Chris Collins. The Wineville Chicken Coop Murders. You can't fool a mother's heart
In 1938, a series of kidnappings followed by the murder of boys occurred in Riverside and Los Angeles. The US public devoted all its efforts to helping the parents find the boys, which led to the exposure of corrupt practices on the part of the Los Angeles Police Department. The terrible tragedy also affected the ordinary Collins family. In memory of terrible tragedy The film "Changeling" was made about strong woman Christine Ida Dunn Collins.
Biography of a woman
Christine Collins was born on the fourteenth of December 1888 and lived until the eighth of December 1964. After marrying Walter James Collins Sr., the woman gave birth to a son, who was named after his father. Her husband turned out to be a violent criminal, with repeated armed robberies on his account, which landed him in a California prison. A woman raised her son alone while her husband was behind bars. In order to feed her family, she worked as a telephone operator. The usual measured life of a woman was changed by the tenth of March 1928. Her son Walter James Collins Jr. went to the theater that day and never returned home.
You can't fool a mother's heart
Christine Collins was very worried about her son's long absence from home. Her biography forever left a day in the woman’s memory. The mother contacted the police, suggesting that the child had been kidnapped by her husband's enemies. After working through this version, the police rejected it. Hundreds of police officers participated in the investigation of the case, but no one could get to the truth. The five-month investigation did not bear any fruit, which led to unrest in the community. Then a rumor spread that the boy had turned up in Illinois. By paying seventy dollars, the mother seemingly got her son back. But when she saw him, the woman firmly stated that it was not Walter.
She was asked not to make hasty decisions and not to cut rashly. Christine Ida Dunn Collins (photo below) took the child, but this could not convince her. Having evidence in hand in the form of a dentist's testimony, the woman came to the police to return someone else's child and continue the search for her own. Police captain Jay Jones put the woman in a mental hospital for such a statement. Five days later, the boy finally admits that he is Arthur Hutchins. This frame-up was organized by the Los Angeles police in order to hide corruption in the homicide department. As a result, Christine Collins was released from the psychiatric hospital. The real story of the boy's abduction turned out to be worse than anyone could have imagined.
Serial killer
The story that led to the kidnapping of Walter Collins began in 1926. Then Gordon Northcott took in his nephew Sanford Clarke. The parents approved the boy's move from the Canadian provincial town of Saskatchewan to Wineville. Here Gordon abused a thirteen-year-old child, beating him and sexually assaulting him. The boy, at the behest of Northcott, wrote letters home saying that everything was fine with him.
A visit from Sanford's sister Jessie Clark saved the boy from his uncle's persecution. Sanford managed to secretly notify his sister about what was happening, in response to which she handed over all the information to the authorities. Soon the police visited the ranch and arrested Sanford for illegally transporting the boy across the border into Canada. During interrogation, the boy said that Gordon Northcote stole and killed three boys. At the same time, Gordon assisted in every possible way birth mother. Sanford was also forced to participate in the trial on pain of death. One of the three boys turned out to be Walter Collins.
Film "The Changeling"
In 2008, through the efforts of Clint Eastwood, big screen The American thriller “The Changeling” was released. The basis of the film is real story related to the investigation of the Wineville murders. The film was first presented to the audience at the sixty-first Cannes Film Festival, which took place on May 8, 2008. Then the film was watched one by one North America, United Kingdom and Ireland and Russia. Fifty-five million dollars were spent on the film. The income from film distribution amounted to more than one hundred million.
Actress who played the main role
The main role in the film went to Angelina Jolie. The actress played Christine Collins masterfully. Accompanying Jolie in the film were Amy Ryan and Jeff Pearson. In Changeling, Christine Collins faces some major twists of fate. Angelina Jolie professionally conveyed the emotions and feelings that were experienced by the main character at the time of loss, disappointment and injustice. According to the actress, during the work she became very deeply immersed in the problems of the main character. Something inside Jolie trembled during filming. And if in the film “The Changeling” Christine Collins loses her child, then Angelina found out during filming that she was pregnant.
- Another actress could have played Christine Collins in the movie Changeling. The director considered Reese Witherspoon and
- The film is based on real events, which are known to the world as the “Vineville Chicken Coop Murders.”
- After filming was completed, Clint Eastwood and the entire film crew visited the eighteenth room in the psychiatric hospital, where patients were sedated with electric shocks.
- The architecture of Los Angeles in the twenties was created using computer graphics.
- The decision to become the director of the project was made by Clint Eastwood immediately after finishing reading the script.
- Some cinemas showed the film, changing the title to "The Wanderer".
The story, which took place in the 20s of the 20th century, shocked the whole of Los Angeles, but now it may be forgotten against the backdrop of other more violent stories.
Kristen Collins is a telephone operator, working from morning until early evening. She has a son, Walter. One day she goes to work and leaves her son alone at home. When she returns, she does not find Walter at home. She decides to call the police. The police arrive only in the morning. My son is still missing. The police soon find the boy and return him to his mother. But the mother does not admit that this is her son. She claimed that everything about him was bad, and besides, her son was not imaginative, but this one was. Despite all external similarities, the boy behaves completely differently than her son. Instead of help in finding her real son, the unfortunate mother receives registration in psychiatric clinic. Soon she leaves, having made a friend there, who, like her, was imprisoned for the same reason. Kristen will eventually get all incarcerated mothers like her released.
Kristen continues her search. As a result, it turns out that her son became a victim of the Wineville killer maniac, who caught lonely little children and took them to his farm. There he kept them in a chicken coop, then brutally killed them. It followed from this that Kristen was not alone in her grief.
Wineville murders.
In 1926, Gordon Stewart Northcott took his 13-year-old nephew Sanford Wesley Clark (with the permission of his parents) from his home in Saskatoon in the Canadian province of Saskatchewan and moved him to his ranch in the suburbs of Vineville, California, where subjected to physical and sexual violence. In September 1928, Sanford's sister, 19-year-old Jessie Clark, visited her brother at Northcott's ranch and then reported the situation to authorities. In September 1928, Los Angeles police arrived at Northcott's ranch. Police arrested Sanford because Jessie said her brother had been smuggled across the Canadian border. Suddenly, Sanford began giving chilling testimony, declaring that Gordon Northcott had kidnapped and killed three little ones the boys, with the complicity of their mother (Sanford’s grandmother), Sarah Louise Northcott, and forced Sanford himself to participate in this by force and threats.
Sanford said lime was used to destroy the bodies and the remains were buried on ranch property. The police found the burials exactly where Sanford indicated, but there were no bodies in them, since Northcott, having learned that the police were looking for him, dug up the remains in advance and took them to the desert, where they finally decomposed. However, blood, particles of hair and bones were found in the burials. During a search of the ranch, axes with blood stains were also found.
The three boys killed were informally identified as brothers Lewis and Nelson Winslow and, presumably, Walter Collins. According to Sanford, in addition to these three episodes, Northcott committed the murder of one Mexican boy (who was never identified and was therefore listed in the case file as the "Headless Mexican"), but without the involvement of Sanford or Sarah Northcott. Gordon only forced Sanford to behead the already dead body and burn the head in an oven, and then crush the skull. Later, during the investigation, Gordon admitted that, unable to find another suitable place, he left the headless body near the road near La Puento. Having learned that the police were looking for them, Gordon Northcott fled with his mother to Canada, where he was arrested near Vernon (British Columbia).
On the left is Sarah Louise Northcott, on the right is Gordon Stewart Northcott.
Sarah Northcott ultimately accepted responsibility for the murder of Walter Collins and was sentenced to life imprisonment on December 31, 1928. She served her sentence at Tehachapi State Prison, where she was paroled after less than 12 years. During the sentencing, Sarah maintained that her son was innocent and made a number of strange statements regarding his parentage. In particular, she said that Gordon was actually the son of an English nobleman, or that she was actually Gordon's grandmother, and that he himself was the result of incest between her husband George Cyrus Northcott and their daughter Winifred. She also stated that Gordon was sexually abused by everyone in his family as a child. Based on her testimony, it followed that Sarah actually led Gordon in this case. According to her, when they arrived in Canada, Gordon was in such despair over what he had done that he was ready to confess everything to the carriage conductor. Sarah Louise Northcott died in 1944.
Although it was generally accepted that Gordon Northcott participated in the murder of Walter Collins, since his mother had already confessed and been sentenced for Walter's murder, the state was reluctant to bring any charges against Gordon for Collins' death. It was speculated that Gordon's number of victims may have been as many as 20, but the State of California was unable to provide the court with definitive evidence to support this theory, and ultimately the indictment against Gordon contained only the murders of an unidentified Mexican boy and the Winslow brothers.
The trial, presided over by Judge George R. Freeman, lasted 27 days, ending on February 8, 1929. Northcott was finally found guilty of the murder of an unidentified child and the murder of the Winslow brothers. On February 13, 1929, Gordon Northcott was sentenced to death by hanging. The execution took place on October 2, 1930 at San Quentin Prison)