San Jose hanging. A large group of men outside a two story building with bars on the window and many bricks strewn on the ground. It may be that the group was trying to protest by breaking and entering the building as there is a long log on the ground. The men are dressed in business suits and hats. old storage location: J-3-5-12 at collection facility Lynching in San Jose November 1933 On November 9, 1933, Brooke Hart, 22, the son of a wealthy San Jose family and recent graduate of Santa Clara University, disappeared. The next day his family received a phone call from his kidnappers demanding $40,000 for his return. Phone calls and letters were sent from the kidnappers to the Harts for a week demanding the money. At one point the San Jose police suspected Charles "Pretty Boy" Floyd, who was seen in the area. The Hart family also brought in their own investigators. On November 16, 1933, while making another phone call to the Hart home, Harold Thurmond, 28, was arrested in San Francisco. The police caught Thurmond by tapping the Hart phone. Thurmond quickly turned in his accomplice in the kidnapping, John Holmes, 29. Thurmond confessed that he and Holmes had kidnapped Hart, and that Holmes had killed Hart about one hour after they had abducted Hart from his car by smashing the boy's head with a brick. The two men then tied his arms and legs together with wire and weighted him down with bricks and threw his body off the Hayward-San Mateo Bridge. Then the kidnappers drove to a San Francisco speakeasy and made the first of a series of calls to the Hart family, although their first call did not go through. They had been planning the kidnapping for six weeks and according to Thurmond had planned to kill Hart and demand the ransom money anyway. When news of Thrumond's confession reached the public, a large crowd gathered outside the San Jose jail, including several members of Hart's family, talking of lynching the culprits. The San Jose sheriff had Thrumond and Holmes moved to San Francisco jail for safe keeping. Meanwhile, authorities were looking for Hart's body in the Bay in the vicinity around the San Mateo Bridge. Holmes later confessed that Thurmond had killed Hart after stunning him with a punch, tying his arms and legs and dumping him into the Bay. Holmes said Thurmond then shot Hart several times. Both Thurmond and Holmes were taken to the bridge to show authorities where they had dumped Hart's body, both men indicated different spots. Several people were questioned in the case including Mrs. Gertrude S. Estensen a friend of Holmes and his wife, whom Holmes supposedly sought a romantic involvement , which Estensen denied. For a while, authorities thought that Mrs. Estensen was also involved but no evidence pointed to her. On November 26, 1933, the body of Brooke Hart was found near the San Mateo Bridge. He had apparently been alive when he hit the water but subsequently drowned probably due to his restraints. The Hart family was a prominent one in San Jose, owning the Hart Department Store. President Roosevelt even sent his condolences by telegram to the family. On November 27, 1933, a mob of 15,000 men and women, which had been gathering outside the jail since the day before with the announcement of Hart's body being found, stormed the San Jose jail where Thurmond and Holmes had been moved back to. The whole time the mob shouted things like "Remember Brooke Hart." Although the police officers tried to hold off the mob until reinforcements arrived from Oakland and San Francisco (who arrived too late) with tear gas, which blew back in the officers faces, the mob, after an hour and a half, finally broke down the doors to the jail and literally ran over the deputies and the sheriff, injuring all of them, in order to get Thurmond and Holmes. The mob caught both men, beat them severely, stripped them nearly naked, took them out of the jail to St. James park across the street from the jail, and hung both men from a tree there. People tore off what was left of the dead mens' clothes and also sawed off the tree branch from which they were hung to keep as souvenirs. For a period right afterward the crowd continued to celebrate. None of the officers could or would identify the participants in the lynching and nothing ever came of an investigation in the incident (although the newspaper articles stress the participation of women in the mob who encouraged the men). Governor Rolph even made a statement proclaiming that he thought what had happened was right and just, a statement he was highly criticized for. The last hanging in San Jose before this time was in 1875 (?). updated Diane Curry, 7-31-95. Covers negatives to A66.95.865.