Uncle John’s True Crime (29 page)

“The most difficult crime to track is the one which is purposeless.”

Companies that specialize in cleaning up crime scenes charge around $600 per hour
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Here’s a look at one of the strangest crime waves in American history—one that terrorized even the toughest characters in town—as city officials, the police, and even the public looked the other way
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O
UT TO SEA

One evening in the early 1900s, 19-year-old Max DeVeer and a friend were living it up in a San Francisco honky tonk called the Barbary Coast. There they met a man who asked them if they’d like to meet some girls.

“Well, naturally at that age we were raring to go anywhere—females were few and far between,” DeVeer told an interviewer half a century later. On the promise of meeting women, he and his friend went to the man’s room, where he served them drinks.

“That was the last that I remember,” DeVeer said. “The results of it was we woke up on a three-mast ship going through the Golden Gate....Besides my partner and myself, there were three other guys. One of them was a city fireman, and one was a store clerk and the other one was a wino, I guess.”

DeVeer and company had all been “shanghaied”—drugged, kidnapped, and sold for as little as $50 a head to the captain of a sailing ship headed for the high seas. When they might make it back to San Francisco was anyone’s guess; people who had been shanghaied might remain at sea, working as little more than slaves, for years at a time.

DeVeer’s experience wasn’t unique. For more than half a century it had been a common practice in San Francisco, Seattle, Portland, and other West Coast ports for men known as “crimps” to shanghai thousands of men every year. Shanghai, China, was a distant port of call, so when someone of seafaring age disappeared from city streets without a trace, people said they’d been “sent to Shanghai” or “shanghaied.”

CANVAS AND GOLD

Two events led to the heyday of shanghaiing in the late 1840s. The first was the invention of the clipper ship, a sleek and very fast sailing ship
that got its speed from more than 30 sails that were mounted on three giant masts. Lots of sails required lots of sailors to manage them, which increased the demand for sailors.

American city with the lowest crime rate, as of 2011: Plano, TX. Highest: St. Louis, MO
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The second was the California gold rush of 1849, which caused men to abandon the low-paying, dangerous life of a sailor to seek their fortune as “Forty-Niners.” There were always plenty of sailors willing to go
to
San Francisco; the problem was that as soon as a ship dropped anchor in San Francisco Bay, the crew abandoned ship and headed for the gold fields. By the end of 1849 more than 700 abandoned ships lay at anchor in the bay in need of crews to sail them back out again.

For San Francisco’s merchants and city fathers, the situation was intolerable. If the city was going to grow, the port had to function normally—San Franciscans had to be able to import the supplies they needed and export the goods they produced, and ship owners had to feel confident that if they sent a ship to San Francisco, they’d eventually get it back again. So when ship captains began offering $50 per head to anyone who could find them sailors to get their ships back out of port, crimps with colorful nicknames like Scab Johnny, Chloroform Kate and the Shanghai Chicken set to work meeting the demand. Business leaders, City Hall, and even the police turned a blind eye.

THE WORST PORT IN THE WORLD

Shanghaiing was a common practice in just about every port city on the West Coast. But San Francisco’s reputation paled in comparison to Portland, Oregon, which was known as the “Unheavenly City,” the “Forbidden City,” and “The Worst Port in the World.” If the sophistication of the city’s shanghai network was any measure, the nicknames were well deserved.

Portland’s waterfront was one of the seediest parts of town. The neighborhood was filled with saloons, pool halls, brothels, and even opium dens that served not only sailors on shore leave, but also any loggers, ranch hands, river workers, and other laborers who might be in town looking for a good time. Even when these establishments weren’t owned outright by crimp gangs, they were usually in cahoots with them.

Some business owners trapped their victims just by letting nature take its course—when a customer passed out drunk in a bar or became incapacitated in an opium den, the saloon keeper left them to the mercy of the crimp gangs. If two drunks got in a bar fight, the crimps waited for it
to end and then dragged away the loser. (If the winner got enough of a beating, they’d drag him away, too.)

More murders and home burglaries take place in August than in any other month
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Other proprietors took a more active approach: They served up punches made of beer mixed with schnapps and laced with laudanum or other drugs, or gave their customers “Shanghai smokes”—cigars laced with opium. Some businesses even had trap doors in the floor that sent unsuspecting victims plunging to the cellar, into the arms of waiting crimps. In Portland alone, 1,500 people were shanghaied in a typical year. In the busiest years the number climbed as high as 3,000—more than eight victims a day.

THE SHANGHAI TUNNELS

Nearly everyone who was shanghaied in Portland ended up in a cellar below street level. In the neighborhoods near the waterfront, all the buildings’ cellars were connected to a network of tunnels and alleyways that ran all the way to the water’s edge. This elaborate maze of underground passages, infamously known as the “Shanghai Tunnels,” are what set Portland apart from other West Coast cities.

In other towns crimp gangs only shanghaied sailors as the need arose. If a ship pulled into port and the captain let it be known that he needed seven men to fill out his crew, the crimp gangs went out and kidnapped seven men. But Portland’s crimp gangs outfitted the Shanghai Tunnels with makeshift prison cells, which allowed the gangs to kidnap people, then hold them captive underground for weeks at a time. Then, when a ship needing men sailed into port, the crimp gangs were ready. They slipped drugs into their victims’ food and dragged them through the tunnels to the waiting ship. By the time the drugs wore off, the victims were out to sea with no hope of escape. They had only two choices: work or get thrown overboard.

Some captains paid their shanghaied sailors nothing; others paid a nominal wage but then charged the victims for their food and necessities and even deducted the crimp gang’s kidnapping fee from their pay. Either way the result was the same: After everything was totaled up, the sailors were essentially working for free.

NOBODY’S PERFECT

Crimp gangs and sea captains weren’t the only ones who benefited
from the shanghai system; that was why it lasted as long as it did. Kidnapping waterfront riffraff and sending them off to sea lowered the crime rate (excluding kidnapping, of course). If you had lent someone money and they refused to pay it back, you could arrange to have them shanghaied. Likewise, if
you
owed someone money and didn’t want to pay it back, you could have the lender shanghaied, too. Not many people concerned themselves with the plight of shanghaied sailors or even noticed when they disappeared—most were transients with few ties to the community.

San Quentin, Leavenworth, and Sing Sing prisons were all built by inmates
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The crimp gangs protected their interests by being active in the political machines that dominated government in cities such as Portland and San Francisco. In California, two crimps named Joseph “Frenchy” Franklin and George Lewis even managed to get themselves elected to the state legislature, where they succeeded in blocking laws that attempted to outlaw shanghaiing.

PULLING INTO PORT

In the end it wasn’t a legal or moral crusade that ended the cruel shanghai system, it was steam: Steamships didn’t have sails, and could get by with less than half the crew of a sailing ship. By the time Max DeVeer and his friend woke up on their sailing ship as it was headed out of the Golden Gate, steamships were already overtaking sailing ships and the age of shanghaiing was drawing to a close.

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Even though the age of shanghaiing may be over, Portland’s Shanghai Tunnels are still in existence, and parts of them are even open for public tours. Want to check them out yourself? You can find the information online, or contact the city’s tourist bureau for details. Reservations are required, and it’s a good idea to book well in advance—the tours are popular and frequently sell out. Just make sure you tell your loved ones where you’re going first, because if you don’t come back, the oceans are a mighty big place to search for you.

Largest diamond heist: The 2003 Antwerp Diamond Center job. It netted $100 million
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When you’ve been around as long as Uncle John has, you’ll probably start to assume you’ve heard every story there is about pop music. Wrong! Here’s one that was new to all of us
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O
LD FRIENDS

Elvis Presley was the “King of Rock ’n’ Roll”; Jerry Lee Lewis was the first person to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. They were both hugely influential in formulating the sound of rock ’n’ roll music—both were raised singing gospel music in the Pentecostal church, and they both got their start at Sam Phillips’s famous Sun Studios in Memphis, Tennessee. Presley and Lewis were good friends early in their careers, and were even known to go on motorcycle rides and double dates together.

During one of Lewis’s recording sessions in late 1956, Presley, who had moved on to record for RCA, stopped by to see his old friends at Sun. Rockabilly pioneer Carl Perkins was also hanging around, and a jam session broke out with the three. Sam Phillips quickly called his other big star, Johnny Cash, to join in, and the star-packed session became known as the “Million Dollar Quartet.” As Presley’s and Lewis’s careers took different paths, double dates and motorcycle rides gave way to gold records and international tours. They never again had the same day-to-day friendship they had during the Sun Studio years, but their relationship was still amicable.

“THE KILLER” IS COINED

In 1957, while Presley was selling millions of records and starring in movies, Lewis made the headlines by marrying his 13-year-old third cousin (and the daughter of his bass player), a move that virtually ended his rock ’n’ roll career. In 1973 he rose from the ashes to become a successful country music performer, but bad publicity from his erratic behavior continued to dog him.

During Prohibition, half of all federal prison inmates were in jail for violating liquor laws
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“The Killer” was a nickname that Lewis lived up to—thanks to both his aggressive piano style and a number of highly publicized violent incidents. In 1958 on Alan Freed’s
Big Beat Show
, a dispute broke out between Lewis and Chuck Berry over who would close the show. When promoters decided that Berry would be the closer, Lewis protested by pouring a Coke bottle full of gasoline on the piano and lighting it ablaze after his finale—“Great Balls of Fire.” In 1976 at his 41st birthday party, he accidentally shot his bass player in the chest, later claiming that he didn’t know the gun was loaded. More tragedy: Lewis’s fourth wife drowned in a swimming pool in 1982, and the following year his fifth wife died shortly after their wedding from a drug overdose. But Lewis’s strangest incident of violence was aimed at his old friend, Elvis Presley.

GUNPLAY AT GRACELAND

At 2:50 a.m. on November 22, 1976, Jerry Lee Lewis unexpectedly pulled up to the front gate of Graceland in a brand-new Silver Shadow Rolls-Royce and asked to see Presley. The King’s cousin, Harold Loyd, was working the guard’s booth and told Lewis that Presley was sleeping. Lewis thanked Loyd and drove away, leaving Loyd puzzled by the event. Later that morning, Lewis was arrested for driving without a license, driving while intoxicated, and reckless driving after rolling his Rolls-Royce while rounding a corner in the Memphis suburb of Collierville. (Drunk and reckless driving must have been popular in the Lewis family—when Lewis was arrested and taken to Hernando Jail, his father Elmo was there on similar charges.)

RETURN ENGAGEMENT

Ten hours later, Lewis was out on bail and at it again. He was drinking at a popular Memphis nightspot called the Vapors when, for reasons that are still disputed between the King’s and the Killer’s camps, he left the bar and decided to make his way back to Graceland. He got there at 2:50 a.m., almost the exact time he’d arrived the night before, but this time he was driving a brand-new Lincoln Continental...and he was in a different mood.

“He was outta his mind, man. He was screamin’, hollerin’, and cussin’,” Loyd recalled. Lewis was angry, drunk, and armed with a Derringer pistol. “Get on the @#$%&* phone!” Lewis yelled at Loyd, waving the pistol. “I know you got an intercom system. Call up there and tell
Elvis I wanna visit with him! Who in the hell does he think he is? Tell him the Killer’s here to see him!”

Why was Harry Longabaugh called the “Sundance Kid”? He served time in Sundance, Wyoming
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LITTLE SISTER

Lewis’s sister, Linda Gail, recalled that “Jerry was really havin’ one big party at the time,” that he admitted he’d been “partyin’ and drinkin’,” and that he was out of it. But Gail swears that Lewis just wanted to visit with Presley. Cousin Harold read the situation differently.

He went into the guard booth and called up to the main house. He was told to call the cops, which he did immediately. Then the King himself called down to the guard booth. Loyd remembered the conversation exactly, including how badly Presley would stutter when he was nervous. “Wh-wh-what the hell’s goin’ on down there, Harold? Wh-wh-what’s that @#$%&* guy want? I-I-I don’t wanna talk to that crazy sonofab#$@%. Hell no, I don’t wanna talk to him. I’ll come down there and kill him! You call the cops, Harold. When they get there, tell ’em to lock his butt up and throw the key away. Okay? Thank you, Harold.”