I Love Los Angeles Crime!
Every city has a unique crime signature. In Los Angeles, crime has a distinctly cinematic feel. In 1910, Hollywood made its first film, In Old California. The silent short ran for 17 thrilling minutes. A western, the characters run the gamut from upstanding citizens to thieves. Hollywood has been obsessed with themes of good vs. evil ever since.
In the following tale, Jealousy and Gin, the killer is a real-life B-movie bad guy. He never speaks without a cigarette dangling from his mouth, and he cracks wise to the end.
For more fascinating true crime tales from Prohibition-era Los Angeles, pick up a copy of my book, Of Mobsters and Movie Stars, available now.
-Joan Renner
Jealousy and Gin
Twenty-three-year-old Ruth Malone moved to Los Angeles in August 1927. She fled Aberdeen, Washington, to escape her husband, John, a jealous and violent drunk. To conceal her whereabouts, she used her mother’s address on Belmont Avenue but lived with a girlfriend in an apartment at 9th and Flower. She lived in fear of John finding her. She worked half a mile from the apartment at a drugstore on East Twelfth between Santee Street and Maple Avenue. By December, Ruth decided she wanted to get a divorce, but she was in no hurry to confront John.
At 11 o’clock in the morning on Wednesday, December 7, 1927, Ruth’s workday was beginning when John arrived. He was drunk and loud, and he made a scene. He begged Ruth to return to him. She said no and would not budge. John stormed out. He returned at noon and pleaded with her again. She accused him of being drunk. He could not deny it. In fact, he said he had been drinking continuously for three weeks and would stay drunk until Ruth agreed to reunite. She refused again and asked him to leave her alone. He pulled a revolver from his pocket. Ruth saw the gun and dashed for the rear of the store. Some partitions cut off her escape route, trapping her. As twenty people watched, John fired, and each shot hit its mark. Ruth took hits to the chest, face, and hip. Satisfied that he had killed her, John turned the gun on himself. One bullet entered his chest a few inches above his heart, and then he raised the weapon to his head and fired.
When detectives Lieutenants Hickey, Stevens, and Condaffer of the LAPD’s Central Station Homicide Squad arrived, they found Ruth dead and John on the brink of death. John shocked Detective Hickey when he mustered the strength and said, “I’m sorry I killed her, but give me a smoke before I croak, will you?” Even though John believed he was dying, his first thought was for a cigarette. The detectives found an incoherent note in John’s pocket, the ramblings of a man obsessed.
Investigators discovered that John, 29, had an arrest record. Authorities apprehended him in Oakland on October 10, 1917, for burglary and later in San Francisco for violating the State Poison Act (a drug charge). John was in Los Angeles for a few weeks before the shooting. While he was in town, he stayed at a hotel a few blocks from Ruth’s job.
As John lay in a bed in the General Hospital fighting for his life, a coroner’s jury charged him with murder. John would go to trial if he survived. After a private funeral at Mead & Mead undertaking parlor, they laid Ruth to rest in Graceland Cemetery.
For a few weeks, John hovered between life and death. He rallied, and by February 1928, he was healthy enough to stand trial. John’s lawyer, L. V. Beaulieu, unsuccessfully used his drinking binge as a defense for the murder, as the judge sided with the prosecution. Alcohol-induced amnesia did not sway the jury. They returned a guilty verdict with no recommendation for leniency. Under the law, Judge Fricke had no alternative but to sentence John to hang. They transported him to San Quentin to await execution.
John met another killer, William Edward Hickman, nicknamed “The Fox,” in the Los Angeles County Jail. The court sentenced both to hang. Hickman committed the mutilation murder of 12-year-old Marion Parker only ten days after John shot Ruth. Once, John confronted Hickman and held him responsible for reigniting the public’s fascination with capital punishment, leading to John’s execution.
Following his automatic appeal, the State Supreme Court upheld John’s death penalty. Judge Fricke re-sentenced him to hang. Unless something changed, he would meet his end on December 7, one year to the day since Ruth’s murder. John had changed his mind about dying since his bungled suicide attempt at the murder scene because he took part in a Thanksgiving escape plot that failed. They moved him to the death cell to prevent any further attempts to tunnel out of San Quentin.
As a condemned man, they honored John’s last requests. They gave him a record player, and he listened repeatedly to “I Want to Go Where You Go” until it was time for him to climb the thirteen steps to the scaffold. One year before, just moments after killing Ruth, John’s first thought was for a cigarette. Nothing had changed. John smoked as guards placed the black cap over his head. As he was about to drop, he held a cigarette between his lips and quipped, “Well, boys, I got a run for this one.” As he fell through the trap, his cigarette was jerked from his lips. Three witnesses, one of them a guard, fainted. They pronounced John Joseph Malone dead 12 minutes later.
Jealousy and gin make a lethal cocktail.
