WEBVTT - Griffith J. Griffith 0:00:01.280 --> 0:00:04.279 Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production 0:00:04.360 --> 0:00:13.400 of I Heart Radio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. 0:00:13.400 --> 0:00:16.720 I'm Holly Fry and I'm Chasey V. Wilson. So if 0:00:16.760 --> 0:00:18.840 you have spent time in Los Angeles, or have you 0:00:18.920 --> 0:00:21.480 even read about the city or heard about it in passing, 0:00:21.680 --> 0:00:25.959 you have probably heard of Griffith Park. Uh. That is 0:00:26.000 --> 0:00:29.920 a huge space. It's forty undred acres, incredibly large from 0:00:30.040 --> 0:00:33.680 municipal park in a city. For comparisons, Central Park in 0:00:33.720 --> 0:00:37.640 Manhattan is eight hundred forty two point six acres, and 0:00:37.720 --> 0:00:40.800 more than three thousand of those acres were donated all 0:00:40.840 --> 0:00:42.920 at once for the founding of the park by a 0:00:43.000 --> 0:00:46.839 single man named Griffith J. Griffith. That name in and 0:00:46.840 --> 0:00:49.960 of itself makes me gel a little there, you haven't um. 0:00:49.960 --> 0:00:52.760 There is a huge statue of Griffith at the park's entrance. 0:00:52.800 --> 0:00:55.280 And while his name today is associated with the park 0:00:55.400 --> 0:00:59.440 and the observatory, during his time he was associated with 0:00:59.480 --> 0:01:04.680 some other things, real estate, social climbing, and a scandal 0:01:04.760 --> 0:01:09.160 that occupied columns and columns of newspapers around the country. 0:01:09.760 --> 0:01:13.800 Heads Up, this episode is going to talk quite a bit, 0:01:13.920 --> 0:01:17.120 particularly in the back half, about a pretty horrifying instance 0:01:17.160 --> 0:01:22.480 of domestic violence UH and the court cases associated with 0:01:22.520 --> 0:01:25.120 it as well as the act itself, So just know 0:01:25.200 --> 0:01:29.560 that that's in this episode. Griffith Jenkins. Griffith was born 0:01:29.600 --> 0:01:33.200 on January fourth, eighteen fifty in South Wales, and we 0:01:33.440 --> 0:01:36.920 don't really know a lot about his early years. We 0:01:37.000 --> 0:01:39.880 do know that the Griffith family was very poor. They 0:01:39.880 --> 0:01:44.200 had a subsistence farm and Griffith's father also took mining 0:01:44.240 --> 0:01:47.000 work to make ends meet. When he was still just 0:01:47.080 --> 0:01:50.200 a teenager, Griffith, who was the oldest child in the family, 0:01:50.320 --> 0:01:53.400 traveled to the United States with his uncle in eighteen 0:01:53.440 --> 0:01:57.720 sixty five. Griffith attended school in Pennsylvania, and after his 0:01:57.840 --> 0:02:01.520 education was complete, he started working as a reporter. In 0:02:01.560 --> 0:02:04.720 the eighteen seventies, Griffith traveled to the West Coast, making 0:02:04.760 --> 0:02:07.560 his way to San Francisco, California, to report on the 0:02:07.640 --> 0:02:11.840 mining industry there. Through his work covering mining interests, he 0:02:11.919 --> 0:02:15.240 started to be seen as really an expert on the subject, 0:02:15.639 --> 0:02:18.519 and this led to additional income as he started working 0:02:18.560 --> 0:02:21.560 as a consultant. He offered his knowledge of the industry 0:02:21.680 --> 0:02:25.160 as a whole, as well as specific information about various 0:02:25.160 --> 0:02:29.000 operations to heads of different companies. He also started his 0:02:29.120 --> 0:02:34.000 own mining ventures, making decisions based on his wealth of knowledge, 0:02:34.080 --> 0:02:38.799 which turned to actual wealth pretty quickly as these operations 0:02:38.800 --> 0:02:42.400 were successful. Yeah, there's actually us a lot of variation 0:02:42.760 --> 0:02:45.760 in the stories of how he made his money. Some 0:02:45.840 --> 0:02:48.480 will suggest that he made it all consulting, but really 0:02:48.480 --> 0:02:50.560 he didn't make as much as he claimed. Others say 0:02:50.600 --> 0:02:54.080 he had these side mining things going on. But basically, 0:02:54.320 --> 0:02:56.640 by the time he moved to Los Angeles in eighteen 0:02:56.720 --> 0:02:59.880 eighty two, he did have a pretty significant nesting with 0:03:00.040 --> 0:03:03.000 him that he had amassed, and he used that money 0:03:03.040 --> 0:03:07.200 to establish a reputation as a powerful businessman because he 0:03:07.280 --> 0:03:10.359 primarily used that money to invest in land in the city. 0:03:10.880 --> 0:03:15.160 At the end of two Griffith purchased Rancho Los Feliz 0:03:15.400 --> 0:03:19.040 and yes we know that Angelino say lost. Plus he 0:03:19.160 --> 0:03:22.440 bought this from a man named Thomas Bell. The land 0:03:22.480 --> 0:03:25.760 had been owned by a woman named Maria Ignacia Feliz, 0:03:25.840 --> 0:03:29.120 who and had inherited the ranch after her husband died. 0:03:29.800 --> 0:03:33.720 She later remarried, taking the last name Verdugo, and at 0:03:33.760 --> 0:03:36.400 that point Spain was still in control of the region, 0:03:36.520 --> 0:03:41.440 having seized the land from indigenous Gabrielino Tongva people's. The 0:03:41.520 --> 0:03:44.800 Felize family eventually lost control of the property and it 0:03:44.920 --> 0:03:48.960 changed hands several times before this purchase when Griffith acquired it, 0:03:49.400 --> 0:03:53.000 and by the time G. J. Griffith purchased Rancho Los Felize, 0:03:53.400 --> 0:03:56.280 it had a reputation as a cursed property, but he 0:03:56.360 --> 0:03:59.400 did not seem to mind. The large tract of land 0:03:59.480 --> 0:04:02.120 that he bought that made up the Rancho property included 0:04:03.160 --> 0:04:06.160 what they now called Los Felis, Silver Lake and a 0:04:06.200 --> 0:04:10.560 section of the Santa Monica Mountains. Griffiths saw his property 0:04:10.600 --> 0:04:15.280 acquisition as the beginning of an entirely new venture. He 0:04:15.440 --> 0:04:20.279 truly intended to build a ranching business there. He imported livestock, 0:04:20.720 --> 0:04:24.680 thousands of sheep, a hundred and fifty cows and fifty horses. 0:04:25.160 --> 0:04:28.240 He built a railway around this huge property, and he 0:04:28.360 --> 0:04:32.040 also started an Ostrich farm. Yeah, he had a business 0:04:32.080 --> 0:04:34.839 partner in that Ostrich farm. But one of the reasons 0:04:34.880 --> 0:04:38.040 that he was buying this ranch land, setting up infrastructure 0:04:38.520 --> 0:04:42.080 and kind of developing it as as this little oasis 0:04:42.160 --> 0:04:45.240 just outside the city was that he was making a 0:04:45.240 --> 0:04:47.440 lot of money in the land boom, and he was 0:04:47.520 --> 0:04:50.760 actually selling off lots as neighborhoods from the southern portion 0:04:50.800 --> 0:04:52.800 of the land, so he could claim that he already 0:04:52.839 --> 0:04:55.760 had like some infrastructure and some business going there, and 0:04:55.800 --> 0:04:59.320 wouldn't you want to live here? At that time, Griffith's 0:04:59.440 --> 0:05:02.640 ranch was outside the Los Angeles city limits, but he 0:05:02.800 --> 0:05:06.080 definitely inserted himself right into the middle of the city 0:05:06.240 --> 0:05:10.640 social scene. People saw him as a climber and an interloper, 0:05:11.080 --> 0:05:14.160 and he was referred to by a number of unflattering 0:05:14.279 --> 0:05:19.560 nicknames and descriptions, the tamest of which might be quote 0:05:19.640 --> 0:05:24.200 a roly poly, pompous little fellow. But Griffith was intent 0:05:24.640 --> 0:05:28.359 on becoming a prominent citizen of his new hometown, and 0:05:28.480 --> 0:05:30.400 one way that he saw to do this was through 0:05:30.440 --> 0:05:33.960 civic minded acts. So, for example, he sold the City 0:05:33.960 --> 0:05:36.599 of Los Angeles water rights along the l A River 0:05:37.240 --> 0:05:40.159 at a very discounted price, and this was a really 0:05:40.240 --> 0:05:44.240 vital step in the city's developing infrastructure. He probably could 0:05:44.279 --> 0:05:46.840 have set a price that gouged the municipal budget because 0:05:46.880 --> 0:05:50.680 they really really needed access to that water, But through 0:05:50.760 --> 0:05:54.200 some combination of genuine desire to do good and also 0:05:54.320 --> 0:05:57.200 hopes that his generosity would be recognized and gained him 0:05:57.200 --> 0:06:00.200 some clout, Griffith went ahead and sold it at a 0:06:00.240 --> 0:06:04.160 financial loss. Griffith also knew the value that a well 0:06:04.279 --> 0:06:08.880 made marriage match could have on his reputation. Enter Louis 0:06:09.080 --> 0:06:13.920 Mesmer and his lovely daughters. Mesmer was quote a pioneer 0:06:14.040 --> 0:06:18.560 resident and one of the best noon citizens of Los Angeles. Mesmer, 0:06:18.640 --> 0:06:21.520 who had been born in France, was an industrious man 0:06:21.839 --> 0:06:24.120 who had worked as a baker and a minor, and 0:06:24.360 --> 0:06:28.200 ultimately settled in Los Angeles in eighteen fifty nine, the 0:06:28.279 --> 0:06:32.680 population was a mere three thousand, five hundred. He started 0:06:32.760 --> 0:06:35.440 built and sold a number of businesses in the city, 0:06:35.880 --> 0:06:38.840 and laid some of the first cement sidewalk in l 0:06:38.920 --> 0:06:41.920 A on the edge of one of his properties. By 0:06:41.920 --> 0:06:44.839 the time Griffith arrived in l A, Mesmer was a 0:06:44.920 --> 0:06:51.160 well established, well respected businessman who had acquired significant wealth. Additionally, 0:06:51.279 --> 0:06:56.040 Mesmer's two daughters, Lucille and Christina, were named as inheritors 0:06:56.080 --> 0:06:59.240 of a huge fortune from a family friend who was 0:06:59.360 --> 0:07:05.000 Andre Ris Walter. Naturally, Griffiths went right for the first 0:07:05.040 --> 0:07:07.560 family of Los Angeles at the time and started a 0:07:07.560 --> 0:07:11.320 courtship with Christina Mesmer, whose full name was Mary Agnes 0:07:11.400 --> 0:07:14.560 Christina Messmer, although she went by either Christina or Autentina. 0:07:15.400 --> 0:07:19.640 The two were married on January seven, and their wedding 0:07:19.720 --> 0:07:22.480 was covered in the papers as a quote union of 0:07:22.600 --> 0:07:26.840 two very wealthy Los Angeles families. But right out of 0:07:26.840 --> 0:07:30.760 the gate, even before the wedding, there were issues between 0:07:30.840 --> 0:07:35.320 Griffith and the Mesmer family over money. After the invitations 0:07:35.320 --> 0:07:39.119 had already been mailed out, Griffith insisted that Christina sign 0:07:39.240 --> 0:07:43.800 over her rights to her inheritance to him. He initially 0:07:43.800 --> 0:07:47.640 thought she was inheriting all of Ris Walter's landholdings and 0:07:47.720 --> 0:07:50.200 was reportedly really angry when he found out that she 0:07:50.320 --> 0:07:53.920 was to split that real estate inheritance with her sister Lucy. 0:07:53.960 --> 0:07:56.440 That was when he insisted that he gained control of 0:07:56.480 --> 0:07:59.960 the inheritance, and this put Tina in a really terrible spot. 0:08:00.080 --> 0:08:02.560 She didn't want to call off the wedding, and while 0:08:02.560 --> 0:08:05.760 she acquiesced to his request, her siblings in particular found 0:08:05.760 --> 0:08:09.960 this whole thing really distasteful. They never really trusted Griffith 0:08:10.040 --> 0:08:13.200 after that. Griffith and Tina had a son the year 0:08:13.280 --> 0:08:15.800 after they married. They named him Van Dell. That was 0:08:15.840 --> 0:08:19.400 their only child, and Griffith also adopted a number of 0:08:19.600 --> 0:08:24.640 rather pretentious characteristics during his ascension among the Los Angeles elite. 0:08:25.160 --> 0:08:27.120 So he started walking with a cane that he did 0:08:27.160 --> 0:08:30.120 not need, presumably because he thought it made him look distinguished. 0:08:30.920 --> 0:08:34.680 He wore very expensive, lamboyant clothes, and he started to 0:08:34.720 --> 0:08:37.920 refer to himself by the title of colonel, even though 0:08:37.960 --> 0:08:40.959 he had no military career to speak of. But people 0:08:41.640 --> 0:08:46.320 accepted and started calling him Colonel Griffith. Historians have speculated 0:08:46.360 --> 0:08:49.199 that this was likely Griffith kind of overcompensating for a 0:08:49.280 --> 0:08:53.080 childhood of poverty, but for a lot of old money Angelinos, 0:08:53.240 --> 0:08:56.559 they just saw this all is really ridiculous peacocking. So 0:08:56.600 --> 0:08:59.679 as the nineteenth century was drawing to a close, Griffith 0:08:59.800 --> 0:09:04.440 chase aimed Los Angeles forever with one grand gesture, and 0:09:04.480 --> 0:09:07.480 we'll talk about how Griffith Park was established after we 0:09:07.559 --> 0:09:19.720 pause for a quick sponsor break. In December, Griffith gifted 0:09:19.720 --> 0:09:22.840 the city of Los Angeles with quite a Christmas surprise, 0:09:23.640 --> 0:09:27.040 three thousand, fifteen acres of land from Rancho Los Fellies 0:09:27.160 --> 0:09:30.880 to be used exclusively as a park. That land had 0:09:30.920 --> 0:09:33.600 not been developed in any way, and Griffiths wanted a 0:09:33.600 --> 0:09:35.960 lot of it to stay that way. This was an 0:09:36.000 --> 0:09:40.000 extravagant gift, and Griffith's motivations and making it have been 0:09:40.080 --> 0:09:44.200 debated over the years. For one, he continued to want 0:09:44.240 --> 0:09:47.640 to be seen as successful and important, and this gesture 0:09:47.760 --> 0:09:51.680 certainly went a long way in that regard. Additionally, the 0:09:51.720 --> 0:09:55.000 donation offered Griffith away to get out of paying taxes 0:09:55.040 --> 0:09:58.199 on the land, and the real estate boom was in decline, 0:09:58.320 --> 0:10:00.640 so selling off the land in part soles was not 0:10:00.800 --> 0:10:04.520 as lucrative as it once was. He did, though, also 0:10:04.559 --> 0:10:08.400 seemed to have a fairly genuine interest in civic philanthropy, 0:10:08.480 --> 0:10:11.839 and he did want Los Angeles to have a park system. 0:10:11.880 --> 0:10:14.319 We have spoken before in the show about how places 0:10:14.360 --> 0:10:16.640 like Central Park and the Mall in Washington, d C. 0:10:17.240 --> 0:10:20.400 Were inspired in part by people wanting to establish those 0:10:20.400 --> 0:10:23.600 cities as cosmopolitan on a level that would match the 0:10:23.600 --> 0:10:27.400 cities of Europe and their public spaces, and Griffith, who 0:10:27.480 --> 0:10:30.880 had traveled a bit by this point, was similarly influenced 0:10:30.880 --> 0:10:34.040 by the grand public spaces he had visited around the 0:10:34.080 --> 0:10:36.959 world and on the US East Coast, and that was 0:10:37.040 --> 0:10:39.920 part of his desire to donate the park land, and 0:10:39.920 --> 0:10:42.800 Griffith's own words quote, I consider it my obligation to 0:10:42.880 --> 0:10:46.760 make Los Angeles a happier, cleaner, and finer city. I 0:10:46.800 --> 0:10:49.120 wish to pay my debt of duty in this way 0:10:49.120 --> 0:10:52.280 to the community in which I have prospered. And the 0:10:52.400 --> 0:10:55.439 deed which transferred ownership to the l A City Council 0:10:55.600 --> 0:10:58.920 was very specific about the fact that the land was 0:10:58.960 --> 0:11:01.839 for a park in a park only. That deed is 0:11:01.880 --> 0:11:06.280 actually um part of the l A Archives. They actually 0:11:06.280 --> 0:11:09.080 have it framed on the wall. Uh and it includes 0:11:09.120 --> 0:11:11.720 the phrase quote to be used as a public park 0:11:11.800 --> 0:11:15.720 for purposes of recreation, health, and pleasure, for the use 0:11:15.760 --> 0:11:18.200 and benefit of the inhabitants of the said City of 0:11:18.240 --> 0:11:23.600 Los Angeles forever. The city council also passed an ordinance 0:11:23.640 --> 0:11:25.920 that named the park after Griffith shortly after all of 0:11:25.920 --> 0:11:28.960 this began, so it is legally required to be named 0:11:29.000 --> 0:11:32.240 Griffith's Park, even though Griffith had given up the land, 0:11:32.360 --> 0:11:35.680 though he kept feeling connected to it and retained a 0:11:35.720 --> 0:11:39.200 sense of ownership over it, even though he legally had 0:11:39.240 --> 0:11:42.199 no claim to it, but in his eyes he believed 0:11:42.240 --> 0:11:45.040 he did. There was a clause in the deed that 0:11:45.120 --> 0:11:49.360 he turned over to the city that mentioned specifically that 0:11:49.440 --> 0:11:51.320 if the city did not maintain the land in a 0:11:51.360 --> 0:11:55.080 manner that upheld that mission statement, ownership of the land 0:11:55.120 --> 0:11:58.240 would revert back to the Griffith family. And it's possible 0:11:58.320 --> 0:12:01.120 that Griffith actually believed this was going to happen. He 0:12:01.200 --> 0:12:03.800 certainly frequently wrote letters to the city and the Park 0:12:03.840 --> 0:12:06.920 Commission stating that he felt things were not being done 0:12:06.960 --> 0:12:10.360 correctly regarding the acreage he had donated. He also served 0:12:10.480 --> 0:12:12.600 on the Parks Committee, so he had a little bit 0:12:12.600 --> 0:12:14.840 of say in that regard, even if he didn't actually 0:12:14.880 --> 0:12:18.560 own the property any longer. Griffith's vision was for the 0:12:18.600 --> 0:12:22.240 part to include both the esthetics of the European gardening 0:12:22.280 --> 0:12:26.640 tradition with manicured and cultivated spaces, as well as the 0:12:26.720 --> 0:12:30.760 significant retention of the natural space, and that was indeed 0:12:30.800 --> 0:12:33.760 how the city designed the park. Yeah, if you if 0:12:33.800 --> 0:12:36.960 you ever visit Griffith Park, it's really sort of marvelous 0:12:37.000 --> 0:12:39.280 because it is a lot of a lot of space 0:12:39.320 --> 0:12:41.520 that is in its natural state. And then they had 0:12:41.559 --> 0:12:44.480 a zoo at one point. There's like famous marygo around 0:12:44.480 --> 0:12:48.559 we'll talk about in the our Friday episode. Um, but yeah, 0:12:48.600 --> 0:12:51.880 he managed to set this up and it has retained 0:12:52.840 --> 0:12:55.360 that identity that it was always intended to have per 0:12:55.440 --> 0:12:59.120 his instructions. So Griffith had at this point kind of 0:12:59.160 --> 0:13:01.440 accomplished what set how to do in his bid to 0:13:01.480 --> 0:13:04.600 become an important part of the Los Angeles community, and 0:13:04.640 --> 0:13:07.559 at least in name, he remains so to this day. 0:13:08.160 --> 0:13:09.640 And if he had lived out the rest of his 0:13:09.720 --> 0:13:13.520 life peacefully after this, he probably would have a pretty 0:13:13.559 --> 0:13:16.840 good and tame legacy in history as a slightly eccentric 0:13:16.960 --> 0:13:21.120 but ultimately benevolent philanthropist who made and married a lot 0:13:21.160 --> 0:13:23.680 of money and then used it to better his city. 0:13:24.600 --> 0:13:26.520 But the next chapter of his life took a very 0:13:26.600 --> 0:13:30.560 dark turn. Just as Griffith seemed to have gotten all 0:13:30.600 --> 0:13:34.000 that he wanted, he started to drink more heavily, and 0:13:34.040 --> 0:13:37.520 this started to impact his mental state as he developed 0:13:37.559 --> 0:13:41.120 a lot of paranoid ideas that started to govern his behavior. 0:13:41.880 --> 0:13:43.920 And reading through all this, and like the parts that 0:13:43.960 --> 0:13:46.839 we're about to get into, like I have thoughts about 0:13:46.840 --> 0:13:50.240 like the cause and effect cycle of all of this. 0:13:51.600 --> 0:13:56.480 Um An event that happened in September changed to Griffith's 0:13:56.520 --> 0:14:00.000 legacy forever. He and Tina went on a summer vacation 0:14:00.000 --> 0:14:03.600 into Santa Monica. They stayed at the Arcadia Hotel along 0:14:03.600 --> 0:14:06.040 with their sun Van, who was fifteen at the time, 0:14:06.640 --> 0:14:11.280 and Griffith behaved strangely during the families stay in Santa Monica. 0:14:11.559 --> 0:14:14.720 He had decided that someone was trying to poison him, 0:14:14.760 --> 0:14:18.400 and he suspected that it could actually be the Pope. 0:14:19.040 --> 0:14:22.440 This concern about the Pope seems to have been rooted 0:14:22.520 --> 0:14:25.640 in a very anti Catholic bias that he had, and 0:14:25.720 --> 0:14:29.320 it was manifesting in his paranoia. He would insist on 0:14:29.440 --> 0:14:32.560 switching the plates at the table settings during the trip 0:14:32.680 --> 0:14:36.280 because he believed that they might have poison residue on them. Uh. 0:14:36.320 --> 0:14:39.160 It has been estimated that Griffith, at this point in 0:14:39.200 --> 0:14:42.880 his life was drinking roughly two quarts of whiskey each day, 0:14:42.960 --> 0:14:46.040 that is sixty four ounces, just a little less than 0:14:46.080 --> 0:14:49.880 two leaders, so that was also governing some of this 0:14:50.080 --> 0:14:54.880 very strange behavior. Griffiths paranoia leads you a horrific series 0:14:54.880 --> 0:14:59.040 of events. On September three, and one version of this story, 0:14:59.520 --> 0:15:01.960 Tina was sitting at a desk in their hotel room 0:15:02.240 --> 0:15:05.800 writing out postcards to friends and family when Griffith entered 0:15:05.800 --> 0:15:09.600 the room, but then later testimony indicated that she was 0:15:09.640 --> 0:15:14.320 actually packing for their return home. Regardless though of exactly 0:15:14.400 --> 0:15:17.960 what Mrs Griffith was doing. The portion of the story 0:15:18.040 --> 0:15:22.760 that's corroborated and consistent is that Mr Griffith carried a 0:15:22.840 --> 0:15:26.360 revolver and a prayer book, which was Christina's prayer book, 0:15:26.680 --> 0:15:30.360 into the room with him. And Griffiths was a Protestant, 0:15:30.680 --> 0:15:33.560 but in his desire to move up in Enly society, 0:15:33.760 --> 0:15:37.640 he had married a Catholic. Tina was very devout, so 0:15:37.680 --> 0:15:41.240 in his mind, Griffith started to link his wife to 0:15:41.400 --> 0:15:44.960 his paranoid delusions about the pope and had started to 0:15:45.000 --> 0:15:47.680 believe on some level that she was conspiring with the 0:15:47.680 --> 0:15:51.600 head of the Catholic Church against her husband. So Griffith 0:15:51.800 --> 0:15:55.560 handed Tina the prayer book, told her to swear by 0:15:55.600 --> 0:15:59.200 it that she would answer his questions truthfully, instructed her 0:15:59.240 --> 0:16:02.560 to get on her knee ease, and then started interrogating her. 0:16:03.600 --> 0:16:06.320 He had written his questions down ahead of this conversation, 0:16:06.400 --> 0:16:08.560 so he was reading them from a card that he 0:16:08.640 --> 0:16:11.680 had prepared, kind of like a script. This was a 0:16:11.680 --> 0:16:14.520 menu card from the hotel, and he had written the 0:16:14.600 --> 0:16:17.040 questions on the back of it. And while this questioning 0:16:17.280 --> 0:16:20.120 was going on. He was also pointing his gun at her. 0:16:20.800 --> 0:16:23.080 He asked her if she had been involved in the 0:16:23.120 --> 0:16:25.840 death of Andrea brig Walter, that was the family friend 0:16:25.840 --> 0:16:29.360 who left Christina and her sister their fortune, saying quote, 0:16:29.400 --> 0:16:32.120 did you ever know of brig Walter being poisoned in 0:16:32.200 --> 0:16:36.440 your house? Tina answered no. Bridge Walter had died of 0:16:36.440 --> 0:16:39.040 blood poisoning, which he had gotten due to an infected 0:16:39.080 --> 0:16:42.240 foot injury, and that was something that Christina reminded her 0:16:42.320 --> 0:16:46.360 husband of in this moment. Next, Griffith asked his wife 0:16:46.360 --> 0:16:49.520 if she was poisoning him by asking, quote, have you 0:16:49.560 --> 0:16:53.240 been implicated with or do you know of anyone having 0:16:53.360 --> 0:16:58.720 given me poison? Tina, who called Griffith Papa, replied quote, 0:16:58.760 --> 0:17:01.320 why Papa, you know I have never harmed a hair 0:17:01.440 --> 0:17:05.040 on your head. His third question was whether Tina was 0:17:05.080 --> 0:17:07.640 a faithful wife, and she stated that she had never 0:17:07.760 --> 0:17:11.760 been untrue. Griffith had an additional question on his card, 0:17:11.800 --> 0:17:15.800 but he didn't ask it. He shot Tina after asking 0:17:15.840 --> 0:17:19.720 the third. He shot her in the face. The bullet 0:17:19.840 --> 0:17:22.560 hit the outer edge of her left eye, shattering the 0:17:22.600 --> 0:17:25.399 bone of her eye socket, and it was reported that 0:17:25.520 --> 0:17:28.879 upon impact with the bone, the bullet fragmented and a 0:17:28.920 --> 0:17:32.320 piece of it pierced her eye, so her left eye 0:17:32.359 --> 0:17:36.600 was destroyed, but the bullet didn't penetrate into the brain cavity. 0:17:36.800 --> 0:17:39.119 The rest of the bullet fragments passed under the skin 0:17:39.320 --> 0:17:44.120 of her temple and lodged under her scalp. Surprisingly, Christina 0:17:44.200 --> 0:17:48.119 Griffiths survived this brutal attack. She lost that eye and 0:17:48.200 --> 0:17:51.560 had some facial disfigurement, but had been fast enough in 0:17:51.640 --> 0:17:54.359 just kind of reflexively jerking her head to one side 0:17:54.960 --> 0:17:58.000 that she thwarted Griffith's aims so he did not hit 0:17:58.080 --> 0:18:01.480 her square in the forehead, and after asking her husband 0:18:01.480 --> 0:18:03.840 why he shot her, she next jumped out of the 0:18:03.880 --> 0:18:07.720 window onto the extended roof of the veranda below. And 0:18:07.760 --> 0:18:09.760 there are some versions of the story that indicate that 0:18:09.800 --> 0:18:12.119 the owners of the hotel saw her and pulled her 0:18:12.160 --> 0:18:15.119 into their rooms, but the version that the owners actually 0:18:15.160 --> 0:18:17.720 gave the press was that she crawled into an open 0:18:17.760 --> 0:18:21.119 window herself. So keep in mind that Tina at this 0:18:21.240 --> 0:18:24.080 point had just been shot in the face. She couldn't 0:18:24.119 --> 0:18:28.040 see she was bleeding a great deal. She also broke 0:18:28.040 --> 0:18:30.639 her shoulder as she jumped out the window. So it 0:18:30.680 --> 0:18:32.680 was incredibly lucky that she was able to get to 0:18:32.720 --> 0:18:37.360 safety at all. Meanwhile, her husband was still in the hotel. 0:18:37.800 --> 0:18:40.879 He had called the hotel staff that there was an accident, 0:18:41.520 --> 0:18:44.840 and as a doctor was being called, he phoned Christina's 0:18:44.920 --> 0:18:48.840 sister to tell her that her sister had been accidentally shot. 0:18:49.560 --> 0:18:52.440 Mrs Griffith was treated at the Arcadia Hotel by a 0:18:52.520 --> 0:18:55.439 doctor Crawford that was called by hotel management, and she 0:18:55.520 --> 0:18:58.000 stayed there the rest of the night. She was given 0:18:58.040 --> 0:19:00.000 an opiate to help her sleep, and then, as sue 0:19:00.119 --> 0:19:02.639 as possible, the following morning, she was moved to a 0:19:02.680 --> 0:19:06.000 hospital in Los Angeles. She was still unconscious at that point. 0:19:06.800 --> 0:19:09.560 The headline that ran on September five in the l 0:19:09.560 --> 0:19:13.520 A Times that detailed this incident was quote bullet in 0:19:13.680 --> 0:19:17.280 head of Mrs G. J. Griffith. She declares that her 0:19:17.359 --> 0:19:22.680 husband shot her. Result may be fatal. Christina Griffith's account 0:19:22.760 --> 0:19:25.639 was included in this article, reported as having been told 0:19:25.640 --> 0:19:28.480 to her sister in a moment of consciousness, who then 0:19:28.520 --> 0:19:32.000 related to the paper. According to that account, when Griffith 0:19:32.119 --> 0:19:35.120 entered the room, he said, quote, get your prayer book 0:19:35.119 --> 0:19:37.359 and kneel down and cover your eyes. I'm going to 0:19:37.359 --> 0:19:40.639 shoot you, and I'm going to kill you. This version 0:19:40.760 --> 0:19:43.520 didn't include the information that came to light later on 0:19:43.920 --> 0:19:48.639 involving Griffith's aggressive questioning of his wife, because Christina had 0:19:48.680 --> 0:19:51.600 not been conscious long enough to give a more thorough account. 0:19:52.119 --> 0:19:54.640 Once she was in the l A hospital, Christina Griffith 0:19:54.720 --> 0:19:57.199 went into surgery so that the bullet fragments could be 0:19:57.240 --> 0:20:01.040 dislodged from her head. Her surgeon R. M. L. Moore 0:20:01.280 --> 0:20:04.040 told the paper that while the situation was very serious, 0:20:04.359 --> 0:20:07.320 he believed that the patient would recover. So this rite 0:20:07.400 --> 0:20:10.080 up stated quote she either jumped or fell from the 0:20:10.119 --> 0:20:12.800 window of the room and dropped onto the roof of 0:20:12.800 --> 0:20:16.239 a porch on the level of the floor below. So 0:20:16.280 --> 0:20:19.440 at this point Griffith was claiming that this whole thing 0:20:19.600 --> 0:20:21.639 was an accident, and there was this whole idea that 0:20:21.680 --> 0:20:25.320 maybe his wife had just fallen. His account was that 0:20:25.359 --> 0:20:28.280 she had been packing a trunk when a revolver that 0:20:28.400 --> 0:20:30.960 was either inside of it or that she had been 0:20:31.000 --> 0:20:36.160 holding for some reason had accidentally discharged, and he said 0:20:36.160 --> 0:20:38.720 that they had not been quarreling at all. In an 0:20:38.720 --> 0:20:41.119 interview with a reporter, Griffith said that he and his 0:20:41.160 --> 0:20:44.920 wife never quarreled. The reporter, to his credit, did ask 0:20:45.000 --> 0:20:48.159 some very pointed questions about why Mrs Griffith would have 0:20:48.160 --> 0:20:51.760 had one of Mr Griffith's revolvers in her trunk, how 0:20:51.800 --> 0:20:53.960 she would have accidentally made her way out of a 0:20:54.000 --> 0:20:56.320 window that was actually in a gable way that was 0:20:56.359 --> 0:20:58.120 away from the main part of the room where their 0:20:58.119 --> 0:21:02.120 belongings were, and the Griffith was intoxicated at the time 0:21:02.160 --> 0:21:05.800 of the incident. Griffith kind of shrugged off the hard questions, 0:21:06.200 --> 0:21:08.560 I will say. The reporter at the end of that 0:21:08.600 --> 0:21:11.359 says like, do you say this is wholly untrue? And 0:21:11.359 --> 0:21:13.920 he's like, oh, yeah, holy um. So Griffith kind of 0:21:13.920 --> 0:21:16.720 shrugs off the hard questions and then claimed that in fact, 0:21:16.760 --> 0:21:20.040 he had been sober for several weeks. But the Mesber 0:21:20.200 --> 0:21:24.520 family was adamant that this was not an accident. Tina's 0:21:24.560 --> 0:21:26.720 brother gave a quote to the press that said quote, 0:21:26.800 --> 0:21:29.960 Mrs Griffith did not shoot herself. The shooting was not 0:21:30.040 --> 0:21:33.760 an accident. In our opinion. We are sure there was 0:21:33.800 --> 0:21:37.160 no attempt at suicide. As yet, we make no accusations, 0:21:37.200 --> 0:21:40.320 but we believe that the shot was not accidental nor 0:21:40.480 --> 0:21:44.040 was it fired with suicidal intent. That statement was given 0:21:44.080 --> 0:21:46.920 to a reporter, but before the article actually we went 0:21:46.960 --> 0:21:50.159 to press, the Mesmer family contacted the paper again and 0:21:50.200 --> 0:21:52.720 they asked to have the following statement added. And it's 0:21:52.800 --> 0:21:56.399 kind of if you look at that newspaper, um, it's 0:21:56.480 --> 0:21:58.320 kind of in its own call out box to the 0:21:58.320 --> 0:22:00.719 side of the article, and that state and his quote, 0:22:01.000 --> 0:22:03.600 that would be the consensus of opinion of this meeting. 0:22:03.600 --> 0:22:06.840 That judgment be suspended until Mrs Griffith is able to 0:22:06.840 --> 0:22:10.240 make a statement, but that a full explanation be demanded 0:22:10.280 --> 0:22:13.440 from Mr Griffith, and that a full investigation be made. 0:22:14.520 --> 0:22:17.440 The family at this point believed that a conflict stemming 0:22:17.480 --> 0:22:20.320 from religious differences was at the heart of this whole matter, 0:22:20.800 --> 0:22:24.480 as well as Griffith's drinking to excess. At this point, 0:22:24.600 --> 0:22:28.680 Christina was still hospitalized and unconscious, and while her doctor 0:22:28.880 --> 0:22:32.800 thought that she would recover, nobody was certain whether she 0:22:32.880 --> 0:22:37.439 actually would. The Arcadia's landlords, the Rights, also made a 0:22:37.480 --> 0:22:40.440 statement that they believed that this was an accident, and 0:22:40.520 --> 0:22:43.720 while the status of the Griffith's teenage son Vandel during 0:22:43.720 --> 0:22:47.520 this incident had been a matter of confusion. Initially, people 0:22:47.560 --> 0:22:50.159 were like where was Van del and nobody knew. It 0:22:50.240 --> 0:22:52.680 was eventually discovered that he had in fact been outside 0:22:52.720 --> 0:22:56.560 when it happened. Initially, when asked if his son had 0:22:56.560 --> 0:22:59.320 been in the room during the shooting, Griffiths said he 0:22:59.359 --> 0:23:02.040 did not know and that he was quote averse to 0:23:02.119 --> 0:23:06.040 asking the boy. Griffith had agreed to be taken into custody, 0:23:06.200 --> 0:23:09.520 still claiming that it was all an accident, but at 0:23:09.520 --> 0:23:12.399 the last minute he slipped away and went for a drink. 0:23:12.800 --> 0:23:16.320