Above: The Daily News was one of several New York tabloids that had a field day (more like a field month) with the Madeline Webb murder trial 83 years ago.

In Issue Two: June isn’t just for weddings; a rare audio clip of Madeline; three fresh true crime offerings; and a tenuous connection between Madeline Gets Life and Killers of the Flower Moon.

This Month in True Crime Infamy

Ossining, New York, June 7, 1934 – Three men convicted of murdering “Durable” Mike Malloy in the Bronx die in a rare triple execution at Sing Sing Prison. Frank Pasqua, Anthony Marino, and Daniel Kriesberg, spent months trying to kill Malloy for an insurance payout before finally shoving a rubber tube into his mouth and connecting it to a gas lamp.  A fourth defendant, Joseph Murphy, gets a last-minute reprieve, but it is temporary. He is executed four weeks later. The Midnight Library did a podcast on the case. Listen here.

New York, June 19, 1942 – Judge Jonah Goldstein sentences Madeline Webb to life in prison as an accessory to the murder of wealthy Polish refugee Susie Reich. A dozen years later, Goldstein begins working for her release. And in 1964, he sends a testy note to Governor Nelson Rockefeller’s office, asking why she is still behind bars: “Surely our Prison Department is not short of guests.” Madeline finally walks free in January 1967.

Alpine, Texas, June 22, 1938 – Jurors take just 30 minutes to condemn Francis Black to death for shoving his 13-year-old adopted son off a cliff to collect a $5,000 insurance policy. Black, 25, had signed a confession saying he moved from Kansas to Texas to adopt a child he could murder to recover from a financial crisis. In 1939, Texas Gov. W. Lee O’Daniel commutes the sentence to life in prison because Black confessed before he could consult an attorney. Black wins parole in 1966 after 28 years in prison.

Alcatraz Island, June 23, 1936 – A convict grabs a pair of scissors in the Alcatraz Prison barber shop and stabs mobster Al Capone in the back. Capone survives the murder attempt, the fourth since his arrival at the prison in San Francisco Bay. Three years later, the gangster wins parole because of diminished mental capacity – from a case of syphilis that would ultimately kill him in 1947. Do you know what crime sent Capone to Alcatraz? Read the FBI’s official history of the gangster.

BREAKING NEWS: The Muskogee Public Library has invited co-authors Dan Williams and M. J. Van Deventer to give a talk about Madeline Webb. You can join us at 3 p.m. on Wednesday, June 11. The address is 801 W. Okmulgee Ave. in Muskogee, Oklahoma.

We are also giving a talk at the Stillwater History Museum at the Sheerar at 5 p.m. the following day, June 12. That address is 702 S. Duncan in Stillwater, Oklahoma.

In May, Dan spent two days coaching producers and reporters at WRBL News 3 in Columbus, Georgia, and squeezed in a Zoom session for staff at sister stations WMBB in Panama City, Florida, and WDHN in Dothan, Alabama.

TikTok Treasure

Before her ill-fated years in New York, Madeline lived from 1936 to 1939 in Los Angeles and dated movie stars and other celebs. Actor Eddie Norris took her dancing at the Famous Door on Vine Street and then to a late-night jam session in a large house on Central Avenue in the city’s Black district. As Madeline told a biographer in the 1970s, she got a big surprise. Click here to listen.

So Many Books, So Little Time

(Links support independent booksellers)

Allegedly. If you’re a fan of Oklahoma’s brand of murder and mayhem, check out this new book by Raven Rollins, a private investigator-turned-podcaster and victim advocate. Rollins once lived in Pontotoc County, Oklahoma, where the mysteries she explores took place, and she calls the book a “true crime memoir.”

Trial by Ambush. Similarities abound between our forthcoming book, Madeline Gets Life, and Marcia Clark’s retelling of the Barbara Graham story. Each case features a clumsy robbery-murder, a wealthy victim, and a beautiful young woman fighting for her life in a sensational trial where the odds are unfairly stacked against her. Both Barbara and Madeline are romantically linked to one of their male co-defendants, and both carry on an amorous prison correspondence with a woman inmate. Susan Hayward won a Best Actress Oscar for portraying Barbara Graham in the 1958 movie I Want to Live. (Who should play Madeline Webb in the movie adaptation of our book?)

A Murder in Hollywood. Prolific author Casey Sherman tackles a sensational 1958 homicide involving screen legend Lana Turner. The victim was Turner’s lover, Los Angeles mobster Johnny Stompanato. (Like Madeline, Turner often had lousy taste in men.) Stompanato was killed during an argument with Turner at her Beverly Hills house. Her teenaged daughter, Cheryl Crane, admitted stabbing Stompanato while trying to stop the fight. Author Sherman suggests an alternate narrative.

‘License to Steal’

Two characters in our forthcoming book Madeline Gets Life have connections with the 1920s Oklahoma murder spree documented in David Grann’s excellent book, Killers of the Flower Moon.

Madeline’s defense attorney at her New York trial, James Springer, defended William Hale, the main suspect in the Osage Reign of Terror. More on Springer in a later newsletter.

This month, we’ll focus on a man who took every opportunity to restrict and control Madeline after her father died. He was Madeline’s uncle, Peyton Glass.

In the story we’ve posted on our blog, we discover where Glass learned how to restrict and control people.

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We crave feedback. Please let us know what you like or what you want to see more (or less) of: dan@danwilliamsauthor.com