WEBVTT - Hell and Gone Murder Line: Karyn Kupcinet 0:00:08.245 --> 0:00:15.125 School of Humans on November thirtieth, nineteen sixty three, just 0:00:15.245 --> 0:00:19.365 eight days after President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas. 0:00:20.045 --> 0:00:23.245 Across the country, in Los Angeles, friends of a twenty 0:00:23.325 --> 0:00:26.805 three year old actress named Karen Kupsine were getting concerned. 0:00:27.925 --> 0:00:30.565 Mark Goddard and his wife Marcia had not heard from 0:00:30.645 --> 0:00:34.005 Karen since Wednesday, November twenty seventh, the night before Thanksgiving. 0:00:34.765 --> 0:00:37.525 On that night, Karen came to dinner at their house 0:00:37.725 --> 0:00:42.085 on Coldwater Canyon Drive in Beverly Hills. Karen had been 0:00:42.125 --> 0:00:47.005 depressed lately. Her relationship with her actor boyfriend Andrew Prine 0:00:47.085 --> 0:00:49.285 was more off again than on again, and on top 0:00:49.325 --> 0:00:51.765 of that, she was dealing with all the pressures of 0:00:51.805 --> 0:00:54.805 trying to make it on her own in Hollywood. She 0:00:54.845 --> 0:00:56.805 was supposed to get to their house to eat at 0:00:56.845 --> 0:00:59.645 six thirty, but arrived an hour late. She got there 0:00:59.685 --> 0:01:02.405 at seven thirty. When she did get to their house, 0:01:02.685 --> 0:01:06.845 she was acting strangely. They later told police. She barely 0:01:06.925 --> 0:01:09.485 touched her food and was acting like she was under 0:01:09.485 --> 0:01:14.965 the influence. Marcia told police that Karen's quote lips seemed numb, 0:01:15.165 --> 0:01:17.765 her voice was funny, she moved her head at odd 0:01:17.805 --> 0:01:22.445 angles end quote. Karen didn't eat much that night, but 0:01:22.525 --> 0:01:26.965 she told Mark and Marcia a very strange story. She 0:01:27.085 --> 0:01:29.685 said there had been a baby left on her doorstep 0:01:29.725 --> 0:01:32.005 earlier that day. She said she had to call the 0:01:32.045 --> 0:01:34.405 police and that they came and took the baby away. 0:01:35.405 --> 0:01:38.765 Karen seemed pretty distraught by this, and Mark and Marcia 0:01:38.925 --> 0:01:41.205 weren't quite sure what was going on with her, but 0:01:41.605 --> 0:01:43.605 they knew that she had been having a lot of 0:01:43.605 --> 0:01:47.725 issues lately. Karen was always worried about her weight, she 0:01:47.765 --> 0:01:50.725 had been addicted to diet pills, and she'd been dealing 0:01:50.805 --> 0:01:53.725 with the loss of this relationship. They put her in 0:01:53.765 --> 0:01:57.165 a taxi at eight thirty pm that night. Marcia asked 0:01:57.205 --> 0:02:00.525 Karen to call when she got home, but Karen never did. 0:02:00.565 --> 0:02:03.885 They didn't hear from her. They weren't overly concerned at first. 0:02:03.925 --> 0:02:06.365 They figured she probably went home and got so much 0:02:06.405 --> 0:02:09.685 needed sleep. But by the thirtieth and this is the 0:02:09.725 --> 0:02:11.885 way that Mark Goddard talked about it on the E 0:02:12.045 --> 0:02:14.925 Hollywood story that was done later about this case. He 0:02:15.005 --> 0:02:18.365 said they were going through their morning routine, he was shaving. 0:02:18.845 --> 0:02:21.125 He and Marcia started to chat and they said, you know, 0:02:21.165 --> 0:02:23.645 we're concerned. We haven't heard from Karen in a couple days, 0:02:24.245 --> 0:02:26.885 so by that evening they decided to take a drive 0:02:26.925 --> 0:02:30.685 to Karen's apartment in West Hollywood, located at twelve twenty 0:02:30.725 --> 0:02:34.605 seven and a half North Sweetsir Avenue. Mark Goddard told 0:02:34.605 --> 0:02:37.525 the show they drove up and parked. He said he 0:02:37.605 --> 0:02:40.125 went to the door alone and saw that it was 0:02:40.205 --> 0:02:42.205 open and started to get kind of a funny feeling, 0:02:42.805 --> 0:02:45.445 so he went back to the car and asked Marcia 0:02:45.485 --> 0:02:48.525 to come inside with him. The door is unlocked, so 0:02:48.605 --> 0:02:51.365 they opened it and walked into Karen's living room. It 0:02:51.485 --> 0:02:54.605 was dark. They saw her lying on the couch, face down, 0:02:54.805 --> 0:02:58.125 with the TV playing at low volume. There was a 0:02:58.165 --> 0:03:01.125 glass container that had spilled a lot of cigarettes out 0:03:01.125 --> 0:03:05.325 onto the floor. Marcia approached Karen. Karen was naked, and 0:03:05.525 --> 0:03:09.005 at first Marcia thought maybe she was just passed out, 0:03:09.485 --> 0:03:12.565 but when she touched her and rolled Karen over, she 0:03:12.645 --> 0:03:16.245 could see immediately Karen had been dead for quite some time. 0:03:17.565 --> 0:03:21.165 They started screaming for help, and pretty soon Karen's West 0:03:21.205 --> 0:03:25.885 Hollywood apartment was a crime scene. At first, everyone thought 0:03:26.085 --> 0:03:29.885 Karen must have died from an accidental overdose or maybe 0:03:29.925 --> 0:03:33.805 even taken her own life. They found Karen's diary entries, 0:03:34.285 --> 0:03:38.805 some of which were seriously disturbing, but the autopsy concluded 0:03:38.965 --> 0:03:41.965 this had been a homicide, that Karen had been strangled. 0:03:42.605 --> 0:03:48.325 Cause of death was manual strangulation. Manner of death homicide. 0:03:48.365 --> 0:03:52.725 What happened after hours in that West Hollywood apartment. I 0:03:52.805 --> 0:03:56.565 lived in Los Angeles for several years near where Karen lived, 0:03:56.565 --> 0:03:58.805 and this is one of those old Hollywood cases that 0:03:58.885 --> 0:04:04.045 has always fascinated me. It has so many elements. There's 0:04:04.085 --> 0:04:08.925 a broken relationship, stalking, Hollywood glamour, and even a suggested 0:04:08.965 --> 0:04:13.085 connection to the assassination of JFK. But really, after you 0:04:13.205 --> 0:04:16.245 get through the conspiracy theories and all of the Hollywood stuff, 0:04:16.765 --> 0:04:19.485 at heart, it's really a story about a young woman, 0:04:20.245 --> 0:04:22.565 a young woman who went out to Hollywood in search 0:04:22.605 --> 0:04:26.325 of her dreams, and this was how it ended. I'm 0:04:26.365 --> 0:04:30.965 Catherine Townsend. This is Helen Gone Murder Line. Over the 0:04:31.005 --> 0:04:34.485 past five years of making my true crime podcast, Helen Gone, 0:04:34.605 --> 0:04:36.845 I have learned that there is no such thing as 0:04:36.885 --> 0:04:40.645 a small town where murder never happens. I have received 0:04:40.765 --> 0:04:44.085 hundreds of messages from people all around the country asking 0:04:44.125 --> 0:04:47.325 for help with an unsolved murder that's affected them, their families, 0:04:47.525 --> 0:04:50.565 and their communities. If you have a case you'd like 0:04:50.645 --> 0:04:52.805 me and my team to look into, you can reach 0:04:52.845 --> 0:04:55.005 out to us at our Helen Gone Murder line at 0:04:55.045 --> 0:04:58.645 six seven eight seven four four six ' one four five. 0:04:59.205 --> 0:05:03.045 That's six seven eight seven four four six one four five. 0:05:03.805 --> 0:05:52.845 This is Helen Gone Line. After Mark and his wife 0:05:52.845 --> 0:05:55.765 found Karen's body, the police came to the address in 0:05:55.805 --> 0:05:59.525 West Hollywood and started processing the crime scene. They called 0:05:59.645 --> 0:06:03.245 Karen's parents immediately. They knew this would be big news 0:06:03.685 --> 0:06:08.165 because Karen's parents were power or Karen cupson It was 0:06:08.165 --> 0:06:12.205 born and raised in Chicago. She grew up there, the 0:06:12.325 --> 0:06:15.885 daughter of Essi and IRV Cupsonate. Her father, Irv was 0:06:15.925 --> 0:06:19.565 a legendary gossip columnist for the Chicago Sun Times and 0:06:19.645 --> 0:06:22.005 Again for people who grew up later and might not 0:06:22.085 --> 0:06:25.485 realize this, gossip columns had so much power. Back in 0:06:25.485 --> 0:06:29.725 the day. There was no social media, no influencers. Hollywood 0:06:29.765 --> 0:06:32.685 figures still had a lot of mystery, so one of 0:06:32.685 --> 0:06:35.165 the only ways to get access to them was by 0:06:35.205 --> 0:06:39.285 reading about them in the gossip columns. IRV Cupsonate was 0:06:39.365 --> 0:06:45.005 known as a friendly columnist. Celebrities and their publicists loved 0:06:45.005 --> 0:06:47.325 IRV because he could get their clients a lot of 0:06:47.365 --> 0:06:50.965 favorable coverage, favorable mentions, and what they called back then, 0:06:51.165 --> 0:06:53.925 a lot of columnages, meaning a lot of press. For 0:06:54.005 --> 0:06:56.085 those of you out there who do read those columns, 0:06:56.765 --> 0:06:59.805 IRV reminds me a little bit of columnists like Liz 0:06:59.845 --> 0:07:01.965 Smith in New York City who wrote for The Post. 0:07:02.685 --> 0:07:05.565 IRV was old school. He had lots of access to 0:07:05.685 --> 0:07:10.205 old Hollywood celebrities loved him. People like Joan Crawford and 0:07:10.285 --> 0:07:13.645 Don Rickles would come for dinner parties in their Chicago apartment. 0:07:14.285 --> 0:07:17.365 So Karen grew up in this environment, seeing all the 0:07:17.405 --> 0:07:22.485 glamour of Hollywood. This job gave IRV access to a 0:07:22.565 --> 0:07:26.325 lot of Chicago's elite, including reportedly some people who had 0:07:26.365 --> 0:07:28.605 connections to the Mob, which we'll get into a little 0:07:28.605 --> 0:07:31.765 bit later. So Karen decided at a very young age 0:07:31.845 --> 0:07:33.845 that she wanted to be an actress. Really, what she 0:07:33.925 --> 0:07:36.485 meant was she wanted to be a star, and Karen 0:07:36.565 --> 0:07:40.085 was talented. Her mom Essie, encouraged her to act and 0:07:40.165 --> 0:07:43.245 pushed her to do commercials and school plays. At the 0:07:43.285 --> 0:07:46.285 age of thirteen, Karen got a role as understudy to 0:07:46.325 --> 0:07:50.485 the lead actress in a play called Anniversary Waltz. Karen 0:07:50.565 --> 0:07:53.085 moved to New York in nineteen fifty nine and tried 0:07:53.125 --> 0:07:55.245 to get some roles on Broadway, but it was hard. 0:07:55.845 --> 0:07:58.605 She was nineteen. She was auditioning a lot, and she 0:07:58.685 --> 0:08:01.485 wrote in her diary later that she felt like because 0:08:01.485 --> 0:08:04.685 of her last name, producers were just humoring her and 0:08:04.725 --> 0:08:07.925 being polite. She felt like she wasn't getting there, she 0:08:08.045 --> 0:08:10.285 wasn't achieving her dreams on her own merit, and that 0:08:10.405 --> 0:08:14.045 really depressed her, and that's when she started to develop 0:08:14.085 --> 0:08:17.485 this obsession with her way. She developed a pretty serious 0:08:17.525 --> 0:08:20.685 eating disorder. And back then, I don't want to sound cold, 0:08:20.765 --> 0:08:23.045 but there was just not as much information around as 0:08:23.085 --> 0:08:25.685 there is now. According to a lot of people at 0:08:25.685 --> 0:08:28.725 the time, if you wanted to be skinny and work 0:08:29.045 --> 0:08:30.725 and be an actress, that was just kind of the 0:08:30.725 --> 0:08:34.405 cost of doing business. You had to be skinny. So 0:08:35.205 --> 0:08:38.125 when there were things like diet pill abuse, a lot 0:08:38.125 --> 0:08:40.965 of casting directors and even friends and family tended to 0:08:40.965 --> 0:08:44.845 look the other way. Karen gave herself a stage name, 0:08:45.005 --> 0:08:48.005 Lynn Rogers, but eventually she went back to Cups. In it, 0:08:48.205 --> 0:08:52.205 she became Karen cupson it, and Karen finally got a break. 0:08:52.685 --> 0:08:55.085 Jerry Lee Lewis gave her a part in his movie 0:08:55.125 --> 0:08:59.005 The Ladies Man. Karen moved to Los Angeles, but she 0:08:59.085 --> 0:09:03.085 found that Hollywood was even more difficult than Broadway. Now, 0:09:03.245 --> 0:09:05.085 one of the things I'm always interested in when I 0:09:05.125 --> 0:09:08.365 look into a case like this. Obviously, it's been covered 0:09:08.365 --> 0:09:11.005 a lot before, and I've talked a lot about how 0:09:11.085 --> 0:09:13.845 shows like Dateline tend to just give the synopsis of 0:09:13.845 --> 0:09:15.805 the case when there's a lot more going on behind 0:09:15.845 --> 0:09:18.725 the scenes. It's the same with the e Hollywood story 0:09:18.725 --> 0:09:21.485 on this case. In my opinion, the show was pretty thorough. 0:09:21.525 --> 0:09:24.125 It had interviews with Andrew Prine and with Karen's parents, 0:09:24.405 --> 0:09:26.845 But I started thinking to myself, I bet you in 0:09:26.885 --> 0:09:29.565 exchange for that cooperation, this is going to be a 0:09:29.565 --> 0:09:33.445 pretty sanitized and edited version of what happened to Karen, which, 0:09:33.565 --> 0:09:37.365 from what I read later, it was Karen did have 0:09:37.445 --> 0:09:40.485 some support in Hollywood. She was living with her grandmother, 0:09:41.165 --> 0:09:43.725 but she was not happy with her looks. She got 0:09:43.805 --> 0:09:46.765 plastic surgery on her chin and later had a nose job, 0:09:47.445 --> 0:09:50.325 and sometimes she would get a boost, like when one 0:09:50.365 --> 0:09:53.925 of Elizabeth Taylor's ex husband's Eddie Fisher, told her she 0:09:54.045 --> 0:09:56.565 was pretty. She wrote in her diary that she was 0:09:56.645 --> 0:10:01.205 just thrilled. Finally she felt pretty, but her emotional state 0:10:01.285 --> 0:10:04.645 seemed to be completely ruled by what men thought of 0:10:04.685 --> 0:10:09.285 her looks. Karen was getting parts in TV series, but 0:10:09.405 --> 0:10:12.045 she kept taking more and more pills, so many, according 0:10:12.045 --> 0:10:15.005 to her mother, she kept them hidden in a laundry hamper. 0:10:15.845 --> 0:10:18.005 Her friends back this up. They said if she gained 0:10:18.085 --> 0:10:20.965 even one or two pounds, she would start taking more 0:10:21.005 --> 0:10:24.325 and more diet pills. Back then, these pills were basically 0:10:24.405 --> 0:10:27.805 like speed and they were very addictive. Karen kept diaries 0:10:27.805 --> 0:10:30.565 of her weight. She yo yoed from around one hundred 0:10:30.565 --> 0:10:34.205 and seventeen to just over one hundred and thirty pounds, 0:10:34.245 --> 0:10:36.765 still very small for her height, which was around five 0:10:36.885 --> 0:10:39.405 six and the fact that this made her feel so 0:10:39.605 --> 0:10:44.765 ugly is what makes these diary entries so heartbreaking. Nineteen 0:10:44.845 --> 0:10:47.405 sixty three was a year of pretty big change for Karen. 0:10:47.725 --> 0:10:49.365 She had been working on a TV show when it 0:10:49.405 --> 0:10:52.365 was canceled. Her grandmother found out about the pills she'd 0:10:52.365 --> 0:10:55.245 been taking and moved out. Now Karen was on her own, 0:10:55.685 --> 0:10:59.085 she moved into her own place, the apartment on North Sweetzer. 0:11:00.445 --> 0:11:02.885 She got a theater role. She was playing Annie Sullivan 0:11:02.885 --> 0:11:04.885 in The Miracle Worker, the Helen Keller story in a 0:11:04.925 --> 0:11:07.885 local theater, and she got a bit part on the 0:11:07.885 --> 0:11:12.285 TV series Perry Mason. She also started dating a twenty 0:11:12.325 --> 0:11:15.565 seven year old actor named Andrew Prine. He was handsome 0:11:15.605 --> 0:11:17.965 and at first she was totally smitten, but from what 0:11:18.045 --> 0:11:20.285 her friend said, as well as her diary entries, it 0:11:20.365 --> 0:11:22.765 soon became very clear she was way more into the 0:11:22.845 --> 0:11:26.365 relationship than he was. She wanted to be exclusive, she 0:11:26.445 --> 0:11:28.805 was in love with him. He made it very clear 0:11:28.805 --> 0:11:30.965 that for him she was just an option. He was 0:11:31.045 --> 0:11:33.765 dating other women. He was very much a ladies man 0:11:33.965 --> 0:11:38.205 and he didn't want to change. This made Karen very distraught. 0:11:38.805 --> 0:11:41.285 When he would date other women. She would really obsess 0:11:41.325 --> 0:11:43.325 over it. She would go to the same parties he 0:11:43.405 --> 0:11:45.165 was at and watch him with these women and then 0:11:45.325 --> 0:11:47.645 just get extremely upset, and it would send her into 0:11:47.685 --> 0:11:51.645 this downward spiral. In summer of nineteen sixty three, she 0:11:51.685 --> 0:11:55.405 got pregnant with Andrew's baby. Mark Goddard and his wife 0:11:55.525 --> 0:11:58.165 ended up taking Karen down to Tijuana, Mexico to get 0:11:58.165 --> 0:12:05.125 an illegal abortion. This was very traumatic for Karen. Afterwards, 0:12:05.165 --> 0:12:07.605 she wrote in her diary that Andrew was nice to her, 0:12:07.845 --> 0:12:11.045 gave her soup, took care of her, but then pretty 0:12:11.045 --> 0:12:13.605 soon he was back to his old ways. He was 0:12:13.645 --> 0:12:17.845 going out with other women. Back to the crime scene. Now, naturally, 0:12:17.885 --> 0:12:21.125 as police are looking around, they are finding out about 0:12:21.125 --> 0:12:23.405 this history with Andrew. They want to talk to Andrew, 0:12:23.925 --> 0:12:26.325 but there are signs there may have been other people 0:12:26.365 --> 0:12:30.765 in Karen's apartment as well. According to the medical examiner, 0:12:31.045 --> 0:12:33.965 Karen had been dead for a couple of days, probably 0:12:34.045 --> 0:12:37.525 since a late Wednesday night or early Thursday morning. This 0:12:37.685 --> 0:12:40.365 was also backed up by the fact that Mark and 0:12:40.445 --> 0:12:43.525 Marsha found newspapers and magazines that had built up outside 0:12:43.565 --> 0:12:47.485 Karen's door. In the living room, police noticed a coke 0:12:47.565 --> 0:12:50.325 closet door was open in the northeast corner of the 0:12:50.325 --> 0:12:54.005 living room. Drawers in the bedroom were open, things were 0:12:54.045 --> 0:12:56.485 thrown around. It was a mess in there. The bed 0:12:56.525 --> 0:13:01.205 covers were rumpled and twin beds were shoved together. Outside 0:13:01.245 --> 0:13:03.845 the bedroom, there was a pair of women's shoes and 0:13:03.885 --> 0:13:08.365 a teddy bear. Karen's red bathroom was on an overstuffed 0:13:08.445 --> 0:13:10.645 chair on the east side of the living room. There 0:13:10.685 --> 0:13:13.085 was a lot of expensive stuff in the closet, including 0:13:13.165 --> 0:13:15.565 Karen's mink s dole. None of it had been touched, 0:13:15.605 --> 0:13:18.765 so the motive did not appear to be robbery. There 0:13:18.805 --> 0:13:21.125 was also a coffee pot on the floor. Things were 0:13:21.165 --> 0:13:23.765 really thrown around in the living room and in the bedroom. 0:13:24.245 --> 0:13:27.765 The only neat area was the bathroom. They found a 0:13:27.805 --> 0:13:31.325 lot of prescription drugs, according to the police report. They 0:13:31.365 --> 0:13:35.525 found thirteen bottles of pills, including Desoxen, a diet pill, 0:13:36.005 --> 0:13:38.245 and there were a lot of them. They also found 0:13:38.285 --> 0:13:42.125 something called Milltown, which apparently she mentioned to Mark and 0:13:42.165 --> 0:13:45.165 marshas she had taken the night she had dinner with them. Now, 0:13:45.485 --> 0:13:47.685 I had never heard of Milltown, but actually it has 0:13:47.725 --> 0:13:50.765 an interesting history. It's a tranquilizer that became a big 0:13:50.845 --> 0:13:54.565 drug in Hollywood because it relaxed you without knocking you out. 0:13:55.005 --> 0:13:58.325 It was a relaxer rather than a sedative. According to 0:13:58.365 --> 0:14:02.045 a report by the CBC, by nineteen fifty six, one 0:14:02.165 --> 0:14:06.245 in twenty Americans had tried Milltown drugs like took over 0:14:06.325 --> 0:14:11.085 later and Milltown kind of faded away. They found something else, 0:14:11.605 --> 0:14:14.765 three coffee cups and an empty cake box with a 0:14:14.805 --> 0:14:17.365 serving knife on top of it, so it looked like 0:14:17.485 --> 0:14:22.125 Karen had been entertaining shortly before she died. So who 0:14:22.205 --> 0:14:25.925 was she having coffee with so much later? And this 0:14:26.005 --> 0:14:28.005 story is one of those that's a little bit stranger 0:14:28.005 --> 0:14:30.925 than fiction, and it is a real Hollywood story. The 0:14:30.965 --> 0:14:35.005 author James Elroy actually became involved in the case. He 0:14:35.125 --> 0:14:38.445 started working with Karen's niece. He wrote about the case 0:14:38.525 --> 0:14:40.685 in his book which was published in the late nineties 0:14:40.805 --> 0:14:44.725 called Crime Wave. And in that book, James Elroy pointed 0:14:44.725 --> 0:14:48.085 out detectives found a book open in Karen's living room. 0:14:48.405 --> 0:14:51.085 It was open to a page that talked about dancing 0:14:51.085 --> 0:14:54.645 in the nude and how that helped you lose your inhibitions. Now, 0:14:54.645 --> 0:14:58.925 according to James Elroy, even early in the investigation, some 0:14:58.965 --> 0:15:01.925 of the detectives weren't completely convinced this was a murder. 0:15:02.205 --> 0:15:04.245 They thought she might have had some kind of accident. 0:15:04.925 --> 0:15:08.405 The con Harold Cade, who did the examination and who 0:15:08.445 --> 0:15:11.605 stated the manner of death was manual strangulation, based that 0:15:12.045 --> 0:15:15.325 largely on the fact that Karen's hyoid bone was broken. 0:15:16.565 --> 0:15:20.045 But there were some limitations to the forensics, especially back then, 0:15:20.525 --> 0:15:22.725 her face was too decomposed to see if there were 0:15:22.725 --> 0:15:26.845 any other signs of trauma, and apparently they did not 0:15:27.125 --> 0:15:29.725 test for the prescription drugs that were in Karen's system 0:15:29.805 --> 0:15:33.165 to see how much was there. On the other hand, 0:15:33.205 --> 0:15:36.005 if this had been some kind of attempted suicide, there 0:15:36.125 --> 0:15:39.205 wasn't an obvious pill that would have caused that. Most 0:15:39.285 --> 0:15:42.805 of the pills from her Milltown prescription were still in 0:15:42.845 --> 0:15:46.165 the bottle, and the diet pills she was taking she 0:15:46.285 --> 0:15:48.925 had an extreme tolerance to that drug. She had been 0:15:48.925 --> 0:15:53.525 taking it for a while. The headlines read stranger killed 0:15:53.565 --> 0:15:58.885 actress on coast. They found Karen's diary in that living room. Later. 0:15:59.045 --> 0:16:02.645 Karen's niece would share portions of this diary with James Elroy. 0:16:03.125 --> 0:16:08.205 The entries are heartbreaking. Karen wrote, quote, I'm not good. 0:16:08.325 --> 0:16:11.485 I'm really not that pretty. My figure's fat and will 0:16:11.485 --> 0:16:13.405 never be the way my mother wants it. I won't 0:16:13.485 --> 0:16:16.165 let it be what she wants. How stupid I want 0:16:16.165 --> 0:16:19.085 to be slim? Why must I be so alone? Have 0:16:19.205 --> 0:16:21.805 I fallen that short of my ideal? Why does my 0:16:21.885 --> 0:16:24.125 image of me have to be so esthetic and perfect? 0:16:24.605 --> 0:16:26.925 What's the use of living with nothing to believe? To 0:16:26.965 --> 0:16:29.925 have faith in? Where's the security or habit or order. 0:16:30.445 --> 0:16:34.085 What good is that going to do? My Andy? What 0:16:34.285 --> 0:16:37.365 happens to me or my Andy? Why doesn't he want me? 0:16:37.885 --> 0:16:41.405 End quote now. Of course police wanted to talk to 0:16:41.445 --> 0:16:45.525 Andrew Prine. He and Karen had obviously had a volatile relationship. 0:16:48.485 --> 0:16:50.925 Andrews said the last time he saw Karen was the 0:16:50.925 --> 0:16:53.765 weekend before she died. He said that they had gone 0:16:53.805 --> 0:16:56.125 with some friends to Palm Springs and had a good time. 0:16:57.165 --> 0:16:59.405 The last time he saw her was when he dropped 0:16:59.405 --> 0:17:02.085 her off after they got back to la He said 0:17:02.085 --> 0:17:04.405 that he did talk to Karen on Wednesday night, the 0:17:04.525 --> 0:17:06.605 night she had dinner with a god Dards. He said 0:17:06.645 --> 0:17:09.005 they talked on the phone at about six pm. That 0:17:09.125 --> 0:17:11.245 he had taken an actress on a date after that 0:17:11.325 --> 0:17:13.645 to see the movie a street car named Desire. He 0:17:13.645 --> 0:17:16.605 said he dropped his date off and went home. Then. 0:17:16.845 --> 0:17:20.965 Andrews said he called Karen sometime between around eleven thirty 0:17:20.965 --> 0:17:25.045 and midnight. At that time, Andrews said Karen told him 0:17:25.085 --> 0:17:27.285 the same story she told the Goddards, the weird story 0:17:27.325 --> 0:17:29.845 about the baby. She said police had come and taken 0:17:29.885 --> 0:17:33.605 the baby away. Police were later able to confirm that 0:17:33.645 --> 0:17:36.845 this story was not true. It was something that Karen 0:17:36.845 --> 0:17:39.125 had made up. There was no baby, there was no 0:17:39.205 --> 0:17:41.445 report of a baby. It was just something that she 0:17:41.565 --> 0:17:46.485 invented and no one really knows why. Police also tracked 0:17:46.485 --> 0:17:48.965 down the two men who said they were the ones 0:17:49.005 --> 0:17:51.165 who had been at Karen's house having coffee and cake 0:17:51.205 --> 0:17:54.365 that night. They were a twenty two year old freelance 0:17:54.405 --> 0:17:58.565 writer named Edward Stephen Rubin and another actor friend of Karen's, 0:17:58.685 --> 0:18:03.565 Robert Hathaway. So the story Edward Ruben told police was 0:18:03.605 --> 0:18:05.965 that he walked to Karen's house and got there at 0:18:06.005 --> 0:18:08.365 around eight thirty. This would have been when she was 0:18:08.405 --> 0:18:10.765 just getting home from the Goddards. He said they hung 0:18:10.805 --> 0:18:13.405 out for a while and talked, and eventually Karen got 0:18:13.485 --> 0:18:16.245 kind of antsy, so around nine thirty pm she went 0:18:16.285 --> 0:18:18.885 out for a short walk. While she was out, she 0:18:19.045 --> 0:18:21.485 ran into Robert Hathaway and brought him back up to 0:18:21.525 --> 0:18:24.405 the apartment. At that point, Edward said all three of 0:18:24.445 --> 0:18:27.045 them had cake and coffee, which would explain the cups 0:18:27.045 --> 0:18:30.325 and serving knife and the empty cake plate. Edward said 0:18:30.405 --> 0:18:32.485 that at some point Karen fell asleep on the couch 0:18:32.525 --> 0:18:35.845 while watching TV. He said eventually she got up and 0:18:35.885 --> 0:18:38.445 went into her bedroom. He said he followed her back 0:18:38.485 --> 0:18:41.045 there and watched her get into bed. Then he said 0:18:41.045 --> 0:18:43.285 he went back in the living room. He and Robert 0:18:43.405 --> 0:18:46.245 kept talking and at around eleven to fifteen pm, after 0:18:46.285 --> 0:18:50.445 the Danny Kay show, they left. Now, they both told 0:18:50.485 --> 0:18:53.525 police that after they left, they made sure the door 0:18:53.605 --> 0:18:57.325 was locked behind them. Another strange part of the story 0:18:57.405 --> 0:19:01.365 is that all three of these guys, Edward, Robert, and 0:19:01.365 --> 0:19:05.165 Andrew Prine knew each other. Andrew Prine had been these 0:19:05.205 --> 0:19:08.125 guys next door neighbor in Beverly Hills, and he still 0:19:08.245 --> 0:19:12.325 lived right next to Edward Ruben. So they said after 0:19:12.365 --> 0:19:15.205 they got home, Andrew Prime came over and they all 0:19:15.285 --> 0:19:18.405 hung out and talked until pretty late after three am. 0:19:18.565 --> 0:19:21.805 Apparently this wasn't uncommon because at the time, they told police, 0:19:21.885 --> 0:19:25.285 Andrew came over and hung out a lot. Police asked 0:19:25.285 --> 0:19:27.925 both of them about their relationship with Karen. They said 0:19:27.925 --> 0:19:30.085 they never hit on Karen, never hooked up with Karen, 0:19:30.125 --> 0:19:34.325 they were just friends. Now, there were some contradictions in 0:19:34.365 --> 0:19:38.005 these guys statements because Edward Reuben's story was different from 0:19:38.005 --> 0:19:42.605 what Andrew told police. Remember, Andrew had told police that 0:19:42.645 --> 0:19:46.005 he took an actress on a date on Wednesday night, 0:19:46.125 --> 0:19:49.445 and then he said he went straight home and called Karen. Meanwhile, 0:19:49.565 --> 0:19:53.525 Edward Rubin says Andrew came over to his house. He 0:19:53.565 --> 0:19:55.245 said he'd talked to him till late at night, and 0:19:55.285 --> 0:19:57.165 he also said Andrew had told him he went to 0:19:57.205 --> 0:20:00.085 the rodeo that night and stopped by another bar. So 0:20:00.245 --> 0:20:03.205 when police confronted Edward Rubin about this, he said he 0:20:03.245 --> 0:20:05.445 might have had his dates wrong. It might have been 0:20:05.485 --> 0:20:08.605 and Tuesday night when Andrew came over to talk to them. 0:20:09.085 --> 0:20:11.925 Andrew confirmed this. He said it had been Tuesday when 0:20:11.965 --> 0:20:14.365 he went over to spend time with those guys. And 0:20:14.725 --> 0:20:17.685 police also contacted the actress whom Andrew had taken out 0:20:17.685 --> 0:20:21.085 on Wednesday, and she backed up his story as well. 0:20:21.205 --> 0:20:24.845 So now the police were kind of stuck. They had 0:20:24.885 --> 0:20:28.125 a few inconsistencies in these guys' stories, but they did 0:20:28.165 --> 0:20:30.885 seem to have alibis and there was no clear motive. 0:20:31.445 --> 0:20:34.205 Police also figured out Karen did have a criminal record. 0:20:34.525 --> 0:20:36.885 She had been arrested for shoplifting at one point and 0:20:36.925 --> 0:20:41.125 got probation and fines. The police were also canvassing nearby buildings. 0:20:41.925 --> 0:20:44.485 No one had heard any screams or anything else. That 0:20:44.525 --> 0:20:47.565 was out of the ordinary. Then they talked to Karen's 0:20:47.605 --> 0:20:51.565 downstairs neighbor, a guy named David Lang. Now this is 0:20:51.605 --> 0:20:54.485 where things get a little strange, because a woman told 0:20:54.565 --> 0:20:58.965 police that David Lange had told her that on Friday, 0:20:59.045 --> 0:21:01.565 which would have been November twenty ninth, the day before 0:21:01.645 --> 0:21:04.605 Karen's body was discovered, he went up to her apartment 0:21:04.645 --> 0:21:07.445 after midnight. He said, he turned the door knob and 0:21:07.605 --> 0:21:12.005 the door was unlocked, but he didn't go in. David, 0:21:12.045 --> 0:21:14.525 who was a twenty seven year old TV writer, apparently 0:21:14.605 --> 0:21:16.725 had a little bit of a reputation around the building. 0:21:17.405 --> 0:21:19.365 Some people said he would get drunk and show up 0:21:19.365 --> 0:21:22.925 in other people's apartments uninvited, so when police heard about this, 0:21:23.085 --> 0:21:26.885 they definitely wanted to talk more to David. This same 0:21:27.005 --> 0:21:30.685 person told police that David had called her and told 0:21:30.725 --> 0:21:34.045 her that he killed Karen. But when police talked to David, 0:21:34.485 --> 0:21:36.925 he claimed he had been just kidding about that comment 0:21:37.005 --> 0:21:39.725 because there was so much press around the case. He 0:21:39.845 --> 0:21:41.965 made a joke, he said about being some kind of 0:21:41.965 --> 0:21:44.965 a strangler. He said he had no issue with Karen 0:21:45.045 --> 0:21:46.565 and that he did not knock on the door on 0:21:46.605 --> 0:21:49.845 Friday night. Police talked to him again. He admitted he 0:21:49.965 --> 0:21:52.645 did try Karen's door on that night at around twelve 0:21:52.645 --> 0:21:57.485 thirty am, but he said he never went in. I 0:21:57.525 --> 0:22:00.725 have a couple questions here because if these two guys, 0:22:00.925 --> 0:22:03.645 Edward and Robert are telling the truth, if they locked 0:22:03.645 --> 0:22:06.885 the door when they left and then lay David tried 0:22:06.925 --> 0:22:08.565 the door and it was unlocked, and we know it 0:22:08.565 --> 0:22:10.525 was unlocked by the time Mark and Marsha got there. 0:22:11.045 --> 0:22:13.405 Did someone else try the door and then Karen let 0:22:13.405 --> 0:22:17.725 them in? There was no sign a forest entry. Could 0:22:17.845 --> 0:22:20.605 one of those guys be lying about the door being locked? 0:22:20.605 --> 0:22:24.485 Did they remember it wrong? Or did Karen let someone 0:22:24.485 --> 0:22:28.165 else in that night? Police asked David Lang about his 0:22:28.245 --> 0:22:30.925 alibi on the night Karen was killed. Of course, again 0:22:30.965 --> 0:22:34.645 this is a Hollywood story. David Lang actually had dinner 0:22:34.685 --> 0:22:37.365 at Natalie Wood's house that night. He said that he 0:22:37.445 --> 0:22:39.925 went home, smoked some pot, and woke up late the 0:22:39.965 --> 0:22:44.005 next morning. David's light detector test had been inconclusive, but 0:22:44.085 --> 0:22:47.325 that wasn't proof, and police didn't really have any physical 0:22:47.325 --> 0:22:50.485 evidence to work with. They were looking at possible motives. 0:22:50.885 --> 0:22:54.285