Witnesses Alice Blake and Zey Prevost did not say that they saw Rappe rip her clothing off. They said that when they entered the bedroom they saw Rappe pulling at the clothing at her waist. This behavior might have been the precursor to one of those incidents for which Rappe is well known–or perhaps she was trying to loosen the clothing around her waist because one of her major organs had just exploded and her abdomen had distended suddenly and painfully.

In any event, a propensity for ripping clothing after drinking does not satisfactorily explain a bladder rupture. Although it does argue phenomenal upper body strength.

I agree about St. Johns’ unreliability. However, the first person to make the claim was Rappe’s own manager who testified under oath to her propensity for tearing off her clothes at parties. See New York Times, Nov. 22, 1921.

Read a biography of Arbuckle. He never told anything to a ‘manservant’.

Jerry Stahl based his book on the biographies and newspaper accounts but added a lot of material. It’s called ‘dramatic license’.

“I, Fatty” is a novel. It is fiction. Arbuckle wrote nothing about the case.

However, injury by catheter can almost certainly be ruled out. Catheterization took place at about 4:00 am the morning of September 6, about twelve hours after Rappe began giving abundant evidence that something was radically wrong. According to medical testimony catheterization was effected without incident; the catheter itself was submitted into evidence. None of the physicians who testified (this includes doctors who treated her when she was alive, those who were present at autopsy, those who performed the later pathological exam of her bladder ordered by the court, and both prosecution *and defense* expert witnesses) ever suggested that a catheterization mishap was responsible for the bladder rupture.

Arbuckle’s attorneys never questioned the fact that Rappe’s bladder ruptured during the time when she was behind closed (and locked) doors with Arbuckle. Their position was that absolutely no accident of any kind took place and that Rappe’s bladder ruptured spontaneously due to her allegedly diseased state.

As to the allegation of quackery (and I assume you derive that idea from Edmonds book?), all I can say is that Edmonds’ definition of quack is different from mine. All the doctors involved in her care were well respected; many were prominent. I can list their extensive qualifications if anyone is interested.

Why was Rappe not taken to a hospital immediately? I don’t know. All I can do is speculate based upon available evidence. But I will point out that the time of hospitalization isn’t germane to the cause of the bladder rupture.

As for Edmonds’ story about the knee in the gut; Edmonds states she was told this story by comic Joe Rock, and that Rock claimed that he got that version of events directly from Arbuckle. The story is a little strange. It is not in the least exculpatory and neither Rock nor Edmonds thought the scenario through to its logical conclusion. If Arbuckle did, in fact, accidentally knee Rappe in the abdomen, he never said a word about it to anyone at the time, including the doctors. If Rappe died as the result of that alleged blow, his silence constituted manifest negligence, and ergo, he would be guilty of manslaughter. And since Arbuckle never mentioned this incident while on the witness stand, Edmonds is implying that he lied under oath–which is perjury. I think that Mr. Rock was yanking someone’s chain.

As to the clothes-tearing story…the main source for that information is the spectacularly unreliable Adela Rogers St. Johns. YMMV.

The drinking and the fall could have done it. There was also one report that Arbuckle accidentally kneed the girl in the abdomen when she tickled him (FRAMED! by Andy Edmonds.)

There were several ways her bladder could have ruptured; the girl was also catheterized by some quack doctors. I would like to know more than anything why she wasn’t taken to a hospital when she showed obvious signs of a surgical abdomen (hardness, thick blood in urine.)

Forensic evidence definitely ruled out rape (and any kind of previous surgery), but an autopsy performed four days after the event would not necessarily produce evidence of consensual sex. Arbuckle, however, entered room 1219 anywhere from 20 minutes to a half an hour after Rappe did, so if he was consumed with overwhelming lust it took him a while to figure it out. Pathological exam on Rappe’s bladder showed evidence of cystitic inflammation, so the reason she entered room 1219 is because she really, really wanted to pee. It’s not the most erotic scenario…unless you are *very* strange, and if you are Andre will just yank your response, so don’t bother. But I think we can safely conclude that neither party entered the room to get frisky.

You can read about bladder ruptures here: http://www.emedicine.com/med/topic2856.htm

From that article: “Frequency of bladder rupture varies according to the following mechanisms of injury:

External trauma (82%) (car accident, fall, kicked in the gut, shot, or stabbed)
Iatrogenic (14%) (surgical or other medical screwup)
Intoxication (2.9%) (usually means the drunk doesn’t remember the blunt force trauma)
Spontaneous (<1%) (bladder just explodes for hell of it, statistically insignificant or not bloody likely, pal)

Of all bladder injuries, 60-85% are from blunt trauma and 15-40% are from a penetrating injury. The most common mechanisms of blunt trauma are motor vehicle accidents (87%), falls (7%), and assaults (6%). In penetrating traumas, the most frequent culprit is gunshot wounds (85%), followed by stabbings (15%).

We can rule out the car accident, gunshot, stabbing, and surgical screwup. In other words, while there might be other explanations, the overwhelmingly likely reason that Rappe’s bladder ruptured is that she somehow got clocked in the abdomen.

1: Dunno, working on it! No publisher yet.
2. Yes.

I have found not a shred of evidence that Matthew Brady prosecuted the case because of his gubernatorial ambitions; as we have excellent, if tiresome, reasons to know, nothing is more visible than political ambitions. The next California gubernatorial election was in November 1922; Republican Friend Richardson was elected to the office. Matthew Brady did not run for governor then, nor did he ever; he remained District Attorney of the city and county of San Francisco for 24 years. There is also no evidence that the prosecution ever considered the case a capital one, nor did they give any indications they were seeking the death penalty.

The coke bottle rumor developed long after the actual events occurred; no mention of a bottle of any type occurs in any of the news reports, including the legendary Hearst coverage. And only the third trial jury handed down an acquittal; the first two ended in hung juries.

Joan Myers’ book should be coming out in the next couple of years.