Betty Short became my obsession . . . my symbiotic stand-in for Geneva Hilliker Ellroy.
—James Ellroy
At 10:00 a.m. June 22, 1958, a woman's body was found near the playing field of Arroyo High School in El Monte, California. Originally a 'Jane Doe,' since no purse or identification were found near the body, she had been assaulted with numerous blows to the head, which likely rendered her unconscious, and then strangled with two separate ligatures, one a thin white clothesline-like cord — identical to that used in the earlier Springer murder — and a second the victim's own nylon stocking, identical to the suspect's action in the earlier Mondragon strangulation.
The killer dumped the body in an isolated location known to be a 'lovers' lane' and placed her dark blue overcoat over the lower portion of her body, just as the killer(s) had done in the Jeanne French murder. Like French, Geneva Ellroy, known to most of her friends as Jean, was a nurse by profession. The investigation was handled by LASD, which in 1958, because of their superior manpower and expertise, provided 'contract service' for the smaller municipalities in the county, including El Monte.
After hearing a public radio broadcast, a citizen called the police and the victim was quickly identified as Jean Ellroy, a forty-threeyear-old divorcee. She lived in El Monte with her ten-year-old son, James, and had not returned home the previous night. Based on later witnesses statements and coroner information, the time of death was believed to have been between 3:00 and 5:00 a.m., that is, five to seven hours before the body was discovered.
An investigation into Jean Ellroy's movements prior to the killing revealed that she had left home in her own car, a 1957 Buick, at approximately 8:30 p.m. the previous night. Two primary witnesses were able to recognize the victim and provide a description of the man she was seen with on three separate occasions at two locations in El Monte just hours before her murder: Stan's Drive-in restaurant and the Desert Inn nightclub, both only three miles from where her body was found.
The first witness, Margie Trawick, age thirty-six, a part-time waitress and regular patron of the Desert Inn, provided detectives with the following information:
On the previous evening, June 21, 1958, she was seated at a table inside the Desert Inn as a customer and observed the victim walk into the establishment at 10:45 p.m., accompanied by another female described as a 'dishwater-blonde with a ponytail, heavyset, 40 years of age.' They sat down at a table, and almost immediately a man, who appeared to be of Mexican descent, walked over to their table, helped Ellroy off with her coat, and began to dance with her. Trawick had the impression that both women knew the man, whom she described as follows: possible Mexican, age forty to forty-five, five foot eight to six feet tall, dark hair slicked back, receding on both sides, with a noticeable widows' peak, thin-jawed ('you might think he had no teeth until you saw him smile'), swarthy complexion, dark suit, white shirt, open at the collar.
Trawick left the Desert Inn with a male friend at approximately 11:30 p.m. and noted that the Mexican was seated at the table with the two women. When she returned at 12:50 a.m. they had disappeared.
The second witness was Lavonne Chambers, a twenty-nine-year-old carhop waitress employed at Stan's Drive- in, located six blocks from the Desert Inn. Chambers provided sheriffs detectives with a formal statement on June 25, three days after the body was discovered.
She was serving customers on Saturday, June 21, 1958. She first observed the victim at the drive-in at 10:00 p.m. She was seated in the front passenger's seat of what Chambers believed was a 1955 or 1956 Oldsmobile, dark green, possibly two-tone in color, with a dull paint job. The driver, a male, ordered 'just coffee,' and the victim asked for 'the thinnest sandwich you have,' to which Chambers responded, 'That would be a grilled cheese sandwich,' and the victim replied, 'Okay.' After their brief meal they left the drive-in. The witness provided detectives with the following description of the driver: possibly Greek or Italian descent, thirty-five to forty years of age, thin face, dark complexion, dark receding hair combed straight back and thick on top.
Chambers informed detectives that the same two returned to the drive-in at approximately 2:15 a.m. Sunday morning, shortly after the bar closed. She again served them, the victim ordering 'a bowl of chili and coffee' and the male 'just coffee.' The two finished their food and drink and left.
Chambers positively identified a photograph of the victim and her clothing. She had no doubt that Jean Ellroy was the same woman she had served on June 21 and 22.
Based on the witnesses' statements, a police artist prepared a composite drawing, both witnesses agreeing that the drawing was a good likeness of the suspect.
A third witness at the Desert Inn was interviewed and thought she remembered seeing the suspect with the victim and described him as 'swarthy complected.' Throughout his book, Ellroy would refer to the killer of his mother as 'the Swarthy Man.'
Elspeth 'Bobbie' Long (January 22, 1959)
In their ongoing search for the killer, Bill Stoner and James Ellroy discovered a second murder with a similar M.O. Seven months to the day after the murder of Jean Ellroy, another body was found dumped on an isolated gravel road in the adjacent town of La Puente, three miles from El Monte. The distance between the two dump locations was slightly over four miles. This dump location was approximately one mile from the Desert Inn and Stan's Drive-in. The similarities to the Ellroy case were uncomfortably close. Elspeth 'Bobbie' Long, fifty-two, had received multiple blows to the head with a crescentshaped weapon and had been raped and strangled to death, the suspect using Long's nylon stocking as a ligature.
As in the Ellroy murder, the suspect had placed the victim's coat over the lower portion of her body. Her purse, which was found nearby, revealed her address to be 223
An autopsy confirmed multiple skull fractures and, as with Jean Ellroy, slides obtained indicated the presence of semen, confirming sexual intercourse and the probability of rape. Unlike with the Ellroy murder, detectives were unable to locate witnesses who could place anyone with the victim in the hours immediately preceding her death. Some witnesses believed they may have seen her at the Santa Anita track the previous day, but the information was sketchy and unreliable.
Based on the Bobbie Long murder information, Ellroy and Stoner debated the possibility of a serial killer. Stoner believed they were the same suspect; Ellroy had serious doubts. They decided to do a psychological profile on both unsolved homicides and obtained the services of a respected Department of Justice profiler, a retired LASD homicide detective named Carlos Avila. Avila's profiles on both victims were published in Ellroy's book, and I found nothing in them that added to the weight of the other investigative evidence. What was important in the profiler's review was his opinion that the suspect was, most probably, a serial killer.
