The people of Catalina enjoy one of the most crime-free environments in the world.
Violent crime in particular is exceedingly rare and one could nearly count the number of homicides that have occurred in the past century on one hand.
Well, maybe two hands.
But wherever you go, people are still people and from time to time someone feels the need to deprive a fellow human of his or her life.
The people of Catalina enjoy one of the most crime-free environments in the world.
Violent crime in particular is exceedingly rare and one could nearly count the number of homicides that have occurred in the past century on one hand.
Well, maybe two hands.
But wherever you go, people are still people and from time to time someone feels the need to deprive a fellow human of his or her life.
Such was the case with an incident that occurred many years ago in the old Hotel Metropole, Catalina Island’s oldest hotel. And while the murder itself has never been a secret, even in such an image-oriented destination as Catalina, a mysterious new twist emerged recently; a twist that comes compliments of our local friend and barber extraordinaire Lolo Saldana.
It was in the early morning hours of August 12, 1902, that a shot rang out in one of the hotel’s private parlors, behind whose doors an illicit poker game was being played.
A man named Harry Johnson raced from the room to report that another gambler, Alfred Boyd, had shot and killed a professional gambler by the name of W.A. Yeager, a.k.a. “The St. Louis Sport.”
To make a long story short, Boyd was charged with the murder, but was eventually found not guilty thanks to a variety of then-untested courtroom theatrics that were so revolutionary that the defense attorney, Earl Rogers, would later become the inspiration for Erle Stanley Gardner’s “Perry Mason” character of novels, film and television.
Both Johnson and Boyd testified during the trial and although Boyd was found not guilty, it has long been assumed that it was one of the two who had committed the murder.
But could there have been a third suspect involved?
Enter Lolo and his new twist on the story: “Back in the early 1960s, I was cutting an elderly man’s hair one day and he said ‘You guys have ruined this town’,” said Lolo.
Somewhat taken aback by this comment, Lolo asked what the gentleman meant by his remark.
“You’ve ruined it with that big round building,” said the man, evidently referring to the Casino. Upon further questioning, Lolo learned that the gentleman had lived on the Island many years before; not only before the present-day Casino, but even before its predecessor, the old Sugarloaf Casino.
He went on to tell Lolo that he had considered Descanso Bay a prime fishing spot back in the day and that somehow the construction of the Casino had ruined it.
Although he was having trouble making the connection between the presence of the Casino and the ruination of a fishing hole (fish don’t like Art Deco?), Lolo was nevertheless interested in the man’s early connections with Avalon. So he carried the conversation further, snipping the man’s hair as he did so.
The mysterious customer told Lolo that his family had actually lived in the Metropole at the turn of the century and that his father was a regular “customer” at the poker tables in the hotel’s private rooms.
Early one summer morning (the man didn’t remember the date), he was hastily awakened by his mother.
“Get up!,” she said. “Pack your bags! We’re leaving the Island!”
Lolo said the man then related how his mother told him they were leaving “for good” and heading to Canada.
He was admonished to “never return to Catalina again.” The family then proceeded to vacate their Island home in the pale light of an impending dawn.
For more than 60 years—during which time the man never learned the reason for his family’s hasty exodus—the man heeded his mother’s advice, all the while maintaining residency in Canada.
It wasn’t until the 1960s, compelled by that desire that overcomes so many in their twilight years to revisit the stomping grounds of their youth, that he made one last pilgrimage to Catalina where he landed in Lolo’s chair.
Could this man’s father have committed the murder or somehow been involved in it? It’s certainly possible his father’s motive for abandoning the Island was unrelated to the killing, although such a hasty and involved retreat smacks of something more sinister than a simple gambling debt or a fling with another man’s lady.
After nearly half a century, Lolo doesn’t recall the man’s name, if in fact it was ever even divulged to him. But his tale either sheds light on—or perhaps deepens—the mystery of the Murder at the Metropole.