Brooke Leopold Hart (June 11, 1911 – November 9, 1933) was the eldest son of Alexander Hart, the owner of the L. Hart & Son department store in downtown
San Jose,
California
California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...
, United States. His
kidnapping
Kidnapping or abduction is the unlawful abduction and confinement of a person against their will, and is a crime in many jurisdictions. Kidnapping may be accomplished by use of force or fear, or a victim may be enticed into confinement by frau ...
and murder were heavily publicized, and the subsequent
lynching
Lynching is an extrajudicial killing by a group. It is most often used to characterize informal public executions by a mob in order to punish an alleged or convicted transgressor or to intimidate others. It can also be an extreme form of i ...
of his alleged murderers, Thomas Harold Thurmond and John M. Holmes, both white men, sparked widespread political debate.
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
Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...
radio station. The killings were tacitly endorsed by
Governor
A governor is an politician, administrative leader and head of a polity or Region#Political regions, political region, in some cases, such as governor-general, governors-general, as the head of a state's official representative. Depending on the ...
James Rolph Jr., who said he would
pardon
A pardon is a government decision to allow a person to be relieved of some or all of the legal consequences resulting from a criminal conviction. A pardon may be granted before or after conviction for the crime, depending on the laws of the j ...
anyone convicted of the lynching.
Scores of reporters, photographers, and
newsreel
A newsreel is a form of short documentary film, containing news, news stories and items of topical interest, that was prevalent between the 1910s and the mid 1970s. Typically presented in a Movie theater, cinema, newsreels were a source of cu ...
camera operators, along with an estimated 3,000 to 10,000 men, women, and children, were witness to it. When newspapers published photos, identifiable faces were deliberately smudged so that they would remain anonymous; the following Monday, local newspapers published 1.2 million copies, twice the normal daily production.
Background
In 1933, 22-year-old Brooke Hart was the heir to one of
San Jose,
California
California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...
's best-known businesses, the L. Hart & Son department store, located at the southeast corner of Market and Santa Clara streets. Brooke's grandfather and the store's namesake, Leopold Hart, was an
Alsatian immigrant who bought a mercantile shop known as the Cash Corner store in 1866. After Leopold's son, Alex J. Hart Sr. (known as A.J.) took over the business, it expanded to the landmark status it held in San Jose for four decades – becoming as much a part of the fabric of the city as
Macy's
Macy's is an American department store chain founded in 1858 by Rowland Hussey Macy. The first store was located in Manhattan on Sixth Avenue between 13th and 14th Streets, south of the present-day flagship store at Herald Square on West 34 ...
was in
New York City
New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...
or
Neiman Marcus
Neiman Marcus is an American department store chain founded in 1907 in Dallas, Texas by Herbert Marcus, his sister Carrie Marcus Neiman, and her husband Abraham Lincoln Neiman. It has been owned by Saks Global, a Corporate spin-off, spin-o ...
was in
Dallas
Dallas () is a city in the U.S. state of Texas and the most populous city in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, the List of Texas metropolitan areas, most populous metropolitan area in Texas and the Metropolitan statistical area, fourth-most ...
.
The Hart store was famous for its attentive customer service, and benefited from the deep loyalty of customers and employees alike. When the country found itself in the grip of the
Great Depression
The Great Depression was a severe global economic downturn from 1929 to 1939. The period was characterized by high rates of unemployment and poverty, drastic reductions in industrial production and international trade, and widespread bank and ...
, Hart's held on to its central place in the lives of San Jose's citizens, and continued to buy advertising in local publications. The Hart family was one of the city's most prominent, and their influence was the source of many colorful stories: one such tale recounts that the artist who repainted the ceiling of the
Cathedral Basilica of St. Joseph in the 1920s modeled the cherubs in his work on the family's children.
Brooke Hart had worked in his family's department store during much of his youth and was well-known and liked by the local community. After he graduated from
Santa Clara University
Santa Clara University is a private university, private Jesuit university in Santa Clara, California, United States. Established in 1851, Santa Clara University is the oldest operating institution of higher learning in California. The university' ...
, his father, A.J., made him a junior vice president and began grooming him to take over when he retired.
Disappearance
Just before 6:00 p.m. on Thursday, November 9, 1933, Brooke Hart retrieved his 1933
Studebaker President
The Studebaker President was the premier automobile model manufactured by the Studebaker Corporation of South Bend, Indiana (US) from 1926 until 1942. The nameplate was reintroduced in 1955 and used until the end of the 1958 model when the name wa ...
roadster, a graduation present from his parents, from a downtown San Jose parking lot behind the department store. He had agreed to chauffeur his father, A.J., who did not drive, to a meeting of the
Chamber of Commerce
A chamber of commerce, or board of trade, is a form of business network. For example, a local organization of businesses whose goal is to further the interests of businesses. Business owners in towns and cities form these local societies to a ...
at the San Jose Country Club.
[
When Brooke did not turn up to collect his father, A.J. became concerned.] As hours passed and there remained no sign of Brooke, the Hart family's anxiety grew; Brooke was responsible and punctual, and his absence was entirely out of character. A.J. 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. called the police to determine if his son had been involved in an accident.[
According to the parking lot attendant, Brooke had left the lot heading east on Santa Clara Avenue at 6:05 p.m.; he was later spotted around 6:30 p.m. by a Hart store employee at Santa Clara and Fourteenth. Finally, a rancher in Milpitas, seven miles north of San Jose, saw a man matching Hart's description standing alone next to an automobile on Evans Lane at approximately 7 p.m.; when the rancher returned, he saw the car still parked there at approximately 8:30 p.m. with no one else present.][
]
Ransom demands
At 9:30 that night, Aleese Hart, the older of Brooke's two younger sisters, answered the telephone at the family home and was informed by a "soft-spoken man" that Hart had been kidnapped and that instructions for his return would be provided later. At 10:30, what sounded like the same man called and informed the other sister, Miriam, that her brother would be returned upon payment of $40,000 (equivalent to $916,960 in 2022). Delivery instructions would be provided the next day. According to phone company records, the kidnappers had tried to reach the Hart home three times but the line was busy before they were finally connected. Belshaw lived near the site where the Studebaker had been parked and reported the abandoned car in Milpitas to the police at 11 p.m.; it was positively identified as Brooke's.[
The San Jose Police Department, the Santa Clara County Sheriff's Office, and the U.S. Division of Investigation (the forerunner of the ]FBI
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic Intelligence agency, intelligence and Security agency, security service of the United States and Federal law enforcement in the United States, its principal federal law enforcement ag ...
) were quickly brought into the case. The phone calls were traced to locations in San Francisco
San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...
; the call that connected was traced to the Whitcomb Hotel. However, the search initially focused on the hilly region surrounding Calaveras Dam and the city of Oakland
Oakland is a city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area in the U.S. state of California. It is the county seat and most populous city in Alameda County, with a population of 440,646 in 2020. A major West Coast port, Oakland is ...
; the call's origin was thought to be a decoy action.[
Hart's wallet was discovered in San Francisco on the guard rail of the tanker ''Midway'', which had been refueling the ]Matson Lines
Matson, Inc., is an American shipping company, shipping and navigation services company headquartered in Honolulu, Hawaii. Founded in 1882, Matson, Inc.'s subsidiary Matson Navigation Company provides ocean shipping services across the Pacific O ...
passenger liner when both ships were docked at Pier 32 from midnight to 5 a.m. It was assumed the wallet had been tossed from a porthole on the liner. ''Lurline'' was stopped and searched in Los Angeles
Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...
when it arrived there on its way to Honolulu
Honolulu ( ; ) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Hawaii, located in the Pacific Ocean. It is the county seat of the Consolidated city-county, consolidated City and County of Honol ...
on November 11, but nothing was found.[ Police then advanced an alternative theory: since Pier 32, from which ''Lurline'' had departed, was close to the sewer outfall, the heavily laden tanker might have dipped below the surface and picked up the wallet from where it had been discharged from the sewer, lifting it from the bay once a sufficient amount of fuel had been offloaded.] One of the passengers detained during the three-hour search was Babe Ruth
George Herman "Babe" Ruth (February 6, 1895 – August 16, 1948) was an American professional Baseball in the United States, baseball player whose career in Major League Baseball (MLB) spanned 22 seasons, from 1914 through 1935. Nickna ...
, who was traveling to Los Angeles to watch a football game between Southern California
Southern California (commonly shortened to SoCal) is a geographic and Cultural area, cultural List of regions of California, region that generally comprises the southern portion of the U.S. state of California. Its densely populated coastal reg ...
and Stanford
Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University, is a private research university in Stanford, California, United States. It was founded in 1885 by railroad magnate Leland Stanford (the eighth governor of and th ...
.
At the time, the ''Oakland Tribune
The ''Oakland Tribune'' was a daily newspaper published in Oakland, California, and a predecessor of the '' East Bay Times''. It was published by the Bay Area News Group (BANG), a subsidiary of MediaNews Group. Founded in 1874, the ''Tribune'' ...
'' named Charles "Pretty Boy" Floyd a suspect in the kidnapping, as he was reportedly present in California. Floyd was later spotted in Almaden, near abandoned quicksilver mine shafts. While searching for Floyd or Hart at the mine, a man claiming to be Floyd boarded a bus in Modesto
Modesto ( ; ) is the county seat and largest city of Stanislaus County, California, United States. With a population of 218,069 according to 2022 U.S. Census Bureau estimates, it is the 19th-most populous city in California.
Modesto is locate ...
and robbed passengers using a gun.
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 the car's lights were left on, and there were signs of a scuffle, authorities believed Brooke had been overpowered in Milpitas. In addition, witnesses who had seen Brooke driving the Studebaker said that he was alone, although in some cases visibility was poor.[
A "compromise ransom" ]telegram
Telegraphy is the long-distance transmission of messages where the sender uses symbolic codes, known to the recipient, rather than a physical exchange of an object bearing the message. Thus flag semaphore is a method of telegraphy, whereas pi ...
from Sacramento
Sacramento ( or ; ; ) is the capital city of the U.S. state of California and the seat of Sacramento County. Located at the confluence of the Sacramento and American Rivers in Northern California's Sacramento Valley, Sacramento's 2020 p ...
arrived on November 12, suggesting that would be sufficient. However, the family was not contacted again until Monday, November 13, when a letter, postmarked in Sacramento, arrived in the mail at the department store. It instructed A.J. to have a radio installed in the Studebaker (which already had a radio), because the ransom instructions would be broadcast over NBC
The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a subsidiary of Comcast. It is one of NBCUniversal's ...
radio station KPO. The kidnapper also instructed A.J. to be ready to drive the Studebaker to deliver the ransom, but A.J. had never learned to drive. On November 13, A.J. posted a $5,000 reward for his son's safe return, with a promise to drop any further investigation upon his return. To emphasize the validity of the reward offer, police announced they would not be tracing calls to the Hart residence.[ However, this was a ruse to entrap the kidnappers; in fact, the telephone line continued to be tapped.][
On Tuesday, November 14, a second ransom note arrived, this time postmarked in San Francisco. It instructed A.J. to place the ransom in a black satchel and drive to Los Angeles. That night, A.J. took a call from a man claiming to be his son's kidnapper, who instructed him to take the night train to Los Angeles. The authorities staked out the train station and mistakenly arrested a bank teller out for an evening stroll. The next day, a sign was placed in a window of the Hart store stating that A.J. did not drive. A call was received that night again demanding that Hart drive to deliver the ransom. Hart demanded proof that his son was with the caller. The caller stated that Brooke was being held at a safe location. Because a ]phone tap
Wiretapping, also known as wire tapping or telephone tapping, is the monitoring of telephone and Internet-based conversations by a third party, often by covert means. The wire tap received its name because, historically, the monitoring connecti ...
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.
Arrests and confessions
Another demand arrived the following day, November 16, again ordering A.J. to drive with the ransom. That night, another call was received and the demand that A.J. drive was repeated. The call was traced to a payphone in a parking garage at Market near San Antonio, and Police Chief J.N. Black and Sheriff William Emig hurried to the scene just from the San Jose Police station, where they arrested Thomas Harold Thurmond as he was hanging up, at about 8:00 p.m.
At 3:00 a.m., Thurmond, after hours of questioning, signed a confession
A confession is a statement – made by a person or by a group of people – acknowledging some personal fact that the person (or the group) would ostensibly prefer to keep hidden. The term presumes that the speaker is providing information that ...
in which he claimed to have bound Brooke's hands with wire and tossed him off the San Mateo Bridge into San Francisco Bay
San Francisco Bay (Chochenyo language, Chochenyo: 'ommu) is a large tidal estuary in the United States, U.S. state of California, and gives its name to the San Francisco Bay Area. It is dominated by the cities of San Francisco, California, San ...
sometime between 7:00 and 7:30 on the night of the kidnapping. He also identified an accomplice: John Holmes, a recently unemployed salesman who was separated from his wife and two children. Holmes was arrested in his SRO room at the California Hotel near the San Jose Police station at 3:30 a.m. According to Thurmond's confession, Holmes approached him with the scheme six weeks prior, after he had separated from his family.
At 1:00 p.m. on November 17, Holmes signed a confession admitting that he and Thurmond had kidnapped Brooke and thrown him into San Francisco Bay. Later, the Santa Clara County
Santa Clara County, officially the County of Santa Clara, is the sixth-most populous county in the U.S. state of California, with a population of 1,936,259 as of the 2020 census. Santa Clara County and neighboring San Benito County form the ...
District Attorney
In the United States, a district attorney (DA), county attorney, county prosecutor, state attorney, state's attorney, prosecuting attorney, commonwealth's attorney, or solicitor is the chief prosecutor or chief law enforcement officer represen ...
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. In his confession, Holmes stated that Thurmond had come up with the plan: "A couple of days before the kidnapping, hurmond and Iwent to a show. On the way out he grabbed my arm and said, 'There goes Brookie Hart. If we pick him up we can get a nice piece of change."[ In Thurmond's earlier confession, he stated Holmes made the decision to murder Brooke: "Thursday afternoon, November 9, I went to Merritt's plumbing shop and bought three bricks for 10 cents each and 55 cents' worth of wire to make preparations to kidnap Brooke Hart. I don't know whether Holmes planned to murder the boy at that time but at any rate we wanted to be prepared."][
According to the men's confessions, when Brooke stopped his car near the exit of the parking lot in the evening of November 9, Thurmond slipped into the passenger seat and, holding a gun on him, forced Brooke to drive to Milpitas. There they abandoned the Studebaker for another waiting car, which had been driven to the rendezvous point by Holmes, and the group of three drove to the San Mateo Bridge.][Adams (2005). p. 207.]
A mother and daughter on a farm immediately south of Milpitas had seen a dark, long-hooded sedan with three men stopped near their barn.[Murphy (2007). p. 19.] A few minutes after it stopped, a convertible
A convertible or cabriolet () is a Car, passenger car that can be driven with or without a roof in place. The methods of retracting and storing the roof vary across eras and manufacturers.
A convertible car's design allows an open-air drivin ...
(presumably the Studebaker roadster) with three men two on the running board
A running board or footboard is a narrow step fitted under the side doors of a tram ( cable car, trolley, or streetcar in North America), car, or truck. It aids entry, especially into high vehicles, and is typical of vintage trams and cars, ...
s and one driving stopped near the sedan. Their description of the man driving the convertible, slender with light colored hair, matched the description of Brooke, as did the convertible as his car. Brooke was driven away in the larger car. According to the farmers, one of the group followed in the Studebaker. The mother did not report the events until the following Monday (November 13), when she was visiting relatives and learned about the kidnapping. The investigators did not agree on the veracity of the story, because the number of kidnappers did not agree with the recorded confessions.
On the bridge, the men ordered Brooke out of the car, and one of the kidnappers struck him twice on the head from behind with a concrete block until he was unconscious. They then bound his arms with baling wire and tied two concrete blocks to his feet[ before dumping him off the bridge into the bay.] The tide was out and there were only a few feet of water at the base of the bridge; the kidnappers then shot Brooke, killing him. According to Thurmond's confession, Brooke struggled in the water for a few minutes and may have been able to free himself from his bonds; after they had tossed him over the north side of the bridge, he moved south under the bridge, against the prevailing current. Thurmond also stated Holmes was the first to shoot at Brooke, but Thurmond shot at him after he had drifted under the bridge. After leaving Brooke in the bay, they stopped approximately from the eastern end, where they discarded an extra concrete block and a roll of wire, which were recovered after the confessions. A few hours later, they placed the first telephone call to the Hart family demanding $40,000 for Hart's return.
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,[ but were hampered by muddy conditions.] The two said the cries for help came from the bridge near the shore of Alameda, but added they did not hear any shots that night.
Local newspapers reported that Holmes and Thurmond had met with psychiatrists and would attempt to plead not guilty by reason of insanity
Not or NOT may also refer to:
Language
* Not, the general declarative form of "no", indicating a negation of a related statement that usually precedes
* ... Not!, a grammatical construction used as a contradiction, popularized in the early 1990 ...
. Thurmond claimed he had been "crazy" for more than a year, since his sweetheart married another man, and Holmes planned to repudiate his confession, which his attorney claimed had been "forced from him by third-degree methods", including threats to "turn him over to the mob for lynching
Lynching is an extrajudicial killing by a group. It is most often used to characterize informal public executions by a mob in order to punish an alleged or convicted transgressor or to intimidate others. It can also be an extreme form of i ...
if he did not confess". 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. Following cursory examinations in their cells at the Santa Clara County Jail, with a mob outside in the jail courtyard, both men were declared sane.
Search for the body
Police officers from Santa Clara, San Mateo, and Alameda Counties began searching the bay around the bridge, hoping to find Brooke's body. Trace evidence, including stains on the bridge, "blonde hair on a brick" and other markings convinced authorities the confessors had truthfully described the sequence of events, including dumping Brooke.
The first physical clues were unearthed on November 18. Two bricks and apparent bloodstains were found at the bridge. The pillowcase used to mask Brooke during the drive to the bridge was discovered, along with his hat, by November 20. The discovery of the hat ended the last hope of the family that Brooke would be found alive. A hook-studded apparatus was used to drag the bay, with no success. A weighted dummy was planned to be dropped from the bridge on November 21 in an attempt to see where it would float. Workers constructing a pier of the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge
The San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge, commonly referred to as the Bay Bridge, is a complex of bridges spanning San Francisco Bay in California. As part of Interstate 80 in California, Interstate 80 and the direct road between San Francisco an ...
reported seeing a body floating in the water during the night of November 22, prompting a search by Oakland and San Francisco police boats, including the shores of nearby Goat Island. Alex Hart announced a reward on November 24, hoping to "enlist the aid of the public in the search". By that time, the search involved a blimp
A non-rigid airship, commonly called a blimp (Help:IPA/English, /blɪmp/), is an airship (dirigible) without an internal structural framework or a keel. Unlike semi-rigid airship, semi-rigid and rigid airships (e.g. Zeppelins), blimps rely on th ...
from Sunnyvale
Sunnyvale () is a city located in the Santa Clara Valley in northwestern Santa Clara County, California, United States.
Sunnyvale lies along the historic El Camino Real and Highway 101 and is bordered by portions of San Jose to the north, ...
, police boats from Oakland and San Francisco, United States Marines
The United States Marine Corps (USMC), also referred to as the United States Marines or simply the Marines, is the Marines, maritime land force service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is responsible for conducting expedi ...
and a hydraulic pump to dredge
Dredging is the excavation of material from a water environment. Possible reasons for dredging include improving existing water features; reshaping land and water features to alter drainage, navigability, and commercial use; constructing ...
the mud from underneath the San Mateo Bridge.
The official search for Brooke's body ended on November 25. The next day, two duck hunters from Redwood City
Redwood City is a city on the San Francisco Peninsula in the Bay Area of Northern California, approximately south of San Francisco and northwest of San Jose. The city's population was 84,292 according to the 2020 census. The Port of Redwo ...
discovered a badly decayed and crab-eaten body approximately south of the bridge. Brooke's body was identified by the coroner and his friends and employees later that day, with several personal effects with the body matched to Brooke's known possessions. According to the autopsy
An autopsy (also referred to as post-mortem examination, obduction, necropsy, or autopsia cadaverum) is a surgical procedure that consists of a thorough examination of a corpse by dissection to determine the cause, mode, and manner of deat ...
, Brooke had died from drowning, and there were no bullet wounds found.
Lynching of Thurmond and Holmes
Warning signs
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. A San Jose newspaper ran a front-page editorial branding Holmes and Thurmond "human devils" and called for "mob violence". Upon their return to the San Francisco jail from questioning, cries of "lynch them" were heard from the crowd surrounding that jail. On November 21, Holmes and Thurmond remained in the jail, and fear of vigilantism
Vigilantism () is the act of preventing, investigating, and punishing perceived offenses and crimes without legal authority.
A vigilante is a person who practices or partakes in vigilantism, or undertakes public safety and retributive justice ...
led authorities to announce they would be held "indefinitely". Reportedly, "20 influential friends of the socially prominent Hart family" had formed a committee to "insist on immediate and drastic punishment for the prisoners". Prosecutors declined to seek grand jury
A grand jury is a jury empowered by law to conduct legal proceedings, investigate potential criminal conduct, and determine whether criminal charges should be brought. A grand jury may subpoena physical evidence or a person to testify. A grand ju ...
hearings in the fear that an indictment
An indictment ( ) is a formal accusation that a person has committed a crime. In jurisdictions that use the concept of felonies, the most serious criminal offense is a felony; jurisdictions that do not use that concept often use that of an ind ...
would incite vigilantes.
Despite these fears, the pair were indicted on charges of extortion
Extortion is the practice of obtaining benefit (e.g., money or goods) through coercion. In most jurisdictions it is likely to constitute a criminal offence. Robbery is the simplest and most common form of extortion, although making unfounded ...
, using the mails for extortion, and conspiracy
A conspiracy, also known as a plot, ploy, or scheme, is a secret plan or agreement between people (called conspirers or conspirators) for an unlawful or harmful purpose, such as murder, treason, or corruption, especially with a political motivat ...
, and were returned to the San Jose jail the night of November 22. On November 23, California Governor
The governor of California is the head of government of the U.S. state of California. The governor is the commander-in-chief of the California National Guard and the California State Guard.
Established in the Constitution of California, th ...
James Rolph announced to shocked reporters that he would refuse to dispatch the National Guard
National guard is the name used by a wide variety of current and historical uniformed organizations in different countries. The original National Guard was formed during the French Revolution around a cadre of defectors from the French Guards.
...
to protect Thurmond and Holmes.
Upon payment of cashan astonishing sum in 1933by the father of Jack Holmes, San Francisco attorney Vincent Hallinan agreed to represent his son. Thurmond was defended by J. Oscar Goldstein of Chico. With a volatile mob growing day and night outside the jail on November 24, Hallinan called Rolph and asked that he call out the National Guard should an effort be made to lynch his client. Rolph retorted that he would "pardon
A pardon is a government decision to allow a person to be relieved of some or all of the legal consequences resulting from a criminal conviction. A pardon may be granted before or after conviction for the crime, depending on the laws of the j ...
the lynchers".
Overnight lynching November 26–27
Authorities "expected trouble if and when the missing body was found". After the discovery of Brooke's body on Sunday, November 26, word went out immediately throughout northern California
Northern California (commonly shortened to NorCal) is a geocultural region that comprises the northern portion of the U.S. state of California, spanning the northernmost 48 of the state's List of counties in California, 58 counties. Northern Ca ...
. 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. 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. Sheriff Emig pre-emptively ordered the erection of an improvised barricade of parked automobiles and trucks to protect the jail.[ By 9:00 p.m., a mob estimated by the press to range anywhere from 5,000 to 15,000 men, women, and children were jammed into the park, with an estimated 3,000 vehicles left on streets nearby.
Governor Rolph was in regular telephonic communication with Raymond Cato, whom he had appointed to head the ]California Highway Patrol
The California Highway Patrol (CHP) is the principal state police agency for the U.S. state of California. The CHP has primary jurisdiction, including patrol and Criminal investigation, investigations, over all California Controlled-access highw ...
. 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. Although the crowd was characterized as "good natured" earlier in the day, periodically there was an ominous chanting of "Eleven o'clock!"
At approximately 9:00 p.m., Rolph canceled a planned trip to the Western Governors' Conference in Boise
Boise ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Idaho. As of the 2020 census, there were 235,685 people residing in the city. Located on the Boise River in southwestern Idaho, it is east of the Oregon border and nor ...
, Idaho
Idaho ( ) is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Pacific Northwest and Mountain states, Mountain West subregions of the Western United States. It borders Montana and Wyoming to the east, Nevada and Utah to the south, and Washington (state), ...
, to prevent his chief political rival, Lieutenant Governor
A lieutenant governor, lieutenant-governor, or vice governor is a high officer of state, whose precise role and rank vary by jurisdiction. Often a lieutenant governor is the deputy, or lieutenant, to or ranked under a governor — a "second-in-comm ...
Frank Merriam, from calling out the National Guard to stop the lynchings.[Farrell (1992). p. 153.] 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.[ Sheriff Emig contacted Rolph at 10:30 p.m., asking that the National Guard be deployed to protect the prisoners. Rolph refused.] The assault on the jail commenced at approximately 11 p.m.
By midnight, thousands had gathered outside the jail; the sheriff's deputies fired tear gas
Tear gas, also known as a lachrymatory agent or lachrymator (), sometimes colloquially known as "mace" after the Mace (spray), early commercial self-defense spray, is a chemical weapon that stimulates the nerves of the lacrimal gland in the ey ...
into the crowd in an attempt to disperse them.[ However, the crowd became angrier and larger. 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;][ later, a battering ram was improvised from a heavy pipe.] Emig ordered his officers to abandon the bottom two floors of the jail, where Thurmond and Holmes were being held. It was later noted that both cells had been occupied by other notorious murderers. Emig also had ordered that no police officer would be allowed to use their guns or clubs to defend the jail; Emig, his nine deputies, and eight state patrolmen were all beaten, choked, and/or trampled during the course of the riot.[
The mob, by this time estimated at 6,000–10,000 (other reports say 3,000–5,000), stormed the jail, took Holmes and Thurmond across the street to St. James Park, and ]hanged
Hanging is killing a person by suspending them from the neck with a noose or ligature strangulation, ligature. Hanging has been a standard method of capital punishment since the Middle Ages, and has been the primary execution method in numerou ...
them. Afterward, deputy sheriff John Moore stated, "I never knew human beings could go so wildthey were not human; they were animals." Deputy Moore was choked twice during the lynching: once when he refused to surrender the keys to the jail cells, and another time when he refused to positively identify Holmes for the mob. Some women in the mob were alleged to have encouraged the violence, seemingly forgetting their prior advice to let the law "take its course".
Thurmond was the first to be lynched. 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". After Thurmond was hanged, the mob tore his trousers off and souvenir hunters fought over the scraps.[ Holmes cried, "You're making a big mistake! I'm not the man you want!" as he was lynched. Harold Fitzgerald described the scene in an ''Oakland Tribune'' article: "A concerted pulland 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. A roar, mingled with women's screams, rolled across the park ... fterward,The crowd began pouring out of the park. Some did serpentine dances in the streets. ... Snatches of song came from here and there in the multitude."][
]
Immediate aftermath
The bodies of Thurmond and Holmes were left hanging for approximately 45 minutes, until they were cut down by police officials. Thurmond was buried in an unmarked plot in Oak Hill Memorial Park on November 29, the same cemetery where Brooke had been buried on November 27. Holmes was cremated
Cremation is a method of Disposal of human corpses, final disposition of a corpse through Combustion, burning.
Cremation may serve as a funeral or post-funeral rite and as an alternative to burial. In some countries, including India, Nepal, and ...
at Oak Hill on November 29.
According to the ''San Francisco Chronicle
The ''San Francisco Chronicle'' is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of Northern California. It was founded in 1865 as ''The Daily Dramatic Chronicle'' by teenage brothers Charles de Young and M. H. de Young, Michael H. ...
'', on December 2, after a special meeting of the city council heard testimony in support of leaving the cork elm tree as a monument and warning to evildoers, the council approved the cutting down of the tree by city workers. Police were required to keep off a crowd of souvenir hunters seeking a twig or branch of the infamous "gallows tree", the bark and lower branches having been hacked and stripped for mementos.
Impact of the case
The lynching was unique in American political and criminal justice history because of the involvement of a state governor, and the eagerness by civic and business leaders and law enforcement, to allow the extrajudicial killings of two men who had not been indicted, arraigned, tried, or sentenced for the crime in a court of law. Many modern historians conclude that the two men were indeed guilty.
Royce Brier, a staff writer for the ''Chronicle'', would later go on to win the 1934 Pulitzer Prize for Reporting for his account of the lynching. According to the prize citation, Brier worked for sixteen hours along with several assistants mingling with the mob and telephoning running updates from a garage across the street from the jail before composing the story in three hours starting at 12:30 a.m. on the morning of November 27. In addition, the Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning Pulitzer may refer to:
*Joseph Pulitzer, a 19th century media magnate
*Pulitzer Prize, an annual U.S. journalism, literary, and music award
*Pulitzer (surname)
*Pulitzer, Inc., a U.S. newspaper chain
*Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, a non-prof ...
went to Edmund Duffy of ''The Baltimore Sun
''The Baltimore Sun'' is the largest general-circulation daily newspaper based in the U.S. state of Maryland and provides coverage of local, regional, national, and international news.
Founded in 1837, the newspaper was owned by Tribune Publi ...
'' for his cartoon, "California Points With Pride", which lampooned Governor Rolph's response to the lynching.
Prosecution of lynch mob
Governor Rolph praised the action, stating that California had sent a message to future kidnappers, and promised to pardon anyone involved in the lynching. However, Rolph died on June 2, 1934, before any charges had been filed in the case.
Alameda County District Attorney Earl Warren
Earl Warren (March 19, 1891 – July 9, 1974) was an American attorney and politician who served as the 30th governor of California from 1943 to 1953 and as the 14th Chief Justice of the United States from 1953 to 1969. The Warren Court presid ...
was the strongest supporter of prosecution for the lynching. Santa Clara County Assistant District Attorney Herbert Bridges was quoted as saying he was "not sorry he lynchinghappened in San Jose". Santa Clara County District Attorney Fred Thomas doubted anyone could be found to bear witness against the ringleaders of the lynching, characterizing the stories being told by local youths as "boastful" but uncorroborated. The American Civil Liberties Union
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is an American nonprofit civil rights organization founded in 1920. ACLU affiliates are active in all 50 states, Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico. The budget of the ACLU in 2024 was $383 million.
T ...
stated they had found eyewitnesses ready to identify members of the mob by December 1933, but San Jose citizens were outspoken in their opposition to "outsider" interference. Eventually seven people were arrested for the lynchings, but none was convicted. California did not specifically define lynching as a crime, although crimes committed during the lynching such as riot
A riot or mob violence is a form of civil disorder commonly characterized by a group lashing out in a violent public disturbance against authority, property, or people.
Riots typically involve destruction of property, public or private. The p ...
ing, assault
In the terminology of law, an assault is the act of causing physical harm or consent, unwanted physical contact to another person, or, in some legal definitions, the threat or attempt to do so. It is both a crime and a tort and, therefore, may ...
, and murder could potentially be prosecuted.
One young man was charged for participating in the lynching after he publicly claimed credit for leading the mob, but the charges were dropped. The Santa Clara County grand jury met the following year, but despite literally thousands of witnesses, scores of reporters, and hundreds of photographs, they found that no witnesses could identify anyone from the lynching, so no charges were filed.
Public criticism
In the aftermath of the lynching, Governor Rolph was publicly condemned for advocating "lynch law" by former President
President most commonly refers to:
*President (corporate title)
* President (education), a leader of a college or university
*President (government title)
President may also refer to:
Arts and entertainment Film and television
*'' Præsident ...
Herbert Hoover
Herbert Clark Hoover (August 10, 1874 – October 20, 1964) was the 31st president of the United States, serving from 1929 to 1933. A wealthy mining engineer before his presidency, Hoover led the wartime Commission for Relief in Belgium and ...
, then at Stanford University
Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University, is a Private university, private research university in Stanford, California, United States. It was founded in 1885 by railroad magnate Leland Stanford (the eighth ...
in Palo Alto
Palo Alto ( ; Spanish language, Spanish for ) is a charter city in northwestern Santa Clara County, California, United States, in the San Francisco Bay Area, named after a Sequoia sempervirens, coastal redwood tree known as El Palo Alto.
Th ...
. Rolph replied, "If troops had been called out, hundreds of innocent citizens might have been mowed down." Rolph accused Hoover of calling out the United States Army
The United States Army (USA) is the primary Land warfare, land service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is designated as the Army of the United States in the United States Constitution.Article II, section 2, clause 1 of th ...
against the " Bonus Marchers" in 1932. The exchange continued. President Franklin D. Roosevelt
Franklin Delano Roosevelt (January 30, 1882April 12, 1945), also known as FDR, was the 32nd president of the United States, serving from 1933 until his death in 1945. He is the longest-serving U.S. president, and the only one to have served ...
also condemned the lynching as "collective murder" in a nationwide radio address.[
]
Civil suits
Holmes' parents sued Governor Rolph for his role in the lynching of their son, along with radio station KQW and several other persons, but the suit was dropped when the governor died of a heart attack
A myocardial infarction (MI), commonly known as a heart attack, occurs when Ischemia, blood flow decreases or stops in one of the coronary arteries of the heart, causing infarction (tissue death) to the heart muscle. The most common symptom ...
in 1934. Holmes's widow sued Sheriff Emig and several deputies, citing their carelessness and negligence in failing to protect him. Thurmond's family took no action on his behalf and reportedly never again spoke about the matter amongst themselves.
"Last Lynching in California"
This incident is sometimes referred to as "the last lynching in California", although Clyde Johnson was lynched near Yreka in August 1935. Additionally, in 1992 a man named Edward J Begley published a website making allegations to have witnessed the last true California lynching in front of the one room schoolhouse in Callahan on January 6, 1947. Begley, then a 6 year old 1st grader, claimed that on that day, he arrived at school to find a black man with a bullet wound wrapped in a calf hide hanging from a nearby utility pole, and was quickly ushered inside by Mary Roth, the teacher. When he later went outside, he witnessed county officials including the coroner and sheriff's deputies as well as CHP officers lowering the body, and that an unidentified man present told him "That's to teach you kids what happens when you rustle cattle." Begley said that his teacher informed the students never to speak of the incident, but that in the late 1980s he began seeking out his classmates to corroborate his childhood memories, the website being published as part of the efforts. In 1994, Begley wrote to the Siskiyou County Historical Society asking for further assistance with his search.
The name of the victim, an alleged cattle rustler, said to be a butcher from Weed
A weed is a plant considered undesirable in a particular situation, growing where it conflicts with human preferences, needs, or goals.Harlan, J. R., & deWet, J. M. (1965). Some thoughts about weeds. ''Economic botany'', ''19''(1), 16-24. Pla ...
, had been initially shot and wounded on a ranch owned by a well known Yreka medical doctor near Gazelle in Southern Siskiyou County before being hung in Callahan, has never been released and the event cannot be confirmed in any printed news publications. However, a 2019 investigation by Jefferson Public Radio supported Begley's claim that the January 10th, 1947 edition of the ''Western Sentinel'', which allegedly reported on the incident was collected and destroyed by complicit local authorities, finding that every available archive of the paper to be missing that issue. Begley also made similar claims about the January 12th edition of the ''Etna Gazzette''. Begley's son Michael was skeptical of his fathers claims, stating that he was conspiratorial, but historian Ken Gonzales-Day found the claims credible enough to include as a unconfirmed case in his book on California lynchings.
Family
Brooke Hart had three sisters Jeanette, Miriam, and Aleese and a brother, Alexander Joseph Jr.
Alex J. Hart sold the chain of stores in 1976.
Modern coverage
In 1983, Harry Farrell, a columnist for the ''San Jose Mercury News
''The Mercury News'' (formerly ''San Jose Mercury News'', often locally known as ''The Merc'') is a morning daily newspaper published in San Jose, California, in the San Francisco Bay Area. It is published by the Bay Area News Group, a subsidia ...
'', wrote about the lynching in a two-part series. After he retired, he followed up with a book on the same subject, ''Swift Justice'', published in 1992. ''Swift Justice'' was praised by Walter Cronkite
Walter Leland Cronkite Jr. (November 4, 1916 – July 17, 2009) was an American broadcast journalist who served as anchorman for the ''CBS Evening News'' from 1962 to 1981. During the 1960s and 1970s, he was often cited as "the most trust ...
and won an Edgar Award
The Edgar Allan Poe Awards, popularly called the Edgars, are presented every year by the Mystery Writers of America which is based in New York City. Named after American writer Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849), a pioneer in the genre, the awards hon ...
in 1993.
In his 2007 book ''Jury Rigging in the Court of Public Opinion'', the author John D. Murphy criticized Farrell's approach, noting that by accepting the confessions as the baseline truth and hewing to the "conventional" history that led to mob justice, Farrell had invented conversations and created motivations that were impossible to corroborate and glossed over inconsistencies. Murphy pointed out the later phone calls placed to make ransom demands came from payphones physically close together, culminating in the arrest of Thurmond at a payphone only from the San Jose Police station. Murphy went on to write and produce a movie, ''Valley of the Heart's Delight'', regarding the 1933 case.
In popular media
At least four films have been made loosely based on this story:
* '' Fury'' (1936)
* '' The Sound of Fury'' (1950) aka ''Try and Get Me!''
* ''Night Without Justice'' (2004)
* ''Valley of the Heart's Delight'' (2006)
The 1933 lynching also inspired a short story by John Steinbeck
John Ernst Steinbeck ( ; February 27, 1902 – December 20, 1968) was an American writer. He won the 1962 Nobel Prize in Literature "for his realistic and imaginative writings, combining as they do sympathetic humor and keen social percep ...
, "The Lonesome Vigilante" (1936). It was subsequently published as "The Vigilante", collected in '' The Long Valley'' (1938).
Former San Jose mayor Tom McEnery wrote a play based on Farrell's 1992 book. The play, produced in early 2016 by the San Jose-based Tabard Theatre Company, shares the book's name, ''Swift Justice''.
The February 15, 2016 episode of ''The Dollop
''The Dollop'' is an American comedy history podcast in which comedian Dave Anthony reads stories from American history to his friend and fellow comedian Gareth Reynolds, who usually has no knowledge of the topic that will be discussed, with the ...
'' podcast focused on the Hart kidnapping.
See also
*List of kidnappings
The following is a list of kidnappings summarizing the events of each case, including instances of celebrity abductions, claimed hoaxes, suspected kidnappings, extradition abductions, and mass kidnappings.
By date
* List of kidnappings befo ...
*List of solved missing person cases
Lists of solved missing person cases include:
* List of solved missing person cases: pre-1950
* List of solved missing person cases: 1950–1999
* List of solved missing person cases: post-2000
See also
* List of kidnappings
* List of murder ...
References
Bibliography
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External links
Coverage
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Grave
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Videos
* : Contemporary newsreel featuring statements from eyewitnesses and Governor Rolph.
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Hart, Brooke
1911 births
1930s missing person cases
1933 deaths
American murder victims
Burials at Oak Hill Memorial Park
Deaths by firearm in California
Formerly missing American people
Kidnapped American people
Lynching deaths in California
Milpitas, California
Missing person cases in California
November 1933 in the United States
People from San Jose, California
People murdered in California
Santa Clara University alumni
1933 murders in the United States