Jeanette Lafferty -- HE Took Her Off

Minutes after dropping her boyfriend off to meet a train at the Thirtieth Street Station in Philadelphia on August 14, 1950, the 24-year-old singer paid her toll at the Camden, New Jersey, bridge, drove 20 feet from the booth, and parking amidst bridge traffic, pressed the muzzle of a .22-caliber rifle against her left temple and pulled the trigger.  Lafferty, an elementary school teacher in Woodbury, New Jersey, died in Cooper Hospital three and a half hours later.  In the bloodstained car, authorities found five suitcases filled with clothes, and postcard sized photographic cards advertising the "Lafferty Sisters," Jeanette and her sister Beulah who, with a ventriloquist's dummy described as the "third member of the family," entertained on local radio and in private "Temperance Engagements Only."  A note found in her handbag read:  "I'm done living.  God put me on earth.  He is taking me off because I've failed miserably."

Jack Buchanan -- Benny and the Gas Jets

The 6 foot, 4 inch contortionist was booked at the Cat and Fiddle at 1345 Central Avenue in Cincinnati, Ohio, when he committed suicide in his apartment next door to the nightclub on July 25, 1941.  After Buchanan, 24, failed to appear for his show, the club's owner called and found the contortionist with his head covered in a blanket draped over an open gas range in the owner read:  "Benny, I tried the bath tub, but it wouldn't work.  Maybe I'll have better luck with the gas."  In a separate note, Buchanan asked God's forgiveness for his act.

Edward Mansfield -- Very Good, Eddie

Elsie Orr, 24, and sister, Helen Stolte, were known theatrically in the Bath Beach section of Brooklyn, New York, as the Carr Sisters.  Expert swimmers and divers since the age of 12, the pair was members of a water carnival show managed by Edward Mansfield, and following a two year run, were together again in the chorus of Very Good, Eddie.  Mansfield became obsessed with Helen Stolte, recently separated from her husband, but was opposed by Orr who warned her sister against having any involvement with him.  Orr was married less than three weeks to Edward Orr, a member of the Canadian Flying Corps, when Mansfield invited Stolte to Metuchen, New Jersey to pick up a car there he had promised to give her.  Suspicious of his intentions, Orr accompanied her sister to Metuchen on June 15, 1918.  Mansfield told the pair that the car was in a forest outside the town and drove them to a remote area near a rubber factory.  Stolte waited in the car while Elsie Orr walked into the woods with the theatrical manager to retrieve the vehicle.  Fifteen minutes later, Stolte heard moans coming from the woods.  Investigating, she found the theatrical manager standing beside a stream holding a bloody pen knife, his throat gashed, and drinking from a bottle.  Asked by Stolte where her sister was, Mansfield ominously replied, "Where she will never go on the road again."  Stolte fled the scene, returning minutes later with the police.  Mansfield lay unconscious on the ground from a near fatal dose of paris green while, nearby, Orr was found in a clump of bushes with her throat slit.  Mansfield expired from the overdose later that night in Metuchen's St. Peter's Hospital.

Kid Thomas -- Why He Sings the Blues

An obscure early blues and rock 'n' roll performer heavily influenced by Little Richard, Kid Thomas (a.k.a. Tommy Lewis/Louis) was born Louis Thomas Watts on June 20, 1934 in Sturgis, Mississippi.  The family moved to Chicago when Thomas was 7 and as a teen he took harmonica lessons from Little Willie Smith, a minor bluesman in the city.  By the late 1940s and early 1950s Thomas was playing harmonica at various blues clubs in Chicago sharing the stage with the likes of Bo Diddley, Muddy Waters, and Elmore James.  Signed by the local King-Federal label in 1955, the harmonica playing blues singer cut two singles ("Wolf Pack" and "The Spell"), both flops.  In 1956, after a stint in Wichita, Kansas, Thomas broadened his musical horizons and moved into rock 'n' roll affecting a processed pompadour in the style of Little Richard.  In Los Angeles in early 1959, Thomas cut two singles for Modern Records for which he is best known today -- "You are an Angel" and the aptly titled "Rockin' this Joint Tonight."  The label quickly folded and the record was never promoted.  Five years passed before Thomas, renamed Tommy Louis and the Rhythm Rockers, recorded two singles for Muriel -- "The Hurt Is On" and "Wail, Baby, Wail!"  Again, the records failed.  Throughout the mid- to late-1960s Kid Thomas performed at private parties and in clubs like the Cozy Lounge in South East L.A.  One night at the Cozy Lounge, the owner of Cenco Records saw Thomas perform and brought him in the studio to record his last singles -- "(You are an) Angel" and the instrumental, "Willowbrook."  Like Modern Records, however, Cenco Records tanked.

Kid Thomas, the poor man's Little Richard, was operating a moderately successful lawn care service in Beverly Hills when what was left of his life forever changed.  On September 3, 1969, Lou T. Watts (Kid Thomas), 35, was driving his van in the 300 block of South Doheny Drive in Beverly Hills, whe he accidentally struck a child riding a bicycle.  Ethan Friedman, 10, died of his injuries later that afternoon.  The boy's father, Eugene K. Friedman, pressed police and requested the district attorney to file manslaughter charges.  Although Thomas possessed five driver's licenses (four obtained by fraudulent means), police were only able to revoke his license.  In the absence of witnesses to the accident, the district attorney refused to prosecute citing insufficient evidence.  Friedman hired a private investigator to tail the bluesman.  On March 2, 1970, police (acting on an "anonymous" tip) arrested Thomas for driving on a revoked license.  Friedman was present in court when Thomas came up on charges, but the case was postponed until April 13.  That day, Eugene Friedman waited in the parking lot of the public library across the street from City Hall for the arrival of the man he blamed for the death of his only child.  Immediately upon his arrival, Kid Thomas was confronted by the distraught father.  The men spoke briefly and then Friedman pulled a 9mm automatic pistol from a briefcase and fired point-blank into the bluesman.  Thomas ran across the street toward the rear entrance of the police station with Friedman in pursuit still squeezing off rounds.  Thomas fell to the curb, but a stray shot struck Beverly Hills Police Sgt. John Carden in the leg as he was standing at the rear door of the station.  Friedman dropped his gun and was arrested without incident.

Lou T. Watts, nominally well-known in certain musical circles as Kid Thomas, was pronounced dead at 9:20 A.M. at UCLA Medical Center.  At his first-degree murder trial in August 1970, Friedman faced the death penalty and a charge of assault with a deadly weapon in the shooting of Officer Carden.  The grieving father testified that he believed his son was standing next to him when he confronted Thomas to plead with him to stop driving.  When Thomas assumed what Friedman interpreted as a menacing position the father shot him to protect his son.  Following two days of deliberation, a jury found Friedman guilty of the reduced charge of voluntary manslaughter, but acquitted him on the assault with a deadly weapon charge.  Superior Court Judge Adolph Alexander subsequently placed Friedman on three years probation and ordered him to obtain psychiatric treatment, get a job, and not to use weapons or drugs.  "I do not condone violence in any form," added the judge, "but if it was in my power to reduce the charge to a misdemeanor I would do it."

Recommended Reading

Koda, Cub.  "Kid Thomas."  www.allmusic.com

Simmonds, Jeremy.  The Encyclopedia of Dead Rock Stars:  Heroin Handguns, and Ham Sandwiches.  Rev. ed.  Chicago, Ill.:  Chicago Review, 2008.

Wallace R. Parnell -- Killing to Keep Her?

The son of Fred Russell, a brilliant ventriloquist on the London variety stage of the teens, Parnell briefly followed in his father's footsteps before turning to theatrical promotion.  After mounting several revues like Beauty on Parade in the 1920s and 1930s, he suffered a nervous breakdown in 1934 and was in and out of British bankruptcy courts for the next few years.  Following a family dispute, Parnell went to America and distinguished himself as an advertising wonder boy.  Returning to England, yet another family fracas forced him away this time to Australia where his tireless efforts as a theatrical producer made him an important figure in that country's entertainment industry.  In 1942, Parnell immigrated to America with his sights set upon a theatrical producing career in Hollywood.  His one success, The Beaustone Affair, played for a record setting eleven weeks at the Las Palmas Theatre in 1951.  Four weeks into the show's run, the press revealed that the play's author, "L. Len Rap," was in fact, Parnell (with his name spelled in reverse).  In the mid-1940s, the theatrical producer resuscitated his advertising career and founded a highly profitable direct mail business, Canterbury Press.  He was also president of Karseal, Inc., a wax polish firm sharing offices with his advertising business at 915 W. Highland Avenue in Hollywood.

Known by friends and business associated to be prone to spells of moodiness, Parnell also suffered from a dangerous physical condition in which any bruise he sustained could result in a life-threatening blood clot.  These maladies combined with the recent tumult in his business life, perhaps, offer an insight into the deadly rampage that was to come.  Early in 1954, Parnell became convinced that Beryl Erickson, his executive secretary at Canterbury Press, was responsible for the loss of several big accounts.  Despite being close friends with the 35-year-old divorced mother of three young children, Parnell hired a private investigator to monitor Erickson's activities.  Concurrent with the investigation, the 59-year-old businessman's house was twice burgled.  At Parnell's request, the P.I. purchased his employer a .38-caliber pistol ostensibly for home protection.  The situation apparently improved on April 7, 1954 when Parnell sold a controlling interest in Canterbury to Erickson and instructed his operative to destroy all documents pertaining to the investigation.  He seemed in a good mood and told everyone he was taking his third wife on a trip to Australia before settling down in his home country of England.

Prior to the opening hours on May 19, 1954, the janitor in the Highland Avenue building housing Canterbury Press and Karseal, Inc. made a gruesome discovery.  Beryl Erickson lay face-down on the floor beside her desk dead from a single gunshot wound inflicted at close range to the left side of her face, below the temple.  Parnell's briefcase was beside the body and among the documents found in it was a detective magazine with a front page article entitled, "She Was His Woman and He Was Ready to Kill to Keep Her!"  The businessman's body was found in a nearby executive washroom where he had shot himself in the right temple.  Attempts to explain Parnell's murder of Erickson and his suicide as motivated by any romantic interest between them were discounted by everyone who knew the close friends.

Denise Morelle -- Justice for "Dame Plume"

The popular Canadian actress (born in Montreal in 1927) was a versatile performer equally at home in films (Don't Let It Kill You, 1967; Once Upon a Time in the East, 1974; L'Amour bless, 1975; The Late Blossom, 1977) and theatrical productions (Bonjour, la, Bonjour, L'Impromptu de'Outremont).  It was, however, as the hysterical opera diva "Dame Plume" on the late 1960s children's afternoon television show, La Ribouldingue, that Morelle became an instantly recognizable and beloved figure in Quebec.  As a member of the National Arts Centre's French ensemble under director Andre Brassard, she was scheduled to appear in the premiere of Albertine, en cinqs temps in a role Michel Tremblay had written specially for her, when a tragic confluence of random coincidences resulted in Morelle's brutal death.

"Dame Plume"

On July 17, 1984, the 59-year-old actress visited a ground-floor flat she was considering renting on Sanguinet Street in central Montreal.  The landlord, unable to meet Morelle at the apartment, gave her permission to view the unlocked residence alone.  The next day, friends reported the actress missing to police after she failed to appear for her stage performance in Ste. Adele.  Authorities found Morelle's body in the empty flat savagely beaten with an iron bar which had shattered her nose, jaw and skull.  The killer had heated the bar on a gas stove and sadistically burned her before raping then strangling her to death with a rope.  Montreal police collected liquids from the scene and sent the specimens to a DNA bank in Ottawa where they failed to match any samples on file from known criminals.  Meanwhile, more than 1,000 friends, family, and mourners gathered at St. Clement's Roman Catholic Church in Montreal's east-end for a memorial service for the beloved actress.

Gaetan Bissonnette

The Morelle murder remained unsolved, but not forgotten, by Montreal police for 23 years until the department's collaboration in April 2007 with the producers of a French language television network documentary on the case aired and finally yielded the tip authorities needed to make an arrest in August 2007.  Using advancements in DNA, cold case detectives matched the sample taken at the Morelle crime scene in 1984 with a specimen in 2006 from a "solved" rape.  In both instances, the perpetrator was Gaetan Bissonnette, a 49-year-old lifelong junkie whose criminal career between 1976 and 2006 was comprised of an unbroken record of 19 convictions for offenses like theft and breaking and entering.  Two months after the discovery of Morelle's savaged body, Bissonnette was convicted of breaking into a woman's apartment and raping her at knife-point over a seven-hour period.  Remarkably, the career criminal received only a three year sentence, but the DNA sample from this case led to Bissonnette being charged for first-degree murder in the Morelle homicide.
 
Confronted with the irrefutable DNA evidence, Bissonnette accepted the Crown's offer to allow him to escape trial in exchange for a guilty plea to a second-degree murder with its mandatory life sentence, but with the possibility of parole.  As Bissonnette supplied details of his deadly 1984 encounter with the actress it became painfully aware to everyone that the murder had sprung from pure coincidence, a simple matter of a person having been in the wrong place at the wrong time.  Bissonnette, 26 at the time, was squatting in the vacant unlocked apartment when Morelle entered the flat to view it for possible rental.  While the Crown and Bissonnette's lawyer had previously agreed on the life sentence with no eligibility of parole for at least 14 years, Justice James Brunton took just twenty minutes to overturn the joint sentencing suggestion observing that it was not "harsh enough" given the seriousness of the crime.  In a later proceeding, Bissonnette was ordered to serve 20 years before the possibility of being declared parole eligible in 2027.

Wesley Eddy -- A Boy and His Mother

Eddy (real name Edward Gargiulo) was a versatile vaudeville and nightclub performer who gained renown as the one-time master of ceremonies at the Roxy Theatre in New York City as well as other large movie houses throughout the East.  Subject to fits of despondency since the death of his mother in 1926, the 31-year-old emcee had flowers placed weekly on her grave in St. Michael's Cemetery in Stratford, Connecticut.  During the night of September 16, 1934, Eddy visited the cemetery and shot himself once in the head over his mother's grave.  While police initially suspected foul play when the gun was recovered partially buried in the ground some 20 feet from the body, they decided upon suicide when they found two notes at the scene.  In one addressed to his brother, Eddy wrote:  "Please see that I am buried right away, next to our dear mother."  Authorities reasoned that an individual found Eddy's body prior to the person who notified them and, because of religious scruples, attempted to bury the gun.  The Bridgeport, Connecticut, medical examiner ruled the death a suicide.

Charlotte Carter Flather -- A Peaceful Death

Once touted as the "best dressed girl in New York," Flather, 30, had acted on stage in Turn to the Right under the name "Charlotte Carter" before taking up scenario writing for the Famous Players-Lasky Corporation.  She collaborated on the 1920 film Devil's Garden starring Lionel Barrymore.  When her career as a scenarist fizzled, Flather turned to short story writing, but actually supported herself by working for the Features Syndicate, Inc., interviewing political leaders like Benito Mussolini and Georges Clemenceau.  In 1921, the troubled woman attempted to end her life by drinking veronal laced with opium.  Flather survived for another four years until bankruptcy, ill health, and the failure to find a publisher for a recently completed novel prompted her to try again.  On March 13, 1925, the despondent writer penned eight exit notes, bathed and styled her hair, swallowed a dose of sodium cyanide, and peacefully crossed her hands and died in her New York City hotel room.

Anne Duane -- No Money + No Friends = The Exit

Unable to sustain herself by playing small roles like the maid in the vaudeville act "Cave-Man Love" at the Wintergreen Theatre in 1921, the 19-year-old actress ingested six bichloride of mercury tablet in the restroom of the Pennsylvania Station in New York City on July 3, 1922.  When asked by a physician why she did not tell her friends at the scene of the poisoning, Duane replied, "When you have no money in the theatrical business you have no friends."  Destitute, the actress had not eaten for four days at the time of her suicide attempt.  Duane died on July 8, 1922.  With monies jointly contributed by an actress-friend and the Actors' Fund, Duane was buried at the Evergreen Cemetery.

King D. Gray -- Death, the Great Revelator

At noon on June 30, 1938, a pedestrian walking by a parked car outside the Hollywood post office at 1615 North Wilcox Avenue noticed a man slumped in the vehicle's front seat.  The driver, dead from a single .32-caliber gunshot wound to the chest, was identified as studio cameraman, King David Gray, active in films since 1915 when he shot The College Orphan for Universal Film Manufacturing Company.  Born in Danville, Virginia, on March 9, 1886, Gray photographed over 50 films (The Mark of Cain, 1916; The Scarlet Car, 1917; Forgive and Forget, 1923) in a twenty year career.  From 1932, he worked exclusively for Universal Pictures as either a camera operator (The Invisible Man, 1933) or as second cameraman (The Black Cat, 1934).  When found, the 52-year-old married father of two was holding a letter in his right hand postmarked from New Castle, Pennsylvania bearing the salutation, "Dear Daddy."  Police established the identity of the letter writer as Frances Bleakley, a 29-year-old University of Southern California student once employed in the art department of a Hollywood department store, but now living in Pennsylvania.  During their four year relationship the cameraman passed himself off as unmarried and rented a secret post office box to hide the deception from his family.

Although baffled police ultimately settled on the theory that Gray was shot during a robbery attempt no valuables were taken from the dead man or his car.  The death weapon, a .32-caliber automatic, was retrieved a few days later from a vacant lot at Santa Monica Boulevard and El Centro Street eight blocks from the murder scene.  Ex-convict Joseph L. Chester, considered a suspect in the Gray murder, committed suicide to avoid capture on an unrelated matter on July 20, 1938, following a high speed car chase with authorities in Ventura County.

Max J. Jelin -- Death of a Deadbeat

A former picture exhibitor in New Brunswick, New Jersey, Jelin moved to New York City in the 1940s to try his hand as a theatrical producer.  The career change marked the beginning of a period of bad luck and shady financial dealings that left the producer one of the most despised men in theatre.  Jelin leased the Belasco Theatre, presented flop after flop, and when pressed by the owners for rent, filed numerous court actions to fight dispossession.  The 40-year-old producer was finally ousted in October 1947, but had already leased the International Theatre.  After two flops there, The Magic Touch and the short-lived black musical Calypso, Jelin was in serious tax trouble, owing the Internal Revenue Service some $140,000.

On January 22, 1948, four days after losing the lease on the International, Jelin was home alone in his 13 story apartment at 300 East Fifty-seventh Street when he opened four gas jets on the kitchen stove.  The resulting blast instantly killed the producer and ripped out the walls adjoining two other suites in the new 18 story residential building.  Jelin died owing $12,000 in back rent.

Leslie Ray Raymond -- Brother Bob's Family Affair

Once familiar to Oakland, California, radio audiences as "Brother Bob," Raymond, 41, left the business, relocated to Los Angeles, and worked as a salesman in an air conditioning concern until his complicated personal life ultimately drove him to tragedy.  On December 6, 1935, a motorist in the Palos Verdes Hills off Western Avenue noticed a parked car, engine running, with a 12-foot piece of rubber hose leading from the exhaust pipe in through a window of the vehicle.  Investigators found Raymond's body in the car along with two scrapbooks filled with clippings chronicling his career as "Brother Bob."  In his hat, lying on the seat beside him, was a note addressed to his wife expressing grief and shame over an affair he had been having with his young niece, Esther.

The suicide note read:  "Tubbsy Dear, I have done about every bad thing to you that any one person could--you are going to like Esther.  She is a sweet, sweet girl--she is at a hotel in San Pedro--get her and start her on her way--give her a break--she, too, was wrong because she loved the wrong person--in my Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde existence there has never been anyone like you--be a good gal--here is zero hour and nothing more to say...."

John W. Fletcher -- The Seer Sucker

In 1912 the well-known palmist moved into a luxurious fourth floor suite in Boston's Hotel Pelham at 74 Boylston Street after a crusade against the practice drove him from New York City.  Fletcher, 60, conducted discreet readings there until early 1913 when authorities received a rash of complaints from several young men who accused the seer of attacking them.  An undercover officer managed to secure enough incriminating evidence to have an assault warrant issued against the palmist.  On April 22, 1913, police served the warrant in Fletcher's suite.  According to published reports, Fletcher turned white, moved hesitatingly towards a telephone, but instead of placing a call removed poison from the pocket of his vest and swallowed it.  Seconds later he staggered across the room and fell unconscious to the floor.  Fletcher died two hours later.

Ernest William Steele -- Sunday Mornin' Comin' Down

A trapeze artist with the Ringling Brothers Circus, Steele left the tour and returned to Boston after arguing with his partner.  Soon afterward, the 37-year-old aerialist's marriage to wife Jenny, 28, dissolved under the strain of his jealousy and uncontrollable fits of melancholy.  On January 31, 1915, the acrobat had not lived with his estranged wife and their two young children for 17 months.  As was his custom, Steele picked up the older child every Sunday morning so the boy could spend the day with his grandmother.

While in the 4th floor apartment at 1366 Washington Street that his wife shared with her mother and three grown brothers, Steele took exception with the manner in which she was caring for their 20-month-old son, David.  After making a few insulting remarks to his wife, Steele whipped out a homemade blackjack from his pocket and struck her three times in the head.  A scuffle broke out between the acrobat and two of her brothers, but Steele wrenched himself free and, scooping up his infant son, stepped out of the window onto the ledge of the apartment building.  Moments later, he tossed the child to the street below in full view of a crowd of worshipers leaving church after mass.  Steele, brandishing a hunting knife, re-entered the apartment long enough to threaten, "I've got rid of one of them, and now I'll get the other," before retreating back onto the narrow ledge.  When a policeman attempted to move toward him, Steele dropped the knife, put his arms to his side, and dove headfirst to his death.  Remarkably, both mother and child survived.