Today’s Quite Balmy Yet Truly Morbid Fact!
Middle-aged married couple Walter and Marie Parrish drank and argued frequently. Walter worked as a bill collector, not a job for the meek and timid, while the forty-seven-year-old Marie idled her time as a housewife. They lived in the back cottage at 1624 37th Street in Sacramento, a decade before the neighborhood became an extremely desired place to live with quaint stucco homes, little front lawns, and streets lined with mature Sycamores and Live Oaks. Two other cabins sat on the lot back in 1942. Landlord and retired railroader Frank Decora Lore lived in one, and renter Josephine Zetz occupied the other.
July 29, 1942 was a cool 89 degrees, quite balmy for summertime in Sacramento where the summer temperature is often over one hundred degrees. Walter and Marie sat around at Frank’s cabin, swilling alcohol. Walter and Marie started arguing and Walter drove off in a huff, loudly exclaiming he wanted a divorce.
If Walter had cooled off after he departed, all his anger came back like a freight train when he arrived home around 11 p.m. and discovered Marie and her seventy-six-year-old landlord having sex. Walter beat up the elderly Lore, then forced him to sign a note admitting to the immoral act with Mrs. Parrish and absolving Walter of blame for striking him. He had Marie sign the affidavit also.
The next day Zetz stumbled upon Lore’s bruised body when she brought him his mail in the late afternoon. Walter and Marie were immediately arrested and interrogated. Walter admitted he had struck Lore once when he first found him having sex with Marie and showed the detectives the affidavit. Marie, who had two black eyes, was held as a material witness.
Bruised Marie
The detectives and medical examiner had a different opinion on what had happened that night. Lore had been severely beaten. He had two teeth knocked out, bruised cheeks, a bruise behind his left ear, and two black eyes that matched Marie’s. Police found a tire iron inside Parrish’s cottage that matched the abrasion behind Lore’s ear. Parrish was, after all, a debt collector and in the 1940’s the occupation eschewed many legal guidelines for collecting money.
Walter Parrish after his arrest
At his trial Parrish gestured wildly as he spoke from the witness stand. He told the court he found Lore in bed with his wife and claimed to have punched him only once. Deputy District Attorney Robert Holsten submitted the medical evidence that Lore had died from a cerebral hemorrhage caused by the beating Parrish inflicted. The trial ended in three days with a guilty verdict of manslaughter and the judge sentenced Walter Parrish to one to ten years at San Quentin prison.
A few days after the sentencing, Walter Parrish received a notice to report to his draft board. He was excused from service.
Culled from: Forgotten Sacramento Murders 1940-1976
I was able to find Walter’s San Quentin records on Ancestry. Looks like he was released on January 6, 1945 after serving a little over two years. He and Marie stayed together and moved to Yuba City where he died in 1970. Marie outlived him but I couldn’t find her death record.
Garretdom: Racism
Old newspapers are fascinating for a number of reasons, one of which is their appalling unapologetic racism. Here’s an example from the June 19, 1869 issue of the Chatfield Democrat in Minnesota:
Rape.—The St. Paul papers give the particulars of a rape case that took place in the suburbs of that city a few days ago. The victim was a Sweed [sic] woman who had but recently arrived in St. Paul, and the fiend a nigger by the name of Combs, about 20 years of age. The nigger was arrested and is now in jail awaiting his trial. If the laws of Missouri were in force in this State, a material change in the physical proportions of this Mr. Nig would be the result of his conviction. We hope the Sweeds of this State who are sweet upon the nigger, will please make a note of this transaction. This is the second outrage of the kind that has been committed upon Sweed women by niggers during the past year in Minnesota.
Culled from: Coffee Made Her Insane