The Mirror News gets a redesign for the front page. Eighteen stories plus the index on an eight-column grid. Wow.
Matt Weinstock moves from the editorial page to the cover of the second section. (20 stories on one page! With art. That, my friends, is incredible).
Would you like to see another picture of Mickey Cohen with one of his Cadillacs? Of course you would! This one is a bit mysterious. This is the Cadillac that took a few shots in 1949 outside Sherry's on the Sunset Strip, but the picture is dated Oct. 30, 1950, which is after The Times took photos of his new bulletproof Cadillac.
Photograph by Bruce Cox / Los Angeles Times
Here's another mystery: What's the deal with Cohen campaigning for Fletcher Bowron? It would seem to me that if you're running in a recall election (as Mayor Bowron was), you wouldn't want to be endorsed by the city's most prominent mobster. There's no telling what role Cohen's support might have had, but Bowron defeated the recall.
And why is Cohen driving his old, ventilated car when there's a nice, shiny bulletproof Cadillac in the garage? It seems Mickey neglected to get a permit from the California Highway Patrol to drive an armored conveyance. Oops! He ended up selling his $17,000 ($137,564. 58 USD 2006) bulletproof car at a $5,000 loss to the Texas Stock Car Racing Assn., which put it on tour.
While I'm at it, here's an undated photo of Mickey Cohen, compulsive hand washer, at his favorite pastime.
Los Angeles Times photo
Nov. 18, 1957
Plainfield, Wis.
“It appears to be cannibalism.” What more does anyone need to say? (Notice that The Times did not put this on Page 1).
Nov. 17, 1957
Los Angeles
Let’s go back about six months before it happened out on a lonely road half a mile from the cemetery.
Monty was 19 and had just gotten out of the Deuel Vocational Institution for Men
at Tracy, Calif., after serving 14 months for stealing a car. Homer was
61, a distinguished bridge player who was the attending physician at
Olive View Sanitarium, a facility for tuberculosis patients. He lived
on the sanitarium grounds with his ailing wife, Adele. They apparently
had no children.
Homer saw Monty hitchhiking in San Fernando and picked him up. After that,
Monty said, Homer helped him out financially. It’s unclear how well
they were acquainted, but Monty knew for certain where Homer lived and
when he got paid.
Monty was living in a hotel at 118 N. Maclay Ave.,
San Fernando, with his 16-year-old girlfriend, Diana Kay Maupin. He
figured they’d drive to Las Vegas and get married. But he needed money
and a car.
So he thought of Homer. Thursday was payday at the sanitarium, but a day passed before Monty acted on his plan.
A friend named Frederick G. Rhoads, 18, stopped by the hotel and as
they were speaking, Rhoads was sharpening his 3-inch, pearl-handled
knife. Monty asked if he could borrow it.
Once he had the knife, Monty went to Homer’s house. Monty said he
needed Homer’s money and his car so he could drive to Las Vegas and
marry Diana. Homer gave Monty $4. He wouldn’t let Monty have the car,
but offered to drive him back to the hotel.
Monty said fine, but he insisted on driving and Homer let him.
He knew Homer had kept back a dollar and Monty wanted that last dollar
bill. So instead of driving back to the hotel, where Diana was making dinner, Monty drove up Lopez Canyon Road and parked with Homer a mile north of Kagel Canyon Road, about half a mile from Glen Haven Cemetery.
Monty told police that as they sat in the car on that lonely stretch of
road, Homer made "improper advances," according to The Times. As Homer
struggled, Monty stabbed him once in the heart, once through the neck
and three times in the abdomen.
Then Monty took the remaining dollar from Homer’s wallet, shoved him
out of the car and down a culvert, and drove back to San Fernando.
Although he was bleeding terribly, Homer crawled up the roadway, where
he was found by a passing motorist. He died before anyone could save
him.
But instead of going to Las Vegas, Monty, Frederick and their
girlfriends went to a drive-in. When the young women excused themselves
from the car, Monty returned the bloody knife, saying: "I killed a guy
this afternoon. Let’s go up and bury him."
Frederick thought it was a joke. "He’s always blowing steam. So I went along for kicks. I didn’t believe him," Frederick said.
The young men dropped off the girls and went to the home of Monty’s parents, 10092 Vena Ave., Pacoima, to borrow a shovel with the excuse that a friend’s car was stuck in some sand up in the hills.
They dug a shallow grave at the end Maclay Street, but Frederick still
thought it was a joke. "I went along with the gag, but still thought he
was only kidding," Frederick said.
Monty drove back to the murder scene on Lopez Canyon Road, where he and
Frederick were arrested by sheriff’s deputies. Delmont F. "Monty"
Johann told investigators that Dr. Homer Van Horne had made "improper
advances" but police said "they had uncovered no evidence to
substantiate his story," The Times said.
Johann pleaded guilty to first-degree murder and was sentenced to life
in prison. Frederick G. Rhoads, 2026 1/2 Glenoaks Blvd., pleaded guilty
to being an accessory. The Times said he was to be sentenced April 22,
1958, but never reported the outcome.
The Times never said anything further about Johann or Rhoads. According
to California death records, Adele Van Horne died in 1963 at the age of
78.
So what are we to make of this? Was Homer really gay and the police and
The Times covered it up because of the stigma? Was Monty merely lying
to justify the killing and save himself?
We may suspect, but we may never know for sure. What’s certain is that
Monty expressed absolutely no remorse for the killing but said that in
hindsight he wished he had only hit Homer. He would have still taken
the money and the car.
I have to think that there is more to this story about an older man and
a troubled 19-year-old than what was in The Times. I suspect Monty had
something else in mind besides eloping to Las Vegas when he told
police: "I decided last Monday that I would have to do away with Dr.
Van Horne."
Nov. 7, 1957
Los Angeles
Edwin G. Leadford, 19, 10181 Katella Ave., was driving east "over the Katella overpass at the Santa Ana Freeway, a mile east of Disneyland"* at 12:10 a.m. when he saw a mysterious object in the sky to the northwest, the Mirror said.
According to news accounts, he stopped and took this picture, then the object vanished. He said that members of the "Garden Grove Ground Observer Post" also saw the object but did not report it to "the Air Defense Filter center in Pasadena."
Leadford seems to have had a difficult time getting anyone to take his photograph seriously. The Times never even bothered to report this incident, but the Mirror used the photo on a picture page.
*I didn’t grow up in Los Angeles, so I don’t know if there was a time when Katella went over the Santa Ana Freeway or if the original story is wrong.
Nov. 15, 1957
Los Angeles
Your name is Leonard Jackola. You’re 43 and here on a visit from
Chicago, staying with your younger sister, Mary, 30, and her family at 3634 E. 177th St.,
Torrance. Her husband, Arthur E. England, 37, is an engineer at
Northrop and they have two children, Melissa, 6, and Timothy, 3.
You are going out with a neighbor and plan to return about midnight.
Arthur has just bought a house trailer for $325 ($2,328.72 USD 2006)
and hitched it to the family’s car. He put some of his clothing in the
vehicle and packed a suitcase that he put in the trailer.
When you get home about midnight, you don’t run into anyone, so you go
to bed and wake up at 8 a.m. There’s no sign of your sister or
brother-in-law, so you make breakfast for the children and send Melissa
off to school while Timothy plays in the neighborhood.
Hours pass and there’s no sign of Arthur or Mary. At first you thought
they were sleeping late, but you eventually discover that their bedroom
door is locked. Finally, about 2 p.m., you get a stepladder and when
you peer in the bedroom window you see both of them are dead.
Torrance police open the door and find that Arthur apparently shot Mary
with a Mauser rifle, then tried to slash his throat. When that failed,
he put the barrel of the Mauser in his mouth and–well, you can imagine
what happened.
There was no suicide note, but police found $825 in cash stacked on the
dresser, along with $650 in Savings Bonds. We can infer that Arthur
planned to leave home but the news story doesn’t shed any light on the
question.
And no, you didn’t hear an argument or the two rifle shots. It’s a
miracle that a bullet didn’t go through a wall and hit someone. (I’m
assuming Arthur had some variation of a 7.65 millimeter Argentine Mauser, ammo shown above).
The Times never followed up on this story, so we don’t know what became of
Leonard or who raised the children. They would be 56 and 53 now. How
unimaginably tragic for these youngsters to lose their parents. We can
only hope for the best.
Someone has been searching the Daily Mirror for information about an unsolved killing in Los Angeles County on May 22, 1963. Send me a little more information and I’ll see what I can turn up….
Here’s another little nugget of information I found going through the archives.
Guess what kind of car Mickey Cohen had after he gave up bulletproof Cadillacs?
Go ahead, guess.
Nov. 14, 1957
I’m an old-fashioned boy. I don’t like changes.
That’s why i was more than slightly disturbed at the recent rumbles that Ciro’s might close forever.
Such a thing, if it happened, would be a catastrophe on the Sunset Strip. It would end a damned colorful era of Hollywood life.
Ciro’s is a landmark.
It’s pudgy boniface, Herman Hover, nursed it into one of the most famous cabarets in the world.
Within its plush, velvet walls, every top star has either performed, got tight or had a fistfight.
(Hover had a standing rule that any male movie star was entitled to two
fights at Ciro’s. But he was barred after the third time.).
The cafe was the proving ground for Kay Thompson, Nat Cole, Mitzi Gaynor, Sammy Davis Jr. and Liberace.
Its star attractions have included Peggy Lee, Martin and Lewis, Danny
Thomas, Xavier Cugat, Carmen Cavallaro, Veloz and Yolanda, Joe E. Lewis
and the indestructible Sophie Tucker.
It’s been the scene of lavish parties. The setting for Darryl Zanuck’s historic trip on a flying trapeze.
Ciro’s cigarette girls have included a future Mrs. Tommy Manville, a
future Mrs. Huntington Hartford Jr. and the present wife of Sir Cedric
Hardwicke.
Hover himself has been a curiously colorful addition to his own room. A
graduate of Columbia Law School, he took his degree, passed the bar and
promptly got a job as a chorus boy in Broadway musicals.
After that, he worked as an attorney for the federal government and later as an executive of the Earl Carroll enterprises.
But he’s a buck-and-wing dancer at heart.
No act can be sure of having their option picked up unless they invite
him on stage to dance at least once during their appearance.
"I can dance as well as Fred Astaire for a couple of minutes," he assured me yesterday.
So it’s been rather sad to see Ciro’s get clobbered in recent months. But fortunately, Hover is a showman who bounces back.
Instead of closing, as the rumors have had it, he’s going strong the
other way. Next month he’ll bring in the entire Katherine Dunham
troupe, which is maybe two short of a battalion of dancers.
On Nov. 22 he’s presenting the complete Minsky revue with a company of 24.
And with that I can relax. It sounds like the good old days are
returning to that beloved scene of my childhood–the Sunset Strip.
[Note: Ciro’s closed in early 1958. The exact date is a little unclear–lrh].
Check it out: The Fed cuts interest rates to 3%! And a future Superfund site is dedicated!
Michael "Mickey" Cohen needed a new bulletproof Cadillac for several reasons: His home was bombed in February 1950 and his previous Cadillac acquired some bullet holes outside Sherry's Restaurant, 9039 Sunset Blvd., on July 20, 1949.
Photograph by Clay Willcockson / Los Angeles Times
In honor of the Los Angeles International Auto Show, here are some car photos I found in the archives.
Who owned this bulletproof Cadillac? And why did he need one?
Photograph by Howard W. Maxwell / Los Angeles Times
Nov. 13, 1957
For Joseph Szabo, bravery has been an expensive trait.
Its cost has included starvation and dungeons and tortures, like these (I’ll give them to you in Szabo’s words):
“Every day they were to take me and put me on a desk. Three people sit on my back and legs.
“Other people have a rubber club.
“They hit at the bottoms of my feet.
“They tell me to count after each hit…
“…One, two three…. Once I count to 251 for them. Continue reading
My friends at the 1947project have announced that demon dog James "I will never again publicly discuss the Black Dahlia murder or my mother’s death" Ellroy will be hosting a bus tour on Dec. 22.
For a mere $60 you can hear my old pal James not discuss his mother’s murder as the bus visits Arroyo High School in El Monte and other sites in L.A.
Woof, Daddy-o.
(At right, as sold on EBay: "Black Dahlia Avenger" autographed by Steve Hodel and inscribed to James Ellroy, who provided the introduction to the book, endorsing Hodel’s contention that his father killed Elizabeth Short).
Nov. 13-14, 1957
Los Angeles
Just as I suspected.
Although The Times was too squeamish to even allude to homosexuality in the Trick or Treat murder of Peter Fabiano, the Mirror was a bit more brave.
A bit.
It’s fairly evident that the Mirror expected people to read between the lines and figure out this story:
“Strange and unpredictable passions were probably responsible for the trick or treat murder of a Sun Valley beauty shop owner on Halloween, police said today.
“This cryptic comment was all that came from Valley Detective Sgts. Pat Kealy and Charles Stewart after they booked a 40-year-old woman freelance photographer on suspicion of murder.”
The Mirror helpfully provides a few more facts about Rabel: She was a Lithuanian immigrant, had a police record for burglary and violating liquor laws, and she had been divorced for a year.
Let the record show that the word “lesbian” appeared only once in a Times news story in 1957 and that was in a direct quote from a prosecution brief against L. Ewing Scott, referring to his fabricated excuses for his wife’s disappearance.
ProQuest shows that the word “lesbian” also appeared twice in classified ads, but I suspect these are “false positives” that sometimes confuse the software’s search engine.
Stay tuned and I’ll go over the ads to see if I can find out what’s up.
But why should I have all the fun? Click below to see two pages of Times classified ads that ProQuest says contain the word “lesbian.”
