A great deal has been said and written—and a lot of it nonsense—about the “Perfect Crime.” It seems to be the ideal not only of mystery writers but, quite naturally, of prospective murderers.
Now the perfect crime is, actually, like a perfect landing. If you can walk away from it, it’s perfect. And the perfect crime is not as rare as it might seem. Just look up the statistics on unsolved murders, and you’ll see what I mean.
But the myth of the perfect crime persists—and that is what makes the case of Alfred Leonard Cline so particularly fascinating. Cline may have committed any number of perfect crimes—only to end up convicted of nine forgery charges, and sentenced to a total of 126 years in prison.
Not for murder, mind you. For forgery.
You think that’s confusing? You should have been one of the many detectives, investigators and lawyers who, at one time or another, came in contact with the Cline case. They’d tell you about confusion.
Even now, no one is sure about the remains of several of Alfred Cline’s deceased wives. Which remains were whose, that is. During the investigation there were times when there were one or two too many, or, one or two too few.
But let’s go back to the beginning—which was in 1933. On October 21st of that year, Alfred Leonard Cline, a friendly, mild, and (evidently) attractive forty-five-year-old ex-choir singer, was arrested at his pretentious Glendale, California, home on suspicion of theft.
One Martin Frame, of Los Angeles, told the police a curious story. While on a trip with Cline to Imperial Valley, he’d become ill from drinking buttermilk. Later, he went on to say, he became unconscious. When he recovered, he went, naturally, to a doctor, who told him he was suffering from narcotics. Cline was missing, and so was $250, which Martin Frame had sewed in the lining of his clothing.
Special Investigator Blayney Mathews, of the District Attorney’s Office, decided there was more to the mild-mannered and homely little guy than met the eye. He asked for permission to exhume the bodies of Cline’s wife and his brother-in-law, who had recently died. Othere investigations were started, and the story began to be, well, confused. Only one theme held it together. People associated with Cline appeared to be bad insurance risks.
In 1929, Cline had been convicted of forgery. He’d been sent to the Colorado State Prison because of an ingenious scheme to inherit the three million dollar estate of a Colorado widow by forging her name to a will which was found in Cline’s room.
Some time later, Cline made the acquaintance of a travelling evangelist from London, the Reverend E. F. Jones, 68 years old. In 1932, Cline and the Reverend Jones went on a motor trip in California. At Paso Robles, the elderly minister made a will in which Cline was named as sole heir to Jones’s $11,000 estate.
Two days later the Reverend E. F. Jones died in Bakersfield, California. The authorities fixed the cause of death as heart trouble.
At this point, a definite pattern began to emerge. People associated with Alfred Leonard Cline had a tendency to die of heart trouble, to leave money to Cline, and to be cremated shortly after death. There was always a doctor to sign the death certificate.
In fact, if Cline’s wife and brother-in-law had been cremated, and if the little matter of Martin Frame had not arisen, it’s entirely possible that no one would have ever asked any embarrassing questions, not even about the Reverend E. F. Jones. As things turned out, plenty of questions were asked—but never satisfactorily answered.
It was in January, of 1933, that Cline married a widow, Mrs. Bessie Ann Sickle. The brother-in-law, Brandt McCreary, lived with the seemingly happly newlyweds in their Glendale home. In March of the same year, McCreary died after a short illness. A physician who was called reported death due to a heart attack.
In September, 1933, Bessie Ann Sickle Cline also died after a short illness. Again a physician reported the cause of death as heart trouble.
Purely coincidence, of course. But coincidences seemed to pile up. A member of the family stated that Brandt McCreary was taken ill after a meal which included buttermilk.
While these coincidences were being investigated, reports came from Reno, Nevada, of the death, in October, 1931, of Mrs. Carrie May Porter in the Golden Hotel—where one A. L. Cline of Los Angeles was also registered as her nephew. She died, strangely enough, of a heart ailment. At the time of her death, she had some $20,000 in jewelry and securities with her. After an autopsy (which showed that Mrs. Porter had died of a heart ailment and complications) her “nephew,” A. L. Cline, took possession of the jewelry and securities, and transported Mrs. Porter’s body to San Francisco for cremation.
Another coincidence, naturally. But then it was learned that, also in 1931, Mrs. Laura Cummings, 75, weathy resident of a downtown Los Angeles hotel, had left a note for her friends in the hotel stating that she was eloping with Cline. An elderly friend of Mrs. Cummings told police that Mrs. Cummings had been taken ill on a trip to Seattle (where Cline posed as her nephew) and that she had lost approximately $3,000 worth of bonds which she had taken north with her. This time, however, there was no “heart attack.” Four months after the elopement, Mrs. Cummings died of cancer at the home of her daughter in Winthrop, Massachusetts.
Meanwhile, the investigation was going on. Exhaustive chemical analyses failed to disclose any traces of poison in the bodies of Mrs. Bessie Cline and Brandt McCreary. The chief of police of San Bernardino declared that the county chemist had found Martin Frame had been given luminol, and that luminol and several bottles of poison had been found in Cline’s possession when he was arrested.
But still there was no evidence on which to base a murder charge. Who knows? It may have been pure coincidence, after all, that Alfred Leonard Cline had a preference for wealthy, elderly widows who died of heart ailments and wished to be cremated.
On November 6, 1933, Cline was arraigned in San Bernardino, California, on charges of grand theft and administration of narcotics with intent to commit a felony. On December 15, 1933, he was convicted by a San Bernardino jury.
A few days later the mild-mannered, 45-year-old ex-choir singer was sentenced to 5 to 15 years in Folsom prison. On hearing his sentence, Cline begged for mercy, claiming his conviction was the result of public opinion. The sentence stood.
There the Cline story rested for ten years.
It was December of 1945 when Alfred Leonard Cline popped into the headlines again. By that time he was 56 years old, and white haired—but still attractive to wealthy, elderly widows.
Now follows the completely confused story. If you can figure it out, you’re way ahead of the smartest police detectives in the country—and a million miles ahead of me. Just let me give you the facts that emerged during the period of four weeks during which no one could find out who died where and when. Five cities fought for the privilege of trying Alfred Leonard Cline, and finally, the only charge against him was forgery.
It was on December 3, 1945, when Cline was arrested in San Francisco, on demand of Gerald Ryan, a Chicago attorney who represented the estate of the late Mrs. Delora Krebs Cline. Ryan said he believed Cline had been forging signatures and cashing his late wife’s checks.
Delora Krebs Cline, 73, died in Portland, Oregon, on November 29, 1945, and left her husband an estate estimated at $250,000. The day after her death, Cline ordered her body cremated.
But Attorney Gerald Ryan hinted that there might be some doubt about the identity of the woman who died in Portland, Oregon, under the name of Delora Krebs Cline. Now comes the confusion. You sort it out.
An elderly widow (here we go again!) by the name of Mrs. Isabelle Van Natta, had been missing from her San Francisco home since November 7, 1945. A letter linked her to Cline.
Toxicologists examined a small amount of ashes, claimed by Cline to be the remains of Delora Krebs Cline, and expressed the belief they were those of Mrs. Van Natta.
Portland, Oregon, authorities declared they were convinced the woman who stayed with Cline in a Portland hotel before her death on November 29, was not Delora Krebs Cline, but probably Mrs. Van Natta.
On December 12, 1945, a physician in Dallas, Texas, identified a woman who died there in October, 1944, as Mrs. Cline.
On December 13, 1945, the manager and other employees of a Jacksonville, Florida, hotel identified a photograph of Cline as the man who registered as F. L. Klein and wife on October 22, 1943. The wife died on November 8.
An Oakland, California, widow, Mrs. Elizabeth Hunt Lewis, had left the East Bay city with Cline in September, 1943. In San Francisco, District Attorney Edmund G. Brown expressed his belief that the woman who had died in Jacksonville under the name of “Elizabeth Hannah Klein” was in reality Mrs. Elizabeth Hunt Lewis.
On December 14, 1945, another name turned up. In Dallas, Texas, chief of detectives Will Fritz filed a formal murder charge against Alfred Leonard Cline in connection with the death of an elderly woman, Mrs. Alice W. Carpenter, in a Dallas hotel on October 17, 1944.
The body of Mrs. Carpenter was cremated, on the orders of her “business agent.”
Who was who? We have Delora Krebs Cline, Isabelle Van Natta, Elizabeth Hunt Lewis, and Alice Carpenter. Who died where?
What city should get Alfred Leonard Cline? Portland, Oregon, wanted him. So did Jacksonville, Florida, and Dallas, Texas. Los Angeles wanted him for a reopening of the case of Bessie Ann Sickle Cline. Reno wanted him for a reopening of the death of Carrie May Porter. San Francisco had him. And none of them could pin a murder charge on him!
But D. A. Edmund Brown, in San Francisco, was able to bring nine forgery charges against him, for forging the names of two women (though no one was ever quite sure which was which) who’d wed him, died and been cremated.
The trial, in April of 1946, was a dramatic one, but eventually, white-haired Alfred Leonard Cline, whose cross-country trail was marked by sudden deaths and cremations of elderly women, was found guilty of nine charges of forgery by a jury of five men and seven women.
Judge Herbert Kaufman sentenced him to a total of 126 years in prison and referred to him as “One-Man Crime, Incorporated.”
Any wealthy, elderly widows who happen to be reading this—please watch out when you meet white-haired, mild-mannered little men. If you do, don’t sign any wills in their favor. And avoid “heart attacks.” Or is that conclusion unjust? Was this story of heart attacks and cremations over a period of 15 years merely a series of coincidences, after all?