100 years ago – December 10, 1925
Girl in Gangster Assault Case Says Testimony False
One of the girls who was a principal in the gangster assault case in San Francisco just five years ago, Jessie Montgomery, who is now Mrs. W. P. Miller of Spokane, Wash., has written a letter which has been turned over to the state board of prison directors, in which she admits that she falsely testified at the trial of Ed “K. O.” Kovulskie, Edmund “Spud” Murphy, and James Carey, now serving 50-year terms in Folsom penitentiary for their part in the attack on her and Jean Stanley.
The friends of the three men, on the basis of this letter, now plan an appeal to Governor Richardson for a pardon for them. Ascribing as the reasons she testified falsely the girl says that at the time she was afraid the men under indictment might be freed and “get” her.
It was just five years ago yesterday that Sheriff James Petray of this city, together with two detectives, were killed while attempting to arrest three alleged members of the gang in a Santa Rosa hotel, wanted in connection with this case. The trio of gangsters were captured and later lynched and hanged in a Santa Rosa cemetery by unknown persons who took them from officers at the county jail…