This is a 1973 photo. The Banner would have been the building immediately to the right of the small white hotel sign, heading south on Main: http://jpg2.lapl.org/pics09/00014126.jpg
The theater cashier was shot and killed in a holdup in 1933:
San Francisco Dec. 27 â€" A hanging verdict was returned early this morning against Edward Anderson, 25, confessed slayer of Hewlett Tarr in a theater box office holdup. Anderson insisted throughout the trial that he had not intended to kill Tarr, Curran theater cashier, but through his unfamiliarity with his gun, it accidentally discharged as he pointed it at the cashier through the grillwork of the cashier box office window.
Status should be closed/demolished, following the Sylmar quake in March 1971:
The San Fernando Theater at 303 S. Brand Blvd. was so severely damaged in the quake that it has been razed. John Rennie’s Crest Theater at 214 N. Maclay Ave. also was closed due to major damage. Rennie’s Town Theater at the northeast corner of Truman St. and Maclay Ave. had been razed earlier to make way for a service station and work was under way on this project when the quake struck. San Fernando no longer has a theater.
Here is an excerpt from a June 1974 newspaper article on the demolition:
A Vallejo landmark that served as the community’s leading cinema for nearly 35 years until it was heavily damaged by fire 20 years ago is being torn down to prevent it from becoming a derelict structure. It’s the old Hanlon Theater at 414 Virginia St. where wrecking crews began demolition of the 51-year-oki building early last week under a permit granted Senator Luther E. Gibson, who acquired the building in 1952.
Senator Gibson said it is with regret that the two story structure which once served as Vallejo’s major entertainment center and the city’s only movie palace is coming to an ignominious end. “Many Vallejoans thought the theater might be restored to its former grandeur after it was ravaged by fire or that it could be converted to some other commercial use”, Senator Gibson said, “but the economic facts of the situation are that such re-construction is not practical”.
I took a walk over to 4th Street today to see what was at 242 and 226, depending on where you place the theater. That entire area has been redeveloped into an outdoor shopping mall. As you would expect, there is no way to surmise that a theater once stood at that location.
On a side note, I noticed an interesting mural painted on the side wall of Acres of Books on Long Beach Blvd. The book store’s adjacent neighbor was recently demolished, revealing an advertisement for Harbor U-Drive. One part of the sign states that the business has relocated to Ocean and American, which gives you an idea how old the signage is. I suppose this will be painted over in due course or obscured by new construction. Check it out if you’re in the LBO area.
Here is an article on the razing of the Egyptian in October 1959:
Old Egyptian Theater Razed
The demolition man’s jackhammer is finishing what the city’s changing traffic patterns started and television helped alongâ€"putting the Egyptian Theater out of business. The stately old movie house at 226 E.4th St., mecca of three generations of motion-picture-goers, is being razed. Built in the early 1920s, the Egyptian was the rage of the Southland when it opened its doors with a premiere showing of a silent flicker, “Little Old New York.” “They came from miles around, driving Model T’s, riding bikes and a few in buggies to see it,” recalls an oldtimer. “It was plenty plush and the decor and architecture inside and out was in an Egyptian theme.”
The 1,000 seat theater made the transition from silent films to tallies without a hitch and for a number of years was the chief outlet in the city for MGM films. Thousands of World War II servicemen remember the red-white-and-blue bunting outside and the
special ticket rates. After the war it was completely remodeled, but the Egyptian was headed downhill. Television cut into its market and it passed from a first-run to a second-run house. Then the city made 4th St. a one-way street and attendance dwindled further. Lack of parking was another problem. And, ironically, the site is to become an automobile parking lot.
Here is an account of a fire at the Arcade on 6/19/65:
CRISFIELD â€" A Crisfield landmark was heavily damaged Friday night when fire of unknown origin burned through the balcony and roof of the Arcade Theatre on Main St. “Thank goodness the movie was over and the building vacant when the fire broke out,” said Mrs. Paul Maddrix, wife of one of the owners of the Arcade, “or there might have been panic among the children.” Mrs. Maddrix said the theatre was showing a movie that appealed especially to the younger set, and there were 300 or more young people in the building during the show.
She said the movie, “Beach Party” ended about 9.30 p.m. and the fire broke out about 11:30 p.m. Two business concerns adjoining the theatre, Beverly’s Sweet Shop, and Daniel’s Radio Repair Shop, were extensively damaged from smoke and water. Firemen said the sweet shop had several people in it at the time of the fire but the radio repair business was vacant. There were no injuries reported, either to firemen or patrons in the nearby shop.
Here is the earliest version of events dated 2/13/73:
TORRANCE. Calif. (AP) â€"Hundreds of children rimmed the Rolling Hills Theater in this Los Angeles suburb waiting to get the best seats when the doors opened for a special holiday matinee. But the doors were not opened, and the crowds were turned away Monday after police discovered the bodies of four theater employees on a blood-splattered floor. Police Lt. James Foster likened the slayings to “an execution.” He said the victims â€"three men and woman â€" were found with their throats slashed and their hands tied behind their backs.
Police said the slayings apparently occurred late Sunday during a robbery of the theater’s weekend receipts, about $2,000, from an office safe Investigators said they had no clues as to the killer or killers. The victims were identified as Lynda R. Freeman, 32, assistant cashier; George Cernik, 18, usher: Guy Brown, 32, doorman, and Clyde Felts, 55, projectionist. The bodies were discovered after a relative of one victim told police the theater employee had not returned home, police said.
Investigators said they were uncertain why the robber or robbers found it necessary to kill the four, since each already had been immobilized. “It makes no sense,” Foster said. “It’s only speculation, but it looks like they were kneeling when they were killed,” Foster said. He said all the victims were found face down.
Investigators speculated that one of the employees had been forced to open the safe after the night’s receipts had been deposited.
There was a fire in 1996, if the reference is to this Norma Jean. Am I correct in that there was only one Norma Jean in the city of Albany? http://tinyurl.com/2wdsbq
This theater was at Park and Elm in Mount Vernon in 1933, but it is unidentified. It doesn’t appear to be one of the three listed to date. Any ideas? http://tinyurl.com/29gvou
Pity the poor cashier in this 1972 story. She survives the hurricane in the morning and then gets robbed at night:
Police arrested a 26-year-old Odessa man Monday night minutes after a gunman made off with $326 in a brazen armed robbery of a busy Downtown Odessa movie theater. James Albert Posteal, 324 South Lindy, remained in the city jail Tuesday in lieu of $25,000 bond set by Municipal Judge Cecil Hardwick. He is named in an armed
robbery complaint filed with Justice of the Peace Otis Moore. Officers nabbed Posteal as he sat nervously in the balcony of the Scott Theater, 700 North Texas, just moments after an armed bandit forced the ticket-seller to hand over $326 at the Ector Theater just two blocks north at 500 North Texas.
Officers said witness to the stickup saw the bandit run to the south of the Ector Theater into the alley behind the 600 block of North Texas following the holdup at 9:10 p.m. Monday. The witness said she saw the man strip off a white shirt and a hat and fling them in the alley as he ran. She told officers the man then walked calmly to the Scott Theater, purchased a ticket and went in.
According to the robbery victim, Rose Bogard, 1939 North Tom Green, the bandit walked up to the box office of the Ector and shoved a bread wrapper through the small hole in the window and told her to fill it up with money. “I got nervous and dropped the bread wrapper on the floor,†she said. “I bent down to pick it up and when I got back up, he had a pistol pointed at me. He told me again to fill it up, and threatened to kill me.” “I got all the money from the register and put it in the bag. It was hard to get the cash into the bread wrapper,” the attendant said.
The gunman then ordered the woman to get down on the floor of the cramped box office. “He kept telling me to get down further, but I told him I was down as far as I could go. He told me to stay down and took off.‘’ She said she was on the floor a few seconds and then raised up and the man was gone. She said the man had a nickel-plated pistol.
Officer Ben Miller, a beat patrolman with the police department, was standing inside
the theater lobby talking to the manager, T. A. Collins, 1701 Rosewood, when the bandit
struck. Miller apparently saw the thief run from the box office and began pursuing him on foot. The ticket-seller said she then called the emergency police number and several patrol cars responded within moments. After talking with Miller and the witness, officers went into the Scott Theater where they arrested the suspect in the balcony. Officers said the man offered no resistance. The cash and a pistol were recovered, police said, along with the discarded shirt and hat from the alley.
Rose Bogard has been the attendant at the theater’s box office off and on for 10 years, she
said. During the days she is the complaint clerk for the Municipal Court of the City of
Odessa. She has been a city employee for the past 12 years, beginning as a meter maid, a position she held about a year and a half. “My day just started off bad altogether,"she said. “When I was going to work at about 6 p.m., I saw that tornado up in the air south of town.” “You never know how you’ll react until it happens…I thought I’d stay calm and remember important details about how the robber looked so I could give a description of him…but all I could think of or see was that big pistol pointed at me,” she said.
In another theater robbery in Oakland, between $50 and $100 was taken at the Capitol Theater, 5827 Foothill Boulevard. Miss Marjorie Maginot, 19, a University of California student working as a cashier at the theater, said two men approached her and told her it was a “stickup.“ “I don’t believe it,” she said she replied. “Give us that box,” one man ordered, and she did after he feigned having a gun in his pocket.
There was a robbery at the theater in November 1947:
LYNN Mass. Nov 24â€" (INS) A 23-year-old Salem youth was arrested today in connection with the $400 theater robbery in which the woman cashier and manager were slugged into unconsciousness. Patrolman Joseph Morgan took the youth into custody as he was standing in the doorway of a Central Square building. Morgan said he found a .22 caliber sawed off rifle on the man. Two thugs entered the Warner Theater on Union street just after Mrs. Rita Gagnon, 25, had closed her ticket booth and carried the day’s receipts into the office of Harold Cummings, the manager. The robbers knocked on the door and when Cummings opened the door in the belief it was an usher, the pair beat the manager and cashier into unconsciousness. They picked up the money bag, walked out through the lobby and escaped by hailing a taxi.
True crime, 2/24/52. You should always press your suit before robbing the theater, or you will invite criticism from witnesses:
A hold-up attempt of the Ritz Theater was thwarted last night by the quick actions of a doorman on duty at the movie house on North Main St. The employee, whose name police withheld, told investigating officers that a man between 40 and 50 years old walked up to the ticket window around 9:56 p.m. and inquired if the show was still on. When informed it was, the employee said, the man reached into his pocket and took a new dollar bill from his wallet and handed it to him. When he turned to make change, the employee said, he felt something in his ribs. The man told him to hand over the money. The employee then threatened the bandit and attempted to slide out of the ticket booth. The bandit demanded the doorman hand over his own wallet and when the doorman turned around, he told police he saw the man had a nickel-plated revolver. He believed it to be about a .32-caliber. When the man reached for the dollar he had given the employee, the employee struck the man along the side of his face with his fist and knocked him through the double doors of the theater onto the street.
The man then ran towards Fifth St. Both witnesses described the hold-up man as about five feet eight inches tall, red faced, sandy haired and wearing a light brown suit which was dirty, baggy and needed a pressing. They said the man appeared calm, used good English and was clean shaven.
POCOMOKE CITY â€" A Virginia man has been charged with robbery in connection with the theft of $350 from the Pocomoke Drive-in Theater Friday, State Police said today. Being held in Worcester County Jail under $10,000 bond is Willie Adolphus Howard Jr., 23, of Horn town. The suspect was apprehended Sunday at Line Rd., Pocomoke City.
Here is a newspaper account of the murders, dated 4/30/73:
Torrance police said today the mass murder of four Rolling Hills theater employees last February and the execution slaying of a Torrance store manager in the following month were committed by one man â€" and that man is now dead. Lt. James Foster identified the suspect as John Roy Mahew, 29, who died of an overdose of barbiturates April 3 in the Torrance jail. “From evidence carefully collected concerning this suspect since his death, the Torrance police are satisfied that he was solely responsible for the theater massacre and for the murder at the Torrance TG&Y store,” Foster said.
Mahew was arrested April 2, when officers went to his Torrance residence to pick him up on outstanding traffic warrants. Because of a past record of more than 20 arrests as an adult, officers said, several units were sent to make the arrest. Foster said the officers had been warned by a tipster that Mahew was armed and had vowed he would not submit to arrest.
THE ARRESTING force was refused admittance on arrival at the residence, Foster said, and Mahew refused to come out. When the police threatened to use tear gas, the suspect finally emerged after a long stand-off. Lt. Foster said that as Mahew was being placed under arrest, he grabbed for his boot but was restrained by arresting officers. A small pistol later was found in the boot, Foster said. On the following morning, the lieutenant said, Mahew was found unconscious in his cell and was pronounced dead a short time later. An autopsy revealed the death was caused by an overdose of barbiturates, presumably taken hurriedly by the suspect on the previous afternoon before he emerged from the house and surrendered, police said.
Lt. Foster said Mahew had been under suspicion in the Rolling Hills theater murders and in the TG&Y slaying before police went to make the arrest on traffic warrants. “But it took this intervening time to check out all the tips we had received and collect the physical evidence necessary to mark the case closed,” he added. Foster said traces of blood on a butcher knife found at Mahew’s home and some of the suspect’s clothes matched the blood type of two of the Rolling Hills theater victims. Mahew’s boot also matched a bootprint found by the body of one of the theater victims, he said. Bloodstains found in Mahew’s car matched the blood type of Jack K. Sweeten, assistant manager of the Torrance variety store, who was found with his hands bound and his throat cut in a storeroom early on Mar. 28, police said.
THE FOUR theater victims â€" Lynda R. Freeman, 32, Clyde Felts, 55, Guy D. Brown, 35 and George Cernick, 18 â€"were found in the theater office early on Feb. 12. Their hands had been bound behind their backs and their throats were slashed. Foster said Mahew, unemployed and behind on all his bills prior to Feb. 12, suddenly began spending money immediately after the theater robbery, and again exhibited affluence following the TG&Y robbery-slaying.
This is a 1973 photo. The Banner would have been the building immediately to the right of the small white hotel sign, heading south on Main:
http://jpg2.lapl.org/pics09/00014126.jpg
The theater cashier was shot and killed in a holdup in 1933:
San Francisco Dec. 27 â€" A hanging verdict was returned early this morning against Edward Anderson, 25, confessed slayer of Hewlett Tarr in a theater box office holdup. Anderson insisted throughout the trial that he had not intended to kill Tarr, Curran theater cashier, but through his unfamiliarity with his gun, it accidentally discharged as he pointed it at the cashier through the grillwork of the cashier box office window.
Status should be closed/demolished, following the Sylmar quake in March 1971:
The San Fernando Theater at 303 S. Brand Blvd. was so severely damaged in the quake that it has been razed. John Rennie’s Crest Theater at 214 N. Maclay Ave. also was closed due to major damage. Rennie’s Town Theater at the northeast corner of Truman St. and Maclay Ave. had been razed earlier to make way for a service station and work was under way on this project when the quake struck. San Fernando no longer has a theater.
Here is an excerpt from a June 1974 newspaper article on the demolition:
A Vallejo landmark that served as the community’s leading cinema for nearly 35 years until it was heavily damaged by fire 20 years ago is being torn down to prevent it from becoming a derelict structure. It’s the old Hanlon Theater at 414 Virginia St. where wrecking crews began demolition of the 51-year-oki building early last week under a permit granted Senator Luther E. Gibson, who acquired the building in 1952.
Senator Gibson said it is with regret that the two story structure which once served as Vallejo’s major entertainment center and the city’s only movie palace is coming to an ignominious end. “Many Vallejoans thought the theater might be restored to its former grandeur after it was ravaged by fire or that it could be converted to some other commercial use”, Senator Gibson said, “but the economic facts of the situation are that such re-construction is not practical”.
I took a walk over to 4th Street today to see what was at 242 and 226, depending on where you place the theater. That entire area has been redeveloped into an outdoor shopping mall. As you would expect, there is no way to surmise that a theater once stood at that location.
On a side note, I noticed an interesting mural painted on the side wall of Acres of Books on Long Beach Blvd. The book store’s adjacent neighbor was recently demolished, revealing an advertisement for Harbor U-Drive. One part of the sign states that the business has relocated to Ocean and American, which gives you an idea how old the signage is. I suppose this will be painted over in due course or obscured by new construction. Check it out if you’re in the LBO area.
Here is an article on the razing of the Egyptian in October 1959:
Old Egyptian Theater Razed
The demolition man’s jackhammer is finishing what the city’s changing traffic patterns started and television helped alongâ€"putting the Egyptian Theater out of business. The stately old movie house at 226 E.4th St., mecca of three generations of motion-picture-goers, is being razed. Built in the early 1920s, the Egyptian was the rage of the Southland when it opened its doors with a premiere showing of a silent flicker, “Little Old New York.” “They came from miles around, driving Model T’s, riding bikes and a few in buggies to see it,” recalls an oldtimer. “It was plenty plush and the decor and architecture inside and out was in an Egyptian theme.”
The 1,000 seat theater made the transition from silent films to tallies without a hitch and for a number of years was the chief outlet in the city for MGM films. Thousands of World War II servicemen remember the red-white-and-blue bunting outside and the
special ticket rates. After the war it was completely remodeled, but the Egyptian was headed downhill. Television cut into its market and it passed from a first-run to a second-run house. Then the city made 4th St. a one-way street and attendance dwindled further. Lack of parking was another problem. And, ironically, the site is to become an automobile parking lot.
There was a fire that damaged the theater in 1947:
http://tinyurl.com/2ht56l
Here is an account of a fire at the Arcade on 6/19/65:
CRISFIELD â€" A Crisfield landmark was heavily damaged Friday night when fire of unknown origin burned through the balcony and roof of the Arcade Theatre on Main St. “Thank goodness the movie was over and the building vacant when the fire broke out,” said Mrs. Paul Maddrix, wife of one of the owners of the Arcade, “or there might have been panic among the children.” Mrs. Maddrix said the theatre was showing a movie that appealed especially to the younger set, and there were 300 or more young people in the building during the show.
She said the movie, “Beach Party” ended about 9.30 p.m. and the fire broke out about 11:30 p.m. Two business concerns adjoining the theatre, Beverly’s Sweet Shop, and Daniel’s Radio Repair Shop, were extensively damaged from smoke and water. Firemen said the sweet shop had several people in it at the time of the fire but the radio repair business was vacant. There were no injuries reported, either to firemen or patrons in the nearby shop.
Here is the earliest version of events dated 2/13/73:
TORRANCE. Calif. (AP) â€"Hundreds of children rimmed the Rolling Hills Theater in this Los Angeles suburb waiting to get the best seats when the doors opened for a special holiday matinee. But the doors were not opened, and the crowds were turned away Monday after police discovered the bodies of four theater employees on a blood-splattered floor. Police Lt. James Foster likened the slayings to “an execution.” He said the victims â€"three men and woman â€" were found with their throats slashed and their hands tied behind their backs.
Police said the slayings apparently occurred late Sunday during a robbery of the theater’s weekend receipts, about $2,000, from an office safe Investigators said they had no clues as to the killer or killers. The victims were identified as Lynda R. Freeman, 32, assistant cashier; George Cernik, 18, usher: Guy Brown, 32, doorman, and Clyde Felts, 55, projectionist. The bodies were discovered after a relative of one victim told police the theater employee had not returned home, police said.
Investigators said they were uncertain why the robber or robbers found it necessary to kill the four, since each already had been immobilized. “It makes no sense,” Foster said. “It’s only speculation, but it looks like they were kneeling when they were killed,” Foster said. He said all the victims were found face down.
Investigators speculated that one of the employees had been forced to open the safe after the night’s receipts had been deposited.
There was a fire in 1996, if the reference is to this Norma Jean. Am I correct in that there was only one Norma Jean in the city of Albany?
http://tinyurl.com/2wdsbq
This theater was at Park and Elm in Mount Vernon in 1933, but it is unidentified. It doesn’t appear to be one of the three listed to date. Any ideas?
http://tinyurl.com/29gvou
Arson as censorship:
http://tinyurl.com/2c7pke
That’s a great name for a boxing referee.
Robbery in May 1973:
http://tinyurl.com/2x4snn
Pity the poor cashier in this 1972 story. She survives the hurricane in the morning and then gets robbed at night:
Police arrested a 26-year-old Odessa man Monday night minutes after a gunman made off with $326 in a brazen armed robbery of a busy Downtown Odessa movie theater. James Albert Posteal, 324 South Lindy, remained in the city jail Tuesday in lieu of $25,000 bond set by Municipal Judge Cecil Hardwick. He is named in an armed
robbery complaint filed with Justice of the Peace Otis Moore. Officers nabbed Posteal as he sat nervously in the balcony of the Scott Theater, 700 North Texas, just moments after an armed bandit forced the ticket-seller to hand over $326 at the Ector Theater just two blocks north at 500 North Texas.
Officers said witness to the stickup saw the bandit run to the south of the Ector Theater into the alley behind the 600 block of North Texas following the holdup at 9:10 p.m. Monday. The witness said she saw the man strip off a white shirt and a hat and fling them in the alley as he ran. She told officers the man then walked calmly to the Scott Theater, purchased a ticket and went in.
According to the robbery victim, Rose Bogard, 1939 North Tom Green, the bandit walked up to the box office of the Ector and shoved a bread wrapper through the small hole in the window and told her to fill it up with money. “I got nervous and dropped the bread wrapper on the floor,†she said. “I bent down to pick it up and when I got back up, he had a pistol pointed at me. He told me again to fill it up, and threatened to kill me.” “I got all the money from the register and put it in the bag. It was hard to get the cash into the bread wrapper,” the attendant said.
The gunman then ordered the woman to get down on the floor of the cramped box office. “He kept telling me to get down further, but I told him I was down as far as I could go. He told me to stay down and took off.‘’ She said she was on the floor a few seconds and then raised up and the man was gone. She said the man had a nickel-plated pistol.
Officer Ben Miller, a beat patrolman with the police department, was standing inside
the theater lobby talking to the manager, T. A. Collins, 1701 Rosewood, when the bandit
struck. Miller apparently saw the thief run from the box office and began pursuing him on foot. The ticket-seller said she then called the emergency police number and several patrol cars responded within moments. After talking with Miller and the witness, officers went into the Scott Theater where they arrested the suspect in the balcony. Officers said the man offered no resistance. The cash and a pistol were recovered, police said, along with the discarded shirt and hat from the alley.
Rose Bogard has been the attendant at the theater’s box office off and on for 10 years, she
said. During the days she is the complaint clerk for the Municipal Court of the City of
Odessa. She has been a city employee for the past 12 years, beginning as a meter maid, a position she held about a year and a half. “My day just started off bad altogether,"she said. “When I was going to work at about 6 p.m., I saw that tornado up in the air south of town.” “You never know how you’ll react until it happens…I thought I’d stay calm and remember important details about how the robber looked so I could give a description of him…but all I could think of or see was that big pistol pointed at me,” she said.
The fire was in 1980:
http://tinyurl.com/2p8922
Crime in October 1946:
In another theater robbery in Oakland, between $50 and $100 was taken at the Capitol Theater, 5827 Foothill Boulevard. Miss Marjorie Maginot, 19, a University of California student working as a cashier at the theater, said two men approached her and told her it was a “stickup.“ “I don’t believe it,” she said she replied. “Give us that box,” one man ordered, and she did after he feigned having a gun in his pocket.
There was a robbery at the theater in November 1947:
LYNN Mass. Nov 24â€" (INS) A 23-year-old Salem youth was arrested today in connection with the $400 theater robbery in which the woman cashier and manager were slugged into unconsciousness. Patrolman Joseph Morgan took the youth into custody as he was standing in the doorway of a Central Square building. Morgan said he found a .22 caliber sawed off rifle on the man. Two thugs entered the Warner Theater on Union street just after Mrs. Rita Gagnon, 25, had closed her ticket booth and carried the day’s receipts into the office of Harold Cummings, the manager. The robbers knocked on the door and when Cummings opened the door in the belief it was an usher, the pair beat the manager and cashier into unconsciousness. They picked up the money bag, walked out through the lobby and escaped by hailing a taxi.
True crime, 2/24/52. You should always press your suit before robbing the theater, or you will invite criticism from witnesses:
A hold-up attempt of the Ritz Theater was thwarted last night by the quick actions of a doorman on duty at the movie house on North Main St. The employee, whose name police withheld, told investigating officers that a man between 40 and 50 years old walked up to the ticket window around 9:56 p.m. and inquired if the show was still on. When informed it was, the employee said, the man reached into his pocket and took a new dollar bill from his wallet and handed it to him. When he turned to make change, the employee said, he felt something in his ribs. The man told him to hand over the money. The employee then threatened the bandit and attempted to slide out of the ticket booth. The bandit demanded the doorman hand over his own wallet and when the doorman turned around, he told police he saw the man had a nickel-plated revolver. He believed it to be about a .32-caliber. When the man reached for the dollar he had given the employee, the employee struck the man along the side of his face with his fist and knocked him through the double doors of the theater onto the street.
The man then ran towards Fifth St. Both witnesses described the hold-up man as about five feet eight inches tall, red faced, sandy haired and wearing a light brown suit which was dirty, baggy and needed a pressing. They said the man appeared calm, used good English and was clean shaven.
Manager in the late 70s was Willie Plummer, according to this case:
http://tinyurl.com/yptttv
Robbery in April 1973:
POCOMOKE CITY â€" A Virginia man has been charged with robbery in connection with the theft of $350 from the Pocomoke Drive-in Theater Friday, State Police said today. Being held in Worcester County Jail under $10,000 bond is Willie Adolphus Howard Jr., 23, of Horn town. The suspect was apprehended Sunday at Line Rd., Pocomoke City.
Here is a newspaper account of the murders, dated 4/30/73:
Torrance police said today the mass murder of four Rolling Hills theater employees last February and the execution slaying of a Torrance store manager in the following month were committed by one man â€" and that man is now dead. Lt. James Foster identified the suspect as John Roy Mahew, 29, who died of an overdose of barbiturates April 3 in the Torrance jail. “From evidence carefully collected concerning this suspect since his death, the Torrance police are satisfied that he was solely responsible for the theater massacre and for the murder at the Torrance TG&Y store,” Foster said.
Mahew was arrested April 2, when officers went to his Torrance residence to pick him up on outstanding traffic warrants. Because of a past record of more than 20 arrests as an adult, officers said, several units were sent to make the arrest. Foster said the officers had been warned by a tipster that Mahew was armed and had vowed he would not submit to arrest.
THE ARRESTING force was refused admittance on arrival at the residence, Foster said, and Mahew refused to come out. When the police threatened to use tear gas, the suspect finally emerged after a long stand-off. Lt. Foster said that as Mahew was being placed under arrest, he grabbed for his boot but was restrained by arresting officers. A small pistol later was found in the boot, Foster said. On the following morning, the lieutenant said, Mahew was found unconscious in his cell and was pronounced dead a short time later. An autopsy revealed the death was caused by an overdose of barbiturates, presumably taken hurriedly by the suspect on the previous afternoon before he emerged from the house and surrendered, police said.
Lt. Foster said Mahew had been under suspicion in the Rolling Hills theater murders and in the TG&Y slaying before police went to make the arrest on traffic warrants. “But it took this intervening time to check out all the tips we had received and collect the physical evidence necessary to mark the case closed,” he added. Foster said traces of blood on a butcher knife found at Mahew’s home and some of the suspect’s clothes matched the blood type of two of the Rolling Hills theater victims. Mahew’s boot also matched a bootprint found by the body of one of the theater victims, he said. Bloodstains found in Mahew’s car matched the blood type of Jack K. Sweeten, assistant manager of the Torrance variety store, who was found with his hands bound and his throat cut in a storeroom early on Mar. 28, police said.
THE FOUR theater victims â€" Lynda R. Freeman, 32, Clyde Felts, 55, Guy D. Brown, 35 and George Cernick, 18 â€"were found in the theater office early on Feb. 12. Their hands had been bound behind their backs and their throats were slashed. Foster said Mahew, unemployed and behind on all his bills prior to Feb. 12, suddenly began spending money immediately after the theater robbery, and again exhibited affluence following the TG&Y robbery-slaying.
Here is an account of the homicide in the theater on 7/19/73:
http://tinyurl.com/38s2zl
Crime in Alaska, 1976:
http://tinyurl.com/2mbbyy
I should correct that statement as the crime took place in 1967, which would jibe with Chuck’s closing date.