Posted by Cathy Gowdy on Wednesday, May 28, 2014 at 06:41:35 :
The Marin Journal
Thursday, August 13, 1908
page 3
Burial of SIEMSEN
JOHN SIEMSEN, who was hanged at San Quentin, was buried in the Catholic Cemetery last Thursday. The body was held a few days at Eden & Sons place, awaiting orders from relatives, and it was thought the body would be shipped to Hawaii, which may be done later on. But for the present the remains will rest in Marin County soil.
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San Francisco's Notorious Gas Pipe Bandit
John (Ho'olulu?) Siemsen was born in the Kingdom of Hawai'i, the son of German immigrant John Francis Siemsen (1841-1888) and native Hawaiian Mary Ann Kaapa Heili (1860-1918). His brother, Charles Francis Ho'olulu Siemsen, is buried in Honolulu. After his father's suicide in 1888 his mother remarried in 1890. As he got older John had issues with his step-father, George McCarty (1856-1917), so he went to live with his older sister, Caroline (Siemsen) Ross (born 1878). After getting into trouble in Hawaii he went to San Francisco, California, about 1905. During the chaos that followed in the wake of the 1906 earthquake he teamed up with Louis Dabner to commit a series of brutal robberies wherein the two men used a piece of gas pipe to subdue their victims. John took a break from this crime spree to elope with Hulda M. von Hofen, the 14-year-old daughter of a Jewish businessman. He lied to the magistrate about her age when they were married October 31, 1906. Fresh from his honeymoon, Siemsen joined Dabner in the murder and robbery of a banker on November 3, 1906. The duo was soon apprehended, tried, and sentenced to death. Siemsen and Dabner ascended the gallows together and were hung side-by-side at San Quentin Prison; the first of only two such double executions in California penal history. His remains were buried in this cemetery August 6, 1908. [courtesy of Steve and Find-A-Grave]
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