Throughout History, there have been many different criminals who were sentenced to death for
their evil crimes.
Some of the most serious offences someone would be executed for over the centuries was
high treason, murder and arson.
Still today in some countries, the death penalty is used and one woman who faced the ultimate
sentence in 1955 was a woman referred to as Bloody Babs.
Barbara Bonnie Wood Graham was inside of San Quentin Prison executed for being involved
in the murder of an elderly widow.
She was not the only person involved in the killing, but she became the third woman in
California to be executed by gas, which was not a common method of capital punishment.
Join us today as we look at the execution of Barbara Graham, and her crimes.
As always to support our channel, please make sure to subscribe.
Barbara Graham was born Barbara Elaine Ford on the 26th June 1923.
Her mother earned a living through illicit means, but at the age of 23 she married Joseph
Wood, and Barbara’s surname was changed.
When Barbara was two, her mother who was still a teenager was arrested and was sent to a
reform school, and Barbara was placed into foster care.
She would later claim she was treated badly in this, and that she was beaten also.
But when her mother was released at the age of 21, she refused to allow her daughter to
live with her, and Barbara was then raised by strangers and members of her extended family,
being passed from pillar to post.
She was a clever young woman, but was not the most educated, and as a teenager she was
arrested for vagrancy and she served time at a reformatory school for girls, and the
same place her mother had been held.
In 1939 she was released from this, and she tried to make a new life for herself.
She would marry Harry Kielhamer, a US Coast Guardsman the following year, and she began
to study in business college.
The couple had two children, but their marriage was not a happy one, and within 3 years the
pair had divorced.
Harry Kielhamer was then given custody of their two children, and over the following
years Barbara married twice more, but it was clear that a traditional and settled life
was not for her, and as hard as she tried things would just not work out for her.
She began to work as a prostitute like her mother, and she did this during the Second
World War, visiting many men who were based on naval bases.
These women were known as seagulls, and she travelled to different areas such as Long
Beach and San Diego, but Barbara Graham was later arrested for this work.
She had worked for some time in this manner, and she was just 22 and was noted for having
striking red hair and good looks, and she worked inside a brothel for a madam named
Sally Stanford.
She also became involved in gambling and selling narcotics, and she became close with a number
of career criminals.
But she was then imprisoned for perjury, as she gave a false alibi for two criminal friends,
and she was held for a while but following this she then moved to Reno Nevada.
She worked inside of a hospital and as a waitress, and it seemed like she had managed to turn
her life around.
But then she boarded a bus for Los Angeles, and returned to her old illegal way of working.
In 1953 she married Henry Graham who was a bartender inside one of the bars she used
to go to, and the couple had a child named Tommy.
However Henry Graham was a drug addicted, and he was a low level criminals.
Barbara met his friends Jack Santo and Emmett Perkins, and she then had an affair with Perkins.
He told her about a target, 64 year old widow Mabel Monohan, who it was believed had a lot
of cash and jewellery inside her home in Burbank.
Mabel was a retired performer, and her ex son in law was a multi millionaire who was
linked to the ownership of a number of gambling clubs.
There was a belief that she had $100,000 in a safe within her house, which today would
be over 1 million dollars.
But on the 8th March 1953, Barbara had dinner with Perkins, Santo and a safe cracker named
Shorter.
He would claim he did not want Graham to be involved, but the following evening the theft
would occur.
On the evening of the 9th March, Barbara Graham gained entry to Mabel Monohans house, and
she asked to use the phone claiming she had car problems.
The safe cracker then entered along with Santo, Perkins and another man, and Monohan was beaten.
Her mouth was gagged and she was bleeding.
The gang ripped apart her home looking for the safe, and Barbara handed a gun to Perkins
and demanded to knock the elderly lady out.
But she was having problems breathing, and it was then said Barbara began to violently
beat the elderly lady.
As the men left, they assumed she had been killed, but then two days later she was discovered
dead by her gardener.
The group made off with nothing of value, despite the fact there was great wealth inside
the house.
But then give men were arrested accused of the murder, and one of them was Shorter the
safe cracker.
He was worried about his execution, and he turned state’s evidence to tell about the
murder and Robbery.
Shorter would later be kidnapped and murdered by Santo and Perkins.
But Barbara Graham was linked to the crime, and she was known as Bloody Babs.
Se had no alibi, and she would later accept an offer from an inmate to provide a false
alibi.
But this inmate was working to reduce his sentence, and with this she was brought to
trial.
Barbara was convicted of the murder, and along with Santo and Perkins she was sentenced to
death.
She did appear her sentence and these did fail, however on the 2nd June 1955 she was
transferred to San Quentin State Prison, the day before her execution was due.
She was to die through the gas chamber, which today is not the most common execution method
used in America.
On the day of her execution, it was scheduled to take place at 10am, but she was then given
a short stay of execution for 45 minutes.
The judge then said her execution would take place at 11:30 am.
Barbara Graham said, ‘Why do they torture me, I was ready to go at 10 o clock.’
At 11:28am she was led from her cell, and she was taken into the execution chamber where
the gas chamber was.
She requested a blindfold so she could not see the people who were looking on, and her
final words were, ‘Good people are always so sure they’re right.’
She was advised by the executioner that taking a deep breath of cyanide would make her ordeal
quicker and easier, and she replied with ‘How the hell would you know, you silly rascal.’
The executioner would then write of her final moments.
He said, ‘We had her strapped in.
She was given two stays.
We had to open the door and unstrap her and take her back to her cell.
She didn’t go until 11:30.
She was supposed to go at 10.
I patted her on the leg and told her to take a good whiff.’
The executioner then lowered the lever that caused the cyanide pellets to drop into a
bowl of sulfuric acid which was under Barbara Graham’s chair.
Within 30 seconds, Barbara slipped out of consciousness, and then she rocked forward
4 or 5 times before her head fell.
She was quivering and shaking to her death.’
Bloody Babs, or Barbara Graham was a woman who had a rather tough life, and she would
fall into the same sort of work that her mother did.
She did not have the best start in life, and fell towards a life of crime.
She was a cold blooded murderer who’s actions were supposed to result in her getting rich
from theft, but she couldn’t help herself but kill a woman who was elderley and vulnerable.
Her execution was one which was different, and she did receive a couple of stays of execution
for some reason, but she would never be reprieved.
Thanks for watching
To support our channel, please make sure to subscribe
Thanks again for watching