The Boy Nevada Killed

  Published by The History Press

  Charleston, SC

  www.historypress.net

  Copyright © 2017 by Janice Oberding

  All rights reserved

  First published 2017

  e-book edition 2017

  ISBN 978.1.43965.944.1

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2016953493

  print edition ISBN 978.1.46713.768.3

  Notice: The information in this book is true and complete to the best of our knowledge. It is offered without guarantee on the part of the author or The History Press. The author and The History Press disclaim all liability in connection with the use of this book.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form whatsoever without prior written permission from the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  For my mom, Bonnie Harper, who has taught me more about love, life and writing than she will ever know.

  Contents

  Foreword, by Diane Carlson Grulke

  Acknowledgements

  Introduction

  1. As the Twig Is Bent

  2. 1942

  3. Welcome to Nevada

  4. 1944

  Epilogue

  Bibliography

  About the Author

  Foreword

  Janice Oberding is my sister, and I want to tell you how she stumbled on a little-known piece of Nevada’s history. We grew up in Reno, Nevada, in a family of readers. The San Francisco Chronicle and Reno Gazette Journal were left on the breakfast table each morning for all to read. One particular morning, Mama forgot to hide the newspapers. That day’s headlines told the lurid details of what would be Reno’s most notorious murder. It was a horrifying story that captured the nation’s attention. This was in the early ’60s, in the days of swift, in-depth reporting, crime scene photos included. Overnight, small-town Reno residents became security conscious, locking doors and checking windows.

  Coincidentally, the murder happened on Janice’s birthday. That year’s birthday celebration was partially overshadowed by fear, but the slumber party was not canceled. After the games, plenty of pizza, cake and ice cream, it was time for bed. That’s when the party began. By the light of the full moon, Janice told the murder story. The one all the adults were whispering about. She articulated the crime scene in graphic detail. I’m not sure how we were able to fall asleep that night, but we finally did.

  Twenty years later, Janice was writing the story, researching days and writing evenings. She called most nights to share the results of that day’s investigation. I was beginning to wonder about her one night when she called later than usual. She had come across an article about some boy from Indiana. She said, “I just couldn’t leave the library. He was executed here in Nevada.”

  Within a few days, all her work on the other murder was stuffed away into a box. She would write about Floyd Burton Loveless, the “boy from Indiana” who remains the youngest person ever to be executed at the Nevada State Prison.

  Janice dedicated decades to the research and travel involved in telling Floyd’s story. Between writing and researching, she was tracking people down and scheduling interviews. When she was double-booked, I offered to help.

  My first interview was with Oliver Custer, one of Loveless’s defense attorneys. The interview took place on the patio at his home. We talked about Floyd Loveless for nearly an hour, and I could see that even after so many years, it still bothered him. “I knew that someday someone would come wanting to know more about this case. That’s why I kept the files all these years,” he said.

  ‘May I see them?’ I asked.

  “Certainly,” he answered.

  He excused himself and went into the house. Moments later, he returned with a large box filled with notes, letters and files. He placed the box on the table, saying, “These are all the files on Loveless.”

  Forty years had passed. I was literally amazed by the meticulous order of the documents. The contents of the box were overwhelming. I did not expect it. I remember wishing Janice had taken this interview. I took notes and read quickly, but I knew that I could never get all the information in this box. It would have taken weeks, possibly months, to read and comprehend all of it.

  Custer’s grandchildren were there, urging him to come and play. Knowing it was time to leave, I stood thanking him for taking the time to see me and for allowing me to look through the files.

  He stood, saying, “Take them with you. They will help you in your work.” I could not believe what I was hearing. Everything that Janice needed was in this box.

  Floyd began his life as the third child in a miserable marriage. From there, it didn’t get much better.

  At the age of fifteen, Floyd Burton Loveless was sitting in the Nevada State Prison, awaiting execution. He spent the next two birthdays at the prison. Those would be his last.

  On September 29, 1944, he was executed at the age of seventeen at the Nevada State Prison. Those were not the days of dragging the accused with rope in hand to the nearest tree. But for Floyd Loveless it really wasn’t that much different.

  By chance, Janice discovered Loveless’s short life. I will always believe she was, in some strange way, meant to tell his story. And in this book, she has.

  —Diane Carlson Grulke

  Acknowledgements

  In creating this book, I have been truly blessed with more than my share of encouragement and help. I gratefully acknowledge and thank the following: my one-of-a-kind husband, Bill, whom I love to Pluto (the moon’s not far enough) and back; my sister (who wrote the foreword for this book), Diane Carlson Grulke, a wonderfully gifted raconteur and writer; my mother, Bonnie Harper, who showed me the way; my dear and talented friend Deborah Carr Senger, author of Haunted Bloomington-Normal (The History Press); my friend Joseph Galata, who was so moved by Floyd Loveless’s story that he created and starred in the musical The Boy in the Gas Chamber; Mike Loveless, for his many kindnesses, including the use of treasured Loveless family photos; Robert Kay Loveless; Oliver Custer; Thelma Brooks Morgan; Lisa Casper; archivist Toni L. Mendive and the staff of the Northeastern Nevada Museum in Elko; those at the Nevada State Library, Archives and Public Records, and the staff at the Indiana State Library; the Honorable Alvin R. Kacin, for the kindness he showed to two strangers to the Elko County Courthouse; and the staff of the Elko County Courthouse, especially Jenica Maxwell and Mike Judd, who took time to answer our questions on a late Friday afternoon. It’s not often that you run into so many helpful and friendly people as I did in Elko while in the process of working on this book. I also wish to thank all those at Arcadia Publishing and The History Press, especially Artie Crisp and Megan Laddusaw.

  Introduction

  Some are born to pure delight. Some are born to endless night. I never fully appreciated those two lines from William Blake’s poem “Auguries of Innocence” until I started researching Floyd Burton Loveless. For if anyone was born to endless night, it was Floyd Loveless.

  When I started writing his story, decades had passed since that night in September when the seventeen-year-old was executed. Many of those who had known him were long dead. As I spoke with some, I realized that memories being what they are, much had been forgotten or had been filtered through eyes that saw things very differently in their youth. Some politely refused to discuss Loveless at all.

  Early on, I interviewed his stepmother, Dorothy Loveless, who put me in touch with his brother Robert Kay. Kay probably knew Floyd better than anyone else. And fortunately, he readily agreed to speak with me. During our first interview, he asked that I call him Kay. As he talked, he referred to Floyd as Burt. Curious, I asked why he did
so. “We called him Burt, short for Burton, for his middle name. None of us ever called him Floyd.”

  A man well into his sixties, Kay’s life had been spent in and out of prison. This had taken its toll. Matter-of-factly, he told of that long-ago day when he and his brothers witnessed their mother’s suicide. Whatever sorrow he may have felt at that loss was buried by sixty years of living. Only when he spoke of how young Floyd was “when they killed him” did his voice take on an edge of sadness. When asked about Dale Cline, the boy who accompanied Loveless on his cross-county crime spree, Kay angrily said, “That SOB betrayed Burt.…Do you know where he is?”

  I didn’t. Years would pass before I located him. By that time, it was too late. Cline, according to his obituary, had been dead a week. I would never get the opportunity to interview him. I took a day to beat myself up. If only I had been more diligent. Kay was most likely dead. (My mail was returned and his phone no longer in service.) And now Cline was dead, too. Little did I know that one day I would meet Cline’s son, albeit only through social media and phone calls.

  My husband, Bill, and I visited Stockwell and Lafayette, Indiana. Our first discovery was that the train no longer came through Stockwell and hadn’t for a number of years. The spot where Hazel Loveless ran into an oncoming train was overgrown by grassy weeds, different from how I had imagined it. During our Stockwell sojourn, Bill and I met Thelma Brooks Morgan, a local researcher/historian who remembered Floyd and Robert as children.

  “They used to come on Sunday mornings and read the funny papers out on the porch with us,” she told us.

  After a brief interview, Thelma kindly offered to show us the Fairhaven Cemetery. And so, in search of the Frey family plot, we followed her to the cemetery, which was much larger than we had anticipated, especially on a humid Indiana summer afternoon. We gave up our quest.

  I reread Floyd’s letters, filled with hope and plans for a future that would never come. Clearly, he held out hope that somehow everything would work out to suit him. At seventeen is it possible to believe otherwise?

  In sharp contrast to Floyd’s letters were the court papers. There is no hope within these official pages, fuzzy carbon copies on thin, onionskin paper. Officially signed and sealed, they speak of a different era.

  The April 18, 1949 issue of Life carried a fifteen-page article on Elko County by Roger Butterfield. In the article, Butterfield told about the cattle industry and the size of the county and stated that “one of the peculiarities of Elko County is a marked aversion to capital punishment by due process of law.”

  Butterfield overlooked Bob White, Josiah and Elizabeth Potts, Sam Mills, Guadalupe Acosta and Floyd Loveless.

  There is no doubt that Adolph (Dolph) Berning died at the hands of Floyd Burton Loveless—none whatsoever. Dolph Berning, a husband, father and grandfather, was gone forever because of the senseless actions of a runaway teenage boy. No one could have foreseen such a tragic end for the man who cared so much for others. A man who offered comfort to a grieving mother by crafting a casket for her dead child, Berning was always there to lend a helping hand for a neighbor in need.

  Those closest to Floyd Burton Loveless could never have imagined that one day the youngster would die in the Nevada gas chamber. No one could have foreseen the tragedy that would play out when Floyd Burton Loveless encountered Constable Adolph Berning on Victory Highway just outside Carlin. In that one moment, their lives, and those of their loved ones, were forever changed.

  Recently, I returned to Indiana with my longtime friend Deborah Carr Senger. A decade had come and gone since I was there last. On another hot, humid Indiana summer day in the Fairhaven Cemetery, Deborah and I went about our task undeterred. Finally, we located the Frey family plot, Floyd’s grave and that of his mother, Hazel. In Stockwell, we enjoyed a short visit with local Stockwell historian Thelma Brooks Morgan. Then it was on to Fort Wayne, where we met with Mike Loveless, a half brother of Floyd Burton Loveless. A wonderful storyteller, Mike spent the afternoon with us, regaling us with amusing Loveless family stories.

  From Indiana to Nevada, I feel that the circle is now complete. There is nothing more I can learn about the short, sad life of Floyd Burton Loveless.

  In telling Floyd’s story, I’ve relied on existing personal letters, court documents, newspaper files and the memories of some who knew him best. What I learned of Dolph Berning was gathered from historic research and an interview that was conducted with his surviving daughter, Peggy Woods, in 1994 by Lisa Seymour of the Northeastern Nevada Museum in Elko, Nevada. Writing this book has been a long journey, a journey that actually started thirty years ago. At times, life and other projects took precedence. Through it all, I knew that this kid’s story had to be told. In the telling, I’ve let the facts speak for themselves. When necessary, I created scenes and dialogue that I thought helped make a complete story. Of course, no one can ever know another’s deepest thoughts. Nor can we know the verbatim conversations of people long dead. But after spending more time involved in this project than Floyd Loveless lived, I believe I’ve been accurate and fair in my portrayals.

  Chapter 1

  As the Twig Is Bent

  There is no such thing as justice—in or out of court.

  —Clarence Darrow

  CARSON CITY, NEVADA

  On September 29, 1944, World War II was winding down. The Allies had successfully stormed the beach at Normandy, Paris was liberated and the offensive against the Mariana Islands and Palau had begun.

  In Carson City, people went about their lives, all safe in the knowledge they would see tomorrow. At the Nevada State Prison on the south edge of town, it was different, especially for those on death row; their tomorrows were finite. Death dates were set and were seldom broken by commutation.

  Nettie Loveless in her kitchen. Photo courtesy of Mike Loveless.

  Seventeen-year-old Floyd Burton Loveless spent his last day on earth praying for a commutation. As the clock ticked away the hours, he wrote lengthy letters to his family, apologizing for the trouble he had caused them. While in prison, he had converted to Catholicism. Father Buell was with him in his final hours. The priest had come from Gardnerville to offer solace, guidance and last rites. Floyd’s only hope was in the hands of the Nevada Supreme Court. If he allowed his mind to wander, his thoughts went back home to Indiana. If things didn’t go well, he would never see his family again and never see his grandmother, whom he loved above all others. The thought brought tears to his eyes.

  HAZEL AND RAY

  Excitement was in the air. The twentieth century promised to bring sweeping changes. Inventions only dreamed of in the past were fast becoming reality. Before the new century ended, man would fly from one continent to the next, walk on the moon, cure or control many diseases and discover DNA.

  As it always did, the dark side of human nature would rise. Progress would not always be used for the betterment of mankind. Terrible wars were waged, each with more devastating weaponry than the last. The atomic bomb would be dropped on Hiroshima before the century reached its halfway point. This would not be terrible enough. Powerful nations would arm themselves with weapons capable of wiping the earth clean.

  In Stockwell, Indiana, Assaba and Abie Frey gave little thought to the new century as they welcomed their ninth, and final, child into the world on a hot August morning in 1900. She would be called Hazel Belle.

  Little Hazel Belle Frey was less than a month old when Nettie Loveless gave birth to her son Ray Curtis on September 27, 1900. As Nettie Loveless cradled the tiny infant in her arms, she wished for him all the things that mothers want for their children.

  In his youth, Leonard Loveless was a telegraph operator. Upon meeting and marrying Nettie May Crick, he wanted something more lucrative—something for their future children. His family had owned grocery stores in the area for decades. So he purchased a store in Stockwell. Together he and Nettie put in long hours for every dollar they earned. There were light moments, too. It was said that Leo
nard could tally a customer’s bill faster than, and just as accurately as, any adding machine. His customers jovially tested him on his speed and unfailing accuracy with numbers. Leonard was proud of this ability his entire life. In another time and place, Leonard Loveless might have been a bank president or professor of computer science. In early twentieth-century Stockwell, he was content to be a well-liked grocer.

  Leonard Loveless in his grocery store. Photo courtesy of Mike Loveless.

  Leonard and Nettie Loveless in front of the Loveless Grocery Store. Photo courtesy of Mike Loveless.

  Indiana adopted Paul Dressler’s song “Along the Banks of the Wabash, Far Away” as the official state song in March 1913. In 1925, the song became a required part of Indiana’s school curriculum. Hoosier schoolchildren were familiar with its lyrics.

  In the spring of 1914, Indiana used the electric chair for the first time. Fortyyear-old convicted wife killer John Chirka earned the distinction of being Indiana’s first person to be dispatched by the new apparatus. While their parents marveled at what electricity could do to the condemned, schoolchildren learned about Tippecanoe and Tyler too. Living within a few miles of the Tippecanoe Battlefield, Stockwell schoolchildren learned about the 1811 Battle of Tippecanoe and of its hero, William Henry Harrison, who later became the ninth president of the United States. Naturally, their lessons included the part Indiana played in the Civil War. Hoosiers were proud of the many men their state sent in answer to President Abraham Lincoln’s call for volunteers.

  More recently was the Spanish-American War, which won Cuba its freedom from Spain. Leonard Loveless was a veteran of this war, which lasted but four months. Born in the new century, youngsters like Hazel and Ray had known only peace during their lifetime. This changed on June 28, 1914.