A Bay Area built by crime?
‘Murders That Made Us’ author bolsters his argument, case by case
Who better to delve into the San Francisco Bay Area’s true-crime history than a writer whose mother was briefly a suspect in a bizarre 1959 Daly City murder? Turns out they had the wrong blonde. But Bob Calhoun of San Leandro parlayed this oft-told family story into a job writing true-crime columns for SF Weekly. Now the collection has led to a book, “The Murders That Made Us” (ECW Press), with the tantalizing subtitle, “How Vigilantes, Hoodlums, Mob Bosses, Serial Killers and Cult Leaders Built the San Francisco Bay Area.”
Q
How many notorious cases does the book cover, from the Barbary Coast era to the present?
A
I haven’t counted just how many crimes are in the book, but maybe 100? Sure, you have the notorious ones — Zodiac, Jim Jones, Dan White — and even Richard Ramirez, the Night Stalker, comes to San Francisco at one point. But so many of these stories are much smaller than that.
Q
Such as? Which little-known, long-ago murder tales are featured?
A
The book begins with the murder of August Norry on San Bruno Mountain in Daly City in 1959. It’s in there because my mom was briefly a suspect in the case. She was questioned by cops
and everything. It was a brutal murder. Norry was dumping lawn clippings on the mountain. He met a young woman, and she shot him 18 times with a revolver. She had to reload the gun twice! My mom matched the description of the woman fleeing the scene, and my family lived down the street from the Norrys back then.
Then there’s the lynching in San Jose in 1933. These two lowlifes, Jack Holmes and Harold Thurmond, kidnapped and murdered this local department store heir, Brooke Hart. People stormed the jail and hanged both of them right in St. James Park. Jackie Coogan, the guy who played Uncle Fester in “The Addams Family,” was part of the lynch mob! A Merc reporter, Harry Farrell, wrote a great book on the case in 1992 called “Swift Justice,” but that was 30 years ago, and a lot of people in the South Bay don’t know about it.
Q
Film noir expert Eddie Muller has called your book a “Whitman’s sampler of wickedness.” So what’s the cherry cordial in this collection?
A
The tale of Little Dick, the girl hoodlum. Definitely a crowd pleaser at the live readings I’ve done.
Q
Which unsolved San Francisco case fascinates you?
A
The murder of Valerie McDonald in San Francisco in 1980. Speaking of Eddie Muller, he calls her San Francisco’s Black Dahlia but — unlike Elizabeth Short in Los Angeles — McDonald is pretty much forgotten here.
Q
In the end, what does this “170-year saga of madness, corruption and death” reveal about San Francisco?
A
I’m not sure anything’s really changed there. I’m seeing scandals unfolding in the city that could have happened back in 1865. The big difference is that newspaper publishers are no longer shooting it out on Market Street. And Jack Dorsey and Marc Benioff haven’t revived the city’s proud tradition of dueling ... yet.
Q
Do you have another book in the works?
A
The next book idea hasn’t hit me yet, but I do have some interest in this one from TV producers. True crime is hot right now, so maybe I’ll finally win that Netflix lottery. Keeping my fingers crossed.
Not much has changed in San Francisco, says truecrime author Bob Calhoun, “I’m seeing scandals unfolding in the city that could have happened back in 1865.”
JANE TYSKA/STAFF