1947-1953

Harolds Club bustled on Christmas Eve in 1947 with revelers enjoying the gambling and camaraderie when an unexpected event instantly silenced the din. Panic followed.

Since the previous morning, Reno, Nevada police had been trying to locate a suspect: white male, approximately 20 years old, 5 feet 8 inches, 150 pounds. He’d robbed two taxicabs at gunpoint — one for $17 and one for $5 (about $184 and $54 today, respectively) — and had failed a third attempt.

At around 12:30 a.m., detective sergeants Francis Quinn and James Franklin spotted the alleged criminal entering Harolds Club. They followed him inside, where they informed patrolman William Reeder, working his regular beat there, of the situation. The three quickly fanned out then closed in on their target.

“Take your hands out of your pockets,” Quinn ordered.

The young man shot at the officers. All three fell, wounded. They didn’t fire back for fear a bystander might get hurt. Meanwhile, casino guests darted under tables or ran. Amazingly, none was hit.

Pursuit Of Fugitive

The suspect fled out the door. He got into a taxicab and after riding for a few minutes, pulled a gun on the driver (who hadn’t heard about the shooting), robbed him of $20 ($216 today) and got out.

About an hour later, 15 policemen, sheriff’s deputies and FBI agents traced the gunman to a used car lot where they cornered him. Again, he tried to shoot his way free, but that time a gun battle ensued. A bullet entered his shoulder and another grazed his head behind his ear. At that point, he gave up willingly.

He was arrested and processed then taken to the local hospital for medical treatment.

The culprit, Bobby Carter, originally was from Kentucky. He’d deserted the Navy a few months earlier, having abandoned his post in an Eastern state. He’d gone to Reno from San Francisco.

Of the hurt police officers, Franklin suffered the severest injuries as a bullet entered his abdomen, ruptured his spleen, passed his internal organs then lodged in his back. Reeder sustained a gunshot wound to his hand and an abrasion on his torso. Quinn was hit in the right thigh. Physicians said they expected them all to recover fully.

Punishment Delivered

In January of 1948, Carter was found guilty of assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill and was sentenced to a prison term of 1 to 14 years. (Strangely, at the time, the penalty for shooting someone was more lenient than that for grand larceny; 1 to 14 years was the maximum punishment for assault with the intent to kill whereas 2 to 14 years was the minimum for grand larceny!)

After serving about 5½ years, Carter was paroled, in May 1953.

Sources

Criminal drama occurred between two men late one November morning in the Wieland saloon in Reno, Nevada in 1904.

James Mann, a Wyoming man who sometimes worked in Silver State gambling clubs — the Louvre saloon and Oberon bar — had been imbibing for some time inside the Wieland. He jokingly began to spar with another intoxicated patron, P.J. O’Halloran, a laborer from San Francisco who’d been helping construct an irrigation canal outside of Reno.

O’Halloran, who’d arrived in town the night before and had few acquaintances there, grew annoyed and beat up Mann, who in turn got angry and viciously returned blows. During the heated brawl, O’Halloran knocked him down several times and gave him two black eyes, numerous bruises on his face and a welt on his chin.

Mann went to the saloon’s back room where he washed up. When he returned, he grabbed the bartender’s revolver from behind the bar and fired twice at his then foe.

“He did not give O’Halloran any warning and was cool and deliberate in his deadly work,” reported the Nevada State Journal (Nov. 20, 1904).

The bullets missed. As O’Halloran ran out of the saloon, Mann followed and shot twice, hitting O’Halloran once in the back of the head, “plowing beneath the scalp for a distance of two inches before it made its exit” (Reno Evening Gazette, Nov. 17, 1904). The impact gave the victim a concussion, but he remained conscious.

Unbelievable Outcomes

While O’Halloran staggered around outside of the building, Mann went back inside the saloon. Officers soon arrived, arrested and jailed Mann, who’d told them his name was James Bernard.

A doctor was summoned, who tended to O’Halloran before being taken to the county hospital. There, when a newspaper reporter tried to interview him, after answering only a few preliminary questions, he “dozed off into a drunken slumber” (Reno Evening Gazette, Nov. 17, 1904).

The following day, O’Halloran was doing well, lively and walking about the hospital. Because he’d sustained only a flesh wound, it was believed he’d heal in a couple of days. After getting discharged, he remained in Reno, heavily consuming alcohol.

In the meantime, Mann/Bernard was charged with shooting with intent to kill. A preliminary hearing took place, at which witnesses, including O’Halloran with his head swathed, recounted the events. Mann/Bernard declined to make a statement. The court determined he should be bound over to a grand jury. Unable to pay the bail of $1,000 (at least $25,000 today), he was detained in the county jail.

About two weeks later, O’Halloran again was hospitalized for an extreme case of pneumonia and, soon after, died. The autopsy revealed the cause of death hadn’t been the gunshot wound but, rather, typhoid pneumonia brought about by alcoholism and exposure. The deceased, who’d claimed to be only 24 years old, supposedly had been a hard drinker who hadn’t taken care of himself.

Early in 1905, Mann/Bernard entered a plea of not guilty, and his trial was set for February.

That month, however, because the state’s two eyewitnesses had left Nevada and the prosecuting witness, O’Halloran, was indisposed permanently, the case was dismissed. Mann/Bernard was released from jail.

Sources

1954

Late on a Saturday night in 1954, during the peak of business, an unemployed, 27-year-old railroad hand entered the Stockmen’s Hotel, in Elko, Nevada, where townspeople, miners, ranchers and tourists congregated to socialize, drink and gamble.

Silvus Armandus approached the casino cashier’s cage and demanded: “Hand over your money and don’t make a sound.”

The pit boss, D.E. Pierce, asked him to repeat what he’d said, and he did, gesturing with one of his hands in his pocket that he had a gun. Pierce, who thought Armandus was joking, began walking away. Armandus yelled, “I’ll kill the [expletive*],” while shooting at him twice, both bullets missing Pierce.

Another casino employee, Jack Brady, tackled the scoundrel to the ground and while wrestling with him, the gun fired two more times, injuring Brady in the stomach. Other employees joined the fracas, creating a body pile. When all the staff members stood, Armandus remained on the floor, unconscious.

During the melee, most of the casino’s 100 patrons just kept gambling.

Armandus was jailed for assault with a deadly weapon. When he subsequently appeared in court, the revised charge was attempted robbery. He pled guilty and said he couldn’t remember the incident at all. The judge sentenced him to 2.5 to 5 years in the Nevada State Prison.

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* The expletive wasn’t printed in the original newspaper source

Sources

Grave markers at San Quentin State Prison

1915-1935

James “Jimmy” Sidney Rogan, an active student and football player, was well liked by the principal of his high school in Tonopah, a mining boom town halfway between Las Vegas and Reno. In 1915, when the available ore in the town dubbed Queen of the Silver Camps was believed to be petering out and numerous residents, therefore, moved to the next hot spot, Rogan quit school in his junior year but wouldn’t tell Principal Chauncey Smith why. Smith encouraged him to stick with his education, to no avail. Rogan went on to work as a Southern Pacific brakeman running out of Sparks, then as a taxi driver in Reno.

In 1924, when in his mid-20s, Rogan got in a brawl in public in Reno, which led to a disturbing the peace charge. A judge fined him $20 ($475 today).

The next year, also in The Biggest Little City, Rogan and a friend, Bobby Gray, a Reno prizefighter, beat and robbed a miner of $80 and his shirt. When police questioned Rogan, he confessed and returned the money to his victim, who declined to press charges. The same judge, before whom Rogan had appeared in the past, gave him roughly 12 hours to get out of town. He did and found work as a seaman. (Gray was released and admonished to choose better associates.)

In Deeper Trouble

In 1932, Rogan, “the debonair adventurer,” and known San Francisco gangster, Rollie D. McAllister, lost $100 ($1,700 today) in the early morning hours while gambling in a speakeasy in Los Angeles’ exclusive Westlake neighborhood (Nevada State Journal, Oct. 14, 1933).

Around 5 a.m., they returned via taxicab after having decided they’d been cheated out of their money. Brandishing guns, they tried forcing the club’s owners, Harvey Crosby and Ben Harris, to return it. Also inside were Deputy Sheriff Rudolph Vejar, 36, who was investigating vice conditions, a bartender and a dealer.

McAllister forced the proprietors to remove their shoes and lie down on the floor while Rogan kept the other people there on the opposite side of the room covered with two pistols. Finding only $68 in the owners’ pockets, McAllister ordered Vejar to remove his shoes and lie down with Crosby and Harris. McAllister began burning Crosby’s bare feet with lit matches to get him to disclose where the cash was hidden.

Suddenly Vejar drew his pistol and shot Rogan in the leg. The former Renoite returned fire, a bullet hitting Vejar in the mouth then penetrating his neck and spine. Vejar emptied his firearm at McAllister, mortally wounding him. Rogan peppered the room with gunshot as he backed out of the establishment. He then took the waiting cab away from the scene and asked to be let out at Washington Boulevard.

Vejar died in the hospital the next day. Rogan went on the lam.

Eleven months later, police found the “underworld character,” as he was described, in San Francisco, where he was visiting his mother before his planned exit from the United States (Nevada State Journal, Dec. 16, 1933). They arrested and extradited him to Los Angeles.

In late 1933, Rogan was tried on robbery and murder charges. During the court proceedings, he insisted that he was innocent in that McAllister had killed Vejar. The jury, after six hours of deliberation, however, found Rogan guilty on both counts.

The judge sentenced him to death on the gallows. In the meantime, he was to remain behind bars at San Quentin State Prison.

Attempts At A Reversal

The Supreme Court of California heard the case on appeal and upheld the conviction and death sentence.

Rogan’s mother and one of his sisters implored California Governor Frank Merriam to commute Jimmy’s death sentence. Five of the jurors who’d found Rogan guilty previously signed a petition for clemency as did Nevada Senator Pat McCarran, a friend of Rogan’s father.

In early February 1935, Rogan wrote a letter to Smith, his former principal/football coach/math instructor, telling him he was sorry for never following his advice way back when. He revealed why he’d dropped out of high school: he hadn’t made the basketball team while younger classmen had.

“In case the worst happens I certainly wanted you to know that I appreciate the things and the efforts on your part to assist me in every way,” Rogan wrote Smith (Reno Evening Gazette, Feb. 13, 1935).

On Feb. 8, 1935, the 32 year old was hanged at 10:04 a.m. Eleven minutes later, the prison physician pronounced him dead. To the end, Jimmy had maintained his innocence.

Sources

Photo from the Los Angeles Times: by Rick Meyer

1920

It was 3 a.m. on a Monday. About 15 men were gambling in the Desert Club. One who’d been there all night, sitting alone, watching and waiting to make his move was George Strickland. In his mid-30s and a self-named Wobbly, he’d arrived in Tonopah, Nevada, a few days earlier.

Suddenly, he stood, brandished a gun and demanded everyone put up their hands. He relieved each of his money and valuables then stole about $150 ($1,800 today) from the cash register. He backed out the door, instructing those he’d robbed to stay put.

The police tracked Strickland to the town of Millers, Nevada. When they ordered him to surrender, he shot at them and fled along the Tonopah & Goldfield railroad track. He came upon a passenger train heading to Mina, Nevada and decided to hold it up and get the engineer to bypass the next stop. An express messenger on board, however, shot Strickland in the arm, thwarting his plan.

When the officers arrested him, the alleged thief had $375 ($4,500 today) on his person, about half the amount the victims claimed he’d stolen from them. They confiscated the cash, which was to be held in police possession until the court instructed them what to do with it.

Spectacle In Court

During his arraignment, Strickland acted bizarrely.

“He pleaded guilty and then withdrew the plea repeatedly until the attorneys were confused and did not understand what his final decision was — until he was halted in a rambling discourse and induced to go on record with a plea of guilty,” reported the Reno Evening Gazette (July 16, 1920).

During the trial, it came out that he’d planned to get to Mina to acquire more ammunition then return to Millers to fight the officers pursuing him — surefire suicide by cop.

Strickland’s ongoing behavior pointed to some type of mental imbalance and violent tendencies. While in the Tonopah jail, he’d picked several fights. In the courtroom, he attacked the bailiff in the hopes of commandeering his weapon and escaping. Committee members assigned to evaluating Strickland’s sanity offered diverging opinions. The sheriff believed the only safe place for the accused was the penitentiary.

“It is surmised by officers who have been brought in close contact that he is either an escaped convict or a fugitive from an insane asylum,” reported the Reno Evening Gazette (July 16, 1920).

The judge sentenced him to five to 25 years in Nevada State Prison, and Strickland thanked him.

As for the money the convicted criminal had pilfered, if it were returned to the original owners, the men could be convicted of illegal gambling (only some games of chance were allowed then). Thus, the money instead likely wound up in the county treasury.

Tragic Finale

A month later, in August, while in the prison hospital, Strickland picked the lock and found his way into the yard. At risk of being shot by a guard, he scaled the perimeter wall and hotfooted it.

He’d made it about 12 miles when bloodhounds tracked him down in a Carson City mill fewer than three hours later. Recaptured, he was returned to the pen.

The following February, Strickland snatched a razor from the prison’s barber shop and used it to fatally cut his throat.

Sources

1935

Police discovered John S. Parks, a 67 year old, carrying a loaded Colt 45 automatic on a downtown Reno, Nevada street around midnight on a July Monday.

With blood streaming from his nose and smeared on his face and clothes, Parks refused to say what had caused his injuries.

After taking him to the hospital, they jailed him. He was released the next day on $200 bail until his trial for carrying a concealed weapon.

It then came to light that Parks had engaged in fisticuffs that night with a co-worker, Frank Soares. Both men were dealers in the Colombo Hotel’s gambling club. Witnesses said Parks had hit Soares first after a heated argument, after which Soares, 38 years younger, had bested him. Parks had threatened to kill his adversary.

History Of Violence

The altercation with Soares wasn’t Parks’ first. In 1922, he’d shot a porter at the Overland Hotel in the hallway outside the room in which he’d been staying. Parks, who’d been drinking earlier, had grown angry when he’d asked for a second room key, and William Hubbard had responded that one couldn’t be procured until the next morning. Parks had drawn a revolver and when Hubbard had run, he’d shot twice, hitting him in the neck.

“I am a southerner and hot headed,” Parks had told the arresting officers (Nevada State Journal, July 13, 1922).

Fortunately, Hubbard eventually had recovered.

When the case had gone to trial, the jury members had failed to reach a verdict after more than six hours’ deliberation, so the judge had discharged them. A second trial had ensued, in which jurors had found Parks guilty of assault with a deadly weapon, a lesser charge than the first — assault with intent to kill. He’d served two years in the Nevada State Prison.

Unexpected Outcomes

Eleven days following the scrap between Parks and Soares, the elder gambler died in the hospital from brain injuries caused from a fractured skull. Law enforcement arrested Soares but waited to charge him until an autopsy of Parks could be undertaken to reveal the cause of death.

Ultimately, the coroner determined Parks hadn’t passed away from the wounds he’d sustained from his fight with Soares. Having been cleared of any wrongdoing, the dealer was released.

Sources

Town House gambling saloon, Reno, Nevada

1944-1945

The trial of Andrew Jackson “Jack” Blackman, free on $10,000 bail, began in April 1945, six months after he’d fatally shot James Lannigan in the Bank Club in Reno, Nevada.

District Attorney Melvin E. Jepson, in his opening statement, asserted the state would prove the defendant had committed premeditated and deliberate murder.

Blackman’s attorney, Harlan L. Heward, offered that his client admitted to shooting Lannigan but the act had been in self-defense; that because his client, a man with a solid reputation, was disabled, he’d had to carry a gun to protect himself; and that his injuries had indicated Lannigan likely had used brass knuckles or a similar weapon when he’d struck Blackman.  

Livelihood As Gangster

During the trial, various witnesses revealed snippets of Lannigan’s past. His real name was John Nicholson, but he went by Lannigan because an aunt and uncle with that name partially had raised him. The monikers under which he’d served time were John C. Nicholson, John Cline and James Moran. As a youth, Lannigan, along with fellow gang members, had held up speakeasies routinely and by age 20, had been believed to have committed murder.

In 1928, he’d begun a five-year-to-life sentence at San Quentin State Prison for armed robbery. There, he’d been put in solitary confinement or otherwise punished 16 times for various infractions, including knife cutting an inmate in the face, striking another convict in the head with a length of pipe, stabbing yet another prisoner with a shiv, stealing from the tin shop and insubordination, among others. At one point, he’d been in solitary for 362 days in a row.

In 1932 he’d been transferred to Folsom State Prison as an “incorrigible” inmate (Nevada State Journal, April 11, 1945). There, he’d served eight years, until 1940, when he’d been paroled.

After Lannigan had relocated to Reno in the summer of 1944, several times local police officers had told him to leave town, as they’d considered him an “undesirable,” “dangerous and aggressive” person whose employment was being “a gangster,” (Reno Evening Gazette, November 29, 1944). Instead, he’d stayed.

Soon after, in August, Lannigan had been arrested for armed robbery of $14,000 at the Ta-Neva-Ho casino at Lake Tahoe, along with his accomplice and friend from San Quentin, Marvin Paul Michaels. Whereas Lannigan had been released due to lack of evidence, Michaels was to stand trial, which was about to begin any day. This allegedly was the court case for which Lannigan wanted money from Blackman, for the defense of Michaels, who was facing repeat offender charges.

No Choir Boy

As for Blackman, he’d been arrested several years earlier in Texas for attempting to pass counterfeit money, a mistake, he claimed, because he’d been handed a bill that he’d then tried to use to buy cigarettes. Further, the case had been dismissed. He also admitted to having been fined $10 for gambling and having forfeited $25 in bail once when he’d been arrested for dealing a game of 21.

More To The Story?

In court, Jepson contended there had to be a reason why Lannigan had chosen Blackman specifically to extort. He vowed to unearth and reveal what it was, but he never did.

“One of the puzzling matters in the trial is why Lannigan allegedly persisted in trying to obtain money from Blackman despite the fact he had been advised to let him alone by men who had known him [Lannigan] for years,” reported the Nevada State Journal (April 15, 1945).

Last Ditch Efforts

Six days into the trial, the prosecution called a surprise witness, Lannigan’s widow, Barbara Nicholson, who appeared dressed in a Women’s Army Corps uniform. She contradicted Blackman’s testimony by saying she’d met him before, at her apartment where Blackman had visited once to look at some clothes; that she, her husband and the defendant had a friendly conversation and drink together at the Town House one time previously; and that Hilliard, upon her request, had taken a $100 bill, not a weapon, out of Lannigan’s pocket in the hospital.

A verbal volley, in the form of closing arguments, ensued between the prosecution and defense.

After deliberating for 4.5 hours, the jury found Blackman not guilty.

Sources

Bank Club in Reno, Nevada, 1930s

1944-1945

A thug’s confrontation of a casino owner on October 30, 1944 radically altered both of their lives.

Andrew Jackson “Jack” Blackman, co-proprietor of the Town House gambling saloon* in Reno, left his business for the night at about 2:30 a.m. and went into the Bank Club** to see his good friend, Walter Parman, the manager.

He noticed Edward “Swede” Olsen and three ex-convicts — James Lannigan, Joe Devine (aka Joe Frisco) and George “Pretty Boy” Hilliard — sitting at the bar.

As Blackman, 32, was passing them, Lannigan, 39, said to him, “Come here. I want to see you.” When Blackman replied he was busy and kept moving, his summoner grabbed him by the sleeve and yanked him toward him.

“Am I coming across or not?” Lannigan queried, in other words asking whether Blackman was going to give him the money he wanted. “Are you trying to high hat me?”

“No,” Blackman asserted.

“I’ll kill you,” Lannigan said, among other threats.  He reached into one pocket, then another, and slugged Blackman in the face while saying, “You’re gonna come over.”

A stunned and reeling Blackman pulled his .38-caliber Colt revolver and shot at Lannigan five times. Two of the bullets hit him in the stomach; the other three went into the bar counter.

When the gunfire began, most of the casino patrons hit the floor and stayed there until it was safe to move.

Olsen and Hilliard took the gun from Blackman, who was bleeding profusely from his nose. In the meantime, Lannigan ran out the door and dropped, face down, just outside the club. In the ambulance Lannigan “called out vile epithets several times,” according to police (Nevada State Journal, April 14, 1945).

The Dire Consequences

In the Washoe General Hospital emergency room, when the night nurse supervisor was preparing Lannigan for a blood transfusion, Hilliard appeared and approached her patient, getting in her way. She asked him to leave but he only did so after taking something out of the injured’s pocket.

About a half-hour later, Lannigan succumbed to internal hemorrhaging. The death shot had been the second one, which had entered the body just below the twelfth rib, had traversed upward through the chest, puncturing the liver, abdomen, heart and lungs, and had lodged under his left armpit.

Two police officers arrived on the scene at the Bank Club. Blackman asked them to take him away before Lannigan’s fellow thugs killed him. On the ride to the police station, Blackman, whose nose then was flattened with a jagged cut on it, asked if Lannigan was dead. Upon hearing the answer, “No, not yet,” Blackman said, “I hope he dies, or he’ll get me.” Later, Blackman would say he didn’t remember that conversation.

Soon after, Blackman was dazed and groggy from “a blow of sufficient force to cause a ‘pretty severe’ brain concussion, a doctor said. Although under arrest on the investigation of murder, he also was transported to Washoe General, where he underwent surgery on his nose, which had been fractured into many parts (Reno Evening Gazette, April 13, 1945). Subsequently, Blackman reacted negatively to the sulfa in the nose drops used to treat him and, consequently, remained an inpatient for two weeks.

Following his arrest, he sold his interest in the Town House.

A Repeat Offender

For several months, Lannigan had been attempting to shake down Blackman for money — for “protection” and to fund the impending court case of a fellow gangster (Nevada State Journal, October 1, 1944).

Blackman first had met Lannigan at the Ta-Neva-Ho at Lake Tahoe, where the former managed the gambling games, in 1937. That was when Lannigan had started pressing him for cash. Blackman said that “Lannigan seemed to hound him whenever they met” (Nevada State Journal, April 14, 1945).

While living in Los Angeles, Lannigan had asked Blackman for money to cover bond and an attorney, and even did so in person at Blackman’s business, the Town House, the last time having been two or three weeks before the shooting.

Each time, Lannigan reportedly had made such comments as, “I’ll rub you out,” “If you don’t come across, I’ll take a crack at you,” “I’ve done stretches in San Quentin and Folsom and didn’t like it, but wouldn’t mind doing more to get you” and “If you holler to the police, you’ll be like a cake of ice.” Blackman, however, had always refused.

In fear for his life, he’d applied for a gun permit, to no avail (nobody had successfully gotten one in 1944) and he’d carried a firearm anyway, especially when he’d transported money from the Town House to the bank. Also, confidant Parman had followed Blackman, who’d had a bum leg since a fall during childhood which had caused the military to deem him unfit for service, home each night in his car to ensure his safety.

Having killed Lannigan, Blackman faced a trial and a potential prison sentence.

(We’ll publish Part II on Friday.)

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* The Town House was located at 39 W. First Street.

**The Bank Club was at 239 N. Center Street.

Sources

Photo from Wikimedia Commons: by Vincent Laforêt, Fred and Maurine Wilson, Al Moe

1958

Tourists Robert and Lola McDurmon may or may not have been in the wrong place at the wrong time, depending on how you look at it.

After taking in four shows on the Las Vegas Strip, the couple from Oxnard, California unwittingly witnessed a crime drama unfold up close. After pulling into the parking lot of their hotel, the Desert Inn, at about 5:30 a.m. to call it a night, a shootout involving a lone man and two law enforcement officers ensued about 20 feet away.

The two were in Sin City in March on a trip Robert had earned for having sold a significant number of Ford autos at work — Moffett Ford in Santa Paula — the previous month.

What Witnesses Didn’t Know

Before the volley of gunshots, Robert Vincent Carter, 47-year-old unemployed accountant, had been imbibing liquid spirits at the Desert Inn’s Sky Room bar. He got into a heated argument with a businessman — Stewart Hollingshead, an executive with the R.M. Hollingshead Company, a New Jersey-based manufacturer.  Because Carter’s language was expletive filled, he was tossed out of the hotel-casino. He drove home, retrieved his 0.350 Magnum pistol and returned to the Desert Inn.

Once there, he grabbed the casino pit boss, Sonny Burnett, and, at gunpoint, forced him outside the building. At that moment, another hotel guest, businessman and friend of Hollingshead, Harold Shafer, was about to enter. Carter snatched him and released Burnett.

“I’m giving you 60 seconds to get that other guy out here,” Carter told Burnett, meaning he wanted him to retrieve the man who had Carter ejected from the property earlier. Burnett went inside.

With his pistol targeted on him, Carter maneuvered Shafer to a car near the hotel entrance and pushed him into the front passenger seat. Carter then got in on the opposite side. While that was happening, sheriff’s detectives, Hiram Powell and Don Peel, appeared on the scene.

“Drop the gun!” Peel said.

Instead of complying, Carter threw open his car door and fired a shot that sailed past one of Peel’s ears. The police duo responded with eight bursts, one bullet hitting Carter in the right temple.

During the fray, Shafer ducked and ran to safety.

Carter was transported to Southern Nevada Memorial Hospital and charged with two counts of kidnapping. Though his condition was critical, he survived.

In September, Carter pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of false imprisonment. He was convicted and sentenced, but it’s unknown what punishment he received.

Possible Triggers

What had set Carter off?

“He apparently just was in a belligerent mood and disturbed by family troubles,” said Sheriff W.E. Leypoldt (Reno Evening Gazette, March 11, 1958).

Carter and his wife, who worked as a cashier at the Desert Inn casino, had been having marital problems and, in the recent past, had been separated on and off, though they were together at the time of the crime. Leypoldt further speculated that the potent amphetamine, Benzedrine, which officers found in his car, together with alcohol may have helped cause Carter to “blow his top.”

An Unforgettable Trip

As for the McDurmons, they had quite the story to tell upon returning home. And tell they did, at least to the local newspaper, the Oxnard Press-Courier.

Sources