An evangelist in the New Testament vanished from Samaria and turned up in the desert. Philip reappeared on the road to Gaza (cf. Acts 8). For decades now journalists have oversimplified, “Aimee walked out into the ocean and turned up in the desert.” It wasn't that simple. It couldn't have been, no matter what happened.
Take the prosecution's allegations at their worst. They presuppose a complicated conspiracy and assume a deliberate attempt to deceive. But would anyone making up a story out of the whole cloth invent as unlikely a tale as Mrs. McPherson's account of her ordeal? The utter incredibility of the story argues for its truthfulness, for if the evangelist had wanted to lie she could have manufactured more believable circumstances. When pressed by authorities to modify her account in areas where changes might make it more plausible, Mrs. McPherson steadfastly stuck to her story as told in the beginning, insisting that it was the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
This consideration was one of the factors which helped convince the Chief of Police at Douglas, Arizona, where the evangelist was brought across the border from Mexico, that Mrs. McPherson was telling the truth. Percy Bowden protested his faith in her story “because I don’t see how any woman could create such a startling sequence of events in her mind” (quoted by Lately Thomas, “the Vanishing Evangelist,” p. 86).
How did the evangelist vanish? Doubters speculated that Kenneth G. Ormiston, the former radio engineer at Angelus Temple, whisked the evangelist away from Ocean Park beach surreptitiously on the late afternoon of May 18, 1926. But no evidence of this escapade ever was hinted. No witnesses substantiated anything of the kind. The only extant story of the disappearance is that which Mrs. McPherson related after her return to civilization. Anything else is the sheerest hypothesis.
Angelus Temple was looking forward to the Tuesday night service when its woman pastor would continue her travelogue about the Holy Land from which she had returned a few weeks earlier. But shopping was on Mrs. McPherson's mind that morning. And kidnapping was about the furthest thing from her mind.
Yet threats had come to the Temple, warning the church to lay off exposés of the underworld. These revelations had not been contrived or programmed. But Mrs. McPherson's hosts of converts, in testifying of deliverances from past wrongdoings over the church's radio station K.F.S.G. - third oldest outlet in Los Angeles - had given names and addresses of bootleggers, speak-easies, and dope-peddlers. The public called these to the attention of the police, from whom some were purchasing protection. The authorities had no choice but to close up the illegal operations.
Mrs. McPherson ignored, as the work of cranks, numerous notes which arrived in the mail warning her to “lay off” or threatening kidnapping or death. In 1925 some reporters claimed they uncovered a plot to abduct her, but she dismissed it as “impossible.”
Elder A.M. Dickey of Angelus Temple told the press, after the disappearance, that a stranger came daily to the church during the three weeks preceding May 18 and warned he knew of a gang out to “get” Mrs. McPherson. The stranger demanded to see the evangelist, but was denied an interview. Dickey attached little importance to the incident in late May because he believed his pastor had drowned in the surf (Los Angeles Times, May 24, 1926). By that date, Mrs. McPherson may have been wishing she'd listened to the warning.
Mrs. McPherson left the parsonage next door to the Temple at about 10 a.m. on that fateful Tuesday. She drove downtown to look for a dress for her daughter Roberta and possibly one for herself, as well. She parked in front of Bullocks Department Store, where she purchased an outfit for her daughter. She found a black and white dress for herself, but wasn’t quite sure it was just right. So she decided to have her secretary, Emma Schaeffer, come down later and look it over. She asked the saleswoman to hold the dress for her. May Dutton agreed.
What has all this to do with the disappearance? Testimony would later allege that Mrs. McPherson walked into the Clark Hotel carrying a briefcase with the name Aimee Semple McPherson inscribed in large letters. Witnesses would report seeing her there and suggest a rendezvous with Ormiston. But May Dutton furnished an affidavit placing Mrs. McPherson in her department at Bullocks throughout the time-period when other witnesses said they saw her at the hotel! Perhaps someone did tote in a briefcase with that name on it, but it was not the evangelist. She claimed she did not even own a briefcase, and that if she were to secure one she would not advertise her identity on it since already she was suffering nuisance approaches in public by people who recognized her. She admitted owning a smaller writing portfolio with her name on it, but that inscription was under the flap and therefore would not have been visible when the portfolio was closed.
Aimee Semple McPherson arrived back at the Parsonage about eleven, Harriet Jordan, a co-worker recalled. Her mother noted paleness and suggested she take an afternoon outing at the beach. Daughter invited mother to come along. Mrs. Kennedy declined, pleading church business. She was the manager. Though she didn't relish swimming, the parent accompanied Mrs. McPherson sometimes. In fact, her swimsuit was already in the auto, left there negligently from an outing on the previous Friday. Roberta also declined an invitation, since she felt she couldn't afford to miss the afternoon school classes. The evangelist accosted her secretary. Emma Schaeffer was glad to go.
The two women trooped to the auto with Mrs. McPherson attired in a white and yellow sport outfit. Several church members on the sidewalk were greeted and told of the destination. The evangelist carried bathing suit and cap, Bible, concordance, and papers. She intended to work on some sermons on the sand.
In the following days several witnesses turned up who claimed they saw Mrs. McPherson driving that afternoon in Los Angeles in different directions than would take her to the beach. All alleged she was wearing the Temple Uniform, a black cape and tie over a white nurse's dress. The implication was sinister. She was making a get-away! But people at the Temple remembered her sport outfit. And would she make a getaway in so conspicuous a costume as that in which multiplied thousands saw her wearing in the pulpit every week? Irene Hillstrom was one of several who later would come forward and suggest that she had been mistaken for Mrs. McPherson at one of the locales people had imagined they saw the evangelist driving. Others in Temple Uniforms that afternoon also identified themselves and their auto routes. These uniforms had a tendency to make most wearers look alike. When Mrs. McPherson wore her’s to a grand jury hearing later, even reporters who knew her well had difficulty picking her out from the group of associates similarly clad who surrounded her!
As a matter of fact, however, the evangelist could have been seen off her route to the beach - but attired in street clothes - for she got lost going out Pico Boulevard where construction caused some detours. But eventually she parked near the Ocean View Hotel at the corner of Ross Avenue and Ocean Front. She and her family had spent several days there the preceding year and the manager, Frank Langan, thereafter urged the evangelist to use his facilities for changing when she came to Ocean Park. He volunteered the use free, but Mrs. McPherson usually insisted he accept a dollar or two.
Emma and the evangelist ate a waffle apiece at a beach concession, then rented and pitched an umbrella tent. The two women worked for a while, then the evangelist entered the surf for a swim. “I really should be working on my message,” she realized, so returned to the tent. She finished one sermon, then tackled some modifications for the travelogue that evening. She sent Emma to telephone the musical director and to order preparation of two new lantern slides for the presentation. “My eyes are tired,” she told the secretary,” so guess I'll have another swim while you are gone.”
“All right,” Emma agreed, then cautioned, "Don’t go too far now." Neither woman had any idea how far the evangelist would travel before they saw each other again.
Mrs. McPherson waded knee deep into the surf, then stood watching lifeguards drill some distance away. Suddenly she heard her name called in anxious tones. “Sister McPherson! Mrs. McPherson.”
“I can't even go to the beach without being recognized,” flashed through her mind. She looked toward the voice and saw a man and woman. The woman sobbed, “Our baby is dying, Sister. The doctor has given it up. We’ve come all the way from Altadena to have you pray for the child. Please come to our car.” The pair professed that they had telephoned the Temple and been advised of the pastor's whereabouts. This had happened before. There seemed no reason for suspicion. “You will come right away, won't you?” the couple pleaded.
The woman had a dark coat draped over an arm and offered it as a wrap to the swimsuit clad minister. Then she ran ahead, protesting that she was nervous about the baby in the car. The man hurried Mrs. McPherson up Navy Street toward a parked car whose rear door stood open. Another man sat behind the steering-wheel. The motor was running. The evangelist paid no attention to those somewhat suspicious circumstances. She was concentrating on the woman sitting in the back seat cradling a blanketed bundle -supposedly the dying infant. “Just step in,” the man urged - a normal request because the baby could hardly be reached from the running board. Suddenly a shove from behind pushed Mrs. McPherson into the vehicle. She was too surprised to cry out. The woman on the back seat applied something sticky and wet to the evangelist’s mouth, while a firm hand clutched the back of her head. The back door slammed shut and the car lurched into motion as the victim lapsed toward unconsciousness.
Weeks later, when Mrs. McPherson related the incident, authorities expressed skepticism that an anaesthetic could have been administered so quickly and expertly under such circumstances. The evangelist replied that it happened that way even though she could not explain how. Then a blind lawyer from Long Beach, R.A. McKinley, who claimed that men purporting to be the kidnappers approached him to serve as an intermediary in collecting ransom while Mrs. McPherson still was missing, told her that these men confided they had used some kind of rubber mask to give the anaesthetic. They boasted to McKinley, “With that method you are all but unconscious with just a gasp.” McKinley reported that hours later the kidnappers said they gave their victim one-quarter grain of morphine.
We'll never know for sure whether McKinley actually had contact with the kidnappers, whether he was himself the instigator of a hoax, or the victim of one, for he died in an auto accident on the evening of August 25, 1926 and thus did not testify at the preliminary hearing. His earlier testimony before the grand jury was withheld-from public scrutiny over the energetic protests of defense counsel who requested it be read into the record of the hearing, as was the testimony of Mrs. McPherson and Mrs. Kennedy. McKinley evidently talked out of both sides of his mouth, as affidavits of his acquaintances with whom he discussed the case attest. But that’s a later story.
At any rate, Mrs. McPherson disappeared while Emma Schaeffer telephoned the Temple. But did any witnesses see her leave?
* Chaotic testimonies contradict each other on this point. Mae Werning of El Centro, California told police and press that she was on the beach all day but never saw the evangelist enter the water. She may even have denied that Mrs. McPherson was there. After the reappearance, witnesses surfaced who professed to have seen the kidnapping. On July 8, Harry C. Swift told the press that his observation confirmed the evangelist’s account. But why did he not come forward with the news at the time?
Edward Waite, a resident of the Soldiers’ Home at Sawtelle, explained on October 21 why he had not come forward sooner. Waite said he rode the street car to Ocean Park after lunch, arriving at about 2 p.m. and remaining about three hours. As he hobbled on the sand, Waite glimpsed Mrs. McPherson emerging from the surf. Soon afterwards he said, “1 looked again and saw her with a man about forty feet from an automobile, walking towards.the automobile. was less than fifty feet from them. heard no words spoken. The man was a dark man, and would recognize him as Steve any time.”
“Steve” was the name Mrs. McPherson said the man gave when she woke up in captivity hours after the abduction. The woman identified herself as “Rose” and claimed to have been a nurse.
Mr. Waite described “Steve” further as ‘a medium-sized man, quite tall. His face appeared to be rather pock-marked.” The car was “dark colored, a sedan. The engine was running. 1 saw her standing by the automobile for a minute with the man. turned and looked toward the tent to see if could see Miss Schaeffer, and when looked again in the direction of the automobile, it and the parties were gone.”
Edward Waite attached nothing sinister to what he had seen at the time, and when he heard about the drowning the next day - as he told it - “I supposed that she had walked up to the hotel, after I had seen her at the automobile, and had later gone into the water again and was drowned.”
Waite told no one about his observations until October 21 because he “didn't think the story itself would be of any value because they haven't found the kidnappers.” But when the morning papers that day carried a report that a man had been seen on the beach on May 18 using a cane and suggested that Ormiston was the lame man, “I decided it was time for my story to be known, for! was the only lame man on the beach at the time.” (Quoted from signed statement in the archives at Angelus Temple.)
Meanwhile, Emma Schaeffer got nervous when Mrs. McPherson did not return to the tent. She enlisted help from lifeguards to look for the evangelist far out in the water. Eventually she phoned the Temple and confided her fears. Her beloved employer was lost in the sea.