Charles Adams

By Warren Beath 

In June of 1982 this author was preparing his first book on this subject when he became aware of an interesting man in my own city of Bakersfiled who was described to me as an expert on the James Dean car accident. His name was Charles Adams and he resisted setting an appointment for us to meet even though you talked a lot about the accident over the telphone.

"Time", he said, "is tight," though he was retired.

Then out of the blue he called me and made an appointment to meet at a downtown office to which he has access to a treasurer or secretary of a county employee organization. I later understood from him that his wife had nearly divorced him over this absorption with the James Dean car crash so he had to meet me outside the house. His son also had been killed in an auto accident and this might have been another reason for his wife's aversion to the whole thing. When I met him at his house we would meet in his garage.

Adams was in his late seventies and chain-smoked Winston Longs. He had sort of a superior manner and was torn between pride in his work and the apparent disgust his wife had for the business of his James Dean accident investigation.

I talked with him for two-and-a-half hours that day-July 5, 1982- and he expanded on what he had told me by phone. He had worked 14 months in 1956 and 1957 on his own investigation into the circumstances into the accident. He compiled his results and had given them to James Dean's father, Winton Dean, and to the James Dean Memorial Foundation. He felt an obligation to the family to maintain "privacy" and would not let me go through his report though he had it with him and went through it as he talked with me.

It was an ample folder labeled "James Byron Dean" and tied with string. When he opened it I could see it contained an onion-skin copy of the inquest he had retyped himself in the San Luis Obispo public records office. He had tabbed and color-coded it according to topics. On one side was his correspondance to Donald Turnupseed-unanswered letters from Dean's father and stepmother Winton and Ethel Dean, and an original draft of his "report". There were Highway Patrol documents and the deposition of John Robert White.  He had annotated the inquest and typed in red that testimony that which he felt was significant and which he refered to in his summary. The center piece was a large diagram he had made of the accident and a set of photos taken from different points identified on the diagram circa 1957.

 He had inked in the faded highway artifacts from the collision that he claimed still were visable two years after the events.

I had obtained the inquest and taken it at face value and suppressed my own questions. But what Charles Adams was telling me was fascinating: he beleived there had been a cover up and that the inquest was a white wash. He talked about collusion and suppressed evidence and he had evidence to back it up. He had diagrams of skid marks and had re-interviewed inquest witnesses. He beleived Rolf wuetherich had been spirited out of the country to hush him up. CHARLES Adams had apparently had been a Highway Patrol force dispatcher, but said he had aquired some expertise in traffic accident investigation by riding along with patrolmen when they responded to calls. "I doubt this," commented O.V. Hunter when I showed him an early draft of my book and he also stressed that Adams was a "civilian" and not "on the force". Adams said his connection to law enforcement was the reason he had been given a copy of the Dean traffic ticket when he requesed it-he said that it came from Sacramento headquarters with a note that the Dean family requested it not be circulated.

Adams described his approach to the accident as "purely technical" and said that he had experienced working accidents with the Highway Patrol. He examined what was left of the Porsche at the George Barris garage in Southern California. He performed skid mark tests on the highway and located and re-interviewed inquest winesses. Adams believed that the inquest charge to the witnesses inferring Dean had been driving 85 miles per hour at the time of the crash was absurd. He did not believe the Ford Coupe had been traveling faster than 40 miles per hour at the time of the impact and may have been almost stopped. And as for the Spyder-he found it difficult to believe that a car a quarter the weight of the Ford had traveled only six feet further down the road after impact than had the Ford. As for the Spyder, Adams believed Dean had applied  some brake pressure to bring the speed down to about 40 mles per hour at the time of the impact.

Turnupseed should have been charged with manslaughter for illegal left-hand turn and for not signalling his turn. But these issues only came up breifly at the inquest and were not pursued.

Adams alleged that the Tulare County District Attorney- Turnupseed was from the small Central Valley town of Tulare-had influenced the proceedings. he said private CHP sources had told him evidence was suppressed and that the mysterious glasses that had loomed so large in the inquest testimony were in fact found but not produced at the proceedings.

An inquest was not like a trial by jury; the Coroner could have anyone on that panel he wanted. No wonder it took them only twenty minutes to arrive at a verdict, he said.

Most fascinating was that Adams believed it was likely Dean had not even been driving the Spyder at the time of the accident. He believed that the position of Dean's body in the car-feet entangled in the pedals- could have been the result of the violence of the collision.

Adams also affirmed "Dean was absolutley not a homosexual."

Fascinating stuff but difficult to know how much to believe because there were other troubling things Adams claimed.

He said he knew James Dean had met him in 1954 when Dean was impressed by Adams' new Mercury Monclair while Adams was visiting his aunt in the San Fernando Valley. Thereafter Dean would call him sometimes when he worked the late shift in Bakersfield. Adams said Dean "wanted to talk to people who were not concerned with who he was".

After Dean was killed, Adams said he got a call from out of the blue from Ethel Dean, Jimmy's somewhat difficult stepmom. He said she might have called because he had requested the traffic ticket from headquarters, or because she was making inquiries about the accident starting with Kern County because Jimmy had been ticketed there before the collision. Adams thought it was possible they had found his number among Dean's affects after he was killed.

Adams said Dean's father Winton and Stepmother Ethel were concerned because they had not been informed of the inquest, and because Jimmy's clothing had not been given to them after his death.

Adams claimed it was the beginning of an ongoing relationship with Winton and Ethel Dean that found him investigating the accident for them. He said he visited them in Santa Monica and that Winton Wanted no publicity at all. He implied he had wanted to publish his work in some form at one time, but had been asked not to by Winton Dean.

He read from a letter purportedly from Winton: Don't feel this is a rejection of your work. We feel it is just not the type of story about Jimmy we would want to publicize at this time." Adams said a nefarious agent had tried to take photos of the pages with a tiny camera disguised as a cigarette lighter, but he had seen through the ruse.

He said Winton did not even want anyone to know he was a dental technician, and that Ethel did most of the talking. Ethel seemed to call the shots, even telling telling Adams on an impending visit by the Bakersfield man that she would be sure Winton got out of bed in time. He claimed still to be in touch with Markie Winslow, James Dean's cousin, and would read me little quotes from letters he claimed to have received.

What I decided in my own mind was that even though he would have been loathe to admit it, Adams was an unusual and contradictory man who had attached himself to the flame of celebrity for whatever reasons or needs of his own. I doubted he had met Dean or had late night phone conversations with the actor.

I was never allowed to hold any of the documents or letters though he had promised originally to make me a copy. He was contradictory because despite his reluctance to let me look at his report, he gave me a large copy of the traffic diagram that was he centerpiece of his presentation copies of the photos that accompanied it and permission to use it in my book. I was pretty satisfied that he had told me everything he had researched and suspected he did not let me look at it to observe the letter of some promise he had made, or for his own reasons.

He wrote me a nice letter when the book The Death Of James Dean came out. Characteristically, it contained many quibbles, but generally nice.

"There is one 'personal interpretation' that I take very stoic object to which reflects very pointedly to my attitude regarding the accident," Adams wrote in a January 15, 1987 letter. "Had I been driven by obsession, it would have been to complete the most informative and detailed report that I possibly could therein providing the best information that I could for the family who could not be present for the inquest...I felt that I had done the best That I could on the report, to the best of my ability, and that was the end of it. It was not meant for publication but for the peace of mind of the family. For me this is not history...To this day I hear from Marcus Winslow (Dean's cousin) periodically, by phone some times, relating the events in the 'home town' and usually just a friendly conversation. On an infrequent basis he may ask an additional question regarding the accident, however it seems that he is seeking only verification of something he has recently heard or to confirm his interpretation of one of my opinions or deductions. He has visited Winton and his wife in Florida and related details of his visit...What I have pointed out to you as not quite right is so minor that it should be of no concern nor cause any problems whatsoever"

Then he would speak disparaging of me to the reporters who contacted me as a result of the book.

Warren Beath