There was another rumor floating around. Word had hit the rumor mill that Eva Hickman was en route to see her son during his final days. The warden allowed time before the execution, indicating that he believed that the mother should have some final moments with her son if she was indeed making the trip to California. Eva Hickman never left home. It had all been merely a rumor that grew and eventually found its way into the press. But just to make sure, the warden waited until 9:00 p.m. the night before Hickman’s execution before he took the killer to the death house.
William Edward Hickman had thirty-seven hours left on this earth. He was taken to the death house at 9:00 p.m., and that is where he would spend his final hours. His only request was a phonograph and a stack of records. Hickman had stated to the press that the two things he missed most in prison were listening to music and going to the movies. He was denied the right to attend the movies that were shown to prisoners, believing that his presence in the prison’s general population was far too dangerous, even under guard. Hickman was unhappy to be forbidden from seeing favorite actress Esther Ralston in Sawdust Paradise or Buster Keaton in The Cameraman when these movies were screened for inmates. But he understood the safety issue. Hickman was allowed, during these final hours, to play some records. A phonograph and records were provided, ranging from classical music to popular recordings of the time. Hickman played all of them repeatedly but mostly the aria “Ave Maria,” which he listened to intently with his eyes closed, his body slowly swaying back and forth to the music. It was as if this aria took him away from the very real situation he faced. It is unknown whether Marion’s favorite song, Pretty Baby, was among the discs.
Hickman also wrote several more letters, including a note to one of his captors, Chief Tom Gurdane of Pendleton, Oregon. This is the same Chief Gurdane who returned to Oregon from California with a comparative pittance of reward money after he had been instrumental in nabbing the criminal whose escape prompted one of the largest nationwide manhunt’s in the country’s history. In his letter to Gurdane, Hickman apologized for pretending to insanity while incarcerated there. He equated this dodge as being just as ghastly as the murder of Marion Parker. Even in his alleged contrition, Hickman still felt the need to announce his greatest crime in every letter he wrote.
Also during these final hours, Hickman spent a great deal of time with Father William Fleming, who often visited prisoners just prior to their execution. While such a thing conjures up old movie images of the soft-spoken priest Pat O’Brien visiting contrite gangster James Cagney during his final moments in the 1938 Warner Bros. classic Angels with Dirty Faces, a Hollywood sequence such as this came years later and was, in fact, inspired by real events, such as the story of a murderer like William Edward Hickman. Father Fleming listened to Hickman’s feelings about Jesus, about salvation, and about forgiveness.
“I’m not afraid anymore,” Hickman told him. “I’m not afraid to die. I sent letters to everyone I could, asking their forgiveness and understanding. I spent many nights praying to God that He forgive me. I believe we will all meet in the hereafter.”
Hickman indeed sent many letters, some to sheriffs and deputies from towns where he engaged in the pettiest of crimes. But he still had sent no letter to Perry Parker, and he continued announcing, with some fanfare, his crime of killing Marion Parker in every letter he wrote.
Before leaving Hickman, Father Fleming gave him Holy Communion. Hickman took great peace in the father’s visit. Fleming would live another seven years and continued to make prison visits such as this to the very end of his days.
It was the night before the execution, and Hickman couldn’t sleep. Neither could San Quentin Prison Warden James Holohan. The warden was fraught with a barrage of calls throughout the night, mostly from unstable women pleading with him to save Hickman’s life. During these days of early celebrity, women often became attracted to the status of a young, attractive criminal. It would happen with John Dillinger, Pretty Boy Floyd, and other notorious gangsters of the Depression era, which was to occur only a few years later.
At one point during the night, Hickman called out to death house guard Charles Alston.[1]
“I want to talk to somebody,” he said.
Alston slowly walked over to Hickman’s cell and faced the notorious killer of Marion Parker and Ivy Thoms. Hickman had little time left, and it would seem that he had already told everything about the crime for which he was about to die.
The guard was a family man with children of his own. Two of them were daughters near Marion Parker’s age. He despised Hickman and later admitted that it was difficult to resist the urge to spit in the convicted murderer’s face. But he also realized that any final word from a prisoner about to die might be more revealing than that which had gone before. So he asked the only question that could possibly have been on his mind.
“Why did you kill Marion Parker?”
One would assume that Hickman had a pat answer to that question, having been asked so many times. But this time, Hickman just shrugged. The answer was even more pat and more flippant than the guard had imagined.
“Because I got tired of finding her in the room where I kept her while I was trying to get the ransom money. It got so that the sight of her face drove me into a frenzy.”
Alston was nonplussed, incredulous. Questions rang inside his head. That was it? That’s all? Hickman, in his final hours, admits that his sole reason for murdering this delightful little girl was simply because he was sick of looking at her?
After nearly a year’s worth of headlines, a sensational trial, and a series of confessions that became more specific and more gruesome with each retelling, Hickman revealed, on his last night alive, that Marion Parker was killed because she had become an inconvenience. His grandiose plan of kidnapping for ransom had gone smoothly until the botched Friday night exchange. It wasn’t smooth after that. Marion was a small child who wanted her mother and father. She was not to be consoled. She became an inconvenience.
There was no mention of Providence or of visions appearing before Hickman, egging him on and ordering him to murder. Marion was crying and carrying on, making demands to be returned home. He didn’t want her there anymore. And he got her out of the way as if she was that much dust behind the couch.
“Why didn’t you just drop her off in front of her house and leave the state?”
Hickman shuffled his feet a bit.
“It’s funny you should say that. Marion said that same thing. I almost did it, but I thought she would scream and alert the police guards at the Parker home before I could make a clean getaway.”
Feeling that he may be tapping into something, the guard challenged Hickman. “Why didn’t you take her out on a side street or into the country and leave her?”
Hickman looked down and shook his head. He didn’t answer right away. He sat on his bunk and thought for a moment. Then he looked up at the guard.
“That’s where I used bad judgment,” he admitted.
Hickman started to walk toward the guard as he continued to speak.
“I used bad judgment all the way through. I could have robbed a bank, got 10 times (more than the $1,500 ransom) and would have suffered far less serious consequences when captured.”
As Hickman continued, he revealed his lofty opinion of himself once again. “I guess it was the most terrible crime in the history of the world,” he said. And then added, “If ever a mortal deserved to be hanged, I do.”
Charles Alston realized what Hickman wanted. He was about to die, and there was no turning back. The only shot he had at life was a last-minute reprieve from the governor, and that seemed impossible at this point. So, with eternity staring him in the face, Hickman wanted his final conversation on this earth to call the greatest attention to the one thing he accomplished that gave him the notoriety and infamy he had craved since entering his first oratory contest—William Edward Hickman, the master crook, the manipulator of the courts, and the man who killed and dismembered a little girl and became the most reviled creature in the nation. Everyone could not love Hickman. He came much closer to achieving worldwide hatred. And it was that sort of lofty status that he desired.
Hickman didn’t brag when he was caught. He instead tried to pass himself off as another person. Just as District Attorney Asa Keyes had stated in court, Hickman’s sanity was proven by his attempts to get away rather than brag about the crime. But now that he was caught and there was no way out, Hickman was ready to brag. He was declared sane by a court of law and was to be executed for a cold-blooded murder. It was that simple.
Hickman wasn’t finished talking. His next comment effectively dismissed the many months of effort employed by his two defense attorneys.
“I wasn’t crazy when I killed the Parker girl,” he admitted. “I would have killed my best friend to get what I wanted.”
Alston was ready to walk away. He didn’t need to hear Hickman brag about this crime, even if his boasting included the understanding that he did, indeed, deserve the gallows.
But Hickman still wasn’t finished. After admitting that he wasn’t crazy, that he was, indeed, every bit the evil fiend that the prosecutors described, he looked up at the guard with a smirk. It was the same confident smirk he had shown Mrs. Mary Holt at Marion’s school, the one that exuded such confidence and that helped convince Mrs. Holt to allow Marion to leave the building with the man who killed her only a couple of days later.
Alston didn’t like Hickman’s smirk. He was not impressed with his smugness.
Hickman continued smirking and looked directly into the guard’s eyes.
“I got a kick out of dissecting Marion’s corpse,” he said.
The guard was shocked, and he seethed with anger. Boasting of the killing in a manner that led him to believe himself a “master crook” was bad enough. Hickman was now expressing enjoyment at his heinous act.
And with that, Hickman started to laugh. The guard walked away from the death house, Hickman’s maniacal laughter ringing in his ears.
Alston wanted to kill Hickman right then and there. He wanted to reach into the cell and rip Hickman to shreds with his bare hands. He even later admitted to entertaining the idea of finishing Hickman off, making it look accidental, and somehow hoping public opinion would not convict him of killing a man who had been proven guilty and responsible for killing and dismembering a twelve-year-old girl.
But he wisely waited for the state to take care of Edward Hickman’s expiration. And that was to occur in a mere eight hours.
Michael Newton, Stolen Away (New York: Pocket Books, 2000).