The Bones of Tom Barry

In February 1909, Thomas Barry left for Mt. Lowe on foot with $100 in gold and was never seen again. Two years later, a partial skeleton was discovered. Was this Tom Barry?

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:26

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_01 0:33

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

SPEAKER_00 0:40

And we're going back in time today to the early 1900s.

SPEAKER_01 0:46

Yeah, 1909, I believe, is when this uh thing kicked off.

SPEAKER_00 0:49

1909-ish, sorta, kinda, sorta. And this is a little uh kind of unique story that we're gonna do today because we are not 100% certain of who it was that was murdered. We're pretty sure.

SPEAKER_01 1:07

Yes. Uh because apparently there was uh more than one missing person at play.

SPEAKER_00 1:15

Yeah, there was a lot of confusion in this. Um so the man that we think was murdered.

SPEAKER_01 1:23

Most likely.

SPEAKER_00 1:24

Most likely, was a man named Thomas J. Berry. And he was born in 1869, and he came, I think, I'm not sure if he was born there, but before he came to Pasadena, he was living in St. Louis.

SPEAKER_01 1:43

That's correct. And uh he was employed by the Pacific Electric Company.

SPEAKER_00 1:49

Mm-hmm. He was, and actually he worked at the World's Fair that was in St. Louis at the time. So the St. Louis exposition was in 1904, and Barry was there. Uh, he was like a car guy, and he was driving automobiles there, and met a man named E. W. Rowray.

SPEAKER_01 2:18

And a little side note for I don't mean to interrupt, but a little side note on that 1904 World's Fair. It also coincided with because they made it concurrent there, the Olympic Games, which were held in St. Louis in 1904 as well.

SPEAKER_00 2:32

Interesting. So there was a lot going on in St. Louis at that time. So he met this Rao Ray there, and Rao Ray is the one who knew about Pasadena and recommended that he go and move there. Because I think Rao Ray had a brother living in Pasadena at the time.

SPEAKER_01 2:50

Yes, Pasadena would have been a very popular uh place for people to move to in Southern California. It was already widely known in tourist circles and in like lung health circles and stuff like that because of its climate.

SPEAKER_00 3:06

Yeah. Um, and so Barry, he was like in his the early to mid-thirties at this time. Um he had been married back in St. Louis to at the time she was Miss Effie Bates when he married her in 1901 in St. Louis. They got a divorce in 1904. And it was like the very next year that he up and went to Pasadena. So she hadn't seen him for a very long time. She eventually got remarried and was Mrs. Herod. Rowe said about Barry, quote, he was the man who taught me to run an automobile. He was in charge of all the rent a cars at the fair, and his position was a good one. He came out here upon my advice after I had given him a letter of introduction to my brother. So Roray's brother worked for Pacific Electric. Barry came to Pasadena. I moved to Pasadena. He was living on Mary Street for some time and on DeLacy, 120 West de Lacy, which is in the back of Old Town. He was living there for a while. Working for Pacific Electric. But he seems to have been in a little bit of poor health. He was having some stomach problems. I also wondered if something was up with him mentally because his friend, like the people who knew him, said that he kind of kept to himself. He had very few friends. He was having trouble making friends with.

SPEAKER_01 4:45

Yeah, he was an odd bird. And um, you know, just if you look at some of his actions before he disappears in this case, they're a little unusual as well. Um and he also um he also had some money.

SPEAKER_00 5:00

Yes. So his ex-wife said that it was like a practice of his to carry exactly a hundred dollars in gold coins.

SPEAKER_01 5:11

Yes, and keep in mind this is one hundred dollars in gold in 1909. So you can just imagine how much that will be worth today. And it was in the form of uh several$20 gold pieces. Yes. Which at this time uh would have been the I believe the Liberty Head gold pieces, the St. Godens$20 gold pieces would not have come out yet, I don't think.

SPEAKER_00 5:38

And, you know, according to his friend, Barry was also getting a little bit um he was getting a little paranoid. Um and he was telling me.

SPEAKER_01 5:48

I wouldn't be paranoid while I was walking around with$20 gold pieces in my pocket all the time.

SPEAKER_00 5:52

Yeah, I know I would too.

SPEAKER_01 5:55

Especially if I told everybody that I had this gold on my pocket.

SPEAKER_00 5:57

It begs the question why he didn't trust Banks. I think that was the thing. He wanted to keep all his money on him.

SPEAKER_01 6:04

Barry was also notorious for letting people know that he had this gold and he would display these coins frequently. So um it doesn't take a genius to figure out that some shady character somewhere is gonna want to uh separate uh Mr. Barry from his gold.

SPEAKER_00 6:22

Yeah. So he did. He got a little paranoid. He said, he told Roray that he felt like someone was following him. You know, several times he was mentioning, you know, I think someone's trying to get at my money. So in early February of 1909, Barry contacts Roray and they meet up, they say, at the Masonic Temple in Pasadena.

SPEAKER_01 6:50

That would be on South Euclid Avenue in our civic center neighborhood.

SPEAKER_00 6:54

Mm-hmm. Um, I don't know if they were members or they just decided to meet up there. But while there, Barry is talking to Roray. Roray is a little bit uh scared for Barry because he's having all these stomach issues, he's not working, he took a bunch of time off of work to go, you know, take care of his health problems. But when Roray meets Barry at the Masonic Temple, Barry says he's actually feeling a lot better physically. Um he's gonna go take a trip up to Mount Lowe in the morning. And, you know, he's again showing him how much gold he has to keep him going on his trip. And so Thomas Barry, February 1909, goes up to Mount Lowe.

SPEAKER_01 7:41

And he's hiking his way to the city.

SPEAKER_00 7:43

He's hiking, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:44

In apparently some nice clothes and some nice, like regular kind of dressy shoes, which is also unusual, which points to maybe you know that he had some Yeah, they were some special like low top shoes or something like that. So he's not exactly dressed, you know, for a rigorous hike uh for even for those days.

SPEAKER_00 8:03

Um and again, he's but I mean Mount Lowe was he would have been heading up to Echo Mountain. If you remember, we did that murder on Mount Lowe episode. Yes. There were hotels and restaurants up on uh Echo Mountain at the time, so it wasn't like super rural, but he was walking up there.

SPEAKER_01 8:22

Yeah, and it is a little hike. I mean, it's not like a you know 500-yard or half a mile stroll. I mean, there are a couple of miles involved in this hike.

SPEAKER_00 8:31

And there are miles and miles of uh hiking trails built all around Echo Mountain and Mount Lowe that you could very easily get yourself lost in.

SPEAKER_01 8:40

Yeah, lost or pounced upon by unsavory elements.

SPEAKER_00 8:45

Could be. So yeah, Barry hiked up to Mount Lowe and was never seen again.

SPEAKER_01 8:51

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 8:52

So 1909 passes, 1910 passes. Roray has no idea what happened to his friend. He is just assuming that someone who knew about his gold like got to him and took his money. And then in August of nineteen eleven, a prospector named William Gray was walking through Las Flores Canyon, right there by Echo Mountain, and came upon the dismembered remains.

SPEAKER_01 9:36

Skeletal remains.

SPEAKER_00 9:42

They were sunbleached. Um you know, but they can still tell some things about the body. And so here's the thing. These body parts were obviously there for a long time, and they were strewn strewn over about 200 yards at the bottom of this steep canyon. The skull was down at the bottom of the canyon, but they said that the main part of the body was found about 200 yards further up.

SPEAKER_01 10:13

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 10:14

His hands and arms were not found.

SPEAKER_01 10:17

Right. And the skull apparently had enough scalp left on it that they could tell the color of his hair.

SPEAKER_00 10:22

Yeah, his hair was still there.

SPEAKER_01 10:24

Kind of blondish-reddish.

SPEAKER_00 10:25

Yeah, so he probably died further up the mountain and then just over time uh flooding flooding animals, probably picking apart his body, you know, all sorts of things, you know, move the body parts around. Um but they're looking at the body, the bones themselves don't look broken.

SPEAKER_01 10:44

Right. So they definitely can rule out a fall.

SPEAKER_00 10:47

Yeah, they don't think that he fell, because the bones were not broken. He had a bunch of holes on the clothes on his chest. Um, I don't know what like I mean, it was skeletal remains, so I don't know what like the body itself looked like, but they're looking at the holes in his chest thinking, you know, maybe he's put in the blue, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:07

Stabbed him.

SPEAKER_00 11:08

Stabbed him. And not far from the bulk of his body parts was a rusted pickaxe.

SPEAKER_01 11:17

Yes. Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00 11:19

And they're, you know, looking at the edge on the pickaxe, and they're like, this looks like a lot like the weapon that would have caused the holes on the shirt. So they're thinking, yeah, somebody probably took the axe to him and murdered him. And also, all the gold that he went up with is gone. Right. I think there's like a maybe a penny or two in his pockets.

SPEAKER_01 11:39

Right. The gold's missing. Um, he's dead. They've ruled out a fall, they've pretty much ruled out suicide. So all that's really left is murder.

SPEAKER_00 11:50

Yeah. And so when they hear of this body being discovered, Rore's probably like, oh my God, that's probably my friend, Barry. And so he goes to identify. And so there are things found with Barry's body. Uh, for example, he's still in the same clothes as you said.

SPEAKER_01 12:14

That he was seen last seen alive wearing.

SPEAKER_00 12:16

That he was last seen and wearing. Roll Ray is confirming this. He also has a pearl-handled pocket knife.

SPEAKER_01 12:24

Right, which can be confirmed that Barry possessed. It was his.

SPEAKER_00 12:29

That he had. Also a gold sleeve link, a lithographed map of Los Angeles dated to 1909. Right. The year that he went missing. Exactly. And little fragments of a raffle ticket, which ended up being like unrelated to things, but interesting nonetheless. And so this is what Roray has to say after looking at the body. Quote, I have examined the remains, and there is no doubt in my mind that the dead man is Tom Barry. He was a good friend of mine. And he's remembers specifically the green suit that he lost last saw him going off in. And, you know, over time the sun kind of bleaches the colors on the clothes and everything. But he was able to lift the lapel of his jacket, and underneath the lapel, it's still that same green color that he remembered it being. And same with his hair. It was that same reddish color hair and the same patent leather half shoes that he was wearing that had the narrow toes on it. Yeah. So Roray is like certain that this is him.

SPEAKER_01 13:47

For sure.

SPEAKER_00 13:48

Apparently, he also had a a brother in St. Louis who was trying to find him over the years. And so Chief Wood and the Pasadena Police Department, looking at everything, they believe that he was murdered.

SPEAKER_01 14:05

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 14:06

Um he was likely coming back down Echo Mountain, and somebody, I don't know if they came across him or they knew that he was going up there, followed him up there, likely killed him with the axe, and then took his gold.

SPEAKER_01 14:20

Right. And to add to the confusion of this, and and kind of a it kind of took the case on a little sideways digression for a moment, was that there was a carpenter named Bert Gillespie, who had disappeared the previous November.

SPEAKER_00 14:37

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 14:37

And was missing. And um there was a woman, Mrs. J. M. Power, who lived at 141 Green Street here in Pasadena, who was convinced that uh when she found out about this and and inquired about the body, that it was Bert Gillespie.

SPEAKER_00 14:56

Mm-hmm. Yeah, because she was friends with Gillespie's wife, Mrs.

SPEAKER_01 15:00

Gillespie, who obviously was looking for Bert for over a year, and she lived in Oxnard, Mrs. Gillespie. Um and, you know, of course the Passian police are gonna kind of look into it and give this some, you know, some thought. Uh but the problem being, of course, that, you know, Barry had been missing for two years since 1909, and you know, Bert Gillespie was just gone since November, and they would have been able to place the bones found for more than two years, like that about that two-year mark, not someone who had just been gone since November.

SPEAKER_00 15:34

Yeah, there was a little debate over how the body should have looked after being out there for like two years.

SPEAKER_01 15:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:42

Um, and also like the age of the body. Like they whoever did the autopsy thought the man was like in his mid-30s, which was around Barry's age.

SPEAKER_01 15:52

Right, but not Bert Gillespie's.

SPEAKER_00 15:54

Bert Gillespie was 26, so a little bit too young, but but you know, his wife was certain. I'm gonna read a quote. I am quite certain that the body found at Las Flores Canyon is that of Mr. Gillespie. He had a peculiar hair of a light reddish tinge, which is exactly the same colored hair found on the skull of these remains. And they're also saying that he left in the same kind of green clothes, which was interesting.

SPEAKER_01 16:23

Yeah, but of course the, you know, the icing on the cake is of course the items that were found with the bones, the pocket knife, you know, the special colour of green, confirmed by, you know, uh Roray that this is Barry. This is Barry's body. This is this is the stuff Barry had. It matches the time period, you know, the belongings.

SPEAKER_00 16:46

Um I looked a little bit more into this Gillespie guy, and he had married his wife in 1908 after like six weeks of dating. They had just met, they just got married, and then brought her to Pasadena. He got a job as a contractor, and then just like disappeared. She was searching for him for weeks, even went to the police. The Pasadena police were putting up circulars with this guy's photograph in it to see if you know anyone knew who he was or where he went. Nothing was ever found. Honestly, in my head, I think it's possible that the guy just decided he didn't want to be married anymore and wanted to like disappear himself.

SPEAKER_01 17:32

That's you know, that's always a a good theory. Um, I can see that happening. A lot of times a lot of people back in those days were like, I'm out, you know, and yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:43

Um But it it seemed like the body that they found in the mountains had been there a lot longer than just the I think it was even a little less than a year that this Gillespie guy was gone. So it's most likely Thomas Barry, and the age of the body matches Thomas Barry.

SPEAKER_01 18:02

Yeah. Um I thought it was kind of weird that you know, pasting and PDs letting these random wives and friends of wives come observe the body, but I guess the deceased's or the missing person's wife had made enough of a stink the police agreed to let the friend come and view the remains.

SPEAKER_00 18:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:20

To see whether it was Gillespie or not. But I just thought it was odd that you know, they reported that when Mr. Gillespie disappeared, he wore the same green-colored clothes, the same low-cut shoe, and had the same kind of pearl-handled knife. I mean, that's a little weird. It's all gonna be the same stuff as Barry.

SPEAKER_00 18:37

Yeah, it's just too much of a coincidence.

SPEAKER_01 18:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:39

And it's, you know, right where he said he was going to be hiking is where he was eventually found two years later without the gold. Like it it probably someone knew about his gold, followed him up there, and killed him for it. He just laid there for two years.

SPEAKER_01 18:54

Yeah. Um, yeah, it's this is uh one of those things where, you know, the passing of PD can be like, yep, pretty much this is a done deal. It's Mr. Barry, he's dead.

SPEAKER_00 19:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:08

Uh murder unsolved.

SPEAKER_00 19:09

I think they were trying to find, like, he apparently had jammed one of his fingers playing baseball way back in the day. So they were trying to find his fingers to confirm that, you know, weird jammed finger to be like, yeah, that's definitely Barry. But his hands were missing.

SPEAKER_01 19:25

They were never found, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:26

Yeah, lost to nature or animals or whatever.

SPEAKER_01 19:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:29

Um, and then there was also some uh mystery about his teeth. He should have they wondered if he should have had more gold teeth, but also some of his teeth were missing. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:40

The two front ones, which they theorized uh were knocked out when the skull rolled down, you know.

SPEAKER_00 19:46

Yeah, that skull rolled all the way down the mountain, so I could see some teeth chipping and falling out easily.

SPEAKER_01 19:51

But yeah, so Gillespie is uh was never found um that we know of. And uh pretty. Much the story is that the dead guy's Barry, he's murdered, and it's an unsolved case.

SPEAKER_00 20:06

And you know, it was a lot easier to disappear yourself back in the day. Sure. You know, like if you didn't want to be married or you committed a crime, or you did something, you know, it's very easy to just boop go somewhere else, take up a new name, and you know, live your new life elsewhere, which you can't really do that easily today. Not as easier with all of our, you know, digital footprints and fingerprints and it's not very surprising to me that there were like two people thought it was actually surprising to me that there were only two guys that were at that time that were reported missing.

SPEAKER_01 20:41

You know. Yeah, that we know. I'm sure Pasadena PD got all kinds of weird missing persons' cases back and then, just like we did, you know, when I was a cop during my career.

SPEAKER_00 20:49

Yeah, I'm sure the police department had to sift through like all of the missing people from Pasadena of that year. Um but yeah, I'm sure it's poor old Thomas Barry. Um and yeah, he probably did die way back in 1909.

SPEAKER_01 21:04

Not to throw a wrench into this, but how do we know Roray didn't follow him and kill him?

SPEAKER_00 21:08

I had that question. Um, but he features so prominently in all the papers. I I think that like if he was suspected, there would have been little hints. You know, and again, if this You know how the papers love to run with things back in the day.

SPEAKER_01 21:22

Yes, and I'm sure the peel the pastine and PD guys, the Detective Schultz, you know, back then, I'm sure they thought of that.

SPEAKER_00 21:28

Yeah, he would have been the number one suspect.

SPEAKER_01 21:30

Yeah, I'm sure they questioned Rory. They just really didn't go into many details about that in the uh newspaper clippings that we found. Yeah. Um but yeah, I would have definitely uh said, Well, Mr. Rory, how do you know so much about his gold coins and where were you on the on the night of the afternoon of February?

SPEAKER_00 21:48

In April of 1909.

SPEAKER_01 21:50

Yeah, I definitely would have uh asked some questions about Rory there. But yeah, this is an interesting uh little caper that you uh dug up.

SPEAKER_00 21:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:58

Dug up.

SPEAKER_00 21:59

And I feel bad for this guy, Thomas Barry. He he seemed like a a quirky character who just was not uh living his life wisely enough.

SPEAKER_01 22:10

Yes, and for you uh new Miss Matist listeners out there, don't go telling people about your gold coins, okay?

SPEAKER_00 22:17

Yeah, nobody needs to know how much gold you have to keep not a secret. And we will be back next week with another episode of The Little Old Murder from Pasadena.