Master Thief Hits L.A., February 1959

The Times spelled the name Attebery; The Mirror used Atterbery, Max Hurlbut writes: Your Evening Mirror News article on burglar GORDON E. ATTERBERY being pursued in 1959 brings back memories.  I was a young policeman assigned to Hollywood Division in 1960.  ATTERBERY was tearing us, West Hollywood Sheriffs, & Beverly Hills P.D. apart.  He would hit house- after-house, leaving his loot piled near the street where he would pick it up, before sunup, in his stolen Chevy with cold plates. Officer IAN J. CAMPBELL (murdered in the "Onion Field" in March 1963) & I worked 6X15.  [6 designates Hollywood Division & "X" is an "extra" car deployed in reporting district 615 (Los Feliz/Griffith Park District)].  We believe we once spotted ATTERBERY, but he outran us.  A Las Vegas park- ing checker, who had a hobby of checking his daily "hot sheet" against all Chevrolets he cited, finally nabbed him. ATTERBERY, as a condition of sentencing,  told all in a special report for police officers on "How to Catch a 459."  (Old penal code section for burglary).  He wore suits and walked a dog so as to say he was out strolling.  He studied the neighborhood & could answer questions for the car in the area.  If un- covered, he would dash through the worse brush & snags, as he knew policemen (then) paid for their uniforms and did not want to tear them up.  He would hide in trees, as we seldom looked up at night.  (Favorites were dirty palm trees with skirts of dead spiny fronds to crawl up & under).  Better not reveal more, but an excellent primer on burglary, even today.  ATTERBERY was only 24, but an intelligent, complex, man and master burglar.  {P.S.---He knew big city police officers would not (usually) shoot a fleeing burglar; but was afraid of running into an irate & armed home-owner who did not read his case-law....}. GORDON, you are now 73.  If you are out there, let us know how the rest of your career panned out.... MAX K. HURLBUT, 10603 LAPD (Retired) Bellingham, WA

Paul Coates

April 17, 1958

Below, we have Paul Coates and his old pal from Palo Alto, Parkey Sharkey ... But what's this hidden in the ads for the burlesque houses? The Colony Club, Western and 149th Street, has the L.A. Dodgerettes! ... Then again, there's "Johni Dillinger" a.k.a. "Public Anatomy No. 1," at the Tiffany Club, 3260 W. 8th ... And note the comic at the Lake Club: Bert Henry. Henry did a bunch of "party records" for Fax Records ("Bert Henry in the Raw," "Bert Henry at the Hungry Thigh") before the head of the company, William H. Door, and his girlfriend were killed in a very nasty way in November 1963. Fax also released a disc titled "Sex Is My Business," which purported to be interviews with  prostitutes. Most of the Fax discs turn up on EBay if you're patient. If anyone knows whatever became of Bert Henry, drop me a note.   

Email me

Judy Dull update

 

Aug. 7, 1957
Los Angeles

Professional photographer David Sutton, 8426 1/2 W. 3rd, tells the Mirror that he spoke with missing model Judy Ann Dull an hour before she disappeared with a photographer calling himself Johnny Glinn (or Glynn).

Sutton said he had been subpoenaed by her husband's attorneys in their child custody case.

"Apparently her husband's lawyers had a notion that I had photographed her in the nude," Sutton said. "That is entirely wrong. Judy Ann was a high-type girl, absolutely straight. She was working to make enough money to keep her baby."

Dull made an appointment to pose for Sutton after she finished her modeling job with Glinn, but she never returned.

Sutton worked for such prominent magazines of the day as Life and Look, and photographed John Wayne many times over their 20-year professional relationship, according to an online biography.

Email me

Never returned

I found this in the archives. Poor thing, only 19. She never got to see her daughter grow up.

Judith Ann Dull June 23, 1938-Aug. 1, 1957

 

 

Photo shoot

 

Aug. 3, 1957
Los Angeles

In June 1957, about the time she turned 19, Judy, at right, met Betty at a Hollywood photographer's studio. They were both young and hoping for modeling careers, so Betty, 19, asked Judy to move into the apartment at 1302 N. Sweetzer Ave., which she shared with a third aspiring model, Lynn, 22.

In late July, Judy complained to her roommates that she felt she was being followed, but assumed it had to do with legal action brought by her estranged husband, Robert, over custody of their 1-year-old daughter, Susan.

She filed for divorce June 7 and was awarded custody of the girl, but Robert took Susan back three weeks later. He said Judy "kept the baby's home and person 'in a filthy state' " and neglected the girl "to associate with other men." A custody hearing was scheduled for Aug. 9 and Judy was hoping to find a job to show that she was a good mother.

"Judy was not the Hollywood type at all," Betty said. "She and I were like sisters. She was going to get a job in a dime store to prove she was worthy of her child."

Judith Ann (Vanhorn) Dull never made that custody hearing. On the afternoon of July 29, 1957, a photographer named Johnny Glinn came to the apartment and asked for Lynn. She wasn't home, but Glinn noticed some of Judy's pictures and asked about hiring her instead. Glinn made an appointment to pick up Judy at 2 p.m. on Aug. 1, 1957, offering to pay $40 ($286.61 USD 2006) for two hours of modeling.

Betty thought Glinn was creepy for following Judy around the apartment the day they left on the photo shoot. "I knew there was something odd about the man," she said. "He said he wanted to shoot pinup pictures. Yet he told her to bring a selection of street outfits, which she did."

She became worried when Judy didn't return and called Glinn's phone number, and was even more concerned when it turned out to be a machine shop (he actually lived at 5924 Melrose). The next day, she reported Judy's disappearance to deputies at the West Hollywood sheriff's station.

But by then Judy was dead and buried in a shallow grave 4 1/2 miles west of Indio, 100 feet off Highway 60/70. Glinn eventually took detectives to the site. His real name: Harvey Murray Glatman.

To be continued.

Email me

Reading the palms

April 21, 1957
Los Angeles

I think about his hands. I don't know, but I would imagine that at the age of 78, they were old and worn from a lifetime of custodial work for Los Angeles County. Gnarled, maybe, with age spots.  I like to think you can tell more about some people by their hands than by their face. This is mostly guesswork, but I wonder what story his hands would tell.

Were his nails all ragged or did he keep them neat and smooth? Were his fingers short and stubby or long and thin? Did he have a wedding ring or was he one of those men who didn't wear one for fear it would get caught in the machinery he used?

We just don't know.

He would have been born about 1879, and I picture him in school holding a pencil and figuring sums. We know he could read and write because of his last note.

It's fairly certain his hands gripped the reins of a horse and buggy; maybe he held the steering wheel of an automobile, or maybe he took the streetcar. I think of him as a young man in his 20s, filling out a job application. At that time, many county jobs were gotten through political patronage, but that's just a guess.

At some point in the next 28 years, he met a woman named Adelaide Houston, who was 15 years younger.  I have no how they met, but I picture him holding her hand and putting a wedding ring on her finger.

Then I picture his hands holding his son, Roger, who was born about 1928.

Maybe he pitched a ball to his son and hugged him when he graduated from high school.

All along, those hands picking up a mop bucket and pushing a broom for the county. Washing windows and scraping gum off the floor. Shaking hands when he retired.

And then opening the door to the doctor's office for him and Adelaide. Comforting her when the doctor told them she had cancer, just like him.

Those worn hands, opening his wallet to get for medicine at the drugstore, and paying the rent for the apartment at 834 N. Huntley Drive in West Hollywood.

The hands, which figured sums in school so long ago, writing a three-page letter to Roger, sealing it in an envelope and leaving it on the coffee table.

Then dialing the telephone to the hotel in Hollywood where Roger worked the graveyard shift while going to law school at USC. There was a letter on the coffee table, be sure to mail it, he said.

Finally, the old, worn hands picking the gun as he walked into the bedroom where Adelaide was sleeping.

When Roger came home that morning, he found his parents' bodies on the bedroom floor.

The note said: "If we continue spending our money to keep ourselves alive, there won't be anything left for you to go to law school."

Note: The State Bar of California does not list an attorney named Roger M. Vivian.

Email me