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Her execution by cyanide gas in June 1955 was merciful compared to her crime, as J. Miller Leavy saw it.

Leavy won many high-profile cases during his storied career at the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office, but few drew more attention than the case against the woman nicknamed “Bloody Babs.”

Relentless and skilled, with a flair for theater, Leavy told jurors that Graham had not just participated in the robbery but was central to the violence.

“Barbara Graham tied Mabel Monahan’s hands behind her back, pistol whipped her and left her to die,” Leavy, then 85, told a Times columnist in 1990.

“For the People,” an authorized history of the district attorney’s office, burnishes Leavy’s legend and repeats the claim that Graham pistol-whipped the victim.