Murder of Brooke Hart and the lynching of Thomas Harold Thurmond and John M. Holmes
The lynchings were carried out by a mob of San Jose citizens in St. James Park across from the Santa Clara County Jail, and were broadcast as a "live" event by a Los Angeles radio station.When the country found itself in the grip of the Great Depression, Hart's held on to its central place in the lives of San Jose's citizens, and continued to buy advertising in local publications.Just before 6:00 p.m. on Thursday, November 9, 1933,[15] Brooke Hart retrieved his 1933 Studebaker President roadster, a graduation present from his parents, from a downtown San Jose parking lot behind the department store.confessed his worry to Perry Belshaw, the manager of the San Jose Country Club, during dinner; after Brooke's friend phoned to say the younger Hart had missed an appointment at 8:00 p.m., A.J.[19] The San Jose Police Department, the Santa Clara County Sheriff's Office, and the U.S. Division of Investigation (the forerunner of the FBI) were quickly brought into the case.[17] Hart's wallet was discovered in San Francisco on the guard rail of the tanker Midway, which had been refueling the Matson Lines passenger liner SS Lurline when both ships were docked at Pier 32 from midnight to 5 a.m.[24] One of the passengers detained during the three-hour search was Babe Ruth, who was traveling to Los Angeles to watch a football game between Southern California and Stanford.[27] The Hart family chartered an airplane to look for cabins in the hills near Milpitas starting on November 12, following up a theory that Brooke had been first lured to the area where his car was abandoned, and the kidnappers then took him from there.Because a phone tap had been placed on the Hart telephone, the call was traced to a garage in downtown San Jose, but the caller was gone by the time the authorities arrived.Later, the Santa Clara County District Attorney advised the press that, unless corroborated by independent evidence, confessions by Thurmond and Holmes in which each blamed the other for the crime were not admissible in a court of law.After leaving Brooke in the bay, they stopped approximately 1 mile (1.6 km) from the eastern end, where they discarded an extra concrete block and a roll of wire, which were recovered after the confessions.Two men scavenging for wood in the bay, Cal Coley and Vinton Ridley, heard screams for help at approximately 7:25 p.m. on the night of November 9, when Brooke was kidnapped, and tried to rescue him,[43] but were hampered by muddy conditions.[48] Upon learning of rumors of a possible insanity plea on the part of Thurmond, law enforcement authorities directed two psychiatrists from Agnews State Mental Hospital in Santa Clara to examine the two men to preclude such a defense.[49] Police officers from Santa Clara, San Mateo, and Alameda Counties began searching the bay around the bridge, hoping to find Brooke's body.[49] The next day, two duck hunters from Redwood City[54][55] discovered a badly decayed and crab-eaten body approximately 0.5 miles (0.80 km) south of the bridge.[58] Because of lynch threats, Sheriff Emig moved Thurmond and Holmes to the Potrero Hill police station in San Francisco for safekeeping soon after their arrest.[36] A San Jose newspaper ran a front-page editorial branding Holmes and Thurmond "human devils" and called for "mob violence".Reportedly, "20 influential friends of the socially prominent Hart family" had formed a committee to "insist on immediate and drastic punishment for the prisoners".[50] On November 23, California Governor James Rolph announced to shocked reporters that he would refuse to dispatch the National Guard to protect Thurmond and Holmes.[50] Upon payment of $10,000 (equivalent to $235,000 in 2023) cash – an astonishing sum in 1933 – by the father of Jack Holmes, San Francisco attorney Vincent Hallinan agreed to represent his son.All day Sunday and into the evening, radio stations issued inflammatory announcements that a lynching would occur that night in St. James Park in San Jose.[59] Crowds began to gather outside the jail at around 11 a.m., shortly after local newspapers had run extra editions announcing that Brooke's body had been found.Cato was ensconced in the home of a Rolph political ally and neighbor in the mountains west of San Jose with an open phone line to the jail.[61][64] At approximately the same time, the crowd began demanding the jail surrender Holmes and Thurmond; they responded to the refusal by moving the improvised siege barriers aside.After the first round of tear gas was launched into the crowd, the nearby construction site at the post office was raided for materials that were first thrown at the jail;[60] later, a battering ram was improvised from a heavy pipe.As he was dragged from the jail headfirst, the mob beat him and knotted the rope around his neck; one man who attempted to stop the lynching was "picked up bodily and hurled almost over the heads of the crowd".Harold Fitzgerald described the scene in an Oakland Tribune article: "A concerted pull – and the white, blood-streaked body of the second of Brooke Hart's murderers swayed in a grisly rhythm in the light of a rising half-moon.Governor Rolph praised the action, stating that California had sent a message to future kidnappers, and promised to pardon anyone involved in the lynching.[70] The American Civil Liberties Union stated they had found eyewitnesses ready to identify members of the mob by December 1933,[75] but San Jose citizens were outspoken in their opposition to "outsider" interference.[103][104] The play, produced in early 2016 by the San Jose-based Tabard Theatre Company,[105] shares the book's name, Swift Justice.
Bellarmine College PreparatorySanta Clara UniversitySan JoseCaliforniakidnappinglynchingSt. James ParkLos AngelesGovernorJames Rolph Jr.pardonnewsreelCallahanAlsatianMacy'sNew York CityNeiman MarcusDallasGreat DepressionCathedral Basilica of St. JosephSan Mateo BridgeStudebaker PresidentroadsterChamber of CommerceMilpitaskidnappedreturned upon paymentSan Jose Police DepartmentSanta Clara County Sheriff's OfficeSan FranciscoCalaveras DamOaklandMatson LinesSS LurlineHonoluluBabe RuthSouthern CaliforniaStanfordOakland TribuneCharles "Pretty Boy" FloydAlmadenModestotelegramSacramentophone tapconfessionSan Francisco BayseparatedSanta Clara CountyDistrict Attorneyconvertiblerunning boardsAlamedanot guilty by reason of insanitythird-degreeAgnews State Mental HospitalSanta ClaraSan MateoSan Francisco–Oakland Bay BridgeGoat IslandSunnyvaleUnited States MarinesdredgeRedwood Citydecayedautopsy"Sunny Jim" Rolphvigilantismgrand juryindictmentextortionconspiracyCalifornia GovernorJames RolphNational GuardVincent Hallinannorthern CaliforniaCalifornia Highway Patrolbattering ramLieutenant GovernorFrank Merriamtear gashangedOak Hill Memorial ParkcrematedSan Francisco Chroniclecork elmarraignedsentencedEdmund Duffy1934 Pulitzer Prizefor ReportingPulitzer Prize for Editorial CartooningThe Baltimore SunEarl WarrenAmerican Civil Liberties UnionriotingassaultPresidentHerbert HooverStanford UniversityPalo AltoUnited States ArmyBonus MarchersFranklin D. Rooseveltheart attackSan Jose Mercury NewsWalter CronkiteEdgar AwardThe Sound of FuryJohn SteinbeckThe Long ValleyTom McEneryList of kidnappingsEast Bay TimesEsquireMcEnery, TomFind a GraveYouTubeLynching in the United StatesList of lynching victims in the United StatesFrancis McIntoshElijah Parish LovejoyJosefa SegoviaPancho DanielJoshua Boyd