Warning this episode contains details that some listeners may find disturbing. Hollywood. The Land of Dreams A place where stars are born and fortunes are made. But underneath the glamor and the glitz, there's a darker side. Tonight we step into the shadows of the town's past. Where secrets fester. And whispers of murder linger in the smoky air. Three unsolved cases, three lives cut short. Fame and fortune couldn't save them. And the truth. Well, my friends, it's still hiding in the shadows.
This is a study of strange. Welcome back to the show. I'm Michael, and today I'm joined by Brea Grant, who is a filmmaker, a writer and author. An actor. You do so many things. Yeah. When people say it like that, I feel like it's too many. It's true. But don't we all? You do too. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And when people say it back to me, you're right. People are like, oh, do you want this or this? I'm like, what am I really? Oh, wow. That's that's quite a bit.
no. I'm always impressed with how much you do and, and everything you do. And I even looked up because I, you know, I try to be a good host. So I did a little research, and I didn't realize how much you actually write. Like you have a graphic novel recently. Is that right? yeah. Well, a few years ago, I wrote a graphic novel. I've written a few graphic novels and comics, but the last one was called Mary, which is like, a graphic novel about the fictional descendant of Mary Shelley.
So who who operates and helps monsters. So that's like my the last one I did. Yeah. Yes. Okay. I do know that one. So that's great. Well, thank you so much for being on the show. I really appreciate it. And today we're going to dive into some some Hollywood unsolved murders. And so I wanted a filmmaker like yourself. Do you. I mean you make horror movies, but do you consume anything like true crime or just strange anything of high strangeness at all? Yeah. For sure.
I mean, I think that's part of being in the horror world is that you sort of encounter these stories of the paranormal or high strangeness or true crime, like, I think that kind of like there's a Venn diagram there where we do some crossover, and then I think there's a Venn diagram as a woman where you consume true crime. I don't know why we're all obsessed with true crime, but we do, seem to be drawn to it. Yes, yes, yes. Well, I hope you like these stories. You may know of a few of them.
I mean, I like I'm not just going to list them out. I'll sort of bring them up one by one as we go through it. And in the past, I had a previous episode a year or two ago called The Murder in Greystone Manor, which is a giant mansion in Beverly Hills. It is a park now. Have you ever been to Greystone? I actually haven't, but I know where it is. It's worth going. And you can hike the hike, the sort of property and stuff. And it's beautiful.
but there was a murder there, and I and I covered that in a previous episode, and I just love Hollywood history, and I love anything that makes me think of noir movies. Yeah. And I really enjoyed that episode. A lot of people did. So I started keeping a list of some other, like Los Angeles tales that I wanted to do, and I couldn't decide on one. So I picked three today, and and that's the way it goes. So I will dive in. The first story we're doing today is about Selma Todd.
Does that name sound familiar to you? It does not. Okay, so Selma Todd was known as the ice cream blond or the hot toddy was another nickname she had. She was a successful actress in the 20s and 30s and also an entrepreneur. And this case of her her death is it contributed to the narrative that glitzy, glamorous Hollywood is also a home to seedy sayings and bad morals and bad character. The kind of things. Very cool.
Hollywood Babylon. Exactly. And it's still I mean, people still say it about Hollywood, if especially back then, because there was a connection to the mob when the movie industry started and illegal drugs and alcohol and stuff. Now you're a filmmaker, you're in LA, correct? Are you out partying every night till all hours? And are you like holding card games with gangsters and stuff and in your back room and things, you know, I can only dream that I was that I had a back room.
I wish I had a back room and that. No. Definitely not. I'm in bed by 10 p.m. every night. All right. Nice. Nice. Me too. Easily. So, Yeah. I'm not. I'm not a fun person, but. Selma. Selma was fun. So let me tell you a little bit about Selma. So, Selma. Alice Todd was born on July 29th, 1906, in Massachusetts, and she lived the dream. She was a small town girl who made it all the way to becoming a Hollywood star.
After being a beauty queen, she transitioned into acting, and by the 20s, she had become one of the most beloved comedic actresses in Hollywood and even transitioned from the silent pictures to the talkies, which not all the actors back then were successful left, and she starred alongside legends like the Marx Brothers and Laurel and Hardy and Charles Chase.
But Todd harbored impressive ambitions beyond acting, and she wanted to be a businesswoman, and she co-owned Thelma Todd's Sidewalk Cafe, a popular hot spot on the Pacific Coast Highway in the Pacific Palisades, right near the Growingly posh neighborhood of Malibu, and the restaurant opened in 1934. The building is still there. It's actually a pretty, pretty cool building you've probably driven by. Her business partners were director Roland West and actor Jewel Carmen, who is West's wife.
And this is a peculiar partnership because Todd had a not so secret romantic relationship with Roland West and yeah, oh yeah, and Thelma Todd lived in an apartment above the cafe, which she also shared with West. But West and Carmen also owned a home up the cliffside right above the restaurant, which could be accessed by a steep set of stairs that is also still there. So that's pretty funny. Wow. I feel like this steep set of stairs is going to come back into play.
Yeah, a little bit, a little bit. All right. Yeah. Good. Good thinking. And it was here in the garage of that home at approximately 10 a.m. on December 16th, 1935, that Thelma Todd's body was discovered in her car in Lincoln, Fayette. Tim. She was found slumped over the steering wheel, still wearing the same evening gown she had worn to a party two nights earlier. Some accounts say that she had bruises and a broken nose in the initial ruling, however, was carbon monoxide poisoning. Yes, yes.
So that is how she's found it in like a maid, I think, at the maid founder in there. So any initial questions? Because I'm going kind of quick. no. So she was out partying. They know she was out the night before. They, they some people saw her. Yep. Yep. People saw a lot of people did. It was a party thrown for her at the Trocadero Club and that building. I love Hollywood, so, like, all these places are still around, which is always fascinating. And was he there, Roland or the wife?
Oh, no. So they were home. The Roland was was in the apartment and his wife, I believe, was in the house, at the time. And neither one of them were at the party that he did. Does the wife know that he has this has this ongoing affair? That is. That's a good question. I think so, because it seemed to be just kind of a common knowledge. So that relationship, you know, back then they didn't talk a lot about this kind of stuff publicly at least, or this know what they were doing it.
That's okay to okay, it's Hollywood, it's Hollywood, Hollywood days and 30s and people are partying. yeah. But I think she I think the wife knew and and was probably okay with it in some fashion. So. But that that's a great question. So I'll back up here a little bit. So on. She was found on Monday the 16th. but Saturday night, the previous Saturday night she went to a party at Cafe Trocadero, like I said, and West didn't attend.
And around 3 a.m. Sunday morning, she was driven home by her chauffeur and a guy named Ernest Peters, and he dropped her off at the cafe, not at the the the house up on the hill, but at the cafe. And that was the last time anybody saw her. At least you're publicly admitted to seeing her. He did say she was in good spirits. She had a good time at the party. So people that think it could have been suicide because the car, it was car was running and, you know, the garage was closed. And.
That's right. Lewis is 68. That's a tough one. Yeah. And so there are people that think she committed suicide, but people saying she was in great spirits. There's no reason why she would have done that. And so there's a myriad of theories. And just today, because I'm covering a lot of stories, I won't go into everything. But just to kind of cover the bases here, it could have been an accident.
One of the most simple theories out there is that after a night of drinking and partying, she came home, but she was locked out of the apartment and to keep warm because it was December. And even though it's LA, it does get cold. And it was very cold. That evening she went up those steep set of stairs, garage, opened it, got in her car and turned it on to keep herself warm, not thinking, oh, this isn't good to be breathing car fumes all night long. But but we all know that.
We know that you shouldn't do that. Yeah, and she was. She was a smart woman. Like she's not. I don't think she's a dummy. So I think she would have known that. but that is, that is one of the series. again, a I mentioned it a second ago, but suicide is a theory that she did it on purpose, but there's not really anything to back that up. No note, anything like that.
One of the series, and this connects to a lot of things, is that the mob was involved, and they set it up to look like some kind of accident or suicide. And that is because she did have some connections to the mob. Her first husband, Pat DiCicco, Chicago. I don't know what to say. His name, was an abusive partner, and he had ties to Lucky Luciano, a very famous gangster from back then. I keep wanting to drift into, like, old timey radio guy. Like, oh, yeah, it makes. Yeah, yeah.
And, so there are some ties to the mob. Apparently someone asked her to get involved with some, like, gambling ring using her cafe, and she declined. And so they could have been taking out that they didn't like that. They didn't like that. Okay. also, Roland West is, you know, the the first suspect to come to mind her, her business partner and boyfriend. And he could have been mad that she was still wanted to party
and meet other people. And, you know, there's a variety of reasons someone can get mad at their partner. And he locked her in the garage. That night, upset that she came home late and and there you go. also, Selma's mother comes up, and a lot of these potential suspects, she was the inheritor of her daughter's estate. I don't know if inheritor is a legal term, but I like it. Yeah, and there's little evidence to suggest that she was involved.
But some speculate the possibility that there's a financial motive there. Some are brought up the chauffeur, but there's not really any reason for him to try to trick or lock her in the garage. She didn't get anything out of it. And I will, one of my favorite things to do on the show is I like to clarify things that get mixed up in all these stories as they spread. And one of the things that comes up is the Roland West. And he he wanted her dead and he contributed to it, and he killed her.
And it's obviously murder and not an accident because she had bruises and broken nose. And some accounts say that there was blood in the car. None of that's actually true. She didn't have bruises. She didn't have a broken nose. There was no blood in the car. And it's one of those things that's been kind of like lost to time. And also tabloids, people were making up stuff when this happened, and that's where kind of rumors spread. She did have a key to her apartment, by the way.
So the idea that she got locked out is a little weird. However, Roland West did say that the side door, which is where a key would have gotten her in. He had bolted it that night thinking she was already home and didn't realize she was still out. Okay, so maybe she couldn't get in. Maybe she couldn't get in. Yeah, here's the. To me, the strangest thing about this whole case is when they did an autopsy, she had food in her system that was not served at the party.
Oh. So where did she get that food? Was she somewhere Sunday before she got in that garage? Did she meet up with somebody or something? Like that? And that? That's when the chauffeur dropped her off. At what time? so they left the party at 3 a.m.. So I'm going to guess 330, something like that. And her body was found on the next morning at 10 a.m.. So, so over 24 hours later. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Interesting. Interesting indeed. And it is still it is still a mystery. Here we are.
What is this 99 years later. Thereabouts. Yeah. Yeah. And we and no one no one was arrested. No one was. No one was arrested. No one was tried. I all the suspects the police looked into or ones I kind of talked about here today, specifically like Roland West and his wife and all those kind of folks and the chauffeur. But yeah, it's just been a big mystery. And it could I like simple explanations. So very much like Sherlock Holmes. I like simple things.
And and I do think it's possible that it was an accident. And perhaps she is aware that carbon monoxide or, you know, the exhaust from a car will kill you. But perhaps she did get locked out, wandered up the steps, but maybe she was really drunk. It just kind of fell asleep. Yeah, that's a good point. I mean, yeah, don't don't underestimate where she's like, I'm just going to warm up for a minute and then pass on the car. Yeah, I'm going to warm up at Silverstone.
Comes up and I'm going to bang on the door. And that you know what? That brings up another question I had thought about. If she couldn't get in, why not? Just like bang. Really? Like wake up Roland inside. Like, yeah, you know. Yeah. Which makes me think him. Yeah. That she did do that. And he was trying to kill her. Yeah. That makes me think of that. Something. Something, something bad happened. Yeah. Me too. Me too. well, I wish I could solve it on the show.
That would be groundbreaking for a study of strange, but I can't. I cannot solve any of these. And our next story. That's not your goal here. You're not trying to solve. I mean, I wish, but, you know, I can only do so much. I only have so much time to do everything. but, you know the mystery. I love mystery, so I love sharing these things because the mystery has a previous guest of mine. I said the mystery is what drives us. And it is very true.
Yeah. And also, I think this is the thing I think about true crime is that it's so close to us and it's like, that could be I mean, not at this point in my life, but it could have been me when I was younger, you know? And like, how do I avoid being the woman in the car? Yeah. That they find two days later, like, make sure this is why you text your friends on your way home, you know? Yeah. Text your friends, tell them you got home safe and then.
Not that she could have done that, but no, no. But, you know, in the modern age, we do have those conveniences, and that is smart. Even if you're not, you know, a big Hollywood actress just to like, if you're out late, text somebody, text her friends, text your family, whatever. Keep it cool. You can't get into the apartment and they'll say, don't turn on the car in the garage. Yeah, exactly. Don't don't do that ever. You can do it. And also, it's not that cold in LA. You'll be okay.
Yeah. You're going to survive the night. You may be a little uncomfortable, but you will survive. All right, so the next story happened, about 13 years prior to that. This is the death of William Desmond Taylor, a very famous director from the silent era. This case is, you know, I try to find stories that aren't always covered and podcast and shows he's is covered a lot, but it is it's an interesting one.
And because I was kind of stuck on this era, I kind of stuck, to his story and tell me what he directed. Okay. Lots of stuff. I literally I can't think of anything off the top of my head. I apologize, but it was the silent era. So he directed probably like a hundred movies because they were pumping them out like crazy. but yeah, he he directed an untold amount, and he would have been the equivalent of, like, one of the big guys today. It would have been like Chris Nolan or somebody like that.
Like he was very prolific for the time and very well known for a director. And that's back when most directors weren't super well known, and he was one of those celebrity directors. And so his death is I'll just come out right upfront and say it's definitely a murder. So and it's definitely unsolved in this happened on the night of February 1st, 1922. So let me let me fill you in here. William Desmond Taylor was no ordinary figure in Hollywood. He was born. I just love this name.
Born William Cunningham Dean Tanner in Ireland in 1872, and he transformed himself from a struggling actor to a highly respected director in the burgeoning film industry. And by the 20s he had worked in over 60 films and was at the height of his career, and on the surface, Taylor appeared to be a man in control of his destiny. He was wealthy, he was respected, he was powerful, he had connections with all the big stars of the day.
But beneath the glittering surface, as I wrote now, now I feel like that was a little dorky of a sentence. But that's all right. Yeah. he had some secrets. And those secrets would become key to understanding the circumstances of his death, at least in so much as we can. On February 1st, 1922, he lived in a modest but upscale bungalow at the Alvarado Court Apartments in Westlake of Los Angeles. Oh, yeah, and from where I lived. Ooh. All right. I wonder if the building's still there.
I don't normally look that up, and I didn't look that up. At approximately 7:30 p.m., neighbors reported hearing what sounded like a gunshot coming from his residence. But no one paid much mind, you know, because it's L.A. and it's a city and stuff. the following morning, Taylor's valet, Henry Peavey, arrived at the bungalow to find his employer lying dead on the floor. People have valets and chauffeurs. I mean, was that just the era or.
I think it's a little bit of the era, and also both of our honestly, everybody, we're going to talk about today had money. So, Yeah. Yeah. Driving. No, no, I don't think a lot of people knew how to drive back then. Cars were still relatively young. Yeah. Okay. All right. So. So anyway, word spread fast. Right after Henry Peavy, the valet, found dead William Desmond Taylor on the floor of his apartment. And soon people were visiting the crime scene.
When I say people, I mean other actors, because he was well known. So they all kind of rushed over and word spread fast. And these are people that showed up before the police. And one of these people was assumed to be a doctor who looked at the body and proclaimed Taylor to have died naturally. But by the time police showed up, they turned over his body and found a gunshot wound to his back. So there you go.
And the investigation into his death revealed far more than just the details of the crime. It exposed a world of secrets, scandals and shadowy figures behind Hollywood's golden age. Yes. So, yeah, let me let me give you a little more information here. So Taylor had been involved, and I don't mean that romantically necessarily, but he had close relationships with two famous actresses, Mary Miles Minter, one of the greatest names of all time.
Great name, and Mabel Normand and Mary Miles Minter was a former child star. She was still very young. I think she was in her late teens, I think when this happened and she had been been one of Taylor's proteges, she had openly professed her love for the director. She was very obsessed with him.
They found love letters to him after he died from Mary Miles Minter, and her mother, Charlotte Shelby was fiercely protective of her daughter and did not approve of her feelings toward Taylor, and she she the mother quickly became a suspect as rumors swirled that she had means and motive and opportunity to kill William Desmond Taylor.
Because of this fear of a relationship with her daughter Emma, Mabel Normand was a comedic actress, very famous, and she had a very close friendship with Taylor, and she was one of the last people to see him alive that we know of. She was at his house just hours before he would have. He would have died, but she had left, and she apparently did have, what is it called?
when you have people with you, witnesses, when a crime happens, whatever that word is, I'm sure listeners know exactly what I mean and are mad at me for forgetting for anything. Anyway, that makes me feel better. I'm glad you get to get the word. It'll come to us in, like, five minutes. That'll shout it out. alibi? Yeah, we did it. We did it. So it was also found out that Taylor had a previous family in a previous life. This is some of those dark secrets of Hollywood.
Yeah. He was living on the East Coast, and he had a wife and daughter. And literally one day he just disappeared. Like they couldn't find him do that. Back then, you could just up and go up and go and no one would know where you went. Absolutely. And that's exactly what happened. And it was years later that his his wife, actually, I don't know if you call her ex because I guess you can't officially get a divorce, but his. I'll just call her ex for simplicity's sake.
She I think even like, talk to the authorities to get him to be declared dead because she really had no. What, like she literally thought he was gone and dead, right? Right. Sure. And then she found him because of the movies. Like she saw him in a movie and was like, oh, that's. Oh my. You imagine? Can you imagine as you're like, this deadbeat left and then you see him in a movie? I'll tell you what, I'd be getting on a I'd be getting on a train cross-country.
I'd call my chauffeur. Yeah, go cross-country and find him. Find that man. Absolute Lee. yeah. It'd be such a mix of emotions because I'd be so mad. Yeah, but then also just kind of confused and bewildered and also, like, probably a little bit like, if there's a guy that would do it or any person that would do that to a family, part of me would be like kind of happy that it's just like, I'd like it to be such a mix.
Anyway, tangent aside, Taylor's murder gave rise to numerous theories, and as you can imagine, especially from our previous story, the, you know, gossip columns of the day went crazy. So it's hard this to kind of go through that and figure out what's real and what's not. But I already talked about Charlotte Shelby, Mary Myles mother. That's a potential suspect. Mabel Normand as I mentioned, was a suspect because they were friends, but because they were friends. And she had seen him that night.
And I think she also had ties to, like, drug cartels and all those, again, seedy underbelly of Hollywood back then, but they couldn't ever connect to it. Henry Peavy, the valet, was also a suspect that they looked into because he found the body and he I think he had a criminal background. And so police looked into him, but they couldn't really figure out a motive for it. Other series without much specifics.
It's just that he had some kind of lover's quarrel and someone was jealous and in after him in the room, and they don't know who he was seeing or dating. No, no. And that that. Right. And these women don't know who he's seeing or dating. They're not that good of really not that good as romance. And also I think it's again, it's hard to kind of flesh out what's real because I did read and I didn't even write them all down just because today I'm doing three stories instead of one.
Normally I go a little bit deeper dive, but it's so hard to figure out what's real and what's just a rumor that I was like, I'm just going to focus on, like the vague lover lover's quarrel thing, because there's aren't there isn't evidence about any of the other people that typically come up in these stories.
The the interesting thing to me in this and one of the thing that makes it kind of strange, scary even a little bit, is that I'm sure you're aware back then in the studio system, the studios at the time had fixers and they would try to control narratives when actresses got pregnant or someone got in a drunk driving accident.
And there are stories that came out later from some of the investigators that worked on this case, that claim that they got calls from the studios and said, lay off, don't look into this anymore. Let it go. And that, to me is like the most interesting aspect of this story. there are some amazing if anybody's interested in this. There are other podcast and stories and books and articles about this.
There's plenty of information out there that you can look into, because there are people that came forward decades later and we're like, man, I killed him. Multiple people. I happened like 2 or 3 times. And it's like people in like the 1980s when they're really old and they're like, oh, right, William Desmond Taylor, I killed him. But it's like it's probably people going a bit senile. Like none of it actually seems to a lot of people who are like, on the Lindbergh baby.
Exactly. Yeah. That's a great that's a great point. Great talent to that. and much, much like Thelma Todd story, we've never figured this one out, and we probably never will. It's been 100 years now. which is so crazy to think about. And, so how do you how do you solve a case from back then? It's so tough. Yeah, unless one of those people really did do it. But did they have the people who came forward? Did they have reasoning or motive or anything? No. They were just like, I did it.
They just wanted attention. Yeah. It's interesting and it's interesting that, I mean, I don't feel like we're back there with Hollywood, but I do feel like there are things that studios and, and companies try to, you know. Yeah. Like, what is like shove under the rug a little bit, you know, like they're like, but like, oh, let's not get into this. Because when someone is making a lot of money for you and you are like, oh, the person who killed this man makes a lot of money for us.
We don't want this person going away because they're paying all of our bills. So it is interesting for these murders because then you're like, not only like, do you find that it obviously involves not only him, but maybe somebody else that is. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
You made me think of like the influencer world where there's not necessarily a studio, but there's like the ones that get really big, almost have their own studios, and you can imagine them having like, lawyers and people trying to be like, oh, wouldn't you, you know, when you were found, I don't know why I'm going to like drunk driving accident, but I feel like that's something. And they try to like change the narrative and stuff.
But yeah, and I think these days it's much harder to hide that kind of stuff. You can't have a family on the East Coast and live on the West Coast like it would be. It would be too hard if there was a politician just like a decade or 15 years ago. It was one of the Democrats. It he was running to be president. Never got that far in the primary. What I know her family. Yeah. Yeah. Which is like why would you choose like what? The narcissism on you. Oh, you know what I mean. Like the ad.
Yeah. How are you going to get away with that in politics? Like in politics you don't think people are looking. Yeah I do you remember this? Yeah I say I do, I can, I can see it was like in a presidential election. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I think it's from South Carolina in North Carolina somewhere like that. And, and a lot of people were like, oh, he's the good looking one and whatever. And I, I cannot think of his name. Is that. Yeah. Okay. Yeah.
Anyway, so I'll move on and go to, a case that I have been this is going to sound it is the wrong word. But I have been intimately involved in, this is Georgette Bauer. Dorf, have you heard that name before? No. Okay, so Georgette Bauer Dorf is, a case of murder that sometimes gets lumped in with the Black Dahlia. Because it happened around the same time. And, you know, people love to speculate about the Black Dahlia murder.
And Georgette Baldauf gets lumped in as like, oh, it's the same killer sometimes. And so her name will come up. It's I was involved with it because I did an episode of one of my TV shows autobiography, Cold Cases, about the Georgette Bauer Dorf case, because there's a car involved. And it was it was an automotive show. and it's on HBO Max right now. So everybody check that that chill out. You can see this episode.
You can see me wandering the streets of LA at night with moody, great cinematography. and because it was Covid, we couldn't really talk to anybody. So we were just wandering around with music and chatting to ourselves. But, Georgette Bauer Dorf is a case that it's. It's just a fascinating, fascinating case. And unlike the other two people that I've covered tonight, she was not a movie star. She was not famous by any means, but she was a wealthy heiress.
Her father had a lot of money from the oil business. She had grown up traveling the world, and she lived in Los Angeles in a very elegant, expensive apartment for the time. And. Yeah. So let me let me fill you in with more specific. I'm just rambling right now. I should look at my notes so I can actually do this. Well, so you're doing great. Thank you. It's October 1944 and World War two is raging on.
And while many people are focused on what's going on overseas in the war, Los Angeles is buzzing in its own way because the city had a growth spurt of sorts during this time period. And Georgette Bauer Dorff, she was a 20 year old socialite. And like I said before, she's traveled the world. She's living in luxury. And she was living at the El Palacio Apartments on Fountain Avenue in West Hollywood. It's still there, isn't it? Yeah, and it's right at, La Cienega and Fountain.
It's right on the north east corner. Oh, I know where that is. Yeah. Yes. So you've probably been by it a million times, and I had to go film in front of the building and stuff. It's it's a beautiful building, and I'm so glad they haven't gotten rid of it because it has that old, you know, la when, when architecture actually had to design in LA. It was fantastic.
Georgette was a volunteer hostess at the Hollywood Canteen, which was a nightclub for servicemen, and it served millions of people in the military during the war. It was always free for servicemen. It had food and drinks, it it live bands, and it was started by a lot of the movie stars back then were this was their way to contribute to the war effort, and Georgette valued and enjoyed her time helping there.
She would write letters about missing it when she was away, even though she complained that the men there could be jerks. that coming aside, she was always willing to help, people in the military out. She would take them out for lunches after she met them at the club. She would even invite some back to her place in a very innocent way, at least that we're aware of, to give them, like, a couch to sleep on that kind of thing. That's nice.
And on October 11th, Georgette was last seen leaving the Hollywood Canteen around 11:30 p.m. she was driving in her black 1936 Oates Mobile coupe, and she was headed home to her apartment, and on the way back, she picked up a hitchhiker, a Army gentleman named Gordon Edlund. And I was going to say, why did you do that? But I guess because she had a soft spot. Yeah. And you see a lot of army and stuff out and whatever. and this was on sunset that she picked him up and he wasn't going very far.
Doesn't make it better. No, I don't know why you're acting like that. It was on. So no sunset. That's the last place you should pick somebody. I was just a strip. It's no big deal. And, so he wasn't going very far. He got a ride to meet up with his brother, who was a bartender at a nightclub, and she dropped him off and then went home. And whether she went straight there or not, we don't know. But she did drop off, had land, and then drove a short distance back to her apartment at some point.
And in case it's important, I will clarify right away. Adalind, called the authorities when he found out that she was murdered. He had been that that morning. He was being sent to a post in Alaska, I think, for the war. And I will also say he had tons of of alibis. Now that we know that word. Yes. His brother, his sister, he had family like he was staying with family. So he's very much covered. And he wanted to make sure that the police knew all the information he had on her.
He didn't know her name, but like he recognized it in the newspaper and stuff. And he did mention that she spoke about her boyfriend a lot in the ride home. Maybe that's just the way to, like, protect yourself from a random guy in the car. and she mentioned she was going straight home because she was expecting a message from him that night, though around midnight, the janitor who had an apartment in the same building near Georgette, heard footsteps in what would be Georgette Kitchen.
Around 2:30 a.m., a neighbor heard a woman's screams. Stop, stop! You're killing me! That morning, the maid, the janitor, and their daughter, they're married. As a family that worked in the building. They arrived at the apartment around 11 a.m. and they found the front door slightly open. So they entered. They heard water running upstairs. The maid went up to investigate, and seconds later she called her husband that someone was in the bathroom.
He ran up and they found Georgette body in the bathtub. Lying face down. They stopped the water, drain the tub thinking she might still be alive, but Georgette was dead. Cloth was found in her mouth and she had basically choked. Choked to death. Yes. So questions thus far. Well, the door was open. The front door was open. Front door is ajar. Yeah. Okay. All right. That's that's confusing, but okay. Yeah. So front door is left open. And I will say that the janitor made it.
The whole family that lived and worked there, that was part of, like, living in the fancy apartment building as you had made service and janitorial service. So they weren't going to clean her apartment. And they even said they were supposed to be there like an hour earlier, but they were delayed for reasons that I don't remember, like they were in another apartment or whatever. So, Inspector, oh, this is what I was going to have you read. Oh, okay. let me let me email this to you.
That's exciting. Radio right here. So I'm going to have you read, a quote from Inspector William pin pin praise pin phrase. who worked on the case and. Yeah, when you're ready, you're going to read it. Okay. I went to the bathroom, which was on the second floor, and I found the dead body of the victim in the bathtub, and her face was lying on the bottom of the tub straight down, and the body kind of lying on the left side. There was no water in the tub at the time.
She had the upper part of a pajama suit on pajama suit. I went to the bedroom then, and the bed didn't seem to be messed up. There were two sheets lying on the bed that hadn't been disturbed, but the blanket had been thrown back, and there was an indentation in the pillow and looked as if somebody had been lying on the bed on the two sheets and covered by the blanket. On the on the bedroom floor was a blood spot between the bed and door leading to the bathroom.
There was a blood spot there, and there was discoloration around the blood spot and I felt it and it was wet. That is, the carpet was wet all around it. That is indications of somebody had having tried to use a wet towel to rub it out. Her pocketbook was there was lying on the floor alongside the bed between the bed and the door leading to the bathroom. There was quite a bit of jewelry on the dresser, which looked like it had been untouched. Very valuable jewelry, watches.
There were a couple of ashtrays there on the floor, and they hadn't been turned over, and they still had cigaret cigaret butts in them. Yes, cigaret butts multiple by multiple. Multiple. No. Oh well, just it was the same type of cigaret, if I remember correctly. So it could have been one person having multiple cigarets. I just remember there was a saved by the Bell episode and it wasn't a cigaret. Actually, it was a it was a drink, but that was important.
Also, maybe a clue was that important. The cigaret butts. Ooh, I think it was there. Yeah, I think so. Okay, gotta get a rewatch. That was one of my favorite movies growing up. So. Yeah, that was a little longer than I remembered. I apologize, but, you can tell that that's him talking to a reporter, because it's so just, like, rambly and very real. I like that. but some important key things to mention there is there are blood spots. There's the cigarets to me is really important.
I don't know when I research the story, it doesn't even always come up. But there's cigarets left in that ashtray. I don't think she was a big smoker when I. When I looked into her and it to me, what this is always kind of said is that someone killed her and then almost like, set around, like, what do I do?
Oh, I go, I'm gonna like I'm there's he's like, it looked like someone tried to clean up, tried to clean it, try to clean it, and kind of really like kind of worked through all their options on what they're going to do. the, the cause of death was from the, the cloth. They was ruled a strangulation and rape. Rape is his part of that because I can't remember if the, the the guy said that or not in that quote.
the cloths had a red border around it, which was described as part of a bandage used for sprains. Some people talk about, some soldiers at the time, if they worked for like, the military, like they were like the medics, they could have been carrying bandages just like that. So that's an important clue that comes up from time to time.
The most famous piece of this case, I think the first thing I ever read about this case is that the light bulb on the porch was out, but just because it was unscrewed slightly. Oh, weird. And there's been all this speculation over all the decades that the killer showed up, unscrewed the light bulb to hide themselves in the doorway. And it is an apartment building, but it's a door that opens to the outside. There's like a little a little nook to the outside, so anybody can just walk up there.
And so he could have unscrewed it to be like in the shadow when she opened the door to say, who's there? Or they did it to hide themselves from neighbors. That's also speculated, like after the death in the middle of the night when he left. I will point out, because I did so much research in this, it's you can't reach that light bulb. You would have to stand on something. Oh, weird.
And, I personally have never put a lot of stock in the light bulb saying I think it could have just been loose over time to me. I know they would have looked for fingerprints. They didn't find anything of value in that. So to me it's just it's just a weird circumstantial thing that may not have anything to do with the death. But a lot of people love to, to prophesize. That's not the right word, but there you go. but yeah, it's it's a strange aspect of the case, for sure.
The interior lights, the apartment were turned off, and it was probably on purpose because the intruder was probably trying to escape through shadows in night. He did. And obviously we're assuming a he here. because of all, all of the evidence. But he took her car. He stole her car that she would have parked on the street. And it was found days later near downtown LA. So it's miles and miles away.
And they didn't find anything in the car, like usable fingerprints, blood stains, anything like that. Today we have DNA. Oh, balloons. Oh, no. Don't happen. That's crazy. That was where we just had balloons flashed across our screen and we don't know why. especially at that moment of talking about killers. It's so weird. so today we have DNA.
And to me, the car has always been a key piece of this case that I think if this had happened today, we would have a chance to catch them, because I and the cigarets and the cigarets, all that kind of stuff, you could find them and, you know. But back then, they didn't they didn't have what we have today. And, yeah, they were never able to connect it.
I did talk to the former head of, forensics for Los Angeles County when we did the show about this, because this was under the jurisdiction of the county at the time when the murder. Now it's be like Hollywood division of LAPD. But back then, it was LA Sheriff's department, and he mentioned that they would have done they would have ran fingerprints. They would have done everything they could have done at the time on this case. And they were very good at it back then.
And they, you know, still came up empty. Yeah. And that's a bummer because it's like, yeah, you have so many things. I mean, for me, I'm like, this guy tried to clean up the blood. That makes me think of somebody who knows her. And it also her yelling, you're killing me! Sounds to me like she knows she knows him.
Yeah, yeah, because I agree, I, I don't you I don't know, but yeah, I mean I don't know what I'd yell, but I mean like, I, like I just don't I think that that's a familiar thing to say instead of, yeah. Like just screaming and. Yeah, I feel like it's a different a different kind of response. I do too, I do too, I think I think you hit a nail in the head with familiar. It's a familiar response in that situation. and then and the cleaning up of the blood feels almost like, you know, her.
You're trying to do something to, like, make, you know, make yourself feel better or make it the, you know, it's that weird thing when someone when there is like a, you know, them, they act differently when when they kill their victims. Yes. Yes. And she was she was known again the hitchhiker earlier. She she was known to help out soldiers. Give them a couch to sleep on, take them to lunch, pay for things.
So I think somebody could have shown up at her apartment that night and was like, hey, I didn't. I need some place to stay. And she let them in and they had, you know, and the guy she gave a ride to, she gave him a ride. She just gave him a ride. And again, he had, alibis and people that during the time of when the death would have actually happened, he was he was elsewhere, and she was talking about a boyfriend. So maybe she had a boyfriend. She to. And she did have a boyfriend.
So, it to me, it's very like innocent 20 year old of 1940s. She had met this guy, I think, at the canteen. I forget his name, but he lived in Texas and they did write each other. They would send each other letters and stuff, but they weren't like they had only been around each other a few times. They weren't like super, super intimate, close. But she was like, I think expecting either a call or a letter or something from him.
And again, she also was probably just laying that on because she did pick up a random dude. And so, oh, I got to get home to my boyfriend. Don't get to you. I don't think of anything nutty over there. Yeah, yeah, no, that kind of thing. now, one of the prominent theories that's been floating around is that there was a guy that she danced with at the canteen. In most accounts, you hear him called an unnamed man who was creeping her out. The truth is, we actually know the name.
It's a guy named Cosmo Volpi. Just fantastic now. And, there's, you know, all these stories that starts creeping her out. But when the police actually investigated this, they found out that she actually wanted to dance with him. So someone saw something like that, just gave them the wrong impression. And she danced with him for, like, five dances, and which is a long, too. If you're going to classify somebody, you're going to find an excuse especially. She's helping work. They're like Shirley.
She's like, oh, I've got to go back and serve the tables. You know, like there's easy outs. And she danced with them for a long time. And but he was a primary suspect for a while. But he actually had alibis as well. He had plenty of people that put him elsewhere. When the when the murder would have happened. and that's. And they never solved it. Never, never, ever solved it. And I think the, the theories that make the most sense to me are exactly what you said to me.
It sounds like somebody she knew, somebody probably showed up at her place and wanted a place to stay, and knew that she would be nice and take care of them. And, Yeah, it's just it's just really, really, really sad. Yeah. Yeah. Georgette now I mentioned earlier she does get connected to the Black Dahlia. There's been a number of books written that like say oh she was one of the victims of the Black Dahlia killer.
There's a guy that wrote a book about his I think it's his grandfather or his father, but it's the famous doctor that always gets tied to the Black Dahlia murder. I can't remember his name right now. but some claim that that doctor, that that guy that wrote the book about it claims that, Georgette was one of his, his dad, her grandfather's victims as well. And he would have known her because they were wealthy individuals in LA, that kind of thing.
And does it follow the same pattern as a Black Dahlia? No, no, no, people just like to do this truth. Okay, okay, see I see yes. Yeah, people liked it, but it not that I'm an expert by any. I'm a connoisseur of this stuff, but I'm no expert, so maybe I'm wrong, but I don't think it's the same pattern. This, to me, seems like a crime of passion. And yeah, someone showed up and it it got out of control and. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. but there you go.
I got through all of those so much faster than I thought I would, but that's always good. And I don't mind that at all. But yeah, these are these are Hollywood mysteries. And for people, if you like these kind of stories, send me a message, Instagram or a study of stranger gmail.com. Let me know because I can. I have a list of so many other like Hollywood craziness stories going on. it's just an endless amount of material and I like doing it, so lemme know.
I mean, it's fascinating. There is something about it that's just so, yeah, it's like the underbelly of the of, of the glamor. Yes. Yeah. And again, I like noir movies, so this all makes me in my head. Everything's in black and white. Yeah. And you're the detective. Yeah. I'm moody. Music. I did research, potentially to tie it in with this, but then I thought we wouldn't have enough time. But I had some more modern stories. But I'll. I'll leave those for another episode to do.
But thank you so much for doing this. Brilliant. Thank you. I really appreciate it. I always have so much fun doing this. And and I hope you had fun. Yes. Great. And what are you what's next for you? What do you want people to know about? well, people like podcasts. I have a podcast I do weekly, called Reading Glasses. It's a book podcast, and we just talk about you don't have to read a book to listen. You can just listen.
It's about we talk about everything from reviewing booklets to, new genres that are popping up to book news, too. We do all sorts of stuff. and, if people want to check anything out of mine, you and I worked on a movie together called 12 Hour Shift. That's on Hulu. If you're looking for a horror movie to watch. and if you're looking for another horror movie to watch, it is another one called Torn Hearts. And that one's on Amazon. Yeah. when did that come out?
The year after 12 hour? no. Two years. Two. Two years later. Three years later. So that's where my brain goes. Weird because in my mind, they came out back to back. No luck. I was like, now lucky came out back to back to me. They all they all kind of came out. No no no no no. I have no sense of time anymore for anything. but no, definitely check those out. I'll provide some links to some things, including the podcast and everything in the show notes of this episode. And yeah, I guess that's it.
I've got nothing else. I'm on my way to me for having me. Those are great. Thank you so much. Thanks. Thank you for listening to a study of strange. If you enjoy this type of content, please hit that subscribe button. Give us a rating and review on Apple or Spotify. It goes a long way to helping others find the podcast. If you want to support the show further and get additional content as well, check out our Substack where you can become a subscriber.
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