Mabel Monohan Murder site (Burbank, California)

 house, murder site

She was a frail, elderly widow who lived by herself in a ranch home in Burbank, California. Rumors through the criminal grapevine stated that her ex-son-in-law, a Las Vegas gambler, had given her thousands of dollars to store for him in a safe inside the house. Emmet Perkins, Jack Santo, John True, Baxter Shorter, and Emmet's girlfriend, Barbara Graham, decided to invade Mrs. Monohan's home and rob her of the money. Barbara approached the house first and gained entry by telling Mable Monohan that her car broke down and she needed to use her telephone. When she let Barbara in, the rest of the gang barged in behind her and soon had the elderly widow subdued on the floor. They pistol-whipped her and dragged her from room to room, trying to make her reveal the location of the safe. The reality was that there was no safe slowly grew apparent to the gang. As Mrs. Monohan moaned in pain, one of the gang members strangled her to death. After all this, the gang left with nothing to show for their brutal efforts. Feeling some remorse, Baxter Shorter made a deal with the police to turn on the others, but the gang caught wind of his betrayal and kidnapped him from his home and presumably murdered him, since he was never seen again.

www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=7009504

True crime scene, as portrayed in the movie "I Want to Live". Barbara Graham sentenced to death for this murder.