Eloise Kennedy - Blonde Beauty

Louis Young - Maniac Slayer

1945 - Maniac Slayer Knifes Blonde Beauty

In 1945 in Santa Fe, New Mexico, on the corner of Grant and Bowers Streets, were the Twitchell Apartments. Built in classic pueblo style, the comfortable apartments were arranged around the street corner in an L shape so that each resident’s back door opened onto a partly walled-in common court. The arrangement made for close neighbors who knew each other by name. On the Grant side, there was Frank Flanagan, a superintendent at the Santa Fe Builders Supply Company, and his wife Betty, Al Thorwaldsen, operator of Fiesta Fashions, and his wife Jean, who worked at Boyles Flower Shop on the Plaza. On the Bowers side, there was Leslie Murphey, librarian at the Palace of the Governors, Leon G. “Bud” Kennedy, a teller at the First National Bank, and his wife Eloise and one celebrity resident, Frank Young, Chief of the New Mexico State Police.

Several miles away, within the walls of the New Mexico State Penitentiary, there resided inmate Louis Young, 44, a “tall, lanky Negro,” who spoke slowly and with a Texas drawl. He was serving a ten-year term for an armed robbery committed in 1943 during which he tied an Albuquerque woman to a chair and threatened her with a hatchet in order to separate her from $110. This was Louis Young’s fourth prison term. The first three were for burglaries in his hometown of Houston, Texas.

In January of 1944, Louis Young began his sentence at the New Mexico penitentiary and just six weeks later, Warden John B. McManus awarded Young with trusty status. He was assigned to work as a janitor at State Police headquarters under the general supervision of State Police Chief Frank Young (no relation).

It was a familiar and frequent practice at the penitentiary for the warden to “farm” out convicts for labor. Under a statute first written in territorial days, state prisoners were required to labor and the warden was given almost unlimited discretion in determining what that labor might be. Early on, prisoners labored mostly on road gangs but by 1945, prisoners worked at “industries” within the walls (at the prison’s own dairy, for example) or outside the walls as assigned by the warden. Over the years, it became customary for the warden to provide prison labor to especially favored government officials.

The practice came under fire in 1944 when the local newspaper, The Santa Fe New Mexican, reported that a crew of convicts was used to help resurface the driveway at Governor Dempsey’s private home in Santa Fe. The editor declared himself shocked to learn, from an Attorney General’s ruling on the point, that this sort of thing was “not unlawful.” The editor was much more comfortable, however, in early 1945, when the City of Santa Fe negotiated with the new warden, Howell Gage, for the use of convict labor in the first post-war street improvement projects. In that instance, the deal was “lawful” since state law specifically authorized the use of prison labor to “work on streets, alleys, roads and bridges in and near Santa Fe.”

[Interestingly, no other city, town or village in New Mexico has this same privilege to call upon the warden for laborers – only Santa Fe. Under the original 1889 law, Santa Fe could use prisoners not only for road work but for “quarrying and hauling stone and also in securing, bettering and protecting the banks of the Santa Fe River. . .”)

By the warden’s long custom, one trusty worked as the warden’s chauffeur, others maintained the grounds at the New Mexico Supreme Court and at the Governor’s Mansion. Many more were assigned as “porters” to important state officials – like the Chief of the New Mexico State Police. Such a trusty was Louis Young, driven by police car to State Police headquarters on Cerrillos Road to work during the day, and then driven back to the Penitentiary in the evening.

Over the months, State Police Chief Frank Young fell into the habit of ordering Louis Young to the Chief’s own Bowers Street apartment for housework. By summer of 1945, Louis Young worked for the Chief and his family at the apartment on Bowers Street three or four times a week. Generously, Chief Young often loaned out his “houseboy” to the neighbors, including the Kennedys and the Flanagans. So, by November 1945, the “tall, lanky Negro”, dressed in plain overalls, was a familiar sight at the quiet Twitchell Apartments.

On November 19, 1945 Louis Young had finished his morning chores at the Chief’s apartment and was assigned to wax the floors at the Flanagan apartment that afternoon. Betty Flanagan would later say that she thought Louis Young had done a good job on the floors. At 5 o’clock, Louis Young called for a ride to the penitentiary where he ate his dinner and went to bed in his cell as usual.

***

Eloise Kennedy was not yet 23, when she and her husband, Bud, moved to Santa Fe from Denver. Bud, a member of a prominent Denver banking family, married young Eloise Cannon just before entering the Army in 1942. After discharge from the service in 1944, Bud and Eloise took up residence on Bowers Street, while Bud worked for the First National Bank as a teller. In mid-September 1945, Eloise gave birth to a baby girl, Lynne Gray, and cared for the child at home. The birth had been difficult and, five weeks later, Eloise was still frail.

That afternoon, about 2 p.m., she called Bud at the office to tell him she had spoken with Dr. R.B. Coombs about the baby and that she, herself, would visit the family dentist, Dr. Renfro, that afternoon about a toothache. Around 2:30 p.m., Betty Flanagan knocked at the Kennedy door but no one answered. She opened the unlocked door and walked inside, softly calling for Eloise. Hearing nothing, Mrs. Flanagan left to town on errands. At about 4:30 p.m., another neighbor, Mrs. Clifford Hall, knocked at the door but received no response to her calls. At 5:30 p.m., Bud Kennedy came home and discovered his child resting quietly in her crib and his wife sprawled on the bathroom floor in a pool of blood.

He immediately called for help, then applied cold compresses to his wife’s face in hope of reviving her. He assumed that Eloise, still weak from the birth of their child, had hemorrhaged. He did not notice that her blouse was ripped and her blue jeans were torn.

City police officers arrived along with Dr. Coombs who had also been called by Bud Kennedy. Dr. Coombs briefly examined the body and determined that Eloise Kennedy, 23 years old, had been dead for more than three hours. While the neighbors comforted Bud Kennedy, a police unit transported the infant to St. Vincent hospital for care. For some reason unexplained in the newspaper accounts of these events, there was no ambulance or funeral car called. Instead, police officers placed Eloise Kennedy’s body in the back seat of a patrol car and, in this way, transported the body to Memorial Chapel, the funeral home operated by Preston McGee.

At Memorial Chapel, Dr. Coombs undertook a closer examination of the body of Eloise Kennedy and made a ghastly discovery. Eloise Kennedy had not died of a hemorrhage. She had been stabbed eleven times in the neck, chest and shoulder, at least one thrust severing her jugular vein. The body showed bruising and an injury to the vagina, a small cut with some bleeding. Her blue jeans were torn from the waist to the right knee.

The police were called and, after conferring with Dr. Coombs, a team of officers returned to Bowers Street to search the area and question the neighbors. A search produced no weapon and questioning of the immediate neighbors produced no significant leads. The police, as the newspaper was later to say, were completely baffled.

***

The following morning, the local newspaper headlines shouted that the police were hunting a “maniac slayer” and carried the story of the murder of “blonde beauty” Eloise Kennedy with grisly details. Santa Fe police chief Manuel Montoya gratefully accepted an offer of help in the investigation from the Kennedy’s neighbor, State Police Chief Frank Young and his top deputy, A.B. Martinez. Physical evidence was gathered from the scene – bloody clothing, some black hairs found in Eloise Kennedy’s hands, nail scrapings, blood samples – for shipment to an FBI lab. All activity at the Bowers Street apartments on the afternoon of November 19, 1945 was tracked. A delivery boy from Capitol Pharmacy saw nothing when he came by. A neighbor, Albino Rivera, saw a man park his car on the street in front of the Kennedy car and emerge with a briefcase. Two men from Broome’s Furniture Store delivering tables and chairs to the Thorwaldsen apartment around 3 or 3:30 p.m. met a man coming out of the back yard. He had a full beard and wavy black hair, they told police, adding that the man was “rather foreign-looking, maybe an Italian.” The leads went nowhere.

At 3:00 p.m. on the afternoon of November 20, 1945, a formal inquest at Memorial Chapel was called on the death of Eloise Kennedy. After testimony from a tearful Bud Kennedy, the police and the neighbor, Betty Flanagan, Louis Young appeared as a witness. In a soft voice, he testified that he spent the entire afternoon at the Flanagan apartment waxing the floors. Although he knew the neighbors well, including Eloise Kennedy whom he referred to as ”Miss Eloise,” he knew nothing useful. The inquest closed with a determination of homicide “by an unknown person or persons.”

The following day, police investigation continued. Panicky citizens called in numerous tips of shady characters, rowdy hoodlums and peeping Toms, keeping the police busy. Then came a significant break in the case. While playing in the arroyo north of the Bowers Street Apartments, a 13-year old neighbor boy named John Steel, found a butcher knife with a bent and bloody blade in a pile of leaves. At some point, the record does not reveal exactly when, State Police Chief Frank Young saw the murder knife and recognized it as one of a set kept in his own kitchen. The last time he had seen it, a week earlier, Louis Young was using it to quarter a hog on the kitchen table.

About 10:30 p.m., State Police Captain A.B. Martinez, Assistant District Attorney Albert Clancy, the DA’s investigator Eddie Mack and Santa Fe Police Chief Montoya arrived at the State Penitentiary with a request to interview Louis Young. Louis Young was awakened and taken from his cell to an “inner” room at the prison by guard W. L. McDonald (and, incidentally, the warden’s father-in-law). There, (according to police accounts) Louis Young was advised of his rights and questioned by Bert Clancy for forty minutes about the Eloise Kennedy killing. Louis Young steadfastly denied any knowledge of the crime.

In a dramatic display, the Chief’s set of butcher knives – minus one – was laid on a table before Louis Young and he was asked if he had ever seen them. He denied it. Then Chief Frank Young himself entered the room for the first time and placed the bloody knife on the table. Louis Young looked at the knife, hesitated, then said “I did it, I will tell you all about it.”

Over the next hour, Louis Young answered detailed questions about the murder of Eloise Kennedy while Captain A.B. Martinez typed. Sometime after midnight, the completed statement was read to the illiterate Louis Young who signed it.

Not yet aware of the early morning confession, the local newspaper reported only that evidence in the Kennedy murder had been sent to the FBI but that the police were stalled in their hunt for the killer. The editor of the New Mexican spoke for the community:

The shocking murder of one of Santa Fe’s most charming young women has brought a justified public demand that everything humanly possible be done to bring her slayer speedily to justice.

The case is initially one of the most baffling in New Mexico history. There are few tangible clues. Patience and perseverance are indicated for both public and officials, but every possible effort must be exerted.

For one important thing, the multiplicity of state, district, county and city agencies now working on the case should continue to operate in complete harmony and co-operation.

There should be no hesitancy in sharing information which might lead to the revelation of new clues and speedy capture of the criminal. It makes no difference who breaks the case; the important thing is that it be broken.

Meanwhile, the heartfelt sympathy of every Santa Fean goes out to the family and friends of Mrs. Kennedy.

Later that day, the New Mexican learned of Louis Young’s confession and published an extra edition with banner headlines: “Killer Confesses” and “Negro Convict Admits Knifing Blonde Beauty.” The accompanying story contained only a few details of the confession itself since Assistant District Attorney vowed to keep it secret until the trial. Secret confession or not, enough lurid detail emerged from various sources to fill several columns in the local paper. This is essentially what the well read Santa Fean knew three days after the crime:

Sometime after 1 p.m. on November 19, Louis Young, carrying the knife from Chief Young’s kitchen in his overalls, went to the apartment of Eloise Kennedy. There, the convict propositioned the young mother for sex. When she refused him and indicated she would tell on him, Young furiously stabbed her to death. An apparent attempt at rape was abandoned when someone, likely Mrs. Flanagan, entered the houseand called for Eloise. Young fled at the first opportunity and went to the Flanagan apartment, as he was assigned, to wax the floors. Initially, Louis Young had never been considered a suspect in the murder. In fact, he was called as a friendly witness at the inquest, impressing observers as quiet and polite.

The next day, Thanksgiving Day, the newspaper exposed another bombshell. For the first time Santa Feans learned that the very knife used to kill Eloise Kennedy came from Chief Frank Young’s own kitchen. The Chief had no comment for the newspaper. He was already at his desk, composing a letter of resignation he would tender to Governor Dempsey by the end of the week.

***

The shocking murder and the revelation that it was likely committed by a Negro convict running loose in the streets was stunning to Santa Fe. But, the more resilient of Santa Fe citizens soon overcame their shock and began looking for someone to blame, other than a killer Negro convict. And there were more than the usual suspects available for blame.

For months, the community had grumbled that police protection in Santa Fe was inadequate, a state of affairs both Mayor Manuel Lujan and the Police Chief could not deny. Chief Montoya woefully admitted that, at any given time of the day, only four police officers were available to patrol the entire city (22,000 residents within 36 square miles). In the months before the murder, Santa Fe citizens had regularly complained about youthful hoodlums, unrestrained speeders and downtown drunks, always questioning the absence of police on patrol.

For a City already fearful of criminals at loose, the effect of the murder of Eloise Kennedy was galvanic. Just days after the killing, over 800 citizens gathered at Seth Hall with the purpose of drafting a proposal to improve police protection within the City. Most speakers referred to the Eloise Kennedy murder as they went on to offer solutions to the police problem. Alice Howland, operator of the local Youth Center, urged attention to juvenile delinquents. (Interestingly, a few months later, 900 members of the 1125-member Youth Center walked out, citing the danger from gangs.] Cy Hess argued for better street lighting (“Get us out of the Dark Ages” was a constant refrain in his letters to the editor.) Chamber of Commerce President Norman Shenk declared he would write a letter to J. Edgar Hoover to get help from the FBI. Interestingly, Hoover replied and assigned an Albuquerque agent to offer training to the City’s police officers. More than a few citizens suggested armed vigilante patrols. Over the next several weeks, the citizens met three more times with the final meeting (as the New Mexican ruefully noted) drawing only 45 participants.

The group’s Committee of Ten presented a seven point program to the City, which called for more patrolmen (from 18 to 30), better trained officers, higher salaries, three more squad cars, radios, guns, even a strait jacket – about $45,000 of improvements in all. Prominent citizens, to show their zeal, pledged personal funds for the effort. Eventually, over the next two years, the City began a measured process of increasing business and liquor licensing fees to raise the revenue to pay for more officers and equipment.

At every community meeting – whether at Seth Hall or the City Council – the subject of the Eloise Kennedy murder was raised. Citizen Margaret Gronert wrote a letter to the editor expressing the view of many:

If out of the awful calamity that has befallen Santa Fe, a strong organization of decent citizens is formed, then a young woman will not have been martyred in vain. New Mexico history is replete with the names of martyrs. It seems a pity that in this day and age another martyr is sacrificed to bring about a needed reform. Let us ignore party politics and band together the good people from all parties as a new non-political organization that transcends cheap politics and assumes a guardianships of New Mexico for decent New Mexicans.

Not all citizens were so high-minded. One writer to the New Mexican , Mrs. C.M. Jaramillo, revealed what many had “been itching to say for years, or have been saying it just among ourselves” – that most of the crime in the City of Santa Fe was the work of Negroes and, of course, speeders. Mrs. Louise Sebastian, self-described crusader, suggested that meat and milk should be inspected more closely, without fully explaining how police protection might be thereby improved.

The editor of the New Mexican blamed Governor Dempsey who had been warned by the newspaper that the use of convicts on private projects was immoral, even if no laws were broken.

In the case of Louis Young, it is fair to note that convicts are confined primarily to prevent their continued depredations on law-abiding society. If they are permitted to roam at large, unsupervised, they must just as well not be ordered confined in the first place.

While the Governor was quick to accept Chief Young’s resignation and declare that he was “horrified” by the Kennedy murder, his actions, according to the editor, were too little, too late.

To make matters worse, the Attorney General ruled that the warden had no legal obligation to open prison records to public scrutiny. This turn of events infuriated the local newspaper, which issued at least four editorials that condemned, among other things, the protection of inmate records at the expense of the public safety.

Meanwhile Governor Dempsey, apparently unaware of the irony, joined the citizens of Santa Fe in calling for an investigation of the use of convict labor for private projects. John F. Simms, chairman of the Board of the State Penitentiary (and, later, Governor of New Mexico from 1955 through 1957) advanced specific reforms, including the rewriting of the laws pertaining to prison labor.

Simms disclosed that Warden Gage had been reprimanded in one case where he loaned a prisoner to his father-in-law (the same W.L. McDonald who was employed as a guard at the Penitentiary) for use on the family sheep ranch near Santa Fe. But the reprimand was not for the use of convict labor on a private project – the Attorney General had already determined that was “not unlawful.” Nor was the warden reprimanded for transporting the prisoner in a state car driven by the warden’s chauffeur, another trusty. The reprimand was for the warden’s failure to provide a guard for the two prisoners as they made their trip to the sheep ranch.

Just weeks after the Kennedy murder and while the prison scandal was unfolding in the press, another prisoner, Lester King – serving 25 years for armed robbery – escaped. He left in a penitentiary truck after delivering materials to the prison-owned clay pit in Lamy. (One of the prison’s most profitable industries in 1945 was the making of fired brick for construction purposes, mostly in Santa Fe homes.) King was captured after more than three days on the run. Santa Feans howled for the Warden’s head but Gage (a powerful politician who would go on to be a delegate to the 1948 Democratic National Convention) weathered the storm.

Meanwhile, the interest of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People had been aroused by the Louis Young case and representatives visited the convict in his prison cell. Ultimately, the group did not enter the case although a NAACP lawyer, William T. O’Sullivan, recommended that a psychiatrist examine Young.

***

Louis Young appeared, in chains and without an attorney, for arraignment on the murder charge on December 20, 1945 before District Judge William J. Barker. When Judge Barker offered to appoint him counsel, Young said, “Whatever you all do, I ain’t got no say-so.” Barker appointed prominent Santa Fe attorneys Fletcher Catron and Frank Andrews. Catron promised a good defense although he admitted all he knew of the case came from the newspapers. At an unannounced hearing before Judge Barker on January 5, 1946, Louis Young, accompanied by his new lawyers, entered his plea of “not guilty.” Young’s lawyer, Fletcher Catron, also waived preliminary hearing. District Attorney David Carmody announced that he would ask the jury to impose the death penalty.

Catron and Frank Andrews promptly filed a motion to move the trial to McKinley County, on the basis that the local press had inflamed the citizens of Santa Fe and no fair jury could be found in the City. The District Attorney quickly conceded the motion. Judge Barker moved Louis Young, in shackles and leg chains, from the Penitentiary to the McKinley County Jail in Gallup in preparation for trial there on February 19, 1946.

Jury selection in Gallup was brisk. Forty potential jurors were called. The State struck two for good cause, the Defense, one. Seven more were excused by peremptory challenges, challenges for which no cause need be stated. Judge Barker seated twelve regular jurors and one alternate. On the opening day of trial, those jurors heard an opening statement from DA David Carmody who told the jury to expect hard evidence of cold-blooded murder, including the killer’s own words. Neither Fletcher Catron nor Frank Andrews offered an opening statement for the Defendant. Louis Young sat quietly, chain-smoking, and observed the proceedings.

Leon G. Kennedy, Jr., the grieving husband, was called as the state’s first witness. He related the events of November 19, 1945 with undisguised emotion. The husband was respectfully and only briefly cross-examined. Deputy Chief A.B. Martinez recited the chain of custody as the basis to introduce the physical evidence, including items sent to the FBI for examination. Then came the scientists, bearing laboratory results to prove that human blood was found on both the murder weapon and on Louis Young’s pants and under shorts. Young’s lawyers responded by repeatedly pointing out that the body had been removed from the apartment to the funeral home in the back seat of a police car, thus irreparably contaminating the so-called “scientific” evidence. One result of the lab tests was surprising: the wiry black hairs found in Eloise Kennedy’s hands at death was not Louis Young’s. They belonged to the Kennedy family terrier.

Former Chief Frank Young testified, then Dr. Coombs who testified, to visible reaction from the jury, that a recent injury to Eloise Kennedy’s vagina could have resulted from an attempted rape. Others told their parts in the tale: Preston McGee, the funeral director; Frank Flanagan, the neighbor; even little Johnny Steel, the 13-year old who found the murder weapon.

On the next day of trial, over the objections of defense counsel, Louis Young’s confession was read to the jury. In his confession, Young admitted that he went to the Kennedy apartment after the Flanagans had left him waxing the floor. There, Young and Eloise Kennedy were talking:

Q: What were you talking about?

A: About Work

Q: What did you then do?

A: She went into the bathroom.

Q: Then what did, if anything, happen?

A: I asked her for a date

Q: What do you mean by a date?

A: Going to bed.

Q: What did she say?

A: She said she was going to tell on me.

Q: What did you then do?

A: I got scared and stabbed her.

Young had carried the knife from Chief Young’s kitchen with him when he went to the Kennedy apartment. While he denied any intention of rape, he admitted that he tore Eloise Kennedy’s clothes but then he heard someone enter the apartment and he fled. He returned to the Flanagan apartment and finished waxing the floors, then called a police unit to take him back to the penitentiary. As to his motive:

Q: Louis, tell me why did you do this?

A: I don’t know – just what come up in my mind. I do not . . .

Q: But when you went over there, you had definite intentions, did you not?

A: Yes, sir. I figured I would get some, that she would let me, but I did not figure on hurting her.

Young’s lawyers vigorously objected to the admission of Louis Young’s confession because, they claimed, the confession was given involuntarily, out of fear of police violence and out of love for Chief Frank Young and his family. Young’s lawyers further argued that Louis Young was also physically exhausted, having been awakened late at night and grilled through the early morning. Finally, the lawyers concluded, Louis Young was illiterate and could not know what he was signing. Nevertheless, Judge Barker admitted the confession into evidence.

Louis Young took the witness stand once at his own trial, during the motion to suppress the confession, but that testimony was heard without the jury present. The jury never actually heard Louis Young speak.

On the last day of trial, the jurors received closing arguments in the morning and withdrew to consider their verdict, emerging after just two hours of deliberation with a verdict that Louis Young was guilty of first-degree, malicious and deliberate murder. Minutes later, Louis Young stood before Judge William Barker to receive his sentence: death by electrocution on April 23, 1946. He made this brief statement:

I am here to suffer a penalty. I am not guilty. You will find in the Bible that all vengeance belongs to God.

As he was led out of the courtroom, Louis Young burst into a Negro spiritual.

The editor of the Santa Fe New Mexican had this to say:

Not Vengeance

It is not vengeance which society seeks in the case of Louis Young, although there are few people who can avoid feeling a desire for revenge against the killer of Santa Fe’s charming young matron, Mrs. Eloise Kennedy.

In decreeing the death penalty for Louis Young, society asks not vengeance, but protection. A horrible crime has been committed. A swift, sure sentence of death will put the perpetrator where he can murder no more, and will deter anyone else who might be tempted to a similar crime.

Although the case probably will be appealed, no one familiar with it now doubts that justice was done.

Young was given a fair trial, before an impartial jury. He repudiated his earlier confession, but failed to convince the court that it had been obtained under duress. The case boiled down to his unsupported denial, in the face of much direct and circumstantial evidence that he was the killer.

His defense attorneys, both of them able and respected in their profession, made as good a case as they could have, under the circumstances. They just didn’t have much to work with.

It is no defense for Louis Young, to point out that the crime never would have occurred if those responsible for his safe-keeping acted otherwise than they did.

Those people were not on trial, and they cannot be brought to trial, because what they did – or did not do – was not against the law.

Society has been fair to Louis Young. But it seeks protection against such crimes as he has been convicted of committing.

It can gain a measure of protection by invoking quick justice against an individual killer. It can gain a greater and more lasting protection by revising the state’s prison code to provide assurance that known potential murderers cannot roam unguarded.

There is no conflict between such a law and one providing for the utmost efforts to rehabilitate convicts. Modern prison law does both. New Mexico’s law is antiquated and inadequate.

With financial support from “a group of Negroes from Albuquerque” interested in Young’s case, Fletcher Catron filed an appeal with the New Mexico Supreme Court. Gilbert Espinosa, an Albuquerque lawyer, was hired to carry Louis Young’s appeal. The appeal triggered an automatic stay of execution on April 20, 1946, just three days before the original execution date. The slow process of appeal began.

***

On March 19, 1947 – almost a year after Louis Young first filed his appeal – the Supreme Court issued its opinion. See State v. Young, 51 NM 77, 178 P.2d 592 (1947). Chief Justice Brice, writing for Justices Lujan and Sadler and District Judge Luis E. Armijo, sitting by designation. The State’s Attorney General, C.C. McCulloh, Assistant Attorney General Robert W. Ward and Santa Fe’s District Attorney David Carmody argued the case for the State. Fletcher Catron and Frank Andrews appeared along with Gilbert Espinosa for Louis Young.

The appeal raised a number of interesting points, most only of interest to the lawyer, but, the opinion is notable in reciting the facts of the case at some length, including the circumstances of Louis Young’s midnight confession. According to Young, he was never told he could have a lawyer. For hours, he was cajoled, threatened and tricked into a confession. First the interrogators worked on his love of Chief Frank Young and his family; then they waved their arms in a way he thought threatening and then they tricked him by telling him there were two witnesses ready to say they saw him coming out of Eloise Kennedy’s apartment at the time of the murder. By this time, Young was tired, feeling sick and he gave the police the confession they wanted.

If you want me to tell you a story I can tell you one and you all write it down, but some day somebody will read it and find out I did not do it. I say, ‘Of course there is nothing for me to do. I don’t know what you all is going to do with me, but if it will please you all I will say you it.’

When Louis Young was confronted with the bloody knife by his former employer, Chief Frank Young,

I sat there and looked at the knife. I did not know what to say because I knowed I had not used it, but did not know what they was going to do to me if I did not answer the question like they wanted me to, from the way they had been talking to me, and I say ‘I reckon I did,’ and I got these words to face now and press my dying pillow.

On that issue, the Supreme Court ruled that the confession was properly admitted because the circumstances of the Louis Young case weren’t any worse than other cases they’d seen pass constitutional muster in other states.

The most interesting discussion in the opinion concerns whether there was evidence of “malice aforethought,” the legal term at the time to describe the modern requirements for first degree murder: deliberation and premeditation in the intent to kill. The Supreme Court first noted that Louis Young went to Eloise Kennedy’s apartment to ask her “for a date,” by which he meant “going to bed.” She refused him. Young said, “I figured I would get me some, that she would let me, but I did not figure on hurting her.” But that, according to the Supreme Court, was obviously false:

He was a Negro convict and must have realized that it was so improbable the deceased would submit herself to him, that to accomplish his purpose he would almost certainly have to resort to force. He weighed these possibilities and determined that he would rape her (unless, as a remote possibility, she would submit), and then slay her.

The Supreme Court affirmed Louis Young’s conviction for first-degree murder and reinstated the order for his sentence of death by electrocution. No further appeal was filed. The new date set for Louis Young’s execution by the electric chair was Friday, June 13, 1947.

Louis Young, on death row for more than a year, seemed resigned to his fate. He told an AP reporter, “If the good Lord is ready for me to go, I’m going. If he isn’t, I ain’t.” Re-baptized into the Baptist Church while his appeal was pending, Louis Young had found comfort in religion. “The lawyers, everybody, have done all they can for me,” he was quoted in the New Mexican as saying (with a grin), “I’m in fine spirits. No need of worrying now.” Louis Young occupied his final days with praying, reading from his Bible and singing old hymns or Negro spirituals.

On June 13, 1947, Santa Fe New Mexican editor, Will Harrison, visited Louis Young in death row, hours before his scheduled electrocution. “Louis Young looked at death today and grinned,” wrote Harrison, “the 47-year-old man talked with ease to a reporter and a made a joke of what will happen to him at a minute past 12 tonight.” Young still maintained his innocence in the killing of Eloise Kennedy. He seemed reconciled to his fate, saying, “I’ve got to pay anyway so I ain’t letting it worry me.”

Despite some talk of reprieve, the Governor (Tom Mabry in 1947) publicly stated he would take no action in the Louis Young case. In any event, Young’s lawyers had made no request for clemency.

As was customary in the newspaper reporting of these matters, Louis Young’s last meal was described in detail:

Young, of lanky figure and easy posture, intoned Negro spirituals in his cell between feasts of ham and eggs for breakfast, rolled beef roast, baked corn, potatoes buttered peas and cake, for lunch, and on the final meal tonight, fried chicken, giblet gravy, French-fried potatoes, asparagus tips, fresh strawberries, with whipped cream. “I ain’t very hungry,” Young said, grinning, “but I’m eating it all and liking it.”

Just before midnight, Louis Young walked to the electric chair, singing a favorite spiritual, “Use Me Lord, In Thy Service” in a strong baritone voice. The warden interrupted his singing to ask, "Louis Young, you are about to be executed by the State of New Mexico. Do you have anything to say." Young replied, "No, I ain't, Mr. Gage. I've done said all I'm going to say. I'm going innocent. I ask God to take me into his kingdom. God take my soul." A leather mask was then put over Louis Young's head and the executioner sent three 40-second shocks through Young's body. At seven minutes past midnight, on June 13, 1947, Louis Young was declared dead.

Notes: Long-time residents of the City of Santa Fe know this story and many of the people and places mentioned. So I provide the following notes only for the newcomer:

1. In 1945, Bowers Street was a short tangent off the northwest curve of the Federal Oval, a dead end lane less than 100 meters in length, across the Arroyo de Las Mascaras from Rosario Street. Bowers Street no longer exists. It disappeared during the construction of the City’s inner-city loop, called Paseo de Peralta, in 1969.

2. The Twitchell Apartments were converted to offices sometime in the 1960’s. Currently, the main building is occupied by Sotheby’s International Realty with its address as 326 Grant Avenue.

3. Leon G. “Bud” Kennedy, Jr. left Santa Fe almost immediately after the murder of his wife and moved back to Denver. As far as I know, he never visited the City again, except to attend the trial and, later, the execution, of Louis Young. His father, however, was a national banking figure and had at least one occasion to visit Santa Fe. The brief society item that noted his visit also mentioned the tragic murder of Eloise Kennedy.

4. Santa Fe Builder’s Supply Company, the employer of Frank Flanagan, was known then as Sanbusco. Now it is Sanbusco Market Center, a retail shopping emporium. To answer the typical tourist question, the Center is not named for a saint. Sanbusco is a shortened version of the words, Santa Fe Builder’s Supply Company.

5. Warden John B. McManus eventually became Chief Justice of the New Mexico Supreme Court (1971-1979). Nicknamed “Blackjack” McManus, he had a reputation as a gambler and had a regular table at the Palace where he and his cronies played “Stacko,” a game involving stacked coins.

6. Warden Howell Gage held a number of political appointments before becoming warden in 1945. Previously, he had been a State Corporation Commissioner.

7. Drs. Coombs and Renfro maintained offices at the nearby Coronado Building, as did most of Santa Fe’s leading doctors, including Drs. Albert Lathrop and the infamous Nancy Campbell (but that’s another story).

8. Preston McGee’s Memorial Chapel Mortuary was opened in 1942 on Shelby Street. The mortuary moved to Luisa Street in 1956. In 1984, the name was changed to McGee Memorial Chapel.

9. State Police Captain A.B. Martinez, a large and forceful man, figures in many crime stories in Santa Fe, due to his astonishing ability to extract confessions from suspects. Most Santa Feans know him as a long-time member (and once President) of the Santa Fe Fiesta Council.

10. District Attorney David Carmody became a District Judge in Santa Fe, then Supreme Court Justice (1959-1969).

11. Seth Hall, scene of mass meetings in 1945, served as the high school gymnasium for the local high school. It was razed in 1955 for the Sweeney Convention Center which was, in turn, razed in 2007, to make way for yet another, grander convention center.

12. Fletcher Catron, one of Louis Young’s attorneys, was the son of the more famous Thomas B. Catron of Santa Fe Ring fame. Fletcher Catron (and his brothers, John, Charles and Tom) practiced law from their offices in the Catron Block, which consisted of most of the east side of the Plaza. The Catron law firm still exists (with another Fletcher Catron in charge, a nephew of our Fletcher Catron).

13. Frank Andrews also founded a legal dynasty with lawyer Seth Montgomery. The offices of Montgomery & Andrews are located directly across Paseo de Peralta from Sotheby’s International Realty.

14. I have no idea whatever happened to little Johnny Steel.

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