Name: Chilling Unsolved Murders From 1940s America
Uploaded: 2024-03-02T23:15:19.000Z
Duration: 16 min 29 s
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We think of 1940s America as a simpler time,  but even then there were grisly murders,  

disappearances, and mob hits, some  of which have become legendary in  

the annals of crime. And a number  of them remain unsolved to this day.

Murder, Inc., gangster Benjamin "Bugsy'' Siegel  made his fortune from bootlegging, prostitution,  

and murder-for-hire. In a more bizarre scheme,  he tried to sell an explosive known as atomite  

to Italian dictator Benito Mussolini's  military. But for all his notoriety,  

no one knows for sure who gunned him down  in Beverly Hills, California, in 1947.

Siegel was in California on business and to visit  his daughters, who lived with his former wife  

Esta. After dinner with a handful of friends and  business partners, Siegel returned to the house of  

his mistress Virginia Hill, who'd left for Paris  after a lover's quarrel. There, a gunman shot him  

twice in the face and twice in the chest. Police  struggled to narrow down the suspect list: Siegel  

had a long list of enemies. He had construction  debts related to his Vegas casino, and East Coast  

mobsters like Salvatore "Lucky" Luciano hated him,  as did Virginia Hill's family for mistreating her.

"The cost overruns for the Flamingo were due  mostly to excessive skimming by Bugsy Siegel."

But the lead suspect was Murder, Inc., honcho  Meyer Lansky. In 1947, an FBI informant claimed  

Lansky had identified the killer as Virginia's  brother Chick. But in 2014, Robbie Sedway, son  

of Siegel's bookkeeper Moe Sedway and his wife,  Bee, told LA Magazine his mother's lover, Mathew  

Pandza, killed Siegel before Siegel could kill  Moe. Moe had reportedly ratted to Lansky about  

Siegel's financial issues. So it seems Lansky  was happy to see Siegel go — one way or another.

In 1947, fashion designer Vera West, who worked  on now-classic Universal films such as The Bride  

of Frankenstein and The Killers, was found  dead in her pool by photographer Robert  

Landry. Police found two notes addressed  to "Jack Chandler." The first one read,

"This is the only way. I am  tired of being blackmailed."

"The fortune teller told me there was only one way  

to duck the blackmail I've  paid for 23 years — death."

A medical examiner determined  that she probably drowned,  

but the Los Angeles County coroner  refused to sign the death report.

The "blackmail" was likely a reference  to whatever scandal triggered West's  

move from New York to California in 1924. The  likeliest suspect was her husband, Jack C. West,  

who gave conflicting accounts about his  whereabouts on the night of her death. He  

also claimed there was no blackmail, but said  her behavior had been erratic. Vera's friends,  

however, suspected her death was a  murder made to look like a suicide.

The investigation was full of holes  and unanswered questions. Police never  

established whether Jack Chandler and Jack  West were the same person. Nor did they ever  

identify the blackmailer or the fortune teller.  Suicide didn't explain how the hydrophobic Vera  

ended up in the pool — she was afraid to even  go near it alone. And then the big question:  

Why did Jack West demolish their  house and disappear without a  

trace? The case is considered cold,  but the mystery remains intriguing.

The body of Elizabeth Short, dubbed the "Black  Dahlia," was found in Los Angeles in 1947 by  

a mother walking with her child on the street.  Short had been brutally murdered. She had suffered  

blunt-force head trauma, had both sides of her  mouth slit, and been severed in half at the waist.

"The only evidence was the body.  The killer had scrubbed it clean."

The troubled Short had left Massachusetts  for California as a minor, where she was  

arrested for underage drinking in 1943.  By 1947, she was a regular at Hollywood  

nightclubs and other fancy joints.  According to local resident Vera French,  

who took Short in at one point, she amassed  a laundry list of suitors and boyfriends.

French said one of Elizabeth's exes had  threatened to kill her for moving on to other  

men. Los Angeles Police Department officer Myrtle  McBride gave an account that agreed with French's,  

adding that a girl resembling Short had approached  her on the street for help with a violent ex,  

although McBride was not able to identify  her with certainty. The case is still cold,  

complicated by bizarre false confessions.  However, observers noted that whoever cut  

up her body very likely had medical training.  In 2016, retired Los Angeles police detective  

Steve Hodel told The Guardian that his  father, Dr. George Hodel, had done it,  

although it's impossible to say for sure,  since much of the original evidence is gone.

In 1943, Italian socialist and journalist Carlo  Tresca, a fierce critic of Mussolini, was gunned  

down in New York City. At the time of his death,  people suspected everyone from Mussolini and  

Italian fascists, who had a warrant out for him,  to American communists. He had that many enemies.  

But in mid-20th-century New York, where there was  murder, there was often the Cosa Nostra. In fact,  

future Bonanno Family boss Carmine  Galante was believed to be the shooter.

"He was head of the Bonanno  crime family. Known as "The  

Cigar," he was widely feared for his cruelty."

Galante spent some time in jail  as a suspect in the murder,  

but he was released without charges,  and the case was never closed.

Tresca was likely the victim of an alliance  between fascist Italy and Cosa Nostra  

kingpin Don Vito Genovese. Tresca had stymied  Mussolini's activities in America for years.  

Despite Mussolini's anti-mafia campaign during  the 1920s, the dictator grew close to Genovese,  

who functioned sort of like his American  fixer. So when Tresca hindered Mussolini's  

influence among Italians in America,  he also ran afoul of Genovese. In fact,  

Tresca allegedly threatened to expose  a drug ring Genovese ran out of Italy.

So it would seem Genovese had Tresca  killed, both out of self-interest and as  

a favor to Mussolini. Lucky Luciano quipped  in 1961 that, when Mussolini had a problem,  

Genovese would "take care of it" for him. One  of those problems, Luciano said, was Tresca.

The Texarkana Moonlight Murders were  two double and one single murder that  

took place near Texarkana, Texas, between March  and May of 1946. Teenagers Richard Griffin and  

Polly Anne Moore were removed from their car,  shot in the head with a .32 caliber pistol,  

and returned to the vehicle. The following  month, a second pair of teens were dragged  

out of their car and shot, again with  a .32. A third murder hit the news in  

May when Virgil Starks was shot dead in his  home; his wife survived with two bullets to  

the face. In Starks' case, the killer used a  .22 but left similar tire tracks at the scene.

Police believed the crimes were related. A  third couple, Jim Hollis and Mary Jeanne Larey,  

who survived a similar attack in February,  reported an assailant wearing a burlap sack  

and armed with a gun, likely a pistol, which he  used to whip Hollis. Like at least one of the  

murdered women, Larey had been sexually assaulted  — another detail the attacks had in common.

"When dark came, the kids came in. People didn't  go downtown too much. They were frightened."

Gun sales skyrocketed, and women took their  children to hotels whenever their husbands  

were out of town. Police never confirmed the  killer's identity, but Texarkana native and  

author James Presley, nephew of the Bowie  County sheriff who investigated the murders,  

told Texas Monthly that the killer  was likely a man named Youell Swinney,  

who was incarcerated on car theft charges in  1947. The case, however, is officially cold.

Sisters Ann and Margaret Richards  were granddaughters of Tennessee  

hotel mogul Joseph Richards. The sisters,  who were white, along with Leonard Brown,  

a Black teenager who worked for them, were  murdered in their Oliver Springs mansion in  

1940, in a cold-blooded killing that brought  together crime and race in the Jim Crow South.

"It's been over 75 years, you know, and  people are still reluctant to talk about it."

Initially, law enforcement suspected Brown of  killing the sisters in a murder-suicide. The  

killer had positioned the gun to make it  seem like Brown had killed himself after  

shooting the women. Witnesses added that Brown  had left the house of the family that owned the  

murder weapon the same morning, suggesting  he'd stolen the gun. With this evidence,  

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Chilling Unsolved Murders From 1940s America

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