The victim was known to frequent the downtown bars on Hill Street and was last seen on Monday night, March 10, by James Tiernen, a friend, when she left his apartment at 912 West 6th Street.* Tiernen, a thirty-three-year-old bowling-pin setter, was detained and arrested by police but considered 'not a good suspect' and promptly released. Tiernen told police he had known Winters for two years and 'had run into her in the public library' on Sunday, March 9, where Winters had told him 'she had no place to sleep.'
He offered to share his hotel room with her and she accepted, staying Sunday night. Tiernen told police, 'She was gone all day Monday, then came back about 8:00 p.m. very drunk,' imploring him, 'Talk to me. I want to talk to someone.' Tiernen told her she was 'too drunk to talk,' at which point she left. That was the last time he had seen her. Her body was found the following morning.
An article in the
Checking similarities between the death of Miss Winters and the
Short and French killings, police listed the following:
1) All three girls frequented cocktail bars and sometimes picked up men in them.
2) All three were slugged on the head (although Mrs. French was trampled to death and Miss Short tortured and cut in two.)
3) Ail three were killed elsewhere and taken in cars to the spots where the bodies were found.
4) All three were displayed nude or nearly so.
5) In no case was an attempt made to conceal the body. On the contrary bodies were left where they were sure to be found.
6) Each had been dragged a short distance.
7) Each killing was a pathological case, apparently motiveless.
8) In each case the killer appears to have taken care not to be seen in company with the victim.
9) All three women had good family backgrounds.
10) Each was identified by her fingerprints, other evidence of identity having been removed.
11) Miss Short and Miss Winters were last seen in the same Hill Street area.
The murder of Evelyn Winters, like the other murders, was never solved. It remains in today's LAPD files as another 'whodunit' — with one major distinction. Today's detectives no longer are treating it as possibly, or as we see from the above article, probably, connected to the other crimes. Knowing now that George Hodel did commit the Short and French murders, we must concur with LAPD's
Laura Elizabeth Trelstad (May 11, 1947)
On May 11, 1947, the body of Laura Elizabeth Trelstad, age thirtyseven, was found in the 3400 block of Locust Avenue near the Signal Hill oil fields of Long Beach. The newspaper reported, 'An oil field pumper discovered the body at 5:00 a.m. while coming to work.' She had been strangled with 'a piece of flowered cotton cloth, believed torn from a man's pajamas or shorts.'
Signs of a struggle were visible, and the police found both tire marks and footprints near the body. Detectives told reporters, 'Their best evidence and only clue was a plaster casting they obtained of a footprint found close to the victim's body at the crime scene.'
Dr. Newbarr determined the cause of death to be 'asphyxia due to strangulation, and a skull fracture and hemorrhage and contusion of the brain.' The coroner's office indicated the latest victim had been drinking and had been forcibly raped. Long Beach Police Department detectives told the press that the victim had been slain elsewhere and the body dumped in the vacant lot close to the oil rigs.
Detectives discovered she had been drinking and had left a party after a minor argument with her husband, Ingman Trelstad. She told him, 'If you won't even take me out on Mother's Day, I'm going to a dance at the Crystal Ball Room [on Long Beach Pike] by myself.' In tracing her movements, detectives discovered that a bartender had refused to serve her alcohol at a Long Beach bar after she got into an argument with other patrons. A sailor, who had been drinking with her earlier at this same bar, placed her on a homeward-bound bus.
The sailor was eliminated as a suspect, and police believed the victim had missed the bus stop for her home and continued on to the next stop, where she then got off the bus and began walking back.
On May 16, 1947, almost a week after the crime, Long Beach homicide detectives finally located and interviewed the bus driver, Cleve H. Dowdy, who had been vacationing with his wife in Kansas City. The driver clearly recalled the victim being on his bus during his last run on Sunday, May 10, at 11:30 p.m. He told authorities, 'She had argued with me, telling me I had passed her stop at 36th Street and American Ave.' He recalled that when the victim exited the bus, a stranger, whom he described as 'a tall and well-dressed man,' followed her off.
The Long Beach homicide was never solved.-This is one of the few crimes where the police actually released a confirmation statement that 'the victim had been raped.' This affirmative statement would suggest that during the autopsy they were able to obtain slides confirming the presence of sperm, which, if not disposed of, could yet prove to be valuable evidence for blood typing and possible DNA linkage. Also, should the plaster casting still exist, it could be compared to the known foot size of George Hodel.
RosendaJosephine Mondragon (July 8, 1947)
On July 8, 1947, another victim was found at 129 East Elmyra Street, near downtown city hall.
Rosenda Josephine Mondragon's nude body was found with a silk stocking wrapped around her neck. The twenty-year-old had been strangled, her right breast slashed, and her body thrown from an automobile.
Separated from her husband in April, she had purportedly been driven to his residence by an unknown male, and after a brief argument with her husband, she had served him with divorce papers at about 2:30 a.m. on the morning of her murder. 'She was very drunk and mentioned something about having a date,' her husband told police. He followed her outside and saw her run over to a waiting vehicle, where she was driven away by an unknown male.
