THE MURDER OF ANNA WILLIAMS, 35, IN SAN DIEGO ON OCT. 17, 1924.
(Do not quote without attribution to Alvin Esau)
Mrs. Anna Lillian Williams, a 35 year old divorced woman, must have had a charming way with men as indicated by the numerous male admirers who gravitated to her.[1] A blacksmith living near her house had allegedly remarked to a friend, about a month before Williams was murdered, that, “For a woman living alone, she has too many men friends and some day she will come to a violent end.”[2]
One of her recent admirers was a Mr. Steven Richards, who came to her house at 3734 University Avenue, San Diego, on Friday, October 17, 1924, at around 6:30 in the evening expecting to have dinner with Anna as they had previously planned. However, when he arrived at the house, he noticed that the front door, which was usually padlocked, was open. He called for Mrs. Williams, and not getting a response, he went in and noticed the lights would not operate. According to the San Diego Evening Tribune, “He replaced a blown-out fuse, and tried them again. As soon as he turned the switch, the new fuse blew out. Then he got a candle and started in search of the house, notifying the police when he found the body.”[3]
The scene as described by the Tribune was as follows:
The room in which the lady was found was in wild disorder, showing that Mrs. Williams made a determined struggle for her life. The bedclothes were in a heap, her right bed slipper was found in one corner of the bed, and the body was lying on the floor, wedged in between the bed and a dressing table. The window of the room, leading into the front yard was open, and the front door stood ajar. Her wristwatch and purse containing about $100 had disappeared.[4]
One report said the body was “almost” nude when found,[5] while another said the body was “practically” nude.[6] The San Diego Union noted:
The table in the kitchen showed that two persons had had supper. The dishes had not been cleared away. An empty coffee pot lay on the floor, and on a couch were Mrs. Williams’ coat and hat. Her other clothes were found hanging neatly in the closet of the bedroom, except for a pair of suede shoes which were found on the floor at the head of the bed.[7]
The following day, the Union, included a picture of the “pretty” victim, the house she had occupied, and the kitchen table.[8]
After the autopsy, Dr. John Shea reported that Mrs. Williams had died of strangulation, started by the hands of the murderer, but then “finished with a towel or some other article which could be drawn tightly around the throat. There was no evidence of any other kind of attack.” She had been dead at least twelve hours before the body was found.[9] One newspaper reported that she had probably been strangled with her own silk stockings, which were found lying across the bed close to the body.[10] Another newspaper reported that before the police arrived neighbors had “swarmed into the death chamber… fingered objects which might have yielded fingerprints of the murderer, and otherwise obstructed what few clues might have been left.”[11]
The first obvious suspect was Steven Richards who had found the body and he was immediately arrested as a material witness. Richards was described as a 42 year old lather, working on a project at Coronado, living at the Warren Hotel, posing as a wealthy widower, when in fact he was a married man with a wife back in Los Angeles.[12] Richards adamantly denied that he killed Mrs. Williams and for the next week while he was detained without warrant as a material witness, he persisted in his denial under repeated police questioning.
His story was that he had most recently spent time with Anna on the previous night of Thursday, October 16. He claimed that they had dinner together at her residence, and then they had gone to the theatre at about 7 in the evening and when they got back to her residence at about 11:15, Anna went into the house through the backdoor, while he drove his car to the Ambassador Garage to get the oil in the crank case changed.[13] His arrival with the car between 11:30 and midnight on Thursday night was confirmed by the garage man on duty.[14] Richards then had gone to the Warren Hotel. His story would account for the state of the kitchen. Mrs. Williams must have been murdered some time in the early hours of Friday before she ever had an opportunity to clean up the kitchen which was in the state that they had left it on Thursday night to go to the theatre.
The San Diego Tribune reported that a streetcar conductor went to the police with a report that a man who seemed to be “agitated” jumped on the car near Mrs. William’s home on the last run of the day early Friday morning.[15] He travelled a short distance and got off. The conductor was taken into the cells to meet Mr. Richards, but he could not identify Richards as his agitated passenger, although he apparently asserted that Richards could have been the man.[16] Then the conductor indicated that he was not sure if it was Thursday night or Friday night that the man had gotten on the car.[17]
Richards was in more trouble when the police were informed that Mrs. Williams always kept a loaded gun at her side.[18] Not finding the gun at the victim’s residence, the police searched the room at the Warren Hotel where Richards had been staying and discovered a revolver and ammunition. Richards readily admitted that this was Anna’s gun but claimed that Anna had given it to him. Indeed, Richards and Anna Williams had planned to spend the weekend duck hunting at Morena.[19] The police checked out Richards’ story and evidently found no evidence to contradict him. Richards eventually testified at the coroner’s inquest, and the jury determined that Mrs. Williams was strangled by persons unknown, and the next day the police released Steven Richards, who tearfully reaffirmed that, “I didn’t do it.”[20]
By the time Richards was released, the police had already eliminated some other suspects as well. A second man had been investigated when the police discovered a letter written by Mrs. Williams a few months before her death, but apparently unsent. This letter was addressed to a man living in Warner’s Hot Springs naming him as the beneficiary of her insurance and estate, “in case I should meet death, as many do, without warning.”[21] The man from Warner’s Hot Springs, promptly showed up in San Diego the day after the body had been found, greatly shocked by the death of his long-time friend. His name was removed from the suspect list when it was established that he could not have been in San Diego at the time of the murder.[22] He also tearfully testified at the coroner’s inquest.[23]
A third suspect was a jeweller in Arizona, who had been closely associated with Mrs. Williams for several months earlier in the year, and who had borrowed money from her to establish his own store, but was paying the money back in instalments.[24] He had given Mrs. Williams a watch and written “love letters” to her, but was eliminated as a suspect when it was clearly established that he had not left Arizona for several weeks.[25] A fourth suspect, a man in Los Angeles, who admitted to knowing Anna very well some months ago, also had an alibi.[26] A fifth suspect was a local man whose relationship with Mrs. Williams had led to his wife’s departure. However, they had subsequently reconciled, and again the police were making no progress.[27]
Some very interesting testimony was given at the coroner’s inquest by a Mrs. E. R. Payne who was the wife of one of the workers employed by Steven Richards in his lathing business. One of the circumstances that had cast suspicion on Mr. Richards was the notion that he was married, and yet had presenting himself to Mrs. Williams as a widower. This was however laid to rest by the testimony of Mrs. E. R. Payne who noted that she had at some point met Mrs. Richards in Los Angeles. Then when she discovered that Mr. Richards was having an intimate relationship with Mrs. Williams she was, as she put it, “mad” that he was doing such a thing, and out of curiosity she wanted to see this Mrs. Williams.[28] Back in August of 1924, months before the murder, Mrs. Payne met Mrs. Williams, preparing not to like her, but apparently ended up respecting her for the neat and clean house she kept, and for her obvious fondness for Richards. At some point she then told Mrs. Williams that Richards was a married man. Thus, Mrs. Williams knew Richards was married, but more to the point, according to the Tribune Mrs. Payne testified that:
When she learned that Richards and Mrs. Williams were intimate friends, she was desirous of seeing the woman who was able to take Richards from his wife. When she met Mrs. Williams the first time, Mrs. Payne told her that Richards was married, and that Mrs. Richards is a very large woman. “I should think you would be afraid Mrs. Richards will learn of the friendship between you and her husband and that she might do you some harm…” To this Mrs. Williams responded that, although she lived alone, she feared only one person in the world, her ex- husband.[29]
The Union reported that Mrs. Payne had testified, “I said to her [Williams] that Mrs. Richards was a great big woman and sure would fix her if she saw her.”[30]
While we are not told whether Mrs. Richards was ever a suspect, this testimony obviously raised the prospect that perhaps the most obvious remaining suspect was the “feared” ex-husband, a Mr. Dean Williams, described as an itinerant barber, with intemperate habits.[31] One report stated that Anna and Dean were married in December of 1918 in Los Angeles; then they moved to Brawley; separated in September of 1919; and then they got together again for a while, living in El Cajon and then East San Diego; and then Mr. Williams left his wife and she never directly heard from him again.[32] Mrs. Williams had trouble obtaining a divorce because she had been unable to locate her husband for service of documents.[33] While she did eventually get an interlocutory decree of divorce, she had never finalized it, and thus in the eyes of the law she was still married to Dean Williams when she was murdered.[34] If her husband had disappeared, and was intemperate, it was also reported that Anna, in turn, “possessed a violent temper and her death, it is believed, may have been the result of a quarrel.”[35] The man from Warner’s Hot Springs, giving testimony at the coroner’s inquest, confirmed that Mrs. Williams had often talked about meeting a sudden and violent death, indicating her fear, presumably of her ex-husband.[36] So where was this Mr. Dean Williams now?
But then things took an interesting turn when it was discovered that apparently Mrs. Williams had been legally married four different times.[37] The police were reportedly at a loss in tracing these relationships because they did not even know the actual maiden name of Mrs. Williams or where she was from, before living in San Diego.[38] Earlier reports had stated that Mrs. Williams was a native of Canada;[39] had a surviving mother and sister in New York who could not be traced;[40] had come to San Diego nine years ago from Cobalt, Canada;[41] and had originally lived in Wichita, Kansas.[42] We have no evidence that any of these sometimes conflicting statements were verified. Who were her ex-husbands and which of them was she afraid of? We have no information that Dean Williams was tracked down or other ex-husbands were found and investigated. The local newspapers seem to have dropped the story at this point, or more likely the police simply failed to make any further progress.
Just after Nelson was arrested in Winnipeg, more than two and a half years after the murder of Mrs. Williams, the San Diego Sun contained an article entitled, “Canada Strangler Suspect Linked in Local Slaying.”[43] It was reported that San Diego Chief of Police, Joe Doran and Captain of Detectives, Paul Hayes, now believed that the dark strangler, Earle Nelson, was responsible for this unsolved murder. The article also noted that the murder of Mrs. Williams had many similarities to the Los Angeles murder of Vera Stone in April of 1924.[44] We have no evidence that Nelson was seen in San Diego at the time. It seems likely that the police were simply trying to close their books on an unsolved murder by pointing to Nelson as the perpetrator.
If we do a little research on the ex-husband, Deane (John) Clay Williams, we discover that he married Anna Leovina Thompson on December 24, 1918, in Los Angeles, even though both were living in San Diego at the time.[45] He appears to have lied on the marriage documents, not only as to his place of birth, but also that this was his first marriage, when in fact he had been married in Indiana in 1910,[46] and was the father of a child.[47] After the murder of Anna, and after the police presumably could not find him, he got married a third time on Dec. 28, 1924, in Oregon, and then moved to Michigan and eventually his third wife divorced him on the grounds of extreme cruelty and non-support.[48] He married a fourth time in 1936.[49] None of this amounts to evidence that he might have murdered his second wife, but one wonders why the police in San Diego were unable to track him, or why he did not come forward when he heard of his wife’s murder.
......................................................................
[1] “Strangler is Sought,” San Diego Sun, Oct. 18, 1924, at 1.
[2] “Search Papers of Slain Nurse,” San Diego Union, Oct 20, 1924, at 1.
[3] “San Diego Woman Strangled,” San Diego Evening Tribune, Oct. 18, 1924, 1 at 2. It was later established that the electricity was malfunctioning due to a light bulb that was not screwed in properly.
[4] Supra note 3.
[5] Ibid.
[6] “S.D. Divorcee’s Nude Body Found,” San Diego Union, Oct 18, 1924, at 1.
[7] Ibid.
[8] “Police Baffled,” San Diego Union, Oct. 19, 1924, at 1.
[9] Supra note 3.
[10] “Maze of Clues Fails,” San Diego Evening Tribune, Oct. 19, 1924, at 6.
[11] “Gun is Found,” San Diego Sun, Oct 20, 1924, at 1.
[12] “Police Baffled,” San Diego Union, Oct 19, 1924, at 1.
[13] Ibid.
[14] Ibid.
[15] Supra note 3.
[16] Ibid.
[17] Supra notes 8 and 11.
[18] Supra note 11.
[19] “Search Papers of Slain Nurse,” San Diego Union, Oct. 20, 1924, at 1.
[20] “Clues Sought,” San Diego Sun, Oct. 22, 1924, at 1.
[21] Supra note 3.
[22] Supra note 11.
[23] “Clues Fail,” San Diego Evening Tribune, Oct. 22, 1924, at 3.
[24] Supra note 8.
[25] Supra note 11.
[26] “Murder Clue,” San Diego Sun, Oct. 29, 1924, at 1.
[27] “Mystery Clouds Slaying,” San Diego Union, Oct. 23, 1924, at 12.
[28] “Police Release Richards on Coroner’s Jury Verdict,” San Diego Union, Oct 22, 1924, at 22.
[29] “Says Mrs. Williams Knew Admirer Married,” San Diego Evening Tribune, Oct. 21 at 1; “Feared Spouse,” San Diego Sun, Oct 21, 1924, at 1.
[30] Supra note 28.
[31] Supra note 23.
[32] Supra note 12.
[33] Ibid.
[34] Ibid.
[35] Ibid.
[36] Supra note 28.
[37] “Latest Clues Muddle Mystery,” San Diego Evening Tribune, Oct. 23, 1924, at 1.
[38] “Mystery Clouds Slaying of Nurse.” San Diego Union, Oct. 23, 1924, at 12.
[39] “S.D. Divorcee’s Nude Body Found on Bedroom Floor,” San Diego Union, Oct. 18, 1924, 1 at 2.
[40] “Search Papers of Slain Nurse,” San Diego Union, Oct. 20, 1924, 1 at 2.
[41] “Mysterious Automobile Latest Clue,” San Diego Union, Oct 21, 1924, at 7.
[42] Supra note 38.
[43] “Canada Strangler Suspect Linked in Local Slaying,” San Diego Sun, June 22, 1927, at 9.
[44] Ibid.
[45] California, County Marriages, 1850-1952.
[46] Indiana Marriages, 1810-2001, marriage to Fannie Straley, March 23, 1910.
[47] Indiana, Birth Certificates, 1907-1940, John Clay Williams Jr. born May 17, 1911.
[48] Michigan Divorce Records, 1897-1952, June 27, 1931.
[49] Michigan Marriage Records, 1867-1952, June 30, 1936.
(Do not quote without attribution to Alvin Esau)
Mrs. Anna Lillian Williams, a 35 year old divorced woman, must have had a charming way with men as indicated by the numerous male admirers who gravitated to her.[1] A blacksmith living near her house had allegedly remarked to a friend, about a month before Williams was murdered, that, “For a woman living alone, she has too many men friends and some day she will come to a violent end.”[2]
One of her recent admirers was a Mr. Steven Richards, who came to her house at 3734 University Avenue, San Diego, on Friday, October 17, 1924, at around 6:30 in the evening expecting to have dinner with Anna as they had previously planned. However, when he arrived at the house, he noticed that the front door, which was usually padlocked, was open. He called for Mrs. Williams, and not getting a response, he went in and noticed the lights would not operate. According to the San Diego Evening Tribune, “He replaced a blown-out fuse, and tried them again. As soon as he turned the switch, the new fuse blew out. Then he got a candle and started in search of the house, notifying the police when he found the body.”[3]
The scene as described by the Tribune was as follows:
The room in which the lady was found was in wild disorder, showing that Mrs. Williams made a determined struggle for her life. The bedclothes were in a heap, her right bed slipper was found in one corner of the bed, and the body was lying on the floor, wedged in between the bed and a dressing table. The window of the room, leading into the front yard was open, and the front door stood ajar. Her wristwatch and purse containing about $100 had disappeared.[4]
One report said the body was “almost” nude when found,[5] while another said the body was “practically” nude.[6] The San Diego Union noted:
The table in the kitchen showed that two persons had had supper. The dishes had not been cleared away. An empty coffee pot lay on the floor, and on a couch were Mrs. Williams’ coat and hat. Her other clothes were found hanging neatly in the closet of the bedroom, except for a pair of suede shoes which were found on the floor at the head of the bed.[7]
The following day, the Union, included a picture of the “pretty” victim, the house she had occupied, and the kitchen table.[8]
After the autopsy, Dr. John Shea reported that Mrs. Williams had died of strangulation, started by the hands of the murderer, but then “finished with a towel or some other article which could be drawn tightly around the throat. There was no evidence of any other kind of attack.” She had been dead at least twelve hours before the body was found.[9] One newspaper reported that she had probably been strangled with her own silk stockings, which were found lying across the bed close to the body.[10] Another newspaper reported that before the police arrived neighbors had “swarmed into the death chamber… fingered objects which might have yielded fingerprints of the murderer, and otherwise obstructed what few clues might have been left.”[11]
The first obvious suspect was Steven Richards who had found the body and he was immediately arrested as a material witness. Richards was described as a 42 year old lather, working on a project at Coronado, living at the Warren Hotel, posing as a wealthy widower, when in fact he was a married man with a wife back in Los Angeles.[12] Richards adamantly denied that he killed Mrs. Williams and for the next week while he was detained without warrant as a material witness, he persisted in his denial under repeated police questioning.
His story was that he had most recently spent time with Anna on the previous night of Thursday, October 16. He claimed that they had dinner together at her residence, and then they had gone to the theatre at about 7 in the evening and when they got back to her residence at about 11:15, Anna went into the house through the backdoor, while he drove his car to the Ambassador Garage to get the oil in the crank case changed.[13] His arrival with the car between 11:30 and midnight on Thursday night was confirmed by the garage man on duty.[14] Richards then had gone to the Warren Hotel. His story would account for the state of the kitchen. Mrs. Williams must have been murdered some time in the early hours of Friday before she ever had an opportunity to clean up the kitchen which was in the state that they had left it on Thursday night to go to the theatre.
The San Diego Tribune reported that a streetcar conductor went to the police with a report that a man who seemed to be “agitated” jumped on the car near Mrs. William’s home on the last run of the day early Friday morning.[15] He travelled a short distance and got off. The conductor was taken into the cells to meet Mr. Richards, but he could not identify Richards as his agitated passenger, although he apparently asserted that Richards could have been the man.[16] Then the conductor indicated that he was not sure if it was Thursday night or Friday night that the man had gotten on the car.[17]
Richards was in more trouble when the police were informed that Mrs. Williams always kept a loaded gun at her side.[18] Not finding the gun at the victim’s residence, the police searched the room at the Warren Hotel where Richards had been staying and discovered a revolver and ammunition. Richards readily admitted that this was Anna’s gun but claimed that Anna had given it to him. Indeed, Richards and Anna Williams had planned to spend the weekend duck hunting at Morena.[19] The police checked out Richards’ story and evidently found no evidence to contradict him. Richards eventually testified at the coroner’s inquest, and the jury determined that Mrs. Williams was strangled by persons unknown, and the next day the police released Steven Richards, who tearfully reaffirmed that, “I didn’t do it.”[20]
By the time Richards was released, the police had already eliminated some other suspects as well. A second man had been investigated when the police discovered a letter written by Mrs. Williams a few months before her death, but apparently unsent. This letter was addressed to a man living in Warner’s Hot Springs naming him as the beneficiary of her insurance and estate, “in case I should meet death, as many do, without warning.”[21] The man from Warner’s Hot Springs, promptly showed up in San Diego the day after the body had been found, greatly shocked by the death of his long-time friend. His name was removed from the suspect list when it was established that he could not have been in San Diego at the time of the murder.[22] He also tearfully testified at the coroner’s inquest.[23]
A third suspect was a jeweller in Arizona, who had been closely associated with Mrs. Williams for several months earlier in the year, and who had borrowed money from her to establish his own store, but was paying the money back in instalments.[24] He had given Mrs. Williams a watch and written “love letters” to her, but was eliminated as a suspect when it was clearly established that he had not left Arizona for several weeks.[25] A fourth suspect, a man in Los Angeles, who admitted to knowing Anna very well some months ago, also had an alibi.[26] A fifth suspect was a local man whose relationship with Mrs. Williams had led to his wife’s departure. However, they had subsequently reconciled, and again the police were making no progress.[27]
Some very interesting testimony was given at the coroner’s inquest by a Mrs. E. R. Payne who was the wife of one of the workers employed by Steven Richards in his lathing business. One of the circumstances that had cast suspicion on Mr. Richards was the notion that he was married, and yet had presenting himself to Mrs. Williams as a widower. This was however laid to rest by the testimony of Mrs. E. R. Payne who noted that she had at some point met Mrs. Richards in Los Angeles. Then when she discovered that Mr. Richards was having an intimate relationship with Mrs. Williams she was, as she put it, “mad” that he was doing such a thing, and out of curiosity she wanted to see this Mrs. Williams.[28] Back in August of 1924, months before the murder, Mrs. Payne met Mrs. Williams, preparing not to like her, but apparently ended up respecting her for the neat and clean house she kept, and for her obvious fondness for Richards. At some point she then told Mrs. Williams that Richards was a married man. Thus, Mrs. Williams knew Richards was married, but more to the point, according to the Tribune Mrs. Payne testified that:
When she learned that Richards and Mrs. Williams were intimate friends, she was desirous of seeing the woman who was able to take Richards from his wife. When she met Mrs. Williams the first time, Mrs. Payne told her that Richards was married, and that Mrs. Richards is a very large woman. “I should think you would be afraid Mrs. Richards will learn of the friendship between you and her husband and that she might do you some harm…” To this Mrs. Williams responded that, although she lived alone, she feared only one person in the world, her ex- husband.[29]
The Union reported that Mrs. Payne had testified, “I said to her [Williams] that Mrs. Richards was a great big woman and sure would fix her if she saw her.”[30]
While we are not told whether Mrs. Richards was ever a suspect, this testimony obviously raised the prospect that perhaps the most obvious remaining suspect was the “feared” ex-husband, a Mr. Dean Williams, described as an itinerant barber, with intemperate habits.[31] One report stated that Anna and Dean were married in December of 1918 in Los Angeles; then they moved to Brawley; separated in September of 1919; and then they got together again for a while, living in El Cajon and then East San Diego; and then Mr. Williams left his wife and she never directly heard from him again.[32] Mrs. Williams had trouble obtaining a divorce because she had been unable to locate her husband for service of documents.[33] While she did eventually get an interlocutory decree of divorce, she had never finalized it, and thus in the eyes of the law she was still married to Dean Williams when she was murdered.[34] If her husband had disappeared, and was intemperate, it was also reported that Anna, in turn, “possessed a violent temper and her death, it is believed, may have been the result of a quarrel.”[35] The man from Warner’s Hot Springs, giving testimony at the coroner’s inquest, confirmed that Mrs. Williams had often talked about meeting a sudden and violent death, indicating her fear, presumably of her ex-husband.[36] So where was this Mr. Dean Williams now?
But then things took an interesting turn when it was discovered that apparently Mrs. Williams had been legally married four different times.[37] The police were reportedly at a loss in tracing these relationships because they did not even know the actual maiden name of Mrs. Williams or where she was from, before living in San Diego.[38] Earlier reports had stated that Mrs. Williams was a native of Canada;[39] had a surviving mother and sister in New York who could not be traced;[40] had come to San Diego nine years ago from Cobalt, Canada;[41] and had originally lived in Wichita, Kansas.[42] We have no evidence that any of these sometimes conflicting statements were verified. Who were her ex-husbands and which of them was she afraid of? We have no information that Dean Williams was tracked down or other ex-husbands were found and investigated. The local newspapers seem to have dropped the story at this point, or more likely the police simply failed to make any further progress.
Just after Nelson was arrested in Winnipeg, more than two and a half years after the murder of Mrs. Williams, the San Diego Sun contained an article entitled, “Canada Strangler Suspect Linked in Local Slaying.”[43] It was reported that San Diego Chief of Police, Joe Doran and Captain of Detectives, Paul Hayes, now believed that the dark strangler, Earle Nelson, was responsible for this unsolved murder. The article also noted that the murder of Mrs. Williams had many similarities to the Los Angeles murder of Vera Stone in April of 1924.[44] We have no evidence that Nelson was seen in San Diego at the time. It seems likely that the police were simply trying to close their books on an unsolved murder by pointing to Nelson as the perpetrator.
If we do a little research on the ex-husband, Deane (John) Clay Williams, we discover that he married Anna Leovina Thompson on December 24, 1918, in Los Angeles, even though both were living in San Diego at the time.[45] He appears to have lied on the marriage documents, not only as to his place of birth, but also that this was his first marriage, when in fact he had been married in Indiana in 1910,[46] and was the father of a child.[47] After the murder of Anna, and after the police presumably could not find him, he got married a third time on Dec. 28, 1924, in Oregon, and then moved to Michigan and eventually his third wife divorced him on the grounds of extreme cruelty and non-support.[48] He married a fourth time in 1936.[49] None of this amounts to evidence that he might have murdered his second wife, but one wonders why the police in San Diego were unable to track him, or why he did not come forward when he heard of his wife’s murder.
......................................................................
[1] “Strangler is Sought,” San Diego Sun, Oct. 18, 1924, at 1.
[2] “Search Papers of Slain Nurse,” San Diego Union, Oct 20, 1924, at 1.
[3] “San Diego Woman Strangled,” San Diego Evening Tribune, Oct. 18, 1924, 1 at 2. It was later established that the electricity was malfunctioning due to a light bulb that was not screwed in properly.
[4] Supra note 3.
[5] Ibid.
[6] “S.D. Divorcee’s Nude Body Found,” San Diego Union, Oct 18, 1924, at 1.
[7] Ibid.
[8] “Police Baffled,” San Diego Union, Oct. 19, 1924, at 1.
[9] Supra note 3.
[10] “Maze of Clues Fails,” San Diego Evening Tribune, Oct. 19, 1924, at 6.
[11] “Gun is Found,” San Diego Sun, Oct 20, 1924, at 1.
[12] “Police Baffled,” San Diego Union, Oct 19, 1924, at 1.
[13] Ibid.
[14] Ibid.
[15] Supra note 3.
[16] Ibid.
[17] Supra notes 8 and 11.
[18] Supra note 11.
[19] “Search Papers of Slain Nurse,” San Diego Union, Oct. 20, 1924, at 1.
[20] “Clues Sought,” San Diego Sun, Oct. 22, 1924, at 1.
[21] Supra note 3.
[22] Supra note 11.
[23] “Clues Fail,” San Diego Evening Tribune, Oct. 22, 1924, at 3.
[24] Supra note 8.
[25] Supra note 11.
[26] “Murder Clue,” San Diego Sun, Oct. 29, 1924, at 1.
[27] “Mystery Clouds Slaying,” San Diego Union, Oct. 23, 1924, at 12.
[28] “Police Release Richards on Coroner’s Jury Verdict,” San Diego Union, Oct 22, 1924, at 22.
[29] “Says Mrs. Williams Knew Admirer Married,” San Diego Evening Tribune, Oct. 21 at 1; “Feared Spouse,” San Diego Sun, Oct 21, 1924, at 1.
[30] Supra note 28.
[31] Supra note 23.
[32] Supra note 12.
[33] Ibid.
[34] Ibid.
[35] Ibid.
[36] Supra note 28.
[37] “Latest Clues Muddle Mystery,” San Diego Evening Tribune, Oct. 23, 1924, at 1.
[38] “Mystery Clouds Slaying of Nurse.” San Diego Union, Oct. 23, 1924, at 12.
[39] “S.D. Divorcee’s Nude Body Found on Bedroom Floor,” San Diego Union, Oct. 18, 1924, 1 at 2.
[40] “Search Papers of Slain Nurse,” San Diego Union, Oct. 20, 1924, 1 at 2.
[41] “Mysterious Automobile Latest Clue,” San Diego Union, Oct 21, 1924, at 7.
[42] Supra note 38.
[43] “Canada Strangler Suspect Linked in Local Slaying,” San Diego Sun, June 22, 1927, at 9.
[44] Ibid.
[45] California, County Marriages, 1850-1952.
[46] Indiana Marriages, 1810-2001, marriage to Fannie Straley, March 23, 1910.
[47] Indiana, Birth Certificates, 1907-1940, John Clay Williams Jr. born May 17, 1911.
[48] Michigan Divorce Records, 1897-1952, June 27, 1931.
[49] Michigan Marriage Records, 1867-1952, June 30, 1936.
