Chapman and Wahike braced Earl Holliman. He dittoed Prine’s account of their Palm Springs weekend.
Boyer and Miller stuck a note on David Lange’s door. They told him to call Sheriff’s Homicide. A Narco cop called Chapman and Wahike. He said he got a tip on Lange.
A woman snitched him off. She said Lange called her on 12/1/63. He said he knew Karyn. He said, “I killed her, you know.”
David Lange was 27 years old. He was a script reader. The actress Hope Lange was his sister. Hope Lange used to date Glenn Ford. Glenn Ford knew Andy and Karyn. Andy had Thanksgiving dinner at Ford’s house.
Lange showed up at the West Hollywood Station. Chapman and Wahike braced him.
He said he didn’t kill Karyn. He told that woman he did. He was just kidding.
He knew Karyn. He liked her. Andy Prine introduced them. That tenant woman lied. He did not knock on Karyn’s door that Friday. He did not say he lied to the cops.
A cop knocked on his door the night they found the body. He was in bed with a girl. He blew the cop off and went back to bed.
Lange laid out his actions for 11/27 and 11/28.
He had dinner at Natalie Wood’s house. He arrived at 7:00. He left at 11:30. Arthur Loew and Bob Jarris were there. He went to Bob’s place. He drank a bit. He got “rather high.” He went home at 12:30. He went to bed. He got up at 9:oo A.M. Thursday.
He never balled Karyn. He never tried to.
Chapman and Wahike asked him who he balled lately. Lange named two starlets. Lieutenant Walsh and Wahike called the woman who snitched Lange off. She said she balled Lange once. Chapman and Wahike called the two starlets. They both said they balled Lange once. One starlet said Lange pissed her off. He told her she gave him the clap. It was bulishit. She knew she was clean.
Lange balled the other starlet at his pad. It was Saturday night–i 1/30/63.
Somebody knocked on the door. Lange got up and talked to him. He did not come back and tell her that his friend Karyn was dead.
Lange said he’d take a polygraph test. Chapman and Wahike drove him downtown. Hallinen and Collins braced him. He said he lied to Chapman and Wahike.
That chick told it straight. He tried Karyn’s door that Friday.
But:
He didn’t go in. He didn’t see Karyn–dead or alive.
Lange said he had a recent bout of the clap. He got it from this starlet he balled. He went to a doctor and fixed himself up.
Lange took a polygraph test. The result was judged inconclusive.
Chapman and Wahike checked their autopsy notes. Doc Kade took a vaginal smear. He found a leukorrhea discharge.
They had it tested. It was decomposed. They couldn’t compare it to the test smear that Lange’s doctor took.
Prine and Lange remained major suspects. The inconclusive polygraphs meant everything and nothing. Some cops bought polygraph tests. Some cops thought they were bulishit. A bunch of guys at Sheriff’s Homicide thought it wasn’t even a murder.
The victim was a hophead. They found her nude. They found that “dance-in-the-nude” book. She might have danced and stumbled around. She might have made that big mess. She might have tripped and clipped her hyoid bone on a chair. She might have crawled up on the couch and died. She might have passed out on the couch and choked on her own puke. She might have purged the dope in her system as she decomped. Doc Kade was a juicehead. They hauled him out of bed and put him to work at 2 A.M. All he found was a broken hyoid. He might have snapped it himself.
The L.A. papers played up the case. It got some national ink. The Hollywood angle brought out the perverts and freaks.
12/4/63:
A man calls Sheriff’s Homicide. The starlet killer is stalking this girl he knows. Some cops brace her. She’s scared. A guy tried to choke her last October. He hangs out with a fag.
Some cops found the guy. He was a fag himself. He said he choked the bitch accidentally. He said he never met Karyn. He said he might have met Andy Prine. The cops wrote him off as a nut.