Mrs. Lolita Davis, Age 36 yrs, killed her three children with a hammer then committed suicide, Chloe Davis, age 11 yrs, lived.
1211 West 58th Place
Los Angeles
4/4/1940
On Thursday, April 4, 1940, a mother, police reported, beat her three small children to death with a claw hammer and then died on a flaming mattress after setting fire to her hair. The dead, officers reported were:
Mrs. Lolita Dell Davis, 36
Daphne Dell Davis, 10
Deborah Ann Davis, 7
Barton Marquis "Mark" Davis, 3
A fourth child, Chloe Dibble Davis, 11, was taken to the emergency hospital for wounds she endured after she was beaten almost unconscious. "Mama believed demons were after her. She thought she had killed my aunt's little girl a long time ago," Chloe said between sobs. "She loved us and we loved her, that's the only reason she could have done it."
Officers asked Chloe "Were you frightened?" and she replied "Well, I didn't cry if that's what you mean." Without hesitation, she gave an account of the day in which she related the events in an unusually calm, cool manner.
Chloe said the killings occurred shortly after her father left for work. She claimed she was awakened early by "a lot of racket", and came out of her bedroom where "I saw my sister, Daphne, unconscious in the bath tub. I asked mother what was going on and she told me demons were after all of us and that she was going to kill all us kids, then herself. My mother said she was going to kill me too. She didn't want the demons to get us. She thought she had killed her aunt's daughter Patty Thompson, 21, about three years ago and that she had killed other people that way. She said she was going to get paid back for killing her and us kids, too, would get paid back. She said she was going to kill me too. The Mother started hitting at me with the hammer. She conked me on the back of the head. But I fought my mother and tried to take the hammer away from her. I started wrestling with her and got the hammer away from her after she hit me only once on the back of the head with the hammer. We were out in the hall. I couldn't run because the doors were closed."
Chloe first told that her mother pulled a mattress from a bunk bed in the children's room and placed it in the hall. Her mother said, "So I killed them, now you kill me." Chloe said that "My mother tried to set fire to my hair, but it wouldn't burn. She went into the kitchen cupboard and got a razor blade. She tried to get me to set fire to the mattress and a pillow but I wouldn't do it. She then slashed her wrists, lay down, in her nightgown, upon the mattress on the floor, and set fire to the pillow, her nightgown and her own hair and then her nightie burned off." As the flames crept around her head, Mrs. Davis screamed in agony, "hit me - I can't stand the pain."
She gave Chloe the hammer and ordered her to strike her on the head. "Mother told me to hit her on the head and keep hitting her until she couldn't talk. I got the hammer away from her. She told me not to call the police until after she was dead." The little girl did as she was told. "I always did what mother told me to do. I took the hammer and hit her I guess about 15 or 20 times, I can't remember, and then the hammer broke."
"She told me to break her ribs so I hit her in the side, or maybe in the stomach. I didn't want to do that, so I started conking her on the head again. Her head was harder, and I didn't mind hitting her there as much as in the body. I guess I hit her about 20 times and then the head of the hammer came off." It was during this time, Chloe said she had heard her little brother moaning in the kitchen and asked her mother if it would be alright to "put him out of his misery. My mother said yes, and so I went out into the kitchen and hit him on the head three times."
The police officers asked Chloe if her mother said much during the time she was being hit, and she replied, "yes, she told me to be sure to kill her because the demons were after her and would get us kids. I thought mother had gone nuts. I couldn't figure what was the matter with her, until she started talking about the demons. Mother told me demons were after her because she had some strange power of killing people."
Chloe said she found another hammer, a smaller, all-metal one, and started hitting her mother with it, but her hands slipped on the metal and she picked up the wooden handle of the broken hammer and hit her mother "about 30 times" with the handle. "I hit mother when she told me to until I got tired and then went and got a glass of water." She then said that she went into the kitchen to get a drink of water and asked her mother if she wanted any. "I ran into the kitchen and there I saw my other sister and my little brother dying. Marquis was dead on the kitchen floor. Deborah was also on the kitchen floor. I told mother Marquis was groaning terribly and should I do something to stop his suffering, she said yes, do, so I hit him three times with the hammer." I got her a drink of water four times. She asked for it, the first couple of times. And I got thirsty too. Every time I gave mother a drink, I took one too." When the mother did not reply, Chloe said her mother could not sit up so she "poured the water into her" mother's mouth and then resumed striking the hammer down on her head, saying, "I hit her some more with the iron part and then I was thirsty so I went and got a glass of water and drank some and poured some into her again. The last time I gave her a drink, I had to pour it down her throat, because she had 'gone out'. I hit her 30 more times with the handle. I guess I must have hit her 50 times. Mother never mistreated me. She was all right. I stopped beating her when she stopped breathing. When she stopped breathing, I think she swallowed a false tooth while I was conking her. Whenever I'd stop she'd get after me to keep on. I didn't want to see her keep on bleeding so I kept on."
When police asked if she hit herself on the head, Chloe replied, "Do you think I would conk myself just for fun?"
After it was over, and she was sure her mother and all the other children were dead, she said, "Well, first off I changed my clothes and washed up after mother was dead. My pajamas were blood all over. I locked the door." She had put on a blue dress, a blue sweater and a hat. "I didn't know just what to do so I decided to go down to Vermont Avenue and call Daddy. So I locked the door and left." Puzzled, police asked her "Why did you lock the front door when you left the house?" "I was afraid those demons and things mother talked about would get in. It was those demons. They are the cause of it all," she said. She also said that after the killings and before telephoning her father, she chatted in the yard with a neighbor, saying nothing of the bodies in the house. The child gave no explanation for such behavior.
Once she was presentable in clean clothes, freshly washed up and her hair perfectly combed into place she said "As I walked along I happened to remember that it was a pay phone and I didn't have a nickel. I thought about asking someone for a nickel but I lost my nerve and finally went back to a neighbor's house. I called daddy from there." She said she only told her father that "something was wrong, and you better come home." Her father, Frank Barton Davis, 42, was at a nearby market where he worked as a manager of the grocery. The alarmed neighbors were attracted by smoke pouring from the dwelling immediately summoned an ambulance for Chloe and informed police of the tragedy. "They heard me phone and called police." She then went back to home and sat on the front steps to wait for her father.
The father arrived home in response to his daughter's frantic call a few minutes after officers HL Greenwood and EA Stokes had entered the house and discovered the tragedy. The house was in shambles and spattered with blood. The father said he collapsed when Chloe called him and led him without emotion into the house. She related that "When daddy came I didn't say anything to him - except that he had better go into the house. I told him, you had better go in the kitchen and see." She said she did not tell her father what had happened, because "he could see," she said, and "I was afraid Daddy would go after me and that he might think I did it."
She then said "Aw, he started to cry and say 'Oh God' and all that kind of stuff. I told him to calm down. I said Daddy, you mustn't get excited, let's go for a walk. Then he went outside and started walking up and down and I joined him. I told him to brace up. After I had told him a little bit about what happened, he said to me, 'Only you and me are left.'" She said she was a little nervous, but "I didn't cry."
The Aftermath:
Police later followed the father to the home of his slain wife's relatives, where they found his prostrate on the floor still in utter disbelief and complete mental anguish. "Oh my God! I can't believe it. I can't believe it. I don't know why she did it," the father sobbed. "I don't know why." He said he left home at 6:50 am that morning and his family was in bed, including his wife. He said he kissed his wife affectionately, who was awake but still in bed, as was Chloe, and warned Deborah and Daphne to mind toddling Marquis, whom he had dressed and for whom he had fixed a bowl of cereal. He said it was somewhere between 9 and 9:30 am when little Chloe ran into the market with blood streaming from a deep gash on her blonde head to inform him of what had happened. The father was hysterical as he talked to the police and officers delayed questioning him until he could gain control of himself. Davis, after a brief rest, informed the police his wife had been nervous recently and worried about her health. He said she was suffering from anemia and had been taking "iron shots." He said, "Last night I took her to a doctor and he gave her a shot. She seemed to feel better after that."
Police expressed the belief that the woman was stricken with a maniacal urge to end her life and to take her children with her as a result of brooding over her condition. Neighbors reported that Davis and his family had always appeared happy, joining in school and other neighborhood activities. Upon further questioning of friends and neighbors, Edwards learned that the mother "suffered from an obsession that she had a strange power to kill. I learned Mrs. Davis frequently talked about people being killed. There is a possible chance this talk about murder and killing people may have preyed upon Chloe's mind." Mrs. Davis' brother, Howard Bjorkman, said he thought his sister "had been acting a little strangely, but not enough so to game me any worry."
Little Mark, the 3 year old boy, was found dead in the kitchen, beside his dying sister, Deborah "Ann", both little victims with clothed. The kitchen was spattered with blood everywhere, with large pools where the children's bodies had been found. Daphne, was found nude and unconscious in the bath tub. The two girls were rushed to the police emergency hospital, but it was too late as they had both died upon arrival.
The body of Mrs. Davis was found nude on a burned mattress in the hallway of the house, with the hair burned off and the head appeared to be battered to a pulp and rendered unrecognizable by the hammer blows. Blood covered the floor for a wide area, with castoff from the hammer spotting the ceiling. The mattress was partly burned by the fire but apparently the blaze extinguished itself and the body was not seriously burned. Police found about 30 matches in the hallway. Although the mother was partly burned by flames from the mattress, before an autopsy could be carried out, the police first said her death looked as if it was due to the blows from the hammer wielded by her daughter.
Because of her age, Chloe was held incompetent to distinguish right from wrong, according to California law at the time, protecting children under 14 years of age. Even if she were found to be guilty of the quadruple murder, the maximum penalty Chloe would face would be incarceration in a correctional institution until she reached the age of 21, when she would be released.
After being questioned for the second time, Chloe was taken to Juvenile Hall where photographs of her bruised body and head - she maintains her mother also tried to murder her before she was able to wrest the hammer from her mother - were taken for possible future use in court.
The next day, police sought to establish an exact account of the brutal slaying of Chloe's family. While the autopsy of her mother was in progress, Chloe was taken from juvenile hall to police headquarters for further questioning. Without show of emotion, nary a tear or a sigh, for a three hour afternoon, Chloe told her various versions lightheartedly again and again. "We will either verify her story or disprove it," said Homer B. Cross, deputy Chief of Police. "She has added to but not changed her story one iota. She still insists that after her mother attacked the other children, she, at her mother's request, beat Mrs. Davis' head with a hammer."
Chloe said she had "forgot" that although she herself slew her mother with the hammer at her mother's command, and admitted to police that at her mother's request "she told me to hit little Mark a couple of times with the hammer", she struck her brother three times and then beat him to death to "quiet him and put him out of his misery." In another retelling, she said that after she killed her mother, she heard little Marquis groaning in the kitchen, so she hammered him until he stopped groaning. When Edwards suggested to Chloe that she could have run outside to safety, the girl smiled as said "that's right, I could have, couldn't I?"
The officers had just received a report from an autopsy surgeon Dr. Frank R Webb, that Mrs. Davis had bled to death because arteries in both arms had been cut, apparently with a razor. Added cause of death, the coroner reported, was a head beating as a concussion was present, but he said there was no evidence skull fracture. The knife slashes on the wrists were not discovered until the autopsy was performed. Chloe had not been told of the autopsy finding. The police believed the mother as well as the children had been beaten to death with the hammer and the discovery of the knife cuts had an important bearing on the case. The county autopsy surgeon 's post mortem examinations disclosed that all three children had died of skull fractures. The autopsy showed the peculiar fact that in addition to the blows on the head of the children, they had also had been bruised in the region of the heart. This evidence placed Mrs Davis as a person desiring to end her own life, lent credence to Chloe's implication that Mrs Davis wanted to take her brood with her.
Officers scurried back to the Davis home to hunt for the razor which was believed the mother slashed her wrists. When they returned to headquarters with the razor blade, it virtually clinched the girl's story. Officers said it was found near the mattress on which the mother was lying when she died. Officers said it was covered with blood and that feathers, with which Mrs Davis had covered herself, were clinging to it.
When asked if she left anything out of her statement, Chloe startled police and a psychiatrist while they were questioning her with this volunteered statement: "Oh, yes, there is something I forgot to tell you gentlemen yesterday. While mother was begging me to hit her with the hammer she asked me for a razor blade. I got one and gave it to her and watched her slash both her wrists with it." In another version Chloe said she got a razor blade from the cupboard and gave it to her mother and when asked if she saw her mother slash her wrists, she changed her story and said "No. I didn't look at it."
Police whisked her from the Juvenile Hall and took her footprints in the identification bureau. After the prints were taken and checked, they corroborated the girl's story, because the bloodstained footprints and handprints on the wall in the Davis home were those of the mother. This, the detectives said, convinced them that the mother killed her three children with a hammer and then attempted to kill Chloe, who disarmed her under the hypnotic influence of the shock. Chloe beat her mother with the same hammer.
During part of the questioning, Chloe sat down at a table with Edwards and ate "a big steak" dinner. When he refused to order the 11 year old a bottle of beer that she demanded to have along with her supper, she indignantly snapped, "Why? Mother and I split a bottle of beer a couple days ago and I like it."
After hours of questioning, Chloe steadfastly maintained she was telling the truth and retired to a cot in juvenile hall. She was said to have slept soundly, despite her painful head wound, and awoke the next morning eager for "a big breakfast" which consisted of toast, prunes, coffee and porridge, all of which she ate with an apparent relish.
The sixth grader was described as "flippant" by Dr. Paul De River, police psychiatrist who added that she was "the cruelest blooded, coolest individual I ever met." Upon this, Chloe was held on a suspicion of murder booking after she led officers through the blood spattered rooms, told a number of different stories but blamed her mother for the crime. Police Capt. Edgar Edwards said after repeated questioning of the girl and studying the discrepancies in her stories, that he was convinced she bludgeoned her mother with a claw hammer after fatally beating her sisters and brother.
Dr De River characterized Chloe as a "precocious youngster" an unusual child "with the poise and mentality of a girl 16 years old" with a "great deal of imagination."
Veteran police, accustomed to questioning hardened criminals said they were astonished by the imperturbable demeanor of the girl. The psychiatrist said Chloe's high intelligence was shown by the fact she was not rattled by continual questioning, tenaciously, she stuck to the essential details. Her answers were defiant when she thought police were attempting to trap her. "You can't make me confess," she said. "I didn't do it." De River went on to say that "her actions on the day of the slayings were those of an abnormal child. Any normal child would have screamed and run from the house when she awoke, as she says she did, to find her brother and sisters dead and her mother apparently demented. My observations of Chloe in the last two days, mark her, in my opinion, as cool, collected, phlegmatic and not easily swayed. She has her own firm opinions and even corrects her father on points of the tragedy. At the same time, I believe she is largely telling the truth."
De River said Chloe was "cool, has no depth of feeling, has great powers of imagination for fantasy and is distinctly capable of planning and committing the murders. But so far, I believe her story more than I disbelieve it. We must take into consideration the fact that Chloe may have an Electra complex. This would leave us to believe her capable of such a deed. She has read a great deal. She is a brilliant pupil. Her physical development may be laid to her great activities in sports. her mind is clear as a bell, very quick. She is an extremely well disciplined child and could very easily have followed her mother's orders."
De River said the quadruple murders were the result of Mrs. Davis' sudden homicidal insanity and the child's "hereditary mania." "I believe as Chloe said that Mrs Davis initiated the murders. It is perfectly possible that Chloe's mind gave way and she participated in the slaughter. She calmly watched her mother die and killed the baby, who had already been injured by her mother."
He said the 4 foot eleven inch, 80lb blonde haired, blue eyed child's "psychical development was astounding in one so young" and that she was large and strong for her age. She was about a head shorter and nearly 40 pounds lighter than her medium height and build mother, but since her mother was ill and weak, suffering from anemia, the healthy, well-developed child could have bested her in a struggle.
Chloe first told Edwards, calmly and without tears, that her mother killed the three children with the hammer saying that "Mama believed demons were after her. She thought she had killed my aunt's little girl a long time ago. She hit me on the back of the head with the hammer. I fought and got the hammer away from her. Then she made me help her carry a mattress from the bedroom into the hall. She picked feathers from the mattress and scattered them around her. Then she set fire to her hair and to the mattress. She didn't have her clothes on. She screamed "hit me, Hit me, I can't stand the pain. I hit her about 20 times and the hammer broke. I guess I must have hit her 50 times. I finally ran to a neighbor's house and telephoned my dad. They heard me phone and called police."
Then, at the request of her mother, Chloe said, she took the weapon and "conked" her about 50 times on the head and body until the head broke off the handle of the hammer, then beat her with the handle "until she stopped breathing." Mrs. Davis was almost scalped by the hammer blows and the heads of the three children were also badly battered.
Repeated questioning of the girl and subsequent development of discrepancies, however, led Edwards to conclude, he said before the autopsy showed Mrs Davis' wrists were cut, that his theory was that Chloe awakened while her mother was still in bed; went to the kitchen where Marquis and Daphne were playing and fatally bludgeoned them. In the meantime, Ann was in the bathroom and Mrs Davis was awakened by the screams of Mark and Daphne. Chloe then encountered her mother in the hallway, struck her with the hammer, felled her, and beat her until she was dead.
Edwards said the palms of Chloe's hands were blistered, apparently from considerable use of the hammer. Continuing his reconstruction of the tragedy, before the autopsy, Edwards said, "Chloe then went into the bathroom and killed Ann. In an attempt to disguise the whole horrifying affair, she tried to burn her mother's body. She dragged a mattress from a day-bed in her parent's bedroom, placed her mother's body on the mattress and set fire to the mattress. The nightgown was burned from Mrs Davis, but Chloe saw she could not, as she hoped to do, burn the house. She changed her clothing, took and hour to think things over, concocted a story about her mother believing in "demons" and called her father. I believe Chloe committed all the murders."
Chloe had a head injury the police believed she either suffered in a struggle with her mother or inflicted upon herself with the hammer to substantiate her story her mother was responsible for the crime.
One of Chloe's stories, Edwards said, was that her mother killed the children, set fire to her hair and then ordered her to strike her with the hammer to "stop this pain." Then she changed her story, Edwards said, and admitted she was the one who ignited the flames and that Marquis was dead when she awakened and that she found her mother striking her young sisters. Later, the police captain drew another admission from her, he said, that she beat her brother, as well as her mother, but denied striking her two sisters.
En route home from the police station for a reenactment of her version of the crime, Chloe waved airily to schoolmates who, faces white with terror, were clustered on the lawn. Inside the house, Edwards said, she walked spiritedly through rooms whose walls were splotched with blood, telling her story in a lively chatter.
At one point, she strolled over and started to play a small organ purchased for her by her father. Pointing to some books in her room, Chloe said, "I'm a bookworm. I read all the time."
Later, perhaps as boredom started setting in, Chloe reached for the comic page of a newspaper and asked not to be disturbed as she read her favorite strips. Early in the questioning, Chloe became hungry and demanded some "lemon cream pie and chicken soup." When her order was filled, her eyes gleamed, and she exclaimed "Oh, boy! That is my favorite dish." She devoured the pie is just a few bites and then heartily ate the soup.
Undiagnosed Mental Disorder or Anemia:
At this point Davis had trouble controlling his emotions, but continued saying his wife was a "perfect mother and loved her children. I often marveled at my wife's power over our children. She could correct them with words without any display of anger."
Mr. Davis said his wife had been an "exceptionally good mother and good housekeeper, and the children were devoted to her." She read and studied much of her time to improve herself as a parent. On the bookshelf of the family home were such works as "how to be a Good Mother" and "How to Raise Children".
"She was completely happy until a while ago. Then she got an obsession that these demons were going to kill me and she was going to be left alone with the children. She said that they were plotting all the time and we could find out about it by reading a book either called Blind Devotion or Blind Justice. She even went to the Public Library and had such a book sent out to her - at least, it had the same title. It was about a woman in Michigan with four children, and apparently she began to get the idea that the book was written about her. We came from Grand Rapids, you know. "
Both Chloe and her father told Edwards that before she got ahold of that book, Mrs Davis never before had talked of "demons" or exhibited any sign of insanity. Mr. Davis added his wife was "as normal as any woman could be."
"There are so many things about my wife that people don't understand. She had been sick. The doctors said it was anemia. She had been taking treatments. My wife had always suffered more or less from anemia since our marriage, but I had no suspicion that there was anything wrong mentally until less than a month ago. Lolita had been acting queerly for more than three weeks. I thought for awhile it was just because of her anemia. But she said things that began to bother me. She believed she had the power of demons. I took her to two doctors and then to a psychiatrist."
"About two weeks ago, my wife awakened me shortly after midnight and said she had a terrible confession to make to me. I asked what it was and she replied that she saw demons torturing the children and me. She said she believed she possessed some strange power of death over people and was in some way responsible for the demise of a woman relative who died some time ago in Grand Rapids, Mich, our former home."
She told him the demons were going to get her because they held her responsible for the death of a relative several years ago. "She told me she was responsible for the death of a cousin, Patsy, back in Michigan. I tried to reassure her she had nothing to do with Patsy's death. Patsy had died from natural causes."
"I didn't begin to be afraid until one evening, about ten days ago, I brought home twenty five feet length of new garden hose. Lolita threw her arms around me and hugged me passionately, and looked at me queerly and said, 'Do you love me?' I told her, 'of course I love you, I love you and the children more than anything in the whole world'. She said 'Do you love me enough to attach that hose to the exhaust pipe of the car and to leave me alone in the car?' Let's put the hose on the exhaust pipe of the automobile and you and the children will all get in and the demons won't be able to bother us anymore. That frightened me. Always after that I kept the car, a sedan, locked tightly so she could not get to it."
Davis related that he had taken his wife to Drs VJ Stack and Gerald O'Connor, 6006 South Western Ave and had been told by the physicians that outside of a not acute anemic condition, she was in good health. "I took her to some physicians. They said she was anemic and began giving her shots The shots seemed to help her, but I was worried. I knew something was wrong."
Dr. Stack told Capt. Edwards that Davis had telephoned him two weeks prior and feared his wife was losing her mind. 'I have known the Davis family for years and knew the parents to be devoted to their four children." He said Mrs Davis and her children were in his office the Wednesday before to discuss about treatments she had been undergoing for anemia, but added "I observed nothing that would indicate she was deranged. I told him to consult a psychiatrist." Deputy Chief Cross, however, declared he had been informed that one of these physicians had pronounced the woman a definite mental case and also had advised a psychiatrist.
Davis said "I knew of course, that something was the matter. I talked to my boss at the grocery store and he advised me to have my wife see a psychiatrist. I became alarmed and took her to see the psychiatrist on South Vermont Ave. The psychiatrist told me there was nothing wrong with her that couldn't be cured. He said there was something inside of her that needed treatment. She had been nervous for several years but had become apparently worse. He talked with her a long time, and afterward she said she felt so much better than she had for a long time, as though a terrible burden had been lifted. After the first treatment she felt better and didn't go back again and later sent him a check for that one call."
"But soon she began discussing that book again, and saying she would see demons torturing the children and me. She would not go to the psychiatrist again, though." He said that his wife asked him about getting some chloroform. "She asked me one night where she could buy some chloroform. I asked her why she wanted it. She said 'so he cannot hurt you.' She said some unseen power was going to kill the children and she wanted it to put a cloth over their faces so that the pain and suffering would be eased. I found she believed all of us, the whole family, were menaced by some strange demon. She told me she had a vision that spirits were going to kill me and that Orientals were going to kidnap the children and turn them over to white slavers. She said she was struggling to keep the devil away from us. We talked all night long."
The chloroform statement was corroborated when he was told by an attorney friend of the family told him that Mrs Davis had asked him three weeks prior to purchase enough chloroform to kill people. "She also asked him where was the best place to hit people on the head if you wanted to kill them." Chloe declared that on the evening before, at the family dinner table, her mother had inquired about the best method of killing a person, whether to hit him on the head or what. The father corroborated his daughter's statement. He said he casually told his wife that in his estimation a gunshot near the heart was the best method. "I wasn't thinking, I guess, and I said something about why not over the heart." He also said that his wife had been awake in the night smoking innumerable cigarettes in the living room.
Psychiatric manifestations are frequently associated with pernicious anemia including depression, mania, psychosis, dementia.
Chloe Innocent:
He continued asserting his daughter's innocence, declaring, "How can you be such fools? I tell you, you are wrong. She couldn't and wouldn't do such a thing. I know Chloe did not commit this terrible crime, and all I want is the truth. Chloe didn't do it! No matter what the police think. Chloe couldn't have done anything like this! It is so utterly ridiculously to put the blame on that little 11 year old girl. She didn't do it!.. if she did, her mother made her do it. They can't blame this on Chloe just because she can't remember everything. You can't blame her. She's just as innocent as the other children. She just did what she was told to do. She loved her mother. She was helpless in her mother's hands. She's telling the truth. She never lies. She was an obedient child. If she did anything she did it because he mother told her to. I know - I know positively that she is telling the truth."
Mrs. Willard Axwell, the little girl's mother revealed that Chloe apparently was a strong willed child and sometimes mistreated her mother. She also said Chloe refused to obey her mother in simple household duties. "I first became acquainted with Mr and Mrs Davis when we were neighbors, living in the 4800 block of Brighton Street, that was several years ago, and since then my daughters Patricia and Grace have been chums of Chloe and Deborah Ann Davis." Little Patricia Axtell on numerous occasions returned from visiting the Davis home to tell her mother that Chloe was mean to Mrs Davis. "After one visit, Patricia told me that Chloe flew into a rage and struck her mother several times when she was refused money with which to buy candy. At other times, Patricia said she had seen Chloe pull her mother's hair and hit her with a broomstick." She also related a story that Chloe had banged her mother's head against the wall in anger over not getting a nickel for ice cream. Mrs Axtell quoted her young daughter as saying that Mrs. Davis, who suffered ill health, never struck back at her daughter or punished her, but always remonstrated gently.
Davis admitted that Chloe was "different" from the other children. "She was just like her mother - I never saw her cry in my life." At the same time, he defended his daughter and said she was a "mighty good little girl. She always helped her mother and started a garden that the whole neighborhood was proud of - even her mother took an interest in it after Chloe got it going and showed such good results. Mrs. Davis was a stern disciplinarian and all this talk about Chloe hitting her with a broom is just so much talk. My wife was always able to handle the children - in fact we practically never had any trouble with them."
Once during the questioning of her by Policewoman Rose Pickerel, Chloe was unblinking, calm, and paused occasionally to direct sympathetic glances at her grief stricken father. Only once during the questioning did she appear near tears, when she said "I've been through a terrible experience. I can't dry. They don't believe me, but I can't cry. But I cry inside all the time. It doesn't do any good to cry out loud other people just make fun of you. Since this awful thing happened I have been crying inside all the time." At this admission her father broke down and sobbed, "oh, my poor baby! Oh, God. I've nothing to love for, now. Why can't I die, too?" to which Chloe said "Buck up, Dad. Don't let it get you down. Don't act crazy." Miss Pickerel told Chloe "You must try to forget it" and Chloe snapped back with "My father is the one who should try and forget. He's nuts."
After two days at juvenile hall, Chloe seemed more concerned about books due at the publics library than the fact that her family was dead. She told Policewoman Rose Pickerel, "please see to it that the books are taken back; otherwise I may be fined." While taking it easy at the juvenile hall, she said "my head doesn't hurt that much now. I want to rest today and read and I hope they'll give me some more candy today." She seemed to be enjoying all the food and sweets given to her while she has been held. "All this stuff I have to go through seems to give me a terrific appetite. I'm hungry as a bear," she said.
The matrons at the juvenile hall reported that although Chloe slept well, she had no desire to join the other children on the playground. She would rather stay in her room and read. She told policewomen that she was "happy there." She insisted that she have her favorite doll, which police retrieved from her home. When she was asked to go outside and play with other children, the girl refused and said "I'd rather stay here. I like my dolly, but I wonder how my garden is at home."
She said that she kept to herself, read books obtained from the juvenile hall's library, played with her doll and picked pansies outside of the detention hall. Her only complaint, the matrons reported, was "I don't have enough to do."
It was during this time that her deceased mother and siblings were at a private mortuary, Todd & Leslie in Santa Monica, awaiting funeral arrangements.
April 6, 1940:
Adela Rogers St. Johns, a well known true crime writer at the time, interviewed Chloe for The Examiner on April 6, 1940, two days after the murders. Chloe said, "My Mummy doesn't read much. She never reads out loud to me." When asked if she loved her brother marquis, she replied, "Oh sure, I love my little brother, he's a kinda cute kid - but he's awful spoiled. I guess that's natural when he's the littlest and a boy." She went on about her sisters saying, "Daphne's 10 - she's nearest my age - we could play together most. Debby - Debby's a nuisance. But my Mummy likes her best. She's pretty."
Realizing that Chloe was speaking of the family in the present tense, the interviewer said, "But, Chloe, you realize that - that it's all over? That you and your Daddy will have to live alone now?" Chloe said, "We won't...we.." and then started to cry, with a tightness in her voice, she croaked out "I won't like that, I...no. I can't think."
When talking about the murders, the interviewer asked, "Chloe, you must see why we're so puzzled and bewildered. Why didn't you run? Why didn't you run and scream for help and maybe save Mark and your mother?" Chloe replied, " I can't tell why I didn't run. You see - I came out - all that squealing - and the room was full of blood and smoke - you never saw so much blood - it got all over me."
"Didn't it make you sick? How did you know - didn't it make you sick?" asked St Johns nauseously. "Oh, I've seen lots of blood, I've seen lots of blood. I saw an awful automobile accident in Michigan. Two cars, there was blood all over everything. I saw lots of accidents. And I cut my own leg - see?" Chloe replied.
Gathering her thoughts and looking to change the topic slightly, St Johns asked "You - you and your mother - you and your mother got along well? You loved her and after all you were the oldest and you must have helped her a lot around the house and all that." "Sure," Chloe said. "I can cook. I don't know if I can cook good, but I can cook. But - Mummy didn't like me best, I can tell you that. Not much she didn't." Taken aback by this admittance, St Johns asked "Well, maybe you just thought she liked her only son best - the littlest -" "Oh no, she didn't like Mark best. She liked Debby best. Deborah was her pet. Then Mark and then Daphne and me," said Chloe in a matter of fact manner.
Trying to get inside the child's head, St Johns asked "Did that - were you hurt by that sometimes? Did it make you unhappy?" Chloe said, "yeah, it hurt. Sometimes it hurt plenty. But I never did anything about it - not for a while, I didn't." Thinking on that last quizzical statement, St Johns prodded further. "When you - did what your mother told you to do - with the matches and the hammer - you know what it is to be hypnotized? As though you were forced to do that and couldn't do anything else? Was it that way or were you trying to help your mother out of her pain?"
Chloe replied with "The house was full of blood and smoke. I was like in a daze. I just did it. I just did it and I don't know why. I wanted to get cleaned up. It was such a mess. Mummy- my Mummy was so pretty. Why, I had a girlfriend named Bonnie and she thought my mother was the prettiest of anybody and she told her mother so and was her mother sore!" she said while laughing.
But St Johns was still not quite sure what to make of all this and said, "You can see Chloe, why we can't believe - why it seems strange to us that a little girl could go on and do..." Chloe cut her off midsentence and stared at her with a blank look in her eyes, "It seems strange to you? I guess it seems strangest of all to me of anybody." St Johns picked up on this, saying "But you haven't cried, you're such a little girl and you haven't cried, they told me -"
Again, Chloe cut her sentence in half, saying "That's what they think. I'm crying all the time. I haven't ever stopped crying. I'm crying all the time inside. It don't do you any good to cry where they can see you - it don't get you anywhere. I'm crying all the time inside." Chloe then hugged St Johns and sobbed saying strange things about Indians and how she wanted to be born a little Indian girl.
April 7, 1940:
On April 7, her father sought a writ to release her from jail saying she was being held without cause. The father's action came shortly after police publicly admitted they believed Chloe's story that she did not murder her family. Davis, with eyes red from crying, nervously told the judge he thought his daughter was being coerced into admitting something she did not do. "I feel that she is being frozen up inside just like I am now. I am convinced Chloe is telling the truth. When I talked to her yesterday, she said, 'Daddy, they are trying to make me say something I didn't do and I won't say I did it. And then she cried, I have only seen her cry three times in her life, and I am certain that she has told the truth about the whole thing. I believe that the police should have finished any questioning of her which is necessary to their investigation by now and consequently I intend to force her release to me as soon as possible.'"
Davis continued, "They're all gone. All gone but Chloe, and I believe her story. She is not to blame. She must come home to me soon, I need her and she needs me."
Upon issuance of the writ, police ordered the little girl should not be disturbed by questioning of either police or press. Mitchell Moidel, attorney for the father, issued a statement saying he objected to police methods of examining Chloe. The writ contended Mrs. Rose Pickerel, policewoman; Capt Edgar Edwards, Deputy Police Chief Homer Cross are responsible for restraint of the girl in juvenile hall. The petition said that Chloe was not committed to juvenile hall by virtue of final judgement and that legality of imprisonment has not already been adjudged.
"I feel they have questioned her enough and that this persistent questioning is harmful to the child's mind," Attorney Moidel said. "The police have a pet theory which they are trying to prove as the truth. We think it is time for the police to make a specific charge, if they have one. The supreme court of the United States has gone on record as being against the third degree method with criminals, much less with innocent 11 year old girls."
Davis said the cause of the confinement was that Chloe is "suspected of complicity in the deaths of Mrs Barton Davis, her mother; Daphne, Deborah and Marquis Davis" and has been held for "continuous and persistent questioning and examination." Davis said he was "firmly convinced of the innocence" of his daughter and believed she should be returned to his custody at once.
However, on April 8, the petition was blocked and Chloe was made a ward of the juvenile court. A petition filed by Policewoman Rose Pickerel with Superior Judge W. Turney Fox said: "The minor (Chloe) admits striking her mother, Mrs. Lolita Davis, 37, and her brother, Marquis, 3, with a hammer and the handle of a hammer." It also set forth that Mrs Davis and Marquis were dead in the Davis home, and that Chloe's sisters, Daphne, 10 and Deborah Ann, 7, were discovered fatally beaten. Judge Fox ordered that Chloe be held in Juvenile Hall until a court hearing on April 17, at which time she may be released or placed in an institution until she is 21.
Her father announced retention of a psychiatrist, Dr. Samuel Marcus. But of Marcus' findings after questioning Chloe, Davis' attorney, Mitchel Moidel, would only comment: "There are important elements of physical and mental shock to be considered before an adequate appraisal of the girl's reactions can be evaluated." He added that "thus far, the investigation tends to disclose Chloe probably is a normal child and has had a normal life." This was a sharp contradiction to what Dr. Paul De River had diagnosed, saying her actions were "those of an abnormal child."
Dr De River commented that "she was treated with utmost consideration. We never lost sight of the fact she was a juvenile. No one asked any leading questions. She was allowed to tell her story in her own way. At the end of each interview, the child seemed to be fresher than most of those who were questioning her. She really amazed us all by her alertness."
Coroner's Inquest, April 9, 1940.
Chloe was able to see her father for some time before the inquest started. Chloe was kept out of the inquest room during most of the harrowing testimony, but made a brief appearance on the witness stand, parroting the words from her father's attorney, that she would stand on her constitutional rights and refuse to testify. Remaining composed in a pink print dress, she did not testify other than to give her name, age and relationship to the victims. The girl walked the gauntlet of hundreds of staring eyes as she went through the throng that overflowed the inquest room into the adjacent driveway. Her overwrought father, tried to kiss her, but merely brushed her cheek before she drew away as she marched toward the witness stand.
At the coroner's inquest, a nervous Mr. Davis, his body shaking with sobs, had to be helped to the stand by Paul McDale and Dr Samuel Marcus. He wept for several moments, raised his head and said weakly, "I'll be alright." He described his awful homecoming, "I opened the door. There was little Debbie and little Marquis. I said to Chloe, 'Where's mother?' She said she was in the hall - but I couldn't get in through the door in the front room. [The mattress on which Mrs Davis' nude body laid was jammed against the door.] So I went through the bedroom - oh God! oh God!"
Unable to control his emotions, he broke down again. He was revived by a friend who gave him a drink of water and wiped his head with a damp cloth. He went into how his loving wife suddenly started showing signs of mental illness. Davis frequently interrupted himself, as he broke down and hyperventilated, always seen to be on the verge of collapse. He was revived over and over again by breathing in fresh applications of a handkerchief saturated with ammonia provided by Paul W. McDole, a family friend. Regaining composure, but in a shaking voice, Davis told other incidents of irrational behavior by his wife and queer hallucinations that had disturbed her mind for a period of three weeks before the slayings.
He told how his wife, Lolita, had "said demons would kill me and torture the children for the rest of our lives" and asked, the evening before the killings, "where would you hit anyone if you wanted to kill them? Subsequently we had talks, so many talks. they led to trips to the psychiatrist and to doctors, who gave her iron shots for anemia. But it was all in vain."
Coroner Frank Nance, conducting the inquest personally, wanted more information. He asked Davis if he had ever put his wife in a rest home. Davis replied, "She thought she was possessed of demons and has the power to kill. I wanted her to go to a rest home, but she wouldn't. We tried everything - I tried doctors - I tried everything. But she said she didn't want to go back to Doctor Milburn because she felt so much better and she made Chloe and Daphne a dress She sewed beautifully. I asked her one night to go to a rest home and she said, 'No daddy, I'm alright and there is no one to take care of the children."
Dr. VJ Stack told the jurors that about two weeks before the tragedy, Davis called him at home one night and told him his wife was acting strangely and erratically. "He said she was talking about killing herself and gave me some other symptoms, and I told him to get in touch with a psychiatrist."
John S Milburn, a chiropractor, declared that Davis has taken his wife to his office on March 14, and that she had told him about believing in her powers to kill. "I asked her what these powers were and she said, 'I just think them dead.' I wanted to talk to Mr Davis alone - I couldn't talk before her - and I asked him to come back, but they never came." The Coroner asked "What would you have told him if he had?" Milburn responded, "In my judgment Mrs Davis was an institutional case."
Dr Milo James, Westwood minister, said that he was called by other relatives of Mrs Davis who were concerned about her condition and was asked if he would talk to her. "I gathered from the conversations that the matter was urgent and I called Mr Davis at the grocery store and he told me some of his wife's troubles. I went to their home one night to talk to her, but the place was dark, and they were apparently gone."
Policewoman Rose Pickerel testified that "I told her I didn't think it was possible for a little girl to kill her mother, and she said, 'if you'll take me to my house I'll show you.' She said her mother told her to kill her and then to run away."
Ambulance driver Winfield Needham and Ambulance Surgeon Dr Carl W Paulson, related how the girl was very calm when they entered the Davis home. She pointed out to them where each member of her family lay and coolly told them all the information they wanted. She said, "My little brother isn't moaning any more. My sisters, moan once in awhile." Needham said, "we were shocked that she could sit down and give us all the information - where the other children were born and everything we asked her. She told us that her mother had hit her in the bathroom. She told us that at one time she and her mother had spent nearly half an hour in one room, the mother trying to set fire to Chloe's hair and the child blowing out the matches as fast as they were lighted."
Receiving Hospital Surgeon, Dr Edgar Spear, was on duty when Chloe was brought in, he said "The little girl was entirely rational when she walked into the hospital and was examined." He described her wounds, received from her crazed mother, as a one inch laceration of the scalp, bruises on both forearms, a bruise on the right leg above the knee, and a 4 inch scratch back of the left knee. Chloe had not suffered any brain injury. He testified that "she was very calm and answered every question intelligently; in fact, more so than one would expect from an 11 year old child. She was not upset and did not cry, but smiled when we spoke to her." When attorney Moidel asked "Couldn't she have been dazed from shock?" The doctor replied "Yes, but she wasn't dazed."
Other hospital staffs were "shocked and amazed" when Chloe said "Oh boy! I sure saw something this morning - four murders right in front of my eyes."
Mrs Catherine Randolph, who lived in the first house west of the Davis residence, said she had been unaware of the horrible crime talking place a few feet from her until "Chloe came over to my house and asked me if she could use the phone, telephoning her father to come home that "it was urgent. Then she thanked me for using the telephone and walked out." She was dressed in her little blue school dress; her face was washed and her hands were clean. She acted normal." She said that she "never heard of any trouble in the Davis family, "they always seemed like a happy, congenial family."
Officer Elmer Stokes, one of the first policemen to arrive at the Davis home after the killings, said that "I'd say she was perfectly normal. She talked like a child to whom nothing unusual had happened." Coroner Frank Nance asked the officer, "she seemed less shocked than you were?" and the cop replied, "Well, yes."
Police Chemist Ray Pinker and MG Gaskell, department fingerprint expert, were called to establish that a razor blade found near Mrs. Davis' body. Chloe said that she gave it to her mother but turned her head while the woman cut her own wrists. The crime expert also told of finding bloody handprints that established that Mrs Davis was alive after considerable blood had been shed.
The jury of nine men deliberated for one hour and 50 minutes, an unusually long time for a coroner's jury. The jury determined that Mrs Davis killed herself by slashing her wrists. Although Chloe told police she had "conked" her little brother, Marquis, on the head at her mother's command to silence his groans, the jury found that the "blows administered at her mother's command by Chloe Davis had little effect in causing the death of Marquis." The other two children died of skull fractures "inflicted with homicidal intent" by the mother. As the jury's verdict was read, Mr. Davis broke into anguished sobs, buried his head in his hands and moaned loudly, "If they take Chloe from me, that will be the end of everything." The four hour ordeal saw the father break down often and collapse once completely which caused him to be led from the inquest room by friends.
Chloe was ordered removed from juvenile hall to the quiet home of her aunt and uncle, Mr and Mrs Dudley Johnson. Judge Turney Fox issued the order on a petition of her father, who had been forestalled in an earlier effort to gain her custody by police who placed her temporarily as a ward of the juvenile court. Judge Fox said the order putting the girl into the home of relatives was for the purpose of securing quiet and privacy for her away from the questioning of police and the curious stares of the public. "She has always loved to read, and there will be books for her. But she will be encouraged to enjoy games and toys. She will not go to school nor be with other children who might remind her of what has happened. But she is a bright girl. We do not expect her to fall back in her studies."
The police charge against Chloe, who was first booked on suspicion of murder, was changed in juvenile court to assault with intent to commit great bodily harm.
Chloe would remain in her aunt's home until April 17, at which time a hearing would be held on a petition seeking to make her a permanent ward of juvenile court. The coroner's jury exoneration has no legal status. Chloe must appear before Judge Fox to answer charges of assault with intent to do great bodily harm.
April 10, 1940:
Attorney Mitchell Moidel interviewed playmates and neighbors of Chloe and announced he was convinced she was "entirely normal" despite witnessing the hammer slayings of her family members. "Neighbors regarded her as a healthy, clean and entirely normal child," said Moidel.
April 11, 1940:
Joint private funeral services for Mrs Davis and her three children was held at 10am on Thursday morning April 11 at the Todd & Leslie funeral chapel. Attendance was restricted to members of the family only. Close relatives - a brother and sister of Mrs Lolita Davis - accompanied Davis to the simple funeral services. Davis wept hysterically as the funeral services were conducted. The casket of Mrs Davis remained closed, but those of the three children were open.
Chloe did not attend the service on advice of a psychiatrist Dr. Samuel Marcus. Although, she had expressed a wish to attend saying to attorney Moidel, "I would like very much to go to the funeral." Her psychiatrist felt the funeral rites might affect her mentally. To spare her from curiosity seekers, Chloe was kept in a secret place by relatives.
A white robed minister, Reverend Wallace Pierson of St Augustine Episcopal church conducted the service and was joined by Reverend Frank Dyer, who spoke briefly over the bodies of Mrs Davis and the three children. Davis requested that the service be simple and brief. Mrs Gertrude Shoemaker, contralto, sung two songs. They were "Sweet Mystery of Life" and "Crossing the Bar."
Neighbors of Davis and men who worked with him at a grocery store acted as pallbearers. Pallbearers were John D. Huck, WE Smith, Riss Mohler, Frank Stilwell, Cecil Dobson and NF Fitzpatrick. Following the rites, mourners were permitted to file past the bier, after which Davis and his relatives viewed the bodies. Davis almost collapsed in grief.
Approximately 200 persons witnessed the services, most of them friends of the Davis family. More than 100 others witnessed the interment of four white caskets at the Woodlawn cemetery in Santa Monica. When the last white casket was lowered, Davis rose and clung to the arm of a relative for support as he started to return to the car which had brought him to the cemetery. He appeared to be on the verge of collapse, but regained his composure after he had walked a few steps. "It's all over now - except for Chloe," he said quietly, then began to sob aloud.
April 17, 1940:
April 24, 1940:
May 1, 1940:
Family Background:
The police described the Davises as a typical, average, middle class family. Mrs. Davis was born in Chicago and her husband Frank Barton Davis, was born in Concordia, Kansas. The husband moved to Los Angeles in 1925 seeking employment. He had previously managed a grocery store in Grand Rapids and later held a similar position in South Haven, Michigan before moving to California. He returned East and married his hometown sweetheart, Lolita Bjorkman on Christmas Day 1926. Lolita graduated from Central High school in 1922. Mr Davis left Grand Rapids and returned to Los Angeles with his family in 1935, finding work as a grocery clerk.
Chloe had been a good student when she attended school in Grand Rapids between Sept 1934 and June 1937. Reverend AE Thompson, pastor of Park Congregational Church, recalled the Davis family as "one of the most likeable and devout in the church."
The mood around the Los Angeles neighborhood of 1200 West 57th Place was disbelief and sheer curiosity. All day long, cars filled with curious people traveled slowly up and down the block in endless lines. In front of the Davis home, the cars would stop. the occupants would look at the house, then at each other, shook their heads sadly, then drive on. Neighbors commented on the family and expressed their sorrows. "It just doesn't seem possible that it happened," said men and women who had been neighbors of the Davis family for nine months as they looked towards the house. "The Davises apparently were a normal, happy family. Their children used to play with our children. Both Mr and Mrs Davis were good neighbors, apparently in love with their home and their children. And now..."
LOLITA DELL BJORKMAN was born on SEP 13 1903 in CHICAGO, ILLINOIS. She
Married FRANK BARTON DAVIS on DEC 25 1926. She died on APR 4 1940 in LOS
ANGELES, CALIFORNIA. She was buried on APR 11 1940 in WOODLAWN CEMETERY -
SANTA MONICA, CALIFORNIA.
She was married to FRANK BARTON DAVIS (son of FRANK FRISBEE DAVIS and MARY
ALICE MARQUIS) on DEC 22 1926 in DETROIT, MICHIGAN. FRANK BARTON DAVIS was
born on OCT 3 1898 in CONCORDIA, KANSAS. He died on FEB 26 1956 in
CINCINNATI, OHIO. He died of hypertensive cardiovascular disease. He was
buried on FEB 29 1956 in STONELICK TOWNSHIP CEMETERY - CINCINNATI, OHIO.
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