Category: Kim Cooper

Larry Harnisch blogs the big bad Wolfe book

When Nathan and I spoke with Donald H. Wolfe, author of “The Black Dahlia Files,” at a book signing recently, we brought visual aids with which to draw his attention to his plagiarism of our colleague Larry Harnisch’s L.A. Times Dahlia article and website. (The entirety of page 295 is Larry’s writing, improperly credited to John Douglas.)

Mr. Wolfe seemed flabbergasted, said he had paid Douglas’ publishers to use the quotes, and promised he would check into the matter, and apologize if he’d made a mistake. While Larry waits for that apology, he’s holding his nose and reading Wolfe’s daffy tome, and blogging his reactions. Only on page 6, he’s already gone debunked the claims that there was no nightlife in 1947 L.A., that the Examiner printed a huge-selling extra on the day of the Dahlia killing, and Wolfe’s absurd claims of having been “raised on the wrong side of the tracks in Beverly Hills.”

Larry warns “if you’re not into Dahlia minutiae this will be painfully tedious.” Tune in and see for yourself.

Bombs Away!

February 5, 1947
Burbank

The war came home to the Valley today when an A-26 bomber conducting airflow tests accidentally disgorged an unarmed 12′ missile, which crashed to the ground in a parking lot uncomfortably close to a home at 1730 Keeler Street.

Worried neighbors circled warily until Burbank Police Lt. K.K. Kipers determined the torpedo posed no danger to the public. The plane meanwhile had continued to a rushed landing at Murac Army Air Base, pilot Captain S. D. McFadden complaining of ill-handling after a dive, but not realizing he’d dropped anything.
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Culver City Copy Cat

February 4, 1947
Culver City

Miss Isabel Foster feels lucky to be alive tonight after being accosted by a man in a 1940 sedan while she was waiting for a bus at West Adams and Redondo Blvd. He asked if she needed a ride, and when she demurred showed a butcher knife and demanded she climb into the passenger seat. Terrified, she complied.

“Where’dya live?”
“3-3-3-3895 M-m-m-main Street.”
“Stop blubbering!”
“I… can’t…”
“Shut up, or I’ll give you what I gave the Black Dahlia!” And with that he cut her across the knuckles. The man drove closer to Isabel’s home. When they were a block away, she opened the passenger door and ran.

Her attacker is described as, slim, dark skinned, late 20s, about 5’8″, wearing dark work clothes and a “ridiculous” stocking cap.

And in mid-city Hermenegildo G. Robles Jr., 25, shot his estranged, pregnant wife Guillermina in her mother’s house, goes to church and inflicted on non-fatal wound on himself.

Who Killed Elizabeth Short?

February 3, 1947
Los Angeles

More than two weeks after the body of Elizabeth Short, 22, a Massachusetts-born transient, was discovered cut into two halves in the weeds in a Leimert Park lot, homicide detectives continued beating the pavement seeking clues to the baffling and gruesome crime.

On the town’s west side, a search was on for a young blond man seen driving an unlicensed coupe with a stained blanket on the passenger seat, as well as for another vehicle possibly seen pulling away from the Norton Avenue crime scene.

Acting on reports that the victim had used candle wax to fill untreated dental cavities, and noting the presence of two votive candles in her checked luggage, detectives inquired with the bathroom attendant at the Biltmore to discover if anyone had seen Short tending to her teeth there on January 9. No one had.

Most pressing was the need to find the murder site, which was perhaps a private home located some distance from its neighbors… or maybe a trailer, one of hundreds being used as homes in the overpopulated city. And if it was a trailer, what’s to say the fiend hadn’t already moved away in it, taking the evidence and his wickedness far from the men of law who seek him?

Two questions remain in the forefront of every L.A. cop’s mind, and those of the citizenry: who killed Elizabeth Short, and would he strike again?

Fink Alert

February 2, 1947
Los Angeles

The Better Business Bureau has issued a public service warning about three bold swindles perpetrated against city residents in the past week.

BEWARE: the door-to-door baby shoe bronzer, who will disappear with mama’s deposit and baby’s footwear, never to be seen again…

DON’T PAY: the frantic “exterminator” who rushes into a business with a sack of “the DDT the boss ordered,” demands prompt payment, and flees, leaving his hapless victim with a sack of ordinary flour…

AND TURN AWAY: the seller of off-brand vacuum cleaners, which are often not just unfamilar, but second-hand and overpriced.
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A letter to the editor

Dear Editor of the Woburn (MA) Advocate:

As one of three (not two) hosts of the 1947project Crime Bus Tour savaged by Jon Hartmere in your pages recently, I’d like to ask why he felt compelled to so thoroughly fictionalize his experience while maintaining the pretense of reportage? The tour guides were myself (Kim Cooper), Nathan Marsak and Larry Harnisch, and we have the reasonable expectation that anyone who rides along on our tour with the intent of reporting on it would call us by name, and not conflate the three of us into “Ned and Jane.” The L.A. Times, Fox News and CBS News reporters on the bus all followed that basic journalistic rule.

Perhaps his last minute gift of the seat (on the weekend’s second sold-out bus) precluded his doing any research. Had he made a cursory web search, he would have discovered that the Crime Bus was developed by the bloggers at 1947project, a popular website that revives forgotten L.A. crimes of that year and pays visits to their scenes today, with side trips into subjects of historic preservation, local weirdness and yes, neon signage. These subjects are all familiar to and enjoyed by our readers, and the other passengers on Jon’s bus are already clamoring to attend the next tour.

The 1947project Crime Bus Tour exists for a very different audience than your reporter. Our riders know who James Ellroy is, are excited to explore unfamiliar neighborhoods, and could care less about visiting a recent, familiar crime scene like O.J. Simpson’s or the Menendez Brothers’. We wish he had asked a few questions before accepting the extra seat his friends offered, because there were a dozen people on the waiting list who would have loved to have his spot.

SCREEEEEEEE–CRASH!

February 1, 1947
Downtown

Tearing down Bixel Street towards Seventh came death in the shape of two teenage boys in a Jeep. Richard McCrary, 16, 1317 Connecticut Street, missed his turn and careened into a fire hydrant, then two pedestrians. Water gushed out over Cornelius Enright, 50, of 121 Manhattan Place and Camille Tendeza, 61.

Enright died at the scene, while Camille was rushed to Georgia Street Receiving Hospital in critical condition with head injuries and possible chest fractures. McCrary and his passenger, 15-year-old Fred Landerstein of 1260 Miramar Street, were unhurt.

Recipe for Marital Success

January 30, 1947
Hollywood
Get miffy at tennis pro hubby when a lady tennis player calls to suggest they team up in a tournament match, cry as he splits for the L.A. Tennis Club, drink a shot of iodine, follow it up with an antidote of flour and eggs, then telephone sweetums to tell ‘im what you’ve done. He’ll race home and speed your upsy tummy to Hollywood Receiving Hospital for emergency treatment. Game, set and match to wifeypoo.

This is the scenario played out in the third week of marriage by tennis star Tom Falkenburg and his 21-year-old model bride, Bernice Allred Falkenberg, in their home at 523 N. Cahuenga. BTW, fellas, it’s a big red flag when your sweetie doesn’t just try to poison herself, but administers her own antidote!

Watch Tom’s sister Jinx with Rita Hayworth in Cover Girl.