February 1, 2002

2:34 PM

Today is the 80th anniversary of the unsolved murder of William Desmond Taylor, silent movie director.

"What was the motive behind Taylor's murder? One interesting theory that came out at the inquest involved the woman Taylor was seeing at the time of his death, actress Mabel Normand. She was a cocaine user, and Taylor had gone to the federal government for help in stopping the pushers who were selling her drugs. Seeing their business threatened, this scenario goes, the pushers decided to hire a hit man to "silence" Taylor."
posted by mr_crash_davis (2 comments total)

...and now we go to our government to buy it from the CIA.
posted by Postroad at 2:41 PM on February 1, 2002

No worries -- these guys are on the case.

(Say, who's the tiny guy in the back?)
posted by dhartung at 3:21 PM on February 1, 2002