History Watch: “The Duchess”

History Watch:

“The Duchess”

When one thinks of a leader of a criminal gang, you would most likely think of a man.  But in the 1930’s there was at least one exception.  This is the story of E. Leta Juanita Spinelli, otherwise known as, “The Duchess.”

Spinelli grew up in the state of Michigan where she got married and she settled down with her husband and her daughter.  All went well until 1939 when Spinelli’s husband suffered a tragic on the job accident when he was shot and killed by members of the Detroit Police Department while he was attempting to rob a bank.

After a brief mourning period, the Duchess decided to move to San Francisco with her 19 year old daughter, Lorraine “Gypsy” Spinelli and they settled into a boarding house in the city.  The move turned out to be good fortune for the Duchess as she soon learned that the house had a large number of, “Dead End” kids living there.  She soon started to make friends with many of them with the help of her daughter who was said to have had her way with most of them.  Spinelli chose four of the young men who lived in the house that she was interested in putting to work.  They were, Albert “One Eye” Ives, 23, Robert Sharrad 18, Gordon Hawkins 21 and Mike Simeone, 32.

Soon, Spinelli was cooking them dinner and driving with them on road trips. One positive attribute that Spinelli had was that she loved to sew and she began to help out the young men by sewing for them.  However, she did not make them clothing or blankets.  Instead she made them all blackjacks.  She did this by sewing two pieces of leather together and filling it with buckshot from shotgun shells.  She then instructed the young men on how to use their new found weapons.

The Duchess schooled them on the art of robbery and murder and she soon became known as, “The mistress of crime.”  For the next year Spinelli’s gang wreaked havoc throughout the San Francisco Bay Area engaging in many muggings, robberies and an occasional murder.  Things started to take a turn for the worse when on 4-7-1940, Albert "One Eye" Ives shot and killed Leland Cash at a BBQ stand in North Beach during a botched robbery.

Apparently the murder bothered gang member Robert Sharrad to no end as he could not stop talking to everyone about the crime. The Duchess decided that something had to be done to silence him so she convened a gang meeting at a hotel in Sacramento with her three other gang members. The Duchess dismissed suggestions about stilettos and bullets but paused when someone mentioned a lethal Mickey Finn.

The Duchess invited all four of her gang members to dinner and when Sharrad was not looking she slipped a lethal dose of poison into his drink.  Spinelli later told police that she viewed it as a, “Mercy Killing” as she really liked the boy.  After consuming his drink, Sharrad met his maker in short order.  The Duchess had her boys take Sharrad to the Sacramento River where they stripped him of his clothing and they put a bathing suit on him and threw him into the water and left his clothes on the shore to make it look like a drowning.

All would have gone just fine had it not been for Albert “One Eye” Ives, who got scared and he went to the police and spilled his guts to them.  Officers found the Duchess in a shelter in Reno and when she was taken into custody she still had the gun in her purse that was used to kill Leland Cash at the BBQ stand in North Beach.

The Duchess had a quick trial and on November 21, 1941 she was put to death in San Quentin’s gas chamber after all pleas to Governor Olsen failed.  She died in 10 minutes and 14 seconds. And just for good measure gang members Gordon Hawkins, and Mike Simeone were also put to death.  Albert "One Eye"  Ives, because of his cooperation with the police was put in a home for the criminally insane.

San Quentin Warden Clinton Duffy, who presided over San Quentin for many years, was quoted as describing the Duchess as, “The coldest hardest character, male or female that I have ever known.”

As the Duchess took her last breath in the gas chamber, she secured her place in law enforcement history by being the first female executed in San Quentin’s gas chamber. Only three other females followed her to that lethal room. They were Louise Peete, executed on 4-11-47, Barbara Graham, executed on 6-3-55 and Elizabeth Ann “Ma” Duncan, executed on  4-8-62.  All of them had been convicted of murder.  At San Quentin a total of 215 people were hanged and 196 were executed in the gas chamber, four of them women.

Attached is a photo of Leta Juanita “The Duchess” Spinelli taken just before her execution.  Quite frankly she appears to be a little bored with the whole affair.

Copyright 2015 Harry Barbier –All Rights Reserved