Frank Dryman/Valentine aka Vic Huston

tahoe27 wrote:

This thread was started and put elsewhere...I felt it was a bit lost so I am copying the link here:

https://zodiackillersite.forummotion.com/t161-frank-dryman-found-after-40-years

Just wanted to check something in the timeline. To my knowledge there were 3 USS Princeton's. On decommissioned back in the 1800's, one only commissioned in the 1980's and one lost in WWII. None of which was around during the time Frank was serving (again according to the timeline).

EDIT: PLEASE IGNORE THIS POST - I FOUND ANOTHER ONE - THE SHIP THAT PULLED OUT THE RE-ENTRY CAPSULE FROM THE APOLLO 10 MISSION.

@ Luke....see my post at the top of the previous page.


It was May of '69 the ship picked up Apollo 10:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:USS_Princeton_(LPH-5)_Apollo_10_1969.jpg

I was a little surprised to find this article on Dryman. Apparently Dryman knew his murder victim's sister because they lived in the same town in Nevada and he had been to her home many times.

Wow Seagull!

This is really something! Great find.

Is this a coincidence or what??? I would really like to know.

When Dryman was quoted describing shooting this man as he ran away and emptying the clip when he fell....it just reminds me of Betty Lou. Not to mention "Sheriff Jensen". (all coincidences no doubt)

Didnt Zodiac write, "I AM DROWNDING"? Or am I thinking of something else? Interesting how Dryman was going to drown himself.

EDIT: Belli letter he used that term

Wow, wrote a note to say he'd commit suicide by drowning - reminds me of a note written by a certain someone else hinting of the same thing...

"he plunged himself into the billowy wave and an echo arose from the suicides grave..."

I have compiled what I believe are Frank Dryman's Napa beginnings. I'm starting with who I think his grandparents and mother were and the mother seemed to have a brother, too.

I began in the middle with this search but will present it starting with the 1920 US Census.

I was able to find a family with the last name of South living in Yount, Napa County. They were the only South family in Napa included in the census. The town is now named Yountville.

Name: Grace South
Home in 1920: Yount, Napa, California
Age: 29
Estimated Birth Year: abt 1891
Birthplace: Kansas
Relation to Head of House: Wife
Spouse's Name: John South
Father's Birth Place: Kentucky
Mother's Birth Place: Missouri
Marital Status: Married
Race: White
Sex: Female
Able to read: Yes
Able to Write: Yes
Household Members:
Name
Age
John South
43
Grace South
29
Genevive South
8
Henry South
6

By the 1930 census both John South and Henry South are no longer listed. They may have died although I could find no death records for either of them.

The spelling of Genevive has changed slightly and I think that the spelling of Dryman as Drymon was probably an error on the census takers part. If you say both names out loud they sound the same. The 1930 census was one year before Frank Dryman was born.

Name: Grace R South
Home in 1930: Yount, Napa, California
Age: 39
Estimated Birth Year: abt 1891
Birthplace: Kansas
Relation to Head of House: Head
Race: White

Household members:
Name
Age
Grace R South
39
Genevieve Drymon
18
John F Drymon
42
Henry D Drymon
6/12

I then tried to find a Frank Valentine that lived in Napa County in 1930 via the 1930 census. I was able to find one! The California Veteran's Home is in Yountville and he listed as a member there at that time. He was quite a bit older than Frank Dryman's mother but then so was Dryman's father. There was a huge list of names on this record which I deleted. I looked at the original document and the people were listed on it as either employees or members.

Name: Frank Valentine
Home in 1930: Napa, Napa, California
Age: 44
Estimated Birth Year: abt 1886
Birthplace: Ohio
Relation to Head of House: Member
Race: White
Household Members:
Name
Age

Frank Valentine
44

Then I tried to find records for Henry D Dryman, Frank Dryman's older brother, and was able to find ship's manifest that listed him during the Korean War. You will notice that the address given for him is the same as the address given on Frank Dryman's border crossing document.



Here is the border crossing document:





So, I think that Frank Dryman's mother was named Genevieve but she shortened it to Geneva somewhere along the way. I was not able to track Frank Dryman's birth father beyond that one census listing. I was able to track Grace South as having lived in Napa County until 1944 when she quit appearing on the voter records. I found her again as having died in South Dakota in 1979, I'm not sure if she went directly to south Dakota from Napa County.

I have sent for Frank Dryman's birth certificate, so will see if I figured this out correctly!

Great work Seagull!

"Gladys" as mentioned by the reporter must have been his sister and not the mother. I believe he received a lot of his info from Dryman's daughter and it would seem she wasn't totally in the loop.

The reporter also mentions "Frank's half-brother Hank"...short for Henry?

Seagull wrote:

I know what your trying to say TF but Viola Valentine would be related by marriage. So the question of her being a blood relative and having a family name wouldn't enter into it.

I have been able to track Ginger Viola Valentine somewhat. The first married name I found was Ginger V. Claunch, I couldn't find the husband's first name. Then I found Ginger married Sam Seats in Nevada, she divorced him and married William G. Elliott. She died in San Bernardino County in 1994. Her social security card was issued in Nevada before 1951. The one dicrepancy was that her death record said she was born in Nevada but I guess if she was very young when she moved there she may have thought she was born there??? Or maybe her relatives who supplied the information for the death record thought she was born in Nevada??? At any rate the birthdates are the same.

Not having any luck with tracking Gladys Viola Valentine.

Maybe try "Gladys Viola Foster".

Taken from a quote earlier in this thread. Gladys Foster is quoted here...as she wrote it. This is weird!

***

Dryman’s only biological daughter, 28-year-old Cathie Houston of Portales, N.M., said in an a recent interview with the Tribune that her father told her he left his life in California because, “he wasn’t happy.” She said she didn’t know of her father’s past life until after he was arrested in Arizona last month. She recently visited him several times in the Pinal County Jail, where she learned more.

“He said he was stuck in a bad marriage with a bunch of kids that weren’t his,” Houston said. “He just wanted to get away from it all. He didn’t care about his parole. He was miserable, and he just wanted to start his life over.” After his disappearance, Valen­tine’s parole officer contacted members of his family but none heard from him until long after authorities gave up looking for Valentine. His ailing mother, Gladys Foster, once wrote a letter to prison officials begging them to help her find her missing son.

“In fact, I hope you people have caught him. At least I would know where he is,” Foster wrote in 1976.

Good finds, you guys!

-Nin

Not sure if this info has been posted already, but juts in case:


In this April 12 1951 newsreport it is stated that Frank Dryman was from Vallejo, California:

Nevada State Journal (Reno, Nevada)
1951 April 12

Admits Slaying
Shelby, Mont, April 11- (U.P.)
Hitch-hiker Frank R Dryman, 23,
Vallejo, Calif, Today admitted
fataly shooting Montana
cafe owner Clarence Pellett 59,
because "I was cold and didn´t
want to get out of the car"
Tool County Attorney
John C Hoyt reported

Here is some more on Dryman:

http://etd.lib.umt.edu/theses/available/etd-02062007-130503/unrestricted/Pettinger_thesis.pdf



Abolishment of the death penalty
The People’s Voice opposed capital punishment, and Harry and Gretchen wrote
about the case of Frank R. Dryman, also known as Frank Valentine, who had been
sentenced to death by hanging for slaying a Shelby businessman. In a summary of the
issue years later, Harry wrote that he and Gretchen looked into Dryman’s case because a
district judge imposed his sentence after only a hearing and without a trial by jury. “No
matter how heinous the crime,” Harry wrote, Dryman “was entitled to the full recourse of
law.”116
As he looked back on the case, Harry concluded that the successful fight the
Voice launched to save Dryman from the gallows was one of his and Gretchen’s most
notable achievements.117
In their investigation of his case, the Billingses found copies of Dryman’s
discharge from the Navy and learned that his medical records classified him as

115 “Speaking of ‘values,’” The People’s Voice, April 8, 1955, p. 4.
116 Notes by Harry L. Billings, “The Frank Dryman Case,” 7/26/84, MSU-Bozeman, Merrill G. Burlingame
special collections, number 2095, box 9, folder 12.
117 Harry Billings, “The People’s Voice: The Dream and the Reality,” Montana Journalism Review 20
(1977): p. 3.

“permanently insane.” While Dryman was in the Navy’s charge, they kept him under
guard, but released him at his home in Vallejo, Calif.
Citing numerous errors in the 1950 hearing in Shelby, the Montana State Supreme
Court ordered a new trial for Dryman. The jury subsequently found Dryman guilty, and
he again received the death sentence. After another appeal, Dryman received a new trial
in a different venue. Clearly devoted to the case, Harry and Gretchen donated $300 to
have a Billings psychiatrist evaluate Dryman’s mental condition and testify at that trial on
what he found. The psychiatrist found that Dryman was a schizophrenic, and he was
sentenced to life in prison.118
The case so affected Harry, he wrote, that he couldn’t cover it for the Voice. “I
was so mentally torn-up by this case that I had to have Gretchen handle the reporting – a
job she did superbly.”119
Incidentally, Dryman later corresponded with Gretchen and told her that he had
not “wasted” the years spent in prison, but that he had, among other things, read
extensively and earned a high school diploma.120 He was named the Junior Chamber of
Commerce Prisoner of the Year in 1964 and paroled in the 1960s.121

118 Notes by Harry L. Billings, “The Frank Dryman Case,” 7/26/84, MSU-Bozeman, Merrill G. Burlingame
special collections, number 2095, box 9, folder 12.
119 Ibid.
120 Letter from Frank Dryman to Gretchen Billings, July 16, 1962, MSU-Bozeman, Merrill G. Burlingame
special collections, number 2095, box 9, folder 12.
121 Notes by Harry L. Billings, “The Frank Dryman Case,” 7/26/84, MSU-Bozeman, Merrill G. Burlingame
special collections, number 2095, box 9, folder 12.

Harry and Gretchen were proud of “saving … a mentally-deranged transient
youth” from the death sentence,122 and son Leon Billings agreed that it was their efforts
that made the difference. “They saved a life,” he said about Harry and Gretchen’s role in
the case. “How many people can say that?”123

10/24/11

Seagull wrote:

...Border crossing document