Underbelly L.A. · The Crimes of Valhalla In Burbank, there’s a cemetery named for a mythical land of the dead that today is known as the burial place of many famous aviators. It didn’t start out on the up-and-up, however. In our season two finale, Hadley recalls how Valhalla Memorial [...]
Underbelly L.A. · Patriarchy in Action: The Violent Life of Griffith J. Griffith His name is forever associated with largest park, and indeed Griffith Park is one of the jewels of the city even today. But that legacy — and the bronze statue standing at the park’s entrance — belie [...]
Underbelly L.A. · Edward Hickman, the Fox One Saturday in December, 1927, Los Angeles was rocked by news of the gruesome murder of a child. A citywide manhunt for the killer quickly spread across state lines, and terrified Angelenos were even more surprised when the culprit turned out to be a [...]
Underbelly L.A. · The Rattlesnake Killer In August of 1935, Robert S. James committed one of the worst-planned murders in the history of Los Angeles, in the process earning himself the nickname ”the Rattlesnake Killer“ and also revealing a history of previous suspicious deaths. Find out more about Underbelly L.A. on [...]
Underbelly L.A. · The Blonde Rattlesnake In the second installment of our series looking into L.A. criminals who were decidedly not masterminds, Hadley examines Burmah White. Was she a bad girl? Or a good girl led astray by the worst kind of guy? Find out more about Underbelly L.A. on the [...]
Underbelly L.A. · Hazel Glab, the “Oklahoma Two-Gun Girl” The new season of Underbelly L.A. looks not at the city’s criminal masterminds but at the city’s criminal also-rans, who gained infamy in spite of themselves. And we’re kicking off the new run with the story of Hazel Glab, whose amusingly flawed [...]
More than the host of Underbelly L.A., Hadley Meares is a journalist, historian, explorer and occasional stand-in for Amy Poehler. As she prepares for the second season of this podcast, she sat down for an interview with Underbelly L.A. producer Drew Mackie about just how a girl from North Carolina comes [...]
One evening in 1958, an explosion shattered not only the quiet peace of the Christmas season but also perceptions about the World Knowledge Faith Love Fountain of the World, a clunkily named religious sect based in Southern California. It’s just one of the many cults to bloom in the area, and [...]
During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, rootless men flooded into Los Angeles, looking for sunshine and, often, a new beginning. Many of them ended up in the downtown district known as Skid Row, and once there, they elicited both hostile and charitable reactions from better-off Angelenos. You could say [...]
Jeanne French lived big and flew high, and it’s insult to injury that her grisly murder would end up overshadowing all she did with her life. In this episode, Hadley looks into circumstances around French’s 1947 murder, the “werewolf killer” panic that gripped Los Angeles around the time she died, [...]
