Tag Archives: Elizabeth Short

Aggie Underwood–Newspaperwoman

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On October 27, 1936, in a special edition celebrating the Herald’s twenty-fifth anniversary as an evening daily, city editor John B.T. Campbell wrote this about Aggie Underwood:

“Aggie Underwood should have been a man. A rip-snorting, go-gettum reporter who goes through fire lines trails killers . . . using anything from airplanes to mules to reach the spot that in newspapers is  . . . marked with an arrow or an X. What a gal! Usually followed by one or two photographers who . . . get lost when unable to keep up with this speedy lady. Favorite occupation is following a good murder. Favorite story, a good murder. Favorite photograph, a good murder. Favorite fate for all editors, good murder. Help!”

Today we may struggle with the “should have been a man” comment, but at that time it was high praise. Aggie was still new at the Herald, starting in January 1935. She undeniably made an impression on the newsroom. She recalled those early days as “happy-go-lucky.” The reporters worked hard and played just as hard; often going in a group to Chinatown for dinner, or gathering at a bar in Pico Gulch (about half a block from the office, on Pico between Figueroa and Georgia streets).

1931 photo shows the Goodyear blimp “Volunteer” soaring over the Evening Herald building to pick up a bundle of Twentieth Birthday editions for delivery to officials at city hall.

In her work, Aggie made it a point never to ask for special treatment because she was a woman. One night, she arrived at a brush fire in Malibu. A Sheriff’s deputy stopped her. “It makes no difference if you are a reporter. No woman can go in there.” She was considering her next move when she heard a man’s voice. He addressed the deputy, “It’s all right, lad. She’s been to a hell of a lot more of these things than you ever have. Go on through, Aggie.”

The voice belonged to Sheriff’s Department Inspector Norris G. Stensland, one of my favorite LA law enforcement officers.

Aggie worked well with law enforcement. She took the time to write to an officer’s superior to express how helpful he was. In this way, she built long-standing relationships based on mutual respect. Reporters like Aggie have a lot in common with detectives. Each knows the value of maintaining their composure and assessing a scene. Both cops and reporters know the value of developing informants.

One time, on a tip, Aggie arrived at the scene of a love-triangle murder. The cop at the door refused entry to Aggie, not because she was a reporter, but because she was a woman. “You can’t go in there, lady. It’s pretty bad in there. It’s no place for a woman. It’s a mess of blood all over.” Paul Dorsey, a Herald photographer who was with her, said to the officer, “Don’t worry about her. She can take it. Worry about me. Chances are that I can’t.”

In August 1935, Aggie got a tip that LAPD detectives planned to search the home of a woman accused of shooting and gravely wounding her husband at a dinner party days earlier. Aggie arrived before detectives Aldo Corsini and Thad Brown, who sought the pistol used by the woman. Aggie said the detectives were concerned about entering the home because of a huge gaunt German Shepherd. Nobody had fed or given water to the poor thing since the arrest of his mistress. The dog, frightened and stressed, barked from behind a window.

Victim of shooting interviewed by Aldo Corsini and Thad Brown. Photo courtesy UCLA digital collection.

Aggie had an epiphany. “Look, Thad, Corsini and I will go to the back door and make one hell of a noise and distract the dog. While we’re doing that, Thad, you go in through the window, right there beside the front door, then unlock the front door and rush out. I’ll go in then and tame your dog; I’m not afraid of him.”

Aggie heard dogs are aggressive when they are afraid of taller, bigger humans who seem threatening. She figured the best way to approach the frightened animal would be to get down to his level. Corsini wasn’t about to get on his knees to confront the dog, and neither was Brown, but Aggie refused to retreat. Facing the dog, Aggie talked to him in a soft voice, and cautiously moved her hand toward his head. She petted his head gently and said, “What’s the matter, fellow? You hungry and thirsty?” The big dog whimpered. Aggie stood up and went to the kitchen sink to fill his bowl with water. She set out some food for him, too. He became her shadow. He followed Aggie around the house while the detectives searched for the gun, which they found in a laundry bag. The woman later went to prison for attempted murder.

Thad Brown promoted to captain of homicide/chief of detectives. The rank and file would have made him chief of police if politics hadn’t put William Parker in the office instead. Aggie said for years Brown blushed when asked if he had tamed any wild dogs lately.

Aggie’s cordial relations with police provided her with exclusive stories. She rolled up to a house in Eagle Rock one afternoon after getting a report of a double mystery death. Several LAPD homicide detectives stood around outside, waiting for the living room to air out. Aggie said after ten days, the corpses were ripe. The couple died in the middle of a sex act on the living room couch. Detectives weren’t sure whether they had a murder-suicide or an accident. Aggie wanted to catch the Herald’s next deadline, so she made a deal with Captain H. H. Bert Wallis. They identified the dead man, but they still didn’t know the woman’s identity. No detective wanted to enter the house until the smell dissipated. Aggie said she would brave the stench and retrieve the woman’s handbag, which sat on a table visible from outside.

The woman was nude except for a slip rolled up to her chest. The man, in his union-suit, had fallen to the floor. His penis had burst, and Aggie had to step over him to reach the handbag. She tried to hold her breath, but the smell of decaying flesh was pervasive, clinging to her favorite brown wool dress. Aggie grabbed the purse and handed it to Wallis. In gratitude, he gave her a head start on the story. It turned out the man met the woman in a bar, brought her home, and they died of carbon monoxide poisoning because of a faulty heater.

Aggie loved the brown wool dress. She saw it in a shop window and bought it on lay-away. In a conversation with Aggie’s daughter, years later, I learned the fate of the dress. Mary Evelyn told me Aggie came home that night, peeled off the dress and burned it in the fireplace, saying, “I’ll never the smell of death out of it.”

Aggie at the Black Dahlia body dump, January 15, 1947.

During her career, Aggie reported on hundreds of crimes. The most infamous of them began on the morning of January 15, 1947.

Aggie claimed to be the first reporter at the body dump site on Norton near 39th in Leimert Park. She was likely one of the first. It scarcely matters now. The deceased was a young woman, naked and obscenely posed. Her head is north, her legs spread and point south. A couple of days later, they identified the woman as twenty-two-year-old Elizabeth Short from Medford, Massachusetts. She became known as the Black Dahla.

Aggie interviewed the initial suspect in the grisly murder, Robert “Red” Manley. She sized him up and concluded he was not the killer. Despite an intense investigation, the case remains unsolved.

This post concludes my month-long tribute to Aggie, who inspired me to create this blog eleven years ago.

Aggie in her early days as city editor. Note the baseball bat on her desk. She said she kept the bat to deal with Hollywood press agents.

As we bid adieu to 2023, and prepare for new challenges in 2024, I thank you so much for your continued readership. This blog is one of my passions. I love relating true tales from L.A.’s past. Crime is banal, but the people who commit crime are endlessly fascinating. I’ve begun exploring stories for the upcoming year—there are some excellent ones. Within the next several days, I will begin my annual coverage of the Black Dahlia case, so stay tuned.

Happy New Year!

Black Dahlia–Conclusion

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NOTE: The Long Beach Independent-January 15, 1949. I believe the detectives in the photo are Harry Hansen and Finis Brown.

Two years passed with police no closer to a solution for Elizabeth Short’s murder. The 1949 Los Angeles Grand Jury intended to hold LAPD’s feet to the fire for failing to solve the Dahlia case and several other unsolved homicides and disappearances of women during the 1940s.

On September 6, 1949, the jury’s foreman, Harry Lawson, told reporters that the administrative committee scheduled a meeting for September 8.

Lawson said:

“There is every possibility that we will summon before the jury officers involved in the investigation of these murders. We find it odd that there are on the books of the Los Angeles Police Deportment many unsolved crimes of this type. Because of the nature of these murder and sex crimes, women and children are constantly placed in jeopardy and are not safe from attack. Something is radically wrong with the present system for apprehending the guilty. The alarming increase in the number of unsolved murders and other major crimes reflects ineffectiveness in law enforcement agencies and the courts, and that should not be tolerated.”

In his statement, Lawson places the blame for the unsolved homicides squarely on the shoulders of law enforcement and the courts. What Lawson failed to understand was that crime was changing. No longer could police assume a woman’s killer was her husband or boyfriend. Stranger homicides were nothing new, but neither were they common.

The population of post-war Los Angeles skewed young and, because of a variety of factors, like the acute housing shortage, they were transient. A potent and deadly mix of opportunity and a large victim pool made it easy for the criminally inclined to do their worst. Women had a false sense of security about men in uniform. Behavior considered risky by today’s standards was acceptable during the 1940s.

From the outbreak of the war, the government encouraged women to support men in uniform. Newspapers and women’s magazines devoted countless column inches to ways in which they could aid fighting men. Women formed “Add-A-Plate” clubs. The mission of the clubs was to invite a soldier home for a meal. Women also routinely picked up soldiers and sailors hitchhiking because it was their patriotic duty.

On April 2, 1943, the Pasadena Post wrote about a “ride waiting zone” which gave military men a place to stand and be visible to passing motorists who would then give them a ride. Most of the men were decent and law-abiding, but some returned home severely damaged by their war experiences. How many of those men were capable of murder?

Pfc. George Morrow, left, and Pvt. Dennis Ward could not wait until painters had completely finished the first service men’s waiting zone before they tried it out.

LAPD detectives spared nothing in their investigation of Short’s slaying. They took over 2700 reports. There were over 300 named suspects. They arrested fifty suspects who they subsequently cleared and released. Nineteen false confessors wasted law enforcement’s time and resources.

In 1949, the DA’s office issued a report on the investigation into Short’s murder. In part, the report stated:

“[she] knew at least fifty men at the time of her death and at least 25 men had been seen with her within the 60-day period preceding her death. She was not a prostitute. She has been confused with a Los Angeles prostitute by the same name… She was known as a teaser of men. She would ride with them, chisel a place to sleep, clothes or money, but she would then refuse to have sexual intercourse by telling them she was a virgin, or that she was engaged or married. There were three known men who had sexual intercourse with her and, according to them, she got no pleasure out of this act. According to the autopsy surgeon, her sex organs showed female trouble. She had disliked queer women very much, as well as prostitutes. She was never known to be a narcotic addict.”

Distracted by the continuing saga of local gangster Mickey Cohen, the jury turned their attention away from the carnage. In the end, they passed the baton to the 1950 grand jury–which also found itself sidetracked.

Mickey Cohen and his bullet proof car.

What happened to the women who disappeared? It is unlikely that we will ever know. It is also unlikely we will identify the killer(s). People will always speculate about the cases, and every few years a book about the Black Dahlia slaying will emerge claiming to have solved the decades long cold case. None of the books I’ve read so far is credible.

I do not accept theories which rely on elaborate conspiracies perpetrated by everyone, from a newspaper mogul to a local gangster to an allegedly evil genius doctor. My disbelief is based in part on the fact that most people are incapable of keeping a secret. Benjamin Franklin said, “Three (people) can keep a secret if two of them are dead.” Eventually, someone talks.

Elizabeth Short’s killer probably kept his depraved secret but, even if he didn’t, anyone who knew the truth is long dead.

NOTE: This concludes my series of Black Dahlia posts for now. I hope you will stay with me through 2023 as I unearth more of L.A.’s most deranged crimes.

Did a Woman Kill the Black Dahlia?

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Elizabeth Short aka The Black Dahlia [Photo courtesy LAPL]

In the days following the discovery of Elizabeth Short’s body, crumpled up confessions given by every sad drunk and deranged publicity seeker littered the local landscape. Most of the confessors were men. But even though none of the women who confessed were guilty, the cops thought maybe a woman had committed the murder. After all, L.A. has its share of female killers.

Louise Peete in court. [Photo: UCLA Digital Archive.]

The Herald ran side-by-side photos of three homicidal women arrested in L.A. Louise Peete (one of only four women ever executed by the State of California) was a serial killer. Police arrested her for murder in the 1920s. Found guilty, she served eighteen years in San Quentin. A few years after her release, she committed another murder for which she paid with her life.

Trunk containing remains of Winnie Ruth Judd’s victims.
Winnie Ruth Judd

Winnie Ruth Judd committed two murders in Arizona. Police arrested her in L.A. when a trunk containing the dismembered remains of Hedvig Samuelson and Anne Le Roi leaked bodily fluids in the baggage claim section of a local train station.

In 1922, Clara Phillips (aka “Tiger Girl”) murdered Alberta Meadows, the woman she suspected was a rival for her husband’s affections. She struck Meadows repeatedly with a hammer, and then, in a fit of adrenalin fueled rage, she rolled a 50 lb. boulder onto the torso of the corpse.

Clara Phillips

The possibility of a woman murdering Short wasn’t far-fetched. The Herald featured a series of columns written by psychologist Alice La Vere. La Vere previously profiled Short’s killer as a young man without a criminal record, but she was open to the killer being a woman. In fact, she abruptly shifted gears from identifying a young man as the slayer to enthusiastically embracing the notion of “… a sinister Lucrezia Borgia — a butcher woman whose crime dwarfs any in the modern crime annals.”

Body of Alberta Meadows — victim of Clara Phillips’ wrath. [Photo courtesy of UCLA]

La Vere was an expert for hire, and if the Herald editors had asked her to write a profile of the killer as a mutant Martian alien, she’d likely have done it. Still, she made a few insightful comments in her column. “Murderers leave behind them a trail of fingerprints, bits of skin and hair. The slayer of ‘The Black Dahlia’ left the most telltale clue of all–-the murder pattern of a degenerate, vicious feminine mind.”

Even more interesting was La Vere’s exhortation to police to look for an older woman. She said, “Police investigators should look for a woman older than ‘The Black Dahlia.’ This woman who either inspired the crime or actually committed the ghastly, unspeakable outrage need not be a woman of great strength. Extreme emotion or high mental tension in men and women give great, superhuman strength.”

One thing I find interesting about La Vere’s profile of a female perpetrator is that she said the woman would be older than Short. In recent years, an older woman became an integral part of a theory about the murder.

It is a theory put forward by Larry Harnisch. Harnisch, formerly of the Los Angeles Times, wrote an article for the paper on the fiftieth anniversary of Short’s death. In the years since, he has done a lot more digging into the case and has unearthed an important connection between the body dump site near 39th and Norton, and two medical doctors. One doctor, Walter Alonzo Bayley, lived in a house just one block south of the place where Betty Bersinger found Elizabeth Short’s body. At the time of the murder, Bayley was estranged from his wife; however, she still occupied the home. Bayley left his wife for his mistress, Alexandra Partyka, also a medical doctor. Partyka emigrated to the U.S. and wasn’t licensed to practice medicine, but she assisted Bayley in his practice.

Following Bayley’s death in January 1948, Partyka and Dr. Bayley’s wife, Ruth, fought over control of his estate. Mrs. Bayley claimed Partyka was blackmailing the late doctor with secrets about his medical practice. Secrets damning enough to ruin him.

There is also a link between Bayley’s family and Short’s. In 1945, Dr. Bayley’s adopted daughter, Barbara Lindgren, was a witness to the marriage of Beth’s sister Virginia Short to Adrian West at a church in Inglewood, California, near Los Angeles.

Larry discussed Dr. Bayley in James Ellroy’s “Feast of Death”. [Note: Be forewarned that there are photos of Elizabeth Short in the morgue.]

A woman could have murdered Elizabeth Short. Could the woman be Alexandra Partyka? The chances are that we’ll never know–or at least not until Larry Harnisch finishes his book on the case. 

Black Dahlia: False Confessors

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Every high-profile murder case gets its share of false confessors. The police have no choice but to check them out, no matter how ludicrous the claim is. It is frustrating for investigators to travel down dead-ends, but they never know from where, or from whom, a break will come.

In late January 1947, two female confessors contacted LAPD detectives to confess their guilt. Minnie Sepulveda telephoned LAPD’s University Station from a bar. She said, “I just stabbed a girl. I killed Elizabeth Short.” They quickly dismissed her claim. Police also dismissed Emily Williams’ confession. Williams, a former WAC, suffered from an undescribed mental ailment.

False confessor, Minnie Sepulveda. [Photo courtesy of LAPL]

The confessions kept coming.

Thirty-three-year-old Daniel Voorhees of Phoenix, Arizona, telephoned the LAPD homicide squad room and told them he murdered Elizabeth Short. He said he would surrender to them at the corner of 4th and Hill downtown. At first, he refused to elaborate on his claim. Detective Lieutenant Charles King, with Dr. Paul De River, police psychiatrist, postponed a lie detector test until Voorhies recovered from his “bewildered and befuddled” state.

Daniel Voorhees. Photo courtesy LAPL.

Voorhees said he arrived in town on January 15 and checked into a hotel at 1012 E. Seventh Street at 10:45 a.m. He checked out the next day. He said he met Short on Hill Street “two weeks ago” (about the time of the murder) and took her for a ride on a Wilshire bus. He claimed he dated Short in 1941. Not only was she a 16-year-old schoolgirl in 1941, she didn’t arrive in Los Angeles until 1943. In his confession note, Voorhees misspelled his alleged victim’s last name. Police, who never actually believed his ramblings, released him.

Photo courtesy LAPL.

Marvin Hart, a thirty-five-year-old physical culture instructor, didn’t learn his lesson from the war-time mantra, “Loose Lips Sink Ships.” The drunk chatterbox told a taxicab driver, “Get me out of here; I have just killed a man.” The driver picked Hart up on Wilshire near the Los Angeles Country Club and drove him to a rooming house at 1842 N. Cherokee Street in Hollywood. The same building in which Short lived for a time. Rattled, the taxi driver went to the police and gave his statement.

Detectives brought Hart in for questioning. That he lived in the same building as Short and took her out a few times piqued their interest. They asked him to explain nis torn coat. “I had a fight with my girlfriend. We were at a party in West Los Angeles last night, and I guess I got pretty drunk.”

Marvin Hart. Photo courtesy LAPL.

Hart was a bone-headed blabbermouth, but he wasn’t a killer.

LAPD Vice Squad officers arrested Altadena resident Hugh Torbert Jr., on April 17, after trailing him and a female companion to a downtown hotel. While the officers waited for the perfect moment to break down the door and make a bust, they overheard Torbert tell the woman with him he knew Short, but didn’t want to get involved in the investigation.

Hugh Torbert. Photo courtesy LAPL.

Captain Jack Donohoe, head of LAPD’s homicide detail, checked into Torbert’s background. Torbert was in the Army and served at Camp Cooke, where Short worked at the Post Exchange. Tantalizing bits of information; leading to another blind alley.

One confessor made front page news. Joseph Dumais.

The February 8, 1947 edition of the Herald, announced that the army had the Black Dahlia’s killer in custody.

The Herald story began with a definitive statement. “Army Corporal Joseph Dumais, 29, of Fort Dix, N.J., is definitely the murderer of the Black Dahlia, army authorities at Fort Dix announced today.”

Dumais, a combat veteran, returned from leave wearing blood-stained trousers with his pockets crammed full of clippings about Short’s murder. According to the Herald, Dumais made a 50-page confession in which he claimed to have had a mental blackout after dating Elizabeth Short in Los Angeles five days before Betty Bersinger discovered the body.

Joseph Dumais. Photo courtesy LAPL.

The good-looking corporal seemed like the real deal. He told the cops, “When I get drunk, I get pretty rough with women.” Unfortunately, when police checked his story against known facts, the confession didn’t hold up. The Army sent Dumais to a psychiatrist.

Time passed, and the investigation faded from the headlines. So, too, did the steady stream of confessors.

On November 8, 1950, a thirty-five-year-old movie bit player and member of the Screen Actor’s Guild, Max Handler, became the twenty-fifth person to confess to murdering Elizabeth Short (one man confessed four times).

Handler phoned LAPD homicide and said he was “cracking up.” In his signed confession, he said, “I killed the Black Dahlia girl, for which I am sorry.” He said he didn’t recall committing the murder.

Max Handler with Det. Ed Barrett (in hat and glasses). Photo courtesy LAPL

Detectives revealed that a man resembling Handler and a young woman resembling Short were seen together in a Hollywood bar and at a motel on or about the date of her murder, January 15, 1947.

One clue gave detectives hope. In Short’s purse, found several days after her murder, was the business card of a local real estate company. The same company Handler worked for.

Police abandoned a lie detector test because Handler was so distraught, they knew they would never get an accurate reading.

After several days in police custody, Handler recanted his confession. He said the reason he confessed is he wanted police protection. From whom?

According to Handler, “A lot of little men with violins have been chasing me around. I wanted police protection. I knew they’d only laugh at me if I’d tell them about the men with the violins. So, I figured out another way to get the protection I needed.”  

Detective Lieutenants Harry Hansen and Ed Barrett, referred Handler for a sanity test before the county Lunacy Commission.

The personal demons that caused Handler to confess to the Black Dahlia murder didn’t keep him from appearing in movies. He had an interesting career. He appeared in many B movies, but he also turned up in productions like The Asphalt Jungle, From Here to Eternity, and my favorite, Crime Wave. His last film credit, in 1960, is for The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

Handler died in 1993.

Even seventy-six years after the murder, people still phone LAPD about the case.

The Black Dahlia Case Goes Cold

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Elizabeth Short’s murder dominated the front pages of the Evening Herald & Express for days following the discovery of her body.

Even in a murder case as well-publicized as the Black Dahlia, the more time that elapses following the crime, the fewer clues there are on which to report. That the case was going cold didn’t dampen the Herald’s enthusiastic coverage. The paper sought psychiatrists, psychologists, and mystery writers who would attempt, each in his/her own way, to analyze the case and fill column space in the paper as they, and the cops, waited for a break. Decades before the founding of FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit (BAU), shrinks and writers whose work appeared in the Herald engaged in speculative profiles of both the victim and her killer.

The Herald tapped Beverly Hills psychologist, Alice La Vere, to contribute her analysis of the victim and slayer. The paper introduced La Vere as “… one of the nation’s most noted consulting psychologists.” La Vere regularly spoke to various organizations about the problems of returning veterans. According to the newspaper, Miss La Vere would give readers, “an analysis of the motives which led to the torture murder of beautiful 22-year-old Elizabeth Short”. La Vere’s analysis is remarkably contemporary.

Here is an excerpt from her profile of Short’s personality:

“Some gnawing feeling of inadequacy was eating at the mind of this girl. She needed constant proof to herself that she was important to someone and demonstrates this need by the number of suitors and admirers with which she surrounded herself.”

La Vere described the killer.

“It is very likely that this is the first time this boy has committed any crime. It is also likely that he may be a maladjusted veteran. The lack of social responsibility experienced by soldiers, their conversational obsession with sex, their nerves keyed to battle pitch — these factors are crime-breeding.” She further stated: “Repression of the sex impulse accompanied by environmental maladjustment is the slayer’s probable background.”

How does La Vere’s profile of Elizabeth Short and her killer compare with the analysis of retired FBI profiler John Douglas? Douglas suggests Beth was “needy” and that her killer would have “spotted her a mile away.” He said that the killer “would have been a lust killer and loved hurting people.”

On the salient points, I’d say that La Vere and Douglas were of like minds regarding Elizabeth Short and her killer.

At the time of Elizabeth Short’s murder, mystery writer Craig Rice (pseudonym of Georgiana Ann Randolph Walker Craig) was one of the most popular crime writers in the country. In its January 28, 1946 issue, TIME magazine selected Rice for a cover feature on the mystery genre. Sadly, Rice is largely forgotten by all except the most avid mystery geeks (like me).

In late January 1947, the Herald invited Craig Rice to give her take on the Black Dahlia case. She summed it up this way:

“A black dahlia is what expert gardeners call ‘an impossibility’ of nature. Perhaps that is why lovely, tragic Elizabeth Short was tortured, murdered, and mutilated because such a crime could happen only in the half-world in which she lived. A world of—shadows.”

The police couldn’t catch a break. Not only couldn’t they locate the crime scene, false confessors, male and female, diverted critical resources and muddied the waters.

NEXT TIME: FALSE CONFESSORS

The Flower of Temple Street

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On January 15, 1947, Beth Short’s gruesome murder pushed everything else off the front pages. But during her missing week, January 9 to 15, other stories occupied the minds of Los Angeles residents, like the Flower of Temple Street.

Bitter rivals, nineteen-year-old Jenny Trejo and twenty-year-old Josephine Soto, met in the parking lot of the Carioca Café at Figueroa and Temple on the evening of January 9, 1947.

Carioca Cafe c. 1930s

Why the rivalry? The neighborhood was only big enough for one of the pretty young women to hold the title of the Flower of Temple Street, and it currently belonged to Jenny. She would fight to keep it. The animus between them was mostly about who was the prettiest, the best dressed, and the most desirable to the local men. Nobody could pinpoint when the feud began, but it went back several months, even before they came to Los Angeles from El Paso, Texas. Jenny with her husband and Josephina with her boyfriend, Porfirio Mendoza.

Josephine recently asked Porfirio for a knife for protection. She told him Jenny threatened to “get her.” When she accepted Jenny’s request to meet at the Café, Josephine brought the knife; just in case.

Jenny and Josephine exchanged words. Jenny produced a three-inch blade and stabbed Josephina three times in the chest and once in the neck. Josephina staggered 50 feet before she twisted grotesquely and slumped to the ground.

Friends of Jenny’s advised her to flee to Mexico. They told her, “When they get you, you’re going to be in for a long time.” With her husband in prison on a narcotics rap, Jenny had few resources to make it across the border. She first went with her friends to 14th and San Pedro, then by a streetcar to Sixth and Main, by another streetcar to Santa Monica, and then by bus to San Francisco.

Police couldn’t locate the fugitive. At the end of February, weary of hiding out, she went to a police station in San Francisco and surrendered. When questioned, she said, “I don’t know why I stabbed that girl. I just got mad all of a sudden. If I say I’d had a little wine, no one will believe me.”

Once back in Los Angeles, police booked Jenny into the Lincoln Heights jail. Her appearance in court drew a crowd. Not all of them supported her. One woman said, “I used to be a friend of hers, but no longer. I hope they hang her. She was just envious of Josephine because boys were attracted to her more than to Jenny.”

Lincoln Heights Jail

Biatrice and Ramona Flores, who both lived at 317 N. Figueroa Street, recalled what they witnessed on January 9th. “Jenny drove up in front of the Carioca Café with a boyfriend,” they said.  

Biatrice and Ramona continued. “Suddenly Jenny asked Josephine, ‘Are you laughing at me?’” Then, according to Biatrice, the two women walked down into the street and behind a billboard into a parking lot. Biatrice said she and Ramona followed them. “I saw them fight—we ran to stop them—but Josephine was bleeding. I wrapped a coat around her neck because she had a hole in her neck. She just laid there, and that’s all.”

Later Jenny said to Dora Rose Fuentes, “I cannot get away with murder.”

The testimony of the witnesses was at odds with Jenny’s version of events in which Josephine wielded the knife and stabbed herself accidentally. Seriously? Three times in the chest, and once in the neck? Jenny’s version was fantasy.

Jenny opted to waive a jury trial and let Judge Walter S. Gates decide her fate. He found her guilty of manslaughter. While awaiting her sentence, Jenny divorced her husband, Salvador Trejo. She said Trejo beat her. The divorce would be the only good news she would receive for a while.

Judge Gates sentenced Jenny to one to ten years in Women’s Prison at Tehachapi.

No flower does well for that long without sunshine.

Going Walkabout with Esotouric

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After nearly three years, I am pleased, no, I am giddy, to announce that I will be reuniting with my Esotouric crime buddies, Kim Cooper and Richard Schave on Saturday, January 14, 2023, for their tour, HUMAN SACRIFICE: THE BLACK DAHLIA, ELISA LAM, HEIDI PLANCK & SKID ROW SLASHER CASES.

We won’t be on the bus as we were pre-pandemic. We will be stalking the mean streets of downtown Los Angeles (I’ll forego my vintage peep-toe pumps for something more suitable) to shine a light on unsolved mysteries, and heinous crimes.

One of the cases I’ll talk about is the 1943 murder of William Lederer, the owner of the Roseland Roof, a dime-a-dance hall on Spring Street. It is unhinged.

Please join us. Sign up HERE. I am so excited!

Black Dahlia—January 8, 1947

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This post begins my annual coverage of the unsolved murder of Elizabeth Short, the Black Dahlia.

Seventy-six years ago, on January 8, 1947, Robert ‘Red’ Manley drove to the home of Elvera and Dorothy French in Pacific Beach, in the San Diego area, to pick up a young woman he’d met a month earlier. Her name was Elizabeth Short.

Red was a twenty-five-year-old salesman and occasional saxophone player, with a wife, Harriette, and 4-month-old baby daughter at home. The couple married on November 28, 1945. They lived in a bungalow court in one of L.A.’s many suburbs.

Red enlisted in the Army on June 24, 1942. He was 20 years-old. In January 1945, He entered a hospital for treatment of a non-traumatic injury, and the Army discharged him in April of the same year for medical reasons—but not for any residual condition.

Maybe his injury made it difficult for him to adjust to marriage and parenthood. He said that he and Harriette had “some misunderstandings.” Restless and feeling unsure about his decision to marry, Red decided to “make a little test to see if I were still in love with my wife.” The woman Red used to test his love was twenty-two-year-old Elizabeth Short.

Red traveled for his job and it was on a trip to San Diego that he met Elizabeth. She was standing on a street corner and appeared to need a ride. At first, she seemed reluctant to get into his car. But in an instant, she changed her mind and got in. She introduced herself as Beth Short, and they struck up a conversation. When Red returned to Los Angeles, the two corresponded.

Aztec Theater, San Diego

Dorothy French met Beth on the night of December 9, 1946 at the all-night movie theater, the Aztec, on Fifth Avenue. Dorothy worked as a cashier at the ticket window and she noticed Beth seemed at loose ends. When her shift ended at 3 a.m., Dorothy offered to take Beth back to the Bayview Terrace Navy housing unit she shared with her mother and a younger brother. Beth was glad to abandon the theater seat for a comfortable sofa.

Dorothy French

Weeks passed, and Elvera and Dorothy grew tired of Beth’s couch surfing and contributing nothing to the household. She didn’t even pay for groceries. She received a money order for $100 from a former boyfriend, Gordon Fickling, yet she spent much of her time compulsively writing letters, many of which she never sent.

One of the unsent letters was to Gordon. In the letter dated December 13, 1946, Beth wrote:

“I do hope you find a nice girl to kiss at midnight on new years 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 French family had another complaint about their house guest—despite her claims, there was no evidence that Beth ever looked for work. Beth wrote to her mother, Phoebe, that she was working for the Red Cross, or in a VA Hospital, but it was just one of her many lies. Her letters home never revealed her transient lifestyle—nothing about couch surfing, borrowing money to eat, or accepting rides from strange men.

Robert “Red” Manley. Photo likely taken by Perry Fowler. Courtesy LAPL.

Beth could have found a job if she wanted one. She worked in a delicatessen in Florida as a teenager and at the post exchange (PX) at Camp Cooke (now Vandenberg Air Force Base). Red arranged with a friend of his to get her a job interview—but she didn’t follow-up.

When Red heard from his friend that Beth was a no-show for the job interview, he wrote to her to find out if she was okay. She said she was fine but didn’t like San Diego; she preferred Los Angeles and wanted to return there. Red said he’d help her out.

The drive from San Diego to Los Angeles was Red’s love test. If nothing happened, then he would know that he and Harriette would stay together. Kismet. But if he and Beth clicked, he’d have a decision to make.

Beth and Red weren’t on the road for long before they stopped at a roadside motel for the night. They went out for dinner and drinks before returning to their room to go to bed. Did Red have butterflies in his stomach? How did he want the love test to turn out?

Red must have realized the decision was Beth’s. They never shared more than a kiss. She spent the night in a chair and he took the bed.

The pair left the motel at about 12:20 p.m. on January 9, 1947, for Los Angeles.

Next time: The Black Dahlia–Last Seen

Happy New Year!

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Welcome to Deranged L.A. Crimes. Ten years ago, I started this blog to cover historic Los Angeles crimes. I am not surprised that I haven’t even scratched the surface of murder and mayhem in the City of Angels.

I have been absent from the blog for a while, focusing on finishing my book on L.A. crimes during the Prohibition Era for University Press Kentucky. It’s not done yet, but I’m close. No matter, it is time to return to the blog. It is something I love to do.

Focusing my energy on the book, I failed to pay tribute to the inspiration for Deranged L.A. Crimes, Agness “Aggie” Underwood, on December 17, 2022, the 120th anniversary of her birth. If you aren’t familiar with Aggie, I’ve written about her many times in previous posts.

Aggie Underwood

In 2016, I curated a photo exhibit at the Los Angeles Central Library downtown. The exhibit, for the non-profit Photo Friends, featured pictures from cases and events Aggie wrote about over the course of her career. I wrote a companion book, The First with the Latest!: Aggie Underwood, the Los Angeles Herald, and the Sordid Crimes of a City.

Aggie is a dame worth learning about. She is a legendary crime reporter, who worked in the business from 1927 until her retirement from the Los Angeles Herald in 1968. A force to be reckoned with, Aggie worked as a reporter until her promotion to City Editor of the Herald in January 1947, while covering the Black Dahlia case. She was the only Los Angeles reporter, male or female, to get a by-line for her reporting on the ongoing investigation.  

On her retirement, she told a colleague that she feared being forgotten. That won’t happen on my watch. Thanks again, Aggie, for the inspiration. Deranged L.A. Crimes is dedicated to you.

Among the things I’ve learned over the years researching and writing about crime, is that people don’t change. The motives for crime are timeless: greed, lust, anger, betrayal, and jealousy are but a few.

What is different is crime detection. Science has come a long way. Detectives no longer use the Bertillon system to identify criminals—they use DNA. I think part of the reason I’m drawn to historic crime is the challenges overcome by former detectives and scientists. Despite the advancements in science, it is my belief that if it was possible to pluck the best detectives and scientists from the past and set them down in the present, they would still be great. I am amazed at the cases they solved.

Class on the Bertillon system c. 1911

I look forward to this new year, and to the challenges it will bring. I am so glad you are here, and I invite you to reach out if you have questions and/or suggestions.

Best to all of you in the New Year.

Joan