didn’t have any.
We found a deputy who knew computers backwards. His home system featured a 50-state reverse book. He ran Ruth Schienle through it. He got a long printout. Bill and I called 19 Ruth Schienles. None of them were our Ruth Schienle. None of them knew our Ruth Schienle. Women were hard to find. They got married and divorced. They got lost behind name changes.
We went back to the Ellroy Blue Book. We extracted four names. We wrote down “Tom Baker,” “Tom Downey” and “Salvador Quiroz Serena.” They were all exonerated. Serena worked at Airtek. He said he “could have had” my mother. We found the name “Grant Surface.” He took polygraph tests on 6/25 and 7/1/59. The results were “inconclusive.” “Psychological difficulties” fucked up the tests. We ran Baker, Downey, Serena and Surface through the 50-state reverse book and the state DMV and DOJ computers. We got no hits on Surface and Serena. We got a shitload for Baker and Downey. We called all the Bakers and Downeys. We did not find our Baker and Downey.
Bill called Rick Jackson at LAPD Homicide. Jackson checked rape-and-choke and bludgeon-choke murders from the Ellroy/Long time span. He found two LAPD cases. They were solved and successfully adjudicated.
Victim #1 was named Edith Lucille O’Brien. She was snuffed on 2/18/59. She was 43 years old. She was bludgeoned and dumped on a hilltop in Tujunga. Her slacks were turned inside out. Her bra was pushed up. It looked like a sex frenzy job.
Edith O’Brien prowled bars in Burbank and Glendale. She picked up men for sex. She was last seen at the Bamboo Hut on San Fernando Road. She left with a man. The man had a ’53 Olds. The man came back to the Bamboo Hut alone. The man talked to another man. He said Edith was out in his car. She spilled spaghetti on the front seat. The men put their heads together and whispered. The car man stayed at the bar. The other man walked out.
The coroner said the killer lashed the victim’s wrists tight. He probably wailed on her with a lug wrench. The LAPD popped a guy named Walter Edward Briley. He was tried and convicted. He was 21. He was tall and heavyset. He was sentenced to life in prison. He was paroled in 1978.
A man named Donald Kinman raped and strangled two women. The victims were named Ferne Wessel and Mary Louise Tardy. The DODs were 4/6/58 and 11/22/59. Kinman met Victim #1 in a bar. He rented a hotel room and killed her there. He met Victim #2 in a bar. He killed her in a trailer at his father’s trailer park. He left fingerprints at both scenes. He turned himself in and confessed. Kinman was stocky and curly-haired. Kinman fell behind two counts of murder. Kinman went to prison for 21 years.
Kinman jazzed me. He played like a two-time-only killer. He was more volatile than the Swarthy Man. He was purely self-destructive. I saw alcohol as his trigger. The perfect booze intake and the perfect woman came his way twice. He said, “I don’t know what came over me, but it just felt like something I had to do.”
Bill and I debated the Swarthy Man as serial killer. Bill was pro. I was con. We kicked the ball back and forth a hundred dozen times. Bill said we should contact a psychological profiler.
Carlos Avila worked for the State DOJ. He taught profile procedures. He gave seminars. He worked Sheriff’s Homicide for nine years and knew our geographical backdrop. We should commission a profile on the Ellroy and Long cases.
Bill called Carlos Avila. We lent him our files. He studied them and wrote up an opinion.
UNKNOWN SUBJECT;
GENEVA “JEAN” HILLIKER ELLROY; VICTIM (DECEASED);
AKA JEAN ELLROY;
JUNE 22, 1958;
ELSPETH “BOBBIE” LONG; VICTIM (DECEASED);
JANUARY 23, 1959;
LOS ANGELES COUNTY SHERIFF’S DEPARTMENT;
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA;
HOMICIDE (CRIMINAL INVESTIGATIVE ANALYSIS).
The following Criminal Investigative Analysis was prepared by Criminal Investigative Profiler Carlos Avila, Private Consultant in conjunction with Special Agent Sharon Pagaling, California Department of Justice, Bureau of Investigation. This analysis is based upon a thorough review of the case materials submitted by Retired Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Sergeant William Stoner and James Ellroy, son of victim Jean Ellroy. The conclusions are the results of the knowledge drawn from the personal investigative experience, educational background and research conducted by these crime analysts.
It is not a substitute for a thorough, well planned investigation, and should not be considered all inclusive. The information provided is based upon reviewing, analyzing, and researching criminal cases similar to the cases submitted by Sergeant Stoner, Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department (Retired).
Two separate offenses were reviewed for this analysis. Due to analysis of submitted data and discussion of the two cases reported, this analysis will reflect a description of a singular personality type believed responsible for the deaths of victims Ellroy and Long.
VICTIMOLOGY
Examination of the victim’s background is a significant aspect of the analysis process. Their vulnerability of becoming victims of a violent crime was examined in conjunction with a review of their lifestyles, behaviors, personal histories, and social/sexual habits. Specifically, at what risk were they to becoming victims of a violent crime.
Victim Jean Ellroy was a forty-three year old white female, five feet five and one-half inches in height; weighed approximately one hundred thirty-one pounds and had red hair. She was divorced and had moved with her minor son to a well kept rental home in El Monte, California in 1958. She had been employed as an industrial nurse in Los Angeles since 1956. Victim Ellroy was physically attractive and enjoyed frequenting nearby nightclubs during the weekends while her son visited his father. Ellroy’s landlords described her as a quiet tenant who seemed to enjoy being alone with her son. She was described as being closed mouthed about her personal life and as having few close friends. After her death her landlords reported finding empty liquor bottles in the shrubbery near the victim’s home and in the trash container.
Ellroy’s landlords reported seeing her drive away from her residence at approximately 2000 hours on Saturday, June 21, 1958. Witnesses reported seeing Ellroy later that evening in the company of an unidentified adult male at a drive-in restaurant at approximately 2200 hours; at a nightclub dancing at approximately 2245 hours; and lastly, back at the drive-in restaurant at approximately 0215 hours the following morning. Her body was discovered at a nearby high school on June 22, 1958, at approximately 1000 hours. The area where the victim was last seen was described as having a “low crime rate” with no previous abductions, sexual assaults or similar crimes reported.
Ellroy’s risk level of becoming a victim of a violent crime was elevated by her habit of frequenting nightclubs, socializing with persons she did not know well, and drinking alcoholic beverages. On the date of her death her risk level was further elevated by her personal circumstances: a woman alone in a car with a man.
Victim Bobbie Elspeth Long was a fifty-two year old white female, five feet five inches tall, weighed approximately one hundred thirty-two pounds and had dishwater blond hair. She was divorced and lived alone in a well kept two-room apartment in Los Angeles, which she had rented for the preceding four years. Long was employed as a waitress at a nearby restaurant where she worked the evening shift. Various persons familiar with
