# 2 Hollywood True Crime Mysteries You've Actually Never Heard Of

An episode of [Lazy Chill True Crime](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1815534472), 10 Jan 2026, 19 min.

Audio: https://traffic.megaphone.fm/APO3801385527.mp3

Today I'm discussing two lesser known Hollywood true crime mysteries. Don't forget to follow and turn on all notifications. Also don't forget to drop a rating as well. Love you all. Join me for ep 159 of the true crime pod. 👇 Youtube links: Lazy Chill True Crime Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8dVJtzeHcJgd_Z0bHrJTHQ Lazy Chill History Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@LazyChillHistory Lazy Chill Zone Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@LazyChillZone 👇 Support My Work: 🛍️ Merch: https://lazy-chill-zone-shop.fourthwall.com ❤️ Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/lazychillzone 👇Social Media Links: https://www.instagram.com/lazychillzone/ 👇 Podcast links: ⚡History Video Podcast on Spotify⚡: https://open.spotify.com/show/7km5pLWpYWEj1mrPpEfRUr?si=0FHYnZf-Qs2FY1GyLevfig ⚡True Crime Podcast on Spotify⚡: https://open.spotify.com/show/0klIz08pAr7wR4we0Ia4sk?si=68qZxCeAQkysXzMZrHE0Iw 🍏 True Crime Podcast on Apple 🍎: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/lazy-chill-true-crime/id1815534472 true crime, cold cases, unsolved mysteries, missing persons, murder investigation, forensic evidence, serial killers, crime scene analysis, dark history, criminal psychology, real life horror, police investigations, DNA breakthroughs, forensic genealogy, crime documentaries, criminal profiling, mysterious disappearances, solved cases, justice system, law enforcement stories, cold case files, creepy mysteries, true crime storytelling, crime reconstruction, chilling cases, investigative reporting, modern forensics, victim advocacy, unidentified remains, crime scene forensics, disturbing cases, true crime analysis, hidden clues, infamous crimes, real crime stories, los angeles true crime, hollywood true crime

## Transcript

[0:00] Hey everyone, before we begin, remember to hit the notification
[0:03] bell and turn on all the notifications.
[0:06] Also, given the topic of today's video, make sure to drop your
[0:09] favorite movie in the comments. Thanksgiving 1963 was a somber
[0:16] holiday in America. One week earlier, President John
[0:19] F Kennedy had been brutally cut down in Dallas, plunging the
[0:23] nation into mourning. But in the early hours of that
[0:26] Thanksgiving, another tragedy was unfolding in Hollywood.
[0:31] Karen Kupkennet, a 22 year old aspiring actress and daughter of
[0:36] a famous Chicago columnist, was living out the final moments of
[0:40] her life. Days later, she would be found
[0:43] dead in her West Hollywood apartment.
[0:46] The shocking death of this young starlet not only devastated her
[0:50] family but soon became entangled in the web of JFK conspiracy
[0:54] theories. Karen Kupkinet grew up in the
[0:59] glow of show business. Born in 1941 to Irv and Essie
[1:03] Kupkinet, she was nicknamed Cookie and groomed for a life in
[1:07] the spotlight. Her father was a well known
[1:10] Chicago newspaper columnist and TV personality, so Karen had
[1:15] connections that open doors and entertainment.
[1:18] By her late teens, she had trained at the Actors Studio in
[1:22] New York and moved to Hollywood to chase her acting dreams.
[1:26] With her good looks and smoldering charisma, Karen
[1:30] showed promise. She earned rave reviews for a
[1:33] stage role in The Miracle Worker and was touted as an actress to
[1:37] watch in 1962. She landed small parts on
[1:42] popular TV shows like Perry Mason and The Donna Reed Show,
[1:45] and even a regular role on a forgettable sitcom called Missus
[1:49] G Goes to College. By all accounts, she seemed
[1:53] poised for stardom or at least some level of acclaim.
[1:59] Behind the scenes, however, Karen's life was more turbulent.
[2:04] She struggled with personal insecurities, including a long
[2:07] battle with weight and reliance on diet pills.
[2:10] Encouraged by her image conscious mother in Hollywood,
[2:15] Karen became involved with actor Andrew Prine, whom she met while
[2:19] guest starring on his TV series in late 1962.
[2:24] The romance was intense but rocky.
[2:26] Karen yearned for commitment, while Prine, recently divorced,
[2:30] wanted to keep things casual. This mismatch led to repeated
[2:34] heartbreak for Karen. In mid 1963, she became pregnant
[2:41] and with help from friends, terminated the pregnancy, a
[2:45] traumatic event that only heightened the strain between
[2:47] her and Prine. Desperate to hold on to the
[2:50] relationship, Karen began exhibiting erratic behavior.
[2:55] She anonymously sent threatening cut and paste letters to Prime
[2:59] and even to herself, bizarre messages made of magazine
[3:03] letters in an attempt to scare her ex into paying attention.
[3:08] After her death, investigators discovered Karen's fingerprints
[3:12] on those notes, confirming she had crafted them herself.
[3:16] She also resorted to spying on Prine and his new girlfriend.
[3:20] At one point, she noted in her diary that she was watching him
[3:23] from behind a hedge in anguish. The emotional toll was immense,
[3:28] and Karen's friends observed her increasing use of substances to
[3:32] cope. A shoplifting arrest in 1962
[3:36] hinted at her distress, and by November 1963, she seemed to be
[3:40] teetering on the edge. On November 27th, 1963, the day
[3:47] before Thanksgiving, Karen's friends tried to keep her
[3:51] company, unaware it would be her last night alive.
[3:55] That evening, she joined actor Mark Goddard and his wife Marsha
[3:58] for dinner in Beverly Hills. Karen arrived nearly an hour
[4:02] late, appearing disoriented and acting strangely, her speech
[4:08] slurred, her head lolling as if she were on some kind of
[4:11] medication. After the uneasy dinner, Karen
[4:15] returned to her West Hollywood apartment.
[4:18] Around 9:30 PM, two more friends, writer Edward Rubin and
[4:23] actor Robert Hathaway, stopped by her place to watch
[4:26] television. Together, they noted nothing
[4:29] obviously amiss beyond Karen seeming extremely tired and worn
[4:32] out. By 11:15 PM, Karen said she was
[4:36] going to bed, so Reuben and Hathaway let themselves out,
[4:41] even locking the door behind them as they left her apartment
[4:43] that night. Nobody heard from Karen over the
[4:46] next two days. Given her emotional state, some
[4:50] friends initially assumed she might just be laying low.
[4:54] By Saturday, November 30th, concern grew and whispers began
[4:59] that she may have done something to herself.
[5:02] The Goddards, uneasy that Karen hadn't been in touch since their
[5:06] dinner, went to check on her at her small bungalow apartment
[5:10] near the Sunset Strip. What they found was every
[5:14] friend's nightmare. The door was unlocked and a foul
[5:18] odor hung in the air. Inside, the apartment looked
[5:23] ransacked. A lamp was knocked over, A bowl
[5:26] of cigarettes and a coffee pot lay spilled on the floor, and
[5:29] cushions were Askew. The television was still on, but
[5:34] muted. On the couch lay Karen's body,
[5:38] motionless. She had likely been dead for
[5:41] about two days, meaning she died sometime on Thanksgiving Day
[5:45] 1963. Detectives from the Los Angeles
[5:50] County Sheriff's Department arrived and noted a few flecks
[5:53] of blood on Karen's face and a pillow, hinting at a struggle.
[5:58] The puzzling scene left even her close friends in shock.
[6:02] Given Karen's history of depression and pill use, some
[6:05] wondered if this was an overdose or perhaps a tragic accident.
[6:10] However, the coroner's findings told a far more chilling story.
[6:15] During the autopsy, the medical examiner discovered Karen's
[6:19] hyoid bone, a small bone in the throat, was broken.
[6:24] This injury is a classic tell tale sign of strangulation.
[6:28] With that evidence, Karen Kupkennett's death was
[6:31] officially ruled A slaying by strangling.
[6:35] The hunt for Karen's killer began under the glare of media
[6:39] attention. Here was a beautiful young
[6:41] actress slain in Hollywood at the very moment the country was
[6:45] distracted by President Kennedy's assassination.
[6:49] Detectives initially pursued any lead they could find.
[6:53] There was no sign of forced entry at her apartment, raising
[6:56] the likelihood that Karen knew her attacker and had willingly
[7:00] let them in. The two friends who last saw her
[7:03] alive, Reuben and Hathaway, were questioned, and their timeline
[7:08] helped establish that Karen was alive late on the 27th.
[7:12] The focus then shifted to her tumultuous personal life for
[7:16] suspects. From the outset, police eyed
[7:21] Karen's ex-boyfriend, Andrew Prine, as a prime suspect.
[7:26] Prine had a clear motive. In the eyes of investigators,
[7:29] their relationship had ended badly.
[7:32] Karen had been reportedly harassing him and his new
[7:34] partner. Prine was in the Los Angeles
[7:37] area at the time, and Karen had been obsessed with him in the
[7:41] weeks leading up to her death. Not only that, but before her
[7:46] death, both Karen and Prine had reported receiving anonymous
[7:49] death threat letters. As mentioned earlier, the police
[7:54] later discovered they were fabricated by Karen herself.
[7:58] The revelation that she wrote those letters complicated the
[8:01] picture. It showed Karen's extreme
[8:04] desperation, but it also initially cast suspicion on
[8:08] Prine until the hoax was uncovered.
[8:11] Ultimately, though, Andrew Prine was never charged and
[8:15] investigators couldn't find solid evidence tying him to the
[8:19] crime. He maintained his innocence.
[8:22] And in fact, Karen's parents eventually came to believe Prine
[8:25] was not responsible. Years later, the Kupkennet's
[8:29] revealed that they harbored suspicions about another
[8:32] individual, though they never went public with this name.
[8:37] This indicates the family heard or deduced something pointing to
[8:40] a different culprit, but law enforcement never confirmed any
[8:43] alternate suspect publicly. As the investigation pressed on
[8:49] in 1963 and 1964, no arrest was made.
[8:54] Police looked into other possibilities, perhaps an
[8:57] enraged acquaintance, a jealous rival, or even a random
[9:01] intruder. The crime scene's disarray
[9:04] suggested a violent struggle, but some elements seemed
[9:08] strange. For instance, Karen's body was
[9:11] nude, which could imply a certain angle, yet there was
[9:15] little evidence reported of an indecent assault.
[9:18] Robbery didn't appear to be the motive either, as numerous
[9:22] valuable items in the apartment weren't taken.
[9:26] It was as if someone wanted to attack Karen personally.
[9:30] Her demise was the only goal. With scant physical evidence and
[9:34] many of Karen's closest friends cleared, the case grew cold.
[9:40] One reason the Karen Kupkinet case continues to fascinate is
[9:43] its curious timing. Karen died just six days after
[9:47] President Kennedy's assassination, leading some to
[9:50] wonder if there could be a connection.
[9:53] In the fevered atmosphere following JF KS slaying, a
[9:57] number of conspiracy theories sprouted, and Karen's name
[10:01] strangely found its way into that narrative.
[10:04] The most famous allegation comes from Penn Jones, a Texas
[10:08] newspaper editor and early JFK theorist.
[10:12] In his self published 1966 book Forgive My Grief, Jones claimed
[10:19] that Karen Kupkinet was the mysterious woman who tried to
[10:22] warn of Kennedy's assassination in advance.
[10:27] This claim centers on a real incident that occurred about 20
[10:31] minutes before Kennedy was shot in Dallas.
[10:34] A telephone operator in Oxnard, CA reported that an unknown
[10:38] woman dialed her by mistake and whispered the president is going
[10:43] to be shot. According to the operator, the
[10:46] woman sounded disturbed or in a trance before the line went
[10:50] dead. This eerie phone call was noted
[10:53] by authorities but never fully explained.
[10:57] Jones leapt on it and without evidence, identified the woman
[11:00] on the phone as Karen Kupkenet. In his telling, Karen somehow
[11:05] knew of the assassination beforehand, perhaps through her
[11:08] Hollywood connections or via her father's network, and tried to
[11:12] alert authorities. Proponents of this idea argue
[11:16] that she was silenced by conspirators days later.
[11:21] It's a gripping story, but there is no concrete evidence to
[11:24] support it. Karen's friends and family have
[11:27] vehemently denied that she had any such foreknowledge or
[11:30] involvement. In fact, on November 22nd, 1963,
[11:35] Karen was reportedly not even in the Los Angeles area where the
[11:38] call originated. Additionally, Karen had no known
[11:42] connection to government or political insiders.
[11:46] The idea that she would be Privy to one of the biggest secrets in
[11:49] world history is highly implausible, to say the least.
[11:54] Nonetheless, once her name was associated with that ominous
[11:58] phone call, it entered the lore of JFK conspiracy literature.
[12:05] Well over 60 years later, the story of Karen remains A somber
[12:09] footnote in Hollywood history and, oddly, in Kennedy lore.
[12:17] A bright young Hollywood career came to an abrupt and unsettling
[12:20] halt when Joe Pitchler, a former child actor known for roles in
[12:24] the Beethoven films, vanished without a trace.
[12:28] Pitchler was only 18 years old when he disappeared in early
[12:32] 2006, leaving behind a close knit family, a promising future,
[12:38] and a cryptic note. Joseph David Wolfgang Pitchler
[12:43] was born on February 14th, 1987 in Bremerton, WA and began
[12:48] acting as a toddler. He was an outgoing child with a
[12:52] big personality, traits that helped him shine in auditions.
[12:56] He landed his first commercial by age 6 and soon scored small
[13:00] TV roles in shows like Lois and Clark.
[13:04] His breakthrough came at age 12, when he appeared in the 1999
[13:08] football drama Varsity Blues, playing the younger brother of
[13:12] the main character. The following year, he won the
[13:15] role of Brennan Newton in the family comedy Beethoven's Third,
[13:19] a character he reprised in Beethoven's 4th the year after.
[13:25] After several years of growing up in Hollywood, Pitchler's
[13:28] family became concerned about giving him a more normal life.
[13:32] In 2003, they brought Joe back home to Bremerton to finish high
[13:36] school and get out of the showbiz bubble.
[13:39] He wasn't thrilled about leaving Los Angeles.
[13:42] Acting was his passion, but he adjusted to ordinary teen life
[13:46] in Washington and stayed grounded.
[13:50] Joe attended Bremerton High School, graduating in 2005.
[13:55] He moved into his own apartment when he turned 18 and worked a
[13:58] regular job for a while, all while remaining close with his
[14:02] family and friends in town. During that time, he enjoyed
[14:07] normal hobbies like playing with Magic the Gathering and Pokémon
[14:10] cards and chilling out with his pet Guinea pig.
[14:14] Importantly, Joe saw his return to Bremerton as temporary.
[14:19] He planned to head back to Los Angeles to reboot his acting
[14:22] career once his braces were removed in 2006.
[14:26] He had saved the earnings from his child acting days and was
[14:29] poised to make his Hollywood comeback within a few months.
[14:35] By early 2006, Joe appeared ready to turn his plans into
[14:39] reality. On the night of January 4th,
[14:43] 2006, Pitchler invited some friends over to his apartment.
[14:48] They hung out, played cards and had some drinks.
[14:51] And by all accounts, Joe was in good spirits.
[14:54] None of his friends sensed anything amiss at the time.
[14:58] In the very early hours of January 5th, after the friends
[15:02] had left, Joe made a phone call to one of them.
[15:06] This was the last call ever made on his cell phone.
[15:10] During that brief 4:15 AM call, he sounded extremely upset or
[15:15] even tearful, though he didn't explain why.
[15:19] He told his friend he'd call back soon, but he never did.
[15:23] And that was the last time anyone heard from Joe.
[15:28] Four days later, on January 9th, Joe's silver 2005 Toyota Corolla
[15:34] was found abandoned near an intersection in East Bremerton,
[15:37] just half a mile from the Port Madison Narrows waterfront.
[15:41] Inside the car, police discovered a handwritten note
[15:44] that Joe had left. In it, he expressed self doubt
[15:49] and regret, writing that he wished to be a better brother to
[15:52] his younger sibling and that he wanted his brother to have his
[15:55] belongings. The note did not explicitly say
[15:59] Joe planned to harm himself or run away, but its tone was
[16:03] troubled. Investigators interpreted it as
[16:06] a possible exit plan note and found that Joe left no other
[16:10] explanation for his sudden disappearance.
[16:13] When Joe's family examined his apartment, they found more
[16:17] worrying clues. All of his personal items,
[16:20] clothes, wallet, and even his asthma inhaler had been left
[16:25] behind, and the apartment door was unlocked with the lights
[16:29] still on. To his loved ones, this was
[16:32] completely out of character and suggested that Joe had only
[16:36] intended to step out briefly. From the outset, Bremerton
[16:42] police leaned toward the theory that Joe Pitchler did this
[16:45] voluntarily. His car's location near a bridge
[16:49] LED officers to suspect he might have jumped into the water that
[16:52] night. However, search dogs brought to
[16:55] the bridge didn't pick up Joe's scent there, adding to the
[16:59] uncertainty of what happened. One detective even told Joe's
[17:03] mother that he feared her son was dead in the Bay and might
[17:06] not be found for months. Divers were sent to search the
[17:10] water below, but no remains or evidence were recovered.
[17:16] Investigators reported finding no evidence of foul play at the
[17:19] scene, and Joe's sorrowful note in recent emotional state seemed
[17:23] to point toward the obvious explanation.
[17:26] Joe's family vehemently disagreed.
[17:29] They didn't believe Joe was in that state of mind and felt the
[17:32] authorities were too quick to label the case self-inflicted.
[17:36] According to his family and friends, Joe had been looking
[17:39] forward to the future, planning his return to acting, and had
[17:44] shown no signs of severe depression.
[17:47] They viewed his note as the reflective writings of an
[17:50] artistic teenager, not a definitive goodbye.
[17:54] In their eyes, something else must have happened to Joe that
[17:57] night, and the family insists that the note was simply saying
[18:01] that he wants to start a new endeavor.
[18:05] His mother urged the authorities to continue investigating,
[18:08] believing that Joe may have been abducted or met with some other
[18:11] form of foul play. Despite extensive searches, no
[18:17] trace of Joe was ever found. There were no sightings, no
[18:21] physical evidence beyond the car and note, and no definitive
[18:24] answers. As the years went by, Joe
[18:27] Pitchler's case went cold. Authorities maintain that the
[18:31] case remains open, and Bremerton police say they will still
[18:35] investigate any new leads that emerge.
[18:38] To this day, he remains listed as a missing person and his
[18:42] disappearance remains unsolved. That said, detectives have made
[18:46] it very clear where they stand on this case, and personally, I
[18:52] have to agree with detectives here.
[18:54] I think his family just can't accept reality.
[18:57] Unfortunately, it doesn't look like Joe had a very realistic
[19:00] outlook on how his return to Hollywood was going to go.
[19:04] He'd been out of the acting game for years, and he was by no
[19:07] means a household name. I suspect he may have become
[19:11] depressed at the thought of never reaching those acting
[19:14] heights he had achieved ever again.

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