6,000–10,000 (other reports say 3,000–5,000), stormed the jail, took Holmes and Thurmond across the street to St. James Park, and hanged them. Afterward, deputy sheriff John Moore stated, "I never knew human beings could go so wildthey were not human; they were animals." Deputy Moore was choked twice during the lynching: once when he refused to surrender the keys to the jail cells, and another time when he refused to positively identify Holmes for the mob. Some women in the mob were alleged to have encouraged the violence, seemingly forgetting their prior advice to let the law "take its course". Child movie star Jackie Coogan, a friend of Brooke from Santa Clara University, was reported to be one of the mob that prepared and held the rope for lynching. Thurmond was the first to be lynched. As he was dragged from the jail headfirst, the mob beat him and knotted the rope around his neck; one man who attempted to stop the lynching was "picked up bodily and hurled almost over the heads of the crowd". After Thurmond was hanged, the mob tore his trousers off and souvenir hunters fought over the scraps. Holmes cried, "You're making a big mistake! I'm not the man you want!" as he was lynched. Harold Fitzgerald described the scene in an Oakland Tribune article: "A concerted pulland the white, blood-streaked body of the second of Brooke Hart's murderers swayed in a grisly rhythm in the light of a rising half-moon. A roar, mingled with women's screams, rolled across the park ... [Afterward,] The crowd began pouring out of the park. Some did serpentine dances in the streets. ... Snatches of song came from here and there in the multitude." Immediate aftermath The bodies of Thurmond and Holmes were left hanging for approximately 45 minutes, until they were cut down by police officials. Thurmond was buried in an unmarked plot in Oak Hill Memorial Park on November 29, the same cemetery where Brooke had been buried on November 27. Holmes was cremated at Oak Hill on November 29. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, on December 2, after a special meeting of the city council heard testimony in support of leaving the cork elm tree as a monument and warning to evildoers, the council approved the cutting down of the tree by city workers. Police were required to keep off a crowd of souvenir hunters