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The Hollywood Murder of Thora Rose That Took 30 Years to Solve
Fingerprints and dogged determination saw a very cold case finally closed.
When a brutal murder took place in Hollywood in 1963, Los Angeles Police had every hope of bringing its perpetrator to justice. However, little did they know that it would take three decades — and a breakthrough in technology — before the killer was finally unveiled.
A free spirit brutally slain
It was the early 1960s, and 43-year-old Thora Rose was somewhat unusual among the women of her generation. She was a divorcee for one thing, and she also worked to support herself so she could live alone in a small apartment close to the famed Sunset Boulevard.
Thora was a waitress at King’s Drug Store in West Los Angeles and was a well-known figure in her local community, where she had many friends and regularly went out in the evenings to socialise in Hollywood’s various bars and hotels.
October 2nd 1963 was one such evening, and Thora had arranged to meet a female friend at the Continental Hotel in Hollywood so they could go dancing and enjoy a few drinks. The pair eventually moved on to the Thunderbird Bar for a nightcap before heading home again.
However, this was to be the last time Thora’s friend saw her alive. At some point in the early hours of the following morning, someone removed three of her louvered windows from a ground floor window and crept inside her apartment.
Once inside, they beat Thora to death with the claw end of a hammer and strangled her with a silk stocking. Although she was not sexually assaulted, police later surmised that it was probably an attempted rape, but that the killer fled before completing it.
“I think the guy got so sickened with all the blood and gore that he just panicked and took off,” homicide detective Jesse Tubbs told the LA Times.
An investigation begins — but finally stalls
Thora was found dead on October 3rd 1963 and investigators dutifully put their all into finding out who could have committed such a violent crime. They interviewed the female friend Thora was with on her last night…
