On April 13, 1930, tragedy again struck the Hartman family of 1726 Lime Avenue, Long Beach. Fourteen-year-old Ruth Hartman (1816-4/13/1930) had just died of a mysterious illness similar to the one that had taken her 22-year-old brother Henry (1906-6/9/1929) less than a year earlier. Their father, Oluff Hartman (1879-10/10/1927), had also died presumably from a blow on the head thought to have been inflicted by a burglar. Ruth’s dedicated doctor, unable to determine the exact cause of her death, asked for an autopsy. He was suspicious. Some of her symptoms indicated arsenic poisoning. When Ruth’s autopsy revealed that she had indeed died of arsenic poisoning, Ruth’s mother, Mary Hartman, remembered that she had spread ant paste, which contained arsenic, around the kitchen three weeks prior to her daughter’s death. She thought that some of it might have gotten into the food by accident. Mary’s surviving daughters, Edith and Nettie, unsettled by the autopsy results, said that was not true, there had been no ant paste around the home as their mother had claimed. They did remember Mrs. Hartman giving Ruth a glass of grapefruit juice the day before her death. Ruth had remarked that the juice tasted bad, and Edith Saunders (one of the surviving daughters) said the color was darker than normal. A neighbor visiting the sick teenager said she too had seen Mrs. Hartman give Ruth a drink which the girl said tasted bad. Protesting, Ruth was …show more content…
He woke from a sound sleep to find blood streaming down his face from a scalp wound inflicted with some blunt instrument. Hartman had no idea how it happened, but his wife, who found the pants outside, told him he had been attacked by a burglar. No burglar had been seen or heard by the victim or by anyone else in the household. Why Mary Hartman, who slept by her husband’s side, was not awakened during the attack was not questioned. Though the wound was not serious, Mr. Hartman died suddenly, supposedly of the head injury. At the time, no one doubted Mary Hartman’s story about the burglar attacking her husband. Delegations of irate Long Beach citizens demanded the city council do something to capture this “Pants Burglar.” The council agreed and authorized a reward of $500 for the burglar’s arrest and conviction. Tracking down stolen items led police to sixteen year-old Richard Haver. The teenager was arrested November 23, 1927, charged with eight burglaries, and the murders of both Oluff Hartman and 85-year-old Civil War veteran Frank