The Room with No Doors
I grew up in a world far away from John Oren Biggs. Not separated by space but time. The particular time I’d like to look at is December 19th 1982. That night the 19 year old Biggs walked into a situation many have found their way into, myself included. Not everyone makes it out unscathed. All he was interested in, at least on paper, was a job. He’d responded to a classified ad for a live in caretaker for one Nurl Renfro. Renfro was 50 years old at the time and just so happened to be a millionaire. He was a well-respected businessman in real estate in Bakersfield as well as the central coast and in spite of his defeat in the 1974 election for County Assessor he was considered a pillar of the community.
He owned a house on Elm Street in downtown Bakersfield just a block southeast from Beech Park where dust patches grew between grass and imposing trees block out the sun on hot days. The Kern River runs through Bakersfield at this spot, separating two very different sides of the town. My mother would take my brother and I to swim in that river before the droughts made it little more than a light stream wide enough for a muddy walk and barely deep enough to stick a foot in. Blankets and chairs dot the bank in summer and empty Coors cans would float with the current like little drunken ships. The park was also a spot for young queers to meet and hook up at the time, or so I’ve read. It was in this neighborhood where Biggs came for his job interview. A spry 50 year old Renfro answered the door. I won’t be making any assertions about this incident. All I can discuss in good conscience are matters of public record reported by local papers and the things I’d heard from residents of my home town which I still approach with skepticism. Cruising culture being what it was I don’t know what Biggs thought he was getting into nor do I know why Renfro thought it would be acceptable to lead someone into a room without an exit.
I imagine Biggs to have been taken aback by the gentleman who answered the door. Neither particularly old nor unhealthy in appearance he invited Biggs into his game room. I’d never been in the house myself but I know where it is at 1707 Elm Street. I’m sure it looks different today, but I still imagine it. I imagine the inside to be modest yet nice like the neighborhood it’s in. It is a single story house with a park across the street, parquet floors, a vase on a column, and a full game room and bar with no door knobs. Biggs was led into this room and given a drink by Renfro. They drank together and shot a game. According to Biggs, Renfro made a sexual advance on him which he declined. His second advance was met with the poker from the fireplace set in the room. The cause of death was blunt force trauma, 40 strikes with the poker to Renfro’s head.
The house on Elm was regarded by the neighbors with quiet suspicion. It was well fortified. Bars encased the windows and the curtains were always drawn. The room in which the murder took place could only be left by a key which Renfro held. It didn’t help the prosecution that three other young men were brought to testify how Renfro had lured them to his house with an ad and one alleged Renfro had raped him. Its circumstances like this which led Biggs’ defense attorney Joseph Giuffre to label Renfro’s home a “house of horrors.” Such a defense would and did fly in California in 1984 but it would become tired by the time Matthew Shepheard was bludgeoned and crucified in Laramie Wyoming in 1998. This defense eventually worked out in Biggs’ favor. The jury handed down a conviction for first degree manslaughter which carries a maximum sentence of seven years of which John Oren Biggs expected to only serve two.
Thomas Coleman, a gay rights activist working in California, came out against the judgment. He wasn’t wrong to do so in my opinion. In 1978 Dan White murdered Harvey Milk, the first openly gay public servant, and served only two years of his laughably short seven year sentence for a brutally premeditated murder. People felt at that time, as they still do, that it was impossible to pass a harsh unbiased sentence when the victim was queer. Biggs didn’t fare so well himself in the end. His family joined a protest in Kern County with other families in 2014 who have lost loved ones to police violence.
Assistant district attorney Anthony T. Sparks called the murder the “cruelest and most vicious homicide in Kern County history.” Of Biggs, he claimed the man was “clearly a sociopath,” which is an opinion held by many in law enforcement. By the time Biggs was called to answer for the murder of Nurl Renfro he had already had a rap sheet started at 11 years old which included but was not limited to assault and battery, assault with a deadly weapon, extortion, and burglary. These charges did not aid in his defense given the fashion in which he was apprehended after Renfro’s murder.
After leaving the room with no doors Biggs took Renfro’s 1980 Oldsmobile Toronado and called on his friend William Harold Blankenship to enlist his help in robbing the old man’s house. With Blankenship’s help he managed to abscond with Nurl Renfro’s safe. When opened, the safe yielded only important documents and nude photos of men.
I can’t answer for this crime or its circumstances. The court even had trouble making heads or tails of the whole thing. The first attempt at prosecution ended in a mistrial of sorts. While the jury in the first trial had no qualms about convicting Biggs of burglary and car theft they couldn’t bring it on themselves to lay a first or second degree murder charge. The 1984 retrial on the murder charge with a new judge and defense could only render a guilty verdict for first degree manslaughter.
It is a sordid and heavy affair which I can only regard with suspicion. Neither sounds particularly innocent. To rebuff a sexual advance a ‘no’ is customary; self-defense? Not out of the question; but 40 blows to the head is a particularly aggressive reaction from a man we already know to be particularly aggressive. In short, the true horror is that two men entered the room with no doors and it is a room only one has left.
This article would not have been possible without resources from The Bakersfield Californian, specifically Robert Price’s “The Lords of Bakersfield” ( https://www.bakersfield.com/columnists/robert_price/the-lords-of-bakersfield-were-these-half-dozen-murders-connected/article_42e08a9b-df61-567d-bdbc-3477ed7cd82f.html), and Michael Trihey’s coverage of Biggs’ retrial.