John Martin Spain - Another Possible Juan Corona Victim?
As is the case of John Martin Spain.
Through the last couple of years since I started this, people have come forward to tell me their story about how this prolific case has either affected them or how they had a connection to it somehow. I have been contacted by people who were related to the victims, and in this case, I was contacted by the family of a man whom they believe was a victim of Corona.
Once I started digging into John's story, I had hopes of getting more answers into some of the nameless men who were pulled from the ground in that spring, 48 years ago. Instead, I find myself more perplexed.
In a small town, talking about small-town crime, it has not become unusual for people to reach out to me about their family members who may be involved with these stories.
How I Learned of John's Story
I was contacted a couple months ago by Becky Slicer Abutrab, who had seen my work on the victims. She wanted to know if the name "John Martin Spain" had ever popped up in my research, which it never had. This, of course, got my attention. Anything I can puzzle together here about these men is always welcomed.
She told me about her sister, Emily Slicer Bowen, whose husband's grandfather disappeared in the Spring of 1971.
Emily's husband, David Bowen Jr. grew up hearing his grandfather. His mother Mary LaVonne Spain and his Aunt Lou Vandever always had suspicions about their father's fate. They believed that their dad was a victim in the Juan Corona case.
Lou Passed away years ago, and unfortunately, Mary passed away in November 2018, before getting the answers they hoped to find. After Mary had passed, Lou's daughter Robin found a collection of documents that Lou kept, in hopes of piecing together the proof of what happened to her dad. For Mary, as John's last living child, I imagine this was a heavy weight to bear.
Among her belongings, they found a video of Mary discussing the disappearance of her dad, and this caused Becky to do some research into the victims, in which, she found me.
Becky put me in touch with Emily, Mary's daughter in law -
"Hi Anna! His name was John Martin Spain. He was from Oklahoma, had a wife and children. He divorced her and became an alcoholic, moved to CA to work in the orchards."
I asked her if he was ever suspected as being a victim in the case, by the authorities working the case, "I know he was staying at The Twin Cities Mission and he had stayed in regular contact with his daughters back in OK." She continued, "He would write to them regularly and his daughter Lou (Vandever) was pregnant with twins that were due in March of that year. He had told them he’d be coming home to see the babies but they never heard from him again."
Emily continued, "She said he had sent her (Lou) a letter the first of April 71 and said he was coming home. No one heard from him since. They did call the mission at the time and were told that a lot of the men who stayed there got picked up by men who would take them to work at the orchards in the area."
Emily says Lou eventually filed a missing person report, years later. John having become a drifter, I imagine the family just accepted it, when he didn't show. This was not uncommon among the other men, who were identified in this case.
"...they knew that John had gone to work on an orchard and never returned. His few belongings were left there at the mission." Hearing Emily talk about the Mission's acknowledgment about John's disappearance at the time, I wonder why he isn't mentioned in any of the case files. A huge part of me feels that the answer is cut and dry, but I have to remind myself not to jump to conclusions and to keep an open mind. Why wouldn't have Sutter County or other agencies like Marysville or Yuba checked into John's whereabouts when he came up missing during a prolific murder investigation that included his demographic? To me, it's unimaginable, but at the same time, I know how this case went. I know that the manpower to investigate all leads was close to non-existent. The area was just not equipped to handle a case of this magnitude.
Was John a casualty of the lack of resources for the time, as well as a casualty of a madman? I can see why his children were so adamant about their father's possible fate.
Lost in thought for a bit, trying to think of the little description of the "unknowns" in this case, Emily sends me photos of John. She also sends me a photo of one of the victims that her family believes was him. It's a man I have listed as Sigurd "Pete" Emil Beirman. At this point with this case, I barely have known the right side up from down. The evidence, in this case, has notoriously been misplaced, mislabeled and misidentified. Is it possible I, and other sources (including the NY Times), have Pete mislabeled? I really don't know. I'm perplexed. Emily is as confused as I am, "He looked very different once be had been an alcoholic for years."
She shows me the photo and all I can find myself able to say is, "I can see why his family believes that this other guy is him"
Who am I to argue? Maybe they're right? They know their dad. All I have to go by is two, 50-year-old photos to look at, of men I never met, and what little information is available to me.
"It was Ray Seyton that he left with.", Emily says.
Yet another name I have never heard of and a scramble to Newspaper Archives as a last-ditch effort to find any connection to these names to the Juan Corona's case turns up nothing. Not a single mention. She tells me that The Twin Cities Mission says that is the last time he was seen. April 1971, leaving with Ray Seyton, to go to work in the orchards of Sutter County.
The bodies were first discovered on May 20th, 1971. If a timeline was ever gonna fit to raise suspicion, it was John's timeline. Why didn't anyone go looking for him?
"Have you ever come across that name?"
I hadn't, unfortunately, and I wish I had so I could give her and her family some answers. At this point, I am filled with more questions and doubt on what I thought I knew of this investigation than I started with.
"She (Lou) says in the last page of that letter that his brothers went out there to see if they could identify his body."
I ask Emily, why if the family believed he was a victim, why was he never named by the press or by authorities? Obviously, if they were called in to identify a body, there were some serious suspicions raised.
"There are a lot of unanswered questions. Why did the brothers go out there to identify a body? Who contacted them?" These are all questions we may never have answered, but the more Emily talks, the more I am convinced that John may very well have been a double casualty in this horrific event.
"The people at the mission specifically told her he had stopped drinking and was doing so much better since he’d been there. He was getting back in his feet and trying to do honest work. Only to disappear and never be heard from again..."
Hearing this from her is a big reminder to me, why I started this project. These men were all people. It is a huge misconception that nobody cared about these men. People cared. Their families care. They weren't just nameless "fruit tramps" or "winos". They were all men with a life, before 1971. They all died because they wanted to work.
"He is my children’s great-grandfather and it’s painful to think that we will probably never have answers."
I just hope Emily and her family know, that today even in 2019, people do care.
The Letter
Emily has given me permission to publish the letter written by Lou Vandever, another of John's daughters.
I decided to go ahead and transcribe the letter, to make it easier for my readers to read.
"Information about my father
My mother and father had seven children. He was always a family man. They divorced in 1963 or 1964. My dad was very upset and started drinking heavily. This was in Lubbock Texas. I think he left Lubbock in about 1967 or 1968 and went to Denver Colorado. I'm not sure how long he was there then went to California or my older brother lives, Ivan Spain (?) and his two brothers Doyle and Cletus(?). He was drinking heavily and no one could help him. I was living in Austin Texas in April 1971 when I got a letter from my father telling me he was in Twin Cities Rescue Mission, in Yuma (Yuba) City California. He wanted me to send money for him to come to Austin he wanted to be with his children. The day I received the letter I called the mission to make arrangements. They told me my dad had quit drinking and was due well and a man named Ray Seyton. He had come to the mission and he was a drinker. He talked my dad into leaving with him. That is the last time we ever heard anything. I wrote in contacted everyone I could but no information (?) was at the same time that I think the man's name was Juan Corona heard a lot of people that work in orchards near Yuma (Yuba) City. He had been known to pick up workers around the Twin City Mission. My brother and my dad's brother checked out some of the bodies recovered but never identified my father. He was always good about keeping in touch his family, so I feel either Ray Seyton or someone else caused foul play or he is somewhere and doesn't remember and needs help. I would feel better if I just knew where he was and I could help him. I love him very much always very close. Please let me know if you find anything where he might have been or any news of Ray Seyton. My mother Mary Spain and my youngest sister Suzie Spain true my dad's Social Security after they declared him legally dead with no way of knowing if he died. Please keep in contact with me I appreciate what you try to do to help people.
Thank you,
Lou Vandever"
So after having received this information from John's family, I felt like I needed to look at the information I did know about the victims. The first place I wanted to look was the obvious - the ledger.
District Attorney G. Dave Teja called this ledger, "for all practical purposes, a list of victims in this case."
From documentation from Twin Cities Rescue Mission and from John's family. I know that he was last seen around April 1971. I am also not opposed to looking for Ray Seyton as well, now that I have an additional name.
A couple of things I know about Juan's writing and grammar from looking at previous entries in the ledger is that his spelling was poor and he also used "nicknames" for some of the men. Also, it occurs to me that the men may have given Juan pseudonyms when he hired them.
Looking at the ledger, there is one name that stands out to me.
From Corona's ledger
Again, a couple of things to remember. Juan had extremely poor grammar and spelling. He was known to use nicknames or abbreviations for the men too. Since they were off the books and traveling, could it be that the men may have used fake names? John is common, most likely he'd keep that. But his last name, Spain. Spain, España Español, Espidy?? The last name could be a quick effort to use a variant. It also could be Corona's sense of humor. For Ray Muchacho, the Maidu Indian gentleman, we believe he simply logged him as "Indio". He noted many others as "America", "Otro" (Other), "Sartor", "Billy Boy", etc. I don't think it's far fetched to believe that Corona didn't make notations that were only going to make sense to him, not necessarily to anyone else.
No other John "Espidy" was found among the bodies, nor on record anywhere else.
As for the timing, John was placed in Marysville right at the peak of when men were rolling through and disappearing. According to the document below, a missing person report filed with The Salvation Army. John was last seen at the Twin Cities Rescue Mission in Marysville and the last family had heard from him was in April 1971.
According to a 1971 article, pictured below, this is exact same time frame many men were coming through both the Day Center and the Rescue Mission. During this time, other men were noticed to have also gone missing. Even though John was new to the area, it's reassuring that people DID notice his absence.
The theory has always been that there were bodies that were never recovered. In Tehama Counties at least 1 body was also found, with the same types of wounds, but never included in the case because they were located outside of the jurisdiction.
Of 34 names found on the ledger, only 8 were identified as the victims whose bodies were found. Another name was that of Jose Raya, the gentleman who survived an attack at the Guadalajara Cafe (plus his attack date). Names like "William 'Billy' Vaughn" were on the ledger and also accounted as missing at local missions. Other names like Herbert Kent and John Martin Spain, went missing but weren't directly named on the ledger. Where did they go? I find it unlikely during one of the most prolific mass killings in American history a handful of men just decided to disappear at their own volition.
Why didn't anyone think to continue to exhaust leads made by people who worked at the Missions, and also the families who continued to look for their loved ones?
The repeated theory that "no one cared about these faceless men" couldn't be further from the truth. Such a blanket statement wrongfully minimizes the experience of people who are still left today wondering what happened to their loved ones.
While the exploration for bodies at the Sullivan Ranch and adjoining ranches was ceased, bodies from other jurisdiction and surrounding areas should have been kept for consideration. Not because we didn't "need anymore to hang Corona", but because the men deserved to be accounted for.
These families had, and HAVE, the right to know where their loved one's fate.
Having enough evidence to try the case, was not a sufficient excuse to call off the search, nor close the case. The case should still be open, and these unaccounted individuals should be considered cold cases.
As for my research, John will remain an open case and yet another possible victim in this tragedy. I hope one day we can make a concrete discovery that can put this family's unanswered questions to rest.
As for John's children, I only wish answers could have been found when they were still alive.
I'm here to prove that people did, and do care. To be continued...
I was contacted a couple months ago by Becky Slicer Abutrab, who had seen my work on the victims. She wanted to know if the name "John Martin Spain" had ever popped up in my research, which it never had. This, of course, got my attention. Anything I can puzzle together here about these men is always welcomed.
 |
| The Spain Family |
Emily's husband, David Bowen Jr. grew up hearing his grandfather. His mother Mary LaVonne Spain and his Aunt Lou Vandever always had suspicions about their father's fate. They believed that their dad was a victim in the Juan Corona case.
Lou Passed away years ago, and unfortunately, Mary passed away in November 2018, before getting the answers they hoped to find. After Mary had passed, Lou's daughter Robin found a collection of documents that Lou kept, in hopes of piecing together the proof of what happened to her dad. For Mary, as John's last living child, I imagine this was a heavy weight to bear.
Among her belongings, they found a video of Mary discussing the disappearance of her dad, and this caused Becky to do some research into the victims, in which, she found me.
Becky put me in touch with Emily, Mary's daughter in law -
"Hi Anna! His name was John Martin Spain. He was from Oklahoma, had a wife and children. He divorced her and became an alcoholic, moved to CA to work in the orchards."
I asked her if he was ever suspected as being a victim in the case, by the authorities working the case, "I know he was staying at The Twin Cities Mission and he had stayed in regular contact with his daughters back in OK." She continued, "He would write to them regularly and his daughter Lou (Vandever) was pregnant with twins that were due in March of that year. He had told them he’d be coming home to see the babies but they never heard from him again."
Emily continued, "She said he had sent her (Lou) a letter the first of April 71 and said he was coming home. No one heard from him since. They did call the mission at the time and were told that a lot of the men who stayed there got picked up by men who would take them to work at the orchards in the area."
Emily says Lou eventually filed a missing person report, years later. John having become a drifter, I imagine the family just accepted it, when he didn't show. This was not uncommon among the other men, who were identified in this case.
"...they knew that John had gone to work on an orchard and never returned. His few belongings were left there at the mission." Hearing Emily talk about the Mission's acknowledgment about John's disappearance at the time, I wonder why he isn't mentioned in any of the case files. A huge part of me feels that the answer is cut and dry, but I have to remind myself not to jump to conclusions and to keep an open mind. Why wouldn't have Sutter County or other agencies like Marysville or Yuba checked into John's whereabouts when he came up missing during a prolific murder investigation that included his demographic? To me, it's unimaginable, but at the same time, I know how this case went. I know that the manpower to investigate all leads was close to non-existent. The area was just not equipped to handle a case of this magnitude.
Was John a casualty of the lack of resources for the time, as well as a casualty of a madman? I can see why his children were so adamant about their father's possible fate.
Lost in thought for a bit, trying to think of the little description of the "unknowns" in this case, Emily sends me photos of John. She also sends me a photo of one of the victims that her family believes was him. It's a man I have listed as Sigurd "Pete" Emil Beirman. At this point with this case, I barely have known the right side up from down. The evidence, in this case, has notoriously been misplaced, mislabeled and misidentified. Is it possible I, and other sources (including the NY Times), have Pete mislabeled? I really don't know. I'm perplexed. Emily is as confused as I am, "He looked very different once be had been an alcoholic for years."
She shows me the photo and all I can find myself able to say is, "I can see why his family believes that this other guy is him"
 |
| The man I had labeled as Sigurd "Pete" Beirman, next to a photo of John Martin Spain. Photo courtesy of Emily. |
"It was Ray Seyton that he left with.", Emily says.
Yet another name I have never heard of and a scramble to Newspaper Archives as a last-ditch effort to find any connection to these names to the Juan Corona's case turns up nothing. Not a single mention. She tells me that The Twin Cities Mission says that is the last time he was seen. April 1971, leaving with Ray Seyton, to go to work in the orchards of Sutter County.
The bodies were first discovered on May 20th, 1971. If a timeline was ever gonna fit to raise suspicion, it was John's timeline. Why didn't anyone go looking for him?
"Have you ever come across that name?"
I hadn't, unfortunately, and I wish I had so I could give her and her family some answers. At this point, I am filled with more questions and doubt on what I thought I knew of this investigation than I started with.
"She (Lou) says in the last page of that letter that his brothers went out there to see if they could identify his body."
I ask Emily, why if the family believed he was a victim, why was he never named by the press or by authorities? Obviously, if they were called in to identify a body, there were some serious suspicions raised.
"There are a lot of unanswered questions. Why did the brothers go out there to identify a body? Who contacted them?" These are all questions we may never have answered, but the more Emily talks, the more I am convinced that John may very well have been a double casualty in this horrific event.
"The people at the mission specifically told her he had stopped drinking and was doing so much better since he’d been there. He was getting back in his feet and trying to do honest work. Only to disappear and never be heard from again..."
Hearing this from her is a big reminder to me, why I started this project. These men were all people. It is a huge misconception that nobody cared about these men. People cared. Their families care. They weren't just nameless "fruit tramps" or "winos". They were all men with a life, before 1971. They all died because they wanted to work.
"He is my children’s great-grandfather and it’s painful to think that we will probably never have answers."
I just hope Emily and her family know, that today even in 2019, people do care.
The Letter
Emily has given me permission to publish the letter written by Lou Vandever, another of John's daughters.
I decided to go ahead and transcribe the letter, to make it easier for my readers to read.
"Information about my father
My mother and father had seven children. He was always a family man. They divorced in 1963 or 1964. My dad was very upset and started drinking heavily. This was in Lubbock Texas. I think he left Lubbock in about 1967 or 1968 and went to Denver Colorado. I'm not sure how long he was there then went to California or my older brother lives, Ivan Spain (?) and his two brothers Doyle and Cletus(?). He was drinking heavily and no one could help him. I was living in Austin Texas in April 1971 when I got a letter from my father telling me he was in Twin Cities Rescue Mission, in Yuma (Yuba) City California. He wanted me to send money for him to come to Austin he wanted to be with his children. The day I received the letter I called the mission to make arrangements. They told me my dad had quit drinking and was due well and a man named Ray Seyton. He had come to the mission and he was a drinker. He talked my dad into leaving with him. That is the last time we ever heard anything. I wrote in contacted everyone I could but no information (?) was at the same time that I think the man's name was Juan Corona heard a lot of people that work in orchards near Yuma (Yuba) City. He had been known to pick up workers around the Twin City Mission. My brother and my dad's brother checked out some of the bodies recovered but never identified my father. He was always good about keeping in touch his family, so I feel either Ray Seyton or someone else caused foul play or he is somewhere and doesn't remember and needs help. I would feel better if I just knew where he was and I could help him. I love him very much always very close. Please let me know if you find anything where he might have been or any news of Ray Seyton. My mother Mary Spain and my youngest sister Suzie Spain true my dad's Social Security after they declared him legally dead with no way of knowing if he died. Please keep in contact with me I appreciate what you try to do to help people.
Thank you,
Lou Vandever"
So after having received this information from John's family, I felt like I needed to look at the information I did know about the victims. The first place I wanted to look was the obvious - the ledger.
District Attorney G. Dave Teja called this ledger, "for all practical purposes, a list of victims in this case."
From documentation from Twin Cities Rescue Mission and from John's family. I know that he was last seen around April 1971. I am also not opposed to looking for Ray Seyton as well, now that I have an additional name.
A couple of things I know about Juan's writing and grammar from looking at previous entries in the ledger is that his spelling was poor and he also used "nicknames" for some of the men. Also, it occurs to me that the men may have given Juan pseudonyms when he hired them.
Looking at the ledger, there is one name that stands out to me.
From Corona's ledger
Again, a couple of things to remember. Juan had extremely poor grammar and spelling. He was known to use nicknames or abbreviations for the men too. Since they were off the books and traveling, could it be that the men may have used fake names? John is common, most likely he'd keep that. But his last name, Spain. Spain, España Español, Espidy?? The last name could be a quick effort to use a variant. It also could be Corona's sense of humor. For Ray Muchacho, the Maidu Indian gentleman, we believe he simply logged him as "Indio". He noted many others as "America", "Otro" (Other), "Sartor", "Billy Boy", etc. I don't think it's far fetched to believe that Corona didn't make notations that were only going to make sense to him, not necessarily to anyone else.
No other John "Espidy" was found among the bodies, nor on record anywhere else.
As for the timing, John was placed in Marysville right at the peak of when men were rolling through and disappearing. According to the document below, a missing person report filed with The Salvation Army. John was last seen at the Twin Cities Rescue Mission in Marysville and the last family had heard from him was in April 1971.
According to a 1971 article, pictured below, this is exact same time frame many men were coming through both the Day Center and the Rescue Mission. During this time, other men were noticed to have also gone missing. Even though John was new to the area, it's reassuring that people DID notice his absence.
The theory has always been that there were bodies that were never recovered. In Tehama Counties at least 1 body was also found, with the same types of wounds, but never included in the case because they were located outside of the jurisdiction.
Of 34 names found on the ledger, only 8 were identified as the victims whose bodies were found. Another name was that of Jose Raya, the gentleman who survived an attack at the Guadalajara Cafe (plus his attack date). Names like "William 'Billy' Vaughn" were on the ledger and also accounted as missing at local missions. Other names like Herbert Kent and John Martin Spain, went missing but weren't directly named on the ledger. Where did they go? I find it unlikely during one of the most prolific mass killings in American history a handful of men just decided to disappear at their own volition.
Why didn't anyone think to continue to exhaust leads made by people who worked at the Missions, and also the families who continued to look for their loved ones?
The repeated theory that "no one cared about these faceless men" couldn't be further from the truth. Such a blanket statement wrongfully minimizes the experience of people who are still left today wondering what happened to their loved ones.
While the exploration for bodies at the Sullivan Ranch and adjoining ranches was ceased, bodies from other jurisdiction and surrounding areas should have been kept for consideration. Not because we didn't "need anymore to hang Corona", but because the men deserved to be accounted for.
These families had, and HAVE, the right to know where their loved one's fate.
Having enough evidence to try the case, was not a sufficient excuse to call off the search, nor close the case. The case should still be open, and these unaccounted individuals should be considered cold cases.
As for my research, John will remain an open case and yet another possible victim in this tragedy. I hope one day we can make a concrete discovery that can put this family's unanswered questions to rest.
As for John's children, I only wish answers could have been found when they were still alive.
I'm here to prove that people did, and do care. To be continued...
Thank you so much for what you are doing. I know my mom would have loved to know that someone cared about finding out what may have happened to her dad. She never forgot about him. Renee Dodd, Lou’s daughter.
ReplyDeleteYou're very welcome. Covering these stories is a privilege ♡
DeleteAnna - how can I get a hold of you to provide more information? Thanks!
Delete