History of Fresno County, Vol. 2 - Paul E. Vandor

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months. Smith was aged twenty-two and his co-defendant, William Harvey, who received the same sentence, about sixteen. They had been connected with other robberies and burglaries. These and the other robberies on the highway were committed by holding up the victims at point of pistol, or blinding them by throwing sand into their eyes after pouncing upon them from place of concealment. The same sentence was passed upon Harry Finnerty and Charles Washburn arrested at Seattle. Wash., and brought back for robbery, and upon a negro named Archie Scansell. There was a letup then for a time on robberies and burglaries.

       Murder of Deputy Sheriff

      A fearful crime with escape from justice was the murder of Deputy Sheriff Joseph D. Price March 13, 1907 by Joseph Richardson, who with the price set upon his head became an outlaw and fugitive from justice. In his capacity as a peace officer, Price had arrested Richardson for a minor offense and accompanied him in buggy to the lockup at Reedley as the nearest place. Richardson was not bound nor handcuffed, a piece of neglect for which the deputy paid with his life. Richardson turned upon him in an unguarded moment and slashed him to death with knife and then made his escape. The murder was on a long, unfrequented roadway and was not witnessed by any one, and it is a question what would have been the outcome of a trial, even though Richardson had been arrested. Reports have been many of Richardson having been seen and recognized in various localities in the county and elsewhere in the years after, some of these reports strengthened by details, but the murderer has eluded arrest and the crime has gone unavenged. If some of these reports were true, the outlaw was taking desperate chances and tempting fate.

       Wife Murder at Sixty-five

      At the age of sixty-five, and on his plea acknowledging the murder of wife on Sunday September 8, 1907 James P. Leighton, expressman, was sentenced January 4, 1908 to imprisonment at San Quentin for the remainder of his natural life. The wife that he murdered was the third that had borne his name, Hattie Leighton, nee Coppin. She had returned on that fatal Sunday from a vacation spent with relatives at Long Beach, Cal. Leighton's first wife left him for cruelty and secured divorce; the second became insane and the third was murdered premeditatedly. The showing for Leighton was that he labored under great mental stress on the day of homicide over the thought that the wife was maintaining improper relations with another man, a four year old daughter being the informant as to the frequent visits of this man to her stepmother in the absence from home of her father. Leighton was reputed to be a drinking man and a constable testified that several days before the killing Leighton had come to borrow a revolver, saying he wanted the weapon to kill annoying dogs and cats. The theory of premeditation was well established by the evidence of attempts to borrow revolver as much as ten days before the killing, his brooding and crying, and his declaration that something terrible was to happen and the plea that whatever would result care be taken of his child. Leighton's only living relatives were two aged aunts and they were pathetic in their recitals to give the impression that he was not in his right mind when the shooting took place. An occupant of the front portion of the house in which the Leightons lived overheard a conversation immediately before the tragedy. He had said: "Hattie, this will end it." Her plea was: "For God's sake don't kill me!" The shots then followed. From the evidence adduced the sentencing judge was of the opinion that the case was not one for imposing the death sentence. Mrs. Leighton was killed in the bed in which she lay partly undressed. The body bore two wounds. On the floor lay Leighton near the bed almost unconscious from a bullet wound to the right of the right eye. Near his head on the floor was an empty phial marked "Poison." The theory was that he had essayed to force her to take poison. Leighton's plea of guilty was accepted by the court without the assent of the district attorney. A month before the day that the plea was taken, Leighton's attorney offered that his client would plead guilty if assured that life imprisonment would be the sentence. The offer was rejected. After a long term of imprisonment, Leighton was pardoned and he is again a free man.

       Domengine Kidnaping

      With a far-away reminiscence of the romantic days when Italian brigands seized and made captive of select, hustled them into mountain cave or gorge to be held for liberation on delivery of the demanded money ransom, but in this instance with a local stage setting in the canyons of the Coalinga oil region, and a more modernized ending in penitentiary sentences following arrest and rapid pursuit in automobiles by the sheriff and citizens' posse was the remarkable Domengine kidnaping case in July 1908. The enterprise was a hare-brained and desperate one but the sensation created by it great. The result was the sentence October 3 of Z. T. ("Tony") Loveall as the chief conspirator for thirty years; also of Grover Cleveland Rogers as accomplice for twenty years in consideration of his turning state's evidence; and later Charles Barnes, who had also turned state's evidence and pleaded guilty but whose connection with the mad enterprise was a secondary one compared with that of the others, released on parole with judgment suspended. The kidnaping of eighteen year old Miss Edna Domengine on the night of July 29 from the ranch of her father, A. Domengine, on Section 29-18-15 is a famous one in Fresno criminal annals as well for the incidents of the case as the rarity of the crime. Domengine was a well to do freeholder and sheep raiser living on the wild and desert West Side. The ranch home is typical of that section of the county, comfortable, commodious and unpretentious. The bandits had been in concealment hard by all day on the Monday preceding the kidnaping. They were in hiding behind two water tanks below which the house lies in a pocket of the hills rising bare of vegetation all about. A barn to one side of the house and slightly in rear was set fire to at night and when the inmates assembled on the back porch in response to the alarm of fire the two bandits met them, the porch being on the far side of the house. After tying the hands of the family and of the three hired men who had responded to assist in putting out the fire in the barn, Rogers and Loveall commandeered a team of Domengine and drove away with father and daughter. Arriving at the ranch gate about two and one-half miles from the house, Domengine was commanded to leave them after bargaining for the ransom for the daughter. The price first set was $10,000 hut the final arrangement was for one-half of that sum. Leaving the father at the gate to find his way homeward, the kidnapers drove with Miss Edna to the town of Coalinga and near there turned the team loose and it was afterward found wandering about the outskirts of town. Loveall here left Rogers and the captive and returned to Coalinga. The younger proceeded with the girl to a place known as Jack's Springs in Jack's Canyon, one of the offshoots of Warthan Canyon, back of the oil town. Here during the day word was awaited from Loveall. Rogers concealed the girl in a rocky and rugged place in the canyon, where there was a clump of trees and a dense undergrowth. Here it was that Coalinga posse discovered them, the trail leading straight into the bushes and cottonwood trees, the canyon being shaped like the inverted hoof of a horse. The place was surrounded by the posse and when cornered Rogers shot at them from behind the girl and over her shoulder. Realizing that resistance was useless and that he was trapped, Rogers dragged his captive through the undergrowth up the side of the canyon rising abruptly to a rocky cleft. Here he compelled her to crouch in the shelter of the jutting out rock and cowered behind her. He wore a mask to conceal his features and had a strip of cotton cloth bound around his head to hide his red hair. The cloth was torn from him in the first scurry of the capture. Following her rescue, Miss Domengine was taken to the home of Robert L. Peeler at Coalinga, one of the pursuing posse, and there kept until her parents came for her. Rogers was taken to the flimsy calaboose at Coalinga. There were threats to lynch him but he was saved from this end by Sheriff Robert L. Chittenden. He broke down under interrogation and named as his accomplice Loveall a known character in the oil fields with unsavory reputation. Loveall had been with one of the posses searching for the girl during the day but when search was made for him after Rogers' confession he had taken to the sand and rock hills surrounding the town on the sun-blistered and desert plain waste. The reason for Loveall joining the posse was stated to have been well recognized by the search party as an effort at self-preservation. Rogers was recognized by the searchers and the belief was that Loveall had resolved in his own mind to kill Rogers should the latter be taken. Succeeding in this, he would have destroyed the principal evidence of his connection with the kidnaping; there was little else then to trace the crime to him and the great danger was in the possibility of the accomplice confessing. Loveall led the posse in automobile pursuit a merry chase, plunging into the heart of the Coast Range, his

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