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Convicted of poison pen writing, one of L.A. High's first graduating class, Yda Hillis Addis was married to a former CA governor as well as to Thomas Storke. Nothing in her life was without drama, intrigue and never-ending lawsuits.
Some say she hit the wall during her attempted murder trial where she was accused of breaking into Teddy Grant Jackson house, a man she claimed to be entwined in a "contract marriage" with, and allegedly trying to snuff him while he slept by using chloroform.
Addis had faced a year in jail and a $5,000 fine for the poison pen letters. But now she stood accused of attempted murder. At her arraignment in Santa Barbara, her defense attorney, Clara Shortridge Foltz, the first woman to practice law in the state, stood by her as she pleaded not guilty. Addis looked like a mentally beaten woman, "dressed in a coarse, grey bathrobe, loosely tied at the waist," The Times reported. She was already serving her jail sentence for the letters.
Fascinating mini-bio in the LA Times but it never quite explains why she was called "crazy" if she won most of her court cases.
