I discovered this 1917 murder case from Emily Leider's
biography of silent film star Rudolph Valentino. Leider's book spends a few
juicy pages on a scandalous episode from his past. Before he was famous, when
he was just a two-bit tango dancer entertaining New York high-society ladies at
tea parties and gala banquets, Valentino danced with Blanca de Saulles. He
testified at Jack and Blanca's divorce hearing and left New York for Hollywood
soon afterwards.
Blanca gunned down her ex-husband in cold blood, in front of
witnesses. A jury declared her "not guilty." It all seemed so
bizarre. Unlike Lizzie Borden or even O.J. Simpson, there was no doubt that she
shot Jack. Yet she strolled away free and regained full custody of her young
son.
Their tragic, deadly love story had all the glamour of The
Great Gatsby and the Titanic. Yet
their names have been mostly forgotten. I felt there had to be more to the
story.
- What is the truth? What really happened?
- Who were these people? What sort of man was Jack de Saulles?
Was he really a womanizing scoundrel who deserved what he got?
- How did the victim's public image turn upside-down so
quickly? How did a popular ex-college football star transform into the villain
of his own murder?
- What sort of woman was Blanca Errazuriz? How did a dainty,
high society lady turn into a cold-blooded killer?
I started with historical newspapers. I pieced together a
timeline, and then I dove deeper. And deeper. And deeper.
Research is like archaeology--there is always more
underneath the surface. Even though I am not blood-related to anyone involved,
I used my genealogy skills to go far beyond the newspapers' narrative. I got
excited to scrape up rare photographs or forgotten documents that no other
researcher has bothered to find. I've spend hundreds of hours excavating
snippets on Google Books, on ProQuest, on WorldCat, and on Link+ to acquire
rare and out-of-print books. I corresponded with the Library of Congress, Yale University,
and the clerk at the courthouse where the trial took place. Thanks to
translation software, I could correspond with the tourist information bureau in
Blanca's hometown. Anything that had their name on it, I had to have it! By
now, I have filled a crate with books, 3-ring binders, and photographs.
What is my favorite piece? It's a tie.
One is a used out-of-print book published in 1916 (the year
before the shooting) where Jack wrote some first-person anecdotes about his
golden days as a college football star. Along with another football instruction
manual published 10 years earlier, these are Jack's own words unfiltered.
The other is when I emailed a reference librarian at the
Library of Congress about Blanca de Saulles, he retrieved a box of un-catalogued
photographs from off-site storage. A newspaper had gone out of business, he
wrote, and just dumped their collection of clippings and marked-up photographs
on the LoC. These are images that no one has seen in 100 years.
In the end, I never could decide if I was on Team Jack or
Team Blanca. While writing up the narrative, my loyalties shifted either way from
day to day. In the end, I had pity for both of them. It's such a heartbreaking
tale all around.
