What were they thinking? That’s the response that many of the following episodes might elicit when you read about the victims of marital scams and deceptions during Yuma’s “wedding chapel era.” News stories at the time tended to ridicule the principal players in these elopement fiascos. The national wire services presented the stories as entertaining diversions for readers who were living in an era of depression and war. By extension, Yuma itself was sometimes ridiculed as an unseemly “marriage mill” town where weddings were mass-produced for maximum revenue. It is worth remembering, however, that approximately 300,000 marriages took place in Yuma County between 1928 and 1956—and most of those marriages were not the least bit scandalous.
A phony Russian prince, a fake British captain, and other imposters
“Prince” Mischale Kildischeff, 37, and Helen Gloria Albert, 25—Feb. 13, 1935
When Mischale Kildischeff met songwriter Helen Albert in Hollywood, he claimed to be a Russian prince. According to Helen, “he proved such an irresistable talker that he swept me completely off my feet and persuaded me to go with him to Yuma to get married. He said he was making $800 a week with the Ballet Russia and I would become mistress of a 28 room chalet in Lucerne”
When the couple eloped to Yuma on February 13, 1935, the phony prince became a bigamist. He already had a wife in Syracuse, New York who happened to see a wire service story announcing the Yuma marriage of her deadbeat “prince” of a husband.
Helen Albert was granted an annullment from Mischale Kildischeff in May 1935, but not before the judge issued her some stern advice: “Now don’t be lured by these titles again. Get a real man next time.”
The “prince” also soon lost his Syracuse wife, Norma, who applied for a divorce when she learned of Mischale’s royal escapades.
“Captain Sir Charles Pellissier,” 37, and Margot Jeanne de St. Pierre, 35—August 20, 1937
“Captain Sir Charles Pellissier” was, in reality, Louis Fisher, a “mule skinner” from Vinita, Oklahoma. He was not a native of Capetown, South Africa as he claimed on his marriage license application; nor was he a British knight. The mule skinner’s defense: “I decided to use a title to help me get in the movies. I never meant any harm.”
The fake captain/knight also deceived his Yuma bride by claiming to to be worth $2.5 million, “while he was spending her money.”
Brooke Renshaw, 24, and Vera Denfelser, 19—Oct. 6, 1929
Ultra-distance runner Brooke Renshaw’s audacious, false claims about his athletic achievements were routinely printed as factual in an era when fact-checking was much more difficult than it is today. Renshaw, who was born in England with the name Victor Wilson, claimed at various times to have competed on the 1924 and 1928 U.S. Olympic teams as a marathon runner. He also claimed to hold the world record for the 150-mile ultra-endurance running event, while bragging that he once defeated Paavo Nurmi, the legendary “Flying Finn,” in a non-Olympic race. None of these claims appear to have any validity. Renshaw did stage several long-distance running challenges such as the 150 mile contest in Portland, Oregon which the photo below was meant to publicize.
The bogus Olympian became a double bigamist when he married 19-year-old Vera Denfelser in Yuma on October 6, 1929. The couple resided in Bisbee for several months where they operated a miniature golf course until Brooke Renshaw’s marital entanglements came to light. A bigamy charge filed by wife #2 was dropped when wife #1—who was serving a prison term in Los Angeles for passing bad checks— was determined to be Renshaw’s legal wife. At his bigamy trial, Brooke Renshaw stated that he believed both of his earlier marriages had been annulled. Nonetheless, he was found guilty and given a 2-10 year sentence. In September 1931 Renshaw’s Yuma bride, Vera Denfelser, became the legal wife of Roger Johnson, a tire company manager. While Vera was being married in San Bernardino, her bigamous ex-husband occupied a cell in the Arizona State Prison.
False pretenses
Gin Marriages: Blaming the “I do’s” on the booze
California’s 1927 “Gin Marriage law” aimed to prevent hasty, alcohol-impaired marital decisions by requiring a 3-day waiting period for couples applying for marriage licenses. Arizona had no such safeguard . . .
Brazen Bigamists
“Victory Girls” / “Allotment Annies”
During World War II there were numerous reports of women marrying multiple U.S. soldiers and sailors for the sole purpose of obtaining the allotment checks provided to military wives. Since the Armed Services were unable to investigate such cases during wartime, the FBI stepped in and halted several of these marriage frauds. Arizona’s no-waiting marriage laws and Yuma’s proximity to West Coast military bases combined to make the community a destination for allotment check scammers such as Alvergia Jorgensen and Vivian Eggers.
Alvergia Jorgensen was married nine times by the age of 31. The last four husbands were Navy men, including Thomas Ryder, who Jorgensen married in Yuma on August 6, 1944.
Vivian Eggers targeted Army men for her allotment scam marriages. Eggers, shown below, married three Army privates in Yuma.
Francis Van Wie, 64, and Martha Moyle, 67—Feb. 18, 1951
Francis Van Wie was a San Francisco streetcar conductor who married 18 women between the years 1904 and 1959. Marriage #15 took place in Yuma. Van Wie became an unlikely folk hero due to his homespun image and the irreverent press coverage of his messy marital activities. Since Van Wie met several of his wives while performing his streetcar duties, reporters invariably referred to him as the “Ding Dong Daddy of the D-Car Line,” a variation of an old Louis Armstrong song title. Most of Van Wie’s marriages were bigamous, leading to criminal charges in 1945, 1952 and 1959. He managed to avoid prison in the latter two instances.
Francis Van Wie enjoyed his notoriety and offered fascinating explanations for his behavior. According to Van Wie, after wife #6, Mabel, left him for another man, he “started marrying these women. I couldn’t help myself. I was lonely and needed someone.” A psychiatrist at Van Wie’s 1952 bigamy hearing asserted that the defendant was “not a criminal—just a compulsive romantic.” Not all of Van Wie’s wives agreed with that opinion, some accusing him of both abandonment and abuse.
When Van Wie was released from prison after 2 years, he ignored the judge’s stipulation that any future marriages would need the approval of the probation officer.
In 1958, at the age of 73, Van Wie married for the 18th and final time. He was arrested for violating his parole agreement, but his 81-year-old wife Minnie stood by her man, remaining with him until his death in August 1963.
Shocking Minor Marriages
Virginia Shirley, 12, and Harold Toy, 21—April 9, 1937
Virginia Shirley, age 12, eloped to Yuma on April 9, 1937 with 21-year-old Harold Toy, a truck driver from Willowbrook, California. The marriage ended after four days when the groom was arrested on the charge of contributing to the delinquency of a minor. While Virginia’s father, Clarence Shirley, filed the complaint, her mother, Frances, approved of the marriage, stating that “Harold’s a nice boy.”
The bride had lied that she was 18 on the wedding license application. The wedding was conducted by Justice of the Peace Ed Winn, who conceded, “I thought she looked a little young, but the county clerk gave her a license, so it was none of my business.“
For his crime, Harold Toy was sentenced to 2 years of probation.
Aileen Lowe, 14, and Wesley Berry, 29—March 16, 1937
On March 16, 1937 Aileen Lowe, age 14, eloped to Yuma from San Diego with Wesley Berry, a 29-year-old WPA worker. The couple was accompanied by Aileen’s mother, Mildred. Aileen and Wesley remained married until his untimely death in 1950 at the age of 42. The 1950 census shows Aileen as a 27-year-old widow with two children. She remarried in 1954.
Ellsworth “Sonny” Wisecarver, 14, and Elaine Monfredi, 21—April 29, 1944
Ellsworth “Sonny” Wisecarver achieved a dubious level of fame as a teenager due to his highly publicized marriages to older married women—the first of which took place in Yuma. On April 29, 1944 Ellsworth Wisecarver eloped from Compton, California with Elaine Monfredi, a 21-year-old wife and mother of a 2-year-old and a 6-month-old. The couple presented Justice of the Peace R.H. Lutes with a forged note from Ellsworth’s mother purporting to give consent to the marriage. In fact, Ellsworth’s mother had filed a criminal complaint of “child stealing” against Elaine Monfredi, and the honeymooning couple was soon arrested in Denver. The marriage was annulled, and both Ellsworth and Elaine were placed on probation.
But that wasn’t the end of the public’s fascination with this underage boy, who the press nicknamed “The Woo Woo Kid” and the “Compton Casanova.” Marriage #2 took place a year later in Oroville, California, and, again, the bride was a married woman in her twenties with two young children. When he was 17, “Sonny” married for the third time. Surprisingly, bride #3, Betty Reber, was also 17 years old.
James Thompson, 16, and Leitha Truax, 36—November 1948
A few days after eloping to Yuma with a 36-year-old woman, James Thompson, age 16, turned himself in at a Los Angeles police station “to help get myself straightened out.” He related how Leitha Marie Truax, his Yuma bride, had given him gin to induce him to go to Yuma. He also told the police that the woman later abandoned him—after she had stolen his wristwatch.
Leitha Marie Truax was found guilty of contributing to the delinquency of a minor and placed on probation for 5 years. She was still on probation when she died at the age of 39 in February 1952.
Strange but True
Jeanette Cormer and Marvin Boeuer were married in Yuma on March 22, 1942. Immediately after the ceremony, Marvin informed Jeanette that, since they had been married by a justice of the peace and not a Catholic priest, the marriage “did not mean anything to him, but that it would keep him out of the draft and that was the only object of the marriage.”
On April 21, 1937 a Long Beach couple was en route to Yuma to be married when they stopped at a Redlands, California restaurant. Realizing that she was not ready for marriage, 21-year-old Doris Phlaf wrote a note on a restroom paper towel: “He is taking me to Yuma. I don’t want to go.” Doris left the note on a table where it was found by a waitress who called the Redlands police. Since Doris had also noted the make and license number of boyfriend James O’Neil’s automobile, the police were able to quickly stop the couple (and the involuntary Yuma elopement). Doris Phlaf did not press kidnapping charges against her boyfriend, emphasizing that she “just wasn’t ready to get married.”
In February 1936 Ralph Snidow, a 26-year-old Los Angeles man, eloped to Yuma with 18-year-old “Bernice” Palmer, the twin sister of his former girlfriend, Virginia Palmer—or so he thought! Ralph (eventually) discovered that he had been tricked into marrying the ex-girlfriend, since “Bernice” and Virginia were one and the same woman . . .
Murderers (and murder suspects) who were married in Yuma
Ira Kirk, 30, and Marie Lee, 21—February 23, 1929
On February 23, 1929 Ira Kirk of San Francisco married 21-year-old Marie Lee of Somerton. After five months of married life in Somerton, Kirk deserted his fourth wife and returned to San Francisco and his longtime sweetheart, a high school teacher named Clara Boeke. On November 15, 1929 Ira Kirk sent Clara flowers for her upcoming birthday. He also proposed marriage, but when Clara rejected his proposal, Kirk murdered her in a rage by slashing her throat. When Clara’s sister Alma became suspicious and confronted Ira Kirk, he attempted to take Alma to the same spot where he had murdered Clara. Alma had notified the police of her fears, and they were able to capture Kirk, who was later convicted of murder. He served 23 years in San Quentin before being paroled in 1953.
Leslie Thornewill, 34, and Helene Grant Card, 30—April 17, 1930
On April 17, 1930 Leslie Thornewill and Helene Card, a Santa Cruz, California couple, were married in Yuma by Justice of the Peace Earl Freeman. Eight months later, on December 28, Leslie was at a party with friends when Helene arrived, carrying a pistol, to take her husband home. Three shots were fired, two of which struck Leslie and ultimately caused his death. At her trial for her husband’s murder, Helene Thornewill was acquitted in a matter of minutes by the 12 man jury due to a deathbed exoneration from Leslie. According to Joan Gilbert Martin, “On his deathbed, Thornewill did the decent thing and claimed that it had been an accident—the gun fired [three times] as he tried to take it out of Helene’s hands.”
Two years earlier, in a surreal parallel incident, Leslie Thornewill’s former common-law wife, Cora Mead, died from a gunshot wound. As she was dying, Cora had dialed the operator and shouted, “He’s killing me!” Leslie Thornewill was a prime suspect but never charged in the killing, which the local sheriff determined to be a suicide staged in a manner that would implicate Leslie Thornewill.
Paul Kelly, 41, and Claire Owen, 30—January 23, 1941
On January 23, 1941 actor Paul Kelly eloped to Yuma with actress Claire Owen—born Zona Nardelle Zwicker. A tragic scandal in Kelly’s past nearly ended his film career in 1927, but he eventually became one of Hollywood’s top character actors, a status he maintained until his 1956 death at the age of 57.
In 1927 Paul Kelly was convicted of manslaughter for the killing of actor Ray Raymond, the husband of Kelly’s lover, actress Dorothy Mackaye. During a drunken quarrel, Kelly gave Raymond a violent beating which resulted in a fatal head injury. Paul Kelly served two years in San Quentin, while Dorothy Mackaye served one year in prison for concealing the cause of her husband’s death. After Kelly was released from prison, he and Dorothy Mackaye married. Paul Kelly’s Yuma marriage to Claire Owen took place a year after Dorothy Mackaye’s death in an automobile accident.
Leon Benon, 16, and Lois Jean Mays, 16—July 1944
On July 29, 1945 Leon and Lois Jean Benon of Los Angeles were celebrating the anniversary of their elopement to Yuma one year earlier when they were both 16-year-olds. Joining the Benons in their apartment was William Owens, 29, a “friend” of the couple. In reality, the married William Owens was Lois Jean’s lover, as Leon already knew, and when Lois informed Leon that she was leaving him to go with William to Texas, Leon took his .22 rifle out of a cabinet and killed the unarmed William Owens by firing 11 shots from the rifle.
Leon Benon was arrested and put on trial for murder as an adult. The defense highlighted the victim’s shady past and criminal record, while defiantly justifying the killing as a husband’s right to defend the “sanctity” of his home. On November 15, 1945 the jury acquitted Leon Benon of the murder charge. The jury foreman, the lone male on the jury, explained, “We felt Benon was justified in killing Owens for attempting to steal away his wife.”
Charles Voi, 47, and Mary Elizabeth Brants, 33—July 4, 1952
Charles Voi was a Los Angeles bigamist who tried to maintain two separate households in which each wife remained unaware of the other. Somehow Voi was able to maintain his ruse for a full year before it came to a tragic conclusion.
When Charles Voi eloped to Yuma on July 4, 1952 with Mary Elizabeth Brants of Long Beach, he already had a wife named Nancy in Hollywood. Mary Elizabeth continued living in Long Beach with her daughter Marilyn, while part-time husband Charles came and went. When Mary Elizabeth discovered the existence of wife #1, a showdown ensued in which Charles brutally attacked Mary Elizabeth with a claw hammer, leaving her near death while he fatally shot himself—in the heart.
Mary Elizabeth Brants, Charles Voi’s Yuma bride, recovered from the beating, and in March 1956 she married William Gruendler of Long Beach.
Take the money and run
Financial romance scams targeting seniors are common today, but this is not a new phenomenon:
Susan Burroughs, 63, of Los Angeles and Samuel Stone, 61, of San Jose eloped to Yuma on October 9, 1930, where they were married by Justice of the Peace Earl Freeman. The next morning the groom fled from the couple’s Yuma hotel and absconded with the bride’s savings of $500. Sheriff’s department deputies tracked Stone down in Tacna and returned him (and Susan’s money) to Yuma. Susan Burroughs declined to press charges against the man who had betrayed and humiliated her, while nearly leaving her penniless. And before she headed back to Los Angeles, this ever-charitable woman gave Samuel Stone twenty-five dollars.
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