Episode 501 - History of Homicide

In this season opener we speak with Mike Fratantoni of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department’s Information Bureau. Fratantoni is also the curator of the department’s museum housed in the ground floor of the historic Hall of Justice. Fratantoni tells us about the beginning of the department in 1850 and walks us through the history of the department including the creation of the Homicide Detail in 1921, which became the Bureau of Investigation in 1934, and eventually evolved into the Homicide Bureau in 1950. Fratantoni also tells us about the ‘Vigilance Committee’ which was made up of townspeople who held secret court and carried out private executions.

Episode Transcript

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You're listening to kf I AM sixtyon demand, KFI AM six forty live
everywhere on the iHeartRadio app On anygiven day in southern California, hundreds of

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investigators are working more than ten thousandunsolved cases. That's thousands of friends and
families who have lost loved ones,thousands of people who got away with a
crime, and thousands of murderers whostill walk the streets. Killers who may
be your neighbor, go to yourchurch, or could be dating a close
friend. For the next two hourswill highlight cases that have gone cold,

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baffled investigators, or just needs thatone witness to speak up. This is
Unsolved with Gregory. In this episode, we go back to the beginning of
the La County Sheriff's Department's Homicide Bureau. In twenty twenty two, the modern

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day version of the bureau celebrated itsone hundredth anniversary. In fact, I
amc the event. That's where Imet Mike Fratton Tony a department employee who
was also the curator of the Sheriff'sMuseum, which is situated on the ground
floor of the historic Hall of Justicein downtown Los Angeles. Fratten Tony insisted
we sit inside the small museum,which is surrounded by decades of badges,

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uniforms, log books, crime scenephotos, and a row of actual jail
cells that sat on the top floorsof the building when it was built in
nineteen twenty five. Fratt and Tonytakes us back to the very first day
the La County Sheriff's Department opened forbusiness, April first, eighteen fifty.
So the first Monday of April eighteenfifty, Sheriff George Burrowell was our first

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sheriff, and our department just consistedof a sheriff, his deputy, his
jailer, and basically a matron whoran the female part of the jail and
the juvenile part of the jail,even though they're basically all in the same
building, and they covered a hugeterritory. Today we look at Los Angeles
County with a four thousand square miles. We don't realize that Eli County in

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eighteen fifty also comprised of Riverside County, San Bernardino County, Ventura County,
current county, And they say SanBernardino I did so, so you have
all these counties that Elli County covered. So that's a huge area for one
sheriff and one deputy to cover,so massive, massive, if you want
to say reporting district at that time. Any idea what the population would have

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been back then? The population ofLos Angeles County as far as we could
tell in the census, only acouple of thousand people, a couple thousand.
And fast forward to today with whatwhat are we at? Eleven million?
Yeah, yeah, eleven million.So this department gets going and it
is still the West, so it'sstill considered the wild West back then.
So when did it homicide investigations becomea thing? I mean, did the

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sheriff's department have a homicide division orbureau from day one? No? No,
So early on overall the sheriff's departmentreally didn't investigate homicides. That was
overall the coroner's job. And atthat time, and it's kind of confusing
alley history, the corner was underthe sheriff's office, sure, but the

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coroner's investigators overall investigated the death,the circumstances a death will not the sheriff
was more or less apprehension of thecriminals and housing the criminals. And then
also between eighteen fifty and eighteen eightynine executing if there was an execution or
the condemned prisoners were executed by thesheriff. That was before the state took
it over in eighteen ninety. Andone of the areas here in the museum

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is dedicated to the coroner's office.Yes, and so, and they're still
to this day a lot of sheriff'soperations out there where the sheriff does act
as the coroner. Yes. Yes, in other counties, yes, but
now in La County that is evolvedinto how there's a medical examiner. Yes,
it's a different it's a different agency, but there is still a part
of this museum dedicated to that.And we're actually sitting in where the coroner's

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office used to be. Where we'resitting now was actually the room where they
did the autopsy. So this wasbetween nineteen twenty five to nineteen seventy two.
This is where the Coroner's office operatedout So we're actually sitting where they
did all the autopsies. Everyone fromRobert Kennedy to Marilyn Monroe, the Black
Dahia Bugsy Siegel, we're all autopsyright basically, where we're sitting. So

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this was hold. So the buildingwas erected in nineteen twenty five. Yeah,
it was completed in nineteen twenty five. The final construction of the jail
went into nineteen twenty six, butthe department started moving in in the end
of twenty five. Wow. Andthen it closed. Yes, And that
was also back when you were talkingto me about the jail sales and you

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were walking me through this. Thejails used to be up on the top
of the building, yes, correct, tenth floor of the floor, Yeah,
to the roof. Yep. Whyuh, security reasons. Initially,
when the Allied architects were constructing thebuilding, they they made it known that
not a good idea to put thejails on the upper floor because of the
weight. The Sheriff's department chimed inbasically said, well, we're thinking about

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security, even though within the firstyou know, month, month and a
half, we had a dozen plusescapes out of the building, so it
really didn't help that it was onthe upper floor. But ultimately that that
we heard later on when when theengineers went through this building after the ninety
four earthquake, they're saying that's whatcaused a lot of The damage was the
weight on the upper floors, sowhen the building started shaking, it didn't

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stop, and that's what caused alot of the concrete and you know,
overall cosmetic damage. The frame ofthe building wasn't damage. It's built so
well, it held up. Butoverall the concrete and a lot of the
upper floors the floor stuff crack becauseof that. And you were talking about
this being the corner's office and alot of the historical cases and people who
went through here, but it alsowas the courthouse. Yes, so also

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between the seventh and eighth floor orthe courts. The district attorney was on
the sixth floor, so you hadyou had full on courts operating, Superior
court operating out of there. Iguess you would say that probably the most
famous case, or the last majorcase to come out of there was a
Manson trial was held here in nineteenseventy one. But everything from you know,

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our early cases, the nineteen twenties, thirties, fouries, any major
case you could think of was wasbasically tried to this building. The old
courthouse which sat across the street wasthe eighteen eighty eight to nineteen thirty six
courthouse. By the time this buildingwas built, that courthouse was pretty much
just doing small cases. And theneventually it just became I think at the
end like storage. Looking at someof our records, we were just storing

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stuff there. DA's had offices there. So when did the department shift from
just being sort of a law enforcementarm becoming an investigative arm. So overall
with in the eighteen fifties, andI'm gonna talk about some dark history here
in the eighteen fifties, with thecrime as bad as it was in Los

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Angeles. By the mid to lateeighteen fifties, crime was bad. I
mean, even if you read theEast Coast newspapers, they described Los Angeles
as this outpost, this lawless place, this this awful place where outlaws just
run amuck. Between in eighteen fiftyseven and eighteen fifty eight, both of
our sheriffs were killed. In nineeighteen fifty seven, sheriff Sheriff Barton was

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killed along with several of his deputiesout in Orange County. And in eighteen
fifty eight, Sheriff Getman was killedjust about a block from where the Hall
of Justice sits today. And becauseof that, the citizens of Los Angeles
were fed up, they were disgustedwith the crime businesses could operate. So
ultimately there was a vigilance Committee thatwas created. Vigilance Committee that was created,

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and the Vigilance Committee basically held secretcourt, and through this court they
would determine the guilt of a prisoner. Didn't matter what the courts said,
but if the Vigilance Committee just determinedthey were guilty, they would deal with
them. During that time, Iguess one of the one of the suspects
in the Sheriff Barton murder was actuallytaken from the La County jail in eighteen

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eighteen fifty eighteen fifty eight and hewas hung, and he was hung by
the vigilance Committee. They basically bangedon the jail door and they said,
he's guilty in our court, andthey took him out and they hung him
up on one of the carrals.Yeah, swift justice, swift justice.
But hold on. I want youto hold that thought, because we willn't
come back. This sounds very interesting. Vigilance Committee. We're talking with Mike

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Franton, Tony with the La CountySheriff's Department's Museum. We're here on the
ground floor of the Hall of Justicein downtown Los Angeles. But first,
this is Unsolved with Steve Gregory onkf I AM sixty. You're listening to
kf I AM six forty on demandkf I AM six forty live everywhere on

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the iHeartRadio app. I'm Steve Gregoryand this is Unsolved. Welcome back worth
Los Angeles County Sheriff's Departments headquarters indowntown Los Angeles known as the Hall of
Justice. We're inside this historic buildingthat was built in nineteen twenty five.
We're in the ground floor in whatis the museum now but used to be

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where the corner did autopsies. Andjoining us as Mike Frenton Tony he is
the curator of this museum. Andbefore the break, Mike, you were
talking about the Vigilance Committee. Yes, yes, so it was. It
was a committee put together by prominentcitizens of Los Angeles. Ultimately, I

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guess they felt it was the wayto deal with with with a I guess
an unfair where they felt an unfaircourt system. As everything, as we
could always look back at history,everything comes to a head. At that
time, it was popular because crimewas bad. But as time goes on,
things get out of hand, andultimately this vigilance committee and that attitude

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of dealing with criminals this way allcame to a head in eighteen seventy one
when a Los Angeles I believe itthe Los Angeles Ranger was shot. It
was he was actually shot kind ofin the crossfire of two Chinese gangs.
With that said, sparked riots herein Los Angeles. These riots turned into

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a massacre. It was known asthe Chinese massacre in October of eighteen seventy
one. So pause, the riotwas in support of what was the right.
So the basically what happened was thethe people were tired of the lawlessness,
they were upset or the copying shotkilled, Yeah, because there was
a protest over a copying Yeah,and it wasn't on copies. Basically,

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the Los Angeles Ranger, which wasyeah, law enforcement and that was that
was killed and ultimately the public wasfed up with that. I think it
was just another excuse for them toriot, another excuse for them to to
to do harm to a certain group. You know history, they always want
to blame a certain group. Atthis time, it was the Chinese,

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and ultimately it led to this,this this horrible riot um where so many
innocent people were pulled from their homesand hung and at that point the sheriff
lost control, the absolutely lost controlof the city. Federal troops had to
come in to finally get it undercontrol. And ultimately no one really was
tried for this. I mean,there was people put on trial, but

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nobody was ever convicted or sent toprison behind it. And you have between
the lowest numbers eighteen the highest numberis one hundred deaths. We don't really
know because records were really poor atthat time, but ultimately there there wasn't
a thorough investigation into this. Whowould have investigated the corner the corner,

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yes, Okay, so at thattime sheriff was elected. UM Shortly thereafter
a guy by the name of Roland. Sheriff William Roland is elected. He's
our youngest sheriff. He's twenty fiveyears old. He's he's he's from a
prominent family. He's he's Anglo onhis father's side, Latino on his mother's
side. Roland Heights was basically hisproperty, um named after him. And

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he comes in and really brings professionalismto the department. And one of the
things that he takes over his investigationsof murders. So how big is the
department by now? Oh? Verysmall, still less than ten deputies on
the department. Yeah, so veryvery small. At that time. In
eighteen fifty three, San Bernardino becameits own county, So county started breaking

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up by the eighteen seventies. InOrange County was the last county to break
up, I want to say,in eighteen eighty nine. But so so
we still have a large territory,but overall our crime is starting to diminish.
After the Chinese massacre, a lotof people see the wrongs that that
we're done. During that a lotof innocent people were killed. And with
that, Sheriff Rowland says, I'mgoing to bring more professionals department. One

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of the things he does is we'rehandling these investigations to make sure they're thoroughly
done. If I'm handling the peoplevoted for me, they entrusted me to
do this, I'm overall going tomake sure that these are done thoroughly.
And overall, between the eighteen eightiesand the eighteen nineties, crime is very
very low. In Los Angeles.We go through some of our jail ledgers

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from that those from those decades,and there's like three murders in one year
and most of them are just areyou know, they knew each other.
It's not your random yeah yeah,domestic issues or yeah over money or something
like that. But there's no moreof that just shooting each other in the
street. Overall, the outlawed gangsor are starting to you know, dissolve,

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and and Los Angeles is becoming basicallya nice place where people live.
Businesses are doing very well. Andthat that that rolls well into you know,
the turn of the century. Umthat that that type of uh professionalism
moves on into the into the turnof the century. Let me ask you
we're talking about the vigilance committee before. It's kind of a trick question.
How do you think a vigilance committeewould go over today? I don't think

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it's ever ever a good idea,I honestly, I just you know,
people can say courts are fair,unfair, whatever it is, but it's
it's the best thing that we cando sure as human beings. Where we're
all flawed as human beings, youknow, but but least you're presenting evidence
you're doing all you can for themto come back and backdoor that and say,

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well, we think he's guilty basedon whatever the reason might be.
Lance committee never had transcripts of theircourts. We don't know why. It
could have been, Hey, wedon't like that guy because he's buying land
next to our you know, wedon't. We don't know what their motives
were. Who made up the VigilanceCommittee prominent members of the Los Angeles One
of them that we know they werejust citizens. They weren't They were not

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a lot of people. No,Nope. One of them that I guess
I could put put the name outthere now. The family has has given
me some letters and want not toread over regarding that. But one of
the guys that we know on thecommittee was Thomas Sanchez, who if you
go to Glendale the Sanchez Adobe sincethat was his house. He actually was
sheriff from eighteen sixty to eighteen sixtyseven, so he was very well liked

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because of the Vigilance Committee. Yeah, he was a violent sheriff. I
mean he ultimately he he was,you know, he wasn't kind of an
outlaws sheriff, and people wanted thatthat's what the public wanted. That's why
they voted for him, you know, for during for eight elections, he
voted eight in eight times. Wow, and that's unheard of at that time,
but he's very popular because of that. Were sheriff's terms the same back

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then as one year, one year, one year terms, So he won
eight elections. So eighteen sixty tosixty seven. Can you imagine having the
campaign every year for your job,Like, yeah, wow. I mean
going through some of his his itemsand letters and stuff that the family showed
me, there's he was a shoein almost every year. He really didn't
have me just on his name alone. He was he was, he was

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in and you know, he wasalso sheriff during the Civil War, so
there was a lot of you know, termoil going on in the nation and
people were very afraid of what wasgoing on out there. So I think
that was a distraction a lot.With turn the elections, I just think
people, whatever was there, wewant to keep it. Just Yeah.
So I think that I can't goback in a time machine and go into
people's heads. But that's kind ofthe feeling I get just based on what

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I've read. When we come backlet's talk about then how this new idea
with investigating the crimes within the department, how that started and how it went
and how it evolved. But first, this is Unsolved with Steve Gregory on
k if I AM six Sporting.You're listening to KFI AM sixty on demand

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kf I AM six forty live everywhereon the iHeartRadio app. I'm Steve Gregory.
This is Unsolved. Welcome backward theground floor of the Los Angeles County
Sheriff's Department headquarters inside the Hall ofJustice in downtown Los Angeles. Were speaking

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with Mike Frtt and Tony. Heis the curator of the Los Angeles County
Sheriff's Museum, and we are sittingwhere the Coroner's office used to be decades
ago before the break. You know, we're sort of wrapping up sort of
the history of the sheriffs along theway and how the approach to investigating crimes

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evolved. Now we're up to whereyou had Sheriff Rowland and you said that
he wanted to sort of do investigationsin house. So how did that look
back then? I mean, overall, some of the uh, the investigations
still exist between the Huntington Library andthe State Archives. You can actually get

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original documents. The investigations were asthorough as they can be back then they
were. They were, in myopinion, very very well done. I
mean there's as far as how doyou but but there was no precedent set
on how to investigate a crime,right, No, No, it was
It was basically just going out thereand and doing interviews, um, talking

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to to the people in the public. Uh, the stuff you see there's
basically this stuff you see today,very very basic investigation process. There wasn't
you know, nothing there no scienceinvolved or anything like that. Ultimately,
just talking to people. And yougot to realize Los Angeles a lot smaller
back then. So something happened,someone knew something new, somebody knew something.

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Witnesses were you know, readily available. Uh you know, people I
think cooperated a lot more back thenwith the sheriff. You see a lot
of cooperation. People are very quickto to witnesses to come forward and whatnot.
So they had those advantages as disadvantagesthey didn't have obviously, were cameras,

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forensics, h DNA, all thatstuff. Obviously they had to just
go on what they had and youknow, overall there there is you know,
the acquittals are are in my opinion, are high for the time because
if they didn't have enough evidence peoplethey just didn't get convicted. And it's
weird as far as sentencing too.Sentencing sometimes guys are hit with a harsh
sentence for something you think is minorand then for a major crime there they

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get, you know, five yearsin state prison. So it's just it
all depends on the time. It'skind of a cycle that goes through.
So it's interesting when you read these, uh, these records from the time
and you're expecting, well everyone,you know, sentences were so harsh back
then. No, it's a cycle. Sometimes they were, sometimes they weren't,
so kind of the mood of theday, that's it seems like it.
Yes, So, um as thisevolves in this Sheriff Roland model evolves

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into investigating in house, when dida more formalized sort of like you know
today we know we know it ishomicide Bureau, but when when did there
When was there first sort of formalizedgathering of investigators or detectives. So so,
there was a murder in nineteen ohone. It was a murder in
Downey. It was a triple murderhusband, wife and the baby and brutal

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murder and the murder of a baby. I mean, today, no one's
ever going to be desensitized to that. That's something that's horrible. Don't matter
when it happened, but at thattime it was just it was unheard of.
I can't find another case one hundredyears before that or a hundred years
after that where somebody just comes intoa house and murders a husband, wife
and a baby and brutally. Sothis murder was in Downey in nineteen oh

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one. Sheriff Hemil was a sheriffat the time. He handled the case.
Um the case. They had asuspect. Unfortunately, you know,
he had a motive. It wasit was his ex wife. There was
he had made threats are in thepast, but there just wasn't enough evidence
to convict him. They couldn't puthim there at the farm that day,
and they just they tried everything theycould at that time. But overall the

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case was handled by the sheriff andthe under sheriff. They both worked on
the case thoroughly and that continued onuntil until nineteen ten. In nineteen ten,
there was the the LA Times bombing. Two brothers Mcamara brothers who were
unionists who were very much against whatthe LA Times had set about. These

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union groups set a bomb behind incAllley at the LA Times building. And
this bombing was the largest at Ithink to this day's the largest terrorist attack
in Los Angeles. I want tosay, well over twenty plus people were
killed in this bombing, mostly guyshad worked in the LA Time building,
writers, printers, janitor or stufflike that. Their ultimate goal was they

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didn't like General Otis who ran theLA Times. But in the end they
ended up killing just a bunch ofinnocent people. This investigation was thoroughly handled
by the LA County Sheriff William Hemmelat that time, and it involved This
case just blew up because it involvedover a hundred conspirators. It went from
state to state. It was along drugout investigation, and by the time

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everything was said and done, SheriffHemil was exhausted. He was done,
and he's getting ready for it.You know, there's an election coming up
and he's focusing on this homicide case. And this is when he decides he's
going to create a criminal division,and a criminal division was the first detective
bureau. Now at that time,criminal Division, which was created in nineteen
eleven, a year after or iwould say eight months after this bombing.

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Criminal Division handled every case, sothere was no specific to homicide. So
one day you could show up toto your desk and you have a burglary,
the next day you have a murder, the next day you have,
you know, a stolen horse.There was no consistency, so there was
no specialized training. So overall CriminalDivision was just detectives that would come in
and handle whatever fell on their desk, and you know, they did a

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good job early on. They youknow, we had good detectives at that
time who did the best they could. They also worked with detective agencies.
You had your Pinker Tins, youhad Nick Harris detectives, which are still
in business. I think they're stillwork out of West Hollywood, and they
would work with them as far asthese agencies paying informants and getting information from

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people on the street and whatnot.So they did do the best they could
for what they had at the time, but there was no specialized training in
homicide, right, so when didthat come into play? Where where does
now it's safe to say, Idon't know if you know this, is
it safe to say that the LaCounty Sheriff's departments at that time, you
say, the criminal division, doyou think that's probably one of the oldest

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in the country. No, no, no, god no. There were
others that started along with Oh yeah, yeah. East Coast had it down.
San Francisco had it down. Um. LAPD had a detective Beerau I
think going back to eighteen eighty eight. Um. But overall, um,
the Sheriff's department handled even in thecity like the La Times bombing. We
worked with LAPD on that case,but overall we did all the out of

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state investigations were all done by theSheriff's office because I guess probably of funding.
We we had more funding, moreresources than than than the police department
did at that time. Um.But overall yeah, we uh um.
We didn't really have a really needfor a homicide a detail or a special

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specialized detail until the blue Beard Watsonmurdered in nineteen twenty. That's really okay,
we'll talk about that, but firstwe're gonna take a quick break This
is Unsolved with Steve Gregory on camfI AM sixty. You're listening KFI Amix
on demand, kf I AM sixforty line everywhere on the iHeartRadio Appum.

(25:11):
I'm Steve Gregory. This is Unsolved. We're inside the Hall of Justice down
on the ground floor where the museumfor the l County Sheriff's Department is housed.
We're speaking with Mike Frent and Tony, the curator of the museum.
And you did an excellent tease beforethe break, Mike talking about the big

(25:33):
the big one, the big murdercase that sort of started I guess the
homicide Bureau, right, yes,yes, Okay, what was it?
So a call comes into the Sheriff'soffice in nineteen twenty I think it was
April of nineteen twenty, and thethere's a woman, I think her name

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is Kathleen Wambacker. She calls She'smarried to a guy we we know is
James Watson or James Bluebeard Watson,and I'll go into that in a little
bit. And she she had madea phone call to the Nick Harris Detective
Agency and she basically said she shejust married this man. She feels like
he might be cheating on her.So they're looking at a bigamy case here.

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Not a big deal. I mean, it's I think back that's like
thirty days in the county jail orsomething like that. But so Nick Harris
detectives asked the Sheriff's department for assistanceon this. So the Sheriff's department starts
following him and they notice everywhere hegoes, he goes with these steamer trunks.

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Long story short, I guess youknow, obviously not the same rules
we have today with search and seizure. They basically they're suspicious of them.
It's enough to open the trunks,and inside the trunks they discover wedding rings,
wedding certificates, photographs, you nameit. They find it in there,
as far as women's property, women'sclothing. They start questioning about these

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trunks and Watson says, well,I'm I'm an agent with the Secret Service
and I'm investigating this swindler who swindlesthese women out of money. He marries
these women and swindles amount of money. So at that time, the two
detectives out of Criminal Division, HarveyBell and Robert Coots, ask him for

(27:23):
credentials, and he said, well, I don't have credentials. They're they're
not omni, but they're in alockbox, in a safety deposit box in
San Diego with a lot of myinvestigative files. So they said, okay,
we'll take a trip down to SanDiego. How does that help?
They all jump in the car.They're driving down to San Diego. And
the interesting thing about this is thiswhole trip is photographed. We actually have

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the photographs of the entire trip.They brought in a photographer from the La
Times. They contracted him and hetook some time off and basically just came
down and photographed this. Why don'twe don't know? So, you know,
it's funny because I always found ithistory, the history of this department
interesting in that in scene with LAPDthat you used to use La Times photographers

(28:08):
for crime scene photos. Yes,then the examiner, Yeah, any photographer
that he used the news media tohelp archive or memorialize your cases. Yeah.
So we don't know why for abigamy case they decided to take them
out. More or less, Ithink they just the photographer wanted to get
out of get out of his housefor a weekend or something. Um,
So this is where the case starts. Out as kind of a nothing,

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and really the detectives really gets suspiciouson this. Ads are driving down to
San Diego, James Watson cuts hisown throat and he survives a suicide attempt,
but in the car, yes,so we have photographs of a lot
of stuff. We have even photographedhim in the hospital with his neck band.
Did you want so? At thattime, Bell and Coots, the

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two detectives are very suspicious of that. There says, something is not right
with this, why would this guycommit suicide? When they get down to
San Diego, they discovered there's nosafety deposit box. Watson is not cooperating
with them at all. So whatthey start doing is they start looking into
these missing these these women uh casesif they're if they're missing women or you

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know where they come from, whereyou know they're They're starting to discover that
a lot of these women are notfrom California. Most of these wedding rings,
wedding certificates, uh photographs where aretaken in different states, so Iowa,
Idaho, um, some in Canada. So they're discovering that there's a
whole trail of these women that hehad married or whatever. No, it's

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all these wedding rings his or theywell they're in his possession, so they're
so they're they're they're little suspicious.Okay, how does he have all these
rings from all these different women fromall these states, all these marriage certificates
and whatnot. And what they juststart discovering are these these are missing persons.
All these women are missing persons.So now they're suspicions are really growing.

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And as they start questioning blue Beardmore and more and more, he
finally breaks. They said, weknow you killed these women, we know
you took their money, we knowyou did. And they're saying, if
you are convicted, they're gonna hangyou. They're gonna this California, They're
gonna hang Finally he breaks, andwhen he breaks, he starts admitting to
the murders of all these these women. These were these women that he actually

(30:22):
married. So he'd actually meet thesewomen in the newspaper, the Lonely Hearts
ads and stuff like that, hewould marry them and they would go away
for their honeymoon, and ultimately hewould kill him and dispose of their body.
So of course the detectives want proof. They said, well, show
us a body, and he saidwell, most of them I sunk in
rivers or I burned them up andI couldn't get their bodies. But there

(30:44):
is one I killed recently here inSignal Hill and I buried her out in
Imperial County. I could take youwhere where she was buried. And he
said, I just need a coupleof days to recover. It like,
yeah, no, you're not goingto recover. They drag him out of
that. He could barely walk outof the hospital bed, and they take
him down to the to the siteand first sight he goes to, it's
the wrong site. They dig there. He goes, now, this is

(31:06):
not it was this other rock formation. Long story short. Um. By
the end of the day they getto the right location. They start digging
and they discover a body. Andthis body is horribly mutilated. He had
he had tortured her, he hadcut her up, he had disfigured her
face. Um, he had donea really awful number on her. Um.

(31:30):
And this is one of his wives. This is one of his forty
wives. A man was married fortyfour zero. The man was married forty
times, and this is one ofthe possibly twenty two to twenty six wives
that he had killed. Now withthe body and everything. Uh, they
have a case. Um, he'soverall convicted. Um he beats he beats

(31:51):
the gallows. Um, he beatsit. He doesn't go to the they
don't hang him. He gets alife sentence in San Quentin. Ultimately he
dies in San Quentin prison and he'sburied out there in some grave that's overgrown
with a tree and growing through thecenter of the tombstone. But overall he
does an interview blue Beard Watson doesan interview with True Detective Mysteries about you

(32:12):
know that prison is the best placefor him. He says, this is
this place is where I belong.I don't belong on the outside, but
I'm ever released. I'll never stopdoing this again. So back to the
whole detectives. Detectives come back andthey talk to at that time, the
chief of Criminal Division, Harry Wright, and they said, Chief, this
guy almost got away. This wasa very complicated case that involved multiple jurisdictions.

(32:36):
We are calling police stations and Iowathat don't even have telephones. You'd
have to call the post office andtell the postmaster to go out there and
get the local sheriff. For thelocal police chief to talk to them about
these missing persons. With the complicationthese cases, we really need a unit
that specializes in homicides, and especiallywith the growing population of Los Angeles,

(32:57):
the large transient population, the murdersare not so much you know me and
you know domestic or I know thisperson like it used to be. Yeah,
Now it's more just they're just random. So with these so let's pause
there for a quick minute. Whenwe come back, we'll talk about the
birth of homicide. Garrow. Yes, yes, right, But first,
this is Unsolved with Steve Gregory onkf I Am sixty. You're listening to

(33:19):
k if I Am sixty on demandk if I Am six forty heard everywhere
live on the iHeartRadio app. I'mSteve Gregory and this is Unsolved. If
you're listening on the app, youcan send us a tip about a case,
a story, idea, or acomment about the show. Just tap

(33:40):
the red microphone on the app andrecord your message. Welcome back Worth the
Los Angeles County Schriff's Department's headquarters insideof the Hall of Justice, downtown Los
Angeles, talking with Mike Fratt andTony who is the curator of the Los
Angeles County Schriff's Department's museum telling someamazing stories. In fact, before the

(34:01):
break you were wrapping up the JamesWatson case had forty wives. Forty wives
tried to slit his own throat whilein the customer detectives in a car headed
to San Diego. Um, butwe know one thing I didn't ask you
before the break is he was knownas blue Beard. Why blue Beard?

(34:22):
That was a saying for somebody whowould swindle women, like a kind of
like a player or a con man. Really, that's a that's an old
term. M yeah, not asmuch anymore. But if you read the
old detective magazines, you'll see blueBeard of Cleveland or blue Beard of New
York. So though, that's howthey would title them, the guys that
would swindle women. So this wasthe first big case that convinced the sheriff

(34:45):
that a more formal homicide bureau neededto be created, right, yes,
okay, so what year are wetalking about? Nineteen twenty one, nine
twenty one, so initially, sowell, let me let me rewind a
little bit. So at that timewe had a sheriff, John C.
Klin, who was the one thatwas putting together the Homicide Bureau of nineteen

(35:06):
twenty John C. Klin ends upresigning his sheriff due to some corruption issues.
He's replaced by William I. Traeger, who, in my opinion,
William I. Treger was one ofour greatest sheriffs. William II. Tragar
comes into the department as a reformerand he says, what is this department
need? How do we improve thisdepartment? And his main goal. Tragar's

(35:28):
main goal is transformed this department froma frontier style sheriff's department to like a
professional police department. I want tohave the best of everything. We are
the La County sheriffs with the biggestsheriff's department in the world. We should
have the best of everything. Andthat's ultimately what he does. One of
the first things he does in Julyof nineteen twenty one is he funds what

(35:50):
they call the homicide Squad. Andwhat the homicide squad is and I said
to kind of history repeats itself.The homicide squad initially was five detectives hand
pick detectives um from the DA's office, the Sheriff's office, and Los Angeles
Police Department and all the major casesthey would work on together, just the
major cases, the cases that werethe simple that not that who've done it

(36:14):
would be handled by the individual departments, but the homicide squad. So that's
the first squad that's put together.Were five detectives, a stenographer, was
five detectives, a stenographer and aand basically a secretary, run the run,
run the detail, and it's withthe captain oversea. And that first
captain was Captain Bill Bright or WilliamBright. And overall, nineteen twenty one's

(36:37):
kind of interesting because um we're justout of Bluebeard Watson and um ELA's first
female serial killers, so male andfemale serial killer. Uh what was her
name? God names escapes me rightnow. But long story short, we
have both male and female serial killers. First time that the word serial killers

(36:57):
not used at the time of youknow, mass murder or spreak whatever they
use at that time. But overall, it's it's getting the public interested and
stuff. They're realizing that there's predatorsout there and that these people need to
you know, need to be investigating. Any professional to investigate them. So
you can't just have you know,Joe off the street and investigating these cases.
They're a lot more complicated. Thesecriminals think things out a lot more

(37:22):
and you're dealing with literally predators.So what that said. The Sheriff's Apartment
forms it's homicide squad in nineteen twentyone. Shortly thereafter we have the case
like Clara Phillips, the Hammer Murder'scase. In nineteen twenty two, you
have William Desmond Taylor, one ofthe Hollywood's first movie moguls, He's Murdered

(37:43):
nineteen twenties, has a lot ofbig cases, and we kind of shift
between the homicide squad and a homicidedetail, and I could go into that.
It's kind of more, a lotmore complicated than that. But we
have several issues where LAPD's Homicide doesthings that the Sheriff's Apartment doesn't agree with.
One of the things was working oversuspects. Working over so working over

(38:05):
suspect was when you needed that finalconfession. It kind of just you know,
work them over a little bit.Sheriff. Sheriff Tragger was not about
that. He said, we don'toperate like that. It's it's interesting because
in a lot of these interviews inthe nineteen twenties, they're talking about constitutional
rights they're asking if your constitutional rightswere violated during this interview. This is

(38:28):
before Miranda, this is nineteen twentyfive, twenty six that they're putting it
in our actual reports. So withthat, we broke away from LAPD and
we started investigating cases separately. Sothat's when we went from the homicide squad
to the homicide detail, and thehomicide detail did not work with LAPD any
longer. They worked separately from them. We didn't work again with LAPD until

(38:49):
nineteen twenty seven with the William EdwardHickman case. And that was a case
where a former bank and play wantedto get back at a bank president who
had who had basically turned him infor stealing checks from the bank. As
a revenge plot, he kidnaps thisbanker's a twelve year old daughter and ultimately
mutilates her and murders her. Imean, it's a horrible crime. At

(39:10):
the time, he ends up escapingup to Oregon. That case was such
a big case and this public wasso outraged that the sheriff and LAPT kind
of put their issues aside and workedtogether and capturing Hickman. Ultimately, Hickman
was captured up in Oregon and triedand convicted here in California. Let's go
back, because you were talking aboutthe first female serial killer, did you

(39:34):
whatever came of that case, Sothat's a little I couldn't think of the
name. Louise Pete. Was hername, Louise Pete. Yeah, So
Louise Pete had killed Sarah, shehad killed in Texas, she had killed
here in California. She actually,she only gets convicted of one murder here
in nineteen twenty, she's released fromprison. In the forties, there's there's
a women's group that felt that shedeserved a second chance. There's a woman

(39:57):
that lived out in Pacific Palisades whoreally they fought for her parole. Overall,
Louise Pete's paroled and she actually liveswith this woman. Ultimately she kills
this woman and puts her in theflower pot in the house. And eventually
they realized there was no fixing LouisePete. She was not fit for society,
and she was executed, I believe, in nineteen forty eight in the

(40:21):
gas chamber. So um so yeah, So in nineteen twenty, you basically
have the first male if you wantto say, they're not defined as that,
but the first male and female serialkiller in the same year in Los
Angeles, Los Angeles County, eventhough they weren't identified as that. How
um, I mean, I don'tknow if any any of the research would
tell you this. But back inthe day, I mean, was record
keeping pretty thorough? Yes? Werethey pretty good about keeping notes? And

(40:44):
they did. They did a betterjob of creating records, and we did
maintaining them a lot of a lotof the failures came later on in the
seventies eighties, when they started purgingstuff that they just felt wasn't important.
They said, this case is sold, why do we keep this stuff.

(41:06):
When we look back at the stuff, we are shocked and how thorough these
cases were. Some of them areeight nine hundred pages long and it's one
detective work in the case. Theinterviews are very thorough. We're shocked.
We were We did not know whatto expect of how investigations would be done,
but they were very, very thoroughlydone back then. And our salverry

(41:27):
was high. At one point inthe nineteen twenties thirties, we had a
ninety nine percent salvry, which nowonce again I know, yeah, things
were different, different different. Yeah, okay, Yeah, we're talking with
Mike Fratt and Tony he's the curatorof the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Departments Museum,
and we're inside of the actual spotwhere it used to be the Coroner's
office, down in the ground floorof Hall of Justice. More with mister

(41:49):
Fratt and Tony Butt. First,this is Unsolved with Steve Gregory on KFI
AM sixty. You're listening to kfI AM sixty on demand kf I AM
six forty live everywhere on the iHeartRadioapp. I'm Steve Gregory and this is

(42:15):
Unsolved worth the Los Angeles County Sheriff'sDepartments headquarters inside the Hall of Justice.
Were down on the ground floor insidethe museum, which is led by Mike
Frenton. Tony and mister Frantontoni hasbeen telling some amazing stories about how the

(42:36):
homicide details started and before the breakyou were kind of telling us the detail
has been created. Now, sohow many investigators, I mean, were
they actual detectives at this point orinvestigators? Yeah, so they're actually they're
actually investigators. They're they're paid anadditional salary, so their salary I think
it was like an additional fifty dollarsa month or something like that, which

(42:59):
is good money. They Initially westarted out with five detectives. As time
goes on in the twenties, midtwenties, we're we're at about eight detectives.
By the end of the decade,we're at ten detectives. I think
today we have well over one hundredrum but overall our caseload is not as

(43:20):
big as you would think. Butat the same time, we respond to
everything, respond to every dead bodycall, every you know, stuff that
we probably wouldn't respond today. Respondingto everything wow, um suicides, old
people that just you know, passaway from natural cause. It's clearly natural
cause case. We're responding to everything. So so overall the detectives do have
a large as far as response,but the caseload is not as big.

(43:43):
So we're now in the early tomid twenties, nineteen twenties, what's the
next sort of big innovation that comesinto the homicide detail. So so the
two things is the one is amurder book. We have to we have
to basically break down the investigations priorto nineteen twenty four. We're just basically
throwing everything in a box and lettingthe DA sort it out with At this

(44:06):
time, we're actually taking from thefirst report all the way to the final
court dispo is all in this book, and it's indexed and it's easy to
find everything. So from your witnessinterviews to your corners report is all in
this book. That's literally put togetherby the detective. So that's that's an
innovation because that's something we did beforeLAPD did, and I think a lot

(44:29):
of other agencies in this state wedid. I think we're the first ones
to do the murder book. Sowhat that said, that's an innovation that
was created by Captain Bill Bright.Another thing was we noticed is trying to
explain jerrors. Explain to jerrs abouta scene what a scene looked like.
A lot of times we're taking jurorsto the scene, but the bodies are

(44:50):
gone, the scene is cleaned up. They don't really get an idea of
what the scene looked like. Sowhat we started doing is following the guidelines
of the La Times reporter by thename of George Watson, who was the
first UH staff photographer for the LaTimes. He starts training our detectives to
photograph scenes. And he said,but your your photographs have to tell a
story. Because he's a newspaper photographer, he knows how to let his photographs

(45:14):
tell a story. And he said, with your photographs, you could put
him on this board and basically,the jury could be at the crime scene.
You have a photo of the scene, you have a photo of the
victims, you have you have alayout. And then a lot of times
back then, they would even givethe suspect the gun and he would pose,
uh, you know, pose basicallydo a reenactment the murder. Yeah,

(45:35):
I'm looking, which is ridiculous,I mean, absolutely ridiculous about that.
But yeah, he's i mean incriminatinghimself basically. But uh but yeah,
so and you see, and weincluded some of those photos in the
in the pro in the in theehundred Year of Homicide program. But that's
something that would would give the jurorsan idea of what went on at the
scene, give him it's kind oflike a movie, um, and and

(45:57):
and give him a better idea ofpeople that were sheltered and didn't see this
stuff today we see this stuff inmovies documentary. People were a lot more
sheltered back then. So this gavethem basically a storyboard of what happened at
the scene. So so you createlike a photo unit. Yes, photo
units created and our photographs starts innineteen to twenty six. So I'm looking
at this and you're talking about thisprogram. It's the one hundredth anniversary Homicide

(46:19):
Bureau. In in this program allit says the Sheriff's detectives have suspect re
enact murder of his wife nineteen fortyeight. Now, I wanted to ask
you this because there is what appearsto be a woman on the floor.
Yeah. Yeah, is that theactual dea body? Yep, that's that.
That was a Norwalk case. Ahusband I got tired of his wife.
She would guess he was galling athim consolet he went into the room,
got a shotgun and shot her rightas she turned to run out the

(46:40):
door. He shot her. Hebasically calls it in and says, I
killed my wife. It's an atThe gun is on the table. The
detectives get there and they said,okay, pick up the gun and show
us what you did, and theyphotograph and that's what you see in that
still Gosh, So it is aCrystal Clare black and white photo of this
man standing just and there's a chairthat's been knocked to a where it looks

(47:00):
like a dining room table, andhe's just sitting there with a shotgun in
his hand. It's I can't evenimagine how that would go over today.
But there were other countries. Thereare countries that still do this. I'm
sure Comriya does this. I know, I mean, other countries in Asia
do this. I just think todaydefense attorneys would pick that up. Yeah,
yeah, absolutely, But back thenthey were just looking at Oh,

(47:20):
this is a good tool for thejury to see what went on that day.
So what else happened? Now atthis point, what about forensics?
Did forensics? Photographs are part offorensics? What about collecting evidence and things
like that. So we started doingevidence collection relatively early, but it was
contracted. It was a guy bythe name of Arthur Moss, who was
a chemist with the USC would doevidence collection. And this went on in

(47:44):
the nineteen teens all the way upinto the nineteen twenties. By nineteen twenty
four, we had a criminalist whowasn't officially a criminalist. He was a
guy with a chemistry degree who workedat out the Deena station, who would
basically volunteers time collecting evidence and whatnot. This guy was his name was Frank
Gombert, and Frank Gombert was actuallyhe was brilliant. He was when it

(48:04):
came down to h to forensics.He's truly a pioneer in forensics. It's
not until nineteen twenty eight that ourcrime lab is actually officially formed. At
that time, the Sheriff's Department CrimeLab is known for hair comparison. We
according to the literature of that timeUH forensics magazines and whatnot, that Frank

(48:29):
Gompert is basically pioneer in hair comparisonand one of the cases that he does
hair comparison is is the Gordon StewartNorthcott case. If you saw the movie
Changeling with Angelina Jolie about the kidsa murder farm out in Riverside, Gompert
worked on that case. There wasactually two boys kidnapped in Pomona, these
brothers, Winslow brothers. When theywere when they were kidnapped, they were

(48:51):
taken to the to the farm,ultimately murdered to the farm. They never
recovered their bodies, but they didrecover hair. They did find hair inside
the chicken coops on one of thenear one of the pillows, and what
they were able to do was takethe hair from that pillow, go to
the kid's bedroom, take a pairoff the comb, and he was able
to compare compare him under a microscope. Now, I'm not a scientist.

(49:14):
I don't really know how it works. He's more of a forensic question.
But I know involved density of thehair, involved the fibers, because the
fiber density involved the thickness of thehair. So he would put him on
a microscope basically claimed it was likea fingerprint. In nineteen thirty one we
have a article where he is trainingFBI agents in hair comparison. Really so

(49:35):
yeah, So he's truly a pioneerin that. Frank Gompert is very different
from LAPD's Ray Pinker, who reallypromoted himself. Gomper was a very quiet
guy. He did not promote anythinghe did really to the public. He
was He didn't like to do interviews, he didn't very rarely did he go
in magazines or unless it was internalstuff or benefited the science. He really

(49:57):
wasn't a self promoter and not steppingon Pinker. Pinker was a phenomenal scientist.
And he you know, his nameis famous. You know, he
ran the crime lab, the crimelab at at cal State after he retired.
But overall, Pinker more promoted himselfwhile Gompert stood at his you know,
his room in the corner at theHall of Juice, that homicide chemistry.

(50:17):
Yeah, and just a chemistry nerd. That's all he did. He
lived for it. We're talking withMike Frent and Tony with the La County
sheriffs Department's Museum. We're here onthe ground floor of the Hall of Justice
in downtown Los Angeles. This isUnsolved with Steve Gregory on kf I AM
sixty. You're listening to kf IAM sixty on demand, kf I AM

(50:38):
six forty live everywhere on the iHeartRadioapp. I'm Steve Gregory. This is
Unsolved. We're talking with Mike Frettand Tony. He is with the La
County Sheriff's Department's Museum. He haswelcomed us inside. Where we're sitting.
I don't know. I guess thisis sort of the center of the operation.

(51:01):
We took an amazing tour of theold jail cells, the original jail
cells, and he told us earlyon in the show that we're actually sitting
on the spot where the coroner's officewas. So I can't imagine how many
autopsies happened in the exact same spotwe're sitting. You can't even camp and
then its thousands. Is it truethis place is haunted? I can't.

(51:22):
I have no clue. That's that'swhat they tell me. They tell you
that I never talked ghost stories here. That's the one thing I never.
I will lose all credibility. Icannot. I cannot talk to I can't
imagine, though, what a placelike this, how creepy it could get
it because I've heard others tell mein this building there are ghosts here and
it's haunted. But that's that's anothershow for another day. Unexplained, Weird
things happened, but that really,yes, weird things happen. Okay,

(51:45):
So we're talking about the basically theformation of homicide bureaus. We know it
today, but you have taken thison this amazing historical journey of how not
only the department started, but thenhow forensics started to weave into investigations and
we had the homicide detail, wehad the criminal division, and now we
were talking about photo section came intoplay the crime lab. Now, um,

(52:08):
so, how many people are inthe department by now we're in the
we're in the late twenties, bynow we're in the early thirties. Yes,
so so we have we're hitting nearlya thousand deputies total. Wow,
and about ten ten plus at homicideand so, um, what's crime like
in LA around that time? Badprohibition? Prohibition prohibition, So so you're

(52:29):
you're talking the at that time.I think it was the largest number of
police officers murdered during that time prohibition, between nineteen twenty and nineteen thirty three.
Um, not so much. Ourdepartment LAPD gets hit harder than we
do. But cities like Chicago,New York in some cases I think New
York has three or four officers killedin a month. Um. So,
so because of that, bootlegging umis big business here in Los Angeles.

(52:52):
There's a lot of corruption behind itobviously, and uh and and a lot
of random murders because now you havewhat you have organized crime. So with
organized crime goes a lot of unsolvedmurders. Yeah, that's right. I
guess a lot of that. Alot of those games, a lot of
those. Um. I guess thathere around the time mafia starts to take
hold. Yeah, yeah, coastin the West Coast. They're trying.

(53:15):
They're not really doing too well outhere, but you are seeing some guys
like like you know, a lotof union stuff. Yeah, yeah,
you're saying. But overall the corruptionis so high here with among the political
figures that not even the mafia couldrun here in Los Angeles. It's it's
it's it's a it's a rough period. But you know, you and you
would talk about all the murders atthat time. You look at the mob

(53:37):
boss Joe Ardenone was killed out inum He was killed somewhere between uh Tahunga
and uh Atahuana which became Rancho Kucamonga. Most likely his body dumped down one
of the old wells there. Buthis case has thoroughly worked on. And
it's just funny when the detectives Iread through that that that case, and

(53:57):
when the detectives try to work onthe case, these guys will not say
a thing. The old school blackhand would not. They just they don't.
They don't say anything to the policeat all. They don't give any
information, they don't they are true, they'll do a life sentence. You
could you could hang him at sandQuint and they're not going to say a
word. So they just truly stickto their code. So these cases become

(54:17):
very difficult. And if you lookat that time, a lot of those
mob murders or black hand murders areinsolve both with US and LAPD because there's
just absolutely no cooperation. So whendid um and I'm glad you brought that
up, so you know, Iknow today you have a cold case unit
made up of retired detectives, Butback then, when we're talking about in

(54:37):
the thirties and into maybe into theforties, did you have a missing persons
unit? And did you have anunsolved Yeah? So what missing persons started
in nineteen twenty three when they realizedthat homicide detectives realized there's a connection between
missing persons and homicides. A lotof times these persons that end up missing
become either a body dump, theydiscover their bodies somewhere, or or there's

(54:58):
a confession later down the line.So they wanted to get an early start
on it. So missing persons doesgo under homicide in nineteen twenty three.
Also another thing was the other questionwas I was talking about unsolved, and
so we don't have an officially anunsolved unit at that time. But it's

(55:19):
interesting because at that time they feltonce a case was unsolved, if it
went over a month a year,there's no point unless there's a confession,
we're not going to solve it.So we'd shelve it. But the guy
that there's a guy at homicide bythe guy by the name of Joseph Pulvida
and Joseph Paulvida. He gets onthe department in nineteen oh three, and
when he gets on the department,he actually looks into that nineteen o one

(55:42):
Downey case again and goes nowhere.Years later, he's going through records again
and finds a case again and findsout the suspect in that case is sick,
he's dying, and he tries toget a deathbed confession at him.
He doesn't, but overall he doesreopen the case. So he is the
first detective. I would say JoeSepulvida is the first detective to start reopening

(56:05):
old cases because back then, unlessthere was a call in or a lead,
they wouldn't just randomly open cases.It's not like there was any new
technology that came in they had lessthere was a confession or something else.
There was no reason too. Yeah, So he's the first one that really
starts opening up unsolved cases. Andhe starts doing that in the nineteen twenties,
I would say about nineteen twenty fivetwenty six he starts doing that.

(56:27):
And is he having a pretty goodsuccess rate? No? No, no,
Well, and he doesn't have eventoday. I mean, you think
about how long unsolved cases have goneon just with recent technology and familial DNA
and things like that. Are theynow just starting But it's technology because a
lot of people involved in these casesare dead yeah, yeah, and or
their descendants are dead or something.Well, you look at that Montana murder

(56:50):
from nineteen fifty one. I thinkthey just saw it and that one.
They reopened that case I think eleventimes and they finally got it on familiar
DNA. So it's it's not thedetectives didn't try. And a lot of
times they have the suspect. Theythink in that case they had the suspect,
they just didn't have enough to getthem. So, you know,
you look at if any of theseold cases, if evidence still exists in
some of these cases from the thirtiesand forties, Ken, you solve them,

(57:14):
I guess you, Ken, Butis there really going to be I
guess all you could do is closethem. There's going to be no convictions.
All the suspects are dead at thatpoint. Well, and I can't
tell you how many times I've intervieweddetectives on this show, and to what
you just said, A lot oftimes they have their person, they know
exactly who they're going, Yester,And a lot of times on the show,
we can't even talk about that,yeah, because they don't want to

(57:35):
go there. But they'll tell meoff Mike, Yeah, we already know
who did this. We just needthis little piece of information. We need
a witness to come forward, weneed DNA, we need it's always one
little tiny piece and push it overthe edge. And that seems like a
lot even back then. Is theyhave they know who did it, they
just can't prove it, and there'sno point going to court and letting guy
get it not guilty and then neverme go charge me, yeah, and

(57:55):
then not be able to charge themagain. Right, because in that probably
disappear, and you know, everythinggets blown up in exactly. So now
we've got a homicide bureau. Yousay, now we're pushing up into the
fifties right now, from the fortiesup to nineteen fifty then yeah, yeah,
so so between that time pass proat the end of Prohibition. Well,

(58:17):
you know, let's stop there becauseI'm gonna take a break and when
we come back, we'll wrap thisup. But first, this is Unsolved
with Steve Gregory on kf I AMsix forty. You're listening to kf I
AM sixty on demand, kf IAM six forty live everywhere on the iHeartRadio

(58:37):
app. I'm Steve Gregory and thisis Unsolved. Welcome back with the Los
Angeles County Sheriff's Departments headquarters in downtownLos Angeles known as the Hall of Justice.
We're inside this historic building that wasbuilt in nineteen twenty five. We're

(58:59):
in the ground floor in what isthe museum now but used to be where
the corner did autopsies and joining usas Mike Frent and Tony he is the
curator of this museum. So we'reDepression era and this is where things kind
of get get a Little Muddy forfor homicide. In nineteen thirty four,
their major budget cuts within the Countyof Los Angeles. There's shore falls in

(59:24):
tax collection and just we're in themiddle of depression. Nineteen thirty four,
the county says the Sheriff's department hasto cut. Everyone has to take a
pay cut, including the sheriff.I think of the sheriff takes almost fifty
percent pay cut. With that said, they now break up Homicide Bureau or
Homicide Details sorry to Bureau of Investigation, and they basically consolidate everyone. So

(59:47):
it's almost like we're going backwards.We're going backwards again and going back to
how we started, almost like acriminal division, but because of budget cuts,
we have to do this. Sowith that said, kind of detectives
are they're signed a Bureau investigation,but they're handling different cases as they come
along. But then World War twohits. When World War two hits,

(01:00:07):
different story. We have guys thatlet leave fight, go out and fight
in the war. Crime prevention bringssome people into homicide, and ultimately we
have this unexpected rash of unsolved murderswe call lot murders of these women going
from starting in nineteen forty two,all the way, I would say to

(01:00:29):
post World War two nineteen forty nine. And this includes the Black Dahlia.
Our famous case is Georgia Bauerdorff,who was an oil heiress who was killed
in West Hollywood on Fountain in nineteenforty four. She's killed in October forty
four. Her case still remains unsolved. So with that said, we have
all these murders of these these women, majority of them are unsolved, All

(01:00:54):
almost all of them, in myopinion, are random. I don't even
think the same guy did it.That's just my opinion. I don't think
the same guy did all the allthese murders. But with that said,
um, there's a lot of pressureon the sheriff's bar, and why aren't
you solving these cases women? Youknow, there's this case in Hawthorne,
or woman just walking down the streets. She's dragged into this empty lot.
She's she's raped and murdered. BiscualLoose is getting a lot of pressure,

(01:01:15):
especially after the war. Once thewar is over, people are not making
there's really no excuses any anymore.So biscl is with all this pressure of
of really uh solving these cases hehas to kind of bring professionalism back to
what they they felt they lost duringthe depression era with breaking up homicide.

(01:01:36):
So there's a grand jury that comesthrough in nineteen forty nine going into nineteen
fifty which investigates the black Dahlia andwere these cases handled properly? And one
of the questions comes up to Sheriffbiscal Lous will, how do your homicide
detectives work? Like what's show usEmmanuel? Where do they go by?
What's how do they how do theytrain? And he said, Wow,

(01:01:58):
I don't really have an answer thatkind of detective each do their own thing
and they kind of investigate the bestway they can. And he really doesn't
have an answer, and it's embarrassing. Bisclus goes to his chief of detectives,
Norris Stensln at that time, andNorris Stenslan's an interesting character. Norris
came from Chicago, came out hereto Los Angeles in nineteen nineteen. He

(01:02:22):
has his father passed away when he'svery young. He grew up in a
very very poor part of Chicago knownas Little Hell. Later on he got
the nickname from the department Little Satanbecause they're saying little Only little Satan could
survive Little Hell. He was alsoknown as the human Bloodhound because of his
detective skills were on another level.Now, this is a guy who barely
barely got out of high school,came here as a criminal bailiff. But

(01:02:44):
sitting in the courts from nineteen nineteento nineteen twenty one, he learned how
criminal cases worked, he learned howinvestigations work, and early on in homicide
he was appointed as a detective.First he would just go out to the
scenes and assist detectives. Eventually hegot to homicide in nineteen twenty three.
When he got there in twenty three, he just was one of these all
stars. He just shined. Hewas just had a knack for for interviewing

(01:03:07):
people catching liars. And I thinkit was because where he grew up.
He grew up in the streets.He had to hustle a lot as a
kid. He kind of knew bswhen he saw it, and I think
he has had that mentality. Butat the same time, he was a
very humble guy, very soft spoken, and very well liked. He was
very well well liked by the public. A lot of good feedback from detectives

(01:03:30):
who worked under him, said hewas treated everyone with kindness in respect even
his secretaries. Found some write upsof his secretaries talking about how he was
just one of the kindest many youknow in the department. At the same
time, he's a living legend everyonewalk in would you know bout him?
Because God, this is a homicidedetective who solved all these big cases.
So with that said, Bisculous putsStenslin in charge of creating this homicide bureau,

(01:03:55):
this professional bureau. And with thecreation of that bureau, he creates
the manual. So there's now atraining manual. Everyone that comes in through
homicide has to go through this trainingprocess. How many pages in the manual
I think the initial manuals only Ithink twenty something page. It wasn't that
long. But it breaks down howto do the investigation. It breaks down

(01:04:15):
about you know, because the firsttime they're talking about really closing off the
crime scene, and that's when yousee less of the news photographers stepping on
the crime scene. You started toon our ability to exactly exactly. So
it talks about preservation the crime scene, It talks about collection of evidence,
it talks about interviewing of witnesses,report writing, all this stuff, testifying

(01:04:40):
and court. All of that's inthe in the original manual. I don't
know what the manual looks like today. It's probably very different. Do you
have a copy of that original manual? We do, We do have it,
Yes, we do have it inkind. Yeah, it's it's it's
very it's not very detailed, butit's it's it covers what they need to
do during the investigation. So withthat said, Stensln creates a homicide bureau

(01:05:01):
that now has, uh, there'san accountability and there's also a structure to
it. There's there's you know,from A to z, he what what
you do to during an investigation.There's no this detective does it this way,
this detective does it that way.It's very structured from from start to
finish. Uh. With that said, um, it's kind of interesting with

(01:05:24):
with Stenslan Um. After he createshis whole uh the whole homicide bureau or
modern homicide bureau. Uh. Hehe doesn't tell anybody, but he's sick.
He has cancer. He's he's he'she's not doing well physically. So
he without anyone expecting it, hefiles for his retirement and everyone's by stenson

(01:05:45):
retire. He doesn't say um,but he said it's basically's time for me
to go. But I'm gonna havethis press conference. So everyone's gathering around
for this press conference, and they'reexpecting Stenslan to make this long speech about
his long career, going back tonineteen nineteen and working through prohibition and dealing
with all these uh dealing with allthese famous murders. And he goes up

(01:06:06):
there and he lights his cigar andhe basically makes this a online statement.
He basically says, um, Ithink this, I think this, this
department who's I love so much,and I now leave it in capable hands.
And he lights his cigar and saysthank you everyone. That's it.
He's gone. Typical Stenslan, justa man of few words and all actions.

(01:06:30):
So he goes on goes down,in my opinion, as kind of
the pioneer of modern homicide, ofwhat they do today with the training they
go through today, the manual,the structure of homicide bureau. He is
the creator of that. He's notthe creator of the homicide overall, but
the creator of I would say modernhomicide. Yes, so and and Stenslin

(01:06:53):
it's it's sad because overall he's notreally remembered. You don't really associate him
with famous HOMI side cases. Youknow, you think of more of the
LAPD officers, or you know,there's more famous names that go with with
you know, Finnis Brown and allthese famous times. This department's always sort
of lived in the shadow of thesexiness of the LAPD they did. And

(01:07:14):
even even when James Elroy did themovie LA Confidential, the character Dick Stensln
is named after Stenslan. About that, Yes, he's but he's named after
an lap all right, it's it'sit's a character of the l it's an
lap gaps. Sorry, he's namedafter a sheriff detective. But it's for
an LAPD detective. So even wedon't even get credit when we deserve it.

(01:07:35):
Well, listen, Mike, thishas been a fascinating, fascinating journey
with you and I have thoroughly appreciatedthis. I know our listeners enjoy it
too. But we want to dothis again, please, Oh absolutely,
and that's gonna do it Unsolved withSteve Gregory. The radio show is a
production of the KFI News Department foriHeartMedia, Los Angeles, and is produced

(01:07:57):
by Steve Gregory and Jacob Gonzalez.Our field engineer is Tony Sorrentino, and
our digital producer is Nate Ward.To hear this and other episodes, just
download Unsolved with Steve Gregory on theiHeartRadio app or wherever you listen kf I
AM six forty on demand