Illustration: Booking photo of Howard Shadwick, undated
Imagine showing up for your first day at work, feeling nervous and excited all at the same time. New job. New responsibilities. Now imagine some rifle-toting numbskull shooting a big hole in your face before your first visit to the doughnut shop. That’s what happened to Mike Overman, a deputy sheriff in Monterey, on this date 78 years ago.
Overman had just finished up his military service as a cop at Fort Ord a couple of days earlier. He was a young buck, a 25-year-old living temporarily in a local hotel, reporting to his first civilian job.
Overman arrived at the Monterey substation earlier in the day on May 6, 1946, so he could get properly sworn in as an officer of the law. New uniform. Admire the badge. Learn who his partner would be.
The new kid was teamed up with Deputy Les Roberts for the graveyard shift, starting at 8 p.m. Roberts was already a presence in local law enforcement, having worked for the Monterey Police Department before hiring on with the Sheriff’s Office. He’d show Overman the ropes.
A few minutes after the two of them said their howdys and good to meet yous, their first call came over the horn. Reports of shots fired on Goodwin Street, in what is now the Del Monte Heights neighborhood of Seaside. Probably a domestic disturbance.
The situation was horrific. Some 67-year-old dipstick named Howard Otto Shadwick apparently went unhinged — seriously unhinged — after he learned that another fellow, Burl Hendrix, had recently married his ex-wife, Jessie. Shadwick was a troubled asshole who had been in and out of prison, mostly in the midwest, with a rap sheet that traced a life of criminal rage. When he learned that Jessie had hitched up with Burl, Shadwick told everyone within earshot that he meant to shoot his ex if she didn’t get the marriage annulled.
Hearing of the threats, a shaken Jessie Hendrix rushed over to the District Attorney’s Office earlier in the day, on May 6, to seek a court order against her former husband. She apparently knew what her ex-husband was capable of doing. She didn’t get what she was looking for; the DA told her he needed witnesses, people who actually heard Shadwick make the threats.
Later that afternoon, Shadwick’s son drove his angry father to the bus depot in Monterey and bought him a ticket to Yakima, Wash., with the expectation that his old man would get the hell out of town before he killed someone.
But Shadwick didn’t get on the bus. Instead, he found his way to the Del Monte Heights neighborhood, with murderous intent. He lurked outside the Hendrix household, crept up to the kitchen window. It was around 8 o’clock that night. He saw Burl Hendrix drying dishes at the sink while Jessie washed.
Domestic bliss. They must have been happy.
Shadwick poked his rifle through the window and shot Hendrix in the head. He then broke through the back door, fired another shot into the floor, and clubbed Hendrix with the butt end of his rifle while Jessie watched in horror.
By the time Overman and Roberts arrived on the scene in their squad car, Shadwick was dragging his distraught ex-wife down the street. Roberts reportedly shouted at Shadwick to halt, but the suspect turned and fired at the deputies before they could get out of the police unit.
Newspaper accounts describing the incident make Roberts seem like a superhero, with the mad marksmanship skills of a professional assassin, like something you’d see in a Hollywood potboiler.
“Deputy Roberts had started to reach for his gun when he called to Shadwick,” according to an account published by the Salinas Californian. “In doing so, he leaned slightly backward which undoubtedly saved him from being struck. Mr. Roberts fired four times. The first shot was from inside the car, the second as he went out the door and the final two as he walked toward Shadwick. All four shots hit Shadwick in a line from chest to his mouth.”
After checking on Shadwick to make sure he was good and dead, and checking on Jessie Hendrix to make sure she was good and alive, Roberts came to realize that Overman hadn’t been much help during the shootout. It was then that Roberts found his partner in the patrol car, bleeding from the face. Apparently he had been hit by the one bullet Shadwick managed to fire moments before meeting his gruesome demise. Overman was still conscious, at least conscious enough to tell Roberts that “the whole side of my face has been blown off.”
The blown-off-face comment might have been an exaggeration made in the heat of the moment, but Overman had certainly been badly injured. Roberts rushed the new kid to the hospital for treatment. Doctors listed Overman in critical condition, and a plastic surgeon was summoned from San Francisco.
Damn the luck. His first day on the job, and the doctors were already reconstructing his face.
Burl Hendrix was also taken to the hospital that night, still breathing despite his injuries, but he died the next morning at the age of 64. He and Jessie had only been married for eight days, and the last thing he did in his conscious life was dry dishes in the kitchen in her company. He was survived by a couple of adult children. His body was initially transported to the Dorney Funeral Home, but Jessie Hendrix insisted that it be moved to the Paul Chapel because she didn’t want her husband’s body to rest under the same roof as Shadwick’s sorry corpse.
After some weeks of recovery, Overman was back on the job at the Sheriff’s Department. Later in the year he was hailed publicly as a hero due to brave actions taken during a beach rescue in Pebble Beach. The next year, while still getting treatment for his facial wounds, the brass pulled him from his patrol duties and transferred him to a desk job in Salinas. No public explanation was given. Overman soon quit and went to the Monterey Police Department, citing pay issues. He lasted a couple of years there before apparently leaving law enforcement for good.
Sources:
The Monterey Peninsula Herald
The Salinas Californian