Category Archives: 1940s

Black Dahlia: Corpse in the Weeds

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Mrs. Betty Bersinger and her three-year-old daughter Anne walked south down Norton Avenue in Leimert Park, a still-growing Los Angeles suburb. They’d left their home at 3705 S. Norton to take a pair of shoes to be repaired.

Betty Bersinger

Like much of postwar L.A., Norton was only half-formed. Wartime shortages had stalled housing construction, and the neighborhood was still catching up. It was January 15, 1947, around 10:30 a.m., when Betty and Anne approached a large vacant lot in the 3900 block of Norton. Something pale caught Betty’s eye in the weeds—about fifty feet from a fire hydrant and just a foot from the sidewalk.

It looked like a discarded mannequin. Or a woman, lying very still.

As they drew closer, Betty realized it was neither mannequin nor drunk. It was a woman—nude, pale, and cut in half.

She grabbed Anne and ran to the nearest home to call police.

Over the years, several reporters have elbowed their way into the legend, each claiming to be the first at the scene. One of the loudest was Will Fowler.

Fowler said he and photographer Felix Paegel of the Examiner were near Crenshaw Boulevard when a call came crackling over the shortwave. The report was bizarre: a naked woman, possibly drunk, sprawled in a vacant lot one block east of Crenshaw between 39th and Coliseum.

 “A naked drunk dame passed out in a vacant lot. Right here in the neighborhood too. Let’s see what it’s all about.”

Paegel drove as Fowler watched for the woman. “There she is. It’s a body all right…” Fowler got out of the car and approached the body as Paegel pulled his Speed Graphic from the trunk. Fowler called out, “Jesus, Felix, this woman’s cut in half!”

That was Fowler’s version, and he stuck to it. He even claimed to have closed the dead girl’s eyes.

But was any of it true?

Other accounts suggest a reporter from the Los Angeles Times was the first on the scene.

Another contender? In her autobiography, Newspaperwoman, Herald reporter Agness ‘Aggie’ Underwood, claimed to be the first.

After nearly eight decades does it matter? All those who saw the murdered girl that day saw the same horrifying sight. It left an indelible impression.

Aggie Underwood on Norton, January 15, 1947.

 Aggie observed:

“It [the body] had been cut in half through the abdomen, under the ribs. The two sections were ten or twelve inches apart. The arms, bent at right angles at the elbows, were raised above the shoulders.

The legs were spread apart. There were bruises and cuts on the forehead and the face, which had been beaten severely. The hair was blood-matted. Front teeth were missing. Both cheeks were slashed from the corners of the lips almost to the ears. The liver hung out of the torso, and the entire lower section of the body had been hacked, gouged, and unprintably desecrated. It showed sadism at its most frenzied.”

The coroner recorded the victim as Jane Doe #1 for 1947.

Two seasoned LAPD detectives, Harry Hansen and Finis Brown, took charge of the investigation. During the first twenty-four hours, officers pulled in over 150 men for questioning. The city’s most brutal murder had just begun its long descent into legend.

The most promising of the early suspects was twenty-three-year-old transient, Cecil French. He was busted for molesting women at a downtown bus depot.

Police were alarmed when they discovered French had pulled the back seat out of his car. Had he concealed a body there? Police Chemist Ray Pinker found no blood or any other physical evidence of a bloody murder in French’s car. Investigators dropped from him the list of hot suspects.

In her initial coverage for the Herald, Underwood referred to the case as the “Werewolf” slaying because of the savagery of the mutilations inflicted on the unknown woman. The werewolf tag would identify the case until a better one came along—the Black Dahlia.

NEXT TIME: Jane Doe #1 gets a name—and a past.

REFERENCES:

Fowler, Will (1991). Reporters: Memoirs of a Young Newspaperman.

Gilmore, John (2001). Severed: The True Story of the Black Dahlia Murder.

Harnisch, Larry. A Slaying Cloaked in Mystery and Myths. Los Angeles Times. January 6, 1997.

Underwood, Agness (1949). Newspaperwoman.

Wagner, Rob Leicester (2000). The Rise and Fall of Los Angeles Newspapers, 1920-1962.

Black Dahlia: The Missing Week–January 9-January 15, 1947

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After hours of small talk in the Biltmore Hotel lobby, Robert “Red” Manley finally left Beth Short. He had been out of touch with his wife, Harriet, for a few days. It was time to go home.

Biltmore Hotel at 5th and Olive

She told him she’d be fine. Her sister was coming. A lie—one of many she’d told Red since December. At 6 p.m. on January 9, 1947, Beth left the Biltmore lobby, navigated her way through guests and luggage to Olive Street. She turned right. She turned right. Whatever money she had, none of it was going to public transit. Otherwise, she would have turned left and gone to the nearby Subway Terminal Building.

Darkness had settled. Streetlights spilled pale circles across the pavement. Streetcars clanged. Buses sighed. Snatches of conversation carried further in the chill winter air. For the first block, she walked against pedestrian traffic.

Office workers streamed out onto the sidewalk. Men with hats pulled low, coats buttoned tight, heading toward the Subway Terminal Building.

Subway terminal, Los Angeles

From 5th to 6th Streets, Beth encountered the usual post-war mix of bellmen, traveling salesmen, secretaries, and servicemen. The air smelled of diesel exhaust, coffee, diner food, damp concrete, and cigarette smoke.

Few women walked along. Those who did moved with purpose. Beth had a destination in mind. Hollywood would be the best place for her to find an acquaintance who could put her up for the night, or suggest a place where she could find a bunk bed for a dollar a night. If she didn’t have enough for more than a night or two, she could vanish down an exterior fire escape. She had done it before.

Continuing down Olive Street, between 6th and 7th, she would pass professional buildings, insurance offices, and small law firms. Several luncheon cafes offered sandwiches, pie, and weak coffee.

Foot traffic thinned out past 7th . The quiet edge of the street, with anonymous storefronts and upper-floor offices. Several bars dotted the street. None were rowdy. Just quiet places to grab an end-of-the-day cocktail.

Did Beth stop in at the Crown Grill at 8th and Olive? There have been no definitive sightings of her there on January 9th. She had lunched at the Grill with a friend and the friend’s married lover a few times.

Crown Grille at 8th & Olive

It isn’t unreasonable to assume she poked her head in, seeking a familiar face. One of the bartenders once drove Beth up to Mulholland, where they necked. Nothing more. If he had been behind the bar, she might have asked him for a dollar or two. Or a ride.

Beth didn’t walk eight miles to Hollywood. That much is certain.

AI generated image of woman walking on Olive Street.

Did her killer encounter her at the Crown Grill? Or did he stop and offer her a ride as she walked along Olive? Faced with a long cold walk, Beth would have accepted. She may have played it coy at first, just like she did with Red Manley when he approached her on a San Diego street corner.  But in the end, if a man in uniform, or in a topcoat and tie, offered a warm ride to Hollywood—she would have gone.  

That, I believe, is how the missing week began.

What followed, between January 9 and January 15, is the stuff of nightmares

NEXT TIME: After January 9, 1947, Elizabeth Short exists only in fragments. And fragments are where killers hide.

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Black Dahlia: Last Seen

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Two men and a woman came to the door of the French home on January 7, 1947. Elizabeth Short saw them, but didn’t open the door.

Their visit rattled her. Who were they? If she knew, she didn’t say. Instead, she contacted Robert “Red” Manley, the salesman she’d dated a couple of times, and asked him to come and get her.

Elizabeth Short

Red arrived at the French home at 7:30 p.m. He loaded Beth’s two suitcases in the car. Neighbors who saw them said they seemed in high spirits.

They headed north, hugging the coast, and checked into a motel a few hours later.

After an evening of dinner and dancing, they returned to the motel. Beth curled up in the chair. Red took the bed—alone.

The next morning, they left the motel and started north. What was said on that drive to Los Angeles? Red noticed some scratches on Beth’s arms and asked her about them. She spun a story about a jealous boyfriend. An Italian with a temper. He had scratched her. Maybe he never existed. Maybe she made the scratches herself. It wasn’t the last lie she told him that day.

Beth spent much of the drive in silence. She may have wondered what she would do once she hit L.A. She had calls to make. Maybe one of her Hollywood friends had a couch. But first—she needed to ditch Red.

Once they arrived in the city, Beth told Red that she needed to check her luggage at the bus depot. He took her there, but refused to leave her in that neighborhood on her own. She insisted she would be fine, but he wouldn’t hear of it.

Beth had a few minutes while she checked her bags to come up with a plan. When they returned to his car, she told him she needed to go to the Biltmore Hotel to wait for her sister. It was a lie. Her sister Virginia was in Oakland, hundreds of miles to the north.

Red drove her several blocks to the hotel. The main lobby was on Olive Street, directly opposite Pershing Square. She expected to be dropped off, but he wouldn’t leave her. He may have wanted to postpone seeing Harriet. He hadn’t spoken to her for days.  

They sat in the Biltmore’s grand lobby, surrounded by velvet chairs and marble silence. They made small talk. Nothing important. Nothing honest. Red finally said he had to go. She assured him she would be fine.

Biltmore Hotel

At 6:30 p.m. Beth watched him go. She waited a few moments, eyes on the clock. Then she rose and walked out. She turned right onto Olive Street.

Did she stop at the Crown Grill at Eighth and Olive? She’d been there before. Maybe she’d find a familiar face—or a place to sleep. Some of the Grill’s patrons thought they saw her that night. None were certain.

Sometime after 6:30 p.m. on January 9, 1947, Elizabeth Short met her killer.

NEXT TIME: The missing week.

NOTE: For a glimpse into Los Angeles as Beth Short would have seen it, here is some amazing B-roll from shot for a Rita Hayworth film, Down to Earth, via the Internet Archive.

Elizabeth Short: The French Connection–Conclusion

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When Dorothy French brought Elizabeth Short home in early December, she never expected her to stake a claim to the family’s sofa. Dorothy had simply meant to offer a safer alternative to a seat in the Aztec all-night movie theater—a place to rest for a night or two. No more than that.

But Betty stayed.

She took advantage of the Frenches’ hospitality. They were too kind to put her out, but the tension in the home was growing. Betty (she used Beth and Betty interchangeably) must have felt it.

Elizabeth Short

There’s no record of how they spent Christmas. It would have been the perfect time for Betty to leave San Diego, return to Hollywood—where she had connections, where people at least knew her. But she remained, a guest among strangers. The question is why.

Was she waiting for money? A ride? A man?

Some accounts reduce her stay in San Diego to cliché: drifting, partying, mysterious. It was none of those things. It was stasis. A kind of limbo.

She spent her days writing letters—many of which she never mailed.

One of the most poignant was addressed to Gordon Fickling, dated December 13. She had lived with Fickling—a Navy lieutenant and flier—months earlier in Long Beach. Gordon Fickling.

She wrote:

“I do hope you find a nice girl to kiss at midnight on New Year’s Eve. It would have been wonderful if we belonged to each other now. I’ll never regret coming west to see you. You didn’t take me in your arms and keep me there. However, it was nice as long as it lasted.”

The unsent letter offers a glimpse into her state of mind. It is wistful—a quiet longing for something stable. A safe harbor. And the realization that safety, when it appears at all, is always temporary.

The Frenches’ home had become a kind of refuge. Temporary, but real.

Then, something strange happened.

Red Manley

On January 7, two men and a girl came to the door. They knocked, waited a few minutes, and then ran to a car parked outside.

Betty peeked through the window but refused to answer. She was visibly terrified. When Dorothy asked her about it, Betty was evasive—so much so that Dorothy eventually gave up trying to get answers.

Shortly after, Betty wired Red and asked him to come get her. She was ready to leave San Diego.

He responded the next day:

“Wait and I’ll be down for you.”

NEXT TIME: Elizabeth Short’s life is measured in days.

Archival Note: Little contemporaneous documentation exists regarding Elizabeth Short’s daily life during her stay with the French family in Pacific Beach. Beyond later statements attributed to Dorothy French, and the surviving unsent correspondence, no police reports, diaries, or third-party accounts place Short at any specific location in San Diego between December 8, 1946, and her departure in early January 1947.

Elizabeth Short–The French Connection

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Elizabeth Short stepped off the bus in San Diego in early December 1946—alone, broke, and fading into the shadows of the chilly evening.

She walked a few blocks to the Aztec, a 24-hour movie theater. The price of a ticket gave her a quiet and warm place to rest. She dozed off, only to be awakened by the cashier, a woman about her age, Dorothy French.

Elvera & Dorothy French

Dorothy could tell the woman, who introduced herself as Betty Short, was at loose ends. She felt sorry for her, and she knew that a woman sleeping alone in the theater was easy prey. Dorothy invited Betty to come with her to Pacific Beach, where she lived with her mother, Elvera, and her teenage brother, Cory. Betty was welcome to spend the night and get a fresh start the next day.

Nearly two weeks had passed since her arrival on December 8. As the days crawled toward Christmas, the Frenches began to regret their kindness. Like many post-war families, they struggled to make ends meet. Betty hadn’t contributed a cent to the household, and the family was tired of tip-toeing around the sofa as she slept.

She showed no interest in finding a job and spent much of her time writing letters. She had one visitor, a man she introduced only as Red. She told the Frenches he was an airline employee in San Diego who lived in Huntington Park, but stayed at a nearby motel.

The sofa in the Frenches’ modest home was a far cry from the glamorous Hollywood backdrop Betty spoke of, but it provided a measure of stability. According to Elvera, Betty was polite but withdrawn. She offered few details about her past and rarely ventured out during the day. She claimed to have worked at a naval hospital but made no effort to find another job. Over time, Elvera grew uneasy. She had a “premonition” that something was wrong. She described Betty’s presence as moody and unsettled.

She was more shadow than guest.

Dorothy said, “Betty seemed constantly in fear of something. Whenever someone came to the door, she would act frightened.”

Despite the undercurrent of discomfort, the family allowed her to stay through the holidays.

NEXT TIME: Elizabeth Short leaves San Diego.

Archival Note:
Details of Elizabeth Short’s (Black Dahlia) stay with the French family in Pacific Beach are based primarily on contemporaneous police interviews and subsequent press reports. Key accounts include statements attributed to Dorothy and Elvera French following Short’s disappearance and murder.

The First With The Latest: Aggie Underwood, Crime Reporter — Aggie’s Birthday 2025

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Aggie interviews unknown woman.

For more than forty years, Agness “Aggie” Underwood covered the crimes that terrified—and fascinated—Los Angeles. Murderers, mobsters, and corrupt officials all crossed her path. But the moment that set her career in motion wasn’t a gunshot or a headline. It was a pair of silk stockings she couldn’t afford.

In 1926, money was tight. Aggie and her husband, Harry, had a daughter, Evelyn, and a son, George. Her younger sister Leona lived with them and helped with expenses. Still, Aggie wore Leona’s hand-me-down silk stockings. One day, she asked Harry for money to buy a new pair. He said no. Aggie told him that if he wouldn’t give her money for stockings, she’d earn it herself.

She was bluffing. She hadn’t worked outside the home since 1920.

Harry, Aggie, Evelyn, George

The next day, out of nowhere, her best friend Evelyn offered her a temporary switchboard job at the Daily Record. Aggie grabbed it. The stockings would be hers.

She described her first impression of the newsroom:

“I looked out on a weird wonderland… Shirt-sleeved men attacked beaten-up typewriters, which snarled and balked. Sheets of paper snowed on a central point called the city desk, whatever that meant. Men gyrated through the crazy quilt of splintered desks and tables. It was a jumble.”

The job was supposed to be temporary. But Gertrude Price, the women’s editor (writing as Cynthia Grey), saw something in Aggie and became her mentor. Aggie helped with the annual Cynthia Grey Christmas baskets, and Gertrude encouraged her to learn the business.

Christmas baskets

Aggie loved the chaos of the newsroom, and she loved being close to a breaking story. In December 1927, the city was horrified by the murder of twelve-year-old Marian Parker by William Edward Hickman, who called himself “The Fox.”

When news of Hickman’s capture in Oregon broke, Aggie couldn’t contain herself:

“As the bulletins pumped in and the city-side worked furiously at localizing, I couldn’t keep myself in my niche. I committed the unpardonable sin of looking over shoulders of reporters as they wrote. I got underfoot. In what I thought was exasperation, Rod Brink, the city editor, said:
‘All right, if you’re so interested, take this dictation.’

I typed the dictation—part of the main running story.

I was sunk.

I wanted to be a reporter.”

William Edward Hickman [Photo courtesy of LAPL]

She began writing human interest stories, covering fashion and women’s clubs. In May 1931, her first major break came when Charles H. Crawford (a.k.a. the Grey Fox) and reporter Herbert F. Spencer were shot and killed.

Crawford was a former saloon keeper turned vice king. Spencer had worked with a political crusading weekly, the Critic of Critics. They were both involved in the shadowy network known as “The Combination”—a marriage of City Hall and organized crime.

After the murders, David H. Clark, a former deputy DA and candidate for judge, surrendered. But no one had interviewed Clark’s parents. Aggie called every Clark in the phonebook until she found them in Highland Park.

She got the interview. The result: a front-page, above-the-fold story titled Mrs. Clark Says Son is Innocent. Her first double-column byline.

Later, she scored another exclusive with Spencer’s widow. Aggie admitted she was inexperienced—and that honesty earned her the story.

Clark was acquitted. But he drifted. In 1953, he killed a friend’s wife in a drunken fight and died in Chino prison in 1954.

Aggie had found her niche—finding the doors no one else knocked on.

In 1935, she joined the Evening Herald and Express, owned by William Randolph Hearst. She stayed with Hearst the rest of her career.

By 1936, Aggie had a reputation as a reporter who could crack a case. During the Samuel Whittaker case, she interviewed the grieving husband, a retired organist, after his wife Ethel was killed during an apparent hotel robbery.

She staged a dramatic photo of Whittaker pointing his cane at the alleged killer, James Fagan Culver. But as she posed the shot, she noticed something odd: Whittaker winked at Culver.

Culver & Whittaker

Was it a tic? No. She waited. Nothing. She discreetly pulled Detective Thad Brown aside:

“Thad, ask that kid why Whittaker winked at him. Don’t let the kid wriggle out of it. Whittaker did wink at him. There’s no mistake about it.”

Brown humored her. Culver cracked. He confessed: Whittaker had staged the robbery, armed Culver with a .38, and planned to kill his wife himself. He did—then turned his gun on Culver. Culver escaped, wounded.

Whittaker was convicted and given life for his wife’s murder. On his way to San Quentin, he said:

“I hope God may strike me dead before I get to my cell if I am guilty of this horrible crime.”

He dropped dead of a heart attack.

Aggie on Norton, January 15, 1947.

In January 1947, Aggie began reporting on the body of an unknown woman found bisected in Leimert Park. She would become known as the Black Dahlia.

Many claim to have coined the name. Aggie said she got it from LAPD Lt. Ray Giese:

“This is something you might like, Agness. I’ve found out they called her the ‘Black Dahlia’ around that drugstore where she hung out down in Long Beach.”

Like it? She LOVED it.

The Jane Doe was soon identified as 22-year-old Elizabeth Short of Medford, MA. Aggie interviewed the first serious suspect, Robert “Red” Manley. Then she was pulled from the case.

She brought in her embroidery hoop while she cooled her heels in the office. Snickers followed. One reporter said:

“What do you think of that? Here’s the best reporter on the Herald, on the biggest day of one of the best stories in years—sitting in the office doing fancy work!”

She was reassigned, then yanked again. And then—she was promoted to city editor.

Dahlia conspiracy theorists say Aggie was close to solving the case. Some believe she was silenced. But promoting her to city editor—the boss of all the Dahlia reporters—was a strange way to shut her up.

Still… what if she was onto something?

When asked later if she knew who killed Elizabeth Short, she said yes—but never named him.

Mercy? Resignation? Maybe both.

Aggie understood something this city still struggles with: some crimes don’t end in arrests. They end in silence.

She covered L.A.’s most deranged crimes. As city editor, she won dozens of awards and the respect of her newsroom. On her 10th anniversary, her crew gave her a giant novelty baseball bat—like the one she kept on her desk to scare off pesky Hollywood types. It read:

“To Aggie, Keep Swinging.”

Aggie keeps swinging. Photo courtesy of LAPL.

Reporter Will Fowler said in his autobiography:

“The last thing I remember Aggie saying to her friends who came to celebrate at her retirement party was: ‘Please don’t forget me.’”

She had a bat on her desk and a city full of secrets.

We couldn’t forget her if we tried.

NOTE: If you want to know more about Aggie’s crime reporting, get a copy of the my book, THE FIRST WITH THE LATEST!: AGGIE UNDERWOOD, THE LOS ANGELES HERALD, AND THE SORDID CRIMES OF A CITY.

Film Noir Friday: Repeat Performance [1947]

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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. Tonight’s feature is REPEAT PERFORMANCE (1947), starring Louis Hayward, Joan Leslie, and Richard Basehart.

This is the film that Southern California teenager Delora Mae Campbell watched on the night of December 29, 1951. It inspired a dangerous IRRESISTIBLE IMPULSE in her. Click on the title for Part 1 of Delora’s story.

Enjoy the movie!

TCM says:

Just before midnight on New Year’s Eve, 1946, Broadway actress Sheila Page shoots her husband Barney and then rushes to see her friend, William Williams. After a distressed Sheila confesses her deed to William, he suggests they talk to John Friday, Sheila’s producer. As Sheila and William, an oddball poet, are walking up to John’s apartment, Sheila wishes that she could relive the past year, insisting that if she had it to do over, she would not make the same mistakes twice. Upon reaching John’s door, Sheila notices that William has disappeared and then gradually realizes that it is now New Year’s Day, 1946.

Irresistible Impulse, Part I

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In Fort Lupton, Colorado, a fight with your mother could end in grounding. For Delora Campbell, it ended in something far darker. Life in post-war Fort Lupton revolved around church socials, 4-H clubs, and county fairs. Residents followed high school football with a passion, and the Fort Lupton Blue Devils were a source of pride. When the Blue Devils partied under the watchful eyes of adults, they danced to Patti Page’s soulful rendition of The Tennessee Waltz, or did a lively country swing to Hank Williams’ Lovesick Blues.

In the 1950s, no matter where she lived, girls had to adhere to a strict code of behavior. Delora didn’t just test boundaries — she unsettled people. According to her parents, Clem and Francis, they sometimes feared she might harm her siblings. Their fear went beyond the usual sibling squabbles — it sounded like a warning.

Was the pressure to conform to community standards too much for Delora? Or maybe it was one fight too many with her mother, or another battle with her younger brother, Dickie. Maybe she feared she would act on an impulse to harm a family member. Whatever her reasons, at fourteen she ran away from home for the first time.

The court intervened, and a juvenile judge placed her on probation.

Delora’s behavior alarmed everyone — from her parents to school authorities and local pastors. Even her peers may have found her behavior unsettling. One of the biggest fears for a girl Delora’s age was getting a reputation. No worse fate could befall her.

In postwar America, the specter of juvenile delinquency haunted dinner tables from coast to coast. It wasn’t the commie down the street that frightened people; it was their own kid — sulking in the next room, listening to Hank Williams, and thinking dark thoughts.

Historically, when teenage boys acted out, their activities were met with a nod and a wink — the old “boys will be boys” trope. If they committed a serious crime, they might be labeled thugs or delinquents, and could end up in juvenile hall.

Girls faced a different kind of judgment. If they failed to measure up, they weren’t rebellious; they were hysterical, or morally compromised. Moral panic, a genuine fear in the 1950s, punished girls differently. Did Delora worry she might face serious punishment as had other girls who stepped outside expected norms? A girl who rebelled might not go to jail, but to a mental institution — until her hormones, doctors hoped, burned out the madness. Such a girl could count herself lucky if she was released without lasting damage from electroconvulsive therapy, heavy sedation, or ice baths. The belief that emotional instability was baked into the female brain dated back millennia. As one modern paper put it: “Hysteria is undoubtedly the first mental disorder attributable to women…”

Whatever was going on in Delora’s life, something caused her to run again. Was she concerned that she would harm herself or someone else? This time, she vanished for three weeks. Not knowing what else to do, her family sent her to live with her aunt and uncle in Long Beach, California. They may have wanted to spare her local infamy and give her a fresh start — or simply chose to quiet wagging small-town tongues.

The whispers in a small town can kill you.

On the surface, Delora appeared to thrive in her new environment. But was she genuinely happy, or just adapting to survive? On September 1, 1950, the Long Beach Press-Telegram listed her among a group of young people who attended a barbecue dinner where they played games and square danced.

Delora wrote home to tell her parents how much she enjoyed living in Long Beach and going to Woodrow Wilson High School. Francis was surprised — her daughter had never liked school in Fort Lupton.

Delora may have received an allowance, but sometimes when a girl needed extra cash, she took a job babysitting. For several weeks at the end of 1951, she babysat for six-year-old Donna Isbell and her eight-year-old brother, Roy.

On December 29, 1951, Delora walked a few blocks from her aunt and uncle’s home to the Isbell’s to sit with the kids. After the children went to bed, she stretched out on the sofa to watch television. The flickering light filled the room as she watched the 1947 film Repeat Performance.

The movie told the story of a Broadway actress who murders her husband on New Year’s Eve, 1946. As she’s leaving the crime scene, she wishes she could turn back the clock and do the year over — and suddenly finds herself transported to New Year’s Day, 1946.

Delora watched the film to its end, a little after 11 p.m. The house was still.; Donna and Roy were asleep. For a moment, Delora sat and reflected on the film she had watched.

Then the strangest thing happened. She had a vision in which she saw herself committing murder. The vision wasn’t terrifying — it was familiar. She had often felt like choking the life out of her siblings when she lived with her family in Fort Lupton, but she had resisted.

On this night, something inside her felt different—out of her control. She felt the tug of an irresistible impulse guide her as she calmly walked toward six-year-old Donna, sleeping snug in her bed. But first, she needed a necktie.

NEXT TIME: Can Delora resist her impulse?

The Lower 13th Murder Case: Epilogue

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“Oh my God, he’s killing me!”

Martha Brinson’s screams tore through the Pullman car, jolting passengers awake in the middle of the night. Moments later, she was dead — murdered in berth 13.

The killer was on the train from Oregon to Los Angeles. But I don’t believe it was Robert E. Lee Folkes.

Wartime paranoia and racism made Folkes the perfect suspect. Black. Working class. Union agitator. Southern Pacific’s second cook. From the moment Martha’s body was discovered, Folkes was railroaded — literally and figuratively.

He worked long shifts in the dining car, sweating over a hot stove, under constant supervision. The train’s conductor later testified there was no opportunity for him to sneak away, let alone murder a woman in her sleep. A physical exam found only flour and grease beneath his fingernails — not blood.

But Folkes was Black. In 1943, that wasn’t a description. It was an indictment.

And he wasn’t just Black. He was political. His father died in the 1920s during the violent white backlash against Black sharecroppers organizing in the Arkansas Delta. His mother, Clara, fled with her children to South Central Los Angeles, chasing safety that never fully arrived.

Folkes grew up in the shadow of that violence. He got his education, then joined Southern Pacific — one of the few decent-paying jobs open to Black men. He started as a fourth cook. He worked hard, and rose to second cook.

By 1942, he was a problem. The company assigned thugs to follow him. They didn’t forget. But Folkes kept pushing, and by January 1943, he’d earned the position of second cook — a step up, despite the pressure from above and below.

So, when Martha Brinson was found dead, the company didn’t have to look far. Despite the pressure, the surveillance, the threats — he remained unbroken. And that made him dangerous.

The detectives dragged him off the train. Stripped him. Locked him in a lavatory. Grilled him through the night. No lawyer. No charges. No real evidence.

Meanwhile, one passenger should have raised every red flag. Harold Wilson, a Marine, had the berth directly above Martha. He was the first to discover the body. He was found with her blood on his clothes. But Wilson wore khaki — and in 1943 America, that was a get-out-of-jail-free card woven into the uniform.

He wasn’t questioned, nor was he detained even though witnesses saw him crawl in and out of his berth. He acted suspiciously. Yet the investigation stayed focused on Folkes.

The trial was a farce. It was never intended to get justice for Martha, the twenty-one-year-old newlywed so callously murdered. The prosecution showed no regard for her as a person. Her death became leverage.

Wilson testified for the prosecution; but he faltered when asked if he could positively identify Folkes. The newspapers labeled Folkes a “zoot-suit wearing negro” — dog-whistle journalism dressed up as coverage. He was never just a suspect. He was a symbol. And symbols don’t get acquitted.

Despite inconsistencies, the unsubstantiated confessions, and a case built more on fear than fact, the jury — nine women, three men — delivered a verdict. Guilty. In Oregon, that meant death.

In 1945, Folkes was hanged. Wilson walked into obscurity.

The courts called it justice.

History calls it something else.

What do you call it?