The Little Old Murder From Pasadena

Stone Dead in Lamanda Park

• Old Blood • Season 3 • Episode 45

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0:00 | 23:51

In 1889, a wine-fueled physical altercation turns deadly for a Lamanda Park, Pasadena family, when two brothers-in-law return from work at a winery.

SPEAKER_01:

And we are back with another Little Old Murder from Pasadena. I'm the historian Elise, and I'm here with my co-hosts.

SPEAKER_00:

Victor Cass, a retired police sergeant with over 30 years' experience, all with the Pasadena, California Police Department.

SPEAKER_01:

Today we're going to Wine Land.

SPEAKER_00:

That's right.

SPEAKER_01:

The village of La Mondda Park, because that's literally what they wrote in the newspapers. The village of Lamonda Park.

SPEAKER_00:

Yes. At this time period in the late 1800s, many parts of what would be Pasadena was basically a farmland, orange groves, and vineyards, wineries. And this winery in particular was probably the most prominent winery in the Pasadena area at the time.

SPEAKER_01:

Yes. Well, if you remember, the city of Pasadena itself was a dry town. You're not supposed to drink alcohol there, even though they definitely snuck it in and drank it sometimes. But La Mondda Park was like outside of Pasadena city limits, so that's where all the wineries were.

SPEAKER_00:

Right.

SPEAKER_01:

And the saloons.

SPEAKER_00:

That's correct. La Monda Park today is still a neighborhood in Pasadena. It is situated in east and south central Pasadena. It's probably the largest neighborhood in the city. Back in those days, there were many large ranches and wineries, some of which stretched as far into even Arcadia, what would be Arcadia and Temple City, all the way to the northern limits of San Gabriel today.

SPEAKER_01:

And we talked about this area in this sort of period of time before when we talked about that killing at the Chapman Ranch with Moy Jung. So, and we also mentioned in that episode Sunny Slope Winery.

SPEAKER_00:

We did.

SPEAKER_01:

And the Sunny Slope Winery was like a neighbor of everything that's going to happen in today's episode. And if you remember, LJ Rose initially bought Sunny Slope, that tract of land from Benjamin Wilson.

SPEAKER_02:

Right.

SPEAKER_01:

And then he created, as you're saying, La Monda Park named after his wife Amanda. I just found that out today.

SPEAKER_00:

Yes. And several of the streets were named after his daughters.

SPEAKER_01:

Uh-huh. Like Nina.

SPEAKER_00:

Nina.

SPEAKER_01:

Nina.

SPEAKER_00:

Annie and Daisy. Today, of course, you can still see Daisy and Nina streets here in Pasadena. Uh-huh. I think Annie went by the wayside historically, but yes.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, so that was a fun fact. Yeah. Um, so LJ Rose's neighbors, and one of these guys actually worked for LJ Rose, Philip Engel.

SPEAKER_00:

Yes.

SPEAKER_01:

He was a German immigrant to uh California, and he originally worked as a cooper for LJ Rose winery.

SPEAKER_00:

Yes, we didn't know what a cooper was either, and we had to look that up. Yeah, we did. Even though we are big wine buffs.

SPEAKER_01:

No, we're we're learning a whole bunch from this episode. Um he was the one that would help to make like the barrels and casks of wood, uh made of wood for all of the wine. That's correct. So that's what a cooper is. And so yeah, he worked for LJ Rose, and then eventually he had his own land right next to Sunny Slope. So Philip Engel was 44. He married Ida in 1879, and Ida had a brother.

SPEAKER_00:

Yes. Charles Curtis. Now Charlie, old Charlie, was a big dude. Yes. Big, strong.

SPEAKER_01:

He was six feet tall, but he was also just like huge, like well built, they say built like a tank, basically.

SPEAKER_00:

And supposedly Charles Curtis had somewhat of a kind of a rough and tumble temper. And he was known for uh getting quick to uh offense and would, you know, knock people around if they uh crossed him or offended him in some way. He had kind of a reputation in this in these parts and was known to uh thump people even in saloons that uh gave him a hard time.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, he loved the saloons and he was just uh quick with his fists, they like to say.

SPEAKER_00:

He was always getting into uh You could argue that he was even kind of a neighborhood bully.

SPEAKER_01:

You could say that. And you know, Philip was not an angel himself. And when all of this happens, you know, there are rumors that you know Philip was kind of a bully too.

SPEAKER_00:

Um Philip had a temper himself and had a couple of scrapes with the law. Uh and he there was one incident where he did kind of uh track down someone who he had had a disagreement with and also knocked about in a bar. But Philip would have been smaller than Charles Curtis and would have been um uh easy prey for uh Charlie to dispatch. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Now keep in mind So Philip, sorry, but Philip, the people who knew him said that in general he was like a pretty nice guy and he was easy to get along with until he drank. And the problem is that like they're always drinking, they're working at a winery next to a winery.

SPEAKER_00:

And oddly enough, the two of them are they get along okay. I mean, after all, after all, Philip is married to Charlie's sister.

SPEAKER_01:

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_00:

And for the most part, they have a working relationship, they get along with each other, they drink together. I think one of you even got the other one a gift for uh his wife and gave him money for ma to get married because Charlie was married too.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, so yeah, they had known each other for at least a decade at this point because uh Philip was married to Ida 11 years before, and actually Curtis was living with the couple, that's how well they got along for the past four years, and then Curtis got married to Curtis, by the way, was 31. His bride was 19-year-old Mary Fagan, and she lived nearby in the neighborhood, and when they got married, Angle, as a wedding gift, gave him a$25 check. Yes, which was a lot of money then. Yeah, absolutely. And he also loaned him another$50 so that he could buy furniture for his new home right there next to the Angle home.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, they're basically neighbors, so it would have been easy, like you know, they would go back and forth to each other's house and stuff. Um and yeah, so on this day in particular, they were drinking together.

SPEAKER_01:

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00:

They were working, they were well working first and drinking at the same time. I guess back in these days you could, you know, drink while at work.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, that's that's my point about they were always drinking. If they were working, they were still drinking.

SPEAKER_00:

And at a certain point, they're all together with the wife, Engel's wife.

SPEAKER_01:

Mm-hmm. They all go back to the Engel home.

SPEAKER_00:

Yes.

SPEAKER_01:

And when Philip and Curtis walk in there and they're uh a little bit drunk, and Philip starts to berate his wife.

SPEAKER_00:

Yes, apparently there was an issue of what had happened to a cask of wine.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

And Philip uh accused his wife of pouring some wine into a vinegar jug.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. So, like, was she trying, maybe he thought that she was trying to spare him from alcohol, like try to get him to stop drinking as much, or he could have just drank it himself and forgot about it completely.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. But um, so Philip gets mad, starts berating his wife, and he's kind of, you know, really tearing into her.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

And she has a Bible.

SPEAKER_01:

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_00:

Which apparently isn't hers. Like, I think maybe she borrowed this Bible.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, she said it wasn't hers because he he says something to the effect of, Oh, you shouldn't be reading this thing like lying to me. And lying to me, so I'm gonna throw this book out the window. Yeah. And she's like, Well, you shouldn't throw it out the window because it's not mine. I borrowed it.

SPEAKER_02:

Which he didn't care.

SPEAKER_01:

He chucks it out the window anyway.

SPEAKER_02:

Right.

SPEAKER_01:

She runs outside to pick up her friend's Bible, and um, you know, of course, he tries to lie and say, like, oh, it wasn't a Bible, it was something else. You know, because it's a bad look to throw a Bible out of a window in those days. Yeah. Yeah, but it yeah, it comes out it was that Bible, and so she goes out to get it.

SPEAKER_00:

And meanwhile, what she doesn't know is that her brother has now taken offense to Philip chastising his sister this way and treating his sister this way, and Charles being the big man that he is, literally manhandles Philip and throws him probably off the porch where he lands face first at the feet of his sister. And his sister's obviously shocked when she looks down to see her husband.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, so according to her, she said she's bending down to get her Bible. And next thing she knows, her husband's at her feet. And she says that Charlie threw him about ten feet through the air.

SPEAKER_00:

Right.

SPEAKER_01:

I thought that sounded ridiculous, but you said that that is.

SPEAKER_00:

It's totally possible. He throws him, you know, grabs him by the collar and the and the and his waist, chucks him off the porch, he stumbles and maybe rolls.

SPEAKER_01:

There were a few steps, and I think Angle was a lot smaller than that.

SPEAKER_00:

Absolutely. So Charlie, he's a big dude, he could easily throw this guy around. And not only does he throw Philip onto the ground at the feet of his sister, Charlie jumps on top of him, plants his knee in his gut, which probably knocks the wind out of him, and proceeds to strangle him to near death. In fact, it was so bad, his eyes rolled up on his face, and he passed out.

SPEAKER_01:

Yes. Um Mrs. Angle is screaming when she sees that her brother is strangling her husband. She starts screaming, you know, other neighbors hear and they come.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, she threatened to tell somebody, which I think woke Charles up out of his rage, and he realized, oh, there's witnesses, I'm I'm gonna be seen. He lets go.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. And that's kind of what she was really in fear for his life, though. I just want to quote her. She said, I was in fear for his life, for my brother had him by the throat. His eyes were set and his mouth open.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, there was there's no doubt in my mind, at least and I were talking about this, there's no doubt in my mind that her brother, Charles, was gonna murder Philip at that moment. And the only thing that prevented from being killed was the fact that, you know, the Ms. The wife woke his her brother up and made him realize that there's people around. And so he lets go.

SPEAKER_01:

Because she can't, she herself can't get him off of her husband. She has to get the neighbors to come in and help break their own.

SPEAKER_00:

And so Charlie immediately leaves in a huff. Okay. Now, this is kind of one of those, I mean, things like this happen. Trust me, I've been a I was a cop for a long time. We see stuff like this all the time. These fights that turn tragic. Uh, one person either threatens to kill or almost kill somebody else, the person who is the victim uh is gonna get revenge, they're not gonna take this. And it's easy to understand how Philip Engels in this case, who barely survived being murdered, is like, I'm gonna kill that SOB. You know, and you know, he's still flustered, trying to catch his breath. They go inside, his sister wipes the blood. I mean, Charlie's sister wipes the blood off her husband's face, and he's like, I'm gonna shoot that, I'm gonna kill that guy.

SPEAKER_01:

And when they ask him later, he'll say that he doesn't really remember much of what's going on. And I'm gonna chalk that up to him uh being panicked and also probably drunk.

SPEAKER_00:

Panicked, drunk, he's seen red just as much as Charlie was seen red.

SPEAKER_01:

Like he remembers being thrown off the porch and then doesn't really remember much until later when he sees Charlie coming back to the house.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, yeah, keep in mind, so in the span of about five minutes, Charlie goes home, realizes he didn't finish the job, and he probably wants to go back and kill his sister's husband. So he turns around and goes back. Meanwhile, at the angle home, he's saying, I'm gonna kill this guy. If he comes here, I'm gonna kill him.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, he's kind of coming through. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, he at first went to go get a shotgun that was in this one room, but instead gets a rifle. Okay, because they see through the window Charlie coming back. So Charles just passes outside the window, and Philip grabs a rifle and says, You better not, you better not come in this house.

SPEAKER_01:

Yes. So Mrs. Angle kind of rushes through the house to greet Charlie, saying, Charlie, go back, go back.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, she's trying to warn her brother, don't come in. Yes, you don't know what you're doing.

SPEAKER_01:

He was also sorry, stopped by a neighbor on the way who said the same thing. Don't go back, just go back into your house, just cool down a little bit.

SPEAKER_00:

Let cooler heads prevail. But of course, uh, all these moments have set into action a tragic event when Charlie ignores all these warnings. He bursts into the Ingle home, goes after, he sees Philip pointing the rifle at him. That does not stop him.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

He charges at him, and Philip has to back up into like a bedroom.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, he's almost like a robot at this point. Like his eyes, like he's just gone somewhere else. He's in a complete.

SPEAKER_00:

He's so raged, and he is and he probably doesn't think Philip has what it takes to pull the trigger.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Which is also a very dangerous situation because Philip now sees this guy coming for him. This guy's stronger than he is. He could easily one take this rifle out of his hands and beat him to death with it, probably if he wanted to, if not, shoot him with it, use his own gun on him. So Charlie's in such a rage, he presses his chest up against the barrel of the gun, trying to reach for yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Now, this is after Philip is tell also telling Charlie, you know, don't come any closer, don't come any closer, go back, go back. He's warning him, but Charlie's still coming for him, getting closer and closer until he's literally with the muzzle up against up against him as he's as he's reaching, probably to go grab Philip's neck again. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

And that's when Philip shoots.

SPEAKER_01:

Yes.

SPEAKER_00:

One shot, all it took. Um, there's no doubt in my mind, Charlie was dead before he hit the ground.

SPEAKER_01:

And according to Mrs. Angle, both of them flew backward.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. Obviously, the the the recoil from the rifle would have knocked, you know, Philip, who was off balance because you know Charlie's pressing against him, so he would have fallen backward. Charlie would have fallen the other way.

SPEAKER_01:

Um and uh yeah, Charlie fell stone dead, they said, just died immediately, bullet through the heart.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, it went right through him actually. It exited. There was an exit wound.

SPEAKER_01:

Um, but it did go through his head.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, it went through his heart and lung. Um, he was killed instantly. Um, and uh yeah, I mean you can just picture that the chaos in the Engle home, you know.

SPEAKER_01:

And Lamonde Park, you know, it was very rural and kind of a small place. Everyone heard that gunshot. Yeah. So did Charlie's wife of three days.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

They were only married for three days. She hears it and she runs over and she's looking, you know, where's Charlie? Where's Charlie? Charlie's dead, but they're not letting her in.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, they don't want her to come see uh her deceased husband. And of course, you know, poor you know, Mrs. Ingalls beside herself because her husband just killed her own brother.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

So imagine what she's going through. Um passing a PD uh gets called out. Um obviously Philip's gonna get arrested for murder.

SPEAKER_01:

Yes.

SPEAKER_00:

And the constable also, when they uh arrive, smells liquor on his and he's doesn't it's not gonna take a uh a law enforcement genius to figure out that you know alcohol was a major factor in this uh domestic uh situation. Um and you know, uh Philip's gonna go to trial for murder.

SPEAKER_01:

And at first the papers kind of it's like the reverse narrative. Like the papers are making it seem like Charlie Curtis was the one being bullied by Engel, and Engel's the one with the uh bad character and the bad reputation. And his uncle, Curtis, is one of the first to come out and say, Oh yeah, I saw him early that day beating, Philip was beating his wife, and I don't know if that's true, but Mrs. Angle later came up to the stand and said that the uncle was lying, that no such thing happened.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. Um I think that Philip had a good lawyer. Um, it's a righteous, you know, just from my own experience, um it's on the face of it a righteous self-defense case. Okay.

SPEAKER_01:

He did have bloody scratches on his neck.

SPEAKER_00:

He did. And, you know, the testimony of his own wife uh was very uh helpful to her husband.

SPEAKER_01:

Um she backed up everything he said.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. And you know, she was seen as truthful. Look, somebody breaks into your house who only minutes before tried to murder you, and they rush at you again for a second attempt. It's not gonna take a genius on a jury to determine that you had a legitimate fear for your life. Right. Especially as you're pointing a rifle at them warning them not to come into your house. Um so why don't you tell us about this jury? That's kind of interesting. Kind of a a who's who of uh Pasadena at this time. As we know, it was very common for prominent members of a community to serve on juries.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, well, one of the uh jurymen I can remember right off the bat, which is Charles Lamb.

SPEAKER_00:

Surprise, surprise. There's that name again. I know.

SPEAKER_01:

How did he get there? I wonder.

SPEAKER_00:

Yes, Charles Lamb, of course, uh the patriarch of the Lamb Funeral Home Family.

SPEAKER_01:

Mm-hmm. There were also a few other weird names connected to this. Um they brought in people for both of the men to testify that they had a good reputation, that they weren't bad guys. And even Curtis had a few guys came forward to say that he had a good reputation, including James, Craig, Albert Brigdon, which you know, they have streets in this city named after them. Yes, Abbott Kinney.

SPEAKER_00:

Yes, and you can Abba Kinney has a neighborhood in Los Angeles named after him.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, so they were all writing in saying, like, hey, Curtis was a good guy. I vouched for him.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, but then again, enough witnesses were you know also testified that hey, this guy was kind of a bully. You know, it's not a surprise to us that he, you know, tried to murder his sister's uh husband.

SPEAKER_01:

Plenty of them are talking about how they saw him at the Lamonda saloon knocking people around. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

So yeah. Um Philip gets off.

SPEAKER_01:

Yes, he does. Makes sense. This is like still the Wild West, especially in Lamonda Park.

SPEAKER_00:

It is. This is like definitely Wild West Pasadena. I mean, literally the Indian wars are still going on in America at the time this is happening. Tell you know, tell us a little bit about what what happened to the Angles later in life. They uh they were around for a little while, weren't they?

SPEAKER_01:

They were. He died in his wife that he married, the young 19-year-old. She lived until 1946. Right. She way outlived him.

SPEAKER_00:

Yes.

SPEAKER_01:

Um, but yeah, Philip Angle, yeah, I think he died in the 20s. Right.

SPEAKER_00:

But they interviewed her or something, right? Isn't they interview her later, like in the 50s?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, in the 20s, right around the time of Philip Engel's death, someone from the Pasadena Museum of History or associated with one of those organizations spoke to Iva Ida.

SPEAKER_00:

Ida, Iva.

SPEAKER_01:

Ida Engel. And she was, yeah, telling all about her time with her dad, Philip Engel, at um the winery, and how much of Lamonda Park at that time was filled with like timber, lumber.

SPEAKER_00:

Two trees and stuff. Yeah. These were this was a definitely if you're into your Pasadena history, this was a very prominent area, and these were some prominent people involved in this this region and the development of East Pasadena and you know, even Arcadia and parts of uh Temple City and San Gabriel. Yes, interesting case. Again, this is something that uh for those people involved in like law enforcement cases, uh things like this happen still today. Neighbor and family disputes that turn deadly when alcohol or drugs are involved and uh tempers are flaring, and it's not uh uncommon for you know family members to murder other family members.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

I can't help but wonder if this scene would have unfolded the way that it had if they were not drunk at the time.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, again, because they did get along with each other in general. They did hang out, get along.

SPEAKER_01:

Um and I just can't help but think if they were sober, they would have found a way to like feel because nothing really happened.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, just over, you know, where's my wine, and I'm gonna throw your Bible outside, and you know, Charles didn't like the way he was talking to his sister.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, and he snapped.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, and it you know, it could it definitely ruined one life and could have ruined more.

SPEAKER_01:

And it's sad because later Philip Engels said, quote, he was my best friend. I learned him the Cooper trade and gave him employment and assisted him to find work when I had none of my own to give him.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. Sad story, but interesting, definitely an interesting true crime case from early Pasadena.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. It was. And uh, you know that we are drinking wine as we go through this wine case.

SPEAKER_00:

Nickelto was apropos.

SPEAKER_01:

It's wine o'clock. And we will be back next week with another Little Old Murder from Pasadena.