Surrounded
by the aroma of cigarette smoke and bacon, Pat sat at the kitchen table with a
coffee cup in one hand and a burning Kent in the other. As usual, the Orange County Register was fanned out in
front of him like a roadmap. Even the tempting smell of breakfast didn’t cause
his eyes to leave the headlines. He always insisted on a hot breakfast with his
paper, but it was generally cold before he noticed it; he customarily devoured
the news first.
Lois
slipped into the kitchen chair beside him and leaned near, quietly reading with
him the story on page one.
Pat glanced at her briefly and then
looked back at the news. The silent smoke curled upward.
“It’s
hard to believe someone so young was capable of such a crime,” he finally
muttered, shaking his head.
“It’s
tragic,” Lois agreed. “He took a
life back in 1952. Now he’s finally going to pay for it with his own.”
“So
young,” Pat repeated. “The killer was only eighteen when he did it. I don’t
know how I feel about that.”
“Cases
like these do make one wonder,” Lois conceded. “But I still feel more sorry for
that poor girl’s mother than I do for the murderer.”
There was no debating Billy Rupp’s
guilt in this first-degree murder case. The Yorba Linda youth had confessed to
everything when he was initially arrested for the crime five years previously.
Yes, it was Billy who broke into his neighbor’s peaceful home where
fifteen-year-old babysitter Ruby Ann Payne was caring for three small children.
With no discernable motive, the crazed intruder clobbered the defenseless girl
over the head with a hammer and then shot her twice with a .22 when she tried
to escape. He was cutting the clothes off her lifeless body when the oldest
child entered the room. That’s when Billy panicked, grabbed his rifle, and ran out
the door like a roach in the light.
Days
later, after subsisting in his hideout on a diet of pretzels, he was found
dining at a cafe in the neighboring city of Brea.
The
horrific nature of Billy’s crime included an automatic death penalty. This
created a moral dilemma for the jurors who heard his case in 1952. The options
were either to find Billy not guilty, thus allowing a confessed killer to go
free, or to declare him guilty, which would send him to the gas chamber.
The
jurors who heard the case of The
People v. William Francis Rupp were not
informed of Billy’s complete medical history dating back to his adolescence. He
had been institutionalized when he was fourteen after brutally assaulting
another female. Psychiatrists in that case had no difficulty in diagnosing Billy
as “schizophrenic, mentally deranged, and dangerous.” This expert opinion kept
Billy locked away in a mental hospital until he reached adulthood. Because
Billy was a juvenile at the time of his first crime, these records were
declared inadmissible at his trial for the Ruby Payne murder. Therefore, he was
pronounced sane at the time of the Payne killing, and he was found guilty as
charged.
After
the death penalty was pronounced, Billy’s sister wrote to the California state
governor to plead for his life. Her letter offered a graphic account of Billy’s
tormented childhood. It also put his appointment with the San Quentin gas
chamber on hold for several years. His sister’s appeal substantiated the psychiatric
findings, but it could not prevent the inevitable. Billy still had to die.
Then
Attorney George Chula came on the scene, and he featured himself as the perfect
defense lawyer for Billy. He was not willing to accept such a harsh verdict
against the troubled teen—but his
moralism did not stem from altruism or idealism. As usual, George was motivated
by notoriety, power, and money.
George’s
strategy for defending the hapless Billy was to garner public sympathy and
letters of support for overturning the unfair death sentence. His ultimate aim
was to coax the jurors who had condemned Billy to provide testimonials
informing the court that they had subsequently changed their minds. The big challenge
was locating all twelve jurors after five years had passed, and he only had a
few days to do it before the hearing began. Hoping for a lightning-quick
miracle and a favor from a friend, George wasted no time in calling KWIZ.
“Good morning, Pat. You’re just the man
I want to speak to!”
“Oh
really? What do you need, George?”
“Pat,
buddy. I think we’re really going to be able to help each other out on this
one,” George said. He paused, hoping to arouse the reporter instinct in Pat.
“Just like we did together on the Lynn Stuart story.”
“Well,
George, if I recall correctly, I don’t think you actually gave me very much
info on the Stuart story. I mean, after all was said and done… Nevertheless,
I’m listening.”
“Seriously,
Pat, this is a matter of life and death. And I can definitely promise you a
good story. But time is of the essence.”
“Okay,
George. Shoot.”
“It
has to do with Billy Rupp.”
“The
murderer?”
“Yes.
My task is to get him off death row.”
“Tell
me more,” said Pat. In the next few minutes, George filled him in on the
details of the case and the impending appeal in court.
Pat’s
enthusiasm grew as he learned more. Echoing George’s words when Pat had told
him about the Lynn Stuart case, Pat finally said, “I’m in.”
The Rupp case would have excited any news-hungry
reporter. This story was of more than local interest. It was national headline
material. There was crime, suspense, mystery, drama, and controversy on every
level—ethical, moral, and political. In addition, George was tackling something
never attempted before, a move undocumented in any law book—using the very
jurors who sentenced a criminal to die to defend that same criminal’s right to
life.
Pat
included Billy Rupp’s story in all his subsequent newscasts. At the top of
every hour Pat Michaels campaigned for compassion, announcing the horrific
story of poor Billy Rupp. He recited the details of Billy’s tragic upbringing
and fragile mental condition. Although these broadcasts drew great sympathy
from the community at large, the bigger purpose was to reach the ears of those
jurors who had judged Billy guilty. So, with each hourly report, Pat urged all
twelve jurors to come forward and contact George Chula immediately. As a
testimony to the widespread influence of Pat’s broadcasts in Southern
California, most of the jurors responded.
George
communicated with all the jurors who had contacted him, and he asked them to sign
an affidavit stating: “I would not have voted for the death penalty had it been
known to me that there was a method whereby William Francis Rupp could be
incarcerated for life without possibility of parole.”
Signing
the affidavits required little convincing. Jurors signed readily. Among the
first was Mrs. Lucille Lanford of Santa Ana. At the original hearing, she had
held out against a death verdict for more than twenty-eight hours before giving
in to “fatigue and other pressures.”
“At
the time,” she told Chula, “I believed that in certain cases the death penalty
was all right. With Rupp, our choice was either to kill him or leave it to
chance that he might be turned free again in the future. But now, this whole
case has me so mixed up, I don't think I even believe in capital punishment anymore.”
Despite
the jurors’ change of heart, the signed affidavits failed to sway California
Governor Goodwin Knight. On November 7, 1958, Billy Rupp ate a hearty meal that
included French fries, doughnuts, chocolate milk, ice cream, and a salad. Then
he walked to the gas chamber and died.
The
attempt to save Billy had failed, but the joint collaboration of Reporter Pat
Michaels and Attorney George Chula solidified a deep bond between the two.
“I
owe you one,” George vowed to Pat, shaking his hand. Indeed, this debt was not
forgotten. The two men would meet again in Elsinore.
* * *
The Billy Rupp case, along with the efforts of
Chula and Michaels to save him, were reported in the Los Angeles Times on
August 30, 1957. Three decades later the story was featured as a special
interest column in the Orange Coast Magazine Oct. 1987, page 94
