Cody's cheerful admissions to just about every form of reprehensible conduct imaginable -he had been a thief, a sponger, and an occasional swindler -gave his testimony a curious verisimilitude, an honesty, that the defense could never quite shake. When Cody took the stand, defense lawyers must have felt confident of demolishing his testimony. In it she described a beating that Finch had given Barbara Finch, and also his oft-repeated threats that he had hired "someone in Las Vegas" to kill her. Over strenuous defense objections, a letter Lindholm had written to her mother in Sweden before the murder was admitted into evidence. Moments later Lindholm heard a shot, whereupon she ran to the house and called the police.Įqually damaging were Lindholm's allegations that Finch had regularly abused and threatened his wife. He'd ordered both women into the car but Barbara Finch had broken free and run. Finch had then banged Lindholm's head against the garage wall, apparently in an effort to stun her. Finch, gun in hand, standing over his semiconscious wife. She told of running to the garage after hearing Barbara Finch scream and seeing Dr. Prosecutor Fred Whichello called his first witness, Marie Anne Lindholm, the Finch maid. Their trial began at the Los Angeles County Courthouse on January 4, 1960. Eleven days later Tregoff was similarly charged. That same day, Finch was arrested and charged with murder. Finch, after stealing two cars, made his way back to Las Vegas, where he was joined early the next morning by Tregoff. For reasons never fully explained, Finch and Tregoff somehow became separated. At some point in the dispute, Barbara Finch was shot dead by a. Just over an hour later, she drove up in her red Chrysler. on July 18, 1959, the couple arrived at Finch's opulent house on Lark Hill Drive in suburban West Covina. With this payment in hand, Cody disappeared, leaving Finch and Tregoff sadder, wiser, and infinitely more desperate.Īt 10:00 p.m. For another couple of hundred dollars he promised to rectify the error. Cody professed astonishment, then explained that he must have killed the wrong woman. She paid him the agreed balance of $850, only to learn later that Barbara Finch was still very much alive. (Actually he spent the weekend with one of his several girlfriends.) A few days later he resurfaced and told Tregoff that the matter had been taken care of. After accepting a down payment of $350 and an airline ticket, Cody departed, ostensibly to kill Barbara Finch in Los Angeles. Cody assured the couple that homicide was also high on his list of accomplishments. Talk of seduction soon turned to plans of murder. Gigolo John Patrick Cody, a seedy ex-convict entirely untroubled by matters of conscience. This notion brought them into contact with self-confessed In Las Vegas, Nevada, where Tregoff had gone to work, they attempted to hire someone, anyone, to seduce Barbara Finch, and thereby provide Finch with evidence for a countersuit of adultery. Unwilling to accept such a calamity, Finch and Tregoff schemed. Furthermore, if Barbara Finch could prove adultery -and there was every indication that she intended to do just that -Finch faced financial ruin, since the court could then apportion any percentage of the community property it deemed fit to the aggrieved party. Divorce would entitle Barbara Finch to half of Finch's estimated $750,000 fortune. Standing directly in the path of this ambition was Finch's wife, Barbara, backed by the formidable California community property laws. Rampant greed, sex, and a considerable dose of comedy ensured that this trial of a wealthy doctor and his mistress as joint defendants on charges of murder dominated newspaper headlines for months.īy 1959, Finch, 42, a wealthy Los Angeles, California physician, yearned to elevate his affair with 20-year-old Carole Tregoff to something more permanent. SIGNIFICANCE: Despite overwhelming evidence in favor of conviction, a jury deadlocked, primarily because racial tension had pervaded the jury room. Evans Second trial: LeRoy Dawson Third trial: David Coleman Place: Los Angeles, California Dates of Trials: January 4-MaJune 27-NovemJanuary 3-MaVerdict: First trial: Mistrial Second trial: Mistrial Third trial: Guilty -Finch, first degree Tregoff, second degree Sentences: Both received life imprisonment Chief Prosecutors: First trial: Clifford C. Raymond Bernard Finch and Carole Tregoff Trials: 1960 & 1961ĭefendants: Raymond Bernard Finch and Carole Tregoff Crime Charged: Murder Chief Defense Lawyers: Don Bruggold, Grant Cooper, Rexford Egan, and Robert A.
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