Category Archives: Crime and Courts

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, 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 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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November 15, 1981: Still Unsolved — Aspiring Screenwriter Killed in Hit-Run Staged to Look Like Rape

Posted on November 15, 2025 by lmharnisch

November 15, 1981: The mysterious death of Sue Latham, a cyclist who was hit by a car while unjamming the gears on her bike, but dragged to a construction site and partially undressed to make it look like she was raped. Continue reading →

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November 13, 1907: Revolutionary Defense Fund

Posted on November 13, 2025 by lmharnisch

November 13, 1907: An uproarious meeting is held at Simpson Auditorium to raise money for four Mexican revolutionaries held in the county jail. Antonio Rodriguez, who spoke in Spanish, Job Harriman and defense attorney A.R. Holston attacked the Mexican government, U.S. officials and the police. Continue reading →

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November 12, 1907: A Bad Way With Horses

Posted on November 12, 2025 by lmharnisch

November 12, 1907: John P. Shumway Jr. is badly injured when the carriage he was driving collided with the 11th Street trolley. Shumway was thrown about 20 feet, striking the pavement head-first, and the horse ran for the stable, pulling what was left of the smashed carriage, witnesses said. Continue reading →

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November 10, 1947: Remains of Kidnapped Girl Found in Orange County Ravine

Posted on November 10, 2025 by lmharnisch

November 10, 1947: The remains of 6-year-old Rochelle Gluskoter, kidnapped February 15, 1946, are found in a small ravine in Orange County. Her case was never solved. Continue reading →

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Mary Mallory: Hollywood Heights – ‘Letty Lynton’

Posted on November 10, 2025 by lmharnisch

Mary Mallory looks at the history of the 1932 MGM film “Letty Lynton” and why it keeps vanishing from sight. Continue reading →

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November 9, 1941: Roosevelt Declares Early Thanksgiving

Posted on November 9, 2025 by lmharnisch

November 9, 1941: President Roosevelt moves up the date of Thanksgiving to add an extra week of Christmas shopping. Continue reading →

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Nov. 9, 1907: ‘We Are Revolutionists!’ Supporters Call for Release of Ricardo Flores Magon

Posted on November 9, 2025 by lmharnisch

November 9, 1907: Local sympathizers, anarchists and socialists are organizing a mass meeting to protest the imprisonment of Ricardo Flores Magon, Librado Rivera, Antonio Villareal and L. Gutierrez De Lara, who are being held on charges of trying to overthrow the Mexican government. Continue reading →

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November 8, 1947: Tokyo Rose Seeks to Return to U.S.

Posted on November 8, 2025 by lmharnisch

November 8, 1947: Iva Toguri of Los Angeles seeks to return to the U.S. after being stranded in Japan during the war, when she was known as Tokyo Rose. Continue reading →

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November 5, 1947: ‘Amazing Career of a Girl Drug Addict’

Posted on November 5, 2025 by lmharnisch

November 5, 1947: Arrested in October for driving erratically on Wilshire Boulevard, a woman calling herself Margaret Burton told police she was a former actress and had become addicted to sedatives during the London Blitz, when a physician gave her tranquilizers to calm her nerves. Continue reading →

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November 3, 1941: Wingy Manone Puts the Swing in Swing Shift

Posted on November 3, 2025 by lmharnisch

November 3, 1941: Tom Treanor goes to a dance at the Glendale Civic Auditorium for swing shift workers, about 5,000 of them, from 1 a.m. to 5 a.m. on a Saturday morning. Most of the couples are married, he says, and the wives are 18 or 19. Continue reading →

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October 28, 1907: Former LAPD Chief Calls It ‘Most Detestable Job Ever Created’

Posted on October 28, 2025 by lmharnisch

October 28, 1907: A former LAPD chief says the job is the worst in the city. Continue reading →

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October 27, 1927: Follies Theater’s ‘Hot Mamma’ Show Led Court to Overturn Law on ‘Indecent Shows’

Posted on October 27, 2025 by lmharnisch

On Oct. 27, 1927, a campaign to “sweep Main Street clear of questionable shows” resulted in the arrest of 27 women of the “Hot Mamma” show. Police also arrested “12 chorus men, four tattooed women wearing their working clothes and last, but not least, Ill Ill, an untamed tree-climbing South African pygmy” Continue reading →

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October 26, 1942: Lon Chaney’s Ghost Haunts Hollywood and Vine!

Posted on October 26, 2025 by lmharnisch

October 26, 1942: Councilman Norris Nelson tells a story about the ghost of Lon Chaney sitting on a bench at Hollywood and Vine. Continue reading →

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October 24, 1907: Sanitarium Doctor Tells Patients to ‘Live on Love’ and Forget About Food

Posted on October 24, 2025 by lmharnisch

October 24, 1907: Upon the suicide of Dr. H. Russell Burner, advocate of the “radium milk” cure, his sanitarium was taken over by Dr. F.S. Kurpiers, who is now in trouble with the Health Department. Kurpiers didn’t have a medical license, so he obtained the certificate of Dr. C.H. King, a dying physician who wept as he told authorities that the only way he could support a few relatives was to rent out his license. Continue reading →

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The Chinese Massacre: October 24, 1871 — Part 4

Posted on October 24, 2025 by lmharnisch

October 24, 1871: Part 4 of a series on the Chinese Massacre. Continue reading →

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