Gunfights & Gunfighters

GUNFIGHTS & GUNFIGHTERS: THE RED WING MOTOR COURT SHOOTING The early winter of 1949 found the U.S. engaged in the first major action of the Cold War, responding to Joseph Stalin’s blockade of Berlin with the Berlin Airlift. General “Wild Bill” Donovan said, “Right now we are fighting on three fronts: psychological, political, and economic. This type of war is more dangerous than a shooting war because you don’t know who your enemy is.” (Donovan was commander of the OSS and the only American to have received our nation’s four highest awards: the Medal of Honor, the Distinguished Service Cross, the Distinguished Service Medal and the National Security Medal.) Not much seems to have changed there, it seems to me. But more immediate dangers were to be found closer to home. On February 28, 1949, Detective Gordon Selby killed his second man. If ever there was a man deserving of immediate, dispassionate, unremorseful death, it was 27-year-old Billy Ray Gilbert (dubbed “Mad Dog Gilbert” by the newspapers). When he emerged nude, holding a gun in his right hand, from a cottage at the Red Wing Motor Court, Gordon Selby accommodated him by parting body from soul, sending one to the grave and the other back to the hell from whence it came. Now, that’s the ending of the story, but it doesn’t end the story. In order to tell this story properly, I need to give you some background first, so please bear with me. Sometime in the late 1980s, Herman Wouk published a novel titled The Winds of War. When I read it, I was struck by a note from Wouk explaining that in his research, he’d been unable to find formal information on certain aspects of the war—particularly on U.S. Naval Aviation Torpedo Squadron 8, which was nearly wiped out (except for one man) during the Battle of Midway. This lack of records seemed odd to me. I had much the same experience during my research into the Gilbert shooting. The two suspects were reported to have escaped from Arizona State Prison—Gilbert twice and Schmid (or Schmidt, as one paper spelled it) once. Gilbert later escaped from the Mohave County Jail. However, today, neither institution has any record of either man being incarcerated there. It was a long time ago, the escapes had to be embarrassing, and there is always the question of whether they had help—all good reasons for the records to disappear, I suppose. I remember similar cases where tapes and records went missing from the Phoenix Police Department at interesting or critical times. It is also reported that while in prison, which official records dispute, Gilbert and Schmid were cellmates. Okay, I think I get it. Then there is the misinformation on the Internet about this incident. A cursory Web search will probably find nothing, but a more thorough search might bring up an article or two. I caution readers to take those articles with a grain of salt, as they very well may contain faulty or misleading information. So, sometime in 1948, Gilbert and Schmid either were or weren’t paroled from Arizona State Prison, where they either were or weren’t cellmates, both serving terms for armed robbery. The papers say they were, but the prison records fail to confirm that information. Schmid later testified that he first met Gilbert in Phoenix in December of 1948, but it is unclear if he meant this was their first meeting ever, or their first meeting after leaving prison. At another point, he stated that he and Gilbert were cellmates in the Mohave County Jail in Kingman, Arizona, although there is no record of them being there either. Do you see how confusing this stuff gets? If I was a drinking man, I’d start getting drunk about now. In my research, I relied heavily on information from the Mojave County Miner, whose yellowed copies remain in the care of Ms. Kay Ellermann, curator of the Mohave Museum. Without those newspapers and her help, this story couldn’t be adequately told. I strongly urge anyone passing through Kingman to visit the museum; though not the largest in the state, it is very well done and worthy of your perusal and a donation. Another obstacle to my research has been the faltering economy of the Free Republic of the Socialist State of California, in particular the county of San Bernardino, where budget cuts have made it all but impossible to do serious research in the county library’s newspaper archives. With a deadline looming only weeks away, I didn’t have time to camp out in San Bernardino so I could be there on the two or three days that the place was open to the public for the couple of hours allowed. I will do that at some time in the near future, as I intend to tell this story fully in another format, but for now, I offer my apologies for the lapses in information. The federal government investigated the possibility of constructing a dam in lower Pyramid Canyon in 1902-1903 and renewed its studies in 1930, eventually leading to the congressional authorization of the Davis Dam Project. In 1935, the completion of Hoover Dam 67 miles upstream paved the way for construction at the Davis Dam project site. The construction contract for Davis Dam was awarded in 1942; work stopped during World War II because of a shortage of material, but resumed in April 1946, and Davis Dam was completed in 1953. According to the Mojave County Miner, both Gilbert and Schmid were employed at Davis Dam prior to their escapades in Kingman. However, according to testimony given later in San Bernardino Superior Court, Gilbert and Schmid left the Phoenix area and headed to a spot just north of what is now Bullhead City, where Davis Dam was under construction. Initially, neither was hired, and we know little of their whereabouts or activities until Gilbert’s arrest for auto theft in Kingman on December 26, 1948. According to the Miner, Gilbert was jailed following an unsuccessful attempt to steal a Kaiser automobile belonging to a certain Dr. Johnson, and he remained in jail until January 27. On December 28, Schmid was arrested on suspicion of robbing Mashburn’s Secondhand Store on Beal Street in Kingman. Interestingly, he was locked up in the same jail as Gilbert, but perhaps put in a different cell. However, Schmid was released shortly thereafter when Mr. Mashburn, the robbery victim, failed to identify him as the culprit. Gilbert and Schmid had ridden into Kingman from Davis Dam with Francis James “Bob” White, 29 years old and a truck driver at the dam construction site. White was arrested shortly after Schmid, subsequently identified as the armed robber, and held to answer for the felony. I think I may see the beginnings of a pattern here. Schmid walked out of jail and disappeared. After that, other robberies occurred in the area, but the robbers were never identified. Eventually, Schmid returned to Phoenix, although when and how he got there is unknown. The devil is reported to be a clever fellow, so you’d expect his children to be at least as clever. Billy Ray Gilbert certainly was. Using a pinch of wadding from his mattress and a bit of wire from his bedsprings, he constructed a device that kept the lock on his cell door from fastening. When his supper was brought into his cell on the evening of January 26, 1949, he put the device in place, and it worked as designed. Sometime after the dishes were cleared away, Gilbert left his cell and used another piece of metal from his bed to pry free a bar in a window leading to the outside. He undressed, threw his clothing outside, and slipped through the bars, dropping seven or eight feet onto the top of an automobile parked below, then promptly disappeared into the snowy night. This would not be the last time that Gilbert used nudity to escape. Shortly before 3:00 A.M., his escape was discovered.