A total of 51 body parts were discovered, including fingers, bits of hair, and the bones of three boys. However, three shallow graves were found. Clark also accused Northcott’s mother of assisting with the gruesome crimes. But Clark stated that the kidnapped victims had been beaten, abused and molested before they were killed. He said that their bodies wouldn’t likely be found, as Northcott used quicklime to dispose of them. Once Clark felt that he could trust the authorities, he pointed them in the right direction.Ĭlark also reported to the authorities that a number of boys had been killed on the farm. He demanded that young Sanford Clark stall them, and Clark obliged, giving Northcott a two hour head start on the authorities. Gordon Stewart Northcott saw the truck coming. On August 31, 1928, immigration paid a visit to the Wineville Chicken farm and took Sanford Clark into custody. The consul wrote a letter to the LAPD, who then contacted immigration services. Jessie Clark, when she returned, reported her suspicions to the American consul. Despite her concern, Jessie Clark returned home to Canada. Clark told his sister that four other boys had been killed on the ranch. She was concerned about him, as Sanford Clark had confided in his sister a fear of being killed by Northcott. In August of 1928, Clark’s sister visited the boy. But it soon became apparent that Northcott was beating and molesting the boy. Sanford Clark was 13 years old, and he was enlisted to help out around the farm. In 1926, Northcott had, with the boy’s parents’ permission, brought his Canadian nephew to his ranch. Perhaps to escape his family and the horrors he was subjected to, Northcott moved to California where he operated a profitable chicken farm.īut it wasn’t long before Gordon Stewart Northcott began to mix business with sadistic pleasures of his own. He had a troubled past, and later revealed that his father had sodomized him at a young age. Gordon Stewart Northcott was a Canadian-born chicken farmer. Law enforcement didn’t connect the four disappearances until much later, when they began to question Gordon Stewart Northcott. The boys were 12 and 10 years old.Ī Hispanic boy’s headless body was found in February of 1928. The second said that they would remain gone until they became famous. The first said they’d set off for Mexico. The only trace of the boys were odd notes to their mother. Nelson and Lewis Winslow were reported missing. There were other disappearances at the time. Collins Senior was a cafeteria worker, and would frequently “snitch” to authorities. When the boy first vanished, his father accused former inmates for his disappearance, claiming it may have been an act of revenge. Walter Collins was the son of an inmate at Folsom State Prison. The area was beginning to reap the rewards – and the population – of its proximity to Los Angeles, but it was by no means an unsafe place for a boy of his age to head out alone. The boy was 9 years old, and had been given permission by his mother to attend a movie at the local cinema. Walter Collins disappeared on March 10, 1928. What happened in the early 20th century that was so gruesome that the town changed its name? Here’s what we know about the Wineville Chicken Murders. The Wineville Chicken Murders changed the history of the region. Farmers and ordinary families populated the area, and life was not unlike any other sleepy American town.īut in the 1920s, that changed. Named for its plentiful grape crops, Wineville was, by all accounts, a normal place. Wineville, California was a small farming town just outside Los Angeles.
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