Barbara Graham: Executed in the Gas Chamber… Was She Innocent?

June 3, 1955. San Cuentin State Prison, California. A 32-year-old woman is being strapped to a chair inside a gas chamber. Her name is Barbara Graham and all the newspapers in the country They know her by a different name. Bloody Bobs. She is only the third woman that the state of California has executed, but this is what makes This case is different from any another one you’ve heard before.

 The only one witness who placed her at the scene of the crime left without spending a single day in prison, not one. The police could not find enough evidence to condemn her, so they sent an agent covert to create them. And Barbara Graham told anyone who wanted listen to it, that on the night of the murder She was at home with her husband and son.

newborn. Someone is lying. The question is, who? At the end of this video you may be wondering, California He executed the right person. Welcome back to the channel. If you are new here, subscribe and activate the notifications. We cover cases that They should never be forgotten. Let’s go start. Before talking about crime, you need know who the victim was.

 your name It was Mabel Monahan. He was 64 years old. It was widow I lived alone in a neighborhood quiet Burbank, California. According to all the testimonies, Mabel was a reserved person, was not scandalous, did not attract attention, did not cause problems, she was simply a woman who He lived his last years in the home that knew.

 He had no criminal record, It had no dangerous connections, it had no enemies, but someone linked his name to a rumor His former son-in-law was a Las Vegas casino investor, a man with ties to crime organized. And somewhere in the world Los Angeles criminal began spread a story, that that man had left a safe with $100,000 hidden inside the house Mabel.

 Mabel didn’t know anything about either safe, was not protecting money, had no relationship with all that. She was just a woman older and quiet who lived in a house that someone else had decided that It was worth raiding. She didn’t do anything bad, he just lived in the house wrong. And that decision, made by dangerous men who were chasing a rumor would cost Mabel Monahan everything.

Now let’s talk about Barbara Graham. because to understand how he ended up in that chamber gas, you have to understand where it started everything. Barbara was born on June 26, 1923 in Oakland, California. His mother, Hortens Ford was a teenager single. There was no father present, there was no stability, there was no plan.

 When Barbara was approximately 2 years, his mother was arrested and sent to a reformatory. Barbara was left behind alone. what What followed was a childhood that passed between foster homes, a school convent and an orphanage. Without stability, without a real family, just a little girl being carried from one place to another.

 Shortly after turning 14 she was sent to school for California girls in Ventura, a tough institution of reform, the same in the one his own mother had been hospitalized years before. He got freedom conditional at 16 years old. He almost got married immediately. His first child was born in 1940. When Barbara reached her twenties years, he had worked in bars, brothels and gambling houses throughout California.

 If married four times to Harry Cleman, Al Bushnell, Charles Oldman and finally with Henry Graham, a bartender with his own criminal ties. gave birth to three children and lost custody of minus some of them. At the beginning of the 1950s, his criminal history included perjury, prostitution, possession of narcotics and issuing bad checks.

 Fits emphasize that he did not have a single crime violent. He even served time in Teachapi Women’s Prison provide a false alibi for protect another person. After his release was related to Emet Perkins, arcade operator of chance linked to the gangster of the angels, Mickey Cohen. The historian Kathine Kens put it clearly.

 No I’m sure she was fully aware of how bad they really were. What he found continuation and what would end costing him is almost impossible to believe. By early 1953, Barbara Graham worked directly for Emet Perkins within its operation of betting. It was there that he approached two men who would change everything, Jack Saint and John Trew.

 Both had large criminal record for crimes violent. They were not petty criminals mount, they were dangerous men. and the dangerous men speak. a rumor had been circulating on the internet Los Angeles criminal. Supposedly Mabel Monahan’s house in Borbank It contained a hidden safe with $100,000 cash related to money from casinos linked to the mafia.

Nobody confirmed it. Nobody verified it, nor a single person in that circle could prove that the safe even existed. But greed doesn’t wait tests. Perkins, Holy and True They started talking about the coup. According to court records, no There is evidence that Barbara started or planned the robbery.

 Your exact role In those conversations it was a reason for dispute throughout his trial. Your husband, Henry Graham was part of her life at that moment. But the records Courts do not show any evidence that I knew something about what was planning. Then the group brought in a fifth man, Baxter Shorter.

 One of the members of this group would disappear before the trial even began. never came back to be seen. Five people, one objective, a plan built completely on a rumor. Let’s see who was involved and what each one contributed. Emmet Perkins was the organizer. He directed the operation of betting linked to the criminal network Mickey Cohen in Los Angeles.

 He provided the strength and motivation. Jack Santo was in charge of the execution, a violent criminal with experience that knew exactly what this type of work could require. John True was a participant, but True He had a quality that others didn’t. they had. He knew when to change sides. He would later change his testimony to total immunity.

 Baxter Shorter was recruited to complete the group. He disappeared before the start of the judgment. Your destiny remains unknown to this day. Never he testified. And then there was Barbara Graham. According to the testimony of John Trew At the trial, Barbara’s role was make everyone able to enter through the main door.

 would approach the house by Mabel Monahan at 815 Parkside Avenue in Borbank, posing as a distraught woman who needed to use the phone. A 64-year-old widow, alone at night I would open the door to a woman in trouble That was the point of entrance. Once inside, according to True, Barbara was armed with a gun. The date was set, March 9, 1953.

There was no payment agreement, no contract. It was a robbery speculative based on a rumor verified. If you haven’t subscribed yet, now is the time. This case is only It gets more disturbing from here. Click that button and let’s continue forward. March 9, 1953. Burbank. California, the night I changed everything.

 As the afternoon fell, the group had already met. destiny was confirmed. 815 Parkside Avenue, Mabel Monahan’s house, a street calm, a defenseless woman and a group of five people chasing a money that perhaps never existed. If They headed towards the house. Barbara Graham She was the first to approach the door. According to John Trew’s testimony before the court, knocked on the door.

 It was done pass for a woman in distress, a unknown that I simply needed use the phone. Nothing threatening, nothing alarming. Mabel Monahan opened the door. He shouldn’t have done it. The group He broke into the house by force. It What happened next, according to testimony from True, it was immediate and violent. Barbara hit Mabel Monahan with her butt of a gun.

 The first blow fell on a 64-year-old widow who did not I had done nothing wrong and I had no way to defend himself. Then began the search. Perkins, Holy and True They searched the entire house, room by room, looking for the safe, looking for the $100,000 that the rumor told them had promised. They found nothing, nor safe, no cash, no mafia money, nothing.

 The rumor is not It was worth nothing. The whole plan had been built on nothing but instead Before leaving, the group took a decision, a brutal decision. They were not going to leave no witnesses. According to the True’s testimony, Barbara gave him a pillowcase over head Maybel Monahan. Then, Emet Perkins He tied his hands.

 Afterwards, Jack Santo He wrapped a piece of cloth around the neck. Mabel Monahan was left on the ground from her own house, tied, beaten, unable to breathe. He died from asphyxiation, slowly, alone. The group left without take practically nothing of value. When the body was finally discovered of Monahan, the Burbank house had the story clearly.

 Signs of forced entry, visible evidence of a fight and a woman who had been abandoned to die. Maybel Monahan 64 years old, was declared dead. Cause of death, asphyxiation. Now this is what that you should keep in mind. I never know recovered the murder weapon. I never know confirmed fingerprints that link any suspect to that house.

 The only person who placed Barbara Graham inside that home was John True, the same man who He left without facing a single charge. The men who tied his hands and They tightened the cloth around her neck, only one of them would reach face a jury. What they happened to others is one of the parts most outrageous of this entire story. After that night, the group dispersed, but not in the way you could imagine.

 Barbara Graham He fled, he did not escape the state, he returned to his life with Henry Graham, present, visible and maintaining your daily routine. Nothing in court records document a drastic change in behavior during the weeks following the 9th March, John True began discreetly to distance themselves from others, without striking movements, without confrontations, only distance.

 and Baxter Shorter, the fifth member of the group, simply disappeared. No arrest, no testimony, none explanation. His disappearance was never resolved publicly. There is something worth worth noting. This was not a case in the fact that someone collected insurance or would leave with a financial reward. The robbery was a total failure.

 The group left Mabel Monahan’s house without nothing of value. They got nothing and They left behind a dead woman. The case against Barbara Graham would not be based in suspicious behavior after of the facts. It would be based on the words from one man and in one recorded conversation than one’s own police organized.

 The department of Los Angeles police and authorities of Burbank began their investigation and almost immediately they encountered a obstacle. The weapon was not recovered. homicidal No fingerprints confirmed fingerprints at the scene. there was not physical evidence linking directly to Barbara Graham, Emmet Perkins or Jack Santo with the house Maybel Monahan on Parkside Avenue.

 It that the researchers had was a 64-year-old woman dead and a rumor about mafia money. That was not enough. However, the press does not He waited for evidence. The coverage of Monahan’s death spread quickly in the news local. The money angle mafia made it impossible to ignore him and the Barbara Graham’s name appeared since the beginning.

 The police linked her with Perkins and with the criminal circle broader around the organization by Mickey Cohen. Before it was formally accused of any crime, His history was already part of the public history. Prostitution. perjury, narcotics, bad checks funds. The Court of Opinion Public had already started its own trial, but within the investigation The reality was clear.

 Without a witness to cooperate, this case had very few chances of ever reaching a court. So John Trew took a decision. The police too. The researchers took a step that decades later legal experts would describe as deeply worrying. What they did next everything changed and not necessarily in the same way way that justice intended.

 two things happened almost at the same time and together they sealed the fate of three people. First, John Trew made a deal. He agreed to testify against Barbara Graham, Emmet Perkins and Jack Santo a change in total immunity against criminal process. All charges, all the consequences disappeared. The man who was inside the house Mabel Monahan the night she died He would spend not a single day behind bars.

Without tr, prosecutors had almost no nothing. They had a case with him, but the Police had not finished yet. At the same time, the Police Department Los Angeles sent an undercover agent to contact Barbara directly Graham. The agent posed as a crime intermediary, someone who could provide him with a false alibi for the night of March 9.

 Barbara participated in the conversation. I believed that I was talking to someone who could help her. Every word was recorded on secret. Those recordings were subsequently presented to the court as evidence against him. Barbara maintained that she was looking for protection, not confessing anything. But the The prosecution told a very different.

 Approximately two months after the assassination, in May 1953, Barbara Graham, Emmet Perkins and Jack Santo were formally arrested under suspected of the murder of Mabel Monahan. The headlines exploded. The appearance of Barbara, her past and the details of the crime they made her the face of all covers. Baxter Shorter never was arrested, had disappeared and John Trew, the man whose words would send three people in the hallway death, he was released.

 August 18 of 1953. Los Angeles Superior Court. The trial of Barbara Graham, Jack Santo and Emet Perkins officially started. The three defendants were tried together and from day one the odds They were not the same. Presiding over the room there was Judge Charles Freak, a man who had already sentenced dozens of accused to the death penalty.

 This is not It was unknown territory for him. Capital punishment cases were something usual. For the defense attorney Barbara, Jack W. Hardy, was everything contrary. This was his first defense in a murder case capital, the first of his career. The The prosecution based its case on two pillars. The first, the testimony of John Trew.

 him told the court that Barbara Graham I was inside Mabel’s house Monahan that night, that she hit first, that she was the initial aggressor against a defenseless old woman. The second, the recorded conversations between Barbara and the police officer covert The prosecutors presented them as proof that he had searched for a false quarter and had done statements that pointed directly to his guilt.

 Hardy had no physical evidence to refute any of both, no fingerprints, no weapon, nor an independent witness. and then there was Barbara herself. came into that room with tight clothes and heels high. He sat at the defense table and smoked. He radiated anger, he did not show vulnerability, no sign of regret. Historian Kathyn Kanes wrote it clearly. She was always her worst enemy.

The jury saw a woman who refused to appear helpless. Combined with the True’s testimony and the recordings, It was enough. In September 1953, The jury found all three guilty. charged with first degree murder. Under California law, in that moment, that verdict carried a only automatic result, the penalty of death.

 Then came the appeals. Barbara never stopped affirm his innocence. Years later, the historian Gordon Ben stated clearly, “According to the standards current, with a competent lawyer, Barbara Graham would not have been convicted, but John Trew was released. Baxter Shorter was never found and three people were sentenced to death.

 That difference never seemed fair and still It doesn’t seem like it. Barbara Graham passed approximately 2 years in the corridor the death of the state prison of San Cuentin. And during that time it happened something unexpected. The journalists They began to visit her, to interview her, to listen to it and one by one, several of they came out of those conversations believing at least that the trial had had serious flaws.

 There was a journalist that stood out above the rest. Edward Montgomery of San Francisco Examiner, a man known for putting himself On the prosecution’s side, a man who had covered countless cases criminals without questioning them. There was something in the case of Barbara Graham who left him completely bewildered. Not even he himself could fully explain it, but he became one of his stronger defenders.

 Over time, Montgomery took his story to Hollywood producer Walter Wanger a man known for making movies that challenged the most powerful, but none of that was enough to stop what was to come. Every appeal was filed. All appeals were rejected. The request for clemency to the governor was also rejected. Emet Perkins and Jack Santo also sold out all his appeals. June 3, 1955.

San Cuentin State Prison. Barbara Graham was 32 years old. She was escorted to the Gas Chamber. The reports of They describe the time as serene, maintaining his innocence until the last moment. She was fastened to the chair inside of the camera. cyanide granules They fell into acid. He died from asphyxiation.

 The Same cause of death as Mabel Monahan. Barbara Graham was pronounced dead becoming the third woman executed by the state of California. Perkins and Santo were executed in approximately the same period. Your deaths received only a fraction of the media attention received by her. John Trew, the man whose testimony led the three there, He lived the rest of his life as a man free.

 Baxter Shorter was never located, was never charged and never was judged. In 1958, actress Susan Heyward played Bárbara Graham in I want to live, I want to live, winning the prize of the academy for best actress and turning this case into a debate national on the death penalty continues to this day. This is what what we have left.

 Abel Monahan did not have surviving close relatives widely documented. Your pain belongs to a public record who barely recognized her beyond the crime itself. The safe, the $100,000 that started all this, It was never found. It is possible that has never existed. three people They died in the gas chamber rumour.

 The only man who wore them until there he left without facing consequences. And Barbara Graham, a woman who passed her whole life being abandoned by every institution that was supposed to protect her, he died inside one. beech held that pillowcase or not, the system that processed it was not designed for nuances. what moment Was this case the one that impacted you the most? Leave it in the comments.

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