LOST VEGAS: The Casino Pioneer Whose Mob Ties Got His Mother-in-Law Killed

The Burbank Police Department still calls it “one of the most infamous crimes in the city.” It inspired two books, an Oscar‑winning Susan Hayward movie, and three executions — including one of a woman who didn’t deserve it. And the brutal 1953 slaying of 64‑year‑old widow Mabel Monahan only happened because Las Vegas casino pioneer Luther B. “Tutor” Scherer had the kind of underworld friends who mistook his friendly visits to his ex‑mother‑in‑law’s house for stashing the proceeds of Las Vegas casino skims there. Tutor Scherer, center, poses with Desert Inn frontman Wilbur Clark, from left, Nevada Lt. Governor Cliff Jones, Cleveland mobster and Desert Inn part-owner Morris Kleinman, and Clark County Commissioner Jack Petitti. (Image: UNLV Special Collections) Like many Las Vegas casino pioneers, Scherer began his gaming career on the wrong side of the law. His résumé included floating casinos, underground downtown gambling clubs and black‑market bookmaking rings. But gambling in L.A. was gangster Mickey Cohen’s racket. And when his enforcers began dialing up the heat, Scherer skipped town. Going Legit Vegas Vic shortly after its installation atop Scherer’s Pioneer Club. (Image: UNLV Special Collections) In Las Vegas, Scherer legally operated El Rancho Vegas and co-owned the Las Vegas Club and Pioneer Club, over which he commissioned what proved to be the second most famous sign in a town famous for signs — Vegas Vic. Scherer returned to L.A. often, though, and whenever he did, he usually visited the mother of his second wife. Scherer had always enjoyed the company of Monahan, a former vaudeville veteran who performed as a palm reader named Madam Martinez. She lived alone in the Burbank ranch house Scherer had left to her daughter, Iris, in their divorce. (Iris didn’t want it — a preference that very likely saved her life.) “Some of the crooks who’d worked for Tutor before he decamped to Las Vegas probably noticed he was visiting Mabel… and surmised he was hiding cash in her house,” Marcia Clark told the Mob Museum’s Larry Henry last year. Clark — the former O.J. Simpson prosecutor — wrote the 2024 book Trial By Ambush about Monahan’s slaying.) Worst Housewarming Gift Ever On March 9, 1953, a home‑invasion crew stormed Monahan’s house looking for a mythical safe full of Vegas skim. Monahan was badly beaten and then strangled to death. The crime scene was so gruesome, even hardened cops needed a minute. But Monahan wasn’t the only innocent victim of Scherer’s criminal past. Emmett Perkins, Jack Santo, John True, and safecracker Baxter Shorter brought along Barbara Graham, a 29‑year‑old heroin user, petty criminal, and dice‑game shill whose life had been one long collision with bad luck and worse men. Graham’s job was simple: knock on the door and look harmless enough to get Monahan to open it. In 1955, Barbara Graham became the third woman executed in a California gas chamber. (Image: California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation) “Mabel was well known to be very security conscious, and she would never have opened her door to a strange man at night,” Clark said. “Barbara, on the other hand, who was petite — 5 foot 3, 120 pounds and pretty — was a different story.”Graham claimed her car had broken down and asked Monahan to use the phone. When Graham opened the door, True shoved his way in behind Graham. Another Undeserved Death “Barbara was basically a bystander and the men actually killed Mabel,” Clark said. Her presence at the scene was grounds for a murder conviction, but probably not the death penalty. Yet the prosecution, led by J. Miller “Gas Chamber” Leavy, went after Graham like she was the ringleader. True, who flipped for immunity, claimed she was the one who pistol‑whipped Monahan. Jailhouse acquaintance Donna Prow set Graham up with a fake‑alibi sting. Evidence was twisted, witnesses vanished, and the press turned Graham into a pulp‑fiction villain named “Bloody Babs.”Portraying Graham with the sympathy she never received in court won Hayward the Best Actress Oscar in 1959 for I Want to Live! Graham was executed — along with Perkins and Santo — by cyanide gas at San Quentin on June 3, 1955. Shorter vanished — likely murdered for talking. The only person who walked away clean was True, the prosecution’s star witness. Scherer Luck Scherer and his third wife, LaVeeda Varley, are photographed at their July 1951 wedding. Those smiles would not last. (Image: Las Vegas News Bureau) Scherer was questioned about the murder but was never a suspect. “I’m sorry as hell Mabel got knocked off,” he told reporters. “We always got along swell, even after the divorce.” He continued both his lucky streak in Las Vegas casinos and his unlucky one in love. LaVeeda Varley — one of the most recognizable models in early Las Vegas history — caught him cheating three weeks before their first wedding anniversary and fired a bullet into his leg.Scherer died of a heart attack on Aug. 19, 1957, leaving behind four wives, a famous sign, a street named after him – Scherer Street, near Ansan Sister City Park — and a trail of death. “Lost Vegas” is an occasional Casino.org series spotlighting Las Vegas’ forgotten history. Click here to read other entries in the series. Think you know a good Vegas story lost to history? Email corey@casino.org. The post LOST VEGAS: The Casino Pioneer Whose Mob Ties Got His Mother-in-Law Killed appeared first on Casino.org.