Murder Victim. Originally a vaudeville trouper and professional ice skater who toured with her husband on the Orpheum circuit, she aged into a frail, elderly widow who lived by herself in a ranch home in Burbank, California. Rumors through the criminal grapevine stated that her ex-son-in-law, a Las Vegas gambler, had given her thousands of dollars to store for him in a safe inside the house. Emmet Perkins, Jack Santo, John True, Baxter Shorter, and Emmet's girlfriend, Barbara Graham, decided to invade Mrs. Monohan's home and rob her of the money. Barbara approached the house first and gained entry by telling Mable Monohan that her car broke down and she needed to use her telephone. When she let Barbara in, the rest of the gang barged in behind her and soon had the elderly widow subdued on the floor. They pistol-whipped her and dragged her from room to room, trying to make her reveal the location of the safe. The reality was that there was no safe, which slowly grew apparent to the gang. As Mrs. Monohan moaned in pain, one of the gang members strangled her to death. After all this, the gang left with nothing to show for their brutal efforts. Feeling some remorse, Baxter Shorter made a deal with the police to turn on the others, but the gang caught wind of his betrayal and kidnapped him from his home and presumably murdered him, since he was never seen again. When the police finally captured the rest of the gang, John True then offered to turn state's evidence against the others in exchange for immunity from prosecution. Barbara Graham, Emmet Perkins, and Jack Santo were all found guilty of first degree murder and were executed in the California gas chamber at San Quentin in 1955. As the guard strapped Barbara into the gas chamber chair, he told her that the best way to go was to just take a deep breath. She gave him a sarcastic look and cracked, "How the hell would you know?" The 1958 feature film, "I Want To Live", was made about the case. Susan Hayward won an Oscar for her tough but sympathetic portrayal of Barbara Graham.