April 26, 2022 • 31 mins
Detective Vollten kept interviewing suspects after breaking away from the investigation of Tony The Stinger Cugino, but nothing was panning out. Almost a year to the day after the Car Barn Murders, Vollten got a letter on his desk from a con who said he had intel.
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Speaker 1 (00:06):
Throwing her off the pope bridge. I mean, that's just
you don't do that because you're have an argument. Great depression.
Not long after prohibition, they're worrying about bootlegging gangs because
some prostitutes told him that the car could be found
in a garage owned by former duc the Ulcer named Greek.
(00:28):
It was a huge deal. It was headline news. I
don't want a single word written about that base. Do
you understand there's a possibility it could be sold one day?
Welcome back to Shadowed Souls The car Barn Murders. I'm
(00:50):
your host, Karen Smith. This is episode six. This podcast
may contain graphic language and is not suitable for children.
Previously on the Carborn Murders, it was closing in on
April nine and two months had passed with no solid
(01:13):
leads to follow. The forensic ballistic information on the thirty
two calibers semi automatic was helpful, but without a weapon
to compare the casings and projectiles too, it was of
little use. No fingerprint evidence was recovered on anything, including
the cage door to the ticket office until the detectives
(01:34):
found the gun, had a witness come forward with credible
information or an informants started running his mouth. They seemed
to be at an impasse. A trip to Philadelphia in
pursuit of gangster and multiple murderer Tony the Stinger Kajo
and his crime family was a bust, and the detectives
were back to square one on any potentials on the
(01:55):
Carborn case. They had rounded up the usual suspects in Maryland, Virginia,
and d C. And everyone seemed to either have an
alibi for the night of the murders or they were
unable to be placed in the area at the time.
After his return from Philadelphia, Detective Volton found a note
on his desk that said to Kensington men Luke Johnson
(02:18):
and Arthur Waugh had been out all night on January
and Brass and Volton brought them in for questioning. Luke
Johnson's story seemed believable, but Arthur was interview went sideways.
Detective Volton pinned Arthur down by asking him about his
(02:39):
relationship with Emery Smith, a subject he couldn't avoid. Arthur
was married to Emery's first wife, Myrtle. Myrtle's maiden name
was Johnson. In short, Luke Johnson was Myrtle's uncle. Without
going into the whole skinny of that sordid mess. Here's
(03:00):
the long and short of it. Emory Smith divorced Myrtle
in the mid nineteen twenties after he alleged infidelity on
her part. He married his second wife, Edith. A couple
of years later, Arthur Waugh married Myrtle, and now he
was separated from her at the time of his interview,
and he told the detectives that she had cheated on
(03:22):
him too. Myrtle was now living in downtown d C.
And she had custody of Arthur's children. Arthur Waugh was
destitute and he had no permanent residence. Instead, he was
jumping from Luke Johnson's cottage to his brother's houses in
the same neighborhood off Laurence Avenue in Kensington. During Arthur's interview,
(03:47):
it was really obvious that he was incredibly nervous and
bounced between subjects without giving straight answers to the simplest
of questions. When the detectives focused on the night of
the murders, Arthur could remember where he stayed that night,
but he did say that he was supposed to go
to work first thing Monday morning, and he was in
(04:07):
all night somewhere. He insisted that Luke Johnson would vouch
for him, but Luke Johnson told the detectives that he
was pretty sure that Arthur didn't stay at his cottage
that night. It was an absolute mess. When Detective Bolton
zeroed in on Arthur's marriage to Myrtle and his affiliation
(04:29):
to Emory Smith, Arthur admitted to going to the Chevy
Chase Carbarn numerous times at night to talk with Emory Smith.
He said that Emery had tried to warn him against
marrying Myrtle because she'd stepped out on him. Arthur married
her anyway, and now he was going to the carbarn
to ask for Emery's advice. Arthur said that Emory Smith
(04:53):
was as best a friend as he had in this world,
and they sat on an Idol trolley car to talk
about Myrtle and what are there should do now that
he found out she'd been cheating on him. Detective Volton
asked Arthur if Myrtle was seeing somebody else, and Arthur said,
I've not talked to them to find out where she's
(05:13):
living and if she goes with twenty others. She took
my kids with her and I tried to get them.
One time when I was downtown, I passed by six
ten f Street Northwest and saw one of my kids
standing in the doorway. I wanted to see him, so
I went inside and his hat was in there. I
slapped him in the face and then went back out.
(05:34):
Volton continued saying, well, your wife apparently knows a lot
of people in Washington, doesn't she. Well, I guess she does.
Who was the man inside of Myrtle's house that Arthur
Waugh hid in the face. His name was Harold Freeman,
and Arthur said that if Myrtle was running around with
a man like him, then the friend she'd made in
(05:55):
d c were no good. Arthur Waugh had been a
cuck old after being warned by Emory Smith not to
marry Myrtle. The only information that was decipherable in Arthur's
interview was that he considered Emory Smith to be a
good friend. Yes, his alibi was unknown even to Arthur. Apparently,
(06:17):
it seemed like he was a blackout drinker and that
could have affected his memory in the two months that
had passed since the murders. In the detective's eyes, Arthur
Waugh's motive was money, but would he brutally murder one
of the only friends he had, the ex husband of
his now estranged wife. It seems like the finger of
(06:38):
fate would point right at him, and that's where he was.
In March of nineteen, Arthur Waugh was released from custody
after stewing in the lock up for a couple of days.
Even though his interview was a washout, Volton didn't have
nearly enough to charge him with the crime, but a
few days later, Arthur's younger brother, Clarence, was brought into
(07:02):
the precinct to answer a few questions. Clarence Waugh was
twenty one years old and living with his brother James.
He was also out of work. He was asked about
hanging around Dan's hot dog stand at Chevy Chase Lake.
That's the same hot dog stand that eye witness Ernest
Carter hid behind. Clarence said that he did go to
(07:24):
Dan's a lot during the summer. The detectives asked him
about Arthur's drinking, and Clarence said he did get drunk
quite often, especially when he went into the district with
his buddy Charlie Cooley. Charlie Cooley was the son of
the former Montgomery County Police Chief. Clarence said he knew
that Arthur had been meeting with Emery Smith to talk,
(07:45):
but he didn't know the subject or why. Clarence didn't
have a whole lot to add to the investigation, and
he was released after a few hours. A couple of
weeks later, on March, another man named Harry Simon was
taken to the Montgomery County Precinct to be questioned. The
(08:05):
context for Harry Simon's interview wasn't clear at first, but
it ran six and a half typed pages. In the
middle of the interview, it became clear why the detectives
wanted to question him. Harry Simon was part of the
Waw Johnson family, and he was married to Myrtle's sister Lillian.
It seems like the whole investigation was now becoming a
(08:28):
family affair. Simon lived on Lawrence Avenue, same as everyone else.
From Simon's clipped and smartass answers to the detectives, it
was pretty obvious that he was no stranger to an
interrogation room, and like everyone else in the file, I
researched Harry Abraham's Simon born August nineteen o four in
(08:50):
Younger's New York. That was the information he gave to
Volton and Brass. I've concluded that his name was an alias.
There's nothing in any available database matching that info on
Harry Simon, and the detectives keyed in on that right
off the bat. You use alias as to that name,
(09:11):
don't you? No? Is it not a fact that you've
been arrested under other names? No, you have been arrested before,
haven't you? Yes? Where in New York? For disorderly conduct?
What else? That's all? What was this disorderly conduct? Suspicious person? No,
(09:32):
it was pertaining to a speakeasy. You know what I
mean by suspicious person, don't you? Yes? You know plenty
of racket, don't you. Yeah. So, Harry Simon was admittedly
in on the DC rackets. He admitted to hustling bellhops
in New York City at the Marlborough Hotel, a notorious
(09:54):
place for prostitution. He ran an orangeade stand, meaning bootleg liquor,
for a man named Tony. The last name was redacted
from the report. The point is Harry Simon or whatever
his real name was, was pretty deep into the East
Coast Underworld. He admitted to going through Philadelphia on his
(10:15):
way back from New York City on January and he
said he stayed at a rooming house at eighth and
Race Street. Eighth and Race was the mainstay for racketeers
in Philly, where they would meet up to plan crimes
and takeovers of other districts. That information did not escape
Voulton and Brass. They learned a few things on their
(10:37):
trip to Philly, and the area of eighth and Race
Street was one of them. Detective Volton prodded Harry Simon
on why he stayed at that particular rooming house when
there were several others much closer to the bus depot.
Harry Simon's wise ass retort, I asked a cop if
he knew a decent place where I could stay. Volton
(11:00):
it back, mentioning that Joe Paine's pool room was across
the street from that particular rooming house and it was
a favorite hangout of Bill Cleary's. He was one of
Tony the Stinger co Gino's associates and the man they
had questioned on their trip to Philly just a couple
of weeks prior. Harry Simon replied that he didn't know
(11:20):
anybody in Philly. Backpedaling a little bit, he said he
wasn't that deep into the rackets. He was only on
the fringes, trying to make a buck here and there.
He did carnival barking and slept illegal rubber goods meaning
condoms on the Atlantic City boardwalk. Seriously, this guy sold
(11:40):
rubbers out of a briefcase. Simon had to know more
than he was letting on, but he kept giving Voulton
and Brass his very special line of bullshit. Simon said
that his wife Lillian was after him to go straight
and get a regular job, but he couldn't find one.
When Voulton and Brass asked him about an alibi for
(12:01):
the time of the murders, Simon said he was in
Baltimore that night waiting on a bus to get back
to d C the following day, and at that point
Harry Simon reached into his coat pocket and handed Detective
Brass his bus voucher as proof. Brass was flum mixed
(12:22):
and asked why an honest man would need to keep
his bus voucher for two months just in case someone
asked for it. Harry Simon said that Lillian always asked
about his trips, and he kept them as proof for
her to no worried been. Detective Brass asked if Harry
Simon's name would be on the register of any rooming
house in Philadelphia. Simon said that the manager put him
(12:46):
down under the name Saunders, since there was a cancelation
at the last minute. Fulton and Brass sees this opportunity
to put a dent in his alibi. So you keep
bus vouchers for months on end, but you're okay with
a different name being used on a flop joint register.
You've been around the rackets long enough to know that
that's a pretty bad argument. In other words, your alibi
(13:07):
isn't so perfect, then, is it. Simon said he didn't
see anything wrong with it. The detectives countered and said,
you couldn't prove by a register where you stayed in Philadelphia.
You made a meet in Philly at eighth and Race,
and you sent your boys down here to stick that
join up. Harry Simon flat out denied it. Well, tell
us otherwise, tell us where you were that night. For
(13:29):
the first time, Harry Simon went off balance and stumbled,
all right, give me a chance to recollect. All right,
go ahead and recollect. Where did you stay the second
day in New York? I believe I stayed with a
fellow named Bloomberg. He he lives in the Bronx. I
don't know the exact address. You want us to believe
(13:50):
that the second day in New York you pedaled rubber Goods,
then you ran into Bloomberg and went into the Bronx. Yeah,
I've known Bloomberg for years. Well, then you certainly know
where he lives, don't you. He moved, We went to
his house and had supper, then would you do? Then
I came down along Ninth Avenue and hustled there a
little bit. We're just leap that second night seems to me,
(14:13):
I stated a place called the Prince Hotel. What name
did you register? Under? My own name? Harry Simon. The
detectives could be smartasses too, And this tip for tat
went on for a while, but it seemed like Simon
wasn't going to budge on his alibi of being in
transit between Philadelphia and Baltimore. Detective Bolton changed the subject
(14:34):
and hammered down on his relationship with both of the victims.
Harry Simon denied knowing James Mitchell or Emery Smith, despite
being married to his first wife, Myrtle's sister, Lilian. Simon
told the detectives that Emery and Myrtle got divorced before
he and Lilian never met, so he never knew him.
(14:55):
With no definitive evidence linking Harry Simon to the murders,
despite a shady dealings, he was released from custody. The
detectives eventually followed up on Simon's claim about staying in
Baltimore on the night of the murders. The owner of
the rooming house vouched for Simon and put him in
Baltimore that night. Harry Simon was a shmow, but he
(15:18):
wasn't their suspect. As I was doing my research and
ran through the case reports several times, trying to weed
my way through, name after name, suspect after suspect, one
name kept coming up and I mentioned it in episode four,
William Clark. He strolled into the DC Police headquarters on
(15:38):
the day of the murders because word on the street
had reached him that his name had been dropped as
a potential suspect. He decided to front run those accusations.
The name William Clark kept popping up in the reports
from several different people, and on memos left on the
desks of various police officers and detectives, and no less
(15:58):
than four different places, Clark's name was brought into the
investigation as being involved. Some of the information was unsubstantiated,
but some seemed a lot more credible. The first mention
of Clark's name was by a transit company worker named K. W. Gettings,
who called in and said that William Clark had been
(16:19):
seen in a car parked outside the ticket office at
fourteenth and East Capitol Street on the morning of the murders.
The detectives tried to get hold of mister Gettings at
his residence, but instead they found his roommate, a man
named Jones, and they took his statement. This was hearsay
from K. W. Gettings, but it's all I had to
(16:39):
work with, since there is no statement in the file
directly from Gettings. Jones relaid the information and said that
Gettings told him that he was walking to work at
the fourteenth and East Capitol Street carborn and he saw
William Clark and two other men parked in a pawty
accident on the southeast corner. It was around four o'clock
(17:01):
in the morning on January one. A milk delivery truck
made a turn at that intersection and the headlights shined
across the car, showing William Clark's face in the driver's seat.
Jones said that Gettings new Clark, and added that two
other men would also be able to substantiate his story
because they saw the car park there too. Detective Bolton
(17:23):
followed up and spoke with those two mysterious men by phone,
and both of them said they didn't know what in
the hell Gettings or Jones were talking about. William Clark's
name repeated itself several times in the investigatory notes, with
people telling the detectives that they'd seen him in the
days leading up to the murders out at the chevy
(17:44):
Chase Lake ticket office. Turns out, Clark had been employed
at Chevy Chase for a short period of time and
he was trying to get his job back. William Clark
spoke to Harry Gibbons, the daytime clerk, on Saturday, January nineteenth,
just two days before the murders. Harry Gibbons said that
William Clark came to the ticket office in order to
(18:06):
get his change carrier, and said he had an appointment
to speak with Mr Stevens, the Superintendent of Transportation, on
January twenty one, to get his job back. Detective Volton
substantiated that claim. William Clark did have an appointment with
Mr Stevens on the day of the murders. Was William
Clark just a scapegoat that some people were tossing under
(18:27):
the bus because they had some beef with him? Or
was there more to the story that wasn't being told
in the case reports. When somebody's name appears over and
over again in a homicide case, that's a clue that
maybe that person needs a little more attention. So I
decided to do a little digging on who William Clark was.
(18:49):
Clark lived with his girlfriend Mary Branch on Girard Street
in d C. He had worked for the Capital Transit
Company for about a month in the fall of nineteen
thirty four. He and Mary Branch had been together for
five years at that point. William Clark's friend James Weir,
lived a block away on Harvard Street. James Weir and
(19:11):
Mary Branch had given William Clark an alibi for the
night of the murders. William Clark, Mary Branch, and James
Weir were all interviewed after Clark came into the Downtown
d C headquarters. Detective Frank Brass interviewed Clark and Mary
Branch at the eighth Precinct. James Weir was interviewed at
the tenth Precinct, and they all gave the same story.
(19:33):
They went to a show at the Gayety Theater and
got home between eleven thirty and midnight. They had something
to eat and went to bed until the following morning.
From the notes in the file, it doesn't seem like
any of their interviews took more than about an hour apiece.
After the detectives conferred about their stories, Brass and Volton
moved on. Since there was nothing to tie Clark to
(19:56):
the murders other than some unsubstantiated sightings of him at
another ticket office ten miles away and unconfirmed hearsay from
several people. With his alibi substantiated by two people who
were with him that night, they moved on. A few
more months went by with no new leads. Other cases
(20:16):
were piling up, and the detectives focused their attention elsewhere.
Piecemeal information kept trickling in about the Carborn murders, and
Detective Brass had his hands full with another murder case
that hit the front pages for several weeks. It was
a murder for higher plot, and Detective Brass was certain
that the hit men on that case were the same
(20:38):
ones who had killed James Mitchell and Emery Smith. In
April of nineteen thirty five, the case of Anne Ladane
hit the news, and Ladane was a secretary in a
bank who was alleged to have hired three men to
kill her husband, Francis. John Carnell and John Boland were
arrested and charged with conspiracy to commit murder. A third man,
(21:02):
Harry Thomas, was on the run up in Philadelphia. Anne
Leadane was also arrested as the mastermind of the plot,
but she was released on bond. Her husband, Francis, the target,
didn't believe the conspiracy and he stood by her despite
suspect John Carnell's turning state's evidence. Detective Brass told the
(21:24):
newspaper reporters at the courthouse that he planned to question
Carnell and Boland about the Carbarn case, but there's no
follow up to the outcome of those interviews anywhere to
be found, or any evidence at all that brass even bothered.
Behind the scenes, a shake up of the d C
Metro Police force was going on at the highest levels
(21:46):
of government, which meant the US Congress and the Montgomery
County Police Department was dealing with their own problems as well.
In Montgomery County, a political affray was threatening to demote
and fire a number of police officers, but the Carbarn
case made it clear to the powers that be that
getting rid of much needed police wasn't the way forward.
(22:09):
The newly elected Board of Commissioners wanted to reduce the
size of the Montgomery County Police Force to save money,
and they were being pressured to walk that back in
the face of an unsolved double murder in their jurisdiction.
This wasn't the time for a reduction in force, said
the county commissioners. The car Barn case kept a number
of officers from being placed on the doll In Washington,
(22:31):
d C. The rackets were out of control. One glaring
Washington Post headline read quote, one in every three criminals
escapes penalty here nineteen thirty four records show lawbreaker has
splendid chance of probation. Only nine twenty one convicted in
nearly nine thousand felonies, only one in ten convicted. That
(22:56):
is a terrible, inexcusable percentage of your or perhaps deal
making politicos and their respective backers chose sides, and a
special House District Crime Investigating Committee was formed. In an
executive session, they planned a question several of the higher
ups on the DC Police Force and in local government
(23:18):
about what they planned to do to get all these
rackets under control. D C Commission President Melvin Hazen and
DC Superintendent of Police Ernest Brown were the first on
deck to be grilled by congressional members about just what
in the hell was going on in the district. Representative
Jennings Rudolph read the newspaper headlines to the committee, inclusive
(23:41):
of the Carbarn case as an example of the entire
region gone rogue. He said, quote, I wish to call
the committee's attention to these headlines, and I wish to
to call their attention to the statement made on the
floor of the House the other day by Representative Clarence
Cannon of Missouri that there was no crime in Washington.
(24:01):
These headlines carried in streamers on the front pages of
every newspaper today brings the story of crime close to home.
These are the things that we should concern ourselves with, murder, collusion,
and other such matters. Collusion, that's an interesting word to
use on the house floor. Newspaper reporters attended every session,
(24:23):
and an article mentioned one question posited to d C
Commission President Melvin Hazn, was he unaware that district inspectors,
captains and police officers were fraternizing with the underworld Commissioner
Hazn didn't answer. District Police Superintendent Ernest Brown was asked
that same question, along with a follow up about why
(24:46):
he never requested the names of his own officers alleged
to be working alongside racketeers. Superintendent Brown reluctantly said he
would take down the names after the hearing was over.
The newspaper burrs were also filled with stories about suite
deals for certain people being made at the State Attorney's office,
(25:08):
underhanded pre arrangements for racketeers of certain influence. One such
deal to shelve a horse racing wire racket was detailed
the phone company was receiving kickbacks for providing real time
race results to various businesses across town, which allowed the
bookies to take bets on races where they already knew
(25:30):
the results. If the better placed money on a losing horse,
the bet was accepted. If the person chose the winner,
the bookie would tell them sorry that race was over.
To avoid criminal charges, the telephone company pledged to cut
the phone lines. The General News company, who worked in
collusion with the phone company, promised to stop disseminating printed
(25:53):
race results to the district. And this was important because
of an adjacent gambling scheme, the numbers racket that used
three digits between zero zero zero and nine nine, kind
of like the lottery we have today. The winning number
was based on either the winners of the previous night's
final three horse races, or by using the final three
(26:16):
digits at the close of the stock exchange. People could
place bets as low as one penny against the odds,
but those pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters taken by the
bookies and runners amounted to millions of dollars for the
gambling kingpins. The bookies used the same shady premise to
happily take losing bets on the numbers with or knowledge
(26:39):
of the winners. So promises by the phone company and
pledges by the newspaper to cooperate replaced any criminal charges
or heavy fines that may have shut down one wire
service in newspaper, but plenty of others were in line
to replace them. No fines were levied on the companies,
and no arrests were made of any of the bookies, runners,
(27:00):
bag men, or kingpins. Another headline read that police were
in collusion with bootleggers who paid graft to allow their
liquor filled trucks to pass through police checkpoints in transit
to their destinations inside of storage warehouses or garages that
were all well known to the cops. Dozens of police
(27:20):
raids at well known underworld locations failed to net any
arrests at all. Payoffs were the name of the game,
and if your business ponied up, you were insulated against arrest,
refused to pay, and you took your chances and your lumps. Superficially,
it seemed like speakeasies, gambling rooms and prostitution houses were
(27:44):
being knocked off, but the reality was that nobody of
any influence was being arrested or going to jail. The
rackets were operating with impunity, and the cops knew exactly
what was going on, but there was a lot of
money to be made on the slide, especially when their
own paychecks were under threat. It was one ship storm
(28:05):
after another and everyone was waiting for the other shoe
to drop. The detective's hands were full with not only
trying to solve all the crime, but with saving their
own asses from the chopping block. It was a free
for all, every man for himself. The Carbarn case was
shelved at that point and they focused their attention on
(28:25):
the other murders, robberies, and aggravated assaults inundating their desktops.
Months went by without a mention about the Carborn case.
The year after the murders, almost to the day, in
January ninety six, a letter arrived on Detective Bolton's desk.
It was from an inmate of the DC jail named
(28:47):
Horace Davis. Horace Davis said that he had information to
provide about the Carborn murders in exchange for a transfer
from the DC Jail to another location. He said that
once the information and he had hit the news his
life would be in jeopardy. Davis wrote directly to Volton
on January nine, thirty six. It was a follow up letter.
(29:11):
Davis said that he had already spoken to the U.
S Attorney, the Department of Justice, and the Superintendent of
the d C Penal Institutions. Apparently, whatever Horace Davis had
to say was substantial enough to get the attention of
those departments. In his letter, Horace Davis wrote, quote, in
view of the fact that I've told you all I
could on the matter, and it is now a matter
(29:33):
for the police to arrest those named, I see no
reason why I should be confined where such confinement is
detrimental to my health and so forth. I think it
would be fair if I could be transferred to a
designated penitentiary to serve my sentence. And as I told
you before, I don't want to be here or at
Lorton when this case or any part of it appears
in the papers, as it is bound to do, I
(29:55):
will testify when summoned. Detective Volton interviewed Riss Davis, and
what he had to say was explosive. Horace Davis said
that Honor about August nine, he was standing near Ford's
Theater at Tenthanie Streets in d C and an old
(30:16):
friend of his pulled up and offered him a ride.
He said he and this man had been in the
Maryland Training School for Boys together back in nineteen when
they were kids. Davis got in the car and they
drove out to First in Rhode Island. Davis suggested they
go grab a beer together. His friend had been drinking
gin and said that beer would make him sick, so
(30:37):
they sat in the car and talked. Davis asked his
friend what he had been up to over the years
and apropos of nothing. His friends said nothing since I
pulled the car barn job. Opening music by Sam Johnson
at Sam Johnson Live dot com. Underscore music by Kevin
(30:59):
McCloud out at incompatech dot com Shattered Souls The Car
Barn Motors is produced by Karen Smith and Angel Heart Productions.
H
Throwing her off the pope bridge. I mean, that's just
you don't do that because you're have an argument. Great depression.
Not long after prohibition, they're worrying about bootlegging gangs because
some prostitutes told him that the car could be found
in a garage owned by former duc the Ulcer named Greek.
(00:28):
It was a huge deal. It was headline news. I
don't want a single word written about that base. Do
you understand there's a possibility it could be sold one day?
Welcome back to Shadowed Souls The car Barn Murders. I'm
(00:50):
your host, Karen Smith. This is episode six. This podcast
may contain graphic language and is not suitable for children.
Previously on the Carborn Murders, it was closing in on
April nine and two months had passed with no solid
(01:13):
leads to follow. The forensic ballistic information on the thirty
two calibers semi automatic was helpful, but without a weapon
to compare the casings and projectiles too, it was of
little use. No fingerprint evidence was recovered on anything, including
the cage door to the ticket office until the detectives
(01:34):
found the gun, had a witness come forward with credible
information or an informants started running his mouth. They seemed
to be at an impasse. A trip to Philadelphia in
pursuit of gangster and multiple murderer Tony the Stinger Kajo
and his crime family was a bust, and the detectives
were back to square one on any potentials on the
(01:55):
Carborn case. They had rounded up the usual suspects in Maryland, Virginia,
and d C. And everyone seemed to either have an
alibi for the night of the murders or they were
unable to be placed in the area at the time.
After his return from Philadelphia, Detective Volton found a note
on his desk that said to Kensington men Luke Johnson
(02:18):
and Arthur Waugh had been out all night on January
and Brass and Volton brought them in for questioning. Luke
Johnson's story seemed believable, but Arthur was interview went sideways.
Detective Volton pinned Arthur down by asking him about his
(02:39):
relationship with Emery Smith, a subject he couldn't avoid. Arthur
was married to Emery's first wife, Myrtle. Myrtle's maiden name
was Johnson. In short, Luke Johnson was Myrtle's uncle. Without
going into the whole skinny of that sordid mess. Here's
(03:00):
the long and short of it. Emory Smith divorced Myrtle
in the mid nineteen twenties after he alleged infidelity on
her part. He married his second wife, Edith. A couple
of years later, Arthur Waugh married Myrtle, and now he
was separated from her at the time of his interview,
and he told the detectives that she had cheated on
(03:22):
him too. Myrtle was now living in downtown d C.
And she had custody of Arthur's children. Arthur Waugh was
destitute and he had no permanent residence. Instead, he was
jumping from Luke Johnson's cottage to his brother's houses in
the same neighborhood off Laurence Avenue in Kensington. During Arthur's interview,
(03:47):
it was really obvious that he was incredibly nervous and
bounced between subjects without giving straight answers to the simplest
of questions. When the detectives focused on the night of
the murders, Arthur could remember where he stayed that night,
but he did say that he was supposed to go
to work first thing Monday morning, and he was in
(04:07):
all night somewhere. He insisted that Luke Johnson would vouch
for him, but Luke Johnson told the detectives that he
was pretty sure that Arthur didn't stay at his cottage
that night. It was an absolute mess. When Detective Bolton
zeroed in on Arthur's marriage to Myrtle and his affiliation
(04:29):
to Emory Smith, Arthur admitted to going to the Chevy
Chase Carbarn numerous times at night to talk with Emory Smith.
He said that Emery had tried to warn him against
marrying Myrtle because she'd stepped out on him. Arthur married
her anyway, and now he was going to the carbarn
to ask for Emery's advice. Arthur said that Emory Smith
(04:53):
was as best a friend as he had in this world,
and they sat on an Idol trolley car to talk
about Myrtle and what are there should do now that
he found out she'd been cheating on him. Detective Volton
asked Arthur if Myrtle was seeing somebody else, and Arthur said,
I've not talked to them to find out where she's
(05:13):
living and if she goes with twenty others. She took
my kids with her and I tried to get them.
One time when I was downtown, I passed by six
ten f Street Northwest and saw one of my kids
standing in the doorway. I wanted to see him, so
I went inside and his hat was in there. I
slapped him in the face and then went back out.
(05:34):
Volton continued saying, well, your wife apparently knows a lot
of people in Washington, doesn't she. Well, I guess she does.
Who was the man inside of Myrtle's house that Arthur
Waugh hid in the face. His name was Harold Freeman,
and Arthur said that if Myrtle was running around with
a man like him, then the friend she'd made in
(05:55):
d c were no good. Arthur Waugh had been a
cuck old after being warned by Emory Smith not to
marry Myrtle. The only information that was decipherable in Arthur's
interview was that he considered Emory Smith to be a
good friend. Yes, his alibi was unknown even to Arthur. Apparently,
(06:17):
it seemed like he was a blackout drinker and that
could have affected his memory in the two months that
had passed since the murders. In the detective's eyes, Arthur
Waugh's motive was money, but would he brutally murder one
of the only friends he had, the ex husband of
his now estranged wife. It seems like the finger of
(06:38):
fate would point right at him, and that's where he was.
In March of nineteen, Arthur Waugh was released from custody
after stewing in the lock up for a couple of days.
Even though his interview was a washout, Volton didn't have
nearly enough to charge him with the crime, but a
few days later, Arthur's younger brother, Clarence, was brought into
(07:02):
the precinct to answer a few questions. Clarence Waugh was
twenty one years old and living with his brother James.
He was also out of work. He was asked about
hanging around Dan's hot dog stand at Chevy Chase Lake.
That's the same hot dog stand that eye witness Ernest
Carter hid behind. Clarence said that he did go to
(07:24):
Dan's a lot during the summer. The detectives asked him
about Arthur's drinking, and Clarence said he did get drunk
quite often, especially when he went into the district with
his buddy Charlie Cooley. Charlie Cooley was the son of
the former Montgomery County Police Chief. Clarence said he knew
that Arthur had been meeting with Emery Smith to talk,
(07:45):
but he didn't know the subject or why. Clarence didn't
have a whole lot to add to the investigation, and
he was released after a few hours. A couple of
weeks later, on March, another man named Harry Simon was
taken to the Montgomery County Precinct to be questioned. The
(08:05):
context for Harry Simon's interview wasn't clear at first, but
it ran six and a half typed pages. In the
middle of the interview, it became clear why the detectives
wanted to question him. Harry Simon was part of the
Waw Johnson family, and he was married to Myrtle's sister Lillian.
It seems like the whole investigation was now becoming a
(08:28):
family affair. Simon lived on Lawrence Avenue, same as everyone else.
From Simon's clipped and smartass answers to the detectives, it
was pretty obvious that he was no stranger to an
interrogation room, and like everyone else in the file, I
researched Harry Abraham's Simon born August nineteen o four in
(08:50):
Younger's New York. That was the information he gave to
Volton and Brass. I've concluded that his name was an alias.
There's nothing in any available database matching that info on
Harry Simon, and the detectives keyed in on that right
off the bat. You use alias as to that name,
(09:11):
don't you? No? Is it not a fact that you've
been arrested under other names? No, you have been arrested before,
haven't you? Yes? Where in New York? For disorderly conduct?
What else? That's all? What was this disorderly conduct? Suspicious person? No,
(09:32):
it was pertaining to a speakeasy. You know what I
mean by suspicious person, don't you? Yes? You know plenty
of racket, don't you. Yeah. So, Harry Simon was admittedly
in on the DC rackets. He admitted to hustling bellhops
in New York City at the Marlborough Hotel, a notorious
(09:54):
place for prostitution. He ran an orangeade stand, meaning bootleg liquor,
for a man named Tony. The last name was redacted
from the report. The point is Harry Simon or whatever
his real name was, was pretty deep into the East
Coast Underworld. He admitted to going through Philadelphia on his
(10:15):
way back from New York City on January and he
said he stayed at a rooming house at eighth and
Race Street. Eighth and Race was the mainstay for racketeers
in Philly, where they would meet up to plan crimes
and takeovers of other districts. That information did not escape
Voulton and Brass. They learned a few things on their
(10:37):
trip to Philly, and the area of eighth and Race
Street was one of them. Detective Volton prodded Harry Simon
on why he stayed at that particular rooming house when
there were several others much closer to the bus depot.
Harry Simon's wise ass retort, I asked a cop if
he knew a decent place where I could stay. Volton
(11:00):
it back, mentioning that Joe Paine's pool room was across
the street from that particular rooming house and it was
a favorite hangout of Bill Cleary's. He was one of
Tony the Stinger co Gino's associates and the man they
had questioned on their trip to Philly just a couple
of weeks prior. Harry Simon replied that he didn't know
(11:20):
anybody in Philly. Backpedaling a little bit, he said he
wasn't that deep into the rackets. He was only on
the fringes, trying to make a buck here and there.
He did carnival barking and slept illegal rubber goods meaning
condoms on the Atlantic City boardwalk. Seriously, this guy sold
(11:40):
rubbers out of a briefcase. Simon had to know more
than he was letting on, but he kept giving Voulton
and Brass his very special line of bullshit. Simon said
that his wife Lillian was after him to go straight
and get a regular job, but he couldn't find one.
When Voulton and Brass asked him about an alibi for
(12:01):
the time of the murders, Simon said he was in
Baltimore that night waiting on a bus to get back
to d C the following day, and at that point
Harry Simon reached into his coat pocket and handed Detective
Brass his bus voucher as proof. Brass was flum mixed
(12:22):
and asked why an honest man would need to keep
his bus voucher for two months just in case someone
asked for it. Harry Simon said that Lillian always asked
about his trips, and he kept them as proof for
her to no worried been. Detective Brass asked if Harry
Simon's name would be on the register of any rooming
house in Philadelphia. Simon said that the manager put him
(12:46):
down under the name Saunders, since there was a cancelation
at the last minute. Fulton and Brass sees this opportunity
to put a dent in his alibi. So you keep
bus vouchers for months on end, but you're okay with
a different name being used on a flop joint register.
You've been around the rackets long enough to know that
that's a pretty bad argument. In other words, your alibi
(13:07):
isn't so perfect, then, is it. Simon said he didn't
see anything wrong with it. The detectives countered and said,
you couldn't prove by a register where you stayed in Philadelphia.
You made a meet in Philly at eighth and Race,
and you sent your boys down here to stick that
join up. Harry Simon flat out denied it. Well, tell
us otherwise, tell us where you were that night. For
(13:29):
the first time, Harry Simon went off balance and stumbled,
all right, give me a chance to recollect. All right,
go ahead and recollect. Where did you stay the second
day in New York? I believe I stayed with a
fellow named Bloomberg. He he lives in the Bronx. I
don't know the exact address. You want us to believe
(13:50):
that the second day in New York you pedaled rubber Goods,
then you ran into Bloomberg and went into the Bronx. Yeah,
I've known Bloomberg for years. Well, then you certainly know
where he lives, don't you. He moved, We went to
his house and had supper, then would you do? Then
I came down along Ninth Avenue and hustled there a
little bit. We're just leap that second night seems to me,
(14:13):
I stated a place called the Prince Hotel. What name
did you register? Under? My own name? Harry Simon. The
detectives could be smartasses too, And this tip for tat
went on for a while, but it seemed like Simon
wasn't going to budge on his alibi of being in
transit between Philadelphia and Baltimore. Detective Bolton changed the subject
(14:34):
and hammered down on his relationship with both of the victims.
Harry Simon denied knowing James Mitchell or Emery Smith, despite
being married to his first wife, Myrtle's sister, Lilian. Simon
told the detectives that Emery and Myrtle got divorced before
he and Lilian never met, so he never knew him.
(14:55):
With no definitive evidence linking Harry Simon to the murders,
despite a shady dealings, he was released from custody. The
detectives eventually followed up on Simon's claim about staying in
Baltimore on the night of the murders. The owner of
the rooming house vouched for Simon and put him in
Baltimore that night. Harry Simon was a shmow, but he
(15:18):
wasn't their suspect. As I was doing my research and
ran through the case reports several times, trying to weed
my way through, name after name, suspect after suspect, one
name kept coming up and I mentioned it in episode four,
William Clark. He strolled into the DC Police headquarters on
(15:38):
the day of the murders because word on the street
had reached him that his name had been dropped as
a potential suspect. He decided to front run those accusations.
The name William Clark kept popping up in the reports
from several different people, and on memos left on the
desks of various police officers and detectives, and no less
(15:58):
than four different places, Clark's name was brought into the
investigation as being involved. Some of the information was unsubstantiated,
but some seemed a lot more credible. The first mention
of Clark's name was by a transit company worker named K. W. Gettings,
who called in and said that William Clark had been
(16:19):
seen in a car parked outside the ticket office at
fourteenth and East Capitol Street on the morning of the murders.
The detectives tried to get hold of mister Gettings at
his residence, but instead they found his roommate, a man
named Jones, and they took his statement. This was hearsay
from K. W. Gettings, but it's all I had to
(16:39):
work with, since there is no statement in the file
directly from Gettings. Jones relaid the information and said that
Gettings told him that he was walking to work at
the fourteenth and East Capitol Street carborn and he saw
William Clark and two other men parked in a pawty
accident on the southeast corner. It was around four o'clock
(17:01):
in the morning on January one. A milk delivery truck
made a turn at that intersection and the headlights shined
across the car, showing William Clark's face in the driver's seat.
Jones said that Gettings new Clark, and added that two
other men would also be able to substantiate his story
because they saw the car park there too. Detective Bolton
(17:23):
followed up and spoke with those two mysterious men by phone,
and both of them said they didn't know what in
the hell Gettings or Jones were talking about. William Clark's
name repeated itself several times in the investigatory notes, with
people telling the detectives that they'd seen him in the
days leading up to the murders out at the chevy
(17:44):
Chase Lake ticket office. Turns out, Clark had been employed
at Chevy Chase for a short period of time and
he was trying to get his job back. William Clark
spoke to Harry Gibbons, the daytime clerk, on Saturday, January nineteenth,
just two days before the murders. Harry Gibbons said that
William Clark came to the ticket office in order to
(18:06):
get his change carrier, and said he had an appointment
to speak with Mr Stevens, the Superintendent of Transportation, on
January twenty one, to get his job back. Detective Volton
substantiated that claim. William Clark did have an appointment with
Mr Stevens on the day of the murders. Was William
Clark just a scapegoat that some people were tossing under
(18:27):
the bus because they had some beef with him? Or
was there more to the story that wasn't being told
in the case reports. When somebody's name appears over and
over again in a homicide case, that's a clue that
maybe that person needs a little more attention. So I
decided to do a little digging on who William Clark was.
(18:49):
Clark lived with his girlfriend Mary Branch on Girard Street
in d C. He had worked for the Capital Transit
Company for about a month in the fall of nineteen
thirty four. He and Mary Branch had been together for
five years at that point. William Clark's friend James Weir,
lived a block away on Harvard Street. James Weir and
(19:11):
Mary Branch had given William Clark an alibi for the
night of the murders. William Clark, Mary Branch, and James
Weir were all interviewed after Clark came into the Downtown
d C headquarters. Detective Frank Brass interviewed Clark and Mary
Branch at the eighth Precinct. James Weir was interviewed at
the tenth Precinct, and they all gave the same story.
(19:33):
They went to a show at the Gayety Theater and
got home between eleven thirty and midnight. They had something
to eat and went to bed until the following morning.
From the notes in the file, it doesn't seem like
any of their interviews took more than about an hour apiece.
After the detectives conferred about their stories, Brass and Volton
moved on. Since there was nothing to tie Clark to
(19:56):
the murders other than some unsubstantiated sightings of him at
another ticket office ten miles away and unconfirmed hearsay from
several people. With his alibi substantiated by two people who
were with him that night, they moved on. A few
more months went by with no new leads. Other cases
(20:16):
were piling up, and the detectives focused their attention elsewhere.
Piecemeal information kept trickling in about the Carborn murders, and
Detective Brass had his hands full with another murder case
that hit the front pages for several weeks. It was
a murder for higher plot, and Detective Brass was certain
that the hit men on that case were the same
(20:38):
ones who had killed James Mitchell and Emery Smith. In
April of nineteen thirty five, the case of Anne Ladane
hit the news, and Ladane was a secretary in a
bank who was alleged to have hired three men to
kill her husband, Francis. John Carnell and John Boland were
arrested and charged with conspiracy to commit murder. A third man,
(21:02):
Harry Thomas, was on the run up in Philadelphia. Anne
Leadane was also arrested as the mastermind of the plot,
but she was released on bond. Her husband, Francis, the target,
didn't believe the conspiracy and he stood by her despite
suspect John Carnell's turning state's evidence. Detective Brass told the
(21:24):
newspaper reporters at the courthouse that he planned to question
Carnell and Boland about the Carbarn case, but there's no
follow up to the outcome of those interviews anywhere to
be found, or any evidence at all that brass even bothered.
Behind the scenes, a shake up of the d C
Metro Police force was going on at the highest levels
(21:46):
of government, which meant the US Congress and the Montgomery
County Police Department was dealing with their own problems as well.
In Montgomery County, a political affray was threatening to demote
and fire a number of police officers, but the Carbarn
case made it clear to the powers that be that
getting rid of much needed police wasn't the way forward.
(22:09):
The newly elected Board of Commissioners wanted to reduce the
size of the Montgomery County Police Force to save money,
and they were being pressured to walk that back in
the face of an unsolved double murder in their jurisdiction.
This wasn't the time for a reduction in force, said
the county commissioners. The car Barn case kept a number
of officers from being placed on the doll In Washington,
(22:31):
d C. The rackets were out of control. One glaring
Washington Post headline read quote, one in every three criminals
escapes penalty here nineteen thirty four records show lawbreaker has
splendid chance of probation. Only nine twenty one convicted in
nearly nine thousand felonies, only one in ten convicted. That
(22:56):
is a terrible, inexcusable percentage of your or perhaps deal
making politicos and their respective backers chose sides, and a
special House District Crime Investigating Committee was formed. In an
executive session, they planned a question several of the higher
ups on the DC Police Force and in local government
(23:18):
about what they planned to do to get all these
rackets under control. D C Commission President Melvin Hazen and
DC Superintendent of Police Ernest Brown were the first on
deck to be grilled by congressional members about just what
in the hell was going on in the district. Representative
Jennings Rudolph read the newspaper headlines to the committee, inclusive
(23:41):
of the Carbarn case as an example of the entire
region gone rogue. He said, quote, I wish to call
the committee's attention to these headlines, and I wish to
to call their attention to the statement made on the
floor of the House the other day by Representative Clarence
Cannon of Missouri that there was no crime in Washington.
(24:01):
These headlines carried in streamers on the front pages of
every newspaper today brings the story of crime close to home.
These are the things that we should concern ourselves with, murder, collusion,
and other such matters. Collusion, that's an interesting word to
use on the house floor. Newspaper reporters attended every session,
(24:23):
and an article mentioned one question posited to d C
Commission President Melvin Hazn, was he unaware that district inspectors,
captains and police officers were fraternizing with the underworld Commissioner
Hazn didn't answer. District Police Superintendent Ernest Brown was asked
that same question, along with a follow up about why
(24:46):
he never requested the names of his own officers alleged
to be working alongside racketeers. Superintendent Brown reluctantly said he
would take down the names after the hearing was over.
The newspaper burrs were also filled with stories about suite
deals for certain people being made at the State Attorney's office,
(25:08):
underhanded pre arrangements for racketeers of certain influence. One such
deal to shelve a horse racing wire racket was detailed
the phone company was receiving kickbacks for providing real time
race results to various businesses across town, which allowed the
bookies to take bets on races where they already knew
(25:30):
the results. If the better placed money on a losing horse,
the bet was accepted. If the person chose the winner,
the bookie would tell them sorry that race was over.
To avoid criminal charges, the telephone company pledged to cut
the phone lines. The General News company, who worked in
collusion with the phone company, promised to stop disseminating printed
(25:53):
race results to the district. And this was important because
of an adjacent gambling scheme, the numbers racket that used
three digits between zero zero zero and nine nine, kind
of like the lottery we have today. The winning number
was based on either the winners of the previous night's
final three horse races, or by using the final three
(26:16):
digits at the close of the stock exchange. People could
place bets as low as one penny against the odds,
but those pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters taken by the
bookies and runners amounted to millions of dollars for the
gambling kingpins. The bookies used the same shady premise to
happily take losing bets on the numbers with or knowledge
(26:39):
of the winners. So promises by the phone company and
pledges by the newspaper to cooperate replaced any criminal charges
or heavy fines that may have shut down one wire
service in newspaper, but plenty of others were in line
to replace them. No fines were levied on the companies,
and no arrests were made of any of the bookies, runners,
(27:00):
bag men, or kingpins. Another headline read that police were
in collusion with bootleggers who paid graft to allow their
liquor filled trucks to pass through police checkpoints in transit
to their destinations inside of storage warehouses or garages that
were all well known to the cops. Dozens of police
(27:20):
raids at well known underworld locations failed to net any
arrests at all. Payoffs were the name of the game,
and if your business ponied up, you were insulated against arrest,
refused to pay, and you took your chances and your lumps. Superficially,
it seemed like speakeasies, gambling rooms and prostitution houses were
(27:44):
being knocked off, but the reality was that nobody of
any influence was being arrested or going to jail. The
rackets were operating with impunity, and the cops knew exactly
what was going on, but there was a lot of
money to be made on the slide, especially when their
own paychecks were under threat. It was one ship storm
(28:05):
after another and everyone was waiting for the other shoe
to drop. The detective's hands were full with not only
trying to solve all the crime, but with saving their
own asses from the chopping block. It was a free
for all, every man for himself. The Carbarn case was
shelved at that point and they focused their attention on
(28:25):
the other murders, robberies, and aggravated assaults inundating their desktops.
Months went by without a mention about the Carborn case.
The year after the murders, almost to the day, in
January ninety six, a letter arrived on Detective Bolton's desk.
It was from an inmate of the DC jail named
(28:47):
Horace Davis. Horace Davis said that he had information to
provide about the Carborn murders in exchange for a transfer
from the DC Jail to another location. He said that
once the information and he had hit the news his
life would be in jeopardy. Davis wrote directly to Volton
on January nine, thirty six. It was a follow up letter.
(29:11):
Davis said that he had already spoken to the U.
S Attorney, the Department of Justice, and the Superintendent of
the d C Penal Institutions. Apparently, whatever Horace Davis had
to say was substantial enough to get the attention of
those departments. In his letter, Horace Davis wrote, quote, in
view of the fact that I've told you all I
could on the matter, and it is now a matter
(29:33):
for the police to arrest those named, I see no
reason why I should be confined where such confinement is
detrimental to my health and so forth. I think it
would be fair if I could be transferred to a
designated penitentiary to serve my sentence. And as I told
you before, I don't want to be here or at
Lorton when this case or any part of it appears
in the papers, as it is bound to do, I
(29:55):
will testify when summoned. Detective Volton interviewed Riss Davis, and
what he had to say was explosive. Horace Davis said
that Honor about August nine, he was standing near Ford's
Theater at Tenthanie Streets in d C and an old
(30:16):
friend of his pulled up and offered him a ride.
He said he and this man had been in the
Maryland Training School for Boys together back in nineteen when
they were kids. Davis got in the car and they
drove out to First in Rhode Island. Davis suggested they
go grab a beer together. His friend had been drinking
gin and said that beer would make him sick, so
(30:37):
they sat in the car and talked. Davis asked his
friend what he had been up to over the years
and apropos of nothing. His friends said nothing since I
pulled the car barn job. Opening music by Sam Johnson
at Sam Johnson Live dot com. Underscore music by Kevin
(30:59):
McCloud out at incompatech dot com Shattered Souls The Car
Barn Motors is produced by Karen Smith and Angel Heart Productions.
H
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