DEBATING ‘A DEED OF DEATH’

Sidney Kirkpatrick’s review of my book, “A Deed of Death,” (Book Review, July 22) mistakenly states that I was “unaware of the explosive new information” concerning “Mary’s and her mother’s frantic last trip to (William Desmond) Taylor’s bungalow on the night of the murder, a trip never even alluded to in Giroux’s book.” Kirkpatrick commits three blunders in one sentence--mistaking the date of the murder, confusing Minter’s mother with her grandmother, and overlooking my detailed account of the visit. No competent reviewer would have skipped Pages 149-51 of my book, which reveal what happened, as recorded by Detective Lt. Edward C. King of the Los Angeles Police Department. This is not new, except to Kirkpatrick. It surfaced in 1930, as my bibliography shows. Kirkpatrick did not cover it in his 1986 book, “A Cast of Killers,” since he knew nothing of it, and he has misread and misreported what he thinks he found in Minter’s posthumous papers.

Minter’s visit to Taylor occurred not “on the night of the murder” (Wednesday, Feb. 1, 1922) but two nights before (Monday, Jan. 30). She was accompanied not by her hated mother, Charlotte Shelby, but by her devoted grandmother, Julia Miles (“I always call grandma ‘mama’ ”). Since Minter went home carrying Taylor’s goodby letter on the night of Jan. 30, Mother Shelby’s motive for killing Taylor--his “amorous advances” to her daughter, as Kirkpatrick puts it--no longer existed. Yet Kirkpatrick would have us believe the mother shot him during this “frantic last trip to Taylor’s bungalow,” two nights before he died.

Let me confirm that I certainly did depend on the “archival newspaper accounts” that Kirkpatrick sneers at, as well as on police records. I am indebted to The Times for Mary Miles Minter’s long account (“the first I have ever given under my own name”), which she gave to The Times because it was “the only newspaper which has not hounded me day and night with questions, questions, questions about Mr. Taylor.”

Finally, Kirkpatrick’s statement that my book does not “begin to explain what the cover-up was all about” is hogwash. He ignores (or never read) Pages 31-49, which spell out the triple crisis--the Fatty Arbuckle rape scandal, Wallace Reid’s death from drugs, and Taylor’s murder--which, coming together in 1922, frightened Hollywood out of its wits for fear of federal censorship. “The movie bosses were anxious to suppress the whole thing,” as my old friend King Vidor said. “They’d rather sacrifice Taylor than sacrifice the whole industry.”

ROBERT GIROUX

NEW YORK

Sidney Kirkpatrick replies: Robert Giroux, in his spirited letter as in his book, makes no mention of Detective Lt. Leroy Sanderson’s final, 10-page, confidential report to City Hall on June 13, 1941. That report, one among many that Mr. Giroux has overlooked, reads in part as follows:

“It is reasonable to assume that Mary visited Taylor on the night of Feb. 1, 1922. Miss J. M. Berger (Minter’s accountant) stated to Officers that Mrs. Shelby called her at 7 p.m., Feb. 1, 1922, and asked if she knew where Mary was. When informed by Miss Berger that she did not know Mary’s whereabouts, Mrs. Shelby hung up the receiver. This would indicate that Mrs. Shelby was searching for Mary 45 minutes before Taylor was killed. Carl Stockdale testified . . . that he was with Mrs. Shelby from 7 to 9 p.m., Feb. 1, 1922. Mrs. Faith MacLean (Taylor’s neighbor), when shown a picture of Stockdale, partially identified him as a suspect seen leaving Taylor’s apartment, after the murder. . . .

“Mrs. Shelby made statements, in the presence of several persons, that she feared she would be indicted for the Taylor murder. By some means she evaded an official questioning concerning the Taylor murder, until April 9, 1926, and in that statement, she obviously misrepresented the truth concerning many facts. . . . She has never told the truth as to her whereabouts and actions on the night of Feb. 1, 1922.

“Mary Miles Minter has stated that her mother said she had killed Taylor. Mrs. Shelby informed Miss Berger and Chauncey Eaton (Minter’s chauffeur) before 7:30 a.m. that Taylor was murdered. His body was not found until 7:30 a.m. The body was examined and it was believed he died from natural causes. It was not determined that he was murdered until 8 a.m. . . .”

SIDNEY D. KIRKPATRICK

PASADENA