On May 18, 1926, American Christian evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson disappeared from Venice Beach, California, after going for a swim. She reappeared in Mexico five weeks later, stating she had escaped from kidnappers there. Allegations arose that the kidnapping story was a hoax carried out to conceal a tryst with a lover, leading to court inquiries. Her disappearance, reappearance, and the resulting allegations and inquiries precipitated a media frenzy that changed the course of McPherson's career.
Disappearance On May 18, 1926, McPherson went with her secretary to Ocean Park Beach north of Venice Beach to swim. Soon after arriving, McPherson was nowhere to be found. It was thought she had drowned.
McPherson was scheduled to hold a service that day; her mother Minnie Kennedy preached the sermon instead, saying at the end, "Sister is with Jesus", sending parishioners into a tearful frenzy. Mourners crowded Venice Beach and the commotion sparked days-long media coverage fueled in part by William Randolph Hearst's Los Angeles Examiner and a stirring poem by Upton Sinclair. Daily updates appeared in newspapers across the country and parishioners held day-and-night seaside vigils. Two people died searching for McPherson's body.
Kenneth G. Ormiston, the engineer for radio station KFSG, had left his job at McPherson's Angelus Temple in December 1925. Newspapers later linked McPherson and Ormiston, who was seen driving up the coast with an unidentified woman. Some believed McPherson and Ormiston, who was married, had run off together.
McPherson's children, Roberta Star Semple and Rolf McPherson, were scrutinized for appropriate signs of grief.Daniel Mark Epstein, Sister Aimee: The Life of Aimee Semple McPherson (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1994) pp.295-312 ISBN 9780156000932 Rolf, who had been boarding in a remote farmhouse for some years, was besieged because of a rumor he had spoken to McPherson by telephone.Mavity, Nancy Barr "Sister Aimee" (Doubleday Doran, 1931)
Many sightings of McPherson were reported.Beek, Joseph Allan; Secretary of the Senate; The Senate of the State of California Sitting as a High Court of Impeachment In the Matter of the Impeachment of Carlos S. Hardy a Judge of the Superior Court of the State of California, in and for the County of Los Angeles Held at the Capitol Sacramento, California, March 18 to 20 and April 8 to 26, 1929 (California State Printing Office, Carroll H. Smith State Printer, Sacramento, CA, 1930) A Culver City detective thought he had seen her drive from the beach in her Angelus Temple uniform but this turned out to be a parishioner wearing clothes typical of those worn by female Temple members.Madera Tribune, Number 16, May 19, 1926, p. 1. On one particular day she was "seen" in 16 different cities. A spiritualist said McPherson was bound in a cabin.Reading Eagle, Saw Woman in Trance(Reading PA); July 18, 1926; p. 1.
For a time Mildred Kennedy, McPherson's mother, offered a $25,000 reward for information leading McPherson's return. During the period of her disappearance, while there were "various and voluminous claims", of McPherson sightings, none at all came from Carmel-by-the-Sea, a California town that would later dominate the headlines for such sightings. After the reward expired, on June 5, newspaper headlines announced McPherson had been found in Canada, as given by Inspector Middleton of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police, which shook up Los Angeles.
Tracked by three detectives, a woman reported to have been the missing evangelist was found in Edmonton, Alberta; she had arrived there in a Studebaker via Calgary, followed by another car. The woman checked into the Corona hotel and was "positively identified" by the three operators as the revivalist. It was only after the woman was picked up by authorities, interviewed by the sister of Rev. Watson B; and gave proof of her identity as someone else, that the sighting report was rescinded on June 7. The Los Angeles police reiterated McPherson was dead, though Kennedy held out hope and extended the $25,000 reward for another week only.Madera Tribune, (United Press) Mrs. Semple McPherson is located at Edmonton by Canadian Authorities; Number 30, June 5, 1926; p. 1.Madera Tribune,(United Press) Report Woman Seen in Canada Proves to Be False; Number 31, June 7, 1926; p. 1.
Several ransom demands were received but determined to be fraudulent. One was a handwritten note by the "Revengers" who wanted $500,000. Another for $25,000 was conveyed by a blind lawyer, Russell A. McKinley, who claimed contact with the kidnappers. A lengthy and poorly typewritten ransom letter from the "Avengers" arrived around June 19 demanding $500,000 in return for not selling McPherson into "white slavery"; the "kidnappers" said McPherson annoyed them with her incessant preaching. Kennedy believed these demands to be hoaxes and McPherson dead.
Reappearance
On June 23, 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 had died when McPherson collapsed in front of them. She stirred and the couple brought her inside and covered her with blankets. She claimed she had been kidnapped, drugged, tortured, and held for ransom in a shack by two men and a woman, "Steve", "Rose", and another unnamed man. A fourth person by the name of "Felipe" stopped by for a visit.Shuler, Robert, Fighting Bob Shuler of Los Angeles Dog Ear Publishing, 2012McPherson, Aimee Semple, In the Service of the King: The Story of My Life (Boni and Liveright, New York, 1927) Some other articles and biographers nicknamed the woman "Mexicali Rose". An hour after reviving her, the husband, R. R. Gonzales, alerted the municipal president of Agua Prieta, Ernesto Boubion, to see her. Boubion stated she grasped his wrist, trembled violently, and asked where she was. She looked ill and appeared agitated, and declined both food and drink. She was transported across the border to a police station in Douglas, Arizona, and then to the Douglas Hospital. Her shoes were white with desert dust and her hands were covered with grime. A nurse picked some cactus spines from her legs and rubbed some preparation on a blistered toe. McPherson went on about protection for her 16-year-old daughter and warned her assailants had plans to make off with Mary Pickford and other celebrities.The Waco News-Tribune; Missing Woman Evangelist Escapes Captors; June 24, 1926The San Bernardino County Sun; Evangelist's Version Clue Plot on Movie Stars is Told Friday, June 25, 1926; p. 1-2. At that time no one believed she was McPherson, the missing Angelus Temple pastor. A reporter heard the claims and visited the hospital. Though she was emaciated and barely recognizable, the journalist said he knew her from covering past revival meetings. Once properly identified, her family and some Los Angeles authorities took a train to see her.
According to McPherson, while she was on the beach near Los Angeles, a young couple approached and asked her to come pray for their sick child. When she went with them and looked in on the bundle in the back seat of an automobile, they shoved her into their car. At the same time a cloth was held over her face loaded with a sickly sweet substance, later speculated to be chloroform with an additive.
After awakening, she was no longer clothed in her bathing suit and was wearing a dress. "Rose", who displayed professional nursing skills, looked after her. Held for a time in what was a boarded up room in a house that appeared to be an urban area, she was later moved to the remote shack in Mexico. Trying to elicit some personal information to prove they had her, one of her captors burned McPherson's hand with his cigar, but felt bad about it and stopped. McPherson's statement gave details on how she escaped the desert shack while her assailants were out on errands. She cut her bonds on a metal can lid, a technique she later successfully demonstrated several times before skeptical reporters, and climbed out the shack's back window. Using a mountain to navigate, she made her way north. She told how she used her garments to shield herself from the afternoon sun and navigated the desert, which including using the lights from a nearby town to find people. There, she encountered dogs, which prompted her to hide in the yard of a Mexican couple, R. R. Gonzales and his wife. Her story was transmitted and transcribed across telegraph and phone lines, becoming front-page international news.
On the way back to Los Angeles, the train was stopped and boarded by two men who claimed to have earlier seen McPherson during the time she stated she was kidnapped. One man, realizing a mistaken identity, apologized and excused himself after seeing her. However, in a much publicized scene, the other individual stated he had seen her at a Tucson, Arizona, street corner four weeks earlier, in May. By his own admission, he had never seen McPherson in person, only by photograph. The woman he saw in the street wore a tight, low fitting hat shading her eyes and walked with a different gait than McPherson used. He claimed it was the obscured eyes that confirmed his identification. However, this witness was later discarded as his sighting came at a time when McPherson was accused by Los Angeles prosecutors to have instead been in Carmel-by-the Sea, California.
Following her return to Los Angeles from Douglas, McPherson was greeted at the train station by 30,000–50,000 people.Melton, J. Gordon The Encyclopedia of Religious Phenomena (Visible Ink Press, 2007), p. 218. The parade back to the Temple even elicited a greater turnout than President Woodrow Wilson's visit to Los Angeles in 1919.Matthew Avery Sutton, Aimee Semple McPherson and the Resurrection of Christian America (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2007)
Already incensed over McPherson's influential public stance on evolution and the Bible, most of the Chamber of Commerce and some other civic leaders, however, saw the event as gaudy display, nationally embarrassing to the city. Many Los Angeles area churches were also annoyed. The Chamber of Commerce, together with Reverend Robert P. Shuler leading the Los Angeles Church Federation, and assisted by the press and others, became an informal alliance to determine if her disappearance was caused by other than a kidnapping.
In response to an increasing undercurrent of doubt, the leadership of the Angelus Temple debated whether to let the matter drop or push for vindication. McPherson welcomed the opportunity for more publicity, since she saw it as a way to expose more people to her vision of Jesus Christ. Kennedy thought the controversy might get away from them and become disruptive to the Temple's activities. Judge Carlos Hardy, an influential friend of the Temple and McPherson, decided to go to court to present their complaint, over the stern objections of Kennedy and lawyers hired for advice.
Grand jury inquiries There were several phases of grand jury inquiries regarding McPherson, all conducted by Los Angeles District Attorney Asa Keyes. The first inquiry was about charging McPherson's kidnappers, with indictments against Steve Doe, Rose Doe, and John Doe, convening on July 8, 1926, and adjourning on July 20, 1926. The first inquiry ended with a determination that there was not enough evidence to charge either alleged kidnappers or the McPherson group for fraud.