Davidson, a 28-year-old film test director for Fox studio, knew Constance Smith, a married mother of four children, for eight years before becoming hopelessly obsessed with her. Separated from actress-wife Thelma Roberts and struggling to pay a court judgment for her support, Davidson lived alone in a modest apartment at 7279 Fountain Avenue in Hollywood. On October 11, 1932, Davidson's repeated threats to kill Smith and then himself if she refused to marry him reached the flash point. That morning, the film man phoned the 30-year-old woman at her home and threatened to come there and kill her if she refused his marriage demand. Fearful for her children's safety and with her husband out of town, Smith agreed to meet Davidson later that night at his apartment. When she arrived at 7:00 P.M., Davidson locked and nailed shut the front door, and for three hours brandished a .38-caliber revolver in her face all the while threatening to kill them both unless she relented. According to Smith, she had convinced Davidson to let her go when he suddenly fired two shots into his head.
At the scene, police found a note written by the woman to the dead man that read, "Georgie Darling: You are a very bad boy and I'm not going to love you anymore -- love you enough now. How about a date tonight?" Smith maintained that Davidson had forced her to write the incriminating document during the three-hour ordeal. Davidson left two suicide notes. In one addressed to his boss at Fox studio, he wrote: "I have done this because it seems the odds are too much against me." To his mother, Davidson explained: "My mind has gone back on me. Thelma's ... lawyer attached my salary and that, of course, broke me up, not having enough to take care of you.... I am perfectly sane and have planned this whole thing.... I love you and will always love you all. George."
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