Jan. 23, 1959: Paul Coates is all (or mostly) in favor of ceremonial honors. On the jump, Bobbie Long is found strangled with a nylon stocking a few feet off a dirt road that runs off Don Julian Road between Seventh and Eighth Avenues southwest of the City of Industry. The Mirror News notes the similarity to the killing of Geneva Ellroy in June 1959.
Coates’ column appeared in the L.A. Mirror in 1959 and was republished on latimes.com in 2009. It is available via Archive.org.
Jan. 25, 1959: Do remind me that the past was “a kinder, simpler time.” I think not. Absolutely horrific..
The entire post originally appeared on latimes.com and is available via Archive.org.
If you’re watching “I Am the Night” on TNT, you may be tempted to read the Wikipedia entry on “evil” Dr. George Hodel.
Here are a few warnings:
Do you remember what Wikipedia says about no self-promotion? And “neutral point of view?”
Oh dear.
So here’s one of the big lies in Wikipedia’s entry on George Hodel. Dr. George Hodel was never friends with Man Ray. How do we know? Here:
And here’s another good one:
This is the exact opposite of what happened. In a Feb. 20, 1951, report, Frank Jemison noted interviews and other evidence on George Hodel “tend to eliminate this suspect.”
Or in simple language, a lie. One of Steve Hodel’s many, many lies about his father. Spread on Wikipedia.
How long before some citizen-editor corrects this on Wikipedia? How about never? Yes, never sounds about right.
Would you like to see how Steve Hodel lies about things that can be easily checked? Of course you would. This is a graphic that appeared during Steve Hodel’s appearance on “Dr. Phil.”
It’s helpful, at least for me, for Steve to give the date of this supposed excerpt from the LAPD bug at the Sowden House. Because I have all the transcripts and they are (spoiler alert) Bo-RING! Steve also merges the quotes from March 25, 1950, and March 26, 1950. This guy was a detective with the LAPD? This guy?
We’re going to look at the entire transcript and (second spoiler alert) George Hodel never says “I’m in trouble.” No, it’s one of the investigators having trouble with the recording equipment. (This guy was a detective with the LAPD? This guy?)
Notice some of this conversation is actually from March 25, 1950. As Steve Hodel has shown numerous times, he has great difficulty reading what is in front of him.
Here we go:
March 25, 1950
“Sounded like Hodel said something about Black ‘Daliah.’ ”
”Sounded like Hodel wants to get out of the country. mentioned passport.
“Had trouble with one spool.”
March 26, 1950
”Hodel talking about picture police have of him and some girl – thought he had destroyed them all.”
See for yourself.
Note: I’m still catching up with posts from the blog when it was at latimes.com. This post about the unsolved killing of Howard Steindler originally appeared in 2009 and is available via Archive.org.
Let’s see what happens when Wikipedia vandalism takes on a life of its own. That would be Black Dahlia “suspect” Jacob Edward Fisk. Never a suspect. It was all just a prank.
On April 13, 2009, someone apparently signing on from Xavier University in Columbus, Ohio, added a few lines about Jacob Edward Fisk to the list of Black Dahlia suspects.
“Though born in 1988, Jacob committed the murder of Elizabeth Short by travelling through time. The time machine he used was build in his sunbird.”
The entry was removed the same day.
More than 10 years ago.
But as recently as May 2019, Fisk was still listed as an “original suspect” with the Los Angeles County district attorney’s files as the purported source.
Nope.
And he appears in Google results. Because Google loves Wikipedia. Never a suspect. Just a 10-year-old prank.
Here we have a purported list of “Black Dahlia Suspects” from Wikipedia. At least as it was of May 20, 2019. Wikipedia, being Wikipedia, this could change at any moment.
This list is allegedly the 25 suspects named by Lt. Frank Jemison of the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office. In reality, Jemison listed 22 suspects in his report of Feb. 20, 1951. Jemison did not list Dr. Adam Fairall, Jacob Edward Fisk or Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel. They are relatively recent and completely bogus additions, with ardent Wikipedia users (are there any other kind?) altering the total to agree with the number of names.
Comparing every change on the Black Dahlia suspects entry is quite a chore. Like all entries, it’s frequently subject to vandalism (see the prank entry of “Jacob Edward Fisk” April 2009), reversions and random and totally unnecessary repairs, and random tweaking. In other words, business as usual for the zealous if factually and grammatically challenged editors of Wikipedia.
Let’s go back to the beginning.
On Sept. 30, 2009, a Wikipedia editor, identified only by ISP, added purported Black Dahlia suspect Dr. Adam Fairall. Apparently the editor was attempting to indicate that Fairall was a strip club owner.
But by May 7, 2010….
Wikipedia user Kinston eagle had changed this to two suspects “Dr. Adam Fairall” and “Strip Club Owner.”
Remember: Neither Dr. Adam Fairall nor “Strip Club Owner” appear in Jemison’s report.
About four years later, on May 22, 2014, another Wikipedia editor removed “Strip Club Owner.”
On April 13, 2015, Wikipedia user Tamfang deleted “apparently meaningless numbers.” Dr. Adam Fairall, who occupied No. 17, was just another suspect. Still attributed – erroneously – to the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office.
Is Dr. Adam Fairall listed anywhere in the Los Angeles County district attorney’s files?
No.
Is Dr. Adam Fairall listed in the 1945 directory of California Physicians and Surgeons, Naturopaths, Drugless Practitioners, Chiropodists, Midwives?
No.
Does an Adam Fairall appear in the archives of the Los Angeles Times?
No.
How about Ancestry.com?
One person named Adam Fairall, born about 1980.
In other words, yet another bogus Wikipedia entry.
The perpetrator appears to be someone in South Africa who is interested in Moonwalking, serial killers, Leowakgomo High School and Greek mythology. Well, that’s Wikipedia for you.
And here’s more handiwork…. Yet another Wikipedia vandal.
How long with Dr. Adam Fairall remain in the Wikipedia entry? Well, I exposed Jacob Edward Fisk last week and he’s still there. This may take a while.
If you’re looking for a lengthy biography of Eric Cartman, or an season/episode breakdown of “The Simpsons,” Wikipedia may be for you. Otherwise, it’s rubbish.
Still another person thinks it’s fun to sprawl in the grass near the Black Dahlia crime scene, demonstrating a remarkable lack of taste but also complete lack of information: She’s in the wrong spot.
Previously:
Asshats on South Norton Avenue
Time for my annual reminder: Dressing up like the victim of a gruesome murder isn’t cool. It isn’t hip, not even ironically. Reconsider your choices; you still have time to be Harley Quinn or Mad Moxxi. Or for a change, Rainbow Dash.
This is an encore post from 2018.
Note: “Little Shoes,” about the murders of three little girls, may not be everybody’s idea of an appropriate holiday gift, but it is more than a “true crime” book. In “Little Shoes” Pamela Everett explores her family’s tragic history in one of Los Angeles’ biggest cases of the 1930s, and she raises compelling questions about the guilt of Albert Dyer, who was hanged for the killings.
A family’s history is tricky even in the best of circumstances; the past may be sanitized and rewritten for consumption by the next generation. When tragedy is involved, family stories become murky or are simply locked away.
So it was with the tale of the “Three Babes of Inglewood”: Madeline Everett, 7; her sister Melba, 9; and their playmate, Jeanette Stephens, 8; who were kidnapped from Centinela Park in Inglewood and killed June 26, 1937. The case, with the trial and execution of Albert Dyer, was one of the most sensational crimes of Los Angeles in the 1930s, along with the Harry Raymond bombing.
Pamela Everett, the niece of Madeline and Melba, embarked on a painful and arduous journey of discovery in unlocking her family’s tragedy. (Note: I played a small role in connecting her with a woman who was 7 at the time and wrote a piece for the Daily Mirror on her recollections of the girls).
The result is “Little Shoes,” a book that blends family stories with the history of the case, going far beyond the overexposed genre of “true” crime into another dimension that is part memoir and part investigation.
Everett also raises intriguing questions about the innocence of Albert Dyer, whom I had always assumed was the killer. Dr. Joseph Paul De River, later known for the Leslie Dillon fiasco in the Black Dahlia case, interviewed Dyer and wrote about him in “The Sexual Criminal.” The extremely graphic nature of “Sexual Criminal,” even though the book was restricted to law enforcement personnel, was one of the factors in De River’s dismissal as LAPD psychiatrist.
“Little Shoes” was singled out by the New York Times in its Summer Reading feature.
The book is available at Book Soup and Vroman’s, as well as Amazon.
And Fox News gets it wrong on the Black Dahlia case in this story by Stephanie Nolasco.
Let’s go over this once more.
The so-called Gangster Squad conducted a rogue, off-the-books and unsanctioned investigation of the Black Dahlia case that infringed on the LAPD Homicide Division’s inquiry into the killing of Elizabeth Short. The Gangster Squad’s rogue operation was led by Dr. Joseph Paul De River under the theory that Leslie Dillon had a split personality and – under this split personality – killed Elizabeth Short.
The Gangster Squad’s unauthorized interference in the case and the resulting Leslie Dillon fiasco triggered a grand jury investigation.
Dillon was cleared when it was established – after a long, thorough investigation – that he was in San Francisco at the time of the killing.
End of story.
Five Reasons Leslie Dillon Didn’t Kill Elizabeth Short
The Black Dahlia: Leslie Dillon, Paul De River and the LAPD: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5
Note: This is an encore post from 2013
Aug. 9, 1963: “In Saigon, 400 miles to the south, police geared for trouble as a young, unidentified monk announced plans to burn himself to death in the continuing Buddhist struggle for what they consider their civil rights and religious liberty,” The Times says.
In the theaters: “55 Days at Peking,” “Cleopatra,” “Flipper,” “Lawrence of Arabia” and “The Thrill of It All!”
Born 5 1/2 weeks premature, Patrick Bouvier Kennedy, the son of President Kennedy and First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy, dies at Children’s Medical Center in Boston.
Pershing Square, known as a haven for “off-beat characters” and “undesirables” will undergo a $100,000 “beautification program” in which “most of the square’s interior walkways” will be eliminated.
The 1000 block of Rancho Road in Arcadia via Google’s Street View.
On the afternoon of Jan. 9, 1963, Arcadia liquor store owner Jack Doctors, a former LAPD detective, found his wife, Jean, 37, partially undressed on the kitchen floor of their home at 1049 Rancho Road, Arcadia. She had been stabbed 39 times in the neck, chest and left arm with a hunting knife found in the kitchen, and was “criminally attacked,” The Times said.
Dr. Harold Kade of the Los Angeles County coroner’s office said Jean “put up a terrific struggle for her life,” noting that both hands were slashed from trying to grab the murder weapon.
Bloody footprints led to and from the body, The Times said, and traces of blood were found in the adjoining garage.
Bloodstained clothing was found on the driver’s seat of Jean’s car and investigators speculated that the killer planned to steal the vehicle but was unable to open the electric garage door.
Arcadia Police Chief Robert E. Sears said a pair of bloody pants had been found next to railroad tracks near the home, and noted that the killer had apparently stolen a change of clothes from the victim’s home.
Attention focused immediately on Robert Lee Nye, age 20 or 21, a transient who met Jean’s stepdaughter Susan, 16, at the Rose Parade and got Susan’s phone number and address. Nye, who had been convicted of forgery and DUI, visited the Doctorses’ home two days before the killing and met the victim. He asked to take Susan out for a soda but was “refused permission,” The Times said.
Nye’s fingerprints were found on a coffee cup in the kitchen sink and on an ashtray, police said.
Nye was arrested in Phoenix later that month on charges of beating a companion with a pipe in a disagreement over a movie on television. He told investigators that he stopped at the Doctorses’ home while looking for a job and that the victim asked him to stay and watch the phone while she went out shopping.
While Jean was gone, Nye said, he stole some jewelry, put it in a paper bag and left it in the yard. When she got home from shopping, she went into the bedroom and returned “with a suspicious look on her face” and he left when she opened the door, he said. Nye claimed he came back to pick up the jewelry and sold it for $50.
He hitchhiked to Las Vegas and then went to Phoenix after hearing news reports on the radio that he was a suspect in the killing, he said.
On Aug. 8, 1963, Nye was sentenced to death in the killing. However, the California Supreme Court ordered a new penalty trial because jurors were improperly warned that Nye could be paroled if he was given life in prison.
In 1967, a second jury imposed the death penalty in the killing. Nye was scheduled to die in the gas chamber Nov. 5, 1969, but the U.S. Supreme Court granted a stay of execution.
In 1973, while at San Quentin, Nye was stabbed in the arm and stomach, but refused to identify his attacker. Nye was eventually released from prison and in 1989 was charged with threatening people while panhandling at San Jose’s Civic Center.
The Social Security Death Index lists a Robert L. Nye, a San Jose resident, born April 18, 1942, who died Dec. 29, 1992, but it’s unclear whether this is the same man.
Photo: Leesa Jo Shaner
Note: This is an encore post from 2011. Paula Zahn’s new piece on the case has renewed interest in the killing. William Floyd Zamastil was convicted in 2011 in the killing.
An attempt to resolve one of the nation’s most baffling unsolved crimes is quietly unfolding in federal court in Tucson: The mystery of Leesa Jo Shaner, who vanished May 29, 1973, on her way to the local airport, where she had gone to pick up her husband, Gary, a newly discharged serviceman returning from Okinawa.
Shaner’s father, James Miller, was an FBI agent in Tucson and the bureau quickly took over jurisdiction from the Pima County Sheriff’s Department. But despite years of investigation, little progress has been made since her remains were found Sept. 16, 1973, buried on the grounds of Ft. Huachuca, Ariz., a remote military base more than an hour’s drive from the airport, through miles and miles of unoccupied desert.
There have been several tentative suspects in the case. The latest is William Floyd Zamastil, 59, who had been serving a life sentence in Wisconsin in the 1978 abduction and killing of Mary Johnson.
In 2004, Zamastil pleaded guilty in San Bernardino County court in the 1978 killings of Malcolm Bradshaw and his sister Jacqueline of Canoga Park. The Bradshaws’ remains were found 13 miles south of Barstow, where the victims were last seen hitchhiking on their way home from Las Vegas. Zamastil received a sentence of 25 years to life and until he was brought to Tucson for the Shaner case, he had been serving both sentences concurrently in Wisconsin.
Federal prosecutors face a difficult challenge in linking Zamastil to the Shaner case.
California records show that in 1972, Zamastil (age 20) was living at 443 Hartford St., Los Angeles, and working as a security guard. On Nov. 24, he married Ofelia Restrepo, an unemployed divorcee who was 33. Records from the Zamastils’ divorce state that the couple separated Dec. 12, 1973. In other words, public records show that Zamastil was in Los Angeles at the time the Shaner case occurred.
Zamastil’s trial is underway in the courtroom of District Judge Frank R. Zapata. As far as I can tell, the proceedings are being utterly ignored by the local paper, the Arizona Daily Star (where I worked from 1981 to 1988). If a reader is following the case, please drop me a note.
I usually don’t publish the crackpot comments I get about the Black Dahlia case, but the anniversary of the killing (Jan. 15) is bringing out more than the usual amount of crazy stuff. So I’ll make an exception for this message, which I received today.
BlackDahliaSolution.org was the work of John Frederick “Jack” Kohne Jr., who died in 2016 at the age of 83. And please note that I have a folder several inches thick of his material, as he wrote to me frequently using the fake name Jack Pico and the return address of the now-vacant Mailboxes, Etc. in San Diego’s Clairemont Square Mall.
The now-vacant mail drop of “Jack Pico” (John Frederick “Jack” Kohne Jr.) via Google Street View.
You would think that someone with a purported IQ of 147 would spell my name correctly. Nope.
Pico/Kohne is gone, but he left as his legacy three terrible ideas that have gone viral over the years.
The first is the photoshopped newspaper front page that Pico/Kohne posted on his website. His bogus Page 1 of the Los Angeles Daily News is so popular that it’s been spread all over the Internet and frequently turns up in print. Graphic designers simply cannot resist the image, even though it’s fake. It’s simply too appealing.
The second: Kohne spent hours looking for “hidden” messages in the crackpot mail sent to the police and the newspapers after Elizabeth Short was killed. He made wild inferences and drew geometric figures between letters, eventually deriving the name “Ed Burns.” Kohne elaborated substantially on the fictional “Ed Burns” to the degree that some people believe there actually was an “Ed Burns” (Spoiler: No, he never existed) and that he was considered a suspect. (Nope, never).
Creating “Ed Burns” out of “hidden” messages in crank mail would be bad enough, but there is more.
The third: Pico/Kohne was responsible for the insane idea that the body of Elizabeth Short was left on Norton Avenue as a “pointer” to nearby Degnan Boulevard. And from this bizarre notion, Pico/Kohne went to extreme lengths to link the January 1946 killing, in Chicago, of 6-year-old Suzanne Degnan, and the January 1947 murder of Elizabeth Short in Los Angeles.
If this sounds at all familiar (and it should if you know much about the Black Dahlia case,) it is because retired LAPD Detective III Steve Hodel stole Pico/Kohne’s ridiculous idea and grafted it onto his own bizarre claims about his father, Dr. George Hodel.
If you think I’m kidding, there it is, at left: Kohne’s beautifully drawn but utterly crazy map – using one of the crackpot postcards sent to police and the newspapers, which he said “proved” that the body of Elizabeth Short was a pointer to Degnan Boulevard.
And no, Detective III Hodel has never credited Pico/Kohne with the idea. Steve Hodel claims he discovered it independently.
Right.
And to my correspondent, whom I’m not identifying: I know all about Jack Pico/John Frederick “Jack” Kohne Jr. He wrote to me all the time. I have a file 3 inches thick of his material. I’ve examined it thoroughly and it is the work of a madman. I get awfully tired of fighting the same old arguments over and over again.
Today is Jan. 15, the anniversary of Elizabeth Short’s death. As is the custom, the Daily Mirror will be dark.
Trim your roses in her memory.
Because so many people are using Zoom to connect in these uncertain times, I thought it would be interesting to host a series of Zoom sessions on the Black Dahlia.
I envision weekly meetings with a fairly small group, maybe five or six to keep it manageable, intended primarily for people in law enforcement or teaching police science, working in the justice system, working in or teaching forensics, and that kind of thing.
The goal is a serious discussion and evaluation of all aspects of the murder, based on original news accounts, various public documents and that sort of thing. The one thing it will not be is a festival of snuff pictures or juicy tidbits for crime show producers, tour operators and podcast hosts (especially the ones who rip off my voice without permission – you know who you are).
The sessions are tentatively planned for Wednesday afternoons or evenings starting April 29. Email me if you are interested.
I have a longstanding aversion to podcasts, especially “true crime” podcasts and particularly when it comes to “true crime” podcasts about the Black Dahlia. “The Murder Squad,” with Billy Jensen and retired Detective Paul Holes, released an episode earlier this week on the Black Dahlia and I thought that Holes, given his outstanding work on the Golden State Killer, might have some worthwhile insight on the case. I won’t make that mistake again.
Executive summary: Lots of bad information from Billy Jensen scraped off the Internet. Paul Holes scans the incomplete medical report included in the inquest, looks over some morgue shots from the Internet and comes up with the wild claim that Elizabeth Short’s mouth was slashed so she could perform oral sex on the killer and that she asphyxiated while performing oral copulation. Don’t waste your time on this or risk your head exploding .
Caveat: I got through the ad for hair dye, but quit listening at the 46-minute mark when Holes got into the “asphyxiated while performing oral copulation” stuff. I am also not linking to the podcast because I don’t want to spread its misinformation any further.
I generally put the term “true crime” in quotes because as a rule so very little of “true crime” is actually true. The genre, whether it’s blog posts or sleazy books, makes a minimum effort at original research and a maximum use of lurid speculation. The TV shows, and I’ve done about 20 of them now, tend to be surprisingly well researched, the exceptions being when the producer jumps on the “George Hodel: Evil Genius” train.
In my limited experience, podcasts – and they are incredibly popular — can be the worst offenders when it comes to “true crime.” Exhibit 1 being BuzzFeed’s murder bros, Ryan Bergara and his sidekick du jour. Otherwise, they all have similar names: “My Funniest Murders,” “Madcap Murders and Drunk Soccer Moms” and “Bloodshed and Two-Buck Chuck.”
This is particularly true of two ladies (you know who you are) who giggle a lot about crime and use my voice without permission. Ladies, I’m pretty sure I didn’t sign a release for you to use my voice and imply that I gave you an interview. Knock it off.
Podcasts like “Madcap Murders and Drunk Soccer Moms” generally go like this:
Ad for Audible, hair dye, etc
Intro (raucous laughter) We’re not (hahaha) making fun (hahahah) of murder victims (hahahahah). No, we’re not (hahahahahahah).
Content read directly from Wikipedia. Groaner puns: “That part always makes me go to PIECES! hahahahah”
Ad for Audible, hair dye, etc.
Content read directly from Wikipedia. More groaner puns: “You’re killing me here! hahahahah.”
Wrapup (more laughter)
Ad for Audible, hair dye, etc.
Which is why I never listen to them. Until now.
The biggest fault with “The Murder Squad’s” presentation on the Black Dahlia is the poor research that went into the show. I gather that several shows were done rather hurriedly because Paul Holes is having surgery. So perhaps in the interest of pumping out a lot of episodes, research was the first victim.
But whoever did the research, whether it was Billy Jensen or someone who fed “facts” to Jensen, scooped up whatever they could find and passed it along without the slightest skepticism.
The chronology of Elizabeth Short’s life as rendered by “Murder Squad” was full of mistakes. And then the topper: Jensen falls for Steve Hodel’s claim that “hemicorporectomy” (cutting a person in half as a lifesaving measure) was a medical procedure taught in the 1930s.
Sorry, but it was introduced after the killing of Elizabeth Short. I’m no fan of Wikipedia, but even two minutes with Wikipedia will raise enough doubts to indicate further research or just scrap that claim. Unless you’re in a hurry to pump out a lot of episodes.
So for the historical gaffes, Jensen gets a D-minus.
Which brings us to Holes – and if it hadn’t been for him I wouldn’t have even listened to the podcast. I would give him a C-minus or D-plus.
I will preface this by repeating that I only listened to the first 46 minutes of the podcast because that’s all I could take without my head exploding. Holes was hampered by incomplete information and having nothing more than Internet pictures of Elizabeth Short’s body.
As such, you might think he would defer to the views of the medical examiner, the head of the LAPD crime lab who was at the crime scene and attended the autopsy, and the original detectives who examined the body and attended the autopsy.
You would be wrong. As far as Holes is concerned, the medical examiner misused several terms, probably didn’t bother to perform some procedures, and generally the autopsy was a haphazard examination because what do you expect for the dark ages of 1947, when people were still living in mud huts? Holes’ arrogance toward the past is a little hard to take, frankly. I will say it again: The Black Dahlia case was a state-of-the-art investigation for 1947. The LAPD might not have had the advanced technology we have today, but the lead detectives were seasoned investigators and the department excelled at one veteran called “basic gumshoeing.”
Dr. Frederick Newbarr, a prominent pathologist of his day, attributed Elizabeth Short’s death to “hemorrhage and shock due to concussion of the brain and lacerations of the face.”
And Holes goes in a completely different direction. I didn’t listen to enough of the podcast to find out if he went the “serial killer” route, but he laid the groundwork by talking about the “triad” of serial killers. And he surprised my by saying that the killing of Elizabeth Short was the work of a sexual sadist. (Retired FBI profiler John Douglas classifies the killing as a “lust murder” and I invite anyone who’s curious about that to do further research).
Cutting the body in half? Newbarr, the head of the crime lab and the original detectives – who viewed the body – all said it was a clean professional job. Holes thinks anybody with a knife could do it, no problem. Easy peasy.
Washing the body? Holes accepts the common view that the body was washed and scrubbed for transportation. But he then speculates that the killer might have been like Ted Bundy, cleaning up the body to continue having sex with it.
Holes says that the slashes in Elizabeth Short’s mouth were so that she couldn’t refuse oral sex and that she died, not from the causes given by Newbarr, but from asphyxiation while performing oral copulation on the killer.
And at that point, I quit listening to keep my head from exploding.
Based on part of one episode, it looks like “The Murder Squad” is just another fly-by-night, poorly researched program, with some bizarre takes by a retired homicide detective. I had a lot of respect for Paul Holes until now, but I have to say, a profiler he is not.
In the early 1900s, most women in the United States lacked the right to vote. Groups such as the National American Woman Suffrage Association organized to actively campaign for enfranchisement. Winning the vote would lead to other reforms regarding child rearing, property ownership, fiduciary matters, and most importantly, independence. Women could gain control of their lives and bodies, following their own dreams and career paths, moving beyond roles of mother, wife, teacher, shop clerk or secretary.
Motion pictures aided their mission, making films about the suffrage movement before producing films featuring strong and independent women, particularly in such serials as “Perils of Pauline,” “The Exploits of Elaine,” and “The Adventures of Kathlyn.” Heroines in these films confronted dastardly villains, wild animals, and dangerous adventures, investigating and solving crimes and mysteries.
Mary Mallory’s latest book, “Living With Grace: Life Lessons from America’s Princess,” is now on sale.
Some assertive women, like Marie E. (M.E.) Firman, blazed new trails in daring professions like detective work, displaying intelligence and skills equal to any man. While little is known of Firman, she gained fame as Los Angeles’ most famous female detective in the 1910s and 1920s seeking clews, solving crimes, and running her own firm.
Born March 19, 1882, in Floyd County, Iowa, Firman imagined a much more exciting life for herself than small-town farm girl. She did at first marry Frank Solomon Ebert on February 27, 1900, giving birth to son Ray in 1904. Tired of married life, she deserted the marriage and moved to Denver looking for adventure. She divorced her husband in October 1910, and her parents won full custody of Ray. Two months later, she married Otho C. Firman in South Dakota. The determined woman ended up in Los Angeles by the mid-1900s, working as a detective under both the names Marie E. Firman and M.E. Firman, appealing to both men and women.
Newspaper ads beginning in late 1915 noted her professional status through being licensed and bonded, and handling “civil, criminal, industrial,” as well as shadowing and testifying in court. She played it both ways, leading ads with the phrase “Lady Detective” but employing the professional name M.E. Firman. At this time, she worked alone, headquartered in the American Bank Building at 2nd and Spring Streets.
Word of her outstanding work spread quickly. In late August 1916, ads proclaim multiple employees. That October, Firman took out a large ad noting that she was the only licensed and bonded lady detective in Los Angeles, with her own office and employees, including department store dicks capturing petty thieves. A large staff permitted evening and Sunday open hours to gain more clientele. Firman hired her husband, Otho, and his half brother Charles D. French as staff detectives to assist with the busy work load. City directory listings show Otho working as a conductor for Pacific Electric a few years before joining his wife’s firm.
In June 1917, Otho helped bring to justice the hit-and-run killer of George C. Quick, who ended up buried in Los Angeles’ potter’s field under the name Charles Johnson. The offending driver hit Quick with his racing car and sped away, but witnesses saw him and the car.
A month later, however, 36-year-old Otho would be slain attempting to catch a straying husband in the act. Broker William H. Cole shot and killed Otho and wounded French after being trailed on July 15 to 1122 Georgia St., the apartment of Eva Chapman, his stenographer of three years. Cole fled to his own home, scantily clad. Cole’s wife, suspicious of infidelity, employed the firm to gain evidence. Cole shot at Otho and French and fled, with the wounded men following and joined by Firman, Mrs. French, and Mrs. Cole. Otho dropped to the sidewalk outside, dying on the way to the hospital.
The coroner’s jury exonerated Cole after only 20 minutes’ deliberation, claiming that he acted in self-defense. A despondent Firman testified, dressed all in white with a veil trailing from her straw hat to her waist. As the Los Angeles Times reported, “Her hands twitched constantly and she appeared to be in imminent danger of fainting during most of the ordeal of giving, as far as she knew, the details of the tragedy which made her a widow.” Devastated, Firman never remarried, dedicating herself to her work.
Firman continued her work of 12 years, supervising employees but also taking an active part in large cases leading to major jury trials and publicity. Her firm hunted out clues in the defense of Arthur C. Burch, charged with murdering J. Belton Kennedy in 1921. Firman would find herself reprimanded by the judge in the case that December, when she attempted to signal her mother, testifying as to how she checked into a hotel shadowing Burch’s meeting with Kennedy.
In 1922, Firman cooperated with the Pinkerton Agency on a case of money belonging to Yokohama Specie Bank stolen from the Farmers and Merchants National Bank by employees. Her firm spent more than a year tracking down stockbroker and investor Herbert Ross, accused of forging checks at Citizens Trust and Savings Bank, before nabbing him in Chicago in 1923. Her firm captured extortionists attempting to defraud Los Angeles’ businesses in 1925.
Firman’s respected work led groups outside Los Angeles to hire her, including the San Diego grand jury. In 1926, Firman and 20 operatives spent five full months investigating graft, crime, and vice under the direction of Deputy District Attorney Richard Kittrelle, appointed by state Attorney General Webb to replace District Attorney Kempley, deemed “unqualified” to handle the case. The August 24, 1926, Los Angeles Times called her “a quiet, neat little woman, soft-spoken and mild in appearance but a human dynamo in action,” recognized as “one of the most well-known and best-experienced women detectives in California… .”
Firman’s prowess impressed her fellow colleagues as well, who acknowledged her experience and dedication. In 1927, Firman’s fellow detectives elected her to the California Association of Detective Agencies, Inc., acknowledging her as the “oldest licensed woman operative among the state’s sleuths…” per the Sacramento Bee. In 1931, the organization elected her to the membership committee.
The early 1930s brought tragedy to Firman. Her father died in 1931, followed by her son Ray in 1935 and then her mother in 1937. At that point, Firman’s trail grows cold. Los Angeles city directory listings for her detective agency appear in the early 1930s, but no 1930 or 1940 census records can be found. No further newspaper accounts of investigative exploits appear either. She eventually retired to Minnesota, where her parents had been raised, dying May 23, 1960, in Hennepin County.
Ambitious and determined, M.E. Firman created and operated a successful detective agency, solving crimes and gaining fame. This lady detective demonstrated the drive, intelligence, and strength of women in the mid-1910s, leading the way to more opportunities for women.
I decided to randomly surf Wikipedia this morning and I’m never disappointed with how bad it is. Example: Some bozo has restored Jacob Edward Fisk as a “suspect” in the Black Dahlia case. Fisk’s name was added as a prank in 2009 and has become hopelessly embedded in the case.
UC Irvine professor Miles Corwin, an old friend from the L.A. Times, spent months interviewing me about the Black Dahlia case. Here is Miles’ deep dive, published in the Delacorte Review, into my decades-long journey exploring the life and death of Elizabeth Short. It’s also been published on Crime Reads.