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15 CONDEMNED Theyexecuted many men while I was on death row. I personally know of nineteen people who were executed in the gas chamber during my time on the row. The first man I knew was actually a young kid, about nineteen years old, named Alexander Robillard. Hewas executed just about the time I got to San Quentin, in April 1961.Then Ronny Rittger was executed around June 1961. Next they executed Jimmy Linden, in July. David Combes was executed around October, and Jimmy Kendrick in November. I remember Jimmy Kendrick. He was so fed up with death row that he wanted to get his execution over with. His case had been delayed so long in the California Supreme Court that he wrote a letter and told them to get moving on his execution. He said he didn’t want to have to send Christmas cards one more time. He urged them to rule one way or another, but to get going. The court did come down with its decision, and he was finally executed on November 3. Soon after, Richard Lindsey and Billy Monk—who was in for kidnapping , not murder—were executed on November 21. Little Joe Gonzales (we called him Speedy) was executed on November 29. Rudolph Wright was executed in January 1962. Then Ray Lane in March. Lawrence Garner was executed on April 9, and Robert Hughes on April 18. Adolph Busch was executed in June. One of the men I knew pretty well was Augustine Baldonado, who was executed in August 1962. He and Luis (Louie) Moya were partners in crime. The two of them had been approached by a woman named Elizabeth Duncan, whose son, Frank, was an attorney. She was completely infatuated with her boy, and threw tantrums at the mere thought that he would ever leave her home. Even after he secretly married, Frank continued to sleep nights at his mother’s. He finally had to confess that he was married when his wife became pregnant. Enraged, Elizabeth did what she could to break up her son’s marriage. Finally she offered Moya and Baldonado $10,000 to kill her son’s wife. The two men kidnapped the pregnant woman, drove along the coast, and threw her off a high cliff to her death. When the pair went to collect their money, Duncan balked. Apparently she had become paranoid, and didn’t want to turn over the cash in case Moya and Baldonado used it as proof of her involvement in the murder. Angry and out for revenge, the two men went to the authorities and told them the whole story. Their testimony convicted Duncan, but it didn’t save them from the gas chamber. All three were executed on the same day, August 8, 1962. Elizabeth Duncan had to be bused in all the way from a prison in Pomona. She was killed first. Then Moya and Baldonado were placed in chair A and chair B of the gas chamber and killed at the same time. Melvin Darling was next to be executed, in October. And Allen Ditson was executed in November 1962. One thing that not many people know: Allen Ditson was executed illegally. He had had a writ of certiorari pending with the U.S. Supreme Court. The court agreed to hear his case, which should have automatically stayed his execution. Well, it was claimed that, for some reason or other, the government did not get back to the California Supreme Court about the stay. The state court claimed that the stay was lost.Though his casewas going to be reviewed by the high court, Ditson had already been taken downstairs and killed. When the U.S. Supreme Court granted certiorari, they asked the California Supreme Court to forward Ditson’s records. At that point, for the first time, the state had to admit that he had already been executed. Though the case did not receive a lot of attention, the story was carried in some papers. I remember one headline: ‘‘A Dark Cloud in California Justice.’’ There were several inmates on death row whom I hated. They were a bunch of rats, or they had killed little kids for sexual pleasure. I hated them because I used to like kids an awful lot. I would give these guys a hard time because I wanted them to stay far away from me. Most of them never came around, anyway, because they knew better, and most of the other...

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