Minnie Rose Heidy was born on March 15, 1884 in Kansas to John William Heidy and Emily Lucinda Stebbins Heidy.
Charles Sieber (real name, Charles Siebert) was born Jan 1889 in Kansas to Benedickt and Friedericka Siebert.
Charles and Minnie Rose Sieber were married in May 8, 1912, within the ensuing year, a daughter, Virginia Marie was born. Not long after the birth of their child, the couple separated in June of 1913, but resumed marital relations in 1914. However, in 1916, they parted for the last time and went their separate ways. Charles Sieber enlisted in the US Army during the First World War, and soon after its close went to live in Los Angeles, where he entered the service of the city as a bricklayer.
In the meantime, Minnie and Virginia moved to Los Angeles to reside at 512 Avenue 28, most likely so that the daughter could be close enough to her father that visitation could be possible. Charles seemed keen to the idea and in 1924, apparently under some compulsion, Charles began to pay $25 per month toward the support of his daughter. Minnie took up work as a janitress in an office building to help make ends meet. However, supplementing her income with his own grew to be an annoyance for him, as he soon tired of being responsible for his child. Charles Sieber instituted a divorce action against his wife in November of 1925. Not happy with his sudden decision to halt payments, Minnie filed an answer that subsequently infuriated Charles.
Charles worked as a bricklayer and also supervised the work of installing sewer manholes, which were constructed according to blueprint specifications furnished to him. His working crew consisted of three men. On the morning on Jan 7, 1926, Charles left his home, riding in his own Chevrolet automobile, and reported at the municipal yard shortly after 8 am. It was at this time that he was seen with a roll of blueprints in his hand. A witness also testified that he had given Charles blueprints that day and they were never returned to him.
Immediately on entering the yard, he was handed the order to show cause why he should not pay alimony and attorney's fees procured by his wife in the divorce action. According to the testimony of the process-server, Charles showed no anger when served with the order, but made a disparaging remark about his wife and said that he would "go to jail" before he paid her any alimony. A fellow workman testified however, that about that time, Charles, seemed excited and angry. Charles had learned from his daughter, only a few days before, of the time his wife returned home from work, and he knew what time his daughter left for school. Virginia had told him that Minnie worked from 4 am to 8 am and later in the afternoon.
With this knowledge still clear in his mind, Charles left his job that morning and was last seen at the yard between 8:10 and 8:30am. As was her usual routine, Virginia left for school about 8:30 am leaving her mother alive and alone in the house. About 8:30 am, Charles' work crew, having loaded a truck with brick, sand and cement, left the corporation yard and went to the vicinity of 21st and Toberman streets, where they arrived about 9 am after leaving the yard, but supervisor Charles was not with them.
Shortly before 9 am, according to the testimony of a the local milkman Theodore Riendres, Charles was seen walking on Avenue 28, near Minnie's house, about 2 and 1/10 miles from the municipal yard. A small automobile, purported to be the Chevy, was parked in front of the adjoining lot. At 9am, Mrs. Chambers, a neighbor, left her home three doors away and started for the carline. As she passed Minnie's house she heard "four terrible screams", which appeared to be the screams of a woman, and "three or four terrible knocks", which the witness said sounded like someone kicking of hammering on the front door.
Minnie was murdered within 5 minutes after 9 am that day. While there were no eye-witnesses to the homicide itself, the prosecution theorized that Charles became angered on being served with an order to show cause in the divorce action and went immediately to the home of his wife and killed her in a most brutal fashion.
Another witness testified to seeing Charles and his mother, some time after 9 am in the backyard of his home about a mile and a half from Minnie's house, with a long handled shovel between them. This is probably when they were concealing evidence, in this case, burying the murder weapon.
According to the testimony of the workmen, Charles arrived at the manhole about 9:25 am. According to testimony of Charles' working crew, there was nothing unusual in his demeanor and appearance when he appeared at the manhole on 21st street about 5 miles from the scene of the killing, some time after 9 am. Charles' testified he was sure he arrived earlier than at the time fixed by the men. After working silently for awhile, according to the workmen's testimony, Charles, without any apparent reason, looked up from the manhole and said "If anything would happen to my wife, they would sure get me." The divorce action brought by Charles against his wife was the subject of conversation during the day, as it had been at other times. On previous occasions, Charles had said, so the same witnesses testified, that he desired to get rid of his wife, that he hated her "bad enough [that he] would kill her"; that he had been trying to get a divorce long enough and "now he was going to have it", and he also mentioned that he was going to marry a young girl of about sixteen or seventeen years old.
On his lunch break at noon, Charles consulted his attorney concerning the divorce action, after which he told one of the workmen that he would "rot in jail" before he would pay alimony to his wife.
Shortly after 3pm in the afternoon, Virginia returned with two of her girlfriends and found her forty one year old mother's body blocking the doorway. She had been beaten to death in a most fiendish manner, the head smashed in and her face greatly disfigured by some "powerful instrument", wielded with terrific force. This turned out to be a lead pipe. A dent made by the blunt instrument, and in which was a strand of hair, was found on the door of the room. It was not there when Virginia left for school in the morning. Also found in the room in which the body was discovered, there were found several scraps of a blueprint for a certain sewer manhole, which had been constructed by Charles. A witness recognized the tracings on a piece of blueprint that was found near the body and said it looked like the one he had given Sieber. With Virginia in hysterics, Minnie's sister May Wallace came to the home to identify the body.
Charles was arrested at his home about 5pm. When accosted by the arresting officers, who were not in uniform, he started to run. When caught and asked why he ran, he said "I figured if you were policemen, you would shoot me." The officers did not tell him he was under arrest, nor why they wanted him, but, when a concerned neighbor asked him if he could do anything for him or "bail him out", Charles replied that he did not think it was a case in which he could be bailed out and that officers would probably not let him talk to anyone
Charles was taken at once to the scene of crime and in room where body lay on floor. At first he said he did not recognize the deceased, but, when asked if it was not the body of his wife, he said it was. A police officer present had testified that Charles was asked "if he had come down that morning and killed her and he said "no". ..at first his knees trembled - his body lowered a little. Then he wavered, then he stood straight up again."
He and Minnie had been estranged and divorce proceedings were to be aired in court the following week. Charles had left his employment as a city bricklayer for a period long enough to have committed the murder, according to police, and he was found guilty of circumstantial evidence. Investigators amassed a wealth of information which they said pointed strongly to Charles but admitted they had established nothing which could be regarded as clinching.
When he was taken to jail, Charles stoutly maintained his innocence, his defense has been that he was at work at the time the murder was committed. As soon as Charles was thrown in jail, his mother burned and destroyed a brown sweater he was said to have worn. I believe he wore this sweater when he committed the murder and it must have had bloodstains on it. His mother, trying to protect her son, tried in vain to hide evidence of his guilt.
Nonetheless, he was the only suspect and was still held prisoner on a charge of suspicion of murder in the City Jail. He stoutly maintained his innocence, declaring that he had absolutely no knowledge of the slaying or the events which led up to it. Chief Deputy Coroner MacDonald announced that the inquest into Minnie's death was to be conducted at the John R. Paul Mortuary, located at 2629 North Broadway, at 9:30 am the next day. Between fifteen and twenty people who had recent knowledge of Charles' activities, and others who were said to have had knowledge of the relations between the husband and his estranged wife were summoned for the inquest, according to police. Witnesses also testified that Charles was living with a woman for at least two years and told people she was his wife, this was not Minnie Sieber. This was in fact, sixteen year old Margaret Jones, pregnant with his child, this was the young girl his workmen claimed he was going to marry. While incarcerated, Charles made an incriminating statement to a fellow inmate concerning the missing murder weapon, "they never would find out how I killed her."
The most important development as seen by police was the reputed statement of two of the men who worked with Charles who said that he absented himself from his tasks between 8:30 and 9:30 am on that day. Both Charles and his lawyer, Attorney Thomas P. Toomey, claimed they could definitely establish his whereabouts during that time and that the husband was not at his wife's home.
At a hearing, Charles testified on his own behalf and boldly proclaimed his innocence, stating he had nothing to do with the murder. He gave what he thought was a clear account of the movements of his day, but he denied making a number of incriminating statements attributed to him, and explained away others.
Following the concluding argument by Dep. Dist-Atty. Ryan for the prosecution, the jury of two women and ten men, retired at 3:30pm. Four hours later the jurors announced they had arrived at a verdict and found Charles guilty of murdering his wife in the first degree without recommendation. The verdict left no option to the trial judge, but to impose a sentence of death.
Charles Sieber, sentenced to death for the murder of his divorced wife, Mrs. Minnie Sieber, for whose beating with lead pipe in January 26, he was convicted, must hang. The death sentence yesterday was affirmed by the supreme court. Chief Justice Waste wrote the opinion upholding Superior Judge Hahn, who passed sentence in the lower court.
The Los Angeles Times, July 3, 1926
On the grounds that new evidence which may establish his innocence has been discovered since he was sentenced to be hanged, Charles Sieber, convicted to slaying his wife, Minnie Rose Sieber, yesterday filed an appeal in the State Supreme Court. The new evidence was not set forth but will be filed if the case is set for on hearing and the appeal carried on.
The State Supreme Court, sitting en banc here yesterday, postponed until the next Los Angeles calendar the hearing on the appeal of Charles Sieber from a death penalty. The continuance in the case of Sieber, who was accused of beating his wife to death here last spring, was granted at the request of attorneys, who asked for additional time to prepare briefs and new evidence asserted to have been discovered since his trial.
Daily News, June 10, 1927:
Charles Sieber, sentenced to death for the murder of his divorced wife, Mrs. Minnie Sieber, for whose beating with lead pipe in January 26, he was convicted, must hang. The death sentence yesterday was affirmed bu the supreme court. Chief Justice Waste wrote the opinion upholding Superior Judge Hahn, who passed sentence in the lower court. The date for his hanging in San Quentin will be set next month. Errors in the trial of Charles Sieber were not sufficient to be a miscarriage of justice, the State Supreme Court ruled in a decision sustaining the death penalty imposed on Sieber by Superior Judge Hahn. Through his attorney Sieber appealed to the Supreme Court on the grounds that the evidence against him was wholly circumstantial and the theory of the prosecution was fiction. The appeal also asserted that technical errors in the trial were prejudicial to the rights of the defendant and were sufficient cause for a new trial. The Supreme Court upheld the theory of the prosecution by declaring that the chain of circumstantial evidence pointed toward Sieber's guilt. The court agreed that there were judicial errors committed during the trial, but held them to be of such little consequence that they could not have influenced the verdict of the jury. Sieber, a bricklayer employed by the city, was separated from his wife, who was suing him for alimony. On the morning of January 7, 1926, shortly after he went to work, Sieber was served with an order to show cause why he should not pay alimony and attorney's fees, it was shown. Mrs. Sieber was killed by a blow or blows with a blunt instrument about 9 am the same morning, the prosecution contended. One of the strongest links in the chain of evidence against Sieber were scraps of a blueprint asserted to have been found near the body. These, according to records, were identified as part of a blueprint Sieber has been using a short time before in his work.
He was confined to San Quentin's death row to await his execution by hanging. After a night of heavy slumber and his fill of a hearty breakfast on Oct 21, 1927, Charles sat with tightly compressed lips while awaiting in his cell. Shortly before the hour of the hanging, he received a letter from his mother living in Chapman, Kansas. He did not speak after he left his cell and walked silently to the execution chamber. No priest accompanied the condemned man. As Charles mounted the thirteen gallows steps, he appeared to have a trace of a mysterious smile and he was definitely smiling when the guards adjusted the noose around his neck and pulled the black hood over his face. Whatever was written in his mother's letter must have given him comfort and even a last few moments of happiness, as his smile was still present when the trap was sprung 12 minutes after 10 am. The delay of 12 minutes before the trap was sprung was the longest period allowed after the fatal hour to any condemned man in the history of the prison. He was pronounced dead 12 minutes later, seen by newspapermen and twelve witnesses required by law.
Minnie Rose Heidy Sieber was interred sometime after Jan 7, 1926 at Evergreen Cemetery - 204 North Evergreen Ave, Los Angeles, CA 90033.
Their daughter, Virginia Marie Sieber Hefner born on Nov 18, 1912, died on Jun 6, 1961. Her husband Gerald, also died in 1961.
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