The Murder of Joe Arridy
You stand there, staring through a thick glass window into the dimly lit chamber. A thin man with a smile on his face is strapped into the chair positioned at the center of the small room. He doesn’t know what’s going on or why he’s here, but you do. As the two guards walk out of the chamber and securely lock the door behind them you can’t help but let the tears fall as the young man in the chair smiles at you one last time.
Disclaimer
This article contains mature themes that may not be suitable for all readers.
Early Life
Joe Arridy was born in Pueblo, Colorado on April 29, 1915 to Henry and Mary Arridy. His parents were Syrian emigrants who came to the United States in 1909. Joe’s father worked for the Colorado Fuel & Iron Works and they all lived in a small house owned by the company. During the first few years of his life Joe was an only child, and although he was physically well he had mental problems. Joe’s mental condition was not apparent until he entered the first grade and was not able to keep up with the other children. When he started the second grade the principal asked his parents to keep him home. For the next three years Joe stayed at home, playing and wandering as children do.
Colorado Fuel and Iron Works. Courtesy of KRCC.
In 1923 the Arridy’s had another son and the following year a daughter. With three children to support Henry Arridy quit his job at the ironworks and began bootlegging. With Henry constantly in and out of jail and Joe growing fast, on top of his other two siblings, his mother Mary could not keep up with him. Joe was not well supervised and even though he was quiet and resigned he spent much of his time wandering around the town of Pueblo. Not able to really control him and having to look after his brother and sister, Joe’s father became frustrated and unsure of what to do. Seeking advice from the neighbors, who all had a general disdain for Joe, they told his father to have him committed. With the neighbors help Henry went before the Pueblo District Court and had Joe committed to the Colorado State Home and Training School for Mental Defectives at Grand Junction. This was more or less an insane asylum. The judge agreed and Joe was sent to the home.
The asylum Joe stayed at, to the right you can see the railroad tracks. Courtesy of Colorado Ghosts
While at the asylum the professionals there tested Joe and determined that his IQ was only 46, he had the mind of a six year old. They described him as passive and a follower, eager to please. Nine months later Henry began to miss his son and have second thoughts about sending him to the center, so he successfully petitioned a judge to have Joe released. Joe returned home but again was not well supervised and continued to float around the city of Pueblo.
In September 1929, Joe now 14, was cornered by a group of older African American boys and forced to commit sexual acts on/with them. A probation officer happened to pass by during this incident and caught the boys performing sodomy on Joe. The officer saved joe from the situation and commenced to write a letter to the state home Joe was previously in. The letter stated, “I picked him up this morning for allowing some of the nastiest and dirtiest things done to him that I have ever heard of … The boy MUST be returned. The people of the neighborhood are indignant as they are afraid of the boy and think he never should have been turned loose…” The letter did not mention much of the other boys, though there was a separate letter written to local law enforcement about them but it is unknown whether much came of it.
Joe was taken back to the asylum and put in a special ward for “sexual deviants” where staff were trained to watch for and stop perverse activity, in particular the act of masturbation. During Joe’s entire time in the ward there was never a single incident in his file about sexual activity.
Trouble
Next to the asylum were active Union Pacific railroad tracks and it was not uncommon for patients to escape by train. On August 9, 1936 Joe, along with three others, hopped a train headed for Pueblo. Once they arrived in town Joe wandered around the trainyard while the others went to town. When the three returned they found Joe and hopped another train back to Grand Junction. On August 12, the three men gave up their flight, but not Joe. It remains unknown where he was for the next eight days as he did not remember and no one reported seeing him.
On August 20, he turned up in the railyards of Cheyenne, Wyoming. There Joe found Mr. and Mrs. Glenn Gibson who were in charge of a kitchen car and told them he would work for food. Joe started washing dishes for them and for the next several days he would remain there. During this time the train moved nine miles East to Archer, Wyoming, and on August 26, the train was set to move farther East but Joe could not go since he was not an official employee. Later that day Mrs. Gibson drove Joe back to the East Cheyenne railyards. Not long after he was arrested by railroad detectives and transferred to Laramie County Sheriff George J. Carroll.
Sheriff Carroll is a rather fantastic character that really has too much backstory to cover, but in short he was a highly experienced lawman who was loved by the press. He was persuasive and knew how to work people, part of the reason the media adored him, plus his experience made him a trusted figure. That’s why Carroll’s interest was piqued when he asked Joe where he was from and he responded, “Pueblo”.
Sheriff George J. Carroll, Courtesy of Laramie County
A major story was breaking in Joe’s hometown. A week before he hopped the train at Grand Junction on August 2, 1936 Mrs. R.O. McMurtree, fifty-eight, and her aunt, Sally Crumpley, seventy-two were sleeping in their home in Pueblo when someone broke in. The two were viciously attacked with a hammer and Sally Crumpley died from skull fractures. Mrs. McMurtree survived the encounter. Thirteen days later on August 15, only three blocks away from the first crime, Dorothy Drain, fifteen, and her sister Barbara, twelve, were attacked in a similar manner. Roughly the same time of night as the previous attack the two were sleeping while their parents attended a charity dance. The intruder entered the home and attacked both with a hatchet, then raped Dorothy. Dorothy died during the attack when the hatchet entered her brain, her sister Barbara survived but was left in a coma.
The police believed the crimes were related since they shared many similarities and a $1000 reward was put up for the capture of the perpetrator. Known and suspected sex criminals from all over the Southwest were rounded up and questioned. Officials took the crime so seriously that a man who escaped the Pueblo State Hospital was shot to death while resisting arrest.
Now Joe who was from Pueblo, escaped an insane asylum, and supposedly had a record of perverse sexual behavior was interrogated by keen lawman George Carroll. When Joe told him what town he was from Carroll immediately began connecting the dots. He knew much about the crime in Pueblo as he was good friends with the chief of police there. Just an hour and a half after he started questioning Joe, Carroll called chief J. Arthur Grady in Pueblo and told him, “We are holding a fellow here who says he killed the little Drain girl in your city.” Going on to say, ““He’s a nut — he can’t even read or write — and he’s told us two or three different stories. But he seems to know all about the Drain murder, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he is the man you want.” Chief Grady was surprised upon hearing this, later recounting that he almost dropped the phone when Carroll first told him since he thought he already had the perpetrator.
For the past six days Grady had been holding a man named Frank Aguilar and was trying to coax a confession out of him. Aguilar was a 35 year old Mexican native who had been hired and fired by Riley Drain, the two girls father. Aguilar was a suspect since he had showed up to Dorothy Drain’s funeral despite being fired and was acting suspicious during the service. Not bothering with a warrant the police searched Aguilar’s home and found a hatchet with knicks in it that the coroner believed matched the cuts in Dorothy Drain’s head. Grady had evidence but no confession while Carroll had a confession with no evidence.
Frank Aguilar’s mugshot. Courtesy of Find a Grave.
Over the next three hours the two would exchange phone calls, after which Arridy was purportedly able to provide details that matched those of the crime. It is not known exactly what was said between Joe and Carroll as there was no court reporter present and Carroll did not bother to write down their conversations. All that is known is what Carroll himself remembered and recounted. Carroll convinced Grady that Joe was who they were looking for so Pueblo County District Attorney French Taylor and two detectives traveled to Cheyenne to pick up Arridy.
While Grady did not want to announce he made an arrest for the crime until he had a solid case, Carroll was the opposite. As soon as Carroll could come up with a good narrative, he went to the press with his story. Even before DA Taylor and the detectives arrived he announced that he had a confession for the Drain case. Carroll participated in an extensive interview with The Pueblo Chieftain and news about Joe was spread all over. Carroll even told the paper that Joe committed the act“just for meanness” and gave the paper false details about the crime. Later he went back to correct these mistakes but no one ever asked or called him on them. Arridy was soon taken to Pueblo, without either side bothering with official extradition. French Taylor now began talking to the press as well but Carroll was not to be showed up. Carroll gave the papers a detailed account of how he made Joe confess, playing on the sexual deviant theme he told them that the only thing he could get Arridy to talk about was women. Carroll likely embellished much of his story but it is not known by how much since, again, there is no official documentation of the interrogation.
While the investigation continued the Pueblo Police conveniently found a witness who placed Joe in town at the time of the murders. A pawnbroker named Saul Kahn claimed that he sold a cheap pistol to a man named Joseph Arridy, not Joe Arridy. Joe was not a nickname but was Joe’s actual given name at birth and there was no reason for why Joe would tell the pawnbroker his name was Joseph. Another issue with the Kahn’s story is that Joe never had any money and did not know how to count so the question arises, how did he buy the gun? On top of all this the gun was never recovered.
Unfortunately the connection between Frank and Joe was made stronger when they met in Chief Grady’s office and Joe blurted out “That’s Frank!” Joe was of course very impressionable and just wanted to please, it is not unlikely that an officer put it into Joe’s mind to blurt out Frank’s name. Joe even admitted to the two other crimes that would have been impossible for him to commit since he was still in the asylum when they occurred. This should have set off red flags for detectives but they were eager to pin Frank for the crimes and needed Joe to help.
Joe Arridy’s mugshot. Courtesy of Wikipedia.
For the next five days Frank Aguilar stood up to interrogation and refused to confess to any of the crimes. However on September 2, 15 days after his arrest, Aguilar finally confessed. Unlike Joe’s confession that was only taken by Sheriff Carroll, Frank’s was taken down by an actual court reporter. Aguilar admitted that on the night of the rape and murder he overheard that Riley Drain and his wife would not be home that evening. He went to their house and watched them leave before entering the home and committing the crime. Whenever DA Taylor asked about Joe, Aguilar worked him into the story, but he never mentioned Joe without being asked. For example Taylor asked “Then Joe assaulted the big girl, didn’t he?” and Frank answered with a simple “Yes”. Taylor asked, “After Joe got through assaulting the girl what did you do to her?” and Frank responded with “I hit her”. Aguilar told police that they split up after committing the crime and never saw each other again until now.
Frank’s story went that he met Joe by chance and found out that Joe was a “sexual deviant”. Frank told Joe about the crime he was planning to commit and Joe agreed to go along with it. They sat hidden outside the Drain’s house and watched for Mr. and Mrs. Drain to leave. After the couple left they waited 10-15 minutes for the children to fall asleep. They broke into the home, found the girls bedroom and hit Dorothy several times with the hatchet before Frank started to rape her. In the middle of raping Dorothy, Barbara woke up and yelled at them to “get out!” Frank hit Barbara with the blunt end of the hatchet, knocking her out. He continued with Dorothy and once he was done Joe raped her. Once Joe was done Frank hit Dorothy again with the hatchet, though she was likely already dead, and they left the house. They split up and never saw each other after. Of course Joe being his agreeable self confirmed the story.
Frank Aguilar’s Trial
On December 15, 1936, four months to the day of the murder, Frank Aguilar was brought to trial for rape, assault, and murder of Barbara and Dorothy drain. He was also charged with the assault and murder of Mrs. R.O. McMurtree and Sally Crumpley. The star of the trial was Barbara, Dorothy’s little sister, who testified against Frank. She had fully recovered after spending two weeks in a coma and retained her memory of the night. Barbara said she woke up and saw the face of strange man in their room. DA Taylor asked if she said anything to him to which she stated “I told him to get out.” Taylor then asked if the man she saw was in the courtroom, she said yes and was then asked to identify the man. Barbara stood up, walked across the courtroom, stopped at the front of Aguilar and pointed at him. DA Taylor rested the prosecution's case after this.
That night Aguilar admitted to his lawyer that he did commit the murder. The next day Aguilar’s attorney asked if he could change the plea to insanity but the judge refused. The defense rested their case after this. The jury took little time to deliberate, some accounts say less than a half hour, and came back with a guilty verdict on all counts. Frank was sentenced to death by gas chamber.
Throughout Aguilar’s short trial no one brought up Joe and Barbara never said or was asked about a second man.
Frank Aguilar’s license plate grave marker. Courtesy of Friends of Joe Arridy.
Joe Arridy’s Trials
Joe had a court appointed attorney named C. Fred Bernard who worked hard to prove his innocence. Initially a not guilty plea was entered but was withdrawn and instead he pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity. Under Colorado law Joe would now have a separate trial just to determine his sanity and if he could even be tried for murder. In February 1937 the sanity trial opened before Pueblo County Judge Harry Leddy and Bernard had a strong case. At DA Taylors request Joe was examined by three state psychiatrists who all came to the conclusion that Joe was “incapable of distinguishing between right and wrong, and therefore, would be unable to perform any action with a criminal intent.” Their findings were almost word for word the legal definition of insanity. All three psychiatrists testified and told the court how they came to their conclusion.
The most interesting part of the trial was when Joe himself testified, being his benevolent self. Bernard asked Joe twenty-two simple questions to show that Joe was not sane and did not think the same as others.
Bernard asked “Do you know what an oath is?”
Joe answered “No.”
Bernard: “Who is Franklin Roosevelt?”
Joe: (No answer)
Bernard: “Do you know what the hearing is about?”
Joe: “No.”
Bernard: “Can you write?”
Joe: “Sure.”
Bernard: “Can you write anything besides your name?”
Joe: “No.”
The questions were all similar to this and Joe did not know the answer or understand most of them.
Ralph J. Neary, who took over the defense from DA Taylor, cross examined Joe and tried to ask questions that showed that Joe knew his bearings and what was going on around him. Also trying to touch on Joe’s supposed “perverse fantasies”.
Neary: “Where are you going tonight, Joe?”
Joe: “Back to Grand Junction.”
Neary: “Why are you going back to Grand Junction?”
Joe: “I like the place.”
Neary: “You want to do what you like to do, don’t you, Joe?”
Joe: “Yes.”
Neary: “Do you like Girls?”
Joe: “Pretty good (smiles).”
After Joe left the stand Neary called up four lawmen, one of them being Sheriff George Carroll. Unsurprisingly Carrolls testimony overshadowed everyone else's as he explained his experience with criminals and how he could tell that Joe understood right from wrong. After this testimony the jury deliberated and found Joe to be legally sane, therefore able to be tried for murder.
Joe’s murder trial began on April 12, 1937. Attorney Bernard asked that the first jury’s verdict be set aside and the new jury be allowed to decide Joe’s legal sanity, the judge allowed it. The prosecution still had to prove that Joe was legally sane and that he committed the crime but it was easier to prove the latter since Bernard asked to revisit the sanity subject. Neary still would not have an easy fight however as his only witness was Saul Kahn and the only physical evidence that linked joe to the crime was hair that was supposedly found at the crime scene. A Denver toxicologist said the hair was Joe’s against the odds of 250 to 1, one must remember that crime investigation was not an exact science at this time. Bernard shot holes in this evidence as he pointed out that the hair was not recovered from the crime scene until after Joe was arrested. He argued that if it was Joe’s hair then it was not hair taken from the scene of the crime but hair taken directly from Joe after his arrest.
Of course Sheriff George Carroll was the star witness, he was a showman and easily manipulated the court. Neary asked Carroll to tell about Joe’s confession, “detailing it as you can remember it”. This is where Carroll shined as he was able to recite the dialogue between Joe and him word for word. The Sheriff began, “First, I started off by saying, ‘Well, Joe, you like the girls pretty well don’t you?’ And he said, ‘Yes.’ I said, ‘You have had several girls during your lifetime.’ And he said, ‘Yes.’ I said, ‘If you like the girls so well, why did you hurt these two girls?’ He said, ‘I didn’t mean to.’” The recitation continued with Carroll playing both parts, even mimicking Joes limited vocabulary. Explaining details of the crime in Joe’s voice and implicating him the entire time. One of the most damning parts of his testimony went like this, “Did you have sexual intercourse?” “I don’t know what you mean.” “I says, ‘What did you do to the girls?’” “He says, ‘I screw ‘em.”
Bernard did what he could but Carrolls testimony sealed Arridy’s fate. Bernard had the three psychiatrists testify again, they had not changed their opinion from the last time. He even had a fourth, Medical Doctor Benjamin Jefferson who was the superintendent of the institution Joe had lived in. Doctor Jefferson also agreed that Joe was not sane and incapable of his actions. Neary put the lawmen up and again had them explain how Joe knew right from wrong. After this the jury left and returned after deliberating for three and a half hours. They said that Joe was sane and found him guilty of rape and murder, he was sentenced to death by gas chamber. The next day The Chieftain reported that Joe “took no notice of the pronouncement of the death verdict as delivered by the jury foreman.”
Joe seeing his mom. Courtesy of Friends of Joe Arridy.
Death Row
On August 11, 1937 The Chieftain reported that the $1,000 reward offered in the Drain case had been awarded to Sheriff Carroll and the railroad detectives who turned Joe Arridy over. Two days later, August 13, Frank Aguilar was executed. Joe’s original execution date was October 16, 1937, but he was able to receive several stays and the date was moved. The warden of the jail Joe was at, Warden Best, helped Joe greatly and even hired an attorney for him. Best was a tough but fair man. He believed in capital and corporal punishment but he was also caring and took pity on Arridy, seeing that Joe was not what the police and press made him out to be.
Joe with Warden Best. Courtesy of the Denver Public Library.
Best hired Gail Ireland, one of the best attorneys of the time, to take over Arridy’s case. Ireland kept it alive on the insanity issue and tried to move the case out of Pueblo County and away from Judge Leddy to a Judge in Fremont County, where Cañon City and the penitentiary were located. He was successful in getting a Fremont judge to assume jurisdiction, but the Colorado Supreme Court ruled the case belonged to Pueblo. Despite the troubles Ireland faced he was able to establish nine stays to keep Arridy alive.
Lawyer Gail Ireland. Courtesy of Terri Bradt.
Joe spent a year and a half on death row and it was a joyful time for him. He spent much of it playing and entertaining himself with the never ending endurance of a child. He would polish his metal food plate and use it as a mirror to talk to himself and make funny faces that he would laugh at. Warden Best gave him children’s picture books that contained funny faces, Joe laughed at them until they fell apart. Best gave Joe scissors when this happened so he could cut the faces out and he did so while humming peacefully. However Joe didn’t like anything more than the bright red wind-up car with battery powered headlights and the toy train, a model of a Union Pacific streamliner, that was given to him by Warden Best and his wife. Joe would scoot the car around his cell, and if it smashed into something or tipped over he would shout, “Car wreck! Car wreck!” He would run the train up and down the hallway between the death row cells, the other inmates in his block, all confessed killers, were patient with Joe and would catch his train when he rolled it their way.
Joe playing with his train. Courtesy of Friends of Joe Arridy.
Best allowed the press to interview and talk to Joe and they loved him. “I want to live here with Warden Best,” Joe told one reporter in December 1938. “Don’t you want to go back to the home in Grand Junction?” the reporter asked. “No, I want to get a life sentence and stay here with Warden Best. At the home the kids used to beat me…. I never get in trouble here.” As the execution date neared, a Cañon City reporter wrote that Joe was unaware of the building tension, “He sat in his cell making faces in his polished dinner plate.” Stating that, “He cannot comprehend that the state wants to take his life.”
Joe eating ice cream. Courtesy of Friends of Joe Arridy.
On January 5, 1939 Best asked Joe what he would like for his last meal, to which he replied, “Ice Cream”. That same evening Best brought Joe a box of cigars and a mountain of homemade candy, he ate so much that his stomach became upset and he gave the rest of it away to other inmates. The next day was his last and he started it with a short visit from his mother and other family members, his father had died 11 months earlier. When visiting with his mother, she collapsed in tears but Joe didn’t understand and returned to his cell. He spent the rest of the day smoking cigars, eating ice cream and playing with his beloved train. As he was walked to the gas chamber Joe stopped and gave his train to one of the other inmates. As he did this he talked about how he would soon be raising chickens and playing the harp, “like the padre told me.” Warden Best proclaimed that Joe was “The happiest man on death row.”
Joe giving away his toy train. Courtesy of Friends of Joe Arridy.
On January 6, 1939 Joe Arridy was sent to the gas chamber and murdered for a crime he did not commit. The next day the Daily News headline read “23-Year-Old ‘Child’ Dies For Slaying” and reported that “He walked to his death with the faith of a child, and grinned as he was strapped into the death chair.” Joe was buried in the prison cemetery, a spot known as Woodpecker Hill, and a motorcycle plate marked his grave.
Joe Arridy’s motorcycle plate grave marker. Courtesy of Executed Today.
Friends of Joe Arridy
On January 7, 2011, 72 years after his death, Colorado Governor Bill Ritter granted Arridy a full and unconditional posthumous pardon. An organization was formed called Friends of Joe Arridy who try to keep his memory alive. They raised money for a new headstone to replace the old rusted license plate with a beautiful marble headstone. The stone contains a picture of Joe playing with his train and chiseled in it are the words, “Here Lies an Innocent Man”.
Joe’s new gravestone. Courtesy of Jeremy Bravo on Flickr.
Joe Arridy’s case was forgotten about until 53 years later on March 28, 1992 when sociologist Richard Voorhees discovered a poem in an out-of-print book about a warden crying over an executed prisoner. Through different channels it was found who the poem was about and the story of the case was reignited. Robert Persky took up the task of writing a book about Arridy’s case and between 1992-1994 he collected research while writing the book. In 1995 the book Deadly Innocence? was published and spread the word about what happened to Joe. Along the way the organization Friends of Joe Arridy was formed and to this day they continue to keep his memory alive.
Their website: http://friendsofjoearridy.com/
Below is the poem that ignited it all.
“The Clinic”
The Warden wept before the lethal beans
Were dropped that night in the airless room,
Fifty faces apeering against glassed screens,
A clinic crowd outside the tomb.
In the corridor a toy train pursued
Its tracks past countryside and painted station Of tinny folk.
The doomed man’s eyes were glued On these, he was the tearless one
Who waited unknowing why the warden wept
And watched the toy train with the prisoner
Who watched the train, or ate, or simply slept.
The warden wrote a sorry letter,
“The man you kill tonight is six years old, He has no idea why he dies,”
Yet he must die in the room the state has walled
Transparent to its glassy eyes.
And yet suppose no human is more than he,
The highest good to which mankind attains
This dry-eyed child who watches joyously The shining speed of toy trains,
What warden weeps in the stony corridor,
What mournful eyes are peering through the glass,
Who will ever shut a final door
And watch the fume upon a face?
FINDING JOE ARRIDY
If you would like to purchase Robert Persky’s book Deadly Innocence? then please consider using my affiliate link below.
Personal Thoughts
This was a difficult topic for me to research. I became sad several times when reading about it and everytime I read about how much he enjoyed playing in the prison it really gets to me. I don’t understand what they were thinking. I know that at this time people with mental disorders were looked down on by society but I don’t think any of the police really hated Joe. I think it was just a case where they sacrificed Joe to get the real killer. Looking at the evidence I don’t see how they couldn’t eventually convict Frank without Joe but I suppose hindsight is 20/20. The person I blame more than anyone is Carroll, I think he was doing it more for the notoriety than anything. I also wonder if DA Taylor made Neary prosecute Joe so if he was found guilty Taylor wouldn’t have to live with the fact that he convicted an innocent man. Especially when Taylor was the original one to have Joe seen by psychiatrists.
This is just a sad story and it killed me to research it but I thought it was important to try and spread the word, especially when today there are still innocent people on death row.
Sources
http://friendsofjoearridy.com/articles/
https://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/ny-justice-story-joe-arridy-20190428-vprcd5dgira37gjiwcnr3dnlky-story.html
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-pardon-colorado-posthumous/colorado-governor-pardons-man-executed-for-murder-in-1939-idUSTRE70660W20110107
http://friendsofjoearridy.com/chronology/
http://friendsofjoearridy.com/thepoem/
http://friendsofjoearridy.com/photos/
