| The Naked City | Mar 1 2023 |
Automobile fatalities in L.A. increase by one.
This macabre image, which showed up online a while back thanks to an exhibit of one hundred years of Los Angeles Police Department photos, shows an LAPD detective regarding a muder victim whose throat was cut while he was in his automobile. There's no information about who the victim was or why it happened, but it's an arresting image of a grisly end. The shot was made by Leon Driver, who when he arrived in L.A. from Texas in the early twenties was arrested for vagarancy, but by 1925 was one of the earliest official photographers employed the LAPD. He made this photo today in 1929.
| The Naked City | Dec 16 2022 |
A ghost of Christmas past.
Just in case the holiday season was putting you in too upbeat of a mood, above is a dead guy for you. Nice of us, right? As the notation at the lower right of the photo indicates, this poor fella was found today in 1926, and documented by a police photographer named Stewart. This was in Los Angeles, at 503 North Plymouth, which is right in the heart of town not far from the Wilshire Country Club and Hollywood Memorial Park Cemetery (now known as Hollywood Forever Cemetery, where movies are shown on summer weekend nights, projected onto the side of a mausoleum). The body has a gun in its hand, but loosely. We thought we'd find a police report indicating whether this was suicide or a staged murder, but sadly this person vanished nameless into the snowdrifts of history.
The photo first popped up in public because it was part of an exhibition called To Protect And Serve: The LAPD Archives, which was put together by two Los Angeles art gallery owners back in 2001. Before that it had been part of a trove of images found in a warehouse by the same two gallerists, and had previously been held by the LAPD’s Scientific Investigations Division, which was formed in 1924 and eventually accumulated close to a million images. The photo has now appeared in numerous exhibits in the U.S. and Europe, and been reproduced online countless times, but usually without context, which is why we're explaining its provenance. Let it be a reminder that this really is the season to be jolly—because you're alive, and that's a priceless gift.
| The Naked City | Sep 8 2022 |
They may have been in the winter of their years but their tempers still ran hot.
Courtesy of the University of Southern California's archive of Los Angeles Herald and Los Angeles Examiner photos, above you see the aftermath of yet another violent act. This happened in a boarding house on Second Street today in 1951, and you see prone murder victim Enrico Venencia with neighbor David Dyer in the first shot, the killer James Demarco accompanied by LAPD detectives in frames two and three, and Demarco handcuffed to a bed in frame four, looking every day of his seventy-two years, and a little battered besides. But this is one situation where age prevailed.
There's no information with the photos about what exactly happened. There isn't even a cause of death. The only information, besides the names of those involved, is that Dyer was an intended victim. That's how we were able to discern who was who—Dyer must be the one who isn't dead, and isn't handcuffed. We're not ballistics experts, but these archive images can be blown up to about 9000 pixels, and taking a close look it seems as if Venencia was possibly shot behind his left ear, suffered a gaping exit wound in the front of his skull, and went down hard. What an ugly way to go.
| Hollywoodland | Sep 1 2021 |
As far as I'm concerned whoever let the cops in should pay all our legal fees.
On this day in 1949, during the wee small hours of the morning, Robert Mitchum, Lila Leeds, Robin Ford, and Vickie Evans were hanging in a secluded Hollywood Hills home smoking a little mota when there was a scratch at the door. The house was the residence of Leeds and Evans, and it had become a spot where people, including Hollywood showbiz types, occasionally partook of the Devil's weed. By some accounts entry could be gained only via a secret knock, which—actually this is pretty clever—was to scratch at the front door like a cat. Since police had been tipped to the house's possible purpose, we can assume they too scratched at the door. We like to think they meowed too, but that probably didn't happen.
Anyway, Evans answered the door, and to her shock and dismay, in barged the police. Evans, Leeds, Mitchum, and Ford were corralled and escorted to the police station—and right into the cameras of the waiting press. The quartet are seen above with their legal representatives. Below, Mitchum, Leeds, and Ford are facing the camera, while Evans is facing away. Mitchum actually thought his career was ruined, but after being convicted of conspiracy to possess marijuana and serving sixty days in jail he continued as a top rank star. The up and coming Leeds, on the other hand, really was ruined by her conviction—at least according to her. Ford, who was a realtor, was also convicted, but we have no idea what happened to him afterward. Only aspiring dancer Evans was acquitted.
| The Naked City | Aug 28 2021 |
Two mafia pals split the bill.
In our continuing focus on Los Angeles crime scene photos, above you see a shot of a mob hit on two unidentified gangsters who met their end over spaghetti dinners in an Italian restaurant booth. The worst part? They barely even got started on their meals and didn't get a chance to touch the crackers at all. That was today in 1933. Most of the crime scene photos we have are within our Naked City category, which you can access by clicking those words in yellow just above the title of this post.
| The Naked City | Jul 30 2021 |
Hello? Hello? Are you still there? What was that loud thump? Hmph. The line's gone dead.
We get nearly all our crime scene shots from the USC digital archive, but today we have a different source. This one comes from the Los Angeles Police Museum and shows a man named Raymond Gross, who died today in 1953 after overdosing on barbiturates. The shot is unusual because, as you can see, he died while talking on the phone. Gross had gotten the drugs by prescription to alleviate pain caused by a brutal beatdown he'd received months earlier at the hands of a sailor named Lee Roy Collins. Collins broke Gross's nose, jaw, and inflicted a subdural hematoma. The two had met out on the town, Gross invited Collins back to his apartment, and at some point the encounter became violent. Possibly Collins always intended to beat and rob Gross, or he got the idea after a disagreement. In any case, police were able to find Collins thanks to evidence he'd dropped while fleeing. He was arrested and tried for the beating, but acquitted. That's no surprise. Gross was gay, and beating a gay man was not really considered a crime in 1953. Collins may have been gay too, but you can be sure his story in court was that Gross made a shocking and unexpected sexual overture. Back then a story like that would have been like using a get-out-of-jail-free card. Months later, still taking pain pills because of that violent attack, Gross ended up the way you see him above. Suicide? Accident? That remains unknown.
| The Naked City | Feb 17 2021 |
There's not much you can do when the river runs dry.
Above is a vintage photo taken in the concrete basin of the Los Angeles River showing police detectives standing near an unidentified corpse. Some websites call this a suicide, but if you look closely you can see that the body is pretty far from the bridge. If this person committed suicide, it wasn't by jumping. The photo first became publicly known thanks to a photographic 2019 exhibition by the Lucie Foundation, which shared 79 other shots of a similar type. They all came from a collection of about 2,000 photos taken by LAPD personnel between 1925 and the mid-1970s. This is a lonely end for a man, which the handwritten date tells us was today in 1955.
| The Naked City | Jan 21 2020 |
Seems like the news in this paper is always bad.
This is an interesting piece of crime memorabilia. We've seen it around a bit, but decided to share it here anyway. It's a copy of the Daily Police Bulletin, a publication put out by the Los Angeles Police Department meant for internal use, updating cops on the department's focus items. We gather the LAPD did this from 1907 until the late 1950s. These were generally two pages in length, with printing on the front and back. We checked around and learned that the Chicago and San Francisco police also printed these newspaper style bulletins. It's a good bet other departments did too. This Bulletin on murdered and mutilated Elizabeth Short, aka the Black Dahlia, is from today in 1947, about a week after her death. The photo used is a headshot she had made, something she needed because she intended to become an actress. She never got the chance. Her life ended at age twenty-two.
| The Naked City | Sep 24 2019 |
Laughter turns to tears when a bully earns a reprisal.
A little teasing can be fun if everyone involved is good-natured about it, but when the person being teased doesn't think it's funny, it then becomes bullying. And bullying can lead to anything—all of it bad. A machinist named Harry Salmons had made a habit of teasing his co-worker Frank Capizzi for believing in astrology. Salmons also pranked Capizzi, hiding his office chair and tools, coating the handles of his equipment with grease, and smearing oil on his work bench. Maybe if Salmons believed in astrology he'd have seen what was coming next, but no such luck. Thus when Capizzi produced a pistol and shot him to death, he was probably quite surprised.
That happened in Los Angeles today in 1951. These photos from the Los Angeles Examiner show Capizzi in police custody, and in the 
second one LAPD Sargeant Jack McCreadie is telling him, “So, like, you know you're gonna get teased much worse in the federal pen, right? Those guys just love to tease.” Capizzi seems to be going, “Really? Huh. Never actually thought about that.”
second one LAPD Sargeant Jack McCreadie is telling him, “So, like, you know you're gonna get teased much worse in the federal pen, right? Those guys just love to tease.” Capizzi seems to be going, “Really? Huh. Never actually thought about that.” People never think about the consequences before flying into a rage. The photo below shows the dead man's wife Ethel Salmons, and his two children, and the accompanying press caption suggests that the reality of being a destitute widow is just sinking in, which is an incredibly sad thought. Yes, she married a terrible asshole, and her mother probably told her that numerous times, but even bullies don't deserve to die. Well, usually.
As a side note, longtime visitors to Pulp Intl. know we used to write many more of these true crime stories. We've done fewer because the research has become nearly impossible due to all the newspaper scans being locked up by the overpriced paysite newspapers.com. The expense isn't really the issue. The issue is the website's 87% disapproval rating. We aren't kidding. On trustpilot.com 74% of users rate the service as bad and 13% rate it as poor. We aren't sure what the difference is between bad and poor, but whatever, newspapers.com is obviously a site to avoid like radioactive Fukushima water. But here's the good news. We'll probably start buying true crime magazines again, which means we can get much more detailed in our retellings. More mayhem to brighten your day.
As a side note, longtime visitors to Pulp Intl. know we used to write many more of these true crime stories. We've done fewer because the research has become nearly impossible due to all the newspaper scans being locked up by the overpriced paysite newspapers.com. The expense isn't really the issue. The issue is the website's 87% disapproval rating. We aren't kidding. On trustpilot.com 74% of users rate the service as bad and 13% rate it as poor. We aren't sure what the difference is between bad and poor, but whatever, newspapers.com is obviously a site to avoid like radioactive Fukushima water. But here's the good news. We'll probably start buying true crime magazines again, which means we can get much more detailed in our retellings. More mayhem to brighten your day.
| The Naked City | Aug 20 2019 |
Birdwell get wings clipped, ends up in cage.
It started as a fun evening, but twenty-year-old Joan Birdwell was later booked on charges of felony drunk driving, something that happened in Los Angeles today in 1951. And wouldn't you know it? Just to make matters worse, a photographer from the Los Angeles Examiner was on hand to document Birdwell's humiliation from beginning to end. In addition to her wild night ending with arrest and photographic infamy, she may have actually crashed her car, because a companion photo below shows her passenger Vernon Burgess in a hospital bed, though not seriously hurt.
Birdwell was the daughter of powerful press agent Russell Birdwell. L.A. tabloids obsessively sought good art, and a juicy jail photo of someone connected to a celebrity—however obscure that celebrity might have been—certainly qualified. Celebs, killers, thieves, and regular folk all got this treatment. We can't confirm that Examiner ever actually ran these shots. Either way they're out there now, thanks to the University of Southern California's online Examiner archive. Ah, the internet: where everything you hoped was long forgotten lives in mortifying perpetuity. Joan, if you're out there, sorry.
Birdwell was the daughter of powerful press agent Russell Birdwell. L.A. tabloids obsessively sought good art, and a juicy jail photo of someone connected to a celebrity—however obscure that celebrity might have been—certainly qualified. Celebs, killers, thieves, and regular folk all got this treatment. We can't confirm that Examiner ever actually ran these shots. Either way they're out there now, thanks to the University of Southern California's online Examiner archive. Ah, the internet: where everything you hoped was long forgotten lives in mortifying perpetuity. Joan, if you're out there, sorry.
