Crimes and Catastrophe

Hollywood’s streets glimmered like gold, but beneath the shine, they were paved with shadows. In October of 1949, Jean Spangler-a 26-year-old dancer with a smile made for the silver screen, stepped out into the Los Angeles night and was never seen again. She left behind a broken purse, a cryptic note and a trail of whispers that read like the script of a scandal-soaked noir film.

Seventy-five years later, her name still hangs in the air like perfume, sweet, mysterious, impossible to forget. The truth may have vanished with her, buried under Hollywood glamour, gangland murmurs, and secrets no one dared speak aloud.

Starlet On The Rise

Jean Elizabeth Spangler was born September 2, 1923 in Seattle Washington, the youngest of four children to Cecil Martin Spangler and Florence Matilda Morris. The family later moved to Los Angeles, where Jean attended Franklin High School.

As a teenager, Jean danced at the Earl Carroll Theater

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and Florentine Gardens, a venue where another doomed beauty, Elizabeth Short would one day find work. Jean graduated in 1941 and a year later, fell into a wartime romance with plastics manufacturer Dexter Benner. The marriage burned fast and out ending in divorce after six months. Benner claimed Jean “wanted to party all the time.” Jean accused him of cruelty. Despite the split, their paths kept crossing and soon Jean was pregnant.

In 1944, she gave birth to a daughter Christine, that’s when the custody war began. Benner branded her an unfit mother and vowed “I’ll fix it so you’ll never see her.” The fight dragged on until 1946 when Benner won full custody and refused Jean visitation. But Jean wasn’t done and in 1948 she fought like hell and regained custody of Christine.

Mother and daughter soon moved in with Florence, who lived in an apartment at the Park La Brea complex near Wilshire Boulevard , sprawling neighborhood, a little fact this would also be the home of one of the Onion Field officers.

By then, Jean was hustling for work in Hollywood, she landed chorus girl and extra roles in films like, The Miracle of Bells, When My Baby Smiles At Me, Chicken Every Sunday, Young Man With A Horn, Wabash Avenue, Champagne For Caesar, and The Pretty Girl.

To make ends meet, Jean also danced in nightclubs across the city, chasing that shimmer of stardom that always seemed just out of reach.

The Last Night

On the evening of October 7.1949, Jean came down the stairs of her apartment to where her widowed sister-in-law, Sophie sat waiting to watch Christine. “How do I look?” Jean asked, Christine piped up and said “Where are you going, Mommy?” Jean looked at Sophie with a smile and a wink said “Going to work”, She also told Sophie she was meeting Dexer to talk about a missed child support payment and then head over to the studio for a night shoot. For an extra it wasn’t usual for late shoots. Sophie, later would wonder what that wink meant, at the time she thought nothing of it, was it just playfulness or was “going to work” a cover for something else. Jean walked out the door at 5:30 pm. It was the last time anyone in her family would ever see her again.

Two hours later, around 7:30 or 8:00 p.m., Jean phoned the apartment. She asked how Christine was doing, then casually said not to expect her home until morning- the shoot was running long. They chatted a few more minutes before Jean hung up. It would be the last time anyone would ever hear her voice.

The Vanishing Act

Saturday morning came and went. No Jean, by afternoon still nothing. By evening, Sophie’s worry turned to fear. She decided it was time to call the police and report her sister-in-law missing. Sophie told them about the last time she saw Jean, she told them about the late night shoot as well as Jean meeting up with Dexter.

Detectives started at the obvious place-the studio, if Jean had a late night shoot, someone would have seen her there. But when they checked with the Screen Extras Guild, the answer was a cold slap, there had been no calls for extras from the studio that night and Jean wasn’t on any call sheets or work list, the studio would also confirm that they didn’t need any extras that night and Jean was never scheduled. So why the lie? Why tell Sophie she had a shoot and then vanish into the city?

The police had more questions than answers, and they began to canvas the neighborhood, they stopped at the Farmers Market just a few blocks from Jean’s apartment. A saleswoman there remembered seeing Jean around six pm browsing the aisles as if she were waiting for someone, two hours later Jean would use the phone and make a call, the one to Sophie, before walking back out into the night.

Next police turned their attention to Dexter Benner, Jean’s ex-husband. Had he seen Jean? No, he told detectives, not in weeks. When asked about the child support meeting Jean had mentioned to Sophie, Benner denied it and his brand new wife of one month, Lynn backed him up. Maybe she was telling the truth….or maybe the dame was covering for him.

The search continued with no sign of Jean, that was until Sunday October 9, when her purse was found near the Fern Dell entrance of Griffith Park 5.5 miles from Jean’s home. The purse handle was torn as if it had been ripped from her arm. Inside, detectives found their first real clue: a handwritten note “Kirk: can’t wait any longer. Going to see Dr. Scott. It will work best this way while mother is away,” There was a comma at the end like she had more to say but was interrupted. There was no cash in the purse and Sophie would confirm that Jean had left with no money, ruling out robbery. Sixty police officers and more than a hundred volunteers combed the 4,107 acre park. They found nothing and the questions piled up:

Who was Kirk?

Who was Dr. Scott?

What couldn’t Jean wait for ?

What would “work best” while her mother was away?

Where was Jean Spangler? and had she ended up like another beautiful brunette who vanished from these same streets, only to turn up dead, The Black Dahlia.

The purse

The Note

The case was about to baffle even the most seasoned detectives.

Hollywood Connections:

Police questioned anyone who knew Jean or might have seen her that night, pressing for answers about the mysterious “Kirk” and the elusive Dr. Scott.

Jean’s mother Florence, who had been in Kentucky , when her daughter vanished, told detectives she remembered Jean being picked up twice by a man named Kirk, he never came to the door and would stay in the car.

Actor Robert Cummings, who had worked with Jean on a film, remembered her as lively and full of optimism. He told police that Jean recently hinted at a new romance, when he asked her if he was serious, she grinned and said “Not exactly, but I’m having the time of my life.” The Mystery Man was later to be confirmed as an author who had a solid alibi for the night Jean went missing.

The name Kirk continued to gnaw at detectives. Then the phone rang at the LAPD headquarters, on the line? Actor Kirk Douglas. Douglas told police he didn’t know Jean, but later in a follow up interview he would walk it back, Yes, he admitted, they’d spoken on the set of Young Man With A Horn. They joked around, shared a few laughs, talked , but that was the extent of it, there were no dates, no late night calls, nothing beyond the studio. He only remembered her when a friend reminded him she’d been an extra on the film. Then it clicked “She was the tall girl in the green dress” Douglass said.

Theories In The Dark

The deeper detectives dug, the murkier the case became. friends told police Jean had been three months pregnant and looking for an abortion. That lead sent investigators combing through city bars and nightclubs, places Jean was known to frequent. There, whispers surfaced about an ex-medical student known only as “Doc”, who allegedly performed abortions for a price. But the trail went cold fast, police found no trace of this so called “doc”.

Next they checked every Dr. Scott in the area not one admitted to knowing Jean and certainly none admitted to performing an aborting which was illegal in 1949, even if a doctor did help her have one, no one was going to fess up.

Then a 13-year-old girl told police that she saw her friend Jean in a sedan, that Jean looked nervous and frightened. Then came a chilling tip, a gas station attendant claimed that early Saturday morning, a man and a woman matching Jean’s description pulled up in a blue gray convertible. The man asked for some gas and that he mentioned they were heading to Fresno. After paying for the gas the man started the car and started to drive away, the attendant swore he heard the woman scream “HAVE POLICE FOLLOW THIS CAR!” By the time police arrived, the car-and the couple were long gone.

Then came the wildest theory of all. Former LAPD detective Steve Hodel claims his father, Dr. George Hodel might have killed Jean, Yeah, that Steve Hodel, the guy who believes his dad killed Elizabeth Short and was the Zodiac killer (I won’t tell you how I feel about this guy, but I bet you can figure it out, and if you believe all the stories this guy weaves about his dad I got a bridge I want to sell you).

Steve with his book.

Steve recalled his brother mentioning that their father was dating a “gorgeous actress type named Jean” right around the time Jean disappeared. Her purse was found just a quarter of a mile from Dr. Hodel’s residence , the infamous Sowden House in Los Feliz.

Steve also claims the car seen by the gas station attendant was similar to his father’s 1936 Packard , the same car he claims was spotted leaving the dumpsite where Elizabeth Short’s body was found.

Popular radio D.J. Al “The Sheik” Lazaar told police he saw Jean at the Cheesebox Restaurant around 2:30 a.m. He claimed Jean was arguing with two men, and when Lazaar tried to intervene, the men waved him off.

Terry Taylor, proprietor of the restaurant, recalled seeing Jean at about 1:30 a.m. sitting at a front table with a clean cut man who appeared to be between 30 to 35 years old

Steve Hodel, yeah him again, insists that the man was his father and that George Hodel either killed Jean or she died during a botched abortion, and according to Steve his dad was the “doc” and “Dr. Scott” as his father and some of his father’s friends ran an underground abortion ring for Hollywood girls who found themselves in “delicate situations” if you catch my drift.

Then there’s the mob theory, Jean was once a dancer at Florentine Gardens, which was owned by Mark Hansen

Mark was rumored to let the girls who worked for him stay at his place and some accused him of making sexual advances towards them. He was also a suspect in Elizabeth Short’s murder, as she once worked for him and was known to have stayed at his place on occasion. Mark was also rumored to have ties with mobsters such as Anthony “The Hat” Coreno, Mickey Cohen and Choen’s associates Davy Ogul and Frank “Burns” Niccoli, who would frequent the Florentine Gardens.

Jean was reported to have been associated with these guys and it was rumored she was seen in Palm Springs and Las Vegas with Davy and Frankie. Police tried to question both men but Frankie went missing in September 1949, and well David “Little Davy”, who was to testify against Cohen, went missing two days after Jean did ., Coincidence? I don’t think so, maybe the three of them are sharing a grave somewhere in the desert.

The last lead came in 1950, when a customs agent spotted Ogul and a woman resembling Jean in an El Paso Hotel but when police checked the register and couldn’t find their names they wrote it off as a dead end. Now I don’t know about you, but if I were running from something I wouldn’t be using my real name, would you?

Sightings continued to trickle in from Northern and Southern California, Arizona, and Mexico City, none panned out. Police continued to circulate Jean’s picture around and even Hollywood gossip queen Louella Parsons got involved by offering up a $1,000 reward for any information regarding Jean’s disappearance.

As for Benner? He regained custody of Christine and denied Florence visitation, when he failed to do what the judge asked he was ordered to spend fifteen days in jail, but Benner skipped town with Christine instead, they fled to Florida and Benner died in 2007.

A Ghost In Hollywood

Jean’s case remains open and she is still listed as a missing person. Questions still linger:

Was it her ex husband ?

A Hollywood cover up?

A mob Hit?

A botched abortion?

Victim of a serial killer?

Did she vanish to start over somewhere else?

Who knows?, But on October 7,1949 Jean’s story ended, but the case never stopped haunting Los Angeles. It was a perfect cocktail of ambition, danger, and secrets. Jean’s smile still flickers in old photographs, a ghost from an age when Hollywood promised everything and delivered heartbreak just as often.

Maybe the truth is out there, rotting in an unmarked grave , buried under a studio back lot, or locked in the mind of a man who’s long gone cold in the ground, or maybe the city got what it wanted another mystery to keep the night interesting.

For Jean Spangler, the credits never rolled and in Hollywood that might be the cruelest twist of all.