The newspapers indicated that Evans was being held for suspicion of robbery and would be questioned the following day by Captain Jack Donahoe himself, now head of Robbery Division, in connection with both the Spangler and Boomhower investigations. Captain Donahoe told the papers, 'We have no evidence linking him to either case, but he is known to play women to get money.' Evans's photograph was prominently displayed in three local newspapers; yet, once again, he denied any involvement in either crime. 'I didn't know either one of the women,' he said to newspaper reporters. 'Next they will be trying to pin Cock Robin on me. I'm presently involved in promoting a deal in the Philippines involving sugar and hemp. Now I suppose this current publicity will ruin my Manila deal.' Evans told reporters that a similar roust by LAPD a month earlier on the Mimi Boomhower investigation had 'ruined a Las Vegas deal' he was about to close. Evans blamed his troubles on a 'retired LAPD detective, now working as a private investigator.'
As Evans had predicted, no charges were filed against him in connection with the Spangler case, and, even though the press applied relentless pressure on the LAPD to come up with some resolution, the hunt for the perpetrator of the Spangler kidnapping, like that for the killer in the Dahlia and Lipstick homicides, came up empty.
There were, however, reports in the papers that a real struggle was taking place inside the LAPD over the handling of the Spangler case, notably in the search for the person named Scott to whom Spangler had referred in her note. A
Yesterday the investigators had a conference with top brass in the Police Department to discuss the case. Meeting with Dep. Chief I had Brown were Inspector Hugh Farnum, Capt. Harry Elliott of the Central homicide squad, Det. Lt. Harry Didion of Wilshire Division and Dets M.E. Turlock and William Brennan, who are handling the case. After the conference, Didion said that investigation has confirmed the existence of a 'Scotty' or 'Dr. Scott,' who was known to Miss Spangler and her coterie of night-clubbing friends. But what is lacking is knowledge of the man's whereabouts, he said.
Detectives from the Gangster Squad, assigned to pursue and attempt to identify 'Dr. Scott,' later reported that while they had checked out six different 'Dr. Scott's during the investigation, none was the Dr. Scott of Spangler's note and none claimed to know or were connected with her. Similarly, LAPD detectives claimed they were never able to identify any individual or friend of Jean Spangler by the name of 'Kirk,' to whom she had addressed the original note.
Focusing on the Spangler case, I believe the real 'Scottie' — and later 'Dr. Scott' — could well have been George Hodel, who closely fits the profile of everything known about this mysterious 'Scottie.' Jean's Scottie, like Elizabeth Short's fiance 'George' and Georgette Bauerdorf's boyfriend, was an Air Force lieutenant from Texas. 'Scottie' had an affair with Jean during the war years while her husband was overseas. They shared a motel room on the Sunset Strip. He was tall and handsome. He assaulted her and was violent and extremely jealous.
Because of her affair and the threats her lover had made to her, Jean Spangler had felt compelled to divulge the facts to her husband, with the results we have seen. In her original interview with detectives, Mrs. Florence Spangler gave the name of her daughter's boyfriend, 'Scott,' the abusive Army lieutenant who had figured prominently in her divorce. The detectives never released his true name and 'doubted there was a connection.'
LAPD detectives, working out of separate offices, unknowingly provided conflicting information to the press relating to 'Scottie' or Dr. Scott. On the one hand, Homicide Division's Gangster Squad detectives indicated they had checked out all the known 'Dr. Scott's in Los Angeles and were unable to identify any doctor by that name who was connected to Ms. Jean Spangler. On the other hand, Detective Lieutenant Harry Didion stated, 'The investigation has confirmed the existence of a 'Scotty' or 'Dr. Scott,' who was known to Miss Spangler and her coterie of night- clubbing friends. But what is lacking is knowledge of the man's whereabouts.'
Which statement was true? Further, what happened to the name of the suspect Jean Spangler's mother provided the LAPD? Was that name George Hodel? Had Jean Spangler been so intimate with Dad and his business that she possessed information and knowledge related to Tamar and the incest trial, which, upon learning of his arrest, she threatened to expose? Were her public argument with the two men and her disappearance minutes later, just hours after Father's arrest and release from custody, related?
Assuming for the moment that my father was 'Scottie,' what else did Spangler know about him that might have put her in jeopardy? Could Jean Spangler have been the 1944 girlfriend that my half-brother Duncan told me about in our conversations when he said, 'I remember after Dad stopped seeing Kiyo in 1942 or so, he started dating this other woman. I think her name was Jean Hewett. Jean was this drop-dead beautiful young actress.'
Very reluctantly, I also have to consider whether the elusive 'Scottie' might be Christine's real father. Was she the issue of Jean's Hollywood affair with my father? Did Jean Spangler's acknowledged 1943 affair result in a pregnancy? Could Christine be my half-sister and is she still alive somewhere, with only the most fragmented memories of her mother and grandmother?
Or perhaps things are exactly as they appear on the surface, and Jean Spangler, as she represented to actor Robert Cummings, did meet Father only a few days before her kidnap-murder and was 'having the time of her life with a new romance.' Perhaps the mysterious Lieutenant Scott, whose identity she took great pains to conceal during the war years, was a different lover, with no connection to the events of 1949. Perhaps the anonymous 'Lieutenant Scott' and invisible 'Dr. Scott' are just coincidences in Spangler's short life. However, the real possibility exists that both men were one and the same and that Jean Spangler, upon learning of Father's arrest on October 6 for incest, met him after he posted bail and threatened to give damning information to the police. Two men — Dad and Sexton — argued with her at the Hollywood restaurant in the early-morning hours of October 8, and she vanished, never to be seen again.
But, as we will see, her disappearance was not 'without a trace,' because she left behind in her own note important clues, as if she were telling us from beyond the grave, 'Look to 'Kirk' and 'Dr. Scott,' because they will help you find my killer.'
25
Sergeant Stoker, LAPD's Gangster
Squad, and the Abortion Ring
CAUGHT IN A WEB OF MACHIAVELLIAN INTRIGUE and systemic corruption within the highest ranks of the LAPD that eventually ended his career as a police officer, Sergeant Charles Stoker wound up unwittingly documenting the information that would, fifty years later, become the nexus linking LAPD Gangster Squad detectives and their superiors to a willful and deliberate cover-up of the Black Dahlia investigation and the other sexual serial homicides committed in the 1940s and beyond. Stoker never learned the true extent of his influence or effectiveness as an honest cop trying to fight corruption inside the police department. In his book
