Wednesday, September 30, 2026

September 30, 1959: A Doctor's Screw-up in Los Angeles

Viola Go was the 36-year-old second wife of George Go, a wealthy produce dealer in Salinas, California in the late summer and early fall of 1959. The couple had two children: 7-year-old Bradford and 8-year-old Gail. Viola was a native of Hong Kong who came to the United States as an adult to attend UCLA. She had a bother, Frank Chan, who worked as a traveling magician; a brother Larry Chan in Los Angeles; and a sister in Hong Kong.

Viola Seeks Help From an Unusual Source

Viola made three visits to Dr. Norman Andresen in Salinas on August 11, 20, and 25. Dr. Andresen determined that Viola was pregnant and healthy, with no indications that it would be unsafe for her to carry her baby to term. 

Viola told George that she wanted to arrange an abortion. For some reason, she reached out to George's former wife, Jean Dashut, to locate a doctor willing to do the job. Jean called 38-year-old Dr. Joseph Alexander Emory and set up an appointment for Viola to meet him at 5 pm on September 4 

Grok AI illustration
On the appointed day, George drove Viola to a motel where they met up with Jean. Jean got in the car and they all went to a cocktail lounge on Osborne Avenue in the Van Nuys area of Los Angeles. George waited there while his former and current wives went out the back way to meet with the abortionist.

Jean asked Viola to wait while she went in to find out if it was okay for them to go in. Emory told Jean to come back with Viola in 5 or 10 minutes.

When the women returned, Emory asked Viola if she had eaten for the past six hours. When she said she had, Emory told her that the anesthetic would make her sick if she had eaten that recently so he told her to return the following morning.

The Abortion is Perpetrated

Viola, Jean, and George went to Emory's home the next morning. Emory told George to wait in the living room. Jean accompanied Viola when Emory took her to the procedure room. Viola got on the procedure table and put her feet in the stirrups. Emory gave Viola an injection, and Jean went back to the living room to wait with George.

Since Emory had said that the abortion wouldn't take long, Viola went into the procedure room after about half an hour to see what was happening. Emory was standing at the food of the exam table, looking pale and nervous. At his feet was a bucket or pan on the floor containing tissue and blood that Jean took to be the results of an abortion at about two months -- a sight that, for a reason not detailed in the document, Jean had evidently seen at least once before. 

Jean went back to wait with George again, and another half hour went by before Emory came out and asked George, "How far along did you say your wife was?" George replied that her period had been about June 15. Emory said, "There something real large up there. It seemed like she must be further along."

George said that Emory told him that "he would abort part of it, and that the other part could be the after-birth or something else, but at any rate that is is not going to do no more, let her rest a while, and I understand he gave her some ergot and let nature take his course."

Calling in the Experts

George stayed at Emory's home with Viola until the night of Monday, September 7, leaving only to get something to eat. He went back to Salinas, where on Tuesday morning he spoke to a Dr. Husser about what had happened. Dr. Husser called Dr. William Bradbury, an OB/GYN in Santa Monica, to say that he knew of a woman who was in bad shape after an abortion. He asked Bradbury to take over the woman's care.

Bradbury agreed, and made arrangements for Viola to be admitted to Santa Monica Hospital. Meanwhile George returned to Emory's house, arriving about 11 pm on Tuesday, September 8. He called an ambulance to take his wife to the hospital. George said that Emory told him to say that Viola had already been hemorrhaging when she had arrived at his practice.

Viola arrived at Santa Monica Hospital at 1 am on September 9, already in critical condition. Dr. Bradbury's associate did the admission. Viola told him that her only surgical history was an abortion five years earlier and then another on the previous Saturday. She said that the doctor who had done the abortion knew that he had perforated her uterus so she had remained under his care. Like George, she gave the date of her last period as June 16. 

George met Dr. Bradbury at the hospital and gave him the history of what had happened with his wife. Dr. Bradbury told George to have Emory call him and discuss what he'd done so far so that Dr. Bradbury could plan appropriate treatment.

The next morning, September 10, Emory called Dr. Bradbury and said that he had reached into her uterus with a placental forceps and it went in up to the handle, farther than it should have in a patient that was two months pregnant. When he pulled the forceps out, he saw he had pulled out a loop of intestine. Like safe-and-legal abortionists would do in subsequent decades, Emory pushed the intestine back through the hole and hoped for the best. Uncertain if he had injured her bowel, he gave Viola a transfusion and some intravenous fluids and cared for her in his home.

Futile Efforts

Dr. Bradbury contacted Dr. David Sprong, a bowel surgery specialist, to assist. During the surgery they found a lot of damage. Emory had indeed put a hole in the top of Viola's uterus. He also tore open her small bowel, mangling it and spilling out "quite a bit" of partially-digested bowel contents. The doctors did their best to repair the damage and treat the peritonitis.

In spite of their efforts, Viola's condition continued to deteriorate. Dr. Sprong operated again on September 29 to address an abdominal abscess, but in spite of his efforts, Viola died the next day, September 30.

Upon autopsy the physician found markings in the cervix indicating that sharp instruments had been used in the uterus. Viola had a blood clot and necrotic tissue in her uterus. The conclusion was that the abortion had caused fatal peritonitis.

Emory Self-Snitches

On October 1, Los Angeles Police Department Officer Mitchell went to Emory's home and told him that Viola was dead. Emory admitted to reaching into Viola's uterus with toothed forceps and pulling out "a loop of gut." He described what he had done as "examining" Viola. When Officer Mitchell asked Emory why he was examining Viola, he responded, "I don't think I had better answer that." Mitchell arrested Emory for murder and abortion.

Officer Mitchell asked Emory to tell him and the other officers where the injury to Viola had taken place, and he directed them to a build at the rear of the house. They found it equipped with a gynecological table, medical instruments, and medicines. When asked for records of the treatment he had provided to Viola, Emory said he had made no records, though sometimes his wife made records of his patients.

Officer Mitchell asked Emory why he would jeopardize his practice for the small amount of money he'd make doing abortions. Officer Mitchell said that Emory told him "that he did a lot of things that he knew were wrong and that they were against the law, but that he had a a hard time making enough money to pay for his family expenses, and so forth." He added that Emory told him that "there were many girls who came to him who had done something to themselves, and that he would go ahead and do curettements, clean them up." 

Officer Mitchell said that when he'd asked Emory how much he'd gotten for Viola's abortion, Emory said that he'd actually lost money on it because he'd needed to use expensive medications. Officer Mitchell told Emory he'd been told that Viola had paid between $400 and $600 for the abortion and asked if that was correct. Emory, Mitchell said, responded "I don't think I should answer that question."

Emory's Story in Court

Emory was booked on suspicion of murder on October 1.  He was freed on $20,000 bail.  

Emory took the stand in his own defense and said that Viola and Jean had persuaded him to examine her and he had only reached into her uterus with forceps to remove some afterbirth and determine how large the uterine cavity was. 

Emory's defense brought in his wife and maid to assert that Viola had told them that she'd had an miscarriage and was grateful that Dr. Emory was helping her. This evidence was stricken on the grounds that it was hearsay. 

He was convicted of second-degree murder and abortion in May of 1960. He appealed and was granted a new trial on grounds related to the admissibility of testimony.

His license was revoked by the Board of Osteopathic Examiners after the conviction, but Emory managed to get it reinstated on May 2, 1974.

In July of 1976 Emory was arraigned on a total of 17 counts of murder, 28 counts of child endangering, and 5 counts of conspiracy. These cases appear to have been related to the deaths of infants under his care.

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Veteran pro-life investigator Kevin Sherlock asks people of good will to help him have Planned Parenthood prosecuted for profiteering from the rapes and incests of underage girls many thousands of times each year.

Sherlock has  pulled the police records of hundreds of cities and has pulled the child protective services records of multiple states to prove Planned Parenthood staffers are violating mandated reporting laws designed to protect girl victims.   But there is more to be done. Sherlock will make sure more and more evidence gets to federal and state prosecutors who care about protecting girls from abusers and profiteers.

If you would like to help, please click the following link:


Sherlock has talked to many girls and young women who trust him. Their stories and the forensic evidence shows most of them undergo pill abortions or humiliating invasive surgical abortions due to fear or ignorance or pressure or coercion. He treats the girls or women carrying children or devastated from their abortions as friends and neighbors in his home town, not afterthoughts.

Thank you for doing what you can to help girls and fight sexual predators and rape profiteers.

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