Black Dahlia: Corpse in the Weeds

Posted on January 16, 2026 by Deranged

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.

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

Posted on January 15, 2026 by Deranged

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.

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.

From 5^th to 6^th 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 6^th and 7^th, 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 7^th . 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 8^th and Olive? There have been no definitive sightings of her there on January 9^th. She had lunched at the Grill with a friend and the friend’s married lover a few times.

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.

Elizabeth Short: The French Connection–Conclusion

Posted on December 31, 2025 by Deranged

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.

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.

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

Posted on December 20, 2025 by Deranged

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.

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

Posted on December 18, 2025 by Deranged

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Part 2: The Lower 13th Murder Case

Posted on September 6, 2025 by Deranged

The case against Robert E. Folkes unfolded against a tense backdrop of wartime fear, racial prejudice, and rising public paranoia. The press inflamed the tensions, describing Folkes as a “zoot-suit wearing negro,” a phrase loaded with menace, meant to reduce him to a caricature and paint him as capable of slashing the throat of 21-year-old newlywed Martha James.

District Attorney L. Orth Sisemore questioned the Black trainmen on board when the train stopped in Klamath Falls, Oregon. Southern Pacific Railroad detectives zeroed in on Folkes. Somewhere between Klamath Falls and Dunsmuir, California, on the night of January 22-23, they pulled him into a men’s lavatory, stripped him, and interrogated him through the night. They released him only for his shifts in the dining car. They treated the sleep-deprived and humiliated man as the prime suspect, even though they did not arrest him.

Not everyone on the train believed in Folkes’ guilt. The conductor stated Folkes couldn’t have committed the murder. According to him, the configuration of the diner and Folkes’ workload made it impossible. He pointed instead to another passenger—Harold Wilson, a white Marine who had occupied the berth above Martha’s. Given his proximity to the victim, Wilson should have been a suspect. Instead, they treated him as a material witness and quietly removed him from suspicion.

When the train arrived in Los Angeles on January 23rd, LAPD detectives took Folkes into custody. He was sleep-deprived, unrepresented, and vulnerable. They bounced him between Central Jail and Police Headquarters, questioned him without legal counsel. LAPD officers phoned Linn County District Attorney Harlow Weinrick in Oregon to report that Folkes had cracked.

But in every official statement before the supposed confession, Folkes had denied guilt. He did not sign or review the alleged confession. The investigators did not record it; the lawyer did not witness it; it seemed coerced.

LAPD’s interrogation practices at the time weren’t just aggressive — they were dangerous. Coercion took many forms: physical abuse (beatings), psychological pressure (threats against family, exploiting a suspect’s fear of mob violence or racial prejudice), or improper inducements (offering alcohol, sexual access, or other rewards). Days earlier, the department faced scrutiny after Stanley Bebee, a 44-year-old accountant, died following a brutal beating in custody for public intoxication. The jury acquitted the officers. However, the case highlighted the LAPD’s violent methods.

Although the Folkes investigation showed no proven evidence of bribery or case-fixing, the environment surrounding his interrogation was badly compromised. Some interrogators used coercive tactics, custody chains were blurred, and courtroom conduct varied from irregular to unethical. It is easy to conclude that the LAPD mistreated Folkes while he was in custody.

There was no physical evidence linking Folkes to the crime. No eyewitness identified him. But the so-called confession was enough for an arrest. Initially, Folkes refused to waive extradition to Oregon. But during arraignment before Judge Byron Walters, he relented and agreed to return north for trial.

On the night of January 29, 1943, accompanied by Sheriff Clay Kirk of Linn County and two Southern Pacific special agents, Folkes boarded a train for Albany.

His trial began in April. The jury of eight women and four men was unusual. In Oregon, women could serve only if they filed a written declaration, making their presence more striking. Their makeup may have influenced how testimony was weighed.

The state’s only link between Folkes and the murder was the testimony of Harold Wilson—the Marine who had been in the berth above Martha. His description of the suspect was vague: “a swarthy man in a brown pinstriped suit.” He never identified Folkes. And witnesses saw Folkes in the kitchen, dressed in his work clothes, minutes after the murder occurred. The police never found a brown pin-striped suit.

Though the defense objected, the court admitted two alleged confessions into evidence. Many red flags riddled both confessions. On April 16, LAPD Lieutenant E. A. Tetrick testified Folkes gave an oral confession after officers brought him a pint of whiskey and let him visit his common-law wife, Jesse. Circuit Judge J.G. Lewelling called the practice “reprehensible,” though he insisted Folkes was sober and in “full possession of his faculties.”

Dr. Paul De River—LAPD’s controversial police psychiatrist—later infamous in the Black Dahlia case, testified that he spoke with Folkes after the confession. According to De River, Folkes “may have had a drink or two,” but was not intoxicated. No one asked how he had reached that conclusion. De River also reported no physical injuries on Folkes’ body and described him as “in good physical condition.”

Robert E. Lee Folkes consults with his defense attorney, Leroy Lomax, left, as his friend and adviser William Pollard, right, looks on. (Image: Oregon Journal)

On cross-examination, Folkes’ attorney, Leroy Lomax, asked if De River had referred to Folkes as an exhibitionist. De River replied, “I might have said that.”

The defense rested its case on April 20, 1943.

The jury began deliberations but returned to the judge saying they couldn’t reach a verdict. He ordered them to continue and provided army cots for them to sleep on inside the courthouse. After thirty hours of deadlock and courtroom drama, the jury filed in at 3:13 p.m. on April 22. Their verdict: guilty of first-degree murder. Death was mandatory.

“I know it was a fair and impartial trial,” Folkes said afterward. “I’m sorry the jury thought I did it, as I didn’t, and I’m sorry my mother and Jesse had to go through this.”

In a letter to his mother, Clara, he was more candid:

“I was not convicted on evidence. I was convicted through prejudice.”

Folkes added: “I truly believe that I could take any one of those jurymen that convicted me, or even the judge who heard the case, and on the same grounds, either one of those people could be placed in front of a Negro jury and convicted. Of course, this incident will never happen, but I assure you it is amazing what prejudice can do.”

On November 5, 1944, a group of Los Angeles clubwomen formed the Robert Folkes Defense Club and pledged to raise $2,000 to bring his case to the U.S. Supreme Court. The court declined to hear the appeal on November 23.

Lomax worked tirelessly, appealing to the Governor of Oregon to commute the sentence to life. The governor refused.

On January 5, 1945, at 9:13 a.m., Robert E. Folkes died in Oregon’s gas chamber for a crime he insisted he did not commit.

NEXT TIME: In the conclusion of “The Lower 13th Murder Case”, we’ll examine the case more closely—and ask whether wartime prejudice condemned an innocent man.

The Red Lipstick Murder

Posted on February 10, 2025 by Deranged

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 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.

The Black Dahlia–January 22, 1947

Posted on January 22, 2025 by Deranged

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 23^rd 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.

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 16^th 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 21^st. 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

Posted on January 15, 2025 by Deranged

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.

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.

Happy Birthday Aggie Underwood & Deranged L.A. Crimes!

Posted on December 18, 2024 by Deranged

This month is an important one for the Deranged L.A. Crimes blog. It is the twelfth anniversary of the blog.

December 17, 2012 (the 110^th anniversary of the birth of the woman whose career and life inspires me, Agness “Aggie” Underwood) I created the blog. I also authored her Wikipedia page, which was long overdue. I felt it was important to honor her on the anniversary of her birth. I’ve been trying to keep her legacy alive ever since.

Aggie hoists a brew. Perry Fowler photo.

By the time I began, Aggie had been gone for twenty-eight years. I regret not knowing about her in time to meet her in person. But, through her work, and speaking with her relatives over the years, I feel like I know her. I have enormous respect for Aggie. She had nothing handed to her, yet she established herself in a male-dominated profession where she earned the respect of her peers without compromising her values. She also earned the respect of law enforcement. Cops who worked with her trusted her judgement and sought her opinion. It isn’t surprising. She shared with them the same qualities that make a successful detective.

Aggie never intended to become a reporter. All she wanted was a pair of silk stockings. She’d been wearing her younger sister’s hand-me-downs, but she longed for a new pair of her own. When her husband, Harry, told her they couldn’t afford them, she threatened to get a job and buy them herself. It was an empty threat. She did not know how to find employment. She hadn’t worked outside her home for several years. A serendipitous call from her close friend Evelyn, the day after the stockings kerfuffle, changed the course of her life. Evelyn told her about a temporary opening for a switchboard operator where she worked, at the Los Angeles Record. Aggie accepted the temporary job, meant to last only through the 1926-27 holiday season.

Aggie & Harry [Photo courtesy CSUN Special Collections]

Aggie arrived at the Record unfamiliar with the newspaper business, but she swiftly adapted and everyone realized, even without training, she was sharp and eager to learn. The temporary switchboard job turned into a permanent position.

In December 1927, the kidnapping and cruel mutilation murder of twelve-year-old schoolgirl Marion Parker horrified the city. Aggie was at the Record when they received word the perpetrator, William Edward Hickman, who had nicknamed himself “The Fox,” was in custody in Oregon. The breaking story created a firestorm of activity in the newsroom. Aggie had seen nothing like it. She knew then she didn’t want to be a bystander. She wanted to be a reporter.

When the Record was sold in January 1935, Aggie accepted an offer from William Randolph Hearst’s newspaper, the Evening Herald and Express, propelling her into the big leagues. Hearst expected his reporters to work at breakneck speed. After all, they had to live up to the paper’s motto, “The First with the latest.”

From January 1935, until January 1947, Aggie covered everything from fires and floods to murder and mayhem, frequently with photographer Perry Fowler by her side. She considered herself to be a general assignment reporter, but developed a reputation and a knack for covering crimes.

Sometimes she helped to solve them.

In December 1939, Aggie was called to the scene of what appeared to be a tragic accident on the Angeles Crest Highway. Laurel Crawford said he had taken his family on a scenic drive, but lost control of the family sedan on a sharp curve. The car plunged over 1000 feet down an embankment, killing his wife, three children, and a boarder in their home. He said he had survived by jumping from the car at the last moment.

When asked by Sheriff’s investigators for her opinion, Aggie said she had observed Laurel’s clothing and his demeanor, and neither lent credibility to his account. She concluded Laurel was “guilty as hell.” Her hunch was right. Upon investigation, police discovered Laurel had engineered the accident to collect over $30,000 in life insurance.

Hollywood was Aggie’s beat, too. When stars misbehaved or perished under mysterious or tragic circumstances, Aggie was there to record everything for Herald readers. On December 16, 1935, popular actress and café owner Thelma Todd died of carbon monoxide poisoning in the garage of her Pacific Palisades ho9me. Thelma’s autopsy was Aggie’s first, and her fellow reporters put her to the test. It backfired on them. Before the coroner could finish his grim work, her colleagues had turned green and fled the room. Aggie remained upright.

Though Aggie never considered herself a feminist, she paved the way for female journalists. In January 1947, they yanked her off the notorious Black Dahlia murder case and made her city editor—one of the first woman to hold the post for a major metropolitan newspaper. Known to keep a bat and starter pistol handy at her desk, she was beloved by her staff and served as city editor for the Herald (later Herald Examiner) until retiring in 1968.

Aggie at a crime scene (not the Dahlia) c. 1940s.

When she passed away in 1984, the Herald-Examiner eulogized her. “She was undeterred by the grisliest of crime scenes and had a knack for getting details that eluded other reporters. As editor, she knew the names and telephone numbers of numerous celebrities, in addition to all the bars her reporters frequented. She cultivated the day’s best sources, ranging from gangsters and prostitutes to movie stars and government officials.”

I have pondered how appalled Aggie would be at what passes for journalism today. During her lifetime, she disdained anyone unwilling to get out and scrap for a story. Today she would find herself surrounded by people who call their personal opinions news, and their writings (multiple misspellings and grammatical atrocities included), reporting.

In a world where oligarchs bend once respected publications to their perverted will, Aggie would be unwelcome.

Don’t misunderstand me—even in Aggie’s day, newspapers were not owned by paupers, and they all had an editorial agenda. But when it came to reporting hard news, it was all about the facts. There was no such thing as fake news or “alternative” facts (what does that even mean?!)

Today we must look hard to find facts. Legacy media has failed us in all of its forms. Losing reliable media puts our country at significant risk.

I suppose my anger, disenchantment, and disgust with the current state of media is why I honor Aggie’s legacy. She represents the best of what reporters once were, and what they could be again if not constrained by fear. The newspaper & TV owners seem to be motivated by a mixture of fear and greed. It is not the way to maintain a free press. We can all do better.

Happy Birthday, Aggie, and Deranged L.A. Crimes!

Best,

Joan

Deranged LA Crimes ®

True 20th Century tales of murder, mayhem, political corruption, and celebrity scandal

Tag Archives: Black Dahlia