Category: Kim Cooper

Our friends at the LAist are blogging one of the more notorious crimes in Beverly Hills history, the mysterious Ned Doheny killing, when the son of the oil heir ended up dead steps away from his similarly gun-shot male secretary. Was it a simple murder-suicide, a lover’s quarrel, or the work of Doheny’s spurned bride? Carolyn Kellogg looks into the mussed clues and controversy, and shares an especially awful photo on the LAist flickr feed.

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

February 15, 1947
San Fernando

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.

February 14, 1947
Los Angeles

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.

February 13, 1947
Beverly Hills

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.

Larry Harnisch takes a breather from blogging the Big Bad Wolfe Book to request

a Moment of Silence, Please

Today is the anniversary of the Feb. 10, 1947, Jeanne French murder. Frequently linked to the Black Dahlia in the popular imagination and absurdly claimed as one of the umpteen victims of Dr. George “Evil Genius” Hodel in “Black Dahlia Avenger,” French was a tragic, broken-down alcoholic. Spending the last night of her life in a Westside cafe, she dumped the contents of her purse on the bar and picked through the debris in hopes of finding enough money for just one more drink. She had no paper money, nothing more than a few coins. Whoever killed her beat her with the handle of a socket wrench, pushed her out of his car into the street and stomped on her until a rib broke and punctured her heart. A bleak, terrible death.

Her son, David Wrather, told the coroner’s inquest: “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.”

February 9, 1947
Carson

Memo from Alex J. Wysocki: “if you wanna rob my liquor store, don’t start by saying ‘Hi, Pop’!”

That was the message learned the hard way by the young gunman who held Wysocki up at 21923 S. Main Street for $150 and two bottles of whiskey, then went in the back to rummage for more plunder. Meanwhile, Wysocki fumed. “Pop? Pop?!” When the kid emerged from the storeroom, Wysocki shot him four times with his .38. The robber ran off, his own gun clicking ineffectually.

A few hours later, a friend dropped the gut-shot 24-year-old Eugene L. Dodson at San Pedro Hospital. When Dodson refused to say how he’d been injured, Det. Lt. Thomas H. Rankin remembered a Sheriff’s broadcast about the hold up and booked the injured man on suspicion of robbery. He was conveyed to the prison ward of General Hospital for surgery, which is where Wysocki ID’d him as the smartass who’d called him “Pop.”

February 8, 1947
Lincoln Heights

Transient Richard Dennis, 33, broke into Mrs. G.B. Blakeley’s home at 2730 Medford Street and absconded with the one thing most appealing to a sleepy sneak thief: an alarm clock. Unfortunately, he made it no farther than the front lawn before tucking in for a nice snooze. When the alarm went off, Richard slept right through it, but neighbors copped the buzz and called police, who nabbed the man on suspicion (strong suspicion) of burglary.

February 7, 1947
West Los Angeles

Harry Crocker will be making his own breakfast if his neighbors on N. Westbourne Drive have anything to do with it. Six of them have successfully sued to have Mrs. Isabel Crocker and daughters Alicia, Jean and Muriel evicted on the grounds that the mother is 3/4 Indian and the girls half so afflicted.

Although Superior Judge Ruben S. Schmidt ruled Thursday that the women must leave their home, in a neighborhood where residence is restricted to Caucasians, the distaff Crockers vow to fight all the way to the Supreme Court, if necessary. Schmidt did grant the family thirty days in which to secure new dwellings for the those Crockers of mixed blood, noting that the Mister, a film cameraman, was welcome to remain at number 435 alone.