Walter Jerome Harmon Sr. | |
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| Born | Walter Jerome Harmon November 4, 1893 New York, New York, U.S. |
| Died | September 30, 1943 (aged 49) Los Angeles, California, U.S. |
| Other names | Herbert Stone, Dr. W Lewis, Cary T. Grayson, Harold Steen, Wade Eills, Lee Lash |
| Known for | Bigamist, Financial Fraud |
| Spouses | |
| Children | 2 |
Walter Jerome Harmon Sr. (known by his aliases Harold Steen, Dr. W Lewis, Herbert Stone ) (November 4th, 1893 - 30 September 1943) was an American Bigamist and a furniture salesman who was infamous for marrying allegedly up to 18 wives often with a short period to steal money and to check in fraudulent checks. He had an extensive criminal history of falsifying identities by frequently claiming to be a physician or a wealthy businessman.
He often assumed fake aliases in order to hide his criminal record.
Early Life
editWalter Jerome Harmon was born on November 4, 1893, in Manhattan, New York. He was the oldest of two surviving children and the only son of a German immigrant housewife Frieda Wassermann and Stephen Harman, an American merchant of German descent. His father passed away in December 1903 when he was 10 years old and was raised by his single mother, who would later get married in February 1910 to Max Frankel, a German immigrant merchant. He grew up in Manhattan's Carnegie Hill neighborhood of East 96th Street and Lexington Avenue.
Harmon began working at a young age, presumably to support his family's financial instability. At around age 16, he worked as a clerk for linen industry, and did other clerical jobs for several years. In his 20s, he worked manufacturing wicker furniture for several years, then co-owned a pharmaceutical company in 1920 with two other individuals, in which he was a president of the company.
At age 24, He married for the first time in April 1918 to Beatrice Sliver Hellman (1895-1977), with whom he had a son, Walter Jerome Harmon Jr. in December 1919. Their marriage however, was short lived, and ten months after their son's birth, Beatrice filed for divorce on grounds of infidelity from Harmon. Harmon allegedly tried to poison Beatrice's friend, a motion picture actress Georgie Empie, who was mentioned in the divorce suit of Beatrice. They were officially divorced in March 1921.