March 8, 1943 - Los Angeles, CA.
Mrs. Rosary Shelfo, 22, was booked on suspicion of murder and held in the Lincoln heights jail, after the police reported she slashed off the head of her 2 week old baby, Ross, with a butcher knife. Detective AN Young said he found the decapitated infant on the kitchen bread board, wrapped in a pink blanket. In the sink was a butcher knife with a nine inch blade, and standing on the drainboard was a nursing bottle from which the child had apparently had just been fed. He reported that he found Mrs. Shelfo hysterical when he reached the house, and when he started questioning her, she got icily calm and remained silent and tearless about the death of her baby. He was unable to get a statement from her after she refused to talk.
After slaying the baby, detective Young said, the young mother walked into the bedroom where her husband, Joseph Shelfo, awakening him and calmly announced "Joe, I've just killed the baby. I don't know why I did it." Shelfo said he jumped up and ran out into the kitchen, fearing his wife might have dropped the child. There he found the decapitated body of his infant son, and a butcher knife, apparently the weapon, lying nearby.
Shelfo, near collapse, called his father Ross, for whom the baby was named, and who lived nearby. He also called his sister, Mrs Mary Sidoti, who rushed to the Shelfo home at 914 East 79th Street, with her husband John Sidoti. They summoned police.
Shelfo told the officers that all appeared well when he arrived at home that night and was unable to account for the tragedy. "I don't know why she did it. She seemed in good spirits when we went to bed about midnight. I can't understand why she did such a horrible thing, he hysterically told Young in between sobs, "She had been happy all the time. She wanted the baby and seemed happy after it came. I can't understand it"
Mr Shelfo said that "She had been moody, with a faraway look in her eye, since we brought her home from the hospital a week ago. Once, she said she feared the baby was ill, or abnormal, because it didn't cry much. I even had a priest and the doctor come and examine the baby, and they assured her he was a perfect child. She seemed perfectly happy right after the baby was born, but I remember she once said something about hoping it would be a girl."
Mr. Shelfo, 26, an employee on the graveyard shift at the yard of California Shipbuilding Corporation on Terminal Island, had just returned from work and had been asleep only a few minutes when he was awakened by his wife around 10am, with her shocking announcement.
Mrs. Sidoti was staying with Mrs Shelfo since her return home from the hospital a week prior, reported to officers that the young mother had been morbid since the birth of the child, expressing fears that the infant was not normal. Mrs Sidoti told how, in an effort to quiet these fears, she called in a doctor and a priest, both of whom endeavored to convince the woman that her child was quite all right. This was refuted by Dr Roy Hooper, who had delivered the baby, and by an autopsy surgeon's report that the infant was perfectly normal and healthy. Dr Hooper added that after the birth, Mrs Shelfo called his office several times daily to say she was "afraid there's something wrong with my baby." Mrs Sidoti stated that Mrs Shelfo had appeared to be a model wife and mother.
Mrs. Shelfo appeared rational except when she was asked questions regarding the crime, police said. She refused to talk about the slaying, and answered questions with only an icy stare. Taken to police headquarters, she told Captain AT Nelson that she had not wanted the baby. During the pregnancy "a couple of home remedies" were tried in an effort to induce an abortion, the police captain said he was told. However, the remedies failed, and Mrs Shelfo resigned herself to the birth.
Captain Nelson also said she told him she had wanted a girl baby and had made "a lot of girl baby clothes for it." She was disappointed when she gave birth to a son, he declared. She confessed in between sobs, that she had tenderly given Ross a bath and a last feeding, when suddenly a moment later, "I got a butcher's knife and laid it (the baby) on the breadboard and cut its head clean off. I then went into the bedroom and woke my husband, and told him I had killed my baby. I was making baby clothes, and I wanted a girl." Mrs Shelfo lapsed into silence after her brief statement to officers. Her brow was furrowed and her expression one of great puzzlement. She seemed dazed, and reacted slowly to questions. "I don't know," was all she had said.
Dr J Paul De River, police psychiatrist, also questioned Mrs Shelfo at length to determine her sanity and degree of competency. He said that Mrs Shelfo had told him "I don't know why I did it, but I'm sorry."
A coroner's jury at the inquest found that Mrs Shelfo was homicidal. She was to be arraigned later on a murder charge. Her husband wept as he told the jury that she woke him up and said she killed their baby. "I work nights. When I came home last Monday from the shipyards, I saw my wife sitting in the dark with the baby on her lap. She wouldn't tell me why she was sitting in the dark. I had something to eat and went to bed. Later, my wife woke me up and said "Joe, I've killed the baby."
Mr Shelfo wept so unrestrainedly on the witness stand that he collapsed. Deputy Coroner J Pearce Kane had to call a recess, as Mrs Shelfo gazed abstractedly out the courtroom window. Only when newspaper photographers flash bulbs popped in a silent barrage before her did she appear to take notice of her surroundings. She dropped her head on her bosom, her long dark tresses effectually hiding her face.
In her brief appearance on the stand, Mrs Shelfo stared vacantly, mumbled her name and covered her eyes with her hands. She was not questioned about the act, but was called to the stand for identification. She was ordered to be held without bail pending her preliminary hearing on March 16. Meanwhile, baby Ross was taken to Armstrong Family Mortuary. Graveside services for him were held Saturday, March 13, at 10:15am at Holy Cross Cemetery.
At her preliminary hearing, patrolman AM Young climbed into the witness stand and said "I went to the Shelfo home February 8th and Mrs Shelfo told me she had just cut off her baby's head with a butcher knife. It sort of set me back on my heels. I went into the kitchen and found the child lying on a bread board...The butcher knife was beside it." When the murder weapon was presented in court. Young identified it as the murder weapon. Mrs Shelfo, broke down for the first time since the murder and buried her head in her arms sobbing violently.
Her husband and her sister in law Mary Sidoti both testified, Sidoti saying that Mrs Shelfo was obsessed with the idea that her baby was somehow abnormal and that she would neither eat nor talk unless virtually forced.
Shelfo, still weeping, was led from the room after being ordered to stand trial in the superior court.
On April 8, 1943, Mrs Shelfo entered a double plea of not guilty by reason of insanity. Judge Fricke appointed Dr Samuel Ingham, Dr Glenn Myers and DR FJ Van Meter as alienists to examine Mrs Shelfo before the nonjury trial scheduled for May 17. Mr Shelfo appeared in court with his wife, still visibly grief-stricken over the slaying, Mr Shelfo indicated he will testify on behalf of his wife.
On May 13, 1943, Mr Shelfo made an application to for permit to conduct a Public Dance Hall Cafe at 10900 South Avalon Blvd, Los Angeles.
On May 18, 1943, Mrs Shelfo was found guilty of murder and not guilty by reason of insanity by Superior Judge Charles W Fricke. Fricke based his decision upon a stipulated reading of the transcripts of the coroner's inquest, the preliminary hearing and the reports of the three psychiatrists. Judge Fricke ordered Mrs Shelfo confined in the state hospital in Mendocino California. Reports by the three alienists pronounced Mrs Shelfo was insane at the time of the crime and insane at the time of her trial. Throughout the hearing, the young mother sat staring straight ahead, apparently without comprehension of her surroundings. When she heard the verdict of the court, she buried her head in her hands, while her shoulders shook with convulsive sobs. Sitting behind her, was her husband, who rushed to her side when the decision had been made. Her grieving husband, with tears in his eyes, put his arms around her in am embrace and kissed her before she was led from the courtroom. Through her tears, Mrs Shelfo offered a faint smile touched with sadness.
The evidence showed that Mrs Shelfo had been morose and abnormal in her behavior toward the child since its birth on February 21, of 1943.
In 1945, Mr Shelfo filed a divorce suit against his wife.
Social Security records:
Nov 1938: Name listed as ROSARY SHUMBATA; Sep 1944: Name listed as ROSARY SHELFO; Oct 1946: Name listed as ROSARY S BINGHAM; Jan 1961: Name listed as ROSARY ELLIOTT
Father: John Shumbata
Mother: Elizabeth Santo
Rosary was born on 10 Mar 1920 and died 17 Jun 1981 (aged 61) and buried at the Willamette National Cemetery
Portland, Multnomah County, Oregon, USA
Joseph was born in 1918.
Rosary married Joseph in 1942 in California.
She married James Bohna Elliott in 1961 and remained his wife until her death twenty years later.
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