# 1.5 Hours of California Cold Cases With Dark Twists | True Crime Compilation | 269

An episode of [Lazy Chill True Crime](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1815534472), 5 Jul 2026, 1 h 30 min.

Audio: https://traffic.megaphone.fm/APO4097865121.mp3

Join me for 1.5 hours of disturbing California true crime cases that are too disturbing television or Netflix. Episode 269 of the true crime podcast btw. 👇 Youtube links: Lazy Chill History Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@LazyChillHistory Lazy Chill Zone Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@LazyChillZone 👇 Support My Work: ❤️ 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 unsolved mysteries, 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, cases too dark for MrBallen, chilling cases, investigative reporting, modern forensics, victim advocacy, unidentified remains, crime scene forensics, cold cases, true crime, true crime solved, 5 true crime cases, California crime, Los Angeles true crime, true crime compilation

## Transcript

[0:00] Christine Lindsay Walters was 23 years old in the fall of 2008,
[0:05] and by all accounts, she embraced life with open arms.
[0:10] Born on August 8th, 1985 and raised in Deerfield, WI, she'd
[0:16] grown into a warm, curious, and independent young woman.
[0:21] She was a junior at the University of Wisconsin at
[0:23] Stevens Point, studying botany and ethnobotany.
[0:28] Outside coursework, she worked on an organic farm near campus,
[0:33] taught yoga and Pilates classes, and radiated the kind of energy
[0:37] that drew people to her. In July 2008, Christine traveled
[0:42] to Portland, OR to visit friends during summer break.
[0:47] She'd planned to stay three weeks in return for the fall
[0:49] semester, but the West Coast captivated her.
[0:54] She fell in love with the closeness to nature, the
[0:57] freedom, and the alternative communities that seem to share
[1:01] her values. She extended her stay,
[1:05] eventually connecting with self-described spiritual
[1:08] environmentalists, and before long she'd made her way South to
[1:12] Humboldt County in California. This was a decision that would
[1:16] change everything as she became fully entangled in this region
[1:20] that has a rather sinister reputation.
[1:24] Humboldt County sits along the Northern California coast,
[1:28] roughly 300 miles north of San Francisco.
[1:32] It's a region of towering Redwood forests, rugged
[1:35] coastline, and small towns like Eureka and Arcada that have long
[1:40] attracted artists, students and people seeking A simpler life.
[1:46] But Humboldt also forms part of the Emerald Triangle, a three
[1:49] county area encompassing Humboldt, Trinity and Mendocino.
[1:54] This has historically been by far the largest weed producing
[1:58] region in the country. And beneath the natural beauty
[2:01] and counterculture charm, there's a darker reality.
[2:06] The region has an unusually high rate of missing persons, and law
[2:10] enforcement resources are stretched thin across vast,
[2:14] densely forested terrain that can swallow people whole.
[2:19] Some locals and online sleuths have taken to calling the area
[2:23] the Black Hole for exactly that reason.
[2:27] Christine arrived in late September 2008, gravitating
[2:31] toward Arcata and becoming interested in spirituality,
[2:34] environmental activism, and off the grid living.
[2:38] Her mother, Anita Walters, would later tell the Eureka Times
[2:42] Standard that she believed Christine was too trusting of
[2:45] the people she met in California.
[2:48] Christine had been keeping regular phone contact with her
[2:51] family during her travels, but after settling in Humboldt, her
[2:56] calls became less frequent. When she did call, she asked her
[3:00] parents for money on several different occasions, with her
[3:03] father obliging these requests. Around November 7th, 2008,
[3:10] Christine participated in what's commonly called a tea ceremony
[3:14] in the Arcata area. A private investigator later
[3:18] hired by her family uncovered that the ceremony involved
[3:22] ayahuasca, a powerful hallucinogenic brew made from
[3:26] South American plants. Ayahuasca's effects can include
[3:30] vomiting, diarrhea, and intense hallucinations lasting up to 10
[3:34] hours. It's also known to trigger
[3:37] severe psychological reactions in predisposed individuals,
[3:41] including mania and depression. Around 20 people reportedly
[3:45] gathered for the ceremony, led by someone claiming to be a
[3:49] shaman. What happened to Christine
[3:52] during or after that ceremony remains a central mystery.
[3:56] She apparently stayed with other participants for several days
[3:59] before leaving on her own the evening of November 11th.
[4:05] The next morning, a couple on Tompkins Hill Rd., roughly 20
[4:09] miles away, found her on their doorstep.
[4:12] She was barely clothed, cold, hungry and thirsty, her body
[4:17] covered in briar scratches and lacerations.
[4:21] Her feet were nearly raw, as though she'd been running
[4:24] barefoot through the woods for hours.
[4:27] She was confused and visibly terrified.
[4:30] The homeowners called police, and Humboldt County deputies
[4:34] transported Christine to a local hospital.
[4:37] She appeared deeply frightened and said someone was after her,
[4:41] but wouldn't provide specifics about what had happened.
[4:44] She was evasive about her injuries, claiming at one point
[4:48] that she'd simply walked a long way and spoke of demons who
[4:52] could hear what she was saying. And we're trying to get her drug
[4:56] test came back negative. And because she was a legal
[5:00] adult who didn't wish to be detained, authorities released
[5:03] her. Notably, the hospital has taken
[5:07] serious criticism for not placing her on a psychiatric
[5:11] hold in response to her behavior, though she apparently
[5:15] wasn't deemed a hazard to herself or others.
[5:18] From there, she was taken to the Red Lion Hotel, located in
[5:21] Eureka, where she would spend her final known days.
[5:27] From the hotel, Christine called her mother multiple times.
[5:31] She was paranoid and afraid, insisting that people would find
[5:35] her wherever she went. She told her mother she'd been
[5:38] to hell and back and had seen demons while running through the
[5:41] woods. In the days after the ceremony,
[5:45] Anita Walters wanted to fly to California and bring her
[5:48] daughter home personally, but Christine insisted she was a
[5:51] grown up and could manage on her own.
[5:54] The plan was for her to obtain replacement identification so
[5:58] she could fly home, as she had lost all her documents in the
[6:02] aftermath of the ceremony on November 14th.
[6:06] Around 1:00 in the afternoon, Christine dropped her hotel keys
[6:10] at the front desk and walked out wearing pajamas and slippers.
[6:16] She went to a print shop in Eureka where her mother had
[6:19] faxed copies of identification documents that she would need to
[6:22] be replaced. The owner later told
[6:25] investigators Christine appeared nervous and paranoid, looking
[6:29] over her shoulder and trying to hide her papers.
[6:32] She asked directions to the DMV about a mile away, then walked
[6:36] out. Christine Walters has never been
[6:39] seen or heard from again. She was reported missing on
[6:43] November 17th, 2008. After her disappearance,
[6:49] Christine's belongings, including money and a large
[6:52] backpack borrowed from a college friend, were found at a
[6:55] spiritual center in Arcata. The center's owner knew
[6:59] Christine and said it wasn't unusual for her to leave things
[7:02] there while walking in the nearby Arcata Community Forest.
[7:06] However, this potential break in the case went nowhere, and it
[7:10] was never confirmed exactly when she left the backpack at the
[7:13] center. According to some versions of
[7:16] the timeline, this may indicate that she was last seen by
[7:19] someone in one of the communities she drifted in and
[7:22] out of. One of the most widely discussed
[7:26] explanations is that Christine may have experienced a severe
[7:30] psychological episode shortly before her disappearance.
[7:34] She had participated in that tea ceremony days before she was
[7:37] found injured and visibly frightened on a rural doorstep
[7:40] outside Arcada. Ayahuasca contains a powerful
[7:44] hallucinogen, and even though a drug test came back negative at
[7:48] the hospital, her behavior has led many to believe it triggered
[7:52] an acute psychotic break. Proponents of this theory
[7:56] suggest that Christine may have wandered away from civilization,
[8:00] possibly into the dense forests of the region, and succumbed to
[8:04] the elements. Given the rugged, heavily wooded
[8:08] terrain of Humboldt County, a disoriented person could easily
[8:12] become lost or suffer fatal injuries with little chance of
[8:16] being found. Another theory is that Christine
[8:21] may have chose to leave society and adopt A more reclusive off
[8:25] grid lifestyle. Before her disappearance, she
[8:29] had shown a growing interest in alternative living, spirituality
[8:34] and environmental causes. However, this theory has
[8:37] weakened over time, given that there has been absolutely no
[8:41] communication between Christine and her family in almost 20
[8:45] years. The final theory is that she may
[8:48] have been abducted or otherwise fallen victim to foul play.
[8:53] Notably, individuals undergoing mental health crises are at
[8:57] extremely high risk of meeting with violence under the best
[9:00] circumstances. However, Christine was far away
[9:05] from home, isolated from friends and family, and in a region of
[9:09] the country known for criminality.
[9:13] Because Humboldt County is part of the Emerald Triangle, some
[9:17] theorists argue that Christine could have fallen victim to
[9:19] violence or exploitation after she left the copy center.
[9:25] The area's reputation for high rates of missing persons has
[9:28] fueled speculation that locals are too afraid of the criminal
[9:32] elements in their midsts to cooperate with the cops.
[9:36] Some theorists have also noted that the area may be a hotspot
[9:39] for serial predators looking to take advantage of the trusting
[9:43] nature of the free spirited types who flock there.
[9:48] In the end, Christine's case has gone cold and ultimately there's
[9:52] no solid evidence in any direction to indicate what
[9:55] actually happened to her. It sounds like a Hollywood
[10:01] thriller. A successful screenwriter drives
[10:04] off into the night and vanishes without a trace.
[10:08] In 1997, Gary Devore lived that story.
[10:13] He was an established screenwriter known for
[10:15] action-packed films like Running Scared and Raw Deal, and he had
[10:19] worked with some of the biggest names in the industry.
[10:22] But Devore is remembered today less for his hit movies and more
[10:27] for the eerie mystery surrounding his death.
[10:31] When his remains were finally discovered a year after he
[10:34] disappeared, the scene was stranger than fiction.
[10:38] His truck was found submerged in a California aqueduct, his hands
[10:42] were missing, and the new screenplay he just finished
[10:46] writing had vanished. Gary Devore was a Hollywood
[10:51] insider, even if his name wasn't famous to the public.
[10:56] Born in Los Angeles in 1941, he got his start writing for TV
[11:01] shows in the 1960s and later made a name scripting action
[11:05] films through the 1980s. When he wasn't working on his
[11:09] own projects, he was a sought after script Doctor Who polished
[11:12] many Hollywood screenplays behind the scenes.
[11:16] BY199755 year old Devore was a well paid veteran of the movie
[11:21] business. He had recently remarried and
[11:25] was living with his wife Wendy in a beachfront California home.
[11:30] Despite his success, he was pushing himself on an ambitious
[11:33] new project, a script titled The Big Steel.
[11:38] Unlike the light hearted thrillers he was known for, this
[11:42] story was set around the 1989 invasion of Panama and,
[11:46] according to Devore, would reveal explosive government
[11:49] secrets. Devore had reportedly done
[11:53] extensive research for the screenplay, hinting that he'd
[11:56] uncovered the real reasons behind the Panama operation.
[12:00] Finishing this script became his obsession in early 1997, and it
[12:05] seemed like nothing could stop him.
[12:09] On June 27th, 1997, Devore was in Santa Fe, NM, wrapping up
[12:15] work on the Big Steel. Late that night, he began the
[12:18] long drive back to his home near Santa Barbara, CA, opting to
[12:22] travel overnight through the Mojave Desert to avoid traffic.
[12:27] Around 1:15 AM on June 28th, he called Wendy from the road.
[12:32] He said he was passed Barstow, a desert town on his route, and
[12:36] that he was making good time. He sounded upbeat and alert,
[12:41] giving Wendy no indication of any trouble.
[12:44] Curiously, he didn't pinpoint his exact location, and shortly
[12:49] after the call dropped. That brief conversation would be
[12:54] the last contact anyone had with Gary Devore.
[12:59] When Gary failed to arrive home the next day, Wendy alerted the
[13:03] authorities and a massive search effort began.
[13:06] Police, volunteers and federal agents scoured the highways and
[13:10] remote desert areas looking for any sign of his SUV.
[13:15] The case made national news and even appeared on America's Most
[13:18] Wanted, but no trace of Gary or his vehicle was found in the
[13:22] days and weeks that followed. With no evidence and no
[13:26] eyewitnesses, theories about his fate ran rampant.
[13:30] Some suspected he was carjacked for his fancy new SUV, with his
[13:34] body being dumped out in the desert.
[13:37] Others speculated that he had simply been abandoned in the
[13:40] desert and perished from exposure to the elements.
[13:44] Others wondered if Gary had staged his own disappearance or
[13:48] developed amnesia and wandered off.
[13:52] One of the more conspiratorial suggestions was that the CIA had
[13:57] secretly intercepted him due to the sensitive screenplay he was
[14:01] carrying. After all, he had been openly
[14:04] talking about government secrets he had uncovered and which we're
[14:07] going to be revealed in fictionalized form.
[14:11] As summer turned to fall, hope of finding him alive faded.
[14:16] For a full year, the mystery lingered.
[14:19] A Hollywood writer had vanished into the desert without a trace.
[14:26] In July 1998, the mystery took a dramatic turn.
[14:30] A determined amateur sleuth named Douglas Crawford
[14:34] independently investigated Gary's disappearance.
[14:37] He had zeroed in on a specific spot, a bridge where the Highway
[14:41] 14 freeway crosses the California Aqueduct in Palmdale.
[14:46] Crawford went to that remote area and noticed debris that
[14:49] looked like pieces of a vehicle on the aqueducts embankment.
[14:53] Acting on his tip, authorities dispatched a dive team to search
[14:57] the aqueduct. Sure enough, submerged in the
[15:01] water below the bridge, they found a white Ford Explorer Gary
[15:06] Devore's missing truck with a body inside.
[15:10] The remains were confirmed to be Gary.
[15:13] A wallet in the pocket of the jeans on the body held his
[15:16] driver's license, leaving little doubt.
[15:20] However, the scene was anything but a neat resolution.
[15:24] Crucial items were inexplicably missing from the vehicle.
[15:28] Investigators noted that Devore's laptop, which held the
[15:32] only copy of the Big Steel, was gone, as was the revolver he had
[15:36] brought along for the trip. Even more disturbing, Devore's
[15:43] hands weren't attached to his body.
[15:46] His arms in the driver's seat ended at the wrists, and no
[15:49] hands were found in the vehicle. For a man who made his living
[15:53] writing, the condition of the remains raised immediate
[15:57] questions about foul play, and perhaps doubly so.
[16:02] Equally puzzling was how Gary's vehicle ended up in that
[16:05] aqueduct in the 1st place. The stretch of Hwy. above it has
[16:09] a dividing barrier, and for the truck to go off the bridge,
[16:13] Devore would have had to do some unusual things.
[16:16] He would have had to turn around and drive several miles in the
[16:20] wrong direction on the freeway with his headlights off to reach
[16:24] that spot unnoticed. No skid marks or collision
[16:29] damage were reported on the bridge railing, suggesting the
[16:32] vehicle might have entered the water without a typical crash
[16:35] impact. At first, officials leaned
[16:38] toward explaining the death as a freak accident.
[16:41] The Los Angeles County coroner found no obvious signs of trauma
[16:46] and commented that it looked like a simple car accident.
[16:49] But Santa Barbara detectives admitted aspects of the case
[16:52] were highly unusual and said they couldn't rule out foul
[16:56] play. The physical evidence just
[16:58] didn't add up to an ordinary crash.
[17:03] The bizarre circumstances of Gary Devore's death soon fueled
[17:06] intense speculation. To many, the idea that his death
[17:11] was an accidental drowning seemed implausible given the
[17:14] missing hands, missing revolver, and missing script.
[17:19] Instead, people look to the content of The Big Steel for
[17:23] answers. According to those who knew him,
[17:26] Gary had hinted that his new script contained revelations
[17:29] about the invasion of Panama that certain people didn't want
[17:33] made public. This has led to a prevalent
[17:36] theory that Gary Devore was eliminated to keep those secrets
[17:40] buried. In this scenario, unknown agents
[17:44] intercepted Gary during his Dr. disposed of his hands to send a
[17:48] message, and stole his materials to ensure the information never
[17:52] got out. It's a chilling idea,
[17:56] essentially the plot of a spy thriller, but some aspects give
[18:00] it traction. In the aftermath of Gary's
[18:05] disappearance, his wife, Wendy, recalled some unsettling details
[18:08] that later took on new meaning. She said that in the months
[18:12] before he vanished, Gary had been getting phone calls from
[18:16] contacts in the intelligence community.
[18:19] He'd once instructed her that if the CIA or other agencies
[18:22] called, she should take a message and tell them he was
[18:25] unavailable. After his death, Wendy also
[18:29] discovered that Gary had taken a clandestine trip to Panama under
[18:34] the guise of scouting film locations, a trip she knew
[18:37] nothing about at the time. Even a former government
[18:41] official from the Reagan era came forward to allege that
[18:44] Devore had ties to the intelligence community.
[18:47] None of these claims have been proven, but they added more
[18:50] smoke to the conspiracy fire. Of course, not everyone
[18:55] subscribes to the conspiracy theory.
[18:58] Some argue the strange evidence could still result from a freak
[19:01] accident, but even skeptics struggle to explain the scripts,
[19:04] disappearance and the car's impossible route.
[19:08] The accident explanation requires a chain of increasingly
[19:11] unlikely improbabilities. Officially, the authorities have
[19:17] closed the case, listing it as a vehicular accident with no
[19:21] evidence of foul play. In the absence of definitive
[19:25] answers, Gary Devore's demise has secured a place in Hollywood
[19:29] lore as one of Hollywood's strangest cold cases.
[19:34] On the evening. Of February 11th, 1976.
[19:37] A man calling himself Joseph Donati stepped out of a friend's
[19:41] apartment in San Francisco's quiet Outer Sunset neighborhood.
[19:46] He walked toward his parked car near the corner of 25th Ave. and
[19:49] Moraga St., fishing for his keys.
[19:53] It was an. Ordinary scene on an ordinary
[19:55] block of squat pastel row houses.
[19:59] Then a white. Van screeched around the corner
[20:01] and blasts shattered the stillness. 4 rounds.
[20:06] Struck the man at nearly point blank range.
[20:09] He was dead. Before he hit the pavement,
[20:11] though, he carried a loaded revolver in his jacket.
[20:14] He never had a chance to reach for it.
[20:17] When police arrived, they quickly discovered that while
[20:19] Joseph Donati officially existed, this was a well
[20:22] established alias. The dead man.
[20:25] Was Joseph Barboza one of the most feared hit men in American
[20:29] organized crime and the first person to die after entering the
[20:33] federal witness protection program?
[20:38] To understand. How Barbosa ended up bleeding
[20:40] out on a San Francisco sidewalk. We've got to go back to the
[20:43] beginning. He was born on September 20th,
[20:46] 1932 in New Bedford, MA to Portuguese immigrant parents.
[20:53] His father. Was a middle weight boxer who
[20:55] eventually abandoned the family, leaving Barboza's mother, a
[21:00] seamstress, to raise four children alone.
[21:04] That departure. When Joe was around 12 seemed to
[21:07] light a fuse that never went out.
[21:10] Joe was getting. Arrested before he'd finished
[21:12] his teenage years and was shipped off to the Lyman School
[21:16] for Boys, a so-called reform institution that served as a
[21:20] finishing school for criminals. By 18.
[21:24] He'd been sentenced to five years at the Massachusetts
[21:26] Correctional Institution in Concord.
[21:29] While there, he led a wild prison break in 1953.
[21:33] He and six other inmates overpowered 4 guards and fled in
[21:37] stolen cars, only to be recaptured within 24 hours.
[21:43] Like his? Father Barbosa tried boxing,
[21:46] Fighting as a light heavyweight under the name the Baron, He won
[21:50] 8 of roughly 11 professional bouts, 5 by knockout.
[21:55] But legitimate athletics couldn't contain his appetite
[21:58] for violence. He drifted.
[22:00] Between jobs as a longshoreman and a fruit store clerk, always
[22:04] circling back to crime after his parole in 1958, he became a
[22:09] fixture in East Boston's underworld, holding court at a
[22:13] bar on Bennington St. that locals called Barboza's Corner.
[22:19] The nickname. That would follow Barboza to his
[22:21] grave. Originated during an incident at
[22:24] a nightclub frequented by Patriarcha crime family members.
[22:28] When an older. Patron complained about
[22:30] Barboza's behavior. Barboza slapped the man across
[22:33] the face. Patriarcha.
[22:36] Underboss Henry Timileo, seated nearby, angrily ordered Barboza
[22:41] never to touch anyone with his hands again.
[22:44] Without missing. A beat.
[22:46] Barboza leaned over and bit the man's ear.
[22:49] Some accounts say he chewed off a piece of the man's cheek.
[22:53] Either way. He was now known as the animal.
[22:58] Despite his. Portuguese heritage Barboza rose
[23:02] to become one of the most prolific hit men for Raymond
[23:05] Patriarcha's New England crime family during the 1960s.
[23:10] He's believed. To have slain as many as 26
[23:12] people, though? That number?
[23:14] Has never been verified. However, he.
[23:18] Needed a way to generate income between big hits and given his
[23:22] close ties with the Patriarcha crime family, he had free reign
[23:26] to conduct his business. His crew operated.
[23:29] Across Boston, generating substantial income through loan
[23:33] sharking and generalized intimidation.
[23:36] However. By 1966, Barboza's position had
[23:40] become dangerously unstable. He'd been shot.
[23:43] At outside his Chelsea home and wasn't following the traditional
[23:47] rules of the mob. He tried.
[23:49] Shaking down a nightclub already paying protection to the
[23:52] patriarchal underboss in Boston. That.
[23:56] Recklessness made him a target from all sides.
[23:59] While it was never. Confirmed with certainty that a
[24:01] contract was put out on him by his own people, he.
[24:05] Certainly. Believed this was the case.
[24:09] Everything. Changed in 1967 when Barboza was
[24:12] jailed on federal weapons charges.
[24:15] Federal. Agents reinforced the idea that
[24:17] he had a contract on his head and that his former friends had
[24:21] turned foe. Given that he.
[24:23] Wasn't safe on the streets or in prison.
[24:26] The agents convinced him that it was time to turn on everyone he
[24:29] worked for and in exchange, he could enter witness protection.
[24:35] And just to be. Clear here by turn on the other
[24:38] mob guys, I mean testify against them, in case anyone was
[24:42] wondering about my phrasing there.
[24:46] He testified. Against Raymond Patriarcha
[24:48] himself helping secure an indictment for conspiracy to
[24:51] eliminate bookies in New England.
[24:54] But the most? Consequential and ultimately
[24:56] most damaging chapter of Barbosa's cooperation involved
[25:00] the 1965 slaying of small time criminal Teddy Deegan.
[25:05] Barboza. Took the stand and named six men
[25:07] as participants in Deegan's HIT. After 50.
[25:11] Days of testimony. The jury convicted all six.
[25:15] Four received. Death sentences and two others
[25:18] got life in prison. The problem?
[25:21] Was that at least four of those men were completely innocent.
[25:25] Barboza. Had lied underoath, implicating
[25:28] them based on personal grudges and at the encouragement of his
[25:31] handlers. The actual.
[25:33] Perpetrators included Barbosa himself and Vincent Flemmi, who
[25:38] happened to be a valuable informant the FBI wanted to
[25:41] protect. Interestingly.
[25:43] The wrongly accused men spent a combined total of over 100 years
[25:47] in prison, with the state government eventually paying out
[25:50] over $100 million to their families.
[25:54] But that wouldn't. Come out until long after
[25:56] Barbosa's death, and for the time being, he had fulfilled his
[26:00] end of the bargain. After his.
[26:04] Testimony Barboza was relocated to Santa Rosa, CA under a new
[26:09] identity, the. Government.
[26:11] Enrolled him in culinary school, leveraging his genuine talent as
[26:15] a cook who specialized in Portuguese delicacies.
[26:19] But Barboza. Couldn't stay out of trouble.
[26:22] In the summer. Of 1970, he eliminated a small
[26:26] time criminal named Clay Wilson during a dispute over stolen
[26:30] goods. He shot Wilson while the two
[26:33] were out walking with two women, then hid the body under a tree
[26:37] stump. When arrested.
[26:39] Barbosa essentially blackmailed the government by threatening to
[26:42] recant his Boston testimony. He told the.
[26:45] Local detectives that he was actually in witness protection
[26:49] and that he had made-up large parts of the story that took a
[26:53] bite out of the New England mob. But then he.
[26:56] Also told them that he had implicated people based on who
[26:59] the FBI told him to target, prompting FBI agents to rush to
[27:04] California and serve as character witnesses at his
[27:07] trial. With numerous.
[27:09] Federal agents willing to stake their careers on what a great
[27:12] guy Barboza really was. And with.
[27:15] Potential federal pressure he was offered a sweetheart deal.
[27:20] Ultimately. Barboza was sentenced to five
[27:22] years at Folsom Prison, where he wrote poetry about the mob and
[27:26] about his crimes. He was paroled.
[27:30] In October 1975 and given yet another identity, this time as
[27:35] Joseph Donati. He moved into.
[27:37] A cheap apartment near Ocean Beach in San Francisco and got a
[27:41] job as a cook at a restaurant near City Hall.
[27:44] The FBI maintained loose surveillance, but Barbosa had
[27:48] essentially stopped hiding, and he just couldn't stay away from
[27:51] illicit activities. He.
[27:53] Harbored. Ambitions of filling what he
[27:55] perceived as a leadership void in San Francisco's organized
[27:59] crime scene. That ambition.
[28:02] Led him to reconnect with James Chalmus, a small time South
[28:05] Boston hoodlum. The two met.
[28:08] Regularly to discuss criminal schemes.
[28:11] What Barboza? Didn't know was that Chalmus was
[28:13] working a criminal scheme already and Barboza wasn't to be
[28:17] a partner but the target. He was actively.
[28:20] Betraying him, confirming all details before tipping off
[28:24] members of the New England mafia about his location.
[28:30] While it's never. Been confirmed with any absolute
[28:32] certainty. Federal agents later caught
[28:35] members of the Mafia talk about what happened to Barboza.
[28:38] According to. These recordings, they
[28:40] dispatched 2 top level enforcers to San Francisco to handle the
[28:45] matter personally. If the recordings.
[28:48] Are to be believed the mafia thought this was so important
[28:51] that they had two made men complete the hit themselves.
[28:55] According to the. Recordings they watched and
[28:58] waited since everything had to be perfect as they knew that
[29:01] they would only get one shot. On that.
[29:06] February evening, as Barbosa left Chalmis apartment and
[29:10] approached his car, a white van rolled up fast and shots fired,
[29:16] cutting him down. Barbosa.
[29:18] Was 43 years old. Interestingly, in a statement
[29:23] given by Barbosa's attorney about the slaying, he said that
[29:26] society had suffered no great loss.
[29:29] A remarkably candid statement. Despite the.
[29:33] Recordings. No one was ever charged in
[29:35] relation to his death, and some conspiracy minded individuals
[29:40] have speculated that the FBI essentially let it happen.
[29:44] Some have speculated that no one was ever prosecuted for the
[29:47] crime, despite the evidence, because it would have exposed
[29:51] the unethical activities of the agents assigned to his case.
[29:56] Not only. That the prosecution may have
[29:58] caused all the convictions against members of the New
[30:01] England mafia to fall apart. Leading to.
[30:04] Numerous organized crime figures being released.
[30:08] Though there's no. Direct proof of this, he was a
[30:11] man that held tremendous ability to personally blackmail numerous
[30:15] agents who had worked on his case.
[30:19] Joseph. Barbosa left behind a deeply
[30:21] troubling legacy. He was a vicious predator who
[30:24] terrorized New England's underworld for the better part
[30:27] of a decade. He was also a cooperating
[30:30] witness whose perjured testimony destroyed the lives of innocent
[30:33] men and their families for over 3 decades.
[30:37] And he was, in many ways, a pawn of an FBI willing to sacrifice
[30:42] justice in its conflict against organized crime.
[30:50] It was the night. Of December 12th, 1976 when 19
[30:55] year old Paul Fox vanished without a trace from Long Beach,
[30:58] California That day. He had helped set the table for
[31:02] a family dinner and then hurried out to meet friends, even
[31:06] leaving his wallet behind in his rush.
[31:10] Paul hopped. Into a car outside his home,
[31:12] expecting to return soon. But he never came back and in
[31:16] fact he was never seen again. Paul was the.
[31:21] Youngest of four brothers in a family of Hungarian immigrants,
[31:25] his parents, Paul Senior and Elizabeth had.
[31:29] Fled. Soviet occupied Hungary in the
[31:31] 1950s and built a new life in California.
[31:35] By 19. 76 The family lived in Long Beach.
[31:40] And Young. Paul, as they affectionately
[31:43] called him, was a recent High School graduate figuring out his
[31:46] future. He was working.
[31:49] As a valet while he tried to figure out what the next steps
[31:51] he wanted to take in his life were.
[31:54] At six feet. 3 inches tall with a light brown mustache, Paul was
[31:58] imposing but also described as shy and polite.
[32:03] He was a. Talented artist and even handy
[32:05] around the house and he could cook and sew his own clothes, a
[32:09] fact that his mother was very proud of.
[32:13] Most. Importantly, Paul was devoted to
[32:15] his family. He never left.
[32:18] Home without telling his mom where he was going and when he'd
[32:21] be back. Sometimes he.
[32:23] Would leave a note saying, for example, he was at a friend's
[32:26] house and would return in a few minutes.
[32:28] This responsible behavior made his sudden disappearance all the
[32:32] more baffling to his parents and brothers.
[32:36] On Sunday. December 12th, 1976 After eating
[32:39] an early supper at home, Paul headed out to meet friends at a
[32:43] local nightclub called Ripples Bar in Long Beach.
[32:47] Ripples was a. Popular spot on the waterfront
[32:50] known as a gay friendly dance bar.
[32:53] According to. Witnesses Paul was seen at the
[32:56] club chatting with an unknown man, described as a strange man
[33:02] not recognizable to his usual friend group.
[33:06] This would later. Turn out to be a critical clue.
[33:09] When midnight. Passed and Paul hadn't returned
[33:12] home. His family grew concerned.
[33:15] They discovered he had left behind his wallet and
[33:17] identification, which was very unlike him.
[33:21] By the next. Morning.
[33:22] The family reported Paul missing to the police and began
[33:26] searching for him in every way they knew how.
[33:31] Paul's family. Called all his friends and
[33:33] acquaintances hoping someone had seen him after the club.
[33:37] They drove around. Long Beach, checking his usual
[33:40] Hangouts and even local hospitals, but there.
[33:43] Was no. Sign of Paul.
[33:45] When they pressed. The Long Beach Police for help,
[33:48] however. They were met.
[33:49] With a frustrating response. And I bet I.
[33:53] Don't even have to say what that response was.
[33:56] But hey. If you're new to the genre, the
[33:59] cops told his family he was a runaway and told him he'd turn
[34:02] up soon. Being. 19 Paul was legally an
[34:07] adult, and police noted that he had a pending misdemeanor charge
[34:11] for underage drinking and had missed a recent court appearance
[34:14] for it. To them it may.
[34:16] Have been plausible that he might have taken off on his own
[34:19] to avoid that court date. His family.
[34:22] Emphatically rejected that idea. Paul had left.
[34:26] On good terms, even setting the dinner table before going out,
[34:30] hardly something applauding Runaway would do.
[34:33] The family pleaded with authorities, insisting that Paul
[34:36] would never disappear voluntarily without contacting
[34:39] them. For days that.
[34:41] Turned into weeks, the family plastered missing person Flyers
[34:45] around town and called the police regularly, trying to keep
[34:49] the case alive. But with no solid leads, their
[34:52] private investigation stalled. Months went by with no news.
[34:58] At some point. After he disappeared, it does
[35:01] appear that the authorities started to take his case more
[35:03] seriously, but at that point, of course, valuable time had been
[35:08] lost. Periodically.
[35:11] The family endured terrible scares.
[35:13] Whenever an unidentified body was found that even loosely
[35:17] matched Paul's description, the authorities reached out.
[35:21] Officials. Would ask if Paul had a chipped
[35:23] tooth or inquire about his height while the family's hearts
[35:27] pounded with anxiety. But it was never him.
[35:32] Over the. Years, Paul's parents chased
[35:34] every fleeting lead. In one instance, Paul's father
[35:39] learned of a crewman on a ship docked in Long Beach who
[35:42] happened to share his son's name.
[35:44] For a moment. They hoped Paul might turn up
[35:47] alive working on a boat. They tracked.
[35:50] Down that lead only to find it was another man entirely.
[35:55] As time. Went on, Elizabeth was overcome
[35:58] with grief. Neighbors recalled that she
[36:01] cried every day, unable to find closure while her son was
[36:05] missing. Paul struggled as well, often
[36:08] having to leave the room when his wife broke down because he
[36:11] had no words left to comfort her.
[36:15] In 19. 83 Nearly seven years after Paul disappeared,
[36:20] detectives from Orange County finally gave the Fox family a
[36:23] chilling update that they definitely didn't want to hear.
[36:27] They believe. Paul had fallen victim to a
[36:29] serial predator who was active in Southern California, Randy
[36:33] Craft. Craft had been.
[36:35] Arrested that year and linked to a spree of brutal slayings of
[36:39] young men in the 1970s and early 1980s.
[36:44] There were several. Reasons investigators suspected
[36:47] a connection Kraft was known to frequent Ripples Bar in Long
[36:51] Beach, the very place where Paul was last seen.
[36:55] In fact. Witnesses from 1976 later
[36:59] realized that the stranger spotted with Paul that night
[37:02] strongly resembled Randy Kraft. Even more.
[37:06] Damning When police searched Kraft's car after his arrest,
[37:10] they found a handwritten list, a coded quote UN quote scorecard
[37:15] of his presumed victims. On this.
[37:18] List was the entry named Ripples alongside an obscene phrase?
[37:23] Investigators. Interpreted that obscenity as a
[37:26] likely code name for Paul, given how it resembled Paul's last
[37:29] name. Essentially.
[37:31] Kraft's own records hinted that he picked up a victim from
[37:35] Ripples and used a crude nickname that pointed to Paul's
[37:39] case. And this is the.
[37:41] Point where I should probably mention that I'm not quite sure
[37:44] Fox is the correct pronunciation of his last name, but I'm going
[37:48] with it because we're on YouTube.
[37:51] By the fall of. 1983 they informed Paul's parents that he
[37:56] could have been one of Randy Craft's many unnamed victims.
[38:00] However. One officer quietly told them
[38:02] not to hold out hope that Paul was still alive, or to keep any
[38:06] hope of a prosecution since they definitely didn't have the
[38:09] evidence to prove it it. Was a.
[38:12] Devastating revelation marking the end of years of uncertainty
[38:16] with a worst case conclusion. It also.
[38:20] Meant that if Paul wasn't the one that was targeted by Craft,
[38:23] the. Cops had.
[38:24] Essentially treated his case as closed anyway and wouldn't be
[38:28] working it further. Randy Craft.
[38:31] Eventually stood trial and was convicted in 1989 of 16 slayings
[38:36] for which he was condemned. Paul's case.
[38:40] Was never officially included in the charges because there was no
[38:43] physical evidence like a body to present, but he was listed by
[38:47] law enforcement as a likely victim.
[38:50] To this day. Craft maintains his innocence in
[38:53] all crimes and has never revealed what truly became of
[38:56] Paul's body. He remains locked up in
[38:59] California, his date with the big DP from the government
[39:03] indefinitely put on hold. Nearly 5.
[39:07] Decades have passed since that fateful night in 1976, and
[39:12] Paul's fate is still not definitively known his.
[39:15] Body. Has never been found and his
[39:18] parents never got to properly say goodbye going to their
[39:21] graves without knowing the absolute truth of what happened.
[39:26] For Karen and. Michael Laspizza The morning of
[39:29] August 30th, 2013 began with a knock at the door and
[39:33] devastating news. Instead of.
[39:37] Welcoming their 19 year old son Bryce home from college, they
[39:41] faced a California Highway Patrol officer who informed them
[39:45] that Bryce's SUV had been found crashed.
[39:49] It was near. Castaic Lake with his phone,
[39:51] laptop and wallet inside, but there was no sign of Bryce
[39:55] himself. Bryce was a.
[39:57] Sophomore at Sierra College in Northern California in the two
[40:02] weeks before his disappearance. Those close to him noticed
[40:05] alarming changes in his behavior.
[40:08] Normally. Outgoing and friendly, he became
[40:11] withdrawn, erratic and depressed.
[40:15] Bryce's. Roommate Sean Dixon observed
[40:17] that Bryce had started drinking heavily and taking the stimulant
[40:21] medication Vivance without a prescription.
[40:24] He even gave. Away some of his prized
[40:26] possessions, including his Xbox console and a pair of
[40:30] sentimental diamond earrings. These.
[40:33] Uncharacteristic actions set off massive alarm bells among his
[40:37] friends and family. On August 20. 7th 2013 Bryce's
[40:43] behavior took another strange turn.
[40:46] He abruptly broke up with his long time girlfriend, Kim Sly,
[40:50] telling her she would be better off without him.
[40:53] That same day, he sent an emotional text to Sean thanking
[40:57] him for being a great friend and implying that Sean had saved his
[41:01] soul. This.
[41:03] Dramatic Farewell, like message, was entirely out of character
[41:07] and left his friends concerned. Despite these.
[41:10] Red flags Bryce insisted he was fine and planned to drive home
[41:15] to his parents. On the night of.
[41:18] August 28th, he visited Kim at her apartment in Chico one last
[41:22] time. Kim grew so worried about
[41:25] Bryce's state that she took away his car keys to stop him from
[41:29] driving. Bryce called.
[41:32] His mother for help, Karen offered to fly up to Northern
[41:35] California the next day. If Bryce needed support, he.
[41:39] Told her not. To worry and said he had quote a
[41:42] lot to talk about with her but that he would do it later and
[41:46] not over the phone. Relieved that.
[41:48] Bryce seemed calm. Karen then instructed Kim to
[41:51] return Bryce's keys, a decision that would prove fateful.
[41:56] Around 11. 30 PM. Bryce left Kim's apartment and
[42:00] began the long drive South toward his family's home in
[42:03] Laguna Niguel. By the morning.
[42:06] Of August 29th, Bryce had barely made any progress toward home.
[42:11] At 11. O'clock that morning, his
[42:13] parents learned that he had used their roadside assistance
[42:16] service after running out of gas near a town called Buttonwillow.
[42:20] This was roughly. Halfway between Chico and Laguna
[42:23] Niguel, a mechanic named Christian delivered fuel to
[42:27] Bryce's stranded Toyota Highlander.
[42:30] Before he got. The assistance call.
[42:31] He had noticed that Bryce had been sitting in the same spot
[42:34] for several hours without moving on.
[42:39] Even then. Bryce didn't arrive as expected
[42:42] as. Evening.
[42:43] Fell with no sign of their son, the family filed a missing
[42:47] person report. Police tracked.
[42:49] Bryce's cell phone signal and discovered he was still in the
[42:52] Buttonwillow area late that night.
[42:55] Officers. Found Bryce in his car by the
[42:57] roadside, not far from where he had gotten gas.
[43:02] He was awake. And showed no signs of
[43:03] intoxication. When asked why?
[43:06] He was still there, Bryce said. He was just taking some time
[43:10] after some heavy personal events.
[43:12] Since he seemed. Fine and was doing nothing
[43:14] illegal. The officers let him go after he
[43:17] promised to head straight home and call his parents.
[43:21] Around 10. That evening, Bryce finally
[43:23] resumed his journey S on Interstate 5.
[43:28] A few hours. Later, in the early morning
[43:31] darkness of August 30th, Bryce made one final phone call.
[43:35] AT2O. Eight, He spoke to his mom and
[43:37] said he was too tired to continue driving and would pull
[43:40] off to sleep in his car for a while.
[43:43] That was the. Last time anyone heard from him,
[43:46] surveillance footage later showed that instead of stopping
[43:49] to rest, Bryce's SUV exited I5 near Castaic Lake at around
[43:54] 2:15. Another camera.
[43:57] Sighting around 4:30 suggested he was still in that area more
[44:00] than two hours later. What happened?
[44:03] Over the next couple of hours remains unknown.
[44:07] Sometime. Before dawn, California Highway
[44:10] Patrol officers found Bryce's Toyota Highlander crashed down a
[44:14] 15 foot embankment off an access Rd. by the lake.
[44:18] The SUV. Was on its side with a shattered
[44:20] back window. Inside the wreck, officers found
[44:23] Bryce's phone, laptop, wallet and clothes, but no Bryce.
[44:29] There was no blood or any sign of injury at the scene.
[44:32] It appeared. Bryce had escaped the crash
[44:34] unharmed and then disappeared into the night.
[44:39] The Discovery. Of Bryce's abandoned car
[44:42] prompted an extensive search around Castaic Lake.
[44:45] Divers. Scoured the lake but found no
[44:47] trace of him on land. Bloodhounds picked up Bryce's
[44:51] scent and followed it from the crash site to a truck stop on
[44:55] the other side of the dam where the trail abruptly ended.
[44:59] This suggested. That Bryce left the area on foot
[45:02] and possibly caught a ride from that truck stop, essentially
[45:06] vanishing without a trace. Days later.
[45:10] On September 4th, firefighters responding to a brush fire near
[45:14] Castaic Lake discovered a burned body close to where Bryce's
[45:18] vehicle had been found, raising fears that it was him.
[45:23] However, the coroner confirmed that the body belonged to an
[45:26] unrelated individual and not to Bryce.
[45:30] Despite. Exhaustive searches by
[45:32] authorities and volunteers. To this day, no sign of Bryce
[45:36] Las Pisa has ever been found. Over the.
[45:40] Years. Numerous theories have been
[45:42] proposed to explain Bryce's baffling disappearance.
[45:46] One possibility is that Bryce intended to end himself.
[45:50] His erratic. Behavior, sudden breakup, and
[45:53] cryptic goodbyes could indicate this intent.
[45:57] Yet the complete. Lack of a body makes this theory
[46:00] inconclusive, especially since he was on foot.
[46:03] And there's also the matter of the Bloodhound evidence.
[46:09] Another. Theory is that Bryce survived
[46:11] the crash but suffered a head injury or psychological break
[46:16] that. Left him.
[46:17] Disoriented. In that.
[46:19] State he might have wandered away and succumbed to the
[46:22] elements or gotten lost. Still.
[46:26] If he had stayed nearby, search teams likely would have found
[46:29] him. The fact that.
[46:31] Bloodhounds tracked his scent to a truck stop, suggests an
[46:35] alternate scenario. Bryce may have.
[46:37] Intentionally walked away to start a new life.
[46:41] If he caught a. Ride from that truck stop.
[46:44] He could be anywhere, potentially living under a
[46:47] different identity. His decision?
[46:50] To leave behind his phone and wallet might indicate he didn't
[46:52] want to be tracked, or it could simply mean he wasn't thinking
[46:56] clearly. Personally.
[46:59] Though I have to speculate that he may have met with foul play
[47:02] at that truck stop he. May have gotten.
[47:05] In the wrong truck and met up with a driver who had some
[47:08] pretty serious ill intentions. But The thing is, this
[47:12] hypothesis doesn't require the initial driver who picked him up
[47:16] to have been a bad guy. That driver.
[47:19] Could have simply taken him to a different truck stop far away
[47:22] where he may have run into trouble.
[47:25] This is made. Doubly more difficult because he
[47:27] could have run into numerous Good Samaritan drivers in
[47:31] multiple states before running into a predator.
[47:36] More than a. Decade has passed since Bryce
[47:38] vanished, and his fate is still a complete mystery.
[47:42] Given the lack. Of evidence as it currently
[47:44] stands, his parents continue to hold on to hope that Bryce may
[47:48] still be out there somewhere. It was October. 12th, 1944 when
[47:55] West Hollywood's upscale El Palacio Apartments awoke to
[47:59] horror. A maid.
[48:00] Discovered 20 year old oil heiress Georgette Bauerdorf
[48:04] lifeless in her bathtub. The bath water.
[48:07] Was tinted pink with blood and Georgette was half submerged and
[48:11] unresponsive. The cops.
[48:13] Arrived and quickly determined she was the victim of foul play.
[48:18] This shocking. Crime scene marked the beginning
[48:20] of a Hollywood mystery that remains unsolved to this day.
[48:26] Georgette was. Born into privilege but yearned
[48:28] to contribute on the home front as the world had become engulfed
[48:31] in conflict. After her.
[48:34] Family moved from New York to Los Angeles.
[48:36] She graduated from a prestigious girls school and embraced
[48:40] volunteer work. By. 1944 the young heiress was
[48:45] serving as a junior Hostess at the Hollywood Canteen, a famous
[48:49] club where movie stars entertained American servicemen
[48:52] on leave. For Georgette.
[48:54] Being a canteen Hostess was both an honor and a thrill.
[48:58] The nightclub. Was Co founded by Hollywood
[49:00] heavy hitter Betty Davis and offered GIS food and fun.
[49:06] Georgette's. Friendly charm and generosity
[49:08] made her a favorite among the troops.
[49:11] She was known. To offer weary servicemen a
[49:14] place to sleep at her apartment, letting them crash on her
[49:17] downstairs sofa while she stayed upstairs.
[49:21] Her friends. Adored her spirit, though some
[49:23] worried she was too trusting with strangers during these
[49:26] tumultuous times. On the evening.
[49:31] Of October 11th, 1944, Georgette reported for her usual Wednesday
[49:36] night shift at the Hollywood Canteen, greeting and dancing
[49:39] with servicemen as always. That night A.
[49:42] Particularly, Persistent Soldier kept asking her to jitterbug, a
[49:46] dance she disliked, but she politely deflected his requests
[49:51] and continued her Hostess duties.
[49:54] Around 11. 30 PM. Georgette left the canteen and
[49:58] drove home, alone in her black coop.
[50:01] She had mentioned. To at least one friend that she
[50:03] was expecting a late night phone call from her boyfriend, a
[50:06] soldier in Texas, and needed to be home for it.
[50:11] In fact. She had recently purchased a
[50:13] plane ticket and planned to fly to El Paso soon to visit this
[50:17] sweetheart, a trip she would never take.
[50:22] Investigators. Later deduced that Georgette
[50:24] arrived at her West Hollywood apartment around midnight.
[50:28] An open can of green string beans and melon rinds in her
[50:31] trash suggested she fixed a quick snack before bed.
[50:35] She. Then changed.
[50:36] Into pyjamas and perhaps began writing in her diary or reading
[50:40] in bed. A diary and.
[50:42] Newspaper were found open in her room, implying she was winding
[50:46] down for the night. At roughly. 2:30 That morning, a
[50:50] neighbor was jolted awake by a chilling scream echoing through
[50:54] the building. He heard a woman crying out and
[50:57] pleading before the voice was suddenly silenced.
[51:00] Thinking it might. Have been a lover's quarrel that
[51:02] ended quickly. Or perhaps even something highly
[51:05] spicy. The neighbor went back to sleep.
[51:10] When Georgette. 'S maid, Lulu Atwood, arrived
[51:13] the next morning. She found the apartment door
[51:16] wide open and water running in the bathroom.
[51:19] Georgette's. Body was face down in an
[51:21] overflowing tub, wearing only her pajama top.
[51:25] Police at. First considered the possibility
[51:28] of an accidental drowning, but the evidence quickly proved
[51:31] otherwise. The light bulb.
[51:33] Over the outside entrance had been carefully unscrewed just
[51:37] enough to disable it, plunging the doorway Into Darkness.
[51:41] This pointed. To a calculated attack and
[51:44] police suspected the perp may have entered earlier using a key
[51:48] and laying in wait, ambushing her once she was home.
[51:53] Inside. Georgette's knuckles were
[51:55] bruised and there were deep marks on her head and abdomen
[51:59] indicating she had put up a fierce fight.
[52:02] The coroner. Found that she had been brutally
[52:04] assaulted and strangled. A strip of cloth had been
[52:08] viciously shoved down her throat to asphyxiate her.
[52:12] Further testing. Revealed that it was an unusual
[52:15] type of medical bandage rarely seen in America, leading to
[52:19] speculation her attacker was a serviceman who had acquired it
[52:22] overseas. Notably, there was no water in
[52:26] her lungs, meaning Georgette was already dead before the tub was
[52:30] filled. Other clues?
[52:33] Perplexed investigators. Georgette's valuable jewelry and
[52:37] money were left largely untouched, ruling out robbery as
[52:40] a motive. Only about. $100 was missing
[52:44] from her purse, even though far greater sums of cash and jewels
[52:48] were in Plainview. And I'm not talking.
[52:51] About regular jewels here, this is oil Baroness stuff after all.
[52:58] Her car was. Gone from the garage and it was
[53:01] soon found abandoned miles away, out of gas and sporting a fresh
[53:05] dent on one Fender. Fingerprints were lifted from
[53:09] the vehicle and from inside, but they matched no one in law
[53:12] enforcement records. Investigators.
[53:15] Also found cigarette butts on the floor of Georgette's home,
[53:19] an eerie discovery given that she didn't smoke.
[53:23] This LED. Detectives to speculate that he
[53:25] may have stayed after smoking while taking in the deed he had
[53:29] just committed. News of the.
[53:32] Glamorous young woman slaying made headlines around the
[53:35] nation, and a task force of Los Angeles sheriff's detectives and
[53:39] military police sprang into action.
[53:42] Because of. Georgette's role at the canteen.
[53:45] Dozens of soldiers she had met were investigated.
[53:49] Police. Eliminated many potential
[53:51] suspects by checking military logs.
[53:54] Any enlisted man absent overnight without leave was
[53:56] scrutinized and most were accounted for.
[54:01] Some of the men. Were targeted by investigators
[54:04] in a more direct way for their connection or perceived ties to
[54:07] Georgette. The pushy.
[54:09] Patron from the canteen was tracked down and quickly
[54:12] cleared. He had been signed.
[54:15] Into his barracks at the time the attack went down.
[54:19] Detectives. Also tracked a very tall soldier
[54:21] who Georgette had briefly dated, as well as the Army Sergeant to
[54:25] whom she'd given a ride that night.
[54:27] Both. Men were.
[54:28] Questioned, but neither was ever tied to the crime.
[54:33] Leads continued. To surface from all corners, one
[54:36] disturbed man in San Francisco actually confessed, but his
[54:40] story turned out to be false and attention seeking.
[54:44] Another suspect picked up for an unrelated slaying in Glendale
[54:48] was briefly suspected but ultimately ruled out.
[54:52] Because Georgette. Often lost her keys and had
[54:55] multiple duplicates made. Police considered whether
[54:58] someone had obtained a copy to access her apartment.
[55:02] As I. Mentioned it's believed that
[55:04] someone had ambushed her in her apartment.
[55:07] Disturbingly, he likely stayed in hiding for a significant time
[55:12] while she was already home. Despite.
[55:16] Extensive interviews and the tantalizing evidence left behind
[55:20] every promising lead LED nowhere.
[55:22] Georgette's. Father, with the help of family
[55:25] friend William Randolph Hearst, even pressed authorities to
[55:29] solve the case swiftly to avoid scandal and gossip.
[55:34] Months passed. With no arrest and the trail
[55:36] grew cold. In the years.
[55:39] That followed, the tragic story of Georgette Bauerdorf gradually
[55:44] faded from the headlines. It remains.
[55:47] Unclear if any forensic evidence from the scene was stored,
[55:50] though I assume that since forensic genetic testing was
[55:53] basically 5 decades away, it wouldn't have been.
[55:57] However, on the off chance the evidence remains in an evidence
[56:00] locker somewhere, there's a faint hope that one day this
[56:03] California unsolved mystery may be resolved.
[56:11] A chilling. Scream rang out on a quiet West
[56:13] Hollywood St. in the early hours of February 12th, 1977.
[56:18] Moments later, aspiring actress Krista Helm lay dying in front
[56:23] of her agent's home, stabbed dozens of times in a savage
[56:26] attack. The perp left no witnesses and
[56:29] few clues behind. Decades later, the question of
[56:33] who killed her and why remains one of Hollywood's most baffling
[56:37] unsolved mysteries of that era. Born in.
[56:42] Milwaukee. Krista moved to New York and
[56:45] then Los Angeles chasing stardom, leaving behind a young
[56:48] daughter from a brief teenage marriage.
[56:51] Disturbingly, both parents effectively abandoned their
[56:54] daughter, though Krista promised to return at some point in the
[56:58] future. Needless to.
[57:00] Say fate intervened and this promise would never be
[57:03] fulfilled. She landed some.
[57:05] Modeling gigs and a starring film role a low.
[57:09] Budget. Action movie called Let's Go for
[57:11] Broke in 1974. But the film.
[57:14] Flopped after a short run. Instead, Krista became better
[57:19] known as a quote UN quote socialite on the Hollywood party
[57:23] scene. She mingled.
[57:25] With big names reportedly dating NFL superstar Joe Namath, rock
[57:30] legend Mick Jagger, and even having some close encounters
[57:33] with the Shah of Iran. Ambitious.
[57:37] And charismatic Krista made friends in high places and
[57:40] enjoyed the trappings of wealth without any real known source of
[57:44] income. Privately, Krista also kept a
[57:48] secret diary where she documented her intimate
[57:52] encounters, complete with candid details and a rating system for
[57:57] her lovers. Allegations.
[58:00] Made in the years following her death, even claimed that she was
[58:04] working as an escort to the rich and powerful.
[58:07] I do have. To include a disclaimer here and
[58:10] mention that these are just allegations, though I'm sure my
[58:13] description of her lifestyle may have already have had some of
[58:16] you thinking this. By 19. 77 With her career
[58:21] stalled and money running low, she whispered about turning her
[58:25] diary into fat stacks with a tell all book.
[58:29] If the rumors. Are to be believed she had some
[58:31] seriously compromising material about some sick puppies in high
[58:35] places, but I'll come back to that in a moment.
[58:40] Late on. February 11th, 1977 Krista left
[58:44] a party in Los Angeles and drove to meet her agent at his West
[58:47] Hollywood home. She arrived around 1:30 AM, but
[58:51] before she could reach the door, an unknown assailant ambushed
[58:55] her on the quiet residential St. The attacker.
[58:59] Stabbed Krista repeatedly with a knife and also struck her with a
[59:02] blunt object, leaving her collapsed in a pool of blood
[59:06] next to the curb. A passerby.
[59:09] Soon discovered her body and rushed to get help.
[59:13] By the time. Police arrived, however Krista
[59:16] had already succumbed to her injuries at just 27 years old.
[59:20] Some reports. Said she was still clutching her
[59:22] car keys, suggesting the attacker struck the instant she
[59:26] stepped out of her vehicle. Neighbors.
[59:29] Later recalled hearing a single terrifying scream during the
[59:32] night of the attack, but no one witnessed the attacker.
[59:37] When? Investigators surveyed the
[59:39] scene. They realized that Krista's
[59:41] purse was missing, and with it, her infamous diary.
[59:46] Its disappearance LED police to suspect that the attacker's
[59:49] primary motive was to take or destroy that Tell All journal.
[59:55] If someone. Feared what Krista had written.
[59:57] Stealing the diary would eliminate the threat.
[1:00:01] Detectives. Also learned that Krista had
[1:00:03] allegedly sometimes tape recorded her spicy encounters,
[1:00:07] but those audio tapes were nowhere to be found either.
[1:00:10] The Vanishing. Of these personal items robbed
[1:00:13] investigators of crucial evidence and strongly suggested
[1:00:17] that someone wanted Krista's secrets to die with her.
[1:00:22] With Krista. 'S tumultuous love life and high
[1:00:25] profile connections. The list of potential suspects
[1:00:28] was long. Investigators theorized that an
[1:00:31] ex lover might have had a personal motive to silence her,
[1:00:35] especially if they knew about her diary and feared exposure.
[1:00:39] Given that. Krista was struggling
[1:00:41] financially. She had every incentive to
[1:00:43] monetize her secrets, which could have alarmed anyone with
[1:00:47] something to hide. Over time.
[1:00:50] More clues have added to the intrigue.
[1:00:54] Krista's friends. Later recalled that she seemed
[1:00:56] fearful in her final days. In fact.
[1:01:01] A few months before the slaying, she sent a postcard to a close
[1:01:04] friend saying she was in over her head and might need to
[1:01:07] disappear for a while. This.
[1:01:09] Alarming. Message suggests Christa sense
[1:01:11] danger looming Notably, decades later it was claimed that she
[1:01:16] was part of an elite escort operation, which some have
[1:01:19] speculated had ties to intelligence.
[1:01:23] This raised the. Distinct possibility she was
[1:01:25] eliminated because she knew too much about powerful people, even
[1:01:29] if they didn't know about her secret diary.
[1:01:33] In 2000. Five, Her daughter persuaded the
[1:01:35] Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department to reopen the cold
[1:01:38] case for a fresh investigation. A team of detectives pored over
[1:01:43] the old evidence and tracked down witnesses who had never
[1:01:46] spoken. They uncovered.
[1:01:48] A few new leads, including the discovery that Krista's close
[1:01:52] friend allegedly sent an acquaintance to clean out her
[1:01:55] apartment right after the attack.
[1:01:58] It's believed. That the tapes, her illicit
[1:02:00] diary and other personal items were removed during this
[1:02:03] process. When questioned by the
[1:02:06] authorities, the individual who allegedly orchestrated this
[1:02:10] claimed that he didn't really remember Krista and offered no
[1:02:13] information whatsoever. And for my.
[1:02:17] Sopranos fans out there, according to a report by CBS
[1:02:20] News in 2008. The man who?
[1:02:23] Actually did. The removal was allegedly Tony
[1:02:26] Cirico, who played Polly Walnuts.
[1:02:29] I always thought. He was just a good actor, but
[1:02:32] after browsing his Wikipedia article, it seems like he may
[1:02:35] have been bringing some serious life experience to the role.
[1:02:40] I don't have any. Evidence to directly prove it,
[1:02:43] but I can virtually guarantee that Krista wasn't taken out at
[1:02:46] random. She talked about publishing a
[1:02:48] tell all book at a moment when her diary allegedly named
[1:02:51] celebrities, political figures and embattled foreign royalty.
[1:02:56] She was also making audio recordings of herself with
[1:03:00] influential and powerful men, for reasons which remain
[1:03:04] unclear. It's not hard.
[1:03:06] To see how someone rich and powerful would have seen her as
[1:03:09] a liability who needed to be handled.
[1:03:12] To back this. Up Within hours of her slaying,
[1:03:16] the items that could damage reputations vanished into the
[1:03:20] ether, never to resurface. Her apparent.
[1:03:24] Fear in the months before her death, including the postcard
[1:03:28] hinting she might need to disappear, adds to the sense
[1:03:31] that pressure was building. I also find.
[1:03:35] It weird how her so-called friend, someone who had apparent
[1:03:38] access to her house, claimed to barely remember her decades
[1:03:42] later. But hey, maybe.
[1:03:45] It was all completely random. Stranger things have happened
[1:03:49] after all. On July. 18th, 1980 A grisly
[1:03:56] discovery shattered the piece at a California high school.
[1:04:00] At Westlake. High school in Thousand Oaks.
[1:04:02] Maintenance workers found the body of a young woman dumped
[1:04:05] near the parking lot. She lay on a dirt slope by the
[1:04:09] football field, clad in a white T-shirt and red pants with black
[1:04:14] high heeled shoes tossed into the nearby brush.
[1:04:17] Evidence on the. Concrete suggested she had been
[1:04:20] slain elsewhere and dragged to that spot.
[1:04:23] It was July 18th, 1980, the beginning of a haunting mystery
[1:04:28] surrounding an unidentified victim now known only as the
[1:04:31] Ventura County Jane Doe. Police determined.
[1:04:37] The victim was a petite young woman of Hispanic and or Native
[1:04:41] American heritage. Tragically, she was about four
[1:04:45] to five months pregnant when she was slain, and evidence showed
[1:04:48] that she had given birth at least once prior.
[1:04:52] An autopsy. Showed that she had been subject
[1:04:54] to an indecent assault before the attacker finished her off.
[1:04:58] Bruises. And defensive cuts on her arms
[1:05:00] and hands told investigators that she fought her attacker
[1:05:04] fiercely, doing everything she could to survive in those
[1:05:07] moments. Investigators.
[1:05:11] Faced an immediate challenge. Without an identity for the
[1:05:14] victim, leads were scarce. They canvassed the area for
[1:05:18] witnesses, and a motorist reported seeing a woman who
[1:05:21] matched the victim's description hitchhiking near a freeway the
[1:05:24] night before. This raised a.
[1:05:27] Theory that the Jane Doe might have been a hitchhiker or
[1:05:30] traveller picked up by the perpetrator.
[1:05:32] However, that tip LED nowhere conclusive.
[1:05:36] The crime scene. Itself, a school parking area in
[1:05:39] a suburb revealed no personal belongings or identification.
[1:05:45] By the end of. 1980 the trail had gone cold and would remain
[1:05:49] that way for decades. In 2000. 12 detectives
[1:05:55] revisiting the cold case turned to DNA.
[1:05:58] The perpetrator. Had left traces of himself,
[1:06:01] notably foreign DNA, under the victim's fingernails from her
[1:06:05] desperate struggle. Modern forensic.
[1:06:07] Testing yielded ADNA profile of an unknown male which was
[1:06:11] uploaded to the National CODIS database.
[1:06:15] In 2000. 13 The cold case got a huge break when the evidence
[1:06:19] matched an inmate in a California prison.
[1:06:22] Wilson, Chust. While he had never.
[1:06:26] Been on the cops radar. Chust was far from a random
[1:06:30] suspect. He was a convicted.
[1:06:32] Violent felon with a history of crimes involving abductions.
[1:06:36] In fact. Records showed he had been
[1:06:38] paroled in June 1980, just weeks before the Jane Doe's slaying,
[1:06:43] and by September 1980 he was arrested again for unrelated
[1:06:47] crimes against women. The DNA.
[1:06:50] Hit linked chest not only to the Ventura County Jane Doe, but.
[1:06:55] Also. To another unsolved 1980 slaying
[1:06:58] of a young woman in Kern County. Notably.
[1:07:02] Both women had significant Indigenous ancestry, suggesting
[1:07:06] that this was part of his victim profile.
[1:07:10] In 2000. 15 He was formally charged with the 1980 attacks,
[1:07:15] but despite overwhelming evidence he denied any
[1:07:18] involvement, offering no information about the victims
[1:07:21] identities. The case went.
[1:07:24] To trial in 2018, 38 years after the crimes and despite both
[1:07:30] women being unidentified, he was found guilty on both charges.
[1:07:35] In the years. Following, one of the women was
[1:07:38] identified as Shirley Suzie, A Cree woman from Alberta in
[1:07:42] Canada. However, the.
[1:07:44] Ventura County Jane Doe remained unidentified.
[1:07:49] In 2. 1018 the Ventura County Sheriff's Office partnered with
[1:07:53] the DNA Doe Project. They extracted.
[1:07:56] The victim's DNA and used it to search genealogy databases for
[1:08:00] family matches, and the results were intriguing.
[1:08:04] Her DNA. Pointed toward an indigenous
[1:08:06] Mexican or Central American background, which aligned with
[1:08:10] her physical traits and the initial anthropological
[1:08:13] assessment. Genetic.
[1:08:17] Genealogy soon linked the unknown woman to distant
[1:08:20] cousins. They traced family roots to
[1:08:23] Zacatecas, Mexico, and discovered very distant cousins
[1:08:26] who lived in the Los Angeles area.
[1:08:29] This strongly. Suggests that the Jane Doe or
[1:08:31] her immediate family may have come from that region and later
[1:08:35] settled in Southern California. A major.
[1:08:39] Development came in 2021 when genealogists managed to identify
[1:08:43] the father of the Jane Doe's unborn baby.
[1:08:47] He turned out to. Be a man from Honduras who had
[1:08:50] been living in Los Angeles around 1980.
[1:08:53] Detectives. Were able to locate and
[1:08:55] interview him, and he confirmed he had a relationship with a
[1:08:58] young woman around that time, but he didn't know her full
[1:09:02] identity. Unfortunately, he couldn't give
[1:09:05] much in the way of biographical details about her either, though
[1:09:09] he does appear to have confirmed that she wasn't born in America.
[1:09:15] Notably. The authorities don't believe he
[1:09:17] was involved in the Jane Doe's passing in any way whatsoever
[1:09:21] and continue to believe the convicted perpetrator acted
[1:09:24] alone. Still.
[1:09:26] Personally, I find it quite unusual that this man claims to
[1:09:30] have been in a relationship with this woman, yet couldn't even
[1:09:34] remember the most basic biographical details about her.
[1:09:38] I would expect. That he would have at least been
[1:09:40] able to remember a first name or where she was originally from.
[1:09:45] Or anything. Rather than simply nothing.
[1:09:50] At any rate. All these clues have shaped
[1:09:52] working theories about who the Jane Doe was.
[1:09:56] She might have left. Home as a teenager or young
[1:09:58] adult, which could be why no immediate family reported her
[1:10:02] missing the. Hitchhiking.
[1:10:04] Report supports the idea that she was transient or traveling
[1:10:07] when she crossed paths with chest.
[1:10:10] It's possible. Her relatives, back in Mexico or
[1:10:13] elsewhere, didn't know where to start searching when she
[1:10:15] vanished. This has led.
[1:10:17] To the speculative idea that there may be a parallel missing
[1:10:21] persons investigation in Mexico or elsewhere for this young
[1:10:25] woman. One of the most.
[1:10:29] Haunting aspects of the Ventura County Jane Doe case is that she
[1:10:33] wasn't just a pregnant woman when she was slain.
[1:10:36] She had also given birth to at least one child before her
[1:10:39] passing. The autopsy.
[1:10:42] Revealed evidence of a prior cesarean scar which indicated
[1:10:46] that she delivered a child years earlier.
[1:10:49] That fact? Deepens the tragedy, but also
[1:10:52] provides investigators with a potential path forward.
[1:10:56] If that earlier child survived and is still alive today, they
[1:11:00] may carry the crucial genetic link that could finally unlock
[1:11:03] this Jane Doe's identity. After all.
[1:11:07] Genetic genealogy thrives on locating close relatives, and a
[1:11:11] direct descendant represents the most definitive match.
[1:11:18] It was a warm. Spring evening in rural Winton,
[1:11:21] California a golden early summer night with the sun still
[1:11:25] lingering in the sky. 15 year old Vanessa Dawn Smith stepped
[1:11:29] out of her house for her usual evening walk, a routine she
[1:11:33] often shared with her mother. But on May 31st, 1997, Vanessa
[1:11:39] went out alone, carrying the simple walking stick she liked
[1:11:43] to bring for a sense of security.
[1:11:46] She promised to be back before dark.
[1:11:49] Her mother watched as Vanessa headed down Winton Way toward
[1:11:52] the nearby almond orchards, not realizing it would be the last
[1:11:56] time she saw her daughter. Vanessa was.
[1:12:01] A shy 15 year old growing up in a close knit Mennonite family in
[1:12:04] Winton, she loved spending time with her family in church.
[1:12:09] Almost every night, she and her mother, Beverly would take a
[1:12:11] walk together through their rural neighborhood.
[1:12:14] The night Vanessa vanished was one of the few times she went
[1:12:17] walking alone, simply because her mom was busy with chores.
[1:12:21] After dinner, the. Very day.
[1:12:23] She disappeared. Vanessa had enjoyed a school
[1:12:26] picnic celebrating the end of the year.
[1:12:31] After the. Picnic Vanessa had dinner with
[1:12:33] her parents and then wanted to go on her regular walk.
[1:12:38] Eager to be. Outdoors, Vanessa told her mom
[1:12:40] she would take a short walk by herself and be back before
[1:12:43] sunset. Around 7.
[1:12:46] PM She headed out along Winton Way and then turned on to
[1:12:50] Mercedes Ave. to make her usual loop through the orchards back
[1:12:54] home. It was broad.
[1:12:56] Daylight in their quiet neighborhood and the route was
[1:12:59] peaceful and familiar. It was a.
[1:13:02] Rural Rd. lined with orchards and the occasional farmhouse.
[1:13:07] Not a place. Where anyone imagined danger
[1:13:10] lurking? When dusk.
[1:13:13] Arrived, and Vanessa still hadn't returned.
[1:13:16] Her parents knew something was wrong.
[1:13:19] Art and Beverly. Smith rushed out to search the
[1:13:21] route. As they neared a bend in the
[1:13:23] road, their hearts dropped. On the roadside lay Vanessa's
[1:13:27] wooden walking stick. They shouted her name into the
[1:13:30] empty dusk, but no answer came. The Smiths.
[1:13:35] Immediately called the Merced County Sheriff's Department, and
[1:13:38] thankfully, they didn't simply dismiss her as a runaway.
[1:13:42] Officers and neighbors joined the search, combing the area
[1:13:45] with flashlights into the night, but no additional clues turned
[1:13:49] up. No neighbors.
[1:13:51] Heard screams or saw any suspicious vehicle, the
[1:13:54] community was left shaken and baffled, and authorities had
[1:13:58] little to go on beyond the fact that foul play was almost
[1:14:01] certain. All that remained was that
[1:14:03] lonely walking stick, a silent, inanimate witness to whatever
[1:14:08] had happened to her. Investigators treated Vanessa's
[1:14:13] disappearance as an abduction from the very start.
[1:14:17] They did consider. The chance of a random stranger
[1:14:19] attack, but the circumstances seemed to point to someone she
[1:14:23] knew. Those close.
[1:14:25] To Vanessa noted that she would have been unlikely to willingly
[1:14:28] get into a stranger's car. It was more.
[1:14:32] Plausible that a familiar face had approached her, the Merced
[1:14:36] County Sheriff's Office stated that they believed Vanessa was
[1:14:39] likely abducted by an acquaintance, someone local who
[1:14:42] knew her routine. Detectives.
[1:14:45] Theorized that Vanessa might have let her guard down if a
[1:14:48] trusted person stopped to talk to her, giving the abductor a
[1:14:52] chance to grab her before she could react.
[1:14:57] Police looked. At local offenders and
[1:14:59] suspicious characters, but found no links to Vanessa's case.
[1:15:03] No solid suspect ever emerged in the initial investigation, and
[1:15:07] despite extensive searches and interviews, the trail went cold.
[1:15:14] A possible. Break in the case finally came
[1:15:16] decades later when in 2019, an elderly Winton couple came
[1:15:21] forward with new information. Around 7.
[1:15:24] PM On the night Vanessa vanished, they saw a teenage
[1:15:28] girl with a walking stick on Mercedes Ave.
[1:15:31] Almost certainly Vanessa. More.
[1:15:33] Importantly, on their way home by a different Rd., they
[1:15:37] witnessed an incident they described as suspicious that
[1:15:41] same evening. They admitted.
[1:15:43] Fear kept them silent until then, but they ultimately gave a
[1:15:47] detailed statement to authorities.
[1:15:50] While the specifics. Remain confidential.
[1:15:53] Investigators say this late testimony supports the theory
[1:15:56] that a local individual was involved and gives hope that the
[1:15:59] case can still be solved. Armed with this.
[1:16:03] Information the Sheriff's Department renewed its
[1:16:06] commitment to cracking the case. To this day.
[1:16:10] The question of who took Vanessa and why still haunts Winton.
[1:16:15] Investigators. Suspect that someone in the
[1:16:17] community knows the truth and they have repeatedly urged
[1:16:21] anyone with information to come forward.
[1:16:26] In the years. Since Vanessa disappeared, her
[1:16:28] story has been kept alive by her loved ones and the community.
[1:16:33] The case was. Featured on America's Most
[1:16:35] Wanted and is periodically revisited by local media on
[1:16:39] anniversaries. The case is.
[1:16:42] Still open and authorities continue to urge tips from the
[1:16:45] public. And they insist the case isn't
[1:16:48] closed and say they'll continue investigating until Vanessa is
[1:16:52] found. Notably a. $50,000 reward is on
[1:16:56] offer for information leading to a resolution.
[1:17:01] One of the more. Unsettling theories surrounding
[1:17:03] Vanessa Don Smith's disappearance centers on the
[1:17:06] idea that someone in the local community knows exactly what
[1:17:09] happened. And this isn't.
[1:17:11] Just my crazy speculative theory since we actually have strong
[1:17:15] circumstantial evidence to suggest that this could be the
[1:17:18] case. When that elderly couple came
[1:17:21] forward with information they had withheld for 22 years, they
[1:17:24] mentioned that fear was a major factor and not initially coming
[1:17:28] forward. This couple.
[1:17:30] May just be incredibly cowardly since we don't know all the
[1:17:34] details. However, the idea is chilling
[1:17:37] that someone so dangerous, so deeply feared, could scare
[1:17:42] witnesses into silence for such a serious crime.
[1:17:47] Thanksgiving. 1963 was a somber holiday in America.
[1:17:51] One week earlier, President John F Kennedy had been brutally cut
[1:17:55] down in Dallas, plunging the nation into mourning.
[1:17:59] But in the early hours of that Thanksgiving, another tragedy
[1:18:03] was unfolding in Hollywood. Karen Kupkenet, a 22 year old
[1:18:08] aspiring actress and daughter of a famous Chicago columnist, was
[1:18:12] living out the final moments of her life.
[1:18:15] Days later. She would be found dead in her
[1:18:17] West Hollywood apartment. The shocking.
[1:18:21] Death of this young starlet not only devastated her family, but
[1:18:24] soon became entangled in the web of JFK conspiracy theories.
[1:18:31] Karen Kupkenet grew up in the glow of show business.
[1:18:34] Born in 1941 to Irv and Essie Kupkenet, she was nicknamed
[1:18:39] Cookie and groomed for a life in the spotlight.
[1:18:42] Her father was a well known Chicago newspaper columnist and
[1:18:46] TV personality, so Karen had connections that opened doors in
[1:18:50] entertainment. By her late.
[1:18:53] Teens. She had trained at the Actors
[1:18:55] Studio in New York and moved to Hollywood to chase her acting
[1:18:58] dreams. With her good.
[1:19:01] Looks and smoldering charisma, Karen showed promise.
[1:19:05] She earned rave. Reviews for a stage role in The
[1:19:08] Miracle Worker and was touted as an actress to watch in 1962.
[1:19:14] She landed. Small parts on popular TV shows
[1:19:17] like Perry Mason and The Donna Reed Show, and even a regular
[1:19:20] role on a forgettable sitcom called Missus G Goes to College.
[1:19:25] By all accounts, she seemed poised for stardom, or at least
[1:19:29] some level of acclaim. Behind the.
[1:19:33] Scenes however, karen's life was more turbulent, she.
[1:19:37] Struggled. With personal insecurities,
[1:19:40] including a long battle with weight and reliance on diet
[1:19:43] pills encouraged by her image conscious mother.
[1:19:47] In Hollywood. Karen became involved with actor
[1:19:51] Andrew Prine, whom she met while guest starring on his TV series
[1:19:55] in late 1962. The romance.
[1:19:58] Was intense but rocky. Karen yearned for commitment,
[1:20:02] while Prine, recently divorced, wanted to keep things casual.
[1:20:06] This mismatch? Led to repeated heartbreak for
[1:20:09] Karen. In mid. 1963 she became pregnant
[1:20:15] and with help from friends, terminated the pregnancy, a
[1:20:18] traumatic event that only heightened the strain between
[1:20:21] her and Prine. Desperate to hold on to the
[1:20:24] relationship, Karen began exhibiting erratic behavior.
[1:20:29] She anonymously sent threatening cut and paste letters to Prine
[1:20:33] and even to herself, bizarre messages made of magazine
[1:20:36] letters in an attempt to scare her ex into paying attention.
[1:20:41] After her. Death investigators discovered
[1:20:44] Karen's fingerprints on those notes, confirming she had
[1:20:48] crafted them herself. She also.
[1:20:50] Resorted to spying on Prine and his new girlfriend at.
[1:20:54] One point. She noted in her diary that she
[1:20:56] was watching him from behind a hedge in anguish.
[1:21:00] The emotional. Toll was immense and Karen's
[1:21:03] friends observed her increasing use of substances to cope.
[1:21:07] A shoplifting. Arrest in 1962 hinted at her
[1:21:10] distress, and by November 1963 she seemed to be teetering on
[1:21:15] the edge. On November. 27th, 1963 The day
[1:21:21] before Thanksgiving, Karen's friends tried to keep her
[1:21:24] company, unaware it would be her last night alive.
[1:21:29] That evening. She joined actor Mark Goddard
[1:21:31] and his wife Marsha for dinner in Beverly Hills.
[1:21:35] Karen arrived. Nearly an hour late, appearing
[1:21:38] disoriented and acting strangely, her speech slurred,
[1:21:43] her head lolling as if she were on some kind of medication.
[1:21:47] After the. Uneasy dinner, Karen returned to
[1:21:49] her West Hollywood apartment around 9:30 PM.
[1:21:54] Two more friends, writer Edward Rubin and actor Robert Hathaway,
[1:21:59] stopped by her place to watch television together.
[1:22:02] They noted nothing obviously amiss beyond Karen seeming
[1:22:05] extremely tired and worn out. By 11. 15 PM.
[1:22:09] Karen said she was going to bed, so Ruben and Hathaway let
[1:22:13] themselves out, even locking the door behind them as they left
[1:22:16] her apartment that night. Nobody heard.
[1:22:19] From Karen over the next two days.
[1:22:22] Given her emotional state, some friends initially assumed she
[1:22:25] might just be laying low. By Saturday.
[1:22:29] November 30th. Concern grew and whispers began
[1:22:33] that she may have done something to herself.
[1:22:36] The Goddards, uneasy that Karen hadn't been in touch since their
[1:22:40] dinner, went to check on her at her small bungalow apartment
[1:22:44] near the Sunset Strip. What they found?
[1:22:47] Was every friend's nightmare. The door was.
[1:22:50] Unlocked and a foul odor hung in the air.
[1:22:55] Inside. The apartment looked ransacked.
[1:22:58] A lamp was knocked over, a bowl of cigarettes and a coffee pot
[1:23:01] lay spilled on the floor and cushions were Askew.
[1:23:05] The. Television.
[1:23:06] Was still on, but muted. On the couch.
[1:23:10] Lay Karen's body motionless. She had likely.
[1:23:14] Been dead for about two days, meaning she died sometime on
[1:23:18] Thanksgiving Day 1963. Detectives.
[1:23:22] From the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department arrived and
[1:23:26] noted a few flecks of blood on Karen's face and a pillow,
[1:23:29] hinting at a struggle. The puzzling.
[1:23:32] Scene left even her close friends in shock.
[1:23:35] Given Karen. 'S history of depression and
[1:23:37] pill use. Some wondered.
[1:23:39] If this was an overdose or perhaps a tragic accident.
[1:23:44] However. The coroner's findings told a
[1:23:47] far more chilling story. During the.
[1:23:49] Autopsy, the medical examiner discovered Karen's hyoid bone, a
[1:23:54] small bone in the throat, was broken.
[1:23:58] This injury is a classic tell tale sign of strangulation.
[1:24:02] With that evidence, Karen Kupkennett's death was
[1:24:04] officially ruled A slaying by strangling.
[1:24:09] The hunt for. Karen's killer began under the
[1:24:11] glare of media attention here. Was a.
[1:24:14] Beautiful young actress slain in Hollywood at the very moment the
[1:24:18] country was distracted by President Kennedy's
[1:24:21] assassination. Detectives.
[1:24:23] Initially pursued any lead they could find, there was no sign of
[1:24:28] forced entry at her apartment, raising the likelihood that
[1:24:31] Karen knew her attacker and had willingly let them in.
[1:24:36] The two friends. Who last saw her alive?
[1:24:38] Reuben and Hathaway were questioned and their timeline
[1:24:42] helped establish that Karen was alive late on the 27th.
[1:24:46] The focus. Then shifted to her tumultuous
[1:24:48] personal life for suspects. From the outset.
[1:24:54] Police eyed Karen's ex-boyfriend Andrew Prine as a prime suspect.
[1:24:59] Prine had a clear. Motive.
[1:25:01] In the eyes of investigators, their relationship had ended
[1:25:04] badly. Karen had been reportedly
[1:25:07] harassing him and his new partner.
[1:25:10] Prine was in. The Los Angeles area at the time
[1:25:13] and Karen had been obsessed with him in the weeks leading up to
[1:25:16] her death. Not only.
[1:25:18] That, but before her death, both Karen and Prine had reported
[1:25:22] receiving anonymous death threat letters.
[1:25:25] As mentioned. Earlier, the police later
[1:25:28] discovered they were fabricated by Karen herself.
[1:25:32] The Revelation. That she wrote those letters
[1:25:34] complicated the picture. It showed.
[1:25:37] Karen's extreme desperation, but it also initially cast suspicion
[1:25:41] on Prine until the hoax was uncovered.
[1:25:45] Ultimately. Though Andrew Prine was never
[1:25:48] charged and investigators couldn't find solid evidence
[1:25:51] tying him to the crime, he maintained his innocence, and in
[1:25:56] fact, Karen's parents eventually came to believe Prine was not
[1:25:59] responsible. Years.
[1:26:01] Later, the Kupkennet's revealed that they harbored suspicions
[1:26:05] about another individual, though they never went public with this
[1:26:09] name. This indicates.
[1:26:11] The family heard or deduced something pointing to a
[1:26:14] different culprit, but law enforcement never confirmed any
[1:26:17] alternate suspect publicly. As the.
[1:26:22] Investigation pressed on in 1963 and 1964.
[1:26:26] No arrest was made. Police looked into other
[1:26:29] possibilities, perhaps an enraged acquaintance, a jealous
[1:26:33] rival or even a random intruder. The crime scene.
[1:26:37] 'S disarray suggested a violent struggle, but some elements
[1:26:41] seemed strange. For instance, Karen's body was
[1:26:45] nude, which could imply a certain angle, yet there was
[1:26:48] little evidence reported of an indecent assault.
[1:26:52] Robbery didn't appear to be the motive either, as numerous
[1:26:56] valuable items in the apartment weren't taken.
[1:27:00] It was as if. Someone wanted to attack Karen
[1:27:02] personally Her. Demise.
[1:27:04] Was the only goal. With Scant.
[1:27:07] Physical evidence and many of Karen's closest friends cleared
[1:27:10] the case grew cold. One reason.
[1:27:14] The Karen Cupkinet case continues to fascinate is its
[1:27:17] curious timing. Karen died just six days after
[1:27:21] President Kennedy's assassination, leading some to
[1:27:24] wonder if there could be a connection.
[1:27:27] In the fevered. Atmosphere Following JF KS
[1:27:30] slaying, a number of conspiracy theories sprouted, and Karen's
[1:27:34] name strangely found its way into that narrative.
[1:27:38] The most famous? Allegation comes from Penn
[1:27:40] Jones, a Texas newspaper editor and early JFK theorist.
[1:27:46] In his self. Published 1966 book Forgive My
[1:27:50] Grief. Jones claimed that Karen
[1:27:53] Kupkinet was the mysterious woman who tried to warn of
[1:27:56] Kennedy's assassination in advance.
[1:28:01] This claim. Centers on a real incident that
[1:28:03] occurred about 20 minutes before Kennedy was shot in Dallas.
[1:28:08] A telephone. Operator in Oxnard, CA reported
[1:28:11] that an unknown woman dialed her by mistake and whispered.
[1:28:15] The president. Is going to be shot.
[1:28:18] According to. The operator.
[1:28:20] The woman sounded disturbed or in a trance before the line went
[1:28:23] dead. This eerie.
[1:28:25] Phone call was noted by authorities but never fully
[1:28:29] explained. Jones leapt.
[1:28:31] On it, and without evidence, identified the woman on the
[1:28:34] phone as Karen Kupkenet. In his telling, Karen somehow
[1:28:39] knew of the assassination beforehand, perhaps through her
[1:28:42] Hollywood connections or via her father's network, and tried to
[1:28:46] alert authorities. Proponents of this.
[1:28:49] Idea argue that she was silenced by conspirators days later.
[1:28:55] It's a gripping. Story, but there is no concrete
[1:28:57] evidence to support it. Karen's friends and family have
[1:29:01] vehemently denied that she had any such foreknowledge or
[1:29:03] involvement. In fact, on November 22nd, 1963,
[1:29:08] Karen was reportedly not even in the Los Angeles area where the
[1:29:12] call originated. Additionally, Karen had no known
[1:29:16] connection to government or political insiders.
[1:29:20] The idea? That she would be Privy to one
[1:29:22] of the biggest secrets in world history is.
[1:29:25] Highly. Implausible, to say the least.
[1:29:28] Nonetheless. Once her name was associated
[1:29:31] with that ominous phone call, it entered the lore of JFK
[1:29:35] conspiracy literature. Well over. 60 years later, the
[1:29:41] story of Karen remains A somber footnote in Hollywood history
[1:29:45] and, oddly, in Kennedy lore.

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