Home

Cindy Chang

Perfect year for a slay ride (L.A. Times feature)

Submitted by kim on Thu, 2006-01-26 11:25.

January 26, 2006

LOS ANGELES NOIR
Perfect year for a slay ride
*The 1947project finds grisly fun in revisiting the scenes of long-ago L.A. crimes.

By Cindy Chang, Special to The Los Angeles Times

When a tour bus pulled up to the curb at Central Avenue and 85th Street and disgorged a load of passengers one recent Saturday, the locals stopped to stare. This corner in South Los Angeles, with its fish market and shoeshine store, isn't exactly a magnet for tourists.

The group of about 50 gathered in front of a green stucco duplex with rose bushes thriving incongruously in the dirt front yard. What was so remarkable about that little structure? Had someone famous once lived there?

These days, few Angelenos have heard of Rochelle Gluskoter, but for a brief period in 1946, she and that green house were the epicenter of a media feeding frenzy. The 6-year-old girl was staying there with a neighbor when she got into a black convertible with a strange man and was not seen alive again.

After hearing a tour guide tell of Rochelle's eventual murder, the group piled back onto the bus. As passengers on the inaugural Crime Bus

»
Syndicate content