In December , three months after his arrest, Northcott was taken to the chicken ranch in handcuffs. Police reported that he initially said nine boys had been killed there, but admitted killing only five. No self-defense. Gordon Stewart Northcott will plead guilty to the above charge in Riverside County tomorrow. She was sentenced to life in prison. Northcott was charged with killing Walter, along with the Winslow brothers and the Mexican youth.
His trial began in January amid heavy security. Women were excluded from the jury because the judge believed the crimes were too heinous for the fairer sex to be exposed to. They were admitted as spectators, however. During breaks, he kidded around with the prosecutors. He was a conniving, smart guy, in a limited way. Northcott toyed with investigators, sending them on wild goose chases for bodies with hand-drawn maps that never led to anything. He fired three attorneys in succession, took over his own defense, growled obscenities at the prosecutor, Deputy D.
Earl Redwine, and even put himself and the prosecutor on the stand. Playing attorney and witness at the same time, he asked himself questions and answered them. Redwine portrayed Northcott as a pathological liar and a sadistic degenerate -- fearless, defiant, foulmouthed and full of bravado. At one point, smiling benignly at the jury, Northcott accused the sheriff of plotting to kill him and of stealing his legal papers.
Northcott had his mother brought from Tehachapi State Prison to testify on his behalf. That, along with the bodies of the Winslow brothers, revealed their true fates as two of Northcott's victims. In , Northcott asked his older sister Jessie to send her year-old son, Sanford Clark, to help Northcott on the chicken farm.
The teen left his home in Saskatchewan, Canada, with his year-old uncle. Reportedly, Northcott abused Clark. Clark later testified that his uncle molested him, beat him regularly, and forced him at gunpoint to watch - and even participate - in the murder of several boys. In , Jessie Clark came to visit the farm and check on her son.
Clark told her everything, and after Northcott attacked her, she informed their mother about the situation at the farm. Jessie left and contacted the authorities, who went to the farm to investigate. After the police closed in on the chicken farm in , Northcott and his mother fled back to their native Canada. However, they left a crucial witness behind: Northcott's nephew, who told the police about the crimes. The Northcotts hid out in British Columbia, where authorities then apprehended Northcott.
Police arrested Sarah Louise in Alberta. In it, he claimed to be innocent and that he had only fled to protect his mother from the shock of the accusations leveled against him. Once word got out about Northcott and the bodies buried under and around his chicken coop, the national media descended on the tiny town of Wineville, CA.
They nicknamed Northcott an " ape man " because of his extremely hairy arms and back. The public regarded Northcott's trial as sensationalized and ridiculous. He insisted on representing himself in court after firing several licensed defense attorneys. Northcott then put himself on the stand and grilled himself by asking and answering his own questions.
Throughout the trial, he kept insisting that he loved the boys he had killed and claimed that he was in a sexual relationship with his mother. The national media published every minute of the circus. At the reunion, Christine Collins claimed that the boy was not Walter. She was told by the officer in charge of the case, police Captain J.
Jones, to take the boy home to "try him out for a couple of weeks," and Collins agreed. Three weeks later, Christine Collins returned to see Captain Jones and persisted in her claim that the boy was not Walter.
Even though she was armed with dental records proving her case, Jones had Collins committed to the psychiatric ward at Los Angeles County Hospital under a "Code 12" internment—a term used to jail or commit someone who was deemed difficult or an inconvenience. During Collins' incarceration, Jones questioned the boy, who admitted to being year-old Arthur Hutchins Jr. His motive was to get to Hollywood so he could meet his favorite actor, Tom Mix.
Collins was released ten days after Hutchins admitted that he was not her son, and filed a lawsuit against the Los Angeles Police Department.
This aspect of the case is depicted in the film Changeling[6], although in the film Hutchins does not confess until after Mrs. Collins has been released. Five years after Gordon Northcott's execution, one of the boys previously thought to be murdered by Northcott was found alive and well. She continued to search for him for the rest of her life, but she died without ever knowing her son's fate.
In Arthur J. Hutchins, Jr. Hutchins' biological mother had died when he was 9 years old, and he had been living with his stepmother, Violet Hutchins. He pretended to be Walter Collins to get as far away as possible from her. After living on the road for a month he arrived in DeKalb.
When police brought him in, they began to ask him questions about Walter Collins. Originally, Hutchins stated that he did not know about Walter, but changed his story when he saw the possibility of getting to California.
After Arthur Hutchins reached adulthood, he sold concessions at carnivals. He eventually moved back to California as a horse trainer and jockey. He died of a blood clot in , leaving behind a wife and young daughter, Carol. According to Carol Hutchins, "My dad was full of adventure. In my mind, he could do no wrong. Briegleb was a Presbyterian minister and pioneer radio evangelist. He was the pastor of St.
He took up many important causes in the City of Los Angeles in the s and s, most notably the poor handling of the Walter Collins kidnapping case in He fought to have Christine Collins released from a mental hospital after she was committed there as retaliation for not going along with the LAPD's version of events.
Lewis Winslow c. Lewis, age 12, and Nelson, age 10, were the sons of Mr. Nelson H. Lewis, Sr. They went missing on May 16, from Pomona, California. On May 26, , H. Gordon Moore, a local Scoutmaster, reported that they ran away to Imperial, California to pick cantaloupes and helped with the search for the two boys.
Gordon Northcott was convicted of kidnapping and killing the Winslow brothers. Nelson Winslow, Sr. The police convinced the group to disband before seeing Northcott. When the show moved to television, the radio script was adapted into a teleplay and broadcast on December 4, The plot focuses primarily on the story of Arthur Hutchins' impersonation of Walter Collins.
In this version, the parental figure who reports the disappearance of the character based on Walter Collins is a widowed grandfather, raising the child on his own after the deaths of the boy's parents, rather than a single mother. Changeling, a film written by J. Michael Straczynski and directed by Clint Eastwood, is also based on the Northcott case.
The film primarily depicts the plight of Christine Collins played by Angelina Jolie , the mother of Walter Collins, and her search for her real son. The film depicts all the major figures except for Sarah Louise Northcott. The film, however, suggests that at least one of the Winslow boys and even perhaps Walter Collins escaped the farm. Flacco, Anthony; Jerry Clark November Union Square Press. ISBN Jenkins, Philip
0コメント