Category Archives: Homicide

Prisoner’s dream

Posted on August 16, 2007 by lmharnisch

  Aug. 16, 1957 Santa Monica We will never know what really happened on the night ad executive Guy F. Roberts was shot to death in a Santa Monica motel room because everyone involved was lying to cover up the … Continue reading →

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Movie murder

Posted on August 14, 2007 by lmharnisch

Aug. 15, 1957Los Angeles Here’s your case: John Emmett Edwards,* 17, 243 E. 137th St., is on a double date at the Roadium, a drive-in theater at 2500 Redondo Beach Blvd., Torrance, with his girlfriend, Frances Clemens**, 16; her brother, … Continue reading →

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Judy Dull update

Posted on August 6, 2007 by lmharnisch

  Aug. 7, 1957 Los Angeles Professional photographer David Sutton, 8426 1/2 W. 3rd, tells the Mirror that he spoke with missing model Judy Ann Dull an hour before she disappeared with a photographer calling himself Johnny Glinn (or Glynn). … Continue reading →

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Never returned

Posted on August 4, 2007 by lmharnisch

I found this in the archives. Poor thing, only 19. She never got to see her daughter grow up. Judith Ann Dull June 23, 1938-Aug. 1, 1957    

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Photo shoot

Posted on August 3, 2007 by lmharnisch

Aug. 3, 1957Los Angeles In June 1957, about the time she turned 19, Judy, at right, met Betty at a Hollywood photographer’s studio. They were both young and hoping for modeling careers, so Betty, 19, asked Judy to move into … Continue reading →

Posted in Homicide, West Hollywood | Tagged , , , | 3 Comments

‘I Hate Cops!’

Posted on August 2, 2007 by lmharnisch

Aug. 2, 1957Los Angeles It was St. Patrick’s Day, 1957, and a few customers got rowdy in a bar at Pico Boulevard and Figueroa Street. Police Officer Leo Wise separated a couple of men who were fighting and ordered them … Continue reading →

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Women attacked

Posted on July 31, 2007 by lmharnisch

July 31, 1957Los Angeles In the continuing assaults across the city, a North Hollywood housewife fought off an intruder while a 60-year-old Hollywood woman was saved from strangling by the staff of her Hollywood apartment building after she was grabbed … Continue reading →

Posted in Hollywood, Hollywood Division, Homicide, LAPD, San Fernando Valley | 1 Comment

Cold case solved

Posted on July 29, 2007 by lmharnisch

July 25-31, 1957Los Angeles Nine minutes after the cyanide pellets were dropped in the gas chamber at San Quentin, James Lewis Feldkamp,  25, who had once tried to become an LAPD officer, was dead. If he hadn’t been turned down … Continue reading →

Posted in Homicide, LAPD | Tagged , , , , | 4 Comments

Police shakeup

Posted on July 25, 2007 by lmharnisch

July 25, 1957Los Angeles As surprising as it seems now, there was a time when the Los Angeles newspapers actively covered top-ranking personnel at the LAPD. Most readers would be hard-pressed to name the current head of Robbery-Homicide (Capt. Kyle … Continue reading →

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CSI–2007

Posted on July 24, 2007 by lmharnisch

I had the good fortune to attend the first day of the International Assn. for Identification convention in San Diego yesterday and although most of the sessions are focused on new technologies, I was there to talk about the past, … Continue reading →

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Death in El Segundo

Posted on July 22, 2007 by lmharnisch

July 22, 1957Los Angeles We’re heading west on Rosecrans Avenue. It’s early Monday morning, a few moments after 1:30 a.m., and the streets are dark. There’s nobody out but a few drunks and some people heading home from the swing … Continue reading →

Posted in #courts, 1957, @news, Cemeteries, Crime and Courts, Homicide, Science | Tagged , , , , , , | 11 Comments

Victor Mature TV

Posted on July 20, 2007 by lmharnisch

Question: Didn’t Victor Mature own an appliance store? Answer: Yes, Victor Mature TV: 10739 W. Pico Blvd. The store later moved to 10916 W. Pico.  

Posted in Film, Homicide, Television | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

Insane

Posted on July 20, 2007 by lmharnisch

July 20, 1957Riverside A maid at a Riverside hotel found the battered, nude body of 5-year-old Hiedrun “Heidi” Nicholson bent over double and stuffed into a closet. It looked “as if someone had been pounding her with a hammer,” The … Continue reading →

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He’s here!

Posted on July 19, 2007 by lmharnisch

July 19, 1957Los Angeles Minda Lee Birnbaum, 15, and her mother, Blanche Lewie, 46, had spent most of the day with the divorce lawyer, Murray Chotiner. In the late afternoon, as Blanche made some phone calls from the law offices’ … Continue reading →

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You, the jury, Part II

Posted on July 19, 2007 by lmharnisch

July 19, 1957 Los Angeles The jury convicted Wallace LeRoy Schiers of second-degree murder on July 18, 1957. But Schiers continued to insist that he did not kill his wife. He said: “I have nothing on my conscience. Somewhere along … Continue reading →

Posted in #courts, Homicide, LAPD, San Fernando Valley | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

You, the jury, Part I

Posted on July 16, 2007 by lmharnisch

  July 16, 1957 Los Angeles Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, you have heard the witnesses and seen the evidence. Now you must decide whether to find Wallace LeRoy Schiers, 34, guilty of second-degree murder in the killing his … Continue reading →

Posted in #courts, 1957, Crime and Courts, Homicide, LAPD, San Fernando Valley | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

Sea bag murder

Posted on July 13, 2007 by lmharnisch

  July 12-13, 1957 Los Angeles Two men from the Harbor Department were picking trash out of the main channel at Terminal Island when they saw the big canvas bag–twice the size of a Navy sea bag–drifting against the pier … Continue reading →

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A bill of goods

Posted on July 12, 2007 by lmharnisch

  July 12, 1957 Los Angeles Harold D. Jensen was apparently quite a salesman, because he certainly sold his fiancee a bill of goods. Before marrying Barbara Jean Burton, 26, 8343 Clarence Ave., Jensen wrote a prenuptial agreement promising her … Continue reading →

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Hipperson suspect

Posted on July 9, 2007 by lmharnisch

  July 9, 1957 Los Angeles Detectives investigating the killing of nurse Marjorie Hipperson are questioning a con artist with ulcers who was an orderly at Hollywood Presbyterian Hospital, where Hipperson and her fiance, Dr. Walter Deike, worked. Monte Melvin … Continue reading →

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Woman strangled

Posted on July 5, 2007 by lmharnisch

July 5, 1957 Los Angeles What we have is a dead woman and a man who says he strangled her–except he doesn't remember it.  Or he did remember it and then he forgot. No, it doesn't make any sense. Her … Continue reading →

Posted in Homicide | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments