Today I am posting the first in a new series of historical stories about murder, suicide and mayhem – and they will all be based around the Los Angeles River.
Many of you only know it as a concrete channel that has played backdrop to movies and TV, or shows up on the news when people or dogs need to be rescued from raging rain waters.
But the LA River, and the bridges that span it, has a long history. It was a vital resource for the indigenous people onward, and temporary bridges were the order of the day. They were often swept away when the river flooded, and even when the sun was out it was common for adults and children to end up in the murky waters, either by accident, murder or suicide.
So, I have researched some of the wildest, strangest and saddest stories associated with the LA River, which means for a start that the beautiful but infamous Colorado Street Bridge – the so-called “suicide bridge” in Pasadena – is here.
It opened in December 1913, and close to 100 people had their last earthly moments here in the more than two decades before the more notorious suicide hotspot, the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, even opened: it’s arguably the equivalent of the Cecil Hotel in downtown LA, which is another location where many souls have passed to another realm….
On May 4, 1929, Leland Wesley Abbott, 33, was arrested in connection with the murder of a young woman whose torso had been found on April 4 in the quick sands of the LA River near Lynwood Gardens. She was missing her arms, legs and head, and “was about to become a mother,” noted the Los Angeles Times.
The torso was found after heavy rains and not more than 24 hours old, but identification was still uncertain. Her age was estimated to be 18-25, and her appearance roughly matched descriptions of Abbott’s wife – who was 22. The coroner also noted that the limbs and the head had been severed with some surgical skill.
Newspaper reports said that Abbot’s estranged wife had last been seen the day before the torso was found, and that a couple of days earlier to that Abbott had confided in a work colleague, Ray Martin, that she was living with a man in Lynwood, and that he intended to “get even” with her. He had added that there was “plenty of quicksand” in the LA River near where she lived.
The Sheriff’s Homicide Squad knew Abbott had served time for gun smuggling, and had married in Cincinnati soon after his release, but they were uncertain of his wife’s first or maiden name, let alone her whereabouts.
More promisingly, Abbott was known for carrying a surgical knife with a 5-inch blade, but further clues – a green slipper (size six, left foot) and some blood-stained towels found on the riverbed – were discarded as having no bearing on the case.
Two other men of interest – a physician who had left LA with his 19-year-old girlfriend, but neither of them had been heard from since – and another physician who was seen near the murder site, and had previous arrests. Both leads led nowhere either, nor did viewings by people who had recently-missing relatives.
Abbott was found on May 4 at a mountain camp on a government reserve, some 33 miles north of Mt. Wilson, where he said he’d gone for a road-building job. He didn’t have his knife with him though – which he said he carried because his stepfather was a surgeon – though investigators found a handful of weapons in Abbott’s trunk, which he said he had recently washed with gasoline. The trunk had some strange stains on it, too.
Then there was the anonymous call from a woman who had seen two men lift a large package out of a car alongside the LA River– and that there was a woman in the driving seat. She thought it was unusual, because at the time it was raining heavily. But she never called back.
Ultimately police simply didn’t have enough evidence to hold Abbott, and released him after a few days. Bizarrely, on May 12 Abbott returned to the police station with his knife, which he said he’d found. Presumably it passed forensic tests, because Abbott then returned to his road-building job, and the story disappeared from the newspaper archives….