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Sept. 20, 1957
Yesterday, a Confidential File staff member went on a shopping tour.
His companion was a narcotic addict.
Together, they visited a few of this town's friendly druggists. And
when they returned to my office, they brought with them enough dope to
keep the addict from withdrawal convulsions for quite a while.
I'm sorry that a member or two of the State Senate Interim Committee on Narcotics --in town this week--didn't go along with them.
Because if one or two had, they would have learned that the problem
here isn't a back-alley monopoly by pushers of marijuana and heroin.
It is as open as the door of your neighborhood drugstore.
As proof, I offer the bottles purchased by the addict and the File staffer. Among them:
Elixir of terpin hydrate and codeine.
Dexedrine.
The first can be purchased in any drugstore without prescription. So
can dozens of other similar narcotic-containing medications.
The latter--Dexedrine--requires a prescription. But an Eagle Rock
druggist decided that such red tape could be eliminated if the pair
would be willing to pay a little extra.
They did, getting 30 10 milligram Dexedrine capsules for slightly more than $4 ($28.66 USD 2006).
The "shopping trip" was the addict's idea.
He telephoned me concerning it earlier this week.
"I'm going to try...again...to break the habit," he told me. "I'm getting myself committed."
The caller was a young man, married, with two children. At one time,
about nine years ago, he had a pretty good business, a new car and a
new home.
It was heroin, he admits, which broke him. He got hooked through
"friends." And in about two years, he found his $30-a-day need had
melted away every one of his assets.
Out of money, he suddenly found that the pushers wanted nothing more to do with him.
Necessity was forcing him to kick the "H" habit down. It was tough,
though, and he needed some sort of crutch--an inexpensive one.
He found it, on the drugstore shelf, available to anyone, any age.
It came in a bottle labeled:
"Elixir of terpin hydrate and codeine."
Price: one buck. No prescription necessary.
Each four-ounce bottle of "cough medicine" contains about a quarter of
a gram of codeine, an opium derivative. Its alcohol content is 39% to
44%.
It's potent. And, as it understates on the bottle:
"Warning: May be habit-forming."
For the young addict, it has become a habit worse than "H."
"I shook heroin," he told me. "But this stuff I've tried to--and couldn't."
Today he averages about six bottles a day. That's roughly 15 grams of codeine.
And that is 50 times more than the recommended safe dosage of 30 milligrams.
I asked him what happened the half-dozen times he tried to kick it, or cut down.
"It's always the same. My eyes water, my nose starts running and then come the chills and convulsions.
"But how can you quit it," he shrugs, "when it's so easy to walk to a drugstore."
I checked on federal regulations regarding sale of the addict's
"medicine." The regulations state that pharmacists may dispense it
without prescription "provided the preparation is furnished in good
faith, for medicinal purposes."
The law also states that druggists should have each customer sign his name and address when purchasing such drugs.
I asked the addict if he usually signed.
He laughed. Maybe one time in five, he said.
And he added:
"I've been picking up 15 to 20 bottles a week from the same Hollywood drugstore for a couple years.
"And a bunch of kids--lots of them teenagers--are doing the same thing."
If the State Senate committee is interested I'll be glad to supply the names of the Eagle Rock and Hollywood drugstores.
Sept. 22, 1957
Los Angeles
 Neighbors knew that something was terribly wrong in the home at 3460 Ardilla Ave.,
Baldwin Hills. They never saw Cathy, the 4-year-old daughter of John B.
and Patricia Ann Howerton. Their boys, Allan Wayne, 5, and baby Steven,
were fine. But Cathy was a mysterious little girl who always seemed to
be hidden.
Eventually detectives learned the answer. John had been beating Cathy constantly since the day she was born.
John, who worked as a milkman, blamed his nerves. It was his nerves
that made him beat Cathy with a belt. It was nerves that made him burn
her with cigarettes. It was nerves that made him jump on her hands and
feet. And that's why she was starved.
"I never really believed that Cathy was my daughter and she got on my nerves," he told police.
Finally, using the pretext of John's application to the California
Highway Patrol, detectives visited the house, where the walls were
peppered with holes from John's fists. They insisted on seeing the
children and after half an hour of preparation, John brought her out.
Cathy was covered with makeup to hide her injuries.
When they asked what happened to her, John had a ready answer: She fell.
Cathy was rushed to General Hospital, where she clutched at a jail
matron's skirt and pleaded: "Please be my friend. I have no friends."
A year earlier in Santa Ana, the Howertons had been arrested on child
abuse, but Patricia had taken the blame and received psychiatric
treatment. "I needed him to support me," Patricia sobbed. "He beat me
continuously until she was born, then he started on Cathy."
After officers locked John in a cell, they asked if he wanted to know
how Cathy was doing in the hospital. He said: "She's your problem now,
not mine."
His only worry in the world: "I guess this spoils my chance of ever becoming a Highway Patrol officer."
After that, the Howertons vanished from the pages of The Times. If
Cathy Howerton survived her childhood, she would have celebrated her
54th birthday on Thursday.
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In 1969, The Times sent one of its best and most respected writers, Art
Seidenbaum, on a tour of California college campuses: UCLA, USC,
Stanford, UC Berkeley and someplace called San Fernando Valley State.
The resulting series for West magazine was later published in
Seidenbaum's book "Confrontation on Campus."
So in honor of all those who are taking their kids back to campus for
the fall, here's Part 8 of Seidenbaum's "The Troubles With Students" in
which he visits UCLA and discovers that SDS stands for "Sandbox Dictator Society." The dress code is Army
fatigues and beards for the men; serapes and tights for the women. And
lots of revolutionary self-righteousness. Don't worry, man. It's cool.
We're all pass/fail here.
Click below to read the rest of the story.
Continue reading College fashions, VIII »
Sept. 21, 1957
Los Angeles
If the Murrill family's story were fiction, it would be comic, but alas, it is fairly tragic, quite absurd and entirely true.
In 1949, Jeffrey Lee Murrill was born to Robert Murrill, a
27-year-old cabinetmaker, and his 19-year-old wife, Doris Elaine, who
was paralyzed by polio and kept alive in an iron lung back in the dark
ages of medical technology.
Unable to breathe on her own, Doris lived at Rancho Los Amigos while
her husband took care of Jeffrey. Apparently this arrangement put a
crimp in Robert's social life, because in January 1957, during a
liquor-drenched trip to Las Vegas, he decided it would be a fine idea
to get married.
Apparently no one in Las Vegas' thriving marriage industry (nor a woman
identified as Mrs. Mattie Bingamin) asked Robert: "Excuse me, don't you
already have a wife back in Los Angeles, parked in an iron lung?"
When Robert finally got around to seeking a divorce, he told the judge
that it would be better if he had custody of their son. "She doesn't
want a divorce," he complained to Judge Henry M. Willis, "because she's
afraid her son will have a stepmother. The boy is all she has to live
for."
However, Robert assured the court, "he wanted to hurt no one, his wife least of all," The Times said.
Did I mention that Doris is a little bitter about the whole situation?
Unfortunately, Oprah wasn't around to say: "Your wife is paralyzed,
she's in an iron lung, her son is all she has to live for, you want to
take him away and but don't want to hurt your wife? What planet are you
from?"
Willis granted a divorce in 1957, but for reasons that The Times never explained, granted a new trial before he retired.
During a final divorce hearing convened in 1958 at the home of Doris' parents, 901 N. Avenue 57
in Highland Park, Judge Burnett Wolfson refused to give Robert custody
of Jeffrey, ruling that the boy was to stay with his father only until
Doris was able to take care of herself.
"I'm doing this because I know you're going to get well. You'll be dancing again," the judge said.
"I sure wish I could," Doris replied.
With that, the Murrill family vanished from the pages of The Times.
California death records show that Doris Elaine Murrill died Nov. 17,
1963, at the age of 33. The Social Security Death Index lists several
Robert Murrills. The only one born in 1922, like the man in our story,
was Robert J. Murrill, who died Dec. 11, 2005, in Riverside at the age
of 83. Jeffrey Lee Murrill would be 57 today.
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Sept. 19, 1957
Never underestimate the power of little old ladies.
I did, two days ago.
I accused a frail, grandmotherly type, born circa 1887, of pulling an
amusing little con game to gain herself a free meal or a few bucks
pocket change.
She answered classified ads--I pointed out--representing herself as a
wealthy, slightly eccentric old dame. Promising to buy $1,000 pieces of
furniture or invest a fast ten grand in some business venture, she
would then commence to wangle a free dinner invitation or "suddenly"
discover she'd lost her change purse and "borrow" an easy five or ten
bucks from the unsuspecting advertiser.
In Tuesday's column I mentioned a visit by Granny to the home of interior decorator Barney Feldman.
She promised to purchase a $1,000 antique bed which he had advertised.
She was a windy old bag, jabbering at Feldman for more than two hours
before squeezing a few bills out of him with the "lost purse" routine.
But by stating that such con was Granny's forte, I feel that I've done her a great injustice.
Granny's game, obviously, is for much bigger stakes.
To put it in scientific police terms, she's a joint-caser.
She cases burglary jobs, finds out when homeowners will be away and then sends her boys in to clean out the place.
Following Tuesday's column, I received five calls from persons who had fallen prey to the old lady's cunning.
All reported striking similarities in her modus operandi.
And three of the five reported their homes burglarized shortly after her visit.
The MO similarities were near-unanimous on these points:
She answers antique ads as a specialty and knows a genuine Chippendale when she sees one.
She says she's been in town only a few days.
She says she's from the Seal Beach or Long Beach area, and has property on the desert.
She asks to bring a sister around to approve her purchase, inquiring casually as to when the seller will be home.
Granny's racket is many years older than she herself is, but like Grandpa used to tell me:
"It takes old folks to get the most miles out of old horses."
From a woman in Ontario, in the Pomona Valley, comes a postscript on nomads Robert and Marjorie Wyatt and their five children.
Two weeks ago, the plight of the hungry and homeless family stirred much sympathy in our city.
The Ontario woman writes:
"A few days ago, on returning from Covina on the freeway, we picked up the hitchhiking Wyatt family.
"We brought them home, fed them and gave them some clothing. Then we fixed them a place to sleep.
"The children were dirty as pigs and permitted by their parents to do
whatever they pleased, no matter what they destroyed or whom they hurt.
"I had to feel sorry for them, though. The oldest girl would have loved an opportunity to go to school.
"A friend of ours secured a job for Mr. Wyatt in the grape vineyards,
but apparently he'd rather bum food and clothing for his family.
"Because, immediately afterward, they hit the road again.
"My husband is a disabled World War II veteran. We receive state aid
for our four children as his pension check is less than $200 a month
and he is unable to work.
"But honestly, we try to take care of our children and give them a good
home and send them to school. Things have looked pretty black sometimes
but we've always managed to keep our family together and in one place.
"It hurts me to see people like the Wyatts doing what they are. Isn't there a law that can take the children away from them?
"I hope this letter doesn't sound bitter."
[Postscript: I missed Coates' initial column and wasn't able to post
the original stories on the nomadic Wyatts, who were in the news after
Robert Wyatt pointed a gun at someone who criticized him for keeping his
five children on leashes. And, yes, that sounds like the rambling Brink family described in the 1947project.]
Sept. 20, 1957
Los Angeles
This doesn't look good.
Sept. 20, 1957
Los Angeles
Hey moms and dads, comic books don't rot your children's minds or turn your kids into hoodlums. No, really! Comics are good, wholesome entertainment that will ensure your offspring become lifelong lovers of fine literature. Mad magazine, like all EC comics, is especially valuable for young, easily influenced minds, as are any publications with "Weird," "Terror" or "Horror" in the title.
If you don't give your children comic books, every library in the nation will close down in 20 years! You don't want that, do you?
And be sure to put them in tightly sealed plastic bags!
ps. You can keep all those issues of "Richie Rich." Those comics will destroy your sense of humor forever.
Sept. 20. 1957,
Los Angeles
Tent revivals are nothing new in Los Angeles--they have been going on for a century. But by any standards, Oral Roberts' crusades were sensational events.
The televangelist staged his first Southern California revival from
Sept. 28 to Oct. 14, 1951, at Atlantic Boulevard and Anaheim-Telegraph
Road in Anaheim, overlapping a crusade by Billy Graham (Sept. 16-Oct.
6) at the Hollywood Bowl. By 1955, Roberts was conducting his "healing
meetings" before thousands of people in a 200-foot by 360-foot tent
erected next to the Santa Ana Freeway at La Palma.
He credited his success to fellow evangelist Billy
Graham--and the increasing power of broadcasting. By 1957, Roberts was
heard over
350 radio stations and seen on 135 TV stations, including Channel 13 in
Los Angeles, which aired his show on Sundays at 9:30 p.m.
Roberts staged his 1957 revival from Sept. 20 to Sept. 29 at Firestone and
Lakewood boulevards in Downey, culminating in an appearance at the
Hollywood Bowl on Sept. 30.
In an interview with Times religion editor Dan L. Thrapp, Roberts described threats he had received
during a 1954 revival tour of Australia. Saying that he barely escaped
being assassinated, Roberts blamed the Australian press, which he said
dared him to heal someone from a "diagnosed, specific illness."
"I never accept such challenges, " he said.
Roberts' revivals were emotional and full of fiery rhetoric, always concluding with
sick people forming a "healing line" to receive Roberts' prayers.
"Los Angeles has rarely seen the like of this newest show of the
sawdust circuit," Thrapp wrote in 1951. "Roberts has been called 'the
loudest and flashiest revivalist to appear since the advent of Billy
Graham' and with his emphasis on faith healing, he has an attraction
few of his profession can equal."
"When evangelist Roberts takes over, the show is strictly old-time
religion," Thrapp wrote. "He is a tall man and he paces the platform
relentlessly during his sermon, carrying the microphone with him and
setting it down with a crash to emphasize a point."
Thrapp sketched this portrait of Roberts:
"The angels that help us, they are spiritual beings, guardians of the family of mankind!" he announces.
"Thank the Lord!" the voices well up from the throng.
"You are born with your own personal angel! You have your own angel! I have my angel!" he shouts.
"That's right," come the voices.
"God is not like a button on your coat which you can have or do without!" the evangelist cries.
"Thank God," say the voices.
"...and the city was filled with chariots of fire and horses of fire
and they drew a circle of steel around Elisha and he was not afraid,"
Roberts relates.
"Amen," moan the voices.
"You either believe the Bible or you don't--it's true or it isn't, and if it isn't we're all lost!" he cries.
"Praise God! Hallelujah!" agree the voices.
The sick and infirm file up to the ramp to his platform. Roberts sits
on a chair with the microphone ready, and places his "healing hand,"
the right hand, on the afflicted spot.
"When I feel the power in the hand, I know it can drive the evil out," he says.
They come in a long line--a mother with a Mongoloid child, a
tuberculosis sufferer, a cripple on crutches, an 86-year-old man, a
woman with arthritis, a father with a daughter who was born with no hip
sockets.
It is not for a reporter to say whether Mr. Roberts' healing is effective.
In some cases, it seemed to do no good.
But the faces of those who believed and who considered themselves cured were beautiful to watch.
From time to time, Mr. Roberts halted the line and bellowed to thousands:
"Who is the healer?"
"God!" they shouted.
And he asked them again and again to pray with him. Everyone prayed. And the line moved slowly past the evangelist.
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Sept. 20, 1957
Los Angeles
Not so fast there, potential Dodger fans. It seems the Los Angeles
Unified School District owns 2 1/2 acres in the middle of Chavez
Ravine and officials are leery of selling. (Check out the deal on maple wagon wheel bunk beds on the jump. Perfect for those little buckaroos to hit the hay, moms and dads!)
Click below to read the rest of the story.
Continue reading Dodger deal could unravel »
Sept. 20, 1957
Los Angeles A classic look, from a Bullock's ad:
Sept. 19, 1957
Los Angeles
Uh-oh....
Sept. 16-19, 1957
Los Angeles
"State Senate committee hearing" is one of the most boring phrases in
the English language and the thick dust of half a century only adds
layers of tedium.
But let's stand in the back of the hearing room at the State
Building,* temporarily resurrected on the long-vacant northeast corner
at 1st and Broadway, and watch the witnesses struggle to deal with the question of drug addiction.
The police are going to say what they always say: Drugs are becoming
more of a problem, the courts are too lenient and law enforcement is
hampered by rulings supporting suspects' rights. The answer: Tougher,
mandatory sentences and compulsory classes for youngsters on the
dangers of drugs.
The therapists have their own boilerplate: Long prison terms don't work
and it's difficult to rehabilitate addicts. Their answer:
Hospitalization.
Are you yawning yet?
Let's take a moment to listen to a father talk about his daughter, who
is in her early 20s. If she can't get drugs, she'll use alcohol.
"Daddy, I've got to have it," she says.
She's one of eight children, he says. The other seven are fine: "All
are married and have families and make good livings. We have a good
family."
Even the addicted daughter is "lovable, polite, sympathetic and one of the kindest persons I know," he says.
It all started when she was 16, he says. There was a party and she
wanted to go. He was reluctant but met the host's mother, who assured
him that she would be a chaperon. Then the call from the police: "We
have your daughter." The kids were smoking marijuana.
He and his wife put the girl in a school back East. She ran away.
They brought her back to Los Angeles and put her in another school. She started using heroin "just for fun."
Then an interracial marriage (please recall that we're talking about 1957), a child, divorce and brief trips back
home when she wasn't in jail, Camarillo or Patton State Hospital.
How does she pay for the heroin? She's a prostitute, the father says.
When she has nowhere else, she comes home for a few days, then
vanishes. "She never gets a phone call at our home," the father says.
"We don't know how she contacts them."
He finally got her admitted to a federal hospital in Kentucky for
treatment. "I helped her pack her things and got her promise that she
would faithfully make the trip, and I bought her ticket and gave her
some money and put her on the bus," he said.
If you know anything about addicts, you know what she did next.
At the moment she's in jail, he says. Arrested yet again for narcotics.
He said: "I am her father and I love her. But I'd rather see her in her casket than the way she is today."
Fifty years later, you can hear the same story at any A.A. meeting in Los Angeles.
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*Not to be confused with the recently demolished "new" state building,
an ugly and utterly artless L-shaped box that was torn down without
generating a single complaint from preservationists. This building was
constructed on the site of the old Central Jail on 1st Street and Mason
Opera House on Broadway.
Sept. 19, 1957Los Angeles Note that the artist working in 1957 envisioned parking for 24,000 cars. Actual number of parking spaces in 2007? 16,000. Do you think this might cause problems?
In 1969, The Times sent one of its best and most respected writers, Art
Seidenbaum, on a tour of California college campuses: UCLA, USC,
Stanford, UC Berkeley and someplace called San Fernando Valley State.
The resulting series for West magazine was later published in
Seidenbaum's book "Confrontation on Campus."
So in honor of all those who are taking their kids back to campus for
the fall, here's Part 7 of Seidenbaum's "The Troubles With Students" in
which he visits Stanford and chats with an earnest history major named Philip Taubman, now an associate editor at the New York Times. The dress code is Army
fatigues and beards for the men; serapes and tights for the women. And
lots of revolutionary self-righteousness. Don't worry, man. It's cool.
We're all pass/fail here. Page 1
Click below to read the rest of the article.
Continue reading College fashions, VII »
Sept. 18, 1957
There are times when justice gets in its own way.
By trying to hustle along a little too fast, it trips over its own ethical skirts.
And a living example of what can happen when it does came into town
last night. He was tall and gaunt and rather ugly, and his prison
pallor contradicted the jaunty cut of his gray flannel suit.
His name--if you're not aware by now--is Caryl Chessman.
His residence for the last nine years has been San Quentin's Death Row.
Half a dozen times, dates for his extermination have been set.
But so far, because justice was in an apparent hurry to deal him the
worst, he has outlived some 70 fellow death row inmates, plus the
warden with whom he was in constant strife.
Chessman is here with a claim against justice.
It was, recently, a good enough claim to cause the U.S. Supreme Court
to overrule our state and district courts' rejections of his latest
appeal for a new trial.
Since his confinement, Chessman--a warped but plainly brilliant
man--has managed to dig up some startling charges about events which
followed his trial and conviction.
The court reporter who took the transcript died during the trial.
His notes, according to later testimony, were considered illegible by
five other court reporters asked to turn them into final transcript.
But then there appeared a man who said he could transcribe them.
His name was Stanley Fraser.
He was given the job and eventually he produced a final transcript.
This, naturally, was important to Chessman. He needed it as a basis for appeals.
But on reading it, he felt that it was inaccurate.
From death row, he began an astonishing investigation.
First, he found, Stanley Fraser was a relative of J. Miller Leavy, prosecutor in the case. He was Leavy's wife's uncle.
Then he alleges that he dug up a police record on Fraser which included drunk arrests stringing from July 1948 to February 1951.
Attorney George Davis, representing Chessman, called trial Judge
Charles W. Fricke to the stand at a Marin County hearing last year.
Fricke stated that he had no knowledge of any relationship between Leavy, the prosecutor, and Fraser.
In his latest book, "The Face of Justice" (to be released this week), Chessman makes further charges.
He alleges that Fraser and Leavy held several meetings on the
transcript. He charges that the pair visited two of the prosecution's
top witnesses for other conferences.
He says that Fraser received three times the normal fee for his work.
If it's all true, it doesn't add up to a very fair shake for a man who is doomed without a complete and accurate transcript.
Caryl Chessman is possibly the most widely detested criminal in California history.
He's not only hated for the horrible nature of his crimes, but for the
smug, self-assured unrepentant attitude he has maintained over the last
nine years.
That same attitude was apparent when I saw him at County Jail yesterday.
He suffers from a chronic sneer aimed at all of society.
Chessman is a weird paradox--a literate, intelligent man, capable of vicious criminal acts.
However, no matter what his attitudes or his crimes, any man is entitled to due process of law.
If he hasn't been getting it, and the U.S. Supreme Court has indicated that to be true, he should.
Sept. 18-26, 1957
Los Angeles
Let's go talk about the Ginger Mitchell case. We're in Wilshire Division so how about Canter's Deli, up on Fairfax?
While we're driving, I'll tell you the rest of the story. Officially,
this killing is solved. They caught the guy and he confessed. The
detectives actually got commendations for their work. But I don't like
it. And the more I think about it, the less I like it.
The first thing that bothers me is that The Times didn't write anything
about a trial. Not a word. I know, maybe he pleaded guilty, but the
paper didn't cover the sentencing either. All spring and summer there's
been a series of stranglings: Ruth Goldsmith, Marjorie Hipperson and Esther Greenwald. Finally the police get a guy and he confesses and The Times doesn't write a word about it. Why not?
OK, here's Canter's. Let's find a booth. No, thanks, we don't need
menus. I'm just getting coffee. I can never eat after visiting a murder
scene.
Here's what else I know about the case, which isn't much: Remember I
said our victim had been filling in as an apartment manager? At first,
police thought that all but $13.89 was accounted for. Later,
investigators audited her books and found $151* was missing.
At 9 a.m. Monday, hours before before her body was discovered, the
switchboard operator at Menlo Realty, which owns the apartment
building, got a call from an unidentified man asking for partner in the
firm. He left a message saying that "Miss Mitchell is dead."
The medical examiner, Dr. Gerald K. Ridge, says the killer choked her
with his hands before strangling her with the sash from her dressing
gown.
Before we look at the suspect, let's talk about the detectives. Thad
Brown, chief of detectives, took over the case before giving it to
Detective Lt. Herman Zander of the Homicide Division.
Zander had a reputation as a first-class investigator and worked
several famous killings of the 1950s, including the L. Ewing Scott
case, so I think he's pretty solid. I don't know much about the other
men on the case: Lt. Erwin W. Smith, head of Wilshire detectives, and
Sgt. Eugene Danforth.** But you may recognize the name of Danforth's
partner: Sgt. Elmer V. Jackson. Sound familiar? He's the guy who was
supposedly taking payoffs in the Brenda Allen case. Of course, Jackson
was cleared in that.
Can I get a refill? Thanks.
OK, our suspect. He's Sonnie Hartford Jr., 36, 1819 W. 36th St.
Hartford is a parolee and spent eight months in jail last year for
robbery. He's supposedly a houseboy at a neighboring apartment
building, which I imagine means he's some sort of handyman.
I have no idea how he became a suspect, but he was booked after a
six-hour polygraph test. He denied the killing, but said he had gotten
a $30 loan from Ginger on Saturday morning because his paycheck hadn't
arrived. He was supposed to pay her back on Monday. His story was that
he spent Sunday playing poker, but police had trouble finding anybody
else who was in the game.
After being questioned for 24 hours straight, and two more polygraph tests, Hartford told police he killed Ginger.
Supposedly he went to repay her the $30 loan. Supposedly he said
something that he meant as a compliment, but she got offended and
ordered him to leave. Supposedly he grabbed her by the neck and choked
her. Supposedly she fell limp so he dragged her into the dressing room
and strangled her with the sash from the dressing gown--so tightly that
you couldn't even see the knot.
You'll love this part. I know I do. Why did he do it? He doesn't know.
Days of questioning, three polygraph tests and the guy can't say why he
killed her. Our guy hits the victim in the eye, chokes her with his
hands, drags her to another room, then strangles her with a sash. And
he doesn't know why.
He says: "She has always been nice to me."
Oh, I forgot to mention that's he African American. Here's a black guy
with a police record for robbery, being grilled for killing a white
woman. On the polygraph for six hours at a time. You think he might be
a little nervous? You think it might be hard to get a good reading?
Maybe I'm just too suspicious. Maybe everything is exactly as they say.
But how come the papers didn't write a word about it? And what became
of Sonnie Hartford Jr.? No idea. What about the missing money? I just
don't like it. I just do not like it.
Well, we've been here a long time, we better leave a good tip. Let's go.
Ginger's services are Sept. 20 at Armstrong Family Mortuary. We should pay our respects.
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*$1,081.96 USD 2006.
**or Danford.
In 1969, The Times sent one of its best and most respected writers, Art
Seidenbaum, on a tour of California college campuses: UCLA, USC,
Stanford, UC Berkeley and someplace called San Fernando Valley State.
The resulting series for West magazine was later published in
Seidenbaum's book "Confrontation on Campus."
So in honor of all those who are taking their kids back to campus for
the fall, here's Part 6 of Seidenbaum's "The Troubles With Students" in
which he describes a campus strike that shuts down San Francisco State and chats with S.I. Hayakawa.The dress code is Army
fatigues and beards for the men; serapes and tights for the women. And
lots of revolutionary self-righteousness. Don't worry, man. It's cool.
We're all pass/fail here.
Read the rest of the story by clicking below
Continue reading College fashions, VI »
Sept. 17, 1957
Los Angeles
We're parked outside 3477 S. La Brea Ave.,
a two-story apartment house with about 18 units in the Wilshire
Division. It's one in a row of apartment buildings along the west side
of the street.
It's early on a Monday morning. Our victim is Rhea "Ginger" Mitchell and she's 63.
Ginger was a star in silent films, but hadn't been in movies for years.
She started out as a stage actress and got into films about 1914. Bunch
of westerns, a couple of society pictures. She even headed her own
company for a while, Paralta, 40 years ago. She wrote screenplays and
stories in the 1920s. Yeah, I know. I never heard of her, either.
Here's the kicker: On the stage, she once had the lead in a hardboiled detective
drama: "Going Crooked."
Eventually, Ginger got into managing apartment buildings and for the
last month, she had been filling in for the man across the hall in Unit
102, Mike Blume, who has been too busy for the job because his wife is
sick.
Ready? OK, keep your hands in your pockets and don't move anything.
Notice the door is locked. In fact all the doors and windows are locked
tight. Ginger was an extremely cautious woman: On Saturday afternoon, a
tenant who was moving out turned in his key and she only opened the
door enough to put out her hand. He went back about noon Sunday because
he forgot to take his razor and again, she only opened the door enough
to hand him the key. Same thing when he gave it back. "I had the
feeling she was sort of hiding something," he says.
Let's go into the dressing room. That's her. She's lying on her back,
strangled with the sash from her blue silk dressing gown. It's knotted
under her chin. She's wearing a half slip, panties, bra and high heels
with no stockings. Notice that she didn't get the buttons straight on
her dressing gown; the police will figure that she put it on in a
hurry. There's a big bruise around her left eye and maybe another one
on her throat. The autopsy surgeon will say there's no evidence of
rape.
Nope, nobody heard anything. At some point, Ginger left a note on her
door saying that while she was out of town for the weekend, people should contact
Dorothy Burwell, the manager of the next apartment building.
We better get going. The houseboy has been wondering why Ginger isn't
back yet and he and the Blumes are about to come in and check in her.
To be continued....
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Footnotes to history:
The three council members voting against the resolution to offer a deal to the Dodgers were Earle Baker, Patrick McGee and Edward R. Roybal. Councilman John Holland originally opposed the resolution but changed his vote in hopes of reopening the issue.
Notice Mayor Norris Poulson's comments comparing the vote on the Dodgers to the votes on Owens Valley, dredging the Los Angeles Harbor and the Colorado Aqueduct. "This, too, is a deal in which we are going to do something for this great city of ours."
Click here for Walter O'Malley's official website.
Continue reading Dodgers! »
Jim Tully, Aug. 13, 1922.
Tully was a self-taught writer who specialized in stories about boxers, the circus, hobos and similar themes. He's fairly obscure today but was once quite well-known. He was the author of "Beggars of Life," "Blood on the Moon" and "Shanty Irish," among many other books.
Note: If you are offended by the word "chink," you will not enjoy this story.
Part 1
Continue reading Literary diversions »
In 1969, The Times sent one of its best and most respected writers, Art
Seidenbaum, on a tour of California college campuses: UCLA, USC,
Stanford, UC Berkeley and someplace called San Fernando Valley State.
The resulting series for West magazine was later published in
Seidenbaum's book "Confrontation on Campus."
So in honor of all those who are taking their kids back to campus for
the fall, here's Part 5 of Seidenbaum's "The Troubles With Students" in
which he visits USC, where "The A student in political science goes into law, the B student goes to teach and the C student goes into politics." Put on your
wire-rim glasses and burn your draft cards. The dress code is Army
fatigues and beards for the men; serapes and tights for the women. And
lots of revolutionary self-righteousness. Don't worry, man. It's cool.
We're all pass/fail here.
Continue reading College fashions, V »
Sept. 16, 1957
Los Angeles
Franklyn West Storer, 50, woke up on a Saturday morning to discover
that his beloved 16-year-old daughter, Mary Alice, had taken a fatal
overdose of sleeping pills. In despair, he also took a fatal overdose.
Mary
had lived with her father since her parents' divorce and in her brief
life, developed a love of classical music, so Franklyn bought records
for her, about $1,000 worth, which police found scattered around the
home. Before he killed himself, Franklyn placed a few autographed
pictures of Mary's favorite classical composer around her body, The
Times said.
His sister, Lucille Miller of National City, found the bodies in the Storer home at 5750 Camerford Ave.
after becoming alarmed by two letters from Franklyn saying that he was
afraid Mary would kill herself and that if she did, "there would not be
anything for me to live for."
Beyond that brief, tragic story,
The Times offers no explanation of what happened. Was Mary a performer?
An aspiring composer? We simply don't know. But a further search
reveals at least a few details.
California death records say that Franklyn was born in Ohio and reveal that his wife's maiden name was Bettencourt.
He doesn't appear in the 1929, 1936 or 1938 online Los Angeles city directories, but is listed in 1939 as living at 511 S. Wilton Place, apparently an apartment house.
Franklyn took out a legal notice in The Times on Nov. 14, 1940, saying
that he would only be responsible for his own debts and the vital
records for March 13, 1942, list a divorce action by Franklyn W. Storer
vs. Victoria B. Storer.
According to the 1942 Los Angeles city
directory, Franklin W. Storer was an assistant electrical tester at the
Department of Water and Power and was living at 5722 Waring Ave.,
precisely one block from the death scene. Eliza C. McElwain, widow of
J.W. McElwain, was also living at that address. Because it was during
World War II, she could have been a landlady.
The 1956 street directory only lists Franklyn as living at 5750 Camerford.
The
Social Security Death Index has nothing on Franklyn, but lists a
Victoria B. Storer, born Aug. 30, 1913, died Jan. 14, 2002, in Turlock,
Calif.
Unfortunately, none of these fragmentary details explain the tragedy. We can only speculate.
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Continue reading Requiem »
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Yesterday, a Confidential File staff member went on a shopping tour.
Out of money, he suddenly found that the pushers wanted nothing more to do with him.
Larry Harnisch. The leading Black Dahlia expert and a collaborator in the 1947project, Harnisch has been a copy editor at The Times since 1988. He has appeared on many TV shows discussing the Dahlia case, notably "James Ellroy's Feast of Death."
Join him for a spin through old Los Angeles in the Mirror's radio car. Keep your eyes open for Mickey Cohen and Tempest Storm. It's quite a ride.
The reporter's badge belonged to Sid Hughes (1908-1958), legendary reporter who worked at nearly every newspaper in Los Angeles.