Author: Kim Cooper

Kim Cooper is the creator of 1947project, the crime-a-day time travel blog that spawned Esotouric’s popular crime bus tours, including The Real Black Dahlia. She is the author of The Kept Girl, the acclaimed historical mystery starring the young Raymond Chandler and the real-life Philip Marlowe, and of The Raymond Chandler Map of Los Angeles. With husband Richard Schave, Kim curates the Salons and forensic science seminars of LAVA- The Los Angeles Visionaries Association. When the third generation Angeleno isn’t combing old newspapers for forgotten scandals, she is a passionate advocate for historic preservation of signage, vernacular architecture and writer’s homes. Kim was for many years the editrix of Scram, a journal of unpopular culture. Her books include Fall in Love For Life, Bubblegum Music is the Naked Truth, Lost in the Grooves and an oral history of Neutral Milk Hotel.

Laurel Canyon Gas Leak Blaze Perils Residences

August 23, 1947
Laurel Canyon

Palmer Ledoux, a DWP worker , set a road work lantern down on Laurel Canyon Blvd. north of Kirkwood Drive today, and ignited undetected natural gas that was seeping from the main beside the road.

Ledoux said, “There was a flash, and by the time I could look around, the fire got out of hand. It seemed that every pocket on the hillside was filled with gas. You never saw flames go faster.”

The fire burned a 200 foot path across a steep hill before being brought under control by firefighters, just shy of the home sculptor Rostand D. Kelly is building on the crest.

In Rossian Roulette, the Rules Are Different

August 22, 1947
Burbank

Benjamin A. Ross, 19, had a peculiar idea of an evening’s entertainment at home with wife Zelda. He occupied himself fitting five cartridges into his six-shot revolver, spinning the barrel, and pointing it at various objects in the living room at 420 N. Moss Street, while the lady wife begged him to stop. Having bucked the odds and avoided shattering any lamps or ottomans, Ross pressed his luck with one final shot, into his own forehead. He died at St. Joseph’s Hospital.

1947project interview at 8763 Wonderland

Our fellow Los Angeles blogger Rodger Jacobs was kind enough to ask Nathan and I a few questions about this project, and the results are on his site 8763 Wonderland today. If you click over to read it, we recommend you stay a while and explore some of the contemporary local crime tales Rodger has to share. He’d become a magnet for them–even getting caught in the middle of a bank robber search in Glendale last week.

And because Rodger’s blog and ours share a uniquely dark local bent, we’ve combined the syndicated feeds from 1947project and 8763 Wonderland into a joint feed called LA Noir. We welcome fellow dark Los Angeles bloggers to contact us and join the feed, but for now it’s a time-travel true crime anthology, jumping from 1947 to 2005 and back with daily tales of greed, lust and shame.

If you read blogs in a blog reader (I like bloglines.com), here’s the RSS feed
https://app.feeddigest.com/digest3/MB0TAXN45L.rss

If you read blogs on the web, try
https://app.feeddigest.com/digest3/MB0TAXN45L.html

Chemical Plant Blaze Like A Bikini Spectacle

August 21, 1947
Huntington Park

A suspicious fire at the Charles F. Willard Chemical Co. plant at 5810 S. Soto Street today ignited thousands of 5 gallon tins of auramine dye powder, an extremely flammable product extracted from surplus Army flares. The exploding dye sent a mushroom cloud more than 1000 feet into the air, and caused an estimated $100,000 damage to the plant.

None of the five employees on the scene was injured, and Charles Willard stated that he believed the explosion was triggered by burning weeds in an adjacent lot. This explanation was doubted by Assistant Chief W.H. Burwell of Huntington Park Fire Department, one of five municipal fire departments to respond to the blaze, who suspects the fire began inside the yard, and said his department would investigate.

Confessed Killer Locates Victim’s Body in Desert

August 18, 1947
San Bernardino

After several days fruitless “searching,” Robert F. Mehaffey, 37-year-old ex-con, finally stopped lying to Sheriff James Stocker when the latter told him that they were going to walk through the desert sands until they found Lewis D. Edds’ body.

Edds was the 65-year-old amateur prospector who vanished in April while on a vacation from his work as a steel plant guard. He was last seen in the company of a younger man. War Bonds belonging to Edds were later tracked from San Francisco to Texas and thence to Mehaffey, a hitchhiker whom the elderly man had befriended.

Following the Sheriff’s threat, Mehaffey replied “That won’t be necessary” and led him straight to a set of dessicated remains, located stuffed in a drain pipe just off the Lancaster-Palmdale Highway, two miles south of Victorville. This was 55 miles from the last spot Mehaffey had suggested.

Pending examination of dental records, the Sheriff assumes they’ve found the missing Mr Edds.

Suggested reading: Recreational Gold Prospecting for Fun & Profit

Billboard’s Top 30 hits for 1947

Francis Craig- near you

Hermonicats- peg o my heart

Ted Weems- Heartaches

Ray Noble & Buddy Clark- Linda

Tex Williams- smoke, smoke that cigarette

Vaughn Monroe- I wish I didnt love you so

Three suns- peg o my heart

Al Jolson- Anniversery song

Larry Green- near you

Sammy kaye- That’s My desire

Vaughn Monroe- Ballerina

Art Lund- Mam’selle

Freddy Martin- Managua Nicaragua

Perry Como- Chi-Baba, Chi-Baba

Red Ingle & Jo Stafford- Timtayshun

Ted Weems & Perry Como- I wonder whos kissing her now

Andrews Sisters- near you

Perry Como- When you were sweet sixteen

Jack Owens- How soon

Arthur Godfrey- Too Fat Polka

Eddy Howard- I wonder, I wonder, i wonder

Eddy Howard- My adobe Hacienda

Hoagy Carmichael- huggin and chalkin

Hoagy Carmichael- buttermilk sky

King Cole Trio- I love you for sentimental reasons

Dick Haymes- mam’selle

Vaughn Monroe- you do

Guy Lombardo- Anniversary Song

Bing Crosby- white Christmas

(found on the music trading message group TweedleeDumsDrive-In)

On the Pike

August 17, 1947
Long Beach

With his divorce papers burning a hole in his pocket, and his heart, 30-year-old James Parker of 2246 Clifford Street stopped today at Marie Baines’ shooting gallery at 315 W. Pike Street and laid down a 5-spot. He picked up the .22 automatic pistol that was chained to the counter and fired at four targets. The fifth bullet found a home in Parker’s right temple. He died at Seaside Hospital at 6:15pm.

When police examined the court papers found on the body, they discovered Parker’s penciled notes denying each of his wife’s allegations. He was next due in court at 9:30am Friday.

Suggested reading: Long Beach: In Vintage Postcards

Angeleno Pair Quizzed on His Wounded Hand

August 16, 1947
San Francisco

Speaking on behalf of the citizens of the great City of San Francisco, we’d just as soon you runaway SoCal lovebirds keep your shenanigans South of Tehachapi.

Seems SF police were called to a hospital here to talk with William Farley, 24, of 2217 Cahuenga Blvd., and his flame-tressed friend Mrs. Bobbie Mai Edkins of 1063 1/2 S. Sycamore. Mr. Farley had a bullet in his hand–in their car engine pan, cops found a pistol. The pair claimed they went over a bump and the gun fell from the flove box and discharged (so why the subterfuge?). Later, the story mutated to one of Farley shooting himself to prove his love for Mrs. Edkins. The dope even works with his hands–he’s a watchmaker. Sheesh.

And yes, there is a Mr. Edkins, Harry by name, back in LA. Unamused, officers booked the tourists on a joint charge of assault.

Suggested reading: Murder by the Bay : Historic Homicide in and about the City of San Francisco

The Honeymoon’s Off

August 15, 1947
Los Angeles

He told the pretty young widow he was getting a divorce, that he was studying architecture and ship building at USC and that he would buy her a yacht that they could pilot on a love-trip once they were wed. So Mrs. Frances Wells O’Donnell, mother of a 4-year-old boy, who lost her second lieutenant Marine husband in the invasion of Peleliu in ’44, put $46,000 into a joint account. And Richard Barth, 30, took that “joint” business seriously–he picked up a 52-foot sea-going number called The Otter, and spent another $13,000 on a honeymoon cottage in Woodland Hills.

But when Frances wasn’t looking, Richard sold that pad they were to share, remarried his wife, and purchased a home for the two of them at 906 S. Stanley Ave. Frances cried foul when she finally checked the bank book and found $47.50 remaining.

The accused louse surrendered in court today accompanied by his attorney, Sid Kaufman. Bond was set at $3000. Also set into motion was a civil suit on the same matter, originally filed two months ago. Barth denied the charges and insisted his honor would be proven at trial.

Suggested reading: Con Man : A Master Swindler’s Own Story

Husband Sobs Out Story of Domestic Tragedy

August 14, 1947
Bell Gardens

A hangover made him do it. That’s what Frank Vogel, 52-year-old machinist/cement worker and author of an unfinished book on Technocracy, said after turning himself in to police officers at City Hall yesterday.

It seemed he’d just shot his wife. Mrs. Hilda Vogel, 45, a secretary at Bell Gardens Junior High School, in an argument over his belief that she encouraged the romantic intentions of other men. She in turn had spoken of divorce.

He suddenly blacked out, and when he came to found her dead on the kitchen floor of their 3-room home at 5613 Clara Street. He put the gun onto the table and, without even getting his coat or hat, drove his wife’s car straight to City Hall.

Mrs. Vogel is survived by Jean Aurand, 18, her daughter by a former marriage. Frank Vogel, inconsolable, is in County Jail, booked on suspicion of murder.

Suggested reading: Technocracy and the American Dream: The Technocrat Movement, 1900-1941