Little Rose Marie (MP3)

March 07, 2012

Little Rose Marie (MP3)

I should probably warn you, this is a sad and disturbing story. Little Rose Marie, a record by Bill Woods, one of the founders of the legendary Bakersfield music scene, memorializes six-year-old Rose Marie Riddle, brutally raped and murdered at the hands of Richard Arlen Lindsey and his wife, Dixie.

According to court documents, while driving through Kern County on the afternoon of January 12, 1961, Lindsey told his wife, 7 months pregnant at the time, that he wanted a little girl for sexual purposes. They drove into the Shafter labor camp, about 20 miles northwest of Bakersfield, and Dixie spoke to some children playing outside, saying that she wanted to hire someone to clean up her house. No doubt money's tight in a labor camp so one of the kids went into a nearby house and returned with young Rose Marie, who unfortunately got into the car with the Lindseys.

After driving a short while, the couple pulled over to swill some whiskey and Rose Marie began crying, saying she wanted to go home. The heartless Dixie slapped her and remarked to her husband that somebody would likely hear the crying girl so they might as well go someplace and get it over with. Lindsey turned off the highway and drove a few hundred yards down a dirt road, at which point Dixie got into the back seat, presumably to watch the horrible events unfolding right in front of her. Lindsey, in the somewhat genteel language of the day, "assaulted" young defenseless Rose Marie and then choked her. When his wife announced, "I guess she's dead," Lindsey removed the girl from the car and placed her on the ground. A few moments later Dixie thought she heard the girl moaning, so she announced "I'll make sure she's dead" and got out of the car and hit little Rose Marie in the head with a tire iron 19 times.

The Lindseys dumped the body in a nearby field and drove north. Three days later, they were arrested in Livermore, California and eventually plead guilty to kidnapping, rape and murder charges. The trial proceeded with truly breath-taking speed and Lindsey's death sentence was handed down by the court only 18 days after the murder. Less than 10 months later, the state of California executed Richard Arlen Lindsey in the San Quentin gas chamber on November 14,1961.

As for Lindsay's wife, Dixie was given two life sentences. Whether she was ever paroled or not, I don't know. As mentioned earlier, Dixe was 7 months pregnant at the time of Rose Marie's murder and she gave birth to a son, later given to her mother to raise, on March 22, 1961.

Bill Woods, who gave Buck Owens his first paying job in the music business when he hired Buck to play guitar for Bill Woods & The Orange Blossom Playboys, recorded this song to help raise some money for the Riddle family.

In 1972, Merle Haggard paid tribute to Bill Woods and his contributions to the Bakersfield sound with his recording of Bill Woods From Bakersfield, a song written by the great Red Simpson.