Kidnaped by her father from the doorstep of her home yesterday morning, Norman Nichols, the two-year-old daughter of Mrs. Dorothy Nichoils of No. 505 Sherman avenue, became the storm center of domestic warfare and a strenuous hunt by the police. . . .

The case is one of the most pathetic, so far as the mother is concerned, in the history of the local courts.

She is the granddaughter of a chief of the Cherokee Indians, was reared in the dreaded feud country of the White Mountains of Tennessee, and when she talks of her trouble there is a tense chord in her voice, an effort to stifle the throb of her Indian blood, that calls aloud for vengeance, according to the old code.

Three months ago Mrs. Nichols left her husband. . . . Monday morning Nichols was ordered to pay his wife $5 a week. . . . Tuesday morning [he] kidnaped the baby girl from the front doorstep.

He was chased by Rev. J.W. Means, a Cumberland Presbyterian minister, at whose home Mrs. Nichols has found shelter. Means, although 65 years of age, managed to head Nichols off at Monte Vista street and Avenue 56. . . . He followed him on foot to the corner of Second and Spring streets, a distance of five miles, and there accosted a patrolman, who took the matter up with the Police Station. . . .

The overlay on the Google map at left shows the route that Nichols and Rev. Means followed.

The unhappy marriage took place three years ago. Mrs. Nichols is not yet 20 years of age. Her husband is 40. . . . Her husband, she says, refused to support her or the baby, and she was compelled to work until late at night to care for the little one.

She also charges that her husband compelled her to name the baby Norman, a boy’s name, because he liked it. . . .

Desperate at the cruel theft of her baby, the blood of her ancestry dominated her as she ground her white teeth together and muttered, “I will kill him.” . . .

[Nichols told officers he was only following the orders of his attorney. After a conference at the attorney's office, everybody agree the baby should be returned to the mother until a court appearance in the next week.]

Willful violation of the ordinance prohibiting proprietors of theaters from allowing young children in their places, unless accompanied by a person of mature years, is charged against J.A. Browne, owner of the Cineograph Theater, No. 114 Court street. . . .

With gaping mouths and staring eyes, the children were literally drinking in a burglary scene. With striking vividness was portrayed before them the entrance of a thief through a window and his subsequent flight with his loot.

It was just such scenes as these, the police believe, that incited the three young bandits to throw the neighborhood of St. James Park into a turmoil of excitement and t error, Friday night. . . .

The arresting officer says that he will subpoena at least ten of the boys, who were in the theater, as witnesses, when the case comes to trial.

[On Nov. 16, Browne was found guilty and fined $50. Earlier, his theater, which held forth on the site of the present City Hall, had legal troubles for failing to install a sprinkler system under a new city ordinance. According to the Los Angeles Theatres Web site, the house could seat 1,200 people.]