Fetch the Devil: The Sierra Diablo Murders and Nazi Espionage in America

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1 There were two ways guaranteed to ruin a perfectly swell day in the spring of 1938. One was to make eye contact with the ragged little urchins riding in the back of an Okie family’s dilapidated pickup truck. The other was to readafront-pagestoryaboutwhatwasgoingonwiththeJewsinGermany. The Tri Delta sisters at the University of California, Berkeley, avoided both, as they planned for the annual spring sorority gala to be held on March 22. There had been enough gloom in the almost decadelong Great Depressiontolastalifetime.Hitlerhadonlybeenincontrolforafewyears, not really enough time to be blamed for every bleak headline coming out of Europe. The goal was to make the spring dance such a festive occasion that everyone could forget the negative news and have some fun for a while. Delta sisters, alums, and their beaus eagerly anticipated the event—none more than the vivacious former sorority president Nancy Frome, who had remained active as an adviser long after her own graduation.1 MakingendsmeetwasthenationalobsessionofmostAmericansduring the second phase of the economic crisis, with almost 20 percent of the workforce still unemployed. Keeping up appearances, not simple survival, was the primary concern of Nancy’s family, residing in the comfortable home at 2560 Cedar Street in Berkeley. The white stucco house with its red-tiled roof was of a Spanish style more popular in Southern California nearer the Mexican border than in the San Francisco Bay Area. Likewise, thefamilythatownedthehouseseemedmoreintunewiththeHollywood lifestyle. The property was landscaped to avoid the need for much maintenance, with a thirty-foot palm tree in the front yard, surrounded by overgrown succulentsandcacti.Therestoftheplacewasencircledbyafive-footbrickand -mortar wall, ensuring that whatever went on inside the property was hidden from view of the casual passerby. The home, where twenty-three-year-old Nancy lived with her father, 6 fetch the devil mother,andyoungersisterMada,wasinahillysectionoftown,overlooking Berkeleycentral,withvistasacrossthebaytoSanFrancisco.Itwasagenteel college neighborhood within easy walking distance of the University of California campus. The views of the bay were spectacular, including one panorama of Alcatraz Island. The austere, gray-walled federal prison had housed its most famous inmate, Alphonse Gabriel “Al” Capone, for the past three and a half years. The concrete penitentiary, which also held many of Capone’s fellow gangsters from the recently ended Prohibition era, loomed through the morning fogs like a castle perched on an islet in a misty sea. The misery held captive on that island could scarce be imagined from those lofty Berkeley heights. The university neighborhood, though filled with upscale homes, was only marginally upper class, befitting the professors, business executives, and other professionals in residence there. While comfortable, it was not considered the most exclusive neighborhood in the bustling Northern California metropolis. Southern California laid claim to flashy glitz and glamour, but the Bay Area was home to most of California’s old money. StatelymansionsgracedthecityofSanFrancisco,andmanyofthecross-bay suburbs were resplendent with near-palatial homes of the heirs to timber, mining, shipping, and railroad empires. If the Fromes had not quite attained the status of Bay Area aristocracy, they were doubly blessed in avoiding the worst of the Great Depression. The immediate family not only shared in the community weal from the university but also enjoyed the exceptionally good earnings of its breadwinner , Weston G. “Pop” Frome. A self-made success, the father was a top executiveatAtlasPowderCompany,aleaderintheinternationalexplosives industry. That industry was booming, despite the Depression. Construction contracts for the military and the Works Project Administration (WPA) required enormous supplies of the blasting materials his company manufactured and distributed. Frome most often referred to his position as “regional sales manager.” But working in the secretive high-explosives industry, it came naturally to him to downplay his role in the company’s operations. At age 50, he wore several hats in Atlas Powder’s top management. The headquarters of Atlas Powder was at Wilmington, Delaware, in an murder in the desert 7 industrialcomplexadjacenttoE.I.DuPontdeNemoursandCompany,its former parent. Atlas had been formed in the early 1900s, as a spinoff from DuPont after a court-ordered divestment under the Sherman Antitrust Act. Business and personal connections between executives of the two companies remained cozy, despite the split. And while Atlas did not have a monopoly in the explosives industry, the company was an international leaderinitsfield.ThedivisionFromemanagedhadcorneredmuchofavast marketinthewesternUnitedStates,thePacificregion,andLatinAmerica. Frome’s base salary in 1938 was a whopping two thousand dollars a month. At the time, a set of four of the best automobile tires could be bought for less than forty...