The police were happy with the explanation they received from George Fredericks and let him go. I wish I shared their boundless confidence in the chauffeur’s honesty but he sounds like a snake to me.

Detectives then turned their attention to what were then known as “bunco men”–similar to con artists. They theorized that Ruby was a heavy drinker and may have talked too freely concerning what she knew about the local bunco situation. The Los Angeles Record wrote that Mrs. Reed was visited frequently by confidence crooks. She was intimate with one well-known bunk called Little Spencer who left the city about the time the murder was discovered. Little Spencer, who is not to be confused with Spencer Poynter, lived at the Clark Hotel and records showed several calls had been made by him to the apartment at South Bonnie Brae Avenue. The police tracked the bunco man to a local residence and planned a raid, but Little Spencer decamped before the police showed up. It was believed that he caught a train for Chicago. If a criminal successfully evaded police and left the state, chances were slim he would ever be caught. But Little Spencer was only wanted for his petty crimes. Evidence connecting him to Ruby Reed’s murder was notably absent.

Ruby’s death certificate

Two more clues came to light but neither of them led anywhere.

In the days following the murder, a downtown hotel contacted the police. They had a trunk that belonged to Mrs. Reed. Ruby had been staying there with a man some time earlier and they left without paying their room rent. The whereabouts of the man with whom she registered were unknown and the papers weren’t particularly curious about this detail. They only said, “The contents of this trunk are now being carefully scrutinized and may afford new clues in the search for the slayer.”

“There was but one other strange angle in the entire investigation, an ugly looking knife, with weird figures carved upon the handle. This knife, wrapped in brown paper, was delivered to the Reed apartment the day following the woman’s death. A messenger who had received the package from an unknown man, had been directed to leave it for Ruby. Police were never able to connect this unusual act with the killing.”

This case then went cold, and Ruby Reed’s murder remains unsolved today. In 1930 the LA Evening Express ran a retrospective about the case with this cartoon.

Ruby was buried in Calvary Cemetery, in East Los Angeles. Today the MacArthur Park Apartments stand where her apartment was.

I don’t know if I believe in family curses.  But as I was digging into this case, the thought crossed my mind more than once that maybe there was a curse on Ruby. Here’s what I was able to piece together of her life. Her mother, Mary Glennon, married her father Michael in 1891. It was her second marriage. She was a widow with a young daughter named Millie. Ruby was born a little over a year later, in 1892. The working-class family lived in Leavenworth, Kansas and Michael had a job at the local mill.

In August of 1899, when Ruby was seven years old, her 16-year-old half-sister Millie attempted suicide after her boyfriend told her he didn’t want to see her anymore. Millie couldn’t imagine a life without James Mullins, and swallowed half a bottle of laudanum. She was rushed to the hospital and her life was saved. Mullins came to the hospital and said he’d only been joking with Millie.

In June of 1900, the Census listed Mary Glennon as a widow and the head of the household, with two dependents: daughter Ruby Glennon and daughter Millie Mullins. I couldn’t find a notice of Michael’s death. It appears Millie did marry James, but was living with her mother. James was a soldier so perhaps he was deployed. Ruby married around age 16, and moved to Los Angeles soon after. I couldn’t find a marriage license for her. In 1913, Millie committed suicide by swallowing carbolic acid.

In 1914, Mrs. Glennon was found dead in most mysterious circumstances. She had been seen in a store in the early morning and was “the picture of good health.” Mrs. Glennon was 50 years old and had a couple of boarders for income to supplement what her daughter Ruby sent from Los Angeles.  The boarders passed Mrs. Glennon’s bedroom at noon and saw her lying on the bed. They assumed she was taking a nap. But Mary Glennon was dead. Her friend Ida Brumley arrived for a planned visit that day. When Mary didn’t answer the door, she became worried. She managed to get inside and discovered her friend’s body. The coroner said Mrs. Glennon had smothered to death but he didn’t necessarily suspect foul play. His final verdict was that Mrs. Glennon must have become ill and accidentally smothered herself.

While Mrs. Glennon’s final arrangements were being made, her niece came to claim the body. She went first to her aunt’s home and found, to her shock and horror, that “entrance had been forced through a window and that the entire building had been ransacked. Drawers had been pulled out and their contents scattered about the rooms. Pictures had been moved and even the carpets torn up in an effort to find whatever valuables might have been secreted there.” Police were puzzled as “Mrs. Glennon is said to have been possessed of no great wealth.”

It sounds eerily like the scene that would unfold in her daughter’s apartment six years later.

History flows in rhythm and another mysterious crime went unsolved.