Category Archives: 1940s

Double Trouble

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In March 1951, Ruth Gmeiner, a United Press Staff writer, published a story about the growing problem of teenage drug addiction. Officials described heroin use as a “contagious disease.”  A federal grand jury in Detroit reported they had uncovered shocking conditions . . . “Young people ranging in age between 14 and 21 have become confirmed and inveterate users of heroin.” Every big city noticed an uptick in the number of juveniles arrested on drug charges.

In Los Angeles, Robert Schoengarth started using heroin in 1948 as a student at North Hollywood Junior High School. He and a group of his friends grew marijuana in the Hollywood Hills. They weren’t entrepreneurs, they were pot philanthropists. What they didn’t consume themselves, they gave away to friends.

Raise your hand if you made stupid choices at 14. Yeah. Me too. Fortunately, my choices didn’t have lifelong consequences.

Late Wednesday evening, January 14, 1953, Morris Friedman worked behind the counter at his liquor store at 4100 Magnolia in Burbank. A dark-haired young man entered the store, bought a pack of cigarettes, and left. Moments later, he returned. He had a .22 in his pocket. He gestured at Friedman, “I want your money, sir.”

Friedman didn’t argue. He opened the cash register, grabbed a handful of bills, and handed them over. But the crook saw a few other bills in the drawer. He reached for them. Friedman grabbed the man’s arm, but the bandit pulled away and ran. The bandit was Robert.

Robert ran five blocks to his home. He replaced the gun, which belonged to his twin, William, in a dresser drawer. Passing through the living room where his father, Frank, spoke with a neighbor, he went into the front yard.

He called Frank from the house into the yard. “I told him I robbed the store.” It wasn’t Robert’s first brush with the law. Police arrested him twice before. Once for marijuana, and later for heroin. He spent time in the Los Angeles County Jail, and a California Youth Authority facility. He told his dad he’d been clean since his release. Frank didn’t believe him.

Robert said he couldn’t understand why he committed the robbery. He had a good job, making more than $62 a week as a mechanic’s apprentice. When Frank asked him for the stolen money, he gave it to him.

While Robert waited at home with his mother, Louise, for the police to arrive, Frank went to the liquor store and returned $33 to Friedman.

Patrolmen Ray Webb and Joe Mooney took Robert into custody. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” Robert said. “I suppose I have always been hanging around with the wrong crowd. That’s how I started using dope. Maybe they can put me in a hospital. Maybe it’d help me.”

Robert’s pain is palpable. So is Frank’s. Frank explained his actions by saying he wanted to help Robert, and that he feared that Robert’s twin brother, William, an aircraft worker, might be wrongly accused.

In desperation, Frank reached out to the well-known newspaperwoman, Florabel Muir. He spoke to her about Robert. “He really isn’t a bad boy. He started getting into bad company when he was in junior high school. It was then he started smoking marijuana. I didn’t know about it until he was arrested.”

Robert’s incarcerations did him no good. Frank said, “He’s only got worse with each sentence. I asked him the other night what in the world had happened to him and where he got the idea of taking a gun and sticking up somebody for money. He looked at me, sneered, and answered, ‘In jail. What do you think?’”

Back home for only a month, Robert seemed to do well. Then he asked to borrow $10. Frank couldn’t figure out why Robert would be broke right after payday—unless he was using drugs again. Robert denied it.

Frank hoped they wouldn’t return Robert to jail. He wanted him to go to a hospital for treatment. That would be up to the court. District Attorney Ernest Roll ordered a full investigation of Robert’s story. Robert told him he would “like to kick the habit if I got the chance.” He told Roll about his “graduation” from marijuana to heroin. The D.A. learned how easy it was for Robert to get high in a California Youth Camp. A friend supplied heroin through the mail.

In judge Charles Fricke’s court, Robert pleaded guilty to one count of first-degree robbery. The judge said he would place Robert in one of the California Youth Authority institutions for another chance at sobriety.

In less than two years, Robert was out of CYA and back in the news.

Police arrested him and his brother William on dope charges in February 1955. With them was a 17-year-old girl. The twins had their own place at 11920 Riverside Drive in North Hollywood. Police found a hypodermic needle kit and two caps of heroin. The girl told officers she went with Robert downtown to Temple Street, where they scored a gram of heroin from a dealer for $15.

Maybe the evidence was insufficient for prosecution, because by October Robert was again under arrest for drugs.

Police booked Robert and 18-year-old Rosalyn Berman after stopping their car on Emelita Street and Lankershim Boulevard. Robert drove erratically, and police noticed Rosalyn drop a packet from the car. Both had fresh needle marks on their arms and appeared to be under the influence.

Only 20-years-old, and Robert’s life was circling the drain.

Even after six years of addiction and legal woes, Robert was young enough to change the course of his life. Could he do it?

NEXT TIME: Robert’s story continues.

Hero or Villain? The Strange Life of Olney Le Blanc–Conclusion

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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?

I accept I will never know.

Film Noir Friday–Sunday Matinee: Fallen Angel [1945]

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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.

Today’s film is an outstanding film noir from 1945, directed by Otto Preminger, FALLEN ANGEL. It stars Alice Faye, Dana Andrews and Linda Darnell.

IMDB says:

One night, drifter Eric Stanton is forced to disembark a San Francisco-bound bus because he has not paid the full fare. Eric is let off in the small town of Walton, and when he goes to Pop’s, a local diner, he finds Pop distraught over the disappearance of his beautiful waitress Stella. Retired police detective Mark Judd assures Pop that Stella will return, and soon she does appear, much to Pop’s relief. Eric then leaves and, after seeing a poster for a show by “psychic” Professor Madley, convinces Madley’s assistant, Joe Ellis, that he is friends with the professor. Ellis confides that ticket sales have been slow due to the influence of Clara Mills, the former mayor’s daughter, who has been telling her friends not to attend. Seeing an opportunity to make money, Eric goes to the Mills house the next morning, and asks the cynical Clara to give the professor a chance. Clara dismisses Eric, saying that the professor is a charlatan, but her lovely younger sister June is intrigued by Eric, and tells Clara that Madley is merely trying to make a living. June convinces her sister to buy tickets to the show, and soon many of the townspeople follow suit. 

ENJOY THE MOVIE!

Hero or Villain? The Strange Life of Olney Le Blanc

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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.

The Red Lipstick Murder

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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 Lady in Black
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.

Film Noir Friday: Somewhere in the Night [1946]

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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 SOMEWHERE IN THE NIGHT, 1946, starring Lloyd Nolan and Richard Conte.

TCM says:

A U.S. Marine recovering from a combat injury in a Navy hospital in Hawaii suffers from undiagnosed amnesia, and while others call him George Taylor, he has no memory of that man. Upon recovery from his wounds, George is transferred to the hospital at Camp Pendleton, California, and is eventually discharged, even though he still has no memory. He returns to his old civilian address at the Martin Hotel in Los Angeles, but no one recognizes him there. At Union Station, he exchanges a bag check he found in his sea bag for a briefcase, which contains a gun and a three-year-old letter to a man named George stating that $5,000 has been deposited for him in a bank account by Larry Cravat.

Amnesia, guns, and money!

Enjoy the movie!

Black Dahlia: Police Sweep

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Forty uniformed police officers began a house-to-house search around Norton Avenue, Coliseum Drive and 39th Street, where Elizabeth Short’s body was found. The killer left no evidence at the body dump site, so the police wanted to find the “torture chamber” where Beth was murdered and cut in half.

Detective Lieutenant P. P. Freestone said, “We hope to find someone who saw her during the blank period preceding her death, or who might have heard screams when she was being tortured. The police are in uniform so that housewives won’t refuse to answer their rings.”

The officers found many people willing to talk.

Paul Simone, a painting contractor, told officers he overheard a bitter quarrel between someone he thought was Beth and another woman. The women argued in apartment 501 at 1842 N. Cherokee Avenue in Hollywood, where Beth had lived with several roommates.

Simone said, “It was pretty hard language.” He said the last thing he heard was “Oh, nuts to you,” from the other woman. “Nuts to you” must have been harsh language for women in 1947.

The problem with Simone’s story is he claimed to have heard the altercation on January 11th. Later, they proved there were no credible sightings of Beth from January 9th until the 15th, when Betty Bersinger found her body.

In desperation, police rousted anyone who looked suspicious to them. They arrested one man, only to find out he was distraught because his dog was sick.

Police sought women, too. They launched a “woman hunt” for a pair of brunettes seen with Beth in Hollywood. Newspapers hinted the two women might be lesbians. They described the places the women visited as “Hollywood women’s hangouts.” Nothing came of the brunettes.

Minie Sepulveda, one of the women who falsely confessed to Beth’s murder. Photo courtesy LAPL.

Walter A. Johnson, of 3815 Welland Steen, told officers on Tuesday, January 14, he was burning trash across the street from the vacant lot where they found Beth’s body the next morning. He noticed a light tan or cream four-door sedan, possibly a 1935, and a man standing near it. The man’s behavior piqued Johnson’s curiosity. “He walked a little way up the street, then came back, crossed over and looked into my car, and finally got into his own and drove off.”

Johnson got in his car and followed the mystery man, but lost him.

Police asked why he had not come forward earlier. Johnson said he reported the incident, “but nothing came of it.”

Another witness surfaced. A cab driver, I. A. Jorgenson, told detectives he believed he picked Beth and a man friend at Sixth and Main Street on the night of January 11. He said he was “almost positive” the woman was Beth. Jorgenson said the couple hailed his cab, and they instructed him to take them to a Hollywood motel. The police withheld the motel’s name but told reporters they would question the employees.

None of the tips gleaned from the neighborhood sweep resulted in a solid lead. The police questioned hundreds of people, asking questions like the following:

“Do you know anybody in the neighborhood who is mentally unbalanced?”

“Anybody of whom you were suspicious after reading about the Elizabeth Short murder?”

“Do you know of any medical students?”

“Did you find any strange items in your yard or incinerator?”

Police chemist Ray Pinker worked long hours to bring a solution to the murder. He sought to establish Beth’s blood type after a gray, bloodstained blanket turned up late on January 22.

A bloodstained tarp, 3 by 6 feet, found near Indio, was also being examined in the lab.

Desperate to solve the case, the Los Angeles City Council offered a $10,000 (equivalent to $141,368.00 in current USD) reward; but the city attorney felt it to be inappropriate. City council member Ed Davenport, perhaps naively, said an informer “should be prepared to talk without being paid by the city. Maybe now he will come forward without waiting for any reward to be offered.”

If such an informer existed, he or she has never come forward.

The Black Dahlia–January 22, 1947

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On January 22, 1947, one week after Beth Short’s murder, the coroner held an inquest to determine the manner of her death.

It was an excruciating ordeal for her family. They called her mother, Phoebe, to the stand. Asked when she was first notified that her daughter died, she half rose from her chair and blurted; “She was murdered.” She regained her composure, sat down, and told the jury she last saw Beth in April 1946, in Massachusetts.

Beth wrote to Phoebe every week. She told her she was a waitress. She also said she worked as a film extra, and was going to San Diego to work in a veteran’s hospital. None of that was true.

Phoebe said she planned to bury Beth in Oakland, California. Beth’s sister Virginia lived there.

Robert “Red” Manley testified he knew Beth for about a month. He last saw her on January 9, 1947, when he drove her from San Diego to Los Angeles, and left her at the Biltmore Hotel.

Beth Short’s brother-in-law, Adrian West, and her sister, Virginia, sit
behind Robert “Red” Manley at the coroner’s inquest. [Photo courtesy LAPL]

Among the others to testify was Detective Jess W. Haskels. He told the nine-man jury that the “body was clean and appeared to be washed” when found on January 15. He described how the killer cut the body in half at the waist.

Dr. Frederick Newbarr, chief autopsy surgeon, stated that Beth’s murder occurred less than 24 hours before her discovery. He said his autopsy showed her death was due to hemorrhage, shock, concussion of the brain, and lacerations of the face.

Beth’s brother-in-law, Adrian West (married to her sister Virginia), expressed the family’s gratitude for everyone working on the case. Virginia, Phoebe, and Adrian planned to leave for Oakland by train on the 23rd to accompany Beth’s body north.

Adrian West, Phoebe Short, Virginia West [Photo courtesy LAPL]

After hearing all the testimony, the jury retired for 45 minutes before returning with the expected verdict: Homicide. Death by person or persons unknown.

Vying for headlines with the inquest was Lynn Martin—known around Hollywood as a 22-year-old model.

Lynn Martin [Photo courtesy LAPL]

Police searched for Lynn after finding out she roomed with Beth for a time in Hollywood. They found the frightened girl in a motel in the San Fernando Valley. At first, the detectives who questioned her believed her to be in her early 20s; but after spending hours with her, they saw her for the frightened teenager she was; only three days from her 16th birthday. They contacted juvenile officers to come for her.

Officer Helen Mellon with Lynn Martin [Photo courtesy LAPL]

She admitted her true name was Norma Lee Meyer, and her parents lived in Long Beach. Juvie officers said Lynn had a record dating back to when she was 11. She spent thirteen months in the El Retiro School for Girls.

El Retiro School for Girls {Photo courtesy LAPL]

Police hoped Lynn might help them with their investigation. They found her in a motel court in the San Fernando Valley. A cab driver, Ballard Smith, who knew Lynn, said he picked her up as a “fare” at Sunset Blvd. and Western Ave. on the afternoon of January 21st. He drove her to the Hollywood Post Office, and then to the Ventura Blvd motel.

Hollywood Post Office at Wilcox and Selma

As he drove Lynn to the motel, Ballard said he persuaded her to surrender to police. He learned from the newspapers that police sought her as a witness, not a suspect.

Lynn said she would call police as soon as she got to the motel. She explained she had not called them earlier because she was frightened, and didn’t want any notoriety.

As soon as she had checked in, managers of the motel recognized her and called police.

LAPD Captain Donohoe said they questioned Lynn about Edward P. (the Duke) Wellington because someone named him as one of her boyfriends. She admitted spending a few days in a motel with Wellington, and people saw her wearing a white-tipped silver fox fur wrap he allegedly bought her.

If Wellington bought Lynn a fur, he likely paid for it with a bad check. Police caught up with him in late January. Police cleared him of suspicion in Beth’s murder after proving he had never met her.

On February 3 1947, the Long Beach Independent featured an article about Lynn which, if true, may explain how, at 15, she was sleeping with a man in his 40s.

The paper interviewed Joe Kennick, head of the city’s juvenile bureau. He said Los Angeles police had arrested Lynn seven times. Even as she was being held by juvenile authorities, officials prepared to start court action against 10 male adults with whom she had been intimate.

Kennick said, “This poor, unfortunate girl is just another sad example of a child who never had a chance.” She bounced from relatives to foster homes, and she never got the care every child deserves.

On November 6, 1943, at only 12, police arrested her as wayward and for violation of the curfew ordinance.

The woman who was supposed to care for her forced her to sleep an unfinished garaged; no matter what the weather. One night when she got cold in the garage, she went to visit a 13-year-old friend. Lynn said she “wasn’t a nice girl—she gets herself picked up by sailors.”

The two girls went to the Pike, where drunken sailors picked them up. One sailor, about 20, seemed nicer than the others. Police arrested her when they found her with him under the pier.

It is not surprising that by age 15 she was living on her own in Hollywood—pretending to be a model in her 20s. She told police, “Hollywood is full of men around 40 that want to buy you drinks and a meal. They expect you to pay for the drinks and meals with yourself.”

Lynn’s story illuminates the post-war world, especially for young women. Beth was several years older than Lynn, but I doubt she was any more worldly.

I don’t know what happened to Lynn. Unlike Beth, she got a second chance. I hope she used it wisely.

Black Dahlia: January 15, 1947

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Bundled up against the chill of a cold wave that had held Los Angeles residents in its grip for several days, Mrs. Betty Bersinger and her three-year-old daughter Anne walked south on the west side of Norton in Leimert Park, a Los Angeles suburb. Midway down the block, Bersinger noticed something pale in the weeds about fifty feet north of a fire hydrant and about a foot in from the sidewalk.

Initially, Bersinger believed she was seeing a discarded mannequin or a passed-out nude woman.

Betty Bersinger recreates her phone call to police.

It took a moment before Bersinger realized she was in a waking nightmare. The bright white shape in the weeds was neither a mannequin nor a drunk.

Bersinger later recalled, “I was terribly shocked and scared to death. I grabbed Anne, and we walked as fast as we could to the first house that had a telephone.”

Over the years, several reporters have claimed to have been first on the scene of the murder. One person who made that claim was Will Fowler.

Fowler said he and photographer Felix Paegel of the Los Angeles Examiner approached Crenshaw Boulevard when they heard an intriguing call on their shortwave radio. It was a police call and Fowler couldn’t believe his ears. A naked woman, possibly drunk, was found in a vacant lot one block east of Crenshaw between 39th and Coliseum streets. Fowler turned to Pagel and said, “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 hopped out of the car and approached the woman as Paegel pulled his Speed Graphic from the trunk. Fowler called out, “Jesus, Felix, this woman’s cut in half!”

Will Fowler crouches down near the body of Jane Doe.

That was Fowler’s story, and he stuck to it through the decades. He said he closed the dead girl’s eyes. But was his story true?

There is information to suggest that a reporter from the Los Angeles Times was the first on the scene; and in her autobiography, Newspaperwoman, Aggie Underwood, said that she was the first.

Aggie on Norton, January 15, 1947.

After 78-years does it really matter? All those who saw the murdered girl that day saw the same horrifying scene, and it left an indelible impression. Aggie described what she 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 about 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.”

Air brushed newspaper photo of Jane Doe. 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 most promising of the early suspects was a twenty-three-year-old transient, Cecil French. He was busted for molesting women in a downtown bus depot.

Police were further 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. He was dropped from the list of hot suspects.

Ray Pinker, Police Chemist
c. 1935 Photo courtesy LAPL

In her initial coverage, Aggie referred to the case as the “Werewolf” slaying because of the savagery of the mutilations inflicted on the unknown woman. Aggie’s werewolf tag would identify the case until a much better one was discovered—the Black Dahlia.

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.

The Black Dahlia–January 9, 1947

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About 12:20 p.m. on January 9, 1947, Elizabeth Short and Robert “Red” Manley left the motel where they had spent the night. Beth met Red, a traveling salesman, in San Diego. She decided to return to Los Angeles, and contacted him for a ride. .

He picked her up at the home of the French family where she had worn out her welcome. They offered her a place to stay for a few days. She lounged on their sofa for a month.

Robert “Red” Manley.

What did Beth and Red talk about during the couple of hours that it took them to drive back to Los Angeles from San Diego? Red noticed some scratches on her arms and asked her about them. She concocted a story about a jealous boyfriend—an Italian with black hair living in San Diego—who she alleged had scratched her. Beth probably made the scratches herself. Maybe insect bites? Beth lied to Red a few times more before their day together ended.

Harriet forgave Red

Following a platonic night in the motel room–Red passed his self-administered love test. Lucky Harriette. He still had a problem; he’d been out of touch with his wife for a couple of days. How would he explain his silence? Any guy capable of devising a ridiculous love test could come up with an excuse for being incommunicado for a couple of days.

In my mind’s eye, I see Beth and Red seated across from each other on the bench seat in his Studebaker, each lost in thought. Beth may have wondered what she’d do once she hit L.A. Maybe she’d go to friends in Hollywood. If she was lucky, someone would have an empty bed for her. Her immediate difficulty was Red. How would she get away from the well-meaning guy for whom she felt nothing?

Once they arrived in the city, Beth told Red that she needed to check her luggage at the bus depot. He took her there and Beth was ready to wave goodbye to him and be on her way–but he wouldn’t leave. He told her he couldn’t 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 make a plan to ditch her red-headed shadow. When they returned to his car, she told him she needed to go to the Biltmore Hotel to wait for her sister, Virginia. It was a lie. Virginia was in Oakland, hundreds of miles to the north.

Red drove her several blocks back to the Biltmore Hotel. The main lobby was on Olive Street, opposite Pershing Square. Beth thanked Red. He had been a gentleman. He’d paid to have taps put on the heels and toes of her pumps, and of course he’d paid for meals and the motel room. She thought he would drive off and leave her, but once again, he said that he didn’t feel comfortable putting her out of the car on her own.

Biltmore Hotel

He parked, and the two of them waited in the Biltmore’s lobby for a couple of hours. Finally, Red realized he couldn’t wait any longer. He said he had to go. She told him she would be fine, and that she expected her sister to arrive at any moment.

Red left her at 6:30 p.m. Beth watched him go–gave him a few minutes, and then she exited the hotel and turned south down Olive Street.

She may have been going to the Crown Grill at Eighth and Olive. She’d been there before and perhaps she hoped to bump into someone she knew; after all, she needed a place to stay.

This is a frame from B-roll of downtown Los Angeles. Do you see the crown? Doesn’t it look like a skull?

When asked if they’d seen Beth, most of the patrons were reluctant to talk to the police because the bar led a double life. By day, it catered to the lunch crowd. Dark enough to be cozy for cocktails for a man escorting a woman, not his wife. By night, the clientele changed to gay men. Because homosexuality was illegal, there were only a few places where men could meet.

No one could say for sure that Beth was in the bar on the 9th—and if she was there, no one saw her leave.

I find it sad that no one missed Beth. She had no family here, and no close friends. She was the perfect prey. With no any credible sightings of her, it is likely that Beth’s killer kept her captive from January 9th until the morning of January 15th, when he murdered her. What did he say to her? Did she plead for her life? It is terrifying to contemplate.