The Murdered Redhead

The Murdered Redhead

It's 1958 in El Monte California, 14 miles east of Los Angeles. It is a dusty honky tonk suburb home to displaced Okeys and Pachucos. Geneva Hilliker Ellroy and her young son James moved there from Los Angeles in early '58. The house there they lived still stands there today. Gene tried to convince young James, who was 10 at the time, that it was not a skunk town but she did not convince him of that. She said I want you to live in a house, you have always lived in an apartment. Jame's relationship with his mother was what some would consider perverted. Here's this good looking Redhead walking around the house half naked most of the time and James lusted after her thru his adolescent immature sex drive. In a strange way, James got his wish of wanting his mother dead for whom he lusted for and hated.

It's 10:00 AM on June 22nd 1958. Seven white males walk across the playing field of Arroyo High school. They are out to hit some shag balls. They spot a shape lying in some bushes. It is the body of a pale skinned white woman with Red hair about 42 or 43 years of age. She is wearing a cocktail dress and her overcoat is lying over the lower part of her body. One of the coaches runs across the street to a dairy stand and calls the LA county Sheriff's Homicide bureau and the El Monte Police department. Cops rush to the scene and rope off the area. The woman has been strangled. Around her neck is a clothes line cord knitted together with one of her silk stockings. She seems to have been dead five or six hours. Sgt. Ward Hallanon and Sgt. Jack Lawton arrive at Arroyo High school to scope out the body. The victims purse and shoes are missing.

The Coroner finds signs of sexual assault. Sheriff's Homicide issues an all points bulletin requesting information. Local radio stations broadcast a description of the crime and of the victim. Around 12:00 noon a next door neighbor, Anna May Krycki has been listening to the radio. She calls Sheriff's Homicide.The two Detectives roll to the scene to her house for an interview. She shows them a photograph of Jean Ellroy and they identify her in that manner.

The victim is Geneva Hilliker Ellroy. Gene and her young son have been renting the house behind the Kryckis for the past month. Anna May Krycki tells the detectives that Jean left the house last night at around 8:00PM and has not returned. She also tells them that her 10 year old son is spending the weekend with his father in Los Angeles. Sgts. Lawton and Hallanon go next door and enter Jeans house. They find no sign of disarray whatsoever. They find no telephone and no address book. There is a complete lack of viable leads.

Hallanon and Lawton get the word that Jean's 1957 Buick was found behind the Desert Inn bar on Valley Blvd. The Desert was a popular hangout where folks would go to have drinks and dance. In the Buick there are beer cans in the back. Jean's purse is not in the car nor are her shoes. There is no sign of struggle whatsoever. The cops conclude that Gene was killed elsewhere either at an independent location or on the grounds at Arroyo High School. Word travels by Police band radio that James, Jean's 10 year old son is back at the house. The ex husband is at the El Monte Bus Station.

At approximately 2:30 PM a cab drops James across the street from his mothers house. There are cops present. He knows immediately that his mother is dead. Sgt. Hallonan squats down to James and tells him his mother has been killed and asks where his Father is. James tells the detective that his Father is back at the El Monte Bus station waiting on a bus to go home. Cops are sent to pick up his Father. In the meantime an LA photographer takes James to George Krycki's workshop and has him pose with a small wood working tool supposedly to enhance the story.

On June 22 1958, the Detectives take James to the El Monte Police for questioning. They tell him his Father is there. The elder Mt. Ellroy defames Gene to the cops. She was promiscuous and she was an alcoholic. They divorced in 1955 and came to hate each other. Her death had to pertain to some lowlife she was seeing. After talking to the two of them, the cops cut James and his Father loose and they take a freeway flier back to LA. James dutifully cranks out tears all the way the to downtown bus depot.

James doesn't have much interest in his Mothers homicide investigation. His promiscuous and lusted for Mother was dead and now he could live with his permissive Father and live a life of ease. However, Sgts. Hallonan and Lawton have a very big interest in the case. They uncover facts surrounding his Mother's murder that James does not want to hear.

Two days after the murder the two detectives interview Margie Trawick, a waitress at the Desert Inn. She recounts what she saw on the night of the murder. She observed Gene with a blond woman and a dark haired "swarthy" man. They come in as a party and ultimately leave as a party. A drunk named Michael Whitaker crashes the party and asks Gene to dance. She dances with him and dances with the swarthy man.

A second witness contacts police. Her name is Levon Chambers. She works as a car hop at Stan's Drive-in. On June 21st at 8:PM Jean and the swarthy man pull into Stan's Drive-in. They are in a 1955 or 1956 two tone green Oldsmobile. The swarthy man is driving and Levan Chambers waits on them. Gene seems inebriated and happy. The swarthy man is sullen. Several hours later Jean and the swarthy man return to Stan's drive-in. At 2:45 AM Levan Chambers waits on them again. It looks like they have been necking this time. One of Gene's breasts is partially exposed. The swarthy man seems furious. Gene is even more inebriated. Margie Trawick and Levon Chambers build an ident-a-kit composite of the swarthy man. It goes out to newspapers and TV stations.

In the meantime, Gene is buried at Inglewood cemetery. James chooses not to attend the bland
Protestant services. On July 1st, 1958 he visits the cemetery. His Mother still exerts tremendous
power over James and he is trying to deny that power. Instead he spends the afternoon with a friend watching television and attempting to be happy. In her odd and powerful sexual way she commands great power over James and he now begins a fifty year run from her.

Detective Sgts. Hallanon and Lawton interview scores of Gene's friends, coworkers and boyfriends. There are no suspects. Checks on 1955 and 1956 Oldsmobiles yields nothing. There is nothing to go on. Gene left them nothing to go on. She was secretive. There is nothing more to do. It's wait and see time. The case goes cold. James is relieved. He wants her gone.

On March 4th 1959 Gene has been dead for nearly nine months. Jame's Dad gets him the Jack Webb book, The Badge for his 11th birthday. It contains a ten page summary of the infamous Black Dahlia murder case, which arguably is the most celebrated unsolved crime in American history. The story is a cautionary tale for every young woman coming to Hollywood with a dream. It is about the murder of Elizabeth Short. She was murdered on January 7th 1947. She was tortured. Her body was cut cleanly in half, her body drained of blood, and her mouth cut into a grisly smile. Her body was dumped at 39th and Lawton in LA. James becomes entranced. He uses Betty Short's death as a device to feel everything he did not feel on the occasion of his Mothers death. The similarities between his mothers murder and the Black Dahlia are uncanny. How many so called "loose" women have been murdered for just having a drink with the wrong guy at the wrong time and place. The Dahlia becomes as powerful a figure as his Mother for James.

James Ellroy grew up hungry for women. He stalked neighborhoods spying on happy families in big houses. He spins Betty Short fantasies in his head. He grew up to think single mindedly and live obsessively. His Father dies in June 1965. His last words to James are "Try to pickup every barmaid and waitress who serves you". James fails at that. The next 12 years are spent in a downhill spiral. Booze, dope, petty crime, and county jail. Lots of window peeping and breaking into bedrooms to explore women's bedrooms. Gene and Betty are haunting him now. He becomes a best selling crime writer. He decides to write about Betty. Writing about Betty will lead him to his Mother.

The only thing James ever wanted to be was a crime novelist. LA in the 40's and 50's obsesses him. He got lucky. His parents hatched him in a cool locale. In the mid eighties, six novels into his career he gets a big idea. Write a cultural/crime pop history of LA from 1947 to 1959... The Black Dahlia, The big Nowhere, LA Confidential and White Jazz. He does so and it quickly becomes a best seller. One day in 1993, his former wife, Helen Knode who is also a well published author, was at UCLA looking for crime photos for him, such as Mickey Cohen, Bugsy Segal and the like when she decides to see if there is anything there about his mother. To her surprise there was a file on Gene Ellroy and the son of Gene Ellroy complete with a picture of James taken that very day. She makes a photocopy of them and gives them to James.

A few weeks later Frank Girardot, a freelance journalist, calls James and tells him he is writing a newspaper article about his mothers murder and that he has seen the Detectives "Bluebook" on his Mothers case, which is a book that Homicide Detectives keep on a case containing everything that happened during the investigation such as witness interviews and lists of evidence that was found. Now James has to see it too. He can read the file and turn it into a magazine feature. He calls the unsolved unit of the LA counties Homicide office and is put through to Sgt. Bill Stoner.

In March, 1994 James walks up to the Sheriff's Homicide bureau. Sgt. Bill Stoner greets him at the door with "Mr. Ellroy I'm Bill Stoner". James shakes his hand and says "Pleasure to meet you". Bill immediately asks him the rhetorical question, "I read your novel White Jazz and do you portray all cops as freaks, lunatics and losers?" James answers "quite frankly yes because it makes for great fiction". With that Bill Stoner hands James his mother's murder file. James reads the first page and suddenly realizes how much his Mother's murder had formed him.

It surprises Bill Stoner that James was able to handle the reading of the Bluebook with so little emotion. Everything in the Bluebook told James that his Mother's murder was something entirely different than he had been raised to believe. Initially James thought that his Mother's death came from a three way sexual indignation. He later came to believe that wasn't the case at all. It was most likely straight rape or murder. He originally believed that his Mother put up a valiant fight for her life and had scratched the hell out of the swarthy man. That wasn't the case. She was most likely unconscious at the time of her murder and thankfully so. When James was finished reading the file, he and Bill Stoner stood up, shook hands and Bill walked him out to his car, thinking he would probably never see him again. On his way out James tells Bill that he will send him a copy of the article when he finishes it.

After James the file he begins to realize just how revelatory it is for him and further realizes he can turn the magazine article into a book. He decides to title the book "My Dark Places". It will be Jame's biography and his Mother's autobiography, and in a stunning twist he decides to try to solve his Mothers murder.

Jame's Mother is clearly haunting him now. James is trying to continually find himself through his Mother. All people who are secondary victims of Homicide want answers but this seems especially so in Jame's case. Two weeks after meeting James Ellroy, Bill Stoner retires from the Homicide unit. In the fall of 1994, James calls him and asks him to help him re investigate his Mothers death. James says it will take about two months to which Bill laughs and replies it will take closer to a year if the original witnesses can even be found who are still alive.

In early September 1994 Bill and James drive to Arroyo High school. It is the logical first stop in the investigation. Bill tells James that this is a botched rape homicide and it all occurred here. He expounded on this hypothesis: Gene and the swarthy man had been out earlier in the evening. They necked a little bit. She put him off, she said yes, she said no, she said yes she said no, maybe she said maybe, they came here and he demanded sex and she said no, he knocked her unconscious, raped her and then realizing what he had done knew she would call the police so he stripped off one of her nylon stockings and a piece of cord in the back seat of the car so he knotted the two together and strangled her.

Upon hearing this Jame's blood ran cold. He always thought the crime had occurred somewhere else. For the first time James heard a brilliant Homicide Detective tell him that ground zero of his life was here. Bill further explains that when doing a Homicide investigation things appear to be just what they seem. Very seldom does something come out in left field and surprise you. But that does mean that every once in a while something does come out of left field so a good Homicide Detective must keep an open mind.

Bill Stoner also tells him that physical evidence still exists in his Mother's case. The evidence is held in a vault in a building adjoining the Sheriff's Academy building. Bill leaves James alone in a room with it to see it and touch it. He touches his Mother's dress she was wearing the night she was murdered and can smell her body odors and the perfume she was wearing that night on it. He also touches the cord and nylon his Mother was strangled with.

It is a time standstill, once in a lifetime and very emotional moment. James calls his ex wife and sounds all freaked out and she is ready to have him committed. Before he leaves that day he tells Bill that he needs some alone time and it was obvious he was hurting pretty bad that day. Afterwards James drives back to El Monte. He wants to be in that death zone. He wants to commune with his dead Mother. She is still dominating Jame's relationships with women. She is dead and he is here and they will never lock eyes again. He is still keenly attuned to her and wants to solve her murder.

In the fall of 1994 Bill Stoner meet in Los Angeles and annotate everything in his Mother's case file that seems important. They compile a list of witnesses. Bill runs computer checks of those witnesses to determine their whereabouts. Most of them turn up dead. They interview a bunch of them but they are senile and don't remember a damn thing from 1958. Bill Stoner told James in the beginning not to have much hope with a case this old. Probably the only thing that will break it is if somebody makes a deathbed confession. The only two people who might know are the blond woman who was with Gene the night she was murdered and the swarthy man himself.

Bill and James head out to El Monte to the Desert Inn, which is now a Mexican restaurant, in hopes of finding someone who might know either of them. Margie Trawick the former waitress who remembered Jame's Mother is long dead. Of all the people they talk to at the Desert Inn nobody ever remembers seeing the blond or the swarthy man before that night. Therefore Bill Stoner thinks he is from somewhere out of the area.

A few months into the investigation, Bill Stoner calls James and tells him he has tracked down Levon Chambers the car hop at Stan's drive-in who served his Mother and the swarthy man on two occasions the last night of Gene's life. She remembered the day very very well. She is wracked with guilt. It was standard procedure in that day and age for car hops to copy down license plate numbers of all patrons. But since Gene and the swarthy man are older rather than younger she decides that it isn't necessary in their case as it is unlikely that they are going to run out on the tab.

During her interview Bill tells her that she most have been very familiar with cars being a car hop. She tells Bill that she didn't know one car from another but that her boss had made her stand outside the drive in with him and learn as many as she could the day after the murder. She said that during her interview in1958 she was only guessing at what kind of car it was. She was sure of the color but as for the kind of car, she really had no idea what kind of car it was.

The DMV records from the 1950's no longer exist. That one mistake probably cost the authorities this case. So far Bill and James have hit another brick wall. Bill Stoner and James find Bill Whittaker, a long time convict living in a run down SRO in San Francisco. The first thing out of his mouth is "Hey all I did was dance with the woman" which exactly what he said in his first interview. In fact he was picked up for drunk and disorderly conduct and thrown in jail after leaving the Desert Inn so he couldn't have been the swarthy man. He also said he had gotten a phone number from her that night but since she didn't have a phone it must have been a fake.

One of more revelatory interviews comes from the Krycki's Gene and James old landlords. Back in 1958 Anna May told Detectives that Gene didn't drink but now thirty years later they tell Bill and James she did drink... a lot. After the murder while they were cleaning up the house for re rent they found all sorts of beer and liquor bottles outside under the hedge. Apparently Gene was afraid to throw them out in the trash for fear someone would find out she drank. She also remembered telling Gene not to go to the Desert Inn the night she was murdered that it wasn't a good place for a single woman to hang out at. Mrs. Krycki had lived in the area for a long time both as a married woman and as a single woman so she knew the area well.

Bill and James work the investigation for months but they get no closer to identifying the swarthy man or the blond than did the original Detectives. While there were certainly high points during the investigation, unfortunately all of the leads dried up. In early 1995 Bill and Gene reach the climax of their investigation. It leads to a confrontation many years in the making. Information became misinformation. No suspects emerged in the hundreds of sex perverts interviewed. Nothing led to more nothing. Wires short circuited upon hookup. It became an epic of dead end lies eclipsed by incoherence.

In the end, for James at least, it didn't matter who murdered his Mother. He was either dead or infirm and thus beyond the range of a just vengeance. He was solely a device to bring his Mother to James. His identity meant nothing. He gave James her identity. She emerged from incoherence to full blown flesh and blood. Bill thinks he and James should go to Wisconsin to see his Mother's family. James is not a family man but Bill Stoner convinces him that Gene may have told them something that they have not shared with anyone else. James eventually but reluctantly agrees to go.

The trip is a real eyeopener for James. He learns much about his Mother he never knew. James lived with her for ten years but will be the first to tell someone that he did not really know her if life but he is determined to know her in death. Her name was Geneva Hilliker.She grew up near the Minnesota border. Tunnel city was summer green and winter barren. Her father was a alcohol game Warden prone to violent fits. Her Mother was frail and lovely. Her sister adored her without reservation. She went from Geneva to Gene. She tied her hair back in a frumpy hairdo and wore it with confidence. She married and divorced a sporting goods heir in fast measure. She traveled with a much older lesbian sidekick. She moved to LA and broke up Jame's Father's first marriage. They moved in together and lived three miles from the Black Dahlia dump site in 1947. They read about Betty Short and thought about Betty Short and talked about Betty Short in ways that James will never know.

After leaving Bill Stoner for the last time James told him that for the first time he hated the swarthy man. That was saying a lot considering that growing up he couldn't care a whit about his Mother's homicide investigation. Bill thinks to himself that here is a grown man who is falling in love with his Mother for the first time. James does write his book titled My Dark Places. He writes her story and his own story and detail the Ellroy/Stoner investigation. He didn't find his Mother's killer.. it didn't matter.. He found her. Not only is James Ellroy a great crime novelist from that era but he is also a victim of crime from that era which helps to drive his writing. Will his Mother's case ever be solved.. Who knows.. it only takes one phone call.. And Bill Stoner would like nothing better than to call James up one day and say hey guess what..? I know who the swarthy man is..