A Hawaiian Tiki Death in San Francisco - 1965

Found this interesting article in the January 16, 1965 issue of the St. Petersburg Times:

"Artist Found Slain in San Francisco"

"The nude body of a well to do bachelor artist - his skull crushed by a saw toothed Polynesian war club - was found yesterday at the foot of grinning Tiki gods and artificial palms in his downtown hotel room. Oscar Mapes Robinson, 53, whose grandfather founded the Mapes Hotel in Reno, had been struck three savage blows, two on the head and one in the chest.

The bloodied death weapon, a carved 8 pound, 18 inch club, was on the bed. A pillow case was wrapped around his head. The hands and ankles were bound. Police said the crime was committed 10 hours earlier by a man who apparently slipped out afterwards, the spring locked door snapping shut behind him.

The Polynesian decorated room was on the fifth floor of the Gaylord hotel, where Robinson had lived since 1962. A hotel employee, Willard Brooks, told police he entered the room with a pass key at 9 a.m. but went directly to the bathroom just inside the door to fix leaky faucet and was unaware of the tragedy. Brooks said a knock on the door prompted him to admit a visitor who found the body. The visitor, identified by police as Clyde Davis, told officers he had been hired by Robinson to move some things."

Sounds like an awesome start to a thriller in book or movie form!

http://www.tabooisland.com
http://tabooisland.blogspot.com/

[ Edited by: Mo-Eye 2009-08-27 22:20 ]

wowee....

This story had been found and published here before....nevertheless, it is an intriguing blib of Tiki history worthy of resurrection and further research!:
What was the art of this "bachelor artist" like? How come he had transformed a hotel room into a Polynesian suite and what did it look like? And why did this happen to him?

I couldn't find anything on TC about this, and nothing on the web about this guy or his art.

I hope he was carving tikis in the middle of his hotel room!

Wrote a song/book about it.

It was a dark and stormy night...

.. he should have paid his bar tab when they told him to.....he was warned, "pay up or else"......

either that or someones husband finally found out what mr. artist was up to with his wife in that hotel room......she wasn't just posing for pictures...

[ Edited by: Tipsy McStagger 2009-08-28 04:46 ]

The story goes deeper and wider: (this from Wikipedia)

"The Mapes Hotel was a hotel/casino located in Reno, Nevada, next to the Truckee River on Virginia Street. It was built in 1947, and opened on December 17 of that year. It was the first skyscraper built in the Western United States since the start of World War II. Built in a distinctive Art Deco style, the hotel was a unique high-rise built to combine a hotel and casino, providing the prototype for modern hotel/casinos.

"Owned by the Mapes family, the hotel quickly became, for most of the 1950s and 1960s, the premier hotel in Reno. Many celebrities of that era stayed there, including Marilyn Monroe and Clark Gable during the filming of The Misfits; Senator Joseph McCarthy, who over a drink in the Lamplighter bar at the bottom floor of the hotel, admitted to a reporter that he did not have a list of communists in America; President Harry Truman and many others. The Sky Room at the top of the Mapes was a famous nightclub and stage where many of the biggest singers and entertainers of the time such as Frank Sinatra, Jimmy Durante and Milton Berle performed; at one point, Sammy Davis, Jr. performed there but was prohibited from staying in the hotel due to segregation. During location shooting for the television series, Bonanza. Many guest stars would reside at the Mapes. In 1959, Jack Carson appeared on Bonanza, while doing shows in the Sky Room. It was memorably showcased in a 1961 episode of Route 66, guest starring Walter Matthau. During the 1970's Joe Conforte paid a percentage to Mapes Hotel bell men as they directed clients to his Mustang Ranch.

"The Mapes thrived throughout the 1960s and 1970s but began to face problems competing with more modern casino/hotels in Reno in the 1980s. The Casino closed on December 17, 1982 because of financial difficulties the Mapes family faced after the recession of 1981, and the failure of their other casino in Reno, the Money Tree. The building was allowed to decay as many different owners took possession of the building with plans to revive the casino/hotel, all of which failed. Finally, the Reno Redevelopment Agency took possession of the building in 1996. Despite being listed on the National Register of Historic Places and in the face of much local protest, the city of Reno condemned the building and demolished it on January 30, 2000.

"Nothing was done with the lot until the winter of 2001, when an ice rink was put in at the site. The ice rink was set up at the site each winter until 2004, when a park was temporarily put on the lot. Currently, the former Mapes site has been made into a permanent outdoor skating rink."

Starlets, singers, money, gambling... and it all adds up to murder!

So this guy was a hotel family heir and could live the bachelor artist life in a hotel suite...wonder if the fact that he was found naked points to yet another "older-rich-guy-picks-up-hustler-and-gets-offed-for-drug-money" situation.
And I wonder if the cops tried to trace the murder weapon and it led them to....Oceanic Arts, possibly? Actually, I don't think O.A. ever made the shark tooth studded clubs, such as the weapon in question seems to have been, much like the magnificent war clubs offered here by JohnnyP recently:

Ann Rule needs to write the true crime novel...

Good point Sven, there could only have been a very small number of people making war club repros pre 1965?

What really stands out for me is how suspicious Willard the hotel guy looks. He was in there "fixing a leaky faucet" and had no idea that Robinson was dead? Or was he an estranged lover who was washing the blood of his hands...

still there, nice place

If the police were to trace the murder weapon, they would probably find it was purchased by... Oscar Mapes Robinson. The only logical conclusion then is that Robinson murdered himself! (or that the murderer used a weapon that was already on hand, a warning to those who keep war clubs as decorations)

I was looking up Oscar Mapes Robinson and found your article. Oscar was the homosexual son of George and Echo Mapes Robinson. I knew George, I used to call him Uncle George although he was not a real uncle.

It is obviously Bob Crane's killer.

I also immediately thought it was a homosexual homicide before seeing the post just prior to mine - kind of like that murder committed by a saudi prince currently in the news.

On 2010-10-21 19:52, martian-tiki wrote:
I also immediately thought it was a homosexual homicide before seeing the post just prior to mine - kind of like that murder committed by a saudi prince currently in the news.

Well, there have been several cases of artistically talented, well-to-do gays who had a weakness for low life hustlers who did them in, like film director Paolo Pasolini, and fashion designer Gianni Versace.

On 2010-10-21 19:03, jama wrote:
I was looking up Oscar Mapes Robinson and found your article. Oscar was the homosexual son of George and Echo Mapes Robinson. I knew George, I used to call him Uncle George although he was not a real uncle.

In case you sign on again here, Jama - I am wondering about two things, and you might not have any answers, since you knew the father, not the son, but:

Do you have any idea why Oscar's apartment was decorated Polynesian-style? ...and

Was Oscar really an artist, and if so, what was his art like?

Hmmmm....clubbed to death....It was GROG !!!!

An ebay vendor is selling a news clipping that has an image of the victim, Oscar Mapes Robinson.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/1965-Press-Photo-Artist-Murder-Victim-Oscar-Mapes-Robinson-/261011148689

Another news article says that Robinson was a former Art Instructor at Yale, where he went to college - he also received a Master degree from Columbia.

Thanks for posting this, Vern, I got it. No idea where and if I can use it in future projects, but if nothing else, it's an interesting example of how prevalent South Seas decor was at the time. Maybe some day photos of the pad will surface. It is amazing what has been popping up on e-bay recently from bought-up newspaper archives...

Was reading this thread with great interest, intrigued by all the mystery. Clicked on the link Vern posted and thought "Wow, that sold fast, must have been picked up by the murderer!!!" :lol: