The Mysterious Death of Thelma Todd Jordan Bloomster Forensic Science P.2

Victim  Thelma Todd Date of Crime  December 15th, 1935 (29 years old) Date of Crime  December 15th, 1935 *December 16th, 1935 (Todd’s body was found on the 16th but investigators believe that she was killed the day before on the 15th.) Location of Crime  Thelma Todd’s Sidewalk Café (17575 Pacific Coast Highway in Pacific Palisades California)

↗The shoes Thelma was wearing.↖ Crime Scene Photos  Captain Bert Wallis of the Los Angeles Police Department ↓ examines the body. ↓ ↗The shoes Thelma was wearing.↖

Major players within the case: -Thelma Todd (Victim) Bert Wallis (LAPD Captain + Lead Investigator) Charles "Lucky" Luciano (Crime boss + Gangster) Pasquale “Pat” De Cicco (Todd’s Ex-Husband) Roland West (Todd’s Business Partner)

Investigative details and missteps by the authorities Details Of The Investigation  The Los Angeles Police Department(LAPD) investigators conducted the entire investigation into the death of Thelma Todd. Throughout most of the investigation they consistently viewed the case as a classic accident that was easy enough to explain. They never even considered the possibility that she could have been murdered as opposed to her death just being a simple accident. The police came to the final conclusion that Todd either fell asleep or passed out at the wheel of her luxury car while running the engine to keep herself warm. They believe that this action then resulted in a lethal buildup of carbon monoxide which supposedly killed her inside the closed garage. Since the case still presents many unanswered questions, the case still remains unsolved in the eyes of the general public, which doesn’t believe any part of the highly unlikely explanation from the LAPD.

Details Of The Investigation Cont’d Another official explanation for Todd’s death is that she killed herself in an act of suicide. This was the theory of the coroner that examined her body. Again this raises several questions that are still unanswered today so her death continues to remain a mystery.

Technological Limitations  DNA (Deoxyribonucleic acid) testing wasn’t available at the time of the crime so none of the physical evidence was ever tested to see if a perpetrators DNA might have been at the scene of the crime. This was one reason why the case was ruled as an accidental death from carbon monoxide poisoning. Investigators thought that there were no other probable explanations for Todd’s death. The case was closed by the police on an assumption of an accidental death but it remains unsolved today because many people don’t believe the explanation from the police and believe the way she died was incredibly suspicious.

Conspiracy Theories + Possible Suspects: Several theories have been formulated of how and why Todd was killed. - Was she followed home from the Trocadero that night by her abusive ex-husband, Pasquale “Pat” De Cicco? - Did crime boss Charles "Lucky" Luciano order his fellow gangsters to kill Todd after she allegedly refused to allow him to operate his gambling ring out of her restaurant? - Was she murdered by her business partner and sometime lover, a fading screen director and producer named Roland West? - Did she commit suicide? - Was her death just an accident?

Movies made about the crime: White Hot: The Mysterious Murder of Thelma Todd White Hot: The Mysterious Murder of Thelma Todd is a 1991 made-for-TV film biography, based on the life of the 1930s comedienne actress Thelma Todd.

Citations/References http://www.crimerack.com/2012/05/the-death-of-thelma-todd-case-file/ http://www.laalmanac.com/crime/cr09.htm http://www.usc.edu/libraries/archives/la/scandals/todd.html http://investigation.discovery.com/investigation/hollywood-crimes/todd/thelma-todd.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thelma_Todd http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?GRid=3074&page=gr http://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/person/192525%7C146093/Thelma-Todd/ http://thesilentmovieblog.wordpress.com/2010/12/13/the-death-of-thelma-todd/ http://www.hollywood-underground.com/toddarticle.htm http://voteforgracie.blogspot.com/2009/06/thelma-todd-mystery-and-why-hollywood.html