Harvey Murray Glatman was arrested on the evening of October 27, 1958, on a side road in Orange County, California. A motorcycle officer came upon him struggling at the roadside with a young woman over a gun. He had threatened her with the pistol, the California Supreme Court later wrote. She survived. After his arrest he confessed to killing three women: Judy Dull, Shirley Bridgeford and Ruth Mercado.
Glatman repaired televisions for a living, according to the crime historian Harold Schechter. He was indicted in San Diego County for the murders of Bridgeford and Mercado, the two women killed there. He pleaded guilty to both counts and gave up his right to a jury on the degree of the crimes and the penalty. Judge John A. Hewicker found both murders to be of the first degree and sentenced him to death in December 1958. The state Supreme Court affirmed the judgment on June 5, 1959, and he was executed in the gas chamber at San Quentin on September 18, 1959. He was never tried for the death of Judy Dull.
Glatman was born in the Bronx in 1927, the son of Jewish immigrant parents, Schechter wrote in a 2019 essay for The Yale Review. The family moved to Denver in 1937. In high school in Denver, according to Schechter, Glatman began breaking into homes. On one of these break-ins he stole a handgun, and he went on to attack women. He was arrested, and his mother paid his bail.
In June 1945, when he was 17, Glatman abducted a Denver woman, who reported him to police, Schechter writes. He was sentenced to one to five years in the Colorado state prison and was paroled after eight months.
In 2009, when the Boulder County Sheriff's Office announced a new identification in a 1954 cold case, the Associated Press reported that Glatman had served time in a Colorado state prison for violent assaults on women, and that one of those assaults had happened about a quarter of a mile from the place where the 1954 victim's body was later found.
In 1946, according to Schechter, Glatman went east and committed a string of armed robberies and assaults in New York City and Albany, which the press there attributed to a man it called the "Phantom Bandit." He was sentenced to five to ten years at Sing Sing. A prison psychiatrist diagnosed him with a psychopathic personality of the schizophrenic type and found sexual deviance at the root of his crimes. He was paroled after less than three years, Schechter writes, and went back to Denver, where he worked at odd jobs for about five and a half years.
Early in 1957, Glatman moved to Los Angeles. He worked as a television repairman and spent his spare time around amateur camera clubs, according to Schechter. Photography gave him a reason to approach young women who wanted modeling work. He used false names with each of the women he contacted: Schechter gives them as "Johnny Glenn," "George Williams" and "Frank Wilson."
Judy Dull was 19, a young woman looking for modeling work in Los Angeles, according to Schechter. In 1957 Glatman, using the name Johnny Glenn, hired her for a photo session at a rate of $20 an hour. He then took her into the desert and strangled her.
Glatman's account of Judy Dull's death came from his own confessions. The California Supreme Court said that he killed her by the same method he later used on Shirley Bridgeford, and under the same pretext of taking photographs. He was never charged with her death. The San Diego County court heard the evidence about it at the hearing on degree and penalty, and the state Supreme Court held that the evidence was properly before the trial judge.
In March 1958, Glatman got Shirley Bridgeford's name from a lonely hearts club, according to the Supreme Court's summary of his confessions. Schechter places the club in Hollywood and says Glatman presented himself as a plumber named George Williams. He telephoned her under a false name and arranged to call for her on a Saturday night at her home in Los Angeles.
He told police that he was prepared to kill her if he risked arrest. He drove south for a couple of hours and parked off the highway. When she refused him, he showed her the gun. While they were still parked, he said, he decided that he would have to kill her for his own safety. He drove on into the desert in San Diego County, waited there until sunrise, and then strangled her.
On the drive back he threw away her purse and its contents, keeping only about 30 cents in coins, the court recorded. Shirley Bridgeford's age is not given in the court opinion; Schechter gives it as 30.
In July 1958 Glatman saw a newspaper ad saying that Ruth Mercado was available for modeling work, the Supreme Court wrote. Schechter gives her age as 24. He went to her apartment in Los Angeles in the evening, saying he wanted to talk about a job. Once inside he drew his gun and held her there. He checked the layout of the apartment, including whether there was a back door he could use to leave in a hurry. He took $20 to $25 in cash.
About midnight he drove her toward the San Diego County desert. He held her there through the next day. After dark, he told police, he decided that it would be safer to kill her than to let her go, and he strangled her by the same method.
He threw most of her belongings away along the highway, the court said, but kept about $10, her wristwatch, her wallet with its identification, and some of her clothing.
Schechter writes that she had answered Glatman's own classified ad for models in the Los Angeles Times. The court's account, drawn from Glatman's confession, says the reverse: that he answered an ad she had placed.
The fourth woman Glatman approached survived. On the evening of October 27, 1958, a motorcycle officer riding a side road in Orange County found the two of them struggling at the roadside for possession of a gun, the Supreme Court wrote. Schechter describes the officer as a state patrolman and says that the woman had already wrested the gun away from Glatman. He was arrested on the spot.
After his arrest, Glatman confessed to the three killings. The confessions were recorded.
The confessions were supported by physical evidence. Glatman led officers to the two places in the San Diego County desert where he had killed Shirley Bridgeford and Ruth Mercado, and the officers recovered the remains of both women. Officers then searched his apartment under a warrant. In a metal toolbox they found Ruth Mercado's wallet, some of her clothing, and photographs Glatman had taken of both women in the desert.
Before his recorded confessions were admitted in court, the prosecution showed that they were voluntary: no reward or immunity had been promised, and no force had been used. The Supreme Court later called the evidence supporting the judgment overwhelming as to both counts.
Glatman was indicted in San Diego County on two counts of murder, one for Shirley Bridgeford and one for Ruth Mercado. Los Angeles was where he had met both women, but the killings had taken place in San Diego County.
He pleaded guilty to both counts. He also waived a jury on the two questions left open by his pleas: the degree of each murder and the penalty. A psychiatrist appointed by the court examined him and reported that he was sane and able to cooperate fully with his lawyer.
The court then received evidence on degree and penalty. The prosecution put in Glatman's recorded confessions, the evidence from the desert and from his apartment, and evidence about two other matters: the killing of Judy Dull and the attack on the woman in Orange County. His defense made no objection to that evidence.
Judge John A. Hewicker found Glatman guilty of first-degree murder on each count and fixed the penalty at death. Schechter writes that the proceedings lasted three days, in December 1958.
Because the sentence was death, the appeal to the Supreme Court of California was automatic under the Penal Code. The court appointed Willard Whittinghill to represent Glatman. The state was represented by Attorney General Stanley Mosk and his deputies.
The main question on appeal was whether the trial judge should have heard the evidence about Judy Dull and the attack in Orange County, neither of which was charged in the indictment. The court held, first, that because the defense had not objected at trial, Glatman could not raise the point on appeal. It went on to say that the evidence was admissible in any case: it bore on the degree of the crimes and on penalty, and it would have been admissible on guilt as well, to show motive and intent. Under section 190.1 of the Penal Code, evidence admissible on guilt could also be considered on penalty.
The court found that he had received a fair and impartial trial and that there was no error in the record. Chief Justice Gibson wrote the opinion for a unanimous court, joined by Justices Shenk, Traynor, Schauer, Spence, McComb and Peters. The judgment was affirmed on June 5, 1959.
Glatman was executed in the gas chamber at San Quentin State Prison on September 18, 1959, the Washington Examiner reported in a 2011 crime history column. The column gave his last words as "I knew this is the way it would be." Schechter's 2019 essay gives the date of the execution as September 19, 1959.
The tabloids of the late 1950s called Glatman "the Lonely Hearts Killer" and "the Glamour Girl Slayer," Schechter writes. Both names came from the ways he found the women: through a lonely hearts club, and through offers of modeling work.
In April 1954, a young woman's body was found near Boulder, Colorado. She had died of blunt-force trauma about a week earlier, and no one could identify her. Boulder residents paid for her gravestone, which read "Jane Doe, April 1954, Age About 20 Years."
She stayed unnamed for more than five decades. In the 1990s the Boulder historian Silvia Pettem found the grave and began researching the case, and in 2003 she asked the sheriff's office to reopen it. Pettem wrote a book on the case, Someone's Daughter: In Search of Justice for Jane Doe. The body was exhumed in June 2004, and a forensic sculptor made a likeness of her face that was publicized nationally. A grandniece of a Phoenix woman who had vanished in 1954 contacted the investigators after reading about the case, and a DNA sample from the missing woman's younger sister showed that the two were related. The family learned the result on October 23, 2009.
The woman was Dorothy Gay Howard. She was 18 and had been reported missing from Phoenix in March 1954. Born in the Texas Panhandle, she was the oldest of three sisters, and her family had moved to Phoenix in 1942. She had married at 15 with her parents' permission, then divorced and married again without telling her family. When they last heard from her she was working as a live-in nanny in Phoenix, and they reported her missing when she failed to come and take one of her sisters to the movies. She had run away once before, so at first they assumed she did not want to be found. Her sister kept a letter Dorothy had sent their parents shortly before she disappeared. It enclosed money and was signed "Love always, Dot." "Once she decided on a course, it would take heaven and earth to stop her," her sister told the Associated Press.
The identification did not solve the killing. Detective Steve Ainsworth, the Boulder County Sheriff's lead investigator, told the Associated Press that his instinct was that Glatman had killed her. His working theory rested on evidence from the scene and on a remark Glatman made to a California detective. The AP noted that Ainsworth still had to prove it. A Phoenix New Times report said that nothing known linked Glatman to Phoenix, but that police knew he was in Denver around the time of her death. Glatman never confessed to her killing, and he was never charged with it. The case remained open when the University of Colorado's alumni magazine wrote about it in September 2010.
Proven by his guilty pleas and the court's findings, and final: the first-degree murders of Shirley Bridgeford and Ruth Mercado in San Diego County in 1958.
Admitted, never tried: the killing of Judy Dull in 1957, which Glatman described in his confessions and which the trial court heard as evidence of another crime.
Suspected only: the 1954 death of Dorothy Gay Howard near Boulder. This rests on one detective's theory, reported in 2009; Glatman never confessed to it and was never charged.
Wrong in some accounts: several 2009 to 2011 news reports and a 2010 university magazine article say Glatman was convicted of, or executed for, three murders. The court record shows two convictions; the third killing was confessed but never charged.
Details that vary between sources: the date of the execution (September 18, 1959, in the Washington Examiner; September 19 in Schechter's essay); whose newspaper ad brought Glatman and Ruth Mercado together (hers, according to the court; his, according to Schechter); Ruth Mercado's first name, which Schechter gives once as "Rose" (the court record says Ruth); and whether the officer who arrested Glatman was a motorcycle officer on a side road (the court) or a state patrolman on the Santa Ana Freeway (Schechter).
1927: Harvey Murray Glatman is born in the Bronx, New York.
1937: his family moves to Denver.
June 1945: at 17, abducts a Denver woman; sentenced to one to five years in the Colorado state prison and paroled after eight months (Schechter).
1946: armed robberies and assaults in New York City and Albany; sentenced to five to ten years at Sing Sing, paroled after less than three years, and returns to Denver (Schechter).
April 1954: the body of a young woman, later identified as Dorothy Gay Howard, is found near Boulder, Colorado.
Early 1957: Glatman moves to Los Angeles and works as a television repairman.
1957: kills Judy Dull, 19 (admitted; never tried).
March 1958: kills Shirley Bridgeford in the San Diego County desert.
July 1958: kills Ruth Mercado in the San Diego County desert.
October 27, 1958: arrested in Orange County after a struggle over his gun with a woman who survived; confesses to three killings.
After the arrest: indicted in San Diego County on two counts of murder; pleads guilty and waives a jury.
December 1958: Judge John A. Hewicker finds both murders to be of the first degree and sentences him to death.
June 5, 1959: the Supreme Court of California affirms, People v. Glatman, 52 Cal.2d 283.
September 18, 1959: executed in the gas chamber at San Quentin.
June 2004: the Boulder Jane Doe is exhumed.
October 23, 2009: DNA identifies her as Dorothy Gay Howard; a detective names Glatman as his main suspect.