Episode 507 - History of Homicide (Encore Presentation)

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

(00:00):
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
solved with Steve Gregory. In thisepisode, we go back to the beginning
of the La County Sheriff's Department's HomicideBureau. In twenty twenty two, the

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modern day version of the bureau celebratedits one hundredth anniversary. In fact,
I am ced the event. That'swhere I met Mike Fratton Tony, a
department employee who was also the curatorof the Sheriff's Museum, which is situated
on the ground floor of the historicHall of Justice in downtown Los Angeles.
Fratten Tony insisted we sit inside thesmall museum, which is surrounded by decades

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of badges, uniforms, log books, crime scene photos, and a row
of actual jail cells that sat onthe top floors of the building when it
was built in nineteen twenty five.Fratton Tony takes us back to the very
first day the La County Sheriff's Departmentopened for business, April first, eighteen
fifty. So the first Monday ofApril eighteen fifty, Sheriff George Burrowell first

(02:00):
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 were basically all in the
same building, and they covered ahuge territory. Today we look at Los
Angeles County with the four thousand squaremiles, we don't realize that Ellie County

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in eighteen fifty also comprised of RiversideCounty, San Bernardino County, Ventura County,
current county, And they say SanBernardino I did so, so you
have all these counties that Elle Countycovered. So that's a huge area for
one sheriff and one deputy to cover, so massive, massive, if you

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want to say reporting district at thattime. Any idea what the population would
have been back then? The populationof Los Angeles County as far as we
could tell in the census, onlya couple of thousand people, a couple
of thousand. And fast forward totoday with what what are we eleven million?
Yeah, yeah, eleven million.So this department gets going and it
is still the West, so it'sstill considered the wild West. Yes,

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back then, So when did homicideinvestigations become a thing? I mean,
did the sheriff's department have a homicidedivision or bureau from day one? No?
No, So early on overall thesheriff's department really didn't investigate homicides.
That was overall the coroner's job.And at that time, and it's kind
of confusing alle history, the cornerwas under the sheriff's office, sure,

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but the corners investigators overall investigated thedeath, the circumstances the death, will
not the sheriff was more or lessapprehension of the criminals and housing the criminals.
And then also between eighteen fifty andeighteen eighty nine executing if there was
an execution or the condemned prisoners wereexecuted by the sheriff. That was before
the state took it over in eighteenninety. And one of the areas here

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in the museum is dedicated to thecoroner's office. Yes, yea and so,
and they're still to this day alaw out of sheriff's corner operations out
there where the sheriff does act asthe coroner. Yes. Yes, in
other counties, yes, but nowin La County that is evolved into how
there's a medical examiner. Yes,it's a different it's a different agency,
but there is still a part ofthis museum dedicated to that. And we're

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actually sitting in where the coroner's officeused to be. Where we're sitting now
was actually the room where they didthe autopsy. So this was between nineteen
twenty five to nineteen seventy two.This is where the Coroner's office operated out
So we're actually sitting where they didall the autopsies. Everyone from Robert Kennedy
to Marilyn Monroe, the Black DahliaBugsy Siegel, we're all autopsy right basically
where we're sitting. So this washold. So the building was erected in

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nineteen twenty five. Yea, itwas completed in nineteen twenty five. The
final construction of the jail went intonineteen twenty six, but the department started
moving in in the end of twentyfive. Wow. And then it closed.
Yes, And that was also backwhen you were talking to me about
the jail sales and you were walkingme through this. The jails used to
be up on the top of thebuilding, yes, correct, tenth floor

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to the floor, yeah, tothe roof yep. Why uh, security
reasons. Initially, when the Alliedarchitects were constructing the building, they they
made it known that not a goodidea to put the jails on the upper
floor because of the weight. TheSheriff's department chimed in basically said, well,
we're thinking about security, even thoughwithin the first you know, month,

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month and a half, we hada dozen plus escapes out of the
building, so it really didn't helpthat it was on the upper floor.
But ultimately that that what we heardlater on when when the engineers went through
this building after the ninety four earthquake, they're saying that's what caused a lot
of the damage was the weight onthe upper floors, so when the building
started shaking, it didn't stop,and that's what caused a lot of the
concrete and you know, overall cosmeticdamage. The frame of the building wasn't

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damage. It's built so well,it held up. But overall the concrete
and a lot of the upper floors, the floor stuff crack because of that.
And you were talking about this beingthe corner's office and a lot of
the historical cases and people who wentthrough here, but it also was the
courthouse. Yes, so also betweenthe seventh and eighth floor where the courts.

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The district attorney was on the sixthfloor, so you had you had
full on courts operating, Superior courtoperating out of there. I guess you
would say that probably the most famouscase, or the last major case to
come out of there was the Mansontrial was held here in nineteen seventy one.
But everything from you know, ourearly cases, the nineteen twenties,
thirties, fourties, any major caseyou could think of was was basically tried

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out this building. The old courthousewhich sat across the street was the eighteen
eighty eight to nineteen thirty six courthouse. By the time this building was built,
that courthouse was pretty much just doingsmall cases. And eventually it just
became, i think at the end, like storage looking at some of our
records, we were just storing stuffthere. DA's had offices there. So

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when did the department shift from justbeing sort of a law enforcement arm becoming
an investigative arm. So overall within the eighteen fifties, and I'm gonna
talk about some dark history here inthe eighteen fifties, with the crime as
bad as it was in Los Angeles. By the mid to late eighteen fifties,

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crime was bad. I mean,even if you read the East Coast
newspapers, they described Los Angeles asthis outpost, this lawless place, this
this awful place where outlaws just runamuck. Between in eighteen fifty seven and
eighteen fifty eight, both of oursheriffs were killed. In nineteen fifty seven,

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sheriff Sheriff Barton was killed along withseveral of his deputies out in Orange
County. And in eighteen fifty eight, Sheriff Getman was killed just about a
block from where the Hall of Justicesits today. And because of that the
citizens of Los Angeles were fed up. They were disgusted with the crime businesses

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and operate. So ultimately there wasa vigilance committee that was created. Vigilance
Committee that was created, and theVigilance Committee basically held secret court, and
during this court they would determine theguilt of a prisoner. Didn't matter what
the courts said, but if thevigilance Committee just determined they were guilty,

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they would deal with him during thattime. I guess one of the one
of the suspects in the Sheriff Bartonmurder was actually taken from the La County
jail in eighteen eighteen fifty eighteen fiftyeight and he was hung, and he
was hung by the vigilance Committee.They basically banged on the jail door and

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they said, he's guilty in ourcourt, and they took him out and
they hung him up on one ofthe carrals. Yeah, swift justice,
swift justice. But hold on.I want you to hold that thought,
because wouldn't come back. This soundsvery interesting. Vigilance Committee. We're talking
with Mike Frenton Tony with the LaCounty Sheriff's Department's Museum. We're here on
the ground floor of the Hall ofJustice in downtown Los Angeles. But first,

(09:01):
this is Unsolved with Steve Gregory onkf I AM six forty. You're
listening to kf I AM sixty ondemand kf I AM six forty live everywhere

(09:22):
on the iHeartRadio app. I'm SteveGregory and this is Unsolved. Welcome back
with Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department's headquartersin downtown Los Angeles known as the Hall
of Justice. We're inside this historicbuilding that was built in nineteen twenty five.
We're in the ground floor in whatis the museum now but used to

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be where the corner did autopsies.And joining us as Mike Franton Tony he
is the curator of this museum.And before the break, Mike, you
were talking about the Vigilance Committee.Yes, yes, so it was.
It was a committee put together byprominent citizens of Los Angeles. Ultimately,

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I guess they felt it was theway to deal with with with a I
guess an unfair 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 of

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dealing with criminals this way all cameto a head in eighteen seventy one when
a Los Angeles I believe it's theLos Angeles Ranger was shot. It was
he was actually shot kind of inthe crossfire of two Chinese gangs. With
that said, sparked riots here inLos Angeles. These riots turned into a

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massacre who was known as the Chinesemassacre in October of eighteen seventy one.
So pause the riot was in supportof what was the r So basically what
happened was the the people were tiredof the lawlessness, they were upset or
the copying shot killed. Yeah,well there was a protest over a copying.

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Yeah, it wasn't a copies.Basically, the Los Angeles Ranger,
which was still law enforcement and thatwas that was killed, and ultimately the
public was fed up with that.I think it was just another excuse for
them to riot, another excuse forthem to to to do harm to a
certain group. You know history,they always want to blame a certain group.

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At this time, it was theChinese and ultimately it led to this,
this this horrible riot um where somany innocent people were pulled from their
homes and hung and at that pointthe sheriff lost control, the absolutely lost
control of the city. Federal troopshad to come in to finally get it
under control. And ultimately no onereally was tried for this. I mean

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there was people put on trial,but nobody was ever convicted or sent to
prison behind it. And you havebetween the lowest number is eighteen the highest
number is one hundred deaths. Wedon't really know because records are really poor
at that time, but ultimately therethere wasn't a thorough investigation into this.
Who would have investigated this? Thecorner the corner, yes, Okay,

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So at that time sheriff was elected. UM Shortly thereafter a guy by the
name of Roland Sheriff, William Rolandis elected. He's our youngest sheriff.
He's twenty five years old. He'she's he's from a prominent family. He's
he's Anglo on his father's side,Latino on his mother's side. Roland Heights

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was basically his property, um namedafter him. And he comes in and
really brings professionalism to the department.And one of the things that he takes
over his investigations of murders. Sohow big is the department by now?
Oh? Very small, still lessthan ten deputies on the department. Yeah,
so very very small. At thattime. In eighteen fifty three,

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San Bernardino became its own county,So county started breaking up by the eighteen
seventies. In Orange County was thelast county to break up, I want
to say, in eighteen eighty nine. But so so we still have a
large territory, but overall our crimeis starting to diminish. After the Chinese
massacre, a lot of people seethe wrongs that that we're done. During

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that a lot of innocent people werekilled. And with that, Sheriff Rowland
says, I'm going to bring moreprofessionals department. One of the things he
does is we're handling these investigations tomake sure they're thoroughly done. If I'm
handling the people voted for me,they entrusted me to do this, I'm
overall going to make sure that theseare done thoroughly. And overall, between
the eighteen eighties and the eighteen nineties, crime is very very low in Los

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Angeles. We go through some ofour jail ledgers from that, those from
those decades, and there's like threemurders in one year, and most of
them are just are you know,they knew each other. It's not your
random yeah yeah, domestic issue oryeah over money or something like that.
But there's no more of that justshooting each other in the street. Overall,
the outlawed gangs or are starting toyou know, dissolve, and and

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Los Angeles is becoming basically a niceplace where people live. Businesses are doing
very well. And that that thatrolls well into you know, the turn
of the century. Um that thatthat type of uh professionalism moves on into
the into the turn of the century. Let me ask you what you're talking
about the vigilance committee before. It'skind of a trick question. How do

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you think a vigilance committee would goover today? I don't think 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 can do sureas human beings. Where we're all flawed
as human beings. There's you know, but but least you're presenting evidence,

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You're doing all you can for themto come back and backdoor that and say,
well, we think he's guilty basedon whatever the reason might be.
Committee never had transcript of their court, so we don't know why it could
have been, Hey, we don'tlike that guy because he's buying land next
door. You know, we don'twho, We don't know what their motives
were. Who made up the VigilanceCommittee, prominent members of the of Los

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Angeles. One of them that weknow for they were just citizens. They
weren't They weren't a lot of people. No, Nope, one of them
that I guess I could put putthe name out there now. The family
has has given me some letters andwhat not to read over regarding that.
But one of the guys that weknow on the committee was Thomas Sanchez,
who if you go to Glendale theSanchez Adobe since that was his house.
He actually was sheriff from eighteen sixtyto eighteen sixty seven, so he was

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very well liked because of the VigilanceCommittee. Yeah, he was a violent
sheriff. I mean he ultimately hehe was you know, he wasn't kind
of an outlaws sheriff. And peoplewanted that. That's what the public wanted.
That's why they voted for him.You know, for during for eight
elections, he voted eight in eighttimes. Wow, and that's unheard of
at that time, but he wasvery popular because of that. We're sheriff's

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terms the same back then as oneyear, one year, one year terms.
So he won eight elections. Soeighteen sixty to sixty seven. Can
you imagine having the campaign every yearfor your job, Like yeah, wow.
I mean going through some of hishis items and letters and stuff that
the family showed me, there's hewas a shoe in almost every year.
They he really didn't have me juston his name alone. He was he

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was, he was in and youknow, he was also sheriff during the
Civil War, so there was alot of you know, termoil going on
in the nation and people were veryafraid of what was going on out there.
So I think that was a distractiona lot. With turning the elections.
I just think people, whatever wasthere, we want to keep it.
Just Yeah. So I think thatI can't go back in a time
machine and go into people's heads.But that's kind of the feeling I get,

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just based on what I've read.When we come back, let's talk
about then how this new idea withinvestigating the crimes within the department, how
that started and how it went andhow it evolved. But first, this
is Unsolved with Steve Gregory on kif I AM six forty. You're listening
to KFI AM sixty on demand kfI AM six forty live everywhere on the

(17:12):
iHeartRadio app. I'm Steve Gregory.This is Unsolved. Welcome backward. The
ground floor of the Los Angeles CountySheriff's Department headquarters inside the Hall of Justice
in downtown Los Angeles. Were speakingwith Mike Frt and Tony He is the

(17:34):
curator of the Los Angeles County Sheriff'sMuseum, and we are sitting where the
corner's office used to be decades agobefore the break. You know, you're
sort of wrapping up sort of thehistory of the sheriffs along the way and
how the approach to investigating crimes evolved. Now we're up to where you had

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Sheriff Rowland and you said that hewanted to sort of do investigates in house.
So how did that look back then? I mean, overall some of
the Uh, the investigations still exist. Between the Huntington Library and the State
Archives, you can actually get originaldocuments. The investigations were as thorough as

(18:15):
they can be back then they were. They were, in my opinion,
very very well done. I meanthere's as far as how do you but
but there was no precedent set onhow to investigate a crime, right,
No, No, it was.It was basically just going out there and
and doing interviews, um, talkingto to the people in the public.
Uh, the stuff you see,there's basically this stuff you see today,

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very very basic investigation process. Therewasn't you know, nothing there no science
involved or anything like that. Ultimately, just talk to people. And you
got to realize Los Angeles a lotsmaller back then. So if something happened,
someone knew something new, somebody knewsomething. Witnesses were you know,
readily available. Uh you know peopleI think and cooperated a lot more back

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then with the sheriff. You seea lot of cooperation. People are very
quick to to witnesses to come forwardand whatnot. So they had those advantages
as disadvantages they didn't have. Obviously, are cameras, forensics, DNA,
all that stuff. Obviously they hadto just go on what they had,

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and you know, overall there thereis you know, the acquittals are are
in my opinion, are high forthe time because if they didn't have enough
evidence people they just didn't get convicted. And it's weird as far as sentencing
too. Sentencing sometimes guys are hitwith a harsh sentence for something you think
is minor, and then for amajor crime there they get, you know,

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five years in state prisons. Soit's just it all depends on the
time. It's kind of a cyclethat goes through. So it's interesting when
you read these, uh these recordsfrom the time and you're expecting, well,
everyone, you know, sentences wereso harsh back then. No,
it's a cycle. Sometimes they were, sometimes they weren't, so kind of
the mood of the day, that'sit seems like a yes. So,
um, as this evolves in thisSheriff Roland model evolves into investigating in house,

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when did a more formalized sort oflike you know today we know we
know it is homicide Bureau, butwhen when did there When was there a
first sort of formalized gathering of investigatorsor detectives. So so there was a
murder in nineteen oh one. Itwas a murder in Downey. It was
a triple murder husband, wife andthe baby and brutal murder and the murder

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of a baby. I mean,today, no one's ever going to be
desensitized to that. That's something that'shorrible. Don't matter when it happened,
but at that time it was justit was unheard of. I can't find
another case one hundred years before thator a hundred years after that where somebody
just comes into a house and murdersa husband, wife and a baby and
brutally. So this murder was inDowney in nineteen oh one. Sheriff Hemil

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was a sheriff of the time.He handled the case. The case,
they had a suspect. Unfortunately,you know, he had a motive.
It was it was his ex wife. There was he had made threats are
in the past, but there justwasn't enough evidence to convict him. They
couldn't put him there at the farmthat day. And they just they tried

(21:18):
everything they could at that time.But overall the case was handled by the
sheriff and the under sheriff. Theyboth worked on the case thoroughly and that
continued on until until nineteen ten.In nineteen ten there was the the La
Times bombing. Two brothers Mcamara brotherswho were unionists who are very much against

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what the LA Times had set about. These union groups set a bomb behind
inc aalley at the LA Times buildingand this bombing was the largest at I
think to this day's the largest terroristattack at Los Angeles. I want to
say well over twenty plus people werekilled in this bombing, mostly guys had
worked in the LA Times building,writers, printers, janitor or stuff like

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that. Their ultimate goal was theydidn't like General Otis who ran the La
Times. But in the end theyended up killing just a bunch of innocent
people. This investigation was thoroughly handledby the La County Sheriff, William Hemmel
at that time, and it involvedThis case just blew up because it involved
over a hundred conspirators. It wentfrom state to state. It was a

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long drugout investigation, and by thetime everything was said and done, Sheriff
Hemmel was exhausted. He was done, and he's getting ready for it.
You know, there's an election comingup and he's focusing on this homicide case
and this is when he decides he'sgoing to create a criminal division, and
a criminal division was the first detectivebureau now at that time, Criminal Division,

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which was created in nineteen eleven,a year after or I would say
eight months after this bombing. CriminalDivision handled every case, so there was
no specific to homicide. So oneday you could show up to your desk
and you have a burglary, thenext day you have a murder, the
next day you have h you know, a stolen horse. There was no

(23:08):
consistency, so there was no specializedtraining. So overall Criminal Division was just
detectives that would come in and handlewhatever fell on their desk, and you
know, they did a good jobearly on. They you know, we
had good detectives at that time whodid the best they could. They also
worked with detective agencies. You hadyour Pinker Tins, you had Nick Harris

(23:29):
detectives, which are still in business. I think they're still work out of
West Hollywood, m and they wouldwork with them as far as h these
agencies, paying informants and getting informationfrom people on the street and whatnot.
So they did do the best theycould for what they had at the time,
but there was no specialized training inhomicide. Right, so when did
that come into play? Where?Where does now it's safe to say,

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I don't know if you know this, is it safe to say that the
La County Sheriff's departments at that timeyou say, the criminal vision, do
you think that's probably one of theoldest in the country. No, no,
no, god no. There wereothers that started along with Oh yeah,
yeah, but East Coast had itdown, San Francisco had it down.
Um. LAPD had a detective BeerI think going back to eighteen eighty
eight. Um. But overall,Um, the Sheriff's department handled even in

(24:18):
the city like the La Times bombing. We worked with LAPD on that case,
but overall we did all the outof state investigations were all done by
the Sheriff's office because I guess probablyof funding that we had more funding,
more resources than than than the policedepartment did at that time. Um.
But overall, yeah, we uhum. We didn't really have a really

(24:42):
need for a homicide a detail orspecial specialized detail until the blue Beard Watson
murdered in nineteen twenty. That's reallyokay, we'll talk about that, but
first we're gonna take a quick breakThis is Unsolved with Steve Gregory on caf
I AM six forty. You're listeningto kf I AM sixty on demand kf

(25:07):
I AM six forty lie everywhere onthe iHeartRadio app. I'm Steve Gregory.
This is Unsolved. We're inside theHall of Justice down on the ground floor
where the museum for the La CountySheriff's Department is housed. We're speaking with
Mike Frent and Tony, the curatorof the museum. And you did an

(25:30):
excellent tease before the break, Miketalking about the big the big one,
the big murder case that sort ofstarted I guess the homicide Bureau, right,
yes, yes, Okay, whatwas it? So a call comes
into the Sheriff's office in nineteen twenty, I think it was April of nineteen
twenty, and there's a woman Ithink her name is Kathleen Wombacher. She

(25:57):
calls she's married to a guy weknow as James Watson or James Bluebeard Watson,
and I'll go into that in alittle bit. And she she had
made a phone call to the NickHarris Detective Agency and she basically said she
she just married this man. Shefeels like he might be cheating on her.

(26:18):
So they're looking at a bigamy casehere. Not a big deal,
I mean, it's I think backthat sounds like thirty days in the county
jail or something like that. Butso Nick Harris detectives asked the Sheriff's department
for assistance on this. So theSheriff's department starts following him and they notice
everywhere he goes he goes with thesesteamer trunks. Long story short, I

(26:41):
guess you know, obviously not thesame rules we have today with search and
seizure. They basically they're suspicious ofthem. It's enough to open the trunks,
and inside the trunks they discover weddingrings, wedding certificates, photographs,
you name it. They find itin there, as far as women's property,
women's clothing. They start questioning aboutthese trunks, and Watson says,

(27:04):
well, I'm I'm an agent withthe Secret Service and I'm investigating this swindler
who swindles these women out of money. He marries these women and swindles amount
of money. So at that time, the two detectives out of Criminal Division,
Harvey Bell and Robert Coots ask himfor credentials, and he said,

(27:26):
well, I don't have credentials.They're they're not omni, but they're in
a lockbox, in a safety depositbox in San Diego with a lot of
my investigative files. So they said, okay, we'll take a trip down
to San Diego. How does thathelp? They all jump in the car.
They're driving down to San Diego.And the interesting thing about this is
this whole trip is photographed. Weactually have the photographs of the entire trip.

(27:49):
They brought in a photographer from theLa Times. They contracted him and
he took some time off and basicallyjust came down and photographed this. Why
don't we don't know? So,you know, it's funny because I always
found a history, the history ofthis department interesting in that insane with LAPD
that you used to use La Timesphotographers for crime scene photos. Yes,

(28:11):
them, the Examiner, Yeah,any photographer that was used the news media
to help archive or memorialize your cases. Yeah. So we don't know why
for a bigamy case they decided totake them out. More or less,
I think they just the photographer wantedto get out of get out of his
house. For a weekend or something. So this is where the case starts
out as kind of a nothing andreally the detectives really get suspicious on this.

(28:36):
As they're driving down to San Diego, James Watson cuts his own throat
and he survives a suicide attempt,but in the car. Yes, so
we have photographs of a lot ofstuff. We have even photographed him in
the hospital with his neck bandage youwant. So at that time, Bell
and Coots, the two detectives arevery suspicious of that. There says,

(28:59):
some thing is not right with this, Why would this guy commit suicide?
When they get down to San Diego, they discovered there's no safety deposit box.
Watson is not cooperating with them atall. So what they start doing
is they start looking into these missingthese these women uh cases, if they're
if they're missing women or you knowwhere they come from, where you know

(29:22):
they're They're starting to discover that alot of these women are not from California.
Most of these wedding rings, weddingcertificates, uh photographs where were taken
in different states, so Iowa,Idaho, um, some in Canada.
So they're discovering that there's a wholetrail of these women that he had married
or whatever. No, it's allthese wedding rings his or they well they're

(29:42):
in his possession, so they're sothey're they're they're little suspicious. Okay,
how does he have all these ringsfrom all these different women from all these
states, all these marriage certificates andwhatnot. And what they just start discovering
are these these are missing persons.All these women are missing persons. So
now they're suspicions are really growing.And as they start questioning blue Beard more

(30:03):
and more and more, he finallybreaks. They said, we know you
killed these women, we know youtook their money, we know you did.
And there's saying if you are convicted, they're gonna hang you. They're
gonna this California, They're going tohang Finally he breaks, and when he
breaks, he starts admitting to themurders of all these these women. These
were these women that he actually married. So he'd actually meet these women in

(30:26):
the newspaper on the lonely Hearts adsand stuff like that, he would marry
them and they would go away fortheir honeymoon, and ultimately he would kill
them and dispose of their body.So of course the detectives want proof.
They said, well, show usa body. And he said, well,
most of them I sunk in riversor I burned them up and I
couldn't get their bodies. But thereis one I killed recently here in Signal

(30:48):
Hill and I buried her out inImperial County. I could take you where
where she was buried. And hesaid, I just need a couple of
days to recover it. Like,yeah, no, you're not going to
recover. They drag him out ofBank of Early Walk the hospital bed and
they take him down to the tothe site and first sight he goes to
it's the wrong site. They digthere, he goes, now, this
is not it was this other rockformation. Long story short. Um.

(31:12):
By the end of the day theyget to the right location. They start
digging and they discover a body.And this body is horribly mutilated. He
had he had tortured her, hehad um cut her up, he had
disfigured her face. Um, hehad done a really awful number on her.

(31:32):
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
the gallows. Um, he beatsit. He doesn't go to they don't

(31:55):
hang him. He gets a lifesentence in san Quin. Ultimately he dies
in and Quentin prison and he's buriedout there in some grave that's overgrown with
a tree and growing through the centerof the tombstone. But overall, he
does an interview blue Beard Watson doesan interview with True Detective Mysteries about you
know that prison is the best placefor him. He says, this is

(32:15):
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

(32:37):
that we're calling police stations and Iowathat don't even have telephones. You'd have
to call the post office and tellthe postmaster to go out there and get
the local sheriff of the local policechief to talk to them about these missing
persons. With the complication these cases, we really need a unit that specializes
in homicides, and especially with thegrowing population of Los Angeles, the large

(32:59):
transient population, the murders are notso much you know me and you know
domestic or I know this person usedto be Yeah, now it's more just
they're just random. So with theseso let's pause there for a quick minute.
When we come back, we'll talkabout the birth of Homicide Bureau.
Yes, that's right, but first, this is Unsolved with Steve Gregory on
kf I AM six forty. You'relistening to kf I AM sixty on demand

(33:27):
k I AM six forty heard everywherelive on the iHeartRadio app. I'm Steve
Gregory and this is Unsolved. Ifyou're listening on the app, you can
send us a tip about a case, a story, idea, or a
comment about the show. Just tapthe red microphone on the app and record
your message. Welcome back Worth theLos Angeles County Sheriff's Department's headquarters inside of

(33:53):
the Hall of Justice, downtown LosAngeles. Talking with Mike Fratt and Tony,
who is the curator of the LosAngeles County Sheriffs Departments Museum, telling
some amazing stories. In fact,before the break you were wrapping up the
James Watson case had forty wives.Forty wives tried to slit his own throat
while in the customer detectives in acar headed to San Diego. Um,

(34:17):
but we know one thing I didn'task you before the break is he was
known as blue Beard. Why blueBeard? That was a saying for somebody
who would swind to women, likea kind of like a player or a
con man. Really, that's athat's an old term. M Yeah,
not he's much anymore. But ifyou read the old detective magazines, you'll
see blue Beard of Cleveland or blueBeard of New York. So though,
that's how they would title them,the guys that would swind to women.

(34:40):
So this was the first big casethat convinced the sheriff that a more formal
homicide bureau needed to be created,right, yes, okay, so what
year are we talking about? Nineteentwenty one, twenty one? So initially,
so well, let me let merewind a little bit. So at

(35:00):
that time we had a Sheriff JohnC. Klin, who was the one
that was putting together the Homicide Bureauof the nineteen twenty John C. Klin
ends up resigning as sheriff due tosome corruption issues. He's replaced by William
I. Trager, who, inmy opinion William I. Tregar was one
of our greatest sheriffs. William II. Tragar comes into the department as a

(35:23):
reformer and he says, what isthis department need? How do we improve
this department? And his main goal, Tragar's main goal is transformed this department
from a frontier style sheriff's department tolike a professional police department. I want
to have the best of everything.We are the La County sheriffs with the
biggest sheriff's department in the world.We should have the best of everything.

(35:45):
And that's ultimately what he does.One of the first things he does in
July of nineteen twenty one is hefunds what they call the homicide Squad and
what the homicide squad is, andI said, that kind of history repeats
itself. The homicide squad initially wasfive detectives, handpicked detectives from the DA's
office. The Sheriff's Office and LosAngeles Police Department and all the major cases

(36:09):
they would work on together. Justthe major cases, the cases that were
the simple that not that who've doneit would be handled by the individual departments,
but the homicide squad. So that'sthe first squad that's put together.
We're five detectives, a stenographer,was five detectives, a stenographer and a
and basically a secretary run the run, run the detail, and it's with

(36:31):
the captain oversea. And the firstcaptain was Captain Bill Bright or William Bright.
And overall, nineteen twenty one's kindof interesting because we're just out of
Bluebeard, Watson and um ELA's firstfemale serial killers. So male and female
serial killer. Uh what was hername? God names escapes me right now.

(36:52):
But long story short, we haveboth male and female serial killers.
First time that the word serial killersnot used at the time of mass murder
or spreek whatever they use at thattime. But overall, it's it's getting
the public interested and stuff. They'rerealizing that there's predators out there and that
these people need to you know,need to be investigating on any professional to

(37:15):
investigate them. So you can't justhave you know, Joe off the street
investigating these cases. They're a lotmore complicated. These these criminals think things
out a lot more and you're dealingwith literally predators. So what that said.
The Sheriff's Apartment forms it's homicide squadin nineteen twenty one. Shortly thereafter
we have the case like Clara Phillips, the Hammer Murder's case. In nineteen

(37:35):
twenty two, you have William DesmondTaylor, one of the Hollywood's first movie
moguls, He's Murdered nineteen twenties,has a lot of big cases, and
we kind of shift between the homicidesquad and a homicide detail, and I
could go into that. It's kindof more a lot more complicated than that.
But we have several issues where wherelpd's Homicide does things at the Sheriff's

(37:59):
Apartment doesn't agree with. One ofthe things was working over suspects, working
over stuffs, So working over suspectwas when you needed that final confession.
It kind of just you know,work them over a little bit. Sheriff.
Sheriff Tragger was not about that.He said, we don't operate like
that. It's interesting because in alot of these interviews in the nineteen twenties.

(38:23):
They're talking about constitutional rights. They'reasking if your constitutional rights were violated
during this interview. This is beforeMiranda, this is nineteen twenty five,
twenty six that they're putting it inour actual reports. So with that,
we broke away from LAPD and westarted investigating cases separately. So that's when
we went from the homicide squad tothe homicide detail, and the homicide detail

(38:44):
did not work with LAPD any longer. They worked separately from them. We
didn't work again with LAPD until nineteentwenty seven with the William Edward Hickman case.
And that was a case where aformer banking player wanted to get back
at a bank president who had whohad basically turned him in for stealing checks
from the bank. As a revengeplot, he kidnaps this banker's a twelve

(39:07):
year old daughter and ultimately mutilates herand murders her. I mean, it's
a horrible crime. At the time, he ends up escaping up to Oregon.
That case was such a big caseand this public was so outraged that
the sheriff and LAPT kind of puttheir issues aside and worked together and capturing
Hickman. Ultimately, Hickman was capturedup in Oregon and tried and convicted here

(39:29):
in California. Let's go back,because you were talking about the first female
serial killer, did you whatever cameof that case, So that's a little
I couldn't think of the name.Louise Pete. Was her name, Louise
Pete. Yeah, so Louise Petehad killed Sarah, she had killed in
Texas, she had killed here inCalifornia. She actually, she only gets
convicted of one murder here in nineteentwenty. She's released from prison. In

(39:52):
the forties, there's there's a women'sgroup that felt that she deserved a second
chance. There's a woman that livedout in Pacific Palisades who really fought for
her parole. Overall, Louise Peteis paroled and she actually lives with this
woman. Ultimately, she kills thiswoman and puts her in the flower pot
in the house, and eventually theyrealized there was no fixing Louise Pete.

(40:16):
She was not fit for society,and she was executed, I believe,
in nineteen forty eight in the gaschamber. So so, yeah, so
in nineteen twenty, you basically havethe first male if you want to say,
they're not defined as that, butthe first male and female serial killer
in the same year in Los Angelesand Los Angeles County, even though they
weren't identified as that. How um, I mean, I don't know if

(40:37):
any any of the research would tellyou this. But back in the day,
I mean, was record keeping prettythorough? Yes? Were they pretty
good about keeping notes? And theydid. They did a better job of
creating records, and we did maintainingthem a lot of a lot of the
failures came later on in the seventieseighties, when they started purging stuff that

(41:00):
they just felt wasn't important. Theysaid, this case is sold, why
do we keep this stuff. Whenwe look back to the stuff, we
are shocked and how thorough these caseswere. Some of them are eight nine
hundred pages long, and it's onedetective work in the case. The interviews
are very thorough. We're shocked.We were. We did not know what

(41:21):
to expect of how investigations would bedone, but they were very, very
thoroughly done back then. And oursalvery was high. At one point in
the nineteen twenties thirties, we hada ninety nine percent salve Ry, which
now once again I know, yeah, things were different, different different,
Yeah, okay, Yeah. We'retalking with Mike Fratten Tony he's the curator
of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's DepartmentsMuseum, and we're inside of the actual

(41:45):
spot where it used to be theCoroner's office, down in the ground floor
of Pall of Justice. More withmister Fratt and Tony Butt. First,
this is Unsolved with Steve Gregory onk I AM sixty. You're listening to
kf I AM sixty on demand kfI AM six forty live everywhere on the

(42:12):
iHeartRadio app. I'm Steve Gregory andthis is Unsolved Worth the Los Angeles County
Sheriff's Departments headquarters inside the Hall ofJustice. Were down on the ground floor
inside the museum, which is ledby Mike Frentontoni, and mister Frantoni has

(42:35):
been telling some amazing stories about howthe homicide detail started and before the break
you were kind of telling this thedetail has been created. Now, so
how many investigators, I mean,were they actual detectives at this point or
investigators? Yeah, so they're actuallythey're actually investigators, They're they're they're paid
an additional salary, So their salaryI think it was like an additional fifty

(42:58):
dollars a month or something like that, which is good money. M they
Initially we started out with five detectives. As time goes on into the twenties,
mid twenties, we're right about eightdetectives. By the end of the
decade, we're at ten detectives.I think today we have well over one
hundred rum but overall our caseload isnot as big as you would think.

(43:22):
But at the same time, werespond to everything, respond to every dead
body call, every you know,stuff that we probably wouldn't respond today.
Responding to everything wow um suicides,old people that just you know, pass
away from natural cause. It's clearlya natural cause case. We're responding to
everything. So so overall the detectivesdo have a large as far as response,

(43:43):
but they a caseload is not asbig. So we're now in the
early to mid twenties, nineteen twenties. What's the next sort of big innovation
that comes into the homicide detail.So so the two things is the one
is a murder book. We haveto we have to basically break down the
investigation prior to nineteen twenty four,we're just basically throwing everything in a box

(44:05):
and letting the DA sort it outwith At this time, we're actually taking
from the first report all the waytill the final court dispo is all in
this book, and it's indexed andit's easy to find everything. So from
your witness interviews to your corners reportis all in this book. That's literally
put together by the detective. Sothat's that's an innovation because that's something we

(44:28):
did before l EPD did, andI think a lot of other agencies in
this state we did. I thinkwe're the first ones to do the murder
book. So what that said,that's an innovation that was created by Captain
Bill Bright. Another thing was whatwe noticed is trying to explain jurors explain
to jerrors about a scene what ascene looked like. A lot of times
we're taking jurors to the scene,but the bodies are gone, the scene

(44:51):
is cleaned up. They don't reallyget an idea of what the scene looked
like. So what we started doingis following the guidelines of the La Times
Reporter guide by the name of GeorgeWatson, who was the first UH staff
photographer for the La Times. Hestarts training our detectives to photograph scenes.
And he said, but your yourphotographs have to tell a story. Because

(45:12):
he's a newspaper photographer, he knowshow to let his photographs tell a story.
And he said, with your photographs, you could put him on this
board and basically, the jury couldbe at the crime scene. You have
a photo of the scene, youhave a photo of the victims, you
have you have a layout. Andthen a lot of times back then,
they would even give the suspect thegun and he would pose, uh,

(45:32):
you know, pose basically do areenact with murder. Yeah, I'm looking,
which is ridiculous, I mean,absolutely ridiculous thing about that. But
yeah, he's i mean incriminating himselfbasically. But uh but yeah, so
and you see, and and weincluded some of those photos in the in
the pro in the in the onehundred Year of Homicide program. But that's
something that would would give the jurorsan idea of what went on at the

(45:54):
scene, give him it's kind oflike a movie, um, and and
and give him a better idea ofpeople that were altered and didn't see this
stuff. Today we see this stuffin movies 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 units. Yes, photo
units created and our photographs starts innineteen to twenty six. So I'm looking

(46:15):
at this and you're talking about thisprogram. It's the one hundredth anniversary Homicide
Bureau. 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 get body? Yep, that's that.
That was a Norwalk case. Ahusband I got tired of his wife.

(46:37):
She would guess he was gallant,Adam consolet. He went into the
room, got a shotgun and shother right as she turned to run out
the door. He shot her.He basically calls it in and says,
I killed my wife. It's anat The gun is on the table.
The detectives get there and they said, okay, pick up the gun and
show us what you did. Andthey photographed and that's what you see in
that still. It is a CrystalClare black and white photo of this man

(46:58):
standing just in There's a chair that'sbeen knocked over. It looks like a
dining room table, and he's justsitting there with a shotgun in his hand.
It's I can't even imagine how thatwould go over today. But there
were other countries, or are countriesthat still do this, I'm sure,
and Maria does this, I know, I mean other countries in Asia do
this. I just think today defenseattorneys would pick that card. Yeah,

(47:19):
oh yeah, absolutely, But backthen they were just looking at Oh this
is a good tool for the juryto see what went on that day.
So what else happened? Now atthis point, what about forensics? Did
forensics? Photographs are part of forensics? What about collecting evidence and things like
that? So we started doing evidencecollection relatively early, but it was contracted.
It was a guy by the nameof Arthur Moss, who was a

(47:42):
chemist with the USC would do evidencecollection, and this one on the nineteen
teens, all the way up intothe nineteen twenties. By nineteen twenty four,
we had a criminalist who wasn't officiallya criminalist he was a guy with
a chemistry degree worked out out theDena station who would basically volunteer his time
collecting evidence in one this guy washis name was Frank Gombert, and Frank
Gombert was actually he was brilliant.He was when it came down to u

(48:06):
to forensics. He's truly a pioneerin forensics. UM, it's not until
nineteen twenty eight that our crime labis actually officially formed. At that time,
the Sheriff's Department crime Lab is knownfor hair comparison. We according to
the literature of that time, UHforensics magazines and whatnot, that Frank Gompert

(48:30):
is basically his 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

(48:52):
taken to the to the farm ultimatelymurdered to the farm. They never recovered
their bodies. But they did recoverhair. They did hair inside the chicken
coops on the near one of thepillows, and what they were able to
do was take the hair from thatpillow, go to the kid's bedroom,
take a pair off the comb,and he was able to compare compare him

(49:13):
under a microscope. Now, I'mnot a scientist. I don't really know
how it works. He's one ofa forensic question. But I know involved
density of the hair, involved thefibers, because the fiber density involved the
thickness of the hair. So hewould put him on a microscope. Basically,
he claimed it was like a fingerprint. In nineteen thirty one, we
have a article where he is trainingFBI agents in hair comparison. Really so

(49:36):
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

(49:58):
wasn't a self promoter, and that'sepping On Pinker. Pinker was a phenomenal
scientist and he you know, hisname is 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, of homicide.

(50:19):
Chemistry. Yeah, and just achemistry nerd. That's all he did.
He lived for it. We're talkingwith Mike Frent and Tony with the La
County Sheriff's Department's Museum. We're hereon the ground floor of the Hall of
Justice in downtown Los Angeles. Thisis Unsolved with Steve Gregory on kf I
AM six forty. You're listening tokf I AM sixty on demand kf I
AM six forty live everywhere on theiHeartRadio Appum. I'm Steve Gregory. This

(50:46):
is Unsolved. We're talking with MikeFrett and Tony. He is with the
La County Sheriff's Department's Museum. Hehas welcomed us inside. Where we're sitting.
I don't know. I guess thisis sort of the center of the
operation. We took an amazing tourof the old jail cells, the original

(51:07):
jail cells. And he told usearly on in the show that we're actually
sitting on the spot where the coroner'soffice was, So I can't imagine how
many autopsies happened in the exact samespot we're sitting. You can't even camp.
And then it is thousands. Isit true this place is haunted?
I can't. I have no clue. That's that's what they tell me.
They tell you that I never talkedthose stories here. That's the one thing

(51:29):
I never I will lose all credibility. I cannot. I cannot talk.
I can't imagine, though, whata place like this, how creepy it
could get it because I've heard otherstell me in this building there are ghosts
here and it's haunted. But that'sthat's another show for another day. Unexplained.
Weird things happened, but that really, yes, weird things happen.
Okay, So we're talking about thebasically the formation of homicide bureaus. We

(51:50):
know it today, but you havetaken this on this amazing historical journey of
how not only the department started,but then how forensics started to weave into
investigations, and we had the homicidedetail, we had the criminal division,
and now we were talking about photosection came into play the crime lab.
Now, um, so, howmany people are in the department by now

(52:12):
we're in the we're in the latetwenties, by now we're in the early
thirties. Yes, so we havewe're hitting nearly a thousand deputies total.
Wow, and about ten ten plusat homicide and so, um, what's
crime like in LA around that time? Bad prohibition? Prohibition prohibition, So
so you're you're talking the at thattime. I think it was the largest

(52:34):
number of police officers murdered during thattime prohibition, between nineteen twenty and nineteen
thirty three. Um, not somuch. Our department LAPD gets hit harder
than we do. But cities likeChicago, New York in some cases I
think New York has three or fourofficers killed in a month. Um.
So, So because of that,bootlegging um is big business here in Los
Angeles. There's a lot of corruptionbehind it obviously, and uh and and

(52:58):
a lot of ran and murders becausenow you have what you have organized crime.
So with organized crime goes a lotof unsolved murders. Yeah, that's
right. I guess a lot ofthat, a lot of those games,
a lot of those um. Iguess that here around the time mafia starts
to take hold. Yeah, yeah, coast in the West Coast, they're
trying. They're not really doing toowell out here, but you are seeing

(53:19):
some guys like like you know,a lot of union stuff. Yeah,
yeah, you're saying. But overall, the corruption is so high here with
among the political figures that not eventhe mafia could run here in Los Angeles.
It's it's it's it's a it's arough period. But you know,
and you and you would talk aboutall the murders at that time. You
look at the mob boss Joe Ardenonewas killed out in um. He was

(53:42):
killed somewhere between uh Tahunga and uhAtawana which became Rancho Kucamonga. Most likely
his body dumped down one of theold wells there. But his case has
thoroughly worked on. And it's justfunny when the detectives I read through that
that that case, and when thedetectives try to work on the case,
these guys will not say a thing. The old school black hand would not.

(54:06):
They just they don't. They don'tsay anything to the police at all.
They don't give any information. Theydon't they are true. They'll do
a life sentence. You could,you could hang him at san Quent and
they're not going to say a word. So they just truly stick to their
code. So these cases become verydifficult. And if you look at that
time, a lot of those mobmurders or black hand murders are unsolved both
with US and LAPD because there's justabsolutely no cooperation. So when did um,

(54:29):
I'm glad you brought that up,so you know, I know today
you have a cold case unit madeup of retired detectives. But back then,
when we're talking about in the thirtiesand into maybe into the forties,
did you have a missing persons unit? And did you have an unsolved Yeah?
So what missing persons started in nineteentwenty three when they realized that homicide
detectives realized there's a connection between missingpersons and homicides. A lot of times

(54:52):
these persons that end up missing becomeeither a body dump they've discovered their bodies
somewhere, or or there's a confashion later down the line. So they
wanted to get an early start onit. So missing persons does go under
homicide in nineteen twenty three. Also, another thing was the other question was

(55:12):
I was talking about unsolved, andso we don't have an officially an unsolved
unit at that time. But it'sinteresting because at that time they felt once
a case was unsolved, if itwent 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 guythat there's a guy at homicide by the
guy named by the name of JosephPulvida and Joseph Paulvida. He gets on

(55:37):
the department in nineteen oh three,and when he gets on the department,
he actually looks into that nineteen ohone Downey case again and goes nowhere.
Years later, he's going through recordsagain and finds a case again and finds
out the suspect in that case issick, he's dying, and he tries
to get a deathbed confession at him. He doesn't, but overall he does

(56:00):
open the case. So he isthe first detective. I would say Joe
Sphpulvida is the first detective to startreopening old cases because back then, unless
there was a calling or a lead, they wouldn't just randomly open cases.
It's not like there was any newtechnology that came in. They unless there
was a confession or something else,there was no reason too. Yeah.
So he's the first one that reallystarts opening up unsolved cases. And he

(56:22):
starts doing that in the nineteen twenties, I would say about nineteen twenty five
twenty six he starts doing that.And is he having a pretty good success
rate? No? No, no, well he doesn't have even today.
I mean, you think about howlong unsolved cases have gone on just with
recent technology and familiar DNA and thingslike that. Are they now just starting
But it's technology because a lot ofpeople involved in these cases are dead.

(56:45):
Yeah, yeah, and or theirdescendants are dead or something. You look
at that Montana murder from nineteen fiftyone, I think they just saw it
and that one. They reopened thatcase I think eleven times and they finally
got it on familiar DNA. Soit's it's not the detectives didn't try and
a lot of times they have thesuspect. They think in that case they
had the suspect. They just didn'thave enough to get them. So you

(57:07):
know, you look at if anyof these old cases, if evidence still
exists in some of these cases fromthe thirties and forties, Ken, you
solve them. I guess you,Ken, But is there really going to
be I guess all you could dois close them. There's going to be
no convictions. All the suspects aredead at that point. Well, and
I can't tell you how many timesI've interviewed detectives on this show, and
to what you just said, Alot of times they have their person,

(57:30):
they know exactly who they're going,Yester, And a lot of times on
the show, we can't even talkabout that, yeah, because they don't
want to go there. But they'lltell me off Mike. Yeah, we
already know who did this. Wejust need this little piece of information.
We need a witness to come forward, we need DNA, we need it's
always one little tiny piece and pushit over the edge. And that seems
like a lot even back then.Is they have they know who did it,

(57:52):
they just can't prove it, andthere's no point going to court and
letting guy get it not guilty andthen never me, I go charge me.
Yeah, and then not be ableto charge them again, right because
that and probably disappear and you know, everything gets blown up in exactly.
So now we've got a homicide bureau. You say, Now we're pushing up
into the fifties right now, fromthe forties up to nineteen fifty then yeah,

(58:14):
yeah, so so between that timepass pro at the end of Prohibition.
Well, you know, let's stopthere because I'm gonna take a break
and when we come back, we'llwrap this up. But first, this
is Unsolved with Steve Gregory on kfI AM six forty. You're listening to
kf I AM sixty on demand,kf I AM six forty live everywhere on

(58:37):
the iHeartRadio app. I'm Steve Gregoryand this is Unsolved. Welcome back with
the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Departments headquartersin downtown Los Angeles known as the Hall
of Justice. We're inside this historicbuilding that was built in nineteen twenty five.

(59:00):
We're in the ground floor in whatis the museum now but used to
be where the corner did autopsies andjoining us as Mike Frent and Tony he
is the curator of this museum.So we're depression era, and this is
where things kind of get get alittle muddy. For for homicide in nineteen
thirty four, they're major budget cutswithin the County of Los Angeles. There's

(59:24):
shore falls in tax collection and justwe're in the middle of depression. Nineteen
thirty four, the county says theSheriff's department has to cut everyone has to
take a pay cut, including thesheriff. I think the sheriff takes almost
a fifty percent pay cut. Withthat said, they now break up Homicide
Bureau or Homicide Details sorry to Bureauof Investigation, and they basically consolidate everyone.

(59:49):
So it's almost like we're going backwards. We're going backwards again and going
back to how we started, almostlike a criminal division, but because of
budget cuts, we have to dothis. So with that said, kind
of detectives are they're signed a buerof investigation, but they're handling different cases
as they come along. But thenWorld War two hits. When World War
two hits, different story. Wehave guys that let leave fight, go

(01:00:12):
out and fight in the war.Crime prevention brings some people into homicide,
and ultimately we have this unexpected rashof unsolved murders. We call lot murders
of these women, going from startingin nineteen forty two all the way,
I would say, to post WorldWar two nineteen forty nine. And this
includes the Black Dahlia. Our famouscase is Georgia Bauerdorff, who is an

(01:00:39):
oil heiress who was killed in WestHollywood on Fountain in nineteen forty four.
She's killed in October forty four.Her case still remains unsolved. So with
that said, we have all thesemurders of these these women, majority of
them are unsolved. All almost allof them, in my opinion, are
random. I don't even think thesame I did it. That's just my

(01:01:00):
opinion. I don't think the sameguy did all the all these murders.
But with that said, um,there's a lot of pressure on the sheriff's
bar, and why aren't you solvingthese cases women? You know, there's
this case in Hawthorne, or womanjust walking down the streets. She's dragged
into this empty lot. She's she'sraped and murdered. Bisculus is getting a
lot of pressure, especially after thewar. Once the war is over,
people are not making there's really noexcuses any anymore. So biscl Is with

(01:01:22):
all this pressure of of really uhsolving these cases, he has to kind
of bring professionalism back to what theythey felt they lost during the depression era
with breaking up homicide. So there'sa grand jury that comes through in nineteen
forty nine going into nineteen fifty whichinvestigates the black Dahlia and were these cases

(01:01:45):
handled properly? And one of thequestions comes up to Sheriff Biscalus, will
how do your homicide detectives work?Like, what's show us Emmanuel? Where
did they go by? What's howdo they? How do they train?
And he said, wow, Ireally have an answer. The kind of
detectives each do their own thing andthey kind of investigate the best way they

(01:02:06):
can. And he really doesn't havean answer, and it's embarrassing. Bisclus
goes to his chief of detectives,Norris Stensln at that time, and Norris
Stenslan's an interesting character. Norris camefrom Chicago, came out here to Los
Angeles in nineteen nineteen. He washe has his father passed away when he's
very young. He grew up ina very very poor part of Chicago known

(01:02:28):
as Little Hell. Later on hegot the nickname from the department Little Satan,
because they're saying little only Little Satancould survive Little Hell. He was
also known as the human Bloodhound becauseof his detective skills were on another level.
Now, this is a guy whobarely barely got out of high school,
came here as a criminal bailiff,but sitting in the courts from nineteen
nineteen to nineteen twenty one, helearned how criminal case has worked, He

(01:02:51):
learned how investigations work, and earlyon in homicide he was appointed as a
detective. First he would just goout to the scenes and assist detectives.
Eventually he got to Hama Side innineteen twenty three. When he got there
in twenty three, he just wasone of these all stars. He just
shined. He was just had aknack for for interviewing people, catching liars.
And I think it was because wherehe grew up. He grew up

(01:03:14):
in the streets. He had tohustle a lot as a kid. He
kind of knew bs when he sawit and I think he has had that
mentality. But at the same time, he was a very humble guy,
very soft spoken, and very wellliked. He was very well well liked
by the public. A lot ofgood feedback from detectives who worked under him
said he was treated everyone with kindnessin respect even his secretaries. Found some

(01:03:37):
write ups of his secretaries talking abouthow he was just one of the kindest
menu you know, in the department. At the same time, he's a
living legend everyone walked in, wouldyou know bout him? Because God,
this is a homicide detective who solvedall these big cases. So what that
said, bisculous puts Stenzlein in chargeof creating this homicide bureau, this professional

(01:03:58):
bureau. And with the creation himthat bureau, he creates the manual.
So there's now a training manual.Everyone that comes in through homicide has to
go through this training process. Howmany pages in the manual I think the
initial manuals only I think twenty somethingpage, so it wasn't that long.
But it breaks down how to dothe investigation. It breaks down about you
know, because the first time they'retalking about really closing off the crime scene,

(01:04:24):
and that's when you see less ofthe news photographers stepping on the crime
scene. He started topet on ourability to exactly exactly, so it talks
about preservation the crime scene. Ittalks about collection of evidence, it talks
about interviewing of witnesses, report writing, all this stuff, testifying and court.
All of that's in the in theoriginal manual. I don't know what

(01:04:45):
the manual looks like today. It'sprobably very different. Do you have a
copy of that original manual? Wedo, We do have it, Yes,
we do have it. In God. Yeah, it's it's it's very
it's not very detailed, but it'sit's it covers what they need to do
during the investigation. So that thatsaid, um, Stensln creates a homicide
bureau that now has, uh,there's an accountability and there's also a structure

(01:05:10):
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 thatway. It's very structured from from start
to finish. Uh. With thatsaid, um, it's kind of interesting
with with stenslan Um. After hecreates his whole uh, the whole homicide

(01:05:30):
bureau or modern homicide bureau. Uh. He he doesn't tell anybody, but
he's sick. He has cancer.He's he's he's he's not doing well physically,
so he without anyone expecting, andhe he files for his retirement,
and everyone's by Stenson retire. Hedoesn't say um, but he said it's
basically it's time for me to go. But I'm gonna have this press conference.

(01:05:53):
So everyone's gathering around for this pressconference, and they are expecting Stenslan
to make this long speech about hislong career, going back to nineteen nineteen
and working through prohibition and dealing withall these uh, dealing with all these
famous murders. And he goes upthere and he lights his cigar and he
basically makes this a online statement.He basically says, um, I think

(01:06:16):
this, I think this, thisdepartment who's I love so much, and
I now leave it in capable hands. And he lights his cigar and says,
thank you everyone. That's it.He's gone. Typical Stenslan, just
a man of few words and allactions. So he goes on, goes
down, in my opinion, askind of the pioneer of modern homicide of

(01:06:39):
what they do today with the trainingthey go through today, the manual,
the the structure of homicide bureau.He is the creator of that. He's
not the creator of the homicide overall, but the creator of I would say
modern homicide, yes, so andand Stenslin. It's it's sad because overall
he's not really remembered. You don'tassociate him with famous homicide cases, you

(01:07:01):
know, if you think of moreof the LAPD officers or you know,
there's more famous names that go withwith you know, Finnis Brown and all
these famous times. This department hasalways sort of lived in the shadow of
the sexiness of the LAPD they did. And even even when James Elroy did
the movie LA Confidential. Uh,the character Dick Stenslyn is named after Stenslan.

(01:07:24):
About that, Yes, he's buthe's named after an lap all right,
it's it's it's a character of theit's an lap GAP Sorry, he's
named after a sheriff detective. Butit's for an LAPD detective. So even
we don't even get credit when wedeserve it. Well, listen, Mike,
this has been a fascinating, fascinatingjourney with you and I have thoroughly
appreciated this. I know our listenersenjoy it too. But we want to

(01:07:46):
do this again, please, OK, absolutely, and that's going to do
it unsolved with Steve Gregory. Theradio show is a production of the KFI
News Department for iHeartMedia, Los Angeles, and is produced by Steve Gregory and
j Of Gonzalez. Our field engineeris Tony Sorrentino and our digital producer is
Nate Ward. To hear this andother episodes, just download Unsolved with Steve

(01:08:09):
Gregory on the iHeartRadio app or wherewere you listening kf I AM six forty on demand