SATIN PUMPS-Steve Kosareff

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through three trials. The the handsome, wealthy doctor and his beautiful young paramour planned to kill his glamorous socialite wife, or did the gun accidentally discharged as he claimed. Early in the evening on July eighteenth, nineteen fifty nine, doctor Bernard Finch and his girlfriend Carol Anne Tregoff drove from their Las Vegas love nest to the Finch home in the Los Angeles suburb of West Cavina to speak to his wife, Barbara about obtaining a speedy divorce in Nevada.

But the plan went awry and the conversation turned deadly, with Barbara's lifeless body ending up in her in law's backyard next door.

of Hollywood, Las Vegas and Palm Springs. Satin Pumps, The Moonlit Murder That Mesmerized the Nation is a true crime memoir written by former Finch patient, screenwriter and author Steve Koseref. The book that we're featuring this evening is Satin Pumps, The Moonlit Murders That Mesmerize the Nation, with my special guest, screenwriter and author Steve Kosaref. Welcome to the program, and thank you very much for this interview. Steve Koseref, Hi.

on to other things. And the way this came about is I found out a friend was friends with one of the producers, former producers of Law and Order, and god, I thought, well, here's my break. You know, I'm going to be able to write something and get it died maybe it'll get made. And so I actually started writing. I found about three ideas, and I thought satin pumps

would be the most commercial. So I started writing it as a treatment for ten to twelve episode limited series, and you know, got it together, gave it to my friend, he delivered it, and that's about as far as it got the producer had other parts of his own. He went on too, and I thought, you know, I spent all this time researching this and developing it. I said, I think there's a book in here. So I went back and started to shape it as a book to

do a lot more in depth character study. I actually got into genealogical research, which was a gold mine because it actually gave me material and background as to why the characters did what they did. And it was very helpful going into that, and so I was able to cover areas in the book and get into detail that you never could in a limited television series.

no record of these. They couldn't find even a case file number, which is just really bizarre because this was a major criminal trial that lasted, you know, over eighteen months. So I started to do a little more research and I thought, I'm going to try the District Attorney's office. And I don't really have easy access even on the

Internet to it. And I found some sort of back channel I don't even remember how on the internet, and this is you know, detective work, and I sent off a note and finally, after some doing, I got a response and they had to search for the files themselves, but they actually located them. They were in an archive holding storage facility somewhere in the San Fernando Valley, so they pulled them, but they gave me limited access to them. I had like and it was very specific, you know,

I had like so many hours a day. They had somebody there, I guess to make sure that I wouldn't pocket the transcripts, and so I did have access, not as much as I wanted, but I was able to confirm some things by the access.

finally and continues on this run. And he ends up across the street at a neighbor's home, and there spots a car, and as many people did in the nineteen fifties, they left their cars unlocked, and not only that, they

left the keys in the ignition. So he gets the bar and he steals it and he starts driving and he ends up in lat twenty And I'm thinking that in his state of mind, he thought he was going to pick up Carol Tregoff, his girlfriend, at her home with her former husband, but she was no longer living there and she had actually moved to Las Vegas prior

to this occurring. So he ends up in a lat pwenty neighborhood, ditches the one car and then steals another same case doors unlocked the keys in the ignition, and unfortunately, when he dumps the first car, he blocks the driveway of a policeman who is going to work morning, so he calls the police you know, give him the car

and finds out the car has been stolen. So Finch at this point in the second car is headed to the West co Medical Clinic and as he's spend some time there, as he pulls out of the driveway, the police at this point have been notified about him and a patrol car spots him and they give chase and he jumps on the Sam Brandino Freeway headed towards Los Angeles, which is about twenty miles away, and at this point eventually there are twenty patrol cars that are speeding after him,

and somehow he manages to elude them, gets off the freeway and switches back and heads back in the other direction, but the police don't know that. They come across what they think is the same nineteen fifty five cadillec they've been chasing. They run this car off the road. The car spins around in an the median gravel strip. They run towards the car, gun's drawn and one officer flings the door open and there's an elderly woman sitting in

the driver's seat. So obviously they didn't catch Finch, who by now is halfway to Las Vegas. And that's how that scene ends in the book.

dead in town in the eastern San Gabriel Valley. And here she meets Finch. You know, he's wealthy, he's handsome, he's charming, and shortly after her baby's delivered, she ends up working for him as a medical assistant. And Finch had a habit at this point, but it's not so much known as it was later that you know, he was attracted to the ladies and he had no problem with having extramarital affairs. Finch was married at this time his first wife, Francs, and had three children by her.

Barbara and her husband were living in Baldwin Park and somehow they Finch and Barbara orchestrated it. And I don't know, this is just really bizarre. Orchestrated Finch and his wife and children moving next door to Barbara and her husband involved in park. Right, so now they're literally physically close, if not you know, romantically involved, and eventually, you know,

the hours that she works with Finch. They turned into late nights and you know, her husband in Finch's wife, Francis, had to be wondering, you know, what's going on, and they became involved, and eventually they wanted to get married, and so you know, I'm sure Barbara's husband, Lyle at the time, wanted to put a stop to it, and you know, his threat was that he was going to

take their daughter away. And Barbara wanted out of this marriage so badly that she was willing to make that deal to give up her parental rights at that point to her two year old daughter. So she and Finch ended up getting married in Las Vegas, near close to Christmas Eve, and they at that point had no home together.

They were living in their separate apartments. He was in the process of building a hilltop home in West Covina that he designed, and it took about close to a year for it to be finished before they moved in there. And you know, eventually Barbara's daughter, Patty, who was close to eleven at the time, he ended up moving in there with them, and shortly after that, Barbara gave birth to Finch's son, Raymie, and the first couple of years of their marriage, you know, in the home were great.

They had quite a social life. They were members of the Los Angeles Tennis Club, where they played tennis with

celebrities like Vera Allen and actor director Mark Stevens. The Los Angeles Tennis Club the president at the time was Cornwell Jackson, and Cornwell Jackson was Earl Stanley Gardner's literary agent, and Cornwell was also married to Gail Patrick Jackson, who had been an actress in the thirties and forties and she was sort of retired and she was looking for something to do, and through their association with Earl Stanley Gardner, the three of them decided to She pitched the idea

for the Permy Mason TV series and basically Earl Stanley Gardner was on board and she ended up selling it. So this is sort of the circles of the Finches ran in. They were also members of the South Hills Country Club, which was literally down the hill and right

across the street from their home. Golf course, tennis and so, as I said, they could slum with the doctors and the lawyers in the eastern San Gabriel Valley if they didn't happen to have a handy celebrity around so at the time of their divorce, which later occurred, the Finch's estate was estimated to be about six million dollars in twenty twenty one dollars. He not only owned the home, but he was partnered with his brother in law, Gordon Franklin in the West Cavena medical clinic, and also they

were taking a line of credit. They were building a hospital that was right adjacent to it. They also owned the labs. They had a lot of properties together, and so he was a pretty wealthy son. Finch's family goes way back into the history of the area. His grandfather was one of the founding fathers of the city of Cavena. He helped drill one of the first water wells there. And Finch's father, also named Raymond, was a optometrist and a cowner of a jewelry store that was well known

in the area. And the Finches were well like. They were very civic, very wealthy, very carrying people, very religious people. But something changed with Bernie as he was growing up and became a doctor and it just didn't seem to be enough for him, and so well, when he was married to Barbara, like I said, the first couple of years were pretty good and then he started to you know,

the way they had met was through an affair. Well that didn't stop, you know, after he had married her, and a couple of years later he ended up meeting Carol Tregoff. She was about nineteen. She was looking for a job. She was in a loveless marriage and she was looking to do something. So she found an ad for a receptionist position that was coming a medical clinic

and was hired. She worked in that for several months and then Finch needed a medical assistant his was retiring, so she applied for that job and was hired on a trial basis. And initially they weren't involved sexually romantically, if you know, she knew that Finch was even carrying on with his nurse at this time, so she you know, she had a pretty good idea what he was like. But eventually he started to ask her out for lunch

and they ended up you know, being involved. And there was one interesting date that they had which she considers the first romantic date was at the Luel restaurant in Beverly Hills. And if anybody knows about that restaurant, it was a famous Polynesian restaurant that was owned by Stephen Crane, who was Lana Turner's husband, and it has quite a history.

There's even a story about the time that Lena Horn was there and some races made a crewde remark about her, and she picked up a lamp and threw it at him, along with three other ashtrays and being the guy on the head. But Finch and Carol went to the Luell restaurant one night, they drinking scorpions. They probably were a little tipsy. They may have been even asked to leave the restaurant, and they ended up in his nineteen fifty

seven Chrysler three hundred C convertible, beautiful expensive car. They ended up in the Hollywood Hills and she didn't get home. Finch didn't get her home till about four point thirty in the morning. And you know, she's still married to her husband, Jimmy Poppa at this point, who's been up all night wondering where she's been. And once she comes into the door, you know, he wants answers and she's

not forthcoming and giving him anything. So he thinks Jimmy thinks he's going to get back at her, and he calls Finch, her employer, and tells him that she's been out all night. When little does Jimmy know the person that Churl's been out all night is with Finch. And in my retelling in the book, I'm thinking, how did Finch stifle the laughter? You know, it had to have

been pretty funny, but it wasn't funny to Jimmy. And you know, he demanded, you know, he was telling Finch that she's not coming into work, she's been out all night, blah blah blah. And so she doesn't go in that night. And the next day or two is when Jimmy comes home from work, opens the front door and the place is completely empty to furniture, Carol her clothes and everything, and he makes a trip to the West Covina Medical Clinic to confront Finch and Carol about what's going on.

And I'll give you a chance to get a question in here.

And at that point, this was prior to when that first date with Finch and Carol, this is just when things are starting to happen. And Jimmy had heard the rumors at the time, but you know, they didn't believe him. You know, they had been Carol and Finch had been spotted in Palm Springs where she liked to water ski and he liked to play tennis. And you know, he is, you know, when he's talking to Barbie, he says, well, they had a legitimate reason there. You know, they could

have been saying a patient and so on. And Barbara, you know, she's not buying that, you know, And then Jimmy finally says, well, you know, if you're afraid that there is adultery going on, why don't you just get a divorce? And she tells Jimmy she's already been through one marriage. She doesn't want another, and she's fearful of losing not only her status but her financial you know, access too. And at the time, California had no community

property laws. If a wife could prove or a husband could prove adultery, that spouse could end up with just about everything. And this becomes it starts to be a problem that starts brewing for Finch because he realizes this, especially when Barbara finally has had enough and decides to file for divorce.

His father, who ends up retiring from his life as optometrist, ends up buying the lot right on the other side of the driveway and builds a house there. So Barbara's in laws are literally living across the driveway. And Finch's father is really a nice man's very loving, very thoughtful. He adores his daughter in law and she does him. Finch's mother is an invalid. She's a wheelchair bound and

not in very good health. And you know, during when Barbara realizes has had enough of his affairs, and particularly his affair with Carol, you know, the parent, his parents can hear the fighting that's going on up above and the screaming and everything, and some of this this verbal abuse actually starts to turn physical and Finch starts taking a couple of cracks at Barbara, and there are cases where she's reported this to the police. In her divorce proceeding.

She actually has gone to the attorney, her divorce attorney, with a cut over her eye, and she claims that Finch is trying to kill her. And I think Finch is so frustrated that he sees that possibly as a way out. And this is when he and Carol start to plan what they're going to do with Barbara, and they decide, you know, at this point, when Barbara's filing divorce papers, Finch and Carol are worried that she's going

to be named as a correspondent. So she quits her job as his medical assistant and she moves to Las Vegas, and she moves in with a childhood friend and his grandmother, and she gets a job at the Sands Hotel, the cocktail waitress, and she starts asking her friend, you know, do you know anybody? Do you know some bad dudes here? You know, you know some bad guys in town? And I'm not so sure that she was specific, but she wanted she was looking for basically a hit man to

do in Barbara. And her friend Don doesn't know anybody, but he knows somebody who might. He's taking a class at the University of Las Vegas, and so he contacts this guy and then this guy apparently knows somebody. And this guy's name is Jack Cody. Jack Cody is a major character in the story and literally quite a character. He's a con artist, but he's not a murderer, but they don't know that. But he will present himself to you anyway he thinks he can get something out of you.

So he basically is presenting himself as a bad dude to care Carl and Carol is in Street Smart. She's really not a criminal. So she's listening to him and she wants to believe, and so she's buying into what he's saying. So she talks to Finch and they decide to basically hire Jack Cody to do Barbara in and they pay him half of something that's just under two thousand dollars fee, which is really cheap. Now, the interesting thing I noted here is she's working at the Sands Hotel,

which was mobbed up at the time. Why didn't she approach an employee there who might have had a connection to basically a real hit man, you know, a real assam. She didn't do that, And I think it's that they were just too cheap to pay. What would a doof cost to kill Barbara. So they decide to hire Jack Cody. You know, they pay him half the fee, and Cody, being a con man, he takes the money and you know,

basically gambles it away, drinks it away. And they had set a July fourth weekend or the time for him to go to Los Angeles and kill Barbara. Well, they come back. Finch is back in Las Vegas with Carol, and Carol tells him. He calls Carroll and says, well, I did the job. And Carol's very enthused, you know that Barbera's out of the picture, and she calls Finch. Finch is just kind of a little doubting Thomas. He gets on the phone, he calls his home and Barbara

answers it, so she's very much alive. So they get a hold of Cody and they want to know what went wrong, and Cody's got this wild story. You know, Hey, I killed a woman. I put her body in the trunk of a car. I used that shotgun. And then Finch all of a sudden says, well, you must have killed her friend by accident. Barbara has been staying with when she was running and trying to hide from Finch

during the physical abuse. She stay with a friend in Hollywood, and so he said, you killed wrong woman, and Jack Cody says, well, I'll go back and do it right. And there is another attempt made. But what happens this time is basically Jack Cody takes the money, he goes to Los Angeles and he ends up having a friend drive him back to Las Vegas where he gathers his things, and he heads back to Minnesota where he's from, and never does the job. And at that point that's the

last that Carol and finchsee of Jack Cody. But dowed there faced with having to take care of Barbara themselves, and they did have a plan B, and this involved neutralizing her, injecting her with second all and then a second injection which would put an air bubble in her bloodstream and kill her. They were going to place her body in the Chrysler, this beautiful car, placed her body in the car, and send it over the ravine which

is next to the house. And their hope was that it would look like an accident, that she had died a natural death to the car crashing over the side of the Hill, and that's sort of where the plan is at this point. And I'll take a moment here before I get into what really happened after that.

put all these things together into valise. And when Carol gets off of work about six o'clock the evening of the eighteenth, she picks up Finch, who had been staying at their apartment in Las Vegas. The cases in the back seat. She's in her just fifty five bronze and

white DeSoto convertible, which is a beautiful car. And they're making this five hour drive from from Las Vegas to West Cavina under the pretense, you know, they're telling themselves basically that they're going to talk to her about a divorce, about Barbara moving to Las Vegas to get a speedy divorce. That's what they would later tell, you know, investigators and police. So they drive to Las Vegas, I mean, they drive

to West Cavina. Barbara at this point had earlier in the day left the home in the Chrysler, and she's driven to the Los Angeles Tennis Club for a game of doubles and with a girlfriend of hers, the woman's fiance, and then another man who turns out to be her divorce attorney's investigator, and they play doubles. They have drinks at the country club, and then they go out to

a local steakhouse for dinner. They come back to the country club, Barbara picks up her car and she drives back, and just about the time that Finch and Carol are arriving in West Cavina, parking the car at the South Hills Country parking lot, Barber is starting to drive back from the Los Angeles Tennis Club on the San Bernardino Freeway to her home in West Cavena. Once finching, Carol park the car, he gets out. He's going to surveil

the property. First. He walks up the hill on the side of his father's property and then up his driveway to avoid being seen by anybody. But there's a major spotlight floodlight on the property, which he pulls the cord out of and he looks around. He doesn't see anybody. He realizes that she's gone, so he motions and waves at Carol down below the hill to come up. She brings this valise with these items a second, all these syringes,

the rope, flashlight. There's gloves in there, surgical gloves. Everything that they need is in this case. And she walks up the hill with his case. Now they're waiting, sort of hidden on the lawn for Barbara to show up, and as she does is she drives into the car and stops the car. She turns off the engine but not the ignition, so that the radio and the headlights are still on in the car. And as she's starting to come up, Finch sneaks up behind her and with

the butt of the gun. He strikes her on the head, which sort of knocks her senseless and causes a concussion. She's laying on the floor, and just prior to this, she had been struggling with she had called out or no no, I guess it was actually right at that point, she comes to and she calls out to Marie Anne, who is the nineteen year old nanny that takes care of the two children in the house. Marianne with Bill up,

the kids were asleep. She was curling her hair in the bathroom, so she hears barber screaming and she runs out into the garage and as Finch is struggling with Barbara, Marie Anne comes in and turns on the lights. Finch runs for Marie Anne. Barbera's now laying on the garage floor again, Finch's hit her a second time. Finch runs over to Marie Anne, shoves her head into the garage wall, causing an invitation, and actually hangs her head a couple

of times trying to neutralize her. She collapses. She's momentarily stunned, and the next thing she realizes when she comes to, Finch's pulled a gun and he's motioning her into the back seat of the car, and he's dragging Barbara, who has revived, into the front seat of the car, and

to scare Marie Anne, he actually fires the gun. Now Carol, who had not actually come into the garage, is waiting nearby, and once she hears that first shot, she reportedly told people she hid for hours in the bogain via boogem Villa bush that was on the property, but in reality she told the reporter early on in the case that she actually took off when she heard that first gun shot, which is the warning shot Finch fired in the garage.

So she starts running and Finch now has to deal with Carol and Marie, or with Barbara and Marie on his own. So he gets into the car and he's looking for the keys to the car because he's going to drive this car. Now. Instead of one passenger, there's going to be two. They're going to go over the

side of the cliff. His thought process, he'd taken Barbara's purse, he dumped the contents on the floor of the garage looking for the keys, and then he realized that the keys are in ignition because the lights and the radio are on right, So As he does that, Barbara bolts she's come to. She bolts out of the car and starts running down the hill and he comes around the side of the car and gives chase. And at that point, Marianne gets out of the car and runs in the

house to call police. As Barbara's running down the driveway finishes after her. She crosses the driveway and starts to it's broken one of her high heels. She's running literally one foot in one high heel, and she's trying to go down the seven dirt steps into her to seek a silence at her in laws, and she had told their divorce attorney before that's what she would do. So as she starts to run down these stemp steps, Finch actually fires a gun and shoots her in the back.

She collapses in the backyard and dies in the backyard. And that's where we are at this point.

for in infraction with her car. I think she had a busted tail light, so he knows that she works at the Sands Hotel. So to detective, well, first one detectives goes to the Sands Hotel and this is about early in the morning. She had actually driven back to

Las Vegas. So they're talking to her and he's asking her about Finch and she says, well, yeah, he's slept at my apartment overnight, and so they go there and he gets a backup and the two detectives go over there and pick up Finch and bring them in for questioning at the Las Vegas Sheriff's department. Then about ninety

minutes later they go back there. At this time, Carol has already gotten off of where she's gone home and now she's sleeping in the same bed that Finch was, and they roused her and they haul her in for questioning. They're not so sure that she's directly involved, but they also think that there may be a link, so she's not being held. She's not under entertainment, though. They managed to kind of convince her, and this would prove problematic later on because they because it forced her to do

things that she might not have. She actually made a statement. The police were detaining Finch until the Las Vegas Sheriff was detaining Finch until the West Covina Police Department could send a couple of detectives up who were flying in to pick him up, and she made a statement. She promised to go back to West Cavina to be interviewed, to be a witness, and so that happened, and then eventually the detective did come and pick up Finch and

bring him back. They took a plane to Ontario Airport and then they drove in and they brought him to the property to walk around, and that's where he met his criminal attorney, Grant Cooper, who became famous later on for the defending Sirhan Sirhan among other notables. And so Finch the police are looking for. The one thing that happened is that just prior to Finch taking being on the run the previous night, he had gone back to the garage and picked up Barbara's purse and the contents.

He went back and where she died, he actually found the bullet and the shell case, and he gathered all these items plus a gun. And so when he was on the run from police initially when he stole the two cars, he actually had her purse, the bullet, the shellcasing, and all the contents in it. The police were not obviously able to find them in the properties of Finch and his father, but they had been searching, and they had even used a metal detector and were coming up

indy hat indy empty handed to find anything. So Finch agrees to take them on a tour of the property and he toys with them at this point. It's really kind of bizarre. He's leading him on to believe that he knows where the gun and the bullet and the shellcasing are and he's taking around the property. The reporters are following along. Everybody's excited. They think Finch is going to take him to the gun. And finally he works

them up into this frenzy. He gets them down. They walk down to the Lark Allen, which borders on the Finch home above the Hilltop and the South Hills Country Club, and he comes in. He goes, you know, I just don't know, and he drops some cold and I'm sure if there wasn't a physical sigh collective sigh among the police and the reporters, there was at least a mental one.

and the next morning he was an early riser. At about six am, he looks out his window and there he notices a police presence on his son's property, and you know, he's still thinking that, well, maybe the place was robbed, you know, So he decides he's going to invest the game. And he walks up and the police really don't spot him. They don't stop him, you know, it's one of the problems with being an older person. They just don't care. And he walks literally onto the property.

He finds what would later be termed the murder kit, the volice with all the second all the syringes and everything, which is basically in plain view. It's to the side of the house, but he finds him. He finds his

alpine hat that Finch was wearing. He picks those up and he walks into the house and because he still thinks it might be possibly a robbery, he starts looking around the home and he goes to a hiding place where he knows the Finches hit their value there and he finds a silverware tray inside are Barber's wedding rings, so he pockets those, he puts the silverweight tray back and he walks back into his house with the murder kit and the alpine hat and nobody, you know, he

holds on to him for a couple of days, and this would later prove problematic during the trials. The police would actually lie about how they acquired the alpine, the alpine hat, and the murder kit. But it was several days later when they were still looking, you know, searching the property for evidence, that he actually offered them to detectives. And one of the detectives had a key to the case that they had found in Finch's personal belongings in Las Vegas when he was picked up by the Las

Vegas sheriffs. So they tried the keys and one of the key opens the alpine or opens the murder kit, and inside they find all this damning evidence. A second all there's a liquid form of it, there's a viral of it, there's pill form, there's syringes in there. I mean, this is stuff a doctor wouldn't normally carry to help somebody. It would be something that a person would kill, you

would carry around to murder somebody. So they had this damning evidence now and when Finch was brought back after the search of the property, he was housed in the Cavena jail because West Covina did not have holding facilities and he was booked, fingerprinted and everything. Carol had driven down the morning of his hearing and they had some

alone time together. And my thought is that when they were alone, he promised Carol that he would keep her out of any involvement with his case, that he would not give her up. And she reporters noticed that when she exited the car she was smiling. And the next thing is the Finch hearing WOHID was quite dramatic and quite the show.

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What was that state? What did the police find in terms of evidence at the crime scene.

body because Finch found it. They were never able to find that bullet or even the showcasing, So that was about that they When Finch was initially arrested, he didn't He claimed that he had been in Las Vegas the whole time, and then eventually he said, well, yeah, he

was there. And this is when they started to formulate their story about that they had gone to see Barbara that night, that they were going to talk to her about a divorce, and that she pulled a gun on them and she had it in the chrysler, and that there was a struggle over the gun. There were actually two struggles over the gun. The second struggle is Finch claims that he had disarmed her and in the process he threw the gun down and the discharged and shot

her in the back. And that was his story as to how he ended up she ended up dying by being shot, and how he was there, but he didn't do it.

to really do some dating to find this. She actually told the reporter that she had left and was on the run when she heard the first or she ran when she heard the first shot, which was a warning shot he fired, and that she was actually a block away when the second shot was fired that killed Barbara. And I believe at that point she was just pure fright. She just jumped in that car and she took off.

She did not stay around. She did not actually see Finch shoot Barbara, and she didn't see much of what was going in the garage. She disappeared as when she heard Marie Anne coming into the garage. She had been, you know, hiding sort of in the back of the entrance to the garage while Finch was fighting with Barbara, and when Marie Anne came in the nanny came to the garage, is when Carol exited, and she claims she

hit in the booga via bush. I think she stayed to the side of the property where she couldn't be seen, but there wasn't much time between when Marie Anne came in and Finch fired that warning shot, so she might have even started running just as soon as Marie Anne came in, but she definitely was on the run when she heard that first warning shot because Marie Anne claims she never saw her, which I believe was true, and she was not physically involved in the actual murder, you know,

killing Barbara, even though she had plotted and she conspired to do her in.

media play. You know, Finch was a well known doctor in the eastern sing Gabro Valley and the press, television radio got ahold of it, so that by the Monday of the hearing in West Cavina, a lot of people knew about it, and people in the area who knew the Finch name or where their patients, a lot of them, mostly women who didn't work, came to the hearing in the small courtroom Citrus Court in West Cavina and there was a folksy judge, Albert Miller, who was quite a character, presiding,

and Finch had been charged. He was at the hearing, but he did not testify, and one of the witnesses they put on the stand was Carol, and at this point police thought she had some all of them, but they weren't sure. And Carol arrives into at the hearing wearing one of Barbara's maink trim suits and sunglasses. She looks like a movie star going to a premier and she's accompanied by her stepmother, Gladys, who are she's very

much a great relationship. It couldn't have been closer if they had been actual biological mother and daughter, And so

she sits down. She's called as a witness. She gets upon the stand and she's questioned by the assistant district Attorney, and during the line of questioning it seems to be that she's got been more involved than what they thought, and she actually confirms that she's had a sexual relationship with Finch, and it creates Charite a furor at this point because she breaks down on the stand and starts crying, and the judge calls for a recess and allows Carol

and her stepmother, Gladys to go in new chambers and he talks to them and I don't think he realized what he was doing at the time, but it's almost like coaching, and this would prove really problematic through the following trials. What he did. He was himself called as a witness. But she gets back on the stand and when it looks like the testimony is over, the judge, Albert Miller, turns to this assistant District attorney says, well, I guess she can be excused now, and the ADA

turns to him and he says, you're on her. As soon as she steps off that stand, we're going to arrest her. And they did, and she was as surprised as anybody, and I think she, in her mind thought she was being arrested more for stating she had a sexual affair with Finch than actually shooting Barbara. And the court is in an uproar. She's hauled out. Report are following.

There's a famous photo of her being let out by one of the West Covina detectives to a holding sale and they asked her, They asked, Carol, did you think you were going to be arrested? And she was I certainly did not. And her mother is kind of a drama queen, and she can't believe what's happened. She is trying to, you know, implore the reporters as though they

could do something about it, excuse me. And so she and Finch are hauled off to Los Angeles County Jail on a bus with other people who have been arrested for other crimes in the area.

But Helen Beslow had hired Jerry Geisler to investigate her son's murder, and this had happened just about a month prior to the Finch Tragoff murder. So Jerry Geisler's office, Robert Neibe is going to represent Carol. Finch has hired his attorney, who Need Nelson, who was not a criminal attorney, and he may have referred Finch to Grant Cooper. And so Grant Cooper was not at the hearing. He had

sent an associate of his because he was. He might have been out of town or on another case I can't recall at this point, but he was not at the original hearing. And let's say ask me another question.

the Perry Mason TV series. You know, she wasn't going to pass up unity. So there were you know, some celebrities at the at that hearing, and also.

it far. He lived in Hancock Park, so he managed to move the trial downtown and they actually had to move it to a larger It was going to be in the Hall of Justice, but only sat about ninety nine people, so they moved it to the new Metropolitan Courthouse. There was this huge venue called what was referred to as the Hippodrome or the circuits Room. It sat over two hundred people. And so come January fifth, you know, a couple months have passed. There's been a lot of

media interest, a lot of photos taken of Carol. This looks to be a major trial. So British author Eric Ambler is there and Dorothy Kilgellen has been sent by the Hearst Syndicate to cover the paper. Excuse me, And she shows up through the front doors with two copy boys on either side, carrying her type right and makes his grand entrance, and she's brought a couple of friends with her too, Clifton Webb and Sonia Henny and Kobina

Wright who was a society maven. And she enters and the judge pins her with an orchid, and she took had almost as much attention as Carol and Finch did, and she had a lot of access to them for interviews, and there were a lot of photos taken of her there, and she was still appearing on What's My Line, So on the weekend she would fly back to New York to appear on What's My Line on Sunday night and then probably take a red eye back the following day to be you know in court in Monday morning in

Los Angeles. And she covered the first trial you know, which lasted for weeks I think a couple of months, and her columns were syndicated in all the Hearst newspapers. And she had a penchant for younger men. She was involved with Johnny Ray, the singer, and she took a liking to the to court bailiffs during the finish trial, and she wrote about them in her columns and apparently talked about getting them screen tests, and I think she

actually got a screen test for one of them. I don't think anything happened, but she loved younger guys.

to prove this case. But also there are friends of Barbara and tell us about some of these witnesses and their testimony that helped the prosecution mount their case.

piece of evidence that everyone was surprised about. She had written her mother a letter to Sweden the previous May and she talked about Finch and Barbara fighting, and Barbara who confided in her and said that her husband tried to kill her, that he would either try and drive her up into the mountains and do it or out to the desert where nobody would ever find her body.

So it not only confirmed that there was a plot in the works, but how it would have been done, and the murder kit played into that, and Marie Anne was very believable. She initially fumbled a little bit because it was the first time on the stand, but as she became, you know, the longer she spent as a witness, she Grant Cooper could not disarm her, no matter what he tried to do. She stuck to her guns. She

was very believable. Now, the other witness who was not initially believed by everybody because he was a man, was Jack Cody, who had been involved in this initial conspiracy. And the thing is that Jack Cody, you know, he had a life of crime here. He couldn't be scared or you know, by the prosecution I'm not I mean the prosecution by the defense attorneys, and Grant Cooper tried to destroy him, as did Carroll's attorneys, and he would just start a backdock to them and say these kind

of wild, funny things. But whatever he said was honest and they could not ruffle him. And he eventually proved to be one of the other the main reason that they were eventually convicted. And he presented this story and as wild as it seemed about this murder conspiracy, it made sense. But his life as a con artist had did work against him. But ultimately he was telling the truth. There were a couple other people that were involved a lesser degree. Barbara's friends were also put on the stand.

She had a friend who lived in Palm Springs where finches would go to play tennis and then drive to Salt and Sea to go water skiing, and she called one instance actually about a day before Barbara was murdered, and Barbara was looking for another place to hide out, and she called her and her name was Manette Haber, and she asked her about staying with her for a

few days in Palm Springs to escape burning. And Manette says, well, it's one hundred and twenty degrees here and the air conditioning isn't working in the guest room, and so that sort of dissuaated Barbara, and she said she'd think about it and get back to her, but Barbara never called her back. And then the following night is when she

was murdered. There was a that she a young school teacher that she had met playing tennis who lived in a Hollywood apartment, was engaged and she had a female roommate and Barbara would stay with them occasionally, and that's where Jack Cody claimed that he had killed Barbara and stuffed her body in the trunk, but hadn't. And she was quite a character. When she was up on the stand giving her testimony, she'd sigh and sometimes she didn't

get the questions. I mean, she sort of seemed to be somewhat naive, and she generated a lot of laughter when she was giving testimony. But she told the truth, and those were sort of the key witnesses.

a lot of the questions. They did read her trial transcript, not a trial transcript, but they did read her statement to Las Vegas police. She was actually out on bail. She managed to make bail, and she was living with her family in Pasadena, and so she had a lot of freedom that obviously Finch being locked up, didn't.

so on. There is an interesting point where she is allowed to take a pair of shoes in that she's wearing when she's arrested finally and held in La County jail, and one of the things they would not allow women to do. You could not bring in shoes for somebody through a third party. They were afraid that, like with high heels, that somebody could be stashing narcotics in them, which is just really kind of bizarre, but that was

their thoughts. So she ended up wearing these red high heels, which she became known for and a lot of her court appearances and she was pretty much wearing those the whole time.

Generally the juries are all white. And also, unfortunately, there was also a woman who was a racist on it, and she locked heads with the African American man and a Latino man and they decided to The two men decided they were going it was going to be them against the other people. And this actually caused. What happened is they could not reach an agreement due to the

racism that was going on. There was actually alleged altercations, a physical threats made of one of the men allegedly picking up a chair and saying he was going to break the window and throw the woman out through it. But what was interesting is that the window couldn't even be opened, and apparently the couple of the women on the jury ran to get the bailiffs. I mean, there was pandemonium in the jury room when this was going on. That was unbeknownst to Carol and Finch. While this was happening,

they could not come to an agreement. There was a mistrial called and it was actually due to racism that they were spared the gas chamber. Were being convicted at that point, even though they would have to go through it all over again. Dorothy Kilgallon apparently had somebody was leaking some information to her out of the jury. There was a mole in the jury, and after the jury was excused and they were leaving the courthouse, she was out front and she spotted the African American man, a

Latino man, and she motioned him over. Obviously, they recognized her, and she said, let's have some drinks and talk about this. So she earlier knew about a secret taxi phone. In those days, a lot of hotels or buildings had a little box that had a direct line to a taxi company, so you could get a cab just by picking up

the phone. It'd be there in moments. And she had been tipped off by a newspaper vendor on the street that this phone existed behind a bush, so she ran over there, picked up the phone, called a cab, and she whked these guys off to her hotel room at the Ambassador and was able to interview them and lone behold, one of the men pulls out a journal that he

had been kept that he kept during the trial. So she had a lot of actist information about this, though she never really revealed that the trial was called a mistrial due to the racism. Because of the times, it was just generally accepted that was the case, and she was never found out exactly who was her mole and the jury and how she was getting tipped off to

so much information. But the trial was going to be it was rescheduled by the district attorney and they were finching, Carol, now we're going to have to go through a second trial.

could speak. There was silence. Otherwise. Finch managed to escape a couple minutes and see his mother. He was able to get away and do that. But they did make a couple They did make visits to the Finch home during the first and the second trials, and still the second trial resulted in a mistrial. After all that, now they were faced with a third trial, which also went to the Finch home. At this point, though, you know you're into this over a year and everybody is tired.

They're looking to get to the finish line. And the third trial was much speedier. By then, a lot of the media hoopla died down. Dorothy Kilgallen was long gone. She lasted through just the first trial. Eric Gambler was gone. It was still being reported, but not quite the circus that it had been up to that point, and so it was a little speedier. Grant Cooper was gone, his assistant was now in charge of Finch. And like I said, the third trial, the third jury had gone to the

Finch home to look at the property. And during the course of the trial there was something that just didn't makes sense. They just didn't quite buy Finch's story about how his wife did. During the first trial, there were female jurors that were crying when Finch was on the stand giving his testimony. And he was quite a great actor.

It was like a soap opera, as the district attorney would later say, and the women are crying as he's telling this melodramatic story how after the struggle with the gun and Barbara's shot, he ran down the steps to his dying wife held her in his arms and she said, Bernie, I should have listened to you. Take care of the children. And the women are crying. And you know, the jury, most of them pretty much bought that at the time.

By the time of the third trial, though, people were having their doubts as to what the way that Bernie said that his wife died. So they actually asked the judge. They were the only jury they went back for a second visit to the property and something must have kicked in then, is to just the being on the physical place again. And then the key thing is that they

re enacted the way amongst themselves. The jurors reenacted the way that Finch claimed his wife died, and they came to the inclusion it's physically impossible that this could have happened. And the other key thing is that this jury also believed Jack Cody where the others didn't. And so those two things, the fact that Barbara couldn't have died the way Finch said and Jack Cody is what ultimately convicted him.

And Finch, who had been a golden boy of Singhabro Valley for decades, was just dumbfounded that he was convicted. He just couldn't believe it the first time. I mean, he had gotten off drunk driving charges as a doctor, driving the Chrysler around speeding and you know, you get stopped by the police and they just let him go, and you know, you talk about your white male privilege, he definitely had it, and you know, he was just dumbstruck that he was convicted, as was Carroll, and they

were both convicted for conspiracy. And even though Carol did not touch the gun, did not shoot Barbara, she well, she and Finch at this point could be facing the death penalty. They could have died in the gas chamber. So now they had to wait I think it was a week until the sentencing hearing as to what was actually going to happen to them.

what he was doing at that trial. So It must have gave attorneys for Finch and maybe even doctor Finchen in his mind that it looked pretty good if he could survive a couple trials and have mistrials for this, that the prospects wouldn't be so bad for the third trial.

have to deal with him. They made every effort to have to prevent him from conducting that second trial, and I think, you know, there's no actual record of it, but I think he was so mad about what they tried to do that he was going to make sure they were convinc and I think they didn't get a fair trial, as you said, because once the juries, the jury was sort of deadlocked, and he talked to the jurors.

He told them that he thought they were guilty and that they should, you know, come to a majority conclusion on here. And you know, Grant Cooper is just dumbstruck. You know, he's objecting and he's held in contempt. He cited I think contempt twice by Dawson, and this actually carried on, you know, through the court after this trial was over, and it was just it. It's an amazing part of the book about this Dawson as to what went.

beaten her to death, and had been arrested. So that couldn't have been too good of an omen you know, and he must have been wondering what likely he might be facing. And also in the midst of all this, Carol Chessman, who had fought i think twelve years on death row to avoid the death penalty for rape, was finally executed. So the fact that if they would convict, you know, they would execute Carol Chessman for rape, what would they think of doing for Finch who had actually

murdered his wife, which was much worse. So it must have weighed heavily on him that they could have well gotten the gas chamber. But at the sentencing hearing, they were actually sentenced to life in prison, you know, And there's two different things that happened. Finch breathed a sigh of relief because he thought he was going to die. But Carol realized she was going to be in prison for a long time, and she actually told Finch, she goes, I'm going to be an old lady by the time

I get out. And she was very upset, and there was sort of a break in their relationship at that point, and she sort of got out of there as soon as she could, And you know, Finch was happy. Grant Cooper was happy because Grand Cooper, when he saw the juris faces, he was pretty sure that they were going to give Finch the death penalty, and so you could talk about what happened after they were sentenced and spent time in prison.

to Las Vegas. He didn't really even remember what he did. He just remembered he sort of snapped out of it on his way when he was near Las Vegas. Yeah, you know, but he never did tell what happened to that. I believe that when he went to the medical clinic, he took the purse, the shellcasing the gun in the shell.

He ran into the medical clinic and he went to like a hasmat receptacle and put them in the trash at this has matt receptacle the very bottom, knowing that it's unlikely anybody would be going through it and that it would be picked up, you know, because it's dangerous trash and disposed of. And I think that's what happened with those. What I don't understand is how the police never thought about that, never investigated it. As far as I could, I could not find any evidence that they

ever went to the medical clinic searching for evidence. And I think it's something as simple as that, as really how he disposed of the gun, the showcasing in the purse.

the area. She ended up working at an inner community hospital in the medical records department, and even with the name change, all the employees knew who she was, and you know, once she was on vacation, they'd be chattering amongst themselves about her. And she worked there for decades. She was promoted to the head of the records department and then eventually retired. She over the up to the present. She's still alive. She's in the early eighties. She would

be occasionally spotted in the Cavina area. She was spotted by Jimmy Poppa's sister at a supermarket in Covina a few years ago, and she told the sister. She says, I eroned every gray hair in my head, and I'm sure she did. And you know, she was a young woman at the time. You know, when we think back to what we did in our teens in early twenties, you know, it's hard to believe that we pulled those stunts or whatever bad behavior, you know, and she you know,

she was a young woman. She wanted something and she was going to do anything to get it. And I'm sure as the years went on that she matured and would not be that person that she was when she was young. People had nice things to say about her. Her co workers, They said she was very fair, she

was understanding. They enjoyed working with her. And even when she was at West Covina Medical Clinic, I remember when I had, you know, when I went to see doctor Finch's a patient, I would see her standing in the back writing furiously in her in my record file, and she had a great memory and she was a very good medical assistant. We ended up losing doctor Finch as a doctor. His brother in law became our family doctor and delivered my third sister, who was the first baby

born at the new West Covino Hospital. And I think what happened is that that day that Jimmy Poppas showed up to confront Finch and Carol, there was such a bruhaha about it that doctor Gordon at that point, who co owned the medical clinic and hospital with Finch, realized he had to do something the hospital hadn't opened yet they had outstanding loans on it. But they had to do something about Finch, but they couldn't get rid of him.

And I think they had a board meeting and decided to remove Finch from his day to day practice, but allow him to perform surgeries there where he wouldn't come in contact so much with his female patients. There wouldn't be the affairs, because they were afraid what would happen if, you know, spouse came in of some woman he was having an affair with and created a big, you know, a big problem, or what if he performed malpractice while

he's in the midst of the affair. He had was involved in some malpractice suits and so they could be liable, you know, financially. So they decided to put him in as a surgical remove from made to patients. And I think what they did, I don't have proof. I think they likely sent a letter to all of his patients saying, doctor Finch is cutting back his his you know, seeing patients, he's remaining as a surgeon. You need to find another doctor here at the medical clinic and offered the names.

And I think that's how we ended up with doctor Gordon and before about eight to nine months before he actually killed Barbara. That's sort of the timeline for that Finch did. He released in the early seventies from prison. He initially went to Missouri to work as an X ray technician. He was offered a job there and tried to get his medical license there but couldn't even though he took the board examine passed. He ended up coming back to California, I believe in around nineteen eighty four,

and managed to get his medical license back. In nineteen eighty four, he moved to Rancham Mirage near Palm Springs and for the last eleven years of his life practiced medicine until he died in nineteen ninety five from natural causes. And it's interesting to note that all these people, including my parents, are buried in the same cemetery, Oakwood in Glendora, California.