A Murder at City Hall: The Story of George Marion

 

This is the improbable, but true, tale of how Glinda the Good Witch helped save the life of a washed-up actor sentenced to death for murdering his estranged wife inside the Wilkes-Barre City Hall. This is the bizarre story of George L. Marion, a once-famous minstrel show performer with an addiction to pork and beans, and his wife, Frances Lee Brooks, who was raised in commune founded by a wacky faith-healing cult leader.

One of the more notable murders in the history or northeastern Pennsylvania didn't take place in a seedy underworld roadhouse or in a mining patch populated by brawny, drunken coal miners, but inside the office of the chief of police in the Wilkes-Barre City Hall. And, surprisingly, neither the killer, nor the victim, were residents of Pennsylvania.

On Monday, August 16, 1909, a fashionably dressed blonde woman named Frances strolled into city hall and asked to see J. Grant Long, the chief of police. Accompanying the young woman was a little boy about four years of age. The visitors were directed to Chief Long's office, and it was there Frances told her tale of misery and hard luck. She told Chief Long that she had gotten married in Stroudsburg on Friday to a man by the name of James Brooks, who had brought her and her son to Wilkes-Barre before deserting them, leaving them penniless and friendless in a strange new town. Chief Long was happy to assist the young woman. After making a few calls, was able to get Frances a job as a waitress at the Hotel Hart, and the thankful visitor began her new job immediately.

On Thursday, just when the chief of police had forgotten about the incident, he received a curious letter from New York City. It was from a 52-year-old stage actor and old-time minstrel show performer named George L. Marion, who claimed that his common-law wife had run off with a man named Brooks and had taken their son along with them. He wrote in his letter that he had been able to trace them as far as Wilkes-Barre and asked for help in facilitating a meeting so that could attempt to reconcile with his estranged wife. Chief Long agreed to help, and was able to convince Frances Brooks to meet with George Marion at his city hall office.

Wilkes-Barre City Hall

 

Everything appeared favorable for a reconciliation. Frances arrived at city hall shortly after seven o'clock on the evening of Monday, August 24. Chief Long, as it turned out, was tied up with official duties, but a short while later he escorted her into his office while they waited for George Marion, who was due to arrive on the 9:15 train. Police Clerk Reinig met Marion at the station and ushered him to city hall. He and Frances greeted each other cordially and kissed. In the presence of Chief Long and Clerk Reinig the couple talked freely and then Marion politely asked the men to give them a moment to speak to each other privately.

The chief of police and his clerk took their leave and waited in an office next door. They had just seated themselves when two shots rang out. Reinig and Long instinctively rushed into the room, followed by a newspaper reporter from the Wilkes-Barre Record named Hayden Williams who was there to cover the story of the romantic reconciliation. The three men found Frances Brooks dying on the floor while Marion brandished a revolver and pointed it at Chief Long. A desperate struggle ensued, but when it appeared that the New Yorker was getting the best of Long, the reporter intervened and wrestled the weapon away from Marion. The commotion attracted Sergeant Conroy, who entered the room and subdued the shooter. 

"Don't hurt me," begged Marion. "It's all over. I killed the woman because she left me." Marion offered no resistance as he was cuffed and taken to the station house. 

Meanwhile, Chief Long and his clerk, along with Hayden Williams, turned their attention to the victim, who was face down in a rapidly-growing puddle of blood. The men rolled her over, and it was clear that Frances didn't have very long to live. She took a few breaths, gasped, then died on the floor of the office. Doctors Reichard, Sweeney, Mendelsohn, Richards, Roe and Williams had all been summoned to the city hall, but it was Reichard who arrived first and performed the post-mortem examination, discovering that one of the bullets had entered the skull on the left side just above the ear. The second bullet had entered her chest. An ambulance arrived a few moments later, and the body was removed to the morgue.

 

A Prisoner's Wild Accusations

Marion appeared remarkably composed after the shooting. Like a good showman, he welcomed reporters into his jail cell and seemed to enjoy having an audience. He said that he had planned to kill both Frances and James Brooks, but Brooks, it seemed, had already left town for reasons unknown. He said that if he still loved his wife, and if he had known that Brooks had abandoned her, he wouldn't have killed her and would've forgiven her. Marion had trouble keeping his story straight, providing wildly conflicting versions of the couples' domestic affairs and his frame of mind at the time of the city hall tragedy.

"If a jury only knew what a shameful life that woman had led and how I tried for several years to set her upon the right path, and how I suffered for her, they would certainly set me free," he stated to one reporter. "I had no intention of killing her, but when she told me she loved that man Brooks, I became insanely angry and killed her before I realized what had happened." 

According to Marion, he and Frances had met seven years earlier in Detroit, where she was employed as a telephone operator, and instantly became infatuated with each other. They had recently relocated to Blairsville, New Jersey and had only been in their new place for less than 48 hours when Frances met and ran off with Brooks, who worked as a fireman on the D.L. & W. railroad. He also told stories about his wife's previous indiscretions and infidelities, using language so foul that newspapers had to censor large portions of his statement.

The ramblings of George Marion inspired the Wilkes-Barre Record to write: Although advised to speak but very little, Marion appears to have no control of himself, and whenever anyone is present (he) speaks continuously.

He even told reporters that Frances and Brooks had devised a plot to murder him. According to Marion, when Frances drove to the Blairstown railroad station to see him off to New York, she had brought along a revolver which he claimed Brooks had purchased for her. 

"That I knew Brooks intended to kill me was manifested by a note found in my wife's card case upon my return to Blairstown, when I was told she and Brooks had eloped," he explained. "The note read something like: My Darling, I am deeply in love with you, and I can't have you, then neither can Marion." This note, of course, had been written by James Brooks.

When detectives determined that the 30-year-old victim's maiden name was Frances Lee and that her parents lived in Zion, Illinois, arrangements were made for the victim's brother to take the body back for burial. However, when the brother, Earl E. Lee, arrived from Zion he made a beeline to the city jail to give his sister's slayer a piece of his mind. According to newspaper accounts, the meeting culminated with Marion threatening to kill Lee, and Lee vowing to avenge Frances' death. The body of Frances Brooks returned to Zion for burial on August 27, and her two-year-old son, George L. Marion, Jr., went to live with Frances' mother.

The fact that the victim's family hailed from Zion, Illinois, added an additional layer of weirdness to the story. The city of Zion, located about forty miles outside of Chicago, was founded just nine years earlier by John Alexander Dowie, a controversial Scottish-born evangelist, polygamist and fraudster who made a fortune with his mail-order faith healing business. He used his fortune to build a town for his 6,000-plus followers-- a town, known as the "Spotless City", in which he owned all the property, established a political and commercial theocracy, and banned the eating of pork and the usage of modern medicine. After Dowie was abandoned by his own long-suffering wife, he relocated to Australia where he unsuccessfully attempted to duplicate his success. During his absence from Zion, he was deposed by his first lieutenant, the prominent flat-earth conspiracy theorist Wilbur Voliva.

John Alexander Dowie

 

The Life and Career of George L. Marion

Though none of the characters in this real-life drama were from Wilkes-Barre, the city hall shooting became a local sensation, as the killer and his victim had connections to show business. Frances had taken part in theatrical productions when she lived in the Midwest, but George-- though in the twilight of his stage career-- had once been something of a household name. 

Born and raised in South Carolina, George L. Sullivan (Marion was his stage name) was the son of a wealthy plantation owner who once boasted of owning over 150 slaves. Marion had made a name for himself in the late 19th century as a blackface performer and member of the vaudeville team Marion & Pearl, which toured extensively throughout the country. While performing as a young man in Cincinnati, he met the women who would become his first wife and who would bear him a son and a daughter. A few years later, his wife suffered a fatal stroke, resulting in George's mother raising his children while he toured the country as a minstrel show performer. Though known for his comedy performances, he was also a showrunner and booking agent who staged plays in some of the leading theatres on the East Coast. He was billed as George L. Marion after 1900, so as not to be confused with the California-born silent film actor named George F. Marion (no relation), who was also popular around the same time.

Some of the shows and plays George L. Marion starred in, or produced, included Boys and Girls (1891), A Brass Monkey (1891), The Dutch Crook (1895), My Wife's Family (1905), The College Widow (1906), In Death Valley (1907), and Going Some (1908). At the time of the city hall murder, he had just finished touring with Lena Rivers, a drama based upon Mary Jane Holmes' novel of the same name. Ironically, if Marion hadn't killed Frances Brooks, he most likely would've become one of the pioneers of the silver screen; when the Thanhouser Motion Picture Company decided to turn to the theatrical version of Lena Rivers into a film in 1910, many of the actors and actresses who had performed in the stage adaptation were tapped for the film. 

 

The Mysterious Brooks

On Tuesday night, August 24, the runaway husband's father, Thomas Brooks, was interviewed by reporters and stated that he did not know the whereabouts of his son. He said that James had sent him a letter on August 1 informing him that he was going to get married, and the couple showed up at his home in Georgetown on the evening of Friday, August 13, seeking a place to stay for the night. Mr. Brooks refused the request, as he did not know Frances and her child. The couple instead spent the night at a hotel. In the morning, they secured a room from a boarding house operated by a Mrs. Kemler at 22 East Jackson Street.

On Sunday, Frances returned to the Brooks home in Georgetown in a distraught state. She told her new father-in-law that James had gone out to a barbershop for a shave the previous morning and never returned. She asked Mr. Brooks for money, which he refused to give, and so Frances went to Chief of Police Long.

Thomas Brooks, however, had every reason to be skeptical of the young woman's motives, as he and his son had been on less than friendly terms. In March of 1906, James violently assaulted his father-- an act which landed him in the county jail for fifteen months. Thomas next saw his son in the fall of 1908 before he disappeared, and when he finally reappeared in Georgetown on Friday, August 13, it was with a woman and child he had never met before.

Pork and Beans and a Catholic Priest

A grand jury indicted Marion for murder in late August and his trial was scheduled to open on Monday, September 20. Though his was one of three murder cases to be tried at the September term of court, the case of the city hall murder was easily the most anticipated, and, as a result, the defendant's actions were closely scrutinized by the press. 

For instance, the Wilkes-Barre Times-Leader reported on September 9 that Luzerne County's most famous prisoner had mailed letters to theatrical friends all over the country asking them "to forward him at once, and without delay, any canned pork and beans that they have in their possession". When asked about Marion's strange request after the cans of pork and beans started rolling in, one of his attorneys, Edwin Morgan, just shrugged and said that he had implored Marion to refrain from causing such trouble. And on September 17, when George Marion decided to have himself baptized as a Catholic at the county jail, reporters devoted several paragraphs to the ceremony, which was officiated by Reverend Heffernan of St. Mary's Church.

Because the short time frame didn't give the defense much time to prepare, attorneys Edward Morgan and Charles Lenahan petitioned the court for a continuance, and the trial was postponed until November. Marion, however, continued to give his attorney one headache after another. In October, Mayor Kniffen was taken aback by an angry letter he received from the victim's mother in Zion, a letter in which Mrs. Lee accused the disgraced actor of sending her letters from jail attacking the moral character of her deceased daughter. These letters were turned over to the district attorney to support the argument that the murder of Frances Lee Brooks had been premeditated.

 

The Trial

Because of the November elections, the trial was postponed for a second time to give both sides additional time to prepare, even though the district attorney was convinced that it was an open and shut case. But this delay gave Marion a powerful advantage; acting and theatrical guilds began collecting money for Marion's defense, and, in December, the members of the Pat White Theatrical Company contributed funds to have a sumptuous Christmas dinner prepared for their incarcerated comrade. Donations came in from booking agents, theater managers, producers, stagehands and performers all over the country who were doing their best to keep the hangman away from George Marion. 

The trial got under way on the morning of January 17, 1910, with Judge Lynch presiding. As many had anticipated, the defense attempted to prove that Marion was insane at the time of the killing. The prosecution produced a steady string of witnesses that seemed to irrefutably prove that Marion had murder on his mind before he contacted Chief of Police Long, while other witnesses testified that Marion had appeared calm, cool, and collected immediately after the shooting. Then the defense called their own witnesses, who argued that Marion's actions had grown increasingly erratic ever since the suicide of his grandfather several years earlier.

On Thursday, January 27, after only fifty minutes of deliberation, the jurors returned a verdict, finding George Marion guilty of murder in the first degree. It was one of the quickest verdicts ever returned in a Luzerne County homicide case. The defendant turned deathly pale when the verdict was announced, and seemed genuinely surprised that he had not been acquitted. Later that evening, he attempted to commit suicide in his cell by cutting an artery in his wrist with a dull knife. He eventually resigned himself to the knowledge that he would be sentenced to death on the gallows--and that was the sentence handed down by Judge Ferris (Judge Lynch having passed away by this time) on March 4, 1911, after the defense's motion for a new trial was refused

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Saved From the Gallows

On September 20, 1911, the Board of Pardons in Harrisburg commuted Marion's sentence to life imprisonment, which was to be served out at Eastern Penitentiary. As both the trial judge and the district attorney had died since the murder trial, the only person in a position to oppose the commutation was Andrew Hourigan, who had been the assistant district attorney at the time of the trial, but Hourigan told the Board of Pardons that he had no objection to the commutation.

Marion's cause was also bolstered by his many famous and influential friends in show businesses who sent letters to the board on the killer's behalf. These included Lew Fields, Billie Burke (best known as Glinda the Good Witch from The Wizard of Oz), Blanche Bates, George Lederer and Margaret Anglin. Additionally, a petition from the Theatrical Alliance signed by 2,500 show business personalities was submitted.

 

A Cruel Twist of Fate

Meanwhile, Marion's son, George, was being raised by his grandmother in Zion, Illinois. Marion, who had obtained a position as assistant prison librarian at the Eastern Penitentiary, used his position to request a subscription to their hometown newspaper, the Waukegan Weekly Sun, in July of 1912. Undoubtedly, he wanted to keep himself abreast of any developments regarding the Lee family and the residents of Zion. In his letter to the Sun, Marion wrote:

Kindly place my name upon your yearly subscription list for the Weekly Sun and advise what the rate is and I will immediately forward a money order. It will bring me much interesting news and mental refreshment to once more read Waukegan and Lake County news, where I have so many friends.
I have noted in several of our Eastern papers that they are having much turmoil, agitation and discord in the "Spotless City" on the north shore of Lake Michigan during the last year. These worrying confusions are not surprising, but are in the natural order of any city or community governed and managed with such absurd and silly ideas.

In one of the weirdest, cruelest twists of fate imaginable, the first copy of the Sun which Marion received told of the tragic death of his son, George, Jr., whose demise appeared to have been a direct result of the "absurd and silly" religious ideas he had mentioned in his letter to the Sun. George, Jr. died at the age of six after falling out of a third story window in July of 1912. Because she was a follower of Dowieism, Mrs. Lee refused to summon medical attention for her grandson. Instead, she took the child to the cult's leader, Wilbur Voliva, for a prayer session, and the boy died in terrible agony. No arrests were ever made in the child's death.

 
The Resurrection of George L. Marion

Not long after the death of his son, Marion renewed his efforts to get out of prison. In July of 1913, he sought a pardon, claiming that he was dying from "tubercular troubles", and that he wanted to go and see "his old home in Wilkes-Barre" before he passed away. After a visit to the penitentiary, Daniel Hart, a former city treasurer who had been active in local theatrical circles, circulated a petition to present to the Board of Pardons.

"I've done wrong, Dan, and I've suffered agonies from that moment I saw nothing but red and pulled the gun," Marion had wept to Hart. "I know I am dying and don't expect to be freed, but I do want to go to Wilkes-Barre and see my old home and visit my parents' graves before I shuffle off."

Of course, the only "home" Marion possessed in Wilkes-Barre was the county jail, where he awaited trial for his wife's murder, and the health troubles from which he claimed to be suffering was not tuberculosis, but a tubercle-- a small, rounded protrusion of bone on his toe. The prison physician assured the press that Marion, in fact, was in perfect health and in no danger of dying. Not surprisingly, his pardon was denied.

Marion did eventually contract tuberculosis, however, and was finally pardoned in July of 1918, after serving nine years of his life sentence. Gray haired and frail, Marion left prison as a shadow of the stout man who had entered it. After his release, he moved in with his sister, Catherine LeSuer, in California-- a move which led to the unlikely resurrection of his career.

Marion's first known film role was that of an uncredited extra in a courtroom scene in the 1922 Sidney Franklin film, The Primitive Lover. Perhaps, as not to be confused with silent film star George F. Marion-- or perhaps to distance himself from the callous crime he committed in Wilkes-Barre in 1909-- all thirty-five of George L. Marion's film roles were uncredited. In most of these films, Marion appeared on screen for only a moment of two, often playing the part of an old man (which he was by this time). For example, his imdb.com profile lists some of his roles as "old soldier at theatre", "old man at table", "old man on ticket line", "old night watchman", "old man in bread line", and "old man on bench".

While few of these films were as commercially successful as those of his similarly-named, non-murdering San Francisco counterpart, it's easy to see why these roles appealed to an old-time vaudeville trouper like George L. Marion. Most of the film plots centered around the sort of life and people Marion was familiar with, from circus clowns (He Who Gets Slapped, 1924, and Circus Daze, 1928) and stage magicians (The Mad Genius, 1931) to musical theatre (Show Boat, 1929) and even tales of southerners moving to Hollywood with stars in their eyes (Show People, 1928).

It is unclear where, how, or when, George Marion died or where he was laid to rest, but it appears that his role in 1931's The Mad Genius was his last. That same year, newspapers entertainment columns reported that George L. Marion, now 73 years of age, had been cast in the Richard Arlen film, Roped In, and it also appears that, for whatever reason, this film was never made, as it does not appear in either actors' filmographies.

 

Sources:

Dayton Herald, Aug. 14, 1905.
Pittston Gazette, Aug. 21, 1909.
Wilkes-Barre Record, Aug. 24, 1909.
Wilkes-Barre Times-Leader, Sept. 9, 1909.
Wilkes-Barre Times-Leader, Sept. 18, 1909.
Wilkes-Barre Record, Oct. 26, 1909.
Wilkes-Barre Evening News, Dec. 16, 1909.
Wilkes-Barre Times-Leader, Jan. 24, 1910.
Wilkes-Barre Record, Jan. 25, 1910.
Wilkes-Barre Times-Leader, Jan. 27, 1910.
Wilkes-Barre Record, Feb. 1, 1910.
Pittston Gazette, March 4, 1911.
Wilkes-Barre Record, Sept. 22, 1911.
Pittston Gazette, July 31, 1912.
Waukegan Weekly Sun, Aug. 2, 1912.
Wilkes-Barre Times-Leader, July 14, 1913.
Wilkes-Barre Times-Leader, May 22, 1918.