Category Archives: LAPD

A rambling man

Posted on September 6, 2007 by lmharnisch

  Sept. 6, 1957 Los Angeles Kindly, mild-mannered and quiet, The Traveler, 51, was the last person anyone would suspect of a crime. He seemed more like a Sunday school teacher, which he had been, or perhaps an itinerant newsman. … Continue reading →

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Matt Weinstock

Posted on September 5, 2007 by lmharnisch

Matt Weinstock Sept. 5, 1957 An Altadena family took off recently on a trip to Europe. The other day, the next-door neighbor, Ed Murray, was advised by his youngster that a skunk was trapped in the cement crawl hole at … Continue reading →

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Fried Rice

Posted on August 31, 2007 by lmharnisch

  Aug. 29-30, 1957 Los Angeles The poor thing died as hardboiled as she had lived: Renting a junky room in an old house that had been cut up into apartments. The landlord said she’d been sick for the last … Continue reading →

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Fuzzy Pink Nightgown

Posted on August 23, 2007 by lmharnisch

  Aug. 23, 1957Los Angeles Bad things happen when two men (Ralph Meeker and Keenan Wynn) abduct a movie star (Jane Russell). It turns out that her upcoming film is "The Kidnapped Bride" and everyone–including the studio and the alleged … Continue reading →

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The Choirboys

Posted on August 22, 2007 by lmharnisch

Aug. 17-22, 1957 Los Angeles Officers Robert J. Steele, 25, and James K. Sherratt, 28, were sitting in Steele’s car at 4 a.m. after finishing their shifts at Newton Division when a gunman tried to rob them, The Times said. … Continue reading →

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Los Feliz strangler

Posted on August 20, 2007 by lmharnisch

Aug. 20, 1957Los Angeles It’s late afternoon and we’re parked outside a 1926 bungalow at 4020 Holly Knoll Drive. Pretty soon the street will be full of police and reporters, but right now everything is quiet. Ready? Let’s go in. … Continue reading →

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The vexations of research

Posted on August 19, 2007 by lmharnisch

  Aug. 18, 1957 Los Angeles Nearly a century ago, Los Angeles had the wisdom and foresight to appoint the first policewoman in the United States–or was she? Alice Stebbins Wells is usually given that distinction today, but the record … Continue reading →

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You Have Got to Be Kidding Me

Posted on August 14, 2007 by lmharnisch

Aug. 15, 1957Los Angeles

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Jean Spangler

Posted on August 12, 2007 by lmharnisch

  I was listening to the prayers of the people during today’s church service and was shocked to hear "Jean Spangler"  among the names. I told myself it could be a coincidence. Maybe it was someone else named Jean Spangler, … Continue reading →

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Four-time loser

Posted on August 12, 2007 by lmharnisch

Aug. 12, 1957Los Angeles John Gordon Fawcett, 42, had enough. His last three marriages had ended with his wives getting boyfriends and so when he found his fourth wife in the bedroom with another man…. “This happens every time,” he … Continue reading →

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Mickey Cohen–author

Posted on August 4, 2007 by lmharnisch

Aug. 4, 1957 Oceanside Box 7, Folders 216-229 of the Ben Hecht archives at the Newberry Library in Chicago appear to contain whatever was produced during the time Hecht worked with gangster Mickey Cohen on the story of the mobster’s … Continue reading →

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‘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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Countdown to Watts

Posted on August 2, 2007 by lmharnisch

Aug. 1-7, 1957Los Angeles A search through The Times for early August reveals several stories about Chief William H. Parker being honored for 30 years service with the Los Angeles Police Department. In a luncheon at the Biltmore Bowl hosted … Continue reading →

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Spanish blood

Posted on August 1, 2007 by lmharnisch

Aug. 1, 1957Los Angeles Maybe it’s heat, maybe it’s the smog (what would be a Stage 3 alert today), but The Times is full of odd crime news. A rabid 2-year-old fox terrier mix went on a rampage starting at … 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

Random queries

Posted on July 30, 2007 by lmharnisch

The hits for the Daily Mirror blog show that someone is researching the Feb. 13, 1969, robbery of the Bank of America at 3320 S. Hill. Here’s your answer: The Times wrote very little about the case, although police killed … Continue reading →

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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 →

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Attack in Griffith Park

Posted on July 27, 2007 by lmharnisch

July 27, 1957Los Angeles I’m going to describe a neighborhood and you guess where it is: Gay women living together, speaking Armenian and working for nonprofits. (OK, I’m exaggerating slightly). Also lots of foreign-born urbanites and “makin’ it singles.” That’s … Continue reading →

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Voices–Lew Irwin

Posted on July 27, 2007 by lmharnisch

Longtime broadcaster Lew Irwin operates Studio Briefing, an Internet-based daily digest of entertainment industry news. This is his story about reporting on the NAACP brutality lawsuits against the Police Department. I was working for KPOL… I was the news director … Continue reading →

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Never seen again

Posted on July 26, 2007 by lmharnisch

When Dr. George Ripley Fuller vanished, he left few clues and countless questions. What we don’t know about him would fill a book while the facts cover a page or two at most. We know he was 27 when he … Continue reading →

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