by James Ellroy
Chapman and Wahlke braced Bob Hathaway. The interview began at 10:15 A.M. and ended at 10:34.
Hathaway was a part-time actor. He confirmed Rubin's Wednesday night run-through.
Karyn was restless and tired. That baby-on-the-doorstep thing had her wheels spinning.
Wahlke asked Hathaway if he ever hit on Karyn. Hathaway said, "Never." Wahlke asked him about Karyn and Andy. Hathaway said they were on-again, off-again.
He confirmed Rubin:
Andy said he went to a rodeo that night.
Wahlke asked Hathaway if Andy was a violent guy. Hathaway said, "No." Wahlke asked him if he'd take a polygraph test. Hathaway said, "Yes."
Chapman and Wahlke braced Bill Mamches. The interview began at 10:40 A.M. and ended at 10:54.
Mamches was a part-time actor. He said he knew Karyn casually. He never went out with her. He never hit on her. Andy never bragged about the sex they had. Andy wasn't an evil cat. He chased broads. He wasn't a one-woman man. Karyn was a oneman woman.
Chapman asked Mamches if he'd take a polygraph test. Mamches said, "Yes."
Chapman and Wahlke braced Marcia Goddard. The interview began at 11:20A.M. and ended at 11:52.
Chapman asked Mrs. Goddard if Karyn made up tales. Mrs. Goddard said, "Yes." Chapman asked her if the baby tale was typical. Mrs. Goddard called it an- extreme example. Her husband called the hospital and learned that Karyn lied.
Chapman mentioned Karyn's pill use. Mrs. Goddard called it excessive.
Karyn left her house at 8:30 P.M. Wednesday. A cab picked her up. Karyn didn't drive. She took cabs everywhere. She said she'd call Marcia later. She never called her again.
Chapman asked Mrs. Goddard how Karyn looked last Wednesday. Mrs. Goddard said her lips seemed numb. Her voice was funny. She moved her head at odd angles.
Wahlke asked Mrs. Goddard to name Karyn's old boyfriends. She mentioned David Wallerstein. He was an old family friend. He lived in Pomona now. He loved Karyn. She didn't love him. She didn't think of him as a love interest.
Chapman asked Mrs. Goddard to describe Karyn's morals. Mrs. Goddard said, "I couldn't say." Chapman asked her if Karyn slept around. Mrs. Goddard said, "Not that I know of." Wahlke asked her if she'd take a polygraph test. Mrs. Goddard said, "Yes."
Chapman and Wahlke braced Mark Goddard. The interview began at 12:00 P.M. and ended at 12:19.
Goddard had a costar gig on The Bill Dana Show. He knew Karyn for two-plus years. His wife's parents knew her parents.
Wahlke brought up Andy Prine. Goddard said he liked him. He was a good actor. He was a straight-ahead guy. Wahlke asked Goddard if Karyn loved Andy more than Andy loved her. Goddard said, "Yes." Wahlke asked him if Andy ever hit Karyn. Goddard said, "No, sir, never."
Goddard said Karyn was blitzed Wednesday night. He confronted her. She put an arm around him and cried.
Wahlke asked Goddard if Karyn was a dick tease. Goddard said, "No." Wahlke asked him if he'd take a polygraph test. Goddard said, "Yes."
Irv Kupcinet showed up at Karyn's apartment. He brought his lawyer along. Captain Etzel and Chief Rosenberg briefed them. Deputy Boyer and Deputy Miller arrived. Rosenberg told them to canvass the neighborhood.
Prine, Rubin, Mamches, and Hathaway took polygraph tests. All four were judged inconclusive. Chapman and Wahlke reinterviewed Prine and Rubin. Prine said the bull session went down Tuesday night. Rubin said it went down Wednesday. Chapman and Wahike called the actress chick. She partially confirmed Prine's statement.
She ran into Andy at Grassari's Tuesday night. He said he just went to the rodeo. They made a date for Wednesday night. The date went down like Andy said it did.
Chapman and Wahlke ran a string of checks. They ran Prine, Rubin, Hathaway, and Mamches. They came back clean--no wants, no warrants, no rap sheets. Chapman and Wahlke ran a check on Karyn Kupcinet. She came back dirty. The Pomona PD popped her for petty theft. The bust occurred on 1 1/10/62.
She boosted some stuff from a store. She got a fine and three years' probation.
Hallinen and Collins found David Wallerstein. He was covered for the victim's estimated time-of-death.
The print men filed a report. They found prints for the victim and Edward Rubin. They found a few unknown sets.
Boyer and Miller canvassed the courtyard and the adjoining buildings. They asked about suspicious shit Wednesday night and Thursday morning.
12271/4 North Sweetzer--nothing. 1227 North Sweetzer-- zilch.
1223½ 1225, 1235 D-2, 12291/2, 1221½, 12231/2, 1229, 1233 A-1, A-2, and B-1--nothing.
Miller hit 1223¼. The female tenant snitched off the guy who lived below Karyn.
His name was David Lange. He did something weird. It happened Sunday evening--12/1/63.
He walked into the woman's pad uninvited. He said he walked up to Karyn's door on Friday. It was unlocked. He jiggled the knob--but didn't go in. He ran into some cops last night. He didn't tell them the exact truth.
Boyer and Miller looked for Lange. They couldn't find him.
1229--nothing. 1223 and 1221¼--vacant. 1231¼--nothing. Eight tenants unavailable or out of town.
Andy Prine turned over the notes he got. Chapman and Wahlke sent them to the Crime Lab.
On 4 X 6 plain white paper: WANT YOUR HOT BODY. ONLY TAMPAX WILL STOP YOUR FERTILITY PROBLEM.
On 6 X 10 plain white paper: YOU WILL NEED PROTECTION. BEN CASEY CAUGHT MESSAGE FOR YOUR BEAU. YOU HAVEN'T MUCH TIME FOR DREAMS.
On 4 X 6 plain white paper: FORGET FAME AND ROMANCE WITH AGING GLEN FORD. DEVIL MUST KILL YOU.
On 5 X 7½ lined paper: YOUR LADY NEEDS SURGERY SUDDENLY. EXPECT TO GET BAD BREAKS WHEREVER YOU GO. YOUR RICH BEAUTY HAS NO TIME.
On 4 X 6 plain white paper: ARE YOU GOING TO LATIN AMERICA OR FLORIDA? LET YOUR BEAUTIFUL VIRGIN BECOME LONESOME AND SO EASY TO MAKE. BET K KUP TASTES AS GOOD AS IT LOOKS. BLOW.
On 6 X 10 plain white paper: YOU ARE THE CERTAIN GIRL TO DIE.
On 4½ X 7½ lined paper: YOU MAY DIE WITHOUT NOBODY. WINNER OF LONELINESS WANTS DEATH UNTIL SOMEONE SPECIAL CARES.
The words were clipped from movie magazines. They were secured with Scotch tape. A lab crew searched the victim's apartment. They found the magazines that were used.
A print man dusted the words under the tape. He found Karyn Kupcinet's prints.
She sent the notes to Andy Prine--and herself.
Chapman and Wahike talked to Andy Prine's ex-wife. She laid Andy out as a no-good motherfucker.
He was volatile. She heard that he strangled a cat. Their cat disappeared. Maybe Andy snuffed him.
Chapman and Wahike reinterviewed Prine. He said he never snuffed any cats. He said he had the Tuesday vs. Wednesday thing straight. He went to the rodeo Tuesday. He went out with the actress chick Wednesday. The bull session had to be Tuesday. He went straight home Wednesday night and called Karyn.
Chapman and Wahike talked to Rubin and Hathaway. They said they might have fucked up. The talkathon might have been Tuesday.
Chapman and Wahike braced Karyn and Andy's friends. Hallinen and Collins braced them. The consensus: Karyn and Andy were headed for Splitsville. Chapman and Wahike braced Andy on that. He said he kept things cooool. He liked to ball her on his own terms.
Prine said Karyn stalked him in taxis. She hid out at his pad once. She caught him with another woman.
Chapman and Wahike braced Earl Holliman. He dittoed Prine's account of their Palm Springs weekend.
Boyer and Miller stuck a note on David Lange's door. They told him to call Sheriff's Homicide. A Narco cop called Chapman and Wahike. He said he got a tip on Lange.
A woman snitched him off. She said Lange called her on 12/1/63. He said he knew Karyn. He said, "I killed her, you know."
David Lange was 27 years old. He was a script reader. The actress Hope Lange was his sister. Hope Lange used to date Glenn Ford. Glenn Ford knew Andy and Karyn. Andy had Thanksgiving dinner at Ford's house.
Lange showed up at the West Hollywood Station. Cha
pman and Wahike braced him.
He said he didn't kill Karyn. He told that woman he did. He was just kidding.
He knew Karyn. He liked her. Andy Prine introduced them. That tenant woman lied. He did not knock on Karyn's door that Friday. He did not say he lied to the cops.
A cop knocked on his door the night they found the body. He was in bed with a girl. He blew the cop off and went back to bed.
Lange laid out his actions for 11/27 and 11/28.
He had dinner at Natalie Wood's house. He arrived at 7:00. He left at 11:30. Arthur Loew and Bob Jarris were there. He went to Bob's place. He drank a bit. He got "rather high." He went home at 12:30. He went to bed. He got up at 9:oo A.M. Thursday.
He never balled Karyn. He never tried to.
Chapman and Wahike asked him who he balled lately. Lange named two starlets. Lieutenant Walsh and Wahike called the woman who snitched Lange off. She said she balled Lange once. Chapman and Wahike called the two starlets. They both said they balled Lange once. One starlet said Lange pissed her off. He told her she gave him the clap. It was bulishit. She knew she was clean.
Lange balled the other starlet at his pad. It was Saturday night--i 1/30/63.
Somebody knocked on the door. Lange got up and talked to him. He did not come back and tell her that his friend Karyn was dead.
Lange said he'd take a polygraph test. Chapman and Wahike drove him downtown. Hallinen and Collins braced him. He said he lied to Chapman and Wahike.
That chick told it straight. He tried Karyn's door that Friday.
But:
He didn't go in. He didn't see Karyn--dead or alive.
Lange said he had a recent bout of the clap. He got it from this starlet he balled. He went to a doctor and fixed himself up.
Lange took a polygraph test. The result was judged inconclusive.
Chapman and Wahike checked their autopsy notes. Doc Kade took a vaginal smear. He found a leukorrhea discharge.
They had it tested. It was decomposed. They couldn't compare it to the test smear that Lange's doctor took.
Prine and Lange remained major suspects. The inconclusive polygraphs meant everything and nothing. Some cops bought polygraph tests. Some cops thought they were bulishit. A bunch of guys at Sheriff's Homicide thought it wasn't even a murder.
The victim was a hophead. They found her nude. They found that "dance-in-the-nude" book. She might have danced and stumbled around. She might have made that big mess. She might have tripped and clipped her hyoid bone on a chair. She might have crawled up on the couch and died. She might have passed out on the couch and choked on her own puke. She might have purged the dope in her system as she decomped. Doc Kade was a juicehead. They hauled him out of bed and put him to work at 2 A.M. All he found was a broken hyoid. He might have snapped it himself.
The L.A. papers played up the case. It got some national ink. The Hollywood angle brought out the perverts and freaks.
12/4/63:
A man calls Sheriff's Homicide. The starlet killer is stalking this girl he knows. Some cops brace her. She's scared. A guy tried to choke her last October. He hangs out with a fag.
Some cops found the guy. He was a fag himself. He said he choked the bitch accidentally. He said he never met Karyn. He said he might have met Andy Prine. The cops wrote him off as a nut.
12/7/63:
A "Script Supervisor" calls Sheriff's Homicide. An actress friend got a weird phone call. A guy said, "You know what happened to Karyn, and you are going to be next."
The actress used to date Andy Prine. Her current squeeze knew Andy and Karyn.
Chapman and Wahike braced the squeeze. He said he met Karyn in '61. He said he got popped for shoplifting once.
He stole some Ex-Lax at a Thrifty Drugstore. He didn't mean to steal it. He didn't want to buy the shit from a lady clerk. Chapman and Wahike wrote him off as a nut.
Hallinen and Collins got a tip. A snitch snitched off an actor named Rick Bache.
Bache killed himself on 11/30. Dig it. It might tie in to the Kupcinet snuff.
They checked it out. It was straight out of Lolita.
Rick Bache was hot for a 15-year-old-girl. He wanted to marry her. Her mother disapproved. Bache offed himself. Hallinen and Collins braced his friends. They all said he never knew Karyn. Hallinen and Collins wrote him off as a perv.
Tips came in. It was 99.9 percent freak stuff. Everybody was a would-be actor or part-time actor and full-time shitbird. They printed everybody. They ran their prints against the unknown prints at the crime scene. Nothing matched.
They braced Andy Prine repeatedly. He cooperated. He stuck to his story.
They checked the weirdo file at West Hollywood Station. They zeroed in on a well-known peeper. They checked him out and wrote him off. He only peeped the gash in his own building.
Chapman and Wahike talked to Glenn Ford. He liked Andy Prine. Andy was a righteous dude.
They talked to Andy Prine's ex-girifriends. They logged in a consensus.
Andy was tender. Andy was sensitive. Andy got more ass than a toilet seat.
More tips. More bulishit. A gang rape or a gang bang at Karyn's old apartment. The date: 4/19/64.
It began at the Raincheck Room. The alleged victim was a movie extra.
She got bombed at the Raincheck. The new guy in Karyn's pad got bombed. They went back to the pad. Six or seven cats joined them. The new guy said, "This is where Kupcinet was murdered and every time I think of it, I get sick to my stomach."
The woman said six or seven guys raped her. The guys said she put out. Chapman and Wahlke reviewed the occurrence. They leaned toward the gang-bang scenario. They braced the new tenant guy. They wrote him off as a homicide suspect. They wrote him off as a rape-o and gang-bang participant.
More bugs blew into the light. Walter Winchell crashed the case and tried to hoist his career out of the toilet.
He showed up at Sheriff's Homicide on 6/25/64. He told a wild story.
It featured Andy Prine's ex-wife and her cat, "Calhoun." It involved Vince Edwards on the Ben Casey show. It involved J. Edgar Hoover and the "Syndicate." The cat was the star. Andy's ex said Andy offed the motherfucker. The backup cast: a female private eye, an armed robber, and two guys on death row at Big Q.
Eight detectives probed Winchell's story. The old cocksucker hounded them and made them dance to his tune.
He set up interviews and hosted dinners at Chasen's. He laid on the meager remnants of his charm. He choreographed a freak show and made the cops join in interactive.
He wasted hundreds of police man-hours. The final report ran 8,ooo words. The narrative line was incomprehensible.
The case dragged on. It retained a priority status. The Kupcinet family applied pressure.
Essee Kupcinet believed in psychics. She urged the cops to employ them. They accommodated her.
1/23/65:
A psychic named Hans Holzer jumps in. He hypnotizes a woman named Maxine Bell. Mrs. Bell assumes the soul of Karyn Kupcinet. She zooms back to her last night on earth.
Karyn's guests split. Andy comes over. He gets mad at Karyn. He hits her. He bombs out of the apartment.
Karyn takes a shower. She towels herself off. A white male sneaks into her pad. He calls Karyn a bitch. He chokes her and places her on the couch.
The man was years old. He stood five-six to five-eight. He had silver-gray hair and blue eyes.
1/26/66:
Boss psychic Peter Hurkos weighs in. He groks Andy Prine as the killer. He groks David Lange as the backup suspect. Hurkos met Prine and Lange at Glenn Ford's house. Karyn said she'd flick up Andy's career if he left her. Hurkos calls that the murder motive.
1/31/66:
A female psychic fondles Karyn's jewelry. She gets a brainstorm.
It was a contract hit out of Chicago. The killer looked Jewish or Italian. He had dark hair and a broad forehead.
The psychic shit went nowhere. They discontinued it. They reinterviewed most of the key witnesses.
They pressed the case all the way through '66.
They went at Andy Prine. They braced him on 11/2/66. Bobby Chapman and Lieutenant Norm Hamilton went at him hard.
Prine stuck to his story. Chapman tried to shoot it down. He pressed one theory--hard.
It's 11/27/63. Andy drops off the actress chick. He doesn't try to flick the actress chick. He wants to break it off with Karyn--for keeps. He goes to her pad. Things escalate. Karyn dies in the process.
Prine stuck to his story. He didn't try to fuck the actress chick. He wasn't that hard up for cooze. He didn't want to cut off Karyn. He dug her as a sometime thing. She never said she'd fuck up his career. The bad publicity fucked him. That was the only way he got fucked.
11/14/66:
Edward Rubin calls Sheriff's Homicide. He changes his story substantially.
It's 11/27/63. He leaves Karyn's place. He's with Bob Hathaway.
They go to the Raincheck Room. Bob takes off alone. Rubin meets two chicks. He can't remember their names. They drive him home. They've got a '57 Austin-Healey. He asks one chick for a date. She turns him down. She's leaving for New Mexico U in the morning.
Bobby Chapman tried to verify the story. He couldn't get a line on the chicks.
Strange:
Rubin did not recall the chicks three days after the crime. He recalled them three years later.
12/7/66:
Chapman braces Bob Hathaway. He refutes Rubin's revised statement. He revises his own statement substantially.
He said the big bull session was a big non sequitur. Andy never dropped by and stayed that long.
12/14/66:
Chapman braces Edward Rubin. He dittoes Hathaway. It did seem strange that Andy stayed that long.
The case dragged on. A lot of the cops thought it wasn't even a murder. Bobby Chapman transferred out. Bobby Morck and Vince Bogdanich got the case. Morck thought it wasn't a murder. Bogdanich wasn't sure. They checked out leads anyway.