Frank Egan was born on February 27, 1882 in San Francisco. He attended St. Patrick School until age 11 when he left to help support the family. He worked as a delivery boy for a grocery store until he was old enough to join the San Francisco Police Department. He attended law school at night, graduating first in his class at San Francisco Law School in 1913. He opened a private practice and in 1921 Egan was appointed as the City’s first Public Defender by Mayor James Rolph^[1]. Egan would hold this position for a decade, building the newly formed department to include a dozen attorneys and a few support staff. At the same time, Egan managed a lucrative law practice on the side drafting wills and acting as executor of large estates.

Margaret Busch was an heiress who hired Egan for help managing her estate. Egan gained full control of her finances, hiring a private nurse who, unbeknownst to Busch, was Egan’s wife. Busch was convinced to sign her property over to Mrs. Egan. Forty-eight hours after Frank Egan filed the change of property deeds, Busch suffered a fatal fall down a flight of stairs. It was ruled an accidental death. 

In another case it was disclosed after her death that another of Egan’s clients had been signing over her monthly $600 alimony checks to Egan. That money could never be traced.

Jessie Scott Hughes was a family friend who also went to Egan for assistance in managing her estate. Egan managed to take control of Hughes’ money as well as the deed to her home. Hughes became infuriated when she learned that Egan had allowed a friend to take out a mortgage on that home. She threatened to report him to the California State Bar Association if he did not repay the funds he had stolen. By this time, and despite the large amount of money he had obtained from wealthy widows, Egan was in debt. 

In 1931 the SFPD had placed a wire tap in the office of Dr. NS Houseman, an acquaintance of Egan’s, in an attempt to connect Houseman to known racketeers. While the police attained no new information about Houseman’s racketeering activities, they heard Egan talking to Houseman about his attempt to kill Jessie Hughes, which he aborted because it was too “risky”. The police went and warned Hughes, who dismissed the threat.

Egan approached two ex-cons to kill Hughes for him: Albert Tinnan and Verne Doran. Tinnan had become a process server for the Public Defender’s office and Doran was Egan’s bodyguard and chauffeur. On the evening of March 29, 1932, Egan told Hughes that he was coming over with a large check. Tinnan and Doran arrived instead. Hughes invited them into her home where they knocked her out, dragged her into the garage and ran her over with a borrowed car. Several hours later, when it was dark, they dumped her body on the side of the road near the corner of Kenwood Way and Fairfield in Mount Davidson Manor in an attempt to make it look like a hit-and-run. She was 59 years old. 

Police immediately suspected foul play, most notably because Hughes was found wearing a red knit sweater that was undamaged. Her keys and wallet were in her house. Because of the unique diamond-shaped tire treads on the dress beneath the undamaged sweater, detectives were able to track down the car the next morning in a downtown garage. The car’s owner, a fireman, told police that he had loaned the car to Tinnan and Doran, who had showed up to his house the day before stating that Egan wished to borrow it.

The police immediately began looking for Tinnan and Doran. Egan disappeared, only to resurface four days later at Park West Sanitarium where he was admitted for “nervous exhaustion”. On May 9th he was to hold a press conference, but Doran had been found by this time and had confessed. Egan was charged with capital murder and promptly removed from office. After his arrest, San Francisco became the first city in California to elect its Public Defender by popular vote.

Doran received a two-year sentence for manslaughter for cooperating and testifying against Egan and Tinnan. Their trial began in August 1932. The courtroom was filled to capacity every day and it was the main story of every local newspaper for weeks. The jury deliberated for four days before coming back with guilty verdicts, though they opted against the death penalty. Both Egan and Tinnan were sentenced to life in prison. Egan appealed the conviction and lost. He was sent to San Quentin. 

In 1957, after serving 25 years, Egan was paroled and moved back to San Francisco, living alone in a small Mission Street apartment. He died four years later of heart disease at age 79.

^[1] James “Sunny Jim” Rolph: https://thesanfranciscophoenix.com/?p=5365