HOLIDAY ON ICE - Tragedy At The Coliseum

 

I suppose everyone was expecting a happy ending. The “Holiday On Ice” skating show had started well after 8pm in front of 4,300 spectators, most of them members and guests of the Shriner's. Smoothly the cast ran through the numbers; “Holidayland”, followed by “The Sleeping Beauty”, “Egyptian Fantasy”, “Rhapsody For Strings”, and “Waltz At Maxims”. And just after 11pm the stars – including 15 year veteran Jeanne “Jinx” Clark  (above)– were gathered just off stage for the grand finale as the chorus filled the rink and dixieland jazz the coliseum.

In the south west corner of the building, just under box seats section thirteen, fifty-four year old Wilbur Gauthier was supervising his staff of vendors when something caught his attention. He thought it sounded like tea kettle left on the boil. As he walked toward the back of the room Gauthier was startled to see a six foot propane tank fall and begin to roll across the concrete, hissing loudly as it did. In an instant the floor was covered in a thickening white mist. Horrified, Gauthier screamed for everyone to clear the room, and started to run toward the tank. He never made it. It was 11:06pm, Halloween night, 1963.

The State Fair Coliseum in Indianapolis had been constructed in 1939, and built to the cautious standards of the Great Depression, of stone and steel; otherwise the disaster could have been much worse. Walter Spangler was sitting in section 12, in the North West corner of the coliseum. He remembered, “The show was virtually over. Suddenly there was a dull thump.” Then, directly across the coliseum from his seat, “…there was a tremendous column of fire – about 15 feet in diameter, and 40 to 50 feet high. Along with it was literally a column of bodies…dozens of people flying through the air. Their arms and legs outspread. Then there was a lot of screaming.” 

Vivian Barkley remembered that, “The bodies looked like rag dolls." The victims began falling amidst the costumed skaters on the ice. Mrs. Manford James told a reporter later that she saw “…pieces of cement, people, arms and legs flying through the air. You could see bodies falling into the flames…” 

And then a second, larger explosion threw 128 seats and 700 square feet of concrete flooring of section 13 into the air before dropping it onto the 240 bleacher seats at the north end of the coliseum floor. Five hundred square feet of the floor caved into the basement. In that initial moment 54 people were dead and almost 500 were injured. The death toll would go higher.

Walter Spangler forced his way through the chaos that followed the explosions, trying to reach the injured. “I saw a woman lying on top of another woman. One woman’s head had been flattened by a large piece of concrete.” 

Pauline O’Neal recalled, “I saw two men carrying children, begging for someone to help them, but everyone just stared.”  

Mrs. Marilyn Barngrover remembered, “Shriners near us helped keep people calm and we moved out very quickly.” The explosion had knocked Mrs. Robert Stoeckinger onto her back. She said, “The little girl who helped pick me up had a gash in her head, but I didn’t notice it until later.” 

Mrs. Myrtle Ericsson said “…I grabbed my purse and started out. I fell over a fire hose and cut my lip and was bruised…I’ve never seen so many bloody people.”

The reason for all this agony was originally considered a contaminate by the refining industry. Because it is heavier than methane, with which it is found naturally, propane has a tendency to collect in the elbows and bends of pipes, forming blockages.

So it is necessary that propane, butane and other similar contaminates be removed from “natural gas” before it is sent down pipelines. It was only a matter of time (1913) before an inventive chemist (Dr. Walter O. Snelling) discovered that, although propane will normally boil at anything over – 42 C, if kept under pressure it can be shipped and handled as a liquid (U.S. patent #1056845). 

At the point of use, a simple relief valve can convert the propane back into a gas, and allow access to its stored energy. But that makes the relief valve the weak point in the system. Today all propane tanks have a thick metal safety collar that protects the valve from being bent or broken. In 1963 (below)  they did not.

Every ambulance in Marion County was dispatched to the scene. And “…literally hundreds of nurses, doctors, first aid volunteers and firemen…” who were off duty rushed to offer assistance.  But because they were not ready in advance, most of their efforts were too late.

Because it was Halloween night there were 200 extra Indianapolis police officers on duty and they were quickly rushed to the coliseum as well. An auto wrecker was driven onto ice to pull sections of concrete “the size of pianos” off the victims. When that proved insufficient a construction crane was found and brought in. 

The coliseum got so crowded that Chief of the Indianapolis Police, Robert Reilly, eventually had to bar any further traffic from the fair grounds, including ambulances and first aid workers. The injured were sent to six area hospitals.  But there was no attempt to keep track of who was sent where, or even how many were even sent to hospitals.

The next morning the county coroner laid out the dead in rows on the ice (above) , and family members had to walk along their bloody, chard and dismembered ranks to identify their loved ones. The last official victim died in February of 1964. The total death toll then stood at 74, with 386 injured, including 176 who were still hospitalized. There was a public outrage over the tragedy, and a conviction that somebody should be held accountable.In December a Grand Jury had indicted State Fire Marshal Ira J. Anderson and Indianapolis Fire Chief Arnold Phillips on misdemeanor charges for failing to inspect the coliseum, specifically the haphazard storage of large numbers of propane tanks in busy work areas. But neither man was convicted, destroying any hopes for civil suits brought by the victim’s families against the state, which was then able to hide behind the concept of "sovereign immunity."

It’s an old English common law idea that “The King can do no wrong.” The concept was grafted into the American constitution in 1794 in The Eleventh Amendment: “The Judicial power…shall not be construed to extend to any suit…commenced or prosecuted against one of the United States by citizens of another state….”  And in 1890, in Hans V Louisiana, the U.S. Supreme Court held it effective even against private citizens trying to sue their own state. In other words, you are not allowed to fight city hall. 

But civilians had no such protection. The President, vice President and local manager of “Discount Gas” which had supplied the propane tanks, were also indicted, as was Coliseum manager Melvin Ross, and the concession manager Floyd James, all on manslaughter charges. But the only person actually convicted was Edward Franger, president of Discount Gas, who was found guilty of assault and battery. And even this conviction was overturned on appeal by the Indiana State Supreme Court.

Much has changed since that horrible Halloween night. Beside the safety collar on propane tanks, the disaster is used as a teaching example of how not to organize rescue operations and how not to treat the families of victims. The Coliseum Disaster Fund raised $78,000 (over half a million today) from the public.  Lawsuits by 379 victims produced $4.6 million in monetary awards, or a little over $12,000 per victim.

It would be 2003 before a plaque (above)  was installed in the Indiana Fair Grounds “Pepsi” Coliseum, to remember those who died and were disfigured physically and emotionally by the tragedy.  In any tragedy, it seems, there is no such thing as justice or a happy ending.

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BOO WHO?

 

I do not understand why, once a year, I am expected to provide a sugar rush to every kid in the neighborhood. This is the annual fall shakedown. The bonfire of the bonbons. And should I try offering these adolescent vagabonds healthy treats like diced carrots, sliced celery, a couple cheese chunks on toothpicks or, God forbid, a little rice pilaf,  rather than being thanked for saving a young heart, my house would be egged, my windows soaped, and my cat redecorated.

What these ‘Kinder Mafia” demand is pure dextrose, not a mere saccharin rush. Their obsession with fructose, glucose, lactose, sucrose and maltose is neither healthy nor reasonable. They expect me to feed their sugar habit. . Oh, sure, they dress it up in fairy costumes and go door to door chanting, “Treat or trick”. But what they really mean is "Show me the Chocolate!"   This is not the holiday the ancient Druid priests envisioned, nor the Aztec mortuary artists. It is not a holiday. It is sugar wealth redistribution, confectionery socialism straight out of the barrel of a gummy bear.

The roots of Halloween were planted long before Christians had enough saints to celebrate "All Hallowed Saint’s Day". The Aztecs were celebrating Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) even before they were speaking Spanish,  maybe 3,000 years ago.  And the Druids in Ireland were celebrating “Samhain” by carving turnip Jack-o-lanterns,  2,500 years before they saw their first pumpkin.  "And how", you may ask, "could offerings to Mictecacihuatl, the Aztec Goddess who was still born, become individually packaged bags of M&Ms’ handed out to a skeleton named Debbie or Bobby?  And I will answer you, ‘Only in a world where the love child of Salvador Dali and Ma Barker is allowed to design holidays, that’s where!

This is the night for hyperventilation and hypertension - when the line between the dead and the not-really-alive (also known as Donald Trump) becomes fuzzy, and everyone grows concerned about ghosts, spooks, ghouls and zombies entering our world.  Call it the invasion of the Fox News hosts.

But its common knowledge that ghosts can not manipulate physical objects. So they can only harm you psychologically, meaning Scientologists  are safe since they don’t believe in anything that might hint at L.Ron Hubbard's level of insanity. And nobody should be afraid of “spooks” because once you speak a spook’s name they are “spooken for” and thus rendered harmless; which is what Dick Cheney did to the spook Valerie Plame.

Now Dick Cheney was a real live ghoul, one of  those creatures who revel in death and horror and who keep coming back to life again - usually on Fox News - the network staffed by brain dead zombies. Rupert Murdoch's invention is the perfect example of how we are terrified of all the wrong things in this life and death.

I cannot imagine Dick Cheney and his fellow Federalist Society banshees  will cease being such soul sucking terror mongers just because they have finally passed beyond the veil of death. Hell, they will just be getting started!. 

Yes, on Sunday October 31st,  I will be answering my door wearing three levels of face masks and vaccine enriched blood, bearing a bowl filled with tribute, because I don’t want to spend half of November pulling toilet paper out of my rain gutters and the rest of the months dead. However, we could instead of this terror Halloween been celebrating "Reformation Day",  when, in 1546, Martin Luther nailed his “95 Things I Hate About The Pope” to the front door of the Wittenberg Castle Church. He was was later charged with deformation of church intellectual property. But I diverse...

So, logically, children could be going door to door, calling, “Treat or I’ll nail your butt to the door, you papist low life, and, oh, by the way have you got any Jews hiding in here?”  A bit hard to see children squeezing candy out of that transaction.  So I guess we were lucky we got the screwed up jawbreaker, mini-Snickers holiday we did get, and not an endless election season that lasts four long painful years and gets won by the Facebook ghouls.

The truth (as if that ever mattered about holidays) is that Martin Luther defiantly nailing his arguments to the church door was probably no more real than George Washington chopping down a cheery tree. Neither thing really happened. And neither do ghosts or ghouls.  And this year you just might see Martin Luther costumes on Halloween Night.  I did see a George Washington once, but that was so long ago the costume was probably made in the United States.

Last year Americans spent over $6 billion on this mish-mash of a holiday. Almost all of our black and orange fix, like cocaine, is provided by overseas suppliers who have no other connection to us other than this holiday, and although that kind of chump change would barely support the occupation of  Afghanistan for a month, it does work out to about $65 per American family each year. Our family is not spending anywhere near that much, so I figure Donald Trump and his con man buddies must be spending like a billion each to make up for what us po' folks aren't spending anymore - call them  the ghoul creators.

About 4 million Americans even bought costumes for their dogs last year, like PetSmart’s spider web dog collar for $12, or PetCo’s doggie Pumpkin dress- up for $16. It gives a whole new meaning to the term "Puttin' on the dog".  Still, this canine costume capitalism is surprising. considering that dogs and skeletons would seem to be a natural costume combo. And once the holiday was over you would not have to pack up the costume -  you just let Rover bury it.

But as a nation we seem determined to spend as much as possible on this “dead holiday thing”.  In a normal year we used to put 2 million pirates (mostly boys, and far outnumbering the original pirates) on the streets that night, along with 4 million princesses - mostly girls and about equal to the number of real princesses) with adults to follow behind them, as back-up muscle. At the ring of the door bell us older folks, cowering in our homes, then answer the door armed a can of heavy duty Lysol and a half-empty bowl of bite sized Three Musketeers, and hope that is enough to buy us protection for another year.

And that is where all smart adults should be on Halloween night, dreading the sound that fills the night with horror and chills the bones; “Trick or treat, trick or treat, give us something good to eat. Or else.”  Yes, Trick or Treat, and bon appetit, my fellow cowering masses. And if you survive this night, you have just twelve months until the next real horror ; election day 2022!  Boo Who? Boo You, that's who!

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MONSTERS OF LES MANS The Pepin Sisters

I admit the case of “The Two Maids”, Christine and Lea Papin,  fascinates me. Although there has never been any doubt as to the horrific nature of their crime, nor as to the guilt of the two women, there has never been a definitive explanation as to why the murders were committed.  Approaching now a century later the story still begins and ends with that central mystery - why?

On the evening of Thursday, 2 February, 1933, Monsieur Rene Lancine, a retired lawyer living outside of Le Mans, France (above), left work and arrived at a friend's home for a dinner party only to discover that his wife, Léonie and his daughter Genevieve had not arrived ahead of him.  He knew they were both looking forward to the dinner, so he anxiously returned to his own home to search for them. 

He arrived shortly after 6:30 to find all the doors of his home locked and the house dark- except for what looked like a single candle burning in the attic room where the families' two servant girls slept.  M. Lancine was concerned enough that he immediately went to the police station. Several officers accompanied M. Lancine home again, and one officer climbed over the back wall of the house and thus gained entrance. 

In a bedroom on the second floor were the battered and mutilated bodies of Madam and Mademoiselle Lancine, (above) wearing their coats and gloves as if about to go out.  The murder weapons were scattered about the landing, dropped from the hands which had wielded them; a kitchen knife, a hammer, and a heavy pewter pot.  But the bludgeoning had only been part of the assault. 

The eminent psychiatrist Jazues Lacan put it succinctly; “They tore out their eyes as Bacchantes castrate their victims.” One of the daughter’s eyes was found on the carpet. Both of Madam Lancine’s eyes were found in the folds of her scarf, still around her neck. 

And in the bare attic room (above) the police discovered the two servant girls, Christine and Lea Papin, naked and huddled together in one bed. Interesting, most of the blood stains were only on one side.

The police wrapped them in overcoats and brought them downstairs, where the first photographers were ready to snap the image of the monsters. 

Both girls readily admitted to having committed the murders. But they refused to offer any explanation for the brutal slaughter.

The case was an immediate sensation and a cause celebre’ for every side of the moral and political debate in France - to the Paris tabloids the sisters were “The Monsters of Le Mans” and “Les Arracheuses d’Yeux” (The Eye Gougers), and the murders were “…the most terrifying and cruel murders ever committed.” 

Jean Genet, author of “Waiting for Godot” was inspired by the trial to write a play, “The Maids” in which he has Christine say, “Madame likes us like she likes her armchairs. And maybe not that much!” Simone de Beauvior commented, “…there are no doubt women who deducted the cost of a broken plate from their maid’s wages, who put on white gloves to find forgotten specks of dust on the furniture:…one must accuse their childhood orphanage, their serfdom, the whole hideous system set up by decent people for the production of madmen, assassins and monsters.” 

And before the victims had even been buried (above), the new science of psychology found dark undertones of incest and sexual abuse , making the removal of the victim’s eyes most significant. The case was a theatre d’ete (a summer theatre), or perhaps a sarriette (a summer treat), in much the same way that the murder of Sandra Levy and the O.J. Simpson trial were to be a half century later. But after 77 years the central mystery of the Papin sisters remains; Why?

There were originally three Papin sisters. When the eldest daughter, Emilia, was 9 years old she was raped by her drunken father.  The mother had divorced the beast, but still Emilia was sent to a nunnery and had little to no contact with her family again; punished for being raped. The divorce dropped the family into bitter poverty. The mother hired out as a house maid, and the two younger sisters were sent to a Catholic orphanage. And when Lea and Christine were thought to be old enough (their early teens) they too became servants.   As often as possible the sisters worked together.  But after a few years they no longer spoke to their mother.
When the Papin sisters moved into the Lancine home. Christine (above, rear right) was 24 years old. She worked as the family cook,  while her sister, 20  year old Lea (above, rear left)  was responsible for cleaning and dusting the house. They had worked in several other homes around La Mans, and had good work records. And they worked for the Lancine family for seven years without any major trouble.

However Mademoiselle Lancine was known to be strict about cleanliness, and often ran one of her white gloves across surfaces to inspect Lea's (above) housework.  Lately the lady of the house had taken to beating Lea. Still, the only thing unusual about the afternoon of 2 February was a badly repaired electric iron which had blown a fuse. And it was this relative minor inconvenience which somehow precipitated the explosion of bloody violence. 

After their arrests, the sisters were separated. Christine (above left) began to wail and cry out for her sister. After several days they were allowed contact again, and Christine showered Lea with kisses, and tried to undress her sister. The doctors sent to examine the girls decided that Lea was a simpleton and that Christine was mentally and emotionally unstable. At one point Christine became so distraught at another separation that she tried to gouge out her own eyes, and had to be restrained in a straight jacket. 

When their trial finally reached its climax in September of 1933 Christine was sentenced to the guillotine, but this was later commuted to life in prison. Being alone again in prison she went into a profound depression and stopped eating for long periods. Eventually she was transferred to an insane asylum, where in 1937 she died of “cahexia”, a diagnoses which basically meant that she simply gave up fighting to stay alive. 

Lea (above) was sentenced to ten years of hard labor, of which she served eight. After she was released, Lea was reunited with her mother and they moved south to Nantes, where Lea worked as a chamber maid at a hotel under an assumed name. She died in the year 2000.

It is a sad story, and I have not more than touched on the details here. It highlights a world now long gone, and the life of two bourgeoisie peasant girls, born into a universe that seems to have had little use for them until they achieved fame by doing something despicable. And the instant they did it no longer mattered who the Papin sisters really were. At that point they became merely characters in someone else’s passion play.

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