A crowd of thousands--men, women, and children--listen to a woman speak at a podium in the distance. The stage she is on is decorated in a patriotic theme, inspired by the American flag. Behind her, dozens of men sit on the same stage. Further back, behind a copse of trees is a building. This event was both an Armistice Day service and a rally for the decreased financial capitalization of warfare.
Louis Payne lies on a couch in the West Los Angeles police station, with his father Lucius Payne at his side.Louis Rude Payne, 21 years of age, used a camping axe to kill his mother, 45-year-old Carrie L. Payne, and 15-year-old brother Robert in their Westwood mansion home. Payne turned himself in for the killings of four to five days after their deaths, at a Huntington Beach police station. When he turned himself in, detectives found on his person both a letter and a telegram addressed to his father Lucius Payne, a St. Louis businessman, confessing to the crime, apologizing for his actions, and explaning that he did not know what impulse it was that drove him to the murders. Although he was questioned repeatedly, no motive for the murders was ever discovered, save for what Payne termed a force stronger than himself that compelled him to commit the crimes.Payne was convicted of the two murders, but found to be insane at the time of the crimes. He was confined to psychiatric treatment at the Mendocino State Hospital at Talmadge, in Mendocino County, CA. His father stood by him throughout his trial and conviction.
Five men, in what appear to be military uniform, partake in a cermonial rifle-gun salute on a concrete walkway. Four of them carry long arm rifles in a ready-position to fire, or perhaps have already fired their weapons. One uniformed man, who appears to be the superior officer, stands to the side presumably giving them the salute order. A crowd stands a distance to the back. This event in Sawtelle, Los Angeles, was both an Armistice Day service and a rally for decreased war profiteering.