![]() |
![]() We know her name was Helene Funk Jerome, born in New York on March 12, 1908, which makes her 50 at the time of the killing. She was living in a rear apartment at the Las Palmas Hotel, 1738 N. Las Palmas. That’s the one used in "Pretty Woman." She was supposedly a retired actress, but her credentials are rather vague. The Times said she was a graduate of either the Royal Dramatic Academy or the Royal Dramatic Society in London, so I’m guessing it was the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts, which has no record of her — at least online. Most of her career was spent on the stage in China, The Times said. She never made any movies and shouldn’t be confused with Helene Jerome Eddy, who died in 1990. About 1943, Helene married Edwin Jerome, an actor who had a long career on Broadway before coming to Hollywood, where he appeared in such roles as a butler in "Gigi" and a doctor in "The Three Faces of Eve." They were estranged, he said, but remained friendly. He lived about 2 miles away at 1710 N. Harvard. It’s unclear whether Edwin called the hotel or the hotel switchboard operator called him, but either way, he became concerned when the operator said Helene’s phone had been off the hook for a long time. He told police he went to the apartment to investigate and found Helene’s nude body. The screen had been torn from a window near the door and detectives inferred that someone had broken in. The autopsy found that she had been strangled. ![]() A few days later, police arrested Edgar Glenn McAdoo, 25, because he closely resembled the police sketch of a man seen with Helene in a bar a few hours before she was killed. McAdoo, who was working as a carhop after arriving from Lubbock, Texas, two months earlier, admitted being in a bar with Helene and said he escorted her back to the apartment but went home to 6674 Yucca St. Investigators searched Helene’s apartment for fingerprints to see if any matched McAdoo and he was given an extensive polygraph exam. However, prosecutors refused to file charges against him. He was released, charged with outstanding traffic warrants and freed on bail. Next, based on an informant’s report, police arrested Miller F. Dowdy, 42, who operated an all-night newsstand at Las Palmas and Hollywood Boulevard. Although the informant said Dowdy had been with Helene on the evening before the killing, Dowdy said he was working all night, although he admitted going on a date with her about three weeks earlier. Dowdy was released a few days later for lack of evidence and police arrested Jordan Holt, 32, who was captured on a hotel roof and admitted being with Helene on the night of the killing, The Times said. The paper never reported what became of Holt, although he was apparently released. In September 1960, police found another suspect, Henry Adolph Busch, 29, who admitted strangling three Hollywood women, including his foster mother’s sister. He was questioned about Helene’s killing, but apparently nothing came of it. ![]() Donahue pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and in April 1963 was sentenced to five years to life in prison. This is only chronology I can come up with for Helene’s killing and it doesn’t fit together terribly well: Edwin is at Helene’s apartment. It’s late and she’s asleep. The phone rings and Edwin answers, then he leaves. For the rest of it to work, Helene would have to get up, go to the bar and meet McAdoo, come home with him, and then be killed by Donahue. And Holt is supposed to fit in there someplace. This lady seems to have been hanging around with an awful lot of low-life men who were much younger; two of them were half her age. And then throw in the guy working at the all-night newsstand; not exactly prime date material. The Times doesn’t say anything about what she did for a living. I wonder what was really going on. Helene was buried at Forest Lawn Memorial-Park. In addition to Edwin, she was survived by sisters Josephine Laroza and Frieda Theis and brothers John and Bernard Funk. Edwin died a little over a year after the killing, having moved to Altadena. He "reportedly never recovered from the shock of the unsolved murder of his wife," The Times said. Public records are inconclusive on confessed killer Michael John Donahue. A man by that name died in Long Beach in 1999, but it’s unclear if this is the same man. |
The Tip Jar
- #courts 1907 1944 1947 @news Architecture art and artists Black Dahlia Books and Authors Columnists Comics Crime and Courts Downtown Film Front Pages Hollywood Hollywood Heights Homicide LAPD Mary Mallory Matt Weinstock Music Mystery Photo Paul Coates Photography Politics Sports Streetcars Transportation Uncategorized
Essential L.A.
Family History & Genealogy
Film
Libraries & Resources
Museums
Newspapers
Sports
Categories
- #courts
- #East L.A.
- #games
- #gays and lesbians
- #Jazz
- #Jim Murray
- #opera
- #video
- 1677
- 1781
- 1819
- 1823
- 1847
- 1852
- 1853
- 1855
- 1859
- 1862
- 1863
- 1864
- 1871
- 1872
- 1880
- 1881
- 1882
- 1883
- 1884
- 1885
- 1886
- 1887
- 1888
- 1889
- 1890
- 1891
- 1892
- 1893
- 1895
- 1897
- 1898
- 1899
- 1900
- 1901
- 1902
- 1903
- 1904
- 1905
- 1906
- 1907
- 1908
- 1909
- 1910
- 1910 L.A. Times bombing
- 1911
- 1912
- 1913
- 1914
- 1915
- 1916
- 1917
- 1918
- 1919
- 1920
- 1921
- 1922
- 1923
- 1924
- 1925
- 1926
- 1927
- 1928
- 1929
- 1930
- 1931
- 1932
- 1933
- 1934
- 1935
- 1936
- 1937
- 1938
- 1939
- 1940
- 1941
- 1942
- 1943
- 1944
- 1945
- 1946
- 1947
- 1948
- 1949
- 1950
- 1951
- 1952
- 1953
- 1954
- 1955
- 1956
- 1957
- 1958
- 1959
- 1960
- 1960 Democratic Convention
- 1960 Republican Convention
- 1961
- 1962
- 1963
- 1964
- 1965
- 1966
- 1967
- 1968
- 1969
- 1970
- 1971
- 1972
- 1973
- 1974
- 1975
- 1976
- 1977
- 1978
- 1979
- 1980
- 1981
- 1982
- 1983
- 1984
- 1985
- 1986
- 1987
- 1988
- 1989
- 1990
- 1991
- 1992
- 1993
- 1996
- 1997
- 1998
- 2001
- 2003
- 2005
- 2006
- 2007
- 2008
- 2009
- 2010
- 2012
- 2013
- 2014
- 2015
- 2016
- 2017
- 2018
- 2019
- 2020
- 2021
- @news
- A Kinder, Simpler Time
- Abortion
- Adolf Eichmann
- Adoptions
- African Americans
- Animals
- anorexia
- Another Good Story Ruined
- Architecture
- Art & Artists
- art and artists
- Art Seidenbaum
- Artist's Notebook
- Asians
- Aviation
- Baseball
- Batchelder Tile
- Black Dahlia
- Blue Dahlia
- Blues
- books
- Books and Authors
- boxing
- Brain Trust
- broadcasting
- Broadway
- Budd Schulberg
- Caryl Chessman
- Cemeteries
- Changeling
- Charles Hillinger
- Chicago
- Chinese Massacre
- City Hall
- Civil War
- classical music
- Cold Cases
- Columnists
- Comics
- Coming Attractions
- Countdown to Watts
- Courts
- Crime and Courts
- Current Affairs
- Dance
- Death Rays
- Dodgers
- Donald Wolfe
- Downtown
- Education
- Elections
- Environment
- Eurasians
- Eve Golden
- Fashion
- Fashions
- Film
- Fire Department
- Fires
- Food and Drink
- football
- Forest Lawn
- Found on EBay
- Freeways
- Frightening Food From the 1940s
- From the Reference Desk
- From the Stacks
- From the Vaults
- Front Pages
- Futurism
- Genealogy
- golf
- Grim Sleeper
- Harbor
- Harbor Division
- health
- Hill Street
- History
- Hollywood
- Hollywood Division
- Hollywood Heights
- Homicide
- Horoscope
- Hot Stove League
- Howard Rosenberg
- Immigration
- Interior Design
- Jack Smith
- James Curtis
- JFK
- Jimmie Fidler
- Judith Mae Andersen
- Keith Thursby
- L.A. Voices
- Labor
- Lakers
- LAPD
- Latinos
- Lee Shippey
- Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender
- Libraries
- Location Sleuth
- Long Beach
- Los Angeles Star
- Los Angeles Times Bombing
- Louis Adamic
- Main Street
- Maria Ridulph
- Marion Eisenmann
- Marion Parker
- Mary Mallory
- Matt Weinstock
- Medicine
- Mickey Cohen
- Middle East
- Millennial Moments
- Motor Sports
- Motorsports
- Museums
- Music
- Mystery Photo
- Native Americans
- New York
- Nightclubs
- Nuestro Pueblo
- Obituaries
- Olive
- One-Page Fact Check
- Pages of History
- Parker Center Cop Shop Files
- Parks
- Parks and Recreation
- Pasadena
- Paul Coates
- Pepe Arciga
- Philadelphia
- Photography
- Pico-Union
- Politics
- Preservation
- Queen of the Dead
- Radio
- Raymond Chandler
- Real Estate
- Religion
- Retro
- RFK
- Richard Nixon
- Robberies
- Rock 'n' Roll
- Roderick Mann
- Ronald Reagan
- San Diego
- San Fernando Valley
- San Francisco
- Science
- Seattle
- Second Takes
- Sports
- Spring Street
- Stage
- Streetcars
- Suicide
- Sunday Journal
- Sunset Strip
- Television
- Temple City
- Theaters
- Thelma Todd
- Tom Treanor
- Track and Field
- Transportation
- travel
- UFOs
- Uncategorized
- Venice Division
- Vietnam
- Walter Cronkite
- Washington
- Web/Tech
- Weblogs
- West Hollywood
- Wikipedia
- Witzel
- World War I
- World War II
- Zombie Reading List
- Zoom
- Zoot Suit
Archives
- January 2023
- December 2022
- November 2022
- October 2022
- September 2022
- August 2022
- July 2022
- June 2022
- May 2022
- April 2022
- March 2022
- February 2022
- January 2022
- December 2021
- November 2021
- October 2021
- September 2021
- August 2021
- July 2021
- June 2021
- May 2021
- April 2021
- March 2021
- February 2021
- January 2021
- December 2020
- November 2020
- October 2020
- September 2020
- August 2020
- July 2020
- June 2020
- May 2020
- April 2020
- March 2020
- February 2020
- January 2020
- December 2019
- November 2019
- October 2019
- September 2019
- August 2019
- July 2019
- June 2019
- May 2019
- April 2019
- March 2019
- February 2019
- January 2019
- December 2018
- November 2018
- October 2018
- September 2018
- August 2018
- July 2018
- June 2018
- May 2018
- April 2018
- March 2018
- February 2018
- January 2018
- December 2017
- November 2017
- October 2017
- September 2017
- August 2017
- July 2017
- June 2017
- May 2017
- April 2017
- March 2017
- February 2017
- January 2017
- December 2016
- November 2016
- October 2016
- September 2016
- August 2016
- July 2016
- June 2016
- May 2016
- April 2016
- March 2016
- February 2016
- January 2016
- December 2015
- November 2015
- October 2015
- September 2015
- August 2015
- July 2015
- June 2015
- May 2015
- April 2015
- March 2015
- February 2015
- January 2015
- December 2014
- November 2014
- October 2014
- September 2014
- August 2014
- July 2014
- June 2014
- May 2014
- April 2014
- March 2014
- February 2014
- January 2014
- December 2013
- November 2013
- October 2013
- September 2013
- August 2013
- July 2013
- June 2013
- May 2013
- April 2013
- March 2013
- February 2013
- January 2013
- December 2012
- November 2012
- October 2012
- September 2012
- August 2012
- July 2012
- June 2012
- May 2012
- April 2012
- March 2012
- February 2012
- January 2012
- December 2011
- November 2011
- October 2011
- September 2011
- August 2011
- July 2011
- June 2011
- May 2011
- April 2011
- March 2011
- February 2011
- January 2011
- December 2010
- November 2010
- October 2010
- September 2010
- August 2010
- July 2010
- June 2010
- May 2010
- April 2010
- March 2010
- February 2010
- January 2010
- December 2009
- November 2009
- October 2009
- September 2009
- August 2009
- July 2009
- June 2009
- May 2009
- April 2009
- March 2009
- February 2009
- January 2009
- December 2008
- November 2008
- October 2008
- September 2008
- August 2008
- July 2008
- June 2008
- May 2008
- April 2008
- March 2008
- February 2008
- January 2008
- December 2007
- November 2007
- October 2007
- September 2007
- August 2007
- July 2007
- June 2007
- May 2007
- April 2007
- March 2007
- February 2007
- January 2007
- December 2006
- November 2006
- October 2006
- September 2006
- August 2006
- July 2006
- June 2006
- May 2006
- April 2006
- March 2006
- February 2006
- June 2005
- May 2005
- April 2005
- March 2005
- February 2005
What a terrific L.A. Times feature. Thanks.
LikeLike