Episode 541: The Unsolved Murder of Georgette Bauerdorf

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Hey weirdos, I'm Elena, I'm Ash, and this is morbid.

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.

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 going to say I didn't.

Sorry to call you out, I knew what you meant, but I was like, wait a second. Actually, I'm tired and 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, and then it's just been a lot of stuff, it's just been busy.

Yeah, super busy, but fun busy.

Yeah, good, busy.

Yeah.

Really not a lot of bad stuff going on, so I'm not going to complain. It's just like everybody's tired because there's just a lot going on.

Well, and we stayed at the Borden House earlier this week too, and that totally fucks up your sleep schedule because we did not sleep, yes.

We stayed with Corinne and Sabrina from two girls, one ghost. We're just like hanging out with podcasters, I know, but we love them all.

I know. 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, yeah.

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, me too, 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.

Oh, and I love Jill. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Black Veil tattoo.

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 a lie, it happened.

This is why these are fascinating, though, because somehow the case at least moves along at some kind of capacity, 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 6th, 1924. She was the second of two children born to George and Constance Bauerdorf.

I was going to 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 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.

The elite.

You know, when Georgette's mother unfortunately passed away in 1935, the family ended up moving to Los Angeles, Whoa, where Georgette continued her education. First at the Marlborough School and then at West Lake School for Girls.

School for girls.

School for girls where she graduated in 1941.

What a time.

Yeah, but like many Americans, the U.S.'s involvement in the war really inspired a great deal of patriotism in Georgette, who immediately looked for opportunities to contribute to the war effort. Just help out, do her thing.

Let's go, girls.

Exactly.

Yeah.

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 DAR. 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, Alayna is going to 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. I was like, I'm going to give you space.

Here's the stage, here it is.

And they even have the triplets singing 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.

Yeah, it's 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, oof, and people have, like, it's like a theme, Yeah, 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 to like escape. What was going on on the outside because, man, people were going through it was bleak.

Quite a bit at that point. 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 a few drinks. Honey while they were on leave.

Oh, damn 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 didn't know about that part.

I didn't know about that part either. That's wild and 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 wild.

Like, that's so cool. Where else can you see that?

Yeah, on any given night, patrons could expect to find the likes of Rita Hayworth serving tables.

Shut 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, it's just forever.

And even Spencer Tracy or Humphrey Bogart washing dishes, what 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 kidding.

They were, like, 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 poise and elegance, on par with the likes of Doris Day and Joan Crawford. You had to look the part 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.

Your elbows will touch like Bette Davis is out there.

Yeah, like, come on, Joan Crawford.

Rita Hayworth.

Maybe Elizabeth Taylor, Shirley Temple, Shirley Temple, I'm for a bell guy.

I'm Dan Taberski. In 2011, something strange began to happen at the high school in Leroy, New York.

I was like at my locker and she came up to me and she was like, stuttering, super bad.

I'm like, stop around.

She's like, I can't.

A mystery illness, bizarre symptoms and spreading fast.

Like doubling and tripling, and it's all these girls.

With a diagnosis, the state tried to keep on the down low. Everybody thought I was holding something back. Well, you were holding something back intentionally. Yeah, yeah.

Leroy was the new dateline and everyone was trying to solve the murder.

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After graduating from high school, Georgette found work at the Los Angeles Times Classifieds 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.

I'm gonna look up.

So the job allowed Georgette 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.

Bummer.

But journalist Dowd 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 dating. Good for you Georgette, you're young, you're out here in the world, yeah.

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-hearted 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 can't be handing keys to people, no?

Absolutely.

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 men are willing to put their lives on, like the front end, to protect our country, 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, Georgette almost certainly didn't need to work. And as a young woman in the early 40s, she would not have been expected to pay for or transport herself to and from dates, but she did both.

What a badass.

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 now. 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.

Oh, this was.

This was unheard of, yeah, and 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.

Oh, 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 as it really is, and that's really sad.

Coming from such a pure place, like I said earlier, 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.

That's adorable.

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.

That sentence....

Is everything.

Jitterbugging with someone against their wishes I know that is an actual thing. Of course, I know that jitterbugging is a dance. So doing that against somebody's wishes is not awesome at all.

No, I'm so glad you did, because I was thinking the exact same thing. Yeah, it's just the sentence.

Actual thing that happened, not funny sentence, funny jitter.Bugging with someone against their wishes seems like it would be 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. Yeah, you know, like you seem like you're just being like, haha.

Lol But no, no, it's awful in real life.

Yeah, it's not great at all. So just again.

Bear with me.

Act not good, sentence hilarious.

According to June Ziegler, Georgette 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. I love it, she really speaks to my soul. Yeah, because I feel that way.

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?

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. Yeah, now. At several points throughout the evening, June saw her friend politely declining this man's invitations.

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.

Ooh.

Lulu started screaming, like, could not believe what was in front of her. And that brought up the janitor at the El Palacio 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, Ah, and he was like, he realized the light outside of Georgette's door failed to turn on when anyone was near.

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 that somebody had done that, fuck that bye, see ya. But that is sinister.

So sinister now. Whether it had been done before or after Georgette'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 Georgette'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 bloodstains 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 bloodstains on the bed. And the room was in total disarray. This is a quote. The bedclothes were pulled back, Georgette'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 thought it was an accident. And you were like, Wow, messy girl, 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 bloodstains 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.

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 Georgette's handwriting that read June. And I have date to go to the Hollywood Canteen tonight Wednesday. And it's just like, That's so sad.

Just like a cute little.

Just like plans for the future, also missing was the 1936 green coupe that Georgette shared with her sister Connie. And the keys were nowhere to be found in the apartment. Oh, other than the disheveled state of the bedroom, though. There didn't appear to be a struggle anywhere else in the apartment. And it didn't seem like Georgette had entertained any guests after arriving home from the Hollywood Canteen. Okay?

Because, like you said, everyone said that they didn't see her leave with anyone, and they didn't see anyone in her car.

She struck him with her motor vehicle, she had been under the influence, and then she left him there. In January 2022, local woman Karen Reed was implicated in the mysterious death of her boyfriend, Boston Police Officer John O'Keefe. It was alleged that after an innocent night out for drinks with friends, Karen and John got into a lover's quarrel en route to the next location. What happens next depends on who you ask.

To end in a mistrial. It's just a confirmation of just how complicated this case is.

Law and Crime presents the most in-depth analysis to date of the sensational case in Karen. You can listen to Karen exclusively with Wondery. join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

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, 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.

That is horrific.

Yeah, oh, like, it makes you have to take a deep breath, I can't even imagine.

Oh, that's oh, I can't even.

That is so brutal and vile.

That's the thing that's like, really brutal.

It is Webb estimated that the death had occurred about 8 to 12 hours prior to when Georgette'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?

Had a snack she had changed into her Pjs.

Like normal night.

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 Georgette 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. 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.

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'd 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.

Yep, from what investigators could tell, Georgette had left the Hollywood Canteen around 11.30 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 11.30, followed shortly by a quote crash, as if somebody dropped a tray or something, and then silence.

Oh yeah.

If you live in an apartment building, you hear shit like that constantly.

You're not calling the police 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?

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. aw, 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.

It sounds like, and you want to 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, Mm. Another of Georgette'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. And I decided it was just a family row.

It was just a family row. row. yeah, not row, and she's yelling, stop, stop, you're killing me, even if it's a family row that's called domestic violence. Fucker.

Call someone and like, call someone, it's a different time. People didn't want to get involved in shit, but like.

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 Georgette Bauerdorf.

Oh, that's awful, that's awful, truly. that's like, really upsetting. everything about it is upsetting.

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 and you heard it, 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 Georgette's purse and Connie's green coupe, the car that they both shared. 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.

Yeah, they're hoping it's somebody who had been in the apartment before. Right left fingerprints this time, yeah.

And then they're on the car, which yeah.

Good police work for the time.

For 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 Georgette didn't smoke, and, most importantly, her diary was discovered among the scattered bedclothes, Wow.

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, like, maybe given somewhere to stay, maybe helped them out in some way.

Wild, Yeah, absolutely wild. Rose Gilbert, her father's 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.

Aw.

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, their 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 Georgette's.

Oh man, yeah.

And the only suspects they had thus far? Two soldiers and part-time janitors at the El Palacio apartments had offered solid alibis. And they were released from custody soon after being brought in for questioning. By this time, it seems like June tells them well, there was this weird soldier that was forcing her to dance with him all night. They check that out, he's got an alibi, he checks out.

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 Georgette between 11 p.

And look at her, she's picking up hitchhiker soldiers, like she's even giving 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 had 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, stuffing 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 fled the apartment and took the money too.

I think, yeah, it seems like it was, I think the car was incidental, it was just to get away.

Mm-hmm. And I honestly think the fact that she died was not what this person intended, actually.

Yeah, yeah, I think it was like, Oh, shit.

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 Adland? 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.

Huh.

So she took a weird turn. So. Investigators theorized 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, I don't think so.

That one that seems that's messy, that's a messy. I don't like that one. Very tenuous. Yeah, it doesn't seem likely.

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 Georgette's throat was actually an elastic cotton bandage, 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.

Gotten killed elsewhere, like the blood.

It ignored all the other evidence. Like, you were just going to say. In order for this to have been the case one, the killer would have had to spend time at the scene smoking cigarettes. Yeah, and remember, like, you were just saying, somebody transferred blood onto the floor and the bed.

Exactly before the killer arrived, 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.

Which was the fact that they even were like, maybe.

Yeah.

You're ignoring everything.

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, I'm not going to finish that one.

No, just had to say it to you guys.

Well, 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, 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 the end of October, the investigation had completely stalled out, the story had all but disappeared from papers. But then, on December 28th, 22-year-old former Navy seaman John Sumter walked into the FBI in their office in San Francisco.

Just walked into the FBI.

And confessed to the murder of Georgette Bauerdorf. According to him, they had met on a streetcar 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 Georgette'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.

Awesome.

Yeah, he's a very mentally ill man. Yeah, obviously. It turned out he had been dishonorably discharged from the military before being court-martialed for check fraud.

Wow, yeah, okay.

Two days later, the L.

Oh, her poor family.

And to get hope that maybe there's going to be some kind of justice.

Yeah.

Exactly. According to a spokesperson for the sheriff's department, Sumter explained that he had confessed to the murder because he quote, wanted to. 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.

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.

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.

And 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 Georgette's killer. This letter was typewritten, that's so strange, so weird.

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.

Jeez, what the fuck? It's very Black Dahlia-esque.

Strange, you should mention that.

Oh, is that part of this?

We are going to touch on that very briefly.

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, that's a strange thing, 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. In the days leading up to his arrest, he had just been seen loitering outside of the apartments where Georgette 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.

Because they were like, he's somebody who would be like, 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 Vukas in South Salido. Vukas 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.

We've heard a lot of 16.

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 you can't really, you don't know, 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. You see 16-year-olds and you're like, you're 16, yeah, what the heck, 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. Oh so, I think maybe that one handled it.

Yeah, that probably helped.

Now, when the investigation into Georgette 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. Yeah, 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 infuriating.

But when the dead and mutilated body of actress Elizabeth Short a.

Ah.

But that theory has mostly been debunked.

Ah.

I'm excited 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. Yeah, so that's why I wanted to pick this one and talk about it.

I've never heard of it.

I hadn't either, 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.

You never know.

I hope that, hopefully, someday it gets solved.

Oh, poor Georgette, I know.

It's a really sad story, like I said.

She just seemed like a cool girl who would have liked a Lana del Rey. Yeah, and just like....

She would have had, like, a charity set up by now. Yeah, she was just that girl.

That was like, I got coffee today, don't worry about it. Yeah, exactly.

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 and I'm sorry, but again, I hope it gets solved someday. I do, too. You never know, yeah.

And we hope you.

But I swear that you give anybody the keys to your apartment, don't do that, don't do that.