Jean Spangler's 1949 Hollywood Disappearance Mystery (Complete)
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00:00Gene Spangler. You've probably never heard of her. Gene was one of thousands of beautiful
00:09wannabes who came to Hollywood hell-bent on silver screen glory. But Gene's dreams never
00:14came true. Spangler mysteriously vanished on October 7th, 1949.
00:19Be very unusual to disappear. Although the black dahlia, that might have been around
00:25the time that Genie disappeared. This case was to missing persons what the
00:30black dahlia murder was to homicides. It had enough twists and turns to rival any Raymond
00:37Chandler novel. For some strange, inexplicable reason, it had been swept under the carpet.
00:42Well, it's time for a little Hollywood house cleaning, folks. The cast of characters involved
00:46in Gene Spangler's strange disappearance include disgruntled ex-lovers, a backroom abortionist,
00:50a mob kingpin, and a major movie star. I think somebody high up may have been the
00:56father of that child she was going to abort, and she was going to shake him down for a
01:00payment. One of the detectives on the case said the
01:03one thing we found out about this girl is she got around. I mean, she dated everybody.
01:09And it wasn't just show business people, it was gangsters.
01:13On this episode of Mysteries and Scandals, we'll explore this bizarre case and examine
01:16a gallery of suspects, one of whom may have gotten away with the perfect crime.
01:21I wanted somebody to pay for her disappearance. If it was an abortion, it would have been
01:29a homicide, not a murder. Now, if her husband killed her, that's a murder. There's a big
01:35difference. Yeah, like the difference between 10 years
01:37and 10,000 volts. I'm A.J. Benza. Take a walk on the mean streets of Hollywood as we try
01:41to figure out what happened to Gene Spangler and why.
02:06This is Hollywood, a place, an industry, a state of mind.
02:10Hollywood is more than a trade name. It is a symbol for magic, entertainment and make-believe.
02:20October 7th, 1949 was the last day 26-year-old screen extra Gene Spangler was ever seen by
02:26her family. By all accounts, it was just another day. Kyle Wood is a crime historian who studied
02:32this case for more than a decade. Basically, she left at 5.30 and she came down
02:37the stairs. It was a two-bedroom apartment in the old Metropolitan Insurance Housing
02:40Unit. Sophie, her sister-in-law, was downstairs with Gene's daughter and Sophie's daughter.
02:46And Gene came down the stairs and said, how do I look?
02:51On the eventful night that she disappeared, kissed her daughter goodbye, winked at her
02:58sister-in-law and said, I'm going to a movie shoot and I have to also go by my ex-husband's
03:06house to see if I can get an increase in my child support payments. She never came home.
03:13And the next morning she was reported missing by Sophie, the sister-in-law.
03:18The cops didn't pay much attention to Sophie's call. In a party town like L.A., it's not
03:23unusual for a person to disappear for a night or two. John Austin is the author of Hollywood's
03:28Unsolved Mysteries. So they immediately sent out an APD on radio
03:33and in the infant television of those days. The next day, a Griffith Park ranger walked
03:37into the Ferndale entrance, found a purse lying on the side. He picked it up and saw
03:41one strapped to a bin like ripped off, nipped inside and found all his identification cards
03:45with Gene Spangler from Screen Actors Guild, Screen Actors Guild.
03:49The park ranger called the police. Officer George O'Nam was the first investigator on the scene.
03:54This particular morning, that call came out just about pretty close to dawn. I saw the
04:00purse. I handled the purse. And my partner and I searched the purse. The purse straps
04:05were broken. That indicated some type of a struggle. Other personnel from the police
04:09department came, started to search the bushes and the terrain around there to try to find
04:14and locate a body. The police launched a massive manhunt. Retired
04:18Detective Ralph Astell. Her purse was found in an illogical place.
04:24And I think that somebody woke up to the fact that her purse was in the car and they threw
04:29it out the window. There's only one way that you could cover an area like the Griffith
04:35Park is by horseback. I asked to have the mounted posse to be assigned to this particular
04:43area. They pursued the whole area to look for evidence and or the body.
04:51Nothing turned up. That's when the LAPD shifted its focus to a cryptic note found inside Spangler's
04:57purse. The note said, Kirk can't wait any longer.
05:02Going to see Dr. Scott. It'll work out best this way while mother is away.
05:08That note was analyzed by a police department handwriting expert and that was her writing.
05:13In order to understand what the note meant, investigators went back to the beginning of
05:17Jean's story. And so will we. Jean Spangler was born in Seattle in 1923
05:24and apparently her family moved around quite a bit. But she ended up in Los Angeles
05:30graduating from Franklin High School in 1941. In June of 1942, Jean married her high school
05:36sweetheart, Dexter Benner. The marriage was in trouble right from the beginning.
05:40But then she found out that she was pregnant shortly after the birth of Christine.
05:44April 44, Dexter was inducted into the service. He goes to the South Seas.
05:50She has been seeing this other guy, an Air Force lieutenant named Scotty.
05:56She'd been living with him. They were talking about perhaps getting married.
06:00She goes to an attorney friend that she had and she says, we've blown all the money that
06:06he sent back. Scotty's wrecked his car. On the same day, Dexter returned home from
06:10the war. The couple filed for divorce. Dexter received temporary custody of their
06:14daughter, Christine, because of Jean's infidelity with Lieutenant Scotty.
06:18The lawyer remembers her coming in about four days later with a black eye and tells him
06:22that Scotty, her boyfriend, beat her up, threatened to kill her if she ever tried to leave him.
06:28And she did end up breaking up with him.
06:32Ladies and gentlemen, we present suspect number one, the boyfriend. Was he the one
06:36who'd done it? Well, maybe. Lieutenant Scotty was just one of the many men in the
06:40tangled tale of Jean Spangler. When we come back, more clues and more questions
06:44in this twisted scenario.
06:481948
07:021948 was a busy year for 25-year-old aspiring actress Jean Spangler.
07:06She stored big parts in a couple of big films. But it was Jean's scandalous
07:10real-life drama with her ex-husband that caused a commotion with the L.A. press.
07:14In 1948, Jean tries to regain custody of Christine
07:18away from Dexter. This is a story that was played
07:22out in the front pages of all the Los Angeles newspapers like a soap opera
07:26every day. Dexter launched this smear campaign
07:30in 1948 to discredit Jean on the stand, charging that she
07:34was an unfit mother, that she was a glamour girl.
07:38In 1948, a glamour girl wasn't anyone's idea of a proper young lady.
07:42Maybe she was just one of those girls who was caught up in Hollywood, so to speak.
07:46She liked the nightlife and the dangerous, live-on-the-edge life.
07:50In Hollywood, there was always blurred lines as to what you were going
07:54to do. I mean, the casting couch is notorious. But
07:58that's what you had to do to get into the movies.
08:02Here magic carpets
08:06fly. Rome is built in a day. Flowers bloom in profusion
08:11throughout the seasons. And romance is just around the corner.
08:15Any corner. The Florentine Gardens
08:19and Earl Carroll were the spots to be
08:23seen in, in Hollywood. They were the place
08:27to make contact. Spangler earned extra cash as a showgirl at the famous
08:31Earl Carroll Theater. Betty Bedoin worked with Jean. Primarily
08:35we wore beautiful clothes. Long
08:39skirts, big hoop skirts, and platform soles about
08:43this, this big. She sat next to me at the dressing room.
08:47There was never a dull moment with that girl. She was
08:51an up-person, beautiful personality, and
08:55I don't think she ever had an argument with anyone. Maybe so, but Jean's
08:59party girl persona didn't gel with the image of a devoted mother. She did say
09:03to me one time, she told me that she had to straighten up her act,
09:07because she was afraid she was going to lose custody of her daughter. Oh, she loved her daughter.
09:11Eventually, Jean won custody of four-year-old Christine. Soon after, Spangler's
09:15mother, Florence, moved in to help care for her granddaughter. Jean Spangler
09:19was, she was a person that never sat still. She was
09:23busy all the time. She was always on the go, but she also did a lot of
09:27bit parts and a lot of background work on television.
09:31And she was just working non-stop at the time.
09:35She made pictures with Kirk Douglas and Bob Cummings, and she passed Bob
09:39Cummings on the street one day in the studio, and he said, you look happy. I said, I am. I'm in the middle of a new romance.
09:43It's nothing serious, but it's the time of my life. Evidently, work
09:47was not the only thing on Jean's mind, but just who was she having the time
09:51of her life with? She probably met them in one of Mickey Cohen's
09:55bars on the Sunset Strip. She did have a pinch of a nightlife and rough characters,
09:59including Frank Niccoli and Davey Ogle, who were great henchmen
10:03or henchmen of Mickey Cohen, who used to lead the
10:07mobster gun in this town. I had heard that she was going
10:11around with people from the mob. In the fall of 1949, Jean
10:15confessed to a girlfriend that she was expecting. She told her
10:19that she was three months pregnant, but this was something that Jean was pretty much
10:23tight-lipped about. But Jean didn't mind talking about another little bundle she was
10:27expecting. She told friends she was coming into a great deal of money
10:31any day now, so to speak. If she was going to come into a large sum of money, then it
10:35had to be by extortion, by blackmail. Blackmail, huh? The plot thickens.
10:39So let's say Jean planned to hush up her pregnancy by extorting money
10:43from someone. It stands to reason that someone had a thing or two to lose if word ever
10:47got out that he was sleeping with Spangler. Cut to the evening of October 7,
10:511949. She was reportedly last seen at a
10:55market up the street, and she appeared to be
10:59waiting for somebody. But she was seen in a market close to her home around
11:035.30, quarter to six. He was going to buy a purse for her daughter Christine.
11:07She was in the store about an hour, hour and a half. Between 7 and 7.30 that night,
11:11she calls home to check on her daughter
11:15and tells Sophie, her sister-in-law, that she's at work and
11:19that she will be late. Obviously the person she was waiting for,
11:23she met. If she was picked up by a
11:27stranger, she certainly wouldn't be waiting around a market for
11:31two hours. So somebody picked her up
11:35and she had an expectation of money coming. There was
11:39some sort of altercation and events got out of hand.
11:43Violence occurs. That's one theory, but there are others.
11:47Coming up, a pair of wise guys and one world famous actor are implicated in the puzzling disappearance
11:51of Jean Spangler.
11:57In
12:01October 1949,
12:05the City of Angels was buzzing about the strange
12:09disappearance of 26-year-old actress Jean Spangler. When the initial search came up empty,
12:13police turned their attention to one of the few pieces of hard evidence they had,
12:17a cryptic note written by Jean Spangler herself.
12:21Like I say, her personal life was her life and she was just very
12:25flamboyant and come in and happy, happy all the time.
12:29A very close girlfriend of hers told the police that Jean told them
12:33that she was pregnant. She knew who by, but she'd never tell anybody.
12:37The note read, Kirk, can't wait any longer,
12:41going to see Dr. Scott. It will work best this way while mother is away.
12:45Based on the information given them, investigators figured that Dr. Scott was an abortionist.
12:49Now you've got to remember at that time, abortion was the illegal.
12:53If they used coat hangers or crude tools,
12:57there was a very strong possibility that that person could lose their life
13:01within a matter of minutes.
13:05Now, an abortionist who had boxed an operation, obviously he would have motive to get rid of her
13:09because he didn't want to be found out, but why would he throw away her purse,
13:13thereby causing police to assume a crime had been committed?
13:17Yeah, especially a purse with an incriminating note inside.
13:21It's possible that this individual pennied.
13:25People do a lot of strange things in the heat of the moment.
13:29Apparently there was several Dr. Scots in the area.
13:33There was a Dr. Scott that was supposedly an abortionist
13:37that was operating the Sunset Strip at the time.
13:41He was never found, and it was a dead end.
13:45Detectives switched their focus to the only other name in the note, Kirk.
13:49The first thing that popped in my mind and several other policemen
13:53was probably and possibly Kirk Douglas.
13:57It could have been Kirk anybody, but there wasn't a second name on the note,
14:01and so it was practically impossible to know who they might have been referring to.
14:05So was Kirk Douglas a suspect?
14:09He called the police the next day and said, yes, I remember her. I never dated her.
14:13I did say hello to her. I did speak to her a couple of times on the set, and that's all.
14:17That was very strange. With all the Kirks that are out there,
14:21I was amazed that he called in
14:25before the detectives had a chance to contact him.
14:29Douglas' alibi that he was getting over the flu in Palm Springs passed the police test.
14:33I think she had the abortion in Mexico.
14:37I think she died during the abortion
14:41or immediately afterwards.
14:45Here's a curveball for you.
14:49Turns out Jean wasn't the only person to vanish from Los Angeles that night.
14:53Two of her mobster friends, Davey Ogle and Frank Niccoli, also turned up missing.
14:57Presumably they went for a swim with the fishes. Coincidence?
15:01Davey Ogle, who was a henchman for Mickey Cohen,
15:05and Frank Niccola,
15:09they disappeared right around the same time that she did.
15:13Scheduled to testify on conspiracy charges against Mickey Cohen.
15:17They probably skipped town or were killed by a rival mob
15:21or that Coney had them killed because they might testify against them.
15:25James Spangler had some or many ties with the mob.
15:29The mob got involved. They had received a call to get rid of her
15:33and her body. That was their strong suit
15:37to remove whatever person
15:41might have come up for a hit. In other words, killed.
15:45I was not aware that the mob would go around killing
15:49girls as such. They might beat them up once in a while
15:53but I don't know of them killing anybody.
15:57As the notoriety of the Jean Spangler case grew, so did a number of alleged Jean Spangler sightings.
16:01Police theorized that maybe Jean left town to have her baby and would resurface when it was born.
16:05They sent detectives down to Palm Springs. They sent them all over the Southwest
16:09looking for Nicolay, Ogle or Jean Spangler. She kept showing up everywhere.
16:13She showed up in Las Vegas, in Palm Springs, in Mexico
16:17down south in San Diego. But none of them ever panned out.
16:21This story has more dead ends than Laurel Canyon. But there's one very interesting
16:25piece of information left to reveal. Straight ahead, two other Spangler family members
16:29go MIA and Jean's mom goes to a grave swearing she knows who done it.
16:39It's been more than five decades
16:43since the mysterious disappearance of actress Jean Spangler.
16:47Experts still can't agree on what happened to Jean, why it happened, or who was involved.
16:51There were so many possibilities with Jean Spangler.
16:55Her mob ties, her movie ties, the possibility
16:59of a movie star having impregnated her and
17:03having a child with her.
17:07Having impregnated her and her blackmailing
17:11the movie star. There was just so many sensationalistic
17:15ramifications of the case. The woman,
17:19if she's the victim, is very often painted
17:23in a negative light to explain the gaps
17:27that exist in the case and
17:31almost as if to imply, well, whatever
17:35happened, it was her fault. She was a different
17:39person to everybody and
17:43very chameleonic. Everybody saw somebody
17:47different. Nobody knew, really, who they were dealing with.
17:51So let's recap what may have happened on the night of October 7th,
17:551949. She was in the midst of writing a note and ran into the
17:59Kirk that she was writing the note to. There was a struggle and
18:03the handles were ripped off her purse and
18:07Jean Spangler disappeared. I would say that Spangler was a
18:11victim of an illegal abortion and the body was either
18:15ground up or dumped at sea or buried out in the desert.
18:19I believe that she was impregnated
18:23by Kirk. It seems obvious by the note. Whoever Kirk
18:27is probably who
18:31killed Jean Spangler. The rumor was that she was going with
18:35and she was mixed in with a bunch of gangsters. They didn't say who,
18:39just that she got tangled up with some gangsters.
18:43I think she was with Nikolai and Oberlin. I think something happened to all three of them at the same time.
18:47No, Jean Spangler was not a mob girl.
18:51She was in a gun mall. She hung out with everybody from very
18:55rich and socially prominent men to gangsters.
18:59As the Jean Spangler investigation began to lose steam, the court
19:03battle for custody of her daughter Christine heated up. Jean's mother Florence
19:07duped it out with Christine's father Dexter Benner. Benner and his new wife tried
19:11to force Jean's family out of the picture. He wanted to erase the memory
19:15of Jean from his daughter's memory and they would literally
19:19stand over Jean's mother during the visits and just would not allow her
19:23to talk until eventually they just decided not to let her
19:27come over at all. The custody hearing dragged on for four years.
19:31Dexter missed 14 appearances. Finally, the judge held Benner in contempt
19:35of court. In 1953, a bench warrant was issued for his arrest.
19:39Within days of the warrant, Benner skipped town, taking his wife and Christine with him.
19:43The police never found them. To the day she died, the
19:47acrimony between Florence Spangler and Dexter Benner was the fact that she
19:51considered Dexter Benner responsible for Jean Spangler's disappearance.
19:55But she could never prove it. Dexter Benner declined our invitation for an interview.
19:59He told us his daughter Christine was also not interested. All that's
20:03left of Jean Spangler are secondhand memories. She was a
20:07fighter, a mother that went to bat for her daughter, a mother
20:11who cared for her daughter. She had the perfect face for
20:15a film star. Oval, wide mouth like Julia Roberts,
20:19sparkling eyes, and a great personality. And it's a shame that she never realized
20:23her potential because of what happened to her. She was a hopeful who never got her hopes
20:27fulfilled. You know, it's sad that there's no ending to it when the
20:31body's not found. There's no ending. And you wonder,
20:35hmm, I wonder who killed her.
20:39If she is killed. We don't even know that. There is somebody
20:43out there that knows how Jean Spangler died.
20:47Possibly. Possibly we'll find one
20:51witness somewhere that might want to confess to their knowledge
20:55of that crime. Jean Spangler has no graveside
20:59to mark her passing. Her family has no place to leave flowers in her memory.
21:03I'm A.J. Benza. Join me the next time we meet in a state of mind called Hollywood.
21:07But with missing persons cases,
21:11it's always going to be out there.
21:15You always wonder. And it kind of,
21:19it just gets under your skin.
21:23The years pass and you know the person's never coming back.
21:27But there's always the strange possibility,
21:31maybe remote chance that
21:35you're going to open a door one day and that person's going to be there.