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DOCTOR BERNARD FINCH SERVED ELEVEN ? YEARS : LET OUT IN 1971

It's TRUE! I THINK HE GOT OFF EASY CONSIDERING....  WHAT DO YOU THINK? LEAVE A COMMENT!

image from Open Clipart Library

NEW YORK TIMES : 1971 RELEASE OF DR. BERNARD FINCH

 Aug. 18, 1971

Excerpt:  SACRAMENTO, Calif., Aug. 17 (AP) — Dr. R. 13ernard Finch was ordered released on pa role today, from a life term In the slaying of his wife. Approached about jobs in Missouri, Nebraska and Maryland. The Missouri offer was from a small rural community that wanted him to operate a small hospital and clinic.

His sweetheart at the time of the slaying Carole Tregoff, was paroled in 1969 from the same sentence.

The eight-member California Adult Authority granted the once-wealthy Finch parole in his second bid for freedom since he entered prison 10 years after three sensational trials.  he will be released December 5.

Excerpt: Henry Kerr, chairman of the Adult Authority Board, said that Finch had been approached about jobs in Missouri, Nebraska, and Maryland. The Missouri offer was from a small rural community that wanted him to operate a small hospital and clinic.

Finch's medical license was revoked in California. It can be reinstated by another state, Mr. Kerr said...

CAROL TREGOFF FREED AT AGE 32 IN MAY 1969

Center for Biographical Studies and Research, : CAROL TREGOFF FREE

Excerpt:  This week, however, she won approval, and after 10 years inside the California Institution for Women she walked to freedom Thursday—a silent woman hoping for a new' life. She will be on parole for the rest of her years. Still attractive at age 32, her hair was now' its natural brown shade, and although she put on weight when she first came to prison, she w r as more slender now than when she began her sentence. Miss Tregoff and Finch w'ere finally convicted in 1961 of murder and conspiracy after three sensational trials. The first two ended in hung juries, mostly because of the tactics of defense attorney Grant T. Cooper, the veteran criminal lawyer who later defended Sirhan R. Sirhan. Iverne R. Carter, superintendent of the prison, said Miss Tregoff will live in the Los Angeles area but had asked that her whereabouts not be revealed. “She has to get her bearings in the community,” Mrs. Carter said. “She will do nothing to call attention to herself.”

Missy here!  I guess she played her cards right, so to speak, by being a model prisoner.  Carol was very young and probably more than a little crazy when she conspired to kill her lover's wife along with him, and she feared she'd be an old woman before she got out, but she did get out, in less than ten years served. 

I was unable to find an obituary for Carole Tregoff, or any further information about her.  It is said that she lived under an alias but went back to West Covina. Well, I suspect a lot of people in that area knew of Carole and where she was, and maybe they understood, or forgave, or simply ignored her. I do wonder if she ever loved again - in a healthy way - or if she lived her life as a recluse.  However I did find one hint of Carole's life in a article published in 2017 by the author Joan Didion. It's wonderfully written as only Joan Didion could and in it she says that Carole was a nursing assistant in a prison hospital.

Here's the link : RIVITER MAGAZINE - JOAN DIDION - SOME DREAMERS OF THE GOLDEN

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COFFEE?

 

CAROLE TREGOFF TRIED TO HIRE A HIT MAN TO KILL DR. BERNARD FINCH'S WIFE BARBARA : TESTIMONY AT TRIAL

Excerpts Page 164-165-166-167 :  James Cody, sometimes known as Jack or John Cody, had been sentenced to an additional year of confinement after walking off the prison farm in Minnesota. In exchange for his testimony, he was granted immunity for any crimes connected with the death of Barbara Jean Finch... My notes in parenthesis. There is no doubt from this testimony at trial that Carole was a full participant in planning the murder of her rival, Mrs. Bernard Finch - Barbara.

... Cody: "She wanted me to kill Mrs. Finch."

... Cody: "I told her Dona (an intermediary) had explained everything and that I thought I should get $2000 for doing the job. She said she thought $1000 was more reasonable, and we dickered around, you know, back and forth for a little while. Anyway, with the expense money I told her I would need - to buy a weapon and a car - we finally agreed on $1400. She was going to give me $300 up front and the rest when the job was done."...

Cody: She drew out some maps on napkins. One was a map of the Finch house and the other was a map of how to get to an apartment in Hollywood that Mrs. Finch had. Carole told me, 'If Mrs. Finch is not at the West Covina residence, she would be at the Hollywood apartment.'  It was named the Hollywood Hills Motel or Hotel, or something.  Anyway, I had the address and a map of how to get there."

Cody: "She told me it should look like a robbery, and that I should take the woman's rings and jewelry. I told her I would do it in my own way. Then we decided to do it on the following weekend, the Fourth of July weekend. Carole said that Dr. Finch goes to a tennis tournament in San Diego every Fourth of July, and that he would have a good alibi.

***

My notes: Cody said that he knew he was not going to do it right away but agreed to do it for the money he needed.  He cooperatively flew to Phoenix on a plane with the plan to take a bus to LA from there and do the murder. The travel was to hide his location when the murder occurred.

Cody: "She said "I've made up my mind Jack. If you don't do it, Dr. Finch will, and if he doesn't,  I will.

Cody: "Then she gave me $330 that she had in an envelope.

My notes page 168 -169 - 170

That night Cody and Carole met again and he told her that he had done the job with a shotgun at the Hollywood apartment. She handed him the rest of the money.  As gasps were heard around the courtroom, Cody mentioned that after this Carole was happy. However, she soon questioned whether or not the man had actually murdered Barbara. He claimed Barbara's body was in the trunk of the car. When the truth - that Barbara was indeed alive - was presented to Cody, he claimed he must have killed the wrong woman, maybe a girlfriend of Barbara's. He agreed to go back and do the job right. Then Mr. Finch gave Cody more money for another gun and expenses. This implicated the doctor in full knowledge of the plan to murder. Cody claimed he admitted he had not followed through on the plan. In yet another meeting an angry Finch asked Cody again to do the deed but also said he would do it himself. Cody accepted more money again.

CODY WAS A LIAR, so how much truth could be in this testimony?

In the end both Carole Tregoff and Bernard Finch were convicted of murder. Carole would claim that she soon knew she was no longer in love with the man.

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CAROLE'S TESTIMONY VARIED : SHE SAID IT WASN'T A "CHEAP RELATIONSHIP" and WOULDN'T ADMIT THEY HAD SEX and TRIED TO HIRE KILLERS BUT...

Subtitled  Chronical of the Finch-Tregoff Case, a Based on Fact Dramatization by James L. Jones, MD.

Bernard Finch and Carole Tregoff were to be tried separately and both were charged with murder in the first degree.

Pages 68 and 69 and 70 :

On July 29th 1959, after giving testimony in which she tried to avoid answering if she'd had sex with Bernard, Carole was arrested in the courtroom. She was not handcuffed but lead to the back of an unmarked car, charged within an hour with first degree murder.

Page 71 : "We are confident that the tow of them planned this thing together. We think they planned to tie up Mrs. Finch, inject her with a lethal dose of Seconal, and run her car over a cliff. 

Notes: Seconal among others, is barbiturate drug used for insomnia, i.e. a sleeping pill. A newer will in which Barbara Jean finch left Dr. Finch the bulk of the estate was found. (Note: She had never filed it so it was invalid.)

Meanwhile Bernard continued to say that the problem was that the Swedish nanny and Carole had simply not been in the same place - the garage - at the same time and that what they did not know was what happened between him and his wife in that garage. It was suggested that Barbara had a gun aimed at her husband at the time.

The headlines had made her a star of sorts and some people attended the trial just to see what she looked like. She claimed to have been forced to testify to incriminate herself and that she was no longer in love with Bernard. The press and the neighborhood women were sympathetic to Carole as they thought she had fallen in love and then used by Bernard.

But then two nineteen year old prostitutes in Vegas came forward to say that they knew someone who had been paid by Carole and Bernard to kill Barbara.

Excerpt page 91: (What the young prostitutes said.) "Turns out the doctor's girlfriend has been looking for somebody to 'take care of' the doctor's wife. ... She glanced at her friend quickly, then back to Powell. "We both heard Ritchie talking with a friend of his from when he worked at the Sahara.  Didn't we?"  She looked at her companion, nodding her into speaking.

"It's true," the other added, after a pause....

The girls, who wanted out of their pimp's control and to go home knew they had a deal .

Notes from pages 92 - 96 :

Forty eight days after her arrest, Carole was allowed out of jail on bail of $25,000.  A Nevada state university student told Las Vegas police he had arranged with Carole Tregoff Pappa and Dr. R, Bernard Finch, early in 1959, to hire two men to kill Mrs. Barbara Jean Finch.  There was a nationwide bulletin out for Richie Keachie and James Patrick Cody. Donald Sanford Williams also said that she had asked him if he knew any gangsters, he was an old eighbor.  Williams had introduced her to Keachie but Keachie didn't want the job.  Then Cody was asked... She offered or paid $1000,000... Cody requested immunity in exchange for his testimony.  Three men said she did.

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DONE

 

PLANNED MURDER : MYSTERY ATTACHE CASE MURDER KIT EXPLAINED AWAY?

Incriminating evidence of a plan to murder was explained away. The plan to murder wife Barbara Finch occurred because the paid hitman took the money and didn't commit the murder. When it was discovered that Barbara was still alive, the would-be hitman, who later testified against Bernard Finch and his Mistress Carole Tregoff. first lied that he must have murdered the wrong woman, and then that he needed more money to pull it off. Carole Tregoff reportedly warned the man that if he didn't do the evil deed, Doctor Bernard Finch would do it himself...  And so, evidence of a plan, which was also cleverly "explained away" by Carole and Bernie was what was contained in a brown leather attaché case...

Excerpt page 59: (Note that seconal was a popular sleeping pill and could be used to overdose a person.)

Brown leather attaché case....

two pieces of rope, each two feet in length, an eight inch kitchen knife, a plastic sheet about two feet on a side, a half empty box of .38 caliber ammunition, an elastic bandage role, small bottle of seconal tablets, two sets of surgeon's gloves, a vial of injectable seconal, a syringe and needle, a flashlight, a brown shaving kit bag...

My notes from pages 65-66: 

Carole claimed that the flashlight was so she could see where she was walking and that the sleeping pills were for her. She said that he had asked her if she needed anything for her apartment and she said a can opener, trying to explain a hammer, screwdriver, and knife.  The rope was explained as something to tie bumpers of a boat he kept at Lido Shores. The gloves because he was blowing them and playing with them like balloons with the family dog.

She said that she had seen Barbara with a gun in her hand.

Missy here : When I read this, I thought that Dr. Finch and  his Mistress Carole had tried to think of everything, including explanations, in advance of being questioned. To me this planned murder was as cold blooded as murders could get. 

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COOKING