Title supplied by cataloger.; Photograph was edited for publication purposes. On June 27, 1937, Jeanette Stephens, 8, and her friends, Melba Everett, 9, and Madeline Everett, 7, were lured from Centinela Park in Inglewood. An extensive search ensued, with the police enlisting the aid of 500 Boy Scouts. Two days after their disappearance, a Boy Scout found the three bodies in a ravine in Baldwin Hills; the shoes of each girl were removed and placed in a pile near their bodies. From the moment news of the case broke, Albert Dyer, Inglewood resident and traffic guard at Centinela Elementary School where the girls were students, followed the story closely. He began keeping a scrapbook of newspaper clippings and offered the police theories about the case. As soon as the bodies were found, Dyer arrived on the scene in Baldwin Hills and began demonstrating strange behavior. Authories began to suspect Dyer and took him into custody. He was questioned at a jail in Los Angeles, as threats upon his life were being made in Inglewood. Dyer explained how he abducted the girls from the park and enticed them with the prospect of rabbit hunting in Baldwin Hills. Dyer confessed, "I had no other reason than sex" and he went on to describe how he strangled each girl. Despite that he later recanted his confession, Dyer was tried and convicted on August 26, 1937. On September 16, 1938, he was hanged at San Quentin.; The service for the Everett girls took place at Pierce Brothers Mortuary at 720 W. Washington Boulevard in the University Park neighborhood of Los Angeles. They were buried at Forest Lawn, Glendale. Photograph caption dated July 1, 1937 reads, "Banked with flowers, tender gifts from Inglewood neighbors, the casket containing the body of Jeanette Marjorie Stephens, one of the three slain 'babes of Inglewood,' is shown today at her funeral at the Utter-McKinley chapel in Los Angeles. Harking to the plea of the Stephens family that they be permitted to bury their child in privacy, hundreds who might have attended the funeral stayed away in respect to the family's wishes. Later the casket was lowered in a special plot in Inglewood cemetery reserved for the three little girls."
Type
image
Format
1 photographic print :b&w ;21 x 26 cm. Photographic prints
Stephens, Jeanette--Death and burial Utter McKinley Mortuaries Funeral rites and ceremonies--California--Los Angeles Coffins--California--Los Angeles Murder victims--California--Los Angeles Flower arrangements Funeral homes--California--Los Angeles Los Angeles Evening Herald and Express photographs Herald-Examiner Collection photographs
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