EW takes a look inside the still-open case.
Night Shyamalanadaptation of aJames Ellroynovel.
More than 70 years later, Spangler’s disappearance still haunts the City of Angels.
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All seemed well enough on the night of Friday, Oct. 7, 1949.
Spangler’s mother, Florence, with whom she shared the apartment, was away visiting relatives in Kentucky.
“She came down the stairs and asked how she looked,” Sophie later told reporters.
Herald Examiner Collection/Los Angeles Public Library
“She smiled at me, and then her little girl, Christine, asked where she was going.
‘Going to work,’ Jean answered again, but she winked at me when she said it.”
When Spangler hadn’t returned by Saturday night, Sophie called the police.
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Going to see Dr. Scott.
It will work best this way while mother is away."
Thus began a hunt for Spanglerand the mysterious Kirk and Dr. Scott.
Los Angeles Public Library
But there was no formal case file, apart from a notebook he made of documents related to it.
His former partner Det.
Elizabeth Camacho confirmed to EW that no case file remains.
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“It was always a suspicious missing person [case].”
“Nothing I’ve ever read would indicate [she skipped town],” Jackson reflects.
Obviously, she cared for her daughter enough to get custody back.
Los Angeles Public Library
It just makes sense that she met foul play.
There’s no doubt she was dead, and that’s why she never surfaced."
Hollywood’s film sets, parties, and social scene all brought individuals intoand out ofSpangler’s life.
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Douglas spoke with police over the phone while vacationing in Palm Springs.
But I never saw her before or after that and have never been out with her."
“I asked her if it was serious,” he told theLos Angeles Times.
Herald Examiner Collection/Los Angeles Public Library
“She said, ‘Not exactly, but I’m having the time of my life.'”
Could “Kirk” be the new beau she alluded to?
The true identity of Kirk remains a mystery.
At a press conference, Det.
Spangler allegedly had an affair with the man while her husband was stationed overseas.
She did tell a friend “Scotty” threatened her when she left him.
But there was no evidence she ever saw him after breaking things off in 1945.
For many, “the husband did it” is a true-crime maxim.
Jackson believes Benner is the strongest suspect.
Remarried, he left California with the girl.
Benner died in 2007, but Christine and his other children are still living.
They did not respond to EW’s attempts to contact them.
Spangler bore a striking resemblance to Black Dahlia victim Elizabeth Short, and both young women shared silver-screen aspirations.
“The LAPD was a real-lifeL.A.
Was Dr. Hodel the shadowy “Dr. Scott” in Spangler’s note?
Spangler may have called for help later that night at a gas station near the Sunset Strip.
Rodgers called police, but by the time they responded, the trail was cold.
Hodel believes his father was this man spotted with Spangler.
He fits the description, and he drove a 1936 black Packard sedan resembling the one Rodgers described.
Was this the same car?
“It’s my belief she started dating Dad either late September or early October,” he says.
“He gets arrested for incest [on Oct. 6] and bails out the same day.
She knew something.”
“Though [Dad] didn’t necessarily need a reason,” he adds.
He hired retired police sergeant Paul Dostie to walk the property with his dog Buster.
Forensic anthropologist Arpad Vass tested the samples and identified the presence of human remains in the soil.
In an only-in-Hollywood twist, that home belonged toThat ’70s ShowstarLaura Preponat the time.
Still, Hodel suspects that answers are hidden in that soil.
It’s an open-ended question that few alive are still asking.
