Marion Parker was twelve years old when a man walked into her Los Angeles junior high school on December 15, 1927, claimed her father had been in a serious accident, and took her out of class. She was never seen alive again. Marion was born on October 11, 1915, to Perry and Geraldine Parker. She had a twin sister, Marjorie, an older brother, Perry Jr.
, and a close bond with her father, who managed a branch of the National Trust and Savings Bank. Friends described Marion as a nice, athletic girl who preferred spending time with her family over most anything else. The man who came to Mount Vernon Junior High School that morning identified himself as Mr. Cooper and said he worked with Mr.
Parker at the bank. The school registrar, Mary Holt, asked which daughter he was there for. He was unaware there were two Parker twins at the school, but answered, “the younger one. ” When Holt pointed out they were twins, he quickly replied, “of course they are, I mean the smaller one.
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Holt considered the explanation reasonable, especially after the man invited her to verify his story by calling the bank. She did not make that call. Marion was pulled from class at 12:15 pm and left the building with him. That afternoon, Marion’s twin sister Marjorie waited for her at the streetcar stop, as they always traveled home together.
Marion did not appear, and Marjorie boarded the car alone. At home, the family initially assumed Marion had stayed behind to help a teacher. By 4:45 pm, her parents were worried and called the school. They learned their daughter had been handed over to a stranger claiming to represent the father.
Moments after police arrived at the Parker home, a telegram arrived. It read, “Marion is secure. Use good judgment. Interference with my plans dangerous.
” It was signed “Marion Parker” and “George Fox. ”
The following day, a ransom note arrived, titled “Death,” demanding $1,500 in gold certificates. It warned that if the family involved police or made the affair public, “no one will ever see the girl again except the angels in heaven. ” A handwritten postscript from Marion begged her father to obey the kidnapper or she would be killed.
Perry Parker followed instructions for a first ransom meeting, but police had followed him without his knowledge. When the kidnapper realized officers were nearby, he fled. More telegrams followed, including one warning, “I have a Gillette ready,” and another indicating the abductor was losing patience. On the night of December 16, the kidnapper phoned with a second meeting location.
Parker arrived alone with the money. A Chrysler coupe pulled up, and the driver, his face covered with a bandana, pointed a firearm at him. Parker saw Marion slumped in the passenger seat. He asked if she was alright, but she did not respond.
The kidnapper said she was merely asleep, and Parker, believing she had been chloroformed, handed over the ransom. The car drove off. A short distance away, the kidnapper pushed Marion out onto the curb. Parker reached his daughter, cradled her, and immediately realized she was not sleeping.
She was pale, her limbs were missing, and she was dead. An autopsy at 9 pm that night revealed Marion had been dead for roughly twelve hours, meaning she had likely already been killed before the first failed ransom meeting. Her arms and legs had been cut off, she had been disemboweled, her lower stomach was filled with a towel and a man’s shirt, and her eyes were held open with piano wire to make her appear alive. Early on December 18, a man walking in the morning found Marion’s severed limbs and organs on the street, wrapped in newspaper.
News of the murder spread across the country. A reward of $50,000, later raised to $100,000, was offered for information. Two men were briefly detained and released after the school registrar failed to identify them. A nationwide manhunt involving more than 20,000 officers and volunteers was launched.
A laundry mark on the shirt wrapped around Marion’s body led investigators to the Bellevue Apartments in Los Angeles. There, they questioned a young man with black hair who identified himself as Donald Evans. A room search found nothing suspicious, and as the officers left, Evans told them he hoped they would catch the fiend. On December 20, authorities found the abandoned car used by the kidnapper.
Fingerprints taken from the door matched William Edward Hickman, a nineteen-year-old former co-worker of Perry Parker. Investigators also matched fingerprints from the ransom letters to the same man. Records showed that about a year before the murder, Parker had filed a complaint against Hickman for stealing and forging checks totaling $400; Hickman had been placed on probation. Detectives realized that “Donald Evans” was William Hickman.
A more thorough search of his apartment turned up bloody footprints, partially burned drafts of the ransom letters, and newspaper clippings about the kidnapping. The building’s janitor reported seeing Hickman carrying packages to his car on the night of December 16 and wiping down the car seats the next day. Hickman was born in 1908 in Sebastian, Arkansas, and grew up in Kansas City. His father abandoned the family in 1925.
People who knew him described a good student active in clubs, including the debating team. After his photograph appeared in newspapers across the country, a gas station attendant in Oregon reported a possible sighting. Later, one of the $20 gold certificates from the ransom was used to buy cold-weather clothing in Seattle, placing Washington and Oregon police on alert. On December 22, 1927, two police officers in Echo, Oregon, spotted a green Hudson sedan and gave chase.
They forced the driver to pull over. It was William Hickman, who did not resist. He shrugged and said, “Well, I guess it’s all over. ”
Perry Parker told reporters, “I feel a sense of deep and sincere thankfulness that this man has been captured and that mothers no longer need to fear that he may carry off their children.
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Hickman admitted his part in the kidnapping but implicated two other men, brothers Oliver and Frank Kramer. He told a reporter he had taken Marion to a theater to watch a film, and insisted the Kramers were responsible for her murder. The Kramers, however, provided a solid alibi: they had both been in prison for months. Detective Hermann Klein escorted Hickman by train from Oregon to California.
During the journey, Hickman asked what the people of California wanted with him. Klein replied, “Honestly, they want your life, rightly or wrongly, that’s what they want. ”
On the trip, Hickman wrote a nineteen-page confession admitting to Marion’s murder. He said he committed the crime because he wanted to go to college and needed money for tuition.
According to his statement, he killed Marion only after she recognized him from visits to her father’s bank. He strangled her and dismembered her body to make it easier to hide, then tried to make her appear alive so her father would still pay the ransom. The trial began on January 25, 1928. Hickman pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity, a relatively new defense in California at the time.
He had begun behaving strangely in prison, muttering to himself and pretending to be deaf. He also confessed to killing a pharmacist, Charles Toms, with an accomplice named Welby Hunt. Reporters from across the country covered the trial, including writer Edgar Rice Burroughs. Hickman’s attorney, Jerome K.
Walsh, presented testimony from mental health professionals and family members supporting an insanity defense. District Attorney Asa Keyes countered with a team of psychiatrists who argued Hickman was fully in control of his actions. The prosecution produced evidence that Hickman had asked another inmate how to act insane in court and planned to put on a display of laughter and screams in front of Marion’s father. Prosecutors argued the murder was motivated by revenge for Parker’s earlier testimony against him, as well as a desire for the kind of media attention given to notorious killers such as Leopold and Loeb.
On February 9, 1928, after 36 minutes of deliberation, the jury found Hickman guilty of first-degree murder. Asked by the press about his reaction, he said, “The die is cast. A state wins by a neck. I don’t think I have much to live for, and I don’t know yet why I killed the Parker girl, but I did and I’ll take my punishment.
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On Valentine’s Day 1928, Hickman laughed when the judge sentenced him to death. While awaiting execution, he made a final confession to a guard. He said that after holding Marion captive for three days, she grew restless and demanded release. He tied her to a chair, left to mail a ransom letter, and returned to find her making noise.
He strangled her with a towel, describing how she struggled for two minutes before going still. He then placed her body in the bathtub and dismembered it with a butcher’s knife, acknowledging she may have been alive when he began cutting. William Edward Hickman was executed at San Quentin on October 19, 1928. Welby Hunt, the 16-year-old who supposedly helped him kill the pharmacist, was found guilty and sentenced to life in prison.
Marion’s family remained in Los Angeles, haunted by the events. Perry Parker died in 1944 at age 65. Geraldine died in 1963 at age 75.
Marion’s brother died in 1983 at age 75, and her twin sister Marjorie died in 1987 at age 71.