An airplane and even a cart pulled by oxen were the means that Phillips used to reach the southeastern border of the United States and cross on a steamer into Mexican territory.
The American actress and singer, Clara Phillips, also known as “The Tiger Woman” or “The Hammer Killer”, hid in Mexico in December 1922 while fleeing from the authorities for an ominous crime of passion that she committed to save the love of her her husband.
Clara Anne Weaver was born in June 1898 in a province of Texas. Over time, she moved to Houston with her family. At just 15 years of age, she married Armor Phillips; the couple settled in Los Angeles, where the young Clara began her acting career.
Her foray as a showgirl and actress at the Pantages Theater Hollywood, and at the most emblematic theater venues in Los Angeles, made her a promise on the stage.
A few years later, Clara and Armor had a disagreement over rumors of an alleged extramarital affair that Armor was allegedly having with a First National Bank worker named Alberta Tremaine Meadows.
the homicide
The stories indicate that Clara entered a tool store and bought a hammer with which she would later commit one of the most shocking crimes of passion of the time in the United States.
He wanted to know if a person could be killed with this object, but the seller thought it was a joke and just said yes. For that reason, Clara Phillips is known as “The Hammer Killer.”
In the company of her friend, the actress Peggy Caffee, Clara looked for Meadows at her house, after not finding her, she went to the young woman’s work. From there she convinced her to take them to a lonely place in Two-Three Hill, in Los Angeles.
Already at the point, on a distant hill, Phillips asked Meadows to get out of the car to talk about the alleged deception; She denied everything, but the enraged Phillips took the hammer out of her clothes, attacking her with severe violence. According to journalistic reports from the Excelsior supplements, he hit her more than 50 times, mainly on the head in the presence of her friend Caffee.
Phillips unleashed all her anger on her opponent, who at all times refused to accept the accusations of having a romantic relationship with her husband. Once the certain murder was perpetrated, the two women boarded the deceased young woman’s vehicle to leave it in a nearby place.
Clara returned home with her husband, to whom she gave all the details of the reckless murder she had committed against Meadows. Different versions suggest that Armor helped his wife flee on a train and later told the police what had happened.
The police elements in charge of the investigation found the body of the bank employee on a distant hill with a huge rock on her fragile and shattered humanity. The brutality with which she acted on her caused her to be called “the tiger woman”. Then they found the abandoned vehicle, which had clear traces of the crime.
Clara Phillips was arrested, brought to trial, and sentenced to ten years in prison for first degree murder. Incarcerated in a county jail in Los Angeles, the woman was not willing to serve her sentence.
“Mrs. Phillips smiled happily when, as punishment for this crime, she received from the jury a verdict of murder, carrying a prison sentence of ten years to life, with an excellent chance that it would not last more than the minimum. She continued to show herself happy in the following days ”, can be read in a special article published in the Magazine of Magazines on June 10, 1923.
The same publication of Revista de Revistas recounts a visit made to Phillips in the prison in Honduras. She describes Clara as “She’s a pretty woman. She has large, expressive eyes, sunk deep into her sockets. She dresses correctly. She is a well-educated person with some distinction. She speaks measuredly, reflecting well on what she has to say.
The escape
A few days before her escape, the criminal woman managed to get hold of a saw. In addition, she requested that a white curtain be placed on the window with the pretext of reducing the rays of the sound in her cell. Everything so as not to arouse the slightest suspicion about what she was doing inside the prison.
“If the murder of the beautiful hapless Mrs. Alberta Meadows was peculiar and dramatic, so was the escape and disappearance of the murderess.” Magazine of Magazines, June 10, 1923.
It was the first days of December 1922, just a few months after being captured, when the inmate escaped from her cell. Although there are different versions of how the escape occurred, one of the most popular at the time is that Phillips received help from some inmates to get a file and with it reduce the steel of the bars of his window, break them with the saw and then leave. straight to freedom
She apparently slid on a rope to the lower ceilings of the prison, then entered a vehicle that was already waiting for her with clothes and hopes of fleeing justice. She was taken to a nearby house where she stayed overnight. She was then transferred to a desert area where she boarded a plane bound for Baja California, Mexico, where she remained a fugitive for several days before making a long trip to New Orleans.
a mexican adventure
At some point during the spectacular escape, ex-con Jesse Carsen appeared as one of his most loyal accomplices along with an unidentified woman.
His plan was to cross on the Mexican side. Then they embarked for Veracruz, in addition, some reports establish that they could be seen in the capital of the country staying in one of the most renowned hotels in the city. Throughout, the young criminal called herself RM Young to avoid being recognized.
In Veracruz, they met a man named Antonio Díaz, who claimed to be a Honduran revolutionary. He promised to take them to Honduran territory where they could not be found.
Reporters from a prestigious Los Angeles newspaper tracked down the fugitive woman through a money transfer from Texas, where her parents lived, to Mexico City. The fugitive murderer found out that the Mexican police were already following her tracks, so she, she preferred to flee to Guatemala, head to El Salvador until she reached Honduras, perhaps with Díaz’s help.
an endless search
The fugitives’ information was sent to the hotel where they were staying in the Mexican capital, all the data and descriptions matched those of Phillips and his companions. The hotel employees were able to recognize the fugitives but they had already left the place three days before.
They were seen in Ayutla, Guatemala, but the US police were unable to get the Guatemalan authorities to capture them. Meanwhile, the criminal trident had already boarded a train bound for El Salvador, where they were fully identified by journalists together with the local police. But they escaped again, now towards their last stop: Tegucigalpa, Honduras.
“The popular idea that Honduras is the only place in the civilized world where extradition does not arrive, has been very violently overthrown in the case of Mrs. Phillips, and she can say better than anyone that there is a great difference between facts and fiction on the subject”.
This time the governor of California, Friend Richardson, had to intervene, who ordered the recapture of the daring fugitives and their subsequent extradition to United States territory to serve their sentence.
Back in prison, Clara Phillips did not show any kind of remorse for her actions committed by a rumor of infidelity that was never proven. However, she achieved exemplary conduct within the prison. She studied and acquired knowledge of dentistry.
She was finally released in 1935. Once out of prison, Phillips dedicated herself to resuming her life with a crime of passion on her back. Although no further details are known about her last years, it is known that she died around 1969.
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