Georgette Bauerdorf

Georgette Elise Bauerdorf (May 6, 1924 – October 12, 1944) was an American socialite and oil heiress who was strangled in her home in West Hollywood, California. Her murder remains unsolved.

Georgette Bauerdorf
Born
Georgette Elise Bauerdorf

(1924-05-06)May 6, 1924
New York City, New York, U.S.
DiedOctober 12, 1944(1944-10-12) (aged 20)
West Hollywood, California, U.S.
Cause of deathStrangulation
NationalityAmerican
EducationSt. Agatha's School for Girls
Marlborough School
Westlake School for Girls

Early years

Born in New York City, Bauerdorf was the younger of two daughters born to New York City native[1] oilman George Frederick Bauerdorf and Constance Dannhauser.[1][2][3] She had an older sister, Constance (known as Connie). Bauerdorf attended St. Agatha's School for Girls in New York City.[4] After the death of her mother in 1935, the family moved to Los Angeles where she attended the Marlborough School and Westlake School for Girls.[5] Bauerdorf aspired to be an actress and moved to Hollywood in August 1944.[3] She took an apartment at the El Palacio Apartments at 8493 Fountain Avenue in West Hollywood and got a job working as a junior hostess at the Hollywood Canteen, where she danced with enlisted men.[6]

The day before her death, Bauerdorf cashed a $175 check and purchased an airline ticket to El Paso, Texas for $90. She told friends that she was going there to rendezvous with her soldier boyfriend. On October 11, Pvt. Jerome M. Brown, an antiaircraft artillery trainee from Chicago was identified by Fort Bliss authorities as the man Bauerdorf was going to visit before she was killed. Brown told Army officials he met Bauerdorf at the Hollywood Canteen on the night of June 13. He left California a few days afterward and arrived in El Paso some days after their meeting. They corresponded and the trainee said he received six letters from the heiress. Brown was formerly stationed at Camp Callan, California.

Murder

Newspaper reports indicate Bauerdorf may have gone directly home from the Hollywood Canteen on October 11, 1944. The time she left was around 11:15 p.m. Earlier in the day she had lunch with Mrs. Rose L. Gilbert, a secretary to her father. The two women went shopping. Gilbert told deputies that Bauerdorf was in good spirits.

On October 12, a maid and janitor who came to the apartment to clean found Bauerdorf's body face down in the overflowing bathtub.[7] It is believed that she was attacked by a man who was lying in wait for her. Los Angeles County sheriff's Inspector William Penprase said that an automatic night light over the outside entrance of the apartment had been unscrewed two turns so it would not go on. The murderer was thought to have stood on a chair to reach the light bulb nearly eight feet off the ground. Fingerprints were found on the bulb.

The theory of someone lying in wait was reinforced by an empty string bean can and some melon rinds found by officers in the kitchen waste basket. Investigators think Bauerdorf may have eaten a snack before retiring upstairs to her bedroom. Examination of her stomach revealed that she had eaten string beans about an hour before her death. Bauerdorf's jewelry and other valuables were not stolen, although almost $100 was taken from her purse. There was a large roll of $2 bills and thousands of dollars worth of sterling silver lying in an open trunk.

An Oldsmobile 1936 coupe, registered in the name of her sister, Connie Bauerdorf, was missing. When the car was located, there was a dent in one of the fenders. Mechanics said the damage was recent and may have been the result of a collision with another car. The Oldsmobile was discovered abandoned on East 25th Street, just off San Pedro Street, Los Angeles, where it apparently ran out of gas.

Bauerdorf had put up a great struggle. An examination by Los Angeles County autopsy surgeon Frank R. Webb found abundant bruises and scrapes and revealed she had been raped. The knuckles on Bauerdorf's right hand were smashed and bruised. There was a large bruise on the right side of her head and another on her abdomen, perhaps the result of blows from fists. She had been strangled with a piece of bandage material stuffed down her throat. Webb said her right thigh showed the bruised imprint of a hand "even to the fingernail marks piercing the skin."[8]

Investigation

A reconstruction of the murder gave investigators the idea that the murderer perhaps entered Bauerdorf's apartment by passkey and lay in wait downstairs until she got ready for bed. Another possibility is he rang the doorbell after she retired. Penprase believed it unlikely that Bauerdorf was accompanied home by a serviceman. She might have met someone at the canteen who drove her home and left her at the door. Later, he returned to kill her after she prepared for bed.

A neighbor, who requested anonymity, told sheriff's Capt. Gordon Bowers he was awakened by screams around 2:30 a.m. He first heard a scream which made him sit upright in bed. This was followed by a female voice yelling "Stop, stop, you're killing me!." He said the screaming soon subsided. Thinking it might be a family argument, and being sleepy, he went back to bed.

A date book diary was found in the bedroom containing the names of servicemen. Army authorities joined with the Sheriff's Department in a search for clues. A sailor was questioned in Long Beach, California, but was determined not to have been her attacker. Authorities hoped that someone who saw the young woman leaving the canteen, accompanied by an escort, would come forward. Numerous letters received by Bauerdorf were scrutinized by investigators.

A particular soldier was thought to have been infatuated with Bauerdorf. He was described as "swarthy". He had cut in on Bauerdorf during nearly every dance on the night of her death. Investigators checked U.S.O. centers and other canteens to try to find and question him. The soldier, identified in news accounts as Cpl. Cosmo Volpe turned himself in several days after the discovery of Bauerdorf's body, after he read the police were looking for a "husky, dark-haired GI." [9] He was questioned by police, but eliminated as a suspect after he offered proof that he had "checked into his barracks at the Lockheed Air Terminal at 11 p.m." [10]

Bauerdorf was with June Ziegler at the canteen on the night prior to the murder. She told the sheriff's office that Bauerdorf dated a serviceman, who was 6'4", less than a month before her murder. He was a friend of another serviceman whose name was frequently mentioned in the diary. According to Ziegler, Bauerdorf remarked that the tall soldier was very much taken with her. However she did not return his interest and quit going out with him. The soldier was sought for questioning by officers.

Rose Gilbert said Bauerdorf never entertained friends alone. The secretary revealed that Bauerdorf occasionally asked men to stop in briefly. However she never asked them to remain. Her education in a convent and a girls' school in California gave her very stringent ideas of propriety, according to her father's assistant.

At a coroner's inquest October 20, a jury of nine men found that Bauerdorf's death was a homicide and proposed a thorough investigation to apprehend her killer. During the hearing, Fred Atwood, janitor of the apartment building, provided new evidence for deputies. He said he heard woman's heels clicking back and forth on the floor, followed by a loud crash, like a tray dropping on the floor. He was awakened by this noise around midnight on October 11. He recognized the sounds as coming from Bauerdorf's apartment. He said there was no one with her.

Atwood also said he entered the apartment the next morning about 11:10 a.m., accompanied by his wife. They found Bauerdorf's body lying semi-nude in her bathtub. Two of the deputies confirmed the janitor's testimony that Bauerdorf was alone before her slayer evidently lured her to her darkened door. Atwood said he discovered the night light bulb being screwed around a couple of turns. He responded that he had never seen this happen before. Officers testified that the apartment showed no indication of a struggle. Yet the autopsy proved that Bauerdorf had fought hard to live. Sam Wolf, brother of Bauerdorf's stepmother, denied that the victim suffered fainting spells.


Legacy

Bauerdorf's body was shipped to New York via train after it was released by the coroner's office on October 15. Her funeral was held in New York City. She was buried in a Long Island cemetery plot the Bauerdorf family had maintained for generations.[7]

The Ticket Out, a debut novel written by James Ellroy's wife, Helen Knode is very loosely based on her life. The Santa Cruz Sentinel called it, "... like Ellroy's 'Black Dahlia,' based on a true Hollywood crime — the unsolved murder of Georgette Bauerdorf in L.A. in 1944."(sic)"[11]

See also

Footnotes
  1. "US, World War II Draft Registration Cards (entry: George Frederick Bauerdorf)". Ancestry.com. Retrieved October 16, 2018.
  2. "California, Death Index (entry: Georgette Elise Bauerdorf)". Ancestry.com. Retrieved October 16, 2018.
  3. Katz, Hélèna (2010). Cold Cases: Famous Unsolved Mysteries, Crimes, and Disappearances in America. ABC-CLIO. p. 178. ISBN 978-0-313-37692-4.
  4. "Girl Found Dead In Filled Tub". The Tuscaloosa News. October 13, 1944. p. 2. Retrieved July 22, 2014.
  5. "Body of Pretty Hollywood Girl Found in Bathtub; Police Hint Foul Play". St. Petersburg Times. October 13, 1944. p. 10. Retrieved July 22, 2014.
  6. Newton, Michael (2009). The Encyclopedia of Unsolved Crimes. Infobase Publishing. p. 32. ISBN 978-1-438-11914-4.
  7. "Time of Tub Murder Set". Reading Eagle. October 16, 1944. p. 15. Retrieved July 22, 2014.
  8. Newton 2009 p. 32
  9. "GI Hepcat Turns Self In, Tells of Meeting Slain Heiress". Stars and Stripes, London edition. StarsandStripes/Newspaperarchive.com. October 18, 1944. p. 4. Retrieved August 27, 2019.
  10. Harnisch, Larry (December 27, 2018). "Youth Questioned in Georgette Bauerdorf killing". The Daily Mirror. Retrieved August 27, 2019.
  11. Watson, Chris (February 16, 2003). "Husband-wife team builds tension". Santa Cruz Sentinel. Santa Cruz, California: Newspapers.com. p. B3. Retrieved October 16, 2018.

References
  • Los Angeles Times, Oil Executive's Daughter Found Dead In Bathtub, October 13, 1944, Page 5.
  • Los Angeles Times, People And Place In Strange Death Of Oil Heiress, October 14, 1944, Page 3.
  • Los Angeles Times, Evidence Shows Heiress Waged Terrific Fight, October 15, 1944, Page 3.
  • Los Angeles Times, Private Identified as Girl's Friend, October 15, 1944, Page 3.
  • Los Angeles Times, Neighbor Tells Heiress' Screams on Death Night, October 16, 1944, Page 2.
  • Los Angeles Times, Janitor Gives Evidence In Murder of Oil Heiress, October 21, 1944, Page A3.
  • Wolfe, Donald H., The Black Dahlia Files:The Mob, The Mogul, and The Murder That Transfixed Los Angeles, New York, Regan Books, 2005.
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