Pulse Publications #23 - January 2024

How Bill Keys Was Freed by the Court of Last Resort

By Jaylyn And John Earl www.thedesertway.com

modicum of creature comforts it could not provide.

Undoubtedly, there was something about the pungent breeze during a cloudburst, the way light painted shadows over the mountains, the artful randomness of stacked boulders under an immense clear sky and the silence that let his imagination soar like nowhere else.

According to the Winter 2010 edition of the Morongo Basin Historical Society Newsletter Quarterly, one of Gardner’s favorite destinations was via Quail Springs Road to a shortcut south through a canyon and into the wilderness where he’d set up camp.

NTHE

MIDST

OF THE ROARING TWENTIES , the stout 30-something man was a Ventura, California, attorney by trade. Although he immersed himself in juris prudence, he found that to make ends meet he needed what millennials nowadays call a “side hustle.” Writing fiction suited the gent’s keen wit, colorful oration and flair for the dramatic, so his fan base was quickly growing. And of course, it helped pay the bills.

It is well known that courtrooms and boardrooms are not peaceful places of refuge. Where does someone go when they seek solitude, a lack of distractions and the beauty of nature to inspire their imagination? Why, the desert, of course.

Well equipped by his half-ton truck modified for camping with its compound transmission, oversized tires and a 30-gallon water tank mounted around the muffler in order to heat the water during travel, he began visiting Joshua Tree in 1927. Joshua Tree would not be designated a national monument for nearly a decade and the fictional name of Perry Mason was but a twinkle in his eye.

The undeniable truth was that Erle

Stanley Gardner loved to write. The desert wilderness and freedom allowed him to create characters and circumstances completely within his control, although at the same time giving them free rein until oftentimes they took on a life all their own and pulled the story in unexpected twists and turns, much as his own life had.

Gardner understood well the pitfalls of distraction. Suspended for a month from his Indiana law school when he was enthralled with the sweet science of boxing more than his studies, he returned to California, pursued his legal education on his own by working as a typist in a law firm for three years and passed the California State Bar Exam in 1911. He began his career as a trial lawyer representing indigent people, in particular poor Chinese and Mexican immigrants.

Peppered with Joshua trees, manzanita and greasewood, the vast desert was a bonus after a hard week at work and an easy half-day’s drive from the city. Gardner was far from roughing it, however. His truck was set up with a stocked ice box, gasoline cooking stove, full-size bed and a desk upon which he put his typewriter. He respected the desert but needed a

A 1955 map showed the route as Quail Wash but once the area became a monument, it appeared simply as a Jeep trail on maps. A National Geographic Trails Illustrated map indicates Gardner’s route was called Quail Wash until inside the monument when it became Quail Springs Historic Trail, still considered a challenging route even to this day.

If the name Erle Stanley Gardner rings a bell with you, it should but not for the reason you may be pondering. During his many sojourns to the area Gardner became friends with longtime Joshua Tree homesteaders Bill and Frances Keys. In a nutshell, Bill Keys got in a dispute

Photo courtesy of William McKeen

A postcard by Stephen Willard, circa 1938. Courtesy Palm Springs Art Museum.

that ended in tragedy in 1943. Keys was sentenced to ten years at San Quentin Prison after fatally shooting his neighbor, Worth Bagley, although Keys adamantly claimed self defense.

Afterwards, Frances Keys reached out to Gardner, soliciting his help. Upon review, Gardner believed Bill Keys had not been properly defended therefore denied justice. Gardner championed Key’s case in the Court of Last Resort he established to aid prisoners who may have been unjustly convicted.

Even Bagley’s former wife testified on behalf of Keys. After a lengthy uphill litigation battle, Gardner won 69 year old Bill Keys’ release, but by that time he had already served five years. Keys used his confinement wisely and spent much time in the prison library reading books about the desert he missed. Some eight years later, Keys received a full pardon. Gardner would go on to write about the incident in The Court of Last Resort, published in 1952, later made into a TV series.

The Worth Bagley Stone was created by

Bill Keys to mark where he shot and killed his neighbor, former Los Angeles deputy Worth Bagley, after being ambushed over a land use dispute over Wall Street Mill. After his parole from from San Quentin, Keys made and placed this marker at the location of the shoot out. It read, “Here is where Worth Bagley bit the dust at the hand of W.F. Keys, May 11, 1943,” and stood on the side of the trail leading out to Wall Street Mill for over 70 years.

The original stone was vandalized in 2014 and is now in the park’s museum for

safekeeping. The stone is a valued part of the historic archeological record. Park cultural resource staff have since installed a toscale metal replica near the site of the original stone. Location:

34° 1.597′ N, 116° 8.411′ W, in Joshua Tree National Park, on the Wall Street Mill Trail about

0.3 miles from the trailhead on Queen Valley Road.

The first mural to be painted in Twentynine Palms in 1994 was of Bill and Frances Keys at their Desert Queen Ranch. It was very well-received by the town and local media.

The mural featured in Huell Howser’s Visiting video was removed in 2011, but a new Desert Queen Ranch mural was completed in 2013.

Erle Stanley Gardner continued to write throughout his lifetime. One of his most popular characters was larger-than-life fictional attorney Perry Mason, a series of novels he began writing in 1933, a decade before Bill Keys was convicted.

The Perry Mason storyline became a smash hit television series starring Raymond Burr from 1957-1966. The main character was inspired by Earl Rogers, a trial attorney who appeared in 77 murder trials but lost only three. He was recognized for the extensive use of demonstratives, e.g., visuals, charts and diagrams, during trial before it became common practice.

Gardner’s love for the desert played a key role and wove its way into the literary tapestry of many of his books. Some of his titles included Hunting the Desert Whale, The Desert is Yours, Whispering Sands: Stories of Gold Fever in the Western Desert, Hunting Lost Mines by Helicopter and Neighborhood Frontiers: Desert Country…and many others.

Known as the best-selling American author of the 20th century who sold more than 100 million books at the time of his death in 1970 at 80 years old, Erle Stanley Gardner had also published under numerous pseudonyms.

In 2001, Huell Howser Productions, in association with KCET, Los Angeles, featured Gardner’s Temecula Rancho del Paisano in California’s Gold.

Consider for a moment, if you dare, how the peace of the desert could spark your own creative juices. Maybe it’s just what you needed all along.

Daily News, 25 May 1950.

Daily News, 25 May 1950.

Photograph courtesy of Joshua Tree National Park, 2014.