The Most Dangerous Animal of All

“I know lots of things,” Van said, smiling.

The next morning, Van decided it was time to get married.

“Pack your bags,” he told her. “We’re going to Acapulco. There’s a resort there, the Las Brisas, where they pick you up in pink jeeps and take you around the city. You’ll love it. I know a little church nearby where we can get married.”

Judy, enjoying the adventure of it all, quickly packed the few items of clothing Van had bought her and was soon ready to go.

When they got to Acapulco, Van rushed Judy to the church but was disappointed to learn that he could not marry her without parental consent.

“What do we do now?” Judy asked.

Undeterred, Van said, “We go on our honeymoon.”

Because the Las Brisas was fully booked, they had to settle for a high-rise complex nearby on Acapulco Bay. They spent the next few days acting like they were on their honeymoon – sunning on the beach during the day, making love at night.

On May 11, 1962, a slight shaking stirred Van and Judy from their slumber. It was a little more than the usual early-morning rumble of the city buses, to which they were already accustomed, having lived their lives in San Francisco. As Van reached for his glasses on the nightstand, it happened. A 7.1-magnitude earthquake knocked him off balance. Judy screamed as Van fell onto the floor, and the bed began to move on the rolling tile. Pictures on the walls crashed to the floor. Judy tried to reach Van as the building swayed for what seemed like an eternity but was actually less than a minute.

When it was over, they walked onto their balcony and surveyed the damage. Some of the balconies above them swayed dangerously, hanging on by only a piece of rebar. Van hurried Judy back into the room, lighting a candle so she could see. While Van went out again to assess the damage, Judy cleaned broken glass from the floor.

For the next few days, they were forced to stay at the hotel, because the rubble covering the city’s streets made travel impossible. While Van sorted through the documents he had bought in Mexico City, Judy sat on the beach, gazing at the beautiful bodies of the bronzed young men surfing and playing volleyball. There was nothing else to do. Van, distracted by the thought of Judy being alone at the beach, watched jealously from a window high above.

On May 19, an aftershock with a magnitude of 7.0 struck the city. My father decided it was time to return to the States. He needed no more signs from the gods. He and Judy packed their things and boarded a plane, blissfully unaware that the seed of their undoing had been planted in Mexico.

Shortly after they arrived in Los Angeles, Van became ill and checked into a hospital for treatment. He was diagnosed with infectious hepatitis, a virus that was common in Mexico and frequently spread through the consumption of contaminated food or water.

“I’ll be okay,” he reassured Judy, who sat by his bedside, refusing to leave.

“Do you want me to call your parents?” she said, worrying.

“No. Absolutely not,” he said. “The doctor said I won’t be here long.”

When Van recovered, they headed back to San Francisco and rented an apartment in a five-story building at 585 Geary Street, on the southern slopes of Nob Hill. The one-bedroom apartment featured a big bay window that overlooked the Hotel California, across the street. A fire escape climbed up all five stories on the front of the building. On either side of the entrance, a circular white light fixture trimmed in black depicted the shape of a cross in the center.

Van didn’t bother to tell Judy that he had lived a block away on Jones Street with his last wife. He simply led his lover through the foyer and up the steps to their new home.

They spent the next month pretending they were married and hoping Verda would not find them. In July, Judy became ill, too. Worried that she had contracted hepatitis from him, Van brought her to San Francisco General Hospital on July 30.

Judy was diagnosed with hepatitis, but the physician also informed the fourteen-year-old that she was pregnant.

When she was released from the hospital, she nervously called Verda.

“Mother, I have to tell you something,” she said.

“What now?” Verda snapped, irate that Judy had not contacted her since she had run away. “Where have you been? I’ve been worried sick.”

“We went to Mexico, but there was an earthquake and we had to come back,” Judy said nervously. “And I’m pregnant. Three months. Mother, I’m scared.”

Verda’s tone became reassuring, persuasive, as she asked Judy to come home so they could talk about it. “Bring some things for an overnight stay. We have to figure out what to do.”

“Okay,” Judy said. “I’ll have Van drive me.”

When Judy and Van pulled up to the house at 1245 Seventh Avenue, Verda was waiting. Although Van had scanned the area, he had not seen the police cars hidden around the corner from the house. The officers waited until Van got out of the car before they confronted him.

“Earl Van Best, you are under arrest for child stealing,” one officer said, grabbing Van and pulling his arms behind his back. Judy struggled with the officer as he clamped the handcuffs tightly around my father’s wrists.

Crying, she watched the police take him away.

“How could you do this?” she screamed at her mother as Verda herded her into the house.

“How could you?” Verda answered.

My mother was sent back to the Youth Guidance Center.

My father was placed in a cell on the sixth floor of the Hall of Justice. He was sitting on his bunk, contemplating his next move, when a handsome young man walked up.

“Mr. Best, might I have a word with you?”

Van looked at him questioningly, wondering if he was a lawyer. “I’m Paul Avery, with the San Francisco Chronicle,” the man said. “Do you mind if I ask you a few questions?”

Van shook his head.

Avery pulled out his notebook. “Where did you meet Judy?” he asked.

“At Herbert’s Sherbet Shoppe. She was there … beautiful and sweet,” Avery would later quote Van as saying.

“But she was only fourteen,” Avery said.

“That didn’t matter.”

Over the next half hour, Van told Avery the whole story.

“He Found Love in Ice Cream Parlor,” read the headline of the San Francisco Chronicle on August 1, 1962. Pictures of Van and Judy were splashed across the page, accompanied by an article depicting their romance. “At the moment, several sets of steel bars and more than a mile in distance separate Van and his one-time wife, Judy Chandler,” Avery wrote before describing how the now twenty-eight-year-old man had fallen in love with a teenager.

When Van saw the article, he was furious. He didn’t like the way Avery had portrayed him as if he were some old, balding child molester. Avery would later dub their love affair “The Ice Cream Romance.” Van would never forgive him for mocking his love for Judy.

Other newspapers followed suit.

The San Francisco Examiner reported that “the mild-mannered, bespectacled son of a Midwest minister sat in his cell at city prison yesterday and wept for his bride – blonde, 14, and pregnant.”