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Image / Exhumation, Albert L. Cheney estate investigation

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Title
Exhumation, Albert L. Cheney estate investigation
Alternative Title
Los Angeles Herald Examiner Photo Collection
Date Created and/or Issued
1935
Contributing Institution
Los Angeles Public Library
Collection
Los Angeles Public Library Photo Collection
Rights Information
Images available for reproduction and use. Please see the Ordering & Use page at http://tessa.lapl.org/OrderingUse.html for additional information.
Description
Title supplied by cataloger.; Photograph was edited for publication purposes.
Hazel Belford Glab's "new" wealthy fiance´, Albert Llewellyn Cheney, died mysteriously on March 13, 1935 in a Las Vegas hotel on the eve of their intended marriage. In a will penned in purple ink on hotel stationary, Cheney attested all his property, personal belongings and insurance policies, go to his future wife. After Cheney's daughter, Mrs. Catherine Taylor, contested what she termed her father's "purported will", it was surmised that Mrs. Glab forged the will over a genuine signature of Cheney's, bequeathing her his entire $400,000 estate, and then persuaded accomplices Fred and Clara Steeger to sign it as witnesses. Ultimately, Glab's luck ran out and she, along with the Steeger's, was arrested on forgery charges. During the trial, authorities reopened the investigation into the shooting death of her third husband, John I. Glab, a wealthy retired Chicago Druggist whose mysterious death seven years earlier had remained unsolved. On December 27, 1935, Mrs. Glab was found guilty and was convicted of forgery and preparing false evidence; she was sentenced to Tehachapi Women's Prison for a term of 2 to 14 years for that crime. Shortly thereafter, in April 1936, Glab was convicted of second-degree murder for killing John Glab, the sentence being seven-years-to-life. Surprisingly, though, she was out of prison in 1943 after serving only 7 years.
Photograph article dated October 22, 1935 reads, "Down into the grave today reached the investigation into a will by which the late Albert L. Cheney, Los Angeles capitalist, left his $400,000 estate to Mrs. Hazel Belford Glab. Photo shows the body of Cheney being taken from its grave in Rosedale cemetery for an autopsy to determine, if possible, the cause of Cheney's death in a Las Vegas hotel last March while he was on a trip with Mrs. Glab. The will was thrown out of court here recently in a contest brought by Mrs. Catherine Cheney Taylor, the dead man's daughter. Today Mrs. Glab was being sought for questioning by the grand jury probing charges the will was forged."
Type
image
Format
1 photographic print :b&w ;20 x 24 cm. on sheet 21 x 26 cm.
Photographic prints
Identifier
00094263
Herald Examiner Collection
HE box 2285
CARL0005016179
http://173.196.26.125/cdm/ref/collection/photos/id/29139
Subject
Cheney, Albert L.--Death and burial
Cheney, Albert L.--Estate
Glab, Hazel--Trials, litigation, etc
Rosedale Cemetery (Los Angeles, Calif.)
Decedents' estates--Cases
Exhumation--California--Los Angeles
Coffins--California--Los Angeles
Cemeteries--California--Los Angeles
Trials (Forgery)--California--Los Angeles
Swindlers and swindling--California--Los Angeles
Forgery--California--Los Angeles
Wills--California--Los Angeles
Trials--California--Los Angeles
Los Angeles Evening Herald and Express photographs
Herald-Examiner Collection photographs

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