A few months later, the third and final incident involving Stoker, the California state medical investigators, and the Gangster Squad detectives took place. This one involved a nurse who was arranging for abortions for young girls at a cost of $500. The suspected doctor was one of the protected M.D.s, and again the state investigators asked Stoker to operate without the knowledge of their supervisor. This time they added another twist: he would have to obtain the $500 from his own department, in order not to tip off their connection to the investigation. Stoker went to his supervisor, Lieutenant Blair, who again said, 'I'll try and get the money for you, but keep me out of it.' Blair obtained the $500 from a vice slush fund, Stoker signed for the cash, and all was ready to proceed. The following morning at eight o'clock Stoker's phone rang. It was detective 'Joe Small' from Homicide. 'What do you think you're doing?' he asked, reminding Stoker that he had 'already been told once to stay out of abortion investigations.' Small informed Stoker that an officer would be by to pick up the $500 and would give him a signed receipt for the cash. Stoker signed over the cash to this officer: that ended his involvement in the abortion ring investigations. Eric Kirk was convicted of performing abortions and speedily sentenced to prison at San Quentin.
In May 1949, behind closed doors, Sergeant Charles Stoker was called before the grand jury and testified to everything he had learned about the abortion ring and the involvement of Gangster Squad detectives 'Joe Small and Bill Ball.' As a result of this testimony, the information he provided about the Brenda Allen scandal, and other testimony from LAPD officers, grand jury indictments were secured against Chief Clemence B. Horrall, Assistant Chief Joe Reed, Captain Cecil Wisdom, Lieutenant Rudy Wellport, and Sergeant E. V.Jackson.
After Stoker's testimony, Kirk, who remained behind bars in San Quentin, submitted, through his attorneys, a written affidavit to the Superior Court in an attempt to get a new trial based on the evidence provided by Stoker. In his affidavit, Kirk stated that he had been told by three separate Los Angeles attorneys that 'some politicians, or the Los Angeles Police Department, were out to get me, but that they [the attorneys] could not identify the interested parties or give their reasons for wanting me out of the way.' In his affidavit, Kirk said that immediately after his initial arrest, a co-defendant by the name of Tulley (no additional information was provided by Stoker) informed him that $2, 500 would 'square the beef.' The Monday following his arrest, Kirk and Tulley, out on bail, met with a seventy-one-year-old man named Dan Bechtel at his office in downtown Los Angeles. Upon receiving $2, 500 each from Tulley and Kirk, Bechtel immediately called a man by the name of 'Joe, ' spoke with him, and then told both defendants that the charges 'had been quashed by Joe.' Both Tulley and Kirk left Bechtel's office, but several days later were contacted and told to return. Both complied, and their monies were returned, whereupon Bechtel explained, 'the deal could not go through, as too many people were involved.' Bechtel made a final contact with Kirk, where he advised the chiropractor that 'he could get the charges dismissed but it would cost Kirk $16, 000.' Kirk could not raise that amount of money and, after his conviction, was remanded to custody and sent to prison. According to Stoker, in 1950 Dan Bechtel was indicted by the grand jury 'for accepting large sums of money from abortionists on the pretense that this money would be utilized in paying off law enforcement officers whose duty it is to arrest and prosecute abortions.'
From the moment that Sergeant Charles Stoker walked in and testified before the 1949 grand jury, his fate was sealed. He lost his job, lost his good name, and was publicly ridiculed. Ignoring warnings and threats to his life, he did ultimately publish a book about what had happened to him, which concluded:
Villains in the story books always get their just desserts, and we — the members of the 1949 county grand jury, and I — can only hope that justice and virtue will triumph in the future. In the words of the poet Young, 'Tomorrow is a satire on today, and shows its weakness.'
Ironically, on the same day a Superior Court jury was hearing testimony in the incest trial of my father — Wednesday, December 14, 1949 — the following article appeared in the
OUST STOKER AS LONE VICTIM
OF VICE PROBE
Charles F. Stoker, former vice squad sergeant, who touched off the lengthy grand jury investigation of police protected vice, wound up today as the only victim of the much-publicized purge.
He was discharged from the police force by Chief W.A. Worton, who approved the recommendation of a police board of rights, which found Stoker guilty of insubordination and conduct unbecoming an officer.
The article went on to note that, although five other police officers, including former Police Chief C. B. Horrall and former Assistant Chief Joe Reed, were also indicted on perjury and bribery charges, all were cleared.
Twenty-five years later, on March 10, 1975, the following article appeared in the back pages of the
STOKER, EX-OFFICER, DIES AT 57
Former Los Angeles Police Sgt. Charles Stoker, who was a central figure in a 1949 department scandal, has died of an apparent heart attack.
Stoker, 57, died yesterday morning in Glendale Memorial Hospital, where he was taken after suffering chest pains, while working in the Southern Pacific railroad yards. He was employed as a brakeman.
Stoker played a key role in exposing corruption in the LAPD vice squad, but was later accused of a burglary, which led to his dismissal from the force. Stoker contended that he was framed on the burglary charge.
Dr. Francis C. Ballard, the Beverly Hills physician to whom Father paid $500 for performing Tamar's abortion, was in all likelihood a member of the abortion ring Charles Stoker was trying to expose. As a matter of record, despite the strong case surrounding his October 1949 arrest for the abortion performed on Tamar, criminal charges against him were ultimately dismissed in 1950 after attorneys Giesler and Neeb successfully branded Tamar as 'a pathological liar and a young girl in need of psychological treatment, who should be in a hospital, not a court of law.'
Dr. Walter A. Bayley
In January 1997,
Several years later, his search for a suspect would develop into a lengthy Internet article promoting his theory that the Black Dahlia killer was a Los Angeles physician by the name of Walter A. Bayley.
Harnisch based his theory on several points: first, that Bayley was a prominent surgeon, which was in keeping with LAPD's premise that the murder and bisection of Elizabeth Short had to have been performed by a skilled surgeon; that Bayley's wife — from whom he was separated — lived at 3959 South Norton Avenue, less than a block from the Black Dahlia crime scene; that Bayley's daughter knew Adrian West, Elizabeth Short's sister, and indeed had been a witness at her marriage; and, finally, that Bayley had left his wife for a woman colleague, Dr.
