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Because today’s post (THE LOWER 13th MURDER CASE) is about a crime that occurred on a train, I thought I’d pair it with one of my favorite movies, THE LADY VANISHES. It is a nifty Hitchcock thriller from 1938, starring Margaret Lockwood, Michael Redgrave, and Dame May Whitty. Two of the film’s incidental characters, Charters and Caldicott, who are mad for cricket, were featured in a 1985 BBC television series.
I love this movie — I hope you’ll enjoy it!
TCM says:
Aboard a train bound for London, Miss Froy, an elderly English governess, makes the acquaintance of young Iris Henderson. When Miss Froy disappears, Iris asks for the other passengers’ assistance in finding the old woman, only to have all contend that Miss Froy was never on the train.
Founded in 1921, Christie-Nestor Motion Picture Company, at the corner of Sunset Boulevard and Gower Street, was Hollywood’s first movie studio. David Horsley, the studio’s producer, cranked out three complete motion pictures each week. The hectic schedule scarcely kept up with the public’s demand for the new medium.
Christie Nestor Studio c. 1916. Photo courtesy of Los Angeles Public Library.
Over the next several years, filmmakers from the East Coast recognized the advantages of setting up shop in Hollywood. The Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce praised the region’s natural beauty, enhanced by year-round sunshine. Sunshine made a difference before indoor studios and artificial lighting. Locals provided cheap labor and extras for crowd scenes. A decade later, the sleepy burg of 5,000 residents became a thriving city of 35,000—most of them in the movie business.
With the studios and the busloads of dreamers came the first fan magazines. Magazines such as Moving Picture World and Photoplay played a part in creating the culture of celebrity by showcasing the lives of famous people. People bought movie magazines for the gossip, fashion, and lifestyle—harmless fun. The magazines fueled the dreams of those who longed to be famous. Few made the cut. Filled with photographs showing stars decked-out in diamond jewelry, standing on the grounds of their Beverly Hills mansion, or seated behind the wheel of an exotic car, the magazines gave would-be extortionists, blackmailers, kidnappers, and robbers ideas of their own.
On January 20, 1929, while making the rounds of local studios, Fern Setril met world-renowned director D. W. Griffith. She was thrilled when he told her she was a “girl of an an unusual type of beauty, unspoiled,” and that she had “remarkable features that would film well in motion pictures.” Despite Griffith’s apparent interest, Fern’s movie career did not take off. Not until 1931 did her name become associated with his.
On February 24, 1931, newspapers broke the story that Fern sued Griffith for $601,000 ($12.3M in current USD). The suit specified $500,000 for actual damages, $100,000 for punitive damages and $1,000 for medical treatment. Fern claimed that on June 25, 1930, she met with Griffith in his apartment to discuss her role as Ann Rutledge in his upcoming film, Abraham Lincoln. According to Fern, they did not run lines. Griffith plied her with champagne and raped her.
From his room at the Astor Hotel in New York, Griffith responded to the charges. He called them absurd and without foundation. He said, “I am astounded at the charges made against me. The whole story is untrue. The name Fern Setril means nothing to me. I don’t know anyone by that name.” Griffith vowed to “fight these charges to the limit.”
D. W. Griffith
Fern’s attorneys, Josef Widoff and J. B. Mandel, denied requests from reporters for an interview with their client. Even without her cooperation, reporters dug up enough information from the lawsuit filing to keep the story above the fold on the front page. They learned that before she moved to Hollywood to pursue an acting career, Fern lived in Wasco, California. Most of the time, she worked as an extra, acting in only a few minor bit parts under the surnames Barry or Darry.
Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle. Photo courtesy of the Los Angeles Public Library.
Although Fern filed a civil lawsuit, District Attorney Buron Fitts had no choice but to begin a criminal investigation into the alleged rape. He assigned his chief investigator, Blayney Matthews, to the case. Matthews found out for two weeks following the alleged attack, Mrs. C. E. Taylor and her son, Earl W. Taylor, nursed Fern back to health in their Pasadena home.
Mrs. Taylor told reporters, “It was another Arbuckle case. The girl nearly died here in my apartment.”
Mrs. Taylor said she first met Fern when Earl brought her home. “The girl was penniless,” she commented. “If my son hadn’t brought her in, she would have been left on the street.” Mrs. Taylor refused to name the Pasadena physicians who attended Fern. According to Mrs. Taylor, she and Earl took Fern to a hospital where doctors operated on her for an unspecified condition.
As often happens in breaking news, the rapid twists and turns had reporters struggling to stay on top of the story. This led to conflicting reports. Newspapers hit the street once a day unless they printed a special edition, which meant the news cycle was not in real time. Within a few days of the first report, Griffith suggested to reporters he might be the victim of an extortion plot cooked up by Fern and Earl.
D. A. Buron Fitts declared, “If the facts develop sufficiently to justify a prosecution on the charge of a conspiracy to commit the crime of extortion or attempted extortion, this office will prosecute.”
While Griffith remained in New York, Matthews delved further into Fern’s background. So did reporters. As they did, their coverage shifted in tone. They did not find enough to pillory Fern, but they could build the framework.
Fern Setril
Marguerite and Verona Shearer, Fern’s former Hollywood roommates, told Matthews that Fern filed for a divorce from someone named Frank in August 1930. Fern was married during the time she visited Griffith’s apartment. Fern made it sound like she had visited Griffith only twice before he pounced, but that conflicted with what the Shearer sisters told Matthews. Verona heard Fern talk about a friend named Lou, which was Fern’s name for Griffith.
Marguerite and Verona were a wealth of information. They told Matthews that several times over the summer of 1930, they heard Earl say he “was going to see to it that Fern sued D. W. Griffith to the limit.” Fern’s story unraveled with each new report. One of the most egregious holes in her account was her contention that Griffith offered her the role of Ann Rutledge in Abraham Lincoln. Griffith finished shooting the film in May, with Una Merkel in the role, a month before the alleged attack. The film debuted in New York on August 24.
The discrepancy in her account shocked Fern’s attorneys. They rushed to file an amended complaint, deleting all references to the movie. Another problem for Fern was Earl’s involvement. He contacted local newspapers to “buy this little girl’s story.” Over the telephone, he told reporters, “… this little girl is just out of the convent.”
Earl struggled to convince jaded reporters of Fern’s story. It would have been tougher still if anyone had thought to check newspapers from a few years back. If they had, they would have found out that a love triangle, in which Fern played a pivotal role, was front-page news for a nanosecond in 1926.
In early May 1926, Setril’s photo appeared in the Los Angeles Times and the Illustrated Daily News. Lillian Schmid said her husband, Frank, betrayed her with her best friend, Fern. Lillian told the judge in her divorce case that Fern had lived with her and Frank for five months. After Fern left, Lilian found a letter from her in Frank’s pocket. She confronted him about it. At first, he played dumb. Later, he admitted he loved Fern and was going away with her. Lillian said, “He left me that day.”
Lillian’s attorney, Frank C. Dunham, read aloud an excerpt from Fern’s letter to the court. “By the time this reaches you, I shall be gone. As I know in my heart, it is the only fair thing to do. I just can’t go on living the way I am. There is no use hiding the fact any longer—I love you dearly. I fought hard to hide my love because it is not fair to Lillian. She has been a good wife to you, Frank, and she loves you. I am not the kind of woman who would come between you and Lil, so I am going to leave.”
Lillian got her divorce, and Fern and Frank married in Pasadena on May 15, 1927. Fern got lucky. Reporters never picked up on her earlier peccadillo, but she was not out of the woods. Reporters located the divorce records in the county clerk’s office.
Fern left Frank in August 1929 and returned to her mother’s home in Wasco. Frank followed her there and, at gunpoint, forced her to return to Los Angeles with him. In the divorce, she charged Frank with cruelty and won an interlocutory decree on October 16, 1930. That was not the end of her marital woes. Frank appeared in court to have the decree set aside. He accused Fern of misconduct with one “John Doe.” Frank said Doe gave Fern money and expensive gifts. He also said she bragged to her friends about being in love with Doe. Frank failed to appear on January 7, 1931. Fern won her decree by default.
Fern replaced her troublesome husband with a problematic boyfriend, Earl Taylor. In August 1928, Judge Fletcher Bowron (future mayor of Los Angeles) sentenced Taylor to San Quentin for embezzlement. Taylor embezzled two $5,000 promissory notes belonging to Lynn. C. Booze. Besides swindling Booze, he stole from several Compton and Long Beach businessmen. Taylor applied for probation, but the judge denied it. After a year in San Quentin, they paroled him on October 29, 1929—Black Tuesday, the day the stock market crashed and plunged the U.S. into a decade-long depression.
Fern and Taylor likely met when he worked at one of the local movie studios following his parole. Did Fern meet Griffith in 1929? Maybe, but there is a chance she and Taylor fabricated the story. Blayney Matthews began his investigation, and the couple’s scheme unraveled. At the end of February, he questioned Fern and Taylor. On the advice of her attorney, Jerry Giesler, Fern declined to make a statement. Taylor should have followed Fern’s lead. Instead, he spoke at length and dug himself a deep hole. Matthews determined Taylor was the “mastermind” behind the extortion plot.
A movie technical assistant, Frank Leyva, told Matthews that Fern and Taylor had tried to extort him, too. In October 1930, Fern threatened to charge him with rape if he didn’t pay. He went to the police instead.
While Matthews questioned Taylor, James Lewis, assistant State parole officer, identified Taylor as the man sentenced to San Quentin in August 1928. Lewis said, “Taylor has been on the borderline of trouble several times since he was paroled. I warned him once before not to be too friendly with Mrs. Setril. That was before she was divorced from her husband, who complained to me of Taylor’s attentions to his wife.”
Lewis had news for Taylor. His parole would not expire until August 18, 1931. A violation would return him to prison. Fitts held Taylor in technical custody until they could settle the Griffith case. Fern sued Griffith, but never had him served. The case fizzled. So, too, did the criminal investigation into the alleged sexual assault.
In custody, the strain got to Taylor, who threatened to commit suicide. “If they don’t do something to break this strain pretty soon, I’ll jump out of a window.” Fern pleaded with him to hang on, “for my sake.” Taylor fought in vain. They returned him to prison. Fern broke her vow to wait. In the summer of 1932, she announced her imminent marriage to a man she did not name. No record of the marriage appeared in local newspapers. Fern disappeared.
Following his parole, Earl Taylor re-invented himself as a Hollywood writer’s agent. In 1935, two women accused him of fraud. A jury acquitted him.
In June 1939, under the sensational headline, L.A. Gunman Runs Amok in Hotel, the Daily News reported that a retired furrier, Frank Setril, took potshots at lights and windows at the Vanderbilt Hotel. Frank locked himself in his third-floor room. Police flushed him out with tear gas. No one could explain his behavior.
D. W. Griffith’s first full talking film, Abraham Lincoln, fizzled at the box-office. He followed it up in 1931 with The Struggle, which also failed.
He never made another movie.
NOTE: I wrote about Fern Setril in my book, Of Mobsters and Movie Stars: The Bloody Golden Age of Hollywood, Wild Blue Press, 2024.
One thing I love about researching true crime is how a story can change direction. Just when I think I have someone figured out, they do something that seems out of character, and it wipes the smug expression off my face. That happened with Olney Le Blanc.
Olney’s courage impressed me when I discovered his story in newspaper coverage from 1935. He saved his three-year-old son, Bernard, from a man who killed the boy’s puppy and likely had something awful planned for the child.
Curious about where Olney’s life would take him, I continued to search. He appeared in minor news stories about his career as a dancer, and as a teacher. By 1940, he was the recreation leader at McKinley Home for Boys in Van Nuys; a job for which he was well-suited. He lived at the home without his wife or son. Because I could not find documentation, I believe they may have separated or divorced.
I expected Olney to continue his career as a dance teacher. Maybe I’d find he and Annette had divorced. The truth caught me off-guard.
Olney was a killer.
On August 29, 1942, a call summoned Los Angeles County Sheriff’s deputies to the Carmelitos housing project, where someone had stabbed a woman. They arrived at the Carmelitos Housing Project, at the residence of June Dyer, 22-year-old mother of three.
Mildred Davis, left, and Muriel Robbins, right, of the tenant selection staff of the County Housing Authority, look over the Carmelitos low-rent housing project, located in North Long Beach. The project was the first of its kind opened in Southern California. Photo dated: October 23, 1940, courtesy of LAPL.
Ten blocks away from the scene of the murder, police found a man unconscious in a car outside a school. Someone also stabbed him. One officer made a tourniquet from the leather thong of his nightstick and stopped blood spurting from a gashed arm. They identified him as Olney Le Blanc, and booked him into the police hospital ward on suspicion of murder.
In one of his pockets they found a letter, written by June.
Dear Donald: This is a written confession of an unforgivable error I made—not in the doing, but because I kept the truth from you. Dan is not your son. You know his father. Hold it not against Danny and love him as you always have if you can.
Donald, I have deceived you many times since the beginning, even telling you I loved you. I lied.
I could never find real happiness with a lie in my heart. Mr. Leblanc has been cheated of a glorified happiness because of me. I’m doing to try to make him happy, as I know he can make me happy and be as grand a father to the boys as anyone in the world. We will work together, something you and I could never get started.
Your wife, June
Why did Olney have June’s letter in his possession?
Working for hours, Sheriff’s deputies Ed Carroll, Emmett Love and H. K. MacVine pieced together the events leading up to the murder.
A witness, 16-year-old Walter Jensen, said he saw June standing beside a car outside of her home, talking to four friends. Another car drove up, its driver called to her, and she left to talk to him.
Walter said, “They seemed to be arguing. Then he grabbed her and threw her to the ground. Walter ran to June’s aid, but the man knocked him down. Her friends carried June into her house. Her husband, Don, arrived home in time to see June die.
The U.S. was at war, and hundreds of thousands of people moved to Los Angeles for war work at shipyards and factories. June, her husband Donald, and Olney worked at Vultee, a defense plant. June and Olney worked a swing shift, and they got to know each other. When she found out he was a woodworker, she asked if he would give her instruction. Olney agreed.
After her death, newspapers suggested June and Olney were having an affair, and called the case California’s first swing-shift murder. Staggered working hours sometimes made it difficult for spouses not to stray.
Donald took umbrage with newspapers that suggested June had broken her marriage vows. He said Olney became obsessed with June. In fact, six weeks before the murder, Olney kidnapped June, drove her to the Mojave Desert, stabbed her in the side and forced her to write a letter to Don, confessing infidelity.
Sheriff’s records proved the truth of Don’s statement. Deputies took Olney into custody and booked on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon following the kidnapping. June and Don refused to press charges.
At the time of the kidnapping, Olney told officers, “I was so madly in love with her I didn’t know what I was doing.”
The letter found on Olney following his attempted suicide was the letter he had forced June to write.
Olney appeared for his preliminary hearing on September 15th. The judge remanded him to the County Jail without bail, pending trial, on a charge of murder.
As deputies led a shackled Olney from the courtroom, Don lunged at him, screaming, “I hope you die in a thousand hells—you didn’t have the guts to kill yourself, but you could kill June.” A bailiff shoved Don aside before he could get his hands on Olney.
In October, Olney entered a plea of not guilty by reason of insanity. The court appointed three alienists to examine Olney, and set trial for November 6 before Superior Judge Charles W. Fricke.
I’ve written about Fricke before. He was a no-nonsense jurist; some even called him a “hanging judge.” Olney was in for a rough ride.
In a surprise move, under an agreement with the D.A.’s office, Olney’s not guilty plea would stand. No witnesses would be called before Judge Fricke, who would use a transcript of the preliminary hearing and to have the court consider it as the evidence in determining Olney’s guilt or innocence, and the punishment if any.
On November 23rd, Judge Fricke found Olney guilty of first-degree murder, and sentenced him to life imprisonment.
Why did Olney’s life unravel? When I first found his story, it seemed he would lead a happy and productive life. How did he go from saving his son from a kidnapper to murdering June with a German sword?
While combing old newspapers in search of a tale for a Deranged L.A. Crimes post, I found the curious story of Olney Le Blanc.
On January 28, 1935, a picture of him with his son, Bernard, ran in the Los Angeles Times alongside a headline about a suspected kidnapping and arrest.
The day before the article appeared, 3-year-old Bernard Le Blanc was playing with his two-month-old puppy in his backyard. Moments later, a neighbor, John Corbett, saw Bernard walking down the alley hand in hand with a stranger who had a burlap sack thrown over his shoulder.
Alarmed, Corbett dashed over to Olney’s home and told him what he had witnessed. Olney, Corbett, and a group of neighbors rallied. They chased the man, and Olney caught him. A professional dancer, Olney was in prime physical condition and apprehended the stranger with ease. A fistfight broke out after the vendor resisted. The man was no match for a father in defense of his son. The neighbors held him for police. In the sack they found Bernard’s puppy, dead.
The stranger identified himself as 40-year-old Jack Light, a fruit vendor who lived at 401 1/2 North Main Street. He told police he was drinking before he saw Bernard and his puppy. Light insisted he only wanted to take Bernard to a local café for a bottle of milk, and to a store to buy food for the puppy. He claimed Bernard put the dog, still alive, in the burlap sack and denied kicking it to death. He said when Olney knocked him down, he must have fallen on the sack and crushed the dog’s head. Witnesses contradicted Light’s version.
Detectives Brown and Filkas arrested Light for attempted kidnapping.
In February, Jack Light, acting as his own attorney, took the stand on his own behalf. Charged with child stealing, he told Municipal Judge Morgan Gaibreth the same story he had told police. The judge set Light’s bail at $5000.
On March 20, 1935, Judge Fletcher Bowron found Light guilty of child stealing. Light requested probation. Judge Bowron sentenced him to ninety days in the County Jail, ten years’ probation, and fined him $25.
There is no way to know for sure what Light planned to do with Bernard. That he kicked the puppy to death leads me to believe he was going to harm Bernard, too. Olney’s swift action saved his son from an uncertain fate
Olney’s courage impressed me. I wanted to know if he did anything else worthy of newspaper coverage. I found a few stories about Olney and his dance career. He must have been talented to stay employed during the Depression.
By October 1936, Olney taught dance at the Torrance Recreation Department. The Get-Together Club was part of a WPA (Works Progress Administration) effort. He taught classes from 3:30 to 5:30 p.m., each weekday.
Olney’s dance partner, Coral King, threw a birthday party for him in August 1939 at the Redwood Ranch, home of Lita Houghton in Van Nuys. The party was formal dress, with a live band. Among those in attendance was Coral’s dance class, the Friday Nighters.
The 1940 Federal Census shows Olney as the recreation leader at the McKinley Home for Boys at 13840 Riverside Drive in Van Nuys (now Sherman Oaks). He stated he was married, but his living alone at the home suggests a separation from his wife.
The McKinley Home (named after President McKinley), housed 150-250 boys. In the early 1960s, the home moved to San Dimas and still operates today. They leveled the Van Nuys location and built a mall in its place.
Other than a possible crack in his marriage, Olney appeared to be doing well.
Curious, I searched for further information.
I was unprepared for what I found.
NEXT TIME: Olney’s life takes a turn to the dark side.
Murder victims lose their identities. They are a toe tag in the morgue; they are a file number for police. Sometimes it is easy to forget that they were much more than a newspaper headline.
Born in a small New Mexico town in 1902, Jeanne Axford came of age during the Roaring ‘20s. Perfect timing for the free-spirited girl. She married at 17 to David Wrather and they had a son, David, Jr.
Jeanne Axford (L) with her cousin Clara (Photo: Ancestry)
In 1922, after training in New Mexico, Jeanne worked as a nurse in Amarillo, Texas. Marriage didn’t suit her. She and David divorced in 1924; she won custody of their son.
In 1925, Jeanne married again. That marriage, too, failed. Rumor has it Jeanne acted in films, but I couldn’t find her listed in the Internet Movie Database, even under an alias, so she may have had uncredited roles.
Regardless of whether she appeared in movies, Jeanne had an interesting Hollywood connection. She worked as a private nurse for Marion Benda Wilson, Rudolph Valentino’s last date, and maybe his last love. Known as the “Woman in Black” for many years, Marion put flowers on Valentino’s grave.
Marion Benda Wilson aka the Woman in Black
Sometime between 1925 and 1931, Jeanne learned to fly and earned the moniker, “Flying Nurse.” She worked for a large oil company in South America, flying from one oil field to another, caring for workers. She became a member of the Women’s Air Reserve, and the 99 Club, an organization of women aviators.
Either an optimist, or a glutton for punishment, Jeanne married for a third time in Dallas, Texas on October 8, 1931, two days after her 29th birthday, to Curtis Bower. It took the couple five weeks to realize their mistake. Dissolving her marriage earned Jeanne another nickname, “air-mail divorcee.” The divorce papers, prepared by her attorney, Allan Lund, went via air to Juarez, Mexico for filing. A law firm in Mexico provided for a final decree by proxy. Neither Jeanne nor Curtis needed to appear in court.
On July 5, 1932, Jeanne’s mother, Oma Randolph, went to police to file a missing person report. Jeanne left home the morning of June 27 to drive to the Mexican border, where she planned to board a private plane for Mexico City.
The Flying Nurse
The week following the missing person report, Jeanne cabled her mother from Mexico City. “I can’t understand the worry I have caused in the United States by flying to Mexico. I am flying back for the Olympics. I assure everyone that I am okeh.”
Jeanne kept a low profile for the next several years. She married in 1944 for the fourth and final time to a former Marine, Frank French.
It isn’t clear when Jeanne started her slide into alcoholism, but by the mid-1940s, she fought demons she could not control.
Alcohol fueled a life of risky behavior and made Jeanne easy prey for a monster.
On February 10, 1947, less than a month after housewife Betty Bersinger found Elizabeth Short’s bisected body in a Leimert Park vacant lot, Hugh C. Shelby, a bulldozer operator, found the brutally beaten, nude body of a woman in a field near the Santa Monica Airport. The Herald put out an extra edition with the headline: “Werewolf Strikes Again! Kills L.A. Woman, Writes B.D. on Body.”
Within a couple of hours, police identified the victim as forty-five-year-old Jeanne French.
Detectives at the scene of Jeanne’s murder
Jeanne suffered blows to her head, administered by a metal blunt instrument—a socket wrench. As bad as they were, the blows to her head were not fatal. Jeanne died from hemorrhage and shock due to fractured ribs and multiple injuries caused by her killer stomping on her. Her chest bore heel prints. It took a long time for Jeanne to die. The coroner said that she bled to death.
Mercifully, Jeanne was unconscious after the first blows to her head so she never saw her killer take the deep red lipstick from her purse, and she didn’t feel the pressure of his improvised pen as he wrote on her torso: “Fuck You, B.D.” and “Tex.” Police looked for a connection between Jeanne’s murder and Elizabeth Short’s death; but they found nothing.
Jeanne was last seen seated at the first stool nearest entering the Pan American Bar on West Washington Place. The bartender told police Jeanne sat next to a smallish man with a dark complexion sat on the stool next to her. The bartender assumed they were a couple because he saw them leave together at closing time.
On the night before she died, Jeanne visited Frank at his apartment and they’d quarreled. Frank said Jeanne, who was drunk, started the fight, then hit him with her purse and left.
Jeanne’s twenty-five-year-old son, David, came in for questioning. As he left the police station, he saw his step-father for the first time since he’d learned of his mother’s death. David confronted Frank and said: “Well, I’ve told them the truth. If you’re guilty, there’s a God in heaven who will take care of you.” Frank didn’t hesitate. He looked at David and said: “I swear to God; I didn’t kill her.”
Police booked Frank for murder, then they cleared him. His landlady told police she could verify Frank was in his apartment at the time of the murder. His shoe prints failed to match those found at the scene of the crime.
Cops had few leads. They found French’s cut-down 1929 Ford roadster in the parking lot of a drive-in restaurant, The Piccadilly at Washington Place and Sepulveda Blvd. Witnesses said that the car was there at 3:15 on the morning of the murder, and a night watchman saw a man leave it there. The police never accounted for Jeanne’s whereabouts between 3:15 a.m. and the time of her death, which the coroner estimated to be around 6 a.m.
Police rousted scores of sex degenerates, but they eliminated each as a suspect. Officers also checked out local Chinese restaurants after the autopsy revealed that Jeanne ate a Chinese meal before her death.
Jeanne’s slaying became known as the “Red Lipstick Murder” case. Like the Black Dahlia case, it went cold.
Three years later, following a Grand Jury investigation into the many unsolved murders of women in L.A., the District Attorney assigned investigators from his office to look into the case.
Frank Jemison and Walter Morgan worked on Jeanne’s murder for eight months, but they never closed it. They came up with one hot suspect, a painter who worked for the French’s four months prior to the murder. He said he dated Jeanne several times. The cops discovered the painter burned several pairs of his shoes—he wore the same size as the ones that left marks on Jeanne’s body. He seemed a likely suspect until he didn’t. Police cleared him despite his odd behavior.
The 1940s’ high number of unsolved female homicides prompted a 1949 Grand Jury investigation into police inaction.
Like the murder of Elizabeth Short, there have been no leads in Jeanne French’s case in decades. Two more names added to the list of unsolved homicides of women during the 1940s.
This month is an important one for the Deranged L.A. Crimes blog. It is the twelfth anniversary of the blog.
December 17, 2012 (the 110th anniversary of the birth of the woman whose career and life inspires me, Agness “Aggie” Underwood) I created the blog. I also authored her Wikipedia page, which was long overdue. I felt it was important to honor her on the anniversary of her birth. I’ve been trying to keep her legacy alive ever since.
Aggie hoists a brew. Perry Fowler photo.
By the time I began, Aggie had been gone for twenty-eight years. I regret not knowing about her in time to meet her in person. But, through her work, and speaking with her relatives over the years, I feel like I know her. I have enormous respect for Aggie. She had nothing handed to her, yet she established herself in a male-dominated profession where she earned the respect of her peers without compromising her values. She also earned the respect of law enforcement. Cops who worked with her trusted her judgement and sought her opinion. It isn’t surprising. She shared with them the same qualities that make a successful detective.
Aggie never intended to become a reporter. All she wanted was a pair of silk stockings. She’d been wearing her younger sister’s hand-me-downs, but she longed for a new pair of her own. When her husband, Harry, told her they couldn’t afford them, she threatened to get a job and buy them herself. It was an empty threat. She did not know how to find employment. She hadn’t worked outside her home for several years. A serendipitous call from her close friend Evelyn, the day after the stockings kerfuffle, changed the course of her life. Evelyn told her about a temporary opening for a switchboard operator where she worked, at the Los Angeles Record. Aggie accepted the temporary job, meant to last only through the 1926-27 holiday season.
Aggie & Harry [Photo courtesy CSUN Special Collections]
Aggie arrived at the Record unfamiliar with the newspaper business, but she swiftly adapted and everyone realized, even without training, she was sharp and eager to learn. The temporary switchboard job turned into a permanent position.
Marion Parker
In December 1927, the kidnapping and cruel mutilation murder of twelve-year-old schoolgirl Marion Parker horrified the city. Aggie was at the Record when they received word the perpetrator, William Edward Hickman, who had nicknamed himself “The Fox,” was in custody in Oregon. The breaking story created a firestorm of activity in the newsroom. Aggie had seen nothing like it. She knew then she didn’t want to be a bystander. She wanted to be a reporter.
When the Record was sold in January 1935, Aggie accepted an offer from William Randolph Hearst’s newspaper, the Evening Herald and Express, propelling her into the big leagues. Hearst expected his reporters to work at breakneck speed. After all, they had to live up to the paper’s motto, “The First with the latest.”
From January 1935, until January 1947, Aggie covered everything from fires and floods to murder and mayhem, frequently with photographer Perry Fowler by her side. She considered herself to be a general assignment reporter, but developed a reputation and a knack for covering crimes.
Sometimes she helped to solve them.
In December 1939, Aggie was called to the scene of what appeared to be a tragic accident on the Angeles Crest Highway. Laurel Crawford said he had taken his family on a scenic drive, but lost control of the family sedan on a sharp curve. The car plunged over 1000 feet down an embankment, killing his wife, three children, and a boarder in their home. He said he had survived by jumping from the car at the last moment.
When asked by Sheriff’s investigators for her opinion, Aggie said she had observed Laurel’s clothing and his demeanor, and neither lent credibility to his account. She concluded Laurel was “guilty as hell.” Her hunch was right. Upon investigation, police discovered Laurel had engineered the accident to collect over $30,000 in life insurance.
Hollywood was Aggie’s beat, too. When stars misbehaved or perished under mysterious or tragic circumstances, Aggie was there to record everything for Herald readers. On December 16, 1935, popular actress and café owner Thelma Todd died of carbon monoxide poisoning in the garage of her Pacific Palisades ho9me. Thelma’s autopsy was Aggie’s first, and her fellow reporters put her to the test. It backfired on them. Before the coroner could finish his grim work, her colleagues had turned green and fled the room. Aggie remained upright.
Though Aggie never considered herself a feminist, she paved the way for female journalists. In January 1947, they yanked her off the notorious Black Dahlia murder case and made her city editor—one of the first woman to hold the post for a major metropolitan newspaper. Known to keep a bat and starter pistol handy at her desk, she was beloved by her staff and served as city editor for the Herald (later Herald Examiner) until retiring in 1968.
Aggie at a crime scene (not the Dahlia) c. 1940s.
When she passed away in 1984, the Herald-Examiner eulogized her. “She was undeterred by the grisliest of crime scenes and had a knack for getting details that eluded other reporters. As editor, she knew the names and telephone numbers of numerous celebrities, in addition to all the bars her reporters frequented. She cultivated the day’s best sources, ranging from gangsters and prostitutes to movie stars and government officials.”
I have pondered how appalled Aggie would be at what passes for journalism today. During her lifetime, she disdained anyone unwilling to get out and scrap for a story. Today she would find herself surrounded by people who call their personal opinions news, and their writings (multiple misspellings and grammatical atrocities included), reporting.
In a world where oligarchs bend once respected publications to their perverted will, Aggie would be unwelcome.
Don’t misunderstand me—even in Aggie’s day, newspapers were not owned by paupers, and they all had an editorial agenda. But when it came to reporting hard news, it was all about the facts. There was no such thing as fake news or “alternative” facts (what does that even mean?!)
Today we must look hard to find facts. Legacy media has failed us in all of its forms. Losing reliable media puts our country at significant risk.
I suppose my anger, disenchantment, and disgust with the current state of media is why I honor Aggie’s legacy. She represents the best of what reporters once were, and what they could be again if not constrained by fear. The newspaper & TV owners seem to be motivated by a mixture of fear and greed. It is not the way to maintain a free press. We can all do better.
In 1943, the court sentenced Carl G. Hopper, the human fly, to fifteen years to life in prison. Of course, the human fly would not be content to sit in Folsom Prison while some of the best years of his life, um, flew by.
Hopper wangled an early parole so that he could join the Army—but if Folsom couldn’t hold him, how could the Army expect to? By late October 1944, he’d escaped from the guardhouse at Camp Roberts.
On October 27, 1944, at 7:50 p.m. someone observed Hopper in a car listed as stolen. A radio patrolman and a military policeman approached him at Third Street near Lucas Avenue. Exiting the vehicle, he approached the officers on foot. He drew a gun and made his escape when the M.P.’s gun jammed as he tried to fire at the fleeing man.
An hour later, Hopper held up John D. Bowman of Downey in front of 1212 Shatto Street. Bowman told cops that the bandit was “too drunk to know how to drive,” so he forced Bowman to start his (Bowman’s) car for him and then he sped away.
Next, he turned up in Beverly Hills, where he accosted Freddie Schwartz and Maude Beggs as they arrived at 514 N. Hillcrest Street for a party. Schwartz complied with Hopper’s demand for money, but he only had a $5 bill which Hopper hurled back at him in disgust, complaining that it was not enough.
At 10:35 pm. Hopper held-up Sherman Oaks residents Mr. and Mrs. Julian N. Cole and Mr. and Mrs. Walter Deutsch on Valley Vista Blvd. He took $25 from Cole and $2 from Deutsch.
Only minutes later, he held up Dorothy Snyder in the 600 block of S. June Street, but he refused to take her money when he discovered she had only $7 in her purse. The fly was a gentleman.
Hopper’s one-man crime wave continued.
A about half a block away from where he’d encountered Dorothy Snyder, he held up Dr. Rudolph Mueller, getting away with $65.
After robbing Dr. Mueller, police officers, S.W. Stevenson, and K.M. Aitken observed Hopper driving at a high rate of speed. They pursued him until he crashed into a palm tree on Second Avenue near Santa Barbara Street. The fly fled on foot between.
About ten minutes following the car crash, Hopper committed another hold-up. This time he robbed C.B. Kaufman of his sedan and $55 near 43rd Street and Western Avenue.
Then the fly disappeared.
At the Mexican border near Tijuana, Hopper got caught when his attempt to shoot a U.S. Customs Service inspector, who had stopped him for routine questioning, was thwarted. The inspector, Richard McCowan, wasn’t entirely satisfied with Hopper’s answers to his questions and ordered him to wait. Hopper responded by pulling out a .38 caliber revolver and jamming it into McCowan’s abdomen. Hopper may have seen too many western movies. He tried to discharge the weapon by fanning it, but failed to pull the hammer back far enough. Police took him into custody.
Hopper admitted his identity and boasted of how he led police in Los Angeles on a merry chase. He denied committing any of the crimes laid at his feet. He said, “they are just trying to pin something on me.”
The police did not have to pin anything on him. When they busted him, he had a gasoline ration book and a driver’s license made out to C.B. Kaufman, the man he had robbed of $55 and his sedan.
During the couple of days he conducted his one-man crime wave, Hopper committed six robberies, netting him $147. He stole three automobiles, one of which was a police car.
Authorities returned Carl to the Los Angeles County Jail, where they booked him on suspicion of the various crimes committed during his escape from Camp Roberts. They set his bail at $10,000.
The court tried, convicted, and then sentenced Hopper to life in Folsom Prison.
On December 12, 1946, only three years after his escape from the Hall of Justice Jail in Los Angeles, Hopper attempted to break out of Folsom. He slugged a guard, ran to the top cell block, broke a skylight, and made his way to temporary freedom over the roof, and down the ladder of an unmanned guard tower. Then he took a 12-foot leap from a wall. Hopper got no further than the prison yard when he discovered the American River, swollen by recent rains, was far too dangerous to cross.
When guards found Hopper, he said that he was “cold, wet and hungry.” They returned him to his cell.
The ordinary housefly lives from 15 to 30 days. The human fly never reached old age. On June Jail in Los Angeles, twenty-nine-year-old Hopper hanged himself with a bed sheet tied to a piece of plumbing in his solitary cell in Folsom Prison.
Welcome! The lobby of the Deranged L.A. Crimes theater is open! Grab a bucket of popcorn, some Milk Duds and a Coke and find a seat. Today’s feature is I’LL NAME THE MURDERER (1936), starring Ralph Forbes and Marion Shilling.
The Puritan Pictures Corporation released this film. Puritan Pictures was founded by Sam Katzman, who was also the founder of Victory Productions, in 1935. In fact, Katzman ran both companies at the same time.) It was considered one of Hollywood’s “Poverty Row” studios. Also, like most small filmmakers, Puritan distributed other studios’ output as well. They were more successful in distribution, and by 1936 had abandoned filmmaking completely to concentrate on distributing Excelsior, C. C. Burr, Fanchon Royer and Sentinel pictures. Puritan was history by 1938; Katzman went on to greater renown at Monogram.
Enjoy the movie!
TCM says:
When nightclub singer Nadia Renee is murdered in her dressing room at Luigi’s, Broadway gossip columnist Tommy Tilton sets out to find the killer. The suspect with the most obvious motive is Tommy’s college friend, Ted Benson, who had a youthful liaison with Nadia, but is now engaged to the wealthy Vi Van Ostrum. Nadia had intended to wreck Ted’s marriage by publishing his old love letters, unless he paid her $10,000.
I am excited to announce that OF MOBSTERS AND MOVIE STARS: THE GOLDEN AGE OF HOLLYWOOD is available as an audio book It is narrated by award nominated Lee Ann Howlett.
WildBlue Press says this about the book:
No Hollywood script can compare to the terror of the 37 true tales in OF MOBSTERS AND MOVIE STARS: The Bloody “Golden Age” of Hollywood!
In this gripping historical account, expert crime historian Joan Renner explores the shadowy world of fame and crime during Hollywood’s most glamorous era. As Los Angeles transformed into the epicenter of film, it also became a haven for notorious criminals and mobsters, weaving a complex tapestry of allure and danger that is sure to intrigue.
Renner brings to life stories that are more thrilling than fiction, including harrowing LAPD showdowns, dark dealings behind the studio gates, and tragic fates of luminaries whose off-screen lives were as dramatic as their on-screen personas. She delves into infamous episodes, such as the shocking case of Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle, accused of “accidentally” crushing to death a young actress beneath his enormous weight as he raped her, and other lesser-known, but equally hair-raising stories of actors brought down by scandal and corruption.
OF MOBSTERS AND MOVIE STARS offers a profound and enlightening look at Hollywood’s dual nature, illustrating how its seductive glitter was deeply entangled with its sinister impulses. This book is essential for anyone fascinated by how America’s “City of Dreams” became a stage for some of the most gripping dramas of the twentieth century.
Step into the Prohibition Era with Joan Renner as she reveals the hidden crimes and undying ambition behind Hollywood’s shimmering façade.
Whether you read it or listen to it, I hope you enjoy the book. I loved writing it so much that I am working on a second volume. I am covering Los Angeles crime and corruption from 1940 to 1949. It is still in the the research phase, so it will be a while until publication, but I’ll keep you posted.
During the 1910s, over two million Italians immigrated to the United States; among them, Rosario Trovinano from Sicily.
Rosario’s family arranged a marriage for her with Alberto Ciani, a barber, several years her senior. She and Albert married in Syracuse, New York on June 16, 1913. Rosario gave her age as 18, she was 16. Unlike most arranged marriages, the couple never reached a place of mutual respect and affection.
Rosa & Albert Ciani
Over twenty years of their married life, Albert beat her and their children—especially the girls whom he seemed to loathe. According to Rosa, Albert “tried to destroy” the girls when they were born. He took them to the beach and pushed them into deep water. Once, when she was pouring milk to feed their youngest child, Gloria, he caught her and threw the milk away. Then he sat down and ate two steaks and a half-dozen eggs while his hungry wife and children looked on.
The couple argued constantly. Florence, their eldest daughter, left home in 1931 to become a beauty operator. She said she often heard her mother and dad “scrapping.” The argument centered on which one of them gave the other one a “dreaded disease,” likely syphilis. The final straw for Florence was when Albert attempted to murder her when she tried to intervene in one of their arguments. The D.A. dropped the charges against Albert when Rosa, afraid of the consequences, declined to testify.
On Sunday evening, September 10, 1933, after another bitter fight, Albert told Rosa she need not finish the preserving she was doing because she would not be there long, and neither would the children. Would he make good on his threats to kill them? Albert went to the bedroom to sleep. In her nightgown, Rosa slipped into the kitchen, heated some coffee, and poured a large measure of olive oil into a pot. She waited. When the oil reached the boiling point, she took the pot into the bedroom and poured the contents into Albert’s eyes.
Screaming in agony, Albert stumbled around the room. Rosa picked up the axe she had purchased with $1.50 Florence gave her. Raising the heavy blade above her head, she struck. The first blow cleaved Albert’s back and punctured a lung. The second strike sliced his shoulder, almost completely severing an arm.
As their children, Catherine, Susan, and Samuel, looked on in horror, Rosa continued the attack. The children pleaded with her to stop. She quit only when Albert fell unconscious to the floor after she hacked his legs out from under him.
Lincoln Heights Jail
Answering the horrified calls of neighbors, Detective Lieutenants Connor and Patton arrived at the Ciani home at 10464 South Hoover Street. They rushed Albert, who was on the brink of death, to the Georgia Street Receiving Hospital, where he succumbed within minutes.
The police found Rosa outside the home. She kissed her children goodbye, then surrendered to the police outside the home. They transported her to Lincoln Heights Jail. Later, from her cell, a defiant Rosa said, “I’m glad I did it. I’d kill him even now to protect my children and myself!”
The coroner’s jury found she had killed Albert by pouring four gallons of boiling oil on him and hacking him with an axe. Public defender John J. Hill was assigned to represent Rosa.
In December, three alienists, Drs. Paul Bowers, Victor Parkin, and Edwin Wayne reported to Judge Fletcher Bowron. They agreed Rosa was sane when she killed Albert. They explained the crime, saying she was “driven to distraction” by her husband’s brutality. Judge Bowron granted Hill’s request for a continuance and set the trial for January 25, 1934. Hill hinted Rosa might change her plea to guilty.
On January 25, 1934, over the objections of her daughter Florence, Rosa pleaded guilty to manslaughter before Judge Burnell. The judge delayed the sentence until the following day. Rosa’s family and friends would testify to the mitigating circumstances that caused her to snap.
Judge Charles Burrell sentenced Rosa to San Quentin for manslaughter; but stated he wished he could give her probation. He requested the state board of prison terms and paroles to show compassion for the defendant in an unexpected move. He said for years Rosa had endured cruel treatment at Albert’s hands, including repeated beatings, choking of her children, and the willful withholding of food, while he feasted in front of them. Judge Burnell supported her attorney, John J. Hill. Hill urged for Rosa’s immediate release and recommended that Governor James “Sunny Jim” Rolph grant executive clemency.
The Governor listened, and on April 26, 1934 he commuted Rosa’s sentence to time served.
