Author: Kim Cooper

When Jay Dee Chitwood fell in front of a truck near 203rd Street and Western Avenue in August 1944, the coroner thought he had a simple accidental death on his table. But look closer. Cause of death: punctured lung? Hardly a typical injury for someone hit by a car.

Only nobody did look closer until today, when officers picked up Mrs. Helen Chitwood, who had been yapping to a gentleman friend about how she’d stabbed her husband twice and watched him fall into the street, and the dopey cops never noticed the knife wounds. Detectives dropped by Helen’s pad at 888 1/2 Hamilton Way to ask if that’s how it happened. Sure, she told them, we had a fight and it happened just like that.

Mrs. Chitwood is cooling her heels in the San Pedro Jail, and the coroner has got some ‘splaining to do.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.