Avery Truesdale, aged just 19, died by suicide at Los Angeles City Hall on July 15. He jumped from the 26th floor observation deck, which is open to the public, though you have to show ID at security before entering the building.
LAFD medical personnel found him unconscious and not breathing on the steps of the building, and the autopsy listed the COD as blunt trauma. Tributes came in for the young man, who graduated Arcadia High School last year and was known for his talent on their baseball team.
This was seemingly only the third suicide at City Hall since it was built in 1928.
The first was on April 30, 1931, when Robert Pollock Craigie, 36, crawled out of a window on the 19th floor and jumped. He was a visitor to LA from Cairo, Egypt, where he worked at an oil company, and had planned to marry his local sweetheart, Hilda Seagroatt, but the stock market crash had bankrupted him.
“Death came quickly” reported the LA Times, which explained that Craigie had left two formal notes inside his cap on the floor behind him. Hilda was said to be baffled by his actions:
“Why, only a half-hour before he did it, we talked over the telephone and he seemed in the best of spirits. We made an engagement for dinner, and afterwards planned to move my belongings to a new apartment not far from his.”
The second suicide was in December 1934, when Michael Roomanoff, 43, leapt to his death here. There were few other details available, except that it was perhaps a “suicide-of-honor”, as his insurance policy went some – but not all – the way to paying back a large loan from his friend, Ben Stoloff.
A dive into the LA Times archives offered more information however, and a very interesting backstory for Roomanoff emerged. He was known as Gisch Roomanoff back in April 1931, when he was facing a $4,000 grand theft charge after swindling Meyer Levin, a Glendale builder, on an investment “opportunity” – and it appeared Levin was just the first of many victims.
“Financial advisor” Roomanoff had been transported to jail after spending time in the hospital at Redondo Beach, where he had jumped from the pier a week earlier – perhaps also a suicide attempt.
If you or someone you know is experiencing a mental health crisis, help is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Call or text 988 to reach the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline. Live support is also available online through its website.