abcdelasemana.com
Jean Spangler was a 26 year old dancer at the Earl Carroll Theatre and Florentine Gardens,
and a struggling actress who had landed only a few bit parts in movies.
latimesblog
She lived on Colgate Avenue in the Park La Brea area with her mother, daughter, and sister-in-law.
About 5:00 p.m. on October 7, 1949, she went out, telling her sister-in-law that she
was going to see her ex-husband about a child support payment, then go on to a night shoot at a
movie studio. Except for a brief sighting at the nearby Farmer’s Market an hour later, she was never seen again.
When she did not return home the next day, her sister-in-law reported her missing. Since she had a reputation as
a “party girl”, the police did nothing, figuring that she would show up in a day or so. On October 9th, a Griffith Park
worker found her purse near the Fern Dell entrance to the park.
cracked.com
The purse had a torn strap and contained a strange hand written note. The note said, “Kirk, Can’t wait any longer.
Going to see Dr. Scott. It will work best this way while mother is away.” The purse prompted an extensive search
of the park, but nothing else was found.
z10dotinvisionfree.com
The police pursued several lines of inquiry:
The ex-husband, a plastic manufacturer named Dexter Benner, was interviewed. He claimed that he had not seen
Jean for several weeks prior to her disappearance. His story was backed up by his new wife Lynn, who had been
previously married to Mickey Cohen associate, Ely Lasky. A check with the studios around town also revealed that
none of them had a movie shoot scheduled that night.
z10dotinvisionfree.com
Word spread from a couple of Jean’s friends that she was three months pregnant. The police figured that the Dr. Scott
mentioned in the note was an abortionist, who may have botched things and disposed of her body.
A search for Dr. Scott came up empty.
A few days into the investigation, the actor Kirk Douglas (after reading the story about the note) called the police to say
that he may have briefly met her on the set of his last movie, “Young Man With a Horn”. Jean had a bit part in this movie
as a hula dancer. The police thought that it was strange that Douglas just happened to call them with this information,
but they could make no connection to her disappearance. Some people thought that Spangler and Douglas had indeed dated
several times, but no one had any solid evidence.
Jean had also been seen in Palm Springs a few days prior to her vanishing, with a couple of Mickey Cohen’s associates,
David “Little Davey” Ogul and Frank Niccoli. Strangely enough, both of them had also recently disappeared. Rumor had it
that Niccoli had been dumped into a lime pit in a Cucamonga vineyard and his keys were found down a sewer on
Santa Barbara Avenue. Of course, people began to have sightings of the three of them as far away as El Paso, Texas.
Niccoli was also supposedly spotted in Mexico with his hair bleached blond and a “nose spreader” up his nostrils to change
his appearance. Neither Ogul nor Niccoli were ever seen again.
The real loser here was reportedly Mickey Cohen, who had bailed out the pair at a cost of $75,000 and now had to pay up
the bail money. One report had it that this was the reason that Mickey had to liquidate his haberdashery store in Los Angeles.
Since the Black Dahlia murder was still fresh in people's memories, evryone expected to find Jean's body hacked to pieces
somewhere around town.
officialcoldcase investigations.com
Jean Spangler was never seen again and the case is still open in the Los Angeles Police files.
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