Episode 378:

Gloved Hand Gesture

The Ouija Board Inspired Murder of Ernest Turley

Georgia

The Story of Paul Ohtaki and the Internment of Japanese Americans During WWII

Karen

Episode 378: Gloved Hand Gesture

This week, Georgia covers the Ouija Board inspired murder of Ernest Turley and Karen tells the story of Paul Ohtaki and the internment of Japanese Americans during WWII.

The Ouija Board Inspired Murder of Ernest Turley

The Ouija Board Inspired Murder of Ernest Turley Notes:

Header Image Source: Photo by Oz Seyrek on Unsplash

Other Images:

1. Ouija Board (Laura Kuhn / Alamy)

2. Press Democrat article about the murder of Ernest Turley

"38-year-old Dorothea Turley, once a nationally renowned beauty selected as a “modern Venus” by New York’s Evening World newspaper in 1916, was away from her house in Apache County, Arizona, when her 15-year-old daughter Mattie shot Ernest Turley twice in the back on November 18, 1933. Ernest Turley, who was Mattie’s father and Dorothea’s husband, died from the wounds about six weeks later.

Mattie initially claimed she had been trying to shoot a skunk when she tripped and accidentally shot her father. However, when questioned by the sheriff, Mattie quickly changed her story, telling the sheriff that her mother had ordered her to shoot Ernest. Mattie explained that her mother had been having an affair with a younger cowboy, Kent Pearce, and a Ouija board had told Mattie and Dorothea that Ernest must be killed so that Dorothea could marry Pearce. According to Mattie, her mother had told her that she must carry out the Ouija board’s orders and could not be arrested for doing so.

After admitting her role in her father’s death, Mattie pleaded guilty to a charge of attempted murder and was sentenced to the State School for Girls at Randolph. Dorothea was charged with assault with the intent to commit murder but maintained her innocence. Contrary to what her daughter had said, Dorothea insisted that she had never discussed killing Ernest with her daughter, via Ouija board or otherwise. Instead, Dorothea said that Mattie had shot Ernest because she was angry about his rules and that Mattie was now trying to pin the murder on her.

At Dorothea’s trial in June 1934, the court refused to admit testimony as to Mattie's character. Dorothea was convicted of assault with intent to commit murder based mainly on the testimony of Mattie, and she was sentenced to 10 to 25 years in prison.

Three years later, on appeal, the Supreme Court of Arizona found that it had been prejudicial when the trial court’s refused to admit evidence regarding Mattie’s character that, if true, would have tended to destroy the belief in her good character. The court reversed Dorothea’s conviction and remanded the case for this reason. The charges against Dorothea were then dismissed."

Source: “DOROTHEA TURLEY” by Meghan Barrett Cousino (The National Registry of Exonerations)

The Story of Paul Ohtaki and the Internment of Japanese Americans During WWII

The Story of Paul Ohtaki and the Internment of Japanese Americans During WWII Notes:

Images:

1. Paul Ohtaki

2. Manzanar War Relocation Camp

3. Walt & Milly Woodward, owners & publishers of the Bainbridge Review newspaper

"The story of how Bainbridge Review publishers Walt Woodward and Millie Woodward defended the civil rights of islanders of Japanese ancestry during World War II may be a familiar one.

Now the large events are rendered in detail in “It Was the Right Thing to Do!” The anthology of newspaper clippings, letters and compelling first-hand reports written was compiled by Paul Ohtaki, who was just 17 when he was “drafted” by Woodward to write a column from Manzanar, the California camp to which Bainbridge’s Japanese-American citizens were removed in 1942.

The anthology has been available in rough form for some time, but was recently bound and made available through the Bainbridge Island Historical Museum, the Bainbridge library, the Bainbridge High School library and Woodward Middle School.

The large, 231-page tome conveys the immediacy of the paper itself, comprised as it is of countless photocopies of news stories, editorials and and letters regarding the internment, in addition to personal correspondence. More recent material includes reflections on the internment up to the point of Woodward’s death in March 2001.

“I want to make sure the story is told,” said Ohtaki, now a resident of San Francisco, Calif. “I don’t want these young people not to know the history.”

Ohtaki was a Bainbridge High School student with a part-time job at the Woodwards’ paper when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. He was among the islanders first removed when President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 two months later excluding people of Japanese descent from “militarily sensitive” Pacific Coast areas.

Ohtaki’s book makes clear that, in addition to a finely calibrated moral compass, the Woodwards were possessed of both prescience and an ability to act on insight without hesitation.

The night before Ohtaki, and all other islanders of Japanese heritage were to leave for internment at a relocation center in Manzanar, Woodward hired him to send regular reports back to the local paper.

Ohtaki wasn’t sure he wanted the job.

“In fact I tried to refuse,” he recalls. “I wasn’t a good writer. I wasn’t that responsible.”

Woodward wasn’t having any of that; Japanese Americans might be removed, but they wouldn’t be forgotten.

A column from the camp featuring daily life was a sure antidote, Woodward figured, to the government’s move to demonize people who were friends and neighbors.

Remarkably, the newsman had not only instantly grasped the full context of events that were only just unfolding, but had also crafted a plan that would help reintegrate Japanese Americans into Bainbridge life – and Ohtaki was to play a key part in that scheme..."

Source: “The Friendship That Made Island History” (Bainbridge Island Review) 2004