Erased: Missing Women, Murdered Wives (11 page)

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pregnant, married her in total secrecy, forced her to have an abortion

through a doctor he knew, then poisoned her with morphine, killing

her after he had started an affair with another young woman.

He also researched the case of one Reverend Richeson, a young

Baptist minister in Massachusetts and a graduate of the prestigious

Newton Theological Seminary, who was involved in a scandalous

crime just a few years after the Gillette case. Rev. Richeson had a

lengthy relationship with a beautiful seventeen-year-old girl named

Avis Linnell, the daughter of one of his parishioners.

The girl was attending a local teachers college, but as her feelings

for Richeson deepened, she decided to apply to the New England

Conservatory of Music to be closer to him and to advance her musical

training as a talented young soprano. Richeson proposed marriage

to her and gave her an engagement ring. But before the date of the

planned marriage, Avis told the preacher that she was pregnant with

his child. Richeson responded by telling her that he had found a new

woman—a wealthy heiress—with whom he was in love and whom

he planned to marry instead of her.

Shortly thereafter, Avis was found dead under circumstances that

initially led investigators to believe she had killed herself. An autopsy,

however, revealed that she had been poisoned with cyanide, and con-firmed that she was pregnant. Richeson might still have gotten away

with murder by claiming that the young woman had simply poisoned

herself. It was only the intervention of a local crusading newspaper

that assigned investigative reporters to the story—reporters who

actually found the druggist who had sold a vial of potassium cyanide

to the good reverend—that pushed the local police to turn a closed

suicide case into an open homicide investigation and led eventually

to Richeson’s trial and execution for murder.

Each of the cases Dreiser studied were murders committed by men

who meticulously planned their killings, men who were not driven

by any immediate rage or argument, men who showed absolutely

no signs of remorse or basic human compassion. From all we can

learn about them at this distance, these murderers showed the same

Dark Triad characteristics we see in today’s eraser killers. Each of

these men demonstrated Machiavellianism in their ability to plan and

manipulate their way toward a goal; psychopathy in their inability

to accept responsibility for the consequences of their actions and

in their utter callousness toward their victims both before and after

the crime; and narcissism in their relentless need to ensnare those

The Real American Tragedy

6 3

who could feed their toxic self-love and to destroy those who would

threaten their inevitably fragile self-image.

The love triangle Dreiser invented for
An American Tragedy
was

even more pronounced in the Hollywood film version released in

1951.
A Place in the Sun
starred Montgomery Clift as the sympathetic

but troubled Clyde/Chester and a highly unsympathetic Shelley

Winters as a shrill, cloying Roberta/Grace. But it was Elizabeth Taylor,

considered the world’s most beautiful woman at that time, who played

the pivotal role in the film as the rich girl–other woman—offering

an easily understood motive that simply did not exist in the real

murder case. Astonishingly, the movie was marketed as a modern

romance: ‘‘A love story of today’s youth . . . filling the screen with

ecstasy!’’ promised the promotional poster touting the film’s release.

Q

The trial of the real Chester Gillette drew a thousand spectators a

day to the unusually large courtroom in which it was held. Essentially

penniless, Gillette was appointed two very able defense lawyers,

one of whom had been a state senator. Defense attorney Charles

Thomas insisted that Gillette was guilty of nothing more than moral

cowardice, of running away after a rash and tragic suicide because he

was young and immature, just a ‘‘boy’’ at the time Grace died.

‘‘If you strip this case of its sentimental features and the excessive

imagination of the district attorney, you will find little in it that

would lead any reasonable man to believe that the charge is true,’’

said Thomas. Even an unwanted pregnancy was not motive for

murder, the defense argued. Gillette could have simply left town,

abandoning Grace and her baby.

George Ward, the district attorney, laid out all the evidence of

premeditation and of cover-up and flight after the crime, and the

efforts Chester took to disguise his identity while with Grace and to

disassociate himself from her afterwards. The prosecutor argued that

Gillette killed Grace Brown to ‘‘seal that girl’s lips’’ before she could

reveal her delicate condition, ruining any chance he had to pursue

the more glamorous lifestyle he so coveted.

As in the Peterson case, an important piece of physical evidence

was some of the victim’s hair, which Ward argued became entangled

in one of the boat’s oarlocks as Chester threw her body overboard.

In another parallel with the trial of Scott Peterson, the jurors were

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asked to asses the stability of the boat in question, as a key issue at

hand in both cases was whether or not the boat was likely to remain

upright in the water, as the prosecution claimed, or could be easily

tipped over, as the defense claimed.

And like that of Scott Peterson, Gillette’s demeanor—his apparent

lack of empathy toward his victim’s suffering—was an issue in the

courtroom. Throughout the proceedings he showed little emotion,

even when the letters Grace wrote to him, in which she poured her

heart out over her anguished dilemma, were read into the record.

The only dry eyes in the house during the reading of those letters,

reporters noted, were Gillette’s own.

The most damning testimony, however, was the medical finding

that Grace suffered a blow to the head powerful enough to induce

unconsciousness. The blow was so severe that if she had survived, she

probably would have been rendered blind— evidence not consistent

with Gillette’s claim that Grace had voluntarily jumped into the lake.

The defense was left to make the feeble argument that perhaps Grace

hit her head on the boat as she leapt overboard, or that the wound

was caused postmortem as her body was hauled from the lake down

rutted roads.

The jury did not buy that or any other of the accused man’s argu-ments. On December 4, 1906, after just five hours of deliberation, they

found Chester Gillette guilty of first-degree murder. Just after Christ-mas, the judge sentenced him to be executed in the electric chair.

A key issue in the trial and the subsequent appeals in the Gillette

case was the claim that the case against the defendant was almost

entirely circumstantial, but the appeals court reiterated a legal prece-dent that was well established even then. They cited an appellate

decision reached just a few years earlier in a different homicide case

based on circumstantial evidence, in which the New York court ruled

that ‘‘a defendant indicted for a homicide may be found guilty on

evidence which is wholly circumstantial, and where it appears on a

review of such evidence, that the uncontradicted and unexplained

facts and circumstances proved on the trial . . . form so complete and

strong a chain of evidence as to exclude, beyond a reasonable doubt,

every hypothesis save that of a defendant’s guilt.’’

Although the appellate court upheld the verdict and Gillette was

executed, there are still many people today who rise to his defense,

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6 5

who insist he never planned to kill his pregnant paramour. Craig

Brandon, the author of the most popular nonfiction book on the

Gillette case, has stated his personal belief that Gillette really was

just planning to take Grace Brown to some kind of home for unwed

mothers in upstate New York, where he could leave her in the care

of others, even though there is not a single piece of evidence that

supports such a theory, including Gillette’s own testimony.

P A R T

T W O

Getting Away with

Murder

C H A P T E R

F O U R

The Lady-Killer

Q Eraserkillersplaytheodds.Theybankonthewidely

held belief that when there is no body, they cannot be held responsible

for their crimes. To prove beyond a reasonable doubt that someone

committed murder, there must be sufficient evidence to establish

what is known as the corpus delicti of the crime. That has nothing to

do with the corpse per se, but more figuratively means the body of

the crime—in simplest terms proving that someone is dead and that

the person died by criminal means at the hands of the accused.

Surmounting this burden can be exceedingly difficult in murder

cases where there is no body at all, or, as in the Peterson case, when

discovery of the body is so delayed that the cause of death cannot

be determined, because all the important questions—the who, what,

when, where, how, and why of the crime—can be answered only by

inferences.

However, the Scott Peterson case was no milestone in the history

of conviction purely by circumstantial evidence, no shocking aberra-tion in the standard of proof required for finding someone guilty of

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murder—contrary to the way it was portrayed by many media and

legal pundits. Clear and unequivocal legal precedent was established

half a century earlier in a California case as sensational in its day as

the Peterson case would become, a murder mystery full of shocking

twists and turns that involved another scheming charmer who just

happened to be named Scott, and a missing wife who to this day has

never been found.

L. Ewing Scott traveled not among the rugged farm folk of

California’s Central Valley like Scott Peterson, but in the highest

social circles of Bel Air, one of Los Angeles’s most exclusive enclaves.

He called himself an investment broker but earned no income of

his own; he didn’t need to, because he had his wife’s money to

spend. In 1949, at age fifty-three, Scott had married Evelyn Throsby,

a wealthy widow four years his senior, who had accumulated close to

a $1 million fortune through four previous marriages and her own

savvy investment skills.

Ewing Scott’s father was a failed wildcatter who drank away his

misfortune. Worried how this might affect Ewing, his mother sent

him away at a young age to live with a series of relatives. He would

later tell police that he had gone to college, but the school he named

had no record of his ever having attended. It was one of many aspects

of his life that he would fabricate and mold to get what he wanted

without having to earn it.

As a young man, he first found work as a bookkeeper at a

brokerage, but worked his way up to salesman by carefully studying

and copying the dress, manner, and speaking style of the firm’s

investment counselors. He practiced reading aloud to himself in

front of a mirror and memorizing information on a wide variety of

topics so as to sound cultivated, educated, and worldly—all things

he was not.

Whereas Scott Peterson joked about putting the motto ‘‘Horny

Bastard’’ on his business cards, Ewing Scott posted a quotation over

his desk that served as an Iago-like credo for his Machiavellian view

of the world: ‘‘Never be associated with failure. Never defend the

weak, even when he is right.’’

Ewing Scott is a case study in narcissistic entitlement. He tried to

use his contacts from the brokerage to go into business for himself,

but failed to consummate a single transaction. Instead, he found

another way to live well: marrying an heiress to a mining fortune.

When that marriage ended, he lived for a while off his substantial

The Lady-Killer

7 1

divorce settlement, then worked briefly for the government during

World War II. The job was nothing more than a clerk’s position,

but he told everyone he was actually a spy involved in negotiations

with foreign allies. After the war, Ewing tried his hand at a series of

ill-fated ventures—most of them out-and-out cons, such as selling a

phony hair-growth tonic for men.

As would be true of so many future eraser killers, lying, conning

others, and living a double life—the signatures of psychopathy,

narcissism, and Machiavellianism—came easily to him.

He considered himself such a ladies’ man that he self-published

a book titled
How to Fascinate Men
— basically a manual outlining

the same approach he used to snag wealthy women, recast for the

opposite sex—but was sued when he failed to pay the cost of the

ten thousand copies he had printed. By the time he set his sights

on Evelyn Throsby, he was nearly broke, but no one in Evelyn’s

circle was aware of his dire straits. He was a handsome, attentive,

well-mannered bon vivant, a seemingly successful man of the world.

They married after a whirlwind courtship.

The new Mrs. Scott would have preferred to remain in her more

modest Pasadena home, but Ewing insisted they move to a much

more expensive house in Bel Air, which not only satisfied his craving

for status but also served to isolate his wife from her friends. To

pull off the plan he had in mind, to make it seem plausible that

his wife would disappear of her own volition, he needed to isolate

her from those who knew her best. He even made his wife fire her

longtime live-in maid after she overheard a violent incident between

the couple.

Ewing pressured his wife to relinquish control of her finances,

claiming he knew more than her about handling investments because

of his ‘‘illustrious’’ background. Evelyn resisted, but eventually gave

in. She had lost two husbands to divorce, two to illness. Perhaps she

was desperate to hang on to what she may have considered her final

chance at love. She likely also feared displeasing a man with a temper.

Scott began priming the waters for his wife’s soon-to-occur dis-appearance by telling their friends that he didn’t trust the American

stock market, that he feared a nuclear attack on the United States,

and that after converting his wife’s assets to cash they planned to

relocate overseas. He also began planting rumors among their circle,

hinting that his wife was unwell physically and mentally. Evelyn told

her worried friends just the opposite. Although she had occasional

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