CONFESSION TO STABBING

Press, Volume XCVII, Issue 28554, 7 April 1958, Page 11

CONFESSION TO STABBING

Actress’s Daughter Arrested (Rec. 7 p.m.) HOLLYWOOD, April 5. The 14-year-old daughter of the actress, Lana Turner, today confessed to stabbing to death her mother’s friend, Johnny Stompanato, aged 42, in a bedroom of the Turners’ home, police said. The girl, Cheryl, said in a signed statement after her arrest last night that she stabbed the handsome, well-known, underworld figure after hearing him threaten her mother.

She said that Stompanato had said: “I’ll get you if it takes a day, or a week, or a year. I*ll cut you up. I’ll stomp [bash] you and if I can’t do it myself, I’ll find someone who can.” According to police, Cheryl said that she ran downstairs to the kitchen, took a carving knife with a lOin blade and ran back upstairs. The statement said that she told her mother: “You don’t have to take that, mama,” and stabbed Stompanato and he fell without uttering a sound. Miss Turner had attempted to stop the bleeding with a towel and called a doctor. Stompanato was lying dead on the bed when police arrived.

The girl was held in juvenile detention quarters overnight and ordered to appear in the Juvenile Court later today. But the police said later that she would not appear in court today. She would be held over the week-end until the Juvenile Court convenes on Monday.