If Captain of Detectives Herman Cline had had his way, Mrs. McPherson would have gone directly to Ocean Park after her arrival in Los Angeles. Cline wanted her to rehearse her story about the abduction that very afternoon, pointing out the various places where she had been on May 18. Sister die that she was too weary to attempt that excursion that day.
When the evangelist was ready to make the trip, Ryan and his wife, Cline, and a Los Angeles Times reporter called at the parsonage to pick her up. “I think have never seen them without a Times reporter,” Sister would tell her attorney, W.I. Gilbert, when she reviewed her story to him for the first time after retaining him to serve as her chief counsel for the preliminary hearing.
The party hurried to the beach, arriving at about 6 p.m. Mrs. McPherson pointed out where her tent had been pitched, described the course of her swims, indicated the spot where Steve and Rose accosted her, showed where Rose had left to run ahead to the car and tend the “baby,”
traced the route she and Steve followed to the vehicle, and led them to the place where the car had been parked. “Impossible,” the investigators contradicted, pointing out that this was a “No Parking" zone. So vigorously did the authorities insist that the kidnap car couldn't have parked there that the evangelist wavered and allowed it “might have been across the street,” but she still didn't think so. After all, cars have stopped at times in no parking zones! And the driver didn't leave the wheel.
Before long a huge crowd gathered, since people were beginning to recognize the pastor. Sister wanted to leave, but Cline wanted a picture taken of the evangelist at the auto. Of course, he was in the picture too. Mrs. McPherson told Gilbert, “At all times on the desert and after we returned home, Captain Cline would ask me to pose for a picture with him.”
A few days after the return to Los Angeles, Sister and Mother entrained again for Douglas to join the search for the shack. They returned to Los Angeles without success. The furor about the disappearance of the special delivery stamp from the second ransom letter prompted Mrs. Kennedy to seek to study the first — “the Revengers” — handwritten missive which she had turned over to Cline. The Captain then broke the news to Mother that this letter had been “lost.”
For several days Cline continued his profession of faith in the evangelist’s story of the kidnappng when in contact with the Temple, while acting in a way which kept Sister suspicious that he was feigning. Then one day, as the evangelist told Gilbert, “Mr. Cline told me he thought it time for me to have an attorney.” “What for?” she asked. Cline remarked that there was “this thundering about the grand jury” investigation of her story. This was attracting considerable attention and publicity at the time, for what reason Sister said she could not understand because, “| was giving Mr. Cline every bit of evidence had.” She asked if Cline had any particular attorney in mind. He replied, as she quoted him to Gilbert, "If you get this attorney he will keep you out of trouble. It is Paul Skenk. It may cost you fifty thousand dollars but it is the thing to do.”
The evangelist dismissed the idea as ridiculous and made no effort to contact the lawyer. But, she advised Gilbert, “Mr. Skenk called me on the telephone that night. He said he had been asked by Mr. C. to call. He wanted to talk about the case.” Mrs. Kennedy, in a prepared statement which did not mention the attorney's name, confided that the caller “spoke as though he did not feel like coming to the top, but would work underneath. We were warned that had we done this we would have been in their hands as long as we lived." Mother did not identify the party issuing the warning, but most likely it was Judge Carlos Hardy who was dispensing legal advice —without remuneration — to Sister and Mother.
Both Mrs. McPherson and Mrs. Kennedy dated the outward change in Cline’s attitude from the time of their refusal of his advice about an attorney. Mother complained, “It seemed to be over that matter that Captain Cline then took the angle of disbelieving Mrs. McPherson's story.” And Sister herself told Gilbert, "From that time on Captain Cline turned. am assured if! had gotten Paul Skenk there would have been no grand jury.”
The evangelist found it expedient as the rumors and charges surfaced to protest her truthfulness. When the matter of her clothing continued to kindle comment, she earnestly lectured Captain Cline, “You know, if had been a bad woman and had some motive,! would have faked this thing, wouldn't |? would have walked through the brush and rolled down on the ground and torn my dress and scuffed up my shoes. That would have been the thing to do if one were faking.” This protest seems irrefutable, the more so since there would have been plenty of time to work up a dilly of a tg and performance if the kidnappng had not been bona fide.
As a grand jury hearing loomed more asa certainty, Mrs.
McPherson felt constrained to retain counsel. Roland Rich Wooley and Arthur L. Veitch became the harbingers of an eventual battery of high-priced talent who would mastermind the evangelist’s defense, with unofficial advice from Judge Hardy.
After the grand jury in Los Angeles agreed to Asa Keyes’ and Joe Ryan's request for an investigation, subpoenas were delivered summoning Sister, Mother Kennedy, Emma Schaeffer, Roberta and Rolf, and other Temple personnel, besides Hollenbeck, who had been dragged into the case on the strength of an “identification” by Tucson auto dealer C.A. Pape who alleged he saw the evangelist in the company of Hollenbeck ieaving the International Cafe, a roadhouse in Agua Prieta, Mexico, five days before she reappeared. Why didn't he blow the whistle then? The county grand jury also “invited” Mexican and Douglas officials to testify at the hearing scheduled to commence on July 8.
There was some speculation that the Temple witnesses would decline to honor the subpoena. Mother Kennedy called a powwow which included her daughter, the two attorneys, and Judge Hardy. Rumor had it that another conferee at the caucus was H.H. Kinney, the secretary to Los Angeles’ Mayor Cryer, but this was never confirmed nor denied by any of the other participants.
Judge Hardy carried the most weight of any of the advisers, and he strongly recommended compliance with the subpoenas, advising that the best policy would be to tell everything, an opinion Mrs. McPherson shared though she did not relish the appearance. Veitch agreed. Wooley and
Mother thought otherwise, but Hardy's position prevailed. About 10 a.m. on July 8, Sister in Temple uniform, surrounded by an honor-guard of women workers similarly garbed, entered the Hall of Justice. Many witnesses to this entrance had difficulty picking out the evangelist in the cluster, and newspaper photographs identified her with an arrow.
The evangelist submitted to interrogation by Keyes and
Ryan. Her testimony would months later be read into the record of the preliminary hearing. When her attorney Gilbert heard this transcript then for the first time, he exploded in the courtroom, “| have been here at the bar twenty-five years, and have heard something today enough to turn everybody’s hair gray, the District Attorney with Mrs. McPherson before the grand jury and clubbing her while she was there,” a protestation which brought from Deputy D.A. Dennison the defense that the prosecutor's office had been criticized for going too easy on the evangelist!
Even Lately Thomas seems to have been appalled by the July 8 proceedings. He wrote, “Almost from the Start, the alert, studiously polite, and cleverly suspicious prosecutors diverged from the events of the kidnapping as she told them to fish in the grab-bag of public conjecture, rumor, and scandalous innuendo. Mrs. McPherson was before the grand jury as the injured party, asking for the simple justice of indictment of her abductors, whoever they might be. Under the urbane and relentless probing of the district attorney, she was almost jockeyed into the position of a defendant.” That author reported Keyes’ and Ryan's failure to discredit the evangelist, continuing, “almost, but never quite, for the Prosecutors were opposed by a will stronger than their own — the will of a woman who knew just what she wanted to Say, and would not be led astray” (pp. 122-123, “The Vanishing Evangelist"). Her story was the only story of the event that never changed.
Keyes dredged up baseless rumors, like, “Mrs. McPherson, it has been stated to me on several occasions that, to use the expression we used to use, that you were run out of Denver at one time. Is there anything to that?”
Sister seemed dumbfounded by that allegation. She had nothing but the best to remember about the Mile High City. "Oh, no,” she denied. “The mayor was on the platform at almost every service when was last in Denver, and might refer you to the mayor and to the business firms there and to
Judge Ben Lindsey, who is nationally known. And when left, they gathered washbaskets of roses and poured them in the room until was ankle deep in roses.”
The District Attorney then repeated — or did he create it? — another rumor that Sister had been run out of a town in northern California. He couldn't remember what town. “I have forgotten,” Keyes commented, “whether it was Oakland or some other place.” Sister denied this. Keyes then inquired whether it was Fresno. “No,” Sister replied and offered to submit documentation of her acceptance by those communities.
Keyes next brought up press reports that Mrs. McPherson was planning to take a world speaking tour and suggested, “One of the reasons that you might have for pulling a stunt like this is for the purpose of getting worldwide advertising or publicity for the sake of helping you in your work. The evangelist denied that she was planning an international itinerary at the time and insisted she would not have needed any such sensational publicity. Before she was kidnapped she already had invitations to Sweden and Denmark and fora return engagement to England. She recited details of her meetings in Belfast and London's Royal Albert Hall, where she addressed 10,000 earlier in 1926.;
One of the grand jurors suggested the question of how much money Sister got for her lectures in London. The evangelist responded, “I never charge for lectures. Itis onthe freewill offering plan.” To the best of her recollection her love offering in London was about one hundred pounds sterling (then $500).
The preceding questioning took place after the grand jury accorded Mrs. McPherson an opportunity to make a lengthy statement in her own behalf. Lately Thomas reported Joe Ryan's attitude while she spoke: “Ryan's dark eyes snapped aggressively: histrionics!” That author hinted that the questioning which followed, regarding run-outs from Denver, Oakland, and Fresno and suspicion of a stunt to publicize a world tour represented Asa Keyes’ efforts to break the spell and undo the favorable impression Sister's remarks made on the grand jury (p. 132, op. cit.). Before her statement, Keyes and Ryan had interrogated her about a host of matters, some pertinent and some impertinent.
Keyes asked, “Describe to the jury the country you passed through,” meaning on the desert trek after escaping from the captivity shack. “It was not a rough country that would chop your shoes off by any means,” Sister responded, then Scored with a reference to Ryan. “As Mr. Ryan himself said, he could walk two days on it without his commissary shoes being marked.” Ryan had made that comment on his initial sortie into the desert on Friday, June 25. The witness conceded, however, “But did stumble on stones as journeyed.”
“Question: Well, was it composed of sand, decomposed granite?
“Answer: Both.
“Question: Dust? wae No, deep sand. There was lots of dust on the
“Question: Small rocks and pebbles?
“Answer: Yes, Would you call it shale think that is what would call it, sort of shale.
“Question: Was it hard?
“Answer: Yes.
“Question: Brush interspersed between the boulders?
“Answer: Yes, there would be a cactus here and sagebrush yonder.”
Keyes also broached the subject of Sister's hair, though what that matter had to do with the case bewildered many. This was before the “Hoax Woman,” that whirlygig of tying Lorraine Wiseman-Sielaff, surfaced, with her story that the evangelist's hair was piled up with switches and that Sister coached her to affect the same hairdo with her switches. “Is that hair that you have in sight all yours?" the D.A. demanded,
The witness answered, “Yes.” Keyes manifested doubt, cross-examining, “You don’t wear a switch?” Mrs. McPherson said, “No.”
Speculation, however, would continue rampant concerning the evangelist's hair until in open court, during the preliminary hearing, she gave at her attorney's command a demonstration which ended all doubts.
When Joe Ryan had a chance to question Mrs. McPherson he tried to connect the corset she wore in from the desert with those the evangelist habitually used. “Now, isn’t it a fact, Mrs. McPherson, that the kind that you did get, whichis a Bon Ton corset, is similar to the kind, character and description, weight and quality to the kind you ordinarily use?” he inquired.
“It could not be more different, positively, absolutely different in every way,” she countered. The corset Rose had secured for her was “such a corset as would give to my little daughter to wear to school. wear along one.” She protested, though continuing interrogation on the subject, “I never wore anything like that” except during her captivity and escape.
Ryan attacked from a different direction. “Did you, at any time prior to your kidnapping have any trouble with Miss Schaeffer?” (her secretary).
“No.”
“Did you ever state to Miss Schaeffer that you were going to discharge her?”
“No.”
“And she stated back to you in reply that you didn't dare discharge her; that the information and knowledge that she had would blow up the Temple, if she should —”
Mrs. McPherson interrupted indignantly, “Never, Miss Schaeffer is like one of our family.”
Getting nowhere on that line Ryan pressed, “Did you have any trouble with the ushers out there (at the Temple), “Mr. Bard, Saunders, Sexall, or any of those people?”
“| had alittle misunderstanding with some of the ushers, yes. Nothing of a serious nature; nothing; nothin ); more tha slic up with any pastor," she said. ‘yan held on. “Let me ask you this ion: question: Do you know of your own knowledge whether Mrs. Kennedy ari Mr. Saunders, one of the ushers, during this discussion?” The answer came, ‘Oh, I never heard of such a thing.” She dismissed as impossible Ryan's suggestion that perhaps these ushers “could plan to perpetrate anything,” presumably meaning the kidnapping. Mrs. McPherson volunteered that she thought they had fewer dissensions at Angelus Temple than “any church have ever been in.” Asa Keyes sought admission of disagreements in ae ee had been the relation between you 's. Kennedy just prior to yo: i pes pl your disappearance, Mrs. “Answer: The same as they always have love and confidence. sada a “Question: is she your mother? “Answer: Yes. “Isn't a fact — Well, won't put it that w: i ay. willask you the question. Is it a fact or is it not a fact that you and ie. iseapeds for some time before your disappearance had been aving a great many difficulties over financial matters in connection with the Temple? “Answer: Absolutely never: no difficulti weer, ‘no difficulties whatever, jet “Question: Well, we won't limit it to fina estion: Well, lances. Had been having difficulties over anything? “Answer: No Sir, absolutely not. Mother and more in love with each other. ial aici “Question: Than you were at the tim i Faecal e you disappeared? “Question: The night before you dis.; appeare: i had any quarrel out there — il alia “Answer: (Interposing) Oh, no. Question: (Continuing) — over matters of any kind?
“Answer: No Sir.
“Question: Never had any words or dispute.
“Answer: No indeed.
“Question: Or disagreements?
“Answer: No.
"Question: Were you in any financial difficulty at the time?
“Answer: None whatever. My Temple is out of debt and radio and pipe organ and all these things have been completely paid.”
Keyes next introduced the hotel rumors. “During the past year you have been in the habit, haven't you, Mrs. McPherson, of engaging suites of rooms around at different hotels on different occasions?” “Not suites, no,” the evangelist denied. “Rooms?” inquired the D.A.. “Quite frequently while building the Bible Institute the sound of the steel riveter and the pouring of the cement which filled the air with dust caused my mother and my secretary to insist that in order to study my sermons that get a quiet room, which have frequently done,” she explained. “We used to live in hotels for years while out preaching the gospel, as you know.” She identified, at Keyes’ request, hotels visited during the previous year as the Ambassador, the Rosslyn and the Alexandria. She had been to the Biltmore too, but not in the past year, so far as she could recall.
It is an incontrovertible fact that every time the evangelist engaged a hotel room throughout this period she signed the register with her. own name, Aimee Semple McPherson. Others connected by rumor with the case used aliases more often than not, but she never did.
Sister reiterated that her purpose in these hotel residencies was to find a place to pray, study, and rest, but particularly study. “At half-past seven our telephone rings insistently and our doorbell rings, and there are constant demands, and the grating of the concrete and concrete mixers and riveters,” she declared.
Keyes introduced Ormiston’s name to the hearing, eliciting information that the radio man had worked at the Temple for about two years or so before resigning. “Did you ever talk to his wife?” the prosecutor questioned. Sister offered a lengthy description of this aquaintance:
“I first met Mrs. Ormiston under peculiar circumstances; Mr. Ormiston had disappeared from our radio department, leaving us with no operator. came to go on the air, broadcasting my morning prayer service for the hospitals and recognized and found that they were dead, and so, of course, we began to inquire where he was, and got Mr. Hawkins, who is a friend of Mr. Ormiston’s and recommended him to go and hunt him, and he asked at home, so his wife came down telling us that they had had some quarrels, that they had quarreled frequently, and that he had left home and that she was going back to Australia, and brought a letter from Mr. Ormiston explaining their difficulties, et cetera. And soon after that Mr. Ormiston returned looking very bedraggled, and like he had been through a siege of sickness or something. We brought them both in our house, and she was quite determined to leave him, but we had prayer with them, told them the serious step they were taking and to by all means hold the home together, and finally they kissed and made up. That was how first met Mrs. Ormiston, and then she told me how lonely she was, her people were all across the sea, and that she thought that people slighted her, no one paid any attention to her because she was not a professing Christian. tried to do all that could to be a friend to her. She gave me little gifts even, little presents, and gave her little gifts. We had lunch together a couple of times, and a dish of ice cream. That would be about the size of our friend-ship.”
Mr. Keyes questioned, “Well, did she ever intimate to you, Mrs. McPherson, that the reason she was having domestic difficulties was that she was claiming — whether true or false — that Mr. Ormiston was too friendly with you?”
“No,” Mrs. McPherson insisted. “There is — you mean with her leaving home at that first time?” Keyes stipulated, “At any time.” The evangelist answered, “Oh, not at all. hardly had spoken to Mr. Ormiston, hardly knew him at that time.”
Further questioning brought another lengthy answer concerning contacts with the Ormistons:
“One evening wrote a letter to Mr. and Mrs. Ormiston stating how very careful always had to live at the Temple, never having even walked up the rampart with anyone except a couple of ladies, and Mrs. Ormiston had invited me out to their house for dinner; something very rarely do is to go to any of our parishioners, but had gone to this one little dinner which she had asked for so long, and after dinner Mr. and Mrs. Ormiston and myself, at their suggestion, had gone over to see a new radio station which Mr. Ormiston had installed at Warner Brothers, and went on later for a little dish of ice cream some-where near there at a little ice cream parlor, and someone had seen me, cannot move anywhere without someone recognizing me, and this had been commented upon, and heard three different things. ‘Well,’ someone said, ‘Sister McPherson has Mr. Ormiston on the platform with her.’ And had also heard Mr. (Gladwyn) Nichol’s name — he is the man who plays the cornet. My mother asked him to lead the singing quite a little bit. And someone says, ‘I saw Mrs. McPherson and a man and a girl out at this place,’ and was worried about it, because have prided myself perhaps as every woman does on my name and character and defied anyone to put their finger on anything in my life that would be the least shadow of doubt — pardon me on that — so wrote this letter, and explained how careful must be, and know that then Mrs. Ormiston, instead of laughing at it as would have, acted in a peculiar manner, and she said, ‘Well, you know my husband is kind of flighty — that was her term; she said, ‘He smiled at a girl who put cream in his coffee the other night.’ She thought he was a little that way, but just smiled it off and thought nothing more of the matter until tater something was said, but understand as to my being mentioned in any connection by Mrs. Ormiston, she denies that, and that must be a mistake, and have seen that on very, very good authority, and we have a letter very recently from Mrs. Ormiston, a very friendly letter thanking me for ail my interest and kindness.”
Eighteen pages later in the transcript of the grand jury testimony of Mrs. McPherson, Joe Ryan interrogated concerning Ormiston. "Did you receive,” he asked concerning the period the evangelist was in Europe and the Holy Lands, “any communication from Mr. Ormiston?” “Oh, no.” Ryan inquired, “Would you say that you did not call him on the 22nd day of November, 1925, at the Rossylyn Hotel?” He meant while Sister was staying there. She replied, “I have no recollection,” but conceded “it might be possible,” since she habitually carried a small radio with her wherever she went in order to monitor the radio station. “It might be sucha thing — cannot recall at the moment, but it might be if 10:30 came, and if there was nothing coming in (from K.F.S.G. over the air) — might have called up and asked why we were not on the air.”
Ryan returned to Ormiston a few minutes later, asking about $1500 allegedly wired to the radio man from “James Wallace” (the name of Sister’s tong dead half-brother) in Venice. Ormiston denied ever receiving this wire in Seattle whither it was sent. He himself and some woman had registered at the same hotel from which the money was wired as “Mr. and Mrs. James Wallace of Glendale” some weeks before the March 15 date of the telegram. Mrs. Wallace could not have been the evangelist, because she was overseas from mid-January to late April, and she could thus hardly have sent any telegraphic money order from Venice, California. But Ryan tried to connect her with that and other transactions, asking, “Did you send in any form or fashion or by any means any sum of money to Mr. Ormiston in Seattle or any other point north of Los Angeles?” Sister answered, iNo sir.” Ryan persisted, “Never, at any time?” She replied, To begin with, could not possibly get hold of money like that. received for spending money $25 a week.” She added that she also had “a little $500 bank account” which had been inactive for some time.
Ryan pressed incredulously, “You don't handle the finances?” to which she responded, “I don't handle the finances, no. If want any money they give it to me like a hild.”
: Ryan next queried about the alleged travels with H.D. Hollenbeck, the contractor of the Bible School building next to the Temple. Earlier testimony had established that Sister had ridden with Hollenbeck to meetings in California, but never traveled alone with him. Mrs. Hollenbeck, Mrs. Kennedy, or Miss Schaeffer always went along. “Now there are several people,” Ryan proceeded, "who say that they saw you — that is, Mrs. McPherson — across the line in Agua Prieta on Monday, June the 21st, in a car with a man who answered to the description of Mr. H.D. Hollenbeck. Is that true or not true, Mrs. McPherson?” She answered, ‘Untrue-
“Were you there by yourself?" Ryan questioned. The answer came, "No.” She reminded, “I have given a complete statement of my whereabouts.” Ryan elicited a denial also that Sister had been in Tucson at the time witnesses alleged they saw her there.;
One of the grand jurors, when opportunity afforded, wanted to know, “Mrs. McPherson, did you ever hear or have knowledge of one or two men being drowned in trying to find your body at Ocean Park?” “No, haven't,” the evangelist informed. That wasn't the answer the juror expected. Another query followed, “You know nothing about a deep sea diver being drowned or losing his life?” Mrs. McPherson recalled, “Someone said something to me,” then turned to the deputy district attorney and inquired, “Was it you, Mr. Ryan, at one time?" Ryan replied, “| started to ask you, and your mother looked at me, and didn’t ask you." The evangelist commented, “That is what is supposed to have occurred.” Sister responded, “! am very sorry if it is true.”
On that melancholy note the grand jury testimony of Mrs. McPherson ended. But sometime earlier the jury allowed her to make a somewhat lengthy statement which is material to the issues: 2
“| have tried to confine myself just to the questions, but have had it on my heart all day that would like to speak a word. didn’t know whether would have the privilege to speak again, and want to Say that realize that this story may sound strange to many of you, may be difficult for some of you to believe. It is difficult for me, sometimes, to believe; sometimes it seems that it must be just a dream. would to God that it was; that could wake up and pinch myself and know that it was not true. realize that, and whether that was a part of the plan of it all, want to say in my own behalf — want to Say if Character counts a little and if a person's past life Counts a little, then want you to look back. Our family has a family of ministers on both sides. My mother gave me to God before was born. My earliest training has been in Bibie and religious work. As a little child lined the chairs up and preached to them as early as five years of age, and gave my testimony. was con-verted at 17, married an evangelist, preached the gospel in my humble way. at home’ and then sailed for China, never expecting to come back to this land, but willing to give my life for Jesus. They buried my precious husband there. came back with my little baby in my arms, born a month after her father died.! took up the Lord's work again as soon as was able to go on. have had no great denominations back of me, but have been inspired only by my love for God and my love of the work, and of this precious Word, but began very humbly.
“Now, until this crushing thing that none of us can explain why even God would permit, although we cannot question like that — it would be wrong to do that — before that came was on the pinnacle of success as far as my work for God was concerned, but I have not always been there. began preaching to farmers, ranchers, under the trees to farmers in their blue overalls sitting on the grass and using the piazza as a mourner’s bench. From there, with the $60 that came in the collection, bought a little tent, a poor little tent very full of holes, and from that saved my money and bought a bigger one, and that has been the history.
“| have never put my money in oil wells or ranches or even clothes or luxuries. My great thought has been always — and this can be absolutely proven — for the service of the Lord and my dear people. am not saying this in any unkindness, but would rather never have been born than to have caused this blow to God's Word and to his work. had rather had never been born or have seen the light of day than that the name of Jesus Christ, whose name love, should be crucified and people would say, ‘There is Sister; she has been preaching, and if her story is wrong’ — that is the sad part to me, not only my children should go through life and people say, ‘See what her mother did,’ but the blow to my work is the greatest thing.
“The turn in my career came at the International Camp given at Philadelphia. could bring to you, believe, hundreds of thousands of letters and telu-grams over the route from friends in different cities, and during all those years no one has ever said that they saw me out with a man, nor never has my name been linked in any way with anyone like that. don’t believe that have told lies or cheated or done anything that people could put their finger on.
“| traveled for two years with a tent. drove my own stakes, patched the tent and tied the guy ropes almost like a man. And then came the time when we began to get bigger buildings and theatres and buildings costing sometimes as much as $100 a day in buildings where have preached to as many as 16,000 in a day.
“Then came the building of Angelus Temple. came here to a neighborhood that had no special buildings in it, got a piece of land and hired horses and scrapers and bossed the men myself and went Out to build the foundation myself with a little capital. told people my dream to preach the gospel as God had given it to me, and they came to me to help me, not here, but from other cities through the ‘Bridal Call,’ my magazine. have been here for years. have visited the jails. We have workers in the penitentiary. We have appeared at almost every bedside we could reach in the county hospital, and at the county farm we journey each week to gather the old folks and preach for them. We preach at the shops and factories to men at noon. We have never turned anyone away but give free food and clothes. And my life, feel, has been lived in a broad spotlight.
“Naturally, have preached a gospel which made some enmity. have gone unmercifully after the dope ring, gambling, liquor, tobacco, dancing, and made the statement that would rather see my children dead than in a public dance hall. have perhaps laid myself open to enmity in those lines about evils in the schools, et cetera, but in everything, have tried to live as a lady and as a Christian, and just want one more thought — it is so kind of you to grant me this Opportunity. It does mean so much. will feel happier for having said it. The thought is that one should doubt my story. Perhaps you are skeptical; don’t blame any-one, because it does sound absurd, but it did happen, ladies and gentlemen.
“Suppose one should doubt it; a trained investigator, it would seem to me, would need but look for a month, so would get by? As one said who was here at this moment, they couldn't think of any other reason than that might be insane. would not work with one hand for seventeen years, and just as saw my dearest dreams coming true, sweep it over, and not only that, but attempt to heal little babies in Christ who were too weak to stand.
“Motive? If were sick — someone said, ‘Maybe she went away to rest’ — but it was not that; had just passed an examination for life insurance a while ago and they said passed 100 percent.
“Amnesia? It could not be that. am willing to have my mind examined or any test that could be put on that.
“And as for falling in love, am in love with the work do.
“There might be a baser motive.! almost blush to mention it in the jury room, but some might think of it. They say the waters of the mind are like the waters of the sea, that cast up strange things, and that might be in trouble of some sort, and had to go away and come back. would like to say, although apologize for having to mention such a thing, that had a thorough examination upon coming home, although that was not necessary, as the history of my case for twelve years back would show that such a thing would be absolutely out of the question.”
Earlier Mrs. McPherson had given to Captain Herman Cline and others the name of the physicians who treated her after the birth of her son. But the abortion slander would not die until a newspaper confirmed her claims sometime later. Mrs. McPherson continued,
“Other motives, can think of none. Had gone away willingly, would not have come back. Publicity? don't need that. The Sunday before this happened to me my Temple was filled three times. Monday night it was filled. can think of no other motive. And pray — don't need to ask that you will give me'your most earnest consideration, and that you will pray about it on your knees, because it concerns the church and concerns Christ, and the eyes of the world are on a religious leader and upon this case, and people may come and say, 'l saw Mrs. McPherson here’; ‘I saw her in a dance hall there’; ‘| saw her in a saioon there.’ Just take a look at me; look at my children and my family. Of course, that is one thing: am powerless; my hands are tied. don’t fear the most rigid in-vestigation of my story, for my story is true. The only thing fear is — don't say a frame-up, but mistaken identities, people who might be up here or there who might think so-and-so, but don't think anything like that will be found to be true, and would like to have you call me and ask me. And do thank you for allowing me these few words.”
On Tuesday, July 13, Mother Kennedy testified before the same grand jury, interrogated, as was her daughter, by District Attorney Keyes and Deputy Ryan, the latter of whom was now openly hostile to the evangelist’s story, while his chief appeared only slightly less so.
Keyes attempted to wring from Mrs. Kennedy admissions of frictions between herself and her daughter, which when the mother emphatically denied the allegations, found the District Attorney subjecting the witness to virtual cross-examination. “Isn't a fact, Mrs. Kennedy, that you and Mrs. McPherson had many quarrels and quarreled shortly before the disappearance over money matters?” he demanded. Mother cooed sweetly, "I don't believe anybody could quarrel with Mrs. McPherson.” Keyes countered, “Well, don’t want to argue with you on that proposition, but wish you would please answer my question.” Mrs. Kennedy responded, “No, there was no quarrel over money matters, or anything else that know of.” About thirty pages later in the transcript this question surfaced again, as Mother was asked whether her relations with her daughter "have always been friendly.” She replied, “Absolutely. boss her around considerably and try to keep her from getting into trouble. {f she would listen to me she would not have gotten into this, because have already told her never to go with anybody unless she knew them very well.” To her dying day Mrs. McPherson retained that childlike trust in people according to which she always took them at their face value and accepted them as they represented themselves. This trust, which some called gullibility, was responsible for getting her into most of her subsequent troubles.
When the questisner asked whether Mrs. Kennedy believed her daughter was “really kidnapped” — a query which could only enforce upon the grand jurors the fact that the District Attorney did not -- Mother answered unequivocally, protesting her confidence in Sister's complete story. She also denied that there was a large mortgage on the Temple property and specifically repudiated the figure the District Attorney suggested, $85,000. As a matter of fact, Angelus Temple at that time was debt free, as it had been since its dedication on January 1, 1923.
Mrs. Kennedy replied to interrogation over the alleged Memorial Fund that there was no such project, that every penny of the money contributed and pledged at the Memorial Service the Sunday before Mrs. McPherson reappeared was designated for the Bible School. Keyes remained skeptical, persisting, “It was not to be used in paying for the memorial to Mrs. McPherson?” Mother answered, “Not a penny of it, nor no suggestion of that kind ever made.” Once a rumor gets started, it dies hard. Modern rehashes of the event keep the “monument’ fiction alive.
One of the grand jurors had a question about another current rumor, “At workers’ meetings shortly after the disappearance of Mrs. McPherson, did you not ask all the workers who did not believe Mrs. McPherson was in the ocean to lay aside their badges?” The form of the question solicited an affirmative, but Mrs. Kennedy decisively answered, “No,” to that question and the follow up which simply re-phrased it.
Mrs. Kennedy confirmed her daughter’s testimony concerning the reason for hotei registrations, adding some details. “We have had no home since Angelus Temple was built, so we have been sleeping in a building which was an administration building. Sister occupied one little room right now, and hearing all the building, hearing every telephone call, every ring at the door, as the walls are very thin, even speaking in an undertone, and we had planned to build for Sister, and had prepared to build on, but when we decided to have the Bible school we put that off, and we had arranged for Sister to spend whatever evenings she could — possibly Monday or Tuesday or whatever evenings she could — at what we considered the highest and best and safest hotels in the city, and when we sent her there we believed that she was in the best of care.”
Mr. Keyes asked, “You have a secret phone out to your place there, have you not?” to which Mrs. Kennedy replied, “No, don’t think so. We have a phone — an unlisted phone, but think everybody in town knows that number." Keyes continued, “What is the number? don’t know it?” Mother answered, “Dunkirk 1211.”
Did Mrs. McPherson carry any life insurance? Mrs. Kennedy confided that a policy had been in force some time earlier for three months, but had been allowed to lapse. Keyes pressed, “At the time of her disappearance she had no life insurance at all?” The witness answered, “Not a penny, and sure thank the Lord she didn't.” The policy which had lapsed had been taken out because of a planned airplane trip to a radio convention in San Francisco.
Mr. Keyes seemed incredulous that Mother could have truly believed her daughter had drowned and continued the way she did without collapsing. Mrs. Kennedy responded, “It was wonderful how kept up. could have gone to pieces right then, and had been alone would of (sic), but realized that the great thing in our lives had been that work and if Sister was gone she had been given to me by the Lord and in answer to prayer, and if she were gone it was simply that would have to tide over.” Keyes tried to shake Minnie's insistence that she had believed Sister was dead. Mrs. Kennedy remained steadfast, insisting, “My belief in her being dead was so strong that nothing would thoroughly convince me until heard her own voice over the phone.”
The D.A. suspected some shenanigans relative to the withdrawal of the reward, “shortly before her reappearance,” as he put it, although it was almost two weeks before that reappearance. Mrs. Kennedy admitted the reward had been withdrawn, but reminded Keyes, “That offer was made, as was stated in the press, not with the belief that it would bring any results, but believing that it would quickly quiet some of the many rumors that Mrs. McPherson had been seen here, there, and yonder.” Keyes pressed, “Why” was the offer withdrawn? Mother answered, “On the advice of Captain Cline.”
Throughout the long ordeal the record shows cooperation by the Temple with the authorities. Mother yielded to their entreaties about the reward, about furnishing questions to McKinley to pass on to Wilson and Miller, and about virtually every facet of the investigation, both before and after Sister's return.
A host of other witnesses followed Mrs. Kennedy in the hearing, most of whom appeared to attack the evangelist’s story. find no record of any witnesses from Douglas or Agua Prieta testifying. The Gonzales, who would have supported Mrs. McPherson's story, as they did later in the preliminary hearing, told Reverend Howard of Douglas that the reason for their avoidance of the grand jury hearing could be explained in one word, “Boubion"” — the Presidente or Mayor of Agua Prieta who was stating his disbelief in the evangelist’s story. Mrs. McPherson had charged, and the interpreter at their conference, William Appell, had confirmed, that Boubion solicited a bribe to back her account. Howard also passed on to the Temple his absolute certainty that Hollenbeck was definitely in the Douglas-Agua Prieta area on the dates a witness claimed he saw Mrs. McPherson there in Hollenbeck's company. This was bad news to the Temple, but later Hollenbeck proved absolutely that he could not have been there at the time, which took some of the wind out of the sails of C.C. Pape.
Pape had owned an auto agency in Tucson. He studied pictures of Mrs, McPherson and concluded that he had seen her with Hollenbeck at the International Cafe in Agua Prieta on the night of June 20, the Sunday before Mrs. McPherson's reappearance. The circumstance that Mrs. McPherson did not frequent nightclubs or saloons — indeed, would not be caught dead in one (and Hollenbeck felt the same way) — did not deter Pape's identification. In the grand jury room he pointed a finger at the evangelist and accused, “That is the woman.” The newspapers played up the identification big.
Hollenbeck denied the rendezvous before the grand jury. He submitted eventually to the District Attorney documentation which absolutely proved he could not have been at Agua Prieta any time near the date Pape put him there. Hollenbeck was able to list his whereabouts every single day of the period Mrs, McPherson was missing, and he spent all that time in California, as neighbors and associates confirmed. Hollenbeck thus refuted Pape, and if Pape was wrong about the man, he likely was wrong about the woman. Mrs. McPherson's lawyers located witnesses who alleged that Pape was drunk or nearly so at the time of the Agua Prieta “identification.” But, of course, they could not get such testimony before the grand jury. Neither could they get the testimony of Mrs. V.R. Umphrey before that panel. Mrs. Umphrey, whom investigation proved had no connection whatever with the Temple, submitted an affidavit insisting that she was the woman Pape had seen. However, there seemed to be some conflict of dates between her remembrance of the incident and Pape’s.
Perhaps the grand jury's action would have been different if Ike Levy's testimony had been scrutinized. Pape’s accusation did the evangelist irreparable damage before the panel, and she had no opportunity to cross-examine the auto dealer. No effort was made to shake his testimony. But on the 17th day of July, Ike Levy gave an affidavit which demolished completely Pape’s identification. It is significant, that Pape was not a witness at the preliminary hearing. Levy swore:
“Ike Levy, being first duly sworn, deposes and says that he is a resident of the City of Douglas, County of Cochise, State of Arizona, residing at the Gardanier Apartments in said city; that he is the manager of the International Cafe situated in Agua Prieta, Sonora, Mexico; that he was present in said cafe ail the afternoons and evenings of June 19th, 20th, and 21st, 1926; that as the manager of said cafe, it was his duty to, and he did, observe all of the patrons of said establishment; that on the 25th day of June, 1926, affiant made a special trip to the City Park, City of Douglas, as one of the persons who had been present in said cafe during the afternoon or evening of one of said days; that affiant knows of his own knowledge that at no time during said 19th, 20th, or 21st of June, 1926, was Mrs. Aimee Semple McPherson in the said International Cafe.
Levy swore the affidavit and signed it before Notary Public B.G. Thompson, whose seal appears on the document.
Meanwhile, Keyes and Ryan interrogated other purported “eyewitnesses” who claimed to have seen the evangelist at large during the period she professed she was in captivity. Police Captain and Mrs. Barnard of Culver City testified that they saw Mrs. McPherson in an automobile in Temple uniform, accompanied by another woman similarly attired, driving toward Los Angeles shortly after 3 p.m. on the day she disappeared. The grand jury did not hear witnesses who claimed to see her enter the surf some miles to the west half-an-hour or so after Barnard’s sighting, nor did the jury investigate where Sister, if it had been she, had secured the Temple uniform. Nor -did the grand jury hear available witnesses who swore by affidavits that when the evangelist left Angelus Temple she was wearing a white and yellow sports dress and carrying only bathing suit and cap and books, If the woman Barnard saw was Mrs. McPherson, Emma Schaeffer would have had to have been in on the alleged conspiracy. Since her simple temperament was such that she would have wilted under cross-examination if her story had not been the complete truth, we can absolutely eliminate the secretary of any complicity. But without her knowledge her employer could not have obtained a Temple uniform into which to change at the beach. And if the evangelist had been perpetrating an escapade, would she have dressed up in her typical costume? Moreover, who was the other woman in Temple uniform in the car Barnard said he saw?
The day after Barnard's testimony before the grand jury, Mrs. McPherson's attorneys turned over to the District Attorney's office an affidavit which, in their words, entirely explained the so-called appearance of Mrs. McPherson in an automobile passing through Culver City. Mrs. Alice A. Franck’s testimony, the lawyers proclaimed, “entirely blows up testimony before the grand jury by Captain Barnard and Mr. and Mrs. Vick in which they positively identified Mrs.
McPherson as the woman they saw in the car. Wooley, Hanner, and Veitch conceded that these witnesses “may have been entirely conscientious in their beliefs and intended harm to no one,” but added, “nevertheless, proof is proof.” Mrs. Franck insisted that the Barnards had seen her and Irene Hillsbrom in the car concerning which they had testified.
In 1926 admiration for Mrs. McPherson on the part of many women members of Angelus temple and students in the Bible College caused them to affect a resemblance to the evangelist. They adopted her hair style. When she changed, they changed. They dressed identically. And those of similar size and features often were mistaken for the evangelist — as indeed happened on the first day of the grand jury hearing when several identified others in her escort as Mrs. McPherson. On any given afternoon in 1926 there were on the streets of the Los Angeles area a dozen — sometimes cape which was the Foursquare uniform for ladies. Meanwhile, another alleged identification grew ripe for rebuttal. Joe Ryan told the grand jury that Dennis Collins, a mechanic at a garage in Salinas, California, had positively identified the evangelist as the woman who accompanied Kenneth Ormiston when he had his car worked on in that establishment. Ryan volunteered to bring Collins to Los Angeles to testify to the grand jury and to face the evangelist and identify her in person. The Deputy District Attorney claimed that Collins identified in his presence a photo of the evangelist as being the woman with Ormiston. But Ryan had gone off half-cocked. From Salinas came heated denials by Collins that he had made the identification. Ryan stuck by his guns and claimed that the mechanic had. Collins’ denials never got anywhere near the press coverage that Ryan's claim commanded, but the garageman noted on the backs of pictures of Mrs. McPherson subsequently that there was nothing about said pictures to make him believe Mrs.
McPherson was the woman with Ormiston. On one he stated Mrs. McPherson “does not resemble” that paramour. Collin asserted that Ormiston’s woman looked considerably younger than the evangelist.
At the time Mrs. McPherson had her radio station, and she used it to good effect to get her story to the public, commanding a listening audience at times estimated to exceed one million throughout the state of California. However, radio reports do not tend to survive as do printed media, and the Los Angeles newspapers when they reported her remarks often distorted them, as comparisons with the stenographic records of the evangelist's sermons and “platform bulletins” indicate. So she was at a disadvantage somewhat in getting her story across. And the press did not always report her statements and those of witnesses and attorneys championing her cause. As one reporter told her, “Aimee good? That's no news. Aimee bad? Wow!”
So the derogatory material got before the grand jury with no chance for rebuttal. The press featured it, while burying much which substantiated the evangelist's story. Some of the grand jury testimony never did reach the public, particularly that by the blind lawyer McKinley and his secretary Bernice Morris, McKinley told Mrs. Kennedy and Mrs. McPherson and their attorneys that he gave the panel the same story he gave the Temple authorities, but there is no way to check this out. At any rate, it is hardly any wonder that the grand jury, when time came to vote, declined to issue an indictment against the kidnappers. The bias of the interrogators in the matters aired to the public appears so blatant that it is no wonder the grand jury bought their skepticism. Then Ryan had the gall to profess, "The evidence was presented to the grand jury absolutely from an unbiased viewpoint.” This statement came from the man who had made up his mind that the evangelist was, as he put it later, “a fake and a hypocrite”! Ryan's bias was further betrayed by the continuation of his declaration, "The action of that body (the grand jury) explains fully the weight of the evidence in this case.”
But this brings up a question — which so far as know was not discussed with reference to the case. The question is, how does a person prove he was kidnapped? What more evidence could a victim give than did Mrs. McPherson? The kidnappers could give themselves up, but that doesn't happen. The kidnappers could leave a trail which could lead to apprehension, but their goal would be to cover that trail. The authorities could capture the kidnappers, but no effort was ever made in that direction beyond a couple of weak feints out into the desert by the authorities of Los Angeles. No kidnappers would ever be arrested if the officers treated the stories of alleged victims in the manner they treated Mrs. McPherson's. How many investigations would get off the ground if the police told a complainant, “We don't believe that you were kidnapped. But if you prove that you really were, why then we'll look for the kidnappers”? There wouldn't even be any indictments!
So the fact that the grand jury did not indict any kidnappers affords no weight against the truth of Mrs. McPherson's story. Why didn't the grand jury indict? The District Attorney and his Deputy blatantly paraded their skepticism before the grand jury. No one can study the transcript of testimony without discerning their prejudice. Keyes and Ryan conducted most of the questioning, and absolutely they expended more effort to break down the evangelist’s story than to indict kidnappers. When Attorney Gilbert heard the transcript for the first time he rebuked the District Attorney's office vehemently, “You were not looking for any kidnappers; you were trying to get testimony before the grand jury to base this complaint upon” — the complaint being the conspiracy charge against Sister and Mother. So irrefutable was the accusation that the District Attorney and his deputies did not even protest a denial of the charge at the time Gilbert made it in their presence in the preliminary hearing in Los Angeles’ Municipal Court on October 1, 1926!
Sister's attorneys issued a statement also rebuking the authorities after the grand jury took no action against the kidnappers. “California, Arizona, and Mexico have been searched, not for the criminals, but for evidence against the evangelist. And after the combing, there is no such evidence. Mrs. McPherson's story, related time and again to officials and others, remains as firm and unshaken as the first time it was told.”
But why would the authorities take such pains to discredit Aimee Semple McPherson? Could it have been her exposés of the underworld which was enjoying official “protection” in Los Angeles at the time? A few days before the grand jury vote, Ethel Coe stenographically recorded a statement by a Mrs. Jay who claimed she tried to lay a trap for crooked officials after her husband had been arrested for having three quarts of liquor in his possession. In two court trials which ensued, Joe Ryan, though prosecutor, did his best to get the defendants acquitted, Mrs. Jay charged. Her affidavit fills almost three legal size sheets of paper, double-spaced. If true, it is a sordid story implicating Ryan and Cline, and possibly even Keyes, in a protection racket.
Mrs. Jay alleged, “Captain Cline's sweetheart, Sadie Stager, runs a bootlegging joint in San Pedro. Two months ago she ran her place at 370 14th Street, San Pedro. Cline has kept company with her for years and she has told me many times that she was his sweetheart. She said that when Captain Cline makes enough money out of the Police Department they were going to Europe for a trip. She resides at the present time at 2644 Carolina St., San Pedro. Sadie Stager was so angry because we were getting the goods on Captain Cline that one day when my husband came out of the Hall of Justice she hit him in the ear with a piece of rock, cursed him and called him terrible names. She had previously bragged that she could do anything she pleased. We took this evidence to Prosecuting Officers and Judge Hann wouldn't do anything about it, proving that what she said was true. told him so in the presence of four people that were with me.”
Of course, the reluctance of the authorities to follow up that complaint does not necessarily prove Sadie Stager's immunity or official protection. However, a subsequent event confirmed dramatically that Captain Cline was not averse to violating the Eighteenth Amendment. On Sunday, August 22, 1926 the Los Angeles detective was jailed for drunk driving in the suburb of Azusa. Cline had bumped with his police cara vehicle in front of him, inflicting slight damage. The policeman who investigated the accident arrested Cline. A sobriety test indicated he was drunk. He denied the drunkenness but admitted to having some drinks. He was suspended from duty as Captain of Detectives, thus ending all connection with investigation of the McPherson case. In future years his name made news over two more auto mishaps, when he crashed into a cafe and into a railroad sign.
Public discussion of the kidnapping case surged constantly, fed not only by reporters’ dispatches but by letters to the press like that from a lawyer who claimed — whether sincerely or tongue-in-cheek is hard to discern — “| am satisfied can prove from the oral testimony of the past few weeks that the city editors of the leading dailies combined and kidnapped Mrs. McPherson and staged her comeback so as to make copy.” The case kept making copy. And the Reverend Bob Shuler found the case a bonanza for filling his Trinity Methodist Episcopal Church downtown. “Fighting Bob,” who for-decades ranted and raved against evils real and imagined in the Southland, attacked the evangelist unmercifully and chided the public officials over their “leniency” toward her. He conducted city-wide mass meetings aimed at discrediting Mrs. McPherson. Shuler would some years later lose the radio station he operated. The Federal Radio Commission canceled his license because of the vitriolic attacks he launched over the air against certain persons, like the evangelist. However, in time
Bob Shuler evidently came to accept Sister's story of her ordeal as the truth, for by the middle 1930's he was cultivating her friendship, while pursuing in other directions his stormy ways. After he retired from Trinity church he even preached at Angelus Temple! But that was following Mrs. McPherson's death. Too bad his change of heart didn't happen before he published his denunciatory diatribe, “McPhersonism,” a book which attacked the evangelist not only over the kidnapping but over her doctrines.
One of the circumstances latched onto by individuals seeking to discredit Mrs. McPherson was the publicity concerning the “Dr. Merton” telegram received by Mother Kennedy a few days after her daughter's disappearance. This matter occupied the grand jury's attention to a considerable extent, especially when a handwriting expert working for the police testified that it had been scrawled by Kenneth G. Ormiston. Milton Carlson's testimony, however, was contradicted materially by a statement by Leslie Bland, the Oakland messenger boy with whom the sender filed the wire. The Los Angeles Evening Herald of July 15 did indeed report that Bland had identified the sender, according to Ryan, “positively” as Ormiston, but the next day's issue carried somewhat of a retraction, reporting that Bland had described the sender of the telegram as “fat and round-faced.” The Herald added, “Ormiston is slender and thin-faced.” Actually the handwriting on the telegraph blank was so scribbled that experts could not make out the signature. Was it Dr. Merton? or Dr. Murten? or, as someone suggested, Ormiston? But why would Ormiston, if implicated in Sister's disappearance, wire her mother, “Daughter O.K."? Wouldn't the drowning theory offer a welcome cover, if it had been an escapade? And why would Ormiston sign his name to sucha wire, then show up in Los Angeles to tell police that he knew nothing about the disappearance? The only rhyme and reason for such bizarre conduct would be that Ormiston was in cahoots with the kidnappers, an opinon some of Mrs.
McPherson's attorneys entertained.
If skepticism concerning Sister bubbled in Los Angeles, the eruption did not reach Douglas, Arizona. The leading citizens of that town, headed by Mayor A.E. Hinton, dispatched to Mrs. McPherson a testimonial supporting her story. The document reads:
“We the undersigned residents of Douglas, Arizona, who have been greatly interested in the mass of charges and countercharges regarding the truth of Mrs. Aimee Semple McPherson's story with regard to her abduction and subsequent reappearance in Douglas, believe:
“That the statements of Mrs. McPherson with regard to her reappearance here, after an escape from her abductors and her consequent walk into Agua Prieta, Sonora, Mexico, as a consequence of her being forced to flee on foot, are true; 80 far as we have been able to ascertain.
“That there has been no iota of proof adduced here that would in any way tend to disprove any of the Statements made by Mrs. McPherson regarding her reappearance, and that as citizens of Douglas, in which city she appeared, and interested in righteousness and truth, we again affirm our belief in the statements she has made.”
Lately Thomas cynically suspects that the tourist boom Douglas was enjoying as a result of exposure to nationwide publicity may have prompted that testimonial. But Douglas couldn't lose — in that respect — no matter whether the reappearance was genuine or not. Throughout the long ordeal Douglas, almost to a man, stood staunchly by the evangelist, and she never forgot to be grateful for the support.