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* T A Y L O R O L O G Y *
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* A Continuing Exploration of the Life and Death of William Desmond Taylor *
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* *
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* Issue 34 -- October 1995 Editor: Bruce Long bruce@asu.edu *
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* TAYLOROLOGY may be freely distributed *
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CONTENTS OF THIS ISSUE:
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The Dispatches of Richard Burritt
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What is TAYLOROLOGY?
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TAYLOROLOGY is a newsletter focusing on the life and death of William Desmond
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Taylor, a top Paramount film director in early Hollywood who was shot to
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death on February 1, 1922. His unsolved murder was one of Hollywood's major
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scandals. This newsletter will deal with: (a) The facts of Taylor's life;
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(b) The facts and rumors of Taylor's murder; (c) The impact of the Taylor
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murder on Hollywood and the nation; (d) Taylor's associates and the Hollywood
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silent film industry in which Taylor worked. Primary emphasis will be given
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toward reprinting, referencing and analyzing source material, and sifting it
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for accuracy.
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The Dispatches of Richard Burritt
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Most sensational reporting of the Taylor case was done by Edward Doherty, of
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the CHICAGO TRIBUNE, and Wallace Smith, of the CHICAGO AMERICAN. But there
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was another Chicago newspaper with its own correspondent "on the scene":
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Richard Burritt, of the CHICAGO DAILY NEWS. Although not quite as extreme
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and lurid as Smith and Doherty, Burritt's dispatches are still interesting,
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as can be seen from the following selection of material.
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* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
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February 7, 1922
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Richard Burritt
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CHICAGO DAILY NEWS
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Los Angeles--While through the tangled skein of infatuations of
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beautiful screen stars for William Desmond Taylor police and deputy sheriffs
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today were searching for a tangible clue that might lead to the identity of
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the person who shot and killed him last Wednesday night, Henry Peavey,
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Mr. Taylor's colored valet, added further details concerning the heart
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affairs that surrounded the film director.
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Peavey declared that Mary Miles Minter, ingenue of the screen, and Mabel
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Normand, both of whom wrote Mr. Taylor letters that were stolen after
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discovery of the murder, were the only women who dined alone with Mr. Taylor
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at the Taylor home.
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Just a month ago, Peavey said, Miss Normand buttonholed him in the
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living room of the Taylor home and in the course of a conversation said,
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according to Peavey:
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"Henry, Mr. Taylor and I are going to be married."
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Miss Normand beamed with happiness as she spoke, Peavey told detectives.
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"Miss Normand had dinner with Mr. Taylor alone on two different
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occasions that I know of," Peavey said.
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"I cooked the dinners for them. It was after the second dinner that I
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cooked for them that Miss Normand spoke to me. I was filling the match tray
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in the living room. They were sitting together on the divan. Miss Normand
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got up and spoke to me as I was leaving the room.
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"'Henry,' she said, 'I wonder whether you would answer a question if I
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should ask it?' Then she said: 'Since you've been here, Henry, how many
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other girls have had dinner alone with Mr. Taylor? Who are they?' I said
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that only one girl had had dinner with Mr. Taylor before. 'That was Miss
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Normand,' I told her.
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"She shook her finger at me and said: 'Henry, I can see that Mr. Taylor
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has posted you.'"
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"Then she sprang a big surprise on me.
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"She said: 'Henry, I wonder whether you would like to work for me.'
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I said I didn't know whether I could please her. 'Well, you please Mr.
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Taylor, and you ought to please me,' she said. 'You know, Henry,' she went
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on, 'Mr. Taylor and I are going to be married.' All this time Mr. Taylor
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said never a word."
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Miss Normand has denied that there was any understanding with Mr. Taylor
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or that they were in love. Yet they continued to write the "your baby" and
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the "blessed baby" letters--letters that the police would like to see now
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that they have read a note written Mr. Taylor by Mary Miles Minter, in which
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she told Mr. Taylor, "I love, I love you, I love you."
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Peavey disclosed an additional surprise today in the fact that Mr.
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Taylor, who had been called immune from love himself, was in fact infatuated
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with some one. In an upper drawer of his dresser he kept a filmy lace
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handkerchief, which lay there between his own.
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"One morning I came into his bedroom and saw him standing before the
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dresser with the handkerchief cupped tenderly in his hands. Mr. Taylor
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didn't see me. He pressed the handkerchief to his lips. There was a look on
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his face I had never seen before, the look of a man at worship.
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"When he saw me, he folded the handkerchief carefully and put it back in
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the drawer. I was very careful not to touch it. It may have had initials,
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but I did not see them."
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While Mr. Taylor's body lay on the floor of his living room, two hours
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after the murder was discovered, and friends of the film director, neighbors
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and police officers sat or walked about the room, one of their number deftly
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removed two or more packets of letters from the drawer of a table, placed
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them in a pocket and sat down casually in the circle of Mr. Taylor's friends.
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One of the packets contained the "blessed baby" letters of Mabel
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Normand, the famous screen actress, which she had written to Mr. Taylor on
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numerous occasions particularly, she tells interviewers now, from hotels in
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New York in periodical absences from studio land.
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Those who have seen the letters written by Miss Normand, say they are,
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as Miss Normand described them, the platonic missives that an actress might
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write to a director for whom she had a high regard.
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As to the other missing letters, there is new ground for belief they are
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love notes of a famous actress whose name has not yet been publicly mentioned
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in the case.
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That Mr. Taylor may have lost his life in defending letters and papers
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from a blackmailer, who, on killing him, became frightened and made his
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escape without taking any of them with him, is a theory on which a few
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officers are working.
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Charles Eyton, manager of the Famous Players-Lasky studio, and Mr.
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Taylor's superior, in going over again the details of the scene in the Taylor
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living room recalled that the movie director's palms pointed upward. This
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simple fact may prove of great importance. Considered in connection with the
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position of his arms as he lay on his back, it is taken to mean that he had
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rushed an assailant or was reaching toward the drawer containing the letters
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when the bullet struck him. It appeared that his arms were still
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outstretched as he fell backward, his feet sliding under a chair.
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The shot was fired from a distance of not more than four or five inches
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from the body, the police have determined. Mr. Taylor had nearly reached the
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assailant when he toppled over.
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Los Angeles is taking delight in the pink silk robe de nuit that Mr.
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Taylor kept in a bureau drawer of his sleeping quarters. His negro valet,
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Henry Peavey first told of it. The garment disappeared, lace edging and all.
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There was a city wide search for it. Movieland was turned upside down. Then
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it reappeared--in the afternoon papers. Everybody knows about the robe, but
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no one happens to have seen it; no one, that is, but Peavey.
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Arrangements have been perfected by movieland to make the Taylor funeral
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today as impressive as the burial of a nationally known statesman. Those
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studios that are not closed by the business depression will shut their gates.
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There will be two sets of pallbearers. One set has been selected by the
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Overseas club, the other will be composed of members of the Motion Picture
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Directors' association, of which Mr. Taylor was president.
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There will be music and the services of the Church of England will be
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read. A squad of Canadian ex-service men will fire a salute as the casket is
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lowered, draped with the British colors. The funeral cortage, which all Los
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Angeles will turn out to gaze upon, will wind in and out to the place of
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burial, Hollywood cemetery.
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* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
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February 8, 1922
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Richard Burritt
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CHICAGO DAILY NEWS
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Los Angeles--A cross of gold, of movie influence, or official laxity in
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the opinion of veteran police reporters in Los Angeles, is slowly dragging
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the Taylor murder case into the mire of obscurity from which it may never
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arise.
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The movie men are too eager to talk of Edward F. Sands, former butler-
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secretary at the home of the victim, William Desmond Taylor, noted film
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director, as a suspect; too full of protestations that no motive for the
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crime can be unearthed from the maze of affection that screen stars of less
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balance, poorer education, less understanding, fairly flung at the head of
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the polished Taylor, soldier of fortune, well read, an excellent
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conversationalist, charming and attractive to both sexes, a man inherently
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gifted with the capacity to make warm, personal admirers of men and more
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ardent admirers of women.
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Despite this fear on the part of newspapermen, investigators employed by
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Sheriff Traeger expect before nightfall to have in custody a nationally known
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figure of movieland, who, they believe, can give information that will point
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a straight trail to the slayer of Mr. Taylor.
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The sheriff's men regard as zero in absurdity the belief of the police
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and detectives from the district attorney's office that the culprit is Sands,
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for whom the police hold warrants charging grand larceny of several thousand
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dollars worth of Mr. Taylor's valuables and with burglary.
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Sands, the sheriff's men think, is in no way implicated in the killing,
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although a possible motive could be ascribed to him, revenge, and possible
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motives of tangibility have not been numerous.
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On the other hand, an attache of the district attorney's office has
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announced that a complain charging Sands with the murder will be sought,
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based on the corroborated evidence that he was seen near Mr. Taylor's home on
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the night of Feb. 1, when the murder took place.
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Though official confirmation is not yet to be had, it is believed that
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certain of the sheriff's investigators are searching for Dennis Deane-Tanner,
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William Desmond Taylor's brother, a man who several years ago mysteriously
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disappeared, leaving a wife and two daughters, who are now living in
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Monrovia, Cal. One officer today expressed the belief that Dennis Tanner
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might even now be attached under an assumed name to one of the numerous
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moving-picture studios, helped to his position by his brother.
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Mr. Taylor, up to the time that an assassin's bullet stopped a salary of
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$1,250 a week--real, not stage money, or a press-agented salary--Mr. Taylor
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was remitting $50 monthly to his brother's family.
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Miss Mabel Normand fainted as she took a last look at Mr. Taylor's face
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at the funeral yesterday as the body lay in the church vestibule. The
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service was over, the hearse was waiting and movie folk and nonprofessional
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friends of Mr. Taylor were passing out. Miss Normand stumbled, fell and had
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to be supported to a room. Smelling salts revived her.
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There are many Angelenos who have curiosity to know just why the police
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have handled Miss Normand as though she were a Sevres vase in a glass case
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rather than the last person known to be with Taylor before his murder, the
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girl who wrote him "Your baby" letters and received in return letters
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addressed "Blessed Baby," the girl who underwent such emotional turmoil on
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viewing Taylor's body after the funeral service yesterday, that she
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collapsed, swooning in the vestibule of the church.
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When Taylor's murder was discovered and police began their initial
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investigation, Miss Normand, on being visited by detectives, declined at
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first to talk. It was said she had suffered a nervous shock on hearing the
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news; thereupon the police paddled back to the station. They called again
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and cooled their heels for two or three hours after the manner of a bill
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collector waiting for one in arrears to return home, and after a time Miss
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Normand graciously consented to receive them.
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It was quite formal and everything, Miss Normand made her statement and
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the detectives bowed themselves out, duly appreciative of the fact that Miss
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Normand had granted them an audience, but with no information. Miss Normand
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divulged nothing of value, if she knew anything, and it is not expected she
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will be subjected to the annoyance of a second visit from the police.
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There are other widely known figures of the screen world who, perhaps
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would yield information of value that perhaps would yield to tangible clues,
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providing they were subjected to the cross-examinations that customarily
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accompany murder investigations. The police are not making them and the
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sheriff's men dare not because they do not wish to conflict with the police.
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* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
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February 9, 1922
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Richard Burritt
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CHICAGO DAILY NEWS
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Los Angeles--The identity of the screen beauty who played the principal
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feminine role in the life of William Desmond Taylor, murdered movie director,
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was the information Chief Deputy District Attorney Doran was seeking today
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when the investigation by Lee Woolwine, district attorney, got under way.
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At police headquarters rumors were flying thick and fast that one or two
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arrests would be made later in the day--men connected with the movie industry
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who would be held incommunicado and given a severe quizzing in an outlying
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office in order to keep their identity secret as long as possible and in
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order not to hamper other phases of the murder inquiry.
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Henry Peavey, Taylor's negro valet and cook, was the first witness
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subjected to a cross-examination. Harry Fellows, Taylor's chauffeur,
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followed him into the query chamber.
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An attempt was being made to extract from Peavey information he is
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believed to have covered under a spirit of talkativeness. At the start
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Peavey disclosed that Taylor appeared to believe he had an enemy.
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"You know," he said, "I didn't sleep at Mr. Taylor's place. I only
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worked there during the day and part of the evening. One day a few weeks ago
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I said to Mr. Taylor: 'I should think you'd be afraid to stay here alone
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every night.'"
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Taylor said he kept a revolver on a table in his bedroom on the second
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floor. It was in easy reach. He looked very serious for a moment.
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"Henry," he said, "you know I have my gun, and if I ever hear any one in
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the house and the person does not answer when I call I shall shoot. I'm
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taking no chances."
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Following Peavey and Fellows, several noted screen stars were slated for
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a cross-examination.
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Howard Fellows was the next to enter the inquisition chamber. Fellows
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was the murdered man's chauffeur. He declared he telephoned the Taylor home
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about 8 o'clock on the evening the murder was committed. As he got no answer
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to the phone call, he went to the house in person. Although he rang the
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doorbell frantically, there was no answer. He came to the conclusion that
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Taylor had heard, but for some reason did not wish to answer the bell, so he
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left and put the automobile into the garage and went home.
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Mr. and Mrs. Douglas MacLean were then called in. The MacLeans live
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next door to the Taylor home. Mrs. MacLean retold her story of having heard
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a shot the evening of the murder. She also declared she saw a stranger leave
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Taylor's house.
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A sweeping grand jury investigation of the murder seems a certainty with
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the announcement by Woolwine that he has assumed personal charge of the case.
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A score of nationally known moving picture actors and actresses will be
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summoned to the district attorney's office, beginning today. Included in the
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list, it is reported, will be Mabel Normand and Mary Miles Minter. Several
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girl artists who are said to have been infatuated with Taylor are numbered
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among those who will be subjected to a severe questioning.
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The action of the district attorney, it is said, results from his
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dissatisfaction with the manner in which the police thus far have handled the
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inquiry.
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Since the murder was discovered on the morning of February 2, none of
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the leading lights of movieland has been called on the carpet and examined
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with the severity that attends other criminal investigations.
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Edward P. Sands, former butler-secretary of Taylor, who is sought by the
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police and district attorney, was reported today to be in the vicinity of
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Lowell, Ariz. Detective Captain Adams of the Los Angeles police department
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received the intelligence in a telegram from the sheriff at Tucson.
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The Arizona sheriff reported that a man answering Sands' description and
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the counterpart of Sands' photograph, which has been sent broadcast through
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the west, was seen at Lowell by Walter Peterson of Imperial. Peterson said
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the man described himself as a deserter from the British navy, a former
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resident of Vancouver, of Alaska and of Hollywood. He added he had been a
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machine gunner in Villa's army in Mexico. An effort will be made to locate
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the stranger and bring him to Los Angeles.
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There was also a report from San Diego that a man who was registered as
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James Martin at a hotel in that city and who was found a suicide in his room
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was Sands. The man was not Sands, the Los Angeles police say.
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Los Angeles continues to buzz about the letters that Mabel Normand wrote
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Taylor. The whereabouts of the letters became known to a few officers
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several days ago.
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Here is the theory of the Taylor murder mystery that is coming to be
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accepted by criminal investigators from Sheriff Traeger's office, a theory
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not without certain substantiation that the investigators have been quietly
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gathering the last forty-eight hours.
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Out of a glittering circle of screen beauties--stars of the films whose
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names are household words even in remote hamlets and who succumbed to his
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charm--Taylor chose the few months just before his murder to pay more
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attention to one of their number than had been his previous custom.
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This star, known to American movie fans as a beauty, gave Taylor in
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return an impassioned, unrestrained love. Reckless of the cost, she
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responded to his attention as a man lost in the desert and parched from
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thirst might thrown himself into the cooling waters of an oasis spring.
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Her love for Taylor transcended reason. It became idolatry. She could
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think, dream, of none but Taylor. At the shrine of his personality she
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worshipped as a pagan priestess. Many men had longed to win her and had laid
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at her feet great treasure, but she scorned them all.
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She flouted one who had formerly been the most favored of her suitors,
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treated him with open contempt. She snapped her fingers at him in disdain,
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and when she did, there grew in his heart a hate for Taylor as unreasoning as
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the star's affection.
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He went to Taylor's home on the night of Feb. 1, according to this
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theory, first to suggest, then to threaten and demand that Taylor break with
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the girl--his girl. Everything he had heard of Taylor's mystery-cloaked life
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he laid on the table.
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He knew that many women had bared their hearts to Taylor in letters.
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When all else failed he tried to take them away, to use them as a club to
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compel obedience to his wishes. Taylor barred the way. Hate broke the leash
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and the despised and rejected suitor turned loose the weapon he had brought
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to use only as a last resort. He fired. Taylor fell dead and the slayer,
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now aroused to what he had done, fled.
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Slowly, silently the authorities are tightening the net around those
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people who are believed able to point out the second man in the love feud, in
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which, they think, can definitely be attributed the death of the film
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director. Those of Hollywood who have good reason to fear that scandals in
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which they have been participants might be linked with the case have gone
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into seclusion. They are crouching behind their "mouth-pieces," to use the
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argot--that is, their press agents. Their tongues are cleaving to the roofs
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of their mouths.
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One or more arrests were to have been effected last night, investigators
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say, but the action contemplated was finally marked premature and the sleuths
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went on gathering up threads of their case.
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It was said today at the sheriff's office of Al Manning, chief
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investigator: "When Manning strikes he will strike hard and sure, and he will
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nail what he hits."
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It is not believed the sheriff's inquiry will in any way conflict with
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the action taken by District Attorney Woolwine in stepping into the case on
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his return to Los Angeles from a rest to Ventura county, where he was
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preparing to plunge into the trial of the case of Madalynne Obenchain.
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Mr. Woolwine's advent has been regarded as inevitable in view of the
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ineffective work of the police. Since the inquest into Taylor's death his
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first deputy, W. C. Doran, has been observing the police procedure, which he
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is said to have decided to be quite unsatisfactory. Mr. Doran finally was
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ordered to go ahead.
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With his chief he conferred with police detectives assigned to the case,
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and a list of screen stars was made out for questioning. It was decided they
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should be brought to the district attorney's office, placed on the grill and
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compelled to sign statements.
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Mr. Woolwine has turned over the Obenchain case to an assistant and will
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devote himself to the Taylor murder mystery.
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It is the present plan, it is declared, to subject Mabel Normand, author
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of the "Your Baby" letters to Taylor, to a line of questioning not in keeping
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with the dainty manner in which the police talked to her. Mary Miles Minter
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is slated for a quizzing--the little queen who wrote Taylor, "Dearest, I love
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you, I love you, I love you!" and added a string of symbolical crosses to
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emphasize her protestation. Neva Gerber, with whom Taylor had been friendly,
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and Claire Windsor, another friend, will be quizzed. Mr. and Mrs. Douglas
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MacLean, a young couple whose names are never linked even by the scandal-
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mongers with the wild parties of movie land, will be asked to repeat their
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story. They were neighbors of Taylor and saw a strange man, wearing a
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muffler, loitering about the Taylor home the night the murder took place.
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Howard Fellows, Taylor's chauffeur, will be called in. The district
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attorney's men will devote considerable attention to Henry Peavey, Taylor's
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negro valet, who persists in saying, in spite of Miss Normand's denial, that
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Miss Normand told him in Taylor's presence a month ago that she and Taylor
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were to be married.
|
|
It came to light today that some of the chief executives of the
|
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producing company with which Taylor was identified have many intimate
|
|
friendships among the city authorities concerned with the investigation. One
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|
man, for instance, counts several high police officials has his pals through
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|
many years. That fact, it is being pointed out, is not helpful to the
|
|
solution of the crime, particularly if it should wreck for all time the
|
|
reputations of film stars who are film stars largely because of the large
|
|
investments made in promoting them before the movie-going public.
|
|
One screen man of the highest standing, a man who has easy access to
|
|
offices at which ordinary citizens cool their heels and who was among the
|
|
first to reach Taylor's home after the body was discovered, said of Taylor's
|
|
letters and papers, when they were mentioned:
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|
"I don't know who got them, but I do know it would be the duty of a
|
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friend, if he knew there were any that Taylor would want no one to see, to
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take them and get away with them and say nothing about it. I wouldn't admit
|
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it if I got them, but I didn't get them."
|
|
The movie people will not overlook a single chance to escape further
|
|
scandals coming out through official channels. They have not recovered from
|
|
the Arbuckle case. Digging around in the Taylor inquiry, it is regarded as
|
|
certain, would bring to the surface a rotten condition in movie land,
|
|
compared with which the odor of the Arbuckle case would be as sweet as the
|
|
perfume of apple blossoms.
|
|
"If this case is really opened up," a man who should know said today,
|
|
"the movies will take a knockout blow, and all the millions of people who
|
|
have been cherishing sweet fancies about certain idols of the screen will see
|
|
their illusions pushed into the gutter."
|
|
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
|
|
February 10, 1922
|
|
Richard Burritt
|
|
CHICAGO DAILY NEWS
|
|
Los Angeles--Lot, pleading to save movieland, would have cried:
|
|
"Lord, will you spare movieland if a few players are found whose lives
|
|
are above reproach?"
|
|
Were the Hollywood colony in peril of the divine wrath, Lot would have
|
|
to strike a sharp bargain.
|
|
This is the impression left with me after talking with a number of
|
|
acquaintances whose veracity I have no cause to doubt--persons who have been
|
|
welcomed in the inner courts of screenland, persons who have played with the
|
|
lights of filmdom when there was no director but their own desire to guide
|
|
them.
|
|
On the other hand--"I have lived a long time in Hollywood," various
|
|
newspaper reporters, nonprofessionals and others whose veracity I have no
|
|
just cause to doubt have told me, "and while I have attended many parties
|
|
where the fun waxed warm and furious, where the hooch flowed freely, where
|
|
there was considerable petting, some of it indiscriminate, I have never seen
|
|
any of the drug parties, the degenerate debauches, I have heard so much
|
|
about."
|
|
And again--"I have been everywhere in Hollywood in parties. Some lasted
|
|
nearly all night, but they were not different from the parties given at the
|
|
homes of the most respected, wealthy residents of the coast."
|
|
This from a former employee of Freiberg's, now wealthy, who is said to
|
|
be the blue book of movieland, the man who knows more of what goes on under
|
|
the crust than any other individual in the United States.
|
|
What is the truth about life in movieland? The movie-going public,
|
|
millions strong, has been asking since the Arbuckle and Taylor cases opened a
|
|
fissure in the private lives of nationally envied screen stars, beloved by
|
|
hosts of screen "fans."
|
|
Are all stars and near-stars debauchees, or are a few, or is none of
|
|
them? Are the stories of the wild night life they lead true, or is none of
|
|
them true? Is movieland 99 per cent pure, as Carl Laemmle thinks?
|
|
Many men of them who are not "strangers" round the world have told in
|
|
all seriousness that movieland is a smear on American decency. Others who
|
|
have followed the game closely for years have said that, were it not for the
|
|
cleansing air of Southern California, the stench of the movies would
|
|
asphyxiate clean-minded America. Others tell the world that the screen
|
|
players as a whole are decent-minded hard-working folk, whose every act is
|
|
exaggerated because they are professionals, always in the public eye.
|
|
I can only offer my personal opinion, based on taking testimony, and
|
|
that is this:
|
|
Movieland, so far as the players are concerned, is a life of illicit
|
|
amours. It is a land of sunshine, where youth works hard and plays hard. it
|
|
is a land of unrestrained appetites, of unchecked desires.
|
|
Movieland, is a land of petted, pampered, spoiled youth, where many work
|
|
out their own ruin. A streak of debauchery runs through the colony. Drugs
|
|
circulate there. Young people use them. There are addicts-more than the
|
|
movie industry will ever admit. Parties are held in movieland the details of
|
|
which, the plain bold facts of which, The Daily News would not send by
|
|
printed word into Chicago homes. But--
|
|
There are decent, respectable folk playing in the films. The players
|
|
themselves, of course, represent only a small part of the army employed in
|
|
the motion-picture industry. There are men and women on the screen,
|
|
important folk, with a serious purpose. Their private lives will bear close
|
|
inspection. But the private lives of the majority will not, for the
|
|
aristocrats of screenland are sadly enough in the minority--an exclusive
|
|
minority, if you will, that once outside the studio, seldom, if ever, runs
|
|
with the pack.
|
|
There are others who, while they have no claim to nobility of character,
|
|
have some claim to respectability, who are good fellows always, genial,
|
|
generous natured; but the line that divides them from the reckless is thin,
|
|
loosely drawn, and they break out all too easily.
|
|
The frankly immoral, numbering "sweet young things" with depraved
|
|
appetites, "snow birds," "hop heads," heroin hounds," users of morphine, are
|
|
more numerous than any official who has money invested in or is the paid
|
|
guardian of money invested in the movie industry and would be injured or his
|
|
employer injured by exposes of movie scandals will ever confess, if he knows.
|
|
Movieland, so far as the players are concerned, is the natural
|
|
consequence of raising to sudden riches a colony of young people who for the
|
|
most part (the pessimists say 99.99 per cent) were and are ungrounded in
|
|
values, unschooled in the refinement of simple pleasures, hopelessly
|
|
incapable of satisfying themselves save by indulgence of appetites, by flings
|
|
in gross materialism.
|
|
Irresponsible boys and girls found themselves dragged out of obscurity,
|
|
of poverty, from nowhere and placed on pedestals, the envy of American youth,
|
|
the delight of millions, simply because of pleasing faces, pleasing bodies.
|
|
From less than nothing they vaulted to the position of world figures.
|
|
Their empty pockets were filled--the public spoiled them. Lacking any
|
|
perspective, they knew no way of gratifying themselves except through the
|
|
medium of luxuries. Therefore they made a natural display of their wealth.
|
|
They fitted up expensive apartments and homes. They bought the raiment of
|
|
royalty and imagined they were royal. They tried to live what, to their
|
|
uneducated minds, was royal life--a life of cars, gay entertainments,
|
|
movement, rich dining, soft lights.
|
|
What to eat, what to drink, to wear, how to amuse themselves, filled
|
|
their playing hours. They tried all the world had to offer in food, clothes,
|
|
trick amusement, and it grew stale. In current slang they ceased "to get a
|
|
kick" out of a gay life.
|
|
They went further. They doped their moonshine, and Hollywood, by the
|
|
way, has made many bootleggers rich. They went further. They tried drugs--
|
|
many of them--cocaine, heroin, morphine, marijuana. They did not necessarily
|
|
become slaves of the drug, though many did and sunk to an unspeakable
|
|
depravity.
|
|
These are the ones principally who attend the debauches that are daubing
|
|
movieland with the brush of international notoriety. The orgies themselves
|
|
are not new to the world. They are counterparts of affairs that any one has
|
|
observed who has made the rounds in Paris since the war. A few, perhaps, are
|
|
as wild as any story sent from here has pictured them to be.
|
|
There are a few stars that hold aloof from moonshine parties, drinking
|
|
bouts that have many disheveled endings. From dope debauches, however, the
|
|
number that hold aloof is much larger. The exclusive clique flocks alone.
|
|
Its members have many nonprofessional intimates. Now and then some of them
|
|
attend a "liquoring up" party, but, when it develops into a debauch or sinks
|
|
to a disgusting plane, they withdraw and remain silent. They remain silent
|
|
because whatever scandal one depraved actor or actress brings on the game
|
|
reacts on the entire profession.
|
|
Investigators think there are greater quantities of drugs in southern
|
|
California than in any other spot on this hemisphere, and that, I believe, is
|
|
correct.
|
|
Two distinct drug rings are in operation at this point along the
|
|
Pacific. One is composed of agents from the Canadian ring, distributing
|
|
southward from the Canadian border. The second is the Mexican-American ring
|
|
that traffics in drugs from Mexico to San Francisco, where dope is very
|
|
common, and in quantities smuggled in from ships that have touched at German
|
|
and English ports. Both rings supply wholesale and retail.
|
|
Investigators have told me that numerous stars of the screen, girls as
|
|
well as men, have their pet "hop" agents, who supply them with what drugs are
|
|
sometimes needed to give the desired effect in livening up a party. Several
|
|
paper have told me they were guests at movie affairs in private homes where
|
|
guests who wished it were served with a "hypo." Still others say that they
|
|
do not believe this.
|
|
Drug using, however, is not confined to any particular colony. William
|
|
A. Pinkerton told me two weeks ago that the increased use of drugs since
|
|
prohibition among young people from better class families is appalling.
|
|
Debauches are not confined to the movie colony, for many "little Egypt"
|
|
parties are staged for and paid by "substantial citizens" here, as elsewhere.
|
|
It is appalling, however, how much moonshine goes down the slim, white
|
|
throats of screen stars who are idols of the country and of nations abroad.
|
|
The case could be recited of one moonshiner who carries in his "book" private
|
|
telephone numbers of countless stars, including many girls and women who
|
|
often get so drunk they "pass out." This moonshiner has listed names that
|
|
are synonymous with youth, innocence, sweetness and purity.
|
|
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
|
|
February 10, 1922
|
|
Richard Burritt
|
|
CHICAGO DAILY NEWS
|
|
Los Angeles--Ten witnesses have been examined by District Attorney
|
|
Woolwine in his investigation of the murder of William Desmond Taylor, noted
|
|
film director, but not a scrap of evidence has been uncovered that will lead
|
|
to the issuance of a warrant.
|
|
A man who was expected because of his friendship with Taylor to prove of
|
|
material assistance failed to disclose anything of value. He is Arthur Hoyt,
|
|
moving picture actor and Taylor's closest friend. He was closeted with the
|
|
district attorney last night for two hours.
|
|
"Was Mabel Normand the only woman to visit Taylor at his home the night
|
|
of the murder?" detectives are asking. Miss Normand, so far as is known, was
|
|
the last person to be with Taylor, save the slayer. Detectives were asking
|
|
the question when the rumor reached them that another woman visited the movie
|
|
director about an hour before Miss Normand, but they have not yet confirmed
|
|
the report nor learned the identity of the woman.
|
|
...Mr. Hoyt is said by Charles Eyton, western manager for the Lasky
|
|
interests and Taylor's boss, to have been on closer terms with the murdered
|
|
director than any other person connected with the movie industry, and so far
|
|
as he knew, in the country. He lives at the Los Angeles Athletic Club and
|
|
last played under Taylor's direction in "The Witching Hour."
|
|
Mr. Hoyt was among the first of Taylor's friends to reach the Taylor
|
|
home after the director's death was reported. Heretofore the police, it is
|
|
said, have not questioned him.
|
|
Hoyt, Woolwine declared, said that so far as he knew Taylor had had no
|
|
serious affairs with beauties of the screen or with those elsewhere in Los
|
|
Angeles, which, because of the movies, is the beauty market of the United
|
|
States. Taylor had never confided in Hoyt things of that nature.
|
|
"All I can say," Mr. Hoyt stated, "is that Taylor was always a gentleman
|
|
and as fine a chap as one would ever expect to meet."
|
|
Mr. Woolwine has declined to make public at this stage of his
|
|
investigation the "your baby" letters that Mabel Normand wrote Taylor. They
|
|
came into possession of the district attorney yesterday, together with the
|
|
lace handkerchief, said to be initialed "M. M. M.," which Henry Peavey,
|
|
Taylor's negro valet, once saw Taylor ardently kissing, and the pink silk
|
|
robe de nuit, which Taylor kept in his dresser. Letters, handkerchief and
|
|
garment are locked up.
|
|
The district attorney refuses to say through whose hands Miss Normand's
|
|
letters passed before they reached him. Information has been secured that
|
|
would make it appear they may have been carefully sorted and some of them
|
|
destroyed before the remainder were turned in to the district attorney.
|
|
Pressed to show the letters, Mr. Woolwine took refuge in the statement,
|
|
as he had not read them himself he could not make public their contents. Not
|
|
having had time as yet to read them himself, he said, it would be improper to
|
|
talk about them until he did.
|
|
Witnesses thus far examined by the district attorney include, except for
|
|
Mr. Hoyt and one other, only those whose stories have been told and retold to
|
|
the police. The other one is an actor, examined last night, who is known as
|
|
the sweetheart of a screen star living not far from the Taylor home. His
|
|
name was not made public, nor was the name of the star for whose hand he has
|
|
long been a suitor, although the identity of the girl is generally known.
|
|
She has played opposite a famous comedian, bears a good reputation and is
|
|
popular among screen folk.
|
|
Sheriff Traeger with Undersheriff Biscailuz and Chief Investigator Al
|
|
Manning have apparently made good their disdain over the police hunt for
|
|
Edward F. Sands, former household employee of Taylor.
|
|
They believe they have eliminated Sands by the testimony of Mrs. Douglas
|
|
MacLean, wife of the movie actor and a neighbor of Taylor. Mrs. MacLean,
|
|
among those who made statements to the district attorney, was questioned by
|
|
the sheriff and his aides, before appearing at Mr. Woolwine's office.
|
|
The night of the murder she saw a roughly dressed man wearing a plaid
|
|
cap and muffler leave Taylor's home and walk casually away. No trace of this
|
|
man has been found and no clue to his identity. On being questioned by the
|
|
sheriff she gave as her positive belief that the man was not Sands, and thus
|
|
the story that Sands was seen near the Taylor home the night of the killing
|
|
blew up with a bang.
|
|
Edna Purviance, former leading lady for Charlie Chaplin, who saw lights
|
|
burning in Taylor's home all night on Feb. 1-2, may be called in also.
|
|
The hunt goes on for a possible Taylor will. None has been discovered,
|
|
though the public administrator made a thorough search of the slain
|
|
director's belongings--that is, those belongings that were left after police
|
|
and friends of Taylor had milled around the Taylor residence for a couple of
|
|
hours after he was found dead.
|
|
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
|
|
February 11, 1922
|
|
Richard Burritt
|
|
CHICAGO DAILY NEWS
|
|
Los Angeles--A mischievous-eyed queen of the movies, Mabel Normand, film
|
|
star, whose name and radiant face are as well known throughout America as
|
|
those of any statesman or diplomat of the age, emerged, agitated but
|
|
triumphant at midnight last night from a three-hour nerve-racking questioning
|
|
conducted by District Attorney Woolwine, who tried to wrest from her
|
|
information that would help to solve the murder of William Desmond Taylor,
|
|
leading movie director and her intimate friend.
|
|
She passed through the ordeal without once contradicting herself or
|
|
changing her story. At the conclusion of the examination, the district
|
|
attorney formally announced that, while he might be mistaken, his impression
|
|
was that Miss Normand could throw no light on the mysterious slaying of
|
|
Taylor and was eager to give the authorities every assistance her physical
|
|
condition would permit.
|
|
Accompanied by Mr. Woolwine, his chief deputy, W. C. Doran; her manager
|
|
A. McArthur, and a woman companion, Miss Normand left the examination chamber
|
|
a few minutes before midnight. They had a long hallway to cover before they
|
|
reached the doorway and the elevator on the seventh floor of the hall of
|
|
records where the district attorney has his office.
|
|
At the end of the hall waited a platoon of newspaper men and a squad of
|
|
photographers, who had maintained a day and night vigil at the office since
|
|
Mr. Woolwine assumed personal charge of the Taylor investigation.
|
|
Camera men, all set for a flashlight halted the party and asked Miss
|
|
Normand to pose. She stood between Mr. Woolwine and Mr. Doran, handsomely
|
|
tailored in a maroon embroidered suit with a collar and vest of what appeared
|
|
to be Persian lamb. Mr. Woolwine started to back up. Miss Normand clutched
|
|
him wildly by the arm.
|
|
"You've got to be in this or I won't pose," she cried.
|
|
Despite agitation, illness and the nervous shock of the Taylor case, she
|
|
faced the newspaper men's cameras as though they were the first she had ever
|
|
seen. Until the photographers called "All ready," none would have suspected
|
|
she had passed many of her waking hours before cameras and that they make her
|
|
daily bread.
|
|
The flashlight boomed. Miss Normand took a deep breath. Then she
|
|
laughed and proceeded to the elevator.
|
|
There another battery of camera men lay entrenched and there were more
|
|
flashlights and exclamations and then Miss Normand went to her car and was
|
|
driven home.
|
|
Neither the context nor the chief features of the statement she gave Mr.
|
|
Woolwine were divulged by the district attorney, though he was besieged for
|
|
information. At the same time he steadfastly declined to make public any of
|
|
Miss Normand's letters to the slain movie director. The "Your Baby" and
|
|
"Blessed Baby" missives were taken from the Taylor home after the murder was
|
|
discovered, but for two days have reposed in the district attorney's strong
|
|
box, placed there when his detectives recovered them.
|
|
"All I have to say at this time," Mr. Woolwine told interviewers, "is
|
|
that we are going up a blind alley in the Taylor case. We are no further
|
|
advanced than yesterday. The whole case is a continued mystery.
|
|
"As for Miss Normand, while I may be mistaken, my impression is that she
|
|
is trying to help us. She has convinced the police offers she desires to
|
|
help and knows nothing about the murder or a possible motive."
|
|
The star of "Molly O," her latest release, and scores of other photo
|
|
dramas was summoned to the district attorney's office at 9 last night. It
|
|
was reported her physicians had said she was in a state of collapse and her
|
|
condition should discourage questioning on the details of Taylor's life she
|
|
might know and the rehearsing of his death.
|
|
When she arrived, however, at the hall of records she was not in a state
|
|
of collapse, though visibly agitated.
|
|
Following her examination, her chauffeur, William Davis was questioned
|
|
also and they repeated the stories they originally told in brief, that Miss
|
|
Normand visited Taylor's home the night of the murder to discuss a play with
|
|
him. She remained with the movie director but a short time. On leaving he
|
|
accompanied her to the door, left it open, walked to her car with her and
|
|
waved goodby. That, she said, was the last time she saw Taylor. She denied
|
|
they have ever been engaged, as reported by Henry Peavey, Taylor's negro
|
|
valet.
|
|
...Police are now trying to find a "missing" safety deposit box which
|
|
friends of Taylor think he may have had in downtown Los Angeles. One safety
|
|
deposit box was discovered by the public administrator, who is inclined to
|
|
the belief from a scrutiny of Taylor's check stubs and his accounts that he
|
|
kept no secret box.
|
|
Another report has it that Taylor visited a well-known jewelry store and
|
|
looked over some diamonds just before his death, that a film star examined
|
|
them also, but they were never bought or sent anywhere on approval.
|
|
Taylor was continually lending a helping hand to someone in the doldrums
|
|
or down in his or her luck. His pocket book was usually open to those in the
|
|
movies he felt needed help, and he spent his money almost as fast as he made
|
|
it. His entire estate, including jewelry and furniture and cars, will not
|
|
run above $20,000, though last year's income tax report shows he drew between
|
|
$37,000 and $40,000. At the time of his death he was earning $1,250 a week.
|
|
His income tax report would indicate he contributed more than a tithe to
|
|
charity and that his contributions to churches were generous.
|
|
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
|
|
February 13, 1922
|
|
Richard Burritt
|
|
CHICAGO DAILY NEWS
|
|
Los Angeles--The Taylor murder, skyrocketing for ten days, casting off
|
|
showers of sparks that illuminated recesses long darkened in movieland, may
|
|
come down a charred stick. It may fall soon into the oblivion of other
|
|
unsolved cases that have held the country's wondering attention for a time.
|
|
It will unless some circumstance now unforeseen, some tangible clue that will
|
|
replace blind leads, suddenly fans the inquiry into new life.
|
|
A score of theories have developed since William Desmond Taylor, famous
|
|
film director, was found murdered on the floor of his home a week ago
|
|
Thursday morning, shot dead the night before. Some appeared promising, the
|
|
majority have been tantalizingly elusive, unsubstantial, illogical.
|
|
Promising conjectures, followed as far as evidence would lead them,
|
|
reached an attenuated state and then faded out completely. A thousand tips,
|
|
a thousand rumors have been sifted, checked, investigated, and the thousand
|
|
remained tips and rumors.
|
|
Groping about in the dark, District Attorney Woolwine has not a clue on
|
|
which he can place his hands and say:
|
|
"This will get us somewhere if we follow it."
|
|
Mr. Woolwine, however, is not giving up. He has only started. The
|
|
investigation came into his hands as unpromising as a cold cup of coffee.
|
|
The police had played with it a week before he plunged into the inquiry.
|
|
Much of the evidence has been stolen, investigators have reason to believe,
|
|
and it probably will remain stolen. The fact that Mr. Woolwine will probably
|
|
never be able to prove that evidence was made away with from the Taylor home,
|
|
taken under the very noses of the police, is not casting any gloom over his
|
|
investigation.
|
|
He has announced he is out to get Taylor's murderer and he has a
|
|
reputation for persistence and tenacity. He rested Sunday after several days
|
|
and nights of questioning witnesses, and, except for a conference of the
|
|
district attorney with his chief deputy, W. C. Doran, there was little
|
|
activity during the day and none of consequence last night. Only one police
|
|
detective was "out on the case."
|
|
Sheriff Traeger's men are still plugging along. A few days ago they
|
|
were following a warm trail. They believed they were close to information
|
|
that would net the man who could point to a straight road to the slayer. But
|
|
the trail became cold. They, like the district attorney, ran into the
|
|
impenetrable inclosure of mystery that lies around the murder like a spring
|
|
fog over San Francisco bay.
|
|
Today the wheels of the investigation will go on with their ceaseless
|
|
grinding. More members of the film colony will pass in and out of the
|
|
district attorney's office; new statements will be taken.
|
|
Neva Gerber, screen actress, who says she was engaged to Taylor two
|
|
years, may be questioned.
|
|
Miss Gerber has not known much of Taylor's recent life and movements,
|
|
not more, at any rate, than many others, probably not as much. The two
|
|
maintained their friendship up to the time of the killing and Taylor, as in
|
|
the case of scores of others, made gifts to her. A small army of film people
|
|
have reported examples of his generosity. Miss Gerber has explained checks
|
|
she received from Taylor by saying they were to pay for an automobile he sent
|
|
her as a Christmas present. She paid the installments, she stated, because
|
|
Taylor believed that if he did there would be talk that would distress her.
|
|
A man known as L. D. ("Red") Dailey slipped through the hands of the
|
|
police yesterday. He was sought as a suspect in the case and an all-night
|
|
vigil was maintained at his home in the hope that he would put in an
|
|
appearance. He did not and the police have found no trace of him.
|
|
In spite of the fact that Taylor used rather poor judgment in picking
|
|
some of his associates, inside and outside of movieland, evidence is piling
|
|
up tending to indicate that sensationalists may have maligned his character.
|
|
"Mr. Taylor was the best influence in Mabel Normand's life," was the
|
|
emphatic statement of a little film star who unburdened herself Sunday
|
|
afternoon at her home in Hollywood. "Mabel Normand will admit that.
|
|
I think that he inspired her. Their friendship was wholly platonic. I am
|
|
sure of that."
|
|
This girl who spoke bears a reputation for truth telling and
|
|
wholesomeness that is respected even among those who somehow find themselves
|
|
in the path of every morsel of movie scandal.
|
|
"Taylor was a director who was such a gentleman at all times that on no
|
|
occasion, no matter how good reason he might have to be provoked, did he ever
|
|
raise his voice to any one under his direction," she continued. "He never
|
|
spoke discourteously to a girl on location. Is it any wonder that many
|
|
people thought highly of him, that some girls grew to care for him a great
|
|
deal, that some of them probably learned to love him because he was a capable
|
|
director, a man of brains, and a gentleman? It is not at all strange."
|
|
It has developed that the hue and cry raised over the "dual life" with
|
|
which Taylor was credited during the early part of the investigation was
|
|
based on misinformation. Reports were spread broadcast that Taylor deceived
|
|
the world about his past life, that he hid in silence the fact that he had
|
|
been married, that he had a daughter in New York, that he changed his name on
|
|
leaving the East a number of years ago.
|
|
While he did not advertise to the world that he had changed his name,
|
|
that he had been married and had a daughter, Taylor did not deceive his
|
|
intimates.
|
|
A long time ago he told a few of his closest friends of his marriage, of
|
|
the fact that he had been known as William Cunningham Deane-Tanner. He told
|
|
it several times, but always to select gatherings of those he knew would not
|
|
hawk the news across every movie lot.
|
|
A star who knew Taylor only slightly and respected him bemoans the fact
|
|
that some of Taylor's friends were "yellow," as she described them, and did
|
|
not stand out in the open at the start and tell the world all they know about
|
|
Taylor.
|
|
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
|
|
February 14, 1922
|
|
Richard Burritt
|
|
CHICAGO DAILY NEWS
|
|
Los Angeles--Four new witnesses, including a fashionably gowned woman of
|
|
the films, whose name with those of the trio brought in with her for
|
|
questioning was suppressed, were hurried into District Attorney Woolwine's
|
|
office in the last twenty-four hours and questioned in connection with the
|
|
murder of William Desmond Taylor, noted screen director.
|
|
A score of new tips have been turned in. Reports have it that a song
|
|
writer and a scenario writer who may have been connected with the drug ring
|
|
in Hollywood are being sought by deputy sheriffs and police.
|
|
Whether Mary Miles Minter, a friend of Taylor, will again be questioned
|
|
by District Attorney Woolwine is problematical. One signed statement from
|
|
her, a transcribed interview, reposes in Mr. Woolwine's strong box. That,
|
|
Miss Minter's personal attorney, John G. Mott, believes will be all that will
|
|
be required of her. Mr. Mott has questioned his client at length and is
|
|
satisfied that Miss Minter knows no more about the murder or a possible
|
|
motive than would a convent lassie who had never heard of the director.
|
|
Mabel Normand may be questioned, but not immediately. She is ill at her
|
|
home.
|
|
Will Adolph Zukor, president of the Famous Players-Lasky company, retain
|
|
William A. Pinkerton to turn loose a company of his detectives to investigate
|
|
the mysterious murder of Taylor, who put money in the pockets of the Lasky
|
|
interests with the successful photoplays he directed for them? This
|
|
question, repeatedly asked, has thus far gone unanswered.
|
|
Mr. Zukor is here, a recent arrival. Yesterday Mr. Pinkerton came from
|
|
San Francisco. He has, he told me two weeks ago in San Francisco, before
|
|
Taylor was murdered, a financial interest in Southern California studios and
|
|
a keen interest in clean movies.
|
|
No particular significance is attached as yet to the presence in Los
|
|
Angeles of the movie magnate and the head of a world-wide detective agency
|
|
just now. Mr. Pinkerton's visit to the Pacific coast has no bearing at
|
|
present on the Taylor murder case, for he went to San Francisco and then came
|
|
here on his semi-annual inspection tour of his western coast offices. But
|
|
the wiseacres profess to be certain that because of the blind alleys into
|
|
which the Taylor investigation has run, it will not be long before Mr. Zukor
|
|
will be calling on Mr. Pinkerton to talk things over. Mr. Pinkerton has
|
|
authorized no interview expressing an opinion about the murder, nor has he
|
|
made any suggestions as to how the Los Angeles authorities might proceed with
|
|
profit. He has steadfastly turned interviewers away with the remark that the
|
|
case is not his.
|
|
Followers of the inquiry have been expecting, in view of the esteem in
|
|
which Taylor was held by his employers and the financial successes he made
|
|
for them in photoplay direction, that they would employ a staff of
|
|
investigators and offer a reward for the capture of the murderer--a reward
|
|
commensurate with the sums that are spent in movieland.
|
|
"Our company will leave no stone unturned to assist the authorities in
|
|
running down the slayer of Mr. Taylor," Mr. Zukor declared in an interview,
|
|
without specifically saying what the interests he heads would do about the
|
|
matter. He then took occasion to tell of his regard for screenland.
|
|
"The movie industry is a big industry; there must be at least 50,000
|
|
persons in Los Angeles engaged in it, in one capacity or another. I am sure
|
|
that the percentage of wholesome, Godfearing men and women must be as large
|
|
in this industry as it is in any other area of endeavor."
|
|
All Hollywood is frothing at the mouth over what those who have laughed
|
|
about it before now call the "unwarranted censuring of screenland." Business
|
|
interests are coming together to tell the world that movieland has been
|
|
"maligned," to fill the mails with "the truth about Hollywood"--a truth, of
|
|
course, that will condemn all attacks on movieland as baseless, as
|
|
unjustified, as sensationally untrue, and the press agents are already oiling
|
|
up their typewriters and putting in new ribbons and doing finger exercises in
|
|
preparation for the task of salvaging the world's opinion.
|
|
Stories of dope parties, it is expected, will be called base canards.
|
|
In fact, many people from screenland who frequently attended them are already
|
|
beginning to wonder "where they get this stuff about dope, we haven't seen
|
|
any," but not all.
|
|
"Yes, I know there have been dope parties, many of them," a screen star
|
|
told me today--a star whose word is worth more than affidavits from some
|
|
persons. "I didn't go to any myself, but I'm not shutting my eyes to the
|
|
fact that others did. They've been dying out the last two or three months,
|
|
I think, though I'm not sure about it. My impression is that they were
|
|
originally started as a fad. Miss -------- and Mr. -------- were the first
|
|
ones to put them on."
|
|
So far as can be learned the young woman referred to as one of the
|
|
originators of the parties has completely dropped out of sight. She moved
|
|
four weeks ago from her last known address, an exclusive apartment, and the
|
|
movie companies that have released plays in which she appeared in the past
|
|
say they have no record of her present whereabouts.
|
|
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
|
|
February 15, 1922
|
|
Richard Burritt
|
|
CHICAGO DAILY NEWS
|
|
Los Angeles--The outstanding development in the last twenty-four hours
|
|
in the inquiry into the murder of William Desmond Taylor, noted film
|
|
director, is that investigators from Sheriff Traeger's office are preparing
|
|
to call in for requestioning William Davis, chauffeur for Mabel Normand.
|
|
Davis drove Miss Normand to Taylor's home the night of the murder in
|
|
order that she might get a book from Taylor, and in previous examinations his
|
|
story has fully tallied with hers. Of her narrative District Attorney
|
|
Woolwine has said that he believes she has told him the truth.
|
|
What additional information, if any, the sheriff's men expect to get
|
|
from Davis they are not saying.
|
|
It is understood that Mr. Woolwine has talked with Mack Sennett, who is
|
|
ill, largely, it is presumed, to see if Sennett has any suggestions to make
|
|
that the authorities have overlooked.
|
|
The most colorful development of yesterday was the story told a reporter
|
|
for an afternoon paper in Los Angeles by a bootlegger. The hooch purveyor at
|
|
first related that he was on his way to the Taylor home the night of the
|
|
murder to make a delivery. As he drew near the house, he said, he heard a
|
|
shot and saw a woman fleeing. Not wishing to advertise to the world that he
|
|
was out with a load of liquor, he chugged away.
|
|
When the bootlegger got before Mr. Woolwine, however, he suddenly
|
|
remembered that he hadn't gone out with the load. No, it was a man working
|
|
for him.
|
|
The district attorney questioned him at length and satisfied himself
|
|
that the bootlegger had probably been drinking some of his own liquor. The
|
|
rum dispenser could not produce his man.
|
|
The third matter of public interest is the fact that the Famous Players-
|
|
Lasky company has come to and offered a reward for information leading to the
|
|
arrest and conviction of the person who killed the company's best director.
|
|
The reward posted is $2,500.
|
|
Miss Normand has had it announced through friends (she is ill at home)
|
|
that she is posting another $10,000 for the same purpose and hopes that all
|
|
of Taylor's friends will come in and make the pot large enough to attract
|
|
those now remaining silent who may have material information to divulge.
|
|
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
|
|
February 16, 1922
|
|
Richard Burritt
|
|
CHICAGO DAILY NEWS
|
|
Los Angeles--...At the same time police instituted a citywide search for
|
|
the lieutenants of the "prince of the drug peddlers," whom they located last
|
|
night and to whom they gave the third degree. Following an old-fashioned
|
|
police grilling that lasted several hours, the chief of the southern
|
|
California dope clan, who is also the principal drug purveyor in movieland,
|
|
made admissions that will rock the movie colony and all southern California
|
|
from end to end and bring disgrace on several famous screen stars, if they
|
|
are made public in detail, or if the drug seller is handed over to the
|
|
federal authorities and taken into court.
|
|
...The "prince of the drug peddlers" was nothing short of a rag when
|
|
detectives finished with him late last night. They had been trailing him for
|
|
days, it turns out.
|
|
Before the examination was concluded he admitted the identity of some of
|
|
his customers. Confession was wrung from him that he had provided drugs for
|
|
a screen star who was known as one of Taylor's best friends.
|
|
The dope chief would not admit he had ever sold drugs to Taylor,
|
|
although he did say that he knew the director after a fashion.
|
|
William Davis, chauffeur for Mabel Normand, continued to stick to his
|
|
story. When requestioned by the sheriff's men he could not be shaken.
|
|
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
|
|
February 17, 1922
|
|
Richard Burritt
|
|
CHICAGO DAILY NEWS
|
|
Los Angeles--...Police detectives today, with the precision of bill
|
|
collectors and some of the doggedness of book agents, began a systematic
|
|
check of all the outstanding loan transactions in which Taylor was involved,
|
|
hoping thereby to find convincing proof of that will-o'-the-wisp, the motive
|
|
that prompted the slaying.
|
|
As they began their hunt reports from police headquarters said that
|
|
Taylor went further than keeping an open pocketbook for those who needed
|
|
financial assistance, that, in fact, he maintained "on the side" a rather
|
|
substantial money-loaning business. To many he loaned money solely as a
|
|
matter of friendship or sentiment, to others, the police said, he made loans
|
|
as a straight matter of business risk and charged interest.
|
|
...According to the police Taylor purchased a quantity of choice
|
|
liquors, part of which he kept for his own use and part of which he passed
|
|
along as gifts to his close friends and intimates. His beverage purchases
|
|
are said to have eaten many a large hole in his salary, for he would have
|
|
none but bonded liquor of the finest brands.
|
|
Three sweethearts of Edward F. Sands, Taylor's missing former butler-
|
|
secretary, were questioned late last night. While the search for Sands has
|
|
relaxed to a certain extent, investigators are still looking for him,
|
|
thinking that if he is found he may be forced to give up new details of
|
|
Taylor's private life that will throw some light on the murder.
|
|
Detective Captain Adams is a persistent believer in his original theory
|
|
--that Sands makes a better suspect in connection with the murder than any
|
|
one who has been mentioned in the investigation, either publicly or behind
|
|
closed doors. His subordinates, however, do not wholly agree with him in the
|
|
light of developments during the last few days.
|
|
None of Sands' sweethearts has ever appeared before a movie camera.
|
|
They are young women living in scattered parts of Los Angeles, who became
|
|
impressed with Sands' knowledge of life in screenland and with his
|
|
lavishness. One of them is said to have profited liberally in the way of
|
|
merchandise, principally lingerie, that Sands ordered at Los Angeles
|
|
department stores while in Taylor's employ and charged to his employer. This
|
|
girl for a time maintained an expensive apartment and lived a gay life, in
|
|
which Sands figured conspicuously before he is alleged to have departed with
|
|
several thousand dollars worth of Taylor's valuables.
|
|
Since Sands disappeared each of the girls told the police he has not
|
|
communicated with her and she has no idea where he is hiding, whether he is
|
|
in the United States or had fled across the Mexican border.
|
|
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
|
|
February 21, 1922
|
|
Richard Burritt
|
|
CHICAGO DAILY NEWS
|
|
Los Angeles--Police began today a citywide search for a notorious negro
|
|
drug peddler who has had the run of movieland, striking what they regarded as
|
|
one of the warmest trails thus far uncovered in their investigation of the
|
|
murder of William Desmond Taylor, famous film director.
|
|
The drug peddler is said to have supplied drugs to a number of movie
|
|
folk under Taylor's direction, and less than a week before the murder,
|
|
according to the report on which city detectives and investigators from
|
|
District Attorney Woolwine's office started out today, Taylor caught the
|
|
peddler on the property of the movie company with which he was associated as
|
|
head director. He ordered the peddler off the lot. The peddler, with
|
|
"friends at court" among film actors and actresses of importance, is said to
|
|
have been defiant. Taylor blazed:
|
|
"Get out of here, you son of hell, and stay out, or I'll soil my hands
|
|
on you. Get out of here, now, before I wring your neck," Taylor exclaimed.
|
|
The drug peddler moved off and finally left. He was muttering threats
|
|
as he left. When the report of the encounter reached the ears of police
|
|
early today they went to the known haunts of the peddler. The peddler could
|
|
not be found.
|
|
"We haven't seen him lately," his friends told the detectives.
|
|
More associates of the peddler were interviewed. The police soon
|
|
determined that the peddler disappeared either the day before the murder or
|
|
the morning that Taylor was found dead in his home, shot the night before.
|
|
"This begins to look something like a case again," a detective said.
|
|
"This is the best clue we have struck in the three weeks we've been working
|
|
on this case."
|
|
According to the police report, Henry Peavey, Taylor's colored valet,
|
|
knows the drug peddler, has seen him about movie studios, hanging around
|
|
movie lots, talking to players of each sex. This fact is regarded by the
|
|
police as highly important.
|
|
From the inner precincts of movieland there came to the police today
|
|
still another report that they regard as material in the light of the
|
|
disappearance of the drug peddler. From a movie studio came the report that
|
|
Taylor, a short time before his murder, had become so incensed with the
|
|
growing use of drugs among players throughout movieland that he contemplated
|
|
making an expose of the condition. How far this intention spread among those
|
|
who are addicted to drugs has not yet been learned.
|
|
One report to the police, it is said today at headquarters, had it that
|
|
Taylor's indignation bubbled over after he had seen personally and had
|
|
received reliable reports of a number of players reporting for duty of a
|
|
morning at their studios heavy lidded and sleepy, jumpy nerved and physically
|
|
incapable of going on the job and doing good work solely because of the "dope
|
|
parties" they had attended the night before.
|
|
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
|
|
February 22, 1922
|
|
Richard Burritt
|
|
CHICAGO DAILY NEWS
|
|
Los Angeles--Conviction that solution of the murder of William Desmond
|
|
Taylor, noted film director, slain Feb. 1, will be found rooted deep in the
|
|
narcotic traffic that honeycombs movieland is growing daily among some of the
|
|
investigators.
|
|
...It was the pink robe de nuit that took the first trick in the William
|
|
Desmond Taylor murder. Then came the filmy bit of handkerchief, edged with
|
|
lace. Even the "blessed baby" letters were forgotten when the watch that
|
|
everyone had handled was discovered--silent, stopped.
|
|
Now it's a ghost that has the center of the stage, a ghost needing a
|
|
shave that Henry Peavey, the negro valet of the noted film director,
|
|
encountered.
|
|
There is much indignation. District Attorney Woolwine is very angry.
|
|
Last night late he issued a statement. He bitterly assailed the unofficial
|
|
investigator who introduced Peavey to the ghost. The prosecutor is
|
|
seriously, painstakingly trying to solve a murder mystery. The unofficial
|
|
investigators may have been trying to do the same.
|
|
The unofficial investigators called on Peavey formally at his flat.
|
|
They had the idea that Peavey had not told the police, the newspaper
|
|
reporters, the sheriff and Mr. Woolwine all that he knew about his employer's
|
|
murder.
|
|
The clock pointed close to midnight. The unofficial investigators
|
|
hustled Peavey into a car. It went careening through the night to Hollywood
|
|
cemetery. It stopped before a grim vault that rose gloomily before Peavey.
|
|
The valet knew that vault. He had seen Taylor's body taken inside.
|
|
The unofficial investigators were busy--quite mysterious, but very
|
|
businesslike. They prodded Peavey and their prisoner, got out of the car.
|
|
They drew back, leaving him standing alone. A white form rose, a great white
|
|
thing, a broad white thing that seemed to slide through the very doors of the
|
|
vault. A ghost. It paused. It raised an arm. It spoke to Peavey, spoke in
|
|
tones of the grave.
|
|
"Henry," the voice intoned, "I am William Desmond Taylor's spirit."
|
|
Peavey quivered.
|
|
"Henry," the voice continued, "tell them, tell these men all about my
|
|
murder."
|
|
Peavey shook.
|
|
"Henry," the voice from the grave spoke a third time. "Tell these men
|
|
everything you know about the dastardly way I was killed."
|
|
Peavey shook again: his whole body shook--shook with laughter. He
|
|
laughed until the tears rolled down his cheeks.
|
|
The unofficial investigators looked very sick indeed.
|
|
"Men," said Peavey, "when do we eat."...
|
|
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
|
|
February 23, 1922
|
|
Richard Burritt
|
|
CHICAGO DAILY NEWS
|
|
Los Angeles--A trail of morphine, cocaine, and heroin, is being followed
|
|
by investigators of the murder of William Desmond Taylor, noted film
|
|
director. Over the crime that has held the country's interest for three
|
|
weeks has been raised the skull and crossbones banner of narcotics. Drugs
|
|
and fear played the leading roles in the murder.
|
|
The theory, previously advanced, that Taylor declared war on the dope
|
|
ring that has been fattening on movieland and paid with his life in so doing,
|
|
has blazed to new life and is coming to be commonly accepted by
|
|
investigators.
|
|
...The sheriff's men are searching for eleven dope peddlers, two of them
|
|
women and one of these a well-known actress, who conducted an opium den in
|
|
the vicinity of Hollywood. Unofficial investigators have been searching for
|
|
this woman and her partner, the originators of the "sleigh riding" or dope
|
|
parties in movieland, for the last two weeks and have thus far found no trace
|
|
of them. The woman in question was once employed by the Lasky interests, for
|
|
whom Taylor was chief film director. She and her partner have vanished and
|
|
with them have disappeared every well-known dope peddler doing a big business
|
|
in Hollywood.
|
|
One drug peddler has a beautiful home. He has an expensive car and
|
|
lives a gay life on his earnings, he confessed to an official. That official
|
|
says that he never has gone beyond the organization of one prominent movie
|
|
man to sell a sniff of cocaine, an ounce of heroin or enough morphine to load
|
|
a hypodermic needle.
|
|
Ten moving-picture actresses, all of them stars whose faces look out
|
|
from every newspaper and magazine in the country, pay approximately $1,000
|
|
each in "hush money" each month that one peddler knows of, he told an
|
|
official who cornered him today. This is not $10,000 for drugs, but $10,000
|
|
hush money; for drugs additional cash is paid.
|
|
"The situation was beginning to appall Taylor," an investigator said
|
|
today. "He was sick and disgusted. So far as we can learn, he intended to
|
|
squeal on all the peddlers he knew. He even meant to name actors and
|
|
actresses who had become addicts.
|
|
"He had gone the limit trying to reform some of them. One of his
|
|
proteges, a well-known actress, took the cure two years ago. For a time
|
|
after that it was thought she was going straight, that we had laid off.
|
|
Taylor, so far as I can learn, pleaded with her constantly, trying to get her
|
|
to quit and leave dope alone. He succeeded for a while, but his influence
|
|
didn't last.
|
|
"We rounded up one peddler and before we finished with him he had told
|
|
of a quantity of heroin delivered to this actress a short time ago."
|
|
One peddler who is said to have supplied this actress with her drugs is
|
|
reported to have fled to Chicago or points east of there. He is a song
|
|
writer who has been writing gags for vaudeville.
|
|
Another drug peddler, previously reported as being hunted, is a negro
|
|
who had a pass to one studio in movieland that actresses procured for him.
|
|
He is still missing. This peddler was ordered off the property where Taylor
|
|
was employed, according to a report to the police, and vowed vengeance.
|
|
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
|
|
February 24, 1922
|
|
Richard Burritt
|
|
CHICAGO DAILY NEWS
|
|
Los Angeles--...Had anything been found tending to show that Fields told
|
|
the truth, a famous moving-picture actress would probably be in a cell today.
|
|
If investigators ever do corroborate Fields' story that a dope ring slew
|
|
Taylor because he was making her quit drugs and peddlers feared the loss of
|
|
the $2,000 a month she spent on heroin and morphine, the actress will
|
|
probably be placed under arrest at once. Nothing but the fact that
|
|
insufficient information to warrant a severe examination could be gathered
|
|
has prevented the authorities from locking her up and giving her a grilling.
|
|
New evidence has been received by the sheriff that Taylor was taking
|
|
steps before his murder to drive dope peddlers out of Hollywood. An
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|
assistant United States attorney said last night that Taylor conferred with
|
|
him about it and a federal investigator was assigned to the case. The
|
|
attorney, Thomas Green, said Taylor first visited him two years ago with a
|
|
complaint about the number of drug addicts.
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|
No one has ever made an effort to wipe out the drug traffic among movie
|
|
players, except two federal inspectors, and they were transferred to the
|
|
Mexican border when their activities imperiled a nationally known hero of the
|
|
films right at the start of their inquiry. It is reported he is returning to
|
|
Los Angeles and a ring of movie players is quaking.
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|
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
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|
February 25, 1922
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|
Richard Burritt
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|
CHICAGO DAILY NEWS
|
|
Los Angeles--Sheriff Traeger's men have lost all faith--they never had
|
|
much--in the confession of Harry M. Fields in Detroit regarding the murder of
|
|
William Desmond Taylor, noted film director. Fields contradicted himself
|
|
vitally. The sheriff's men have tried unsuccessfully to corroborate a single
|
|
point in the story told by Fields to Sheriff Coffin of Wayne County,
|
|
Michigan.
|
|
Investigators under Undersheriff Biscailuz are retrailing old clues that
|
|
they put aside while they gave Fields' narrative serious consideration. They
|
|
are back in the haunts of the dope peddlers, interviewing, checking and
|
|
rechecking, cataloguing every scrap of information that may prove of the
|
|
slightest bearing on the case.
|
|
Deputy sheriffs have located every known male peddler who has not fled
|
|
to escape the glare of investigation and are now questioning the woman
|
|
peddlers.
|
|
"It's probably hard to believe, but there are just as many women
|
|
peddling dope among movie players as there are men," one investigator said
|
|
today.
|
|
"If we could have stepped into this case in the beginning and slapped
|
|
some of the witnesses in the case in jail the murder, I believe, would not
|
|
have been a mystery very long. But all the witnesses have had three weeks in
|
|
which to get organized, and it will be a hard job breaking down the defenses
|
|
they have put up."
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|
*****************************************************************************
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|
*****************************************************************************
|
|
For more information about Taylor, see
|
|
WILLIAM DESMOND TAYLOR: A DOSSIER (Scarecrow Press, 1991)
|
|
Back issues of Taylorology are available via Gopher or FTP at
|
|
gopher.etext.org
|
|
in the directory Zines/Taylorology
|
|
***************************************************************************** |