Monthly Archives: November 2025

November 20, 1947: Bobby-Soxer Kills Girl, 5

Posted on November 20, 2025 by lmharnisch

November 13, 1947: Joyce, 13, forces Myretta Jones, 5, to undress, then smashes her with a rock and a shovel until she’s dead. Why? Joyce said she didn’t know. Continue reading →

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November 20, 1941: California Prepares to Execute Juanita ‘The Duchess’ Spinelli

Posted on November 20, 2025 by lmharnisch

November 20, 1941: Juanita ‘The Duchess’ Spinelli is about to become the first woman legally executed in California. She was an ex-wrestler and knife-thrower who could pin a poker chip at 15 paces. Continue reading →

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November 20, 1907: Police Capture Streetcar Bandits

Posted on November 20, 2025 by lmharnisch

November 20, 1907: Police arrest two men who staged daring holdups on the Ascot Park and Eastlake streetcars, robbing the motormen and conductors as the cars reached the ends of their routes. Continue reading →

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November 19, 1960: Gene Autry a Contender in American League Expansion Team

Posted on November 19, 2025 by lmharnisch

November 19, 1960: Gene Autry is a potential bidder for an American League baseball team hoping to start in Los Angeles in 1961. Continue reading →

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November 19, 1959: Matt Weinstock

Posted on November 19, 2025 by lmharnisch

November 19, 1959: Matt Weinstock writes about a “Pyramidologist” who says his study of the Great Pyramid shows that the day will bring something ominous — and that the Earth will end Jan. 28, 2001. Continue reading →

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November 19, 1959: Paul V. Coates – Confidential File

Posted on November 19, 2025 by lmharnisch

November 19, 1959: A convicted robber who escaped from jail talks to Paul Coates about why he did it and whether to surrender to police. Continue reading →

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November 19, 1941: Hollywood Model Dies of Botched Abortion

Posted on November 19, 2025 by lmharnisch

November 19, 1941: Angelka Rose Gogich was 18 when she died at Glendale Emergency Hospital after undergoing an abortion. She had be working as a model, hat check girl and dancer under the name Rose Ann Rae. Continue reading →

Posted in 1941, Abortion, Art & Artists, Black Dahlia, Columnists, Comics, Film, Hollywood, Homicide, LAPD, Medicine, Obituaries | Tagged | 1 Comment

November 19, 1907: Crime Wave Sweeps L.A.

Posted on November 19, 2025 by lmharnisch

November 19, 1907: An influx of crooks, petty hoodlums and vagrants drawn by good weather and horse racing at Santa Anita are blamed for a siege of crime throughout the city. Continue reading →

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November 18, 1959: Matt Weinstock

Posted on November 18, 2025 by lmharnisch

November 18, 1959: Retired math professor Robert Bruce tells a friend “you’re entitled to call me Robert.” But physics instructor Julius Miller replies: “I couldn’t do that. You’ve been Professor Bruce to me for more than 30 years,” Matt Weinstock says. Continue reading →

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November 18, 1959: Paul V. Coates – Confidential File

Posted on November 18, 2025 by lmharnisch

November 18, 1959: Sen. Everett Dirksen (R-Ill) responds to taxpayers’ fury over a resolution to take all 100 senators to Hawaii for its statehood ceremonies, Paul Coates writes. Continue reading →

Posted in 1959, Columnists, Downtown, Film, Front Pages, Hollywood, Homicide, LAPD, Parks and Recreation, Paul Coates | Comments Off on November 18, 1959: Paul V. Coates – Confidential File

November 18, 1958: Mickey Cohen pal back from the dead

Posted on November 18, 2025 by lmharnisch

November 18, 1959: Mickey Cohen pal is back from the dead! Continue reading →

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George Hodel: Ask Me Anything, November 2025

Posted on November 18, 2025 by lmharnisch

November 18, 2025: This month’s Ask Me Anything on George Hodel and Steve Hodel in the Black Dahlia case. Continue reading →

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November 18, 1941: Private Detective Held in ‘Love’ Killing

Posted on November 18, 2025 by lmharnisch

November 18, 1941: Private detective Edwin Crumplar is charged in ‘love slaying’ of Irene Wilder, who died of an infection after Crumplar shot her in the stomach. Jimmie Fidler says Alan Ladd’s romance with Sally Wadsworth won’t please Paramount. Continue reading →

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November 17, 1959: Matt Weinstock

Posted on November 17, 2025 by lmharnisch

November 17, 1959: In a school project, a boy plants radishes in a circle rather than rows. Why? That’s how you get them at the market, he says. Now a commercial grower is trying the method to ease stoop labor, Matt Weinstock says. Continue reading →

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November 17, 1959: Paul V. Coates – Confidential File

Posted on November 17, 2025 by lmharnisch

November 17, 1959: Paul Coates has the story of Beat poet Jerry Baker, arrested while hitchhiking on his way to a coffeehouse. Continue reading →

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November 17, 1968: The ‘Heidi Game’ remembered

Posted on November 17, 2025 by lmharnisch

November 17, 1968: NBC preempts the last moments of a game between the Oakland Raiders and the New York Jets to air “Heidi,” and the infamous “Heidi Game” was born. Continue reading →

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November 17, 1947: Miracle Red Toothpaste Tints Gums a Healthy Pink

Posted on November 17, 2025 by lmharnisch

November 17, 1947: Miracle toothpaste colors gums a healthy pink! Yellow teeth look white! Continue reading →

Posted in 1947, Frightening Food From the 1940s | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

November 17, 1941: Women Reporters

Posted on November 17, 2025 by lmharnisch

November 17, 1941: Reporter Mary Shaw Leader is posthumously honored for covering Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address. Leader walked 15 miles to cover Lincoln’s speech. Continue reading →

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Movieland Unsuitable Foreign Mystery Photo (Updated + + + +)

Posted on November 17, 2025 by lmharnisch

For Monday, we have a mysterious fellow in an unsuitable foreign mystery film. Continue reading →

Posted in 1963, 1966, Film, Hollywood, Mystery Photo | Tagged , , , , , , | 26 Comments

November 17, 1907: A #MeToo Moment in the Monkey House; Opera Tenors in Trouble

Posted on November 17, 2025 by lmharnisch

November 17, 1907: A detective in Central Park’s monkey house arrests Leon Cazauran, brought to New York to sing in “Thais” at Oscar Hammerstein’s Manhattan Operahouse, and his companion, Claude Modjeska, “a copper-colored young man,” The Times says. The charge was attempting to corrupt small boys Continue reading →

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