Louise Peete’s Biography, Net Worth, Fact, Career, Awards and Life Story
Peete was initially imprisoned at San Quentin State Prison before being transferred to the California Institution for Women in Tehachapi. She was considered a model prisoner, working as a dental assistant, maintaining the prison’s flower garden, and writing for the prison newspaper. After serving eighteen years, Peete was paroled for good behavior in 1939. She was released into the custody of Jessie Marcy, a woman who had lobbied for her release, and began working as her live-in housekeeper. Marcy died of natural causes shortly thereafter. Peete then moved in with her probation officer, Emily Latham, and acted as her nurse and housekeeper. Latham died of a heart attack in 1943. Neither deaths were investigated at length as police were unaware that Peete was the subject of a previously publicized murder case or was on parole. Shortly after her release, Peete had legally changed her name to “Anna Lee”.
After Latham’s death, Peete moved in with Arthur C. Logan and his wife Margaret, an elderly couple who lived in Pacific Palisades. Peete had struck up a friendship with Margaret, a retired social worker, while she was in prison. Margaret believed that Peete was innocent and had also lobbied for her release. The Logans had also cared for Peete’s daughter while she was in prison. Peete worked for the couple as a live-in housekeeper and nurse to Arthur, who was suffering from age-related dementia and had been declared mentally incompetent. Around this time, on May 2, 1944, Peete married banker Lee Borden Judson. Peete did not disclose to Judson that she had been previously imprisoned for murder.
Soon after Peete began working for the Logans, she began telling neighbors that Arthur had fits of rage and physically attacked her and Margaret on several occasions. On June 1, 1944, Margaret disappeared. Three days later, Arthur was committed to Patton State Hospital by Peete, who claimed to be his foster sister. When neighbors began asking about Margaret’s whereabouts, Peete claimed that Arthur had attacked his wife in a frenzy and bitten her nose so severely that she was left disfigured. When Peete’s husband began asking about Margaret’s whereabouts, Peete reiterated that Arthur had attacked his wife and added that Margaret had gone into seclusion to undergo plastic surgery. For the next six months, Peete and her husband continued to live in the Logans’ home. As she had with Denton, Peete began spending the Logans’ money and forging their names on checks. On December 6, 1944, Arthur died while still committed to Patton State Hospital. Peete donated his body to science.
Shortly after Arthur’s death, employees at the Logans’ bank detected one of the forgeries Peete made and called police. While investigating the forgery, police searched the Logan home where Peete and her husband were still living. On December 20, 1944, six months after Margaret disappeared, police discovered her decomposing body buried in a shallow grave under an avocado tree in the backyard. Peete was arrested and charged with murder a few hours after the discovery. During questioning, Peete claimed that Margaret was bludgeoned and shot by her husband during a “homicidal frenzy”. Peete admitted that she buried Margaret but denied killing her. She said she did not report the murder because she feared she would be blamed due to her previous conviction. An autopsy determined that Margaret had been shot in the back of the neck and had sustained a skull fracture.
Judson was also arrested and charged with murder. The couple both maintained their innocence. On January 11, 1945, the murder charge against Judson was dropped due to insufficient evidence and he was released. The following day, he jumped to his death from the ninth floor of the Spring Arcade, an office building in Los Angeles. Upon learning of her husband’s death, Peete wept and told reporters, “I’m to blame for that. […] He couldn’t face disgrace. As long as I was associated with him, he was a marked man.”
