The Naked City, Vintage Pulp

November 14 2011

DEATH COMES TO DINNER

An inconvenient acceptance of a casual invitation.

Above is a cover of True Detective from November 1958 and inside is a story on the murder of Irene Morey, a Los Angeles woman who was found strangled along with one of her two young sons. The murder was eventually pinned on a gas station attendant named Charles Earl Brubaker who had met Morey a few days earlier when she had car trouble. Either in gratitude or because she was romantically interested in him, Morey invited him to her place for dinner a few nights later, and the date went wrong. When Brubaker was in the middle of choking the life out of Morey, the older of her two sons walked in, so Brubaker strangled him too. Brubaker confessed to the murders and was tried, convicted, and sentenced to death in the gas chamber. That sentence was later overturned by Judge Joseph A. Wapner (who would become famous on his 1980s television show The People’s Court), and instead of seeing the inside of the death chamber Brubaker served hard time until his parole in 1976. After his release he faded from public view, but his crime never will because its aftermath is part of the USC Digital Library’s collection of more than 200,000 Los Angeles Examiner negatives. Irene Morey and her son appear below, in life and in death. We highly recommend you take a spin around USC’s Examiner collection. There’s more dark and forgotten history in there than you can imagine.

True Detective, Los Angeles Examiner, Irene Morey, Charles Earl Brubaker, Joseph A. Wapner, true crime magazine, magazine art

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HISTORY REWIND

The headlines that mattered yesteryear.

December 6

1989—Anti-Feminist Gunman Kills 14

In Montreal, Canada, at the École Polytechnique, a gunman shoots twenty-eight young women with a semi-automatic rifle, killing fourteen. The gunman claimed to be fighting feminism, which he believed had ruined his life. After the killings he turns the gun on himself and commits suicide.

December 5

1933—Prohibition Ends in United States

Utah becomes the 36th U.S. state to ratify the 21st Amendment to the United States Constitution, thus establishing the required 75% of states needed to overturn the 18th Amendment which had made the sale of alcohol illegal. But the criminal gangs that had gained power during Prohibition are now firmly established, and maintain an influence that continues unabated for decades.

December 5

1945—Flight 19 Vanishes without a Trace

During an overwater navigation training flight from Fort Lauderdale, five U.S. Navy TBM Avenger torpedo-bombers lose radio contact with their base and vanish. The disappearance takes place in what is popularly known as the Bermuda Triangle.

December 4

1918—Wilson Goes to Europe

U.S. President Woodrow Wilson sails to Europe for the World War I peace talks in Versailles, France, becoming the first U.S. president to travel to Europe while in office.

December 4

1921—Arbuckle Manslaughter Trial Ends

In the U.S., a manslaughter trial against actor/director Roscoe ‘Fatty’ Arbuckle ends with the jury deadlocked as to whether he had killed aspiring actress Virginia Rappe during rape and sodomy. Arbuckle was finally cleared of all wrongdoing after two more trials, but the scandal ruined his career and personal life.

December 3

1964—Mass Student Arrests in U.S.

In California, Police arrest over 800 students at the University of California, Berkeley, following their takeover and sit-in at the administration building in protest at the UC Regents’ decision to forbid protests on university property.

December 3

1968—U.S. Unemployment Hits Low

Unemployment figures are released revealing that the U.S. unemployment rate has fallen to 3.3 percent, the lowest rate for almost fifteen years. Going forward all the way to the current day, the figure never reaches this low level again.

WALKING AFTER MIDNIGHT

Cover art by the great Sandro Symeoni for Peter Cheyney's mystery He Walked in her Sleep, from Ace Books in 1949.

PARIS BLEUS

The mysterious artist who signed his or her work as F. Harf produced this beautiful cover in 1956 for the French publisher S.E.P.I.A.

RAISE EM UP

Aslan art was borrowed for many covers by Dutch publisher Uitgeverij A.B.C. for its Collection Vamp. The piece used on Mike Splane's Nachtkatje is a good example.