Morbid - Episode 693: Caryl Chessman: The Red Light Bandit

Episode Date: July 28, 2025

In early 1948, Los Angeles couples were terrorized by a series of robberies and car thefts committed by a criminal the press dubbed “The Red Light Bandit,” a reference to the red light he used to flag down his victims. Fortunately, the bandit’s crime spree was quickly cut short when police arrested Caryl Chessman, a Los Angeles resident with a criminal history going back to his teen years.Chessman was charged with multiple counts of robbery, rape, grand theft, and because of an unusual interpretation of events, he was also charged with kidnapping. Due to the attachment of kidnapping, several of the charges were defined as a capital offense and Chessman was convicted and sentenced to death.In the years following his conviction, Chessman’s death sentence became a source of considerable controversy—an already controversial sentence applied in a non-lethal case due to a bizarre application of the law. For ten years, Chessman fought the sentence all the way to the US Supreme Court, with support from a wide variety of sources, both notable and ordinary.  Thank you to the Incredible Dave White of Bring Me the Axe Podcast for research and Writing support!ReferencesChessman, Caryl, and Joseph Longstreth. 1954. Cell 2455, Death Row: A Condemned Man's Own Story. New York, NY: Prentice Hall.Erikson, Leif. 1960. "Chessman executed with a smile on his lips." Los Angeles Evening Citizen News, May 2: 1.Los Angeles Evening Citizen News. 1948. "Mother on stretcher testifies for 'genius'." Los Angeles Evening Citizen News, May 10: 1.—. 1948. "Wild chase nets 'Red Light Bandit' suspects." Los Angeles Evening Citizen News, January 24: 3.Los Angeles Times. 1941. "Crime victims point to youths." Los Angeles Times, February 14: 2.—. 1943. "Honor farm escapee says he only lost his memory." Los Angeles Times, September 5: 14.—. 1948. "Red-Light Bandit receives two death sentences." Los Angeles Times, June 26: 17.Pasadena Independent. 1948. "Red Light Bandit strikes again." Pasadena Independent, January 20: 8.People v. Caryl Chessman. 1959. CR. 5006 (Supreme Court of California , July 7).Press-Telegram. 1941. "Five bandit suspects held in shootings." Press-Telegram (Long Beach, CA), February 2: 1.Ruth, David E. 2014. "'Our free society is worthy of better': Caryl Chessman, Capital Punishment, and Cold War culture." Law, Crime and History 31-55.Time Magazine. 1960. "The Chessman affair." Time Magazine, March 21.Times, Los Angeles. 1948. "Bandit using red spotlight kidnaps girl." Los Angeles Times, January 23: 19.—. 1948. "Deasth asked in Bandit case." Los Angeles Times, May 19: 32.Stay in the know - wondery.fm/morbid-wondery.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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I'm Alena. I'm Ash. And this is Morbido. The first big news is that Ash has finally come over to the side of wanting fall and getting annoyed when people... Now she understands why it's annoying when people go, can you just let me have my son or I know I'll kill them. Yeah, she's there now. I took Dolores. So you know, my dog, I took Dolores out the other morning and it was so it was like eight

o'clock in the morning and it was so fucking hot out. Yeah, already. And I said, you know what? To hell with this. Yeah just want, I want to wear a sweatshirt comfortably. I want to- Cozy fall cooking. I have so, oh shut your fucking face over there with the cozy fall cooking. I started ordering new Halloween decorations. I just want to decorate now. I want my house. Fall is just cozy and I want to be cozy.

I'm not cozy, I'm sweaty and I'm tired of being sweaty. And she told me this and the first thing I said is now picture someone saying, just let me have my summer. Summer just started. And I said, and how do you feel? I said, I'll kill them. And she literally said, I'll kill them. I said, I love when that happens.

I love when that happens. I love when somebody else gets it. Oh, I just want it so bad. And I want my like pumpkin drinks. This summer has been too hot, too muggy. Too fucking hot. The bugs are huge. I don't know what's going on. No, I opened my slider yesterday.

I wish this was visual just for this one moment. There had to be a bug with wings, mind you. Four inches long and four inches thick. What the fuck's going on there? No, it's something hellacious. Something hellacious is going on. They're demons. They're from the Hellmouth. I saw, we went to the ghost show in Baltimore, Joan and I. Have we not recorded since then?

I don't think we have. It was fucking amazing. Yay. I'm not going to say anything to give anything away. You got a cool sweatshirt. Yeah, I did get it. I got a batwing sweatshirt. Yeah, that's fun.

I got the girls some things. Oh, you did? Of course. I didn't even see it. I met some listeners there. That was fun and cool. I love that. And it was funny because one listener came up

while we were at our seats and was like, hey, and that was like, oh my God, I listened to the podcast. And I was like, girl, I noticed you when you walked in the arena. Cause she was just wearing, like, when ghost concerts, everybody's dressed up. Oh yeah. In wild ways, cool ways.

It's really fun to people watch and like participate. And this girl had walked in and I was like, wow, she just looks phenomenal. Like, it was one of those things where you're just like, wow, like, go off. Like, you're just like, shit. Like I just happened to notice her when she walked in, she had like really pretty hair and I was like, wow. And so I had said to John, I was like, wow, she looks like amazing. I just like noticed her and she was the one who came up

and was like, I listened to the podcast. So I was like, girl, I noticed you the second you walked in. Morbid listeners. It was the most wholesome experience. Stunning everywhere they go. Literally, cause I did, eyes went right to her. That's a serve. But it was like a lot of fun.

And the reason I'm saying this is because in Baltimore, the one I got off the train, I immediately saw one of those lantern flies. I think like Pennsylvania got infested with for a little while. They're invasive, I'm pretty sure. Like they go crazy. They're kind of cool looking though.

I don't want to be invaded by them. I don't want to be invaded period. So like, I'm not here to tell you like, oh, it's really cool that you get attacked by lantern flies every year. Wasn't, Doug Bradley was talking about that on our ghost episode. It was actually, I don't know if it got, if it got cut from like the final, I'm not sure how much of the conversation was in there.

But when we had Tobias on, I think it was like a full circle moment, because when we had Tobias on, I think it was like a full circle moment because when we had Tobias on and we brought Doug on, they were talking about, I think Tobias brought up actually like the lantern flies. Is it this? Yeah, they're like really pretty. Oh, they're pretty, yeah.

They're big. Yeah, ew. And I think Tobias had brought up the lantern flies and how terrified he is and like needs therapy for bugs. I get it. And so, and they were talking about how they like invade invade and I think it was Doug's wife, Steph, who was like, actually, I think they're really pretty. I don't care.

And I was like, I get it. They're bigger than a quarter. They're huge. That's fucked up. They're really pretty though. They are pretty. And I felt like it was such a full circle moment that I was going to a show, a ghost show in Baltimore. And the first thing I saw was that lantern fly

that we had talked about on the episode. But then did it make you feel like you were ready for fall? Yeah, definitely. Like did it remind you that you were ready for fall? It did remind me a little bit. But for everybody that we met at the show, John and I, like that was so awesome.

And how fucking cool was that show? I love that. It was so fun. It's always fun to meet you guys in the wild. It was, especially I, like that was so awesome. And how fucking cool was that show? It was so fun to meet you guys in the wild. It was especially at stuff like that. Cause then we're all excited about it together. It's really fun. That's cool. The show was so good. Oh, that makes me want to go to a concert.

Oh, it's so good. But yeah, that was a lot of fun and lantern flies and bugs and let's get fall going. Please. I'm ready. I'm ready for it. How many days until fall? I was like, what?

70. That's not that much. 70 is a lot. That's not, that's until official fall. Fact, fact. We get fall well before official fall. Not the last couple of years though. We get it.

The weather starts to change. Yeah, she'll change. We'll get that little crispness. I just need to carve a pumpkin. As soon as September 1st hits, it's fall. I mean, yeah, in my heart. So like that's all I'm looking forward to. Yeah.

September 1st. Back to school, back to school. It's like September 1st hits, spooky season, fall, apples, like let's go. All right. That's all I'm looking for is September 1st. I just need to get through this. I'm in a bad state. I constantly say, don't worry, we'll get into the thing. I just... It'll be fine. Everybody will be cool. I have like a reverse seasonal depression and I'm not even joking about that. I know it's not a joke. I'm not joking.

I literally say I'm the most unhappy in the summer. It just doesn't do anything for me. Because Drew has seasonal affective disorder in the winter. And I looked at him and I was like, you know how Alaina says that? I was always like, do you really? Yeah. I felt like that yesterday. Like yesterday I was like, okay, I'm all, like I feel upset in my heart.

I don't like it. And like I feel shitty. In the rest of the year. Yeah. The only good thing about summer is that the kids are home. Yeah, that is good. That's literally the only thing that keeps me

from like fully diagnosing myself with summer sadness. Because then they're around and I'm like, oh, well, this is for you. Happiness. Yeah, that's true. They give me a lot of happiness. So that's like the only thing that keeps me like, yay. Oh, but God, let's go fall. Yeah, let's go fall. I'm ready. Still don't know what the fuck to wear. No, that's the other thing. I don't like summer clothes. Everything is sticky. Go buy the paperback version of the butcher game.

Put it in your pocket. It's put it in your back pocket. You can see the per rainy day. Pre-order that shit. You can do it. You should do it. It's pretty great, I think. I really like the book and paperbacks rock.

I like paperbacks personally a lot. Yeah. And it'll prepare you for who knows what. Things. Things and stuff. So let's get into today's episode. We should. This is one that is, it was just like super interesting to me, especially like the trial and imprisonment

in this case is very interesting. There's a lot of pieces that make it go like, holy shit. And then the actual crimes are so like weird and random and fucked up that you're just like, okay. But we're gonna be talking about Carol Chessman, the red light bandit. The red light bandit. The red light bandit. I love a bandit story.

That's the thing. Whenever it's the something bandit, I'm in. That's great. Let's learn about it. So in early 1948, Los Angeles couples were absolutely terrorized by a series of robberies and there was like car theft involved, all that stuff. And this was committed by a criminal who the press, of course, dubbed the Red Light Bandit.

The Red Light Bandit is back at it again. More on the news at five. That's a literal rip from a new station from 1948. Yeah. I know, crazy that we were able to do that. But the Red Light Bandit was so called that because they used a red light on top of their car to flag down victims like act like a police officer.

See, I thought they were traffic lights. Yes, red lights. They were seizing the opportunity. And I said, wow, that's no, that's confidence. I also thought that too, because I was like, well, you don't have a lot of time at a red light. But no, it was like a red light on their car. Okay. Okay. Fortunately, the bandits crime spree was quickly cut short when police arrested

Carol Chessman, a Los Angeles resident with a criminal history that went way back. Carol? Yeah, Carol. And it's Carol K, C-A-R-Y-L. Oh, okay. And you said to his teen years. Yes, okay, yeah. Carol Whittier Chessman was born on May 27th, 1921 in St. Joseph, Michigan. He was born to Searle and Hallie Chessman. Within six months of his birth,

the family moved from Michigan to Glendale, California, which must be like a pretty big change. Yeah, I would think so. Although his parents spelled his name the traditional way actually, C-A-R-O-L, he actually later changed the spelling. Basically he wanted to avoid like, you know, the common, what he could like,

what was considered like the female way of spelling it at the time, cause remember this is the forties, the forties. So he changed it. I mean back then even earlier. Yeah, cause he didn't want to be confused. Like, you know, when somebody just sees their name. Right. And that's his deal.

So Carol Chessman's biography that he wrote actually. Autow biography. It has been, it's been reported from a variety of sources, but there are a lot of inconsistencies between his reports of his childhood and the narratives reported from independent sources. Okay. He tends to romanticize a lot of his life.

All right. And I say that because there's like actual reports and evidence that will like dispute a lot of it. What is apparent from both sources is that Chessman's early life was definitely marked by a lot of struggle and like tragedy, I would say. He was born just before the onset of the Great Depression, which was 1929.

His father, Searle really struggled to maintain a stable job and to care for the family. The financial struggles definitely raised significantly in 1930 when Hallie Chessman was actually in a really bad car accident and became paralyzed from the waist down. Oh my goodness. Really bad.

Oh, that's awful. Obviously there was a ton of hospital bills from this accident and she had ongoing care now. She was paralyzed from the waist down. Right. So it became like a seriously crushing weight on the family, like financially, and especially Searle who really wanted to be able

to take care of this stuff. And he really struggled to get out of this weight. During Carol's childhood, actually, his father tried a few times, like a couple times, I believe, to unsuccessfully end his own life. Oh, that's sad. And it definitely affected Carol. Yeah, how could it not? Although his mother's accident and the paralysis were the focus of a lot of his younger years, Carol himself also struggled with a lot of physical ailments as a child.

Carol himself also struggled with a lot of physical ailments as a child. He had some health problems like asthma and pneumonia, which are serious, but they are ones that are a little more common among children. Others were more serious. Like he had encephalitis at one point, which is swelling of the brain. He had diphtheria, a severe bacterial infection of the nose and throat. And he had a lot of times where he required a lot of hospitalizations. And of course, this put another financial strain on the family's whole entire financial deal.

Yeah. Despite all of this, Carroll reported having a pretty decent childhood. In his memoir, he wrote, weekends and vacation time, the three had great fun together, meaning his parents and him. Oh, that's nice. He said, there were trips to the ocean where with tiny pale and shovel, I discovered wonders in the sand. One thing about Carol is he has nice prose. When he writes, he can write. He's a writer. It's impossible to know how frequently this actually happened in his childhood or like whether they did have great fun together, you know, but he repeatedly said this, but

then he would also undermine that narrative in psychiatric interviews after he was arrested. He really plays both sides of the fence here. According to Chessman, his childhood memories were actually largely painful and frustrating, this is what he said later, because his ailments frequently, quote, disrupted his childhood and left him feeling weak and ashamed, as did taunts from his playmates. Now his accounts of his relationship with his father also kind of contradict one another, depending on when they were told. So in his published memoirs, his early memories of his father are pretty positive,

but he appears less nostalgic about his father than he was about his mother. Which I feel like happens a lot, especially for that time period. Yeah, definitely. In truth, Searle Chessman was pretty generally a mild-mannered man, you know, who, whether fair or not, struggled a lot with his feelings of failure and a poor sense of self-worth that left him feeling very depressed a lot of the time, very despondent.

He also felt like he like internalized his son's ailments as like failure on his part, because his son was seen as like frail. That's sad. And that whole, you know, self sense of failure kind of led him to harbor feelings of resentment for Carol as well. On one occasion, where his father had wrongly apparently believed that he had intentionally

hurt his own mother. Carol claimed that his father repeatedly beat him with a bullwhip. Oh, fuck. But it is difficult to know whether that is a true thing that happened or whether it was added into the memoir on Carol's part for like effect. Because again, you just can't take everything he says as true. And he contradicts a lot of his own statements. But that sounds unfortunately very of the time.

It also just sounds like he had a complicated childhood. That's what it feels like. No matter like what- No matter what is true and what isn't. Yeah, what definitely happened or not, shit was complicated. It was complex. Yeah. Yeah. It's important to note that like many families,

especially at that time, Serle and Halley-Chestman were very religious people who imparted their strong religious beliefs on their son as well. This wasn't really, in this case, consequential in and of itself, but they were also applied in the context of illness and disability,

so it became a really powerful source of shame. Okay. For example, like when he was initially diagnosed with severe asthma, Halle Chessman's approach was be brave and pray to God to be cured. Oh. Yeah.

Of course, he was not cured just by praying and being brave. So naturally he felt that he was unworthy of God's love and attention because he was not cured through that. Which was a notion that he would come back to several times in the years that followed. And honestly, it was kind of like, it was just like reinforcing and like, eventually kind of justifying his feelings of shame and like feelings of being frail and like unworthy. Yeah.

And obviously it's like, he was a kid when he was learning this stuff. So that stuff does become internalized. Absolutely it does. I assume. Now, according to Carol Chessman, it was those feelings of guilt and shame that ultimately led him to commit his first crime, which also is obviously a very convenient way to describe why he started a life of crime, which is why you need to just be like, okay. When Carol was around 14 years old, he returned home one afternoon and this is horrible.

If this is really what happened, this is a horrible thing that happened. He returned home one afternoon to find his father attempting to end his own life by putting his head in the oven. Oh shit. Yeah. Obviously very distraught in thinking that the financial instability of the family had led to this and that he believed he was partially a drain on those financial situation. He said he resolved to do whatever he could to help support the family after this. In this case, that meant stealing food from the local grocery store to help feed the family. Oh, which is devastating.

Yeah, that's just sad that he felt that much pressure. This is an ad by BetterHelp. These days it feels like there is advice for literally everything. Cold plunges, gratitude journals, screen detoxes, this, that, and the other thing. How do you know what actually works for you though? With the internet and information overload about mental health and wellness, it can be a struggle to know what's true and what actions to take these days. But using trusted resources and talking to live therapists can get you personalized recommendations and help you break through the noise. I love therapy. I've tried a lot of different

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for going from one store to another, where he stole small amounts of food from loading docks. Okay. Carol said he, quote, took no pleasure in the success of his deception or in having become a sneak thief. But for the first time in his life, he was actually helping his family.

And at a time when it was really needed the most, which, you know, so it seemed like it kind of made the behavior permissible. Yeah. But also it kind of gave him the validation that he was looking for from his parents. Ooh, that's messy. You were 100% correct in saying

it was a very complicated situation. Definitely. Later in life, he'd suggest that his slide into criminality had been the result of unforeseeable circumstances and uncontrollable psychological urges that are well beyond his control. The truth though is, I would say much messier and more complicated than he would ever write in his own memoirs. In reality, David Ruth wrote, and we have the source for this in our notes, adult betrayal and mistreatment by authorities fueled his already simmering rage. For all his sentimentality and self-engrandizement,

Chessman echoed the expert's explanation of many criminal careers. Basically a mix of biological, social, and environmental circumstances shaped him into who he eventually became. And there were a lot of opportunities for him to change course, but he just simply chose to go down this path. Like he really had a lot of opportunities to go down another path and he didn't choose that. And that's sad. Years later in an analysis of various psychiatric examinations and interviews with those who

knew Chessman as a child would collectively kind of indicate that he probably would have qualified for one or more psychiatric diagnoses. After he was arrested when he was 18 years old, a psychiatrist wrote that Carroll's quote, boastfulness is compensation for underlying feelings of insecurity and inadequacy. Yeah, that makes sense. In fact, it seems as though his attitude and poor interpersonal skills were responsible

for a lot of the problems that started developing in childhood. According to one classmate, Carroll was quote, very argumentative in class. He always talked way over people's heads and he had a superior attitude towards the other students. In his own memoirs, Chessman suggested he was an outcast at school because of his frailty and chronic health problems.

Maybe it was a mix of both. Independent sources, on the other hand, strongly indicate that the other students didn't like Carol because of his profound arrogance and generally irritating personality. Yeah. Not because he was frail and dealt with health issues. All right. Now because he didn't really have strong social supports and good friends, by the time he

reached his teen years, he decided to just take up some bad ones because I don't have any so why not? Okay. Barely into his teen years, he and his friends, the friends that he did find, spent their time away from school engaging in what probably would have just been described as juvenile delinquency at the time. Okay, good. You know, smoking cigarettes, stealing liquor from their parents all the time.

They stole cars around Glendale and took them for joy rides and then just abandoned them. Stealing a car is wild work. Which was like kind of a thing. Yeah. Like that teens would do. The grand theft auto. And just like joy ride them. Yeah.

And then just like abandon them or bring them back. That's crazy. Chessman wrote about the joy rides, having the powerful car under his control wrought a change in him. It opened up with alcohol's help a new world, a world a man could conquer and do with it what he pleased. Oh, which to me, that statement right there,

as he pleased shows you where this is going. Yeah, not anywhere good. No, like the validation he felt by being able to provide food for his family during the struggling times, the sense of control and power he was feeling through his later criminal acts provided what I guess could be described as like a high, like it was addictive to him. Yeah. And he couldn't and wasn't gonna deny it.

But in the summer of 1937, when he was only 16 years old, he was caught stealing a car. According to a reporter for Time Magazine, when he was taken to juvenile hall for booking, quote, he scrambled through a window, jumped into a truck, drove it up to the wall surrounding the place, climbed atop the truck and escaped over the wall. I like that when he got picked up for grand theft auto, he just grand theft autoed again. His way out of there. Like what? He said, you can't get me.

He said, I'm just going to do the same thing to get out of here. Oh, man. Unfortunately for him, he was quickly rearrested a few hours later when he was caught looting a drug store in the middle of the night. What the fuck? Inexplicably, he had piled the store's entire supply of cigars into the middle of the floor and soaked them in whiskey bottles, smashing the glass all over the floor. Oh my God.

Yeah. Now remember, he had only been picked up for, he had stolen a car, but it was basically a petty crime of joyriding. Yeah. Especially back then, joyriding was like a thing. Yeah. Now it's a far more significant crime.

I'm like, why did you make this a million times worse? Well, and this is even worse because he was sentenced to eight months at the Preston School. Yeah, of industry. Oh, I remember that school. Yep. The juvenile detentions facility in Lone, California for offenders serving long sentences. If you haven't listened to that episode, pause this episode.

That's a wild one. Go listen to that and then pick back up here. It's a wild, it's crazy. Gnarly. Yeah. He was released from Preston in April, 1938. A changed human. Yeah.

Well, apparently not because he was- Well, in other ways. For just a little over a month when he was arrested a second time for stealing another car and was sent to the Los Angeles County road camp, which was a work camp alternative to prison. Oof. It was during his second stay at Preston that Carroll met a group of boys

who would prove pretty consequential on his path to becoming a career criminal. Or, and or. Let's talk about the boy bandit gang, shall we? The boy bandit gang? Yes. Let's do that. Let's talk about it.

Let's do so. Throughout his youth, Carroll had engaged in a lot of criminal behavior, most of it petty, rarely resulting in a massive consequence of years or something. In some ways, he wasn't all that different from a lot of disaffected youth of the era, essentially. There was a lot of that going on. But, well, in some ways it was kind of like just youthful indiscretions. The social and cultural reaction to juvenile delinquency had changed during the depression years. And those youthful indiscretions were now being taken much more

seriously. People didn't have time for their shit. Yeah, they didn't have time for that shit. So we've been through a goddamn depression. It's true. So the change in how the American system conceived of juvenile crime was kind of, it was related a little bit to the larger movement for prison reform that started like decades before this. Because for the first time, children came to be seen as distinctly different from adult criminals. Until that point, children who were convicted of crimes were generally thrown into adult

prisons and just dealt with that. Like teens were just thrown in with like 50 year old heart and criminals. That's no boy now. By the late 1920s and early 1930s, reformists had succeeded in establishing, you know, separate laws and punishments for juvenile offenders. That's where the Preston School of Industry came about, where they were treated more like they were supposed to be treated, more like children in need of help than criminals deserving of massive punishment.

Yeah. Well, this may have done a world of good for at-risk youth. A gentler approach to punishment did very little to discourage unrepentant young criminals like Carol Chessman from committing crimes as children and then just going on to do it as adults. It also just wasn't much of a different approach. No, it really wasn't. So while serving his second sentence, Chessman met a group of other young offenders around his age. This included Robert

Polak, Andrew Rutledge, and Gordon Klee. Like Carol, these young men had come from lower middle class families, and by the time they met in the fall of 1939, they had already committed like a ton of petty crimes. Like just between them, they had just a mountain of petty crimes. They were just doing crimes. Just criming. Upon their release in early 1941, the four young men, along with a fifth unnamed young man, formed the boy bandit gang. I wonder how long it took them to come up with that. You know, they sat there. They were like, what ourselves? They were formed for the sole purpose of committing armed robbery.

So we've now escalated. Years later in his memoir, Carol Chessman claimed that despite the full participation of others, the idea for the gang was his and his alone. That was it. He wrote, my glib tongue talked them into the ways of banditry. I accept full responsibility since I dreamed it angrily into existence." Banditry. Again, I say, beautifully written.

Yeah. I dreamed it angrily into existence. That's fuck. That's good shit. What a waste. I know. Like truly a waste. You could dream better shit into existence.

Yeah, you could have dreamed a lot of beautiful shit into existence if you weren't such an asshole. Why didn't you do that, man? According to Chessmen, the gang was never very successful when it came to their goals. He wrote, our efforts were not crowned with conspicuous economic success. He said, we didn't make a lot of money. Almost from the beginning, we ran into more trouble than money, even though clicking perfectly as a team.

Like all aspects of his life, his descriptions of his boy bandit gang escapades are a mix of like, faux humility, a lot of boasting, and like the smallish dash of honesty. Yeah, like we actually weren't that good. So it's a little tough. But we were perfect. Yeah, we were perfect though.

We were fucking well-oiled machine. His descriptions of the gang's early activities make them sound like a band of practice criminals. You know, spending days studying their targets, developing detailed schedules, learning their routines like so high tech. But at the same time, he freely admits the gang never made any money out of the jobs and mainly got by on whatever they got from like robbing gas stations and liquor stores every now and then. So like, which one is it?

Yeah, those two things are vastly different. Based on his very carefully curated descriptions of events, the reader of his memoirs will get the understanding that the gang as a group was just a bumbling group of young guys. Yeah. Who they were like teenage pranksters. Yeah. That were like actually doing bad shit. Right.

You know what I mean? Like, but it was not good. And when you read it, you get the idea that they were never really a threat and were kind of like harmless. But in reality, they were not. They were not harmless. They were bumbling as fuck,, they were not. They were not harmless. They were bumbling as fuck, but they were not harmless. And the fact that they were bumbling as fuck with guns is really scary. And that's the thing, like when you read his memoir, like be careful, because you're going to get the idea that like, oh, they were just like, they were just silly boys. Being silly. And it's like, nope, they did bad shit. shit. So on the afternoon of February 1st, 1941,

Chessman, Pollack, Rutledge and two others were driving in LA when they were pulled over by an LAPD patrol officer for a traffic violation. The officer comes up to the car and he sees a large amount of new clothing and items in the car. A loot. And at the time LA was experiencing a wave, a wa- A waaaaaave.

I don't know why I said it like that. Was experiencing a wave of teen gang robberies. It was like a thing the fuck. I know, teen, like, just bandit gangs or a thing. Teens were running amuck. Yeah, he was like, oh shit, I've stumbled upon one of those youth gangs. So he walked up to the car and said, hello, youths. Hello, youths.

What are you up to? So he asked a bystander to call for the sheriff. He was like, you know what, call for the sheriff. I'm going to see what this is about. So the young woman went to the phone and Chessman and the other men got out of the car, young men I should say, got out of the car and attacked the officer, knocking him to the ground and kicking and punching him. What the fuck?

Yeah, they're not just like silly. Yeah, when the officer, no, they're not silly at all. When the officer's partner saw what was happening, he rushed in, but he was dragged into the whole fight. And at one point, one of the attackers managed to grab one of the officer's guns and shoot one of the officers in the grab one of the officer's guns and shoot one of the officers in the leg, shattering his femur.

Oh, fuck. Yeah. So like, fuck. Oh my God. This was for a traffic violation. Yeah. So the gunshot and resulting injury were quickly followed by the sound of the sheriff's car approaching.

So the group split up with two of them running into a nearby orchard. An orchard? Which is very teenage bandit gang. An orchard? Those two were living the teenage bandit gang life. They were. And the other three were unable to start their own car. So they hijacked a car at gunpoint and took it off towards downtown LA.

Holy shit. Yeah, where are these kids parents? That's what I'm saying. What followed was a long car chase in which Chessman, Polak and Rutledge, who were in the car, were pursued for miles and were shooting at sheriff's deputies until one of the pursuing officers managed to fire a shot into one of the tires and caused the car to flip. Oh shit. And the, but all three of them tires and caused the car to flip. Oh, shit. But all three of them ran out of the car, got out of the car.

What the hell? In the end, the three were finally caught when Pollack was shot in the side and in the leg. And Rutledge was shot in the hand, forcing them to stop. Ouch. Later that day, sheriff's deputies received a tip about the identities of the other two men in the car and arrested Gordon Klee and William Taylor in the fucking orchard. When they searched Klee's home, they discovered a pistol, which was later determined to be the gun stolen from the patrol officer at the traffic stop. Why did you keep that at your home?

You fucking idiot. That's what I'm saying. Like, glad you're that dumb. Yeah. The two young men who were hurt were taken to the hospital and the others were booked. All were charged with highway robbery, which for some reason just... Stop it. It's highway robbery.

Get away with highway robbery out here. Yeah, like that statement just felt like... It's the best. Hearing someone actually booked on that is wild. So wild. They were also booked with assaulting two police officers and the shooting. So the highway robbery thing sounds funny and then it's like, oh, also you shot people. Right.

You shot a police officer. A few days later, a sixth member of the boy bandit gang, 23-year-old Don Abbott, was arrested after Abbott's car, which was known to have been used in the robbery, was spotted in Los Angeles. Like the other arrests, his arrest came after a long car chase where sheriff's officers traded multiple gunshots with Don Abbott and ultimately forced him off the road to stop the chase. On February 13th, several witnesses, including the LAPD patrol officers who initiated the stop, identified the boy bandit gang members in court and testified to having been quote, terrorized and in several instances beaten by the youths.

All were beaten by you. I have been beaten by you. Like, it's just that that quote is just like wild. All were held over for trial on armed robbery charges in superior court. And William Taylor was also charged with attempted murder for shooting the police officer. Far from harmless bumbling little boys robbing liquor stores described by Carol Chessman in his memoir. The boy bandit gang perpetrated a series of robberies that while not violent in themselves

in the beginning, seemed to have escalated very quickly to violence. So they started small and they just really ratcheted it up. And again, with like very little provocation. It's not like they had a moment where like they, this was like, they had no other choice. They literally got stopped for a traffic violation. What are you doing? Now, Carol Chessman and the other members of the Boy Bandit Gang

were found guilty and given sentences of varying lengths for their participation in this assault, robbery and shootout that led to the arrest. Carroll received a five-year sentence and was sent to San Quentin. After serving just two years, his good behavior and diligent work in the prison library earned him a transfer to the California Institution for Men, which was an open prison model in Chino, California. Like the Preston School of Industry, the California Institute for Men was a product of the prison reform movement, which was aimed at rehabilitation rather than punishment. Which you can get behind. Yeah, cool idea. As of the nation's first minimum security prison,

inmates had considerably more freedom, were provided with job training and other life skills in the less restrictive and punishing and more supportive environment. Okay. Which for smaller time criminals, yeah. Totally. Yeah. Why not?

Just as he had done at the Preston school years earlier, he used the relaxed attitude and minimum security environment to his advantage. And in late August 1943, he escaped from the California Institution for Men. He was on the run for two weeks and he was arrested at a motel in Glendale on September 3rd. And he claimed, this is what he claimed, that he, quote, suffered an attack of amnesia while serving as an airplane watcher at the institution, and that his first recollection, therefore, was when he found himself running through an orange grove near Upland.

What? Yes. Qua, if you will. When that explanation didn't work. Weirdly failed to convince the warden and the district's attorney. Weirdly failed. It's so crazy. I don't know.

So they're tough. They're tough there. Yeah, I guess so. You know, he had another story though. He changed his story. Oh? And he claimed he had, quote, run away only because he was hell bent on carrying out a plot to kill or kidnap Hitler.

Weirdly, that didn't work either. Oh no. I know. It's weird that that one didn't work. He was sent back to prison. That's probably good. For more years. That's probably swell. Did they put him in a more maximum obscurity one? Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's weird that that one, you know. Like be so for real right now.

I was like, wow, you really like, you went hard with that one. I mean, you went from amnesia to that. It's just like, you had no middle ground whatsoever. While I respect your game. He really thought that was going to be like, oh. That tells you so much about him. It does.

Cause he really thought that was... Yeah. Yeah. That's what I was doing. For one. But here you are, putting me in prison again. Men. Everybody knows there are things they can do to reduce monthly costs and improve their

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with members saving up to $740 a year when they use all of the app's premium features. Cancel your unwanted subscriptions today and reach your financial goals faster with RocketMoney. Go to rocketmoney.com slash morbid today. That's rocketmoney.com slash morbid. Rocketmoney.com slash morbid. Hi, I'm Lindsey Graham, the host of Wondrous podcast American Scandal. We bring to life some of the biggest controversies in US history, events that have shaped who

we are as a country and that continue to define the American experience. American Scandal tells marquee stories about American politics, like the break-in at the Watergate Hotel, an event that led to the downfall of a president and raised questions about the future of American democracy. We go behind the scenes looking at devastating financial crimes, like the fraud committed at Enron and Bernie Madoff's Ponzi scheme. And we tell stories of complicated public figures like Edward Snowden and Monica Lewinsky, people who found themselves thrust into the spotlight and who've

spurred debates about the future of the country. Follow American Scandal wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen ad-free on the Amazon Music or Wondery app. podcasts. You can listen ad-free on the Amazon Music or Wondry app. Throughout his memoirs and interviews, Carroll constantly tried to control the narrative of his own life, attempting to minimize the severity of any of his crimes, downplay his own inherent criminality. But every time he was given the opportunity to change his ways and just start fresh, he just wasted no time getting straight back to being a criminal. Every time.

Yeah. In December 1947, Carol was paroled and returned to Glendale where he had less than two weeks that passed before he started planning another robbery scheme. Brother man. Yeah, he just can't see he doesn't he will not let up. Just stop. We did go get a job. He reached back out to his old associates and he tried to find a new accomplice.

I said, Hey y'all. Yeah, I'm out of the clink. I'm out of the clink for 48 hours. You guys want to go kill Hitler. Now it's important to note that this is where independent accounts of the red light bandit part ways with his own biography, like his own memoir, since he always maintained his innocence and claims he has nothing to do with the attacks that he was convicted for. Interesting.

Even though he was identified. The Los Angeles County prosecutor at the time suggests otherwise. According to the theory presented at his trial later, Carol and his new partner, David Knowles, like crime partner, David Knowles started out small, robbing convenience stores. You know, they just got out of prison. We got to start small. Everybody else was starting somewhere. Yeah. Climbing the ladder. Robbing clothing stores for a handful of crumpled bills and change. Then one day as they were surveying the new dark gray Ford coupe they'd stolen, it occurred to Carol that it strongly resembled an LAPD Prowler car driven by officers. And it gave him an idea.

In fact, it wasn't just that it resembled an LAPD Prowler in shape and color. It also had a bright spotlight on the top, just like one would find on a police car. Was it a police car? Not real sure. A few days later, in the late afternoon of January 18th, Thomas Bartle and his girlfriend were driving along the Pacific Coast Highway when a dark colored coupe came up fast behind them and there was a red light flashing on the roof.

That's so scary. Assuming it was a police officer. Because why would you not? Why would you think otherwise? Bartle pulled the car off the side of the road and was very surprised when the car behind them did the same because he wasn't doing anything. So he thought like, they're just gonna pass me.

I just gotta get out of the way. But he was like, oh shit, I'm being pulled over. So he was like, oh, I don't know what I did. But he rolled down the driver's side window as the driver of the car came and demanded to see his license. In the moment, something about the scene, he said, like just didn't feel right.

So Bartle asked to see the officer's identification, which is fucking brilliant. And especially for the time when you were taught, especially in this time period, you just blindly respect. Yeah, absolutely. So for them to do that, I'm like, that's smart.

That's when the driver though produced a 45 caliber pistol and stuck it in Bartle's face and demanded that he hand over whatever cash he had on him. So the couple between them only had $15. So he gave them all the money, the man jumped back into his car and drove away. Wow. Which would be the weirdest interaction in the entire world. Also all that fucking trauma for $15. Yeah.

Later that night, the bandit was out on the streets again looking for another easy score. That evening Floyd Bello and his girlfriend Elaine Boucher were parked on an isolated service road near the Rose Bowl. Just as before, a man in a dark gray coupe pulled up beside the car and the red light was like shining right through there, like blinding them essentially. But the bandit this time did not bother with the pretense of being a police officer and instead just produced a gun immediately. And shouted, this is a stick up, hand over your dough or I'll blow your brains out.

Oh my God. Yeah. So Bellew wasted no time doing as he was told handing over about $20 and the bandit left the scene again. The next day, the news of the back-to-back robberies in the same evening made headlines around Southern California, of course. And this is when the press dubbed the robbery,

the Red Light Bandit. Okay. So given that no one was hurt in the robbery, the papers reported the incidents with like a lot of enthusiasm and sensationalistic flair, you know, like like ha ha, silly bandits. But little did they know the bandit was just getting started. So the next night, Jarnigan Leia and his girlfriend Regina Johnson were parked along an isolated

road in the Hollywood Hills. And that's when a dark gray coupe pulled up alongside them with the red light. The bandit stepped out to the driver's side and Leia saw an average-looking man holding a.45 caliber pistol and his face was covered by a handkerchief. The bandit took the $45 from Leia's wallet that he said he had and another $6 from Johnson and he didn't flee the scene immediately though. Like he had done the stick-up thing, you know, like the whole thing. Instead, he pulled Regina Johnson out of the car and dragged her back to the coupe, forcing her into the backseat, and he started trying to sexually assault her.

Oh, wow. So he escalated within 24 hours. Like the night before, he had done this to two couples and not done that. When he had just come up with the idea, too. When he had just come up with the idea too. When he had just come up with the idea. It's almost like he was on like a power thrill. He saw that he got away with it and he was like, what else can I get away with?

Oh, that's awful. Fortunately, before Chessman was able to get very far because obviously, you know, this is Carol Chessman. Yeah. But unfortunately, you know, fortunately before he was able to get like too far, the scene was suddenly lit up by the lights of an approaching car. So Regina, being the brilliant boss she was, told her attacker that it might be the police and suggested he uncover his

face so he didn't look so suspicious. Because she was like, if, oh, if the police see somebody with a handkerchief back here, they're going to think you're attacking me. Right, right. You should pull it down. Right. So he was like, yeah, totally. And he lowered the handkerchief and she saw his she got a good look at his face. Oh my God, that was such a fucking brilliant, brilliant, but also such a bargain because

yeah, you're now you've seen his face. Exactly. That makes it even more dangerous. You're just hoping that it goes the way you want it to. Once the car had passed, Carol Chessman let her out of the car and left the scene. Wow. And they went straight to the sheriff's office and reported the robbery and the assault. And now had enough to give them a lot of information.

Now the press covered this and weirdly made no mention of the attempted rape of Regina Johnson in the coverage. What the fuck? Just said, like, oh, another light bandit. That wasn't tasteful. Yeah. Now, after the attack on Leia and Johnson, Chessman drove around for a few hours until just after midnight when he spotted another car pulled off the side of the road.

After pulling up behind them and flashing the light, he went up to the driver's side and flashed a beam, like a flashlight beam into their eyes. When he reached the car, he found that there was only one man in it. So he robbed the driver of $1 and then left. Yeah. $1. Mm-hmm. He's thinking this is another couple. Yeah. A dollar. Mm-hmm. He's thinking this is another couple.

Yeah. And he gets one guy with one dollar on him. Yikes. So he went quiet for like two days and then he headed out on the streets again on the night of January 22nd. This time he went back out to the Hollywood Hills where he had attacked Leigh Ann Johnson a few nights earlier and quickly found another couple parked on a lover's lane overlooking the city. After parking the coupe, he flashed the red spotlight into the car and approached the

driver's side and demanded that the driver, 20-year-old Frank Hurlbutt, hand over his money. The couple assumed that if they gave him the money, he would just leave. Yeah. Because they had also heard this covered in the press and they didn't mention that he had tried to rape one of the women. So this woman has no reason to believe this man is going to do something to her, which was a really fucking massive disservice to her in that moment. Absolutely it was. It pisses me off that they didn't cover that. But instead of letting them

leave after getting the money, he pulled 17 yearyear-old Mary Louise Meza out of the car and began dragging her back to his own vehicle. Oh, God. Once Mary was out of the car, Frank put his own car into gear and fled the scene, which he later claimed he was going to get the police. But that must have been a really horrifying sight for his girlfriend to see. I'm going to keep my comment to myself.

And this is even weirder. When Carol Chessman saw Frank leave the scene, he jumped in the front seat with Mary still in the back seat and started chasing Frank through the Hollywood hills. When he finally managed to catch up, Carol tried to force the other car off the road, but only managed to get his own car stuck and allowed Frank to escape. Okay. Once he was out of sight, Carol Chessman drove to a secluded area and raped Mary, threatening to kill her boyfriend if she didn't comply.

When he'd finished, he let her go and drove away. Just dropped her in a secluded area and drove away. That poor girl. The next day. 17 years old. Oh yeah. The next day, the papers all reported enthusiastically on the exploits of the Red Light Bandit,

but once again, quiet. Why aren't they saying that he's raping women? That's huge news. Instead the way they reported it was that Chessman had quote, let Mary out of his car unharmed within a block of her home. Unharmed? Instead of drove her to a secluded area, raped her and then left her. What the fuck? Why?

Like that's what I'm saying. What good reason do you have to not report what's actually fucking happening? Aside from like, oh, it'll really get people all in a tizzy. I think they see this as like, oh, this crazy red light bandit. Like, that's not fun if he's raping people. Like, it's only funny if he's just taking a dollar from people and leaving. But it's like, okay, now women are in danger. Now you've made everybody unsafe.

Right. So the next afternoon, Chessman and Knowles entered a clothing store in Redondo and armed with a 45 caliber pistol and a toy pistol held up the clerk. His name was Melvin Weisler and they held up a second employee, Joe Lesher. When Joe hesitated in giving over his wallet,

Chessman beat him in the head and face with the butt of the 45 and threatened to kill him. Oh God. After getting the cash from the registers and the two men's wallets, Carol Chessman and Knowles gathered up around $500 worth of men's clothes from the racks and then fled, leaving in the dark gray coupe. Once they were gone, they obviously reported this whole thing to the police and described the two men in their vehicle for the dispatcher. Around the same time, two LA traffic officers who happened to be driving behind the coupe, heard the broadcast about the robbery

and realized the description matched the car driving in front of them, which must have been a wild thing. Yeah. It's like, okay, he's right here. We're like, oh, we're in perfect position. Of course, as soon as they hit the lights and instructed the driver pull over, Chessman proceeded to pedal to the metal and started fleeing. Of course. Weaving in and out of side streets at 80 miles per hour. Oh, that's so scary. Yeah. Once again, he found, this is just like a funny little like full circle moment. Cause it's like now Carol Chessman has found himself just repeating that same car chase

with, you know, his earlier criminal career and his later one. So this resulted in a nearly hour long high speed chase through the streets of Los Angeles with Chessman and Knowles trading gunfire with what became an eight car team of pursuers. Had Chessmen not run into LA traffic, essentially, like downturn traffic. They must be thankful for that. They would have probably got away. Yeah. But he attempted to make a U-turn to avoid the traffic and was rammed by one of the pursuing

officers bringing the car to a stop. Damn. To David Knowles, the stalled car was reason enough to throw up his hands and surrender. Yeah. But Chessman wasn't given up. So he jumped out of the car, fled into the alleys between the nearby houses. And it was only after the officers fired two warning shots above his head that he gave up.

That's definitely the time, if any. Now in his memoir, he says that one of the shots grazed the top of his head that he gave up. That's definitely the time if any. Now in his memoir, he says that one of the shots grazed the top of his head. Oh, please. But there's photographs taken of directly after his arrest and there's no injury on his head. Fantastic. He's lying sack of shit. When the officer searched the car, which they determined was stolen several weeks earlier,

they found a detachable roof mounted spotlight. The screws were found in Chessman's shirt pocket. Other evidence taken from the vehicle was a 45-pc caliber pistol, a toy pistol, a pen light, hundreds of dollars of clothing, all with the price tag still attached. Unreal. Based on the evidence and the identifications provided by Weisler and Letcher, both men that were robbed at the store. They were booked on a variety of charges, including armed robbery, and both were considered

prime suspects in the red light bandit robberies as well. So the day after this, Mary Louise Meza came to the station with her mother. Remember she's 17 17 where she identified Carol Chessman as the man who'd robbed and kidnapped and sexually assaulted her. But told officers she'd never seen Knowles before. He was not part of that. More identifications were made in the following days, including one from Regina Johnson, who also identified only Carol Chessman as her attacker.

Now, upon interrogation, Carol admitted he'd stolen the clothing into being the red light bandit, but he denied the rape allegations and sexual assault allegations. Of course. Later, he would claim among other things that the confession had been beaten out of him over the course of three days by several LAPD officers.

Doubt it. He said, I was brutally beaten, denied sleep, threatened with further violence, not allowed to see an attorney or my father, grilled to exhaustion and promised only two or three counts of robbery charges would be filed if I confess to the red light crimes. Now, I don't think it's like a hidden fact

that the LAPD has a long and unfortunate history of, you know, employing tactics. This is true. Are brutal. This is true. Is especially when it comes to extracting a confession. Can't can't get away from that. Nope. In this case, though, the evidence doesn't really support his claims.

You know, just like the shot of like the warning shot above his head that he said grazed his head. There's photographs that prove that's wrong. Well, they also had so much evidence that it doesn't seem like they would really even need a confession to bring this anywhere. Well, there was a lot of photos taken of him after his arrest and he was during this interrogation and after if he had been beaten and abused as severely as he claimed to be, you would see it would be some marks and there was no marks on him. And this is way back in the forties, like they didn't retouch the photos, you know? Exactly. And they weren't really shy and away from leaving marks on criminals back then,

especially so the fact that he didn't have marks on him was pretty wild. Obviously, you know, I wasn't there. So I don't know. But the evidence points in the direction that he's a lying sack of shit. Yeah. He's also a rapist. So I don't really, so I don't know. But the evidence points in the direction that he's a lying sack of shit. Yeah. He's also a rapist, so I don't really care what he says. So it's like, regardless of the denials, in late January, Carroll was indicted on 18 counts, including robbery, kidnapping, and rape. On March 12th, both Chessman and Knowles appeared before a judge in Superior Court and pleaded

not guilty, and a trial date was set for April By his own admission Carol had had a long a very difficult time finding a lawyer who was willing to take his case I mean I could understand why yeah I mean they had a lot of evidence tying him to the red light cases including the light itself and several victims Like the red light they said baby. Like the red light. They said, babe, we actually have the red light. Yeah, we have that. Most lawyers he spoke with told him they could try to get him a decent deal and keep him from getting a life sentence, but none believed they had a chance at acquittal.

That makes sense. Yeah. Unfortunately, as far as Chessman was concerned, a total acquittal was the only acceptable outcome. Okay. So with the trial date coming up, he made the universally unwise decision to represent himself at trial.

No, that really is universally unwise. He later said, a courtroom and I were not strangers. I was familiar generally with the rules and evidence. And although acquired informally, I possessed a working knowledge of criminal trial procedure." So you may have thought he was familiar with how criminal trial worked, but when the trial began at the end of April 1948, he showed himself to be less than prepared to be a lawyer.

I always think about like the confidence that it takes to say, I'm going to represent myself in court. And it's like, when you really sit down and watch a trial and all the formalities and all the proceedings that take place, it's like, you're not equipped to do that if you don't have a background in law. You're just not equipped. There's a reason that the LSATs exist.

Are fucking hard as fuck. There's a reason that people are losing their mind studying for that. And it's like, it's so insulting to to like actual lawyers who have gone through the process. And it's like somebody it's like, I know, I am not adequately adequately equipped to fully educate my children in a way that a teacher who went to school for this can do. I would love to be able to do that. I know I'm not though.

But just like same energy. It's the same energy. And just like with that, there are so many people that think they are. Oh, 100%. Equipped to do that. They can do better and can do better. And there's people who make the effort to actually become able to do these kinds of things.

Absolutely. You know, like that is absolutely a thing. But there's people who just think they're better. Me? Like Carol Chessman saying, I'm going to represent myself because I've been in a court of law before. Yeah, that's crazy. It's me saying I can teach my kids.

Because I went to school. All the shit because I've been in a school before. It's not the same thing. I have not been a teacher before. People take years sometimes to get cases ready. Absolutely. It's not easy. So it's a real fucking gamble, dude.

And it's a bad one. But sometimes it just becomes such a fucking farce. That's the thing. And it becomes a circus and it draws away from like the shit that actually happened and it can make. And then the victims families have to sit there and watch this fucking idiot try to bumble his ass through a whole trial. And when they just want to get to the end, like you see it so many times and it's like, yeah, these people, they should just be told

shut the fuck up. They should take what you can get. Hey weirdos, you know, Ash and I have covered some seriously dark tales about romance gone really wrong. Oh yeah. Weirdos, you know Ash and I have covered some seriously dark tales about romance gone really wrong. Oh yeah, there are so many cases where too good to be true turns out to be exactly that. Well, get ready for a love story that's gonna blow your minds because this one is happening right now and get this, it's hosted by our friends Hannah and Saruti from Red Handed. Meet Travis, he falls head over heels for Lily Rose. She's gorgeous, she's understanding,

and she's literally perfect. And she's not human. That's right! Lily Rose is an AI companion, a computer program designed to be Travis's dream woman. And at first, it seems like a perfect relationship. But when Lily Rose's behavior starts getting strange, this love story takes a dark and twisted turn that no one saw coming. Follow Flesh and Code on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can binge all episodes early and ad-free by joining Wondery Plus. So in addition to constantly refusing the assistance and guidance of the public defender

assigned to assist him, he submitted a witness list that included a surprising number of people, including the LA County District Attorney and several judges, many of whom had nothing to do with the case. LESLIE KENDRICK So why were you going to call them? KERRY Also, while the prosecutor walked the jury through the mountain of evidence, implicating Chessmen and Knowles in the crimes, Carroll just focused largely on character witnesses. And about a week into the trial, his mother Hallie was brought into the courtroom on a stretcher to testify on his behalf and testified about her son's, quote, genius, intellect and strong character.

It doesn't count if your mom says it. Oh, and it's like, and also you really made her go through that. And exactly. And it's like, dude, no one's arguing that you're dumb. Yeah, that's not the argument here. This is about if you raped a couple of girls, stole a bunch of things and have assaulted shot people, robbed, like all this kid to kill people. Like this is about a whole lot more than your level of intellect. I don't care if you're smart. No, I'm sure you are. Yeah. Yeah. Clearly not smart enough to not make those choices to not be doing that shit. It's like, I don't give a shit if you're a genius. That doesn't make it okay. Yeah. So after a three weeks trial, it came to a conclusion with an unexpected closing statement

from the prosecutor, Deputy District Attorney, Jay Miller Levy, in which Miller urged the jury to not only find Chessman guilty, but to also sentence him to death for his crimes. Okay. Under normal circumstances, even the most violent of his crimes didn't qualify for the death sentence. But Miller argued, and this is where it gets interesting, that due to several aspects of the crimes, the little Lindbergh law was more than appropriate. Now we have not covered this and we will.

We're going to cover the kidnapping of the Lindbergh baby. It just stresses me out. But we are going to cover it. It's an important case to cover. kidnapping of the Lindbergh baby. Yeah. It just stresses me out. Yeah. But we are going to cover it. It's an important case to cover. It's fascinating. Um, following the kidnapping and murder of the Lindbergh baby in 1932, US Congress passed the federal kidnapping act, new legislation that made kidnapping a federal offense and

could be eligible for the death penalty. Okay. Miller argued that because Chessman had detained Regina Johnson and Mary Louise Meza during the robbery for quote, a moral purposes and had transported Mary to a secluded area, he had violated the federal kidnapping act and thus should be held to the same standard as anyone else who kidnapped someone in order to enact violence against them. That's a valid argument. Which is a valid argument when you look at it logistically.

Yeah. Like it is a valid argument. Now to many observers, the request for the death penalty seemed like a reach, but after 32 hours of deliberation, the jury emerged and found Chessman guilty on nearly all counts and sentenced him to die in the gas chamber at San Quentin Prison. When the sentence was read in court, Chessman jokingly replied,

I still owe 260 years for violating my parole, Your Honor. Oh, so this was all just a big joke to him. I'm like, dude, you just got sentenced to die. I wonder if they would have reached that same decision had he not represented himself. I wonder that too. I think it is very, very possible that he pissed people off during that whole thing.

I think he antagonized. Yeah. And I think it was a bad move on his part. Now after the verdict, Carol Chessman was removed to St. Quentin's death row where he immediately started the appeal process. David Knowles, meanwhile, was also found guilty of all but the rape charges and was spared the death penalty because it doesn't apply.

Two years later in 1950, Knowles convictions were reversed upon appeal due to the lack of evidence tying him to the crimes that he was tried for. The lack of evidence? Pretty wild. I thought there was a mountain of evidence definitely against Chessman. I think Noles was less. There was some room for one. I guess he was just along for the ride and then who knows who was holding the rear rail gun and all that. And how they were able to argue that in the appeals. Yep. Yep. Yep. Now, by the time he

had been sentenced to death, Carol Chessman had already made something of a name for himself in amateur writing. He had published a few essays about his life in small magazines. The strange and what some saw as inappropriate application of the death penalty in his case also served to build upon this public persona for him because he seized the opportunity and started writing his first memoir, Cell 2345, Death Row. Beginning in the 1950s, the nation was starting to rethink its approach to criminal justice and called into question among other things, the moral, ethical implications.

There it is, I was trying to, I was like, what is the word I'm looking for of the death penalty? In that sense, Carroll's case came at a pretty politically useful time for him and his supporters and opponents of the death penalty in general. It really all kind of like went together. Given the circumstances of the crimes and the ways in which those crimes had been punished historically, the application of the death penalty in this case, a lot of

people thought was cruel and unusual punishment, which I can see that side. In his writing, Carroll took advantage of the moment, framing his life story as one that he had been let down by the authorities in his life and by a system that was supposedly put in place to help him reform his criminal ways. But again, remember, he had in his first rodeo, he was given to help him reform his criminal ways. But again, remember, he had every rodeo, he was given many times to reform his criminal ways. He was sent to places to reform. And he, shit in their face, escaped. And then two weeks out of there was already starting his new thing. So that's not valid. So regardless of how you feel about the death penalty, it's like him saying like that is just bullshit.

Yeah, yeah. Now quoting a recently published article in Time Magazine, Carol Chessman wrote, "'Too many institutions' had become infused with the rot producing idea that the salvation of the individual and so of society depends upon conformity and adjustment.' He on the other hand said thought that he was the real embodiment of the American spirit,

a man who longed to be free and had simply been abandoned in the rush towards progress. I think it's a little more nuanced than that. You rape people. Yeah. Um, you know, his arguments, however well written they were, which they were, were nothing more than an extension of the manipulations he'd been practicing against authority ever since he started. Honestly, his exhibiting anti-social traits when he was young. But nevertheless, to many American readers, those arguments made sense. And within a short time after his conviction, his death sentence became a popular cause among a lot of American elites who opposed the death penalty.

Really? Yeah. In the years after this, Chessman gained a massive audience and a diverse group of supporters who included famous authors like Norman Mailer, Ray Bradbury, and icons like former first lady Eleanor Roosevelt and Marlon Brando. Hello? Yeah. His memoir was published.

Guys, he's a rapist. That's the thing. It's like, I get why you're saying like the death penalty might not, is not like appropriate in this situation, but like to support? Like, I don't know about that. Like, do you think they supported him or did they just support him getting off of death row? I would assume they must just support him getting off of death row. Yes, I can understand that.

I don't know that I would go out of my way to support that. I don't know. I think I would need to know a lot more about. Because I get the like that the death penalty seems inappropriate in this situation, like that I can get behind. But I just I'm like, I don't know. It's a hard one to... I have a really tough, and I think we've talked about this so many times, I have a very tough

time with the death penalty because sometimes I find it applicable. Yeah, it's one of those. And that's just how I feel. It's hard to... But at the same time, it's very difficult because we've seen cases where people are wrongfully convicted. That's the thing.

And that's where it gets hairy. That's why I like err on the side of, I don't like the death penalty. Yeah, I live somewhere in the gray. I can teeter over into the gray. I'm never fully for it. I live in a gray if I live anywhere. Yeah, I'm definitely not fully for it.

That's exactly how I feel. That's the thing, like nothing fix it. Nothing fix it. I'm, I live in a gray if I live anywhere. Yeah. I'm definitely not fully for it. That's exactly how I feel. That's the thing. Like nothing fixes it. Nothing fixes it or like takes away what happened. That's why it's like, I just rely on like the victims' families to tell me what they think. You know what I mean? Cause I'm like, I can't imagine being that 17 year old's mother, cause I think I would want that guy to die. I think I would too. But it's like, but is that, is, you know what I mean? Like that's emotion and that's, that doesn't really like-

And then you have that on your heart. Well, that's the thing. It's so difficult. And applying emotion into the justice system is a... Slippery slope. Yeah, it just doesn't work. Yeah. So it's like, that's why I don't...

I just see it when a victim's family is like, I want this guy dead. I get it. I can... I get it. And then it's like, but then I, when I look at it as a third party outsider, I'm like, I just don't think it fixes a lot. Yeah. And I think it creates more issues and I think it creates more like trauma for everybody involved.

Yeah. I don't know. Yeah. It's hard to sit down and really make a decision about how you feel about it. And this is just us talking about it. We're not like taking stances or trying to tell you what you should say. No, if anything, neither of us can take a stance. We're just talking through it.

This is just us like kind of like just talking through this as it comes through our mind. Yeah, and we've done this before. So like, this doesn't need to be taken very seriously as like, you should think this. Yeah, because I think- Because you're free to think what you want. Yeah, I think everybody's opinion of it is valid because it's such a nuanced and complicated topic that I think everybody's opinion on it is very valid and so varied. Well, anyway, we digress.

This is just one of those crazy things. But his memoir, which he published in 1954, it was published a great critical and commercial success and was adapted into a successful film the following year. Yeah. Despite all those personal successes, Carol Chessman's appeals to the higher courts all failed on their merits. The basis for the appeals varied and ranged from claims of force, forcible extraction of a confession to prejudicial errors on the part of the prosecutor and the courts to a violation of his equal protection of rights.

Among his most frequent complaints was that several witnesses perjured themselves on the stands and the court record was later amended to cover up those lies. That's what he was claiming. Okay. With regard to that, the justices of the California Supreme Court wrote, at no time since the original reporter's transcript of the trial was prepared, has defendant made it appear that the transcript does not adequately and substantially reflect the nature of the people's case and of his defense.

Okay. So they're basically being like, you're just saying that now. You've never once brought this up before. Like all his other unsupported claims, this was flatly rejected. In the decade after this, he continued writing, publishing, and pleading his case to anyone who would listen. He was often persuasive and won over a lot of important people, but none of it was enough to produce the desired outcome and by 1960 he'd exhausted all his opportunities to appeal. On the morning of May 2nd, 1960, after 12 years of fighting, Carol Chessman was executed

in the gas chamber at San Quentin Prison and was pronounced dead a little past 10am. One reporter wrote, just as the fatal fumes rose, the 38-year-old Chessman seemed to chuckle. Oh, yeah, which is like chilling. That is chilling. In a pretty cruel twist of fate. To end this story, just after he was pronounced dead, the warden at San Quentin received word that the state Supreme Court had decided to impose a stay of execution for Chessman while they considered a habeas corpus argument.

It gets worse. That morning, a secretary for the justices rushed to get in contact with someone in a position of authority at the prison, but she accidentally dialed the wrong number and was unable to reach anyone. By the time she realized the mistake, Chessman had been executed. And this is why I can't get behind it. They were about to give him a stay. Oh wow. To at least look into another argument like, eww.

It's like, oh shit. That's... yeah. Wow. And then after he was executed, he was cremated. And his, he had requested that his ashes be sent to Forest Lawn Cemetery to be interred with his parents. Yeah. But the management at the cemetery refused to inter him because of the crimes he had

committed. So they were instead interred at Mount Tamalpas Cemetery, I'm sorry if I said that wrong, until 1974. And then they were disinterred and scattered off the coast of California. Huh. So an interesting end. A very interesting end. I did not see that coming. The secretary dialing the wrong number is something new. Clerical errors are diabolical.

Diabolical. Truly diabolical. Like that poor girl probably thought about that every day for the rest of her life. That's rough. Which also sucks because he's a rapist at the end of the day. Yeah. But like, that's a huge mistake. Yeah. That's why it's so, like I just bounce right back and forth between a gray and an against.

Yeah, it's tough. I can't, oh, we could talk about it all day. We could talk about it all day. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Wow, that's a lot to process. The wild story. It really is.

In the grand scheme of things, I really just feel so horrible for the two women that he assaulted and the men that got held up. Went through the trauma. And dealt with the trauma. And had to deal with their girlfriends at the time being kidnapped and assaulted. Those who did deal with it. Those who did deal with it, exactly.

Wow. Yeah. Damn, that's a wild tale. I really thought it was going to be a little more like Bob Haired Bandit-esque. Yeah, you would think, but it got dark pretty quick. I mean, that case did get dark too, but this one is dark on a different level. That ending to that story is... Yeah, the ending threw me for a loop. Same. I feel in a tizzy a bit right now.

Yeah, threw me for a loop. Wow. Well, thank you for that story. Yeah. Thanks to Dave for coming up with that one because that was a Dave original. A king if you will. A king if you will. If you will. And he will. And we will.

We all will. We all will. And hopefully something that you all do is we hope you keep listening. Yeah, we hope you keep it weird. But not so weird that you dial the wrong number. Yikes. Also not so weird that you rate the wrong number. Ooh, yikes. Also not so weird that you rate people because that's bigger, that's a bigger deal. So If If you like morbid, you can listen early and ad free right now by joining Wondery Plus

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