Crimes and Witch-Demeanors: Gilded Murder (2024)

7 Dec 1907, Page 1—Santa Cruz EveningNews at Newspapers.com. (n.d.). Newspapers.Com. RetrievedSeptember 14, 2021, from http://www.newspapers.com/image/?clipping_id=4203848&fcfToken=eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJmcmVlLXZpZXctaWQiOjU1Mzc5MDMzLCJpYXQiOjE2MzE2MjAzMTAsImV4cCI6MTYzMTcwNjcxMH0.RvcF17nCqc3CPgInOgE9pYOuOODX01oAtIjpmA0sC0A

Dormanen, S. (n.d.). The Golden GateVilla. Santa Cruz Public Libraries. Retrieved September 10,2021, from https://history.santacruzpl.org/omeka/files/original/dac12ae750afce922632b1d9a1f17930.pdf

Golden Gate Villa. (2021). InWikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Golden_Gate_Villa&oldid=1023021509

Metroactive Features | The Haunting ofSanta Cruz. (n.d.). Retrieved September 12, 2021, fromhttp://www.metroactive.com/papers/cruz/10.29.03/haunting-0344.html

Sweet House Dreams: Golden Gate Villa, 1891Queen Anne Victorian in Santa Cruz, California. (n.d.). SweetHouse Dreams. Retrieved September 10, 2021, from http://sweethousedreams.blogspot.com/2018/06/golden-gate-villa-1891-queen-anne.html

Tom Brezsny. (2012, October 18). GoldenGate Villa—924 Third Street Santa Cruz California—Lavishlyornamented victorian. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_jd72cnY_6E

Hello, and welcome to Crimes and Witch Demeanors, the paranormalpodcast where we go beyond the Wikipedia page and delve intohistoric sources to find the truth behind your favorite ghostlytales. I’m your host and loveable librarian – JoshuaSpellman.

Today we have a very exciting ghost story filled to the brimwith scandal, murder, and historic characters ranging from ThomasEdison to Wyatt Earp the outlaw but even these prominent figure areobscured by today’s ghostly tale. Trust me, it’s juicy, andwe have all the gossipy progressive-era tabloids to prove it.And boy, are some of these newspapers gorgeous, so make sure tocheck them out on the podcast Instagram.

Also thank you to everyone who purchased some merch from theshop! You are true bibli-ahh-graphers! If you want tosupport the podcast please go ahead and grab something for youself,crimesandwitchdemeanors.com link in the description!

So, anyway, you’re here for the salacious historic scandal andthe modern haunts that resulted from it. So put on yoursunnies, grab a parasol, we’re headed to Santa Cruz and learningthe legend behind the Golden Gate Villa and the tragedy thattranspired there…

Considered one of the most historically significant homes in allof California, Golden Gate villa is perched atop Santa Cruz’shistoric Beach Hill neighborhood. It’s face is painted abuttery gold with a bright orchid trim; cheerful colors that belieit’s dark and twisted past.

Major Frank McLaughlin was born sometime around 1840.During his early career he served on the police force in Newark,New Jersey and developed a life-long friendship with esteemedinventor Thomas Edison. He fought with Union forces brieflyduring the Civil War, but his stint was brief and it’s unlikelythis is where he earned his military title. Instead, it isthought he achieved it from his later activity with the Californiastate militia.

McLaughlin became an engineer on the Pacific Railroad, helpingto lay tracks across the plains and the Wild West. In theWild West he earned quite the reputation, known as “one of thequickest men on the frontier” and was one of only a handful of mento ever challenge Wyatt Earp and live to tell the tale.

In 1877, McLaughlin returned to the East coast where he began tocourt a New Jersey widow by the name of ­­­­Margaret Loomis.During this period Thomas Edison was developing the incandescentlight bulb but ran into trouble finding a dependable source ofplatinum to use as filaments. Without this precious metal, hewould not be able to market his invention.

McLaughlin suggested that Edison source from the Feather Riverin California, as McLaughlin heard that there had been a findthere. Upon this suggestion, Edison commissioned McLaughlinto head out west and prospect for the mineral. Before he didso, McLaughlin married Margaret Loomis and adopted her youngdaughter Agnes.

Like with most of his endeavors, McLaughlin went all-in.It was said that he "never settled for the petite when the mammothwas available" and his exploits in Butte county were noexception. He soon earned the title “King of Feather” for hisdomination of the river where his sights quickly turned fromplatinum to gold. He soon began to make a fortune, but he wassmart never to invest his own money – instead he organizedcompanies he would manage giving himself a hefty salary.

During this time McLaughlin commissioned San Francisco architectThomas J. Welsh to design a home for Margaret and Agnes to escapethe brutal summer heat. McLaughlin instructed Welsh to "spareno expense in making Golden Gate Villa the showplace of Santa Cruz”– and that he did. The mansion was named the after GoldenGate Mining Company, which managed the operations back in Feather,and provided all the funds for his lavish home. Naturally,being friends with Thomas Edison, the home was outfitted with thenewest luxury available – electricity.

The home was magnificent and the McLaughlin’s hosted many eventsincluding costume parties, magic shows, musicals, fireworksdisplays, and the first moving picture ever shown in SantaCruz. Agnes became a figure of note in the local communityand was pronounced as “indescribably pretty”, a “petite beauty withrose leaf complexion”, and as the “ideal American girl” by a numberof publications. Perhaps it’s no wonder the focal piece ofthe Golden Gate Villa is a gigantic stained glass portrait of ayoung woman reaching to pick an apple blossomed branch.Rumour has it that McLaughlin cut some of Agnes’ hair to be mixedin with the color of the glass. Despite Agnes’s earthlybeauty and love of parties and extravagance, she regularly attendedmass with her dog…who she often sprayed with expensivecologne. Agnes had never married, though she almost didonce. She was engaged to a man named Sam Rucker, and whilethe invitations to the ceremony were sent nothing ever came ofit.

While the McLaughlin women lived in luxury in Santa Cruz,McLaughlin was busy with various endeavors: From olive orchards toorange groves, to a 9-mile tunnel at Big Bend, a 30-mile flume forthe hydraulic mine, and funding development in the area, McLaughlinwas quickly amassing a fortune. However, his biggest endeavorwas to divert the water of the Feather so that gold could be minedfrom the river bed.

Receiving letters of recommendation from Thomas Edison, thegovernor, and two California state senators, McLaughlin travelledto London to try and secure investors. He was charming, asusual, and made such an impression that the newspapers declaredthat “Not since Benjamin Franklin had an American made such animpression on English society” McLaughlin seemed to have luckin all of his projects and this trip was no different – due to amisunderstanding he came home with $12 million in funds…a greatdeal more than he planned or ever dare thought to get.

However, the project itself would not see the same luck.The project took four years to complete the end resulting in a7,000 foot long canal and a retaining wall twelve feet wide andtwenty feet high. It became one of the greatest mining featsof the era and Thomas Edison, McLaughlin’s chum, provided the firstelectric lights ever to be used on a construction site as theworkers labored all hours of the day.

When the water was diverted and the riverbed dry, McLaughlin wasthe first to take his shovel to the dirt. While he struckgold in London, much like the river, this project would soon rundry. McLaughlin was sure that he would make a 100 millionreturn on the initial 12 million invested but the project ended incatastrophe. Instead of hitting gold, he hitbankruptcy. All they found were small gold nuggets, old rustypicks, and buckets.

It turns out that McLaughlin was 50 years too late. Half acentury earlier, 49ers diverted the same river with a simple woodenflume, exhausting all the gold in the area and walking away with afortune. The locals of the area knew this, and knew thatMcLaughlin’s project was doomed from the start but decided to keepit a secret to watch the man go down in flames.

Like his previous project, McLaughlin declined to invest any ofhis own money, and upon learning this, the English investors werefurious. They found out that McLaughlin had lost no money atall, and was paying himself a generous salary. Queen Victoriaherself launched an investigation and sent Scotland Yard toinvestigate. However, when the agent arrived, he was scared off byMcLaughlin who wasn’t afraid to wave his pistol about…he didsurvive an encounter with Wyatt Earp, a timid Englishman wasnothing to him.

McLaughlin soon got into politics, earning quite the reputationas a staunch frontiersman and capitalist though he never heldoffice he became chair of California's Republican State CentralCommittee during the 1896 presidential campaign and was creditedwith carrying the whole state for McKinley. In fact,McLaughlin was offered a seat in McKinley’s cabinet though hedeclined, just as he declined to run for governor despite the pleasof the people.

Mrs. Margaret McLaughlin died in on November 16, 1905, turningFrank into a widower and leaving her daughter Agnes behind.On that same date in 1907, Agnes attended an early mass in memoryof her mother. After returning home, Agnes retired to herbedroom in the tower to take a nap. While Agnes slept someoneentered her room unnoticed, pressed a 44 caliber pistol to hertemple, and fired.

Knowing that his step-daughter was sleeping, Major FrankMcLaughlin set their maid out on an errand before going upstairsand murdering his beloved step-daughter. Shortly after thedeed was done, McLaughlin called his banker William Jeter and urgedhim to come to the home immediately. Jeter was preoccupiedand could not come but McLaughlin insisted shouting "You must comeat once. I have just killed my Bob (his pet name for Agnes) and Iam going to kill myself.”

And he did. He ingest a fatal dose of potassium cyanide,dying just as his friend arrived. To everyone’s shock…Agneshad survived…at least for the time being. While she survivedthe initial wound at the hands of the Major, she succumbed to herinjuries at 6:30 that evening.

Newspapers published salacious headlines for weeks that ranalongside the obituary that McLaughlin had penned himself.The tragedy was naturally a hit with the media being full ofscandal and intrigue as it was. McLaughlin for the most partwas an incredibly popular and well-liked man and the thought ofthis crime was nearly inconceivable. Why…how on earth couldhe do such a thing?

You see, this was not just a random act of violence or a crimeof passion. It was not executed on a whim. No, theMajor had been meticulously planning the did for months which heoutlined in the documents he left to Jeter including farewellletters to friends and family, instructions, and an explanation forhis crime.

It turns out that McLaughlin was beginning to sufferfinancially, though he kept it hidden from everyone. MajorMcLaughlin feared falling into poverty and being unable to providefor his step-daughter that he loved so dearly. He wrote inhis letter “"To leave my darling child helpless and penniless wouldbe unnatural and so I take her with me to our loved one. She is thevery last one who could face this world alone.”

However, at the inquest it was revealed that he could haveliquidated his estate and had a large surplus to spare – hardlyleaving him or Agnes impoverished. Some supposed he wassimply embarrassed by his failure at Feather River, his reputationshattered by the incident. However, no rationalization couldreally explain why he did what he did.

Though whispers around Santa Cruz gave wind to a newtheory. Many thought it strange that after Mrs. McLaughlin’sdeath that Agnes continued to live with the Major since she was notof blood relation to him. The fact that she had remainedunmarried well into her thirties also didn’t quite sit right withthe local community. In fact, they could recall that manyyears prior announcements of Agnes’ marriage to Sam Rucker weresent out but that the wedding was cancelled at the lastmoment…presumably because the Major couldn’t bear to see hermarried to another man.

Then, a man by the name of Christian R. Wolters, a prosperousmerchant in the city, stepped forward claiming that the wassecretly engaged to Agnes at the time of her murder…making it hardto believe that Major Frank McLaughlin couldn’t stand to see hisstep-daughter fall into poverty when she would be well-provided forby her would-be husband.

Regardless of his motivations, whether the Major was truly inlove with his step-daughter or whether he just could not stand thethought of aging alone in the villa without a family he wrote inhis letter “I love her so and so I take her with me” In aletter to the family doctor, F.E. Morgan, McLaughlin wrote“Please see that we are not cut up, at least that my puresweet child is not” and on the outside of the envelope he hadwritten “Dear Doc. Please do me one last favor and chloroform ourold cat”

And so, the mystery remains. However, inside the confinesof the shining Golden Gate Villa the spirit of the McLaughlin’sremain…if only they could divulge their secrets the living…

I got a lot of my information from an article in the November17, 1907 issue of the San Francisco Daily call titled “FrankMcLaughlin Kills Daughter and Himself at Santa Cruz” which had aninteresting juxtaposition with another article “Suicide Ends HappyLove Affair of Girl – takes poison when father refuses to consentto wedding.” Just such similar situations but different ends– albeit both tragic ones.

But the majority of my information, or the source I followed tohistoric ones was by a life-saver of a librarian or historian fromthe Santa Cruz Public Libraries local history collection by thename of Susan Dormanen. There wasn’t very much online at allhistorically speaking and Susan wrote a great piece, and like anygreat librarian, had an endless supply of footnotes for me toperuse leading me to the primary sources.

I found it interesting that reports of McLaughlin fighting WyattEarp were published awhile after his death, no doubt the paperswere still riding the coattails of the tragedy. On the 19 ofNovember two interesting stories came out, and while they came outlater it does make sense that they would – they wouldn’t have hadmuch reason to publish these prior but I think it gives aninteresting look into the Major’s personality…at least towardsthose that weren’t his wife or Agnes.

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Always a Foe of Earp Major McLaughlin was unsparing in hisdenunciations of the rascality of Wyatt Earp, and it was said upand down Market St. that Earp had vowed to shoot McLaughlin onsight... When the two encountered one another at Johnny Farley'sPeerless saloon, Earp and the little Major had a staring match fora thrilling instant in which the petulant pop of the pistol wasexpected by all. But the Arizona gun man saw that he could notintimidate through many a gun play on the western frontier, and sohe said with a tone smacking something of an apology: 'I know,Major McLaughlin, that you would not have made such remarks unlessyou believed them to be true,' and left the saloon while the man hewas supposed to kill on sight took his time over his drink, uttereda few jocular remarks for the benefit of the bystanders, and wenthis own way with a nerve seemingly shaken not at all.[5]

No Fear of a "Bad Gun"

There was never any doubt of his physical courage or hiswillingness to accept a challenge from any bad gun man. When he wasmanaging the campaign of D.M. Burns for the United States Senatethere were many threats that he would be killed, and one day in thecorridor of the Golden Eagle Hotel in Sacramento he met MajorGoucher of San Diego, who was supposed to have a particular grudgeagainst him. Major McLaughlin calmly spat in Major Goucher's faceand pushed him with his left hand. Goucher made no effort to resentthe insult and afterwards said: "I was too wise to be taken in bythat old frontier trick. He spat in my pistol eye, and pushed meoff with his left hand, so that he was free to draw on me with hisright."