There were two major accidents in Aimee’s life. The first one was a vicious attack on her dignity and the second one was her death, which was by all means impossible. The mass media portrayed McPherson as guilty of immorality before even the trial begins. The press was fixed on one thing: McPherson’s wrongdoing. Nobody talked about the perjured witnesses. The court discredited the prosecution’s evidence one by one, but people were unaware of it. Thick headlines accused Sister Aimee of evident guilt while the guilt did not exist, and the case was dropped for lack of evidence. Years after the event, the vicious media still talks with the same headlines while liar witnesses and the dismissal of the case remain in back columns. I still hear prominent evangelists talk compassionately about McPherson and her greatness but ask people for forgiveness of her wrongdoing that never existed.

Attorney Mencken, the only kind personage in her trial wrote:  “The trial, indeed, was an orgy typical of the half-fabulous California courts. The very officers of justice denounced her riotously in the Hearst papers while it was in progress.”

When Aimee mysteriously died in 1944, over 50,000 mourners lined up to pay their respects.

Today her legacy, Angelus Temple has more than 6 million members in more than 50,000 congregations around the world.

The Kidnapping

On May 18, 1926, Aimee McPherson disappeared from Venice Beach in California. Three men died in search of her body in Ocean Park beach. While the whole congregation was mourning for her disappearance, she reappeared five months later in Mexico collapsing before a Mexican couple. The couple brought her inside their house and covered her with blankets. After informing the authorities in Agua Prieta, Ernesto Boubion, Prieta’s president came to visit her. Boubion later said McPherson grasped his wrist, trembled violently, and asked where she was. Boubion also said she was agitated and abstained from food and drink. McPherson asked Boubion to take her to the American police and told him that she had been kidnapped, drugged, tortured, and held for ransom in a shack by two men and a woman, “Steve,” “Rose,” and another unnamed man. While a fourth man named Phillipe visited the kidnapper group.

McPherson stated she had run away from her kidnappers. The Mexican couple transported Sister Aimee to Douglas Arizona police station and then to the hospital, but nobody believed that she was the missing celebrity evangelist of the Angelus Temple. Boubion stated that she was emaciated and barely recognizable.  Finally, a reporter who previously had covered Aimee’s revival sermons recognized her, and Los Angeles authorities took a train to see her.

When asked by the authorities in the hospital, Aimee explained: while she was on the beach near Los Angeles, a young couple approached and asked her to come to pray for their sick child. When she went with them and looked in on the bundle in the back seat of an automobile, they shoved her into their car. At the same time, a cloth was held over her face loaded with chloroform. After awakening, she was no longer clothed in her bathing suit and was wearing a dress. A woman named “Rose,” who displayed professional nursing skills looked after her. She was first held in a house in an urban area before the kidnappers transfer her into Mexico. The offenders tried to obtain personal information from her, so they can prove the kidnapping to her mother and ask for money. Therefore, they burned her hand with a cigar. One day Aimee cut her bonds on a metal can lid. Aimee later performed the escape before the officers, and climbed out the shack’s back window. She navigated using a mountain to mark north and the lights of the city in the evening. Terrified of barking dogs , she entered the yard of a Mexican couple, R. R. Gonzales and his wife. Her story was transcribed across telegraph and phone lines becoming front-page international news. At her return to Los Angeles, 50,000 were waiting to welcome her home. No American president until that day had received such warm reception.

But some entities could not stand her return. Within them, we can name the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce, clergies of the traditional church mainly Robert Schuler (the Los Angeles Church Federation), the Babbit’s (the power elite of the city of Los Angeles), and more importantly; the Bohemian Groove. Meanwhile, as usual, the media had become the elite’s oblivious tongue of viciousness.

Rumors started to get heat. “She was not kidnapped. She must have run away with some lover.” A divorced woman preacher is a fertilized soil to plant any controversy. Her radio manager Kenneth G. Ormiston, who had left Los Angeles over five months before the kidnapping became the object of rumors. Aimee must have been with him in some hidden motel all this time. The man was divorced, Aimee was divorced and nobody asked why did they need to run away to be together when they could easily stay and marry if there was anything between them. Or why couldn’t they be together when they were alone in the studio all day.

Kenneth G. Ormiston

The whisperers and sorcerers just talked and talked and didn’t stop there. The rumors put these two in bed in a cottage and created many witnesses who had seen all kinds of women in that cottage from blond to 24-year-old reddish girls but not real Aimee. Besides, while Aimee’s mother had offered a $25,000 reward for whoever had any news from Aimee, given 25,000 was a big money at that time, why didn’t nobody report his discovery during her disappearance and claim his reward??

The continuous rumors motivated McPherson to present a complaint to the court, and Judge Carlos Hardy; an influential friend of the Temple and McPherson, did so on behalf of her. McPherson files a complaint to find her kidnappers and be vindicated but, the trial goes the opposite direction right from the beginning. A once gateway to find Aimee’s kidnappers becomes her moral trial. Instead of making efforts to find the kidnappers and hear her claim, she became the accused of the trial with nobody being her accuser but the later convicted felon Los Angeles District Attorney Asa Keyes. A man, who was warmly received in the temple before the sham ever begins. McPherson’s legs and dresses became the subject of trial.

Instead of examining the shack where she was held, Keyes examined Aimee’s shoes and dresses, ignoring her kidnapping story right from the beginning. He actually played the role of kidnapper’s attorney. There were several phases of grand jury inquiries regarding McPherson, all conducted by him. While the inquiry was about charging Steve Doe, Rose Doe, and John Doe, instead McPherson was being interrogated from a viewpoint of hostile skepticism. Calling her a charlatan, Keyes then claimed that the kidnapping story was all made up to elicit money. Not being enough, he even questioned her sanity, claiming she could be suffering from amnesia. Nobody was charged at the first inquiry.

During the second inquiry, the Carmel-by-the-Sea story came up where the court put Aimee and her radio manager in a bed in a cottage in Carmel-by-the-sea and it didn’t go so far because the witness lied and perjured herself. Then the cottage was searched for Aimee’s fingerprints and there was none. It was just like McPherson was a murderer and the disgraced attorney was focused to prove her crime.

After that two mysterious grocery slips were found in the cottage yard. Interestingly they were left there for two months and more interestingly Asa Keyes insisted that they are Aimee’s handwritten but when asked by the court to present the evidence, the slips were suddenly lost and their strongly doctored photograph was instead at hand so the court rejected them.

It is hilarious how two grocery slips assumingly with Aimee’s handwriting were left in the yard for two entire months surviving dew, fog, and lawn but instantly disappeared as they should have been presented in court. Keyes was determined to fit Aimee in that cottage scenario in any possible way but without fingerprints, his plan had no fruit. Keyes himself said that the cottage story “had blown up” and there was no cure for it.

Before the trial began the kidnappers who have heard about the $25,000 reward offered by Aimee’s mother contacted Attorney Russell A. McKinley. They chose him because he was blind. The two men went to McKinley saying McPherson was their captive and that they wanted him to be the go-between in trading her for $25,000. But at the time Aimee had already escaped. McKinley met Aimee and her mother and presented them a photo which Aimee immediately identified as “Steve,” one of the kidnappers. The picture belonged to Joe Watt, a local youth. The kidnappers continued to contact McKinley even after the escape and McKinley was focused to trap them. On Aug 25, McKinley convinced Watt to call McPherson and after he did so, Aimee immediately identified his voice as “Steve; the main kidnapper.”

After this progress, Attorney McKinley was supposed to present the new evidence in court tomorrow on Aug 26 but, he was killed by a car the same night before the court.

His death was a blow to the whole case. Nobody else was in contact with the kidnappers.

His secretary Bernice Morris was terrified. She was approached by a LA detective (his name was not mentioned in court’s depositions) and threatened her to be on the front page of every newspaper because of her lesbian relationship with an 18-year-old girl living with her. She appeared in the court and testified that McKinley had fabricated the photo and phone call and even had confessed to her that he (McKinley) believed that the kidnapping story is a ruse.

Attorney McKinley and his secretary Bernice Morris

So, if we are to believe the 26 year old secretary then her boss was a liar, a cheater and insane because McKinley contacts the kidnappers, contacts McPherson but then “confesses” to a 26 year old secretary that he does not believe in kidnapping. He brings a photo of the kidnapper but “confesses” to the young secretary that it is fabricated but as soon as he decides to take the “fabricated” photo to the court, he dies in an accident. Well it seems more than a joke than a serious legal matter. Besides I looked for his reputation and not surprisingly,  the blind attorney McKinley was one of the most trusted attorneys in Los Angeles with a very good reputation so let that sink.

The girl was a total sham but, no media questioned her. Her testimony was aligned with their headlines, and that was enough. Nobody even questioned the mysterious death of the blind attorney one night before developing the evidence in favor of Aimee McPherson.

Now when the case was over and there was no shred of evidence against McPherson, Keyes, who was annoyed and dissatisfied, closed the case, and all charges were cleared as the normal continuance of a vague that ruined names and sold newspapers. But even then, the rumors begin about him being bribed by the same Aimee to end the trial. It is stunning how far the mockingbird media can go. They just continue and continue when they are dissatisfied with the lack of substance to their claims, so they create new claims. As soon as the trial ended in 1928 (which took place from 1926 to 1928), Asa Keyes was condemned in another case of bribery where he had received from Julian Petroleum Corporation.

The man was phony and stinky. His strings were pulled by the California elites and the Bohemian groove. There was no other reason for him to persist in prosecuting a woman who had committed no crime and had no accuser. Unlike Aimee McPherson, Asa Keyes was not “publicly exonerated of all suspicion of venality” in connection with the dismissal. McPherson had to endure a two-year humiliation when the discussion was primarily about her hair, legs, and morals. The false witnesses even fabricated an abortion story, claiming they have seen two nurses at Carmel by the Sea. Little they have known that years ago McPherson had been taken under surgery and could never have another baby. Los Angeles time was the champion of dishonesty and mayhem during and after her trial. The defamation was set up to ruin Aimee’s career but she was determined to flourish again. Although they tried to catch her changing her story, even the Jury was totally convinced that Aimee McPherson had never changed her story or details. She had never forgotten or contradicted any part. Aimee had never dismissed her kidnapping. She firmly proclaimed all her statements until the last day of her life. She moved on.

Ordinary people did not know that witnesses and all the evidence have become discredited because the headlines of the press included only the accusations with prominence while discredited witnesses and their serious credibility issues were hidden in back columns. The press was exceedingly earning from the accusation headlines and months of unfavorable headlines fixed in much of the public’s mind a certainty of McPherson’s guilt. Today, knowing the mockingbird media very well, we can picture what really happened in McPherson’s case. The Los Angeles-area newspapers have in fact invested $500,000 to keep the controversy alive regardless of the court’s decision to clear her and discredit the accusations. 

Aimee’s supporters believed she should have insisted on the jury trial and clear her name but, the Court costs were estimated at around $100,000, and a jury trial could take months. Aimee had already lost a lot of time, and she had other plans. She wrote her book “In the Service of the King: The Story of My Life” and the kidnapping was part of it. Perhaps not asking another jury trial was her biggest mistake but, that was her, and she absolutely didn’t care about involving herself again in another legal mess just to clear her name.

Aftermath and her last 18 years following the trial

After her triumph, the media as we already mentioned and had funded the scandal continued to magnify any family problem in Aimee’s household. So if she had problems with her mother, husband, or children, it was on the front page but, they had no interest to cover her faith healings anymore. However, people loved her. Movie studios started to offer her roles playing her story but she dismissed them. Amie did not care about any of these distractions. She had to find a way to overrun the trial destruction so, she lost weight, cut and dyed her hair, and removed her trademark uniform of a navy cape over a white servant’s dress, and started a “vindication tour”, using the publicity given by the hostile press to preach the gospel.

In a revolutionary act, she visited nightclubs asked for a moment of silence and preached: “Behind all these beautiful clothes, behind these good times, in the midst of your lovely buildings and shops and pleasures, there is another life. There is something on the other side. What shall it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and lose his own soul? With all your getting and playing and good times, do not forget you have a Lord. Take Him into your hearts.” The nightclub crowds erupted, they applauded her, and gave her an ovation standing. This creative action added to her notoriety; The mockingbird media was not happy and suggested she was drinking, smoking and dancing in nightclubs. But she could care less and introduced her moving “Attar of Roses” sermon, based on the Song of Solomon, with its Rose of Sharon as the mystical Body of Christ, which Bible scholars found it amazing Neoplatonic interpretation.

She then moved for the revival in Boston. On opening night, she could fill only 5,000 seats of the 22,000-seat sports arena. So the same night, from her hotel room, Aimee asked for the afternoon’s World Series scores, and a Boston Herald reporter sent her a copy of the Sunday edition. The next day, all the seats were full with people who have learned she loves sports. Aimee preached: “Our God is dramatic,… rolling back the Red Sea,… Elijah on the mountaintop,… the crucifixion, the resurrection, His ascension,… tongues of fire on the day of Pentecost.” The next day 40,000 persons were attending having not enough seats in the stadium. She just couldn’t leave the media with no food for their gossip.

She went to visit Mahatma Gandhi in India and received a sari made from threads woven from his simple spinning wheel. Then she traversed barefoot, in Myanmar and preached the gospel to the preachers of Buddha!

Aimee heard Benito Mussolini speaking in Italy and understood that there will be war again so on a rainy day, while she was passing from France, she sat on a wrecked military vehicle in Verdun to mourn for hundreds of thousands whose bodies and bones were still on the battlefield.

She came back to America and organized a delegation with the followers of the Azusa Street Revival. Together with African American Evangelist Emma Cotton, McPherson, therefore, organized a series of meetings which were somehow her reidentification with the Pentecostal roots. This move brought black leaders to her pulpit. The original attendees of the Azusa revivals filled the Angelus Temple along with every ethnic minority. Aimee loved this. She hated the Angelus Temple to become too churchy. Uniting with the Azusa street leaders she felt rewelded, and rejuvenated. And began to publicly speak in tongues. Later another Black leader of Azusa street joined them. Charles H. Mason, a founder of the Churches of God in Christ.

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Her Death

Her ministry was recovered during the war and after. She was strong and super creative but, then one night, after a very successful sermon she went in her bed and never woke up.