At this time of the year, anyone can wear an outlandish mask. You can also carry a huge ax, or a machete, or wear gloves with knives for fingers, and no one will bat an eyelid. People will throw open their doors and hand candy to beasts and maniacs that, at any other time, would send them screaming.
Literary monsters like Dracula, Frankenstein and the Wolf Man have been superseded by modern fictional killers like Michael Myers, Freddie Krueger and the stabbers from “Scream,” but since you can wear a mask and carry a weapon, doesn’t Halloween seem the ideal time to commit murder?
A look in the Los Angeles newspaper archives reveal some notable Halloween cases, two of which saw a very ancient monster – jealousy – come knocking on October 31st.
This was the Los Angeles Times headline on April 26, 1969, reporting that three car salesmen had been arrested on suspicion of murdering 32-year-old Kenneth A. Lindstrand at a Halloween party in Van Nuys a couple of years earlier.
Nearly 100 witnesses saw the shooting, and Lindstrand had been easy to remember, as he was one of only a few people not in costume. He arrived just after 1am, danced with some female guests, and then went outside with another non-costumed man who arrived soon after he had.
Lindstrand was then chased back into the party by this man, who opened fire. Initially the guests thought it was a Halloween prank, and a woman dressed in a hula skirt began to dance over Lindstrand’s body saying “This will wake him up!” until she saw the blood and shouted “This is no gag, he’s hurt!”
Police did not say why they arrested three men for the killing, but it may have been linked to the discovery that Lindstrand, a directory publisher, had over $100,000 in safety deposit boxes. In the end Jack Gentry Stearns, 35, was sentenced to life in prison for the crime; he had apparently objected to Lindstrand dancing with his 22-year-old wife, Maria.
Around 9pm on Halloween night 1974, Mrs. Low, 71, answered the door of her Chinatown home to “trick or treaters” – one of them wearing the Wolf Man mask, another Frankenstein – when they all pointed guns at her and forced their way into the house. When nearly-blind 81-year-old Pok Suey Low came out from the bedroom, one of them shot him in the chest.
The killers fled empty-handed, leaving behind their masks – with fingerprints – and a large bag of candy and chocolates, which seemed to indicate they really had been trick-or-treating earlier that evening. The 5’1″ Mrs. Low, who spoke no English, told police via her daughter Lucille that the invaders were shorter than she was, but because of the masks, she couldn’t describe their faces.
The police reasoned they were teenagers, maybe even younger, and for months they had no luck tracking them down until February the next year, when two 15-year-olds were arrested along with Stephen Wai Chung Ho, 20.
The trio had kidnapped, robbed and beaten a 20-year-old man named Chan Wing Wong, and then driven him out to San Bernadino, telling him they were going to bury his body in Cajon Pass. Wong had managed to untie his hands, and, dodging flying bullets, ran through the forest for several hours before reaching the highway and raising the alarm. Once in custody, one of the teenagers confessed he and his friend were behind Low’s murder.
Perhaps the most sensational Halloween case in the LA archives happened in 1957, and it was another “trick or treat” murder in which beauty salon owner Peter Fabiano, 35, answered the door of his Sun Valley home to someone in blue jeans, a khaki jacket, red gloves and a mask.
Peter grabbed a bowl of candy, and his wife Betty heard him say “It’s a little late for this isn’t it?”, before a shot rang out.
Robbery didn’t seem to be the motive, and police struggled to find the “gang land-style” shooter of Fabiano, suspecting it might be connection to his prison time on a bookmaking charge a decade earlier. It was a number of months later, in March 1958, when the killers were caught, and they were a very unexpected duo.
43-year-old medical clerk Goldyne Pizer and 40-year-old photographer Joan Rabel both pleaded guilty to second-degree murder, though it was Pizer who bought the .38 revolver and pulled the trigger, firing from inside a paper bag.
Goldyne hid the gun in a department store locker, but an anonymous tip led detectives to the weapon, and when she was arrested, told police “It’s a relief to get it off my mind.”
Goldyne told the jury she had been befriended and then “dominated” by Rabel, who persuaded her to hate Fabiano, who she called a “vile, evil man, a man who wanted to destroy all people around him.” Over several months they had taken joint trips to his salon so that Pizer knew what he looked like, and she seemed little more than the patsy in a diabolical scheme.
Rabel, a former employee at the salon, had let Betty stay with her when she and Peter were having marital problems. The Los Angeles Times described Rabel and Betty’s relationship as “abnormal” – a code for lesbian/gay – and Peter had insisted Betty break off the affair before they could be reconciled, something that enraged Rabel.
Pizer, a closeted gay woman who had recently been divorced from her husband, was easy for the jealous Rabel to twist to her will. Rabel hoped she could be with Betty forever once Peter was out of the way, and right after the murder told Pizer: “Forget you ever knew me.”
The two women were examined by psychiatrists, as the court believed that homosexuality may have made them unfit to stand trial – and Goldyne did indeed chose to plead guilty by reason of insanity. It did no good, as they were both sentenced to five years to life in prison.
Happy Halloween!
