Duffin

1959-1960

William “Bill” E. Duffin, co-owner of the Senator Club in Carson City, Nevada, was murdered on Christmas morning of 1959 (see Part I). He left behind his wife Gladys, his sister, his nephew, a business partner and many employees to whom he was like a father.

Duffin moved to Nevada in 1943. Before acquiring the Senator with Stella C. Vincent, the two had operated the Wild Horse Hunting Lodge in Elko for 14 years. Prior to that, the Salt Lake City native had operated pinball machines in San Francisco.

The Suspect

Carson City police quickly honed in on Nicholas “Nick” V. Goodman as the likely perpetrator. He was the former Senator Club dealer whom Duffin had fired for cheating customers during 21 games. As a result, Nick’s casino work card had been revoked.

Investigators learned that when Nick had lost that job in mid-1958, he’d threatened Duffin and then-pit boss, Thomas Scarlett. Since, the dealer had harbored a grudge against Duffin.

Throughout those 18 months, Nick had remained unemployed except for a fleeting stint in January 1959. That was when he’d worked for two hours at the Holiday Hotel in Reno and was let go, when this new employer learned about his alleged past cheating.

Senator Club workers told police Nick repeatedly had asked Duffin to “sign a statement clearing him of the cheating charge,” reported the Nevada State Journal (Dec. 29, 1959). Each time, Duffin had refused. This had happened most recently two weeks before the business owner was slain.

Vincent reported Nick had badgered her as well to get his work permit reinstated. She, too, though, had told him again and again she wouldn’t. Their most recent interaction had been on December 21, when Nick had showed up at her home, uninvited, and warned her, “Get my card back or else” (NSJ, May 28, 1960).

Goodman

The Evidence

When investigators questioned Nick, he had gunshot residue on his hands. He explained that by saying he’d fired a gun on Christmas Eve but as a test.

The suspect didn’t have a strong alibi for when the shooting of Duffin had occurred. Nick said he’d been away from home, but had been looking for his wife Genevieve Goodman, as they’d gotten separated when they’d been out earlier. (The time of the murder was 3:20 a.m.)

Some days later, the California Bureau of Criminal Investigation and Identification determined the bullets fired from Nick’s rifle matched those removed from Duffin’s body.

The Help

Police also arrested a Carson City handyman named Jack Armstrong for allegedly having hidden the murder weapon. They charged him with being an accessory after the fact.

Genevieve also wound up in jail, for allegedly having directed Armstrong to get rid of the gun and later, when she’d learned police were searching for it, having told him to move it.

All three suspects were going to be given lie detector tests.

The Admissions

They all came clean, one at a time, on December 28, three days after the crime.

Armstrong conceded he’d repaired the 0.22-caliber rifle Nick had used and had hidden it in a manure pile after the shooting.

Genevieve gave up Nick. Her hot-tempered husband, she added, had been growing increasingly angry at and preoccupied with Duffin for more than a year. that She also admitted her role.

Then Nick himself confessed he in fact had shot Duffin.

“I just went wild … berserk, I guess. I kept pulling the trigger,” Nick told police (NSJ, May 27, 1960).

The confessed murderer also revealed he’d tried to kill his ex-boss six months earlier one day when he’d spotted him inserting coins into a Carson City parking meter. When the gun had misfired, Nick had aborted the attempt.

Police let Armstrong and Genevieve go. The district attorney charged Nick with murder, for which he pleaded not guilty.

The Trial

When Nick’s trial got underway in mid-May 1960, he faced a potential death penalty if convicted.

District Attorney John Tom Ross and special prosecutor Emile Gezelin called a handful of witnesses to testify and played, for the jurors, the tape recording of Nick’s confession. Overall, the prosecutors laid out a strong case for Nick being guilty of the murder.

Nick’s defense attorneys, Samuel Francovich of Reno and Jack B. Tenney of Los Angeles, conceded the defendant had killed Duffin but argued he’d been insane when he’d done it. To save him from capital punishment, the team attempted to prove “Goodman went insane after 18 months of brooding and trying to prove his innocence in a cheating episode which cost the club its gaming license and himself his right to work at Nevada’s legal card tables,” the NSJ reported (June 1, 1960).

The bottom line for the jurors was whether or not Nick had been of sound mind when he’d shot and killed  Duffin. The prosecution asserted yes, he had been. They called for a first degree murder verdict and demanded the death penalty. The defense argued no, he hadn’t been sane. They demanded acquittal.

The Verdict

After nearly eight hours of deliberating, the jury of eight women and four men found Nick guilty of second degree murder. This conviction carried a prison term, not capital punishment, as a penalty.

“Defense attorneys Sam Francovich and Jack Tenney, together with Goodman’s wife, were jubilant over the second-degree finding. But Goodman was angry,” the NSJ reported (June 4, 1960). “‘For what?’ he snapped when newsmen congratulated him.”

Judge Frank B. Gregory sentenced Nick to a statutory 10 years to life term in Nevada State Prison.

After serving six years, Nick was granted early parole and released. 

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When sheriff’s deputies responded to a 10:45 p.m. call from Dixie’s Log Cabin* on January 11, 1953, they found a man, injured and lying in the parking lot there.

He was Raymond “Bud” Dutcher, 38, married and with a two-year-old daughter. He’d worked previously as a taxi and bus driver, a semi-professional baseball player, an umpire and a manager of the local West Indies Club. First responders transported him to Washoe Medical Center, where he remained in critical condition, unconscious and largely paralyzed, from being shot in the head. After twelve days in this state, he passed away.

The admitted perpetrator, Oscar Lafayette Maury, a former nightclub owner, 46, was charged with murder. His 1952 Oldsmobile was impounded; it had blood on the two left doors, some of which had appeared to have been wiped.

The ensuing investigation into the crime revealed that it resulted from words exchanged during a 21 game, at the Reno, Nevada establishment that also offered craps and slot machines. At that time, Joyce Moseley owned Dixie’s and held the gambling license for it.

“Dixie’s Log Cabin was a bar and cabaret that catered to local rounders and late night partygoers,” wrote Dwayne Kling in The Rise of the Biggest Little City.

Case Against Maury

At Maury’s trial, which began March 23, 1953, Assistant District Attorney Emile J. Gezelin and Deputy District Attorney William “Bill” J. Raggio, showed that Maury killed Dutcher, with an unpermitted gun, because Dutcher had tried to stop Maury from cheating while they’d played cards for money.

The prosecution’s key witness was John C. Bickford. A U.S. Marine who recently had just returned from Korea, he’d been working at Dixie’s as a handyman and errand runner the night in question.

Bickford relayed that during a 21 game between Dutcher, an unemployed dealer named Chauncey “Chuck” Kunz and Maury, Maury had been playing three hands at once. Having appeared “pretty drunk,” he’d been “loud and boisterous,” Bickford described, according to the Nevada State Journal (March 25, 1953).

“You’re holding up the game,” Dutcher had said to Maury.

Kunz had told Dutcher not to pester Maury as he could be dangerous.

“You can be a little rough, too,” Dutcher had told Kunz.

Shortly thereafter, Kunz and Dutcher had gone outside, presumably to fight each other. Maury had followed. Other patrons had intervened, though, and had prevented any fracas. Within minutes, they all had gone back inside, seemingly on friendly terms again. Dutcher and Kunz even had a drink together at the bar.

Later, Maury and his wife had left Dixie’s. Shortly after, Dutcher, who hadn’t seemed angry or drunk according to Bickford, had done the same. For a moment Bickford had lost sight of Dutcher but then had spotted him approaching Maury’s car.

“Before Dutcher got to the (car) door,” Bickford testified, “I heard a shot, and I saw the flash of a gun. The flash definitely came from the inside of the car.”

In presenting its case, the state brought up that the previous year, Dutcher had pleaded guilty to a charge of lewdness with an eight-year old girl, for which he’d received five years’ probation.

The Maurys’ Account

The defense, presented by attorney Sidney W. Robinson, was that to fend off Dutcher, Maury had hit him on the head with a 0.38-caliber pistol and in doing so, accidentally had fired it.

Mrs. Maury took the stand. She claimed that as she and her husband had been leaving Dixie’s, Dutcher had said, “There’s the little SOB I’m after,” and almost had chased them to their car, reported the Nevada State Journal (March 26, 1953).

“He looked like a giant,” she said. “He loomed up like Frankenstein.”

When she and her husband had been about to drive away, she claimed, Dutcher had opened the Olds’ driver’s door and had begun pulling him out of it. Her husband had hit Dutcher with a gun, and it, on its own, had discharged. 

Two other witnesses, Kuntz and Jack Cochran, a Lake Tahoe card dealer and bartender, who’d been with the Maurys that night, corroborated what Mrs. Maury said had happened inside Dixie’s. Neither Kuntz nor Cochran had seen the actual shooting.

Buster Terry, who’d dealt 21 for the trio that night, said that he’d only heard Maury being criticized for slowing down the game play.

Finally, Maury took the stand. He recalled that during the 21 game, Dutcher had told him angrily to speed up his playing. Maury had responded that he’d play his cards and Dutcher could play his own, to which Dutcher had said, “Don’t get smart or I’ll jerk your hat over your eyes.”

The rest of Maury’s testimony mostly matched that given by his wife except for the cause of the fatal shot. “I don’t know whether the gun went off of its own accord or I pulled the trigger,” he admitted.

Not An Aggressive Man

Gezelin called two rebuttal witnesses, Tyrus “Ty” Raymond Cobb, Nevada State Journal sports editor, and Gino Quilici, operator of a bar in Sparks, a neighboring city. Both testified that Dutcher generally had a solid reputation for “peace and quiet” (Reno Evening Gazette, March 26, 1953).

Consequences Ensue

On the fifth trial day, both sides rested their case and the jury was driven to Dixie’s to see the place of the crime. Afterward, at about 11:30 a.m., the seven women and five men commenced deliberation.

About 10.5 hours later, they reported their verdict. They found Maury guilty of second degree murder, meaning he’d acted with malice when he’d fatally shot Dutcher.

Maury “stared straight ahead, appearing in disbelief, for several minutes after the verdict was read,” reported the Nevada State Journal (March 28, 1953).

District Judge Harold O. Taber sentenced Maury to a prison term of 10 years to life, and within a few hours, the convicted man was processed into the Nevada State Prison.

As for Dixie’s proprietor Moseley, she applied in June 1953 to renew her gambling license for Dixie’s. However, the Nevada Tax Commission turned her down, the murder of Dutcher on her bar’s premises playing a role in that decision.

Granted Freedom

In less than three years into his prison term, in November 1955, the state board of pardons granted Maury release.

What do you think? Was that sufficient time served for having taken a life or not?

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* Dixie’s Log Cabin, also called Dixie’s Club and Log Cabin, was located at 596 Airport Road that today is Gentry Way.

Photo from freeimages.com: “Blackjack” by Tracy Scott-Murray

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