Room 1219: Fatty Arbuckle, the Mysterious Death of Virginia Rappe, and the Scandal That Changed Hollywood (42 page)

Even odder than the subplot of Minnie Neighbors is the one centered on Irene Morgan, who testified to Rappe’s frequent fits of agony and proclivity for public stripping. The state had attempted to impeach her
by proving she lied under oath when she claimed to have served as a Canadian military nurse in World War I. After she was recalled to the stand and grilled by the prosecution, U’Ren promised to further investigate with the threat that she faced a potential perjury charge. “If there is a case against Miss Morgan and it is no stronger than their case against Mrs. Neighbors, then they are welcome to go ahead,” McNab quipped.

During closing statements, Cohen would break the shocking news that Morgan had been poisoned by “a tall, gray-haired official-looking man” she claimed to have seen in the courtroom the day before and who subsequently hounded her at a dance hall. Incredibly, she had agreed to walk about the city with him, and during that time he gave her two pieces of candy. After she ate them, she grew dizzy, and the man allegedly said, “Go to hell. You’re done for. You’ve made others suffer; now suffer yourself.” She was found unconscious in her hotel room, and the hotel physician deduced she had been poisoned with opiates. It all seemed ludicrous and suspiciously timed to avoid a perjury charge. In his closing statement, McNab would call her “a heroine, wounded in battle.” Brady promised, facetiously, the entire police force would be enlisted to find the perpetrator of the alleged crime. The poisoning of Irene Morgan remains unsolved. Moral of the story: don’t take candy from strangers.

“At the expiration of thirteen days, it devolves upon the people to present facts against Arbuckle. We are here to try Roscoe Arbuckle—not Roscoe Arbuckle the comedian, not Roscoe Arbuckle the hero of a thousand laughs, nor Roscoe Arbuckle the nationally known figure, but Roscoe Arbuckle the man.” So began the state’s closing argument, as delivered by Leo Friedman. He contrasted the story of what occurred in the twelfth-floor suite as told by prosecution witnesses—especially Prevost, who saw Arbuckle follow Rappe into 1219 and Delmont kicking at the door—with the benign story told by Arbuckle. He explained that none of the physicians who testified had ever seen a case in which injuries similar to Rappe’s developed without the application of external force. He pointed to the physical evidence: Rappe’s bruises and, most especially, Arbuckle’s
fingerprints over Rappe’s on the door (“That fact alone is sufficient to say Arbuckle is guilty”). He challenged the veracity of defense witnesses.

Friedman laid out the state’s version of what caused Rappe’s bladder to rupture. He contended that Arbuckle followed Rappe into 1219, closed and locked the door. Rappe was standing near the bathroom. She tried to get away from him, rushing to the door that led to the hallway. He pulled her away from that door and threw her on the double bed. He then threw himself on top of her, intending to sexually assault her, but when his body met hers, her distended bladder ruptured and she passed out (the result of a sudden loss of blood pressure initiated by her bladder rupture). He then successfully revived her.

Friedman also ridiculed various theories put forward by the defense: “The theory that the rupture may have been caused by dipping the girl in a tub of cold water, a defense theory until Dr. [Franklin] Shields pulled the plug and let that theory go into the sewer. The theory that the rupture may have been caused by vomiting. Where in this entire case, other than the defendant’s testimony, has been shown evidence that Miss Rappe was vomiting? The theory that falling off a bed may have caused it, contained only in the defendant’s story. A theory here and a theory there with the evident purpose of confusing the minds of the jurors. Fact by fact has been brought here to refute all these theories.”

Growing animated, Friedman lambasted Arbuckle, who was gazing downward, sometimes fidgeting with his tie. Seated behind her husband, Durfee held a small bouquet of violets in one hand and smelling salts in the other, and as the
Los Angeles Times
noted, “She alternated their journeys between her lap and her nostrils.” Asked Friedman, “The big, kind-hearted comedian who has made the whole world laugh—did he say, ‘Get a doctor for the suffering girl’? No. He said, ‘Shut up, or I’ll throw you out the window.’ He was not content to stop at throwing her out the window. He attempted to make sport with her body by placing ice on her. This man then and there proved himself guilty of this offense. That act shows to you the mental makeup of Roscoe Arbuckle…. I say there was a struggle in 1219. Roscoe Arbuckle tried and succeeded in keeping her there. I leave it to you what was the purpose of his attack upon her.
The rupture that caused her death was caused by no other manner than by the assault Roscoe Arbuckle made upon her!”

Gavin McNab began the defense’s closing by bolstering their allegedly poisoned witness Irene Morgan—then supposedly clinging to life—against the state’s attacks upon her character (“Since Mary cradled Jesus in the manger, the name of woman has been a sacred thing”), thus placing the defense on the side of an injured woman. He noted the absence of the complaining witness: “It is not mercy that keeps Mrs. Delmont out of the case, because you witnessed the venom with which our case has been attacked.” One by one, he dismissed the testimony of various prosecution witnesses. Of Semnacher’s damning allegation that Arbuckle placed ice in Rappe’s vagina, McNab labeled it “a collateral incident”—though in doing so he endorsed the prosecution’s version of the icing.

Using clocks as props, he plotted out the timeline established by witnesses and asked when an attack could have occurred. He compared Heinrich’s fingerprint evidence to a belief in witchcraft. He asked why the healthy, athletic woman presented by the prosecution could not even manage a shout if assaulted. By reading their conflicting statements and testimony, he questioned the veracity of the “imprisoned girls,” Prevost and Blake, and he further argued that just as Brady had taken away their liberty he might do the same to an innocent man. He asked, really laying it on, “We sent two million men overseas to end this sort of thing forever. Why should we allow it to continue in San Francisco?”

McNab postulated that there were many ways Rappe’s bladder could have ruptured before or after Arbuckle entered 1219. His strongest theories were that the trauma was caused by the strain of vomiting (though there was no evidence of her vomiting) or via a fall in the bathroom or off the bed. He summarized: “The prosecution has painted Arbuckle as a monster, yet we see him carrying Miss Rappe in his own arms to a place of comfort [room 1227]. He was in the room [1219] alone with Miss Rappe but ten minutes, and during that time there was no outcry or sound of a struggle. I gather these facts from prosecution evidence. The scientific men we produced said there were many ways in which Miss
Rappe could have suffered her fatal injury. Surely the jury must admit there were many ways also rather than the one way pointed out by the prosecution.”

Concluding with Christian imagery as he began, McNab wrangled a tear from his eye, and from the eye of at least one juror: “Since Christ said ‘Suffer little children to come unto me,’ the instinct of little children has always gone out to good men, never to bad, and Arbuckle has been crucified here by speech but not by evidence…. This man who has sweetened human existence by the laughter of millions and millions of innocent children comes before you with the simple story of a frank, open-hearted, big American and submits the facts of this case to your hands.”

It returned to the state to get the final word, and Milton U’Ren drew a tortured biblical parallel of his own (echoing Arbuckle ally Billy Sunday): “He came up here and the word was sent out by his friend Fishback that Fatty was in town, and the people poured into his quarters, food was spread, drinks were served, and this modern Belshazzar sat upon his throne and was surrounded by his lords and their ladies, and they went on with the music, feasting, wine, liquor, song, and dancing. The great Belshazzar saw the handwriting on the wall and quaked as it was interpreted. The modern King Belshazzar has also seen the handwriting on the wall. The king is dead and his kingdom is divided. He will never make the world laugh again.”

For an hour, U’Ren summarized the state’s case, placing particular emphasis on the fingerprints. He repeatedly countered McNab’s evocation of innocent children, presenting Arbuckle as a deceiver of young people who hid his “rotten nature.” U’Ren sneered, “Oh, if the children of America could have seen Roscoe Arbuckle put ice in the private parts of Virginia Rappe, how they and their mothers would have laughed with glee!” In conclusion: “We ask you to do your duty so that when you return to your families, you can take them to your breasts; and we ask you to do your duties so that when you take your children upon your knees that you will know that you have done what you could to protect them from this defendant and from all the other Arbuckles in the world,
not existing and yet to come. And ask you to do your duty so that this man and all the Arbuckles of the world will know that the motherhood of America is not their plaything.”

It is considered a forgone conclusion that Arbuckle will be acquitted.

—UP
WIRE
STORY,
D
ECEMBER
2, 1921

With final instructions from Judge Louderback, the case went to the jury at 4:15
PM
on Friday, December 2. While seven men and five women deliberated behind a closed door, Arbuckle was in the courtroom, pacing or chatting with his attorneys or the newsmen. His wife sat nervously between the comforting wives of Arthur Arbuckle and Milton Cohen. The jury broke for dinner and resumed deliberations thereafter. Several times a bailiff was called into the jury room, eliciting a flurry of whispers among observers but no verdict.

At 11:00
PM
court was adjourned. Word leaked that the jurors were deadlocked eleven to one for acquittal. In fact, it was later learned that early ballots had gone nine to three for acquittal or eight to three with one abstention, but the image of a lone juror, a woman, standing firm for Arbuckle’s guilt took hold over the weekend with headlines like the
San Francisco Examiner’s
W
OMAN
V
OTES
A
CTOR
G
UILTY
S
AYS
R
EPORT.