On April 21st 1955, a deadly act of violence shattered the quiet grounds of Portland’s Columbia Edgewater Country Club on Marine Drive. After an evening at the club attending a stag party, attorney and WWII veteran Oliver Kermit Smith returned to his car and started the engine. A bomb hidden beneath the driver’s seat detonated, killing him instantly.

Investigators quickly determined the explosion was deliberate. The device had been wired directly into the ignition system, ensuring detonation the moment the car was started. With no evidence of business disputes or outside enemies, attention soon turned to Smith’s personal life — including a recent remarriage and an affair involving Victor Laurence Wolf, a local electrician living in the boarding house owned by Smith’s wife.

Dubbed the “Sex Slave” murder case by papers of the day, the story became a salacious tale of infidelity and betrayal that ended in murder. Wolf ultimately confessed to constructing and installing the bomb and was convicted of first-degree murder. Smith’s wife, Marjorie, was also charged but later acquitted, with the jury finding insufficient evidence that she met Oregon’s legal threshold for criminal responsibility. The Columbia Edgewater car bombing was a calculated murder carried out in silence — long after the party had ended.

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The Columbia Edgewater Country Club Car Bombing