Murder of Marion Parker

The next day, December 16, the first of several ransom letters were delivered via telegram to the Parker home, demanding $1,500 (equivalent to $23,672 in 2021) in $20 gold certificates. All communications by the kidnapper were signed with names such as "Fate," "Death," and "The Fox." The first telegram, addressed from Pasadena, read: "Do positively nothing till you receive special delivery letter," with what appeared to be Marion's signature on it. A second telegram, sent shortly after from Alhambra, read: "Marion secure. Use good judgment. Interference with my plans dangerous"; this telegram was signed with the name George Fox.

On the evening of December 17, Perry received several phone calls at his home from the kidnapper, which established a new meeting for delivering the ransom money, with the agreed location being the corner of West 5th Street and South Manhattan Place in central Los Angeles. At 7:15 p.m., the kidnapper phoned the home, instructing Perry to depart immediately to the aforementioned location, assuring him that he would recognize Perry's car.

Hickman and his defense claimed that he was insane, and that a deity, "Providence", told him to commit the kidnapping and murder. He was one of the first defendants in California to use what was then a new law, which allowed defendants to plead that they were not guilty by reason of insanity. Hickman was convicted of the murder, and sentenced to death. After an unsuccessful appeal, he was executed by hanging at San Quentin State Prison in October 1928. Marion Parker was survived by her parents; elder brother; and twin sister, Marjorie.

In February 1928, a jury rejected the insanity defense and the judge sentenced Hickman to death by hanging. He appealed his conviction but it was upheld by the California Supreme Court. During his final months, Hickman reportedly embraced Roman Catholicism and wrote letters of apology to his victim’s families.

On October 19, 1928, he was hanged on the gallows in San Quentin Prison. Upon falling through the trap doors of the gallows, Hickman struck his head and hung, "violently twitching and jerking." Per witnesses, it took approximately two minutes for Hickman to die. An autopsy performed after his execution showed that Hickman's neck did not break during the hanging, and that he had died from asphyxia.

In 1928, the writer Ayn Rand began planning a novel called The Little Street, whose protagonist, Danny Renahan, was to be based on "what Hickman suggested to [her]." The novel was never finished, but Rand wrote notes for it which were published after her death in the book Journals of Ayn Rand. In these notes Rand writes that the public fascination with Hickman is not due to the heinousness of his crimes, but to his defiant attitude and his refusal to accept conventional morals. She describes him as "a brilliant, unusual, exceptional boy" and speculates about the society that turned him into "a purposeless monster." Rand wanted the protagonist of her novel to be, "A Hickman with a purpose. And without the degeneracy. It is more exact to say that the model is not Hickman, but what Hickman suggested to me."

In the years following the crime, Parker's murder was subject to various folk murder ballads, many of which alternately spelled her name "Marian." One of the earliest recorded ballads inspired by the Parker murder, "Little Marian Parker", was recorded by Vernon Dalhart and Carson Robison, and released in 1928 by Columbia Records. The same year, Andrew Jenkins (under the pseudonym Blind Andy) released the ballad "Little Marion Parker" as a single on Okeh Records, with the b-side "The Fate of Edward Hickman." Another ballad inspired by the crime, "The Marion Parker Murder", was recorded and released in 1939, performed by John McGhee.

Parker went missing on December 15, 1927, after she was dismissed from her classes at Mount Vernon Junior High School in Lafayette Square: an unknown man, posing as an employee of her father, Perry, checked her out of school with the registrar, stating that her father had suffered an accident. The next day, the Parker family received ransom letters demanding $1,500 (equivalent to $23,672 in 2021) in gold. The letters were signed with various titles, including "Fate", "Death", and "The Fox"; and some had words written in Greek.

Following the orders of the ransom, Perry Parker—a bank employee—met his daughter's abductor in central Los Angeles on December 17, 1927. Upon the exchange of the money, the assailant drove away, throwing Marion's mutilated body out of his car as he fled. The child had been significantly disfigured, her limbs cut off, her eyes fixed open with wires, and her abdomen disemboweled and stuffed with rags; her limbs were discovered the next day in Elysian Park.

Parker went missing from Mount Vernon Junior High School in the Lafayette Square section of Los Angeles on December 15, 1927. She was excused from class by the registrar, Mary Holt, after a man—presenting himself as an employee of the bank where Perry Parker worked—claimed that Perry had suffered an automobile accident and wished to see his daughter; the man, apparently unaware of Marion's twin sister, Marjorie, was given possession of Marion. Holt later claimed that she "never would have let Marion go but for the apparent sincerity and disarming manner of the man." Parker was reported missing later that day.

A massive manhunt for Marion's killer began on December 17, 1927. It involved over 20,000 police officers and American Legion volunteers. A reward of $50,000 was offered for the identification and capture of the killer, dead or alive. This was later raised to $100,000 (equivalent to $1,578,101 in 2021) after numerous contributions from the public. On December 20 the getaway car, in which Marion's killer had departed, was found abandoned and identified as having been stolen in San Diego. Fingerprints were able to be taken from the door of the car.

Identifying Hickman as the prime suspect in Marion Parker's murder, law enforcement traced his path north, as he fled to Oregon. He was sighted by a gas station attendant in Albany, Oregon on the morning of December 20, 1927, driving a green Hudson car later determined to have been stolen in Los Angeles. At the Albany gas station, Hickman purchased 10 US gallons (38 L) of gasoline. According to the station attendant, Hickman was dressed in a dark blue suit and wore Oxford shoes. The attendant reported the sighting to police the next day after reading a newspaper article indicating that Hickman was most likely driving a green Hudson vehicle. Police were subsequently able to trace Hickman to Seattle, Washington, where he used two of the $20 gold certificates given to him as part of Perry Parker's ransom to purchase clothes from a haberdashery on the evening of December 21.

At approximately 1:30 p.m. on December 22, 1927, Chief of Police Tom Gurdane and traffic officer Buck Lieuallen arrested Hickman in Echo, Oregon, after a frantic car chase. The officers had recognized him from wanted posters. In the green Hudson, the officers discovered $1,400 of the gold ransom given to him from Perry. At the time of his arrest, Hickman proclaimed: "Some fiend killed her. I don't know who he is," before stating: "I did it because I wanted the money to pay my way through college."

Frances Marion Parker (October 11, 1915 – December 17, 1927) was an American child who was abducted and murdered in Los Angeles, California. Her murder was deemed by the Los Angeles Times "the most horrible crime of the 1920s", and at the time was considered the most horrific crime in the history of California. In later decades, Parker's death was the subject of various murder ballads.

Frances Marion Parker was born October 11, 1915 in Los Angeles, California, to Geraldine (née Heisel) and Perry Marion Parker. She had a twin sister, Marjorie, and one older brother, Perry Jr.

Parker's murderer was soon identified as William Edward Hickman (born February 1, 1908), a 19-year-old former co-worker of Perry Parker. Law-enforcement officers tracked Hickman throughout the Pacific Northwest over several days, relying on sightings in Albany and Portland, Oregon, and Seattle, Washington, where he paid shop-owners with gold certificates given to him in the ransom. He was arrested in Echo, Oregon, on December 22, 1927, and then extradited to California, where he was convicted of Parker's murder. He made a written confession, in which he explained in detail how he strangled Parker, disarticulated her limbs, and disemboweled her.

Police traced a laundry mark on the towel found stuffed inside Marion's torso to the Bellevue Arms apartments (34°03′58″N 118°15′06″W / 34.066060°N 118.251670°W / 34.066060; -118.251670), where they interviewed a number of tenants. On December 20, the fingerprints taken from the abandoned Chrysler were identified as belonging to William Edward Hickman (born February 1, 1908), a former coworker of Perry Parker. Both men were employed by the First National Bank of Los Angeles, where Parker worked as an assistant cashier and Hickman as an officer.