Aimee Semple McPherson Scandal
Uses court documents, affidavits, articles and other well referenced materials in considerable detail to explore the missing weeks and subsequent events of Aimee Semple McPherson in 1926.Kenneth Ormiston actually left the Temple several months before the Mrs. McPherson disappearance. Most accounts erroneously imply he left at the same time Mrs. McPherson disappeared. Moreover, Ormiston presented himself to the police headquarters May 27 to deny he had "went into hiding" he also indicated his name connected to the evangelist was a gross insult to a noble and sincere woman. He gave a detailed description of his movements since May 19. He took other assignments, about two weeks before Aimee McPherson's January 11, 1925 trip to Europe [Cox Page 37-38]
Shortly thereafter, on June 23, Mrs. McPherson stumbled out of the desert in Agua Prieta, Sonora, a Mexican town across the border from Douglas, Arizona. The Mexican couple she approached there, thought she died when Mrs. McPherson collapsed in front of them. An hour later she stirred and the couple covered her with blankets [Cox p. 70]. She claimed she had been kidnapped, drugged, tortured and held for ransom in a shack by a man and a woman, "Steve" and "Mexicali Rose." Her story also claimed she had escaped from her captors and walked through the desert for about 13 hours to freedom.
Some, however, were skeptical of her story since Mrs.Aimee Semple McPherson seemed in unusually good health for her alleged ordeal, and her clothes showed no signs of a long walk through the desert. This was disputed by most Douglas, Arizona residents, the town where Mrs. McPherson was taken to convalesce, including expert tracker CE Cross, who indicated Mrs. McPherson's physical condition shoes and clothing were all compatible with an ordeal such as she described[Cox, p 85, 209-211] . In response to the numerous allegations coming from the news-media in Los Angeles and elsewhere, headed by leading citizens, Mayor A E Hinton of Douglas Arizona, (together with undersigned residents) dispatched to McPherson a testimonial. In it they assert there has been no iota of proof adduced here in Douglas that would in any way attempt to disapprove any of the statements made by Mrs. McPherson regarding her reappearance. As citizens of Douglas in which city she has reappeared, affirm our belief in the statements she has made [Cox Page 129].Five witnesses claimed to have seen Mrs. McPherson at a seaside cottage in Carmel-by-the-Sea, with the cottage being rented by Ormiston under an assumed name. The five witnesses of the prosecution made their identifications at 30 to 100 feet or were otherwise problematic. Four other witnesses who were 8-10 feet away and saw her in instances without the driving goggles or hat, agreed the woman was not Mrs. McPherson. [Cox, p 3, 194, 195, 197] Ormiston admitted to having rented the cottage but claimed that the woman who had been there with him—known in the press as Mrs. X—was not Mrs. McPherson but another woman with whom he was having an extramarital affair.
The prosecution aided by Joseph Ryan, Deputy District Attorney, obtained the Five Carmel witnesses by first looking for people who at least got a brief glimpse of the woman with Ormiston. Ryan would take a sheath of photographs taken of Aimee Semple McPherson, as provided by the newspapers and then show them to the prospective witnesses one photograph at a time. Once the witness finally agreed that a photo resembled the woman with Ormiston, Ryan would have his "identification" that Mrs. Mcpherson was seen in Carmel, with Ormiston. This photo-stack trick did not work on people who had actually gotten a closer look at the mystery woman, such as the landlord, HC Benedict, who rented the cottage to the couple.The grand jury reconvened on August 3 and took further testimony along with documents from hotels, all said by various newspapers to be in Aimee Simple McPherson's handwriting. These however, were actually Elizabeth Tovey's, a woman traveling Ormiston, whose handwriting did not at all resemble Mrs. McPherson.[Cox, p.160]
Source Raymond L. Cox: The Verdict is In 1983
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