living room, pick up his hat, and then dash out the front door, and then he begins to run down Madison Avenue.
SPEAKER_02:Right. In the meantime, Gibson, the other dinner guest, right before this happened, happened to get up from the dinner table and excuse himself to go to the bathroom.
SPEAKER_01:Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER_00:He said he was having a coughing fit or something.
SPEAKER_02:Right. When he goes to the bathroom, uh the door is mysteriously locked behind him, and he hears a scuffle and a gunshot.
SPEAKER_00:Mm-hmm. He well, he goes to push the door after he hears this gunshot and finds that someone, aka Garba, is on the other side pushing it closed, preventing him from entering.
SPEAKER_01:That's correct.
SPEAKER_00:And at this point, I think Gibson is like, wait, I heard gunshots. Someone is keeping this door shut, and he's probably already suspicious of Garba as a person.
SPEAKER_02:Probably one of the reasons he stayed so long was to keep an eye on him and protect, you know, his uh matronly buddy. Yes. Um but unbeknownst to uh Garba, the bathroom had another door.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, so he runs out of that door, runs around, he goes to the Latham home. The Latham's, I believe, owned that uh bungalow complex that they had there.
SPEAKER_02:So he runs outside to the Latham's to tell them what happened. Latham's call past Nina PD.
SPEAKER_00:And they all, including several other neighbors, you know, because it's a small bungalow court there, people are hearing this and they all come out to see what's going on, and they find Dorothy Hun just outside of the back door of her kitchen in this little uh courtyard right outside, and she's face down on the ground.
SPEAKER_01:Right.
SPEAKER_00:At first they think, you know, she had little fainting spells before, so they pick her up, they take her inside and try to revive her, but then they see a bullet hole in her chest. In her chest. They move her shirt a little bit, they see the bullet hole, they see the blood, and then they see that she has a head wound.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, she has some bludgeoning uh marks on her head uh from a hammer.
SPEAKER_00:Yes, and that is the other thing, that little Virginia, um, you know, when she ran down, she saw Harry Garbutt run out of the door. She walked to the kitchen and she saw a hammer on the floor. She didn't go any further than that, but she saw a hammer on the floor there, and that was picked up by the police as evidence.
SPEAKER_02:Right. And Dorothy was uh shot, killed, shot with a fatal. It was a 25 caliber revolver pistol that she was shot with. Uh 25 caliber is one of the smallest uh bullet rounds. It's just you know a little bit bigger than a 22, but you know, it'll give the job, especially if you're shot right in the heart. And uh you know, who knows where uh Garbut had got this gun from, but he had it on him and used it to finish the job.
SPEAKER_00:Mm-hmm. But the weird thing for me is that this hammer he apparently purchased from a hardware store several days before, which makes me think that he was planning.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. And who knows that he had the hammer on him, like secreted, like hidden down his pants or something, and pulled it out, the one with the pistol. But there's no doubt in my mind that Garbut meant to murder.
SPEAKER_00:Uh yeah, he knew how many diamonds and jewels and how much money she had and probably where she kept them. He was probably going back thinking that he could take some of this stuff, um, or perhaps trying to get money out of her some other way.
SPEAKER_02:Well, yes, because uh there was an issue with a blank check that police believe he tried to get Dorothy to sign off on, and she didn't. And who knows if Gibson's presence there prevented him from taking jewels and stuff because later in the investigation, passing a PD ruled out robbery as a motive because all her jewels were still there.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. All her valuables were still there, which you know obviously and even on her body, she had rings and stuff like that all over her.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, and so you know, my thoughts are it didn't go the way Garbutt planned, there was dips in there, the daughter was there, witnesses and stuff, and so hit it, you know, his plan goes sideways, and all he can do is run out the door and get try to get out of there. So what he ends up doing, uh Garbut ends up hailing a cab, mm-hmm and this cab takes him downtown back to a sleazy hotel in downtown LA. He jumps out of the cab without even paying and runs inside the hotel where he's staying. This cab driver comes out looking for him and like can't find him. You know, so already he's on the lamb. So he knows the gig is up. Yeah. That passing people no doubt uh trace him sooner rather than later to where he's staying.
SPEAKER_00:Um it obviously didn't take police long to get hold of his little gun ball uh and get into her diary to figure out what was going on, and uh you know, they find they trace some letters that Irene had sent, you know, because he runs into the hotel and is like, yeah, we gotta get out of here right now. So they leave, they go to another hotel, yeah, and then they track her down through some letters, and then I think that's when they start the stakeout.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, well, come to find out, the police uh they track this dude down to San Diego, yeah, where they flee, and even into Mexico in Sonata. So this thing's like taking on some international invocations. So Pastina PD is obviously working closely with, you know, other police agencies on this case.
SPEAKER_00:But it was just a uh Harry Garba look-alike, and they had to let him go.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Apparently they looked a lot alike, though.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. So um, you know, it's an interesting investigation, but he is eventually picked up. And he's picked up in they arrested him in San Diego, right? Or picked up in San Diego and then no.
SPEAKER_00:No, they arrested him in LA. He was at a at some hotel in LA where they found him.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, okay. Yeah. A different hotel.
SPEAKER_00:Yes, a different hotel.
SPEAKER_02:That's right, that's right, a different hotel.
SPEAKER_00:Uh, because Chief Kelly got some tip that he was still in Pasadena or like the LA area, and you know, they tracked the uh girlfriend, so they're like holding these stakeouts, I guess, at like the hotels where they think that he might be, and that's how they eventually find him. This goes to trial, and little Virginia is the star witness, basically. There's a little cute moment because before she goes to the trial, you know, everyone wants to hear from this little girl because you know, she witnessed so much happening. And so the reporters are gathered around her and they're wanting to hear what she has to say, but all the adults, like Gibson and Latham, they're all like talking over her and like they're not letting her talk. And so she finally gets to speak and she's like, Okay, I just want to say that the newspaper said I am eight years old. I am not, I am ten.
SPEAKER_02:It would be very important for a little kid to clarify that's very important.
SPEAKER_00:Yes, she is ten. And so, yeah, she goes on and tells them how she had just finishing saying her prayers and she heard her mother scream, saw Garbut run out. You know, she tells the whole story. Um, Harry Garbutt has a completely different story of what happened that night. A little ridiculous.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Um, he says that it was Gibson who was trying to who was attacking Dorothy Hun. That, you know, he came into the kitchen and saw Gibson attacking her with a hammer, and he's trying to stop him, and that's why he brought out the gun.
SPEAKER_02:Right. And of course, Little Virginia was there to say, Uncle Fred didn't do it. You fellows should be running after that man instead of asking Uncle Fred questions.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Obviously, there's a lot of evidence against him. No one's really surprised that he is uh convicted. And on November 22nd, 1925, the papers are describing how he lost his very last appeal to the state Supreme Court, you know, so he's fighting it. And he's eventually hanged on February 13th, 1926.
SPEAKER_02:At San Quentin. At San Quentin, where you get executed in California.
SPEAKER_00:He allegedly gave a last confession, but it was kind of like a bullshit confession. Like, oh, I I okay, I'll give you the quote directly. I fired the shot. Of course, I didn't mean to do it.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, even facing death, he's still gonna try to weasel his way out of a uh taking full responsibility for his actions.
SPEAKER_00:Right.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:So yeah, that was the end of old uh Garbut.
SPEAKER_02:Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER_00:Such a bizarre story.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, so it's a weird case. Um, like I said, this who knew this much murder happened in uh Playhouse Village and on this one street. I like that we uh went back to the archives on this one and it had some interesting moving parts to it. Uh but you know, just like today, uh past any PD, we always get our man.
SPEAKER_00:So and um I thought you would like this case because it's a little bit of a cautionary tale. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Um we uh we at least and I have talked about this before, about what happens when, you know, well-meaning uh bleeding heart types uh take in uh unsavory characters. Oftentimes it ends tragically for the well-meaning person. And uh we even had another podcast that we have in a can. Uh hopefully our viewers will get to listen to that one. A very similar case, an actual social worker who took in somebody they probably shouldn't have and had a relationship with them and was murdered. But yeah, this oftentimes ends poorly for these folks who uh try to help the criminally unstable.
SPEAKER_00:It's all right to help, but you need to do it from a distance sometimes.
SPEAKER_02:Be smart about it, you know. Um I think uh for next week we'll have a more modern case that I will dredge up.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, and we will be back next week with another little old murder from Pasadena.