Killer Stories with Harvey Guillén - Bloody Babs Pt. 1

Episode Date: November 13, 2023

The case of Barbara Graham has mystified people for generations. She was convicted for the murder of Mabel Monahan in 1953, but was she actually guilty? Or just in the wrong place at the wrong time? Keep up with us on Instagram @serialkillerspodcast and Tiktok @serialkillerspodcast! Have a story to share? Email us at [e-mail] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Due to the nature of this episode, listener discretion is advised. This episode includes discussions of violence and murder. Consider this when deciding how and when you'll listen. Okay, the story you're about to hear is wild. There's an attempted burglary, a hidden treasure, as well as an abduction, a disappearance, and at least one murder. We know the dates, the major players, and the aftermath. But when it comes down to figuring out who exactly was at fault, Well, that gets a little hazy.

There are just too many theories, too many accounts, and honestly, way too many lies. Perhaps that's why the story of Barbara Graham has captivated the public for generations. We simply don't know what really happened. And yet everyone has their own opinion on the matter. The media in particular love to paint her as a cold-hearted murderer. I can't tell you she was guilty beyond a doubt, because, well, I have my doubts. And I'm not the only one. I'm Vanessa Richardson, and this is Serial Killers, a Spotify podcast.

You can find us here every Monday, and be sure to check us out on Instagram at Serial Killers Podcast. This week we'll learn about the ghastly murder of Mabel Monaghan and discover how Barbara Graham was blamed for it all. Next week, we'll dive deeper into Barbara's version of events and learn about her unfortunate childhood, her string of disastrous marriages and her laundry list of crimes. We'll also circle back to the very end of her life

and discuss whether or not Barbara deserve to go down in history as Bloody Babs Graham. Stay with us. This episode is brought to you by ZipRecruiter. Whether you're hiring for a role or searching for a killer, the hunt can be exhausting. When detectives looked and searched to find any kind of evidence to find the person they were looking for,

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get a quality candidate within the first day. And now you can try it for free. at ZipRecruiter.com slash killers. That's ZipRecruiter.com slash killers. Meet your match on ZipRecruiter. This episode is brought to you by Shopify. Bonnie and Clyde, the Lonely Hearts Killers, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.

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Before we even meet our leading lady, we need to go back to where the whole mess started, with a rumor. You see, in the early 1950s, there were whispers of a fortune ripe for the taking. A Las Vegas gambler named Luther Scherer, or Tudor, as people like to call him, had hidden a whopping $100,000 in a safe. In 2021, that would be just over a million dollars.

Cold, hard cash. Rumor had it that the safe was tucked away in the sleepy suburbs of Burbank, California, somewhere inside a white stucco house. Tudor had once lived there with his wife, Iris. But when they divorced, Iris kept the house. She stayed in the spacious digs for some time before letting her widowed mother, Mabel Monaghan, move in. 64-year-old Mabel lived alone.

She also had difficulty walking after a terrible car accident and relied on a cane. In short, she was an easy target for people who believed the legend of Tudor's treasure. Before we continue with the psychology for this episode, please note that I'm not a licensed psychiatrist, or psychologist, but we have done a lot of research for the show. According to criminologist John P.J. Ducic, researchers have identified the elderly population

as being more vulnerable to crime than other age groups because they're socially isolated and follow predictable behavior patterns. The physical and mental weaknesses caused by old age also contribute to the visibility of a potential victim. It seems Mabel was very much aware of her vulnerabilities and took active measures to keep any uninvited guests out. She'd installed double bolts on her doors, as well as safety latches on all her windows. She even made her gardener asked to be led into her backyard each week. Needless to say, Mabel was a cautious person. None of that mattered to 43-year-old expert safecracker, Baxter Shorter. While the existence of Tudor-sharer's fortune was just hearsay. The alleged former mobster had 100,000 reasons to believe the rumor was true.

Back in the winter of 1951, Baxter had case the property in hopes of getting his hands on the money, but ultimately decided the score wasn't worth the risk. Now, in the spring of 1953, Baxter was desperate for cash. So when two Johns from Northern California approached him with another shot at robbing Mabel's house, Baxter couldn't resist. On March 8th, Baxter met 48-year-old John Santo and 38-year-old John True at a restaurant in El Monte, a city just east of Los Angeles. Santo was a hardened criminal with a lengthy rap sheet. True was a deep-sea diver who scavenged for valuables. Together, the two Johns had the know-how to break into Mabel's home and find Tudor's hidden treasure, but they needed a boxman like Baxter to crack open the safe. To get him on board,

Santo and True assured him that no one would be home when they made their move. It would be a simple B&E, get in, get out, get rich. That was all Baxter needed to hear. He agreed to join the team, and the trio set the date for the following night. Just like that, they were ready to make their play. On the evening of March 9th, Baxter met Santo and True at another spot in El Monte. Only Santo had brought along two new faces, a 45-year-old named Emmett Perkins, and a woman Baxter believed was named Mary. Let me just stop here for a moment and let you know that Mary's presence wasn't a welcome surprise for the crew.

This was the 1950s, and most criming was done by men. But according to Baxter, Sonto wanted to bring a war. on the job just in case Mabel was home. So here they were, the five main players, Baxter Shorter, John Santo, John True, Emmett Perkins, and the woman were calling Mary for now. Around 7 p.m., the crew piled into a Blue Oldsmobile and drove over to Mabel's house in Burbank. Now remember, the 64-year-old widow always had her guard up, in additioning to installing safety locks on her doors and wings,

she made sure to close all the curtains in her living room and turn on her outdoor floodlights each night. Mabel likely thought this would deter burglars from breaking in. It didn't work. When the crew parked just outside Mabel's house, Baxter clocked the closed curtains and the bright floodlights and figured she must have gone out for the night. But just in case, Santo ordered Mary to take the lead. She'd strut towards the front door and play a damsel in disdell. stress, Santo, True, and Emmett would follow a few paces behind her, while Baxter stayed in

the car to act as lookout. Someone would come get him once they found the safe. And so Baxter watched on as Mary and the three others disappeared from view. Now exactly what happened next isn't totally clear, but Mabel probably heard someone knocking at her door. She hobbled on over with the help of her cane, then peered through the peephole. Through the tiny window, Mabel likely only saw a lone young woman and not the trio of men standing close by. Mabel likely asked Mary what she wanted. And Mary said that she had some car trouble and needed to use the telephone.

At least, that's the script Sonto gave her. Whatever she said, she must have been convincing because Mabel cracked open the door. Before she could process what was going on, Mary, Santo, True, and Emmett pushed their way inside. Mabel began screaming for help, but all that noise made someone very angry, and that person pistol-whipped her on the head. But while the initial strike was jarring, Mabel was still very much alive. To keep her disoriented and under control, one of the intruders found a pillowcase and placed it over her head.

Then they grabbed a sheet, tore it into strips, and wrapped one around Mabel's neck. He also tied Mabel's hands behind her back and dragged her towards a closet. Then the group went ham looking for the safe. They started ransacking the house, rummaging through Mabel's belongings, opening drawers, ripping up carpet. I mean, they even hacked away at the baseboards and dismantled the heating vents in the floor. These guys were desperate to find that safe. And that desperation made some of them downright devious.

Based on how they left the scene, it seems they dragged the 64-year-old from room to room, demanding she'd tell them where Tudor-Sharer had hidden his fortune. But Mabel either didn't know anything or wasn't sharing, because they began hitting her in the face with a hard object over and over again. According to one of the crew, it was a pistol. Another account said it was Mabel's own cane. Whatever it was, the pillowcase covering her face was soaked in her own blood.

Meanwhile, Baxter, remember Baxter Shorter, the Safecracker? He was still in the car, waiting for someone to tell him to come inside. But after 15 long minutes, he was getting antsy. So he got out of the car and entered the White Stucco house, which is where he saw Mabel lying on the floor, writhing in pain. According to Baxter, True was holding. Mabel's head in his hands as Emmett struck the widow with a final blow. It seems Emmett was taking his frustrations out on Mabel, because the rumored $100,000 was just a rumor. Tudor-Sharrer had never

hidden away any money, at least not in his old Burbank house. And so the fivesome left the white stucco house empty-handed. They abandoned Mabel on the floor and didn't even bother to take any of her valuable jewelry or the $500 she had in her purse. They piled back into the Oldsmobile and drove off into the night. But while everyone was fuming over the lack of money, Baxter was freaking out. It was supposed to be an easy job. Get in, get out, get rich, remember? No one was supposed to be home, let alone get hurt.

But now as they headed back towards Elmonte, Baxter Shorter couldn't shake the feeling that Mabel Monahan would soon be dead. Up next, Baxter's worst nightmare comes true. Transport your senses with Sol de Janeiro's limited edition perfume mist collection. At Sephora, spritz on lush notes of rainforest orchid and crisp seabrees with hefresco paraizzo. Embrace of floral and fruity scent inspired by Rio's nude beach with cheeky bikini or capture sun-sunkist bliss with limonada gelada, where zesty, Brazilian lemon,

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which includes gas, bloating, rumbling, and abdominal discomfort. Now back to the story. 43-year-old Baxter Shorter didn't like violence. Sure, he had ties to the mob and had likely gotten his hands dirty a time or two. But now, in the spring of 1953, the skilled safecracker preferred petty crimes like burglary, where the rewards were high and the risks were low.

That's exactly what the Mabel Monaghan job was supposed to be. But sitting in the Blue Oldsmobile, he knew the botched robbery was anything but. As the crew drove back towards Elmonte on the evening of March 9th, Baxter announced that he was worried the 64-year-old widow might die. 48-year-old John Santo couldn't care less. He snapped at Baxter and questioned his manhood. It was likely at this moment Baxter realized the type of company, he was riding with. If he said any more, Mabel's life might not be the only one on the line.

Despite this, Baxter couldn't get Mabel out of his mind. When he returned to his downtown Los Angeles apartment, he was restless. He roamed the streets until he found a payphone. Then, according to him, he called an operator, telling them to send an ambulance to Mabel's address. Unfortunately, because Baxter didn't mention that the address was in Burbank, the ambulance showed up at the wrong location. Sure enough, Mabel died in her white stucco house sometime after the would-be robbers fled. Her gardener found her battered body two days later. When investigators took in the ghastly crime scene, they were stumped.

The perpetrators hadn't taken any of Mabel's valuables or even her cash. They also didn't leave behind any useful evidence. It was a mystery that made headline news. Based on these reports, police knew about Mabel's connection to the infamous Las Vegas gambler, Tudor-Sharer, but seemed unaware about any rumored safe. Then a call came in that changed everything. An anonymous tipster told investigators that Baxter Shorter was likely involved in the murder. With that small crumb, authorities tracked Baxter down between March 12th and 14th and brought him in for questioning.

This may have been a relief to the safecracker. Sure, he'd plotted to steal Tudor's fabled fortune, but he didn't want to go down for a murder he didn't commit. But it wasn't so simple, because some of the other guys, namely Santo and 45-year-old Emmett Perkins, well, they were hardcore criminals, the type who always made sure to pay back anyone who crossed them. Baxter probably knew that snitches got, well, dead.

Simply put, he was in a pickle. There's this popular concept in game theory called the Prisoner's Dilemma. It pits two suspects of a crime against each other, and they can either confess or keep quiet. If they both own up to their crimes, then both do some time. If they both deny, maybe they'll both walk away. However, if one decides to snitch on the other and that other guy stays quiet, then it's bad news for the one who kept mom. So then, what do you choose?

Many have argued that the best way to avoid punishment is to deny, deny, deny. The problem there is that neither party knows what the other is saying. The suspects are kept in the dark, and their testimonies are used against each other. This leads to a whole host of possible fractures and betrayals. As a result, the most rational decision is to confess. Now, at this point in time, Baxter was the only one with any actual role in the crime who was in police custody. But considering that someone had already outed him to authorities, he knew it was only a matter of time before the rest of the crew was also arrested. And knowing how volatile some of his accomplices were, Baxter chose the option that served his best interest.

In exchange for immunity, Baxter began to talk. He told investigators about the rumored 100K, how a crew of five broke into Mabel's home and how they left her for dead. He also told them about his accomplices, offering vague descriptions and first names for Santo, True, Emmett, and the woman he knew as Mary, who, thanks to some quick sleuthing, police believed was 29-year-old Barbara Graham. Barbara worked for Emmett as a shill in his gambling parlor. Every so often, the striking beauty would put on her best pair of heels, flirt with a man at a bar, then bring him on over to Emmett's parlor in El Monte. There, she'd ply her mark with drinks, until he made sloppy bets and lost out on a lot more than a passionate night with a woman. Barbara also had a laundry list of priors.

She'd been arrested for prostitution, narcotics possession, forgery, and was even convicted of perjury. authorities was sure she was this Mary. Of course, this was just a theory. There was no way to prove that Baxter's Mary was in fact Barbara Graham, and despite his damning testimony, investigators couldn't prove that Santo, True, Emmett, or Barbara were actually there that night. Remember, they didn't leave behind any evidence.

What authorities needed was a confession. Out of the four remaining suspects, investigators were most interested in 38-year-old John True. Unlike the others, he had a clean record. He was a deep-sea diver from Northern California, and with no real ties to the criminal underworld, he seemed the most likely to crack under pressure. So on April 12th, authorities arrested True at his home in Grass Valley in Northern California and brought him back to Burbank. They took him to headquarters where they interrogated him about Mabel's murder. True swore that he was innocent, of everything. He'd never killed Mabel. He'd never broken into her home. Heck, before that day, he claimed he'd never even been to Burbank. The only person he knew out of the list of supposed accomplices was Sonto.

And that was only because they were hunting buddies, not criminal masterminds. All in all, it seems True was pretty convincing. Again, he had a clean record, so he didn't seem like a guy who'd take part in such a grissel. murder. Which by now had been written about in pretty much every California paper. Mabel's death had sparked outrage in Los Angeles, and a lot of people were interested in the investigation. Within 24 hours of his arrest, newspapers were already reporting that True was likely involved. Unfortunately for Baxter, True's arrest made the rest of the crew suspicious. They quickly figured that there was only one person who could have ratted them all out, and they had.

had to stop him talking quickly. According to Baxter's wife, Olivia, a little after 8 p.m. on April 14th, the couple was watching television when Emmett Perkins arrived at the door. He had a gun in his hand and told Baxter to come with him. Olivia knew her husband was in trouble. As the two men made their way down the apartment hallway, she grabbed a loaded rifle and scrambled after them.

But it didn't help. Emmett turned back and said, Get back in the apartment or Baxter's going to die right here. Olivia lowered her weapon and watched helplessly as Emmett forced Baxter outside, shoved him into the back of a getaway car manned by another person and drove off. Baxter Shorter was never seen or heard from again.

While his disappearance was never solved, there's still those who believe that he was killed by Emmett Perkins and whoever was driving the getaway car. Now, you'd think that would be the end of the road for investigators. They'd just lost their star witness, and there was no evidence tying the others to Mabel's murder. It didn't look good. But they weren't giving up.

They just needed one of the three remaining suspects to break. And thanks to Olivia's testimony, investigators hoped to bring them in on the suspicion of Baxter's murder. The problem was authorities had no idea where any of the... of them were. Ever since Baxter's disappearance, they'd all vanished. That is, everyone except Barbara. Instead of acting like a criminal who needed to lay low, the 29-year-old beauty walked the streets of Los Angeles like nothing was amiss, so it was pretty easy for authorities to track her down. On the afternoon of May 4th, an undercover officer trailed Barbara from a downtown shopping district

to an auto shop in Linwood just south of the city. As Barbara settled into her quarters, a team of officers surrounded the building. When they received the signal, armed cops broke down the front and back doors and stormed inside. And they hit the jackpot. It was almost like they'd found Tudor's fabled treasure for themselves

because they're inside the auto shop. They didn't just find Barbara Graham, Emmett Perkins and John Santo were there too. Now all they needed to do was convince someone to talk. Coming up, a date with death looms over bloody babs. Snoring, gasping during sleep, feeling fatigued, ask your doctor about Zepbound, terseptite. The first and only FDA-approved prescription medicine for moderate to severe obstructive sleep apnea, OSA, and adults with obesity. Zepbound is a pre-Bound.

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Watch only on Prime. Now back to the story. On May 4, 1953, Barbara Graham, John Santo, and Emmett Perkins were booked on the suspicion of murdering 43-year-old Baxter Shorter. He was the safecracker who'd told authorities all about their involvement in the murder of 64-year-old Mabel Monaghan. It was almost as if the story had been ripped from the pages of a Hollywood screenplay, a fabled fortune, a botched burglary, an abduction, and quite possibly two murders. Needless to say, when reporters heard about the arrest, they flocked to the station to get a piece of the story.

Within 24 hours, Santo, Emmett, and Barbara were. on the covers of almost every news publication in the state of California. Of course, out of the three, the cameras gravitated towards 29-year-old Barbara. She had the kind of face that sold papers. She also had a flair for the dramatic. And here's where the star of our story really starts to show her true colors. Soon after her arrest, Barbara told authorities that she only had a few months to live. According to her, she was dying of heart failure.

Police sent Barbara over to the hospital, but when doctors examined her, they determined that she was perfectly healthy. Okay, that's not entirely true. They found needle track marks on her arm and believed that Barbara was a drug user, but that was it. It was a telling moment. When it came to the truth, Barbara's word wasn't to be trusted. Not that any of the suspects were talking anyway, and without a confession, investigators couldn't definitively prove any of the evidence. them had been involved in Baxter's disappearance, let alone Mabel Monaghan's murder. They'd found no sign of Baxter, the getaway car, or Emmett's gun when they picked the trio up. Fortunately, the district attorney had another plan in the works. He just had to make sure none of them could run.

So to keep Barbara in custody, the DA charged her with forging checks. Santo was charged for forging a fake telegraph. As for Emmett, well, Olivia Shorter picked him out of a line. so he was booked for kidnapping. In some versions of this story, it was around this time that authorities offered Barbara the deal of a lifetime. If she testified against the other two men, she'd get immunity and walk free. But if this really happened, they clearly had no idea who they were dealing with, because Barbara Graham was no snitch. It was something she prided herself on. With no one talking, authorities turned their sights back to 38-year-old John True.

Despite what he'd said in his initial interrogation, word on the street was that the deep-sea diver was definitely involved in the death of Mabel Monaghan. The following month, police arrested True once again, and this time he was ready to talk. He told them all about Tudor's fabled cash, the failed burglary attempt, and what happened to Mabel. And just like Baxter,

True swore he wasn't the one who got violent. According to him, Barbara had been the one who first hit Mabel. Emmett placed the pillowcase over Mabel's head and tied her up, and Sonto was the one who took another strip of cloth, wrapped it around Mabel's neck, and pulled. According to True, all three of the suspects were guilty of Mabel's murder, and he was willing to testify against them in return for immunity. So True took the stand in a grand jury hearing.

But now this is where everything really gets muddled. While True initially told the authorities that Emmett was the one to put the pillowcase over Mabel's head, now it was Barbara who did it. And in this version, she was also the one to strike Mabel in the head repeatedly. In fact, according to True, she was so violent that he had to tell her to stop. He also testified that he attempted to do right by Mabel, Before he left the ransacked home, he cut a hole into the bloodied pillowcase so that she could breathe better. Of course, if that was the case, that hole didn't help Mabel one bit.

And while it would be nice to believe that True was being truthful, it's hard to take everything he said at face value. He never called for help after leaving the property, and he didn't come forward voluntarily. He was only talking now because he'd been granted immunity. In any case, the grand jury ate his story up. The trio were booked for the murder of Mabel Monaghan, and Barbara, or Bloody Babs, as the media now called her, seemed to be pinned as the one who started it all. When Barbara heard the news, she collapsed in her jail cell,

hit her head, and lost consciousness. It was overwhelming, to say the least. Barbara had made some questionable decisions in her life. She dabbled in sex work. She may have taken a hit or two of the latest fashion drug, and yes, she even perjured herself for a friend. But murder? She didn't have a violent bone in her body.

Barbara swore to her lawyer, Jack Hardy, that she was innocent. But when he asked her where she was on the night of March 9th, Barbara said she couldn't remember. In response, Jack told his client that she needed to come up with an alibi, fast, because in the state of California, in 1953, one. One punishment for first-degree murder was death. In the weeks leading up to her trial, Barbara started to panic. She talked about her problems to her fellow inmates

until one of them came to her with a solution. 20-year-old Donna Prough was doing time for vehicular manslaughter, and she knew a guy who could give Barbara an alibi. His name was Sam Siriani, and all he wanted in return was $500. dollars. Barbara and Sam met several times that August, coming up with and finessing the perfect story. Sam agreed to testify that on the night of Mabel's murder, he and Barbara had been together in a hotel room, having an affair. But during these meetings, Sam kept trying to get Barbara to confess that she'd actually had a part in Mabel's death.

Barbara denied it a few times, but eventually admitted that she was with the other four culprits that night. Barbara believed that Sam just wanted a little reassurance. Perjury was a felony in California, which meant he was risking prison time for her. If he needed a little something to feel safer, then why not? Besides admitting that she was there with the others was worth the price of an alibi. Because now Barbara was golden. Later that month, when the trial against Barbara, Santo and Emmett began, Barbara put on a figure-hugging outfit, slipped on a pair of heels, and strutted into the packed courtroom like it was a red carpet.

She shouldn't have been so smug. Remember, this was 1953. Respectable women were supposed to be sweet and submissive. Any innocent woman in Barbara's shoes would have acted as such, or at the very least been on the verge of a mental breakdown, at least according to standards of the day. But Barbara, well, she seemed perfectly put together, to the extent that people described her as a cold-hearted ice queen. When John True took the stand on August 25th and claimed that Barbara had been the most violent of all, she only fed that narrative with her icy glare. All in all, her behavior made her look pretty guilty.

Of course, things only got worse from there. Days later, Sam Suryani was called to the stand, but he was, wasn't there on Barbara's behalf. He was there for the prosecution. It turns out he was an undercover cop. Donna Prow, you see, had made a deal with authorities. If she helped them trick Barbara, then she could score an early release. So she set Barbara up. Sam testified that Bloody Babs had confessed to taking part in Mabel's murder. He'd even taped some of their conversations. In one very muffled recording, Barbara appeared to have said, quote, I was with them. After that, Barbara's entire defense was in shambles, and her lawyer knew it.

So Jack Hardy did what many attorneys may not have done. He blamed himself. He explained that he had scared his client to look for an alibi at any cost, that Barbara simply couldn't remember where she was on the night of Monaghan's murder. If Barbara had just stuck with this story, things might have turned out differently, because there was no proof tying her to any of the crimes. But after Sam's testimony, she had to defend herself. She had to take the stand. In general, most criminal defense attorneys advise their clients to plead the fifth.

It's the amendment that protects individuals from being compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself. According to Professor of Law, Jeffrey Bellen, that's because declining to testify, Shields Defendant. from questioning by the prosecutor and normally precludes the introduction of a defendant's prior crimes. But silence comes at a price. Jurors penalized defendants who fail to testify by inferring guilt from silence. Unfortunately for Barbara, they also penalized defendants who constantly change their story. On September 1st, Barbara batted her lashes at the jurors and claimed that it was all

coming back to her. On the night of March 9, 1953, she'd been at home with her now estranged husband, Henry. They were having the biggest fight of their relationship. There was screaming, there was crying, and there was even some hitting. Henry left the apartment that same night, and the two never reconciled. Barbara was left caring for their one-year-old son, but with no consistent income of her own, Barbara turned to the only other person who ever was there for her, her boss and friend, 45-year-old Emmett Perkins. According to Barbara, she went over to Emmett's the next day. He was with 48-year-old John Santo at the time, and together the trio hopped around town

until they eventually made their way to the auto shop in Linwood. Barbara felt this was no place for her one-year-old, so she dropped him off at her mother-in-laws and came back to settle in at the shop, and that's where she stayed until May 4th when the authorities tracked her down. In court, Barbara said that she understood things didn't look good, but she insisted she was completely innocent. To support these claims,

Barbara's estranged husband was called to the stand, and while Henry agreed to speak for the defense, the exes clearly didn't get their story straight, because at first, Henry testified that he'd love, left their home on the 7th or 8th, and not the night of the 9th. Henry eventually got it together and corrected himself, but it was too late. The jurors didn't believe a word he said. They also didn't believe either of Santo and Emmett's alibis. The cops had trapped them in a similar sting to the one that ensnared Barbara. Underhanded tricks aside, I want to point out that when it came to closing

statements, the prosecutor told jurors to take John True's testimony, quote, with caution. As he was an accomplice who'd been granted full immunity, he had a lot of incentive to point the finger at the others. Despite this, it only took jurors seven hours to reach a verdict. All three defendants were found guilty of first-degree murder. Given all that happened in this sensational trial, it's hard to blame any of the jurors for this But the thing is, while all three looked really guilty, it's important to remember that there was no conclusive evidence that ever linked John Santo, Emmett Perkins, or Barbara Graham to Mabel Monaghan's murder. In today's judicial system, it's possible that the trio would have either gotten off Scott Free or sentenced to some time behind bars. But again, this was 1953.

So they were all sentenced to death. And just like that, Bloody Babs Graham had a date with the gas chamber. Thanks for listening to Serial Killers, a Spotify podcast. We'll be back next week with part two of Barbara's story. And be sure to check us out on Instagram at Serial Killers Podcast. Next week, we'll go back in time and learn about her difficult upbringing and detail the controversial end to the saga. For more information on Barbara Graham, amongst the many sources we use,

we found proof of guilt by Kathleen A. Carnes extremely helpful to our research. Stay safe out there. Serial Killers is a Spotify podcast. This episode was written by Jane O with writing assistance by Joel Callan, fact-checked by Bennett Logan, researched by Mickey Taylor and Chelsea Wood, and sound design by Juan Borda, with production assistance by Joshua Kern. Our head of programming is Julian Borrow. Our head of production is Nick Johnson.

And Spencer Howard is our post-production supervisor. I'm your host, Vanessa Richardson. A beloved 75-year-old man washing up getting ready for bed is brutally beaten and killed. Despite an exhaustive investigation, the killer avoids arrest and then strikes again. I'm Global News crime reporter Nancy Hicks. You might listen to a lot of true crime podcasts this year, but they're not crime beat. Search for and follow the award-winning podcast Crime Beat on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, and wherever you find your favorite podcasts.

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