Ben 00:01-00:03

Taylor, welcome to Crime Capsule.

Taylor 00:04-00:06

Thank you, Ben. Glad to be here.

Ben 00:07-00:15

Congratulations on your new book. I understand that its birthday, as we are recording today, was yesterday.

Taylor 00:16-00:19

Yes, the publication date was yesterday.

Ben 00:21-00:47

This is, of course, a very exciting moment, and it's an incredible story that you have told in this volume, but this is also not your first rodeo. You have published more than 20 previous titles, many in, almost all in military non-fiction. What made you turn your attention to this particular genre and this particular case?

Taylor 00:48-02:24

Well, this story was definitely outside my wheelhouse, Ben. As you mentioned, I mostly write about military nonfiction, and in particular, Vietnam era history. But the fact that this cold case murder took place in my hometown of Coronado, California intrigued me. And the origin story is rather humorous. As I mentioned in the book, I was a victim of crime. in Coronado in 1993 when I was in the Navy serving in San Diego and some thief broke into my apartment and stole my underwear. Just my underwear. And it was a very unnerving experience, as you can imagine. And it was never solved. I mean, no one was ever arrested as far as I know. And a few years later, I was at a Fourth of July barbecue in Coronado talking with some longtime residents about the fact that, you know, this crime was never solved. And my friend and city councilwoman, Susan Keith, said, well, have you heard of the biggest unsolved crime that took place in Coronado in 1975? The cold case of Ruth Quinn. And I had never heard of this story. And I was surprised that I had never heard of this story. And it just set me on a path to find out more.

Ben 02:25-02:31

And in 1975, I mean, were you still in grade school then? I was.

Taylor 02:32-03:40

I was in grade school. I actually wasn't living in Coronado in 1975. I lived there from 72 to 74 and 78 to 80. many years subsequent to those years. So I wasn't physically on the island when that happened. But it was an interesting time in Coronado. Coronado before 1969 was a very isolated place. It was, it's an island. It has an isthmus that connects to the greater part of San Diego, but most people accessed it via a ferry. In 1969, they built the San Diego-Coronado Bay Bridge, and that really changed the whole flavor of life on the island. As I said, the cash and the cars started coming over the bridge and they've never stopped. So it is a much more affluent island now. And, of course, it is much easier to flee the scene if you're committing a crime because you can just jump over the bridge.

Ben 03:40-04:29

You know, it's funny, kind of remarkable and ironic, too, of course, that you were in, around, and on the island sort of around all the time that this was going on and never heard anything about it. If there is one thing that is true about islanders, anywhere you go in the world, and I speak from some experience in the Orkney Islands, actually, on the north coast of Scotland, Islanders talk. And islanders talk about what happens on the island more than they talk about just about anything else. And it is so interesting the way that that consciousness develops, that for such a monumental event as this, to be so buried for so long, that's really something to consider.

Taylor 04:31-05:14

Well, I tell a story at the very beginning of the book. I was driving to work one day, I think this was in 2002 or three, and I was stopped at a stoplight about to go over the bridge, and I saw a little mound of dirt in a front yard next to me, and there was a handmade sign in the dirt, and it said free dirt. And I started laughing to myself, because if you try and buy property in Coronado, It's outrageously expensive. I mean, the dirt is not free there, right? The only dirt that's free is the gossip. And like you said about the Orkney Islands, the gossip and the dirt around Coronado is prolific.

Ben 05:15-05:44

Pretty rich, pretty rich. Well, there's a lot to get into and I'm very excited to do so. I have to ask you, you write early on in the book that the creation of this particular volume had kind of an interesting story itself in that there was a long time lag that you said there was about a 15 year gap between your first sort of learning about the case and then really diving in. What happened over that period of time? Why such a delay?

Taylor 05:45-07:33

Well, life got in the way. I was single and unemployed when I started working on writing this book and researching it. And then I got a full-time job. I got married. I had a baby. I wrote a number of other books. And so this just got pushed to the sidelines. And then during the pandemic in 2020, like a lot of people, I was stuck at home. And I was cleaning out my closets and pulled out my case file on this, and I dusted it off and I said, you know, I should finish this book. And I did. However, sadly, you know, a lot of the people that I originally contacted and interviewed in the early 2000s are no longer with us. And so some of the early interviews that I did, I was not able to follow up on them. On the plus side, however, the information that I could only find in microfiches in the library are now much more accessible, right? The standards of research, all the newspapers now are digitized, and a lot of the case files are available online. Not murder case files, but other case files, lawsuits and things that were integral to the story. So in some ways it was easier for me in 2020 to research this book. I was able to use Zoom to do a lot of the interviews. But some of the characters who knew the victim are no longer with us.

Ben 07:34-08:08

It's fascinating to hear you say that. We have had a number of conversations recently with other history press authors. I'm thinking particularly of Clay Bryant, who's a cold case investigator in South Georgia. about the fact that sometimes time is your enemy, and then sometimes, with cold cases, time is actually your friend. And you don't know exactly which one it's going to be ahead of. You can't predict which way it's going to go. But every now and then, that hibernation period can actually produce some fruit and some results that you could not have gotten in the moment.

Taylor 08:09-08:57

Well, and of course, as you know, in the last 20 years, the proliferation of the DNA databases, Ancestry.com and 23andMe, have made cold case detective work in some ways a lot easier. If they can extract DNA from some of the evidence of these trials and just upload it to the database, they can find familial matches. And those databases were practically non-existent 20, 25 years ago. And the cold case detectives in San Diego, have told me they have reopened this case. Completely coincidental to my research on this book, but in going through some of their old cases, they determined that they do have some evidence that they can test for DNA.

Ben 08:59-09:58

Well, we can't wait to hear about that. We will get there in due course. Let's begin at the beginning, though. You have an incredible story here with just rich dramatic elements, such colorful characters, you've got just the setup of all of the possibilities involving money, power, influence, and structure, and hierarchy, and all these things happening across geographies. It's great. But we need to start at a place that everybody can relate to and enjoy, which is candy. Let's go to Candy, right? And it all begins with Candy and with a family that, you know, a gentleman who moves from Europe to the United States to do the thing which just bless him, you know, brought smiles to people around the country. He made Candy. Tell us about Henry Heide and then we'll start talking about his daughter Ruth.

Taylor 10:00-14:20

Right. So, Ruth Quinn, the murder victim, who was murdered in 1975 in Coronado, was the granddaughter of Henry Heide. He was a German Catholic immigrant who came to the United States shortly after the Civil War and he worked in the grocery business for a while and then he and a friend started making, you know, penny candy and selling it first out of an apartment window Then they got a horse-drawn cart and started selling it in the streets of Manhattan. And it was wildly popular and it grew very fast. And he's responsible for introducing jujubees and jujie fruits to the American consumer. By the early 20th century, he was a multimillionaire. He had 11 children. eight of whom survived him. And Ruth was the oldest daughter of his oldest daughter. And so little Ruth Quinn was raised in affluence in Manhattan. She had nannies, and she had chauffeurs to and from school. She was sent away to boarding school. She was sent to college, and as you probably know, Not many women went to college back then. She graduated from college, really didn't need to get a job because of her family's money. She devoted herself to volunteer work and on a tour of Europe with her sister, which was common for wealthy women back then. He went on a tour of Europe, usually with a chaperone. I believe her aunt took her. She met a young dashing naval officer in Europe when his ship was pulling into port in Rotterdam. And that started a courtship for them. And several years later, she agreed to marry him. She got married at the ripe old age of 30 in 1930.

Ben

which um she's basically extinct by that point according to the standards of her days

Taylor

right she was considered almost a spinster by that point so she got married in 1930 and started the the life the itinerant life of being a a navy wife and followed her husband around he was a naval aviator. And in between World War I and World War II, that was the time that naval aviation was really growing, but it was still the domain of a swashbuckling small group of very talented men. Men who were brave enough or stupid enough to land their planes on an aircraft carrier. They had not yet proven themselves in war, but that would come in World War II. And so that's what brought her to Coronado. For those of your listeners who don't know, Coronado is the home of naval aviation. It's also the home of Navy SEALs. And it has a very, very long history of military families living there while their dads and now moms serve our country. My family also has a long history in Coronado, and the Navy is what also brought us to the island. My grandfather served in World War I and World War II in Korea, and first came to Coronado with his wife, and my father in the 1930s. My father served in Vietnam and brought my mom to Coronado for the first time in the 1960s. And I probably spent half my childhood in Coronado. So our family has a long history there. And like many, many military families, Coronado is often a duty station for us.

Ben 14:22-16:14

It's a great place. It's one of the classic American communities with just such a rich history. Of course, we were speaking off air about this, but my own father was stationed briefly there as well. And I can vividly remember some childhood trips that we took to visit his old helicopter pilots. And it's just, it is very evocative of past and present at the same time. And I just love that feeling. It has its own culture and that is very much a part of your book. I wanted to ask you a little bit more about Ruth and her experience there. You write that Ruth was very intelligent. She was very sophisticated and well-traveled and highly educated. and that this created an unusual dimension for her, once she became a Navy wife, a Naval officer's wife, sort of fitting into the society of Coronado. That was not exactly what she was used to. And perhaps maybe it's more fair to say, Taylor, I don't know, Coronado was not ready for her. She brought something very different. in her background and upbringing there. And I think it's also worth saying, as a credit to their family, though they came from, you know, large sort of family empire of candy makers and, you know, great wealth, one of the aspects of their family that was hardwired into them by Henry was charitable giving and benefaction and establishing things and philanthropy was a huge, huge part of who they were. So there's this kind of interesting set of qualities and attitudes that she brings to the island. Can you just tell us a little bit about what it was like for her to settle in there?

Taylor 16:16-17:50

Well, the military has a pecking order right and it has a rank structure and at that time and i think there are vestiges of this culture that still exists today the wives of these military officers often wore the rank of their husbands uh… ruth was ruth's husband was very junior i believe he was lieutenant maybe the first time they came to coronado and so there were more senior officer's wives who technically outranked her. This despite the fact that she probably was more educated than most of these other wives, certainly more well-traveled. She was fluent in German and she was an opera aficionado. She probably was just a lot more sophisticated than your average Navy wife of that era. And many found her to be haughty. Many found her to be aloof. Everyone told me that she was very weirdly loud, especially for someone who became a librarian. So she rubbed a lot of people the wrong way. She rubbed a lot of people the wrong way. And she just didn't quite fit into the box of being a Navy wife. And her son Chuck told me that she just never quite warmed to it.

Ben 17:53-19:22

Yeah, we'll get to her family momentarily. I do have to ask you about one incredible story as we're sort of building up to the cast of characters who all in some way play a role in her murder and the kind of the drama that surrounded that. There's one story that you mentioned very briefly in your book, but it is so incredible. I had to ask you right here and now.You mentioned that her husband was the naval officer. And in World War II, when he was stationed on the USS Bogue, there's a moment where the Bogue had gone out to become a U-boat killer, a submarine killer, protecting the mid-Atlantic shipping routes and so forth from the U-boats, which was taking so many American lives and so forth. And there's a moment where their mission is just an overwhelming success. I mean, they really just, you know, nail it. But there's one sentence in the whole of your book, which just screamed out at me, Taylor, that I've got to ask you. Her husband boarded a captured German U-boat and sailed it into the harbor of New York City. Tell me what on earth.

Taylor 19:23-21:09

According to what I researched and read, that is what he did. So the Bogue was sent out on a very experimental mission, and that was to sink German U-boats in in the mid-Atlantic. And they sank 13 of them. They were credited with sinking, I believe, the last one in the Battle of the Atlantic. And his ship received a presidential unit citation, and he received a bronze star. So he was heading home from World War II triumphant. He was heading home a hero. He had been promised that he would get his own command. He was the executive officer, or the number two, on the USS Bogue. His career was completely changed by this experience. And yes, according to what I researched, he actually boarded one of the captured U-boats and escorted it back to New York City. Sadly, when the ship pulls into port for refueling and retrofitting before they were going to head out to the Battle of the Pacific, because as you know, 1945, He still had work to do to take care of the Japanese. He comes down with pneumonia and he dies 48 hours later. And this comes on the heels of another tragedy in Ruth's family. Six years before, in 1939, Ruth's younger son was hit and killed by a dump truck in front of her house. He was three years old.

Ben 21:10-21:10

Yeah.

Taylor 21:11-21:15

So she loses her younger son and her husband in six years.

Ben 21:17-22:27

And that sets up just an enormous amount of conflict and tension with the remaining members of her family. We'll come to that just now. I just, when I read that, I just thought, you know, that is arguably the biggest flex in military history that I have read about in a long time. You know, just sailing that sucker into New York City. So, you know, pretty, pretty remarkable. But this is pivotal. This is a pivotal season in her life, and she is left alone on Coronado with, we have to introduce her brother and her son in this sort of cast of characters here because the dynamics between them, especially after the loss of her husband, really begin to change as everybody grows older and she settles into her routines and there's some lingering hangovers from her wealthy past which are sort of defining some of these dynamics. Will you tell us a little bit about Hank and about Chuck?

Taylor 22:28-27:20

So Ruth was one of four children and she had one brother, a younger brother, and his name was Hank Leyendecker. Ruth's maiden name was Leyendecker. And Ruth's brother Hank never worked a day in his life. He never worked, he never earned an income. He lived off his mother. His mother and Hank, Hank and his mother moved to Coronado to be close to Ruth and her family. And when they came to Coronado, they moved into the Hotel Del. So here's this very fancy, upscale, luxury resort hotel on the island, which is famous. It's all wooden. It was built at the turn of the 20th century. It's been the the playground of the rich and the famous and celebrities from Hollywood since it opened in the late 1800s. But it was also known as a place where the wealthy from all over the world would come and sometimes live for the summer. And in the case of Ruth's mother and brother, they lived there for 20 years, taking all of their meals in the dining room and just living the life of the leisurely. Hank told many people that his job was to take care of his mother and he did a very good job of that. He was a frail boy and it appears that in his adulthood he was also frail but he was frail more emotionally than physically. He actually was quite a good athlete in his adult life. And Ruth was always called out to take care of Hank when he ran into trouble emotionally. She was called out to Wyoming where he was spending time on a dude ranch in 1939 because he had a mental breakdown. And while she was away, that is when her younger son was hit and killed by the dump truck, which must have left her feeling very guilty. I don't know if Hank felt guilty about it as well. After their mother died, Hank moved out of the Hotel Del and rented a room from a couple in town, but he still was fed by Ruth every night, and he spent the night at Ruth's house every night. They fought like cats and dogs, they seemed to hate each other, and yet they were codependent on each other. And then there was Ruth's older son, Chuck, the surviving son, who witnessed his little brother get hit and killed by the dump truck right in front of him. And as he said, it ruined a lot of lives that day. Chuck was dashingly handsome. I mean, Hollywood handsome. He was an avid and accomplished skier. He was one of a group of legendary surfers. He was on record as having the longest surf ever recorded on video, and it appeared in a Don Ho movie. He was unbelievably athletically gifted. He also was an alcoholic. He also suffered from mental issues. He was involuntarily committed, at least twice that I know of. And he fathered two children by two different women. Neither child did he really ever know, raise, or support. He did get to know them when they were adults, but not very well. And of course, he was never a father figure to them. And he just couldn't seem to keep a job, sadly. So he was constantly coming to his mother for money. I found evidence that he just, she sent him a monthly stipend even when he was in his forties. He just could not keep a job. The poor guy had just a lot of problems in life. And like his mother and his brother, there was a lot of resentment. There was a lot of yelling and screaming. There was a lot of venom amongst the three of them when they got together. It seemed to be a love-hate relationship amongst the three of them.

Ben 27:22-28:13

You know, as I was reading your account, and it's important that we kind of introduce them because these questions of their makeup and their decisions and so forth, they directly tie into the murder investigation. Absolutely. It's no secret at all that the sort of prime suspects early on for this unsolved cold case You know, you start local, right? I mean, you just, who knew her, who knew her routines, and so forth. And we'll get there, but it struck me as I reflected on sort of Hank and Chuck, both Ruth's brother and Ruth's surviving son. They're living these sort of Playboy style lives. I mean, but at the same time, they themselves are not really all that moneyed. It's a lot about appearances. You know, it's about, it's a lot about kind of like projecting an image.

Taylor 28:14-28:14

Absolutely.

Ben 28:15-28:32

Yes. You know, as a friend of mine likes to say, you know, their mouths are writing checks that their, you know, egos can't cash. Sort of like that their actions can't cash. And they're presenting something to the world, which is just not shaping up to be the actual truth of the matter.

Taylor 28:32-29:35

Absolutely. Yes. And many, many people, friends and acquaintances alike, said that they projected this image of being, you know, better than the average Joe, and they like to project the image of being playboys. Meanwhile, poor Ruth is living on a widow's salary and a librarian's salary. I mean, a widow's pension. and a librarian salary. She went back to work after she was widowed and got a degree in library science and spent 20 years working the San Diego library and then at the Coronado library before she retired in about 1957 or 58. So she actually went to work out of necessity. Most of her money, most of her inheritance was tied up in securities that she was inheriting from the Heidi Candy Company, the company that her grandfather started and that her cousins were running around the time of her death.

Ben 29:36-29:52

Can I ask you a quick question? You write in the book that about once a quarter she would receive a parcel, a package from the Heidi Candy Company full of the latest Heidi Candies or probably just more juju fruits and you know the rest that sort of thing.

Taylor 29:53-29:55

And probably a quarterly statement from the company.

Ben 29:56-30:23

Well, that too. But what I want to know is, if you were the granddaughter of the patriarch of this enormous candy empire, wouldn't you want more than just once every three months for your candy steak? I would just kind of be like, granddad, maybe once a month would be good. It's candy for heaven's sake.

Taylor 30:24-30:41

Right. Right. Well, that's what she, that's what she received. She really, she was a, she was a penny pincher. She had to be a penny pincher because she really was not wealthy. She was an heiress in name only.

Ben 30:41-30:59

Right. And what was so interesting about her, and this was kind of the, you know, the way in which her outlook and her generosity mirrored her grandfather's, that candy she would just give away to the island kids, right? I mean, like, how cool is that?

Taylor 31:00-31:02

Yes, she did. She did.

Ben 31:03-32:22

So, there's one other character here that we have to introduce, who I mean, this is pretty Shakespearean here, what we're dealing with. There is a drifter, a loose cannon, a rogue agent who just finds a way into this whole scene. And I still wrestle with what you say about Alan Graham. Alan Graham is a fascinating figure and it is quite clear that the level of complexity to his personality is very, it's very deep and we will probably never know the true story about Alan Graham. You know, there may not be a true story of Alan Graham. And yet you write that he was, in his own way, one of the most successful ingratiators and conmen who also had a bone of truth about some of the things that he said that that society had ever really known. So introduce us to Alan here.

Taylor 32:23-36:33

Alan Graham, who's the third suspect in the murder of Ruth Quinn. was a British expat and he was already a grifter when he came to the island, but he came to the island because he married Jim Morrison's sister. Jim Morrison, as many of you know, was the front man for the Doors. What many of you may not know is that Jim Morrison's father was a Navy Admiral, a naval aviator. a veteran of World War II and the Vietnam War. And he and his family was assigned to Coronado, and his daughter had married Alan Graham, met and married Alan Graham when the family was stationed in London. And the daughter and Alan Graham followed the Morrison family to Coronado. Alan was from Liverpool, He claimed that he knew the Beatles when he was growing up. Who knows if that's true. He came to Coronado and set up shop as a carpenter. He was actually quite a skilled carpenter, according to many people that I talked to, including Jim Morrison's brother. Alan was hired by Ruth Quinn to repair her dining room table, which was broken. And after he repaired the dining room table, he continued to come around and visit Ruth Quinn. Friendly visits, of course, because all 27-year-old married men want to come around and visit a 74-year-old woman, widow. He had a way with older ladies, especially older ladies that he considered wealthy. And he particularly admired a curio of antique cameos that Ruth had on her wall. And he would comment on them and sit and stare at them. One night when Ruth was out at the opera, he stuck in with a couple of accomplices to her home and stole that curio of antique cameos. He and his accomplices tried to pawn it in Los Angeles, and I believe It was the pawnbroker that alerted the police that this was probably stolen property. Allen and his accomplices were arrested. One of the accomplices, you can't make this up, was discovered digging a cache for the cameos at the beach in Coronado, at North Beach. If any of you have been to Coronado, you know where Dog Beach is at the very north end of the beach. uh… right near the the border to north island the naval air station north island and he was found digging a cache ostensibly to bury the cameos why you would do that i don't know yeah but anyway alan graham and his accomplices were arrested and ruth quinn testified against them and alan graham went to prison he was convicted and went to prison for a year or one day short of a year, I believe 364 days. Alan Graham's brother-in-law told me that he believes his father, Admiral Morrison, intervened with the judge and convinced the judge not to sentence Alan Graham for a year because he might have been deported if he were served, if he were sentenced to a term more than a year. In any event, Alan Graham was released from prison and came back to Coronado and continued his life of grifting and drifting and conning up until the day he died, which was about a year ago. But based on the fact that he, Ruth Quinn, had testified against Alan, Alan was considered a suspect in this crime.

Ben 36:34-37:08

Yeah. And the question remains open whether that was the last visit to her house or whether he was responsible for her murder. And we're going to cover the scene of the crime next week when we come back. It is just a very unusual set of circumstances. There's still a lot of questions that surround it. But we will dive in fully next time. Thank you so much for joining us this week, Taylor. This has been such a pleasure.

Taylor 37:09-37:10

Thank you, Ben.