Michigan Man Commits Suicide Following Gross Indecency Conviction

James Preston Wiles, a 52-year-old personnel manager at IBM, left his wife behind in Detroit and went to St. Louis. He got a room in the posh but tired Melbourne Hotel. The Joplin, Missouri, native checked in under the name of Carl Gray on Thursday, March 10, 1960.

Hotel clerks saw him coming in and out on Friday and Saturday. Nobody saw him on Sunday, March 13. Late that night, several telephone calls to his room went unanswered. The desk clerk sent a maintenance man to room 1009 to check up on him. At 11:30 p.m., the maintenance man found Wiles’s body. Wiles had hanged himself in the closet. He left behind a suicide note.

Ann Arbor’s anti-gay drive finally claimed a life.

Ann Arbor police had publicly announced that the drive was taking place in in December, 1959. All told, as many as 34 people were arrested following a seven-week police investigation involving “local bars, taverns, and non-University buildings,” according to the University of Michigan’s student newspaper, the Michigan Daily. Despite the investigation’s supposedly city-wide scope, all of the arrests took place on campus.

About half of those arrested were students. The rest included a school teacher, an associate professor, a local radio disk jockey, and several townspeople, including Wiles. He and his wife had just moved from Ann Arbor to Detroit in 1959 when he took his new job at IBM.

The operation included ample examples of entrapment, with police making first contact. Reports also suggested that the most common crime committed was just agreeing to go somewhere for sex. These would be the same kinds of agreements that thousands of straight students were haggling over in bars all across the college town on any given Saturday night.

But under Michigan law, if two men held that conversation, it was called “attempting to procure an act of gross indecency.” Whether attempted or accomplished, the penalty was the same: up to five years in prison and a fine of up to $2,500 (about $21,200 today). Repeated offenses could incur life imprisonment.

Michigan law didn’t say exactly what “gross indecency” meant. Laws against rape and “lewd and lascivious cohabitation” were clearly defined, but “gross indecency” wasn’t. Defense attorneys argued that the law was unconstitutionally vague. But Judge James R. Breakey, Jr., ruled that the law had been on the books for 57 years and everyone knew what it meant. “Delicacy forbids the law to describe the crime of gross indecency,” he said.

Judge James R. Breakey, Jr.

Whatever it was, those who pleaded guilty to it got off relatively easy. Most got ten day jail terms, five years’ probation, and about $275 in fines and court costs (about $2,350 today). But when one group of defendants asked for a jury trial, Judge Breakey threatened them with six months in the state prison in Jackson if they were found guilty. He said a trial by jury would be a waste of his “valuable time.” They changed their pleas to guilty. He still sentenced them to thirty days in jail instead of the more typical ten.

But Wiles insisted on having his trial, and on March 7, ten men and two women on a Washtenaw County jury convicted him of “attempting to procure an act of gross indecency.” His attorney promised an appeal to the state Supreme Court, but it wasn’t looking good. Breakey scheduled his sentencing for March 15.

What Wiles would have gotten was anybody’s guess. Three days after Wiles’s conviction, his wife reported him missing. She didn’t know about his arrest and conviction, and was frantic about his disappearance. That same day, “Carl Gray” checked into the Melbourne Hotel. He killed himself three days later, two days before he scheduled sentencing. Wiles’s wife tried to press her late husband’s appeal to clear his good name, but that went nowhere. Only defendants can appeal their convictions, and dead men have no standing in court.

Related:

December 22, 1959: Ann Arbor Police Arrest 29 In “Homosexual Crackdown”

On the Timeline:

March 13, 1960: Michigan Man Commits Suicide Two Days Before Sentencing for Attempted Gross Indecency

Periscope:

Headlines for March 13, 1960: British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan is in Paris for talks with De Gaulle on the eve of Khrushchev visit. The U.S. Senate deletes school integration from a limited civil rights bill, which faces further dilution due to Southerners objections. West German Chancellor Adenauer is in Washington to discuss West Berlin’s status with President Eisenhower. U.S. Air Force launches Pioneer V, a satellite that will orbit the sun between Earth and Venus. Tallahassee police use tear gas to break up a peaceful civil rights march through downtown.

On the radio: “The Theme from ‘A Summer Place'” by Percy Faith and His Orchestra, “He’ll Have To Go” by Jim Reeves, “Handy Man” by Jimmy Jones, “Wild One” by Bobby Rydell, “What In the World’s Come Over You” by Jack Scott, “Teen Angel” by Mark Dinning, “Beyond the Sea” by Bobby Darin, “Baby (You’ve Got What It Takes)” by Dinah Washington and Brook Benton, “Let It Be Me” by the Everly Brothers, “Running Bear” by Johnny Preston.”

Currently in theaters: Black Orpheus

On television:  Gunsmoke(CBS), Wagon Train (NBC), Have Gun, Will Travel (CBS), The Andy Griffith Show(CBS), The Real McCoys(ABC), Rawhide (CBS), Candid Camera (CBS), The Price is Right (NBC), The Untouchables (ABC), The Jack Benny Show (CBS), Bonanza (NBC), Dennis the Menace (CBS), The Danny Thomas Show (CBS) The Ed Sullivan Show (CBS), My Three Sons (ABC), Perry Mason (CBS) The Flintstones (ABC), 77 Sunset Strip (ABC).

New York Times best sellers: Fiction: Hawaii by James Michener,  Advise and Consent by Allen Drury (Pulitzer Prize winner). The Constant Image by Marcia Davenport. Non-fiction: May This House Be Safe from Tigers, by Alexander King, Folk Medicine: A Vermont Doctor’s Guide to Good Health by D.C. Jarvis, Act One: An Autobiography by Moss Hart.

Sources:

Associated Press. “To Appeal Dead Man’s Conviction.” Lansing State Journal (March 25, 1960): 14.

Hal Call. “Michigan Campus Purge Felt with Added Fury.” Mattachine Review 6, no. 5 (May 1960): 10, 21.

“Homosexuals’ Attorney Asks For Release.” Michigan Daily (February 21, 1960): 1. All editions of Michigan Daily are available online here.

“Found Hanged in Hotel.” St. Louis Post-Dispatch (March 14, 1960): 3A.

Death Certificate for James Preston Wiles, March 14, 1960, File No. 60-13399, Missouri Division of Health. Available online here.

Homosexuals and Decay on West 42nd Street

New York’s Forty-Second Street — they called it “the Deuce.” It starts at the United Nations, and goes west past Chrysler Building, Grand Central Terminal, the New York Public Library, Times Square, the Port Authority Bus Terminal, and, as the Lincoln Highway, continues west all the way to San Francisco. One city block of that famous street, just south of Times Square between Seventh and Eighth Avenues, was filled with “grindhouse theaters” — cheap movie houses of questionable character. And if questionable characters weren’t in the movie houses, they were in the arcades, peep shows, diners and bars that lined the street. Or they were plying their trade on the corners and dark alleys.

The block had defied clean-up campaigns since the Great Depression. On March 14, 1960, The New York Times studied its decay and agreed that it might be the worst block in town. True, there were probably worse neighborhoods, but they were much less visible, especially to tourists. New York City was getting ready to host a World’s Fair in 1964. Tourists were coming to Times Square, which itself had seen better days. Any unsuspecting tourist walking just a block south from there would see a New York City that wasn’t mentioned in any of the travel brochures.

The New York Times investigated all of those problems: crime, grime, con jobs, prostitution, menacing-looking toughs roaming the streets. The Times also singled out homosexuals as “an obvious problem”:

Homosexual males converge in the area and are most prevalent at the Eight Avenue end of the block. The clergy, the police, merchants and business organizations generally agree that homosexuality has increased in the area for a period of several years. …

It becomes swiftly apparent to an inquirer that even the neighborhood “experts” are not of one mind as to who is a homosexual. In the beatnik era — and an era of relaxed standards of dress at many levels of the population — it is impossible to equate the way a man dresses and speaks with a behavior pattern that is against the law.

One high police official held that although homosexuality appeared to have increased, the “flagrant” deviates — those who wear make-up, a feminine hair-do, and walk with a “swish” — had decreased.

Lieut. Co. Jack Eaken, who commands the Armed Services Police that patrol the area, disagreed. He was sure that whether or not homosexuality in general had increased, its “flagrant” nature was more apparent.

In two weeks of studying the area, at virtually all hours, this reporter encountered several fo the most extreme types. One was a Negro who wore fluffed-up hair and heavy black make-up on his brows and lashes. He was surrounded, almost protectively, by  group of other Negro youths who were more or less normally dressed.

Another obvious deviate was a white youth with thick blond hair and handsome features who wore make-up on his eyebrows. This youth wore a black windbreaker (sometimes called a “tanker jacket”) and tapered black trousers of the style known as “continentals.” His wavy hair was combed straight back and he spoke effeminately and shifted his hips and legs as he spoke.

The interesting and puzzling thing was that his companions were three girls and two youths all of whom seemed like any other youngsters on a double or tripple date. They seemed to take the blond boy’s appearance and manner for granted. At one point he went into a corner cigar shore while one of the girls made a phone call. The other two girls waited at the door. Something the blond said amused them and one said cheerfully: “He’s such a bird — he really is.”

Epilogue:

Denizens of the Deuce from 1960 wouldn’t recognize it today. The theaters that remain are renovated and showing more family fare. Before catching the latest Disney show at the New Amsterdam Theater, they can swing through the Madame Tussauds Wax Museum and stop for a bite to eat at McDonalds, Applebees or Dave & Buster’s.

On the Timeline:

March 14, 1960: The New York Times investigates homosexuals and decay on West 42nd Street.

Periscope:

Headlines for March 14, 1960: British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan is in Paris for talks with De Gaulle on the eve of Khrushchev visit. Southern Senators continue their filibuster of an already watered-down civil rights bill. West German Chancellor Adenauer is in Washington, pledges a Democratic West Germany. Moscow insists a unified Germany can only happen under Communism. The U.S. Air Force’s Pioneer V  satellite begins sending radio signals to earth from its solar orbit between Earth and Venus. Tallahassee police use tear gas to break up a peaceful civil rights march through downtown.

On the radio: “The Theme from ‘A Summer Place'” by Percy Faith and His Orchestra, “He’ll Have To Go” by Jim Reeves, “Handy Man” by Jimmy Jones, “Wild One” by Bobby Rydell, “What In the World’s Come Over You” by Jack Scott, “Teen Angel” by Mark Dinning, “Beyond the Sea” by Bobby Darin, “Baby (You’ve Got What It Takes)” by Dinah Washington and Brook Benton, “Let It Be Me” by the Everly Brothers, “Running Bear” by Johnny Preston.”

Currently playing on 42nd street: Riot In Juvenile Prison.

On television:  Gunsmoke(CBS), Wagon Train (NBC), Have Gun, Will Travel (CBS), The Andy Griffith Show(CBS), The Real McCoys(ABC), Rawhide (CBS), Candid Camera (CBS), The Price is Right (NBC), The Untouchables (ABC), The Jack Benny Show (CBS), Bonanza (NBC), Dennis the Menace (CBS), The Danny Thomas Show (CBS) The Ed Sullivan Show (CBS), My Three Sons (ABC), Perry Mason (CBS) The Flintstones (ABC), 77 Sunset Strip (ABC).

New York Times best sellers: Fiction: Hawaii by James Michener,  Advise and Consent by Allen Drury (Pulitzer Prize winner). The Constant Image by Marcia Davenport. Non-fiction: May This House Be Safe from Tigers, by Alexander King, Folk Medicine: A Vermont Doctor’s Guide to Good Health by D.C. Jarvis, Act One: An Autobiography by Moss Hart.

Source:

Milton Bracker. “Life on W. 42d St. A Study in Decay.” The New YorkTimes (March 14, 1960): 1, 26.

Miami Police Raid “Deviates’ Den”

Miami residents woke up on Easter morning to the news that Metro police overnight had raided the “E Club,” located at the corner of Tamiami Trail and SW 37th Avenue in East Coral Gables. Police conducted the raid “at the request of a citizen,” and hauled in twenty-three, including the manager. They were charged with disorderly conduct “by being in a known homosexual hangout.” According the Miami News:

Habitues of the place were reported to embrace each other, wear tight-fitting women’s pants and bleach their hair, (Metro Capt. Patrick) Gallagher said.

When Gallagher and six other officers descended on the place Friday night, they found the dim-lit bar full of men, some of them paired off in “couples” he said.

The only woman in the place told police she just dropped by for a drink, and she was not detained.

Officers took all the men in the place to headquarters. Several were released after a screening and 22 were booked.

It’s telling that the disorderly conduct charged was based on “being in a known homosexual hangout.” If that the case, then the one woman in the bar was just as guilty as the men. But, of course, none of the men were afforded the excuse of having just dropped by for a drink.

The Miami News, which had never passed up an opportunity to instigate an anti-gay witch hunt, dutifully printed the names, addresses, ages and occupations of everyone arrested. It also contacted the employer of one of the men, who taught at Miami Military Academy:

Superintendent C.E. Sampson of the military school said “we will drop him immediately … without question […]

“We just can’t have a thing like that,” Sampson said. “We have enough headaches as it is. I will get in touch with him tomorrow and find out if he was arrested.”

Another man from Coral Gables told police he was a teacher. But the News was terribly disappointed to learn that he was actually a former teacher who hadn’t taught since 1956.

On the Timeline:

Miami Police raid “Deviates’ Den”

Periscope:

Headlines for April 16, 1960: Paris kidnappers release unharmed 4-year-old Eric Peugeot, son of a wealthy French auto family, after the family pays a $100,000 ransom. French President Charles de Gaulle arrives in Gettysburg to meet with President Eisenhower. South Africa is rocked by strikes after the government banned the African National Congress and the Pan Africanist Congress. The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) is established at a meeting in Raleigh, North Carolina, to help coordinate lunch counter sit-ins across the South. A bomb damages an Atlanta home recently purchased by an African-American family in an all-white neighborhood. Miami civil rights leaders suspend a threatened boycott of Miami stores pending negotiations with the Miami City Commission.

On the radio: “The Theme from ‘A Summer Place’” by Percy Faith and His Orchestra, “Puppy Love” by Paul Anka, “He’ll Have To Go” by Jim Reeves, “Wild One” by Bobby Rydell, “Greenfields” by the Brothers Four, “Sweet Nothin’s” be Brenda Lee, “Sink the Bismark” by Johnny Horton, “Mama” by Connie Francis, “I Love the Way You Love” by Marv Johnson, “Footsteps” by Steve Lawrence.

Currently in theaters: The Unforgiven.

On television: Gunsmoke(CBS), Wagon Train (NBC), Have Gun, Will Travel (CBS), The Andy Griffith Show(CBS), The Real McCoys(ABC), Rawhide (CBS), Candid Camera (CBS), The Price is Right (NBC), The Untouchables (ABC), The Jack Benny Show (CBS), Bonanza (NBC), Dennis the Menace (CBS), The Danny Thomas Show (CBS) The Ed Sullivan Show (CBS), My Three Sons (ABC), Perry Mason (CBS) The Flintstones (ABC), 77 Sunset Strip (ABC).

New York Times best sellers: Fiction: Hawaii by James Michener,  Advise and Consent by Allen Drury (Pulitzer Prize winner). The Constant Image by Marcia Davenport. Non-fiction: May This House Be Safe from Tigers, by Alexander King, Folk Medicine: A Vermont Doctor’s Guide to Good Health by D.C. Jarvis, Act One: An Autobiography by Moss Hart.

Source:

“Trail bar raided as deviate’s den.” Miami News (April 17, 1960): 12A.