The West Covina cops called the San Dimas Sheriff’s and relayed the complaint. Two detectives popped Jim Boss Bennett. They brought him to the San Dimas Station and grilled him. He disputed Miss Telsted’s story. He said he never really got inside her. The detectives booked him. The detectives checked him out real good. They thought he looked like an old Identi-Kit portrait. They called Sheriff’s Homicide and gave him up as a murder suspect.
Ward Hallinen drove out to the San Dimas Station. He stood behind a one-way mirror and observed Jim Boss Bennett. Bennett looked like the suspect in the Jean Ellroy murder. He ran Bennett through the DMV and CII.
He got two fast replies.
Bennett had no registered vehicles. Bennett had a two-page rap sheet.
He was 44. He was born in Norman, Oklahoma. He had assault convictions dating back to 1942. He got popped for drunk driving on 3/16/57 and 7/7/57. The second bust occurred in nearby Baldwin Park.
Bennett was driving a ’47 Merc. He almost plowed six pedestrians outside the Jubilee Ballroom. A patrol unit chased him. He ran his car up on a dirt embankment. He stopped the car, stumbled out of it and almost fell to the ground. Two deputies grabbed him. He resisted arrest and was forcibly restrained.
Bennett got popped for battery on 2/22/58. The bust occurred at the VFW Hall in nearby Baldwin Park.
Bennett was dancing with a woman named Lola Reinhardt. He started yelling at Miss Reinhardt for no apparent reason. He told her he wanted to leave now. Miss Reinhardt refused to leave. Bennett dragged her outside and shoved her into his car.
He slapped her and yelled at her. He said, “I’ll kill you or you’ll kill me.” A man named Lester Kendall approached the car. Bennett wrapped an arm around Miss Reinhardt’s neck and tried to choke her. Kendall grabbed Bennett. Miss Reinhardt broke free. Someone called the Temple City Sheriff’s. A patrol unit arrived. A deputy arrested Jim Boss Bennett.
Hallinen ran a public utilities check. He turned up six prior addresses for Jim Boss Bennett.
He lived in Baldwin Park, El Monte and La Puente. His employment record showed big gaps between jobs. He worked at Hallfield’s Ceramics. He worked at United Electrodynamics. He was a laborer and a tractor driver and an electrical assembler. He was married to a woman named Jessie Stewart Bennett. They lived together on and off.
Hallinen interviewed Bennett. He never mentioned Bobbie Long or Jean Ellroy. He brought up the VFW caper. Bennett contradicted Lola Reinhardt’s statement. He said a crazy guy smashed his car with a Coke bottle. Another guy smashed the windshield with his fist. Bennett’s story made no sense.
Hallinen decided to run a five-man lineup.
He called Margie Trawick and told her to stand by. He located Lavonne Chambers in Reno, Nevada. She was dealing cards in a casino. She agreed to fly in. Hallinen told her the Sheriff’s Department would cover all her expenses.
He found four county inmates who resembled the Identi-Kit portrait. They agreed to stand in a lineup.
Lavonne flew in. Hallinen picked her up and drove her to the Temple City Station. Margie Trawick arrived.
Five men were standing in an interview room. Jim Boss Bennett was standing in the #2 position.
Margie and Lavonne stood behind a one-way glass wall. They observed the five men separately.
Margie said, “Number 2 is the image of him. Face looks like the face I saw that night. Hair looks like the man’s, and his hairline and face looks a little thinner. He looks familiar, like the man I saw that night.”
Lavonne pointed to Man #2. She said, “To me, that is the man I saw with the redheaded woman.”
Hallinen talked to Lavonne and Margie individually. He asked them if they were absolutely sure. They hedged and equivocated and hemmed-and-hawed and said not absolutely.
Hallinen thanked them for their candor. Bennett was a good suspect/longshot hybrid. He looked like the Identi-Kit portrait. He did not look Greek or Italian or in any way Latin. He looked like skinny white trash.
They couldn’t hold him any longer. They couldn’t file a murder charge on him. The attempt rape case was flimsy. The complainant was a barfly. They had to cut Jim Boss Bennett loose.
They released him. Hallinen still tagged him as a viable suspect.
He talked to Bennett’s wife and his known associates. They said Jim was bad—but not awful. He never told them Jim was a sex-murder suspect.
He had no proof. He had two shaky IDs. He ran Bennett in on an assault charge. He wanted to sweat him and lean on him.
Bennett bailed out. Hallinen decided to drop the whole thing. Nuisance tactics backfired routinely. Harassment was harassment. Hard-core suspects deserved it. Bennett missed that mark. Lavonne and Margie were solid. Lavonne and Margie weren’t quite sure.
It was 9/1/62. The Long case stood inactive. The Ellroy case was four years, two months and ten days old.
20
The Bobbie Long digression stunned me. I spent four days alone with the file.
I put three crime scene photos up on my corkboard. I placed a shot of Bobbie Long alive beside a shot of my mother. I tacked up a Jim Boss Bennett mug shot. I centered the collage around three shots of Jean Ellroy dead.
The effect was more blunt than shocking. I wanted to undermine my mother’s victimhood and objectify her death. There’s the blood on her lips. There’s her pubic hair. There’s the cord and stocking on her neck.
