Lorraine Newton – Half Moon Bay Memories

February 13, 2006

Murder in Montara: Babes in the Woods Case: THE END

When the trial of alleged murderer Vorhes Newton opened at the Redwood City courthouse in October 1946, the heinous crime had slipped from the front pages of the newspapers.

Short summaries of the Newton murders—Vorhes was accused of killing his two little daughters and for the attempted murder of his wife, Lorraine, all found in a remote Montara canyon– appeared on the same page as the trials of convicted abortionists and the closings of illegal âabortion millsâ?. Was there a connection?

But before the prosecution and defense faced off in the Newton trial, 115 potential jurors were called to the Redwood City courthouse and after two-and-half days ânine housewives and three menâ? were selected to sit in the jury box.

To the press, both legal adversaries exuded optimism. Fred M. Wycoff, the prosecutor, who had worked the Newton case since it broke over the summer, believed his detective, Frank Marlowe– a name worthy of a mystery novel– had handed him a âhoney of a caseâ?.

His star witness, Wycoff announced, was to be Newtonâs 21-year-old wife, Lorraine.

Criminal Defense Attorney Leo R. Friedman, was just as famous for his ability to delay and delay as he was for changing his clientâs venues. On the behalf of Newton, he was asking the court to move the case from Redwood City to San Jose– and he revealed to reporters that his strategy would include the controversial Jeckyll and Hyde theory of dual personalities, backed up with psychiatric testimony, to explain the horrific actions of Vorhes Newton.

Newton had pleaded not guilty and not guilty by reason of insanity.

In his opening statement, Fred Wycoff fascinated the jury by linking the case with the popular 1946 movie, âThe Postman Always Ring Twiceâ?, starring gorgeous Lana Turner. Wycoff said the Newtons saw the film the night before the murders and claimed that Vorhes was influenced by Lana Turnerâs character, Cora Smith, who smashed a bottle over her husbandâs head. Newtonâs children were killed with a milk bottle found at the scene.

Wycoff also elaborated on what happened during the hours before the murders. He told the jury that Lorraine Newton had been pregnant when Vorhes drove her and the children to the Coastside where he suggested Lorraine have an abortion. When she balked, he beat his wife and threw her over a 12-foot embankment. Then he killed the children and attempted to bury them. Police caught up with Vorhes at Lake Tahoe where he claimed to have no memory of the crimes, adding that it wasnât in his nature to kill anyone.

Called to the witness stand were Vorhesâs sister and brother-in-law. Newton had borrowed their car to take his wife and children on the death ride and returned it later the same day looking as if nothing had happened. To the Petermans them he had always seemed a loving father and caring husband. They drove Vorhes to the train believing he was going to San Francisco to join Lorraine and the kids.

Everyone in the courtroom anticipated Lorraine Newtonâs damaging testimony. She had survived her husbandâs brutal attacks, suffering a miscarriage afterwards. Although most folks sympathized with her, she had her detractors, too. She was criticized for sounding âstrangely impersonalâ? and for ânot showing enough emotionâ?.

But Lorraine Newton never took the witness stand.

The trial had barely gotten started when shocking news paralyzed the courtroom: Vorhes Newton had hung himself in his cell on the third floor of the Redwood City jail.

There ensued a discussion of what to do next with the Prosecutor Wycoff suggesting the case be dismissed. Before that happened, Newton’s counsel, Leo Friedman made a statement, saying that his client told him repeatedly he had no memory of the events of the day of the murders–and that he had turned up evidence pointing as much to Newton’s innocence as guilt.

Wycoff said, “Newton is now before a greater Judge. He has left this vale of tears.”

After the trial was dismissed a few hours later, Lorraine Newton walked into the District Attorney’s office and said, in what tone we are not told: “I am sorry justice was not permitted to run its course.”

As the case was dismissed, another rumor was making the rounds: Supposedly Newton had said, “If I ever become convinced I did it, I’ll hang myself.”

January 19, 2006

Murder in Montara: Babes in the Woods Case, Part VII

In October 1946, several months after Lorraine Newtonâs daughters were brutally slain in a remote Montara canyon, the young 21-year-old mother, herself a victim who survived the attacks, sat in the Redwood City office of Assistant District Attorney Fred Wycoff.

She was ready to talk about the horrific event that had occurred, just days before the murder trial of her husband, Vorhes, was set to begin.

You wouldnât have known Lorraine had been severely injured. Slim and dark-haired, she looked gorgeous after a long hospital stay in Half Moon Bay.

âMy husband, Vorhes,â? she said, âkilled my babies and tried to murder me. He would have buried all three of us in Wagner canyon but he must have been frightened off by my screams.â?

When asked for a motive, Lorraine Newton looked blank. âThere was no reason,â? she said. She noted that the children were his and she didnât have any lovers to make him jealous.

She gave more details about that terrible day recalling that she and her husband headed from Alameda for an appointment with a Doctor Anderson in San Francisco. Apparently the husband made the appointment.

(While there may have been an authentic “Dr. Anderson” in San Francisco, there was a Mrs. Alta Anderson, who, along with her daughter, Mae Rodley, operated an “abortioon mill” in San Mateo County. Is it possible that this is the “Dr. Anderson” both Newtons, or the wife or the husband, had made an appointment with?)

âHe said he wanted to take a ride first,â? Lorraine said. She seated Barbara, the older daughter in the front seat between the couple, and Carolyn, was put in a baby seat in the back.

Vorhes may have wanted to take a âride firstâ?, as Lorraine claimed, but she said they did go to San Francisco. When they got there Vorhes said that the doctor was not in San Francisco but at Rockaway Beach in Pacifica.

With the car pointed in a new direction, they drove into the mountains and stopped. âI couldnât understand what a doctor would be doing in the wilds,â? she said.

âI got out of the car and Vorhes struck me. He hit me with his fist. He knocked me out. When I came to one baby lay head beside me. The other baby was half buried. I never saw her.â?

Lorraine Newton said she was going to testify against her husband. âI will answer questions,â? she said. âIâm only interested in seeing that justice takes its course.â? One would think her tone would be angrier, uglier, but she only added that, âFor myself, I want to forget everything. I have no plans, not even to divorce my husband. I suppose Iâll ask for my freedom later.â?

The Newtons met while they were students at Polytechnic High School in San Francisco. Vorhes had joined the Coast Guard when the couple married in Reno in 1942.

â¦.To be Continued

December 10, 2005

Montara Murder: Babes in the Woods Case 1946: Part V

Murder in Montara: The Babes in the Woods Case 1946; Part V

There was a lot of back-and-forth over where Vorhes Newtonâs arraignment would take place in the summer of 1946. Who knows how they finally worked it out but those officials who pushed the Redwood City County Courthouse venue, lost, and it was decided the 24-year-old Newton would be arraigned on the Coastside where his horrific crime had been committed.

Half Moon Bay was a rural country village, and Judge Manuel Bettencourt, who presided over the court there, was the kind of man you either liked or hated, He was called âThe Judgeâ? and depending on who was saying it, âThe Judgeâ? sounded warm and friendly or tainted with a smoldering ire.

One thing nobody could deny, âThe Judgeâ? had broken social barriers by marrying the pert, outgoing Irene Debenedetti, the daughter of one of the most prominent families in town. She was Italian; he was Portuguese; theirs may have been the first such important marital union in Spanishtown, as the ârealâ? locals called Half Moon Bay.

It was only an arraignment, a legal procedure measured in minutes, but no matter how small his role âthe Judgeâ? would be a presence.

Judge Bettencourtâs office/courtroom stood on Main Street, across the way from today’s âOriginal Johnnyâsâ? coffee shop. Bettencourtâs courtroom was a space big enough to hold a maximum of 25 spectators.

Dubbed the âBabes in the Woodsâ? case by the press, Vorhes Newton had attracted national attention putting Redwood City, where the heavy legal business was conducted, on the map. This case could make reputations.

Due to all the attention, Judge Bettencourtâs Half Moon Bay courtroom couldn’t comfortably accommodate all the photographers, reporters, the curious, the locals and the participants. Sheriffâs deputies, with their prisoner, had to push through the crowd before a decision was made to move the whole show to the nearby high schoolâs gymnasium, accommodating 150 spectators. When the bleachers were full, chairs were quickly brought in and a courtroom improvised with tables from the classrooms.

Sheriff Walter Moore, member of a prominent Pescadero family, acted as bailiff. County District Attorney Gilbert Ferrell arrived with Fred Wyckoff, Ferrellâs second-in-command who had done most of the early case work.

The noise of onlookers didnât drown out official voices in the makeshift courtroom in the school gym– rather there was a stunned quiet– and, besides the normal curiosity associated with people wanting to see the kind of man who would murder his own children–there was pity for young Vorhes Newton.

Wearing a checkered sports jacket and brown tie, Vorhes had a scrubby brown beard, his face was bruised, his black eye colored a purplish hue now. His own personal trial had caused his shoulders to droop. When his eyes searched the school gym, he recognized half a dozen members of his family but Vorhes didn’t smile or nod at them. He still couldn’t believe he committed the murders.

Judge Bettencourt asked the defendant if Vorhes Newton was his name and he softly answered, âYesâ?.

Then followed a series of damning witnesses First was Fred Simmons, Half Moon Bayâs deputy sheriff. He spoke of bringing a bloodied Lorraine Newton to the Community Hospital. He told of finding the bodies of the two little ones.

John Kyne testified to finding the bodies of the two babies at the Montara flower ranch which was also confirmed by Kyneâs employees James Fiedler and Steve Torre,.

Mrs. Dodd, the Newtonâs Alameda neighbor, told the court that she accompanied the Newton family on the first part of the murder ride. She was dropped off at the Alameda navy base. Later that day she saw Vorhes return home alone.

Of interest to defense attorney Leo Friedman was Mrs. Doddâs statement that she often heard Vorhes call his wife, âBossâ?. In her opinion Lorraine Newton was the quarrelsome type, not her husband.

Witness Anthelmo Quaves said he saw an auto containing a man and woman drive slowly into the lonely canyon and heard yelling and the sounds of someone being beaten. He said he saw the auto come back speeding out of the canyon.

Lorraineâs mother, Mrs.Tuttle, said her daughter was improving and identified her engagement and wedding rings

Defense attorney Leo Friedman revealed that Mrs. Newton knew she was pregnant, wanted to confirm it with a doctor and left open an abortion.

Newton sat solemnly at a studentâs desk in the makeshift courtroom, obviously relieved when Deputy Sheriff Jack OâBrien escorted from out of the courtroom and back to the car that would return him to the Redwood City County Jail.

Outside the courtroom in Half Moon Bay, defense attorney Leo Friedman joked with reporters and photographers. They knew him from for his role in two sensational trials, that of Mrs. Frances Andrews and David Lamson.

Lorraine Newton did not make an appearance. So far she had remained in the background.

To be continued….

December 8, 2005

Murder in Montara (1946): Babes in the Woods Case: Part IV

Whether the San Mateo County District Attorney would press for the death penalty in the Vorhes Newton case was not yet known. Newtonâs was a heinous crime, the killer of his two little children who were left to die on a lonely road in Montaraâand the attempted murder of his young pregnant wife.

Luckily, 21-year-old=year Lorraine Newton had survied and was slowly recovering from severe head injuries in a Half Moon Bay hospital in the summer of 1946.

Lorraine hadnât been told that the babies were dead, and although she hadnât talked to her husband, the pair both agreed about one thing: neither remembered what happened at the end of that horrible day. Theyâd had an argument about abortion, they remembered that, but then both Lorraine and Vorhes maintained they blanked out and couldnât recall anything else.

The prosecutors had no trouble mapping out what had happened. They had an open and shut case, with testimony, evidence and the murder weapon in their possession, enough to convict and ask for the death penalty. The prosecution was anxious to go to trial, which they predicted would be short and sweet.

The prosecution team also bragged that they had damning testimony even if Newtonâs wife couldnât testifyâbut they believed she would be well enough to do so. They had the murder weapons, a sharp-edged shovel and a babyâs milk bottle.

Vorhes Newton was not a loner, not without the love and support of his wealthy family, his father an affluent farmer from nearby Lodi, and one of his brothers a successful âcoin phonographâ? operator. His parents and siblings rushed to his side at the county jail, strategizing with Leo Friedman, the nationally known and colorful attorney who replaced former superior judge Alden Ames, said to have had second thoughts about representing the controversial defendant.

Fresh from winning several tough cases for his clients, Leo Friedman huddled with Vorhes Newton’s family, discussing strategy. He walked away forty five minutes later telling the press Vorhes impressed him âas a lovely boy with a good record. I donât even know that he did it. If anybody did do anything like thisâhe must be crazy.â?

After the legal conference with Friedman, Newton followed his new lawyerâs advice and refused to give up any information during future grilling by detectivesâeven though he had already allegedly confessed bludgeoning the babies to death.

Friedman wanted that confession repudiated because it had been elicited under the duress of grilling. He mentioned the possibility of a plea of ânot guilty by reason of insanityâ?.

County District Attorney Gilbert Ferrell said that Mrs. Newton was pregnant but, when asked if she would keep the baby, he said no one had that answer– but that the pregnancy was certainly the cause of the argument between the couple and the violent events that followed. Vorhes and Lorraine Newton, Ferrell said, were arguing about the abortion, an illegal medical procedure in 1946. Ferrell did not reveal whether husband or wife was for or against it.

Medical experts believed the beating Lorraine received could lead to a miscarriage.

Her parents, residents of southern California, came to their daughterâs bedside. Lorraineâs father, Frank Tuttle, was the port auditor at Los Angeles. She had still not been told of her childrenâs deaths but was conscious and conversing with nurses at the Coastside hospital.

But would she appear as a witness at her husbandâs trial?

To be continued….

December 1, 2005

“Babes in the Woods Case” Murder in Montara: Part III

In the summer of 1946 the lifeless bodies of two little girls were found near a bed of wild lilies bordering the Havis Flower Nursery in Wagner Canyon in Montara.

Despite severe skull injuries, the childrenâs mother, 21-year-old Lorraine Newton, had survived the brutal attempt to murder herâand sought refuge overnight in an abandoned shack.

Next morning longtime Coastside resident John Kyne encountered the semi-conscious Lorraine, shoeless, wandering, and calling for Barbara Ann and Caroline Lee, the names of her children. It was Kyne who alerted authorities, and, Simmons, the constable from Half Moon Bay, arrived to take her to the nearby Community Hospital. (Community Hospital was run by Colonel Howard Roycroft, a military doctor, a reminder that the armed forces had had a presence on the Coastside during WWII.)

Constable Simmons noted that Lorraine was not wearing an engagement and wedding ring as most married women did in 1946. Had the murderer taken them?

At Community Hospital, Lorraine slipped in and out of consciousness, calling for her children and husband Vorhes. Colonel Roycroft wouldnât let police question her. The head injury was severe and her survival was uncertain. More importantly after examining his patient, Dr. Roycroft had important information for police. Lorraine was pregnant. Lorraine Newton asked for her children and her husband Vorhes.

When she began to recover, police were permitted to ask a few questions. The only thing Lorraine recalled, she told them, was sitting in a car with her husband and daughters and watching the waves at Rockaway Beach in Pacifica. Everything else remained a blank.

Meanwhile a statewide search for Lorraineâs husband, Vorhes, was underway. The 24-year-old glazier had vanished and police were anxious to interrogate the man who had become a murder suspect in what the press dubbed âThe Babes in the Woodsâ? case.

Cops knew Vorhes had returned the car he borrowed from his sister, the car that he drove to the Coastside. A search of the vehicle produced a shovel, a possible murder weapon. They tracked Newtonâs movements back to the coupleâs apartment in Alameda. On the bed Newton had spread out one of his wifeâs dresses and beside it, a baby bottle.

As Lorraine Newton recovered, police were permitted to ask her questionsâbut Dr. Roycroft wouldnât let them tell her about the death of her daughters. Asked about her husbandâs character, she said he was the most lovable man on earth. About the events which lead up to her injuries, she recalled little. All she could remember was sitting in a car with her husband and daughters, watching the waves at Rockaway Beach in Pacifica. Nothing else.

And that was what the newspapers reported.

Police fanned out to question Lorraine and Vorhesâ neighbors and friends in Alameda where the couple lived. The first reports offered nothing out of the ordinary, a picture of a happily married coupleâbut cracks in this picture emerged as a close friend said Lorraine hated her husband, adding that she wouldnât be with him if it werenât for the children.

The murder story was headlined in so many papers that San Mateo County police figured it wouldnât be long before Vorhes Newton would be caught. His picture was posted everywhee. Cops were playing the waiting game.

And it was a short wait– a couple of days after the horrific crime, Auburn officials notified San Mateo County Deputy Sheriff Walter Moore that they had his man in custody.

How did they catch him?

Part of the answer came from Vorhes, part of it from several other witnesses.

A motorist offered Vorhes Newton a ride when he saw him, soaked and disheveled, wandering along the highway near Emerald Bay at Lake Tahoe. Vorhes told the driver his clothes were soaking wet because he had slipped and fallen into the cold lake water. He had a black eye and visible abrasions so the driver took him to a tavern where a doctor gave Newton first aid. The doctor recognized Vorhes from the newspapers and alerted the Tahoe constable who took him into custody, driving him to the bigger jail at Auburn.

Elated with the news, Deputy Sheriff Walter Moore raced to Auburn to pick up His prisoner. Under questioning, Vorhes Newton repeated the same thing as his wife. He recalled watching the surf at Rockaway Beach, then, he said âeverything went blank.â? Afterwards he remembered waking up on a park bench in Reno [he had taken the bus or train there] and it was there that he read about the murders in a newspaper.

âI woke up in Reno, with a paper lying over my face,â? Newton told Sheriff Moore. âI decided that I had better go back. I took a bus and hitch-hiked as far as a resort on the California side of Lake Tahoe, Eagle Falls, by Emerald Bay. I clambered up the rocks and fell into the lake, then climbed back to the road.â? He complained of severe back pain, had one black eye and abrasions all over his body.

Sheriff Moore branded Newtonâs story a fake. âHeâs covering up and telling a lie,â? Moore said. He told reporters Vorhes read his wifeâs account in the newspapers. Heâs just repeating her story. What he didnâtâ tell reporters was that he found Lorraineâs engagement and wedding ring in Vorhesâ possession.

Newton was driven back to the county jail in Redwood City. The sky was carbon black as three hours of heavy grilling began– but failed to break his story. When confronted repeatedly with the facts, Vorhes, by now weary and haggard, insisted âhe blanked outâ?. âIâm not a brute,â? he swore, âI couldnât have done it. I couldnât have done it.â? The same thing, over and over.

Making little headway, Sheriff Moore quit for the night. âWhat do I charge him with, â Night Jailor Paul Jenson asked Sheriff Moore. âOh, hell, charge him with murder,â? Moore snapped.

The âBabes in the Woodsâ? case was attracting national attention, becoming a big case. It was time for Walter Mooreâs boss, Sheriff James McGrath to step into the picture and McGrath announced he was now taking the lead in the investigation.

âI think he [Newton] should be made to see his daughtersâ?, Sheriff McGrath told a clutch of reporters. The little girls were lying in the William Crosby Mortuary in Burlingame.

Newton hadnât hired a lawyer yet but money wasnât a restriction as his father, Benjamin, was a prominent rancher near Lodi. At first the family hired Alden Ames, a former superior judge. Ames said his client was being put through the third degree and anything he said would be questioned in court as having been obtained under duress.

Alden Ames soon retired from the case and was replaced by the aggressive defense attorney Leo Friedman known for winning some tough cases.

Up to this point Deputy D.A. Fred Wycoff was handling the prosecutionâs case. He told reporters he had enough evidence to convict and that it would be a quick trial.

Where Newton would be arraigned on two counts of murder was still up in the air. The plan was to take him to the court of Manuel J. Bettencourt in Half Moon Bay. But Vorhes complained of injuries sustained in the fall at Lake Tahoe and the doctor who examined him said he didnât know if the prisoner âcould standâ? the physical pain of the ride from Redwood City to the Coastside.

He might not be able to make the bumpy ride to Half Moon Bay but there was no excuse why Vorhes Newton could not be taken to the Crosby Mortuary in Burlingame to see the bodies of his baby daughters. Face up to what he had downâand once there, he almost immediately cracked and confessed that he had beaten them to death after first attempting to kill his wife.

In the presence of six officials, with reporters banned, Newton confessed that he struck his wife and babies first with a baby bottle, then a shovel at the spot where they were found, a lonely ranch road in Wagner Canyon near Montara.

And the reason for the brutal crime was finally was revealed: The couple had quarreled over an abortion.

Sobbing, Vorhes said he struck his wife first but didnât know why he took it out on the kids.

After the confession a decision was made: The arraignment on a double murder charge would take place in Half Moon Bay at the Court of Justice Manuel J. Bettencourt.

â¦.To be continued

November 17, 2005

Murder in Montara: Part II

In the summer of 1946 the bodies of two dead children, 7 months and about two-years-old, were discovered partly buried beneath a blanket of leaves in remote Wagner Canyon in Montara. The children’s mother, 21-year-old Lorraine Newton, was found a few feet away, shoeless and stumbling about in a daze, her skull fractured from a blunt instrument, perhaps a hammer or tire iron.

The lone survivor of this vicious crime, police brought Lorraine to the Community Hospital in Half Moon Bay where, under the care of Colonel Harold Roycroft, she sank into and out of consciousness, sometimes calling for her daughters, Barbara and Carolina Lee. Few questions were permitted (and she was not told the little girls were dead) but investigators learned that she was an Alameda resident and that a day earlier she, her husband, Vorhas, and the kids, sat in their car and watched the waves at scenic Rockaway Beach in Pacifica. She recalled little else–or the authorities weren’t making anything else public.

Colonel Roycroft said Lorraine had a 50-50 chance of making it. He said the wound that caved in her skull appeared to have resulted from the same weapon used to kill the children.

But John Kyne, the Coastsider who found Lorraine Newton, saw what he believed was the suspect’s car and that gave investigators good information on go on. That car, authorities learned, had been borrowed from Vorhas’s sister and returned.

“So far, we have found nothing to establish a motive for the murder,” Sheriff Walter Moore told the media which dubbed the heinous crime “The Babes in the Woods” case. “It appears that [Vorhas] Newton may have suddenly gone berserk during the family ride.”

In the East Bay, where the Newtons resided in Alameda, Frank Marlowe, the County D.A.’s investigator was talking to neighbors about Lorraine and Vorhas. They were unanimous in their impression of the Newtons as a nice couple. Vorhas was “modest and mild-mannered”, an amateur wrestler.

Newton’s brother, Ben, who lived in San Francisco, described his brother and sister-in-law as happily married, with Vorhas the “perfect husband” He worked as a glazier for the W.P. Fuller Company in South San Francisco and had worked for the Coast Guard until six months earlier.

But where was Vorhas Newton? Nobody seemed to know.

He didn’t have a car and police were looking for him at railroad and bus stations. There were sightings of him from Redwood City to Marysville but nothing panned out.

In the Esst Bay Investigator Frank Marlowe learned that Vorhas had returned to the couple’s Alameda apartment where the Newtons had lived for three or four months. In the neat and clean apartment, Vorhas changed his clothes, and before leaving again, placed one of his wife’s dress on the bed and put baby bottles on the ktichen table.

More details dribbled out. The killer had removed all identification from the scene of the crime, including labels from the clothing of the children such as the red checked gingham dress the two-year-old had been wearing. Lorraine didn’t know what had happened to her wedding ring, it was not on her finger.

Meanwhile Lorraine’s parents, the Tuttles of North Hollywood, flew into Mills Field to be by the bedside of their beloved daughter.

….To Be Continued

November 10, 2005

1946: Murder in Montara: Part I

Warning: If you don’t like gruesome murders, please don’t read this true story.

WW II was over, and it was the early summer of 1946, a time to feel happy to be alive.

John Kyne, well known oldtimer in Moss Beach and Montara, was walking in Wagner Canyon–named after the publisher who “founded Montara”– near the Coastside Nursery when he had one of those horrific life-changing encounters–the kind you wish you never had. He ran into a pretty young woman stumbling about in a daze. She was barefoot and could barely stand; she kept falling to her knees. It looked like she was wounded. Kyne heard her mumbling, calling out unfamiliar names, calling for Vorhas, Caroline and Barbara–but she was calling into the wind because there was nobody else there. At least no one else who was alive.

John Kyne walked in the direction the woman had come from and discovered the horror: two tiny children, two little girls, dead. Their fully clothed bodies lay nine feet apart with a layer of leaves covering them. Kyne shielded the injured woman from seeing them.

Apparently the dead girls’ mother, the woman had a deep skull fracture and it didn’t take much for Kyne to realize a terrible crime had been committed in his neighborhood, and he tried to make the woman comfortable while calling the local authorities. Meanwhile the pretty young lady, no more than 25 -years- old, fell into and out of conciousness. Kyne hoped medical help would arrive quickly.

Kyne’s son, Peter, was a famous novelist, whose subjects were lighthearted, and John couldn’t help but wonder what Peter would think of this real-life drama his father had been thrust into the middle of.

Half Moon Bay Constable Fred Simmons was one of the first to arrive and took the woman to the nearby Community Hospital. She had a deep five-inch gash in her skull, the weapon, some kind of blunt instrument.

Her condition was extremely serious, said Colonel Harold Roycroft, the medical superintendent at Community Hospital, giving her a 50-50 chance of survival. Interrogating her was discouraged but Chief Deputy Sheriff Walter H. Moore did get a few questions in before she lapsed into semi-consiciousness. Within hours he learned that her name was Lorraine Newton, that she was from Alameda, that she had been crawling around all night and that she remembered little other than driving to Rockaway Beach in Pacifica with her husband and two daughters.

Lorraine Newton had also mumbled about looking at the waves in the afternoon or was it in the evening. She was confused; she couldn’t remember. She didn’t know her little girls were dead and that horrible reality was going to be kept from her until she fully recovered.

Sheriff Moore wanted to know where the husband, Vorhas Newton, was, and detectives fanned out to find him. Was the husband the perpetrator of this vicious, senseless crime?

Despite the horrific circumstances, there was a light moment when Constable Simmons asked Sheriff Moore how his son, Gordon, was doing. Moore loved this question; he couldn’t believe his son, Gordon, born in Pescadero, (and the future founder of the high tech blockbuster Intel) was a genius, and he told everyone so, this time being no exception.

Meanwhile the two little dead girls were taken to the A.P. Dutra Chapel in Half Moon Bay. The autopsy performed there revealed that both children, seven- month- old Caroline and the almost two- year- old Barbara had died of skull fractures.

John Kyne may have had the missing link: He saw a car drive up the trail into Wagner canyon the day before and saw the same car speed down the road later. A man was driving and surely Kyne was able to describe the man as well as the make and model of the car, just what the police needed to track down the possible killer. And they were bearing down fast.

….to be continued