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- [00:01]
Vanessa Richardson
This week in Crime History, we're digging into two unsolved murders that have haunted investigators for decades. On September 13, 1980, Roger Atkisson and Rose Burkert were brutally murdered in an Iowa hotel room by an unknown killer. 37 years earlier, Hollywood actor David Bacon crashed his car into a Los Angeles bean field. He staggered out and collapsed to the ground, dead from a puncture wound on his back. To this day, no one knows who murdered him. Welcome to True Crime. This week, part of Crime House Daily, I'm Vanessa Richardson. Every Sunday, we'll be revisiting notorious crimes from the coming week in history. From serial killers to mysterious disappearances or murders, every episode will explore stories that share a common theme. Week we'll cover two stories, one further in the past and one more rooted in the present. Here at Crime House, we know none of this would be possible without you, our community. Please support us by rating, reviewing and following Crime House Daily wherever you get your podcasts and for ad free and early access to Crime House Daily + exciting bonus content. Subscribe to Crime House+ on Apple Podcasts. This week's theme is Unsolved Murders. First, we'll start on September 13, 1980, when the staff at the Amana Holiday Inn in Iowa discovered a gruesome double murder. Then we'll jump back in time to 1943 to Old Hollywood, when an up and coming actor was found dead under mysterious circumstances. While both cases featured plenty of compelling suspects, no one has been charged for either crime. And decades later, we're still left wondering what really happened to Roger Atkisson, Rose Burkert, and David Bacon. All that and more coming up.
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- [03:46]
Vanessa Richardson
On the morning of September 13, 1980, a housekeeper at the Amana Holiday Inn in Williamsburg, Iowa went to check on the couple staying in room 260. According to the guestbook, they were 32 year old Roger Burkert and his wife, 22 year old Rose. They'd booked the room for just one night but were late checking out when the front desk called. No one picked up. Now they weren't answering the door either, which was strange. The housekeeper could hear the tv. Someone had to be in there. After knocking repeatedly, the housekeeper went to retrieve the master key. She returned and unlocked the door. When she poked her head inside, she saw a scene straight out of a horror movie. Roger and Rose were lying face down on the bed, murdered. There was blood soaking the sheets, splattered across the walls and the headboard. Even the ceiling wasn't spared. After the shock wore off, the housekeeper notified her superiors, who alerted the police. Deputies from the Iowa County Sheriff's Department raced over and took in the scene. While Rose was fully dressed. Roger was only in his underwear. Even so, there were no signs of sexual assault and neither victim had been bound or gagged. Later, an autopsy would determine their cause of death was blunt force trauma, likely by an axe or a hatchet. Most of the wounds were on the back of Rose and Roger's heads, which led investigators to believe their killer had ordered them to lie face down before attacking them while or else they moved their bodies after. Not only that, but several of Roger's fingers had been severed, maybe when he was trying to shield himself. The detectives suspected this wasn't a random attack. Rose and Roger had been targeted. But in order to find their killer, the authorities needed to learn more about the victims. They quickly realized there was more to Roger and Rose than meets the eye. After searching the room, police saw that nothing had been stolen, so it wasn't a robbery gone wrong. Based on his ID, the officers knew Roger was a resident of St. Joseph, Missouri, roughly 300 miles away they also knew he'd checked into the hotel under a different name. According to his id, his last name was Atkinson, not Burkert. From there, the pieces slowly fell into place. Williamsburg authorities contacted their counterparts in St. Joseph, who went over to the address listed on Roger's id. When they knocked on the door, a woman answered. Her name was Marcy Atkisson, and she was Roger's wife. The police had to break the news to her. Not only had Roger been murdered, but he'd died in bed with another woman. Marcy was shocked and heartbroken. Roger had said he was spending the weekend in Cahoka, Missouri for work. Clearly, that had been a lie, and it made Marcy wonder what else her husband had been keeping from her. After talking to Marcy, police learned that Roger worked as a telephone installer for the phone company gte. He was also very involved in the local church. He sang in the church choir, taught Sunday school, and did maintenance work on the church's bus. Although he and Marcy didn't have children, they often babysat for other families around town. Everyone the police spoke to said Roger was a polite, trustworthy, upstanding citizen. But Roger's friends knew things weren't as perfect as they seemed, especially at home. He and Marcy had been going through a rough patch, and Roger had reportedly told his friends he wanted a divorce. He brought it up to Marcy, but she refused. Apparently she wanted to work through their issues. She didn't know that Roger had already moved on to a young woman named Rose Burkert. 22 year old Rose was a single mother who worked as a nurse at the local hospital in St. Joseph. According to friends, she was a compassionate, outgoing person who spent most of her spare time caring for her two year old daughter. She and Roger first met in 1979 when he went over to her place to install a new phone. At first they were just friends. But according to investigators, they started sleeping together In June of 1980, about three months before they were killed. Rose didn't know Marcy, but she did know Roger was married. In a small town like St. Joseph, that was a difficult secret to keep. So when Roger learned he was being sent to Cahoka for work, he and Rose jumped at the opportunity. They wanted to spend some time together, away from the prying eyes in St. Joseph. Roger made the four hour drive from St. Joseph to Cahoka on Monday, September 8th. He was scheduled to do more installations there the following week. So he told Marcy he was going to spend the weekend. He claimed he wanted to cut down on driving on Wednesday, September 10, Rose left her daughter with a babysitter and joined Roger in Cahoka. When she arrived, she signed the guest book as his wife. They spent two days together in Cahoka while Roger finished his work. Then on Friday, September 12, they left Roger's car at the hotel and drove two hours north to Williamsburg, Iowa in Rose's car. When they arrived at the Amana Holiday Inn on Friday, Friday evening they were almost turned away. There was a morticians convention in town that weekend and the hotel was all booked up. Rose and Roger were about to look for another place to stay when the manager double checked and saw they had a last minute cancellation. Room 260 was open. Roger and Rose checked in signing the guest book as Mr. And Mrs. Roger Burkert. At around 7:40pm it seemed like they had a quiet evening in none of the other guests in the hotel saw or heard anything strange. At some point, the couple ordered room service. Later, Rose made a call to her BabySitter back in St. Joseph. She wasn't there, so Rose left a message with the woman's husband. When the babysitter tried calling back a couple hours later, nobody picked up. Besides Rose's babysitter, police learned There was a second incoming call to room 260 that night. For some reason, this call was harder to track. To this day, police don't know what time it was placed, who was calling, or if anyone answered. And that was just the beginning of a decades long mystery because the following morning Rose and Roger were found murdered in room 260. After detectives identified Rose and Roger, they turned their attention to the rest of the crime scene. And there were no signs of forced entry. Room 260 was on the second floor and could only be accessed from inside the hotel. That meant whoever killed Roger and Rose hadn't forced their way inside the room. Someone had let them in. This made detectives wonder if Rose and Roger had known their killer and other evidence seemed to support they did. Since there were no signs of sexual assault, investigators figured that Roger was already in his underwear when the killer came inside. The this indicated a level of familiarity with the perpetrator. And that wasn't all. The furniture in the room had been rearranged. Two wooden chairs from the small dinner table had been dragged over to Roger's side of the bed. The chairs were facing each other, although one was angled towards the TV at the foot of the bed, which had been left on all night. It looked like they'd been set up so that somebody could sit and have a conversation with whoever was in bed. And there was something strange under the angled chair. Several fragments of soap. This led investigators to another clue. Someone had used a bar of soap, maybe the same one, to write a message on the back of the bathroom door. By the time detectives were looking at the message, most of the words had been smeared away, except for one reading quote this. That wasn't the only piece of evidence detectives found in the bathroom. There was a bloody towel on the floor and blood stains in the sink. Police also discovered toothpaste in the bathtub. It seemed that Rose and Roger's killer had done a poor job of covering their tracks. And yet none of the evidence led detectives to a culprit. At that point, investigators had to admit the key to cracking the case might not be in room 260. But maybe someone knew more than they were letting on. Sure enough, when detectives started digging into the couple's personal lives, they discovered a shocking number of potential suspects, including an angry ex, boyfriend, and even a serial killer.
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Vanessa Richardson
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- [13:55]
Vanessa Richardson
On September 12, 1980, 32 year old Roger Atkison checked into the Amana Holiday Inn in Williamsburg, Iowa. He was there for a weekend getaway with his mistress, 22 year old Rose Burkert. The following morning, hotel staff found the couple brutally murdered in their room. Their killer had gotten away undetected, but they had left behind a lot of strange details. Rearranged chairs. Toothbrush paste squirted into the bathtub. The word this written in soap on the bathroom door, and there were no signs of forced entry. After scouring the crime scene, police started searching for clues beyond room 260. In the days after the murder, investigators questioned over 400 people. They also asked the public for tips. But nobody in or around the hotel reported anything strange that evening, except for one incident. According to some guests and employees, on the night of September 12, Rose had gotten into an argument with the hotel bartender. The following morning, the bartender abruptly quit and left Williamsburg. He was in such a hurry to get out of town, he didn't even pick up his last paycheck from the hotel. When the authorities heard what happened, they knew they had to speak to the bartender. Eventually, they discovered he'd abandoned his truck in Iowa City and disappeared. After a few months of digging, police learned he'd enlisted in the army and was now stationed at a base in Germany. Detectives traveled overseas to interview the man. He explained that he'd fled Williamsburg because he was worried about becoming a suspect in the murder. He said he was afraid the police would try to pin the crime on him because he lived out of his truck. It seemed like a flimsy excuse for uprooting his entire life. But the man swore he had nothing to do with what happened to Rose and Roger. A polygraph test confirmed he was telling the truth, and the bartender was officially cleared. But detectives weren't back to square one, because by then, they already had a new suspect. Shortly before she was murdered, Rose had reached out to police in St. Joseph, Missouri. She told them that if anything ever happened to her, they should investigate her ex, a man named Danny Burton. Rose's relationship with Danny had been pretty serious. At one point, they were engaged. But the good times didn't last long. Apparently, Danny had substance abuse issues, and eventually it became too much for Rose. She broke things off. Danny didn't take it well. He allegedly began stalking Rose to the point that she got a restraining order against him and even bought a guard dog. Not long after, she came home to find her dog dead, partially butchered and hanging from a tree in front of her house. In many ways, Danny Burton was the perfect suspect. He had a history of violence, was probably angry that Rose was seeing someone new, and based on his past actions, could have followed her to Iowa. There was just one problem. He had an ironclad alibi. Two of Danny's bosses at the battery manufacturing company Globe Union, testified that he was at work in Missouri when the murders were committed, and his punched time card backed that up. After ruling Danny out as a suspect, Detectives dug deeper into Roger's life. Maybe someone he knew wanted him and Rose dead. And when police took a closer look, they made a startling discovery. Roger had a family connection to a serial killer. Roger's wife Marcy had an uncle named Charles Hatcher. He'd been in and out of jail for most of his life. In 1959, Charles was sentenced to five years in prison for abducting a 16 year old newspaper delivery boy at knifepoint and was later suspected of sexually assaulting and murdering a fellow inmate while in prison. He was released in 1960, 63, and a few years later was caught sexually assaulting a six year old boy. After that, he spent most of the 1970s in prisons and mental hospitals. In 1980, Charles was locked up in a mental hospital in Norfolk, Nebraska, a few hours away from Williamsburg for stabbing a seven year old boy. But on September 6, one week before his brother in law was killed, Charles Charles escaped from the facility. He was recaptured in October. While in prison, he would confess to an additional 13 murders committed between 1969 and 1982. But what happened while he was on the lam? Is it possible that he'd been involved in Rose and Roger's murder? Marci thought it was unlikely. She hadn't spoken to Charles since she was 12, and Roger had never even met him. He. He had no reason to want Roger dead and no way of knowing that he was at the Amana Holiday Inn. Even so, police interviewed Charles in prison. Afterwards, they determined he'd been in Nebraska for the duration of his escape. That meant he couldn't have killed Rose or Roger. But maybe another serial killer had. On June 25, 1980, traveling salesman William Kyle was found murdered in his room at the Sheraton Motor Inn in Galesburg, Illinois, just two hours away from the Amana Motor Inn. And the crime scene shared a lot of similarities. Like Rose and Roger, William Kyle had been killed by what was believed to be a hatchet to the back of the head. His body was found bent over the side of the bed with his knees on the floor and his face down against the mattress. It seemed like the killer had forced him into that position the same way police thought Rose and Roger had been ordered to lie face down on the bed. Not only that, but police discovered toothpaste on the carpet near William's body, just like the toothpaste found in the bathtub in Roger and Rose's bathroom. And that wasn't the only unsolved murder that followed the same pattern 10 years earlier. In 19. In 1970, another traveling salesman Jack McDonald was found bludgeoned to death at a Travel Inn in Meridian, Mississippi. McDonald's body was bent over the bed as well. And when police inspected the bathroom, they found that someone had squeezed toothpaste into the toilet. Just like the bizarre double murder at the Amana Holiday Inn, these killings have never been solved. With each passing year, it seems less likely that Rose and Roger's families will get answers. Whether their killer was an angry ex, a disgruntled bartender, or a mysterious serial killer with an inexplicable fixation on toothpaste, they could very well be dead by now. In the absence of closure, everyone connected to the case has tried to move on. Roger's wife, Marcy has recently remarried and seems to be living in Texas. Rose's daughter Rachel, just two years old when her mother was murdered, is in her late 40s now. Detectives from the Iowa County Sheriff's Department revisit the case every few years, seeking new leads through DNA evidence. But so far, we aren't any closer to cracking the case than we were in 1980. Up next, another unsolved murder that stumped detectives since World War II. A Carlos no le gusta la reina.
- [21:44]
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Vanessa Richardson
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- [22:13]
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- [23:00]
Vanessa Richardson
Connected to the case itself.
- [23:02]
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- [23:29]
Vanessa Richardson
37 years before Roger Atkinson and Rose Burkert were mysteriously killed in room 260, another unsolved murder shocked the country. But this time the victim wasn't your average American. He was one of Hollywood's up and coming leading men. September 12, 1943 was a sunny day in Los Angeles, perfect for a trip to the beach for around 5pm Residents in Venice were enjoying the cool ocean breeze when they noticed a red sports car swerving back and forth across Washington boulevard heading east. One local, 12 year old Lorraine Smith, looked out her window and saw the car careening towards a telephone pole, only to veer out of the way at the last moment. She picked up a telescope to get a closer look and saw that the man driving appeared to be naked. As she watched, the car went lurching off the road and crashed in a nearby bean field. As onlookers ran to help, the driver staggered out. He was tall, handsome, shirtless and covered in blood. He screamed for help, then collapsed to the ground, writhing in pain. A local named Wayne Powell had seen the whole thing and rushed over to help. He saw the man had a gaping knife wound in his back. Powell asked who'd hurt him, but the man didn't respond. By the time an ambulance arrived, he was already dead. The man who bled to death in that Venice Beanfield was a 29 year old actor named David Bacon. And although he wasn't famous at the time, he was about to be. He just finished filming a 12 episode superhero show called the Masked Marvel which where he played the title role. But instead of being remembered as a masked crime fighter, David Bacon is best known as the victim of a mysterious crime. David Bacon was born Gaspar Griswold Bacon Jr. On March 24, 1914 to an upper class Boston family. His grandfather had served as Secretary of State to President Teddy Roosevelt and his father had been the Lieutenant Governor of Massachusetts and young Gaspar had been groomed to follow in his family's footsteps. He attended the prestigious Deerfield Academy prep school, then went on to Harvard. But the truth was Gaspar didn't want to go into politics. He wanted to be an actor. So in 1939 at the age of 25, he went west to Hollywood. Bacon spent the next three years getting established in LA. Luckily he had help from some fellow actors he'd befriended in the New England regional theater community. Jimmy Stewart And Henry Fonda. Thanks to them, in 1942, Bacon was able to land a screen test with Howard Hughes. Hughes, an inventor, aviator and film producer, saw potential in the dashing young actor and signed him to a contract. He also gave Bacon a piece of advice. He didn't think Gaspar Bacon would look good on a theater marquee and suggested the actor change his name. Just like that, Gaspar became David. His first film role came later that year when he played a supporting character in the historical drama 10 Gentlemen from West Point. The movie wasn't a hit, but David impressed everyone on set with his professionalism and commitment to the craft. The while promoting his movie in the press, the film's director, Henry Hathaway, called David terrific and commented on how deeply the young actor immersed himself in his role. Soon, David was the subject of glowing profiles in the newspapers. With all the positive press, it wasn't long until David found more work. By the end of 1942, David had acted in a total of five movies. He was on the rise, and it seemed like the good times were just beginning. But David knew he had to tread carefully because he was reportedly keeping a big secret. One that could ruin his entire career. He was gay. David wasn't the only queer person working in Hollywood at the time. Many famous actors and actresses were gay. In some cases, their sexual orientation was an open segment secret among fellow actors and studio executives. But given the social pressures of the time, that wasn't something they wanted the public to know. And if you wanted to keep booking roles, it was important to play the part. So David Bacon did what many gay men often did at the time. He married a woman. In 1942, when he was 28 years old, David married an Austrian American actress and Sarah singer named Greta Keller. Although Greta was 11 years older than David, they had some things in common. Like David, Greta was committed to her career in the entertainment industry. Plus, she was also gay and wanted to keep any questions about her personal life at bay. Even though David Bacon and Greta Keller weren't romantically interested in each other, they were still partners. And they wanted to start a family. Family. Shortly after their wedding, Greta got pregnant. And then, more good News. In early 1943, David learned he'd landed the lead role in a new superhero franchise. David would be starring in an action mystery serial from Republic Pictures called the Masked Marvel. Serials were like the 1940s version of a streaming series. One long story told in a bunch of 30 minute chapters shown in local theaters week by week. The Masked Marvel was a 12 episode series about a masked crime fighter trying to track down Japanese spies. Part of the gimmick was that the Masked Marvel's identity was a secret on and off the screen. Audiences wouldn't know who was playing the hero until David removed his mask in the final scene of the 12th episode. The Masked Marvel was filmed in the summer of 1943, and it wasn't an easy shoot. Many actors were injured filming their own stunts and fight scenes. In fact, the only reason David got the lead role was because four other actors had been badly hurt on set. Cast members joked the role was cursed. David shot his last scene for the Masked Marvel at the end of August 1943. While the episodes were being edited, he spent the next couple weeks taking it easy with his pregnant wife. They both knew their lives were about to change, but they couldn't predict what was coming next. The weekend of September 10, 1943, David and Greta hosted a dinner party at their house in the Hollywood Hills. Even though she was very pregnant at the time, Greta still cooked a traditional Austrian dinner for 50 guests. By Sunday the 12th, they were both ready to relax. But it was hot and muggy outside. David suggested they go to the beach to cool off. Greta wasn't feeling up to it. Though. She'd had a difficult pregnancy and her doctor recommended she get as much rest as possible. David decided to stay with her. They spent most of the day lounging around the house writing letters to friends before settling in for an afternoon nap. A few hours later, Greta woke up alone. David's car was gone. She didn't know it then, but David was already dead. In the wake of David's murder, LAPD detectives jumped into action and they began their investigation with David's red sports car. The interior was covered in blood, but the outside was clean. This seemed to indicate that David had been stabbed while inside the vehicle. David. Besides that, there was a blood soaked bathrobe sitting in the front seat. It didn't have any holes in it. Since David had been stabbed in the back, police reasoned he'd been shirtless at the time of the attack, then put the robe on afterwards. But that wasn't the only piece of clothing in the car. Detectives also found a blue crewneck sweater similar to the kind the US Navy issued to sailors at the time. But it was way too, too small for David, who was 6 foot 2. When crime scene experts examined the sweater, they discovered blonde hairs around the collar, which was strange because David had dark hair. There were also some small white seagull feathers on it. This, along with some Grains of sand found clinging to David's swim trunks seemed to confirm he'd made it to the beach after all. Maybe he'd met a friend there. Or an enemy. After inspecting the car, investigators moved on to David's body. An autopsy showed he'd been stabbed on the left side of his back. The wound was approximately five inches deep and three quarters of an inch wide. The medical examiner determined it had come from a long, thin dagger. Although the murder weapon was never found, based on the angle of the wound, it appeared that David had been stabbed while he was lifted, leaning forward, possibly to close the door to his car. The knife had gone deep enough to puncture David's heart. According to the medical examiner, David had been stabbed approximately 20 minutes before he died. With this in mind, police looked for witnesses who'd seen the car during that 20 minute window. They spoke to one Venice resident who'd driven by the vehicle a few minutes before the crash. According to her, she'd seen a man dressed in dark clothes sitting in the passenger seat. Since David had been driving shirtless, it was possible the passenger was his killer. Police also talked to a man who'd seen the car at a gas station a quarter mile from the crash site. But he reported seeing a man and a woman in the car with David. Based on these witness statements, detectives wondered if David had picked up a hitchhiker who'd attacked him. But the inside of the car showed no signs of a struggle. And when police dusted for fingerprints, they only found David's. Plus, he was still wearing two expensive rings, and his wallet full of cash was still in the car. Clearly, this wasn't a robbery gone wrong. There was one suspicious clue in David's wallet, however. A small key. A clue that would soon turn the entire investigation on its head. 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- [35:25]
Vanessa Richardson
On September 12, 1943. David Bacon's up and coming career came to an end that day. The 29 year old crashed his car into a bean field and died after being stabbed in the back. Police assumed he'd been attacked by a passenger, but they didn't find a murder weapon in the car or any fingerprints. The only clue they did find was a small crew neck sweater and a mysterious key. But before continuing the investigation, they had to tell David's pregnant wife, Greta, what had happened that day. September 12th. Detectives went to David and Greta's house in the Hollywood Hills. Greta was devastated by the news. Despite her grief, she did everything she could to help the detectives with their investigation. When they showed her the key, she recognized it right away. Greta explained that David had rented a studio apartment a few weeks ago for their gardener. This was the key. She also gave the police David's diary, which they hoped might point them to a potential suspect. Later, Greta revealed the diary was full of information about David's personal life, including his sexual preferences. But at the time, there was a problem. He'd written the entire thing in some kind of code, and despite their best efforts, detectives couldn't crack it. As a closeted gay man, there were a lot of things David wanted to keep secret. And Greta wasn't about to out a dead man, so she didn't tell the police about his sexual orientation. Greta's loyalty was well intentioned and understandable, but it also hurt the investigation. Because police assumed David had been straight, they likely missed a whole slew of possible suspects, mainly the men he he'd had intimate relationships with. But that wasn't the only secret Greta was keeping for David. When police went over to the apartment that David had rented, they realized he and Greta didn't have a gardener at all. The apartment was located at 8481 Kirkwood Avenue in Laurel Canyon, about a mile away from Greta and David's house. It was owned by a local doctor named Charles Hendrix, and David had started renting it on August 31, a little less than two weeks before he was murdered. When police went inside, they found dirty dishes, coffee, canned spaghetti, and a few books. According to Dr. Hendricks, David told him he was renting the apartment for a friend who police initially assumed was a mistress. Hendrick said he saw the friend, who turned out to be a man man. When he came to collect rent on September 10, two days before David's murder. Hendricks said the man had a slight build, was foreign looking, and had a red face like he was angry. David didn't introduce the man. And the man didn't offer any information about himself either. Police circulated the man's description and issued statements to local newspapers asking him to get in touch. But nobody, nobody matching this description ever came forward. Looking back on the situation, it seems likely that David wasn't renting the apartment for someone else. He was renting it for himself as a discreet place to carry out his affairs. Maybe the man who Dr. Hendricks saw was one of David's partners. Maybe he was angry because they were having a fight. And maybe over the next two days, that quarrel escalated until he stabbed David in his car. Since the police didn't know about David's sexuality at the time, they didn't consider this possibility. But before long, detectives realized this mystery man wasn't their only suspect. While searching through one of David's notepads, police found the phone number for a 20 year old man named Glenn Irwin Shmiel. When police tracked Glenn down, he didn't match the description of the angry man seen with David at the apartment. But other things about Glenn made the police suspicious. For one, it looked like he could fit into the sweater found in David's car. Investigators had determined the sweater was a navy issue garment and Glenn was a Navy deserter. According to Glenn, David had put an ad in the paper looking for a garment gardener. The ad stated that the position came with an apartment. It seems like Glenn replied because in early September, David picked him up and drove him to the apartment to discuss the position. In his interview with the police, Glenn said David initially gave him the gardener job, then rescinded the offer days before his death. Based on that information, police wondered if Glenn was angry at David for withdrawing the job offer and killed him in revenge. Another possibility that police didn't consider was that Glenn was lying about the Gardner job to hide the fact that he was in a relationship with David that eventually went sour. In any case, Glenn had an alibi. According to his wife, she'd been with Glenn all day on September 12th. Several other witnesses confirmed this. Whatever the real nature of Glenn and David's relationship, he wasn't the killer. As the investigation dragged on, LA newspapers reported on every new twist and turn in the case. The mysterious killing of a handsome movie star was big news and lots of people wanted to be a part of the story. Nine days after the murder, a 22 year old man named Blakely Patterson told the Los Angeles examiner that he was one of David's his best friends and he knew who'd killed him. Blakely said that on the morning of the murder, David had called him in a panic. Apparently someone was blackmailing him, though Blakely didn't say about what. Then, later that day, David turned up dead. For police, this seemed like a real possibility. There was just one problem. None of it was true. When they interviewed Blakely, it became clear he'd never, never even met David. Under questioning, Blakeley admitted he'd made the whole thing up to get his name in the press. He was arrested and charged with filing a false report, and a judge ordered him to go back to his hometown in Minnesota. As the weeks dragged by without any major breaks, the media circus moved on. Every lead the police chased down led them to a dead end. And before long, the investigation into David Bacon's murder had gone cold. Decades later, we still don't know the truth. Today, the case remains open, but as of 2019, the LAPD officially had no comment on the investigation. While the whole town of Hollywood was wrapped up in what happened, the person who suffered the most was his wife, Greta Keller. Although their marriage was one of convenience, they still cared for each other deeply. Just two weeks after he died, Greta went into labor prematurely and delivered a stillborn baby. She never remarried. Despite the tragic loss of her husband and their child, Greta went on to have a long career as a cabaret singer in both the US and Europe until her death in 1977. As they say, the show must go on. The Masked Marvel made its big screen debut on November 6, 1943, less than two months after the unsolved murder of its leading man. The series was a hit at the box office and critics called it one of Republic Pictures best serials. Unfortunately, David Bacon was wasn't able to enjoy the success of his big debut as a leading man. Today, his film career is just a footnote in the mystery of who stabbed him in the back on that hot Sunday in September. Looking back at this week in crime history, we can see that time is the real villain. The people who killed Roger Atkinson, Rose Burkert and D. David Bacon were not criminal masterminds who pulled off the perfect crime. They were just lucky enough to escape. Evidence is fragile and memories are fleeting as weeks turned into months and months turned to years. The trail went cold and these killers went free. Foreign thanks so much for listening. I'm Vanessa Richardson and this is True Crime. This week part of Crime House Daily. Crime House Daily is a Crime House original. Powered by Pave Studios At Crime House, we want to express our gratitude to you, our community, for making this possible. Please, please support us by rating, reviewing and following us on Crime House Daily. Wherever you get your podcasts, your feedback truly matters. And for ad free and early access to Crime House Daily plus exciting bonus content, subscribe to Crime House plus on Apple Podcasts. We'll be back tomorrow. True Crime this Week is hosted by me, Vanessa Richardson and is a Crime House original. Powered by Pave Studios, this episode was brought to life by the True Crime this Week Team Max Cutler, Ron Shapiro, Alex Benedon, Natalie Pertovsky, Lori Marinelli, Sarah Camp, Truman Capps, Sarah Tardif, and Michael Langsner. Thank you for listening.
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