FILM DIRECTOR’S MURDER.

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXIII, 5 April 1926, Page 4

FILM DIRECTOR’S MURDER.

at*- ;■ furtlher developments. : t FOUR-YEAR-OLD CRIME. SAN FRAUMCO: , That some dchnite developments have taken place in connection withthe murder of William Desmond Taylor lour years ago is admitted by Asa Keyes, the District Attorney tor Los Angeles, but what are the details of the mystery of tlio movie director’s sensational' deatli ho refuses to di&-, close. _ . Upon his return from the East he said: “My iirst business upon. rtuHihig homo will he to interview Mabel Normand. . '

“Wo shall call upon her and discuss tile ease witii the greatest freedom,” he added.

STORY OF THE CRIME

"William Desmond Taylor was found shot in Ins room at Hollywood on the morning of February 2, 1922. At 7.46 on the previous night he had seen Miss Mabel Normutid to her" car, aitei sne had had an hour’s conference with him concerning a forthcoming film production. Miss Normand and her chauffeur were the last persons known to have seen Taylor alive. Mabel Normand indignantly denied that she had been engaged to Taylor, hut Mary Miles Minter, another movie star, did nut deny tlio authorship of a scented note that the police found in one of tile dead man’s hooks. The note' concluded with: “Dearest, I love you!” —these words being repented mnny times. She Faid to the police r “I did love Taylor deeply and tenderly.” 1 ' - Subsequently it was stated that’the police believed that jealousy, arising from one of Taylor’s /fanny amours,-was responsible for the crime. v - - Mrs E. L. O. RobiiiAl' Vho''lived near New York, told the’police how her first husband, an Irishman nnmetl Tanner, disappeared in 1903, leaving her with a five-year-old daughter. She obtained a divorce in 1912. Towards the end ot 1019 she was, with her daughter, in a kinerna shew in New York, when she recognised one of the p'ayers in a picture, who was billed os Taylor, as her former husband. “That’s yoiir 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 an’d had a long conversation with his daughter, telling her that lie lied never remarried and that he would leave her all his money.