Thinking Sideways: Death of George Reeves

Portland at six thirty pm. Go online, look up the directions, go to our side or our Facebook and they'll be post about it and you can R s v P. But all are welcome, all ages and we will see you then. Second, hey, guys, welcome them to another episode of Thinking Sideways. The podcast I Am Devon joined this week by and Joe. Today we're going to talk about mystery that Joe petitioned really really hard to call the day Superman died. But I think we decided that was copyrighted. Yeah,

DC Comics did that in the nineties. I don't I don't know that they can actually copyright there because I mean, actually that that title was used for at least one other essay that i've that was published and copyrighted also, so it's copyrighted. So it's copyrighted and if you could use it when somebody else had already used it, then we can use it too. Well, we're gonna just call this the death of George Reeves. Yeah, much safer. This was also a listener suggestion. It was suggested by Clarissa

explains it all thanks joke about the TV show. Yeah, okay, no, that's her name. Oh yeah, just kidding. I'm sorry. I'm really sorry. You probably hate that joke, Clarissa, So thank you for suggesting this mystery. On June sixteenth, nineteen fifty nine, George Reeves died of a gunshot wound to the head between one thirty and two a m. According to the l A p. D. And, George Reeves is the first man who played Superman on television. On television, Yeah, he was.

I think he was the first motion pick. There was a motion picture before him. I thought, yeah, no, so he's the first one on television. Well, no, I thought he made it. He made the Moleman Superman movie before the TV That was basically the pilot of the TV show. Yeah, so he's saying somebody else, but that was the movie, the Superman movie. Was there another Superman movie before that one?

I think there was, because he's not. Because so the thing is is like, there's this thing that we're not actually talking about here, which is called the Curse of Superman. And I remember looking at that list and there were people listed before him as having fallen prey to the curse. So I think that there were other movies before that, But I didn't think the character was that much older than the actual TV show. I thought it was like

the fifties is when Superman was born, Superman fought Nazis. Anyways, the reason that it's okay for us to not know this is because this is not an episode about Superman, just an actor who played Superman. Can we not there's an actor who played Superman that we probably shouldn't talk about, which one was that it's just Ben Affleck because he was in he was in a movie and he didn't suffer the curse. Well everybody, not everybody who's played Superman

has suffered the Curse of Superman. Well, then that's a crappy curse. Yeah, he didn't actually play Superman. That he played a guy who played Superman called George Reeves. That's how he escaped it. Yeah, he was one stepper moves Okay, I'm sorry, Kevin, we've taken your way off track in

the first two minutes. Fine. Um. Officially, George Reeves committed suicide on that fateful night of June six between one am and two am from a gunshot into the head to mind everyone, but a lot of people think that he was actually murder herd and it's actually been heavily speculated upon for many, many years. Almost sixty a long time, yeah,

almost half your age. Um. So the way we're gonna do this is we're gonna um start by talking about Reeves and his history, and then we're going to talk about the events leading up to and then we're going to talk about theories. Okay, that's good to me. Yeah. So George Reeves was actually born George Keefer Brewer in nineteen fourteen. His parents separated just after birth, and he

had very little contact with his father. Both his mother and his father did remarry, and his stepmother basically like said, we're not going to be a part of this kid's life. Bye. But his mom married a guy named Frank Beslo, and Reeves took the last name Besslo. He was adopted by his stepfather. The marriage lasted about fifteen years, but his there and stepfather separated apparently while Reeves was visiting some

family like somewhere else. It's super messed up, and instead of telling Reeves what had happened, that she had gotten another divorce and things weren't working out, blah blah, she decided that it would be better to just tell Reeves that his stepfather had committed suicide. It's super messed up. And actually he apparently believed that his stepfather was dead for like years. Um. I think this caused a bit of a rift between him and his mother later. I

think it did. But I also think that this is one of those things where if you believe during formative years, believed that somebody who was really important to you committed suicide. I think a lot of times psychologists say that helps shape your brain for maybe not being particularly happy all the time. I don't know. I'm not a psychologist. Caveat, I'm not a doctor, but I do think it's always

important to mention that when telling the story. Yeah, reeves first big film was this little um indie production you may or may not have heard of, called Gone with the Wind. For years before that, he actually he started acting in like middle school or something like that, and then here pretty much. So when his step mom um and his father, or when his mom and his dad got a divorce and his mom moved to them to l A to live with her sister, and so he

lived most of his life IMDb page. And he had I think he had acting credits in like thirty five or thirty nine. That was his first one. Yeah, he had been acting for a long time, but yeah, it was totally sexual extras and stuff like that. So his first actual role was in Gone with the Wind. And he also had a boxing career. I guess I heard you guys knows broken like nine times, and uh yeah, I think eventually decided to acting would be I think he did, Yeah, I mean he actually he played Scarlett

O'Hara's love interest in Gone with the Wind. It was one of the first love interests. And I mean, you know that's pretty big role except he looked yeah, well yes, but if he had crazy crazy colored Yeah, they died their hair red. He and another actor. What happened that in those days was you would sign with a studio. I mean, you've seen old movies. You know he works, right, So Reeves signed with Warner Brothers. At that time, he was Frank Beslo and then the studio gave him his

professional name quote unquote professional name. They changed your name is something they thought people liked better. Yeah, so his name became became George Reeves at that time. And I will say there were some really interesting naming situations that happened back then, and we're going to talk about some of those people. In fact, actually reading this particular thing kind of feel like I'm trapped in a comic book and some of the names that some of these people

have in this story. We'll get there, we'll get into a speakeasy. Yeah. In June of nineteen fifty one, Reeves was offered the role of Superman for a television show called The Adventures of Superman and Joe. You're correct that he was. He did portray Superman in uh, Supermoman and Superman or whatever that one is called. Yeah, but that was literally the studio produced it as a pilot to the TV series. So he was cast for the Adventures of Superman and they said, Okay, we're gonna do this

pilot and then it'll become this TV show. I got to check and see if Superman in the Moment is available on Netflix. I don't think it probably is. It sounds like he really took his role as a role model. You're welcome. Seriously, he was really, I mean, he really was the face of Superman. I mean, there's this story that you hear where this kid and this was not how he died, but a kid once pulled a gun

on him because he thought he was actually Superman. He thought, yeah, I bet kids were also walking and pushing push pins into him. Yeah, because they all thought that he was actually Superman. They didn't understand the disconnect, which I mean, I think you know, kids to this day still have that problem. Well, but you gotta remember also, TV is brand new, such a new concept, and when when you grow up with television, it's a concept, you get it. But when it's this brand new thing, like it really

is Superman. Wow. Yeah, I mean yeah, he actually you know to the point where he um he was a smoker because like everyone was a smoker back then, But as soon as he became the face of Superman, he never smoked when there were kids around or like people were taking pictures of him, and eventually he stopped smoking. He tried really hard to keep his private life really private, although it didn't work out in his later years. But and I will say, just because he was Superman does

not mean that he was actually making millions of dollars. Actually, stuff didn't pay so good. He was basically broke, as it turns out. And so and I can tell you why. I mean, okay, not oh my god like pittance, right, but for for a man of his fame, he was really he didn't have very much money at all. The reason was was that they weren't they weren't paying a

lot for the role itself. And they had this thing called a four week clause or something like that in his contract where basically, at any point the studio could demand they start production on a new season of Adventures of Superman four weeks before four weeks on any other projects. Yeah, he couldn't. Well really, I mean at that point everything is kind of a long term project. Anything that's going

to pay you money. We're shooting schedule with a two month buffer, so that's what four twelve, So that's a five months out of the year. So he could take a little two and three and four months assignments. He could not guarantee he couldn't guarantee. Well, that was the thing. He couldn't guarantee after that three or four month time frame that he would be to hang around. So that's why it was hard. No, not even three or four months.

They could. They could a month after they wrapped production have said Okay, we're doing another one, and he would have four weeks notice. And I mean they read that everywhere and everybody makes it out, but listen to the studio wasn't going to just whip out a season's worth of scripts in no time flat like that. I think that it's I really feel like that was made out to be the original Superman TV show. It is totally

about ten minutes. I know, you could jump, But my point is they had enough stuff going on that I don't think that they were just going to immediately call the cast back because it wasn't like they could put them out on television until later on anyway. But it does like that is overplayed, is all I'm getting. Yeah, I mean it, but it does seem like it was a really kind of hard situation for him to be in.

I think a lot of a lot of the whole studio system I think really trapped a lot of actors, a lot of were jerked around and not really paid all that well, all that well really, yeah, he's not the only one, true, but he apparently was also getting paid for reruns. Yeah, but not I mean not, I mean he was getting money from it. Again, I'm not saying he was making huge amounts of money. You know, that was longer he did at the more sustaining cash

that turned into for a while. Yeah. And then as far as his personal life goes, Reeves was married for ten years early in his life before he kind of made it into the Superman. Yeah, pretty much before he met Superman. He was he was married for ten years, and then he had an eight year relationship with a show girl and then ended that. And at the time of his death, he was maybe engaged, probably engaged to a woman named Lenore Lennon, one of those names Lenor Lemon.

That's why I said it's like being in a comic book. Yeah, I'm not sure she was if they actually were engaged, or she just made that up all she I don't think it was after the fact. I think the sense was she had been going around telling people that they were going to Spain to Elope On June nineteen of fifty nine, three days after he died. They were said to alope, I have not seen anywhere that he was also saying, yeah, we're going to Elope blow blah blah.

You know, but the senses that they he at least tolerated her telling people that maybe, yeah, maybe maybe it's possible. We'll and we'll get into that a little bit. Now we're we're solidly into the events leading up to phase you guys ready, yeah, okay, al right, So, as mentioned, there are some really colorfully named characters here, and those are These are all the people that were present on the night of his death. I'm just gonna tell you, yeah, kind of like who was who we're going to be

talking about. I just want to get the names and their relation. You were doing like cast characters. Then we're going to do events leading up to Okay, all right, So Leonora Lemon, the fiance or maybe not, we're just gonna call the fiance. Was there William Bliss who was Yeah, he's a heating engineer who lived like down the street from So I mean, that's a great great example of how maybe not rich Reeves was right. He was living close to like a heating engineer, not necessarily like, well,

he lived in a fairly modest little house. Definitely. Yeah, but so Billy Bliss was also there. And nobody's quite sure why Billy Bliss was present. But a man by the name of Robert Cott Condon, thank you. I keep wanting to say Condon, but that's not right Condon. And he was a writer who was writing a story about a famous boxer who happened to be loosely connected to Reeves. And then um, he was staying with Reeves at the time,

and um, Karen Carol van Ronkle's great name. She lived a few blocks away with her husband, screenwriter Rip Van Ronkle, which is like what jerk at the studio was like, Okay, yeah, no, we have your professional name for you. Are you ready. It's it's Ripped van Wonkele. You're ready. Yeah. He might have been born like, you know, Fred or something like that, and he just picked up the nickname Ripped van Ronkle. I don't know. Carol van Ronkele apparently was also having

an affair with Condon, the writer. According to this group previously colorfully named group of people, Lemon and Reeves had gone to dinner with Condon, and all of the accounts that I have read are very sure to mention that they were also drinking a lot. They and they. It sounds like this group of people was they did drink a lot, but it's always they went out to dinner and drank. Reeves and Lemon had an argument at the restaurant in front of Condon, and then the three returned home.

Maybe it was wait, you've been telling people were yeah, Maybe it was wait. Probably Condon was like, are you excited to go to Spain? And He's like, what for? What do you mean we're going to Spain. Later, during an interview for Reeves's biography, however, Lemon actually said that she and Reeves had gone to a wrestling match that night. It sounds like reeves is friend Jean LaBelle, who was a famous wrestler at the time, was wrestling that night

in town. But LaBelle said that he saw Reeves at his workout session earlier that day, but he didn't ever remember seeing Reeves after the fact. So there's a bit of a conflict of stories there, so we can't pin it down not totally. Yeah, that was a wrestling pun. Oh see, I don't know restling this guys good. So either way, Reeves and Lemon and Condon end up back

at Reeves's house. I should be mentioned Lemon was living with Reeves at the time, but it wasn't she had no ownership of the house or any thing like that. Somewhere near midnight, after Reeves had gone to bed after a heavy night of drinking, an impromptu party started downstairs when Bliss and Carol Van Ronkle, who we're going to call Van Ronkle from here on out because Rip van Ronkle isn't actually part of this story. I just like saying his name. So Bliss and Van Ronkle arrive at

the Reeves home around midnight. So it's, um, these people are just like I guess they're just like all late night parties or something. Yeah, typically I don't just go dropping in on people's houses at midnight. I don't really either, But so it's they're the feeling. These people drank together on a semi regular basis and probably said, hey, you know, it's a little after twelve, she'll be up. Let's over to see the lights run. If you are, we'll we'll

walk in and we'll have some drinks. It sounds like they were maybe making a bit of a ruckus, and so Reeves kind of storms downstairs and complains about the noise. Apparent this is all according to the four people who were drinking heavily there that night. Um Reeves comes down and he's angry about the noise and why are you having this party? And Lemon kind of says, well, um, you know, we're just I don't know, we're just partying, and Reeves somehow calms down and decides to stay and

drink a little more. But after his like one drink, he apparently pops back right into a bad mood and storms back upstairs. Um, which I actually identified deeply with, woke you up? No, I just like being a woken up in the middle of the night. I'll you know, I'm like hate everything, and then I'm like, all right, fine, I guess I'm here. No, I hated it. The work

like dip back and forth pretty quickly. Anyway, an unidentified amount of time later, maybe a drink's worth, so probably around one thirty or two, the party has heard a quote single gun shot from upstair airs. Bliss ran upstairs into Reeves's bedroom and found him lying across the bed dead. His naked body was facing upward, his feet were on

the floor and face up on the bed. Ye oh yeah, he was, yes, sorry, So like to explain it a little bit better, I guess investigators thought that he had been sitting on the edge of the bed and then killed himself, and he just fell back on the bed, so you can imagine that picture. Investigators found a thirty caliber Lugar pistol between his feet, which they thought had

fallen from his hand. Um Statements made by the witnesses to the police on that night, as well as press a little bit later, essentially agree, though there are some discrepancies and there was a fairly significant delay in reporting this didn't did. None of the guests seemed to be really concerned with the delay, though, they just said, I don't know, we were shocked, it was late. We were drunk, That's why it took us so long to call you.

My story straight. Yeah, no, none of that. The police did say that again, all the witnesses were like really really really drunk, and so getting coherent stories from them was like almost impossible that night. So there you go, there, George Reeves there, and George Reeves apparently death of Superman, death of one of the many Superman's. Yeah, so that is the story. We're going to flush the story out a little bit more when we talk about theories. But

it is that time. What time, theories time. But before we do that, let's take a break. This is the worst bus ride ever. The tension is unbearable. The screaming waves of panic and fear just aren't helping. There's a man with a knife and you can see him so clearly every freaking detail. Are you sweating? Yeah? You are what possessed you to get on this bus. You knew that it was creepy and dark and cold out, and

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and again. And we're back. Okay, theories, Yeah, theories. Yeah, cool, cool. And actually, before we go too far into theories, I just want to pause us to apologize. We're all sitting in a room in Portland, Oregon, which is like pretty much just surrounded by fire right now, and so um, there's like, well, no, there's there's there's a little smoky and you know, houses don't seal, and so if you get a couple of voice cracks or anything in there, we apologize. I'll try to keep it to a minimum,

but it might have We'll try. I can't cut that out, damn dang it. All right, So our first theory he is um the official story, which is that he committed suicide. Of course, this one, the suicide angle, did focus a lot on Um. As you can imagine, being the face

of Superman is both a blessing and a curse. You know, we've seen this happen with actors contemporarily, where they have a really hard time getting cast in any kind of roles after they play these like big signature roles in these franchises because people just think like, oh, that's just Harry Potter. But you know, but yeah, I think about it is is these days you get typecasts, say Harry Potter, Well, you made a boatload of money playing Harry Potter, so

even if you never get another job again. Yeah, not so for George Reeves. Yeah, so it was he was struggling to find acting jobs after The Adventures of Superman had been canceled, which had been during during because of the four week thing, but then after because it had been canceled by this point. Yeah, because he well, I mean he when he initially started, I think he had filmed a movie and I can't think of something eating in the Garden of Eating or something like that. I

can't think of the name of it. And it had such a long schedule to get it out in the world that the first season of Superman had aired already, and when people saw him in a different role in that movie, they pointed at the screen and she had a Superman. And apparently, according to him, that's when he knew his career was screwed, because he couldn't be recognized,

is anything. But I think at the times, I think the Superman was also canceled, But I think at the time of his death, at least I heard him more in two places that they had decided to renew the show after all and bring him back. Um, maybe they had, they were in talks, but it sounds like a couple of days before he had been notified that maybe that deal had actually fallen through because they were having a

hard time getting people to agree to do it. And then but from his perspective, of course it would be either way. Be kind of a happy said thing. I mean, it would be a paycheck. But at the same time, he hated the role. Yeah. Yeah. He called the Superman outfit his monkey suit. Yeah. Yeah, he burned it at the end of every season. It's just so sad if you think about it from a memoriad bilia standpoint, what

would that be worth today? Yeah? If he had just like, hang onto these stupid things and I'll sell him a few years, it'll be worth a boatload of cash. But no, he's like, I have a bottle. Yeah. So you know, it sounds like he was struggling to get work and maybe there was the Superman thing, but it was looking

like maybe that wasn't actually going to come through. He was also known to be a party animal if the events leading up to didn't clue you into that, and late night losing was pretty common between him and his friends. He had actually been drinking that night again and was very drunk, point to seven drunk. That's pretty respectable, real drunk. And he also happened to be on pain killers from injuries that he had sustained from a car accident a

couple of weeks beforehand. And we'll talk about that. Yes, we'll talk about that car accident in a little bit. Don't spoil anything I want to say. Is he racked up his jag, You are must have been heartbreaking for maybe that's why he killed himself. Maybe all these things put together makes an okay start to the official theory. You know, you're kind of down on your luck, prone to depression, you're super super drunk, you're on pain killers. You know, you've maybe just had a big fight with

your fiancee for whatever reason. It's at least an okay start to the idea that that might lead somebody to kill themselves. There was also no sign of forced entry, and the guests below said that they didn't hear anything odd, but again, granted, this assumes a lot. It assumes first of all, this is l a in the fifties in June, so no air conditioning probably, so probably open windows because it's hot and the layout of the house is such that it would it'd be easy to get into the

master bedroom with nobody seeing you. As to the oh, we didn't hear anything weird, I'm sure they're playing music and being loud and downstairs because they were being loud. No, well, that's literally their story is they said we were being loud and that he came down and he was angry that we had woken him up because we were being loud, like of course, yeah. And it also this also assumes that I would assume that Reeves, at the time of his going to bed, was not the drunkest of the group,

and he did not continue to drink. Really, so the group that continued to drink would have been probably even more more intoxicated than I don't know if that's true, because he, according to this, not too long after he went back upstairs the shot happened, and they weren't home for very long and him in bed before the friends showed up, So I don't it's not as if there was a great span of time in between that, I

would say that they were all probably around the same level. Right, That's what I'm sorry, That's what I'm trying to get out, is that they were can actually get much higher than point to seven without dying anyway, Right, Yeah, a lot of them have, but I you know, it depends on I think probably everybody was about that same level. So this also assumes that they would have been coherent and observant enough to notice if anything weird was going on. Oh,

and also would assumes they were telling the truth. Yeah, there's that. Um. Now, George Reeves's mother, you will remember, was a figure in this. At one point, she really did not agree with the suicide ruling. It's kind of ironic when you think about it. Yeah, he really is, um, I'm sure she was like, no, he's just getting back at me, getting back at me for lying to him all these years. She was not happy with this finding. For whatever reason, she retained attorney Jerry Geisler to petition

for reinvestigation of the case as maybe a murder. The so, they did a second autopsy on Reeves's body, and the findings were exactly the same as the first, except that there was a series of bruises of unknown origin around his head and body. And then this investigation went on for about a month. It didn't uncover any new evidence, and so basically they had to side that yes, the gunshot Wind was self inflicted and he did commit suicide.

So unfortunately that investigation was withdrawn and the official thing, official cause of death remains suicide. I don't think he killed himself, thank you. I gotta admit that some reason, I think not. I mean, you know, people say, well, what George Rees was depressed for years over the fact that he was, you know, pigeonholed into planning Superman. Yeah, he had been doing it for seven or eight years. You would think that if it was gonna have gotten to him, it would have to the point that he

would want to end his life. It would have been prior to that. Well, except for the fact that it happens to coincide with this like maybe glimmer of hope of you know again better Bitter Sweet, but that they were talking about reviving it and then maybe it had fallen through. So maybe that ended up being kind of the last straw where he kind of thought, oh, this

is looking better. At least I can go be Superman again and make some money and be like maybe I'm not gonna love it, but whatever, And then it fell through and he was like, oh, I can't even be Superman anymore. Grill and his his road show that he was putting together was kind of falling apart. Did you read about that? So do you want to tell people

about this? Because why don't you tell me? He would go to these he would do these exhibition matches as Superman against you know, well known boxing or wrestling figures and have the you know, they d get out, and he had done this several times. Is the way to generate cash. And on his latest one, he had been training for three or four weeks. My account for the bruises, which would very well account for the bruising because he was,

you know, sparring. But he found out that of all I don't remember how many people he had put out feelers to to say come on, you want to get on board, only one of them said yes. So the whole thing was basically tanked right then and there, which is a reason for a guy to be upset and depressed. But yeah, because he probably needed the money. Yeah, I think he made as much is he hated Superman it

was his cash cow. Yeah, it's true. So let's talk about some of the stuff that makes people think that maybe Reeves was actually murdered, aside from the fact that there's not really a reason for suicide. Okay, as mentioned, I think it is possible that somebody could have easily entered the house without anybody downstairs having seen it, or without any signs of forced entry. But wait, Devin, whenever you read this on the internet, they say he died

in a windowless room. Well, maybe the room that he was in was windowless, but the bathroom it was attached to wasn't, nor the bedroom that was right next door. Yea. Some those websites have the black background with white text. Yeah, those are favorites. Reeves home was a split level home. They called it a splanch. I think there was a split level branch home. So, and there's drawings out there. I think will probably link to one of them because I can't describe it as well as a drawing can,

but I'm going to try real hard. The way that it was set up was there was the master bedroom, and for those of you who don't know what a master bedroom is, it's a bedroom with a bathroom attached to it, and the bathroom the master bathroom had a window that opened right onto the roof of the house. Window small, but I mean somebody could climb through it. It's not so small that it'd be impossible. The size of window the teen injury used to escape on rendezvous

at night on a regular basis, Yeah, pretty much. And the roof that that bedroom window opened onto was above the den, which was connected to the family room, which the family room was below the bedroom. Is my understanding of that house, it was upper floor was master bedroom, there was a lower floor was the was the living room and end, and then the second bedroom was the mid level one. It was in between, but the den was That's why they call it the split level, right.

But the living room was under the bedroom and the den just had a roof over it, yes, And then um, in between those two there was a part that went out and there was a guest bedroom which was where Condon was staying. But it would have there were windows into that room as well from a part of the house. But I don't have a good sense of if I don't actually know where. I think the party was in the den, but they could have been in the living room.

I don't actually know which area they were in because they were kind of connected, and I don't know if from where that group was if you could see into the guest bedroom or into the hallway. So if it were me breaking into this house, I would just go for the bedroom bathroom window and call it a day. And again, you know the roof above, so that means somebody's walking on the roof above where these people are. But these people are being allowed, so regardless, they are

multiple points of entry other than the front door. And again I I'll reiterate that I I have not ever seen that the windows were open or not, but I cannot imagine being in l A in June without the windows open. Just my two cents. In addition to the fact that it would be pretty easy for somebody to actually have gotten into the house without forcing entry, there are some kind of odd findings at the crime scene.

There were nor no fingerprints on the gun, no muzzle discharge burns, you know the kind that are usually found in cases like this, on his head. On his head. There is a report that there was no gunshot residue found on Reeves's hand, but I don't actually think that they tested for that at this time in history. So I just I want to throw that in there because you're going to see that parodied like everywhere. But I want to give you also the information that it's it's

probably it's probably not legitimate. Um. I have actually have a question for Joe. Okay, Joe, I've read in a number of places that say there were no fingerprints on

the gun because it was too well oiled. Do you know what they mean by that, well, other than the fact that you know, the oil would just fill in and no, I mean it's like a lot of gun owners are really you know, especially have a really nice gun, you don't want to rust it, especially when you handle a gun you have when you have the gun, you have a lot of acids and things that are in

your sweat. And so a lot of people will wipe their gun down after they've played with it or use it or whatever, wipe it down with an oily rag. But if it's got oil on it, that doesn't mean you're you're not going to leave fingerprints. But if you say, I've been playing with your gun and then you wipe it off, you know, because you know you don't want rust, and then you put it away whatever. Then you decided

to kill yourself. You pick the gun up. Uh, A luker has got wooden hand grips on it, and so if you assuming you don't play with it passing around hand to hand stuff like that. It's it's quite conceivable we can actually pick up a handgun and shoot it

and not leave your fingerprints. You'd leave some prints on the the front strap of the gun from the middles of the middle of your fingers, but your actual fingerprints from the ends of your fingers that we all know that there's a plastic fingerprints, you could conceivably not leave them on the GUA that explains I read that in several places and I was like, I don't I don't quite get it, but I know who will probably have. Yeah, it's gonna be Joe. If it's about a gun, it's

gonna be that I know anything about guns. Really, No, not really, but oil will hold fingerprints. Okay, that's okay. The way you explain it makes way more sense than it was. It was too well oiled. The data fingerprints and the other thing. I said that the luger has wooden grips on it. And by the way, they were checkered grips, which means they weren't smooth, so you could. Yeah.

So on top of all that, the atle bullet was retrieved from the ceiling above him, because which is weird, because he was shot through the temple directly above him or just somewhere. I have never been able to find that out somewhere. I think somewhere above otherwise that would mean to have to turn his head es. So I'm actually going to do the I'm going to describe a little bit, and then I'm going to show you guys in the studio what I imagine happened if he did

in fact kill himself. The shell casing from the bullet was found under his body. He shot himself in the temple through the right temple, which again is significant because you may have heard Joe mentioned or Steve mentioned that he had severely injured his right hand. Though again, if he was drunken on a lot of painkillers, you know, you can ignore stuff like that. I so it sounds like his head could have been like tilted. I honestly, I kind of just mentioned I just I'm just gonna

do it real quick. I just kind of imagine him being so drunk that he's just kind of like, is it? Is it? Wait? What you're Okay, what Devon is enacting is if you've ever seen a board teenager in junior high with their arm on their and their head tilted all the way over on the straight arm. Yeah, it's basically or like you know, when someone's really drunk and they're kind of like slumped over. I'm sorry, I'm getting

away from the mic. I'm sorry, I'm trying to do it, but it's you're like kind of slumped over and you're like, you know, if you have a gun and he's like really really drunk and like super drugged up and you know, I don't know, maybe sleepy, I don't know. Well, thirty, the thirty caliber round is also pretty high velocity, lightweight around, so it's easily deflected. So it's not like the bullet necessarily had to punch straight on through and then out

the other side and in the ceiling. It could have actually have been deflected inside his skull. Bullet. Yeah, and it's especially with those little lightweight bullets, I mean they are they are very easily knocked off course. So because it interesting got straight at the top of his head. Interesting. I had not heard that. Actually, the one thing I

will say is, um, that is kind of weird. As mentioned, Reeves was naked and the shell casing was found behind him, but there was no burn mark on his back as you might expect from a hot shell. I'm not so sure. I haven't been burned by hot breast myself. I can tell you it's it's not that hot that it's going to be like a branding iron or anything like that. Branding iron is I mean, I think I don't know. I would expect you can pay some sort of mark.

You can pick up an expelled shell casing immediately, and it is hot and it is hurt, but you can wait till it cools off and you will not always be blistered. So that's well, I'm blistering. I'm not. I'm not. I'm not suggesting blistered, but like red. But he was dead, like his body was going to be able to react. Yeah. I've had like you know, I've had him like land, like hot brass, like land right between my collar and my neck, you know, and it's unpleasant, but it's never

left any marks. Okay, fair enough, Steve made a lot of not nice noises. All right, how about this one hot shots? Apparently you can explain everything that's weird. Um. They also found two bullets in the floor. Yeah, yeah, those are easily explained. That was probably a target practice. Maybe they're easily explained. They were from the same luger. As mentioned, everyone was real drunk. They did agree they only heard the one gun shot. Again, this assumes they

told the truth. But I will say that there's no evidence to suggest that those happened that night. Yeah, could have happened anytime. I mean, granted, you kind of hope there aren't just random discharges happening in the house of a gun. But like said that she fired those two rounds pre obvious to that that you know she, I mean, this one was known, as we're going to talk about, she was a bit of a hothead, and she had

she had fired it that way. I do want to talk about one quick thing on the murder or this this whole theory that we're in, because there are people have said that there is no way that George Reeves could have fired that gun in that position and had the shell go behind him, because in the reading it always says because those shell casings generally adject to the right, and as Joe will probably know, this particular luger ejects a shell out of the top instead of the left

or the right, like you see a lot of handguns these days, and so it can kind of go that way. But I watched videos of guys shooting that gun, and it really depended on the angle that the gun was held as to whether the shell ejected forward, backwards, left or right. That's why I continue to maintain he was just like wantwa he was. It probably was holding on like sideways, yeah, and so like the back, so it would have expelled also. But we talked about this during

Kirk Cobain's suicide. I mean, shells are usually flung from the gun, you know, at a high rate of speed, a lot of energy there, and I could easily bounce off a wall or two and then and then like behind you. It's not well, I didn't. It landed under his body, so I don't know that it would have had time to bounce a couple of times in the under his body wasn't fast, I mean, depending on how fast this body fell over, yeah, it was the body

pretty fast. Uh yeah, spent showcasing to move faster. They really, yeah, they do. Mostly. I just don't really him a problem with it being under Actually I have more of a problem with it being under him. If he was murdered, then well I just bring it up. Yes, it couldn't in the thing of you know, it had to be murder. People will say, well, he couldn't have shot himself and had the showcasing end up underneath his own body, and will Actually, I do believe it's entirely possible. Yeah, he

totally could have. All right, So if he did get murdered, let's talk about who might have done it. We're gonna first of all, I mean, what do we think murder or suicide? I'm kind of like a murder myself. I like murder too, actually, Steve spa um, So, the first theory is that Lenora Lemon killed him, either in a drunken rage or like something else, but probably in like some sort of drunken something because she was pretty drunk and maybe they all all of her buddies downstairs kind

of covered for well. Yeah, so well let's let's just go through this. Yeah, because there's a bunch here, there is, so you will remember from getting through the events leading up to that. The couple, you know, Leonor and Reeves. Um, Lemon and Reeves had had a fight earlier that night, maybe at dinner or maybe I guess at the wrestling match they may or may not have gone to. I'm not sure, but what a great date. Yeah. Well, and and Condon was there too, so it's like a whole

big group apparently. Yeah, apparently the fight might have been about the wedding. Reporting does vary, but like we mentioned, there was some speculation that Reeves didn't even know they were engaged. But there's also some speculation that what happened that night is that Reeves just said like, no, I'm not marrying you, and yeah, that's a or like move out because she had a pretty sweet thing going for her. Actually, it's kind of like last week's story, yeah, a little bit.

Or maybe Lemon was mad because they had fought at midnight. Lemon might have also been annoyed because Reeves may or may not have been speaking with his ex girlfriend. Again. It actually reports totally very either Lemon was crazy or he actually made you I was talking to her again. Lemon was actually a terror as mentioned, Um, she was the first woman ever to be thrown out of New York the New York Stork Club for fistfight eating. The Stork Club is a pretty prestigious club in New York.

They're still around, right, they are, Yeah, yeah, I know, I think they're Basically it was a status symbol. You know, anybody who's anybody has a membership to this enough money, yeah, well, anybody who's anybody, right. Lemon was also supposedly a bit of a gold digger. She was married to a man.

She's been married three times. She had been married I think two times, the more yeah, the more recent, the more recent one she married the guy they were they were actually, yeah, she only stuck around for like eight days, but she didn't actually divorce divorce him a couple. She didn't divorce him until something like ten years later, five years later, five years later when he tried to and he found out when he tried to marry someone else and then was hit with a pullug me suit or

something like that to do. Yeah, that's my plan all along. There are a number of reasons why it's possible that Lemon actually did kill Reeves, as well as some evidence to maybe suggest that the guests were lying. Bliss, for his part, did recant his story years later, kind of maybe. His friend Milicent Trent said that he had told her. So this is like a third hand account or something

like that. There's a lot of third hand here. Yeah, that's true that what actually happened on that night was that Reeves had yelled at the people, who at about like one twenty a m. Had come down, was angry and Lemon got angry, and then they both went up to the master bedroom to kind of have it out the guests the bruising. The guests heard a gunshot, and then Lemon came running back downstairs and said, tell them I was down here, Tell him I was down here.

And then they waited forty six minutes to call the cops. What I don't get is why anybody cover for she. She wasn't filthy rich, she didn't have powerful friends, Like what did she have to to to coerce them? Well, so, one thing I guess we could say is that Van Ronkle and Condon were having an affair, so she knew about that, so she could hold that over them. And then lord knows why that why Bliss was there even so it supposedly pably was just interested in the h access.

I mean he could have he was trying to sell him what your windows weren't open, this would never have happened. Yeah, so it's possible that she had dirt on all of them or something like that. It's also possible. I don't know if you guys know this or not, but you know, people have these things called friends, and friends sometimes do kind of like weird moral things to cover for each other.

I'm sorry, if I am drinking with friends and what and two of them go upstairs and all one of them comes back down after a gunshot, I'm probably not going to cover for that's because you're a good person. You don't live in Hollywood, Listen, I've been accused worse. Yeah, but you know, you typically expecting conspiracies like that that people seen or later somebody's going to spill the beans. Although on the other other hand, I guess some people

have sort of spilled the beans. Bliss, for example, sort of did, and a few other people did kind of as I've also, I've also read and I don't know, like why there's so many versions of this, there's so many versions of this, but I've read cops say that Lemon. I don't. I don't know how they got this information that Lemon had nobody told somebody else after the fact and then the cops. I think that I read that it was somebody maybe Condon and Richard Condon made this up.

But you saw it in the papers, reports of the time, contemporary contemporariously in the Los Angeles tribes that these words did appear in there. But she said apparently years later that no, she didn't actually say that. Yeah, well, she would have good reason to not say that. Although this doesn't really fit into the she would have good reason

to not say these words begin with. So the way that she tells the story that Condon tells the story is that Reeves had come down, yelled, and then went back upstairs, and Lemon said to the group, he's probably going upstairs to shoot himself. And then a noise was heard upstairs, and she said he's opening a drawer to get the gun. And then the shot was hurt and she said, see there, I told you so, which is not a normal reaction, if not, And it also it kind of makes you wonder, like how she knew he

was going to go shoot himself. I actually was thinking about that, and I would be really really interested. I wish the cops had talked to other people who had come over and drank with them, because I could see this being a drunken gag that they pulled on people. They're in a bed, you know, Hey, Okay, I'm going to call upstairs and I'm gonna shoot myself and then just fires the gun into the floor where you all go anywhere. And so let's say there was those two

rounds already in the floor. Maybe they had done this two times before, and so she's got really good at the timing, except this time he actually does the deed. I don't know. I think that's a dumb game. Really, I don't understand. But maybe you know what. One of the funniest once I saw I was that he didn't need to kill himself when he was playing Russian Roulette. I chose to omit that. But yeah, playing Russian Roulette with an automatic qualifies for the Instant Darwin Awards. I don't.

I don't believe that. I don't either. As to the reason why we mentioned briefly that there may have been an ex girlfriend involved, and that ex girlfriend may or may not have actually been somebody that Reeves was having an affair with at the time. Okay, well the affair officially was over in nineteen fifty eight, but will ignore that for a minute. Who was said lady? Said lady was this woman by the name of Tony Mannix, who was wife of MGM VP Eddie Mannix, who MGM stands for.

Eddie was what's known as a fixer in the day. Yeah, he took care of bimbo eruptions, scandals, that kind of thing. He's what we would call like a pr manager. Now wait, wait, Joe, is that a real term. What's that? Bimbo eruptions? Yeah, that was actually a term from the Clinton administration, because I remember he was routinely a key You bring up some of the weirdest terminology, so I have to make sure you're not making it up on the spot. It's also rumored that Eddie had ties to the mafia, which

wouldn't have been so unheard of in those days. But just see, I guess you see seeing as Yeah, I think I think a lot of those guys actually got financing from the Mob. I would postulate that it's a little possible that Eddie was annoyed with the fair Let's just let me get this here. Hear me out my head, Devin, It's fine that Eddie maybe was annoyed and so he killed Reeves, but we actually know that's not true. Well, we're pretty sure, we're pretty sure he didn't do it. Personally,

he wasn't great, he wasn't that great at health. Well, actually, Eddie knew about the affair and he had his own younger mistress. Apparently they actually hung out together. They were actually liked. Yeah, creep. Tony and Eddie were both a fair amount older than Reeves. I think, like twenty years Tony well, now he was a lot. Eddie was a lot older than Tony. Tony was like eight years older than Reeves. I'm sorry, I'm talking about the gap between

Reeves and Tony. Yeah, that was that gap. And then yeah, anyway, so I think if if a man ex did kill or have Reeves killed, it would have been Tony. And she actually apparently did confess to the crime, although it's a she said. The person who says that she confessed it had a dubious relation. As mentioned at best, Tony also suffered from Alzheimer's disease and senile dementia. So not that everything that she said was wrong, but there's a

lot of plausible deniability here. She was apparently a pretty feisty woman in and of herself, And it is possible because Reeves did seem to suspect that Tony was behind a lot of weird stuff that was happening to him right before. Yeah, so his dog disappeared a couple of

months before he died. And oh, that car accident that I mentioned in passing earlier, it turns out that the reason that he crashed his car was because somebody had totally drained the break fluid out of his car, and he openly said that he suspected that it was Tony that had done that, Tony who had had somebody doing well, she probably she didn't do it herself, I'm sorry, yeah, but that she was behind it. Apparently Tony was actually, when I've heard, extremely upset when he broke it off

with her. Yeah, I think she was. Yeah. She she apparently had quite the the ability for colorful language. Yeah, and so she was my kind of girl, I mean, minus the crazy bit. This is the late fifties. I mean, you know, she said darn and heck quite a bit. Yeah, heck, COM's heck comed right to darn. Darn, I'm right to

heck yeah right, yeah, darn. Some sucks. The other kind of thing that people talk about here, and this is the last thing we're going to cover real quick, is that TV's Lowis Lane was actually a mutual friend of Reeves and Tony. You know her name, Her name is Phyllis Coates. She said that Tony actually called her hysterically at like three o'clock in the morning on June six, so way earlyier than anybody would have really known that

Reeves was dead. But Tony apparently called Phillips hysterical and said that Reeves had been murdered and was very upset about it. So if it was a murder and Tony did it, that would, like, I don't know if I would explain that, but it's a real way that she could have gotten that information before it hit the world, right. But I think the catch there is her just immediately saying he was murdered because they the police, everybody at

the scene just automatically said it was suicide. But a lot of other people just never bought the whole suicide thing from the get go. Yeah, that's true. And actually, you know by the way too, and it's like somebody in the house or you know, could have called somebody actually could have called Tony directly and say, oh my god, George has been shot. He's dead. That's exact she would immediately think murdered rather than the suicide. Has Apparently a

lot of his friends said there's no way he committed suicide. Yeah, so that, I mean, that's the end of our furious section. I don't know, I find it. I find it hard to believe that he committed suicide, just because it seems a bit out of character for everything was going on. It seems a little late in the game to suddenly decide to end it all. But then there's weird stuff like if he was murdered and it was leonor there's

the whole thing. She came back to the house with two three days after it, and rifled through the place and stole several thousand dollars in cash years checks, and then beat feet to New York, never to come back. She didn't even actually go to raise George fer No, she didn't. And she actually she turned into kind of a tragedy case of herself because she turned into a

complete total alcoholic, turned into you. That's good point. She became a full blown alcoholic and died in her room unbeknownst to anybody, and her body wasn't found for three days or something like something like that. So it's just like, oh wow, that's I mean, she just she fall so far down the well. It's tough. I mean, I don't it's it's just hard. I don't really like any of the theories. I don't believe any of the theories really,

but I don't also necessarily think he killed himself. He may, I'm willing to go the totally accidentally was like leaning on his gun and was like, Ohaps killed himself. But that's about as close as I'll go to the suicide theory. But I don't know. It's just I think there's just a lot of weird wrapped up in this case. I'm unsatisfied. I understand where people still wondering. Of course, you know, I mean it could have been an accident to I mean, maybe they were arguing she had the gun and she

had no didn't attend to kill him. But you know, lukers, from what I hear, have touched the triggers um I don't know one of myself, but it might be that she was just brandishing the gun all of a sudden it goes off in cobang, It's like, whoopsie. That's well,

that would be that theory of you know. Then she came running downstairs and was like, yeah, when I was down here, yeah, without a little accident, yeah yeah, yeah, and so and and that really wouldn't be that suspicious of a thing now, because if you accidentally killed somebody, you're still kind of liable for for that your behavior, even though they're not going to pin murder on you. Yeah they you know, but they'll still get you for manslaughter.

Pre Probably that's true. Steve Joe, what do you guys think? I mean, I don't know. I'm still I'm torn. Yeah, me too. Yeah. The no, I mean, the no gunshot residue on the scalp is that's pretty telling. I mean, it's hard to imagine anybody shooting themselves in the head and not leaving, not not getting it close enough to get some gunpowder residue. I still I still question if they actually tested for it. Well, yeah, that's the whole

question is I don't know if they did. I had heard one place that they didn't actually test for it, which is amazing when I didn't think though that they would at least have noticed powder birds, I mean gunpowder residue you're gonna get from a distance, you know, and any pretty much any distance, and you're like five ft, you know you're gonna get that. But anybody that shoots himself in the head, you're gonna probably touched the gun

to your head. Yeah, you're probably, because otherwise you're not really sure. Unless you're standing in from a mirror, you're not really sure what direction that guns pointing. You don't really know if you're going to kill yourself and blow your brains out or if you're just gonna blow your face off and not kill yourself. To be really depressing head.

And it does happen. And that's the hard part is that there's not that I want to see gory images, but there are no photos of his body pre and you know from the like the autopsy or anything on the crime scene, the police didn't take photos that I know. The best thing I saw was, you know, I think it was a corner Corners Corners sketch, which is not worth a whole hell of a lot. Yeah. The only the only point of that's just to show where the bullet one and the want of the skull. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah.

So I don't know, I don't have a good answer, sorry, guys. Oh well yeah, that's a tough one. Um, you got to flip a coin here, I'm going to murder. Okay. Cool. So if you want to see that um layout of Reeves's house or see some other links to some of the research that we did, you can find that as well as merch and a list of all the other episodes we've done, as well as download episodes on our website. That website is Thinking Sideways podcast dot com. You can

find us on social media to interact with us. We've got Twitter, we've got a subreddit, we've got a Facebook page, and we've got a Facebook group. Yeah. Every well, all of it's awesome. So you can find us on all of those forms of media. And if you have feedback you'd like to suggest something like Clarissa did or just want to talk to us, you can detact. You can do that on the email and that your address email Chicken, the email strong Bad, the email a dress is Thinking

Sideways Podcast at gmail dot com. All of that having been said, I think we're going to look it's a bird, fly on out of here and away. Dang, and I thought you guys were going to just deal with the same thing. It's a plan. It's Superman, that was super See you next week.