Dr. Finch was a lifelong friend of my family and delivered me at the Monrovia Hospital in 1950.
My Dad became very close to him when my Dad's first wife was dying of a brain tumor in about 1948.
Dr. Finch made daily house calls to see her until she died leaving a infant and my Dad. They lived in West Covina and my Dad was a pastor of a church there.
I remember when the news of his arrest was in the Life Magazine. My Dad corresponded with Dr Finch at that time and I remembered going to Chino Prison to visit him as a child.
He served his time and was trying to get released. My family lived in Springfield, MO, and my Dad started helping him get a plan together for his release. He needed to have a job lined up before they would let him out on parole. They got him a job at the El Dorado Springs Hospital as an X-ray technician. He bought a new house that the high school kids had built in a class on construction. He was paroled to my Dad, Burton W. Pierce. He continued to work at the hospital for several years and then took the medical state boards to regain his license. This was an amazing feat since he had not practiced medicine for years by this time. I worked with him for about 6 months during this time and found him quite interesting. We spent a great deal of time together as friends along with his soon to be wife Betty.
Betty had met him thru an internship she had done while completing her degree from the Meningers Clinic in social work when he was still incarcerated.
They ended up getting married and lived in Bolivar,MO for quite a few years. They then moved back to California and lived there until he died. I think this move had a lot to do with repairing the relationship with Ramie and his other children.
He was an accomplished tennis player until his death.
The last time I saw Betty was at Rancho Mirage where they had a condo on a golf course. Bernie had been dead for less then a year and she could not talk about him without breaking down in tears. Shortly after that my Dad got a call from her in Oklahoma and she was at a convenience store and lost. It wasn't much time later that she was under constant nursing care and died. It was like her mind snapped after Bernie was gone.
To sum this up my Dad felt he needed to repay Bernie for all his kindness during his wife's death process. My Dad spent a great deal of time paying back the debt that he felt he owned this man. My Dad died several years ago and I thought he had a lot of the documents from the time of Bernie 's trial and release but unfortunately I didn't find anything. He may have given everything to Betty Finch because I think she wanted to write a book about Bernie.
From an email on June 28, 2010:
I came across your blog after my Mom and I were just discussing it this morning. She was telling me what a hunk Carole's bodybuilder husband was and how one day after he had just left for work, the moving vans rolled up and the entire house was moved during his absence. I found your blog intriguing and very infor
mative. Especially with all the details so many, many years later!My parents also lived on Barrydale St. at the time, and my father was the arresting officer that 1st took Carole Tregoff into custody. It was front page news with lots of photos but I have not been able to locate any of those articles with mention of my father (William Handrahan).
Thank you for the web site!
Regards,
Kathy Handrahan
Note -- below is a picture of Officer William Handrahan of the West Covina Police Department, with his 2 daughters, Lori (L) and Kathy (R) by Officer Handrahan's police car. This photo was taken at their Barrydale Street home in 1957, 58 or 59.
