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.

Ward C. Fritz -- Hard Landing

With partner Betty Wetenkamp, Fritz (under his professional name "Paul Ward") was a well-known stage, ballroom, and nightclub dancer in Omaha, Nebraska.  In 1937, the pair danced in a benefit for a "free shoe fund" sponsored by the local newspaper, The World-Herald.  On May 15, 1938, the 22-year-old dancer left the home he shared with his parents in good spirits and took a taxicab to a nearby airfield, Dodge Park, in Council Bluffs, Iowa.  Fritz bought a ticket for an aerial sightseeing tour, making a point to tell the pilot that he preferred to be the only passenger in the two-seater, open cockpit plane.  The plane took off from the field and had reached its cruising speed of 100 miles per hour when, 2,000 feet up, the pilot noticed that Fritz had climbed out onto the lower wing of the biplane.  Before the pilot could shout, the dancer jumped, hurtled through the air, and smashed face-up into the ground below just ten yards from a man working in his vegetable garden.  The impact drove Fritz 18 inches into the ground, split his clothes up the back, knocked the heels of his shoes, and threw the watch he was wearing four feet away from the body.  A woman sitting in her home 75 feet away reported that the body's impact jarred her entire house.

Donald F. Taylor -- He Ain't Go No Body

[The following is offered in acknowledgment of the birthday of Rebecca Baumann, stalwart friend and "First Lady of LaffLand."]

The sixth husband of wannabe sex symbol Marie "The Body" McDonald, Taylor produced the 1963 sex farce Promises!  Promises! starring his wife and Jayne Mansfield, who appeared nude in the Tommy Noonan-directed film.  Despite a massive publicity campaign that touted McDonald's impressive physical dimensions, the bonde glamour girl never achieved star status.  On October 21, 1965, Taylor found his 42-year-old wife's lifeless body slumped at her dressing table in their ranch-style home in the Hidden Hills section of Hollywood.  An initial coroner's inconclusive finding of suicide or accidental death by "acute drug intoxication" was later ruled "accidental" based on a review of McDonald's past life and normal pattern of living.
  

On January 3, 1966, Taylor, 47, was found dead in the same house at 5337 Jed Smith Road by his 16-year-old stepdaughter and her boyfriend.  His fully-clothed body was discovered lying on the floor alongside his bed.  An empty bottle of Seconal was found on the nightstand.  Taylor left two handwritten suicide notes and a will instructing that his mother be fiven the remainder of his estate after the payment of bills.  In a note addressed to Robert N. Hirte, his business partner in the Marie McDonald, Inc., cosmetics firm, Taylor wrote:  "Please go on with the cosmetics business.  It was Marie's fervent desire to give women a product that would do them some good at a reasonable price."  The fact that the note was dated two days before the discovery of his body led police to believe that Taylor actually took his life on January 1, 1996.

Robert Love -- "I'm Brave, I'm Brave"

http://life.time.com/

Known as a set designer under his real name, Abraham Levine, Love, 34, was a bit player in several films including the 1938 Norman Foster vehicle I Cover Chinatown in which he played an unnamed cop.  According to his roommate, Daniel Harris, Love had been brooding for days over the suicide of actress Carole Landis, whom he had never met.  On the morning of July 8, 1948, Harris entered the kitchen of the home he shared with Love at 1737 North Whitley Avenue in Los Angeles to find his roommate standing with his head over an open gas jet.  When Harris turned off the gas, Love displayed a razor blade and, pointing to a minor cut on his neck, said:  "This was too painful--I couldn't do it that way."  Later that day, Harris took love to visit a doctor with an office on the third floor of the Guaranty Building in downtown Hollywood.  While waiting, Love suddenly jumped up (cutting his finger on a piece of overturned furniture) then ran up two flights of stairs to the fifth floor office of another doctor.  According to the receptionist there, the actor muttered, "I'm brave, I'm brave.  I can stand it," as he pushed through the crowded waiting room and dove through a half-opened window facing Ivar Street just off Hollywood Boulevard.

Jake Wells -- Two Strikes You're Out

Known as the "Father of Vaudeville" in Atlanta, Wells managed the Richmond Bluebirds of the Atlantic League to three pennants before purchasing his first theatre in Richmond, Virginia, in the late 1890s.  In his nearly 30 year career as the "Dean of Southern Vaudeville," the showman purchased several other theatres and opened a chain of summer amusement parks throughout North Carolina, Virginia, and Georgia.  Five weeks before committing suicide on March 16, 1927, the 63-year-old promoter suffered a nervous breakdown precipitated by concern over his own ill health and that of his wife.  On the fatal day, Wells accompanied by Betty Schaeffner, manager of his Park Hill Inn, was driving near Hendersonville, North Carolina, when they stopped to pick wild flowers.  Schaeffner began picking flowers while Wells leaned against a pine tree.  Moments after uttering, "It'll all be over soon," the promoter drew a revolver from a pocket and shot himself under the chin.  The woman vainly tried to wrest the gun from Wells before he fired a second deadly bullet into his head.

Roy G. Daniels -- Mr. Clean Meets Death

Failing in his bid to control all the popular priced vaudeville and picture theatres in Arkansas, Daniels, president of the Arkansas Amusement Company of Hot Springs, lost his business to creditors in 1909.  In ill health and facing imminent financial ruin, he returned to Topeka, Kansas, where longtime residents remembered him as a wild young man who as a bartender in the 1890s beat a man to death with a beer mallet in a seedy dive.  Tried for the murder, Daniel was acquitted in a controversial verdict that had turned the town against him.

On October 4, 1909, the promoter (age unreported) took a room in the National Hotel and committed one of the most fastidious suicides on record.  After writing notes to his mother, the press, the undertaker, and the coroner, Daniels removed pillows and a sheet from the bed, spread them on the floor and laid down to wait for the strychnine he swallowed to take effect.  Fearful the poison would act too slowly, he shot himself once over the heart and in the side of the head with an old fashioned cap and ball revolver.  The notes revealed Daniels' unusual attention to detail and a concern over how he would be remembered.  In one he wrote:  "This medicine is too slow.  I have taken off the clothes I wish to be buried in, so as not to soil them."  Another addressed to the newspapers begged:  "Please be merciful...I have been unsuccessful...This and sickness caused me to do this and for God's sake be merciful, this, the last, time."  And to the coroner:  "No investigation is necessary.  I have done this myself owing to business failure, sickness and despondency."

George Augustus Kelly -- Dancing into the Dark

Palais de Danse - Hammersmith

Kelly, a native of Omaha, Nebraska, joined the U.S. Army at the outbreak of World War I, but transferred to the British Air Force where distinguished service in the sky over France gained him a captain's commission.  Described as possessing a "magnetic personality," the handsome 30-year-old ex-flyer was acting as the manager of the Palais de Danse in Hammersmith when he met the attractive divorcee and dancer Sophia Erica Taylor, 29, there in 1920.  Known as "Babs" to her friends, Taylor was a chorus girl at the Gaiety Theatre and Hippodrome and was notorious for making the rounds of London nightclubs to dance.  The pair became lovers and dance partners, appearing in private exhibition dances in London though working principally in the suburbs.  Their extravagant lifestyle coupled with Kelly's gambling and addictions to alcohol and drugs soon cooled the relationship.  A pattern of violence developed.  Taylor, looking for a new benefactor, flirted with men while Kelly, drunk and insanely jealous, beat her.  Weeks prior to the impending tragedy (during which time the ex-soldier would often disappear for days) the dancer confided to a friend:  "I am very unhappy and Kelly is so strange.  He has hit me many times, and threatened me.  I do not know what to do."  Taylor became intimate with Captain Allan Leslie, formerly in the Golden Highlanders, and the two arranged to live together in Brighton.

Shortly after receiving a notice cancelling his appointment as manager for a circuit of suburban movie houses, Kelly entered Taylor's London flat at 8 St. James Street, Piccadilly, W., on December 17, 1920.  In the presence of her maid, he attempted to strangle his former lover to death on her bed.  The maid broke his grip, but Kelly fired a fatal shot into the fleeing Taylor before shooting himself in the head.  Among items found on Kelly's body were a quantity of cocaine and notes to Babs in which he wrote:  "Wish we could have fallen in love with each other as we have gotten along splendidly."

Harry Rush Raver -- Killed by a Gentleman

A leading film distributor in the teens, Raver was among the first to hold press previews for films.  In 1914, he previewed the Italian film Cabiria in the Gold Room of New York City's Astor Hotel.  Crippled by arthritis, Raver retired from show business and operated an antiques store before going blind.  On September 5, 1941, a burglar broke into the 62-year-old man's home at 1366 N. St. Andrews Place in Los Angeles.  Ignoring Raver's pleas not to hurt him because he was blind, the robber took $39 and beat him severely.  "If I verify the fact you are blind," Raver quoted the bandit, "I'll send your money back."  Raver died of his injuries on September 14, 1941.  A nightclub entertainer appearing before a Coroner's jury stated that for the last year or so Raver wrote the scripts for Busy Blind, a radio program featuring sightless talent.

Harold Blake Van Alstyne -- The Unbalanced Acrobat

A member of the hand balancing team of Van and Emerson, the 24-year-old acrobat became infatuated with Marian MacLaren of the vaudeville musical troupe the Five MacLarens while touring on the same circuit with them in 1922.  MacLaren, 30, accepted Van Alstyne's marriage proposal, but later broke off the engagement and returned his ring.  In September 1922, the acrobat turned up on the doorstep of the MacLaren home in Philadelphia demanding to speak to his former fiancee.  MacLaren's father intercede informing Van Alstyne that not only would the marriage break up the family act, but their age difference was also too great.  When finally allowed to see Marian MacLaren she refused to explain her reasons for cancelling the marriage although it was later reported she planned to marry another.  On the night of January 12, 1923, Van Alstyne attempted to talk to MacLaren backstage at New York City's Grand Theatre where the family was performing.  She again refused.  The acrobat waited until after the last show and followed the four MacLarens (three sisters and a brother) to the Autodine Cafeteria on 8th Avenue.  Van Alstyne walked up to their table, produced a pistol, and fired five shots instantly killing Marian and wounding her brother.  He shot himself in the chest, but survived.  The performer pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and was sentenced to 20 years to life imprisonment on April 13, 1923.  Three days later, Van Alstyne hanged himself with a belt from his bunk in the Tombs.

Mildred O'Keefe -- Black Bottomed Out

A Ziegfeld Follies dancer, the St. Paul, Minnesota, native performed on the New York stage in Rio Rita (1927) and with the Marx Brothers in Animal Crackers (1928).  O'Keefe toured in Monte Carlo and Paris where she was credited with being among the first dancers to introduce the Black Bottom dance to the continent.  O'Keefe was working as saleswoman in the gown department of New York City's Saks Fifth Avenue when she suffered a nervous breakdown in 1936.  The 32-year-old former dancer returned to Minnesota and was visiting relatives in Minneapolis when she checked into the West Hotel as "M. Brown" on October 8, 1936.  Two days later, O'Keefe's body was found in her room next to a pound can of potassium cyanide from which a teaspoon had been taken and dissolved into a nearby glass of water.  An unsigned note expressed regret and said, "You will be better off without me."

Jack Thompson -- The East River "Floater"

Hobbled by a career-ending injury to a tendon in his right leg, the popular 32-year-old musical comedy and vaudeville dancer in shows like Peggy Ann and A Connecticut Yankee announced his decision to kill himself at a party in his Manhattan Towers apartment on the night of November 3, 1931.  No one took the threat seriously and Thompson was permitted to leave the apartment.  The dancer remained missing until December 5, 1931 when a badly decomposed body was fished out of the East River.  A former roommate recognized the expensive imported shoes on the corpse's feet as those of the dancer.  Ironically, the "floater" was not positively identified until the surgeon who performed the unsuccessful surgery on Thompson's tendon confirmed the position of the scar on the body's right leg.

Frank Messenger -- A Not so Merry Xmas

Messenger served as an assistant director on the 1920 Universal film The Virgin of Stamboul before moving to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in the early thirties.  While continuing to assistant direct at MGM (Eskimo, 1934), Messenger became widely known as a production (or unit) manager for his work on Maytime (1937), Rosalie (1937), and his final film, Northwest Passage, released in 1940 after his death.  On December 19, 1939, the 48-year-old production manager was helping his wife, Dorothy, decorate the Christmas tree in their home at 6617 Maryland Drive in Hollywood when he suddenly left the room, went to the garage, and fatally shot himself in the head with a pistol.  Messenger, according to authorities, had been unemployed for several months.