This speech was delivered by Lieutenant Paul Foley of the Arcadia Police Department at the
ceremony commemorating the 80th anniversary of the Murder of Arcadia Police Officer Albert
Edward Matthies. The ceremony was held on Northview Avenue south of Foothill Boulevard, which was the location where Officer Matthies was gunned down in 1927.
Date: Thursday July 19, 2007
On July 18, 1927 shortly before midnight, Albert Edward Matthies, who was an Arcadia Police Officer and Assistant Fire Chief, was patrolling the City of Arcadia with his friend Leo Charles Bertolina, who was a painter at the time. The two stopped to check a suspicious occupied vehicle that was parked on Northview Avenue south of Foothill Boulevard. The vehicle had three 18-year-old occupants inside, which were Ray O’Dell (driver), William Montfort (front passenger) and Frank Miller (rear seat passenger). Unknown to Officer Matthies, the trio were parked here on Northview casing the nearby Foothill / Wigwam BBQ stand, with intentions to commit a robbery. The trio had been told that the BBQ stand was “easy pickens” for a robbery. The car that the three were riding in was a Chevrolet Touring car stolen from the Echo Park area of Los Angeles.
Officer Matthies approached the driver, who was Ray O’Dell and asked for the registration. O’Dell told Officer Matthies that he had left the registration in his other clothes. The back seat passenger, Frank Miller, told Officer Matthies that he had the registration paperwork. As Matthies turned his attention to Miller, he saw that Miller was sitting on something. Matthies asked, “What is that?” At this point, Miller pulled a .45 caliber handgun from underneath his leg, pointed it at Matthies, and said, “Stick ‘em up!” Matthies jumped towards the rear of the suspect vehicle to take cover and Miller fired two rounds at Matthies through the rear window of the suspect vehicle. One of the fired rounds fatally struck Officer Matthies in the neck and he fell to the ground. Albert Matthies passed away on July 19, 1927 at 12:07 AM. Officer Matthies was 27 years old at the time of his death.
Leo Bertolina was near the police car when the shooting started, he was injured by flying glass and received a grazing gunshot wound to his back and side. Bertolina ran to a phone and called the Pasadena Police department for help. In 1927, Pasadena was one of only a few area police agencies to have a radio system, and they were able to dispatch their officers to assist with the search for the suspects.
In the following week, police officers from Pomona to Los Angeles stopped every Chevrolet Touring car on the road. Dozens of people were interviewed. The Los Angeles County Sheriff William I. Traeger, who was enraged about Albert Matthies murder, issued the following statement to his deputies, “I want everyone to get busy on this case!” Sheriff’s Homicide Squad assigned their best men to find the three suspects. Dr. Richard Johnson conducted the autopsy on Officer Matthies, he made the following written recommendation in his final report, “We recommend that every effort be made to apprehend the individual or individuals responsible for Officer Matthies’ death, and that they be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”
A break came in the case a few days after Officer Matthies’ murder when a restaurant patron overheard three young men discussing how they shot an Arcadia Police Officer. This restaurant patron recognized two of the young men and he wrote their names on a napkin. The patron then turned this information over to Los Angeles Sheriff Investigators.
On Wednesday July 27, 1927, Ray O’Dell and Frank Miller were arrested by deputies at the corner of 2nd and Figueroa in Los Angeles. On July 30, 1927 the third suspect, William Montfort was arrested while walking in a crowded shopping area.
Homicide investigators located incriminating evidence that implicated the trio’s responsibility for Matthies’ murder. Including pages torn from a notebook that belonged to one of the subjects, and the .45 caliber shell casings.
Prior to the trial beginning, William Montfort and Ray O’Dell agreed to testify against Frank Miller, and they implicated that he was the gunman that shot Officer Matthies. On August 3, 1927, the Grand Jury returned with 3 murder indictments for the defendants. The murder trial started on September 1 and was turned over to the jury on September 8. The jury deliberated for 5 hours and returned with a guilty verdict for 1st degree murder. The jury also recommended leniency to spare Frank Miller from being hanged.
Frank Miller was sentenced on September 12 to life in prison. Miller was sent to Folsom prison, and after two years in prison, he attempted to escape. Miller and two other inmates sawed through the prison bars and crawled through the prison sewer system. Fortunately, the three inmates miscalculated the distance and surfaced within the prison boundaries. The three inmates were quickly apprehended by a prison posse. Frank Miller was never paroled from Folsom prison and he died while serving his sentence.
William Montfort and Ray O’Dell were sent to San Quentin, they were both paroled from prison after serving a majority of their sentences. Both Montfort and O’Dell died after their release from prison.
It is important to note that from the date of Albert’s murder to the sentencing of the men involved was only 56 days.
The Matthies trial was attended by several Arcadia residents, to include Officer Matthies Widow Dora. The trial was also attended by Prince Erik of Denmark, who was residing in Arcadia at the time.
Leo Bertolina later joined and retired from the Arcadia Police Department.
Albert Edward Matthies was born in 1901. He served in the United States Army during WWI with a remarkable record for bravery, having been decorated six times as a Motorcycle Dispatch Officer. After his discharge from the military, Albert worked for the Government Balloon School in Arcadia, which was a strip of land that spanned from Arcadia County Park through the Santa Anita Race Track. Albert Matthies was a 6-year veteran of the Arcadia Police / Fire Department at the time of his death. Albert Matthies left behind a wife and two daughters, Minnie and Zora, who were 4 and 6 years-old at the time. Albert Matthies made the ultimate sacrifice in the line of duty and in the service to the City of Arcadia.
Officer Matthies was laid to rest in Live Oak Cemetery, Monrovia California. Section D, lot #129.
Officer Matthies murder has been memorialized at the following locations:
Plaque Memorial at Northview Ave..south of Foothill Blvd. - Arcadia, California
Los Angeles County Police Officers Memorial – Whittier, California
California Police Officers Memorial – Sacramento, California
National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial – Washington D.C.
Albert Edward Matthies, you have not and will not be forgotten.
Written by: Lieutenant Paul Foley
Arcadia Police Department
July 14, 2007
