In summer 1956, a bit of criminal history was made in a parlor on Madison Avenue, at precisely the moment when two women cracked open an egg and peered at its contents. There was no yolk, but instead, something sinister: a tiny head, with horns, eyebrows and a black goatee. One of the women, a wealthy widow, recoiled in horror. The other, Volga Adams, in her mid-30s and known as a gypsy princess in New York City, said, “There is evil in you.” The appearance of the devil head kicked off what the police and prosecutors would later describe as the largest “gypsy swindle” that either agency knew of at the time. Back then, the Police Department had a Pickpocket and Confidence Squad, and a detective in that unit, Allen Gore, spent a decade tracking and investigating psychics. He kept index cards on every one he encountered, jotting down addresses and license plate numbers. He learned exotic terms, like “ofisa” for parlor. He had seen plenty of cases of devils’ heads in eggshells. “Volga’s ofisa was a small storefront with the name Madam Lillian painted on the window with a large drawing of a hand, palm facing out,” Mr. Gore wrote in an e-mail this week. The widow, Frances Friedman of the Upper West Side, had stopped in on a lark for a horoscope reading one day, but returned to speak to Ms. Adams about everything from her husband’s death to the new rash on her granddaughter’s face. Ms. Adams said her husband’s wealth was a source of evil and instructed her to bring her an awful lot of evil for prompt curse removal. One dead chicken and a puff of smoke later, $108,273 in cash had disappeared, prosecutors said. Ms. Friedman parted with another $10,000 a few years later, but eventually she had second thoughts. By the time she turned to the police, though, Ms. Adams was gone. “Melody Lane,” Mr. Gore recalled. “Birmingham, Alabama.” He boarded a flight with the victim, and arrived in Alabama to a chilly reception. The psychic was fighting extradition, with some powerful help. An Arkansas state senator and a Mississippi police chief filed depositions swearing that when the New York crimes had taken place, Ms. Adams had been in Arkansas and in Mississippi. The prosecutor handling the case and the lawyer defending Ms. Adams happened to be father and son. The State of Alabama granted Ms. Adams asylum. Detective Gore returned to New York empty-handed. Months later, however, Ms. Adams traveled to Tallahassee, Fla., and was arrested there. This time, the extradition effort succeeded. The Florida papers published a picture of a weeping Ms. Adams clutching a toddler son. In New York, reporters met her airplane, with Detective Gore leading her out. The trial began in 1962. Jurors heard how Ms. Adams had placed some of Ms. Friedman’s money in a bag, followed by a live chicken. If the chicken dies, the money is cursed, she had explained, surreptitiously wringing the chicken’s neck and, with the other hand, squeezing the bird’s heart until it ruptured. A prosecutor handed jurors a plastic head of a devil, “the kind of charm that children get out of penny or nickel gum machines,” The New York Times reported. The prosecution considered calling as a witness a magician, Richard Himber, to re-enact the sleight of hand used to insert the head in an eggshell. Detective Gore sucked the yolk out of half-a-dozen eggs for the demonstration. “I hit one double yolk and I thought I’d die,” he joked during the trial. Ms. Adams took the stand and denied the charges. “A lot of gypsies look like me,” she testified. A jury failed to reach a verdict. Ms. Adams, facing a new trial in 1963, pleaded guilty to a lesser larceny charge. She also p laced a curse on the prosecutor, Burton B. Roberts, a 40-year-old bachelor. “No woman will ever love him,” Ms. Adams said. Detective Gore was promoted out of the Pickpocket Squad in 1963, and the so-called gypsies reportedly held parties to celebrate. He said he had received mocking congratulatory calls at the station house from as far as California. Today he is an 85-year-old grandfather of three in Maryland. During a visit to New York, he noticed stories about recent arrests of psychics, and so he sent an e-mail about his own story. Ms. Adams was given a suspended sentence and left New York. The prosecutor, Mr. Roberts, remained single for more than 18 years. When he married at age 59, he became annoyed when reporters asked if that meant the curse was broken.
Posted on: Mon, 11 Aug 2014 08:59:57 +0000
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