Going West: True Crime - Jean Ellroy // 132

Episode Date: August 4, 2021

In 1958, a 43-year-old woman was found murdered in Los Angeles the morning after being seen at a drive-in with an unknown man. Many years later, her son became a true crime novelist and started investigating his own mothers case to see if he could find out what really happened to the woman who was taken from his life when he was only 10 years old. This is the story of Jean Ellroy. BONUS EPISODES patreon.com/goingwestpodcast CASE SOURCES https://www.irishtimes.com/news/who-killed-jean-ellroy-1.104505 https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1995-08-30-ls-40260-story.html https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/20398937/geneva-odelia-ellroy https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/3705804/armando-lee-ellroy https://venetianvase.co.uk/2020/03/15/the-mystery-of-jean-hillikers-first-marriage-solved/ https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1057/9781137490834_4 https://venetianvase.co.uk/2012/02/25/lee-earle-ellroy-the-early-life-of-james-ellroy/ https://www.lipstickalley.com/threads/the-geneva-jean-ellroy-murder-james-ellroys-mother.4356997/ https://unsolved.com/gallery/jean-ellroy/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1995/05/23/murder-close-to-the-heart/255762b4-9611-4276-8e8b-159c1b133090/ https://venetianvase.co.uk/2019/08/16/zasu-pitts-and-jean-ellroy-kindred-spirits/ http://tomahfamilies.com/Tomah%20Family%20Trees/Woodard,%20Daniel/b22087.html Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What is going on to Crime fans, I'm your host, Heath. And I'm your other host, Daphne. And you're listening to Going West. Howdy folks, things for tuning in today, Heath and I are officially in our new studio that is not quite soundproof. So we're not set up yet. We're working on it. So sorry if it's a little echoey today. Hopefully by next week we'll have that all squared away. And yeah, hope you guys are having a good week so far. We want to tell you a little bit about a Patreon bonus episode we just released last week on the murder of Alice Ruggles. Yeah, it's a really devastating stalker case from England, very crazy story.

If you want to listen to that and over 40 other bonus episodes, head on over to patreon.com slash going west podcast. Today we have an interesting case out of the 1950s, which is surprising because we don't often cover those cases, so when we do, I always find them very interesting. I do too, so today we're going to Los Angeles in the 50s. Let's do it. Alright guys, this is episode 132 of Going West, so let's get into it. In 1958, a 43-year-old woman was found murdered in Los Angeles the morning after being seen at a drive-in with an unknown man. Many years later, her son became a true crime novelist and started investigating his own mother's case to see if he could find out what really happened

to the woman who was taken from his life when he was only 10 years old. Geneva Hilliker, who went by gene, was born on April 15, 1915 in Monroe County, Wisconsin to parents Jesse and Earl Hilliker, and four years later came her younger sister, Leota. Geneva spent her upbringing on a farm in the state of Wisconsin and there were some troubles between her parents as she grew up. Her father was an alcoholic and due to being drunk on the job, he was fired from his job as a forest ranger. And this pretty much tore his marriage apart as well, so he moved over 100 miles away while Jean and Leota were raised by their mother in Tuma, Wisconsin. Jean was interested in becoming a nurse so she headed to West Suburban College in Chicago to study nursing, and this is where her own alcohol addiction began.

But when she was 23 years old, the beautiful gene was named America's most charming red head, which was a December 1938 competition sponsored by a cosmetics company. And while she stayed at the ambassador hotel on Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles, she took a screen test and was awarded $1,000, which is kind of calculated to around $20,000 today. So she got a lot for being such a pretty redhead, and she fell in love with the city and decided to permanently make the move there. And it was there that she met a man named Easton Spalding.

Easton Spalding was from Springfield, Illinois, but moved with his family to Long Beach, California when he was just six years old. His father was an incredibly successful real estate speculator and owned a lot of land, including parts of Sunset Boulevard and Fountain Avenue. And in fact, to this day, there's an area of West Hollywood that's called Spalding Square, named after Albert Spalding.

Easton was inspired by his father's success in his life, and he entered the family business and got into real estate as well. But he also became the heir to the Spalding Sports Good fortune. So he was set. And it's unknown how Jean and Easton who had already been married in divorce twice met, but they seemed to have a very quick and secretive relationship that turned into an allotment pretty quickly. None of Jean's friends knew Easton and vice versa, and in fact their families hadn't even met when they decided to get married in November 1940 in Yuma, Arizona. But this marriage didn't last long at all, and in regards to Jean's life story, it's almost like it didn't even happen. As we'll get into it later,

her son never even knew about this marriage until he discovered it as an adult, so it seemed as though Jean kept a lot of secrets in her life. So seven years later, in 1947, 32-year-old Jean would marry a man named Armand Elroy, who was a Virginia native and 17 years her senior, in Ventura County, California. Jean had actually known Armand before she married Easton Spalding, and they began a relationship after her divorce with Easton. At this time, she still suffered from an alcohol addiction, but she was able to become pregnant and birth a beautiful baby boy named James L. Roy on March 4, 1948 in Los Angeles.

And for reference later, this was one year after Elizabeth Short, also known as the Black Dahlia, had been found murdered not far from where the L. Roy's were living. Oh, what a terrible case that one is. Oh, I know, and we're going to talk a little bit about it later as well. And by the way, James Elroy was born Lee Earl Elroy, but he later changed his name to James, so not to confuse you, we will call him James because he's going to come up later on because he's a pretty big part of this story. So Gene worked as a nurse at Arrow Dynamics Core, while her husband Armand was an accountant

as well as the business manager for the very well-known and stunning actress Rita Hayworth. But just about six years into their marriage and James's birth, Jean and Armand divorced and Jean moved out with their son James. Jean and Armand's marriage was pretty volatile and it was filled with cheating. Armand even claimed to have had an affair with Rita Hayworth, so it was just kind of a mess. In their new home, Jean wasn't too far away from her nursing job at St. John's Hospital, and she got custody of James from Monday through Friday each week. But each Saturday, James would take the 20-mile bus ride to stay with his father at his

apartment near Larchmont, just south of Hollywood. And James really looked forward to the time that he could spend with his father because he almost detested his mother, and really not to speak ill of a victim at all that's not what I'm trying to do, but later James described his mother Jean as sharp tongue and bad tempered, and he said it was hard living with her because she was a quote sexually promiscuous alcoholic who was unable to keep a steady job. And James said these things directly to her as a young boy. So he seemed very angry at her for just the way she was and he even called her a drunk and a whore to her face

when he would find her in bed with a stranger in their house. And he was like eight? So not a good situation here. Yeah, it seems like there's definitely some issues going on there. Right. So again, not to speak ill of a victim at all,

me bringing up her alcohol addiction and the way that her son feels about her is just kind of to give you guys a better idea of what her story is and what her life was like. Yeah, and again, this is James' words. Yes, this is her son's word, so I'm just using his own memories here. But James seemed to struggle a lot in life and she really didn't have anyone to turn to. She was lonely, you know, she didn't have any friends, she was across the country from her parents and her sister, who by the way all remained back in Wisconsin, and she was

constantly being used by men. So sadly, her final days were all but happy. But despite all these problems, Jean was known to be a very good nurse. For a time she moved with James to West Hollywood and worked at St. John's Hospital, where she was described as being very on top of managing medications, bandages, and personal care for her patients. Particularly, actress Zay Su Pits, who was being treated for breast cancer at this time. And because of the extra money, Jean was able to send James to a private school called Children's Paradise. Her ex-husband Armande, as we stated, was also pretty promiscuous, but I think

the difference to their son James was that he did the best that he could to hide it from him. So he wasn't trying to flaunt his affairs in the same kind of manner that his mother did. In 1956, when James was eight years old, Jean moved them to Santa Monica so he could attend that private school that she had saved up for while she was transferring jobs again. And this time to the Los Angeles Packard Bell Electronics plant to be an on-site nurse.

At this time, Jean was dating a man named Hank, who James wasn't the biggest fan of, as he later described him as a low life, but Jean did her best to still show James a good time when they could hang out with each other, like taking him to a drive-in double feature once a week, and letting him basically eat his weight in ha-dogs. That sounds amazing. And he loved it. Two years later in 1958, when James was 10 and Jean was nearing her 43rd birthday, she decided to move them to El Monte, California, which is just east of LA.

She wanted James to be able to live in a home, not an apartment. But because El Monte is a more affordable place to live than West Hollywood and say in Monica, for example, she felt this was kind of their only chance at being able to have an actual house on just her nursing salary. James didn't like this area at all though because he felt it was a bit of a downgrade, but Jean begged him to give it some time and feel it out. So in February of 1958, they moved into their new home in El Monte. This would also mean that James

would be able to leave his private school and head back to public school. All of this infuriated Armand because the commute to his apartment was about an hour and a half from their new house. And he really wasn't all that happy about his son living in El Monte. Armon because the commute to his apartment was about an hour and a half from their new house, and he really wasn't all that happy about his son living in El Monte. Armon felt as though she was either running away from a man or to a man, because this

move didn't really make sense to him. He even wanted to hire a private investigator to look into it. That's how much this decision confused him, but with the move, Jean upped Armand's custody agreement with James, and they were able to see each other from Friday to Sunday every week. A few months later, on Friday, June 20th, school was out for the summer, and James would see his mother for the very last time. Armand picked him up from El Monte and took him back to his apartment in Los Angeles. They spent the weekend seeing

the Vikings at the Fox Wilshire Theatre and eating at local restaurants together. They had a great weekend together as usual, but Sunday June 22nd, Armon put James on a bus back to El Monte. And when James approached his home, he noticed three police cars outside and neighbors on the sidewalk. And as soon as the neighbor pointed him out to one of the police officers, they approached James and said, son, your mother has been killed. And that's just like the worst feeling to have possible. I mean, imagine coming home to your parents parents house or even just a family member's house

and seeing ambulances and, you know, police officers outside and then someone's pointing at you, like you automatically know that something has gone terribly wrong. As horrible as this is to say, I feel like most people would have that reaction where you're just horrified by this news, but James actually later recounted that he felt relieved when he learned that she was dead. Right, and that's because, I mean, he had a very large distaste for his mother. Yes, and, you know, he described it as relievement and he felt kind of like he was free, but he was so young he was only 10.

So I think in that moment, because he had this resentment towards her, he felt kind of like he was free, but he was so young he was only 10, so I think in that moment, because he had this resentment towards her, he felt like I can finally live with my dad because that's what he wanted and he had previously told his mom that he wanted to live with his dad, and she was so upset by that of course, because in her head,

she's probably like, why don't you like me? Right, and at this point, like you said, he's a kid, so, you know, he doesn't know how this is going to impact him in the future. I mean, you know, hindsight's 2020. I will say, again, we're going to talk a lot more about James throughout this episode, but he's definitely more of a blunt person. He says things how they are. He doesn't really sugarcoat anything. So his feelings towards his mom he's very open about it but he also described later on as well. Discussed that he also, you know, as he became an

adult was kind of like, I never really got to know her. I just had these judgments based on what I had seen but I didn't really get to know my own mother because he was so young when she was murdered. So anyway, little did James know in that moment when he was told that his mother was killed when she was murdered. So anyway, little did James know in that moment when he was told that his mother was killed, she was murdered by an unknown man, the previous evening, which was Saturday, June 21, 1958. And not to confuse anybody, you know,

this is about 10, 11-ish years after the Black Dolly a murder. So this is not a known connection. Yeah, those two cases are highly unlikely to be connected. I only want to say that because earlier, we talked about it, but we're going to talk about it later, but these are about 10 years apart. So, Jean went out drinking that Saturday night around 8 p.m., according to Jean's landlord, who witnessed her leaving the house then, and was seen alone at a restaurant called Mamamia having a drink. Although she was by herself, the waitress remembered that she appeared to be looking for someone.

Then she was seen going into the desert in Bar in El Monte, once again alone. But soon she was joined by a dark-haired white man and a blonde woman. None of them appeared to be regulars, but they appeared like they were familiar with each other, and likely not meeting for the first time. At around 10 pm, Jean was seen leaving with a man, but not the blonde woman. The woman was described as having dishwater blonde hair. So dark blonde almost light brown hair that was pulled back into a ponytail and she appeared to be in her 20s. She was white with broad hips.

The man was described as having straight dark hair, slicked back with a widow's peak, seemingly 40 years old, so around the same age as Jean, in between 5'8 to 6' tall. He was described by many as Swarthy. I had actually never heard of the word Swarthy used, and when I clicked Google images, a picture of Jack Sparrow from Pirates of the Caribbean came up, so when I learned what it meant, I was like, oh yeah, I would not a pirate. Yeah, I would, well, I would put a picture of Jack Sparrow too to describe this. So Swarthy typically means dark skinned, but in a weather be tin like darkened by the sunway, like maybe someone with a darkened olive complexion. And in this instance, witness

has felt he was either a swartharthy white man or he was Hispanic. So Jean was spotted next about 20 minutes later at Stan's Drive-In in El Monte. And a car hop, so the waitress that serves food out to your car at a drive-in, they're called car hops, named Levant Chambers had been the one to tend to Jean and the swarthy man that night. She later told investigators that they arrived in a two-tone green 55 or 56-olds mobile, which by the way, was not the car that Jean drove, meaning it would have to be the Swarthly Man's.

Jean ordered a grilled cheese while the man ordered a cup of coffee. And according to the car hop or waitress, Levant Chambers, Jean seemed to be in a very good mood but was definitely intoxicated, whereas the man appeared sober. They left after some time, but then returned again much later, and the same car hop Levant served them again around 2.15am. Jean ordered a cup of coffee and a bowl of chili while the man just ordered another coffee. And by this time, Jean still appeared drunk, but still in a good mood, although her clothing

was very disheveled. And their waitress, Levant, actually remembered that one of Jean's breasts was almost completely out of her clothes, and she was just kind of shuffled about a bit. But not in a way where Levant thought something was wrong or that Jean was in danger, you know, because she seemed like she was in a good mood, maybe just kind of, maybe a little sloppy from alcohol? Right, she was having a good time.

Exactly. So Levant also noticed that the man appeared to be bored, and shortly after receiving their coffee and chili, they paid and then left. But Levant didn't see them pull out or what direction they headed in. This was the last time Jean-Elroy would be seen alive, because the following morning, at 10 a.m., 43-year-old Jean would be found in an iv Ivy patch in El Monte, dead by strangulation. On Sunday, June 22, 1958, at around 10am, three little league coaches in their 40s and 50s, discovered Jean's body in an Ivy patch just a few inches off a street curb near

the playing field at a Royal High school in El Monte, California. The police were quickly called to the scene and they arrived about 15 minutes later. When they did, they saw a fair-skinned, red-headed woman wearing a dark blue, sleeveless, scoop neck dress with a dark blue overcoat lying flat on her back. Her right arm was bent and laying slightly above her head while her left arm covered her midriff. Her left hand was clenched and her legs were straight. Her right foot was bare while her left ankle had a nylon stalkinging punched up around it. Her dress was disheveled and pulled up above her hips, exposing her nude body beneath,

and she had insect bites on her arm, her face was bruised, and her bra was unfastened and hiked up. Anni-Lon stalking, along with a cotton cord, were tied around her neck and nodded tightly. There was no idea on her and her underwear was missing. Investigators noticed the way her body was placed right away and they thought it was strange. It almost looked like she was posed, especially since her body had various asphalt marks as if she had been dragged. The medical examiner determined that she had died between 3 to 5 a.m.

This was incredibly important because as they would come to find, she had been at the drive-in until after 2.30 a.m. with an unknown man. That afternoon, after a radio bulletin regarding Jean's description had been put out in the area, a woman named Anna May Kraiki came forward. And she felt that the woman they were describing was one of her tenants, Jean Elroy. She explained to them that Jean and her son James had been living in a little bungalow that she rented to them for about four months, and that the little boy went to be with his father on the weekends, including that weekend.

In fact, she had seen Jean drive off in her car alone at around 8pm the previous evening. She described Jean as a very fine person, a quiet woman who neither drank nor dated men, a good mother to her boy. Which I think is really interesting that she described Jean in this way, because James, her son, describes Jean the complete opposite. She drank a lot and she dated a lot of men. So I think that maybe as we said earlier, Jean was very secretive. So I think she did a good job at kind of hiding that and not hiding that, not saying she

wasn't a good mom, I just mean hiding her interests. Yeah, and I think this kind of speaks to this time period as well because I feel like there was this expectation for women to be very womanly out in public and you weren't allowed to be as scandalous or, you know, as rough around the edges. Yeah, you had to kind of be straight and plain, I guess, not plain, but maybe just, you know, yeah, you can be your own kind of gal. Yeah, you have to kind of keep your shit together. So maybe that's kind of why this landlord is saying, hey, you know, I've never seen her like that. Every time I've seen her, she's been this really great mother doesn't drink all of that.

Exactly. And Anna and her husband were the ones actually who identified Jean's body. And by this time, Jean's son James had already come home to a salue of police at his house. That day, Jean's car had been found at the desert Inn, which was just about two miles from the dump site, and around one mile from her home in Almonte, and we know that she'd gone to the bar at the desert Inn that evening, where she was seen with the blonde woman and the swarthy man.

Her car was searched, but to their surprise, it was incredibly clean, sans the six empty beer bottles that were wrapped in brown paper bags. But her keys, purse, underwear, and even shoes were not in the car. That evening, investigators were in contact with Armand El Roy and discovered that they had been divorced for about four years and that Jean, again, was very secretive and they're just finding this out. So Armand never knew anything about who she was seeing

because she didn't share that information with her ex-husband, which isn't weird. Yeah, obviously makes a lot of sense. Yeah, she doesn't need to. But he did say that he felt she moved to El Monte to run from or run to some low life she was seeing. Armond had a solid alibi and had clearly been with James all weekend in Los Angeles.

So he was never a suspect in Jean's case. When Jean's autopsy was performed, it was clear that her death was asphyxia due to strangulation by ligature. And when she was killed, she was menstruating, and there was a tampon in place at the rear of the vaginal vault, which further than it typically is as if it was pushed, so that was kind of a sign of potential sexual assault. And the medical examiner decided to then test for sperm. And it came back positive, meaning consensual or not, she had sexual intercourse at some point that evening. Also, her blood

alcohol level was .08. As the medical examiner began to shave Gene's head as they do, he noticed bluish purple discoloration and came to the conclusion that Gene had been struck in the head six times, if not more, and was possibly unconscious when she was strangled. And as more tips and witnesses came forward, investigators were able to put much of the timeline of Jean's evening together, as we already explained, but they had no idea who the man they would refer to as the swarthy man was. Because Jean's tampon was higher than it should have been, investigators believed that Jean had been raped. So they wondered if that was part of the motive to kill Jean, because she didn't have any

known enemies really, because she was a very private and Jean, because she didn't have any known enemies really, because she was a very private and quiet woman and she didn't really ever tend to mess with anyone. Luckily police had a pretty good description of the swarthy man and the blonde woman, as well as this man's car, but despite the tips that did come into the police station, they were never able to find this man's identity. They questioned a slew of suspects and even pondered if her murderer was Harvey Glatman, a Los Angeles serial killer who was active around this time.

And we can definitely cover Harvey Glatman, also known as the Lonely Hearts Killer or the Glamour Girl Slayer, if you guys are interested, so let us know. But basically, he was born in New York and exhibited sadomasochistic sexual tendencies from a very early age. And I don't want to go too much into detail since it started when he was only 12. But basically, he would get pleasure from tying a rope around his neck in the bathtub tightly. A family physician told his parents that he would quote, grow out of it, but in his 20s, he began sexually assaulting women. In 1957, when

he was 29 years old, he moved out to Los Angeles and found his victims by walking around outside of modeling agencies. When he found someone he liked, he would offer them work for pulp fiction magazines and take them back to his own apartment, tie them up, rape them, and take their pictures. Then he would strangle them and dump their bodies in the desert, and he has three known victims, Judith Dull, Ruth Mercado, and Shirley Ann Bridgeford. Yeah, and this actually kind of makes a little bit of sense because Jean, as we said, was a very beautiful redhead. She was, I mean, she literally won an award for it, so, you know,

we'll post photos, of course, she was very beautiful and I do think that this is an interesting angle because, you know, he would strangle these women and then dump their bodies in the desert. She wasn't in the desert, but she was strangled and she was dumped in an ivy patch. So, hmm. And she was dumped out east. So this guy was killing people in LA and El Monte is obviously east of LA. So it's kind of a little bit more on the outskirts.

AKA, not super far from the desert. Exactly. Yeah, but this guy, he was caught and arrested on October 31, 1958, so just a few months after Jean's murder, and he was executed less than one year later in the gas chamber at San Quentin State Prison, which was super quick. Very quick. Yeah, but he was known to be active from at least August of 1957 to July of 1958. So investigators wondered if Harvey was possibly

behind Gene's murder, especially since he was into tying his victims up and strangling them. He was only about 30 at the time of Gene's murder, though, and you could hardly describe him as swarthy, but I will admit, it's hard to tell in black and white photos. Unfortunately, he was executed before police could question him about Jean so it's never been confirmed, nor denied by Harvey Glatman if he was the killer. No blonde woman ever came forward to help identify the swarthy man, so although she wasn't seen at the drive-in with he and Jean, it's believed that she either became a victim of

the swarthy man, or she kept his secrets. Yeah, because police feel confident that this woman more than likely would have heard about Jean's murder and come forward with information, but the fact that she didn't is pretty suspicious and it makes you think that she may have been involved. And I always think this about people in cases because, you know, there was newspapers back then in radio. If she was living in the area, she would probably have heard about this, especially because she was seen with the woman.

You know, she was seen with the victim. Yeah, I'm kind of curious though, if maybe that had been like, you know, a first time meeting, I know that it seemed like they were, like they knew each other, but that could just be like because they were in a good conversation or sometimes things like that don't really matter in cases, but sometimes they do.

Well, I wonder so much about their interaction because it's Jean, another woman, and then this man, but then the other woman didn't go with them to the drive-in. So how did she know these people prior? Who were they to her? I just wish we knew more. A lot of questions here. Exactly, especially since we know what the car looks like, we have multiple witnesses

who know what the blonde woman and the swarthy man look like. And you didn't find him. I just... Again, I mean, I'm not trying to undermine them or say that I could do it better. You know, I'm just kind of like, we had some leads here in a way. We had some information. And on top of that, we also have a semen sample. Yes, which we will discuss. But of course, in 1958, they really couldn't do anything with it.

So we will talk about what happened to it. So after Jean died, her son James basically hid his emotions in other murder cases, and he became very fixated on the Black Dahlia case. And he got into crime novels, mostly after father Armand gave him two books on his 11th birthday, the complete Sherlock Holmes and Jack Webb's The Badge. Years later, after being expelled from Fairfax High School for fighting and truancy, James joined the US Army before being discharged within about a year,

and then he took up drinking. This was around the same time that his father, Armon, died after having multiple strokes, which was on June 4th, 1965, when James was just 17. So this was like seven, yeah, like seven years after his mother died and he loses his father. Yeah, that's pretty that's pretty rough Yeah, and his father's last words to James were Try to pick up every waitress who serves you so he he had good humor till the end

I love that that actually reminds me a lot of my grandfather. I was just gonna say that. He would literally You know like get waitresses to sit on his lap because he was just a funny and goofy guy and everybody pretty much loved this guy. Yeah, I think Armando was very similar to that for sure. Yeah, and after this, James' life really began to take a turn for the worse. He couldn't hold a job and went from working for a psychic to a job in a pornographic bookstore. And in his late teens and early 20s, James started drinking very heavily and he became addicted to Benzadrex and Halers. And he also started committing

petty crimes, including shoplifting and burglary, and he was also homeless. But after serving jail time and contracting a pretty serious case of pneumonia, James really turned his life around and pursued a career in writing. Not only did he become very invested in the Black Dahlia case and other true crime cases as a teen, but he had a deep interest in reading and he was also very smart. So when he sobered up, he started working as a golf caddy and tried writing a novel. His first novel was published in 1981 when he was 33 years old,

and it was a detective story called Brown's Requiem. Over the next few years, he came out with a handful of other homicide detective novels before releasing a book in 1987 called The Black Dahlia. And three years later, he published a book called LA Confidential, which may sound familiar because seven years later, a film with the same name was adapted from his book, and starred Guy Pierce, Russell Crowe, Kim Basinger, and Kevin Spacey. But over the years, James just couldn't deny the truth about what happened to his mother, and being a crime novelist, it only seemed fitting to dive into her case and write a memoir about it. A big reason why James decided to look into his mother's murder was to get to know more

about who she was. He wanted to learn everything that he could so he could write about her story and portray her in the best way that he could. Also, he didn't believe her case got as much attention as it should have, since about two and a half months earlier, mobster Johnny Stompinato was shot to death in Beverly Hills, and the media in Los Angeles fixated on his case for a long time. So nearly 40 years after Jean was murdered, James got together with a reporter named Frank C. Gerardo and sifted through James' case files for a total of 15 months

Trying to find any clues that could lead them to James killer. Maybe something that the original investigators overlooked. So as we mentioned, there was a sperm sample taken from James' body during her autopsy And if this sample was still around today, the case would more than likely be solved. But it appears to have gotten lost or damaged over the years. So it was of no use to James during his own investigation even in the 90s, which is so devastating. That really sucks. I mean, that is such an important key. Obviously, I'm in the 1958. They maybe didn't anticipate that such technology would exist. Oh, I'm in a 1958, they maybe didn't anticipate that such technology would exist. Oh, definitely not. And it didn't exist for 40 freaking years, so it took a while.

Something happened to it, which is obviously just awful. So James did find some interesting information about his mother, though, including the fact that she was married once before Armand, as we said. But James didn't learn this until the mid 90s when he was talking to his distant cousin, Janet Wagner Clock. Janet is Jean's sister's daughter, so Jean's sister, Leota, her daughter. But James didn't grow up with her. But she knew about Jean's first marriage to Easton's spalding, and then James kinda began to wonder to Easton's spalding, and then James kind of began to wonder if Easton was somehow involved. Easton would have been 56 when Jean was murdered, and he doesn't appear very swarthy.

I would say no. Also the man was described as being around 40 years old, so it doesn't seem very likely that Easton, as successful and worldly as he was, would be at a drive-in in El Monte hanging out with his ex-wife from 18 years prior and then murder her. But it would definitely be good to know for sure where he was that evening. Unfortunately, after all of James' digging and even having the police reopen her case, there was never a solution. We still don't know who killed Jean-Elroy and why, but James wrote an entire memoir about his mother and his investigation into her murder titled My Dark Places, published in

1996. It took him seven months to write it, and in the end, he includes a contact page that says, The investigation continues. Information on the case can be forwarded to Detective Stoner, either through the toll-free number, 1-800-717-6517, or his email address, debt-stonerat-earthlink.net. We highly recommend everyone go read My Dark Places by James L. Roy to learn more about this case. And sadly, it seems there's just so little information and leads for her killer, but

we know he wants justice for her. Thank you so much everybody for listening to this episode of Going West. Yes, thank you guys so much for listening to this episode and next week we'll have an all new case for you guys to dive into. We don't often go to the 1950s but I think it's definitely interesting and I think it's even more interesting too that this took place in Los Angeles, we kind of talk about, you know, old Hollywood stuff and that's always kind of fun. So, and I think it's crazy that he turned out

to be a very successful and well-known crime novelist. So, let us know if you've read any of his other books because I'm definitely ordering some. Yeah, I'm really interested to see what other cases he talks about. And honestly, I'm very, very interested to get into my dark places because I feel like, I feel like there's just so much information in this case that leads me to believe that this case could be

solved one day. Yeah, and like I said earlier, he's very blunt. He kind of just says that how it is. So I think that makes the book really interesting because he just says it all. He doesn't hold back. So go check out my dark places. And thank you guys so much for listening. Thank you so much for our lovely patrons who have joined in the last week.

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