Heart Starts Pounding: Horrors, Hauntings, and Mysteries - 65: Old Hollywood Murder: The Mysterious Death of William Desmond Taylor

Episode Date: May 2, 2024

Hollywood's first whodunnit. Two young starlets, an angry mother, a scorned valet, a corrupt DA, and the dead body of one of Hollywood's most prolific directors. What happened to William Desmond Taylor, and who knows more than they're telling? Subscribe on Patreon for bonus content and to become a member of our Rogue Detecting Society. Patrons have access to ad-free listening and bonus content. And members of our High Council on Patreon have access to our after show called Footnotes. Apple subscriptions are now live! Get access to ad-free episodes and bonus episodes when you subscribe on Apple Podcasts. Follow on Tik Tok and Instagram for a daily dose of horror. We have a monthly newsletter now! Be sure to sign up for updates and more. Heart Starts Pounding is written and produced by Kaelyn Moore.

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TireDiscounterGroup.ca slash locations. TireDiscounterGroup.ca slash locations. Tire Discounter Group, TireDiscounterGroup.ca. It was a chilly night on February 1st, 1922 in Los Angeles. Actress Faith McLean was wrapping up a dinner with her husband, comedian Douglas McLean, that Wednesday night when he decided they should play a game.

The young couple lived in a luxury apartment complex known as the Alvarado Court Apartments, a series of eight bungalows that surrounded a pretty garden courtyard. I'll be right back, Douglas said as he excused himself from the table and ran upstairs to grab their cribbage board. Weeknights at the Alvarado Court Apartments were typically quiet. Though their neighbors were the who's who of Hollywood society, famous actors, comedians, and directors, they typically respected quiet hours. If they wanted to party, the newly opened Ambassador Hotel was just two miles down the road, and it was quickly becoming the watering hole for every A-lister in Hollywood. As Douglas reached the top of the stairs, a loud sound cut through the silence outside.

A sound that Faith didn't recognize, but would never forget. She quickly ran to the front door to see what the source of the sound was. But outside, all she saw was the stillness of the other white, two-story bungalows all facing the same courtyard. A few cars passed by on Alvarado Street. It must have been a car backfiring, she thought. But then, just as she was about to close the door, a shadowy figure emerged from the bungalow directly across from hers, owned by acclaimed

silent film director William Desmond Taylor. She got a good look at the person as they walked down the steps of the home, turned left, and then darted through an alleyway in between the home and the apartment's shared garage towards the street. As she watched the person slink away, her husband came back downstairs, cribbage board in hand, and didn't even mention the sound to her. Let's play, he proclaimed. The next morning, February 2, 1922, was just as chilly as the one before. Outside of Faith's home, a 37-year-old man named Henry Peevey walks into the courtyard

from Alvarado Street and enters the home of William Desmond Taylor. All of a sudden, screams pierce through the courtyard. Loud, guttural, panicked screaming coming from Henry. Just as quickly as he entered the house, he was back out in the courtyard, doubled over, his head in his hands. Deep in her heart, she knows what he's about to say,

before the words even escape his lips. Mr. Taylor is dead! Changing a lightbulb should be simple. Whoa. Whoa. Whoa! Uh-oh. That's not supposed to happen. Quickly submitting and tracking a claim on the Bel Air Direct app actually is simple. Bel Air Direct, insurance simplified. It's that feeling.

When the energy in the room shifts, when the air gets sucked out of a moment and everything starts to feel wrong. It's the instinct between fight or flight. When your brain is trying to make sense of what it's saying, it's when your heart starts pounding. Welcome to Heart Starts Pounding, a podcast of horrors, hauntings, and mysteries.

I'm your host, Kaylyn Moore. We are in the final installation of the Dark Hollywood series, and I hope you've been enjoying it as much as I've been enjoying telling you about it. I've really loved being able to take one theme and explore it in multiple episodes, so watch out for more of these kinds of series. I've been here in the study of the Rogue Detecting Society headquarters reading everything I can get my hands on about the death of Hollywood director William Desmond Taylor.

And most of what I tell you today comes from the book, Cast of Killers by Sidney Kropatrick and the incredible research done by Bruce Long. It's hard to put into words how high profile this murder was in its day. It would be like if today John Mulaney, Olivia Munn, Jacob Elordi, and Andrew Garfield all lived next to director Ari Aster who was murdered in cold blood. It was one of the most high profile

murder cases in the country because the public couldn't read enough about which of their favorite stars bore witness to the murder. So today, I want to walk you through the case, the intricacies, the lies, and the theories. Because the truth is rarely pure and never simple. Let's dive back in. William Desmond Taylor was the epitome of the turn of the century American dream. He was an Irish immigrant who found great success

in Hollywood, directing over 50 films and cementing himself as an A-lister before his 50th birthday, which would have been in April of the year he died. But at this moment, as Henry Peevey is dry heaving in the garden after what he just witnessed, William Desmond Taylor is sprawled out on his living room floor, lifeless,

and three men are standing above him, wondering what to do next. The first officer on the scene was a 30-year-old lieutenant named Tom Ziegler. When he walked into the home, to his right was the living room where William's desk sat near the front wall near the door and faced outward into the room. The director was lying on his back, his feet near the front door, and his head turned to the left.

Blood dripped from his mouth. His desk chair was over one of his legs and his desk was relatively undisturbed. The second man standing over William's body was a doctor Lieutenant Ziegler had called. Without touching William or moving him at all, the doctor proclaimed that William had died of stomach trouble. That would explain the blood around his mouth. Plus, William had a notoriously bad stomach. He

had recently been making plans to go abroad to visit a gut specialist in Europe. But the third man standing over Williams' body didn't believe that for a second. It was Charles Aitin, a balding, former wrestler turned studio executive at Famous Players, the studio that would eventually become Paramount Pictures. He worked with William Desmond Taylor at the studio, and he is what we would call a fixer. If someone working for the studio had an issue, Aitin was there to massage it over before the story got out. Somehow, he had heard of William's death

just moments after the police had, and as he stood over William, he was holding a box of his stuff. He had let himself in just after Ziegler arrived on the scene and took it upon himself to remove anything potentially embarrassing from William's house. Most of what he carried looked like letters, and you may be thinking,

how could someone just walk into a crime scene and steal evidence? The answer is simple. Everyone knew everyone back then, and everyone was corrupt. But Aitin had overheard the neighbors talking, and one of them mentioned hearing what sounded like a gunshot the night before. Something about this scene didn't look like it was just tummy troubles.

William's arms were at such strange angles by his side. It wasn't like he just fell over. So Aitin walked over to the body and did what no layperson should ever do to a crime scene. He moved him. And when he rolled William to the right, everyone gasped. Underneath William was a large pool of blood, and under his left armpit was a bullet hole. There was no exit wound, so the bullet was still in him lodged somewhere up by his neck. Once Aitin saw the extent of the injuries, he grabbed his box of Williams' things and slipped out of the house. This was going to take a bit more smoothing over than he initially thought. But let's take a second to look at the scene, because aside from William's body spread out on the floor,

very little about the scene looked like a crime had taken place. On William was $78 cash in his pocket, and he was wearing a two-carat diamond ring and a platinum watch. Clearly, he hadn't been robbed. On his desk was his checkbook, which was left open. Nothing in his home looked disturbed,

no sign of forced entry or struggle. The bullet hole in William's coat, though, wasn't perfectly aligned with the bullet hole in his undershirt, suggesting that his hands had been up when he was shot. Perhaps he had been aware of the assailant and was pleading with them. Perhaps he had gotten a good look at who it was.

But unfortunately, that information was now gone with him. One thing that stood out to Lieutenant Ziegler were two framed photos that sat on William's upright piano in the room. One of the photos was immediately recognizable, Mabel Normand, a 27-year-old actress famous for her work with Charlie Chaplin. Next to her photo was one of a young, pretty blonde,

19-year-old up-and-comer Mary Miles Minter. First, Ziegler wanted to talk to the neighbors 19-year-old up-and-comer Mary Miles Minter. First, Ziegler wanted to talk to the neighbors about what they had seen, so he started with Faith. She recalled how a shadowy figure wearing a heavy coat, cap, and muffler around their neck walked out of William's house backwards, as if they were finishing a conversation with him inside. The person then turned towards Faith to walk down the steps leading away from the house, but then quickly turned around and went back into the house, as if to retrieve something.

Then they came out and slipped away through an alley next to William's home. It appeared to be a man standing around five'10", though Faith admitted it could have been a woman in more masculine clothing. Their build was slightly more feminine, and it seemed as if they had white makeup on their face. Henry Peevey, the servant, was then pulled aside by the cops. He had left the house the night before, just moments before Faith had heard the gunshot. But he told the police that as he was leaving, William was inside his home talking to a woman.

The night before, between 6.30 p.m. and 7.00 p.m., Mabel Normand, one of the women in the photographs, had stopped by. She stayed with William for about 35 minutes and had her driver idling on Alvarado Street the entire time. Henry said he had to leave the house around 7pm for an appointment downtown, but he heard Mabel and William speaking in a room together and he was hesitant to walk in on them. He waited a moment before knocking on the door, told them he was leaving, and then took off.

What were they talking about? The police wondered. Henry didn't exactly know, but Mabel was talking very harshly to William. She was clearly upset with him over something. What she was upset about, Henry could only guess, but he imagined it was because William had been seeing other women at the time, and maybe Mabel wanted him to cut it out. Henry said he later learned that William's chauffeur had called the house around 720 p.m., about 10 or so minutes after Henry left, but no one answered the phone. Lieutenant Ziegler knew he had to talk to Mabel, but when he tracked her down,

she had a slightly different version of events. Yes, she had been with Taylor in the moments leading up to the murder, but she didn't go there to argue with him. She had heard about a book he wanted to lend her, so she had her driver swing by his home while she was out. She went inside to get the book, where she noticed that there was another photo on his piano beside hers.

That of Mary Miles Minter. Were you two together? The lieutenant asked. No, not at all, Mabel cried. William thought of her more like a mentee, a student of his brilliance. He knew that Mabel admired him, and he loved that. While she was in his home, she spoke with him about the book for about 35-ish minutes, and then he accompanied her back out to her car. They stood and spoke for a few more

moments, and then he turned to walk back to his home. She blew him a kiss, got back in the car, and then was driven off. She didn't know that kiss would be the last goodbye she'd ever give him. Mabel seemed to be telling the truth, and her driver corroborated her story. Her alibi was good. That meant that the murderer must have either been hiding in William's home while Mabel was there, or have snuck in when William walked Mabel to her car. No one had seen someone sneak into the house though.

Mabel said something that Ziegler thought was strange though, that they weren't dating. Men didn't just have photos of the women they were mentoring displayed in their living rooms. And William didn't have just one, he had two. What was going on? Lieutenant Ziegler was then able to track down an actor named Arthur Hoyt, who was with William the night before he was murdered. And he noticed some pretty strange behavior from the director.

Arthur said that he didn't want to give the police any information that would hurt the character of his friend. But he thought this information would help with the investigation. He said that the night of January 31st, Hoyt visited William at around 6 p.m. and noticed that he looked really stressed out. He kept nervously tugging at his hair.

So Hoyt asked him if something was bothering him. And William swore him to secrecy. He must promise first to never tell another living soul. Hoyt promised, but given the current circumstance, he felt he should come clean to Ziegler. William told Hoyt that there was a young girl who was in love with him, to the point of obsession, but that he was old enough to be her father and it felt wrong. She had showed up to his house at three in the morning

the night before and refused to leave. She told him she would scream and cause a scene if he sent her home. Eventually though, he was able to quell the situation and drove her back to her house, but the encounter had left him shaken. Lieutenant Ziegler immediately thought back to the photos on the piano,

one of them being the innocent-looking teenage starlet, Mary Miles Minter, her blonde hair and baby face contrasting the dark hair and womanly features of the photograph of Mabel Normand. Could that be who William was referring to? Well, shortly after their conversation, Ziegler got a phone call from the coroner. They were about to cremate William, but upon final inspection of the body, they found something else on his suit jacket.

Three long, blonde hairs, most likely belonging to a woman. I'll be right there, Ziegler proclaimed. And with that, he hung up the phone. The hairs and where it led Ziegler after short break. After discovering that William had three long blonde hairs on his suit jacket at the time of his death, Lieutenant Ziegler knew he had to talk to the woman in the other photograph William kept in his living room, rising star Mary Miles Minter.

Mary Miles Minter was born Julia Shelby in 1902. Mary's mother, Charlotte Shelby, knew that her daughter's adorable raggedy and looks would make her famous, and she put the young girl in show business as early as she could. Charlotte had Broadway aspirations as a child, so perhaps this was a way for her to live out her failed dream.

She even made her daughter take on the stage name, Mary Miles Minter, after her young cousin who had died. Charlotte had a reputation for being an overprotective mother, but it seemed to pay off, at least in her mind. Mary's career flourished, and soon she had gotten a six-picture deal at Metro Studio. The teen had starred in William's film, Anne of Green Gables, two years before his murder. She was just 16 years old when William had cast her, and apparently, the two had stayed relatively

close. When's the last time you saw William Desmond Taylor? Ziegler asked Mary. Oh, I haven't seen him for quite some time and I haven't been to his apartment in ages, she said. And what's the nature of your relationship? He was one of my best friends, Mary cried. She claimed the two were close, but nothing ever happened

between them. In fact, she said, William was engaged to Mabel Normand at the time of his death. Engaged to Mabel Normand? That was the first Ziegler heard of that. Why would Mabel have lied about that? But at the same time, Mabel had an alibi. Mary did not, and she had more than just three strands of hair to answer for. See, when Charles Aitin walked off with a box of William's belongings, he said he had a series of love letters from married women that he wanted to get rid of, you know, to make sure William's image stayed clean. But Charles didn't collect all of the incriminating evidence

from William's apartment that day. As they were scrubbing through every square inch of William's place for clues, the police came to a boot of his that felt heavier than the other. They reached inside and found a handful of letters addressed to William, from Mary. One of them read,

"'What shall I call you, wonderful man? "'I want to go away with you, up in the hills, anywhere, "'just so we can be alone. "'I'd go to my room and put on something scant and flowing. "'Then I would lie on the couch and wait for you. "'I might fall asleep, for a fire makes me drowsy. Then I would awake to find two strong arms around me and two dear lips pressed to mine in a long, sweet kiss."

Whoa, okay, we're gonna end that one right there. Mary was barely 18 when she wrote these letters to a nearly 50-year-old man. He was old enough to be her father. He said so himself. Hoyt had mentioned a young girl had been at William's home a few nights prior, begging him to be with her, but William had refused. But Hoyt also mentioned he didn't want

to embarrass his friend. So was he making it sound like nothing had happened? Alongside these letters were handkerchiefs with Mary's initials on them. William was also in possession of a woman's nightgown, which some reports claimed also had the initials MMM. This was starting to look like a tad more than unrequited love. And yet, Mary insisted that she and William hardly saw each other and were nothing more than friends.

But Mary had seen William the day of the murder, at least according to an independent investigation launched by director King Vidor, years after the crime happened. Vidor found that the day of the murder, Mary had been out driving with her grandmother when she passed William in her car. The two pulled over and Mary

ran out to give the director a big hug. So perhaps that's where the blonde hairs came from. But then why would Mary lie about not having seen William that day? There's a lot that's strange about the Mary Miles mentor lead. But in a peculiar twist, as a few officers started circling in on Mary, they were fired. And then when new officers took over the case, they just didn't feel like there was enough to arrest her. There wasn't enough evidence that the two had been having an affair.

There was evidence Mary was in love with the director, but they didn't feel like that was enough to drive a 19-year-old girl to murder. And plus, there was now another lead that Lieutenant Ziegler wanted to follow. Remember how I said there was a checkbook found on Williams' desk? Well, there were some large checks written from that book

made out to cash, checks that couldn't be accounted for. And after Ziegler dug around in Williams' past for a bit, he started to wonder if at the time of his murder, he was being blackmailed. So two years prior, Williams' home had been robbed, badly, fully ransacked, jewels, clothes, money, even his car were all taken while he was traveling. A famous Hollywood director being robbed is nothing unusual. But what was unusual was weeks after the robbery, William received a letter in the mail

which included threats and receipts for his stolen belongings that had been pawned. And they were pawned under the name William Dean Tanner. When William read that, his heart dropped. William Dean Tanner. He hadn't heard that name in almost two decades. Whoever pawned his belongings knew William intimately, better than most. See, William Desmond Taylor wasn't really William Desmond Taylor.

That was a stage name he had taken on when he disappeared from New York one day. His real birth name was William Dean Tanner. His birth name was William Dean Tanner. In 1908, William Dean Tanner had been married to Ethel Mae Harrison for seven years. They had a daughter together, Ethel Daisy Tanner, but one night, William never came home. There's not much information about exactly

where William went at the time. He was maybe in Alaska for a bit, There's not much information about exactly where William went at the time. He was maybe in Alaska for a bit, but we do know that he resurfaced in Hollywood under his new name four years later. And it's around the time that he resurfaces that his brother, Dennis Dean Tanner, also disappears from their town in New York. One day, his wife Ada was on a trip with their daughters when they came home to find that Dennis had vanished. Not many people knew the secret that

William was keeping, that he had a wife and child in New York. Except, it seemed, the person who had robbed his house and pawned his things. In 1921, after the robbery, William fired his valet, Edward Sands, after he accused him of orchestrating the whole thing. Upon closer inspection, the threatening letters he received with the pawn shop receipts matched Sands' handwriting. But as investigators are looking into William's death,

they get a letter from a man in Colorado who claimed he knew the Tanner brothers intimately in New York. The letter stated that Edward Sands, the valet, was none other than Dennis Dean Tanner, who had left New York looking for his brother. It could make sense that William hired his brother under another name to work for him.

Ziegler called a massive search for Sands. Every police officer in the United States was given a photo of him and told to arrest him if found. What they did find was Sands was most likely not the brother of William Dean Tanner, but instead a career criminal. Fingerprint records showed that Sands had enlisted twice in the United States Navy, once under the name Edward F. Sands and again under the name Edward F. Strathmore.

The first time he was enlisted in the Navy in mid 1915, he was charged with fraud and embezzlement. He was kept in the Navy prison aboard the ship until it docked, and then was dishonorably discharged on August 6th, 1916. But just two weeks later, he re-enlisted in a different location under the same name.

He told them he had no previous military service, and they just let him back in. In 1918, while he was serving in the Navy in Connecticut, he stole a car and crashed it. Upon his arrest, he was told he would be let go if he could repay the damages. Sands promised to repay, but he said he needed to go to New York to get the money, and the Navy let him return to New York. But then they never saw him again.

In 1919, he enlisted again, this time under a different name, for fear that they would learn he was a deserter. Within a few months, however, the Navy did learn of his previous dishonorable discharge and asked him to come in for questioning. When Sands received his summons, he just deserted again. He would go on to desert military service two more times. Eventually, he made his way out to California and found himself working for William. In December of 1921, two months before William's murder, his house was burglarized again.

The back door was broken in, and more of his jewelry and some gold-tipped cigarettes went missing. Food was eaten from his fridge, and dusty footprints were tracked throughout the house. On December 27th, a note that read, so sorry to inconvenience you even temporarily. Also observe the lesson of the forced sale of assets. A Merry Christmas and a Happy Prosperous New Year, alias Jimmy V, was mailed to William, and handwriting analysis confirmed

that it was Edward Sands handwriting. What's even scarier is that two weeks after the robbery, a gold-tipped cigarette was found by Henry Peevee on William's doorstep, suggesting that Sands had recently been back. But unfortunately, police were never able to track Sands had recently been back. But unfortunately, police were never able to track Sands down. They were never able to get an alibi

for where he was that night. Just as he had successfully deserted the military four times, he had deserted this investigation. It seems like, at least through my research, the police largely thought that Sands was the most likely suspect. He was the only one with a revenge motive. He had broken into the director's house before and was obviously capable of doing so again.

But I also think there's a strong case that it wasn't Sands. Think about it. He had been William's valet for some time. Wouldn't faith have recognized him? When questioned by police, she mentioned to an officer that she didn't think the person escaping had the same build as Sands. And not to mention, he was infamous for robbing William. Yet, the murderer had not stolen anything from the crime scene.

Even things that would have been easy for him to steal, like the cash in his pocket. And there is one more lead that I want to tell you about. One that wasn't pursued by the police but was looked into years later during King Vidor's investigation. Because of the description Faith gave to the police, there was always a part of one of the other officers on the case, Officer King, that believed the person seen leaving Williams' house was in fact a woman. So to test this theory, Officer King played a little trick on the public to try and get information. He had the

press run an article that claimed a spiritualist had called him with a vision she had that might help investigators. He told the press this spiritualist saw in her vision that the person leaving the house was not a man. In fact, it was a woman. And not only that, this woman was a mother whose daughter had been overly familiar with William Desmond Taylor.

And so the mother had killed him to keep him away. He claimed the spiritualist knew the identity of the woman and if she didn't come forward in two weeks, the spiritualist would come forward with the mother's name. Of course, he had no idea if this would work. They didn't really know who was seen leaving the house, but maybe this would freak someone out and they would come forward.

Well, the next morning, an attorney went to the DA's office holding a newspaper clipping about the spiritualist's vision. He wanted to know more about this spiritualist, her name and where she was located. When he wasn't given any information, he returned the following day to keep asking about her. No one else ever came forward to ask about the spiritualist or confirm their identity. Officer King was able to look into this attorney and found out that he represented a woman named Charlotte Shelby. Mary Miles Minter's mother.

Which brings us to our final lead. Why did Mary's mother hire an attorney to find out more about the spiritualist? Was it because she was afraid that she had been found out? When police went to question Charlotte Shelby, she said that she had been out shopping with friends until around 9 p.m. the day of the murder, which her mother, Mary's grandmother, confirmed.

But here's the thing. After Charlotte is interviewed, the DA ordered all of the evidence in this case to be transferred from the police station to his office. And in the process, all of the information about Charlotte gets lost. But not before the DA returned some of the evidence to Mary. Her hairs, her handkerchiefs, the nightgown,

and her love letters were all returned to her. It was later revealed that the DA was a close personal friend of Mary's mother, Charlotte. And so, as you can imagine, the investigation into Charlotte Shelby didn't go anywhere. That is until years later in 1967, when King Vidor launched his own investigation. Vidor had been a contemporary of Williams,

directing silent films and then transitioning into sound in the late 1920s. Later in his life, he dedicated himself to a private investigation of Williams' murder. He pored through old evidence and interviewed anyone still living involved in the case, and he found some interesting evidence. Vidor was able to contact Adela Rogers St. John, a reporter who was on the case in the 20s.

St. John claimed that Faith actually had identified the person leaving Williams' home to the police, had identified the person leaving Williams' home to the police, as Charlotte. But that information was never made public and an arrest was never made. St. John theorized that this was either because there wasn't enough evidence to arrest Charlotte, or because the police had, in fact, been paid off. Funny enough, Vidor's ex-wife was an actress who had worked with Mary on multiple films, and she claimed that Mary's mother was overbearing and never left her daughter alone long enough

for her to have an affair. And it's true, the mother-daughter duo did seem to be attached at the hip before William's death, which makes it worth noting then that after William was killed, Mary cut off contact with her mother completely. She moved to Hawaii to get away from her. Vidor's investigation found that Charlotte

had been stealing most of Mary's money she was paid from her films, so perhaps that was the root of her escape. But other incriminating things were found about Charlotte. For one, it was discovered that she owned the same kind of gun used to kill Taylor. But when police arrived to investigate the gun, it wasn't there.

Charlotte said she had recently discarded it because it wasn't firing well. Witnesses said that Charlotte and Mary used to get into screaming matches about William. Mary even threatened to kill herself using the gun that Charlotte owned if she wouldn't give the two her blessing. Vidor also found that the DA Charlotte was friends with had fired police officers on the case who were suggesting Charlotte could have something to do with the crime. And perhaps, maybe most suspicious of all, was the fate of Mary's sister, Margaret.

Later in her life, Margaret met and married a man that Charlotte didn't approve of. Charlotte, used to being able to exert unlimited control over her daughters, didn't like that Margaret went against her wishes and married the man anyways. To retaliate, Charlotte withheld money from her daughter that was rightfully hers. This led to Margaret filing a lawsuit against Charlotte to get the money back. During the trial for the money, Margaret publicly accused Charlotte of murdering William. Charlotte responded that Margaret was crazy. She had been losing her mind over these last few years

and was totally paranoid. But was Margaret paranoid? Was she trying to get revenge on her mother for her control? Or was she finally coming clean of a secret she had been holding onto for over 15 years. After pouring through all of the evidence, Vidor felt like it had to be Charlotte. He concluded that Charlotte must have heard

about Mary seeing William that day in traffic and felt that was the final straw. She was afraid that William was taking all of Mary's attention away from her film career and her mother. And so when he was out of the house with Mabel, she snuck in through the front door. In Vidor's theory, Charlotte saw Mary in the house waiting for William to return, though I don't know if I buy that. When he entered the house again, she popped out and shot him, and then she left. Vidor believed that Charlotte saw Mary as more than just a meal ticket,

but as a way to vicariously experience the fame she was robbed of. There was nothing she wouldn't do to make sure Mary wasn't led astray. It's certainly possible, but as of today, the murder of William Desmond Taylor remains unsolved, and everyone who was involved in the investigation has died. All that's left are questions, missing documents, unaccounted for valets, and the rumors that still swirl around this case. I hope you've enjoyed this journey through time we've taken together over the past few

weeks, exploring the dark crevices of Hollywood. I have a bunch of other series planned out for you and I can't wait to walk these dark paths together. There's a lot on the line in a town like this. Money, reputation, fame, and whenever there's a lot on the line, bad things tend to happen. What goes up must come down, I guess. Or maybe the whole thing is cursed by Petronia. We just really don't know. I wish there was a more definitive way to wrap up this series, but the truth is, no one knows what happened to William. And with how badly the evidence was mishandled,

we may never. But I will leave you with this final thought. As I sit here in the study, poring over old detective interviews and testimonies, I found something that made me do a double take. During his investigation, King Vidor was able to track down Mary Miles Minter. At that point, she was an elderly woman living in Bel Air, and her mind was going. He had trouble interviewing her because her memory and cognition were so poor. As he sat there with the former starlet, the subject of her mother came up and this caused Mary to burst into tears. Though her mind was slowly fading, the memories of her childhood were somewhere deep, deep inside of her. She put her head in her hands to catch her tears. Between sobs, she was able to get out the following

sentence. My mother killed everything I ever loved. So what do you think happened to William Desmond Taylor? Do let me know in the comments. You can find me on Instagram or you can reply in the Spotify question section. I am so curious what everyone thinks and I have some thoughts of my own, which I'll be discussing in this week's episode of Footnotes. If you want more on these series, make sure you check out Footnotes in our High Council tier on Patreon. There, I also discuss my thoughts on the Clara Bow song that Taylor Swift released, as well

as some other fun tidbits about the episode. So I'll see you over there. This has been Heart Starts Pounding, written and produced by me, Kayla Moore. Additional producing by Matt Brown. Additional research by Marissa Dow. Sound design and mix by Peachtree Sound. Special thanks to Travis Dunlap, Grayson Jernigan, the team at WME, and Ben Jaffe. Special thanks to our new patrons, you'll be thanked in the monthly newsletter. Have a heart pounding story or a case request? Check out heartstartspounding.com. Until next time! will be thanked in the monthly newsletter. Have a heart pounding story or a case request?

Check out heartstartspounding.com. Until next time, stay curious.