Madrone murder shocks South Valley
The year 1955 was one of crises and triumphs. The Cold War
raged, with Soviet dictator Nikita Khrushchev and President
Eisenhower exchanging harsh threats across the front pages of daily
newspapers. Public fears over the polio epidemics which had swept
the country were finally addressed with the Salk vaccine that year.
And in 1955, unbeknownst to the nation and the world, the first
McDonald’s franchise began operation in Illinois. Here in
California, the Davy Crockett craze had kids wearing fake
raccoon-tail hats and eagerly waiting opening day at the new
Disneyland theme park.
Madrone murder shocks South Valley
The year 1955 was one of crises and triumphs. The Cold War raged, with Soviet dictator Nikita Khrushchev and President Eisenhower exchanging harsh threats across the front pages of daily newspapers. Public fears over the polio epidemics which had swept the country were finally addressed with the Salk vaccine that year. And in 1955, unbeknownst to the nation and the world, the first McDonald’s franchise began operation in Illinois. Here in California, the Davy Crockett craze had kids wearing fake raccoon-tail hats and eagerly waiting opening day at the new Disneyland theme park.
Closer to home, in little Madrone, trouble was brewing. The community was just a tiny stop along what was at the time a section of Highway 101 headed north out of Morgan Hill. But during the first weeks of 1955, at a night spot called The Capri, a crime occurred which turned a family murder into hot news headlines. On Jan. 12, 1955, citizens in South Santa Clara County were stunned to learn that in the dark hours before dawn, Club Capri tavern owner Joe Grasso, 63, had been murdered in cold blood.
Grasso had co-owned the tavern with his third wife, Mary, 32, for fifteen years. On the night in question, after the last patrons had left, he was standing at the cash register counting the evening’s take. A gunman came through the front door, approached him and shot him once in the head. As Grasso slumped behind the counter, the gunman pumped four more bullets into his body. The night spot owner was dead by the time he hit the floor.
Within the hour, responding to a frantic call from Grasso’s wife, sheriffs deputies were on the scene. They interviewed his 21 year-old son, Julio, Grasso’s wife, Mary, and an employee who lived with the couple, Patricia Perry, 22.
Son Julio claimed to be the one who found his father’s lifeless body. It was after the club had closed for the night. The two women had retired to living quarters behind the business, when they heard two loud sounds. Although thinking it was only backfire from a car driving along Highway 101, they sent Julio to investigate. As soon as he entered the club, he said, he found the gunman standing over his father’s blood-soaked body. When he lurched to grab him, Julio claimed, the man grappled, knocking him out and leaving him unconscious on the floor near his father’s lifeless body.
On initial inspection, deputies found no other evidence to back up Julio’s story: no forced door, no tell-tale getaway spin from tire tracks in the parking lot gravel bed, no gun. Grasso’s watch and wallet were intact. The $50 still left in the till was the total take, the son said, due to a slow evening.
Not considered suspects, Grasso’s wife, son, and the waitress were nonetheless taken to San Jose for questioning. Mary Grasso, news sources soon reported, was placed under a doctor’s care for nervous exhaustion. Meantime, deputies returned to investigate the crime scene, including a search of the Grasso’s apartment in the rear of the Capri.
It was the first murder in the Morgan Hill-Madrone area in a decade. There had been no previous hold-ups at the Club Capri. Authorities puzzled over the reason a sole gunman would have committed the act. The questioning of Grasso’s wife, son, and the waitress intensified.
The case seemed headed nowhere until the search team found the murder weapon, a 5-shot, .38-caliber pistol, hidden in an attic space in the Grasso apartment. Hidden beneath nearby rafters, they located a large cache of money. Within 24 hours, deputies had their breakthrough. Under separate questioning, unable to show any bruises from the supposed struggle with his father’s assailant, and confronted with the pistol and the cash, Julio, an unemployed carpenter’s apprentice, confessed to the murder.
The case was quickly labeled the “installment murder” in newspaper headlines after it was learned that Julio’s stepmother, Mary Grasso, and waitress Patricia Perry, had each approached him offering to pay him over time, in increments, once he bumped off his dad.
Mary, it turned out, had been complaining about her husband for years. The couple had often been seen and heard squabbling. Six years previously, Grasso had fired shots at his wife. When deputies arrived to quell the disturbance, Grasso scuffled with one, breaking the officer’s wrist in what was later described as a berserk episode. Even after such a violent display, Mary had refused to press charges. She often remarked to others that Joe was “not a fit person to have around.” Perry, who had been living with the couple for about a year, confirmed her boss’s harsh demeanor.
Testimony revealed that, on the evening in question, about eight hours before the crime occurred, Patricia had “joked” to Julio that she would pay him $2,000 to murder his father. The same evening, following another fight with her husband, Mary outright gave Julio $1,000 from the club’s safe to commit the murder. She promised an additional $2,000 in installments over time. The three then sat to work out the details over a cup of coffee, plotting to make the hit after closing time.
According to his later confession, Julio entered the tavern that night shaking. He didn’t want to kill his father. But he needed money. His estranged wife was expecting a baby, but he had no funds to pay the upcoming hospital bill. It was only when Grasso looked up at him from counting the bills and said, “Hello,” that Julio’s resolve was firmed. “Good-bye,” he murmured to himself, before firing the bullets into his father.
According to her alibi, Mary had spent long years in physical and mental suffering at her husband’s hands. Still, along with her stepson, she was convicted on first-degree murder charges and sentenced to life in prison. Waitress Patricia Perry, sentenced to second-degree murder for conspiracy, got off light, with only a five-year sentence. Judge William F. James had followed the recommendations laid down by the jury.
Before long, life in little Madrone settled down. And as the three co-conspirators languished in prison, automobile traffic continued to speed along, on Highway 101, past the Club Capri.
