Police Investigate Double Hollywood Homicide Police Have No Motive For The Murders POSTED: 6:37 am PDT June 14, 2004 UPDATED: 10:21 am PDT June 14, 2004 LOS ANGELES -- The search was on Monday for a man who decapitated a former screenwriter in his 90s and slaughtered a retired doctor in his 60s in their Hollywood homes, authorities said. One of the victims was identified as Robert Lees, a blacklisted screenwriter who penned numerous movie and TV scripts, including several Bud Abbott and Lou Costello movies, like "Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein." Police believe a suspect, described only as a white man in his 40s, entered Lees' home in the 1600 block of North Courtney Avenue and cut off the screenwriter's head sometime before 11 a.m. Sunday. Reports stated that the killer took Lees' head and jumped a backyard fence before entering the retired doctor's home in the 1600 block of North Stanley Avenue. At the time, the doctor was on the phone "making plane reservations through Southwest Airlines," LAPD Lt. Art Miller said. "While he was talking with the operator, making those reservations, the operator heard a commotion in the background and then the phone go dead." The ticket clerk called police, who discovered the doctor's body and Lees' head in the home, according to reports. The suspect apparently fled in the doctor's 2001 Mercedes, which was found a short time later in Hollywood, police said. Lees, who sometimes wrote under the name J.E. Selby, was blacklisted during the Red Scare of the 1950s. His other credits include the TV shows "Rawhide" and "Alfred Hitchcock Presents," and the movies "The Black Cat" and "Holiday in Havana" starring Desi Arnaz. He wrote many of his screenplays in the 1930s through 1960s. The normally quiet neighborhood, between Hollywood and Sunset boulevards, was cordoned off for much of the day as detectives combed the crime scenes for clues. It was a "very gruesome crime scene, each one of them, so much so that at this time it's hard to determine what the cause of death was," Miller said. Police had no motive for the murders. "Well, it's very upsetting. You don't expect this kind of thing anywhere," a neighbor said. http://www.nbc4.tv/news/3415530/detail.html
Normally quiet? The neighborhood is an older residential area that is 95% populated by retired movie industry workers, yet two blocks away is Crackland USA, where toothless women sell themselves after their childhood dreams of Hollywood glory have been hopelessly shattered. Go figure.
This is crazy. I wonder what was going on. Were these guys chosen at random? Maybe in the re-hyped anti-communism rhetoric going on since Reagan's death, and a big time communist hater struck out at this guy. It sounds like the plot from a James Ellroy novel.
Reports stated that the killer took Lees' head and jumped a backyard fence before entering the retired doctor's home in the 1600 block of North Stanley Avenue. Perhaps the perpetrator is assembling parts for his own Frankenstein-type monster. You have to admit, that's a pretty cool piece of Hollywood memorabilia. I'm surprised the head isn't on eBay already.
Just to add to the Hollywoodization of the story, the alleged perpetrator was caught near the Paramount gates after he was recognized by a studio guard.
