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Speaker 1: You're listening to History on Trial, a production of iHeart Podcasts.

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Speaker 1: Listener Discretion advised. Hello listeners, I'm starting a newsletter which

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Speaker 1: will contain episode bonus content, reading and podcast recommendations, and

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Speaker 1: other fun history related tidbits. To sign up, please visit

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Speaker 1: our website History on Trial podcast dot com. On September twelfth,

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Speaker 1: nineteen thirty one, Horace Da received a gift that would

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Speaker 1: turn out to be a curse. It happened like this.

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Speaker 1: Horace's older sister, Haro had a beautiful light tan model

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Speaker 1: a Ford, which she'd saved up for for years, and

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Speaker 1: that night she told Horace he could borrow it. She

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Speaker 1: was going to be working and didn't need the car.

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Speaker 1: As long as Horace promised to be careful, he could

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Speaker 1: take his friends out in it. Horace was delighted. This

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Speaker 1: was a rare treat. He put on a white silk

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Speaker 1: shirt and dark trousers and headed out into the humid

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Speaker 1: Honolulu night to find his friends. At a speakeasy, he

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Speaker 1: ran into David Takai and Ben Ahacuelo. The three young

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Speaker 1: men had grown up together in Sunday School. A missionary

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Speaker 1: who'd taught them remembered they'd been mischievous and scrappy. Now

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Speaker 1: all in their early twenties, they were settling down. Horace

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Speaker 1: had just spent a year working in Los Angeles, David

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Speaker 1: was about to do the same, and Ben's girlfriend was pregnant.

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Speaker 1: But they weren't too old to have fun. On a

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Speaker 1: Saturday night, They spent a while at the speakeasy, then

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Speaker 1: considered where to go next. Ben knew about a luau nearby,

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Speaker 1: so the crew headed over and gorged themselves on roast

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Speaker 1: pig and beer. But there weren't many young people at

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Speaker 1: the luau, so they decided to check out a dance

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Speaker 1: at Waikiki Park. Horace spent the next two hours driving

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Speaker 1: various friends to and from the luau and the dance.

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Speaker 1: He didn't mind playing chauffeur. Driving Hariyo's car was such

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Speaker 1: a joy. Eventually, two other childhood friends, Henry Chang and

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Speaker 1: Joe Cahahavai, joined Horace. At midnight. When the dance ended, Horace, Henry, Joe, David,

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Speaker 1: and Ben huddled outside Waikiki Park thinking of where to

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Speaker 1: go next, their main criteria being free food and beer.

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Speaker 1: The group decided to go back to the luau once more,

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Speaker 1: driving down Bartania Street, they ran into a car full

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Speaker 1: of friends, and the two cars drove side by side

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Speaker 1: for a while, their occupants chatting. But by the time

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Speaker 1: the men got to the luau around twelve thirty, the

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Speaker 1: party had ended. It was time to call it a night.

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Speaker 1: Horace dropped David off first, Then as he pulled out

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Speaker 1: onto Lileha Street, Horace narrowly avoided colliding with another car.

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Speaker 1: A woman in the other car shouted at Horace to

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Speaker 1: watch where he was going. Joe shouted back, telling the

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Speaker 1: driver to get out of his car. Joe was a

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Speaker 1: champion boxer and football player and thought he could easily

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Speaker 1: take the driver, a middle aged white man. But it

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Speaker 1: was not the driver who got out of the car.

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Speaker 1: It was the passenger, his irate wife, Agnes Peeples. Agnes,

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Speaker 1: a formidable Hawaiian woman whose daughter described her as quote

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Speaker 1: built like a Sherman tank, wasn't afraid of some tipsy

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Speaker 1: young men. When Joe stepped towards her, she shoved him.

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Speaker 1: He swung back, clipping her ear. Agnes grabbed Joe's throat

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Speaker 1: with one hand and punched him with the other. Horace

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Speaker 1: Ida groaned, it had been such a nice night, and

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Speaker 1: now this e and Henry pulled Joe back into the car.

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Speaker 1: Agnes's husband, Homer, calmed her down and everyone drove off.

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Speaker 1: Horace hoped that that was the end of the issue

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Speaker 1: and dropped Henry and Joe off at their homes. But

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Speaker 1: two hours later, when Horace was fast asleep in his bed,

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Speaker 1: someone knocked loudly on the front door of the house

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Speaker 1: he shared with his sisters and mother. It was the police.

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Speaker 1: They were taking him in for questioning. This seemed ridiculous

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Speaker 1: to Horace. It had only been a brief fight, no

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Speaker 1: one had really been injured, and anyway, that woman had

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Speaker 1: hit Joe first, but he agreed to come to police headquarters.

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Speaker 1: While he waited to be questioned at the station, Horace

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Speaker 1: must have rude ever accepting Harrio's gift. What a price

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Speaker 1: to pay for a single night out with his friends.

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Speaker 1: But even then, Horace had no idea what truly lay

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Speaker 1: in store for him. Earlier that night, a young white

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Speaker 1: woman named Thalia Massey had reported to police that she

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Speaker 1: had been kidnapped and raped by a group of men

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Speaker 1: near Waikiki. The police had quickly connected Thalia Massey's attack

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Speaker 1: with the police report filed by Agnes Peeples about her

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Speaker 1: fight with Joe. In both cases, the suspects were a

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Speaker 1: group of young men in a car. Horace was not

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Speaker 1: in the police station to answer questions about a road

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Speaker 1: rage run in. He was there to answer questions about

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Speaker 1: the assault of Thalia Massi. Horace denied knowing anything about

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Speaker 1: this assault. So did David Takai, Ben Ahaquelo, Joe Cahahavai,

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Speaker 1: and Henry Chang. They had never seen Thalia in their lives,

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Speaker 1: the young men said at the time she had been attacked.

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Speaker 1: They had been driving down Bartania Street. People had seen them.

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Speaker 1: They had alibis. But in the face of a political

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Speaker 1: establishment that was determined to get convictions for Thalia Massey's rape,

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Speaker 1: would the truth be a good enough defense. Welcome to

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Speaker 1: History on Trial. I'm your host, Mira Hayward. This week

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Speaker 1: The Territory of Hawaii v. Ben Ahaquelo et al. On

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Speaker 1: the evening of September twelfth, as Horace Ida gleefully started

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Speaker 1: up his sister's ford, Thalia and Tommy Massey got ready

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Speaker 1: to go out. The Das and the Massis only lived

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Speaker 1: a few miles apart as the crow Flies, but their

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Speaker 1: neighborhoods were worlds apart. Horace Da lived in the part

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Speaker 1: of Honolulu then known as Hell's Half Acre, a teeming,

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Speaker 1: densely populated slum inhabited by a mix of ethnic groups,

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Speaker 1: including Japanese, Chinese, and Filipino immigrants, as well as native Hawaiians.

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Speaker 1: Tammi and Thalia Massi lived in Manoa Valley, a lush,

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Speaker 1: lovely neighborhood that climbed up into the mountains northeast of Waikiki.

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Speaker 1: Manoah had once been a favorite retreat for the Hawaiian

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Speaker 1: royal family. Now restrictive racial covenants meant that almost all

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Speaker 1: Manoa residents were white. Orderly bungalows lined the valley's streets,

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Speaker 1: filled with Navy men and their wives. Twenty year old

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Speaker 1: Thalia Massi was not popular in Manoa. She refused to

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Speaker 1: socialize with other Navy wives, believing them to be beneath her.

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Speaker 1: After all, Thalia was a Roosevelt. Yes, her father, Rollie Fortescue,

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Speaker 1: was the illegitimate child of Robert Barnwell Roosevelt, but Robert

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Speaker 1: had eventually married Rolli's mother, and the Roosevelts counted Rolly

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Speaker 1: as one of their own. He had fought in the

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Speaker 1: Spanish American War with his cousin Teddy, and then worked

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Speaker 1: as Teddy's aid in the White House. And Thalia's mother, Grace,

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Speaker 1: came from equally illustrious stock. She was a Belle as

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Speaker 1: an Alexander Graham Bell and Belle Telephone later at and

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Speaker 1: t Falia and her two younger sisters had grown up

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Speaker 1: on grand estates. It was true that Rolli's drinking and

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Speaker 1: refusal to work had left the Fortescuez in dire financial straits,

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Speaker 1: and the Fortescue daughters were notoriously ill behaved. But despite

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Speaker 1: all of this, Thalia and her sisters had been instilled

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Speaker 1: with the belief that their heritage made them superior to others.

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Speaker 1: So when the other Navy wives invited Thalia to their

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Speaker 1: teas and luncheons, she declined, and she wasn't shy about

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Speaker 1: telling them why. Even when she did attend the occasional

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Speaker 1: dinner party, her behavior was appalling. She would drink heavily,

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Speaker 1: tell inappropriate stories, and criticize everything around her, from the

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Speaker 1: house's decorp to the hostess's dress. Tommy Massew regularly confided

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Speaker 1: in his friends about how terrible his marriage was. Things

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Speaker 1: hadn't always been like this. When Tommy had first met

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Speaker 1: Thalia four years earlier, when she was a sixteen year

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Speaker 1: old high school student and he was a twenty two

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Speaker 1: year old cadet at the Naval Academy, life had been sunny.

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Speaker 1: Tommy had spent a blissful summer with the fortesc Us

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Speaker 1: at the Roosevelt estate on Long Island, charming the whole

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Speaker 1: family with his affable personality. Tommy might not have come

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Speaker 1: from as well known a family as Thalia's, but the

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Speaker 1: Massis were a prominent family in Kentucky, and his stable

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Speaker 1: career in the Navy meant that he would be able

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Speaker 1: to provide for thee. When Tommy and Thalia married on

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Speaker 1: November twenty fourth, nineteen twenty seven, their future had looked bright,

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Speaker 1: and for a little while all was well. Tommy had

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Speaker 1: several postings on the East Coast. People who knew the

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Speaker 1: Massies then said they seemed happy, though there were rumors

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Speaker 1: about Thalia being unfaithful. The couple tried to start a family,

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Speaker 1: but Thalia miscarried. Thalia's health was poor. She had an

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Speaker 1: untreated thyroid condition which caused weight loss, anxiety, and vision problems.

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Speaker 1: To compensate for the frequent loss of vision in one

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Speaker 1: of her eyes. Falia had developed a distinctive gait. She

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Speaker 1: walked with her head tilted down into the side, and

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Speaker 1: Tommy endured some professional setbacks. He dreamed of being a pilot,

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Speaker 1: but at barely five foot five, he was rejected four

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Speaker 1: times for being too short. When he finally got a

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Speaker 1: heighth waiver, he failed the psychological exam, with the examiner

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Speaker 1: calling him temperamentily not qualified, perhaps due to his quick

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Speaker 1: temper and what some Annapolis classmates had called his quote

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Speaker 1: cynical attitude. But Tommy had accepted the decision and pivoted

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Speaker 1: his focus to submarines. In May nineteen thirty, he graduated

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Speaker 1: from the Navy's Submarine School and was assigned to Squadron four,

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Speaker 1: based at Pearl Harbor. To most people, this posting would

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Speaker 1: have been a dream. In the nineteen twenties, a Hawaiian

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Speaker 1: craze had swept the United States. Hawaiian inspired music played

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Speaker 1: on the radio, theaters staged moch hula shows, and Hollywood

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Speaker 1: studios filmed movie after movie on the island's beautiful beaches.

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Speaker 1: At the same time, as tourists flocked to Hawaii, the

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Speaker 1: United States Navy was increasing its presence there, massively expanding

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Speaker 1: Pearl Harbor. Many of the military men who came to

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Speaker 1: Awe who at this time, were disturbed by the level

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Speaker 1: of racial integration on the island, which was comparatively higher

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Speaker 1: than in the rest of the United States. One need

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Speaker 1: only talk for five minutes with the average naval officer,

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Speaker 1: wrote reporter Lilyan Symes around this time, to realize that

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Speaker 1: he is straining at the leash to put Hawaii's brown

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Speaker 1: and yellow peoples in their place. Nonetheless, most sailors still

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Speaker 1: found Honolulu a lovely place to live, but not Tommy

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Speaker 1: and Thalia Massey. As Thalia's bad behavior became more outrageous,

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Speaker 1: Tommy too began to fall apart. He started drinking heavily.

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Speaker 1: The couple fought loudly and sometimes violently. When Tommy went

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Speaker 1: out on sea duty, Thalia would invite other men over.

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Speaker 1: In the summer of nineteen thirty one, in the latter

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Speaker 1: stages of pregnancy, Thalia lost the baby and fell into

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Speaker 1: a depression that manifested itself in increasingly hostile behavior towards Tommy.

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Speaker 1: She briefly saw a psychologist, doctor E. Loowel Kelly, but

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Speaker 1: After Kelly recommended to Tommy that Thalia receives psychae care,

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Speaker 1: Thalia stopped seeing him. In August, Tommy told Dalia that

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Speaker 1: he wanted a divorce. Thalia begged him for another chance,

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Speaker 1: not because she loved him, but because she did not

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Speaker 1: want to have to go back and live with her parents.

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Speaker 1: Tommy relented, but only conditionally. Thalia had three months to

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Speaker 1: try harder or else he was done. He called it probation.

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Speaker 1: Thalia promised to do her best. Agreeing to go out

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Speaker 1: with Tommy and some of his Navy friends on September

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Speaker 1: twelfth was part of her reform efforts. Thalia hated nights

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Speaker 1: out like this, surrounded by drunken Navy officers and their

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Speaker 1: boring wives, but knowing what was at stake, she slipped

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Speaker 1: on a long green silk dress and matching jacket. She

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Speaker 1: pasted a smile on as Tommy's friends and their wives arrived.

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Speaker 1: After an hour of drinking, the group headed to the Aluwai,

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Speaker 1: in a Navy haunt in Waikiki. When they arrived between

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Speaker 1: nine thirty and ten te pm, Tommy split off to

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Speaker 1: talk to some of his shipmates. Irritated at his abandonment,

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Speaker 1: Thalia went upstairs, where she circulated and drank, waiting for

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Speaker 1: Tommy to come find her. He never did. Around eleven thirty,

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Speaker 1: Thalia got into a fight with a Navy officer who

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Speaker 1: wanted her seat. After the man called Thalia alous, she

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Speaker 1: slapped him. Tommy was summoned to calm her down. The

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Speaker 1: couple talked for a little while, then Tommy went back downstairs.

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Speaker 1: This night was clearly not going as either of the

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Speaker 1: Massies had hoped. Around one am, Tommy decided to head out.

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Speaker 1: Salia was nowhere to be found, but since she often

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Speaker 1: left parties when she was upset, Tommy assumed she'd already

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Speaker 1: gone home. He tried calling the house, but no one answered,

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Speaker 1: so Tommy and a friend drove back to Manoah headed

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Speaker 1: to a friend's house where they'd heard a party was happening.

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Speaker 1: When they got there, though, the host was not yet home,

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Speaker 1: so Tommy and his friend decided to wait. Ten minutes earlier,

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Speaker 1: at twelve fifty a m. Eustace Bellinger was driving his

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Speaker 1: wife and their friends, the Clarks, down Ala Moana Road

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Speaker 1: to get a late night snack. Suddenly, a woman appeared

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Speaker 1: in front of the car, alarmed Bellinger pulled over. The woman,

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Speaker 1: whose face looked swollen, told the Bellingers and Clarks that

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Speaker 1: her name was Thalia Massey. She said that she'd been

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Speaker 1: at a party earlier that night, but left around midnight

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Speaker 1: to get some air. As she walked down john Ena Roade,

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Speaker 1: Thalia said some men had grabbed her and pulled her

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Speaker 1: into a car. They'd beaten her and then abandoned her

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Speaker 1: in a deserted clearing off of Ala Moana. Missus Clark

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Speaker 1: immediately suggested that they take Thalia to the police station

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Speaker 1: or to a hospital, but she said she only wanted

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Speaker 1: to go home. Just as Thalia got home, the phone rang.

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Speaker 1: It was Tommy calling from his friend's house. Thalia picked

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Speaker 1: up the phone and cried, something awful has happened. Come home.

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Speaker 1: At one forty seven a m. Honolulu Police received a

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Speaker 1: call from Tommy Massey requesting assistance. A woman had been assaulted,

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Speaker 1: he said. Detective John Jardine, in charge of the night shift,

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Speaker 1: dispatched two detectives, George Harbottle and William Fortado, to go

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Speaker 1: to the Massie's home. Police had gone to the house before,

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Speaker 1: usually responding to noise complaints from neighbors. When the massies fought.

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Speaker 1: This call out was different. Thalia had not wanted Tommy

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Speaker 1: to call the police in. When detectives Harbottle and for

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Speaker 1: Todo arrived, they found her lying on a couch, crying

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Speaker 1: and wearing a nightgown. Haltingly, Thalia told the detectives that

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Speaker 1: four or five Hawaiian men had snatched her off the road,

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Speaker 1: driven her to a remote spot, and then beat and

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Speaker 1: raped her. For Toado and Harbottle were shocked. In the

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Speaker 1: entire history of white settlement in Hawaii more than one

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Speaker 1: hundred years, there had never been a recorded case of

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Speaker 1: a Hawaiian man sexually assaulting a white woman. The detectives

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Speaker 1: walked Thelia carefully through her account, trying to get more information.

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Speaker 1: Nothing helpful was forthcoming. Alia said the night was so

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Speaker 1: dark she could not see the men's faces and doubted

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Speaker 1: she could identify them. However, when pushed by Fortado, she

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Speaker 1: said she was certain that all the men were Hawaiian,

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Speaker 1: not Chinese or Japanese. She could only describe their car

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Speaker 1: as being old and dark with a torn cloth top.

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Speaker 1: She had not seen a license plate. The night had

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Speaker 1: been dark. She said. She did not mention that her

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Speaker 1: bad eyesight rendered her nearly blind when she didn't wear

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Speaker 1: her glasses, glasses that she had left at home that night.

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Speaker 1: As Detective Harbottle continued the questioning, detective for Toado called

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Speaker 1: Detective Jardine to report in Fortato, and Jardine agreed that

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Speaker 1: Thalia's story reminded them of a case they had caught

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Speaker 1: earlier that night. At twelve forty five am, Agnes Peeples

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Speaker 1: had come to police headquarters to report that she'd had

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Speaker 1: an altercation with a car full of young men, and

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Speaker 1: that one of them, a Hawaiian, had assaulted her. Two

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Speaker 1: incidents involving a group of young Hawaiian men seemed unlikely

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Speaker 1: to be a coincidence, the detective's thought. As Thalia was

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Speaker 1: taken to a nearby hospital to be examined, a car

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Speaker 1: was dispatched to the Ida house. Unlike Salia, Agnes had

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Speaker 1: seen a license plate five eight nine eight five, which

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Speaker 1: the police had been able to trace to the Eda's car.

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Speaker 1: Horace Ida denied having anything to do with Thalia's rape

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Speaker 1: and initially refused to name the men he had been

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Speaker 1: out with, but after hours of relentless interrogation, Horace identified

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Speaker 1: his friends as the police brought in the other men,

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Speaker 1: Joe Cahahavai, Ben Ahaquelo, David Takai and Henry Chang, and

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Speaker 1: interrogated them. In turn, a problem emerged. The men's accounts

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Speaker 1: of their night were consistent. Moreover, they could provide the

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Speaker 1: police with the names of many other people who had

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Speaker 1: seen or see spoken with them between ten pm and

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Speaker 1: one am. There was no time for them to have

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Speaker 1: committed the attack, which Thalia claimed had happened between midnight

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Speaker 1: and twelve forty five. The men's strong alibis were not

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Speaker 1: the only issue. Thalia had repeatedly said that she was

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Speaker 1: sure that her attackers were all Hawaiian. Joe and Ben

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00:18:19,880 --> 00:18:23,000
Speaker 1: were Hawaiian, and Henry was half Hawaiian and half Chinese,

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Speaker 1: but Horace Da and David Takai were both Japanese, and

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Speaker 1: Haruya DA's car didn't match the description Thalia had given

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Speaker 1: of an old, dark colored car with a ripped top.

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00:18:34,119 --> 00:18:36,960
Speaker 1: Haruyo's car was only two years old, with a light

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Speaker 1: hand exterior and a pristine cloth top. But fortunately for

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Speaker 1: the detectives, Thalia now seemed flexible on details. When John McIntosh,

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Speaker 1: the chief of detectives, interviewed Thalia, at police headquarters after

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Speaker 1: her exam, she now told Captain Macintosh that she had

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Speaker 1: seen a license plate five eight eight oh five that

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00:18:59,800 --> 00:19:04,879
Speaker 1: was only one digit off from haruyo Eda's plate. Later

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00:19:05,200 --> 00:19:09,760
Speaker 1: at trial, a possible explanation for Thalia's sudden memory was provided.

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Speaker 1: Throughout the early morning of September thirteenth, a police dispatcher

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Speaker 1: had repeatedly broadcast a be on the lookout alert for

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Speaker 1: a car with license plate five eight eight nine five

300
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Speaker 1: which had been involved in an assault on a woman.

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Speaker 1: The dispatcher was referring to the assault on Agnes Peoples,

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00:19:27,840 --> 00:19:31,920
Speaker 1: but a lay listener would not know that these broadcasts

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00:19:31,920 --> 00:19:35,840
Speaker 1: had blared from police car radios stationed right outside the

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Speaker 1: exam room. Thalia Massi was in an exam room with

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00:19:39,880 --> 00:19:44,560
Speaker 1: open windows when Captain McIntosh brought Haryo's car to the

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Speaker 1: Massie's house around nine am on the thirteenth, identifying it

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Speaker 1: to Thalia as quote the suspect's car. Thalia said that

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Speaker 1: while she couldn't be certain that this was the exact car,

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Speaker 1: it was quote a car like that, and when Macintosh

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Speaker 1: brought jo Henry, David and Horace in front of Thalia

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Speaker 1: later that day, she identified all of them except for

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Speaker 1: David Takai, as being her assailants. By that time, news

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Speaker 1: of Thalia's rape was public and causing an enormous uproar.

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Speaker 1: No one was angrier than Admiral Yates Sterling, commandant of

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Speaker 1: the fourteenth Naval District, an outspoken racist and an advocate

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Speaker 1: for complete military control of Hawaii, Sterling was furious to

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Speaker 1: hear about the attack. Notably, Sterling had been much less

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Speaker 1: angry about the two sexual assaults committed by white sailors

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Speaker 1: against Hawaiian women in the past five months. There is

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Speaker 1: no record of the Navy punishing these men after demanding

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Speaker 1: custody of them from the local police, But now Sterling

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00:20:47,400 --> 00:20:52,000
Speaker 1: called for quote quick action and adequate punishment for these

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Speaker 1: quote dark skinned criminals. Sterling quickly organized a meeting with

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Speaker 1: Honolulu's power brokers, including the mayor, the district attorney, the

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Speaker 1: Navy's shore patrol commander, and the territorial governor, Lawrence Judd.

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Speaker 1: The forty four year old jud had been governor for

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Speaker 1: two years. This was an appointed position. The men who

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00:21:12,880 --> 00:21:15,560
Speaker 1: made the appointment were members of a small white or

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Speaker 1: Howley elite, the descendants of the white missionaries and planters

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Speaker 1: who had wrested power and land away from Native Hawaiians

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Speaker 1: over the course of the nineteenth century, culminating in the

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Speaker 1: eighteen ninety three overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy, the eighteen

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Speaker 1: ninety eight annexation of Hawaii, and the establishment of the

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Speaker 1: United States Territory of Hawaii in nineteen hundred, all despite

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Speaker 1: strenuous protests by Native Hawaiians. By nineteen thirty one, though

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Speaker 1: there was an elected territorial legislature, the true political power

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00:21:47,840 --> 00:21:51,040
Speaker 1: in Hawaii belonged to the sugar cane corporations known as

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00:21:51,080 --> 00:21:55,040
Speaker 1: the Big Five, who appointed governors who would do their bidding.

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00:21:55,760 --> 00:21:59,679
Speaker 1: Governors like Laurence jud But the United States Navy had

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00:21:59,760 --> 00:22:02,480
Speaker 1: all so began to play an increasingly important role in

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Speaker 1: the territory. Thanks to the Great Depression, revenue from tourism,

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00:22:06,640 --> 00:22:11,040
Speaker 1: sugar and pineapples was down. The Navy, which planned to

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00:22:11,080 --> 00:22:15,879
Speaker 1: invest millions into Pearl Harbor, offered economic relief, and so

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Speaker 1: writes historian David Stannard in his book on the Trial,

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00:22:19,640 --> 00:22:23,560
Speaker 1: This first meeting between Sterling and jud Quote set the

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00:22:23,600 --> 00:22:27,200
Speaker 1: tone for all that were to follow. The Admiral was

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00:22:27,359 --> 00:22:31,760
Speaker 1: used to giving orders the governor was used to taking them.

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00:22:32,040 --> 00:22:37,080
Speaker 1: Before long, a full bore prosecution was underway. Judd and

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00:22:37,200 --> 00:22:41,120
Speaker 1: Sterling had the benefit of a compliant media environment. Two

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Speaker 1: of Oahu's largest English language newspapers, the Honolulu Advertiser and

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Speaker 1: the Honolulu Star Bulletin, were closely intertwined with the military

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00:22:49,680 --> 00:22:53,800
Speaker 1: and business elite's interests. Assisted by the police who readily

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00:22:53,840 --> 00:22:57,920
Speaker 1: provided them with information, these papers began conducting a trial

354
00:22:58,040 --> 00:23:02,240
Speaker 1: by press, depicting the case against the five men as watertight.

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00:23:03,200 --> 00:23:07,200
Speaker 1: Behind the scenes, the case was anything but. The timeline

356
00:23:07,240 --> 00:23:09,959
Speaker 1: made it almost impossible for the suspects to have committed

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00:23:10,000 --> 00:23:13,640
Speaker 1: the crime, and though Thalia's story now better fitted the suspects,

358
00:23:14,040 --> 00:23:17,880
Speaker 1: the police lacked physical evidence to support this story. When

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00:23:17,880 --> 00:23:22,080
Speaker 1: police investigator's finger printed Haryo DA's car, they found plenty

360
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Speaker 1: of prints, but not a single one belonging to Thalia Massey.

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00:23:26,800 --> 00:23:30,240
Speaker 1: And more troublingly, the police were struggling to find proof

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Speaker 1: that Thalia had been raped at all. I will mention

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Speaker 1: here that false reports of rape are very uncommon. The

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00:23:37,400 --> 00:23:40,080
Speaker 1: rate of false reports is difficult to measure since there

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00:23:40,080 --> 00:23:43,240
Speaker 1: are many ways to define false, such as stories that

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00:23:43,280 --> 00:23:46,480
Speaker 1: were proven false, suspected to be false or unable to

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00:23:46,520 --> 00:23:50,239
Speaker 1: be substantiated or to meet the threshold for prosecution. But

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00:23:50,280 --> 00:23:53,720
Speaker 1: the most comprehensive research indicates a rape of false rape

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00:23:53,720 --> 00:23:56,320
Speaker 1: reports in the United States to be between two and

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00:23:56,480 --> 00:24:00,399
Speaker 1: eight percent. We cannot know what exactly happened to Thalia

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00:24:00,480 --> 00:24:03,760
Speaker 1: Massey that night in nineteen thirty one, but the physical

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00:24:03,800 --> 00:24:06,879
Speaker 1: evidence did not corroborate her story of being beaten and

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00:24:07,000 --> 00:24:11,600
Speaker 1: raped multiple times. At her exam only several hours after

374
00:24:11,640 --> 00:24:14,479
Speaker 1: the alleged attack, a doctor and nurse found that the

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00:24:14,520 --> 00:24:17,800
Speaker 1: only injury Thealia suffered was a facial one. Her jaw

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00:24:17,920 --> 00:24:21,880
Speaker 1: was broken, she had no vaginal abrasions or lacerations, and

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00:24:22,040 --> 00:24:25,240
Speaker 1: no seamen was present. Thalia told the doctor that she

378
00:24:25,280 --> 00:24:28,639
Speaker 1: had douched after arriving home, but no seamen was found

379
00:24:28,680 --> 00:24:31,359
Speaker 1: on any of the clothes that Thalia wore that night either.

380
00:24:31,920 --> 00:24:36,320
Speaker 1: Her clothes were in fact nearly pristine. Besides a few

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00:24:36,400 --> 00:24:39,760
Speaker 1: drops of blood on the shoulder, likely from Thalia's split lip,

382
00:24:40,240 --> 00:24:43,760
Speaker 1: the clothes looked, according to doctor Thomas Mossman, the assistant

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00:24:43,800 --> 00:24:46,720
Speaker 1: City and County physician, like they had just come from

384
00:24:46,720 --> 00:24:50,879
Speaker 1: the dry cleaners. Even her shoes were not scuffed. It

385
00:24:51,000 --> 00:24:54,080
Speaker 1: was hard to imagine that thealia could have been abducted, beaten,

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00:24:54,320 --> 00:24:57,680
Speaker 1: dragged through the woods, and raped without sustaining a single

387
00:24:57,720 --> 00:25:01,800
Speaker 1: stain or rip or scuff. The lack of physical evidence

388
00:25:01,880 --> 00:25:05,399
Speaker 1: was a particular problem for the prosecution because Hawaii had

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00:25:05,440 --> 00:25:09,240
Speaker 1: a law that required corroborating evidence in rape cases. A

390
00:25:09,320 --> 00:25:13,800
Speaker 1: victim's testimony alone was not enough, but prosecutors, led by

391
00:25:13,840 --> 00:25:17,520
Speaker 1: Assistant City and County Attorney Griffith White, were not deterred

392
00:25:17,520 --> 00:25:21,639
Speaker 1: by these obstacles. Driven by increasing pressure from the Navy

393
00:25:21,800 --> 00:25:25,840
Speaker 1: and an outraged public, White was determined to get a conviction,

394
00:25:26,720 --> 00:25:30,600
Speaker 1: and when the men's trial began on November sixteenth, nineteen

395
00:25:30,720 --> 00:25:33,959
Speaker 1: thirty one, the lengths to which White would go to

396
00:25:34,000 --> 00:25:41,280
Speaker 1: get his conviction would be revealed. When ben Ahaquelo's mother, Aggie,

397
00:25:41,480 --> 00:25:45,080
Speaker 1: heard that her son had been arrested, she was terrified,

398
00:25:45,640 --> 00:25:48,639
Speaker 1: so she did what any mother would do. She called

399
00:25:48,680 --> 00:25:54,359
Speaker 1: a princess. As David's Darren explains, although the ravages of

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00:25:54,400 --> 00:25:58,359
Speaker 1: it introduced disease and consequent political upheaval did much to

401
00:25:58,480 --> 00:26:03,520
Speaker 1: change Hawaiian cultural norms following European contact, one characteristic that

402
00:26:03,680 --> 00:26:08,280
Speaker 1: endured was the expectation by rulers and rules alike that

403
00:26:08,440 --> 00:26:11,960
Speaker 1: rulers were obliged to care for the common people. So

404
00:26:12,080 --> 00:26:16,160
Speaker 1: Princess Abigail Kavana Nakoa, the current leader of Hawaii's deposed

405
00:26:16,240 --> 00:26:20,359
Speaker 1: royal family, did not hesitate to answer Aggie Ahaquelo's call.

406
00:26:21,040 --> 00:26:23,720
Speaker 1: The princess listened to Aggie's story and then said that

407
00:26:23,760 --> 00:26:27,000
Speaker 1: she would contact one of her friends, the accomplished attorney

408
00:26:27,040 --> 00:26:30,920
Speaker 1: William H. Heen, to see if he could help. William

409
00:26:31,000 --> 00:26:35,040
Speaker 1: Heen was prominent in Hawaii's legal and political circles. Half

410
00:26:35,119 --> 00:26:37,760
Speaker 1: Chinese and half Hawaiian, the forty eight year old Heen

411
00:26:37,840 --> 00:26:41,520
Speaker 1: had worked as a prosecutor, a defense attorney, and a judge.

412
00:26:41,600 --> 00:26:44,600
Speaker 1: He was currently balancing his law practice with his duties

413
00:26:44,640 --> 00:26:48,439
Speaker 1: as a senator in the territorial legislature. Keen agreed to

414
00:26:48,440 --> 00:26:51,560
Speaker 1: look into the case for Princess Kavana and Nakoa. Aware

415
00:26:51,640 --> 00:26:54,000
Speaker 1: of the racial aspects of the case, he decided to

416
00:26:54,040 --> 00:26:57,720
Speaker 1: recruit a white attorney to assist him. Bill Pittman was

417
00:26:57,760 --> 00:27:01,719
Speaker 1: the perfect fit. An excellent atonejourney, the Mississippi born Pittman

418
00:27:01,920 --> 00:27:05,240
Speaker 1: was passionately anti racist. He also happened to be a

419
00:27:05,280 --> 00:27:09,480
Speaker 1: descendant of Francis Scott Key, who was decidedly more racist,

420
00:27:09,920 --> 00:27:12,760
Speaker 1: as we saw in episode three of History on Trial.

421
00:27:13,800 --> 00:27:16,160
Speaker 1: Heen and Pittman wanted to be sure that they had

422
00:27:16,160 --> 00:27:20,520
Speaker 1: a solid case, so they conducted vigorous interrogations of the defendants.

423
00:27:21,160 --> 00:27:23,480
Speaker 1: At the end, the lawyers were convinced that the men

424
00:27:23,520 --> 00:27:27,159
Speaker 1: were innocent and decided to represent them. They divided up

425
00:27:27,160 --> 00:27:31,320
Speaker 1: the defendants, with William Heen representing Ben Ahaquello and Henry Chang,

426
00:27:31,680 --> 00:27:35,840
Speaker 1: and Bill Pittman representing Horace da and Joe Cahahavai. Robert

427
00:27:35,920 --> 00:27:39,400
Speaker 1: Murakami later joined the defense as well, representing David Takai.

428
00:27:40,160 --> 00:27:43,360
Speaker 1: Hawaii's Howley Elite were disturbed by the news that such

429
00:27:43,400 --> 00:27:47,320
Speaker 1: formidable lawyers had signed on. They began to question whether

430
00:27:47,400 --> 00:27:50,080
Speaker 1: Griffith White was the right man to lead the prosecution.

431
00:27:50,720 --> 00:27:53,240
Speaker 1: After all, the forty one year old had only four

432
00:27:53,359 --> 00:27:57,040
Speaker 1: years experience as a lawyer. But White insisted he could

433
00:27:57,080 --> 00:28:00,359
Speaker 1: handle the case, and the prosecution also had to reason

434
00:28:00,400 --> 00:28:03,080
Speaker 1: to hope that the judge would be sympathetic to their cause.

435
00:28:04,000 --> 00:28:07,760
Speaker 1: Judge Alva E. Steedman, thirty seven, had married into one

436
00:28:07,800 --> 00:28:11,399
Speaker 1: of the Big five Sugarcane families right before the trial.

437
00:28:11,480 --> 00:28:14,840
Speaker 1: Steedman announced that this would be his last trial, as

438
00:28:14,840 --> 00:28:17,880
Speaker 1: he would be accepting a job with his wife's family company.

439
00:28:18,600 --> 00:28:21,680
Speaker 1: The defense worried that Steadman, about to leave the bench,

440
00:28:21,800 --> 00:28:24,840
Speaker 1: would be less concerned with impartiality than he would be

441
00:28:24,920 --> 00:28:29,120
Speaker 1: with satisfying the Big Five and the Navy. Their fears

442
00:28:29,160 --> 00:28:32,960
Speaker 1: seemed to be confirmed. As the trial began. Steadman denied

443
00:28:33,000 --> 00:28:36,960
Speaker 1: nearly all of the defense's motions. Most critically, he denied

444
00:28:37,000 --> 00:28:39,360
Speaker 1: their motion to get a bill of particulars, which would

445
00:28:39,520 --> 00:28:43,840
Speaker 1: enumerate exactly what crimes each defendant was charged with. This

446
00:28:44,040 --> 00:28:47,880
Speaker 1: ruling was a particular blow to David Takai. Thalia Massey

447
00:28:47,960 --> 00:28:50,400
Speaker 1: had always denied that he was one of her attackers,

448
00:28:50,520 --> 00:28:52,920
Speaker 1: and Takai had no idea what he was even on

449
00:28:53,040 --> 00:28:57,880
Speaker 1: trial for. At ten thirty am on November eighteenth, Griffith

450
00:28:57,880 --> 00:29:01,880
Speaker 1: White delivered a brief opening statement, focusing on the heinousness

451
00:29:01,880 --> 00:29:06,040
Speaker 1: of the crime. Then he called Thalia Massey to the stand.

452
00:29:06,720 --> 00:29:12,120
Speaker 1: Thalia was dressed conservatively and spoke softly. Her testimony was emotional.

453
00:29:12,560 --> 00:29:15,800
Speaker 1: When she began describing the attack, she broke into tears,

454
00:29:16,200 --> 00:29:19,800
Speaker 1: prompting Judge Stadman to call the recess. Her testimony was

455
00:29:19,840 --> 00:29:24,920
Speaker 1: also thorough and precise. She provided detailed descriptions of her assailants,

456
00:29:25,240 --> 00:29:27,440
Speaker 1: who she now said had referred to each other by

457
00:29:27,560 --> 00:29:31,000
Speaker 1: name during her assault. She described seeing the license plate

458
00:29:31,040 --> 00:29:33,840
Speaker 1: and the car, both of which she had initially claimed

459
00:29:33,920 --> 00:29:36,800
Speaker 1: not to have seen, and these weren't the only changes

460
00:29:36,840 --> 00:29:39,360
Speaker 1: to her story. Thalia now said that she might have

461
00:29:39,440 --> 00:29:42,040
Speaker 1: left the alloway in as early as eleven thirty five

462
00:29:42,080 --> 00:29:45,360
Speaker 1: p m. The most moving part of her testimony came

463
00:29:45,360 --> 00:29:48,720
Speaker 1: when Thalia spoke of discovering a month after the alleged

464
00:29:48,760 --> 00:29:52,920
Speaker 1: assault that she was pregnant. In truth, Thalia had only

465
00:29:52,960 --> 00:29:56,000
Speaker 1: suspected she was pregnant when she went to the hospital

466
00:29:56,040 --> 00:29:59,640
Speaker 1: and had a dilation and curetage performed. No evidence of

467
00:29:59,680 --> 00:30:03,760
Speaker 1: pregnant she was discovered, but that fact never emerged at trial,

468
00:30:04,360 --> 00:30:07,120
Speaker 1: and the horror of her ordeal moved many in the

469
00:30:07,120 --> 00:30:12,400
Speaker 1: court room. On cross William Heen gently but insistently pushed

470
00:30:12,400 --> 00:30:15,520
Speaker 1: Thalia on the details of her attack and on the timeline.

471
00:30:16,080 --> 00:30:19,239
Speaker 1: When he asked about the discrepancies between her testimony and

472
00:30:19,280 --> 00:30:22,400
Speaker 1: her initial report to the police, such as the ethnicity

473
00:30:22,400 --> 00:30:25,440
Speaker 1: of her assailants or the description of the car, Thalia

474
00:30:25,480 --> 00:30:29,760
Speaker 1: claimed she couldn't remember what she'd said when with Thalia's

475
00:30:29,800 --> 00:30:33,960
Speaker 1: testimony entered. Griffith White now worked to introduce corroberative evidence.

476
00:30:34,600 --> 00:30:38,520
Speaker 1: He called Thalia's personal physician, doctor John Porter, to describe

477
00:30:38,520 --> 00:30:42,520
Speaker 1: the injuries to Thalia's face. Then he presented a series

478
00:30:42,600 --> 00:30:48,120
Speaker 1: of police officers. The first police witness was Detective John C. Clooney.

479
00:30:48,760 --> 00:30:52,840
Speaker 1: Clooney had been one of Horace DA's arresting officers. Shortly

480
00:30:52,880 --> 00:30:56,560
Speaker 1: after bringing Horace in, Clooney said Boris told him that

481
00:30:56,640 --> 00:31:00,000
Speaker 1: quote one of the boys in his cars struck Missus Peeples,

482
00:31:00,200 --> 00:31:02,280
Speaker 1: but as far as the striking of this white woman,

483
00:31:02,480 --> 00:31:05,680
Speaker 1: he said he didn't know anything about it at the time.

484
00:31:05,880 --> 00:31:09,000
Speaker 1: White asked Clooney, had you mentioned to him that a

485
00:31:09,000 --> 00:31:13,400
Speaker 1: white woman had been struck? I had not. Clooney said

486
00:31:13,800 --> 00:31:17,320
Speaker 1: the implication was clear. The only way that Horace DA

487
00:31:17,400 --> 00:31:19,360
Speaker 1: could have known about the attack on Thalia at this

488
00:31:19,480 --> 00:31:24,560
Speaker 1: point was if he had committed it. William Heen was shocked.

489
00:31:24,640 --> 00:31:28,320
Speaker 1: He had never heard any mention of this exchange on cross.

490
00:31:28,320 --> 00:31:30,840
Speaker 1: He asked Clooney if he had written a report that night.

491
00:31:31,440 --> 00:31:33,480
Speaker 1: Clooney said he had, but that he didn't have the

492
00:31:33,560 --> 00:31:36,520
Speaker 1: report on him, so the detective was excused to fetch

493
00:31:36,520 --> 00:31:40,600
Speaker 1: the report In the meantime, White called his next police witness,

494
00:31:40,960 --> 00:31:44,960
Speaker 1: officer Claude Benton. Benon had conducted a search of the

495
00:31:45,000 --> 00:31:48,480
Speaker 1: crime scene in the early hours of September thirteenth, shortly

496
00:31:48,520 --> 00:31:52,040
Speaker 1: after the assault was reported. At the scene, Benton had

497
00:31:52,040 --> 00:31:55,880
Speaker 1: found several items that Thalia Massey identified as hers, including

498
00:31:55,880 --> 00:31:59,280
Speaker 1: a pocket mirror and a pack of cigarettes. But Benon

499
00:31:59,280 --> 00:32:03,400
Speaker 1: had also found something much more important. He now revealed

500
00:32:03,440 --> 00:32:08,640
Speaker 1: on the stand tire tracks three good Rich Silverton Chords

501
00:32:08,680 --> 00:32:12,280
Speaker 1: and one good Year all Weather. Benton explained, with the

502
00:32:12,320 --> 00:32:16,200
Speaker 1: Goodyear tire on the left rear. These were, of course

503
00:32:16,400 --> 00:32:20,960
Speaker 1: the same tires as those on Haruo DA's car. Benon

504
00:32:21,040 --> 00:32:24,000
Speaker 1: had even taken Horace Da in his sister's car to

505
00:32:24,080 --> 00:32:27,520
Speaker 1: the crime scene to compare the tracks. White clarified when

506
00:32:27,560 --> 00:32:32,520
Speaker 1: the comparison visit had happened Sunday morning, he asked, Benon said, yes,

507
00:32:33,760 --> 00:32:37,920
Speaker 1: William Heen knew how damaging this testimony sounded, but he

508
00:32:38,080 --> 00:32:41,000
Speaker 1: thought he might be able to undermine it. His first

509
00:32:41,040 --> 00:32:45,000
Speaker 1: step was asking for Benton's written report. Keen received it

510
00:32:45,160 --> 00:32:47,760
Speaker 1: right before he began his cross examination of Benton that

511
00:32:47,800 --> 00:32:51,160
Speaker 1: afternoon and had to quickly scan it. Then he began

512
00:32:51,320 --> 00:32:55,880
Speaker 1: questioning Benton. After reviewing the tire evidence, Heen asked Benon

513
00:32:56,000 --> 00:32:59,200
Speaker 1: what exactly he had found at the crime scene. Benon

514
00:32:59,240 --> 00:33:02,360
Speaker 1: walked through the event, recalling the brands of the cigarettes found,

515
00:33:02,520 --> 00:33:06,240
Speaker 1: the various matchboxes, and the pocket mirror. It was clear

516
00:33:06,240 --> 00:33:09,960
Speaker 1: that he was a detail oriented, methodical officer, unlikely to

517
00:33:10,080 --> 00:33:15,920
Speaker 1: miss things or make mistakes. Having established this, Heen dropped

518
00:33:16,000 --> 00:33:20,480
Speaker 1: the hammer. Now, mister Betton, why didn't you include the

519
00:33:20,560 --> 00:33:25,080
Speaker 1: tire marks in your written statement? Keen read Benton's report

520
00:33:25,160 --> 00:33:29,320
Speaker 1: aloud in court. There was no mention of the tire tracks.

521
00:33:29,960 --> 00:33:33,680
Speaker 1: Benen could only offer vague explanations, saying that he didn't

522
00:33:33,720 --> 00:33:36,480
Speaker 1: realize the tire tracks mattered until he knew about harya

523
00:33:36,560 --> 00:33:40,280
Speaker 1: IA's car. On redirect, Griffith White tried to clean things

524
00:33:40,360 --> 00:33:42,880
Speaker 1: up by asking more questions about the visit Betton had

525
00:33:42,920 --> 00:33:45,640
Speaker 1: made to the crime scene with Horace da It had

526
00:33:45,680 --> 00:33:47,920
Speaker 1: only been a few hours after his first inspection of

527
00:33:47,960 --> 00:33:51,680
Speaker 1: the scene been confirmed. This redirect didn't add much to

528
00:33:51,680 --> 00:33:56,920
Speaker 1: Beton's damage credibility, and worse was still to come, but

529
00:33:56,960 --> 00:34:00,200
Speaker 1: for now, Officer Bennon was dismissed and Detective Clue Pony

530
00:34:00,320 --> 00:34:03,120
Speaker 1: returned he told the court that he was unable to

531
00:34:03,120 --> 00:34:06,680
Speaker 1: find his report. This would become a pattern. The defense

532
00:34:06,680 --> 00:34:09,040
Speaker 1: would ask for a police report, only to be told

533
00:34:09,080 --> 00:34:12,359
Speaker 1: it was missing. However, in this case, Keen could still

534
00:34:12,480 --> 00:34:15,960
Speaker 1: question Clooney about the contents of his report. He asked

535
00:34:16,040 --> 00:34:18,800
Speaker 1: Clooney if he had recorded Horace DA's reference to a

536
00:34:18,840 --> 00:34:22,680
Speaker 1: white woman anywhere. Clooney said he had not. When he

537
00:34:22,880 --> 00:34:26,920
Speaker 1: asked why, Clooney admitted it was because quote, I was

538
00:34:27,000 --> 00:34:31,160
Speaker 1: instructed to keep it under cover. Who had instructed him

539
00:34:31,160 --> 00:34:36,320
Speaker 1: to do this? Griffith White, the prosecutor, Clooney said. Clooney

540
00:34:36,360 --> 00:34:39,560
Speaker 1: also admitted that he had only remembered the alleged exchange

541
00:34:39,760 --> 00:34:44,040
Speaker 1: five weeks after Horace Edo was first brought in. Clooney's

542
00:34:44,080 --> 00:34:48,239
Speaker 1: suspicious recollection of this exchange aside, this story was much

543
00:34:48,320 --> 00:34:51,840
Speaker 1: less damaging than it sounded. When Clooney had brought Horace

544
00:34:51,880 --> 00:34:54,600
Speaker 1: to the police station, he had briefly left Horace alone

545
00:34:54,600 --> 00:34:58,640
Speaker 1: while he searched for Captain Macintosh. Police officer Cecil Rickard

546
00:34:58,680 --> 00:35:01,840
Speaker 1: would later admit, months after the trial ended, that he

547
00:35:01,920 --> 00:35:05,080
Speaker 1: had approached Horas during this period and asked him about

548
00:35:05,120 --> 00:35:08,480
Speaker 1: the assault. So Horace had a legitimate reason to know

549
00:35:08,600 --> 00:35:12,360
Speaker 1: that the victim was a white woman. After White introduced

550
00:35:12,360 --> 00:35:15,600
Speaker 1: a few more police witnesses who had helped administer Thalia's

551
00:35:15,600 --> 00:35:19,279
Speaker 1: identification of the suspects, Keen asked for Officer Benton to

552
00:35:19,320 --> 00:35:22,720
Speaker 1: be recalled to the stand. His questions this time around

553
00:35:22,800 --> 00:35:26,520
Speaker 1: focused on Benton's visit to the scene with Horace da

554
00:35:26,560 --> 00:35:29,319
Speaker 1: White had made a point of having Benton emphasized that

555
00:35:29,400 --> 00:35:32,560
Speaker 1: his visit had been on Sunday morning, only hours after

556
00:35:32,640 --> 00:35:36,480
Speaker 1: his first visit, the implication being that the only way

557
00:35:36,560 --> 00:35:38,920
Speaker 1: the tire tracks could have gotten there was during the

558
00:35:38,920 --> 00:35:43,840
Speaker 1: commission of the crime. But he now asked, hadn't this

559
00:35:44,000 --> 00:35:50,600
Speaker 1: second visit actually happened on Monday morning? Yes, Beton admitted.

560
00:35:51,239 --> 00:35:55,200
Speaker 1: Not only had Betton omitted the supposedly crucial tire marks

561
00:35:55,239 --> 00:35:59,040
Speaker 1: from his report, he had now also been caught lying

562
00:35:59,200 --> 00:36:03,880
Speaker 1: on the stand. The prosecution's other main police witness, Captain

563
00:36:04,000 --> 00:36:07,200
Speaker 1: John McIntosh, proved to be no more helpful than Benten

564
00:36:07,280 --> 00:36:11,040
Speaker 1: or Clooney had been. As Chief of Detectives, McIntosh had

565
00:36:11,080 --> 00:36:14,680
Speaker 1: supervised the investigation almost from the beginning. A veteran of

566
00:36:14,719 --> 00:36:17,799
Speaker 1: colonial police forces in South Africa and New Zealand and

567
00:36:17,840 --> 00:36:21,959
Speaker 1: a former sugarcane plantation overseer McIntosh had been brought onto

568
00:36:21,960 --> 00:36:25,040
Speaker 1: the police force, in his own words, quote by the

569
00:36:25,080 --> 00:36:30,240
Speaker 1: business interests and the politicians. McIntosh provided little new evidence

570
00:36:30,320 --> 00:36:36,200
Speaker 1: during his direct examination. His cross, however, was illuminating. Under

571
00:36:36,280 --> 00:36:40,279
Speaker 1: questioning by Heen, McIntosh admitted that Thalia's fingerprints had not

572
00:36:40,400 --> 00:36:43,560
Speaker 1: been found in her ruyo Eda's car, that no seamen

573
00:36:43,600 --> 00:36:47,240
Speaker 1: had been found on Thalia's clothing or on the defendant's clothing,

574
00:36:47,719 --> 00:36:50,040
Speaker 1: and that there were a number of discrepancies between the

575
00:36:50,080 --> 00:36:52,520
Speaker 1: story that Thalia had first told and the one that

576
00:36:52,560 --> 00:36:56,240
Speaker 1: she had told on the stand. White's only other witnesses

577
00:36:56,280 --> 00:36:59,200
Speaker 1: were a few police officers who had helped administer Thalia's

578
00:36:59,200 --> 00:37:02,800
Speaker 1: identification of the defendants, none of whom had much to add.

579
00:37:03,360 --> 00:37:07,840
Speaker 1: After three days and twelve witnesses, White rested the prosecution case.

580
00:37:08,800 --> 00:37:12,799
Speaker 1: White's case was flimsy at best, but as we've seen

581
00:37:12,880 --> 00:37:16,080
Speaker 1: so often, what is happening outside the courtroom can have

582
00:37:16,160 --> 00:37:20,040
Speaker 1: an enormous impact on a jury's decision. Though Judge Deadman

583
00:37:20,160 --> 00:37:23,200
Speaker 1: instructed jurors to avoid reading press coverage of the trial,

584
00:37:23,400 --> 00:37:25,720
Speaker 1: it would be difficult for them to avoid it entirely.

585
00:37:26,520 --> 00:37:28,799
Speaker 1: Many papers put the case on the front page of

586
00:37:28,840 --> 00:37:33,080
Speaker 1: every issue, and often their reporting was highly biased towards

587
00:37:33,120 --> 00:37:37,720
Speaker 1: the prosecution. The Honolulu Advertiser, for example, titled a story

588
00:37:37,800 --> 00:37:41,680
Speaker 1: on Heen's cross examination of Benton quote, defense fails to

589
00:37:41,760 --> 00:37:46,480
Speaker 1: shake officer's story at trial. Not every newspaper was so biased.

590
00:37:46,920 --> 00:37:49,880
Speaker 1: George Wright, a reporter who managed the English language section

591
00:37:50,080 --> 00:37:53,920
Speaker 1: of the Japanese language newspaper Hawaii Hochi, for example, had

592
00:37:53,960 --> 00:37:56,960
Speaker 1: been questioning the predominant narrative of the case from the start.

593
00:37:57,440 --> 00:38:01,759
Speaker 1: As David Stanner describes, quote, two completely different accounts of

594
00:38:01,800 --> 00:38:05,320
Speaker 1: what happened to Thalia Massey on Saturday night, September twelfth

595
00:38:05,680 --> 00:38:08,800
Speaker 1: made their way through the homes and streets and workplaces

596
00:38:08,840 --> 00:38:13,239
Speaker 1: of Honolulu, which, rendition, people believed dependent in large part

597
00:38:13,320 --> 00:38:16,319
Speaker 1: on the newspapers they read, and what they read was

598
00:38:16,320 --> 00:38:19,400
Speaker 1: a consequence of who and what those people were. The

599
00:38:19,480 --> 00:38:23,120
Speaker 1: split in opinion that now was emerging cut right down

600
00:38:23,160 --> 00:38:27,600
Speaker 1: the middle. Howley's on one side, almost everyone else on

601
00:38:27,640 --> 00:38:30,840
Speaker 1: the other. Even if most of the jurors were not

602
00:38:31,000 --> 00:38:34,320
Speaker 1: white themselves, all of them depended on the how the

603
00:38:34,440 --> 00:38:37,759
Speaker 1: elite for their livelihoods, and they were aware of how

604
00:38:37,800 --> 00:38:42,640
Speaker 1: badly their bosses wanted a conviction. As Ben Ahacuello later noted,

605
00:38:42,920 --> 00:38:46,120
Speaker 1: quote all the big guys in town, the guys working

606
00:38:46,120 --> 00:38:49,120
Speaker 1: for the big firms, came and sat in court and

607
00:38:49,320 --> 00:38:52,040
Speaker 1: stared at the jury. What they were saying with their

608
00:38:52,080 --> 00:38:54,839
Speaker 1: eyes was that if this doesn't come out right, you're

609
00:38:54,840 --> 00:38:57,960
Speaker 1: going to get fired. So despite the seeming weakness of

610
00:38:58,000 --> 00:39:01,840
Speaker 1: the prosecution's case, the defects still had a battle ahead

611
00:39:01,840 --> 00:39:09,520
Speaker 1: of them. Fortunately they came prepared to fight. On the

612
00:39:09,560 --> 00:39:13,880
Speaker 1: afternoon of Monday, November twenty third, nineteen thirty one, William

613
00:39:13,960 --> 00:39:19,080
Speaker 1: Heen delivered the defense's opening statement. His argument was simple,

614
00:39:19,600 --> 00:39:24,040
Speaker 1: these defendants could not have committed this crime. To prove

615
00:39:24,120 --> 00:39:28,319
Speaker 1: this argument, the defense presented dozens of witnesses who testified

616
00:39:28,320 --> 00:39:31,040
Speaker 1: to the whereabouts the defendants on the night in question.

617
00:39:31,960 --> 00:39:35,480
Speaker 1: These witnesses, who had either spoken to or seen the defendants,

618
00:39:35,840 --> 00:39:39,040
Speaker 1: could account for almost every minute of the men's movements

619
00:39:39,080 --> 00:39:43,160
Speaker 1: between ten pm and one am. What was more, the

620
00:39:43,200 --> 00:39:47,319
Speaker 1: defense also had witnesses who had likely seen Thalea that

621
00:39:47,480 --> 00:39:50,880
Speaker 1: night at the very time she claimed she had been abducted.

622
00:39:51,680 --> 00:39:55,279
Speaker 1: George and Maimie Goas had attended the dance at Waikiki Park,

623
00:39:55,680 --> 00:39:58,200
Speaker 1: then walked down john Ina Road for a late night

624
00:39:58,280 --> 00:40:02,279
Speaker 1: stack at five, ten minutes after midnight, they saw a

625
00:40:02,320 --> 00:40:05,520
Speaker 1: white woman in a green dress who appeared drunk walk

626
00:40:05,600 --> 00:40:09,720
Speaker 1: past them. Like Thalia, this woman had a distinctive gait.

627
00:40:10,120 --> 00:40:12,960
Speaker 1: She walked with her head tilted down and to the side.

628
00:40:13,840 --> 00:40:16,960
Speaker 1: A white man in a dark suit walked several paces

629
00:40:17,040 --> 00:40:20,759
Speaker 1: behind her. Alice Aramaki, who worked in a barber shop

630
00:40:20,800 --> 00:40:23,360
Speaker 1: on john Ena Rooade, saw what looked like the same

631
00:40:23,440 --> 00:40:26,000
Speaker 1: man and woman a little further down the road a

632
00:40:26,000 --> 00:40:30,360
Speaker 1: few minutes later. The goas and Aramaki also testified that

633
00:40:30,400 --> 00:40:33,319
Speaker 1: they had provided this information to both the police and

634
00:40:33,480 --> 00:40:35,800
Speaker 1: Griffith White as soon as they learned of the attack

635
00:40:35,840 --> 00:40:40,719
Speaker 1: on Thalia. They had provided sworn statements, but the prosecution

636
00:40:40,920 --> 00:40:45,400
Speaker 1: and the police never investigated further. He now followed the

637
00:40:45,440 --> 00:40:50,200
Speaker 1: thread of police incompetence, recalling Captain John Macintosh to the stand.

638
00:40:51,120 --> 00:40:55,160
Speaker 1: Though he had already succeeded in seriously undermining Officer Benton's

639
00:40:55,200 --> 00:40:59,080
Speaker 1: testimony about the tire tracks, Keen had one last blow

640
00:40:59,160 --> 00:41:03,000
Speaker 1: to deliver. He asked Macintosh whether he had gone to

641
00:41:03,040 --> 00:41:06,360
Speaker 1: the scene of the crime after Officer Benten first examined it.

642
00:41:07,040 --> 00:41:09,960
Speaker 1: Macintosh tried to evade the question, but when Heen would

643
00:41:10,000 --> 00:41:14,279
Speaker 1: not relent, he admitted, quote, after I left Massey's home,

644
00:41:14,400 --> 00:41:18,040
Speaker 1: I went down to the premises with Eda's car. Did

645
00:41:18,080 --> 00:41:22,280
Speaker 1: you drive the DA car into these premises? Keen asked,

646
00:41:23,000 --> 00:41:28,200
Speaker 1: I did not. Macintosh replied, but then continued, Sato drove

647
00:41:28,280 --> 00:41:31,719
Speaker 1: the car in there. Henri Satto was the patrolman who

648
00:41:31,800 --> 00:41:35,239
Speaker 1: had driven Macintosh to the scene. Those tire marks that

649
00:41:35,280 --> 00:41:38,600
Speaker 1: the prosecution had made so much of they had been

650
00:41:38,640 --> 00:41:44,120
Speaker 1: made by the police. Keen also asked Macintosh about two witnesses,

651
00:41:44,600 --> 00:41:49,000
Speaker 1: Tatsumi Matsumoto and Robert Vieira. Matsumoto and via were in

652
00:41:49,080 --> 00:41:52,320
Speaker 1: the car that Horace had pulled alongside on Bartania Street

653
00:41:52,520 --> 00:41:56,080
Speaker 1: around twelve fifteen a m. On the thirteenth. Police had

654
00:41:56,120 --> 00:41:59,760
Speaker 1: spoken to both men early in the investigation. Keen wanted

655
00:41:59,800 --> 00:42:02,400
Speaker 1: to know how the police had learned of Matsumoto and Vieira.

656
00:42:02,960 --> 00:42:06,440
Speaker 1: Macintosh said that Griffith White had told police to question

657
00:42:06,560 --> 00:42:11,080
Speaker 1: the men. So William Heen called Prosecutor Griffith White to

658
00:42:11,120 --> 00:42:15,840
Speaker 1: the stand. White was an unhelpful witness. He acknowledged that

659
00:42:15,920 --> 00:42:18,440
Speaker 1: he must have heard about Matsumoto and Vieira from one

660
00:42:18,480 --> 00:42:21,200
Speaker 1: of the defendants, but claimed that he couldn't remember which one,

661
00:42:21,840 --> 00:42:24,759
Speaker 1: but what White actually said didn't matter so much. It

662
00:42:24,920 --> 00:42:28,680
Speaker 1: was the principle of it. White was admitting on the

663
00:42:28,760 --> 00:42:32,440
Speaker 1: stand that from the very beginning of the investigation he

664
00:42:32,520 --> 00:42:37,040
Speaker 1: had been aware of numerous witnesses whose sworn testimony made

665
00:42:37,080 --> 00:42:40,640
Speaker 1: it very unlikely that the defendants could have committed the crime,

666
00:42:41,239 --> 00:42:45,839
Speaker 1: and yet he had still continued with the prosecution. If

667
00:42:45,880 --> 00:42:48,799
Speaker 1: White thought that having to testify in a trial he

668
00:42:48,920 --> 00:42:53,279
Speaker 1: was prosecuting was rock bottom, there was still lower to sink.

669
00:42:54,000 --> 00:42:58,120
Speaker 1: While cross examining Joe Cahabai, one of the defendants, White

670
00:42:58,160 --> 00:43:01,760
Speaker 1: asked Joe about what Horace Eat was wearing on September twelfth.

671
00:43:02,280 --> 00:43:05,640
Speaker 1: Failia had claimed to recognize a leather jacket when identifying Horace.

672
00:43:06,360 --> 00:43:09,560
Speaker 1: When Joe denied that Horace had worn this jacket, White

673
00:43:09,560 --> 00:43:12,880
Speaker 1: brought a transcript of Joe's statement, in which Joe had

674
00:43:12,880 --> 00:43:16,840
Speaker 1: apparently said that Horace had worn the jacket. Do you

675
00:43:16,960 --> 00:43:22,120
Speaker 1: remember saying that? White asked, smugly, that is what you

676
00:43:22,239 --> 00:43:26,120
Speaker 1: put in there? Joe shot back, flustered, White said, not

677
00:43:26,239 --> 00:43:29,040
Speaker 1: what I put in here and tried to change the subject.

678
00:43:29,880 --> 00:43:32,560
Speaker 1: William Heen was only too happy to return to this

679
00:43:32,640 --> 00:43:36,840
Speaker 1: exchange during his redirect. After confirming with Joe that Horace

680
00:43:36,880 --> 00:43:40,440
Speaker 1: had not been wearing a leather jacket, Keen asked, how

681
00:43:40,480 --> 00:43:42,400
Speaker 1: did you happen to say to mister White that he

682
00:43:42,480 --> 00:43:46,000
Speaker 1: did well? Joe said, he put it in the statement,

683
00:43:46,080 --> 00:43:48,879
Speaker 1: and then after I signed the statement, I scratched it out.

684
00:43:49,680 --> 00:43:52,080
Speaker 1: Keen turned to White and asked to see his copy

685
00:43:52,120 --> 00:43:56,440
Speaker 1: of Joe's interview. White, caught in his own net, handed

686
00:43:56,480 --> 00:44:01,440
Speaker 1: over the paper, admitting, quote, it is scratched out. Another

687
00:44:01,560 --> 00:44:05,200
Speaker 1: example of White tampering with the defendant statements soon emerged,

688
00:44:05,560 --> 00:44:10,480
Speaker 1: thanks once again to White himself. Defended, David Takai testified

689
00:44:10,480 --> 00:44:12,600
Speaker 1: that he was the one to tell White about seeing

690
00:44:12,640 --> 00:44:17,040
Speaker 1: Matsumoto on cross White asked, quote, why didn't you put

691
00:44:17,040 --> 00:44:18,960
Speaker 1: in the fact that you saw Matsumoto's car in the

692
00:44:19,000 --> 00:44:22,879
Speaker 1: written statement? I told you this matter, David replied, then

693
00:44:22,920 --> 00:44:25,680
Speaker 1: you told her the stenographer not to put it down.

694
00:44:26,480 --> 00:44:30,839
Speaker 1: Another brilliant own goal by Griffith White. By now, Keen

695
00:44:30,960 --> 00:44:35,319
Speaker 1: had clearly shown prosecutorial and police misconduct, but he also

696
00:44:35,440 --> 00:44:38,080
Speaker 1: wanted to show that many police officers involved with the

697
00:44:38,120 --> 00:44:41,880
Speaker 1: case would back up the defense's account. Not all of

698
00:44:41,880 --> 00:44:45,400
Speaker 1: these police witnesses were enthusiastic about testifying for the defense,

699
00:44:45,480 --> 00:44:49,719
Speaker 1: but they were forthright. After Captain Macintosh had taken over

700
00:44:49,760 --> 00:44:52,680
Speaker 1: the case, he had replaced all the non white detectives

701
00:44:52,760 --> 00:44:56,759
Speaker 1: with white officers. Those replaced included the four detectives who

702
00:44:56,800 --> 00:44:59,400
Speaker 1: had responded to the initial call out to the Massy house.

703
00:45:00,320 --> 00:45:03,560
Speaker 1: All four of these men testified to Thalia's original statement

704
00:45:04,040 --> 00:45:06,520
Speaker 1: in which she said she could not see any faces

705
00:45:06,640 --> 00:45:10,640
Speaker 1: or any details of the car, and Detective Lucciano Machado

706
00:45:10,880 --> 00:45:14,919
Speaker 1: revealed that Thalia had been unsure of her identifications when

707
00:45:14,920 --> 00:45:18,279
Speaker 1: ben Ahacuello was brought in front of her. Thalia had

708
00:45:18,320 --> 00:45:21,200
Speaker 1: only confirmed he was one of her assailants after Captain

709
00:45:21,280 --> 00:45:25,879
Speaker 1: Macintosh whispered to her that he was. After a week

710
00:45:25,920 --> 00:45:29,360
Speaker 1: of testimony from fifty two witnesses, the defense was satisfied

711
00:45:29,360 --> 00:45:32,160
Speaker 1: that they had proven not only that the defendants could

712
00:45:32,200 --> 00:45:34,759
Speaker 1: not have committed the crime, but that the police and

713
00:45:34,800 --> 00:45:40,360
Speaker 1: the prosecutor had lied and manufactured evidence. Given this, Griffith

714
00:45:40,360 --> 00:45:43,680
Speaker 1: White would need to appeal to emotion, not evidence in

715
00:45:43,719 --> 00:45:47,080
Speaker 1: his closing argument, delivered on the morning of December first,

716
00:45:47,800 --> 00:45:51,839
Speaker 1: and emotion White could do this is one of the

717
00:45:51,880 --> 00:45:56,399
Speaker 1: worst cases we have ever had. He began describing how

718
00:45:56,480 --> 00:46:01,799
Speaker 1: Thalia Massey, a quote, young inexperienced girl, had just been

719
00:46:01,840 --> 00:46:06,440
Speaker 1: taking a walk when quote she was assaulted by beasts.

720
00:46:06,920 --> 00:46:11,279
Speaker 1: Would the jury further victimize Thalia by rejecting her testimony

721
00:46:11,360 --> 00:46:16,640
Speaker 1: and labeling her a quote unmitigated liar. He knew they

722
00:46:16,680 --> 00:46:21,759
Speaker 1: would not. They would quote be men, he insisted, and

723
00:46:21,800 --> 00:46:24,319
Speaker 1: they would consider what they would want done if their

724
00:46:24,360 --> 00:46:28,000
Speaker 1: wives were harmed. You would want to go down and

725
00:46:28,160 --> 00:46:32,400
Speaker 1: shoot the men, White said, to avenge not just Thalia,

726
00:46:32,760 --> 00:46:37,640
Speaker 1: but Tommy Massey too. They must find the defendants guilty.

727
00:46:38,960 --> 00:46:43,800
Speaker 1: All three defense lawyers gave closing arguments. Robert Murakami, representing

728
00:46:43,880 --> 00:46:47,759
Speaker 1: David Takai, focused on the defendant's alibis, saying that in

729
00:46:47,800 --> 00:46:50,480
Speaker 1: the face of the timeline quote, I doubt that the

730
00:46:50,520 --> 00:46:54,440
Speaker 1: prosecuting attorney, as a reasonable man, can honestly believe that

731
00:46:54,480 --> 00:46:58,040
Speaker 1: these are the men. In his closing Bill Pittman was

732
00:46:58,239 --> 00:47:03,680
Speaker 1: less generous towards the prosecute. This entire case, Pittman stated,

733
00:47:04,120 --> 00:47:07,880
Speaker 1: is a frame up. A prosecutor's job was to seek truth,

734
00:47:08,080 --> 00:47:12,080
Speaker 1: not a conviction that any costs. He continued and though

735
00:47:12,120 --> 00:47:14,920
Speaker 1: he thought rape was a terrible crime, Pittman thought that

736
00:47:14,960 --> 00:47:19,839
Speaker 1: there was quote a worse crime, one more heinous, and

737
00:47:19,960 --> 00:47:24,640
Speaker 1: that is sending innocent men to the penitentiary. Pittman concluded,

738
00:47:24,640 --> 00:47:28,120
Speaker 1: by exhorting the jurors not to commit this crime. You

739
00:47:28,239 --> 00:47:32,479
Speaker 1: cannot if you are honest and upright men, convict these men.

740
00:47:33,400 --> 00:47:36,560
Speaker 1: I know these men are innocent, and I know this

741
00:47:36,719 --> 00:47:41,200
Speaker 1: jury will not swerve from its duty of acquitting them.

742
00:47:41,760 --> 00:47:46,200
Speaker 1: William Heen gave the final defense closing, he combined Murakami

743
00:47:46,320 --> 00:47:49,800
Speaker 1: and Pittman's approaches, walking through all the evidence that proved

744
00:47:49,800 --> 00:47:53,000
Speaker 1: his clients were innocent and incapable of committing the crime.

745
00:47:53,520 --> 00:47:56,520
Speaker 1: The only crimes that this trial had proven, Keen said,

746
00:47:56,880 --> 00:47:59,880
Speaker 1: were those committed by the police officers like Officer Ben,

747
00:48:00,600 --> 00:48:05,200
Speaker 1: who had perjured themselves. They had only done so, Heen believed,

748
00:48:05,239 --> 00:48:09,120
Speaker 1: because of quote the public clamor to crucify the defendants

749
00:48:09,120 --> 00:48:12,640
Speaker 1: on a cross of prejudice and sentiment. He pointed out

750
00:48:12,680 --> 00:48:16,480
Speaker 1: that other police officers had resisted this pressure and testified honestly.

751
00:48:17,200 --> 00:48:20,799
Speaker 1: Wasn't their word worth as much as anyone else's? Or?

752
00:48:21,080 --> 00:48:24,880
Speaker 1: He asked, quote, are we to disregard the testimony? Of

753
00:48:24,920 --> 00:48:30,719
Speaker 1: these witnesses simply because they are Hawaiian, Chinese, Japanese or Portuguese.

754
00:48:31,719 --> 00:48:35,400
Speaker 1: He concluded by asking the jurors to be quote honest

755
00:48:35,520 --> 00:48:39,200
Speaker 1: and courageous in reaching your verdict and return a verdict

756
00:48:39,480 --> 00:48:44,880
Speaker 1: of not guilty. Griffith White came out swinging in his rebuttal.

757
00:48:45,440 --> 00:48:48,560
Speaker 1: If anyone has been crucified, he said, it is this

758
00:48:48,880 --> 00:48:52,640
Speaker 1: lovely girl who crucified herself to protect other women of Honolulu.

759
00:48:53,280 --> 00:48:56,480
Speaker 1: White briefly addressed the evidence again, calling the officers who

760
00:48:56,520 --> 00:48:59,920
Speaker 1: testified for the defense quote traders and said that Off

761
00:49:00,280 --> 00:49:04,840
Speaker 1: Benton's testimony quote still stands unchallenged. But for his final

762
00:49:04,880 --> 00:49:08,320
Speaker 1: message to the jury, he fell back on emotional appeals.

763
00:49:08,920 --> 00:49:12,000
Speaker 1: What we call upon you, the gentlemen of the jury,

764
00:49:12,040 --> 00:49:16,719
Speaker 1: for White said, is to vindicate Hawaii, to show that

765
00:49:16,800 --> 00:49:21,320
Speaker 1: you will protect your women, stand together for a true verdict,

766
00:49:21,640 --> 00:49:27,240
Speaker 1: and thus justify your manhood. The jury received the case

767
00:49:27,320 --> 00:49:31,480
Speaker 1: around nine pm on Wednesday, December second. People thought it

768
00:49:31,480 --> 00:49:34,640
Speaker 1: would be a quick deliberation, but for very different reasons.

769
00:49:35,280 --> 00:49:38,799
Speaker 1: Many navymen and other Howleys thought that the prosecution had

770
00:49:38,840 --> 00:49:42,880
Speaker 1: it in the bag. Many others thought acquittal would be immediate.

771
00:49:43,520 --> 00:49:48,040
Speaker 1: Both groups were wrong. The jury deliberated for nearly one

772
00:49:48,120 --> 00:49:52,359
Speaker 1: hundred hours. Tempers got so heated that several jurors got

773
00:49:52,440 --> 00:49:56,520
Speaker 1: into a physical fight. William Heen called for a mistrial.

774
00:49:57,200 --> 00:50:01,759
Speaker 1: Judge Steadman admonished the jurors. Eventually, they claimed they could

775
00:50:01,760 --> 00:50:05,440
Speaker 1: not reach a verdict. Stedman told them to keep trying,

776
00:50:06,400 --> 00:50:10,240
Speaker 1: but finally, at ten p m. On Sunday, December sixth,

777
00:50:10,480 --> 00:50:14,680
Speaker 1: nineteen thirty one, he accepted that the jury was deadlocked.

778
00:50:15,880 --> 00:50:18,800
Speaker 1: In the case of the Territory of Hawaii v. Ben

779
00:50:18,880 --> 00:50:28,040
Speaker 1: Ahacuello at Al, Judge Deadman declared a mistrial. Chaos irrupted

780
00:50:28,160 --> 00:50:31,640
Speaker 1: at the news of the mistrial. Some people were thrilled

781
00:50:31,680 --> 00:50:36,759
Speaker 1: with the outcome, others were furious. Admiral Yates Sterling called

782
00:50:36,760 --> 00:50:40,919
Speaker 1: the result quote a stupid miscarriage of justice which could

783
00:50:41,000 --> 00:50:44,000
Speaker 1: have been avoided if the territorial government had shown more

784
00:50:44,040 --> 00:50:48,200
Speaker 1: inclination to sympathize with my insistence upon the necessity of

785
00:50:48,239 --> 00:50:52,680
Speaker 1: the conviction. The defendants, he concluded, were not men who

786
00:50:52,680 --> 00:50:55,280
Speaker 1: should have been given the benefit of a reasonable doubt.

787
00:50:56,120 --> 00:51:02,000
Speaker 1: Grace fordescue Thalia's mother, vehemently agreed. She had traveled to

788
00:51:02,040 --> 00:51:05,799
Speaker 1: Hawaii shortly before the trial and had been horrified by

789
00:51:05,840 --> 00:51:09,600
Speaker 1: what she saw as immoral racial integration. She had made

790
00:51:09,640 --> 00:51:12,240
Speaker 1: a habit of calling the police on her Hawaiian neighbors

791
00:51:12,600 --> 00:51:17,080
Speaker 1: and had requested that only white nurses treat thelia. The mistrial,

792
00:51:17,239 --> 00:51:20,239
Speaker 1: in grace Fordescue's mind, was yet another symptom of the

793
00:51:20,360 --> 00:51:24,160
Speaker 1: dangerous erosion of white supremacy in the territory. She could

794
00:51:24,200 --> 00:51:27,280
Speaker 1: not bear the thought of a second trial ending without conviction.

795
00:51:28,040 --> 00:51:31,320
Speaker 1: If the legal system could not guarantee her the outcome

796
00:51:31,440 --> 00:51:35,200
Speaker 1: she wanted, she thought she'd just have to take matters

797
00:51:35,239 --> 00:51:39,640
Speaker 1: into her own hands, and so grace Fordescue bought a

798
00:51:39,719 --> 00:51:45,719
Speaker 1: gun and she began to plot to find out what

799
00:51:45,800 --> 00:51:49,040
Speaker 1: happens next. Join me next week for part two of

800
00:51:49,080 --> 00:51:53,040
Speaker 1: the Massy Case. Thank you for listening to History on Trial.

801
00:51:53,360 --> 00:51:56,040
Speaker 1: If you enjoyed this episode, please consider leaving a rating

802
00:51:56,120 --> 00:51:58,520
Speaker 1: or review. It can help new listeners find the show.

803
00:51:59,239 --> 00:52:01,720
Speaker 1: To see images the people and places in this episode,

804
00:52:01,920 --> 00:52:05,960
Speaker 1: check out our instagram at History on Trial. My main

805
00:52:06,000 --> 00:52:09,120
Speaker 1: sources for this episode were David E. Stannard's book on

806
00:52:09,200 --> 00:52:13,760
Speaker 1: Our Killing, Race, Rape and Clarence Darrow's Spectacular Last Case,

807
00:52:14,200 --> 00:52:17,480
Speaker 1: and the trial transcripts published by the University of Minnesota's

808
00:52:17,480 --> 00:52:21,319
Speaker 1: Clarence Sterow Digital Collection. For a full bibliography, as well

809
00:52:21,320 --> 00:52:24,080
Speaker 1: as a transcript of this episode with citations, please visit

810
00:52:24,080 --> 00:52:30,080
Speaker 1: our website History on Trial podcast dot com. History on

811
00:52:30,120 --> 00:52:34,080
Speaker 1: Trial is written and hosted by me Mira Hayward. The

812
00:52:34,120 --> 00:52:37,799
Speaker 1: show is edited and produced by Jesse Funk, with supervising

813
00:52:37,840 --> 00:52:42,880
Speaker 1: producer Trevor Young and executive producers Dana Schwartz, Alexander Williams,

814
00:52:43,200 --> 00:52:46,880
Speaker 1: Matt Frederick, and Mira Hayward. Learn more about the show

815
00:52:46,960 --> 00:52:50,920
Speaker 1: at History on Trial podcast dot com and follow us

816
00:52:50,960 --> 00:52:55,240
Speaker 1: on Instagram at History on Trial and on Twitter at

817
00:52:55,480 --> 00:53:00,400
Speaker 1: Underscore History on Trial. Find more podcasts from iHeart Radio

818
00:53:00,560 --> 00:53:04,680
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819
00:53:04,760 --> 00:53:06,120
Speaker 1: listen to your favorite shows.