MOVIE MYSTERY

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLVI, Issue 106, 5 April 1926, Page 11

MOVIE MYSTERY

MURDER OF DESMOND TAYLOR. DEFINITE DEVELOPAIENTS. SAN FRANCISCO, March 23. That some definite developments havo taken place in connection with tho murder of William Desmond Taylor four years ago is admitted by Asa Keyes, the District Attorney for Los Angoles, but what arc the details of the mystery of tho movie director’s sensational death ho refuses to disclose. Upon his return from tho East today, he said: “Aly first business upon reaching homo will bo to interview. Alabcl Normand.” “We shall call upon her and discuss tho caso with tho greatest freedom,” ho added. William Desmond Taylor was found shot in his rooms at Hollywood on tho morning of February 2, 1922. At 7.45 on tho previous night ho had seen Aliss Mabel Normand to her car, after she had had an hour’s conference with him concerning a forthcoming film production. Aliss Normand and her chauffeur were tho last persons known to have seen Taylor alive. Alabel Normand indignantly denied that she had been engaged to Taylor, but Mary Aliles Alinter, another movie star, did not deny the authorship of a scented note that the police found in one of the dead man’s books. The note concluded with “Dearest, I love you!” these words being repeated many times. She said to the police, “I did love Taylor deeply and tenderly.” Subsequently it was stated that the police believed that jealously, arising from one of Taylor’s many amours, was responsible for the crime. Airs E. L. C. Robins, who lived near Now York, told the police how her first husband, an Irishman named Tanner, disappeared in 1908, leaving her with a five-year-old daughter. She obtained a divorce in 1912. Towards to end of 1919 she was, with her daughter, in a cinema show in New York, when she recognised one of tho players in a picture, who was billed, as Taylor, as her former husband. “That’s your father!” she said to the girl, who afterwards wrote to him, care of the film company. A regular correspondence ensued, and once he visited New York and had a long conversation with his daughter, telling that he had never re-married, that he would leave her all his money. “ARRFSTS SOON.” MABEL NORAIAD ANNOYED. * SAN FRANCISCO, Alarch 24. “Love or drugs. It was' one or a combination of these that furnished the basis of William Desmond Taylor’s death,” added the Los Angeles District Attorney (Asa Keyes) who, referring to tho four-year old Hollywood tragedy, admitted that lie had trailed across the continent a certain movie actress, whose name he declined to give. “The next development, may come shortly,” he said, “by an arrest in Kansas City. Our trip east has been very successful. I interviewed Alary Aliles Alinter, who gave every assistance, but some other people so far are declining to help.” Keyes said that lie wondered why Alabel Normand had slipped away from him in New York. “BREAKING AIY HEART.” LOS ANGELES, March 24. Alabel Normand complained to-day that he heart is being broken by the continued publicity in regard to the Taylor ease. She told this to the reporters at about the same hour as saw the return of jAlr Keyes, who announced that lie now knew the identity of Taylor’s slayer, and expected to make arrests shortly. The police in eastern cities are looking for a rich young man who was dallying at Hollywood at the time, and for another individual whom Keyes describes as a famous camera expert. Both are regarded as material witnesses.

In the meantime, Alabel Normand very bitterly advises Keyes to quit talking and do something. “I don’t like one bit the way ho drags my name into the newspaper headlines,” she said.