Alcoholism Cracks a Cold Case

 Parley L. Bennett

Tuesday, January 25, 1927 probably seemed a day like any other for LAPD Patrolman Parley L. "Pat" Bennett, who was working the traffic detail at 7th and Los Angeles Streets, except for the plans he'd made with his wife Elizabeth to take their two young children, Kenneth (aged 6) & Enid (aged 3), to the traveling circus later in the day. All of that changed when he was alerted to a burglary in progress half a block away from his post.

A young man had entered the Brodine Millinery Company at 724 South Los Angeles Street just as the employees were closing shop and getting ready to head home. He produced a revolver and demanded money. The bookkeeper, Mrs. Charlotte Johnson, initially refused but was told she'd be shot if she didn't comply. Mrs. Johnson backed away from the cash box containing $75.00.

Another employee, Miss Ruth Werner, was in the back of the shop and managed to sneak away unseen and inform one of the owners of the situation. Mr. A. Brodine made it out of the building and found Officer Bennett who was directing traffic.

Bennett ran to the location but barely had time to assess the situation and draw his service revolver before being gunned down. The burglar was on his way out and Bennett was on his way in. Bennett was shot multiple times and DOA when transported to the Central Receiving Hospital. He'd been on the force for 2 1/2 years.

The unknown man now possessed the stolen $75 and Bennett's revolver. He ran out of the building and boarded a passing streetcar. Witnesses described him as white, between 5 foot 4 inches and 5 foot 7 inches, weighing between 135 and 145 pounds and he looked to be about 24-years-old. He wore a grey suit and had a cap pulled down over his eyes.

A massive manhunt involving 70 detectives failed to produce the man responsible. Police Captain Herman Cline offered up $250 of his own money for information leading to a successful arrest and conviction. An additional $5,000 was added to the pot and although as many as 250 suspects were questioned, none of the men were positively identified by the witnesses. The killer eluded capture for 44 years.

Within a week of Bennett's murder, merchants on Los Angeles Street between 7th and 8th Streets raised $1,000 for the widow and her two children. An impressive amount of money back in 1927 (roughly $14,460.00 in today's money) but hardly fair compensation for what Elizabeth had already lost by the time she'd reached 34. Elizabeth had given birth to 4 children between 1920 and 1925 but their second child, a daughter named Alice and their fourth and final child, a son named George had both died in infancy. Now her husband was gone.

On October 14, 1971, LAPD police officers were responding to a "disturbing the peace" call and found a disheveled 67-year-old Matthew Kilgariff blocking traffic near Western Avenue and Romaine Street. Kilgariff told police he'd been on a bender but hadn't had a drink in two days and was suffering from the DT's. He said needed psychiatric care. To further convince them of his need to be taken in to custody, Kilgariff admitted to a string of unsolved burglaries and told them he'd also killed a police officer in 1927. That case had long gone cold but police threw him in a cell while they dug through the old files.

Sure enough, there was an unsolved killing of a police officer from January 25th 1927 but the only evidence they had linking Matthew Kilgariff to the crime was his somewhat sketchy confession. Kilgariff didn't have all the details correct, his recollection of the day in question was February 27th and he thought he'd robbed a paper store, but he had a rap sheet consistent with that crime, including burglary, robbery, vagrancy, drunkenness and a 15-year-stint in a Texas prison for robbery and assault with intent to commit murder. His physical appearance at the time of the crime matched their suspect but after 44 years nobody would be able to offer a valid identification that would hold up in court. All the same, they arrested him and hoped that a jury would believe his audiotaped confession which included his assertion that when robbed the safe and shot Officer Bennett he was broke and drunk. His recorded confession included the statement "Like I told you before I wasn't proud of what I did. It's been 44 years of hell." Poor you.

What else do we know about Matthew Francis Kilgariff other than he was an alcoholic and a career criminal?

Well, he entered the world on January 10, 1904, one of nine children born to Patrick and Cecelia Kilgraiff. When Cecelia died on November 18, 1920, her 16-year-old son Patrick was already living in the Connecticut (Reform) School for Boys located in Hartford. The 1920 Census for that location was taken on January 6th so we can't attribute his waywardness to the death of his mother. Cecelia still had another 10 months to live. The same census reveals there were 6 Kilgariff youths, ranging in age from 5 to 24-years-old, still living with Patrick and Cecelia on Goodman Place in 1920 so this isn't a case of a family being unable to provide for their children and being forced to commit them to an orphanage. It would seem that Matthew was the bad apple, the black sheep, the problem child.

Matthew's youngest sibling Bernard would die tragically on March 8, 1925 at the age of 10 when he rollerskated out into traffic and was struck by a speeding automobile. The driver, Louis Bianchi was arrested & Patrick Kilgariff sued him for $10,000 but a judge dismissed the case for lack of evidence and essentially held the child responsible for his own death although there was some belief that one of Bernard's rollerskates got caught in a trolley car track and he was unable to move.

Among the 100 individuals who testified at Matthew Kilgariff's long overdue trial in 1972 was Officer Bennett's widow Elizabeth. Now remarried and living in Idaho, she recalled that terrible afternoon as if it were yesterday. Elizabeth and her brother-in-law John Bennett, also a policeman, took the children to the circus that night despite the sad news "because Pat had promised and he was known as a man of his word."

The only eyewitness the prosecution could produce, so long after the crime, was 59-year-old Raymond Varela who had been on the scene that afternoon. Varela had taken a streetcar to the neighborhood that day to buy a pair of shoes. Raymond Varela had seen much that day but he didn't report any of it to the police at the time. Varela only came forward in 1971 after reading about Kilgariff's arrest and spontaneous confession. To his credit, despite seeing a police officer being gunned down in the line of duty, Raymond Varela had joined the LAPD and spent 10 years (1938-1948) on the force. Varela managed to describe in detail the events of that afternoon including seeing Officer Bennett run into the store, being shot in the doorway and the killer escaping.  "I was just 14 years old at the time but it made a deep impression on me." 

A eulogy for Parley L. Bennett printed in the Los Angeles Times on January 28, 1927 railed against "sob sisters and sentimentalists" who would "work up a false and outrageous pity for the deadly gunman" and "unscrupulous lawyers" who "take advantage of our lax and cumbrous legal procedure." The author hoped for a swift trial and that the criminal would "receive the just desserts of his foul deed."

How disappointed that author would have been that it took 44 years for Matthew Kilgariff to be brought to justice and that at his trial a psychiatrist, Dr. Magdalene Nemeth, would declare the audiotaped confessions to be false and mere hallucinations.

The jury believed his confession however and on April 28, 1972, after two days of deliberation, Matthew F. Kilgariff was found guilty of first degree murder. The mandatory sentence was life in prison.

In an unusual move, Kilgariff's competency was questioned only after the verdict was rendered. In July 1972, three court-appointed psychiatrists agreed unanimously that the defendant was unable to understand the proceedings and sentencing was postponed. Maybe they were right. Kilgariff offered no defense at the trial and simply sat there in court staring off into space. Kilgariff was committed to the Atascadero State Hospital for a year of treatment and observation. If there was no improvement, he was to remain there. If the opposite was true he'd be relocated to the state prison. The public defender argued that Kilgariff should be sent to either Camarillo State mental Hospital or Nowack State Hospital because "the conditions are more humane and the psychiatric treatment would be better."

In November 1972, the Judge presiding over the case reduced the charge to second degree murder "because of the defendant's age and physical condition." This change made Kilgariff eligible for parole in 2 years.

Matthew F. Kilgariff died on October 13, 1976 while still an inmate of the Atascadero State Hospital in San Luis Obispo County, California.