People v. Rocco

LANGDON, J.—

This is an appeal by Frank Rocco from a conviction of the charge of murdering one James Brady, within the county of Ventura, California.

Briefly, the record discloses: In January, 1929, the defendant Frank Rocco, and his co-defendant, Dominie Leo, came to the city of Los Angeles. They went first to the restaurant operated by one Santanillo, on Lucille Avenue. From there they were taken by Santanillo to the Louise Hotel, in the vicinity of West Sixth Street, where Rocco and his co-defendant rented two rooms. At this time the defendant Rocco was accompanied by his wife and they rented room 309 and his co-defendant Leo rented room 311. The two defendants had driven across the continent in a Packard roadster bearing a Maine license. Shortly after their arrival at the Louise Hotel, the defendant Rocco made the acquaintance of one James Brady, who was subsequently murdered. Brady also had a room at the Louise Hotel. Within a short time the wife of Rocco left and returned to New York. On or about the nineteenth of February, 1929, the deceased, James Brady, went to the King Apartments in the city of Venice, where he, with one Audrey Morosco, rented a double apartment in the rear on the second floor. The defendant Rocco also occupied this

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apartment, together with another woman by the name of Geraldine Forrester. During the joint occupancy of this apartment, Boceo and Brady were frequently together and had conversations with reference to the illicit liquor “racket.”

At about 10:30 P. M. of February 28, 1929, the defendant Eocco, in company with the deceased James Brady and his co-defendant Dominic Leo, left the King Apartments in Venice. The two women remained in the apartment. Eocco, Brady and Leo walked out and got into the gray Packard roadster and drove away, Boceo being the driver of the car. About 1 o’clock in the morning of the following day, March 1, 1929, a resident in the upper Conejo district of Ventura County heard what he described as three or four shots. There was an interval of time and he heard the engine of an automobile. At about 4:30 of the same morning a body was found lying in an open field a distance of one and one-half miles east of the town of Camarillo in Ventura County, a distance of about seven miles west- of where the shots were heard. 'The body was identified as that of James Brady. At about the time of the discovery of the body, the two defendants returned to the King Apartments at Venice, where they were received by the two women, who served them coffee, and shortly thereafter the two defendants left the apartment and did not again return to it. Shortly before he returned to the apartment for the last time, Leo was seen to enter a garage in Venice, a short distance from the King Apartments, with the gray Packard roadster bearing the Maine license. A short time after his first visit to the garage, Leo again returned and took the Packard automobile, and at this time bought a pint bottle of gasoline.