A Ghastly Murder Remembered - Part 1

Mary Arrivey's headstone sits quietly among the thousands of markers, graves and monuments at the Stockton Catholic Cemetery in Stockton, California. If you look closely, you will notice an odd pattern of scratches on the marker itself. It is safe to say that more than likely we will never know exactly why those scratches were engraved in Mary's headstone, or who did it. The story of how she ended up in the cemetery proved to be one of the most heinous and almost incomprehensible murders I had ever researched.

Mary Arrivey, was born Mary Byrne in 1862. A native of Ireland, she immigrated to the United States at some point in her life, later marrying Augustino Arrivey on December 13, 1881 in Stockton. Augustino was a blacksmith from Louisiana, and was born around 1851. Prior to his marriage to Mary, he was also listed in military records in 1876, as a 7th Corporal in the 2nd Brigade. Although I couldn't find his death record, the city directories later list Mary as a widow. At this point her adult son, Augustin Francis Arrivey is living with her.

The Murder

Mary worked at Stockton Laundry, located at 728 E. Washington, while her son, Augustin worked as a printer at a small newspaper called, "The Mail," an earlier version of the Stockton Evening Mail. According to directories, Mary and her son moved around a lot. During my initial investigation I believed that the incident I am about to discuss took place at 847 LaFayette in Stockton, as her Findagrave memorial suggests.

After further digging, I have found that just less than a block or so away from that location, the home in which Mary was actually living in during 1911, was at 219 S. Locust Street in Stockton. The newspaper claimed that she had lived on Harrison, however the directory speaks of Locust Street as being her home address. I could find no listing of Mary living on Harrison at any point in time. I have to assume, given the address on the directory, that the event actually took place at the original home that stood at 219 S. Locust Street in Stockton and perhaps that was just a clerical error on the part of the newspaper. If I find other evidence later, I will update this blog.

According to the San Francisco Call, dated December 5, 1911, it says:

"Crazed by liquor, Gus Arrivey, a printer of this city, murdered his mother, Mary Arrivey last night in her home...."--

The account goes on to detail that Gus claimed that an airship was circling around his head, when a man in the airship allegedly told him to murder his mother. The heinous and most gruesome crime was committed with a hatchet, while he hacked his mother to death.


He then dragged her body around the home leaving a bloody mess all over the floors. The police found the mutilated body of Mary, along with "disarranged bedding and furniture" that showed signs of a serious struggle.  The police located Gus, two blocks from his home in a nearby swampy, grass area where it appeared he had been there all night. He was found barefoot, hunched down and babbling incoherently.

After such a horrendous act, the investigators were not sure whether Gus was insane, drunk or just pure evil. His sanity was called into question, so Dr. A.W. Holshot examined Gus, and found that he was suffering from "delerium tremens" which is a most severe form of ethanol withdrawal, and was deemed sane to stand trial for the murder of his mother.

According to the book, "King Alcohol Dethroned" by Ferdinand Cowle Iglehart, D.D. (1919) he mentions Gus in his reports: 

 

"August Arrivey, thirty years old, a printer by trade, is

under arrest here, the confessed murderer of his mother, 

Mrs. Mary Arrivey, fifty-eight years old. 'The man in 

the airship told me to do it.' Arrivey continually mutters 

as the only reason for his crime. Because of his actions 

the police believe him insane. Liquor is believed, however, 

to be at the root of the man's crime, as he had for the 

last few years obtained one position after another, only to 

lose them in rapid succession on account of sprees. Mrs. 

Arrivey was found lying in a pool of blood in the kitchen, 

with her skull crushed and her face gashed as if from 

blows from a hatchet. Search of the premises disclosed the 

son, muttering like a child, hiding behind some bushes in 

the yard. Confronted with the dead body of his mother, 

he confessed his crime." This paragraph, which appeared 

in a Stockton, California, paper, a few days ago, is one 

which shocks us for a moment as we read it, and is then 

forgotten as a commonplace incident of life. "--

Gus was found guilty in the 1st degree of the murder of his mother, Mary Arrivey and sentenced to life in prison. He was received at San Quentin State Prison on February 6, 1912, where he served 9 1/2 years. He was then paroled on July 13, 1921, but at some point he violated the terms of his parole, because by 1927, he was back in the system again. He stayed for the remainder of his life behind bars, eventually dying on July 1, 1941. He was buried at the cemetery behind San Quentin Prison.

Conclusion

When I was shown a newspaper clipping of this story by Roland Boulware, the man who entered Mary's information and photograph in Findagrave, I was taken aback by the brutality of the crime. I could not fathom that a son would do such a horrendous thing like that to his own mother. What a sick and demented person this man was to do such a horrible thing.

It also saddened me that we had never heard anything of this story before. With all the infamous stories in our history in the United States, such as the "Lizzie Borden" murders and other heinous crimes, why was this crime virtually erased and forgotten in Stockton's history?

It also made me wonder who may have scratched those lines in Mary's grave? Could it have been a relative? Could it have been Gus? Was it possible that he came to the cemetery at some point before he violated his parole in 1927, and in a drunken stupor he scratched those lines in his mother's headstone?

According to Roland Boulware, he believes the scratches were relatively new when he took the photo several years back. Still, there is no way to know for sure when those marks were left on her grave. In the end, I wrote this blog to honor the memory of Mary Arrivey and tell her story. As morbid as her murder was, this was still a piece of Stockton's history and should never be forgotten or erased again.


TO READ PART 2 OF THIS STORY-- A GHASTLY MURDER REMEMBERED CLICK HERE--

(Copyright 2015- J'aime Rubio, originally published 3/20/2015)

All rights reserved. No part of this blog may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means without prior written permission by the author/publisher, J’aime Rubio. 

Sources:
Ancestry.com
California Prison Records
San Francisco Call (12/5/1911)
San Francisco Call (1/17/1912)
"King Alcohol Dethroned,"- Ferdinand Cowle Iglehart (1919)
Stockton Directories (various)
Census Records, Marriage Records
Military Records
Findagrave.com
Photos: San Quentin Prison Photos,
Roland Boulware, grave of Mary Arrivey.
Photos of 847 E. Lafayette- by J'aime Rubio
219 S. Locust, google maps

What Really Happened To Dr. Harry Cross?

One tranquil afternoon, during a casual stroll through Stockton Rural Cemetery, I came upon the Cross family plot. Located in a section near "Millionaire's Row," sits the grave of Dr. Harry Cross. Why his grave stood out to me is unknown, but I felt compelled to find out who he was. The more I dug, the more interesting it turned out to be, finding out just who he was and how he met his death in 1922.

Harry Cross was born to parents, Lester Emmett Cross and Imogen Lyon on May 8, 1867 in Michigan. At some point before 1880, the Cross family moved to Stockton to set up residence, while Lester set up his medical practice. Dr. Lester E. Cross' nickname was "Dr. Stork" due to the large amount of births that he delivered during his prominent career as a physician in Stockton.

His son, Harry followed in his father's footsteps, eventually graduating from Cooper Medical College, class of 1889-90.  Being raised in a family of physicians, no doubt there was a level of pressure that Dr. Cross must have felt. According to records, he seems to have done quite well for himself even at a very young age. He eventually married a young lady by the name of Sophia, and purchased a lovely home at 330. W. Magnolia in Stockton (on the corner of Magnolia/Van Buren).  His office was located at 42 N. Sutter Street, Suite 313, inside the Elks Building.

Dr. Harry Cross' Home, 330 W. Magnolia

Elks Building, 42 N. Sutter Street, Stockton

Patent # US1349751 A

Unfortunately, an unforeseen medical emergency took place when Harry was 42 years old. According to the December 2, 1909 edition of the San Francisco Call, states:

"PHYSICIAN UNDERGOES SERIOUS OPERATION, [Special Dispatch to The Call] STOCKTON, Dec. 1.—Dr. Harry Cross, one of the most prominent of local physicians, yesterday underwent a serious operation for appendicitis and hernia. He was operated upon at St. Joseph's home by Dr. Ellis Harbert, Dr. Fred Clark, Dr. S. N. Cross and Dr. L. E. Cross. The patient is doing well."--  Thankfully Dr. Cross recovered from his appendicitis and hernia surgery and eventually went back to work.  

During Dr. Cross' life he seemed to have been quite the genius. In fact, there's a record of him dabbling in inventions besides being a physician. The U.S. Patent Office holds the records of one of Harry's inventions. a Dust-Fuel Carburetor, that was filed on February 12, 1919 and patented on August 17, 1920. 

Interestingly, newspaper accounts mention that he had also opened a tuberculosis hospital in French Camp, that I have not been able to locate as of yet. However, the account also mentions that he had invented some type of elixir that was actually improving patients health who had been suffering from tuberculosis, and that he had gained some success with it. Unfortunately, for reasons unsaid in the article, the hospital had closed just prior to Dr. Cross' death.

Mysterious Death 

According to the Bakersfield Californian, Dr. Harry Cross was traveling with one of his patients to Los Angeles for further medical treatment, but stopped for the night along the old Ridge Route at the Sandberg Summit Hotel.  Lee Smythe, Dr. Cross' patient, revealed to the authorities that he woke up in the morning after sleeping at the resort, only to find Dr. Cross' lifeless body with a gunshot wound to the head and a pistol nearby. The two were sharing the same room. According to Smythe's statement, the two were on their way to Glendale to seek further medical treatment for a "condition" Smythe had been suffering from, which Dr. Cross had been treating him.  

As I read the article more I noticed something that did not sit well with me. Instead of raising the question of why Smythe did not hear the gunshot, since he had been sharing the same room, but instead the newspaper insinuated that Dr. Cross committed suicide, left a bad taste in my mouth. Why were the authorities so quick to rule this a suicide? 

from www.ridgeroute.com

Another oddity was that they mention an "alleged" nervous breakdown that Dr. Cross had suffered from, which supposedly took place years earlier. It even claimed that he stayed at a Sanitarium for a brief time.  I could not locate any records that would verify this allegation, nor could I disprove it. 

It went on to say that after his nervous breakdown, that he went back to practicing medicine again.  I am not sure if that was common to allow a doctor to go back to practicing medicine after a nervous breakdown, but again, I could not find any proof of this, not even in the Stockton newspapers.

I started thinking about the fact that Dr. Cross had come up with a treatment for tuberculosis, that allegedly worked. He was starting to get noticed for this, and then suddenly his hospital is closed down? Was this somehow connected with his death? 

Why was he traveling to Glendale with a patient? Was he there to prove to other colleagues that Lee Smythe was one of those patients he successfully treated? Was he there to look into further medicinal treatments? We may never know.

Lee Smythe was a resident of Merced, I looked into his background and didn't find much. He was a day laborer and a cook at different times in his life. He was born, Leander "Lee" Vincent Smythe on February 11, 1876.  His sister was Belle Gribl, the Superintendent of the Merced County School District during the 1920s. Lee was married to Lotta Viola Goldman in May of 1901. By 1918, he was a cook on a dredger, W.W. Hutchinson out of Antioch, Ca. His address was the Santa Fe Hotel in Antioch, based on  his WWI registration card.

So, was Lee a suspect? I think so. I find it quite odd that he did not hear the gunshot that killed Dr. Cross, especially since they were sharing the same room. I find it even stranger that the record of Dr. Cross' death discreetly disappeared out of any further local papers in that area. It is as if his death was swept under the rug, and he was quickly buried and forgotten. I had contacted several historians who were well acquainted with the history of the Sandberg Hotel's history, and even they had never heard of this strange death that took place there. That intrigues me even more.

The question as to why Dr. Cross died will remain as much a mystery to us as how he died. Did Dr. Cross travel all the way to Los Angeles County only to shoot himself in the head? Was he really as "nervous" as the newspaper account tried to paint him?  Why didn't Lee Smythe hear the gunshot? Had Cross really committed suicide in the same room or was he murdered? What really happened in that hotel room along the old Ridge Route?

The answers to those questions unfortunately went with Dr. Cross to the grave, leaving us only to speculate and imagine to this day. Now the only reminder of his existence is that small, concrete headstone tucked back in the heart of Stockton Rural Cemetery. A permanent resting place for a man we will never fully know.

Rest In Peace, Dr. Harry Cross.

(Copyright 2015- J'aime Rubio, Historian)

Originally posted January 5, 2015
Thank you- Roland J. D. Boulware, Harrison Irving Scott, Margie Campbell, Bonnie Kane and Peter Mack. 

Sources:

FamilySearch.com
Census, birth and marriage records
Polk-Husted Directory, Stockton City 
and San Joaquin County Directory, 1920
San Francisco Call, (12/2/1909)
Bakersfield Californian (8/18/1922)
Stockton Rural Cemetery

Photos: photos of headstone and home, copyright J. Rubio
Sandberg Summit Hotel (c/o Harrison Irving Scott, Author, 
www.ridgeroute.com)
all other photos are in public domain