Speaker 1: I'm Kate Winkler Dawson. I'm a journalist who's spent the
Speaker 1: last twenty five years writing about true crime.
Speaker 2: And I'm Paul Hols, a retired cold case investigator who's
Speaker 2: worked some of America's most complicated cases and solve them.
Speaker 1: Each week, I present Paul with one of history's most
Speaker 1: compelling true crimes.
Speaker 2: And I weigh in using modern forensic techniques to bring
Speaker 2: new insights to old mysteries.
Speaker 1: Together, using our individual expertise, we're examining historical true crime
Speaker 1: cases through a twenty first century lens.
Speaker 2: Some are solved and some are cold, very cold.
Speaker 1: This is Buried Bones.
Speaker 2: Hey Paul, Hey Kate, how are you.
Speaker 1: I'm doing well. I know I left you hanging with
Speaker 1: Thelma Todd, the very talented Thelma Todd, the Hollywood actress.
Speaker 1: Do you want to give us a little bit of
Speaker 1: a recap since I know it's been a week for
Speaker 1: some of our viewers and our listeners.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, from what I remember and what stood
Speaker 2: out to me in the first episode on this case,
Speaker 2: Thelma Todd was a young actress, actually very accomplished actress,
Speaker 2: lived in an apartment above a restaurant that she owned
Speaker 2: with a lover who happened to also be married to
Speaker 2: another woman. So there's a little bit of a lover's
Speaker 2: triangle within Thelma's life. And this lover, Roland, who was
Speaker 2: he was a director or an executive.
Speaker 1: Right, he was a director, film director.
Speaker 2: Film director, has this beautiful house up a very steep
Speaker 2: hill in the Pacific Palisades. Thelma goes out on a
Speaker 2: Saturday night, and I don't think we discussed the details
Speaker 2: of you know, what she did that night. However, her
Speaker 2: housekeeper may ended up Monday morning looking for Thelma and
Speaker 2: found Thelma slumped in the driver's side of her car
Speaker 2: in the garage of Roland's house. Autopsy indicated she had
Speaker 2: a fractured nose, she had some bleeding out of the mouth,
Speaker 2: and she had carbon monoxide poisoning. And that's where we
Speaker 2: left off.
Speaker 1: You got it. We've got now a whole host of,
Speaker 1: I think, very confusing information. So the first half was
Speaker 1: really establishing, you know, her death, and I don't think
Speaker 1: we have any clear indication of time of death. We've
Speaker 1: got two doctors saying two different things, and we do
Speaker 1: know there is this weird it's hard to know if
Speaker 1: it's a lover's triangle because it was just so vague
Speaker 1: between them all. And then you know, we've got Thelma,
Speaker 1: who I think one of the question marks was is
Speaker 1: this suicide? Is this something else? So let's start back
Speaker 1: up with I had hinted at a couple of things.
Speaker 1: One was the threatening of Thelma's life, so let's start
Speaker 1: with that. About ten months before Thelma died, so this
Speaker 1: is about February of nineteen thirty five, she gets two
Speaker 1: threatening letters in the mail. They say that she will
Speaker 1: be harmed or killed unless she pays the letter writer
Speaker 1: ten thousand dollars, So that's about two hundred and twenty
Speaker 1: nine thousand dollars today. One of the letters, at least
Speaker 1: one of them, demands that the ten thousand dollars be
Speaker 1: paid to Abe Lyman, who is an orchestra leader in
Speaker 1: New York, whom Thelma was once engaged to. Authorities, of course,
Speaker 1: say this is ridiculous. Abe has nothing to do with it.
Speaker 1: I mean, why would he name himself in a threatening letter?
Speaker 1: But the letters are signed by the Ace of hearts.
Speaker 1: How many stories can we do about these vague these
Speaker 1: vague kind kidnapping rings or whatever? Now I can't remember
Speaker 1: the Black Glove. I mean, I think we've had the
Speaker 1: Black Hand versus the Black Glove, and now we've got
Speaker 1: the Ace of Hearts. Someone calling himself that same name,
Speaker 1: The Ace of Hearts, places several long distance phone calls
Speaker 1: to Filma's cafe, threatening to blow the whole place up.
Speaker 1: These are threats that she reported to the police, but
Speaker 1: they don't think it's credible. None of this stuff is credible,
Speaker 1: and ultimately the police track the threats to two men
Speaker 1: based in New York, at least one of whom appears
Speaker 1: to have some kind of a psychiatric illness. And this
Speaker 1: is a long time ago, but I just want to
Speaker 1: throw that out there, and it's a reminder of when
Speaker 1: I said police were really investigating these threats. She is
Speaker 1: a Hollywood actress, a very well known one, so she
Speaker 1: is getting a lot of attention, and this story, which
Speaker 1: probably would have been written off if she were a
Speaker 1: quote unquote normal person as an accident or a suicide,
Speaker 1: is being seriously investigated as foul play because of her status.
Speaker 2: Now, you know, and this is, you know, part of
Speaker 2: the celebrity lifestyle that people probably underappreciate in terms of
Speaker 2: the nut jobs that are out there. You know, they
Speaker 2: start obsessing and they want attention and want you know,
Speaker 2: something back, whether it's positive or even negative. It's basically
Speaker 2: they just want something, you know. I actually interviewed Evil
Speaker 2: LaRue who was being stalked online. She was an actress
Speaker 2: out of CSI Miami and other things, and ultimately my
Speaker 2: partner on Golden State Killer, Steve Kramer and his agent
Speaker 2: buddy Steve Bush, utilizing one of these stamps on the
Speaker 2: letters threatening letters that have been sent in, were able
Speaker 2: to use genealogy and identify her stalker. And he's just
Speaker 2: some guy out I believe it was in Ohio living
Speaker 2: with his mom, sitting in a basement, you know, threatening
Speaker 2: Eva and her daughter over the course of you know,
Speaker 2: like fifteen years.
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, are you serious?
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, And it's just that's part of when
Speaker 2: you have that national level exposure, you know, you do
Speaker 2: get those crazies that will do that. So right now,
Speaker 2: these two letters, plus the threatening phone calls in to
Speaker 2: Thelma which are about ten months prior to her death,
Speaker 2: it looks like, yep, it's it sounds like authorities are
Speaker 2: just saying it's one of these nut jobs and had
Speaker 2: these these individuals have no connection to Thelma out in
Speaker 2: LA at the time of her death. That's what it
Speaker 2: sounds like, right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they dismiss these two folks. It was just like
Speaker 1: I said, another reminder to me also about the threat
Speaker 1: that these stars are under, you know, constantly. I told
Speaker 1: you in the last episode about my interview with Marcia Clark,
Speaker 1: and one of the things I brought up to her
Speaker 1: was she was on my radar before OJ because she
Speaker 1: had prosecuted the case against the killer of Rebecca Schaeffer.
Speaker 1: You know, the actress. To me when she was murdered,
Speaker 1: she was on a big TV series at the time.
Speaker 1: She was sort of that definition of the quote unquote
Speaker 1: perfect victim, you know, beautiful Hollywood actress, very humble. She's
Speaker 1: murdered by a stalker, and that shook me that case.
Speaker 1: Do you remember much about the Rebecca Schaeffer.
Speaker 2: Case, No, I do, you know? And of course she
Speaker 2: just answers a knock on her door, Yeah, and the
Speaker 2: offender shoots her. He was somebody who had he had
Speaker 2: obsessed about her and at select points I believe he
Speaker 2: had reached out to her, didn't get any response. He
Speaker 2: ended up stalking other female actresses but then went back
Speaker 2: and focused on Rebecca Schaeffer and then ultimately you know,
Speaker 2: showed up better front door and just shot her, just
Speaker 2: killed her. Yeah, it's so tragic when you think about it.
Speaker 2: Here's this young woman whose career is taking off, and
Speaker 2: you know, she's got this just what would probably be
Speaker 2: an amazing life in front of her, and just to
Speaker 2: have some random nut jobs show up and kill you.
Speaker 2: You know, that's always this risk of when you end
Speaker 2: up seeking that fame and fortune, will you draw the
Speaker 2: attention of people that you may not want their attention.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, luckily it sounds like for Thelma, these letters stopped.
Speaker 1: You know, they connected it, it was done. So let's
Speaker 1: get back to our current timeline. So now I want
Speaker 1: to talk about the details. We are on Saturday night.
Speaker 1: It is Saturday night, December fourteenth. This is the last
Speaker 1: time people see her. So about thirty six hours before
Speaker 1: May finds Thelma, she is at her restaurant at the
Speaker 1: Cafe working. She leaves around eight o'clock. She's going to
Speaker 1: a in her honor because of these new films that
Speaker 1: she's doing at the Trocadero nightclub in Hollywood. There's this
Speaker 1: dinner that's in her honor because of the films that
Speaker 1: she's been doing. Roland, the boyfriend, is there, but he
Speaker 1: left before Thelma, so they kind of cross paths, and
Speaker 1: on his way out, he reportedly told Thelma he wants
Speaker 1: her home by two am, like a dad, be home
Speaker 1: by two am, and she joked back that she'd be
Speaker 1: back at two five. If you're paying attention to those
Speaker 1: very last moments where at least publicly they were seen together,
Speaker 1: it was like playful flirting, humor kind of thing. That
Speaker 1: was the impression that I got.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so they're not hiding their relationship.
Speaker 1: No, No, I mean I think everybody knows about it,
Speaker 1: but they also know that while Jewel and Roland are
Speaker 1: legally married, there seem to be an actual separation there.
Speaker 1: So again, this is not splashed all over the gossip columns,
Speaker 1: and this is herst media times, so you know there's
Speaker 1: yellow journalism, it's just not that's not really part of this.
Speaker 1: So I told you that the car was back up
Speaker 1: at the house at Roland's house, so Thelma had a
Speaker 1: driver drop her back off at the cafe at three
Speaker 1: in the morning. She had sort of requested friends to
Speaker 1: see her at the cafe Sunday, like she had joked,
Speaker 1: let's see how many of you guys actually drag yourself
Speaker 1: into my cafe on Sunday, And you know, they took
Speaker 1: that as an invitation, so they were going to plan
Speaker 1: to go. So she's at the cafe all the time.
Speaker 1: I mean she left at eight pm and then she
Speaker 1: had her driver drop her back off at three in
Speaker 1: the morning. After her night out, she is realizing that
Speaker 1: she didn't bring her key with her to get into
Speaker 1: the cafe. But she knows that Roland is home in
Speaker 1: the apartment above the cafe because he said I'm going home,
Speaker 1: But it's also believed, Roland says, and Jewel says too.
Speaker 1: Jewel was there too, So this is where things get
Speaker 1: kind of mushy and confusing. For whatever reason, Thelma goes
Speaker 1: into the apartment where Roland is and she doesn't wake
Speaker 1: up Roland. And Roland said that this was something that
Speaker 1: was really common, that he woke up really easily, and
Speaker 1: she I don't think she was scared to wake him up,
Speaker 1: but she was. I think that might be the whole
Speaker 1: separate bedroom issue. But Jewel was with him at the time,
Speaker 1: and maybe that's why. Maybe she didn't want to wake
Speaker 1: him up either. It sounds like a very odd relationship,
Speaker 1: but at the same time it seemed kind of normalized
Speaker 1: in this time period. The police initially believed that she
Speaker 1: climbed the two hundred and fifty stairs from the restaurant
Speaker 1: up the hill to Roland's house. She doesn't have a
Speaker 1: key to his house either, and she gets into the
Speaker 1: garage and sits in her car, and the police at
Speaker 1: this time had believed that she led herself into the garage,
Speaker 1: not through the garage door, but there's like a side
Speaker 1: door that was open. She got in her car, she
Speaker 1: turned on the ignition and fell asleep with the door closed.
Speaker 1: And a night watchman was scheduled to pass by about
Speaker 1: six o'clock in the morning. And I don't know if
Speaker 1: I believe this. The police think that Thelma might have
Speaker 1: fallen asleep waiting for him. They also believe she was
Speaker 1: pretty inebriated through all of this. So what do you
Speaker 1: think of all that? I know that was a lot
Speaker 1: of information all at once.
Speaker 2: So they're getting information from the driver that he did
Speaker 2: drop her off at the cafe the apartment at three
Speaker 2: am in the morning. And is there any suspicion on
Speaker 2: the driver at.
Speaker 1: All, No, no suspicion on the driver.
Speaker 2: And then with this idea that she went into she
Speaker 2: went into Roland's room.
Speaker 1: I think the insinuation was this that she didn't have
Speaker 1: a key for the cafe, she didn't have a key
Speaker 1: maybe for the apartment above. Also, she didn't want to
Speaker 1: knock on the door to wake him up, and so
Speaker 1: she decided to walk up two hundred and fifty steps, okay,
Speaker 1: at four in the morning, drunk, most likely to get
Speaker 1: into a house where she doesn't have a key up
Speaker 1: there either. The only place she actually can succeed into
Speaker 1: getting into is inside the garage. And then the idea
Speaker 1: is that she would turn on the car with the
Speaker 1: garage door closed to wait for a night watchman. I
Speaker 1: don't know why. None of that makes sense to me,
Speaker 1: but maybe it does to you.
Speaker 2: Well, I'm just wondering. This is, you know, mid December,
Speaker 2: and even though it's you know, we're talking La Pacific Palisades.
Speaker 2: You know, maybe it's chili. And you know, one of
Speaker 2: the questions that I have about this nineteen thirty five
Speaker 2: Lincoln Phaeton car is does it have heat which you
Speaker 2: have turned the car on in order just to have
Speaker 2: some heat. You know, in order to get the heat,
Speaker 2: you need to have the engine running to heat up
Speaker 2: the coolant that goes through the heater core, you know,
Speaker 2: and then the fans blow through the heater core to
Speaker 2: generate heat. And she just doesn't recognize that a running
Speaker 2: car inside a closed environment is dangerous, you know, with
Speaker 2: the carbon monoxide. You know, that's that's one thing. If
Speaker 2: this car had was a source of heat, maybe that's
Speaker 2: why she turned it on inside the garage and why
Speaker 2: she went up though it seems like she she was
Speaker 2: inside the cafe to get to the apartment, So why
Speaker 2: does she leave to go all the way up those
Speaker 2: steps to ultimately just get into her car. If she's
Speaker 2: so inebriated, you know, judgment is impaired, you know, and
Speaker 2: she may not be thinking right. Maybe she's thinking, Okay, well,
Speaker 2: Roland and Jewels are down at the apartment. I'm just
Speaker 2: going to get up to the house and stay up there,
Speaker 2: you know, and crawl into a bed up there. And
Speaker 2: then she gets all the way up there and realizes, oh,
Speaker 2: I can't get in.
Speaker 1: So here's the other side of that. There is no
Speaker 1: way that woman to a fancy, spancy event in her
Speaker 1: honor at that place, at that you know, restaurant, with
Speaker 1: all of those people glammed out. What kind of shoes
Speaker 1: do you think she was wearing.
Speaker 2: Oh, she's she's going to be decked out. You know,
Speaker 2: she has a you know, an image, a brand that
Speaker 2: she has to maintain.
Speaker 1: Yeah, heels. She's not walking up two hundred and fifty
Speaker 1: steps in heels at four in the morning cold. I mean,
Speaker 1: there's no way she. So May will say there's going
Speaker 1: to be corners in quests that I'll tell you about,
Speaker 1: and May will say at this corner's inquest, she hated
Speaker 1: that she never wanted to go up that hill. Somebody
Speaker 1: took her up there, okay, And this chauffeur says it
Speaker 1: wasn't me. So she vanishes after he drops her off,
Speaker 1: and they alibied him, and you know, nobody suspected him.
Speaker 1: But that is I think the big issue here is
Speaker 1: the chauffeur says she wasn't drunk. She was sober. Roland
Speaker 1: said it would have been like her to not knock
Speaker 1: on the door and wake him up if he didn't
Speaker 1: have a key. She had done that before when he
Speaker 1: was there. And she ends up throwing a rock through
Speaker 1: the bedroom window, which I'm sure he didn't appreciate. But
Speaker 1: then when she would lock herself out, other times she
Speaker 1: would just go to her mom's. Now, I don't know
Speaker 1: if that meant she would get in her car and
Speaker 1: drive to her mom's or if she would call the
Speaker 1: chauffeur back. But that's not what happened. She didn't contact
Speaker 1: her mom. So the last thing we know is this
Speaker 1: driver drops her off at the cafe. She's locked out there.
Speaker 1: She's locked out of Roland's apartment. She supposedly in heels
Speaker 1: and a mink and everything else, climbs up two hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty stairs, and now's probably, paul a good time
Speaker 1: for you to look at those maps.
Speaker 2: Okay, And you know one question I have is when
Speaker 2: her body's found, is she wearing heels?
Speaker 1: I didn't see a note about that. I want you
Speaker 1: to look at this and you tell me what you
Speaker 1: think if she walked up this spot with no heels
Speaker 1: on it because she's wearing hoes, I'm sure too. Two
Speaker 1: hundred Sorry, it's two hundred and seventy steps according to
Speaker 1: this newspaper. So go to pages three and four and
Speaker 1: kind of describe when you can what you think.
Speaker 2: You know. The first image is an actual photograph of
Speaker 2: the front the storefront of the cafe. It's a bigger
Speaker 2: building than what I was expecting. You know. It's right there,
Speaker 2: right off the side of the road. There's parkings. There's
Speaker 2: several vehicles that are pulled up into parking spots, you know.
Speaker 2: Nose in to the front of this building. There's a
Speaker 2: label indicating where the sidewalk cafe was, which is that
Speaker 2: Thelma's cafe, because it also says the Joya cafe above that?
Speaker 2: Is that what in the same It's.
Speaker 1: A sidewalk cafe and the Joya or whatever that is
Speaker 1: must just be a separate business. Hers is that whole
Speaker 1: bottom six that's huge?
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, that's a good sized cafe. And then there's
Speaker 2: a label pointing to on the right side of the photograph,
Speaker 2: which is a kind of a multi story part of
Speaker 2: this storefront, whether it be the second or the third floor.
Speaker 2: The label indicates that's where Thelma Todd's apartment was at.
Speaker 2: And then there's some dotted lines, which it's hard in
Speaker 2: this photograph to be able to determine exactly what those
Speaker 2: dotted lines are marking. But I think those dotted lines
Speaker 2: are marking the kind of the steps.
Speaker 1: Oh no, I see, it's confusing. If you look at
Speaker 1: the second one, you'll see there's two sets of steps,
Speaker 1: but they're almost separated by what I mean, this looks
Speaker 1: like a hole. This woman is not doing this. I
Speaker 1: don't think in heels at four in the morning.
Speaker 2: Okay, So there's two sets of steps, and then you
Speaker 2: have the steps go up to what appears to be
Speaker 2: one road, You cross that road, and then you go
Speaker 2: up a second series of steps to get to the house.
Speaker 2: And those steps basically it's like two separate sets of steps,
Speaker 2: but they're straight per this sketch on the second page
Speaker 2: that you just sent me, And yeah, you know this
Speaker 2: is this looks like a significant distance. You know, this
Speaker 2: is this is a situation. It's hard to discern from
Speaker 2: the photograph and the sketch sort of the spatial aspects
Speaker 2: of what we're looking at. And two hundred and seventy
Speaker 2: steps is a lot, you know, you think about like
Speaker 2: a floor. You know, you're looking about twelve steps in
Speaker 2: a residential dwelling to get from you know, like my
Speaker 2: basement up to the main floor, twelve to fifteen steps.
Speaker 2: And so when you're starting to talk about two hundred
Speaker 2: and seventy steps. I mean, you're you're going up I
Speaker 2: don't know, twenty you know, twenty floors, twenty twenty twenty
Speaker 2: five floors maybe, Yeah, So obviously this is this would
Speaker 2: be a rigorous activity. So there I could see where
Speaker 2: there would be some concerns about Thelma doing these steps
Speaker 2: and heels. I would think she would take her heels
Speaker 2: off in order to do that. Secondly, her heart condition,
Speaker 2: you know, whatever that is. You know, does a heart
Speaker 2: condition you know, prevent her from doing this type of
Speaker 2: physical exertion. But then there's the victimology. May is saying
Speaker 2: there's no way she would ever have done that. So
Speaker 2: if she did not walk up the steps, how does
Speaker 2: she get up to the house? You know, I know
Speaker 2: this chauffeur is not of concern. I'm just you know,
Speaker 2: it's like, well, he's the last one who saw her alive,
Speaker 2: right right, Okay, So how did they eliminate him?
Speaker 1: So now we got to talk about witnesses, because there
Speaker 1: were people who say they saw her or talk to
Speaker 1: her on Sunday. And you know the last time he
Speaker 1: saw her was when he dropped her off Sunday at
Speaker 1: three am, so let me tell you what people said.
Speaker 1: And Jule Carman, her boyfriend's wife, says that she saw
Speaker 1: her too on Sunday. So here's what everyone says. Three
Speaker 1: people report information to the police that, if true, would
Speaker 1: have required Thelma to be alive on Sunday, not dead
Speaker 1: Saturday night slash Sunday morning, So you know, the time
Speaker 1: of death thing is becoming more interesting. One is named
Speaker 1: Martha Ford. She's a friend of Thelma's, and she said
Speaker 1: they spoke on the phone on Sunday. Thelma had been
Speaker 1: invited to a cocktail party at Miss Ford's residence in
Speaker 1: Laurel Canyon. Martha says that Thelma called her at four pm.
Speaker 1: So this is like the twelve hour timeline that we're
Speaker 1: talking about that the initial doctor said, saying that she
Speaker 1: was on her way to this party and that she
Speaker 1: was going to bring a friend along with her. She
Speaker 1: did not show up, obviously to the cocktail party. And
Speaker 1: they had the ability to trace phone calls and they
Speaker 1: could not find evidence of that phone call from Martha Ford. Okay,
Speaker 1: so that's witness one. Sketchy Witness number one. Do you
Speaker 1: want to stop there or do you want me to
Speaker 1: keep going? Or what do you think?
Speaker 2: No, keep going, I kind of want the whole picture
Speaker 2: of the witnesses.
Speaker 1: Okay. The next one is a waiter who is not
Speaker 1: someone who's named I presume he didn't, you know, testify
Speaker 1: in front of the corner's in quest. He was at
Speaker 1: a different cafe, not her cafe, on Hollywood Boulevard, and
Speaker 1: he tells police he saw Thelma. Who would have been
Speaker 1: she would have stuck out like a sore thumb. Obviously,
Speaker 1: he saw her drive past the cafe on Hollywood Boulevard
Speaker 1: at two pm on Sunday, so two hours before, you know,
Speaker 1: she was supposed to be talking to Martha Ford. And
Speaker 1: then kind of The last one is after Thelma's death
Speaker 1: a few days later on Wednesday. So Thelma was found
Speaker 1: on a Monday morning. This is now Jewel, and Jewel
Speaker 1: two days later, says she saw Thelma driving somewhere in
Speaker 1: her car in Hollywood on Sunday. She says that she
Speaker 1: was with a dark complexioned man, and Jewel later clarifies
Speaker 1: she can't be certain she saw Thelma, but it was
Speaker 1: definitely a chocolate brown Lincoln car which looked identical to
Speaker 1: Thelma's car. I don't know what's happening. I mean, I
Speaker 1: guess take the both ways. Either that Jewel is not
Speaker 1: involved because there's nothing to be involved with and this
Speaker 1: was an accident, or something really sketchy is happening. What
Speaker 1: would Jewel be trying to do in both of those circumstances.
Speaker 2: Well, the waiter and Jewel is the victim, the one
Speaker 2: actually driving her own car. Is that their statement?
Speaker 1: Well, it sounds like yes, that she and she had
Speaker 1: driven her own car. Sometimes she would have a chauffeur,
Speaker 1: sometimes she wouldn't, so yes, and that she was driving
Speaker 1: with a dark complexioned man. Very vague from jewel statement.
Speaker 1: I don't know if she was suggesting that the man
Speaker 1: was driving the car, but she just said she saw Thelma.
Speaker 2: So the first witness, Martha Ford, who is a friend,
Speaker 2: spoke on the phone at four pm on Sunday. I
Speaker 2: know you said that they had the cape ability to
Speaker 2: trace phone calls and there is no evidence that that
Speaker 2: phone call ever occurred.
Speaker 1: So they say they found no record of any phone
Speaker 1: call made between Martha and Thelma's cafe or Martha and
Speaker 1: Thelma's home, so the apartment. But I would assume they
Speaker 1: would run that same thing on Roland's house, or maybe
Speaker 1: she used a payphone. I don't know what she would
Speaker 1: have used, but those were the two that they looked at.
Speaker 2: If you have the waiter. And he's accurate in his
Speaker 2: statement saying he saw Thelma drive past his cafe in
Speaker 2: Hollywood Boulevard at two pm, and then Martha is now
Speaker 2: saying that Thelma spoke with her on the phone at
Speaker 2: four pm. It's possible that Thelma is not at any
Speaker 2: of her known locations. She's out and about now. One
Speaker 2: of the things I don't know is, you know, nineteen
Speaker 2: thirty five, you know phone records, you know, like billing
Speaker 2: records and stuff like that. You know how much they
Speaker 2: stayed on top of local phone calls, you know, I know,
Speaker 2: you know going back, you know it's now decades later
Speaker 2: in the nineteen seventies that you know, trying to trace
Speaker 2: a phone call, let's say, like an active phone call,
Speaker 2: it's it's a very labor intensive, quick moving process within
Speaker 2: the phone facility itself. You know, got all sorts of
Speaker 2: relays that they have to end up tracking down while
Speaker 2: that phone call is going on. That's why you know,
Speaker 2: this whole thing, you know back in the day, is
Speaker 2: that the person on the phone that's issuing threats and
Speaker 2: you're trying to trace that phone call. There's a clock
Speaker 2: that's sticking because when they hang up, boom, these relays
Speaker 2: just reset, and now you've lost sort of the phone
Speaker 2: the originating phone number where that phone call came in from.
Speaker 2: So I'm kind of wondering how in the nineteen thirties
Speaker 2: they tracked phone calls, you know. And I'm getting down
Speaker 2: to okay, if they're saying that there there's no record
Speaker 2: of a phone call between Thelma and Martha Man and
Speaker 2: I'm assuming Martha said she called Thelma or she was
Speaker 2: home and Thelma called her, you know, it's one or
Speaker 2: the other. So they would have the you know, who's
Speaker 2: the originator of the phone call? You know, how much
Speaker 2: veracity to put on the investigator's information, And I don't
Speaker 2: know right now. That's that's that's a big question mark.
Speaker 2: Is are they right and there's no phone call or
Speaker 2: is it very possible there was a phone call and
Speaker 2: they just didn't look in the right place, you know,
Speaker 2: within the phone tracking system. So that's something that I'm
Speaker 2: I'm chewing on this waiter. The waiter is not an
Speaker 2: associate of the victim just recognizes the victim. And this
Speaker 2: is a high profile case, you know, so there's you know,
Speaker 2: there is always going to be that question mark of
Speaker 2: is the waiter just trying to be helpful, read some
Speaker 2: thing in the newspaper and maybe mistaken identity. You'd think
Speaker 2: that Thelma's car, you know, would be somewhat unusual, but again,
Speaker 2: you have a lot of wealthy people that live in
Speaker 2: this area, so maybe it's not as unusual as I'm assuming.
Speaker 2: And then Jewel, Jewel's the one that's that's interesting, you know.
Speaker 2: My My concern with Jewel, of course, is is even
Speaker 2: though it appears that this triangle between her and Roland
Speaker 2: and Thelma is all out in the open and all
Speaker 2: on the up and up, you know, if she's calling
Speaker 2: in and is trying to place Thelma with some unknown
Speaker 2: man m hm, you know, is she trying to drive
Speaker 2: a wedge between Thelma and Roland, you know, or is
Speaker 2: she just being honest? And again, I don't know. It's
Speaker 2: all very interesting because you have three different people saying
Speaker 2: they saw Thelma on Sunday m Yet Thelma is found
Speaker 2: in the clothes that she went to the dinner from
Speaker 2: Saturday m h and you have a show first saying
Speaker 2: he dropped her off at the cafe, and this isn't.
Speaker 1: Like Uber Paul. I mean, this was her regular driver
Speaker 1: who was on call all the time.
Speaker 2: For her, and he's just pushing her out of the
Speaker 2: car and driving away.
Speaker 1: Well, she did not know she didn't have a key
Speaker 1: until after she got to the door, and she realized
Speaker 1: she left everything at home. And I'm assuming he was
Speaker 1: gone already, and she can't make a phone call, so
Speaker 1: you know, she went up to the apartment. I had
Speaker 1: kind of wondered if Jewel was there, which has been insinuated,
Speaker 1: and she did knock on the door and Jewel answered,
Speaker 1: and maybe that's how she caught a ride up there.
Speaker 1: But of course Jewel's not copping to anything. I don't know.
Speaker 1: I just don't trust Jewel. I don't understand any of this.
Speaker 1: Why would she let somebody, I mean, there's investments everywhere,
Speaker 1: and it's just seems like an odd relationship.
Speaker 2: No, No, I think that, you know, the oddity of
Speaker 2: the relationship is concerning you know, I think I want
Speaker 2: more information about the normal routine that the chauffeur does.
Speaker 2: You know, is I can only imagine that the chauffeur.
Speaker 2: He's not just pulling up and okay, good night, or
Speaker 2: you know whatever. This sounds for somebody of Thelma's status.
Speaker 2: This sounds like a professional driver that likely would escort
Speaker 2: Thelma to the door or you know, help her get
Speaker 2: out of the car. You know, what's what is the
Speaker 2: normal routine? And of course I know you probably don't
Speaker 2: have that information, you know. So on one hand, the
Speaker 2: autopsy results and her being found slumped in the front
Speaker 2: seat of her own vehicle inside a closed garage with
Speaker 2: carbon monoxide poisoning, you know, that suggests accidental. But I
Speaker 2: can see where there's some concern just because there seems
Speaker 2: to be other suspicious activity going on. There's churn. And
Speaker 2: now it does come down to, okay, what is the
Speaker 2: likely time of death? Can we eliminate these three witnesses
Speaker 2: on Sunday? If we can say that Thelma was truly
Speaker 2: dead thirty hours versus twelve.
Speaker 1: I think that it becomes very complicated because there's so
Speaker 1: much more information. So the chauffeur's name is Ernest Peters,
Speaker 1: and he said that she seemed scared and I was
Speaker 1: not going to bring this up until now Thelma had
Speaker 1: and this was a theory that the police claimed they
Speaker 1: went down this road. But we'll see she had apparently
Speaker 1: had a recent altercation with her ex husband, who had
Speaker 1: ties two mobsters, and there began to be speculation and
Speaker 1: the chauffeur kind of backs this up that her ex
Speaker 1: husband and mobs that have been floating around, you know,
Speaker 1: this area and in her circle were pressuring her to
Speaker 1: use the cafe in gambling, and that this could have
Speaker 1: been connected to that somehow, And so the show first says,
Speaker 1: you know, she had sketchy people around. He testified at
Speaker 1: you know, what would Sue be in the corners in
Speaker 1: quest and that he, you know, just said she was
Speaker 1: she was scared of her ex husband and that there
Speaker 1: had been recent issues between the two of them. But
Speaker 1: he said, you know, he put her at the cafe.
Speaker 1: There's a spot where it's in front of the cafe
Speaker 1: and also in front of a tiny set of steps
Speaker 1: that I think you see in one of the maps
Speaker 1: that go up to her apartment. I guess it's not tiny,
Speaker 1: but it's a short set of steps. So he doesn't
Speaker 1: particularly know which way she went at that point. And
Speaker 1: then you know, there's information about the mob tie stuff.
Speaker 2: Well, you know, it does it does boil down to
Speaker 2: you know, I kind of go back to the fractured
Speaker 2: nose a little little bit. Yeah, so you have the
Speaker 2: theory that she succumbs to carbon monoxide poisoning. She slumps forward,
Speaker 2: hits her nose against the steering wheel, and I'm not
Speaker 2: doubting that that could potentially fracture, but it would be
Speaker 2: a very minor. God, I remember playing basketball as a
Speaker 2: kid and I'd have that basketball rebound off the rim
Speaker 2: and just slam into my nose, and that would be
Speaker 2: a hell of a lot more force in my head,
Speaker 2: just kind of slumping forward into a steering wheel. And
Speaker 2: I never broke my nose. You know, some boys had
Speaker 2: their nose, noses broken by a basketball's right, So this
Speaker 2: is where you know, evaluating. Okay, the level of damage
Speaker 2: to her nose, I think is part of what I
Speaker 2: would be looking into, you know, And where the bleeding
Speaker 2: is coming out of her mouth? I mean, is her
Speaker 2: upper palette to her oral cavity, you know, the roof
Speaker 2: of her mouth is that fractured as a result this
Speaker 2: fractured nose, or is the mouth Is the blood from
Speaker 2: the mouth just a result of blood, you know, kind
Speaker 2: of dripping down from the nasal cavity into the oral cavity,
Speaker 2: you know. And this is these are observations they need
Speaker 2: to be making at autopsy or should have been made
Speaker 2: at autopsy, because I mean, if her nose is crushed
Speaker 2: in and you know, her upper palette is fractured, and
Speaker 2: I would say that's not from her slumping forward, you know,
Speaker 2: somebody punched her in the nose or similar. So I think,
Speaker 2: like for me to start resolving, you know, the circumstances
Speaker 2: and the suspicions and the theories, is it's going back
Speaker 2: to the core. It's going back to what does the
Speaker 2: crime scene say, What does the autopsy say? Can I
Speaker 2: see something that indicates or let's say, either corroborates or
Speaker 2: refutes the theory that this was just an accidental carbon
Speaker 2: monoxide poisoning.
Speaker 1: Let me tell you a little bit more because I
Speaker 1: I'm not going to have those details unfortunately, just about
Speaker 1: I wish we had more sure on the autopsy. But
Speaker 1: let me just tell you a little bit more about
Speaker 1: the X. And I don't know if it's going to
Speaker 1: go anywhere or not. So three years, not very long
Speaker 1: ago before she died, she married a guy named Pat
Speaker 1: did she go. He's an agent and a producer who
Speaker 1: has alleged ties to mobster Lucky Luciano and they divorced
Speaker 1: two years later. You know, they were married just for
Speaker 1: two years. Now they're divorced a year before she dies.
Speaker 1: During your marriage, they have absolutely awful arguments, very like violent.
Speaker 1: Sounds like Pat is abusive and he hurts Thelma multiple occasions.
Speaker 1: He breaks her nose, and she had been the one
Speaker 1: to file for divorce saying that he was cruel. Still
Speaker 1: really weird. Side note, Pat did Chico went on to
Speaker 1: marry Gloria Vanderbilt in nineteen forty one, and she was
Speaker 1: only seventeen when they got married, and she said he
Speaker 1: was extremely abusive. So the running theory is about the mob,
Speaker 1: that she got drawn into this world because the ex husband,
Speaker 1: who has only been an ex husband for a year,
Speaker 1: was involved, and that this would have been fairly common
Speaker 1: and Roland West could have been involved too. I mean,
Speaker 1: he was a film director. The intertwining between a lot
Speaker 1: of Hollywood and the Mob was pretty tight in this
Speaker 1: time period, so you know that is not out of
Speaker 1: the realm. But you're right again, it's like the details
Speaker 1: of the autopsy, you know, may or may not have
Speaker 1: told us more information. I just think all of these
Speaker 1: circumstances are so weird. I am so bothered that no
Speaker 1: one is coping to taking her up to the top
Speaker 1: of this hill, you know, and then all these things
Speaker 1: that are happening. So if she is alive on Sunday,
Speaker 1: why is she found dead Monday morning in the same
Speaker 1: clothes that she wore Saturday night? Does that make sense?
Speaker 2: Well, you know a scenario. Let's say she ends up
Speaker 2: meeting with somebody after she gets dropped off by the chauffeur,
Speaker 2: and maybe there's this is a consensual relationship, or maybe
Speaker 2: she is truly under threat but never ends up going
Speaker 2: back home in order to change the next day. This
Speaker 2: ex husband pat is he a darkly complexed guy.
Speaker 1: Here's the two of them together. Hold on, he looks
Speaker 1: like he could be darker. He looks all of skin
Speaker 1: to me.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, is that surname like Italian?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: I believe so, yeah, yeah, because he looks Yeah, the
Speaker 2: thick eyebrows looks like he has to you know, full
Speaker 2: dark head of hair.
Speaker 1: But would she really not now who her current husband's
Speaker 1: girlfriend's ex husband would be. I mean I don't know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know that's Jule's statements. You know, is she
Speaker 2: intentionally being vague or does she not get a good look,
Speaker 2: or is there an associate of you know, a mob
Speaker 2: associate of this pat to CHECKO that's now abducted. You know,
Speaker 2: this is where when I start evaluating the circumstances of
Speaker 2: how Thelma died, and if there's an organization like the
Speaker 2: mob involved, one of the things that I would be
Speaker 2: doing is reaching out to the experts who have investigated
Speaker 2: mob homicides and find out do we have instances of
Speaker 2: mob connections with a similar type of staged crime scene
Speaker 2: where they in essence get the victim to succumb to
Speaker 2: carbon monoxide? You know that again, the fracture knows Let's say,
Speaker 2: could that have been a punch. Could that have been
Speaker 2: a significant enough punch to where Thelma is dazed and
Speaker 2: she's an essence put inside this running vehicle inside a
Speaker 2: closed garage, has to be breathing. That's it's not like
Speaker 2: she's dead. And then this is staged to look like,
Speaker 2: you know, carbon monoxide. She has to be ingesting the
Speaker 2: carbon monoxide by breathing, so she's still alive inside that
Speaker 2: garage and taken in the carbon monoxide. The critical aspect
Speaker 2: is really assessing the one injury she has. You know,
Speaker 2: what is the level of violence. Is it consistent with
Speaker 2: just a mere slump or is there a greater force
Speaker 2: being applied? And I would say, if there's a greater
Speaker 2: force being applied and then the blood blood flows, the
Speaker 2: blood patterns, does that indicate that there's something suspicious going on?
Speaker 2: If there is, if this fractured knows is significant, I
Speaker 2: think that aspect in and of itself would push this
Speaker 2: case from an accidental finding to at least an indetermined
Speaker 2: finding in terms of manner of death, death by the
Speaker 2: hands of another type of scenario. So nineteen thirty five,
Speaker 2: you know, it's possible that they did some photography at
Speaker 2: the crime scene in the Morgue. Pathologist should have written
Speaker 2: a report, you know, so I'd be interested in getting
Speaker 2: into the nitty gritty details of what the pathologist actually found.
Speaker 1: Okay, hang on, I think I found a photo. So
Speaker 1: this is a photo of her on the autopsy slab.
Speaker 1: This is from the book Tragic Hollywood, Beautiful, Glamorous, and
Speaker 1: still dead. When cops arrived, they knew she was dealing.
Speaker 1: They were dealing with a person of means. She was
Speaker 1: extremely well dressed. The gown, full length mahogany mink coat,
Speaker 1: lots of diamonds, expensive rings. Just as a reminder, if
Speaker 1: we're looking at the mob connection, she had a lot
Speaker 1: of jewelry, rosie, you know, cheeks. There was no trace
Speaker 1: there were no traces of bruising around her neck, and
Speaker 1: her nose was not broken, even though it looked like
Speaker 1: it had been. And it says it has erroneously reported
Speaker 1: she did have a loose filling and a slightly bloody lip.
Speaker 1: A dying camellia was pinned to her party dress. The
Speaker 1: withering flower had lost its pure white color and was
Speaker 1: turning pink. Let me go ahead and share this.
Speaker 2: So this is saying her nose was not fractured.
Speaker 1: Well, I mean, and that's what the doctor had said initially,
Speaker 1: but then there were these all of these other reports,
Speaker 1: you know.
Speaker 2: So yeah, well she's obviously so I'm looking at, you know,
Speaker 2: a picture Ofthelma. She's laying on her back. She's got
Speaker 2: the typical neck rest that's used at autopsy, that's behind
Speaker 2: her head. You know, her upper body is completely covers.
Speaker 2: All I can see is pretty much from the jaw
Speaker 2: up to the top of her head and her hair.
Speaker 2: I can't tell if she's been autopsied at this point.
Speaker 2: You know, her hair may maybe covering up any incisions
Speaker 2: to her scalp. Sometimes there's deformation to the forehead, which
Speaker 2: there may be in this case, but the nose looks pristine.
Speaker 2: It does not appear that her nose was fractured. There
Speaker 2: is just a slight discoloration on what appears to possibly
Speaker 2: be her lower lip. You know, if this is all
Speaker 2: the damage to her face, then I would say, you
Speaker 2: know what, that laceration to her lip, If that's what
Speaker 2: that is, that's completely consistent with her slumping forward and
Speaker 2: hitting her mouth on the steering wheel.
Speaker 1: How'd she get up there?
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's definitely mysteries in terms of her movements. You know,
Speaker 2: the timeline.
Speaker 1: Wait, is this her?
Speaker 2: Yeah, that might be her in the vehicle.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's her.
Speaker 2: At least at the time of this photo. She slumped
Speaker 2: to her right, and so they've opened up the front
Speaker 2: passenger door and have taken a photo with her laying there.
Speaker 2: I wonder if that's the position that she was actually
Speaker 2: found in. But the I think the bottom photo is
Speaker 2: potentially reversed.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think you might be right. Some maybe people
Speaker 1: can see it better or something.
Speaker 2: You know. Sometimes it's the way they develop the prints
Speaker 2: from negatives, and they don't they don't account for the directionality. So,
Speaker 2: I mean, it appears that she's in the middle of
Speaker 2: the front seat based on the position. If I'm looking
Speaker 2: at the top photo right, it looks like she's got
Speaker 2: this long mink coat on and she's sitting on the
Speaker 2: botto or she was sitting on the bottom of it,
Speaker 2: and then she ends up collapsing to her left. But
Speaker 2: where what I'm assuming is is where her butt is.
Speaker 2: That looks like it's towards the middle of the front
Speaker 2: seat of this vehicle.
Speaker 1: Doesn't look violent to me, and there's no space. I mean,
Speaker 1: look at it looks pretty tight to me. If she
Speaker 1: were sitting up, she's pretty close to the steering wheel,
Speaker 1: and that looks like an imposing steering wheel. I could
Speaker 1: see how that would knock her toothlues.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, potentially, but they're you know, this dashboard,
Speaker 2: there's other features in front of her that if she
Speaker 2: were to collapse forward, she doesn't necessarily have to collapse
Speaker 2: into the steering wheel. Like where it appears that she
Speaker 2: is sitting. It's possible that she just collapse and hit
Speaker 2: the front dash. But we also have to consider that
Speaker 2: as she's succumbing to carbon monoxide, it's not like it's
Speaker 2: just you're completely lucid one moment and then you're done
Speaker 2: the next moment. There's a process. It's possible that as
Speaker 2: she is losing awareness so coming to carbon monoxide, she's
Speaker 2: moving around, right Yeah, So it's hard to say exactly
Speaker 2: how she positioned purposely positioned herself inside this vehicle. But
Speaker 2: right now, I mean, her nose is not fractured, if
Speaker 2: there's any I can't see any blood in these photos,
Speaker 2: but I don't doubt that maybe there's some blood from
Speaker 2: a minor lip laceration, right but this is not there
Speaker 2: doesn't have there's no evidence of violence being inflicted on her.
Speaker 2: So at least from a crime scene and an autopsy standpoint,
Speaker 2: it's really tough to draw a conclusion that somebody did
Speaker 2: this to her. Now it's possible, you know, but I
Speaker 2: right now, I am now leaning back towards this is accidental.
Speaker 2: She succumbed to carbon monoxide poisoning, and you know, the
Speaker 2: mystery is is well, how did she get up there?
Speaker 2: And why did she go up there? But I think
Speaker 2: if she's just like, well, I'm locked out down here
Speaker 2: at the cafe in the apartment. I'm going to go
Speaker 2: up and see if i can get into the house.
Speaker 2: And she can't get into the house, but she can
Speaker 2: get into the garage and it's cold, and she turns
Speaker 2: the vehicle on. Right now, I think that that's the
Speaker 2: most compelling theory out there.
Speaker 1: This is another angle, but I don't know how helpful.
Speaker 1: It's an above angle.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so, and that's showing that that other photo was reversed,
Speaker 2: so this photo is accurate, and that it shows that
Speaker 2: she fell to her left and her head is on
Speaker 2: the driver's seat and the driver's door is open, with
Speaker 2: the gentleman who may be an investigator, may be a
Speaker 2: representative from the corner's office, is standing above her, not
Speaker 2: wearing gloves, no, which forty years later they weren't wearing gloves,
Speaker 2: So this is not surprising at all.
Speaker 1: Okay, well, it's good. Let me see if there's anything else.
Speaker 1: I don't know what this is. Oh, I think they're
Speaker 1: taking her body out. Is that a body bag kind
Speaker 1: of thing?
Speaker 2: Yeah? It looks like, yeah, she's got they got her wrapped.
Speaker 2: You know, when all is said and done about what
Speaker 2: we've talked about. Yeah, you know, at this point, unless
Speaker 2: something compelling came up, you know, if the Corners ruled
Speaker 2: this as accidental carbon monoxide poisoning, I don't have a
Speaker 2: problem with that. I think her celebrity status and some
Speaker 2: of the you know, the strange relationships and mob connections
Speaker 2: and threats and all of that, that's all very interesting.
Speaker 2: But fundamentally to be able to say that somebody came
Speaker 2: in and killed her, the evidence just isn't there with
Speaker 2: what I've seen.
Speaker 1: I agree, man, I'm gonna give a lot of credit
Speaker 1: to tragic Hollywood if anybody wants to look at some
Speaker 1: more of these photos and just some wonderful photos of
Speaker 1: her on the set. Yeah, what I mean, just a
Speaker 1: twenty nine year old actress who was working so hard,
Speaker 1: and you know, she's got this cafe and she's obviously
Speaker 1: planning for the future. And I don't know how she
Speaker 1: got up there. Maybe the chauffeur turned around and gave
Speaker 1: her a ride and just for some reason didn't want
Speaker 1: to say anything about it. Who knows, But this really
Speaker 1: doesn't you know that the corner said these were mild.
Speaker 1: This does not look like she was in a fight
Speaker 1: in any way. But with so many weird circumstances, her
Speaker 1: not wanting to walk up the steps, you know, her
Speaker 1: heart condition, three or four in the morning, it's cold out. Say,
Speaker 1: all of this stuff just added up to really suspiciousness,
Speaker 1: I think for everybody involved. So let me just wrap
Speaker 1: this up. The corner's jury ruled that the death appeared accidental,
Speaker 1: but that it needed to be further investigated. They wanted
Speaker 1: somebody to take a closer look at the organs for
Speaker 1: more conclusive evidence, ruling out foul play. I don't know what,
Speaker 1: what do you think they were thinking. Seventy to eighty
Speaker 1: percent saturation of carbon monoxide seems pretty conclusive to me.
Speaker 1: I mean, what were they thinking they would find in there?
Speaker 2: You know, I'd wonder if there had been let's say,
Speaker 2: some punches to her abdomen, which you're not necessarily going
Speaker 2: to see much on you know, this compressible part of
Speaker 2: the of the body. But some of these internal organs
Speaker 2: may demonstrate some hemorrhaging or some tissue damage, particularly the liver.
Speaker 2: That's the only thing I can really think of you know,
Speaker 2: and you know, her state of intoxication would be important
Speaker 2: in nineteen thirty five, I'm not sure outside of the pathology,
Speaker 2: just once he cuts into the body and goes, whoa,
Speaker 2: there's a lot of ethanol, you know, on board, right,
Speaker 2: I'm not sure what they were doing in terms of
Speaker 2: measuring the amount of alcohol somebody had on board. And
Speaker 2: you know, nineteen thirty five celebrity actress, you know, is
Speaker 2: she abusing barbituates? Is she abusing you know, other recreational
Speaker 2: drugs at the time, you know, so that could also
Speaker 2: lead to this kind of mental state to where she
Speaker 2: is now wandering up the hill, you know, stumbling up
Speaker 2: the hill, you know, to get to the house where
Speaker 2: she's doing something that she normally wouanted to do.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there are media reports, just in case somebody goes
Speaker 1: digging around in this story. There were some media reports
Speaker 1: that there was blood found in rolling in Thelma's apartment,
Speaker 1: but I mean those were just media reports hers, you know,
Speaker 1: journalism stuff, and the police never reported any of that.
Speaker 1: And then you know, of course, what's always going to
Speaker 1: come back is she wilt not have made that climb
Speaker 1: up those steps. But never say never, right, I mean, really,
Speaker 1: if you're motivated it just never say never. I mean,
Speaker 1: we can't say conclusively. It's unlikely, and I know you
Speaker 1: talk about that with victimology. It's unlikely, but it doesn't
Speaker 1: mean that one night she didn't decide to do that.
Speaker 1: There is a grand jury that convens on the case
Speaker 1: for about a month. The grand jury foreman is a
Speaker 1: guy named George Rochester, and he's kind of a grand
Speaker 1: standard is what everybody thinks. Even though they already have
Speaker 1: clear evidence from the autopsy that there's carbon monoxide poisoning,
Speaker 1: he is insisting that the county chemist analyze her organs
Speaker 1: for signs of poisoning. They do, and the report is
Speaker 1: delayed for about a month, but there's nothing. And wouldn't
Speaker 1: you think recreational drugs would have popped up on that
Speaker 1: kind of a report?
Speaker 2: Also, you know, this is you know, this is an
Speaker 2: era in which labs ability to screen for a broad
Speaker 2: number of substances all at once just didn't exist. They
Speaker 2: needed to be able to have an idea on what
Speaker 2: to look for, yeah, and then utilize the analytical tools
Speaker 2: they could to specifically look for maybe a class of
Speaker 2: compounds if they're lucky, like there's different types of barbs
Speaker 2: out there, but generally I would say that unless they
Speaker 2: had an idea of what she was recreationally using, it's
Speaker 2: very possible that they would have missed whatever was in
Speaker 2: her system.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, I was thinking. I've done cases before
Speaker 1: where there was a big question of whether or not
Speaker 1: there was a suicide, specifically one in the nineteen thirties
Speaker 1: around the corner from my house that I did for
Speaker 1: a tenfold more wicked, where there was a young man
Speaker 1: and he left the car running and it was nineteen
Speaker 1: thirty five. He left the car running in the garage
Speaker 1: and he said, well, I didn't even realize it was running.
Speaker 1: And you know, I talked to somebody that said, no,
Speaker 1: you would realize it's running. It's loud, it's not a
Speaker 1: soft engine or anything. But you know, I was thinking,
Speaker 1: how well educated were they in nineteen thirty five? Do
Speaker 1: not closed the door, turn on your engine and let
Speaker 1: it run. I don't know. I do know that in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty one, when we had in Austin just the
Speaker 1: most horrific set of snowstorms we've ever had that paralyzed
Speaker 1: the city and it killed a lot of people, and
Speaker 1: you know, We were not prepared because we don't get
Speaker 1: snow down here. You know, our pipes are close to
Speaker 1: the surface, our electrical lines are above ground, and we
Speaker 1: you know, we're just nott We're not built for that.
Speaker 1: There were a lot of people, Paul, who would run
Speaker 1: little generators in the house. They were burning lacquered furniture
Speaker 1: in the house because they didn't know. We didn't know
Speaker 1: that that's what you're supposed to do. I did not,
Speaker 1: thank goodness, but so I was just thinking, like, is
Speaker 1: she likely to know this is a bad idea? The
Speaker 1: chauffeur is insisting she wasn't drunk, and her friends are
Speaker 1: not saying she was drunk, So I don't know. Otherwise,
Speaker 1: what is the what is the answer? There's no visible
Speaker 1: injuries really on her. If somebody locked her in the
Speaker 1: car and then turned on the gas, she would have
Speaker 1: been scraping and clawing and breaking glass and trying to
Speaker 1: get out. It just doesn't make sense unless she truly
Speaker 1: didn't know that this was a bad idea, trying to
Speaker 1: get warm this way.
Speaker 2: And I lean probably a majority of the population, particularly
Speaker 2: back in nineteen thirty five, probably weren't educated to the
Speaker 2: dangers of car exhaust and the carbon monoxide poisoning. So
Speaker 2: for me, I'm not surprised at all. You know that
Speaker 2: she got into a vehicle, turned it on in sided
Speaker 2: an enclosed garage, and the reason that she turned the
Speaker 2: vehicle on, from my perspective, is she just wanted to
Speaker 2: be warm that night. You know, she's in a mink coat,
Speaker 2: you know, so that kind of suggests that it was chili.
Speaker 1: I still don't understand all of these eyewitnesses and Martha
Speaker 1: Ford and all of this. I don't get it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't get it. I don't get it. And she's famous.
Speaker 1: This is not just a normal person, a normal beautiful
Speaker 1: blonde walking down the street. But you know, I think
Speaker 1: you're right. I know you all all and we'll go
Speaker 1: just back to the physical evidence, not eyewitness testimony and
Speaker 1: victimology is important, but sometimes shit happens and people change
Speaker 1: up what they're doing and you wouldn't expect it, but
Speaker 1: they do. But really, there doesn't seem to be any
Speaker 1: kind of real trauma when you look at it, so
Speaker 1: you know, of course we'll never know, but this is
Speaker 1: a pretty big mystery. This is one of those mysteries
Speaker 1: in Hollywood. You know, this is a woman who obviously
Speaker 1: was working very hard. She had a lot of promise.
Speaker 1: These films are so fun that she put out, and
Speaker 1: she just could have just accelerated and you know, maybe
Speaker 1: she would get married and you know, have a lot
Speaker 1: of things that were fulfilling to her. And it's just
Speaker 1: awful that this is the way. It sounds like just
Speaker 1: a lack of knowledge, not knowing anything about this. I'm
Speaker 1: sure this did happen often, you know, sure, Well.
Speaker 2: You know, after this, I think I'm gonna have to
Speaker 2: go and watch something on Thelma Toad.
Speaker 1: What did I look at? That was fun? There are
Speaker 1: a bunch of them, but I think it was the
Speaker 1: ten Minutes. Yeah, it was the ten minut and it
Speaker 1: was cute. It was very lucile. There's actually on that
Speaker 1: website there are some headshots of her with her co
Speaker 1: star where they're very Lucy and Ethel before Lucy and Ethel's.
Speaker 2: So oh, very cool.
Speaker 1: I like that. Yeah, I like telling stories about women.
Speaker 1: It's sad, particularly with Thelma Tood that she died, but
Speaker 1: you know, it's nice to see a woman who has
Speaker 1: a lot of independence in control, and it's nice even
Speaker 1: though it ends badly. It's nice to be able to say,
Speaker 1: these women have been here, working so hard for so long.
Speaker 1: It's just good to see an example of it.
Speaker 2: Sure, I really appreciate you bringing this case to me.
Speaker 1: You're welcome. I can pretty much guarantee we're not talking
Speaker 1: about Hollywood next week. Okay, I am not even pretty much.
Speaker 1: I can say definitely going to do another Hollywood story.
Speaker 1: It's just about six months off me trying to figure
Speaker 1: this out, but we will have another compelling case next week.
Speaker 2: I'm looking forward to it me too. Thanks Paul, all right,
Speaker 2: Thanks Kate.
Speaker 1: This has been an exactly right production.
Speaker 2: For our sources and show notes go to Exactlyrightmedia dot
Speaker 2: com slash Buried Bones sources.
Speaker 1: Our senior producer is Alexis Mrosi.
Speaker 2: Research by Maren mcclashan, Ali Elkin, and Kate Winkler Dawson.
Speaker 1: Our mixing engineer is Ben Tolliday.
Speaker 2: Our theme song is by Tom Bryfogel.
Speaker 1: Our artwork is by Vanessa Lilac.
Speaker 2: Executive produced by Karen Kilgarriff, Georgia hard Stark and Danielle Kramer.
Speaker 1: You can follow Buried Bones on Instagram and Facebook at
Speaker 1: buried Bones Pod.
Speaker 2: Kate's most recent book All That Is Wicked, a Gilded
Speaker 2: Age story of murder and the race to decode the
Speaker 2: criminal mind, is available now.
Speaker 1: And Paul's best selling memoir Unmasked, My life solving America's
Speaker 1: cold cases, is also available now.
Speaker 2: Listen to Baried Bones on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 2: or wherever you get your podcasts.