Speaker 1: This episode of Thinking Sideways is not brought you by
Speaker 1: the linked attacks of the minds that restrict your ground
Speaker 1: movement and the pinpoint missile attacks from the air. Instead,
Speaker 1: it's brought you by us. We're having a meet up
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Speaker 1: Portland at six thirty pm. Go online, look up the directions,
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Speaker 1: post about it and you can R s v P.
Speaker 1: But all are welcome, all ages and we will see
Speaker 1: you then. Second, hey, guys, welcome them to another episode
Speaker 1: of Thinking Sideways. The podcast I Am Devon joined this
Speaker 1: week by and Joe. Today we're going to talk about
Speaker 1: mystery that Joe petitioned really really hard to call the
Speaker 1: day Superman died. But I think we decided that was copyrighted. Yeah,
Speaker 1: DC Comics did that in the nineties. I don't I
Speaker 1: don't know that they can actually copyright there because I mean,
Speaker 1: actually that that title was used for at least one
Speaker 1: other essay that i've that was published and copyrighted also,
Speaker 1: so it's copyrighted. So it's copyrighted and if you could
Speaker 1: use it when somebody else had already used it, then
Speaker 1: we can use it too. Well, we're gonna just call
Speaker 1: this the death of George Reeves. Yeah, much safer. This
Speaker 1: was also a listener suggestion. It was suggested by Clarissa
Speaker 1: explains it all thanks joke about the TV show. Yeah, okay, no,
Speaker 1: that's her name. Oh yeah, just kidding. I'm sorry. I'm
Speaker 1: really sorry. You probably hate that joke, Clarissa, So thank
Speaker 1: you for suggesting this mystery. On June sixteenth, nineteen fifty nine,
Speaker 1: George Reeves died of a gunshot wound to the head
Speaker 1: between one thirty and two a m. According to the
Speaker 1: l A p. D. And, George Reeves is the first
Speaker 1: man who played Superman on television. On television, Yeah, he was.
Speaker 1: I think he was the first motion pick. There was
Speaker 1: a motion picture before him. I thought, yeah, no, so
Speaker 1: he's the first one on television. Well, no, I thought
Speaker 1: he made it. He made the Moleman Superman movie before
Speaker 1: the TV That was basically the pilot of the TV show. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so he's saying somebody else, but that was the movie,
Speaker 1: the Superman movie. Was there another Superman movie before that one?
Speaker 1: I think there was, because he's not. Because so the
Speaker 1: thing is is like, there's this thing that we're not
Speaker 1: actually talking about here, which is called the Curse of Superman.
Speaker 1: And I remember looking at that list and there were
Speaker 1: people listed before him as having fallen prey to the curse.
Speaker 1: So I think that there were other movies before that,
Speaker 1: But I didn't think the character was that much older
Speaker 1: than the actual TV show. I thought it was like
Speaker 1: the fifties is when Superman was born, Superman fought Nazis. Anyways,
Speaker 1: the reason that it's okay for us to not know
Speaker 1: this is because this is not an episode about Superman,
Speaker 1: just an actor who played Superman. Can we not there's
Speaker 1: an actor who played Superman that we probably shouldn't talk about,
Speaker 1: which one was that it's just Ben Affleck because he
Speaker 1: was in he was in a movie and he didn't
Speaker 1: suffer the curse. Well everybody, not everybody who's played Superman
Speaker 1: has suffered the Curse of Superman. Well, then that's a
Speaker 1: crappy curse. Yeah, he didn't actually play Superman. That he
Speaker 1: played a guy who played Superman called George Reeves. That's
Speaker 1: how he escaped it. Yeah, he was one stepper moves Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, Kevin, we've taken your way off track in
Speaker 1: the first two minutes. Fine. Um. Officially, George Reeves committed
Speaker 1: suicide on that fateful night of June six between one
Speaker 1: am and two am from a gunshot into the head
Speaker 1: to mind everyone, but a lot of people think that
Speaker 1: he was actually murder herd and it's actually been heavily
Speaker 1: speculated upon for many, many years. Almost sixty a long time, yeah,
Speaker 1: almost half your age. Um. So the way we're gonna
Speaker 1: do this is we're gonna um start by talking about
Speaker 1: Reeves and his history, and then we're going to talk
Speaker 1: about the events leading up to and then we're going
Speaker 1: to talk about theories. Okay, that's good to me. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So George Reeves was actually born George Keefer Brewer in
Speaker 1: nineteen fourteen. His parents separated just after birth, and he
Speaker 1: had very little contact with his father. Both his mother
Speaker 1: and his father did remarry, and his stepmother basically like said,
Speaker 1: we're not going to be a part of this kid's life. Bye.
Speaker 1: But his mom married a guy named Frank Beslo, and
Speaker 1: Reeves took the last name Besslo. He was adopted by
Speaker 1: his stepfather. The marriage lasted about fifteen years, but his
Speaker 1: there and stepfather separated apparently while Reeves was visiting some
Speaker 1: family like somewhere else. It's super messed up, and instead
Speaker 1: of telling Reeves what had happened, that she had gotten
Speaker 1: another divorce and things weren't working out, blah blah, she
Speaker 1: decided that it would be better to just tell Reeves
Speaker 1: that his stepfather had committed suicide. It's super messed up.
Speaker 1: And actually he apparently believed that his stepfather was dead
Speaker 1: for like years. Um. I think this caused a bit
Speaker 1: of a rift between him and his mother later. I
Speaker 1: think it did. But I also think that this is
Speaker 1: one of those things where if you believe during formative years,
Speaker 1: believed that somebody who was really important to you committed suicide.
Speaker 1: I think a lot of times psychologists say that helps
Speaker 1: shape your brain for maybe not being particularly happy all
Speaker 1: the time. I don't know. I'm not a psychologist. Caveat,
Speaker 1: I'm not a doctor, but I do think it's always
Speaker 1: important to mention that when telling the story. Yeah, reeves
Speaker 1: first big film was this little um indie production you
Speaker 1: may or may not have heard of, called Gone with
Speaker 1: the Wind. For years before that, he actually he started
Speaker 1: acting in like middle school or something like that, and
Speaker 1: then here pretty much. So when his step mom um
Speaker 1: and his father, or when his mom and his dad
Speaker 1: got a divorce and his mom moved to them to
Speaker 1: l A to live with her sister, and so he
Speaker 1: lived most of his life IMDb page. And he had
Speaker 1: I think he had acting credits in like thirty five
Speaker 1: or thirty nine. That was his first one. Yeah, he
Speaker 1: had been acting for a long time, but yeah, it
Speaker 1: was totally sexual extras and stuff like that. So his
Speaker 1: first actual role was in Gone with the Wind. And
Speaker 1: he also had a boxing career. I guess I heard
Speaker 1: you guys knows broken like nine times, and uh yeah,
Speaker 1: I think eventually decided to acting would be I think
Speaker 1: he did, Yeah, I mean he actually he played Scarlett
Speaker 1: O'Hara's love interest in Gone with the Wind. It was
Speaker 1: one of the first love interests. And I mean, you
Speaker 1: know that's pretty big role except he looked yeah, well yes,
Speaker 1: but if he had crazy crazy colored Yeah, they died
Speaker 1: their hair red. He and another actor. What happened that
Speaker 1: in those days was you would sign with a studio.
Speaker 1: I mean, you've seen old movies. You know he works, right,
Speaker 1: So Reeves signed with Warner Brothers. At that time, he
Speaker 1: was Frank Beslo and then the studio gave him his
Speaker 1: professional name quote unquote professional name. They changed your name
Speaker 1: is something they thought people liked better. Yeah, so his
Speaker 1: name became became George Reeves at that time. And I
Speaker 1: will say there were some really interesting naming situations that
Speaker 1: happened back then, and we're going to talk about some
Speaker 1: of those people. In fact, actually reading this particular thing
Speaker 1: kind of feel like I'm trapped in a comic book
Speaker 1: and some of the names that some of these people
Speaker 1: have in this story. We'll get there, we'll get into
Speaker 1: a speakeasy. Yeah. In June of nineteen fifty one, Reeves
Speaker 1: was offered the role of Superman for a television show
Speaker 1: called The Adventures of Superman and Joe. You're correct that
Speaker 1: he was. He did portray Superman in uh, Supermoman and
Speaker 1: Superman or whatever that one is called. Yeah, but that
Speaker 1: was literally the studio produced it as a pilot to
Speaker 1: the TV series. So he was cast for the Adventures
Speaker 1: of Superman and they said, Okay, we're gonna do this
Speaker 1: pilot and then it'll become this TV show. I got
Speaker 1: to check and see if Superman in the Moment is
Speaker 1: available on Netflix. I don't think it probably is. It
Speaker 1: sounds like he really took his role as a role model.
Speaker 1: You're welcome. Seriously, he was really, I mean, he really
Speaker 1: was the face of Superman. I mean, there's this story
Speaker 1: that you hear where this kid and this was not
Speaker 1: how he died, but a kid once pulled a gun
Speaker 1: on him because he thought he was actually Superman. He thought, yeah,
Speaker 1: I bet kids were also walking and pushing push pins
Speaker 1: into him. Yeah, because they all thought that he was
Speaker 1: actually Superman. They didn't understand the disconnect, which I mean,
Speaker 1: I think you know, kids to this day still have
Speaker 1: that problem. Well, but you gotta remember also, TV is
Speaker 1: brand new, such a new concept, and when when you
Speaker 1: grow up with television, it's a concept, you get it.
Speaker 1: But when it's this brand new thing, like it really
Speaker 1: is Superman. Wow. Yeah, I mean yeah, he actually you
Speaker 1: know to the point where he um he was a
Speaker 1: smoker because like everyone was a smoker back then, But
Speaker 1: as soon as he became the face of Superman, he
Speaker 1: never smoked when there were kids around or like people
Speaker 1: were taking pictures of him, and eventually he stopped smoking.
Speaker 1: He tried really hard to keep his private life really private,
Speaker 1: although it didn't work out in his later years. But
Speaker 1: and I will say, just because he was Superman does
Speaker 1: not mean that he was actually making millions of dollars. Actually,
Speaker 1: stuff didn't pay so good. He was basically broke, as
Speaker 1: it turns out. And so and I can tell you why.
Speaker 1: I mean, okay, not oh my god like pittance, right,
Speaker 1: but for for a man of his fame, he was
Speaker 1: really he didn't have very much money at all. The
Speaker 1: reason was was that they weren't they weren't paying a
Speaker 1: lot for the role itself. And they had this thing
Speaker 1: called a four week clause or something like that in
Speaker 1: his contract where basically, at any point the studio could
Speaker 1: demand they start production on a new season of Adventures
Speaker 1: of Superman four weeks before four weeks on any other projects. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he couldn't. Well really, I mean at that point everything
Speaker 1: is kind of a long term project. Anything that's going
Speaker 1: to pay you money. We're shooting schedule with a two
Speaker 1: month buffer, so that's what four twelve, So that's a
Speaker 1: five months out of the year. So he could take
Speaker 1: a little two and three and four months assignments. He
Speaker 1: could not guarantee he couldn't guarantee. Well, that was the thing.
Speaker 1: He couldn't guarantee after that three or four month time
Speaker 1: frame that he would be to hang around. So that's
Speaker 1: why it was hard. No, not even three or four months.
Speaker 1: They could. They could a month after they wrapped production
Speaker 1: have said Okay, we're doing another one, and he would
Speaker 1: have four weeks notice. And I mean they read that
Speaker 1: everywhere and everybody makes it out, but listen to the
Speaker 1: studio wasn't going to just whip out a season's worth
Speaker 1: of scripts in no time flat like that. I think
Speaker 1: that it's I really feel like that was made out
Speaker 1: to be the original Superman TV show. It is totally
Speaker 1: about ten minutes. I know, you could jump, But my
Speaker 1: point is they had enough stuff going on that I
Speaker 1: don't think that they were just going to immediately call
Speaker 1: the cast back because it wasn't like they could put
Speaker 1: them out on television until later on anyway. But it
Speaker 1: does like that is overplayed, is all I'm getting. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean it, but it does seem like it was
Speaker 1: a really kind of hard situation for him to be in.
Speaker 1: I think a lot of a lot of the whole
Speaker 1: studio system I think really trapped a lot of actors,
Speaker 1: a lot of were jerked around and not really paid
Speaker 1: all that well, all that well really, yeah, he's not
Speaker 1: the only one, true, but he apparently was also getting
Speaker 1: paid for reruns. Yeah, but not I mean not, I
Speaker 1: mean he was getting money from it. Again, I'm not
Speaker 1: saying he was making huge amounts of money. You know,
Speaker 1: that was longer he did at the more sustaining cash
Speaker 1: that turned into for a while. Yeah. And then as
Speaker 1: far as his personal life goes, Reeves was married for
Speaker 1: ten years early in his life before he kind of
Speaker 1: made it into the Superman. Yeah, pretty much before he
Speaker 1: met Superman. He was he was married for ten years,
Speaker 1: and then he had an eight year relationship with a
Speaker 1: show girl and then ended that. And at the time
Speaker 1: of his death, he was maybe engaged, probably engaged to
Speaker 1: a woman named Lenore Lennon, one of those names Lenor Lemon.
Speaker 1: That's why I said it's like being in a comic book. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm not sure she was if they actually were engaged,
Speaker 1: or she just made that up all she I don't
Speaker 1: think it was after the fact. I think the sense
Speaker 1: was she had been going around telling people that they
Speaker 1: were going to Spain to Elope On June nineteen of
Speaker 1: fifty nine, three days after he died. They were said
Speaker 1: to alope, I have not seen anywhere that he was
Speaker 1: also saying, yeah, we're going to Elope blow blah blah.
Speaker 1: You know, but the senses that they he at least
Speaker 1: tolerated her telling people that maybe, yeah, maybe maybe it's possible.
Speaker 1: We'll and we'll get into that a little bit. Now
Speaker 1: we're we're solidly into the events leading up to phase
Speaker 1: you guys ready, yeah, okay, al right, So, as mentioned,
Speaker 1: there are some really colorfully named characters here, and those
Speaker 1: are These are all the people that were present on
Speaker 1: the night of his death. I'm just gonna tell you, yeah,
Speaker 1: kind of like who was who we're going to be
Speaker 1: talking about. I just want to get the names and
Speaker 1: their relation. You were doing like cast characters. Then we're
Speaker 1: going to do events leading up to Okay, all right,
Speaker 1: So Leonora Lemon, the fiance or maybe not, we're just
Speaker 1: gonna call the fiance. Was there William Bliss who was Yeah,
Speaker 1: he's a heating engineer who lived like down the street
Speaker 1: from So I mean, that's a great great example of
Speaker 1: how maybe not rich Reeves was right. He was living
Speaker 1: close to like a heating engineer, not necessarily like, well,
Speaker 1: he lived in a fairly modest little house. Definitely. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but so Billy Bliss was also there. And nobody's quite
Speaker 1: sure why Billy Bliss was present. But a man by
Speaker 1: the name of Robert Cott Condon, thank you. I keep
Speaker 1: wanting to say Condon, but that's not right Condon. And
Speaker 1: he was a writer who was writing a story about
Speaker 1: a famous boxer who happened to be loosely connected to Reeves.
Speaker 1: And then um, he was staying with Reeves at the time,
Speaker 1: and um, Karen Carol van Ronkle's great name. She lived
Speaker 1: a few blocks away with her husband, screenwriter Rip Van Ronkle,
Speaker 1: which is like what jerk at the studio was like, Okay, yeah, no,
Speaker 1: we have your professional name for you. Are you ready.
Speaker 1: It's it's Ripped van Wonkele. You're ready. Yeah. He might
Speaker 1: have been born like, you know, Fred or something like that,
Speaker 1: and he just picked up the nickname Ripped van Ronkle.
Speaker 1: I don't know. Carol van Ronkele apparently was also having
Speaker 1: an affair with Condon, the writer. According to this group
Speaker 1: previously colorfully named group of people, Lemon and Reeves had
Speaker 1: gone to dinner with Condon, and all of the accounts
Speaker 1: that I have read are very sure to mention that
Speaker 1: they were also drinking a lot. They and they. It
Speaker 1: sounds like this group of people was they did drink
Speaker 1: a lot, but it's always they went out to dinner
Speaker 1: and drank. Reeves and Lemon had an argument at the
Speaker 1: restaurant in front of Condon, and then the three returned home.
Speaker 1: Maybe it was wait, you've been telling people were yeah,
Speaker 1: Maybe it was wait. Probably Condon was like, are you
Speaker 1: excited to go to Spain? And He's like, what for?
Speaker 1: What do you mean we're going to Spain. Later, during
Speaker 1: an interview for Reeves's biography, however, Lemon actually said that
Speaker 1: she and Reeves had gone to a wrestling match that night.
Speaker 1: It sounds like reeves is friend Jean LaBelle, who was
Speaker 1: a famous wrestler at the time, was wrestling that night
Speaker 1: in town. But LaBelle said that he saw Reeves at
Speaker 1: his workout session earlier that day, but he didn't ever
Speaker 1: remember seeing Reeves after the fact. So there's a bit
Speaker 1: of a conflict of stories there, so we can't pin
Speaker 1: it down not totally. Yeah, that was a wrestling pun.
Speaker 1: Oh see, I don't know restling this guys good. So
Speaker 1: either way, Reeves and Lemon and Condon end up back
Speaker 1: at Reeves's house. I should be mentioned Lemon was living
Speaker 1: with Reeves at the time, but it wasn't she had
Speaker 1: no ownership of the house or any thing like that.
Speaker 1: Somewhere near midnight, after Reeves had gone to bed after
Speaker 1: a heavy night of drinking, an impromptu party started downstairs
Speaker 1: when Bliss and Carol Van Ronkle, who we're going to
Speaker 1: call Van Ronkle from here on out because Rip van
Speaker 1: Ronkle isn't actually part of this story. I just like
Speaker 1: saying his name. So Bliss and Van Ronkle arrive at
Speaker 1: the Reeves home around midnight. So it's, um, these people
Speaker 1: are just like I guess they're just like all late
Speaker 1: night parties or something. Yeah, typically I don't just go
Speaker 1: dropping in on people's houses at midnight. I don't really either,
Speaker 1: But so it's they're the feeling. These people drank together
Speaker 1: on a semi regular basis and probably said, hey, you know,
Speaker 1: it's a little after twelve, she'll be up. Let's over
Speaker 1: to see the lights run. If you are, we'll we'll
Speaker 1: walk in and we'll have some drinks. It sounds like
Speaker 1: they were maybe making a bit of a ruckus, and
Speaker 1: so Reeves kind of storms downstairs and complains about the noise.
Speaker 1: Apparent this is all according to the four people who
Speaker 1: were drinking heavily there that night. Um Reeves comes down
Speaker 1: and he's angry about the noise and why are you
Speaker 1: having this party? And Lemon kind of says, well, um,
Speaker 1: you know, we're just I don't know, we're just partying,
Speaker 1: and Reeves somehow calms down and decides to stay and
Speaker 1: drink a little more. But after his like one drink,
Speaker 1: he apparently pops back right into a bad mood and
Speaker 1: storms back upstairs. Um, which I actually identified deeply with,
Speaker 1: woke you up? No, I just like being a woken
Speaker 1: up in the middle of the night. I'll you know,
Speaker 1: I'm like hate everything, and then I'm like, all right, fine,
Speaker 1: I guess I'm here. No, I hated it. The work
Speaker 1: like dip back and forth pretty quickly. Anyway, an unidentified
Speaker 1: amount of time later, maybe a drink's worth, so probably
Speaker 1: around one thirty or two, the party has heard a
Speaker 1: quote single gun shot from upstair airs. Bliss ran upstairs
Speaker 1: into Reeves's bedroom and found him lying across the bed dead.
Speaker 1: His naked body was facing upward, his feet were on
Speaker 1: the floor and face up on the bed. Ye oh yeah,
Speaker 1: he was, yes, sorry, So like to explain it a
Speaker 1: little bit better, I guess investigators thought that he had
Speaker 1: been sitting on the edge of the bed and then
Speaker 1: killed himself, and he just fell back on the bed,
Speaker 1: so you can imagine that picture. Investigators found a thirty
Speaker 1: caliber Lugar pistol between his feet, which they thought had
Speaker 1: fallen from his hand. Um Statements made by the witnesses
Speaker 1: to the police on that night, as well as press
Speaker 1: a little bit later, essentially agree, though there are some
Speaker 1: discrepancies and there was a fairly significant delay in reporting
Speaker 1: this didn't did. None of the guests seemed to be
Speaker 1: really concerned with the delay, though, they just said, I
Speaker 1: don't know, we were shocked, it was late. We were drunk,
Speaker 1: That's why it took us so long to call you.
Speaker 1: My story straight. Yeah, no, none of that. The police
Speaker 1: did say that again, all the witnesses were like really
Speaker 1: really really drunk, and so getting coherent stories from them
Speaker 1: was like almost impossible that night. So there you go, there,
Speaker 1: George Reeves there, and George Reeves apparently death of Superman,
Speaker 1: death of one of the many Superman's. Yeah, so that
Speaker 1: is the story. We're going to flush the story out
Speaker 1: a little bit more when we talk about theories. But
Speaker 1: it is that time. What time, theories time. But before
Speaker 1: we do that, let's take a break. This is the
Speaker 1: worst bus ride ever. The tension is unbearable. The screaming
Speaker 1: waves of panic and fear just aren't helping. There's a
Speaker 1: man with a knife and you can see him so
Speaker 1: clearly every freaking detail. Are you sweating? Yeah? You are
Speaker 1: what possessed you to get on this bus. You knew
Speaker 1: that it was creepy and dark and cold out, and
Speaker 1: yet you still did it. Why? Why did you begin
Speaker 1: the next chapter of the audio thriller you've been listening
Speaker 1: to all week? This is your own fault, and you
Speaker 1: know it. That's the great thing about audiobooks. You can
Speaker 1: just turn them off. And now we're gonna help you
Speaker 1: scare the but Jesus out of yourself by helping you
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Speaker 1: you should get it scared out of you every now
Speaker 1: and again. And we're back. Okay, theories, Yeah, theories. Yeah, cool, cool.
Speaker 1: And actually, before we go too far into theories, I
Speaker 1: just want to pause us to apologize. We're all sitting
Speaker 1: in a room in Portland, Oregon, which is like pretty
Speaker 1: much just surrounded by fire right now, and so um,
Speaker 1: there's like, well, no, there's there's there's a little smoky
Speaker 1: and you know, houses don't seal, and so if you
Speaker 1: get a couple of voice cracks or anything in there,
Speaker 1: we apologize. I'll try to keep it to a minimum,
Speaker 1: but it might have We'll try. I can't cut that out,
Speaker 1: damn dang it. All right, So our first theory he
Speaker 1: is um the official story, which is that he committed suicide.
Speaker 1: Of course, this one, the suicide angle, did focus a
Speaker 1: lot on Um. As you can imagine, being the face
Speaker 1: of Superman is both a blessing and a curse. You know,
Speaker 1: we've seen this happen with actors contemporarily, where they have
Speaker 1: a really hard time getting cast in any kind of
Speaker 1: roles after they play these like big signature roles in
Speaker 1: these franchises because people just think like, oh, that's just
Speaker 1: Harry Potter. But you know, but yeah, I think about
Speaker 1: it is is these days you get typecasts, say Harry Potter, Well,
Speaker 1: you made a boatload of money playing Harry Potter, so
Speaker 1: even if you never get another job again. Yeah, not
Speaker 1: so for George Reeves. Yeah, so it was he was
Speaker 1: struggling to find acting jobs after The Adventures of Superman
Speaker 1: had been canceled, which had been during during because of
Speaker 1: the four week thing, but then after because it had
Speaker 1: been canceled by this point. Yeah, because he well, I
Speaker 1: mean he when he initially started, I think he had
Speaker 1: filmed a movie and I can't think of something eating
Speaker 1: in the Garden of Eating or something like that. I
Speaker 1: can't think of the name of it. And it had
Speaker 1: such a long schedule to get it out in the
Speaker 1: world that the first season of Superman had aired already,
Speaker 1: and when people saw him in a different role in
Speaker 1: that movie, they pointed at the screen and she had
Speaker 1: a Superman. And apparently, according to him, that's when he
Speaker 1: knew his career was screwed, because he couldn't be recognized,
Speaker 1: is anything. But I think at the times, I think
Speaker 1: the Superman was also canceled, But I think at the
Speaker 1: time of his death, at least I heard him more
Speaker 1: in two places that they had decided to renew the
Speaker 1: show after all and bring him back. Um, maybe they had,
Speaker 1: they were in talks, but it sounds like a couple
Speaker 1: of days before he had been notified that maybe that
Speaker 1: deal had actually fallen through because they were having a
Speaker 1: hard time getting people to agree to do it. And
Speaker 1: then but from his perspective, of course it would be
Speaker 1: either way. Be kind of a happy said thing. I mean,
Speaker 1: it would be a paycheck. But at the same time,
Speaker 1: he hated the role. Yeah. Yeah. He called the Superman
Speaker 1: outfit his monkey suit. Yeah. Yeah, he burned it at
Speaker 1: the end of every season. It's just so sad if
Speaker 1: you think about it from a memoriad bilia standpoint, what
Speaker 1: would that be worth today? Yeah? If he had just like,
Speaker 1: hang onto these stupid things and I'll sell him a
Speaker 1: few years, it'll be worth a boatload of cash. But no,
Speaker 1: he's like, I have a bottle. Yeah. So you know,
Speaker 1: it sounds like he was struggling to get work and
Speaker 1: maybe there was the Superman thing, but it was looking
Speaker 1: like maybe that wasn't actually going to come through. He
Speaker 1: was also known to be a party animal if the
Speaker 1: events leading up to didn't clue you into that, and
Speaker 1: late night losing was pretty common between him and his friends.
Speaker 1: He had actually been drinking that night again and was
Speaker 1: very drunk, point to seven drunk. That's pretty respectable, real drunk.
Speaker 1: And he also happened to be on pain killers from
Speaker 1: injuries that he had sustained from a car accident a
Speaker 1: couple of weeks beforehand. And we'll talk about that. Yes,
Speaker 1: we'll talk about that car accident in a little bit.
Speaker 1: Don't spoil anything I want to say. Is he racked
Speaker 1: up his jag, You are must have been heartbreaking for
Speaker 1: maybe that's why he killed himself. Maybe all these things
Speaker 1: put together makes an okay start to the official theory.
Speaker 1: You know, you're kind of down on your luck, prone
Speaker 1: to depression, you're super super drunk, you're on pain killers.
Speaker 1: You know, you've maybe just had a big fight with
Speaker 1: your fiancee for whatever reason. It's at least an okay
Speaker 1: start to the idea that that might lead somebody to
Speaker 1: kill themselves. There was also no sign of forced entry,
Speaker 1: and the guests below said that they didn't hear anything odd,
Speaker 1: but again, granted, this assumes a lot. It assumes first
Speaker 1: of all, this is l a in the fifties in June,
Speaker 1: so no air conditioning probably, so probably open windows because
Speaker 1: it's hot and the layout of the house is such
Speaker 1: that it would it'd be easy to get into the
Speaker 1: master bedroom with nobody seeing you. As to the oh,
Speaker 1: we didn't hear anything weird, I'm sure they're playing music
Speaker 1: and being loud and downstairs because they were being loud. No, well,
Speaker 1: that's literally their story is they said we were being
Speaker 1: loud and that he came down and he was angry
Speaker 1: that we had woken him up because we were being loud,
Speaker 1: like of course, yeah. And it also this also assumes
Speaker 1: that I would assume that Reeves, at the time of
Speaker 1: his going to bed, was not the drunkest of the group,
Speaker 1: and he did not continue to drink. Really, so the
Speaker 1: group that continued to drink would have been probably even
Speaker 1: more more intoxicated than I don't know if that's true,
Speaker 1: because he, according to this, not too long after he
Speaker 1: went back upstairs the shot happened, and they weren't home
Speaker 1: for very long and him in bed before the friends
Speaker 1: showed up, So I don't it's not as if there
Speaker 1: was a great span of time in between that, I
Speaker 1: would say that they were all probably around the same level. Right,
Speaker 1: That's what I'm sorry, That's what I'm trying to get out,
Speaker 1: is that they were can actually get much higher than
Speaker 1: point to seven without dying anyway, Right, Yeah, a lot
Speaker 1: of them have, but I you know, it depends on
Speaker 1: I think probably everybody was about that same level. So
Speaker 1: this also assumes that they would have been coherent and
Speaker 1: observant enough to notice if anything weird was going on. Oh,
Speaker 1: and also would assumes they were telling the truth. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's that. Um. Now, George Reeves's mother, you will remember,
Speaker 1: was a figure in this. At one point, she really
Speaker 1: did not agree with the suicide ruling. It's kind of
Speaker 1: ironic when you think about it. Yeah, he really is, um,
Speaker 1: I'm sure she was like, no, he's just getting back
Speaker 1: at me, getting back at me for lying to him
Speaker 1: all these years. She was not happy with this finding.
Speaker 1: For whatever reason, she retained attorney Jerry Geisler to petition
Speaker 1: for reinvestigation of the case as maybe a murder. The so,
Speaker 1: they did a second autopsy on Reeves's body, and the
Speaker 1: findings were exactly the same as the first, except that
Speaker 1: there was a series of bruises of unknown origin around
Speaker 1: his head and body. And then this investigation went on
Speaker 1: for about a month. It didn't uncover any new evidence,
Speaker 1: and so basically they had to side that yes, the
Speaker 1: gunshot Wind was self inflicted and he did commit suicide.
Speaker 1: So unfortunately that investigation was withdrawn and the official thing,
Speaker 1: official cause of death remains suicide. I don't think he
Speaker 1: killed himself, thank you. I gotta admit that some reason,
Speaker 1: I think not. I mean, you know, people say, well,
Speaker 1: what George Rees was depressed for years over the fact
Speaker 1: that he was, you know, pigeonholed into planning Superman. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he had been doing it for seven or eight years.
Speaker 1: You would think that if it was gonna have gotten
Speaker 1: to him, it would have to the point that he
Speaker 1: would want to end his life. It would have been
Speaker 1: prior to that. Well, except for the fact that it
Speaker 1: happens to coincide with this like maybe glimmer of hope
Speaker 1: of you know again better Bitter Sweet, but that they
Speaker 1: were talking about reviving it and then maybe it had
Speaker 1: fallen through. So maybe that ended up being kind of
Speaker 1: the last straw where he kind of thought, oh, this
Speaker 1: is looking better. At least I can go be Superman
Speaker 1: again and make some money and be like maybe I'm
Speaker 1: not gonna love it, but whatever, And then it fell
Speaker 1: through and he was like, oh, I can't even be
Speaker 1: Superman anymore. Grill and his his road show that he
Speaker 1: was putting together was kind of falling apart. Did you
Speaker 1: read about that? So do you want to tell people
Speaker 1: about this? Because why don't you tell me? He would
Speaker 1: go to these he would do these exhibition matches as
Speaker 1: Superman against you know, well known boxing or wrestling figures
Speaker 1: and have the you know, they d get out, and
Speaker 1: he had done this several times. Is the way to
Speaker 1: generate cash. And on his latest one, he had been
Speaker 1: training for three or four weeks. My account for the bruises,
Speaker 1: which would very well account for the bruising because he was,
Speaker 1: you know, sparring. But he found out that of all
Speaker 1: I don't remember how many people he had put out
Speaker 1: feelers to to say come on, you want to get
Speaker 1: on board, only one of them said yes. So the
Speaker 1: whole thing was basically tanked right then and there, which
Speaker 1: is a reason for a guy to be upset and depressed.
Speaker 1: But yeah, because he probably needed the money. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: think he made as much is he hated Superman it
Speaker 1: was his cash cow. Yeah, it's true. So let's talk
Speaker 1: about some of the stuff that makes people think that
Speaker 1: maybe Reeves was actually murdered, aside from the fact that
Speaker 1: there's not really a reason for suicide. Okay, as mentioned,
Speaker 1: I think it is possible that somebody could have easily
Speaker 1: entered the house without anybody downstairs having seen it, or
Speaker 1: without any signs of forced entry. But wait, Devin, whenever
Speaker 1: you read this on the internet, they say he died
Speaker 1: in a windowless room. Well, maybe the room that he
Speaker 1: was in was windowless, but the bathroom it was attached
Speaker 1: to wasn't, nor the bedroom that was right next door. Yea.
Speaker 1: Some those websites have the black background with white text. Yeah,
Speaker 1: those are favorites. Reeves home was a split level home.
Speaker 1: They called it a splanch. I think there was a
Speaker 1: split level branch home. So, and there's drawings out there.
Speaker 1: I think will probably link to one of them because
Speaker 1: I can't describe it as well as a drawing can,
Speaker 1: but I'm going to try real hard. The way that
Speaker 1: it was set up was there was the master bedroom,
Speaker 1: and for those of you who don't know what a
Speaker 1: master bedroom is, it's a bedroom with a bathroom attached
Speaker 1: to it, and the bathroom the master bathroom had a
Speaker 1: window that opened right onto the roof of the house.
Speaker 1: Window small, but I mean somebody could climb through it.
Speaker 1: It's not so small that it'd be impossible. The size
Speaker 1: of window the teen injury used to escape on rendezvous
Speaker 1: at night on a regular basis, Yeah, pretty much. And
Speaker 1: the roof that that bedroom window opened onto was above
Speaker 1: the den, which was connected to the family room, which
Speaker 1: the family room was below the bedroom. Is my understanding
Speaker 1: of that house, it was upper floor was master bedroom,
Speaker 1: there was a lower floor was the was the living
Speaker 1: room and end, and then the second bedroom was the
Speaker 1: mid level one. It was in between, but the den
Speaker 1: was That's why they call it the split level, right.
Speaker 1: But the living room was under the bedroom and the
Speaker 1: den just had a roof over it, yes, And then um,
Speaker 1: in between those two there was a part that went
Speaker 1: out and there was a guest bedroom which was where
Speaker 1: Condon was staying. But it would have there were windows
Speaker 1: into that room as well from a part of the house.
Speaker 1: But I don't have a good sense of if I
Speaker 1: don't actually know where. I think the party was in
Speaker 1: the den, but they could have been in the living room.
Speaker 1: I don't actually know which area they were in because
Speaker 1: they were kind of connected, and I don't know if
Speaker 1: from where that group was if you could see into
Speaker 1: the guest bedroom or into the hallway. So if it
Speaker 1: were me breaking into this house, I would just go
Speaker 1: for the bedroom bathroom window and call it a day.
Speaker 1: And again, you know the roof above, so that means
Speaker 1: somebody's walking on the roof above where these people are.
Speaker 1: But these people are being allowed, so regardless, they are
Speaker 1: multiple points of entry other than the front door. And
Speaker 1: again I I'll reiterate that I I have not ever
Speaker 1: seen that the windows were open or not, but I
Speaker 1: cannot imagine being in l A in June without the
Speaker 1: windows open. Just my two cents. In addition to the
Speaker 1: fact that it would be pretty easy for somebody to
Speaker 1: actually have gotten into the house without forcing entry, there
Speaker 1: are some kind of odd findings at the crime scene.
Speaker 1: There were nor no fingerprints on the gun, no muzzle
Speaker 1: discharge burns, you know the kind that are usually found
Speaker 1: in cases like this, on his head. On his head.
Speaker 1: There is a report that there was no gunshot residue
Speaker 1: found on Reeves's hand, but I don't actually think that
Speaker 1: they tested for that at this time in history. So
Speaker 1: I just I want to throw that in there because
Speaker 1: you're going to see that parodied like everywhere. But I
Speaker 1: want to give you also the information that it's it's
Speaker 1: probably it's probably not legitimate. Um. I have actually have
Speaker 1: a question for Joe. Okay, Joe, I've read in a
Speaker 1: number of places that say there were no fingerprints on
Speaker 1: the gun because it was too well oiled. Do you
Speaker 1: know what they mean by that, well, other than the
Speaker 1: fact that you know, the oil would just fill in
Speaker 1: and no, I mean it's like a lot of gun
Speaker 1: owners are really you know, especially have a really nice gun,
Speaker 1: you don't want to rust it, especially when you handle
Speaker 1: a gun you have when you have the gun, you
Speaker 1: have a lot of acids and things that are in
Speaker 1: your sweat. And so a lot of people will wipe
Speaker 1: their gun down after they've played with it or use
Speaker 1: it or whatever, wipe it down with an oily rag.
Speaker 1: But if it's got oil on it, that doesn't mean
Speaker 1: you're you're not going to leave fingerprints. But if you say,
Speaker 1: I've been playing with your gun and then you wipe
Speaker 1: it off, you know, because you know you don't want rust,
Speaker 1: and then you put it away whatever. Then you decided
Speaker 1: to kill yourself. You pick the gun up. Uh, A
Speaker 1: luker has got wooden hand grips on it, and so
Speaker 1: if you assuming you don't play with it passing around
Speaker 1: hand to hand stuff like that. It's it's quite conceivable
Speaker 1: we can actually pick up a handgun and shoot it
Speaker 1: and not leave your fingerprints. You'd leave some prints on
Speaker 1: the the front strap of the gun from the middles
Speaker 1: of the middle of your fingers, but your actual fingerprints
Speaker 1: from the ends of your fingers that we all know
Speaker 1: that there's a plastic fingerprints, you could conceivably not leave
Speaker 1: them on the GUA that explains I read that in
Speaker 1: several places and I was like, I don't I don't
Speaker 1: quite get it, but I know who will probably have. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's gonna be Joe. If it's about a gun, it's
Speaker 1: gonna be that I know anything about guns. Really, No,
Speaker 1: not really, but oil will hold fingerprints. Okay, that's okay.
Speaker 1: The way you explain it makes way more sense than
Speaker 1: it was. It was too well oiled. The data fingerprints
Speaker 1: and the other thing. I said that the luger has
Speaker 1: wooden grips on it. And by the way, they were
Speaker 1: checkered grips, which means they weren't smooth, so you could. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So on top of all that, the atle bullet was
Speaker 1: retrieved from the ceiling above him, because which is weird,
Speaker 1: because he was shot through the temple directly above him
Speaker 1: or just somewhere. I have never been able to find
Speaker 1: that out somewhere. I think somewhere above otherwise that would
Speaker 1: mean to have to turn his head es. So I'm
Speaker 1: actually going to do the I'm going to describe a
Speaker 1: little bit, and then I'm going to show you guys
Speaker 1: in the studio what I imagine happened if he did
Speaker 1: in fact kill himself. The shell casing from the bullet
Speaker 1: was found under his body. He shot himself in the
Speaker 1: temple through the right temple, which again is significant because
Speaker 1: you may have heard Joe mentioned or Steve mentioned that
Speaker 1: he had severely injured his right hand. Though again, if
Speaker 1: he was drunken on a lot of painkillers, you know,
Speaker 1: you can ignore stuff like that. I so it sounds
Speaker 1: like his head could have been like tilted. I honestly,
Speaker 1: I kind of just mentioned I just I'm just gonna
Speaker 1: do it real quick. I just kind of imagine him
Speaker 1: being so drunk that he's just kind of like, is it?
Speaker 1: Is it? Wait? What you're Okay, what Devon is enacting
Speaker 1: is if you've ever seen a board teenager in junior
Speaker 1: high with their arm on their and their head tilted
Speaker 1: all the way over on the straight arm. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: basically or like you know, when someone's really drunk and
Speaker 1: they're kind of like slumped over. I'm sorry, I'm getting
Speaker 1: away from the mic. I'm sorry, I'm trying to do it,
Speaker 1: but it's you're like kind of slumped over and you're like,
Speaker 1: you know, if you have a gun and he's like
Speaker 1: really really drunk and like super drugged up and you know,
Speaker 1: I don't know, maybe sleepy, I don't know. Well, thirty,
Speaker 1: the thirty caliber round is also pretty high velocity, lightweight around,
Speaker 1: so it's easily deflected. So it's not like the bullet
Speaker 1: necessarily had to punch straight on through and then out
Speaker 1: the other side and in the ceiling. It could have
Speaker 1: actually have been deflected inside his skull. Bullet. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: it's especially with those little lightweight bullets, I mean they
Speaker 1: are they are very easily knocked off course. So because
Speaker 1: it interesting got straight at the top of his head. Interesting.
Speaker 1: I had not heard that. Actually, the one thing I
Speaker 1: will say is, um, that is kind of weird. As mentioned,
Speaker 1: Reeves was naked and the shell casing was found behind him,
Speaker 1: but there was no burn mark on his back as
Speaker 1: you might expect from a hot shell. I'm not so sure.
Speaker 1: I haven't been burned by hot breast myself. I can
Speaker 1: tell you it's it's not that hot that it's going
Speaker 1: to be like a branding iron or anything like that.
Speaker 1: Branding iron is I mean, I think I don't know.
Speaker 1: I would expect you can pay some sort of mark.
Speaker 1: You can pick up an expelled shell casing immediately, and
Speaker 1: it is hot and it is hurt, but you can
Speaker 1: wait till it cools off and you will not always
Speaker 1: be blistered. So that's well, I'm blistering. I'm not. I'm not.
Speaker 1: I'm not suggesting blistered, but like red. But he was dead,
Speaker 1: like his body was going to be able to react. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I've had like you know, I've had him like land,
Speaker 1: like hot brass, like land right between my collar and
Speaker 1: my neck, you know, and it's unpleasant, but it's never
Speaker 1: left any marks. Okay, fair enough, Steve made a lot
Speaker 1: of not nice noises. All right, how about this one
Speaker 1: hot shots? Apparently you can explain everything that's weird. Um.
Speaker 1: They also found two bullets in the floor. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: those are easily explained. That was probably a target practice.
Speaker 1: Maybe they're easily explained. They were from the same luger.
Speaker 1: As mentioned, everyone was real drunk. They did agree they
Speaker 1: only heard the one gun shot. Again, this assumes they
Speaker 1: told the truth. But I will say that there's no
Speaker 1: evidence to suggest that those happened that night. Yeah, could
Speaker 1: have happened anytime. I mean, granted, you kind of hope
Speaker 1: there aren't just random discharges happening in the house of
Speaker 1: a gun. But like said that she fired those two
Speaker 1: rounds pre obvious to that that you know she, I mean,
Speaker 1: this one was known, as we're going to talk about,
Speaker 1: she was a bit of a hothead, and she had
Speaker 1: she had fired it that way. I do want to
Speaker 1: talk about one quick thing on the murder or this
Speaker 1: this whole theory that we're in, because there are people
Speaker 1: have said that there is no way that George Reeves
Speaker 1: could have fired that gun in that position and had
Speaker 1: the shell go behind him, because in the reading it
Speaker 1: always says because those shell casings generally adject to the right,
Speaker 1: and as Joe will probably know, this particular luger ejects
Speaker 1: a shell out of the top instead of the left
Speaker 1: or the right, like you see a lot of handguns
Speaker 1: these days, and so it can kind of go that way.
Speaker 1: But I watched videos of guys shooting that gun, and
Speaker 1: it really depended on the angle that the gun was
Speaker 1: held as to whether the shell ejected forward, backwards, left
Speaker 1: or right. That's why I continue to maintain he was
Speaker 1: just like wantwa he was. It probably was holding on
Speaker 1: like sideways, yeah, and so like the back, so it
Speaker 1: would have expelled also. But we talked about this during
Speaker 1: Kirk Cobain's suicide. I mean, shells are usually flung from
Speaker 1: the gun, you know, at a high rate of speed,
Speaker 1: a lot of energy there, and I could easily bounce
Speaker 1: off a wall or two and then and then like
Speaker 1: behind you. It's not well, I didn't. It landed under
Speaker 1: his body, so I don't know that it would have
Speaker 1: had time to bounce a couple of times in the
Speaker 1: under his body wasn't fast, I mean, depending on how
Speaker 1: fast this body fell over, yeah, it was the body
Speaker 1: pretty fast. Uh yeah, spent showcasing to move faster. They really, yeah,
Speaker 1: they do. Mostly. I just don't really him a problem
Speaker 1: with it being under Actually I have more of a
Speaker 1: problem with it being under him. If he was murdered,
Speaker 1: then well I just bring it up. Yes, it couldn't
Speaker 1: in the thing of you know, it had to be murder.
Speaker 1: People will say, well, he couldn't have shot himself and
Speaker 1: had the showcasing end up underneath his own body, and
Speaker 1: will Actually, I do believe it's entirely possible. Yeah, he
Speaker 1: totally could have. All right, So if he did get murdered,
Speaker 1: let's talk about who might have done it. We're gonna
Speaker 1: first of all, I mean, what do we think murder
Speaker 1: or suicide? I'm kind of like a murder myself. I
Speaker 1: like murder too, actually, Steve spa um, So, the first
Speaker 1: theory is that Lenora Lemon killed him, either in a
Speaker 1: drunken rage or like something else, but probably in like
Speaker 1: some sort of drunken something because she was pretty drunk
Speaker 1: and maybe they all all of her buddies downstairs kind
Speaker 1: of covered for well. Yeah, so well let's let's just
Speaker 1: go through this. Yeah, because there's a bunch here, there is,
Speaker 1: so you will remember from getting through the events leading
Speaker 1: up to that. The couple, you know, Leonor and Reeves. Um,
Speaker 1: Lemon and Reeves had had a fight earlier that night,
Speaker 1: maybe at dinner or maybe I guess at the wrestling
Speaker 1: match they may or may not have gone to. I'm
Speaker 1: not sure, but what a great date. Yeah. Well, and
Speaker 1: and Condon was there too, so it's like a whole
Speaker 1: big group apparently. Yeah, apparently the fight might have been
Speaker 1: about the wedding. Reporting does vary, but like we mentioned,
Speaker 1: there was some speculation that Reeves didn't even know they
Speaker 1: were engaged. But there's also some speculation that what happened
Speaker 1: that night is that Reeves just said like, no, I'm
Speaker 1: not marrying you, and yeah, that's a or like move
Speaker 1: out because she had a pretty sweet thing going for her. Actually,
Speaker 1: it's kind of like last week's story, yeah, a little bit.
Speaker 1: Or maybe Lemon was mad because they had fought at midnight.
Speaker 1: Lemon might have also been annoyed because Reeves may or
Speaker 1: may not have been speaking with his ex girlfriend. Again.
Speaker 1: It actually reports totally very either Lemon was crazy or
Speaker 1: he actually made you I was talking to her again.
Speaker 1: Lemon was actually a terror as mentioned, Um, she was
Speaker 1: the first woman ever to be thrown out of New
Speaker 1: York the New York Stork Club for fistfight eating. The
Speaker 1: Stork Club is a pretty prestigious club in New York.
Speaker 1: They're still around, right, they are, Yeah, yeah, I know,
Speaker 1: I think they're Basically it was a status symbol. You know,
Speaker 1: anybody who's anybody has a membership to this enough money, yeah, well,
Speaker 1: anybody who's anybody, right. Lemon was also supposedly a bit
Speaker 1: of a gold digger. She was married to a man.
Speaker 1: She's been married three times. She had been married I
Speaker 1: think two times, the more yeah, the more recent, the
Speaker 1: more recent one she married the guy they were they
Speaker 1: were actually, yeah, she only stuck around for like eight days,
Speaker 1: but she didn't actually divorce divorce him a couple. She
Speaker 1: didn't divorce him until something like ten years later, five
Speaker 1: years later, five years later when he tried to and
Speaker 1: he found out when he tried to marry someone else
Speaker 1: and then was hit with a pullug me suit or
Speaker 1: something like that to do. Yeah, that's my plan all along.
Speaker 1: There are a number of reasons why it's possible that
Speaker 1: Lemon actually did kill Reeves, as well as some evidence
Speaker 1: to maybe suggest that the guests were lying. Bliss, for
Speaker 1: his part, did recant his story years later, kind of maybe.
Speaker 1: His friend Milicent Trent said that he had told her.
Speaker 1: So this is like a third hand account or something
Speaker 1: like that. There's a lot of third hand here. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's true that what actually happened on that night was
Speaker 1: that Reeves had yelled at the people, who at about
Speaker 1: like one twenty a m. Had come down, was angry
Speaker 1: and Lemon got angry, and then they both went up
Speaker 1: to the master bedroom to kind of have it out
Speaker 1: the guests the bruising. The guests heard a gunshot, and
Speaker 1: then Lemon came running back downstairs and said, tell them
Speaker 1: I was down here, Tell him I was down here.
Speaker 1: And then they waited forty six minutes to call the cops.
Speaker 1: What I don't get is why anybody cover for she.
Speaker 1: She wasn't filthy rich, she didn't have powerful friends, Like
Speaker 1: what did she have to to to coerce them? Well, so,
Speaker 1: one thing I guess we could say is that Van
Speaker 1: Ronkle and Condon were having an affair, so she knew
Speaker 1: about that, so she could hold that over them. And
Speaker 1: then lord knows why that why Bliss was there even
Speaker 1: so it supposedly pably was just interested in the h access.
Speaker 1: I mean he could have he was trying to sell
Speaker 1: him what your windows weren't open, this would never have happened. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so it's possible that she had dirt on all of
Speaker 1: them or something like that. It's also possible. I don't
Speaker 1: know if you guys know this or not, but you know,
Speaker 1: people have these things called friends, and friends sometimes do
Speaker 1: kind of like weird moral things to cover for each other.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, if I am drinking with friends and what
Speaker 1: and two of them go upstairs and all one of
Speaker 1: them comes back down after a gunshot, I'm probably not
Speaker 1: going to cover for that's because you're a good person.
Speaker 1: You don't live in Hollywood, Listen, I've been accused worse. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but you know, you typically expecting conspiracies like that that
Speaker 1: people seen or later somebody's going to spill the beans.
Speaker 1: Although on the other other hand, I guess some people
Speaker 1: have sort of spilled the beans. Bliss, for example, sort
Speaker 1: of did, and a few other people did kind of
Speaker 1: as I've also, I've also read and I don't know,
Speaker 1: like why there's so many versions of this, there's so
Speaker 1: many versions of this, but I've read cops say that Lemon.
Speaker 1: I don't. I don't know how they got this information
Speaker 1: that Lemon had nobody told somebody else after the fact
Speaker 1: and then the cops. I think that I read that
Speaker 1: it was somebody maybe Condon and Richard Condon made this up.
Speaker 1: But you saw it in the papers, reports of the time,
Speaker 1: contemporary contemporariously in the Los Angeles tribes that these words
Speaker 1: did appear in there. But she said apparently years later
Speaker 1: that no, she didn't actually say that. Yeah, well, she
Speaker 1: would have good reason to not say that. Although this
Speaker 1: doesn't really fit into the she would have good reason
Speaker 1: to not say these words begin with. So the way
Speaker 1: that she tells the story that Condon tells the story
Speaker 1: is that Reeves had come down, yelled, and then went
Speaker 1: back upstairs, and Lemon said to the group, he's probably
Speaker 1: going upstairs to shoot himself. And then a noise was
Speaker 1: heard upstairs, and she said he's opening a drawer to
Speaker 1: get the gun. And then the shot was hurt and
Speaker 1: she said, see there, I told you so, which is
Speaker 1: not a normal reaction, if not, And it also it
Speaker 1: kind of makes you wonder, like how she knew he
Speaker 1: was going to go shoot himself. I actually was thinking
Speaker 1: about that, and I would be really really interested. I
Speaker 1: wish the cops had talked to other people who had
Speaker 1: come over and drank with them, because I could see
Speaker 1: this being a drunken gag that they pulled on people.
Speaker 1: They're in a bed, you know, Hey, Okay, I'm going
Speaker 1: to call upstairs and I'm gonna shoot myself and then
Speaker 1: just fires the gun into the floor where you all
Speaker 1: go anywhere. And so let's say there was those two
Speaker 1: rounds already in the floor. Maybe they had done this
Speaker 1: two times before, and so she's got really good at
Speaker 1: the timing, except this time he actually does the deed.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I think that's a dumb game. Really,
Speaker 1: I don't understand. But maybe you know what. One of
Speaker 1: the funniest once I saw I was that he didn't
Speaker 1: need to kill himself when he was playing Russian Roulette.
Speaker 1: I chose to omit that. But yeah, playing Russian Roulette
Speaker 1: with an automatic qualifies for the Instant Darwin Awards. I don't.
Speaker 1: I don't believe that. I don't either. As to the
Speaker 1: reason why we mentioned briefly that there may have been
Speaker 1: an ex girlfriend involved, and that ex girlfriend may or
Speaker 1: may not have actually been somebody that Reeves was having
Speaker 1: an affair with at the time. Okay, well the affair
Speaker 1: officially was over in nineteen fifty eight, but will ignore
Speaker 1: that for a minute. Who was said lady? Said lady
Speaker 1: was this woman by the name of Tony Mannix, who
Speaker 1: was wife of MGM VP Eddie Mannix, who MGM stands for.
Speaker 1: Eddie was what's known as a fixer in the day. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he took care of bimbo eruptions, scandals, that kind of thing.
Speaker 1: He's what we would call like a pr manager. Now wait, wait, Joe,
Speaker 1: is that a real term. What's that? Bimbo eruptions? Yeah,
Speaker 1: that was actually a term from the Clinton administration, because
Speaker 1: I remember he was routinely a key You bring up
Speaker 1: some of the weirdest terminology, so I have to make
Speaker 1: sure you're not making it up on the spot. It's
Speaker 1: also rumored that Eddie had ties to the mafia, which
Speaker 1: wouldn't have been so unheard of in those days. But
Speaker 1: just see, I guess you see seeing as Yeah, I
Speaker 1: think I think a lot of those guys actually got
Speaker 1: financing from the Mob. I would postulate that it's a
Speaker 1: little possible that Eddie was annoyed with the fair Let's
Speaker 1: just let me get this here. Hear me out my head, Devin,
Speaker 1: It's fine that Eddie maybe was annoyed and so he
Speaker 1: killed Reeves, but we actually know that's not true. Well,
Speaker 1: we're pretty sure, we're pretty sure he didn't do it. Personally,
Speaker 1: he wasn't great, he wasn't that great at health. Well, actually,
Speaker 1: Eddie knew about the affair and he had his own
Speaker 1: younger mistress. Apparently they actually hung out together. They were
Speaker 1: actually liked. Yeah, creep. Tony and Eddie were both a
Speaker 1: fair amount older than Reeves. I think, like twenty years
Speaker 1: Tony well, now he was a lot. Eddie was a
Speaker 1: lot older than Tony. Tony was like eight years older
Speaker 1: than Reeves. I'm sorry, I'm talking about the gap between
Speaker 1: Reeves and Tony. Yeah, that was that gap. And then yeah, anyway,
Speaker 1: so I think if if a man ex did kill
Speaker 1: or have Reeves killed, it would have been Tony. And
Speaker 1: she actually apparently did confess to the crime, although it's
Speaker 1: a she said. The person who says that she confessed
Speaker 1: it had a dubious relation. As mentioned at best, Tony
Speaker 1: also suffered from Alzheimer's disease and senile dementia. So not
Speaker 1: that everything that she said was wrong, but there's a
Speaker 1: lot of plausible deniability here. She was apparently a pretty
Speaker 1: feisty woman in and of herself, And it is possible
Speaker 1: because Reeves did seem to suspect that Tony was behind
Speaker 1: a lot of weird stuff that was happening to him
Speaker 1: right before. Yeah, so his dog disappeared a couple of
Speaker 1: months before he died. And oh, that car accident that
Speaker 1: I mentioned in passing earlier, it turns out that the
Speaker 1: reason that he crashed his car was because somebody had
Speaker 1: totally drained the break fluid out of his car, and
Speaker 1: he openly said that he suspected that it was Tony
Speaker 1: that had done that, Tony who had had somebody doing well,
Speaker 1: she probably she didn't do it herself, I'm sorry, yeah,
Speaker 1: but that she was behind it. Apparently Tony was actually,
Speaker 1: when I've heard, extremely upset when he broke it off
Speaker 1: with her. Yeah, I think she was. Yeah. She she
Speaker 1: apparently had quite the the ability for colorful language. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and so she was my kind of girl, I mean,
Speaker 1: minus the crazy bit. This is the late fifties. I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, she said darn and heck quite a bit. Yeah, heck,
Speaker 1: COM's heck comed right to darn. Darn, I'm right to
Speaker 1: heck yeah right, yeah, darn. Some sucks. The other kind
Speaker 1: of thing that people talk about here, and this is
Speaker 1: the last thing we're going to cover real quick, is
Speaker 1: that TV's Lowis Lane was actually a mutual friend of
Speaker 1: Reeves and Tony. You know her name, Her name is
Speaker 1: Phyllis Coates. She said that Tony actually called her hysterically
Speaker 1: at like three o'clock in the morning on June six,
Speaker 1: so way earlyier than anybody would have really known that
Speaker 1: Reeves was dead. But Tony apparently called Phillips hysterical and
Speaker 1: said that Reeves had been murdered and was very upset
Speaker 1: about it. So if it was a murder and Tony
Speaker 1: did it, that would, like, I don't know if I
Speaker 1: would explain that, but it's a real way that she
Speaker 1: could have gotten that information before it hit the world, right.
Speaker 1: But I think the catch there is her just immediately
Speaker 1: saying he was murdered because they the police, everybody at
Speaker 1: the scene just automatically said it was suicide. But a
Speaker 1: lot of other people just never bought the whole suicide
Speaker 1: thing from the get go. Yeah, that's true. And actually,
Speaker 1: you know by the way too, and it's like somebody
Speaker 1: in the house or you know, could have called somebody
Speaker 1: actually could have called Tony directly and say, oh my god,
Speaker 1: George has been shot. He's dead. That's exact she would
Speaker 1: immediately think murdered rather than the suicide. Has Apparently a
Speaker 1: lot of his friends said there's no way he committed suicide. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so that, I mean, that's the end of our furious section.
Speaker 1: I don't know, I find it. I find it hard
Speaker 1: to believe that he committed suicide, just because it seems
Speaker 1: a bit out of character for everything was going on.
Speaker 1: It seems a little late in the game to suddenly
Speaker 1: decide to end it all. But then there's weird stuff
Speaker 1: like if he was murdered and it was leonor there's
Speaker 1: the whole thing. She came back to the house with
Speaker 1: two three days after it, and rifled through the place
Speaker 1: and stole several thousand dollars in cash years checks, and
Speaker 1: then beat feet to New York, never to come back.
Speaker 1: She didn't even actually go to raise George fer No,
Speaker 1: she didn't. And she actually she turned into kind of
Speaker 1: a tragedy case of herself because she turned into a
Speaker 1: complete total alcoholic, turned into you. That's good point. She
Speaker 1: became a full blown alcoholic and died in her room
Speaker 1: unbeknownst to anybody, and her body wasn't found for three
Speaker 1: days or something like something like that. So it's just like,
Speaker 1: oh wow, that's I mean, she just she fall so
Speaker 1: far down the well. It's tough. I mean, I don't
Speaker 1: it's it's just hard. I don't really like any of
Speaker 1: the theories. I don't believe any of the theories really,
Speaker 1: but I don't also necessarily think he killed himself. He may,
Speaker 1: I'm willing to go the totally accidentally was like leaning
Speaker 1: on his gun and was like, Ohaps killed himself. But
Speaker 1: that's about as close as I'll go to the suicide theory.
Speaker 1: But I don't know. It's just I think there's just
Speaker 1: a lot of weird wrapped up in this case. I'm unsatisfied.
Speaker 1: I understand where people still wondering. Of course, you know,
Speaker 1: I mean it could have been an accident to I mean,
Speaker 1: maybe they were arguing she had the gun and she
Speaker 1: had no didn't attend to kill him. But you know, lukers,
Speaker 1: from what I hear, have touched the triggers um I
Speaker 1: don't know one of myself, but it might be that
Speaker 1: she was just brandishing the gun all of a sudden
Speaker 1: it goes off in cobang, It's like, whoopsie. That's well,
Speaker 1: that would be that theory of you know. Then she
Speaker 1: came running downstairs and was like, yeah, when I was
Speaker 1: down here, yeah, without a little accident, yeah yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: and so and and that really wouldn't be that suspicious
Speaker 1: of a thing now, because if you accidentally killed somebody,
Speaker 1: you're still kind of liable for for that your behavior,
Speaker 1: even though they're not going to pin murder on you.
Speaker 1: Yeah they you know, but they'll still get you for manslaughter.
Speaker 1: Pre Probably that's true. Steve Joe, what do you guys think?
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't know. I'm still I'm torn. Yeah,
Speaker 1: me too. Yeah. The no, I mean, the no gunshot
Speaker 1: residue on the scalp is that's pretty telling. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's hard to imagine anybody shooting themselves in the head
Speaker 1: and not leaving, not not getting it close enough to
Speaker 1: get some gunpowder residue. I still I still question if
Speaker 1: they actually tested for it. Well, yeah, that's the whole
Speaker 1: question is I don't know if they did. I had
Speaker 1: heard one place that they didn't actually test for it,
Speaker 1: which is amazing when I didn't think though that they
Speaker 1: would at least have noticed powder birds, I mean gunpowder
Speaker 1: residue you're gonna get from a distance, you know, and
Speaker 1: any pretty much any distance, and you're like five ft,
Speaker 1: you know you're gonna get that. But anybody that shoots
Speaker 1: himself in the head, you're gonna probably touched the gun
Speaker 1: to your head. Yeah, you're probably, because otherwise you're not
Speaker 1: really sure. Unless you're standing in from a mirror, you're
Speaker 1: not really sure what direction that guns pointing. You don't
Speaker 1: really know if you're going to kill yourself and blow
Speaker 1: your brains out or if you're just gonna blow your
Speaker 1: face off and not kill yourself. To be really depressing head.
Speaker 1: And it does happen. And that's the hard part is
Speaker 1: that there's not that I want to see gory images,
Speaker 1: but there are no photos of his body pre and
Speaker 1: you know from the like the autopsy or anything on
Speaker 1: the crime scene, the police didn't take photos that I know.
Speaker 1: The best thing I saw was, you know, I think
Speaker 1: it was a corner Corners Corners sketch, which is not
Speaker 1: worth a whole hell of a lot. Yeah. The only
Speaker 1: the only point of that's just to show where the
Speaker 1: bullet one and the want of the skull. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: So I don't know, I don't have a good answer, sorry, guys.
Speaker 1: Oh well yeah, that's a tough one. Um, you got
Speaker 1: to flip a coin here, I'm going to murder. Okay. Cool.
Speaker 1: So if you want to see that um layout of
Speaker 1: Reeves's house or see some other links to some of
Speaker 1: the research that we did, you can find that as
Speaker 1: well as merch and a list of all the other
Speaker 1: episodes we've done, as well as download episodes on our website.
Speaker 1: That website is Thinking Sideways podcast dot com. You can
Speaker 1: find us on social media to interact with us. We've
Speaker 1: got Twitter, we've got a subreddit, we've got a Facebook page,
Speaker 1: and we've got a Facebook group. Yeah. Every well, all
Speaker 1: of it's awesome. So you can find us on all
Speaker 1: of those forms of media. And if you have feedback
Speaker 1: you'd like to suggest something like Clarissa did or just
Speaker 1: want to talk to us, you can detact. You can
Speaker 1: do that on the email and that your address email Chicken,
Speaker 1: the email strong Bad, the email a dress is Thinking
Speaker 1: Sideways Podcast at gmail dot com. All of that having
Speaker 1: been said, I think we're going to look it's a bird,
Speaker 1: fly on out of here and away. Dang, and I
Speaker 1: thought you guys were going to just deal with the
Speaker 1: same thing. It's a plan. It's Superman, that was super
Speaker 1: See you next week.