The “Remorseful Rapist” from 1965, one of the items from the Cop Shop Files.
Several weeks ago, I was given a box of material that was cleaned out of the old press room at the LAPD’s Parker Center headquarters, sometimes called “the cop shop.” The box was a jumble of press releases, photographs, artists’ sketches and other items dating from the late 1960s to the early 1980s. I am organizing and cataloging the material and I’ll be posting selected items on a weekly basis.
It will be an interesting ride through old L.A. crimes. I promise.
Coming next week on the L.A. Daily Mirror.
ladailymirror.com 
This looks really interesting. I cannot wait.
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As I get the material organized, I am finding that there is a staggering amount of material. But it’s a mess. Lots of items have been separated from one another or are unidentified.
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It sounds like you have your work cut out for you, but it sounds fascinating.
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Fascinating stuff as always, Larry! You are the James Boswell of L.A.’s criminal history.
Several years ago, a friend of mine–a forensic psychologist–put a book called “Death Scenes” on her Christmas wish list. I wasn’t familiar with the book, but I found it in a book store and immediately snapped it up. She was thrilled with it. I was horrified. There were things in that book that I couldn’t look at, that I wish I hadn’t seen, and that I didn’t want to see or know about. (I don’t know whether women are more ghoulish by nature, but she loved it!)
The book was published by Feral House, and contained a collection of nightmarish death scene photos from the files of a Los Angeles detective named Jack Huddleston. The book would be more useful from a research standpoint If we knew more about Jack Huddleston, and if the photos had been put into some sort of context, however the scant text consists almost entirely of Huddleston’s occasional, grimly cryptic notations, such as “a couple of kids playing with dynamite by the reservoir.” Rather than illuminating or educating, the book comes off as a punishing, pornographic chronicle of moral squalor and human destruction that was probably never intended for public consumption. Something tells me Huddleston wouldn’t approve. In any case, it’s the most disturbing book I’ve ever seen, and that’s up against some pretty stiff competition.
My question is, what do you know about Det. Jack Huddleston? He’s something of a cipher, and I figure if anyone would know anything about him, it would be you.
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I don’t know anything about him, but I have seen the book and I don’t want any part of it. I think books of that genre merely encourage ghoulish voyeurism. There are about half a dozen morgue shots in the Cop Shop Files, but I don’t be posting them — even though they are Jane/John Does who are might be identified if their pictures were posted on the Web.
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It would be interesting to see their files from the first Watts Riots.
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Looking forward to it.
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This would be an opportune moment to encourage people to read legendary LAPD sketch artist Ector Garcia’s book “Portraits of Crime”… I quite enjoyed it!
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That’s actually coming in an upcoming post. I did a mini-biography of him several years ago…. Meanwhile, I’m wondering about F.G. Ponce. I have lots of police artist sketches by Ponce.
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