Author: Kim Cooper

When Walter John Munro, 29-year-old plumber and amateur pilot, lurched out of his new plane at the Torrance Airport, after an erratic low altitude flight over Hawthorne last December 8, he claimed that air sickness and not alcohol was the cause. He was so anxious to land that he touched down in Torrance, and not Compton, where he’d begun his flight.

Clifford Cottam, manager of the Torrance airdrome, testified before Superior Judge Edward Brand today that Munro had skimmed houses and power lines, and staggered when administered a sobrietry test by sheriff’s deputies.

Munro is home at 238 E. 139th Street on $1000 bail pending sentencing on March 13. He faces 1-5 years imprisonment if convicted.

Harry L. Roberts, 53, died today in a fire that began when a cigarette fell into his bedclothes. The one-time Forest Lawn advertising manager and Tournament of Roses publicist had spent the past four years struggling with a mysterious illness that gradually paralyzed his limbs, and had most recently been laboriously typing a memoir of his sickness in hopes of discovering its cause.

Mr. and Mrs. Paul Murray, in-home aids to Roberts since his wife died two years ago, noticed smoke pouring from the den at 1020 Linda Vista Ave. and called the fire department, but Roberts was already unconscious and could not be revived.

Also destroyed in the fire was his hard-wrought manuscript, which was completed earlier this week.

All evidence suggests that, while driving west on Washington Boulevard under the overpass near Santa Fe Avenue, trucker Robert Frazer was struck by a piece of falling concrete. He then drove more than eight miles, in heavy traffic, before careening onto the sidewalk at his place of employ, at Firestone and Paramount Blvds. Co-workers rushed to his aid, and found Frazer unconscious, with a wound over his eye. On awakening, he had no memory of anything after the concrete bounced off his hood and shattered his window.

The truck filled with empty milk bottles hit the car on Santa Fe near 23rd Street yesterday, and both drivers were launched forward through space, where they smashed together as surely as their machines had. Truck driver Abner Teachout, 49, is in Compton Clinic, his condition serious, while 24-year-old Phil Meyers is in critical condition at Seaside Hospital, Long Beach.

Police and railroad officials continue their search today for Eugene Hamilton White, 31, tool company executive missing since Valentine’s Eve, when he cashed his paycheck and left his office en route to his Woodland Hills home.

His bloodstained car was discovered near a Southern Pacific loading spur and warehouse, between 50th and 51st Streets, Long Beach Avenue and Alameda Street, its top ripped open and window shattered. Inside, the man’s empty wallet, eyeglasses, overcoat and jacket, a heart-shaped box of Valentine’s candy, a silver belt, and a blood-soaked handkerchief wrapped around the end of a tire iron.

Police suspect the man was beaten and robbed, then thrown into a passing freight car. His distraught wife Elizabeth, waiting at 22034 Providencia with little Bette Gene and Eugene Jr., says her husband was devoted to the family, and she can think of no reason for him to disappear.

If you haven’t visited Greystone (now a public park, though the house is off limits save for special events bookings), do!

Leila Nichols, 18, had dated 22-year-old William Hunter once prior to their interaction this evening. Hunter, who spent 3 1/2 years in a Japanese prison camp, accosted the girl as she crossed a vacant lot after midnight, en route to her home, bashing her in the head with a lead pipe. The assault was interrupted when Nichols’ brother-in-law John T. Rust drove by and heard her screams. Hunter ran home to his mother and said, “I just killed a girl with a pipe; I don’t know what prompted me to do it.” Mom turned him in.

Leila Nichols is recovering in San Fernando Hospital, while Hunter has been charged on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon. He has refused to say anything but his name, rank and serial number. The girl lives at 11327 Tamarack Street, her assailant at 15431 Romer Street.

Alcohol is a terrible drug. It lured Jeanne French, mother and wife, out to gin halls, where, in the words of her sobbing son David Y. Wrather, “She made friends easy, awful easy. She went out alone sometimes. She’s gone now, and I’m sure she would want me to say the right thing. She made a lot of her own trouble. Her husband tolerated a lot from her. He was a tolerant man, a very tolerant man.”

After the inquest, officials exonerated Jeanne’s husband Frank F. French of any suspicion in her beating murder, leaving police to continue their search for the nameless, dark-haired man seen with the woman at a drive-in at 3992 Sepulveda Boulevard around 2am Monday. French’s body was found on a hillside early the next morning, and the presumption is that her date was likely her killer.

Sheriffs’ officers came all the way from Fresno today to arrest Barbara Land, 27, the gal who married gambler Tony Cornero Stralla last fall, after which they divorced and subsequently remarried.

The charge is burglary of the Snow Line Lodge, near General Grant Park. Miss Land and her pals Elaine Rodgers, 29, and Robert Cabaniss, 31, allegedly visited the tavern, but found it closed. They entered after Miss Land “accidentally fell through a glass back door” and whooped it up with a few drinks.

The Goldilocks Gang claim to have left a check for $25 to cover their entertainment and damages, but owner Paul Haney reports no check was left, and $110 was missing from the till. Land and company deny the charges.