When you hear the name Perry Mason, what do you visualize? Many of us see Raymond Burr, the title character in the old black-and-white television show, Perry Mason, and we remember him as a figure who fought for the unjustly accused. Before he stepped in front of the television cameras, though, Perry Mason was the subject of four short stories and many novels. His creator, Erle Stanley Gardner, was a practicing attorney when he began writing about his alter ego, and Mason described himself as a specialist in getting people out of trouble. Luckily for Silas John Edwards, a White-Mountain Apache from Arizona, Gardner lived up to his character’s reputation.
Gardner began his career as a lawyer in California, and he specialized in representing the poor. He especially liked to defend those who were wrongfully imprisoned and could not get a fair trial. While he enjoyed trial strategy, though, an attorney’s daily work bored Gardner, so he began writing stories for pulp magazines. His first story was published in 1923, and he continued to practice law and write short stories for the next ten years. In 1933, his first Perry Mason novel, The Case of the Velvet Claws, was published, and Gardner became a full-time author, writing more than 80 novels in his life. The Perry Mason series ranks third in the top ten best-selling book series.
In 1957, Perry Mason was adapted for television, and the series, starring Raymond Burr, ran until 1966. Gardner’s Perry Mason was a lawyer who fought hard for his unjustly accused clients, and Mason and his team often exonerated their client by finding the real murderer.
Perry Mason is far too idealistic for today’s world, and viewers would rightfully criticize the television show as unrealistic. For Gardner, though, fighting for those who could not fight for themselves was not just something he wrote about but also something he practiced. In 1948, Gardner began writing a monthly column for Argosy magazine, titled The Court of Last Resort. In his column, Gardner sought the assistance of police, private detectives, and other experts in many fields to examine the cases of dozens of convicts who maintained their innocence even after they had been convicted and imprisoned. In 1952, Gardner wrote the non-fiction book, The Court of Last Resort, for which he won his first and only Edgar Award. In 1957, the short-lived television show, The Court of Last Resort aired on NBC.
Much like today’s Innocence Project, which helps exonerate the wrongly convicted, Gardner and his fellow investigators in the Court of Last Resort examined cases where they believed they saw a miscarriage of justice. If they decided an individual was innocent of the crime, Gardner and his investigators fought to vacate the guilty verdict and free the wrongfully imprisoned individual. Gardner then wrote about these cases in his Argosy column.
Erle Stanley Gardner
In 1951, Gardner received a letter from Silas John Edwards, who once lived on the Fort Apache Reservation in Arizona. The 64-year-old Edwards had spent the past 17 years incarcerated at McNeil Island Penitentiary in Washington state for a crime he claimed he did not commit. Edwards believed Gardner was his last hope for freedom.
Edwards told Gardner he was convicted of murdering his wife, Margaret. He said he had affidavits from witnesses who said he could not have murdered his wife because he was somewhere else at the time someone bashed in Margaret’s skull with a rock. Edwards claimed another man confessed to the crime, and the White Mountain Apache Tribal Council unanimously recommended his release from prison. The parole board, though, refused to free him, and Edwards feared he would die in prison.
Gardner began looking into Edwards’ case and learned that in February 1933, Silas John Edwards and his wife, Margaret, visited a friend’s teepee, where they joined others in drinking tulapai, a homemade Apache liquor. Three hours later, the group moved to another dwelling, where Margaret reportedly accused her husband of spending too much time with a younger woman. Since Edwards had previously strayed, perhaps there was truth behind Margaret’s accusations. The couple continued to argue until Margaret threatened to end their marriage and stormed out of the party.
The next morning, children discovered the body of Margaret Edwards lying beside a trail. The killer left the bloody rocks he’d used to smash Margaret’s skull beside her body. Neighbors carried Margaret back to her teepee and placed her on the bed. When Silas John heard the news about his wife, he rushed home. He picked up Margaret’s lifeless body and cradled her, smearing blood from her head wounds onto his hands and clothes. An Apache police officer soon arrived and noted the blood on Edwards. He alerted the FBI, and they began their investigation.
The medical examiner determined Margaret died from blows to her head and strangulation. The bloody rocks found at the crime scene were the apparent murder weapons, and upon closer examination, two of the stones used to crush Margaret’s skull bore the initials S.J.E.
Officers arrested Silas John Edwards for the murder of his wife. Since Edwards had little money, the court appointed an attorney named Daniel Rienhardt to represent him. At the trial, Rienhardt called a biochemist to the stand, and he said Edward’s clothes were smeared, not splattered, with blood, matching Edwards’ explanation that he got the blood on him when he picked up his dead wife from their bed.
The bloody rocks with the initials S.J.E. carved on them remained the most compelling evidence in the trial. But what did the initialed rocks mean? If Silas John Edwards murdered his wife, why would he announce his guilt by leaving his initials on the bloody rocks? The prosecution had an answer for this. The prosecutor told the jury of twelve white men that it was an Apache custom for a murderer to leave his initials at the crime scene to prevent the victim’s soul from seeking retribution. The prosecutor offered no proof or testimony about this custom. Edwards’ attorney, Daniel Rienhardt, told the jury there was no Apache custom for a murderer to leave his initials at the scene of the crime. Besides, he reasoned, why would Edwards maintain his innocence if he purposely left his initials on the bloody rocks?
The jury chose to believe the prosecutor, though, and with the murder weapons conveniently monogrammed with his initials, they found it easy to convict Silas John Edwards for the murder of his wife. The judge sentenced Edwards to life in prison.
Seventeen years later, Silas John Edwards sent his letter to Gardner, asking him and his Court of Last Resort to look into his case. Edwards trial lawyer, Daniel Rienhardt, also corresponded with Gardner and said, “I was fully convinced Edwards was not guilty. Rienhardt felt the guilty verdict was a travesty of justice and said he believed a jury considering the same evidence would have freed a white man in 15 minutes.
Silas John Edwards represented Erle Stanley Gardner’s perfect client. Gardner felt America’s criminal justice system was often biased against the most vulnerable citizens. Gardner decided to discuss Edwards’ case with his fellow experts in the Court of Last Resort.
Edwards admitted he was unfaithful to Margaret, but he said he still loved Margaret and did not kill her. Gardner and his friend, investigator Sam Hicks, met Daniel Rienhard t and another attorney, and the four men drove to the Fort Apache Reservation. They met Policeman Robert Colelay, Margaret Edward’s son from an earlier marriage at the reservation’s police station. He confirmed no Apache custom compelled a murderer to leave his initials near his victim’s body. Colelay told Gardner and the others that he did not believe Silas John Edwards was responsible for his mother’s death.
From his many interviews on the reservation, Gardner soon learned that most people believed a White Mountain Apache named Foster James murdered Margaret Edwards. James admitted his guilt on several occasions, and one woman even said James confessed the murder to her while he was raping her.
On August 1, 1955, the parole board released Silas John Edwards from prison, and he returned to the Apache reservation to live out his life. Gardner’s influence helped Edwards gain his freedom, and Edwards wrote Gardner to share his good news. He asked Gardner to thank the readers of his Argosy column for the many letters they wrote to federal officials to protest his continued incarceration.
The case of Silas John Edwards sounds like the plot of a Perry Mason novel or television show. Gardner not only managed to help free the wrongfully convicted man, but he determined who actually murdered Margaret Edwards and then left her husband’s initials on the murder weapon.
