Speaker 1: Well.
Speaker 2: One of the survivors of the fire happened to be
Speaker 2: one seventy five seventy five Pacific Coast Highway. It is
Speaker 2: a nineteen twenties Mediterranean style home, imposing architecture it is
Speaker 2: said to have and it is the scene of our
Speaker 2: True Crime Tuesday.
Speaker 3: The story is true, sounds true?
Speaker 1: No, it sounds made up.
Speaker 3: I don't know. Gary and Shannon present True Crime.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 2: One seventy five seventy five pch has stood for almost
Speaker 2: one hundred years. It has lasted the test of time.
Speaker 2: Many stories come out of this property as well. Like
Speaker 2: I said, it's a Mediterranean style building, arches resembling gateways
Speaker 2: to a lost world. You've driven by it, but not
Speaker 2: everybody who was driven by it knows. The story of Thelmatod.
Speaker 2: Thelma Todd died mysteriously one cold night in nineteen thirty
Speaker 2: five in the foggy streets of castele Mayre above.
Speaker 1: Is that how I say it? Trustell a mare.
Speaker 2: At the time, it was one of the most widely
Speaker 2: covered stories in LA history. Her last night was haunted
Speaker 2: and it has confounded La for almost a century. It
Speaker 2: was December sixteenth, nineteen thirty five, and Thelmatod was twenty nine.
Speaker 2: She was leaving home for a party with her mother.
Speaker 2: She descended the stairs in her beautiful, glimmering blue evening gown,
Speaker 2: blue heels, and mink coat draped around her shoulders. Her
Speaker 2: chocolate brown Lincoln convertible was parked in the streets of
Speaker 2: the restaurant, the sidewalk cafe there that was actually called
Speaker 2: the Velmouth Todd Sidewalk Cafe. It was her car, the Lincoln,
Speaker 2: in the garage of her lover and business partner, filmmaker
Speaker 2: Roland West.
Speaker 1: He puts Thelma Todd.
Speaker 2: And her mother into the car for the night, and
Speaker 2: he tells her to be back by two am, because
Speaker 2: remember they're going to a party. She was going to
Speaker 2: drop her mom off on sunset. On the way, she
Speaker 2: gives him a look, rolls her eyes and says, well,
Speaker 2: then I'll be back at two five.
Speaker 3: Well, he says, just so you know, the door's going
Speaker 3: to be locked into Missy or something along those lines.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 3: This party. They had become business partners, by the way,
Speaker 3: when they opened a cafe on the ground floor of
Speaker 3: what a community center for a sort of a neighborhood
Speaker 3: that never really took off. Over there. It was far
Speaker 3: enough away from the amenities of Hollywood and the burgeoning
Speaker 3: West Side of la that it never really gained the
Speaker 3: sort of notoriety that it would decades later after the
Speaker 3: heydays of Hollywood, after the Depression, etc. So nineteen thirty
Speaker 3: four they opened this Thelmatod's Sidewalk Cafe and hoping that
Speaker 3: it would draw people from Hollywood down around the corner
Speaker 3: of the Palisades and get them some tourism business. Among
Speaker 3: other things. She was the hostess of the restaurant. She
Speaker 3: would welcome people with this warmth that they had seen
Speaker 3: her display as her career as an actress on screen,
Speaker 3: And for about a year and a half they actually
Speaker 3: said this was sort of a great description, a great
Speaker 3: example of what could happen post depression.
Speaker 2: They say that this was an early vision of everything
Speaker 2: the Pacific Palisades would eventually represent. A glamorous and close
Speaker 2: knit community in Paradise.
Speaker 3: Close knit because, among other things, Roland West's first wife,
Speaker 3: whom he was estranged from, still lived in his house.
Speaker 3: She stayed in a tower above the house, and he
Speaker 3: moved into the living quarters above the cafe so he
Speaker 3: could keep an eye in the business. But of course
Speaker 3: she Felma Todd moves into her own quarters, also on
Speaker 3: the second floor. Mm and while they weren't married, they
Speaker 3: were probably doing married things.
Speaker 2: Now, who was Selma Todd Well, She had been a
Speaker 2: film star since nineteen twenty five, so for about ten years.
Speaker 2: After she left her career as a school teacher in Massachusetts,
Speaker 2: she signed with Paramount. She was known for her work
Speaker 2: in comedy. She would play the straight woman with the beauty.
Speaker 2: She was a foil. She was in Laurel and hearty things.
Speaker 2: She worked with the Marx Brothers and things like that.
Speaker 2: They say that she kind of embodied the emergency, emerging
Speaker 2: kind of modern woman. That she played socialites, but socialites
Speaker 2: with an elegant knowingness and wit that they say would
Speaker 2: become the hallmark of people like Carol Lombard Gene Harlowe.
Speaker 2: They said that her beauty was as classical as the
Speaker 2: statue of Venus. She had become though America's ice cream blonde.
Speaker 1: She was the epitome of new society.
Speaker 2: So that's where she was when she was operating this
Speaker 2: sidewalk cafe with the lever Roland West, with the ex
Speaker 2: wife and the tower above.
Speaker 1: So she.
Speaker 3: Goes to the party December sixteenth, nineteen thirty five. Her
Speaker 3: chauffeur drives her to the Trocadero nightclub on sunset for
Speaker 3: this party thrown by a couple of high profile actors
Speaker 3: and their daughter, a seventeen year old daughter the future
Speaker 3: actor Ida Lupino. So she goes from table to table.
Speaker 3: She's a star, she's been in movies. She's saying hello
Speaker 3: to everybody. She sees her ex husband there, the chichio,
Speaker 3: the chichio, the.
Speaker 1: Chichio, chichioh I think we learned.
Speaker 3: Okay, he was an actor's agent. He was a full
Speaker 3: time mob guy turned playboy, been pretty cruel to her
Speaker 3: during their marriage, and when they divorced, that's when she
Speaker 3: went over and started hooking up with Roland West. Well,
Speaker 3: they said that a bunch of people said that they
Speaker 3: appeared to kind of have bitterness between them, Yeah, because
Speaker 3: it's their exes.
Speaker 2: Well, and he had a date with him, and he
Speaker 2: shouldn't even have been invited to that party. Allegedly, some
Speaker 2: say that she just left, that Thelma Toad just left,
Speaker 2: but some did report the bitterness that you talk about.
Speaker 1: That the daughter of the stars throwing the party.
Speaker 2: Later testified that she and Uh and Thelma Toad had
Speaker 2: a private conversation in the loo, where Thelma Toad had
Speaker 2: been beside herself, very upset over the whole thing.
Speaker 3: So she eventually goes back out to her car. It's
Speaker 3: about three in the morning. She slides into the backseat.
Speaker 3: Her chauffeur says that she is unusually quiet. They say
Speaker 3: they don't know how much champagne that she had. It
Speaker 3: would have been anybody's guess. So he offers. The chauffeur
Speaker 3: offers to drop her off at her house, and she
Speaker 3: asks to be let out just past where sunset meets
Speaker 3: pch again. This is nineteen thirty five. There's no street
Speaker 3: lights out there. The only sound is the wind through
Speaker 3: the cypress trees, the waves crashing just a short time
Speaker 3: to just short distance south. It was a little after
Speaker 3: three p forty five. In her evening gown, she climbs
Speaker 3: up that flight of stairs through the mist towards the
Speaker 3: second floor of her restaurant. That was the last anybody
Speaker 3: saw her alive. Is that what it right?
Speaker 2: Yeah, we're in the midst of our true crime Tuesday.
Speaker 2: It is the mystery of what happened to Thelma Todd
Speaker 2: where we left you. Thelma Todd was with filmmaker Roland West.
Speaker 2: They lived in the Pacific palis Side, the Palisades area.
Speaker 2: She was shacking up with him. His ex wife lived
Speaker 2: in a tower above. They ran thelmatod sidewalk cafe there,
Speaker 2: very popular little eatery there which they said would come
Speaker 2: to define the Pacific Palisades in terms of tight knit glamour.
Speaker 2: And she left for a party December nineteen thirty five.
Speaker 2: She had her mother with her and she was going
Speaker 2: to drop her mom off on sunset, makes her way
Speaker 2: to the party, finds her ex husband is there with
Speaker 2: a date. She is upset, doesn't roll back into her
Speaker 2: car with the chauffeur till about three am. By all accounts,
Speaker 2: maybe some tipsy, some tipsiness, so anyway, she at the
Speaker 2: time refused. The chauffeurs offered a drop her off at
Speaker 2: her doorstep and asked to be let out just past
Speaker 2: where Sunset meets pH No street lights are on the
Speaker 2: road in nineteen thirty five, only the sound of wind
Speaker 2: and the waves. This was a little after three forty
Speaker 2: five am. She was in her blue sparkling evening gown
Speaker 2: and she began the slow ascent up the flight of
Speaker 2: stairs to PCH from sunset through the mist towards the
Speaker 2: second floor of her restaurant. I shouldn't say from PCH
Speaker 2: up to the property.
Speaker 3: That same blue evening gown is what she was wearing
Speaker 3: when she was found dead the next day behind the
Speaker 3: wheel of her Lincoln in the garage below the building.
Speaker 2: She looked flawless. She looked as if she had fallen asleep.
Speaker 2: No violence had been done to her.
Speaker 3: Now her death was ruled accident caused by carbon monoxide poison.
Speaker 3: The assumption was she got home, she's locked out, maybe,
Speaker 3: and then goes back into the stairs, up the stairs
Speaker 3: to try to find shelter in the unlocked garage, might
Speaker 3: have turned on the car to get warm. She's in
Speaker 3: the closed space. Carbon monoxide.
Speaker 2: That sounds like Ockham's razor. Right, But this is Hollywood,
Speaker 2: so there has to be conspiracy theories and rumors, doesn't there?
Speaker 1: Yes, there does.
Speaker 2: Rumors quickly spread that the filmmaker guy was in a
Speaker 2: jealous rage and that he killed her, maybe in their
Speaker 2: apartment or even on his yacht, then took her to
Speaker 2: the car to make it look like an accident. Then
Speaker 2: there was the conspiracy theory that he, the filmmaker, and
Speaker 2: his ex wife conspired together and killed her. There was
Speaker 2: gossip that Thelma Todd was involved with a bad crowd
Speaker 2: through that previous marriage to the guy she saw that night.
Speaker 2: He was connected to the mafia, and they said that
Speaker 2: it was the mob's revenge for her saying no when
Speaker 2: they wanted to open up gambling tables at the sidewalk cafe.
Speaker 3: All of this comes to a head with this inquest
Speaker 3: where the director lover, his estranged former film star wife,
Speaker 3: the maid, the chauffeur, the ex husband with the gangster ties.
Speaker 3: Every single one of them takes turns testifying about her death.
Speaker 3: But the facts seemed to unravel when you looked at
Speaker 3: him a little bit closer. Some small element would throw
Speaker 3: the investigation into shambles, like there were drops of blood
Speaker 3: on the running board outside of the car, the long
Speaker 3: climb from pch to the garage, the lack of any
Speaker 3: physical trauma on Thelma. There was testimony also from a
Speaker 3: friend of Thelma's who claimed that she'd received a phone
Speaker 3: call from her on Sunday at four pm, hours after
Speaker 3: she would have died and would have already been lifeless
Speaker 3: in that Lincoln in the.
Speaker 2: Garage murder accident or suicide. The filmmaker, by the way
Speaker 2: that she was banging around with, tried to reopen Thelma
Speaker 2: Toad's sidewalk cafe just days after her body was found. Tourists,
Speaker 2: conspiracy theorists flooded the place. They stole souvenirs from the restaurant.
Speaker 2: They wanted to walk up those fateful stairs. They wanted
Speaker 2: to come to their own conclusions. See, we don't change
Speaker 2: that much, that much, folks, One hundred years later, we
Speaker 2: do the same damn thing. Guests recalled the eeriness of
Speaker 2: being seated by the filmmaker himself while lover came back
Speaker 2: to me played on a duke box. Cafe closed after
Speaker 2: a few months. It never reopened to the public. Did
Speaker 2: you see the part there were?
Speaker 3: At one point, Shelley Winters was taken by Howard Hughes
Speaker 3: to that cafe on a date that when there was
Speaker 3: no one else there.
Speaker 2: Sounds about right for Howard Hughes. The odd fellow that
Speaker 2: he was.
Speaker 3: Wearing is klean xboxes on his feet. Now, the flames
Speaker 3: from the Palisades fire came close to Castillo del Mar,
Speaker 3: the home, but they said that it is still standing,
Speaker 3: and the turquoise blue garage doors, which are still visible
Speaker 3: from outside what would have been the last place she
Speaker 3: was alive in that car still standing.
Speaker 2: So what do you think it was? I think it
Speaker 2: was the carbon monoxide. I think that's probably the best. Yeah,
Speaker 2: you're right, it's Oukham's raised. The easiest, easiest explanation is
Speaker 2: probably she's in her party dress. She's already got a
Speaker 2: little attitude, telling the guy, well, i'll be him at
Speaker 2: two o five if you're going to lock the door too.
Speaker 2: There's already a power struggle going on there. And she
Speaker 2: doesn't come home until three forty five, three forty five,
Speaker 2: and she's full of champagne, and why wouldn't you lock
Speaker 2: your door by three forty five am?
Speaker 1: And you know she wants to stay warm, so she
Speaker 1: goes in the car.
Speaker 3: Sometime when guys didn't give gals their house key?
Speaker 1: Are you kidding?
Speaker 3: I don't.
Speaker 2: I don't even have a house key. And it's twenty
Speaker 2: twenty four safer that way for him,