|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
Annabelle Garcia and her husband Joseph (a machinist for Southern Pacific in Bayshore City) lived in a house on Redwood Avenue in the summer of 1938. But there were problems within the home.
On July 8, firemen responded to a fire alarm in the Garcia home. It would later be determined that the fire was actually three fires: one on the living room couch, one in the bathroom, and one involving the kitchen curtains. The Redwood City Tribune reported: “Firemen were able to extinguish the blaze before more than about $500 ($10,550 in today’s money) worth of damage had been done.”
The police didn’t have to think hard to determine that it was a case of arson, and officer Clyde Genochio confronted Annabelle as she sat on the sidewalk in front of the blazing house. She admitted to setting the fires and gave her motive as they were in response to an argument she had had with Joseph. She was taken into custody and questioned the following day as to the events surrounding the fire, but at that point, she claimed not to be able to remember what had happened.
At a judicial hearing, Genochio was questioned in depth about his initial interactions with Annabelle. Her lawyer tried to get his testimony blocked on the grounds that Annabelle was “not rational” at the time Genochio first spoke to her, but the judge allowed the officer’s statements. Genochio stated that Annabelle was intoxicated when he first spoke to her outside the house but that she could walk and get in and out of a car without assistance. Apparently, this was not the first time Annabelle had crossed paths with the law. She had been “a source of trouble for some time to the police department…” and had a history of destroying valuable items in the home. She had once even sold the family’s furniture when her husband Joseph was away. But no arrests had ever been made because Joseph had never signed a formal complaint.
The Redwood City Tribune reported an abrupt end to the legal proceedings that day: “Mrs. Garcia fainted at 3 p.m. and the hearing was continued to (the next) afternoon.”
Charges were filed that could have resulted in a 2 – 5 year prison term; instead, she was committed to Agnews State Hospital for a six-month alcoholism treatment program. Deputy District Attorney Burress Karmel said that the criminal charges would be dropped if she completed that program.
I could find no further mention of Annabelle in my newspaper archive files, so I can only presume that she successfully completed the treatment program and had no further brushes with the law.
Atherton police arrest two men for allegedly trying to meet up with a 14-year-old for sexApril 3, 2026 10:38 am
Redwood City attorney sues ‘First Amendment auditors’ after Menlo Park disputeApril 2, 2026 11:31 am