Category: Kim Cooper

April 6, 1947
Los Angeles

Mae Romero, 45, divorced wife of former police detective Frank Romero, and her 22-year-old daughter Mrs. Doris Burrell accepted a ride home from a party last night with Officer Horton Putman of the Highland Park Station. Mrs. Romero was still talking when the ambulance arrived at 3716 McKenzie Ave. to take her to General Hospital with a bullet wound in her chest, but her condition quickly deteriorated.

Officer Putman reported he had decided to show his gun to the lady, and it discharged. Panicking, Officer Putman tossed the gun and three live cartridges onto the front lawn, where they were recovered by investigators. Mrs. Burrell awoke to the sound of gunfire, and discovered her wounded mother in the kitchen, Officer Putman calling for aid.

Police are terming it an accidental shooting.

April 5, 1947
Frankfurt, Germany

According to Mrs. Jean McCool of the newly-incorporated American charity Orphans, Inc., 450 abandoned babies are living in terrible conditions in local orphanages where there is little or no milk, food, medicines, linens or clothes for the infants. More than half of the foundlings are the illegitimate children of American servicemen.

April 4, 1947
Los Angeles

On March 19, after his third grade classes at Allesandro School, 9-year-old Murl Duncan Cooke, Jr. failed to return to the home he shared at 2910 Gilroy Avenue with brother Newton, 10, and their widowed mother Pearl.

Since then, the boy has been sleeping rough, eating whatever people gave him. Juvenile Officers W.B. Smith and J.W. Scheck finally spotted the kid huddling in a liquor store doorway near where Beverly meets Vermont last night, and brought him into Georgia Street juvenile division for a big slice of banana cream pie and a warm cot.

Why was little Murl alone on the street? The next morning, he told officers, “I ran away once before. I didn’t go home till after 8 o’clock and I got a whippin’ for it. That’s why I didn’t want to go home this time.” He was returned to his mother’s care.

April 3, 1947
Los Angeles

Fanned by high winds, a two-alarm fire that started today on the kitchen roof of the Melody Lane Cafe (5351 Wilshire Blvd.) spread to five other businesses and did extensive damage to their second stories. Affected were the storerooms of the Pig ‘n Whistle candy and pastry shop (5353), Randall Optomotrist (5355), McKlernan’s Fashions (5357), Horton & Converse Pharmacy (5359) and Staber’s Beauty Salon (5361). Fire Captain Noble Swanson suffered back injuries and abrasions when a section of roof collapsed, and damages to McKlernan’s store alone were estimated by owner M. J. McKlernan at $30,000, despite rubber blankets laid down by firemen.

April 2, 1947
Los Angeles

Latest residents of the City Jail are two young women and four men arrested by Central Vice Squad officers in East Hollywood early today on suspicion of violating the State Narcotics Act.

Det. Sgt. J.A. DiBetta and Officers Paul Stevens and Joe Aguirre state that they observed a group inside a home at 504 N. Westmoreland Ave., among them Betty Thomas, 19, a model, who was seen injecting fluid into her arm. At this point, the officers entered the home, where they arrested Thomas, Sherry Kenton (23, phone operator, Riverside), Roman Mapili (51, 504 N. Westmoreland Ave.), Theodorico Mangosing (38, 821 Thayer Ave.), Cleto Edwarte (45, 439 N. Lake Ave.) and Felix Benigno (39, a transient). Taken into evidence were assorted narcotics and accessories, among them heroin with syrettes, amytal, nembutal and unidentified pills.

Following her arrest, Miss Kenton became hysterical, threatened suicide, and managed to slash her left wrist with her compact mirror before being restrained. Perhaps she was worried she would lose her phone operator gig if news of the arrest made the papers.

April 1, 1947
Los Angeles

Hermenegildo G. Robles Jr., 25, scion of a Mexican soap manufacturer, had recovered sufficiently today to appear at a preliminary hearing before Municipal Judge Leo Freund. Robles stands accused of a fatal assault on his pregant, estranged wife Guillermina, 26, last February 4.

His head swathed in bandages, Robles heard testimony from his mother-in-law, Mrs. Mary Doolan, 128 1/2 W. 43rd Place, who stated that she left her home for a few minutes on that date, and returned to find her daughter dead in the bedroom.

“A few minutes later some police officers came to the house and said that Hermenegildo had shot himself,” she said. “I took them into the bedroom and said, ‘He shot her, too.'”

After shooting his wife, with whom he had quarreled about money, and from whom he had been separated for two weeks, Robles boarded a streetcar outside the home, alighting at St. Agnes’ Church at the corner of Vermont and Adams. After praying, Robles stood on the steps of the church, pulled out a .32 caliber revolver, and shot himself beneath the chin.

Officers said that they had found scribbled notes in Spanish in Robles’ pockets in which he confessed to the crime and asked forgiveness. The suspect was taken to General Hospital, and on regaining consciousness arrested.

March 31, 1947
Los Angeles

The third robbery was the charm today for Sid Greenberg’s liquor store at 504 S. Hill. After two recent gunpoint withdrawals, officers William M. Tamanovitch and Clarence L. Eads agreed to hang around the back room and await further developments. Sure enough, a suspect strolled in, brandished iron, and forced Greenberg and clerk Milt Katz into the back. That’s where he ran into the officers, who came out firing. The would-be crook was transported to General Hospital in extremely poor condition, where he received the last rites. Officers noted that in addition to a realistic-looking plastic pistol, the robber had a paper bag, which might tie him to the recent spate of crimes attributed to “The Paper Bag Robber.”

March 30, 1947
Los Angeles

Career footpad Ray Mathews, 28, 417 S. Boylston St., made the mistake of plying his trade too close to home, when he was observed early today riffling the purse of his across the hall neighbor, Mrs. Harry Schwerberg.

The lady yelled, which alerted another neighbor, Kenneth Craig, who shot Mathews as he tried to flee the building. Mathews then returned to his own apartment, leaving again by way of a ladder out the window. Responding officers found the wounded man hiding in a hedge, and conveyed him to the Georgia Street Receiving Hospital, where he was booked on suspicion of robberies in San Francisco. Also taken into custody was a .45 caliber revolver, allegedly tossed aside by Mathews.

March 28, 1947
Los Angeles

When Dorothy Evelyn Burks, 25, eloped to Las Vegas with C. Earl Stoner, automobile distributor, it came as an unhappy surprise to her former admirer, Andrew Norman, 60, cosmetics manufacturer. What about the love tokens with which he had showered the young lady–the home at 348 Homewood Road, Brentwood Heights (valued at $75,000), or the square-cut emerald and diamond “engagement” ring ($25,000)?

Six months after the Burks-Stoner nuptials, the unhappy Norman brought suit against the lady, charging that her “false professions of love” made him a helpless victim of “female arts.”

Through her attorney, Hugh B. Rotchford, Mrs. Stoner denied that she was ever engaged to Norman, stated that the gifts were granted “freely and voluntarily” from “a shrewd and experienced businessman of mature years; a man of the world.” Furthermore, she noted, Norman has since confirmed her title to the Brentwood Heights home, in which she and her new husband are residing.