Author: Kim Cooper

Kinky! High School co-ed Joyce Rodden, 17, of 230 S. Paramount Blvd., Downey, told classmate Richard P. Contreras, also 17, of 942 Benares St., that she didn’t want to go out on a date with him. Smart girl, considering his response to the refusal was to lurk at Second St. and Downey Ave. and whip her with an 11 ½ foot long bull whip as she walked to school. The first flick scarred Miss Rodden with an eight-inch welt on her left thigh, number two marked her abdomen, and it was only Miss Rodden’s quick reflexes that avoided the whip that was heading for her face.

Contreras, who admitted he whipped the girl because she wouldn’t date him, was booked in County Jail on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon, and when the Times man came round, the injured girl gamely posed for a photo with the offending device and her new friend, Det. Sgt. Sid Jolivette.

“That’s not a pot pipe-it’s a trick back scratcher!”

This was the novel defense provided by Carole June Norell, 20, girl photographer, who with her 18 year-old-model pal Carolyn Vine Fraser was arrested by Det. Sgts.Ed Walker and D.P. Rikalo at their digs at 1810 N. Serrano Ave. after the object and a tobacco tin half-filled with marihuana were discovered in their room. Norell said that while she had purchased the offending weed for $20, she hadn’t put it in the so-called pipe and smoked it.

The two itchy dames are presently in City Jail on suspicion of violating the State Narcotics Act.

Superior Court Judge Charles W. Fricke today denied confessed killer Gerald Snow Welch, 19, his fondest wish, and sentenced him to life in prison for the April 19 killing of Delores Fewkes, a student at Montebello High School who family members say had broken up with Welch repeatedly due to his peculiar philosophy, Further, she did not believe in suicide.

According to the depressive Welch, Fewkes said she couldn’t live without him; they had attempted suicide together on two occasions prior to their April assignation at the Horse Flats picnic grounds in Angeles National Forest. She broke a date with another boy to join Welch, who told her he had a surprise for her. “This is the time,” he said. “It’s all right with me,” she supposedly replied. So he waited until morning, when it was warmer and his hands stopped shaking, and botched the murder-suicide, later carrying the girl’s body down the mountain to police.

After the verdict, which he described as a “dirty trick,” Welch told the court that he would promptly rectify its failure to sentence him to death by killing himself, so he and Dolores could be happy together.

Stephen Hero, former concert violinist and one-time protege of renowned Spanish pianist Jose Iturbi has confessed to “abduct[ing]” his daughters, Iturbi’s grandchildren, and taking them to New York, where his parents live.

Mr. Hero, Maria Theresa, 10, and Maria Antonia, 9, had been living at Mr. Iturbi’s Beverly Hills estate at 913 N. Bedford Drive since their mother Maria shot herself at the home on April 16 of last year. Her father heard the fatal shot while he was practising and discovered his daughter in her room, mortally wounded, her hair in flames from the exploding shell.

Maria was estranged from her husband at the time of her death, and her father had supported the children since their parents’ 1940 out-of-court separation agreement. In 1941 Maria was granted custody, on grounds of non-support from Hero.

In March 1943, Iturbi entered Superior Court seeking custody of his granddaughters, making unspecified claims that his daughter was unfit to raise them. Before going to court, Mrs. Hero took a job in a drugstore and moved the girls out of her father’s house at 707 N. Hillcrest Drive.

In court, father and daughter appeared so chummy that Judge Edward R. Brand suggested they settle their differences out of court, for the sake of the children and to avoid airing the family’s dirty linen publically, but through their attorneys Jerry Giesler (his) and Roger Marchetti (hers), they initially declined the suggestion,

However, following Mrs. Hero’s dramatic collapse in chambers, an out of court settlement was reached which left their mother with custody, provided mother and daughters live in the Iturbi home, the children have no evening visitors, no family members be employed as domestics or live in the home, and their mother may take the children out any Sunday, providing their nurse received advance notice.

Back in New York, Mr. Hero says that Iturbi was so jealous of the girls’ attention that he refused to permit them to show any affection to their father, and further that he lived in fear of physical assault while while chez Iturbi. So when Iturbi departed for Paris to begin a European concert tour, Hero gave the servants the day off, booked a transcontinental flight under the name Frank Swartz and bundled both Marias aboard. Yes, Hero told reporters, their grandfather could give the girls material things, but not the affection that their natural father could give them.

Iturbi’s lawyer, William V. O’Connor, scoffed at Hero’s claims, and stated that a custody battle would commence once his client returned from his tour on the 20th, or possibly sooner.

Nice girls know the difference between a tavern and an automobile. So when Mrs. Deloris Keefer, 24, of 725 S. Bixel Street was propositioned by a fella who suggested she stop waiting for her hubby and hop into his car for a little tipple, she said nope.

The would-be barkeep was insistent, though, and grabbed and choked the lady. This so irked Deloris that she slipped off one shapely pump (a dainty size 5 ½, for those keeping score) and laid into to the stinker. He grabbed the shoe away from her, in the process dropping some identifying papers. There was no way Deloris was letting a perfectly good shoe run off with a masher, so she snatched it away as the befuddled fink took a motorized powder.

Police used the ID to track down Samuel J. Blight, 22, of 122 43rd Street, Manhattan Beach, and his pal Raymond M. Johnson, 20, of 6121 Citrus Avenue, both of whom are sitting in County Jail on suspicion of attempted kidnapping. Deloris Keefer remained shod at press time.

From his trailer coach home near the campus of Cal Poly, where he is a student, William Leon Bruce–during wartime a Sgt. and resident of a Japanese prison camp-described his shock when he came face to face with Tomoya Kawakita, a functionary in the Oeyama camp, in a department store on South Boyle Avenue in Los Angeles seven months ago.

Bruce froze and stared at his former captor, who was strolling with two teenage Japanese girls. When Bruce moved to go after Kawakita, his wife Jean, 22, held him back and insisted he instead call the FBI. Bruce admitted Jean’s advice was sound, as he didn’t know what he might have done to Kawakita had he gotten his hands on him. Bruce carries the rage of one who suffered sinus injuries and a broken jaw from shrapnel on Corregidor, was carried by his buddies on the Bataan Death March and then spent three years in Oeyama, where Kawakita was the first official he encountered. Kawakita had reacted violently to Bruce’s patriotic tattoos, attempting to twist them off of his captive’s arm while screaming about “’crazy Americans and their symbols of freedom.’”

So rather than roughing up his one-time nemesis, Bruce tailed him as far as his car, and turned the license number and his captor’s name over to the F.B.I. When the name and number matched up, the Feds moved in.

Kawakita, a 26-year-old American residing at 220 S. Hicks St., is under arrest on charges of treason in Los Angeles. He went to Japan with his father before hostilities began, supposedly to resume his studies at Meiji University, Tokyo, and returned to Los Angeles after claiming he had not helped Japan during the war. If found guilty, he faces the death penalty. So far in court he has been answering direct questions about his war experience by claiming not to remember the answers.

According to the U.S. Attorney’s office, there are nearly 100 ex-G.I.s prepared to testify to Kawakita’s sadism, his skill at judo, his camp nickname of “Meatball” (obtained because he grew fat on rations denied prisoners) and his sneering opinion that “I knew you Americans couldn’t take it when the going got tough.”

Manir Huelsman, 37-year-old railroad worker, of 1922 Blackley St. is not the kind of guy you want as a neighbor. When he discovered the 15-year-old Alaskan sled dog belonging to Mrs. Marjorie Eastin of 616 S. Encinita Ave. was ill on his lawn, he didn’t call Animal Control or ask Mrs. Eastin to come get her pet, oh no. Instead Huelsman, who told police he didn’t “like” the animal, tossed it into a tar pit at Tyler and Rio Hondo Aves. The dog was rescued by a motorist, but had to be destroyed, and now Huelsman, who pled guilty to a charge of cruelty to animals before Justice Eldred Wolford, is free on $100 bond and awaiting sentencing.

Gloria Hale’s first day on the job at the Los Angeles County Employees Cafeteria ended dramatically when she got herself locked into the second floor dining room at 224 North Main Street after closing time. She rapped on the interior door for a couple of hours before attracting attention; somebody summoned police.

Unfortunately neither of the keys obtained from the County Employees offices on Maple Street fit the locks, so Sgt. Goldsberry called the hook and ladder men, who proposed an aerial escape. A crowd gathered as the ladder was extended to the Cafeteria window. But Miss Gale wouldn’t dream of descending. If she was wearing slacks the ladder would be no bother, but, really… all those looky loos would see right up her skirt!

No problem: a fireman went down rung by rung just behind her, protecting the lady’s modesty. Miss Hale called her rescuers angels and scurried home to 953 Arapahoe Street to sleep off her embarrassment.

Max Stein may be the American Bowling Congress all-events record holder, but that hasn’t stopped Charley Bragg, president of the Los Angeles Bowling Association, from suspending Stein’s membership.

The trouble started during the recent $10,000 tournament at Hollywood’s Sunset Center, when Stein was found to have listed two fake (and doubtless high scoring!) names among the leaders. These names were discovered before the close of competition, and all winners were paid off.

Stein was called before L.A.B.A.’s executive committee on May 28 based on a complaint filed by the tournament’s sponsor, Mort Luby. Luby is publisher of The National Bowler’s Journal and Billiard Review. During the hearing, Stein admitted inserting the fictitious names. The transcripts are being forwarded to the A.B.C.’s head offices in Milwaukee for a final ruling on Stein’s status. Stein himself is en route to St. Louis, and plans to drop in on the A.B.C.’s leaders to discuss his case.

The Belleville, Illinois-bred Stein settled in Los Angeles in 1939, and has been employed as an instructor at the Sunset Center alleys. His lifetime average in 1939 was 202, and he averaged 231 when he set the all-time high score record for nine games in 1937. Reporting on his astonishing 855 series rolled at Pico Palace in October 1939 (the second highest score in forty years of A.B.C. record keeping), the Times dubbed him “the sensational Jewish kegler.”

The sensational Mr. Stein seems to have felt he was too good a bowler to be limited to a single prize package. We’ll have to wait and see if the bosses of bowldom agree.