Morbid - Episode 541: The Unsolved Murder of Georgette Bauerdorf
Episode Date: February 26, 2024On the morning of October 12, 1944, Lulu Atwood arrived at the El Palacio Apartments in West Hollywood, where she worked cleaning apartments for wealthy and celebrity clients. When Lulu reach...ed the apartment of twenty-year-old Georgette Bauerdorf, she called out and when she got no reply, she entered the apartment to begin her work. Inside, Lulu could hear the water running in the bathtub upstairs, and when she made her way to the second-floor bathroom, she found the dead body of Georgette Bauerdorf half-submerged in the water.As a well-known socialite and the prominent daughter of a wealthy oil tycoon, Georgette’s untimely death surprised the Los Angeles society circles in which she moved. But when her death was officially labeled a murder, and one with sexual overtones, their surprise turned to shock and dismay—who would have wanted to kill Georgette Bauerdorf and why?As a member of Hollywood’s elite class, Georgette Bauerdorf’s murder dominated the headlines of Los Angeles papers for weeks, but when the leads dried up just a few weeks later and no new suspects were identified, the case went cold and by the end of the year the investigation was essentially shelved. Once considered alongside the Black Dahlia as one of Los Angeles’ most notorious unsolved murders, today the story of Georgette Bauerdorf has now all but faded from public memory, making it unlikely the mystery will ever be solved. Thank you to David White, of The Bring Me the Axe Podcast, for research!ReferencesBuffalo Evening News. 1944. "Murder theory studied in death of wealthy girl." Buffalo Evening News, October 13: 1.Dowd, Katie. 2021. "A California oil heiress was strangled in her apartment. Who got away with murder?" SF Gate, November 28.Foster, Ernest. 1944. "Heiress found dead in bathtub mystery." Daily News, October 13: 224.Los Angeles Times. 1944. "Evidence shows heiress waged terrific fight." Los Angeles Times, October 15: 3.—. 1944. "Ex-soldiers tale of killing heiress here discounted." Los Angeles Times, December 29: 6.—. 1944. "Girl mystery death laid to attacker." Los Angeles Times, October 14: 1.—. 1944. "Girl mystery death laid to attacker." Los Angeles Times, October 14: 1.—. 1945. "Note professing Bauerdorf girl slaying knowledge pondered." Los Angeles Times, September 21: 2.—. 1944. "Oil heiress death clues valueless, deputies say." Los Angeles Times, October 17: 5.—. 1945. "Self-appointed sleuth held in heiress' death." Los Angeles Times, September 25: 2.—. 1944. "Tale of killing heiress here false, ex-soldier concedes." Los Angeles Times, December 30: 11.New York Times. 1944. "Miss Bauerdorf, oil man's daughter, slain by strangler in her Hollywood apartment." New York Times, October 14: 15.San Francisco Examiner . 1944. "Heiress' generosity believed to have led to her murder ." San Francisco Examiner , October 15: 3.San Francisco Examiner. 1944. "Hollywood girl believed strangled far from home." San Francisco Examiner, October 20: 3.—. 1944. "New theory in girl slaying." San Francisco Examiner, October 27: 15.—. 1944. "Police reject confession." San Francisco Examiner, December 30: 24.—. 1944. "Slaying of Oil Heiress in Hollywood confessed." San Francisco Examiner, December 29: 3.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
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Hey, weirdos, I'm Alina.
I'm Ash.
And this is Morbid.
["Wendry Plus"]
Yeah, it is. It is.
How are you today, brother?
I'm feeling wonderful.
We just got to hang out with Alvin and Fran from Affirmative Murder.
I love them.
And that is a day brightener.
It is.
We have to...
It sounded kind of like you said day brainer.
It can be a day brainer as well.
I might have. I'm tired.
I started to respond and then I was like,
did she say what I thought she said?
I meant day brightener.
Yeah.
Maybe I said day brainer.
Maybe.
I'm not gonna say I didn't.
I started to call you out, I knew what you meant,
but I was like wait a second actually.
I'm tired and you know, it's just like.
I'm having a hard time coming up with responses.
2024 is not off to a terrible start by any means.
It's just like January was 435 days long.
Quite literally.
And then it's just been like a lot of stuff.
Like it's just been busy.
Yeah, super busy, but like fun busy.
Yeah, like good busy.
Yeah.
Really not a lot of like bad stuff going on.
So I'm not gonna complain.
It's just like everybody's tired
because there's just a lot going on.
Well, when we stayed at the boarding house earlier this week too.
Yes.
And that like totally fucks up your sleep schedule
because we did not sleep.
We stayed with Corinne and Sabrina from Two Girls One Ghost.
We're just like hanging out with podcasters all over the place.
I know.
But we love them all.
I know. And then like next week, I think we're gonna hang out with podcasters all over the place. But we love them all.
And then like next week, I think we're going to hang out with Jordan from the nighttime podcast.
Like virtually, obviously we're not going to Canada, but.
We would love to.
I'd love to.
I know.
I don't know why that's obvious that we're not going to Canada.
I'm like obviously not.
I keep trying to get Jordan and his whole fam to come to Salem.
Oh my God, that'd be so fun.
I'm like, come on down.
Come in here and let's go. I want to go to Salem yesterday. You need to. I to Salem. Oh my God, that'd be so fun. I'm like, come on down, come in here and let's go.
I wanna go to Salem yesterday.
You need to.
I love Salem.
I also want a new tattoo.
As do I.
Which those two things are synonymous
because tattoos in Salem.
Yep, always.
Yeah.
Always and forever.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Hi, Matt and Ryan.
Hi, Matt and Ryan, you're great.
And Jill.
Oh, and I love Jill.
Yeah. Blackfail tattoo, you're great. And Jill. Oh, and I love Jill. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Blackfell tattoo.
Yeah, great.
Yeah.
All right.
I have a sad, sad case today.
Awesome.
And you might be mad at me if you're listening.
I'm really sorry, it's unsolved.
Oh no.
I know.
And it's really frustrating that it's unsolved,
but it happened in the 20s.
In the 20s.
So, or no, it didn't happen in the 20s.
That's all. I'd happen to, it was like the 30s. In the 20s. So, or no, it didn't happen in the 20s. That's all I'd happened.
Just kidding.
It was like the 30s.
In the 30s.
It was like, I don't know.
It was around that time.
But it was old timey.
So fingerprints and shit just like weren't good.
They tried.
Yeah, you know.
What are you going to do?
This is why these are fascinating now.
Because somehow in the case at least moves along
at some kind of capacity.
Yeah, a lot. without any kind of forensic.
Yeah, and a lot of different shit ends up going on
after this and I just want to say right off the bat,
this is a brutal one, so just be ready for that.
Hold on to your butts, we haven't said that in a while.
I'm holding on.
I like that.
All right, so we're going to be talking
about Georgette Bauerdorf today.
Georgette Elise Bauerdorf was born in New York, New York on May 6, 1924.
She was the second of two children born to George and Constance Bauerdorf.
As the daughter of a Wall Street financier and an independent oil tycoon.
Ooh.
Because you know I fucking love an oil tycoon.
I was gonna say, my goodness.
Georgette was born into New York High Society, and of course, because of that,
she was afforded all the finest opportunities in life.
When she reached school age,
her parents enrolled her at St. Agatha's School for Girls.
St. Agatha's.
I feel like you have to say it like that.
St. Agatha's.
I like how it like, the voice changes and the tone changes.
St. Agatha's School for Girls.
It's not, huh.
St. Agatha's School for Girls.
No. It's St. Agatha's School for Girls. It's not, huh. St. Agatha's School for Girls. No.
It's St. Agatha's School for Girls.
That leads me to believe that it's a little bit
of an intense place.
I don't even know.
Oh, okay.
I thought you knew and you were like,
it is not whimsical.
No.
All right, I mean.
It's just a foreboding name.
It really is.
Yeah, St. Agatha's School for Girls.
It was just a prep school on New York's Upper West Side
that had been
established to prepare the children of elite families for future Ivy League educations.
It was very hoody-toody. The elite.
You know, when Georgia's mother unfortunately passed away in 1935, the family ended up moving
to Los Angeles, where Georgia continued her education first at the Merleboro School and
then at Westlake School for Girls.
School for Girls.
School for Girls.
Where she graduated in 1941.
Her graduation from high school actually came just months after the bombing of Pearl Harbor.
Oh wow.
And it was at the onset of the U.S. really getting involved in World War II.
What a time.
Yeah.
But like many Americans, the US's involvement in the war
really inspired a great deal of patriotism in Georgia
who immediately looked for opportunities
to contribute to the war effort.
Just help out, do her thing.
Let's go girls.
Exactly.
Although they weren't expected to join the military,
many of Hollywood's biggest stars
used their fame to support the troops
by promoting war bonds and performing with the United Service Organization, among plenty of other things.
The USO.
The USO!
Exactly.
For those who couldn't or didn't want to travel, local servicemen's clubs offered
the opportunity to contribute, and in Los Angeles, there was no more prominent servicemen's
club than the Hollywood canteen. The Hollywood canteen.
There is a Gilmore Girls episode where Rory Gilmore is joining the D.A.R.
And she has to make a function happen and she makes a place look like the Hollywood canteen.
And everyone has to dress up in vintage clothing.
You have no idea.
As soon as I read the words Hollywood canteen,
I said, make sure you take a breath
after you introduce that thought because this bitch,
this bitch, Elena is gonna go off about Gilmore Girls.
It's true.
Did you see me?
I literally said it and then I took a breath
and looked right up at you.
She moved back.
Like I'm gonna give you space.
Here's the stage.
Here it is.
And they even have the triplets sing on stage
that are like, meet me,
or don't go under the apple tree with anyone else but me.
Oh yeah.
Anyone else but me.
Sing it, sister.
Brem, brrem, brrem, brrem, brrem.
Do.
Yeah, it's like, that's one of,
that like, it's wild because the aesthetic of that
is just primo.
And when you think about what was actually happening
at the time, you're like, ooh.
Like, and it's just like, and people have like,
it's like a theme.
Yeah.
Like you're like, damn.
But it was a place for people to go to like,
I hate to say it, there's no better way to say it,
to get away from all of that.
Yeah, to kind of exactly like escape
that what was going on on the outside
because man, people were all through. It was bleak. Quite, to kind of, exactly. You feel like escapes of what was going on on the outside because, man, people were
all through.
Because it was bleak.
Quite a bit, at that point.
Exactly.
So, organized by Betty Davis and John Garfield, two of Hollywood's biggest stars at the time.
Betty Davis.
Betty Davis, honey.
The Hollywood canteen offered enlisted men and men of allied troops a place to unwind,
enjoy some music, some dancing, and if you drinks, honey, while they were on leave. And the canteen actually operated entirely on volunteer support from the building materials
to the personnel, and it featured nightly appearances and performances from the biggest
stars of the day, like Abed and Costello, Glenn Miller and his orchestra, Boris Karloff,
and Elizabeth Taylor.
Oh, damn. The Hollywood can and Elizabeth Taylor. Oh, Taylor.
Oh, nice.
The Hollywood canteen, baby.
I fucking love it.
Now, while many of these stars performed
on stage at the club, it was also just as likely
that they would act as bartenders, servers,
dishwashers, cooks, cigarette girls.
Wow.
Like all of them just banded together
out of this sense of duty and patriotism.
I love it.
I didn't know about that part.
I didn't know about that part either.
I think that's so cool that like you would see maybe, I don't know, but you would see
like maybe Elizabeth Taylor up on stage and then she'd just be like serving you drinks
afterwards.
Yeah, like that's why.
Where else can you see that?
Yeah.
On any given night, patrons could expect to find the likes of Rita Hayworth serving
tables.
She got up.
Shirley Temple behind the bar serving drinks.
What?
Yeah, which I was like, is she old enough?
And then I was like, she did grow.
She's perpetually a child just forever.
And even Spencer Tracy or Humphrey Bogart washing dishes.
Isn't that really cool?
That's cool.
Now historically, the Hollywood canteen is remembered for their contributions to troop morale
and the novelty of seeing Hollywood really getting their hands dirty, just getting into it there.
But there were a small number of ordinary young women just getting, they were like...
Just ordinary.
I mean, they were way better than ordinary, but they just weren't stars.
Of course.
Just like regular you and me kind of people who were brought on at the canteen as hostesses.
While the position was probably way more exciting on paper, more often than not, the hostesses
and junior hostess positions typically involved tending to the less glamorous service industry
jobs that literally never would have been assigned to the volunteer celebrities.
Of course.
The expectations of the hostesses would range from welcoming patrons, dancing with servicemen, to cleaning bathrooms,
and mopping the floor at the end of the night.
Which you know is a job.
Exactly. Like maybe the Hollywood elite would go back and wash a couple dishes,
but I don't think they were cleaning the bathrooms.
I don't think they were cleaning the toilets.
To my knowledge, at least.
Who knows?
But all while maintaining a look of poison elegance on par with the likes of Doris Day and Joan Crawford.
Like you had to look the par and be willing to go clean some toilets if you were not an actress.
But still, for a young woman with dreams of making it big in Hollywood,
there were few opportunities that were more exciting or had more career potential than landing a job with the Hollywood canteen.
Oh, I imagine. You're literally rubbing elbows with the biggest stars of the day. Literally. Yeah.
Yeah, like come on. Joan Crawford. Rita Hayworth. Baby. Elizabeth Taylor.
I'm for Belga.
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After graduating from high school, Georgette found work at the Los Angeles Times classified counter.
But what she really dreamed of, what her big aspirations in life were,
was to become a film actress.
A star, baby. A star, honey.
And from her perspective, a position at the canteen seemed like a great way
to support the war effort while also networking with the stars.
So she was really thrilled when she was accepted as volunteer
and she was scheduled to work on Wednesday nights
alongside one of her closer friends, June Ziegler.
A journalist, Katie Dowd wrote,
the hostess job suited Georgia perfectly.
She had a big smile and a welcoming charm.
Oh, I love that.
I know, she's really pretty.
I feel like I've got pictures of her.
I'm going to look up.
So the job allowed Georgia to feel
like she was doing her part to support the troops.
But as a young woman, she also appreciated the opportunity to dance and socialize with
young soldiers who were coming in to unwind.
Per the rules of the canteen, though, the hostesses were actually banned from giving
out their personal information or like they weren't allowed to leave the club with the
patrons.
Meaning like you're not here to pick up dates, essentially.
Bomber.
But journalist out notes,
Georgette, like so many others, got around this by meeting up with men outside of work.
She was known to give soldiers keys to her apartment
if they wanted to crash there, always on the downstairs sofa
while she slept upstairs.
Friends said, and she loved dating.
Good for her.
Good for her, but never give your keys to anybody. Yeah, no, I just mean like you love dating. She loves her. Good for her, but never give your keys to anybody.
Yeah, no, I just mean like you love dating.
She loves dating.
Good for you, Georgette.
You're young, you're out here in the world.
Yeah, don't give your keys to strange men.
Yeah, don't do that, even if they seem nice.
Yeah, you don't know them.
Ted Bundy seemed nice to some people.
Exactly, so don't do it.
Don't do it.
But Georgette's generosity toward these young men
was a kind of extension of her sense of
patriotism.
Whenever anyone would question why she was so willing to share everything with strangers,
she would tell them, I think if these boys are willing to fight for us, we ought to do
anything we can for them.
That's a super nice thought.
And it's so pure, hardwood.
It is.
And like, obviously I don't think Georgette had seen a lot of the world at this point.
No, you know.
And it's like, this is also like, you know,
a different time.
Exactly.
Like now we're like, oh, no.
No way.
Like no one is like above, you know, that kind of stuff.
Like you gotta, you can't be handing keys to people.
No.
But like, things that were different in different times.
And like this probably wasn't seen as that wild back then.
You know what I mean?
And it's like, and especially with the war effort going on,
that was like a real sentiment.
Like that you should do what you can for these people
who are willing to risk their lives
to, you know, fight for your country. That kind of thing. And I'm sure you're thinking, if these who are willing to risk their lives to, you know, fight for your country.
That kind of thing.
And I'm sure you're thinking if these men are willing to put their lives on like the
front end to protect our country, they're not, why would they hurt me?
Yeah, they're not going to hurt me.
Of course.
They're fighting for our country.
And it's like, well, anybody can be a bad person.
Right.
Unfortunately.
Now, it's also possible that this behavior was a means of establishing herself as an
independent person.
Of course.
Having come from a very wealthy family, Giorgette almost certainly didn't need to work.
And as a young woman in the early 40s, she would have been expected, she would not have
been expected to pay for or transport herself from to and from dates.
But she did both, and she would even pay for her date's meal or whatever activity they
were going to do at that time.
What about us?
Kind of like to demonstrate her autonomy and independence.
Oh hell yeah, she's like, I work.
Exactly, I work and I can afford this.
Yeah.
No, while these things would seem pretty normal today, like you go dutch on dates or a girl
will pay for a guy, vice versa, whatever.
At that time, this was unheard of in certain parts of her behavior did obviously carry a certain amount of risk, not only because
her actions defied convention, but also because she was revealing her wealth and status to
strangers who might be willing or wanting to take advantage.
Yeah, absolutely.
But still, whenever any friends would express concern, she would just dismiss them confident
that it was the right thing to do, completely naive to the dangers. That, that hurts my heart because I know something bad is going to happen here.
And it's like, you can tell that it was truly just her thinking that the world wasn't as dark a place.
That's, it really is.
Exactly.
And that's really sad.
Coming from such a pure place, like I said earlier.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So on the afternoon of October 11th, 1944, Georgette met up with her father's secretary, Rose Gilbert.
And they had some lunch together.
They went to the beauty parlor. They did a little shopping.
It seems like they were like friendly.
And they parted ways a little after 2pm.
Georgette had actually just bought a plane ticket to visit her new boyfriend,
Jerry Brown, a soldier who was stationed at Fort Bliss in El Paso,
Texas.
According to Rose Gilbert, Georgette was, quote,
in good health and gay spirits.
After her lunch with Rose, Georgette went home to change,
and she headed to her shift at the Hollywood canteen.
When June, her friend, arrived at the canteen,
she found Georgette in the parking lot, knitting in her car,
which I like, that's so cute.
While she waited for her friend to arrive for their shift to start.
June later told reporters she seemed very happy but a little nervous.
But Georgette explained she was nervous because she was really excited about going to El Paso
in the coming days.
For the most part, their shift at the canteen was pretty ordinary.
But June did tell police that there was a quote, dark husky soldier who had been harassing
Georgette all throughout the night,
and who quote insisted on jitterbugging
with Georgette against her wishes.
That sentence is everything.
Jitterbugging with someone against their wishes.
I know that is an actual thing.
I know that jitterbugging is a dance.
So doing that against somebody's wishes
is not awesome at all.
No, of course not.
But the way that that sentence structure is laid out,
I just have to point out, because we're all feeling it.
We are.
That that is a funny sentence.
No, I'm so glad you did,
because I was thinking the exact same thing.
Yeah.
Like, it's just the sentence.
Actual thing that happened, not funny.
Sentence?
Funny.
Like jitterbugging with someone against their wishes
seems like it would be like a funny thing.
It seems like it would be a card in cards against humanity.
Yeah, like I'm going to jitterbug you against your wishes.
You know, like you seem like you're just been like, ha ha.
Lol.
But no.
No, it's awful in real life.
Yeah, it's not great at all.
So just, again, ask.
Go with me.
Not good.
Sentence?
Hilarious. According to June Ziegler, It's not great at all. So just again, go with me. Not good. Sentence, hilarious.
According to June Ziegler,
Giorgette liked the waltzes, the dreamy kind,
and I had never seen her jitterbug before.
I love that she loved the dreamy waltzes.
Yeah, she seems like such a romantic.
Oh my god, she does.
She really speaks to my soul.
Yeah, I feel that way.
I don't think I would jitterbug with people either.
Like she does, she seems like she's just that girl.
Like she seems like she would love Lana Del Rey.
Yes.
If she was around now.
Doesn't she?
Like she would be a summertime sadness kind of girl.
Speak to my soul some more.
She sounds cool.
She does sound cool.
I would want to be her friend.
I do want to be her friend.
Now at several points throughout the evening, June saw her friend politely declining this
man's invitations, but Georgette did finally give in.
I think it sounds like just to make this guy go away.
She was like, fine, I'll fucking jitterbug with you.
Which he absolutely shouldn't have had to do.
No.
That's fucked up.
But after that, there were no more incidents, and the evening wrapped up with Georgette leaving
through the side door around 11.30 that night and driving herself home.
As far as anybody could remember, she was alone when she left the canteen, and there was nobody in her car when she pulled out of the lot. Just her.
Now this is really awful. The next morning, October 12th, Lulu Atwood arrived at the El
Palacio apartments in West Hollywood where she worked daily cleaning the apartments
in the Spanish style apartment complex. When Lulu reached the Bauerdorf apartment,
she found the front door unlocked and slightly
ajar.
So immediately that was pretty weird.
So she knocked a couple times before entering and she called out anyone here before she finally
did go in because nobody was answering.
Although the apartment appeared to be vacant, as she expected it would be, Lulu felt like
she could hear water dripping somewhere on the second floor, so she went up the stairs to investigate.
And assuming that obviously the dripping was coming from the bathroom, she pushed open
the bathroom door and discovered the lifeless body of Georgia at Bauer door, a flying face
down in the tub.
Her face and head half submerged in a shallow pool of pink-tinged water.
Lulu started screaming, like could not believe what she was, what was in front of her.
And that brought up the janitor at the El Plesio who heard her screaming, and it also
happened to be her husband.
Oh, wow.
They cleaned together, and the two called police.
Investigators arrived at the scene a short time later, and after a brief survey of the
apartment, they initially suspected the death was accidental. I'm sorry, what? They assumed Georgette had slipped in the bathroom
and hit her head when she fell. Hence the blood that had seeped into the water. I don't know about
that. However, that theory quickly went out of the window when one of the officers noticed that
each apartment had a motion sensor light outside the front door
That went off whenever someone walked by and he was like he realized the light outside of georgette's door
Failed to turn on when anyone was near. He was like why was that going on?
So he pulled up a chair to investigate the fixture and when he reached for the bulb
He realized it was not malfunctioning, but had in fact been, quote,
carefully unscrewed two turns to the left, just loose enough to no longer automatically activate.
Oh, that's sinister.
It gives me and immediately reminds me of the Strangers.
Yeah, when they turn the bulb, yeah.
Yup, and it won't turn on, obviously.
And he turns it back and it's like, what the fuck?
It's like, why did that happen?
Which for some reason they just like, in that movie, it drives me crazy that they don't immediately leave. Yeah
I'd be like bye. If I found out somebody had done that, fuck that. Yeah, see ya. But that is sinister.
So sinister. Now whether it had been done before or after Georgeette's death wasn't exactly clear,
but either way somebody wanted to make sure the apartment would be dark and that they wouldn't
be seen. Either entering or exiting.
Once they determined that the death was no accident, other aspects of this scene began
to make more sense.
After pulling Georgia's body from the tub, investigators noticed she had what appeared
to be a piece of washcloth or bath towel stuffed deeply into her mouth.
What?
In the adjoining bedroom, there were blood stains on the floor,
which looked like somebody had tried to clean up,
though investigators couldn't determine
whether they had resulted from the attack or not,
but they assumed most likely.
They also found blood stains on the bed,
and the room was in total disarray.
This is a quote,
the bed clothes were pulled back,
Georgia's clothing was scattered over the bed and chairs,
and the contents of her purse were strewn over the floor.
Oh, that's so chilling.
Which I was like,
but you guys like walked through the bedroom first
to the bathroom and you were like, wow, messy girl.
Must have fallen in the bathroom.
She's just, she, you know, blood on the floor.
And then it took the light outside for you to like, what?
There were blood stains on the bed.
They're saying.
On the bed, on the floor.
And they just didn't come on.
Like what?
So now going to the motive, like why did this happen?
Yeah.
Whatever the killer had been looking for
when they searched Georgette's purse, it was not money.
There was actually a large amount of expensive jewelry
on the dresser and a ton of other valuable items
that were really easily accessible
all throughout the apartment.
That's even more unsettling.
None of which had been touched, like nothing.
Yeah.
Among the things that had fallen out of the purse was a note in Georgia's handwriting
that read, June and I have date to go to the Hollywood canteen tonight, Wednesday.
It's just like, like, that's so sad.
Just like a cute little...
Just like plans for the future.
Also missing was the 1936 green coop that Georgia shared with her sister
Connie and the keys were nowhere to be found in the apartment. Other than the Schaveld state of
the bedroom though, there didn't appear to be a struggle anywhere else in the apartment and it
didn't seem like Georgia had entertained any guests after arriving home from the Hollywood canteen.
Okay. So that was all a little bit weird. Because like you said, everyone said that they didn't see her leave with anyone
and they didn't see anyone in her car.
Exactly.
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Given the victim's high profile and her connection,
however tenuous to well-known Hollywood figures,
investigators quickly mobilized
to investigate the murder, luckily.
In his first press conference, Inspector William Penrose told reporters,
there are still a few elements of the mystery that I can't explain,
indicating that he would provide more information following the results of an autopsy.
Smart.
Now, when detectives were able to reach George, Bauerdorf by phone in New York,
yeah, he insisted his daughter's death had to be an accident, telling police
she suffered from cramps and heartaches and refused to go to a doctor. So he thought this
was like a medical issue or something like that. And they were like, they had to tell
him what had actually happened to her. The autopsy definitely determined that Georgia's
death was not an accident. According to the County autopsy technician, Frank Webb,
despite being found face down in the water,
there was actually no evidence
that Georgia had died by drowning.
Rather, she had died of quote,
strangulation from a wedge of towel stuffed down her throat.
So that is bleak.
That is horrific.
She suffocated.
Suffocated while choking.
While she'll have down her throat.
Oh.
It makes you have to take a deep breath.
I can't even imagine.
Oh, that's...
That is so brutal and vile.
That's the thing. That's like really brutal.
It is.
Web estimated that the death had occurred
about 8 to 12 hours prior to when
Georgia's body was discovered and her stomach contents indicated that she'd eaten a snack of
canned string beads and melon an hour or two before she died. So it seemed like she just left work,
went home, had a snack, she had changed into her PJs. Like, like it was just getting ready for bed, really, it seemed like.
So somebody just came in this house. Now trigger warning for sexual assault here.
In addition to the cause of death, the autopsy noted that Georgia had experienced a rather
violent sexual assault just before her death, which explained why she was discovered wearing
only her pajama top. While the bottoms were found at the foot of the bed, she had abrasions on her hands and her face,
and the knuckles on her right hand, quote,
were smashed and bruised.
Oh.
Other injuries included a large contusion
on the right side of her head, quote,
as could be caused by a fist blow.
Oh, my God.
And a similar injury on her abdomen.
On her right thigh, and this is particularly bleak,
Webb found a, quote, bruised imprint of a hand
even to the fingernail marks piercing the skin.
My God, this person is like a monster, like a rabid animal.
Literally.
What the fuck?
And like that's from like holding her down, you assume,
and like the force with which they must have been holding her.
To bruise someone?
To bruise down to the fingernails.
And it seems like she fought like hell.
Tooth and nail, it seems.
For her knuckles to be all bruised and smashed,
like she was, oh, and that's even worse.
And she had clearly tried to get away
and that's why there were contusions.
And she's in an apartment too.
I'm like, did anyone hear anything?
Yeah.
Oh no.
Yup.
From what investigators could tell,
Georgette had left the Hollywood canteen around 1130
that night and arrived home about 10 or 15 minutes later,
where, like I said earlier, she changed into pajamas
and made herself a snack, just getting ready for bed.
Yeah.
And this timeline was supported by Georgette's downstairs neighbor
who told police he heard the sound of high heels on the floor
just a little after 1130, followed shortly by a, a quote crash as if somebody dropped a tray or something and then silence so you can understand why he didn't
Absolutely your neighbors drop shit all the time. Oh, yeah, I would live in an apartment building
You know you're not calling the police and for every like small like a crash that you're probably waiting a second to be like
Do I hear anything else like maybe that was just someone dropping something
I was probably waiting a second to be like, do I hear anything else?
Like maybe that was just someone dropping something.
According to her friends,
Georgette was a creature of habit
and this was all in keeping with her bedtime routine,
which is why everyone who knew her insisted
that she wouldn't have let her attacker
in the apartment willingly at that hour.
They quote, swore Georgette would have never entertained
while in her pajamas.
So like she wouldn't have opened the door in her pajamas.
Yeah, she was ready to go to sleep.
This is, this seems like it was just,
she was doing what she does before bed.
Yeah.
And somebody surprised her, it sounds like.
Sounds like, and you wanna say like, did somebody break in?
But then you think she had given her keys
to people previously.
Unfortunately, yeah.
Unfortunately.
Around 2.30 a.m. now this is when I'm like,
hmm, another of Georgeette's neighbors was awoken
when he heard a woman screaming.
Oh, come on.
In one of the nearby apartments.
He later told a reporter,
I sat right up in bed and listened.
It was a feminine voice screaming,
stop, stop, you're killing me.
What the fuck?
Then I didn't hear anymore
and I decided it was just a family row.
It was just a family row?
And she's yelling, stop, stop, you're killing me? Even if it's a family row. It was just a family row and she's yelling, stop, stop, you're killing me.
Even if it's a family row, that's called domestic violence.
Call someone and like call someone.
It's a different time.
People didn't want to get involved in shit.
It's a different time,
but you still have a goddamn brain in your head, don't you?
Stop, stop, you're killing me.
I'm sorry, I hear someone yelling,
stop, stop, you're killing me.
I'm at least calling to be like,
I don't know what's going on, but.
This is where I heard this.
This is what I heard.
This was unfortunately the last time
anyone would hear anything from George Epp hour drive.
Oh, that's awful.
That's awful.
Truly.
That's like really upsetting.
Everything about it is upsetting,
but hearing that somebody heard her screaming,
stop, stop your killing.
And for them, their reason to be,
I thought it was a,
you mean you thought it was somebody beating their wife.
And I just didn't want to get involved.
And you just didn't want to get involved in that when she's saying, you're killing me?
Come on, dude.
That's on another level.
So if you heard the next day that some wife had been beaten to death by her husband,
would you be like, oh, well, it was a family row?
Yeah.
No.
No, not at all.
That irritates me.
Same.
After the scene was processed and statements were taken,
investigators determined the only things that were missing
were $100 from George Atzperce and Connie's Green Coupe,
the car that they both shared.
Yeah.
The car was discovered actually later that afternoon,
about 12 miles from the apartment on St.
Pedro Street, excuse me, out of gas,
with the keys still in the ignition.
The car was immediately processed for fingerprint evidence
to be compared with the quote unquote,
thousands of fingerprints collected from the apartment
with the hope that they could later match
the prints to a suspect.
Yeah, they're hoping it's somebody who had been
in the apartment before left fingerprints this time.
Yeah.
And then they're on the car, which,
good police work for the time.
Yeah, the time, for sure.
Aside from the blood evidence on the floor
that the killer had apparently tried to clean up,
there was also a number of cigarettes
stubbed out on the living room floor.
That also likely belonged to the killer
since Georgia didn't smoke.
Yeah.
And most importantly, her diary was discovered
among the scattered bedclothes.
Wow.
Georgia was known to keep detailed records of her dating and social activities.
So investigators hoped that the book,
which contained scores of references to civilians
and servicemen, would provide as a lead
to identify the killer, like any kind of lead.
I mean, if she's keeping those kind of records.
Based on everything investigators
had learned about Georgette's life,
they concluded that the killer was not someone she was close to,
but was more likely somebody
who she had recently met and extended some amount of generosity or hospitality towards.
Which, when you think about that, her killer was likely someone she met just recently and
was kind to.
Yeah.
And had maybe given somewhere to stay, maybe help them out in some way.
Wild. Yeah.
Absolutely wild.
Rose Gilbert, her father secretary,
told investigators about Georgette's tendency
to give rides to soldiers, saying she had the means to do it,
and she was interested in servicemen.
She used to show them the sights and foot the bills.
Given what they'd learned, investigators
focused their investigation on the men
that she'd been seen with at the canteen on the night of the murder, starting with the soldier who kept
cutting in on her all the time and forcing her to jitterbug with him.
Although the pool of potential suspects was really quite large, there being soldiers actually
worked to the benefit of the investigators because they could narrow their focus.
As Dowd points out, quote, any soldier who missed curfew would have
been noted down as going AWOL, which allowed detectives to rule out large pools of suspects.
Which that's pretty interesting. Yeah, that is a good way of doing it.
It is. Yeah.
This included the dark and husky soldier who had harassed Georgette all night, later identified
as Captain Cosmo Volpe. Oh.
He was confirmed as having been back at the base during the window that Georgette was
believed to have been murdered.
Oh, interesting.
So, he was just kind of a creep, not a murderer.
He was just being a creep that night, but not a murdering creep.
Yes.
Having ruled out so many men so quickly, within a week of the murder, investigators found
themselves at what appeared to be a dead end in the investigation, with their most significant
evidence, fingerprints collected from the scene, proving to be virtually worthless.
Yeah.
The only match between the prints in the car and the prints in the apartment were Georgia.
Oh man.
Yeah.
And the only suspects they had thus far, two soldiers and part-time janitors at the El
Polatio apartments had offered solid alibis and they were released from custody soon after being brought in for questioning.
So every time it seems like, you know, like June tells them, well, there was this weird
soldier that was like forcing her to dance with him all night.
They check that out.
He's got an alibi.
He checks out.
They find these two janitors who also happen to be soldiers, alibi.
Yep.
Now, after less than a week, the large pool of servicemen suspects had been whittled down
to none.
And the theory of the killer being a soldier was actually pretty much abandoned.
Oh, wow.
About five days into the investigation, detectives received a letter from a soldier in Sacramento
who claimed to have received a ride from Georgia between 11 p.m. and midnight on the evening
she was killed.
This soldier explained that the driver of the car matched the descriptions and photos
that he'd seen of Georgette in the papers, and she had excitedly told him about her plans
to visit her boyfriend in Texas in the days that followed.
Oh yeah.
So he had insider information.
After ruling him out as a suspect, investigators were confident that the killer wasn't a soldier
from the canteen because Georgette had been alone when she picked this guy up and presumably then drove
home immediately after dropping him off.
Yeah, and look at her, she's picking up hitchhiker.
Yeah. Soldiers.
Like, she's even given them rides.
Yeah.
When the investigation began, there seemed to be a wealth of suspects and leads,
but just a week later, nearly all of those leads and suspects have been
ruled out or shown themselves to be worthless.
And detectives found themselves at really a loss for where to go next.
Yeah.
The predominant theory was that Georgette's killer had arrived to the apartment shortly after she'd
gotten back from work, allowing her time to get into her pajamas and then eat something.
And then after unscrewing the bulb outside the door, he somehow convinced her to let him inside,
where he attacked and sexually assaulted her in the bedroom,
stepping a piece of towel in her mouth to prevent her from screaming.
And once he realized that she'd been strangled to death, the killer threw her body in the bathtub, turned on the water,
tried to clean up quickly, and then turned out her purse in search of her car keys and flood the apartment and took the money too.
Given that a considerable number of values have been left behind,
it's most likely and the detectives believe that the motive was most likely sexual assault. Yeah, it seems like it was. I think the car was incidental. It was just a getaway.
Mm-hmm. And I honestly think the fact that she died was
not what this person intended actually.
Yeah, I think it was like, oh shit.
Exactly. Exactly.
Yeah.
Which is so sad.
So without any new evidence, investigators began to consider alternative theories as to
how Georgette died and turned to the last person to have seen her alive, who was Sergeant Gordon
Adlent, the serviceman who she picked up hitchhiking on her way home.
He had been cleared as a suspect and detectives didn't think he was involved.
But something he said in his letter made them wonder if the crime had occurred somewhere
else.
Because according to him, when Georgette let him out of the car, quote, she turned north
of Sunset Boulevard, which would have taken her into the Hollywood Hills or into San
Fernando Valley instead of back to her apartment.
So she took a weird turn. So investigators
theorize that she could have traveled to the valley to meet a serviceman that she had met earlier
that evening and after attacking and killing her, quote, he might have driven with her body
in the car to her apartment to set a stage to baffle the later investigation.
I don't know about that.
It's a little shaky for me.
Yeah, I don't think so.
That seems, that's messy.
That's a messy, I don't like that one.
Very tenuous.
Yeah, it doesn't seem likely.
No.
I'd be shocked if that was the case.
I don't think it is.
The new theory was developed when detectives
reversed their earlier belief and once again
established that the murder was most likely committed by a serviceman.
Wow.
And this was based on the coroner's discovery that the cloth removed from Georgia's throat
was actually an elastic cotton bandage.
Oh.
Not a washcloth, the kind used by servicemen in the military.
Oh.
Interesting.
But the problem with this theory that, you know, she had met somebody, gotten killed
and then they drove her back to the apartment.
Got killed in the house where like the blood.
It ignored all the other evidence.
Yeah.
Like you were just gonna say.
In order for this to have been the case, one, the killer would have had to spend time
at the scene smoking cigarettes.
And remember, like you were just saying, somebody transferred blood onto the floor.
In the bed.
In the bed, which obviously happened during a fight there.
Yeah, absolutely.
And it also ignored the fact that Georgette had clearly been home long enough to eat
something before the killer arrived.
Exactly.
They said at least like an hour.
Right.
And the fact that her neighbors had hurt her on at least two occasions.
Yes.
Saying, stop, stop, you're going to kill me.
Exactly.
So given that this theory was quickly abandoned.
I'm glad. But just the fact that they even like, were like, maybe. Why even going to kill me. Exactly. So given that this theory was quickly abandoned. I'm glad.
But just the fact that they even like,
Why even bring that one up?
Yeah.
Like, that's one of those,
That's one of those you bring up out loud to like the rest of the investigators and
as you're saying it, you go, I now realize that this is definitely not the case, but
I had to say it out loud.
Yeah, as you're saying it, you're like,
Yeah, I'm not gonna finish that one.
No, just had to say it to you guys.
Let's not let it leave this room.
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While the second theory had been dismissed as far-fetched, it still emphasized the fact that
aside from the unusual nature of the bandage, investigators had almost no evidence or leads
that would point them toward the killer.
So as a result, they began grasping for any ideas
that could explain the murder
and possibly point them in a new direction.
Two weeks after Georgette's death,
Lieutenant Garner Brown,
one of the lead investigators on the case,
held a press conference
where he laid out yet another new theory.
According to him, Georgette at times failed to draw the curtains and her slayer may have watched her preparations to
retire before gaining entrance to the Hollywood apartment where she was raped and strangled.
That, that to me seems more likely. That seems plausible to me for sure.
Whatever the killer's motivation or trigger event, the trail quickly went cold and by
by the end of October, the investigation had completely stalled out.
The story had all but disappeared from papers.
But then on December 28th, hey, my birthday, my birthday, 22 year old former Navy seaman
John Sumter walked into the FBI in their office in San Francisco.
I just walked into the FBI. Just walked into the FBI.
And confessed to the murder of Georgia Bauerdorf.
According to him, they had met on a street car
earlier that day.
He told her he was out of money and looking for work.
He said, she told me this was no time for a man
to be broke because there were jobs everywhere.
That sounds like her.
Yeah, right.
And he claimed that the two then arranged to meet another soldier at her apartment later
that night and a little after midnight when the other soldier left Georgia's apartment,
he attacked and killed her and then fled the apartment.
Any hope that he was the killer quickly faded after hearing his story, which contradicted
literally all of the evidence and information collected so far.
Inspector Franca Hearn told the press, obviously all are repetitions of the evidence and information collected so far. Yeah. Inspector Frank Ahern told the press,
obviously all are repetitions of the magazine article.
Yeah.
Referring to the magazine that he was quite literally holding
when he entered the FBI's office.
Awesome.
Yeah.
He's very mentally ill, man.
Yeah.
Obviously.
It turned out he had been dishonorably discharged
from the military before being court-martialed
for check fraud, and it appeared he was just seeking attention when he confessed to the
murder.
Wow.
The next day, the press reported the incident, describing him as a, quote, slack-jawed, shabbily
dressed man who had 20 cents in cash and a check for $1.5 million signed by himself
and made to cash in his pockets.
Wow. Yeah. Okay.
Two days later, the LA County deputy sheriff held a press conference where he
declared Sumter a phony and told reporters, I'm not, I'm satisfied.
He's not the man.
Oh, her poor family.
And to get hope that maybe there was going to be some kind of justice.
Yeah. Exactly.
According to a spokesperson for the sheriff's department, some said he had confessed to
the murder because he said, I wanted to die in the chair because I had nothing to live
for but I was afraid to commit suicide.
Wow, that's really sad.
So bleak.
Yeah.
It's not, it doesn't excuse what he did but it's like-
No, but what a sad-
Wow, that's awful.
Way to exist.
Yeah. doesn't excuse what he did, but it's like, wow, that's awful. Way to exist.
Yeah.
So he was held on a charge of vagrancy, and police in San Francisco expected that after
going before a judge, he would be sent to quote a psychopathic ward at San Francisco
Hospital for observation.
Yeah.
It's a very sad end there.
Yeah.
Now, once the story of his confession receded from the headlines, the case once again went
cold for several months until a strange new lead gave investigators reason to hope that
this case might soon be solved.
In late September of 1945, a schoolgirl in Los Angeles discovered what investigators
described as a rambling note in which the writer confessed to being George S. Killer.
This letter was typewritten so weird.
It was typewritten and smeared in what appeared to be iodine
stains. And the note read, to the Los Angeles police, almost a year ago, Georgette Bauerdorf,
age 20, Hollywood canteen hostess, was murdered in her apartment in West Hollywood. Between
now and October 11th, a year after her death, the one who murdered her will appear at the
Hollywood canteen. The murderer will be in uniform.
He has since committed the murder, been in action at Okinawa.
The murder of Georgette Bauerdorf was divine retribution.
Let the Los Angeles police arrest the murderer if they can.
What the fuck?
It was very strange.
Lieutenant Garner Brown declared that the note was likely prepared by a youthful prankster.
But the police still kept an eye on the Hollywood canteen just to be sure, which had since closed.
It wasn't even open.
Oh, wow.
The author of the note was never identified.
They never found anybody outside the Hollywood canteen.
And Brown's theory of a hoax was believed to have been true.
Jeez.
This reminds me of like, it's very Black doll, you ask. Strange, you should mention that.
Oh, is that part of this?
We are going to touch on that very briefly.
That is really, you're a little psychic over there.
It's like, it just has that vibe to it, like the Hollywood of it all.
Forties.
The forties of it all.
And then all these people confessing to it, like that's a strange thing. You know, like it's very much.
So the final new lead that year came
when investigators arrested 61 year old Henry Lynch,
a plumber and quote unquote self-appointed sleuth
who claimed he had been collecting evidence
for the past year and was not able to solve the case.
Oh.
And the days leading up to his arrest,
he had just been seen loitering outside of the apartments
where Georgia had lived.
And whenever he was asked what he was doing there, he said he was working on the Bauerdorf
case.
Oh.
After investigating his alibi and talking to family members, they determined that Lynch
was what would today be described as a citizen investigator.
And he was released from custody and just told to stay away from the apartment complex.
Because they were like...
He's somebody who would be on the internet trying to solve a case.
Exactly.
Yeah.
The final suspect in the case was questioned in 1950
when police arrested corporal Chester Vuchas in Sausalito.
Vuchas was believed to have strangled an 18-year-old woman
on a public footpath in Los Angeles.
And investigators thought that there were enough similarities
between the cases that he could possibly be the killer
But when they arrived in Sausalito, they discovered that he would have only been 16 years old at the time that George
Out was murdered and while it wasn't completely out of the question
They just felt he was very unlikely to be the killer. Yeah, I
Don't I'm like we've heard a lot of six. I mean 16 year olds can be very adult when it comes to what the
shit they do.
Exactly.
So I'm like, I feel like maybe that was thrown out a little too quickly.
I get why they're like, it would be a little unlikely, but like, you can't really.
You can't totally throw that out the window.
You don't know what kind of 16 year old he was.
And I don't know his build or anything like that.
Like I, you see 16 year olds and you're like, you're 16.
Yeah. Like you look like a giant.
Exactly.
A short time later though, he was also acquitted
of the murder of the young woman in Los Angeles.
So I think maybe that one hand would be good.
That probably helped.
Now, when the investigation into George
at Bauerdorf's murder began,
detectives felt like they had more than enough evidence
to find the killer.
But just a few months later, when that suspect pool started narrowing down and
with all the evidence stripped away, all they really had was a few cigarette butts
and some fingerprints that had no matches and an unusual bandage that was used in the murder.
So with no more leads or evidence to be found, the case quickly went cold.
And by the end of the decade, it was just shelved alongside countless other murders in Los Angeles. Open, but inactive. Oh, that's so inviolating. But when the dead
and mutilated body of actress Elizabeth Short, aka the Black Dahlia, was discovered in a vacant
lot in LA a few years later, some in law enforcement and the press actually thought there may have
been a connection between the two. And that was based largely on the fact that the main suspect in the Black Dahlia case
also would have had access to the medical grade bandage used in Georgette's death.
But that theory has mostly been debunked.
Today, Georgette's murder remains unsolved.
And unlike the Black Dahlia and so many other high-profile Hollywood murders,
it's really been mostly forgotten by the public.
So that's why I wanted to pick this one and talk about it.
It's not a super...
Because I've never heard of it.
I had neither.
I was looking for cases actually on TikTok
and I found a couple videos that talked about her.
And I was like, I've never heard of that.
And Dave and I started looking into it and I was like,
it's enough for an episode.
Yeah, absolutely.
And who knows? Somebody could still be alive though.
Yeah, you never know.
Saw something that night or...
You never know.
I hope that hopefully someday it gets solved.
Aw, poor Georgia.
I know, it's a really sad story.
Like I said, she just seemed like a cool girl who would have liked a landed au revoir.
Yeah.
And just like...
She would have had like a charity set up by now, I think.
Yeah, she was just that girl that was like,
I got coffee today, don't worry about it.
Yeah, exactly.
It sounds like she's just that like, you know.
Or like you're down on your luck
and she's like, crash on my couch.
Yeah, she's like whatever, don't worry about it.
She just seemed like a really
like empathetic person.
Horrific end.
Yeah, it's really awful.
Wow.
So yeah, that one was really sad.
I'm really sorry.
But again, I hope it gets solved someday. I do too.
You never know.
Yeah.
But in the meantime, we hope you keep listening.
And we hope you.
Keep it weird.
But I'm sorry that you give anybody the keys to your apartment.
Don't do that.
Don't do that.
Don't do that. Music Follow Morbid on the Wondery app, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts.
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