The Strange End of Mr. and Mrs. Smith

January 20, 1947
Los Feliz

Everyone says Henry R. Smith, 20, was a different boy when he came home after his Navy service. Morose, nervous. Still, two months ago he was all smiles when he married Barbara Anne Chilton, 19. The newlyweds moved into Barbara's parents' home at 1612 Hillhurst. Chester Chilton is a building contractor, and Henry went to work as his assistant.

Last night the young couple was celebrating Barbara's return from a trip to San Francisco. They went out on the town with Chester, and returned to find the house thick with the smell of burning meat; a ham had been forgotten in the oven. (This would never have happened if the Mrs. were home, but she's in Detroit settling a family estate.)

Chester raced to the kitchen to deal with the mess, while Henry and Barbara retired to their bedroom. Half an hour later, a terrible boom split the evening's peace. Henry ran out into the hall, shotgun in hand, and cried "My God, Pop, kill me. I just shot Barbara!"

Chester passed his son-in-law and saw his daughter splayed out on the bedroom floor, shot through the eyes. Henry came up behind him. Chester wheeled and raced out of the house, thinking he had to call the police, get help, get away, do something...

Another shot rang out. Henry Smith had blown his brains out.

Held Up in Hollywood

January 19, 1947
Hollywood

Stepping from a restaurant at 7050 Hollywood Boulevard towards their parked car, Hollywood Roosevelt Orchestra leader Freddy Rhea, his contractor roommate David Picken and Bunny Gravert, songbird with Rhea's outfit, were robbed by a trio of trash-talkin' banditos who relieved both men of their watches and Rhea of $70 in cash and $2000 in checks. The lady escaped unmolested.

The Madwoman of South Gate

January 18, 1947
South Gate

Two years ago, when she was 20, Mrs. Elaine Chatt Shedden gave birth to her second son, Robert, and suffered a nervous breakdown. She was voluntarily committed to Camarillo State Hospital, and spent three months there. Her marriage fell apart, and Mr. Shedden moved to Chicago. Elaine and the children settled in with her parents at 9230 Virginia Ave. and for a while things weren't so bad.

Then they were. Mrs. Mabel Vanessa Winters Terwilliger, 46, lurched out into her yard, a knife wound in her back. Daughter Elaine came after her, and plunged the blade into Mabel's side. The older woman was D.O.A. on arrival at Maywood Hospital.

Elaine, weirdly calm as only the mad can be, had changed out of her bloody dress and sandals and was scrubbing her hands when Capt. T.R. Chase and Sgt. Joe Heymans arrived. Sure, she stabbed her mother. The woman had nagged her about doing the dishes, and was plotting with her brother Robert Winters to have her involuntarily committed to a state institution. "I just couldn't stand it," said Elaine.

The children witnessed the incident, and neighbors, hearing screams as Elaine chased her dying mother out of the house and 40 feet onto the drive, called police.

Memo to Burglars: Stay off Miz Jessie's Porch!

January 17, 1947
Los Angeles

Mrs. Jessie Founder, all 100 pounds and 64-years of her, betrayed bravery beyond her station when a would-be burglar was spotted on her back porch. Matthew R. Rudolph, 21, armed with a 2 x 4 and a bottle, grappled with Mr. Founder for the latter's gun, so Miz Jessie crept up behind the louse with a lead pipe and started swinging. Rudolph suffered head injuries and died hours later in the prison ward at County General.

The Founders live at 1750 E. 118th Street, ; before his head was caved in, Mr. Rudolph hung his hat at 1644 1/2 Palm Ave.

Abandoned Oil Fields Are Unhealthy For Children And Other Living Things

January 16, 1947
Banning Homes, San Pedro

After a lengthy search, the body of 4-year-old Bert F. Long was discovered yesterday in eight feet of water in an open sump hole in the oil field just half a mile east of the housing project where he lived with his parents and five-year-old brother.

It appears that Bert wandered out of his yard while his mother Ola May was at a dentist's appointment, and his grandmother was tending to brother Johnny, who was sick in bed. Local drugstore operator T. R. McQuigg reported seeing a child who matched Bert's description around 4pm Monday, but that was the last anyone saw of the child until two juvenile officers discovered the tiny floating corpse in the hole that had recently been drilled, but left uncovered, by oil line repairmen.

Come Ride the Crime Bus - SRO!

NEWSFLASH FRIDAY 1/13 9am: We have 2 last minute openings on the Sunday 1/15 Crime Bus. These are only available to on a first come first served basis to someone who checks their email frequently and can make immediate payment by paypal ($49.74) if told that the seats are being held for them today. Preference will be given to people who want both tickets as opposed to a single. Is this you? If so, email amscray@gmail.com promptly, and await further instructions.
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We now sold out for both days of January's 1947project Crime Bus tour, but if you'd like to be on a future tour, please sign up for our mailing list.

On the Crime Bus, each $24 ticket entitles you to a guided 5-hour bus tour through fascinating and forgotten Los Angeles crime, social and architectural history-- including a thorough debunking of the Black Dahlia myth machine courtesy of BD researcher Larry Harnisch-- on the weekend of the 59th anniversary of Elizabeth Short's murder. You'll also get a CD of a rare 1950 Black Dahlia radio play, and a chance to connect with fellow LA history fiends.

Elizabeth Short, R.I.P.

born July 29, 1924
died January 14/15, 1947

The Case of the Dolt on the Bumper

January 12, 1947
Long Beach

Driving home to 1572 W. Seventh Street with his wife, Frank R. Cross heard a weird rattle in the car.

"Honey," said Frank, "You take the wheel, and I'm going to just hop up on the bumper and see if I can figure out what's going on."

"But Frank, I can't! You know I haven't driven a car in eight years!"

Frank insisted, and so they stopped, swapped, and hubby hopped up on the bumper... and promptly disappeared. Mrs. Cross heard a bump, but not a rattle, and drove on for a spell. Then she wondered if the bump might have been Frank, so she stopped--fortunately, since the bump named Frank was being dragged beneath her wheels.

Mr. Cross is in Seaside Hospital tonight with multiple injuries, his condition listed as satisfactory.

Snaring Pigeons in the Park

January 11, 1947
Santa Monica

The day began with two elderly men and a flock of pigeons, all enjoying the breeze in Ocean Park. It ended with one man in police custody and another dead on the sidewalk, a horrified widow and the pigeons frightened away. Madness, sleepy Santa Monica-style.

Harry Jacoby, 53, of 216 Ashland Ave. vehemently objected to 68-year-old watchman Charles LeRoy Bonner of 2829 1/2 Ocean Front's attempts to snare pigeons in the park. After it was all over, Bonner told police that the younger man had twice tried to start a fight over the snaring, knocking Bonner down and then smashing his glasses.

Finally, Bonner fought back, and the two men grappled across the sidewalk. They fell together, but only Bonner got up. Harry Jacoby was dead on the ground, and Charles Bonner taken into custody on suspicion of murder. Mrs. Jacoby became hysterical at the scene and had to be restrained. And above them all, the pigeons wheeled, now careless and oblivious to the tiny men below.

She Got A Bad Wrap

January 10, 1947
Los Angeles

Sylvia Blomier, 21-year-old gift wrapping clerk in a downtown department store, was ordered held for trial in Superior Court today on five counts of forging her customers' signatures on sales receipts.

The motive: acquiring fancy duds, to the tune of $1479 retail. Judge Edwin L. Jefferson ruled that the girl be held in County Jail, as she was unable to meet a $2000 bond.

Free drinks at Black Dahlia book event, Thursday night

We direct our readers to information on an event hosted by the LA Press Club in Hollywood on Thursday, a reading and reception for Donald H. Wolfe's new book The Black Dahlia Files: The Mob, the Mogul, and Murder that Transfixed Los Angeles (Regen Books). Entrance, parking and drinks are free.

The 1947project bloggers have not yet read Mr. Wolfe's book, but our Larry Harnisch has thoroughly examined the D.A.'s files that form the heart of Wolfe's thesis. He is concerned that there are numerous inconsistancies between the files he read and Wolfe's claims (see below). Still, it sounds like an entertaining night out in Miss Short's old stomping grounds, and we invite any reader who attends to post back in the comments about their experience.

Larry says: Having been through the D.A.’s files on the Dahlia case (I inventoried and indexed every scrap of paper) I can say definitively that Bugsy Siegel, Norman Chandler, Jack Dragna and Brenda Allen are never mentioned.

In fact, the D.A.’s files say 1) Elizabeth Short was not a prostitute and 2) she wasn’t in Los Angeles in 1944 or 1945. According to the D.A.’s files and everything else I have ever found, she arrived in late July or early August 1946.

I chatted with Wolfe while he was going through the files at the D.A.’s office so I know he had the opportunity to find those documents. He apparently just ignored them.

The D.A.’s files, incidentally, aren’t some neat archive. They’re papers that were saved when the D.A. was cleaning house and were just shoveled into boxes. Material from different cases is mixed up, including unlabeled photographs from other murders that got put into the Dahlia material–at least one turns up incorrectly identified in a certain “true” crime book.

Siegel’s voluminous FBI files are online at the bureau’s FOIA site. They are heavily censored but show he was under virtually constant surveillance from at least the middle of 1946. Agents saw him (and Virginia Hill) move out of the Chateau Marmont and into the house on Linden on Jan. 14, 1947, and files say he and Hill left for Palm Springs the next day. I refer specifically to FBI document 62-81518-406 and surrounding material.

I just got the book and haven’t read it yet as I’m getting ready for the Crime Bus tour this weekend, but anything that relies on “Severed,” which is 25% mistakes and 50% fiction, cannot be trusted. I’ll put on my waders and slog through this opus when I get a chance.

Larry Harnisch

While Mom and Pop Are Away

January 9, 1947
Los Angeles

A teenage party at 4156 Rosewood Ave. went terribly wrong tonight when 15-year-old Alan Jerome Gordon was accidentally shot by Edward Eisenhart, also 15, and Gordon's closest pal. It seems Loraine Collins, 14, brought her daddy's automatic pistol to Marcia Bronstein's soiree, and handed it over to Edward. Edward went to demonstrate the safety mechanism, after removing the clip, and squeezed off one unlucky bullet. "I'm shot through the heart," cried Alan, who died.

Police were called and got to hear a fanciful tale of a mysterious prowler who'd climbed through the window, killed Alan and run off, but the truth soon came out.

The dead boy lived at 126 Magnolia Court, Compton, his best friend and killer at 5449 Virginia Ave., and wee gun moll Loraine at 516 Commonwealth Ave.

Drown A Cold, Feed a Fever

January 8, 1947
Lincoln Heights

Streetcar motorman Jesse Viscarra, 33, is not one to suffer a cold lightly. Returning home to 2403 N. Broadway on his lunch break after sneezing and wheezing all morning, he told his wife that his Army buddies had always sworn by "the old reliable" when a bug struck, and he reckoned he'd do the same.

So after snorting a snootful, Viscarra returned to his route and promptly crashed into a car driven by Mrs. Olga Milosevick, of 733 Bernard Street, at the corner of College and North Broadway. Arriving officers got a whiff of Viscarra's breath and whisked him off to the Lincoln Heights drunk tank, while Viscarra moaned that he'd never had an accident before, and that the lady had turned in front of him.

Well, so what if she did? He's still admittedly guilty of California Penal Code 367F, operating a streetcar while inebriated.

The Child Army of San Pedro

January 7, 1947
San Pedro

Police have arrested eight youngsters on charges of burglary related to the brazen theft of weaponry from the Fort McArthur armory. The boys sawed through a lock and entered the building where returning troops' weapons were stored, making off with a veritable arsenal of a dozen automatic pistols, four carbines plus jungle knives, bayonets and ammo.

The thieves were discovered when they returned to the area to dig up their plunder, which they had hidden for later pick up.

Varmints!

January 6, 1947
Burbank

The four boys who rented ponies for an hour's canter from the Rocking Horse Stables at 470 Riverside Dr. seemed like nice kids to manager Roy Brown, but a day after they saddled up he's yet to see the front of 'em. The names and addresses they left were false--one is a Van Nuys funeral parlor--and Brown can offer few clues save that one of the quartet walked with crutches. With the horses and their gear, Brown is out $6000--an expensive lesson in the low moral character of the youth of 1947.

The Hun in Hollywood

January 5, 1947
Hollywood

The Nazis were afoot tonight, making yet another assault on the walls of the Temple Beth El synagogue at 1508 N. Wilton Place. Alert Hun-hunters will recall that the edifice was streaked with oil in a 1937 incident, and defaced with swastikas and graffiti reading "Heil Hitler" and "Viva Il Duce" the following year.

The modern anti-Semite works quicker, and in potentially more deadly fashion. Witnesses told investigating officers that a man pulled his car in front of the Temple and fired 14 rifle shots into the front door, then sped off. Bullets were later recovered from the back wall of the building.

One Final Gift

January 4, 1947
Los Angeles

Bernard E. Schwartz died in his car near the intersection of Stocker and Baldwin Streets. He had run a hose from the exhaust pipe into the cab. When passing motorists discovered the body, they also found a note directing that Schwartz' corneas be donated to someone who needed them.

Unfortunately, Schwartz had been dead too long for his eyes to be transplanted. However, his friend and executor Arthur Wasson has honored the dead man's desires by arranging for all usable portions of Schwartz' body to be used for the aid of science at Medical School of the University of Southern California.

Schwartz, a former Naval chief petty officer who lived at 3835 W. Seventh Street, left a poignant note explaining his passing as "a simple case of suicide, induced by my complete lack of desire to continue living." He was thirty years old.

Employee of the Month

January 3, 1947
Echo Park

The two robbers, one tall, one short, both shabby-looking, entered the California Bank branch and Sunset and Alvarado during the afternoon rush. At first they waited for a turn at LaVonne Quigley's window, then made a sudden switch to Edward G. Miske's teller station.

It was a bad choice. For when the tall man slid the note reading "This is a stickup. Give the alarm and we'll kill you. We want your money." across the counter, Miske looked right down the barrel of an automatic pistol and snapped "You'll not get any money!" Then he reached for the alarm and was promptly shot in the arm, severing an artery.

The two men rushed out of the bank, up Alvarado, to Reservoir and into a waiting Yellow Cab. But their bad luck wasn't over. Gerald Hough had just parked behind the cab, and reported the license to police. By nightfall, hundreds of officers were searching the city for the men, while brave, foolish Edward Miske celebrated his 26th birthday at Georgia Street Receiving Hospital. Despite losing a lot of blood, he is expected to recover.

Hatching An Egg

January 2, 1947
West Hollywood

When confronted by a would-be bandit in the 8900 block of Sunset Blvd., Miss Eleanor Falk, 30-year-old bookkeeper for a nightclub at 9039 Sunset, refused to hand over the sack containing $2000 in receipts. Instead, the clever girl dropped the bag and sat on it, then commenced to yell so forcefully that the crook hopped back into his accomplice's car and took a powder. Then the unflappable miss continued along to the bank, where she made her deposit as planned.

Where There's Smoke...

January 1, 1947
Downtown

The lady on Bunker Hill saw smoke drifting and phoned the fire department. "Hurry! City Hall's on fire!" All available trucks raced to the scene, and uniformed firemen scaled the steps with crowbars and axes at the ready, caught the express elevator and searched out the flames--but there were none. It seems the caller had merely seen a small cloud pass before the venerable tower, and the cloud had passed by, leaving no destruction in its wake.